Phil Collins of Genesis: Drummer, Singer and Solo Star

Phil Collins (born 30 January 1951) is a (currently retired) musician and songwriter who first became famous as a member of Genesis and then as a solo artist. He acted as a child, appearing on stage as the Artful Dodger in Oliver! and appearing as an extra in the Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night. He began playing the drums as a young child and joined several bands as a teenager. As a member of Flaming Youth, he made his first appearance on record on their 1969 album Ark 2, on which he played drums and also sang lead vocals on “Changes” (along with Gordon Smith), “Space Child” and the “Jupiter” and “Saturn” sections of “The Planets”. Collins also played percussion in sessions for George Harrison’s “The Art of Dying” in 1970. Later that same year, he successfully auditioned for Genesis, becoming the group’s fourth drummer.

Collins’s drumming ability made an immediate impact on Genesis’s sound. Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Peter Gabriel all have spoken frequently about the boost his skills brought to the band, and even Anthony Phillips, the co-founder of the group who left before Collins was recruited, has said that his own departure was a good thing for Genesis in that it ultimately resulted in Collins joining. Banks said that Collins contributed a lot to the arranging of the songs, as he would suggest different ways to play music that the others had written. The examples of great drumming by Collins in his early years with Genesis are too numerous to cite in any numbers, but songs like “Watcher of the Skies”, “Supper’s Ready” (particularly the “Apocalypse in 9/8” part), and the second half of “The Cinema Show” all have some great drumming, not to mention numerous tracks on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Interestingly enough, Collins has said that he didn’t think they sounded good on record until The Lamb because, while a drummer’s best take would usually be the second or third one, Genesis did so many takes that he would be playing it safe on the one that got used. Nevertheless, what did get recorded still sounded pretty impressive. As Gabriel said, “Phil is a very gifted musician. He’s someone who can pick up any sort of instrument and instantly produce something that feels good.”

Aside from his drumming duties, Collins also became the band’s primary backing vocalist behind lead singer Peter Gabriel, with his vocals on some songs almost as prominent as Gabriel’s. He sang lead vocals on two songs while Gabriel was still with Genesis. The first was “For Absent Friends” from 1971’s Nursery Cryme, his first album with Genesis, a very short track with music by fellow new member Steve Hackett and words by Hackett and Collins himself. The second was “More Fool Me” from 1973’s Selling England by the Pound, a song co-written by Collins and Mike Rutherford. Aside from these tracks, Collins did not do a great deal of writing in this period, except in group compositions (“Apocalypse in 9/8” and the second half of “The Cinema Show”, for example, were written by Banks, Collins and Rutherford, foreshadowing the later version of Genesis, while much of The Lamb was written by Banks, Collins, Hackett and Rutherford together or in various combinations). He apparently did write – or at least co-write – a song called “The Light”, which the group played live in the period just after he joined. This song was never recorded in the studio in its original form, but the opening section of it got turned into the verse sections of “Lilywhite Lilith” on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

In 1975, Peter Gabriel left Genesis. After the band has auditioned many possible replacements without finding anyone, Phil Collins somewhat hesitantly stepped into the role, and immediately proved himself more than adequate (Gabriel remarked in an interview that he was surprised that the band didn’t think of using Collins sooner). The first album to feature Collins as lead vocalist was 1976’s A Trick of the Tail, followed by Wind and Wuthering at the end of that same year, the live album Seconds Out (on which the band was augmented by drummers Bill Bruford and then Chester Thompson when Collins was out front singing), and then, after the departure of Steve Hackett, 1978’s And Then There Were Three.

Collins still was not writing a lot for Genesis in this period, though he made important contributions to group compositions like “Los Endos” (an instrumental that by some accounts grew out of something he wrote) and co-wrote tracks like “Wot Gorilla”. He wrote the music of the chorus for “Blood on the Rooftops” and came up with the title, though the rest of the song was written by Steve Hackett. He wrote the lyrics for “Scenes from a Night's Dream” and co-wrote “Vancouver” with Mike Rutherford. He was also keeping busy outside Genesis. He co-founded the jazz fusion group Brand X, recording several albums with the group between 1976 and 1982 and doing some very impressive drumming on tracks like “Nuclear Burn” and “And So to F” (the latter was credited as a Collins composition). He contributed lead vocals to solo albums by Steve Hackett and Anthony Phillips and played drums on several albums by Brian Eno, such as the critical favorite Another Green World.

The collapse of Collins’s first marriage at the end of the 1970s gave him the impetus to start writing songs on his own. He recorded demos for over a dozen new compositions at his home in this period. Two of these, “Misunderstanding” and “Please Don't Ask” he contributed to Genesis’s 1980 album Duke, with the former giving the group their first US top 20 hit. Most of the remaining songs appeared on Collins’s first solo album, Face Value, which was released in 1981. Led by the atmospheric “In the Air Tonight” and its iconic drum break, the album was a huge success, outselling all previous Genesis albums, and popularizing the gated reverb drum sound that Collins had developed with Peter Gabriel, engineer Hugh Padgham and producer Steve Lillywhite while playing on Gabriel’s third solo album. Much to the surprise of almost everyone, including Collins himself, he was now a star as a solo artist. However, he remained with Genesis, alternating between albums with the group and his solo work.

On Duke, Banks, Collins and Rutherford had written much of the material as a trio, with each additionally contributing a couple of individually written tracks. On 1981’s Abacab, they decided to write nearly all the album together, with each member contributing only one individually written track. Collins’s solo composition, “Man on the Corner”, was a minor hit for the group. While the band written songs were generally composed by all three equally, sometimes one member’s contributions would be more apparent than the others, and for all the group compositions the one who felt most motivated by the song would write the lyrics. Thus while Collins contributed to all the group compositions, on some his contributions were somewhat greater than others. This was also true of songs on the subsequent Genesis albums, the eponymous Genesis (1983), Invisible Touch (1986) and We Can’t Dance (1991), all of which were written by the trio together in the studio. Collins wrote lyrics for a lot of the songs from these albums, with songs like "Driving the Last Spike", "No Son of Mine" and "Jesus He Knows Me" (not everyone's favorite, but I think it has some great lines) from the last one being among his best lyrical efforts.

In this period, Collins’s solo career was also thriving. His second solo album, 1982’s Hello I Must Be Going, also sold well, though slightly less than his first. But in 1984, “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)”, a ballad that Collins had left off Face Value and rewritten for a movie soundtrack, was released and became a No. 1 hit in the US (it subsequently won a Grammy and was nominated for an Academy Award). His duet with Philip Bailey, initially released in the US at the end of 1984, hit No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US the following year. Later in 1985 he released his third solo album, No Jacket Required, which included two US No. 1s, “Sussudio” and “One More Night”, as well as top 10 hits “Don't Lose My Number” and “Take Me Home”. Also in 1985, “Separate Lives”, his duet with Marilyn Martin (composed by Stephen Bishop) also hit No. 1 in the US. He appeared in both the US and UK Live Aid shows, and the following year’s Genesis album, Invisible Touch, contained 5 top 5 US singles, including the number one title track. It is no wonder that Collins seemed ubiquitous in this period, such that one radio station in the city where I grew up had a special “No Phil Collins Day”. He did suffer from overexposure in this period, though he can't really be accused of deliberately courting publicity, unlike many celebrities.

In 1988, Collins starred in the movie Buster and sang several songs for the soundtrack. One was a cover of the drippy 1960s hit “A Groovy Kind of Love” and the other was a new song written with the great Motown producer Lamont Dozier titled “Two Hearts”. Though both were US No. 1s, they weren’t Collins’s best moments. In 1989, he released the album …But Seriously, which contained the number one anti-homelessness song “Another Day in Paradise” and the gospel-flavored “I Wish It Would Rain Down”, which featured his friend Eric Clapton on guitar. In 1993, Collins released the highly personal Both Sides, which he wrote and performed entirely on his own. Though “Both Sides of the Story” and “Everyday” were moderate hits, the relatively dark, non-commercial tone of the album meant it didn’t sell as well as his previous releases. The more upbeat Dance into the Light (1996) sold even less, as Collins’s commercial profile had diminished considerably. His soundtrack to the Disney movie Tarzan in 1999 was more successful (the song “You'll Be in My Heart” even won an Academy Award), though his last studio album of original songs, 2002’s Testify, also only sold moderately. In 2003, he made his last solo concert tour, titled jokingly the “First Final Farewell Tour”.

