Arrested. Blacklisted. Out of control.
ISSUE 271
FEBRUARY 2020 ISSUE 271
26 Features
The Doors 24 The Ones To Watch
Our top tips for the coming year (and indeed the decade).
“Jim’s attitude was always: ‘Look out, 26 The Doors
man, I’m hell-bent on destruction.’” With their frontman on a downward spiral, and threatening to
take the rest of the band with him, it was decided that the best
thing to do was get back in the studio. Against the odds, they
came out with one of their greatest albums: Morrison Hotel.
38 Classic Albums That
Almost Never Were
It was the dawn of the 70s, a period that delivered some now
iconic albums. So why were they dismissed at the time?
40 Alice Cooper
How a garage band from Phoenix with stars in their eyes
moved to LA, and the story of their album Easy Action.
44 Corky Laing
Like most young budding rock musicians, he had a dream.
Unlike most, his came true, as he steadily scaled the rock’n’roll
mountain and made it to the very top.
52 Band Of Gypsys
In January 1970, Jimi Hendrix pulled the plug on stardom to
chase a funkier, freer direction. His short-lived new trio also
helped redefine the nature of the rock gig.
56 The Flying
Burrito Brothers
How these psychedelic outlaws mixed rock with country and
in the process paved the way for the Eagles and more.
58 Suzi Quatro
She could have ended up a classical pianist, but then one day
she picked up a bass guitar, and found herself on the road
that would lead to her becoming a glam-rock icon. Suzi talks
about this and much more in the Classic Rock Interview.
66 Glorious Sons
These blue-collar poets and shitkicking rockers for the new
age are on anthemic form with their brilliant new album.
68 Goth: An Oral History
As punk’s light faded, something new began to stir in the
darkness. After goth’s early days as a look/fashion/scene
rather than a music genre came some of the greatest music
of the 80s. This is its story.
82 No-Man
Tim Bowness takes us inside the surprising world of the
masters of ambient, melancholic alt.rock .
HENRY DILTZ/GETTY
FEBRUARY 2020 ISSUE 271
Regulars
10 The Dirt
Eagles confirm two Hotel California concerts at Wembley
Stadium in August; dispute with Chris Cornell’s widow
blocks new Soundgarden album; Mötley Crüe signed up
for North American tour this summer; new photo-book
documents AC/DC’s early years… Welcome back Greg Dulli,
Molly Hatchet and Theory Of A Deadman… Say hello
to Jack J Hutchinson and The Last Internationale… Say
goodbye to Michael Putland, Duncan Sanderson, Martin
Hooker, Iain Sutherland…
20 The Stories Behind
The Songs
Argent
“I don’t care that most people think it’s a Kiss song,” its
writer, Russ Ballard, says of God Gave Rock And Roll To You.
22 Q&A
Steve Harris
The Iron Maiden and British Lion bassist on having too many
ideas, being a tongue-tied fanboy and retirement.
87 Reviews
New albums from Magnum, British Lion, Stone Sour, The
Flower Kings, Djabe & Steve Hackett, Marcus King, Passion,
Wolf Parade, Anti-Flag, InMe, DeWolff… Reissues from
Pink Floyd, Muse, The Stooges, Jimmy Page & Friends,
Geordie, Mott The Hoople, Phil Collins, Dickies, Jack Bruce
& Friends, Ken Hensley… DVDs, films and books on AC/DC,
Bernie Marsden, Rolling Stones, Queen, Elton John, Joni
Mitchell… Live reviews of A Thousand Horses, Ronnie
Wood, Airbourne, Tyler Bryant And The Shakedown, Idles…
100 Buyer’s Guide
Devin Townsend
Where to begin with a catalogue that spans extreme metal,
sublime prog-scapes, colossal riffs and extra-terrestrials.
103 Live Previews
Must-see gigs from Magnum, Five Finger Death Punch,
Girlschool, Damian Wilson & Adam Wakeman and Keb’ Mo’.
Plus full gig listings – find out who’s playing where and when.
122 The Soundtrack
Of My Life
Kenny Wayne Shepherd
The blues-rock guitarist/singer on the special records,
artists and gigs that are of lasting importance to him.
68
Goth:
An Oral History SUBSCRIBE!
AND SAVE
MONEY!
“We thought we belonged to a bloodline p92
that stretched back through glam
to the Stones to Gene Vincent.” GETTY
WELCOME
elcome to the first issue of
2020! I hope you’re not still
nursing hangovers from your
New Year’s celebrations, but if
you are, then I hope this issue
will help to ease the pain.
As 2020 rolls by, so do a lot of
important anniversaries in the rock
world. So this month we’re taking you back to the
first weeks of 1970, when The Doors were about to
unleash Morrison Hotel on to an unsuspecting public.
Frontman Jim Morrison was navigating a run-in with
the law, the band were blacklisted by radio and were
in a bit of trouble. Nevertheless, they rose to the
challenge and delivered what would be their most
successful album in the UK. Read more from page 26.
Elsewhere we take a walk on the dark side of the
80s as we explore the epic rise of goth in the
company of The Mission, The Cult, The Cure and
a veritable cast of thousands; we sit down with Suzi
Quatro for the Classic Rock Interview; discover how
Hendrix’s Band Of Gypsys rewrote rock’s rule book; Subscribe!
and so much more.
While I have you, this is the time for making New
Year’s resolutions, right? So how about resolving to
never miss an issue of Classic Rock in 2020? And the
easiest way to make sure you keep that resolution is
to take out a subscription. So turn to page 92 (for US
readers, page 85) to save money and more. Do it. You
know it makes sense!
Save money, get your issues early and
reap exclusive subscriber benefits.
Siân Llewellyn, Visit www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
THE COVER: for our latest subscription offers.
HENRY DILTZ/GETTY Editor
This month’s contributors
BILL DEMAIN DAVE LING IAN FORTNAM
Bill DeMain is a songwriter, News and Lives Editor Dave Ling Classic Rock’s Reviews
BBC correspondent and is a member of the team that Editor Ian Fortnam was
the owner/guide of the founded Classic Rock back in initially entranced by Suzi
Walkin’ Nashville music 1998. As ever, he’s been very Quatro when she burst into
history tour. His songs busy this issue. In addition to his living room via Top Of
appear on upcoming his regular duties, he spoke with The Pops. Quite how
releases by A Girl Called Magnum, Girlschool, Five Finger entranced she was when he
Eddy and Curtis Stigers. Death Punch, Keb’ Mo’, Adam burst into her living room via
This month he delved Wakeman and Damian Wilson her kitchen to conduct this
into Band Of Gypsys for for the lives section, and month’s interview is very
us. Read about his managed to find time to speak much open to question. Suzi
investigations into Jimi with Corky Laing and chronicle takes on The Classic Rock
Hendrix from page 52. his unbelievable life (page 44). Interview from page 58.
Stereo
Can also be played
on mono
equipment
SIR K 66 087
(2SRK 1987)
Germany: Z
France: WE 666
LC 2112 5150
Es E E ta t t bli l l s i i h s s ed e e 19 1 98
9 9
Editor Art Editor Features Editor
Siân Llewellyn Darrell Mayhew Polly Glass
Now playing: Marcus King, El Dorado The Wildhearts, Renaissance Men H.e.a.t., II
Production Editor Reviews Editor Online Editor News/Lives Editor
Paul Henderson Ian Fortnam Fraser Lewry Dave Ling
Cream, Goodbye Tour Live 1968 Mott The Hoople, The Golden Age Of Rock ‘N’ Roll Black Smoke Trigger, Set It Off Vambo, Vambo
Contributing writers Contributing photographers
Marcel Anders, Geoff Barton, Tim Batcup, Mark Beaumont, Max Bell, Essi Berelian, Simon Bradley, Brian Aris, Ami Barwell, Adrian Boot, Dick Barnatt, Dave Brolan, Alison Clarke, Zach Cordner, Fin Costello, Henry Diltz,
«ǣƬǝ !ǝƏȅƫƺȸǼƏǣȇً ³Ɏƺȵǝƺȇ (ƏǼɎȒȇً «ǣƬǝ (ƏɮƺȇȵȒȸɎً hȒǝȇȇɵژ(ƺƺً xƏǼƬȒǼȅ (Ȓȅƺً nƺƺ (ȒȸȸǣƏȇً xƏȸǸ 0ǼǼƺȇً !ǼƏɖƳǣƏ 0ǼǼǣȒɎɎً kƺɮǣȇ 0ɀɎȸƏƳƏً hƏȅƺɀ IȒȸɎɖȇƺً hǣǼǼ IɖȸȅƏȇȒɮɀǸɵً Rƺȸƫ Jȸƺƺȇƺً Ȓƫ Jȸɖƺȇً xǣƬǝƏƺǼ RƏǼɀƫƏȇƳً «ȒɀɀژRƏǼˡȇً xǣƬǸ RɖɎɀȒȇً
Paul Elliott, Dave Everley, Jerry Ewing, Hugh Fielder, Eleanor Goodman, Gary Graff, Michael Hann, John Harris, áǣǼǼ XȸƺǼƏȇƳً «ȒƫƺȸɎ kȇǣǕǝɎً xƏȸǣƺ kȒȸȇƺȸً Əȸȸɵ nƺɮǣȇƺً hǣȅ xƏȸɀǝƏǼǼً hȒǝȇ xƬxɖȸɎȸǣƺً JƺȸƺƳژxƏȇǸȒɯǣɎɿً (ƏɮǣƳ
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AC/DC at the Nashville “They turned up at the
Rooms in London in 1976.
Below: Bon Scott points to the
Nashville as a pub-rock band”
direction the band are headed.
New photo-book documents AC/DC’s early years.
A new limited-edition coffee-table book showcases to get on with, and although I was slightly older than
AC/DC’s years of 1976 to 1981, a period in the band’s them the gap wasn’t too massive, so we had an easy
history that most fans consider peerless. Big Balls is connection,” Barnatt continues. “For instance, the book
a 272-page, largely pictorial tome that pulls together has a shot of Bon with his teeth hanging out. That was
photos from the photographers Dick Barnatt, Michael a suggestion from Bon – ‘Here, Dick, get a shot of this.’
Putland, Fin Costello, George Bodnar and Martyn I didn’t even know he had false teeth. But he thought it
Goddard, covering AC/DC from their first visit to would make an amusing photo.
the UK up to their headlining spot at the second “That wouldn’t happen today,” he adds. “A band
Monsters Of Rock festival a half-decade later. At Castle wouldn’t want to be seen in such a light. The record label
Donington, with Brian Johnson having replaced the would pounce on me and prevent it. But AC/DC didn’t
late, great Bon Scott on vocals, and part of a bill that want any of that idiocy. They did anything they liked.”
also included Whitesnake, Blue That freedom included
Öyster Cult, Blackfoot, Slade writing a paean to a venereal
and More, they were watched disease: “The song of theirs that
by 85,000 fans. I remember most was The Jack
As an in-house photographer – either Angus or Bon had to
for Atlantic Records, Dick explain to me that it was about
Barnatt got to work closely with the clap,” Barnatt laughs.
the band after he’d watched AC/DC went on to become
them at the Nashville Rooms superstars of rock music.
in London on the Sounds In some ways it’s unfair to
magazine-sponsored Lock Up ask whether, on the basis
Your Daughters tour in 1976. of the gig at the Nashville
On these two pages are two Rooms, Barnatt could have
photos from that same gig: one foreseen such an explosion
of a bare-chested Scott pointing in popularity. But let’s ask
skywards, the another of lead him anyway.
guitarist Angus Young caught “No, never in a million
mid-leap, a couple of years!” he replies. “Don’t get
feet above the stage. © DICK BARNATT & RUFUS PUBLICATIONS me wrong, I knew they were
“Bon couldn’t give a good band, but you had to
a stuff about taking off understand that punk music
his shirt to reveal his was happening around them.
chest in a London pub,” Also, through Atlantic I’d
Dick Barnatt remembers been working with the Heavy
fondly. “It was so hard “These were the times Metal Kids, who I considered
to photograph Angus, to be another great band,
because he moved so of punk rock… There and they never really made
fast and the Nashville it. Along came AC/DC, and
Rooms had no real was an audience of I realised they were as good as
lighting. I had to use twenty-five at most.” the HMK if not better, but the
a flash. Even when they context of the scene made that
moved up to the bigger venues it was tough kind of prediction an incredibly rash one. Maybe the
to get anything decent, because he was like reason that AC/DC did so well was that they built their
a streak of lightning.” audience over a long period of time; they were not an
Barnatt had gone along to the Nashville overnight success.”
Rooms gig without knowing what the band All these decades later, Barnatt has no real
looked like; he had no clue that Angus dressed relationship with the AC/DC camp (Big Balls is an
as a schoolboy. unofficial book), although Mark Evans, the group’s bass
“These were the times of punk rock, so for player during a period of the era covered in the book,
me it was a real eye-opener,” he says. “The has written a foreword and personally signed each of its
other important thing was that there was an 500 numbered copies.
audience of twenty-five people at the most. “Apart from Mark I don’t see them at all, and of course
AC/DC had turned up at the Nashville almost Angus is pretty much the only one left,” Barnatt says.
as a small pub-rock band, but when they “Let’s just say they move in very different circles to me
performed it was with no holds barred.” now. What I’d really like to do some day is a book on
In ’76, AC/DC were touring their album Atlantic Records, as I worked with most of their roster,
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. Angus and his from the soul side of things to Zeppelin and Yes.”
rhythm guitarist brother Malcolm were Big Balls also includes a lengthy essay from
21 and 22 years old respectively, Bon Scott writer Howard Johnson. It costs £175 from www.
approaching 30. “They were a very easy band rufuspublications.com/rufusbooks/ACDC DL
This month The Dirt was compiled by Lee Dorrian, Dave Everley, Polly Glass, Rob Hughes, Dave Ling, Henry Yates.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 11
Led Zeppelin by Michael
Putland, who photographed
most of rock’s big names.
The Who have
become the first act
to be celebrated on
Thank you London’s new Music
Walk Of Fame in
and good night. Camden. Frontman
Roger Daltrey and
guitarist Pete
Martin Hooker Townshend accepted
February 4, 1953 – November 18, 2019 the accolade from
Primal Scream’s
Members of Metallica, Twisted Sister Bobby Gillespie.
and Paradise Lost have paid tribute to
the founder of their former record The Boomtown
label, Music For Nations, who has died Rats, whose current
at the age of 66 following a long illness. line-up features
“Martin was the first guy with the sack vintage-era members
to sign Twisted Sister,” commented Bob Geldof on vocals,
the American band. “Also, he caught guitarist Garry
a piece of fruit thrown at us at the Roberts, bassist Pete
Reading Festival… and ate it!” Briquette and
drummer Simon
Iain Sutherland Crowe, are soon to
November 17, 1948 – November 25, 2019 release their first new
studio album since
Brothers born in Aberdeen, Gavin and 1984’s In The Long
Iain Sutherland were a folk- and soft- Grass. Citizens Of Michael Putland
rock duo known as the Sutherland Boomtown features 10
Brothers, who performed with the original songs. The
band Quiver. The biggest hit of this band will also be on May 27, 1947 - November 18, 2019
alliance was Arms Of Mary in 1976, the road in the UK
and a cover of the Sutherland brothers’ throughout March, It has often been suggested that John, The Beatles, Marc Bolan, The Who,
song Sailing was a big hit for Rod April and May. Michael Putland did not have a single day Yes, Pink Floyd, Traffic, Patti Smith, Blondie
Stewart. Iain passed away at the age off during the 1970s. As one of the decade’s and John Lennon and countless others. His
of 71 following an unspecified illness. Wishbone Ash most successful, popular and ubiquitous photos adorned the covers of High Voltage by
release Coat Of music photographers, with an archive that AC/DC, Eric Clapton’s Rainbow Concert and
Doug Lubahn Arms, their first studio runs from ABBA to Zappa and just about Son Of Schmilsson by Harry Nilsson.
December 20, 1947 – November 20, 2019 album in six years, on everything in between, it’s easy to see why During a spell living in New York, in 1977
February 28 via SPV such an opinion could be true. he co-founded the picture agency Retna.
The surviving members of The Doors
have led the tributes to the session Records. Still led by Born in Harrow, just outside of London, In 2014 Putland said: “My style was
man who played bass on three of their co-founding guitarist Putland picked up his first camera at always more photojournalistic; I didn’t
albums: Strange Days, Waiting For The Andy Powell, their the age of nine. After leaving school he want to do glossy. My talent isn’t technical, if
anything it’s capturing the real person.”
Sun and The Soft Parade. Lubahn also current line-up is began work at a photographic studio, and He died peacefully at home in the UK
completed by bassist
eventually became a regular contributor
contributed to records by Ted Nugent Bob Skeat, guitarist to Disc & Music Echo. After being hired as after a short illness, aged 72. The Music I Saw,
and Billy Squier, among others. “Doug Mark Abrahams the official photographer for the Rolling an exhibition of his work, runs at the Lucy
made indelible contributions to and drummer Stones’ 1973 tour, he never looked back, Bell Gallery in Hastings until January 16.
rock‘n’roll,” said a statement from Joe Crabtree. and went on to take iconic photos of Led For details go to www.lucy-bell.com or call
The Doors. He was 71 years old.
