Concerto In B Goode - the last gasp at Mercury, Chuck's supposed try at psychedelia (this time the cover suggests heavy rock'n'roll-ing. Get it straight, Mercury art department!).
Can't find any of the 4 blues tracks on side one on YouTube, but side B is the 18 minute instrumental title track.
It's like the 1964 record with Bo Diddley, but with a wah-wah and some more echo. Hmm, don't think I need to hear that one twice.
1969:The road back to Chess
But before he got back to Chess, Chuck played a raw, back to basics set at the september 1969 Toronto Peace Festival. The set was filmed by D.A. Pennebaker and was issued and re-issued on many budget sets through the years. I got it on this 3CD compilation Live And In The Studio, which according to websites in the know has the full concert. At 62 minutes, it's a good 15 minutes longer than the video in any case.
It just goes to show how important production is. From listening to the cd, I got a really heavy vibe, all overloaded guitar signals clashing and drowning out bass and drums, who're hanging on for dear life. It sounds pretty aggressive. I could imagine John Lennon seeing this and finding validation for the direction he was going in towards Plastic Ono Band. There's a stretch in there ('Nadine' - 'School days' -'Wee wee hours' - a 9 minute medley 'Johnny B Goode / Carol / Promised land' - 'Hoochie Coochie man') which is thrilling. Of course there's also the 10 minute version of 'My ding-a-ling' (again? Yes, again, Chuck's bleeding this one dry 'till it hits). On the whole, despite sound quality issues, I was ready to declare Chuck back in the game based on this set.
The video's got a much smoother sound, and these guys don't look all that threatening. Strange, but images can burst the best musical illusion. I'm actually kinda disappointed that I found it. But it's the same concert.
On dec 22, 1969 the first studio session of Chuck's new Chess contract took place. On the program was 'Tulane', Chuck's new single. By this point, you may have gotten tired of another not-quite-classic rock'n'roll nugget. We've heard this one several times before during the '60s. But I'm not tired of it. Yeah, it's the same song, but the harp gives it a slightly different feel, more '60s relaxed Lovin' Spoonful than '50s blues Muddy Waters.
I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. A good line to end the story of Chuck Berry in the '60s on.
Maybe I got a little carried away in '66/'67, but that's not to question the brillance of the American Studios sessions. I may like those earlier sesions as much, but there's so much more of the good stuff in 1969. If, in my opinion, Elvis arrived fully ready in Memphis, no redemption needed, it's still Moman's credit that he created the perfect condition for Elvis to stretch out in his country soul sound. I don't think I'll ever tire of this music - so full of life and all of the human emotions. Of course Moman also brought in some unbelievable songs for Elvis to cut - singles that finally allowed, Elvis, for a brief time, to align his release schedule with his talent.
I've ended up with this material in so many formats. The first I heard of it was on the 'From Elvis in Memphis' album (original 1969 12track album). I got this purely by chance, before I knew anything about Elvis in the '60s, before I'd swallowed a dictionary of rock criticism in Mojo and other magazines and books on music and internet message boards. It knocked me out. Whenever anyone handed me an acoustic guitar, I'd do my half-assed but sincere version of 'Long black limousine' (I'm so glad YouTube-covers didn't exist back then). I graduated to the 2disc 'Suspicious minds' comp - still the most complete overview of the sessions. 'From Elvis in Memphis' is included in its entirety and in its original sequence, so that one left the collection. Then later on I got the box set which has less alternate takes, but all the essential performances in session-sequence. Later still, I got the 'Back in Memphis' album (follow-up to 'From Elvis...') just cause it's got such a great song sequence. 'From Elvis...''s deep brother - tragic ballads and groove workouts. The best context to hear these 10 songs. Believe it or not, all of these versions have their uses, and I switch between them regularly.
I haven't said much about the music yet, but, you know, 'Suspicious minds', 'Kentucky rain', 'Only the strong survive', 'Any day now', 'True love travels on a gravel road', 'In the ghetto'... the list goes on and on. One of the great musical wonders of the '60s.
And to cap the year there was 'In person', Elvis's best live album (beating 1970's 'On stage' by a nose). There's a moment when Elvis says it's his first live appearance in 9 years - 'I've appeared dead before, but this is the first live one'. He doesn't know how right he is. This music is alive, frantic, wild, exhilarating, brilliant.
