The M M & M 1000 – part 51

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. Back after the Christmas / New Year hiatus with the first of the final 14 parts.

JOHNNY ‘GUITAR’ WATSON – Space Guitar / Half Pint-a-Whiskey (Federal 1954)
Amazing before-its-time instrumental rock. I wrote about it here

DAVID BOWIE – Space Oddity / Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud (Philips 1969)
DAVID BOWIE – Starman / Sufragette City (RCA 1972)
In which Major Tom gets his mind blown cosmically by the sight of the blue planet from far above to the consternation of the ground control crew. Filled with Meek-ish guitar effects and spacey mellotron, this was and remains a work of genius. By 1972, Bowie had more or less invented glam rock, but was still indulging in his space opera fantasies. The hero of “Starman”, is an alien who fears that his presence might seriously freak out us feeble-minded earthings. In some ways, that’s more or less the plot for The Man Who Fell to Earth.

BEN E KING – Spanish Harlem / First Taste of Love (Atco 1960)
BEN E KING – Stand By Me / On the Horizon (Atco 1961)
Both King and his former group the Drifters had a top notch team behind them at the turn of the sixties with Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, Tom Dowd, Jerry Lieber, Mike Stoller, Gerry Goffin, Carole King and Phil Spector all involved at some point. “Spanish Harlem” is a Latin-tinged vehicle for Ben’s extraordinarily pure tenor. “Stand By Me” can be taken as a simple stand-by-your-man song, or more widely, a civil rights’ call for unity. Both songs are undisputed classics.

ELASTIK BAND – Spazz / Paper Mache (Atco 1967)
Almost certainly the most politically incorrect record on this list. Its lyrics basically consist of playground level bullying taunts: “You wanna sit down when you know some clown’s gonna try and pull away your chair / So you stand and stand, stand and stand till, man, you can’t stand any longer / Hey! You know you shouldn’t have never sat down! / That’s right, Uh huh / I said get off of the floor, Get off of the floor, boy / People gonna think, yes they’re gonna think, People gonna, people gonna think you’re SPAZZ!“. It’s not big or clever or even particularly funny. But musically it’s raw as fuck, and makes the Sex Pistols look like well-mannered mummies’ boys in comparison.

CADILLACS – Speedo / Let Me Explain (Josie 1957)
Lyrically, boastful nonsense. Musically a joyous whip around the world of tailfins, soda fountains and poodle skirts.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG AND HIS HOT FIVE – St. James’ Infirmary / Save It Pretty Mama (Okeh 1928)
A jolly song about finding your girl laid out on a mortuary slab. Armstrong was instrumental in making the song the familiar standard that it is today, and it’s still the definitive version, with the mournful Crescent City brass giving it that distinctly eerie tone. The song’s origins go way back, though, with the title supposedly derived from a 16th century London hospital for lepers.

MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT – Stack O’Lee Blues / Candy Man (Okeh 1928)
The 1895 murder of labourer Billy Lyons by the pimp Stagger Lee Shelton in St Louis was just another pointless killing that barely achieved much attention at the time. And yet, somehow, this particular murder became the basis of one of the most widely recorded songs of all time, one that exists in almost as many different versions as there are recordings of it. Of all the versions, Hurt’s is probably the best. It has all the basic elements of the story, but doesn’t ham it up, or go into histrionics. It’s more like a straight piece of reportage, with his stunning twelve string playing providing all the backing that’s needed. The flip, “Candy Man”, is probably Hurt’s second most famous song, full of quiet swagger. Not bad for a first record.

SLY & THE FAMILY STONE – Stand / I Want to Take You Higher (Epic 1969)
While the Family Stone were more renowned for mixing psychedelic rock with soul, “Stand” is effectively a simple Gospel-influenced invocation to stand up and be counted.

FOUR TOPS – Standing in the Shadows of Love / Since You’ve Been Gone (Motown 1966)
FOUR TOPS – Still Water (Love) / Still Water (Peace) (Motown 1970)
It was apt that the film about the Motown backing musicians the Funk Brothers was called Standing in the Shadows of Motown. Not only does it perfectly sum up their place as the company’s unsung heroes, but the song it puns on is a fine example of their art. Levi Stubbs had the most amazing vocal ability to express heartbreak in such a dramatic way that it sounded paradoxically uplifting, but without the music providing the perfect foil, it could have either come across as flat or overblown. But they always got it just right. “Still Water” is much more laid back, with guest Marv Tarplin of the Miracles providing a guitar line as distinctive as the vocal hook.

DISCHARGE – State Violence, State Control / Doom’s Day (Clay 1982)
At the time, the 2nd gen punk movement was derided by nearly everyone except its adherents. Crass were accepted, more for their ideology than their music, even though they were much more than just noisy 1234 merchants. Discharge had a huge cult following, but were pretty much ignored outside of it. And yet they are now rightly lauded as one of the most influential British bands of the last thirty years, having a huge impact on the US hardcore movement, and then even more so on the likes of Slayer, Metallica and everyone else that followed. I always liked them – the politics may have been a little simplistic, but were by and large spot on. And the records were just so bloody exciting.

