The Mothers of Invention "Freak Out"

 

Released just a couple of months after "Blonde on Blonde" comes the second ever pop double album and by another great pop innovator. It is a bit of a puzzle why an established record company such as MGM would allow a relatively unknown group possessed of limited teen appeal to issue a two disc set as their debut release. Frank Zappa was to demonstrate throughout his career an exceptional ability to get things done, so presumably it was his persuasive powers that talked the company into it.

There is a sense that Zappa might have thought this was going to be his only chance to make a statement on a large label and there is an element of everything and the kitchen sink about the songs and arrangements (and also the inside cover which exists as an almost separate statement from the record). The album is a game of two halves, the first record consisting of shorter "pop" songs and the second of longer, more exploratory pieces. Frankly, the second record with its sound collages, musique concrète and general smart aleckness is all but unlistenable. It perhaps has value as a documentary record of what passed for cool in mid-60s LA, but comparison with the following year's "Lumpy Gravy" shows how quickly Zappa was to improve his organisational control over abstract and ambient material to produce a far more satisfying collage.

Unlike most debut lps, this album does not feel like a straight recording of the band's live set. A number of the songs feel like they were composed by Zappa specifically for inclusion on this record, such as "Who are the Brain Police" and "Hungry Freaks, Daddy". It is the doo-wop parody songs that feel most like numbers that have been performed live. These are also the songs that sound as if they feature the Mothers themselves playing rather than the team of session musicians that enhance many of the other songs' more outré arrangements.

I first heard this record after hearing many others sorts of music and did find it a record that is difficult to love. The arrangements are too complex, the production is unsympathetic, the vocals sound too high in the mix, its got kazoos on it, the singers sound old (compared to many groups they were old) and the songs of teen love sound creepy being sung by leery old men. The sleeve notes are supercilious and condescending and very off putting. This is a cardinal sin with Zappa. He never invites you in to his music and always wants to let you know that he is cleverer than you. This is invariably true but it is not nice to be told.

That said, "How Could I Be Such a Fool" is gorgeous and some parts of the shorter songs indicate that Zappa could have been another Brain Wilson had he wished to follow that path. "Wowee Zowee" is infectious and indicates that perhaps one should think of the Mothers' interpretations of the musical styles of the 1950s and early 60s in the same way one thinks of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band's interpretations of songs from the 1920s and 30s - as affectionate reinterpretations with associated jokes ("I don't care if your dad's the heat"). One way or another, between the songs themselves, the arrangements, the performances (particularly Roy Estrada's pachucoisms), and the sleeve notes there are more ideas (both musical and lyrical) on this album than almost any other, with the probable exception of Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica". Beefheart went to school with Zappa so perhaps that is where it started.

The best track on the album ("How Could I Be Such a Fool") was released as a single coupled with the worst track ("It Can't Happen Here"). The former is a commercially attractive, memorable melody expressing conventional pop sentiments. The latter is a spoken word piece of provocation. I have the UK edition of this single and in the UK the sides were reversed putting the spoken word provocation as the A side. This seems like commercial suicide for a major record company, particularly in the mid-60s, a guarantee of no air-play. It must have been a mistake but there it is, existing.

Anyway, great cover.

 

1966

Bob Dylan "Blonde on Blonde"

 The first pop double album to be recorded and released was "Blonde on Blonde" by Bob Dylan and it is characteristic of Dylan as someone who broke with conventions. Having already released 6 lps in 5 years (two of which were released in the previous 12 months), in 1966 Dylan recorded sufficient material to be released across four sides. Having been variously a folksinger, a protest singer, a balladeer, a free associating symbolist and electric rebel, Dylan now made the move to Nashville, the home of conformity, to become a country singer.

With hindsight there seems an inevitability to all of Dylan's moves during the sixties. We can look back and see the trajectory he was on. But it must have seemed far from logical at the time. Dylan was at the height of his pop fame. He was having hit singles and hit lps. His audience was adulatory, poring over his lyrics, seeking enlightenment and deeper meaning, even when he was issuing semi-improvised works like much of "Highway 61 Revisited". Having done his electric shock lp stuffed with amped-up blues riffs and symbolist lyrics, Dylan was determined to find a different sound. He had a song called "Visions of Johanna" that seemed to require a new treatment. He had been performing the song in concert just accompanied by his acoustic guitar but a key lyric, namely "the country music station plays soft", is suggestive of the new sound he was looking for. Dylan himself described it as a "thin, wild, mercury sound". But I think of it more as a country music station playing soft.

