I realize I usually choose to write about albums that are in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. But, today, I am on fire excited about the new solo blues album by Gregg Allman. I’m not going to bore anyone with memories about Gregg Allman. I wrote my memories of The Allman Brothers live at the Fillmore East as one my first “music and memories” blogs. But, i have just heard what I believe to be the first great album of 2011. I’m talking about Gregg Allman’s first solo album in 14 years titled Low Country Blues
I had actually found out about this album being released a couple weeks back when a friend gave me a couple of recent issues of Rolling Stone magazine. One was the year-end issue with the complete last interview with John Lennon and the other was the November 25th issue with a cover story on Eminem and a story with Springsteen looking back at his album Darkness at the Edge of Town. I flipped through the issue to find on page 28 the In the Studio column story of Gregg Allman and T-Bone Burnett making an album together. I didn’t even read the article. I’ve been a fan of the Allman Brothers for years now and I’ve been a fan of T-Bone Burnett’s production style since he did the soundtracks for O Brother Where Art Thou? and Walk the Line and his earthy production for the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss collaboration Raising Sand.
I don’t know what I was expecting. I know Gregg has got to be one of the greatest white blues singers….and I had forgotten that too. As is the routine when an artist releases a new album, they usually do some kind of mainstream media blitz. This past Sunday morning, he was a feature story on CBS’ Sunday Morning newsmagazine. He really came across very congenial and easy-going. I don’t think I had ever read many interviews with Gregg Allman. There is a copy of his Rolling Stone interview with Cameron Crowe in the DVD extras for Almost Famous. From what Cameron talks about with that interview and the experiences that are portrayed in the movie, I don’t think the interview was an easy one. Gregg also did a guest spot on Late Show with David Letterman.
I went to work on Tuesday trying to find some music on my MP3 player to just knock myself up a notch and motivate me for the week. I had just written my blog on Cheap Trick at Budokan. I was still on a big CT kick and felt like I was on the verge of a power-pop overload. So, I posted the question on Facebook to ask my friends what they were listening to. Then, I talked to a co-worker about recent music he’d been listening to. I had a burned a couple of CD’s for him recently and was interested in his current listening habits. It’s something that I still do after all those years working in a record store. He said he’d liked all the stuff I had given him. But, he was really digging a copy of Muddy Water's Hard Again I had burned for him.I thought for a second and realized that the blues are always something that I love to listen to (and go to) when the weather turns cold. I remembered that Gregg Allman’s new album was to be released soon. So, I checked my Napster app on my Android phone and noticed that Low Country Blues had been released that very day. I saved it for a future listen. That listen would be for my 25-30 minute commute home. I left work a little after 6pm, fueled up my car and pressed play on my phone’s touchscreen. In this age of technology and music at the touch of a finger, I was thrilled to hear new music that was so incredibly earthy and organic.
What I heard next just transported me from the front seat of my car and the cold and snow of central Nebraska to what I imagined to be a run down studio in the Delta region of the Southern United States. Gregg’s voice reminded me of an old Delta Bluesman. At 63 years of age, Gregg still seems like the “younger” brother of his late “older” brother Duane. Of course, as a child of the 70’s, I remember when Gregg married Cher. It just seemed weird at the time. That will always be part of his history as is his storied life of drug and alcohol addiction. So, he’s lived the life of a troubled bluesman. So, when you hear him sing, you can feel him wrenching out those stories on the road and the days of addiction too.
What gets me about this album is the production that T-Bone Burnett brings to this project. T-Bone takes these albums that are made in this century and makes them sound like they were made in the 1930’s or 40’s. I listen to these blues covers and I think that finally someone has done this right. Many blues artists and mainstream artists schooled in the blues try hard to make a blues album. But, somehow they fall short. I listen to the sparseness of Floating Bridge and Devil Got My Woman and I thought this was a Robert Johnson type of recording. I’m a big fan of Eric Clapton and I think his blues albums are fantastic. But, I really wanted his Me & Mr Johnson album to be much more earthy like this album. T-Bone Burnett recently produced another collaboration with Elton John and Leon Russell called The Union. So, I propose to Mr. Clapton to seek out Gregg Allman and T-Bone Burnett and make a truly great blues album. This just seems like the perfect pairing since Eric and Gregg’s big brother Duane recorded Clapton’s Derek and the Dominos Layla.
I am really excited that a new release in 2011 has me pumped up for new music. This is not a sterile studio album. It is an album that breathes the blues. To add to how great it is, Gregg (and T-Bone) has Dr John, Doyle Bramhall II, Warren Haynes and the rhythm section of bassist Dennis Crouch and drummer Jay Bellerose(from the Plant/Krauss’ Raising Sand) playing on this album.
It’s not often that I feel the need to sit down, talk and write about an album I’m enthusiastic about. But, this is one of them. If you love a GREAT blues album with great musicians, I highly recommend this one. If you love Gregg Allman’s vocals….If you love the production work of T-Bone Burnett….and if love great music, Trust me on this one! You’ll love it!
Power pop! Have you noticed that music has really become very categorized about the past 20-30 years. Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Grunge, Alternative, Pop, Punk, Glam, Thrash and the genre that this band (in my opinion) embodies the category of “Power Pop”! CHEAP TRICK!!
I would say that this is a good way to describe “Power Pop”. Mix catchy tunes a la’ the Beatles and the Stones’ steady solid backbeat with the reckless abandon of Keith Moon from the Who along with a midwestern (from Rockford Illinois) work ethic. Wikipedia defined Cheap Trick’s power pop as:
a hard-edged yet melodic pop sound that combined the catchiness of The Beatles with the speed and energy of punk rock
This music memory is about Cheap Trick and the album that is lumped in with so many others as one of the greatest live albums of all time. In the 1992 SNL spinoff Wayne’s World movie, Wayne told his girlfriend Cassandra that her band was “Live at Budokan, Double Live Gonzo and Intensities in Ten Cities”. In case you didn’t know, that are the titles for this Cheap Trick album and two Ted Nugent live albums. For many, the rock of the 70’s is often regarded as a classic rock era. For that era, there are a handful of live albums that are included as part of that decade. Deep Purple’s Made in Japan, UFO’s Strangers in the Night, KISS Alive, Thin Lizzy’s Live and Dangerous, Frampton Comes Alive, The Who Live at Leeds and Cheap Trick at Budokan are the ones that immediately come to mind. This album would ultimately be the band’s fourth album. It was never scheduled as the fourth album. It was just a small document of appreciation to the Japanese fanbase that had supported the band. It was recorded over two nights at Tokyo’s Budokan Hall in April of 1978. At first, It would only be available as an import in America. Then, a handful of DJ’s (most notably WBCN in Boston) started playing cuts from Budokan. Obviously, the tracks caught on nationwide and the hugeness of Cheap Trick escalated. From I Want You to Want Me to Surrender to an unbelievable cover of Fats Domino’s Ain’t That a Shame,Cheap Trick at Budokan became not only a nationwide phenomenon but a global one too.
