ASK FRED
Stand by! As Fred Dellar socks it to ya with rude words, outrageous scams and Strawberry Windmills.
An ’80s sound on a ’50s record?! What gives?
I was listening to Cliff Richard and The Shadows’ 1965 version of Jagger & Richards’ Blue Turns To Grey, and I was struck by how like an ’80s indie band the guitar intro seemed. The guitar break in Cream’s Badge also sounds like it’s from a different decade. Do you have any other good examples of sonic details that arrived too soon?
Fred Says: One brilliant ‘Eh?’ moment is in Orange Juice’s 1982 hit Rip It Up, which used the unmistakable blip-bloppy noise of the Roland 303 Bass Line synth, which found fame later in the decade as the essence of acid house. The infernal tones of Black Sabbath’s first album in 1970, meanwhile, uncannily predicted doom metal, while there are all kinds of blues and rock’n’roll records with fabulously distorted guitars that garage punks would swoon over and psychedelic bands would sell their (electric) grandmother for. We should also mention The Eligibles’ Car Trouble, which used backwards tapes all the way back in 1959, and the 1956 single The Flying Saucer by Bill Buchanan and Dickie Goodman, which brazenly purloined and edited together bits of songs by Elvis Presley, Little Richard, The Penguins and more in a manner to shame The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu’s infamous 1987 What The Fuck’s Going On? LP. Amazingly, the offending single reached Number 3. But enough from us – what are your favourite ‘avant-la-lettre’ sonic signatures?
WAS LOU LEWD?
Why was the Lou Christie single Rhapsody In The Rain banned?
Fred Says: The song was written by Christie and clairvoyant Twyla Herbert, whose vocal group The Delicates provided back-up. But the lyrics proved too hot for many radio stations to handle. Lines such as “We were makin’ out in the rain” and “In this car, we went too far” upset many religious organisations. Years later Christie told Goldmine magazine, “I had priests and nuns calling to complain. Even Time magazine did an article on it saying I was corrupting the youth.” Such was the uproar that Christie was forced to return to the recording studio and record a new version. Buoyed by all the publicity, however, the rewrite quickly hoisted itself into America’s Top 20.
DID MICHEL LEGRAND SUPPLANT THE BEATLES?
The first (1968) version of The Thomas Crown Affair movie was shown again on TV recently. Is it true that the soundtrack originally included some tracks by The Beatles?
Apparently, Strawberry Fields Forever was employed as a stopgap track during the glider scene until Michel Legrand linked with Marilyn and Alan Bergman to write The Windmills Of Your Mind, which was also used over the opening credits. Though Noel Harrison provided the vocals in the film, Andy Williams was first choice for the gig, but turned it down.
DID DYLAN RIP OFF A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT?
Is it true that a high school student not only wrote Blowin’ In The Wind but also recorded it before Bob Dylan?
Fred Says: Lorre Wyatt, a New Jersey student, initially claimed that he wrote Blowin’ In The Wind and performed the song during 1962. In April 1963 his folk band The Millburnaires recorded an album, on which Wyatt received a composer’s credit for Blowin’ In The Wind (Dylan did not release his recording until August 1963). According to Dylanologist Clinton Heylin, the truth is that Broadside magazine published Blowin’ In The Wind in its May 1962 edition, where Wyatt saw it, performed it, declared ownership and then said he sold it to Dylan for a thousand bucks. Wyatt explained himself in 1974, saying it was all a juvenile gag that got out of hand, saying, “I’d begun to make Pinocchio look like he had a pug nose.” He did make good as a folk singer though, and in 2012 he released A More Perfect Union with his pal Pete Seeger, which included contributions from Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and others.
ZOUNDS! – NO TOWNES
Re Phil Weedon’s question about Townes Van Zandt’s 1987 gig in Woolwich (MOJO 321). I was the manager/programmer at the venue, which was run and owned by the London Borough of Greenwich (rather than Terry Malone as stated). Sorry, I have to say that I don’t recall any filming. We did have some set video cameras that beamed images of the stage into the bar area, maybe that was what Phil was thinking of?