A Song A Day: The Electric Light Orchestra, "Mission (A New World Record)"

MAY 26, 2017

“MISSION (A NEW WORLD RECORD)” (WRITER: JEFF LYNNE)

ARTIST: THE ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA

RELEASED 1976 ON A NEW WORLD RECORD LP

The Electric Light Orchestra emerged in the early 1970s from the wreckage of British pop-rockers The Move. 

The new band, led by Roy Wood, planned to combine 1950s and 1960s rock and R&B influences with a classical sensibility, adding three string players and doing songs they’d sometimes call “overtures” or “arias” or “symphonies.”

Wood left after two albums and singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer Jeff Lynne—blessed with good pop ears—shifted toward more commercial territory, creating crisper, catchier material. He had no fear of echo, chorus, and reverb, but happily, ELO’s cavernous-sounding FM and AM hits transcended their sometimes bombastic treatments.

Following two big AM radio hits in the States (“Can’t Get it Out of My Head” and “Evil Woman”) during 1974–75, the ascending band crafted its most important album. A New World Record, issued in September 1976, provided the Electric Light Orchestra with its first LP hit in Britain and reached #5 in the U.S. LP charts.

Song for song, it was the band’s best. Framing textbook 70s British rock and Beatle-y melodies with pounding drums, funky bass guitar, swirling strings, and a seeming choir of vocalists (most just Lynne overdubbed), Lynne and his cohorts created a heady mix just right for the times.

The last track on side one of A New World Record is almost an ELO manifesto. The science-fantasy “Mission” concerns an alien on earth communicating with home base about the sad puzzle of human behavior. Through this somewhat clichéd principle—the alien as voice of reason—comes genuine gloom and disconnection perhaps more personal to Lynne than the lyrics might indicate.

As futuristic voices, notes, and effects emerge from the dark, the melody builds, calling equally on old-time rock and roll ballads and Eastern influences. Eventually the tense minor-key verse releases into a major-key refrain that sounds sadder than what came before. The song’s final chorus features a celestial three-part harmony.

The Electric Light Orchestra would continue its evolution into a stripped-down, rock-oriented ensemble, creating solid records and enjoying further commercial success. But their mix of rock, pop, space effects, and classical trappings was at perhaps its best in “Mission.”

Listen.

A Song A Day: Django Reinhardt and the Quintette du Hot Club de France, "Swing '39"

MAY 25, 2017

“SWING 39” (WRITERS: STEPHANE GRAPPELLY—DJANGO REINHARDT)

ARTIST: DJANGO REINHARDT AND THE QUINTETTE DU HOT CLUB DE FRANCE

RELEASED 1939 ON 78 RPM

Have you heard Django Reinhardt? He’s the greatest French gypsy jazz guitarist ever. Or maybe that’s just “greatest guitarist ever.”

Django Reinhardt was born in 1910 into the gypsy life in France. He developed a talent for music early on, but age 17, a fire in his family’s wagon left him with terrible burns over much of his body. 

His left hand, for one thing, was burned so badly that two of his fingers were immovable. But the hand was now also able to form chords on the guitar that nobody else could. Once recovered, Reinhardt developed his own style, mixing equal parts jazz lyricism and unquenchable, lustful fire.

Reinhardt had a devil-may-care attitude about money. He was functionally illiterate, coarse, and unreliable. But jazz flowed through his veins, and other musicians—including the American greats he so adored—loved his playing

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The perfect foil for such an earthy man was the dapper, urbane violinist Stephane Grappelly. The two formed an unlikely musical alliance and from 1934 through 1939, the two fronted the house quintet of the Hot Club of Paris. 

Playing American jazz standards, folk melodies, romantic songs, and dance music, the Quintette du Hot Club was internationally popular, gaining release all over Europe and became the first international jazz act to achieve renown in the United States. The Quintette’s recordings remain shocking in their spirit, drive, and melodic invention.

By 1939, storm clouds began to hover over Europe. On September 1, as Hitler’s invasion of Poland sparked the beginning of World War II, the Quintette was touring in London. Grappelly, fearing for his safety, remained there for the duration of the war, while Reinhardt returned to France because it was the only land he knew.

Life was never the same in Europe. The two musical masters did reunite and continued playing together in various ensembles, but lost several years of their prime thanks to Nazism. Reinhardt embraced the changes in jazz, even using an electric guitar at times, and remained a great player until his death in 1953.

“Swing 39,” among the final songs recorded by the pre-war Quintet, oozes sweet melancholy, its lilting melody providing a great opportunity for Reinhardt and Grappelly to harmonize. This was a new kind of swing, one with an almost pastoral European feel despite its urban origins. Reinhardt and Grappelly also contribute gorgeous solos. 

This isn’t the crazy, 100-mph, train-about-to-derail version of the Quintette (hear that on “Mystery Pacific,” “Minor Swing,” and “Swingin’ With Django”), but instead talented musicians unconstrained by any orthodoxy, American or French, in their approach. Who knows what Django and Stephane would have created if not for the war?