The band was started by guitarist Rick Nielsen and drummer Brad Carlson(AKA Bun E. Carlos) in 1973 and added vocalist Robin Zander and bassist Tom Petersson a year later. I don’t know who the architect of the band’s image was. But, it was sheer genius! Instead of having a four piece group of members with stereotypical long hair rock star looks, the band opted for a 50/50 combination. The combination being that singer Robin Zander and bassist Petersson were placed as the good looking “cover” boys while guitarist Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos were shown as goofy nerdy guys who look less likely as members of a rock band. I think I was introduced to CT when I was around 11-13 years old. My older sister Kathy had lost interest in her teenage obsession with the Bay City Rollers and traded it for newer acts she had heard like Cheap Trick. Truthfully, she had a thing for Bay City Rollers drummer Derek Longmuir and I think now had a thing for Robin Zander. At the time, I thought my sister was getting into some kind of drug addled hard rock act. I had been schooled (like many preteens) of the dangers of marijuana and rock music. From the pictures I had seen of Zander and Petersson, I had deduced in my preteen mind….”they were on drugs!” It wasn’t until I heard a small garage band of Junior High students come into McKinley elementary school to play a handful of cover tunes that really stuck with me. They opened with Hello There from the Cheap Trick at Budokan album. I remember that being just the ultimate song to open a set with….I still do! Pretty soon, in my teenage mind, Cheap Trick became THE cool band.
It would be my next year in my Junior High 7th grade Art class that I would be involved with many conversations about some great rock bands. I had grown up with 3 older sisters and by the late 70’s and early 80’s, my two older sisters had moved out of the house and gotten married. My sister Kathy had become a big country fan in the wake of the movie Urban Cowboy. So, I relied on some of my classmates who had older male siblings to make my way into the world of what was cool in Rock & Roll. I remember in that Art class finding out about The Who and of course Cheap Trick. I also found out that one of the Junior High kids who had been in that garage band the year before was the older brother of one of my classmates. So, I heard about how cool Cheap Trick was.
As my Junior High years progressed, I soon heard lots of Cheap Trick. The one song that most of us heard was the live cut from Cheap Trick at Budokan that was played at every dance and played on the jukebox at Pizza Hut(okay that was me)…I Want You To Want Me. I loved that song. It was upbeat and I secretly would play it for a crush I had on a female classmate. I distinctly remember a Pizza party outing our Junior High swing choir had made. I had a definite crush on one of the females in the swing choir. I put my money in the jukebox and played that song. If she only knew…aaaahhh Youth!
As I’m writing this, I’m bowled over by the words used to describe this album from the liner notes of the 1998 release of the complete concert. Words like “Aural Juggernaut” are used to describe what is called an “inspired marriage of tuneful power-pop and heavy-metal clangor sans the studio niceties”. I wish I could have put better words together to describe this album. I think back to trying to make my own mix tape with I Want You to Want Me from my sister’s 8-track copy of In Color. The original studio version didn’t seem to have the vitality and energy of the live version….it was too nice!
As the years passed, I would keep track of Cheap Trick. They obviously followed the momentum of At Budokan with the release of Dream Police and then All Shook Up (produced by Beatles’ producer George Martin) I became more entrenched in playing drums. My buddy Mick told me about a magazine called Modern Drummer. We honestly thought that was the coolest idea and I’ve been reading the magazine ever since. It seemed like there was always something in the pages pertaining to Bun E. Carlos. He was such an iconic figure in his individuality that he just seemed cool in his own geeky way. He was usually featured in Ludwig drums endorsement ads(among others). The band was mentioned in dialogue from Cameron Crowe’s 1982 Screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
“Can you honestly tell me you forgot? Forgot the magnetism of Robin Zander, or the charisma of Rick Nielsen?”
I even remember hearing radio ads for CT in concert with that soundbyte to promote tickets for the concert. For me, that period of time before MTV was in every home in America was a very magic and mysterious time in music. You had to imagine what the bands looked like. As I said before, I started buying copies of Hit Parader magazine. CT was still being written about. In 1980, Tom Petersson left the band after the release of All Shook Up. He was replaced briefly by bassist Pete Comita. Comita is featured in the 1981 Chicagofest concert. I remember this concert being played on late Sunday nights on PBS. I would attempt to stay up and watch it. But, I would be so tired that I’d fall asleep. After that, Jon Brant became the steady bass player from 1981-1987. I bought cassette copies of One on One and Next Position Please. When I think of my Next Position Please cassette, I think back to Friday nights of my teen years in North Platte. Before I owned my first car, I would drive my friends around in my dad’s Volkswagen Beetle. There wasn’t a tape deck in the car. So, I would usually take a boom box of some sort and listen to my tapes. I remember listening to Next Position Please one of those Friday nights. We pulled into a convenience store to get something to drink etc.(No alcohol…I didn’t drink till college) I backed the “bug” out of the parking space and backed into a wooden fence separating the convenience store from an insurance agency and smashed out the back right turn signal. My dad was not happy with me. We fixed the turn signal. But, it hasn’t worked right since then….and yes…My dad still owns that VW Bug!
In 1986, Tom Petersson returned to Cheap Trick and released Lap of Luxury in 1988. This became a big platinum album for them and is considered their “comeback” album. The record label brought in professional songwriters for the album and the “factory ballad” The Flame was a big hit single for them and a cover of Elvis’ Don’t Be Cruel as the second single. I remember opening the Lap of Luxury album for in-store play with my co-worker Natalie at Dustys. She was a fan of CT too. At first, I really loved the rockabilly flavor of Don’t Be Cruel. But that got old very fast in the age of MTV and overplayed singles in heavy rotation.
Also, in the summer of 1988, Cheap Trick was booked to play the Buffalo County Fair in Kearney. I was genuinely excited. But, by this time, the overexposure of The Flame and Don’t Be Cruel had really diminished some of that excitement. My Dustys co-hort and friend Bob went to the show at the fairgrounds. The crowd was less than enthusiastic. Bob and I stood in front of a guy and his mom(or older girlfriend) and would point out that between every song that Rick Nielsen would change to a different guitar. Sorry buddy…everyone can see that. This was the middle of the band’s great 80’s comeback and they just didn’t seem too excited to be playing a county fair in the middle of Nebraska. Then again, I also think my expectations may have been greater because the concert I had seen only a month before was the Van Halen Monsters of Rock tour in Kansas City with acts including Metallica, Dokken, Scorpions and Van Halen. It was a different concert environment altogether. I did manage to get one of Rick Nielsen’s guitar picks from the show
I had bought a used LP copy of Cheap Trick at Budokan during my days at Dustys Records. It was an album I always wanted to own. I remembered I had played Ain’t That a Shame one night at the college radio station after the KSC basketball team had lost an at-home basketball game. I never was much of a sports fan. So….”Oh well guys…you lost…Ain’t that a Shame!” A fellow broadcast student called me up and tried to make me think he was a disgruntled sports fan. Of course he was joking. But, I didn’t realize how cool Bun E. Carlos drum solo intro was. I loved it and soon the album made into my LP collection and eventually a CD copy too. In the late 90’s, it was announced that Epic records/Sony Legacy was releasing a CD worth of live tracks from the Budokan concert that wasn’t on the original album called Budokan 2. I jumped on that as soon as I could find it. I bought it and had it in my collection and listened to it and enjoyed it. Then, a new DOUBLE CD was being released of the WHOLE ENTIRE concert! I jumped on the old consumer treadmill and sold my old copies and bought Cheap Trick at Budokan – the Complete Concert! It really is a great collection. But, as you listen to the dead space between songs, you can hear as the female audience members are SCREAMING and with the new remastered technology you can REALLY hear them screaming “RAAAH BIN! RAAH BIN….ROBIN!” for lead singer Robin Zander. That is about my only complaint about that. I’ve always been a big “band as a whole unit” supporter. As a drummer, I get a little peeved when the singer is showered with all the attention.
