It took a combination of factors to make Living Colour possible: several years of the Reagan administration’s attack on progress, a volatile indie rock scene that spawned important changes in the music industry, and the growth in success of rap music that brought elements of African-American culture to a receptive white mainstream. Into this atmosphere stepped one of the funkiest, baddest, hardest rocking and most technically adroit rock ‘n’ roll outfits to grace the genre (that just happened to be composed of four talented Black men). Living Colour’s debut, Vivid, was released in 1988 and instantly received almost universal critical acclaim. The album broke down barriers of race, musical style and fashion that had been long-standing in rock.
The band’s members brought varied backgrounds to the creation of Living Colour. Singer Corey Glover was an actor with little or no musical experience, possibly enabling him to develop a unique and individually powerful musical style. Drummer Will Calhoun was a Berklee School of Music grad, his jazz background serving to shore up the band’s complex and diverse stylistic experiments. Guitarist Vernon Reid, an alumni of Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society, came into the public eye as a player in Mick Jagger’s solo band. Together with bassist Muzz Skillings, Living Colour made Vivid an international success, the disc’s masterful blend of hard rock, blues, and jazz riffs winning them a loyal audience that cut across race lines.
Living Colour’s Pride
Successful tours and multi-platinum status was to follow as, over the course of three albums and an EP, Living Colour developed its unique musical voice and identity. The recent release of Pride showcases the incredible talent that is Living Colour. Much more than a mere greatest hits album, Pride serves quite well instead as a musical document of Living Colour’s first six or seven years. The hits are all here, of course, from the raging “Cult of Personality” or the confrontational “Funny Vibe” to the memorable “Open Letter To A Landlord” and the band’s “theme song,” “What’s Your Favorite Color?” Pride culls a lot of material from the band’s ground-breaking debut, with a handful of cuts thrown in from Time’s Up and only a couple from Stain and the Biscuits EP. A number of unreleased songs and a single release round out the disc.
Of the previously unreleased cuts included on Pride, “Release the Pressure” particularly stands out. A wicked, no-compromise rocker, Corey Glover’s vocals are menacing, primal growls backed by some wonderfully chaotic guitar playing. “Sacred Ground” is a metallic thrasher run amok, echoed vocals laid on top of a frantic beat and Reid”s heaviest playing yet. A jazzy beat and muted guitar open “These Are Happy Times,” the focus on Glover’s soulful reading of the song’s lyrics. Bassist Doug Winbush, who replaced Skillings after Time’s Up, performs some understated but tasteful fretwork to underline the song’s social message. These three cuts show the band’s enormous musical diversity and skill at improvising upon a standard hard rock foundation.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
A lot has been written of Vernon Reid’s six string prowess, every compliment quite justified by the man’s large talent. As evidenced by Pride, it is Reid’s guitar that lends the band the greatest part of its identity, filling each song with a creative energy and breathing life into an otherwise morose musical genre. After seeing and experiencing Reid perform live more than once, I’d personally place him among the legends of rock guitar, artists like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan who redefined styles and pushed the envelope. It is also shown by Pride, though, that it is a combination of talents, from Glover’s vocals and Calhoun”s rock-steady drumming along with the contributions of two skilled bassists that play along with Reid to make Living Colour great. The band is made up of four very talented men without which the accomplishments of Living Colour would not have been possible. Pride is a wonderful showcase for the band and what they can do musically. (Epic Records, 1995)
I remember seeing Living Colour perform during its 1989 tour in support of the band’s debut album. I had seen the band once before, prior to the release of Vivid in 1988, but this 1989 show at the infamous Exit/In club in Nashville would become the stuff of legend. Since I had met them once before and had interviewed both the band’s extraordinary guitarist Vernon Reid and excellent drummer Will Calhoun, my friend Mark S. and myself hung out with the band backstage after the show. Reid and I discussed music; cyberpunk sci-fi writers like Bruce Sterling and William Gibson and horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. The band members were genuinely friendly, intelligent, talented and obviously on their way “up” in the music world…and they put on a hell of a live show.
Living Colour’s Live From CBGB’s
By the time Living Colour would play Nashville again the band would blow up big-time. Vivid would go platinum, selling over a million copies – quite an accomplishment for an African-American hard rock band that every record label in the world passed on. The band was all over MTV at the time with its video for the raging “Cult of Personality” and would subsequently walk off with a pair of Grammy™ awards. The release of Time’s Up in 1990 along with a couple of high profile tours would solidify the band’s superstars-in-the-making status. Unfortunately, the band’s commercial fortunes would quickly diminish and, with only three albums under their collective belts, Living Colour became one of the casualties of grunge and the Seattle scene. The band would break up not long after the 1993 release of Stain.
If any live recording could capture the band’s onstage energy and chemistry, they would have been even bigger stars than they already were. Sadly, the band never released a live album during its initial run, something that might have revived its prospects and found Living Colour a wider audience. Although Live From CBGB’s comes along about a decade-and-a-half too late, it’s definitely a case of “better late than never” for Living Colour fans who have been living with seedy bootleg tapes of live performances for 15 years. This particular show, a homecoming of sorts for the band, was captured live at the legendary CBGB’s in the Bowery in New York City in December 1989, between the releases of Vivid and Time’s Up.
