Music Routes

Sherman Hemsley

The prog music blogosphere (such as it is) recently went atwitter over a year-old article reporting that Sherman Hemsley, star of The Jeffersons, is also a keyboardist who is a big fan of Daevid Allen and Gong.  The actor who portrayed George Jefferson apparently has had a special fondness for Gong’s Flying Teapot album.

I was struck by the aside that Hemsley also wrote a rock opera with Jon Anderson of Yes.

Alas, the “funk-rock opera” has never been produced or recorded.

Which means that we cannot put Sherman Hemsley into the Music Routes database easily.

Here’s Daevid Allen to Jon Anderson in four steps via Stewart Copeland and Tony Levin.

I suspect that route can be made shorter…

Your Discography Help Required for January 2010

How to connect Prince to Kings of Leon?

Or how about LL Cool J to Wayne Newton?

Or Jimmy Page to Goldfinger (the band, not the Shirley Bassey track)?

Thanks for the assistance!  All solved!

Photo by darren131

The Routes They Made

The New York Times site has a slide show called “The Music They Made”. It is a series of black-and-white photos and music snippets covering famous/important musicians who passed away in 2009.

I’ve entered most (but not all—see below) of the musicians and songs mentioned into the Music Routes database.

So, if it’s your thing, you can connect dead people to other dead people.  Or, if you’re a recorded musician yourself, you can connect yourself to your favorite-recently deceased musician.

Some of them, like Jack Rose, were problematic because they are mostly solo performers.  I was able to find a handful of collaborations that Rose did, but nothing with anyone that would hook him into the greater mass of musicians out there, even by a long chain of Rose-played-with-X-who-recorded-with-Y-who-sang-on-Z type stuff.  (Help?)

Others were problematic because the relevant credits are elusive. For example, it’s well-established that Bobby Graham was the drummer on the Kinks single “You Really Got Me”.  It’s less clear whether it was him or someone else on “All Day And All Of The Night”.  (All Day And All Of The Night is also the title of an apparently authoritative account of what The Kinks did and when they did it.  Perhaps someone owns the book and can tell me what it says about the recording of “All Day And All Of The Night”?)

In the case of Estelle Bennett, the best account I could find of the recording of The Ronettes‘ “Be My Baby” seems to indicate that she probably wasn’t on it.  According to the article, the only musicians who were definitely absolutely positively on the recording are drummer Hal Blaine and singer Veronica Bennett (later and more widely known as Ronnie Spector).

Anyway, have fun with it, send me some session/discography data I need to add, send me your data for your own sessions if you’re a musician, and have a totally killer (figuratively speaking) New Year.

Dick Schory’s New Percussion Ensemble to Bob Dylan’s Christmas Album (SMLP #15: Special Long Post Title Edition)

It’s Christmas time and that can only mean one thing here at Music Routes HQ: Lots of cat-sitting for friends who are out of town!

One of those friends, the Flannestads, left us a Christmas gift of booze and two LPs. One of those LPs is Wild Percussion And Horns A’Plenty by Dick Schory’s New Percussion Ensemble.  The credits are sparse, but they do mention in the liner notes that Bill Hanley plays trumpet. That’s enough to get us somewhere.

On Christmas itself, I had dinner at Anu’s where we listened to (and, yes, did many imitations of) Christmas In The Heart by Bob Dylan.

Our listening party route this week starts with Dick Schory’s rendition of “My Funny Valentine”.  The liner notes on Wild Percussion And Horns A’Plenty indicate that Bill Hanley played trumpet on this track.

“My Funny Valentine” by Dick Schor’s New Percussion Ensemble

Hanley also played the trumpet on Schory’s album Politely Percussive. This album is notable for the presence of two jazz greats: Joe Morello and Gary Burton. Here’s “Baby Bossa Nova” which, given it’s different mood, has some surprising similarities to Les Baxter’s “Quiet Village”. (Both start with a bass theme centered on the same three notes. “Baby Bossa Nova” adds an incidental fourth note. Both have melodies played over the bass theme that imply C-major in contrast to the ambiguous-but-not-C-major tonality of the bass theme.)