Of course, I talk about how much I love the now iconic Bun E. Carlos. But, if we look back, it was yet another great band consisting of four equal personalities bringing four different inputs to make an incredible band that are a staple of classic rock radio and rock history. Robin Zander on vocals had great a great style that could go from Rock growling and screaming to heartbroken and forlorn. Bassist Tom Petersson is now revered in Bass playing circles as a pioneer and one of the first bassists to ever use a 12 string bass guitar. The 12 string bass is a bass guitar consisting of four courses (of bass strings) of three strings each. Not many bass players use this kind of instrument. Two of them that come to my mind are King’s X bassist Dug Pinnick and Galactic Cowboys bassist Monty Colvin. Guitarist Rick Nielsen was the musical genius of the band. He may seem quirky and strange on the outside….(He probably is) But, He was the prime architect of all of the band’s songs barring the use of outside songwriters in their power ballad days in the 80’s. He’s an avid guitar collector and has collected over 2000 guitars in his 35 year career. Even one of his trademark guitars “Uncle Dick” was designed by former Kearney Nebraska resident Scott Stephenson.
It is also known that both Nielsen and Bun E. Carlos were referred by producer Jack Douglas to play on session work for John Lennon’s Double Fantasy and the song I’m Losing You. They were ultimately replaced by studio musicians by Yoko Ono’s choice.
But, the member that still lights me on fire is drummer Bun E. Carlos. When articles have been written about Cheap Trick and Bun E. Carlos, the term of Power pop is inevitably mentioned. Modern Drummer magazine wrote a review for the 1999 remastered releases of the first 3 Cheap Trick albums. Reviewer Ted Bonar wrote,
“Lesson #1: Ringo Starr. Lesson #2: Charlie Watts. Lesson #3: Keith Moon. If there was a college degree on mastering and combining the styles of these legends, Bun E. Carlos would be the master of that class.”
If a band can be mentioned in the same breath as the revered embodiment of British Rock Royalty, They must have done something good.
In the Artist update for the September 2009 issue, Patrick Berkery writes,
“before the term ‘Power Pop’ had even been coined, the Who’s Keith Moon was establishing guidelines for the genre’s future drummers with his spastic manner of serving Pete Townshend’s songs….
….for over thirty years, Bun E. Carlos has been infusing Cheap Trick’s songs with a style best classified as simplicity with a twist. – it’s not your run-of-the-mill power pop timekeeping!
….straight or with a twist, Bun E. Carlos has perfected the art of power pop drumming.”
As an inspiration to write this, I was watching Cheap Trick’s 2010 performance on the PBS show Austin City Limits. I was intrigued to see Bun E Carlos absent from the barstool. Apparently because of a back surgery, Bun is unable to tour with the band. He is still referred to as a member of the band, But, Rick Nielsen’s son Daxx is listed as the band’s touring drummer.
So, as I watch these performances of a band 36 years into its career, I am inspired to hear more and yet I always go back to the album that shot them into the stratosphere….Cheap Trick at Budokan!
After …And Justice for All, the band was primed to return bigger than ever. They had headlined their first tour and they were among the first to be nominated for a Grammy in the Heavy Metal category. The timing was theirs and all the stars and planets aligned for Metallica. The band entered the studio in 1990 with producer Bob Rock. Bob Rock had produced mainstream hard rock artists like Motley Crue, Kingdom Come, the Cult and Bon Jovi and engineered albums by Loverboy, Aerosmith, Krokus and Honeymoon Suite. I was a little hesitant about Metallica’s new choice of producer. After all, the bands that Metallica had rebelled against in their early days were the kind of bands that Bob Rock had produced. At the same time, RIP magazine had become a new Hard Rock publication for people like me who were tired of the same old rehashed articles that Hit Parader and Circus magazines had been selling. Metallica chose editor Lonn Friend and RIP magazine to document the band at One-on-One Studios in 11 installments of “Metalli-watch” that would include stories surrounding the making of the 1991 self-titled album also known as “The Black Album”
In September of 1990, Dusty asked if I was interested in working at his Grand Island store as a full-time employee. I had graduated from college in August of 1990 and was fully expecting to be employed right after college in my field of study(Broadcasting). Of course, I always loved my days working for Dustys Records in college. So, I was absolutely willing to continue working for Dusty. That year I worked from 1990 to 1991 at the GI store was a blast. There was just a bunch of music I was excited about that year. Of course, my tastes were mostly in the fields of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. So, I was thrilled about Queensryche’s Empire, Mr Big’s Lean into it, Megadeth’s Rust in Peace and Van Halen’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and Metallica’s “Black Album”. You may not like those albums. But, they were everything to me that year. I followed all the RIP magazine “Metalli-watch” updates for the 11 months up to the release. I was excited about the album. But, I was a bit apprehensive about what to expect. Megadeth had released Rust in Peace shortly after I graduated from college. I remember seeing the MTV news report on the album and the video clip of Holy Wars..the Punishment Due. That album was brutal and laced with precision playing and headbanging time signatures that shifted and pounded throughout the album. I thought if the Megadeth album is this good, then hopefully Metallica’s new album is twice this good.
The Dusty’s store in Grand Island was located in the Webb Plaza. In the same plaza was a Video Kingdom store. At the time, I was living on a local farmer’s land in a rental house. There was no satellite TV or cable out there. So, I did not have the luxury of watching MTV. So, when the video for Enter Sandman was released two weeks before the album, I had to see the premiere of the video. I took a videocassette down to Video Kingdom and was going to set a timer on a VCR to record it. Funny, since it probably became the most overplayed Metallica song ever. I don’t have a statistic on that. It just seemed to be everywhere for about the next year and a half after it was released. I wasn’t blown over by the first song. Truthfully, I was hoping that the album would be more like Megadeth’s Rust in Peace. But, as I listened to it, the music grew on me. The band as a unit were growing. I wanted faster. But, the band found that if they beef up the bottom end and intensify the “heaviness”, the music would translate on a wider scope. The day the album was released, the GI store sold this album like crazy. This was the year where the Soundscan system tracked album sales very accurately. That year saw a bunch of albums debut at the #1 spot on the Billboard album chart. Metallica was one of those albums. We had the in-store CD player on repeat for the majority of the day. From there, we listened to the album over and over and over that day.
In September of 1991, Dusty made the decision to close the Grand Island store. So, I had to look for work yet again. I was able to find work in Omaha working for the Trans World Music Corporation chains of stores that included Record Town, Tape World, Great American Music and Music Avenue(lease operated store located in Montgomery Wards) In the fall of 1991, the “Black Album” was all of a sudden the hard rock/heavy metal album of the year. That fall also saw the rise of the new “grunge” movement out of Seattle with bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam. So, these bands that were underground in the late 80’s were now mainstream popular. The people that had chastised me for being a Metallica fan were now fans of the band and influx of heavier music. I should have felt somehow justified. But, I didn’t. I had moved into an apartment complex in November of 1991. When I looked at the first available apartment, the apartment manager told me that I was above an elderly woman who did a lot of complaining. So, he showed me an apartment above a tenant that had lived there for about 8 years and never complained. Even though the downstairs tenant wasn’t known for complaining, I was hesitant about the volume of the music I listened to. I didn’t want to offend anyone with the volume I would listen to music…especially Heavy Metal. So, I opted to listen to a lot of Blues artists and more “groove” oriented stuff with a blues flavor like Blues Traveler. I still liked my Metal. But, it seemed more mainstream and since I considered myself an early fan of Metallica and I didn’t like being a fan of something that was popular….and I was absolutely sick of Enter Sandman. The non-comformist rebelled again. I also felt that I was now out of college and in the working world. I would be 25 years old in 1992 and I didn’t feel like a “young tough livin’ in a world of hate”. All of a sudden, they had videos for Enter Sandman, The Unforgiven, and Wherever I May Roam all over MTV. I was working in the Music Avenue store at the Montgomery Wards store in the Westroads Mall. I just figured that Metallica wasn’t appropriate to be playing in a Mall store…even though it was selling rather well. Right around Thanksgiving, Metallica played the Omaha Civic Auditorium. My family was in town for the big meal at my older sister’s house. So, I elected to spend time with the family instead of catching Metallica live.
