Review of Blind Faith's Blind Faith

Released 1969

"I'm taking the chance to see the wind in your eyes while I liste.
You say the can't reach me, but you want every word to be free.
Hard to cry today.
Well, I saw your sign and missed you there"

This is one of those albums which I have absolutlely no memory of physically buying. Given that I'm still at that phase in my chronology where I should be able to distinguish between whether or not a purchae was pre my time at University, I find this very odd.

Around this time, I was still largely unaware of Steve Winwood, other than his renowned talent as the teenaged front man of The Spencer Davis Group. I had heard of Traffic, but not heard any of their work. I had mixed opinion of Eric Clapton too. Through my obsession with Led Zeppelin and connection to Eric through The Yardbirds, I had collected most of EC's pre-Cream work, including the infamous 'Beano' Bluesbreakers record which inspired a whole generation of budding blues guitarists. I'm sure I would have had a Cream Greatest Hits of some descrition. I started to lose interest though with some of his seventies output; for instance I ended up becoming a  fan of The Allman Brothers on the back of Layla as oposed to seeing this as a masterwork of Claptons, while the drift towards MOR with the I Shot The Sherriff era of his work left me cold.

As such, I can't precisely place where and when I set out to purchase Blind Faith's eponyomous album. I can only assume that I was heavily influenced by a friend at University who had a strong devotion to the blueser end of the prog spectrum. We both loved Free for example. I know that he later introduced me to Traffic, therefore I can lay the blame squarely in his court.

To this day I am puzzled by the cover; both in terms of it's relevance to the musical content and how it remains uncensored when much less offensive pieces of sleeve art have fallen the way of the nanny state.

I didn't have too many preconceptions about the album prior to purchase and most likely saw it as one of those purchases which was almost expected: a record collection without a copy of Blind Faith was not a record collection which could be taken seriously.

My immediate reaction was one of huge surprise that I hadn't realised just how good Steve Winwood's voice was. As I had only known him as a mainstream pop artist, to hear such a strong blues rock voice was a real treat. His style bestrode so many genres; from psychedelia, across blues, mainstream classic rock whilst retaining a soulful quality. Had To Cry Today was more experimental than I expected; having much in common with the later drifting jams of The Allman Brothers, but with a more intense rhythm. Clapton's contribution was a simple yet effective recurring blues driven motif, which on first listen I thought was workmanlike, until he starts soloing in a way which I've never heard him play before or since; much more fluid with more space between the notes, fully embracing the hippy vibe. What really made me sit up and take notice was the remarkalble solo which starts after around six minutes and forty five seconds, where notes bounce rapidly from speaker to speaker; a brilliant moment which tapped directly into the zeitgeist; perfectly channeling the very spirit of the age in eight seconds. Listening to this on headphones now, forty years (for goodness sake!) after it's release, these eight seconds capture everything I love about the cultural movement of the late sixties. Sublime.

Can't Find My Way Home begins with a delicious acoustic guitar and wonderfully understated drumming from Ginger Baker. I find it impossible to describe the intensity of Steve Winwood's vocal delivery on this track. It is such a beautifully measured three minutes or so which again appeals so strongly to anyone who has indeed been so wasted that they can't find their way home. I often listen to this track mentally picturing the wandering gait of a drunken journey back from the pub.

Well... All right took much longer to grow on me, being more piano orientated with quite an obstrusive drum pattern from Ginger. I prefer the second  half of the track which feels more free form and has more of the spirit of the previous tracks.

Presence Of The Lord is the weakest track on the record for me. It feels too personally aligned to Eric and less of a band effort. The key strength of the album as a whole is the feeling that it is a true band vision in the very best sense of the word. One of the reasons I am so passionate about the musical output of (primarily) 1967 - 1976 is the sense that musicians often created pieces of art which felt as though they could have been born of out a live take in the studio, such was the quality of the muscianship. Blind Faith's only album is one of the greatest examples of this: four tremedous musicians at the peak of their careers working as one.