LORRAINE ELLISON – Stay With Me / I Got My Baby Back (Warner Brothers 1966)
Who? You may ask. How that question should ever be asked is a mystery to me – with a voice like hers, Ellison should be a household name. But she’s only really known for this one record. Once heard, though, never forgotten. This is soul music at an almost Wagnerian scale, with Ellison’s gritty soprano running the gamut of emotions from quiet reflection, to screaming despair. If I was forced to choose my favourite single of all time, it would most likely be this.

SPOOKY – Stereo / Can’t Remember / Do Not Adjust Your Set / Mono (Generic 1995)
It’s an EP – I’m cheating again. But sod it, this is wonderful. Link.

BETH ORTON – Stolen Car / I Love How You Love Me / Precious Maybe (Heavenly 1999)
Since her first two albums, Beth’s gone more down the singer-songwriter with acoustic guitar route. I prefer her early post-club epics. “Stolen Car” is kind of halfway between the two. Just a great song that showcases her warm, but slightly rough-edged voice at its best.

SUPREMES – Stoned Love / Shine on Me (Motown 1970)
SUPREMES – Stop in the Name of Love / I’m in Love Again (Motown 1965)
I don’t think there was much dip in quality after Diana Ross left the Supremes, it’s just that times had changed and the era of the all-conquering Motown girl group was drawing to a close by then. “Stop in the Name of Love” has all the classic mid sixties ingredients of a dramatic chorus, infectious backbeat and the rest, but that kind of thing simply wasn’t in vogue in the following decade. “Stoned Love” showed that the formula was still capable of producing brilliant results despite the fact that Mary Wilson was the sole survivor of the classic trio.

BILLIE HOLIDAY – Strange Fruit / Fine and Mellow (Commodore 1939)
Her regular label Columbia wouldn’t touch this with a bargepole, but Billie Holiday was allowed to record this for the tiny Commodore imprint. Written by a Jewish, socialist northerner, the lyrics couldn’t have been more touching even if they came from the pen of a victim’s relative. This is a song about the aftermath of a lynching, and as such it is full of anger and despair. But Holiday gives it a great dignity. This is not unchanneled rage, but a fiercely proud performance. The haunting imagery, once with you, never goes away, though.

The M M & M 1000 – part 50

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles.

THE BYRDS – So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star / Everybody’s Been Burned (Columbia 43987 1967)
They had a bit of a nerve poking fun at the Monkees when just a couple of years earlier only McGuinn played on their own debut single. Still it’s a fun piece of satire. The flip is one of the best things the Byrds ever did, a dark but hopeful Crosby ballad.

BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE – Soldier Blue / Moratorium (RCA 2081 1971)
Ralph Nelson’s 1970 western Soldier Blue was unlike any other before it. Shockingly violent and, for once, the good guys were definitely not the US Cavalry. Based on a true massacre that happened in 1864, it was also as much about Mai Lai and the Vietnam War. Buffy Sainte-Marie, a Cree herself, invested the song with both anger and bitter sorrow and yet it is just as much a celebration of the natural wonders of a country and her own ancestry.

DUKE ELLINGTON & HIS ORCHESTRA – Solitude / Mood Indigo (Columbia 35427 1940)
Ivie Anderson is one of the most underrated jazz vocalists, and she shines on these two Ellington ballads, both of which have become standards crooned by virtually every nightclub and torch singer since.

PETER GABRIEL – Solsbury Hill / Moribund the Burgemeister (Charisma 301 1977)
Fresh out of Genesis, Peter Gabriel launched his solo career with this, still one of his most poignant songs. Solsbury Hill itself overlooks Bath in Somerset, and the song captures that very special pleasure of sitting somewhere still and peaceful and watching the lights and bustle of the city night below.

JESUS & MARY CHAIN – Some Candy Talking / Psychocandy / Hit (Blanco Y Negro 19 1986)
By 1986 the screech of feedback had largely been excised from the Mary Chain’s records, replaced by cavernous echo. With it went a lot of the vigour and excitement, but that didn’t matter so much on songs as good as this, with its booming Spectorish sound.

LEE HAZLEWOOD & NANCY SINATRA – Some Velvet Morning / Oh Lonesome Me (Reprise 651 1968)
How trippy is this? Essentially it sounds like a verse taken from two completely different songs intercut. Hazlewood’s bit is dark and rumbling like Johnny Cash meets Link Wray while Sinatra’s is hippy-dippy flower child stuff, well away with the faeries. It’s like a cocktail of quaaludes and acid.

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE – Somebody to Love / She Has Funny Cars (RCA 9140 1967)
When Grace Slick joined the Jefferson Airplane she brought this song along from her previous band the Great Society, written by her brother-in-law Darby Slick. The Airplane version is tighter and punchier with a chorus so strident it’s almost accusatory.