As my time in Omaha grew, I put my love of harder edged stuff on the back burner. Metallica was everywhere in the media. MTV was playing them. The radio was playing their music. They played the Freddie Mercury Tribute concert in April of 1992. Even the dorky kid that worked for me at the music store was a sycophantic fan. In 1992, the band released a two videocassette documentary called A Year & a Half in the life of Metallica. I still considered myself a fan and I bought the videos. The first videocassette documented the making of the album and the second videotape was the band on tour from 1991 into 1992. As I watched the first videocassette, I became excited about the album again. I could see where the band was coming from. The other thing I noticed was that in simplifying everything, it made it seem heavier. The bass was clear in the mix and it seemed heavier. The guitars seemed heavier. Lars’ drumming was sparse yet heavy and his snare drum sounded like f***in’ shotgun. The band was growing in their playing. As a musician, I understood why the complicated time signatures and complex parts would be hard to remember onstage while playing. Also, if you’ve ever played in a band, there is no other feeling to lay down a great drum beat that grooves no matter what the tempo. There is something to be said in the phrase “LESS IS MORE!”
Watching the documentary, all four members of the band come across as distinct characters. Guitarist Kirk Hammett is a team player that tries a little too hard to please but makes excuses for himself as seen in the recording of the guitar solo in the Unforgiven. Looking back, bassist Jason Newsted is lovable as the new guy that takes all kinds of grief from the rest of the band. Drummer Lars Ulrich had been a longtime favorite of mine. But, more and more seemed like a narcissistic egomaniac that embodied the persona of someone who says “I don’t care what people think” and yet looked for all attention on him. In the end, frontman/vocalist James Hetfield came across as the everyman that I felt was instantly identifiable. In 1001 Albums, contributor–Bruno McDonald writes….
“…but the star is James Hetfield. His vocals (terrifying yet tasteful), crunching guitar (see ‘Sad but True’), and eloquent lyrics (setting Metallica far above Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Gn’R) are a lethal cocktail turned the likes of ''Enter Sandman’ into instant classics”
Hetfield had been writing the lyrics for the band and his lyrics weren’t the usual “Metal” lyrics. There wasn’t the Dio-like tales of swords and sorcery. There wasn’t any talk of Satan and Devil stuff. Hetfield had tackled issues like drug addiction(Master of Puppets), War(One, Disposable Heroes) and the controversy of the TV Christian evangelism(Leper Messiah). But, on the “Black” album James showed growth in his lyrical writing. My personal favorites would be Sad But True, Of Wolf and Man, Wherever I May Roam, and Holier than Thou!
Even when I moved back to Kearney in 1994, I was surprised to find my college friend Mark P was now a Metallica fan. When I met him in the fall of 1989, he was a fan of the Rolling Stones after seeing them live on the Steel Wheels tour. My earliest memories of Mark were him being a fan of movies…mostly sci-fi and action movies. His musical tastes were more classic rock of the 60’s like the Stones and the Beatles. Of course, I knew his tastes had changed a bit. He came to see me when I was living in Omaha when he came to see Guns N’ Roses at the Omaha Civic Auditorium. But, one of the first days when I was back working at Dustys, Mark came in to the store to put up some flyers that he was looking for people to start a band. And the band he was into at the time was Metallica. Especially, the stuff from the Black Album. I was a little surprised. But, I found it kind of cool that Mark’s musical tastes were continuing to expand. Of course, Mark was excited to have me back in Kearney. We talked about putting a band together. It never really materialized. But, we definitely did some jamming. We jammed with his friend Larry on bass and I invited my brother Mike to come over and jam too. In between “jams”, my brother started playing this lone bass line. It seems kinda swinging the way he was playing. So, I started playing a very swinging jazz beat on the drums. We stopped and I asked Mike, “What was that you were playing?” Mike (who had become a big Jaco Pastorius Jazz fusion fan) said, “That was Enter Sandman!” Obviously, by Metallica. I had this crazy idea about making an album of swinging Metallica songs or at least a swing version of Enter Sandman. Not long after that, 50’s white boy and all around nice guy Pat Boone released an album called In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy. This was to be a heavy metal album done in a big band/swing style. So, my idea was already being done. Among the covers on the album were Smoke on the Water, Holy Diver, Crazy Train, You’ve Got another Thing Comin’and Enter Sandman! I thought the idea was a novel and very funny one. Of course, other artists followed. As I’ve told this story through the years, I have been told that the artist Richard Cheese followed this format and it is very funny too.
Metallica released a live set in 1993 called Live Shit: Binge and Purge which consisted of a 2 CD live concert, a videocassette of the band on the Damaged Justice Tour and a videocassette of the Wherever We May Roam Tour. They didn’t release a new album until 1996’s Load then followed by 1997’s Re-Load. Many die-hard Metal heads accused Metallica of going “Alternative”. The band members collectively cut their long hair and the material didn’t seem as angry as it had been. I honestly didn’t have an opinion on it. Dustys Records had closed in August of 1995 and a lot of my excitement about music had died too. I kept up with what was going on with Metallica. My buddy Mark was (and is) a big fan of the band. So, I would always get his take on their stuff. In 1998, The band released their double CD of covers called Garage Inc. which featured some stuff they had recorded back in the 80’s as part of their Garage Days Re-revisited album. They also included new covers including stuff by Thin Lizzy, Lynyrd Skynryd and Bob Seger. BOB SEGER?…and Metallica?
In 1999, the band decided to record a live album of their songs with the San Francisco Symphony. Both Lars and James were famous for stating in the VH1 Behind the Music episode that they were proud of always doing things THEIR way. So, here they were recording an album with a Symphony. I actually thought it was a great idea. To add to the “credibility”, they had the symphony conducted Michael Kamen. For myself, Michael Kamen had my respect because he had worked with Pink Floyd on the Wall. He had done the conducting for Eric Clapton’s orchestra nights for his 24 Nights album and He orchestrated Aerosmith’s Dream On performance for an MTV broadcast. So, I was excited to hear this one. The band’s original bass player Cliff Burton was a big fan of classical music and had the idea to combine Heavy Metal with an “epic Classical approach”. The band were also big fans of Hard Rock forefathers Deep Purple and their 1969 classical opus Concerto for Group and Orchestra. The songs performed spanned from Metallica’s second album Ride the Lightning through ReLoad. They even had an orchestral cover Ennio Morricone’s The Ecstacy of Gold from the movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
I had just started dating my (now ex) wife - Crystal. So, I had expressed my desire to have this CD. So, she got it for me as a Christmas gift on our first Christmas together. I have a memory of the two of us listening to the CD while she unpacked her stuff when she moved into a new apartment about 2 blocks away from where I was living. By this time, I was working at local ABC affiliate NTV. A lot of my music listening was while driving to work from Kearney to the TV station 14 miles south of Kearney. I would take my CD’s to work and listen to them on the CD drive on my work computer. My listening experience of this album was usually during work hours with headphones on or with the volume turned down. Once again, didn’t want to disturb my co-workers with my Heavy Metal tastes.
The album started off after The Ecstacy of Gold and Call of Ktulu into the heavy striking power chords of Master of Puppets.
