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Fats Waller Solo Performances VV030

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VV-030

PROGRAM LIST

  1. M1 Squeeze Me (Fats Waller) Rec. 2/14/1926, FATS WALLER EARLY UNDISCOVERED SOLOS, Riverside Records RLP 12-103, 1955 (2:55)
  2. M2 Handful of Keys (Fats Waller) Rec. 3/1/1929, HANDFUL OF KEYS, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor, LPM-1502, 1957 (2:45)
  3. M3 Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Fats Waller, Harry Brooks) Rec. 8/2/1929, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:00)
  4. M4 Tanglefoot  (Fats Waller) Rec. 8/24/1929, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1,  RFW-1, 1955. (3:10)
  5. M5 Honeysuckle Rose (Fats Waller) Rec 5/13/1941, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:21)
  6. M6 Bouncin’ on a V-Disc (Fats Waller) Rec. 9/23/1943, FATS WALLER PLAYS, SINGS AND TALKS, Jazz Treasury JT-1001, 1956 (4:46)

Background songs for this episode:

  1. M7 Please Take Me Out of Jail (Fats Waller) Rec. 12/1/1927, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1, RFW-1, 1955.
  2. M8 Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child  (Fats Waller) Rec. 9/23/1943, FATS WALLER PLAYS, SINGS AND TALKS, Jazz Treasury JT-1001, 1956 ABOUT THE ARTIST

Today’s show features the LATE GREAT Thomas Wright Waller, a jazz pianist and organist, composer and singer, born in New York City in 1904  The 7th of 11 children, his mother was a musician, and his father was a trucker and pastor in NYC.  Fats started playing piano when he was 6. He played the organ at his father’s church at age 10. PAUSE

He was home-schooled early-on by his mother and worked in a grocery store. He quit high school after just one semester at age 15 to work as an organist at the Lincoln Theater in Harlem. PAUSE

At the Lincoln Theater, he earned $32 a week.  That was 1929.  He became known as “Fats Waller” because he was big — both in body and in mind.  PAUSE

Fats Waller laid some of the building blocks for what is NOW ‘modern jazz piano’. He popularized the use of

The stride piano style,  which is widely used by jazz pianists today. He toured internationally and two of his biggest hits were Ain’t Misbehavin’ and Honeysuckle Rose. PAUSE

You are listening to Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child by  Fats Waller) Recorded back in 1943.PAUSE

Waller copyrighted over 400 songs. He probably composed many more, but, when he was in financial difficulty, he would sell songs to other writers and performers, who would not acknowledge the real composer, claiming the songs as their own.

 

Today’s podcast features Fats Waller and a few of his SOLO piano and organ compositions that were recorded between the years 1926 and 1943, or from the age of 22 to 39.  Some of these songs are not available today, except where they are rediscovered – – – on my old and treasured Fats Waller record collection!

SHOW PLUG – SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! !

BIT BUCKET

Waller is also credited with his composition and performance work in Broadway Musicals. Waller is perhaps the FIRST BLACK composer to write the score and perform for a mostly all-white show on Broadway. That was the 1943 Broadway musical EARLY TO BED, produced by Richard Kollmar – the Broadway Flyer for EARLY TO BED reads “Music by Thomas (“Fats”) Waller”. .

M1

M1 Squeeze Me  (Thomas Waller) Rec. 2/14/1926, FATS WALLER EARLY UNDISCOVERED SOLOS, Riverside Records RLP 12-103, 1955 (2:55)

  • Our first recording is titled “SQUEEZE ME” It’s a piano solo, and the composer and performer is Thomas Waller.He is not billed as “Fats” Waller yet, as he is not that unusually large at the young age of 22.
  • This song SQUEEZE ME was recorded for production of piano rolls in 1926, making this among Waller’s EARLIEST recordings. Waller recorded his piano solos for the production of Piano Rolls between 1926 and 1927.These rolls operate on player pianos. Insert the roll, and the piano plays the song.
  • PAUSE
  • The player piano is a specialty item, affordable by the wealthy, and not a great way to release new music to the masses. Decades later, in 1955, Riverside Records discovered these and many other piano rolls, and realized they contained a treasure trove of long-lost songs, including songs from Jazz great Thomas “Fats” Waller. Riverside tracked down the manufacturer of the rolls, “QRS” founded in 1900, located in NYC.
  • PAUSE
  • Riverside Records secured many piano rolls, and released several LP records in the 1950s.
  • This song SQUEEZE ME is one of a dozen that Fats Waller recorded in 1926. The music is really alive. Waller shows remarkable skill as a jazz pianist.
  • You can hear the stride piano on the left hand.
    • Play SQUEEZE ME CLIP
  • That was from SQUEEZE ME. Here’s another short example of stride piano…
    • Play HANDFUL OF KEYS CLIP
  • That was from A HANDFUL OF KEYS by Fats Waller.
  • The Stride Piano is found throughout Fats Wallers catalog of songs. It is called stride because the left hand, which is the rhythm hand, is actually running or striding back and forth, left and right. The left hand is playing two parts really, with stride. It is playing the bass note, and then quickly playing the chord. The bass note and the chord could be just one octave apart ….or 3 octaves apart. Nonetheless, the left arm moves back and forth base bass to chord, bass to chord, in perfect time. On a song like SQUEEZE ME that’s in 2/4 time, at 160 beats a minute would sound like this:
  • PLAY METRONOME at 160 bpm in 2/4 time
  • Bass Chord Bass Chord Bass Chord Bass Chord
  • And now, with no further adieu…lets listen to a piano roll song, SQUEEZE ME, recorded in 1926 by Thomas Waller.

PLAY M1

SHOW PLUG – SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL ! !

That was…M1 Squeeze Me

MUSICAL CREDIT:

  • Performance and composed – Thomas Waller – played on SOLO PIANO
  • Recorded in 1926, for production of Piano Rolls by the QRS Company and later found on Riverside Records,  1955.

BITBUCKET RCA Victor featured the dog listening to a victrola, with the subtitle “His Master’s Voice”,

M2

M2 Handful of Keys  (Fats Waller) Rec. 3/1/1929, HANDFUL OF KEYS, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor, LPM-1502, 1957 (2:45)

 Our second track is a 1929 recording of HANDFUL OF KEYS, released by RCA Victor in 1957.

  • This is the second RCA Victor LP, (LPM-1502), It is a compilation of works recorded between 1929 and 1942.
  • This is a PIANO SOLO, a ragtime piece, composed by Fats Waller.
  • It features the stride style ……but in an upbeat tempo of 130 beats per minute, plus or minus, with Fats in total control PAUSE
  • According to the liner notes on this LP, “After classical studies and playing in church and at prayer meetings when he was a boy, Fats became increasingly fascinated by the whirling world of RAGTIME, Jazz and Theater Music.” The liner notes indicate that his father, a deacon and later a pastor in NYC, regarded his son’s diversion from church music to Ragtime and Swing as being … “ ”.
  • And STRIDE PIANO PIONEER James P. Johnson, had Waller as his student. He had direct influence on Waller, and put it this way: “Some little people has music in them, but Fats, he was all music and you know how big he was.”
  • This album comes from my father’s collection of Fats Waller records.
  • Looking at the disc, it must be one of the MOST PLAYED albums in that collection. So pardon the popping sounds.
  • Here is HANDFUL OF KEYS.

PLAY M2

SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL !

That was…M2 Handful of Keys

MUSICAL CREDIT:

  • Performance and Composer – – Fats Waller – Piano Solo
  • Recorded in March, 1929, and reproduced onto LP record in 1957 by RCA Victor.

M3

M3 Ain’t Misbehavin’  (Fats Waller, Harry Brooks) Rec. 8/2/1929, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:00)

 Next, I feature perhaps the most popular of Fats Waller tunes, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’

  • This was 1929, the year that Fats signed a recording contract with RCA Records.
  • This was the first RCA volume of Fats Waller.
  • The beginning of the Great Depression. Fats was just 25.
  • Fats strength was playing and composing with an effortless style.
  • His works are polished and precise – practically at a CLASSICAL QUALITY level.
  • This was the result of long training in music theory …starting at the age of 5, and …..endless practice.
  • By his teenage years, he was accomplished at… piano, organ, violin, and the bass fiddle.
  • Some say Fats was a musical prodigy. He wrote between 360-400 songs in his short lifetime,
  • The story goes that Fats procrastinated on doing composition work. For a typical recording session, he was supposed to show up with a completed piece well-rehearsed by the musicians.
  • Instead, he would show up band members unrehearsed, and with NO composition. The musicians were flustered, and the studio personnel were frustrated, but Fats settled his huge 300-pound bulk at the piano and worked out a new piece that was acclaimed by everyone in that studio. PAUSE
  • One of Fats Wallers MOST FAMOUS and MOST PLAYED pieces is Ain’t Misbehavin’”.
  • More of the classic STRIDE STYLE is featured here.
  • This is an unusual instrumental version and was recorded in August, 1929
  • It appears on an RCA VICTOR compilation LP from 1956 titled “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, “Fats” Waller and his Rhythm”.
  • And now….here is the SOLO PIANO version of AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’

PLAY M3

SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL !

That was…M3  Ain’t Misbehavin’

MUSICAL CREDIT:

  • Performed and composed  Fats Waller – Piano Solo
  • Recorded in 1929, and found on RCA as an LP reproduced in 1956

M4

M4 Tanglefoot   (Fats Waller) Rec. 8/24/1929, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1,  RFW-1, 1955. (3:10)

  • Our next piece is a Pipe Organ solo that was composed and played by Fats Waller, and it’s a very old recording dating back to August of The song is titled TANGLEFOOT, and that is rare —- because the song has evidently not been re-released in any form, and I am not finding it in today’s market.
  • Between 1926 and 1939 Thomas Waller recorded dozens of songs on the pipe organ.
  • Did you know that Fats Waller was the FIRST person to interpret and record jazz on the pipe organ. PAUSE
  • The pipe organ is, in fact, the connection between Waller and what would become RCA Records
  • The Trinity Baptist Church, located in Camden NJ –had been in a state of decline and was purchased by the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1918. Victor was located just a few blocks away, in Camden. And was a recording company and maker of the record phonograph.
  • Under the Victor Talking Machine Company ownership, the Trinity Church was used as a recording studio.
  • Hundreds of artists and orchestras, recorded thousands of songs there in the 1920s and 1930s…. including Fats Waller on Pipe Organ.    
  • And the connection between Fats and RCA Records occurred in 1929, when RCA, or Radio Corporation of America, purchased Victor, which eventually became a subsidiary called RCA Victor.. PAUSE
  • This pipe organ solo TANGLEFOOT was recorded at that Trinity Church in Camden, in 1929.
  • ­­­­­­1929 is also the year of the Great Depression which continued for 10 years until 1939, which was then the start of another great war, World War II.
  • The Great Depression had global impact including the UK,  France and Germany.
  • It is remarkable that this musician, recorded all of his works in just 19 years between 1922 and 1943, and all of those were years of world wars and the great 10-year depression. PAUSE
  • What you are hearing is JAZZ being played on a church organ. That was unheard of. Fats is plowing new ground. PAUSE
  • TANGLEFOOT is played as a solo PIPE organ piece, and as such, features three musical parts :
    • First the feet operate the foot pedals that play the bass notes, PAUSE
    • The left hand plays the Rhythm line, and PAUSE
    • The right hand plays the Song’s Melody line. PAUSE

And now…..TANGLEFOOT.

PLAY M4

SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL !

