Quora: Why Was ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ So Popular?

07 Jan 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: ,

Why was ‘Frampton Comes Alive‘ so Popular?

(answered by Don Stuart)

Well I was there, a junior in high school (and a bass player) around the time Frampton hit it big. Here’s how I remember it going down.

KISS had been kind of a cult rock band until they released KISS ALIVE in September of ‘75, just as we were heading back to school. Rock and Roll All Night and Party Every Day was basically the motto of many mid-70’s high school kids in the US (see the film Dazed and Confused, it’s deadly accurate). So KISS had an AM radio hit on a double live album, kind of setting the stage for Frampton’s.

Peter’s band started appearing on a Friday night show called Midnight Special on NBC in the fall. There was no MTV in those days, not much rock to watch on TV at all, and us kids watched that show in droves because it came on after we had to be home (by midnight, right?).

The guy looked good and there was definite buzz among girls like my younger sisters who had watched him on TV. Plus he’d been killing on tour all year and some of the cool older girls had seen him in concert. They were the evangelists.

Frampton Comes Alive is released in January 1976, to little fanfare but a single off the album, Show Me The Way, breaks on AM pop radio rotation in February. Where I lived, Baby I Love Your Way broke on the radio first because girls were requesting it.

The girls have had to put up with KISS ALIVE and Ted Nugent (also released in Sept. ‘75) at our parties and in our cars for months now. Around Spring Break, they whip out Frampton. Us guys are like, “Okay, chicks dig it and he doesn’t completely suck.” Peter played great lead guitar, which was essential for 70’s rockers.

Turns out the album had brilliant song-order mastering, too. It definitely has a trajectory, peaks and valleys and a big finish with Do You Feel Like We Do. We used 8-track tapes in those days to do the audio at our outdoor keggers. Frampton Live was the soundtrack for the spring and summer party season in ‘76. That’s the niche it filled.

Nearly every year has an big record like this — one that epitomizes the party season. It has a hit song or two and sells like gangbusters. Frampton scored, and we scored with Frampton. I mean, we choreographed our makeout sessions to that album.

We smoked a lot of low-THC giggle weed and mashed with a bunch of mildly stoned girls who were happy that they could listen to music with us that wasn’t the absurd 70’s cock and prog rock that guys were usually blasting. Thanks Peter!

Bob Seger’s Live Bullet came out in the spring of ’76 too, so we had two new live albums to party with. The thing about live albums was they kind of blended and amplified the atmosphere and cacophony of the party scene.

In the Fall of ’76 came Boston’s mega-album, then the Eagles’ Hotel California and McCartney’s live album in December, followed by Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours in February ‘77.

Oh, and this happened, too. Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)” The longest-running Billboard #1 since Hey Jude. The Stairway to Heaven of car-radio date songs.

Frampton got crushed, but it didn’t really matter.

Because Saturday Night Fever rolled in and ruined the party for all of us. When rock resurrected with Van Halen it was different, and an era was in the past.

Quora: Is Paul McCartney a Jerk?

03 Jan 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

(Answered by B.R. Bearden)

Is Paul McCartney a jerk?

McCartney was on the Oprah show in 1997. She seemed as much in awe of him as any fan. On her next show she talked about what kind of guest he’d been. She said something like: I have a lot of stars on my show, but nobody is bigger than Paul McCartney. Many of the stars are very demanding, wanting special things in their dressing rooms, champagne, wine, etc. Usually my staff handles their requests but I did it myself for Paul. I asked if there was anything special he wanted in his dressing room and he said he’d appreciate some bottled water, if it wasn’t too much trouble.

Then I asked him what he’d like to eat, as we could cater from anywhere in the city. He said he saw a buffet being set up in the back. I told him that was for the staff and camera crew. He asked if it would be OK for him to eat from that. No guest ever asked to dine with the staff before.

9 of The Best Beatle Intros

01 Jan 2024 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

Getty images

(via CultureSonar) BY ADAM LEADBEATER

An often underappreciated element of the Beatles’ songwriting is their seemingly effortless ability to craft a truly memorable ‘intro.’ The art of writing a timeless song opening is a masterful skill. The Fab Four were particularly expert in doing so throughout their eight years together.

The band’s finest introductions are typically iconic in their own right, innovative for their time, and often acts of musical genius in and of themselves. Here are nine of the best intros by the Fab Four.

I Saw Her Standing There (1963)

One of the most simplistic yet impactful Beatles intros appears immediately on track one of their debut album Please Please Me.

Paul McCartney’s sharp and purposeful count of “One, Two, Three, Four!” injects raw energy into this relentless rock and roll classic.

The bouncing bassline and clanking guitar work are pure magic, perfectly setting the scene for the rest of the band’s first LP and also their formative years.