What follows is the power of Of Wolf and Man and Thing That Should Not Be. Then the album ventures into the songs I had known from the Metallica albums Load and Re-Load. My excitement and fervor for Metallica had waned to the point of indifference. So, a bunch of the songs were ones I knew but not to a greater extent. I knew Fuel, The Memory Remains and Hero of the Day from the two albums. But, I really wanted to hear the symphonic treatments to Battery, One and For Whom the Bell Tolls. I wanted to hear how the power of the symphony would add to the weight and emotion of some already great songs.
What resulted in the S&M album was a really great live set of Metallica songs from their 90’s catalog with the added depth of a symphony. I felt like this was kind of a middle finger to my uppity music professors in college that frowned at me and the rebellious metal that was part of my college years. I felt like that this music was as powerful as any symphony from the classical age or as weighty and emotional as ….say…something like Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite. I’m sure there are classical music aficionados that wanted to put down the idea of a bunch of Heavy Metal bashers with “real” musicians. But, I enjoyed it immensely! I don’t listen to it as much as I wish I did. It has to hit me in the right mood. As I’m writing this, I am watching the videos for the songs on YouTube. I remember just before I received the CD thinking how cool this sounded with strings, brass, woodwinds, and crashing orchestral percussion.
As I write this blog, I’m reminded of how empowered I feel when I listen to Metallica. Whether it’s listening to the symphonic strains of S&M or the steady full speed ahead locomotive groove “the Black Album”, I still do get excited about this band. I never bought a physical copy of their 2008 release Death Magnetic. I downloaded the album through Amazon.com. But, it was filled with such aggressive power and…well…"testicular fortitude" that it motivated me as I biked, worked out and started my commute to work! I anticipate future albums now more than ever!
In 2009, Metallica was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I had watched parts of the speeches and the performances and they were just amazing and moving to watch. I just recently watched the induction speech by Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. His speech is an articulate way to explain the magic and power of Metallica.
I originally started this blog on the anniversary of the passing of original Metallica bassist Cliff Burton who died on September 27th, 1986. It was actually just after I had written about the 30th anniversary of the passing of Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham. I had already written an entry about the 40th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix. It just seemed a bit of too many…”memories of dead rock musicians”
I want to talk about my memories about the band that many metal fans consider one of the greatest Heavy Metal bands of the past 30 years and one of the best bands of all time.
First, I'll start off with an album considered a landmark album in the world of Heavy Metal and Hard Rock. That album is the 1986 album Master of Puppets.
In 2010 and the world of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, Metallica is now a household name. Even music fans of different genres know who Metallica is. In the early and mid 80’s, you had to have an ear and an eye on the Metal community to know who this band was. I had become a frequent visitor to a couple of record shops in my hometown. I had traded my love of comic books for issues of Modern Drummer, Hit Parader and Circus Magazines. I soaked up every bit of knowledge of Rock n’ Roll I could find. But, the stuff that really got my testosterone pumping was Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. I would read up all the articles on Van Halen first and then make my way to articles of other bands in the magazines. I remember seeing ads for smaller labels and bands like Metal Blade and MegaForce records and thinking it was rather cheesy for bands to include the word “metal” in their albums titles or band name. For example: One of the big “comeback” music stories of the past couple of years was the Canadian band Anvil. I remember thinking that the name of the album Metal on Metal was so incredibly cheesy sounding. So, when I began to see ads for an album called Kill ‘em All by a band called Metallica, I initially thought…”Ugh..how cheesy and stupid! These guys aren’t gonna go anywhere!” As time went by, I was humbled by my opinions and comments and became a fan like many others did as the 80’s continued.
In high school, I would usually have a copy of Hit Parader with me most of my senior year. I would usually pull it out of my books at the end of class to have something to flip through and read before the bell would ring between classes and eventually the end of the school day. For me, music(especially Rock and Metal) was the thing that made me feel accepted. During my senior year, I remember reading about an album from Metallica called Ride the Lightning. I had a friend named Dave E and he became a big fan of the harder edged metal. He told me he bought Ride the Lightning. I remember telling him “Ah man! You bought Metallica?…they have such a lame name!” It wasn’t until I gave it a listen that I actually had second thoughts.
When I started college in the fall of 1985, I became exposed to friends with really diverse musical tastes. I talked about my friend Shaun in my blog on Yes. As I said in that blog, Shaun was a big fan of hardcore punk bands. He liked drummers that kicked ass and played fast. Shaun could be very vocal about music at the time. But, looking back, Shaun had such a diverse collection of music. I don’t think people who thought they knew him really knew how varied his tastes were. Of course, in 1985, bands like Motley Crue and Ratt were huge with lots of makeup and glam looks. Shaun and I would frequent Dustys Records to look for hard-to-find albums and new bands. One day, Shaun came across the album cover of Metallica’s Kill ‘em All. We looked at the band picture on the back of the album and Shaun made a comment about how ugly the four members looked. He had to buy it. If you’ve seen the VH1 Metal documentary, Sebastian Bach has said just about the same thing. The band is pretty ugly looking in that early picture. Metallica had been around for years at that point. But, it was pretty cool to tear off the plastic on that album and drop the needle on that one. The band was fast, aggressive and full of attitude. Shaun definitely turned me on to the speed of Whiplash. I liked the full force of hostility in the music. But, I didn’t feel compelled to buy the album.
Months passed and we went into Dustys and noticed the album cover for their 1986 album Master of Puppets. The album was released in March of 1986 which would have been the spring semester of our college freshman year. It looked kinda cool and I tossed it around in my mind whether or not I wanted to buy it or not. I remember Shaun coming back from a spring break(I think) and he had bought Master of Puppets. He would put it on his turntable and we would listen to it over and over. As I listened, it felt aggressive yet melodic and somehow memorable in a "stuck in my head" sort of way. I definitely remember walking from Shaun’s dorm room to my own dorm room. The Metallica songs and melodies were still ringing in my ears. I would find myself singing Battery and title song Master of Puppets to myself. At the time, Metallica were definitely an underground band. They were big in the skateboarding community. In fact, following the release of the album, vocalist James Hetfield broke his arm while skateboarding down a hill. So, I ventured down to Dustys Records as I had many times before. On this day, Dusty was having a sale called the “Pathological Liars’ sale”. At the time, Jon Lovitz’s SNL character of Tommy Flanagan was known as …”uh President of the Pathological Liars club”. The catch phrase that his character had was “Yeah…That’s the Ticket!” The details of the sale were that if you told a lie regarding your purchase, it was a dollar off! So, I made up some kind of lie about Hetfield and his skateboarding accident and then followed it with the tag line “Yeah, that’s the ticket!!”
Honestly, it’s hard to write this as Metallica has become so huge. It’s hard for me to get in the mindset of where I was in the mid 80’s. It was like a badge of rebellious honor to be a Metallica fan. While the other guys in the dorms were blaring Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet, I was cranking up Battery and Leper Messiah. I was the non-comformist on the 3rd floor. In 1986, they were fast and loud and epitomized the genre of Thrash metal! I was becoming a little tired of every Motley Crue, Ratt, Dokken and Bon Jovi type of band. I was becoming a very sarcastic and disillusioned individual and not the happy spoiled kid I had been most of my life. I had spent most of my youth as a kid who had a lot of stuff basically given to him. I had a relatively happy home life. I had felt pretty confident in my talents in High School activities as I was in a lot of musical groups both instrumentally and vocally. My grades were always rather good in everything I did. When I hit college as a music education major, I was hit in the head with a big dose of harsh reality. I wasn’t the best musician in the department. I wasn’t the awesome drummer I thought I was. I had to work to get the grades I wanted. My discovery of Metallica made me feel like the outcast individual that I’d always felt but didn’t know how to express. As a friend of mine used to say…I was a “young tough livin’ in a world of hate!” Most kids did that in high school. I did mine in college! Metallica was against the norm and those of us that felt we “discovered” them (in the pre-video days) were special individuals and had one up on the rest of the general public that found new music by watching MTV and listening to top 40 FM radio.
