…and now, back to music…

…I figure this is a (mostly) music blog, so enough about baseball for the time being.

While in high school, there were few bigger influences on me than the Stones and Faces. Imagine my delight when, in late ’73, news came across the pond that the bands’ respective guitar players, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, had teamed up to work on Woody’s first solo album! It seemed almost too good to be true.

The genesis of the project, according to Keith, was that he was out on the town one night and bumped into Ronnie’s first wife, Krissie. She mentioned to Keith that Ronnie was up at their house in Richmond, working on a solo project, and why didn’t he drop by? Keith did, and wound up literally moving in until the album was finished; “I’ve Got My Own Album To Do” quietly became one of the best albums of the mid-70’s.

The title, of course, was a gentle dig at their respective bandmates; Rod Stewart, at the time, was recording his solo effort, “Smiler“, Ronnie Lane had just finished his first solo project, “Anymore for Anymore” , and even Stones’ bassist Bill Wyman had ventured into that territory with “Monkey Grip“. All this gave Keith and Ronnie the necessary time to themselves. Of course, both Rod and Mick Jagger eventually wound up contributing to Ronnie’s album.

In order to create some buzz around the album’s release, the musicians that recorded most of the album (Ronnie & Keith, with Face Ian Maclagan (keys), ex-Sly & the Family Stone Andy Newmark (drums), and veteran session bassist Willie Weeks) played a series of gigs at Kilburn Polytechnic (now part of the College of North West London). This band, though it was only together for the few weeks that the rehearsals and gigs took, is now sometimes referred to as “the First Barbarians” , in reference to Ronnie & Keith’s side project of the 80’s, the New Barbarians.

My impetus for this post is that I remember reading at the time that the gigs were filmed; I wondered if any footage had survived. Youtube, as usual, came through. To whit:

 

A few fun facts about the recording of the album and those shows:

• Keith’s decision to move into Ronnie’s house may have been motivated by considerations other than creativity; Scotland Yard was looking for any excuse to bust him (he’d walked away from some firearms charges when police badly botched the investigation) and had his own London home in Cheyne Walk under 24-hour surveillance.
• The house where the album was recorded, the Wick, is  an English Heritage Grade 1 listed building. Constructed in in 1775, one of the previous occupants was actor John Mills. While there, Keith stayed in daughter Hayley’s former bedroom.
• Before this all took place, Keith and Ronnie were nodding acquaintances. After a few weeks they were bosom buddies, then semi-permanent guest stars in each other’s projects. By 1975, Ronnie had replaced the departing Mick Taylor as the “touring” second guitarist in the Stones and, though other people were auditioned (Wayne Perkins, Ry Cooder) became the last “official” member of the Stones in 1976. Everyone who’s played with them since (Darryl Jones, Chuck Leavell, Ian Mclagan, Blondie Chaplin) has been an employee.
• Like the Pirates’ gigs at Dingwall’s, Woody’s concerts in the fall of 1974 seemed to be one of those touchstone moments for the nascent punk movement in the UK. Nick Kent relates how he was at one of  the concerts with Malcolm McLaren when Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and first Sex Pistols guitarist Wally Nightingale suddenly appeared out of nowhere; not having the money for tickets, they had used their skills as second-story men and climbed in through a skylight in the roof!

Most Influential Album II

Funny name for an album…”Truth”

Alright, I’ve confessed that the 13-year-old D.J. Crossley was deeply impressed by the Stones’ finest live effort the last time out. Now we move on to the 15-year-old.

Back in 1973, CHUM-FM was still very much an “underground” radio station, who would play virtually ANYTHING. (You don’t believe me? sometime when you’ve got nothing better to do, look for a cut called “Fun at the Hospital” by a band called Egg. CHUM-FM used to play this fairly regularly – IN PRIME TIME!) Their afternoon drive show (ie-the one that was on when I got home from school) was hosted by John Donabie. He played a lot of good stuff, but virtually every day, he felt compelled to play a cut from his favourite album – “Truth”, by The Jeff Beck Group. It soon became mine.

One of the first of the heavy blooz bands from the UK (along with The Cream and The Pretty Things), they evolved from the psychedelic/blues wreckage of The Yardbirds to be quite something else. Part of the magic was the personnel – drummer Mickey Waller, guitarist Beck, bassist Ron Wood and vocalist Rod Stewart (along with contributions from such soon-to-be luminaries as Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Nicky Hopkins) created a magic that can still be heard today. Beck’s superb technical mastery, coupled with his fiery emotional edge, raised the bar for white blues guitar in a way that few before or since can claim. Page, for his part, was so fascinated with the interplay between Beck’s guitar and Stewart’s vocals that he found a 19-year-old kid with an equally impressive set of pipes (Robert Plant) to flesh out his “New Yardbirds” project, which of course, eventually became Led Zeppelin.
Most importantly for me, by the time the band fell apart (around 1970), Stewart and Wood had become fast friends. When Woody was invited to put a new project together with the suddenly Steve Marriott-less Small Faces, he dragged his drinking buddy along to the rehearsals. Finally, after a couple of days of sitting and watching, drummer Kenny Jones suggested that Stewart have a go at singing with them. The die was cast, and the best-rocking, hardest-partying band of the 70’s was born – Faces.