I had a pretty good 1972, I left home aged 18 in late 71, I was crazy in love, new friends, new experiences, all done to a great soundtrack. Like the Wild Angels I wanna be free, free to do what I wanna do, I wanna get loaded, I wanna have a good time & that’s what I’m gonna do. Please excuse me while I rave on about some of the records I found in the lower reaches of the Cash Box album chart (#101 – #150) of the 5th of March 1972. All three selections were favourites at the time of release, have become even more so over the years & who would have thought that I would still be listening in 50 years time? Not me, thinking wasn’t my strong suit back in 1972 – maybe it still isn’t.
First up it’s a debut by a new singer/songwriter, all the rage in the early 1970s. On its entry into the chart, the record was listed as “Saturate Before Using”, now two weeks later, the “Jackson Browne” album stood at #137. Jackson’s name had first come around in 1967 when he had played on & provided three songs for his girlfriend Nico’s, off of the Velvet Underground, record “Chelsea Girl”. The introspective “These Days” highlighted a maturity beyond his teenage years. Relocated to Los Angeles, signed to the new Asylum label, a radio broadcast from the time of his album’s release places him as a sensitive young man with a guitar playing songs from his first two albums that nobody knew, rather diffidently mumbling about taking too much cocaine after last night’s Carnegie Hall concert with Joni Mitchell. “Jackson Browne” is a more confident affair, the songs embellished with simple instrumentation to introduce an articulate, developing talent.
Right, “Saturate Before Using” (sorry, can’t help myself) in one paragraph without listing all the songs & avoiding the word “maturity” again. “Doctor My Eyes” took Jackson into the US singles Top 10 (similarly in the UK for the Jackson 5), the opening “Jamaica Say You Will” & my selection here “Rock Me On The Water” equally accessible. Some tracks take a little longer to differentiate him from all the other heartfelt Laurel Canyon troubadours but it’s worth it, the harmonies of David Crosby & Graham Nash on “From Silver Lake” still weaken my knees. I’ve stolen the phrase “conditional optimism” about Jackson Browne, whether personal, romance or the death of a friend, or political he stands “at the edge of my embattled illusions” & the later “resignation that living brings”. Not yet “caught between the longing for Love & the struggle for the legal tender”, imagining no possessions was not working out for my generation, we were having to figure just how much Peace & Love would sustain us in the 1970s. Jackson Browne articulated this quandary more lucidly than anyone around. On “For Everyman” (1973) he got himself a band, particularly guitarist David Lindley, who complemented this perspicacity & there were great records to follow, I really did enjoy last year’s “Downhill From Everywhere”, at 73 years old he & we are “Still Looking For Something“. I regularly reach for “Saturate Before Using” (now, I believe, the official title), a classic debut from an artist who, like many of us, was trying to work it out for the best.
I first heard Ry Cooder’s slide guitar on Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band’s game-changing “Safe As Milk” record in 1967 then backing Mick Jagger on “Memo From Turner” for the film “Performance” & adding mandolin to “Love In Vain” on the Stones’ “Let It Bleed”. His first solo record, released in 1970, illustrated his affection for Country Blues with the inclusion of songs by Sleepy John Estes, Leadbelly & Blind Blake among others along with a number of tunes from the Depression era. The lament “he could afford but “One Meat Ball””, Woody Guthrie’s “if you ain’t got that “Do Re Mi”” & the sublime “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times & Live” are respectfully & exuberantly interpreted. This was my introduction to Blind Alfred Reed, the author of “How Can…”, an itinerant musician who played at fairs, churches & on the street, just 21 tracks recorded between 1927-29, his homilies & social commentaries presented with guile & humour. There was to be more musical archaeology on “Into The Purple Valley”, #139 on this week’s album chart.
The tradition of Depression era polemics continued on “…Purple Valley” with “How Can You Keep On Moving (Unless You Migrate Too)”, “Taxes On The Farmer Feeds Us All” & Woody Guthrie’s militant “Vigilante Man”. The 1936 calypso “FDR In Trinidad” & an instrumental from Bahamian Joseph Spence introduced a Caribbean rhythmic seasoning & there was a reach back to the 1920s with “Billy The Kid” & “Denomination Blues”, a commentary on religious sectarianism (“Well, the Primitive Baptists they believe that you can’t go to heaven ‘less you wash your feet, & that’s all”) by Washington Phillips, a preacher-singer who knew a thing or two about a thing or two, expressed succinctly & melodically, playing a homemade instrument that involved some welding – amazing! A couple of 1950s R&B hits were in the mix too, a little more contemporary, adding variety & texture to the collection. It’s “Teardrops Will Fall”, a 1958 hit for Dickie Doo & the Don’ts, that makes the cut from a great record. Ry Cooder didn’t want to be a teacher, a curator of the American music museum, neither did he want to be a guitar hero but he was both. His excavations uncovered songs & artists that deserved our consideration, his impeccable, fluid guitar & mandolin reflecting his class, energy & delight to be playing them. There would be more, much more to come from Ry Cooder, in 1972 “Into The Purple Valley” was a little beauty.
