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Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 3 - The 1970s

Started by daf, August 02, 2021, 01:55:00 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Gulftastic

All these fantastic number ones in 1970, and I'm born when 'Back Home' is on top.

daf

291b. (NME 296.)  Deep Purple – Black Night
+         (MM 240.)  Deep Purple – Black Night



From :  28 October - 3 November 1970  |  31 October - 6 November 1970
Weeks : 1
B-side : Speed King
Bonus 1 : Live in Hamburg
Bonus 2 : Top of the Pops

The Story So Far : 
QuoteIn 1967, former Searchers drummer Chris Curtis contacted London businessman Tony Edwards in the hope that he would manage a new group he was putting together, to be called Roundabout. Curtis' vision was a "supergroup" where the band members would get on and off, like a musical roundabout.

The first recruit to the band was Curtis's flatmate, classically trained Hammond organ player Jon Lord, who had most notably played with The Artwoods. Lord was then performing in a backing band for the vocal group The Flower Pot Men along with bassist Nick Simper and drummer Carlo Little



Jon Lord : "He said, 'I've got this concept.' As it was the summer of '67, concepts sounded wonderful. It was to be three people as the core. The third person was a bass player, who I never met. I don't know if he existed. We would engage other people as we felt like it. They would jump on and off the roundabout. But I left that party in a new band, Roundabout. A few weeks later Curtis was living in my flat, I don't know how it happened. There were limousines picking him up, I was tremendously impressed. He told me that he had met a businessman who was really interested in putting up 'the bread, man'."

Lord mentioned the Roundabout project, and Simper and Little suggested guitarist Ritchie Blackmore who was a member of the instrumental band The Outlaws, and was making a name for himself as a studio session guitarist, playing on many Joe Meek productions, including Heinz Top Ten hit 'Just Like Eddie'.



Ritchie Blackmore : "I was waiting to join but nothing happened. I was in Hamburg, and had played with The Searchers in sixty-three, and remained friends with Chris Curtis. When he wanted to put a band together he sent me all these telegrams and called me over. I came over, and – he was very animated and very theatrical. I asked him: "Who's in the band? What's the deal?" And he would go: "The best guitarist in the world is you. You're in the band. You'll be playing second guitar". "So you'll be playing lead, right? Who will be playing drums?" "I'll be playing drums. Jon Lord will be playing organ." It was going to be called The Light. And then he said: "And I will be playing bass and doing vocals." So he was doing lead guitar, drums, bass and vocals! So when I saw Jon, I said: "What's going on? Is he a bit...?" [makes circular motion by his temple with his index finger]."

It was soon clear that Curtis was on a very different level to everyone else around him . . .

Jon Lord : "I came back from being up north for a few days with The Flowerpot Men, and my entire flat was covered in silver paper. The tables, chairs, the toilet, the toilet seat. The lightbulbs, which blew every time you turned them on. Windows, everything. Chris came out of the loo and said, 'hey man, what do you think? New concept.' I knew he'd lost it. I was quite naïve, I knew what acid was, but I didn't know what it did. A few days later, he suddenly wasn't there."

Ritchie Blackmore : "So after a while, we were playing together at this little house in South Kensington. But Chris was saying such ridiculous things. He was so ludicrous with what he wanted to do. We were gonna be called The Light, initially, and whoever the biggest band was at the time – I think it was Clapton and The Cream – were going to be opening for us. He was nuts! The second time I went there the house looked like it had actually been hit by a bomb – no furniture and carpets, just rubble! Someone had gone in with a pneumatic drill and drilled up everything, plaster was down everywhere. Then I saw some of the plaster move. It was Chris, who was sleeping on the floor. "Ah, Ritchie, come on in. The band's great, it's all happening". He was just full of bullshit."



Chris Curtis' erratic behaviour and lifestyle, fuelled by his use of LSD, caused him to be dismissed from Roundabout. Lord and Blackmore began the recruitment of additional members, retaining Tony Edwards as their manager. Lord convinced Nick Simper to join on bass, but Blackmore insisted they leave Carlo Little behind in favour of drummer Bobby Woodman, who was the former drummer for Vince Taylor's Play-Boys.

In March 1968, Lord, Blackmore, Simper and Woodman moved into Deeves Hall, a country house in South Mimms, Hertfordshire. The band would live, write and rehearse at the house; it was fully kitted out with the latest Marshall amps and, at Lord's request, a Hammond C3 organ. According to Simper, "dozens" of singers were auditioned until the group heard Rod Evans of club band The Maze, and thought his voice fitted their style well.

Tagging along with Evans was his band's drummer Ian Paice. Blackmore had seen an 18-year-old Paice on tour with The Maze in Germany in 1966, and had been impressed by his drumming. Both Paice and Evans won their respective jobs, and the line-up was complete.



During a brief tour of Denmark and Sweden in April 1968, in which they were still billed as Roundabout, Blackmore suggested a new name: "Deep Purple", named after his grandmother's favourite song. An alternative name considered was "Concrete God", which the band thought was too harsh to take on.

Jon Lord : "We did what every band must do when you're starting. We were grinding into action and we made a list of all the names we wanted to call a band. We found a lot of the names we liked other bands already had. Ritchie thought of Deep Purple. There was a song in the forties by that name, and it was Ritchie's grandmother's favorite song. Bands used to name themselves what they were, like Fred Smith and the So and Sos, but we were formed after that had gone out. But you realize once the band's accepted you can use any name."

After about two months of rehearsals at Highleigh Manor, in Balcombe, West Sussex, the band moved into Pye Studios in London's Marble Arch to record their debut album . . .

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'Shades of Deep Purple' was released in July 1968 on Tetragrammaton in the United States and in September 1968 on Parlophone in the United Kingdom.



The album was recorded in only three days in May 1968 and contains four original songs and four covers, thoroughly rearranged to include classical interludes and sound more psychedelic. Stylistically, the music is close to psychedelic rock and progressive rock, two genres with an ever-growing audience in the late 1960s.

"And the Address" and "Hey Joe" were cut first, followed by "Help!" later the first day. On Sunday, "Love Help Me", "Happiness / I'm So Glad" and "Mandrake Root" were recorded. Sound effects extracted from a BBC album were added as transitions between songs during mixing, which was completed later the same day.

The album was not well received in the UK, where it sold very few copies and did not chart. In the US, on the other hand, it was a success and the single "Hush" an energetic rock track written by Joe South and originally recorded by Billy Joe Royal, became very popular at the time.



Released in July 1968, and backed by "One More Rainy Day", it reached number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, and #58 in the UK.



The good sales of the album and the intense radio play of the single contributed largely to the attention Deep Purple would get in their early US tours and also during the 1970s.



Thanks to the success of "Hush", the band were booked to tour the US in October 1968. Executives at Tetragrammaton thought the eight tracks recorded in May for Deep Purple's debut album were insufficient for their shows as headliners in the US. So, barely three months later, the band were sent back into the studio to record their second album.

Nick Simper : "My main complaint about Deep Purple is that when we did get some success, which was very, very quickly after we started, we were just worked to death by the management and the record company."



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The band's second album, 'The Book of Taliesyn', was released in North America in October 1968, just before their first US tour. The name for the album was taken from the Welsh 14th-century Llyfr Taliesin.



On the first of August 1968, Deep Purple entered De Lane Lea Studios in Kingsway, London, with producer Derek Lawrence and sound engineer Brian Aintsworth, who had both worked on their previous album. They recorded "Shield" and "Anthem" on the first day. The following days they proceeded with the composition and recording of "Exposition / We Can Work It Out" and the original track "Listen, Learn, Read On". On 19 August, they concluded these sessions with the heavy and up-tempo instrumental "Wring That Neck", which came out from a tight collaboration between Blackmore and bass player Nick Simper. Another instrumental called "Playground" was written and recorded on 18 August, but the lyrics were never completed and it was eventually discarded.

Following the release of the album, the band embarked on a three-month US tour, when the band played in many important venues and festivals and received positive feedback from audiences and the press. Meanwhile in the UK, Deep Purple were still an underground band which played in small clubs and colleges, and largely ignored by the media and the public. As a result, EMI did not release the album until June 1969, on the new underground prog rock sub-label Harvest Records, and the album did not chart.

The original cover was drawn in pen, ink and color by the British illustrator and author John Vernon Lord. The Book of Taliesyn was the only record cover he ever designed and, the original artwork was never returned. The fee for the job was £30, minus 25% for the agent.

John Vernon Lord : "The agent gave me the title saying that the art director wanted a 'fantasy Arthurian touch' and to include hand lettering for the title and the musicians' names. I mainly drew from The Book of Taliesin, which is a collection of poems, said to be written by the sixth century Welsh bard Taliesin."

Their second single "Kentucky Woman" was released in October 1968, and reached No. 38 in the US charts, and failed to chart at all in the UK.



DJ John Peel, presenter of the Radio 1 Top Gear show, had met the band in 1968 and had great expectations for The Book of Taliesyn, but was not too pleased with the final result : "The group have done some fine things for Radio One and they excite when they play live. I don't understand where this record went wrong, it is all too restrained somehow. They recorded "Wring That Neck" much better for a recent Top Gear."

Their third single "River Deep, Mountain High" only managed to reach No. 53, and Deep Purple's American label Tetragrammaton Records pressured the band to make a single to match the success of their hit "Hush".



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A few days after their US tour, Deep Purple settled in with their usual producer Derek Lawrence at De Lane Lea Studios in Kingsway, to solve the new single problem. The song "Emmaretta" (named after the musical Hair cast member Emmaretta Marks, whom singer Rod Evans had met in the US) was composed for that purpose and recorded on 7 January 1969.



The heavier and more experimental song "The Bird Has Flown", arranged and recorded later on the same day, was chosen as the B-side for the US. Released in March 1969, the single tanked at a catastrophic no. 128.

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Their third studio album, 'Deep Purple', was released in June 1969 in the United States and in November 1969 in the UK. The cover featured an illustration from Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights. The original painting is in colour, although it appeared on the LP in monochrome due to a printing error. The label ran into difficulty over the use of the painting, which was perceived in the US as being anti-religious, featuring nudity and "immoral" scenes, and was thus rejected or poorly stocked by many record shops.



Also known as 'Deep Purple III', this was the band's third album to be recorded in under a year! The pressure of the multiple engagements left the band very little time for composition and most of the tracks were bashed together in the studio.

Nick Simper : "Recording was always a problem. We were always short of material, purely because of our schedule. The fact that we were always being chased by Tetragrammaton for material, we never had the luxury like most bands do now of saying, 'hang on fellas, we need a little bit of down time to just think about stuff and try and be creative.'"

Ritchie Blackmore : "That really bugs me...going to the studio, 'right, you gotta turn out an LP, boys.' You know, 'here we go, you gotta write a song...today.' It's just ridiculous."

The first new song to be publicly performed was titled "Hey Bop a Re Bop", which aired on the Top Gear radio show on 14 January 1969. It was broadcast again on 11 February before being reworked and becoming the psychedelic blues song "The Painter".

Musical and lyrical inspiration came from very disparate sources. The opener "Chasing Shadows" was based on African rhythms created by drummer Ian Paice with lyrics inspired by one of Jon Lord's nightmares. The baroque "Blind" was written by Lord and largely performed on harpsichord. The short instrumental "Fault Line" was inspired by an earthquake that the band had experienced while in Los Angeles and featured Paice's drum patterns reversed and double tracked. Roman Polanski's movie Rosemary's Baby, which the band members had watched together at a cinema, was the main inspiration for the blues rocker "Why Didn't Rosemary?".

"April" was a tune written by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore about his birthday month before the recording sessions had begun; it was later augmented with a long middle section of classical music written by Lord, becoming the album's 12-minute-plus final track and Deep Purple's longest ever studio recording. The only cover song on the album was the Donovan-penned ballad "Lalena". Also featured was a new version of the B-side "The Bird Has Flown", retitled "Bird Has Flown".



Despite having turned into a highly proficient band on stage, things were starting to heat up internally, with band members getting more vocal about the direction they wanted the music to go, as well as being dissatisfied with their treatment financially. Nick Simper remarked in later interviews, "Once we started making money, the friendships went out the window." He further noted that Blackmore was particularly peeved that Lord and Evans were earning royalties above and beyond the other band members because they had composed the B-side of the "Hush" single.

Meanwhile, Lord and Blackmore were starting to yearn for a sharper, rawer and overall heavier sound, similar to that introduced in Led Zeppelin's debut album. They felt that Rod Evans, with his tender, smooth voice, would not be able to cope with louder, more aggressive material. Evans had also expressed reservations about his permanence in the band and voiced his wish to permanently move to the US. Tensions were also high with bassist Nick Simper, whose playing style was considered, in Ian Paice's words : "stuck in the late '50s and early '60s". As a result, in May 1969, Lord and Blackmore agreed on changing the line-up.

Blackmore asked for help in this task from his old acquaintance Mick Underwood, at the time drummer of the British rock band Episode Six. Underwood recommended Episode Six singer Ian Gillan. Gillan was enthusiastic, but would only join the band if he could bring along Episode Six bassist Roger Glover with him.

Ritchie Blackmore : "I said to Mick: "We're looking for a singer. Do you know anybody?" And he said: "Well, you can use our singer if you like. We're breaking up." That's how we got lan Gillan. Gillan could scream. He had a really good voice then."

Evans, Simper and Episode Six's management were kept unaware of these events and of the fact that the new line-up was already active in writing and rehearsing new songs.

In between gigs all over the country, Deep Purple had rehearsed the song "Hallelujah" with Evans and Simper to be released as a new single, but it was recorded in secret on 7 June 1969 by the fresh Mark II line-up at De Lane Studios instead, with Glover still acting as a session musician.

The single "Hallelujah" was released in late July in the US and the UK and featured an edited version of "April" as B-side. It reached no. 108 in the US and, once again, failed to chart in the UK.



After his dismissal, Rod Evans left for the US with his wife and resurfaced in 1971 as lead singer in the American progressive rock band Captain Beyond. Nick Simper sued Deep Purple's management for breaking his contract, and the dispute was settled out of court. He later formed the rock band Warhorse.

Ritchie Blackmore : "Nobody wants to jump on the phone and go: "Hey, you're fired!" That, really, to me, is management's job. They don't do fucking much! I think the least they can do is to try and buffer the band from each other if there's a problem. Usually I've found with managers that the last thing they want to do is spread the bad news. They want all the good news – and to be paid commission on it – but they don't want to do the hard work."

Ian Paice : "A change had to come. If they hadn't left, the band would have totally disintegrated."

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Released in December 1969, 'Concerto for Group and Orchestra' was a live album consisting of a three-movement epic composed by Jon Lord with lyrics by their new singer Ian Gillan, and performed by the band at the Royal Albert Hall in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Malcolm Arnold.



The album consists of : First movement (Moderato – Allegro) - featuring cadenzas for electric guitar and clarinet; Second movement (Andante) - based around two tunes played in various different arrangements with an organ cadenza followed by a quiet ending by the orchestra; and Third movement (Vivace – Presto) - Apart from Ian Paice's drum solo, the music combines the orchestra and group together in a "free for all".



Surprisingly, this pretentious rubbish proved to be their first chart success in the UK, though Gillan and Blackmore were less than happy at the band being tagged as "a group who played with orchestras", both feeling that the Concerto was a distraction that would get in the way of developing their desired hard-rocking style.



Ritchie Blackmore : "We were a rock band. I couldn't understand why we kept playing with orchestras. It started to get up my nose. The first thing was a novelty, a band playing with an orchestra. I didn't think it was particularly good but we pulled it off. Then Jon wrote another one [Gemini Suite], and they wanted us to do it again. I went: "No, no. I'm not getting involved again. I'm in a rock'n'roll band." I said: "Jon, we should make a rock'n'roll record for people in parties. It should be non-stop, hard-hitting rock'n'roll.""



