March 30, 2016

Key to the Highway Fifth Wednesday     
3-30-2016                                                                  
Son Seals                                    1991, 1994
Slim Gaillard                              1937-1946
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So this is one of those fun shows for me, a fifth Wednesday of the month, which happens four times a year and it gives my alternating host and me the opportunity to get together and shoot the breeze as we alternate sets instead of weeks.  I don’t usually try to comment on Paul’s playlist but this show a lot of things caught my eye. 
I had considered putting in a set of Billy Boy Arnold, but since Paul included him in his set it seems I made a good decision in not doing so.  Let Me Love You Baby is likely my favorite Buddy Guy tune,, but what really put the smile on my face are the numbers from L.C. “Good Rockin’” Robinson and Lafayette “Thing” Thomas because they are from an album I used to have called Oakland Blues.  My recollection tells me that they were both guitarists who backed up each other’s vocal tracks.  Piano player on these selections was Dave Alexander, who changed his name to Omar Sharriff and actually held a Blues slot at KKUP before I got here.  I’m sure I still have the vinyl version but it got warped or for some similar reason is no longer playable.
As far as my two artists of the day, it is fortunate that I had one write-up already available and, since Ihave neither the time nor the inclination to put together my own essay, I will include the All Music post for the second.  Gaillard would fit in a timeline consistent with the Razzberry’s show The Swing Shift, which follows my normal show the second and fourth Wednesdays, while Seals is one of those Chicago singing guitar-slingers that I familiarized myself with when I first started at KKUP around 1990.  I got to see him perform at one of the San Jose State Fountain Blues Festivals.  Sons set combines selections taken from two of his early 90s albums, Living in the Danger Zone and Nothing But the Truth, while Gaillard’s sets come from the Proper Records 4CD set, Laughing in Rhythm.
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I’ve gotten into a lot of musicians I was totally unaware of in my twenty-five-plus years here at KKUP, and we are going to hear a good portion from one of my favorites today.  Slim Gaillard (1916-1991) was a guitar-playing small band leader who infused his music with a sense of humor not unlike his contemporary, Louis Jordan.  His recording career began in 1937 as vocalist for the Frankie Newton band, but shortly thereafter teamed up on guitar with bassist Slam Stewart, putting out their first record the next year as Slim and Slam.  The first sessions had the two musician\vocalists backed only by drums and piano, but within about six months they began adding horns, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Slim was born in January of 1916, either on the first or the fifth, and that is where the dubiousness of his stories just begins.  Detroit, Michigan is the most common listing as his birthplace, but some sources put it as Santa Clara, Cuba.  His father was a ship's steward, and one of Slim's tales is that, when he was twelve, his father's ship sailed off and left him on the Greek island of Crete, and that he survived on his own for six months without being able to speak the language before he made his way back home to Detroit.  He went on to become a boxer, light heavyweight champion of Michigan was the claim, and later the driver of a van that supposedly was used to smuggle liquor across the Canadian border.  Moving to New York in 1937, Gaillard made many appearances on the Major Bowes radio program, undergoing numerous name changes to allow more opportunities in these amateur contests.  Eventually, Slim acquired his own show singing and playing guitar.
Born Leroy Elliot Stewart in 1916, by the time Slam met Gaillard in 1937 he had a developed technique of humming an octave higher than the notes he was bowing on his bass.  In Slam's words, "He invited me to do a show with him.  It was the first time we had played together, but we fell into it with each other.  He played lead and I played rhythm bass and then one or two solos with my new singing and bowing style.  It was just the two of us going at it playing by ear, but disc jockey Martin Block was impressed and signed us up.  We decided then and there to team up and began looking for a name.  Seein' that I was slammin' around on the bass fiddle, and that word went nicely with Slim, Slam was produced. ...  I never did hear of another Slam."
Their first session was in January of 1938 and it produced what would become their signature song, The Flat Foot Floozie with the One Floy Joy, but the term Floozie was considered too controversial for Vocalion, so another session was done in February with the song's words and title changed to The Flat Foot Floogie.  As they searched for a publisher for the song, Slim tells us that Bud Green of Green Brothers and Knight told them, "'Ok, we'll publish it.  We'll give you two-fifty advance against royalties.'  I thought he was talking two dollars and fifty cents.  He wrote out a check for two hundred and fifty dollars.  I was running into walls looking at it all the way out."  The song charted for 17 weeks, reaching a high of second place, and was covered often n 1938, including by Benny Goodman, Wingy Manone, and the Mills Brothers, all of whom also charted with it.  The song became so popular that Gaillard said they "had to play Floogie a hundred times a night".
A few months later in August, they charted again with Tutti Frutti, the first of many food-based songs Slim would write, and it got as high as number three.  That same month, they were back in the studio with an alto sax added to the original band, and they came up with the nonsensical Laughin' in Rhythm as well as Vol Vist du Gaily Star, an early example of Slim creating  his own language.  November saw their last session of 1938 produce Buck Dance Rhythm featuring the feet of a tap dancer (possibly Slim) used as a solo instrument.  By the time of Gaillard's next session, Slam was spending more time playing with the Spirits of Rhythm than with Slim, so a whole new band was formed under the name Slim Gaillard and his Flat Foot Floogie Boys for the next few sessions.  Slam rejoined him for an April recording, but the release was still made with the newer band name.  He was back in the studio with Slim in August, 1940, and again in March of 1941, with the releases from that session listed with the even longer moniker having "Featuring Slam Stewart" added to the end.  In the summer, Slim relocated to California, and Slam joined him in Hollywood to record in July of 1941 and April of 1942, but that was to be the last session together as well as their last for the Okeh label, a Vocalion subsidiary.  1942 also marked Gaillard's film debut in the movie Helzapoppin', and later in the year he signed up for the United States Army Air Corps to serve as a bomber pilot while Slam returned to New York, where he became a highly-sought bass player, eventually forming his own trio.
