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C is for the Carpenters

It was the version of Superstar by an unknown singer named Bette Midler that caught Richard Carpenter’s attention.

Some of the albums I own that came out in 1971, the year I went to college, include Sticky Fingers – Rolling Stones; Pearl – Janis Joplin; Aqualung – Jethro Tull; What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye; Every Picture Tells a Story – Rod Stewart; Who’s Next – the Who; Santana (III); Led Zeppelin (IV); Hunky Dory – David Bowie. And, oh yeah, Carpenters, the eponymous third album put out by the sibling duo of Karen and Richard Carpenter.

Talk about uncool! These are the artists who took one of the Beatles’ hardest rockers, Ticket to Ride [LISTEN], and turned it into a ballad on their first album. (I rather liked it.) I loved Karen’s voice, though, and I thought they performed some lovely songs.

Side 1
The “tan album” begins with Rainy Days and Mondays [LISTEN], written by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams, which I swear radio DJs at the time referenced every time there was precipitation on the first day of the workweek. The Carpenters* had recorded the Nichols/Williams tune We’ve Only Just Begun [LISTEN] on their previous album. Both songs went to #2 on the US singles charts.

Richard Carpenter was a great arranger for himself and his sister, and a decent keyboard player, but often wrote drippy songs, with a person named Bettis, and, worse, sang them. Saturday at least was only eighty seconds long.

Let Me Be the One was yet another nice Nichols/Williams song.

(A Place To) Hideaway was a lovely song by someone named Randy Sparks

For All We Know [LISTEN] was another hit single, going to #3. It was written for the 1970 film Lovers and Other Strangers.

Side 2

Superstar [LISTEN], written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell, was originally recorded by Delaney and Bonnie in 1969. Then it was covered in 1970 in Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen Revue, with ex-Delaney and Bonnie singer Rita Coolidge as featured vocalist. But it was the version by a largely unknown singer named Bette Midler that caught Richard Carpenter’s attention. Their recording had the audacity of changing the line “And I can hardly wait to sleep with you again” to “And I can hardly wait to be with you again,” which solidified their white bread status among many. I thought it was a sage commercial move myself. Yet another #2 single.

Druscilla Penny [LISTEN], another Bettis- R. Carpenter song I hadn’t heard in years, yet remember instantly. Goofy song sung by Richard.

One Love [LISTEN] – a Bettis-R. Carpenter that was NOT goofy. Sung by Karen.

Bacharach/David Medley: Knowing When to Leave/Make It Easy on Yourself/(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me/I’ll Never Fall in Love Again/Walk on By/Do You Know the Way to San Jose – I was never a big fan of medleys, but they are great songs sung well. The idea actually came from Burt Bacharach a couple of years earlier, I learned. (Of course, their first hit was the Burt Bacharach/Hal David song (They Long to Be) Close to You [LISTEN], which had gone to #1

Sometimes. Written by Henry and Felice Mancini, it is a suitable ending.

They won their third Grammy, this time for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group for the Carpenters LP. They had previously won for Best New Artist, and Best Pop Performance by a Duo, Group, or Chorus, for Close to You in 1970. The quality of her singing on this album reportedly got Richard to suggest that Karen get from behind her beloved drum set and sing center stage in a live performance.

The Carpenters put out a half dozen more albums, with hits such as [LISTEN TO THEM ALL] Top of the World , the Sesame Street song Sing and Yesterday Once More, possibly my favorite of their songs.

This I did not recall: “Richard sought treatment for his addiction to quaaludes at a Topeka, Kansas, facility for six weeks starting in January 1979. He then decided to take the rest of the year off for relaxation and rehabilitation.” But Karen didn’t want to either stop singing or “seek help for her anorexia” Nervosa for a few years. When she did seek treatment a few years later, it caused a dizzying yo-yo weight gain and loss which ended up killing her on February 4, 1983.

