An Alternative History of "Pop" Music

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

The Hertfordshire Rock - Ricky Wilde.  Released on UK Records in 1972. B -side of 'I Am An Astronaut'

I have a feeling that this thread will soon be thigh high in junkshop glam. Which is a very good thing, obviously.

[Astronaut Omens]

The subtle snare drum of that Memphis soul sound... Anne Peebles made many great soul sides for Hi records, of which this will be recognisable to hip-hop fans as the sample source for GZA's "Shadowboxin'"

Anne Peebles-Trouble, Heartaches and Sadness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt1H0Mghpio

[honeychile]

Martha Reeves and The Vandellas - I want you back



The later years of The Vandellas aren't well-remembered, but 1972's Black magic did yield a single, Bless you which scraped into the top 40 here - better than it did in the US. The guitar intro to Bless you is a pretty open rip-off of the Jackson 5's I want you back. As if to draw attention to this, it's immediately followed on the album by a cover of said song, though the writing team (same for both songs) were presumably conscious of the guitar part and opted for a delicious intro to I want you back which sets the tone of the song - all minor sevenths, giving the whole thing quite a different feel.

[honeychile]

Roszetta Johnson - Personal woman

From Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Roszetta (sometimes spelled Rozetta) Johnson paid her dues in the church in her youth before embarking on a career in Birmingham where the local label Clintone acquired the writing and production services of Sam Dees for Johnson's debut album, A woman's way.



The brooding verses of the Dees-penned Personal woman - the b-side to 1972's How can you lose something you never had - are shifted through the gears under the guidance of the percussion, before the chorus tumbles vividly into life.

But - ! - is it Johnson actually singing? She's not sure, and since she died in 2011, we may never know:

[Johnson] dropped a bombshell regarding [...] Personal woman."You know, 'Personal woman' is not me." However, subsequently, having had time to reflect, she suggested, "Since i have really thought about it a great deal, it could be me singing 'Personal woman' becase, at that time, my voice could sound almost like anybody. For example, when i sang Nancy Wilson's songs, i would sound just like her.

To be honest, the bit in bold makes it sound like she was forced to recant her words at gunpoint. Under the comments on the linked YouTube video, a commenter confidently states the vocalist was Charnissa Jones. The commenter is "Charnissa Stephenson" - under a married name, and justly embittered at the lack of recognition?

Top tune anyway.

[honeychile]

Valerie Simpson - Genius ii



Valerie Simpson's not a great lyricist, but perhaps more importantly she's an interesting one. On her 1972 self-titled second solo album, the song Genius crops up twice consecutively, with versions i and ii. Both versions have the same lyrics - Simpson ruminates on how technological and scientific advancement have failed to offer fulfilment, instead bringing impurity and corruption. Version i is Simpson plus piano and cello, and has its graces, but version ii is better - it's her on confident uptempo soul territory where she allows herself a certain playfulness with the bitter lyrics, which weigh a little more heavily in version i.

I still love that today. It's probably more a propos now than it was then. We thought that we hadn't totally covered it with the slow version so i came up with that little musical line so it just allowed us to keep going and build the song again.

[daf]

Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid - He Is Your Brother



Released in November 1972 - did not chart . . . even in Sweden!!

"He Is Your Brother" was recorded in 1972 by Swedish pop group ᗅᗺᗷᗅ, at the time known as "Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid". It was issued as a single in Scandinavia, and was later included on the group's debut album Ring Ring, which was released in 1973 in Scandinavia and a few European countries, excluding the United Kingdom.

Due to its limited release, and the fact that the group had not achieved a great following outside of their native Sweden at the time, the song only charted in Scandinavian countries. In Sweden, it did not reach the Swedish sales chart but was a big radio hit.

A lead vocal by Björn would later become a rare event, but at this point they hadn't quite worked out the winning formula, so he pops up quite a lot on the early songs. It's a bit lumpy, but I love the bit where the choir of "Ahhhs" fan out like a wistful peacock's tail about 30 seconds in.

[jamiefairlie]

ok, time for 1973!

[jamiefairlie]

Heaven & Earth - Voice In The Wind

https://youtu.be/g2n07DzheTg



A female duo from Pennsylvania, they made this one album, Refuge, before splitting in 1974.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Les Humphries Singers – Mama Loo



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn9rfogkveI

"Are you free, Mr Humphries?"

I absolutely love this, it sounds like the Beach Boys wigging out with the original off-Broadway cast of Godspell. It was a #1 smash in Germany, but I think I can probably sneak it in as it failed to chart in the UK and the US.

The Les Humphries Singers were a 1970s pop group formed in Hamburg, Germany in 1969 by the English-born Les Humphries. The group had several chart hits in Germany and in other European countries.

