A Loneliness Infected; Searching for meaning in quarantine
What are you doing? My wife asked.
“Just thinking.”
Its the umpteenth day of working from home and I feel a loneliness to my bones. And I got other people in the house, the aforementioned Catherine, my wife, and my daughter, Hannah, and her husband, Tom.
Just thinking.
Humans are social animals. We love to connect with other people. My daughters in their teen years would run out the door. Where ya going I’d holler from a comfy chair in front of a sports game.
Just hanging out , bye daddy, they’d say.
Call me, I’d yell back.
I was happy knowing they were happy ‘just hanging out.’
My wife was a pastor at a church in San Francisco so weekends she was always working. But I was happy knowing I’d go play basketball with ‘the guys.’ Hangin’ with the guys. And get home just as the daughters were running out of the door.
I had a soft chair, cold beverage and a TV. I was content.
I have to admit I’m having difficulty now finding that content spot as I quarantine against the coronavirus. Things are different now. I’m older, we all are older. I’m at special risk because of my Lewy body dementia diagnosis.
Maybe it’s self evident or too obvious that a little fear has creeped into my psyche.
Since the virus, I’ve often wondered and even asked people,: ‘What about the people who live alone.?’ I think there are many people lonely in a way they’ve never been before.
It’s a loneliness infected.
It comes with the exposure of our overwhelming vulnerability as humans on this planet. We are brought to our knees by a bug that we can’t see. COVID-19, like all viruses, are not exactly living beings, according to scientists.
Keep checking myvinylcountdown.com for more countdown vinyl record reviews. I have Queen as the latest. Just before Queen ther was P.J. Proby, who has a story that is pretty rock and roll.
Here’s a couple of pertinent song from John Lennon.
ALBUMS: Queen II (1974); Sheer Heart Attack (1974; A Night at the Opera (1975); News of the World (1977).
MVC Ratings: Queen II 4.0/$$$; Sheer 4.0/$$$; Opera 4.5/$$$$; News, 3.5/$$$
I was an early Queen adopter. And that’s saying something because Queen was so sonic in your face, bombastic and so not Bohemian that many had strong feelings strong negative feelings about Queen.
The critics pretty much panned the group. In a Village Voice review pompastic critic Robert Christgau gave Queen II a five -word dismissal review. He wrote: Wimpoid royaloid heavoid android void. C
Oh my Goid.
Of course it must have been all downhill from there. Not quite.
They later became at their peak, one of the most popular bands of all time.
Sure Queen II was heavoid but I was 14-year-old and thought the songs on the black side and white side (good versus evil) were really cool. Taking from the short-lived Glitter/Glam scene and heavy metal, Queen had musical talent on hand. Freddie Mercury, the lead singer with an amazingly powerful and wide-ranging voice, was also primary songwriter.
I never have had the self-entitled first album, although I’m familiar with it (the song’Tie Your Mother Down.’ particularly. Queen seemed to have pivoted after the critical slams of Queen II and released Sheer Heart Attack. It was a group of songs that that all sounded different, no connectivity whatsoever. There was, however, ‘Lily of the Valley’ which sounded like it belonged on Queen II.
A friend in my neighborhood in Indiana, who had introduced me to the group, said ‘They sold out, with Sheer Heart Attack.’ I didn’t agree.
(Shouldn’t we have been listening to John Mellencamp or John Hiatt in Indiana? Well, I moved before those two artists came to my attention).
In retrospect, it seems odd that some adolescent boys from Indiana known for its corn and a car race would be listening to Glam-rock British rockers. But we were, and still do.
The universal-ness of it all. Uh oh heavoid again.
So the scattershot nature of Sheer Heart Attack worked, mainly because of the big hit single ‘Killer Queen.’ This success set up the album ‘A Night at the Opera, which had the mega-hit ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ a single like perhaps no other. There have been other ‘songs-within-a-song’ before — ‘Uncle Albert’ by Paul McCartney, ‘A Day in the Life’ by the Beatles and ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’ by Meatloaf come to mind.
But none of those, although quite popular, I think equals the universal appeal of Bohemian Rhapsody with its outrageous blending of opera, rock and roll and romantic balladry.
About this time 1977-78, I was getting ready to graduate from high school and moving on in the state of Georgia. I inherited ‘News of the World’ from my wife, but it wasn’t the same Queen, and it wasn’t the same me.
