Raise All Kinds Of Candy To The Stars

John Denver’s second entry in this blog is really present because of a technicality; it was originally the B-side to his single “I’m Sorry,” which itself made number one, but once that song slipped from the top, radio stations started to play the other side and the single was officially flipped, with “Calypso” being listed for the four weeks it stayed in second place. Aside from technicalities, I am pleased to address “Calypso” since it’s probably my favourite Denver song, with its full, sumptuous and madly optimistic arrangement. Written as a tribute to the research ship – a converted Royal Navy minesweeper which had actually been built in Seattle – used by Denver’s friend Jacques-Yves Cousteau, it appeared at a point where ecological and environmental concerns were coming to the fore, and those always underpinned Cousteau’s adventures, both on and off television (I was dazzled watching The Undersea World Of Jacques Cousteau as a child – this old French fellow in his mid-si...

"watching for night, with absinthe eye cocked on the lone, late, passer-by." (Sylvia Plath, "Prospect," 1956) This story begins in 1954, before most people had really recognised anything called rock, and a pop record which is half-perfect. That record, which stayed at number one in our charts for ten weeks, was “Cara Mia” by David Whitfield with Mantovani and his Orchestra and Chorus. Now, Whitfield was never the most subtle of singers and his in-your-face bellowing is somewhat distracting – it is significant that he was the first British reality media star (not from television, because at that time Opportunity Knocks was only broadcast on Radio Luxembourg) since his climactic high C at the end of “Cara Mia” is like a display of gymnastics, or an athletic field event; can he do that triple loop or throw that javelin beyond the stadium? It proves that technical prowess can often render itself unlistenable. But the magic here lies in the extraordinary ...

In the mid-seventies there were many newly moneyed people who didn’t believe Don McLean’s proclamation that rock and roll had died but still wanted the umbilical cord back to where things had begun. Linda Ronstadt had recorded the album Heart Like A Wheel as a contractual obligation to Capitol Records but its success exceeded anybody’s expectations. The record’s economical thirty-two minutes or so established Ronstadt as a fine interpreter of the songs of others; the song selection is very astute, running from Hank Williams and Paul Anka to Lowell George and Anna McGarrigle. The first single from the album, a patiently ominous reading of “You’re No Good” which was probably inspired equally by the Dee Dee Warwick and Betty Everett readings, went to number one, and this reinterpretation of a 1960 Phil Everly-composed song nearly repeated the trick. The Everlys’ original is actually quite an angry record, but Ronstadt instead opts for exuberant politesse . Backed by the best ...

I vividly remember my excitement upon first hearing Pulp’s “My Legendary Girlfriend.” It came out as a 12-inch single in 1991 – having been recorded some two years previously – and was the first definite indication of that band’s generous stride towards greatness, setting in place all the templates which were, half a decade hence, to become commercially and artistically omnipresent in ambitious British pop. It was also, if you are that way inclined, sexy as hell; Cocker’s mutters and comforting cajoles against what was essentially a variation on the intro and outro to “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything.” Radio stations miss out so many crucial things by doggedly adhering to inadequate radio single edits, particularly since the original seven-inch single featured the track in its four-and-a-half minute entirety. And the build-up and comedown of the song is crucial, as it was to Barry White’s art in general. White’s music always struck me more instantly than that ...

The first of just two appearances by the Philly sound of Gamble and Huff, but this already sounds like an elegy for an age; barely two years into their run of success, Philly already sounded as though it were saying farewell here – the elegiac Cinemascope strings, the hymn-like enunciation of the song’s title. Essentially it’s “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” grown up and saddled with a mortgage, but with tomorrow’s promise still distant and opaque, although the physical distress is more pronounced (“Will I have to suffer and cry the whole night through?”). Listening to the record, it’s clear how its axis is Bobby Parker’s electric piano, which simmers, frames and provides the cooling waterbed undertow to offset lead singer Sheila Ferguson’s contained paranoia and suppressed rage. Nonetheless, it is remarkable that this is one of the very few major pop hits whose lyric, backing vocals and ad-libs notwithstanding, consists entirely of questions. As 1974 draws to a close, ...

Now, where was I? I know I said I’d see you last month but the combination of the need for gradual recuperation at home and an ancient home laptop on its last legs has prevented me from doing so. Believe me, I’m extremely fortunate to be sitting here at all, let alone write about anything. Anyway, I return with some very nice funk, the kind which Sly Stone was no longer able to produce in late 1974. They were originally called Madison Street Express before changing their name to Brooklyn Transit Express, and then came the abbreviation. It gently bumps along for just under six minutes – we do full-length versions on this here blog - with the occasional basso profundo interloping of “whatever it is” leaving you in no doubt as to what “it” is. Apart from the startling irruption of sustained atonal organ chords in a couple of places – highly reminiscent of what Miles was doing at the time on tracks like “Rated X” – this is a fine and amiable reintroduction to its world, as well...