Cult of Personality
From the album’s tracklist and relatively brief hour-long running time, I’m guessing that Live From CBGB’s doesn’t include the band’s entire performance from that night. There are only four songs featured here from Vivid, including the set-opening “Cult of Personality” and the somber “Open Letter To A Landlord.” Almost half of the live album features songs from the yet-to-be-released-at-the-time Time’s Up, the band obviously showcasing songs from its upcoming album. Two new cuts make their debut here while the band’s relentless cover of Bad Brain’s “Sailin’ On” is a hard-to-find obscurity.
Although a lengthier performance might have made for a hardcore two-CD set, Sony chose to release this version so we have to live with it, which isn’t too difficult. The band is red-hot throughout these songs, Reid’s six-string pyrotechnics tearing through the smoke and heat of the club while frontman Corey Glover’s powerful vocals punch through the darkness with fire and passion. Some of the band’s best songs are represented here, from “Information Overload” and “Cult of Personality” to “Funny Vibe” and “Love Rears Its Ugly Head.” Of the two previously unreleased tracks, “Soldier’s Blues” offers some tasty guitar shuffles, Hendrix-inspired riffing and Calhoun’s jazzy drumbeats while “Little Lies,” a tortured ballad spotlighting Glover’s vocals, sounds out of place until it kicks into overdrive.
Overall, the band’s performance on Live from CBGB’s is simply explosive. Reid’s incendiary guitarwork, informed by his avant-garde jazz training, still sounds groundbreaking today; nobody currently playing can match the underrated Reid’s style and innovation. Glover was a soulful vocalist of some range and heart while the rhythm section of bassist Muzz Skillings and drummer Calhoun were one of the finest in rock at the time, providing a solid bedrock for the dueling frontmen.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Unfortunately, no matter how good it is, Live From CBGB’s is unlikely to draw new listeners to the phenomenal, hard rocking Living Colour sound. If this set had been released in 1991 or so, perhaps its impact would have provided the band with a stepping stone to greater things. In 2005, however, with Living Colour considered yesterday’s news by young audiences, a “classic rock” band at best, Live From CBGB’s will appeal mostly to existing fans. Young music lovers wanting to know what all the hype was about could do worse than checking out Living Colour live. (Sony Legacy Records, 2005)
Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2005
Back at the dawn of American hard rock – circa 1969 or so, 1970 at the latest – you had such eardrum-smackin’ dino-stompers as Grand Funk Railroad, Blue Cheer, Dust, Sir Lord Baltimore, and other mono-browed cro-mags that roamed the dangerous rock ‘n’ roll backstreets. Most of these bands took the blues-derived, guitar-driven music of British dandies like Cream and Status Quo as a starting point, ratcheted up the amperage to cerebellum-shredding volume, threw in some fancy on-stage gymnastics like hair-whipping and broken-string flagellation, and subsequently had their choice of the least skanky of their distaff backstage admirers for a little extra-curricular activity once the spotlights were turned off.
While many of this first wave of hard rock heroes never made it to first base outside of their limited geographical popularity (future cult band status notwithstanding), the rare widespread success of a handful of like-minded chowderheads like Grand Funk was proof to a generation of bar-hopping teens that fame, fortune, and feminine charms were just three (loudly played) chords away. Grand Funk Railroad was hated by college-educated critics with a passion not expressed in print again until the nerf-metal era of the mid-’80s; but while these egg-headed rockcrit types were grooving to their George Harrison and Crabby Appleton albums, the boys and girls were banging their heads in rhythm to the fab new sounds of bands like Alice Cooper, Kiss, Angel, and the favorite sons of Columbus, Ohio, the Godz.
The Godz’s The Godz
Not to be confused with the hippie-dippie, psychedelic-folk noise terrorists of the same name from New York City that recorded for the ESP Records label, the Harley-humpin’ long-haired hard rock thugs from Columbus pursued a blooze-n-booze swagger that was a universe away from the lysergic fever-dreams of their namesakes. Formed by bassist/vocalist Eric Moore and guitarist Bob Hill from the ashes of the L.A. by way of Ohio band Capital City Rockets (who recorded one ill-fated LP for Elektra that is often considered one of the worst albums of ‘73), the Godz simplified hard rock into a white light blur of boogie-blues and feedback-drenched guitar chords. Although the band toured with labelmates Kiss and Angel, as well as folks like Cheap Trick and Judas Priest, the Godz never found much of an audience outside of their hometown, and all but disappeared after a pair of albums that have since achieved near-rabid cult status.
To be entirely honest, the Godz never hooked the earlobes of the young, gullible rock ‘n’ roll fan because, well…they just weren’t really very good. Yeah, all the pieces fit together like the well-oiled rock ‘n’ roll machine they brag about being on “Gotta Keep Runnin’;” guitarists Hill and Mark Chatfield (who would go on to play with Bob Seger) hit some smokin’ notes; and in Moore they had a gravel-throated grease-n-grits vocalist to mangle their too-often misogynist lyrics. And, as they say somewhere, therein lies the rub…while the band’s hearty, Vikingesque four-part harmonies were years ahead of their time, their shitty songwriting could suck a bowling ball through a vacuum-cleaner hose.
