It was well into Wilson Pickett‘s illustrious singing career when he recorded a successful version of The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” that turned into a #16 pop hit. No surprise about the great ranking. Pair a talented vocalist with an excellent song and generally you will produce good music.
Wilson Pickett’s version of “Hey Jude” was recorded after Pickett moved on from Stax Records after Stax banned all outside production in 1965. Pickett left to go to Fame Studios in Alabama where he recorded the highest charting version of Chris Kenner/Cannibal & The Headhunters’ “Land of 1000 Dances.” The reason I put Cannibal & The Headhunters is because their addition of the famous “na, na, na, na” lyric (which was originally a mistake, the singer forgot the lyrics mid-song) was used by Wilson Pickett and was instrumental in making his version famous.
*Six Degrees of Your Ipod Moment*Cannibal & The Headhunters helped put Wilson Pickett on the charts in a big way. They were also the opening act on The Beatles’ Second American Tour. Cannibal to Beatles to Pickett?
Back to the article. Pickett left Fame and went to American Studios in Memphis in 1967. He worked recording numerous Bobby Womack songs. After returning to Fame in 1968/69 he recorded “Hey Jude” with a band that featured Duane Allman. How about that? Listen to his impact and the amazing passionate voice of Wilson Pickett on this awesome recording of a Great Cover.
Some bands just know how to have a good time on stage. They smile and laugh as they play their songs with passion and ease. They interact with the crowd, but, not excessively. “That would make listeners feel uncomfortable,” said my girlfriend Rebecca, who accompanied me to the show last night. Oh, and lest we not forget, some bands are composed of fantastic musicians who create compositions that can brighten a crowd and keep them in a state of euphoric joint singing for a solid two hours.
Last night, I went up to Ithaca and saw one of those bands. And, if there was one pervasive comment that was shared among those who attended the concert, it was most certainly one consistent with the conversation I had with my brother and his friends driving back to my brother’s Cornell dormitory after the show. Guster is awesome!
The State Theater is an intimate venue that served originally as a movie palace. Gothic and Renaissance architecture inspires the lavish interior adorned with medieval crests and a ceiling of constellations. It is somewhat dreamy, mystical even. It also provides solid acoustics. It was my first time at this venue. Our group ended up sitting in the balcony. There really isn’t a bad seat in the house. The stage is spacious and the members of Guster took advantage of the room, moving around freely while they played their hits.
The perennial college band that is Guster plays music that infuses a mix of fast-paced folk/pop with some unconventional inspirations, including a bongo set manned by the awesomely talented “Thundergod” Brian Rosenworcel. Guster can just as easily hit you with a wall of sound and make you want to get out of your seat and hop around, than it can sit you down with a slow bridge or song opening. The harmonies that Adam Gardner and Ryan Miller employ are fantastic. Here is the best way I can describe Guster. In any college you will run into several bands trying to do what Guster has done. But, creative, diverse, harmony-focused music is not as easy as Guster makes it seem on stage. So, these bands fizzle out and the lead singer/songwriter becomes a worried graduating senior (wait, are we still talking about Guster). Anyway, Guster never vanished. They are the constant in a countless field of evanescent college bands. Guster, though, has certainly transcended college. Most of their original fan base has probably settled down with kids. Guster certainly still attracts mostly college listeners, but, people do grow up and continue listening to music. Since they started in the early 90’s, the members of Guster have matured musically and this was evident yesterday night.
Picture I took at the Guster Concert Last Night.
How about we get to the concert. First, the opening act was awesome. I will be doing a profile on them in the upcoming future…so, as to not spoil it, I will not be talking about the opening act.
Guster opened up with the lyrics, “woke up today.” Crafty, Guster. “What You Wish For,” the classic Guster hit was followed by track four on the newly released album Easy Wonderful. “This Could All Be Yours,” is possibly the best song on the new album. Here, listen to it below.