Having had a go at recording some songs in New York with his by now usual cast of musicians, Dylan decided it was not working and on the recommendation of his new producer, Bob Johnston, decided to try recording in Nashville with session musicians who played on the prevalent country hits. This must have seemed quite a move. The foremost avant-garde pop artist of the day wanting to record with the most conservative, paid by the note, you hum it we'll play it recidivists. But Dylan could hear precision in their playing and a willingness to create instant arrangements as well as a sensitivity to the demands of the song. On the finished album, the musicians play with sympathy, they are used to accompanying singers and accentuating the vocals. They emphasise and reflect the rhythmic flow of Dylan's lyrics and underscore how heavily Dylan relies on rhythm in constructing his lyrics, the beat and flow of a line means more to him than the actual meaning of the words or images that are conjured. These might or might not mean something under later analysis but this does not interest Dylan. I think that this is something that literary analysis of Dylan's lyrics miss. The first purpose and meaning of the lyrics for Dylan is their rhythm, all else is secondary if it even registers at all. If meaning was everything then Dylan would take care to preserve the meaning of the lyrics in his live performance. Instead, he experiments and varies both the rhythm and the melody in his performances, searching for a new meaning, a new truth. Their meaning is not fixed therefore but can only be determined through performance.  

And yet the songs seem rooted in meaning. The titles remain elliptical such as "Temporarily like Achilles" or "Obviously Five Believers" but the emotions they convey and the situations portrayed are real enough. The melodies are enticing and this may be Dylan's prettiest recorded work. Occasionally, the playing is transcendent such as Paul Griffin's piano work on "One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" or the precise guitar work on "Fourth Time Around". If I have one complaint (actually, I have two but we will come to "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" in a minute) it is that the bass parts are sluggish and lack variance. "Visions of Johanna" suffers particularly from this.

"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" is the one song that sticks out from the others on the record which is why it comes first, so as not to disturb the flow. This and the final song are probably the two I could live without. The final song is "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" and this stretches out for some 12 minutes which in truth it does not merit. Melodically simple, it acquires some limited power through repetition but the tap tap tapping of the high-hat becomes wearisome quickly. There are no dynamics to the song. Once you hear the story of how the musicians thought the song was going to end before Dylan started on yet another verse it becomes impossible to listen to without picturing said musicians grimacing to themselves and wondering how much more there was to say. The song has no lyrical development either, being a list of things that Dylan's lover has ("With your mercury mouth in the missionary times, and your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes" etc). The chorus is particularly bad. "The sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes" is inelegant to the point of losing meaning and "my warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums" has no meaning to begin with. In the song "Sara" on his "Desire" album, Dylan describes how he stayed up for days in the Chelsea Hotel writing "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" for his then lover. It is undoubtedly sincere and heartfelt but demonstrates how love can let you get carried away as Dylan loses his internal editor in his willingness to outpour. How ironic that the song that celebrates formative love is such a weak effort while the song that marks the end of the relationship ("Sara") is so utterly heartbreaking.

DOUBLE ALBUMS

Introduction

I want to consider double albums, by which I mean four sides of vinyl presented as a single collection. I want to focus on studio recordings and not live albums, as I consider these to be less interesting. Some doubles, such as Cream's "Wheels of Fire" or Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" comprise one live album and one studio. I will cover these as they represent an artist seeking to reflect both the live and studio side of their art. I will not cover double album compilations or greatest hits style packages as these reflect the whole of an artist's oeuvre. I will discuss the albums by year of release and as near chronologically as possible. I am only going to discuss those albums that I have a copy of.