I was ready to movoid down the road picking up other great music along the way. Like Mellencamp and Hiatt.
ALBUMS: Three Week Hero-PJP (1969); Enigma (1966): You Can’t Come Home Again (45 rpm) (1968): Somewhere (1967): What’s Wrong With My World (1968): Focus Con Proby (1977)
MVC Rating: Hero 4.0/$$$; Enigma 4.0/$$$; Home (45) 3.5/$$; Somewhere 3.5/$$; What’s Wrong with My World 2.5/$$; Focus Con Proby. (pending review)
I have written about Proby earlier when I named one of his albums one of the seven most underrated albums in My VInyl Countdown collection.
Proby’s story is certainly a wild one: he got kicked out of England; Van Morrison wrote a song about him; his sister dated Elvis; he played Elvis in a stage production; sang mostly rock and roll and ballads but at one point in the 1970s was lead singer for Focus the heavy prog band from the Netherlands in ‘Focus Con Proby.’ Focus is a group best known for their heavy metal yodeling song called Hocus Pocus.
First, a quick update on My Vinyl Countdown.com. That’s my website where I state my mission by vowing to listen to, write about and list (in alphabetical order) all of the records I have collected since, oh about age 12.
I’m 60 now. (I took about a two-decade detour into digital).
I am doing this to raise awareness of Lewy body dementia, which I have.
There is no cure for this disease, the second-leading form of degenerative dementia after Alzheimer’s. So yes, I am forgetful and I have tremors now and then. But thanks to modern science and miracles of their cost prohibitive I’m doing fine. My bank account may not be doing fine, but I am.
So anyway, I started with 678 records and have reviewed 438. Now I have about 240 records to go. (Give or take).
Thanks to everyone with the notes and kind words throughout this. It keeps me hanging on. (Got a Vanilla Fudge album to do when I get to the V’s).
Proby is one of those artists that I really didn’t know during my formative vinyl years. He’s one of several on the countdown that I have purchased more recently (past 3 years) as I started thumbing through bargain bins and thrift shops.
Coming home after a thrift store find I put on his Enigma record and immediately noticed the voice. It was an entity all to itself, Vegas, swamp rock, Elvis, Otis, Tom Jones — that voice channeled just about everything.
He was not moving the needle much in the U.S. but the UK seemed to love him. He was like Bizarro World Elvis: or Tom Jones playing Mick Jagger in a movie about the Stones; or Johnny Cash if he had grown up in Ireland during the 1950s and 60s and was heavily influenced by Van Morrison.
(These are fun, I could go on but I’ll restrain myself.)
The ‘accident’ sparked so much audience reaction that it happened again ……..and again. I couldn’t find any stories that detailed how many times it happened. But an oversight office on moral turpitude basically had Proby thrown out of the country.
PJ Proby’s albums were often a hodgepodge of styles looking for a theme. Some real gems however found within.
About the music. I would recommend Enigma which has his single ‘Niki Hoeky’ a Deep South novelty tune in the vein of Tony Joe White’s ‘Polk Salad Annie.’ Or about anything Jim Stafford would do.
Proby’s vocals jump comfortably from falsetto to hard rock/soul back down again.
The man knew he had a voice and that was possibly his downfall.
On stage he knew he could wow anyone when he opened his mouth to sing. But his ability to sing any type of song also meant that he recorded any type of songs — as if he was going for the shotgun affect and seeing which style will stick
The problem, which comes clear in the very-good-but-disjointed ‘Three Week Hero., ‘ is that he thinks it’s all too funny, like a comedian who has no sense of when to quit repeating the punch line. His exaggerated bumpkin accent on the opening title song on Hero has no reasoning behind it, context.
It’s bizarre as if he was brushing up to be on TV’s Hee Haw.
In another really good song he sounds like Johnny Cash — only better!
Then he airs out a completely gut wrenching Otis Redding like vocal on a song that made me readjust the listening device. He covered ” It’s so hard to be a N-word.’ No, I’m not going to write it).
It’s a song written by Georgia civil rights activist and African American Mable Hillery. I was brought up that white people never use the N-word so I questioned the appropriateness of a white man singing. Here’s Mable’s version.
