Rolling Stone Magazine just published their selection of the 200 Best Singers Of All Time. The list is dominated by giants of the 50/60/70s. Three decades that defined rock
and pop for eternity. The Top 10 is all about timeless soul voices. Two big surpirses: Elvis Presley is only at 17 and, what a damn shame, unique voice Roy – Big O – Orbison only at 71.
SIDE ONE
1. Break On Through (To the Other Side)
3. The Crystal Ship
4. Twentieth Century Fox
5. Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)
SIDE TWO
1 Back Door Man
2. I Looked at You
3. End of the Night
4. Take It as It Comes
5. The End
Rolling Stone: “After blowing minds as the house band at L.A.’s Whisky-a-Go-Go, where
they got fired for playing the Oedipal drama “The End,” the Doors were ready to unleash
their organ-driven rock on the world. “On each song we had tried every possible arrangement,” drummer John Densmore said, “so we felt the whole album was tight.” The Blakean pop art on their debut was beyond Top 40 attention spans. But they hit pay dirt by editing down one of their jams: “Light My Fire,” written by guitarist Robbie Krieger when Jim Morrison told everybody in the band to write a song with universal imagery.”
Jim Morrison: “I see myself as an intelligent, sensitive human, with the soul of a clown which forces me to blow it at the most important moments.”
Key tracks: Light My Fire / The End / Break On Through (To the Other Side)
Band: PINK FLOYD
Album: THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON – 8th LP Released: 1 March 1973 Score: 14× platinum in the UK, No 1 in the US
where it has charted for 950 weeks in total. More
than 45 million copies sold (and counting).
Rolling Stone: “I think every album was a step toward Dark Side of the Moon,” keyboardist Rick Wright said. “We were learning all the time; the techniques of the recording and our writing was getting better.” As a culmination of their inner-space explorations of the early 1970s, the Floyd toured the bulk of Dark Side in Britain for months prior to recording. But in the studio, the band articulated bassist Roger Waters’ reveries on the madness of everyday life with melodic precision (“Breathe,” “Us and Them”) and cinematic luster (Clare Torry’s guest-vocal aria, “The Great Gig in the Sky”). It’s one of the best-produced rock albums ever, and “Money” may be the only Top 20 hit in 7/4 time.
Facts to know…
1. Dark Side of the Moon was the first Pink Floyd album
to feature Roger Waters as its sole lyricist. 2. The album was very nearly called ‘Eclipse’. 3. Floyd fans were first treated to Dark Side of the Moon
in concert more than a year before the album was actually released. 4. The original live arrangement of “On the Run” bore little resemblance
to the electronic freakout on the record. 5. ‘Money’ was influenced by Booker T and the MGs. 6. Paul McCartney’s contributions to the album were deleted
but the Beatles made a surprise appearance on the record. 7. ‘Us and Them’ was a reject from the Zabriskie Point soundtrack. 8. An image of the Silver Surfer was originally considered for the album’s cover. 9. Dark Side of the Moon was the first Pink Floyd album to break the US Top 40. 10. Proceeds from the album helped fund Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
More details about these 10 amazing facts right here.
Singles: Money / Us And Them
– MONEY –
– US AND THEM –
Full album…
. “I’ve only ever written about one thing in my life, which is the fact that we,
as human beings, have a responsibility to one another and that it’s important that
we empathize with others, that we organize society so that we all become happier
and we all get the life we really want.” – Roger Waters
Artist: Patti Smith Album: Horses – debut LP Released: November 1975 – 45 years ago
Rolling Stone: “From its first defiant line, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,” the opening shot in a bold reinvention of Van Morrison’s Sixties garage-rock classic “Gloria,” Patti Smith’s debut album was a declaration of committed mutiny, a statement of faith in the transfigurative powers of rock & roll. Horses made her the queen of punk before it even really existed, but Smith cared more for the poetry in rock. She sought the visions and passions that connected Keith Richards and Rimbaud – and found them, with the intuitive assistance of a killing band (pianist Richard Sohl, guitarist Lenny Kaye, bassist Ivan Kral and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty) and her friend Robert Mapplethorpe, who shot the stark, beautiful cover portrait.”
“I had a handful of records, but when I was 11 years old, I liked Puccini
as much as Little Richard. They both made sense to me.” – Patti Smith
Full album…
Band: THE BAND Album: THE BAND – second LP Released: 22 September 1969
ROLLING STONE wrote: “The Band were four-fifths Canadian – drummer Levon Helm was from Arkansas – but their second album is all American. Guitarist Robbie Robertson’s songs vividly evoke the country’s pioneer age (“Across the Great Divide”) and the Civil War (“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”), while reflecting the fractured state of the nation in the 1960s. The Band’s long life on the road resonates in the brawn of Garth Hudson’s keyboards and Helm’s juke-joint attack. But Robertson’s stories truly live in Helm’s growl, Rick Danko’s high tenor and Richard Manuel’s spectral croon. “Somebody once said he had a tear in his voice,” Helm said
of Manuel: “Richard had one of the richest-textured voices I’d ever heard.”
