The Mojo Collection. Various Mojo Magazine
‘He would come up with some kind of crazy sound, I would catch it on tape, then try and twist it around and make it even sillier.’ The freakish Third Stone From The Sun and the title track are the epics which paint Hendrix’s future in screaming colours, but the title track is the brightest of the bite-sized rockers – Foxy Lady, Manic Depression, Fire – tracks whose success, Kramer insists, came down to manager/producer Chandler. ‘If you look at the first record, most of the tracks are three and a half, four minutes long, and that was Chas’s influence. He came from that whole pop vibe, keeping it to three and a half minutes, which was a bit frustrating for Jimi. But I think it was a good thing because it kept the improvising very intense and very compact.’
It was this intensity which ensured the album’s immortality. Dave Marsh has called Are You Experienced? ‘the greatest, most influential debut album ever released.’ Keith Altham described Hendrix as ‘a new dimension in electrical guitar music … a one-man assault upon the nerve cells.’ But Noel Redding laughs at the much-vaunted perfection of the album. ‘There’s mistakes on the Experience albums … I remember, I’d call over to Chas, “Hey, I hit a wrong note,” and he’d go, “Don’t worry, no one will fucking notice,” in that wonderful Geordie accent of his. Then Hendrix used to drop a couple of notes here or there, or miss a slight lyric, and Chas would say “Don’t worry, mate.” It was great, we paid a lot of attention to what we were doing, but it was the feel we were after, more than technical perfection.’ And that is what they got. An album which feels great and sounds just fine. Especially in mono.
Tim Hardin
Tim Hardin 2
Second album by the errant young singer-songwriter, many of whose songs have become standards.
Record label: Verve
Produced: Charles Koppelman and Don Rubin
Recorded: Hardin’s home studio, Los Angeles; winter 1967
Released: May 1967
Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)
Personnel: Tim Hardin (v, g, p); Artie Butler (strings); Felix Pappalardi (b); Sticks Evans (d); Phil Krauss (vibes)
Track listing: If I Were A Carpenter; Red Balloon; Black Sheep Boy; Lady Came From Baltimore; Baby Close Its Eyes; You Upset The Grace Of Living When You Lie; Speak Like A Child; See Where You Are And Get Out; It’s Hard To Believe In Love For Long; Tribute To Hank Williams
Running time: 28.30
Current CD: Lilith LR107
Further listening: Suite For Susan Moore And Damion (1969) is a disturbing confessional in song and poetry of a man whose life is falling apart. Of his later albums Nine (1973) is probably the best; though his magical songwriting had deserted him, he proved himself a sensual soul-blues singer
Further reading: www.zipcon.net/~highroad/ hardin. htm; www.mathie.demon.co.uk/th/ (both fansites)
Download: Not currently legally available
Susan Yardley was a young actress making a name for herself in the TV series The Young Marrieds when she first met Tim Hardin in Los Angeles. Hardin, already a hardened drug addict, had a bad record with women and may have had dishonourable intentions towards Susan, if the lyrics to The Lady Came From Baltimore are anything to go by. Instead he fell deeply and irrevocably in love with the actress – real name Susan Morss – who became his wife and inspired virtually all the songs that flooded out of him and formed the basis of Tim Hardin 2.
He set up a studio in his house and recorded a series of songs of poignant wonder which detail not only his intense love for Susan but also the paranoia and neuroses that smothered him. Red Balloon is an anguished song about drugs; Black Sheep Boy confronts his sense of failure and alienation; Tribute To Hank Williams has him identifying strongly with the tragic, too-fast-to-live legend of the country icon. If I Were A Carpenter poetically relates his inferiority complex over his marriage to the well-connected Susan Morss, renamed as Susan Moore by Hardin for artistic purposes. If I Were A Carpenter went on to become his most celebrated song, a hit for Bobby Darin, Four Tops and many others. Not that it impressed Hardin, still unsuccessfully fighting his habit. It’s said that when he first heard Bobby Darin’s cover of Carpenter in the car, he screamed the car to a halt, jumped out and stamped on the ground in a rage.
There were no happy endings for Tim Hardin or Susan Moore. He eventually died of an overdose, 13 years after the release of Tim Hardin 2. He had a long, difficult struggle with his own numerous demons, which included a terror of live performance, low self-esteem, constant writer’s block, the emotional roller-coaster of his on-off marriage and various attempts to escape the clutches of the drugs that ultimately killed him.
The Beatles
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The most famous rock album of all time.
Record label: Parlophone (UK) Capitol (US)
Produced: George Martin
Recorded: Studio Two, Abbey Road, London and Regent Sound Studio, Tottenham Court Road, London; December 6, 1966–April 21, 1967
Released: June 1, 1967 (UK) June 2, 1967 (US)
Chart peaks: 1 (UK) 1 (US)
Personnel: Paul McCartney (b, k, v); John Lennon (g, k, v); George Harrison (g, sitar, v); Ringo Starr (d, pc, v); Geoff Emerick, Richard Lush, Phil McDonald, Keith Slaughter (e)
Track listing: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With A Little Help From My Friends (S/released 1978); Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds; Getting Better; Fixing A Hole; She’s Leaving Home; Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite; Within You Without You; When I’m Sixty Four; Lovely Rita; Good Morning Good Morning; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise); A Day In The Life
Running time: 39.50 or, on vinyl, infinite
Current CD: CDP 7 46442 2
Further listening: Hear Pepper develop on Anthology II (1996)
Further reading: The Complete Beatles Chronicle (Mark Lewisohn, 1996); Revolution In The Head (Ian McDonald, 1995); www.beatles.com
Download: Not currently legally available
While recording Sgt. Pepper, Paul McCartney read an allegation that The Beatles had ‘dried up’, so quiet were they from Revolver (August 1966) through the winter and spring of 1967. But he knew exactly what The Beatles had up their sleeves.
‘I was sitting rubbing my hands, saying, You just wait!’ he remembers. His arrogance is intriguing: The Beatles could not have known what the public’s reaction to Sgt. Pepper would be. It may have baffled the bulk of their fans, so great was its scale and ambition. But over the 129 days it took to record, the Fabs were following their noses, and no one was going to tell them what could or couldn’t be achieved. Their favourite expression in the studio at this time was ‘There’s no such word as “can’t”.’
The first song recorded (Strawberry Fields Forever) was quickly deemed too plain and a new, orchestral arrangement ordered. The next three songs recorded were When I’m Sixty Four, Penny Lane and A Day In The Life, a gauge of how different this record was intended to be from its predecessors. Their ambitions even stretched to plans for a TV special following the recording. (In the end only one session was filmed, the orchestra playing on A Day In The Life.) Sgt. Pepper reeks of confidence and the desire to set new standards. It was a whole creation (and the first Beatles album to have the same sequence in Britain and America). McCartney