Captain Beefheart: Mirror Man

Captain Beefheat, also know as Don Van Vliet, was one of the strangest artists in the history of rock music. His music might be off-putting for those whose tastes are limited to the mainstream, but for the initiated, his quirky and often downright bizarre music is a source of infinite amusement. Beefheart has been critically-praised for decades for his highly original music which incorporates rock, blues, and avant-garde jazz. Beefheart was always supported on recordings by various versions of his “Magic Band.”

Born Don Glen Vliet, Beefheart started out with childhood friend Frank Zappa in local groups such as The Omens and The Blackouts. Around this time he added “Van” to his name and was thus named Don Van Vliet. His colorful moniker, “Captain Beefheart,” came from Zappa who observed that he sang as if he had a “beef in his heart.”

In 1965, the first Magic Band was formed. They played blues and R&B, both covers & original material, and scored a contract with A&M Records with whom they released two singles. The first, “Diddy Wah Diddy,” became a minor hit, but the label discarded them anyway.

In 1967, Beefheart and the Magic Band landed a contract with Buddah Records and recorded their brilliant debut, “Safe as Milk” (1967). The album was rooted in blues and R&B, and while containing moments of slight weirdness like the track, “Electricity,” the sound of the band was still palatable to mainstream listeners.

This changed with the release of the great and sometimes controversial, “Trout Mask Replica” (1969), Beefheart’s masterpiece. It is one of the strangest recordings in the history of popular music. The music is a synthesis of pure avant-garde jazz and rock almost devoid of melody and harmony, featuring songs not so much sung, as croaked by Beefheart, whose voice, at the best of times, could be described as grating. As such, the album is unlistenable for mainstream music fans, but it is over-flowing with creativity and humour.

Beefheart would continue to release albums for the next 15 years which followed in a similar vein. The best of Beefheart’s post-Sixties work is: “Lick My Decals Off, Baby” (1970), “Mirror Man” (1971), “Clear Spot” (1972), “Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)” (1978), and “Doc at the Radar Station” (1980).

Beefheart, one of the true originals of rock music, died in 2010.

The Animals: Animalism

The Animals, lead by singer, Eric Burdon, were part of the British invasion of the Sixties. The Animals were among the finest of the blues-based rock bands to emerge from Britain in the Sixties.

Burdon, organist Alan Price and drummer John Steel started out in a Newcastle band called the Kansas City Five. In 1962, with the additions of guitarist Hilton Valentine and bassist Chas Chandler, the band eventually became known as the Animals.

The band landed a regular gig at the Crawdaddy Club in London. Record producer Mickie Most got them signed to EMI on the strength of their live performances, and the label released their first singles, “Baby Let Me Take You Home” and “House of the Rising Sun,” in 1964. The latter song would become a huge hit and transform the band into one of the leading acts of the British Invasion.

The Animals continued recording a slew of hits throughout the Sixties with, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” “We Got to Get Out Of This Place,” “When I Was Young,” “Monterrey,” and Sky Pilot.”

After recording several excellent albums, starting with their fine debut release, “The Animals” (1964) the band broke-up in 1969.

Among their best albums are the classics, “The Animals on Tour,” (1965) “Animalization” (1966) and “Animalism” (1966), and “Animalisms” (1966).

Jimi Hendrix Albums

When guitar heroes of rock music are discussed, Jimi Hendrix’s name is often mentioned as perhaps the best of them all. Of course, the topic is highly subjective, and Hendrix status as a rock star who died while still in his twenties can prejudice any such discussion. It is clear, however, that he is among an elite group of rock guitarists, and his prodigious technical skill and showmanship rendered him the first true guitar god of rock. 

Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1942. Following a less than stellar stint in the army, he got his start in music as a session guitarist for R&B acts such as King Curtis and the Isley Brothers, and in live performances with the likes of Slim Harpo, Jackie Wilson, Curtis Knight and the Squires, and Sam Cooke. By the mid-Sixties, Hendrix had dubbed himself, “Jimmy James” and with his band, The Blue Flames, was playing the club scene in New York’s Greenwich Village.

In a fortuitous turn, Hendrix met the girlfriend of The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, Linda Keith, at a New York City club. Keith recommended Hendrix to the Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog Oldham and Chas Chandler of the Animals. Chandler was impressed with Hendrix’s song, “Hey Joe,” and brought him to London in the fall of 1966.