Zeppelin, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Elton 01424 434 828. DL
Marie Fredriksson
Duncan ‘Sandy
May 30, 1958 – December 9, 2019 ’
The lead singer with the Swedish pop-
rock band Roxette died as this issue Sanderson
of Classic Rock went to press. The
61-year-old, whose hits with the band
included Joyride, It Must Have Been Love December 31, 1948 - November 20, 2019
and The Look, had been battling cancer
for almost two decades. “You were the
most wonderful friend for over forty A documentary on Another cornerstone Infamous for their
years,” commented her Roxette ZZ Top (pictured), of the psychedelic rock scene, enthusiastic consumption
bandmate Per Gessle. That Little Ol’ Band Duncan ‘Sandy’ Sanderson, of mind-altering chemicals,
From Texas, is released bass player with The Deviants Pink Fairies released three
Clive James on DVD, Blu-ray and and Pink Fairies, passed away albums for Polydor – Never
digitally on February as this issue went to press. Never Land (1971), What
October 7, 1939 – November 24, 2019
28 via Eagle Rock His death comes two months A Bunch Of Sweeties (’72) and
Although he freely admitted being Entertainment. after that of bandmate and Kings Of Oblivion (’73), and in
un-musical, once commenting: “I’m friend Larry Wallis. ’87 a reunited Fairies recorded
one of those people who can’t even Congratulations to Originally known as the Kill ’Em And Eat ’Em.
tap his fingers on a table to make the AC/DC, whose Back Social Deviants, The Deviants Hailed as saviours of psych,
sound of a galloping horse,” during In Black album was were formed by singer/songwriter Mick proto-punk, pub rock and many more
the 1970s writer, critic and radio recently certified Farren in London’s Notting Hill in 1967. genres besides, the group continued to
and TV presenter Clive James (real 25-times platinum Carlisle-born Sanderson joined them that drift in and out of existence, their endless
name Vivian Leopold James) supplied in the United States, summer. After a break-up with Farren, line-ups being almost as fascinating as the
lyrics for six albums by the British with sales of more in early 1970 Sanderson formed the Pink music the band made.
singer-songwriter Pete Atkin. James than 25 million units. Fairies along with fellow ex-Deviants Sanderson was also a member of the
was 80 years old. The 1980 album members Paul Rudolph (guitar/vocals) Lightning Raiders. He was 71 at the time GETTY x3
was the band’s first and Russell Hunter (drums). of his passing. DL
recorded with singer
12 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM Brian Johnson.
‘You can check
out, but you can
Former Styx frontman/
never leave…’ keyboard player
Dennis DeYoung
Eagles confirm London Hotel releases 26 East:
California shows. Volume 1, part one of
what will be his final
album, this spring via
The Eagles have announced two Frontiers. It includes
summer gigs at Wembley Stadium, their a duet with Julian
only European concerts of 2020. The band, Lennon on the song
still featuring mainstays Don Henley, Joe The Good Old Days.
Walsh and Timothy B Schmit, and The album title refers
accompanied by Deacon Frey (son of late to the birthplace of
co-founder Glenn) and Vince Gill, will Styx, 26 E 101st Place
perform their landmark 1976 album Hotel being the address
California in its entirety, followed by where DeYoung grew
a second set of ‘greatest hits’. The shows up on the south side
take place on August 29 and 30 and will of Chicago.
feature an orchestra and choir.
Meanwhile, the band were the highest- Neil Finn, a touring
placed from the rock genre in an annual list Mac, has reunited Theory
member of Fleetwood
of music’s biggest earners of 2019 published
by Forbes magazine, at number four, pulling with Crowded House
in $100m (£79m) during the past year. for the band’s first Tyler Connolly on UK daytime TV, Sunday roasts, the
Others in the list include Elton John at European tour in
number five (£63m), Metallica number 10 a decade. They play band's new name and outrunning knifemen.
(£51m), Fleetwood Mac number 21 (£37m) Cardiff Motorpoint
and Guns N’ Roses number 25 (£33.5m). Arena June 16,
The list was topped by Taylor Swift with Glasgow The Hydro When Theory addressed the US What did you get up to in London?
a whopping $185 (£140m). DL 17, Birmingham Arena opioid crisis on 2017 their single Rx We found this TV show called Can’t Pay?
18, Manchester (Medicate), it seemed like just a blip We’ll Take It Away! We got some Dungeons
Castlefield Bowl July 2, in a six-album catalogue with lyrics that & Dragons going. Dave [Brenner, guitaist]
London Chalk Farm largely concerned frontman Tyler have been playing since we were kids. We
Roundhouse Jul 4/5. Connolly’s head space. But seventh album always try to find a Sunday roast. Last
Say Nothing confirms that the Canadian time we were here we went to The
Ozzy Osbourne is alt.rockers have indeed found politics, London Dungeon.
offering a $25,000 – and have also moved away from their
reward for information early ‘dirgey riffs’, into pop-tinged waters. Can you tell us what some of the songs
leading to an arrest on the new album are about?
and conviction and/ What’s the significance of Say Nothing? History Of Violence, that’s about domestic
Eagles: flying to or the return of items It has to do with people that won’t shut abuse. It’s the story of a woman who
Wembley Stadium stolen from the the heck up. Lately, fights back, killing her
in August. Musonia School there’s been so much lover, feeling that’s the
Of Music in North trolling, negativity only way she can be
Hollywood, where and unhappy people. “Fans did call us free. The irony is that
Black Days Randy Rhoads taught Everyone has such she ends up going to
guitar. Although some mean, disgusting ‘TOAD’, but prison. In Strangers,
Dispute with Chris Cornell’s exhibits have been things to say to one I mention Emma
widow blocks new recovered, a number another. If you don’t people would still González, who was
of instruments and have anything nice a student at one of the
Soundgarden album. be like: ‘What?’”
items of memorabilia to say, say nothing. mass shootings, who
are still missing. spoke up and started
Vicky Cornell is reported to be suing What made you write about the state this movement called We Call B.S. I talk
Soundgarden over the rights and royalties of America? about racism on White Boy, which is about
to seven unreleased tracks. The widow of It’s something I’ve never tackled before. that white supremacist rally that
the band’s late singer Chris Cornell also Being in a band, you’re quite insecure, just happened in Virginia.
alleges that his bandmates are withholding trying to get people to like you. But it was
hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a great time for me to speak about the Until 2017, the band were called
royalties which are owed to her and Chris’s things I would discuss with my friends. Theory Of A Deadman. How’s the
children. Until the deadlock is resolved, Things that were pretty messed-up, rather abbreviated name working out?
there’s very little likelihood of the band than more ‘internal turmoil’ kind of thing. It’s getting there. The ‘Theory’ thing
releasing a follow-up to their 2012 reunion started because I’d be getting my hair cut
album King Animal. So what’s keeping you awake at night? and someone would ask: “What’s your
Vicky claims to have offered to share the Judas Priest frontman A lot of it is the polarised politics. And band called?” “Theory Of A Deadman.”
material which was “solely authored by Rob Halford (pictured) living here in America, every week you “Theory Of A what?” I wondered if we
Chris, contain Chris’ own vocal tracks, says he is open to the see there’s been a mass shooting. We seem could shorten it – like, System Of A Down
and were bequeathed to Chris’ Estate” with idea of guitarist KK so desensitised. It’s like: “Oh, that’s were ‘SOAD’. The fans did actually call us
Soundgarden’s remaining members, with Downing making terrible.” Then within two days you’ve ‘TOAD’, but if I told people that they’d still
stipulations laid down, including which a temporary return to forgotten about it. It’s kind of gross that be like: “What?”
producer would be involved. It’s reported the band’s line-up if it’s come to this.
that the band refused. Priest are inducted to Any advice for American voters in the
Soundgarden have reportedly said that the Rock And Roll Hall You recorded Say Nothing in London. upcoming US elections?
prior to Chris’s death in May 2017 the Of Fame on May 2. Are things any better there? No advice from me, man. Everything
group had been “working on the files in “Anything can happen Well, I feel safer in the UK. Someone will could be great, and then four months
a collaborative effort”, and have also with Priest,” Halford be like [aristocratic voice]: “Oh, you’ve from now some BS will come up. HY
reportedly listed the names of various says, “so just keep an got to be careful, there’s been a bunch of EAGLES: GEORGE HOLZ/PRESS
members as co-songwriters with Chris on eye out and a lookout, stabbings”. It’s like : “Stabbings? I can Say Nothing is out on January 31 via
five of the seven disputed tracks. SM especially when we outrun a knife!” Atlantic Records.
play live. So yeah, it’s
14 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM all on the table.”
“I hobbled down to the
post office. It was the first
step to me walking again.”
Jack J Hutchinson
The British blueser-turned-rock’n’roller on you to take this letter and post it.’ So I hobbled down to the post office, and
hobbled back. I think it was the first step to me walking again.”
Brazilian adventures and bucking the odds. Back on his feet, he played in varying blues band line-ups – including
the Boom Boom Brotherhood. But as his songwriting began to lean in
We meet Jack J Hutchinson in a quiet Central London pub, just round a rockier, more ambitious direction, things had to change. “The Boom
the corner from the blues bar where he had a popular gig for years. Lately, Boom Brotherhood guys were unavailable to do a tour of Spain, so I had to
though, he’s found fans further afield. Fresh from the release of new album find a band really quickly,” he explains, “so I hired Felipe [Amorim, drums]
Who Feeds The Wolf? – a warm, rugged fusion of grungy southern rock, Zakk and Laz [Michaelides, bass] as session musicians.”
Wylde-esque weight and bluesy strains – the singer/guitarist has Raucous shows of heavier, rockier material for singing-along
just returned from a tour of Brazil. FOR FANS OF... crowds in Brazil, Russia and the UK ensued, capitalising on
“People knew my songs!” he says, beaming, all Blackberry Hutchinson’s longtime fondness for Zakk Wylde, The Black
Smoke-rivalling threads and beard. “We did a blues festival in Crowes and Black Sabbath. By the time they got home it made
the UK at the weekend where everyone was sitting down, and sense for Who Feeds The Wolf? to reflect this.
in Brazil everyone’s just going apeshit during your set. My bass In a cruel twist of fate, this has all coincided with family
player said: ‘I like it when people sit down and listen.’ I was like, heartbreak after Hutchinson’s father – and his earliest champion
‘I fucking don’t, I want them to go ballistic!’” – was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. “But my mum has
It’s a long way from Hutchinson’s formative years in Burnley, “I think that’s probably said: ‘You’ve got to go and do your own thing and try and enjoy it.’
where Led Zeppelin lured him into rock’n’roll while his classmates my favourite album I think she has the opinion that he’d be really proud of it.”
of all time. I jam along
listened to Oasis. But when he first moved to London his initial to Custard Pie a lot Indeed, judging by Hutchinson Snr’s response to rock’n’roll,
motive was to study art. There he spent late nights painting giant as a warm-up. And she may have a point. “I’ll put on an AC/DC DVD or something
,
canvases and playing southern rock and covers gigs. Then, at Bron-Y-Aur which is and his eyes light up, and he’s able to talk a little bit,” Jack says with
an incredible piece of
25, he was diagnosed with reactive arthritis and left unable to acoustic music. And Ten a smile. “Most of the time now you can’t get anything out of him.
ROB BLACKHAM/PRESS Confidence and strength shattered, he moved back in with his be my favourite song of For album and tour info, visit jackjhutchinsonmusic.com
But put on Sweet Child O’ Mine and he’s straight there.” PG
Years Gone, that might
play guitar. At one point he was told he might not walk again.
all time, it takes you on
parents. And then one day: “My dad came in and said: ‘I want
this journey, it made me
cry. And Kashmir, The
Rover… What an album.
It’s just incredible.” CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 15
As predicted last
issue, Mötley Crüe
have signed up for
a North American tour
this summer, having
torn up their 2014
“cessation of touring”
contract. They join Def
Leppard, Poison and
Joan Jett & The
Blackhearts for 22
shows between July
7 and September
5. Leppard’s Joe Elliott
says he always knew
the Crüe would break
Riches from the their vow. “Five years
rock underground ago I sniggered into
my cup of coffee, like,
‘Yeah, right’,” he says.
Sinatra and Cher all Greg Dulli
“They’re just Bowie,
FLAX rolled into one.”
One. 1976 Vertigo, Norway. £600+ Saxon frontman Biff The Afghan Whigs mainman releases his first ever solo
Byford releases his album, but he says it isn’t the end of the Whigs.
Flax were an
eccentric hard prog debut solo album,
band from Oslo, School Of Hard Knocks,
who began in 1971. on February 21 Greg Dulli has just pulled up a photo ever heard. But he had some demons.
through Silver Lining
A gem of an album, Music. It’s followed on his phone. It shows an open door and Like we all do.
beyond it a glorious desert panorama
One was recorded
in 1975, but wasn’t by a 10-date tour in bathed in bright sunlight: Joshua Tree Afghan Whigs guitarist Dave Rosser
April. The album
released until ’76, includes covers of National Park in California. “This was my also died a month after the last Whigs
record, 2017’s In Spades, was released.
view every morning,” says Dulli, the
by which time the Simon & Garfunkel’s frontman with cult US outfit the Afghan Does death inform your album?
band had temporarily split. Scarborough Fair and Whigs. It was in Joshua Tree that he For sure. I can’t go: “This song’s about
Commercially it was a strange year Wishbone Ash’s recorded Random Desire, his debut solo Dave”, or “This song’s about Shawn”, but
for an album of this nature to be released Argus album gem album, which takes the Whigs’ soul- they are in there. It’s not obvious – there’s
(hence poor sales), as it doesn’t really sit Throw Down The Sword. burnished template and daubs it with all no Tears In Heaven. It’s kind of all in the
with what else was happening, although Saxon have been manner of colours and textures. abstract. I’m not an on-the-nose kind of
vocalist extraordinaire, Hermod Falch, confirmed as special guy. But it’s a positive album. I think it’s
had a sometimes sinister snarl, which guests at the Why has it taken beautiful. There’s
was often very punk rock in execution. Bloodstock Festival you more than whimsical moments,
Having said that, it was largely on August 9. thirty years to make even – the first song,
contrasted with almost Queen-like a solo album? “It’s a positive Pantomima, it’s like
operatic harmonies. Nightwish bassist and Really, it’s because a show tune. Try
Opener Demon In Your Heart, is singer Marko Hietala I needed something to album. There’s and find the darkness
a freakish, theatrical heavy prog releases his debut do. Everyone else was in that.
masterpiece. It alone makes One worthy solo album on January busy having kids or whimsical
of investigation. Full of heavy riffs, 24 through Nuclear going back to college. moments, even.” The Whigs split in
psychotic time changes, spacey Blast. The Finn 1999 and reunited
synthesisers and evil vocals, it’s a track describes the sound How many of the in 2013. Does you
you won’t forget in a hurry. Obvious on it as “hard prog”. instruments on the record did you making a solo album mean the end of
play yourself? the band again?
‘Demon In Your Heart, Most of ’em. I can play drums but I’m not No. I love those guys. Two of the Whigs
a drummer, I can play bass but I’m not
are touring with me in the solo band, and
is a theatrical heavy a bassist, I’m a decent guitarist but I’m not the drummer was our lighting guy.
a virtuoso.
prog masterpiece.’ The Whigs never broke through to the
Your former collaborator Shawn same level as some of your early-
Smith died in 2019. How did that nineties peers. Are you happy being
comparisons/influences could be Uriah affect you? that ‘cult’ artist?
Heep, early Scorpions, Machine Head-era I hadn’t seen him in eight years when he Absolutely. At one point I did want to be
Deep Purple etc, although the complex passed away. Shawn and I had a very that. But when the lights got a little bright
Flax sound is unique. The album has Pete Townshend strange friendship. We were the best of around [the Afghan Whigs’ 1993 album]
a fantastic, multi-layered production with (pictured) has friends for seven years, then there was Gentlemen, I was like: “Oh, I’m not sure I like
dynamic range, which the band were not apologised for a stretch of ten years where I didn’t see this” – doing things you don’t want to do,
apparently pleased with at the time. comments he made him at all, then we reconnected and did meeting people you don’t want to meet.
Other highlights include the Purple- about his late Who a couple of shows together, and then he And then with [1998’s] 1965, I thought:
disappeared again. So I felt his loss, but in
“Now I’ve got songs that will get on the
colleagues Keith
esque Pain In The Arse, the infectiously Moon and John a lot of ways he had already been gone radio.” And they didn’t. After that it was,
schizophrenic Clever Man and Crusaders, Entwistle. Townshend from my life twice already. like: “I’m just gonna do what I want.”
a glorious acid-prog tale documenting the had told Rolling Stone:
plight of medieval foot soldiers. “It’s not going to make Did you part on good terms? And how’s that working out for you?
