Jonathan Mark's Encyclopedia Of Classic Rock

2008-07-14T06:12:00.001-07:00

Benny always had a beard, and that helped distinguish him from Bjorn, just as Anni-Frid's dark hair distinguished her from Agnetha.

2008-07-13T12:19:00.001-07:00

The Stones aged in the public space. Abba, on the other hand, disappeared for 25 years. So when they reappeared they seemed. with the exception of Agnetha. Old.

2008-07-13T11:34:00.001-07:00

If sales figures determined who got tenure then we would fire all our professord of musicology and hire ABBA.

2008-07-13T06:58:00.001-07:00

Kim Wilde is the daughter of 60s British singer Marty Wilde. She had a hit in the early 80s with Kids In America when she was 20, blonde and cute.

2008-07-13T06:51:00.001-07:00

REM songs are sometimes good enough to get covered. Tori Amos recorded Losing My Religion.

2008-07-12T15:19:00.001-07:00

Steely Dan drummer Jeff Porcaro died while gardening, possibly due to drugs and pesticides. A drummer for Spinal Tap also died in a freak gardening accident.

2008-07-12T15:15:00.001-07:00

A 2nd drummer dies in garden in freak accident: Abba's drummer fell forward through a glass door. It slit his throat. He crawled into his garden and collapsed.

2008-07-12T15:08:00.001-07:00

Back in 1992 BennyBjorn was happy to go onstage with U2 and perform Dancing Queen. Now U2 ABBA are bigger than U2. They have had a hit show and movie.

2008-07-12T08:02:00.003-07:00

2008-07-12T08:02:00.001-07:00

Ballad of John and Yoko is a simple ditty about something going on in John's life at the moment. Beacause he was musical he could write a popular throwaway song

2008-07-12T07:12:00.001-07:00

Ballad of John and Yoko was a simple little song about something that was going on in John's life at the time. Because he was so musical he was able

2008-07-11T08:51:00.001-07:00

Frida is now a 63-year-old grandmother. One should not expect her or the other members of Abba to look the way they did 30 years ago. I didn't recognize Benny.

2008-07-11T08:46:00.001-07:00

The New Colony Six wore identical mock-colonial outfits and high black boots. Strangely, they later added a seventh man but kept the name New Colony Six.

2008-07-11T08:45:00.001-07:00

Despite Geldof giving his band a spot on LiveAid, by '86 the Rats were over 30 and without a record deal in the US. They broke up and Geldof went solo.

2008-07-09T08:01:00.001-07:00

Sting had the ability to come up with simple, catchy refrains or repeated elements which would stick in listener's minds. E.g.. "Da do da di, Da do da da."

2008-07-08T20:49:00.001-07:00

After Trevor Horn was in the Buggles and Yes he produced Frankie Goes To Hollywood during their brief chart run.

2008-07-08T17:40:00.001-07:00

Tears For Fears were two Brits, one of whom was named Raymond Orzabal. They feuded and one quit, leaving the other to perform as a solo act under the name.

2008-07-08T17:33:00.001-07:00

Difford and Tilbrook were a successful songwriting team as members of Squeeze. "Black Coffee In Bed" had an R&B-influenced vocal accompaniment.

2008-07-08T17:14:00.001-07:00

The Guess Who were from the Prarie Provinces and had an album called Wheatfield Soul. But to an American wheat comes from Kansas and Nebraska, not from Canada.

2008-07-08T17:13:00.000-07:00

The Guess Who were from the Prarie Provinces and had an album called Wheatfield Soul. But to an American wheat comes from Kansas and Nebraska, not from Canada.

2008-07-08T09:42:00.001-07:00

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2008-07-08T07:14:00.001-07:00

Frankie Goes To Hollywood's name was from a headline about Frank Sinatra. Since Sinatra started making movies in the 50s it must have been an old headline.

2008-07-07T16:03:00.003-07:00

Iggy Pop cowrote "China Girl" with David Bowie. I find "Lust for Life" and "Search and Destroy" pleasant. But Iggy Pop has written little of lasting worth in a 40 year career.

2008-07-07T16:03:00.001-07:00

The Raiders couldn't just swap out three of their members in late '67 and expect fans not to notice or care. I wondered who Charlie Coe and Freddy Weller were.

2008-07-06T17:35:00.001-07:00

I stopped keeping up with current music decades ago. I listen to "Double Dare" by Bauhaus and it seems as if Bauhaus is a new band, albeit Hendrix-influenced.