“Baby Bossa Nova” by Dick Schor

Burton, being a jazz great, has worked with many other jazz greats including Chick Corea. Here is “Brasilia” from the album Works.

Corea was one of several keyboardists on the Miles Davis electric jazz landmark album Bitches Brew.  Here’s “Spanish Key” (in two parts, probably due to YouTube time limits on videos).

The electric bass player on “Spanish Key” is Harvey Brooks.  Brooks played on Bob Dylan’s landmark “Like A Rolling Stone” from Highway 61 Revisited.

And, of course, Dylan is on his own Christmas album.

Million Dollar Quartet: Your Discography Help Needed

With a site like Music Routes, how can it not have the Million Dollar Quartet in the database?

Well, let me explain…

The Million Dollar Quartet is a famous jam session that  featured Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash (or maybe not; see below), Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis.  Among 1956 recordings, this may be the closest thing to a USA For Africa type of one-off supergroup.

Here’s the problem:  It’s unclear who is on what track.  Some credible sources (such as Presley biographer Ernst Jorgensen) say that Cash isn’t actually on the recording, that he was just there for the photo and wasn’t even in the studio while the tape was rolling!  Cash on the other hand, in his own book, insists that he was there the whole time and that his voice can be heard quietly and in a higher register than usual.

But even leaving aside the Cash question, it’s still unclear exactly who is on each track.  There were three or four other musicians in the studio in addition to the famous quartet (or trio).  They’re not all playing on every track!  (Or are they?)

Are there any tracks on Million Dollar Quartet that definitely feature all three of Perkins, Presley, and Lewis playing or singing?

Chet Baker to The Clancy Brothers (SMLP #14: Special All-Anu Edition)

I skipped the Saturday Morning Listening Party this last weekend. Things got busy. I may skip it again this weekend. So, here’s a midweek SMLP post.

I was over at Anu’s last week and he asked me what record I wanted to listen to. I picked a 1977 comeback attempt by trumpeter Chet Baker that Anu had never actually put on before: You Can’t Go Home Again. It turned out to have a sound neither of us associated with Baker: slick 1970s studio jazz/rock. Anu was unimpressed with the record and told me that I could have it.

The record does have a few interesting bits of trivia associated with it. For example, the title track with Paul Desmond is from the last recording session Desmond would ever have. Desmond is mostly known as the long-time saxophonist in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the composer of their best-known song, “Take Five”. Desmond and Baker were both popular jazz musicians in their day but were also both denigrated as being musically uninteresting and lacking in passion. Baker’s reputation has been largely rehabilitated since his death; Desmond, not as much.

The pianist on the title track is Kenny Barron.  He is among the most respected of living jazz pianists, but I know him best for being the guy who taught jazz piano at Rutgers when I was a student there.  I never took lessons with him, which is a little weird because I was for practical purposes a jazz piano major, but that’s what happens sometimes when you’re in the liberal arts college rather than the performing arts college.

One final note on Chet Baker: His estate is suing the record labels for billions of Canadian dollars.

On Monday, Anu blogged about the Clancy Brothers album Christmas. I suppose I should write a little something about the album, but Anu already did it for me.

The route from the Chet Baker album You Can’t Go Home Again to the Clancy Brothers album Christmas is four steps long. Here we go!

“El Morro” (which is not the track with Paul Desmond) features unusual instrumentation for a jazz number: bass flute by Hubert Laws and bassoon by John Campo.

“El Morro” by Chet Baker

The person we’re actually interested in (for purposes of Music Routery) on “El Morro” is percussionist Ralph MacDonald.  He’s one of those guys who has played with everyone.  In 1977, the same year that the Chet Baker record was released, MacDonald also appeared on the album Right On Time by the Brothers Johnson.  Right On Time has an amazing time capsule of a cover photo.  Here’s the Shuggie Otis-penned hit “Strawberry Letter 23″.

By the way, at least at the current time, if you try to Google search for track-by-track credits (not merely album credits) for the Right On Time album, you may have a difficult time. Fortunately, a kind soul uploaded images of the liner notes, and that is how the information made its way into the Music Routes database.

