ASK FRED
Attention! For Dellar’s Stanshall, harmony and hair-don’ts nuggets.
What has Stevie Nicks been home-taping?
In All Back To My Place in MOJO 325, I was interested to hear about Stevie Nicks’ Road Tapes. Can you tell us any more about them?
Steve Robertson, via e-mail
Fred says: Stevie told us, “I’ve been making them since 1978. Whatever tour I’m on, we pick two or three tapes, and we stay with them. I play them from 5 o’clock in the afternoon when I get to the show until 8.15 when I walk on stage. I have all my cassettes of my Road Tapes in a drawer in my pantry. Did I draw covers for them? Oh yeah!” The first of three volumes of Beats, she says, includes Lady Gaga’s Applause, Adele’s Rolling In The Deep, Fleetwood Mac’s Seven Wonders and Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen, among others. “They all have specific names – there’s also Beautiful Girls 1, 2 and 3, Rock & Roll Fantasy 1 and 2… they have 20 to 22 songs on them. Sequencing is one of my favourite things – that’s how I make my tapes, as if they were Hotel California or Rumours, or any of those really big albums that you’d never have thought of skipping a song.” But shouldn’t she put them out? “I agree!” says Stevie, who these days uses an iPod. “I think people would love my tapes.” Are you listening, Cassette Day organisers?
IS THIS GENUINE VIV?
I recently came across a rather nice copy of the Ronco double album 40 Smash Hits Based On The
Film That’ll Be The Day. There’s a track entitled Real Leather Jacket, which it states is sung by Viv Stanshall, yet it sounds like nothing he did before. Is it in fact by another artist?
Kevin Rawlings, via e-mail
Fred says: Viv wrote the song specially for the film and recorded it, probably at Willesden’s Morgan Studios, with the aid of Ronnie Wood, Graham Bond, Jack Bruce and Keith Moon. But it was nixed from the film and made its sole appearance on the Ronco release. So it’s a rarity, if a track on a 600,000-selling album can be claimed as such.
CAN ROD BE HEARD ON A BOWIE LP?
Re: Canned applause (Ask Fred 314). The crowd noise at the beginning of David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs is taken from the Faces’ Coast To Coast: Overtures And Beginners album: just as the guitar comes in, Rod Stewart can be clearly heard shouting “woah”. As for the Boiling Point question about Let’s Get Funktified, I bought the 12-inch when it came out in 1978. It must surely be the great lost funk track.
David Lynch, via e-mail
Fred says: I’ve attempted to track down Boiling Point, who, like Peabo Bryson, started out on Atlanta’s Bullet label. But apart from their main man and producer being named Clyde Howard, and a Number 41 UK Dance Chart placing in May 1978, they elude discovery. Can anyone assist?
WHERE DID THE OTHER GENE GO?
I’ve long been puzzled by Gene Pitney’s That Girl Belongs To Yesterday. When I bought it in 1964 it had two vocal tracks on it, superb Everlys-type harmonies. By the time it turned up on The Very Best of Gene Pitney (Ace, 1985) it only had one, and now whenever it gets played on the radio this is the version we hear. What happened?
Philip, via e-mail
Fred says: Over to Roger Armstrong at Ace Records to explain: “This is almost certainly a case of an under dub not being spotted. I think that the second vocal was added by bouncing the original master across to another tape. This single-tracked version was on our 1985 Best Of from a tape provided by the label at the time. It should have been picked up then, and it was in fact picked up for our (’61-73 45s set) Big 20 in 2004. I would say that the one-vocal-track version is a lot cleaner, but loses some of the drama that the harmony vocal brings. Apologies to Philip.”
HELP FRED
Me and some friends were talking on Zoom about how Rainbow singer Graham Bonnet fell out with Ritchie Blackmore because he insisted on a neat parting rather than a heavy metal haircut. This led to speculation about Sex Pistol Steve Jones having curly, not punk, hair. Then we remembered when Dexys Midnight Runners were wearing smart suits and had long-haired Vincent Crane in the line-up. Can readers please suggest their favourite bands with incompatible haircuts?
Barry Jones, via e-mail