In my previous post I remarked, as many others have done, on the number of major artists in popular music who had died this year, and in passing I mentioned the possibility that since the year wasn’t over, there was still a chance that one or more major artists might yet die. That turned out to be the case, as this past Christmas weekend, George Michael unexpectedly joined the list that already included David Bowie, Glenn Frey of the Eagles, Prince, Beatles producer George Martin, both Keith Emerson and Greg Lake (two thirds of Emerson, Lake and Palmer), Leonard Cohen and many more. Of course, despite the superstitious nonsense some people are spreading, these deaths are not due to a curse or anything silly like that. It is just an unfortunate coincidence, and given the ages of many famous artists who are still living, it is likely that some year in the near future will have at least nearly as many top artists dying, not to mention the fact that which artists qualify as major artists is necessarily subjective.
However, few people would dispute that George Michael (born Georgios Panayiotou) was a major artist, and his death was more of a surprise than, say, Leonard Cohen’s, as Michael was only 53, even younger than Prince. I didn’t have all of his albums, but I did have several of them, and I’d long considered him to have one of the best voices in pop. Interestingly, one of the few singers I’d rate above him, Freddie Mercury of Queen (whose mother Jer Bulsara also died recently), named Michael along with Aretha Franklin as one of his favorite singers, and Michael in turn did the best job taking Freddie’s place in performing Queen’s songs at the Freddie Mercury Memorial Concert. But aside from being a very good singer, Michael was also a capable songwriter. Not everything he wrote was great, but he did write a number of excellent songs. While since what he was writing was pop music, his melodies were generally what got the most attention, he also wrote some excellent lyrics from time to time. “Praying for Time”, for instance, is very well written, and “I Want Your Sex (Part 1)” has a lot of clever lines.
The following is a list of my favorite George Michael songs, basically the ones I’d put on my own “Best of George Michael”. I made one list of the ones I consider indispensable and a second of the songs I’d choose from to fill out a full CD. Since I don’t have his last album, Patience, I didn’t include anything from that, though eventually I’d like to check it out and possibly revise this list. I did listen to a few later songs over the last couple of days, though not enough to decide for certain which I’d want to include in a “best of”, though I did add 2006’s “An Easier Affair” to my secondary list. When Wham was popular I wasn’t really paying much attention to pop music, so I only heard a few of their songs at the time, though I heard more afterwards and I now have a copy of their compilation The Final. I probably could have included more songs from that era, but I decided to mainly concentrate on his solo songs, though I had to include my favorite Wham songs “Freedom” and “Everything She Wants”, and I added a few more into my second tier list. Faith is the album I was most familiar with, so inevitably there are quite a few songs from that, and really all of the singles from it are pretty good, as is the album track “Hand to Mouth”. “Kissing a Fool” is probably my favorite here, though “I Want Your Sex (Part 1)” and “Faith” are close. But there’s also some filler, while pretty much everything on his second solo album Listen without Prejudice Vol. 1 is good. “Praying for Time” is probably my favorite on this album, though “Heal the Pain” and “Waiting for That Day” are also great, and some of the others are close behind. The songs on his third album Older are generally also pretty good, though for some reason few of them really grabbed me the way the best ones on his previous albums did, and so most of them didn’t make the list here, though several would if I were to make it a double album. I did include his later, tongue-in-cheek single “Outside”, which was also pretty clever.
While for my main lists I stuck to original songs that Michael wrote himself, I made a separate list of some of my favorite covers he’s done (plus his song with Aretha Franklin, which while original he didn’t write). This is necessarily incomplete, as he’s done many covers I haven’t heard, including a whole album of them, but it would make a nice EP companion to the main set.
The Best of George Michael
Indispensable Tracks
Freedom
Everything She Wants
I Want Your Sex
Faith
Kissing a Fool
Praying for Time
Waiting for That Day
Heal the Pain
Other Top Tracks
I’m Your Man
A Different Corner
Careless Whisper
Hand to Mouth
Monkey
One More Try
Freedom ‘90
Mother’s Pride
Jesus to a Child
You Have Been Loved
Outside
An Easier Affair
Top Covers and Duets
I Knew You Were Waiting for Me (with Aretha Franklin)
Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me (with Elton John)
Somebody to Love (with Queen)
As (with Mary K. Blige)
I Can’t Make You Love Me
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
The Grim Reaper Strikes Again
As I and many others have noted, it hasn't been a particularly great year for music when it comes to deaths of important musical figures. I wrote about two of the biggest who have died this year, David Bowie and Prince, and in the latter post I listed many of the other major losses up to that point in time, from the Beatles producer George Martin to the keyboard wizard Keith Emerson. Recently a few other significant people have been added to the list. One was Leon Russell, who worked with artists such as Joe Cocker, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Elton John. His first album included guest musicians like George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton. Though I don't own any of his albums myself, I'm certainly aware of his impact.
That is even more true of another aritist who died recently, Leonard Cohen. I only have one Leonard Cohen compilation, an early "best of" album, so there's a lot his stuff I haven't heard. But he was definitely a very distinctive songwriter and wrote some great stuff. Bob Dylan is the obvious comparison, but Cohen had a style all his own. One of these days I need to get one or two more of his albums, either a more comprehensive compilation album, one of his top rated original albums, or both. For now, I have to be content with early classics like "Suzanne", "So Long, Marianne", "Bird on a Wire", "Famous Blue Raincoat" and "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye", as well as Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" and Billy Joel's cover of "Light as the Breeze".
There's only one month left in 2016, so we can hope there will be no more major deaths this year. But considering the ages of so many of the remaining greats who emerged in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, perhaps we should prepare ourselves for a few more years like 2016 in the near future.
That is even more true of another aritist who died recently, Leonard Cohen. I only have one Leonard Cohen compilation, an early "best of" album, so there's a lot his stuff I haven't heard. But he was definitely a very distinctive songwriter and wrote some great stuff. Bob Dylan is the obvious comparison, but Cohen had a style all his own. One of these days I need to get one or two more of his albums, either a more comprehensive compilation album, one of his top rated original albums, or both. For now, I have to be content with early classics like "Suzanne", "So Long, Marianne", "Bird on a Wire", "Famous Blue Raincoat" and "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye", as well as Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah" and Billy Joel's cover of "Light as the Breeze".
There's only one month left in 2016, so we can hope there will be no more major deaths this year. But considering the ages of so many of the remaining greats who emerged in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, perhaps we should prepare ourselves for a few more years like 2016 in the near future.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Life by Keith Richards with James Fox
This, as the title implies, the autobiography of Keith Richards, guitarist and founding member of the Rolling Stones. Richards had an eventful life and his story is interesting reading. His prose style is conversational, filled with asides and peppered with expletives and politically incorrect language (for instance, he frequently refers to gay people he’s known as “fags”, though he doesn’t seem to be actually prejudiced against them). It’s hard to tell where his own writing stops and his co-writer’s begins, though it’s possible the latter basically transcribed and organized accounts that Richards gave orally. In any event, the book certainly seems to be entirely in Richards’ own voice and it provides a fairly full picture of him. It ranges from his childhood up to around 2007 or so, though the 1960s and 1970s take up the most space, perhaps as they were the most eventful period of his life (though quite a few notable events come before and after those decades as well), and towards the end he even throws in a recipe and talks a bit about the kind of books he reads (a lot of historical fiction, among other things – he says that when he fell off a ladder in his library after a bookshelf collapsed on him, resulting in a punctured lung, the book he was trying to get was a Leonardo da Vinci book on anatomy). But of course most of the book is about the people in his life, the things that happened to him, and music in general.
Richards himself seems like a mostly decent guy, though by his own account he has a bit of a nasty temper and a propensity to violence. Some of the occasions where he flipped out (occasions he describes as “red mist” or “a red curtain” falling in front of his eyes) seemed justified, at least based on his version of events, but in some cases it seemed like a bit of an overreaction. It might be understandable for him to be annoyed when some music industry bigwig came into the studio and started pontificating on how they could improve the song they were working on, but taking a knife and throwing it between the guy’s legs seems a bit more than was called for. Likewise, when a DJ in a bar he was in persisted in playing Rolling Stones songs after Richards “politely” asked him not to, it is understandable that he lost his temper with him, but perhaps grabbing him and throwing him on the ground was a little much. Other examples include the time he waved a knife at Billy Preston backstage because the latter was playing too loud and drawing all the attention to himself, or the time when some foolish young man inadvertently took the spring onions that Richards was going to put in a dish he was cooking at a party at his house, with the result that Richards ended up chasing the guy around the backyard with sabers in his hands. At the same time, he also did things like rescuing an abandoned kitten, which Richards named Voodoo – hence the name of the Stones’ 1994 album, Voodoo Lounge, from the terrace Voodoo spent much of his time on (“Voodoo’s Lounge”). He occasionally intervened in other situations (for instance, he talks about stopping Billy Preston from beating up his boyfriend), though at other times he seemed to content to just observe, such as when Brian Jones was being nasty to someone. He makes a point of saying that he generally trusts people until they prove untrustworthy, whereas Mick Jagger is the opposite. He also had rather interesting friends over the years; while Jagger became something of a socialite, hanging out with the rich and famous, Richards seemed to prefer a completely different crowd. While he did hang out with some relatively upper crust or famous people in the 1960s, including John Lennon and Gram Parsons, a lot of his friends in later years were not at all famous, though as he notes, one thing they often had in common is that they had done time in prison at some point. Most of them weren’t musicians or really in the industry at all, though one close friend was a Texan sax player named Bobby Keys, who ended up playing with the Stones for many years, though with a long gap after he infuriated Jagger by being irresponsible during a tour.
Inevitably, Richards’ drug use comes into the book quite often; in fact, he opens the book with an episode from the 1970s when he and several companions were stopped in Arkansas while in a car full of drugs. For the most part, he doesn’t try to excuse or justify his drug use, though he does argue that he managed it better than a lot of the people around him and it sometimes served a useful purpose. But he admits by the mid to late 1970s his heroin addiction had gotten out of control (as had that of his longtime girlfriend Anita Pallenberg), and he concludes that it’s just a bad idea to start. Even aside from the legal problems and the sheer desperation of being a junkie always worrying about his next fix, his heroin problems in this period indirectly led to the deterioration of his relationship with Jagger.
Of course this is inevitably one of the big points of interest in a book like this; what does he say about his relationship with his bandmates. Oddly, he doesn’t really talk about his relationship with Bill Wyman or Charlie Watts much; Wyman in particular doesn’t get mentioned very often. He says “the closest emotional thing” he ever had with Wyman was when he was arrested for heroin possession in Toronto, and Wyman helped him out by managing to score some heroin to tide him over until he got out. Watts gets a little more attention, including their musical rapport, but not much. Richards credits Ian Stewart with being the real founder of the band and talks about his distress when Stewart died of a heart attack, though otherwise he’s fairly peripheral to the story as well. He does dwell a bit more on Brian Jones, though a lot of what he has to stay about Jones is negative. He does speak positively about his ability to pick up instruments and says that they did sometimes have fun together, as Jones could be funny and they shared a love for R&B, but he says he was erratic, couldn’t handle drugs or fame, and was cruel to friends and girlfriends. He says that Jones and Pallenberg (who were a couple before the latter got involved in Richards) often got in violent fights, though as often as not Jones would come out the worst. In later years, in contrast, Richards had a fairly close relationship with Ronnie Wood, who he sometimes actually hung out with in contrast to other members of the band, though he also says he slugged him once when Wood’s drug use was causing problems during a tour.
But of course his most important relationship was with Mick Jagger. He talks about how closely in sympathy they were in the early years, particularly with regard to their musical tastes, and how they started writing songs together. They started to drift apart somewhat in the early 1970s, with goings-on like sleeping with each other’s girlfriends or Jagger getting jealous about Richards’ friendship with Gram Parsons. He admits that in this period Jagger generally came through for him when the chips were down, but it’s clear that they weren’t hanging out together as much as before. Then when Richards’ heroin problem was at its worst, Jagger had to basically take over running the band’s affairs. Richards notes that he had no reason to object, as he was too wrapped up in his addiction to care about business matters, though he was still reasonably dedicated to making music. But he explains the real crunch came when he finally kicked the habit and basically let Jagger know he was ready to take on his share of the leadership duties. He says he expected Jagger to be relieved to give up part of the burden, but to his surprise he found Jagger was now used to being in control and wanted to things to remain that way. From then on, things went downhill. By Richards’ account, it wasn’t only him that got fed up with Jagger’s seeming arrogance (which he attributes in part to what he calls LVS – lead vocalist syndrome). He says the normally staid Charlie Watts punched Jagger out when Jagger called him up and referred to him as “my drummer”. Jagger’s secret signing of a solo deal a lot of anger, though the biggest rupture came in when he went on tour without the band. Eventually Richards and Jagger patched things up to the point where they could continue to write together, but from Richards’ account, they still didn’t talk much, and they still had conflicting ideas about the music – he says Jagger too often wanted to follow the latest fad, whereas Richards just wanted them to do what they did best. Richards says now their relationship is in more like that of brothers or even a marriage than that of friends; even their dressing rooms on tour are kept far apart, and their producer Don Was was surprised to note how little they talked. Richards at one point talks about his regret for the fact that they don’t really hang out together anymore. Interestingly, Richards says that in these later years, they got on best when it was just the two of them sitting down to write songs for an album.
While Richards doesn’t go over the creation of every song, he does comment on the origins of some of them, as well as making some general observations about how he and Jagger usually wrote together. He ironically observes that a lot of their very first songs, all of which they gave to other artists as they didn’t consider them suitable for the Stones, were not very successful, and often did worse than those artists’ previous singles: “Our songwriting had this other function of hobbling the opposition while we got paid for it” (though he notes that Marianne Faithfull’s very successful recording of “As Tears Go By” was an exception). He says that “Satisfaction” was a typical example of how he and Jagger collaborated in the early days, as he came up with the basic idea, including the chorus line, and Jagger would fill things in. He says that with “Paint It Black”, he wrote the melody and he wrote the lyrics (this contradicts a claim by Bill Wyman that the song was a group composition). He says that generally he came up with the musical riffs, though he mentions some exceptions, such as “Brown Sugar”. He names the riff for “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” as his favorite riff of all (his claim of authorship here contradicts an assertion by Wyman that he originally came up with the riff). He implies that “Ruby Tuesday” is basically his work (another Stones book claims it started as a collaboration with Jones, but Richards says Jones couldn’t write and that there was no “spark” on the occasions when they tried to do something together). He takes credit for “Gimme Shelter”, but says “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is basically Jagger’s. He credits Jagger with “Tumbling Dice” and “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll”, but says “Happy” and “Angie” were his own work. He implies that “Miss You” was mainly Jagger’s, while engineer/producer Chris Kimsey is quoted as saying “Start Me Up” was “Keith’s song”. Of course many more songs are mentioned, including some Richards did solo.
Richards also has some interesting remarks about other musicians, whether his predecessors and influences or his contemporaries. He says that Linda Keith gave Jimi Hendrix a copy of a demo Richards’ had of Tim Rose singing “Hey Joe”, so that indirectly Hendrix got the song through him. The Beatles, not surprisingly, come up often, and Richards is generally complimentary about them, though he does say that the Beatles couldn’t play the blues like the Stones could and that he would tell John Lennon that the Beatles lacked swing and that they could only rock but couldn’t roll. But he talks about how Lennon and McCartney gave the Stones their first big hit (“I Wanna Be Your Man”) and how afterwards the two bands would coordinate releases so they wouldn’t conflict with each other. He credits the Beatles and the Stones with making the album the main vehicle for recording in place of the single, and he credits the Beatles and Bob Dylan with changing songwriting. He notes that he hung out quite a bit with Lennon, who he says was like Gram Parsons a “pure musician”. Near the end of the book, he talks about meeting Paul McCartney on a Caribbean beach in 2005. He says he hadn’t really hung out with McCartney in the past, but that they had some great talks on this occasion and even worked on a song together. He also talks about his experience with Chuck Berry. He worked with Berry on the 1987 bio pic Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, and he says that Berry was really difficult as a person, though he put up with because of all he owed to him musically. He also says he got Berry back together with pianist Johnnie Johnson for the film. Most notably, he says he asked Johnson about how songs like “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Little Queenie” were written. Johnson said Berry would come in with all the words and then Johnson and the band would play a blues format with Johnson laying out the sequence. Richards’ reaction was hey, that means you co-wrote the songs. He goes on to note that he and the drummer went back and looked at Berry’s songs and realized that they were all in piano keys. So really most of Berry’s famous songs were probably Berry/Johnson compositions (however, according to Wikipedia, Johnson says that he didn’t have anything to do with arranging or recording “Johnny B. Goode”, which he said Berry told him was a tribute to Johnson), though the use of a “blues format” also might explain why musically a lot of Berry’s songs are similar to each other. Richards says the first time he met Jerry Lee Lewis he almost got in a fight with him, though they later became friends (if he’s aware of the rather strong possibility that Lewis killed at least one of his wives, he doesn’t mention it). Many other musicians and singers who Richards has crossed paths with in his long career also make appearances in the book.
The last major episode in the book, other than the death of Richards’ mother in 2007, occurred in 2006, when Richards fell off a tree branch he’d been sitting on on an island in Fiji and banged his head, then a couple of days later after a jolt on a boat he started to get blinding headaches. It turned out he’d cracked his skull, and he had to be flown to New Zealand and have an operation to open up his skull and drain the blood clots out of his head, with six titanium pins holding the skull cap in place. It was perhaps the closest Richards has come to dying in life full of close calls, from actually getting caught by some of the screaming teenage fans from the 1960s (he was trying to get in the car when the door handle broke off and the driver panicked and drove off, leaving Richards behind), a car accident, various hairy encounters when he was trying to score heroin, two occasions where he punctured a lung, and more. On this occasion, he says, he got “an interesting preview of my obituaries”, with notes and letters and tributes from people like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Jay Leno, Robin Williams and people in the music industry. He also reveals that he feels the same way about Jet Skis as I do; in mentioning that later accounts falsely claimed a Jet Ski was involved he notes that they are something he “really dislike[s] intensely because they’re noisy and stupid and disruptive to the reefs.” Anyway, through it all, he manages to keep going, a pretty impressive feat for a guy who beginning in 1973 spent ten years on the top of a New Musical Express list of rock stars most likely to die.
Richards himself seems like a mostly decent guy, though by his own account he has a bit of a nasty temper and a propensity to violence. Some of the occasions where he flipped out (occasions he describes as “red mist” or “a red curtain” falling in front of his eyes) seemed justified, at least based on his version of events, but in some cases it seemed like a bit of an overreaction. It might be understandable for him to be annoyed when some music industry bigwig came into the studio and started pontificating on how they could improve the song they were working on, but taking a knife and throwing it between the guy’s legs seems a bit more than was called for. Likewise, when a DJ in a bar he was in persisted in playing Rolling Stones songs after Richards “politely” asked him not to, it is understandable that he lost his temper with him, but perhaps grabbing him and throwing him on the ground was a little much. Other examples include the time he waved a knife at Billy Preston backstage because the latter was playing too loud and drawing all the attention to himself, or the time when some foolish young man inadvertently took the spring onions that Richards was going to put in a dish he was cooking at a party at his house, with the result that Richards ended up chasing the guy around the backyard with sabers in his hands. At the same time, he also did things like rescuing an abandoned kitten, which Richards named Voodoo – hence the name of the Stones’ 1994 album, Voodoo Lounge, from the terrace Voodoo spent much of his time on (“Voodoo’s Lounge”). He occasionally intervened in other situations (for instance, he talks about stopping Billy Preston from beating up his boyfriend), though at other times he seemed to content to just observe, such as when Brian Jones was being nasty to someone. He makes a point of saying that he generally trusts people until they prove untrustworthy, whereas Mick Jagger is the opposite. He also had rather interesting friends over the years; while Jagger became something of a socialite, hanging out with the rich and famous, Richards seemed to prefer a completely different crowd. While he did hang out with some relatively upper crust or famous people in the 1960s, including John Lennon and Gram Parsons, a lot of his friends in later years were not at all famous, though as he notes, one thing they often had in common is that they had done time in prison at some point. Most of them weren’t musicians or really in the industry at all, though one close friend was a Texan sax player named Bobby Keys, who ended up playing with the Stones for many years, though with a long gap after he infuriated Jagger by being irresponsible during a tour.