Shortly after the orchestral release, Deep Purple began a hectic touring and recording schedule that was to see little respite for the next three years. The interplay between Blackmore's guitar and Lord's distorted organ, coupled with Gillan's powerful, wide-ranging vocals and the rhythm section of Glover and Paice, now started to take on a unique identity that separated the band from its earlier albums.



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'Deep Purple in Rock', their fourth studio album, was released on 5 June 1970. It was the first studio album recorded by the Mark II line-up of Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice. The cover was designed by the group's management; it depicts Mount Rushmore with photographs of the band's faces superimposed over the US presidents. The album peaked at #4 in the UK, remaining in the charts for over a year.



Work on the album began shortly after Gillan and Glover joined the band in June 1969, with rehearsals at Hanwell Community Centre. The music was intended to be loud and heavy, and accurately represent the group's live show. Recording took place at various studios around London in between extensive touring, during which time songs and arrangements were honed into shape.

Ritchie Blackmore : "I was impressed with what Zeppelin did, and I wanted to do that kind of stuff, and if it doesn't take off we'll go and play with orchestras the rest of our lives. So we did it, and it was Deep Purple In Rock, which, luckily, took off. We'd purposely made it so it hammered along every song, there was no lull. I was very pleased with it because I never wanted to work with an orchestra again."

"Speed King" developed from a bass riff written by Glover at Hanwell, in an attempt to emulate Jimi Hendrix's "Fire". It was originally known as "Kneel and Pray" and developed as a live piece for several months before recording. The final take used on the album was recorded in January 1970; it opens with an untitled instrumental known as "Woffle", recorded in November 1969.

Other songs included : "Bloodsucker", "Child in Time" [Hewn into the living rock, of Stone-'enge], "Flight of the Rat" which evolved during rehearsals from a humorous re-arrangement by Glover of "Flight of the Bumblebee", "Living Wreck", "Hard Lovin' Man", and "Into the Fire" which was written by Glover as a warning against drugs.

Roger Glover : "In Rock was a groundbreaking album, and very heavy. It was my first studio album with the band. Before Gillan and I joined, Purple was more known for rearranging other people's songs. The album prior to In Rock, Concerto for Band and Orchestra [1969], was Jon Lord's baby. People were confused about what kind of band we were. Subsequently, Blackmore firmly stepped up and changed the band's identity into a jamming, hard rocking force."



After completing the album, the group's management were worried there was no obvious single, and booked De Lane Lea in early May 1970 so the band could write and record one. The result was the group's first UK hit single . . .

The Single :
Quote"Black Night" was written by Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, from the band Deep Purple.



Once the album 'Deep Purple in Rock' had been completed, EMI asked for a suitable single to be recorded to help promote the album. After struggling to come up with a commercial-sounding song, Blackmore started playing the riff to Ricky Nelson's 1962 arrangement of "Summertime", while the group improvised the rest of the structure. Gillan later said he tried to write "the most banal lyrics we could think of".

Ritchie Blackmore : "We went down the pub in Holborn. The management came in – it was the like Leggy Mountbatten thing from The Rutles – "Lads! You need a hit!" We were drinking, so we went back. I knocked out the Ricky Nelson Summertime bass riff, which we did as a shuffle. We just added a couple of bits that worked very well. And all of a sudden it was number two."

The song is also similar to Blues Magoos' 1966 psychedelic hit song "(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet". See you in court, lads!



The non-album single was released on 5 June 1970 - the same day as their album 'Deep Purple In Rock". While it peaked at #2 on Official UK charts, it was a Number 1 on both the NME and Melody Maker charts - making it both mint and skill! It remains Deep Purple's highest charting UK single, and also topped the charts in Switzerland, peaked at No. 4 in Ireland, and number 6 in South Africa.

Other Versions includeABC Company (1970)  /  Springbok (1970)  /  The Juniors (1970) [with added frying bacon!]Mal (1971)  /  Hugo Strasser und sein Tanzorchester (1971)  /  Funky Junction (1973)  /  Buffalo (1979)  /  The Creatures (1988)  /  Forcefield (1988)  /  Puhdys (1989)  /  Vic Reeves (1991)  /  Air Jazz Quartet  (1995)  /  Bad Manners (1997)  /  Lotus (2001)  /  Condition Red (2003)  /  Pat Travers (2006)  /  Deicide (2006)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  Garri Pat (2016)  /  a robot (2018)  /  8-Bit Arcade (2019)  /  Ulf Meyer - Martin Wind (2019)  /  Saltmesh (2020)

On This Day :
Quote30 October : Serious riots in the Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast which last for three nights
31 October : Linn Berggren, singer (Ace of Base), born Malin Sofia Katarina Berggren in Gothenburg, Sweden
31 October : Boozy Rock Oaf Jim Morrison is sentenced to six months in jail, though remains free on a $50,000 bond pending appeal
3 November : Marxist Salvador Allende was inaugurated as the 28th President of Chile
3 November : "President's Daughter" opens at Billy Rose Theater NYC for 72 performances
3 November : Peter Karadordevic, the last King of Yugoslavia, who reigned as King Peter II until he was deposed in 1945, died at a U.S. hospital in Los Angeles aged 47
4 November : Genie, a 13 year old 'feral child' found in Los Angeles, California
5 November : Tamzin Outhwaite, actress, born Tamzin Maria Outhwaite in Ilford, London
6 November : Aerosmith's first concert - appearing at Nipmuc Regional High School in Mendon, Massachusetts
6 November : Ethan Hawke, actor, born Ethan Green Hawke in Austin, Texas

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote

Egyptian Feast

I've never been that fussed about 'Black Night' but 'Speed King' is incredible. Best B-side of the decade so far, even though the single version probably left out the explosive intro (like the US version of the album).

Great background information about the early years and this album. I think I love In Rock even more now I know they rehearsed it at Hanwell Community Centre.

famethrowa

Love Black Night. Ripped-off riff, placeholder lyrics but top stuff all round. To my ears though, it's always sounded tinny and badly recorded, even more so than the rest of the album. Kind of sounds like it's been recorded off a TV speaker or summat. Was there a reason for that?

DrGreggles


Johnboy

i remember Black Night was featured on one of those anniversary Top of the Pops clips in 83, 84?

daf

292.  Matthews Southern Comfort – Woodstock



From : 25 October – 14 November 1970
Weeks : 3
B-side : Scion
Bonus : Disco 2 TV Performance

The Story So Far : 
QuoteThe band Matthews Southern Comfort was formed in 1970 by Ian Matthews, who had been a member of Fairport Convention between 1967 and 1969, singing vocals on the band's first two albums, alongside Judy Dyble on the self-titled 'Fairport Convention', and then with Sandy Denny on the widely-acclaimed 'What We Did on Our Holidays' after she had replaced Dyble as the lead female singer in 1968.



By the time of the recording of their third album 'Unhalfbricking' in early 1969, Fairport, under Denny's influence, had largely abandoned their original American singer-songwriter material and were moving towards what would become known as English folk rock. The genre was somewhat alien to Matthews' tastes leading to a discontent within Fairport that saw him essentially fired from the band after a meeting with producer Joe Boyd in February 1969.

Matthews nevertheless continued to live in the same shared house in Brent as his former Fairport band members Richard Thompson and Simon Nicol and was paid a £20 per week retainer until he found his new path. In Fairport he had not played any instruments save the odd conga drum or Jew's harp; to counter this 'deficiency' he set about learning to play the guitar, being taught by no less than Richard Thompson.

During the summer of 1969, after discussions with DJ John Peel, Matthews decided that the singer-songwriter path was the direction he wanted to head in musically, and he thus recorded his debut solo album at De Lane Lea Studios in London in November 1969.

Ian Matthews : "I told John Peel the part of Fairport I loved was where we would interpret contemporary American songwriters. He said, 'Well maybe you ought to develop that as something of your own.'"

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'Matthews' Southern Comfort' was released in January 1970 on the Uni record label.



Matthews Southern Comfort were not yet a band at that stage and Matthews was not yet ready to go solo, so the title was an all embracing attempt to encompass an album title and the collective of musicians that made it, which included his ex-Fairport colleagues : Ashley Hutchings, Simon Nicol and Richard Thompson, plus Gerry Conway, the drummer from the folk rock band Fotheringay in which Sandy Denny was now the vocalist.

Aside form the Richard Thompson song "A Commercial Proposition", most of the songs on the album were written by Matthews and his now managers Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley, under the assumed name 'Steve Barlby'.

Matthews songs included : "Please Be My Friend", "What We Say", "Dream Song" and "Thoughts For A Friend". "The Watch" and "Once Upon A Lifetime" were co-written with Howard and Blaikley, who also contributed : "The Castle Far", "Fly Pigeon Fly", "Sweet Bread", "I've Lost You", and "Colorado Springs Eternal" - which was released as a single.



Following the release of the album, a band was formed to allow Matthews to go on tour.

Ian Matthews was friends with musician Marc Ellington, who had guested on Fairport Convention's 1969 album 'Unhalfbricking', providing vocal support. In the early part of 1970, at Ellington's suggestion, Matthews went to see a group called Harsh Reality who were about to be dropped by their record label, Philips.

Mark Griffiths (lead guitar), Carl Barnwell (rhythm guitar) and Roger Swallow (drums) became the core of the band Matthews Southern Comfort and the session player Gordon Huntley, who had played pedal steel on the first album, was added.

A young student called Pete Watkins, a bass player, completed the first line-up. Watkins, however, soon discovered that his studies were going to be affected and dropped out of the band, to be replaced by Andy Leigh who had just left the band Spooky Tooth. Not long after that Roger Swallow also decided he wanted to leave and he was replaced by drummer Ray Duffy, late of the band Marmalade.



Their style of three-part harmonies mixed with country rock appealed to English music fans at the time and they toured the UK extensively, beginning in February 1970 with a gig at the Mothers club in Birmingham, a triple-header bill alongside Fairport Convention and Fotheringay.

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Their second album, 'Second Spring', was released in July 1970.



The album was recorded with the touring band and included a couple of songs by guitarist Carl Barnwell : "Moses In The Sunshine" and "Even As", as well as four Matthews originals : "Ballad Of Obray Ramsey", "Jinkson Johnson", "Tale Of The Trial", and "Blood Red Roses".

The album was rounded off with three covers : "Darcy Farrow", "Something In The Way She Moves", and "Southern Comfort".

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Their third album, 'Later That Same Year' was released in November 1970.



Matthews contributed three songs to the album : "And Me", "My Lady", and "Road to Ronderlin". Carl Barnwell's songs included : "Sylvie" and "For Melanie". Covers included : "To Love", "Tell Me Why", "And When She Smiles (She Makes The Sun Shine)", "Mare, Take Me Home", and "The Brand New Tennessee Waltz".

For the US release in Spring 1971, Carl Barnwell's "Jonah" was left off the album and was replaced with the non-album single "Woodstock" which had become a surprise number 1 hit in the UK . . .

The Single :
Quote"Woodstock" was written by Joni Mitchell. Three versions of the song were released in 1970. The cover by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young appeared on their March 1970 album Déjà Vu, prior to Mitchell's own version on her April 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon. The third version, by the British band Matthews Southern Comfort became the best known version in the United Kingdom, and was the highest charting version of the song, reaching the top of the UK singles chart in 1970.



As the name implies, the lyrics refer to the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival of 1969, telling the story of a concert-goer on a trek to attend the festival. Mitchell, who was unable to actually perform at the festival herself due to scheduling conflicts, was inspired to write the song based on an account of the festival relayed to her by then-boyfriend Graham Nash, who had performed there. The anthemic song, as well as the festival it commemorates, is symbolic of the counterculture of the 1960s.

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"Woodstock" became an international hit in 1970 and 1971 through a recording by Matthews Southern Comfort. The group performed "Woodstock" on the Live in Concert program broadcast live by BBC Radio 1 on 28 June 1970 – frontman Ian Matthews would recall that the group required an additional song for their set on the scheduled radio session, and that the choice of "Woodstock" was his own suggestion, having just become familiar with the Joni Mitchell version as he had purchased her Ladies of the Canyon album earlier that week.

Ian Matthews : "I had bought Joni Mitchell's album and we had to do four songs on a BBC lunchtime show. We worked up an arrangement for "Woodstock" and the response was so good that we put it out as a single. Crosby, Stills & Nash's record had just come out and so we waited to see what happened to that first."

There was a big listener response to the song; people wanted to know where they could buy the record, which of course did not yet exist. Howard and Blaikley wanted the band to record it with a view to putting it on their forthcoming album 'Later That Same Year'.

Ian Matthews : "I had no idea what the [BBC] were talking about and contacted my management, who asked me about it. Uni suggested that we record the song and add it to the newly recorded Matthews Southern Comfort album, Later That Same Year. I declined to mess with the completed album, but agreed to have them release the song as a single."

Andy Leigh : "We took it apart and reassembled it and we knew we had something. We were an album band. We didn't do singles, but we knew this was something special."

It was recorded and released as a stand-alone single on 24 July 1970, after it was became obvious that the CSNY version was not going to be a British hit.

Andy Leigh : "They reluctantly released ours because of that agreement but they wouldn't spend a penny on promotion ... But our managers, who were excellent, hired a PR, a songplugger. Tony Blackburn, who had the breakfast show on Radio 1, played 'Woodstock' and kept playing it and other DJs started doing the same."

Matthews would recall that once Tony Blackburn made their version of "Woodstock" his record of the week : "it began to sell 30,000 copies a day, eventually going from #10 to #1 in a week."



Issued on 24 July 1970, "Woodstock" reached #1 on the UK chart and remained there for three weeks. The single was also a #2 hit in Ireland, Norway, Poland, and Sweden. It reached #3 in South Africa, #4 in New Zealand, and #9 in Denmark.

Initially the single's US release, in November 1970, had only marginal impact, peaking at #110 on the Record World chart [the third main US chart after Billboard and Cashbox]. However, thanks to a 30% Canadian Content radio airplay quota, the track received airplay partially due to it's Canadian authorship, and reached a #5 peak on the Canadian RPM 100 singles chart. With newfound interest over the border, the single climbed to #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in May 1971.

But by the time of the North American success of "Woodstock", the band was no more. An October 1970 shake-up at MCA Records had resulted in the band being dropped, and their US tour cancelled.

Matthews discontent came to a head in late November 1970 at the soundcheck for a gig in Birmingham where he abruptly quit the band there and then, and returned home to London. Matthews would attribute his departure to the demands incumbent on his band's success with "Woodstock.

Ian Matthews : "It created all this peripheral stuff that took up my time. What would've been time learning to be a songwriter, it became time spent doing interviews, photographs, tours and appearances. It all came to a head after a dreadful soundcheck at Birmingham town hall. I left the building, walked down to the station, got on a train home and locked my door for a week."