And here is Proby’s version with the backing of a group of four men called the New Yardbirds.
Yes, the New Yardbirds were John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. It is believed to be the first time the future Led Zeppelin members recorded together.
NOTE: This song is part of a 3-song medley that also includes ‘George Wallace came Rolling in this Morning.’
Off the same album is this one which sounds like it could have been a single.
Patti Labelle — like Diana Ross –first gained notice leading a ‘girl’ group.Diana Ross and the Supremes, Patti Labelle and the Bluebelles.
Both singers became stars and left their respective groups and became even more famous with long productive careers.
In fact, one of the Bluebelles became a “Supreme” — Cindy Birdsong.
But the comparisons end at the music. Diana Ross was a hit making songstress whose soft smoky voice appealed to a broader range of people than Labelle.
Labelle was a soul belter with an amazingly powerful voice, think Aretha Franklin, although higher and more piercing. This album is live and she works it out on songs like ‘I Sold my Heart to the Junkman’ and ‘Go On.’ The interesting thing on these older tracks is that Patti keeps her voice under rein. Later, with some big spots on television and concerts she would tend to let loose with her vocal acrobatics, scaling octaves like Mount Everest. A glass breaking voice that dominated and overshadowed anyone who might be on stage with her.
Perhaps her biggest recording was the multimillion seller ‘Lady Marmalade.’
ALBUMS: Reunion (1978); In Concert (1964); 1700, (1967)
MVC Ratings: Reunion 3.0/$; In Concert, 3.5/$$; 1700 3.0/$
Peter, Paul and Mary (PP&M) are the Three Dog Night of folk music. And I don’t mean that in any disparaging way, to either party.
They both were accomplished performers and recorded great music that touched millions of people. They just weren’t trailblazers, they were interpretors. PP&M’s voices blended like milk in coffee. But they were doing other people songs. It was all to a good end. When they recorded Dylan’s ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ they made people pay attention to an almost perfect song sung in harmonic synchronicity as opposed to Dylan’s version, which was heartfelt and great but urban sidewalk busker-like with Dylan blowing harp and finger picking his guitar. Some would say PPM were homogenized and they were.
In a similar but reverse way, Three Dog Night did small hits of folksy sounding songs and turned them into convincing rock and rollers: Think Laura Nyro’s ‘Eli’s Coming, Randy Newman’s ‘Mama Told Me Not to Come’ and Harry Nillson’s “One.’ (Actually the Nyro song rocks about as hard as Three Dog Night’s.)
Now there’s nothing wrong, as I’ve said, with covering other songs. Singer-songwriters, it seems to me are relatively new thing. Folks like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Elvis didn’t write their songs. But they could deliver them in a charismatic or appealing way and had nice careers.
The singer-songwriter phase really kicked in with the Beatles and Dylan. During the British invasion led by the Beatles, many acts were just starting to write their own including the Beatles, Buddy Holly and the Rolling Stones.
I’ve got here three PP&M albums. The newest from 1978 is Reunion. The other two are old, with tape on the seams, albums played to death by mi esposa, Catherine, who grew up loving them, Carol King, Carly Simon, James Taylor and the Beach Boys. Oh, and Simon and Garfunkel.
All singer-songwriters. In fact that little group right there have written some of the best known songs in contemporary times. Meanwhile Peter Paul and Mary just made beautiful music. Beautiful like this:
After about 30 years of not listening to this record, I put it on the other day and have been through it about three times. Before I listened to it I read a description of Pratt’s music as ‘experimental.’
I bought this for his song, the original version, of “Avenging Annie.” I had Roger Daltrey’s cover of the song from his album ‘One of the Boys.’ I still can’t tell which version is better. I lean toward’s Pratt with that falsetto going. But Daltrey’s is a little more straightforward with his lead singer pipes.
But, yes, unlike the Daltry album which was had a couple of mildly interesting songs and then filler. Pratt is indeed experimental, at least when compared to Daltrey.
Pratt tends to go for esoteric dreamy mood songs, that feature a wide dynamic range. Soft singing, loud singing, soft singing, loud singing.
The problem is most have odd structures that upon this renewed hearing sounds like no structure at all. He has a fragile voice. I think it comes down to who has the best Avenging Annie and I say Pratt by a hair (In fact, Pratt and Daltrey have very similar hair.) . I gave Pratt the same grade I gave Daltrey.