Collins had quit Genesis in the mid-1990s, but after participating in various retrospective activities over the years, in 2007 Banks, Collins and Rutherford, together with longtime touring members Chester Thompson and Daryl Struemer, launched a reunion tour. Subsequently Collins revealed that he had dislocated some vertebrae in his neck during the tour, so that it had become difficult to drum (he had also started to lose his hearing in one ear). In 2010, he released an album of Motown covers titled Going Back and played several shows to support the album. In 2011 he announced his retirement from music.

Phil Collins has been blamed by some self-proclaimed Genesis fans for the changes in the band’s sound in the 1980s. It is certainly true that albums like Genesis and Invisible Touch sound very different from ones like Foxtrot or even A Trick of the Tail, but leaving aside the subjective question of whether they are not as good (I would say that Genesis, at least, is as good as the earlier albums), how much Collins was responsible for the changes is debatable. It is true that the change took place around the time Collins began to participate more equally in the writing, and his fondness for more simple pop songs like those from Motown had something to do with the simplification of the group’s sound. However, the change also had more to do with the changes the band made in their writing process. Whereas in earlier years someone would present a song or idea that the others would build on, on the later albums they were writing from scratch by improvising together. The use of drum machines and the gated drum sound also made a difference. Finally, both Banks and Rutherford also changed their approaches to writing to some degree. It’s worth noting, for instance, that Rutherford wrote almost as many of the band’s love songs as Collins did (“Follow You, Follow Me” and “Taking It All Too Hard” being just two examples), and a song like “That’s All” owed its melodic sound largely to Banks, as Collins’s vocal melody was just an elaboration on what Banks played. The change in direction was something that all three band members wanted, not because they were deliberately aiming for commercial success, but because they wanted to do things differently. Only those ignorant of how the band worked would lay all or even most of the blame (or credit) on Collins.

Another related criticism of Genesis in the 1980s is that it is indistinguishable from Collins’s solo work. Again, no one who has really listened to both can reasonably make such an assertion. Of course there is a superficial resemblance because Collins is the vocalist. What’s more, as in the jam sessions in which the Genesis songs were written Collins would sing over whatever Banks and Rutherford played, the vocal melodies were largely Collins’s responsibility, particularly on the songs he wrote the lyrics for (on the others the lyric writer would usually flesh out the basic melody ideas that Collins had come up with in the initial jam). But Banks and Rutherford composed music that was quite different from the kind Collins wrote on his own, and even when Collins wrote the melodies, he was doing so over chord combinations that were not typical of his own writing, as noted above in the case of “That’s All”. In fact, with the exception of a few of the ballads, it’s hard to imagine Collins on his own writing any of the songs on the Genesis albums. Even the most “pop” Genesis songs have an underlying complexity that few other pop songs, including Collins’s, have. There is also greater variety in the Genesis material.

So how would I assess Collins’s solo career? As noted earlier, he was an incredible drummer, though this comes through most clearly in some of the recordings he did in the 1970s rather than on his solo albums. He was also a good singer, with a particular knack for more soulful material. He was a decent interpreter of other people’s songs, with his covers of classic songs like the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “Golden Slumbers”, the Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love”, Elton John’s “Burn Down the Mission”, Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colours” and Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin'” all being worthy of comparison to the originals. The main criticism of his own material is that it was very “middle-of-the-road” or that it was just plain bland. There is some basis for this assertion. Most of his songs are not all that adventurous in terms of composition, arrangement or production, and many of them tend to sound a bit similar, which is why I prefer the musical variety to be found on Genesis albums to Collins’s solo material. Another problem with some of Collins’s solo songs (and a few Genesis songs from the same period) is a sometimes excessive reliance on drum machines. But most of Collins’s songs are enjoyable to listen to, even when they aren’t exciting. He’s a solid if not brilliant lyricist, and his melodies are generally appealing. On the occasions when he did try something different, such as “The Roof Is Leaking”, "Long Long Way to Go" or “I Wish It Would Rain Down”, the results were usually worth listening to. His very best songs, such as “In the Air Tonight” and “I Wish It Would Rain Down”, are among the best songs of the 1980s. While it’s been years since I would have rated him among my very favorite artists, I still like a lot of his music and think he deserves much more credit than he usually receives – though he has gotten recognition from some in the R&B and hip-hop community, including a tribute album called Urban Renewal.

Phil Collins for some reason has gotten an enormous amount of criticism from all sorts of people, ranging from Genesis fans who hate songs like “Misunderstanding” because it’s a catchy, Beach Boys-style pop song (as if there’s anything wrong with catchy, Beach Boys-style pop songs) to people who attack him for his personal life or even his appearance. Since taste in music is highly subjective, reasonable people can say they aren’t fans of his songs, though anyone who claims they hate everything he ever did almost certainly hasn’t given his music a fair hearing, if they’ve even heard most of it. But some of the personal attacks are practically slanderous and are certainly ignorant. For instance, he was falsely accused of divorcing his second wife by fax. He was accused of moving to Switzerland because he was a diehard Conservative who wanted to escape high taxes, when in fact he moved because he met and married a Swiss woman (he has said he is not a Conservative – not that it would be as bad as being a Republican in the US if he was). Like other stars who talk about social problems such as Bono and Sting, he has been criticized for talking about issues like homelessness when he has great personal wealth (never mind that drawing attention to such problems is a good thing or that Collins has actually donated quite a bit to charity, not to mention that he does not live the life of a high roller). Regrettably, many reviewers seem to feel compelled to take some sort of cheap shot at Collins along these lines, and trolls on comment boards just insult him. In fact, having watched a lot of interviews with him, I would say Phil Collins seems like an affable, easy-going person with a good sense of humor. His interviews are always entertaining to watch because he’s always laughing and joking. There are many people in rock and pop music whose music I love but who I suspect would be difficult or even unpleasant people in person. But Collins seems like one of the few who would be fun to hang out with at the local bar.

The first of the lists below focuses on the Genesis songs that Collins wrote or played a major role in writing, as well as his first recordings as a lead vocalist for the band. I haven’t tried to include all the songs featuring great drumming, as these are too numerous. Obviously on the later Genesis albums he had a significant role in writing everything, so for those I’ve chosen the best songs that he is known to have written the lyrics for, especially those that he seemed to have a major influence on musically (though this can be hard to tell; on “Mama”, for instance, the drum machine riff was actually created by Mike Rutherford, not Collins, though I still included the track because Collins's vocals and lyrics are also key elements). Among the tracks that got left off this list are "Harold the Barrel", a Peter Gabriel composition that Collins helped write the lyrics for and sang in unison with Gabriel; "Match of the Day" and "Me and Virgil", two mid-period songs that Collins wrote the lyrics for but later stated that he disliked; a few of the less interesting album tracks; and several songs that I couldn't confirm he wrote the lyrics for, such as "Behind the Lines", "Abacab" and the non-album track "Hearts on Fire". For the second list, I’ve chosen 25 of what I consider his best or most interesting solo songs, though I’ve left out ones that he did not write himself, so no “You Can’t Hurry Love” or “Separate Lives”. Neither of these lists includes his work with Brand X, much less his session work with other artists, some of which is also certainly worth a listen (examples range from the abovementioned Brian Eno albums to Peter Gabriel’s third album to his production job on Howard Jones’s “No One is to Blame”). The only exceptions, both listed among the “Honorable Mentions”, are “Easy Lover” (recorded with Philip Bailey) and “Hero” (recorded with David Crosby), as he co-wrote these songs and sang on them. I don't have Testify or his Tarzan soundtrack, though I have listened to them a couple of times. My choices from these albums might vary if I listened to them more. For that matter, as is usual with these things, several of the "Honorable Mentions" could easily replace several of the songs in the main list.