It is Steve Winwood's vocal and keyboard playing which dominate Sea of Joy. His portrayl of emotion is pretty much without parallel. The violin dominates the latter half of the track. It shouldn't work in the context of a predominantly blues based framework, but somehow it does.

Do What You Like is the high point of the album. I hear similiarities in the production of this track and very early Chicago; when they were still The Chicago Transit Authority. I admire Ginger Baker's restraint; it would  have been very easy to add standard rock fills in the open spaces between the keyboards and the free-form vocals. Clapton's guitar styling in this track must surely have influenced the very young Carlos Santana ( who played Woodstock a month after this was released). Indeed it does have a latino feel for much of the track. It is usually very hard to say anything positive about a drum solo, but it nearly works here. It is indulgent and it is distracting, and it does take a few listens before a certain level of annoyance begins to vanish.

Although I may have originally only set out to fill a gap in my record collection, I now have a great deal of affection for this record. It utterly captures my favourite era of music in a way which is unique and endearing. Truly indispensible.

Review of Queen's Queen II

Released 1973

"So listen mothers everywhere
To just one mother's son
You'll get forgotten all the way
If you don't let them have their fun
Forget regrets, and just remember
It's not so long since you were young."

I've chosen to step temporarily out of the strict chronology of this blog with good reason. I chose The Dark Side Of The Moon as my first review based on the fact that, at the time, I considered it my first true encounter with prog, which started my life long love affair with the genre. It was only upon reflection that I began to acknowledge the prog credentials of several other albums which I knew and loved pre-Floyd. On that basis, I have allowed myself the license to occasionally step backwards and interrupt the natural historical flow of this blog. Therefore I feel duty bound to include a number of examples from bands like Led Zeppelin and Queen who exist very much on the fringes of the genre but whom, in my opinion, and after all it is my blog, warrant inclusion.

Like most men of a certain age, my first conscious memory of Queen was their mammoth stint at number one in the singles chart in Christmas 1975 with Bohemian Rhapsody. After buying the single and the album it came from, I started to investigate the rest of their catalogue. I can't say for certain, but I think Queen II was my first port of call.

This was probably due being drawn to the album and the cover's reproduction in the video for the aforementioned single. I'm sure that this would have confused me at the time; in fact I'm sure that there were many newly interested Queen fans in 1975/76 who would have purchased Queen II in error, thinking it was their latest release.

Looking at the cover now, the prog overtones are obvious. The black outside of the gate fold with the iconic group photograph was contrasted by a remarkably camp glossy white picture with the group resplendent in fur and jewels. The monochrome theme was continued with 'side black' and 'side white'. It may be urban legend or just the fading memory of a middle-aged closet glam rock fan, but I'm sure there was a limited edition press with a white vinyl on one side and black on the other. It would be nice if it were true.

It wouldn't be accurate to call Queen II a concept album, but it has that kind of feel. Procession has a very prog like introduction; grand and opulent, accurately portraying the feel of a medieval procession with Brian May's glorious idiosyncratic resonating pulsating guitar over a simple bass drum. If it wasn't for the early Queen trademark proclamation of "no synthesisers" adorning the sleeve, you'd swear that a keyboard opened Father to Son. Hearing the vast harmonies once more as I type this, I can't help but smile at the effectiveness of the combined three voices which is still so effective even after several hundred plays. The second half of the track leans very heavily on May and (as he still was then) Meddows-Taylor, heavily aping Page and Bonham. I particularly love the sustained distorted note Brian plays at three minutes and twenty four seconds and the clever transition from bombast to balladeering as the song comes to a close. Very accomplished for a second album.

The segue from this to White Queen is also typically prog; all moody sound effects and combined acoustic and electric guitar. Again Brian's solo at two minutes and forty seven seconds which starts acoustically before heading in the direction of Wishbone Ash is sublime.