EDDIE COCHRAN – Somethin’ Else / Boll Weevil Song (Liberty 55203 1959)
STANDELLS – Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White / Why Don’t You Hurt Me? (Tower 257 1966)
By 1959, most of the first generation rock and rollers seemed to be mired in gloopy ballads and sounding little different to the pre-rock generation of singers like Johhny Ray and Frankie Vaughan. Eddie Cochran, on the other hand, still had a raw spirit about him: still sounded like someone a teenaged girl would think twice about introducing to her mother. That’s why he was so popular with the punks nearly two decades later, along with his friend Gene Vincent. The Standells, too, had that snotty fuck you attitude. But as they say in the song “You think those guys in the white collars are better than I am baby? / Then flake off!” True blue-collar working class pride…from a bunch of LA rich kids. Oh, well.

BLUR – Song 2 / Get out of the Cities (Food 93 1997)
The indignation this caused from my Pavement loving underground rock friends always made me laugh. It’s noisy and fun. What’s not to like?

LEFTFIELD – Song of Life / mixes (Hard Hands 002 1992)
A nine minute progressive house monster that pretty much defined the genre and still stands as one of the best tracks of its kind.

THIS MORTAL COIL – Song to the Siren / 16 Days (4AD 310 1983)
Originally This Mortal Coil were convened as a one-off project for this single, but its success was such that they ran to three albums, each with a constantly changing cast of performers. Liz Fraser hadn’t really tackled a proper lyrical song before, her voice more used as another instrument in the Cocteau Twins. But she gives Tim Buckley’s classic song a ghostly innocence that is absolutely captivating. The backing is so subtle that she’s almost on her own, but there’s no sign of nerves – she’s absolutely lost in the song. An amazing performance.

JOSEF K – Sorry For Laughing / Revelation (Postcard 814 1981)
Famously a band who seemed happier the flatter their records sounded; a band who scrapped their first album because it sounded too warm and produced and instead put out something tinny and stark. Paul Haig’s bored drone of a voice isn’t the most appealing instrument, but it gives this song a dry sarcasm. And it’s pretty much the touchstone record for the C86 generation.

LAVERN BAKER – Soul on Fire / How Can You Leave (Atlantic 1004 1953)
She’s better known for appealing, but ultimately disposable pop ditties like “Tweedle Dee” and “Jim Dandy”, but Lavern Baker was happiest singing the blues. If anything, though, “Soul on Fire” is deep southern soul a decade too early.

DAVID BOWIE – Sound and Vision / A New Career in a New Town (RCA 905 1977)
A long long way from Ziggy in just four years. “Sound and Vision” was the introduction to Bowie’s leftfield masterpiece Low and about as traditionally pop as the album got. Which isn’t very.

SIMON & GARFUNKEL – The Sound of Silence / We’ve Got a Groovy Thing Goin’ On (Columbia 43396 1965)
Dylan had gone electric, the Byrds were having big hits doing jangly folk-rock. It made sense for Simon & Garfunkel to add drums and rock arrangements. Unfortunately they weren’t working together at the time, and Paul Simon was touring folk clubs in Europe armed only with his trusty acoustic. Producer Tom Wilson stepped in anyway, gave the track a new “with it” backing and Columbia watched another of their folk acts have a huge hit. Simon might not have liked it, but he could hardly complain at the new levels of exposure, and the duo quickly reconvened.

MEMBERS – Sound of the Suburbs / Handling the Big Jets (Virgin 242 1979)
They came from around ten miles away from me, and lyrically this song captured perfectly the tedium of North Surrey / East Berkshire Sundays. Nothing else to do but kick a football around with your mates. Nothing on telly, nothing on the radio (except David Rodigan’s Sunday show on Radio London) and school next day.

More soon

The M M & M 1000 – part 45

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. The end of the Rs.

MODERN LOVERS – Roadrunner Once / Roadrunner Twice (Beserkley 1 1977)
The rhythm’s straight out of the Neu motorik! handbook. The bass line is equally hypnotic. On top of it, Jonathan Richman’s vocal is almost a chant, with the chorus a primitive response of “Radio On”. It gives the song the sense of the monotony of night time freeway driving, with just the radio to break the tedium.

LONNIE DONEGAN – Rock Island Line / John Henry (Decca 10647 1955)
The UK skiffle boom started with Lonnie Donegan, Beryl Bryden and Chris Barber doing short sets of American folk-blues songs such as this one by Leadbelly during the interval at gigs by Barber’s jazz band. With Donegan singing and playing guitar, Bryden providing a washboard rhythm and Barber the stand-up bass, the blueprint for hundreds of skiffle combos was set.

DAVID BOWIE – Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide / Quicksand (RCA 5021 1974)
Cabaret singer Camille O’Sullivan does a superb version of this at her live shows, with the accent on the Brel like melodrama of the song. Chuck in Mick Ronson’s sinister guitar climax and you have one of Bowie’s best songs of the Ziggy era.

BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD – Rock ‘n’ Roll Woman / A Child’s Claim to Fame (Atco 6519 1967)
Despite the rock cliché title, this is one of Stephen Stills’ best tunes, with the harmonies a kind of trial run for those that made CSN superstars.