Phil Collins with Genesis
(All songs performed by Genesis; lead vocals on tracks 1 and 4 by Peter Gabriel)

The Light (Music: Collins [primarily?]; Lyrics: [?])
For Absent Friends (Music: Hackett; Lyrics: Hackett/Collins)
More Fool Me (Rutherford/Collins)
Lilywhite Lilith (Music: Collins [verses]; Lyrics: Gabriel)
Dance on a Volcano (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford/Hackett; Lyrics: Rutherford)
Los Endos (Collins/Hackett/Rutherford/Banks)
Wot Gorilla? (Banks/Collins)
Blood on the Rooftops (Hackett/Collins)
Scenes from a Night's Dream (Collins/Banks)
Vancouver (Collins/Rutherford)
Misunderstanding (Collins)
Please Don't Ask (Collins)
Man on the Corner (Collins)
No Reply at All (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins?)
Paperlate (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)

Mama (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
That's All (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
It's Gonna Get Better (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins?)
Invisible Touch (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
Tonight, Tonight, Tonight (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
In Too Deep (Music: Collins/Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
I'd Rather Be You (Music: Collins/Banks/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
No Son of Mine (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
Jesus He Knows Me (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
Driving the Last Spike (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
I Can’t Dance (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
Hold On My Heart (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)
Since I Lost You (Music: Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Lyrics: Collins)


Best of Phil Collins Solo
(All songs written and performed by Phil Collins except where otherwise noted)

In The Air Tonight
The Roof Is Leaking/Droned
I Missed Again
I Don't Care Anymore
Thru These Walls
Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away
Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)
Sussudio
Long Long Way to Go (Backing Vocals: Sting)
One More Night
Take Me Home
We Said Hello Goodbye
Another Day in Paradise
I Wish It Would Rain Down
All of My Life
Find A Way to My Heart
Both Sides of the Story
Everyday
We Wait and We Wonder
Dance into the Light
Lorenzo (poem by Michaela Odone)
You'll Be in My Heart
Two Worlds
Wake Up Call
Don’t Get Me Started

Honorable Mentions: Hand in Hand, You Know What I Mean, Like China, Easy Lover (Vocals: Phil Collins & Philip Bailey; Music: Bailey/Collins/East; Lyrics: Collins), Don't Lose My Number, Do You Remember, Heat on the Street, We Fly So Close, Survivors, Hero (Vocals: Phil Collins & David Crosby; Music: Collins; Lyrics: Crosby), It’s in Your Eyes, River So Wide, Strangers Like Me, Testify, Driving Me Crazy

Album Review – Abbey Road by the Beatles

Album Title: Abbey Road

Artist: The Beatles
Release Date: September 26, 1969

Side One
Come Together (Lennon)
Something (Harrison)
Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (McCartney)
Oh! Darling (McCartney)
Octopus’s Garden (Starkey)
I Want You (She’s So Heavy)

Side Two
Here Comes the Sun (Harrison)
Because (Lennon)
You Never Give Me Your Money (McCartney)
Sun King (Lennon)
Mean Mr. Mustard (Lennon)
Polythene Pam (Lennon)
She Came In Through the Bathroom Window (McCartney)
Golden Slumbers (McCartney/Dekker)
Carry That Weight (McCartney)
The End (McCartney)
Her Majesty (McCartney)

Note On Song Authorship: Credit is given according to the primary writer of the song (even though Lennon and McCartney songs are official credited to both).

Abbey Road was the last album recorded by the Beatles before the group split up (Let It Be was not released until the spring of 1970, but nearly all of it had been recorded in early 1969). While the band was falling apart, they managed to pull together one last time and come up with yet another masterpiece, one that is almost universally ranked among the best albums of all time, along with Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles (aka The White Album).

By the time Abbey Road was recorded, John Lennon’s relative apathy toward the group had left Paul McCartney as the group’s de facto leader. Paul asked the group’s long-time producer George Martin, who had distanced himself from the Get Back sessions that would ultimately end up being released as Let It Be, to come back and help them make one more album. McCartney and Martin wanted to link the songs together in a suite, as had been done for some tracks on Sgt. Pepper. Lennon, who was less interested in heavy production and concept albums, disagreed, wanting each track to be separate. In the end a compromise was reached, with side one the way John wanted and side two the way Paul and George Martin wanted it.

While Abbey Road may not be quite as strong song for song as Revolver, have had the historical impact of Sgt. Pepper, or cover as much ground musically as The Beatles, it outdoes even these albums in certain respects. For one thing, the individual Beatles reached a peak in their playing on this album, with all four delivering outstanding performances. The production is seamless; no other Beatles album can quite equal this one in terms of sheer sound quality. The album comes across as a unified effort, even if this was something of an illusion (rarely were all four Beatles together in the studio at the same time). And while the songs might not all reach the almost impossible standard set by those on Revolver, it comes pretty close, with all the songs being good and some among the best the group ever wrote. George Harrison in particular contributed two of the best songs on the album after years of playing second fiddle to John and Paul. The medley on side two was brilliantly conceived and executed, with Paul in particular putting in some brilliant work. Despite having drifted away slightly, John contributed several great tracks, and Ringo (with some uncredited help from George) contributed his second composition for the group and recorded his first drum solo. The album also features the first ever hidden track. Finally, there is the iconic album cover (the basic concept for which was originally sketched out by Paul) that has been imitated countless time by numerous artists, not to mention tourists who can be seen daily trying to replicate it at the crossing on Abbey Road in London outside Abbey Road Studios (which was originally named EMI Studios but was renamed in 1970 after the album).

Producer George Martin supposedly said that Abbey Road was his favorite Beatles album. Both Paul and Ringo spoke positively about it, with Ringo saying he particularly liked the medley on side two and also saying that it and The White Album were his favorites. John, on the other hand, said he liked side one but was dismissive of side two. George said at the time of release that he thought it was very good. For my part, while I might not go as far as George Martin (I would give Revolver the edge by a narrow margin), I certainly regard Abbey Road as one of the very best Beatles albums – maybe even a little better than Sgt. Pepper and The Beatles, or at least equally good – and therefore one of the best popular music albums of all time. Both the separate songs on side one and the suite on side two work great, with even the lesser songs being well done and the medley building to a great climax that served as a fitting "End" (so to speak) to the Beatles’ recording career as a band and an inspiration for numerous artists that came after them.

Abbey Road Song by Song

Come Together: This funky classic from John starts off the album off with a bang. The lyrics may be nonsense but they’re good nonsense, and the song really grooves, with Paul putting in some great bass playing. The song is deservedly one of the best known on the album.

Something: George delivered his first big hit with this much covered love song, his first to be released as the A side of a single. While I personally prefer a few of the other songs he wrote for the group, this was definitely a great one, and was yet more evidence that he could write songs that were as good as those of John and Paul. At the time it came out, Paul said it was his favorite song on the album, and it later became a standard, covered by numerous artists, including Frank Sinatra, who called it “the greatest love song of the past fifty years”.

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer: This song of Paul’s got a mixed reception, not only from critics and fans, but also John and George (in their case partly due to the time Paul made them spend working on it). While it’s far from the best song Paul ever wrote and it is slightly weaker than most other tracks on the album, it’s playful and well performed, so it makes a decent album track.

Oh! Darling: This soulful track from Paul is one that even John praised as “great”, though he thought he could have sung it better. This may be true, because it was more John’s style, but Paul turns in an impressive performance nonetheless. This is possibly my favorite song on the first side.

Octopus’s Garden: This is the second of the two songs Ringo wrote for the Beatles (George seemingly gave him a hand on it, though he wasn’t credited). It’s a pleasant sing-along that works well as a children’s song. I wouldn’t rank it among the better tracks on the album, but it is a solid album track, much like “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”.

I Want You (She’s So Heavy): This song of John’s is perhaps the heaviest track the Beatles ever recorded, as well as the longest (excluding the sound collage “Revolution 9”). Lyrically it’s an exercise in minimalism, with only twelve words, but musically it is a powerful wall of sound, featuring some great playing by each member of the band. The way it builds up and then cuts off suddenly, bringing side one to the end, is also cleverly done.

Here Comes the Sun: George’s second contribution to the album has also become a classic. A beautiful acoustic guitar based song, it is one of the best songs on the album and one of the best George ever wrote.

Because: This song of John’s has some great harmonies sung by John, Paul and George. George said it was his favorite track on the album and Paul also rated it highly. It’s certainly John’s best song on side two.

You Never Give Me Your Money: An excellent melodic track from Paul combining several different bits. The lyrics refer to the money problems the Beatles and their company Apple were going through. This song, "Here Comes the Sun" and the closing medley are the peaks of side two.

Sun King: The next song in the medley was this one of John’s, which he called “a piece of garbage”. In fact it’s not a bad song and has some interesting bits, though it is probably the weakest track on the album.

Mean Mr. Mustard: John also called this one of his “garbage”, but in fact it’s a good song, though not the greatest thing on the album. It certainly is effective in the medley and leads directly into…

Polythene Pam: Almost like a second part to “Mean Mr. Mustard”, this song of John’s is another short little rocker that may not be much in and of itself, but sounds good in the medley.