Nope, there wasn’t a decent word-wrangler in the bunch, the six original tunes on their self-titled 1978 debut split evenly among three of the four band members, Bob Hill effectively frozen out of the mix after penning the bulk of the mind-numbing tripe that made the Capital City Rockets album the critically-reviled diaper-candy that it was. Booze, bikes, broads, and “rawkin roll” are the primary subjects found in the lyrics on The Godz, and while such lofty intellectual fare strikes a chord with a bar/club audience jacked up on bottles of Old Crankcase lager (4.1% alcohol by volume) and pheromones, it loses quite a bit of gravitas when played at home on the crappy BSR turntable in your bedroom…not a great selling point with a record-buying teenaged audience trying to figure out whether disco or booger-rock is going to get them laid faster.
Musical Fusion of North-Meets-South
Still, you gotta give these Godz boys their props…by the late 1970s, when the band had its coming out party, Southern rock had pretty much begun giving up the ghost in favor of punk, funk, disco, and the heartland-bred arena-rock sounds of Seger and Springsteen. The Godz managed to create a near-perfect musical fusion of north-meets-south, combining the reckless hard rock energy of the Motor City with the bluesy vibe of Southern rock, kind of a cross between Ted Nugent and Molly Hatchet, with a healthy dose of Midwest rustbelt biker aesthetic thrown in for kicks.
The Godz starts off with the riff-happy “Go Away,” a rollicking booger-rocker that sounds like a less-distinctive Jo Jo Gunne, with squalls of ringing guitars, a neck-breaking backbeat, and a solid tho’ unspectacular bass line. Played live, the song probably kicked serious ass, and it sounds OK on the stereo today if you down a shot or two of rotgut and let the guitars carry you away on a cloud of alcohol-inspired bliss. By contrast, “Baby I Love You” is a real fart in the cookie jar, songwriter Moore ripping off about half-a-dozen tunes from better artists, not limited to Chuck Berry, Bob Seger, and the Rockets, the chorus alone pinching the infamous “rock me baby” line that was chiseled in stone sometime during the hieroglyphic era of rock ‘n’ roll, delivered here like a flaccid reminder to move your clothes from the washer to the dryer.
The next couple of tunes salvage the remainder of what was originally side one of the album, the first of ‘em, “Guaranteed,” rocking like a cross between Status Quo and Lynyrd Skynyrd, machine-gun drumbeats matched by twangy vocals and high-flying, razor-sharp guitars. The proto-metal jam “Gotta Keep Runnin’” borrows a bit of the cowbell intro from Grand Funk’s “We’re An American Band,” and pairs it with the locomotive redneck rock of Blackfoot in the creation of a pud-pounding, steel-toed, junkyard brawl of epic proportions. Moore’s spoken word bit in the middle about how we’re all “rock ‘n’ roll godz” was ridiculous even by 1970s standards but, once again, if you drop enough Quaaludes and chase ‘em down with enough rye whiskey, Moore’s absurd ramblings hit your ears like a Shakespearean soliloquy.
Candy’s Going Bad
Side two of The Godz is a mercifully short, albeit athletic three songs long, jumping off the turntable with the raucous “Under the Table.” Opening with some sort of industrial drone intro more suited to a Joy Division single, the song blasts your senses with a pyrotechnic display of twin guitars that sound like BTO but smack your medulla oblongata like Judas Priest. From the chaotic peak, the song devolves into an ear-pleasing Southern rock jam with all four instruments intertwining to great effect. “Cross Country” is a standard-issue, country-flavored rocker with screaming guitar solos and a choogling rhythm that plays well to Harley-Davidson enthusiasts on either side of the Mason-Dixon line.
The undeniable highlight of The Godz, though, is the album-closing cover of Golden Earring’s “Candy’s Going Bad.” An unlikely choice in material (every other bar band at the time was playing “Radar Love”), “Candy’s Going Bad” showcases the band’s instrumental skills while removing the “ick” factor of their self-written lyrical turds. Starting slowly with a blast-oven intro that is more industrial that anything Einstürzende Neubauten ever thought of, the song unrolls in ways both predictable and otherwise, with plenty of scorched-earth fretwork, an unusual and somewhat syncopated arrangement, a blizzard of drumbeats-and-cymbals crashing down in the back of the mix, and gangfight vocals reminiscent of the Dictators. The song rocks harder and faster and with more energy than anything else on the album, and shows what these lunkheads may have achieved if they’d had a half-decent (and literate) songwriter on the payroll.
