Music Routes

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.

Alvin and the Chipmunks to Brother Jack McDuff (SMLP #9: Special Halloween Edition)

Last week, I mentioned that I made the rookie error of not checking that a record isn’t hopelessly warped before buying it.

For this week’s listening party, I would like to mention an even more fundamental error. I failed to make sure that the record in the sleeve was the one specified on the sleeve itself.

Thus, The Chipmunks Sing The Beatles Hits came to the listening party in a Halloween costume as Screamin’ by Brother Jack McDuff.

The route from Alvin and the Chipmunks to Jack McDuff starts with the Chipmunks singing “Can’t Buy Me Love”.

The Chipmunks recorded a record with Canned Heat. I’m not kidding.

Canned Heat guitarist Henry Vestine had previously played on some early Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention demos. These demos were eventually released on a CD called Joe’s Corsage. Here is “Any Way The Wind Blows” which was later re-recorded for Freak Out! and Cruising With Ruben And The Jets. If you click over to YouTube, ignore the credits listed there. They are from the version on Cruising With Ruben And The Jets.

Now that we’ve arrived at Zappa, we can turn in a jazzier direction to try to end up at Brother Jack McDuff. Zappa’s The Grand Wazoo featured his idiosyncratic take on big band music. The title track includes a trombone solo by Billy Byers.

Byers played on the eponymous record by The Jim Chapin Sextet.  Chapin is a drummer best known (to me, at least) for having authored Advanced Techniques For The Modern Drummer (1948).  It’s a bummer that I can’t find a recording online of “Cherokee” from that record.  “Cherokee” is, of course, a jazz classic, and this version features Byers, Chapin, and alto saxophone icon Phil Woods.

Phil Woods was in the ensemble that recorded the soundtrack for the film Alfie.  The music was penned by tenor saxophone collosus Sonny Rollins.  Jazz guitar great Kenny Burrell was also on the session.

This brings us at last to Brother Jack McDuff, as Kenny Burrell is on McDuff’s Screamin’ album. Alas, it’s another track (“One O’Clock Jump”) that I can’t seem to find online. Given that lack of availability, you can imagine my disappointment when I went to put this record on only to discover that I had been sold a Chipmunks record in a Brother Jack McDuff sleeve.

Best in set: “Alfie’s Theme”

Wings to Rain Tree Crow (SMLP #8: Hopelessly Warped Edition)

Today’s $1 purchase from the nearby second-hand store is Venus And Mars by Wings. Sadly, I didn’t get to listen to this on the turntable. I made a rookie error. I purchased a hopelessly warped LP.

There is some ambiguity in the credits supplied on the back of the album cover.  Geoff Britton was the drummer in Wings when recording started, but he quit after tracking three songs.  Joe English (who, amusingly, is American—I’m easily amused) plays drums on the rest of the album.  What’s not clear is whether English is also on the three tracks that feature Britton.  Perhaps he added percussion.  Perhaps the tracks are edited with some parts featuring drums by Britton and others featuring English.  Or perhaps English just plain isn’t on those three tracks.  Anyone know?

The end point of this week’s route is the eponymous record by Rain Tree Crow. This is the last of a small collection of LPs supplied by Anu a few weeks ago. We here at SMLP HQ thank him for his contributions!

The start of the route is “Rock Show” which was released as a single in edited form along with the title track (which acts as an introduction).  The single fared poorly, and listening to it (below), it’s not hard to see why.  It’s not awful, and it’s nice to know that New Orleans legends Allen Toussaint and Kenneth “Afro” Williams are on the track.  But it’s not among the most inspired songwriting efforts of Paul McCartney.  Nonetheless, as Robert Reid once correctly pointed out, “Great artists making iffy music (or perceived-to-be iffy music) is always more interesting [to talk about] than great artists making great music.”  Here’s the single edit version, which features “Venus and Mars” for the first minute and change.  It also apparently shaves several minutes off the album version of “Rock Show”.

“Rock Show” and the entire Venus And Mars album is credited to Wings, which many people do not distinguish from Paul McCartney solo efforts.  The next track is a genuine McCartney solo effort from Flaming Pie, his worst-named record.  Despite the bad album title, this track is (in my opinion) far superior to “Rock Show”.  It’s called “Souvenir” and it’s largely a two-man affair yet manages to have an enormous sound.  Jeff Lynne plays keyboards and guitars.  Paul McCartney plays those instruments on this track too, as well as bass and drums. The only other musicians are three horn players, including Dave Bishop on baritone saxophone.