That was…M4 TANGLEFOOT

MUSICAL CREDIT:

  • Performance and composition – Thomas Waller on a pipe organ solo in the old Trinity Church.
  • Recorded 1929, found on THE RAREST FATS WALLER, 1955, in a 4-LP set. Recording company unknown.

Bit Bucket tidbits

  • His whimsical musical style was loved by everyone that saw him, he was most of all, a showman.
  • His music was no doubt a big escape during a dark time for the world superpowers
  • I have a previously unreleased recording of this song, captured on vinyl LP in 1955. It’s not found online!
  • The LP I have is Volume 1 of THE RAREST FATS WALLER. It is part of a 4-Volume set, including LP #3 that is produced in a translucent green color.
  • The album does look like a bootleg, and features 2 pages of typewritten notes about the performances found on the 4-LPs. The LP quality is not that good, for example the Volume I is produced off-center, resulting in pitch variation.  There is no manufacturer or producer name on these LPs. Bootleg 1955.
  • Fats also recorded in Liverpool on a year 1855 organ in Saint George’s Hall.
  • And in London, Fats recorded on an experimental pipe organ in Studio One at Abby Road studio.

M5

M5 Honeysuckle Rose  (Fats Waller) Rec 5/13/1941, AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’, FATS WALLER AND HIS RHYTHM, RCA Victor LPM-1246, 1956 (3:21)

  • One of Fats’ famous lines is “You got to have melody…Jimmy Johnson taught me that”.
  • Jimmy was James Price Johnson, another piano great – – – 10 years older than Fats, and a major influence
  • Johnson is considered to be THE pioneer of the Stride Piano style
  • Fats was his student and as a result, Fats very much popularized the style.
  • Stride has influenced many jazz greats like Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Art Tatum, and Thelonious Monk.
  • This piece is Honeysuckle Rose another gem composed by Fats Waller. PAUSE
  •  This song opened in the Off-Broadway revue “LOAD OF COAL” as a soft shoe dance number in 1929.
  • It features the stride piano style Waller did so well. Fast or Slow / Soft or Loud.
  • This solo version of Honeysuckle Rose was recorded in May 1941 – when Fats would be 37…
  • Here is Honeysuckle Rose.

PLAY M5

SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL !

That was…M5 HONEYSUCKLE ROSE

  • I love the way Fats takes the tempo up and down in ending of this song.

MUSICAL CREDIT:

  • Performed and composed – Fats Waller — on solo piano
  • The 1931 recording of Honeysuckle Rose was admitted into the Grammy HoF in 1999.

BIT BUCKET

  • Fats disliked the noise and sound of larger brassy bands, preferring to lead a group of 6-8 men.

M6

M6 Bouncin’ on a V-Disc  (Fats Waller) Rec. 9/23/1943, FATS WALLER PLAYS, SINGS AND TALKS, Jazz Treasury JT-1001, 1956 (4:46)

  • Our next piece is titled BOUNCIN’ ON A V-DISC
  • During World War 2, the V-Disc was a large program by the Armed Forces of the US to bring entertainment to soldiers, sailors and airmen serving during World War II.
  • The “V” in V-DISC stood for VICTORY.
  • The Armed forces produced some 800 releases and distributed over 8 million V-Disc records to service personnel worldwide between 1943 and ending in 1949.
  • At the time of the V-DISC program, the standard for phono records was the 10”, 78 RPM record.
  • The V-Disc was special because it was 12” , 2” larger…and made with more flexible vinylite material
  • PAUSE
  • The standard 10” 78 was OK for songs up to 3:25 – the length of many pop songs.
  • Because the V-Disc was 12” it could play a 6-1/2 minute song – there was much more room to explore with musical artists
  • On one of the FIRST V-Discs, Fats Waller recorded his first song to entertain the troops – “Bouncin’ on a V-Disc”.
  • It is a Pipe Organ solo recorded and the start of the V-Disc program, September 1943.
  • The song length is 4:46…too long for a regular 78, but fits nicely on the V-Disc.
  • PAUSE
  • There had been a delay in the V-DISC program start. It had a false start because the Armed Forces overstepped recording label agreements by this program. Artists applied pressure to protect their label agreements in terms of distribution and royalties.
  • In the agreement between the armed forces and music artists, all musicians fees and royalties would be waived, and the v-discs could only be sold to service personnel.
  • Fats Waller produced several songs and interviews for the V-Disc program.
  • This is one of the last recordings of Fats Waller, as he died three months later of Pneumonia, December of 1943.
  • Here is Fats Waller performing Bouncin’ on a V-Disc on Pipe Organ.

PLAY M6

SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL !

That was…M6  Bouncin’ on a V-Disc

  • Thomas Wright Waller passed away traveling home from work in Los Angeles. He died of pneumonia on December 15, 1943 in Kansas City at the very young age of 39.
  • An authentic World War II V-Disc is hard to find, those millions of records are with the service members.
  • This is an LP compilation by the JAZZ TREASURY label.

MUSICAL CREDIT:

  • Performance and composition – – Fats Waller on a Pipe Organ Solo
  • Recorded September 1943.

SHOW PLUG – DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL !

Play background song for “ABOUT TODAY’S PROGRAM”

  • M7 Please Take Me Out Of Jail (Fats Waller) Rec. 12/1/1927, THE RAREST FATS WALLER, Volume 1,  RFW-1, 1955.

Conclusion:

  • That’s all for today’s show ” Fats Waller Solo Performances “, on VINYL VIBRATIONS. PAUSE
  • Be sure to listen to my other podcast episodes featuring Fats Waller, where I feature more solo piano and organ works. PAUSE
  • I’m your host, Brian Frederick,
  • Stay subscribed for more episodes to come… on this Vinyl Vibrations Podcast.

Stevie Wonder Instrumentals – VV029

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:32 — 45.0MB)

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SONG LIST*
M1 How Can You Believe (Stevie Wonder) Eivets Rednow, Motown Records LP 1968 (3:10)
M2 Which Way the Wind (Stevie Wonder) Eivets Rednow, Motown Records LP 1968 (2:40)
M3 Contusion (Stevie Wonder) Songs in the Key of Life, Motown Records 2LP, 1976 (3:45)
M4 Easy Goin Evenin’ / My Mama’s Call (Stevie Wonder) A Something’s Extra for Songs in the Key of Life, Motown Records 2LP, 1976 (3:58)
M5 The First Garden (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records 2LP, 1979 (2:32)
M6 Voyage to India (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records 2LP, 1979 (6:23)
M7 Tree (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records 2LP, 1979 (5:55)

Today’s Vinyl Vibrations episode features Stevie Wonder in his early years, and more specifically his Instrumental compositions. Stevie Wonder is an international pop icon, a singer-songwriter, a record producer, AND a multi-instrumental musician (for example…harmonica, keyboards, drums, bass guitar, guitar, and an incredibly talented singer. Wonder is an innovator – he pioneered the use of the early analog synthesizer during the 1970s. His albums are individual works of art, carefully crafted and thematic. Stevie Wonder’s influence extends across a range of genres that include R&B, pop, soul, gospel, funk, and jazz. He has often been referred to as a “ONE MAN BAND” because of his broad range of talents in music composition, music production and most of all – – music performance.

Born Stevland Hardaway Morris, Stevie Wonder was born on May 13, 1950, in Saginaw, Michigan. That’s near Saginaw Bay off Lake Huron, about 100 miles northwest of Detroit. In the 1950s, Saginaw County had several General Motors plants and many companies building parts that went down to the big DETROIT assembly plants. It was a booming economic period for the entire US auto industry.

It was a difficult birth. Wonder was born six weeks premature and placed in an oxygen-rich incubator, which  resulted in retinopathy of prematurity – causing his blindness.

When he was 4, his Mother divorced with his father, and along with her 3 kids, moved 100 miles down the road to bustling Detroit…. home of MOTOWN RECORDS.  At age 8, Steveland attended the Whitestone Baptist Church on Detroit’s west side. There, he developed his musical talents — playing piano, drums and harmonica — and he also sang in the choir and there became a soloist. Stevie was quickly recognized as a prodigy.. He further developed his singing talent with a friend …and they performed as Stevie and John on street corners.

When he was just 11, this musical prodigy was discovered by Ronnie White of the MIRACLES, and that in-turn resulted in a meeting with Motown Records founder Barry Gordy, who signed him with the TAMLA label of Motown Records. At that time, he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder. That was 1961 and Wonder had a 5-year rolling contract with royalties that were to be held in trust until he was 21. The weekly pay for this young artist was meager – a stipend of just $2.50 a week plus a tutor for Stevie when he was on tour. That $2.50 weekly stipend would be worth about $25 a week today.

At age 12 he enrolled in Michigan School for the Blind in Lansing, Michigan.

BIT BUCKET

Saginaw is also where I was born, just 2 years after Stevie. My family also moved from Saginaw to Detroit, around same year as Stevie – 1954.

­­

M1 How Can You Believe (Stevie Wonder) Eivets Rednow, Motown Records LP 1968 (3:10)

 

PLAY BACKGROUND – HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE

 

To start today’s podcast, I feature the album titled Eivets Rednow. There is some humor in the album title. Eivets Rednow is Stevie Wonder spelled backwards, and on the first release of the album, Stevie’s name did not appear on the cover. The album is also UNIQUE for Stevie as it is an INSTRUMENTAL album. No lyrics. No poetry.

This an easy listening POP and R&B instrumental album, released on the Gordy Records label in 1968. Gordy was one of the four MOTOWN labels – those labels were Gordy, Tamla, Motown, and Soul.

The release I have was released on the MOTOWN LABEL and adds “How do you spell Stevie Wonder backwards?” …on the cover.  Stevie was only 18 at the time of this release, although this is Wonder’s ninth studio album! Prolific. Boundless energy.

Featured on this song is the skillful harmonica melody. Wonder plays the harmonica, drums, piano, but most notably, his harmonica style is unique, very melodic, rich with feeling, and unmistakably Stevie Wonder, listening to it 55 years later.

Have a listen to this wonderful song and Stevie Wonder’s distinctive harmonica line.

And Now

How Can You Believe

PLAY M1

Don’t Touch That Dial

that was M1    M1 How Can You Believe (Stevie Wonder) Eivets Rednow, LP 1968 a short 3:10 in length, a pop tune.

Song credits

Credits go to

Stevie Wonder, music composer arranger and producer

  • Stevie Wonder Instruments –
    • Harmonica for the song melody
    • Percussion
    • Piano and Synthesizer
  • Benny Benjamin – drums
  • James Jamerson – bass guitar
  • The Funk Brothers – instrumentation

More on the FUNK BROTHERS later.

M2 Which Way the Wind (Stevie Wonder) Eivets Rednow, Motown Records LP, 1968 (2:40)

PLAY BACKGROUND – WHICH WAY THE WIND

Now from that same album Eivets Rednow, on the track titled WHICH WAY THE WIND, there is a clavinet instrument on this song. The CLAVINET was a new instrument – –  an electrically amplified CLAVICHORD and it was first manufactured by the HOHNER Company in Germany, starting in 1964. HOHNER is known for harmonicas, accordions, and recorders. We all played the recorder in elementary school, remember?

The CLAVICHORD itself is a very old keyboard instrument from the LATE MIDDLE AGES and was used from years 1500 to 1800. Here is a sample of what a CLAVICHORD sounds like. This instrument was made in about the year 1600.    It is an amazing sound coming from this 400-year old instrument….