JACKIE BRENSTON – Rocket 88 / Come Back Where You Belong (Chess 1458 1951)
A classic rock ‘n’ roll record. The first rock ‘n’ roll record? Many claim so, but it’s a pointless debate. No one record was beamed in from the future to provide a rock year zero. It’s a debate about something that has no answer.

HERBIE HANCOCK – Rockit / version (Columbia 4054 1983)
Jazz purists like to snort haughtily at Herbie Hancock’s excursions into the mainstream, but he’s always managed to incorporate things like funk, disco and in this case electro without coming across as a tourist or a bandwagon jumper. This isn’t jazz. Even so, Hancock’s playing still retains a definite jazz-like looseness even on something as stripped down and robotic as this.

REM – (Don’t Go Back to) Rockville / Catapult (IRS 9931 1984)
“Rockville” was REM’s most straightforward statement up to that point – a sixties soaked country-rock tune with a singalong chorus. It could almost have been a Monkees tune.

BARRY ANDREWS – Rossmore Road / Win a Night Out With a Well Known Paranoiac (Virgin 378 1980)
A genuine cult record. Not widely known at all, but generally loved by those who do know it. Andrews was the keyboard player with XTC, and “Rossmore Road” was a lush, melancholy hymn to the eponymous suburban street. The B side is a cracked, rambling semi-jazz thing along the lines of Joni’s “Twisted”

THELONIOUS MONK QUINTET – Round About Midnight / Well You Needn’t (Blue Note 543 1947)
In my mind, the finest tune to come out of the bop era, and much covered. The melody is fairly simple, romantic and wistfully nocturnal, despite some quite unusual chords. It’s been covered a zillion times (Robert Wyatt’s is the best), but nothing has the same evocative noir-ish atmosphere as this 1947 recording.

THE FALL – Rowche Rumble / In My Area (Step Forward 11 1979)
Amazing to think that thirty years on, the Fall are still making great records. Powered by a tinny organ riff and tribal drums, this invective against Big Pharma (as no one called it then) still sounds as fresh and exciting as the day it came out.

DR FEELGOOD – Roxette / Route 66 (United Artists 35760 1974)
THE SPINNERS – The Rubberband Man / Now That We’re Together (Atlantic 3355 1976)
LINK WRAY – Rumble / The Swag (Cadence 1347 1958)
So many songs on this list are built upon an outstanding, but simple bass line. These three very different tunes are all examples of that. “Roxette”, the Feelgoods’ finest three minutes, has a punishing three note bass riff over which Wilko Johnson provides a clipped guitar harmony. Add Lee Brilleaux’s growling, angry vocal, and you have a menacing tale of the adulterer caught red-handed. The Spinners didn’t enter the disco era with generic pap like so many of their peers, but came up with this beauty kept afloat by a boinging rubber bass that has the same in your face repetition as Giorgio Moroder’s synth riffs. On top, the harmonies were as lush as ever. Link Wray’s “Rumble” is a prowling beast that almost plods along on a slow walking bass line that gives the guitarist free reign to sketch the most primitive of melodies with a series of thrashed chords. It’s dirty, sullen and delinquent – the perfect rock record.

DEL SHANNON – Runaway / Jody (Big Top 3067 1961)
Conventional rock history will have you believe that pop music was all bland and sugary between 1958, when the original rock & roll era burned itself out and 1963 when the Beatles arrived on their white chargers to save it. Piffle. Link Wray, Johnny Kidd, the Wailers, Sandy Nelson and countless others kept the primitive rock flame alive during this period while Motown, Stax and southern soul were blossoming. Even mainstream pop acts like Del Shannon were coming up with records that were as sonically adventurous as they were catchy. “Runaway” has a great proto-synth break, a great chorus and a futuristic, effects-laden production. It’s far more forward-looking than anything the Beatles managed until 1965.

SLY & THE FAMILY STONE – Runnin’ Away / Brave and Strong (Epic 10829 1972)
I’ve said it before in these pages, but I find There’s a Riot Goin’ On close to unlistenable. The tunes are fine, but the production is muffled and worn with all the dynamics squeezed out of it. “Runnin’ Away” emerges more or less unscathed, mainly because it’s quite a downbeat, introspective tune to begin with.

ROY ORBISON – Running Scared / Love Hurts (Monument 438 1961)
The Big O’s bolero. Da-da-da-daah, da-da-da-daah goes the rhythm. Tango? Not sure, but it lays a dramatic foundation for Orbison to build on with one of his typically grandiose, emotionally raw melodramas.

KATE BUSH – Running Up That Hill / Under the Ivy (EMI KATE1 1985)
I’m not a huge Kate Bush fan. It’s not her voice, which many people find irritating, but her tendency to over-produce and over-complicate things. That said, there’s no getting away from the fact that this track is an absolute marvel. The production is as dense as they come, but it all fits together to give it a real sense of propulsion. And the song glides brilliantly over the top (in all senses of the phrase). A stunning achievement.

