Folk rock

380. David Bowie – Space Oddity (1975)

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The Intro

‘Liftoff’

2016: I saw tweets claiming David Bowie had died before I set off for work, and so I checked his official site and there was nothing. Relieved, I set off for Hull, but I had a nagging feeling this could turn out to be true, and so I turned off Morrissey on the stereo and switched to Radio 1, where I heard David Cameron of all people paying tribute as the final notes of Life on Mars? rang out. I couldn’t believe it. Perhaps the greatest solo pop star of all time was dead. In 2020, I’m still not over it. I immediately listened to my favourite Bowie tracks, and Space Oddity was the first.

2000: I was at uni sat on my bed. I was a mess at the time, but it was nearly the summer, and as usual I had a ticket for Glastonbury in a month or so. David Bowie was headlining, and although I knew how important he was, I’d never been that into him. I decided I needed to reacquaint myself, and so I put a cassette of Changesbowie on, and from the first few seconds that faded in slowly, I was gripped, hooked and obsessed. The song was, of course, Space Oddity, the song that rightly or wrongly is considered the start of his career. I missed his Glastonbury set due to a stay in hospital, and I never got the chance to see him perform.

1975: David Bowie has put behind the glam rock that made him so famous, and his last album was a fine collection of soul tunes called Young Americans. He is about to reach his most inspired, creative era, but he is not well. Emaciated and heavily into cocaine, he was just finishing his next album Station to Station, which he later claimed he had no recollection of making. It was one of his greatest pieces of work. His record label RCA reissued Space Oddity as a maxi-single, part of a series of occasional re-releases bringing attention to some of his best-known songs. Six years after its first release, it became Bowie’s first number 1 single and is his best-selling single of all time.

1969: David Bowie, after several false starts, including an album released the same day as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band that sank, has finally made it to the singles chart thanks to Space Oddity. With a timely release to coincide with the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, Bowie appears on Top of the Pops for the first time. But can he prove he’s not just a novelty, a one-hit wonder?

It took a few years, but yes, I think I it’s safe to say he did. At the time of his death he had sold over 12 million singles in the UK alone. Two years later it was reported he had sold a further five million. If he had only had Space Oddity and the Ziggy Stardust years, he’d still be remembered fondly, but there is so much more. You could write a whole series of books on this chameleon, this genius, this effortlessly cool, witty… I don’t have enough superlatives.

Before

So it seems unreal to think he was originally just David Robert Jones, born 8 January 1947 in Brixton, London. His father Haywood was a promotions officer for Barnardo’s from Doncaster in Yorkshire and his mother Margaret was born at Shorncliffe Army Camp in Kent. He was known as a gifted child, and a bit of a brawler. Between 1953 and 1955 the Jones’s lived in several places before settling in Sundridge Park. Aged nine, his interpretations in music and movement classes were considered ‘vivdly artistic’. It was at this age that his father introduced him to rock’n’roll via songs by Elvis Presley, the Teenagers and Little Richard.

By the end of 1956, young Jones would enjoy skiffle sessions with friends, where he could be found playing the ukelele and tea-chest bass, and was also learning the piano. He would wow audiences by copying the gyrations of heroes like Elvis. After passing his eleven -plus he went to Bromley Technical High School, where he studied art, music and design, and thanks to his older half-brother Terry Burns he got into jazz, which led to his mother buying him a saxophone in 1961.

In 1962, aged 15, Jones formed his first band, The Konrads, who would play local events such as weddings. In the band was his friend George Underwood, who that year punched Jones in a fight over a girl and gave him the famous discoloration in his left eye that added to his alien appearance. Despite four months in hospital, they remained friends.

Jones left The Konrads in 1963 and released his first single, Liza Jane, credited to Davie Jones with the King Bees, in 1964. Making no impact, he jumped ship to The Manish Boys. I Pity the Fool did just as badly in 1965, and then came two singles with blues trio The Lower Third. He was credited as ‘Davy Jones’ on the first, You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving, but on Can’t Help Thinking About Me in 1966, he had become ‘David Bowie’, after James Bowie, the inventor of the knife he gave his surname to. And that ended any confusion with the much more famous Davy Jones of The Monkees.

