Strange is it not how our taste in music is shaped.
As previously documented on these pages, the mid-70s teenager I was began his explorations into how rock had arrived in its current form (this being the summer of 1975), by searching out every Beatles album I could buy or borrow.
The precocious student then moved, initially, to magnificent singles made in the previous decade by the Rolling Stones, the Small Faces, The Kinks and The Who – this thirst for knowledge bringing me to the conclusion that if John Lennon was the first word in 60s British rock, then Ray Davies was the last.
The arrival of punk a little less than two years later put the aggro and anger of The Who on a contemporary level – and with ‘Clash City Rockers’ sounding like the younger brother of ‘I Can’t Explain’, I recognised the lineage and as such embraced the progression.
Around this time I first came into contact with someone not quite ten years my senior, but old enough to remember the maelstrom that runs from say ‘Rubber Soul’ to ‘Let It Bleed.’ To my absolute horror he had given it little more than passing interest – with punk and new wave a complete anathema.
Put another way he was as enthralled by Bob Dylan as I was by Pete Townshend, would go into raptures about Neil Young in the way I did about Ray Davies (and almost as frequently by now, Joe Strummer) – and at a time when the only American group to go near my turntable was The Ramones, he would routinely drop something called the Buffalo Springfield into most conversations.
With an open-mindedness that forty years later still does me a degree of credit, I began seeking out some of his recommendations, admittedly not with the same passion (at the start) as I had shown for exploring The Beatles back catalogue – but before too long found myself listening to ‘Blonde on Blonde‘, ‘Blood On The Tracks‘ and ‘After The Gold Rush‘ as often as Clash or Ian Dury albums.
This sudden, but all-consuming Dylan fixation led me to The Byrds, my compulsive nature compelling me to track down everything with them at their origins (CSN, Flying Burrito Brothers, the erratic but largely wonderful solo careers of Gram Parsons and Gene Clark).
Fascination with Neil Young took me into the singer-songwriter brother (and sister) hood, in no time becoming enraptured by Randy Newman, Joni Mitchell, Carole King and in particular Jackson Browne, who I discovered wrote the most accomplished lyrics I had ever heard.
Given my desire (if you’ll pardon the Dylan pun) to learn, I like to think the road would have taken me to him eventually, but without the helpful shove would have taken far longer. Thus, I may not have been smitten by The Band for at least another couple of years – a prospect now too frightening to contemplate.
Sometimes I wonder how things would have turned out had my friend been into Ted Nugent, Edgar Winter or Black Oak Arkansas, my eardrums thankfully spared the extended guitar pyrotechnics of the aforementioned. It is, however, unlikely they would have caused me to cringe any more than some of the limp country-rock I subjected myself to around this time.
So with a professed interest in both categories, I set aside two hours this week to watch the BBC 4 programmes Singer-Song Writers at the BBC and California Comes to Whistle Test.
While it was great see some wonderful performances, the BBC and I are clearly at odds in what constitutes a Californian. As the crow (or that should be Eagle?) flies, in my UK hometown of Shrewsbury I was born closer to Los Angeles than some of the artists who appear, while the singer-songwriter episode left me nonplussed by some of the selections – one hit wonder Terry Jacks, but no Carole King or Richard Thompson?
First up on the California edition were country rock pioneers Poco, who straightaway contradict the programme title, with only one of their number (bass playing future-Eagle Timothy B Schmidt) born in California – the Eagles a strange omission from the programme considering how identified their music is with Southern California.
Early incarnations of Poco have been unjustly maligned, their formative albums containing some fine music. What they lacked, however, was the sense of purpose (provided by Don Henley, Glenn Frey and David Geffen) that enabled the Eagles to soar as Poco floundered.
From March 1972 Randy Newman (an actual Los Angelino) weighs in with ‘Political Science’ and despite my earlier criticisms, hats off to the BBC for this clip.
If the mark of a great lyric (particularly in a song based on current affairs) is for it to remain pertinent decades later, then this is pure gold. The song contemplates America ‘dropping the big one’ on a world ungrateful (‘they all hate us anyhow’) for the money and moral guidance the US provides. Australia is spared with the intention of turning it into an American theme park and through fear of hurting kangaroos – Randy, as ever, being sharply satirical. This is satire, right?
Following Newman are good performances by Judee Sill and the great Tim Buckley (a New Yorker), both of whom would succumb to drug overdoses before the 70s closed – a fate that also befell the genius that was Lowell George, chief songwriter and slide-guitarist of the marvellous Little Feat, whose majestic blend of country, funk and blues, combined with their multi-cultural line-up, made them the band most representative of 70s LA.
Their typically flamboyant rendition of ‘Rock n’ Roll Doctor’ begins a wonderful sequence which features Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt (a Texan songstress who keeps the fabulous Feat in mind with a superb reading of ‘Willin’) and Jackson Browne, who delivers ‘For A Dancer’ – a breath taking lament on the death of a friend that is always moving no matter how many times it is heard.
He continues into the next clip, sharing the stage with song noir specialist Warren Zevon, another gifted songwriter who went before his time.
Prior to songs from Tom Waits and Ry Cooder that close the programme is a 1979 performance by Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark & Chris Hillman, three of the original Byrds who re-united for a couple of years in the late 70s.
Remembering the many fine songs they each wrote when a Byrd or for solo projects, this is pretty tame stuff and hard to equate with The Byrds who were instrumental in forging the soft-rock sound of LA – the vocal harmonies and ringing guitar combination continued not just by the Eagles, but into the 80s by artists such as Tom Petty, Elvis Costello and The Pretenders.
The Singer-Songwriter programme is notable for who it omits rather than includes. Absent is Bob Dylan, the man who defines the entire genre and so too is a woman whose album sales (in particular ‘Tapestry’) make her, Carole King, its most successful proponent.
Strangely there is no room either for Paul Simon, Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen, the show beginning with a 1971 performance by Elton John of ‘Your Song’ this being a time when the music was bigger news than his lifestyle or outrageous outfits – the nudie suit he is wearing may have looked better on Gram Parsons, but does not distract from the song in the way Elton’s later costumes did.
Quite what being dressed as Louis XIV does for performing ‘Rocket Man’ is hard to fathom, James Taylor not likely to go on stage as Donald Duck to sing ‘Carolina On My Mind.’ Taylor, handsome devil that he was, is on next giving a gorgeous, understated reading of that lovely ballad and although the Brits are well represented with songs from Cat Stevens, Sandy Denny and Joan Armatrading, it is Canadians Joni Mitchell and Neil Young who steal the show.
Stunning in her flowing pink dress and golden hair, Joni plays the mesmeric ‘Chelsea Morning’ for a 1970 BBC TV programme, the song containing no reference to the Stamford Bridge football team who won the FA Cup that year. From an ‘In Concert’ programme two years later Young sings ‘Heart of Gold,’ his voice in remarkably fine shape, the line ‘I’m getting old’ sounding all the more ironic from someone who had only just reached the age of 27.
There is crossover in the two programmes with appearances from Tom Waits, Judee Sill and Jackson Browne, variety (with a large V) provided by Neil Diamond and Harry Nilsson – while from the realms of strangeness there is a duet from 1974 of ‘The Lady Came From Baltimore’ between Twiggy and Tim Hardin.
The man who wrote such highly-regarded songs as ‘If I Were A Carpenter’ and ‘Reason To Believe,’ looks strangely distant throughout the whole thing and for one never blessed with good health (he died in 1980) it seems to do little for his disposition.
It is hard to imagine Dylan, the singer-songwriter supreme, acceding to such a request.
This article was first published on 19/3/2018.
NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller now available as an Amazon Kindle Book.
