"There's a time in life for Hoagy Carmichael. There's a time in life for Claude Debussy. There's a time in life for Jerry Lee Lewis. There's a time in life for Destiny's Child. All these things have their moment." ~Elvis Costello
In a recent article titled 10 Records That Changed My Life, Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson named “Last Train to San Fernando” by Johnny Duncan & his Bluegrass Boys, saying:
“Around this time, I heard a song on the radio and I really liked it, and I convinced my parents to let me buy a copy with my pocket money. It was folky and it had something of a skiffle beat, which was becoming the rage in England. It was Last Train to San Fernando, by Johnny Duncan and his Bluegrass Boys. It was an incredible piece of Americana music, but interestingly, it’s really a calypso song but done in a skiffle kind of way.”
There are four Grammy categories that carry the most prestige—Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. The latter is self-explanatory, but what of the other three? For the distinctions between Album, Record, and Song, we have to look at the Grammy academy’s rules about who is eligible for each of those awards…
Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ 2014 global megahit “Uptown Funk” has generated some otherworldly sales and streaming numbers, and at over one billion views, it ranks as the fourth most watched YouTube video of all time (in case you’re curious, “Gangnam Style” by Psy is number one).
However, in a situation akin to Robin Thicke’s 2013 smash “Blurred Lines”, it seems the song has become another lightning rod for copyright controversy and discussion of the question of authorship vs inspiration.
The song’s throwback sound echoes the early 80’s and artists such as Prince, Zapp, The Time, One Way and even Earth, Wind & Fire.
But in terms of the song’s feel, probably no song can claim greater influence than “Walk the Dinosaur” by Was (Not Was), as evidenced by this mashup of the two:
Yet, despite the mashability of “Dinosaur”, there are two songs to which “Uptown Funk” owes even greater debt–in this case, literally, since the writers of both have now been given songwriting credit on the Ronson hit. They are Trinidad James’ “All Gold Everything” and the Gap Band’s “I Don’t Believe You Wanna Get Up and Dance (Oops, Upside Your Head)”.
Listen for the interpolated sections of both songs with their corresponding relevant sections of “Uptown Funk”.
So a song with four original credited writers will now have its royalties split six ways, with the songwriting teams responsible for the other two songs now receiving an equal share each.
Stay tuned; maybe attorneys representing Don and David Was of Was (Not Was) will be ringing up to argue for a piece of the pie. The increased publicity drawn to the issue of musical copyright infringement by the “Blurred Lines” judgment in favor of Marvin Gaye’s heirs, combined with the fact that contemporary artists seem unable to create retro-sounding music without actually borrowing the actual content of older music, mean this type of story–and this type of song–will begin to sound increasingly familiar.
I tried with Kanye West. And I know that now with his Twitter rants, bizarre Derelicte-esque YEEZY Season 3 and The Life of Pablo currently absorbing the popular consciousness, I’m supposed to care. But since he Tweeted the three little words (and multiple exclamation marks) no woman wants to hear—“BILL COSBY INNOCENT !!!!!!!!!!”—I’m out. I wasn’t the only person to immediately pull up the Tyra Banks “I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you!” GIF. We were all hoping for another, better Kanye West, and were willfully blind to reality in the process of that hope. And like Tyra, we’re yelling as much at ourselves for believing as we are at Kanye for letting us down…
This writer has long been a champion of Terry Kath, lead guitarist/soulful vocalist of Chicago on their first eleven albums, and the man who, more than any other, lent a counter-culture soul to their early work. The comments below this YouTube video make for interesting reading:
Rolling Stone’s 100 greatest guitarist issue didn’t have terry kath listed…….i’d say his rep has faded. the fact that he’s not in the top 2 or 3 is a joke….
If Hendrix acknowledged TK’s “superiority”, and Hendix is Stone’s number 1, then that makes TK “Guitarist Zero”
Any so called rock magazine that lists U2’S Edge as a top guitarist and leaves Terry Kath off the same list isn’t worth the match it would take to burn the shitty rag
Neil Young could not put strings on Terry Kath’s guitar.
This is true. Young is a amateur plunker compared to Terry.
In 2011, Dweezil Zappa, a pretty amazing guitarist, gave his “My Top 10 Guitarists” list. Terry Kath is #1, and Clapton is, very instructively IMO, NOT listed: “1. Terry Kath- This man was simply the best guitarist in the world. A full-forced powerhouse of energy. Just as good as, if not better than Hendrix. Terry could play blues, jazz, and all that feedback stuff people love Hendrix for playing. Not to mention he had a superb voice.
In fairness, there are also many comments calling out the author of the post for singling out Robert Lamm, for being negative in tone, and for sounding like the adult narrator from The Wonder Years.
Another comment gives this explanation for Kath’s relative obscurity:
Well, keep this in mind: The radio plays singles from the albums. Most of the songs he performed on the albums were never released as singles; furthermore, most of the singles that were released, especially in the beginning (like 25 or 6 to 4), had his guitar solos cut out. Most people don’t know who he is because, vocally, Peter Cetera out-shined everyone else, and when it came to writing, Robert Lamm and James Pankow wrote most of the hits that Terry sang and performed on. Let’s take Terry’s 4 most successful singles: 1) “Make Me Smile” (written by James Pankow) had the solos cut out in the beginning and the middle as “Now More Than Ever” was merged with the first part of “Ballet”; 2) “Colour My World” (again, written by James Pankow) was vocally strong (as his entire performance on Chicago II), but lacked guitar work; 3) “25 or 6 to 4” (Vocals by Peter Cetera, written by Robert Lamm) had the middle solo removed for radio play and is still missing 45 years later in most versions released; and 4) “Wishing You Were Here” (written by Peter Cetera) had a good (not great) vocal by Terry, but he was playing Bass Guitar, while Peter Cetera played lead. Other singles that had Terry featured prominently (“Dialogue Parts I & II” & “I’m A Man” & “Little One”) were either cut even worse than “25 or 6 to 4” or just didn’t chart very high at all.
In any case, respect is high among musicians and in-the-know rock fans old enough to remember Kath’s work. Hopefully Michelle Kath’s upcoming documentary Searching for Terry will enlighten those who haven’t yet come to appreciate the man’s work.