But all this jumping around record labels with very typical mid-60s R’n’B groups (and there was one more, The Buzz) was getting Bowie nowhere. Later that year, he signed with Deram, and so began his psychedelic/Anthony Newley phase with the single Rubber Band. This period, which also included, of course, novelty single The Laughing Gnome and Love You Till Tuesday, was disowned by Bowie for decades, which is a shame as I like all three songs, and others from that eponymous debut. They’re a fascinating showcase of a nascent talent.

Bowie then moved into the dramatic arts, particularly mime, with the help of teacher Lindsay Kemp. It was here that he first became really interested with the idea of characters and assuming identities, which would be a large part of the rest of his career. Although music had taken a back seat, in 1968 he formed Feathers, a trio with girlfriend Hermione Farthingale and John Hutchinson, and they would perform a very late-60s mix of poetry, folk and mime. It was short-lived, as Bowie and Farthingale split-up in early 1969. And it was around that time that Space Oddity was penned.

Unsurprisingly, Space Oddity was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. Released in the spring of 1968, Bowie watched it while stoned several times and was very interested in the idea of a space mission going wrong, particularly watching an astronaut floating off in silence among the stars, and with the Apollo 11 mission around the corner, he set to work.

The earliest unearthed recording of Space Oddity is a simple demo recorded by Bowie on his 12-string in his flat in late-1968 or early-1969. He and Hutchinson then recorded another primitive version soon afterwards, with Hutchinson in the ‘Ground Control’ role. Then, in February, the first studio take was made to be used in Love You Till Tuesday, a promo film thought up by his manager Kenneth Pitt to try and reignite record label interest. Hutchinson was Ground Control again, and among the line-up was Dave Clague, one-time bassist in The Bonzo Dog Band. All versions of this song are worth hearing, and this studio version in particular, to note its development. This version definitely sounds more like a novelty song than the finished product. It’s too camp and lacking the haunting quality that makes it so great.

In June 1969, Pitt negotiated a one-album deal with Mercury Records on the strength of Bowie and Hutchinson’s demos. Tony Visconti, who produced Bowie’s friend Marc Bolan, was assigned Bowie, and he liked what he heard… apart from Space Oddity, which he considered a cheap cash-in on the moon landing. He assigned production to Gus Dudgeon instead, and the majority was recorded at Trident Studios on 20 June 1969.

With Hutchinson gone, Bowie sang all the vocals, but he did sound rather like him in the Ground Control lines at the start. He also played 12-string acoustic guitar and that charming analog keyboard operated by a stylus, the Stylophone. In-house session player Rick Wakeman, later of Yes, was on the Mellotron, with Mick Wayne of Junior’s Eyes on guitar, Blue Mink’s Herbie Flowers on bass and Pentange’s drummer Terry Cox, plus assorted musicians on orchestral accompaniment. Bowie and Dudgeon encouraged improvisation from the musicians.

Review

Space Oddity long since transcended being remotely considered a novelty, and that’s thanks to Bowie, then 22, already showing an existential insight into the human condition, covering alienation and emptiness, all wrapped up in one of his other favourite recurring subjects – space. I don’t feel enough credit is given to Dudgeon here. Visconti is rightly considered Bowie’s top producer but he made a big mistake handing over the reins here. Dudgeon makes a brilliant job of giving Space Oddity it’s haunting atmosphere. The slow fade-in (shorter on the original UK mono single) really does capture the feel of tension as Major Tom prepares for his mission. The ‘This is Ground Control to Major Tom’ section sounds triumphant, all is well and Major Tom is in the news. And then my favourite verse:

‘For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there’s nothing I can do’

Here, Bowie sounds both serene and unsettled, resigned to his/mankind’s fate, that, far from being superhuman, he is just one man, in space, and his mission will actually achieve little. Is the Earth ‘blue’ because of humans? It’s a line as deep as the oceans Major Tom is staring at. The instrumental section is beautiful, with the Stylophone and Mellotron sounding charmingly primitive and futuristic at the same time. Banish all thoughts of Rolf Harris on the former instrument, and imagine it was just Bowie’s adverts for the Stylophone and this song that inspired 90s acts like Pulp and Orbital to use it too.

And then the mission goes awry. Major Tom is either resigned to his fate or has had a breakdown and sabotaged his craft himself when he says ‘I think my spaceship knows which way to go’. I love the way Ground Control’s repeated ‘hear’ to Major Tom merges into the doomed astronaut ‘here’ in his ‘tin can’. In the vastness of space, Major Tom doesn’t feel like a hero. He’s just a man in a tin can. And who knows where he’s going next? The stereo mix captures the uncertainty perfectly – you feel you are in that tin can, bumping from side to side as the effects are panning, hinting at the psychedelia of the Star Gate sequence of 2001: A Space Oddity.