The question, then, would be “are the Godz worth their cult band status with hard rock and heavy metal fans?” The short answer: I dunno!? The Reverend saw ‘em perform once, way back in the day, and I remember being pretty damned entertained at the time. Given my nutritious daily diet of psilocybin, pizza, Stroh’s beer, and Jack Daniels during that era, however, I couldn’t reliably bet my rockcrit reputation on the Godz’ onstage prowess.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
The band’s self-titled debut, produced by Grand Funk drummer Don Brewer, shows moments of hard-rockin’ brilliance surrounded by trite period clichés that would be repeated ad nauseum a decade later by a younger generation of similarly shaggy-headed, Marshall-stacked cretins. That the Godz proved to be influential far beyond their meager album sales is undeniable, and while they may have rocked many a stage at the time, their trademark biker boogie-rock sound would be pursued with greater success by bands like Badlands, Jackyl, and the Black Label Society years down the road. Still, not a bad musical legacy for a bunch of guys from Columbus… (Rock Candy Records, released May 15th, 2010)
Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2010 Buy the CD from Amazon:The Godz’s The Godz
One of the most commercially successful and critically-acclaimed rock bands in
American history, Blue Öyster Cult created the perfect fusion of ‘60s pop
and ‘70s proto-metal that would have a profound influence on the evolution of
both hard rock and heavy metal in the decades to follow. Intellectual, but
reveling in their counter-culture roots, lyrically the band mixed elements of
mythology, the occult and contemporary literature with science fiction and
horror film trash culture in the creation of a new musical paradigm that
celebrated high-and-lowbrow culture equally.
The earliest
roots of the band lie in the relationship between two students at Stony Brook
College on Long Island. As far back as 1967, Sandy Pearlman and future rock
critic Richard Meltzer had plans to conquer the rock ‘n’ roll world. With
Pearlman managing the band and both he and Meltzer writing lyrics, they put
together a group that included the core of the future BÖC – guitarist Donald
“Buck Dharma” Roeser, keyboardist Allen Lanier, and drummer Albert Bouchard –
known as Soft White Underbelly.
Agents of Fortune
Signed to Elektra Records, Soft White Underbelly recorded an unreleased album
and subsequently changed the band’s name to Oaxaca before settling on being
called the Stalk-Forrest Group. A second album recorded for the label was also
buried in the vaults, although a single was later released under the
Stalk-Forrest Group name. Dropped by the label and shuffling personnel, they
changed their name once again to Blue Öyster Cult and signed with Columbia
Records, which is where the BÖC story really begins.
The band’s
self-titled album was released in 1972 and scraped the bottom of the charts.
This must have been good enough to partially satisfy the label, as they were
attempting to promote BÖC as their very own homegrown version of Black
Sabbath. The debut album’s fortunes were helped by the media-savvy promotional
efforts of Pearlman and Meltzer, as well as the creation of the band’s
ubiquitous hook-and-cross logo, an important precursor to the imaginative logo
designs of heavy metal bands in the decade to follow.
Tyranny & Mutation
followed in 1973, and Secret Treaties in 1974, each album experienced
higher sales numbers. The powerful live double-album,
On Your Feet Or On Your Knees, was released in ‘75, but it would be the
following year’s effort, Agents of Fortune, that would prove to be the
band’s commercial breakthrough. Yielding a Top 40 single in “(Don’t Fear) The
Reaper,” the album would be the first in a string of Gold™ and
Platinum™-selling discs that culminated five years later with 1981’s
Fire of Unknown Origin.
The band stumbled badly, however,
both commercially and creatively, into the new decade. Original members had
left the band, or been asked to leave, and weak studio albums like 1983’s
The Revolution At Night and 1986’s Club Ninja alienated
long-time fans. With only Dharma and Eric Bloom left from the band’s original
line-up, BÖC continued to tour. Released in 1988, the band’s 14th album,
Imaginos, would also be its last at the time.
Blue Öyster Cult’s Imaginos
Back at the dawn of the ‘80s, however, Imaginos was originally planned by
former BÖC drummer Albert Bouchard to be a solo work, a concept album based on a
song cycle created by Sandy Pearlman back during the late 1960s. Almost six
years in the making, Imaginos includes instrumental contributions from
several of Bouchard’s NYC friends, including bassist Kenny Aaronson and
guitarists Joe Satriani, Aldo Nova, and Robbie Krieger of the Doors.
When Bouchard was nearing the finish line with Imaginos, he found out
that the record label wasn’t exactly enamored of his efforts. They would only
agree to release the album under the Blue Öyster Cult name, so the master
tapes were sent to Pearlman and the band overdubbed vocals and
instrumentation. Thus the incorrect appearance that BÖC had reformed with its
original line-up, including Albert Bouchard…but it was all on paper, folks.
Met with confusion by fans and critics alike, and under-promoted to death by
the label, Imaginos was deemed an overall failure. BÖC was subsequently
dropped from Columbia after an almost 20-year association with the label.
Long
out-of-print, and the subject of no little discussion by Blue Öyster Cult fans
through the years, thanks to the good folks at American Beat we have a
reissued/remastered version of Imaginos to judge on its own merits.
Musically, the album-opening “I Am the One You Warned Me Of” spanks-and-cranks
with typical period metal overtones, with heavy riffing, clean ringing guitars
and Bloom vocals that sound eerily like Secret Treaties-era BÖC.