Musicianship is exceptional throughout, Who fans very happy, We hadn’t parted on bad terms. It just Oh man, it’s working out just great. DE
most notably in the wizardry of guitarist but thank God they’re sort of… stopped. He was the disappearer,
John Hesla and his keyboard-playing gone.” He says he not me. Really beautiful cat. Incredible Random Desire is out on February 21 via
brother Lars. LD meant to say the pair artist. Wrote some of the best songs I’ve Royal Cream/BMG.
“were fucking difficult
16 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM to play with”.
Brian May is
recuperating after
undergoing leg
surgery, having played
through the pain
barrier on Queen’s
recent North
American tour.
Queen recently
announced five more
dates at London’s O2
Arena as part of their
M Y F I R S T next series of UK Bobby Ingram (centre)
MY FIRST
concerts. The
additional shows are
L
LOVE on June 8, 17, 18, 19 with Molly Hatchet.
O
E
V
and 20.
Although Deep Purple
DJANGO titled their 2017 tour Molly Hatchet
The Long Goodbye,
REINHARDT they have a new
studio album on the
way. As yet untitled, Bandleader Bobby Ingram on death, inventing
By Jan Akkerman it was recorded
with Bob Ezrin, the stage-diving, and going back to school.
producer who worked
on 2013’s Now What?!
The guitar whiz and their 2017 record With the Allman Brothers neck. Or when my dad finally saw us at
on the gypsy-jazz Infinite. Purple have bowing out, and Skynyrd retiring from the Universal Amphitheatre. He never
the road, the field of classic southern
confirmed a UK tour
came to see us, he didn’t like what I did.
guitar great. with special guests rockers is thinning. Florida’s Molly My mom did, my dad didn’t. Three
Blue Öyster Cult for Hatchet aren’t immune to passing time, months before he passed away, he finally
This was one of the later in 2020. either, having lost the last of their original got a chance to see me play, and accept it.
LPs that my parents members, guitarist Dave Hlubek, to Dad was an engineer. He wanted me to go
had around the Stone Temple Pilots a heart attack in 2017. But as de-facto to college, cut my hair, get a real job, be
house from the release their first leader Bobby Ingram tells us – and to a tax attorney. Well, dad, instead of sitting
1940s. After the war acoustic album, titled which ferocious new live album for the CPA [Certified Public Accountant
there was liberation Perdida (the Spanish Battleground attests – the Hatchet won’t be exam], I signed with CBS Records! He
music in Holland, word for ‘loss’), on buried any time soon. “If the good Lord didn’t think that was one bit funny. But
and for me it still February 7. Recorded takes me, I’m ready to go. But while I’m I did finish my four years of college, and
feels like liberation. with current singer here on earth I want next month I graduate
Django sounded Jeff Gutt, it’s described Molly Hatchet to keep with my law degree.
so far ahead of his as “ten deeply moving forward.”
time. He was such personal songs that “While I’m on Really?
a fantastic player. weave introspective What does playing Well, I had my four-
My dad was in the second-hand car lyrics together with live do for you? earth I want Molly year degree in
business, and also had this old unexpected For me it’s the Hatchet to keep accounting from way
scrapyard. As part of that business, instruments to take reward for decades back, and I’m the
he used to take me to a gypsy camp listeners on an of dedication. It’s moving forward.” intellectual property
between Haarlem and Amsterdam, emotional and musical a reward to have owner of this group,
which was where I had my first journey through letting people stand up and so I want to learn
accordion lesson at the tender age of go and starting over”. go crazy. It’s a feeling that’s irreplaceable. about it. If there was an epitome of the
five. There I also discovered Django and I don’t take drugs. I don’t drink. I don’t do non-traditional law student, you’re
his gypsy jazz. A couple of years later anything stupid. But this is my drug. This talking to him. But then I brought a lot to
my parents bought me my first guitar. is my habit. I still have the same feeling Florida Coastal School Of Law they didn’t
I did when I first walked on stage.
have. I’ve lived it, and I’m still living it. Do
Django only had three fingers on his I wish I’d had this knowledge in the past?
left hand – he didn’t get famous by Which have been your most Oh my gosh yeah.
stealing bowling balls. His style of memorable gigs?
playing was unique and so different to Well, there’s been gigs that were A lot of members of Molly have died
American jazz. That was what I was unexpected. Years ago, we were on the young. Do you have a theory why?
trying to do on electric guitar when road with Blackfoot. I ran out and did my I think this life does, to some degree, take
I was with Focus. He was the main solo, the stage gave way, and I dropped its toll. You’ve got to take care of yourself.
inspiration for me in Focus, if that Jeff Lynne (pictured) down eight and a half feet with my guitar You can’t keep partying down and doing
makes sense. So when it comes to says he still owns still on – and I landed on my feet. I’m things that are gonna hurt your body
music, for me it’s Django and then it’s around 2,000 cassette thinking: “What just happened? I’m not and hurt yourself spiritually, emotionally
electric rock‘n’roll. That’s where I think tapes of archive supposed to be down here.” And there’s and physically. It’s a hard living for
I get that twist from in my playing. recordings of the Danny Joe Brown reaching down to touring musicians.
Today I’m proud to play the Jan Electric Light pull me back up. Later, I had journalists
Akkerman Signature guitar, named Orchestra, which have say: “Man, you’re the guy that started You thank Jesus in the album’s sleeve
after Django’s 1932 model. They took lain unheard for two stage-diving!” notes. Do you think he’s been
one copy from the Louvre in Paris and decades. “I would love watching over the band?
named it after me. RH to check them out, How about some of your most And my life, from the very beginning, yes.
because there might cherished shows? And I feel the angels. HY
Jan Akkerman’s Close Beauty is out be something [useful] The first time I played the Coliseum in
now via Music Theories Recordings. there now,” he tells Jacksonville, looking out and seeing my Battleground is out now via
the Daily Star, “[but] mom with a backstage pass around her Steamhammer/SPV.
I haven’t got a cassette
18 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM player, for a start.”
“We want to make
rock’n’roll dangerous again.”
The Last
Internationale
Tom Morello loves them; Pete Townshend shouldn’t even be in society, they should be behind bars. We were always
fighting to get our voices heard. So when these people scattered like
doesn’t. But no one can ignore the NY firebrands. roaches, we had to re-find ourselves.”
While grubby alt.soul thumpers like Mind Ain’t Free feel like a catharsis,
Rock bottom is underrated. After all, reasons Edgey Pires, when you’ve it’s the Soul On Fire lyric sheet that kicks hardest, finding the pair sharpening
got nothing, there’s nothing to lose. “Soul On Fire was written during a low their claws on social ills from climate change to misogyny. “Fifth World is
point,” reflects The Last Internationale guitarist of their garage-bluesy about the Earth taking back its power and washing away all that we’ve
second album. “But that’s when we discovered who we really are.” done,” says Paz. “Modern Man is about abuse in different ways. Abuse of the
“We went through Pledge,” says singer Delila Paz, “but when the earth, personal abuse, abuse of indigenous women…”
album was supposed to come out, Pledge disbanded…” FOR FANS OF... “But we’re not about slogans for the sake of it,” Pires stresses.
“Everybody got fucked,” continues Pires, the angrier of the New “There’s too much posturing and bullshit. Every single rock lyric
York band’s frontline. “The hardest part was, how do you bounce that I’m reading, it doesn’t reflect working-class life. Hip-hop does.
back financially from that? But we didn’t come this far to stop over Country does. Rock is in a bubble, they’re afraid to say anything.
some dollars and cents.” You’re telling me that nobody – not one band, in all of rock – has
It’s hard to imagine anything killing the momentum of The been evicted from their apartment, has had something tragic
Last Internationale: a band who have run on righteous fury since happen to a friend, knows somebody that got shot by a cop?”
Pires and Paz hooked up in 2008. Their socially charged music has “When I hear the bands The pair’s proactive approach goes far beyond posturing. As
attracted A-list fans – Tom Morello has long been in their corner from the sixties or on-the-ground campaigners, you’re as likely to find them door-
seventies – Neil Young,
– but they’ve ruffled feathers, too. “We almost got kicked off the Bob Marley, Queen, Jimi knocking to promote worthy causes as in the studio. And yet, the
Who tour,” says Pires. “I stepped all over Pete’s pedalboard, and it Hendrix – I always prefer best place to gauge just how much The Last Internationale mean it
was malfunctioning from the moment he got on stage. Their tour the live versions over is their ferocious live show. “I play every gig like it’s my last,” nods
the studio records,”
manager was yelling: ‘If it happens again you’re out!’” says Pires. “So although Pires. “That’s why I break my guitar strings most nights. We want
Soul On Fire makes no apology, palpably upping their game Soul On Fire is a studio to make rock’n’roll dangerous again.” HY
from 2014’s hit-and-miss debut, We Will Reign. “It was a bit record, a huge influence
polished,” admits Pires. “We were surrounded by people who would be a lot of live Soul On Fire is out now. TLI tour the UK in March 2020.
records. I really love
Creedence Clearwater
Revival’s Live In Europe.
It sounds incredible.” CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 19
THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS
Argent
God Gave Rock And Roll To You
Now a rock anthem, it was written under the storm cloud of
cancer, and enjoyed a superstar second wind. “I don’t care that
most people think it’s a Kiss song,” says its writer, Russ Ballard.
Words: Henry Yates t was early 1973, and as Russ Ballard But he had misgivings about it:
sat down at the piano in his parents’ “Rod thought the song should be
Hertfordshire home, the Argent slower,” he says. “The recorded
Iguitarist felt the stirring of an version dragged, to me.
emotion he thought he’d lost. “I felt “The song didn’t do a lot for my
blissful when I started writing God Gave career,” he adds, “because I decided
Rock And Roll To You,” he reflects, “and that to leave Argent around then – I was
was the opposite of how I’d felt the year gone by 1974. We were getting very
before. My parents had both been really ill; jazzy, when I was more about
my dad had prostate cancer, my mum had rock’n’roll.”
bowel cancer, at the same time. I’d felt so For almost two decades, God
low. During that period, I remember Gave Rock And Roll To You lived
writing I Don’t Believe In Miracles, and at the a quiet existence as a semi-
end of the song I just put my head down successful rock anthem,
on the piano keys and cried.” periodically exhumed by the cover
Work had been Ballard’s lifeline through versions of Christian rockers Petra,
those hard times, with the songwriter and Dennis Greaves’s The Truth.
typically getting home from Argent gigs at Then in the early 90s, Ballard was
three in the morning, then rising at dawn sitting in the lobby of a US record
to wrench out his feelings in song. His label, when former Blondie bassist
band – led by and named after former Nigel Harrison stopped and told
Zombies keyboard player Rod Argent – him about an upcoming movie
was riding high, and Ballard was already called Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, the
“making good money”, with 1972’s hit sequel to a hit comedy about two
single Hold Your Head Up reaching No.5 in rock-obsessed slackers, played by
the US and UK. But it was God Gave Rock Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter.
And Roll To You that represented the end “Nigel told me he was collating the
OVER THE
RAINBOW of his own dark night of the soul. soundtrack, and he’d suggested
Russ Ballard’s soon- “It was wonderful to feel myself come God Gave Rock And Roll To You for
to-be-released tenth out of that depression,” Ballard recalls. the final scene. They tried out a few
solo album, It’s Good “I felt so ‘up’. It probably only took twenty bands, then came back and said:
To Be Here, revisits
another of his classic minutes to write it. I’d always liked gospel. ‘Kiss are going to do it.’” Argent in the mid-70s: (l-r)
compositions, with With the lyric, I was saying that we live on By this time Ballard had already Bob Henrit, Jim Rodford,
a wistful, piano-led this incredible planet, and when you find made the acquaintance of Gene Russ Ballard and Rod Argent.
take on Since You’ve
Been Gone. a passion, this world makes sense. Simmons and co.
“I loved the Rainbow Whereas, if you settle for a job to pay the “One night in about 1973, we were tease’, listeners were urged to ‘put your faith
version – Graham bills, it’s very sad. playing in New York with Wishbone Ash in a loud guitar’.
Bonnet has always
had the most amazing “The song was written on this heavy and Kiss,” he remembers. “They weren’t Ballard approved. “That new lyric was
voice,” he says. “But Eavestaff upright piano I’d been given for known at the time. At the sound-check, more universal, perfect for what Kiss
I sat at the piano and my twenty-first birthday,” he continues. they weren’t in any slap. That evening, were doing,” he says. “Funnily enough,
started to play, and left
out the second chord in “That might seem strange for a rock song when they came on, I was in the wings, when I wrote the song, it was about the
every sequence, which – but I wrote Since You’ve Been Gone on and suddenly Kiss walk up in their make- speed Kiss made it. I don’t mind that most
made it very different. a piano as well. As a kid I’d learnt classical up and platform heels, about seven-and-a- people think it’s a Kiss song. Apparently,
Y’know, it’s such a sad, piano. As soon as my mum and dad left half feet tall. And it was a brilliant show.” Gene said on the TV show School Of Rock:
fearful lyric. And
although the Rainbow the room, I was playing Jerry Lee Lewis.” The tweaked title of Kiss’s version, God ‘When I wrote God Gave Rock And Roll To
version is up-tempo Ballard presented the song to Argent Gave Rock & Roll To You II, denoted that the You…’ But at least the royalties are good.
and loud and it’s got at the band’s rehearsal space in St Albans, New Yorkers had raised the tempo and God knows how much money that song
a big riff, when you
play the song really and marvelled as they cooked it up to the rewritten the verse lyric. Now, instead of has made me, but it’s probably bought me
slow on the piano, with seven-minute version that appears on the quaint instruction to ‘love your friend and my house.”
the cellos, it makes it their 1973 album In Deep (the song also love your neighbour/Don’t step on snails, don’t Although Kiss reached No.4 in the UK
really quite dark.”
reached UK No.18 on the singles chart). climb in trees/Love Cliff Richard but please don’t with their version, in January 1992, for GETTY
20 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
THE FACTS
RELEASE DATE
March 24, 1973
HIGHEST
CHART
once the song’s commercial performance book Kiss And Make-Up. “We were Russ Ballard believes God Gave Rock And POSITION
was not Simmons’s chief concern. concerned about whether he was healthy Roll To You’s message lives on, now more UK No.8
PERSONNEL
Touchingly, God Gave Rock And Roll To You II enough or strong enough to do it. But we than ever. “I think the song will resonate
marked the final contribution to Kiss of agreed. Eric showed up and stayed until for the next hundred years,” he considers, Rod Argent
drummer Eric Carr before he succumbed the very end of the video shoot, which “whether people want to believe there’s Organ, vocals
Russ Ballard
to heart cancer, aged just 41. “When it lasted until three in the morning. He never a god or not. For me, music has been my Guitar, vocals
came time to shoot the video, Eric begged complained, not once. I believed that he saviour. God gave rock’n’roll to me, Jim Rodford
to be in it, even though he hadn’t played could somehow turn things around. It was basically. That’s what I was trying to say. Bass, vocals
on the record,” Simmons wrote in his not to be.” And that line: ‘If you’re young and you’ll never Robert Henrit
be old, music can make your dreams unfold’, Drums
WRITTEN BY
I still believe that.” Russ Ballard
“Music has been my saviour. That line: ‘If Russ Ballard’s It’s Good To Be Here PRODUCED BY
Chris White,
you’re young and you’ll never be old, music can is released on February 21 via BMG Rod Argent
Records, and he tours Europe from March LABEL
make your dreams unfold’, I still believe that.” 13. See www.russballardmusic.com Epic
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 21
Steve Harris
The Iron Maiden and British Lion bassist on having too
many ideas, being a tongue-tied fanboy and retirement…
Words: Dave Everley Portrait: John McMurtrie
teve Harris is in philosophical mood when he calls from his You’ve got Maiden and British Lion. Are there any other
home in the Bahamas. “You’ve got to cram things in and live musical itches left for you to scratch?
life while you can,” says the Iron Maiden bassist and [British Lion guitarist] David Hawkins said he’d love to do another
linchpin. “My candle’s burning down towards the end in album with me, doing some prog stuff. I went: “You’re joking, ain’t
my life, so I’ve just got to do what I want to do.” He’s you? I ain’t got time to do these two, let alone something else.”
Sreferring to The Burning, the new album from his side-band,
British Lion – their first in nearly eight years. “It’s evolved into a really If you find a window, and had the chance to collaborate with
solid unit,” he says of the band. “It feels very different now to when any musician tomorrow, who would it be?
we first did it.” That’s a hard one. [Thinks] I’d say Michael Schenker. He’s probably
my favourite rock guitar player ever. I always loved UFO. Him and
Your first album away from Maiden was a Steve Harris solo Paul Chapman.
record called British Lion. This is a British Lion album called
The Burning. What’s the difference? What about outside of hard rock or metal? You’re a big fan of
Well, I never really felt comfortable with it being a solo album. Genesis and Jethro Tull.