And then on a different level, Space Oddity is just a nice little tune to get stoned to, with the space travel metaphor relating to getting out of your head, and, as Bowie fan Jarvis Cocker later asked, ‘What if you never come down?’. So, with Apollo 11 taking place in July upon its release, Bowie hoped to appeal to the counterculture as well as the wider public fascinated in man on the moon, plus your average pop fan (the strum followed by two simple handclaps is a hell of a hook).

After

But upon its release, it looked as though Space Oddity would be another failure. Apparently the BBC refused to play it until Apollo 11 was returning home safe and by then it was slipping down the chart. Until the new marketing director for Philips, part of Mercury, set his entire staff to work selling it in September, due to lack of anything else to market. It worked, and Space Oddity peaked at five in November, the same month his second album, David Bowie was released. When Bowie signed with RCA, they wisely renamed the LP Space Oddity to avoid confusion with his 1967 album. It’s an uneven collection, and the ‘title’ track is certainly the best bit, but Memory of a Free Festival is also a highlight. He ended the year singing a an Italian version of Space Oddity, with new lyrics by Mogol, called Ragazza Solo, Ragazza Sola (Lonely Boy, Lonely Girl).

Bowie made sure he couldn’t be pigeonholed, and as we all know, every album that followed was different from the last. But The Man Who Sold the World (1970) and Hunky Dory (1971) spawned no charting singles. It’s understandable with the former, it being a heavy, unusual collection, but the latter had Changes and Life on Mars? (which did at least reach number three when re-released in 1973). At best, Bowie at this point could hope to become some kind of cult figure.

All that changed when he and his band became Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and appeared on Top of the Pops in 1972 to promote Starman. Bowie had finally pulled it off. He rode the glam rock wave bolder and brighter than most of his contemporaries. The Jean Genie almost became Christmas number 1 that year, and then Space Oddity was reissued in the US and went to 15. To promote the reissue, Mick Rock made a film in which Bowie, in full Ziggy regalia, mimed along as if sat in his spaceship. Space Oddity fitted the Ziggy era perfectly, but Bowie later said he had moved on and couldn’t understand why he was still promoting it. In live shows over the next few years he would still perform it, but it would be reworked.

For several years most Bowie singles entered the upper reaches of the top 10, including Drive-In Saturday (three in 1972), Sorrow (three in 1973) and Rebel Rebel (five in 1974). Even an unofficial reissue of The Laughing Gnome went to six!

It’s interesting to note that Rebel Rebel was the last to reach the top five for nearly two years, as it was in effect his farewell to glam. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars were retired in the summer of 1973 and in 1974 he moved to the US. After Diamond Dogs, where elements of funk crept in, he paid tribute in full to the US soul and funk of the era, resulting in Young Americans. The UK would still buy Bowie in droves, whatever his current sound, but they did prefer the glam era. But Fame, his collaboration with John Lennon, became his first US chart-topper.

Which takes us to the maxi-single that brought Bowie his first UK number 1, six years after it was first released. Why 1975 and not 1969? It’s a strange one. Clearly Bowie was still a huge star in the mid-70s, but how many people needed to buy a song that missed out first time around? Perhaps the temptation of getting their hands on Velvet Goldmine for the first time interested his fans (something Bowie wasn’t happy about – he said it hadn’t even been mixed properly). Perhaps it was just right place, right time. The mid-70s were a strange and often bleak time for pop singles. Glam was over, disco hadn’t fully blossomed and albums were where the serious music buyer’s taste lay. Whatever the reason, it was fully deserving.

The Outro

1979: Bowie had a change of heart. He decided to revisit Major Tom, but on his own terms with a sparse, desolate remake of Space Oddity, a decade on. His next number 1, a proper sequel, was right around the corner.

