As Scott Mervis wisely pointed out on his Pop Noise blog (I’d forgotten), Jimmy Page turned 70 yesterday. No long biographies here. No attempt to be definitive here. You can get the obvious stuff anywhere. Here’s some Page material from the lesser-known earlier corners of his career.
1957:
The budding skiffler at 13. From the BBC’s “Hugh Weldon Show. 13 year old page was playing Skiffle, the British musical craze of 50’s just before rock and roll. The music is just a mix of folk, blues, country and jazz, the same stuff John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison played in Liverpool as the Quarrymen…
Note young Page wanted to become a “biological researcher” at the time. Right…
1965:
Page’s solo single: “She Just Satisfies.” Page was a successful London studio guitarist at the time he made this single, doing both guitar and vocal. The song and sound are a steal from the Kinks of the “You Really Got Me” era (which contrary to decades of rumors, Page did NOT play lead guitar on).
Mid-1966:
Playing bass with the Yardbirds. Jeff Beck on lead guitar, Keith Relf on vocals, Chris Dreja playing second guitar and drummer Jim McCarty, from French TV. “Train Kept A-Rollin'” Page replaced original bassist Paul Samwell-Smith.
November, 1966:
Page and Beck: Dual Guitars: When Chris Dreja moved to bass, Beck and Page both shared guitar duties. This live version of “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” comes from an appearance on “The Milton Berle Show.”
March 9, 1968:
The Yardbirds’ Lead Guitarist. From French TV. With Jeff Beck gone, Page took the guitar spot. Here they play both “Train” and “Dazed and Confused.” When Relf and the others left, Page began forming the “New Yardbirds,” the original name of Led Zeppelin.
1969:
Early Zep: “Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You.”
1972:
Zep In Australia. “Let’s Have A Party” Plant and Page loved throwing in Elvis Presley covers onstage. A bootleg live CD of them appeared at one point.
2001:
Back To Skiffle? Reunited with Robert Plant and others performing “My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It,” from a televised tribute to Sun Records tribute, honoring Sonny Burgess’s rockabilly version. Oh, the elderly guy who talks with encyclopedic musical knowledge is another legendary label founder and producer: Ahmet Ertegun, the man behind Atlantic Records.
Postmodern Jukebox has folded some of 2013’s most popular tunes into a very retro-sounding mashup. What would “Blurred Lines” sound like if it had been recorded in the 1920’s? Here ya go.
Blurred Lines, Robin Thicke, featuring T.I., Pharell
Holy Grail, Jay-Z, featuring Justin Timberlake
We Can’t Stop, Miley Cyrus
Roar, Katy Perry
Royals, Lorde
What Does the Fox Say, Ylvis
Roy Orbison hides a rifle inside his guitar and uses it to kill countless Native Americans as he makes his way across the old west. Adding insult to injury, he then proceeds to appropriate their culture as part of his stage show.
We realize this movie was made almost a half-century ago and it was a different time, but it’s still hard to even watch the trailer for this film without cringing constantly. Also, we’re surprised that having a rifle hidden inside his guitar didn’t throw the instrument out of tune.
A recent Metafilter post introduces us to Galeazzo Frudua, a musician from Bologna, Italy who, “possesses an uncannily good ear for harmony, and has produced a series of videos that painstakingly and expertly analyze and demonstrate for you the vocal harmonies employed in various Beatles songs.” These detailed tutorials, writes the Metafilter poster, are made all the more watchable by Frudua’s “perceptive commentary, capable singing voice, unassuming manner, impressive video editing skills and, hey, his charming Italian accent.”
In his first tutorial, for “Nowhere Man” (above), Frudua begins by introducing “Lennon voice”: “Lennon voice is very simple, and it goes like this.” And, handily, flawlessly, it does. Frudua, who seems to be recording in the back of a restaurant, matches the tone of Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison’s harmonies separately and together impressively. He particularly favors Rubber Soul. Hear his “In My Life” below. He calls it “one of the best performances ever of John Lennon in the Beatles” as well as “a fantastic campus on learning how to sing.”
Anecdotally, having worked with choir singers, opera singers, and a capella singers, I can say that Frudua’s ability is not particularly rare but is the effect of constant practice. One Metafilter poster puts it well: “It’s not hard if you have a bit of an ear, and some experience…. Harmonies are a kind of language. Spend some time learning the grammar and a few phrases and it can open up quickly.” Frudua’s not only a master of vocal harmony, he’s also an expert luthier and builds custom guitars for dozens of Italian artists. In his breakdown below of “You Never Give Me Your Money,” the intro to the Abbey Road medley, Frudua takes on a particularly difficult harmony, as he explains in great detail in his careful introduction to the song’s harmonic grammar. He tells us we can use this tutorial “as a guide for your Beatles’ tribute band or reproduce them in your home recording.” You may do those things if you wish. Or you could watch Frudua do them better. See his full series here.
Kurt Cobain discussed a variety of topics, ranging from condemning sexism to wondering if he was gay, in an interview with British journalist Jon Savage for a profile that ran in The Observer in 1993. Now, over two decades after that feature ran, PBS has hilariously animated a portion of that interview for its Blank on Blank series, which has given a similar treatment to artists like Beastie Boys, Janis Joplin and Ray Charles.