Well as I reported yesterday, the world is ending. But we made it through Friday the 13th.
I often talk about my fatal disease Lewy body dementia. Eventually after some conversation one of us will say ‘Hey we are all going to die.’ Death rate of those on earth is still 100 percent.
But me, I have a fatal disease and I don’t want to die ‘early’ from some damn virus. I want as many good minutes as I can get.
This COVID -19 virus is supposed to get widespread in Alabama, infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Saag. His op-ed piece which we published Friday paints a bleak picture., especially if we don’t act swiftly.
IMPORTANT BROKEN LINK FIX: There was a link to a New York Times graphic that Saag pointed out in his op-ed. The graphic a nice job in a simple way of how and why we need to stretch and slow the infection rate down. I checked the link this morning and it was broken but I found it here. I’m now going to go correct it in Saag’s op-ed.
Keep checking back here for more My Vinyl Countdown on the virus, the end of life as we know it or going stir crazy with no basketball. This is changing our lives in myriad ways.
TIP OF THE DAY: Don’t check your retirement funds. Not even worth adding that to the worry list.
Hope you all saw my Top 5 playlist for the apocalypse or armageddon or end times — what ever you want to call it . Click here to start dancing in these grim times.
Other bits and pieces (not from the Dave Clark Five. ):
–My good buddy Chris Brown from Georgia , a reconnected friend from childhood sent me $100 dollar to buy an old relatively obscure album we used to listen to and laugh at. In support of MyVinylCountdown. The album is 10cc’s ‘How Dare You,’ a before-its-time musical theater about love and relationships with pristine musicality. I mean, for real, when the song ‘Don’t Hang Up’ ends there’s a dial tone. Not kidding — that was cool. Of course the album now languishes in garbage dumps and bargain bends because nobody now even knows what a $%^&* dial tone is.
Best line from that song: ‘When the barman asked what’s you’re drinking, I said marriage on the rocks.’
Chris, my brother, I sent you also another 10cc album in addition to that one. It’s called Bloody Tourists and is a little more commercial. It has ‘Dreadlock Holiday’ and that last song about the guy getting so drunk he ruins his night. It has amusing special effects.
— Look for a MVC story over the weekend about the most expensive records you can buy and how vinyl is still ruling.
–One vinyl note, the numbers next to the artists’ names on blog post indicate how many I have left to do. So, for example, now with Process and the Doo Rags there is the number 265, which means I have that many left to review. Starting at 678, I have reviewed and posted 413 records: 265 to go as we count down. There’s some really good stuff coming up as I roll into the last quarter.
I can’t say I’d keep you as entertained as NBA basketball and March Madness but I’ll give it a try.
Leave you with an apocalyptic song from David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, one of my fave all times. The album was purchased from me at the record convention by a good friend, Kevin. Here’s ‘Five Years.’
Here’s a list of the Top 3 overall, followed by a list of Top 3 male vocal performances (not including the Top 3 I previously named.) And, yes, Top 3 female vocal performances.
This is highly subjective. When I say performance I don’t mean necessarily live – it could be live or a studio version. Here we go, short and sweet.
1) Joe Cocker‘With a Little Help from Friends.’ Live at Woodstock. This cover of the Beatles song was turned inside out and milked to an explosion of emotion. Seeing him sing it makes it all the more potent as he writhes and sways as he pulls out deep feelings and blasts them into the souls of listeners who know not what is happening
2) Janis Joplin “Me and Bobby’ McGee.’ The cover of the Kris Kristofferson song came as a surprise. No one thought the shrieking hellhound from Texas could wrench so much emotion out of what was a deceptively well-written vagabond song. She gets under and over the notes in an amazing show of restraint letting it out, cathartically, at the end with the most natural sounding ‘na na na’ chorus this side of Wilson Pickett’s Land of a 1,000 Dances.
3) Sly Stone ‘If You Want Me to Stay.’ With its thumping thunking bass line forcing you on your feet, This mid-tempo Sly song covers all the bases vocally, from yodel flip to falsetto and back to heavy chest vibrating low octaves. It has soul and it is making the soul work.