A Hard Day’s Night (1964)

“A Hard Day’s Night’s” intro is all about a single sound. This title track from the Beatles’ third album opens with a very distinctive note, created using a combination of twelve-string electric guitar, an acoustic six-string, bass, and piano. Strummed aggressively and left to ring out, the exact chord has become the subject of much speculation over the years.

“It is F with a G on top,” George Harrison would finally confirm in 2001. “But you’ll have to ask Paul about the bass note to get the proper story.”

Read more: https://www.culturesonar.com/9-of-the-best-beatle-intros/?mc_cid=8151c5c393&mc_eid=b43e532c6f

Quora: If Paul McCartney is a musical genius, why doesn’t he continue to write hit songs or music that’s at the level he used to?

17 Dec 2023 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags:

(Answered by Douglas Cutler)

The answer is simple though you may not be willing to accept it.

But before I tell you I will suggest we could ask the same question of all the great aging singer-songwriters like Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Neil Young, Jimmy Paige, Cheryl Crow, Leonard Cohen (now deceased), Gordon Lightfoot, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, even Sting. So many more. While many of these writers continue to write really good songs, they virtually never write material equal to the A-list songs of their prime. Why?

Also, ask why younger songwriters just don’t seem to quite measure up melodically to their musical forefathers. Also ask why we never hear new instrumental pop hits anymore like Linus and Lucy, Green Onions, Classical Gas and Cast Your Fate to the Wind. Also ask why we never hear any more great new tunes in the American Songbook style – though thousands of musicians try every year. Also ask why classic country and western seemed destined to morph into new country.

Same answer in all cases: we’re running out of melodies. Melody is a finite set made up of only 12 steps in the chromatic scale, except in most cases 8 notes of the diatonic scale or 5 to 6 notes of the pentatonic scale which dominates so much soul and gospel flavored pop. Also a gospel and blues connection to country music. Plus, many musical motives define themselves in as few as 4–8 events. Think of the opening to Beethoven’s 5th: Ba Da Da Dah. Plus, there are further limitations like a melody must be comprised primarily of easy to sing step and skip-wise motions. Mathematically you could argue the possibilities for 12 pitches still run into the billions but most of those are random combinations full of hard to sing chromatic jumps. Also billions of atonal combinations but who cares about those?

Also, many melodies just sound common and mundane even if they follow the rules. Writing a hit song is like writing out a sequence of numbers equal to a winning lottery ticket, actually very rare compared to the hundreds of thousand songs that get written every year. There is something magical about a certain combination of notes that stick in your head in a uniquely pleasant way but such melodies just seem to get rarer as the years go by.

Break it down, Linus and Lucy melody in solfege: Do-Re-Mi/ Mi-Re-Do/ Re Do/ Do-Re-Mi-Mi. Can’t get much simpler than that and once it’s written it gone from the possibility set for the next generation of writers.

Ian Anderson Voted Best Rock n Roll Flautist For 55th Year in a Row

16 Dec 2023 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts, On a Lighter Note Tags: ,

(via Madhouse magazine)

Ian Anderson, of the band Jethro Tull has been named the best Rock n Roll flute player aka flautist for the 55th consecutive year. The honor was unanimous and Anderson also came in second and third. 

Anderson first won the award in 1967 when Jethro Tull first formed. “In the 1960s I actually had a little competition” said Ian. “There were a few bands here and there that incorporated a flute in a song or two. Honestly they were all hippie hacks. Over time though there was less and less competition and eventually I was the only nominee. Go ahead name another Rock n Roll flute player, I dare you. I double dog dare you. See, exactly as I thought.”

Read more: https://www.madhousemagazine.com/ian-anderson-voted-best-rock-n-roll-flautist-for-55th-year-in-a-row/

Quora: Is it true that Jimi Hendrix inspired the song ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ by the band Cream?

14 Dec 2023 Leave a comment

by Ed Cyphers in General Posts Tags: , , ,

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)


Answered by Phillip Coory

In January 1967, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, played their first date at Brian Epstein’s Saville Theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue. Cream were in the audience that night listening to Jimi do a souped-up rock’n’roll version of B.B. King’s ‘Rock Me bay’, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, ‘Wild Thing’, ‘Hey Joe’ and one of Jimi’s compositions, ‘Can You See Me?’ Eric Clapton later related to Rolling Stone how Jimi’s performance that night inspired Cream’s most famous song, ‘Sunshine of Your Love’:

“He played this gig that was blinding. I don’t think Jack [Bruce] had really taken him in before. I knew what the guy was capable of from the minute I met him. It was the complete embodiment of all aspects of rock guitar rolled into one. I could sense it coming off the guy. And when he [Jack] did see it that night, after the gig he went home and came up with the riff. It was strictly a dedication to Jimi. And then we wrote the song on top of it.”

Coincidently, Jimi used to play this same song as a dedication to Cream, one of his favourite bands, unaware that he was in fact playing his own dedication.

Source: Jimi Hendrix – Electric Gypsy by Harry Shapiro & Caesar Glebbeek, Heinemann 1990.

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