The Mojo Collection. Various Mojo Magazine
time: 79.08
Current CD: Warners 7599271962
Further listening: Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970)
Further reading: Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica 33 1/3 (Kevin Courier, 2007); www.beefheart.com
Download: Not currently legally available
In 1968, a revamped Magic Band moved into a rented house in Woodland Hills, near Los Angeles, and set about rehearsing the music for Trout Mask Replica. Safe As Milk and the full-blown acid rock of Strictly Personal had made the group’s reputation, but now signed to Frank Zappa’s new Straight label, Beefheart – aka Don Van Vliet – was about to make his art statement. To avoid any confusion arising from his musical instructions and whistled lines, he set about composing on the piano. Technically, he couldn’t really play the instrument, but at this point he had confidence to spare.
Beefheart had put the brakes on his voracious consumption of LSD but was convinced the house was built on a Native American burial ground, and claimed he talked to the spirits. Meanwhile the group spent six months in grinding poverty learning John (Drumbo) French’s transcriptions of Don’s piano outpourings – which were often overlaid in different keys and metres; a feat of superhuman dedication. Beefheart had given all the musicians new names and was becoming increasingly tyrannical. Problems like noise complaints from the neighbours were minor compared to elongated ‘brainwashing’ sessions, fist fights breaking out in the fractious atmosphere and the group getting arrested during a shoplifting spree. By spring 1969 they were ready to make a ‘field recording’ in the house with Dick Kunc – a near neighbour, occasional house guest and regular engineer on Zappa’s music – bringing over his portable 2-track Uher reel-to-reel.
‘They were certainly well rehearsed. I seem to recall it was pretty much controlled chaos, with Don very much in command,’ he says. After a few tracks had been recorded, Beefheart insisted they use a proper studio, and they decamped to Whitney, in nearby Glendale. Although Kunc was ‘ready for anything’ he admits that ‘as a neophyte to that galaxy of music at the time, I wondered how to tell the difference between good and not-so-good performances.’
The album was recorded at breakneck speed and emerged as a massive scrapbook of free jazz, blues, rock and surreal poetry. Lester Bangs waxed rhapsodic in Rolling Stone, while others found it incomprehensible. In Britain, largely thanks to the patronage of John Peel’s Top Gear, Trout Mask Replica almost broke into the top 20 and remains surprisingly popular for such an extreme record. In an HMV poll of customers’ favourite albums in 1998, it ambled in at number 42, one place above Bowie’s Hunky Dory.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Green River
Third album from archetypal roots-rockers highlights the internal schisms forming.
Record label: Fantasy
Produced: John Fogerty and Saul Zaentz
Recorded: Wally Heider Studio, San Francisco; 1969
Released: December 1969 (UK) August 3, 1969 (US)
Chart peaks: 20 (UK) 1 (US)
Personnel: John Fogerty (v, g); Tom Fogerty (g, bv); Stu Cook (b, bv); Doug Clifford (d); Russ Gary (e)
Track listing: Green River (S); Commotion; Tombstone Shadow; Wrote A Song For Everyone; Bad Moon Rising (S); Lodi; Cross-Tie Walker; Sinister Purpose; The Night Time Is The Right Time
Running time: 29.20
Current CD: Concord FCD45142
Further listening: Bayou Country (1969); Willy And The Poor Boys (1970); Cosmo’s Factory (1970); The Blue Ridge Rangers – Blue Ridge Rangers (1973), essentially a John Fogerty solo album of country covers, lovingly rendered
Further reading: Bad Moon Rising: The Unofficial Story Of Creedence Clearwater Revival (Hank Bordowitz, 1998); Up Around The Bend: The Oral History Of Creedence Clearwater Revival (Craig Werner, 1998); www.creedence-online.com
Download: Not currently legally available
Green River was CCR’s second album of 1969 and John Fogerty, their driven front-man, assumed even more power during its making – banning the rest of the band from the studio during the mix. Drummer Doug Clifford remembers: ‘It was like, “Turn in your key”. It was a lock-out. We were allowed back in for 10 minutes to do the “wah doo days” on The Night Time Is The Right Time!’
‘I just refused to let them be there because it was so disruptive,’ explains Fogerty. ‘It was a go-around I had with Tom for the whole three years we were Creedence. He kept saying, “My part’s not loud enough.” The truth is, I would write the song, and then the producer in me would take over and write the arrangement, and I would show everyone exactly how it went.’ Clifford recollects things differently. ‘The good news was that I was the only drummer in the band, and he was less stringent with me than with the other guys. All the groovy little things I put in got to stay.’ Such as the spine-tingling high-hat work at the end of the Mephistophelean swamp rock of Sinister Purpose? ‘That was pure instinct; it was just a natural process.’
The tension between the players is also manifest in the subject matter of several tracks. The titles shout for themselves – Commotion, Tombstone Shadow, Bad Moon Rising.
‘If there wasn’t a demon there John would invent one,’ bassist Stu Cook reckons, ‘which was great when he was writing!’ And in the writing Green River is almost faultless. From the churning, nostalgic country R&B of the title track to the Sun-era rockabilly bounce of Cross-Tie Walker, Fogerty assimilated his influences perfectly and the band did him proud.
‘The circumstances weren’t exactly pleasant,’ muses Clifford, ‘but we did a job. We laid down the basic tracks in two days or so, and then waited to hear the record!’
‘Some of the initial playback tapes sounded better than the final product,’ remembers Stu Cook, ‘but I suppose it was partly our fault for letting him get away with it.’ Despite these problems, the album represents the pinnacle of Creedence’s achievement, and thus one of the high points of late ’60s American rock. Fogerty agrees. ‘My favourite album is Green River. That’s the soul of where I live musically, the closest to what’s in my heart.’
Fairport Convention
Liege And Lief
The first British electric folk album.
Record label: Island (UK) A&M (US)
Produced: Joe Boyd
Recorded: Sound Techniques, London; June, October 4–November 1, 1969
Released: December 1969
Chart peaks: 17 (UK) None (US)
Personnel: Dave Swarbrick (v, mandolin, va); Sandy Denny (v, g); Richard Thompson (g); Ashley Hutchings (g, b, v); Simon Nicol (g, v); Dave Mattacks (d); John Wood (e)
Track listing: Come All Ye; Reynardine; Matty Groves; Farewell Farewell; The Deserter; The Lark In The Morning; Tam Lin; Crazy Man Michael
Running time: 36.33
Current CD: Island IMCD291 adds: Sir Patrick Spens; Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood
Further listening: For a similar excursion into folk rock check out Unhalfbricking (1969), or Fotheringay, the band formed by Sandy Denny following