Elvis Stands Accused

Elvis Costello and the Attractions: I Stand Accused

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On March 24, 1979 Elvis Costello opened his Rochester, NY concert with "I Stand Accused". By that time, news of his ugly encounter at a Holiday Inn bar with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett had spread like wildfire. In his book Complicated Shadows : The Life and Music of Elvis Costello author Graeme Thomson gets Attractions bassist Bruce Thomas to admit they started the altercation as the alcohol flowed. 

“Stills said, “If you hate us so much, what are you doing in our country?”,’ recalls Thomas. ‘And Elvis said something like, “We’ve come to take your money and your women.” Then it just got worse. “What about our music?” “You haven’t got any good music.” “What about James Brown?” “James Brown?” Bang! That’s pretty much how that one started. It was just us being obnoxious bastards.’
In this instance, being obnoxious bastards culminated in Elvis describing James Brown as ‘a jive-ass nigger’ and Ray Charles as ‘nothing but a blind, ignorant nigger’.

The timing couldn't have been worse. The new album, Armed Forces, has just hit the Billboard Top 10 in America. On March 30, CBS Records called an emergency press conference to get Costello --now followed around by two armed policemen as bodyguards--to apologize and answer questions about whether he was a racist. Behind the scenes, record execs discussed dropping Costello from the label. They certainly stopped promoting the album. By the end of April, Armed Forces has dropped out of the Top 30 and the new single, "Accidents Will Happen", didn't even break into the Hot 100.

In his book Unfaithful Music + Disappearing Ink Costello writes of the incident:

I’ll have to take the word of witnesses that I really used such despicable racial slurs in the same sentence as the names of two of the greatest musicians who ever lived, but whatever I did, I did it to provoke a bar fight and finally put the lights out.
 It was an absurd overstatement of opposites, a contradiction in terms. 
Just as people say “bad” when they mean “good.” 
Surely this was all understood. Didn’t they know the love I had for James Brown and Ray Charles, whose recording of “The Danger Zone” I preferred to watching men walk on the moon? 
“My love for the world is, like, always.” 
How could you not know that? 
It seems that they did not. It took just five minutes to detach my tongue from my mind and my life from the rail it was on.

It's always interesting to see how people react to sudden fame, especially when they're expected to live up to some nasty misanthropic image. Costello may have deep regrets about the incident, but he also believes it might have saved his life. Like Dylan with his motorcycle accident, Costello would need to take a breather before he started trying to win back his fans.

40 Year Itch : CSNY Begins Doom Tour in Seattle

“It was insane.We were completely high every moment. Cocaine, marijuana – oh, and sleeping pills, too, because you have to come down."
       Graham Nash

     On July 9, 1974, in Seattle, Crosby Stills Nash and Young began a notorious  two month 31-concert, 24 city stadium tour that has just been documented in a new box set called CSNY 1974. ( You can stream four tracks here. )

  Rehearsals lasted for three weeks at Neil Young's Broken Arrow ranch in La Honda. Stills told Crawdaddy's Cameron Crowe:

“Neil built a beautiful stage right across the road from his studio. We get out there in the sun and play for about four or five hours a day. We haven’t done the old tunes in years, man, it’s almost like playing them for the first time. Everybody’s a better musician. And there’s plenty of new songs too. We’ve all been writing a lot, especially Neil. It’s been tons of fun and no hassles. 
    

The concerts were epic affairs, especially the first one which began at 9 and ended well after one in the morning and consisting of up to 40 songs ranging from the expected "Ohio" and "Our House" to solo cuts like Neil Young's "Revolution Blues" and Stills' "Change Partners".

      There are also rare cuts on the new box set like "Goodbye Dick", performed five days after Nixon 's resignation. 

  It had been four years since all four had worked together ( which led to the Four Way Street recording) But the promise of a big pay day and the success of the Dylan and Band tour had helped convince the guys to get together. Young--barely recognizable after getting a haircut-- had released a few commercial clunkers (Journey Through the Past and Time Fades Away) and agreed to the tour as long as he had his own bus.

The Seattle concert opened with a six minute version of "Love the One You're With" and ran for three and a half hours.