Inevitably, Richards’ drug use comes into the book quite often; in fact, he opens the book with an episode from the 1970s when he and several companions were stopped in Arkansas while in a car full of drugs. For the most part, he doesn’t try to excuse or justify his drug use, though he does argue that he managed it better than a lot of the people around him and it sometimes served a useful purpose. But he admits by the mid to late 1970s his heroin addiction had gotten out of control (as had that of his longtime girlfriend Anita Pallenberg), and he concludes that it’s just a bad idea to start. Even aside from the legal problems and the sheer desperation of being a junkie always worrying about his next fix, his heroin problems in this period indirectly led to the deterioration of his relationship with Jagger.
Of course this is inevitably one of the big points of interest in a book like this; what does he say about his relationship with his bandmates. Oddly, he doesn’t really talk about his relationship with Bill Wyman or Charlie Watts much; Wyman in particular doesn’t get mentioned very often. He says “the closest emotional thing” he ever had with Wyman was when he was arrested for heroin possession in Toronto, and Wyman helped him out by managing to score some heroin to tide him over until he got out. Watts gets a little more attention, including their musical rapport, but not much. Richards credits Ian Stewart with being the real founder of the band and talks about his distress when Stewart died of a heart attack, though otherwise he’s fairly peripheral to the story as well. He does dwell a bit more on Brian Jones, though a lot of what he has to stay about Jones is negative. He does speak positively about his ability to pick up instruments and says that they did sometimes have fun together, as Jones could be funny and they shared a love for R&B, but he says he was erratic, couldn’t handle drugs or fame, and was cruel to friends and girlfriends. He says that Jones and Pallenberg (who were a couple before the latter got involved in Richards) often got in violent fights, though as often as not Jones would come out the worst. In later years, in contrast, Richards had a fairly close relationship with Ronnie Wood, who he sometimes actually hung out with in contrast to other members of the band, though he also says he slugged him once when Wood’s drug use was causing problems during a tour.
But of course his most important relationship was with Mick Jagger. He talks about how closely in sympathy they were in the early years, particularly with regard to their musical tastes, and how they started writing songs together. They started to drift apart somewhat in the early 1970s, with goings-on like sleeping with each other’s girlfriends or Jagger getting jealous about Richards’ friendship with Gram Parsons. He admits that in this period Jagger generally came through for him when the chips were down, but it’s clear that they weren’t hanging out together as much as before. Then when Richards’ heroin problem was at its worst, Jagger had to basically take over running the band’s affairs. Richards notes that he had no reason to object, as he was too wrapped up in his addiction to care about business matters, though he was still reasonably dedicated to making music. But he explains the real crunch came when he finally kicked the habit and basically let Jagger know he was ready to take on his share of the leadership duties. He says he expected Jagger to be relieved to give up part of the burden, but to his surprise he found Jagger was now used to being in control and wanted to things to remain that way. From then on, things went downhill. By Richards’ account, it wasn’t only him that got fed up with Jagger’s seeming arrogance (which he attributes in part to what he calls LVS – lead vocalist syndrome). He says the normally staid Charlie Watts punched Jagger out when Jagger called him up and referred to him as “my drummer”. Jagger’s secret signing of a solo deal a lot of anger, though the biggest rupture came in when he went on tour without the band. Eventually Richards and Jagger patched things up to the point where they could continue to write together, but from Richards’ account, they still didn’t talk much, and they still had conflicting ideas about the music – he says Jagger too often wanted to follow the latest fad, whereas Richards just wanted them to do what they did best. Richards says now their relationship is in more like that of brothers or even a marriage than that of friends; even their dressing rooms on tour are kept far apart, and their producer Don Was was surprised to note how little they talked. Richards at one point talks about his regret for the fact that they don’t really hang out together anymore. Interestingly, Richards says that in these later years, they got on best when it was just the two of them sitting down to write songs for an album.
While Richards doesn’t go over the creation of every song, he does comment on the origins of some of them, as well as making some general observations about how he and Jagger usually wrote together. He ironically observes that a lot of their very first songs, all of which they gave to other artists as they didn’t consider them suitable for the Stones, were not very successful, and often did worse than those artists’ previous singles: “Our songwriting had this other function of hobbling the opposition while we got paid for it” (though he notes that Marianne Faithfull’s very successful recording of “As Tears Go By” was an exception). He says that “Satisfaction” was a typical example of how he and Jagger collaborated in the early days, as he came up with the basic idea, including the chorus line, and Jagger would fill things in. He says that with “Paint It Black”, he wrote the melody and he wrote the lyrics (this contradicts a claim by Bill Wyman that the song was a group composition). He says that generally he came up with the musical riffs, though he mentions some exceptions, such as “Brown Sugar”. He names the riff for “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” as his favorite riff of all (his claim of authorship here contradicts an assertion by Wyman that he originally came up with the riff). He implies that “Ruby Tuesday” is basically his work (another Stones book claims it started as a collaboration with Jones, but Richards says Jones couldn’t write and that there was no “spark” on the occasions when they tried to do something together). He takes credit for “Gimme Shelter”, but says “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is basically Jagger’s. He credits Jagger with “Tumbling Dice” and “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll”, but says “Happy” and “Angie” were his own work. He implies that “Miss You” was mainly Jagger’s, while engineer/producer Chris Kimsey is quoted as saying “Start Me Up” was “Keith’s song”. Of course many more songs are mentioned, including some Richards did solo.
Richards also has some interesting remarks about other musicians, whether his predecessors and influences or his contemporaries. He says that Linda Keith gave Jimi Hendrix a copy of a demo Richards’ had of Tim Rose singing “Hey Joe”, so that indirectly Hendrix got the song through him. The Beatles, not surprisingly, come up often, and Richards is generally complimentary about them, though he does say that the Beatles couldn’t play the blues like the Stones could and that he would tell John Lennon that the Beatles lacked swing and that they could only rock but couldn’t roll. But he talks about how Lennon and McCartney gave the Stones their first big hit (“I Wanna Be Your Man”) and how afterwards the two bands would coordinate releases so they wouldn’t conflict with each other. He credits the Beatles and the Stones with making the album the main vehicle for recording in place of the single, and he credits the Beatles and Bob Dylan with changing songwriting. He notes that he hung out quite a bit with Lennon, who he says was like Gram Parsons a “pure musician”. Near the end of the book, he talks about meeting Paul McCartney on a Caribbean beach in 2005. He says he hadn’t really hung out with McCartney in the past, but that they had some great talks on this occasion and even worked on a song together. He also talks about his experience with Chuck Berry. He worked with Berry on the 1987 bio pic Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, and he says that Berry was really difficult as a person, though he put up with because of all he owed to him musically. He also says he got Berry back together with pianist Johnnie Johnson for the film. Most notably, he says he asked Johnson about how songs like “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Little Queenie” were written. Johnson said Berry would come in with all the words and then Johnson and the band would play a blues format with Johnson laying out the sequence. Richards’ reaction was hey, that means you co-wrote the songs. He goes on to note that he and the drummer went back and looked at Berry’s songs and realized that they were all in piano keys. So really most of Berry’s famous songs were probably Berry/Johnson compositions (however, according to Wikipedia, Johnson says that he didn’t have anything to do with arranging or recording “Johnny B. Goode”, which he said Berry told him was a tribute to Johnson), though the use of a “blues format” also might explain why musically a lot of Berry’s songs are similar to each other. Richards says the first time he met Jerry Lee Lewis he almost got in a fight with him, though they later became friends (if he’s aware of the rather strong possibility that Lewis killed at least one of his wives, he doesn’t mention it). Many other musicians and singers who Richards has crossed paths with in his long career also make appearances in the book.
The last major episode in the book, other than the death of Richards’ mother in 2007, occurred in 2006, when Richards fell off a tree branch he’d been sitting on on an island in Fiji and banged his head, then a couple of days later after a jolt on a boat he started to get blinding headaches. It turned out he’d cracked his skull, and he had to be flown to New Zealand and have an operation to open up his skull and drain the blood clots out of his head, with six titanium pins holding the skull cap in place. It was perhaps the closest Richards has come to dying in life full of close calls, from actually getting caught by some of the screaming teenage fans from the 1960s (he was trying to get in the car when the door handle broke off and the driver panicked and drove off, leaving Richards behind), a car accident, various hairy encounters when he was trying to score heroin, two occasions where he punctured a lung, and more. On this occasion, he says, he got “an interesting preview of my obituaries”, with notes and letters and tributes from people like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Jay Leno, Robin Williams and people in the music industry. He also reveals that he feels the same way about Jet Skis as I do; in mentioning that later accounts falsely claimed a Jet Ski was involved he notes that they are something he “really dislike[s] intensely because they’re noisy and stupid and disruptive to the reefs.” Anyway, through it all, he manages to keep going, a pretty impressive feat for a guy who beginning in 1973 spent ten years on the top of a New Musical Express list of rock stars most likely to die.
Friday, September 30, 2016
My Review of Queen Forever for KKBox
I mentioned in a number of earlier posts on this blog that I had done some reviews for the music service KKBox, most of which are online here. However, since KKBox apparently abandoned their efforts to expand into the Malaysian and Singaporean markets, a few of the later ones didn't get published. A few months ago, I posted my complete article for KKBox on the Genesis compilation R-Kive (as noted in that post, only the first part was published on the KKBox website). Another article that never got published online was the one I did on the 2014 Queen album Queen Forever. I discussed this in the second of my two posts on posthumous Queen releases (i.e., those released after Freddie Mercury's death), where I noted that it should have been released as an EP or else more unreleased material should have been added. I was less critical in the KKBox article, where I stuck mainly to discussing the background of the album and the songs that were included (whether or not they were previously released), but it's still basically an honest appraisal, particularly if viewed from the perspective of a reader who might not have all of Queen's albums already.
Coincidentally, I recently saw Queen + Adam Lambert live. This was my first time seeing any of the band live, and I'll say it was a pretty good show. Lambert might not be Freddie's equal in every respect, but he sounded good on all the songs and great on some of them. Brian May and Roger Taylor were of course great, and I liked the fact that the keyboardist was Spike Edney, who was the fifth member of the band for their last live concert tours with Mercury and even played on a couple of studio tracks on A Kind of Magic. This made it seem even closer to the "real" Queen. The extra drummer/percussionist was Rufus Taylor, Roger's son, which was another plus (he seemed to be a chip off the old block as far as his drumming skills went). Bassist Neil Fairclough was even more quiet on stage than John Deacon used to be (not only did he not say a word, I don't think he was even introduced), but he filled the musical role well and probably sang more backing vocals than Deacon (who admitted to having a poor singing voice) ever did. Maybe someday I'll write a full review of the concert, but for now this article will do.
"Queen’s Reign Continues with Queen Forever"
Formed in 1970, by the end of the 1970s the British rock band Queen had risen to become one of the most popular groups in the world, a status they maintained through the 1980s. Songs like “Killer Queen”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Somebody to Love”, “We Will Rock You”, “We Are the Champions”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, “Another One Bites the Dust”, “Under Pressure” (a duet with David Bowie), “I Want to Break Free”, “Radio Gaga”, “One Vision”, “I Want It All” and “The Show Must Go On” were big hits in countries all over the world, and the band sold well over a hundred million albums. However, Queen’s reign seemed to come to an end in 1991, when lead singer Freddie Mercury, widely regarded as one of the greatest singers in rock music (he had even recorded an album with top opera singer Montserrat Caballé), succumbed to AIDS at the age of 45. But in 1995, the band came out with a new album, Made in Heaven, put together from outtakes, re-arrangements of solo tracks, and recordings made in Mercury’s last months. After a performance with Elton John and the release of “No-One But You”, a tribute to Mercury, bassist John Deacon retired from music. While guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor continued to perform occasional concerts and do occasional recordings under the Queen name, working with vocalists like Paul Rodgers, Robbie Williams and Adam Lambert, it seemed that fans had finally heard the last of the classic four man lineup. However, this has changed with the release of the band’s new compilation album, Queen Forever.
Queen Forever is mainly a collection previously released songs, some of them hits like “Somebody to Love” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and others album tracks from throughout the group’s career. But the attraction for dedicated fans of the group is the opening tracks, which are previously unreleased Queen recordings with Freddie Mercury on vocals. The first song, “Let Me in Your Heart Again”, was written by Brian May and recorded by Queen in the early 1980s. The band didn’t end up using the song, though Brian May produced a version for an album by Anita Dobson. It is a melodic ballad with powerful vocals by Mercury and plenty of Brian May’s distinctive guitar playing. “Love Kills”, the album’s second track, was originally released as a solo single by Mercury, who co-wrote it with Giorgio Moroder, but apparently the rest of the band played on his version. The version here is a ballad, slower and with more guitar and less synthesizer than the previously released version, giving it more of a Queen sound. The third previously unreleased track, a version of Mercury’s solo song “There Must Be More to Life than This” with vocals by Mercury and Michael Jackson and Queen instrumentation, is only available on the CD release.
While long-time fans of Queen will mostly be interested in the new songs, for those whose knowledge of Queen is restricted mainly to big hits like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You” the rest of the album will be a revelation. While previous greatest hits collections gave a taste of the band’s musical variety, this collection, in particular the deluxe edition, allows listeners who don’t own any of the individual albums to explore Queen’s catalog in greater depth. While many of the band’s hits appear, including really big ones such as the aforementioned “Somebody to Love” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” as well as favorites like “It’s a Hard Life”, “You’re My Best Friend”, “Save Me”, “Who Wants to Live Forever”, and “These Are the Days of Our Lives”, there are also many tracks that were never released as singles in most countries. Some, such as “Love of My Life” and “’39”, are as well known as many of the hits, but others like “Lily of the Valley”, “Long Away”, “Drowse”, “Bijou”, “Nevermore”, “Spread Your Wings”, “Jealousy” and “One Year of Love” are relatively obscure. What is impressive is that many of the less well-known tracks are just as good as the hits, and at the same time are very different from them in musical style. Also, while even casual fans of Queen have heard the voices of Brian May and Roger Taylor on backing vocals and isolated lines and verses from the hits, here they can hear May sing lead on his songs “Long Away”, “’39” and “Sail Away Sweet Sister” and hear Taylor sing lead and play guitar on his song “Drowse”. They can also hear Mercury’s last recording, “Mother Love”, with the final verse sung by May because Mercury never made it back to the studio to finish it. In effect, Queen Forever is not a greatest hits album, nor is it a posthumous album like Made in Heaven, but rather it is a Queen sampler with a few completely new songs as a bonus. Dedicated fans can check out the new tracks and reacquaint themselves with old, forgotten favorites, while new fans can use the album as a starting point before going on to explore the band’s classic albums like A Night at the Opera.
Coincidentally, I recently saw Queen + Adam Lambert live. This was my first time seeing any of the band live, and I'll say it was a pretty good show. Lambert might not be Freddie's equal in every respect, but he sounded good on all the songs and great on some of them. Brian May and Roger Taylor were of course great, and I liked the fact that the keyboardist was Spike Edney, who was the fifth member of the band for their last live concert tours with Mercury and even played on a couple of studio tracks on A Kind of Magic. This made it seem even closer to the "real" Queen. The extra drummer/percussionist was Rufus Taylor, Roger's son, which was another plus (he seemed to be a chip off the old block as far as his drumming skills went). Bassist Neil Fairclough was even more quiet on stage than John Deacon used to be (not only did he not say a word, I don't think he was even introduced), but he filled the musical role well and probably sang more backing vocals than Deacon (who admitted to having a poor singing voice) ever did. Maybe someday I'll write a full review of the concert, but for now this article will do.
"Queen’s Reign Continues with Queen Forever"
Formed in 1970, by the end of the 1970s the British rock band Queen had risen to become one of the most popular groups in the world, a status they maintained through the 1980s. Songs like “Killer Queen”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Somebody to Love”, “We Will Rock You”, “We Are the Champions”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, “Another One Bites the Dust”, “Under Pressure” (a duet with David Bowie), “I Want to Break Free”, “Radio Gaga”, “One Vision”, “I Want It All” and “The Show Must Go On” were big hits in countries all over the world, and the band sold well over a hundred million albums. However, Queen’s reign seemed to come to an end in 1991, when lead singer Freddie Mercury, widely regarded as one of the greatest singers in rock music (he had even recorded an album with top opera singer Montserrat Caballé), succumbed to AIDS at the age of 45. But in 1995, the band came out with a new album, Made in Heaven, put together from outtakes, re-arrangements of solo tracks, and recordings made in Mercury’s last months. After a performance with Elton John and the release of “No-One But You”, a tribute to Mercury, bassist John Deacon retired from music. While guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor continued to perform occasional concerts and do occasional recordings under the Queen name, working with vocalists like Paul Rodgers, Robbie Williams and Adam Lambert, it seemed that fans had finally heard the last of the classic four man lineup. However, this has changed with the release of the band’s new compilation album, Queen Forever.
Queen Forever is mainly a collection previously released songs, some of them hits like “Somebody to Love” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and others album tracks from throughout the group’s career. But the attraction for dedicated fans of the group is the opening tracks, which are previously unreleased Queen recordings with Freddie Mercury on vocals. The first song, “Let Me in Your Heart Again”, was written by Brian May and recorded by Queen in the early 1980s. The band didn’t end up using the song, though Brian May produced a version for an album by Anita Dobson. It is a melodic ballad with powerful vocals by Mercury and plenty of Brian May’s distinctive guitar playing. “Love Kills”, the album’s second track, was originally released as a solo single by Mercury, who co-wrote it with Giorgio Moroder, but apparently the rest of the band played on his version. The version here is a ballad, slower and with more guitar and less synthesizer than the previously released version, giving it more of a Queen sound. The third previously unreleased track, a version of Mercury’s solo song “There Must Be More to Life than This” with vocals by Mercury and Michael Jackson and Queen instrumentation, is only available on the CD release.
While long-time fans of Queen will mostly be interested in the new songs, for those whose knowledge of Queen is restricted mainly to big hits like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You” the rest of the album will be a revelation. While previous greatest hits collections gave a taste of the band’s musical variety, this collection, in particular the deluxe edition, allows listeners who don’t own any of the individual albums to explore Queen’s catalog in greater depth. While many of the band’s hits appear, including really big ones such as the aforementioned “Somebody to Love” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” as well as favorites like “It’s a Hard Life”, “You’re My Best Friend”, “Save Me”, “Who Wants to Live Forever”, and “These Are the Days of Our Lives”, there are also many tracks that were never released as singles in most countries. Some, such as “Love of My Life” and “’39”, are as well known as many of the hits, but others like “Lily of the Valley”, “Long Away”, “Drowse”, “Bijou”, “Nevermore”, “Spread Your Wings”, “Jealousy” and “One Year of Love” are relatively obscure. What is impressive is that many of the less well-known tracks are just as good as the hits, and at the same time are very different from them in musical style. Also, while even casual fans of Queen have heard the voices of Brian May and Roger Taylor on backing vocals and isolated lines and verses from the hits, here they can hear May sing lead on his songs “Long Away”, “’39” and “Sail Away Sweet Sister” and hear Taylor sing lead and play guitar on his song “Drowse”. They can also hear Mercury’s last recording, “Mother Love”, with the final verse sung by May because Mercury never made it back to the studio to finish it. In effect, Queen Forever is not a greatest hits album, nor is it a posthumous album like Made in Heaven, but rather it is a Queen sampler with a few completely new songs as a bonus. Dedicated fans can check out the new tracks and reacquaint themselves with old, forgotten favorites, while new fans can use the album as a starting point before going on to explore the band’s classic albums like A Night at the Opera.