She Came In Through the Bathroom Window: Though John’s “Polythene Pam” segues directly into it, this rocker is one of Paul’s, and it’s a very good one. Like in the case of “Come Together”, the lyrics are cool-sounding nonsense. In at least one rehearsal of the song, John did the lead vocals.

Golden Slumbers: This melodic ballad by Paul opens the final medley on the album. Some of the lyrics are taken from a 17th century poem by Thomas Dekker.

Carry That Weight: This next song in Paul’s closing medley has a rousing chorus sung by all four Beatles and a middle section sung by Paul, John, and George that reprises “You Never Give Me Your Money”.

The End: The closing part of the final medley on the last album recorded by the Beatles is appropriately called “The End”. Written by Paul, it features the only drum solo Ringo recorded for the Beatles, followed by Paul, George, and John, in that order, trading guitar solos, and then ends with a final line (praised by John as “a cosmic, philosophical line”) sung by Paul. Taken together, the “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End” medley is one of the best parts of the album, and a brilliant conclusion to the Beatles’ recording career.

Her Majesty: This 23-second long song, written and performed by Paul on acoustic guitar, is the shortest recorded Beatles song. It was also to my knowledge the first “hidden track” ever, as it was not listed on the album cover and it appeared after 14 seconds of silence that follow “The End”. It’s an amusing little song, though it’s slightly unfortunate that its presence means “The End” isn’t technically the end of Abbey Road (but perhaps as a hidden track "Her Majesty" shouldn’t really count).

Anthony Phillips and Early Genesis

The British band Genesis had a long history before it entered its present state of dormancy. In previous articles, I have discussed the only two members of the group to remain for its entire existence, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford, and next year I intend to cover the best known of the other members of the group, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and Steve Hackett. Another somewhat less well known former member who played an important role in the group’s formative years was Anthony Phillips (born December 23, 1951), who along with Banks, Gabriel and Rutherford was a founding member of Genesis. Though his early departure meant that the vast majority of the band’s best songs were written and recorded without any input from him, it seemed appropriate to do a brief overview of the early years of Genesis with an emphasis on the significance of Phillips in this period.

As noted in my article on Rutherford, he and Phillips became good friends at school and started playing music together, just as their schoolmates Banks and Gabriel did. Soon after arriving at the school in 1965, Phillips formed a group called Anon (sometimes referred to as “The Anon”, even by Mike Rutherford, though Phillips insists that there was no “the”) with bassist Rivers Job, vocalist Richard MacPhail, and drummer Rob Tyrell. Rutherford joined soon after, and the band, whose only recorded song was Phillips’s "Pennsylvania Flickhouse" (a R&B style tune very different from later Genesis songs, though Phillips maintains that the studio demo was not the best version of the song), played together with various lineups until the end of 1966 before splitting up. Rob Tyrell afterwards joined Sour Milk Sea, whose lead singer for its last few months of existence was Freddie Bulsara – later known as Freddie Mercury. Phillips, meanwhile, had started to spend more time playing music with Banks and Gabriel, and began attempting to write songs with Rutherford. Sometime in 1967, Phillips and Rutherford got together with the intention of recording some songs, and Phillips asked Banks to come and play piano. Banks suggested that he and Gabriel also record one of their songs and that Gabriel do the singing, as he had the best voice. So Genesis was born.

The four schoolmates managed to attract the interest of Jonathan King, a pop impresario who had once attended their school, with their demo. King signed them to a contract, gave them their name, and produced two singles and an album for them. The group’s first two singles, “The Silent Sun” and “A Winter’s Tale”, were released in 1968 and were mainly the work of the Banks/Gabriel partnership, with Philips and Rutherford only writing “That’s Me”, the B-side of “The Silent Sun”. On the group’s first album From Genesis to Revelation, recorded in 1968 while they were still at school and released in early 1969, the songs were still fairly simple and pop-oriented. According to Phillips, Banks and Gabriel dominated the songwriting on the first album, though he also contributed a number of songs, some with help from Rutherford and some on his own. An early composition by Phillips was the instrumental “Patricia”, which had appeared on the group’s first tape. Lyrics were later added, apparently by Gabriel, and the song was recorded as “In Hiding” on From Genesis to Revelation. Another song written mainly by Phillips that appeared on the album was “A Place to Call My Own”. According to Tony Banks, this song was one of the first long songs with separate sections done by the group, though they only used the last section on the album. (Note: Though the releases of From Genesis to Revelation that I know of credit all the songs to Genesis, several sources give individual songwriting credits for the songs; only a few of these individual credits are directly backed up by quotes that I’ve seen from the band members, though the few direct statements they have made about the authorship of the songs are not inconsistent with the individual credits given)

After their first album failed to make any impact, the members of Genesis, after some hesitation, made the decision to devote themselves to developing their music. According to Rutherford, Banks and Gabriel were the more hesitant ones, while he and Phillips were more certain that music was what they wanted to do, with Phillips perhaps being the most determined. Phillips and Rutherford began writing songs together on 12-string guitars, creating a sound that became one of the group’s signature sounds, along with Banks’s keyboards. The Phillips/Rutherford team, or Phillips alone, wrote a number of important songs in this period. Phillips had written “Visions of Angels” on piano at the time of the first album, and Phillips and Rutherford wrote “Dusk” and “White Mountain” together, as well as parts of “Stagnation”, though Banks and Gabriel also contributed to the latter. All these songs appeared on the group’s second album, Trespass, released in 1970. But according to Banks, another key early track, though one that was not released until it appeared on a later box set, was “Going Out to Get You”, and while all of them worked on it, Phillips wrote the song part of it. The unreleased song “Pacidy” also may have been a Phillips/Rutherford collaboration, as part of it was included in a piece on a Phillips solo album called “Field of Eternity” and credited to Phillips and Rutherford. Phillips no doubt wrote or co-wrote a number of the other early unreleased songs by the group, but no information on the other songs is available.

Unfortunately, by the time Trespass was released, Phillips had started suffering from debilitating stage fright, and he eventually decided to quit the band. As he had been very important to the group, his decision almost caused the others to give up, but in the end they decided to continue, and in addition to looking for a replacement for Phillips also find a new drummer. The drummer they ended up recruiting was Phil Collins. As Phillips said, “There was a huge silver lining for Genesis which was that me leaving meant…they got Phil. I mean, it’s got to have been worth it to have got Phil.” While getting a replacement for Phillips himself took longer, the person they finally got, Steve Hackett, would also prove to be a good choice for the group. But even after Phillips had left, he still had an influence on Genesis in that some songs that he had been involved in writing remained in their repertoire and in some cases were recorded. The most notable example was “The Musical Box”, which appeared on the first post-Phillips album, 1971’s Nursery Cryme, and became one of the group’s most popular and highly regarded songs from the early part of their career. While, like all the songs on early Genesis albums, it was officially credited to the band (meaning the current group as of the time of the recording), a significant part of the music, particularly the opening sections, had been written by Anthony Phillips (possibly with Mike Rutherford), as can be heard from listening to his 1969 instrumental demo entitled F#, which was released on his Archive Collection Volume 1 (a further development of what became “The Musical Box” can be heard in the Genesis archive track “Manipulation”).

In the years after he left Genesis, Phillips and Rutherford continued to play and write together on occasion. In fact, they originally had intended to release an album together, but because of his Genesis commitments, Rutherford found it difficult to find time to work with Phillips. The music they wrote together was finally released as Phillips’s first solo album, The Geese and the Ghost, along with a number of songs and instrumental pieces composed by Phillips alone. Phil Collins also participated, doing vocals on two songs. A third collaboration between Phillips, Rutherford and Collins was “Silver Song” (named for John Silver, the drummer for Genesis at the time of From Genesis to Revelation), which was recorded to be released as a single but was then shelved, only getting released in 2007 on a re-release of The Geese and the Ghost.