The Info

Written by

David Bowie

Producer

Gus Dudgeon

Weeks at number 1

2 (8-21 November)

Trivia

Births

12 November: Rower Katherine Grainger
18 November: Presenter Anthony McPartlin

Meanwhile…

16 November: British and Icelandic ships clash once more, marking the beginning of the third Cod War. 

314. Don McLean – Vincent (1972)

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The Intro

US singer-songwriter Don McLean is best known for American Pie, his folk-rock epic that referenced the plane crash that killed some of the brightest stars of the 50s. However, his first UK number 1 was its follow-up, the ode to Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh, Vincent.

Before

Donald McLean III was born 2 October 1945 in New Rochelle, New York, with roots on his father’s side to Scotland. His mother was Italian. The young McLean suffered severe asthma and was forced to miss long periods of school, so he took solace in folk music, particularly The Weavers.

When McLean was 15, his father died and he immersed himself in music once more, buying his first guitar and starting to make contacts in the industry, including befriending Fred Hellerman from The Weavers. He graduated from preparatory school in 1963 and dropped out of Villanova University after four months and became a part-time student so he could devote himself to folk music. He became a regular at venues in New York and Los Angeles.

1968 was a pivotal year for McLean, where he finally chose music over education. He turned down a scholarship in Colombia and later on received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts to expand his live performances. He took advice from folk legend Pete Seeger and supported him in 1969.

While the Berkeley student riots went on around him in California, McLean recorded his debut album Tapestry. The album was rejected 72 times, until the small label Mediarts released it in 1970. McLean may well have remained unknown, had the company not been bought out by United Artists Records. With a much bigger budget behind him, he recorded his follow-up American Pie.

As the world knows, the title track, released in late 1971 after the album, was the biggest song of McLean’s career. This sprawling epic, inspired by the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper in 1959, popularised the term ‘the day the music died’ after the plane crash that killed them. It also charted his youth and developments in youth culture – at least, that’s the theory, as McLean has never explained. American Pie reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, but stalled at number two in the UK. It took Madonna to make it a number 1, in 2000.

Track three on the LP, Vincent, was inspired by McLean looking through a book about Van Gogh one morning. One of the artworks he came across was The Starry Night. This oil on canvas, pained in June 1889, depicted Van Gogh’s view from the east-facing window of his asylum room at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence psychiatric hospital. Van Gogh was prone to psychotic episodes and delusions, and had famously cut off part of his left ear during an argument with Paul Gaugin. Van Gogh had entered this hospital a month prior to his painting, and a year later he was dead from a self-inflicted shot to the chest.

Review

The Starry Night is a beautiful painting, and the opening to Vincent is too.

‘Starry starry night
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a summer’s day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul’

Unfortunately, it’s downhill from there. I must admit Vincent has never interested me beyond that intro and upon further research, I’m put off even less. The lyrics are rather patronising – McLean gives the impression that he understands the fate of Van Gogh because he too is some kind of tortured genius, and that we mere normal people will never understand it. Maybe so, but this isn’t a work of genius, it’s average, and I have to confess I’ve always found American Pie somewhat overrated too. So yes, McLean, to paraphrase, I would not listen, I’m not listening still, and perhaps I never will. I can live with that.

The Outro

It would be eight years before McLean’s next number 1, a cover of Roy Orbison’s Crying.

The Info

Written by

Don McLean

Producer

Ed Freeman

Weeks at number 1

2 (17-30 June)

Meanwhile…

18 June: British European Airways Flight 548 crashed near Staines in Surrey. 116 of the 118 people on board were dead by the time ambulances arrived, and the two survivors died before reaching hospital. It was the worst UK disaster for 16 years, until the Lockerbie bombing. An inquiry later revealed the pilot had a heart condition and an argument with crew may have caused the plane to have a deep stall.

23 June: Chancellor of the Exchequer Anthony Barber announced a decision to float the pound as a temporary measure. It has floated ever since.

305. Rod Stewart – Reason to Believe/Maggie May (1971)

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The Intro

Sir Roderick David Stewart, aka ‘Rod the Mod’, was one of the biggest-selling artists of the 70s and 80s, with over 120 million records sold worldwide, and six number 1 singles. And yet his first chart-topper, Maggie May, was tucked away as a B-side. Were it not for its appeal shining through, Stewart may not have become as big a superstar as he did.

Before

Stewart was born at home in Highgate, London on 10 January 1945. He was the youngest of five children, the other four having been born in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland, where his father Robert, a builder, came from. After he retired, Robert bought a newsagent’s shop, which the Stewart family lived above. His youngest’s main hobby, which he still loves, was railway modelling.