It was more of a side project. And it’s totally evolved into a band, When you’re into bands that much, you don’t really think about
which is what I wanted it to be anyway. The first album was working with them. You never really have a chance. You tend to put
recorded whenever we could, a bit more bits-and-pieces. This one, them on a pedestal.
we went in and recorded more the way Maiden do it, which is as
a live band. It’s weird hearing Steve Harris from Iron Maiden talk about
putting people on a pedestal.
You were playing some of the songs from this album on the Yeah, but I have people that I look up to too. I avoided meeting Ian
first British Lion tour six years ago. How many of them date Anderson for so long because I didn’t know what I’d say to him.
that far back? I ended up playing tennis with Peter Gabriel once, just cos he was on
It’s a similar thing to Maiden when we first started out. You have the court in the same hotel as me. I don’t know if he even knew who
a couple of covers in your set here or there, and as soon as you get I was, but I didn’t say anything cos I didn’t want to get tongue-tied.
a new song, you bin the covers. It’s great, cos we went straight into I didn’t want to act like a fanboy, even though I felt like one.
the studio to record them, and we didn’t have to rehearse them.
Will there be a new Maiden album before Download?
Does anyone have the guts to tell you if one of your songs isn’t You know I can’t tell you that.
any good?
It’s not like that with this band, cos they’re the ones driving the songs Okay, will we have to wait another seven or eight years for
from the start. They come in with the basic ideas and we take it from another British Lion album?
there. If I have a song, I’d want to try it with Maiden first, cos that [Laughs] I can’t answer that either. Hopefully not. But then
takes precedence. And as long as someone is involved outside of I remember saying that before. We’ve got enough material for
Maiden, there’s no way it’s going to go to the table with Maiden. probably a third of an album right now. Maybe even half. The thing
That’s the rule we’ve always had. is, we’re all prolific writers. The amount of ideas I have is insane.
Mind you, I’d rather have that problem than drying up.
Have you played the new album to anybody from Maiden?
No. Why would I, unless they asked me to? I wouldn’t force anything As a teenager you trained as a draughtsman. If you’d have kept
else on them. If they asked me: “Can I have an ear’ole of it?” then at it, you’d be retiring in a couple of years.
I would. I dunno, it’s just not something I’d do. Same thing as football. If I’d have done that I’d have retired many
years ago. Doing this has worked out fantastic. It’s a long career.
You’re pulling double duty at Download 2020 with British
Lion and Iron Maiden. Why? Does retirement sound appealing?
I could sit around twiddling my thumbs, but I’d rather play football Not really. Maybe it’s overrated. So many people seem to wish for
or play with British Lion. Or both. It’s not that I get bored. There’s retirement, then pop their clogs so soon afterwards cos they get
always something going on. My missus would tell me that I need to bored or their body runs down.
say no to a few things here or there. And she’s probably right.
So when does Steve Harris knock it on the head?
British Lion have played a few festivals where they’re I think someone else will have to knock me on the head. Probably
halfway up the bill. A lot of musicians of your stature the missus.
wouldn’t have done that.
I don’t know why not. I don’t see a problem with it. British Lion’s The Burning is out on January 17 via Parlophone.
22 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Steve Harris: man of
metal, fan of Genesis
and Jethro Tull.
“I ended up playing tennis
with Peter Gabriel once.
I don’t know if he knew
who I was.”
Dirty Honey
Yola
Joyous Wolf
DIRTY HONEY
This LA-based group play “new old-fashioned
rock’n’roll”; think of a beefier Black Crowes fronted
by the love child of Axl Rose and Steven Tyler, and
you’re in the right ballpark. In their two years as
a band they’ve opened for Guns N’ Roses, The
Who and Slash, and become the first unsigned
band to top Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Songs
chart, with the ace When I’m Gone. Their self-titled
EP is full of more retro-but-fresh belters like that
one, and this year they’re planning to come to this
side of the pond, so watch this space.
JOHN (TIMESTWO)
Our top tips for the coming year (and indeed the decade).
If you liked the intelligent, infectious racket of Idles,
Words: Polly Glass but also like your metal on the roaring, doomy
side, then you’ll love this duo from London.
nother decade begun, another and artists we like – the ones we think you like too So-called literally because they consist of two
round of speculation regarding – then things don’t look too shabby. These guys are guys named John, their description of themselves
whose music will make a big part of the new wave of artists playing first-rate (“four arms, four legs, two heads, wood, metal
impression over the next 10 rock (of various different shades), and we reckon and plastic”) gives a good idea of the bullshit-free
A years. If we were to hedge our they have a good chance of tapping into the rawness at work here. But it doesn’t really do
own bets based on the most-streamed artists of zeitgeist over the next decade. justice to the mix of classic punk, jagged alt.rock
2019 – a list topped by Ed Sheeran and Ariana With the likes of The Struts and Greta Van Fleet and menacing metallic sensibilities at work on
Grande, and utterly dominated by pop and urban already blazing the trail, and Massive Wagons their album Out Here On The Fringes. There’s
music – we’d probably have to concede that proving that great tunes and a passionate grass- a cinematic atmosphere in places too, like the title
rock’n’roll is… well, a bit fucked. roots following can get you a Top 20 album, the track’s distorted refrain of ‘the bodies lined up, the YOLA: ALYSSE GAFKJEN/PRESS
But of course lists like these only tell part of the resurgence is well under way. So let’s dive into the bodies lined up’. It’s chilling, in a good way. They tour
story, and if we’re talking about the sort of bands next phase, and look at some names to watch. the UK this month and next.
24 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
The Hu
Crown Lands
ASHLEY (as well as headlining Ramblin Man Fair’s Rising
YOLA MCBRYDE Stage), they’ve developed a hefty, hard-hitting
When we spoke to Rival Among the current crop modern rock sound that feels ready for arenas,
Sons singer Jay Buchanan of Nashville-ites shaking without sacrificing warmth and spark. If you enjoy
late last year, he singled up country staples with Alter Bridge, Shinedown, BSC and the like, you’ll
out this lady from a small the rock they also grew up love these guys.
town outside Bristol as listening to (Eric Church,
his favourite singer of the Brothers Osborne, the JOYOUS WOLF
moment. Listening to her Cadillac Three etc), Ashley More weapons-grade classic rock’n’roll from the
soulful, rootsy Americana McBryde has been West Coast now, this time from Orange County,
debut Walk Through Fire something of a dark horse, Southern California. Joyous Wolf cherry-pick
(which has seen her quietly making significant from the best bits of 70s and 90s rock and bluesy
scoop up four Grammy inroads as a songwriter, metal (Creedence, Soundgarden, Led Zep…) and
nominations and tour and releasing her debut mix it up with their own swaggering charisma and
Ashley McBryde
with Greta Van Fleet) you solo album Girl Goin’ confidence, propelled by fireball frontman Nick
can see why. Nowhere in 2018. But the Reese. They first popped up on our radar with
It hasn’t been easy for her to get to this point. Grammy nominee is just as deserving of your dirty, fuzzy single Sleep Weep Stomp, and a brilliant
Having grown up “banned” from making music, attention as anyone else in Music City right now. cover of Mountain’s Mississippi Queen, before
she ended up homeless on the streets of London. Funny, smart and generously tattooed, she’s a upping their game with latest EP Place In Time.
Somehow that didn’t prevent her launching breath of gritty-but-dulcet fresh air next to her Keep your eyes peeled for their full-length debut.
a songwriting career, joining Massive Attack shinier country-pop contemporaries.
briefly before going solo. Expect spine-tingling THE HU
soul vocals, pedal-steel and fiddles with a modern THE FALLEN STATE If you’ve already checked out the multimillion-
twist, and, crucially, gorgeous songs. This fivesome are flying the flag for the UK-grown viewed YouTube videos for Wolf Totem and Yuve
NWOCR (New Wave Of Classic Rock), but their Yuve Yu, you’ll know what these striking Mongolian
THE GLORIOUS SONS reach could soon be far more global. Having mavericks are all about. If you’re new to them, the
On their new album A War On Everything, these already opened for bands including Halestorm, main thing worth knowing is that they blend the
Canadians are assuredly slick and anthemic. On Tremonti, Black Stone Cherry and 3 Doors Down traditional music of their homeland (complete
stage, however, they’re all about putting on with horsehead fiddle and Mongolian throat-
a proper rock show; the kind that threatens to fall singing) with hooky Western rock/metal
off the rails but never does. This is the kind of sensibilities. “It’ll never catch on,” you might say.
music that ought to be paired with the stages and Well, it already has, as the aforementioned
clientele currently monopolised by the Coldplays YouTube success, massive worldwide tours (they’re
of this world. Read more about them on p.66. coming to the UK for shows in February) and
recent inclusion in a Star Wars videogame reflect.
LARKIN POE
If we’re being honest, we’re a little late to the CROWN LANDS
party on these guys, but we’re glad to be here Aside from looking amazing (just look at that
now because they’re doing interesting hair! Isn’t it magnificent?!), this duo from
– and fun – things with the blues. Sister Oshawa, Ontario make the sort of opulent,
duo Larkin Poe are originally from groovy noise that Led Zep might have
Georgia but based in Nashville. Older made if they’d jammed with Rush and
sister Megan plays dobro and lap Jack White. It’s not your standard
steel, Rebecca sings and plays guitarist/singer ’n’ drummer twosome
guitar (she also happens to be either; Cody Bowles plays drums and
married to Tyler Bryant; yes, as in sings, while guitarist Kevin Comeau
‘& The Shakedown’). They come also plays keyboards with his feet.
from a classical and folk And with a keen eye for stylish videos
background, but together they play and photo-shoot concepts to boot,
an amped-up fusion of Delta blues and they’re springboarding from the
filthy, garagey rock’n’roll. More recently tones set by the likes of Rival Sons
they’ve been nominated for a Grammy, and Wolfmother. Catch ’em at this
and announced a UK/Europe tour for 2020. year’s Ramblin’ Man Fair.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 25
Larkin Poe
26 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM HENRY DILTZ/GETTY
With Jim Morrison in the grip of alcoholism and at times barely able to perform live,
p
facing a ossible 13 years in jail, on a downward spiral and threatening to take the rest of
The Doors with him, it was decided that the best thing to do was get back in the studio.
Against the odds, they came out with one of their greatest albums: Morrison Hotel.
Words: Mick Wall
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 27
THE DOORS
he end of the 1960s found The Doors – one of the dark-star
American groups who had exemplified the freewheeling spirit of Checking in, or checking out?
From the photo shoot for the
that groundbreaking yet troubled decade – teetering on the abyss. cover of Morrison Hotel.
With Jim Morrison increasingly becoming the victim of his own
T hype – drunk and out of control most of the time, a danger to
himself and others – the rest of the band feared for their own futures.
“The boys did not hate Jim,” insists former Doors tour manager Vince
Treanor. “The boys did not dislike Jim. The boys wanted Jim to be part of the
group, but they couldn’t take the trouble that Jim was causing. They couldn’t
take the loss of [so many] performances as a result of his behaviour. They
couldn’t take the loss of all the record sales. They couldn’t deal with the loss
of radio time. The censure that went down, the newspaper articles, the pastors
and the righteous ministers with their boyfriends in the closet that got up and
were saying how terrible The Doors was and how perverted Morrison was.
The whole thing. They didn’t want to deal with that kind of bad, negative,
horrible publicity.”
And yet, in the drawn-out aftermath of the arrest of Doors frontman
Morrison after he allegedly pulled out his penis on stage at a concert in Miami
in April 1969, ‘bad, negative, horrible publicity’ followed The Doors around
like a cloud of flies.
The release later that year of The Doors album The Soft Parade, an
overindulgent confection of lyrical navel gazing and musical self-importance,
had not helped the band’s sagging reputation. Jim Morrison was now
a bearded and bloated parody of the lit-up boho poet he still saw himself as,
while keyboard player Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer
John Densmore were way past long-suffering, and now deep into despair
about their rapidly shrinking career prospects. Suddenly everything about
The Doors was a drag, man.
‘In the drawn-out aftermath of the
arrest of Jim Morrison, ‘bad, negative,
horrible publicity’ followed The
Doors around like a cloud of flies.’
“As Jim got more out of control – the roomful of gunpowder waiting for
somebody to light a match – Ray became more alienated and isolated from
him,” Treanor says. “Now Ray never disowned Jim, but he never did what we
all should have done, which was to say: ‘Look, asshole, smarten up, you’re
wrecking everything!’”
Treanor recalls how Morrison once told him: “People wanna see me drunk
on stage”. “I said: ‘Nobody wants to see you do that. They want to see a Doors
performance. They do not want see you lumbering around the stage drunk,
forgetting your words and putting on a show where you stand there babbling
nonsense. Put on a Doors show, sing Doors music, stop the nonsense, because
it’s only gonna hurt!’”
Indeed, as 1969 ended the hurt seemed to be coming down on everyone.
America was still waging war in Southeast Asia. Britain was still crumbling,
while Europe remained aloof. In rock, the dream as personified by Woodstock
in August – an event from which The Doors were pointedly absent because,
according to their manager Bill Siddons now, “they exclusively headlined and
did not want to be one of many”, but which Robby Krieger once explained
away as being because they thought it would be a “second-class repeat of the
mob surrounding his Bentley outside
“Nobody a Hertfordshire pub. Neil Boland’s death is
ruled an accident, but the episode haunts
actually the drummer for the final eight years of his
pointed a life. “Nobody actually pointed a finger at
him and said: ‘You killed your best friend’,”
finger at him said Pete Townshend. “But that was the
JANUARY 4 thing that went through his head.”
KEITH MOON ACCIDENTALLY and said: ‘You
KILLS HIS CHAUFFEUR killed your JANUARY 16 KEITH MOON & NEIL BOLAND: GETTY
The looning takes on a darker tone when JOHN LENNON’S “SICK” ART
the wildman Who drummer runs down best friend.’” EXHIBITION IS SHUT DOWN
Words: Henry Yates his chauffeur while escaping a drunken Police raid John Lennon’s Bag One
28 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Down and (almost) out:
Morrison with The Doors
in Frankfurt, Germany.
“[The rest of the band] wanted Jim
to be part of the group, but
they couldn’t take the trouble
that Jim was causing.”
Former Doors tour manager Vince Treanor
previous year’s Monterey Pop Festival”, a decision they came to regret – had
turned into the nightmare of the Rolling Stones’ free outdoor show at
Altamont Racetrack in December, where 18-year-old Meredith Hunter was
stabbed and clubbed to death by Hells Angels.
In the same period, the Charles Manson murders and subsequent arrests
had transformed LA from fun-loving and free into a city of paranoia. People
– affluent music and movie people especially – now carried guns in their cars.
With cocaine and heroin replacing weed and acid as the drugs du jour, the
new ‘heavy manners’ under which America in general and LA in particular
operated made Morrison’s antics before and after Miami seem suddenly,
weirdly in tune with the times. As he sang on a new thing he’d written: ‘Blood
on the streets of fantastic LA…’
uch was the backdrop to the recording of the fifth Doors album,
originally titled Hard Rock Café, before being changed to the more
Senigmatic Morrison Hotel (Side One would still be billed on the sleeve as
Hard Rock Café, Side Two as Morrison Hotel). The story of which really began
when Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman stepped in with a plan to
MAIN: HENRY DILTZ/GETTY; INSET: GETTY Holzman tells me now. “John [Densmore] was disgusted. They didn’t know
rehabilitate the public image of The Doors.
“It was not over before Miami, but it could have been over after Miami,”
what to do. They were being blacklisted in large auditoria around the country,
and they said: ‘What are we gonna do?’ I said: ‘Time to make another record.
Go into the studio. Work out your demons in the studio.’ And Morrison Hotel
came out of that. Not the easiest record, but it was stuff that Jim was
comfortable with and there was some really fabulous material. So that was
exhibition at the London JANUARY 23 FEBRUARY 14 FEBRUARY 22
Arts Gallery, after being PINK FLOYD RISE, “It was packed THE WHO RECORD LIVE AT LEEDS DAVID BOWIE RAIDS THE
told by a local magistrate SYD BARRETT FALLS Winding down the Tommy world tour, DRESSING-UP BOX
that the exhibition In the same month that to the rafters The Who record a career-best show in Looking to shake off Space Oddity, and
includes nude sketches estranged Floyd frontman and then the university’s student refectory (Roger flood the scene’s “denim hell” with
depicting the Beatle Syd Barrett crawls to UK Daltrey: “It was packed to the rafters and colour, David Bowie’s new band The
and new wife Yoko Ono No.40 with his debut some. I heard then some. I heard there were a thousand Hype debut at London’s
on honeymoon. solo album The Madcap there were a fans on the roof”). On Roundhouse. The line-up
“Many toilet walls depict Laughs, his former bandmates perform a good day for seminal – Bowie, guitarist Mick
works of similar merit,” notes Detective their forthcoming and future-sound- thousand fans live albums, the Grateful Ronson, drummer John
Inspector Frederick Luff. “It is perhaps defining album Atom Heart Mother at Dead also record Dick’s Cambridge and producer
charitable to suggest that they are the the Theatre Des Champs Élysées in Paris on the roof.” Picks Volume Four at the Tony Visconti on bass –
work of a sick mind.” (billed as The Amazing Pudding). Fillmore East. adopt superhero personas
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 29
THE DOORS
the right thing for them to do, because I knew [Miami] was gonna blow over
eventually and they would go out on the [road] again.”