1944 saw him back home in Hollywood, where he joined with bassist Bam Brown as the foundation of his Boogiereeneers, as well as smaller groups.  Slim became popular in Hollywood and earned a regular spot on Frank Sinatra's weekly radio show, and continued to appear in films like Star Spangled Rhythm, Almost Married, and Two Joes from Brooklyn, while acquiring the nickname "Dark Gable".  Although Gaillard had played vibraphone occasionally on earlier recordings, guitar was his main instrument, but in his early postwar recordings he was just as likely to be heard playing piano, and on Slim's Cement Boogie he might even be providing a harpsichord sound by slipping paper between the piano's strings. 
Slim's first recordings after his Army service were for Queen, the sister to Syd Nathan's King label, but he received many other independent offers as well.  In 1945, he did a session for Bee-Bee that included Boogin' at Berg's in tribute to Billy Berg's racially mixed L.A. nightclub, which Slim remembers thusly, "About then I was asked to do a record date for a small independent and out came Cement Mixer.  Then it all took off -- Billy's was bulging every night when film stars including Ronald Reagan and all the top columnists like Hedda Hopper -- they had all come to see the nutty guy with the Putti Putti.  The place got plusher and my money went from 65 dollars to 1200 dollars a week.  Yeah that mixer really vacuumed them in.  I was doing three gigs a day at the Orpheum, a network radio station, and several sets at Berg's and to cover these three locations Billy made an arrangement with LAPD to have a squad car with red lights flashing and siren wailing to get us around on time.  We had to sneak aboard in the alleys and get the bass down low on the floor and then zoomed up and down Hollywood Boulevard.  Billy Berg's was more than just fun -- it was a great pleasure."  And about the song that made them such a draw, "After we did three sides, the A&R man sent us out for some air.  I was glad to get it because I didn't have a fourth song -- figured we'd improvise something like Floogie.  Just outside the studio, they were repairing the street, and one of those cement machines was going put-put-put.  When we were back in the studio and the A&R man asks for the title, I says, 'Cement Mixer, put-ti put-ti'.  Everybody in the place broke up.  I started to sing Cement Mixer.....  That's why the lyric goes put-ti-put-ti, putti hootie, putti vouti, macaroonie.  That's all it is, ad lib."  The song, for Chess' Cadet subsidiary, peaked at #21 in May of 1946.
Berg booked the Charlie Parker\Dizzy Gillespie Sextet for a two month stay at the club along with Slim's band and Harry 'The Hipster" Gibson starting December of 1945, and on the 29th of that month Slim supplemented his quartet of Brown on bass, drummer Zutty Singleton and pianist Dodo Marmarosa while he played guitar (and piano on Dizzy Boogie) with trumpeter Gillespie, Parker on alto sax and Jack McVea on tenor for a session released on the Beltone label, represented here on my final set.  From Dizzy's biography, To be or not to bop, "Somebody asked me in the club one night, 'How do you like California?'  'I'll be glad when this eight weeks is over with', I said.  'I don't like this place.'  'What about it?'  'Man, it's a whole lotta 'Toms' and musical nothings and all that.'  Slim Gaillard's wife heard me say that. She heard me use the word 'Tom' and went and told her husband that I called him a 'Tom", and he accosted me in the men's room.  'Man, I ain't even mentioned your name since I been out here.  What are you talking about?'  'Don't tell me you didn't,' he said, and he wanted to get back about it.  I was just oozing over to the place in the bathroom where they sell all the bottles of cologne, and he was oozing up on me.  Finally, he hit at me, and I ducked, and he missed.  I hit him and he went down, and I was getting ready to walk through him.  The fight spilled outside, and his wife must have seen the scuffle; she went in the kitchen and got a butcher knife and was getting ready to stab me in the back with it.  'Look out!', somebody said.  So I grabbed a chair, an iron chair, because she had this knife in her hand, but before I could hit her somebody grabbed both of us and that was the end of it. ...  But since that time, we were great friends."
On April 22nd of 1946, Gaillard and Brown appeared at one of Norman Granz's renowned Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts, sharing billing with Buck Clayton, Charlie Parker, Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins where they performed the four-part Opera in Vout, a masterpiece of Gaillard's original nonsensical language.  This was also about when he opened his own record store, Voutville. 
1947 saw a slowdown in Slim's career as reports of drugs and a messy divorce affected his popularity.  With the second Petrillo recording ban about to take effect, Slim recorded his last session on the west coast in December before heading to New York in an attempt to revitalize his career.  This would also be the conclusion to his pairing with Bam Brown, whose career would take an extreme turn.  "You gotta know your own limits.  Unfortunately, Bam wasn't that cool.  Pot couldn't satisfy him, so he tried everything else that was going, but even that didn't seem to be of any use."  Gaillard continued, "It was when we were in a bar in a big St. Louis hotel (with Lena Horne) that Bam suddenly dashed off the stage into the kitchen only to return with a big long knife.  Then, he told the audience, 'I'm going to cut everyone of you up in little pieces.'  He'd completely flipped out.  Eventually, they got him in a straightjacket and took him to a hospital where he remained for the next eight years.  They let him out once but he almost killed his mother, so they put him back again, where he remained until he died."
With no recent popular success, Slim's recording career was essentially over after a 1953 session for Granz except for a 1958 album made for the DOT label, but he did make an appearance in the TV miniseries Roots: the Next Generation.  In 1982, he made a successful tour of the UK and wound up settling in London in 1983.  The British label HEP released some of his live 40s material as well as a new studio album, and he also starred in The World of Slim Gaillard, a 1989 four-part BBC production. Slim continued to perform at festivals, etc. until he died in London on February 22, 1991.