Stewart’s other big obsession was football, and he became captain of his school’s team. His first musical hero was Al Jolson, but he soon got into rock’n’roll, and he saw Bill Haley & His Comets in concert. In 1960 he joined a skiffle group called The Kool Kats, and would play Lonnie Donegan covers.

Stewart left school at 15 and had various jobs working in the family shop, as a silk screen printer and at a cemetery, but he longed to be a professional footballer. In 1961 he decided to try his hand at singing, and along with The Raiders he auditioned for eccentric producer Joe Meek, but he wasn’t impressed.

Soon after, Stewart turned into a left-wing beatnik, listening to the folk music of Bob Dylan, Ewan MacColl and Woody Guthrie and attending protest marches, getting arrested three times between 1961 and 1963. He later confessed he often used the marches as a way of bedding girls. In 1962 he took to playing the harmonica and would busk at Leicester Square with folk singer Wizz Jones. They took their act to Europe, and Stewart found himself deported from Spain for vagrancy in 1963. Around this time, he was considered as a singer for The Kinks, then known as The Ray Davies Quartet.

Later that year he became a full-on Mod, adopting his trademark spiky hairstyle and becoming enthralled with soul and R’n’B music. He found his first professional job as a musician in The Dimensions. This was his introduction to London’s R’n’B scene, where he would take harmonica tips from Mick Jagger.

In January 1964 the 19-year-old had been to a Long John Baldry gig and was playing harmonica at Twickenham Station when Baldry himself heard him and invited him to join his group. Over time, Stewart overcame shyness and would dress up more, and would sometimes be billed as Rod ‘the Mod’ Stewart. He made his recording debut with Baldry and the Hoochie Coochie Men that June, uncredited. Two months later, after a performance at the Marquee Club, he was signed as a solo act to Decca Records. His debut single was the blues standard, with a terribly dodgy title, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, which featured John Paul Jones among the session musicians.

Baldry’s group broke up, but he and Stewart patched up their differences and in 1965 became part of the line-up of new group Steampacket alongside Brian Auger. Steampacket were conceived as a white soul revue, and while supporting The Rolling Stones he had his first taste of crowd hysteria. Due to all being signed to different labels, Stewart’s group were unable to record any material. His solo career continued, but without making much impact. In 1966 he jumped ship from Steampacket to Shotgun Express, whose line-up included future Fleetwood Mac members Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood.

It was The Jeff Beck Group that finally gave Stewart his break when he joined their ranks in February 1967. He formed a long-lasting friendship with guitarist Ronnie Wood, began writing material, and his vocal technique developed into the rough rasp that made him stand out. However, he and Beck didn’t get on, and when Wood was announced as Steve Marriott’s replacement in Small Faces in June 1969, Stewart joined him a few months after as their new singer, and they became Faces.

At the same time, Stewart was making inroads with his solo career. Now with Mercury Records, he released his first album, An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down, a mix of well-received original material and rock, folk and blues covers.

1970 saw the release of both Faces’ debut LP First Step and his solo follow-up Gasoline Alley, which introduced the mandolin to his sound. Faces quickly amassed a dedicated following at their gigs, and Stewart was one single release away from becoming a household name. The plan was for (Find a) Reason to Believe to be the first single from his forthcoming album, Every Picture Tells a Story, with Maggie May as the B-side.

Reviews

Reason to Believe (the bracketed bit dropped upon its single release) was the final track on the accompanying album. It’s a cover of a Tim Hardin track, which the folk singer had released on his debut album in 1965, and The Carpenters covered it in 1970.

Stewart plays the wounded lover, whose girl has lied to him. His gravelly voice suits the song well, and there’s some nice Hammond organ and piano work courtesy of Faces’ Ian McLagan. It’s a good album track, but it was never going to light up the charts the way its flip side did. So much so, the single became a double A-side as word spread.

Stewart has rather pissed away his potential over the years, and growing up in the 80s, I saw him as a ridiculous figure. However, Maggie May is a classic, and it’s the best number 1 he’s had. There’s no chorus, but it’s a compelling story, with a memorable mandolin intro courtesy of Lindisfarne’s Ray Jackson.

