JB – Page 6

Jethro Tull | Teacher

“English progressive rock giants Jethro Tull are a unique phenomenon in popular music history,” (AllMusic). “Led by enigmatic frontman Ian Anderson — a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and rock’s premier flutist … their mix of heavy rock, flute-led folk melodies, blues licks, surreal, impossibly dense lyrics, and overall profundity defies easy analysis, yet in their 1970s heyday, they garnered a massive level of commercial success, notching a string of gold and platinum records and securing their place within the classic rock canon with releases like Aqualung (1971), Thick as a Brick (1972), and A Passion Play (1973). Even as critics cooled on them, Tull remained popular through later phases with their folk-rock records of the late ’70s, the electronic experimentation of the early ’80s, and eventually a Grammy Award-winning return to hard rock with 1987’s Crest of a Knave.

Benefit (1970) was the album on which the Jethro Tull sound solidified around folk music, abandoning blues entirely. Beginning with the opening number, “With You There to Help Me,” (Ian) Anderson adopts his now-familiar, slightly mournful folksinger/sage persona, with a rather sardonic outlook on life and the world…”

The mid-tempo track “Teacher” is built in A major overall, but the chorus features a D major/minor mix and then an instrumental section in B minor (first heard at 0:48 and 1:02). The pattern continues with verse 2.

Barrett Strong | Money and Me

“In July of 1959, Berry Gordy was working with Motown songwriter and office administrator Janie Bradford on a new song,” (Motown Museum). “He explained to her the thing he wanted most at that moment was not love but money. (Vocalist) Barrett Strong was in the studio that day and heard them working. He took over the piano playing from (Motown chief) Berry Gordy, and together the trio created ‘Money (That’s What I Want).’ The song took off, reaching #2 on the US R&B charts, and almost broke the top 20 on US Pop charts. It was Motown’s first major hit, and no one was prepared. Requests were coming from around the country for a copy of the iconic song and the small Tamla label struggled to keep up.

While Barrett Strong released a few follow-up songs including ‘Yes, No, Maybe So’ (1960), he eventually left Motown in 1961 … Strong would not return to Motown as a performer, but he began to write for other artists, including countless songs in partnership with Whitfield. They penned the iconic ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine’ performed by both Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight and the Pips, ‘War’ performed by Edwin Starr, and a slate of songs for the Temptations. His work helped usher in the ‘Psychedelic’ era for the Temptations, which included songs ‘Cloud Nine’ and Grammy-winning ‘Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone.’ Barrett Strong ended his working relationship with Motown in 1971, but his contributions to the company’s success would earn him induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.

“Money and Me” (1959) is much more harmonically and melodically basic than most Motown tunes, but the tune’s compelling groove gives a hint of the great future in store for the iconic Detroit record label. After a start in F major, a half step key change hits after an instrumental verse (1:30). Another half step key change drops at 1:53 as the intro starts.

Allman Brothers Band | Kind of Bird

“1990’s Seven Turns was a tentative comeback for (the Allman Brothers Band), which had gone nine long years without making a record,” (Ultimate Classic Rock). “Sparked by some new members, including guitarist Warren Haynes, the Allmans were blazing forward when they returned with Shades of Two Worlds. Haynes has a bigger role on the record, cowriting more than half of its songs. Veteran member Dickey Betts also turned in some of his strongest numbers.

… ‘There was just so much freedom, so much space,’ cofounder Butch Trucks told the Los Angeles Times in 1991. ‘For the first time since Duane (Allman) and Berry (Oakley) both died, there was a group of guys all going in the same direction, all feeling the same type of music and energy. It really (had been) a problem since that long ago.’ … Rooting themselves in tradition also set this lineup apart from the band’s doomed second edition, which saw what became a more pop-leaning 1978 comeback bid fizzle a couple of years later. Shades of Two Worlds would instead hearken back to the lengthy improvisational excursions found on 1971’s At Fillmore East, the last complete recording featuring Duane Allman.”

After starting in C minor, the instrumental track “Kind of Bird” shifts to Eb minor at 1:05, then cycles through both keys again before introducing an E minor section at 2:16. Angular melodies and the occasional odd meter keep listeners on their feet throughout the tune!

Sunrise, Sunset (from “Fiddler on the Roof”)

“Set in a shtetl in czarist Russia in 1905, the beloved musical Fiddler on the Roof has been staged hundreds of times around the world since its Tony Award-winning Broadway debut in 1964 … As for Fiddler’s enduring popularity, it’s perfectly written as a comedy and a tragedy and shows tradition in such a beautiful way, with the Sabbath candles and the family sitting around the table … tradition is also at the root of heartbreak: Tevye’s daughter Chava must choose between her family and her non-Jewish love,” (Jewish Journal).