“It’s easy to be a genius in your twenties. In your forties, it’s difficult.” – Robbie Robertson
Two of the many highlights (live versions taken from their famous final The Last Waltz concert – with the original line-up – in 1976 in San Francisco filmed by top director Martin Scorsese)…
– THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN –
– UP ON CRIPPLE CREEK –
Album – expanded version
(Original tracklist #1 – #12)
Artist: Bob Marley
6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981 Album: Legend Released: 8 May 1984
Rolling Stone: “Bob Marley said:”Reggae music is too simple for [American musicians]. You must be inside of it, know what’s happening, and why you want to play this music. You don’t just run and go play this music because you think you can make a million off it.” Ironically, this set of the late reggae idol’s greatest hits has sold in the millions worldwide. In a single disc, it captures everything that made him an international icon: his nuanced songcraft, his political message (and savvy), and – of course – the universal soul he brought to Jamaican rhythm and Rastafarian spirituality in the gunfighter ballad “I Shot the Sheriff,” the comforting swing of “No Woman, No Cry” and the holy promise of “Redemption Song.”
“If you’re white and you’re wrong, then you’re wrong; if you’re black and you’re wrong, you’re wrong. People are people. Black, blue, pink, green – God make no rules about color; only society make rules where my people suffer, and that why we must have redemption and redemption now.” – Marley
Artist: John Coltrane
Born in North-Carolina in 1926
Passed away in New-York in 1967 Album: A Love Supreme Released: January 1965 – 55 years ago
Rolling Stone: “Two important things happened to John Coltrane in 1957: The saxophonist
left Miles Davis’ employ to join Thelonious Monk’s band and hit new heights in extended,
ecstatic soloing. Coltrane also kicked heroin addiction, a vital step in a spiritual awakening
that climaxed with this legendary album-long hymn of praise – transcendent music perfect
for the high point of the civil rights movement. The indelible four-note theme of the first piece, “Acknowledgment,” is the humble foundation of the suite. But Coltrane’s majestic, often violent blowing (famously described as “sheets of sound”) is never self-aggrandizing. His playing soars with nothing but gratitude and joy. You can’t help but go with him.”
Quote Coltrane: “You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.”
Keyline: BLACK LIVES MATTER (yes, 32 years ago too, bully Trump!)
AllMusic wrote: “‘Yo! Bum Rush the Show’ was an invigorating record, but it looks like
child’s play compared to its monumental sequel, ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us
Back’, a record that rewrote the rules of what hip-hop could do. That’s not to say the album is without precedent, since what’s particularly ingenious about the album is how it reconfigures things that came before into a startling, fresh, modern sound. Public Enemy used the template Run-D.M.C. created of a rap crew as a rock band, then brought in elements of free jazz, hard funk, even musique concrète, via their producing team, the Bomb Squad, creating a dense, ferocious sound unlike anything that came before.” Score: 5/5.
Full album…
. Key tracks: Rebel Without A Cause / Don’t Believe The Hype / Bringe The Noise
Rolling Stone: “Rock’s greatest live double LP is an unbeatable testimony to the Allman Brothers’ improvisational skills, as well as evidence of how they connected with audiences to make jamming feel communal. “The audience would kind of play along with us,” singerorganist Gregg Allman said of the March 1971 shows documented here. “They were right on top of every single vibration coming from the stage.” The dazzling guitar team of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts was at its peak, seamlessly fusing blues and jazz in “Whipping Post” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” But their telepathy was interrupted: Just three months after the album’s release, Duane died in a motorcycle accident.”
Gregg Allman:“I said, other people can write songs, let’s see if I can. So the first
400 or 500 wound up on the floor somewhere. Then I wrote one called Melissa.”
Rolling Stone:“I came from a family where my people didn’t like rhythm & blues,” Little Richard told Rolling Stone in 1970. “Bing Crosby, ‘Pennies From Heaven,’ Ella Fitzgerald was all I heard. And I knew there was something that could be louder than that, but didn’t know where to find it. And I found it was me.” Richard’s raucous 1957 debut album collected singles such as “Rip It Up” and “Long Tall Sally,” in which his rollicking boogie-woogie piano and falsetto scream ignited the unfettered possibilities of rock & roll. “Tutti Frutti” still contains what has to be considered the most inspired rock lyric ever recorded: “A wop bop alu bop, a wop bam boom!”
TURN UP THE VOLUME 