Salutations™!!
Today is the 51st anniversary of one of the greatest albums of all time. #234 on the RS List, which I think is ridiculous! It should be higher on the chart. Heck, I’d trade it for the Velvet Underground & Nico album at #13, which I’d rather just erase all together. But, this isn’t that, this is Bookends from Simon & Garfunkel. So, in honor of it, I found a cover of one of my faves from it. And, I will never pass up a reason to play Mike Massé, so here ya go. Enjoy!
Until tomorrow, same blog channel…
Scorp out!
—
“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together. I’ve got some real estate here in my bag. So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner’s pies. And we walked off to look for America. ‘Cathy,’ I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh, ‘Michigan seems like a dream to me now.’ It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw. I’ve gone to look for America.” – “America” (Simon)
absolutely nothing about them. In fact, other than maybe in passing, I’ve never even heard of them. Yes, I know that floors you, Dear Reader, and yet, comes as no surprise, whatsoever. All that said, I really wish I still didn’t know who it was and I really wish I hadn’t heard this. I remember being in high school, having only played the bass for about 2 years and getting together with a bunch of other high school musicians who also hadn’t played very long and never in a “band.” What we pulled out of our arses noodling around on instruments we barely knew our way around sounded 800x better than this. The mere fact that Frank Zappa had anything to do with it makes me question my respect for him and that was spotty to begin with. I did some research to find out more about the album before I passed harsh judgement but nothing in my readings made me feel any better about this. All I read was about how important it is and how the Magic Band was a “well-rehearsed” band for these recordings. The construction site across from the studio makes better music than this when they’re running the cement mixer, running a brick saw, riveting aluminum studs and hauling stuff around the building on heavy equipment. This is an hour+ that I will never get back. I don’t care about the “importance” of it, it sucks. Pure and simple. It’s gawd-awful. The fact that it’s on this list at all, much less Top 60? That is an atrocity. There’s no explaining to me how important or fantastic it is, because no matter the significance, there’s no changing that I got a headache from it and wanted to step in front of a passing city bus while and after listening to it. I hated this.
sat this high, in my opinion. I’ve never made it a secret that I don’t like the bluesier stuff. This was a return to their roots (read: more blues) than the nearest previous stuff. To ME, this is less Stones than I’m used to. I know, too, that it was the last album released while Brian Jones was alive. So, there’s some kind of creepiness there, although I’m used to hearing stuff from people who have passed on. I remember listening to Pearl, it was creepy knowing that Janis had died after recording it, even one song instrumental because she died mere days before the scheduled vocal session. Creepy. Okay, sorry. To me, this album drags, almost the whole time. I like “Sympathy for the Devil” (one of my favorite Stones songs) and “Street Fighting Man.” But, the rest, meh. I can look back on this entire list and find almost any other Stones album and put it before this one. I’m not saying it doesn’t belong on the list, I get its importance. I just think most of the other albums on this list should, could or would be higher. Even the last that we listened to, Sticky Fingers, much better album than this. Tattoo You, Some Girls, all should have been higher than this, certainly higher than they were. I don’t get it, other than that roots mess. Meh, at best.
instruments but most of the instrumentation was done by him. Of course, he had guest players and this there was a great deal of them: “Maniac” Mike Sambello, Nathan Watts, Raymond Pounds, George Benson, Minnie Riperton, Herbie Hancock, just to name a few. The guest list was extensive. It’s jazz, it’s rock, it’s R&B, it’s soul, it’s everything. Great ballads, jammy jazz riffs and swinging horn sections, oh yeah! “Sir Duke.” ‘Nuff said with that. Well, maybe not ’nuff said. This album would be worth it alone just for that tune. Luckily, there’s a shload more on here to enjoy in addition. How in the world did I not know that Coolio totally ripped off Stevie with “Pastime Paradise?” I was like what the heck is that!? And, Coolio had any room to get upset when ‘Weird Al’ used “Gangsta Paradise” as one of his parodies? Yeah, perhaps he had permission from Stevie to use it, but still, it was only partly his to complain about. This version is the best of all of them, I say. I have to say, too, that synth basses in 1976 were actually more advanced than I realized. Stevie plays the crap out of it, too. The runs are like someone actually playing bass. When it is bass, it’s Nathan Watts.”I Wish,” “Isn’t She Lovely” and “Joy Inside My Tears” are some of my faves on this album. I have the video for the Classic Albums series on this album. I’ll have to break that out and watch it again. Great album from a great artist! DUG!
and “Money Honey.” This was the first rock and roll record to sell one million copies, which makes sense since it was one the first rock records. I dug it!
Garfunkel. Another album released in the year of my birth, 1970, this one is older, by 10 months. It’s the fifth album and is the swan song for the duo, each going their own way. I’m thinking it was a bit contentious, who’s with me? The album starts with the sweet “lean on me” themed title track. There were rumors that the song was about drugs (“silver girl”), but it wasn’t. Apparently, it’s about Peggy, Paul Simon’s then-wife. I love the overall feel of this album. There’s tension and there are times you can sense it but even with the deteriorating relationship of the duo going on they’re able to keep it together and make it work, even renting a house in L.A. while Art was filming Catch-22. They experimented with sounds and effects, much used during the song “Cecilia,” which is one of my favorite S&G tunes. “The Boxer,” another fave, is probably the one that took the longest to record. From what I understand, it started in 1968 and was recorded in several places over the course of almost two years. While he was the more prolific of the two, I think Paul Simon was jealous of the growing popularity of Art Garfunkel. “The Only Living Boy in New York” was the product of feeling lonely in NYC while Art was filming in Mexico. The last tune on the album, “Song for the Asking,” from what I’ve read, was like Simon and Garfunkel, each trying to reconcile and keep the channels open for future opportunities to work together. I believe they only did spot reunions after that. A landmark album that instead of boosting the duo was the sunset for them. Simon, of course, went on to monster success as a solo guy and Art didn’t do too bad, as far as I can tell. It’s a great album. Great, well-written tunes and it’s S&G, hard to go wrong with that, yeah? DUG!
