#23 -- Crosby, Stills & Nash

One plus One plus One = More

First, yes, we will be getting to Neil Young, eventually, but for now let's limit ourselves to Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Second, now that I think of it, no other early '70s act inspired me as much as CSN--those being my high school years.  

Third, here are three songs, one for each band member, that I especially liked at the time and have always been with me:

Almost Cut My Hair.  The narrative and music unfold as one, with phrases like "...and I wonder why I feel like letting my freak flag fly..."; as classic as they get.

Carry On.  That jump-out-of-bed, innovative sound really was thrilling at the time.  And those fade out words with their twisting harmonies: "Love is coming to us all"; still fresh.

Marakesh Express.  Returning to the states from Asia, at the time, the idea of traveling by train through a foreign land, like the up-beat tempo, was both eerily familiar and welcome.

....................................

Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

10/9/6/6 = 31 out of a perfect 40

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The Troy McClure Weird Fact Award Goes To: the CSN logo was created by the late comedian Phil Hartmann.

#24 - The Others

Good, But....

Here we have artists who I enjoy, but who fall outside my circle of self-identification (often due to their love of the flamboyant), and, for one reason or another don't quite make it onto the list

Blondie -- Catchy, fun

Leon Russell -- "Queen of the Roller Derby" and "Roll Away The Stone" were two Russell classics I just loved in my teens.

Sam Cooke -- A big talent

David Bowie -- I'm afraid I'm not much for the glitter and glam in music

James Brown -- Unquestionably, was a musical master

Creedence Clearwater Revival -- Certainly influential: a radical mix of folk and hard rock on AM radio was awesome at the time

Red Hot Chili Peppers  -- Only fail to place because by the time they arrive, there're just so many excellent artists, that stand-outs are simply fewer and further between

The Who -- In junior high a friend showed me the album cover for "The Who Sell Out" and I remember laughing long and hard.  

#25 -- Fleetwood Mac

Co-ed's Real Deal

You sometimes hear it said that this or that TV show helped to make Americans comfortable with a focus on women, blacks, gays.  And the same could be said of sports.  But what about music?

Up until the '60s, women were back-up singers, were occasionally sidemen, sang others' songs, or had solo careers, but until Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks came along, there were very few acts that counted more than one woman as key members (the Mamas and the Papas, and Sly and the Family Stone are perhaps the most notable).

And to underline the revolutionary nature of a band with roughly equal input from both sexes, there seems to have been a slight shuffling of the deck as regards relationships--or at least that's the impression I had at the time.

I'd say that the most common music heard during my college days were the songs from Rumors and the eponymous Fleetwood Mac albums.  And for the most part, the students who played those records were women.  Imagine hearing "You Make Loving Fun" when returning from a chat with a certain someone.

My own sense is that a popular song will especially ring true when its time is ripe.  During a decade when the women's movement was gathering steam and a place was being made for female leadership, Fleetwood Mac felt its moment approach...and delivered.

....................................

Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

6/10/7/8 = 31 out of a perfect 40

....................................

Beatles connection:  Mick Fleetwood and George Harrison were brothers-in-law.

#26 - R.E.M.

Sonic Convergence

If it were possible to create a super-sound, a mix of '60s melodic iconoclasm, '70s introspective roots and add a dash of fun-loving punk, you'd arrive at something like R.E.M.

Avant-garde, but incredibly popular, the group accelerated from college-friends-playing-local to raking in the largest recording contract of their day, all within a ten year period (early '80s to early '90s).

What is so awe-inspiring is that they turned down more lucrative offers, in the mid-'80s, to sign with a recording label that gave them complete control over their music.  And this was a hugely successful move.  Three cheers for integrity.
............................

....................................

Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

9/4/10/6 = 29 out of a perfect 40

....................................

Opinion: The reverb intro. on the 1995 song "Bang and Blame" is an example of sheer genius in the perennial challenge to effectively set a mood.

#27 -- The Identifiers

Huh?

No, you didn't miss out on the biggest-band-you-never-heard-of.  The Identifiers are not one band, but three acts that I identified with at some point in my life, each of which could have been included at #27, but missed a self-imposed deadline.

During the last week in February I resolved to write about Peter Gabriel.  His recordings in the 80s and 90s sounded, in real time, familiar, as if I'd heard them in a prior life.  I liked his big hits like 'Sledgehammer', and felt his 'Big' and 'Biko', for example, were fantastic, the latter a masterpiece in solemn expression.

