Psychozoic Hymnal 7 - Not 1
I suppose some people would like me to extend into the now‐thirty years after, but I’m not the person—stick to the plan. As extension, here is why not…
40’s
Louis Jordan
J.C. remarked, don’t know if the thought was his but I heard there, that the small‐group music of the WWII years came about because the big bands of the era, both Show and Jazz, became uneconomical. There are ways to go, chamber music and cocky soloing are two. Louis Jordan formed his group to exploit the possibility of more flexible timing. He came from a big‐band background and The Timpany Five used hi‐tech items like double basses and, later, electric guitar riffs to make polished pop. Moreover, he knew about blues as bounce from when jazz was closer, so gathered tracks from others while he wrote some of his own. He knew Country, and would even try on Latin styles. Writers like to credit him, but fun makes him hard to place. Nuts. Others leaned on the drums more, but nobody else had a compact group original intended as such, and it’s only the essence of drum‐into‐song that keeps this from Rock and Roll.
50’s
Muddy Waters
’fess up, ever seen Muddy Waters near rock… nope. There were early covers, but only one for real. So what makes for the claims, and plants him as J.C. roots? The bands. Muddy’s name fronted them, but they were bands, and mostly drummed. Which was an essential difference to the folk/sessioneering of other Chicago blues. The band sound was whittled to something close to Mississippi roadhouse, sometimes guitar over drums, difference being the electricity and the harmonica/vocal wails. Not rock, as it’s grinding open riff but refined and, as the man said, hard and you got to work at it. Opened the possibilities of a frill‐free band‐compact, with band variation and electric guitar drive before anyone else, and knowingly also. Excepting sonic attack, unlikely this was the influence claimed but it was creative groundwork, with the sociology worth considering.
Lonnie Donnegan
Lonnie Donnegan was part of the now archived but fondly remembered British Jazz movement, but went Louis Jordan, collating and composing songs as, y’know, entertainment. Which didn’t need to, but took a guitar and home‐made jazz (‘skiffle’) approach. He had a light, high voice which could sing good as the already‐old country styles he was dedicated to, and which he could twist into novelty. And a natural connection with the British roots of folk/country styles— ‘Cumberland Gap’. The result was home‐made, as‐good‐as‐anyone with unusual arrangements and frequent lunacy. As for the lunacy, from this distance you couldn’t split ‘Frankie and Johnny’ from some kind of punk. Not rock in performance, but stands, like the Johnny Cash group, as a personal take on tradition. Imagine hearing this on the radio—blues kowtowing aside, there’s simply no doubt this is where English rock started, and maybe a key reason why it is legend.
Carl Perkins
He and his brother had a drummer back in ’53—they were there with the Presley group. On his guitar he developed blues styles along with the country picking. Listen to recordings you hear his moves on guitar—bending notes in a blues style, muted picking, chromatic steps, off‐beats and more—he’d gathered a sack of rock‐tricks. Label owner Sam Phillips figured Carl Perkins could turn the listeners of country to rock… that and car crashes kept him from a working group, then he hooked with Nashville. You can argue the sound was in the air, he worked with who was about, but he never shaped, perhaps never needed to, what was natural to him. The cute songwriting, which he was excellent at, has made his common reputation unrepresentatively lightweight.
The Shadows
I’m not versed round these times, but in the late fifties I believe most American places had a small jazz or guitar band. Not so in England, likely a few clubs in the cities with some trad jazz or skiffle. From this emerged a small ‘Rock and Roll’ band, the Shadows, formed with a singer Harry Webb (later ‘Cliff Richard’). True to later Brit development The Shadows were polite, with clockwork rock and next to no roll. In fact, they often seemed to progress on the rithm, with the guitar a talky front. They foreshadowed another development also, as they sold their ability not only to back Harry Webb, but through film soundtracks and appearances, stage pantomimes, TV residences, song‐writing spin‐offs and more. They were very expert. Often credited with innovation in terms of mixing acoustic/electric guitars, and use of pitch arms, amplifier reverb (with pitch effects) and alternate guitars. They stand as having a rithm setup with interesting figures fronted by bold lead playing—which would try any tune that fit—within a comfortable group format.