Dave Bishop’s baritone sax also appears on “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse.  Although Winehouse may be infamous as a notorious mess, she does have a crackerjack horn section (and rhythm section and…) on her record.  Jazzman Jamie Talbot is also on “Rehab” playing alto saxophone.

Jamie Talbot, in turn, is on “Slow Train To Dawn”, the 1980s single by The The. The singers are Matt Johnson and Neneh Cherry. The latter is the step-daughter of free jazz trumpet pioneer Don Cherry. The trumpet on this track is handled by John Thirkell.

Thirkell is one half of The Phantom Horns. The other half is Gary Barnacle, another prolific session player and Thirkell’s bandmate in Level 42.  Thirkell and Barnacle supply their phantom horns on the opening track of Rain Tree Crow, “Big Wheels In Shanty Town”.  Rain Tree Crow, incidentally, is basically David Sylvian and Japan under a different name.

Best in set? “Souvenir” by Paul McCartney.

Styx To Flaming Lips (SMLP #7: Vaguely Pirate Edition)

Today’s $1 purchase from the second-hand shop and the start of this week’s route: Styx, Pieces Of Eight.

Mostly, I bought it because there are moai on the cover and a song entitled “Aku-Aku”, thematically connecting it to Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman from last week’s listening party.  But the title of the album itself is sort of pirate-themed and I’m going to the Treasure Island Music Festival this weekend to see The Flaming Lips. Of course, the name Treasure Island is sort of pirate-themed too.

So the other end of this week’s route will be the Embryonic, the new Flaming Lips record.

The route starts with “Renegade” from Pieces Of Eight.  During the listening party, Humuhumu noted that the verse of “Eye Of The Tiger” by Survivor bears a striking resemblance to the verse of the other big hit from the record, “Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)”. I bring this up only because this route starts with “Renegade”, but I don’t have much to say about it.

“Renegade” was written and sung by Tommy Shaw. When Warren Zevon was terminally ill and recording his last album, Tommy Shaw joined him to sing background vocals and play 12-string guitar on “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”.

Much earlier in Zevon’s career, he wrote “Tenderness On The Block” with Jackson Browne.  Jackson Browne produced and sang background vocals on the track which appears on Zevon’s Excitable Boy album. Whoever is responsible for keeping this track off the Internet is doing a bang-up job. Even Rhapsody, whose site indicates they have the full track available for legal streaming, only has a 30 second sample. Fortunately, Excitable Boy is an excellent record well worth paying for.

Jackson Browne plays guitar on the 2007 Rilo Kiley song “The Angels Hung Around”. The video below has terrible sound quality, so if you like it, here’s one more to go buy.

Rilo Kiley was one of many indie luminaries who performed on “Do They Know It’s Hallowe’en”, a parody of charity singles and, yet, an actual charity single itself. (Proceeds went to UNICEF.)

Other people on that track include Beck, members of Arcade Fire, and Karen O of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which brings us to The Flaming Lips and Embryonic.

Karen O performed on three tracks from the new Flaming Lips record. Here she is with them on “Gemini Syringes”.

Your Discography Help Requested: Martin Denny, et al.

Some burning questions that got buried at the bottom of the last Listening Party post:

#1: Martin Denny, “Burma Train” on the album Primitiva: Is this personnel listing in Music Routes correct?  If not, what is the correct personnel listing?  It doesn’t sound to me like all those people are on the track. I’m guessing that’s actually the personnel list for the entire album and not everyone listed is on that track.

#2: What is the complete list of musicians that recorded the stereo version of Martin Denny’s Exotica? Does it include John Kramer?  Or is Kramer only on the mono version?

#3: Is there a recording that has both John Kramer and Julius Wechter? I suppose if Kramer is on the stereo version of Exotica, then that would be one.  Anything else?

David Sylvian to Arthur Lyman (SMLP #6: Swine Flu Edition)

Humuhumu is sick, so we stayed in this Saturday morning.  (She doesn’t have swine flu—the title is just a joke that is probably unfunny, in poor taste, and something that I will regret before I even finish this parenthetical comment.)  I have a backlog of records from previous listening parties, so I selected two of those for this week’s listening party.

The route starting point:  Gone To Earth, a solo album by David Sylvian of the band Japan.  Anu had brought it for a previous listening party.  The second record of this two-record set is all ambient instrumentals.  I listened to that record first, mostly to confirm the credits in the Music Routes database.  Having spent far too much time in academia listening to bloodless instrumental music (to say nothing of creating music of my own that is unmatched in its lack of inspiration),  I thought for sure I would hate the instrumental tracks.  As it turns out, it was perfect Saturday morning listening while I went about making coffee for Humu and so on.

