always prefer Aqualung (1971) and Thick As A Brick (1972), for the Brits the flute-dominated Stand Up is the fondest memory – a triumph of youthful imagination, drive, wit and naïveté with just a little dash of melancholy, where later there would be cleverness, cod-pieces and concepts.
‘When we did Stand Up,’ Anderson recently recalled, ‘I thought, Hey, we’re on our second album – there could be a third! That’s about as far as I saw it going. I can remember writing the material for it and really struggling for ideas. If you get one, firstly it’s a relief and secondly, if it’s a good one then you’re jumping up and down. That excitement was there then and it’s still there now. Mind you, it would be difficult for me to write Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square now. It would seem a bit silly.’
As on Tull’s debut, the influences were ‘black American blues, which it all started with when I was 16 years old and, from growing up in Scotland, Scottish folk music, as well as the English folk heritage which I started getting aware of later. I don’t think you could call it folk rock, although it’s one of the many terms that have been applied to it. I can only say we’re sort of a rock band, but with a lot of different influences.’
Elvis Presley
From Elvis In Memphis
Hot from his TV comeback, The King exorcises the frustration of his wasted years in Hollywood.
Record label: RCA
Produced: Lincoln ‘Chips’ Moman
Recorded: American Studios, Memphis; January–February 1969
Released: August 1969 (UK) May 1969 (US)
Chart peaks: 1 (UK) 13 (US)
Personnel: Elvis Presley (v, g, p); Reggie Young (g); Mike Leech (b); Gene Chrisman (d); Bobby Emmons (o); Tommy Cogbill (b); Bobby Wood (p); The Memphis Horns (brass); Ed Hollis (hm); Al Pachuki (e)
Track listing: Wearin’ That Loved On Look; Only The Strong Survive; I’ll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms); Long Black Limousine; It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin’; I’m Movin’ On; Power Of My Love; Gentle On My Mind; After Loving You; True Love Travels On A Gravel Road; Any Day Now; In The Ghetto (S)
Running time: 36.51
Current CD: RCA 07863679322 adds: The Fair Is Moving On; Suspicious Mind; You’ll Think Of Me; Don’t Cry Daddy; Kentucky Rain; Mama Like The Roses
Further listening: 5-CD boxed set, From Nashville To Memphis (2000); The ’68 Comeback Special – the entire TV show (1992); Elvis In Person (At The International Hotel) (1970); Suspicious Minds (1999) – the whole session plus outtakes
Further reading: Careless Love: The Unmaking Of Elvis Presley (Peter Guralnick, 1998); www.elvis.com
Download: iTunes; HMV Digital
Elvis’s output in the ’60s is unfairly maligned: whenever Presley was inspired, the results were phenomenal: Elvis Is Back!, the TV special, two religious albums – His Hand In Mine (1960) and How Great Thou Art (1967) – and a handful of great flop singles; but all anybody remembers are the movies. When the 34-year-old singer arrived at 827 Thomas Street, Memphis, he knew he was as good as washed-up. Chips Moman wanted the kudos of producing The King; Memphis Horn Wayne Jackson was fairly enthusiastic – ‘it wasn’t like doing Neil Diamond,’ he admitted; but others were more concerned about the lack of decent material – publishers no longer needed Presley to sing their songs and take a cut. After a heated fight over Suspicious Minds (never part of any album), which Moman owned, Presley broke rank – get the songs, to hell with the percentages. Then the sessions began.
From the hoarse, autobiographical howl – ‘I had to leave town for a little while’ – that opened Wearin’ That Loved On Look, it was obvious Elvis was for real. The band, the hottest in the States in ’69, fused gospel, soul and rock perfectly – though country was beyond their reach (particularly obvious on It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin’). In nine days, 20 tracks were completed; 14 more were recorded in February. Everybody knew the songs were the business, but would they sell? Deciding to keep the best track until they’d tested the water, RCA stuck out In The Ghetto. It was his first Top 10 hit since Crying In The Chapel; From Elvis In Memphis – ‘unequivocally the equal of anything he has ever done’, according to Rolling Stone – recorded a respectable 13 in the US charts, then Suspicious Minds propelled him back to the top, the first time he’d been there in America since Good Luck Charm.
By this time, he’d returned to live performance, at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. A live album was welded to a second selection from Memphis: the studio set is disappointing, but the Vegas disc is essential, especially a seven-minute run at Suspicious Minds. For two more years, Presley was on top of his game again, creating a mature brand of rock that crossed the generation gap.
Fleetwood Mac
Then Play On
The last and greatest recording of the Mac’s first phase.
Record label: Reprise
Produced: Fleetwood Mac
Recorded: London; April 1969
Released: September 9, 1969
Chart peaks: 6 (UK) 109 (US)
Personnel: Peter Green (g, v, hm); Jeremy Spencer (p); Danny Kirwan (g, v); John McVie (b); Mick Fleetwood (d); Martin Birch (e)
Track listing: Coming Your Way; Closing My Eyes; Fighting For Madge; When You Say; Show-Biz Blues; Underway: One Sunny Day; Although The Sun Is Shining; Rattlesnake Shake (S/US); Without You; Searching For Madge; Like Crying; My Dream; Before The Beginning
Running time: 53.39
Current CD: Reprise 759927448-2 has a revised track listing: Coming Your Way; Closing My Eyes; Show-Biz Blues; My Dream; Underway: Oh Well (S); Although The Sun Is Shining; Rattlesnake Shake (S/US); Searching For Madge; Fighting For Madge; When You Say; Like Crying; Before The Beginning
Further listening: The Vaudeville Years Of Fleetwood Mac 1968–1970 (1998), a spiffing 2-CD set which contains unreleased and extended versions of tracks on Then Play On plus unissued versions of Man of the World and Green Manalishi
Further reading: Peter Green: The Founder Of Fleetwood Mac (Martin Clemens, 1998); My 25 Years In Fleetwood Mac (Mick Fleetwood, 1992); www.fleetwoodmac.net/penguin
Download: Not currently legally available
By the time Fleetwood Mac came to record Then Play On, they’d scored hit singles with the languid Albatross and the heartbreakingly beautiful Man Of The World, giving notice that their blue horizons were ever broadening. Danny Kirwan was now on board: his songwriting skills and his folk leanings edged an increasingly detached Jeremy Spencer further to the margins and emphasised the new directions the band were taking.
Sessions began in April 1969 with two Kirwan songs, Coming Your Way and Although The Sun Is Shining. Engineer Martin Birch recalled how he would work individually with Green and Kirwan; ‘Peter would come in and show me the feel and structure, lay down the basic track and when we were happy with the drums, the bass and two guitars, the others would disappear and I would work on his song until it was completely recorded … Then I would do the same with one of Danny’s songs and it would alternate like that until the album was done.’
While great music emerged, this way of working was indicative that the band was in the early throes of fragmenting.