PLAY EXAMPLE CLAVICHORD SAMPLE

Also featured on this album is THE FUNK BROTHERS. THE FUNK BROTHERS is a Detroit-based collective of first-call studio session musicians that backed most MOTOWN records in the 1960s. Similar concept to THE WRECKING CREW collective over in LA. The FUNK BROTHERS eventually moved to LA in 1972. You will hear this ensemble on hits like “My Girl”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”, “Baby Love”, ” I Was Made to Love Her”, “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”, “The Tears of a Clown”, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”….

…and of course on this earlier song with Stevie Wonder WHICH WAY THE WIND.

And now,  Which Way the Wind, 1968 with the brass and strings of THE FUNK BROTHES and Stevie drives the Melody on the HOHNER CLAVINET.

Play M2

Don’t Touch That Dial

That was M2  M2 Which Way the Wind (Stevie Wonder) Eivets Rednow, LP 1968

Stevie Wonder also used that Hohner Clavinet in his 1972 hit “Superstition”. Here is a bit from “Superstition”……..

PLAY SUPERSTITION CLAVINET EXAMPLE

Credits

  • Stevie Wonder Music composer, arranger and producer, and the Hohner Clavinet
  • Benny Benjamin – drums
  • James Jamerson – bass guitar
  • The Funk Brothers – “instrumentation” session musicians

In 1972, four years after this album’s release, Stevie Wonder toured the US with The Rolling Stones American Tour. I was fortunate to have seen that show at the Rubber Bowl in Akron, Ohio. Stevie did the warm-up show. He was truly a one-man band. He was guided around the stage by his team and played the bass, drums, keyboards, percussion, harmonica vamps – – plus his pop hits… quite a show that evening at the Rubber Bowl. Frankly, I was more impressed by Stevie Wonder’s incredible performance than the main act.

BIT BUCKET

The album failed to get much attention

A single was then released with one of the catchy songs, that is the song ALFIE, by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and the ALFIE single reached number 66 on the U.S. Pop charts.  

M3 Contusion (Stevie Wonder) Songs in the Key of Life, Motown Records 2LP, 1976 (3:45)

PLAY BACKGROUND – CONTUSION

The double album- Songs in the Key of Life, was released in September 1976. This double album has many different styles and is complex. Some find the album hard to absorb, but I believe this is one of the three best Stevie Wonder albums. The marketplace responded …. this album became the first by an American artist to debut straight at No. 1 in the Billboard charts, where it stood for 14 non-consecutive weeks.

On this instrumental, Stevie is the composer, however the musical performance features Philadelphia session guitarist MICHAEL SEMBELLO. Sembello was featured on the earlier album, FULFILLINGNESS FIRST FINALE (1974) and also is A CORE ARTIST on this album, SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE.

And now Contusion

Play M3

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That Was M3 M3 Contusion (Stevie Wonder) Songs in the Key of Life, Motown Records Inc, 1976

Credits M3

CREDITS

  • Gregory Phillinganes – Keyboard
  • Mike Sembello – Lead guitar
  • Raymond Pounds – Drums
  • Nathan Watts – Bass
  • Stevie Wonder – Composer Producer Arranger

BIT BUCKET

  • Michael Gray, Josie James, Shirley Brewer, Artece May – Background vocals (doo sound)

M4 Easy Goin’ Evening / My Mama’s Call (Stevie Wonder) A Something’s Extra for Songs in the Key of Life, Motown Records 7”EP, 1976 (3:58)

PLAY BACKGROUND – EASY GOIN’

And now, one more from the SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE album.

The other very cool thing about vinyl records was that some artists went the extra step of providing liner notes. These liner notes would include things like music and production credits, maybe the lyrics, and maybe some analysis or critique. These notes are informative, and the idea is that you are captivated while listening and reading the notes on these new songs. In this case, Wonder went overboard, and added a 22-page booklet with all the song lyrics and song credits. So Songs in The Key of Life is a treasured collectible.

Another great thing about Wonder is that he is so prolific that he published in double album sets. That’s a LOT of new music to absorb. The records were numbered to accommodate a stackable record player so that songs were heard in the intended order. But Stevie did not stop at 2 LP records, there was more … there was a BONUS 7” record! It looks like a 45-rpm disc, but it plays at LP speed of 33-1/3. Because of this slower speed, 4 bonus songs easily fit on this small format. One of the songs on the bonus disc is titled  Easy Goin’ Evening, a harmonica song composed by Stevie. The bonus 7” EP was produced arranged and composed by SW.

And now M4  Easy Goin’ Evening

Play M4

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That was M4  Easy Goin’ Evening (Stevie Wonder) and the 7” disk is titled “A Something’s Extra for Songs in the Key of Life”, Motown Records Inc, 1976 (3:58)

Credits

  • Stevie Wonder produced arranged and composed the 4 songs on this bonus disc.
  • Stevie Wonder on
    • Harmonica
    • Electric piano
    • Drums
  • Nathan Watts – Bass

 

NEWS

  • Songs in the Key of Life became the second-best selling album of 1977 in the US (behind only Fleetwood Mac’s blockbuster Rumours).
  • And the album won Album of the Year and two other Grammys. The album ranks 4th on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

 

BIT BUCKET

  • Liner notes are a thing of the past.

M5 The First Garden (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records 2LP, 1979 (2:32)

 

PLAY BACKGROUND – THE FIRST GARDEN

Now for a “mostly” instrumental album, a soundtrack album, a thematic album.

Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants is Stevie Wonder’s creation in 1979. Another Double LP set.

It is the soundtrack to the documentary THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS based on a 1973 book by the same name by Peter Thompkins and Christopher Bird. The documentary featured time-lapse photography of growing plants.

We hear Stevie’s harmonica lead the melody in this first song THE FIRST GARDEN.

A key fact –  this album features the invention of modern-day SAMPLING. This is an early experiment.

Wonder composed with a music sampler called a Computer Music Melodian. This device was invented by Harry Mendel in 1976. It is an analog to digital sampling synthesizer. With this collection of hardware, you could record any sound, the recorded sound would be stored in memory, and you could play it back instantly, but change it to play back at different pitches or speeds for example. That was the beginning of SAMPLING. Many of the NATURE SOUNDS in this song are from this sampler. Stevie recorded and transformed sounds.  Here are some sample sounds…the animal sounds in particular

PLAY EXAMPLE SAMPLED SOUNDS

– interlude section with chirping animal sounds and storms ¾ into the song

Quite a leap in the use of technology in music. Over the years, many competitors emerged and improvements evolved the process of sampling. Today it is all digital and amorphous, sampling.

… and now….

The First Garden

Play M5

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That was M5 The First Garden (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records Inc, 1979 (2:32)

Credits:

  • Stevie Wonder-Music and All Instruments, Arranger, and Producer
    • Sampler – Computer Music Melodian
    • Harmonica
    • Synthesizer
    • Bass

BIT BUCKET

The Computer Music Melodian was invented by Harry Mendel.

M6 Voyage to India (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records 2LP, 1979 (6:23)

PLAY BACKGROUND – VOYAGE TO INDIA

JOURNEY THROUGH THE SECRET LIFE was also one of the earliest popular albums to use DIGITAL RECORDING technology, which Wonder used for all his subsequent recordings. Stevie was definitely an early adopter of technology in music production with DIGITAL SAMPLING and DIGITAL RECORDING.

Another cool thing about this album …the front cover lettering was embossed. Interesting. Stevie’s recent LPs were also printed with Braille captions and messages for blind readers, as it was on this album. Feel the embossed letters and the braille on the front and back covers.

Voyage to India is our next song. Here is longer song set of Stevie Wonder. The LP is a bit tricky because on Side 1 there are 6 songs arranged on 7 tracks! Despite the extensive liner notes, I am left guessing that the VOYAGE TO INDIA draws from two tracks.

The first part begins with a western classical string introduction – – violin strings, a double-bass, a cello. No doubt, it was all synthetic, because there are no credits for those instruments. This ends with a crashing sound of thunder…here is a bit of that intro.

PLAY EXAMPLE BALLAD intro to the song

The second part features a melody led by a sitar. The sitar is played by Ben Bridges. Bridges replaced guitarist SEMBELLO whom we heard on CONTUSION. Bridges was a sideman for Wonder from 1975 to 1992 and played rhythm guitar. Here is that sitar sound

PLAY EXAMPLE SITAR 50% in to the song

And Now: Voyage to India 1979

PLAY M6

Don’t Touch That Dial

that was M6 Voyage to India (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records Inc, 1979 (6:23)

Credits

  • Stevie Wonder-Music and All Instruments except Sitar, Arranger, and Producer
    • Piano
    • Synthesizers
    • Bass
  • Ben Bridges – Sitar

BIT BUCKET

  • Wonder toured briefly with an orchestra in support of the album, and used a newer sampler/synthesizer, the 1979 Fairlight CMI sampler onstage.

M7 Tree (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records 2LP, 1979 (5:55)

PLAY BACKGROUND – TREE

And now our last song is titled TREE from the JOURNEY THROUGH THE SECRET LIFE OF PLANTS album.

TREE evokes the feelings of strength growth longevity beauty.

Wonder uses upward key changes to add sound and power.

Also he uses the Computer Music Melodian digital sampler and synthesizer to compose some of the songs sounds.

And now M7 Tree – – Stevie Wonder, 1979

Play M5

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That was M7 Tree (Stevie Wonder) Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, Motown Records Inc, 1979 (5:55)

Credits

  • Stevie Wonder-Music and All Instruments, Arranger, and Producer
    • Piano
    • Synthesizers
    • Bass 

CONCLUSION

That concludes our show today  ….  I hope you enjoyed listening to a different aspect of Stevie Wonder – namely  his instrumental music.

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Pat Metheny – Guitarist VV028

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 53:40 — 50.2MB)

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SONG LIST*

M1 Bright Size Life (Pat Metheny), Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (4:55)

M2 Sirabhorn (Pat Metheny), Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (5:27)

M3 Unity Village (Pat Metheny), Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (3:38)

M4 Unquity Road (Pat Metheny), Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (3:36)

M5 So May It Secretly Begin (Pat Metheny), Still Life, Pat Metheny Group, Released Geffen Records, LP 1987, (6:24)

M6 Last Train Home (Pat Metheny), Still Life, Pat Metheny Group, Released Geffen Records, LP 1987, (5:38)

Pat Metheny is an American guitarist and composer. He has worked as a soloist, in duets and small jazz ensembles, and, for decades, with the Pat Metheny Group. His musical styles include Jazz Fusion, Jazz (both progressive and contemporary jazz) …..and also Latin Jazz. He was born in Lee’s Summit, Missouri in 1954. Lee’s Summit is a suburb on the southeast side of Kansas City.

His main influences have been other musicians, his musical family and the British Invasion.

  • Musicians influencing Metheny include trumpeter Miles Davis, Gary Burton on vibes, jazz guitarists Jim Hall and Wes Montgomery and Jazz Sax players John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. PAUSE
  • A major foundational influence for Metheny is his musical family. His father played trumpet, his brother Mike Metheny plays jazz trumpet, and Pat’s maternal grandfather was a professional trumpeter. Brother Mike taught Pat how to play the trumpet, and so trumpet is actually Pat Metheny’s first Musicians in the family. Metheny attributes his early success to the local musical environment he was brought up in – the years 1964-1972, in Kansas City. Much of this is described in his biography titled BENEATH MISSOURI SKIES. Seems like Metheny is destined to become a great trumpeter, with all that musical environment…. PAUSE
  • .. there was a bump in the road at age 10. The BRITISH INVASION was in full force. Metheny saw the Beatles perform on TV in 1964, probably the Ed Sullivan Show, because that year the Beatles appeared. The Beatles are what inspired Metheny to defect from Trumpet to Guitar.