In the summer of 1970 I was just 17, you know what I mean, with a job on a construction site providing the means to hit the local record shop on payday to buy discs that were neither on sale nor budget-priced, “Moondance” by Van Morrison was the first of these purchases. I know, I got good taste. After leaving his group Them Van’s move to the US was ill-judged, his producer/label boss Bert Berns was more interested in chasing the singles success of “Brown Eyed Girl” than recording an album. It took time & hardship to extricate himself that contract, at Warner Brothers there was freedom to make the hypnotic, mystical “Astral Weeks” (1968), a record that I knew but had not yet grokked the way I was able to “Moondance”, both critically acclaimed & along with “His Street Band & Choir” (1970) establishing Van’s position as a unique, passionate even visionary artist. His reputation for irascibility seems to be well-earned, his mutterings during the pandemic have placed him beyond the pale for many but in 1972, relocating with his wife & baby daughter from Woodstock N.Y. to rural California, he was in a good place.
“Tupelo Honey”,#117 on the list, opens with “Wild Night” a surge of excitement, one of the short, sharp R&B blasts that sounded great on the radio, sold well (US Top 30) & alerted folk to a new Van Morrison LP. Back in Woodstock Van had planned a Country & Western record but the cover versions were ditched in favour of his own songs & a new band hastily assembled. “Old Old Woodstock”, “Starting A New Life”, a key track & “You’re My Woman” are testaments to domestic happiness yet never cosy. As he sings on the latter Van’s concerns are what is “really, really real”, an expression of his feelings about his wife & the birth of their daughter as pure as he is able to capture. There is a Country inflection throughout the record though Van was never going to neglect his R&B roots, it’s how his songs went, the band, playing live in the studio do a great job, particularly Ronnie Montrose on guitar & Mark Jordan’s keyboards. The singer was always developing his voice as an instrument & he always knew how a horn section worked. It was going to be the ebullient, exciting “Moonshine Whiskey” featured because it always makes me happy however the title track is a classic, something you knew on first hearing it. This performance from a highly auspicious set live in Montreux in 1980, a stellar horn section of Mark Isham & Pee Wee Ellis, a singer confident enough in his talent to see where it led him, is popular music elevated to Art, a rare thing, a great thing.
Crikey, not all of these album posts will be as effusive – probably. I thought that I’d be on to the a “Best Of…” selection by now. This week’s chart also included “Who’s Next”, “Muswell Hillbillies” & Jim Capaldi’s “Oh How We Danced” so I may be rattling on too much next time.
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-1106744-1479096063-4655.jpeg.jpg)
“Running On Empty” (1977) is a live album, 10 tracks, none of which had appeared on previous records. After 4 well-received, big selling records Jackson Browne was well set for a “Best of…” collection. In late 1976 I had seen an outstanding performance which included all the good ones & I’m sure I’m not the only one who would have been happy to handed over the hard-earned for live versions of songs already in my collection. Jackson knew better & what we got for our money was something a little more substantial.
Danny “Kootch” Kortchmar must have played in a 1,000 bands (including the Fugs!). He’s made his own solo albums, produced big names, appeared in “This Is Spinal Tap” too but his reputation abides as a consummate, dependable sideman. He played Jackson a song of his about the musician’s life & “Shakey Town” was recorded within days. It perfectly fits the ethos of “Running On Empty”, Browne’s vocal certainly does the song justice & 40 years later it’s still a favourite of mine. Here is Danny performing the song with his band. To my old ears, this is how American Rock goes, I love this clip.
I’ve checked for more than half the tracks on the record but I’m not leaving without playing just one more. In 1977 Jackson made an appearance on the debut LP by singer Valerie Carter who was assisted in the recording by Little Feat’s Lowell George, one of the great guitarists & a writer with a similar talent for capturing tenderness without sentimentality. The trio wrote the yearning, simple “Love Needs A Heart” & it’s just a gorgeous thing. On “Running On Empty”, his biggest selling album, Jackson Browne documents the myth & his own reality of life on tour. Less heroic than his previous work, tougher than the rest, his accurate, undisguised, human reportage produced an outstanding, abiding record. If you don’t know it then well, you know what to do.
loosehandlebars 