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It all started with a phone call from Wesley Race, who was at the Flamingo Club on Chicago's South Side, to Alligator Records owner Bruce Iglauer. Race was raving about a new find, a young guitarist named Son Seals. He held the phone in the direction of the bandstand, so Iglauer could get an on-site report. It didn't take long for Iglauer to scramble into action. Alligator issued Seals' eponymous debut album in 1973, which was followed by six more.
Son Seals was born Frank Seals on August 13, 1942 in Osceola, Arkansas. His dad operated a juke joint called the Dipsy Doodle Club in Osceola where Sonny Boy Williamson, Robert Nighthawk, and Albert King cavorted upfront while little Frank listened intently in back. Drums were the youth's first instrument; he played them behind Nighthawk at age 13. But by the time he was 18, Son Seals turned his talents to guitar, fronting his own band in Little Rock.
While visiting his sister in Chicago, he hooked up with Earl Hooker's Roadmasters in 1963 for a few months, and there was a 1966 stint with Albert King that sent him behind the drumkit once more. But with the death of his father in 1971, Seals returned to Chicago, this time for good. When Alligator signed him up, his days fronting a band at the Flamingo Club and the Expressway Lounge were numbered.
Seals' jagged, uncompromising guitar riffs and gruff vocals were showcased very effectively on that 1973 debut set, which contained his "Your Love Is like a Cancer" and a raging instrumental called "Hot Sauce." Midnight Son, his 1976 encore, was by comparison a much slicker affair, with tight horns, funkier grooves, and a set list that included "Telephone Angel" and "On My Knees." Seals cut a live LP in 1978 at Wise Fools Pub; another studio concoction, Chicago Fire, in 1980, and a solid set in 1984, Bad Axe, before having a disagreement with Iglauer that that was patched up in 1991 with the release of his sixth Alligator set, Living in the Danger Zone. Nothing But the Truth followed in 1994, sporting some of the worst cover art in CD history, but a stinging lineup of songs inside. Another live disc, Spontaneous Combustion, was recorded at Buddy Guy's Legends club and released in June of 1996. Over the years, Seals had his share of hardship, bad deals, unemployment, and rip-offs that go on in the music business. However, his personal life took two devastating blows in the late '90s. On January 5, 1997, during a domestic dispute, Seals was shot in the jaw by his former spouse. He miraculously recovered and continued touring. Two years later he had his left leg amputated as a result of diabetes. What would have surely forced most performers into retirement only made Seals more dedicated to his music and audience. He came back in 2000, signing with Telarc Blues, and recorded Lettin' Go. Seals preferred to remain close to his Chicago home, holding his touring itinerary to an absolute minimum. Virtually every weekend he could be found somewhere on the Northside blues circuit, dishing up his raw-edged brand of bad blues axe to local followers. The blues ended for Son Seals on December 20, 2004; he passed away due to diabetes related complications.
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Since it is still relatively new, I thought I’d mention that KKUP is now streaming on the internet and, while it is still in a developing stage, we have been putting out the word.  I’m not all of that good with high-tech stuff, but it seems pretty easy to access.  If you go to our website at KKUP.org you will see on the home page a strip of options immediately above the pictures of the musicians the next to the last option being LISTEN ONLINE.  By clicking this, it brings up a choice of desktop or mobile.  I can only speak for the desktop but after maybe a minute I was receiving a crystal clear feed.  As already mentioned, this is still a work in progress and we are currently limited to a finite number of listeners at any one time.  I mention this so you will be aware to turn off the application when you are not actually listening.  (I put the player in my favorites bar for the easiest of access.)  Now we can reach our listeners in Los Gatos and Palo Alto, even my family in Canada.  Let your friends elsewhere know they can now listen to your favorite station, and while they have the home page open they can check out our schedule.
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Flat Foot Floogie
Tutti Frutti
Laughin’ in Rhythm
Buck Dance Rhythm
Queen’s Boogie
Bassology
African Jive
Rhythm Mad
Groove Juice Special
   Slim Gaillard   24min
Woman in Black
Little Sally Walker
I Can’t Lose the Blues
Frank and Johnnie
Arkansas Woman
The Danger Zone
Ain’t That Some Shame
Sadie
   Son Seals   36min
Dizzy Boogie
Slim’s Jam
Mean Mama Blues
Early Morning Bounce
Riff City
Santa Monica Jump
   Slim Gaillard   18min
1
I GET EVIL - ALBERT KING  BOBBIN 135  1962 Ngle(45)
2
EVERY DAY, EVERY NIGHT - BILLY BOY ARNOLD  rec.1957  Charly CRB 1016  (LP) 1981 Nran(33)
3
LONESOME - ROBERT DUDLOW TAYLOR  Kent KST-9007 LP 1969 rec.1952 Nran (33) NOT
4
AIN'T GONNA PICK NO COTTON - MCKINLEY JAMES  MACON 101  1966 Nran(45)
5
WHAT KIND OF MAN IS THIS - KO KO TAYLOR - CHECKER 1092  1964 Nste 1979 LP Blues Ball 2003
6
THE THINGS I'D DO FOR YOU - JUNIOR WELLS  CHIEF 7030  1961 Nyou(45)
7
TIGHT DRESS - GEORGE ALLEN (George 'Harmonica' Smith)  SOTOPLAY 0010   1960 Nkev(45)
8
TIN PAN ALLEY - HARMONICA SLIM  FLYING DUTCHMAN-BLUESTIME BT-29005) (LP) 1969 Nran(33)
9
(LET YOUR LOVE) WATCH OVER ME - LULU (LULA) REED AND FREDDY KING  FEDERAL 12471  1962
10
I HAD A DREAM - LAFAYETTE 'THING' THOMAS  WORLD PACIFIC WLP WPS-21893 (LP)  1968 Nran(33)
11
TRAIN TIME BLUES - L.C. 'GOOD ROCKIN' ROBINSON  World Pacific WPS-21893 (LP)  1968 Nran(33)ST
12
DON'T CUT OUT ON ME - TENDER SLIM  HERALD 571 1962 Ngle(45)
13
EVERYTHING I DO IS WRONG - WOODROW ADAMS rec.1961 Nste  rel.  1978, 1987 LP
14
GIVE HER PLENTY OF MONEY TO SPEND - J.T. BROWN  rec. c.1960 Nran DELMARK 624 1972 (LP)ST
15
SALT IN YOUR COFFEE - BETTY JAMES  CHESS 1970  1966 Nhea945)
16
THAT'S NOT RIGHT - CLARENCE JOHNSON and his Tom Cats  JEROME 7363  1963 Nsto(45)
17
I'M LOOKING FOR A LOVE ONE - HARRY BROOKS  JOB 601  c.1963 Nblu(45)
18
JUST DON'T CARE - SCREAMIN' JAY HAWKINS  ENRICA 1010  1962 Ngoy(45)
19
KOKOMO ME BABY - DANNY BOY and His Blue Guitar  TIFCO 824  1961 Ngle(45)
20
LITTLE BOY BLUE - CHICAGO BLUES ALL STARS  MPG LP 15.244  1969 Nran(33)
21
LAST TIME - HAZE HART w.GUS JENKINS ORCHESTRA   SWINGIN' 638 1962 Nran(45)
22
POP IT TO ME - Howlin' Wolf  CHESS 2009  1967 Njoe(45)
23
RON-DE-VIEW 36 - LITTLE BOYD  LAMGA 0002  1970 Nran(45)ST
24
STONES IN MY PASSWAY - HOMESICK JAMES  PRESTIGE 7388 (LP) 1964 Nran(33)
25
LET ME LOVE YOU BABY - BUDDY GUY  CHESS 1784  1961 Ncad(45)
26
FRISCO BLUES - JOHN LEE HOOKER  VEE-JAY 493  1963 Nksd(45)