Other Versions includeJoni Mitchell (1970)  /  Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1970)  /  Suzanne (1971)  /  Jill Kirkland (1971)  /  Wayne Roland Brown (1975)  /  John Otway (1992)  /  Big Country (1993)  /  Spin Doctors (1994)  /  Euro Grass (1996)  /  James Taylor (1997)  /  Eva Cassidy (2000)  /  Richard Thompson (2000)  /  Leslie Ritter & Scott Petito (2001)  /  Richie Havens (2004)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  The Piddletown Brothers (2013)  /  Tierney Sutton (2013)  /  Krista Ricci (2016)  /  Good Harvest (2016)  /  The Lighthouse Band (2016)  /  Harry Harrison (2017)  /  Daniel Estrem (2018)  /  Dan C Holloway (2019)

On This Day :
Quote26 October : Muhammad Ali began his comeback in his first fight since 1967, defeating Jerry Quarry in the third round of a 15-round bout in Atlanta
26 October : "Doonesbury" comic strip debuts in 28 newspapers in the US
27 October : Jesus Christ Superstar released a two-disc record - without having been performed before a live audience.
27 October : "Light, Lively & Yiddish" opens at Belasco Theater NYC for 87 performances
27 October : Jonathan Stroud, author, born Jonathan Anthony Stroud in Bedford, Bedfordshire, Bedfordland, Bedfordwoooooooorld
30 October : Serious riots in the Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast which last for three nights
31 October : Linn Berggren, singer (Ace of Base), born Malin Sofia Katarina Berggren in Gothenburg, Sweden
31 October : Bibulous nuisance Jim Morrison is sentenced to six months in jail, though remains free on a $50,000 bond pending appeal
3 November : Marxist Salvador Allende was inaugurated as the 28th President of Chile
3 November : "President's Daughter" opens at Billy Rose Theater NYC for 72 performances
3 November : Peter Karadordevic, the last King of Yugoslavia, who reigned as King Peter II until he was deposed in 1945, died at a U.S. hospital in Los Angeles aged 47
4 November : Genie, a 13 year old 'feral child' found in Los Angeles, California
5 November : Tamzin Outhwaite, actress, born Tamzin Maria Outhwaite in Ilford, London
6 November : Aerosmith's first concert - appearing at Nipmuc Regional High School in Mendon, Massachusetts
6 November : Ethan Hawke, actor, born Ethan Green Hawke in Austin, Texas
7 November : "Purlie" closes at Broadway Theater NYC after 689 performances
7 November : Neil Hannon, musician (The Divine Comedy), born Edward Neil Anthony Hannon in Derry, Northern Ireland
7 November : Morgan Spurlock, documentary maker, born Morgan Valentine Spurlock in Parkersburg, West Virginia
8 November : Actor Dennis Hopper divorces singer Michelle Phillips after only 8 days after getting married
9 November : Scarface, rapper (Geto Boys), born Brad Terrence Jordan in Houston, Texas
9 November : The Goodies make their television debut on the BBC
9 November : Charles de Gaulle, French army general, and President of France, dies aged 79
10 November : Luna 17, with unmanned self-propelled Lunokhod 1 robotic lunar rover, is launched
10 November : Richard Rodgers and Martin Charnin's musical "Two by Two" opens at Imperial Theater NYC for 343 performances
10 November : Warren G, rapper, born Warren Griffin III in Long Beach, California
11 November : Derry Brownson, musician (EMF Keyboards), born in Gloucester, England
11 November : Lee Parkin Starsky, daughter of Ringo Starr, born somewhere on planet Earth
12 November : Cachita, Cuban-born transgender actress, born Alberto Hernandez somewhere on Planet Earth
12 November : Tonya Harding, Olympic figure skater, born Tonya Maxene Harding in Portland, Oregon

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote

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293.  Jimi Hendrix – Voodoo Child (Slight Return)



From : 15 – 21 November 1970
Weeks : 1
B-side : "Hey Joe" and "All Along The Watchtower"

The Story So Far : 1966-1967
QuoteJohnny Allen Hendrix was born in 1942, in Seattle, Washington. In 1946, Johnny's parents changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix, after his father Al (James Allen Hendrix) and his late brother Leon Marshall. Hendrix's genealogy included African American, Irish, and Cherokee ancestors.

Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army, but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville then Nashville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the chitlin' circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires.



Feeling restricted by his experiences as an R&B sideman, Hendrix moved in 1966 to New York City's Greenwich Village. There, he was offered a residency at the Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street and formed his own band that June, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, which included future Spirit guitarist Randy California.

By May 1966, Hendrix was struggling to earn a living wage playing the R&B circuit, so he briefly rejoined Curtis Knight and the Squires for an engagement at one of New York City's most popular nightspots, the Cheetah Club. During a performance, Linda Keith, the girlfriend of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richard, noticed Hendrix and was "mesmerised" by his playing. She invited him to join her for a drink, and the two became friends. Keith recommended him to Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham and producer Seymour Stein. They failed to see Hendrix's musical potential, and rejected him, so Keith referred him to Chas Chandler, who was leaving The Animals and was interested in managing and producing artists.

Chandler liked the Billy Roberts song "Hey Joe", and was convinced he could create a hit single with the right artist. Impressed with Hendrix's version of the song, he brought him to London on 24 September 1966, and signed him to a management and production contract with himself and ex-Animals manager Michael Jeffery. That night, Hendrix gave an impromptu solo performance at The Scotch of St James, and began a relationship with Kathy Etchingham that lasted for two and a half years.

Jimi Hendrix : "The first time I played guitar in England I sat in with Cream. I like the way Eric Clapton plays. His solos sound just like Albert King. Eric is just too much. And Ginger Baker, he's like an octopus, man. He's a real natural drummer."

Following Hendrix's arrival in London, Chandler began recruiting members for a band designed to highlight his talents. Hendrix met guitarist Noel Redding at an audition for The New Animals, where Redding's knowledge of blues progressions impressed Hendrix, who stated that he also liked Redding's hairstyle. Chandler asked Redding if he wanted to play bass guitar in Hendrix's band; Redding agreed.

Jimi Hendrix : "I moved into a flat with Chas Chandler. It used to belong to Ringo. In fact, they only took the drums away the other day. There's stereo all over the place and a very kinky bathroom with lots of mirrors. Immediately complaints started to pour in. We used to get complaints about loud, late parties when we were out of town! We'd come back next morning and hear all the complaints. Chas got real mad about it, but I didn't let it bug me."

Chandler began looking for a drummer and soon after contacted Mitch Mitchell through a mutual friend.

Mitch Mitchell : "I knew Chas vaguely from the Animals, and he said, 'Hey look, do you want to come and have a play with this guy I brought over?' I didn't realize it at the time, but of course, it was an audition. I went down to this little basement strip club in Soho and there was Jimi with a Fender Stratocaster upside-down with a kind of fake London Fog raincoat on, with his wild hair, and Noel Redding, who had been playing with Jimi I think for a couple of days, who I found out later was a guitarist, really, playing bass. I think there was a keyboard player, if memory serves me right, from Nero and the Gladiators. That was the idea first off, to maybe have a keyboard player."

Mitchell, who had recently been fired from Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, participated in a rehearsal with Redding and Hendrix where they found common ground in their shared interest in rhythm and blues.

Mitch Mitchell : "I just took down a tiny little Ludwig drum kit and said, 'What do you want?' basically. 'What are you looking for and what's it about?' I remember to this day, these tiny little amplifiers, and Hendrix was not happy with these little amplifiers so he was starting to kick them around. Like a lot of auditions, it really came down to the lowest common denominator. [We played] a bit of Chuck Berry, a bit of this, bit of that. He played a couple of things on the guitar that I found interesting - the style - and it kind of sparked me off. I used to get a lot of demos from, like, Curtis Mayfield, early Impressions things. And Hendrix was the first person I'd ever seen who could actually play that Curtis Mayfield style, which was unusual. So I named a Jerry Butler song, or an Impressions thing, and he knew it and could play it, and I thought, 'Oh, interesting.' I mean, I'd never been around that area of music before."

When Chandler phoned Mitchell later that day to offer him the position, he readily accepted.

Mitch Mitchell : "What did surprise me, very much, is that it appears that a lot of people had been going for auditions and had been playing with Jimi for about two weeks prior to me hearing about this. London's not that large a place, and in those days, there weren't that many drummers about. A lot of my peers, colleagues - call them what you will - they'd gone for the job. Aynsley Dunbar and Mickey Waller had gone, and knew about this guy and they wanted the job, basically. That's what surprised me, because I didn't hear about it. I think I actually asked Chas, the manager, 'What's on offer? What's the deal here?' It was like, 'Well, look. We've got nothing, apart from a chance. There's two weeks' work, basically.' And I'd gone, 'Well, okay. I tell you what. I'll give it a crack. I'll have a go for two weeks.' What have you got to lose? You're 19 years old, and in fairness to the music, there was something that I could see was potentially inspiring."

Chandler also convinced Hendrix to change the spelling of his first name from Jimmy to the more exotic Jimi.

Jimi Hendrix : "I couldn't work too much because I didn't have a permit. If I was going to stay in England I had to get enough jobs to have a long permit. So what we had to do was line up a lot of gigs. Chas knows lots of telephone numbers. He helped me find my bassist and drummer and form the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was very hard to find the right sidemen, people who were feeling the same as me."



In late October 1966, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, managers of the Who, signed the Experience to their newly formed label, Track Records

Mitch Mitchell : "We had no songs when we first started, so for the first couple of gigs, we were doing stuff like 'Midnight Hour,' anything we could think of, quite honestly."

In mid-November, they performed at the Bag O'Nails nightclub in London, with Clapton, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Brian Jones, Mick Jagger, and Kevin Ayers in attendance. The performance earned Hendrix his first interview, published in Record Mirror with the headline: "Mr. Phenomenon!".



Chandler and the Experience found time to record between performances in Europe. They began on October 23, recording "Hey Joe" at De Lane Lea Studios, with Chandler as producer and Dave Siddle as engineer.

The song featured backing vocals by The Breakaways. Soon after the session began, Chandler asked Hendrix to turn his guitar amplifier down, and an argument ensued. Chandler commented

Chas Chandler : "Jimi threw a tantrum because I wouldn't let him play guitar loud enough ... He was playing a Marshall twin stack, and it was so loud in the studio that we were picking up various rattles and noises."

Chandler decided that they should use an Experience original for the B-side of the single, so he encouraged Hendrix to start writing; he composed his first Experience song, "Stone Free", the following day.

Mitch Mitchell : "Bless his heart, Chas was hocking every bass he owned in sight just to subsidize the band and recording time. When we first started recording from the Hendrix days, we had Chas Chandler working as the producer. Don't forget, the Animals' 'House of the Rising Sun' cost £4 to make and was done in 15 minutes, first take. And it sounded good."

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The Experience's first single, "Hey Joe", backed with "Stone Free", was released on 16 December 1966.



After appearances on the UK television shows Ready Steady Go! and the Top of the Pops, "Hey Joe" entered the UK charts on December 29 and peaked at number six.



"Hey Joe" was not a Hendrix composition – it was written by Billy Roberts and recorded by several groups prior to the Experience. Hendrix commented, "That record isn't us. The next one's gonna be different. We're working on an LP which will mainly be our stuff."



In the middle of December, producer Chas Chandler heard Hendrix toying around with a new guitar riff. "I heard him playing it at the flat and was knocked out. I told him to keep working on that, saying, 'That's the next single!'"



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The Experience reconvened at De Lane Lea on 11 January 1967. As "Hey Joe" was gaining chart momentum in the UK, they began working on their second single, which featured Hendrix's second songwriting effort : "Purple Haze".

The track presented a more complex arrangement than the band's previous recordings, and required four hours of studio time to complete, which Chandler considered extravagant.

Chas Chandler : "With 'Purple Haze', Hendrix and I were striving for a sound and just kept going back in, two hours at a time, trying to achieve it. It wasn't like we were there for days on end. We recorded it, and then Hendrix and I would be sitting at home saying, 'Let's try that.' Then we would go in for an hour or two. That's how it was in those days. However long it took to record one specific idea, that's how long we would book. We kept going in and out."

The session was the first time that he and the group had experimented with guitar effects. Acoustic engineer Roger Mayer introduced Hendrix to the Octavia, an octave-doubling effect pedal, in December 1966, and he first recorded with the effect during the guitar solo of "Purple Haze".

Mitch Mitchell : "Hendrix came in and kind of hummed us the riff and showed Noel the chords and the changes. I listened to it and we went, 'OK, let's do it.' We got it on the third take as I recall."

"Purple Haze" (b/w "51st Anniversary") was released in March 1967 and reached #3 in the UK charts.



Jimi Hendrix : "I dream a lot and I put my dreams down as songs. I wrote one called 'First Look Around the Corner' and another called 'The Purple Haze,' which was about a dream I had that I was walking under the sea. It had about a thousand, thousand words ... I had it all written out. It was about going through, through this land. This mythical ... because that's what I like to do is write a lot of mythical scenes. You know, like the history of the wars on Neptune."



Released in the US in June 1967, it became his first chart entry - reaching number 65.



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In May 1967 he released the single "The Wind Cries Mary". Backed by "Highway Chile", it reached number six on the UK Singles Chart.



Chandler was dissatisfied with the sound quality of the 11 January 1967 recordings and frustrated by the large number of noise complaints that they had received from people living and working near De Lane Lea. Brian Jones and Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones encouraged Chandler to try Olympic Studios, which was considered the top independent London studio.

Chandler booked time at Olympic, where, on 3 February 1967, he and the Experience met sound engineer Eddie Kramer. During Kramer's first session with the group, he recorded Mitchell's drums on two tracks in stereo, leaving the remaining two tracks available for Redding's bass and rhythm guitar parts played by Hendrix. Kramer's unorthodox approach captured the live sound of the band using all four available tracks.

Mitch Mitchell : "We were fortunate enough to be around some pretty competent engineers. There was a certain amount of talent going around, especially in England then. It strikes me, looking back on it, English engineers made the most of the limited capabilities of the technology. They knew the structure of the rooms and they knew what mikes to use and where to record things from. They would make the most of the acoustics with limited equipment. And Hendrix did have a natural capability of working in the studio. To him, that was like his palate of colors. There are some people who feel very comfortable behind the board and know how things work. He was just very natural with the technology that existed. I don't know how much time he'd spent working in studios before."



Chas Chandler : "That was recorded at the tail end of the session for "Fire". We had about twenty minutes or so left. I suggested we cut a demo of "The Wind Cries Mary". Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding hadn't heard it, so they were going about it without a rehearsal. They played it once through. In all he put on four or five more overdubs, but the whole thing was done in twenty minutes. That was our third single."

According to Chandler, by this time Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell had begun to complain about their limited input. Chandler explained that financial considerations influenced the creative dynamic:

Chas Chandler : "They were sort of fighting the fact that they had no say during recording sessions ... they were starting to come up with suggestions, but ... We didn't need to be arguing with Noel for ten minutes and Mitch for five ... We just couldn't afford the time."

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'Are You Experienced', the debut studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was released in May 1967. Chris Stamp designed the cover of the UK version of 'Are You Experienced', which featured a photo of Hendrix, Mitchell, and Redding taken by Bruce Fleming. Chandler made a point of requesting that the band member's faces be clearly visible in the photograph. Stamp hired graphic artist Alan Aldridge to design the sleeve's psychedelic lettering.



On 13 December 1966, after taking a five-week break from recording while they performed in Europe, the Experience reconvened at CBS with Chas Chandler producing. Assisted by engineer Mike Ross, the band were especially productive during the session, recording instrumentation and vocals for "Foxey Lady" and basic instrumental tracks for "Love or Confusion", "Can You See Me", and "Third Stone from the Sun". Ross recalled the impact of Hendrix's Marshall stacks: "It was so loud you couldn't stand in the studio ... I'd never heard anything like it in my life." When Ross asked Hendrix where he would like the microphone placed Hendrix replied: "Oh, man, just put a mic about twelve feet away on the other side of the studio. It'll sound great."

On 15 December 1966, finishing touches were made on the four rhythm tracks that were recorded the previous session. Although Chandler enjoyed working at CBS and he appreciated the high quality of the recordings they made there, he ended his professional connection with the studio after a disagreement between him and owner Jake Levy over his failure to make payment. The fifth and final song recorded there was "Red House". As stereophonic sound was not yet popular among music fans, these recordings were all monaural mixes; Ross explained: "back then ... mono was king. All the effort went into the mono." He estimated that they spent no more than 30 minutes mixing any one track.