The only good thing to come of her passing was a greater awareness of anorexia and also bulimia. Richard, among other things, continues to keep the flame for the music of the duo.

*Yes, I know the name of the group is Carpenters, not The Carpenters, so named, Richard once said, “After much thought, we decided to name the act ‘Carpenters’ (No ‘The’; we thought it sounded hipper without it, like Buffalo Springfield or Jefferson Airplane.)” But I always thought Carpenters sounded like woodworkers.

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

The Lydster, Part 118: shared songs

I have what I imagine is an annoying habit. Someone says something, and it often leads me to a song. Those references to music in my blogs are not an affectation, or looked up to be hip, it’s just THERE in my head.

The habit used to drive my dear late mother crazy when I was growing up, and I knew far fewer songs then. The Wife tolerates it, but The Daughter hated it. Or used to, until she started doing it herself.

The turning point involved a Subway commercial.

Periodically, the sandwich restaurant offers all their twelve inch sandwiches for five bucks each. Or as the maddeningly catchy repeated four bars go:
FIVE
FIVE DOLLAR
FIVE DOLLAR FOOTLONGS
It’s the minor key ending that’s the clincher.

The ad, in some variation has been around since 2008. WATCH THIS ONE, or several like it.

Not only do we sing it together, in harmony, no less, she’s now taken to coming up with new lyrics, such as:
SCHOOL
SCHOOL IS
SCHOOL IS SO HARD.

So I bug my daughter less than I used to. Is this, or is this not, a good thing?
***
A Motown medley my daughter and her classmates will be singing this month.

B is for the Bee Gees

The Bee Gees were worthy additions to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

When I was a teenager, my sister had this album Best of Bee Gees, with all of the early hits, such as I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You [LISTEN], To Love Somebody [LISTEN], and what I thought was their first hit, in 1967, New York Mining Disaster 1941 [LISTEN], plus a couple of B-sides, and this oddity called Spicks and Specks [LISTEN].

It was only later that I discovered that Barry Gibb (b. 1946), and his twin brothers, Maurice and Robin (b. 1949) had moved with their family, including baby brother Andy (b. 1958), from England to Australia in 1958, where they would achieve some musical achievements; Spicks and Specks went Top 10 in the Netherlands, the UK, and Australia, and went to #1 in New Zealand in 1966. Their return to the UK the next year led to true international stardom.

The brothers had even greater success in the early 1970s with their first #1 hit, How Do You Mend a Lonely Heart [LISTEN], and Lonely Days [WATCH], which it was rumored at the time featured John Lennon; it did not. But then the group then went into a commercial slump for a few years until the music went into a new direction: disco. Jive Talkin’ [LISTEN] (1975) and You Should Be Dancing [LISTEN] (1976) both went to #1, but that was just a foretaste of what was to come.

The Bee Gees were assigned to do the music for the movie Saturday Night Fever. They racked up three more #1 singles – How Deep Is Your Love, Stayin’ Alive [LISTEN], and Night Fever. Plus, they also wrote hits for Tavares – More Than a Woman – and Yvonne Elliman – If I Can’t Have You, which went to #1. I remember taking a lot of grief for owning a disco album, but LOTS of people owned this collection. In the US alone, it sold over 15 million copies. “The album stayed atop the album charts for 24 straight weeks from January to July 1978 and stayed on Billboard’s album charts for 120 weeks until March 1980.”

Their follow-up album, Spirits Have Flown, included three more #1 hits, but I never bought it, or indeed any of their subsequent music until I finally picked up a career retrospective. I only have their Sgt. Pepper movie soundtrack because it was given to me. Still, the Bee Gees were worthy additions to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Their HoF citation reads, “Only Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, and Paul McCartney have outsold the Bee Gees.”

Unfortunately, Andy Gibb, who also had a string of hits, mostly written and produced by his brothers, died in 1988 of heart failure at the age of 30. Maurice succumbed to cardiac arrest in 2003 at the age of 53, “while waiting to undergo surgery for a twisted intestine.” Robin, who was the lead vocalist for most of the earlier hits, died in 2012 at the age of 62 from liver and kidney failure.

