Archive for month: May, 2009

            The first step in naming the Top 25 Songs of the Rock Era, which happens to coincide with my personal music-listening era, is determining the criteria for a “Top” song.

            Obviously, the criterion is not best-selling, or most-played, or even most-requested. If you rank songs by how many weeks they were #1 on the Billboard Top 40, not one of that top 100 would be on my list. Many, of course, weren’t even rock’n’roll: Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In; Mack the Knife; The Battle of New Orleans. Many were minor: Ebony and Ivory (McCartney and Wonder), Night Fever (BeeGees), Physical (Olivia Newton-John). Some were even obnoxious: My Sharona, The Ballad of the Green Berets.

            On the other hand, they can’t be too obscure. We all have personal favorites. But unless a song has some general notoriety it’s not fair to judge it against others that get played over and over, giving them the chance to wear out their welcome. And general acceptance is a useful confirmation of personal preference in this arena.

            Permit a digression, the first of many. Back at the end of my college days, which was also the end of the AM Top-40 era, I created a scoring formula for rating the all-time greatest hits (a compulsion for order that would eventually find me in law school). I gave points on a 1-5 basis for things like “originality” and whether it was an artist’s first hit. Using this formula, the other details of which I have mercifully forgotten, I judged the top song of the rock era to be a dead heat between the Temptations’ My Girl and the Buckinghams’ Kind of A Drag.

            This time, no formulas. But this time, almost 40 years later, there is also a lot more ground to cover. If comparing apples and oranges is hard, what about comparing songs from the doo-wop era with heavy metal? OK, doo-wop was better; but saying that already lands me in the area of personal preference, or at least dates me.

            The one test I can think of that applies to songs of all eras is, do I still want to listen to it? If I’m in my car and I reach my destination, will I keep the motor running until the song is over? One step up: would I consider it sacrilegious to turn the radio off while the song is playing? For sure, there are more than 25 songs that meet this test, but this is a good place to start. My heart might beat a little faster when I hear the first chords of Satisfaction, but do I have to stay with it until the end? Not really.

            Finally, a word about my age, and how that will influence the selections. Rock songs are associative. They connect us to certain times in our lives: a summer romance (if we’re lucky), a painful breakup, a trip, a friend, a particular year. For that reason alone, no two people will ever have the same Top 25 list.

            I was there when the rock era began. Not in the clubs of Cleveland, but at home, not only listening to Martin Block’s Make Believe Ballroom on WABC Radio, but writing down the top 25 each Saturday morning. I made a marginal note in 1954, when the CrewCuts’ Sh-Boom became the first rock’n’roll record to crack the Magic Circle. At the age of 8, I was already championing rock’n’roll as “my” music.

            I made lists through the ‘50s, happily staying home on New Year’s Eve to capture the run-down of the year’s top 100. Then in 1960 I was given a Wollensak tape recorder and began compiling my own archives. I never bought a record, in fact, until 1967, when album rock began to make singles obsolete, and I purchased the first albums of Buffalo Springfield, Percy Sledge and the BeeGees.

            The 1970s were the most fertile decade in rock history, but they consolidated the fragmentation that began with the advent of FM radio in the late ‘60s. There was no more Top 40 that anyone cared about; instead, niche formats split the market, and we all listened to different music.

            From 1980 on I have probably drifted further from the mainstream, if one can be identified. I have continued to listen to “new” music on the radio, but it’s often the new music of one station. I can’t comment on hip-hop, any more than I can comment on disco music from the ‘70s, heavy metal from the ‘80s, or Top 40 from any year after 1970.

            My selections, therefore, will undoubtedly skew to the ‘70s, when I was not yet a father and had disposable income and time; or to the ‘60s, my formative years from 14 to 22.

            With that introduction, let the fun begin.

            “Hey, wherever we go,” you’re pretty much assured of hearing this classic. It’s totally infectious, whether you’re singing along on the car radio or bopping on the dance floor: “We used to sing – sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-di-la-di-da.” I’m generally not big on lyrics, but that’s one I can remember. The key words for me in this song, however, come late, and I never fail to wait expectantly. You have to remember that this came out in 1967, when references to sex were not so explicit. When Van the Man sang about “making love in the green grass, behind the stadium,” it unleashed my primal fantasies as I tried to picture the exact spot behind the football field where I could do it.

            I saw Morrison twice in concert in the ‘70s, once at the Fillmore East, the second time at Avery Fisher Hall. I remember walking back up Broadway from Lincoln Center, overhearing some fellow concertgoers opine that Van was the best singer in rock, and realizing that they were probably right. It doesn’t hurt my evaluation, or ranking of this song, that he followed it with one of the ten, maybe five, best albums of the Rock Era, Moondance.