But, there was Bonnie Raitt.  What a voice.  She was so 'me', too.

And Jackson Browne.  During my college years he set the pace and was decidedly 'me'.

Well, my end-of-February deadline came and went.  It's now March and the window has closed.

By the way, #24 will also be left blank, but this time because the acts are, to put it simply, The Other Ones, acts that I liked but that were outside my own sense of what was especially good music.  They could all qualify for #24, but will instead all be mentioned and the number left blank.

Counting down continues, next time, with #26, after I get some zees.

#28 - Talking Heads

Is Your Music On?

Agree with me on one thing: Even if Talking Heads isn't your kind of music, they weren't derivative.

When I first read about them, circa '77, in my college paper's music section, there was a breathless veneration to the writing: this is it, our generation's answer to classic rock: New Wave.

Well, that assessment wasn't wide of the mark.  While there may have been other genres like reggae emerging at the time, Talking Heads melted together a gentle punk ("More Songs About Buildings and Food"), funky innovation and artful eclecticism, and, in what's the real surprise, kept it all accessible to a popular audience, indeed creating that new wave.

I remember reading Time's Oct. 27th, 1986 cover story: Rock's Renaissance Man, focusing on frontman David Byrne, that encouraged me, for one, to aim for a polymath's life.

And Byrne's first few albums in his solo career: Rei Momo and Uh-Oh were CDs I actually listened to and greatly enjoyed at the time.  A Talking Heads personal favorite: Wild Wild Life, for times when one fells exhilaration.

...................................

Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

8/6//8/6 = 28 out of a perfect 40

....................................

Tidbit: the band name: Radiohead, comes from the Talking Heads' song Radio Head released in 1986.  That band's short-lived original name?  On A Friday--not exactly a catchy "REM" or anything.

#29 - The Doors

Back To The Music

Jim Morrison's voice comes bellowing out of old Doors songs like a cannonball sure of its way.  A photo of the man oozes self-confidence, command, charm, and a bittersweet recognition that his is one of the strangest lives ever led.

As alumni of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, Morrison and Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek had a keen grasp of performance art.  But what was the group's core message?  The name The Doors comes from the Wiliam Blake poem "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" by way of Aldus Huxley's book, The Doors of Perception; the key passage from Blake being: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite."  In other words, this is what music sounds like once all other distractions are swept away.  But talk about distractions: personal relationships, the media, live performances, critical reviews; the only way for The Doors to reach that goal would have been to live like monks, ignoring all else in the world save Music.  Fat chance; they were performers.

My own sense of what was possible given this basic contradiction is that if Morrison had been able to make it into later life, he'd have slowed down, mellowed and abandoned live performance for the one-way control of a recording studio; people hearing you, but not you them.  In fact, that was the scenario playing out just before he died: the band had all but given up live shows, and instead we got gems like L.A. Woman.   

So what to make of their music?  In a famously dismissive article in Newsweek (March 24th, 1991), at the time of the Oliver Stone biopic, conservative columnist George Will asks about "Break On Through (To The Other Side)":  "Through what? To what?  Don't ask. The Doors didn't."   Perhaps Will's is a steamed up shower door from all the hot air.  From the moment I hear those first few notes stepping smartly, "da da, da; da da-da, da da-da-da" (2-1, 3, 4) I'm on board.  And the lyrics?

Take these: "I found an island in your arms; country in your eyes; arms that chain; eyes that lie; break on through to the other side."  I rest my case.  This is simply saying: enough; turn your back on what bothers you, if you can. 

And that's The Doors for you.  If Morrison had lived, he probably would have shed the unsavory, going into rehab or what not, and found that without the up front distractions of fandom, media, police, promotion and the compromised instincts these involve, the life of a poet and musician would have been, indeed, breaking on through (to the other side).

...................................

Each band or performer is graded on four things:
  1.  Innovation
  2.  Influence in my life--as a typical American
  3.  Integrity: the band's approach to music (just making a buck or honing a craft?)  
  4.  Immortality--am I, a typical American--still eager to hear their music

9/9//5/5 = 28 out of a perfect 40

....................................

That famous line in L.A. Woman, "Mr. Mojo Risin'"?  The artful explanation, perhaps doled out to a titter-tutter press, was that, unscrambled, the letters spell out someone's name.  And if you start with a 'j' and end with an 'n' you'll dig it soon enough.