The clip begins with Cobain talking about how awkward he felt in high school and then moves into family life, as he admits that he didn’t know his family name was Irish until after he had already played in the city his surname hailed from. Quizzically, he said he’d even resorted to calling “Coburns” in phonebooks throughout America. The rest of the video finds Cobain discussing his stomach issues, his disappointment in the lyrics of Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin and how he found some spiritual solace after marrying and having a child with Courtney Love, among other subjects. Throughout the video, snippets of Nirvana songs play stitch together the narrative.
That Paul McCartney guy…not only was he part of the number two pop singles act of the rock and roll era (the Beatles trail only Elvis) but his solo work alone racked up enough singles success to rank him at the number sixteen position. He has so many hits that none of his Best-of collections have done even a decent job of collecting them all (and he’s probably the most significant artist not to have released a true career-spanning box set). Thus music buyers of more recent eras who haven’t collected the individual albums along the way will have some significant gaps in their collections.
Actually, many of his 1970’s hits weren’t even included on albums, making it infuriatingly difficult to find them until remastered import CDs appeared with these singles included as bonus tracks.
Let’s take a little tour of Mac’s dustier hits and see how many you remember…
1. “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” (#21 in 1972)
People tend to forget that Lennon wasn’t the only solo Beatle to get topical and court controversy.
Written in response to the events of Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland in 1972, this divisive ditty was banned from all UK media outlets. Despite the complete lack of airplay it still rose to number 16 in the British charts. It was a number one hit in the Republic of Ireland (go figure), while it got Wings guitarist Henry McCullough’s brother beaten up by thugs in Northern Ireland when they found out Henry was in the band.
2. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” (#28 in 1972)
Wings’ next single was the polar opposite of its predecessor–about as innocuous a pop song gets.
3. “Hi, Hi, Hi” (#10 in 1973)
Oops. Controversy again. Banned by the Beeb for its lyrical content. They not only assumed “we’re gonna get hi, hi, hi” was a drug reference (a safe bet knowing Paul’s habits at the time) but objected to the sexual content i.e. lines like “get you ready for my body gun”. Paul insisted the correct lyric was “get you ready for my polygon” and that he was going for an abstract image. Not convincing.
Again the BBC’s banning didn’t hurt and might have helped. The song charted at number 5 in the UK.
4. “Sally G” (#17 in 1975)
Paul goes country. This B-side to “Junior’s Farm” (neither song appeared on an album at the time) went top twenty in its own right. Recorded in Nashville with local backing musicians adding to the country vibe, this song actually charted at #51 on the country singles chart in addition to its top twenty pop placing.
5. “Letting Go” (#39 in 1975)
This one’s long forgotten.
Honestly I have no recollection of this rather heavy-sounding 1975 hit. But it did scrape the top forty. And its vibe is fairly unique among his single releases. If you don’t remember it, give it a few listens and it’ll creep under your skin.
6. “Venus and Mars/Rock Show” (#12 in 1975)
Despite leading off both his 1975 Venus and Mars album and the live Wings Over America LP of the next year, this one’s fairly forgotten in terms of latter-day radio airplay, thanks to the tendency of oldies formats to retain some of an artist’s hits (mainly the top tens) and shun others. I’ve complained about this syndrome ad nauseam in other posts.
7. “Girls’ School” (#33 in 1978)
Here’s a mind-blowing fact to help remind you that it’s a whole different world across the pond: This song was released as a double A-side in the UK along with “Mull of Kintyre” and was McCartney’s only number one single in that country in the entire decade of the 1970’s. During that time, America sent no fewer than six of his songs to the top spot (“Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”, “My Love”, “Band on the Run”, “Listen to What the Man Said”, “Silly Love Songs” and “With a Little Luck”.)
Interestingly, “Mull of Kintyre”, despite its status as a radio staple, never actually made the pop charts in America, although it did hit #45 on the Easy Listening chart. In other words, a song that never made the top 40 is much more familiar to Americans than any of these songs that did.
8. “I’ve Had Enough” (#25 in 1978)
“With a Little Luck” was the number one smash from 1978’s London Town album, but the LP also spawned two less successful follow-up hits. The first is this rather feisty (for Paul) rant.
9. “London Town” (#39 in 1978)
The title track is a pleasant thing, and pretty much lost to history.
10. “Getting Closer” (#20 in 1979)
One of McCartney’s finest and most propulsive pop rock songs. It surprises me this one’s never been included on any of his greatest hits compilations. It almost has a “Live and Let Die” feel to its instrumental coda.
11. “Arrow Through Me” (#29 in 1979)
This one’s really gotten dusty. But it’s a great listen. The horn charts are Stevie Wonderesque.
12. “So Bad” (#23 in 1984)
Criminally overlooked, this one. I think it’s one of the true lost gems of McCartney’s catalogue. From 1983’s Pipes of Peace and re-recorded for 1984’s Give My Regards to Broad Street (also lovely). This was the follow-up single to “Say Say Say”, which was so bad.
13. “Spies Like Us” (#7 in 1986)
This uber-80’s sounding title song from the Chevy Chase/Dan Aykroyd film sounds like something Robert Palmer (wisely) left off one of this albums. I’m not a fan. And it’s too long. And it’s really stupid. I should have mentioned at the outset that there are a few here I don’t actually mind being forgotten.
14. “Press” (#21 in 1986)
Another not-so-stellar moment in a stellar career. Not awful. Just not representative of one of pop’s greatest living songwriters.
Every Moment Has A Song 