But Bauhaus was actually one of numerous British 80s bands that remained unknown in the US. YouTube has a video of their cover of T Rex's "Telegram Sam." Because Bolan was a superstar in the UK the song would have been well-known to Bauhaus's UK audience, the equivalent of covering a Grand Funk Railroad song in the US.

Siouxee and the Banshees, the Power Station, and others Brit groups also covered T. Rex material. He remained an influence long after his death, particularly in the UK.

2008-07-06T12:56:00.001-07:00

Billy Joe Royal's "Cherry Hill Park" was probably about a girl who would make out at a park. I used to think the girl was having sex in the woods. Maybe she was

2008-07-06T11:48:00.001-07:00

Groups which had an organist didn't necessarily need a bassist. Neither the Rascals nor the Doors had them. Manzarek would play the bass part with his left hand

2008-07-06T09:42:00.001-07:00

Saxophonist Denny Peyton said before his cancer death in 2007 that the DC5 had been an important part of his life of which he was very proud.

2008-07-06T09:36:00.001-07:00

Dave Clark owns the rights and publishing to the DC5s recordings. But for many years he was unable to come to terms on rereleasing them in the US.

2008-07-06T09:33:00.001-07:00

Gene Pitney was popular in the UK after his US fame faded. He died a few years ago after a successful UK concert. He went out on top.

2008-07-06T09:28:00.001-07:00

Sting did a stadium concert in Israel with Matisyahu opening. They did a duet in which Sting proclaimed twice "We want moshiach now!" The audience cheered.

2008-07-06T09:25:00.001-07:00

Synchronicity contains two songs written by the other group members. The songs were filler, like Ringo's song on The White Album. I disliked them.

2008-07-06T09:15:00.001-07:00

Sting was not an immensely talented songwriter, but in the Police's last two albums he made the best use of the talent he had. I love Synchronicity.

2008-07-06T09:11:00.001-07:00

Joan Baez in her autobiography described a lesbian relationship. People asked why she included it and she replied that it was because she wanted to.

2008-07-06T08:40:00.001-07:00

"Catch A Wave" features Brian and Mike trading off lead vocals in the middle of the verses. You can also hear them in the choruses, along with the other Boys.

2008-07-06T07:43:00.001-07:00

"Positively 4th Street" is basically iambic, but Dylan introduces extra syllables here and there. Purely iambic lyrics build up the tension but don't release it.

2008-07-05T13:31:00.001-07:00

Nik Kershaw's "Wouldn't It Be Good" was a highlight of LiveAid. As was Bryan Adams' "Kids Wanna Rock." At LiveAid everyone played live, unlike on Ed Sullivan.

2008-07-05T12:47:00.001-07:00

Those mentioned in REMs "End Of The World As We Know It" had not necessarily died recently. Rock critic Lester Bangs had died almost a decade earlier in 1982.

2008-07-05T07:12:00.001-07:00

Mark Lindsay on a nighttime talk show ca. 1971 was asked about groupies. He said there were women who came backstage, but wouldn't say what they did there.

2008-07-04T14:06:00.001-07:00

Bobby Keyes played sax on "Brown Sugar" and other Sticky Fingers tracks that included a saxophone. The Dave Clark Five had a saxman in the group, as did Roxy Music and Morphine. Mark Lindsay played sax in the Raiders, notably on "Melody For An Unknown Girl" which he also wrote.

2008-07-04T09:53:00.001-07:00

Springsteen live engages in a call and response which sounds like a black church service. Most American congregational prayer has lost that spontaneity.

2008-07-04T09:17:00.001-07:00

Phil Ochs songs were often marred by political references which date the lyrics. He could write apolitical songs like "There But For Fortune" and "Flower Lady."

2008-07-04T09:13:00.001-07:00

Brian Wilson sang in a falsetto on "Warmth of the Sun," "I Get Around" and most Beach Boys hits. A mere decade later his voice was shot as a result of smoking and poor health.

2008-07-03T13:20:00.001-07:00

I remember listening to "Hello, I Love You" the summer it came out. The Kinks later sued the Doors for stealing the melody to "All Day And All Of The Night."

2008-07-03T08:18:00.001-07:00

I'm not a fan of music where the singer has a strong British accent, e.g. Depeche Mode. A major exception is Morrissey. Ca. 85-95 he was brilliant.

2008-07-03T07:35:00.001-07:00

One can imagine George Martin directing the harmonies on "I'll Follow The Sun." It's an old-fashioned song with old-fashioned harmonies.

2008-07-02T14:54:00.001-07:00

In the middle of "I'm A Believer" Micky Dolenz sighs: Unhh!. Young teenaged girls thought it sexy. Boys thought it cool. Micky had to think of himself as both.

