JOHNNY CASH - BITTER TEARS @ 60

 

Released on October 26th, 1964, Johnny Cash's concept album, Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, turns 60 years old today. Though some of the language may be arcane by today's standards, the sentiments and the purpose of the album remain significant in an age when first nations peoples are still seeking justice and reconciliation for abuses they've suffered at the hands of colonialists.

Cash felt a particular kinship with first nations due to his belief that he had Cherokee ancestry in his family. He was primarily of English and Scottish descent, but his paternal grandmother claimed Cherokee ancestry. However, a DNA test of Cash's daughter, Rosanne, in 2021 on the program, Finding Your Roots, found she has no known Native American markers. Regardless of genetic heritage, Cash's concern for and appreciation of first nations people and culture was sincere and heartfelt.

The 1960s was a time of social awakening, with activism towards racial injustice being one of the first frontiers of cultural revolution. With the folk scene rapidly raising awareness within the pop music landscape, country music stars like Cash were seeing an opportunity to deal with real issues, effecting real change. Peter La Farge wrote five of the songs, two were by Cash, and the final track was by Cash and Johnny Horton. The first song, "As Long as the Grass Shall Grow", by La Farge, concerns the contemporary loss of Seneca nation land in Pennsylvania and New York (the Cornplanter Tract) due to condemnation for federal construction of the Kinzua Dam in the early 1960s. "The Ballad of Ira Hayes", tells about Ira Hayes, a young Marine of Pima descent, who participated in the flag raising on Iwo Jima during World War II. After becoming an instant celebrity because of the iconic photo of this event, Hayes struggled with life in the postwar years. He returned to his native Gila River Reservation, where the government had built a dam that diverted critical water supply. Hayes died of alcoholism and in poverty. La Farge's song "Custer" mocks the popular veneration of General George Custer. He was overwhelmingly defeated, in part due to his own errors, by Lakota warriors at Little Big Horn. "The Talking Leaves" is about Sequoyah inventing written words in 1821, which increased Cherokee literacy.

At the time of the album's release, public sentiment towards native peoples was mostly ambivalent or actively opposed to indulging their concerns. "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" was released as the sole single from the album, reaching #2 on the country singles chart, while the album reached #2 on the country chart and #47 on the pop chart. But initial success for these was soon dampened as radio stations refused to play the songs and record buyers began to turn away from Cash's social activism. Facing censorship and an angry backlash from radio stations, DJs and fans for speaking out on behalf of Native people, Cash decided to fight back. He paid for a full-page ad that appeared in the August 22nd, 1964, issue of Billboard magazine, calling some DJs and programmers "gutless" for not playing the Ira Hayes song, and asking why they were afraid to do so. He left the question unanswered. Cash began a campaign to support the single by buying and sending out more than 1,000 copies to radio stations across America. By September 19, the song had reached number 3 in Billboard. In 2010, the Western Writers of America chose "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

This would not be the first time Cash would court controversy. He would frequently tackle social issues in his music, most famously using an invitation from President Nixon to perform at the White House in 1970 to play his song, "What Is Truth", a tune specifically aimed at supporting the young "hippie" generation of so-called "long-haired weirdos". Its sentiments of acceptance and understanding of the young generation were anathema to Nixon's stance, and the evening went down in history as notorious for its statement against authority.

Bitter Tears may suffer somewhat in that its use of certain terms has become archaic in modern times, but the sincere concerns for the abuses suffered by first nations people is without question.

CABARET VOLTAIRE - MIX-UP @ 45

 

Released on October 23rd, 1979, the debut LP from Cabaret Voltaire, Mix-Up, turns 45 years old today. While it is often crude and difficult listening, it provides a critical intersection between post-punk and the emerging Industrial music scene that was happening with bands like Throbbing Gristle.