Chandler brought in two Englishmen, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell as Hendrix’s sidemen and named the newly formed trio, “The Jimi Hendrix Experience.” Hendrix and his new band would soon make rock music history by recording three albums that would all go down in history as ground-breaking classics in the annals of rock.

The first album, “Are You Experienced,” was released in the United Kingdom in the spring of 1967, and shortly thereafter in North America. It was an instant commercial and critical success and contained the classic tunes, “Are You Experienced,” “Fire,” “Hey Joe,” and “Purple Haze.” The album is now hailed as one of the greatest rock albums ever recorded.

Hendrix would follow-up his outstanding debut with “Axis: Bold as Love,” also from 1967. This album contained fewer “hits,” but featured some technical innovations previously unheard on popular music recordings. The opening track, “EXP,” contains channel-switching stereo effects which have the guitar sound fading in one channel and re-emerging in the other. Hendrix also uses the “wah-wah” pedal for the first time on this recording.

For his third effort, “Electric Ladyland” (1968), Hendrix brought in Steve Winwood, Dave Mason and Chris Wood from Traffic and Al Kooper from The Blues Project. The ambitious double album featured the epic tracks, “All Along the Watchtower,” probably the best and most original Bob Dylan cover ever, and “Voodoo Chile (slight return).”

Hendrix and the Experience would break-up and later reunite as “They Band of Gypsys,” and a live album of the Gypsys would appear in 1970. Hendrix died of an apparent drug overdose in London, in September of 1970.



Buffalo Springfield: For What It's Worth

Buffalo Springfield formed as a result of a famous chance meeting on the Sunset Strip between Neil Young and Steven Stills. After driving his 53’Pontiac hearse from Toronto to Los Angeles with his friend, bassist Bruce Palmer, Neil Young encountered Stills on that famous street. Stills was with his friend, singer and guitarist Ritchie Furay, at the time. Stills and Young had previously met in Toronto and instantly recognized each other. The four musicians stopped, chatted, and decided to form a band. Americans Stills and Furay and Canadians Young, Palmer, and drummer Dewey Martin would become famous as “Buffalo Springfield” in 1966.

Buffalo Springfield released their debut album, “Buffalo Springfield” in 1966 and found instant critical acclaim and popularity. Their music could best be described as folk-rock, but this talented assemblage of musicians played a variety of styles including folk, country, rock, and pop. “For what it’s Worth,” “Go and Say Goodbye,” Flying on The Ground Is Wrong,” and “Nowadays Clancy Can Even Sing” are all classic tracks from the debut album.

With their next effort, “Buffalo Springfield Again” (1967), the band would produce their masterpiece. This album was more consistent than the debut and featured more studio polish courtesy of producer Jack Nitzche. “Expecting to Fly” and “Broken Arrow,” two songs by Neil Young, are the albums’ highlights.

 The band would produce one more solid album, “Last Time Around” (1968), featuring outstanding tracks in “Kind Woman,” “One the Way Home,” and “I Am a Child” before disbanding.

Despite their brief run of just two years, Buffalo Springfield was a hugely influential band that spawned the solo careers of Young and Stills and future country-rock bands Poco, Manassas and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

Led Zeppelin Albums and History

Led Zeppelin was one of the first hard rock supergroups, and a band which enjoyed unprecedented popularity in the hard rock arena. The band came together from the ashes of the last incarnation of the Yardbirds, which featured the young guitar hero, Jimmy Page. Page teamed up with bassist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham, but the new band needed a lead singer to round out its line-up. Terry Reid was considered at first, but when he proved to be unavailable, Robert Plant was brought in.

The new band was initially called, “The New Yardbirds,” but changed their name to “Led Zeppelin” as a response to one observer who predicted their doom by stating, “They’ll go down like a lead balloon.” Like most other early hard rock bands, Zeppelin had a solid grounding in the electric blues of Chicago, especially where Hubert Sumlin, Otis Rush and Howlin’ Wolf were concerned.