On December 21, 1966, Chandler and the Experience returned to De Lane Lea with Dave Siddle as engineer. They recorded two alternate versions of "Red House" and began work on "Remember".

On 20 February 1967, the Experience continued working on Are You Experienced, recording "I Don't Live Today", which featured a manual wah-wah effect that predated the pedal unit.



On 29 March 1967 at De Lane Lea studios, the band worked on another newly written Hendrix composition, "Manic Depression", which was later rejected in favour of a re-mix completed at Olympic. On 3 April 1967, the Experience returned to Olympic, adding overdubs and completing final mixes on several unfinished masters. During the eight-hour session, the band recorded three new songs, including "May This Be Love", and "Are You Experienced?".

Despite its sexual overtones, "Fire" had an innocuous origin. Noel Redding, bass player for the Experience, invited Hendrix to his mother's house on a cold New Year's Eve in Folkestone, England, after a performance. Hendrix asked Noel's mother if he could stand next to her fireplace to warm himself. She agreed, but her Great Dane was in the way, so Hendrix let out with, "Aw, move over, Rover, and let Jimi take over". Hendrix later joked with the lyric: "Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to find her poor dog a bone, but when she bent over Rover took over, 'cause Rover had a bone of his own! Shakespeare, page 35!"



The North American edition of 'Are You Experienced' featured a new cover. Hendrix disliked the UK cover, so arrangements were made for a new photo shoot with graphic designer Karl Ferris. Hendrix wanted "something psychedelic", so Ferris took colour photographs of the band at Kew Gardens in London, using a fisheye lens. Ferris chose the cover's yellow background and its surreal purple lettering.



As well as a new cover, the North American edition of 'Are You Experienced' featured a new track list, which omitted "Red House", "Remember", and "Can You See Me", and included the first three singles : "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", and "The Wind Cries Mary".

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On 31 March 1967, while the Experience waited to perform at the London Astoria, Hendrix and Chandler discussed ways in which they could increase the band's media exposure. When Chandler asked journalist Keith Altham for advice, Altham suggested that they needed to do something more dramatic than the stage show of The Who, which involved the smashing of instruments. Hendrix joked: "Maybe I can smash up an elephant", to which Altham replied: "Well, it's a pity you can't set fire to your guitar".

Chandler, with a flashing lightbulb flashing a-top his bonce, asked road manager Gerry Stickells to procure some lighter fluid. During the show, Hendrix gave an especially dynamic performance before setting his guitar on fire at the end of a 45-minute set.

One of Hendrix roadies in 1967 was future Motörhead frontman Lemmy -

Lemmy : "I was sleeping on [Jimi Hendrix's roadie] Neville Chester's floor — he was sharing a flat with Noel Redding, so whenever they needed an extra pair of hands I was right there. I didn't get the job for any talent or anything. But I did see Jimi play a lot. Twice a night for about three months. I'd seen him play backstage too. He had this old Epiphone guitar — it was a 12-string, strung as a six string — and he used to stand up on a chair backstage and play it. Why he stood up on the chair, I don't know."



Lemmy : "Neville took care of all the electrics, I just humped all Hendrix's gear. When he was playing I'd watch him on stage from a chair in the wings. You could never tell how he did it. He loved to fuck off all the guitar players in the audience. Graham Nash sitting backstage with his ear on the stacks all night – none of this glad-handing you get backstage now with the fucking canapés. In those days people wanted to learn and improve."

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Although popular in Europe at the time, the Experience's first US single, "Hey Joe", failed to chart. The group's fortunes improved when Paul McCartney recommended them to the organizers of the Monterey Pop Festival. He insisted that the event would be incomplete without Hendrix, whom he called "an absolute ace on the guitar".

Jimi Hendrix : "Paul McCartney was the big bad Beatle, the beautiful cat who got us the gig at the Monterey Pop Festival. That was our start in America."

On 18 June 1967, introduced by Brian Jones as "a brilliant performer, The most exciting guitarist I have ever heard", Hendrix opened with a fast arrangement of Howlin' Wolf's song "Killing Floor". The Experience went on to perform renditions of "Hey Joe", B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby", Chip Taylor's "Wild Thing", and Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone", and four original compositions: "Foxy Lady", "Can You See Me", "The Wind Cries Mary", and "Purple Haze". The set ended with Hendrix setting his guitar on fire and tossing pieces of it out to the audience.

Jimi Hendrix : "Everything was perfect. I said: "Wow! Everything's together! What am I gonna do?" In other words, I was scared at that, almost. I was scared to go up there and play in front of all those people. You really want to turn those people on. It's just like a feeling of really deep concern. You get very intense. That's the way I look at it. That's natural for me. Once you hit the first note, or once the first thing goes down, then it's all right. Let's get to those people's butts!"



Rolling Stone's Alex Vadukul wrote: "When Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival he created one of rock's most perfect moments. Standing in the front row of that concert was a 17-year-old boy named Ed Caraeff. Caraeff had never seen Hendrix before nor heard his music, but he had a camera with him and there was one shot left in his roll of film. As Hendrix lit his guitar, Caraeff took a final photo. It would become one of the most famous images in rock and roll."



Jimi Hendrix : "When I was in Britain I used to think about America every day. I'm American. I wanted people here to see me. I also wanted to see whether we could make it back here. And we made it, man, because we did our own thing, and it really was our own thing and nobody else's. We had our beautiful rock-blues-country-funky-freaky sound, and it was really turning people on. I felt like we were turning the whole world on to this new thing, the best, most lovely new thing. So I decided to destroy my guitar at the end of the song as a sacrifice. You sacrifice things you love. I love my guitar."

After the festival, the Experience was booked for five concerts at Bill Graham's Fillmore, with Big Brother and the Holding Company and Jefferson Airplane. Following their successful West Coast introduction, which included a free open-air concert at Golden Gate Park and a concert at the Whisky a Go Go, the Experience was booked as the opening act for the first American tour of The Monkees.



The Monkees requested Hendrix as a supporting act because they were fans, but their young audience disliked the Experience, who left the tour after six shows. Chandler later said he engineered the tour to gain publicity for Hendrix.



Jimi Hendrix : "Music makes me high onstage, and that's the truth. It's almost like being addicted to music. You see, onstage I forget everything, even the pain. Look at my thumb – how ugly it's become. While I'm playing I don't think about it. I just lay out there and jam. You get into such a pitch sometimes that you go up into another thing. You don't forget about the audience, but you forget about all the paranoia, that thing where you're saying: "Oh gosh, I'm onstage – what am I going to do now?" Then you go into this other thing, and it turns out to be almost like a play in certain ways. I have to hold myself back sometimes because I get so excited – no, not excited, involved."

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His fourth single, "Burning Of The Midnight Lamp" was released in August 1967.



Work on the track began on 9 May 1967 at London's Olympic Sound Studios during writing and recording sessions for their second album. Hendrix had been curious about a harpsichord that was stored in the facility's Studio A, so on this day he sat at the instrument and began writing "Burning of the Midnight Lamp". Hendrix attempted four takes before stopping for the day, producing a rough demo that was approximately a minute and a half in length.



After a month-long break from the studio while playing gigs in Europe, the Experience returned to Olympic on 5 June 1967. They devoted the session to a new Hendrix song titled "Cat Talking to Me", recording 17 takes before deciding that the second was the superior version. Although the song showed promise, no further work was completed on it, and it remains unreleased.

On 18 June 1967, the Experience made its U.S. debut at the Monterey Pop Festival. While they were in California, Chandler booked session time at Houston Studios in Los Angeles. Although they worked on "Burning of the Midnight Lamp" and a new Hendrix composition, "The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice", they eventually abandoned the inferior recordings.

Chas Chandler : "I booked three days there because I was told it was a state-of-the-art studio, but it was dire. The place was like a rehearsal studio compared to Olympic. Los Angeles was so far behind at that time."



Hendrix finished writing the song on a plane journey between tour dates in Los Angeles and New York City on 3 July, and The Experience returned to work on the song at New York's Mayfair Studio on July 6, recording over 30 takes. The following day the song was completed with overdubs – including backing vocals by R&B group Sweet Inspirations.

Jimi Hendrix : "There are some very personal things in there. But I think everyone can understand the feeling when you're travelling that no matter what your address there is no place you can call home. The feeling of a man in a little old house in the middle of a desert where he is burning the midnight lamp ... you don't mean for things to be personal all the time, but it is."

Backed with the specially-recorded B-side "The Stars That Play with Laughing Sam's Dice", the single peaked at number 18 in the UK chart. The single marks Hendrix's first use of the wah-wah effect on his guitar.

The track features a largely unidentified group of people referred to as "The Milky Way Express" providing backing vocals, whistles and other sounds, which is said to include musician Frank Zappa. Due to its title, it has been suggested that the song is a reference to the hallucinogenics STP and LSD.



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'Axis: Bold as Love', the second studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was released on 1 December 1967 - only seven months after the release of the group's debut album. It peaked at number five and spent 16 weeks on the UK charts. In February 1968, it charted at number three in the United States.

The album cover depicts Hendrix and the Experience as various forms of Vishnu, incorporating a painting of them by Roger Law, from a photo-portrait by Karl Ferris. Melody Maker journalist Nick Jones described the artwork as a "beautiful fold out package" that compensated for the "very poor presentation" of Are You Experienced. Likening the design to the cover image on the Beatles' recent Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he said it showed Hendrix "with a lot of freaky looking Indian cats and gods, sages and one guy with an elephant's trunk for a nose or something!"

It was designed without Hendrix's approval, and he publicly expressed his dissatisfaction, stating that the cover would have been more appropriate had it highlighted his American Indian heritage. Hendrix commented : "The three of us have nothing to do with what's on the Axis cover.".



The Experience returned to Olympic Studios in London on 4 May 1967, to begin composing material for a follow-up LP.  With Chas Chandler as producer, Eddie Kramer as engineer, and George Chkiantz as second engineer, the band started the session by working on a Noel Redding original that he had written about hippies, titled "She's So Fine". It featured background vocals by Hendrix and Mitch Mitchell.

The band also made initial recordings of what would become "If Six Was Nine", using the working titles of "Section A" and "Section B" to identify its two distinct segments. During a session the following day, Hendrix and Mitchell improved "Section B", now titled "Symphony of Experience", by re-recording most of their guitar and drum parts. Percussion effects were created by Chandler, Hendrix, and guests Graham Nash and Gary Leeds [from the Walker Brothers] stomping their feet on a drum platform. As an additional oddity, Hendrix played a recorder on the track. Also recorded during these sessions was the experimental track "EXP" - which reflected his growing interest in science fiction and outer space.



'Axis: Bold As Love''s scheduled release date was almost delayed when Hendrix lost the master tape of side one of the LP, leaving it in the back seat of a London taxi. With the deadline looming, Hendrix, Chas Chandler, and engineer Eddie Kramer remixed most of side one in a single overnight session, but they could not match the quality of the lost mix of "If Six Was Nine". Bassist Noel Redding had a tape recording of this mix, which had to be smoothed out with an iron as it had gotten wrinkled. During the verses, Hendrix doubled his singing with a guitar line which he played one octave lower than his vocals. Hendrix voiced his disappointment about having re-mixed the album so quickly, and he felt that it could have been better had they been given more time.

Kramer was patient with Hendrix, who often demanded numerous re-takes; however, by October 1967, Chandler had grown weary of the guitarist's perfectionism. Noel Redding was also frustrated by Hendrix's repeated demands for re-takes, and began to resent Hendrix's explicit instructions regarding what he played in the studio.

Mitch Mitchell : "Axis was the first time that it became apparent that Jimi was pretty good working behind the mixing board, as well as playing, and had some positive ideas of how he wanted things recorded. It could have been the start of any potential conflict between him and Chas in the studio."



Many of the songs on Axis: Bold as Love were rarely performed live. Only "Spanish Castle Magic" and "Little Wing" - On which Hendrix plays his guitar through a Leslie speaker for the first time. Hendrix said that "Little Wing" was his impression of the Monterey Pop Festival put into the form of a girl.

"You Got Me Floating", featuring a swirling backwards guitar solo opens the second side of the album. Roy Wood and Trevor Burton from The Move, who toured with Hendrix on a package tour through Britain during winter 1967, supplied backing vocals. According to Wood, he and Burton were in the studio next door while the song was being recorded, and Redding came by and asked them if they would like to sing on it. The following track, "Castles Made of Sand", is a ballad that also includes a backwards guitar solo.

Other songs on the album include "Up from the Skies", "Wait Until Tomorrow", "Ain't No Telling", "One Rainy Wish", "Little Miss Lover", and "Bold as Love" - which closes the album. The song's coda features the first recording of stereo phasing.


Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote

daf

The Story So Further : 1968-1970
QuoteThe Jimi Hendrix Experience began to record their version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" on 21 January 1968, at Olympic Studios in London. Hendrix recorded a large number of takes on the first day, shouting chord changes at Dave Mason who had appeared at the session and played an additional twelve-string guitar. Halfway through the session, bass player Noel Redding became dissatisfied with the proceedings and left. Mason then took over on bass, though the final bass part was played by Hendrix himself.

Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones also features on the recording playing various percussion instruments on the track. He originally recorded a piano part, but it sounded so bloody awful that it was mixed out.



Kramer and Chas Chandler mixed the first version on 26 January 1968, but Hendrix was quickly dissatisfied with the result and went on re-recording and overdubbing guitar parts over several months during the summer at the Record Plant studio in New York City, moving the master tape from a four-track to a twelve-track to a sixteen-track machine.

[engineer] Tony Bongiovi : "Recording these new ideas meant he would have to erase something. In the weeks prior to the mixing, we had already recorded a number of overdubs, wiping track after track. he kept saying, 'I think I hear it a little bit differently.'"



Released as a single in September 1968, "All Along the Watchtower" reached number 20 on the Billboard chart - Hendrix's highest ranking American single. In the UK, it was released a month later, in October, and peaked at #5 in the UK chart.

Bob Dylan : "It overwhelmed me, really. He had such talent, he could find things inside a song and vigorously develop them. He found things that other people wouldn't think of finding in there. He probably improved upon it by the spaces he was using. I took license with the song from his version, actually, and continue to do it to this day."

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'Electric Ladyland', the third and final studio album by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was released by Reprise Records in North America on 16 October 1968, and by Track Records in the UK nine days later.

Hendrix had written to Reprise describing what he wanted for the cover art, but was mostly ignored. He expressly asked for a colour photo by Linda Eastman of the group sitting with children on a sculpture from Alice in Wonderland in Central Park, and drew a picture of it for reference.



The company instead used a blurred red and yellow photo of his headtaken by Karl Ferris during a performance at the Saville Theatre.



In the UK, Track Records used its art department, which produced a cover image by photographer David Montgomery, depicting nineteen nude women lounging in front of a black background. Hendrix expressed initial displeasure and surprise with this "naked lady" cover, which he found disrespectful. The cover was banned by several record dealers as "pornographic", while others sold it with the gatefold cover turned inside out, or in a brown wrapper.



The Experience began recording Electric Ladyland at several studios in the US and UK between July 1967 and January 1968. Recording resumed on 18 April 1968, at the newly opened Record Plant Studios in New York City, with Chas Chandler as producer and engineers Eddie Kramer and Gary Kellgren.

Hendrix was famous for his studio perfectionism; he and drummer Mitch Mitchell recorded over 50 takes of "Gypsy Eyes" over three sessions. Hendrix was insecure about his voice and often recorded his vocals hidden behind studio screens. He sang backing vocals himself on the title track, "Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)", and on "Long Hot Summer Night". As recording progressed, Chandler became frustrated with Hendrix's perfectionism and his demands for repeated takes.



Hendrix allowed friends and guests to join them in the studio, which contributed to a chaotic and crowded environment in the control room and led Chandler to sever his professional relationship with Hendrix.