Phillips was clearly very important to Genesis in its early years. He helped push the band in the direction of art rock (or progressive rock as it is now called), though it was a direction all of the group were interested in, and he was at first the most determined to make a career of music. Gabriel, Banks and Rutherford have all stressed his impact on Genesis, with Gabriel going so far as to call him “in many ways the most musically gifted of all of us” and Banks saying that “Anthony for me was kind of the group leader”. He certainly had a major role in the writing during his time in the band, probably about equal to (but not greater than) Banks and Gabriel, though Rutherford had pretty much caught up by the time Phillips left. Though even on the first two albums Banks and Gabriel stand out the most to me as performers (Phillips himself called Banks “the fulcrum of the group”), as I noted above the excellent 12-string guitar playing in tandem that Phillips and Rutherford (and occasionally Banks) did on Trespass became a signature sound of the band, one that they continued to use to good effect in later years. Since I don’t consider either From Genesis to Revelation or Trespass to be as good as the albums that followed it (though the addition of Collins and Hackett and improved performance by the others also have something to do with that), it’s hard for me to consider his departure a disastrous loss for Genesis, but there are still some good songs on those albums (Phillips's "Visions of Angels" is one of the better songs on the latter one), and “The Musical Box” is one of the group’s best early tracks. I can’t judge most of Phillips’ solo recordings, as the only album I’ve heard in its entirety is The Geese and the Ghost, though as far as that one is concerned I concur with some who point out that while it has some beautiful guitar playing and is enjoyable enough to listen to, it is somewhat lacking in drama, which is something that Banks and Gabriel in particular (and later Collins and Hackett as well, at least as performers) contributed to Genesis. For that matter, even Trespass seems weaker in part because it is somewhat softer and less dynamic than the later albums. But it’s also true that without the acoustic guitar passages contributed by Phillips and Rutherford (and later by Rutherford and Hackett), Banks’s keyboards would quickly become overwhelming. Like with most great bands, it was the balance between the different group members that made them good, and it was fortunate that the softer, more acoustic music pioneered by Anthony Phillips remained part of Genesis even after he left.

Anthony Phillips with Genesis
(All songs performed by Genesis except where otherwise noted)

Pennsylvania Flickhouse (Phillips; performed by Anon)
Patricia (Phillips)
That's Me (Phillips/Rutherford)
In Hiding (Phillips/Gabriel [?lyrics])
A Place to Call My Own (Phillips/Gabriel[?])
In the Beginning (Phillips/Gabriel[?])
Window (Phillips/Rutherford[?])
Visions of Angels (Phillips)
White Mountain (Phillips/Rutherford)
Dusk (Phillips/Rutherford)
Going Out to Get You (Phillips[song section], [?Banks/Gabriel/Rutherford])
Pacidy (Phillips/Rutherford[?])
The Musical Box (Music: Phillips/Rutherford[opening section], Banks/Rutherford[final section]; Lyrics: Gabriel)
Which Way the Wind Blows (Phillips; performed by Anthony Phillips with Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford)
Silver Song (Phillips/Rutherford; performed by Anthony Phillips with Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford)

Let’s Put the Beatles Back Together Again 1970-2010 by Jeff Walker

As today is the 22nd anniversary of the murder of John Lennon on December 8, 1980, it seems like an appropriate time for another Beatles-related article. Earlier this year I bought a copy of the book Let’s Put the Beatles Back Together Again 1970-2010: How to Assemble & Appreciate the 2nd Half of the Beatles' Legacy by Jeff Walker, and I finished reading it a month or two ago. As the title indicates, the author assembles solo songs released by the various ex-Beatles in the decades after the group broke up into Beatles albums. This is of course not a new idea – I have done something similar myself, though I only got as far as the mid 1970s (at least so far) – but Walker is the first person to publish a comprehensive book on the subject.

The first part of the book is devoted to arguments about why it makes sense to assemble the best of the individual Beatles' post-1970 output into Beatles albums. Walker has a tendency to belabor the point about, repeating arguments a little more often than necessary, but he makes a good case. One good point is that the Beatles had already released quite a bit of material that did not involve all of the four and in some cases only involved one. As far back as Paul McCartney's solo recording of "Yesterday" there had been songs released in the Beatles' name that didn't include all of them, and by the time of The Beatles (aka The White Album), many of the songs were recorded without the participation of one or several of the group. In this sense, the post-1970s recordings are just a continuation of this trend, especially since individual members still sometimes recorded together, though of course far less frequently than even in 1968 and 1969, and with far more help from other musicians.

While it is apparent that there is plenty of solo material that is not up to the standards of that released by the Beatles, Walker makes the point that there were at least a few songs released under the Beatles moniker that weren't all that great, and that there are some solo songs that are superior to even decent Beatles songs. I do have a minor problem with one of his examples; while I agree that in the cases of the examples he cites for Paul ("Run Devil Run" vs "Another Girl"), George Harrison ("Any Road" vs "If I Needed Someone"), and Ringo Starr ("It Don't Come Easy" vs "What Goes On") the solo songs are at least slightly better, John's "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)", while certainly one of his better songs from that period, is by no means equal to "And Your Bird Can Sing" (there are a number of weaker Beatles songs written by John that would have been better examples). Also I disagree with a few of his examples of solo songs that he regards as not "Beatles-worthy", such as "Crackerbox Palace" and "Crippled Inside", with the former in particular being actually quite good. But of course these things are subjective, and the reader can accept his overall argument without agreeing with all his specific examples.

Before he gets down to details on the post-breakup material, Walker gives his reconfigurations of the 1960s albums for CD. While it makes sense to put the singles onto the albums from the same period, I wouldn't go nearly as far as Walker does in messing with the original track sequences, nor would I eliminate as many songs as he does. In fact, I'm not sure that any really should be taken off; while a few early tracks are basically filler, none are truly terrible, and there is some virtue in every track on their later albums (yes, even "Revolution 9"). Admittedly, even Walker does little more than add contemporary singles to the albums from Help on, with the exception of Magical Mystery Tour and The White Album, and it makes sense to assemble a more chronologically-accurate version of Magical Mystery Tour. But I am so used to albums like Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's, and Abbey Road opening and closing as they do in the original formats that I would have trouble getting used to hearing them differently (even if it does make more sense for Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever to be on Sgt. Pepper's than on Magical Mystery Tour), and in the case of even the less unified White Album it would seem a bit odd to hear the track order changed so much. But those who don't want to mess with the original albums can safely skip this section.

Next Walker devotes two chapters to reassessing the Get Back sessions and the material that came out of them. He argues strongly that the negative views of this material and the claims that the sessions were a disaster are wrong. While I agree that some of what has been said and written about the Get Back sessions is excessively negative, Walker overstates his case to some degree. While the Beatles were able to get along better than is often portrayed, the tensions were also quite obvious, and while a much better album could have been assembled from the Get Back sessions than the botched effort by Phil Spector that finally came out as Let It Be, it is still true that overall the songs weren't quite up to the standards of their previous few albums, with a few exceptions like "Let It Be", "Across the Universe" and "The Long and Winding Road". But Walker does provide an alternative viewpoint to the usual critical views of this material.

Though it only starts two-fifths of the way in, the meat of the book is of course the sections on the Beatles' post-breakup songs. Walker uses a fictional alternate history in which the songs that in reality were released on various solo albums instead were released by something he calls the Beatles Releasing Collective (BRC for short), masterminded by a fictional manager named Arnold Zonn (as Walker puts much of the blame for the breakup on the conflict over choice of managers and bad handling of affairs by Allen Klein). I think he spends too much time setting up the BRC concept, which after all is fictional, and I don't agree with the way he groups the releases. While in Walker's fictional timeline singles were released more or less at the same pace as in reality, all the BRC albums are grouped into box sets: Black Box (1973; 3 discs), MoonDogs (1982; 2 discs), Covers (1999; 2 discs), 45 (2000; 3 discs), Live (2009; 4 discs) Singularity (2010; 3 discs) and several bonus sets. Even if the Beatles had agreed to something like the BRC, it is highly unlikely that their songs would have been released in box sets. Box sets were not all that common before the CD era, and I can't think of any significant original releases (as opposed to compilations of previous released material or unreleased outtakes) that were box sets. Furthermore, I'm sure the individual Beatles would have been too impatient to get their songs out on the market to wait years between sets. Of course the advantage to grouping the songs this way is that Walker has a wider selection to pick and choose from, and he can sequence the albums with more freedom. Nevertheless, I prefer my own way of putting together this material, as single albums released more or less annually in the early years and then with less frequency afterwards, though some individual songs might end up getting held back for later release.