First, though, Holzman suggested, they should play two special high-
visibility shows in LA, from which they would extrapolate a live album
– a kind of feel-good bridging exercise to get the people and the press back on
side again, and show the promoters what they’d been missing during the still
ongoing ban. “Which became the backbones of Absolutely Live.”
For two nights, July 21 and 22, The Doors would take over the Aquarius
Theatre on Sunset Boulevard, where the stage musical Hair was then playing,
and put tickets on sale for just two dollars a pop.
“That was an incredible performance,” says Holzman. “See, I wanted them
in front of a friendly audience again. Because they had been really shaken, and
I thought they would get their sea legs back more quickly if they were in front
of a friendly audience. And the only way I could guarantee that was to produce
the concerts ourselves.”
In the weeks that followed the Aquarius shows, the band got to play three
more concerts – in San Francisco, in Eugene, Oregon, and Seattle Pop – where
they appeared on the same bill as Led Zeppelin. But any hopes of this being
the start of a return to touring in the US were quickly dashed when projected
shows in Toledo, Philadelphia, San Diego and New York were ‘rescheduled’.
“They were being blacklisted in large
auditoria around the country, and
they said: ‘What are we gonna do?’
I said: ‘Time to make another record.’”
Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman
Meanwhile, work in the studio on the projected live album wasn’t going
any smoother. Doors producer Paul Rothchild, now heavily into cocaine and
at his most tunnel-visioned, was insisting the group come in and overdub the
many dozens of parts he had identified as inadequate, either because of
malfunctioning equipment or simply because he thought the band should
have played better.
According to Treanor: “Everybody was a victim. It wasn’t one of them, all
four had to get their dibs in there. But it was during that session that Paul
introduced the cocaine. I was appalled. I got out of there…”
The Absolutely Live album was eventually released almost a year later, several
months after Morrison Hotel, and in completely revamped form.
Meanwhile, The Doors played their final show of 1969 on November 1 at
the aptly named Ice Palace in Las Vegas, a large, anonymous
hockey arena in Nevada, where the audience had little
or no interest in hearing anything from The Soft
Parade and only really came alive when drummer
Densmore cracked open the start of Light My Fire.
Morrison, though, sleepwalked through the
show. A week later he was obliged to turn himself
in to the Dade Count Public Safety Dept in Miami,
where he was officially arrested, gave The Doors’
By the end of the 60s, Morrison’s office in LA as his home address and entered a not-
behaviour was in danger of guilty plea. The presiding judge, Judge Murray Goodman,
closing The Doors for good.
set the bond at $5,000 and 20 minutes later Morrison was free GETTY
and costumes, but Bowie is crushed by legal action if the band use her family born Mary Angela Barnett a work permit, APRIL 10
the early reaction. “We thought we were name on home turf. Jimmy Page shrugs and has not a sniff of romance. “David PAUL McCARTNEY BREAKS UP
kind of smart,” he said, “but nobody even off the incident as “absurd”, but John had told me before we married: ‘I don’t THE BEATLES
looked at the stage.” Bonham is keen to continue with the love you,’” the actress and model said, “We had John Lennon and George Harrison have
name: “Just think what our album covers “and we had enjoyed an open relationship a threesome previously quit – and rejoined – before
FEBRUARY 28 could have looked like!” from the start. We had Macca’s self-penned Q&A to promote his
LED ZEPPELIN’S BALLOON a threesome on the on the first solo album cites the band’s “personal
IS BURST MARCH 19 night before our night before differences, business differences, musical
For one night only, Led Zeppelin are billed DAVID BOWIE wedding.” For his own differences… I have a better time with my
as The Nobs in Copenhagen, after Danish MARRIES ANGIE part, Bowie will later our wedding.” family.” Although he never explicitly DAVID BOWIE & ANGIE BOWIE: GETTY
heiress Eva Von Zeppelin – already The low-key ceremony at describe their coupling called time on the band, the Daily Mirror
enraged by the flaming airship depicted Bromley Registry Office is as “like living with swiftly whips up a story that becomes
on the debut album’s sleeve – threatens chiefly to secure Cyprus- a blowtorch”. a self-fulfilling prophecy (“Paul Quits
30 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
“Come on, baby, light my
fire…” The Doors and an
impromptu fifth member.
to go – on condition that he return for the start of his obscenity trial, now set of your old pal Jim Morrison. Enjoy the show.’ He felt this would be a good-
for April 27, 1970. natured and harmless way to upstage Jagger and company.”
Although advised by his lawyer, Max Fink, to keep a low profile, two days The following morning, Max Fink flew into town, where he arranged with
later Morrison was in trouble with the law again, during a Continental Airlines Bill Siddons, also in town for the Stones show, for Morrison and Baker to be
flight from LA to Phoenix to see the Rolling Stones in concert. His crime this bailed on $5,000, with an arraignment set for November 24. Driving back to
time: getting drunk and out of control and harassing airline staff and other the airport with Fink and Siddons, Morrison was told that if convicted, the
passengers. Both Morrison and his charges held a $10,000 fine and
travel companion, Tom Baker, were a possible 10-year jail sentence.
arrested by US Marshalls as soon as “[Morrison Hotel] was a concentrated The next day, Morrison was back in
they stepped off the plane at Sky the studio recording material for the
Harbour International Airport, and effort to get away from The Soft next Doors album.
charged with the federal offences of
‘assault, intimidation, threatening Parade and back to the root.” he big idea was the same as
a flight attendant, interfering with the Engineer Bruce Botnick everyone else’s in late 1969:
flight of an intercontinental aircraft Tto get The Doors ‘back to the
and public drunkenness’. When a knife was then found on Baker, the pair were garden’. That is, far away from the manicured musical cathedral of The Soft
taken straight to city jail where, they spent the night. Parade, and back to their earthy blues roots.
According to Baker, speaking years later, “Jim handed me a bottle of whisky
Two months earlier, the second album from The Band – the roots-rock
HENRY DILTZ/GETTY and waved a fistful of choice front-row tickets around. He planned to stand revivalists who had earned their spurs backing Bob Dylan through his last
significant tours in 1966 – had been released and now sat at No.2 in the US
outside the auditorium [where the Stones were playing] and randomly hand
them out to young fans who couldn’t afford a ticket, saying: ‘This is courtesy
chart. The most frequently played ‘rock’ record on the radio was their single
The Beatles”). “I think fallout from his acid trip MAY 8 tombstone, a sad and tatty end to
it was the press at their local commune “They THE BEATLES ALBUM LET IT BE a musical fusion which wiped clean
who misunderstood,” effectively ends his time IS RELEASED and drew again the face of pop”.
McCartney reflected in the band he started captured Peter The uneven product of ill-tempered
in Anthology . (although he plays on completely sessions, The Beatles’ swansong release JUNE 3
until May in order to avoid tops the UK chart, but press response is THE KINKS’ RAY DAVIES LEAVES
APRIL 11 breach of contract). “We called them the and pulled brutal. Leading the catcalls, NME’s Alan HIS CARBON FOOTPRINT
PETER GREEN GOES OFF THE RAILS German jet set,” recalled Mac drummer him away. He Smith hisses that “if Hearing a tip-off that British
Having told NME in February that he Mick Fleetwood. “They captured Peter was already the new Beatles radio stations intend to ban
PETER GREEN: GETTY Fleetwood Mac’s troubled leader is easy was already set to leave, pretty much. set to leave.” their last then it will single Lola due to the
soundtrack is to be
the Kinks’ make-or-break
plans to give away all his earnings,
completely and pulled him away. He
But my god, this was like the final nail in
stand as a cheapskate
mention of ‘Coca-Cola’
prey for a Munich hippie cult when the
(the BBC on the grounds
the coffin.”
band are playing in Germany, and the
epitaph, a cardboard
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 31
‘I woke up this morning, got myself
a beer…’ A bar was not the best place
to be for Morrison in early 1970.
Up On Cripple Creek. The Beatles, having ditched the orchestrated super-pop of Paul Rothchild, meanwhile, might have been ready to accept that the
Sergeant Pepper in favour of a return to their roots with the more grounded rock experimentation of The Soft Parade had not proved a hit, but he deeply resented
of Abbey Road, released in the US in October 1969, and preceded by the having to try to work with a Jim Morrison who had always been a loose
pointedly retro single Get Back, also appeared to be signalling the way back to cannon in the studio, but in the past had also at least been able to come up
a more ‘real’ musical state of mind. Meanwhile, Dylan retreated so far back into with songs, lyrics and melodies, and to sing them well. Now he was simply
the history of rock that he’d ended up releasing an album so square – Nashville a dishevelled drunk, as far as Rothchild could tell.
Skyline – that critics found it hard to believe he wasn’t putting them on. It was getting to the point where he couldn’t stand to be in the same room as
The Doors, though, had a more pressing need for a return to simpler, less Morrison any more. Rothchild had “grown tired of dragging The Doors from
bombastic music than that which Paul one album to another, especially an
Rothchild had coerced them into on unwilling Jim, and he had virtually
The Soft Parade. Simple blues and balls- ‘What they eventually came out of dried up. Two out of three times, Jim
out rock was all Morrison could would either not want to work or
manage now. He simply didn’t have the studio with was, paradoxically, would go into the studio drunk. He
the attention span – or the voice – any would intentionally disrupt things
more for anything more sophisticated the most ‘up’-sounding Doors – never fruitfully. Most of my energies
or time consuming. Nevertheless, the album of them all. were spent trying to co-ordinate Jim
sessions were uphill all the way, with the group.”
engineer Bruce Botnick recalls. Doors manager Bill Siddons recalled one session where Morrison came to
“Some of it was real tough, yeah” he says. “That was a concentrated effort rehearsals and drank 36 beers. Ray Manzarek would confess: “The situation
to get away from Soft Parade and back to the roots. But even then that was was dire.” He and the rest of the band had come to realise at last that “Jim was
a struggle… Many was a time when Ray, in particular, would go into Jim’s an alcoholic”. Manzarek tried to qualify it by pointing out that, as far as he
poetry book, see something interesting, do some editing, and sit with the knew, “a genetic predisposition to alcoholism ran in his family. It was hard to
other two guys and they’d come up with an arrangement. Jim might have tell him to clean up his act”.
a smattering of a melody… I mean, it still kept going, but it just wasn’t that Nevertheless, attempts were made. One afternoon during the Morrison Hotel
block of creativity from Jim.” sessions, Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger drove Jim over to
of product placement, other stations Royal Bath And West Showground JULY 3-5 was a new confidence in him,” says
for its supposed drugs reference), the hosting Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Santana, ATLANTA INTERNATIONAL producer Eddie Kramer. “He was ready
bandleader makes the round trip from The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Johnny POP FESTIVAL “By the time to break through to the next stage.”
New York to London – and back – just to Winter, John Mayall with Peter Green, Not to be outdone, the Americans hit
change the lyric to the less contentious Canned Heat and many more (with back with the ‘southern Woodstock’, Jimi got to AUGUST 3
‘cherry cola’. Genesis, Yes and Hawkwind playing featuring the Allman Brothers Band, Atlanta, there MICK CHEATS ON KEITH IN THE
unofficially in an adjoining field). BB King, Mott The Hoople and, most FILM PERFORMANCE
JUNE 27-29 of all, Jimi Hendrix, his status as a black was a new Critics of the time skewer the violence
BATH FESTIVAL OF BLUES headliner in the cradle of the civil rights confidence and squalor of Donald Cammell and
AND PROGRESSIVE MUSIC movement not to be sniffed at, and his Nicolas Roeg’s “pretentious and repellent
Promoter Freddy Bannister pulls off set signposting a musical future that in him.” little film”, loosely based on a co-habiting BATH FESTIVAL: GETTY
what might be the best pound-for- – spoiler alert – would never happen. gangster (James Fox) and a faded rock
pound festival bill in history, with the “By the time Jimi got to Atlanta, there star (Mick Jagger). Although Anita
32 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
THE DOORS
“Jim’s attitude was always: ‘Look out,
man, I’m hell-bent on destruction.’
We couldn’t moralise.”
Ray Manzarek
Krieger’s father’s house and sat him by the pool for “a chat”. According
to Manzarek: “We told him: ‘This is seriously affecting us all now as a
group, and you physically.’ Jim says: ‘I know. I drink too much and I’m
trying to quit.’ Which was a rare admission. We told him we’d help. Jim
said: ‘Thanks. Now let’s go get some lunch at the Lucky-U. I want some
funky Mexican food and a drink.’ That was Morrison. The romantic poet
who wrote ‘I woke up this morning, got myself a beer’. A real ‘fuck
you!’ line. Unfortunately that was the reality. Jim’s attitude
was always: ‘Look out, man, I’m hell-bent on
destruction.’ We couldn’t moralise. We figured he
might emerge from the spiral. But working with
Jim in the studio was the only way we knew how
to transcend his problem.”
hat they eventually came out
of the studio with was,
Wparadoxically, the most ‘up’-
sounding Doors album of them all. Opening
with Roadhouse Blues, featuring the wailing
harmonica of an uncredited John Sebastian and the
ass-tight bass of veteran rockabilly star Lonnie
Mack, here was Morrison and the band opening up to
where they were at in a way that is both fun and faintly disturbing.
It would become the band’s new show opener and road anthem
throughout the coming months as The Doors returned fitfully to
full-time concert commitments.
Other new tracks worth the wait included Peace Frog, a funky hunk of LA
shimmy that found Krieger punching out one of his most memorable riffs
as Morrison scatted wildly about ‘Blood on the streets…’ of New Haven, of
Chicago, on a river of sadness, and of fantastic LA, the lyrics for which Paul
Rothchild found in one of the notebooks Morrison had left lying around the
studio – while he disappeared to the nearby bar the Phone Booth for drinks
– in a rough poem headed Abortion Stories.
Other highlights were Blue Sunday, a tremulous love song to Morrison’s
long-time lover Pamela Courson, or maybe Judy Huddleston, or maybe
Eve Babitz, or maybe that chick he’d fucked the other night at the
Whisky A Go Go. It didn’t matter, the song was tender and sweet.
Then there was Queen Of The Highway, one of the last truly great
Morrison/Krieger numbers: electric jazz piano, snake-hipped guitar,
rain-spattered percussion, and Jim’s voice, honeyed again, suddenly,
his lyrics exquisite. It showed just what The Doors were still capable
of, where they might yet go, if only they could keep their singer from
setting himself on fire.
Others were repurposed or older tracks, the most lovely, Indian Summer,
HENRY DILTZ/GETTY a moment of quiet transcendence constructed from the dying embers of
The End, as if Morrison had chosen to love his brothers and sisters instead
of killing his father and fucking his mother; Waiting For The Sun,
Pallenberg is Keith AUGUST tightly wound public schoolboys. They with police officers and in possession of
Richards’s girlfriend, PHIL COLLINS ‘Phil Collins will, they say gravely, ‘let me know’. I later cocaine and barbiturates. At the resulting
the explicit sex scenes JOINS GENESIS learn that Peter knew the moment I sat court appearance, his $1,000 fine is
between her and Jagger After answering a Melody jumps into down that I was the guy.” reduced to a ‘misdemeanour’, and David
are rumoured to be real. Maker small-ad requesting Peter Gabriel’s AUGUST 14 Crosby’s status as CSN’s troublemaker-in-
“Cammell wanted to
a drummer “sensitive to
chief continues unchallenged.
PHIL COLLINS + STEPHEN STILLS: GETTY he [Jagger] had been sprawling family pile in Surrey, and pool “in just IS ARRESTED AUGUST 23
swimming
STEPHEN STILLS
fuck me up, because
acoustic music”, Collins
arrives at Peter Gabriel’s
LOU REED TRIES THE
Having been found
with Anita before,” Keith will write
my greying
NINE-TO-FIVE
crawling along the
decades later in his autobiography,
immediately lowers the tone by jumping
corridor of a San Diego
After his final show with the
into the swimming pool “in just my
Life. “Clearly, he took a delight in the
Y-fronts”.’
Velvet Underground, in New
greying Y-fronts”. Despite the class divide,
motel, the guitarist is
idea that he was screwing things up
York, Reed is collected by his
between us.”
incoherent, aggressive
the drummer impresses. “These are
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 33
THE DOORS
revisited from the original 1968 sessions, now dated yet still moving enough to
hold sway on an album rippling with new hope. Others still were wonderfully
wrought facsimiles of great tunes The Doors might have come up with all on
their own had they the collective willpower left to still accomplish such feats,
but were cut and shut together with great skill by Paul Rothchild, whose raging
perfectionism was nevertheless once again driving them all slowly mad.