The route end route: Cast Your Fate To The Wind, a record by exotica vibraphonist Arthur Lyman.  If the Internet isn’t lying to me, this is a reissue of an earlier Lyman recording entitled At The Crescendo.  I saw this in the second-hand shop a couple weeks ago and picked it up for Humu.

Without further ado, a Music Route from Gone To Earth to Cast Your Fate To The Wind:

We start with one of the non-instrumental tracks on the David Sylvian album.  “River Man” features King Crimson leader Robert Fripp and one-time King Crimson saxophonist Mel Collins.  You can listen to the studio version from Gone To Earth by clicking over to the route and selecting the play icon for that track.

Robert Fripp and Mel Collins, of course, played on many King Crimson tracks, most of them strange.  On the album Islands, they had an uncharacteristically raunchy number called “Ladies Of The Road”.  The contrast between the delicate soprano saxophone from Collins on “River Man” and the honking and squawking on “Ladies Of The Road” is striking.

The drummer on “Ladies Of The Road” is Ian Wallace.  Wallace is probably best known for having been a member of King Crimson, but he has done substantial studio work.  Notably, he is on the Bob Dylan record Street Legal.  The first track on that record, “Changing Of The Guards”, features saxophonist Steve Douglas.

Most people have never heard of Steve Douglas, but he was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.  According to the Hall’s web site:

The unmistakable sound of Steve Douglas’s honking saxophone can be heard on countless recordings by the Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, Duane Eddy, and others. Among the most in-demand West Coast sessionmen, Douglas was a key player in producer Phil Spector’s “Wrecking Crew”….

Douglas was on that most highly-regarded of Beach Boys albums, Pet Sounds. Like many session saxophonists, he doubles on clarinet, which is the instrument he plays on “You Still Believe In Me”.

Also on “You Still Believe In Me” are percussionists Jerry Williams and Julius Wechter, both of whom worked with Martin Denny, the central figure of exotica music. This brings us to our Geeky Exotica Discography Bonus Questions.

Martin Denny’s Primitiva opens with “Burma Train”. (You can download the entire album in mp3 format from a link at the bottom of this post on The Martin Denny Blog.)

Geeky Exotica Discography Bonus Question #1: Is the personnel listing in Music Routes correct?  If not, what is the correct personnel listing?  It doesn’t sound to me like all those people are on the track. I’m guessing that’s actually the personnel list for the entire album.  Fortunately, the presence of vibraphone and/or marimba is a pretty good indicator that either Jerry Williams or Julius Wechter is on the track, so the route can remain intact.

From “Burma Train”, we go via Martin Denny and Augie Colon to Denny’s best-known album, Exotica.  The original mono version of Exotica featured Arthur Lyman.  Here’s “Ah Me Furi” from Exotica.

I don’t know whether that is from the mono or subsequent stereo re-recording of Exotica with different personnel, but it doesn’t matter in the case of this song. Someone over at Tiki Central appears to have demonstrated that this and one other song from the stereo version of Exotica are actually the same as the mono recordings. Obviously, since Arthur Lyman is on this recording, it’s trivial to get to his Cast Your Fate To The Wind album. But let’s hold off on that for a moment.

I’ve tried to find the personnel for the stereo version of Exotica but have not had much luck.  Obviously, Martin Denny is on the recording.  Julius Wechter replaces Arthur Lyman on it.  And, exotica music authority Jeff Chenault’s post in the aforementioned Tiki Central thread indicates that Roy Harte replaces Harold Chang.  But what about bassist John Kramer?  He’s on the original mono recordings.  If he’s on the stereo recordings too, we can shorten the route by a step.  We would be able to skip “Burma Train” and go straight from Pet Sounds to the stereo version of Exotica via Wechter, and then from there to Cast Your Fate To The Wind via Kramer.  But if Kramer was replaced, that won’t work.

Geeky Exotica Discography Bonus Question #2: What is the complete list of musicians that recorded the stereo version of Martin Denny’s Exotica? Does it include John Kramer?

Geeky Exotica Discography Bonus Question #3: For that matter, can you name any recording whatsoever that has both John Kramer and Julius Wechter? It doesn’t have to be on the Exotica album to shorten the route. Any track with those two musicians will do.

In any event, the final step in the chain is to connect from the previous track to Cast Your Fate To The Wind via Arthur Lyman himself along with a couple of the aforementioned musicians for good measure. The track at the end of the route is “China Nights” which doesn’t appear to be generally available on any services. To hear it, you’ll have to visit the seedier BitTorrent reaches of the Internet, buy the CD reissue (available right now from hbdirect.com for $30), find it in a second-hand shop like I did for $1, or just come over to my house sometime.