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Key Songwriters of the 1950s: Three Compilation CDs
This set of compilation CDs dates back ten years. There are three CDs, one featuring the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, another collecting the songs of Otis Blackwell, and the third featuring covers of songs by Chuck Berry. The first two are mostly made up of the original recordings of the songs or at least notable early versions and for the most part date back to the 1950s, while the recordings on the third CD are mostly from the 1960s and 1970s (the originals were of course recorded by Chuck Berry himself). The notes below are the ones I originally wrote to accompany the CDs.
Is That All There Is? - The Songs of Leiber and Stoller
Hound Dog (Leiber/Stoller*) Big Mama Thornton
Framed (Leiber/Stoller) The Robins
Riot in Cell Block #9 (Leiber/Stoller) The Robins
K.C. Lovin' (Leiber/Stoller) Little Willie Littlefield
Smokey Joe's Cafe (Leiber/Stoller) The Robins
L'Homme A La Moto [Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots] (Leiber/Stoller) Edith Piaf
Hound Dog (Leiber/Stoller*) Elvis Presley
Love Me (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Searchin' (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
Young Blood (Leiber/Pomus/Stoller) The Coasters
Jailhouse Rock (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Don't (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Yakety Yak (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
King Creole (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Riot in Cell Block #9 (Leiber/Stoller) Wanda Jackson
Love Potion No.9 (Leiber/Stoller) The Clovers
Charlie Brown (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
Kansas City [K.C. Lovin'] (Leiber/Stoller) Wilbert Harrison
Poison Ivy (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
Saved (Leiber/Stoller) LaVern Baker
Stand By Me (King/Leiber/Stoller) Ben E. King
Three Cool Cats (Leiber/Stoller) The Beatles
I'm A Woman (Leiber/Stoller) Peggy Lee
She's Not You (Leiber/Stoller/Pomus) Elvis Presley
On Broadway (Leiber/Mann/Stoller/Weil) The Drifters
I (Who Have Nothing) (Donida/Leiber/Mogol/Stoller) Ben E. King
Some Other Guy (Leiber/Stoller/Barrett) The Beatles
Ruby Baby (Leiber/Stoller) Dion & the Belmonts
(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care (Leiber/Stoller) Queen
Is That All There Is? (Leiber/Stoller) Peggy Lee
*In addition to Leiber and Stoller, Thornton's bandleader Johnny Otis also initially received a credit as part of original publishing deal and later claimed to have helped write the song, though Leiber and Stoller denied this and their position was upheld in court. Thornton herself also claimed at one point to have had a hand in it, but later clarified that it was mainly a matter of her transforming it through her interpretation of the song. The Presley version had somewhat different lyrics from the original; the changes had been made by singer Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, whose version Presley learned (though he also owned a copy of the original), but Bell failed to claim credit for his new lyrics, not having gotten permission from Leiber and Stoller to change their song in the first place.
All Shook Up - The Songs of Otis Blackwell
Fever (John Davenport[Blackwell]/Eddie Cooley) Little Willie John
Don't Be Cruel (Blackwell/Presley) Elvis Presley
All Shook Up (Blackwell/Presley) Elvis Presley
It's No Lie (Blackwell) Gene Vincent
Paralyzed (Blackwell/Presley) Elvis Presley
Great Balls of Fire (Blackwell/Hammer) Jerry Lee Lewis
Breathless (Blackwell) Jerry Lee Lewis
Just Keep It Up (Blackwell) Dee Clark
Hey Little Girl (Blackwell/Stevenson) Dee Clark
Handy Man (Blackwell/Jones) Jimmy Jones
Let's Talk About Us (Blackwell) Jerry Lee Lewis
Make Me Know It (Blackwell) Elvis Presley
Livin' Lovin' Wreck (Blackwell) Jerry Lee Lewis
(Such An) Easy Question (Blackwell/Scott) Elvis Presley
Return to Sender (Blackwell/Scott) Elvis Presley
One Broken Heart for Sale (Blackwell/Scott) Elvis Presley
Home in Your Heart (Blackwell/Scott) Otis Redding
Daddy Rollin' Stone (Blackwell) The Who
Fever (John Davenport[Blackwell]/Eddie Cooley) Peggy Lee
All Shook Up (Blackwell/Presley) Paul McCartney
Rock and Roll Music - The Songs of Chuck Berry
Roll Over Beethoven* ELO (1973)
Carol The Rolling Stones (1964)
Johnny B. Goode Jimi Hendrix
Rock And Roll Music The Beatles (1964)
Brown Eyed Handsome Man Buddy Holly
Memphis, Tennessee Elvis Presley (1965)
Come On The Rolling Stones (1963)
Little Queenie Jerry Lee Lewis
Sweet Little Sixteen** The Beach Boys(as "Surfin' USA")
Too Much Monkey Business The Beatles
You Can't Catch Me The Rolling Stones (1965)
You Never Can Tell Emmylou Harris (1977)
Back in the U.S.A. Linda Ronstadt
I Got To Find My Baby The Beatles
No Particular Place To Go George Thorogood
Around and Around The Rolling Stones
Havana Moon Carlos Santana
Johnny B. Goode Elvis Presley (1970)
Roll Over Beethoven The Beatles (1963)
Memphis, Tennessee The Animals
Brown Eyed Handsome Man Nina Simone
Too Much Monkey Business The Yardbirds
Sweet Little Sixteen The Beatles
Little Queenie (live) The Rolling Stones (1970)
C'est La Vie (You Never Can Tell) Bob Seger
All songs by Chuck Berry except:
*Words by Chuck Berry, Music by Chuck Berry and Ludwig van Beethoven
**Words by Brian Wilson, Music by Chuck Berry
This series of CDs collects songs by different songwriters who were prominent in the fifties. First, I'll discuss the Leiber and Stoller collection. Lyricist Jerry Leiber and composer Mike Stoller were the most successful songwriting team of the early rock and roll era, and played an important role in popularizing the rhythm and blues sound. Even before Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley started making records, Leiber and Stoller were writing songs for various R & B singers and groups. This CD only contains a few of these early tracks (most are somewhat difficult to find), but songs like "Hound Dog" and "K.C. Lovin'" are good examples of their early work, and their songs for the Robins introduced comedy rock and roll, a genre they continued to produce many songs in, particular with the later incarnation of the Robins, the Coasters ("Searchin'", "Yakety Yak", etc.). Aside from the Coasters, the other artist they had the most hits with was Elvis, starting with his remake of "Hound Dog", followed by "Love Me" and "Jailhouse Rock" and continuing on into the sixties. They also wrote for many other artists such as Ben E. King and Peggy Lee (one of my favorites is the song they wrote for LaVern Baker, "Saved").
Leiber and Stoller occasionally collaborated with other songwriters, particularly in the sixties when they were often too busy with production and other duties to concentrate on songwriting. "On Broadway", for instance, was written with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (actually I probably shouldn't have included this one, as Leiber and Stoller just reworked the Mann/Weil original), "She's Not You" with Doc Pomus, and "Stand By Me" with Ben E. King. Another song which might have been a collaboration was "Hound Dog", as bandleader Johnny Otis claimed he helped write it, but he lost a court case over the rights. Leiber also worked without Stoller on occasion, most notably when he collaborated with Phil Spector on "Spanish Harlem", but here I've only included songs they both worked on.
In a few cases, the versions I've included here are not the originals. Since both versions of "Hound Dog" are distinctive and worth a listen they are both included here. Likewise, I included both the original "K.C. Lovin'" and Wilbert Harrison's remake entitled "Kansas City", since it was the latter version that was a big hit (in fact it's not unlikely that even the Beatles, who covered the song, never heard the original). Finally, while the Robins' version of "Riot in Cell Block #9" is the original classic, I decided the version from the "Queen of Rockabilly" Wanda Jackson was also worth including. In several cases I didn't have the original, so I included a later version, including "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots" (the original was by The Cheers; here you get a French version by the famed singer Edith Piaf!), "Love Me" (originally recorded by Willy and Ruth, but Elvis made it a hit), "Three Cool Cats" (the Coasters), "Ruby Baby" (The Drifters), "Some Other Guy" (Richie Barrett, who co-wrote the song) and "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" (Elvis). The pair also wrote many other songs which don't appear here, some of which were sizable hits (e.g. the Drifters' "Drip Drop").
By the late sixties, Leiber and Stoller were no longer as hot as they had been a few years earlier, but they continued to write and had the occasional hit. The most notable of their later songs was the final song in this collection, "Is That All There Is?", written for Peggy Lee and covered by many other artists including P.J. Harvey. An interesting fact about the original (released in 1969) is that it was arranged and conducted by a young songwriter named Randy Newman, still a comparative unknown at the time (though he'd already written a few hits and released his first solo album).
Otis Blackwell was another key songwriter of the fifties, though he wasn't as prolific a hitmaker as the Leiber and Stoller team. Nevertheless, some of the greatest rock and roll classics were written or co-written by Blackwell, including "Fever", "Don't Be Cruel", "All Shook Up", "Great Balls of Fire", and "Return to Sender". You will note that many of these were hits for Elvis, one artist that Blackwell had in common with Leiber and Stoller; in fact between the three of them, they wrote a large proportion of Elvis's classic hits, including some of the very biggest ones. Other than Elvis, however, Blackwell generally wrote for different artists than Leiber and Stoller. Ironically, Leiber and Stoller, who were white (Jewish, actually), wrote most of their songs for African-American artists, while Blackwell, who was black, wrote mostly for white artists.
Blackwell collaborated on many of his hits with other writers, such as Winfield Scott, Jack Hammer, Eddie Cooley and B.W. Stevenson. Though he had his greatest successes writing for other artists, he did occasionally record himself, one example being "Daddy Rollin' Stone", which was later covered by the Who (the version which appears here). He also made an album in which he recorded his own versions of his most successful hits for others.
When you first put on the Rock And Roll Music CD, and you hear Beethoven's Fifth, you might think at first that it's a classical music compilation. But after a minute, that Chuck Berry guitar comes in and you realize you're listening to ELO's cover of "Roll Over Beethoven", and what it is in fact a compilation of Chuck Berry covers. Chuck Berry, of course, was one of the most important artists of the rock and roll era. Unlike Leiber, Stoller, and Blackwell, he wrote songs for himself, not for others. But it is a tribute to the esteem in which he and his songs are held that they have been frequently covered by later rock artists.
Aside from ELO's brilliant mix of Beethoven and Berry on "Roll Over Beethoven", this CD includes covers of Berry songs by rock luminaries such as Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Carlos Santana. The Beatles and the Stones appear the most frequently, as both bands covered many Berry tunes -- not a big surprise considering they were all huge Chuck Berry fans (as I mentioned elsewhere, John Lennon once said "If you were going to give rock & roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."). "Come On", released in June 1963, was the very first Stones single, and they continued to frequently cover Berry songs on their albums. As for the Beatles, aside from the two Berry covers which appeared on their albums, they frequently did Berry songs in their BBC appearances.
There are of course many more Chuck Berry covers than I was able to fit on one CD, especially since certain classics have been covered multiple times. Some examples include the Beatles BBC performances of "Johnny B. Goode", "Memphis, Tennessee", "Carol", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Too Much Monkey Business", versions of "Johnny B. Goode" by Jerry Lee Lewis and the Grateful Dead, a live cover of "Little Queenie" by the Stones, the MC5's recording of "Back in the U.S.A.", Paul McCartney's cover of "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" from his excellent rock and roll album Run Devil Run, and Levon Helm's cover of "Havana Moon".
Without Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Otis Blackwell, and Chuck Berry, not only would the world have missed out on many great songs, but rock and roll as we know it would not have existed. Their contributions to the popular music of America (and the rest of the world as well) were beyond price, as one listen to these CDs will show.
Is That All There Is? - The Songs of Leiber and Stoller
Hound Dog (Leiber/Stoller*) Big Mama Thornton
Framed (Leiber/Stoller) The Robins
Riot in Cell Block #9 (Leiber/Stoller) The Robins
K.C. Lovin' (Leiber/Stoller) Little Willie Littlefield
Smokey Joe's Cafe (Leiber/Stoller) The Robins
L'Homme A La Moto [Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots] (Leiber/Stoller) Edith Piaf
Hound Dog (Leiber/Stoller*) Elvis Presley
Love Me (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Searchin' (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
Young Blood (Leiber/Pomus/Stoller) The Coasters
Jailhouse Rock (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Don't (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Yakety Yak (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
King Creole (Leiber/Stoller) Elvis Presley
Riot in Cell Block #9 (Leiber/Stoller) Wanda Jackson
Love Potion No.9 (Leiber/Stoller) The Clovers
Charlie Brown (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
Kansas City [K.C. Lovin'] (Leiber/Stoller) Wilbert Harrison
Poison Ivy (Leiber/Stoller) The Coasters
Saved (Leiber/Stoller) LaVern Baker
Stand By Me (King/Leiber/Stoller) Ben E. King
Three Cool Cats (Leiber/Stoller) The Beatles
I'm A Woman (Leiber/Stoller) Peggy Lee
She's Not You (Leiber/Stoller/Pomus) Elvis Presley
On Broadway (Leiber/Mann/Stoller/Weil) The Drifters
I (Who Have Nothing) (Donida/Leiber/Mogol/Stoller) Ben E. King
Some Other Guy (Leiber/Stoller/Barrett) The Beatles
Ruby Baby (Leiber/Stoller) Dion & the Belmonts
(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care (Leiber/Stoller) Queen
Is That All There Is? (Leiber/Stoller) Peggy Lee
*In addition to Leiber and Stoller, Thornton's bandleader Johnny Otis also initially received a credit as part of original publishing deal and later claimed to have helped write the song, though Leiber and Stoller denied this and their position was upheld in court. Thornton herself also claimed at one point to have had a hand in it, but later clarified that it was mainly a matter of her transforming it through her interpretation of the song. The Presley version had somewhat different lyrics from the original; the changes had been made by singer Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, whose version Presley learned (though he also owned a copy of the original), but Bell failed to claim credit for his new lyrics, not having gotten permission from Leiber and Stoller to change their song in the first place.
All Shook Up - The Songs of Otis Blackwell
Fever (John Davenport[Blackwell]/Eddie Cooley) Little Willie John
Don't Be Cruel (Blackwell/Presley) Elvis Presley
All Shook Up (Blackwell/Presley) Elvis Presley
It's No Lie (Blackwell) Gene Vincent
Paralyzed (Blackwell/Presley) Elvis Presley
Great Balls of Fire (Blackwell/Hammer) Jerry Lee Lewis
Breathless (Blackwell) Jerry Lee Lewis
Just Keep It Up (Blackwell) Dee Clark
Hey Little Girl (Blackwell/Stevenson) Dee Clark
Handy Man (Blackwell/Jones) Jimmy Jones
Let's Talk About Us (Blackwell) Jerry Lee Lewis
Make Me Know It (Blackwell) Elvis Presley
Livin' Lovin' Wreck (Blackwell) Jerry Lee Lewis
(Such An) Easy Question (Blackwell/Scott) Elvis Presley
Return to Sender (Blackwell/Scott) Elvis Presley
One Broken Heart for Sale (Blackwell/Scott) Elvis Presley
Home in Your Heart (Blackwell/Scott) Otis Redding
Daddy Rollin' Stone (Blackwell) The Who
Fever (John Davenport[Blackwell]/Eddie Cooley) Peggy Lee
All Shook Up (Blackwell/Presley) Paul McCartney
Rock and Roll Music - The Songs of Chuck Berry
Roll Over Beethoven* ELO (1973)
Carol The Rolling Stones (1964)
Johnny B. Goode Jimi Hendrix
Rock And Roll Music The Beatles (1964)
Brown Eyed Handsome Man Buddy Holly
Memphis, Tennessee Elvis Presley (1965)
Come On The Rolling Stones (1963)
Little Queenie Jerry Lee Lewis
Sweet Little Sixteen** The Beach Boys(as "Surfin' USA")
Too Much Monkey Business The Beatles
You Can't Catch Me The Rolling Stones (1965)
You Never Can Tell Emmylou Harris (1977)
Back in the U.S.A. Linda Ronstadt
I Got To Find My Baby The Beatles
No Particular Place To Go George Thorogood
Around and Around The Rolling Stones
Havana Moon Carlos Santana
Johnny B. Goode Elvis Presley (1970)
Roll Over Beethoven The Beatles (1963)
Memphis, Tennessee The Animals
Brown Eyed Handsome Man Nina Simone
Too Much Monkey Business The Yardbirds
Sweet Little Sixteen The Beatles
Little Queenie (live) The Rolling Stones (1970)
C'est La Vie (You Never Can Tell) Bob Seger
All songs by Chuck Berry except:
*Words by Chuck Berry, Music by Chuck Berry and Ludwig van Beethoven
**Words by Brian Wilson, Music by Chuck Berry
This series of CDs collects songs by different songwriters who were prominent in the fifties. First, I'll discuss the Leiber and Stoller collection. Lyricist Jerry Leiber and composer Mike Stoller were the most successful songwriting team of the early rock and roll era, and played an important role in popularizing the rhythm and blues sound. Even before Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley started making records, Leiber and Stoller were writing songs for various R & B singers and groups. This CD only contains a few of these early tracks (most are somewhat difficult to find), but songs like "Hound Dog" and "K.C. Lovin'" are good examples of their early work, and their songs for the Robins introduced comedy rock and roll, a genre they continued to produce many songs in, particular with the later incarnation of the Robins, the Coasters ("Searchin'", "Yakety Yak", etc.). Aside from the Coasters, the other artist they had the most hits with was Elvis, starting with his remake of "Hound Dog", followed by "Love Me" and "Jailhouse Rock" and continuing on into the sixties. They also wrote for many other artists such as Ben E. King and Peggy Lee (one of my favorites is the song they wrote for LaVern Baker, "Saved").
Leiber and Stoller occasionally collaborated with other songwriters, particularly in the sixties when they were often too busy with production and other duties to concentrate on songwriting. "On Broadway", for instance, was written with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil (actually I probably shouldn't have included this one, as Leiber and Stoller just reworked the Mann/Weil original), "She's Not You" with Doc Pomus, and "Stand By Me" with Ben E. King. Another song which might have been a collaboration was "Hound Dog", as bandleader Johnny Otis claimed he helped write it, but he lost a court case over the rights. Leiber also worked without Stoller on occasion, most notably when he collaborated with Phil Spector on "Spanish Harlem", but here I've only included songs they both worked on.
In a few cases, the versions I've included here are not the originals. Since both versions of "Hound Dog" are distinctive and worth a listen they are both included here. Likewise, I included both the original "K.C. Lovin'" and Wilbert Harrison's remake entitled "Kansas City", since it was the latter version that was a big hit (in fact it's not unlikely that even the Beatles, who covered the song, never heard the original). Finally, while the Robins' version of "Riot in Cell Block #9" is the original classic, I decided the version from the "Queen of Rockabilly" Wanda Jackson was also worth including. In several cases I didn't have the original, so I included a later version, including "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots" (the original was by The Cheers; here you get a French version by the famed singer Edith Piaf!), "Love Me" (originally recorded by Willy and Ruth, but Elvis made it a hit), "Three Cool Cats" (the Coasters), "Ruby Baby" (The Drifters), "Some Other Guy" (Richie Barrett, who co-wrote the song) and "(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care" (Elvis). The pair also wrote many other songs which don't appear here, some of which were sizable hits (e.g. the Drifters' "Drip Drop").
