NOVEMBER 1976

 

 

Two important things happened to me musically this month. One was that I bought my first single of my own choosing, unsupervised, with my pocket money. I was moved to buy it because Richard Williams in Melody Maker compared the cymbal-heavy drumming on the record  - so heavy that it effectively drowns out any beat - to Sunny Murray. The single didn't make the Top 30 but I've included it below in my supplementaty links; it shouldn't be too difficult to identify.

 

The second occurred while listening to an episode of Peter Clayton's Jazz Record Requests, Saturday teatime on Radio 3. My father always recorded this show on tape in case he played any classics. On this particular occasion, one Hugh Nolan of Munlochy, Ross and Cromarty, requested "Circus '68 '69" by Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, about whom I then knew nothing.

 

What an extraordinary piece of music, I thought, with its nightmarish carousel recurring harmonised waltz motif. Its first section was Haden alone, playing his bass and stating the main theme. He was eventually joined by drums, swirling slightly out of time before building to a brisk marching tempo, upon which a host of horns suddenly fell backwards into the recording studio and started honking and screaming. Chaos! My father raised his eyebrows. Liberation Music, we're all free, MAN! It was like Roy Wood's Wizzard but drunk, and you'd hear weird When Things Were Rotten-type thematic motifs and even a bit of "Happy Days Are Here Again."

 

Then, eventually, a HUGE and solemn organ enters and plays churchy chords, while a police whistle blows and the drumkit sounds like it's falling apart, or dodging bullets. Screams from one saxophone in particular, as though being repeatedly kicked. It all settles down, albeit uneasily - Haden's bass re-enters and restates the theme, before the orchestra returns for a shambolic and inconclusive final full thematic statement.

 

My father thought it was garbage but I kept listening to that tape - when he was out of the house - and actually came to think it was enormous and radical. I knew nothing about the political background to the music or, at the time, who was involved, since Peter Clayton didn't identify the line-up (too many musicians, I guessed); nor did I realise there were two drummers. The album was impossible to find in Glasgow anyway, as was the case with nearly all good jazz records in the late seventies that weren't on Pablo or ECM. Many was the time when I hopefully flicked through the H section at James Kerr and other places only to encounter a lot of Bobby Hackett.

 

I eventually tracked one down, second-hand via mail order from Honest Jon's in Camden, for £2.95 (on the British label Probe Records, also home to Steely Dan here). By that time it was early 1980, I'd discovered Escalator Over The Hill and didn't really want to listen to any music that didn't involve Carla Bley. But wow, I listened to "Circus '68 '69" and thought - I could do that. Of course I couldn't and didn't. But both of these occurrences, occurring as they did in the same month, were to me like punk rock come a month early.

 

Notes on Text

 

The reason I linked the Showaddywaddy and Stan Tracey pieces is because they have one musician in common - alto saxophonist Jeff Daley, who solos on "Under The Moon Of Love" and appears in the 1978 line-up of the Stan Tracey Octet; the latter piece was recorded at the Royal Festival Hall on 25 February 1978, when the group was supporting the Gil Evans Orchestra, and my parents and I were in the audience. 

 

The strings on Rod Stewart’s “Get Back” were arranged and conducted by Wil Malone, later of Massive Attack, The Verve etc.

 

 

6 November

 

BONNIE TYLER: Lost In France/Baby I Remember You (RCA Victor RCA 2734)

 

 

 

The “And Then He Kissed Me” riff but with an accordion – because it’s supposed to be “French” – and a throatily spirited lead vocal which is possibly more than the song deserves.

 

 

 

STEVE MILLER BAND: Rock ‘N’ Me/The Window (Mercury 6078 804)

 

 

 

Their first British hit. I’ve no idea why “The Joker” wasn’t a smash here, other than British audiences not understanding what he was singing about, but this is a splendid and quite elemental mainstream rocker.

 

 

 

DR HOOK: If Not You/Up On The Mountain (Capitol CL 15885)

 

 

 

Apart from the slightly desperate look back to Shel Silverstein times (“Who’s gonna iron my shirts?” – why not do it yourself?), the melancholy conclusion here is that Dr Hook have metamorphosised into a rather dull MoR-country act. That’s probably why they’re having hits again.