Slower-paced than the band’s early ‘70s brain-bashers, the song is no less
menacing. “Les Invisibles” is more contradictory, featuring some delectable,
deliberate skull-bashing fretwork and rhythms…but the constant refrain of
“seven, seven, seven” is more irritating than an itchy straitjacket, and as
unnecessary to the grand design of life as ticks and garden slugs.
“In the Presence of Another World” is a vintage BÖC face-burner,
opening with elegant six-string plundering before kicking into some sort of
sci-fi soundscape with soaring vocal harmonies and crunchy riffage courtesy of
Mr. Dharma. “Del Rio’s Song” offers up some fine lead vocals but little in the
way of substance; lacking distinctive instrumentation (or else it’s buried too
deep in the mix), it’s a pleasant diversion and nothing more. “The Siege and
Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein’s Castle At Weisseria” is as epic and
long-winded as the song’s title. Sounding like an outtake from a Ronnie James
Dio album, the song showcases Joe Satriani’s scorching six-string leads. The
song kind of grows on you, as blustery as it is, and it’s an excellent example
of early prog-metal overkill.
BÖC’s Astronomy
“Astronomy” should be familiar to any BÖC fan; originally included on
Secret Treaties, the song sits perfectly at the intersection of the
band’s science-fiction fantasies and fantastic metal proclivities. “Magna of
Illusion” has delusions of grandeur, but it also includes some nifty Robbie
Krieger guitar noodling, so I’ll begrudgingly swallow the song’s hackneyed
lyrical aspirations. “Blue Öyster Cult,” the song, bites down hard; a
re-working of the original tune “Subhuman” from Secret Treaties, which
was derived from “Blue Öyster Cult” to begin with (calling M.C. Escher), this
is one limp biscuit nonetheless.
I’ll call the title track a draw
– although it could have sorely benefited from some big-lunged Eric Bloom
vocal expertise, it kicks in with some tasty licks and keyboard riffs that
rescue it from oblivion. Bloom is absent without leave from much of
Imaginos, leaving the bulk of the vocal weightlifting to the capable
Buck Dharma. When any of the guest vocalists kick in on a song, it’s either
cringeworthy, or as slight as to be as easily forgotten as last week’s
hangover.
As stated before, Imaginos is a conceptual
song-cycle, something about a big-haired meanie that travels through time to
stomp on our hopes and dreams, or some other late ‘60s lysergic-fueled
narrative. Much like early Voivod albums, you have no idea what the hell
they’re talking about – you just sit back and try to enjoy the ride. By the
Reverend’s count, you have five bona fide BÖC gems on Imaginos, three
whiffballs, and one plea of “nolo contendre.” That’s close enough for rock ‘n’
roll in my book, and certainly a better batting average than many of today’s
pud-pounding corporate rockers.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
So, just where does Imaginos fall in the BÖC canon? With the benefit of
20 years of hindsight, I’d say that it’s certainly better than either of the
band’s two previous ‘80s-era albums, and it’s perhaps the band’s most overtly
metallicized effort, ever. In spite of all the cooks here adding their own
ingredients to the gumbo, some of that tasty BÖC flavor rises to the top
regardless. While Imaginos won’t prompt any fans to pawn their copies
of Agents of Fortune or Fires of Unknown Origin (or the classic
first three BÖC ear-mashers, either), you won’t embarrass yourself by owning a
copy, either. (Columbia Records, released July 1988)
Review originally published by the Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog…
Back when I was a wee lad, attending Franklin H.S. in lovely suburban Nashville, my friends and I were simply *ga-ga* over Uriah Heep. We all thought that they were the bee’s knees, the hot-cha-cha, the Nazz…well, you get the point. With Heep’s landmark 1972 album Demons & Wizards as our starting point, we championed the band’s excesses while reveling in their Goth-inspired, fantasy-influenced proto prog-metal trademark sound. Our love affair lasted throughout high school as albums like The Magician’s Birthday (also ’72); Sweet Freedom (1973, with the great AOR track “Stealin’” leading the way) and Wonderworld (1974) dominated our turntables.
Aside from the operatic voice of frontman David Byron, the other dominant element in Heep’s mid-70s sound was provided by guitarist, keyboardist, and songwriter Ken Hensley. Byron and guitarist Mick Box originally formed the band, called Spice, changing the name to Uriah Heep when Hensley joined. Hensley came over from a British band called the Gods which, at one time, included future Rolling Stones’ guitarist Mick Taylor and future ELP member Greg Lake. Hensley’s influence can’t be found on Heep’s debut album; however, with Salisbury (1970) and Look At Yourself (1971), Hensley took over the reins as the band’s primary songwriter. Writing both punchy metal-edged cuts like the title song as well as prog-oriented tracks like the symphonic “July Morning,” Hensley provided the band a distinct identity and a future direction.