By the late sixties, Leiber and Stoller were no longer as hot as they had been a few years earlier, but they continued to write and had the occasional hit. The most notable of their later songs was the final song in this collection, "Is That All There Is?", written for Peggy Lee and covered by many other artists including P.J. Harvey. An interesting fact about the original (released in 1969) is that it was arranged and conducted by a young songwriter named Randy Newman, still a comparative unknown at the time (though he'd already written a few hits and released his first solo album).
Otis Blackwell was another key songwriter of the fifties, though he wasn't as prolific a hitmaker as the Leiber and Stoller team. Nevertheless, some of the greatest rock and roll classics were written or co-written by Blackwell, including "Fever", "Don't Be Cruel", "All Shook Up", "Great Balls of Fire", and "Return to Sender". You will note that many of these were hits for Elvis, one artist that Blackwell had in common with Leiber and Stoller; in fact between the three of them, they wrote a large proportion of Elvis's classic hits, including some of the very biggest ones. Other than Elvis, however, Blackwell generally wrote for different artists than Leiber and Stoller. Ironically, Leiber and Stoller, who were white (Jewish, actually), wrote most of their songs for African-American artists, while Blackwell, who was black, wrote mostly for white artists.
Blackwell collaborated on many of his hits with other writers, such as Winfield Scott, Jack Hammer, Eddie Cooley and B.W. Stevenson. Though he had his greatest successes writing for other artists, he did occasionally record himself, one example being "Daddy Rollin' Stone", which was later covered by the Who (the version which appears here). He also made an album in which he recorded his own versions of his most successful hits for others.
When you first put on the Rock And Roll Music CD, and you hear Beethoven's Fifth, you might think at first that it's a classical music compilation. But after a minute, that Chuck Berry guitar comes in and you realize you're listening to ELO's cover of "Roll Over Beethoven", and what it is in fact a compilation of Chuck Berry covers. Chuck Berry, of course, was one of the most important artists of the rock and roll era. Unlike Leiber, Stoller, and Blackwell, he wrote songs for himself, not for others. But it is a tribute to the esteem in which he and his songs are held that they have been frequently covered by later rock artists.
Aside from ELO's brilliant mix of Beethoven and Berry on "Roll Over Beethoven", this CD includes covers of Berry songs by rock luminaries such as Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and Carlos Santana. The Beatles and the Stones appear the most frequently, as both bands covered many Berry tunes -- not a big surprise considering they were all huge Chuck Berry fans (as I mentioned elsewhere, John Lennon once said "If you were going to give rock & roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."). "Come On", released in June 1963, was the very first Stones single, and they continued to frequently cover Berry songs on their albums. As for the Beatles, aside from the two Berry covers which appeared on their albums, they frequently did Berry songs in their BBC appearances.
There are of course many more Chuck Berry covers than I was able to fit on one CD, especially since certain classics have been covered multiple times. Some examples include the Beatles BBC performances of "Johnny B. Goode", "Memphis, Tennessee", "Carol", "Sweet Little Sixteen", and "Too Much Monkey Business", versions of "Johnny B. Goode" by Jerry Lee Lewis and the Grateful Dead, a live cover of "Little Queenie" by the Stones, the MC5's recording of "Back in the U.S.A.", Paul McCartney's cover of "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" from his excellent rock and roll album Run Devil Run, and Levon Helm's cover of "Havana Moon".
Without Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Otis Blackwell, and Chuck Berry, not only would the world have missed out on many great songs, but rock and roll as we know it would not have existed. Their contributions to the popular music of America (and the rest of the world as well) were beyond price, as one listen to these CDs will show.
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Taiwanese Aboriginal Oldies Concert
Since I haven't had time to write anything for my music blog this month, instead I'm posting some videos relating to one of the things that's kept me too busy to write. Yesterday (July 30) at Tiehua Village in Taidong I participated in a rather special concert. Having spent a number of years collecting and researching recorded Taiwanese Aboriginal music from the past half century, I've collected a lot of records featuring a lot of impressive singers, some of whom I've become personally acquainted with. So working with the people at Tiehua Village, I helped to organize a concert featuring some of these singers. Their original records were for the most part recorded over 50 years ago, with the exception of one whose record was released in 1979. Of the five singers at the show, four are in their 70s (the oldest, 陳玉英, is 78) and the youngest (王秋蘭) is 61. We asked them to sing some of the songs they recorded all those years ago, and before each song I played a minute or so of the original recordings. It was a very interesting experience and apparently everyone enjoyed themselves a lot. The following are videos taken when the singers were practicing at their homes (except the youngest one, who since she lives in Kaohsiung on the other side of Taiwan did a quick rehearsal right before the show) and the finale of the show itself, when all the singers got on stage together to sing a pair of Japanese-language songs that were popular in the Taidong area over half a century ago (and as far as I have been able to determine originated there), opened by an Amis version of one of them peformed by the original vocalist, Amis singer 李原信.
The singers at the show included 陳玉英(Puyuma), 吳花枝(Puyuma), 王秋蘭(Paiwan), and 李原信 & 汪寶蓮(Amis).
李原信 & 汪寶蓮 rehearsal
陳玉英 rehearsal
吳花枝 rehearsal, featuring some photos from her youth
Show Finale
[Update: I believe all of the show is now on Youtube in segments which are all labelled "黑膠年代．台灣山地歌謠之部落歌星再現@鐵花村 20160730"]
The singers at the show included 陳玉英(Puyuma), 吳花枝(Puyuma), 王秋蘭(Paiwan), and 李原信 & 汪寶蓮(Amis).
李原信 & 汪寶蓮 rehearsal
陳玉英 rehearsal
吳花枝 rehearsal, featuring some photos from her youth
Show Finale
[Update: I believe all of the show is now on Youtube in segments which are all labelled "黑膠年代．台灣山地歌謠之部落歌星再現@鐵花村 20160730"]
Thursday, June 30, 2016
R-Kive – A Musical History of Genesis
As noted in some of my older entries in this blog, I did some freelance writing for the Taiwan-based music service KKBox as part of their attempt to establish themselves in the Malaysia-Singapore market. Most of the articles I wrote for them can be found here. However, KKBox seemingly abandoned this effort last year (or so I was told), with the result that one or two of my later articles were never published online. Most notably, only the first part of my long article on the Genesis collection R-Kive was published. While I wrote a separate (and less commercial, so to speak) entry on the set for this blog, I'd like to make the entire original article available here as well. I thought about just putting the second part here, but it seemed better to have it all in one place. For the sake of any readers who may have read part 1 on the KKBox website, I've included subheadings for the two parts, so you can just scroll down to part two.
R-Kive – A Musical History of Genesis (Part 1)
Genesis was one of the longest-lasting and most commercially successful bands in rock history. Not only did the group itself sell tens of millions of albums, but the band’s key members had successful solo careers, and two of them became superstars. The recently released three CD collection R-Kive provides an excellent chronological overview of the band’s history. Not only does it include many of the band’s best known tracks, it provides listeners with a taste of the band members’ solo careers by including three solo tracks from each of the band’s five chief members. As founding member and original lead vocalist Peter Gabriel says, it shows “different musical histories merging together in a powerful way.”
Genesis was founded in the late 1960s by public school students and aspiring songwriters Tony Banks (keyboard/guitar), Peter Gabriel (vocals), Mike Rutherford (bass/guitar) and Anthony Phillips (guitar). Recruiting a classmate as drummer, they formed a band to perform their own songs, soon evolving a style that emphasized long, complex songs in the genre that came to be known as progressive rock. R-Kive opens with “The Knife”, a song from the band’s second album Trespass and their first in this genre. After Phillips left in 1970, the remaining three added Phil Collins as drummer and backing vocalist and Steve Hackett as lead guitarist, creating the group’s classic five man lineup and quickly becoming one of England’s top progressive rock bands. It is this lineup that features on fan favorites like “The Musical Box” from 1971’s Nursery Cryme and the epic 23-minute “Supper’s Ready” from 1972’s Foxtrot. Two songs from the 1973 album Selling England by the Pound are included, “The Cinema Show”, which included a lengthy instrumental section that became a concert staple, and “I Know What I Like”, the band’s first UK hit single. The band’s last album with Peter Gabriel, the 1974 double album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, is represented by the title track, the unusually hard-edged “Back in NYC” (later covered by Jeff Buckley) and the lovely “Carpet Crawlers”. The first disc of R-Kive closes with “Ace of Wands”, a track from Steve Hackett’s 1975 solo album Voyage of the Acolyte, the first solo venture by any of the five group members.
After Gabriel’s departure, Genesis continued as a four piece with Phil Collins taking over on lead vocals. This period is represented by “Ripples” and “Afterglow” from the well-received 1976 albums Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering. The beginnings of Gabriel’s solo career are represented by the hit single off his debut self-titled album, the excellent “Solsbury Hill” (in part about his departure from Genesis). Hackett also decided to quit Genesis for a solo career, but Banks, Collins and Rutherford carried on with the ironically-titled And Then There Were Three, which featured the hit “Follow You Follow Me”, and also represented a trend toward shorter, more straightforward songs. Tony Banks, in some way the most important member of Genesis in terms of songwriting and overall sound, released his first solo album A Curious Feeling in 1979 (represented here by “For a While”, featuring vocalist Kim Beacon), and Rutherford released an album as well. Neither was a big commercial success; nor for that matter were Hackett’s solo albums, but albums like 1979’s Spectral Mornings, which opened with “Every Day” (featuring vocalist Peter Hicks), attracted praise from critics and a following of loyal fans. Peter Gabriel’s third album, released in 1980, was both a critical and commercial success, and included the anti-apartheid anthem “Biko”. That same year Genesis released Duke, a mix of progressive and pop rock that became their best selling album yet. For the first time, Collins took an equal share in the writing with Banks and Rutherford, and the group began writing more and more songs together, including the energetic hit “Turn It on Again”. Collins released his own debut solo album Face Value in 1981, launching the most commercially successful solo career of all with the iconic hit “In the Air Tonight”. That same year, the band itself moved further toward pop with Abacab, but as the hit title track shows, their music was still highly distinctive. Their self-titled 1983 album contained the quirkily inventive “Mama” and the very catchy “That’s All”, big hits in the UK and the US respectively. Meanwhile, Collins was reaching his commercial peak as a solo artist, a period represented here by “Easy Lover”, his 1984 hit duet with Philip Bailey. The following year, Mike Rutherford found commercial success outside Genesis with his band Mike & the Mechanics, starting with their self-titled debut album and the hit “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” (featuring vocals by Paul Carrack, who sang lead on all three Mike & the Mechanics songs on this collection), which closes the second disc of R-Kive.
R-Kive – A Musical History of Genesis (Part 2)
In 1986, Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford reconvened for the most commercially successful Genesis album of all, Invisible Touch, including the infectious US chart-topping title track and the excellent top five hits “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight” and “Land of Confusion”, which open the third disc of R-Kive. Mike & the Mechanics had their biggest hit three years later with “The Living Years”. Tony Banks, meanwhile, had also continued his solo career with albums like the underrated The Fugitive (on which he did the lead vocals himself). In 1991, he released what many consider his best solo album, Still, featuring several guest vocalists including Nik Kershaw, who sang and wrote the lyrics for the excellent “Red Day on Blue Street”, but commercial success remained elusive. Genesis reunited once more later in 1991 for what proved to be their last studio album with Phil Collins, We Can’t Dance, which included the hits “I Can’t Dance”, “No Son of Mine” and “Hold on My Heart”. Mike & the Mechanics had another hit in 1995 with “Over My Shoulder” from Beggar on a Beach of Gold. In 1997, Banks and Rutherford, having recruited vocalist Ray Wilson, released what has (so far) proved to be the last new Genesis studio album, Calling All Stations (here represented by the title track), which sold well in Europe but made little impact in the US. Though Banks, Collins and Rutherford reunited for a last concert tour, and all five members of the classic early 1970s lineup have participated in projects such as this one, Genesis as a band has not released any new material this century, so the final tracks on the collection are from solo projects. Gabriel has continued to release solo albums that have been well-received critically and have sold well, though his commercial peak, like the band’s, was in the mid-1980s. Here he has included one of his more recent releases, the highly original “Signal to Noise” from 2002’s Up. From the same year, Testify, Phil Collins’ last album of original songs to date, is represented by the opening track, “Wake Up Call”. Steve Hackett has also continued to release interesting new material, such as “Nomads” from his 2009 album Out of the Tunnel’s Mouth. Tony Banks, meanwhile, has concentrated on classical music in recent years, releasing two albums. The final track on R-Kive, “Siren”, is from the second of these, 2012’s Six Pieces for Orchestra.
This Genesis retrospective provides an excellent musical history of the band and its members’ solo efforts. Of course, any dedicated fan will find a lot of favorite songs missing, from early tracks like “Watcher of the Skies”, “Firth of Fifth”, “Dance on a Volcano” and “One For the Vine” to later ones such as “Misunderstanding”, “Keep It Dark”, “Home by the Sea”, “Throwing It All Away”, “Jesus He Knows Me” and “Driving the Last Spike”. Many will also notice that some of the biggest songs from the peak of the two vocalists’ superstar solo careers were also left out, including Gabriel’s “Here Comes the Flood”, “Shock the Monkey”, “Sledgehammer”, “In Your Eyes”, and “Digging in the Dirt” and Collins’ “Against All Odds”, “Take Me Home” “One More Night”, “Sussudio”, “Another Day in Paradise” and “I Wish It Would Rain”, among many others, and fans of the others’ solo albums may also regret the lack of more of their songs. But that is inevitable for a band with as long a history as Genesis and with so many members with prominent solo careers. So while fans might quibble about a few of the selections, there is no doubt that R-Kive is just about the best introduction to Genesis and the solo ventures of its members that one could hope for in a single package. As Rutherford says, “it’s a wonderfully impressive array and variety of songs.”
As noted above, I wrote an additional commentary on R-Kive for this blog, including some thoughts on how I might have changed to song selection if I had been in charge. It also includes further links to some of my other Genesis-related writing, including overviews of the careers of each major member of the band. One day I hope to put together my own deluxe version of R-Kive with a lot of the most significant ommissions from the band's career and at least one more song from each solo career added in, though I suspect I may have to make it a five CD set.
R-Kive – A Musical History of Genesis (Part 1)
Genesis was one of the longest-lasting and most commercially successful bands in rock history. Not only did the group itself sell tens of millions of albums, but the band’s key members had successful solo careers, and two of them became superstars. The recently released three CD collection R-Kive provides an excellent chronological overview of the band’s history. Not only does it include many of the band’s best known tracks, it provides listeners with a taste of the band members’ solo careers by including three solo tracks from each of the band’s five chief members. As founding member and original lead vocalist Peter Gabriel says, it shows “different musical histories merging together in a powerful way.”
Genesis was founded in the late 1960s by public school students and aspiring songwriters Tony Banks (keyboard/guitar), Peter Gabriel (vocals), Mike Rutherford (bass/guitar) and Anthony Phillips (guitar). Recruiting a classmate as drummer, they formed a band to perform their own songs, soon evolving a style that emphasized long, complex songs in the genre that came to be known as progressive rock. R-Kive opens with “The Knife”, a song from the band’s second album Trespass and their first in this genre. After Phillips left in 1970, the remaining three added Phil Collins as drummer and backing vocalist and Steve Hackett as lead guitarist, creating the group’s classic five man lineup and quickly becoming one of England’s top progressive rock bands. It is this lineup that features on fan favorites like “The Musical Box” from 1971’s Nursery Cryme and the epic 23-minute “Supper’s Ready” from 1972’s Foxtrot. Two songs from the 1973 album Selling England by the Pound are included, “The Cinema Show”, which included a lengthy instrumental section that became a concert staple, and “I Know What I Like”, the band’s first UK hit single. The band’s last album with Peter Gabriel, the 1974 double album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, is represented by the title track, the unusually hard-edged “Back in NYC” (later covered by Jeff Buckley) and the lovely “Carpet Crawlers”. The first disc of R-Kive closes with “Ace of Wands”, a track from Steve Hackett’s 1975 solo album Voyage of the Acolyte, the first solo venture by any of the five group members.
After Gabriel’s departure, Genesis continued as a four piece with Phil Collins taking over on lead vocals. This period is represented by “Ripples” and “Afterglow” from the well-received 1976 albums Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering. The beginnings of Gabriel’s solo career are represented by the hit single off his debut self-titled album, the excellent “Solsbury Hill” (in part about his departure from Genesis). Hackett also decided to quit Genesis for a solo career, but Banks, Collins and Rutherford carried on with the ironically-titled And Then There Were Three, which featured the hit “Follow You Follow Me”, and also represented a trend toward shorter, more straightforward songs. Tony Banks, in some way the most important member of Genesis in terms of songwriting and overall sound, released his first solo album A Curious Feeling in 1979 (represented here by “For a While”, featuring vocalist Kim Beacon), and Rutherford released an album as well. Neither was a big commercial success; nor for that matter were Hackett’s solo albums, but albums like 1979’s Spectral Mornings, which opened with “Every Day” (featuring vocalist Peter Hicks), attracted praise from critics and a following of loyal fans. Peter Gabriel’s third album, released in 1980, was both a critical and commercial success, and included the anti-apartheid anthem “Biko”. That same year Genesis released Duke, a mix of progressive and pop rock that became their best selling album yet. For the first time, Collins took an equal share in the writing with Banks and Rutherford, and the group began writing more and more songs together, including the energetic hit “Turn It on Again”. Collins released his own debut solo album Face Value in 1981, launching the most commercially successful solo career of all with the iconic hit “In the Air Tonight”. That same year, the band itself moved further toward pop with Abacab, but as the hit title track shows, their music was still highly distinctive. Their self-titled 1983 album contained the quirkily inventive “Mama” and the very catchy “That’s All”, big hits in the UK and the US respectively. Meanwhile, Collins was reaching his commercial peak as a solo artist, a period represented here by “Easy Lover”, his 1984 hit duet with Philip Bailey. The following year, Mike Rutherford found commercial success outside Genesis with his band Mike & the Mechanics, starting with their self-titled debut album and the hit “Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)” (featuring vocals by Paul Carrack, who sang lead on all three Mike & the Mechanics songs on this collection), which closes the second disc of R-Kive.
R-Kive – A Musical History of Genesis (Part 2)
In 1986, Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford reconvened for the most commercially successful Genesis album of all, Invisible Touch, including the infectious US chart-topping title track and the excellent top five hits “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight” and “Land of Confusion”, which open the third disc of R-Kive. Mike & the Mechanics had their biggest hit three years later with “The Living Years”. Tony Banks, meanwhile, had also continued his solo career with albums like the underrated The Fugitive (on which he did the lead vocals himself). In 1991, he released what many consider his best solo album, Still, featuring several guest vocalists including Nik Kershaw, who sang and wrote the lyrics for the excellent “Red Day on Blue Street”, but commercial success remained elusive. Genesis reunited once more later in 1991 for what proved to be their last studio album with Phil Collins, We Can’t Dance, which included the hits “I Can’t Dance”, “No Son of Mine” and “Hold on My Heart”. Mike & the Mechanics had another hit in 1995 with “Over My Shoulder” from Beggar on a Beach of Gold. In 1997, Banks and Rutherford, having recruited vocalist Ray Wilson, released what has (so far) proved to be the last new Genesis studio album, Calling All Stations (here represented by the title track), which sold well in Europe but made little impact in the US. Though Banks, Collins and Rutherford reunited for a last concert tour, and all five members of the classic early 1970s lineup have participated in projects such as this one, Genesis as a band has not released any new material this century, so the final tracks on the collection are from solo projects. Gabriel has continued to release solo albums that have been well-received critically and have sold well, though his commercial peak, like the band’s, was in the mid-1980s. Here he has included one of his more recent releases, the highly original “Signal to Noise” from 2002’s Up. From the same year, Testify, Phil Collins’ last album of original songs to date, is represented by the opening track, “Wake Up Call”. Steve Hackett has also continued to release interesting new material, such as “Nomads” from his 2009 album Out of the Tunnel’s Mouth. Tony Banks, meanwhile, has concentrated on classical music in recent years, releasing two albums. The final track on R-Kive, “Siren”, is from the second of these, 2012’s Six Pieces for Orchestra.