 

Sidebar: Albums

            It’s worth addressing near the outset the question, why apotheosize 25 “songs,” when for much of the period it was the “album” (l/k/a “CD”) that was collected and was the unit upon which artists were judged. From 1955 until the Beatles’ breakthrough concept album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, in 1967, the album was basically a collection of singles, generally sold on the strength of the hit song or two. The ‘70s and, to a lesser extent the ‘80s, were the era of the album, exemplified by Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, in which one song melded into the next, a whole much, much greater than the sum of its single parts. Every art movement leads to a reaction, and by the early ‘80s the pop single, whether deriving from the New York Ramones or the British New Wave, was the hot trend. And since then, we’ve had a little of each, with the emergence of online downloading virtually erasing the relevance of music’s source.

            As for me, I have been introduced to almost all my music through the radio, which means that, even for albums I love, I have come to them through a favorite song. Even when the relationship I have with an artist leads me to buy an album, songs unheard, there was always one particular song that started the relationship. That will be the work I include in this list.

            Ooo-oo-oo-oo, waa-aa-aa, ooo-oo-oo-oo is just one of the hundreds of memorable doo-wop sounds that instantly identify a favorite oldie to any music lover growing up in the ‘50s. There are probably 20 such songs I could live with on this list (see sidebar, below), but none surpasses Earth Angel for its combination of general popularity, sheer beauty and essential doo-wopness. According to the random books in my library, this was the first independent rhythm-and-blues record to enter the national pop charts (in 1955, and it was a hit again three or four years later) and is “considered to be the top R&B record of all time in terms of continuous popularity.” Says another, “It changed the course of history.” The top three oldies in every WINS countdown in New York varied in order from year to year, but they were always In the Still of the Night, Tonite, Tonite and Earth Angel. As for sheer beauty, Cleve Duncan’s high tenor lead is one of the purest sounds in rock history. I get goose bumps listening to his “oh-oh-oh”-ing as he comes in for the final verse. And the innocence that marked the ‘50s and was a hallmark of doo-wop merged from Duncan’s voice, the naïve lyrics – “my darling dear, I’ll love you all the time” – and the simple production – the song was recorded by four 19-year-olds in a garage in Los Angeles, with only a piano and drum behind them. Which is not to say there aren’t subtleties that reward a close listen: when the bridge comes around for the second time, we’re treated to a new voice and a syncopated delivery that makes the return of Duncan’s clear tone all the more thrilling.

 

Sidebar: Doo-Wop

            How to compare the Penguins with Led Zeppelin? Of course you can’t, it’s the proverbial apples and oranges. But both were favorites of the moment, and both have staying power. Doo-wop is my Italian quattrocento, a period of exquisite beauty that may not be as sophisticated as Dutch 17^th century or Edo Japan but can still produce as big a thrill. In doo-wop there were slow songs and fast songs – usually back-to-back on the same 45 (e.g., Earth Angel b/wHey, Senorita) – and I can at least keep my comparisons somewhat clean by only judging Earth Angel against the slow-dance cohort. Cleve Duncan had an angelic voice, but so did Rudy West of the Five Keys (Out of Sight, Out of Mind) and Willie Winfield of the Harptones (The Glory of Love) and, to throw in a token white, Jimmy Beaumont of the Skyliners (Since I Don’t Have You). Other songs took fuller advantage of the group dimension of doo-wop: in Sincerely, the song that brought me to doo-wop, the opening bass line is unforgettable; in the Jesters’ version of The Wind, the whole ensemble trembles. Some songs pack more of an emotional wallop: Tears on My Pillow by Little Anthony & Imperials for one, Lee Andrews & Hearts’ Teardrops for another. Florence by the Paragons had an ethereal, other-worldly sound, while Shrine of St. Cecilia couldn’t have been more comforting. To an outsider, doo-wop may sound the same and even seem boring; but if, like a Renaissance scholar, you’ve studied it even a little, it’s a richly diverse world of magic.

            Ah, the introduction of a personal idiosyncrasy into the list, or is it? By any numerical measure – concert grosses, records sold, longevity – Jimmy Buffett can hold his own in the rock pantheon. But is he too much fun to be taken this seriously? Nah, who says rock can’t be fun. And certainly, establishing a fantasy lifestyle in one’s mind is one of rock’s great gifts, and on that score Margaritaville easily makes the top ten. For it is the national anthem of Jimmy Buffett’s tropical paradise, inhabited solely by like-minded Parrotheads, where a moral crisis is deciding what SPF-level sunscreen to put on today. Of course, there’s more than that: there’s love and friendship, missing you and Bahama breezes. I own 14 Buffett records, 8 CD’s and one tape, not counting greatest hits collections. His magisterial 4-disc compilation, aptly titled Beaches, Bars, Boats and Ballads wasn’t enough, so I made my own 4-disc collection and descriptively titled the discs “Lilt,” “Sleepy Time,” “The Philosopher” and “Good Times,” capturing the moods that Buffett mines time and again.