More soon

The M M & M 1000 – part 31

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. Some more Ls.

LFO – LFO (Leeds Warehouse Mix) / Track 4 (Warp WAP5 1990)
Inspired by Warp’s early bleep techno releases, Gez Varley and Mark Bell put their signature track together for a pittance. It immediately caused an earthquake in dance music, not least because of the ultra-low frequency bass that aimed at the body rather than the ears. But they were smart enough to give it an effective, if simple, melodic structure and the speak-and-spell vocal gimmick that makes it instantly recognisable. Its success bemused mainstream DJs, some of whom seemed to view it as a personal affront. Nearly twenty years on it’s as vital and fresh-sounding as it was the day Varley and Bell handed the tape over to Warp at a Leeds Warehouse rave (hence the title of the mix).

DAVID BOWIE – Life on Mars? / The Man Who Sold the World (RCA 2316 1973)
With Bowie suddenly a megastar, RCA dug out a couple of old tracks from 1971 and 1970 and issued them as a stopgap single. Unlike most stopgap singles, “Life on Mars?” went on to become one of the most enduring tunes of his Ziggy period. It even served as shorthand for the whole decade as the title for the BBC’s celebrated coma timeswitch cop show. And we’re close to answering the question too – maybe not, but there probably used to be.

WALKABOUTS – The Light Will Stay On / Devil’s Road (Dindisc 152 1996)
I’ve cursed the band’s lack of recognition (at least in the English speaking world) before on these pages. In their long career they’ve moved from grunge fellow travellers to America’s Tindersticks and all points in between, covered Nina Simone and Neu! and crafted dozens of brilliant songs. “The Light Will Stay On”, sung with a yearning resignation by Carla Torgerson, is one of their best and best known songs. It’s both heartache and catharsis rolled into one magnificent ballad.

MADONNA – Like a Prayer / Act of Contrition (Sire 27539 1989)
MADONNA – Live to Tell / instrumental (Sire 28717 1986)
Madonna’s swung back and forth from cultural icon to laughing stock over her 25 year career. At the moment she seems to be everyone’s favourite celebrity to take a pop at. She’s not entirely blameless for the situation, but at the end of the day, she’s got a back catalogue to be proud of (and admittedly a lot that would be better be forgotten). “Like a Prayer” courted controversy, and got it, with its ‘black Christ’ video, but the song’s joyous message of faith and love gets through even to a die-hard heathen like me. “Live to Tell” is an eighties record. The fact that it’s swirled with plastic synths and ridiculously ott snare drums is a bit of a give away. Epic pop ballads don’t come much better, though.

BOB DYLAN – Like a Rolling Stone / Gates of Eden (Columbia 43346 1965)
O’JAYS – Lipstick Traces / Think It Over, Baby (Imperial 66102 1965)
Greil Marcus wrote a book about it, so there’s hardly any point in trying to say something original about “Like a Rolling Stone”. He also wrote a book that took its title from the O’Jays song. I read it many years ago, but have completely forgotten it. So much for an iconic piece of music criticism. The song I couldn’t forget. It has a mellow warmth that seems quite out of time with the soul music of its day.

MIGHTY LEMONDROPS – Like an Angel / Something Happens (Dreamworld 5 1985)
The ‘firework act’ is not a new phenomenon, despite what many commentators would have you believe. For those unfamiliar with the term, it describes the career path of an indie band who have a highly praised and successful debut album, a less successful follow-up and then get dropped before their third, spending the rest of the time as the subject of occasional whatever-happened-to pub conversations. The Lemondrops had a brilliant first single on an independent label, signed to a major, released a debut album that cruelly exposed them as having a single idea, and then hurtled quickly to oblivion. Still, “Like an Angel” is like the Bunnymen meets Sonic Youth and is a more than acceptable legacy.

SANDY DENNY – Listen, Listen / Tomorrow is a Long Time (Island 6142 1972)
Time stops when Sandy sings. Smoky, sensual and sad, her voice always seems to be yearning for something lost, something missing. “Listen, Listen” is lustrous and full, but seems to have an aching hole at its heart.

NIGHTCRAWLERS – Little Black Egg / You’re Running Wild (Kapp 709 1965)
The garage band explosion tat followed the British Invasion in the US, largely fell into two groups. First, the testosterone-fueled, snotty teens whose legacy went back beyond their obvious idols, the Stones, to the likes of the Kingsmen, the Wailers, Link Wray, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. Then there were the mumsy Beatle wannabes. It makes the legendary Nuggets box a collection of Dennis the Menaces and Softie Walters. The Nightcrawlers don’t fit into either category. “Little Black Egg” is a charming, but somehow sad ditty with a Byrdsian feel. In the great garage scrap, they were the shy misfits.