2008-07-02T14:52:00.001-07:00

In "Sunshine of Your Love" Clapton repeated the lead riff continuously. It had a feedback-laden chugga-chugga rhythm which 14-year-olds thought was cool.

2008-07-02T10:11:00.001-07:00

Pete Briquette was born on this date, July 2, in 1954. Who? Well, if not for his booming bass propelling the Rats in The Art of Surfacing we all might have missed Sir Bob Geldof's talents.

2008-07-02T09:30:00.001-07:00

Three members of Abba were born in '45. Thus they were 30 when Abba broke in America in '75. Agnetha was born in '50. Three were Swedes. Anni-Frid was Norwegian

2008-07-02T08:37:00.001-07:00

Bryan Ferry was tall and handsome. He always dressed stylishly, which made him seem older than he was. David Bowie would have liked to resemble Bryan Ferry.

2008-07-01T17:24:00.001-07:00

Doors drummer John Densmore likes LA Woman best of the Doors albums because of its jazz influences. He added some jazzy flourishes on the cymbals to the Doors' 1969 hit "Touch Me."

2008-07-01T14:04:00.001-07:00

My tendency is to think of Paul Rodgers as an also-ran with Free and the Firm. But he was the prime mover in Bad Company, and they were a major band.

2008-07-01T13:56:00.001-07:00

Frey had early post-Eagles success, especially "Smuggler's Blues" in '86. But he eventually faded while Henley hung on awhile longer, with hits in '89 and '90.

2008-07-01T12:03:00.001-07:00

But for his weight Kaylan would have been handsome. In the late 60s he wore a mustache and hat which made him look like a rotund Jack Palance playing a bandito.

2008-07-01T08:01:00.001-07:00

Dylan wrote the first two rhymes in the Byrds' "Ballad of Easy Rider." McGuinn offered him cowriters credit, but Dylan declined, saying "I don't need the money."

2008-07-01T07:32:00.001-07:00

Chubby Checker once said "No playday, no payday." For an older artist play on oldies stations is important. He complained that nowadays radio stations play "Twist and Shout" more often than they play his own twist records.

2008-07-01T07:15:00.001-07:00

Donna Summer was statuesque. She was a diva, like Celine Dion. I wouldn't have expected to see her modelling on the cover of Vogue. Her first hit was in late '75.

2008-07-01T07:12:00.001-07:00

Paul Jabara wrote "Last Dance" and visited Donna Summer to convince her to record it. Such sales visits were common. Jimmy Webb tried to sell the Association "Macarthur Park"

2008-06-30T20:39:00.001-07:00

British R&B from the 60s is sometimes called "Northern Soul." Chris Farlowe was prototypical. He even released a single pretending to be an old bluesman.

2008-06-30T17:01:00.001-07:00

When Kaylan wrote "Eleanore" he was trying to write a song which was so bad that record execs would stop bothering him to write hits. But the execs loved it.

2008-06-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

The following two lines from "Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest" are iambic.

Saying, "Are you Frankie Lee, the gambler, (pause)
Whose father is deceased?

Dylan when singing pauses in between the two lines to make the cadence even easier to pick out.

Dylan's father Abraham Zimmerman died on June 5, 1968, less than a year after Dylan recorded "Ballad of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest." It is possible that the knowledge of his own father's impending death influenced the lyric.

2008-06-30T11:59:00.003-07:00

"[Dylan] is a bard who has found his form."--Paul Williams, 1966. And a year later Dylan returned. After a mere 2.5 electric albums (one side of Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde On Blonde) John Wesley Harding featured Dylan in his original acoustic format.

WBZ-AMs Dick Summer Show, which could be heard all up and down the East Coast at night, used to play the hell out of it

2008-06-30T11:59:00.001-07:00

Turtles singer Howard Kaylan (b. Howard Kaplan, 1947, New York City) was overweight when he sang "She'd Rather Be With Me" on the Ed Sullivan Show in '67. By '69 he and Turtles backup vocalist Mark Volman were just plain fat. It was as if they had stopped trying.

2008-06-30T11:21:00.001-07:00

The Nails '88 Lines About 44 Women' is derivative of Jim Carroll's 'People Who Died.' If Carroll himself had recorded it then people would have accused him of stealing from himself.

Carroll's book The Basketball Diaries is a memoir of his prep school days. It later became a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

2008-06-30T10:37:00.001-07:00

Members of the same ethnic group can feud. Sonny Bono thought Sonny and Cher's manager--who had an Italian name--was lazy. Bono fired him in order to avoid the manager profiting unfairly from Sonny and Cher's impending comeback.