March 23, 2016


Development of the British Blues & Rhythm
  --- show 46 ---   3-24-2016

Rory Gallagher                                     1977, 1978
Jack Bruce BBC                                        1975
Jeff Beck                                               1974, 1976
Eric Clapton                                              1974
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The two Rory Gallagher albums we present today are fairly closely tied together. In 1977, Rory took some studio time in San Francisco with the idea of putting together his next album, but he was not satisfied with the result and scrapped it.  It did not come out until recently as Notes From San Francisco, which included a second disc of a live concert that we will feature as part of our next show.  A few of the tunes from that session were redone when he next went into the studio in 1978, appearing on the LP Photo Finish.  In addition to Gallagher’s guitar and vocals and Gerry McAvoy’s bass, we are here introduced to their new drummer, Ted McKenna..
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I had originally intended on two sets from Jack Bruce‘s BBC sessions but instead decided to include the second set in the next show to add a mellow segment to complement the pair of high intensity rockers sharing that airing.  Most notable of the artists joining Jack’s bass, vocal and piano work is guitarist Mick Taylor, while Bruce Gary handles drums and percussion as Carla Bley and Ronnie Leahy both cover the keyboards.  One question: shouldn’t a song titled Without a Word be an instrumental?
In the gap created by the removal of the second Bruce set, you will hear a couple of songs from Eric Clapton’s 1974 album 461 Ocean Boulevard and another from George Harrison’s 1972 Concert for Bangladesh featuring Leon Russell on vocal.
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Jeff Beck was born June 24th 1944 in Wallington, Surrey, and had a sister Annetta, four years his senior.  His first instrument was the piano, which he tried for a couple of years beginning at age eight. When his interest waned, his uncle taught him violin and cello, and Jeff made his own guitar at age fifteen.  His sister's listening habits got him interested in Rockabilly acts like Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent along with Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson, but when he saw Buddy Holly and the Crickets in London in 1958 that sealed the deal.