The band’s debut album, “Led Zeppelin” (1968), clearly revealed that influence as the band recorded revolutionary takes on a number of Chess standards such as “You Shook Me,” “I Can't Quit You,” and “How Many More Times” with over-amplified bass, guitar and drums and the banshee-like vocals of Robert Plant. The album remains today one of the all-time classics of hard rock.

Their next effort, the superb “Led Zeppelin 2” (1969), contained fewer covers and moved more toward a mainstream hard rock sound with classic tracks such as “Heartbreaker,” “Whole Lotta Love,” and “Ramble On.” Their third release, “Led Zeppelin 3” (1970), was a more eclectic affair featuring several acoustic performances by Page and the hard-driving, “Immigrant Song.”

The band’s next release, “Led Zeppelin 4” (1971), would ultimately become their masterpiece due in large part to the presence of one of the most popular rock tracks ever, “Stairway to Heaven.” In addition to this hard rock anthem, there were other gems such as the folk-rock of “The Battle of Evermore,” featuring a vocal duet between Plant and former Fairport Convention lead singer, Sandy Denny. This album remains one of the best-selling and most-praised rock albums in history.

The first Led Zeppelin album to actually bear a proper title, “Houses of the Holy” (1973), followed next. It was yet another outstanding offering, containing the standout tracks, “The Song Remains the Same,” and “Over the Hills and Far Away.” The double album, “Physical Graffiti,” was next and continued Led Zeppelin’s almost unprecedented run of fine albums. Another diverse release, the album contained the epic track, “Kashmir.”

The very solid, “Presence,” was released in 1976, followed by the somewhat disappointing, “In Through the Out Door,” in 1979. An excellent live album of material from the Seventies, “How the West was Won,” would appear out of the blue in 2003.

The Flying Burrito Brothers: Burrito Deluxe

Flying Burrito Brothers (The)

In 1968, Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman were members of the Byrds and with their band had recorded the classic album, “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” the first official “country-rock” album. Parsons and Hillman left the Byrds shortly after and with Chris Ethridge, a bassist, and “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow, a steel guitar player, formed the Flying Burrito Brothers, the band that would spread the gospel of this new genre.

The band would produce a brilliant debut album, a decent sophomore album and then Parsons would be gone to pursue a solo career leaving Hillman to continue the band without him.

In 1969, that brilliant debut, “The Gilded Palace of Sin,” was released. The album was a soulful synthesis of rock and country featuring aching vocal harmonies and atmospheric pedal steel work by Pete Kleinow. The album contained the unforgettable tracks “Christine’s Tune,” “Sin City,” “My Uncle,” and an utterly original take on the soul classic, “Dark End of The Street.”

The next year, 1970, saw the release of the follow-up, “Burrito Deluxe,” a solid offering with standout tracks, “Wild Horses,” “God’s Own Singer,” and “Older Guys.” In 1971, the Burrito Brothers, minus Parsons, released a fine album, “The Flying Burrito Brothers” featuring a fine version of “White Line Fever”.

The band continued to release albums throughout the Seventies with Hillman as the sole original member, but nothing they did even came close to their great debut.

The Rolling Stones: Midnight Ramblers

The Rolling Stones are, save the Beatles, the most famous rock band of all time. The Stones emerged from London around the same time that the Beatles were breaking out from their hometown, Liverpool. While the Beatles have long ago parted, The Rolling Stones are still a functioning rock band, although with its members now in their seventies, the band is now only occasionally productive.

The Stones current lineup consists of Mick Jagger on lead vocals; Keith Richards on guitar; Charlie Watts on drums; and Ron Wood on guitar. All the current members except Wood have been with the band from the beginning, and the band has seen limited personnel changes despite its long run of 50 years.

The Stones started out in the early Sixties as one of the finest white blues bands of the day, led at that time, by the late blues guitarist, Brian Jones. In the band’s earliest incarnation, they were a blues and R&B band, and Jones was the driving force and resident blues expert. The band’s name came from the Muddy Waters song, “Rollin’ Stone.” The band played their first gig at London’s Marquee Club before landing a regular gig at the Crawdaddy Club. Former Beatles publicist, Andrew Loog Oldham became the Stones manager around this time.

