[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]….I wanted to call my next album, whenever I made it, Surviving In A Ruthless World. I wanted to call it that. Before we even went into the studio, “The next album I do I’m gonna call Surviving in a Ruthless World”. But something was holding me back from it, because for some reason… somebody pointed out to me that the last bunch of albums that I made all started with the letter S. And I’d say, “Is that right?” There must be a story or something. I didn’t want to do another one beginning with S just f for superstitious reasons. I didn’t want to get bogged down in the letter S whatever the letter S stands for. And this Infidels came out, just came into my head one day, I guess. This was after we had that album done that it just came in my head that this is the right title for this album. I mean, I don’t know any more about it than anybody else really. I did it. I did the album, and I call it that, but what it means is for other people to interpret, you know, if it means something to them. Infidels is a word that’s in the dictionary and whoever it applies to… to everybody on the album, every character. Maybe it’s all about infidels.
~Bob Dylan (to Kurt Loder in March 1984)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]
“…Tom Petty and his bar band defrilled classic rock: In 1979, he filed for bankruptcy; then Torpedoes took off, mostly because “Here Comes My Girl” seemed to keep the promises those like Jagger et al., forgot they’d made. Perfectly produced by future music-industry megamogul Jimmy Iovine, Torpedoes gave bright jangling Sixties rock a sheen that made pretty much everything else on AOR radio seem lumpy and stiff, while Petty’s obvious authenticity kept the music from ever seeming calculated or overly”
– Rolling Stone
I got this album on vinyl in January 1980, it is still my favourite Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers album.
Damn the Torpedoes is the third studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released on October 19, 1979. It built on the commercial success and critical acclaim of his two previous albums and reached #2 on the Billboard album chart. The album went on to become certified Triple Platinum.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 313 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and 315 in a 2012 revised list. It is at 231 on the 2020 list from Rolling Stone magazine. It’s climbing!
Great documentary on Damn The Torpedoes in The Classic Album series , Part 1:
Oceanside ends the ride
With San Clemente commin up
And Sunday desperados slip by
And cruise with a dry buck
And the Orange drive-in, neon billing
And the theaters filling to the brim
With Slave Girls, Hot Spur, Bucket Full of Sin
– Tom Waits, Diamonds on my windshield
The Heart of Saturday Night is the second studio album by singer and songwriter Tom Waits, released on October 15, 1974 on Asylum Records.
It is a fantastic album!
(Looking for) The Heart of Saturday Night and San Diego Serenade, PBS soundstage in 1975:
22 February – 20 August 1969,EMI, Olympic and Trident Studios,London
Genre
Rock
Length
47:23
Label
Apple
Producer
George Martin
Abbey Road is the 11th studio album released by the English rock band The Beatles. It is their last recorded album, although Let It Be was the last album released before the band’s dissolution in 1970. Work on Abbey Road began in April 1969, and the album was released on 26 September 1969 in the United Kingdom, and 1 October 1969 in the United States.
Abbey Road is widely regarded as one of The Beatles’ most tightly constructed albums, although the band was barely operating as a functioning unit at the time. Despite the tensions within the band, Abbey Road was released to near universal acclaim and is considered to be one of the greatest albums of all time. In 2012, Abbey Road was voted 14th on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. In 2009, readers of the magazine also named Abbey Road the greatest Beatles album.
“I read things I didn’t know I’d done, It sounded like a lot of fun.” – Warren Zevon
“I write each song individually and each one calls for individual musicians, You sit around and wonder who can we get to play a Neil Young solo, and then you realize there`s a good chance you can get Neil himself.” – Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon fell off the wagon after the release of The Envoy, he waited five years before releasing an album, the pause seemed to have done him good, as Sentimental Hygiene (released 29. August 1987) was one of his strongest albums.
Sentimental Hygiene was my first Warren Zevon record, I have since gotten everything I could find by him and about him, official as well as “un-official” releases, vhs, dvds and books. Warren Zevon has been a favourite of mine since Sentimental Hygiene met my ears.
There are lots of guests on the album, Bob Dylan (harmonica on The Factory), David Lindley, Neil Young (lead guitar on the title track), Brian Setzer, Don Henley and George Clinton, but the main players here are Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry of R.E.M. (and Michael Stipe also guested on a song…I think). They provide Zevon with a very solid back-up band, he sounds fresh and invigorated through the whole record. Warren Zevon sounded more rock’n roll than in quite a while, and he was introduced to a new audience (me included).
Here Zevon describes how it was working with Bob Dylan (July 17, 1987 – Late Night with David Letterman and May 25, 2000 – BBC Radio 1):
This is a song that gets better and better and I really wonder what it could have been if they finished it. It is the song Watching Rainbows by The Beatles. Yes, there are still some unreleased gems out there.
Maybe we’ll see more of this “song” when Peter Jackson’s new documentary is released (Sadly set on hold until August 2021 du to the pandemic):
The Beatles: Get Back is an upcoming documentary film directed by Peter Jackson that covers the making of the Beatles’ 1970 album Let It Be, which had the working title of Get Back. The film draws from material originally captured in January 1969 by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for his 1970 documentary of the album. The Beatles: Get Back endeavours to recut Lindsay-Hogg’s film to show the friendly camaraderie that still existed between the Beatles, as well as to challenge longtime assertions that the project was entirely marked by ill-feeling.
Over 55 hours of footage and 140 hours of audio stemming from the original project were made available to Jackson’s team, and it will include the full 42-minute rooftop concert. In reference to the long-reported acrimony surrounding the original Get Back project, Jackson wrote in a press statement that he was “relieved to discover the reality is very different to the myth … Sure, there’s moments of drama – but none of the discord this project has long been associated with.”
Watching Rainbows is recorded on 14 January 1969 during the massive Get Back sessions at Twickenham Studios. It features John Lennon on lead vocal and electric piano, Paul McCartney on lead guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums. Bass guitar is absent from the song because Paul McCartney is playing George Harrison’s usual role as lead electric guitar.
Why was George absent? We’ll come to that, let us listen to the song first. Bare in mind that this is just as much a jam-session as a finished song, but we get a glimpse into what it could have been.
Watching Rainbows – The Beatles (1969) “complete” stereo version:
Watching Rainbows – The Beatles (1969) short “fan edit”:
George Harrison quit the band for a brief period starting on January 10th, 1969. At the time, The Beatles were practicing at the film studio, Twickenham, so that their rehearsals could be filmed. After a morning filed with verbal altercations between George and Paul, a quiet George Harrison eventually met up with the group and crew for lunch a bit late. Rather than joining them, he simply stated, “See you ’round the clubs” and disappeared.
The three remaining Beatles went back to the recording room not knowing what to do and unleashed an angry improvisational ruckus with John Lennon sarcastically leading the group to play The Who’s “A Quick One, While He’s Away.”
Days later, word got back to Harrison that Lennon had mentioned bringing in Eric Clapton as a replacement, which Lennon had probably said as a ploy to get George back rather than a real solution. After a five-hour meeting, Harrison rejoined the group on January 15th, 1969.
Unreleased – Watching Rainbows by The Beatles