            As suggested, all Buffett songs are somewhat similar, but Margaritaville deserves to be singled out not only for the pride of place it’s accorded by its author and his fans, but because it was my introduction to his music, sealed when I heard it played in a New York City record store. So many Buffett themes are encapsulated in those three minutes: the weather (watchin’ the sun bake), food (nibblin’ on sponge cake) and drink (booze in the blender), existentialism (searchin’ for my lost shaker of salt) and lurking behind everything, the love of a girl. And lest you fret that Jimmy presents an excuse for an indolent existence, the story comes full circle, from “some people claim that there’s a woman to blame,” to “but I know, it’s my own damn fault.” And the simple story is told with a calypso-inflected beat that reminds me of every happy hour I’ve ever spent on a Caribbean vacation. And that is happy, indeed.

 

Sidebar: Favorite artists

            At 23 records and discs, my Buffett collection exceeds that of any other artist, but it also raises the question, how do I deal with artists whose oeuvre is in my top ten but may not have a distinguishing single song that makes this list. The first artists I collected, and this is a good example, were the BeeGees, starting with BeeGees 1^st, the first album I ever bought, and on through such nonessential output as Mr. Natural. I liked them first of all because, while they may have copied the Beatles, they weren’t the Beatles, and I could assert my individuality by favoring them over the Beatles. Their orchestrations were lush, their sound was appropriately melancholy, even angst-ridden (“To Love Somebody,” “Holiday”), Barry Gibb was gorgeous and their melodies were, too. I’m not a lyrics person (see TK, above), so the fact that their words were routinely among the most inane in rock history (“and the lights all went out in Massachusetts”) didn’t bother me. But there’s no masterwork, just a great sound, and a general level of consistency, until they went disco. Next came the Moody Blues – anything they put out, I bought, even when they split up and issued their own individual records. But, as with Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull, other great exemplars of orchestral rock, a song here or there might be better than others, but it was the overall album that was hypnotic and made me a fan. The opposite may be true of the great singer-songwriters of the ‘70s, led by Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Elton John and Billy Joel, each of whom I supported to the tune of a half-dozen or more discs. The sheer quantity of good numbers makes it hard to single just one out for this list, although until I get to the end “Piano Man,” at least, is in the running. The point is, in assessing my musical tastes, one can’t just look at my list of 25 singles.

Rod Stewart was the greatest rock vocalist of his time – perhaps of all time, a uniquely hoarse sound that carried its own urgency – and this is the song that introduced his greatness to us.  But first there are those opening drum shots, a kickstart whenever I hear them, that make me sit up and listen. Then, “Wake up, Maggie,” Rod shouts insistently, and I am hooked until I hear the end of his plea. And it’s not your usual plea: “I suppose I should collect my books and get on back to school. Or steal my daddy’s cue and make a living out of playing pool.” Interesting choice! The rasp in Stewart’s voice conveys a melancholy that makes this a perfect end-of-summer lament. That is the season I first heard it and will forever think of when the ultimately mysterious Maggie May shows up on my airwaves.  And just as the drums produce a classic start, the mandolin figure that comes at the end is one of rock’s great fade-outs.

 

Sidebar: Rock Covers

One measure of Rod Stewart’s supremacy as a vocalist is his ability to do justice to other singers’ songs. Listen to Downtown Train (Tom Waits), First Cut is the Deepest (Cat Stevens), Have I Told You Lately (Van Morrison), Reason to Believe (Tim Hardin) or the Motown sound of This Old Heart of Mine (Isley Bros.). There’s so much emotion in that husky voice, you almost think he can’t really sing. But he can. Eventually he falls back too far on that voice and leaves rock behind – some think he’s a sellout after about his second album, but that’s too harsh. He also writes some darn good songs himself: You’re in my Heart; Killing of Georgie, Tonight’s the Night.

            Is there anyone else in the rock pantheon who leaves his mark as an “interpreter”? I’m not counting someone like Elvis, who of course always sang other writers’ songs, since they were written for him in the first place. (Nor, except for My Way, did he add much when he sang a song you already knew.) Johnny Rivers comes to mind, on the strength of Tracks of My Tears, and the fact that 14 of the 16 songs on his Greatest Hits CD were first made famous by someone else, including major players like Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys. Otherwise it’s an interesting phenomenon of rock that songs are defined by their first singer. A list of “covers” that are not as good as the original would be endless.