“Lyricist Sheldon Harnick, who collaborated with composer Jerry Bock on Fiddler’s songs, spoke about the musical’s appeal in a telephone interview. ‘It’s a family show. It’s about a father and his children. So many people can identify with the problems of fatherhood and raising a family,’ he said, calling the musical’s success ‘astonishing. It’s the most popular and the most performed of everything that Jerry Bock and I did. I’m very surprised and very gratified.'”

Perhaps the most memorable of all of Fiddler‘s tunes is the waltz ballad “Sunrise, Sunset.” According to NPR, Harnick remembers “‘ … when we wrote ‘Sunrise Sunset,’ the first person we played it for was Jerry Bock’s wife… and when I finished, then I looked at Jerry’s wife Patti and I was startled to see that she was crying. And I thought, my goodness; this song must be more effective than we even know.'” Starting in Eb minor, the tune shifts up to E minor at 4:08.

Average White Band | Why

“Cut the Cake (1975) was a difficult album to make for the Average White Band. They were still mourning the loss of drummer Robbie McIntosh, who had died of a heroin overdose the previous year,” (Popdose). “It got to the point that producer Arif Mardin considered pulling the plug on the whole thing. Fortunately everyone soldiered on, and the result was an album that topped the R&B chart, and made it to #4 on the pop chart. AWB has made many more albums over the years, but they never again attained that lofty height.”

“Steve Ferrone, a black drummer from London, England, was hired as a replacement — ironically, he became the first black member of a Scottish soul/funk band that had a very African-American sound and a largely African-American following,” (AllMusic). “Despite the fact that AWB’s members still had McIntosh’s death on their minds when they were writing and recording Cut the Cake, this isn’t a depressing or consistently melancholy album; far from it … If anything, they honor McIntosh’s memory by showing their resilience and delivering one of their finest, most engaging albums.”

After both starting in E minor, the track’s first and second verses glide through quite a patch of key-of-the-moment color before arriving at the chorus, where the tonality shifts to E major (1:45). At 2:07, the verse continues after a jump to G major. 2:28 brings an interlude in E minor which then pivots into another chorus at 2:51, starting this time in F major but ending in Ab major at 3:12 as the tune fades.

Don Henley | The Heart of the Matter

“Don Henley knew to listen when Mike Campbell came calling with a piece of music,” (American Songwriter). “The first time it happened, Campbell provided Henley with the foundation for his biggest solo hit, 1984’s ‘The Boys Of Summer.’ When Campbell delivered another unused instrumental piece as Henley was making 1989’s The End Of The Innocence, the end result was ‘The Heart Of The Matter,’ which became the album’s closing track and turned into one of the most resonant ballads of the decade. Indeed, the first lines of ‘The Heart Of The Matter’ tell the news of the narrator’s former flame finding someone new, putting him in a wistful, reminiscing mood: ‘And I thought of all the bad luck and the struggles we went through/How I lost me and you lost you.’

Henley muses about the tendency for even those who are seemingly at peace in a relationship to seek greener pastures: ‘What are these voices outside love’s open door/Make us throw off our contentment and beg for something more?’ ‘The Heart Of The Matter’ strikes such a chord because the themes are universal, especially for those who have lived, and lost, a little. Many breakup songs get bogged down in rancor and recrimination, but here is one that strives for something nobler, even as it admits how hard it is to get there.”

Built in D major overall, the track shifts to C major for most of its brief bridge (3:32 – 3:49) before shifting back into D major via its Vsus/V chord (3:49-3:54). Then we drop back into another verse in the original key.

Mickey Woods | They Rode Through the Valley

The 1961 release “They Rode Through the Valley,” performed by Mickey Woods, was “The first Motown writing credit for (Motown founder) Berry Gordy’s brother Robert, aka ‘Bob Kayli,’ this is – rather unbelievably – a second weak ‘historical comedy’ record about the Battle of the Little Bighorn, apparently a vein Gordy didn’t feel was tapped out yet following Popcorn Wylie’s baffling ‘Custer’s Last Man.’ Oh, except this isn’t just a comedy record – it’s a comedy country record. Sweet Jesus … Seriously, if you don’t want to jab knitting needles in your ears when we get to the (charitably-named) ‘chorus’ and he jauntily announces ‘Sittin’ Bull and his Injuns / At the little bitty bitty Bighorn!‘, you’re made of sturdier stuff than this listener,” (MotownJunkies.co.uk).

“Anyway, it’s a story about how Custer got all his men killed by telling them to wait until they saw the whites of the Native warriors’ eyes, only to be foiled because ‘all them big bad Injuns / have big red bloodshot eyes!‘ That’s it. That’s the punchline. A borderline racist joke at the end of a comedy song about a mass slaughter during a vicious war of racial extermination. Fantastic.

(It’s bleakly entertaining in one way, and just one: bitter irony. The company which the whole world would come to identify as synonymous with the smashing down of racial barriers, the shining, all-conquering jewel of racial integration in Sixties America, putting out a casually racist joke record. It’s now starting to dawn on me why, if Mickey Woods really was Motown’s first white solo vocalist, it’s not a landmark that’s been publicised more; it’s almost as if Motown worked hard to erase this jejune blip from their history) … This is utter, utter, utter crap, and best forgotten by all involved. Let’s move on.”