This Genesis retrospective provides an excellent musical history of the band and its members’ solo efforts. Of course, any dedicated fan will find a lot of favorite songs missing, from early tracks like “Watcher of the Skies”, “Firth of Fifth”, “Dance on a Volcano” and “One For the Vine” to later ones such as “Misunderstanding”, “Keep It Dark”, “Home by the Sea”, “Throwing It All Away”, “Jesus He Knows Me” and “Driving the Last Spike”. Many will also notice that some of the biggest songs from the peak of the two vocalists’ superstar solo careers were also left out, including Gabriel’s “Here Comes the Flood”, “Shock the Monkey”, “Sledgehammer”, “In Your Eyes”, and “Digging in the Dirt” and Collins’ “Against All Odds”, “Take Me Home” “One More Night”, “Sussudio”, “Another Day in Paradise” and “I Wish It Would Rain”, among many others, and fans of the others’ solo albums may also regret the lack of more of their songs. But that is inevitable for a band with as long a history as Genesis and with so many members with prominent solo careers. So while fans might quibble about a few of the selections, there is no doubt that R-Kive is just about the best introduction to Genesis and the solo ventures of its members that one could hope for in a single package. As Rutherford says, “it’s a wonderfully impressive array and variety of songs.”
As noted above, I wrote an additional commentary on R-Kive for this blog, including some thoughts on how I might have changed to song selection if I had been in charge. It also includes further links to some of my other Genesis-related writing, including overviews of the careers of each major member of the band. One day I hope to put together my own deluxe version of R-Kive with a lot of the most significant ommissions from the band's career and at least one more song from each solo career added in, though I suspect I may have to make it a five CD set.
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Border-crossing Cover Songs - From SE Asia, NE Asia, the US and Britain to Taiwan and Hong Kong
Recently for my biweekly radio program (which is now being broadcast two Fridays a month at 9 pm) I did a series of shows on songs from various countries that had been covered by ethnic Chinese singers from Taiwan, Hong Kong and other places, plus a few songs from Taiwan that were covered by foreign singers. The first show focused on Thai songs, including songs by major Thai artists such as Carabao, Asanee Wasan and Loso that were covered in Mandarin and Hoklo by singers from Taiwan and Hong Kong, plus a couple Taiwanese songs that were covered (or plagiarized) by Thai artists. The next show featured songs from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, from the venerable “Bengawan Solo” to songs by Malay-Singaporean composer M. Nasir and of course the huge international hit “Anak” by Freddie Aguilar. I also threw in a couple of Burmese-language covers of Taiwanese songs from a CD I bought during my trip to Myanmar many years ago. The third show covered songs from Japan (plus one from Korea), though given the huge number of Japanese songs that have been covered in Hoklo, Mandarin and Cantonese by singers from Taiwan and Hong Kong, I only could play a few of the more notable ones, such as the Okinawan classic “Subete no Hito no Kokoro ni Hana o” by Kina Shoukichi and Champloose. For the final show, I played English songs that have been covered by Taiwanese artists (plus one Hong Kong-based Chinese singer) in local languages.
Due to time constraints I couldn’t play all the songs I wanted to, and a few had to be left off the playlist at the last minute. In most cases I played both the original and the cover; in a few cases I played more than one cover (particularly if there were covers in different languages), and in a few cases I only played the original or the cover, if I felt most listeners would already be familiar with the one I didn’t play. On the first two shows I also played a few additional tracks by key artists like Carabao, Asanee Wasan, Loso, M. Nasir and Freddie Aguilar that have yet to be covered in Mandarin or Hoklo in order to give listeners a further introduction to their music.
The playlists below include all the songs I played on these four shows, plus a few that I had to leave out. I haven’t included links to online recordings of the songs this time, but it’s pretty easy to find most of them by just copying the song title (and if necessary the artist’s name) and pasting them into the search field on YouTube or Google. Only a very few of the more obscure recordings don’t seem to be anywhere online.
Songs of Thailand
Made In Thailand เมคอินไทยแลนด์ (Words & Music: Yuenyong (Ad) Ophakul ยืนยง (แอ็ด) โอภากุล) Carabao คาราบาว (2527/1984)
燃燒愛情〈詞：? 曲：Yuenyong (Ad) Ophakul〉 齊秦、謝采妘 (1987)
Thaleejai (Words & Music: Yuenyong (Ad) Ophakul) Ad - Id Ophakul (Mar. 2535/1992) 4:20
Bang Ern Tid Din (Words & Music: Asanee Chotikul, Yuenyong Ophakul, Pracha Pongsupat) Asanee & Wasan อัสนี - วสันต์ โชติกุล (2531/1988)
閃亮的心永遠愛你〈詞：陳樂融 曲：Asanee Chotikul〉 紅孩兒 (1990)
Yindee Mai Mee Panhaa (Words: Pracha Pongsupat Music：Asanee Chotikul) Asanee & Wasan อัสนี - วสันต์ โชติกุล (1989/2532)
抓狂〈詞：王明輝、陳主惠 曲：Asanee Chotikul〉 黑名單工作室 (1989)
寶貝，對不起〈詞：謝明訓 曲：Asanee Chotikul〉 草蜢 (1993)
One Song (Words: Dick Lee[?] Music：Asanee Chotikul) Dick Lee
Kor Koey Sun Yah ก็เคยสัญญา (Words & Music: Asanee Chotikul) Asanee & Wasan อัสนี - วสันต์ โชติกุล (2530/1987)
Koo-Kud (Words: Unnop Chunsuta Music：Chatri Kongsuwan) Bird Thongchai (2533/1990)
失戀陣線聯盟〈詞：何啟弘 曲：Chatri Kongsuwan〉 草蜢 (1990)
Fon Tok Thii Naa Taang (Words & Music: Sek Loso) Loso โลโซ (2544/2001)
命中註定〈詞：許常德 曲：Sek Loso〉 庾澄慶 (2001)
Phanthip (Words & Music: Sek Loso) Loso (Aug. 2544/2001) 4:20
為何夢見他〈詞曲：邱晨〉 丘丘合唱團 (1982-3)
Dai Aree Lum Deej Thitima "Waen" Sudasunthorn (2527/1984)
我很醜可是我很溫柔〈詞：李格弟[夏宇] 曲：黃韻玲〉 趙傳 (1988)
ทรมาน Tor-Ra-Marn Itti (1993/2536)
Songs of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines
Bengawan Solo (Words & Music: Gesang Martohartono) Gesang & Waldjinah (1940/?)
梭羅河之戀（梭羅河畔）〈詞：方忭[陳蝶衣] 曲：Gesang Martohartono〉 潘秀瓊 (1957)
曼卡灣梭羅〈詞：陳達儒 曲：Gesang Martohartono 編曲：楊三郎〉 紀露霞 (1950年代末)
Dayung Sampan Aida Mustafa (1972)
Engkau Laksana Bulan (Words: Jamil Sulong Music：P. Ramlee) P. Ramlee (1955)
美麗的苦酒〈詞：周禮茂 曲：P. Ramlee, J. Sulong〉 葉蒨文 (1991/2004) 多情的路 (1993)
Anak (Words & Music: Freddie Aguilar) Freddie Aguilar (1978)
你的影子〈詞：莊奴 曲：Freddie Aguilar〉 鍾鎮濤 (1979)
愛著啊〈詞：潘協慶 曲：Freddie Aguilar〉 江蕙、陳子鴻 (2004)
Mindanao (Words & Music: Freddie Aguilar) Freddie Aguilar (1983)
Kenangan Lalu (Words & Music: M. Nasir) The Flybaits (1980)
怎麼開始〈詞：盧國沾 曲：M. Nasir〉 鄧麗君 (1983)
如果沒有你〈詞：小軒 曲：M. Nasir〉 鄧麗君 (1985)
Fantasia Bulan Madu (Words & Music: M. Nasir) Search (1987)
結他低泣時〈詞：林振強 曲：M. Nasir〉 夏韶聲 (1988)
無聲的吉他〈詞：馮曦妤 曲：M. Nasir〉 張學友 (2012)
Mustika (Words & Music: M. Nasir) M. Nasir (1988)
孩兒〈詞：鄭國江 曲：Freddie Aguilar〉 譚詠麟 (1979)
Thaminlepyan Wine Wine [愛我別走]
Lamin&Pinlae Wine Wine [把悲傷留給自己]
Songs of Japan, Korea and Okinawa
恋をするなら[Koi wo Surunara]〈詞：佐伯孝夫Saeki Takao 曲：吉田正Yoshida Tadashi〉 橋幸夫Hashi Yukio (1964/08)
墓仔埔也敢去〈詞：郭大誠 曲：吉田正〉 葉啟田 (1965)
墓仔埔也敢去〈詞：郭大誠 曲：吉田正〉 伍佰 & China Blue (1995)
청춘을 돌려다오[追憶中的影子] 〈曲：金永宗（김영종）〉 추억의申幸日Shin Haeng-il (1967)
淚的小花〈詞：慎芝 曲：韓人[金永宗（김영종）] 編：湯尼〉 青山 (1969)
情熱の砂漠Jyonetsu no Sabaku〈詞：山上路夫 曲：加瀬邦彦〉 ザ・ピーナッツ [The Peanuts] (1973/05)
熱情的沙漠〈詞：李潔心 曲：加瀨邦彥Kase Kunihiko、山上路夫Yamagami Michio〉 歐陽菲菲 (1974)
この恋おいらのからまわりKono Koi Oira no Karamawari〈詞曲：飛鳥涼[Aska Ryu]〉 チャゲ＆飛鳥[Chage&Aska] (1981/02)
原來的我 〈詞：呂承明 曲：飛鳥〉 齊秦 (1985)
とんぼ Tonbo(Dragonfly)〈詞曲：長渕 剛〉 長渕 剛[Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi] (1988/10[single release])
紅蜻蜓〈詞：李子恆 曲：長剛[長渕 剛]〉 小虎隊 (1990)
花〜すべての人の心に花を〜Subete no Hito no Kokoro ni Hana o〈詞曲：喜納昌吉〉 喜納昌吉＆チャンプルーズ (1980/06)
Dawk Mai Hai Khun Caravan (2528/1985)
花心〈詞：厲曼婷 曲：喜納昌吉〉 周華健 3:50 (1993)
真夏の果実 Manatsu no Kajitsu〈詞曲：桑田佳祐[Kuwata Keisuke]〉 サザンオールスターズ Southern All Stars (1990/07)
妳在他鄉〈詞：剛澤斌 曲：桑田佳佑(K. Kuwata)〉 剛澤斌 4:44 (1992) [每天愛你多一些 - 張學友]
男と女Otoko to Onna〈詞曲：飛鳥涼〉 チャゲ＆飛鳥 (1981/10)
讓我歡喜讓我優〈詞：李宗盛 曲：飛鳥涼(Ryo Aska)〉 周華健 4:45 (1991)
サヨンの鐘[沙鴦之鐘]〈詞：西条八十Saijo Yaso 曲：古賀正男[Koga Masao]〉 渡辺はま子Watanbe Hamako (1941/11)
月光小夜曲〈詞：周藍萍 曲：古賀政男〉 張清真 (1960年代)
Songs of the UK, US and Europe
山頂的黑狗兄〈詞：高金福 曲：Leslie Sarony〉 洪一峰 (1957) OT: Fine Alpine Milkman
The Alpine Milkman (Words & Music: Leslie Sarony) Leslie Sarony (1930)
我要你的愛〈詞：司徒明 曲：J. Hendricks〉 葛蘭 (約1958)
I Want You to Be My Baby (Words & Music: Jon Hendricks) Louis Jordan (1953)
不老的爸爸〈詞：希臘〉 鄧麗君 (1968) 《比翼鳥[晶晶]-鄧麗君之歌第四集》
The Laughing Song (Words & Music: George W. Johnson) George W. Johnson (c. 1900)
惱人的秋風〈詞：孫儀 曲：Andersson/Ulvaeus〉 高凌風 (1981/06)
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (Words & Music: Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus) ABBA (1979)
冬天裡的一把火〈詞：莊奴[黃河] 曲：Findon/Myers/Puzey〉 高凌風 (1982/01)
Sexy Music (Words & Music: Ben Findon, Mike Myers, Bob Puzey) The Nolans (1981)
夏天的浪花〈詞：莊奴[黃河] 曲：Jeff Lynne〉 高凌風 (1982/05)
Last Train to London (Words & Music: Jeff Lynne) Electric Light Orchestra (1979)
冷戰〈詞：Michael 曲：Tori Amos〉 王靖雯（王菲） (1994)
Silent All These Years (Words & Music: Tori Amos) Tori Amos (1991[single]; 1992[album])
Lemon Tree 〈詞：許常德 曲：Hinkel/Freudenthaler〉 蘇慧倫 (1996)
Lemon Tree (Words & Music: Peter Freudenthaler, Volker Hinkel) Fool’s Garden (1995)
Let It Be (Words & Music: Paul McCartney) The Beatles (1970)
吙伊去〈詞：鄭智化 曲：Lennon/McCartney〉 鄭智化 (1992)
Jeanny, Part 1 (Words: Falco, Rob Bolland, Ferdi Bolland Music: Rob Bolland, Ferdi Bolland) Falco (1985)
七仔〈詞：武雄〉 文跡奇武[施文彬+武雄] (1998/11)
Downtown Train (Words & Music: Tom Waits) Tom Waits (1985)
按怎死都不知〈詞：武雄〉 文跡奇武[施文彬+武雄] (1998/11)
Old Black Joe (Words & Music: Stephen Foster) Collins and Harlan (1902)
豐收歌聲-卑南王〈詞：陸森寶 Baliwakes曲：Stephen Foster〉 檳榔村姑娘 (1980年代初)/ 紀曉君 (2007)
Due to time constraints I couldn’t play all the songs I wanted to, and a few had to be left off the playlist at the last minute. In most cases I played both the original and the cover; in a few cases I played more than one cover (particularly if there were covers in different languages), and in a few cases I only played the original or the cover, if I felt most listeners would already be familiar with the one I didn’t play. On the first two shows I also played a few additional tracks by key artists like Carabao, Asanee Wasan, Loso, M. Nasir and Freddie Aguilar that have yet to be covered in Mandarin or Hoklo in order to give listeners a further introduction to their music.
The playlists below include all the songs I played on these four shows, plus a few that I had to leave out. I haven’t included links to online recordings of the songs this time, but it’s pretty easy to find most of them by just copying the song title (and if necessary the artist’s name) and pasting them into the search field on YouTube or Google. Only a very few of the more obscure recordings don’t seem to be anywhere online.
Songs of Thailand
Made In Thailand เมคอินไทยแลนด์ (Words & Music: Yuenyong (Ad) Ophakul ยืนยง (แอ็ด) โอภากุล) Carabao คาราบาว (2527/1984)
燃燒愛情〈詞：? 曲：Yuenyong (Ad) Ophakul〉 齊秦、謝采妘 (1987)
Thaleejai (Words & Music: Yuenyong (Ad) Ophakul) Ad - Id Ophakul (Mar. 2535/1992) 4:20
Bang Ern Tid Din (Words & Music: Asanee Chotikul, Yuenyong Ophakul, Pracha Pongsupat) Asanee & Wasan อัสนี - วสันต์ โชติกุล (2531/1988)
閃亮的心永遠愛你〈詞：陳樂融 曲：Asanee Chotikul〉 紅孩兒 (1990)
Yindee Mai Mee Panhaa (Words: Pracha Pongsupat Music：Asanee Chotikul) Asanee & Wasan อัสนี - วสันต์ โชติกุล (1989/2532)
抓狂〈詞：王明輝、陳主惠 曲：Asanee Chotikul〉 黑名單工作室 (1989)
寶貝，對不起〈詞：謝明訓 曲：Asanee Chotikul〉 草蜢 (1993)
One Song (Words: Dick Lee[?] Music：Asanee Chotikul) Dick Lee
Kor Koey Sun Yah ก็เคยสัญญา (Words & Music: Asanee Chotikul) Asanee & Wasan อัสนี - วสันต์ โชติกุล (2530/1987)
Koo-Kud (Words: Unnop Chunsuta Music：Chatri Kongsuwan) Bird Thongchai (2533/1990)
失戀陣線聯盟〈詞：何啟弘 曲：Chatri Kongsuwan〉 草蜢 (1990)
Fon Tok Thii Naa Taang (Words & Music: Sek Loso) Loso โลโซ (2544/2001)
命中註定〈詞：許常德 曲：Sek Loso〉 庾澄慶 (2001)
Phanthip (Words & Music: Sek Loso) Loso (Aug. 2544/2001) 4:20
為何夢見他〈詞曲：邱晨〉 丘丘合唱團 (1982-3)
Dai Aree Lum Deej Thitima "Waen" Sudasunthorn (2527/1984)
我很醜可是我很溫柔〈詞：李格弟[夏宇] 曲：黃韻玲〉 趙傳 (1988)
ทรมาน Tor-Ra-Marn Itti (1993/2536)
Songs of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines
Bengawan Solo (Words & Music: Gesang Martohartono) Gesang & Waldjinah (1940/?)