Noel Redding : "There were tons of people in the studio; you couldn't move. It was a party, not a session."

Redding, who had formed his own band in mid-1968, Fat Mattress, found it increasingly difficult to fulfil his commitments with the Experience, so Hendrix played many of the bass parts. Whatever the tensions behind the scenes, Redding's was given a second solo spot on an experience album : "Little Miss Strange" featured twin lead vocals from Redding and Mitchell, with Redding playing acoustic guitar as well as bass.

Noel Redding : "Jimi is a very good guitarist, but he was very hard to work with. I think he suffers from a split personality. He's a genius guitarist and his writing is very good, but he whips himself. He gets everybody around him very uptight because he worries about everything. God knows why. I could never understand why he worried so much. I mean, we were earning a fortune on the road. On three occasions, we earned over $100,000 for a single performance. In the last 12 months, I don't think we ever copped less than $25,000 for a night's work."



Hendrix experimented with other combinations of musicians, including Jefferson Airplane's Jack Casady and Traffic's Steve Winwood, who played bass and organ on the bum-numbing fifteen-minute slow-blues jam "Voodoo Chile".

During its recording, Kramer experimented with innovative studio techniques such as backmasking, chorus effect, echo, and flanging. The album also features a cross-section of Hendrix's wide range of genres and styles of music, including the New Orleans-style R&B of Earl King's "Come On", and the epic studio production of "1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)".



The album also touched on topical social commentary with "House Burning Down" - which lamented the riots that were occuring in black neighbourhoods.

Jimi Hendrix : "Race isn't a problem in my world. I don't look at things in terms of races. I look at things in terms of people. I'm not thinking about black people or white people. I'm thinking about the obsolete and the new. There's no colour part now, no black and white. The frustrations and riots going on today are all about more personal things. Everybody has wars within themselves, so they form different things, and it comes out as a war against other people. They get justified as they justify others in their attempts to get personal freedom. That's all it is. It isn't that I'm not relating to the Black Panthers. I naturally feel a part of what they're doing, in certain respects. Somebody has to make a move, and we're the ones hurting most as far as peace of mind and living are concerned. But I'm not for the aggression or violence or whatever you want to call it. I'm not for guerrilla warfare. Not frustrated things like throwing little cocktail bottles here and there or breaking up a store window. That's nothing. Especially in your own neighbourhood."

Other songs included the album opener : "...And the Gods Made Love", "Rainy Day, Dream Away", "Moon, Turn the Tides....Gently Gently Away", and "Still Raining, Still Dreaming"



In France and the Benelux countries, Hendrix's recordings were released by Barclay Records, and Electric Ladyland featured a front cover photograph by Alain Dister, and inner sleeve photographs by Jean-Pierre Leloir and Donald Silverstein.



The double LP was the Experience's most commercially successful release and Hendrix's only number-one album. It charted at number one in the US, where it spent two weeks at the top spot, and peaked at number six in the UK, where it spent 12 weeks on the chart.



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His next single, "Cross Town Traffic", was released in November 1968 in the US, and in April 1969 in the UK.

Despite being described by Billboard magazine as a "pulsating swinger that will make a powerful chart dent", the single only reached number 52 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 37 on the UK Singles Chart.



Unlike many of the tracks on the album, this recording features the full line-up of the Experience with Hendrix, Noel Redding, and Mitch Mitchell. Hendrix also plays a makeshift kazoo made with a comb and tissue paper in tandem at points with his lead guitar, and backing vocals are performed by Redding along with Dave Mason.



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By February 1969, Noel Redding had grown weary of Hendrix's unpredictable work ethic and his creative control over the Experience's music. During the previous month's European tour, interpersonal relations within the group had deteriorated, particularly between Hendrix and Redding. In his diary, Redding documented the building frustration during early 1969 recording sessions: "On the first day, as I nearly expected, there was nothing doing ... On the second it was no show at all. I went to the pub for three hours, came back, and it was still ages before Jimi ambled in. Then we argued ... On the last day, I just watched it happen for a while, and then went back to my flat."

The last Experience sessions that included Redding—a re-recording of "Stone Free" for use as a possible single release—took place on 14 April 1969 at Olmstead and the Record Plant in New York.

The last performance of the original Experience line-up took place on 29 June 1969, at Barry Fey's Denver Pop Festival. Before the show, a journalist angered Redding by asking why he was there; the reporter then informed him that two weeks earlier Hendrix announced that he had been replaced with Billy Cox. The next day, Redding quit the Experience and returned to London. He announced that he had left the band and intended to pursue a solo career, blaming Hendrix's plans to expand the group without allowing for his input as a primary reason for leaving.

Noel Redding : "The recording sessions were chaos, and on stage, it was getting ridiculous. The audience wanted us to play the old Hendrix standards, but Jimi wanted to do his new stuff. The last straw came at the Denver Pop Festival when Jimi told a reporter that he was going to enlarge the band . . . without even consulting myself or our drummer, Mitch Mitchell. I went up to Jimi that night, said goodbye, and caught the next plane back to London. I don't think Jimi believed I'd do it. Later on, he phoned and asked me to come back, but I said stuff it. "I already had plans to get into my own thing. I'd formed a band late last year and we cut an album in December."



Noel Redding : "The problem with Mitch, and with Jimi too, is that they never saved any money. As fast as they got it, it was spent. But not me, mate. I've got me Rolls and I've got quite a kitty in the bank. I'm alright. Actually, I don't want you to think there's anything nasty between Jimi and I. We're still good friends. It's just that we can't work together anymore."

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In August 1969, he headlined the Woodstock Music and Art Fair that included many of the most popular bands of the time. For the concert, he added rhythm guitarist Larry Lee and conga players Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez. The band rehearsed for less than two weeks before the performance, and according to Mitchell, they never connected musically. Before arriving at the engagement, Hendrix heard reports that the size of the audience had grown enormously, which concerned him as he did not enjoy performing for large crowds.

Hendrix decided to move his midnight Sunday slot to Monday morning, closing the show. By the time the band took the stage around 8:00 a.m, by which time Hendrix had been awake for more than three days, the crowd of 400,000 people was reduced to 30,000–40,000.

Hendrix's performance included a rendition of the US national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner", with copious feedback, distortion, and sustain to imitate the sounds made by rockets and bombs. Contemporary political pundits described his interpretation as a statement against the Vietnam War.



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A legal dispute arose in 1966 regarding a record contract that Hendrix had entered into the previous year with producer Ed Chalpin. After two years of litigation, the parties agreed to a resolution that granted Chalpin the distribution rights to an album of original Hendrix material. Hendrix decided that they would record the LP, Band of Gypsys, during two live appearances. In preparation for the shows he formed an all-black power trio with Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. For the album cover, Capitol Records used a grainy photograph of Hendrix taken during the Fillmore East shows illuminated by the multi-coloured liquid light show projected by the Joshua Light Show.



The trio wrote and rehearsed material which they performed at a series of four shows over two nights on 31 December 1969 and 1 January 1970, at the Fillmore East. The album includes the track "Machine Gun", which during the song's extended instrumental breaks, Hendrix created sounds with his guitar that sonically represented warfare, including rockets, bombs, and diving planes.

Other songs on the album included opening track "Who Knows", "Power to Love", "Message of Love", and two Buddy Miles songs : "Changes" and "We Gotta Live Together" - which closed the album.

Eddie Kramer : "Mixing the Band of Gypsys album was a challenge. It was like Jimi was really almost pressured into doing it. Hearing Buddy's [vamping or musical improvisation] seemed to bother him. We were sitting there and he was like. 'Oh man, I wish Buddy would shut the fuck up.' He would listen to him and say, 'Can we cut some of those parts out?' I ended up editing a lot of Buddy's quote unquote 'jamming', where he would go off and sing a lot."

In the UK, Track Records used album cover art which proved controversial, as they had done with Electric Ladyland. It depicted unflattering puppets or dolls that resembled Hendrix, Brian Jones, Bob Dylan, and John Peel huddled next to a drab, corrugated backdrop. The significance of posing the three with Hendrix was not evident as they had no known association with the Band of Gypsys nor the group's material. Hendrix was an admirer of Dylan and recorded some of his songs; Jones, who died the year before, had participated in a recording session for Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower"; and Peel hosted BBC's Top Gear radio show when Hendrix performed there in 1967.



The Band of Gypsys album was the only official live Hendrix LP made commercially available during his lifetime. The album was released in April 1970 by Capitol Records; it reached the top ten in both the US and the UK. That same month a single was issued with "Stepping Stone" as the A-side and "Izabella" as the B-side, but Hendrix was dissatisfied with the quality of the mastering and he demanded that it be withdrawn and re-mixed, preventing the songs from charting and resulting in Hendrix's least successful single; it was also his last.

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During the first half of 1970, Hendrix sporadically worked on material for what would have been his next LP. Many of the tracks were posthumously released in 1971 as The Cry of Love.

Jimi Hendrix : "I want to be part of a big new musical expansion. That's why I have to find a new outlet for my music. We are going to stand still for a while and gather everything we've learned musically in the last 30 years, and we are going to blend all the ideas that worked into a new form of classical music. It's going to be something that will open up a new sense in people's minds. I dig Strauss and Wagner, those cats are good, and I think they are going to form the background of my music. Floating in the sky above it will be the blues – I've still got plenty of blues – and then there will be western sky music and sweet opium music (you'll have to bring your own opium!), and these will be mixed together to form one. And with this music we will paint pictures of earth and space, so that the listener can be taken somewhere. You have to give people something to dream on."

He had started writing songs for the album in 1968, but in April 1970 he told Keith Altham that the project had been abandoned. Soon afterward, he and his band took a break from recording and began the Cry of Love tour at the L.A. Forum, performing for 20,000 people.

On 17 July 1970, they appeared at the New York Pop Festival; Hendrix had again consumed too many drugs before the show, and the set was considered a disaster. The American leg of the tour, which included 32 performances, ended in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 1 August 1970. This would be Hendrix's final concert appearance in the US.

On 2 September 1970, he abandoned a performance in Aarhus after three songs, stating: "I've been dead a long time". Four days later, he gave his final concert appearance, at the Isle of Fehmarn Festival in Germany. He was met with booing and jeering from fans in response to his cancellation of a show slated for the end of the previous night's bill due to torrential rain and risk of electrocution. Immediately following the festival, Hendrix, Mitchell, and Cox travelled to London.



Jimi Hendrix : "The moment I feel that I don't have anything more to give musically, that's when I won't be found on this planet, unless I have a wife and children, because if I don't have anything to communicate through my music, then there is nothing for me to live for. I'm not sure I will live to be 28 years old, but then again, so many beautiful things have happened to me in the last three years. The world owes me nothing."

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On 16 September 1970, Hendrix performed in public for the last time during an informal jam at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho with Eric Burdon and his latest band, War. His performance was uncharacteristically subdued; he quietly played backing guitar, and refrained from the histrionics that people had come to expect from him. He died less than 48 hours later.

Jimi Hendrix : "When people fear death, it's a complete case of insecurity. Your body is only a physical vehicle to carry you from one place to another without getting into a lot of trouble. So you have this body tossed upon you that you have to carry around and cherish and protect and so forth, but even that body exhausts itself. The idea is to get your own self together, see if you can get ready for the next world, because there is one. Hope you can dig it. People still mourn when people die. That's self-sympathy. All human beings are selfish to a certain extent, and that's why people get so sad when someone dies. They haven't finished using him. The person who is dead ain't crying. Sadness is for when a baby is born into this heavy world."



Details are disputed concerning Hendrix's last day and death. He spent much of 17 September 1970, with Monika Dannemann in London, the only witness to his final hours. Dannemann said that she prepared a meal for them at her apartment in the Samarkand Hotel around 11 p.m., when they shared a bottle of wine. She drove him to the residence of an acquaintance at approximately 1:45 a.m., where he remained for about an hour before she picked him up and drove them back to her flat at 3 a.m. She said that they talked until around 7 a.m., when they went to sleep. Dannemann awoke around 11 a.m. and found Hendrix breathing but unconscious and unresponsive. She called for an ambulance at 11:18 a.m., and it arrived nine minutes later. Paramedics transported Hendrix to St Mary Abbot's Hospital where Dr. John Bannister pronounced him dead at 12:45 p.m. on 18 September 1970.

Jimi Hendrix : "I tell you, when I die I'm going to have a jam session. I want people to go wild and freak out. And knowing me, I'll probably get busted at my own funeral. The music will be played loud and it will be our music. I won't have any Beatles songs, but I'll have a few of Eddie Cochran's things and a whole lot of blues. Roland Kirk will be there, and I'll try and get Miles Davis along if he feels like making it. For that it's almost worth dying. Just for the funeral. It's funny the way people love the dead. You have to die before they think you are worth anything. Once you are dead, you are made for life. When I die, just keep on playing the records."

Monika Dannemann's account of the events often changed over the years, and an investigation by Hendrix's former girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, came to the conclusion that Hendrix most likely died accidentally after taking between 5 and 9 of Danneman's Vesparax sleeping tablets. Unfamiliar with the German brand, which contained two doses on one tablet, Hendrix would have been knocked out almost instantly. The delay in calling for an ambulance was due to her wanting to clear the flat of drugs. According to Eric Burdon, Dannemann phoned him as "the first light of dawn was coming through the window", and he was in the flat collecting incriminating evidence, before the ambulance arrived.



Mitch Mitchell : "There are a lot of things that we never said. I think what it comes down to is a kind of mutual respect for each other. Musically, I'd give him a hard time, he'd give me a hard time, though it was a very compatible situation from my side. It was very interesting to work with someone who would give you that ultimate freedom that seemed to have whatever time existed in your head. There were no boundaries, there were no limits at all. Jimi was irreplaceable, both as a friend and a musician. I miss him as much today."

The Single :
Quote"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" was written by Jimi Hendrix, and recorded by recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience.



Recorded in 1968, it first appeared as the final track on the Electric Ladyland album released that year. It contains improvised guitar and a vocal from Hendrix, backed by Noel Redding on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums.

Noel Redding : "We learned that song in the studio ... They had the cameras rolling on us as we played it"

After his death in 1970, Track Records released the song as a Maxi-single in the United Kingdom, featuring two previous singles on the B-side : "Hey Joe" and "All Along The Watchtower". It became Hendrix's only number one single on the UK Singles Chart, reaching the top spot in November 1970.



"Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" was developed from "Voodoo Chile", recorded 2 May 1968, during a studio jam with Steve Winwood on organ and Jack Casady on bass. The next day, Hendrix returned to the studio with Redding and Mitchell for the filming of a short documentary by ABC television.

Jimi Hendrix : "Someone was filming when we started doing [Voodoo Child]. We did that about three times because they wanted to film us in the studio, to make us—'Make it look like you're recording, boys'—one of them scenes, you know, so, 'OK, let's play this in E, a-one, a-two, a-three', and then we went into 'Voodoo Child'."

Other Versions includePhil Upchurch (1969)  /  Top of the Poppers  (1970)  /  The Gil Evans Orchestra (1974)  / Soft Cell (1983)  /  Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble (1984)  /  The Membranes (1990)  /  Divididos (1991)  /  Jesus Jones (1992)  /  Robert Dick (1993)  /  Melvin Taylor & The Slack Band (1995)  /  Robert Lucas (1997)  /  Ben Harper (1997)  /  The King (1997)  /  Angélique Kidjo (1998)  /  Gov't Mule (2003)  /  Hiram Bullock (2003)  /  Harry Manx & Kevin Breit (2003)  /  Rhythm Pigs (2003)  /  Earth, Wind & Fire (2004)  /  Gary Moore (2012)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  Corey Heuvel (2013)  /  8-Bit Arcade (2015)  /  Anne McCue (2017)  /  Justin Johnson (2020)  /  The Cat and Owl (2021)

On This Day  :
Quote17 November : British newspaper The Sun introduces the first topless 'Page 3 model', Stephanie Rahn.
17 November : Russia lands Lunokhod 1 unmanned remote-controlled vehicle on Moon
17 November : Douglas Engelbart receives the patent for the first computer mouse
17 November : Paul Allender, guitarist (Cradle of Filth), born in Colchester, England
17 November : Naunton Wayne, Welsh actor, dies aged 69
20 November : The Miss World 1970 beauty pageant, hosted by Bob Hope disrupted by women's liberation protesters
20 November : Phife Dawg, rapper (A Tribe called Quest), born Malik Izaak Taylor in Queens, New York
20 November : UN General Assembly accepts membership of People's Republic of China

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote  

daf

Apologies for the shocking state of the links - had to resort to Vimeo to get a few of these.

