Tag: Spirit

December Odds ‘n Year Ends, Pt. 1

We’ve reached the end of the year.  Two years, actually, as pertains to this blog. December was a slower month for 50th album anniversaries, but I’ve also been sidetracked with an unrelated project, hence a few of these “leftovers” from the month really deserved their own dedicated posts which I was unable to make time for. 1969 will not wait – time does this for no one, as somebody once told us in a song – so let’s get to it.

1968:  Gábor Szabó – Dreams

This might be my most random inclusion thus far, and I learned about it in a random manner: the YouTube sidebar of suggested albums. I had one album by the Hungarian guitarist but didn’t know much about him when I came across Dreams on YouTube a couple of years back, and it became an instant go-to album to listen to online at work. It’s a recording of instrumental originals and covers made in August of ’68 and released sometime after, and it includes my favorite session drummer, Jim Keltner. This record brings visions of a Motorola console stereo, paneled walls, shag carpet, highballs, and ashtrays on three-foot stands.

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December:  Elvis – Elvis (The Comeback Special)

Yeah, I blew it with this one. It deserves a lot more attention than this paragraph will give it. It was recorded from Elvis’s TV special taped at NBC’s Burbank Studios in June of ’68. The musical format presented Presley in three different settings: production numbers featuring medleys of his material; an informal small band featuring full songs in front of a live audience; and the two original numbers with Presley backed by an orchestra in front of a live audience. The album subsequently peaked at #8 on the Billboard 200. It was certified Gold in July of ’69 and Platinum thirty years later.  I see and hear Elvis on this great recording, and I can’t help but wonder what could’ve been. (Hey Kim, tell me what could’ve been with Elvis post-1968! :))

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December:  Spirit – The Family That Plays Together

Spirit’s second album of 1968 (and second overall) saw the band reaching a little further into the prog world. The album spawned the single I Got a Line on You, another great track which has been elbowed from homogenized classic rock radio playlists in favor of more plays of Pour Some Sugar on Me. You SUCK, classic rock radio. You suck BAD!

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December:  Soft Machine – The Soft Machine

The debut album by Soft Machine was released this month in ’68. The Canterbury bands have been a slowly acquired taste for me, but it is happening. By their third album (aptly titled Third), it starts getting more accessible to me.

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12/1/68  The Monkees – Head (soundtrack)

I have this soundtrack and movie in a mental file labeled Revisit to Learn What the Hell THAT Was All About. The movie itself was released in November of ’68, and was co-written and produced by Jack Nicholson. It did a whopping $16,111 at the box office. This soundtrack was the Monkees’ sixth album, and the final one with Peter Tork until 1987. It features six proper songs mixed with film dialogue and incidental music. I have a vague memory of seeing at least part of this film around the age of fourteen in the mid-1980’s when the Monkees had become somewhat of a thing again thanks to syndicated reruns. It made no sense to me then, but glancing at the cast, there must be some value in it. A good period piece, at least? Please share any thoughts you may have about this. I need to understand.

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12/10/68  Thomas Merton died

Merton was a famed American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist, and scholar who was a proponent of interfaith understanding.  He maintained a dialogue with such spiritual leaders as the Dali Lama and Tich Nhat Hanh, and wrote over 70 books, perhaps the most famous being The Seven Storey Mountain (1948). He passed at the age of 53 while attending a conference near Bangkok. He was found dead in his room, possibly the result of a heart issue, possibly from electric shock. There was no autopsy, and some have speculated he was assassinated by the CIA. The more I learn about this man, the more I wish we had voices like his in the West today.

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-Stephen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreams_(G%C3%A1bor_Szab%C3%B3_album)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_(1968_album)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_That_Plays_Together

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_(film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_(The_Monkees_album)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Merton

 

 

January 22 – Lady Soul, Spirit, Dr. John

January 22, 1968 gave us a three course meal with very distinct flavors:  soul, jazz-rock, and a batch of psychedelic New Orleans gumbo.

Aretha Franklin – Lady Soul

The beauty amidst the world’s chaos continued on this day with the release of Aretha Franklin’s classic, Lady Soul, one of three great albums to come out on this date.  This one may be the most beloved of the three, and one of the most enduring of 1968 to this day.  Clocking in at 28:41, it’s very short but very sweet.  There’s not a weak song in the bunch, which includes a couple of her biggest hits. This music just leaves you feeling good.

Tracklist:

Side One:

  1. Chain of Fools
  2. Money Won’t Change You
  3. People Get Ready
  4. Niki Hoeky
  5. (You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman

Side Two:

  1. (Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone
  2. Good to Me As I Am to You
  3. Come Back Baby
  4. Groovin’
  5. Ain’t No Way

 

Spirit – Spirit

January 22 also saw the release of the self-titled debut from the band Spirit.  While their most famous song would come along later in 1968, they immediately carved their own niche into the rock music world with elements of progressive rock as well as jazz incorporated into their songs on this album, due in large part to drummer Ed Cassidy.  Cassidy himself was a bit of an oddity in rock at the time with his “Mr. Clean” shaved head, but more so because he was a couple of decades older than anyone else in the band and had played with such jazz luminaries as Cannonball Adderley and Thelonious Monk.  He was also the stepfather of founding member Randy California, who had briefly played with Jimi Hendrix prior to the latter’s rise to fame.  Another founding member was vocalist Jay Ferguson, who later found brief acclaim in the 1970’s pop world with the song Thunder Island.

I didn’t know much about this band when I picked up a copy of Mojo Magazine 15 or so years ago with a Roots of Led Zeppelin sampler CD attached, and Spirit’s Fresh Garbage was one of the songs.  I came to discover that Zeppelin had in fact opened shows for Spirit early on and were known to hang out side stage and listen to Spirit’s sets after their own.  In recent years one song from this first album, Taurus, made the news when Mark Andes, the only other living original member of the band besides Ferguson, sued Jimmy Page for copyright infringement on behalf of Randy California due to the similarity between a portion of Taurus and Stairway to Heaven (recorded two years later), but lost.

Tracklist:

Side One:

  1. Fresh Garbage
  2. Uncle Jack
  3. Mechanical World
  4. Taurus
  5. Girl in Your Eye
  6. Straight Arrow

Side Two:

  1. Topanga Windows
  2. Gramophone Man
  3. Water Woman
  4. The Great Canyon Fire in General
  5. Elijah

Does the riff at about :43 in the following song sound familiar?

 

Dr. John – Gris-Gris

Somehow I only discovered this album in recent days (at one time I owned his 1994 album, Television), and I’m actually a little embarrassed to type that because it’s so good.  Swampy, funky, definitely not mainstream, this is the debut album of Dr. John (Mac Rebennack), and it’s also the first example of a nice side benefit of this little hobby of mine:  the opportunity to discover albums I’d never heard of, and to give others that I’d not paid much attention to a more critical listen.  If you’re so inclined, grab a sixer of Abita and dial-up this album late some warm, rainy night and enjoy.

Tracklist

Side One:

  1. Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya
  2. Danse Kalinda Ba Doom
  3. Mama Roux
  4. Danse Fambeaux

Side Two

  1. Croker Courtbullion
  2. Jump Sturdy
  3. I Walk on Guilded Splinters

Another reason to like Dr. John:  He was the inspiration for the Muppet character Dr. Teeth.

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-Stephen