Double albums or two disc sets represent the ambition of an artist or artists. An artist or group stretching their material out to fill four sides of vinyl. Space to breathe and experiment. Following the lead of the likes of Bob Dylan and The Beatles, musicians began to see themselves as artists capable of creating works of greater substance than a quick 45. Double albums could tell an extended story or featuring single tracks of up to 20 minutes in length or collect everything recorded in a single session or in a short run of sessions, or compile live and studio recordings to present a multi-faceted picture of the artistes. There is a case for claiming that the arrival of double albums spelt the end of pop music as light and fun and turned former pop musicians into aspiring jazzers, full of expression and ambition not always within their means.

 

 

Not all artists felt they had a double album in them. Some expected perpetrators who never actually released contemporaneous (as opposed to posthumous) studio double albums include King Crimson (1969 - 1974 edition), Jethro Tull ("Living in the Past" although a double is a compilation). Van Der Graaf Generator (1969 - 1972 and 1975 - 1978 editions), Gong, Henry Cow, Camel, Gentle Giant, Roy Harper, The Beach Boys, Roxy Music, the Velvet Underground, Bob Marley. And plenty felt they had sufficient material to merit a double, not always realistically as we shall see.

I have always liked double albums ever since I held a copy of The Who's "Tommy" in my hands, savouring the weight, the heft, carrying the band's full expression across four sides. I like the size and scale of them. If you like an artist then what can be better than two sides of vinyl? Why, four sides, of course.

Some lps last as little as 12 minutes a side. Short, sharp songs, verses and chorus and an instrumental break. Maybe a middle eight for the more musically accomplished. Double albums could last up to 70 minutes and beyond. Plenty of air to fill with sound and ambition. Hard to imagine Jerry Lee Lewis saying in 1960 that he wants his new lp to be a double even if he had enough material to fill one (he did).

The economics of the recording industry probably dictated as much. Recording time costs money. Time spent in the studio reduced the amount of time that could be spent playing live and earning hard cash. Record companies chasing after teenagers' pocket money saw singles as the money spinner. Albums were for old folks. Inevitably it took Bob Dylan to change that view.

Number 9
14 January 1978
The Sex Pistols reflect on the human race

Pop music and the Holocaust

At the end of the day, you have to admit that the ability of pop music to address the enormity and singularity of the Holocaust is somewhat limited. Thankfully, very few pop musicians have felt the need to address the Holocaust in song. Dylan's "With God on our Side" references the Germans murdering six million "in the ovens they fried". This is an unusually direct image for Dylan, is historically inaccurate in that not all the victims were cremated and is only there to provide a rhyme for "side". A weak verse in a weak song. Captain Beefheart's "Dachau Blues" is a slightly better reflection on the seismic event; "those poor jews...one mad man six million lose". "Zyklon B Zombie" by Throbbing Gristle is suitably grisly. There are few others worthy of note. The Sex Pistols' contribution is called "Belsen Was a Gas".

It may perhaps be expected that Sid Vicious would not produce a sensitive reflection on this terrible event. And he doesn't. Vicious wrote the music and probably the title for The Sex Pistols song "Belsen Was a Gas" while Johnny Rotten probably contributed the lyrics. The song most likely started as a joke, being a piss poor pun on the German's method of execution combined with the hippy expression for things being really great. See, for instance, Marc Bolan's song "Life's a Gas" from 1971 which may have provided the direct inspiration for Vicious' "joke".

One of the main aims of the original punks was to epater les hippies. The punks were angry that the hippy dream of the sixties had failed to deliver a world of bohemian excitement, adventure and venues that stayed open after 10.30. Throwing nihilism and negativity in the face of peace and love, the more spiteful and childish the punks could be, the better they liked it. Celebrating the nazis was as spiteful and childish as it could get. So, Siouxsie and the Banshees wore swastika armbands and sang "too many jews for my liking". Adam and the Ants sang about "Deutscher Girls". "Nazi Baby" sang The Vibrators. The Damned took their name from Visconti's film about the nazis. Warsaw (later Joy Division and then New Order, both nazi inspired names) said "you all forgot Rudolf Hess" and used nazi iconography on their first record. The Ramones in "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" declared they were a nazi schatze (sweetheart). Admittedly some of this was satirical in intent but it is also the case that many punk groups chose not to go down this route of cheap shock tactics.