Although not blessed with the finest set of vocal chords, Brian's performance on Some Day One Day is one of his better moments. The drifting, phasing of the guitar is beautifully restrained and gets better and better with age.

At the risk of waxing emphatically throughout the entire review, I again adore The Loser In The End. This is a classic Roger Taylor narrative with excellent underrated vocal and, as always, drawing the very best out of Brian May. I always think Roger wrote in the same vein as Ian Hunter: with tremendous humor and a strong visual style. All in all, a pretty faultless 'side white'.

If the first side was a relatively light and acoustic offering, then the second was a much more agressive affair. 'Side Black' commences with the thunderous Ogre Battle. Led Zeppelin are 'borrowed' from extensively once more with a very tight performance from all four players, moving through a variety of time signatures with ease and aplomb. The rapid pace continued with the larynx threatening gymnastics from Freddie who undertakes vocal challenges which would squeeze even Percy's lemon. This is, chronologically speaking, the first Queen track that wholly reveals the definitive sound which would dominate their peak output: excellent harmonies, the big guitar sound, strident piano etc, etc.

For many bands, a one minute eighteen track would be mere filler. How Nevermore can be such a huge, magnificent and yet delicate work of art in such a brief time span is a mystery to me. It has all the faculties of an epic side long suite but achieves it in less than ninety seconds.

The March Of The Black Queen once more highlights Freddie's unique vocal style, with shades of opera, wide screen cinema, psychedelic guitar and camp multi-tracked harmonies, swapping between Freddie and Roger. Astonishing.

Funny How Love Is works as a strong illustration of the boundaries Queen were pushing in terms of studio production. I'm no expert but I'd be surprised if this didn't feature a record number of vocal tracks all the time of its release.

I hadn't heard the original version of Seven Seas Of Rhye on their first album, so I couldn't share in the surprise and delight of hearing a new version. I was simply as over-awed by how it could be both intensely complex and delightfully hummable at the same time.

Queen went on to make bigger and better albums, but in terms of witnessing a band hitting it's stride and obviously enjoying itself in the studio, I don't think they ever improved.

Review of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffitti

Released 1975

"Down by the seaside
See the boats go sailin'
Can the people hear, oh
What the little fish are sayin'
Oh, oh, the people turned away
Oh, the people turned away"

I'm stepping temporarily back, out of my chronological retelling of my first encounters with classic prog albums, to about eighteen months before University, to include Physical Graffiti. There is some logic to this. Before leaving for University, I spent an inordinate amount of time transferring a few dozen of my favourite vinyl records to a large pile of C90 cassettes. I'm fairly certain my entire Led Zeppelin collection (excluding In Through The Out Door) travelled with me.

My interest in Percy and Co was born out my adolescent predilection for classic rock music. In my mid-teens, I saw Led Zeppelin as predecessors of ACDC and Whitesnake et al, rather than contemporaries of Pink Floyd and Genesis. As such, I suppose I had more affinity with Black Dog and Heartbreaker than with Misty Mountain Hop or No Quarter. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the more mellow or experimental moments, just that I had yet to develop my love of prog and didn't recognise the less metallic tracks as 'progressive'.

It wasn't until I sat in my room at University a couple of years later, with my headphones, metaphorically hunched over Descartes, that I listened with a more mature comprehension of Led Zeppelin's legacy.

I think I requested Physical Graffiti as a birthday present. Either way, I recall being mightily impressed with the package. I was fortunate enough to have a vinyl copy with the original artwork: it had the holes in the outer sleeve windows, with the various window dressing graphics on the inside sleeve. I loved the drama of the actual Swan Song label on the record itself. So much so that I had a tee-shirt made up replicating it at some point.

By the time Led Zeppelin's only double studio album was added to my shelves, I already owned all the preceding albums and was intimately familiar with every nuance of the band's infamously debauched career and discography. Thus I had already invested this record with great importance, and, like many coveted albums, actually put off my first listen to the record both for the fear of disappointment and the knowledge that you can only play a record for the first time once. It had be right. Funny, I still feel that way now.