There were also lowlights: Land Ho!, another dated-sounding, ‘ironic’ take on
the traditional sea shanty, which fills up four minutes of the listener’s life that
they would never get back; Ship Of Fools, yet another variant on the riff to Break
On Through (To The Others Side), which could, equally, have turned up on either
of the first two Doors albums.
Another gem was The Spy, its title and subject matter ‘borrowed’ by Morrison
from Anaï Nin’s novel A Spy In The House, in which the heroine, Sabina, plays
deliberately dangerous games of desire, intoxicated by the principle of pleasure
for its own sake. Morrison knowingly croons about ‘your deepest, secret fears’ on
what is one of the most truly autobiographical songs on the album
Outside the studio, however, time was now running out for Morrison and
The Doors. When he and Baker failed to turn up for their scheduled court
appearance in Phoenix on November 24, and instead sent Max Fink to register
their joint not-guilty plea, Judge William Copple went ahead and set the trial
date for February 17, 1970, in the US District Court in Phoenix. With the
Miami trial date set for just two months after that, Morrison was looking at
a potential joint jail time of more than 13 years.
Nevertheless, he blithely carried on. When Henry Diltz shot the
photographs that would be used on the cover of Morrison Hotel, he at least had
a for-once clean-shaven Morrison to try to make look pretty.
‘Quality of their shows varied so
much that the band could go from
world-conquering giants to teetering
on the brink of self-destruction.’
They had actually found a real-life Morrison Hotel, in the skid-row section
of downtown LA (at 1246 Hope Street, to be precise) to go with the real-life
Hard Rock Café at 300 East 5th Street, and Diltz photographed the band at
both locations, going guerrilla to get some shots when the owner of the actual
Morrison Hotel refused permission for them to shoot inside, getting the band
to pose hurriedly when the manager’s back was turned.
In fact the real reason why Morrison had taken to shaving again – albeit
temporarily – was because Max Fink had talked him into it, in order that he
look the part of the successful, clean-cut young musician when the trial in a desk and proceed to start smashing up the new office. He was eventually
Phoenix came up in February. That strategy that went disastrously wrong bundled into the back of a limo, the driver being shouted at to “Get him the hell
when clean-shaven Morrison turned up in court with Tom Baker – who had away from here!”
recently grown a full-length beard – and the flight attendant got the two mixed
up, with the result that Morrison was the one found guilty of all charges, rather y the time Morrison Hotel was released, in February 1970 – and to their
than Baker who had been the real perpetrator. It took several weeks for Fink to best reviews since their first album three years before – The Doors had
persuade the court of the mistaken identity, during which Morrison and Baker Bannounced their arrival back on to the American concert stage with
fell out after Baker refused to stand up and admit the truth to the court. four shows over two sold-out nights at the Felt Forum in New York,
It all came to a predictably drunken head during a party at Elektra Records a 4,000-capacity adjunct to Madison Square Garden, chosen because of its
celebrating the opening of a new office in West Hollywood, when Baker resemblance to the more intimate feel of the Aquarius Theatre in LA. These
accused Morrison of being a hypocrite for “financing the very authority you shows would again be taped by Rothchild, still searching for the perfect Doors
claim interest in overthrowing”. Morrison’s response was to shove Baker over performances for their projected live album.
parents from Max’s Kansas City and to get Duane to leave the Allmans,” off mid-set and abusing audiences in intoxication) or the murder allegations of
returns to the family home in Long Island. Clapton reflects. “But he said he had to Seattle. Now, after leaving a tragic “Well first of roadie James ‘Tappy’ Wright, the greatest
He will spend the next two years working be loyal to what he called ‘the family’.” message on his former manager Chas guitarist of the era is gone.
as a typist at his father’s accountancy Chandler’s answering machine (“I need all, Jim did
firm, on a weekly wage of $40. SEPTEMBER 18 help bad, man”), Hendrix is pronounced not pull it SEPTEMBER 20
JIMI HENDRIX KISSES dead on arrival at St. MIAMI CATCHES UP WITH
AUGUST 26 THE SKY Mary Abbot’s out… But it JIM MORRISON
DUANE ALLMAN DUETS WITH Throughout the year, the Hospital in London. In a litigious year for live performance
ERIC CLAPTON guitarist has given hints at Whether you believe was bedlam, – Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane have
With a newly solo Clapton recording at his darkening head-space, the pathologist’s just total already been fined $200 and $1,000
Miami’s Criteria Studios, the doomed god making doomy statements official verdict respectively for on-stage profanity – the JIMI HENDRIX: GETTY
of southern slide guitar drops in to play on from the stage (“I’ve been (inhalation of vomit craziness.” Doors frontman is charged with indecent
’
Laylas weeping twin-lead outro. “I tried dead a long time”), walking due to barbiturate exposure and profanity at the previous
34 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
After the trials and tribulations, it’s hardly
surprising that The Doors were happy with
how the Morrison Hotel album turned out.
Billed as the Roadhouse Blues tour – a shrewd move designed to signal the Reviews of the shows were varied. “Mr Morrison has had trouble before
new, bolder, hard-assed direction The Doors were now moving in – the Felt when the police of other cities found his performances variously lewd,
Forum shows were seemingly a triumphal return to form. At least while the lascivious, indecent and profane,” began the piece in The New York Times. “But
party mood lasted. Which for Morrison was never quite long enough any more. by the standards of the Off-Broadway stage, Mr Morrison’s performance is
He now travelled with his own entourage, separate from the rest of the band, fairly tame. Saturday he kept his clothes on and made no gestures that could
and when his mood altered from set to set no one was sure any more what the offend.” The Village Voice, however, early adopters of the Morrison mystique,
cause was, although the other band members could always hazard a pretty went for the kill, describing an off-stage sighting of Morrison a few nights later
accurate guess, depending on just how fucked-up their singer was: on coke he at a John Sebastian gig at the Bitter End club as “a shadow of himself, with his
could still be a defiant presence, ready to play for longer than contracted, face grown chubby, his body showing flab, his once shoulder-length hair
making with the jokes and the moves, giving it his all, or what was left of it; on receding into his forehead”.
booze and downers he would be verging on the incoherent, “just holding on to There were six more Roadhouse Blues shows in February, all around the
the mic some nights”, Manzarek would later recall. release of Morrison Hotel, which was much better-received than its two
year’s infamous show the band Hotel, on the same day that OCTOBER 10 suddenly said: ‘You don’t have enough
played in Miami (although not she is due to record the vocal “The truth BLACK SABBATH’S PARANOID songs.’ Within a few minutes I came up
the charge of ‘lewd and for the track Buried Alive In ALBUM HITS UK NO.1 with the riff to Paranoid.”
lascivious behaviour’). “Well The Blues. It was assumed to is that Heavy metal is officially up and running
first of all, Jim did not pull it out be a heroin overdose, but Janis didn’t as Sabbath’s second album tops the UK OCTOBER 12
[in Miami],” says Doors close friend Peggy Caserta chart (it will be another 43 years before IAN GILLAN FINDS GOD
guitarist Robby Krieger. “But it was will offer the theory in her 2018 memoir overdose. they repeat the feat). But it could all have The Deep Purple frontman sings the title
bedlam, just total craziness.” that Joplin went out to the hotel lobby to I will go to my been very different, role on the original studio
buy cigarettes, then on her return tripped grave believing Tony Iommi told album of Tim Rice and
DAILY NEWS: GETTY JANIS JOPLIN CHECKS OUT in her dying of asphyxiation. “The truth is that.” band’s paymasters not Jesus Christ Superstar but
OCTOBER 4
MusicRadar, had the
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s
and fell, breaking her nose which resulted
,
he won’t be tempted into
The track-marked, troubled singer is
that she didn’t overdose. I will go to my
sent them back to the
found dead at Hollywood’s Landmark
appearing in the stage
grave believing that.”
studio. “The label
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 35
THE DOORS
predecessors. Creem magazine editor Dave Marsh described it as “the most conquering giants for half a set in Boston, to teetering on the brink of self-
horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they’re good, they’re simply destruction again in Baltimore, where Morrison was so drunk that he could
unbeatable”, while Circus announced it as “possibly the best album yet from barely move his lips.
the Doors… good hard, evil rock”. It went gold within three weeks, reaching Even when The Doors were good there were problems. At Cobo Arena in
No.4 in the US, their best chart position for two years. This despite the lack of Detroit, on May 8, they played brilliantly for more than four hours – the
a recognisable hit single from the encore of The End lasted almost an
album. You Make Me Real was issued to hour alone, with Morrison
American radio, but in an era where ‘Creem magazine editor Dave Marsh improvising madly – yet found
singles were becoming increasingly themselves banned from ever
frowned on by ‘serious’ rock fans, the described Morrison Hotel as playing there again because they had
fact that radio hardly played it, overrun the teamsters’ union-set
favouring instead deep cuts from the “the most horrifying rock and roll curfew time. Another promoter
album, such as Peace Frog and I have ever heard”.’ cancelled a show in Salt Lake City less
Roadhouse Blues, only made the band than 24-hours before show time, after
prouder. The Doors were hip again, and resisted suggestions that the track he had attended the previous show in Boston where the promoter had pulled
Waiting For The Sun was a hit waiting to happen. the plug when the band overran and Morrison could be heard to describe
There were 13 more Doors shows around the United States throughout the them as “cocksuckers”.
spring and early summer of 1970, with Paul Rothchild turning up to record Somehow, Morrison Hotel, the actual and the personal, would not be a place HENRY DILTZ/GETTY
several of them. Quality varied so much that the band could go from world- where guests would stay for long. But they would rarely, if ever, forget it.
production. “I didn’t think about it for No Dice album, and will later be covered documentary is most notable for its DECEMBER 12
more than a half-hour,” Gillan told the by Harry Nilsson and Mariah Carey, candid footage from Altamont. Fallout THE LAST DOORS CONCERT WITH
Jerusalem Post. “Here I was, in Deep earning millions. But Ham and Evans will from the disastrous 1969 concert has ‘The Rolling JIM MORRISON
Purple, the band I always dreamed of never be rewarded financially for its followed the band into the new decade; Controversial to the last, Morrison’s final
playing with. I wasn’t going to jeopardise success, and the wrangling in February they are Stones are act on a stage is to smash his mic stand
it for a run on the West End or twelve over royalties is thought to be sued for £375,000 sued for through the floor, bringing to an early
weeks on location filming the movie.” a key factor in their suicides. by local residents for close a New Orleans show already
causing damage to the £375,000 marred by forgotten lyrics and
NOVEMBER 9 DECEMBER 6 land, while on October by local meandering anecdotes. The band weigh
BADFINGER WRITE THE GIMME SHELTER 26 the mother of up their option, and elect to retire from
ULTIMATE POWER-BALLAD HITS CINEMAS murdered teenager residents.’ live work. “We couldn’t play anywhere,
Pete Ham and Tom Evans’s pain-racked Opening in New York, Meredith Hunter files we were fucked because of the Miami
Without You is a highlight of Badfinger’s the Rolling Stones tour a £28,000 law suit. la incident,” Robby Krieger said later. ALAMY
36 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
David Bowie
It was the dawn of the 70s, a period that delivered some now iconic albums – although some
could easily have gone straight to the bargain bins. So why were they dismissed at the time?
Words: David Sinclair
ou can make a case that Layla And achievements. A work of bleak, gothic, self-titled debut by The Allman Brothers Band were
Other Assorted Love Songs is Eric otherworldliness, featuring guitarist Mick Ronson both commercial non-starters. The subsequent
Clapton’s greatest post-Cream and the prototype Spiders From Mars band, it success and longevity of the Texan trio has
achievement. A double-album of found Bowie at an early heavy-rock peak with The prompted a predictable reappraisal of their
Y musical grit and emotional Width Of A Circle and She Shook Me Cold, and boasts fledgling effort, while the Allmans’ album has long
tenderness featuring the heavenly glissando of another iconic title track, elevated by the famous been viewed as an outright classic, with songs
guitarist Duane Allman, it reshaped blues rock version by Nirvana, among including Trouble No More,
into a new soft-rock genre. And the title track is others. Rolling Stone called Dreams and Whipping Post
about as iconic as a song can get. The album was Bowie’s album “uniformly ‘1970 was a strange, among the most evergreen
inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2000 excellent”, and it has since in that long-running
and it figures in just about any ‘Greatest Albums been lionised as his “first in-betweener year. band’s repertoire.
Of All-Time’ chart you care to name. great album” (it was So what was going on at
But it was an almighty flop at the time of its actually his second album). The 1960s were over the turn of the 1970s? Were
release in 1970, when it made a brief, mediocre Yet when it was released in and The Beatles were audiences and critics really
showing at No.16 in the US chart and failed to 1970 in the US (1971 in so cloth-eared? How could
chart at all in the UK. The reviews were not great UK), it stiffed. No chart on their last legs.’ these all-time great albums
either, with Melody Maker action whatsoever. have been ignored at the
complaining of “pretty It was only two years later, after the first time of asking? What has happened since then
atrocious vocal work” success of the Ziggy Stardust album, that to change our minds?
and songs that induced The Man Who Sold The World finally entered
“complete boredom”. the charts and began its long, gradual f course, we look back on the past, in
David Bowie’s The Man ascent to hallowed status. this case on certain albums, through
Who Sold The World is likewise Other albums released around the Oa telescope that zooms in with a clarity
an album that stands close to same time suffered a similar fate. In provided by hindsight, while ignoring the bigger
the summit of the starman’s America, ZZ Top’s First Album and the picture of the times in which they were framed. ALAMY
38 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
ZZ Top Eric Clapton With
Derek & The Dominos
1970 was a strange, in-betweener embraced a new, more mellifluous it gained considerably more traction than Layla
year. The 1960s and psychedelia style of performance, he’d also could manage. Live Cream reached No.4 in the UK,
were over and The Beatles were on actively renounced his guitar-god and is now regarded as a classic display of the band
their last legs. T.Rex and the glam status, begun with John Mayall and at an early peak of their powers, playing extended,
revolution were just around the corner (Ride redoubled with Cream. “By the time we went to take-no-hostages versions of songs from their first
A White Swan came out in October 1970 but America, we’d play half-hour solos in the middle album, Fresh Cream, including N.S.U., Sleepy Time
didn’t peak in the chart until the following year). of anything,” Clapton recalled. “We’d do it in any Time and Rollin’ And Tumblin’. The intensity and
Rock was in a good place. Led Zeppelin were song. We got into a lot of self-indulgence and a lot sheer bravado of the playing is insane, making the
rampant, topping the album charts in both of easily-pleased people went along with that.” album an early marker in a hard-core style of
the UK and US twice (with II and III); Free were, Be that as it may, when Polydor Records released improvisational rock performance that has truly
for sure, All Right Now; and Deep Purple’s In Rock Live Cream – a collection of old performances never been bettered.
had finally given Richie Blackmore’s boys recorded in San Francisco in 1968 – in April 1970 But you could see Clapton’s point. Cream had
a substantial hit after three previous albums that already taken that line of attack about as far as it
had all failed to chart. could go. Others would follow – notably the
The Allman
As one of the pioneers of the genre, Clapton American four-piece Mountain, whose 1970 debut
Brothers Band
should have been sitting pretty. Instead he had Climbing! was indeed climbing the US chart. But for
made himself unmarketable. Battered by the Clapton, it was time to reinvent himself – a trick
split-up of Blind Faith the year before that Bowie would later take to another level.
– a ‘supergroup’ that had been undone, as Both Layla and The Man Who Sold The World were
Clapton saw it, by hype and hubris – he had albums that would shape the course of rock over
insisted from the outset that this new band the decade that was just dawning – and far beyond.
should be billed as anonymously as possible. Clapton and Bowie were outliers who, in their
Hence Derek & The Dominos, different ways, were both ahead of the curve in
with Clapton’s name strictly 1970. The industry was still figuring out how to
kept out of all sleeve artwork market them. And rock audiences had yet to
and promotional materials. So retune their ears to the different approaches that
successful was the ruse that, for both were applying to a broader genre that was
a time, people simply didn’t still under construction. For all the brilliance of
GETTY x3 know that Layla was by Clapton. their work that has been revealed over time, 1970
just wasn’t their moment.
Not only had Clapton
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 39
Once upon a time, a garage band from Phoenix moved to LA and
became Alice Cooper, with a little help from Frank Zappa, a dark alter
ego and... West Side Story. This is the story of their album Easy Action.
Words: Ian Fortnam
n 1967, a year after graduating from Phoenix, only white guys in the neighbourhood”), before finally
Arizona’s Cortez High School, The Spiders – an settling in the decidedly more sedate Topanga Canyon.
