40 Year Itch : The Dreamer, the Unwoken Fool

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    Eldorado, released in September of 1974, is my favorite Electric Light Orchestra album. It's a concept album, made up of mostly short, catchy, progressive pop tunes in the vein of the 1973 ELO hit "Showdown". Jeff Lynne made the most of his opportunity to work with a full orchestra. There are moments of sheer beauty in the stringed interludes of the single "Can't Get It Out Of My Head" and "Boy Blue", the latter sounding like the blueprint of every good to great World Party song.

   The concept is that we're following a Walter Mitty hero as he imagines himself in different scenarios. ( As a member of Robin Hood's band of Merry Men in "Poor Boy"; as a triumphant soldier during The Crusades in "Boy Blue"; as a rock star talking to his therapist in "Illusions in G Major"). Despite the Wizard of Oz still used on the cover, he does not imagine himself as Dorothy Gale. That's an entirely different album.

The influence of The Beatles is prevalent, especially in the "Across the Universe" -inspired melody of "Mister Kingdom". Lynne had met the Beatles when they were making the White Album and , years later, admitted "To be in the same room as the four of them caused me not to sleep for, like, three days."  

Rolling Stone critic Ken Barnes summed up Eldorado in this way :

As a concept album Eldorado is lyrically effective and thankfully not overbearing. The symphonic aspects sometimes get out of hand, but generally work well enough. And as for the rest, Eldorado is the most successful Electric Light Orchestra album to date.

This would be hard one to top.

40 Year Itch: Those We Missed from May'74

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  More rocking than Preservation Act 1, this sequel is part of that period Ray Davies says he should never have been allowed to put any records out. Preservation Act 2 is an even more inconsistent rock musical, broken up by "Announcements", guest vocalists, Davies's  Marc Bolan impressions, and a dearth of actual songs. As such,  it is one of the most disappointing albums of 1974. Only because it may make you smile, check out Ray Davies's update of "Village Green Preservation Society": the virtually unlistenable "Shepherds of the Nation".

Recorded in early July of 1973 in Japan, Lotus is a three record set that was not only Santana's first official live album but also available only as a costly import. It captures the band at a time when Carlos Santana was leaving behind his Latin Rock sounds to explore the world of  jazz fusion

   But when you're playing in front of a paying audience that came to hear the classics, you better play them. So we get Santana's new band playing tunes from the early albums. The new band arguably features better musicians and a better singer in Leon Thomas. And what they do with the older songs is interesting.

The band truly excels on the tunes they recorded -- like the ones from the platinum album Caravanserai and the gold album Welcome. Still three discs is a lot of music. Overwhelming to these ears.

Interestingly, Rolling Stone's most recent record guide gives Lotus the ultimate 5 star rating while Music Hound gives the album its "woof!" rating, the lowest possible.

If by classic rock, you really mean rock influenced by classic music, then only Emerson Lake and Palmer could rival Renaissance. Turn of The Cards and its predecessor Ashes Are Burning are considered the classic albums. Upon listening you may be either be swooning over soprano Annie Haslam's vocals or realizing why punk rock HAD to happen.

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The UK's most successful boogie band could never break into the US market despite heavy touring here. This follow-up to Hello! rocks harder than most and  is considered a lost classic by fans. Album closer "Slow Train" is a three-section boogie monstrosity with drummer John Coghlan having fits!

40 Year Itch : Catching Up With Yardbirds Guitarists

On May 10, 1974 recovering heroin addict Eric Clapton recorded his cover version of Bob Marley's " I Shot the Sheriff", his first and only #1 hit. It appeared on his comeback album 461 Ocean Boulevard, which he recorded with J J Cale pals The Tulsa County Band.  

       Backing vocalist Yvonne Elliman says when the band wasn't recording in Miami, they were off sailing and not every journey was pleasant and mellow

"We were in the Bermuda Triangle. It freaked me out, because we had a terrible storm out there. We were all drunk, we were terrible. And the captain was quite straight. He was saying "We can't go any further!" And I was going "Sail on! Come on! Let's hit the storm! Let's get bounced around and have a good time!" And the guy said "I'm sorry, but we have to turn back, and as captain of this ship what I say goes".

    Also on May 10, Jimmy Page and friends attended a party to celebrate the launch of Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label at Los Angeles’ Bel Air Hotel ends with the guests tossing food and chinaware at one another. 

The next day Robert Plant and Jimmy Page met the King after Elvis’ L.A. Forum concert.By some accounts, Page and Presley sang "Love Me " together. In other stories, Presley grilled the boys about their sordid stories on the road. This account comes from an Australian Elvis fan blog:

   Elvis finally turned to them. 'Is it true', he said, 'these stories about you boys on the road?' Plant answered, 'Of course not. We're family men. I get the most pleasure out of walking the hotel corridors, singing your songs'. Plant offered his best Elvis impersonation. 'Treat me like a fool, treat me mean and cruuuuel, but looooove me...'. For a moment Elvis Presley eyed them both very carefully. Then he burst out laughing. Then his bodyguards burst out laughing. For two hours he entertained them in his suite. He had never heard their records, he said, except for when his stepbrother played him 'Stairway to Heaven'. 'I liked it', said Presley. Later, walking down the hallway from the hotel room, Page and Plant congratulated themselves on a two-hour meeting with the King. 'Hey', came a voice from behind them. Presley had poked his head out the door. 'Treat me like fooool...'.

