Rock Evolution – The History of Rock & Roll - 1985 - (page 203)

threespires said:
@RandolphMABlue 's inclusion of Tom Rush reminded me of someone who I don't think has had a mention in the thread yet(?)... Judy Collins. Like Rush she was as famous for interpreting other people's songs as for her own and like Rush was instrumental in promoting the careers of upcoming song writers like Joni Mitchell. Rush originallly took 'Urge for Going' to Collins to record, I think she already had a lot of material she was planning to record and declined it, hence why Rush decided to do it himself. In 68 she released an album featuring two Leonard Cohen (who she had previously taken under her wing) songs, the album was titled Who Knows Where The Time goes and featured the first release of the young Sandy Denny's song of that name. I'm not going to nominate the track because next year we'll be able to hear the songwriter sing it herself accompanied by some of imo the most beautiful guitar playing in popular music. Similarly, though she had a hit with Both Sides Now in 68 (albeit she recorded it the prior year) I'm assuming someone will want to nominate Mitchell singing it when we get there in 1970.

I might nominate Collins in a subsequent year but I thought as by this stage of proceedings she'd help put food on the table of a number of struggling singer/songwriters who would go on to great things, we owe her a debt of recognition. She's in her mid 80s now and in 2022 released the first album of her career that was exclusively self-penned songs! These days we can get a bit sniffy about covers but established artists like Collins selecting and introducing people to the work of great new songwriters has been an important part of our story.
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Someday Soon (Ian and Sylvia) was on that same album and was one of my favorite Judy Collins songs. Adding it to the list.

Agree with you on Who Knows Where the Time Goes. The Fairport version should be the one. Richard Thompson's guitar on that song is beautiful!
 
RandolphMABlue said:
Someday Soon (Ian and Sylvia) was on that same album and was one of my favorite Judy Collins songs. Adding it to the list.

Agree with you on Who Knows Where the Time Goes. The Fairport version should be the one. Richard Thompson's guitar on that song is beautiful!
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Very nice. The little fills from Van Dyke Parks on piano and Buddy Emmons pedal steel make that song.
 
Compared to the previous year im much less familiar with these tracks. Interesting to see Windy arrive on both playlists but I think I preferred last year's version. Ode to Bobby Gentry still sounds great

The cover art for Hold On I'm Coming makes me laugh so much and provides a weird juxtaposition - she will be waiting for a while if they are travelling by tortoise.

And now I realise Spotify has done me dirty and has suggested songs to me rather than repeat the playlist. I could delete the post but instead I'm going to submit it as an act of confession on the hope it prevents self loathing
 
One of the Stones very best tracks, a change of direction to a more sophisticated hypnotic samba sound. Mainly written by Mick it created a controversy when released as the lyrics told a tale from the perspective of 'Old Nick' and his hand in atrocities through history. It was a definitive sound of the late 60's and featured in the set the band played live in Hyde Park shortly after Brian Jones death (69) and at the notorious Altamont free festival. It has remained a standard of the Stones live set and I would put it in the top three songs they ever wrote.
Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones


Released as a single in May 68 the song was featured in the film Easy Rider (69) and will be forever be associated with Bikers. Containing the lyric "heavy metal thunder", it was the first time that phrase was used in rock (although it actually referred to motorbikes rather than rock music. It remains a classic often appearing on lists of 'best ever songs'.
Born to be Wild - Steppenwolf


Donovan wrote "Hurdy Gurdy Man" while in India, where he was studying Trancsendental Meditation with The Beatles. The recording features a harder rock sound than Donovan's usual material, supplying a range of distorted guitars and aggressive drums. It also features an Indian influence with the use of a tambura, a gift from George Harrison, who also helped write the lyrics. Jimmy Page played guitar on the recording and Donovan claimed the John Bonham played drums (although this is contested by others). In his biography he claimed to be instrumental in the creation of LZ.
Anyhow its a bloody good track doing well on both sides of the pond.
Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan

A song written by Paul Simon, based on a road trip he took with his girlfriend Kathy Chitty. Its cinematic and tells of the singer's search for a literal and physical America that seems to have disappeared, along with the country's beauty and ideals." From the album 'Bookends'. I love the lyrics which alternate precise detail with sweeping observation.

"Kathy, I'm lost", I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike
They've all come to look for America
All come to look for America
All come to look for America

Yes recorded a version in 1970 which according to Steve Howe, Paul Simon liked very much.
America - Simon and Garfunkel

So many more but thats enough for just now :-)
 
mrbelfry said:
All Along the Watchtower by Hendrix is one of the greatest cover versions of all time
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Yes, up there with Joe Cockers version of With A Little help From My Friends.

