DONOVAN - MELLOW YELLOW @ 55

 

Marking 55 years on the racks this month is the fourth studio album from iconic UK psychedelic singer/songwriter, Donovan, with Mellow Yellow being released in February of 1967. The album came about during a period when Donovan was trapped in a legal limbo where he was unable to release albums in his native UK. The result of this is that his usually optimistic mid-sixties utopian sound is tempered by a world weary sense of frustration as he pondered the prospect of being driven into retirement in his early 20s as lawyers destroyed his career prospects. So, on the one hand, you have upbeat songs like Sunny South Kensington playing against more pessimistic numbers like Writer in the Sun where he muses about being put out to pasture by his legal woes.

Of course the centerpiece of the album is the title track, which was a massive hit single and an idyllic representation of the times. It’s also a song that continues to drive a lot of misconceptions as far as its subject matter. The primary assumption about it was that it referred to a belief that smoking dried banana peels could cause mild hallucinogenic effects, a presumption that persisted for years before being debunked. Yet the simple answer lay in plain view all along as the lyric “electrical banana” hinted at the sunshine yellow ladies vibrator which Donovan had spied advertised in a magazine and which was the actual inspiration for the song.

Among the more notable guest musicians who appear on the album, you can find future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page on guitar and John Paul Jones on bass for the title track and Paul McCartney chipping in a few bass parts as well.

TODD RUNDGREN - SOMETHING / ANYTHING @ 50

 

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this month is Todd Rundgren’s third solo album, Something / Anything, which was released in February of 1972. It marked the peak of his success on the pop charts and also the end of his indulgence in that particular music form, at least for his own works.

By the time this album came about, knocking out catchy 3 minute pop songs was becoming too easy for Rundgren and he didn’t want to be just another “singer/songwriter”. He was also somewhat frustrated with the studio musicians he’d been working with, so he set about recording the entire album, from the ground up, on his own. He wanted to play every instrument and utilize multi-tracking to allow him to build them up, one by one. Three quarters of this double LP was done like this with Rundgren starting on the drums and humming the song in his head in order to figure out where to put in changes and fills. From there, he’d add in bass, guitars, keyboards and whatever else until he’d built out the song enough to add vocals. If he made a mistake and put something in the wrong place, he merely changed the arrangement to incorporate the mistake rather than keep rerecording to conform to the original arrangement. It was a process of essentially working in the dark and trying to anticipate where a song would go, leaving spaces for subsequent overdubs to fill in. He also didn’t use a click track, so the end result was actually very “live” and natural sounding, though he admits if he had used one, his performances might have been a bit tighter. Even though he wasn’t particularly adept at some of the instruments he was approaching for the first time, he was confident enough in the cumulative results to feel like he’d managed to communicate his idea sufficiently so that any deficiencies in his performances simply weren’t noticeable or relevant.

Most of the work was done at I.D. Sound Studios in LA, though he also set up an 8 track system in his his rented home on Astral Drive in Nichols Canyon. Working there allowed him to take his time with some things, like programming his VCS3 synthesizer, without worrying about wasting anyone’s studio time. It also allowed him to be a workhorse, taking minimal time for breaks or eating. Though he was constantly in high gear, it wasn’t a stress for him and he attributed his productivity to a combination of Ritalin and cannabis, stating that the drugs "caused me to crank out songs at an incredible pace." Work continued in LA until an earthquake hit and Todd decided to relocate to the Record Plant in NYC for the next set of sessions to complete the album. Once there, rather than continue on in the one-man-band mode, he went and flipped the script and hired a gaggle of local session musicians to work on the final suite of tracks, recording each live in the studio after only minimal rehearsals. The results constitute a “Pop Operetta” which became known as “Baby Needs A New Pair Of Snakeskin Boots”. Final recording, mixing and overdubs were done at Bearsville Studios in Woodstock.

Reception for the album after it’s release was exceptionally positive and the album spawned hit singles including I Saw the Light, It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference and Hello It’s Me. However, as previously mentioned, this album was the endpoint for Todd insofar as delivering radio friendly pop music. From here, he’d take a hard left into progressive rock territory, particularly when he founded his band, Utopia, and on his next solo album, A Wizard, A True Star. Todd has been a mercurial creative powerhouse throughout his career and he made making hit records seem like child’s play before he sped off into other directions, though his production stamp graced many popular records throughout his career.