Metheny persuaded his father to buy him a guitar for his 12th birthday. That first guitar was a Gibson ES-140. PAUSE

That’s a hollow-body guitar, built in ¾ scale for young players and small hands. It’s a scale model of the Gibson ES-175 hollow body. Metheny soon got bigger hands and acquired a Gibson ES-175 …and that guitar is featured on his early albums like those in this podcast episode… Metheny started playing in pizza parlors at age fourteen (that’s 1968). At age 15, Metheny won a scholarship from Down Beat Magazine to attend a jazz camp (1969). That camp led to a meeting with Jazz guitarist Jim Hall, and bassist Ron Carter. So, by the time he graduated from high school (1972) he was the first-call guitarist for Kansas City jazz clubs, private clubs, and jazz festivals. Metheny had A LOT of support from his musical environment. Even though he switched from trumpet to guitar.

 

Metheny briefly attended college at U of Miami in Florida, but quickly realized after practicing on guitar for years all day long… he was unprepared for a college program … He realized then he was first and foremost, a serious guitarist and composer.

 

Metheny moved to Boston to teach at Berklee College of Music at the age of 19, where he met Jazz Vibraphonist Gary Burton. Teaching Jazz Theory and Performance was in demand.

 

BIT BUCKET

and for those not familiar, the ES-175 is sought-after by jazz country and rock guitarists – – – these vintage guitars today sell for $3,000 to $25,000. Back in the day, made in Kalamazoo MI. How about that for your first guitar? I am jealous, my first guitar was a Kay (named after John Kay) and it was … a very basic and cheap and crude electric starter guitar. Metheny, on the other hand, got a wonderful instrument, because

There have been many collaborations with Metheny and Burton over the decades since then.

that guitar was retired 20 years later- – in 1995.
­­

M1 Bright Size Life (Pat Metheny), Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (4:55)

 

Metheny released his debut album, Bright Size Life (ECM, 1976), with Jaco Pastorius on electric bass guitar and Bob Moses on drums. This is a studio album, recorded in Ludwigsburg Germany. It is amazing to think that this is a debut album. Released in 1976, BRIGHT SIZE LIFE is still fresh today.  In this  title song, Metheny begins his work in a signature way, his entrance is unmistakable with a quick ascending line. Many of his solos begin with the signature Metheny sound….and Pastorious  presents an equally inmistakable bass guitar part.  Here’s that fabulous BRIGHT SIZE LIFE INTRO

SAMPLE Play that intro ascending line with Jaco solid bass line in Bright Size Life

 

Pastorius and Metheny are weaving together guitar and bass lines in this song.  The bass is so much more than a rhythm support role, Pastorius is playing in parallel improvisation with Metheny.  Bright Size life sets the table for a fine album of jazz fusion by 22-year old Metheny.

 

And now, BRIGHT SIZE LIFE, 1976

 

Play M1

Don’t Touch That Dial

That was M1  BRIGHT SIZE LIFE, 1976

 

At the time of this recording, Metheny was living in Boston and teaching at the Berklee School of Music. His mentor was Gary Burton, the jazz vibraphonist. They collaborated on the arranging of the songs to be recorded for this album, and Burton attended the recording sessions in Germany. Interesting that Burton did NOT receive a PRODUCER or ARRANGER credit on this album.

 

Credits

 

  • Pat Metheny – 6-and 12-string electric guitar
  • Jaco Pastorius – electric bass
  • Bob Moses – drums

 

BIT BUCKET

PASTORIUS FOR ANOTHER PODCAST !

M2 Sirabhorn (Pat Metheny), Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (5:27)

 

Now we review the second track on side 1…. the song is titled SIRABHORN

I attempted to analyze the magical sound of this song and how that  never heard before /from another planet sound is structured. Surely it is structured, with a Pastorius bass line and with Bob Moses supplying the heartbeat throughout this song. The song is so difficult to describe in words . A skilled composer named Dr. Guy Shkolnik described SIRABHORN this way:

     The beautiful harmony is made of chromatic alterations of pure​ diatonic harmony​ and three modulations.

PAUSE

Millions of amateur guitarists, myself included, remain in awe of Metheny. He is a trained musician from childhood, with composition, arrangement and performance skills and teaching skills. His guitar performance is complex and mind-bending.  Decades later, his signature sound is imitated but never duplicated.

PAUSE

A little info about the bassist JACO PASTORIUS. The SIRABHORN song features a Jaco electric fretless bass solo and is from the earliest recording of Pastorius. He employed the use of a fretless bass, a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass that he called the Bass of Doom. As a youngster, he had modified the bass by removing the frets (which is outrageous) using a butter knife, then smoothing the gaps on the fretboard. Along with his use of distortion, 2-note power chords, the use of harmonics, and bass solos that sound lyrical…he is regarded today as one of the best electric bassists of all time. Here is an example of a LYRICAL SOUNDING SOLO from Pastorius….

SAMPLE Insert example of a LYRICAL SOLO by Jaco. Suggest Sirabhorn, about 60% into the song a solo that runs 60 seconds. Alternate is the solo in BRIGHT SIZE LIFE song.

 

What about that equally strange song name? Sirabhorn is named after a jazz guitar student of Metheny’s at Berklee.

And now here is SIRABHORN 1976

PLAY M2

Don’t Touch That Dial

that was M2    Sirabhorn (Pat Metheny), Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (5:27)

Song credits M2 go to

  • Pat Metheny – on a chiming twelve-string guitar with alternate tuning
  • Jaco Pastorius – electric bass guitar with lyrical bass solo
  • Bob Moses – drums providing the hearbeat of this song

 

In this same year, Pastorius released his own debut, self-titled, solo album.

 

BIT BUCKET

Sirabhorn is an alteration of C – Am – F – Dm  a common musical theme.

This is altered to become    C – B flat m –  G flat – E m  –

“Sirabhorn” Metheney said that The chiming opening bars have that open, pastoral sound that Metheny has said is rooted in his Missouri upbringing.  The vast majority of guitar enthusiasts never get beyond 3-chord popular songs and their evolutions from the 1960s.

 

 

M3 Unity Village (Pat Metheny), Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (3:38)

 

I do recall distinctly seeing Metheny TWICE at the Amazingrace, a small speakeasy in Evanston. It was 1977 and I have my tickets from the January show and the August show. This was early in career of Pat Metheny, playing then at a BYOB event in a shell of a building on Chicago Ave. Metheny was 22. Large hair. Large hollow body Gibson guitar. Seeing this kid just nail the songs from the Bright Size Life album drove it home and made Metheny a lifetime favorite jazz guitarist. This kid is for real.

 

Now the song UNITY VILLAGE. Here we have a deep  guitar solo. The song is named after a tiny 100-person village UNITY VILLAGE bordering Kansas City and Lee’s Summit in Missouri. It’s the headquarters for a spiritual movement, the UNITY Movement which “offers positive, practical Christianity” and describes itself as being “for people who might call themselves spiritual but not religious”.  The church was a part of the Metheny family history, with his grandfather working there, and both his dad and his brother had played in the church’s Unity Village Band.  The song  “Unity Village” is back down to earth. Peaceful and pastoral. It has two guitar parts.

  • One guitar part plays the changes with bass line.
  • The other plays the melody and variations.

There is a head to the song, typical of a contemporary jazz. The song really sounds like a story.

And now

UNITY VILLAGE Pat Metheny 1976

Play M3

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That Was M3 Unity Village (Pat Metheny),Bright Size Life, 1976, (3:38)

 

Credits M3

CREDITS

  • Pat Metheny – solo 6-and 12-string electric guitar, and song’s composer

 

 

 

 

M4 Unquity Road (Pat Metheny), Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (3:36)

Now for another of Pat Metheny’s mind-bending masterpieces, UNQUITY ROAD.  UNQUITY ROAD starts as a jazz tune opening and closing with the head piece and featuring  several rounds of improvisations on is. You will hear Metheny and Pastorius working in parallel and playing off each other throughout the song. This is relatively short one for a Metheny composition, at only 3:36.

Bob Moses delivers powerful rhythm and accent, and again,  is the pulse of this song.

Metheny’s composition features a series of rapid chord changes with a three-note motif. It really feels like forward motion. This track also features a full-on Metheny guitar solo, not heard yet on BRIGHT SIZE LIFE album.

And the song title? – Unquity Road is a road in Milton Massachusetts, 10 miles south of Boston and the Berklee College of Music, where Metheny was working at the time of this recording.

And now M4 Unquity Road (Pat Metheny) 1976

Play M4

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That was M4  Unquity Road (Pat Metheny),Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny, Released ECM, LP 1976, (3:36)

 

Credits

 

  • Pat Metheny – 6-and 12-string guitar
  • Jaco Pastorius – electric bass guitar
  • Bob Moses – drums

PAUSE

  • The album BRIGHT SIZE LIFE sold slowly, only 900 copies sold after its first release. That had to be a disappointment. I proudly own one of those LP gems, from that first release in 1976. It was used in this podcast and after 47 years it sounds perfect.
  • The Bright Size Life album did achieve #28 on the Billboard JAZZ Albums chart.
  • The Life album was recognized by JAZZWISE as one of the 100 Jazz albums that shook the world.

PAUSE

  • Jaco Pastorius released his self-titled debut album in 1976. That same year, he became a member of the jazz fusion group Weather Report from 76 to 81….
  • Tragically, Pastorius died in 1987 as a result of injuries sustained outside a South Florida nightclub. He was only 35.

 

BIT BUCKET

none 

M5 So May It Secretly Begin (Pat Metheny), Still Life (Talking), Pat Metheny Group, Released Geffen Records, LP 1987, (6:24)

Metheny evolved from a trio to a larger format, The Pat Metheny Group.   PMG which was founded by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays in 1978, following the success of BRIGHT SIZE LIFE. In this recording, in addition to the trio of guitar bass and drums, is piano/keyboards, percussion, and three vocalists.

PAUSE

Lyle Mays is on Piano and keyboards. Mays and Metheny composed and arranged nearly all of the Pat Metheny Group’s music. Mays was chief musical architect and sound designer of the group for more than three decades. The album Still Life (Talking) is the fifth studio album by the Pat Metheny Group and was released in mid-1987.   This song, SO MAY IT SECRETLY BEGIN, largely due to Lyle Mays piano, has a refined, classy, polished, sophisticated sound. The song features an innovative bass line. That’s Steve Rodby. A refined acoustic bass line that drives the song’s rhythm.  Here is an example of the bass line lead-in for the song….

 

PAUSE AND PLAY song intro, leading up to Metheny entrance.  Bass line > Strings. > Metheny

Example piano and bass line

 

With this sound and bass rhythm, I am transported in style, hearing a musical storyline.  Pat Metheny is the song’s composer. Lyle Mays piano talent makes the song feel like it is his own. Both Mays and Metheny have classy demos in the piece.

 

And Now:

So May It Secretly Begin (Pat Metheny), 1987 (6:24)

PLAY M5

Don’t Touch That Dial

that was M5 So May It Secretly Begin (Pat Metheny), from the Still Life (Talking) album

Credits:

  • Pat Metheny – composer, electric guitar, co producer and arranger
  • Lyle Mays – piano, keyboards co producer and arranger
  • Steve Rodby – acoustic bass
  • Paul Wertico – drums – a Chicago local – professor of music at Roosevelt University these days
  • …And 3 vocalists ….
  • Armando Marçal – percussion, backing vocals
  • Mark Ledford – vocals
  • David Blamires – vocals

 

 

BIT BUCKET

  • The PAT METHENY GROUP recording with American jazz piano player, Lyle Mays.
  • Jaco Pastorius died 1987 September Ft Lauderdale FL. This album released July 1987.