One of my preconceptions about this record was that it was their 'serious' album. After all, it was a huge behemoth of a record across four sides with a number of lengthy prog-tastic workouts.

From the first notes of Custard Pie, I knew two things: firstly that I was going to love it in its entirety and that this was a wonderfully produced album. Although many will cite the recording techniques on their fourth album as revolutionary, have you ever heard a more authentic drum sound? Perfect. It was obvious that the band had reached the peak of their powers as a very tight cohesive unit.

The Rover feels like an instant classic from the first listen, with a outrageously catchy riff and Percy expounding his hippy: "If we could just join hands" lyrics, reminiscent of much of the fourth album.

If push came to shove and I had to nominate my favourite Led Zeppelin track, it would be In My Time Of Dying. Although prog purists may argue that it is too heavily stepped in the blues to be prog, I would counter claim that it qualifies on the strength of the musicianship alone. I find it utterly hypnotic, not least for Mr Bonham's contribution: there appears to be a form of telepathy enabling him to mirror Pagey's riffing and soloing so precisely. Remember this was in the days when many bands recorded live, without multi-tracking. I'm not saying that it wasn't tweaked on the mixing desk, but having read copiously about the session in question and from the unintentional sound effect at the end of the song, I am continually stunned by what is, in effect a live performance.

Houses of The Holy sounded as though it could quite easily have slotted onto the album of the same name. It may not be a highlight of the album, but this is largely due to the high quality of it's accompanying tracks.

I loved Trampled Under Foot, having heard it for the first time on a re-run of The Old Grey Whistle Test, it's defining moment being a sterling JPJ keyboard solo. Gorgeous.

I believe that I may be in the minority in that I think Kashmir is overrated. I don't think it is a bad song. Clearly it isn't, but it has yet to 'click' for me, despite several hundred plays. Sorry.

Physical Graffiti is nicely balanced in that the first two sides are predominantly more rock orientated while the second two have more acoustic, mellow, stoned and chilled out vibe. Man.

In The Light begins with another JPJ keyboard theme, this one being eerily like being stalked on a nocturnal walk on a rainy foggy night. Bron-Yr-Aur is very Led Zeppelin III; brief, acoustic and beautiful. The slide guitar of Down By The Seaside and the lazy dragged out beat for the first part of the song again maintains the summery hippy feeling. It is easy to picture Percy doing his teapot impression in the studio to this one. I love the tempo change in the middle of the song. The intonation of "You still do the twist...etc" is perfect archetypal rock vocal phrasing. Again, perfect.

The mellow feel continues with Ten Years Gone built around a very MOR guitar solo from Jimmy and a lovely echoey drum sound with fast / slow passages. Night Flight ups the pace somewhat with spirited Pyrex-shattering delivery from Robert and an irresistible start / stop drum motif: both deeply bluesy and highly individualistic at the same time.

The fourth side of the record is probably the weakest. The Wanton Song starts it off pleasantly enough with a very aggressive guitar sound, flushed with sustain and feedback, but Boogie With Stu is execrable nonsense. Both Black Country Woman and Sick Again have their moments, but, personally I usually start to get itchy fingers over the eject button by this stage in proceedings.

It's a shame that the ending isn't great, as the remaining eighty percentage of the album is unrelentingly excellent.

It may be because the are both weighty double albums purported to the pinnacle of their respective artists careers, but I think of Physical Graffiti in much the same way as Pink Floyd's The Wall: I have a huge amount of respect for both, but I play them less often than other albums in their band's discography's. However when I do, I always do so with great admiration for the breadth of the music and the brilliant inventiveness therein.

Review of The Who's Tommy

Released 1969

"If you want to follow me, you've got to play pinball And put in your earplugs, put on your eyeshades You know where to put the cork".