Taking their name from the short-lived Dadaist nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland, founded in 1916, The band had begun to take shape around 1972, with Chris Watson, a fan of Brian Eno, looking to explore the creation of electronics based music without the use of traditional instrumentation. His training as a telephone engineer enabled him to work on building home made gear, like oscillators and modified tape machines for creating loops. He soon encountered fellow Eno devotee, Richard H. Kirk, and the two began working together on their sound experiments, many of which can now be heard on the retrospective box set, Methodology '74 - '78: Attic Tapes. Kirk also began to introduce some traditional instruments, like guitar and clarinet. With the addition of Stephen Mallinder in late 1973, who contributed bass guitar and vocals, the trio began to move gradually towards something almost resembling regular music, incorporating drums and drum machines, and electronic organs.

The trio also began performing live, with their initial gigs being not much more than sonic pranks. The trio would deploy to various parts of Sheffield with their portable tape recorders and play their experimental compositions in places as diverse as public toilets and on the streets from loudspeakers on the top of a friend's van. This raucous attitude followed the band onstage to great effect; their first live concert in May 1975 ended in a fight between the band and the audience that sent Mallinder to hospital.

As the band began to settle into a more conventional onstage presentation, performing actual songs with identifiable structures, they found themselves frequently opening for bands like Joy Division or TG. This got them enough exposure that they were approached with a few different offers for record contracts. Factory Records had come knocking, and TG had approached them about being on their Industrial Records imprint, where they would actually release a cassette of early works in 1980. But it was Rough Trade who sealed the deal by offering the band a 4 track Revox tape recorder in lieu of an advance.

In 1977, Watson financed the establishment of the band's own recording studio on the second floor of a building called the Western Works on Portobello Street in Sheffield. The "Western Works" studio served as the band's studio for many years as well as providing a social gathering spot for the local Sheffield scene. Western Works produced some of the earliest recordings of pioneering local bands including Clock DVA, The Human League, and New Order.

By the time the group got to the point of recording Mix-Up, their most extreme experiments were somewhat behind them, but what they were creating was far from mainstream, incorporating atonal sounds against their often broken sounding rhythms. Like Kraftwerk before them, their early sound is entirely separate from the slick electronic dance music that would ultimately become their stock-in-trade. But while they retained a sharp experimental edge, there were always clear indications that the group had a funkiness buried in their DNA that was just waiting to come to the fore.

With the release of Mix-Up, the band were met with mostly negative criticism, with their sound being a tough cookie to swallow for most folks. Its brittle distortion and intensity made for some challenging listening, offering punters little respite from its grind and grit. The group's Nag Nag Nag single, released prior to the LP, had managed to sell remarkably well, and despite the overall critical aversion to the group, journalists like Andy Gill still saw their potential. He wrote of the band in the June 27th, 1978, edition of NME, "I firmly believe Cabaret Voltaire will turn out to be one of the most important new bands to achieve wider recognition this year. Wait and see". Subsequently, "Nag Nag Nag" sold 10,000 copies.

Of course, this was just an early chapter in the story of a band that would go through some striking evolutionary changes over the years of its existence, from abstract experimentation to dominating the dance floors of alternative nightclubs throughout the next decade. Connecting those dots may not seem intuitive at first glance, but when you put it all together, it's a fascinating story, one which essentially beings with Mix-Up.

LED ZEPPELIN II @ 55

 

Released on October 22nd, 1969, Led Zeppelin II is turning 55 years old today. After the smash success of their debut, its follow-up would be the first album by the band to crack the #1 slot on the charts in both the US and UK, as well as Canada, Australia, Spain and several other markets.

The album came together in bits & pieces, and fits & starts, while the band were on a breakneck touring schedule throughout both the US and UK. Songs were mostly developed during jam sessions while setting up for gigs, and recorded at whatever studio could be secured wherever the band happened to be at the time. As such, a wide variety of facilities were used, from high end, to what the group would describe as "a hut" when they used a ramshackle 8 track facility in Vancouver, BC. With this disparate range of studios being used to record the album, it was something of an achievement that producer, Jimmy Page, managed to attain a sense of cohesion with the album's sound and mix. Eddie Kramer engineered the album and was quoted as saying, "The famous Whole Lotta Love mix, where everything is going bananas, is a combination of Jimmy and myself just flying around on a small console twiddling every knob known to man." Kramer later gave high praise to Page for the sound that was achieved: "We cut some of the tracks in some of the most bizarre studios you can imagine ... but in the end it sounded bloody marvellous ... there was one guy in charge and that was Mr. Page."