M6 Last Train Home (Pat Metheny), Still Life (Talking), Pat Metheny Group, Released Geffen Records, LP 1987, (5:38)

 

According to Metheny, the writing of his next tune, LAST TRAIN HOME, came to him very quickly, he said it was written as one complete phrase, then he added the bridge sometime later. Featured on this song are the pulsing bass line and the drum brush tempo, which indeed does resemble the chug-a-lug sound of rolling steam train.

PAUSE EXAMPLE OF CHUG A LUG

Also featured IN LAST TRAIN HOME is the sound of electric sitar. In this case I belief Metheny is playing a guitar synthesizer, such as the GR-300 polyphonic analog guitar synth, which he did pioneer the use of. IT DOES REALLY SOUND LIKE A SITAR !

PLAY SITAR SOUND

About that electric sitar sound. Here is a flash back 20 years before LAST TRAIN HOME….to 1968 with this sitar sound. An electric sitar was used in the 1968 pop  song “Hooked on a Feeling” written by Mark James and performed by B. J. Thomas. This version featured the sound of the electric sitar that was played by guitarist REGGIE YOUNG, from The Memphis Boys band. The sitar was really the HOOK that made this song so popular. Here is the sitar sound from that 1968 pop hit JOOKED ON A FEELIN:

PLAY EXAMPLE CLIP FROM BJ THOMAS HOOKED ON A FEELIN

 

… and now….

Last Train Home (Pat Metheny),from Still Life (Talking) 1987,

 

Play M6 FOUR AND TWENTY by Stephen Stills, the Déjà Vu album,

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That was M6 Last Train Home (Pat Metheny), Still Life (Talking), Pat Metheny Group, Released Geffen Records, LP 1987, (5:38).

 

Credits:

  • Pat Metheny – composer, electric guitar with synth, co producer and arranger
  • Lyle Mays – piano, keyboards co producer and arranger
  • Steve Rodby – acoustic bass
  • Paul Wertico – drums
  • …And 3 vocalists
  • Armando Marçal – percussion, backing vocals
  • Mark Ledford – vocals
  • David Blamires – vocals.

 

Still Life (Talking) won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance and was certified gold by the RIAA in 1992.

 

BIT BUCKET

  • The GR-300 polyphonic analog guitar synth was introduced mid 1970s. These sell for 2000 to 4000 today used. Pat Metheny was a pioneer in its use.
  • Hear it on this album? 

 

CONCLUSION

 

Concluding comments

 

As of 2023, the combined musical groups consisting of Pat Metheny Group, Unity Band and Metheny as a Solo artist, have earned 20 Grammy awards for albums and performances in the 30 years between 1983 and 2013. His discography is extensive with 53 albums released in the 47-year span between that first BRIGHT SIZE LIFE ALBUM in 1976 and now, 2023.

 

 

That’s it for today’s show PAT METHENY GUITARIST

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STEPHEN STILLS SINGER SONGWRITER for Podcast VV_027

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TODAY’S PROGRAM……

M1 For What It’s Worth (Stephen Stills), Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield, Released ATCO, LP 1969 (3:00)…

M2 Bluebird  (Stephen Stills) Buffalo Springfield Again, Released ATCO, LP 1967, (4:28)…

M3 Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (Stephen Stills), Just Roll Tape, Recorded 1968, Released Eyewall, LP 2007 (6:33)….

M4 Wooden Ships (Stills, Kantner, Crosby) Just Roll Tape, Recorded 1968, Released Eyewall, LP 2007 (2:26)…

M5 Carry On (Stephen Stills) Déjà Vu, Crosby Stills Nash & Young Taylor & Reeves, Atlantic LP 1970 (4:25)…

M6 4+20  (Stephen Stills), Déjà Vu, Crosby Stills Nash & Young Taylor & Reeves, Atlantic LP 1970 (1:55)…

M7 Sugar Babe (Stephen Stills), Stephen Stills 2, Atlantic Records LP, 1971 (4:04).

M8 Change Partners, (Stephen Stills), Stephen Stills 2, Atlantic Records LP, 1971 (3:14)…

Stephen Stills is an American musician, singer, and songwriter best known for his work with

  • Buffalo Springfield
  • Crosby, Stills & Nash
  • Manassas …
  • and as a SOLO ARTIST.

He was born in 1945 in DALLAS TEXAS. He is 78 at the time of this podcast’s production. He is still active. He plays guitar, bass guitar, keyboards… he’s not only a singer and songwriter… also an arranger and producer.

Stills has had a long and prosperous career. Starting out in 1963, he has given us some 60 years of songwriting and musical performance.

Today I FEATURE original compositions by singer songwriter Stephen Stills. From my collection we will hear 5 albums:

  1. Buffalo Springfield album and For What It’s Worth,
  2. Buffalo Springfield Again album with Bluebird
  3. Stephen Stills’ demo tape album JUST ROLL TAPE with Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, and Wooden Ships
  4. Crosby Stills Nash and Young’s DÉJÀ VU album with 4+20 and Carry On
  5. And finally, the STEPHEN STILLS 2 solo album with Sugar Babe and Change Partners.

 

We are now listening to ROCK AND ROLL WOMAN from BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD AGAIN.

 

These selections were each recorded between 1966 and 1971. Just a small time slice of this singer/songwriter’s career.

 

Stills was between the ages of 21 and 26. These works are important because these songs are each hand crafted by Stills. I also wanted to showcase his array of talents like multi-instrumental musician, arranger, and producer. In addition to being a successful singer/songwriter, who work has had a large musical impact.

 

Much more for future podcasts.

 

M1 For What It’s Worth (Stephen Stills), Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield, Released ATCO, LP 1969 (3:00)

 

Stephen Stills’ first HIT recording was FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH (or “Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound”). It was 1966. Stills was just 21 years old. This was his first big break. He had written several songs, by now.. Not only did he have an inventory of original songs, he had helped to form a new band. Along with two other singer-songwriters, Richie Furay and Neil Young… they formed Buffalo Springfield out in Los Angeles. Neil Young came from Winnipeg Alberta, and Furay and Stills left a New York City gig with the Au Go-Go Singers, a 9-member group performing at the Café Au Go-Go. Two other Canadians — bassist Bruce Palmer and rock drummer Dewey Martin were added — 5 band members in all. 2 Americans, 3 Canadians.

 

“For What It’s Worth” became one of the most recognizable songs of the 1960s. It was first released as a 45 RPM single in late 1966. In t1967, For What It’s Worth featured on the first Buffalo Springfield LP.

 

The lyrics in FOR WHAT ITS WORTH are all about a confrontation Stills had with LAPD Riot Police in Los Angeles’ earlier that year. There had been many summer nights of rowdy crowds of kids causing late-night traffic issues in the Sunset Strip neighborhood. LA responded by announcing a curfew of 10PM. As a result, there were reported to have been over 1,000 persons out on the Strip protesting and trouble broke out. There were clashes between police and young people. Peter Fonda was handcuffed by police. Jack Nicholson was also on the scene. Whisky a Go-Go was a nightclub on the Sunset Strip, where many great bands have performed. At that time, in 1966, their house band was Buffalo Springfield. Because of continuing issues of unrest, some clubs on the Sunset Strip were forced to close their doors for weeks. It was because of these civil disturbances on Sunset Strip that Stills recorded “For What It’s Worth”.

 

And now, For What It’s Worth (Stephen Stills)

 

Play M1

Don’t Touch That Dial

That was M1  FOR WHAT ITS WORTH – STOP HEY WHATS THAT SOUND

Credits

  • Stephen Stills – Guitar and Vocals and songwriter
  • Richie Furay – Guitar and vocals
  • Dewey Martin – Drums
  • Bruce Palmer – Bass
  • Record Company ATCO, a division of Atlantic Records

 

 

“For What It’s Worth” became a top ten hit, reaching No. 7 on the US Billboard 100 in Spring of 1967.

 

BIT BUCKET

I was a very impressionable age 14 at the time of this song’s release… the song chorus lyrics were very impactful on me…

I think it’s time we stop.

Hey, what’s that sound?

Everybody look, what’s going down?

 

 

 

M2 Bluebird  (Stephen Stills) Buffalo Springfield Again, Released ATCO, LP 1967, (4:28)

 

The Buffalo Springfield band was really about their two biggest egos, those of STEPHEN STILLS and NEIL YOUNG. Buffalo Springfield was still a young band, only 9 months old at this point in late 1966. After their hit “For What It’s Worth”, they were eager to have a repeat success. For a SINGLE, two songs, “Bluebird” Mr. Soul were available for a single. Stills writing Bluebird, Young writing Mr. Soul. These were recorded and released by ATCO Records as a single. The version I will play today is from the LP, titled Buffalo Springfield Again, released later that year 1967. This LP version is much improved with lots more guitar work by Stills and Young. BLUEBIRD features the trading off of guitar solos between Neil Young and Stephen Stills. Stills plays the acoustic guitars, some is finger-picking. Young the rocker plays the distorted lead guitar part, on Les Paul guitar. In this song, Stills is ALL ACOUSTIC, Young is ALL ELECTRIC.

PAUSE EXAMPLE GUITARS

About that acoustic guitar we hear –  Stills had just purchased a fine old guitar, a 29-year old acoustic Martin D-28. It was first used in the recording of Bluebird. On this song, Stills uses D-modal tuning … he tuned his guitar DOWN a full note to DADGAD, tuning DOWN 3 of the guitar’s 6 strings.

EXAMPLE: Record yourself d-tuning an acoustic guitar to DADGAD.

It’s a full rich sound used in Celtic music, Folk and Rock. The acoustic guitar work and this recording is sharp and clear because of some early recording expertise in SOUND PROCESSING, the use of compression and equalizers to highlight the picking and full dynamic range of that acoustic guitar. This is an ultra clear recording of Stills on that Martin D-28.  AND there is also a BANJO PART.

PLAY BANJO BACKGROUND   The banjo part is played by Charlie Chin, bluegrass style, from Greenwich Village – Stills’ worked earlier there. This LP VERSION with the added guitar and banjo parts, lengthens this 2-minute single to 4:28.

 

And now here is Bluebird … complete with dueling guitars and banjo.

PLAY M2

Don’t Touch That Dial

that was M2    BLUEBIRD (Stephen Stills) Buffalo Springfield Again, Released ATCO, LP 1967, (4:28)

Song credits M2 go to

  • Neil Young electric lead guitar
  • Bobby West Bass
  • Rich Furay vocal
  • Dewey Martin drums
  • Charlie Chin – Banjo
  • Stephen Stills – singer, songwriter, producer along with Atlantic Records, acoustic rhythm and lead guitars

 

The single reached number 58 on the Billboard chart, some critics see the song as their most accomplished piece.  It spent 7 weeks on the HOT 100 chart. Buffalo Springfield did not last / could not last, with 3 egos as large as a house, all of this talent had dismantled by 1968 and  each artist went on to their own individual successes…Neil Young departed to form Crazy Horse, Richie Furay departed to form Poco, and Stephen Stills went on to form Crosby Stills Nash and Young. BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD is a foundation of ROCK AND ROLL.