Shaping the Uriah Heep Sound
With the addition of bassist Gary Thain and drummer Lee Kerslake – a former bandmate of Hensley’s from the Gods – on Demons & Wizards, the band found the players and chemistry that would take them over the top. Kerslake proved to be a talented songwriter in his own right, penning three of the eight songs on the band’s breakthrough album, and serving as a valuable counterpoint to Hensley’s efforts. Whereas Hensley’s work tended to lean more in a poetic prog-metal direction, Kerslake’s songs tended to be darker, more Goth-oriented exercises. The work of both writers coexisted well on the album. Gary Thain would also spread his wings as a songwriter for the band, contributing two tracks on The Magician’s Birthday. Hensley would still carry the brunt of the creative load, however, writing five songs for the album, including the incredible tracks “Sunrise” and “Rain.” By the time of Sweet Freedom and Wonderworld, the Hensley/Thain songwriting axis was well in place, the two experimenting with a more radio-friendly, harder-edged sound on songs like “Stealin’,” “Seven Stars” and “Something Or Nothing.”
In a case of “did he jump or was he pushed,” Thain would leave the band in 1974, after the release of Wonderworld. Suffering from a serious drug problem, Thain tragically died a year later. Kerslake would subsequently pick up the pen once again for 1975’s Return To Fantasy, writing six of the album’s nine songs. I mention the Hensley/Thain/Kerslake songwriting tandem as a way to underscore the dynamic that was created by having three solid writers in one band. Although not privy to any “backstage” maneuvering by any of the songwriters, it’s clear that having a trio of such talents drove the band to new heights. It’s also telling that when Hensley recorded his first solo album, Proud Words On A Dusty Shelf, he recruited Thain and Kerslake to play on the sessions. I feel that the competition between the three was a healthy one, pushing each to achieve great things.
Hensley’s solo debut was released in 1973, Proud Words On A Dusty Shelf benefiting from Heep’s commercial success at the time. According to interviews with Hensley, the prolific songwriter would offer a slew of songs to the band and they would subsequently record some and discard others, mostly due to the 40-odd-minute time constraints imposed by the vinyl LP format. Thus songs like “Proud Words” would never be recorded by the band while “Rain” is afforded slightly different interpretations on both The Magician’s Birthday and Hensley’s solo album. Hensley has said that the solo album wasn’t an effort to try and launch a solo career, as such, but rather as a forum for sharing all the songs that he had written with his fans.
Ken Hensley's Eager To Please
Hensley would record his second solo album, Eager To Please, in 1975 while trying to figure out exactly where Heep was going, commercially and creatively. Thain was gone, replaced by journeyman bassist John Wetton, a detour on his way towards forming Asia. Byron would leave after 1976’s High and Mighty album to pursue solo fame, replaced by former Lucifer’s Friend frontman John Lawton. Lawton would subsequently record three albums with the band, leaving after 1979’s Fallen Angel to be replaced by the generally reviled John Sloman. Kerslake would also leave at this time, working on Ozzy Osbourne’s first solo album before rejoining Heep in time for 1982’s Abominog. Along with founder Mick Box, Kerslake has been with Heep ever since, until he had to retire from the band in late 2006 due to health problems.
The tensions surrounding Lawton’s departure from Heep, and the conflicts created by the band’s internal struggles spelled the end for Hensley. The talented songwriter and musician would leave the band after 1980’s ill-conceived Conquest album to pursue a full-time solo career. Hensley would release his third solo effort, Free Spirit, the following year. Representing somewhat of a departure from both his previous solo work and his legacy with Heep, Free Spirit includes synth-pop songs and new wave flourishes that were decidedly un-metal like in their execution. Hensley himself seems to have expressed reservations about the album’s material, and it stands alone as an anomaly in the artist’s catalog.
The party was pretty well over by the time that I got to see Uriah Heep live, in May 1978, probably touring in support of their twin 1977 releases, Firefly and Innocent Victim. In a rare show of largesse, Rush had asked the band to open for them on their 1978 tour, paying back Heep for dragging Rush along on one of their previous tours. I had just scored my first ever backstage passes through Thom King’s Take One Magazine to interview Rush and figured out that the passes could also be used to get backstage and meet my idols, Uriah Heep. Although Hensley was reserved but friendly, Mick Box and Lee Kerslake were both chatty and accommodating. Box got the entire band to pose for pictures holding a copy of Take One and he invited my friend Wayne and myself backstage after Rush’s set to talk some more. We ended up drinking champagne and talking about music and motorcycles until early in the morning with Box and Kerslake.
Ken Hensley & Visible Faith
Ken Hensley’s influence on a generation of musicians is often understated. From his 1981 solo album, Hensley would go on to hang out for a while with southern rock band Blackfoot, performing on two of the band’s albums and touring with them for several years. Although it seemed as if Hensley had retired from music by mid-decade, a number of bands called upon his talents to contribute to their songs in the studio. Well into the late ‘90s, when Hensley became “born again” and rebooted his career with 1999’s A Glimpse of Glory, recorded with the band Visible Faith, Hensley lent his unique keyboard signature to recordings by Cinderella, Metalium, Ayreon and W.A.S.P.