Given that, in my formative years, like millions of other adolescent boys, I was heavily into the mainstream, hardcore rock bands, like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, AC/DC and the like, it was perhaps surprising that, for many years I saw nothing of any substance in The Who. Of course I was familiar with them, but not much more than Pin Ball Wizard if truth be told, and even then, and indeed to this day, I still prefer the version with the Elton John vocal.

Even when, during a summer job, working behind the bar in a posh Cornish pub which was frequented by Pete Townshend, I wasn't really in awe when serving him. Respectful of course, but if it had been Lord Percy Plant or Roger Waters I would have been a dribbling mess, but with Mr Townshend, I was nothing more than curious.

When The Who played Live Aid, I was surprised and impressed by their presence on stage. Shortly afterwards, when I stumbled across a copy of Tommy for rental in the local library (how cool was I?), I decided to give it a go.

I knew by osmosis that it was a concept album: one of the first. I also knew that it had a very strong reputation, so I expected to be impressed. I suppose at the time, I viewed as a rock album first and a prog album second. Having a concept and beginning with an Overture made me nod appreciably in anticipation.

I was unprepared for the sedateness of the piece. As The Who had a reputation for thuggery and power chords, I set the graphic equaliser on my trusty Amstrad to maximise the bass, only to be surprised by the orchestrated moderate pace of the opening. When Pete Townshend took the first few vocals rather than Roger Daltery, I was also taken aback. He may have earned the right to sing whatever he liked as he had written the whole thing, but his voice was even less appealing than Roger Waters and added little.

There was no doubting the core strength of the band. On Amazing Journey, I saw the first glimpses of the legendary rhythm section of Moon and Entwhistle. It was also the first point where I could see where Pete Townsend had gained his reputation as a formidable guitarist as well as his acknowledgment of Jimi Hendrix as an influence.

Amongst the occasional flashes of cleverness and progressiveness were tunes that had no more value than novelty items; Cousin Kevin and Do You Think It's Alright?, for example.

Of course, in the context of the album's story, Pinball Wizard itself takes on a much stronger role. In the main though, I struggled to maintain any real interest and thought the basic story was very sixth form; great idea on paper, but poorly realised. Sides three and four were again linked together by painfully weak songs that were no more than snippets, such as Miracle Cure.

I recognised some of the latter sections from a recent late night airing of the Woodstock Movie on VHS, but struggled to reconcile the iconic performance of the songs on Yasgur's farm with the fairly lame delivery on record.

As it finished, I was glad that I had only rented the album and not invested any of my hard earned cash. I didn't thing it was terrible, just that it was largely undynamic, unimaginative and uninspired. I could just about understand, based on the Woodstock performance, why they had a loyal following, but I felt hugely let down by the lack of 'specialness'.

It took a few more years, as well as increased exposure to other fans of The Who, before I felt compelled to give them another try.

All these years on, I now own most of their classic period albums and, in later reviews, you'll learn that at least two others rank very highly in my estimation. Until I heard the live version of Tommy on the Deluxe version of Live At Leeds and saw the movie, I maintained that Tommy was overrated, and I guess I still do. Both of these versions did increase my appreciation, but only so much. It's hard to see Townshend and especially Moon in full flow and not be impressed.

In the end, good but not essential.

Review of The Doors' The Doors

Released 1967

"There's danger on the edge of town.
Ride the King's highway, baby.
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby."

Confronted with several thousand options and equipped with hard earned cash from my summer job, entering HMV on Oxford Street in London set my head spinning. I was probably driven in the direction of The Doors due to their credibility amongst my wider circle of friends at college. Their logo was frequently doodled in the margins of many pieces of psychology course work.

Of course I was familiar with Light My Fire and Riders On The Storm, but I viewed them, by all accounts, as a very primarily popular pop orientated American band with a charismatic, now long dead, lead singer. I was though unconsciously assimilating a broader understanding of The Doors place in late sixties culture, simply by being around like minded college students. So by the time I purchased their eponymous first album, I was quietly respectful of it's status and more than intrigued as to what the fuss was all about.