 

BIT BUCKET On the lyrical side, lyrics are usually lost on me. I am identifying much more with the guitar, drum, and bass parts on these songs. Some say the lyrics in this song Bluebird have to do with Stills’ musings about Judy Collins. He would soon be writing a tong he titled Suite Judy Blue Eyes. More on that later.  The closing verse in the SINGLE is:

DO YOU THINK SHE LOVES YOU? 

DO YOU THINK AT ALL?

M3 Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (Stephen Stills), Just Roll Tape, Recorded 1968, Released Eyewall, LP 2007 (6:33)

 

The next piece is titled Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and is written by Stephen Stills and performed by Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN). It appeared on the group’s self-titled debut album in 1969 and was released as a single.

 

The song is indeed a SUITE…. it imitates a classical music suite with a set of THREE musical pieces, in this case.

 

The inspiration for this Crosby, Stills & Nash classic “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” is Stills’ romantic relationship with Judy Collins They were both singer songwriters and had a romantic relationship that lasted only two years, but numerous songs written by Stills down the road, would muse about Judy Collins.

 

The recording features a UNIQUE version of the Suite. This recording is from a DEMO tape made in April of 1968. It was done at a recording studio where Judy Collins had just finished a recording session and there was remaining studio time. Stills evidently paid the recording engineer privately to help him record the demos. He asked the engineer to “JUST ROLL TAPE” and Stills proceeded to perform 13 of his originals – – solo. The tape is available in LP form (very expensive) and on CD.

PAUSE AND PLAY EXAMPLE   OF THE EEEEBE tuning at beginning of song.

The guitar is tuned to modal tuning EEEEBE and was used on later songs from the Déjà vu album— Carry On and 4+20. We will hear each of those later in this podcast

The Suite has 3 pieces on the demo tape:

  • Segment one – You Make It Hard
  • Segment two – What Have You Got To Lose
  • Segment three – Be My Lady

 

And now

… here is Suite: Judy Blue Eyes played solo by STEPHEN STILLS in 1968

Play M3

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That Was M3 Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (Stephen Stills), Just Roll Tape, Recorded 1968

Credits M3

Credits

  • Stephen Stills solo Guitar and Vocals

 

Listening to this demo ROLLL THE TAPE I can understand the high street value. There are in all 13 songs recorded solo, on one tape, and one take, and there are few gaffs, if any. CLEARLY, Stills not only had inventory but he had great command of the song ideas. Great vocals and use of innovative guitar tunings.  These demo songs are solid prototypes!

 

In 1970, this song appeared on the group’s self-titled debut album – “Crosby Stills & Nash”

  • Suite: Judy Blue Eyes reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart.
  • In Canada, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” peaked at number 11.

 

 

M4 Wooden Ships (Stills, Kantner, Crosby) Just Roll Tape, Recorded 1968, Released Eyewall, LP 2007 (2:26)

 

Next, we go to Fort Lauderdale Florida. It is 1968, and there is a large sailboat named MAYAN. The ship MAYAN was owned and operated by David Crosby for 45 years. The WOODEN SHIPS story goes like this. Crosby composed the music to WOODEN SHIPS and the lyrics were written by Stephen Stills and Paul Kantner, founder of JEFFERSON AIRPLANE. Crosby said that he composed numerous songs aboard MAYAN, which he considered to be his sanctuary. MAYAN is a 59-foot Alden centerboard schooner-rig, built in1947. It’s actually 66-feet overall, including the bowsprit, and with the centerboard up, can sail in water as shallow as 5 feet.

WOODEN SHIPS is thought to be a look at the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. The 60’s was the cold war and a time of nuclear threat between the USA and USSR.  For example the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS in 1962 was perhaps the closest the US has come to a nuclear disaster.

PAUSE

WOODEN SHIPS was inspired by nuclear holocaust and also real life – as David Crosby said about sailing aboard the MAYAN:

“The world has gone to hell … The idea was that we were sort of sailing away from that madness.”.

 

This rendition of WOODEN SHIPS is from Stephen Stills demo tape, the album is JUST ROLL TAPE.

plays a de-tuned guitar and delivers the vocals.. This demo is a shorter version of Wooden Ships, 2:26. Later the song will evolve out to 5:29.

 

And now M4 Wooden Ships  recorded in 1968

Play M4

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That was M4  WOODEN SHIPS from JUST ROLL TAPE recorded in 1968 and released in 2007 as an LP and CD with compelling lyrics…..

PAUSE insert lyrics.

Wooden Ships on the water

Very free and easy peasy. You know,

The way it’s supposed to be.  

 

So how is it this demo tape remained unreleased for so long –2007 was 25 years after  the original recording. Somehow, Stills left the demo session without taking his demo tape. Years later, the studio closed down, and many tapes, including this one, were given to another musician ….who finally succeeded in returning the demo tape to Stills, who then produced and released this album (CD and LP versions) in 2007. A great find.

Credits

  • Stephen Stills solo Guitar and Vocals
  • Stephen Stills and Paul Kantner lyrics
  • David Crosby song composer

PROPER VERSIONS of these last two DEMO tracks, Suite Judy Blue Eyes and Wooden Ships, appeared on the debut album of Crosby Stills and Nash a year later — 1969. That debut CSN album sold over four million copies and CSN went on to win a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

 

BIT BUCKET

The theme of WOODEN SHIPS reminds me of Canadian folk singer BONNIE DOBSON’s song released that same year, (WALK ME OUT IN THE) MORNING DEW, a dialogue between the last man and woman left alive after some apocalyptic catastrophe.

The version recorded and released on the 1969 CSN album is 5:29.

 

 M5 Carry On (Stephen Stills) Déjà Vu, Crosby Stills Nash & Young Taylor & Reeves, Atlantic LP 1970 (4:25)

 

In 1968, following the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, Stills worked with American singer-songwriter David Crosby from The Byrds, and with English singer songwriter Graham Nash from The Hollies. They worked as a TRIO called Crosby, Stills & Nash or CSN. Some months later they added a familiar name from up north, Canadian singer-songwriter, Neil Young, and became Crosby Stills Nash and Young. Imagine that, Four singer songwriters in one band. With all of that ego and creativity, will CSNY have a chance of a long future ? We go to the second studio album titled DEJA VU, which was the first time Neil Young was included in recordings. Released in early 1970 by Atlantic. On SIDE ONE / TRACK ONE – – the song is CARRY ON. A title that seems to continue on Stephen Still’s persistent theme . “that romantic breakup with Judy Collins”.

SHORT PAUSE

Interesting fact about Carry On is that there is a familiar tune BUNDLED within, making Carry On a musical Suite. That bundled song is QUESTIONS. According to Stills, “Carry On” was completed in about eight hours from conception to finished master.

And Now:

….Carry On (by Stephen Stills) from Déjà Vu, Crosby Stills Nash & Young Taylor & Reeves, released in 1970

 

PLAY M5 Carry On (Stephen Stills) Déjà Vu,

Don’t Touch That Dial

that was M5

Carry On (Stephen Stills) Déjà Vu, Crosby Stills Nash & Young Taylor & Reeves, released in 1970

Credits:

Song credits go to

  • David Crosby – vocals
  • Stephen Stills – vocals, guitars, bass, organ, and percussion and song composer
  • Graham Nash – vocals,percussion
  • Neil Young – does not appear on this song….
  • Dallas Taylor – drums

 

 

 

 

BIT BUCKET

Not only was Stills songwriter on many of CSN’s songs, Stills really showcased his versatility and talent by playing bass, guitar, and keyboards on their DEBUT, self-titled album released in 1969.

The album sold over four million copies and at that point had outsold anything from the three members’ prior bands: the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Hollies.

The album won the trio a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

 

 

M6 4+20  (Stephen Stills), Déjà Vu, Crosby Stills Nash & Young Taylor & Reeves, Atlantic LP 1970 (1:55)

 

Next we go to Side 2, Track 3,,,,,,,, the song is 4 + 20

4 and 20 years ago I come into this life ….

the son of a woman and a man who lived in strife

he was tired of being poor

and he wasn’t into selling door to door…

 

It’s a sad song, depressing actually. Stills sings solo and plays a D-tuned guitar, a common tuning of his.

 

So let’s listen to a very heavy, a troubled side, of Stephen Stills.

 

… and now….

.

 

Play M6 FOUR AND TWENTY by Stephen Stills, the Déjà Vu album,

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That was M6 4+20  (Stephen Stills), Déjà Vu, Atlantic Records 1970, clocking in at a short …..1:55.

 

Credits:

  • Stephen Stills solo vocal and guitar, and the song composer.
  • NOTE:
    • Graham Nash, David Crosby, Neil Young do not appear on this track.

 

Some Stats about the Déjà vu album

 

  • In March 1970, Déjà vu was certified Gold in the US, JUST 14 days after release!
  • The album spent 88 weeks in the Billboard 200 charts
  • Certified 7× platinum by RIAA, the album’s sales currently sit at over 8 million copies.
  • Deja Vu remains the highest-selling album of each member’s career ,,,,to-date.

 

 

BIT BUCKET

RIAA Recording Industry Association of America

 

 

 

 

 

M7 Sugar Babe (Stephen Stills), Stephen Stills 2, Atlantic Records LP, 1971 (4:04)

 

After the breakup of CSNY in 1970, Stills went through another prolific songwriting stage, composing over 20 songs for his 2nd SOLO album – – Stephen Stills 2.     That was fast work because the album was released by Atlantic in 1971…….just a year after Déjà vu was released. Fast and Prolific indeed.

 

Our next song from Stephen Stills 2 is SUGAR BABE. I believe this song is about Stills relationship with Rita Coolidge – with the lyrics……..

Come on sweet Rita
You’re my sugar baby

And now, another Stills creation, SUGAR BABE

 

PLAY M7

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

That was M7  Sugar Babe (Stephen Stills), from the Stephen Stills 2 SOLO album,

Credits M7

I love that gnarly Hammond organ grinding away on the right hand track.

On the Stephen Stills 2 album there are only general credits, not song-specific.

Even upon further research I have:

  • Stephen Stills – vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass guitar, composer, arranger, conductor and producer
  • Calvin Samuels – bass
  • Conrad Isidore, Dallas Taylor – drums
  • Unknown keyboards
  • Unknown harmony vocals

 

 

BIT BUCKET

In this song, one of the best things is the muffled organ on the right side and Still’s distorted guitar on the left side. I’ve seen him perform this song solo on a big grand piano. It’s pretty cool, Stills is a self-taught basic piano player, but what a talented composer arranger and songwriter. Great sound.

 

M8 Change Partners, (Stephen Stills), Stephen Stills 2, Atlantic Records LP, 1971 (3:14)

Last on today’s Stephen Stills Singer Songwriter podcast is CHANGE PARTNERS, also from that 2nd SOLO album.

 

Stills said “it was about growing up in Texas. Going to debutante balls, dancing and changing partners.”

 

You will hear a lovely pedal steel guitar. That is none other than Jerry Garcia  on pedal steel guitar played throughout this song. This version released on Stephen Stills 2 was recorded in early ‘ 71 in Miami.

 

PLAY M8

And now, CHANGE PARTNERS

Don’t Touch That Dial

That was M8 

 

Change Partners, (Stephen Stills), Stephen Stills 2, Atlantic Records LP, 1971

Song credits M8

As far as song credits, again there are only general album credits,

Upon further research, here is what I found on CHANGE PARTNERS::

 

  • Stephen Stills – vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass guitar, composer, arranger, conductor and producer•
  • Calvin Samuels – bass
  • Dallas Taylor – drums
  • Jerry Garcia – pedal steel guitar on “Change Partners”
  • Graham Nash, David Crosby, Henry Diltz, and Fred Neil on backing vocals.