Which would be a great addition, along with;

Heard it through the grape vine by Marvin Gaye

Summertime Blues by power trio...Blue Cheer.
A very early very heavy cover version. A sign of things to come.
 
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Bill Walker said:
Yes, up there with Joe Cockers version of With A Little help From My Friends.

Which would be a great addition, along with;

Heard it through the grape vine by Marvin Gaye

Summertime Blues by power trio...Blue Cheer.
A very early very heavy cover version. A sign of things to come.
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The best cover of Grapevine is CCR’s long version.
 
I'm going to phone one in today from the Playlist Review thread we had on historical figures since the great writeup by @RandolphMABlue already covered the two events.

It's almost like I had this in mind back then, but I didn't. Really.

I recall hearing this song a lot in my early youth in the US, as this song came out in 1968 after Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were both assassinated that spring. Performed by Dion, and many others in the future would follow and cover, this song was written in about 10 minutes by Dick Holler.

You can read about it here: https://www.tennessean.com/story/en...ohn-story-behind-song-dick-holler/5758632002/

With these and other events happening in 1968, there would be no follow up to 1967’s Summer of Love in the US that year.

“Abraham, Martin, and John” – Dion
 
Resurrection Joe... said:
you may not dig this one cats..but im demanding its inclusion, if only for the songwriting of Jimmy Webb...
y'all know the lyrics...

MacArthur Park. Richard Harris. 1968.
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I believe it's pretty much literal, there was an actual cake that had been left out in the rain etc.
 
threespires said:
I believe it's pretty much literal, there was an actual cake that had been left out in the rain etc.
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it's a lyric of some beauty, and I believe devotees still leave cakes out in Mac Park, with sweet green icing, when the weather turns inclement.

'Spring was never waiting for us girl,
it ran one step ahead,
as we followed in the dance'...
 
1968 was a fairly quiet year on the jazz front but did have one very important album. It's not on Spotify so I won't nominate it, which I suspect many of you would think is a blessing because the album heralds the dawn of European Free Jazz, Peter Brotzmann's album Machine Gun.

This is the kind of stuff that the Fast Show was aiming at when it did a long complicated introduction to a daftly named act who would then just make random squawking noises on instruments they seem to have no clue about (in fairness one of his later tracks is called Productive Cough, which is exactly the type of song title the Fast Show would have mocked).

However, the players on this know what they are doing and there's a bit more to it than that I think. This is by a long margin the 'heaviest' album I have; it makes most metal sound like Taylor Swift. It's not heavy in a conventional sense in fact it's not anything in the conventional sense. The aptly named 17 min title track is an atonal cacophony that basically sounds like a fight with instruments. It's not something you'd have on heavy rotation but breaking it out now and then will reveal all sorts of interesting stuff not noticed previously. It's a pretty angry piece of music and if you were in any doubt the Summer of Love was long gone this would put straight on that.

Is it even music? Some would say not. It's definitely art of some form and I would argue does fit into the music category. It's divisive in the same way abstract art is. I suspect if you appreciate something like Guernica as a painting you might 'get' this. Lot's of people think it's unlistenable, someone once said it makes Trout Mask Replica sound like The Carpenters.

So why would anyone listen to it? I think the parallel with metal helps again here. There's a cathartic release in heavier music that you can see visibly at a gig. Though this is much more disconcerting and uncomfortable than most metal it has that same type of catharsis. Possibly more so as you are pretty much putting yourself through the wringer to listen to it and there's a reasonable chance until the comedown you'll be agitated enough to want to give someone or something a kicking. Which brings me to it's current value.

I listened to it a short while ago and my immediate thought was just how fitting it is for the times we find outselves in. Having lived in the shadow of US jazz for decades, this album was Europe going it's own way with a big F*** Y** and leaving US avant garde jazz to do it's own thing. America generally didn't get it and I don't think Peter Brotzmann gave a shit about that. It's an album that is angry about the state of things and is going to let you know that. But the chaos of the music isn't a kind of drag you into the abyss thing, it's more a galvinise yourself fix up look sharp kind of call to arms that gets you properly pumped up.

The title track is available on YT and you might not get through more than the first minute (which is the hardest) but if you persist there's a little oasis of calm around 9 mins in where there's some weird bowing on bass guitars (basically like everyone in a mass brawl getting second wind before going again) and then it kicks off again. If you do get to the end you might perversely find yourself a bit more optimistic and ready for giving VP Fat Adam Lambert a proper good shoo-in.
 
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