When I think of 'In person' I think of the bass playing. If you ever wondered how much fun it can be to play music in a band, you can hear it in this guy playing the bass all through this album - he goes nuts on 'Suspicious minds' but he's wild with glee all night. The notes sound like one excited hopped up grin. In fact, the whole band sounds exactly like being happy.
Highlights? 'Suspicious minds' is crazy. The opening threesome 'Blue suede shoes', 'Johnny B. Goode' and 'All shook up'. A manic 'Hound dog'. 'Words' - a beautiful song I don't know that he recorded it in the studio?
From St Louie To Frisco - back to YouTube for this lost album.
Album opener 'St Louie to Frisco' is another R&R travel song, small band, rollicking. Good fun. Not as mindblowing as the cover suggests (again) but in line with his 1965 records.
Followed by 'My dear' - ah, this sounds really nice! An almost Band or JJ Cale-style groove. I really like the arrangement: the horns, drums, piano, guitar - all rubbing against each other. This is more like it!
'Soul rockin'' - 'Johnny B. Goode' with horns? This sounds like a pretty tight album. Nice guitar work just past the 1 minute mark. It's not a remarkable composition, just a chance to shine instrumentally.
'Almost grown (1968)' - yeah, and he doesn't shy away from his more rhythmically intricate earlier work. Nice electric piano. A relaxed version, but in control. They're on top of it.
The exploitation of Elvis reaches a sad low with the sale of 'sings Flaming Star and others' LP exclusively through Singer shops. It's the sort of commercial move that Prince tried his best to emulate in the '00s. Terrible.
Also 'Elvis' Golden records Vol 4' and 'Speedway'.
With all that came before, you probably expect me to go wild about the Comeback Special. I've never seen the thing - maybe that accounts for it, but I doubt it.
I used to own the cd version of the original record, but it's edited like shit, so I upgraded to 2CD 'Memories' (disc one: the routines, disc two: 6 PM sit down show) and 'Tiger man' (8 PM sit down show - same jokes).
- none of these convinced me, and listening again it struck me why. It's another movie soundtrack, right? This time it's a TV movie about a rock'n'roll show, but he's still acting. I can hear exactly where the karate routines kick in. The irony of it is that Elvis put on a Vegas show on the Rock'n'Roll Special. The following year he'd go to Vegas and play a real rock'n'roll show. Overblown vaudeville. Elvis sings way too forcefully - he's nervous. Everything is pitched at feverish intensity. Without the premise that Elvis had lost his way and needed to come home - it loses most of its impact. And Elvis was doing fine in my estimation.
There's a moment in the long medley they play part of 'It hurts me' - it's that amazing moment where he sings 'he never loved you - he never will...' (that I talked about in 1964) - this time...nothing...well, not much.
I do love the two new ballads 'Memories' and 'If I can dream'. They really hit hard. The show as a whole, well, not bad.
Of course, there's also the Sit Down shows. Nope, sorry. 6 PM is way too much horsing around. My problem with Elvis was never that he remembered all the lyrics, sang each verse only once, kept from laughing during a song, or had guitar players play in tune. Yeah, it's a candid view - too candid for me. And Charlie Hodges (I think it's him that contantly interrupts) should learn to shut up.
8 PM is better, a little less forced. But once again, there's little sense forcing someone home who's in a fine place where he is. Sorry.
And songs from 'Charro' - the title track's a quite nice spy movie ballad, suspenseful but not quite good enough.
And songs from the improbably titled 'The trouble with girls (and how to get into it)', like 'Clean up your own backyard' - a pale imitation of his new non-soundtrack sound despite being written by the 'Memories' team.
When the Greatest Hits ruse didn't work, Mercury offered a new album which became Chuck Berry in Memphis. I couldn't find the album (if you know how I can get hold of it, cough), but here's what's on YouTube.
'I really do love you' - a hornladen ballad, but just a little too comfortable to catch fire. The horn charts are too repetitive and wear the listener down. There seems to be some fine piano playing buried in the mix.
'Check me out' - attempt at some rock'n'roll. A nice sound, cool drumming, nice piano, great guitar solo... and yet, there don't seem much dynamics to it. The horn charts are too repetitive again, but this is a good band.