Rotten lyrics

By 1978, most, if not all, of the punk groups had abandoned nazi references. The Sex Pistols appear to have introduced "Belsen Was a Gas" into their set list for their December 1977 British tour and retained it for their January 1978 US tour after other punks had abandoned such outrage. By this time, the Pistols' notoriety was established but perhaps they felt under pressure to continue being outrageous. Or perhaps Rotten was looking for a deeper meaning than mere outrage prompted by the lyrics.

After a simplistic expression of some elements of nazi offences ("in the open graves where the jews all lay") combined with an attempt to convey holiday camp style references ("wrote their postcards to those held dear"), it is the repeated refrain of "be a man, kill someone, be a man, kill yourself" that I think provides the song's ultimate meaning for Rotten and the justification for continuing to listen to otherwise puerile offence.

Winterland

 

The best performed and best recorded version of "Belsen Was a Gas" is that from the Winterland Ballroom on 14 January 1978. This was the final concert of The Sex Pistols 1978 US tour and their last concert as a group until 1996. It seems likely that Rotten knew he would be leaving the group and his performance during the concert seems to indicate as much. Perhaps this knowledge fired up his performance, seeking to emulate the last stand of Iggy and the Stooges as captured on the "Metallic KO" audio verite. Or perhaps he was inspired by playing at the Winterland Ballroom.

Winterland, yesterday

The Winterland Ballroom was a large venue in San Francisco famous for hosting concerts by almost all leading rock groups of the 1970s and particularly associated with American hippy groups coming out of the 1960s such as Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead. With their shows of excessive length incorporating drawn-out instrumental noodling, these sort of groups were most hated by the punks.

 

The Pistols US tour was directly targeted at the cities, venues and audiences most likely to be made up of fans of US 1970s rock in an act of deliberate provocation. Rather than play in the supposedly more cosmopolitan northern cities such as New York and Detroit (the very cities whose music had been so inspirational to the punks), the Pistols played in places like Baton Rouge, Dallas, Memphis and San Francisco (ironically mirroring their UK concerts where they often played in places like Cromer and Penzance rather than many big cities). 

Example of Pistols' US tour incongruity

As the tour progressed, the Pistols' "interaction" with their audience became steadily more antagonistic, as captured in Lech Kowalski's film "D.O.A.". At some venues, the group were almost face to face with the crowd resulting in physical assaults by the audience on the group and vice versa. At the larger Winterland venue, the band were relatively safe from punches, although plenty of objects were thrown at them. As a consequence, on a purely musical level, they were able to give their best performance of the tour.

The music

"Belsen Was a Gas" is a simple song with a three chord verse creating tension by starting with a perfect fifth (B) followed by a perfect fourth (A) then a minor sixth (C) before resolving into the root chord (E assuming one is playing it in E) and alternating with the fourth (A). This alternation will form the chorus and the chorus doubles as a repeated refrain to bring the song to a close. It is also what provides spring to the song.

The song begins with a squeal of feedback as Steve Jones turns his guitar up and a crack on the snare drum before the whole group crash into the music. Vicious' bass playing is both present and relatively in tune and in time (a rarity) and there is a disciplined intensity to the playing ("disciplined intensity" might be a good descriptor for Steve Jones and Paul Cook's playing throughout The Sex Pistols' live career). Jones does stray from the correct chords quite often but the dissonance this creates actually adds to the tension and the violence of the performance. One of the verses is played muted allowing the focus to be on Rotten venting his spleen. Jones allows himself occasional flourishes early on but as the song races to its conclusion he concentrates on his chord work. Because of Vicious' unpredictable bass playing, it is Paul Cook's job to keep the band in time, something he excels at, steering the group to a sudden finish.

The recording

The recording from Winterland crackles with electricity. The notes ring out and the space is filled with sound. It is a two minute assault with silence at the beginning and end. The crowd noise that follows is there to prove that this actually happened, in front of an audience. It is crucial to the recording as otherwise the band are just attacking a mirror or an empty room. This assault has a target and the target is the audience.