Bon Jovi to Strong Bad (SMLP #5: Nephews-Oriented Special Edition)

Today, I’m with Porterhouse and Xam, my 11-year old and 9-year-old nephews. So I got their input on what to listen to this morning.

Porterhouse and Xam love Strong Bad, thanks in no small part to their awesome uncle. Earlier in the week, the Homestar Runner site released a video for “Crystal Fortress” by They Might Be Giants featuring Strong Bad. “Crystal Fortress” was selected as our route end point.  Porterhouse and Xam seemed to like it OK, but their mother laughed a lot harder at it.

When asked, Porterhouse informed me that his favorite band is Bon Jovi, greatly pleasing his New Jersey-born mother. It was easy to decide what Bon Jovi song to use to start the route—the previous evening, Porterhouse had rocked “Wanted Dead Or Alive” in the Rock Band video game.

In 1987, Cher released a reworking of “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”, a song with which she had a hit in the 1960s.  All of Bon Jovi appeared on the recording, including Jon Bon Jovi as a background vocalist and Richie Sambora who would be romantically involved with Cher around two years later.  Michael Bolton was also singing background vocals on the track.

“Far, Far Cry” from the star-studded Jonathan Elias record Requiem For The Americas is a two-part track.  Michael Bolton sings the lead vocals on the second part, “Let There Be Peace”.  The lead vocals on the first part are by Jon Anderson of Yes.

Jon Anderson contributes background vocals on “Aimum” by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.  (Like Béla Fleck, Xam and Porterhouse’s mother is a banjo player.)  John Medeski of Medeski, Martin, and Wood plays the organ on that track.  Part of the track is used in the video below.  To hear the full song, click the play icon for the song in the music route.

John Medeski also played organ on the Rufus Wainwright track “Release The Stars”.  The trombone player on “Release The Stars” is Dan Levine.  To hear “Release The Stars”, click the play icon for the song in the music route.

Dan Levine plays trombone on the They Might Be Giants track “Mr. Xcitement” which features Mike Doughty on vocals.  Alas, YouTube does not have this song, so to hear it, click the play icon for the song in the music route.

Naturally, both members of They Might Be Giants play on the They Might Be Giants track, “Crystal Fortress” which you should totally watch/listen to again.

SMLP #4: Muhal Richard Abrams and Steve Martin

I’ve been cat-sitting for the Flannestads, which means I get to raid their record collection for the Saturday Morning Listening Party.  The Flannestads contribution to this week: Levels And Degrees Of Light.  This is the first recording led by Muhal Richard Abrams.  It contains the results of the first recording session of Anthony Braxton.  It is a landmark of experimental jazz.

My selection from the nearby shop selling used LPs for $1: A Wild And Crazy Guy.  This is the Steve Martin live comedy record.  It too is a landmark.

And now, a route from Muhal Richard Abrams’s Levels And Degrees Of Light to Steve Martin’s A Wild And Crazy Guy:

Our route starts with “The Bird Song”, a monumental union of poetry and experimental jazz.  Unfortunately, the song does not appear to be available on most legal streaming audio and video sites.  The CD is available for purchase from the usual suspects online and you can download “The Bird Song” and the rest of Levels And Degrees Of Light at the Flabbergasted Vibes blog.

As mentioned above, “The Bird Song” was Anthony Braxton’s first recording session.  He has had a long career in experimental music.  He may be best known for collaborations involving Chick Corea.  One of those collaborations resulted in the next step in our route, “Quartet Piece No. 3″.   Although you can’t (anymore?) download “Quartet Piece No. 3″ from the Destination: OUT blog, you can read Braxton’s thoughts on Scientology:

Not as many people are familiar with the adventurous early part of Chick Corea’s career, but listening to the side leading up to Circle it’s no surprise he would form an artistic bond with Braxton. So what changed him? Scientology, y’all. An interesting side note is that everyone in Circle joined L. Ron Hubbard’s crew. While Corea became obsessed with it, the others quickly lost interest. ”I found Scientology very interesting, especially some of the techniques they developed for having people brainwash themselves,” Braxton says. ”But this was not what I wanted to be part of.”

So Chick Corea became a Scientologist, and coincidentally or not, started playing less experimental music than he did with Circle, and more music with mainstream appeal like he did with Return To Forever.  He also played on Warren Zevon and Cat Stevens records.  The next step in our route is the Cat Stevens track “Bonfire”, with Chick Corea on electric piano, from the album Izitso.