Inevitably, I disagree with some of Walker's individual song choices. For one thing, though he argues strongly for Paul being every bit John's equal, something I agree with him completely about, and for both George and Ringo having a lot to contribute as well, his song selections are unbalanced in favor of John's songs. He includes as many or more of John's songs as he does Paul's, even though Paul released far more songs than John. This means he neglects great songs by Paul like "Listen to What the Man Said" in favor of relatively obscure songs by John. I can't judge the merits of all the songs he picks, since there are some I don't have (in particular I don't have the John Lennon Anthology), but from the ones I do know I don't think that the ratio on Walker's sets is justified. It would make more sense to simply decrease the number of John's songs on the later sets when there is less of his material to choose from, or to add more songs by Paul (and to a lesser extent by George and Ringo), to reach a more reasonable ratio. It's also interesting to note that Walker has a definite preference for certain albums. He includes most of the songs on albums such as Paul's Flaming Pie and George's Brainwashed in his sets, while including little or nothing from other albums. I don't necessarily have a big problem with this (Flaming Pie and Brainwashed are certainly among the best solo Beatles albums), but there are still albums that are unfairly neglected. Also, while Walker does have a very useful index of songs which indicates the source albums for each and for the truly dedicated a list of suggested edits (some of which, at least, would probably significantly improve the songs in question, though I'm not likely to take the time necessary to do them), it would have been nice to also have a list organized by source albums, which would incidentally show which ones he got most of his selections from, giving those who haven't bought all the solo albums a clearer idea of which ones would be good starting points. Despite these issues, Walker's choices will be useful references for me to consult when I get around to putting together my own Beatles collections for the later years, and I may even be inspired to reconsider a few of my choices on the ones I've already done.

One of the book's strong points is that Walker talks about every song he has chosen for the main sets in varying degrees of detail. Some of the entries focus on the songs themselves, while others are mainly devoted to background stories. Some go off on tangents with only the remotest connection to the song in question, but for the most part they are still very interesting reading. The entries on John's songs are the longest, and are the places where he most often goes into biographical anecdotes. The only problem with these is that Walker seems to use his various sources rather uncritically, repeating occasionally gossipy stories from different biographies, some of which have been criticized for inaccuracy. One exception to Walker's uncritical use of sources is the entry on "Watching the Wheels" where he mentions the possibly biases of May Pang and Elliot Mintz (who he refers to as Yoko Ono's paid "spin-master"). He is rightfully skeptical of John's claim to have seen a UFO, as related in the entry on "Nobody Told Me", but uncritically relates some dubious stories about John's death. Even if some of them are of questionable accuracy, the background stories are still very interesting, and most fans of the Beatles will learn something new from them. For one thing, the overall picture one gets of John and Yoko's relationship is not nearly as rosy as either Yoko or John when he was alive portrayed it. Interestingly, while Walker doesn't blame Yoko for the Beatles' split, he does make a case for her preventing a reunion, as when John was still with May Pang he was contemplating going to drop in on Paul's recording sessions for Venus and Mars, but when he got back together with Yoko this idea was abandoned, and though for a while afterward he was still fairly positive about the idea of a reunion he soon dropped out of music altogether. The stories he relates (some of which I've heard elsewhere) also tend to portray Yoko as cold and manipulative, though he has some positive things to say about her and her music (among his bonus CDs are ones pairing her songs with those of John's sons Julian and Sean).

While I have focused on a number of flaws and areas of disagreement, I still have to conclude that Let’s Put the Beatles Back Together Again 1970-2010 is a worthwhile purchase for any Beatles fan. For all the books written about the Beatles, there are very few that cover the solo releases of all four of them comprehensively. Fans who have not listened to much of Paul, John, George and Ringo's solo output will find this a very useful reference, and while I (and many other fans) might quibble with some of his choices, I have no doubt that anyone who actually assembled Walker's BRC sets would find them to be truly enjoyable albums on par with most of what the Beatles released in the 1960s.

[Update: For a look at a similar book, see my post from the end of 2015 on Still the Greatest: The Essential Songs of the Beatles’ Solo Careers by Andrew Grant Jackson. Also check out more of my own post-break up Beatles albums.]

Randy Newman

November 27 was the 70th anniversary of the birth of Jimi Hendrix. November 28 is the birthday of a very different American popular music artist, one who is a contender for the greatest living American composer of popular song. Randall Stuart Newman, best known as Randy Newman, was born into a family of musicians (his uncle Alfred won nine Academy Awards for his film work) on November 28, 1943. He has been writing songs professionally since his late teens. In his early years he wrote songs for other artists, and in the last few decades he has become known primarily as a composer of movie soundtracks, including films like The Natural, Meet the Parents, Awakenings, Ragtime, Cars, Monsters Inc. and the Toy Story films. He was nominated for an Academy Award 15 times before finally winning one on his 16th nomination, and he now has 2 Oscars out of 20 nominations (as he said, "my percentages aren't great"). But perhaps his best work has appeared on his albums, which despite a relative lack of commercial success (the major exception being the song "Short People") have been critically well regarded.

While Randy Newman doesn't have the level of fame of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan, he is highly regarded by many critics and artists. Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks and many others have said they are fans of his work. Several artists have recorded entire albums of Newman's songs, most notably Harry Nilsson on Nilsson Sings Newman. Mark Knopfler cited Newman's songs as an inspiration for "Money for Nothing". Even John Cleese, who admitted almost complete ignorance about popular music (he couldn't even remember what band Mick Jagger was in), said he was a fan of Randy Newman. For my part, while I wouldn't say that every one of his songs hits the mark, many of them are truly brilliant. I would say his best album was 1972's Sail Away, with the two runners-up being 1974's Good Old Boys and 1999's Bad Love, and there are plenty of great songs scattered among his other albums, not to mention among the tracks he wrote for others but never sang himself. He has a very good sense of melody and is capable of composing music in a wide variety of genres, but what really sets him apart is his lyrics. While some of his songs are overly caustic or too subtle even for me, the best of them are really without parallel.

To cover all of Randy Newman's best songs, whether performed by Newman himself or by others, would take several CDs, and that's without taking into account different covers of the same song. I have made several different compilations of Newman's work in the past, and rather than take the time to come up with a new list of songs, I am simply attaching one of these, including the original liner notes that went with it. There are a few good songs that I didn't yet have when I made this list, including many that appear on the compilations On Vine Street: The Early Songs of Randy Newman and Bless You California: More Early Songs of Randy Newman, and I should also point out that Newman himself did great versions of several of the songs on the first disc, such as "Sail Away". Perhaps for his 70th birthday, I'll put together a newer, more comprehensive compilation. For now, this one provides a good sampling of his work.

CD 1
1 I Think It's Going To Rain Today Judy Collins (1966)
2 I've Been Wrong Before Cilla Black (1965)
3 Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear Alan Price (1967)
4 The Debutante's Ball Harpers Bizarre (1967)
5 Wait Till Next Year Ricky Nelson (1968)
6 Just One Smile Blood Sweat & Tears (1968)
7 Vine Street Harry Nilsson (1970)
8 Snow Claudine Longet (1968)
9 I Don't Want To Hear It Anymore Dusty Springfield (1969)
10 Mama Told Me (Not To Come) Three Dog Night (1970)
11 The Beehive State The Doobie Brothers (1971)
12 I'll Be Home Barbra Streisand (1971)
13 Sail Away Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee with Arlo Guthrie (1973)
14 Guilty Bonnie Raitt (1973)
15 You Can Leave Your Hat On Etta James (1973)
16 Living Without You Manfred Mann's Earth Band (1971)
17 My Old Kentucky Home Johnny Cash (1975)
18 Love Story Liza Minnelli
19 I Wonder Why Ella Fitzgerald (1969)
20 Have You Seen My Baby Ringo Starr (1973)
21 Old Man Art Garfunkel (1973)
22 Baltimore Nina Simone (1978)
23 Louisiana 1927 Aaron Neville (1991)
24 Feels Like Home Linda Ronstadt with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris (1995)
25 Every Time It Rains Joe Cocker (2002)

CD 2
1 Dixie Flyer Randy Newman
2 New Orleans Wins The War Randy Newman
3 Davy The Fat Boy Randy Newman
4 Political Science Randy Newman
5 Burn On Randy Newman
6 God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind) Randy Newman
7 Rednecks Randy Newman
8 Marie Randy Newman
9 Short People Randy Newman
10 I Love L.A. Randy Newman
11 I'm Different Randy Newman
12 Song For The Dead Randy Newman
13 It's Money That Matters Randy Newman
14 My Country Randy Newman
15 I'm Dead (But I Don't Know It) Randy Newman
16 The Great Nations of Europe Randy Newman
17 The Natural (Main Theme)
18 The Ballad Of The Three Amigos Steve Martin, Martin Short & Chevy Chase
19 Blue Shadows On The Trail Randy Newman
20 I Love to See You Smile Randy Newman
21 You've Got A Friend In Me Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett
22 If I Didn't Have You John Goodman and Billy Crystal (2001)
23 Lonely At The Top Randy Newman