Elements, released late last year in the U.K. by Castle Music, attempts to place Hensley’s contributions to rock music in context. The two-CD set features a handful of tracks by Hensley’s early bands the Gods and Toe Fat, with the Gods’ “Looking Glass” standing out as a strong cut from one of the ‘60s lesser-known outfits. There are fifteen Heep songs on Elements, ranging from “The Park” and fan-favorite “Lady In Black” from Salisbury, to “Falling In Love” from Fallen Angel. These aren’t necessarily Heep’s best-known songs, or even the hits, but from “Look At Yourself” and “The Wizard” to “Sunrise” and “The Easy Road,” they represent some of Heep’s best work.
Disc two of Elements jumps right into Hensley’s solo career, offering up six songs from Proud Words On A Dusty Shelf and five songs from Eager To Please, including the album’s lone single, “In the Morning.” The anthology also includes three songs from Free Spirit, including a standout track in “The System.” A lone Blackfoot track, “Send Me An Angel” is included here, as is “The Return” from A Glimpse of Glory. A rare recording of “I Close My Eyes,” originally from Running Blind, features the first reunion of Hensley and former Heep frontman John Lawton since ’79. Elements closes with a fine recording of the previously-unreleased “Romance,” part of the 2005 album Cold Autumn Morning where Hensley re-recorded some of his classic songs.
The Reverend's Bottom Line
Elements is a fine representation of Hensley’s career, presenting his work in a strong light and successfully balancing his band and solo efforts accordingly. The anthology serves as an excellent bookend to Hensley’s 1994’s rarities collection, From Time To Time, and is a great place for the neophyte to experience Hensley’s musical talents. The time is ripe for a critical rediscovery of Ken Hensley. A new Hensley album, titled Blood On the Highway, is scheduled for release in 2007, and features vocal contributions from prog and melodic rock heavyweights like Glenn Hughes, Jorn Lande and John Lawton. To the delight of his fans, Hensley’s biographical book When Too Many Dreams Come True will also be reissued in 2007. Some 40 years after his first recordings, Ken Hensley is still going strong. (Castle Music, released 2006)
Review originally published by Trademark of Quality (TMQ) blog, 2006
When they came along in the late ‘90s, Living Colour was an anomaly among hard rock bands. First of all, the members were all young African-American men with musical backgrounds in jazz, R&B and improvisational avant-garde music. Rock ‘n’ roll at the time was sheer whitebread, dominated by longhaired white boys, the cultural diversity of the late ‘60s/early ‘70s overthrown by corporate homogenization.
Living Colour didn’t fit into MTV’s nerf metal demographic but damned if they didn’t rock harder than half a dozen Motley Crue clones. The band seemingly appeared out of nowhere in the summer of 1988 with the release of its debut album, Vivid, but New York City fans knew differently. Living Colour had been banging around town for a couple of years, refining their sound and stage presence with residencies at clubs like CBGBs.
Living Colour’s Vivid
The release of Vivid would break through the barriers of race in rock, opening the door for multi-cultural ‘90s hard rock bands like Rage Against the Machine and System of A Down. This breakthrough was accomplished mostly on the strength of a single song, the blistering “Cult of Personality,” the accompanying video dominating the MTV playlist well into 1989 and breaking the band with a white audience. It was apparent from the video for “Cult of Personality” that Living Colour wasn’t kicking out the same old shit.
Vernon Reid wasn’t just another heavy metal guitar god, but a world-class six-string wizard who had earned his bones as a member of the experimental Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoder Society. The rhythm section of bassist Muzz Skillings and drummer Will Calhoun provided as big a beat as a band could ever want while frontman Corey Glover – largely untrained and with little experience as a singer – perfectly complimented the band’s funky, unpredictable groove with his rough-hewn, soulful vocal style.
Listening to the recently remastered reissue CD of Vivid shows that the album held much more great music than the celebrated hit single. Living Colour incorporated many styles and influences into the band’s sound, placing disparate elements of freeform jazz, funk, soul, heavy metal and guitar pyrotechnics into a hard rock framework. While songs such as “Open Letter (To A Landlord)” and “Funny Vibe” showcased the band’s social consciousness, visiting themes of poverty, homelessness and race, songs like the hedonistic “Glamour Boys” or “I Want To Know” were pop-influenced rockers with an almost new wave sound. (This was the ‘80s, after all….) When the band hit a metallic groove, however, as with “Cult of Personality,” “Middle Man,” or “What’s Your Favorite Color?” there were few other bands around who could match Living Colour’s powerful and innovative sound.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
The CD reissue of Vivid includes five bonus cuts culled from 12” singles; most of which have never appeared on compact disc before. A hip-hop remix of “Funny Vibe” by Prince Paul includes cameos from rappers like Daddy-O and Chuck D and Flavor Flav of Public Enemy. A red-hot cover of the Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” and a live version of “Middle Man” appeared previously on the band’s Biscuits collection. A Keith LeBlanc remix of “What’s Your Favorite Color?” adds to the funk quotient while a live performance of “Cult of Personality” closes Vivid and blows the roof off the mutha!