Anglophile garage band based around cross-country Meanwhile in Berkeley, another Phoenix band, the Holy
lettermen Vince Furnier (vocals), Dennis Dunaway Grail, were similarly trying to break into California, but their
I (bass) and Glen Buxton (lead guitar) – grew tired of drummer, Neal Smith, was becoming disillusioned at the
being big fish in a small pool. After they brought in rhythm extent of his bandmates’ drug use. As destiny would have it,
guitarist Michael Bruce, their second single, Don’t Blow Your while Smith was visiting Dunaway in LA, John Speer
Mind, had given them a local hit, reaching the dizzy heights announced that he was leaving. “John quit, Neal was there,”
of No.11 in Tucson. They were on the radio and in demand says Dunaway. “It wasn’t pre-planned, it just happened.”
on the South-West club circuit, but Tinseltown beckoned. With Smith in place, the band – and vocalist Vince –
“It was like Dorothy landing in Oz,” Dennis Dunaway adopted the name Alice Cooper, and acclimatised their
recalls of the band’s arrival into Los Angeles. “We were young, lifestyle to that of the burgeoning Los Angeles freak scene.
had a vision, so just jumped in a van and While San Francisco was the centre
drove there.” of the blissed-out hippie scene, LA’s
With no money for a hotel, the quintet counter-culture was defined by
(initially completed by drummer John “The Byrds were significantly more militant freaks, and the
Speer) slept in Griffith Park. As dawn Coopers recognised kindred spirits. Their
broke they begged stale sustenance from here, The Doors regular Cheetah Club performances soon
a truck-based sandwich vendor as he there... We’re like: found favour with local scenester Vito
binned his previous day’s stock. “We and his ever-present harem of young girls.
pushed Vince to the front, as he was the ‘Okay, we’re gonna Their downstairs neighbours were
skinniest and most pathetic-looking. That have to up the ante Rushton Moreve of Steppenwolf
night we walked down Sunset Boulevard and his aptly named girlfriend
and it was unbelievable; The Byrds were to compete here.’” Animal Huxley (novelist Aldous
here, The Doors there, Love… We’re like: Huxley’s ‘wild’ granddaughter,
‘Okay, we’re gonna have to start all over. Dennis Dunaway who wasn’t averse to smashing
We’re gonna have to up the ante to guitars when roused).
compete here.’” The GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously), an
The band were able to gain a foothold in the city thanks to, all-female band of Frank Zappa associates,
Dunaway recalls, “this guy named Doke, who worked for befriended the Coopers.
[film star] Tony Curtis. He had a little apartment and said we “Everybody says they did our look,” says
could stay. We got some mattresses, covered the floor with Dunaway. “But we used to shop in the
them at night so we could sleep, and the windows during the women’s section of the thrift stores back in
day so we could practise. Doke was too nice to ask us to leave, Phoenix. That was our look. When we got to
but we finally got some gigs and got our own place.” LA we asked the GTOs: ‘Where’s the thrift stores?’ They
The band moved, somewhat incautiously, into the [US soul showed us, but didn’t style us. [GTOs member] Miss Christine
group] Chambers Brothers’ old place in Watts (“[we were] the ratted Alice’s hair and dyed it blond, though. Tiny Tim was
40 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Pretties for you – Alice Cooper at a Venice
art gallery in LA in February 1970: (l -r)
Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, Alice
Cooper, Glen Buxton, Neal Smith.
GETTY
ALICE COOPER
Alice Cooper at the Cincinnati Pop
Festival, June 13, 1970. Not long
after Easy Action, Alice Cooper would
be among rock’s biggest draws.
“After Pretties For You we had a meeting and said:
‘This isn’t putting any food on our table. We need
“The hippie side of LA and the freak side to start learning how to write songs that are more
of LA were like oil and water.” relatable to people.’”
Back in high school, when Alice was still Vince,
Dennis Dunaway he and Dunaway were both in the same art class.
When they formed their garage band, they wanted
really popular in LA at the time, and everybody take it into the US album chart. Its modest to incorporate artistic ideas in order to stand out
kept calling Alice Tiny Tim, so we decided to commercial success gave the band the option to from the crowd. From the beginning, their live
change his hair colour.” return to the studio and make a second record. But shows were challenging: wilfully chaotic, ever-
Zappa’s management didn’t want to spend another changing, theatrical.
s the band’s notoriety spread, an cent on Alice Cooper, so they set an implausibly Initially, Vince wasn’t terribly comfortable on
audition was arranged with freak tight deadline within which to deliver the record, stage. In their earliest incarnation, when the band
Akingpin Frank Zappa, with a view to wholly expecting the Coopers to buckle under the performed covers he’d channel the songs’ original
signing to his Straight Records label, for which pressure and fail. singers. But on original material he seemed lost.
they famously arrived 12 hours early at 7am. An Creatively ambitious, the Coopers needed time He would even face the back of the stage rather
impressed Zappa immediately signed them to to hone material, but without access to a rehearsal than the audience. Until it was suggested he sing
a three-album deal. room they were forced to pull together each song as a different character. One particular
But all was not strictly as it seemed. Dunaway: compositions at sound-checks and write in the car character, a dark one that he’d inhabit during Fields
“By the time Frank agreed to put us on his label, between gigs. Consequently, as they reconvened in Of Regret, became a firm fan favourite. So more
his manager had already told him: ‘We can’t afford Sunwest Studios in November ’69 to record the songs were written specifically for this character
to do this.’” album that would become Easy Action, they were and, as it fleshed out, it gradually metamorphosed
Slicing expenses to the bone, the band’s Pretties far from prepared. into the alter-ego inhabited by Vince Furnier to this
For You debut album was recorded in just two “We were only about a third of the way to being day – the character of Alice Cooper. It was dark,
nights, working “from midnight to sun-up”. “We ready to record an album,” says Dunaway. “If we’d sinister, outrageous. And it was relatable.
didn’t have time to work with Zappa. We basically had a rehearsal room and enough time to get the
went in and he said: ‘Start playing, we’re gonna songs in shape, Easy Action would have sounded hile the quintessential Cooper
record it.’ We didn’t even realise what was more like [next album, in ’71] Love It To Death than character found on Easy Action’s most
happening. We were still warming up when he like an unprepared free-for-all.” Wenduring tracks (Mr & Misdemeanor, The
said: ‘Okay, we’ve got about half the album.’ Then Just as with Pretties For You, much of Easy Action’s Return Of The Spiders) would develop a commercial
Frank got sick and didn’t show up for the second material was wilfully complex. But with reality allure of its own with the passage of time, a more
day. [Zappa’s manager] Herbie Cohen decided to biting, the band realised they had to buff up their immediate form of commerciality was sought in
produce the record, showed up and proceeded to outsider art with just enough commercial sheen the album’s single. Shoe Salesman, an inoffensive,
fall asleep on the couch. So we were like: ‘What are to secure themselves a wider audience. piano-driven ditty as market-targeting and twee as
we gonna do?’ We didn’t know how to work any of “In my opinion, Pretties For You was too anything one might expect of pre-Space Oddity
the equipment. Anyway, Ian commercial,” Dunaway says, Bowie, saw the album’s unlikely producer David
Underwood [the Mothers Of laughing, “I wanted to go even Briggs (renowned for his work with Neil Young)
Invention’s woodwind and more abstract.” being more hands-on than at any other point
keyboard player] came to our But the band was a democracy. during Easy Action’s recording.
rescue. The only reason Pretties Every musical idea, lyric, even “He was one of those Topanga Canyon guys
For You sounds as good as it does how the band dressed had to be with the tan fringed jacket,” Dunaway recalls.
– which isn’t that good – was voted on, with every collective “Now the hippie side of LA and the freak side of
because of him.” decision passed unanimously. LA were like oil and water, so when we walked in
Pretties For You may have been Ultimately, on this occasion the he didn’t like the way we looked, didn’t like our
flawed, but it had sufficient legs to practical won out over the surreal. humour. Usually when we turned on the charm GETTY
42 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Dennis Dunaway and his
wife (the group’s costume
designer and Neal Smith’s
sister) Cindy in 1971.
we’d win anyone over, but with him it wasn’t
working. He didn’t like us.”
Openly referring to the band’s music as
‘psychedelic garbage’ didn’t exactly endear Briggs
to his charges as the fraught sessions continued.
But out of the desperation came a fair few
moments of inspiration. Following the
quintessentially Alice snarl and swagger of Mr.
& Misdemeanor, Easy Action continues with the
relatively restrained Shoe Salesman (Les Paul fan
Glen Buxton demonstrating his jazz chords as
producer Briggs carries the tune on piano).
While gestating Easy Action’s material, few
outside influences penetrated the quintet’s 24/7
songwriting mind-set other than (LA
contemporaries) The Doors, radically
experimental modern classicist Karlheinz Making (and eating)
Stockhausen, and Pink Floyd (who’d been the headlines: Alice Cooper
Coopers’ house guests during the West Coast leg at the Cincinnati Pop
of their debut US tour. Deep thinker Dunaway Festival, June 13, 1970.
thought he’d found a kindred spirit in Syd Barrett
as the taciturn Floyd wunderkind sat patiently,
appearing to be hanging on his every word, until
realising he just happened to be sitting in Syd’s field “We used to shop in the women’s section of the
of vision while he gazed into space). thrift stores back in Phoenix. That was our look.”
Another enduring influence that united the
entire band was Leonard Bernstein, especially his Dennis Dunaway
music for the musical West Side Story. Easy Action
took its title from the musical’s Cool, and third track a prototype for the freezer compartment Soon after Easy Action’s complete failure to set
Still No Air (originally written for Pretties For You) necrophilia of solo Alice’s ’75 Welcome To My the charts alight, the Coopers (who had so far also
incorporates a snippet from The Jet Song (which the Nightmare favourite Cold Ethyl, but rather for the survived rolling their van over three times on the
band returned to again for both Gutter Cat vs The Jets suspended animation of Dunaway’s recent mini- LA freeway – with them, all their equipment and
and Grand Finale on 1972’s School’s Out album). movie Cold, Cold Coffin). The McCartney-esque a washing machine in the back – as well as
Vinyl side one concludes with Below Your Means, Beautiful Flyaway, featuring rhythm guitarist ingesting copious hallucinogens, and a rather
an extensive composition with a similar Michael Bruce on lead vocal, acts as a calm-before- unfortunate on-stage incident with one of Glen
complexity to (’71 Alice album) Killer’s Halo Of Flies: the-storm prelude to epic set-piece closer Lay Down Buxton’s stunt chickens) decamped from LA to
veering off in surprising directions, its intrinsic And Die, Goodbye. Detroit with, according to Dunaway, “our tails
theatricality is more musical theatre than prog). The band were still intent on writing material for between our legs”. “There were rumours our
Shoe Salesman’s B-side, Return Of The Spiders, Alice’s dark character to inhabit when they played management had bounced too many cheques,
opens side two. Dunaway’s unmistakable bubbling live (they finally perfected the process with there were threats and there were crazy people.”
Hofner bass (on loan from The Cowsills) locks into Dunaway’s Black Juju on 1971’s Love It To Death) and But they were always welcome on the road.
Neal Smith’s rolling Wipeout drums (the classic LD&DG, with its extended opening instrumental Ultimately settling in the Motor City, the band
Surfaris instrumental was the first thing Smith section and abstract central sound collage, was an continued writing, building on Pretties For You and
played with the band) on a brooding intro that early attempt to provide an appropriate soundtrack Easy Action’s learning process, cross-fertilising
bursts into Alice’s opening ‘Stop, look and listen’ lyric to accompany Alice doing “creepy things” on stage. with The Stooges and MC5 and gigging hard.
which, according to Dunaway, was “aimed at those Easy Action was released in March 1970 to largely “We’d play Toledo and they’d try to kill us, we’d
people who, when we did a gig, lined up at the exits savage, baffled reviews. It came in a scarlet sleeve play Saugatuck and they’d try to kill us. We were
to get out as fast as they could”. adorned with a shot of the band photographed used to the cowboys in Phoenix. But this? This
Laughing At Me – based on a germ of an idea later from behind (Neal Smith’s idea; unsurprisingly, was tyre irons.”
Two years later, Alice Cooper were the most-
GETTY x2 used to infinitely greater effect on the Killer album’s considering he had the most significant length of notorious, highest-grossing band on the planet.
hair to show off).
Desperado – is followed by Refrigerator Heaven (not
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 43
Like most young budding rock musicians, Corky Laing had
a dream. Unlike most, his came true, as he steadily scaled
the rock’n’roll mountain and made it to the very top.
Words: Dave Ling
he entire course of Corky bellowing out the words: “Mississippi queen,
Laing’s life was changed by do you know what I mean? Do you know
a power cut. A little over 50 what I mean?”
years ago, in the summer of As the dancing began again, the eyes of
1969, the drummer and his Corky and Molly locked together and
T band Energy were playing nobody left the room. Laing swears that his
a gig at a beach hut in Nantucket, a small primal, rhythmic chat-up line lasted for more
island off the coast of Massachusetts. With than an hour before a generator kicked into
the entire population having cranked up their life and sufficient power to fire up the band
air conditioning, the power supply crashed again was restored.
suddenly at half-past midnight. Energy had To Laing’s great disappointment, Molly
been firing up the room and nobody wanted didn’t leave on his arm on that night, and
the show to stop – especially Corky. instead remained with Bailey (who in years to
“I was hyped on soul pills. I had been come would draw the whale on the cover of
unable to take my eyes off a gorgeous Mountain’s album Nantucket Sleighride).
southern babe called Molly who was wearing Apart from the incident leaving Corky
a see-through, skin-tight dress covered in with a small long-term injury, try as he might,
flowers,” he recalls today. That Molly was he just couldn’t get the events of the night
dancing with Roy Bailey, a friend of Laing’s, before out of his head. So he put the kernel
seemed irrelevant. “She was grinding and of a song idea on tape. Of course, he had no
humping and I was thumping and staring,” inkling that it would eventually be the basis
he says with a smile. “When the juice went of a classic rock song.
out there was no way that I would stop and “After screaming so loudly and for so long
lose Molly on the dance floor.” that night, I gave myself chronic laryngitis, and
Almost as if guided by some external force, it screwed up my voice forever,” Laing says
Laing began smashing away at a cowbell over today, before adding with a contented smile:
and over again, and at the top his lungs “It was worth it.”
SHUTTERSTOCK
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 45
CORKY LAING
The ‘classic’, early-70s
four-piece Mountain: (l-r)
Corky Laing, Felix Pappalardi,
Steve Knight, Leslie West.
he youngest in a family of five children, “I could hear the yelling from the room next ya didn’t, mate, did ya? Ya didn’t!” Still stunned,
Laurence Gordon Laing was raised in door,” Corky recalls, lapsing into a Dick Van Dyke- Laing was rewarded with another kiss. “Keith kept
TMontreal. The name ‘Corky’ was born style impersonation of a cockney: “‘Me jacket! blowing me kisses as he walked away down the
when his siblings struggled to pronounce either of Where’s me jacket? Me grandma made it for me corridor with cries of: ‘I love ya, mate. I’ll never
his given names. Energy was Laing’s first band of and I left it under the stage. I can’t believe it’s gone!’” forget ya,’” Corky says, “and I’m happy that Keith
genuine note. Living in Montreal would prove Corky’s conscience was pricked. Entering The and I remained good friends.”
a helpful stepping stone in his intended vocation Who’s dressing room with the coat, he saw a naked More importantly, Moon became a musical
as a drummer. During the late 1960s, British bands Moon beside himself with dismay. That quickly inspiration for Laing, who modelled his own
often had the Eastern Canadian cities of Montreal, turned to joy as the garment was returned to him. extraordinary technique on that of The Who’s
Ottawa and Toronto as first stops on their eye-catching drummer. Among the
North American tours. The reason for this lessons Moonie taught the willing
was twofold: it enabled them to secure “Felix Pappalardi and Leslie West apprentice was to keep his cymbals low
visas and also perform warm-up shows in order to maximise views of the cleavage
away from the US media’s watching eyes. were complete opposites. My job in the front rows of the audience.
Energy were managed by the same “Keith played drums with style, passion
family that promoted gigs at the Montreal [in Mountain] was to maintain and such an incredible sense of joy and
Forum, and were conveniently placed to the lines of communication.” commitment,” Laing explains now.
secure prime opening spots to some of “I would like to think it rubbed off. To
the biggest names of the era, including the Rolling “‘Me jacket! You’re a gentleman! I can’t believe this day there isn’t a part of me that doesn’t try to
Stones and The Who. It was at the latter’s you’ve got me jacket!’ and he gave me a big kiss imitate him when I’m playing on stage.”
performance at the local hockey arena that Laing right on the lips,” Laing recalls. “I could almost Laing was never backwards in coming forwards,
almost got his face caved in by Keith Moon. feel his tongue.” and when John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s bed-in
At the Who show, Laing stumbled upon their And then Corky did something very foolish. tour arrived in Montreal in 1969, the budding
drummer Moon’s sequined Union Jack coat “Without thinking I told Keith: ‘I was going to musician could not resist turning up at their hotel
unguarded underneath the stage. Almost without steal it.’ And suddenly you could hear a pin drop armed with a fake press ID in an ostentatious
thinking about his actions, Laing picked up the in the dressing room.” attempt to gain entry to the pair’s suite. Incredibly,
iconic garment, realised that it would fit him, and Understandably, Laing’s heart was in his mouth the ploy paid off. It was only when the 20-year-old
whisked it away to Energy’s dressing room. When when the notorious Moon The Loon rushed was presented bed-side that both bravado and
Moon realised it had gone, he was not happy. forward, grabbed him in an embrace and said: “But game plan deserted him, and he told the couple: GETTY
46 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
John Lennon and Yoko
Ono, whose suite Laing
blagged his way into in
Montreal in 1969.