 

Johnny Rotten vs the human race

There are three verses (actually only two sets of lyrics as Rotten repeats the first verse as the third). Rotten mangles the lyrics which begin to make no sense. Following the first "be a man" lyric, he resorts to a demented laugh which he pursues throughout the verse becoming more deranged as it goes on before repeating "be a man". His tone of delivery is mocking and sarcastic. He sings the title of the song before casting his eyes out over the audience, steadying himself, and then delivers the coup de grace.

Here in the belly of the beast, the origin and HQ of the despised hippies, those sixties idealists who failed to deliver on any of their promises, this is Rotten's chance to give the metaphorical V-sign. In the home of peace and love, singing his silly song about the nazis and the jews, offending refined sensibilities and taste, mocking the sorts of laidback dudes that listened to The Band and The Eagles, letting off a stink bomb in class, the Greatest Living Englishman raises his game and elects to go after a bigger and broader target. Culturally and historically aware, Rotten understands that the crimes of the nazis, while specific to them, are also resonant of humanity's wider inhumanity. The Catholic within him looks at failed promises, disappointed hope, cruelty, lack of empathy, neglect, opposition, contempt, fear, hatred, dehumanisation and ultimately genocide and concludes that the judgment is death, and self-annihilation the solution. The generations that failed him at school, that delivered a lack of opportunities and hope, the hippies that did not deliver a better world, the monsters that seek to exterminate an entire race. Into the dustbin of history with them.

This scared and confused young boy articulates his frustration in a refrain of beautiful, improvised economy and directness. Other recordings show Rotten varying the order in which his commands are given, and diverting into asides such as "join our army" and "a real man", suggesting that this is not a strict written order but a variety of things he shouts depending on each performance. At Winterland, as his group is coming to an end and while thousands are listening, Rotten nails it perfectly and succinctly.

What response is appropriate in the face of the Holocaust? None? Any? Who knows. Certainly we are each accountable for our own reaction to this watershed event. For his part, Rotten demands the apocalypse, delivering nothing less than the end of the self.

                        "Be a man

                        Kill someone
                        Kill yourself
                        Be a man
                        Be someone
                        Kill someone
                        Be a man                  
                        Kill yourself"

The arrogance of the 70s Me Generation, the assertion that I exist, pay attention to me. The self-actualisation inherent in doing your own thing. Masculine vanity exhibiting itself in violence. Do you think you are a real man? Check out those nazis. They knew how to get things done. Think you are a real man? Prove it by the ultimate act. Kill someone. Want to go one better than that? Be a man, kill yourself.

The End

So extreme, so final is this song and performance that recorded music should have ended here. In fact, even the Pistols concert did not end at this point, continuing for another 8 songs. One wonders how they felt they had to keep going after they achieved perfection. But of course, they did not have the opportunity to listen back to the recording. Because what recordings, and great recordings in particular, give us is that capturing of a moment that can be relived and repeated and the emotions experienced anew again (if you can repeat a new experience). Whether it happened in an upstairs room in 1927 or in front of thousands in 1978, the recordings preserve the spirit, the atmosphere, the intent and the skill of the participants.

I have written about 9 recordings in this sequence. There is space for a tenth. What would you put there?

Hear Rotten vs the World here

 

 

Number 8
28 December 1976
Howard Devoto goes ba-dum ba-dum and saves punk rock from itself

Humour in music

Two words. Noel Coward. There was a time when music could be both clever and humourous. Blues, jazz and folk musicians knew the benefit of adding humour to their music if they wanted to keep an audience entertained rather than scratching their chins. The classic lyricists of Broadway and Hollywood wrote songs that combined cleverness and wit in equal measure. From the 1960s onwards there came a separation into serious and humourous artists. The serious musicians sometimes attempted humour with disastrous results (witness "Yellow Submarine" or Cream's "A Mother's Lament"). Humourous musicians were not taken seriously (tragically so in the case of the Bonzo Dog Band's "The Doughnut in Granny's Greenhouse"). Popular music and its fans became increasingly po-faced. As always, there are exceptions to this but let's focus on earnest young men with beards and flares rather than Ian Anderson in a codpiece and Rick Wakeman in a cape performing on ice.