“When Led Zeppelin started doing huge concerts, I was just sitting in my garage listening to the radio. I was like, ‘What’s going on? I started this shit and look at me!’” - Jeff Beck

  Five months before sessions began for his Fusion masterpiece Blow By Blow, Jeff Beck was most likely producing and playing some guitar on the self titled debut album of the young British rock jazz fusion band Upp. I say "most likely' because there is no mention of Beck's involvement on Upp in the liner notes.

40 Year Itch : Hardly Daring to Breathe

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'I turned on the radio in the car the other day and I thought, 'that's weird, that's Jimi, and I've never heard that track before. And it turned out to be a guy called Robin Trower,' 
- Eric 'Slowhand' Clapton.

Oh yeah, Hendrix was a big influence. There is guitar playing before Hendrix and there’s guitar playing after Hendrix, you know? [Laughs] He’s a giant, a genius. I think we all live in his shadow, even today. I still think he was the greatest rock ‘n’ roll guitar player ever
-Robin Trower

   I get the impression Robin Trower is more humble than any guitar god ever needs to be. Just watch the video aboce. If you could make a Stratocaster sing like that, wouldn't you make it look like the hardest thing in the world? Trower just sort of stands there , moving little more than his fingers.

    And every time his interviewers praise his guitar playing , Trower takes pains to say the real star of his early solo albums, including the 1974 breakout Bridge of Sighs,  is the soulful bassist and singer Jimmy Dewar, formerly of Stone the Crows.

I was very, very fortunate that I ran into the singer James Dewar, You know a major reason why that music was so successful was his vocal, which enabled the music to cross over

Those who heard 1973's Twice Removed From Yesterday could hardly have been surprised at the quality of Bridge of Sighs which hit the peaked at #7 in the US album charts and provided many fans with the soundtrack to the Summer of '74.  

While fans and contemporaries praised Trower, the press was not so kind. He had been cast as a Hendrix imitator and that wasn't a role critics were going to let him shrug off.
 
    Jim Miller of Rolling Stone wrote :

    Bridge Of Sighs, like its predecessor, Twice Removed from Yesterday, lacks that creative spark which separates derivative finesse from more personal stylistic elaboration. The very polished assurance of Trower's lines misses the pathos animating Hendrix's last recordings. Evidently Trower will have to cast off Hendrix's ghost before he finds his own voice. In the meantime, his current band plays with a concise potency that fills a contemporary void.

40 Year Itch: They're Weird and They're Wonderful

Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 for April 13, 1974

1 Elton John Bennie and the Jets

With crowd noises nicked from an Elton John concert in London and Jimi Hendrix's performance at the Isle of Wight, as well as some off beat handclaps, "Bennie and the Jets" gave Elton John his second #1 in the US. He was prouder of the fact the song hit #15 in the R and B charts. One of those few tunes most people could name in one note.



2 Blue Swede Hooked on a Feeling
3 MFSB and the Three Degrees TSOP



4 Sister Janet Mead The Lord's Prayer
5 Redbone Come and Get Your Love
6 John Denver Sunshine On My Shoulders



7 Gladys Knight and the Pips Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me
8 Terry Jacks Seasons in the Sun
9 Ringo Starr Oh My My



10 Carly Simon and James Taylor Mockingbird

40 Year Itch : Some Mythic Soul

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On Black Bach the legendary Motown songwriter and producer Lamont Dozier ( of Holland-Dozier-Holland fame) steps into the spotlight with plans to swing for the fences. With dozens of session players (including Ray Parker, Jr) making up a symphony and choirs featuring the likes of Darlene Love, Dozier --and his very plain voice--take on the subjects of life, love and death. Singled out as one of the greatest albums of all time by The Mojo Collection  Black Bach is a "classic soul folly" that "has receded into myth.

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New York soul brothers The Main Ingredient ( featuring Cuba Gooding Sr.)  released their high water mark, Euphrates River, featuring their million selling cover of  Ronnie Dyson's "Just Don't Want to Be Lonely" and a tight version of "Summer Breeze" that rivals the 3 +3 cut by The Isley Brothers.

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From the same high school as Marshawn "BeastMode" Lynch and Clint Eastwood comes The Pointer Sisters who followed up their debut album ( and hit single "Yes We Can Can") with more scatting jazz, pop, R and B and, most surprisingly, a country hit called "Fairytale". It would not only win a Grammy but be  covered by Elvis Presley.

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Philly soulsters Blue Magic scored a Top 10 hit with "Sideshow". Their debut album is full of lush, smooth Philly soul as well as yet another version of  "Just Don't Want to Be Lonely".