Jim Gilstrap was one of the many background singers on “Strawberry Letter 23″.  Gilstrap has done a lot of session work for other artists, although he had a hit of his own in 1974 with “Swing Your Daddy”.  He’s also on “Occapella” from the 1974 Ringo Starr solo effort Goodnight Vienna.  (Another weird awesome cover image, this time with the 1970s hearkening back to 1950s B-movie science fiction!)

“Occapella” was penned by New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint.  Another New Orleans legend, Dr. John, plays piano on the recording.  The drum duties are handled by studio ace Jim Keltner.

Like Ralph MacDonald, Jim Keltner has played with everyone.  He even got to play with everyone during one single song: “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” at the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration.  (Keltner played on the original studio version too; he has been quoted as saying that he was so moved by the song that the session was the first time he cried while playing.)

You may have noticed that there were two drummers in that video. Anton Fig, best known for his stint with Paul Shaffer on David Letterman but who also has extensive studio credits, is the drummer you see the most. He’s the one you see sitting behind Dylan and Eric Clapton near the start of the video.  You finally get a good clear shot of Keltner at 3:05.

Speaking of Clapton, the burden of trying to make a somewhat extended version of the song interesting seems to fall to him.  The whole thing is the same three chords over and over and a simple melody.  It’s all about the words and the mood.  Stretching it to almost seven minutes without drastic changes in dynamics or the like is a challenge, even with Clapton’s effortless-sounding melodic leads.  Neil Young heroically tries to inject some grit with his brief leads, but as great as Neil Young is, he’s not up to trading melodies with Clapton.  The track may have worked better (for me, anyway) if they had traded roles with Young taking most of the leads in his usual noisy, somewhat sloppy and strained yet highly energetic way, and with Clapton swooping in to save the day with brief melodicism.

I’m pretty sure that at least some of the guys standing behind Dylan through much of the video (e.g., 2:42 through around 2:50) who look like they would be the Clancy Brothers are, in fact, Clancy Brothers.  Earlier in the evening, they sang Dylan’s “When The Ship Comes In”.  Of course, since they’re singing and clapping on “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, we can go right from there to their Christmas album.

“Holly Tree” by The Clancy Brothers

Louis Prima & Keely Smith to Uriah Heep (SMLP #13: Special Uriah Heep Edition)

Today’s LPs for the Saturday Morning Listening Party were selected from the nearby second-hand store by my sister Margo who is visiting from Pennsylvania.

Album #1: Louis Prima & Keely Smith, Together. Margo especially liked “Mashuga”. Her husband always thinks of King Louie from The Jungle Book movie when he hears Louis Prima. Margo feels like this 1960 album does not sound like it was recorded shortly before Prima and Smith divorced. Smith sounds vaguely like Lena Horne to Margo. She likes how Prima and Smith have contrasting and complementary voices.

Album #2: Uriah Heep, Sweet Freedom. Margo thought that Mick Box looked like “Weird” Al Yankovic and Gary Thain looked like Kristy McNichol. The album sounds to me a lot like Styx, especially vocalist David Byron who sounds indistinguishable from Dennis DeYoung to my ear. The lyrics did not impress the SMLP attendees. One song resorts to reciting the alphabet. Margo said the album sounded like Jethro Tull meets Air Supply being mocked by Spinal Tap. I’m pretty sure the Uriah Heep record drove Humu’s mother from the building. Humu looked online and found that Uriah Heep played in Armenia last month. Uriah Heep dominated conversation for a while. We had a lot of fun sending each other e-cards from www.uriah-heep.com.

The route from Together to Sweet Freedom is 6 steps.  Here we go!

The route starts with “Mutual Admiration Society” by Prima and Smith.  Unfortunately, I can’t find it available from any free and legal service on the web. (Help?)

Louis Prima and Keely Smith did a brief television performance with Frank Sinatra that was eventually released on the album Classic Duets.

On the same album, Sinatra sings with Bing Crosby and Dean Martin on “Together”. Incidentally, this is a different tune than the title track from the Prima/Smith album that started this route.

Christmas is coming.  Bing Crosby and David Bowie had a duet on the Christmas song “The Little Drummer Boy”.

