Tag: music

Last week we discussed To Our Children’s Children’s Children, and this week we shall listen to the next record, A Question of Balance.  I personally like this album very much, second only to In Search of the Lost Chord.

No band members were changed, the same five performing since the second album, this one being their sixth.  Tony Clarke produced, just as he had since the second album.  This album has on it one of their high charting singles, “Question”, and is just marvelous.  Many of the songs from this album became staples for live performances.  Phil Travers once again provided the cover art.  It is their second record on Threshold Records.

Last week we discussed On the Threshold of a Dream, and this week the next album by The Moody Blues, To our Children’s Children’s Children.

The band were the same lineup as from their second record, and after being released on 19691121 charted at #2 in the UK and at #14 the next year in the US.  This is really a very nice album, although not my favorite Moodies one.

This album follows the trend that The Moody Blues were an album rather than a singles band because the only single from it failed to chart.  We discussed this last week and came to the conclusion that the ideas that they were expressing were simply too complex for one or two songs.

I was going to take a break from this series and write about the 1969 TeeVee show Turn-On.  It aired only one episode, and some stations cut the feed during the show, and some Mountain and Pacific Time Zone stations never aired it at all.  If anyone knows where there are links to content, please let me know.  I am one of the few people to have seen the entire first (and only) episode ever to be aired.

Last time we finished up about The Moody Blues third album, In Search of the Lost Chord.  I really thought that this was a fine piece of music.  Their next album, released on 19690425 on Deram Records, it charted at #1 in the UK and at #20 in the US.  This record was really the one that locked their commercial (and artistic) success.

Whilst not as complex and the previous album (the five played only 12 instruments rather than the more than 30, although Hayward played both 6 and 12 string guitar, so the total really should be 13), it is very charming.  Whilst not a single song stands out as extraordinary, as a whole it is a marvelous piece.  Have you heard?

Last time we talked about the origins of The Moody Blues and some of their earlier work.  We ended on “The Best Way to Travel” from In Search of the Lost Chord.

I was called away to help my friend do something to get ready to attend a wedding the next day, so we shall finish that album tonight and start on the next one, On the Threshold of a Dream.  That was also a fine album.

I am very fond of The Moody Blues, although regular readers know that I am at heart a fan of The Who.  This short (probably two or three installments) was suggested to me by my dear friend Steve.  He and go back to the eighth grade, and we still speak almost every day, sometimes more than once per day.

To digress, I am very impressed with modern high speed communication.  We live almost 900 miles apart from each other, yet can communicate by telephone for essentially no cost since we both have unlimited cellular minutes.  When we were in the eighth grade, a landline station to station call cost around 25 cents per minute, end we lived only around 15 miles apart at the time.  How things have changed!

In any event, The Moody Blues were one of the older bands from the UK, having formed on 19640504, with the lineup appearing after the fold.  Mark I was not horribly successful, but Mark II were spectacular.

James Joseph Croce (aka “Jim”), was born on 19430110 in South Philadelphia.  If a tragedy had not intervened, he likely would still be with us.  Unfortunately, he was killed in an aeroplane crash on 19730920, not yet 31 years old.

Croce had the unusual ability to write both comedic and serious material with aplomb (I always wanted to work that word into a piece).  Only a few writers have been able to do this, and for the most part he wrote his own material.  He did record some material written by others, but what artist has not?

He also had the ability to attract a very diverse listenership.  My father was about as opposed to popular music as could draw breath, but love “You Don’t Mess around with Jim”!  Let us take a few minutes to look at the way too short life and listen to some of the work of this talented writer and performer.

First of all, I apologize for missing Wednesday’s installment of My Little Town.  If anyone is interested why, I shall be happy to explain in the comments.  Briefly, yesterday was very busy.

The Lovin’ Spoonful were a short lived band that several well known hits.  Their music was more catchy than substantive, but better than much of the pap that was available at the time.

This is the only time that I intend to write about them, but they were quite popular for a few years.  There is controversy about the origin of the name for the band, and we shall address that first.

Love songs are a huge part of popular music, and have been since liturgical music lost its primary place.  I certainly shall not try to cover centuries worth of love songs, but rather just give a few that I particularly like.

We shall cover the mid 1950s to the fairly recent era.  Since I have not kept up with popular music for some years, I leave it to readers to contribute more recent contributions.

Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show were sort of a strange band.  Whilst they were not nearly as profound as bands that I prefer, they were also not annoying.  They did not pretend to be profound, and some of their early material was actually pretty good.

They are best remembered for “The Cover of the Rolling Stone“, a piece that I found to be quite witty and clever.  They did an excellent job of self parody on this number, and it paid off for them in that they did indeed make it there after it charted.

I intend to concentrate on the years from 1968 to 1976, although they in various reincarnations continued for a long time thereafter.  Most of their good material is from that era.

I must first offer my apologies to Peter Townshend.  Pete, sorry, but I think that you would probably approve of this.  Please know that I mean no disrespect to the original song.  This is just political satire using one of your standards.

Normally I do not write highly political pieces, that function being done far better by others here, but tonight is an exception.  I hope that this gets my feelings about how the Republicans have taken what should be a foregone conclusion and twisted it to try to make their point, whatever that point is.  I have tried to be witty and not mean with it, but when talking ’bout Republicans sometimes it is difficult to keep from getting mean.

Those of you who have been reading this series know that this will be the last installment about the history of The Who.  Although The Who continued to record new material and tour after 1978, to me the band really ended then and what was left was sort of what we now call a tribute band.

For 1978 to be such a disaster, it started off well enough, actually really well.  The Who were at the top of their game insofar as business interests went, Townshend, after being burnt by Kit Lambert, with whom he never reconciled, developed a high degree of business acumen, and The Who as a band were never strapped for cash again, although Moon and Entwistle had chronic money woes because of their lifestyles.  Daltrey was pretty conservative and also had a fairly successful acting career post 1978.

Although it pains me greatly to write this last installment, we might as well get on with it.  There are a number of ironies in 1978, and I shall point them out as we encounter them.  Please follow after the fold.

Last time we looked at the extremely busy 1976, a year filled with touring in Europe, the UK, and especially in North America.  It turns out that 1977 would be relatively quiet from that perspective, but quite lively from some others.

Townshend was burnt out from touring, and, interestingly, Daltrey was as well.  He even turned down a lucrative set of North American opportunities, saying that he could not devote the emotion and energy to a solo tour that he should reserve for future tours with The Who.

On the other hand, Entwistle and Moon lived to tour, but did not.  Moon never really had the wherewithal to tour solo, and the last time that Entwistle did he lost lots of money.  So they pretty stayed put for 1977.