Annetta introduced Jeff to Jimmy Page in the late-50s and the two often played at Page’s home studio.  In 1960 Beck was playing in the Deltones for about a year as they were active on the local Croydon scene with a repertoire favoring the music of the Shadows.  He began playing a Fender Stratocaster around this time, completed one year of a two year course at the Wimbledon School of Art and also met Patricia Rose Brown whom he would wed on July 13th 1963.

By 1962, Jeff was a hired gun in about a dozen bands and, in 1963, turned down an opportunity to join the Roosters, a band that at one time had featured guitarists Eric Clapton and Tom McGuiness.  Page got Beck recording for the Pye label and, in 1963, Jeff met Stones’ pianist Ian Stewart who guided him towards the Blues.  Later in 1963, Beck was a founding member of the Tridents, who released a couple of singles and acquired a residency at The 100 Club beginning July 1964.  “They were really my scene, because they were playing flat-out R&B, like Jimmy Reed stuff, and we supercharged it all up and made it really rocky.  I got off on that, even though it was only twelve bar Blues.”  Jeff also declined an offer to join Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, but after the Tridents shared a bill at the Marquee with the Yardbirds in October 1964, Beck found a good fit and joined the band in February 1965, making the Tridents just a historical footnote.

Seven months before Jeff joined the Yardbirds, Jimmy Page reunited Cyril Davies All Stars members drummer Carlo Little, bassist Cliff Barton and pianist Nicky Hopkins in a session that had Beck playing lead guitar.  We heard these July 1964 tunes (although my most trusted source, Greg Russo’s highly detailed book Yardbirds: The Ultimate Rave-Up, lists as occurring in late August 1965) as a short filler in our 35th edition of this series when we featured Led Zeppelin.  As a matter of fact, it was Page who was first offered the Yardbirds job, but he was doing to well as a studio musician to give it up for a group that really hadn’t made much of an impact, but he did recommend his friend Jeff in his stead.

Aside from changing lead guitarists, the Yardirds maintained a stable personnel since the band’s inception in 1963.  The drummer was Jim McCarty with Paul Samwell-Smith playing bass, Keith Relf handled almost all the vocals as well as playing harmonica and Chris Dreja was the rhythm guitarist.  Samwell-Smith opted out of the band in favor of the production side of the business so Jimmy Page was brought in, initially to play bass until Dreja could learn the instrument.

Top Topham was the original lead guitarist until his parents convinced him that continuing his education was the priority instead of playing in a working band, and that is where Eric Clapton came into the picture.  Clapton would stay with the band until it took a turn too far into the Pop market, their first successful single For Your Love apparently being the deal-breaker, and he pursued his Blues leanings, soon afterward signing on with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.  This is where Beck steps in.

Drummer McCarty speaks of Jeff’s early impression on the Yardbirds.  “He definitely was someone special.  He played all the stuff Clapton played before, but with a little bit extra to it.  We still did the same repertoire as we did with Clapton, but the music got better because Jeff used more effects and he got weirder sounds and gave it more dimension.  Eric played straight guitar solos and Jeff played with more effects.  Jeff gave us an edge.”

Jeff’s first two sessions with the band provided the material for the ep Five Yardbirds, which went to #2 – March 16th produced I Ain’t Done Wrong while I’m Not Taslking and My Girl Sloopy were put to tape on April 9th – and the three songs were also mixed in with earlier tracks by Clapton on an album for American consumption, For Your Love, reaching only #96 after its June debut..  From the first session also came Steeled Blues, but it was not released until decades later.  

Also intended to be laid down at the April session was Heart Full of Soul, but the sitar played by an Indian session musician turned out too weak for the recording another session was set up for April  20th where Beck imitated the instruments sound with his guitar.  Keith Relf played acoustic guitar and bassist Ron Prentice replaced Samwell-Smith, presumably because Paul was instead helping with the sound in the control room.  Released with the B-side Steeled Blues in June in the U.K. and climbing to #2, they came out in the U.S. in July and peaked at #12.

At the next session, in July, the boys put together Still I’m Sad, which McCarty and Samwell-Smith adapted from a Gregorian chant, and Evil Hearted You and it is not certain that this was when Relf put Italian lyrics to Heart Full of Soul.

The Yardbirds were scheduled for an American from July 2nd through September 6th but had to cancel due to difficulties getting work visas.  Finally, on August 27th, the band got non-work visas so in addition to the concerts dropped they also missed television opportunities on Hullabaloo, Shindig and the Ed Sullivan Show, but it was still a worthwhile trip as the band hit some historical recording studios.  A lip-synch taping was done for Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is but never aired because of the controversy and their long hair kept them from staying at the hotel they reserved on the Sunset Strip or being admitted into Disneyland.

On September 12th the band went into the famous Phillips Recording Studio in Memphis where the engineering of Sam Phillips helped them create Better Man Than I, a tune composed by Manfred Mann drummer Mike Hugg and his brother Brian, along with the 1953 Tiny Bradshaw tune The Train Kept A-Rollin’ but done in style of the Johnny Burnett Trio’s version.  From there they went to Chicago’s Chess Studio on September 19th and cut a studio version of one of their old standards, I’m a Man, in the same place that Bo Diddley recorded the original version.  The last stop was Columbia’s New York studio where overdubs to the three songs were completed and Relf led the band in a song he had just written, New York City Blues, extremely closely derived from Eddie Boyd’s Five Long Years which had been part of their repertoire since the Clapton days.