Sonny and Cher's TV show in the early 70s did indeed bring them back big, and they lived happily ever after. Until they split up. He got the TV show, which soon tanked. She got half of his song-writing royalties, a point which still bothered him decades later when he wrote his autobiography.

2008-06-30T08:14:00.001-07:00

Black Americans have performed a disproportionate percentage of hit records since at least the 60s. In some other fields (Jews in film production, perhaps) some other ethnic groups do well.

Between late '63 and '65 black-performed music was so popular that Billboard did away with its separate R&B chart and kept track of black-oriented and non-black -oriented records on the same pop chart. Billboard later brought back the R&B chart as the Soul chart.

2008-06-30T06:36:00.001-07:00

Dylan doesn't understand his own success just as most people don't understand their own lives.

2008-06-29T20:36:00.001-07:00

Agnetha released albums after Abba, but the only former member to have an American solo hit was Frida (Anni-Frid) with "I Know (There's Something Going On)"

2008-06-29T20:28:00.001-07:00

I am going to form an Online Committee to Revitalize Interest In The Career Of Billy Squire. He deserves it, he's earned it, and people like him.

2008-06-29T20:08:00.001-07:00

It was only 7 years between Momentary Lapse of Reason and Division Bell, but it's been 14 since. By not releasing bad albums Pink keeps its reputation intact.

2008-06-29T12:40:00.001-07:00

Some say Zimmerman took his stage name of Dylan from an uncle's first name. Dylan's parents were immigrant-era Jews. Their siblings didn't have names like Dylan.

2008-06-29T12:35:00.001-07:00

Even in 1966, at his creative peak, there were some people who put Dylan down. Paul Williams wrote that year: "the favorite indoor sport...is...disparaging...Dylan."

2008-06-29T11:12:00.001-07:00

It wasn't just Dylan who couldn't sustain his creative output into the 70s. Burt Bacharach couldn't either. Indeed, Dylan came closer with Blood On The Tracks.

2008-06-29T10:56:00.001-07:00

The 1st time I ever heard Barbra Streisand singing "Stoney End" I could tell immediately that Laura Nyro had written it. Something about the chord progressions.

2008-06-29T10:49:00.001-07:00

Mark Lindsay went to school in Cambridge, Idaho. He met Paul Revere in Caldwell. They then relocated to Portland and eventually to LA. It's amazing that starting out playing clubs in Idaho could eventually lead to the Raiders' level of success.

I guess that you can become successful in show business from anyplace in the continental US.

2008-06-29T09:03:00.001-07:00

Loverboy were fairly old when they broke in late 1981. Guitarist Paul Dean was 36. Singer Mike Reno was in his late 20s.

2008-06-29T09:00:00.001-07:00

Renaldo and Clara is Dylan's version of the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour--an ambitious film project which the rest of the world didn't get.

2008-06-29T08:21:00.001-07:00

Bob Dylan in the 60s was unique. But he still had models of how to be successful. He had Allen Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Baudelaire.

2008-06-29T07:33:00.001-07:00

"I had written a long letter to [Dylan]...I said also that I had dug the great line in the song 'Idiot Wind,'...I said it was a 'national rhyme'--Allen Ginsberg, New Age Journal Interview, February 1976.

The line which Ginsberg praised was:

Idiot wind,
blowing like a circle round my skull
from Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol

In this line the image of a circle is repeated in "skull," the Capitol Dome in Washington DC, and the arched Grand Coulee Dam.

2008-06-29T07:24:00.001-07:00

"[In] late 1965, Dylan gave Ginsberg a gift of money which Ginsberg used to purchase a portable tape recorder"--Clinton Heylin

Ginsberg then, with Dylan's approval, made pseudo-bootleg tapes of Dylan's concerts.

Dylan and Ginsberg were close. However, when Ginsberg wrote Dylan ca. 1975 seeking a $200,000 donation for Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's Naropa Institute, the two had not seen each other in four years. (Dylan, in responding to Ginsberg's letter, ignored the request for money.)

Rinpoche was an interesting case. He opposed the use of psychedelics on the grounds that they clouded the mind. But he himself was an alcoholic, and died of that disease.

Rinpoche would sometimes preach drunk. His followers are divided on the extent to which, if at all, his alcoholism detracted from his teachings.

2008-06-29T07:09:00.001-07:00

"In the mid-80s, poodle rock band Europe became the first Swedish act after the demise of Abba to make a significant international impact..."--Carl Magnus Palm

Abba opened the door for a lot of other Swedish rock bands, from Roxette to the Cardigans. The producers, engineers and studio musicians who worked on Abba records, which were often made in Sweden, formed a pool of talent on which later Swedish bands could rely on as well.