On to the next stop of Mercury's program catching up with the zeitgeist - the fabulously covered Chuck Berry With The [Steve] Miller Band Live At The Fillmore Auditorium (also 1967).
Imagine being transfixed by that cover at the record shop, wondering at the drugs that went into making this record, getting it home and hearing a trad electric blues record! It took me a while to get over it. This record does not sound the way the cover promises that it will.
But I like the album more and more. Far from a greatest hits set, this is rocking, (somewhat) dirty, electric blues. Sure, right at the end they tag on two hits, 'Reelin' and rockin'' and 'Johnny B. Goode' and in between those two you get the first appearance of the dreaded albatros, the live 'My ding-a-ling' experience (fuck, those were different times). But that's not what the record is about.
Before that you get 45 minutes of the blues: 'Everyday I have the blues', 'CC Rider', 'Driftin' blues', 'Hoochie Coochie Man', 'Good morning little school girl' and some semi-improvised instrumentals 'Rockin' at the Fillmore' and 'Fillmore blues', plus the more familiar 'Flying home'. The reissue adds two more blues tracks to this part of the show, 'It hurts me too' and 'Feelin' it' (a fourth instrumental!). Good job! I like these two tracks a lot and they really add to the flow of the record.
Good blues it is. I like the Steve Miller band. They're not Chuck's late '50s, early '60s band. They're not the elastic rock'n'roll band that played on the unreleased 1963 live record. But they've got feel and they've got the feel for this material. They're right there behind Chuck (and sometimes Steve Miller's harp is playing right beside him). And Chuck is in a better place than on the last two studio albums, playing long solos, great fills and generally bringing the material to life.
God knows what the crowd made of it - though Chuck thanks Bill Graham at the end as the greatest promotor he's ever worked with. And I gotta say, the charms of the record are not right at the surface. I might've been disappointed if I'd seen it. Come on, Chuck, why don't you play 'Come on'? But with time and repeated spins it's growing on me.
Never count out an original.
By the way, searching the web for Chuck-discographies, I chanced upon a bootleg of Chuck's March 19, 1967 show at the Fillmore. This is not the same as the record. A greatest hits set -though 'My ding-a-ling' overlaps-, it shows a seriously unprepared backing band stumbling through the changes. The sound isn't great either, but good enough to hear the fluffs. I'd be seriously surprised if this is the same Steve Miller band that gels so well on the official record. This is either a good band having a really bad night or a bad band having a...bad night. Chuck, ever the professional, shows all the disdain he can muster, short of actually stepping to the microphone and calling out the band. He phones it in.
'Double trouble', 'Clambake' and the delayed release of 'How great thou art'.
In three sessions (Mach 20, Sept 10-11, Jan 15-17 '68) he cut another 10 underappreciated classics. Just as good as the 1966 tracks: 'Suppose', 'Guitar man', 'Big boss man', 'Hi heel sneakers', 'You don't know me', 'Too much monkey business' (with its great jigsaw acoustic guitar riff), 'US Male'...
1. Suppose 2. Guitar Man/What'd I Say 3. Big Boss Man 4. Mine 5. Just Call Me Lonesome 6. Hi-Heel Sneakers 7. You Don't Know Me 8. Singing Tree 9. Too Much Monkey Business 10. U.S. Male
I'd only repeat myself - in my mind this pre-tv special (dec '68) post-retirement period, scattered as the songs' recording and release may have been, is all linked together. A highpoint in his career. It's all on disc 3 of the box set.
What can the soundtracks put up against that? The title song from 'Double trouble' is big band latin mush about having twice as much trouble as anybody else.
1966 brought one more Chess recording session for single 'Ramona say yes'. That single and an outtake from the session (in 1972 released on The London Sessions) 'Viva viva rock'n'roll' are such a pleasant surprise. The bite that had loosened itself into a grin in 1965, was back.
A couple more tracks (b-side 'Lonely school days [fast version]' and the unreleased 'His daughter Caroline [fast version]') are included on You Never Can Tell - they show Chuck recycling old material, zoning in on the old flame of inspiration. No matter, the two best tracks show it was the right strategy at the time.