When Cliff Burton died in September of 1986, I was in my second year of college. I’m not sure if I could call that my sophomore year or not. By September, the circle of friends I ran around with were continually going to a myriad of college parties starting on Thursday nights and would last into the weekend. So, my memories are a bit hazy at this point. We found out about Cliff Burton’s death and we all said things like “Dude, that sucks!” and some other variation on that. Cliff was replaced by bassist Jason Newsted from the band Flotsam and Jetsam. I wasn’t sure who he was or really cared. I was pumped that Metallica was carrying on.
From 1986 to 1991, the popularity of Metallica grew by both word of mouth and eventually with the promotion tool of the 80’s…the music video. They played the Van Halen’s Monsters of Rock tour in 1988.
They released....And Justice for All that following October or November. Eventually, they made a music video too. It was an exciting day at Dustys. Bob and I had seen the band play some of the new songs during the Monsters of Rock tour. We had also successfully converted Forrest into a Metallica fan. Forrest had been a fan of college alternative stuff like REM, or the Replacements or the Smiths. I still remember a customer who was very reliant on Forrest's list of current faves to be in utter shock and disbelief when he listed And Justice for All on his list. The customer looked at Forrest and asked (in utter disgust) "Did you really put Metallica on your list?" The album was just an incredible statement at the time for myself and my Dustys buddies Bob and Forrest. Bob and I were broadcasting majors at Kearney State College and we would bring in our Metallica CDs and albums and we prided ourselves in being the only station in town that would play Metallica over the airwaves. The band definitely had an underground following. But, if you were friends with us, you definitely couldn't go a day without us saying something about the greatness that was Metallica. At the time, I was blown away by the complicated rhythms, intricate guitar riffs and drum accents contained on this album. I would listen to it on a daily basis whether it was at the store or in my car or on my cassette walkman. It was always with me.
The band was ascending in popularity. But, they still had the angst and hunger of their early days. VH1's Behind the Music described the album (some years later) as "a progressive, frenzied and violent statement that proclaimed the end of the American Dream." Blackened and Eye of the Beholder were songs about being blacklisted and the hypocrisy of society's spin on "Freedom of Speech". But, the track that caught on big time in the public eye was One. The song was based on a book by Dalton Trumbo called Johnny Got His Gun. The story is about a World War I soldier that is rendered armless, legless and unable to see, hear or speak and yet remains alive in his own private Hell. Metallica opted to use footage from the 1971 movie version of the book and interspersed it with footage of the band playing for their very first music video. In 1988, This was a big deal. If you were releasing music in the 80's, it was routine (and required) for the artist to release a music video to be played on MTV. So, when this video debuted, it was a big deal not only for fans like myself but for the music buying public. I remember even a few of my female friends had reactions to video too. The video was strong enough in its subject matter that it was effective enough to propel Metallica to yet another level of public awareness.
From there, they were to be one of the first bands to be nominated for the first every Heavy Metal category at the Grammys. For many fans, this was a no brainer. They were on the rise and this was to be their moment. They just killed onstage as they terrorized the stage and the CBS broadcast as they performed One with machine gun like precision.
When the "smoke" cleared and the winner for best Heavy Metal performance was announced, the award went to.....JETHRO TULL???!!! I had admired JT for some time at that point. But, I (along with many fans) thought that the award should have gone to Lars, James, Kirk and Jason.
My Metallica obsession continued into the summer of 1989 when Bob, Forrest, myself and my friend Steve C roadtripped to Omaha to see Metallica headlining for the first time with the Cult opening up for them. This was the LOUDEST concert I had ever attended. I remember 2 or 3 songs into the show looking down at the pant leg of my jeans and noticed that my clothes were vibrating. The aural barrage of Metal music that filled the Omaha Civic Auditorium was so loud it made my clothes shake. Damn...that was LOUD!
Steve and I eventually made our way through the general admission crowd to the mandatory thrash concert MOSH pit! This was my first mosh pit experience. As these die-hard metal heads thrashed and slammed into each other and in front of us, Steve and I locked arms and began pushing them back into the pit. This concert was a great road trip and was actually the last time I saw Metallica live.
According to 1001 Albums,
"...And Justice for All reveals itself as an epic, even noble concept album with many, many layers of invention to explore. The album sits between Metallica's finest hours: the melodic, aggressive beauty of 1986's Master of Puppets and 1991's earth-shattering, rock club-fueling non-thrash Metallica - not an easy place to occupy."
As I look back on that album, the album production doesn't hold up over time. It sounds rather tinny with little to no bass guitar in the final mix of the album. Some say this was due to paranoia by James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich and their lack of confidence in Jason Newsted's bass playing skills. I don't claim to be an expert on what their feelings were at the time. But, as I write this (and listen to the album), I am filled with fond memories of music and friendships that still last to this day.
....coming soon...Music memories of the "Black album" and the S&M double CD
2010 is a big (and landmark) year for Beatles fans. In July, Ringo celebrated his 70th birthday and Paul McCartney joined him onstage. The Beatles catalog is finally available for download on itunes, There is a recently released movie called Nowhere Boy depicting the early years of John Lennon. PBS did a biopic for their Masterpiece Contemporaries called John Lennon – Naked. PBS also had a documentary called LENNONYC that chronicled his life after the breakup of the Beatles and his life in New York throughout the 70’s. October 9th would have been the 70th birthday of John Lennon and December 8th is the 30th anniversary of John’s tragic death! This event in the history of pop culture, music and my own personal history is one of those events that I can recall and remember where I was when I heard the news of John Lennon’s death. It was a Monday night and Monday nights were the nights that Boy Scout troop 81 of North Platte Nebraska would meet at the First Lutheran Church. We’d play Basketball before the scout meetings and catch up with friends etc. My friend-Brad and I were in the same scout troop and we also lived across the street from each other. So, our parents would work out some kind of transportation to and from our Monday night meetings. On this night, Brad’s dad picked us up in his Suburban as he had many times before with the car radio blaring that night’s Monday Night Football game. So, it was either his dad that mentioned something about Lennon being shot or it was the subject of the radio broadcast. It’s hard for me to remember when I first heard John Lennon or the Beatles. I grew up with 3 older sisters who were entering their teenage years the year I was born. I was born in July of 1967 which is just a month after the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band album was released. So, with older sisters interested in the pop music of the day, the Beatles music was something that was around me from an early age. I remember seeing the animated Beatles movie of Yellow Submarine at a very young age. PBS started airing Sesame Street in 1969. So, it was also always part of my life. The writers of Sesame Street found creative ways to use Beatles songs to teach. They took Twist and Shout and helped us to “Count it up Higher!…Higher…!”. Let it Be became “Letter B” and they even had a Muppet version of Ringo’s Octopus’ Garden. My earliest memory of a Beatles’ Album was the “red” 1962-1966 Greatest Hits double album of the Beatles in the house. I remember flipping the album cover over and over trying to match up the picture of the young Beatles with the picture of them taken in 69-70 on the back side. My sister Kathy had a copy of a double album called The Beatles Rock and Roll Music These two albums were the primer for my knowledge of Beatles music. Then, in 1978, the Robert Stigwood Organization(RSO) took the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton and teamed them up for a movie version of the Beatles’ album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I wasn’t enough of a Beatles fan to be offended by this project. In fact, it wasn’t until I began reading my monthly reading of Dynamite Magazine(distributed through Scholastic book clubs) that I realized that the Bee Gees were making a movie where they did a bunch of Beatles songs from Sgt Pepper.. Dynamite magazine was very instrumental in bringing the Beatles into my consciousness as they would publish a monthly calendar that would feature celebrity birthdays. This is where I discovered that I shared a birthday with Ringo Starr and that John Lennon had a birthday in October. I actually enjoyed the Bee Gees/Peter Frampton versions of the Beatles songs. My sister Kathy and my friend Brad both owned the soundtrack album. I really wanted it. So, I asked for it for Christmas. Somehow, my mother knew best and got me the Beatles original album instead….