Quick hits male and female:
Top 3 (Male vocal performance other than the above)
2) Wilson Pickett Hey Jude Beatles version is great but Pickett with guitar session help from Duane Allman tears the cover off.
3) Elvis Presley Fever (I also considered Jailhouse Rock and Kentucky Rain.}
Top 3 (Female vocal performance other than the above)
1) Eva Cassidy“Over the Rainbow” a pop ballad, not really rock. But when you hear this live version of the classic song, sung in a DC area night club with only Eva’s voice and acoustic guitar, you instantly are told by the chills down your neck that this is singing. And Magic. Singer died too young.
2) Gayle McCormick “Baby, It’s You.” The Shirelles did it, the Beatles did it but nobody did this song better than the lead singer of A Group Called Smith.
ALBUMS: Ummaguma (1969) : Dark Side of the Moon (1973): Wish You Were Here (1975); The Wall (1979)
MVC Rating: Ummagumma/4.0/$$$$$; Dark Side/ 5.0/$$$$$; Wish/$$$$$ 4.5; the Wall, 4.5/$$$$$ (NOTE: All five dollar signs meaning at least $25 to get any of these in decent shape. Can pay many hundreds for certain Pink Floyd collectibles.)
By the way, which one’s Pink?
A classic line from a classic album.
The line from a meeting between the rock group and the record company executives, in a few words, captures the relationship or lack thereof between artists and the anonymous men in suits, a relationship that historically had been too often built on rip-offs and lies. Their only interest is that ‘Pink’ and his chums can sell more ‘units.’
Come on in have a cigar boys, the producer tells them.
“I’ll tell you the name of the game, boys,” the song goes. I”t’s called riding the gravy train.”
That on ‘Wish You Were Here” echoed a previous song, the ‘hit’ Money from the DSOM album: New car, caviar, four star daydream Think I’ll buy me a football team…
Pink Floyd has become synonymous with the so-called Classic Rock genre. But back when I got it, there was not a lot like it. There was no ‘Classic’ yet.
Pink Floyd deserves their success. I thought they were out of this world when I first heard them. I think my girlfriend in Indiana in the 9th grade gave me ‘Dark Side of the Moon.’ And if I am not mistaken, i gave her David Essex who really had only one song I remember and that was Rock On. Cool song with a little rock-a-billy echo if I recollect.
Floyd was one of those bands that expanded the boundaries of rock and roll, starting with highly experimental sounds with space as a theme or touchstone. Albums like Ummagumma and Piper’s at the Gates of Dawn were long rides, with trippy special effects. It was the kind of music that your parents thought was all rock music. Ummagumma had extreme dyanamic range with soft passages you could barely hear followed by wine glass breaking shrieks. I don’t know what a banshee looks or sounds like, but I imagine it would sound like the end of the first side of Ummagumma.
And yes, there was an element of the music built to ‘freak out’ the psychedelic or stoned crowd. But as many artists have shown before and after those Ummagumma 60’s and Dark Side 70’s, you usually lose when you mess with the drugs.
Pink Floyd became one of the most successful group of musicians in rock history, or should I say music history. They reigned in their psychedelic influenced musical ramblings into something much more accessible and potent. Unfortunately along the way they lost a key band founder, Syd Barrett, whose drug use escalated and his mental health deteriorated. Eventually the band kicked Barrett out, although he remained a muse and influential inspiration for Pink Floyd’s other members.
From Wikipedia: “Pink Floyd’s most popular work drew on the power of what Barrett signified,” wrote Steven Hyden in his 2018 book Twilight of the Gods. “[E]ven after he was no longer in the band, his spirit haunted its records.”
The Floyd album and song ”Wish You were Here,’ was about Syd as was ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ from the same album.
Pink Floyd’s trademark other-worldy sound and echoes, dipping in to free form jazz and touches of Classical music was Barrett’s foundation for the band led by David Gilmour and Roger Waters. A list of top selling artists of all time using data from MTV, VH1, and Billboard shows Floyd with 121 million certified units sold. That puts them 8th on the list of all time sales leaders. The top three are the Beatles, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson.
By practically creating a new genre, Pink Floyd will go down as one of the most pioneering groups ever. There were other experimentalists. The Soft Machine, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Hawkwind, and Kraftwork. But none ever appealed to as many people. Dark Side of the Moon was on the charts (200) for an astounding 14 years.