From the recent recordings, the group put out another American-only 45 featuring I’m a Man and Still I’m Sad in October 1965, reaching #17, followed quickly by the album Having a Rave-Up   which contained both sides of the single plus Better Man Than I, Heart Full of Soul, Evil Hearted You and Train Kept A-Rollin’ on the Beck studio side plus four tracks from the live Clapton performance released only in Europe as Five Live Yardbirds; the album peaked at #53 during its 33 week stay on the U.S. charts.

During March and April the band was active in the studio recording several demos and backing tracks which are justifiably relegated to only the most completist sets of Yardbirds material, although a couple of them are interesting to hear.

The long drought of Yardbirds’ English singles English singles was quenched in December 1965 with Heart Full of Soul and Still I’m Sad charting individually at #10 and #9 respectively, but as a single package they rated at #3.

They made a second tour of the states, this one six weeks commencing December 10th 1965, interspersing studio time with the stage shows.  AFTRA, I believe standing American Federation of Theater and Recording Artists or something similar and being the union which stood in the way of much of the previous tour, again weighed in with a restriction of no more than three television appearances, choosing a January 3rd Shivaree, January 4th for 9th Street West and on January 11th The Lloyd Thaxton Show while having to decline three other offers.

The Yardbirds were on the other side of the stage for two shows in Chicago, December 13th for Muddy Waters and December 14th when Howlin’ Wolf even invited Beck to join in, and then back in town again for their own December 20th performance at the Thumbs Up Club followed the next two days by another Chess studio session.  After finishing the tune Shapes of Things, the band returned to Thumbs Up where they sat in with Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, James Cotton and Shakey Jake Harris.  Three of the Yardbirds joined the Paul Butterfield Blues Band’ January 10th performance at The Trip in Hollywood.  After the next day’s Thaxton show, the band headed to New York City where they wound up their visit by spending January 17-19 in the Columbia doing a pair of songs in Italian for an upcoming song festival they were booked for.

Shapes of Things was released in February 1966 with different B-sides in different countries, reaching #3 U.K. and #11 U.S.  On March 15th while on a day off from the Bluesbreakers, Eric Clapton joined in at the Marquee, marking the only time he and Beck performed together on a Yardbirds gig.

Even though the band found the American studios and engineers more adept at capturing their sound than the Brits, they were never completely pleased with the way they were presented on vinyl.  According to Beck, “I don’t think anyone in this generation is capable of recording us to sound like us”, or Relf, “I always felt that when we got to the recording situation, it never really captured anything that we ever did live . . . it was probably too raw to put down on tape”.

April saw the band in the studio again to put together the follow-up single to the highly successful Shapes of Things.  They composed Over Under Sideways Down (also the title of the American LP) which had Jeff playing bass as well as guitar backed up by the instrumental Beck’s Boogie.  The single reached #10 U.K. and #13 U.S. as the recordings continued towards the next album, produced over five days in the end of May and early June.  The English version, with a slightly different song selection and released as The Yardbirds although later referred to as Roger the Engineer, reached # 20 after its July 1966 as the American pressing hit #52.

In May 1966 Beck took part in a session which was thought might bring out a new super group.  Conjecture was that the Who’s John Entwhistle would play bass and sing lead but that never came to fruition, nor were they joined by either Stevie Winwood or Steve Marriot.  The players who were there were plenty impressive as Jimmy Page shared guitar duties with Beck, Nicky Hopkins was on piano, Page’s future Led Zeppelin bandmate John Paul Jones played bass, and the Who was represented by drummer Keith Moon.  A few tracks were put to tape but the only one to surface would Beck’s Bolero, as the excellent instrumental flip side to Jeff’s first single, Hi Ho Silver Lining.  The other members of both the Who and the Yardbirds were unaware of this session.

Samwell-Smith was often unavailable to play in the studio because he was tied up in the mixing room and, being tired of the rigorous touring schedule, opted out of the band in favor of going into the production side of the business fulltime.  This was announced on June 20th and the search for a replacement began.  At this time, Jimmy Page was now ready to give up his hectic session man status and actually be a part of a band.  It was determined that the multi-instrumentalist would take over on bass until Dreja could become adept enough to move the Yardbirds into a dual lead guitarist group as Page would ideally complement and contrast each other

--- Here I ran out of time to complete the last five months or so of Beck’s tenure with the Yardbirds.  I’ll try to get to it in a couple of days and repost the blog.  Sorry. ---

Upon leaving the Yardbirds in November of 1966, Beck played next on January 19th 1967 when he recorded Hi Ho Silver Lining.  A rarity, Jeff actually sang on the tune backed by John Paul Jones and former Johnny Kidd and the Pirates drummer Clem Cattini.  The 45 was released in March 1967 and hit #14 in the U.K. and the July follow-up, Tallyman, climbed to #30.  Ron Wood played bass on the song and Aynsley Dunbar was the drummer as again Beck provided the vocal.