Only Barry, the eldest, whose falsetto voice defined the later hits, survives, and he noted sadly that he was estranged from each of his brothers when they died. Barry, incidentally, has, as a songwriter, #1 songs in each decade from the 1960s through the 2000s, and is listed in the Guinness World Records “as the second most successful songwriter in history behind Paul McCartney.”

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

A is for Andrews Sisters

Patty left the group in 1954, which also caused a personal schism; her sisters learned about it by reading it in the newspapers.

Prelude: for this round of ABC Wednesday, I decided to do musical groups that featured family members. I actually found 24 groups, for all the letters except Q and U, though I did have to stretch some definitions. No Doobie Brothers, though.

Undoubtedly, I was inspired by writing about the Green Family Singers, and further when I watched The Sound of Music.
***
It may have been Bette Midler who introduced me to the music of the Andrews Sisters with her cover of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B in the early 1970s – LISTEN to a version by the Andrews. But in fact, I already owned some Andrews Sisters through Bing Crosby’s classic Christmas album, which featured Jingle Bells and Mele Kalikimaka [LISTEN], though I didn’t know the singers at the time, and I don’t recall if they were credited.

Fortunately, I have a friend named Fred Hembeck who is a fairly rabid Andrews Sisters fan, so now I actually have two albums of the classic tunes by Patty (the youngest, blonde), Maxene (middle sister, a brunette), and LaVerne (the eldest, the redhead). They were quite popular from the late 1930s on. “In the 1940s the sisters found themselves in high demand, and became the most profitable stage attraction in the entire nation, earning $20,000 a week. Aside from singing, the sisters were established radio personalities and made appearances in 17 Hollywood movies. During the mid 1940s the sisters released eight new singles, six of which became bestsellers. Some of the hits include Rum and Coca Cola [LISTEN] and ‘I’ll Be with You in Apple Blossom Time.'”

Patty left the group in 1954, which also caused a personal schism; her sisters learned about it by reading it in the newspapers. They got back together, “professionally and personally,” in 1956 with a newer sound that “did not gain popularity with the public, who preferred hearing old hits.”

Laverne died in 1968 from cancer at the age of 55. Patty and Maxene continued to perform, together, but usually apart, into the 1990s. “In 1995, while on vacation in Cape Cod, Maxene had a heart attack and died. She was 79.” Patty died in January 2013, a few weeks shy of her 95th birthday.

I find that I really enjoy listening to them, more now than in my callow youth.

LISTEN to:
Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, the song for which I probably know them best
I Can Dream, Can’t I, which went #1 in late 1949 or early 1950
Don’t Fence Me In, with Bing Crosby, which went to #1 in 1944

WATCH
A segment of the TV show What’s My Life (1959).
***

ABC Wednesday – Round 14

Jimmy Page is 70

I just ODed on Stairway to Heaven, I’m afraid. Still leaving it off the list would be an injustice.

ledzeppelin.kch — Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page

Noticed that, of the 18 folks inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame more than once, the list includes Crosby, Stills, Nash AND Young; three Beatles; and three guitarists for the Yardbirds: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page.

Since I never bought a Yardbirds album until after the group broke up, I wasn’t really familiar with Page until the group that evolved from the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, came out with its first album in 1969.

Here’s an interesting, and applicable, quote of Jimmy Page about what “he wanted Led Zeppelin to be, from the very beginning:
“‘I had a lot of ideas from my days with The Yardbirds. The Yardbirds allowed me to improvise a lot in live performance and I started building a textbook of ideas that I eventually used in Zeppelin. In addition to those ideas, I wanted to add acoustic textures. Ultimately, I wanted Zeppelin to be a marriage of blues, hard rock, and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses – a combination that had never been done before. Lots of light and shade in the music.”

