Dr Simon Reads...

Pretty much straightforward blues from a master of the craft. I do wonder about including live albums, it sometimes feels like it’s a way of sneaking in a Greatest Hits album in a way acceptable to music snobs, and I think I’ve expre ssed my thoughts before about how they capture a particular time and place that can sometimes be a fascinating snapshot, sometimes loses something in translation to recording; also how some performers are entirely different live compared to a recording studio w ith a lot of post-production.    And actually, i f any genre is better with some immediacy, it’s blues. It’s quite restrictive about chord changes, and the blues scale (s) tend to be pretty truncated (it’s been a while since I noodled around with them, but it’s an easy set of rules to pick up). Hence once you’ve heard a few blues songs, you know pretty much where they’re going to go and what’s left is all in the stylings. There’s no denying King has a good voice for the blues, and is an a...

  At this stage, it feels like Dimery’s list is a cycle of Dylan-Beatles-Soul, rinse and repeat. But the truth is that this cycle of influence is exactly what is going on in this stage of music. The intrusions into this triad by the likes of The Rolling Stone, The Byrds, The Who, folk musicians etc. Is also entirely warranted. Both sides of the Atlantic are taking bits of each other’s music and playing around with it, mix ing it up, to throw out an original sound, and so it goes.   The Byrds, for example, took bits of Beatles and Dylan, and threw out their distinctive sound. Here The Beatles take some Byrds, some Dylan, some Soul, some Country, mix it all up, add a dash of sitar and top it all o ff with some dabbling in drugs. The Byrd’s influences are clear on tracks like R un For Your Life and Drive My Car, but other songs show different influences. The Ringo Starr voca l led What Goes On is pretty much a country song.   Others are harder to categorise . My Life could...

  As alluded to previously, the Nineties had “Blur or Oasis?”, while the Sixties had “B e atles or Stones?”. To which the discerning listener would answer “The Who”. And here come the third of the Great British Invasion triumvirate.    Although this album does include the inevitable covers of R&B tracks – most notably a couple of James Brown covers, I Don’t Mind and Please Please Please , as well as going more bluesy with a cover of Bo Diddley’s I’m A Man – it 's also very much a unique sound, thanks in large part to Pete Townshend’s rocky guitar work.   Take, for example, I’m A Man, which starts out like a fairly typical blues cover (showcasing Roger Daltrey’s ability to sing various styles), but then Townshend takes the guitar break and really brings it into a modern era. Although we’ve had distortion and grungy sounds before (notably with The Sonics), it’s ramped up a notch here.   At times one can pick out a mix of The Sonics, The Rolling Stones, and ...

Listening to this, I was thinking that there’s a paper-thin difference between Redding and Sam Cooke, and then my typical cursory research revealed to me that not only had Cooke contributed to the writing of many of the tracks on this album, but had sadly died shortly before its release. I hadn’t realised that he’ d died so young.    Another family tree connection is that this album uses the Stax house band, Booker T and the MGs (no Hammond organ though, sadly). And let’s be clear here – this was recorded i n Memphis, so the genre is Souther n Soul, not the (Detroit) Motown sound. And Cooke toured with Solomon Burke. I see what you’re doing here, Dimery, building up this comprehensive picture of linked artists (Dimery, or his “soul” contributor(s)).   So, musically we get a load of classics – My Girl, Wonderful World (that’s the “Don’t know much about history” one, not t o be confused with Louis Armstrong’s *What A* Wonderful World). Some sneaky Civil Rights activis...

  Further evolution of His Bobness here, with an album almost entirely using the backing band, and much more musically rounded once again. Quite a few of the songs on here skewer vanities , hypocrisies, and venalities in songs such as Like A Rolling Stone (about a socialite lost in a world of empty treasu res), or Ballad of a Thin Man (about corporate bigwigs who understand money but not art).    Other tracks are what are now becoming a Dylanesque staple of cultural figures mushed together into a surreal experience, like Tombsto ne Blues and the eponymous track. Some other tracks feature bluesy elements, notably the chugging rhythms of It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes  Train To Cry. And the album is rounded out with the 11 –minute epic Desolation Row. There's lots more lyrical play going on here, often with a sense of fun reflected in the music (the “siren whistle” in Highway 61 for example). This is also, so f ar, Dylan’s most melodic album).  

Some live soul now, with Sam Cooke giving us some classics such as Chain Gang , Cupid, Twisting The Night Away. It’s a bit of a cheat having it here, because the album wasn’t rel eas ed until 1985 because, apparently, the studio felt it was too raw and gritty a sound for Cooke’s image.    It’s kind of raw and gritty in that the recording quality is rough, but that does lend it an authenticity. Cooke does a lot of audience engagement (you have to wince at his comment at the start of “It’s Alright” to “not go hitting your lady”. No, Sam, no you shouldn’t no matter what rumours you hear about her (per the song). Different times, folk.   I have mixed feelings about live albums overall – they can often be rougher in terms of sound quality, sometimes capture a time and place where if you weren’t there, they lose some impact. On the other hand, with a good performer they can cap ture the energy and excitement that studio sessions will often iron out. The Jerry Lee Lewis a...

Last time, Bob Dylan gave us Mr Tambourine Man, and as if by magic, here come The Byrds to cover it (as well as All I Really Want To Do). It feels like The Byrds took the “jingle jangle morning” lyric from Mr Tambourine Man as an instruction for their distinctive jangle-rock sound, which not only stems from the use of a 12-string Rickenbacker (per George Harrison) but also near constant use of the tambourine. Add in this their lush harmonic vocals and you get the distinctive “Californian version of the Beatles” sound for this iteration of the band.   I was also thinking that the folk-rock feel was a bit like Crosby Still and Nash, only to discover that David Crosby is part of the line up on this album. So, I guess that’s not a surprise. This kind of sound is mimicked hereafter; it can be found in The LAs for example several decades down the road.   Other standout tracks for me – I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better (an original track), which I’d first heard covered by Tom Petty ...