Music had to be heavy (to achieve heaviosity as Woody Allen had it). Either in its sound or in its meaning. Artists were either heavy or pop. Led Zeppelin were heavy. Dylan was heavy. Neil Young was heavy. Mud and The Sweet were pop. The new groups that came in the wake of The Sex Pistols were to replace this artificial divide with music that was both serious and fun. But at the outset it was not apparent that this would be the case. The initial punk groups out of London like the Pistols, The Damned and The Clash were deadly serious and earnest. The good-time groups, Ramones copyists and bandwagon jumpers like The Vibrators, The Lurkers and The Stranglers, even when they were pretending to be dumb, were not funny just stupid. UK punk rock was angry and raw but nothing more than that.

Howard Devoto

In 1976, Brian Eno-lookalike and Bolton Institute of Technology student, Howard Trafford (who was to rename himself Howard Devoto), wrote some songs together with fellow student and krautrock fan Peter McNeish (who renamed himself Pete Shelley). They had arranged for The Sex Pistols to play in Manchester and Trafford and McNeish wanted to form a band so that they too could play at The Sex Pistols concert. And obviously they needed some songs to play.

Trafford and McNeish had already travelled to London to see some of the punk groups play so they were familiar with the short, sharp nature of the music. It would have been easy for McNeish to produce facsimile copies of the London music as so many other groups were later to do. However, McNeish was a fan of experimental music and managed to produce tunes that were compositionally and melodically interesting. In particular, one song was based on a recurring riff combined with a two note guitar interlude that sounded like something the German experimentalists Faust were producing two or three years earlier. All it needed was for Trafford to sling a few angry phrases together to shout over the top and, presto, another song.

Boredom

Nowhere. Boredom. By the time Jamie Reid used these as destinations for the buses on the back sleeve of The Sex Pistols "Pretty Vacant" single in July 1977 they were already signifiers of punk cliche (although Reid had first used them in 1972 and the Pistols in December 1976). The punks were bored. The Adverts sang about "Bored Teenagers". The Clash said that London was burning with boredom. Punk dilettantes Snatch sang "When I'm Bored". "How Much Longer" moaned Alternative TV like bored kids in the back of the car. Boredom became a pose. Punk bands adopted being bored as a pose, like The Saints on the cover of "(I'm) Stranded".

The (bored) Saints, yesterday

When Howard Trafford wrote a song about boredom his lyric satirised this pose. The scene is hum-drum. London groups complained of being bored yet they lived in London. Imagine studying at Bolton Tech in 1976 if you want to experience real tedium: "I just came from nowhere, and I'm going straight back there".

The one thing punks craved to alleviate their boredom was excitement. Specifically excitement in music. And they were not above adopting rock cliches if they thought this would help. McNeish's music for the song that would become "Boredom" by Buzzcocks contained natural pauses after each refrain. McNeish had a plan for a thrilling, imaginative guitar solo in the middle of the song. Trafford filled the early pauses in the tune by calling out the title of the song. When it came time for McNeish's guitar solo, Trafford had the chance to up the ante and come up with a thrilling rock style statement.

Trafford was an Iggy Pop fan and Iggy had put forth his own thoughts on boredom some years earlier in "No Fun" and "1969" by The Stooges. Imagine what Iggy would have done with a space in the music to be filled by something. A strangulated yelp like in "Down on the Street". A gutteral howl like in "TV Eye". Or that weird cut-off "shdumd" sound he makes into the microphone at the end of "1970". Or all three.

Instead, Trafford makes the crucial move of intoning "Ba-dum ba-dum" in place of "boredom" and introduces wit and humour into punk. It is humorous because it is unexpected. It is playful, substituting a soundalike for the title of the song, for the meaning of the song. It cuts through the expected angst that one anticipates from bored, disaffected youths and harks back to the "Hey-ho" insouciance of childhood. The power to accept the things that you cannot change, la-di-da, fiddle-de-dee, ba-dum ba-dum.

The impact was immediate. The audience understood the ramifications of what Trafford had done. He had greatly expanded the emotional palette of the music. It could be simultaneously angry and funny, clever and dumb. It could pinprick pomposity and posing and other stupidities. It could draw on older and more varied inspirations. Like Noel Coward.

            "The Grand Duke was dancing a foxtrot with me
            When suddenly Cyril screamed "Fiddle-de-dee"
            And ripped off his trousers and jumped in the sea,
            I couldn't have liked it more."