The song is like new classic Guster. The bongos come back and we get harmony and elongated stretches of melodic noise. The lyrics are upbeat and the message is perfect. Keep making music like this Guster. The song is clean and mature. But, the rhythm is Guster of 8-10 years ago. It just works.
The concert continued with a few Guster favorites with a song off their new album mixed in. The crowds reaction when the opening chord and keyboard riff for “Satellite” was struck was just awesome. You could tell Ryan was having an awesome time (even though he and Adam were struck with a virus that they stated would hamper their performance, asking for crowd help singing on many songs. A clever ploy to get people singing your songs, I see. Seriously though, by the end of the show they looked exhausted. Well, Ryan did jump into the crowd during the encore. Well, I am getting ahead of myself aren’t I).
Perhaps the best one-two punch came next with songs eight and nine. “Come Downstairs and Say Hello” was welcomed by the arrival of Ryan’s instrument being slowly let down from the heavens. Seriously, it was lowered from the scaffolding. Anyway, it was perhaps Guster’s best song of the night. The slow beginning erupts into a fast-paced, energetic piece. Here is a great version:
The song was followed by “One Man Wrecking Machine,” the chorus of which is fantastically catchy. It was aided by the entire theater singing it right back at the band. I was impressed with how many people in the audience knew every word of every song. The rest of the set included a variety of old and new material. Guster did play “Demons” and “Barrel of a Gun,” easily the two biggest fan favorites of the show.
I was most impressed by the performance of “Either Way,” which Ryan prefaced with a choice. “I’m going to give you a choice on the next song, but I already know what you are going to pick,” he said. It was between the popular “Either Way” and “Ruby Falls,” good song, not as good as “Either Way.” The latter would have probably been easier on his strained vocal chords, affected by his virus, but, the crowd picked “Either Way” and Ryan sang the song excellently, holding out the falsetto with ease.
Yes, the concert ended with an encore where Ryan crowd surfed. This came during an impromptu performance of “Sweet Caroline” which was odd but well received. It was more like a collapse into the crowd. I don’t even think the band, fans, nor security guards even knew it was coming. Sitting in the balcony gave me a great look at surprised faces. Guster ended their 22-song set with a performance of “Manifest Destiny” (wrapping up every song Rebecca wanted to hear) and a rousing “Airport Song.”
Excellent show. They play their hearts out every time they go on stage and fans really do appreciate it. It’s exciting to see a band like Guster. Rarely do you experience a great band that is having just as much fun as the crowd is having. That is the charm of Guster.
I have probably exhausted every photo of Mr. Jimi Hendrix that Google images has to offer. But, I can’t help it. It is hard not to write about perhaps the greatest guitarist of all time. Well, in my opinion, he is the greatest. But, what’s the sense of sparking arguments. HE’S THE BEST!
But, seriously, Jimi has not been with us on the physical Earth realm (sounds like a cliche video game) for 40 years, but he still lives on as an indelible musical presence. He is a rare music immortal, a mark in the history books one could say. Well, I am saying it. I know two people agree with me.
Steve Roby and Brad Schreiber published Jimi Hendrix: From Southern Crossroads to Psychedelic London, the Untold Story of a Musical Genius in August of this year. The book is a magnificent read and it provides a well-written, entertaining look at one of music’s greatest. It is the essential inside look at Jimi Hendrix.
PopMatters was kind enough to post an excerpt from this wonderful book and I would like to share it with all of you.
One rainy night, Private Billy Cox and a friend, after seeing a John Wayne movie, waited for the downpour to ebb. Through an open win¬dow of Service Club 1, Cox heard a solo guitar played in a wildly unique manner. He later claimed it was as if Beethoven and John Lee Hooker had merged.
“It was something the human ear hadn’t heard,” Cox reported. “I said, ‘That’s incredible!’ And the guy I was with said, ‘Sounds like shit to me.’ I went in and introduced myself to him and said I played a little upright bass, and I checked out the Danelectro he was playing.”