I normally like to link to the official band youtube channels, as they're usually a bit more permanent, but for some reason, with a few exceptions, the Hendrix people have either not posted an official link, or they block other people who have - absolutely exasperating!

gilbertharding

Yeah, Jimi Hendrix's people are absolute whoppers.

I was trying to rootle out Ian 'Lemmy' Kilminster's amusing assessment of his erstwhile flatmate Noel Redding to post here as a contribution to the general gaiety, but I couldn't find it. The line "He said he was the best lead guitarist in Kent" springs to mind, but I can't find anything else now.

daf

Ooh, ta - I forgot Lemmy used to roadie for them (I'll see if I can find anything juicy to add to the posts - I've got 8 minutes before my edit window closes I think)

The Culture Bunker

I'm sure Jim having recently rolled a seven played a part in this happening - but Hendrix topping the charts with hardly his most commercial work still seems amazing. I've never really bought into the whole "guitar god" stuff from that era (Clapton, Page, Beck and so on) but our man here is the one exception I'll make.

gilbertharding

One of my main memories of this song is that my old friend at school, Stuart Judd - a boy who, despite this being the mid 80s, dressed as if he was a classic 70s 'head', with long hair, an army surplus greatcoat, literally always carrying an  LP in a Virgin record store carrier bag (when there was no Virgin record store for 50 miles). He was good to know, because his dad or uncle or someone had a great record collection, so if you gave him a TDK D90, he would return to school a few days later with all manner of great stuff on tape - including once, Electric Ladyland. A few days after he'd done me this service, he asked me what I thought of it, particularly the song 'Voodoo Chile', which he pronounced like the country, or the pepper.

I'm afraid I laughed. Sorry Stuart, wherever you are.

daf

Fun fact : Electric Ladyland was one of those 'auto-changer' double albums ('Tommy' was another I think) that was pressed with sides 1 and 4 on one disc, and 2 & 3 on the other - which led to some confusion when it got transferred to CD :

QuoteAs was common with multi-LP albums, sides one and four were pressed back to back on the same platter, likewise sides two and three. This was called auto-coupling or automatic sequence and was intended to make it easier to play through the entire album in sequence on automatic record-changers. In this case it has led to some CD releases of Electric Ladyland that have the sides in the incorrect one-four-two-three order.

daf

Quote from: gilbertharding on September 13, 2021, 08:30:38 PM
the song 'Voodoo Chile', which he pronounced like the country, or the pepper.

I'm afraid I laughed. Sorry Stuart, wherever you are.

Pretty sure that's exactly how I used to pronounce it too! :)

kalowski

Quote from: daf on September 13, 2021, 08:43:35 PM
Fun fact : Electric Ladyland was one of those 'auto-changer' double albums ('Tommy' was another I think) that was pressed with sides 1 and 4 on one disc, and 2 & 3 on the other - which led to some confusion when it got transferred to CD :
Songs in the Key of Life was another.

jamiefairlie

Well that's how it's written. What was wrong with Chil' for goodness sake!

kalowski

And I have a James Brown triple LP (Love, Power, Peace) which has sides numbered 1/6, 2/5, 3/4.

daf

In my Wagner-mania, I picked up a 5-album Siegfried set (Herbert Von Karajan, 1967) that's a complete bugger to play - side 1&10, 2&9 etc. ridiculous!

daf

293b. (MM 242.)  Don Fardon –  Indian Reservation



From :  28 November - 4 December 1970
Weeks : 1
B-side : Hudson Bay
Bonus : Promo film

The Story So Far :
QuoteDonald Arthur Maughn was born in Coventry, Warwickshire, England. Prior to becoming a singer, he worked as a draughtsman for Alfred Herberts Ltd in Coventry. Before his solo success, Fardon was a singer with The Sorrows who were formed in 1963 in Coventry by Pip Whitcher, and were part of the British beat boom of the 1960s. They were a fixture in the English mod scene and are sometimes referred to as Freakbeat. The band toured Germany for a month in 1963, playing several sets each day. The band's first recording was a version of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", recorded in odd-ball genius record producer Joe Meek's bathroom!

Don Fardon : "I formed the Sorrows in 1963. We were picked to play in a Battle Of The Bands competition; about eleven local bands. We won it. The prize was a recording test at Pye Studios in London, for Tony Hatch. We auditioned, and Hatch told us to come back on two years – we weren't ready. But as we walked out, in walked John Schroeder, who was the man who did all the Sounds Orchestral stuff. He'd heard us and signed us on the spot."

They began working with producer John Schroeder, and released their first album, 'Take a Heart', in 1965 on the delicious Pye subsidiary Piccadilly Records.

Don Fardon : "He [Schroeder] signed us for three albums. As it happened we only did one, because the band split. We did about forty or fifty titles with him. The band split because we were supposed to be going to Italy, and I didn't want to do it. I had a new wife and a new baby, and I didn't want to go. So... the band went without me. I went back to engineering for a year or so. This was in '66. I wasn't bothered at the time. We'd got to the situation where we were working flat out, playing all over Europe. But there was a massive cash flow problem. We were always waiting for money, and by the time it came, it was spent. Along with every other band, right? I was very disillusioned. I was planning on calling it a day, and I was getting grief from my friends and family."



Fardon left in 1966 to go solo. His first single, "It's Been Nice Lovin' You" (b/w "I Won't Be Long") was released in January 1967. Later in the year he released a four track EP in France which featured : "The Letter", "Daytripper", "Captain Man", and "We Can Make It Together"

His big break came with "(The Lament Of The Cherokee) Indian Reservation" (b/w "Dreamin' Room") which was released in October 1968. While it flopped in the UK, it reached #20 in the US chart - result! Other singles released in 1968 included "Sally Goes Round The Moon" (b/w "How Do You Break A Broken Heart"), "Take A Heart", and "Treat Her Right", (b/w "Goodbye").



His next single "Good Lovin'" (b/w "Ruby's Picture On My Wall") emerged like a rare gas in March 1969, followed by "I'm Alive" (b/w "Keep On Loving Me") in August, and "Let The Live Live" in October 1969.

He finally broke into the UK charts in April 1970, when his brilliant psychedelic single "Belfast Boy", (b/w "Echoes Of The Cheers") reached #32 in the UK charts. The song was a tribute to ace footballer Georgie Best, superstar, who broke down stuffy social barriers by walking like a woman and wearing a bra.



And it was third time lucky when "Indian Reservation", released again in September 1970, climbed to the top of the Melody Maker totem pole at the end of November 1970. Further singles included "Girl" (b/w "San Diego") in January 1971; "Follow Your Drum" (b/w "Get Away John") - which reached number 16 on the Australian Singles Chart in May 1972; "Delta Queen" (b/w "Hometown Baby") in January 1973 - which reached number 86 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and  "Lady Zelda" released in August 1973 - which died like a louse in a Russian's beard.



Don Fardon : "I broke off in 76, till about 1996. Twenty years. Punk was coming in. The last tour I did was with the Bay City Rollers, and I thought 'I don't belong here anymore' (laughs). So we bought some restaurants, my wife and I – ended up with about five. We loved it, absolutely loved it. It was good for us. Then I got a little show on BBC Coventry, which turned into an afternoon show, and I loved that. That lasted until about 1998."

Unfortunately, due to his record company Youngblood going into liquidation, Don barely saw any money from his smash hit . . .

Don Fardon : "Youngblood went into liquidation, and I was stuck. I met a guy who nearly bought the company (Youngblood). He went through the books, and told me that Indian Reservation eventually had sold ten million copies worldwide. I never got a penny. Not a penny. They clothed me and fed me... for which I was charged, of course. But I was only on a penny and five eighths royalty per copy anyway. An old penny, that is. 240 to the pound."

But he had a stroke of good fortune in 2010 when his 1969 flop single "I'm Alive" was chosen by Coca Cola for a six month tv campaign, swiftly followed by another by Vodafone for a Europe-wide campaign. Ker-chinggg!!

Don Fardon : "They (the record company) phoned up and said to me 'we've had this offer, would you be happy to go with it?'. I said, too right I'd be happy to go with it!"

The Single :
Quote"Indian Reservation" was written by John D. Loudermilk. The first hit version was a 1968 recording by Don Fardon



A well-known story told by John Loudermilk is that, when he was asked about the origins of the song, he fabricated the story that he wrote the song after his car was snowed in by a blizzard and he was taken in by a small group of Cherokee Indians. A self-professed prankster, he spun the tale that a Cherokee chieftain, "Bloody Bear Tooth", asked him to make a song about his people's plight on the Trail of Tears, even going so far as to claim that he had later been awarded "the first medal of the Cherokee Nation," not for writing the song, but for his "blood."

It was first recorded by Marvin Rainwater in 1959 and released on MGM as "The Pale Faced Indian", but that release went unnoticed. In 1967 Don Fardon recorded his version.

Don Fardon : "I was signed to a company called Youngblood – a young cockney producer called Miki Dallon. He'd been to America and come back with a boxful of demos. He was playing though them, and stopped at this one...said 'I like the sound of that... I think you'd make a good job of that'. I listened, and thought 'That's not very poppy'. In the end it was recorded on a session with five or six other songs. And it became a massive worldwide hit."

In 1971, The Raiders recorded "Indian Reservation" for Columbia Records, and it topped the Hot 100 on July 24 1971.

Don Fardon : "Eventually, it took me to the states as well. I kept saying to him [Miki Dallon] 'When Am I going to America? And he kept saying I need a few more hits before I could be booked onto tours over there. So in fact it took me until the 80s before I went over there. And I went at the invitation and the behest of the Cherokee Indian Nation. It was the 150th anniversary of the great Trail Of Tears, when they marched them from Colorado to Indiana, away from their traditional hunting grounds, in the dead of winter. Thousands of them died. And when we arrived at the venue and I realised what was going on, I was deeply moved. I was the only white person – never mind a Brit - among 3500 Native Americans, all in their traditional costumes. It was the most awesome thing, and a little un-nerving. I was glad that the chief – a woman, Wilma Mankiller, a fully qualified lawyer, welcomed me. Some of the younger guns were quite aggressive, asking me what I was doing? Why was I there? What was in it for me?"

Don Fardon's version reached number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968, #18 in Canada, #4 in Australia, #3 on the Officical UK Singles Chart, and Number 1 on the mint and skill Melody Maker chart in November 1970. The global sales were estimated at over one million copies.



In spite of the song's title, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma are not known as "reservations", and singing that they may some day "return" is at odds with fact that these Cherokee Nations still exist.

The lyrics vary somewhat among the recorded versions. Rainwater's version lacks the "Cherokee people!" chorus, but includes instead a series of "Hiya hiya ho!" chants. Rainwater's first verse has words not found in the others, such as "They put our papoose in a crib/and took the buck skin from our rib". Fardon sings the line: "Brick built houses by the score/ No more tepees anymore", not used in the Raiders' version.

Cherokee people have never lived in tipis, nor do they use the term "papoose". These are stereotypes and misconceptions, with the reservations and tipi assumptions usually based on Hollywood portrayals of Plains Indians. However the Cherokee are a Southeastern Woodlands Indigenous culture.

Other Versions includeJohn D. Loudermilk (1965)  /  Santo & Johnny (1968)  /  The Nashville Teens (1969)  /  Living Brass (1969)  /  Björn Skifs (1971)  /  Nordre Sving (1971)  /  Marco Polo (1971)  /  "Vi måste vakna" by Sten Nilsson (1971)  /  "African People" by The Jay Boys (1972)  /  "Cherokee heimo" by Frederik (1972)  /  "L'amie des esprits" by Martin Circus (1975)  /  Rohdes Rockers (1976)  /  Orlando Riva Sound (1979)  /  "African People" by Sugar Minott (1980)  /  Bad Sign (1986)  /  Long Tall Texans (1991)  /  Laibach (1994)  /  Blackhawk Walters (2008)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  zerobio (2015)  /  John McFee (2017)  /  Kali (2020)

On This Day :
Quote28 November : Richard Osman, TV presenter, born Richard Thomas Osman in Billericay, Essex
1 December : Independent People's Republic of South Yemen renames itself as People's Democratic Republic of Yemen
1 December : Luis Echeverria Alvarez sworn in as president of Mexico
1 December : Sarah Silverman, comic actress, born Sarah Kate Silverman in Bedford, New Hampshire, U.S.
2 December : Michael Tippett's opera "The Knot Garden" premieres in London

daf

294.  Dave Edmunds – I Hear You Knocking



From : 22 November 1970 – 2 January 1971
Weeks : 6
B-side : Black Bill

The Story So Far : 
QuoteDavid William Edmunds was born in Cardiff, Wales. As a ten-year-old, he first played in 1954 with a band called the Edmunds Bros Duo with his older brother Geoff; this was a piano duo. Then the brothers were in The Stompers later called The Heartbeats formed around 1957 with Geoff on rhythm guitar, Dave on lead guitar, Denny Driscoll on lead vocals, Johnny Stark on drums, Ton Edwards on bass, and Allan Galsworthy on rhythm. Then Dave and Geoff were in The 99ers along with scientist and writer Brian J. Ford.

The first group that Edmunds fronted was the Cardiff-based 1950s style rockabilly trio The Raiders formed in 1961, along with Brian 'Rockhouse' Davies on bass and Ken Collier on drums. The Raiders worked almost exclusively in the South Wales area, and went through numerous line-up changes, with Edmunds the only regular member.

In 1966, after a short spell in a Parlophone recording band, The Image, with local drummer Tommy Riley, Edmunds shifted to a more blues-rock sound, reuniting with Rob 'Congo' Jones and bassist John Williams and adding second guitarist Mickey Gee to form the short lived Human Beans, a band that played mostly in London and on the UK university circuit.

In 1967, the band recorded a cover of "Morning Dew" on the British Columbia label, that failed to have any chart impact. After just eighteen months, the core of 'Human Beans' formed a new band called Love Sculpture that again reinstated Edmunds, Jones and Williams as a trio. Their debut album, 'Blues Helping', included such songs as "Summertime" and "Wang Dang Doodle".



They are best known for their 1968 high speed cover version of the classical piece "Sabre Dance" by Aram Khachaturian [bless you!]. It became a hit after the track was featured in a Radio 1 Top Gear session recorded for John Peel - who was so impressed that he played it twice in the show - the mad bastard! Released as a single, "Sabre Dance", backed with "Think Of Love", reached the Top 5 of the UK Singles Chart in December 1968.

Dave Edmunds : "I started with a band called...ummm...well at first I had some record success with a band called Love Sculpture, which was just a local band from around my home town, Cardiff, in Wales ...and ahh..we got lucky and had a hit, with a thing called "Sabre Dance" Khachaturian classical thing, instrumental."



The single was featured on their second album 'Forms and Feelings', released in 1969, which also included: "In The Land of the Few", "Farandole", "People People", and a cover of Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me". The US version of the album also featured a recording of "Mars" from Gustav Holst's The Planets, but Holst's estate refused to license the tune for the UK version.