Starting in January, Beck began to assemble his next band.  He had Rod Stewart for the vocals and Ron Wood on second guitar along with former Shadows bassist Jet Harris and former Pretty Things drummer Viv Prince, but in February Wood switched to bass and Roger Cook straddled the drum seat.  After a failed concert in March, Mick Waller replaced Cook, but Waller quit in April with Rod Coombes succeeding him and Wood once again changed instruments, this time back to guitar, as Dave Ambrose took over the bass duties.  After an April gig at the Marquee, Ambrose and Coombes quit, causing Wood to make another switch back to bass and bringing former Bluesbreaker drummer Aynsley Dunbar into the group.  After four months, Dunbar felt the band wasn’t playing Blues, quit, and Waller returned in August.  This was the band that became the Jeff Beck Group – Waller, Wood, Beck and Stewart – and Rod’s vocals appeared on Rock My Plimsoul, the B-side to Tallyman.  In April 1968 Wood left to join Creation but returned in June, otherwise the group remained intact.

If I knew at the time about all of Wood’s instrumental back and forths, it would have been no surprise when I saw the band, I think at the Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco, that Beck played bass as he gave Wood the opportunity to show off his guitar talents on Plimsoul!  Nicky Hopkins was on piano for that show.  He had been a part-timer in the band until he committed completely in September 1968 and I believe this show was a part of the tour that began in the U.S. in October.

Beck’s third single was not even released in the states because Paul Mauriat hit #1 with his version of the song, Love is Blue.  No big loss because it was a piece of Pop elevator garbage with only the B-side, I’ve Been Drinking, performed by Rod and the band.  The show I saw was after the American release of the Truth LP in July of 1968 and the album reached #15 but its November issuance in the U.K. was nowhere near as successful.  The Jeff Beck Group began their second U.S. tour in March 1969.  Wood and Waller had both been fired in February, but after the first American show Wood was brought back to join the new drummer, Tony Newman.  Hopkins departed in May and the group pretty much had fallen apart by June, but there was still a U.S. tour commitment beginning on the fourth of July and lasting about a month.  They were also supposed to play at Woodstock in August but were able to back out of that one.

Their second album, Beck-ola, had been released here in July 1969, before that last tour, and topped out #15 in its months on the charts.  The band also backed up Donovan’s Goo Goo Barabajagal single, which went #12 U.K. and #36 U.S.  Also in 1969, Beck was being considered as a replacement for Brian Jones in the Rolling Stones.

Beck wanted to take another stab at putting together a super group and wished to combine Vanilla Fudge’s bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice with Stewart, but a car crash on November 2nd 1969 put the kybosh on that, for a while at least.  Bogert and Appice instead formed the band Cactus.

Jeff began putting his next group together in April 1970 with Colin “Cozy” Powell, the only member he retained from an unfinished session at Detroit’s Motown studio.  With Jeff unsure which label he should sign with, Powell went about playing as a session drummer until, in April the next year, they found bassist Clive Chaman who suggested keyboardist Max Middleton.  In May and June, these four backed vocalist Alex Ligertwood in the studio for EMI session, but when Jeff decided in June to drop his management staff and sign with Epic Records, EMI could not release the recordings and they have yet to surface.  Ligertwood was also not deemed the right fit for the group so, in July, Bob Tench was brought in as vocalist and second guitar player.

Their first release, Rough and Ready, consisting of six Beck compositions and one by Middleton, failed to fly off the shelves when it came out in October 1971, but the second LP, simply titled the Jeff Beck Group and produced by Steve Cropper in Memphis, contained five cover tunes and fared better upon its July 1972 release.  July 23rd concluded the band’s European concert obligations and Beck was ready to move on again.  Beck had been in contact again with Bogert and Appice, whose band Cactus had just broken up so, along with Middleton and vocalist Kim Milford, rehearsals for a U.S. tour commencning August 1st began, but just one week into the tour Milford was dropped and Tench was hurriedly brought in as his replacement. Both Tench and Middleton dropped out of the band after the tour and Beck, Bogert and Appice appeared as a trio (with Appice handling most of the vocals) for the first time on September 16th, but the ensemble was relatively short-lived, releasing only one album, April 1973’s Beck, Bogert & Appice, while another studio session was never made available.  There was also a live disc released only in Japan.

Okay, I have to leave this here to grab a couple of hours sleep before the show but this WILL be completed when we next visit Beck, most likely in May.  Please pardon any errors as I have not had time to proofread this segment.
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Okay, one of my friends who is too young to know the sixties firsthand likes it when I talk about my experiences when I had a leather shop on San Fernando Street down by San Jose State between 1968 and 1972, so here I go.  Probably my best friend on the street was Bob Sidebottom, who was the proprietor of the comic book store right across the street from my shop.  Bob was at least ten years older than me and had a vast knowledge of Jazz and Blues.  To this day I tend to say that my three favorite Bluesmen are Magic Sam, Howlin’ Wolf and Freddie King and it is no coincidence that those were an exact echo of Bob’s opinion, although I have added Luther Allison to the list.  Since I was still eighteen when I started my shop, it is obvious that Bob would truly be my mentor, opening my ears to some of the more obscure Bluesmen of the day.

Bob did not think any of the white guys (Musselwhite, Butterfield, Johnny Winter or any of these Brits) were true Blues musicians until one time I was sitting with him at a San Jose State Fountain Blues Festival and he finally heard one he would make the exception for: Roy Rogers.  But Bob’s real love was Be Bop Jazz, particularly Charlie Parker, and when he had another love enter his life he named her, his daughter, Parker.  I couldn’t get into Be Bop back then but over the past decade or more it has become a real part of my listening experience.  Just proves out Bob’s good taste.