TELEVISION – Little Johnny Jewel / part 2 (Ork 81975 1975)
Television were jazz-heads more than rock fans. Verlaine and Lloyd swapped solos like Coltrane and Miles, with no sense of the look-at-me egotism of your average rock guitar solo. Recorded two years before their masterpiece Marquee Moon, “Little Johnny Jewel” shows a band with everything in place, patiently waiting for an opportunity to show the world what they could do. It has the riff a recurring theme, Verlaine’s quirky startled-poet vocals, and solos that complement rather than compete or draw attention to themselves. The recording’s a bit rough and ready, but that’s not a problem.

PRINCE – Little Red Corvette / All the Critics Luv U in New York (Warners 29746 1983)
It may be a cliché, but the idea of cars as manhood substitutes is grounded in reality. I’m only five foot nothing in my socks, but look at my flashy Chevy! Still, he makes the car as sex symbol pretty plausible in this song. He’s bonkers, but you gotta luv him.

ORIGINAL DIXIELAND JAZZ BAND – Livery Stable Blues / Dixieland Jass Band One Step (Victor 18255 1917)
Bandleader Nick La Rocca may have been a racist, an egomaniac, a tireless self-publicist and an all-round knobhead, but you can’t disguise the fact that this was the first genuine jazz record. It opened the doors to a cultural revolution. They weren’t the first New Orleans jazz band, and they sure weren’t the best (although clarinetist Larry Shields was a widely acknowledged master of his instrument), but compared to the other records of the day, this was a blast of pure energy. It predates electrical recording, so the music does sound compressed and fuzzy, but it still sounds good, even now.

STEVIE WONDER – Living for the City / Visions (Tamla 54242 1973)
Stevie Wonder has always had two sides to his music – the personal and the socio-political. Both have a deep vein of spirituality running through them, that can sometimes be uplifting, and sometimes corny as hell. For the most part, though, when he tackled political and social themes, he did so with a measured, optimistic voice. It wasn’t often that he let the anger through. He did on “Living for the City”, a scathing attack on the cycle of poverty, racism and injustice encountered by working class African-Americans throughout the nation’s inner cities.

More soon

The M M & M 1000 – part 21

The Guardian nicked my idea! Well, kinda.

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. ‘Alf of the aitches..

LONNIE JOHNSON & BLIND WILLIE DUNN – Handful of Riffs / Bullfrog Moan (Okeh 8695 1929)
This dates back to a time when having a racial mix of artists on the same record was taboo. Thus white jazz guitarist Eddie Lang adopted a ‘blues name’ alias for the music that he recorded with Lonnie Johnson. Both players were adept in a variety of styles – Lang had played jazz with Joe Venuti and even recorded a Rachmaninov prelude for solo guitar while Johnson had played both jazz and blues. “Handful of Riffs” is typical of their guitar duets, both soulful and technically innovative. They influenced a long line of players from John Fahey to Richard Bishop.

JOHNNY BRISTOL – Hang On in There Baby / Take Care of You For Me (MGM 14715 1974)
Johnny Bristol was in his mid thirties by the time his singing career took off. His past decade and a half had been spent as a producer and songwriter at Motown and CBS. “Hang On in There Baby” is a passionate piece of Philly proto-disco.

JIMMY CLIFF – The Harder They Come / Many Rivers To Cross (Island 6139 1972)
24 year old Jimmy Cliff made his acting debut as Ivanhoe Martin, the hero of Perry Henzell’s 1972 film of Jamaican ghetto life, The Harder They Come. His self-penned title track has become one of the most covered reggae tunes over the years, but none matches the intensity of the original.

BOB & EARL – The Harlem Shuffle / I’ll Keep Running Back (Marc 104 1963)
The early sixties saw a plethora of dance crazes, each inspiring hundreds of records. “The Harlem Shuffle” was something altogether more gritty and real than the endless exhortations to do the twist / the monkey / the mashed potato etc etc. Bobby Byrd (aka Bobby Day) and Earl Nelson had both been members of doowop act the Hollywood Flames in the fifties, but by the time this came out, Nelson was working with a different Bob – Bobby Relf.

BUZZCOCKS – Harmony in My Head / Something’s Gone Wrong Again (United Artists 36541 1979)
This isn’t generally considered to be one of the band’s best singles, but it remains one of my favourites. It’s a rare lead vocal outing for Steve Diggle, whose gruff bark is in stark contrast to Pete Shelley’s romantic pleadings. It gives the song a darker, angrier, more urgent feel – but it still has a fantastic singalong chorus.

ISLEY BROTHERS – Harvest for the World / part 2 (T Neck 2261 1976)
In the mid seventies, the Isleys were usually more concerned with sex and dancing than politics, but “Harvest for the World” is a heartfelt plea for a redistribution of wealth and an end to hunger that could have come straight out of the Curtis Mayfield songbook.

CHI-LITES – Have You Seen Her? / Yes I’m Ready (Brunswick 55462 1971)
Bloke mooches around at the movies and the local park, swaps jokes with the neighbourhood kids, but inside he’s a broken man because the girl he loves has flown the coop. It’s the classic seventies soul heartbreak scenario, with talkie intro and outro. A “Tracks of My Tears” for the afro and flares generation – and an absolute beauty of a song.