The music on the album was predominantly original compositions, with a selection of interpretations of classic Chicago blues pieces. "The Lemon Song" was a re-arrangement of Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor", "Bring It On Home" was a cover of a Willie Dixon song originally performed by Sonny Boy Williamson II. Of the originals, Whole Lotta Love is the most well known, especially being that it was released as a single outside the UK, against the band's wishes, I might add. Zeppelin never released singles, as a matter of policy, so this was a rare instance where the label edited down a track and put out a single without the group's approval. The song would become a hit, charting in many markets, and becoming a concert staple as well.

The album sleeve design was from a poster by David Juniper, who was simply told by the band to come up with an interesting idea. Juniper was a fellow student of Page's at Sutton Art College in Surrey. Juniper's design was based on a photograph of the Jagdstaffel 11 Division of the German Air Force during World War I, the Flying Circus led by the Red Baron. Juniper replaced four of the flyers' heads with photos of the band members, added facial hair and sunglasses to some of the flyers' faces or replaced some with the faces of other people. The blonde-haired woman is French actress Delphine Seyrig in her role as Marie-Madeleine in the film Mr. Freedom, a leftist anti-war satire by William Klein. The cover also pictured the outline of a Zeppelin on a brown background (similar to the cover of the band's first album), which gave the album its nickname "Brown Bomber". The cover was nominated for a Grammy award for best LP graphics in 1970.

Despite the commercial success, at the time of its release, the album was largely panned by critics, who simply weren't ready for an interpretation of the blues that was so heavy and so dark. Many found the album monotonous and overbearing. But it wouldn't take long for reassessments to start aligning with the position that this was, in fact, an album of unique distinction, setting a new tone for rock 'n' roll that would become integral to the development of heavy metal music in the decade to come. Today, you'd be hard pressed to find a Zeppelin fan who doesn't rank this as one of their greatest records. The fact it was created in such demanding circumstances, necessitating spontaneity and ferocity, is what makes it stand out for many as the band's most intense outing.

With the success of the album, the band's touring began to ramp up in terms of the venues they were playing, beginning in smaller clubs, then larger theatres, and ultimately, coliseums. The band were truly on the map as the biggest band in rock 'n' roll, and the coming decade would see them enshrined as truly legendary performers.

KISS - HOTTER THAN HELL @ 50

 

Marking half a century on the shelves, it's KISS' sophomore LP, Hotter Than Hell, which was released on October 22nd, 1974. While it wouldn't be the ticket to superstardom the band were desperate for, it did pack a bunch of solid songs that were concert staples throughout much of the band's prime career in the 1970s.

Hotter Than Hell followed fairly quickly on the heels of their eponymous debut, released earlier in the year. While that record hadn't made much of a dent in the charts for the band, it did give them enough momentum to keep touring and building their fan-base. The task, however, was still to capture the excitement of their live shows on record, an ambition that would prove elusive through their first trio of albums. The production team of Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise were again retained for the second album, after fairing well enough on the first.

With Richie Wise recently relocating to California, the band were convinced to set up shop in The Village, an LA studio, rather than recording in NYC. Moving out to the west coast proved to be an unpopular decision, however. All four members of the band were hardcore New Yorkers, so they were entirely uncomfortable with the vibe on the opposite side of the country. The fact one of Paul's guitars got stolen the first day they were out there didn't help with the mood either. Richie Wise has since taken responsibility for the lacklustre sound of the album overall, stating that the big move across the country, for him, was an entirely distracting affair, and his head just wasn't in the game when it came to recording the album.

