Pity the poor music fan who fell in love with Vashti Bunyan's debut album, Just Another Diamond Day, upon its release in December of 1970. Surely they were left pining for a followup that wouldn't arrive for more than three decades. Bunyan's re-emergence in the first half of this decade provided one of the most surprising music-biz developments in recent memory. Hers is a heartwarming tale, too, because who doesn't want to believe that great music is always destined to be discovered, if not today then sometime in the years ahead? The London-born Bunyan [...]
By 1974, The Chi-Lites (pronounced Shy-Lights) were two years removed from their No. 1 single, Oh Girl, and starting to splinter. The Chicago-based harmony group had peaked commercially but they were still producing some magnificent records, like this one. There Will Never Be Any Peace (Until God is Seated at the Conference Table) was written by Chi-Lites main man Eugene Record and his semi-regular collaborator (and first wife) Barbara Acklin, a partnership previously responsible for the group's Have You Seen Her (top-5 in 1971) and Stoned Out Of My Mind (top-30 in 1973), as well as Acklin's 1969 [...]
Today I break from the usual Bongo Jazz format to present a previously unpublished interview with Colin Moulding, the co-founder of one of my favourite bands, XTC. I chatted with Colin in May of 2000, right after the release of XTC's Wasp Star: Apple Venus Vol. 2 which, sadly, now appears to be the band's swansong. A little background: XTC — singer-guitarist Andy Partridge, singer-bassist Moulding, and multi-instrumentalist Dave Gregory — went on 'strike' following the release of their 10th studio album, 1992's Nonsuch, in an attempt to extricate themselves from a less-than-lucrative contract with Virgin Records. The [...]
Donna Summer is best known as the undisputed Queen of Disco during the latter half of the 1970s. Which is true, of course, but the work she and producer Giorgio Moroder created between 1977 and 1979 transcended disco and provided the template for all subsequent acts that built dance music with synthesizers and sequencers. Listen to New Order or LCD Soundsystem and you'll hear echoes of Summer and Moroder. Sometimes you'll hear more than echoes. I Feel Love, Summer and Moroder's mesmerizing 1977 single, sounded like a transmission from the future and, in a way, it [...]
Lou Reed and Iggy Pop are the popular choices but there are countless other artists who've been called The Godfather of Punk. But I've yet to hear anybody called the Godfather of New Wave, punk's arty, herky-jerky cousin. The Elastik Band certainly deserve a nomination, if not an acclamation, for its awesomely odd 1967 single, Spazz. The five-piece formed in Belmont, Calif., just outside of San Francisco, in 1965. Spazz was just the group's second single and, despite the year and place of its conception, the song is hardly a product of Summer of Love [...]
Soft Cell's Tainted Love is one of the most successful and well-known pop songs of all-time, hitting the top spot in 18 countries and remaining on the U.S. singles charts for a record-breaking 43 weeks. No wonder the song is synonymous with the British electro-sleaze duo. But it's not a Soft Cell original. The song was written by Ed Cobb (also the author of Brenda Holloway's Every Little Bit Hurts) and originally recorded in 1964 by Gloria Jones, who was born in Longview, Tex., in 1938 but raised in Los Angeles since the age of 2. [...]
Mystery is good. For instance, I was totally sucked in by the trailer to Cloverfield because it offered few, if any, clues about what was destroying Manhattan. The unknown was tantalizing and unnerving. But intrigue curdled into disinterest when reviews revealed The Big Apple was being stomped by Michael Vick's wet dream: a violent, oversized pitbull that spawns more often than the Spears girls. Yawn. Which, naturally, brings me to Joy Zipper. (At this point, just nod and smile as if the preceding sentence wasn't a shameless non sequitur.) In the summer of 2005, I must [...]