After I closed down the shop my visits were much rarer but, whenever I came by, Bob would switch his turntable from Jazz to Blues, usually something he thought I should know about.  When I began at KKUP, he told me he always wanted to do a radio show and throw a bunch of albums on the floor, turn out the lights and just play whatever he happened to grab; I still wonder how he would have cued them up in the dark, but it could be much more easily done with CDs.

I’m pretty sure Bob had owned a record store in the past.  After a while living in the back of his store, he rented an apartment in the building right above it, and that is when I found out the vastness of his vinyl collection.  In addition to what he kept in his store for his listening pleasure and some for retail, one of the walls in his apartment was crammed floor to ceiling for about twelve feet with albums; very impressive.

One of Bob’s friends whom I met was Leland, who worked at Moyer Music on the same block.  When I bought an old Hawaiian lap guitar at the flea market that needed some work, I took it in there, and when it was done he brought it by the shop and refused to let me pay, saying it would be more than the guitar was worth.  It really sucked when I found out later that, while he was working one night at their store at Stevens Creek and Lawrence Expressway, some asshole robbed them and killed him.

I imagine that dealing with a lot of kids sometimes using his store more like a library would wear on someone and Bob became to be considered somewhat of a curmudgeon, but he actually savored that image.  When I went to Bob’s wake in the early nineties I was surprised to see Johnnie Cozmik among a small handful of other familiar faces in the crowd, but Johnnie says he remembers me as well from the shop days.  It is funny because Johnnie once expressed the exact same visual memory as is foremost in my mind -- the centerfold of the album Electric Mud with Muddy Waters and an electric guitar, dressed in some type of white church gown as he sported a magnificent pompadour hairstyle.  A terrible LP but a great photo, which was hung high right by the door so you couldn’t miss it on the way out of the store.

Of course, Bob’s business was selling comic books.  Old, new, off color, if it was available Bob sold it.  This led him to a friendship with likely the best known of the new era of comic artists, R Crumb.  Sharing a musical passion similar to Bob’s, Crumb put together a drawing, presumably of Bob with his hair kinda standing on end as he gazed upon a comic book, which Bob used as the graphic for his matchbook covers.  I thought I had lost all of mine but came across one recently; it is one of those momentos I just do not want to have disappear.

So how does this tie into today’s show?  While I’ve wanted to solidify my memories in this way for a long time now, there is a bit of a convoluted connection.  Bob was friends with a record store owner in Mill Valley who specialized in the right kinds of music so Bob and I, along with Lou, who worked at Underground Records on our block, made an expedition to see what we could find.  If I thought really hard I could maybe remember all of the four or so LPs I got but two of them are still favorites in my collection, although now replaced on CD.  One was by Billy Boy Arnold and since his brother was the bass player in the Butterfield Blues Band and a couple of the other players were members of Magic Sam’s band I felt comfortable taking the risk,  The cover of another one intrigued me because the guy just looked like he had definitely paid his dues.  I asked Bob what he knew about him and he said he was a longtime regular in the Chicago Blues clubs.  That was Hound Dog Taylor and the graphics from that first Alligator Records release graced our Blues marathon t-shirt of 2010.  So, on our way through San Francisco we stopped at a movie theater and saw George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh.  I never told my wife because she would have been displeased that I went without her but I did buy her the album when it came out.  As I recall, the only tune I remember liking was Leon Russell singing Young Blood (not even remembering it was tied into Jumping Jack Flash) and, since it is the only song I have from the album, it is included here in a short Clapton set.  And that is the longest write-up I intend to put together for one song!
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Since it is still relatively new, I thought I’d mention that KKUP is now streaming on the internet and, while it is still in a developing stage, we have been putting out the word.  I’m not all of that good with high-tech stuff, but it seems pretty easy to access.  If you go to our website at KKUP.org you will see on the home page a strip of options immediately above the pictures of the musicians the next to the last option being LISTEN ONLINE.  By clicking this, it brings up a choice of desktop or mobile.  I can only speak for the desktop but after maybe a minute I was receiving a crystal clear feed.  As already mentioned, this is still a work in progress and we are currently limited to a finite number of listeners at any one time.  I mention this so you will be aware to turn off the application when you are not actually listening.  (I put the player in my favorites bar for the easiest of access.)  Now we can reach our listeners in Los Gatos and Palo Alto, even my family in Canada.  Let your friends elsewhere know they can now listen to your favorite station, and while they have the home page open they can check out our schedule.
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Rue the Day
Persuasion
Fuel to the Fire
B Girl
Overnight Bag
Cut a Dash
Out on the Tiles
   Rory Gallagher (Notes from San Francisco)   27

Scatterbrain
Thelonius
She’s a Woman
Constipated Duck
Cause We Ended as Lovers
Freeway Jam
   Jeff Beck (Blow by Blow)   44

I Can’t Hold Out
Steady Rolling Man
   Eric Clapton (461 Ocean Boulevard)
Jumping Jack Flash / Youngblood
   Concert for Bangladesh

The Mississippi Sheiks
Brute Force and Ignorance
Juke Box Annie
The Last of the Independents
Early Warning
   Rory Gallagher (Photo Finish)   34

Can You Follow?
Morning Story
Keep It Down
Spirit
Without a Word
   Jack Bruce (BBC ‘77)   29

Head for Backstage Pass
Led Boots
Come Dancing
Sophie
Play with Me
Blue Wind
   Jeff Beck (Wired)   29