Rod the Mod had been inspired to write the song while working out some chords with guitarist Martin Quittenton of Steamhammer. He recalled his experience of losing his virginity in 1961 to an older woman at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival. The song isn’t named after her though. Stewart took it from the old Liverpool folk song about a prostitute (as briefly heard on The Beatles album Let It Be). Amazingly, you can see him taking part in the event here. The festival, not the self-confessed very brief sex… Also on the recording, which was only added to the album at the last minute, are Wood on bass and 12-string, McLagan and drummer Micky Waller, who played a drumkit with no cymbals, which were added later.

The original version of Stewart’s song opened side two of Every Picture Tells a Story with a 30-second guitar intro from Quittenton, named Delilah. In full, it’s over five minutes long, but the single edit cuts off some of the detail.

However, Stewart’s tale of love for an older woman remains fascinating. He gets you interested right from the start with those famous opening lines, revealing he was in fact a schoolboy when he was sleeping with Maggie. More mature than your average love song, Stewart finds time to insult Maggie only to remind her how deep he feels about her before she has chance to slap him:

‘The morning sun, when it’s in your face really shows your age
But that don’t worry me none in my eyes, you’re everything’

Stewart resolves to get over May by, among other things, joining a ‘rock’n’roll band’ (mission accomplished), and although he claims he wishes he’d never seen her face, you don’t believe him, and as that beautiful mandolin rings out over the fade, you’re left wondering what happened to the singer that wrote such a great song.

After

A song that’s taken on new meaning to me of late, as my in-laws fell in love when this was in the charts (Maggie was my father-in-law’s name for his future wife) and it was played at his funeral, 48 years later. It’s difficult to listen to anymore without welling up.

The Outro

Maggie May established Stewart both here and in the US, reaching number 1 in both while he also held the number 1 album spots – a rare feat. Above you can see the famous Top of the Pops appearance of the song, in which he’s backed by his Faces bandmates and Radio 1 DJ John Peel miming the mandolin.

The Info

Written by:

Reason to Believe: Tim Hardin/Maggie May: Rod Stewart & Martin Quittenton

Producer

Rod Stewart

Weeks at number 1

5 (9 October-12 November)

Births

9 October: Fashion photographer Simon Atlee
13 October: Comedian Sasha Baron Cohen
16 October: Big Brother winner Craig Phillips
30 October: Actor John Alford
3 November: Archer Alison Williamson
8 November: Footballer Michael Jeffrey

Deaths

11 November: Independent MP AP Herbert

Meanwhile…

13 October: The British Army began destroying roads between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as a security measure.

21 October: 20 people were killed in a gas explosion in the town centre of Clarkston, East Renfrewshire in Scotland.

23 October: When a car failed to stop at a Belfast checkpoint, Mary Ellen Meehan, 30, and her sister Dorothy Maguire, 19 were shot dead by soldiers.

28 October: Prime Minister Edward Heath scored a big victory when the House of Commons voted in favour of joining the EEC by a vote of 356-244.
Also on this day, the Immigration Act 1971 restricted immigration, particularly primary immigration into the U.K. and introduced the status of right of abode into law.
Plus, the UK became the sixth nation to launch a satellite into orbit using its own launch vehicle, the Prospero (X-3) experimental communications satellite.

30 October: The Democratic Unionist Party was founded by the formidable Reverend Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland.

31 October: A bomb, likely planted by the Angry Brigade, exploded at the top of London’s Post Office Tower.

10 November: The 10-route Spaghetti Junction motorway interchange was opened north of Birmingham’s city centre. The interchange would have a total of 12 routes when the final stretch of the M6 was opened in 1972.

292. Matthews Southern Comfort – Woodstock (1970)

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The Intro

Matthews Southern Comfort, led by former Fairport Convention singer Ian Matthews, had a surprise number 1 with this beautiful cover of Joni Mitchell’s epitaph to the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival 1969, which also seemed to mourn the end of the optimism of the hippy movement, and touched a nerve following the recent death of the festival’s headliner Jimi Hendrix. Of the three famous versions out there, this is the best.

Before

Mitchell hadn’t actually attended or performed at the Woodstock festival as her manager had told her to appear on The Dick Cavett Show instead. She was in a relationship with Graham Nash at the time, though and he was there performing as part of his new supergroup with David Crosby and Stephen Stills. Watching the events unfold on TV from her hotel room had a profound effect on the singer-songwriter, and she put pen to paper.