Mountain at the Fillmore East,
New York City, June 27, 1971.
“I’m very sorry, but I’m not a newspaper writer, from you.” If anything, Prager
I’m just a musician in a local band that would do undersold the situation.
anything to meet you. I’ll just leave.” “Felix was a dictator – he was hard- Laing with West, Bruce
Equally amazing, Lennon invited the trembling core,” Laing remembers. “For a long & Laing at the Rainbow
in London, April 20 1973.
youth to sit down and tell his story. Lennon loved time he and I were not friends. But in
the band name Energy, and he and Laing shared a way that was fine, as my experiences
a few minutes talking about songs and writing. As with Felix set me up for what would later happen a cowbell as a backing track accompaniment, and
Laing prepared to leave, Lennon told him: “You when I worked with Jack [Bruce]. They were two upon its completion assumed that producer
have a set of balls, Mr Energy”. The incident would of the best teachers in the whole wide world.” Pappalardi would take it out during the mixing
draw laughs several years later, when Laing, now The other two members of Energy had declined stages. “But Felix went: ‘No, I think it’s kinda cool’,
a star in his own right, sang backing vocals on to work the basic idea of the jam from the power so the cowbell stayed.”
Lennon’s 1975 album Rock ‘N’ Roll. cut evening into a bona fide song. But when Jimi Hendrix and his Band Of Gypsys were in
To Energy’s great joy, they were chosen the studio next door at the Record Plant.
as willing guinea pigs to accompany the Mountain wanted Jimi to be the first
musician Felix Pappalardi in an audition person to hear their new song.
for a position as a producer for Atlantic “To this day there isn’t a part of “I had hung out with Hendrix before,
Records, and went to New York in 1967 me that doesn’t try to imitate Keith so Felix and Les asked me to invite him
to a record a version of Nat King Cole’s in,” says Laing. “As we played him the
ballad When I Fall In Love. Pappalardi got Moon when I’m playing on stage.” final mix, his head sunk further and
the gig, and would go on to produce further downwards. Finally, he looked
Cream. In the summer of ’69, in an act of blind Mountain were looking for a final track for their up and told us simply: ‘Cool.’ But the way he said
faith, Energy threw caution to the wind and moved album, West spotted its potential right away. it, we knew we had something special.”
to New York City. They very quickly realised the “Within ten minutes, Leslie had this guitar lick and
scale of the challenge they faced. was screaming out the lyrics,” Laing says, smiling eleased in March 1970, Mountain’s
Mountain bassist Pappalardi had made a mental at the memory. debut album, Climbing!, was a follow-
note of Laing’s name, and when the band were When Mountain recorded the song at the Rup to guitarist Leslie West’s solo album,
looking for a drummer to replace the outgoing ND Record Plant in New York, Laing had used Mountain, from the previous summer.
Smart, Laing received a call. And so A thoughtful yet hard-hitting piece
he was then was left with a difficult of work, the rumbling, sonorous
decision: turning down the strains of Climbing! are often credited
opportunity to join a group with with contributing towards the birth
genuine prospects – that August, of heavy metal.
Mountain had appeared at “The reasons for its success were
Woodstock – or remaining loyal to the musicality of Felix Pappalardi
bassist George Gardos and singer/ versus the playing of Leslie West,
organist Gary Ship, the friends with which came straight from the gut.
whom he’d made such a leap of faith. Those guys were complete
With mixed feelings he let his head opposites,” Laing muses. “My
rule his heart. contribution is a little harder to
On September 12, 1969, Laing’s define, but I consider myself the
first day as a member of Mountain, Henry Kissinger of rock’n’roll – it
Bud Prager (the manager who would was my job to maintain the lines of
be the brains behind the rise of communication.
Foreigner) warned the rookie: “Felix “And let’s not forget Steve Knight,
GETTY x4 will push you real hard, he is going Keith Moon, with whom Corky became who was one of the most peace-
good friends, after thinking the Who
to need a hundred and fifty per cent
loving guys you’ll ever meet,” he
drummer might punch his lights out.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 47
Laing with West, Bruce
& Laing atNewcastle
City Hall, April 1973.
Mountain at the Fillmore East,
New York City, June 28, 1971.
adds, referring to the keyboard player who spent Going Home was twenty-nine minutes long [It’s escalating egos and the band’s already complex
three years with the band. “But Mountain was all actually less than 10 minutes – Ed] and [guitarist] inter-personal relationships. The presence of Gail
about finding middle ground between the Alvin Lee kept speeding up and slowing down, so it Collins, Felix’s wife who had written lyrics for both
spontaneity of Leslie, whose guitar had incredible was quite a challenge. But they were thrilled with Mountain and Cream, in their midst only made
tone, and the beautiful lyrics and writing of Felix, what I did. They didn’t pay me, but a month or two things more confusing.
who loved to tell stories like Nantucket Sleighride later I was sent a gold record. And then a week after “The first time I met Gail she said she wanted to
[about the sinking of a boat that harpooned I received another disc for For Yasgur’s Farm having be my ‘old lady’ – she was coming on to me. But
a whale] with his songs. Let me tell you, though, been on the live record. So I ended up receiving I had never heard the term ‘old lady’ before.
it wasn’t a pretty band.” two gold records for a festival that I didn’t even I thought she was Felix’s mother,” he recalls in
Now a half-century old, Climbing! still holds up fucking attend!” horrified tones.
marvellously, and Laing remains After Mountain drew to a close
justifiably proud of his co-writes with 1971’s half-live/half-studio
Never In My Life, Sitting On A Rainbow album Flowers Of Evil, West and
and For Yasgur’s Farm, the latter “Mountain was all about finding middle Laing formed a new power trio
having begun life as an Energy song ground between the spontaneity of with ex-Cream bass player/singer
called Who Am I But You And The Sun, Jack Bruce. These were the days of
but which at Felix’s instigation had Leslie, whose guitar had incredible tone, ‘superbands’ – or as Laing jokingly
the title changed to honour the prefers to call them, “stupor-bands”.
farmer who allowed his land to be and the beautiful writing of Felix.” Despite the negative influence of
used for the Woodstock Festival. clashing managers, Prager and Gary
Although Laing joined Mountain several ountain were very soon sucked into Kurfirst representing Leslie and Corky, Robert
months too late to have played with them at a world that involved private planes, Stigwood looking after Jack, West, Bruce & Laing
Woodstock, he retains a pub-quiz-style Mfancy hotel suites and the realisation made two respectably received studio records –
connection with the event which attracted of their every wish. Having started out on dope, Why Dontcha and Whatever Turns You On (released
a reported half a million people and crowned the cocaine and then heroin became the group’s in ’72 and ’73, respectively) – before the following
era of psychedelic rock music. While Mountain recreational substance of choice. A novice at such year’s swansong live set Live ‘N’ Kicking.
were at the Record Plant, Laing was asked to patch matters, Laing still recalls sharing something illicit “Jack blamed us [him and West] for the break-up
up a recording made by Ten Years After intended with Jimi Hendrix at the Fillmore East in 1970. of West, Bruce & Laing, but that’s untrue,” Laing
for the Woodstock film soundtrack album. “He had a tiny sterling silver bottle of something states now. And the facts seem to back up his view;
“A mic on Ric’s [TYA drummer Ric Lee] drums he called magic dust, and asked whether I’d like Bruce being registered as drug user prevented him
had failed [during the recording at the festival], and a taste,” Laing says, smiling at the memory, “and from setting foot in the States, so the band was
I had to re-record his parts to I’m Going Home,” he I wasn’t about to say no to Jimi.” effectively doomed.
relates, grinning. “I didn’t even know who Ten Drugs would ultimately set Mountain on the “The dates [in America] were booked with all of
Years After was, let alone how their song went. I’m path to destruction, the situation worsened by the the biggest promoters, and then two weeks before GETTY x2
48 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
CORKY LAING
for good measure (the album was also re-released
on vinyl in 2018).
“That record had taken years to make, all kinds
of musicians stopped by to jam, each of them was
a friend,” Laing sighs. “I still believe that the music
stood up, and the positive reviews reflect that
belief. But [when it was mothballed] I was
heartbroken. That was a very dark time for me.”
It was only going to get worse. By the time
Mountain (now with Mark Clarke on bass)
released their next studio album, Go For Your Life,
in 1985, Pappalardi had been dead for almost two
years, having been shot in the neck by his wife Gail
Collins. That incident came as no real surprise to
Laing, given that Gail had already pulled a gun on
Francy, Corky’s wife of the era. In court, Collins
claimed ignorance of how to use the Derringer
pistol – which, in a twist of irony, had been bought
for her as a gift by Felix a few months earlier –
insisting that the weapon was discharged by
accident. She was charged with second-degree
murder and criminally negligent homicide.
“Gail had propositioned me many times, and
turning her down was among the better things
that I did in my life,” Corky states now. Although it
cannot be proven, now that Felix and Gail are both
are dead, Laing’s firm belief is that the pair’s
marriage had run its course, and on the night he
was shot by Gail, Felix had told her that he was
leaving her for another woman.
“Leslie has often compared Gail to Yoko Ono,
but she was far worse than that,” Corky sighs
wearily. “She was quite a witch.”
The touring for Go For Your Life
Jack Bruce with West, included a spot at Deep Purple’s
Bruce & Laing, circa 1972. comeback gig at Knebworth Park in
June 1985. After Mountain’s set,
they were set to start we were told they asked around backstage why
he couldn’t go,” Laing recalls. Nantucket Sleighride had brought
“Working with Jack ranks among such a huge cheer. They were
the biggest joys of my life, but it unaware that a clip of the track had
was also among the most been used for many years as the
challenging things I ever did.” theme tune to the current affairs
Although Laing and West TV show Weekend World in the UK.
continued briefly as Leslie West’s “We had no clue!” Laing says.
Wild West Show, in 1974 West and After West and Laing fell out
Pappalardi assemble a new-look again, Laing formed the group The
Mountain and released the double- Mix, followed by Cork which
live album Twin Peaks. Laing featured Noel Redding from the
rejoined them for the same year’s West, Bruce & Laing circa Jimi Hendrix Experience and Eric
1972: (l-r)Jack Bruce,
Avalanche, but now the band was Corky Laing, Leslie West. Schenkman of the Spin Doctors.
even more highly charged than After Laing had played with Meat
before. When Laing dared to Loaf for a while, in a gamekeeper-
suggest bringing in an outside turns-poacher move he cut his hair
producer, due to Pappalardi’s for his new role as A&R vice
failing hearing caused by “Jack blamed us [Laing and West] president of PolyGram Records in
Mountain’s notoriously high- for the break-up of West, Bruce Canada from 1989 to ’95.
volume concerts, without warning “Yeah, I became a weasel,” he
Felix punched him full in the face. & Laing, but that’s untrue.” says, laughing at the memory. “It
“It [the Mountain reunion] was was the twilight of the golden years
a desperate act,” admits Laing, who needed what producer Bob Ezrin on board (until he was of the record industry, and I caught the last waves.
he has since termed “a cooling off period”. His summoned to do The Wall), Laing was joined by I had already realised that the record companies
growing relevance as a performer was reflected West and Pappalardi, Ian Hunter, Mick Ronson, were going to go bust, but although it was a very
by a solo album, 1977’s Makin’ It On The Street, Andy Fraser from Free (who didn’t hang around different job for me I enjoyed it.”
which featured an impressive array of friends and long enough to record), Todd Rundgren and John
contemporaries including Eric Clapton, Dickey Sebastian. But, to Laing’s dismay, with the industry n 1992, West and Laing buried the hatchet
Betts of the Allman Brothers Band and Randall taking a long, hard look at itself with the arrival of to work together in promoting a two-disc
Bramblett. Although the sales it deserved didn’t punk, Elektra then decided to shelve the results. IMountain anthology called Over The Top. That
materialise, the album became a cult favourite. The tracks finally got a release 21 years later with led to the first Mountain album in a decade, Man’s
Suitably enthused, Elektra Records the title The Secret Sessions, with the tracks by World, followed by Mystic Fire and, somewhat
commissioned a follow-up. With Pink Floyd Clapton and Betts from its predecessor bolted on bizarrely, in 2007 a collection of Bob Dylan
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 49
CORKY LAING
Twin peaks: Corky Laing’s Mountain at
The 1865 in Southampton in 2018 and
(top) Leslie West at BB King Blues Club
& Grill in New York City in 2012.
covers titled Masters Of War, with guest appearances bemoans excessive improvisation, then you know a solo artist when promoting The Toledo Sessions on
from Ozzy Osbourne and Gov’t Mule guitarist there’s a problem. a UK tour in November.
Warren Haynes. The band haven’t performed live “Warren is a huge Mountain fan, and he told me: He isn’t fooling himself; he acknowledges that
since 2010. ‘The way you and Leslie play those songs, I don’t attendances on the last two UK tours when billed
In 2011, West, by now stricken with type-2 even fucking recognise them any more.’” Corky as Corky Laing’s Mountain can only be described
diabetes, brought on in part by the days in the 70s relates. “‘You jam out so much that you forget to as ‘modest’, but that fact won’t dissuade him.
when he tipped the scales at more than 21 stones play the fucking songs’. He was right, and I decided “That’s a bit of a pisser, but I’ve got to put it at the
(130 kilos), had his right leg amputated below the that if we are to play Mountain tunes, let’s do them back of my head,” he says with a shrug. “I know
knee to prevent a foot infection from I don’t have a Lady Gaga-sized following,
spreading into his body. Although he but the music business as I once knew it no
continues to make solo records, there is now “It’s very important to maintain longer exists, and at my age [he turns 72 on
very little communication between him and January 26] this feels like starting a new
Laing, especially since a disagreement over that [Mountain’s] legacy.” career. I have supreme confidence in the
the rights to Mississippi Queen. repertoire. The cheers of the crowd,
“What happened in our last year together was the way the crowd remember them.” whether it’s fifty people or five thousand people,
that Leslie really stopped caring – all you need to Together with Shutters and Mikel, who are both are all I need to hear.”
do is go on to YouTube for proof,” Laing sighs. accomplished vocalists, Laing has recorded a new With the deaths and/or retirements of so many
“I really wish that wasn’t so, but it’s pretty pathetic.” album called The Toledo Sessions, on which tracks of music’s biggest stars, and the huge impact of
For the past couple of years Laing has continued such as The Road Goes On and Knock Me Over doff downloading on record sales, today Corky Laing
to work within the format of a power-trio under their cap at Mountain’s signature sound. “Yes, we reluctantly owns up to a fear over rock music’s
the name Corky Laing’s Mountain. The line-up were striving to capture that vibe,” he enthuses. long-term future.
is completed by Chris Shutters on guitar, and As we enter 2020, a half-century after the release “In my view it’s over already. This is probably the
bassist/vocalist Mark Mikel. of Mountain’s Climbing!, Laing’s ultimate goal is to last wave of rock’n’roll – in fact it died a while
“I’ve been through fifty years’ worth of keep Mountain’s songs alive. back,” he offers, sadly. “Most of my contemporaries
musicians, and I’m not going to lie and tell you that “It’s very important to maintain that legacy,” are either dirt-napping, broke or no longer have the
all of them were great,” he volunteers, “but these he affirms. “My current band and I have played so ability or the inclination. But not me. I will
guys really nail it.” many gigs these past few years, and I can put my continue doing this because I still love it. I’m in
Warren Haynes played a part in a simplification hand on my heart and tell you that nobody came music; I’m not in the music business.”
of the Mountain sound, pointing out that during up to me and asked: ‘Where’s Leslie?’ Not one
Leslie and Corky’s autumn years together too single person.” Corky Laing’s autobiography Letters To Sarah
much jamming had gone on. And when Haynes Nevertheless, Laing has decided to be billed as is available via Amazon.com
50 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
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Classic Rock is a turbo-charged, rock’n’rollathon of a magazine. Every month it’s packed with exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes features on rock’s biggest names, from Led Zeppelin to Deep Purple, from Guns N’ Roses to the Rolling Stones, from the Sex Pistols to AC/DC and beyond.
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The Doors
With their frontman on a downward spiral, and threatening to take the rest of the band with him, it was decided that the best thing to do was get back in the studio. Against the odds, they came out with one of their greatest albums: Morrison Hotel.
Band Of Gypsys
In January 1970, Jimi Hendrix pulled the plug on stardom to chase a funkier, freer direction. His short-lived new trio also helped redefine the nature of the rock gig.
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