(Good work Mom!) I listened to the album over and over and really grew to love it. As I learned the songs, I realized the greatness of the Lennon/McCartney collaborations. I remember trumpeting that the Sgt Pepper movie may have been crap. But, the music was fantastic. Of course, it was fantastic..it was the Beatles. By this time, the Beatles were still rather peripheral in my life. I respected the songwriting of Lennon and McCartney. I knew a lot of the songs. There was a song in the early 80’s called Stars on 45(Beatles Medley) that featured a bunch of 60’s pop songs that featured mostly Beatles songs. I had that on a 45 rpm(look that one up kids). Also, around that time, there was a Broadway musical called Beatlemania. So the Beatles were beginning to grow in my tastes in music. Then, that tragic night in 1980 changed something in me. At first, it was just tragic thinking that John Lennon had been shot outside his home. I watched the news reports on the Today show the next morning. I went to school the next day and we talked about this event in my 8th grade history class. Mr Gulzow talked about what an influence the Beatles had been in pop culture. He made the comment that(along with their music) they made long hair fashionable. I was rather fond of having longer hair at the time. So, I related to that. Of course, this was December and it was the Christmas Holiday season. I was singing in the Adams Junior High swing choir and we would perform for many Christmas parties around North Platte. At one of the performances we did that week we sung the Carpenters arrangement of the Beatles’ Ticket to Ride. Our director introduced the song to the crowd as a song written by John Lennon who had been killed earlier that week. That comment sparked something in me too. The local news station did a story on the death of Lennon and talked to the North Platte record store known as Dailey(or Daily) Records. Of course, one of the items that they mentioned was that Geffen records had just released Lennon’s album Double Fantasy. All of sudden, I felt attracted to that record store and many more record stores for many years to come. I was soon on a quest of everything Beatles. I was 13 years old and I was a Beatles fanatic. I had been a big fan of Styx, ELO and REO Speedwagon. But, I left a lot of that behind and became a big Beatles fan. I became more serious about playing drums and Ringo was someone I looked to for inspiration. I bought the Beatles biography book titled SHOUT. I read it on our family trip to Oregon. On that trip, I would draw sketches of the Beatles in my sketch book. I would perk up when I would hear a Beatles vocal on the radio. While on that trip, I wanted to go to every record store. In my 9th grade speech class, we were asked to prepare an informational speech. I did my speech on the life on John Lennon. As I said before, I was a full on Beatles fanatic. This was also the beginning of my love for music. This is definitely where I started my regular trips to record stores. I bought my own drumkit a year or so later and I was always perusing through record stores and music instrument stores. In North Platte, there was a store known as Murphy’s Modern Music that had both records and music instruments(including drums). I kept my love for everything Beatles even as I grew older and became a fan of hard rock and metal too. After all, Eddie and Alex Van Halen grew up as fans of the Beatles and it inspired them to take up their respective instruments too. Even Ozzy Osbourne has stated that he was a huge Beatles fan as a teenager. In college, I had a speech class and the assignment was for an informative speech. Once again, I chose to do mine on the Beatles. The speech was only supposed to run abot 3-5 minutes. My speech lasted more like 15 minutes. There was so much I wanted to talk about because I knew so much more. In 1993, I saw Paul McCartney live in Kansas City. It was an awesome concert and one that I'll never forget. I was on vacation that week and went from Kansas City back to Omaha and then out to Colorado for my neice's graduation. I was on such a Beatles high that I think my brother and I drove out to Colorado listening to nothing but Beatles CD's.
Fast forward to 1995 and the movie Mr Holland’s Opus. I related to the movie because I had started my college career as a music education major. But, it was the scene where Richard Dreyfus as Mr Holland sings (and signs) the lyrics to John Lennon’s Beautiful Boy to his son that really hit me.
I was touched by that song. I put that song in my mind as a favorite. It would be in early 2004 when I found out that my wife and I were to welcome a son into the world in late April/early May of that same year. I came home and sat in my recliner and listened to Beautiful Boy as the tears ran down my face. My son Joe was born in May of 2004 and I wanted to sing him a song that was special to him and I. For the first year of his life, I would get up with him at night and feed him to get him back to sleep and the lullaby I sang to him was Beautiful Boy (Darling JOE). Years later, when I would play that song in the car to ease him to sleep, He would say “That’s my Joseph Ferris song..Dad!”
As I think back to that night in 1980, I am reminded of all the things I’ve known, learned and grown from. I related to John when he said that he was “just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round” and when he told Yoko…”Woman..I love you!” I felt the same for my (now ex) wife. But, It was a few years back that I realized that his death was a very very big event for me. I didn’t know it at the time. But, it definitely started me on a life and love of music and making music that still revs me up and gets me going. Many talk about where they were John Kennedy was shot or when the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists. For me, December 8th 1980 is a day that will be one of those landmark days in my life.
Music is a universal language. That is why I write this blog. For most people, whether they know it or not, music effects some part of their life. We associate people and places and memories with the music we listen to. But, when we experience something in a live sense, it can be even more powerful. One such genre of music is the Swing of the Big Band Jazz era. This past Thursday night, I was lucky enough to hear a fantastic big band called the Jazz Guardians and Loose Cannons as part of the Army Ground Forces Band. This band was directed by my college friend John Jacobs. The band took the stage with songs like In the Mood, Sing Sing Sing, the Mambo Swing, Orange Colored Sky and Minnie the Moocher. You may think that’s typical Big Band songs that are usually heard. But, when was the last time you heard an actual big band in a live music setting or concert hall? That is an aural experience that I would recommend to music fans of any age. From the intonations and subtleties to the dynamics of a powerful horn section, there is no other sound. In fact, rock drummers such as the Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts and Phil Collins have likened the experience of drumming for a big band is like driving a Ferrari…it’s that powerful!
Usually, I write a memory blog that is specific to a certain album from the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Unfortunately, the book chronicles high fidelity album recordings that go back to 1955. By that time, the Big Band genre was no longer the “pop” music of the masses. This was the beginning of early Rock n’ Roll and Rhythm and Blues with artists such as Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Fats Domino and Chuck Berry. Therefore, most of the Big Band jazz albums highlighted in the book are Duke Ellington: Ellington – Live at Newport 1956, Count Basie – The Atomic Mr. Basie and swing vocal albums like Frank Sinatra’s Songs for Swingin Lovers and Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Gershwin Songbook. I would even include the swingin’ music of Louis Prima’s The Wildest. I include Louis Prima because he wrote one of the iconic songs of the swing era Sing Sing Sing! and Sinatra because he started his career in the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.
For most of my peers, the primary source of Big Band music we heard from an early age was the music of Doc Severinsen’s Tonight Show Band when Johnny Carson was the host. To me, that was part of the magic of the Tonight Show in the 70’s and 80’s when I would watch it. Johnny even said when he aired his final show (back in May of 1992) that it’s a shame that the home audience would no longer hear one of the great Big Bands of all time any more. Johnny Carson was a huge fan of Big Band music and a drummer himself. He would book artists like Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald and (of course) Buddy Rich. When I first expressed an interest in the drums, my parents would occasionally let me stay up to watch Buddy Rich play with Doc Severinsen and the band. I still remember the magical beginning of the Tonight Show where you could see the hands of Ed Shaughnessy playing the drums on the bandstand. Even the times that I didn’t see Buddy on the Tonight show, it was a big deal for my friends in the percussion section in band the next day at school.