BODINES – Heard It All / Clear (Creation 30 1986)
Glossop’s finest have long since faded into obscurity, which is a shame. They only made one album, and that’s long out of print, but they did a clutch of great singles. This is indie pop at its purest – urgent, melodic and with an upbeat melancholy. Most of the Creation acts of the time were obsessed with the sixties – the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the Byrds – but the Bodines owed more to Postcard records. LTM or somebody should get on the case and do a proper anthology of the band. They don’t deserve to be forgotten.

TOM WAITS – The Heart of Saturday Night / Diamonds On My Windshield (Asylum 45262 1975)
“The Heart of Saturday Night” is typical of Tom Waits’ early days as a romantic barfly. It’s a bruised, but hopeful, song about the joy of the weekend – the anticipation, the pool halls, the waitresses. On the album, whose title it shares, it closes the first side. The second finishes with its companion piece, “The Ghosts of Saturday Night”, a reflective, glazed early morning peek at the aftermath which is even better.

ELVIS PRESLEY – Heartbreak Hotel / I Was the One (RCA 6420 1956)
This is one of those songs that is so familiar to everyone, that few probably really listen to it properly. What makes it so great is the empty space – the ghostly echoes that evoke a world of limbo between the living and the dead. It’s regularly cited as a key rock and roll tune, but it’s more a slice of American Gothic that owes as much to Edgar Allen Poe as it does to rhythm and blues.

MARTHA & THE VANDELLAS – Heat Wave / A Love Like Yours (Gordy 7022 1963)
Just one of the reasons why the Vandellas were always the greatest of Motown’s girl groups – and by extension, the greatest of the whole genre. It encapsulates the sweat and the joy of a carefree summer night.

DEEP BLUE – The Helicopter Tune / mixes (Moving Shadow 41 1993)
Deep Blue was Sean O’Keefe, a member of 2 Bad Mice and, more recently, Black Rain with Rob Haigh of Omni Trio. “The Helicopter Tune” was a landmark record in the history of jungle. It ditched the rude bwoy / ragga stylings of much of the early stuff in favour of a clinical, cyclical rhythm that had very little in the way of adornment. It’s one of the few records of the era that still sounds like it’s been beamed in from the future.

THEM – Here Comes the Night / All For Myself (Decca 12094 1965)
While it doesn’t have the same snotty urgency that “Gloria” has, “Here Comes the Night” still sounds more akin to the likes of the Sonics and the Standells than it does to any of Them’s mainland UK contemporaries.

DAVID BOWIE – Heroes / V2 Schneider (RCA 1121 1977)
Actually, the seven inch edit that mostly gets played on the radio is rubbish. It starts something like two minutes in. It’s like beginning a novel on page 80! The full six minute version is one of Bowie’s finest records – a dense, claustrophobic, almost desperate piece of self-delusion.

MEMPHIS JUG BAND – He’s in the Jailhouse Now / Round and Round (Victor 23256 1930)
“He’s in the Jailhouse Now” is one of those pre-war hillbilly tunes that exist in loads of different versions, credited to loads of different writers (Jimmie Rodgers being one). It probably dates back much further than the 1920s. This has always been my favourite take. I like the loose and rough raucousness of Will Shade’s mob.

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The M M & M 1000 – part 11

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. Continuing with the Cs.

SAM COOKE – Chain Gang / I Fall in Love Every Day (RCA 7783 1960)
“Chain Gang” stems from the tradition of field hollers and work songs that go back to the days of slavery. The parallels of the convict chain gang and the field slaves are obvious. Cooke’s sweet Gospel pipes are a long way from Lead Belly or Alger Alexander’s untutored moans, but the spirit is no different. Quite a radical thing to get into the charts in 1960.

BIG COUNTRY – Chance / Tracks of My Tears (Mercury COUNT4 1983)
Never has a band fallen out of fashion quite as quickly as Big Country, but their first album was a massive commercial and critical success. They resonated at a time when the industrial north of Britain was being dismantled. They somehow represented traditional working class values – the coal-face, the steel mill, the shipyard and the factory. “Chance” is a spare and simple, but moving ballad that plays like a 1960s Kitchen Sink drama.

JOSEF K – Chance Meeting / Pictures (Postcard 815 1981)
Despite their propensity to self-sabotage – the scrapping of Sorry For Laughing in favour of the much less penetrable The Only Fun in Town, for example – Josef K could still turn a mean tune. Despite Paul Haig’s flat-as-fenland vocals, and the guitars being all top end and no middle, “Chance Meeting” has a real anthemic quality to it – particularly when the horns blast in towards the end.

DAVID BOWIE – Changes / Andy Warhol (RCA 2160 1972)
Although pre-dating the Ziggy era, “Changes” feels like an intrinsic part of it.