The drummer on “Bonfire” was Andy Newmark.  Newmark is a studio drummer who worked with a mindboggling array of the most important pop artists of the 1970s.  He was the drummer on the Randy Newman song “Rednecks”.  “Rednecks” was first released on Newman’s Good Old Boys and is also widely available on various greatest hits collections.  You can hear it in the unofficial video below.  This particular video revels in the offensiveness and irony of the song, but does so with an absence of the subtleties in the song that balance those qualities.  I suggest listening to the music without actually watching the video.  If there was a different video available at this time that (like this one) featured the original version of the song with Andy Newmark on drums, I’d likely use it instead.  (If you know of one, let me know so I can update the post!)

Glenn Frey and Don Henley sang backup vocals on “Rednecks” along with another member of The Eagles, Bernie Leadon.  By the late 1980s, Leadon had become a member of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  He is on their song “Down That Road Tonight” which hit #6 on the Billboard Country chart in the U.S.  You can click through to the Music Route and play the song from there or you can stream it from a MySpace page set up by Rhino Records.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founding member Jeff Hanna is on “Down That Road Tonight”.  Hanna was also on the hit novelty single “King Tut” by Steve Martin.  The backing band that includes Hanna is billed as The Toot Uncommons.  On A Wild And Crazy Guy, it sounds to me like Martin is singing along to a pre-recorded track.  I’m guessing that it is just the backing track from the single and that, therefore, it includes Jeff Hanna.  (Anyone know?)  The video below is of a performance filmed after the release of A Wild And Crazy Guy but it’s close enough for this blog.

SMLP #3 (Special Rosh Hashanah Edition): South Sea Island Magic to Iggy Pop

For this Saturday Morning Listening Party, Humuhumu purchased a 4-LP Reader’s Digest 1968 collection of escapist easy listening called South Sea Island Magic. Anu brought over the Iggy Pop record Party and described it as a failed attempt to do a New Wave sell-out album. He particularly cited “Pumpin’ For Jill” as having bad lyrics and a ludicrous keyboard solo that is hilariously loud in the mix.

Because this is the special Rosh Hashanah edition of the SMLP, I’ll point out that Iggy Pop (who, Wikipedia tells me, was “born James Newell Osterberg, Jr.”) is (according to multiple online sources) Jewish. Shana tova! To help us celebrate, Humuhumu baked a honey cake with apple sauce.

Let’s look at one of the many possible routes from the South Sea Island Magic collection to Iggy Pop’s “Pumpin’ For Jill” on Party.

The Reader’s Digest collection has credits that leave most of the musicians anonymous.  It does list Louis Nunley as the vocalist on a number of tracks. Nunley has had a long career as a background singer in Nashville. He even supposedly has recorded with Elvis Presley, but I can’t find anything that indicates what track he might be on. (Help?)

Our route starts with Nunley singing “Macao” which is on the third LP of the four-LP collection.  A rip of the LP can be downloaded via mp3 blog ‘s marvelous distro.

Nunley is on “He Is Beautiful To Me” by Crystal Gayle on her album True Love.  YouTube has clips of two or three different live performances of the track.  I don’t know if Nunley is on any of those live performances, but I suspect not.

The studio version of “He Is Beautiful To Me” also featured The Nashville String Machine.  Part of the machinery was violinist Dennis Molchan who was tapped to play in the violin section when Ray Charles recorded a duet with Elton John.  The duet was “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word” and was released on the Ray Charles album Genius Loves Company.  (The YouTube video indicates that this track was the last thing Ray Charles recorded before passing away.  Confirmation anyone?)

Elton John played piano on “2 X 2″ by Bob Dylan from Dylan’s Under The Red Sky.

The drummer on that track was Kenny Aronoff.  Aronoff has an extensive list of studio credits, including Iggy Pop’s “Starry Night” from Brick By Brick.

And, of course, this brings us to Iggy Pop’s “Pumpin’ For Jill”.

Jimmy Page And “Goldfinger”

In the film It Might Get Loud, Jimmy Page tells The Edge that he recorded “Goldfinger” with Shirley Bassey.

This is certainly plausible and would be awesome to include in the Music Routes database.

But I like to get confirmation for things like this. After all, studio musicians with long careers often get some pretty crazy ideas. Bernard Purdie thinks he played on a Beatles record and that Ringo did not. Big Jim Sullivan says that Herbie Flowers remembers him at the recording sessions for “Space Oddity”.

My Google Fu is failing me on this one. Everything that reports that Page played on “Goldfinger” pretty clearly got it from the movie. It’s a long, long, long shot, I know, but anyone have any independent confirming information on this?