This pair of CDs is intended to serve as a introduction to the work of Randy Newman, as well as a distillation of his very best material. The first CD features songs performed by other singers. In some cases these songs were originally written for these or other artists, and in others the artists were covering songs which Newman himself had released previously. Narrowing down the song selection to a single disc was a difficult task in more ways than one, as not only does Newman have many excellent songs which have been performed by others, but many of these songs have been covered by multiple artists, so not only did I have to decide between different songs, but also between different versions of the same song. To some degree, my choices were influenced by a desire to avoid to much repetition between this compilation and the one I did a few years ago. This factor was at least partially responsible for my inclusion of Claudine Longet's performance of "Snow" over Harry Nilsson's "Dayton Ohio 1903", for example, or my choice of Etta James' version of "You Can Leave Your Hat On" rather than the more familiar Joe Cocker version. However, for the most part I simply tried to pick the best (or most interesting) versions of the best songs, whether or not I had included them in the previous set. Even in the cases mentioned above, I felt that the ones I used were as good as the alternate choices, otherwise I wouldn't have included them.

Having narrowed down the choices to the best versions of Newman's best songs, the final result is, in my opinion, a brilliant set of songs. In terms of both music and lyrics, these songs are among the best around. Whether it's the tortured melancholy of "I Think It's Going To Rain Today", the tongue-in-cheek humor of "Wait Till Next Year" or "My Old Kentucky Home", or the dreamy nostalgia of "Feels Like Home", not to mention classic compositions like "Sail Away", "Mama Told Me (Not To Come)" and "Guilty", these songs are a perfect match of words and melodies. It's not hard to see why some people have compared Newman to Cole Porter. Whatever you think of that comparison, I strongly recommend that you listen closely to Newman's lyrics. Even many of his songs which might initially sound more conventional have little neat little twists. Good examples include "I've Been Wrong Before" ("You seem all that I've been waiting for, but then I've been wrong before") and "Just One Smile" (I detect a touch of irony in lines like "A little dream to build my world upon"). The interpreters are a pretty impressive group, including artists like Etta James, Art Garfunkel, Dusty Springfield, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Aaron Neville, Ella Fitzgerald, Ricky Nelson, The Doobie Brothers, Barbra Streisand, Bonnie Raitt, and Johnny Cash. Even so, it's a bit of a shame that you don't get to hear many of the other interesting versions of Newman's songs, like Tom Jones' cover of "You Can Leave Your Hat On" from the movie The Full Monty, UB40's version of "I Think It's Going To Rain Today", Marcia Ball's recording of "Louisiana 1927", Scooter and Fozzie's performance of "Simon Smith And His Amazing Dancing Bear" from the Muppet Show, The Blues Brothers' (more specifically, John Belushi's) eerily ironic live cover of "Guilty", or Cher & Carol Burnett's duet of "Lonely At The Top" from the Carole Burnette Show, including their own lyrical additions (such as "I hear you're on your eighth divorce"). But perhaps I can do another CD for those who are interested in hearing more.

The second CD primarily features Newman's own recordings of songs which – with a few exceptions like the abovementioned "Lonely At The Top" – have not been covered by other artists. In some cases this is because the tunes are more personal (the first two tracks), or perhaps because they are relatively recent (tracks fourteen to sixteen), but in many cases because Newman's wit is so caustic that few others would have the nerve to sing the songs ("Davy The Fat Boy", "Rednecks", "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)" – actually the last one has been covered a few times, most notably by Etta James). The sharp wit of these tracks, combined with Newman's less-than-perfect vocals, means that these songs take a little more getting used to than those on the first disc. Once you do, however, you see that these songs are just as brilliant, with Newman's attacks on racism ("Rednecks", "Short People"), pollution ("Burn On"), jingoism ("Political Science", "Song For The Dead"), TV culture ("My Country"), over-the-hill rock singers ("I'm Dead") and consumerism ("It's Money That Matters") hitting their targets spot on. The remainder of the second CD features some of Newman's soundtrack work from movies like The Natural, The Three Amigos, Toy Story, and Monsters, Inc. and concludes with a live performance of "Lonely At The Top", another ironic tune which seemed a good way to wrap things up.

James Marshall Hendrix, aka Jimi Hendrix

This week is the 70th anniversary of the birth of James Marshall Hendrix, who was born November 27, 1942 as Johnny Allen Hendrix and performed under the name Jimi Hendrix. Despite a relatively brief career, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential musicians of all time, with his innovative use of the electric guitar having a major impact not only on rock and pop music but even genres such as jazz. He began as a journeyman musician, playing backup to a variety of soul and R&B artists, including Little Richard and the Isley Brothers. His most notable early session recording was the Isley Brothers’ “Testify”, on which Hendrix’s guitar is quite prominent. Chas Chandler, formerly of the Animals, met Hendrix in New York and brought him to London, where he formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience with bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell and soon shot to fame in the UK with the singles “Hey Joe” and “Purple Haze” and numerous live performances. Popularity in his native US came following his performance in the summer of 1967 at the Monterey Pop Festival, to which he had been recommended by Paul McCartney. After a whirlwind career which produced three studio albums, a live album, and many additional unfinished recordings, he died on September 18, 1970 in London, apparently of drug-related causes, though some of the details are unclear. His legend has if anything only grown since his death, though it seems to impossible to imagine him as a seventy-year-old man (harder even than imagining John Lennon at 72), which is what he would be in a few days if he were still alive.

Much has been written about Hendrix and his influence on rock, and I don’t intend to repeat all of it here. Suffice it to say, what he does on the guitar still sounds impressive today, and it must have been even more startling at the time, since no one else had done anything like it. It’s no surprise that even musicians like Miles Davis were influenced by him. Though his reputation is mainly based on his guitar playing, he was also a good songwriter and arranger. While not everything he wrote was compositionally brilliant, some songs being little more than vehicles for his guitar playing, quite a few of his songs are excellent piece of work in their own right, so that they sound good even when performed by artists who don’t have Hendrix’s ability on the guitar. His songs ranged from blues to spacey psychedelic rock, and some of them are among the best of their genres. Hendrix was also a noted interpreter of songs written by others, with “Hey Joe” and “All Along the Watchtower” being just two of the best known examples.

The following is a list of twenty-two of Hendrix’s best songs. I am not as thoroughly familiar with Hendrix’s material as I am with that of some other artists, even excluding the vast number of posthumous and unofficial releases, so I have no doubt neglected a few worthy tracks. All of these selections come from the CD versions of the three studio albums released in Hendrix’s lifetime, Are You Experienced? (1967), Axis: Bold As Love (1967), and Electric Ladyland (1968), plus the posthumous album First Rays of the New Rising Sun, which represents the official attempt at assembling the album Hendrix was working on at his death. While there are a number of significant Hendrix recordings that don’t appear on these albums (such as his live rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner”), they do cover most of his best material – the first CD also includes tracks from Hendrix’s early singles that didn’t appear on the original album release. Even on these CDs there are good songs that I didn’t include on the list. For a fuller understanding of Hendrix’s legacy, it’s best to listen to the full albums, as well as check out some of his most notable live performances.

The Best of Jimi Hendrix
(All songs by Jimi Hendrix except where otherwise noted)
Purple Haze
Hey Joe (Billy Roberts)
Foxy Lady
The Wind Cries Mary
Highway Chile
Manic Depression
Red House
Third Stone from the Sun
Up From the Skies
Spanish Castle Magic
Little Wing
Castles Made of Sand
Crosstown Traffic
Voodoo Chile
The Burning of the Midnight Lamp
1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)
All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Angel
Freedom
Room Full of Mirrors
Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)

The 72nd Anniversary of the Birth of John Lennon

John Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980) was the founder of a Liverpool skiffle band called the Quarrymen, which, following membership changes that included the addition of fellow Liverpool teens Paul McCartney and George Harrison and a series of name changes, became the Beatles. The Beatles, of course, following the addition of Ringo Starr on drums, went on to conquer the world and become the most successful popular music group ever, both artistically and commercially. Lennon would be 72 years old if he were alive today. Since he isn’t, his public image is in certain senses fixed; for instance, the photos of him that are most frequently seen are from the 1960s (when he was in his 20s), the 1970s (when he was in his 30s) or, slightly less commonly, from the last year of his life, around the time he turned 40. In other ways, his image continues to evolve – but, as with other celebrities who have died, without being influenced for better or worse by anything he himself does.