THE COASTERS – Charlie Brown / Three Cool Cats (Atco 6132 1959)
THE CURE – Charlotte Sometimes / Splintered in Her Head (Fiction 14 1981)
Two songs about schooldays. They could hardly be more different. “Charlie Brown” is the class clown whose misdemeanours are minor, but who has an unerring capacity to get caught. Classic Leiber and Stoller. “Charlotte Sometimes” is a children’s book by Penelope Farmer. Its heroine gets caught up in a time travelling body-swap at her boarding school with a girl from the Edwardian era. It has a heartbreaking ending. The Cure more or less sketch the broad plot in their song, including chunks of lyrics that are directly lifted from the book. Sonically, it is the bridging point between the subdued misery of Faith and the outright psychosis of Pornography, and is, for me, the group’s best single.

PLANET PATROL – Cheap Thrills / instrumental (Tommy Boy 835 1983)
Planet Patrol were legendary producers John Robie and Arthur Baker. For this project, they took an electro template and applied a pop sensibility. “Cheap Thrills” sounds like a disco song, but the music behind it is pure underground. It’s one of the best feel-good dance floor fillers of the era.

ELVIS COSTELLO – (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea / You Belong to Me (Radar 3 1978)
“Chelsea” runs on a bassline that is part ska, part post-punk and part dub. It’s a perfect chassis for one of Costello’s most sneeringly awkward, but nevertheless catchy songs.

THE BYRDS – Chestnut Mare / Just a Season (Columbia 45259 1970)
The Byrds were long past their best when “Chestnut Mare” came out. It sold squat in the US, but was a big hit over here – more as a novelty, than due to a solid fan base. The verses sound like those cheesy, talky country tunes that you’d get from the likes of Red Sovine, whereas the chorus is pure Rickenbacker jingly-jangly Byrds. It works, though, and you find yourself rooting for McGuinn as he struggles to tame the wild force of nature that is the horse of the title.

THE MISUNDERSTOOD – Children of the Sun / I Unseen (Fontana 998 1969)
The Misunderstood were a psychedelic garage band from Riverside, California. They moved to London in 1966, only to split up a few months later. They left very little recorded music, but “Children of the Sun” was eventually issued two years after their demise. And what a song. It has the energy of the 13th Floor Elevators, but bizarrely comes out sounding like the Stranglers.

ORBITAL – Chime / Deeper (Ffrr 135 1990)
Famously recorded for about £20 or something, “Chime” was the track that took UK techno to the masses. Simple, but hypnotic, it laid the foundation for all of what was to follow during the first half of the nineties. It still sounds brilliant, too.

THE HEARTBREAKERS – Chinese Rocks / Born to Lose (Track 2094135 1977)
Johnny Thunders’ life story encapsulated in two tunes. Both songs are the epitome of loose garage rock that had its roots in the New York Dolls, the Stones and the Ramones, but would influence countless bands from the Replacements to the Libertines.

IMPRESSIONS – Choice of Colors / Mighty Mighty, Spade and Whitey (Curtom 1943 1969)
Outside of Motown, the Impressions were the greatest vocal act of the sixties, with a peerless lead singer and songwriter in Curtis Mayfield. Where many acts tackled the civil rights issue with inoffensive “let’s all live in harmony” type platitudes, Mayfield got down to the nitty gritty, but never in a militant way. It was always about self-education, self-empowerment and self-respect with Curtis. “Choice of Colors” is such a call, and a mighty moving tune too.

THE HOUSE OF LOVE – Christine / Loneliness is a Gun (Creation 53 1988)
For about a year during 87/88, I thought the House of Love were the best guitar band in Britain. They took the jangly indiepop blueprint of Creation’s other acts and gave it depth, power and focus. The songs were tight and concise, but packed a real punch, both physically and emotionally. “Christine” was probably the third best of their first four singles, but still a masterpiece.

NEIL YOUNG – Cinammon Girl / Sugar Mountain (Reprise 911 1970)
After the psychedelic acoustics of his first solo album, Neil Young knuckled down to rock & roll basics on his second, accompanied for the first time by his stalwart sidekicks Crazy Horse. “Cinammon Girl” remains a live staple, and is his archetypal short and punchy rock song.

TINDERSTICKS – City Sickness / Untitled / The Bullring (This Way Up 1811 1993)
“City Sickness” was the first Tindersticks song I heard, and I was instantly smitten. In some ways, it remains their perfect song – lush, world-weary, downbeat, but with a zip of defiance and a glorious melody.

BETTY WRIGHT – Clean Up Woman / I’ll Love You Forever (Alston 4601 1971)
Betty Wright was just seventeen when she recorded this. She sounds twice that age, and I mean that in a good way. Her voice has a grit and wordliness that sounds like it has years of experience behind it. “Clean Up Woman” was her first single, and remains a prime slab of earthy funky soul.

CYBOTRON – Clear / Industrial Lies (Fantasy 216 1983)
Cybotron was Vietnam vet Richard Davis and a teenaged Juan Atkins. Their first couple of records were typical electro outings, but with “Clear” there was something new happening. The beats were crisper, harder and the pulse somehow more robotic. Many would argue that it was the first true techno record. I wouldn’t argue with them.

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