After Seattle, we realized we could hold on to tens of thousands of fans through a diversity of electric and acoustic sets.
-Graham Nash to Wall Street Journal

The rest of the set list looked like this:

wooden ships
immigration man
cowgirl in the sand
change partners
traces
grave concern
black queen
almost cut my hair
ohio
suite: Judy blue eyes
helplessly hoping




blackbird
human highway
prison song
as I come of age
carry me
for free
Guinnevere
southbound train
another sleep song
our house
4 and 20
know you got to run
word game
love art blues
long may you run
a man needs a maid
don't be denied
first things first
deja vu
my angel
pre road downs
my favorite changes
long time gone
revolution blues
pushed it over the end
carry on
what are their names/Chicago

Of the camaraderie Crowe wrote:


The hostility between Stills and Young that at one time often stopped just short of onstage fisticuffs no longer hangs threateningly in the air. The same lessening of tensions since the last tour has infused the backstage atmosphere with a good deal of genuine warmth, back-slapping, hugging and verbal repartee.

It was David Crosby that called it "The Doom Tour". Why? You can read this Rolling Stone article for stories of drugs, groupies and inter-band squabbling. The tour was supposed to end in a recording session for a new album tentatively titled Human Highway ( the title cut, "Tonight's The Night" and "New Mama" were all going to Neil's contributions to the album). Obviously that never happened.

  

For a single soundbite try road manger Chris O'Dell's memory might explain why:

"One time they spilled cocaine on the carpet. They just got down on the floor and sniffed it off the carpet. I just went, 'Oh my God, this is so weird.' I'd never seen anything like it. They probably don't remember that." 

40 Year Itch: Everyone Birdoggin' At My Girl

On March 14, 1973 Stephen Stills married French singer songwriter Veronique Sanson. The marriage lasted ten years and produced musician son Chris Stills. Among the guests at the wedding were members of The Beatles and The Who. They lived around Boulder Colorado.

 A month later Stephen Stills and his band Manassas released the album Down The Road. Inspired by her husband's way of recording, Veronique recorded one of her most critically acclaimed albums, 1974's Le Maudit ("The Damned") , also with Manassas. Some have tried to read meaning into Veronique's lyrics. It was, by some reports, a rocky marriage with Stills insisting everyone speak English around his wife...even in Quebec. And he could be quite insistent.

     "Shaking, quaking, fire in his eye ( Stills) stomps over to bass player Bill Gagnon, grabs his shirt, tells him ( loud enough for the Province to hear): "Don't you ever speak French to my wife again !!!"
    --Richard Meltzer, A Whore Just Like the Rest: The Music Writings of Richard Meltzer

40 Years Ago Today: The Jive Artist Hits His Peak

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At the height of his creative powers and full of ambition, Stephen Stills teamed up with his friend, Flying Burrito Brother Chris Hillman, pedal steel guitarist Al Perkins and Jamaican bassist Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels  ( among others) to record a double album full of great rock'n'roll steeped in country, blues, folk and even a little Latin. Though the album has fallen in and out of critical favor over the past 40 years, there's an argument to be made that Manassas is the best thing Stills has ever done.

   Stills seemed to know right from the start he had something special. He told reporters "It's not totally a partnership but it's enough of a partnership that everyone's satisfied. It's better than Crosby, Stills and Nash, Deja Vu and my two solo albums. I'm really proud of it."

  In an 1973 article for Rolling Stone entitled "Stephen Stills: The Reformation of a 'Jive' Artist, Judith Sims suggests his marriage to Veronique Sanson and quitting cocaine helped Stills settle down. The picture she paints of Stills before Manassas isn't pretty:

 It's difficult to name a rock and roll star who's been put down, chopped up, dismissed and generally hated as much as Stephen Stills. Not hated by the public who buy his records and concert tickets, but by those people who've spent more than five minutes dealing with him personally. He's been an ostentatious spendthrift (everything from a $36,000 Mercedes snowplow to expensive microphones he never even unwrapped), a conspicuous consumer of drugs, notably cocaine (allegedly $18,000 a month up his nose), a notorious boozer onstage and an insecure egotist.

  

Manassas is made up of 21 songs split into four themed sides: "The Raven" is classic Stills rock and is highlighted by "Anyway", "The Wilderness" features country and bluegrass. Here you'll find Stills's last song for "Suite Judy" Collins "So Begins The Task. "Consider" is a bit more folky. This is where the single "It Doesn't Matter" was placed. The final side is "Rock'n'Roll Is Here To Stay" and features an 8-minute fan favorite "Treasure" as well as "The Love Gangster" co-written with The Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman who reportedly briefly considered leaving the Stones for Manassas.

In this year dedicated to 1972, I'd have to say this has been the most rewarding listen so far. Somehow you can buy the entire album on one CD. You should.