In 1970 Mickey Gee joined the band as a second guitarist, and Terry Williams replaced Rob Jones on drums. Love Sculpture split up after a US tour, having recorded two albums.

Dave Edmunds : "I didn't enjoy what happened after that. We were gigging all around England, and I didn't enjoy it so I decided not to do it, and concentrate on studio work."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After Love Sculpture split, Edmunds had a UK Christmas Number 1 single in 1970 with "I Hear You Knocking", a Smiley Lewis cover, which he came across while producing 'A Legend' - the first album by Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets'.

Dave Edmunds : "I knew some guys that had a recording studio, not a professional studio. I recorded "I Hear You Knocking" and EMI released it as just a single deal, not a record contract, just a one off deal, I had no manager, no band, no press agent ... and the record just took off with absolutely any promotion, it went to Christmas #1 in Britain for six weeks, which was the longest #1 Christmas single ever, and a few months later it did the same thing in America, it just went screaming up the charts. It must have been that the deejays loved it and they promoted the record instead of the record company doing it, because there wasn't a record company just a one off deal. Then I was stuck because I didn't even have an album to go with it."

The recording was the first release on Edmunds' manager's MAM Records label. This single also reached No. 4 in the US, making it Edmunds' biggest hit by far on either side of Atlantic Ocean. It sold over three million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The success of the single caused EMI's Regal Zonophone Records to use an option that it had to claim Edmunds' album, 1972's 'Rockpile'.



Edmunds had bought a house in Rockfield, Monmouth, a few miles away from Charles and Kingsley Ward's Rockfield Studios where he became an almost permanent fixture for the next twenty years. His working regime involved arriving at the studio in the early evening and working through till well after dawn, usually locked in the building alone. Applying the layered Spector sound to his own productions it was not unusual for Edmunds to multilayer up to forty separately recorded guitar tracks into the mix.

After learning the trade of producer, culminating in a couple of singles in the style of troubled nutcase Phil Spector : "Baby I Love You" and "Born to Be with You", he became linked with the pub rock movement of the early 1970s, producing (among others) Brinsley Schwarz, Ducks Deluxe, Flamin' Groovies, and blues rock band Foghat, using a stripped down, grittier sound.

His own solo LP from 1975, 'Subtle as a Flying Mallet', was similar in style.

Dave Edmunds"I had a big hit with "I Hear You Knocking". I got a bit lazy, there, spent a little money. And then thanks to Nick and especially Jake Riveria, we just got around together. I'm getting away from that...my "Subtle as a Flying Mallet" where I played everything myself and it sounds like a compilation album of various artists, but there's no continuity or flow to it at all. There's the two Phil Spector look-a-likes on there, some Everly Brothers and a few live tracks that I did with Brinsley Schwarz. Not the way to put an album together, although each track individually....I'm not embarrassed about at all...you know."



The Brinsley Schwarz connection brought about a collaboration with Nick Lowe starting with this album, and in 1976 they formed the group Rockpile, with ex-Leeds United footballer Billy Bremner and Terry Williams.

Dave Edmunds : "[We're] very good friends. Very good friends indeed, but we don't live in each other's pockets, you know, none of us do actually. Ummm...not because we don't want to, it's just wiser not to. We work, rehearse, record...and it's great, I mean....Nick is the writer. I never considered myself a songwriter, but now since I've been working with him, I am contributing to an extent. But I'm the guitarist and he's not, so we compliment each other in a way. One song will be naturally more suited to him and another that...ya see....what he does, he'll write...he'll come up with a verse a week...ya know...two verses a week...the first verse is on a premise and he forgets the and I always remember them. And then maybe a year or two later, I'll say, "Nick, remember that song?", and he'll say, "No", and then I'll remind him and we both work on it from there."

Because Edmunds and Lowe signed to different record labels that year, they could not record as Rockpile until 1980, but many of their solo LPs (such as Lowe's 'Labour of Lust' and Edmunds' own 'Repeat When Necessary') were group recordings.

Dave Edmunds : "On the Elvis tour, it was Nick Lowe with Rockpile simply because he had a record out and I didn't, so he stood in the middle ...middle microphone...and ahh....and this time it's Dave Edmunds Rockpile....what started as Dave Edmunds Rockpile...now it's gone...you know....Nick...and now it's back to me again...which is....it serves it purpose....but eventually I'd like just to be known as Rockpile...and hopefully everyone whose interested to know exactly what it's all about...without putting a name in front of it."

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Edmunds had more UK hits during this time, including Nick Lowe's "I Knew the Bride", Hank DeVito's "Queen of Hearts", Graham Parker's "Crawling from the Wreckage", and Melvin Endsley's "Singing the Blues",



His version of Elvis Costello's "Girls Talk" reached #4 in the UK chart in June 1979.

Dave Edmunds : "Well, we were in sort of the same circle with Rockpile - Nick Lowe, Costello and the Attractions, even Squeeze were all hanging around in West London. Elvis came to the studio one day, and he said, "I've got a song for you." And he gave me a cassette. Now, it wasn't very good - it was just him on a guitar, and he was rushing through it at a furious pace. At first I couldn't see it. And also there was some lines needed, because the verses weren't symmetrical. He had a verse with four lines in and then a verse with three lines in, so Nick and I made up some lyrics and popped them in. Then I threw the whole thing right down, got a groove going on it, and put the record together with some acoustic guitar punctuation like Don Everly used to do on the Everly Brothers' early records."

Two videos were filmed - one was a studio performance, and the other on the roof of the Warner Brothers Records building in Midtown Manhattan in the early afternoon.

Dave Edmunds : "The record came together and I was quite proud of that, although I don't like doing it on stage - it's not a fun song to sing, it's all over the place. It's up and down and it's never settled into a groove live. But I really liked the complete new arrangement and feel that I put to it. I'm not sure Elvis liked it, mind you. He's quite an intense person and he's quick to point out things that he doesn't like. [Laughs] I remember playing it to him on the tour bus in America, and he didn't say much. It sounded great to me, and it got him a Top 5 record, so I'm sure he's not that upset about it, but I would have been delighted if someone had done a turnaround on a song I'd quickly jotted out and came up with a hit single. I'd have been delighted."

 

Edmunds recorded less frequently after the mid-1980s, living in Wales in semi-retirement, but occasionally touring.

In 2015, Edmunds released his first instrumental album 'On Guitar... Dave Edmunds: Rags & Classics', which featured instrumental covers of classic songs such as The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" and Elton John's "Your Song". The album was Edmunds' final album and after playing a final show in July 2017, he was reported to have retired from the music business.



Dave Edmunds : "I think I've always been semi-retired. Not having any career plan really, it's my hobby and I get to do lots of things with different people and work with my heroes, so it's never been a full-on career, it's more of  ...I'm lucky and made a living out of my hobby. I'm kind of a loner in the music business ...like a one-man band thing. Maybe it's because I came from Wales and not living in London like the Yardbirds, Cream, and all the guys back then. I feel like I snuck in the backdoor somehow and have just been on the periphery of the business ever since, and went in a completely different way."

The Single :
Quote"I Hear You Knocking" was written by Dave Bartholomew. New Orleans rhythm and blues singer Smiley Lewis first recorded the song in 1955. Subsequently, numerous artists have recorded it, including Dave Edmunds in 1970.



Welsh singer and guitarist Dave Edmunds recorded "I Hear You Knocking" in 1970 at Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire. Whereas Lewis's original recording is a piano-driven R&B piece with a 12/8 shuffle feel, Edmunds' version features prominent guitar lines and a stripped-down, straight-quaver rock-and-roll approach. In an interview, John Lennon commented, "Well, I always liked simple rock. There's a great one in England now, 'I Hear You Knocking'".

Edmunds had originally planned to record a cover of "Let's Work Together" by Wilbert Harrison, but had to reconsider when he heard a version that had been recorded by Canned Heat.

Dave Edmunds : "The song was first released in 1955 by Smiley Lewis. I just happened to hear it on the radio one day and I thought, gee, I had this idea to do Wilbert Harrison's "Let's Work Together," which I heard when I first came to America in 1969. I thought, when I get back home I'm going to do that one and do my own cover, but Canned Heat had the same idea. So when I heard Smiley Lewis, it was the same twelve-bar format, you could use the same backing track for both songs, so I thought, great, I'll do that one instead, and that was it. It was done in 6/8 time, so I brought it into 4/4 time to make it a little bit more accessible and just had fun with it. It took a long time going back and forth, stripping it down and starting again, and then it finally came together."

"I Hear You Knocking" reached number one in the UK in December 1970, topping the UK Singles Chart for six weeks. It also placed in the top 10 in several other countries, including number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1971. It sold over three million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.



Other Versions includeJill Day (1956)  /  Connie Francis (1959)  /  Fats Domino (1961)  /  5 Danes (1962)  /  Sandy Nelson (1968)  /  Shakin' Stevens and The Sunsets (1970) /  Ace Cannon (1971)  /  The Outlet (1971)  /  "Pár dnů prázdnin" by Václav Neckář - Bacily (1974)  /  "Turhaan pyydät" by Express (1974)  /  Billy Swan (1976)  /  Kingfish (1976)  /  The Monarchs (1977)  /  "J'aimerais tant frapper" by Dick Rivers (1978)  /  Crazy Cavan "N" The Rhythm Rockers (1979)  /  Hans Edler (1979)  /  Orion (1979)  /  Gary Glitter (1987)  /  Screamin' Jay Hawkins (1991)  /  Alvin Lee (1993)  /  Thunder (1995)  /  Suzanne Klee (1996)  /  Showaddywaddy (2002)  /  På Slaget 12 (2002)  /  Shakin' Stevens (2006)  /  Wynonna Judd (2009)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  R.J. Ronquillo (2011)  /  Neil Bradley Owen (2012)  /  Hotel Cafe (2014)  /  George Benson (2019)  /  Dale Anderson and The Delta Jets (2020)  /  The Gareth Gittins Band ft. Thunderstick Andy Grey & Rockin' Rodders (2020)  /  Richard Wilson (2020)

On This Day :
Quote23 November : George Harrison releases "My Sweet Lord" single in the US
23 November : Zoë Ball, TV and radio presenter, born Zoe Louise Ball in Blackpool, United Kingdom
25 November : Louise Glaum, American silent film actress known for her portrayal of the vamp character, dies aged 82
25 November : Lovely CaB poster daf born with a plastic spoon in his mouth around 3pm in the afternoon
27 November : George Harrison releases his triple album set "All Things Must Pass"
27 November : Pope Paul VI wounded in chest during a visit to Philippines by a dagger-wielding Bolivian painter disguised as a priest
28 November : Richard Osman, TV presenter, born Richard Thomas Osman in Billericay, Essex
1 December : Independent People's Republic of South Yemen renames itself as People's Democratic Republic of Yemen
1 December : Luis Echeverria Alvarez sworn in as president of Mexico
1 December : Sarah Silverman, comic actress, born Sarah Kate Silverman in Bedford, New Hampshire, U.S.
2 December : Michael Tippett's opera "The Knot Garden" premieres in London
6 December : Ulf Ekberg, musician (Ace of Base), born Ulf Gunnar Ekberg in Gothenburg, Sweden
10 December : Novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn chooses not to claim his Nobel Prize in Literature for fear that the USSR would prevent his return afterwards.
12 December : John Paddy Carstairs, British comedy film director, dies aged 60
12 December : Small Astronomy Satellite Uhuru launched to study X-rays
13 December : Neil Simon's "Gingerbread Lady" premieres in NYC
14 December : Beth Orton, musician, born Elizabeth Caroline Orton in East Dereham, Norfolk, England
14 December : Toby Anstis, TV presenter, born in Northampton, Northamptonshire
15 December : South Korean ferry Namyong-Ho sinks in Strait of Korea, 308 killed
15 December : Soviet Venera 7 is 1st spacecraft to land on another planet (Venus)
15 December : Frankie Dettori, Italian jockey, born Lanfranco Dettori in Milan, Italy
17 December : DJ Homicide, rapper and DJ (Sugar Ray), born Craig Anthony Bullock in Pasadena, California
18 December : "Me Nobody Knows" opens at Helen Hayes Theater NYC for 587 performances
19 December : Zac Foley, bass player (EMF), born Zachary Sebastian Rex James Foley in Gloucester
20 December : Edward Gierek succeeds Wladyslaw Gomulka as Poland's communist party leader
21 December : Elvis Presley meets blue-chinned ghoul US President Richard Nixon in the White House
23 December : 7,511th performance of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" becoming the longest running play in London's glittering West End
23 December : French author Régis Debray freed in Bolivia
23 December : The topping out ceremony (411 m) of 1 World Trade Center (North Tower)
23 December : Charlie Ruggles, American film actor, dies aged 84
24 December : Bonnie "Prince" Billy, musician, born Joseph Will Oldham in Louisville, Kentucky
24 December : Walt Disney's "Aristocats" is released
27 December : "Hello, Dolly!" closes at St James Theater NYC after 2844 performances
28 December : "Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen" opens at Majestic NYC for 19 performances
29 December : Aled Jones, singer, born in Bangor, North Wales
30 December : Sonny Liston, American boxer, dies of lung congestion and heart failure aged 40
31 December : Cyril Scott, English composer and author, dies aged 91
31 December : President Allende nationalizes Chilean coal mines
31 December 1970 : Paul McCartney files a lawsuit to dissolve The Beatles
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1 January 1971 : Cigarette advertisements banned on US TV
2 January : 66 deaths and more than 200 injuries at Ibrox Park in Glasgow, Scotland as Rangers supporters leave the ground

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote

The Culture Bunker

It's fine, but I much, much prefer 'Girl's Talk', which is fab. My favourite thing involving Edmunds would be 'When I Write The Book', from the one Rockpile album released under that name - though that's a Nick Lowe number.

daf

Yes, his re-arrangement of 'Girl's Talk' is a power-pop triumph - Costello's original version pales in comparison.

gilbertharding

#114
Dave Edmunds is an odd case, isn't he?

It's like he's much, much too early for the 70s Punk/Pub Rock/Rock n Roll Revival nexus, and so must only have made sense at the time as a mere throwback - suggested by his role in Stardust (1974).

He more or less acknowledges this himself in that quote, "I think I've always been semi-retired. Not having any career plan really, it's my hobby and I get to do lots of things with different people and work with my heroes, so it's never been a full-on career, it's more of  ...I'm lucky and made a living out of my hobby. I'm kind of a loner in the music business ...like a one-man band thing. Maybe it's because I came from Wales and not living in London like the Yardbirds, Cream, and all the guys back then. I feel like I snuck in the backdoor somehow and have just been on the periphery of the business ever since, and went in a completely different way."

daf

294b. (MM 244.)  McGuinness Flint – When I'm Dead And Gone
+     (NME 300.)  McGuinness Flint – When I'm Dead And Gone



From :  19 December 1970 - 8 January 1971  |  23 - 29 December 1970
Weeks : 3
B-side : Lazy Afternoon

The Story So Far : 
QuoteThomas John Patrick McGuinness was born in Wimbledon, south London. Following a stint in the short-lived Roosters with Eric Clapton, McGuinness joined the 1960s group Manfred Mann as a bassist, performing in a line-up with Paul Jones. As the band sought to transform itself from jazz into a rhythm-and-blues-orientated group, he took over bass duties from Dave Richmond and received joint songwriting credits on the group's early hits. Appointed the writer of album sleeve notes, he took the opportunity to identify himself as "the nastiest in the group".

Tom McGuinness : "The first time I walked on stage with Manfred Mann was the first time I'd picked up a bass. It was the confidence of youth, and I was just desperate to get out there and play. My audition consisted of being asked if I'd promise to play simply. Dave was a really good bass player and went on to a very successful career as a session player, playing on hundreds of hits and album tracks. But if they played a Chuck Berry tune he'd play it more like Jaco Pistorius. So when they asked if I could play simply I could hand on heart say 'definitely!' I just thought it was two strings less than a guitar – what can be hard about it?"