Get bored with The Buzzcocks here.

 

 

Number 7
1967
Bob Marley and the Wailers record "Selassie is the Chapel"

Mortimer Planno

Haile Selassie and Planno 1966

Mortimer Planno was a key figure in developing the rasta faith as a sophisticated response to the situation that the African diaspora, particularly those in Jamaica, found themselves. A preacher, teacher and social activist, he led the establishment of a rasta commune in Kingston separate from that already developed in the hills at Wareika. Planno seems to represent something of an intermediary between the Jamaican establishment and the rasta rebels in the hills. As an outsider himself, originally from Cuba, he may have been better suited to get along with the establishment. Either way, Planno got himself included on an official delegation to visit Ethiopia in 1961 and was part of the reception committee when Emperor Haile Selassie visited Jamaica in 1966, helping to calm the huge crowds that had gathered at the airport.

I do wonder whether Planno, an intelligent man, ever thought to himself what this faith needs is a charismatic, young advocate to take the message to a greater audience. Did he recognise such a prospect when Robert Nesta Marley knocked on his door later that year? Or did he think, here's another chancer looking for a distraction. Either way, Planno sent Marley away with the distinct impression that he did not think Marley had what it took to join the faith.

Bob Marley



Bob and Rita 1966

 Bob Marley had begun recording in 1962 before forming a vocal trio

 with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh. His early recordings dealt with 

 matters like cups of coffee and not judging others, before having a

 huge hit with "Simmer Down" in 1964. In 1966, Marley moved to the

 United States for a short period to be near his mother. When he

 returned to Jamaica later that year he was searching for a more

 spiritual purpose to his life, one that he could align with the

 revolutionary fervour that was rising up inside of him. The rasta faith seemed to provide that combination of spirituality and revolution.

So it was that in 1966 Marley called upon the Ras Tafari encampment in Trenchtown set up by Mortimer Planno and enquired about learning more about the rasta faith. By all accounts, Planno had his doubts about Marley's commitment. In order to prove otherwise, Marley determined to record a devotional song to demonstrate his seriousness.

Selassie is the Chapel

"Selassie is the Chapel" was written by Mortimer Planno. It is an adaptation of "Crying in the Chapel" recorded originally by Darrell Glenn in 1953 and then covered by a wide range of other artists including the best known version recorded by Elvis Presley in 1960 and released as a single in 1965. Prior to Elvis, one of the biggest selling versions of the song was by The Orioles in 1953 and a rerecorded version in 1959.

Planno's rewrite of the song explicitly affirms the divinity of Haile Selassie. It is a clear challenge to those who would seek to portray Selassie as a representative figure, as standing for the divine. It asserts Selassie's place in the Trinity as the born-again Christ. A more direct affirmation of faith by Marley would be difficult to imagine.

The recording

The recording is very basic. Unlike Marley's previous releases, it eschews a band accompaniment. Just Marley's guitar and some rasta drums accompany the vocals. The echo on Marley's voice indicates that a professional studio was used but otherwise it sounds like it could have been recorded in a church hall or a living room. The arrangement is considerably slower than many other versions giving it a hymn-like quality.

The Wailers' usual harmony vocals are different on this recording. Bunny Wailer was in prison at the time so it is Rita Marley who joins with Peter Tosh on harmonies. This gives a different, higher sound, almost keening, happily in keeping with the subject matter.

Marley's lead vocal follows the path laid out by Sonny Til of the Orioles. He delivers a sweet and tender invocation of the words free from any strident proselytising. There is a deeper quality to some of his notes not replicated in other parts of his work. He engages briefly in some melisma but otherwise appears to be singing within himself. In fact, he is taking care to make sure that the focus is on the beauty of the melody and the meaning of the words rather than on himself as the performer. It is an act of devotion, of supplication, both to Selassie himself and, by implication, to Planno.

"All the world should know". Marley would take the rasta faith around the world, to Europe, Africa and America. This small sect of Jamaican dissenters and contrarians would see their faith acquire widespread adoption and acceptance. But Marley and Planno's challenge remains. Rasta is not just a cultural signifier or a philosophical system but a set of religious beliefs focussed on a black saviour. And as such, it demands devotion and supplication from its followers as Marley and Planno demonstrate here.