The key changes for this “least Motown-sounding” of all possible Motown tunes hit at 0:52 and 1:40. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Dougie MacLean | Ca’ the Yowes

“Technically, Dougie MacLean is a ‘Scottish singer-songwriter.’ But that minimal moniker doesn’t tell half the tale … the Perthshire native can look back on a hugely successful recording career with more than 15 albums,” (Seven Days). “MacLean toured as a member of the rocking Scottish folk supergroup the Tannahill Weavers in the 1970s and was briefly a member of Silly Wizard, another legendary traditional band from Scotland. But his popularity was assured in the early 1980s with his solo album, Craigie Dhu. This recording contains MacLean’s ballad ‘Caledonia,’ a love song to his homeland that has become a veritable Scottish national anthem.

… MacLean sings and plays his own pretty compositions as if each song were a lullaby for a loved one, or for his own pleasure, as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. His vocals are silky and crystal-clear, his guitar work unhurried and graceful. His is not music for the cynical. If you dislike the texture and sentiment of, say, James Taylor’s ‘Sweet Baby James’ or Cindy Kallet’s ‘Working on Wings to Fly,’ MacLean’s sound may not be for you. He has a deep sentimental streak, which seems indigenous in Scotsmen who write folk songs — or folk ballads, or something more acoustic-music specific than just ‘songs.’ But to his fans, that sweetness is one of the reasons so much of his work is memorable. His recordings could also function as master classes in how to accompany a voice with acoustic guitar.”

“Ca’ the Yowes,” from 1995’s Tribute, indeed features a gentle lullaby feel, starting in C minor. At 1:59, the tonality shifts to D minor underneath an instrumental interlude. At 2:58, the tune passes back into C minor in advance of more vocal verses; the beginning of the D minor section seems more difficult to discern than its end. According to the Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary, ca’ the yowes tae the knowes means ‘drive the ewes to the knolls.’ The tune was based on a poem written by Robert Burns in 1789.

Eddie Kendricks | If You Let Me

“By 1972, Eddie Kendricks, the Temptations singer who led the ensemble through classics like ‘Just My Imagination,’ was ready for a new sound,” (Downbeat). “The vocalist’s first solo effort, 1971’s aptly titled All By Myself, still hewed toward classic Motown, so when Kendricks was set to record its follow-up, People … Hold On, he enlisted a new raft of players to back him,” and enlisted a group called the Young Senators … “‘We took Motown away from the Motown Sound,’ Young Senators percussionist Jimi Dougans, 74, said recently about the pivotal 1972 Kendricks album. ‘If you listen to any Motown records, they had a certain rhythm, a certain groove … They locked into that, and that’s the Motown Sound. Even the producer [of People], Frank Wilson, said we wanted to get away from that.’

… Motown had enjoyed stratospheric success, finding an uncanny ability to cross over. But People—accented with a heavy swing—seemed less pop-oriented. If Motown had been The Sound of Young America, this music was the sound of the streets, and the title was no accident. People was one for the people, not for Middle America. Tracks like ‘If You Let Me’ and ‘Eddie’s Love’ showcased slinky two-step rhythms and horn charts steeped in an urban sound that never were intended to appeal to every demographic in America.”

“If You Let Me” doesn’t clearly state its Bb tonic chord until the 0:18 mark; its unpredictable harmonic sensibility and frequent syncopations don’t allow us to get too comfortable. Starting at 0:43, a contrasting section briefly implies that Ab is the new key, but at 0:52, a strong cadence in Bb re-asserts the original key. The contrasting section repeats several times throughout the track.

Counting Crows | Bulldog (demo)

“Counting Crows have enchanted listeners worldwide for more than two decades with their intensely soulful and intricate take on timeless rock and roll,” (BendConcerts.com). Exploding onto the music scene in 1993 with their multi-platinum breakout album, August and Everything After, the band has gone on to release seven studio albums, selling more than 20 million records worldwide, and is revered as one of the world’s most pre-eminent live touring rock bands.

… Over the last 30 years, the masterful songwriting from frontman Adam Duritz put the band at #8 on Billboard‘s 2021 “Greatest Of All Time: Adult Alternative 25th Anniversary Chart.” After nearly seven years, the award-winning rockers announce their highly anticipated new project, Butter Miracle, Suite One. Produced by Brian Deck, the four-track, 19-minute suite is set for worldwide release this spring.”

Starting in E minor, the unreleased demo track “Bulldog,” featuring an insistent energy throughout, shifts at 0:55 to a chorus that shifts to an alternating B major and B minor. At 1:23, verse 2 returns to E minor. The pattern continues from there until the tune’s end, which features an unresolved F major chord at the end of a chorus — an unsettling tri-tone away from the tonic of the key.

for Kelli