 

 

THE WHO: Substitute/I’m A Boy/Pictures Of Lily (Polydor 2058 803)

 

 

 

It may say something about the music scene today that ten-year-old hits can suddenly batter their way back into the charts, but on the other hand this is my first 12-inch single! This is promoting yet another Who compilation album but the power of these three songs, and “Substitute” in particular, far exceeds any of the polite records surrounding them. This sounds like raw, disturbing abnormality today and perhaps that was the case back in the mid-sixties. As though something radical were about to break out and into the world. Phenomenal. That drumming, like nails being hammered into the crosses bearing our enemies.

 

 

 

 

13 November

 

HANK C BURNETTE: Spinning Rock Boogie/Don’t Mess With My Ducktail (Sonet SON 2094)

 

 

 

And what is THIS???!!! Making “Jungle Rock” sound like Our Kid, this is an INSANE fifties-style instrumental rocker with demented sound-effects, echoes seemingly emanating from the neighbouring asteroid belt and more chord changes than Don Ellis. One of this year’s most exciting and anarchic hits. Something is about to boil over.

 

 

 

BOZ SCAGGS: Lowdown/Jump Street (CBS 4563)

 

 

 

One week after the Steve Miller Band finally get a hit here, a former member of the same band appears in his own right with this really irresistible bounce of a song, drawled vocals over bright flute – think Van Morrison doing the hustle – and some majestic jazz modulations. Smooth, urban and slightly dirty underneath; this is a GREAT pop record.

 

 

 

YVONNE ELLIMAN: Love Me/(I Don’t Know Why) I Keep Hangin’ On (RSO 2090 205)

 

 

 

The “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” singer returns with a very typical midtempo Bee Gees-penned weepie that actually makes more lyrical sense than is usual for the Gibb brothers. Not what you’d call thrilling, but Elliman sounds as though she believes what she’s singing, which for many record buyers will be enough.

 

 

 

SHOWADDYWADDY: Under The Moon Of Love/Lookin’ Back (Bell 1495)

 

 

 

I’d hoped we weren’t going to see Showaddywaddy in the charts this year but this Curtis Lee cover looks as though it could give them their first number one, with drums and timpani exploding like fireworks and Mike Hurst’s production disguising typically ordinary fare. My father (who amusingly thinks they’re singing “under the moon above,” which is probably a better lyric) loves them, of course, which is logical because this is rock ‘n’ roll for people who can’t stand rock ‘n’ roll, sucking out all the blood and mischief of the original to leave us with gaudily vivid wallpaper. Saturday night light entertainment with all the threat surgically removed. Is this what Elvis went into the Army for, what Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran died for? So that LARRY GRAYSON would like rock ‘n’ roll? Showaddywaddy fans would secretly like pop still to be Alma Cogan and Dickie Valentine – well, I’m afraid it’s now too late for either.

 

 

 

 

20 November

 

DANA: Fairytale/Country Girl (GTO GT 66)

 

 

 

Written and produced by Barry Blue – so that’s what he’s doing now! – Dana sounds here like she’s trying to board the Tina Charles wagon train with what is actually a fairly decent pop shuffler.

 

 

 

BARRY WHITE: Don’t Make Me Wait Too Long/Don’t Make Me Wait Too Long (Instrumental) (20th Century Records BTC 2309)

 

 

 

The formula really is wearing very thin. Will Barry have any hits in ’77? Not if he doesn’t change his style he won’t.

 

 

 

ELTON JOHN: Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word/Shoulder Holster (The Rocket Record Company ROKN 517)

 

 

 

Now on his own record label and no longer subject to the absurd (that word is a key adjective in this song) contractual demands of DJM, Elton can stretch out and relax a little. This dark ballad is anything but relaxing, however; quietly enraged, genuinely lamenting, palpably baffled, and with an accordion that sounds rather more emotionally convincing than Bonnie Tyler’s. His best ballad single since “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” (since “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” is a very great song but fundamentally an album track), although it might prove a little too bleak to get into the Christmas Top Ten.