One of Bowie’s most beloved songs, “Changes”, has Trevor Bolder on bass.

Bolder was the bass player in Uriah Heep for a while. But he’s not on Sweet Freedom. He is on Conquest. The route contains “Out On The Street” but again, I cannot find it on a free and legal web service. (And again: Help?) Here’s “Carry On” from the same record.

This takes us to the end of the route, “Circus” from Sweet Freedom.

Best track in route: I have to go with Bowie, “Changes”.

Carole King to Big Audio Dynamite (SMLP #12: Special Flea-less Edition)

I was excited to do a little Internet research to find out what the role of Flea was on the Big Audio Dynamite record No. 10, Upping St. Alas, it turns out that the Flea involved in the B.A.D. record is not the Flea who is a member of Red Hot Chili Peppers and has recorded with Alanis Morissette, the Mars Volta, Jewel, Mike Watt, Tricky, and others. Instead, it is Adam “Flea” Newman, about whom much less material is available.  For one thing, I have not been able to find out what the liner notes mean by crediting him with “Dynamite”.  Did he play an instrument?  Produce?  Provide spiritual guidance?

The other record selected for today’s listening party, Music by Carole King, has some crediting ambiguities too.  It lists five names as playing in the “flute quartet” on “It’s Going To Take Some Time”.  I’d love to know what the deal is with that.

Our route starts with “Back To California”, the closing track on the Carole King record. It is the grand finale in the context of the record, featuring a larger ensemble and more rock-oriented playing than other tracks.  As such, it features two drummers.  Joel O’Brien, who plays all the other drum tracks on the record, is on this one along with soft-rock studio drumming stalwart Russ Kunkel.

Kunkel appeared in SMLP #10 where he connected Art Garfunkel to Bob Seger.  Here, he connects Carole King to Stevie Nicks via the title track from the first Nicks solo album Bella Donna.

The organ on “Bella Donna” is performed by Benmont Tench.  Tench has impressive studio credits and is also the keyboardist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.  Tench backed up Joe Strummer for a track Strummer recorded for Chef Aid: The South Park Album.

Note that Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers is on this track.  So, if it had been that Flea that was on the Big Audio Dynamite album, we could go right there. 

Since it’s not the same Flea, we’ll have to go from Joe Strummer to the Clash first so we can go from there to Mick Jones in Big Audio Dynamite.

We’ll use “The Card Cheat” from London Calling. (Anyone know who’s in the horn section?)

From there, Mick Jones gets us to “V. Thirteen” by Big Audio Dynamite. Incidentally, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones produced No. 10, Upping St.

My pick for best track in the route: This is another route with a lot of oranges-to-apples comparisons to be made. I’ll go with “The Card Cheat”.

Herb Alpert to Gary Numan (SMLP #11)

This week’s listen from the $1 bin in the second-hand store: S.R.O. by Herb Alpert.  The album helpfully ha a personnel list at the end of the liner notes on the back.  (Are they still “liner notes” if they appear on the cover rather than on the inner liner?)

Unfortunately, both the Internet and a close listen suggest that the list is wrong or at least incomplete.  Marimba and organ are uncredited, for example.  The On A & M Records web site has a Herb Alpert sessionography buried within a Herb Alpert page, which would seem to be helpful in getting correct personnel.  Alas, not quite.  It is contained within a Shockwave file making it difficult to search and navigate.  More importantly, the information contained in the Shockwave file also contains errors and omissions.  I can’t find sessions for most of the songs on this album.  For at least one track, there is no drummer listed but one is plainly audible.

Your Discography Help Needed: Given all of this, I’ve kept the credits in the Music Routes database for this album fairly minimal.  I included the full credits from the sessionography from “Work Song” and only credited Herb Alpert for the rest of the album.  If anyone can point me to more detailed and accurate data, I would be most grateful.

Your Discography Help Needed: The other album today is another 1980s record provided by Anu.  This time, it’s the live Gary Numan outing White Noise, recorded in 1984.  For the database, I left out the track entitled “Intro” which doesn’t seem to have Numan on it.  I left the full credits for the remainder of the record, but I wonder if I should have been listening more closely.  For example, is the credited female background vocalist on every track?