Though the intention was to try to emulate the band's live sound, the production team still indulged the group in a lot of overdubs, far more than on the first album. They felt that the they were familiar enough with the studio by now to be able to manage the process, which was maybe another distraction from the goal at hand. While the murky production added to a sense of darkness on the album, that vibe was further intensified by the subject matter of the songs themselves. "Goin' Blind", which details a doomed, creepy romance between a 93-year-old and a 16-year-old girl, was a song written by Simmons and Stephen Coronel during their days with Wicked Lester. The original title was "Little Lady", and the song's original second verse lyric, revived by Simmons for their MTV Unplugged appearance, as well as on Alive IV, suggests that the song's narrator is a sea captain addressing a mermaid.

Though the album features three songs with Ace Frehley's writing credit, he was still gun-shy about singing lead vocals, opting only to provide backup on a few songs. Instead, he had Gene Simmons take the vocal for Parasite, while Peter Criss took on Strange Ways. And while his voice may not be on display, his guitar solo for Strange Ways is often cited as one of his best.

For the album's artwork, a striking Japanese themed design was conceived, with Japanese characters surrounding the group photo on the front, and the back cover featuring photos from a wild party where there was, apparently, a great deal of intoxication going on. Of course, this wasn't the case for Simmons, a confirmed tea-totaler, but the photos still indicate a debauched affair all round. The Japanese character on the bottom of the album cover (力) is chikara, which means "power". It would later be used on various forms of Kiss material during the 1970s and 1980s, most prominently on Eric Carr's drum kit. The Japanese characters on the top-right corner of the album cover (地獄 の さけび) are Jigoku no Sakebi, which means "shout/scream of hell" or "hell's shout/scream". There are also member names on banners, but the transliteration of the English into Japanese is pretty flawed in terms of representing the phonetic expressions accurately.

While the group toured extensively for the album, sales were actually far worse than for their debut release. Part of the problem was that Warner Bros were involved in distributing the first LP, but that deal had ended by the time the second album came out. This also meant the publicity push was substantially less as well, though there was a TV commercial aired for the album. Only one single was released, Let Me Go Rock 'n' Roll, but sales were dismal and it failed to chart. Four months into their tour to promote the album, Casablanca pulled them off the road and got them back in the studio to record another album, what would become Dressed to Kill, another misfired attempt to break the band. Hotter Than Hell would still end up certified gold, but it would not happen until June, 1977, but it would take an actual live album to truly capture the band's energy and turn them into superstars, and that was something that was more than a year away. Still, they would ultimately make the break and hit the top of the charts, but not with this record.

JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO - WEDDING ALBUM @ 55

 

Marking its 55th anniversary today is the third LP in the triptych of experimental records released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the late 1960s, with the Wedding Album being released on October 20th, 1969. It followed Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968) and Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions (earlier in 1969). The album was intended as a fan souvenir of the nuptials for John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

The first side of the album, John & Yoko, is something of an homage to Stan Freberg's 1951 novelty single, John & Marsha, where male and female voices are heard saying each other's names with varying emotional inflections atop maudlin romantic music, escalating the melodrama as the recording progresses. For John & Yoko, the music is replaced with recordings of the heartbeats of Lennon & Ono, and the exchange is extended across the entire side of the album, delivering nearly 23 minutes of an endurance test for listeners as the couple emote each other's names in dramatic exhortations.

Amsterdam, the side long recording on the flip of the LP, is something of a collage of interviews explaining their campaign for peace, conversations and captured sounds during the couple's "Bed-In" honeymoon. An early form of what would become "John John Let's Hope for Peace" forms the beginning of "Amsterdam". There were also four other musical interludes, including Lennon performing a blues-style composition on acoustic guitar, featuring the words "Goodbye Amsterdam Goodbye". Ono sings "Grow Your Hair", a song regarding peace. Lennon sings a brief excerpt in a cappella of the Beatles song "Good Night". The last interlude is a short recitation of the words "Bed peace" and "Hair peace".