 

 

 

ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA: Livin’ Thing/Fire On High (Jet Records JET 786)

 

 

 

Is Jeff Lynne going to prove the tortoise to Roy Wood’s hare? ELO have really caught up with pop and this is a terrific pop record fully worthy of The Move, with Bee Gees-type harmonies, fulminating “Days Of Pearly Spencer” strings, “Bang Bang” swirling gypsy violin interludes, Lynne’s very pained and possibly paranoid lyric (“I’m thinkin’ ‘bout DYIN’!”) set against sardonic backing vocals. This should be their biggest hit yet.

 

 

 

 

27 November

 

JOHNNY MATHIS: When A Child Is Born (Soleado)/Every Time You Touch Me (I Get High) (CBS 4599)

 

 

 

Now this is interesting – earlier this year, an ensemble called the St Andrews Chorale almost had a hit with a rather spooky wordless choral song entitled “Soleado (Cloud 99).” Well, Johnny Mathis – or his lyricist, who seems to be one “Zacar” – has put words to the same song, and it’s obviously targeted at the Christmas market. “Black? White? Yellow? No one knows,” Mathis speaks, to which my father replied “What about the Red Indians, you racist bastard?” A comfortable and creamy Perry Como woolly yellow pullover of a record that’s very likely to top the list over the festive season.

 

 

 

BILLY OCEAN: Stop Me (If You’ve Heard It All Before)/Let’s Put Our Emotions In Motion (GTO GT 72)

 

 

 

Stop, Billy.

 

 

 

GLADYS KNIGHT & THE PIPS: So Sad The Song/So Sad The Song (Instrumental Theme) (Buddah BDS 448)

 

 

 

Slightly sickly MoR-soul balladry, but performed as beautifully as ever.

 

 

 

ROD STEWART: Get Back/Trade Winds (Riva RIVA 6)

 

 

 

A strange cover version from a stranger-sounding film – All This And World War II, which appears to be a montage of documentary footage and contemporary singers covering lyrically-relevant (if only in the mind of the film’s producer) Beatles songs. Rod gives Paul’s rocker the rousingly rough treatment you’d expect, but the string arrangement is extremely bizarre and in the end overpowers Rod Stewart and the record completely.

 

 

 

ABBA: Money, Money, Money/Crazy World (Epic EPC 4713)

 

 

 

Three number ones – who could argue that this hasn’t been Abba’s year, and who would have seen it coming even one year ago? It’s approaching Christmas and the big name acts are pulling out some stops to get that seasonal number one. But I don’t think this is going to be a fourth consecutive chart-topper; it sounds like a song from a musical (specifically “Money Makes The World Go Round” from Cabaret – I’m too young to have seen the film, but I certainly know the song), all high-kicking old-fashioned millionaire desperation. Perhaps a more generous Brecht and Weill could have come up with it but the song tends to place the listener at one remove rather than involving the listener directly, speaking to them. A big hit, because Abba are now too big to have small hits, but not a number one hit.

 

 

 

QUEEN: Somebody To Love/White Man (EMI 2565)

 

 

 

The clear favourite for Christmas number one and the real follow-up to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” This song is less overtly ambitious, sticking to a rock ballad template which is nevertheless exploited very ingeniously with a startling vocal performance from Mercury, in turns pleading, arrogant and self-mocking (as are the “Lumberjack Song”-type backing singers: “He works hard, he works hard”). Flawlessly constructed with a tremendous (and quite Bonzos-esque) ending, this is so many miles above the likes of Smokie that it’s embarrassing.

 

As a record, however, it doesn’t bear the same encyclopaedic sweep as “Bohemian Rhapsody” and may therefore not do quite as well, mainly I suspect because fans of the band will be waiting for their new album, which comes out in the New Year. A second consecutive Christmas number one would be something that nobody has managed since the Beatles – but now Queen have to compete with Abba, Showaddywaddy and Johnny Mathis (and there is still one more month to come). Nobody would have put bets on that in 1975.