I recently read The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, a non-practising Jew who decided to spend an entire year following the Bible as literally as possible. I bought the book purely on the premise and was pleasantly surprised Jacobs refrained from simply poking fun at the many strange and often contradictory laws found in the Scriptures. Instead, when confused about Biblical law — 'an eye for an eye' versus 'turn the other cheek,' for instance — Jacobs seeks guidance from his assembled team of spiritual/theological guides. Their insights are [...]
Bongo Jazz A Speciality is intended to be a rather free-form blog devoted to all styles of popular music but, starting today, I add a little structure with Sunday Soul, devoted to classic R&B and reggae/dub sides, mostly from the '50s, '60s and '70s. Let's start with James Carr's outstanding version of the Bee Gees' To Love Somebody. Barry and Robin Gibb wrote the song in 1967 specifically for Otis Redding; alas, Stax/Volt's deep soul supremo was killed in a Dec. 26 plane crash before recording the track. The tragedy didn't stop To Be Somebody [...]
A little pop music trivia for you: Other than Bob Dylan and The Beatles themselves, who's the only other pop singer depicted on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? The answer is Bronx-born Dion Francis DiMucci, better known as simply Dion, who is entering his 51th year (!) as a recording artist. He's as active as ever, having released five albums this decade including the back-to-back triumphs Bronx in Blue (2006) and Son of Skip James (2007). But today I want to write about 1968 B-side Daddy Rollin' (In Your Arms), a once-hidden gem in [...]
Who recorded the best song titled My Girl? The Temptations? Madness? Chilliwack, anyone? Anyone? For my money, the correct answer is Brazil's Os Mutantes, whose A Minha Menina (My Girl in Portugese) is a joyous blast of samba psychedelia that's pretty much guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Even if you don't know a word of Portugese, you might assume from the spirit of the record that the song is about the first flush of love ... and you'd be right. A [...]
Fans attending a Carbon/Silicon show last Friday in London were in for a treat, as singer-guitarist Mick Jones invited a special guest onstage during the encores: former Clash bandmate Nicky (Topper) Headon. Carbon/Silicon, with Topper behind the drums, played Clash favourites Train in Vain and Should I Stay or Should I Go. The two hadn't performed together onstage in 25 years, when Headon was ousted from the Clash (due to his heroin addiction) following the sessions for the band's Combat Rock album. Jones, himself, was kicked out of the Clash a year later and, for a time in [...]
According to rock lore, Jack Lee knew he had written an enduring classic that would catapult his L.A.-based power-pop trio, The Nerves, to stardom as soon as he finished writing Hanging On The Telephone. If this story is true, he was only half right. Hanging on the Telephone appeared on The Nerves' self-titled, self-released 1976 EP and, well, neither fame nor fortune ensued. By 1978, the band had split, with Lee going solo, bassist Peter Case forming the Plimsouls and drummer Paul Collins establishing The Beat (and forcing a certain Birmingham ska group to change its name to [...]
Imagine if John Lennon cannibalized his own band's music and sound bites to create 'White Album' sonic collage Revolution 9. Well, that's kind of what San Francisco experimentalists The Residents did on Beyond The Valley of a Day in the Life, a mind-blowing 1977 single that sampled and reconfigured Beatles music to haunting effect. (A year earlier, The Residents had done something similar, deconstructing pop hits of the '50s and '60s, on their Third Reich and Roll album.) The track starts with the Beatles' most famous ending and features a disembodied Lennon repeating "I don't believe in [...]
Here's one of the greatest Brian Wilson songs you won't find on a Beach Boys record. In 1965, Glen Campbell was still a few years away from recording Jimmy Webb-penned classics By The Time I Get To Phoenix, Galveston and Wichita Lineman (and an entire decade away from Rhinestone Cowboy). He was a 29-year-old session musician whose own solo career had failed to gain any traction. Enter Wilson, who wanted to give Campbell a "present" for filling in for him during a recent Beach Boys tour. Guess I'm Dumb, originally slated for the Beach Boys Today! album, [...]
Bongo Jazz A Speciality
[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
Big Boi & Theophilus London (feat. TRE LUCE) - 'She Said OK'