Saturday Morning Listening Party Route: Herb Alpert to Gary Numan in 6 steps

Of course, we start with the Herb Alpert track “Work Song” since that’s the only track that I was able to somewhat-reliably locate full credits for.  In the video below members of the band mime along to the recording (with a few extra sound effects overdubbed) and Herb Alpert himself provides a brief introduction.

According to the sessionography, trombonist Lew McCreary is playing uncredited on that track along with Alpert’s regular trombonist.  30 years later, McCreary would be one of the many studio heavyweights to contribute to the much-maligned Pat Boone album of metal covers.  In fact, McCreary is on every track!  Here’s Boone’s cover of the Judas Priest song “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’”

Prolific woodwinds session man Tom Scott is on every track of the Pat Boone record as well.  He even wrote the arrangement for “Smoke On The Water”!  More than 20 years earlier, Tom Scott played the soprano saxophone on the Paul McCartney/Wings hit “Listen To What The Man Siad”.

This brings us to Sir Paul McCartney.  Of course, he was in The Beatles, but that’s not where we’re headed.  He also sang on the 1980s charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” but that’s not where we’re going either.  We’re going to, um, the 20th anniversary re-make of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Yup, Sir Paul is on both.  However, he doesn’t sing on this version.  He is playing bass.

Also on this version is Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy.  He doesn’t have a solo but he is singing on the chorus.  Hannon collaborated with Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields on a one-minute track by Merritt’s project The 6ths called “The Dead Only Quickly”.

Someone else who collaborated with Merritt on a track would be Gary Numan, singing “The Sailor In Love With The Sea”.

This brings us to the final track in the route, “Me, I Disconnect From You” fom Numan’s live White Noise record. Numan sure wore a lot of make up for this show.

Best Track In The Route: This one’s tough.  I’m going to go with “The Dead Only Quickly” by the 6ths with Neil Hannon.

Art Garfunkel to Judas Priest (SMLP #10 Special Soft Rock To Metal Edition)

This week, we listened to the 1975 Art Garfunkel solo record Breakaway and the 1979 live Judas Priest platter Unleashed In The East.

Garfunkel’s record contains a cover of “Disney Girls”, a great song originally recorded by the Beach Boys during a somewhat un-Beach Boys-like period.  It was written by Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, who was in many ways Brian Wilson’s replacement in the band.  Johnston appears on this version as well, playing piano, whistling, and singing background vocals.

The Judas Priest record contains what might have been their signature tune at the time, “Diamonds and Rust”.  What many fans may not have known is that the song was originally written and recorded by Joan Baez.  You can’t make this stuff up.

So let’s follow the route from Garfunkel’s “Disney Girls” to Priest’s live version of “Diamonds and Rust”!

In addition to the participation of Bruce Johnston, Art Garfunkel’s rendition of “Disney Girls”  has a performance by veteran studio drummer Russ Kunkel.

Kunkel also played on “Like a Rock” by Bob Seger.  “Like a Rock” also features keyboard session veteran Bill Payne.  (Payne played on some tracks on Garfunkel’s Breakaway, but “Disney Girls” was not among them.)

Bill Payne played organ on the Pink Floyd song “The Dogs of War”.   The song is packed with studio heavyweights like Tony Levin and Tom Scott.  David Gilmour is the only member of the band that performs on the much-maligned track.

The drummer on “The Dogs of War” is drummer Carmine Appice, perhaps best known for being the drummer in Vanilla Fudge. Appice also has extensive studio credits.

In 1985, Ronnie James Dio decided that heavy metal musicians ought to do a charity single for African famine relief similar to “We Are the World” (1985) and “Do They know It’s Christmas?” (1984) The result was supergroup Hear ‘n Aid and the single “Stars” released in 1986. Dio’s drummer Vinny Appice plays on the track. Vinny is Carmine’s brother. Carmine Appice sings in the large metal choir on the choruses.

If you watched the video above, you may have noticed that one of the featured singers on “Stars” is Judas Priest’s Rob Halford. This brings us to Judas Priest’s live version of “Diamonds and Rust”.

Best in set: Gotta go with Art Garfunkel on this one.