The group consisted of a large number of singers of diverse ethnic origin, including Liz Mitchell, later front woman with Boney M., and John Lawton, who also sang for the German progressive/hard rock band Lucifer's Friend and who would go on to be the frontman for Uriah Heep.

Their music focused on rhythm & blues and gospel, but often with psychedelic phasing or flanger effects on solos and bridges, and, much like James Last, much larger background choruses in the studio to emulate a live atmosphere. At the time they brought something of the flair of the hippie movement into contemporary German-produced (but English-sung) pop music, especially due to their mixed ethnic background and peculiar fashion sense.

[daf]

Kidrock - Ice Cream Man



Released in the Netherlands in 1973 - did not chart.

Confusingly, over the years, this song has also been credited to "Clover" - who, while definitely not the country band that became Huey Lewis and the News, may have been a British 'studio band' featuring Miki Dallon and Tony Taylor - who also wrote this pop smash. It was later covered by Gorky's Zygotic Mynci in a 1996 BBC Radio Mark Radcliffe session.

[famethrowa]

Kidrock - Ice Cream Man



Released in the Netherlands in 1973 - did not chart.

Right, so it's not the Zevon-nicking USA redneck, one song isn't a raucous 12-bar blues by Van Halen, and the other song isn't by Lemmy? Is this anything?

[daf]

Is this anything?

A band with possibly the most confused provenance in pop - with other (and more famous) Kid Rocks and Clovers sprouting up in their wake to muddy the waters.

[Astronaut Omens]

Muddy Waters was in the original line-up, but he left before they released anything.
Not THE Muddy Waters, obviously.

[daf]

:)

[daf]

Christian Bruhn - Ford Capri II



Originally made for a German TV comercial, and released as a promotional flexi-disc in 1973

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Blue Ash - Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her?)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So_JQ5FPRac

Power pop, people. This, the opening track from Blue Ash's debut album, is a crunchy, sugary, jumbo stick of rock.

Blue Ash were an American band formed in 1969. Their first album, No More, No Less, was released in May 1973 and received rave reviews in the rock press. It is considered a power pop classic, and is regarded as highly collectible among fans of that genre. Blue Ash toured and opened for such acts as the Stooges, Bob Seger, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and more, but due to poor record sales they were dropped by Mercury Records in 1974. They released one more album in 1977, before splitting up two years later.

[Astronaut Omens]

Brazilian percussionist Airto brought his mastery of instruments like the pandeiro and the West African talking drum to all kinds of jazz sessions. The "laughing" sound of the cuíca can be heard played by him opening Miles Davis' Live-Evil album, and on this, the title song from his fusiony- solo album Fingers.

Airto- Fingers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA8rVHwT9ig&pbjreload=101

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Great track. Disturbing album cover.

[Oz Oz Alice]

Betty Davis - Steppin' In Her I Miller Shoes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5HM5fmpMbU


This is a fierce funk rock track from Betty Davis, once married to Miles and responsible for during the course of their short marriage turning him onto Hendrix and indirectly leading to the shift in his soun in the late 60s. I really love her vocal delivery here, it makes me think of no less than Beefheart: excellent lyrics too and bass from Larry Graham. If I have anything to do with it it won't be the last time she appears in this thread.

[Astronaut Omens]

Great track. Disturbing album cover.

See, when I first saw it I thought it was just supposed to be the harmless "Look how fucked my hands are after a rigorous session of conga playing" but the fly does suggest the alternative reading of "Corpse POV". NSFW, do you think?

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Oh no, don't worry, it's not that bad! Ever so slightly unsettling at worst.

[Oz Oz Alice]

Don Downing - Dreamworld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MBAFAt9BSg

Later collected with other gems 5 years (!) later on his sole album Doctor Boogie, this is an emotionally intense soul gem I'm surprised hasn't been sampled a million times (any producers reading, get on the vocal harmony section around 1.54).

[jamiefairlie]

Clannad - Morning Dew

https://youtu.be/DNOKxLHeIUs




Written by Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson in 1961, this cover appeared on their self-titled debut album.

[daf]

Magnet - Corn Rigs



Featured in the 1973 'Folk horror' film The Wicker Man.

Paul Giovanni wrote the music for The Wicker Man soundtrack. He wrote the lyrics and sang "Landlord's Daughter" and "Gently Johnny" appearing in a scene set in the pub in the original cut of the film. He also sang "Corn Rigs" - which plays over the opening titles - adapting the lyrics from the Robert Burns song "Rigs O' Barley".

The songs in the film were arranged to hint at a pre-Christian pagan European culture and vary between traditional songs, original Giovanni compositions and even nursery rhyme in "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep".