Woodstock turned Max Yasgur’s farm that hosted the festival into the garden of Eden, and the journey to the site became a spiritual journey that would lead to enlightenment. Mitchell imagines meeting a child of God on their way to the site, starts to feel like she can be a part of a movement, and before you know it there are half a million likeminded souls.

She began performing her new song only a month after Woodstock, at the Big Sur Music Festival. Her recorded version found its way on to her third album Ladies of the Canyon in March 1970. It’s a sparse, low-key arrangement, performed on an electric piano. Sadly, it’s somewhat spoilt by her annoying double-tracked backing vocals.

Around the same time, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (for Neil Young had joined the fray) released their version on the album Déjà Vu. They had recorded a version with Jimi Hendrix while working on the song, released on the outtakes album Both Sides of the Sky (2018). I’m a huge fan of CSNY, but find their version of Woodstock somewhat of a misfire. They ditch the haunting melancholy of the original and turn it into a rather bog-standard rock anthem. An alternate take was used to close Michael Wadleigh’s Woodstock documentary (1970). Which brings us to Matthews Southern Comfort. But who were they?

Ian Matthews MacDonald was born 16 June 1946 in Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire. When he was 12 the MacDonalds moved to Scunthorpe, close to where I live. He left school at 16 and worked as an apprentice signwriter, and by the mid-60s he was performing in local bands. MacDonald moved to London in 1965 and formed surf music trio The Pyramid.

In the winter of 1967 he was recruited to sing for the then-new rock band Fairport Convention, and was among the line-up to record their eponymous debut (1968) and follow-up What We Did On Our Holidays in 1969. Sometime between the two, MacDonald changed his name to Ian Matthews (his mother’s maiden name), to avoid confusion with Ian MacDonald of King Crimson.

However, the second LP by the band saw them moving toward the traditional folk for which they would become so influential, and Matthews departed during the making of Halfbricking in 1969.

He quickly began work on his debut solo album, Matthews’ Southern Comfort, featuring more of the US country sound he performed. The line-up featured former Fairport colleagues like Richard Thompson, and included his own material as well as covers. Matthews put together a touring band, called Matthews Southern Comfort (minus the apostrophe), featuring lead guitarist Mark Griffiths and Gordon Huntley on pedal steel guitar from the album, plus new members Carl Barnwell on guitar, bassist Andy Leigh and Ray Duffy on drums.

Matthews Southern Comfort released their debut LP Second Spring in July 1970, and the world shrugged. However, a month prior to that they had recorded a set for BBC Radio 1’s Live in Concert. They needed one final song, and Matthews had recently bought Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon. The band kept their version of Woodstock faithful to the original, and it went down so well, the BBC contacted their label about it. Uni Records suggested it was recorded and added to their next album, Later That Same Year. Matthews refused, but said it could become a single. However, while recording the new version, the arrangement was radically altered, in part to suit Matthews’ voice.

Review

Apparently Mitchell later told Matthews this was her favourite version of Woodstock, and I agree completely. This recording is sublime. Matthews Southern Comfort perfectly capture the sadness of the end of an era, the feeling that the counterculture didn’t pull it off. That we never did get ‘back to the garden’. Of special note is Huntley’s steel guitar, giving the song a sense of yearning for what could have been, the circular guitar sounds (mixed down in the single version) and Matthews’ tender voice and the lovely harmonies. This version is what Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s should have sounded like.

MCA Records, the parent company of Matthews Southern Comfort’s record label, only agreed to release Woodstock if CSNY’s version tanked, which it did. But they refused to spend money on promotion upon its release in July. Luckily for Matthews and co, they had a fan in BBC DJ Tony Blackburn, who made it Record of the Week on his Radio 1 breakfast show. Here’s a great example of how long it could take a single to climb the charts back in the day. Three months to make it to number 1!

Top of the Pops would show a lovely promo film during Woodstock‘s weeks at number 1, with a beautiful hippy girl wandering around the streets and looking at posters of the Woodstock film. Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s pretty fitting.

Were the band pleased to be chart-toppers? Not really, it turned out. Matthews didn’t like the extra demands on his time being a pop star entailed, and he walked out in December, making Woodstock their final single. He went solo, and the rest of the line-up continued as Southern Comfort, releasing three albums between 1971 and 1973.