2008-06-28T19:25:00.001-07:00

To me Drake and/or Harpo with the rest of the "Where The Action Is" crew--Fang, Smitty, Mark and Paul--is the classic Paul Revere and the Raiders lineup.

2008-06-28T17:03:00.001-07:00

At LiveAid MTVs Nina Blackwood exclaimed "who would have expected to see Sting singing backup on 'Money For Nothing'!", not realizing Sting was on the record.

2008-06-28T16:54:00.001-07:00

The legendary Newport festival where Dylan went electric, and Pete Seeger tried to unplug Dylan's amplifier, was 1965. His 1963 performance went smoothly.

2008-06-28T16:50:00.001-07:00

When Dylan played LiveAid Keith Richards and David Crosby backed him up. My brother referred facetiously to "those derelicts who wandered onstage" behind Dylan.

2008-06-28T15:17:00.001-07:00

Even if Dylan were to attend a wedding or a funeral at a church it would not be evidence that he was an Xtian. However, attending a church to worship would be

2008-06-28T15:10:00.001-07:00

Xtianity Today says Bob Dylan hadn't been seen inside a church in many years. But he is sighted at High Holy Day services regularly. He is no longer an Xtian.

2008-06-28T10:19:00.001-07:00

John Lennon was friends with Nilsson. So when Klaus Voorman of the Plastic Ono Band played on Nilsson's "Jump Into The Fire" that Lennon association helped.

2008-06-27T20:35:00.001-07:00

"People Got To Be Free" was a huge hit in 6/68, but wasn't on the latest Rascals album "Once Upon A Dream," only on their "Time/Peace" greatest hits compilation

2008-06-27T18:17:00.001-07:00

The Raiders toured Western Europe as the opening act for the Beach Boys. Mark Lindsay called it "an eye-opening experience." thanks in part to Dennis Wilson's drug use. "Bruce Johnston was a health nut. He took thousands of vitamins and other pills. Dennis also took thousands of things...not as many vitamin pills as Bruce Johnston," he says.

The people on the tour were concerned that Dennis would get caught with drugs at a border stop. The Raiders and Beach Boys had their own plane for travelling. One time they pulled into Heathrow and were diverted to a corner of the runway. The plane were searched.

The UK police found Johnston's pills and Johnston had to accompany them to the police station. It took several hours for the police to test the pills. Eventually the police had to sheepishly tell Johnston that the tests came back clean. There was no problem with his pills.

2008-06-27T18:13:00.001-07:00

The drumming is prominent on "California Girls" but Dennis Wilson only drummed on tour, not in the studio. In fact he was hardly heard on the Beach Boys' records.

2008-06-27T18:08:00.001-07:00

On the outro to "Aquarius" the bass player improvises with fleet fingers while Billy Davis improvises also in a soulful manner. The resulting interplay is very high-energy, especially a part where Davis let's out a short yelp of "Whoa!"

2008-06-27T17:41:00.001-07:00

Mark Lindsay referred to Billy Stewart's performance of "Summertime" as "an ambitious version." Stewart trilled his "R"s in a way that most singers could not.

2008-06-27T17:21:00.001-07:00

It is surprising that the lyric "I get high in the evening sniffing pots of glue" in Elton's 1974 single "The Bitch is Back" aroused no protest.

2008-06-27T17:17:00.001-07:00

When Elton sang "I'm a bitch...the bitch is back" it was an allusion to his own homosexuality.

2008-06-27T16:49:00.001-07:00

"All Things Must Pass" was as successful as any of the other' Beatles' albums.

2008-06-27T16:44:00.001-07:00

On Abbey Road Harrison was the songwriting equal of Lennon-McCartney. "Here Comes The Sun" and "Something" were 2 of the most popular songs on the album.

2008-06-27T14:52:00.003-07:00

Picture duck-tailed 15-year-old Mark Lindsay hitchhiking into Caldwell, Idaho in 1957. With dreams of being a star fuelled by having won a talent contest.

2008-06-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

Some UK Jewish artists have been working class. Helen Shapiro's family was poor enough not to own a record player. Marc (Feld) Bolan's father was a bus driver. Bolan went to the same school as Shapiro. Elkie (Elaine Bookbinder) Brooks' father was a baker. And in the modern era, Amy Winehouse's father is a truck driver.

On the other hand, Beatles' manager Brian Epstein's family owned a furniture store.