60’s
Stax
A record label based in Memphis, America. In this case label means musical identity. They had a recording studio (an old movie theatre), a shop, and most important a house band with only a few alternative members who played together for the best of eight years. A singer would came to the studio, songs from anyplace, then the rithm section would figure moves. The singer and song slot into the house style—the horns, after a few nails into the beat, would slash comment, or sometimes an organ or piano would grind in the tension, while a guitar twanged to drive the song along. It was called R&B by writers, even by those at the company, but the bold form was at least a branch aside. That rithmic base into the song was solid rock, and rolled some—it wasn’t primary, but in the air. Other song and producer outfits can lay on their claims, or borrow sounds, but never grasp this. The setup unravelled on contracts, treatment of personnel, and sophistication. As true bands will.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
I’m not well read, never come across anything that speaks about those times. But, after The Beatles, the little groups of the period had realised that anything would pass. And the avants had been messing with long guitar, until they realized it was good for flipping your brick. Into this came and grew Creedence Clearwater Revival. A dense and inventive rithm section, very San Francisco or even ’60’s, but the group tightened up to three minute tracks, as the psych guitar started to go bluesy and sometimes acoustic. At the same time, though not the first, they moved into an old‐time songwriting that went original by firing from current topics. Bands could get away with a lot back then, so this went up big as pop. Reliable rock, a unique sound, not enough for musical construct, but no question one of the great rock‐based pop constructs.
The Rolling Stones
Muddle swamps the Rolling Stones, or maybe swamp is what they always were? Originally allied with a blues offshoot of British Jazz, their aim was electric blues from Chicago. At the time odd, their interests became wider as they developed a then‐modern song‐writing concern which had it’s moments, especially when progressive. Supported by production and pop moves, which sat awry from their murk. By the time they lost that, along with Brian Jones, they had developed into one of the only bands outside America that could play something like the Mule. While their drummer was a fence and rail jazz guy, and the singer drawled with drama‐class enunciation and dissipation. By the late seventies, they tightened into basic rock moves. Then hired director‐engineers. Joe Carducci, somewhere, mentioned that the lead guitarist rode too much on the rithm section. Swirls of influence drift in the swamp, pulling music here and there. Melody sinks and rises. It moves round like it might be rock, but for different reasons.
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan’s work has seeped into musical streams that were and are maybe still pop music. His initial stance as ‘folk singer’ was revealed by the electric move to be the work of an archivist with original takes. The so‐called ‘electric‐rock’ phase enabled, through rock music simultaneity, surreal musical constructions which had been only implicit in the folk pastiche. After that he pastiched further musics, so opened the way for numerous solo artistes to follow these whims. Most often these art‐soloists aim at the ‘authenticity’ of Bob Dylan’s ‘country’ move, though sometimes took on the surreality of the 1960’s work—Rod Stewart, Linda Ronstadt, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Jackson, John Lydon, Tori Amos and so forth. There’s a structural, if not aural, argument that the ‘electric’ phase was an opener for the David Bowie art‐show. Like David Bowie, Bob Dylan hooked into rock bands sometimes, but was never of it. All of it, one way or another, has adventure and pop heft, but rock it is not.
Moby Grape
Here is a band with multiple songwriters who created exceptional songs, though they could fall down on jokes, packed into three minutes. Moreover, the band, though they sometimes arranged clever, was hot and to purpose. This was proved, after the first album, by a jam doubled with Pepper affair. No doubt the management problems buckled them, but most commentary, including Robert Christgau (who can do better), is set on hectoring someone—the band/managers/fans—for blowing out the promo‐drive. Subsequent work shows the snappy rithm section (from San Francisco? No) and three guitar alternatives were no accident. Sharp as rock, the first album is undisputedly unmatched pop… if not unmatched as rock, it is outstanding in how the rock format can represent and inform other forms.