The album was first issued in the US on October 20th, followed by the UK release on November 7th, 1969. The record came as an elaborate box set designed by John Kosh, including sets of photos, drawings by Lennon, a reproduction of the marriage certificate, a picture of a slice of wedding cake (inside a white sleeve), and a booklet of press clippings about the couple. It also included a Mylar bag that had the word "Bagism" printed on it. While it failed to touch the UK charts, it grazed the bottom of them in the US, peaking at 178 and lingering for three weeks. Regarding the limited success, Lennon later addressed it saying, "It was like our sharing our wedding with whoever wanted to share it with us. We didn't expect a hit record out of it. It was more of a... that's why we called it Wedding Album. You know, people make a wedding album, show it to the relatives when they come round. Well, our relatives are the... what you call fans, or people that follow us outside. So that was our way of letting them join in on the wedding".

Melody Maker critic Richard Williams was given two single-sided test pressings for his review (which appeared on the front page of the November 15th issue). Each had a blank side featuring only an engineer's test signal, but Williams mistook it for a double album. In his review, he noted that sides two and four consisted entirely "of single tones maintained throughout, presumably produced electronically", and that the pitch of the notes appeared to change slightly. Lennon and Ono sent a telegram to Williams thanking him for his review and writing: "We both feel that this is the first time a critic topped the artist. We are not joking."

THE SPECIALS @ 45

Released on October 19th, 1979, the debut eponymous LP from The Specials is turning 45 years old today. If you were to only have one UK ska album in your collection, it might as well be this one because it’s simply so concise and thorough that it captures every important aspect of the genre and movement, at least as far as it manifested in its revived form at the end of the 1970s.

Following in the wake of punk, the UK SKA scene took the anger and social outrage of punk and channelled it into a racially diverse commentary on cultural fusion. The “2 Tone” ideology of black and white working together, in balance and unity, was a forward thinking approach that seems so sadly distant in the post “Brexit” era of UK bigotry and anti-immigration furor. Though there were many vital artists who also came out of this scene, the Specials remain the most memorable and this album captures all the best of their essence across 14 compact and infectious songs.

The Specials came together starting in 1977, with Jerry Dammers as the principal instigator and architect of the band's sound. Initially billed as "Specials AKA", their first brush with success was independently releasing the split single, Gangsters b/w The Selector by the group, The Selector. The success of the single attracted the attention of the majors, and Dammers negotiated a deal with Chrysalis Records to set up 2-Tone as an independent sub-label, leveraging the financial input of the major label while retaining the freedom of 2-Tone to release records by unsigned bands, without requiring them to commit to any obligations to the parent label.

The band had also been making a name for themselves by joining The Clash on tour around the UK. The two bands were very simpatico in terms of their political and social stances, so it was a natural fit and helped to bring the band to national prominence. With their first singles then charting, a full length album was in order, and the group secured Elvis Costello as producer for the sessions. Recording was focused on mostly attempting to recreate the band's live set on LP, incorporating their mix of original songs with updated versions of classic Rock Steady and Ska tunes from the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Surprisingly, when the album was released, while it was a hit in terms of sales, critics at the time were divided on its success. Most of the criticisms that the album received were from people who were intimately familiar with the band's live sound, and they felt that Costello had dampened and muted the group's energy compared to what they delivered on stage. That may well be true, but for those not biased by such preconceptions, the album is considered a flawless masterpiece, encapsulating the spirit and essence of the times with a selection of songs that are unfailing when it comes to delivering the goods. It's an album that has retained every ounce of its power to engage, enrage and inspire, as sharply observant of the times while still completely relevant to the modern worlds. None of the issues it tackles have been really resolved in the decades since its release, so its critiques remain as valid today as they were 45 years ago. Plus you can dance to it!
 