 

 

STATS

  • Stephen Stills 2 album peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200 and was certified as a gold record.
  • Two singles were released from the album,
  • “Change Partners” peaked at number 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

This podcast on Stephen Stills EARLY YEARS -1966-1971 included 8 of his original compositions from 5 albums and singles.

 

OF COURSE this ONLY SCRATCHES the surface of his great talent. There will be a subsequent podcast on STEPHEN STILLS.

 

Stills has combined record sales of over 35 million albums. He is a Hall of Fame inductee, in fact he was the first person to be inducted twice on the same night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – that was 1997.

 

Stephen Stills is 78 at the time of this podcast’s production.  Neil Young is 77. Graham Nash is 81.

 

Sadly, we lost David Crosby earlier this year, at the age of 81.

 

On a lighter note, Judy Collins is 84. And Rita Coolidge is 78.

 

That’s it for today’s show “STEPHEN STILLS SINGER SONGWRITER”, on VINYL VIBRATIONS.

Please SUBSCRIBE to hear new episodes of this FREE PODCAST.

closing plug:

THAT’S   TODAY’S SHOW    ” STEPHEN STILLS SINGER SONGWRITER ”

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ON  VINYL VIBRATIONS !!

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I’M YOUR HOST, BRIAN FREDERICK !!

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STAY SUBSCRIBED

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VINYL VIBRATIONS

 

 

Wendy Carlos Electronic Composer VV_026

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Wendy Carlos Electronic Composer VV_026

SONG LIST*
M1 Air on a G String (JS Bach 1730, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (2:27)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M2 Two Part Invention in F-Major,(JS Bach 1723, W Carlos, 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (0:40)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M3 Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring ,(JS Bach 1723, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (2:56)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M4 Chorale Prelude “Wachet Auf”, (JS Bach 1731, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (3:37)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M5 Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G Major 2nd Movement, (JS Bach 1723, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (2:50)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M6 Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G Major 3rd Movement, (JS Bach 1723, W Carlos 1968), Switched-On Bach, Columbia/CBS, 1968 (5:05)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Benjamin Folkman, Assistance
M7 Title Music from A Clockwork Orange), (Purcell, 1695, W Carlos, R Elkind 1972) , Columbia/CBS, 1972 (2:21)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Rachel Elkind Producer
M8 Theme from A Clockwork Orange (Beethoviana), (W Carlos, R Elkind 1972) , Columbia/CBS, 1972 (1:44)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Rachel Elkind Producer  
M9 Timesteps (Excerpt), (W. Carlos 1970, Tempi Music BMI), Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Warner Bros Records, 1972 (4:13)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Rachel Elkind Producer
M10 March from A Clockwork Orange/Ninth Symphony, 4th Movement, (L v Beethoven 1824, W Carlos, R Elkind 1970) Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, Warner Bros Records, 1972 (7:00)

·       Wendy Carlos – Moog Synthesizer

·       Rachel Elkind Producer and Articulations

Today’s Vinyl Vibrations podcast features the artistry of Wendy Carlos, an American composer, arranger, and electronic musician. Wendy Carlos was born Walter Carlos in Rhode Island in November 1939. She is the first transgender recipient of a Grammy Award, her album SWITCHED-ON BACH won three Grammys in 1970. Later, in 2005 she was the recipient of the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award for her contribution to the art and craft of electro-acoustic music.

Wendy Carlos is best known for her electronic music such as SWITCHED-ON BACH…and film scores such as A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, THE SHINING and TRON.

Her studies of music composition at Columbia University in New York City in the 1960s led to her working with electronic musicians and technicians where she helped in the development of the MOOG SYNTHESIZER. This was the first commercially available keyboard instrument from Robert Moog. During her time at Columbia, Carlos ordered components of a custom designed synthesizer from Robert Moog, and she collaborated with Moog on the design of that early instrument, which became known as the MOOG SYNTHESIZER. Some of the modules included a touch-sensitive keyboard, a portamento control, which slides notes in the scale between one note and the next, a filter bank, and a 49-oscillator polyphonic generator bank that could create chords and arpeggios, arpeggios are the individual notes of those chords played in cycles.

Today, we take the synthesizer for granted. The keyboard synthesizer has become widely-available, and most keyboard musicians today, including me, use a synth keyboard such as BEHRINGER, KORG, NORD, ROLAND, YAMAHA, and yes… even the brand Carlos herself helped design with Robert Moog, the MOOG synthesizer.

After getting her Masters in Music Composition from Columbia University in 1965, Carlos worked for three years at Gotham Recording Studios in New York City, to support herself. She also used her Moog Synthesizer to record jingles for TV commercials. The recording engineering job would prove to be extremely valuable just three years later as she self-recorded the entire SWITCHED-ON BACH album, which is featured in today’s podcast.

In 1968, Carlos, then Walter Carlos, released her first LP, SWITCHED-ON BACH, containing several pieces written by Johann Sebastian Bach, which she arranged and recorded from her Moog Synthesizer. SWITCHED-ON BACH was released on Columbia Masterworks as part of a two-record recording contract. Carlos negotiated a good royalty arrangement, because the label really didn’t expect the album would sell many copies. Classical music rarely, if ever, achieves Gold let alone Platinum unit sales.

What makes this first album fascinating is knowing that the MOOG Synthesizer was in a very early state – – – barely a usable product. …You could not sit down and bang out a song like you could on a piano or organ. The first Moog Synthesizer could play only one note at a time. No chords! No two-handed playing ! No buttons with presets for sounds and effects! Instead, a lot of patch cables and knobs to adjust.

Every individual part had to be recorded, note for note, and then layered over the previously recorded parts. This was all done on an eight-track recorder. State of the Art at that time. Recorded parts were time-aligned with use of a click track. Carlos did not document her settings for knobs and patch cable connections – –  These were complex, but she was able to recall each part’s sound from her own memory, a living library of hundreds of settings for all the knobs and cables. To add to the laborious nature of early electronic music, the Moog, being an analog device, would frequently drift out of tune. This made the recording and layering process very repetitive, tedious and laborious. The story goes that Carlos would use a hammer to bang on the Moog casing to get it back in-tune, and then re-record the part.

According to Wendy Carlos, the Switched-On Bach song recordings required 8-hour days, 5 days a week for 5 months to complete. In other words, Carlos invested some 900 to 1,000 man-hours of her own recording time to lay down what was published That is one-half man-year resulting in 12 songs for a total play time of 40 minutes on the Switched-On Bach LP.

And this was moonlighting for Wendy Carlos, she was also working full-time job at the Gotham Recording Studios! That is extreme PASSION for arranging and creating electronic music!

Today we will hear selections from three early LP productions of Wendy Carlos.

These three albums are:

  • SWITCHED-ON BACH
  • WALTER CARLOS’ CLOCKWORK ORANGE
  • And STANLEY KUBRICK’S CLOCWORK ORANGE

Each of these albums are in my collection, and each album refers to and gives credit to WALTER CARLOS, her name at that time.

There is also a Corporate ID and a self-credit to Walter Carlos stating on the album liner notes: THIS ALBUM WAS DEVISED AND PRODUCED BY TRANS ELECTRONIC MUSIC PRODUCTIONS INC. We can see that Wendy Carlos has been very protective of her copyrights and ownership of this music.

Wendy Carlos has released some 13 studio albums, created 5 film soundtracks, including A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Tron, and Rediscovering Lost Scores, in two volumes.

Sadly, as of 2020, much of Carlos’s discography is out of print and has not been released for digital streaming or other platforms. BUT WE HAVE THE VINYL LPs, WHICH HAVE STOOD THE TEST OF TIME.

Fortunately, there is a treasure trove of information on Wendy’s personal website, www.wendycarlos.com

There are many many pages painstakenly updated through about 2009, this is Wendy Carlos’ personal database of information.

Carlos is also an accomplished solar eclipse photographer, and her work has been published by NASA. She has developed techniques for extending the dynamic range in eclipse photography.

Carlos remains very private, but I believe she continues to live at her music studio in New York City. At the time of this podcast recording she is 83-1/2 years old.

Perhaps we can visit two other soundtracks THE SHINING and TRON in a part 2 podcast of Wendy Carlos soundtrack skills.

That’s it for today’s show “WENDY CARLOS, ELECTRONIC COMPOSER and ARRANGER “, on VINYL VIBRATIONS.

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Stephane Grappelli, Violinist – VV025

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M1 Oh, Lady Be Good (George and Ira Gershwin, 1924), Django,  CBS Realm Jazz Series 1969/1934 (2:50)…

M2 Dinah, (Akst, Lewis, Young, 1925) Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series 1969/1934 (2:30)…

M3 I Saw Stars (Sigler, Goodhart, Hoffman, 1934), Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series 1969/1934 (2:20)…….

M4 Confessin’, (Daugherty, Reynolds, 1929), Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series 1969/1935 (2:40)….

M5 The Sunshine of Your Smile, (Ray, Cooke, 1913) Django,  CBS Realm Jazz Series, 1969/1935 (2:50)…..

M6 Swannee River (Old Folks at Home), (Foster, 1851), Django, CBS Realm Jazz Series, 1969/1935 (2:50)…

M7 Lover Man (Oh, Where Can You Be?)(Davis, Ramirez, Sherman, 1941)  Best of Django Reinhardt, EMI / Columbia, 1970/1947 (3:10)

M8 Golden Green (Ponty, 1972), Ponty/Grappelli, Inner City Records, 1976/1973 (4:42)

Today’s Vinyl Vibrations podcast features the artistry of French Violinist Stephane Grappelli.

Stephane Grappelli is best known as the founder of the Quintette du Hot Club de France along with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. This was a GYPSY jazz band. Grappelli is considered the grandfather of jazz violinists. He lived 90 years, from 1908 until 1997.

He began playing violin at the age of 12, early on, preferring to learn in the streets by watching how other violinists played, such as at the Barbes (pron BAR-bez) metro station in Paris. Then he was enrolled by his father at the Conservatory of Paris to learn music theory, sight reading, and ear training. He graduated three years later.

Starting at age 15, he worked in the pit orchestra at the Theatre Gaumont, accompanying silent films, then at the Ambassador Hotel orchestra, where jazz violinist Joe Venuti was playing. For a while, Grappelli abandoned violin — in favor of playing piano in a big band, it was easier to get paid for big band work. Jazz violinists were a relatively unknown and rare breed. In this big band, Grappelli met gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. It was 1931 and Grappelli was just 23, Django was 21. Three years later, Django and Grappelli formed the Quintette du Hot Club de France . This was an all-string jazz band, and they performed regularly at the Montmartre district, an artistic village on the hill in the northside of Paris. This continued until 1939 when the Quintette disbanded due to the outbreak of World War II. ‘’

When the war was over, the original Quintette never did reform. Django and Grappelli did continue to perform together in Paris. In 1949, they briefly toured in Italy, where some 50 tunes were recorded. That would turn out to be the last time the two would record together, 1949, due to Django’s untimely death at the age of 43. Many of those recorded songs were released as an album titled Djangology in 2005 on Bluebird Records.

Most of the recordings featured in today’s podcast were recorded between 1934 and 1947 and were recorded in Paris, as performed by the Quintette du Hot Club de France.

Stephane Grappelli is a master of improvisation. He had said that he was not a fan of BEBOP jazz, which was then very fashionable in the jazz world.   Instead, he was a strong proponent of SWING music, another popular jazz style. Swing developed in the US in 1935-1945  ….. This was the SWING ERA in America.