梭羅河之戀（梭羅河畔）〈詞：方忭[陳蝶衣] 曲：Gesang Martohartono〉 潘秀瓊 (1957)
曼卡灣梭羅〈詞：陳達儒 曲：Gesang Martohartono 編曲：楊三郎〉 紀露霞 (1950年代末)
Dayung Sampan Aida Mustafa (1972)
Engkau Laksana Bulan (Words: Jamil Sulong Music：P. Ramlee) P. Ramlee (1955)
美麗的苦酒〈詞：周禮茂 曲：P. Ramlee, J. Sulong〉 葉蒨文 (1991/2004) 多情的路 (1993)
Anak (Words & Music: Freddie Aguilar) Freddie Aguilar (1978)
你的影子〈詞：莊奴 曲：Freddie Aguilar〉 鍾鎮濤 (1979)
愛著啊〈詞：潘協慶 曲：Freddie Aguilar〉 江蕙、陳子鴻 (2004)
Mindanao (Words & Music: Freddie Aguilar) Freddie Aguilar (1983)
Kenangan Lalu (Words & Music: M. Nasir) The Flybaits (1980)
怎麼開始〈詞：盧國沾 曲：M. Nasir〉 鄧麗君 (1983)
如果沒有你〈詞：小軒 曲：M. Nasir〉 鄧麗君 (1985)
Fantasia Bulan Madu (Words & Music: M. Nasir) Search (1987)
結他低泣時〈詞：林振強 曲：M. Nasir〉 夏韶聲 (1988)
無聲的吉他〈詞：馮曦妤 曲：M. Nasir〉 張學友 (2012)
Mustika (Words & Music: M. Nasir) M. Nasir (1988)
孩兒〈詞：鄭國江 曲：Freddie Aguilar〉 譚詠麟 (1979)
Thaminlepyan Wine Wine [愛我別走]
Lamin&Pinlae Wine Wine [把悲傷留給自己]
Songs of Japan, Korea and Okinawa
恋をするなら[Koi wo Surunara]〈詞：佐伯孝夫Saeki Takao 曲：吉田正Yoshida Tadashi〉 橋幸夫Hashi Yukio (1964/08)
墓仔埔也敢去〈詞：郭大誠 曲：吉田正〉 葉啟田 (1965)
墓仔埔也敢去〈詞：郭大誠 曲：吉田正〉 伍佰 & China Blue (1995)
청춘을 돌려다오[追憶中的影子] 〈曲：金永宗（김영종）〉 추억의申幸日Shin Haeng-il (1967)
淚的小花〈詞：慎芝 曲：韓人[金永宗（김영종）] 編：湯尼〉 青山 (1969)
情熱の砂漠Jyonetsu no Sabaku〈詞：山上路夫 曲：加瀬邦彦〉 ザ・ピーナッツ [The Peanuts] (1973/05)
熱情的沙漠〈詞：李潔心 曲：加瀨邦彥Kase Kunihiko、山上路夫Yamagami Michio〉 歐陽菲菲 (1974)
この恋おいらのからまわりKono Koi Oira no Karamawari〈詞曲：飛鳥涼[Aska Ryu]〉 チャゲ＆飛鳥[Chage&Aska] (1981/02)
原來的我 〈詞：呂承明 曲：飛鳥〉 齊秦 (1985)
とんぼ Tonbo(Dragonfly)〈詞曲：長渕 剛〉 長渕 剛[Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi] (1988/10[single release])
紅蜻蜓〈詞：李子恆 曲：長剛[長渕 剛]〉 小虎隊 (1990)
花〜すべての人の心に花を〜Subete no Hito no Kokoro ni Hana o〈詞曲：喜納昌吉〉 喜納昌吉＆チャンプルーズ (1980/06)
Dawk Mai Hai Khun Caravan (2528/1985)
花心〈詞：厲曼婷 曲：喜納昌吉〉 周華健 3:50 (1993)
真夏の果実 Manatsu no Kajitsu〈詞曲：桑田佳祐[Kuwata Keisuke]〉 サザンオールスターズ Southern All Stars (1990/07)
妳在他鄉〈詞：剛澤斌 曲：桑田佳佑(K. Kuwata)〉 剛澤斌 4:44 (1992) [每天愛你多一些 - 張學友]
男と女Otoko to Onna〈詞曲：飛鳥涼〉 チャゲ＆飛鳥 (1981/10)
讓我歡喜讓我優〈詞：李宗盛 曲：飛鳥涼(Ryo Aska)〉 周華健 4:45 (1991)
サヨンの鐘[沙鴦之鐘]〈詞：西条八十Saijo Yaso 曲：古賀正男[Koga Masao]〉 渡辺はま子Watanbe Hamako (1941/11)
月光小夜曲〈詞：周藍萍 曲：古賀政男〉 張清真 (1960年代)
Songs of the UK, US and Europe
山頂的黑狗兄〈詞：高金福 曲：Leslie Sarony〉 洪一峰 (1957) OT: Fine Alpine Milkman
The Alpine Milkman (Words & Music: Leslie Sarony) Leslie Sarony (1930)
我要你的愛〈詞：司徒明 曲：J. Hendricks〉 葛蘭 (約1958)
I Want You to Be My Baby (Words & Music: Jon Hendricks) Louis Jordan (1953)
不老的爸爸〈詞：希臘〉 鄧麗君 (1968) 《比翼鳥[晶晶]-鄧麗君之歌第四集》
The Laughing Song (Words & Music: George W. Johnson) George W. Johnson (c. 1900)
惱人的秋風〈詞：孫儀 曲：Andersson/Ulvaeus〉 高凌風 (1981/06)
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) (Words & Music: Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus) ABBA (1979)
冬天裡的一把火〈詞：莊奴[黃河] 曲：Findon/Myers/Puzey〉 高凌風 (1982/01)
Sexy Music (Words & Music: Ben Findon, Mike Myers, Bob Puzey) The Nolans (1981)
夏天的浪花〈詞：莊奴[黃河] 曲：Jeff Lynne〉 高凌風 (1982/05)
Last Train to London (Words & Music: Jeff Lynne) Electric Light Orchestra (1979)
冷戰〈詞：Michael 曲：Tori Amos〉 王靖雯（王菲） (1994)
Silent All These Years (Words & Music: Tori Amos) Tori Amos (1991[single]; 1992[album])
Lemon Tree 〈詞：許常德 曲：Hinkel/Freudenthaler〉 蘇慧倫 (1996)
Lemon Tree (Words & Music: Peter Freudenthaler, Volker Hinkel) Fool’s Garden (1995)
Let It Be (Words & Music: Paul McCartney) The Beatles (1970)
吙伊去〈詞：鄭智化 曲：Lennon/McCartney〉 鄭智化 (1992)
Jeanny, Part 1 (Words: Falco, Rob Bolland, Ferdi Bolland Music: Rob Bolland, Ferdi Bolland) Falco (1985)
七仔〈詞：武雄〉 文跡奇武[施文彬+武雄] (1998/11)
Downtown Train (Words & Music: Tom Waits) Tom Waits (1985)
按怎死都不知〈詞：武雄〉 文跡奇武[施文彬+武雄] (1998/11)
Old Black Joe (Words & Music: Stephen Foster) Collins and Harlan (1902)
豐收歌聲-卑南王〈詞：陸森寶 Baliwakes曲：Stephen Foster〉 檳榔村姑娘 (1980年代初)/ 紀曉君 (2007)
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Some of My Favorite Prince Songs
Though it’s only April, this has already been a bad year for Western popular music in terms of deaths of important artists. The biggest one was David Bowie, but other deaths have included Glenn Frey of the Eagles, Paul Kantner and Signe Toly Anderson of Jefferson Airplane, Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer (considered by many to be the most technically proficient keyboardist in rock music), George Martin (the Beatles' producer and the man with perhaps the best claim to be the "fifth Beatle"), and Maurice White of Earth, Wind and Fire. Last week another name was added to the list, one as big as Bowie. I’m referring of course to Prince (or Prince Rogers Nelson, to give him his full name), who died unexpectedly last week at the age of 57.
As was the case with Bowie, I have to admit that my own music collection only contains a limited number of Prince albums, though there were several others I’d always intended to pick up if I ever saw them used (I can’t afford to buy much music new nowadays, unless it’s discounted). For a long time, the only Prince CDs I had were the two that make up the compilation The Hits. I later acquired Purple Rain, the album most commonly cited as his best, the second disc of Sign 'O' the Times, another acknowledged career highlight and an album I had a tape copy of in college (I’ve tried to find a used copy of the first disc ever since getting the first, but with no luck yet), and the later album Musicology. I’d also like to get a copy of 1999 if I ever come across a reasonably inexpensive one.
Back when I first got heavily into music in college, I was mostly into classic rock, so I tended to think of Prince as a good example of an artist I objectively considered brilliant and innovative but who had limited appeal to me subjectively, aside from a few songs that I loved even then, in contrast to more conventional rock artists like Journey or Styx. My tastes have fortunately broadened somewhat, so I’m if anything more likely to put on a Prince album than my Journey best-of compilation (though I still like a lot of Journey songs, especially “Don’t Stop Believing”), but it’s still true that I never got that deeply into Prince. In the wake of his death, I’ve been listening to some of the Prince CDs I have, and I have been even more impressed by them than I remember being (it's also only in the past few years that I've come to appreciate what a great guitarist he was), even if it’s still not likely that I’ll ever want to collect everything he ever did. One thing is for sure, though; there are enough Prince songs that I think are not just good but great to easily fill up a CD. The list below contains most of my favorites, though as is usual with these things, if I redid the list on another day it’d probably be slightly different. Since my exposure to his music has been mainly limited to the hits, there nothing really surprising here, and dedicated Prince fans could no doubt easily name a dozen worthy tracks that I didn’t even consider (because I’m not sufficiently familiar with them). No matter; this is my own subjective taste at work here. It’s enough to say that a CD with all these songs would sound really great.
The first four songs are the ones I’d usually name as my absolute favorite Prince songs, though naturally the order is subject to change, and several other songs could potentially break into the top ranks depending on my mood. Similarly, the rest of the songs are (very) roughly in order of preference, though especially in the second half of the list the order could easily be switched around. My own preferences among Prince’s songs are mostly about the music, the groove and the melody rather than the lyrics, though in some cases the lyrics are also a key attraction. Certainly my very favorite songs have some lyrics that I really like, and many of the others have some clever lines. Two songs, both from the Sign 'O' the Times album, deserve special mention in the lyric department. I like the title track’s unusually direct sociopolitical bent, though I have problems with a couple lines. The bit about the drug-taking cousin implies the inaccurate characterization of marijuana as a so-called “gateway drug” that was pushed so hard in the drug war, and the contrast made between poverty and spaceflight might be taken to imply that there is something wrong with pursuing the latter, when a much better contrast would be between poverty and military spending, or just consumer spending on useless junk (space exploration, on the other hand, brings many benefits in the long run, both tangible and intangible). Despite these quibbles, the song’s lyrics are well written, and deeper than is usual for Prince. “The Cross” is a song I like mostly for its music, including the vaguely Middle Eastern sounding rift running through it. I don’t share the religious sentiment Prince expresses in the lyrics, but it does make for an unusual contrast with most of his other lyrical themes. But as I said, with Prince in most cases what really grabs the listener is the music, and in all of the songs listed below, he outdid himself in that department.
I also included a selection of my favorite versions of Prince songs recorded by other artists, whether the songs were first performed by these artists (e.g. the Bangles’ “Manic Monday”) or were covers of songs previously performed by Prince or one of his various protégés (e.g., “I Feel for You” and “Nothing Compares 2 U”).
15 Favorite Songs by Prince
Purple Rain
1999
I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man [link is to a live version w. great guitar intro]
Little Red Corvette
Let’s Go Crazy
Raspberry Beret [audio of live version only]
When Doves Cry
Sign 'O' the Times
Diamonds and Pearls
Pop Life
7
Peach
Kiss
Musicology
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad
Honorable Mentions: Starfish and Coffee (Prince/Susannah Melvoin), U Got the Look, I Would Die 4 U, Controversy, Delirious, The Cross, Adore, Cream
Favorite Prince Songs Recorded by Other Artists
Manic Monday The Bangles
Nothing Compares 2 U Sinead O’Connor
I Feel for You Chaka Khan
Yo Mister Patti LaBelle
Five Women Joe Cocker
Round and Round Tevin Campbell
Love…Thy Will Be Done (Prince/Martika) Martika
The Glamorous Life (Prince/Sheila E) Sheila E
As was the case with Bowie, I have to admit that my own music collection only contains a limited number of Prince albums, though there were several others I’d always intended to pick up if I ever saw them used (I can’t afford to buy much music new nowadays, unless it’s discounted). For a long time, the only Prince CDs I had were the two that make up the compilation The Hits. I later acquired Purple Rain, the album most commonly cited as his best, the second disc of Sign 'O' the Times, another acknowledged career highlight and an album I had a tape copy of in college (I’ve tried to find a used copy of the first disc ever since getting the first, but with no luck yet), and the later album Musicology. I’d also like to get a copy of 1999 if I ever come across a reasonably inexpensive one.
Back when I first got heavily into music in college, I was mostly into classic rock, so I tended to think of Prince as a good example of an artist I objectively considered brilliant and innovative but who had limited appeal to me subjectively, aside from a few songs that I loved even then, in contrast to more conventional rock artists like Journey or Styx. My tastes have fortunately broadened somewhat, so I’m if anything more likely to put on a Prince album than my Journey best-of compilation (though I still like a lot of Journey songs, especially “Don’t Stop Believing”), but it’s still true that I never got that deeply into Prince. In the wake of his death, I’ve been listening to some of the Prince CDs I have, and I have been even more impressed by them than I remember being (it's also only in the past few years that I've come to appreciate what a great guitarist he was), even if it’s still not likely that I’ll ever want to collect everything he ever did. One thing is for sure, though; there are enough Prince songs that I think are not just good but great to easily fill up a CD. The list below contains most of my favorites, though as is usual with these things, if I redid the list on another day it’d probably be slightly different. Since my exposure to his music has been mainly limited to the hits, there nothing really surprising here, and dedicated Prince fans could no doubt easily name a dozen worthy tracks that I didn’t even consider (because I’m not sufficiently familiar with them). No matter; this is my own subjective taste at work here. It’s enough to say that a CD with all these songs would sound really great.
The first four songs are the ones I’d usually name as my absolute favorite Prince songs, though naturally the order is subject to change, and several other songs could potentially break into the top ranks depending on my mood. Similarly, the rest of the songs are (very) roughly in order of preference, though especially in the second half of the list the order could easily be switched around. My own preferences among Prince’s songs are mostly about the music, the groove and the melody rather than the lyrics, though in some cases the lyrics are also a key attraction. Certainly my very favorite songs have some lyrics that I really like, and many of the others have some clever lines. Two songs, both from the Sign 'O' the Times album, deserve special mention in the lyric department. I like the title track’s unusually direct sociopolitical bent, though I have problems with a couple lines. The bit about the drug-taking cousin implies the inaccurate characterization of marijuana as a so-called “gateway drug” that was pushed so hard in the drug war, and the contrast made between poverty and spaceflight might be taken to imply that there is something wrong with pursuing the latter, when a much better contrast would be between poverty and military spending, or just consumer spending on useless junk (space exploration, on the other hand, brings many benefits in the long run, both tangible and intangible). Despite these quibbles, the song’s lyrics are well written, and deeper than is usual for Prince. “The Cross” is a song I like mostly for its music, including the vaguely Middle Eastern sounding rift running through it. I don’t share the religious sentiment Prince expresses in the lyrics, but it does make for an unusual contrast with most of his other lyrical themes. But as I said, with Prince in most cases what really grabs the listener is the music, and in all of the songs listed below, he outdid himself in that department.
I also included a selection of my favorite versions of Prince songs recorded by other artists, whether the songs were first performed by these artists (e.g. the Bangles’ “Manic Monday”) or were covers of songs previously performed by Prince or one of his various protégés (e.g., “I Feel for You” and “Nothing Compares 2 U”).
15 Favorite Songs by Prince
Purple Rain
1999
I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man [link is to a live version w. great guitar intro]
Little Red Corvette
Let’s Go Crazy
Raspberry Beret [audio of live version only]
When Doves Cry
Sign 'O' the Times
Diamonds and Pearls
Pop Life
7
Peach
Kiss
Musicology
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad
Honorable Mentions: Starfish and Coffee (Prince/Susannah Melvoin), U Got the Look, I Would Die 4 U, Controversy, Delirious, The Cross, Adore, Cream
Favorite Prince Songs Recorded by Other Artists
Manic Monday The Bangles
Nothing Compares 2 U Sinead O’Connor
I Feel for You Chaka Khan
Yo Mister Patti LaBelle
Five Women Joe Cocker
Round and Round Tevin Campbell
Love…Thy Will Be Done (Prince/Martika) Martika
The Glamorous Life (Prince/Sheila E) Sheila E
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Who Owns the Songs?
As I mentioned in a previous post, after recording a few special lunar new year shows for my radio program on Taiwanese popular music, I learned that because of copyright issues, some of the songs I had originally recorded couldn’t be broadcast. This particular problem is connected to a whole host of related issues, so I thought it was worth discussing in some detail.
Basically, in late January the radio station received a notice from a company that claimed to own the rights to or have exclusive licenses to songs owned by several mostly defunct (or at least not actively releasing new music) record companies. This company said that they had quit the intermediary performance-rights organizations (equivalent to BMI and ASCAP in the US) that handle most music copyrights in Taiwan and that anyone wanting to use the songs they held the rights to should contact them directly. The notice came with a list of all the songs they claimed ownership of or exclusive rights to. The list includes hundreds of songs, including most of those released by several record companies that were among the most prominent in the latter decades of the 20th century. Many of these companies did have policies of buying the rights to songs from the writers, so it is not implausible that someone who bought the companies or their assets could end up owning the rights. But in the case of some of the songs, the claim to ownership seems questionable, as I’ll explain later. Then there’s the question of whether record companies should be able to purchase total control over the rights to songs, which is another point I’ll come back to.
The immediate problem arose when the radio station apparently contacted the alleged holder of these copyrights about broadcasting the songs they owned. From what I was told by an artist, the standard charge for broadcasting a song is just a few NT dollars, or somewhere around a tenth of a US dollar. But apparently the copyright owner asked for NT$6000 (about US$200) to broadcast one song one time! Of course no radio station could possibly afford to pay that much, so asking for such a rate was essentially equivalent to refusing permission altogether. Aside from the immediate frustration of being forced to exclude all these songs from any shows I plan in the immediate future, this situation started a whole train of thought about both this specific situation and about its implications for copyright law and ownership of culture in general.
My first question was who the copyright owner in this particular instance was. There were actually three notifications sent to the radio station simultaneously in the name of two record companies – one a fairly prominent one called Jima Records (吉馬唱片) that released many Hoklo albums in the 1980s and 1990s and the other an obscure one – and a third company, and another notification in the name of the third company addressed to Taiwan’s largest KTV (karaoke) chain. But three of the notifications were issued from the same address and had the same contact person, and the contact person from the fourth (sent to the radio station by the more obscure record company) was listed as an additional contact person on one of the other notifications, so it is clear that they are all connected. According to company databases online, the contact person on most of the notices is the person in charge of the third company. This company has an English name which hints at some connection to music or audio equipment, but I didn’t see any sign online of any products being sold under that name, and their company’s registered business scope mainly involves computer-related products. I also didn’t find any information that was clearly about the owner of the company; I found several people with the same name, but I couldn’t tell which if any of them was the same person as the owner. In any event, aside from Jima Records, this person has apparently bought the assets of Lige Records (麗歌唱片) and Kolin Records (歌林唱片), two of the biggest record companies of the 1970s and 1980s, along with a couple of other companies.
So is this person just a dedicated music lover who is rich enough to collect not just records but entire record companies? That’s a possibility; I know one man who out of an interest in old music has bought the assets of at least one defunct record company in addition to the one his family already owned. Perhaps this unknown person who has bought up all these other companies is still unclear about how he should handle the rights he has purchased, or he is for some reason confusing broadcasting with doing a recorded song cover (the rate quoted would be quite reasonable for something like that). But even if his true motivations are innocent, the simple possibility that someone could purchase the rights to such a large number of songs and charge astronomical rates to anyone who wants to use them in any way has some very disturbing implications.
While it may be possible to come up with innocent reasons why someone would want to buy up a lot of song rights and charge a high price for licensing (though it’s pretty hard to think of any really good reasons for the latter), another possible motivation is pure greed. Perhaps he thinks that he can do something similar to what some pharmaceutical companies in the US have done, which is raise the price of certain drugs to outrageous levels in the knowledge that those who really need them will have no choice but to pay. Of course no one needs music in the same way they may need lifesaving drugs, but if even a few people are so desperate to license a particular song that they’ll pay the asking price, he can make more from a single licensing deal as he could from a hundred at the standard rate. Of course one would hope that no one does agree to pay and thereby help such price gouging to succeed, but the possibility does exist.