And so it was.

I’ve already discussed my affection for, and irritation with, Zeppelin, especially Page and vocalist Robert Plant, so I guessed I’d list my 20 favorite songs by the group, not the best ones necessarily. Except…

Strange that my affection for songs by Led Zeppelin usually depends on what I’ve listened to most recently. Except for the #20 song, the ranking here is fairly arbitrary.

Links are to all songs, which WERE working at the time of compilation. Citations are to the albums I, II, III, IV, Physical Graffiti (PG), and Houses of the Holy (HotH)

20. Stairway to Heaven (IV) – yeah, I know that it has that building energy, a great Page guitar intro, it’s technically impressive. But I just ODed on it, I’m afraid. Still leaving it off the list would be an injustice. You would think it was released as a single, but oddly, only as a promo.

19. Houses of the Holy (PG). Strangely left off the Houses of the Holy album, it shows up on the next album. I find the beat seems to change on me. Something about the groove is infectious.

18. Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You (I) – starts off as a sweet song, actually, that reportedly is a paean to Joan Baez, who had recorded a version. Then moves to the more plaintive, driving sections. Back and forth – think I like the schizoid nature of the performance.

17. Celebration Day (III) – bluesy in an off-balanced manner.

16. Trampled Under Foot (PG) – lives on the funky bottom. This was released as a single and actually got to #38 in 1975.

15. Immigrant Song (III) – a slab of unrelenting metal that starts a generally more quiet and reflective album. Notably, it has no guitar solo, which allowed it to be released as a single and get up to #16 in early 1971.

14. Gallows Pole (III) – I knew this song first as performed by Leadbelly. Love the guitar, and the musical interlude.

13. Rock and Roll (IV) – actually a loud blues number, and often used as the band’s concert opener. Only got to #47 as a single in 1972.

12. The Ocean (HotH)- a great outlet for the bass/drum combo of John Paul Jones and John Bonham.

11. Black Dog (IV) – “Hey hey, mama, said the way you move, gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.” Went to #15 in early 1972.

10. In My Time of Dying (PG) – rather like putting church through the heavy metal grinder. At 11 minutes, their longest song

9. Whole Lotta Love (II) – a great hook, great vocals. Nicked a Willie Dixon song, which wasn’t uncommon for them. Tom Skulan of FantaCo used to describe the pronunciation of his last name from the second line of this song, “I’m gonna send ya back to schoolin'”. Their biggest single, it went to #4 in the beginning of 1970.

8. Communications Breakdown (I) – there is a guy named Lefty Brown who used to organize a mixed CD exchange. I started one of the discs with this song – this feels so urgent – followed by Barabajagal by Donovan, featuring Jeff Beck. I think they go well together.

7. The Battle of Evermore (IV) – a softer side of the group, with a mandolin (I think), which would have fit on the third album.

6. How Many More Times (I) – it’s a fascinating pastiche of rocking blues, which segues into some psychedelic thing. I remember my copy of the original LP listed the running time as 3:30, reportedly so that radio DJs would play it before realizing it was five minutes longer.

5. Kashmir (PG) – it has this exotic sound, peculiar meter, awash with strings and horns. I’ve seen this song on lists of the best LZ song, and it may well be.

4. What Is, and What Should Never Be (II) – like many of my favorite LZ songs, it changes moods, from contemplative to rocking.

3. Good Times, Bad Times (I) – the first song from the first album hooked me instantly. As a single in 1969, before the album was released, it got only to #80 on the charts.

2. Friends (III) – this is the second song on the album after Immigrant Song suggested that the group was going to have another album rather like the first two. Instead, they went into a more melodic direction which led to the album being their worst seller. But I always liked it a lot.

1. Four Sticks (IV) – the song drives about in hypnotic fashion, changing time signatures frequently, from 5/4 to 6/8 to who knows what. The lyrics are banal, but it’s the beat that hooked me.