 

 

 

 

Number 6
1965
Maureen Craik records "A U Me Hinny Bird"

In 1860, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville recorded himself singing "Au Clair de la lune". After that point, all music could be recorded and played back. What did music sound like before it could be recorded? In 1665, a young girl sings a song about the things and places she knows. 300 years later it gets released.

Why no-one listens to folk music

Fair Isle sweaters, finger in ear singing, beards, real ale, hey nonny, fol de rol, The Spinners, morris men, this...

 

Folk fans

Alexei Sayle used to do a folk song parody beginning "I'm a computer programmer". It's another world and you have to accept some stylistic peculiarities, a bit like reading a 19th century novel or Elizabethan poetry.   

For a music which is supposedly the voice of the people, very few of the people want to listen to it or to sing it themselves. The folk revival created a larger audience for this music. For a brief period in the '60s and '70s it became trendy to sing about being an old plowhand or washer woman or whatever. The Spinners got their own BBC TV show as did Julie Felix. Its decline matched the arrival on the scene of comedy folk artists such as Billy Connolly, Mike Harding and Jasper Carrott and gradually the comedy took over from the songs.

At the same time as becoming all round entertainers, folk singers began writing their own material and turning into singer-songwriters. The line blurs between material that is traditional and that which is composed. "Flower of Scotland" is not a traditional song but was written by Roy Williamson of The Corries in 1967. "Lord of the Dance" was written by Sydney Carter in 1963. It is a truism, of course, that all songs get composed at some point. What makes songs traditional is that there is no identified composer.

A U Me Hinny Bird

Sandgate yesterday

"A U Me Hinny Bird" was first published as a tune in 1812 with the words written down later. It uses Newcastle dialect to describe defining characteristics of certain areas in and around Newcastle. So we learn that Sandgate is the place for old rags and Gallowgate is where you can get your trolly bags (which means intestines, either in the form of tripe or black pudding). South Shields, meanwhile, is the place for soot. The song has no deeper meaning. There is a slight journey down the river Tyne in the list of places described. The song starts in the west of the city in Benwell before going through the Quayside, Castle Garth and Sandgate. It then travels out to the coast via the descriptive names, rather than place names, of the north shore and the Gateshead hills and arriving at Cullercoats, Tynemouth and North Shields on the north side of the river and then Westoe and South Shields to the south. It then travels back north up to Holywell, Seaton Delaval and Hartley Pans, which is an old name for Seaton Sluice. Unfortunately, this smooth flow is interrupted by diversions to the west and north to Denton, Kenton and Longbenton before ending up in Bedlington. This assumes that these names refer to places in their present situation, of course.

To complicate things further, the above is the route as set out in the verses contained in Conrad Bladey's "A Beuk o' Newcassel Sangs" published in 1888. But Maureen Craik transposes the third and fourth verses to make Sandgate come after Tynemouth etc which cannot be right.

Benwell lasses

Although it starts off with a description of the canny lass of Benwell, it does not go anywhere with this. Possibly this is a result of its composition by the addition of verses by unknown singers actively adding to its creation. Perhaps natives of each of the places described added their own tribute to their local area. It is a song for singing rather than taking apart, sung perhaps as the accompaniment to work activities. The Benwell lass herself sounds like an ideal woman in combining physical appeal with nurturing qualities, being both long-legged and mother-like. Perhaps this is a song she could have sung while raking up the dyke (meaning a hedge).

The title of the song is a mystery. Possibly the singer is singing to an actual bird, one that could fly over the areas described on its journey to the sea. Or maybe hinny bird is the singer's pet name for a lover. Or maybe it is a lullaby sung to a sleeping bairn like "Dance to Your Daddy".

The People

Maureen Craik

As far as I can tell, Maureen Craik only recorded six songs at the age of around 20 or 21. She sounds timeless and artless. Her recordings were made when the Beatles and the Stones were all the rage but she could be a 17th century girl singing to herself. Singing to yourself - surely that is the very definition of folk music.      

Westoe lies iv a neuk here