Growing up, I took for granted the appeal of the Big Band. In High School and College, I performed with Swing Choirs, Show choirs, High School Jazz Band and then the Jazz Rock Ensemble in college. So, the music of the Big Band was always present. That was the mid to late 80’s. I added many Big Band CD’s to my music collection over the years. Most of them were Buddy Rich CD’s. Buddy Rich could also be credited for keeping the Big Band alive (from 1966 till his death in 1987). When many Jazz musicians were forming small groups and Rock musicians were all the rage, Buddy started his own big band and toured the country playing colleges and high schools with young musicians that he would recruit from music schools and colleges. In fact, I saw Buddy Rich in the fall of 1986 at Gibbon High School in Gibbon Nebraska. This was almost 6-7 months before Buddy passed away in April of 1987. I actually ran into my college friend John Jacobs at this concert too. It’s an experience I’ll cherish forever. I did broaden my tastes with stuff like Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Satchmo and Ellington. There’s an old saying: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”. Big Band music has never really gone away. It’s just that it’s not as much in the public eye as it once was. In my opinion, It seemed to fade out of the mainstream scope after Johnny Carson retired from the Tonight show.
Even as a rock lover, I continued to keep myself educated about the world of Big Band Jazz mostly through my subscription to Modern Drummer magazine that was always writing about the great Big Bands and the drummers that had played for them.
In the late 80’s, Harry Connick Jr came on the scene when he had a hit with It Had to Be You from the Rob Reiner movie When Harry Met Sally. Harry became a new face from New Orleans that appealed to a mainstream audience. But, he was also very steeped in his Jazz (and New Orleans) upbringing. Then around 1997-98, Jon Favreau directed a movie called Swingers about a group of friends that would hang out at a burgeoning swing scene in LA. To me, this was very instrumental in a new Swing resurgence. Brian Setzer, who had started his career with (80’s rockabilly revival band) the Stray Cats. In 1998, Setzer came back to the forefront with his new Brian Setzer Orchestra with a cover of Louis Prima’s Jump Jive and Wail. Prima’s version was enjoying a revival too with the use of the song in a GAP commercial. Both versions propelled Setzer and a new swing revival in the late 90’s and into the early 2000’s.
Another notable band at the time include the Royal Crown Revue (which had a song featured in the soundtrack for Jim Carrey’s movie Mask). RCR also toured the country as a support act for the reunion of KISS in the late 90’s. My roommate Matt became a fan of the Squirrel Nut Zippers with their small hit Hell. Other notable bands would be the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. It was really cool to hear big band swing blaring out of radios with a new energy and people were interested in learning swing dancing too. Even former progressive rock and pop drummer Phil Collins recorded a live album with his own Big Band at the Montreux Jazz Festival. But, as the 90’s passed, the popularity of the swing revival waned too.
Around 1998-99, I attended a cast party for a musical I was in for Kearney Community Theatre. There, I began to talk to Kearney artist – Nick Ratzlaff. I honestly don’t remember how we began talking about Big Band and Swing music. But, Nick began playing music by Louis Prima. I recognized Jump Jive and Wail and Just a Gigolo. But, what I didn’t realize was that Louis Prima also wrote Sing Sing Sing which Benny Goodman had made one of the biggest Big Band “hits” of all time.
Suddenly, I became a huge fan of Louis Prima. I loved his gruff raspy voice and his music was…well…”Swingin!”
I also became a fan of Frank Sinatra. I always thought Frank was the epitome of hip and cool. I found a used copy of Songs for Swingin Lovers. I remember playing it in the car as I drove home to Hastings from Kearney and singing along to it. Frank's vocal range was similar to mine and it felt good. That next summer, I knew that KCT was putting on a production of Guys and Dolls. I wanted to play Nathan Detroit like Sinatra had in the movie version. What I didn't realize is that Nathan Detroit never sings Luck be a Lady which would eventually become one of Frank's trademark songs. A small bit of trivia is that when Frank Sinatra started his career in the Tommy Dorsey band, he and drummer Buddy Rich were roommates on the road. They also were legendary in their fights with each other on the road. But, they remained friends and Frank financed Buddy’s first Buddy Rich Big Band. Buddy even toured with Frank’s band too. I remember in 83-84 that Frank Sinatra was to be playing in Omaha and Buddy was going to be a featured player. My friend Mick and I momentarily contemplated going just to see Buddy Rich. But, Mick said that tickets to Sinatra for old people would be like us trying to get tickets for Van Halen.
I went through a time of fondness for Swing and Big Band artists especially during the time I was dating my ex-wife. We both gravitated towards this style. We would take trips and listen to Louis Prima’s Capitol’s Collector’s Series. We would sing along to the songs. I would sing the Prima lines and she would sing along with Keely Smith’s lines. One of my personal favorites to sing together was Prima’s version of That Old Black Magic. She was a fan of Ella Fitzgerald and actually bought a copy of the three discs that Ella did with Louis Armstrong. They are absolutely great recordings and they feature both drummers Buddy Rich and Louis Bellson on Ella & Louis and Ella and Louis Again respectively. In fact, I think Ella Fitzgerald’s voice is a jazz instrument in itself. Her improvisational scat singing on the At Newport album with Billie Holiday and Carmen McCrae is just phenomenal to hear.
I still love to hear Big Band music. Even as I searched for examples to inspire me for this blog, I came across some very innovative Big Bands that cropped up in the 70’s. Jaco Pastorius had his own “Word of Mouth” Big Band that featured an awesome horn section along with Latin Congas and Steel drums. Michael Brecker and his brother Randy Brecker had an incredible Big Band with their Brecker Brothers band. The Breckers have recorded with Jaco and also on Frank Zappa’s Live in New York album.
When I saw the Jazz Guardians and Loose Cannons, I was reminded of the subtleties of the Big Band. The dynamics were incredible to behold. My friend John is now Master Sergeant John Jacobs and he was a great master of ceremonies and band leader. John told of his travels playing music all over the world and the two things that are universal. One is music. Even if you don’t speak the language, music translates. The other is a smile! A smile translates no matter the language. I remember being in the mall once as a small child was throwing a colossal tantrum in another language. I smiled at the parents because (as a parent myself) I could relate. The parents smiled back at me because we both knew. So, the Jazz Guardians finished the night with When You’re Smiling! The lyrics are true..
When You’re Smiling….the Whole World Smiles with You!
The night of seeing my friend John was also filled with seeing my friends Scott Murrish and Mick Johnson. Together, we were four drummers that passed through the halls of the UNK Fine Arts department. But, we were(and still are) friends that enjoy music and (for me) can make each other smile!
This album would ultimately be the band’s fourth album. It was never scheduled as the fourth album. It was just a small document of appreciation to the Japanese fanbase that had supported the band. It was recorded over two nights at Tokyo’s Budokan Hall in April of 1978. At first, It would only be available as an import in America. Then, a handful of DJ’s (most notably WBCN in Boston) started playing cuts from Budokan. Obviously, the tracks caught on nationwide and the hugeness of Cheap Trick escalated. From I Want You to Want Me to Surrender to an unbelievable cover of Fats Domino’s Ain’t That a Shame, Cheap Trick at Budokan became not only a nationwide phenomenon but a global one too. 