When Mike Vickers and then Paul Jones left the band, McGuinness started to take the role of guitarist; Jack Bruce then played bass until replaced by Klaus Voormann.

After Manfred Mann disbanded in 1969, he formed McGuinness Flint with Hughie Flint who had played in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers on and off for five years, adding a distinctive aspect to their blues-based sound partly through his love of jazz.



He appeared on their albums 'John Mayall Plays John Mayall' (1965) and 'Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton' (1966). Flint then left to play alongside Alexis Korner and Savoy Brown; his place in the group was taken by Aynsley Dunbar.

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Bernard Joseph Gallagher worked initially as a marine electrician in the shipyards of Glasgow. His first published song was "Mr Heartbreak's Here Instead", which he co-wrote with Andrew Galt. This was recorded as a single for EMI-Columbia in 1964 by Dean Ford and the Gaylords, who later became the chart-topping outfit Marmalade.

Graham Hamilton Lyle was born in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, Scotland. He teamed up with Benny Gallagher initially in 1959 as members of a local band, The Bluefrets, and again in a band based in Saltcoats called The Tulsans with lead singer James Galt, Dennis Donald on keyboards, and Eric Brown on guitar.

In 1966, Gallagher and Lyle – who by now had forged a songwriting partnership – moved to London in search of a publishing deal. Both continued to hold down day jobs, Gallagher as an electrician and Lyle as a shipping clerk, while waiting for their big break. After an abortive contract with Polydor, which yielded one unsuccessful single in 1967 - "Trees" (b/w "In The Crowd") -  the pair joined Apple Corps as staff songwriters and wrote several songs including "Sparrow", "The Fields of St. Etienne", "International", "Heritage", and "Jefferson" for Mary Hopkin's album, which was produced by Paul McCartney.

Benny Gallagher : "He picked our song to be on the B side of Mary Hopkin's single and invited us to the studio. It was really the first thing that exposed me to the cut and thrust of the music business."

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In 1970, Benny Gallagher and Graham Lyle, teamed up with Tom McGuinness, Hughie Flint, and keyboard player Dennis Coulson, to form the British band McGuinness Flint.



Their first single "When I'm Dead and Gone" reached No.2 on the UK Singles Chart at the end of 1970.

The debut album 'McGuinness Flint' was released in December 1970. Aside from "I'm Letting You Know" and "Lazy Afternoon" - which were written by Coulson, McGuinness, and Flint - most of the album was featured songs written by Gallagher and Lyle, including : "Bodang Buck", "Mister Mister", "Heritage", "Let It Ride", "Dream Darling Dream", "Brother Psyche", "Who You Got To Love" and "International"



A follow-up single, "Malt And Barley Blues" (b/w "Rock On"), was released in April 1971, and was a UK Top 5 hit.

The group floundered under the pressures of instant success, being required to record a second album and reproduce their recorded sound adequately on stage, which resulted in disappointing concerts, then a series of illnesses among the band members cancelled most of the concerts on their first tour.



Their second album, 'Happy Birthday, Ruthy Baby' was released in July 1971. As with the first album, most of the songs were penned by Gallagher and Lyle, including : "Happy Birthday, Ruthy Baby", "Conversation" , "Fixer", "Faith And Gravy", "Klondike", "Reader To Writer", "Changes", "Friends Of Mine", "Piper Of Dreams", "Jimmy's Song", and "Sparrow". McGuinness and Flint contributed the song "When I'm Alone With You"



According to McGuinness, at this time the band consisted of two groups of close-knit friends, the first being Flint, McGuinness, and Coulson, and the other being Gallagher and Lyle. Though these two units generally got along well, a key disagreement between them was that the first group felt the band should focus on touring and performing, while the Gallagher/Lyle camp felt they should focus on songwriting and recording.

Gallagher and Lyle left towards the end of 1971 to record as a duo, and would enjoy major success in 1976 with their hit-laden fifth album 'Breakaway'.



After several temporary members came and went, including comedian Neil Innes on piano, McGuinness Flint recruited ace footballer bassist Dixie Dean on a permanent basis

In 1972, they released 'Lo and Behold', an album of Bob Dylan songs which had not yet been officially recorded and released by Dylan at the time. This album was credited to Coulson, Dean, McGuinness, Flint.



Coulson left to record a solo album for Elektra Records, and was replaced by Lou Stonebridge on keyboards and Jim Evans on guitar. This new line-up recorded two further albums - 'Rainbow' in 1973, and 'C'est La Vie' in 1974. Neither album sold well and the group broke up in 1975.

The Single :
Quote"When I'm Dead and Gone" was written by Bernard Gallagher and Graham Lyle, and recorded by the band McGuinness Flint.



"When I'm Dead and Gone" featured prominent use of mandolin, played by Lyle, who also took lead vocal. Gallagher played bass guitar and sang tenor harmony, while both he and Lyle also played kazoos and guitarist Tom McGuinness played the dobro solo.

It was released in November 1970 as the debut single by McGuinness Flint. While it peaked at No. 2 in the UK official charts, it topped both the NME and Melody Maker chart for 3 weeks - becoming unofficial UK Christmas Number 1. The single also and reached number 47 in the US charts in February 1971, and peaked at #5 in Ireland, #39 in Australia and #34 in Canada.



Tom McGuinness : "You can get to number one in England and sell 200,000 total. But [the single's release] was over Christmas and it sold 400,000 ... it sold a couple of hundred thousand in America, 100,000 in Germany, 50,000 in Japan."

Other Versions includeJames Last (1971)  /  "Du bist eine Show" by Nina & Mike (1971)  /  Bruce Millar (1976)  /  Randy VanWarmer (1981)  /  Phil Everly (1983)  /  Fury in the Slaughterhouse (1993)  /  "Quand je serai morte" by Elsa (1996)  /  Status Quo (2000)  /  Def Leppard (2006)  /  The Manfreds (2007)  /  Joe Brown (2012)  /  Danny McEvoy (2012)  /  The Piddletown Brothers (2013)  /  Isolierband1 (2013)  /  Grease Jar (2019)

On This Day :
Quote19 December : Zac Foley, bass player (EMF), born Zachary Sebastian Rex James Foley in Gloucester
20 December : Edward Gierek succeeds Wladyslaw Gomulka as Poland's communist party leader
21 December : Elvis Presley meets blue-chinned ghoul US President Richard Nixon in the White House
23 December : 7,511th performance of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap"
23 December : French author Régis Debray freed in Bolivia
23 December : The topping out ceremony (411 m) of 1 World Trade Center (North Tower)
23 December : Charlie Ruggles, American film actor, dies aged 84
24 December : Bonnie "Prince" Billy, musician, born Joseph Will Oldham in Louisville, Kentucky
24 December : Walt Disney's "Aristocats" is released
27 December : "Hello, Dolly!" closes at St James Theater NYC after 2844 performances
28 December : "Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen" opens at Majestic NYC for 19 performances
29 December : Aled Jones, singer, born in Bangor, North Wales
30 December : Sonny Liston, American boxer, dies of lung congestion and heart failure aged 40
31 December : Cyril Scott, English composer and author, dies aged 91
31 December : President Allende nationalizes Chilean coal mines
31 December 1970 : Paul McCartney files a lawsuit to dissolve The Beatles
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
1 January 1971 : Cigarette advertisements banned on US TV
2 January : 66 deaths and more than 200 injuries at Ibrox Park in Glasgow, Scotland as Rangers supporters leave the ground
3 January : BBC Open University begins with the broadcast of early morning courses on BBC-2 TV
3 January : "President's Daughter" closes at Billy Rose Theater NYC after 72
5 January : Body of Sonny Liston is found by his wife Geraldine at their Las Vegas home
6 January : Lovely CaB poster Johnboy born in the nude at the age of 0

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote

daf

295.  Clive Dunn – Grandad



From : 3 – 23 January 1971
Weeks : 3
B-side : I Play The Spoons
Bonus 1 : Top of the Pops performance
Bonus 2 : Top Of The Pops: 14th January 1971 - full show

The Story So Far : 
QuoteClive Robert Benjamin Dunn was born in Brixton, South London. The son of actor parents, and the cousin of actress Gretchen Franklin, Dunn studied at the independent Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts, in London. He had a few small film roles in the 1930s. While still attending school, he appeared with Will Hay in the films 'Boys Will Be Boys' in 1935, and 'Good Morning, Boys' in 1937.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, Dunn joined the British Army in 1940. He served as a trooper in the 4th Queen's Own Hussars. The regiment was posted to the Middle East arriving on 31 December 1940. Dunn fought in the rearguard action at the Corinth canal in April 1941. The regiment was forced to surrender after it was overrun and Dunn was among 400 men who were taken as prisoners of war.

Clive Dunn : "I felt sorry for them. They didn't really have much more than we had ourselves; they had nothing to eat - just pig potatoes. D'you know what pig potatoes are? Potatoes so rotten they were only good enough for the pigs. Some of the nicest chaps I met were German guards."

Dunn was held as a POW in Austria for the next four years. He remained in the army after the war ended, until finally demobilised in 1947.

Clive Dunn : "I became more overheated about injustice and abuse of power by those in authority. I became more aware that those high in the establishment were given more opportunity than we were. In every sense. In situations where there was not a lot of food, for instance, certain people would get more food and water than we'd get. That's very basic isn't it?"

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Dunn resumed his acting career in repertory theatre. But he soon made his first television appearance. In 1956 and 1957, Dunn appeared in both series of The Tony Hancock Show and the army reunion party episode of Hancock's Half Hour in 1960.

From early in his career, his trademark character was that of a doddering old man. This first made an impression in the show Bootsie and Snudge, a spin-off from The Army Game. Dunn played the old dogsbody Mr. Johnson at a slightly seedy gentlemen's club where the characters Pte. "Bootsie" Bisley (Alfie Bass) and Sgt. Claude Snudge (Bill Fraser) find work after leaving the Army.

He released his first single, "Such A Beauty" (b/w "Too Old"), in February 1962.

 

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In 1968, he was cast as Corporal Jones in the BBC comedy series Dad's Army. Despite his appearance  as the elderly butcher, at 48 Dunn was one of the younger members of the cast when he took on the role. His catchphrases included "Don't panic!", "Permission to speak, sir?", and "They don't like it up 'em".



But in 1971, the UK charts certainly did "like it up 'em", when he soared to the Number 1 spot with his novelty single "Grandad". Originally released in October 1970, the single was given the final push to go over the top just before Christmas - thanks to the huge number of copies bought as an easy present for thousands of disappointed grandparents.



Dunn never had another hit single but he did release an album, 'Permission to Sing Sir!', which featured both sides of his number 1 single.



Following the success of "Grandad", Dunn released several other singles, including "My Lady (Nana)" (b/w "Tissue-Paper And Comb") in October 1977; "Wonderful Lily" (b/w "Pretty Little Song") in April 1972; and "Let's Take A Walk" (b/w "Tell Us") in November 1972; "Our Song" (b/w "She's Gone") in October 1973; and the theme tune to his ITV sitcom, "My Old Man" (b/w "My Own Special Girl") in May 1974.



In response to the burgeoning Punk Scene, Dunn refocused his output, releasing a string of blistering broadsides on the state of the nation, including : "Holding On" (b/w "My Beautiful England") in October 1976; "Goodnight Ruby" (b/w "Thank You And Goodnight") in November 1977; and the controversial "Thinking Of You This Christmas" (b/w "'Arry, 'Arry, 'Arry") in December 1978.



In October 1982, he teamed up with his Dad's Army co-star John Le Mesurier, to release the single "There's Not Much Change".  This was his final single, and the B-side, "After All These Years" was co-written by Dunn.



After Dad's Army ended, in 1979, Dunn capitalised on his skill in playing elderly character roles by playing the lead character, Charlie 'Grandad' Quick in the children's television show 'Grandad', although the series did not use the hit song as the theme tune. After cancellation of Grandad in 1984, he retired to Portugal, where he spent his time doing a bit of painting.



Dunn died in Algarve, Portugal on 6 November 2012 as a result of complications from an operation that had taken place earlier that week. Frank Williams, who played the Vicar in Dad's Army, said Dunn was always "great fun" to be around. "Of course he was so much younger than the part he played. It's very difficult to think of him as an old man really, but he was a wonderful person to work with – great sense of humour, always fun, a great joy really."

Ian Lavender : "Out of all of us he had the most time for the fans. Everyone at one time or another would be tempted to duck into a doorway or bury their head in a paper; but not Clive, he always made time for fans."

The Single :
Quote"Grandad" was written by Herbie Flowers and Kenny Pickett, and recorded by Clive Dunn.



While starring in the long-running BBC situation comedy Dad's Army, Dunn met bassist Herbie Flowers at a party and on learning he was a songwriter challenged him to write a song for him. Flowers wrote "Grandad" with Kenny Pickett - the vocalist with The Creation.

The single was released in October 1970, and, aided by promotion such as appearing on children's shows such as Basil Brush and DJ Tony Blackburn claiming it as his favourite record, in January 1971 it reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. During it's three weeks at the top, Dunn celebrated his 51st birthday.

Clive Dunn : "It sold 90,000 in one day. I bought a house with it. D'you know what replaced me at number one? My Sweet Lord. See, George Harrison had to get in touch with heaven to knock me off the top."



Other Versions includeTop of the Poppers (1971)  /  Danny McEvoy & Brighton Glee Kids! (2012)  /  Calvin Lengwood (2014)

On This Day :
Quote3 January : BBC Open University begins with the broadcast of early morning courses on BBC-2 TV
3 January : "President's Daughter" closes at Billy Rose Theater NYC after 72
5 January : Body of Sonny Liston is found by his wife Geraldine at their Las Vegas home
6 January : Lovely CaB poster Johnboy born in the nude at the age of 0
9 January : Clive Dunn's 51st birthday
9 January : "Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen" closes at Majestic NYC after 19 performances
10 January : "Light, Lively & Yiddish" closes at Belasco Theater NYC after 87 performances
10 January : Irish Republican Army tar and feather 4 men accused of criminal activities in Belfast - the archaic crackpots!!
11 January : Mary J. Blige, singer, born Mary Jane Blige in NYC, New York
13 January : Buzz Aldrin announced that he was retiring from the space program and returning to active duty in the U.S. Air Force.
13 January : "Soon" closes at Ritz Theater NYC after 3 performances
15 January : "Ari" opens at Mark Hellinger Theater NYC for 19 performances
15 January : Aswan Dam officially opens in Egypt
15 January : George Harrison releases "My Sweet Lord" single in the UK
17 January : Kid Rock, rapper, born Robert James Ritchie in Romeo, Michigan
18 January : Pep Guardiola, football manager, born Josep Guardiola Sala in Santpedor, Spain
19 January : "No, No Nanette" opens at 46th St Theater NYC for 861 performances
20 January : John Lennon meets Yoko Ono's parents in Japan
20 January : Gary Barlow, musician (Take That), born in Frodsham, Cheshire
21 January : Alan McManus, snooker player born in Glasgow, Scotland
22 January : John Lennon and Plastic Ono Band record "Power to the People" at his Ascot Sound Studio
22 January : Stan Collymore, footballer, born Stanley Victor Collymore in Stone, Staffordshire

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote


gilbertharding

Quote from: DrGreggles on September 22, 2021, 02:02:02 PM
Fucking awful

Of course it is. And yet... I was one and a half when this came out, and my Grandad's name was Grandad. I'm sure I remember being a bit confused about this whole thing somehow, and I can't bring myself to dislike this record.

daf

Must be one of the least-covered songs ever - a grand total of three!