THE ROLLING STONES - IT'S ONLY ROCK 'N' ROLL @ 50

Celebrating its golden jubilee, at 50 years old today, it's the twelfth studio LP by The Rolling Stones, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, which was released on October 18th, 1974. After something of a slump with their previous album, Goats Head Soup, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll was a bit of a refocusing of the band, albeit it would be the final outing for guitarist Mick Taylor, who would find himself edged out by Ronnie Wood.

In fact, the LP title and associated song would all come from Wood's work on a solo album that happened around the time the Stones were gearing up for their next album after completing a tour to support Goat's Head Soup. Ronnie Wood, a long-time acquaintance of the band, began to get closer to the Rolling Stones after he invited Mick Taylor to play on his debut solo album, I've Got My Own Album to Do. Taylor spent some time recording and hanging out at Wood's house, The Wick. By chance, Richards was asked one night by Wood's wife at the time, Krissy, to join them at the guitarist's home. While there, Richards recorded some tracks with Wood and quickly developed a close friendship, with Richards going as far as moving into Wood's guest room. Jagger soon entered the mix and it was here that the album's lead single and title track, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)", was first recorded. Wood worked closely on the track with Jagger, who subsequently took the song and title for their album. The released version of this song features Wood on 12-string acoustic guitar.

The remainder of the album initially started out as a split concept, with the first side intended to be a set of cover versions of classic blues tunes, backed with a live B-side taken from their recent tour. However, while the band recorded several covers for this conception, only one was actually used for the album. Once they got recording and jamming, they soon found that the ideas for new, original songs were quickly percolating up, so the plan of a covers/live LP was scrapped, and an all new set of recordings was created.

As was the case with the previous album, Mick Taylor had been side-stepped when it came to receiving any writing credits for any of the songs, with all the original compositions being credited only to Jagger and Richards. There has since been conflicting comments from Taylor vs Jagger in terms of the assessment of his contributions, with the latter claiming his input was minimal. This certainly played a part in Taylor's decision to leave the group. The other factor was the band's opting not to tour to support the album, choosing instead to go right back into recording and preparation for their next album, what would become Black and Blue, the record that would debut Ron Woods as a full time permanent member of the band.

Another notable aspect of It's Only Rock 'n' Roll is the fact it was the first to be self produced by Keith and Mick, with regular producer Jimmy Miller stepping down from the role he'd filled since Beggars Banquet in 1968. By this point, "The Glimmer Twins", which was the name used for all future Jagger/Richards productions, felt that they had developed enough prowess in the studio to figure out how to get what they wanted. They had their own ideas about how to approach recording now, and didn't need the guidance of a third party.

The album, once it was released, did well enough commercially, hitting #1 in the US, but it stalled at #2 in the UK, breaking a string of #1 albums that stretched back to Let It Bleed in 1969. The title track and lead single also charted well in the UK, but failed to really catch fire in the US. Regardless, the song has since gone on to become a staple in the band's live sets throughout their career to the modern day. One of the most prominent promotional videos for the band of that era was made for this song, featuring the band in a tent, dressed in sailor suits, performing as the tent fills up with foaming soap bubbles. This is actually my earliest memory of seeing the band as a child.

Critical reception was definitely mixed, though on the measure, somewhat more positive than had been the case for the previous album. In the UK, NME voted the album as the second best album of the year, while in the US, gonzo music critic, Lester Bangs, said of the album, "The Stones have become oblique in their old age, which is just another word for perverse except that perverse is the corniest concept extant as they realized at inception... Soup was friendly and safe. I want the edge and this album doesn't reassure me that I'll get it, what a curious situation to be stuck in, but maybe that's the beauty of the Stones, hah, hah, kid? This album is false. Numb. But it cuts like a dull blade. Are they doing the cutting, or are we?"

Ultimately, the album marks a key turning point for the band as they settled into becoming the establishment entity that would sustain them as industry stalwarts for the next half century. The band became codified in their form and function after this, with the volatility and unpredictability baked out, making them a shelf-stable commodity that could be regularly banked on to provide a profitable tour every few years, and records that would sell enough to keep the machine rolling indefinitely.