But even greed is not the most disturbing possible motivation for such a move. The list of songs that this company and its presumed owner claim to own include a number of the most famous popular songs in Taiwan, including such songs as the Hoklo classics “Longing for the Spring Breeze” (望春風), “Four Seasons of Red” (四季紅) and “Mending a Broken Net” (補破網) and the Mandarin classic “Green Island Serenade” (綠島小夜曲). They also claim to own the rights to a number of famous songs from China, including “When Will He Return” (何日君再來). These particular ownership claims are dubious, as these songs are all over half a century old and the record companies that originally released several of the songs have been gone for almost as long. If the songwriters sold their rights at the time the songs were released, it seems rather unlikely that this company (or anyone else) could have somehow acquired ownership of them (it’s notable that in the case of the Japanese era Hoklo songs they only claim a few of the most famous songs, which represent a very small portion of those released by the original Japanese colonial era record company). It’s possible that they or a predecessor company bought the rights to the songs directly from the songwriters or their heirs decades after the songs were first released, but this doesn’t seem all that likely either, since none of these companies was particularly closely associated with the songs. As for the Chinese songs, the original company is (I think) now owned by EMI, so at most this company might have acquired an exclusive license for Taiwan, though even that seems improbable. For that matter, even in the cases of songs where the rights were definitely sold to the record companies, such as those released by Lige and Kolin, it's quite possible that the original copyright transfer agreements (if any were actually signed) have vanished, making it hard to prove any claims to the rights.
Regardless of the legitimacy of these ownership claims, if no one challenges them, by charging such a high price for anyone to use the songs (I’m assuming here that they would ask similarly high amounts for concert performances and karaoke, which seems likely), they will effectively cause these songs to disappear from public performances and broadcasts. Considering that songs like “Longing for the Spring Breeze” and “Green Island Serenade” are practically like alternative national anthems, this would be a major loss for Taiwanese culture, almost on par with locking the Mona Lisa away where no one could see it. But why would anyone intentionally strike such a blow at Taiwanese culture? It occurred to me that if China wanted to hold parts of Taiwanese cultural property hostage for political reasons, perhaps as part of an effort to claim them all as Chinese cultural property (which they already do, in the sense that songs and performers from Taiwan are always identified as being from “Taiwan Province, China” if they appear on Chinese broadcasts and such), one way to do so would be to buy up as much Taiwanese cultural property as possible and deprive Taiwanese of the use of it. While it’s not clear what good this would actually do China, a lot of their aggressive behavior toward Taiwan in the past has been counterproductive, and yet they still do it. In other words, logic doesn’t always play much of a role, so I don’t think we can entirely discount the possibility that China or some elements of its leadership (or some of its more nationalistic private citizens) might consider doing something along these lines.
I have seen no evidence that this company or its owner has any connection to China (their registered address is in Taipei), and it’s quite possible that they have none. But even if they don’t, it’s certainly possible that China could attempt something similar in the future, and it seems to me that Taiwan would be wise to ensure that no outside group could in the future attempt to obtain control of a large part of Taiwan’s cultural legacy in such a manner. For that matter, even if there is no political motivation behind this particular company’s acquisition of such a large part of Taiwan’s song catalogue, it doesn’t strike me as a good thing to allow anyone to obtain exclusive ownership to songs that in a very real sense are the common cultural property of all Taiwanese. Why should anyone have the right to deprive the Taiwanese public of the right to hear these songs, whether on the radio, on TV or in concert?
Of course this problem is not limited to music or to Taiwan; companies like Disney in the US also seem to be trying to gain control of a big part of the common culture of English-speaking countries. Disney not only owns the characters that originated with them, but has also bought popular cultural properties such as Winnie the Pooh, the Muppets and Star Wars, and by their widely promoted films based on public domain characters like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, and so forth, they have made their versions the ones most commonly associated with these folk characters, even if they don’t actually own them. On the other hand, even Mickey Mouse would now be in the public domain if Disney hadn’t successfully pushed the US Congress to change copyright law (the new version is sometimes jokingly referred to as “the Mickey Mouse Protection Act”). While it’s not unreasonable for the creators of cultural icons to want some control over their creations and the profits derived from them, it seems like there should be a better way to balance the rights of the creators and those of the public at large, especially where widely loved cultural properties are concerned.
After all, while Ludwig von Beethoven wrote “Fur Elise” and Stephen Foster wrote “Oh Susanna”, now these songs belong to everyone, as do thousands of folk songs for which even the original author is unknown. The same is true for numerous other parts of our cultural heritage. In fact, one could argue that to a certain degree, even recent cultural creations such as songs, books and films from the past few decades don't belong solely to their creators, much less to corporations that may have purchased the rights to them. For instance, people even dispute the right of someone such as George Lucas to make changes to his Star Wars films, arguing that the original releases are the true versions, and Lucas's later versions are not legitimate. Regardless of how one feels about this particular case (my own feeling is that while a creator like Lucas of course has the right to alter his own creations, he can't dictate which version will be most widely accepted or preferred, though his opinion inevitably will carry greater weight than anyone else's), it should be obvious that while the original creator may retain ultimate authority over his creations, just by releasing them to the public he or she must accept that they have become in some ways the common property of all. A song, book or other work of art may be interpreted or used in ways that its creator never anticipated, and at least some of these interpretations and uses may become an integral aspect of the work. But if a work is not even completely under the control of its actual creator, to what degree can or should we accept someone who didn't even create it trying to deprive others of the right to use or even enjoy it?
One possible solution to this problem already exists in the form of Creative Commons, which allows far more flexibility for people to use cultural creations, especially in non-commercial contexts. But even standard copyright law could use some revision. For instance, it seems like the law could be written such that for uses of a song such as broadcasting it on the radio or on TV, performing it in a concert or singing it in a karaoke or KTV there could be a standard rate, set by an appropriate government agency and adjusted periodically for inflation. This would prevent this type of price gouging and ensure that all songs remain available to the public, while guaranteeing that copyright owners still get paid. Another possibility is expanding (and more clearly defining) the scope of fair use. I don't think the average restaurant or pub should need to license a song just to play it on their stereo or PA system. If I had an album out, I'd want to make it as easy as possible for people to play it, even if they weren't paying for it. After all, extra exposure is more valuable in the long run. It might be a good idea to clarify - and restrict - the circumstances where licensing is necessary.
But another part of copyright law that I think could use some reconsideration is the length of the time that copyright is protected. According to current Taiwanese law, a song becomes public domain fifty years after the death of the songwriter. This means that the music for the songs “Longing for the Spring Breeze” and “Four Seasons of Red” is actually in the public domain, as the composer Deng Yuxian (鄧雨賢) died in 1944, while the lyrics are still under copyright, since the lyricist Li Linqiu (李臨秋) only died in 1979. But this period of time seems rather excessive. While it is fair that the families of a songwriter (or of an author or other artist) should get at least some of the benefit from their work after their death, especially in case where the creator dies young (sometimes even before they themselves enjoy any profit from their work), a shorter period like twenty or twenty five years seems like it should be sufficient. But in cases where the writer (willingly or not) has sold or transferred all their rights, it doesn’t make sense for the length of copyright protection to be tied to their lifespans at all. For instance, among the songs claimed in the case discussed above are the earliest popular songs written by two of Taiwan’s most prominent latter day songwriters, Luo Dayou (Lo Ta-yu; 羅大佑) and Li Taixiang (Li Tai-hsiang; 李泰祥), songs that were originally released in the 1970s. The latter died only two years ago, and the former is still alive. Why should this company that bought up all the rights to their songs be able to maintain copyright protection for them for half a century after they die? It’s not as if either the songwriters themselves or their families are getting any benefit from them. I think that a much more reasonable arrangement for songs or other cultural creations is that in cases where the original creator no longer owns the rights, they should become public domain around, say, twenty years after the creator signed the rights away. This would give the buyer of the rights plenty of time to recoup what they paid the actual creator (often an extremely limited amount in any case; Luo sold the rights to his first few songs for NT$2000 apiece in the late 1970s, and the usual rate at the time Li’s first songs were released was even lower), but not allow them to profit from something they didn’t create themselves for as long as a century in cases where the writer is particularly long-lived. After all, the original point of copyright law was to protect the actual creators. Now it has been distorted into a tool for corporate entities to profit off the works of artists who often get little real benefit from their work. We should make changes to ensure that it regains its proper focus, protecting the real creators of artistic works, while allowing the public at large to enjoy what is in the final analysis our common cultural heritage.
[Updated 2016/04/20 to add an additional paragraph on the ways in which works of art become to some degree public property.]
Basically, in late January the radio station received a notice from a company that claimed to own the rights to or have exclusive licenses to songs owned by several mostly defunct (or at least not actively releasing new music) record companies. This company said that they had quit the intermediary performance-rights organizations (equivalent to BMI and ASCAP in the US) that handle most music copyrights in Taiwan and that anyone wanting to use the songs they held the rights to should contact them directly. The notice came with a list of all the songs they claimed ownership of or exclusive rights to. The list includes hundreds of songs, including most of those released by several record companies that were among the most prominent in the latter decades of the 20th century. Many of these companies did have policies of buying the rights to songs from the writers, so it is not implausible that someone who bought the companies or their assets could end up owning the rights. But in the case of some of the songs, the claim to ownership seems questionable, as I’ll explain later. Then there’s the question of whether record companies should be able to purchase total control over the rights to songs, which is another point I’ll come back to.
The immediate problem arose when the radio station apparently contacted the alleged holder of these copyrights about broadcasting the songs they owned. From what I was told by an artist, the standard charge for broadcasting a song is just a few NT dollars, or somewhere around a tenth of a US dollar. But apparently the copyright owner asked for NT$6000 (about US$200) to broadcast one song one time! Of course no radio station could possibly afford to pay that much, so asking for such a rate was essentially equivalent to refusing permission altogether. Aside from the immediate frustration of being forced to exclude all these songs from any shows I plan in the immediate future, this situation started a whole train of thought about both this specific situation and about its implications for copyright law and ownership of culture in general.
My first question was who the copyright owner in this particular instance was. There were actually three notifications sent to the radio station simultaneously in the name of two record companies – one a fairly prominent one called Jima Records (吉馬唱片) that released many Hoklo albums in the 1980s and 1990s and the other an obscure one – and a third company, and another notification in the name of the third company addressed to Taiwan’s largest KTV (karaoke) chain. But three of the notifications were issued from the same address and had the same contact person, and the contact person from the fourth (sent to the radio station by the more obscure record company) was listed as an additional contact person on one of the other notifications, so it is clear that they are all connected. According to company databases online, the contact person on most of the notices is the person in charge of the third company. This company has an English name which hints at some connection to music or audio equipment, but I didn’t see any sign online of any products being sold under that name, and their company’s registered business scope mainly involves computer-related products. I also didn’t find any information that was clearly about the owner of the company; I found several people with the same name, but I couldn’t tell which if any of them was the same person as the owner. In any event, aside from Jima Records, this person has apparently bought the assets of Lige Records (麗歌唱片) and Kolin Records (歌林唱片), two of the biggest record companies of the 1970s and 1980s, along with a couple of other companies.
So is this person just a dedicated music lover who is rich enough to collect not just records but entire record companies? That’s a possibility; I know one man who out of an interest in old music has bought the assets of at least one defunct record company in addition to the one his family already owned. Perhaps this unknown person who has bought up all these other companies is still unclear about how he should handle the rights he has purchased, or he is for some reason confusing broadcasting with doing a recorded song cover (the rate quoted would be quite reasonable for something like that). But even if his true motivations are innocent, the simple possibility that someone could purchase the rights to such a large number of songs and charge astronomical rates to anyone who wants to use them in any way has some very disturbing implications.
While it may be possible to come up with innocent reasons why someone would want to buy up a lot of song rights and charge a high price for licensing (though it’s pretty hard to think of any really good reasons for the latter), another possible motivation is pure greed. Perhaps he thinks that he can do something similar to what some pharmaceutical companies in the US have done, which is raise the price of certain drugs to outrageous levels in the knowledge that those who really need them will have no choice but to pay. Of course no one needs music in the same way they may need lifesaving drugs, but if even a few people are so desperate to license a particular song that they’ll pay the asking price, he can make more from a single licensing deal as he could from a hundred at the standard rate. Of course one would hope that no one does agree to pay and thereby help such price gouging to succeed, but the possibility does exist.
But even greed is not the most disturbing possible motivation for such a move. The list of songs that this company and its presumed owner claim to own include a number of the most famous popular songs in Taiwan, including such songs as the Hoklo classics “Longing for the Spring Breeze” (望春風), “Four Seasons of Red” (四季紅) and “Mending a Broken Net” (補破網) and the Mandarin classic “Green Island Serenade” (綠島小夜曲). They also claim to own the rights to a number of famous songs from China, including “When Will He Return” (何日君再來). These particular ownership claims are dubious, as these songs are all over half a century old and the record companies that originally released several of the songs have been gone for almost as long. If the songwriters sold their rights at the time the songs were released, it seems rather unlikely that this company (or anyone else) could have somehow acquired ownership of them (it’s notable that in the case of the Japanese era Hoklo songs they only claim a few of the most famous songs, which represent a very small portion of those released by the original Japanese colonial era record company). It’s possible that they or a predecessor company bought the rights to the songs directly from the songwriters or their heirs decades after the songs were first released, but this doesn’t seem all that likely either, since none of these companies was particularly closely associated with the songs. As for the Chinese songs, the original company is (I think) now owned by EMI, so at most this company might have acquired an exclusive license for Taiwan, though even that seems improbable. For that matter, even in the cases of songs where the rights were definitely sold to the record companies, such as those released by Lige and Kolin, it's quite possible that the original copyright transfer agreements (if any were actually signed) have vanished, making it hard to prove any claims to the rights.
Regardless of the legitimacy of these ownership claims, if no one challenges them, by charging such a high price for anyone to use the songs (I’m assuming here that they would ask similarly high amounts for concert performances and karaoke, which seems likely), they will effectively cause these songs to disappear from public performances and broadcasts. Considering that songs like “Longing for the Spring Breeze” and “Green Island Serenade” are practically like alternative national anthems, this would be a major loss for Taiwanese culture, almost on par with locking the Mona Lisa away where no one could see it. But why would anyone intentionally strike such a blow at Taiwanese culture? It occurred to me that if China wanted to hold parts of Taiwanese cultural property hostage for political reasons, perhaps as part of an effort to claim them all as Chinese cultural property (which they already do, in the sense that songs and performers from Taiwan are always identified as being from “Taiwan Province, China” if they appear on Chinese broadcasts and such), one way to do so would be to buy up as much Taiwanese cultural property as possible and deprive Taiwanese of the use of it. While it’s not clear what good this would actually do China, a lot of their aggressive behavior toward Taiwan in the past has been counterproductive, and yet they still do it. In other words, logic doesn’t always play much of a role, so I don’t think we can entirely discount the possibility that China or some elements of its leadership (or some of its more nationalistic private citizens) might consider doing something along these lines.
I have seen no evidence that this company or its owner has any connection to China (their registered address is in Taipei), and it’s quite possible that they have none. But even if they don’t, it’s certainly possible that China could attempt something similar in the future, and it seems to me that Taiwan would be wise to ensure that no outside group could in the future attempt to obtain control of a large part of Taiwan’s cultural legacy in such a manner. For that matter, even if there is no political motivation behind this particular company’s acquisition of such a large part of Taiwan’s song catalogue, it doesn’t strike me as a good thing to allow anyone to obtain exclusive ownership to songs that in a very real sense are the common cultural property of all Taiwanese. Why should anyone have the right to deprive the Taiwanese public of the right to hear these songs, whether on the radio, on TV or in concert?
Of course this problem is not limited to music or to Taiwan; companies like Disney in the US also seem to be trying to gain control of a big part of the common culture of English-speaking countries. Disney not only owns the characters that originated with them, but has also bought popular cultural properties such as Winnie the Pooh, the Muppets and Star Wars, and by their widely promoted films based on public domain characters like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, and so forth, they have made their versions the ones most commonly associated with these folk characters, even if they don’t actually own them. On the other hand, even Mickey Mouse would now be in the public domain if Disney hadn’t successfully pushed the US Congress to change copyright law (the new version is sometimes jokingly referred to as “the Mickey Mouse Protection Act”). While it’s not unreasonable for the creators of cultural icons to want some control over their creations and the profits derived from them, it seems like there should be a better way to balance the rights of the creators and those of the public at large, especially where widely loved cultural properties are concerned.
After all, while Ludwig von Beethoven wrote “Fur Elise” and Stephen Foster wrote “Oh Susanna”, now these songs belong to everyone, as do thousands of folk songs for which even the original author is unknown. The same is true for numerous other parts of our cultural heritage. In fact, one could argue that to a certain degree, even recent cultural creations such as songs, books and films from the past few decades don't belong solely to their creators, much less to corporations that may have purchased the rights to them. For instance, people even dispute the right of someone such as George Lucas to make changes to his Star Wars films, arguing that the original releases are the true versions, and Lucas's later versions are not legitimate. Regardless of how one feels about this particular case (my own feeling is that while a creator like Lucas of course has the right to alter his own creations, he can't dictate which version will be most widely accepted or preferred, though his opinion inevitably will carry greater weight than anyone else's), it should be obvious that while the original creator may retain ultimate authority over his creations, just by releasing them to the public he or she must accept that they have become in some ways the common property of all. A song, book or other work of art may be interpreted or used in ways that its creator never anticipated, and at least some of these interpretations and uses may become an integral aspect of the work. But if a work is not even completely under the control of its actual creator, to what degree can or should we accept someone who didn't even create it trying to deprive others of the right to use or even enjoy it?
One possible solution to this problem already exists in the form of Creative Commons, which allows far more flexibility for people to use cultural creations, especially in non-commercial contexts. But even standard copyright law could use some revision. For instance, it seems like the law could be written such that for uses of a song such as broadcasting it on the radio or on TV, performing it in a concert or singing it in a karaoke or KTV there could be a standard rate, set by an appropriate government agency and adjusted periodically for inflation. This would prevent this type of price gouging and ensure that all songs remain available to the public, while guaranteeing that copyright owners still get paid. Another possibility is expanding (and more clearly defining) the scope of fair use. I don't think the average restaurant or pub should need to license a song just to play it on their stereo or PA system. If I had an album out, I'd want to make it as easy as possible for people to play it, even if they weren't paying for it. After all, extra exposure is more valuable in the long run. It might be a good idea to clarify - and restrict - the circumstances where licensing is necessary.
But another part of copyright law that I think could use some reconsideration is the length of the time that copyright is protected. According to current Taiwanese law, a song becomes public domain fifty years after the death of the songwriter. This means that the music for the songs “Longing for the Spring Breeze” and “Four Seasons of Red” is actually in the public domain, as the composer Deng Yuxian (鄧雨賢) died in 1944, while the lyrics are still under copyright, since the lyricist Li Linqiu (李臨秋) only died in 1979. But this period of time seems rather excessive. While it is fair that the families of a songwriter (or of an author or other artist) should get at least some of the benefit from their work after their death, especially in case where the creator dies young (sometimes even before they themselves enjoy any profit from their work), a shorter period like twenty or twenty five years seems like it should be sufficient. But in cases where the writer (willingly or not) has sold or transferred all their rights, it doesn’t make sense for the length of copyright protection to be tied to their lifespans at all. For instance, among the songs claimed in the case discussed above are the earliest popular songs written by two of Taiwan’s most prominent latter day songwriters, Luo Dayou (Lo Ta-yu; 羅大佑) and Li Taixiang (Li Tai-hsiang; 李泰祥), songs that were originally released in the 1970s. The latter died only two years ago, and the former is still alive. Why should this company that bought up all the rights to their songs be able to maintain copyright protection for them for half a century after they die? It’s not as if either the songwriters themselves or their families are getting any benefit from them. I think that a much more reasonable arrangement for songs or other cultural creations is that in cases where the original creator no longer owns the rights, they should become public domain around, say, twenty years after the creator signed the rights away. This would give the buyer of the rights plenty of time to recoup what they paid the actual creator (often an extremely limited amount in any case; Luo sold the rights to his first few songs for NT$2000 apiece in the late 1970s, and the usual rate at the time Li’s first songs were released was even lower), but not allow them to profit from something they didn’t create themselves for as long as a century in cases where the writer is particularly long-lived. After all, the original point of copyright law was to protect the actual creators. Now it has been distorted into a tool for corporate entities to profit off the works of artists who often get little real benefit from their work. We should make changes to ensure that it regains its proper focus, protecting the real creators of artistic works, while allowing the public at large to enjoy what is in the final analysis our common cultural heritage.