And so ends Chuck Berry's first period at Ches. For the next three years, at Mercury, he'd try any trick in the book to gain a younger audience, but he wouldn't succeed (though unfortunately, the very song he'd succeed with, was firmly locked in his repertoire already). 1966-69: Catching up with the times at Mercury
From this remove, Chuck's futile attempts at Mercury to get hip with the times seem at best misguided, at worst faintly ridiculous. But they're pretty fascinating. Well, the parts I could hear anyway, these records aren't easy to find.
Late in 1966, for his first record at the new label, Chuck re-recorded his old hits in new arrangements. These re-recordings were released in early 1967 as Chuck Berry's Golden Hits
It's a fun record that has a tall order standing next to, say, 1962's Twist compilation, and it doesn't get there. I have no qualms with '50s artists re-recording their material in the '60 or '70s - new production possibilities can yield exciting results. Often performances get a little wilder, artists taking advantage of the new era's exagerated expectations of rock'n'roll. (Of course once you get into the '80s and beyond it becomes a more troublesome idea.)
Chuck gives it a good try. There are some nice updates for 'Memphis, Tennessee', 'Maybellene', 'Carol' and a couple of others. But the track selection is pretty one-dimensional - tellingly he doesn't even attempt the elasticity of 'Jaguar & Thunderbird' or 'Come on'. No 'I'm talking about you' or 'Too pooped to pop' either. Just your basic Chuck Berry formula classics. You get the impression he's just going along with it really. He's certainly not challenging himself, his band or his audience, not pushing himself the way he did even during his final year at Chess.
A curio. The one new track 'Club nitty gritty' has the most elaborate rhythm of any of the tracks here, and sounds fresher than most of them.
So in may '66, 2 and a half years since his last (brief) non-soundtrack session, Elvis went down to the studio. With typical sense, he decided to record a gospel album. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but that's some psychological warfare for the soul of the Elvis corporation. He wanted to get his cake and eat it too.
'How great thou art' (released in '67) - it's fine. It's lost a little immediacy compared to 1960's 'His hand in mine'. The tempos are languid, the small choir is omnipresent, the singing is reverent and sincere, renditions take longer to unfold. I have to be in the mood for it, but it's a nice record.
The real meat is in the 5 non-religious songs he recorded at the sessions. Of course, the powers that be knew that putting Elvis in the studio without a soundtrack straightjacket, but with a great band, would tempt him out of retirement. Two weeks later, june 10-12, he cut another 4 non-soundtrack non-religious songs.
1. Down In The Alley
2. Tomorrow Is A Long Time
3. Love Letters
4. Beyond The Reef
5. Come What May
6. Fools Fall In Love
7. Indescribably Blue
8. I'll Remember You
9. If Every Day Was Like Christmas
By all accounts, the sessions and the following similar attempts up until january 1968, were fractious and difficult, conflicts rising. Elvis refusing to record the songs offered, recording other material for which immediately 'copyrights' battles flared up, little accomplished compared to the productive sessions from earlier in the decade. Once recorded, the results were scattered on singles and odds and sods album like 'Spinout' or just remained unreleased. They let the master of 'Come what may' disappear - that's how much they cared.
But...on the boxset, the results are presented as they are. And what they are is stunning. To me, they're every bit the equal of the 1969 American sessions - except they were never presented to the public as they should've been, as a singular strong statement (like 'From Elvis in Memphis') and so they get lost in the shuffle.
Elvis came out of his two and a half years of retirement as a new artist, no more the consumate master of R&B&C&W pop, he was a great country soul voice, making complex emotional music with a majestic sweep. When the songs rocked it was with absolute authority. When they wept, the tears came from deep in the soul. Really, he was ahead of the pack and he did it all with a vision of American music that outstrips any of the post-'68 back to the country brigade.
These 1966 sessions: 'Down in the alley', Dylan's 'Tomorrow is a long time', 'Love letters', 'Come what may''s mutated 'I feel fine' riff, 'Indescribably blue', 'I'll remember you'... it's one highlight after another. So great.
So, record buyers got two great singles, 'Love letters' and 'Indescribably blue' (not the best choice of a single), but mostly 'Frankie & Johnny' (the title track is a faux-early jazz stomp based on a traditional - who thinks these up?), 'Paradise, Hawaiian style' and a couple more of these songs on side two of 'Spinout' (the title song is a stupid groove with fake sitar). Why?