One of the most important albums in rock history, Vivid sold over a million copies and earned the band a Grammy® Award. More important, though, is the influence the album and Living Colour would have on those that would follow. With Vivid, Living Colour literally changed the face of rock ‘n’ roll. (Legacy Recordings, released May 4, 2010)
Review originally published by the Alt.Culture.Guide™ music zine
• Shades of Deep Purple (Tetragrammaton Records, 1968)
• The Book of Taliesyn (Tetragrammaton Records, 1968)
• Deep Purple (Tetragrammaton Records, 1969)
• Concerto for Group and Orchestra [live] (Tetragrammaton Records, 1969)
• Deep Purple In Rock (Warner Bros, 1970)
• Fireball (Warner Bros, 1971)
• Machine Head (Warner Bros, 1972)
• Made In Japan [live] (Warner Bros, 1972)
• Who Do We Think We Are (Warner Bros, 1973)
• Burn (Warner Bros, 1974)
• Stormbringer (Warner Bros, 1974)
• Come Taste the Band (Warner Bros, 1975)
• Made In Europe [live] (Warner Bros, 1976)
• Deep Purple In Concert [live] (Spitfire Records, 1980)
• Live In London [live] (Harvest Records, 1982)
• Perfect Strangers (Polydor Records, 1984)
• The House of Blue Light (Polydor Records, 1987)
• Nobody's Perfect [live] (Polydor Records, 1988)
• Slaves and Masters (RCA Records, 1990)
• The Battle Rages On... (Giant Records/BMG, 1993)
• Purpendicular (CMC International/BMG, 1996)
• Abandon (CMC International/BMG, 1998)
• Bananas (Sanctuary Records,2003)
• Rapture of the Deep (Eagle Records, 2005)
• BBC Sessions 1968–1970 (EMI Records, 2011)
• Now What?! (Eagle Records, 2013)
• Infinite (earMUSIC, 2017)
Deep Purple Mini-Bio
British rockers Deep Purple are inarguably one of the most influential bands of all time. Purple's trail-blazing mix of operatic vocals, virtuoso guitar and keyboards, and unrelenting rhythms informed several generations of rock superstars, from Kiss, Queen, and Van Halen in the 1970s to Metallica and Iron Maiden in the '80s and even bands like Pantera and Alice In Chains in the '90s. Purple's imprint on the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal is enduring and undeniable.
Formed in 1968 by singer Rod Evans, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, bassist Nick Simper, keyboardist Jon Lord, and drummer Ian Paice, Deep Purple were originally a psych-influenced progressive rock band. This line-up recorded three late '60s albums that were released by the indie Tetragrammaton Records and scored hits with cover songs like Joe South's "Hush," Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Rain," and Donovan's "Lalena." By 1970, however, as rock music was evolving, so was Deep Purple, towards a heavier, harder-rocking sound.
Evans and Simper, deemed "unsuitable" for the band's new direction, were ousted, replaced by singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover, who were also a songwriting team. This cemented the legendary "Mark II" line-up of the band that lasted from 1969 to 1973, re-forming again for a five-year run from 1984 to 1989. First finding success in the U.K. with albums like Deep Purple In Rock and Fireball, the band scored a multi-Platinum™ Top 10 U.S. hit in Machine Head, which yielded their classic song "Smoke On the Water." The band's Made In Japan live set went Platinum™ in the U.S. and sold over eight million copies worldwide. Purple's 1973 studio follow-up, Who Do We Think We Are, earned a Gold™ record for sales but tensions between the band members came to a head with Gillan quitting the band and Blackmore subsequently firing Glover.
Purple soldiered on, recruiting singer David Coverdale (later of Whitesnake) and bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes (Trapeze) for the recording of Burn, the band's eighth studio album, which became a Top 10 hit that was followed quickly by Stormbringer, both albums scoring Gold™ Record status. Disgruntled over the musical direction of the band, Blackmore quit to form Rainbow with singer Ronnie James Dio. Undaunted, Purple brought in guitarist Tommy Bolin for the disappointing Come Taste the Band, but after Bolin's death in 1976, Lord and Paice decided to break up the band.
After being offered a truckload of cash, the Mark II version of Deep Purple reunited in 1984 for a pair of studio LPs and a live album, but the bad blood between Gillan and Blackmore proved too much, the singer left the band once again. Purple brought in former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner for the horribly mediocre Slaves and Masters album, but when the rest of the band wanted to bring Gillan back in the fold for the band's 25th anniversary, Blackmore acquiesced, but left the band himself after the release of The Battle Rages On, quitting during the album's support tour and temporarily replaced by shredder Joe Satriani. Accomplished six-string virtuoso Steve Morse (Dixie Dregs) took his place, and other than Jon Lord retiring in 2002 (R.I.P. 2012), to be replaced by journeyman keyboardist Don Airey (another Rainbow veteran), this Purple line-up has continued to tour and record to this day.
This is but a brief overview of Deep Purple's lengthy and complex 50-year career. If you want the full story, check out writer Martin Popoff's comprehensive history of the band. There are a bunch of dodgy Deep Purple live albums, some of 'em pretty good, but most of them not so much, and I haven't listed those here. There are also a slew of various compilation albums that I'd avoid, but if you really need to check out the band, look no further than Machine Head and/or Perfect Strangers. If you dig those LPs, the rest of these will end up in your collection sooner or later...