I bought the album during a trip to London, travelling up from High Wycombe, where my girlfriend and I were staying in a caravan belonging to friends of hers. I spent an unhealthy amount of time that week looking at the front cover with no means to play it's contents. The disembodied head idea wasn't new; at least two albums by The Beatles had a very similar design. The menacing, serious, and no doubt stoned gazes of the four members of The Doors was a world away from the universal commercialism of The Beatles posturings. Jim Morrison's pose was more 'artistic' I suppose: demonstrating both defiance and sensuality, which (not that I've tried it) is no mean feat. I thought that it was a simple cover concept, which owed as much to the photographer's skill as it did to the magnetism of Mr Mojo.

Safely back home a week or so later, I was off to a bad start, as I hated my other purchase; Led Zeppelin's In Through The Out Door. Thinking about it now, being in a negative frame of mind when listening to your first album by The Doors was no bad thing. Despite the explosive pace of the opening track - Break On Through - it was evident from the off that the listener was being beckoned into a dark and mysterious, and subsequently not very comfortable netherworld. It wasn't difficult to understand how teenagers plummeted head long into the counter culture when hearing this in 1967. The 'other side' represented all of the unsavoury, and therefore appealing aspects of 'dropping out': drugs and free love, free thinking spirits and revolutionary stances were all wrapped up in a three minute invitation to dare to confront the norm.

Jim Morrison's personality oozed from the speakers. His strident yelping in harmony with Robby Krieger's fuzzy lead guitar must have terrified teenager's parents in the sixties who were merrily enjoying Peter, Paul and Mary. If the Rolling Stones had parents putting their daughters on the pill, then Jim Morrison must have caused many a parent to dispose of their medicine cabinets and flush away long overdue prescription drugs.

I adored Ray Manzerak's keyboard sound immediately. Soul Kitchen for example, is lent a sense of serenity and grandeur as his contribution sets the scene for the doomed poet. This was another album which was difficult not to love from the outset. Even the poppier moments, of which I had initially though there would be more, on songs like Twentieth Century Fox (very clever title and lyric) rise above the standard sixties fodder due to the unique interplay between the band. Even Alabama Song, Brechtian in origin, which comes at you from left field, doesn't appear incongruous; it's all about the passion of the delivery.

The album version of Light My Fire was a revelation. Previously I had seen it as a classic pop song, immediately identifiable and synonymous with the era, but the unexpected extended keyboard and guitar sections triggered the thought that maybe this could be reasonably thought of as a prog album. I was unsure how many of the necessary boxes it ticked though? Excellent levels of musicianship? check; eccentric invention? check; extended instrumental passages? check; eclectic influences? check. However, there was no doubting that, in the main, the album consisted a lot of three minute distinctly pop-like tracks, with - dare I say it - a trace of filler here and there, especially on the second side. But then, I was unprepared for the denouement.

Having seen Apocalypse Now already, and knowing The End, at least in part from it's use twice in the film, I wasn't expecting to be that impressed. For what ever reason, it was as this final track started that I put on my headphones.

I'm sure that there are a multitude of teenage boys who can identify with the shock, delight, horror and absolute joy at being exposed to The End for the first time. I use 'exposed' deliberately, as this track, above all else on the album (and probably their entire output), strikes at the core of The Doors success: the feeling that the listener is being welcomed into a sordid inner circle, driven by primal desires, the need to push boundaries and test authority and which parents and 'straights' could never possibly understand. As Jim Morrison rants his oedipal obscenity and the instrumentation mirrors the breakdown of order, the listener feels as though a rite of passage has been undertaken, where seeking meaningful artistic expression becomes a vital part of your life. As the song slowed, and Morrison panted in simulated post-coital slumber, I was eternally grateful that I was wearing my headphones.

Many prog purists might still baulk at the thought that The Doors is a prog album. In terms of invention and the desire to push boundaries, I would say that it qualifies in spades.