 

Magnet was assembled by musician Gary Carpenter (the film's associate musical director) originally under the moniker Lodestone, which later to changed to "Magnet" because of a conflict with another band. The group included Peter Brewis (recorders, jaw harp, harmonica, bass guitar), Michael Cole (concertina, harmonica, bassoon), Andrew Tompkins (guitars), Ian Cutler (violin), Bernard Murray (percussion) and Gary Carpenter (piano, recorders, fife, ocarina, Nordic lyre).

Carpenter, Brewis and Cole had recently graduated from The Royal College of Music in London, and Tompkins, Cutler and Murray were all members of Carpenter's band Hocket. The band also featured Giovanni on guitar and vocals for many tracks, and some parts of the soundtrack were augmented by brass instruments.

[Brundle-Fly]

Program Ten Part One -  Bill Holt. Released on Stone Theater in 1973.





Not really 'pop' but certainly alternative. An extraordinarily progressive (in the true sense of the term) album that almost invents Negativland in 1973. I hated Dreamies at first but grew to love it with perseverance.  The sort of album The Mollusk might enjoy if he ever visits this thread.

Dreamies (subtitled Auralgraphic Entertainment) is an experimental music album by Bill Holt. It is a collage of songs performed on guitar and synthesizer (a Moog Sonic Six) combined with snippets of found sound. The album consists of two long tracks (originally one on each side of the record) called "Program 10" and "Program 11", a reference to the Beatles' "Revolution #9". Dreamies includes excerpts of radio and television broadcasts as well as samples taken from recordings by the Beatles. It is one of the earliest examples of sampling in popular music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMxcP12U26U

[Oz Oz Alice]

Magnet - Corn Rigs

Nice! The Wicker Man is one of my favourite films, and I do find myself playing the soundtrack as a stand alone record quite often. So many great songs in it, I think Gently Johnny is my favourite.

[jobotic]

Been ill but can't wait to catch up, looks like a great few days worth!

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

The Kinks - Sweet Lady Genevieve



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7owdE0E28U0

Ray's final golden age classic? I think so. In a fair and just cosmos, it would be as universally beloved as Waterloo Sunset and Sunny Afternoon, a staple of Kinks best-of compilations. It didn't chart. Stoopid 1973 record-buying public.

Also, wonderful use of the word 'impetuous'.

Sweet Lady Genevieve is part of the rock opera, Preservation Act 1, with the lyrics being sung by Davies as the Tramp, one of the principal figures in the storyline. In the track, the Tramp is begging for the forgiveness of his former lover, Genevieve, saying that "this time I'll give you some security and I will make promises I can keep". Author Andrew Hickey said in his excellent book, Preservation: The Kinks' Music 1964-1974, that the track was "Ray Davies' attempt to reach out to his estranged wife Rasa."

Although Sweet Lady Genevieve was not successful commercially, it has since been praised by music critics. Hickey claimed it "may be the last truly great Kinks song." AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called the track "absolutely gorgeous" and labelled it the "real candidate for Davies' forgotten masterpiece". Jason Josephes of Pitchfork Media said that Sweet Lady Genevieve "is one of the Kinks' greatest singles, a simple porchy folk- rock number you'll be humming for days."

[daf]

John Martyn - I'd Rather Be the Devil



This solo version was performed live on The Old Grey Whistle Test - shown on 13 March 1973.

Iain David McGeachy was born in Beechcroft Avenue, New Malden, Surrey, England, to a Belgian Jewish mother and a Scottish father. His parents, both opera singers, divorced when he was five and he spent his childhood alternating between Scotland and England. Most of this time was spent in the care of his father and grandmother, Janet, in Shawlands, Glasgow, part of his holidays each year spent on his mother's houseboat.

Changing his name to John Martyn, he began his professional musical career when he was 17, playing a fusion of blues and folk resulting in a distinctive style which made him a key figure in the British folk scene during the mid-1960s. He signed to Chris Blackwell's Island Records in 1967 and released his first album, London Conversation, the same year.

In 1973 he released his fourth solo album 'Solid Air' - the title track was dedicated to Nick Drake, who would die of an antidepressant overdose 18 months after the album was released.

John Martyn : "It was done for a friend of mine, and it was done right with very clear motives, and I'm very pleased with it, for varying reasons. It has got a very simple message, but you'll have to work that one out for yourself."

The album features an avant-garde cover of Skip James' "Devil Got My Woman," here retitled "I'd Rather Be the Devil" and performed with heavy use of Martyn's Echoplex tape delay effect.

[Brundle-Fly]

Listen - Carol Hawkins. Released on Polydor in 1973.





One for daf. here. If you're a person of a certain age (ie: an ancient old cunt) Carol Hawkins (Please Sir?/ The Fenn Street Gang actor) was the most beautiful woman who ever drew breath for a kid growing up in the early 1970s.  Nice arrangement. Phwoar! Flopperoonie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5fGyUMC5d0