As the founder of the group, John was commonly seen as the leader of the Beatles, especially in their early years. In many senses, this was the truth; in interviews, for instance, while all of them made clever remarks, John usually had the sharpest wit and commonly acted as the spokesman for the group as a whole. Within the band, the others also tended to follow John’s lead. Musically, Paul McCartney very quickly, if not from the very beginning of their recording career, became as much of a leader as John, and in the group’s later years, Paul clearly took charge in the studio. But in other ways, John remained the group’s spiritual leader. If, for instance, he actively opposed something Paul wanted to do rather than just apathetically going along, it was not likely to happen. Likewise, if he really wanted to do something, the others would generally go along.

I argued in my article on Paul McCartney that Paul contributed at least as much to the Beatles as John did, and so should be held in equal regard. This does not diminish John’s importance, however. Paul was (and arguably still is) a musical genius, but so was John. In many ways, they complemented each other perfectly. Of course, due to their background, they has a lot of the same taste in music (early rock and roll, Motown, etc.) and likewise shared a natural, untutored talent for composition. But in other ways they were quite different. The stereotype that Paul wrote melodic ballads and John wrote straight-ahead rock and roll is exaggerated, as Paul wrote plenty of harder-edged tunes and John wrote some lovely ballads, but like most stereotypes it had some basis in reality. Paul had much more of an interest in music hall and other pre-rock styles, as is seen from songs like “Honey Pie”, whereas John at best tolerated such detours. Lyrically, John often had a cynical and caustic edge, whereas Paul was usually sunny and optimistic. This difference was most obvious in later years, but it was clear from the beginning: for example, it’s hard to imagine Paul writing songs like “I’m a Loser” or “Help”, or John writing a song like “I’ll Follow the Sun”. These opposing or rather complementary ways of looking at things can even be seen in songs they wrote together, like “We Can Work It Out” or “Getting Better”, as John and Paul themselves observed in their comments on these songs.

I noted in my previous article that while John wrote many of the most cutting edge, experimental songs the group put out, Paul often played an important, even vital role in arranging and producing them. But for Paul to have an opportunity to experiment with tape loops on “Tomorrow Never Knows” or an orchestra going crazy on “A Day in the Life”, or have a chance to play an otherworldly Mellotron intro on “Strawberry Fields Forever”, John had to write those songs in the first place (or most of the song in the case of “A Day in the Life”). While the Beatles wouldn’t have been the great band they were without Paul’s contributions, John was just as indispensable (it can reasonably be argued that George and Ringo were indispensable as well, but in terms of songwriting, John and Paul were clearly the key to the group’s artistic greatness). The songs referred to above are not only among the most innovative the Beatles recorded, but among the best in popular music history, and the world would be a much poorer place without any of them, not to mention “Help”, “Norwegian Wood”, “I Am the Walrus”, “Come Together” and many others that John wrote.

John’s solo career got off to a great start with several great singles like “Give Peace a Chance”, “Cold Turkey” and “Instant Karma” and the brilliant John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970). The latter album was filled with stark, emotional tracks like “Mother”, “God”, “Love”, “I Found Out” and “Working Class Heroes”. While it was a dramatic departure from the recordings made by the Beatles, it is almost universally well-regarded and is seen by many (including me) as John’s best solo album. His only other solo album to sometimes figure in top album lists is his second, Imagine (1971), due to not only the title track, which is by far the best known Lennon solo song (with only “Give Peace a Chance” being almost as widely heard), but other solid efforts like “Jealous Guy”, “Gimme Some Truth” and “It’s So Hard” (it also contains “How Do You Sleep”, an attack on Paul that is wrongly taken to represent how John felt about his former partner in the post-Beatles era – in fact it represented the nadir of their relationship). His other solo albums, Some Time in New York City (1972), Mind Games (1973), Walls and Bridges (1974), the oldies album Rock 'n' Roll (1975), Double Fantasy (1980) and the posthumous Milk and Honey (1984) – the last two and the first of these being partly made up of songs by his wife Yoko Ono – are considered something more of a mixed bag. Nowadays most critics view them mostly positively (except Some Time in New York City, which many regard as overly strident in tone), but they are generally held to have a fair number of mediocre songs, though opinions vary as to which are the good ones and which the mediocre ones. I haven’t listened to some of these albums all the way through more than a few times, since I don’t have copies of all of them, but my general impression is that they aren’t as consistent as his first two. However, they do all have at least a few good and even great songs, like “Mind Games”, “#9 Dream”, “(Just Like) Starting Over”, “Watching The Wheels” and “Nobody Told Me”.

Since he was murdered by a deranged fan just as he was beginning a comeback following a long sabbatical from music, John Lennon has been almost deified by many music fans. His idealism, his witty cynicism, and his (sometimes brutal) honesty all played a major role in making him the hip people’s favorite Beatle, but being seen as a martyr had at least as much to do with it as any of his real virtues, just as John F. Kennedy is generally ranked as one of the greatest presidents in polls of ordinary Americans more because he was assassinated than for any actual accomplishments. John’s death has resulted in a number of distortions in the public view of him. One is his relationship with Paul after the Beatles, which was much better than commonly believed; despite a period of hostility, they later hung out together and even played some music together. Another is his relationship with Yoko, which according to many who knew them was far from perfect. Also, despite his idealism, John could be inconsistent and didn’t always practice what he preached. In terms of music, there has been a tendency to consider John the true source of the Beatles’ greatness. Since this deification of John comes at the expense of the other Beatles and particularly Paul, I have many problems with it, as do others. Peter Gabriel, for example, said in a letter to the editors of The Lennon Companion: “Although I was and I am a big Lennon fan, I feel the canonisation of this particular hero of mine has overlooked the formative roles of the other Beatles, particularly Paul and George, and I am a little concerned that your project may give the gloss and blessings of the arts establishment to a one-sided memory.” It is hard for Paul to compete with a dead man for critical acclaim, but an objective look at their work with the Beatles – and their solo work as well – shows them to be equally deserving of admiration. But even if John should not be placed more highly than Paul, he certainly ranks alongside him as one of the most important figures in 20th century popular music. His songs, his wit, and his idealism were and still are an inspiration to countless people, and will doubtless continue to be for a long time to come.

Below I have listed 50 of John Lennon’s best songs with the Beatles. While I haven’t included songs like “She Loves You” that were written more or less equally by John and Paul, I have included a few that Paul made a substantial contribution to, most notably “A Day in the Life”, where Paul not only wrote the middle section but the “I’d love to turn you on” line. There is also some dispute regarding the authorship of “In My Life”; while everyone agrees that John wrote all the lyrics, Paul says he wrote the melody, whereas John said Paul only helped with the middle eight. Since it’s impossible to verify either account (unlike in the case of “Eleanor Rigby”, John and Paul seem to have been the only ones present for the writing of “In My Life”), I have assumed it was mainly John’s, though Paul certainly helped on the melody. I didn’t try to make a list of John’s best solo songs; a few of the best are mentioned above, but a full list will have to wait for a future article.

John Lennon with the Beatles
Please Please Me
It Won’t Be Long
Not a Second Time
This Boy
A Hard Day’s Night
I Should Have Known Better
If I Fell
You Can’t Do That
I Feel Fine
No Reply
I’m a Loser
Help
You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
Ticket to Ride
You’re Going to Lose That Girl
Day Tripper (Lyrics and Music co-written by Paul McCartney)
Norwegian Wood (Lyrics co-written by Paul McCartney)
Nowhere Man
In My Life (Music co-written by Paul McCartney)
Girl
Rain
I’m Only Sleeping
She Said She Said
And Your Bird Can Sing
Tomorrow Never Knows
Strawberry Fields Forever
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (Lyrics co-written by Paul McCartney)
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
A Day in the Life (Lyrics and Music co-written by Paul McCartney)
All You Need is Love
I Am the Walrus
Revolution
Dear Prudence
Glass Onion
Happiness Is a Warm Gun
I’m So Tired
Julia
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
Yer Blues
Good Night
Don’t Let Me Down
Hey Bulldog
The Ballad of John and Yoko
Come Together
I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
Because
Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam
Across the Universe
Free as a Bird (Lyrics and Music co-written by McCartney/Harrison/Starkey)
Real Love