Let me also give you all a good song for the road. I know this is a repeat, but, I am in the guitar mood. “Bridge of Sighs” by Robin Trower is an epic piece of music. A 10 minute live version is just heavenly.
Try to picture this. You are recording music in 1967. The Beatles just released a little album entitled Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Moby Grape, Jefferson Airplane and The Doors are setting the psychedelic scene on fire and Jimi Hendrix is pondering whether or not you are experienced (and setting his own guitar on fire). You cut an album to compete in one of the greatest years for music ever…and you don’t use a guitar!
Sure fire failure, right? Wrong. Utterly wrong. What you do get is a psychedelic record way before its time. A record that shattered preconceived notions of rock n’ roll and challenged listeners to understand its pulchritudinous and spatial splendor. And, like many great works of art, it was smothered by the popular music of the time and left to rot on the discount racks. But, it has been received well by recent reviewers and will now be featured as one of the most underrated albums of all time on the Music Court. It is the eponymous United States of America.
Straight out of LA, CA, US
The USA only released this one album that hit #181 on Billboard’s Top 200 in 1968. Afterwards, the band went their separate ways. Joe Byrd, the main electronic music man, went on to form his field hippies and go on creating psychedelic works. While it may not have looked like it at the time, the USA seriously quit while they were ahead of the psychedelic game.
The album was influential more for the band’s adroitness with the emerging electronic sound that was about to become pervasive in the 60’s music scene, rather than Byrd’s radical lyric that made the band name rather humorous). And, because the technology was obscenely expensive at the time, the band was left with whatever oscillators and other devices they could get their hands on. But, the sound that they produced. Wow.
Also, because Byrd was really into early American music (dixieland jazz and marches for example) he included clips of these pieces in USA’s elaborate compositions. Therefore, the listener is bombarded with a sound attack that combines old-time America mixed with the newer psychedelic sound and vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz’s freaky voice.
Just check out “The American Metaphysical Circus.”
The rap on USA at the time of this album’s release was that they were too mechanical. But, truthfully, they were just moving into a different realm of psychedelia. This was an experiment and it blew the top off of the conventions of an electronic sound.
Come see the Music Court on tour? No, not really. Sorry for getting your hopes up. But, I have finally finalized my own concert attendance schedule and that is pretty exciting. You may have received bits and pieces of this information over the past few weeks, but, now that it is officially down, I am going to list it below. This Fall I am getting back into my concert mood and seeing three exciting shows. First up, the quintessential college band.
Preview: I saw Guster in concert at the Beacon theater when I was a senior in high school. I am now a senior in college now, but I am still as excited as I was back then to see Guster now. Easy Wonderful will be released in a few days and the songs I have heard from the album all seem to be right up Guster’s musical alleyway. I expect a nice mix between old and new material. Plus, I am going with my girlfriend and my brother (both have never seen Guster before) so it will be awesome seeing how they react to the performance. Guster is excellent live. Excellent! This will be fun.
Celebrating?: The recent release of their new album Be My Thrill
Preview: Unlike the Guster concert, I am really not sure what to expect from the Weepies. I believe I will experience an intimate show where they run through a lot of their well-known old stuff. I presume I will hear the new album as well, but, since the Weepies do not tour frequently, I am looking to hear Weepies’ oldies. They better play “World Spins Madly On.”
Preview: And then comes Mr. Dylan. I saw him at Nassau Coliseum back when I was in High School and I expect to see a completely different show. That is one thing awesome about the tambourine man…he always changes up his songs. The man is on a tremendous streak of an insane amount of performances over the past 2o or so years and 2010 is no difference. I mean he is coming to Binghamton…again. That says it all. Can’t wait to see you, Bob.
It was well into Wilson Pickett‘s illustrious singing career when he recorded a successful version of The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” that turned into a #16 pop hit. No surprise about the great ranking. Pair a talented vocalist with an excellent song and generally you will produce good music.
The Music Court 