[Updated 2016/04/20 to add an additional paragraph on the ways in which works of art become to some degree public property.]
Monday, February 29, 2016
Radio Program: An Overview of Taiwanese Popular Music History
As I mentioned a couple of months ago, I'm now doing a radio show on Taiwanese popular music every other week on the radio station News98 (98.1) in Taiwan. For the lunar new year holiday, I was asked to a few extra shows, and I decided to use them as an opportunity to play a sampling of Taiwanese pop songs from throughout the 20th century. I don't think the shows turned out as well as they could have, for a number of reasons. For one thing, the scheduling of the broadcasts was still in flux when I left for my vacation, so many listeners may not have found it easy to hear all of the shows. An even bigger problem was that after the shows had been recorded but before they were broadcast, the station (along with all other stations in Taiwan) received a notification that a large bunch of songs had copyright issues, including quite a few that I had included. These songs all had to be cut out of the shows before they were broadcast. As a result, what people heard fell well short of what I had intended. So I am posting here not only all the songs that were broadcast but also those that were originally included but cut later, and even a few others that I had to cut at the time of recording due to length. They are roughly chronologically divided into three groups, covering the era of Japanese rule and the immediate post war period, followed by the 1960s and 1970s, and finally the 1980s and 1990s. Needless to say, there are plenty of songs from all these eras that are as good as those found here, as this was just intended as an overview. Note that I haven't included links for the songs this time. Most of them can be found on Youtube and other websites just by pasting in the titles, though particularly for the older songs the versions available on line are in most cases likely to be later covers.
台灣流行音樂簡史
I
桃花泣血記〈詞：詹天馬 曲：王雲峰〉 純純[劉清香] (1932)
一個紅蛋〈詞：李臨秋 曲：鄧雨賢〉 純純 (1933)
街頭的流浪[失業兄弟]〈詞：守真 曲：周玉當〉 青春美 (1934/12)
心酸酸〈詞：陳達儒 曲：姚讚福〉 秀鑾 (1936)
白牡丹〈詞：陳達儒 曲：陳秋霖〉 根根 (1936)
農村曲〈詞：陳達儒 曲：蘇桐〉 青春美 (1937)
四季紅〈詞：李臨秋 曲：鄧雨賢〉 純純、豔豔 (約1938)
青春嶺〈詞：陳達儒 曲：蘇桐〉 王福、秀鑾 (約1939)
誤認君〈詞曲：奧稽文藝部〉 阿冉妹 (1934)
番社の娘/十八姑娘一朵花〈詞：栗原白也 曲：堂崎夜雨[鄧雨賢]〉 佐塚佐和子(1939)/劉韻(1958)
加路蘭港之戀-奈羅灣多也〈詞曲：日高敏倉〉 盧秀花/林成松 (early 1960s [written in early 1940s])
望你早歸〈詞：那卡諾[黃仲鑫] 曲：楊三郎〉 (1946)
補破網〈詞：李臨秋 曲：王雲峰〉 秀芬 (1948)
安平追想曲〈詞：陳達儒 曲：許石〉 美美 (1951-2)
高山青〈詞：鄧禹平 曲：張徹〉 何綺蘭、許自謙 (1950s) [from 阿里山風雲 (1949)]
綠島小夜曲〈詞：潘英傑 曲：周藍萍〉 紫薇 (約1954)
黃昏嶺〈詞：周添旺 曲：三界稔[日本曲]〉 紀露霞 (約1957)
黃昏的故鄉〈詞：愁人[文夏]譯寫 曲：中野忠晴[日本原曲:赤い夕陽の故郷]〉 文夏 (1959)
孤女的願望〈詞：葉俊麟 曲：米山正夫[日本原曲:花笠道中]〉 陳芬蘭 (1959)
舊情綿綿〈詞：葉俊麟 曲：洪一峰〉 洪一峰 (1959-60)
暗淡的月〈詞：葉俊麟 曲：吳晉淮〉 吳晉淮 (1959-60)
台灣好〈詞：羅家倫 曲：山地民謠〉 美黛 (1964 [written in early 1950s])
II
回想曲〈詞：楊正[周藍萍] 曲：周藍萍〉 紫薇 (1961)
意難忘〈詞：慎芝 曲：俊一[佐々木俊一]〉 美黛 (1963) 原曲:東京小夜曲
山地情歌[離別故鄉/馬蘭之戀] 〈詞：黃敏 曲：山地民謠〉 文鶯
送情郎到軍中[阿美三鳳]〈詞曲：曾美愛**〉 玲蘭（曾美愛）/盧靜子 (1965/1967)
墓仔埔也敢去〈詞：郭大誠 曲：吉田正〉 葉啟田 (1965)
水車姑娘〈詞：葉俊麟 曲：米山正夫[日本曲]〉 尤萍[陳淑樺] (1967)
苦酒滿杯〈詞：慎芝 曲：姚讚福〉 謝雷 (1967)
今天不回家〈詞：諸戈[莊奴] 曲：古月[左宏元]〉 姚蘇蓉 (1969)
為何命如此（苦海女神龍）〈詞：黃俊雄 曲：猪俣公章〉 邱蘭芬 (1970)
Whiter Shade of Pale (Brooker/Fisher/Reid/Bach) 雷蒙合唱團 (1970)
我沒有騙你〈詞：莊奴 曲：公羽[翁清溪]〉 包娜娜 (1971)
送君珠淚滴〈詞：徐品榮 曲：周宜新〉 丁黛 (1971)
我的歌〈詞曲：洪小喬〉 洪小喬 (1973)
熱情的沙漠〈詞：李潔心 曲：加瀨邦彥、山上路夫〉 歐陽菲菲 (1974)
江湖上〈詞：余光中 曲：楊弦〉 楊弦 (1975)
我是一片雲〈詞：瓊瑤 曲：古月[左宏元]〉 鳳飛飛 (1977)
姑娘的酒窩〈詞：周燕蘭 曲：岳勳[李基生]〉 高凌風 (1977)
小城故事〈詞：莊奴[黃河] 曲：湯尼[翁清溪]〉 鄧麗君 (1979)
拜訪春天〈詞：林建助 曲：陳輝雄〉 施孝榮 (1981)
無緣〈詞：呂金守 曲：吳盛智〉 吳盛智 (1981)
可憐的落魄人〈詞曲：高飛龍[高子洋]〉 陳明仁 (1981)
心事誰人知〈詞曲：蔡振南〉 沈文程 (1982)
III
鹿港小鎮〈詞曲：羅大佑〉 羅大佑 (1982)
一樣的月光〈詞：吳念真、羅大佑 曲：李壽全〉 蘇芮 (1983)
從現在開始〈詞曲：紅螞蟻〉 紅螞蟻合唱團 (1985)
舞女〈詞曲：俞隆華〉 陳小雲 (1984)
夢田〈詞：三毛[陳平] 曲：翁孝良〉 潘越雲 & 齊豫 (1985)
生命中的精靈〈詞曲：李宗盛〉 李宗盛 (1986)
玫瑰人生〈詞：慎芝 曲：張弘毅〉 許景淳 (1987)
雁渡寒潭〈詞曲：黃舒駿〉 黃舒駿 (1989)
抓狂〈詞：王明輝、陳主惠 曲：Asanee Chotikul〉 黑名單工作室 (1989)
向前走〈詞曲：林強〉 林強 (1990)
打〈詞：林暐哲 曲：林暐哲、李欣芸〉 Baboo (1992)
把悲傷留給自己〈詞曲：陳昇〉 陳昇 (1991)
孤枕難眠〈詞曲：劉志宏〉 周華健 (1993)
用心良苦〈詞：十一郎 曲：張宇〉 張宇 (1993)
自由歌〈詞曲：張雨生〉 張雨生 (1994)
不夠放肆〈詞曲：陳珊妮〉 陳珊妮 (1994)
斷腸詩〈詞曲：伍佰[吳俊霖]〉 伍佰 & China Blue (1998)
原來你什麼都不要〈詞：鄔裕康 曲：郭子〉 張惠妹 (1996)
愛的初體驗〈詞曲：張震嶽〉 張震嶽 (1997)
神話〈詞：林志興，陳光榮譯寫 曲：陳建年〉 Samingad〈紀曉君〉 (1999)
下淡水河寫著我等介族譜〈詞：鐘永豐 曲：林生祥〉 交工樂隊 (1999)
雌雄胴體〈詞曲：阿信．五月天〉 小平／五月天 (1999)
農村出事情〈詞曲：蔡海恩〉 濁水溪公社 (1999)
轉吧、七彩霓虹燈〈詞曲：小應[應蔚民]〉 夾子電動大樂隊 (2000/12)
台灣流行音樂簡史
I
桃花泣血記〈詞：詹天馬 曲：王雲峰〉 純純[劉清香] (1932)
一個紅蛋〈詞：李臨秋 曲：鄧雨賢〉 純純 (1933)
街頭的流浪[失業兄弟]〈詞：守真 曲：周玉當〉 青春美 (1934/12)
心酸酸〈詞：陳達儒 曲：姚讚福〉 秀鑾 (1936)
白牡丹〈詞：陳達儒 曲：陳秋霖〉 根根 (1936)
農村曲〈詞：陳達儒 曲：蘇桐〉 青春美 (1937)
四季紅〈詞：李臨秋 曲：鄧雨賢〉 純純、豔豔 (約1938)
青春嶺〈詞：陳達儒 曲：蘇桐〉 王福、秀鑾 (約1939)
誤認君〈詞曲：奧稽文藝部〉 阿冉妹 (1934)
番社の娘/十八姑娘一朵花〈詞：栗原白也 曲：堂崎夜雨[鄧雨賢]〉 佐塚佐和子(1939)/劉韻(1958)
加路蘭港之戀-奈羅灣多也〈詞曲：日高敏倉〉 盧秀花/林成松 (early 1960s [written in early 1940s])
望你早歸〈詞：那卡諾[黃仲鑫] 曲：楊三郎〉 (1946)
補破網〈詞：李臨秋 曲：王雲峰〉 秀芬 (1948)
安平追想曲〈詞：陳達儒 曲：許石〉 美美 (1951-2)
高山青〈詞：鄧禹平 曲：張徹〉 何綺蘭、許自謙 (1950s) [from 阿里山風雲 (1949)]
綠島小夜曲〈詞：潘英傑 曲：周藍萍〉 紫薇 (約1954)
黃昏嶺〈詞：周添旺 曲：三界稔[日本曲]〉 紀露霞 (約1957)
黃昏的故鄉〈詞：愁人[文夏]譯寫 曲：中野忠晴[日本原曲:赤い夕陽の故郷]〉 文夏 (1959)
孤女的願望〈詞：葉俊麟 曲：米山正夫[日本原曲:花笠道中]〉 陳芬蘭 (1959)
舊情綿綿〈詞：葉俊麟 曲：洪一峰〉 洪一峰 (1959-60)
暗淡的月〈詞：葉俊麟 曲：吳晉淮〉 吳晉淮 (1959-60)
台灣好〈詞：羅家倫 曲：山地民謠〉 美黛 (1964 [written in early 1950s])
II
回想曲〈詞：楊正[周藍萍] 曲：周藍萍〉 紫薇 (1961)
意難忘〈詞：慎芝 曲：俊一[佐々木俊一]〉 美黛 (1963) 原曲:東京小夜曲
山地情歌[離別故鄉/馬蘭之戀] 〈詞：黃敏 曲：山地民謠〉 文鶯
送情郎到軍中[阿美三鳳]〈詞曲：曾美愛**〉 玲蘭（曾美愛）/盧靜子 (1965/1967)
墓仔埔也敢去〈詞：郭大誠 曲：吉田正〉 葉啟田 (1965)
水車姑娘〈詞：葉俊麟 曲：米山正夫[日本曲]〉 尤萍[陳淑樺] (1967)
苦酒滿杯〈詞：慎芝 曲：姚讚福〉 謝雷 (1967)
今天不回家〈詞：諸戈[莊奴] 曲：古月[左宏元]〉 姚蘇蓉 (1969)
為何命如此（苦海女神龍）〈詞：黃俊雄 曲：猪俣公章〉 邱蘭芬 (1970)
Whiter Shade of Pale (Brooker/Fisher/Reid/Bach) 雷蒙合唱團 (1970)
我沒有騙你〈詞：莊奴 曲：公羽[翁清溪]〉 包娜娜 (1971)
送君珠淚滴〈詞：徐品榮 曲：周宜新〉 丁黛 (1971)
我的歌〈詞曲：洪小喬〉 洪小喬 (1973)
熱情的沙漠〈詞：李潔心 曲：加瀨邦彥、山上路夫〉 歐陽菲菲 (1974)
江湖上〈詞：余光中 曲：楊弦〉 楊弦 (1975)
我是一片雲〈詞：瓊瑤 曲：古月[左宏元]〉 鳳飛飛 (1977)
姑娘的酒窩〈詞：周燕蘭 曲：岳勳[李基生]〉 高凌風 (1977)
小城故事〈詞：莊奴[黃河] 曲：湯尼[翁清溪]〉 鄧麗君 (1979)
拜訪春天〈詞：林建助 曲：陳輝雄〉 施孝榮 (1981)
無緣〈詞：呂金守 曲：吳盛智〉 吳盛智 (1981)
可憐的落魄人〈詞曲：高飛龍[高子洋]〉 陳明仁 (1981)
心事誰人知〈詞曲：蔡振南〉 沈文程 (1982)
III
鹿港小鎮〈詞曲：羅大佑〉 羅大佑 (1982)
一樣的月光〈詞：吳念真、羅大佑 曲：李壽全〉 蘇芮 (1983)
從現在開始〈詞曲：紅螞蟻〉 紅螞蟻合唱團 (1985)
舞女〈詞曲：俞隆華〉 陳小雲 (1984)
夢田〈詞：三毛[陳平] 曲：翁孝良〉 潘越雲 & 齊豫 (1985)
生命中的精靈〈詞曲：李宗盛〉 李宗盛 (1986)
玫瑰人生〈詞：慎芝 曲：張弘毅〉 許景淳 (1987)
雁渡寒潭〈詞曲：黃舒駿〉 黃舒駿 (1989)
抓狂〈詞：王明輝、陳主惠 曲：Asanee Chotikul〉 黑名單工作室 (1989)
向前走〈詞曲：林強〉 林強 (1990)
打〈詞：林暐哲 曲：林暐哲、李欣芸〉 Baboo (1992)
把悲傷留給自己〈詞曲：陳昇〉 陳昇 (1991)
孤枕難眠〈詞曲：劉志宏〉 周華健 (1993)
用心良苦〈詞：十一郎 曲：張宇〉 張宇 (1993)
自由歌〈詞曲：張雨生〉 張雨生 (1994)
不夠放肆〈詞曲：陳珊妮〉 陳珊妮 (1994)
斷腸詩〈詞曲：伍佰[吳俊霖]〉 伍佰 & China Blue (1998)
原來你什麼都不要〈詞：鄔裕康 曲：郭子〉 張惠妹 (1996)
愛的初體驗〈詞曲：張震嶽〉 張震嶽 (1997)
神話〈詞：林志興，陳光榮譯寫 曲：陳建年〉 Samingad〈紀曉君〉 (1999)
下淡水河寫著我等介族譜〈詞：鐘永豐 曲：林生祥〉 交工樂隊 (1999)
雌雄胴體〈詞曲：阿信．五月天〉 小平／五月天 (1999)
農村出事情〈詞曲：蔡海恩〉 濁水溪公社 (1999)
轉吧、七彩霓虹燈〈詞曲：小應[應蔚民]〉 夾子電動大樂隊 (2000/12)
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Twelve Classic David Bowie Songs
Two major rock stars passed away in recent weeks. One was Glenn Frey, who along with Don Henley was one of the leaders and main songwriters of the Eagles. Since I did a brief post on my favorite Eagles songs not that long ago, I won't attempt to do a retrospective on Frey for now. Instead, I'd like to do my own brief (and wholly inadequate) tribute to the even more influential rocker who died not long before Frey: David Bowie. First off, I have to admit that my knowledge of Bowie is much more limited than it should be. For a long time, the only CD of his music I had was a Changesbowie compilation CD. It was only in the last few years that I acquired copies of Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and even more recently I was given a copy of 'Hours...', though I've only listened to it once in the brief time I've had it. Of course even aside from what is on the CDs I own, I've heard a few other Bowie songs over the years, and I'm fairly familiar with the basic outline of his career, particularly up to the early 1980s. But while I know bits of trivia about him, such as the fact that his first single, "Liza Jane", was released under the name Davie Jones [Bowie's birth name was David Jones] and the King Bees, or that he was one of the first to attempt to put English lyrics to the French song "Comme d'habitude", later adapted by Paul Anka as "My Way", there's still far too much of Bowie's music that I've never heard, making it impossible for me to do a proper retrospective covering his whole career. Instead, I've just selected ten favorites from the songs I know well. Rather than attempting to rank them, I've just listed them chronologically. If I really had to pick a single song as my favorite Bowie song, "Life on Mars", "Starman" and "Space Oddity" would be my most likely choices, but several others among these might also come out on top. I should also note that I could easily have put a few other songs from Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust in this list, as there are a lot of good ones on those albums, but I decided two songs from each was enough. There's also a good chance that after I've gotten a chance to listen to more of his most recent work I'd want to include at least one song from his last couple of albums. After his death I listened to 2013's "Where Are We Now" and his very last single "Lazarus", both of which struck me as quite good, but I'd prefer to listen to them more than once before I decide how I rank them in comparison to the songs listed here.
Twelve Classic David Bowie Songs
Space Oddity (Bowie) (1969) David Bowie
The Man Who Sold the World (Bowie) (1970) The Man Who Sold the World
Changes (Bowie) (1971) Hunky Dory
Life on Mars (Bowie) (1971) Hunky Dory
Starman (Bowie) (1972) The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Suffragette City (Bowie) (1972) The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Rebel Rebel (Bowie) (1974) Diamond Dogs
Young Americans (Bowie) (1975) Young Americans
"Heroes" (Bowie/Eno) (1977) "Heroes"
Ashes to Ashes (Bowie) (1980) Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Let's Dance (Bowie) (1983) Let's Dance
Modern Love (Bowie) (1983) Let's Dance
Special Mention:
All the Young Dudes (Bowie) Mott the Hoople (1972)
Under Pressure (Queen/Bowie) Queen & David Bowie (1981)
Twelve Classic David Bowie Songs
Space Oddity (Bowie) (1969) David Bowie
The Man Who Sold the World (Bowie) (1970) The Man Who Sold the World
Changes (Bowie) (1971) Hunky Dory
Life on Mars (Bowie) (1971) Hunky Dory
Starman (Bowie) (1972) The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Suffragette City (Bowie) (1972) The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Rebel Rebel (Bowie) (1974) Diamond Dogs
Young Americans (Bowie) (1975) Young Americans
"Heroes" (Bowie/Eno) (1977) "Heroes"
Ashes to Ashes (Bowie) (1980) Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Let's Dance (Bowie) (1983) Let's Dance
Modern Love (Bowie) (1983) Let's Dance
Special Mention:
All the Young Dudes (Bowie) Mott the Hoople (1972)
Under Pressure (Queen/Bowie) Queen & David Bowie (1981)
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