Oldham’s first act was to secure a lucrative recording deal for his new band. Decca Records, which was still reeling from their failure to sign the Beatles, offered Oldham a sweet deal for the Stones. Oldham, then began to publicize the Stones as the anti-Beatles, a band of louts who were the polar opposite of the clean and decent Beatles. In spring 1963, Decca released the first Stones’ single, a cover of Chuck Berry’s, “Come On.”

The Stones recorded their debut album, “The Rolling Stones,” in 1964. The album only contained one song written by Jagger and Richards, with the rest of the songs being blues cover songs. Oldham encouraged Jagger and Richards to work on their songwriting, as he believed that the band would have limited appeal if it continued to just perform songs by “middle-aged blacks.” Two more albums relying heavily on covers of R&B and blues, “The Rolling Stones Number 2” and “The Rolling Stones Now,” were released in 1965. The songwriting team of Jagger and Richards were beginning to produce results with their first self-written hit, “Heart of Stone,” appearing in 1964.

The Stones first album with a significant amount of original material, “Out of Our Heads,” was released in 1965. This album contained the Stones first big international hit single, “Satisfaction,” and the single turned the band into bona-fide pop stars. The album contained several other excellent tracks such as, “Play with Fire” and “The Last Time.”

The Stones would continue to improve on their next release, “Aftermath” (1966), an album of mostly original songs that includes the early classic songs, “Mother’s Little Helper,” “Lady Jane,” and “Under My Thumb.” The latter track riled feminists and helped to solidify the band’s “bad boy” image.

In early 1967, the band’s next album, “Between the Buttons,” was released. This album saw the band moving away from the blues and R&B they had long focused on, and further into the realm of rock and the psychedelia that was so pervasive at the time. Later in 1967, the band would dive headlong into psychedelia with “Their Satanic Majesties Request,” a full-blown psychedelic freak out which was panned by many critics, but is still an interesting offering with the excellent tracks, “She’s A Rainbow” and “2000 Light Years from Home.”

Between 1968 and 1972, the band would enjoy a golden period that would see the band record an outstanding string of albums which are all now considered among the very best albums of 20^th century popular music.

The first, “Beggar’s Banquet,” appeared in 1968, and featured some of the best rock and blues tracks ever recorded by a rock band. “Sympathy for the Devil” is the most famous track on the album, followed closely by ”Street Fighting Man.” The blues chops of the band, especially in the case of Brian Jones, are on full display on tracks such as “No Expectations” which features fine slide blues guitar by Jones. “Prodigal Son” is a fine country blues cover. Brian Jones would die tragically from drowning in his swimming pool shortly after the release of the album.

In 1969, “Let it Bleed” appeared, and like its predecessor, it contained excellent tracks of rock and blues. Several of the band’s most famous songs are found here such as, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” “Gimme Shelter,” and the title track. The cover of Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain” is one of the highlights of the band’s recording career.

After a two-year hiatus from the studio, during which time the excellent live album, “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out” (1970) appeared, another classic album, “Sticky Fingers” (1971), was released. The album was the hardest rocking Stones album yet, and featured new guitarist, Mick Taylor, who was brought in to replace the deceased Brian Jones. Taylor’s presence on the album gave the band a fuller rock sound that was exploited on the numbers, “Bitch,” “Can’t You Hear Me knocking,” and “Brown Sugar.” A fine country-rock moment can be heard with “Wild Horses,” a song that Keith Richards wrote with Gram Parsons of the Flying Burrito Brothers.

In 1972, the comprehensive and outstanding double album, “Exile on Main Street,” was released, and it is considered by many as the band’s definitive work. A slew of blues, R&B, and even gospel tunes populate the album along side rock songs such as the hits, “Happy” and “Tumbling Dice.” 

The Stones’ work started to slide in the mid-Seventies, with the band recording several albums which were several notches below the superb work of the past. Keith Richard’s drug use would become an issue, especially following his arrest at a Toronto hotel. It was not until 1978 that the band would finally make an album worthy of their reputation. That album was “Some Girls” (1978), featuring the stellar tracks, “Shattered” and “Beast of Burdon.”

The band’s work from the Eighties to present has been spotty, but there have always been fine moments such as the album releases, “Tattoo You” (1981), “Stripped” (1995), “The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus” (1996), and “Shine a Light” (2008).

The band is still a touring unit and they have ventured into new territory, playing concerts in Shanghai, China, in 2009.