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A Song A Day: Ram John Holder, "Brixton Blues"

MAY 24, 2017

“BRIXTON BLUES” (WRITER: RAM JOHN HOLDER)

ARTIST: RAM JOHN HOLDER

RELEASED 1969 ON 7” 45 AND ON BLACK LONDON BLUES LP

During the major upheavals in pop music history, rules became lost and experimentation was the order of the day. Without knowing what would sell, record companies threw everything against the wall.

The late 1960s were such a period. It seemed that television, music, and fashion turned from black and white to color overnight, and weirdness reigned.

So in 1969, when Beacon Records in the UK (and Philips in the US) issued an album of electric blues by a 35-year-old Guyanese-born folksinger named Ram John Holder, who dressed in crushed velvet, leather, and sunglasses, nobody batted an eye. Even if the album was called Black London Blues and each song title on the album ended with the word “blues.”

Holder had spent time singing folk music in New York then went to London. After much stage work and a film appearance, he wrote some pieces about the immigrant experience in the UK and committed them to vinyl.

Of the songs on Black London Blues, my personal favorite is the lead track, “Brixton Blues.” In it, he describes being driven to alcoholism and dependency by white-on-black AND black-on-black cruelty in a tough neighborhood of London. I find the rhythm guitar strong and crunchy, the rhythm section super-funky, and the solo absolutely stratospheric. Terrific vocal too.

The album sold in microscopic qualities, but Holder made more records and has continued acting as well.

Listen.

A Song A Day: We Five, "You Let a Love Burn Out"

MAY 23, 2017

“YOU LET A LOVE BURN OUT” (WRITER: RANDY STEIRLING)

ARTIST: WE FIVE

RELEASED 1966 ON 7” 45 AND ON MAKE SOMEONE HAPPY LP

To quote This is Spinal Tap, San Francisco’s We Five currently reside in the “where are they now” file, regarded as nothing more than one-hit wonders.

That’s a shame, because this quintet was really talented. Their one super smash, “You Were on My Mind,” reached #3 in the country in fall 1965 and is one of the great songs of the mid-1960s. But their other material never quite took off commercially.

While We Five were not, as some claim, the first big rock/pop group to come out of San Francisco—the Beau Brummels preceded them on the charts by several months—the fivesome forged a crucial link between the pop/rock and folk/nightclub movements in the Bay.

A 1965 stint at San Francisco’s hungry i, the coast’s most prestigious folk/comedy club, brought them to the attention of A&M co-head Herb Alpert. A&M signed We Five and issued its first recording, “You Were On My Mind,” that summer. Within weeks, the single hit big and international stardom beckoned.

Singer Beverly Bivins gave the group a rich, distinctive voice, combining with the four male members on three- and sometimes four-part harmonies. Banjoist/guitarist Mike Stewart provided strong arrangements. Augmented by a drummer on stage and record, the well-rehearsed and tight We Five always walked a fine line between their interests, balancing folk, contemporary ballads, show songs, rock & roll, and even proto-psychedelic elements.

The group’s third single, “You Let a Love Burn Out,” was penned by Randy Steirling, a friend of the band who performed with Mike Stewart’s brother John, late of the Kingston Trio and a popular solo artist in the 70s.

This was a lot of single packed into 2:10, well ahead of the curve in innovation and harmony. Stewart provided an Indian underpinning on the banjo and Bob Jones’ careful 12-string picking lent folk-rock flavor. Bivins and the rest provided strong vocal work. The affecting lyrics are delivered with beauty and palpable regret.

Issued in late in 1965, it didn’t catch on, picking up only sporadic radio play. Perhaps the lyrics and music were too down, too strange, or too Eastern (which wouldn’t be a problem a few months later), but despite promotion and live shows, “You Let a Love Burn Out” didn’t even make the charts.

Either way it was the start of the end for We Five. After one more single, Bivins decided to hang it up and the original group capitulated, leaving behind a finished second album. While not all their material was chart-worthy, most of it was very, very good.

Look and listen (after Soupy Sales talks).

A Song A Day: Matthew Sweet, "I've Been Waiting"

MAY 22, 2017

“I’VE BEEN WAITING” (WRITER: MATTHEW SWEET)

ARTIST: MATTHEW SWEET

RELEASED 1991 ON CD SINGLE AND ON CD GIRLFRIEND

Matthew Sweet’s 1991 album Girlfriend is stuffed with terrific pop-rock songs.

Picking just one from this bag of glittering gems is difficult stuff, but the second track, “I’ve Been Waiting,” is not only Sweet’s perfect pop moment, it’s among the greatest pop-rock tracks ever.

Start with a quality song. Sweet combines a strong major-key melody with words of vulnerability, mixing the strong and the soft. He then lays his sublime lead vocal and harmonies above a tight rhythm section and guitars that jangle, crunch, scream, and chime. “I’ve Been Waiting” is just long enough, and is recorded and mixed perfectly.

The musicians on Girlfriend are superb. Guitarists Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd and drummers Ric Menck and Fred Maher deserve special mention. What they play gives the songs much of their muscle and their intricacy. Lloyd’s solo on “I’ve Been Waiting,” for example, truly has it all: melody, drive, tone, and the swagger that says, “I am a great solo.”

Nothing about the sound of "I've Been Waiting," or in fact the Girlfriend album, betrays any particular technological DNA or date stamp. It's timeless rock and roll.

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