Leo Kottke, Guitarist VV-024

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M1  Cripple Creek (Traditional), Mudlark, Capitol Records 1971 (1:56)…………………………………………………………..

M2 Stealing (Kottke), Mudlark, Capitol Records 1971 (1:35)…………………………………………………………………………

M3 Machine #2 (Kottke), Mudlark, Capitol Records 1971 (3:00)…………………………………………………………………….

M4 Bourree (J.S. Bach), Mudlark, Capitol Records 1971 (1:26)………………………………………………………………………

M5 Easter (Kottke), My Feet Are Smiling, Capitol Records 1973 (3:18)…………………………………………………………..

M6 June Bug (Kottke), My Feet Are Smiling, Capitol Records 1973 (2:20)………………………………………………………

M7 Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring (J.S.Bach), My Feet Are Smiling, Capitol Records 1973 (2:00)………………………..

M8 Twilight Property (Kottke), Dreams and All That Stuff, Capitol Records 1974 (3:11)……………………………………

M9 Vertical Trees (Kottke), Dreams and All That Stuff, Capitol Records 1974 (2:34)

Today’s Vinyl Vibrations podcast features the artistry of American composer, arranger, and acoustic guitarist LEO KOTTKE.  Leo Kottke was born in 1945 in Athens Georgia.  As a youth he  lived in several states, including Oklahoma ,,and Missouri and Minnesota  and eventually settled in the Twin Cities. He released his first record on the Oblivion label in 1969 … and just 2 years later he signed on with Capitol Records … it was 1971 he was just 25 years old.

Kottke produces instrumental songs, mostly…. but on a few songs he adds his vocals. I selected the instrumental songs because I believe these best showcase his unique guitar and arrangement talent. For his guitars, Kottke uses signature Taylor 12-string and Taylor 6 string.. Kottke plays guitar by an innovative style of fingerpicking, and his style is considered “unconventional”. His style enables the mimicking of a rhythm section, His genres of music include jazz, rock, bluegrass, classical, and folk.

Kottke has also been “Different” as far his guitar tuning. He’s used different variations ranging from open tuning to tuning his guitar two steps below the traditional tuning.  This produces a full and warm guitar sound.

When Kottke was younger, he suffered significant hearing loss from two events – –  first from a firecracker incident as a youngster, and later during live-fire exercises while serving in the Naval Reserves.

He was inducted into the Guitar Player Hall of Fame in 1978 and scored two Grammy nominations — 1988 and 1991

Kottke has released 40 records in 40 year period.

Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass-VV023

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:43 — 46.4MB)

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Today’s Vinyl Vibrations podcast features the great trumpeter, arranger and producer, Herb Alpert.

M1  The Lonely Bull, (Sol Lake), Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, The Lonely Bull, A&M Records, 1962 (2:29).

M2 South of the Border (Jimmy Kennedy and Michael Carr), Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, South of the Border, A&M Records, 1964 (2:06)   

M3 I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face (Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe), Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, South of the Border, A&M Records, 1964 (2:25)   

M4 A Taste of Honey, (Bobby Scott), Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Whipped Cream & Other Delights, 1965, (2:43).

M5 More and More Amor (Sol Lake), Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Going Places, A&M Records, 1965 (2:44).

M6 Mae (Riz Ortolani), Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Going Places, A&M Records, 1965 (2:27).

M7 Shades of Blue (Julias Wechter), Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Sounds Like, A&M Records, 1967 (2:44 ).

M8 Wade in the Water” (Traditional) – Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Sounds Like, A&M Records, 1967 (3:03).

M9 “Treasure of San Miguel” (Roger Nichols), Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Sounds Like, A&M Records, 1967 (2:14)

Herb Alpert was born in 1935, and is an American trumpeter who led the band “Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass” in the 1960s. He was born and raised in the Eastside Los Angeles. His parents were Tillie and Louis Alpert —they were Jewish immigrants to the U.S., coming here from the Ukraine and from Romania.

Alpert was born into a family of musicians. His father was a mandolin player and his mother taught violin. Herb’s older brother was a drummer.  Herb began to play trumpet at the age of eight. While attending the University of Southern California in the 1950s, he was a member of the USC Trojan Marching Band for two years.

In the 1960s Alpert co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss, A for Alpert and M for Moss.

There are many, many measures of success in the area of popular music by which to measure the success of Herb Alpert – – ….here are just a few:

  • He sold some 72 million records worldwide.
  • And 28 of his albums landed on the Billboard 200 chart
  • 5 of his albums became No. 1 albums
  • He achieved #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 as instrumentalist
  • He has had 14 platinum albums (sold 1 million) and 15 gold albums (sold 500,000).
  • He has received a Tony Award, eight Grammy Awards, and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
  • He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006….
  • and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama in 2013.

One of the recording techniques Herb Alpert used in these early records was the overdubbing of the trumpet part, Starting with his first album, THE LONELY BULL, and the title track 1 on side 1.  According to Herb Alpert, he said that he had been trying to find the right trumpet voice. He tried emulating the trumpet styles of Harry James, Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Clifford Brown. Oddly enough, he got inspiration NOT from these famous trumpeters, but from a guitarist named …Les Paul. Les Paul had been using multitracking his guitar  recordings. So Alpert tried multitracking his trumpet … and that multitracking became one of the signature sounds we will hear. Here is an example of the overdubbed trumpet from the song A QUIET TEAR…….

(Play an example of Herb’s overdubbed trumpet on the song   A QUIET TEAR  song side 2 track 6)

In this overdub Herb Alpert is recording each part with the same phrasing and time … but playing the second part in harmony.

Additionally Alpert does a fair amount of overdubbing and playing both parts in unison. This double-recording of one part gives Herb’s trumpet an even more rich and full sound, added resonance of the instrument and added reverb or echo of the room. So overdubbing while playing the trumpet part in unison or in harmony was a signature sound of Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. Here is an example from THE LONELY BULL intro….

(Play an example of Herb’s overdubbed trumpet on the song THE LONELY BULL  song side 1 track 1)

That’s overdubbing and playing the dub in unison with the first part. It creates a richer and deeper sound of the trumpet.

Frank Zappa Instrumentals VV022

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:37 — 57.2MB)

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Today’s show features Frank Zappa, an American musician, composer, arranger, bandleader, multi-instrumentalist,  and record producer. He lived from 1940 to 1993. Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion and orchestral works. He is known for his work with the band The Mothers of Invention, producing over 60 albums with the Mothers, and he is also known for his prolific work as a Solo Artist. Zappa was one of the great guitarists of our time, and he was a sophisticated composer and highly accomplished multi-instrumental musician.

Zappa was a self-taught composer and performer. He studied and wrote classical music in high school, played drums in R&B bands. He later took to the Electric Guitar.

He has been described as the godfather of comedy rock, a critic of mainstream education and organized religion, advocating for freedom of speech and political participation. The phases of his life included different musical genres including experimental rock, jazz, classical, comedy rock, doo-wap, prog-rock, avant jazz, and pop.

Frank Zappa was prolific. His discography contains 62 albums produced during his lifetime. Zappa died much too early… at the young age 53, from prostate cancer. Following his death in 1993 , The Zappa Family Trust has overseen the release of another 57 official albums…that’s a total of 129 albums of songs recording the genius of Frank Zappa.

In the book, Frank Zappa: A Biography, by Barry Miles, Zappa describes his works in these words:

“It’s all one album. All the material in the albums is organically related and if I had the master tapes and I could take a razor blade[2] and cut them apart and put it together again in a different order it still would make one piece of music you can listen to…. I could do this twenty ways. The material is definitely related.”

Which brings us to the subject of today’s show. Each album seems like an eclectic work, combining songs of Rock, Jazz and Classical genres. It is a difficult assignment for anyone to make the right selection from those 129 albums… let alone a proper selection of the individual songs that would best capture the genius of Frank Zappa in a few sound impressions.

One way to accomplish this selection is to attribute each of Zappa’s songs as being either a Song with lyrics, (and this is 401 songs, about 2/3 of his works), and instrumental compositions, (there are 172 instrumentals).  I then compiled an instrumental list from my own vinyl collection, and then shortened that list down to just to 8 instrumental pieces that would fit into this podcast format.  Each instrumental piece is brilliant.

This short list of Frank Zappa Instrumentals is what we will review today.

M1 Chunga’s Revenge, Frank Zappa, Chunga’s Revenge, 1970, Reprise/Warner Brothers, (6:16)…………………………….

M2 Twenty Small Cigars, Frank Zappa, Chunga’s Revenge, 1970, Reprise/Warner Brothers, (2:17)…………………………..

M3 Idiot Bastard Son, Frank Zappa, Jean-Luc Ponty Plays the Music of Frank Zappa, World Pacific Jazz, 1970, (4:00)

M4 The Little House I Used to Live In, Frank Zappa Music, The Mothers – Fillmore East June 1971 (4:58)…………………

M5 Peaches En Regalia, Frank Zappa Music, The Mothers – Fillmore East June 1971 (3:22)…………………………………..

M6 The Grand Wazoo, Frank Zappa Music, The Grand Wazoo, 1972 Warner Records, (13:24)………………………………

M7 Eat That Question, Frank Zappa Music, The Grand Wazoo, 1972 Warner Records, (6:41)………………………………

M8 Blessed Relief, Frank Zappa Music, The Grand Wazoo , 1972 Warner Records, (6:41)………………………………….

John McLaughlin, Guitarist VV-021

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:01 — 50.1MB)

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Today’s show features John McLaughlin, an English guitarist, composer and band leader, born in 1942 in Doncaster, a city in South Yorkshire, that’s located in northern England. His mother was a concert violinist. He studied violin and piano as a child and then took up the guitar at age 11.

His childhood musical influences included MILES DAVIS and LUDVIG VON BEETHOVEN, and more contemporary artists were JOHN COLTRANE and JIMMY HENDRIX

McLaughlin is a pioneer of Jazz Fusion. In his music, one can clearly pick out elements of ROCK, JAZZ and BLUES…and also additional elements later on such as WORLD MUSIC, and Western Classical Music.

In the 1960s at about age 20, he moved to London where he contributed to several British groups and did session work. One of those British Groups was the Graham Bond Quartet with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker of Cream. Another rare opportunity was working with Miles Davis.  And he gave guitar lessons too, and one of his students was Jimmy Page, founder of Led Zeppelin.

M1 Arjen’s Bag (John McLaughlin) EXTRAPOLATION, Marmalade Records, released 1969 in UK, Re-released on Polydor Records, 1972, 4:25.

M2 Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, (Charles Mingus 1959) My Goal’s Beyond, Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, Douglas 9 Released 1971(solo album) 3:15            .

M3- Dawn (John McLaughlin), Inner Mounting Flame, The Mahavishnu Orchestra with John McLaughlin, Columbia, Released 1971 (5:15)

M4 Birds of Fire(John McLaughlin), Birds of Fire, Mahavishnu Orchestra, CBS Columbia, Released 1973 (5:50)..

M5 Sanctuary (John McLaughlin), Birds of Fire, Mahavishnu Orchestra, CBS Columbia, Released 1973 (5:05).

M6 WINGS of KARMA(John McLaughlin), Apocalypse, Mahavishnu Orchestra, with London Symphony Orchestra, CBS Columbia, Released 1974 (6:12)

M7- La Danse du Bonheur, Shakti with John McLaughlin, Columbia, 1977 (4:48).

rev4 04Jan2023 17:30