Matthews recorded two albums in 1971 (If You Saw Thro’ My Eyes and Tigers Will Survive), before forming a new group called Plainsong, which included Andy Roberts. When they collapsed Matthews continued to record while living in Los Angeles, working with Michael Nesmith of The Monkees at times during the 80s and 90s. He has gone by the name Iain Matthews ever since 1989.

In 2000 he moved to Amsterdam and continues to record and perform, sometimes reviving Matthews Southern Comfort or Plainsong. Matthews co-wrote Thro’ My Eyes: A Memoir with Ian Clayton, released in 2018.

The Outro

There are similarities shared between Woodstock and Scott McKenzie’s 1967 number 1 San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair). Both are folk songs written to commemorate counterculture festivals and give them mystical meaning. Yet by the time we get to Woodstock, it’s over. Hendrix’s death in September and this track are a full stop on the 60s. And yet, the festival scene certainly wasn’t over, with the very first Glastonbury Festival taking place the day after Hendrix’s death and celebrating its 50th anniversary this June, bigger than ever. And the next number 1 would be a very fitting postscript.

The Info

Written by

Joni Mitchell

Producer

Ian Matthews

Weeks at number 1

3 (31 October-20 November)

Trivia

Births

7 November: The Divine Comedy singer-songwriter Neil Hannon
12 November: Actor Harvey Spencer Stephens
13 November: Race walker Verity Snook-Larby

Deaths

8 November: Liberal MP Alasdair Mackenzie
13 November: Labour MP Bessie Braddock

Meanwhile…

17 November: The Sun newspaper featured a Page Three girl for the first time. This tradition made stars of Samantha Fox and Maria Whittaker among others, but divided public opinion. However it continued for 44 years, until 2015.

20 November: The 10 shilling note ceased to be legal tender.

283. Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge over Troubled Water (1970)

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The Intro

The first classic number 1 of the 70s, Bridge over Troubled Water‘s message of the importance of friendship in times of emotional pain made it one of the most famous songs of all time, and yet it did further damage to Simon & Garfunkel’s already strained relationship, and helped quicken their disintegration.

Before

Paul Frederic Simon was born on 13 October 1941 in Newark, New Jersey. Arthur Ira Garfunkel was born 5 November in New York City, also 1941. They grew up three blocks from each other in Queens, New York and attended the same schools and admired The Everly Brothers. They became friends in 1953 when appearing in a sixth grade production of Alice in Wonderland. In addition to forming a street corner doo-wop quintet called The Peptones, Simon and Garfunkel began performing as a duo at school dances. In 1956 they wrote their first song, The Girl for Me and signed with independent label Big Records aged only 15.

As Tom & Jerry (Garfunkel was Tom Graph, Simon was Jerry Landis) the duo had some success with 1957 single Hey Schoolgirl, but were unable to follow it up. While both at university, and still officially a duo, Simon released a single under the name True Taylor. This can be seen as the first crack in their relationship, as it caused some resentment with Garfunkel.

They went their separate ways for some time, recording under a variety of names and working with other acts. Then in 1963, they both graduated from university and began to work together again. By now they had moved on from rock’n’roll and were both enjoying the burgeoning folk scene in Greenwich, and billed themselves as Kane & Garr. One of the songs they would perform was The Sound of Silence. Columbia Records producer Tom Wilson, who later helped Bob Dylan in his transition to electric, was impressed by the duo, and helped get them signed to the label.

In 1964, as Simon & Garfunkel, they recorded their debut LP, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. Featuring compositions by Simon and covers, it bombed, and Simon decided to move to the UK soon after, going solo once more.

Fast forward to 1965, and Simon had released solo album The Paul Simon Songbook, which hadn’t done too well. Garfunkel, who had been to visit his friend in the UK, was at Columbia University. Then everything changed.

The Sound of Silence was gaining in popularity with colleges on the radio, and Wilson decided to make a remix featuring electric instruments and drums, without telling either of them. Simon was horrified when he found out, but then the new folk-rock version hit number 1 in the US in January 1966. He hastily returned to the US, and they reunited to quickly record a new album, Sounds of Silence. Featuring remade versions of tracks from Simon’s solo LP, including I Am a Rock, it was a rush-job, but extremely popular, and they were famous at last.

They decided to take time over their third album, and became more interested in production, while making Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, released that October. With their version of Scarborough Fair/Canticle, and a remade Homeward Bound among the included material, it was one of their best collections.

Simon developed writer’s block while working on the next album, but managed to pen material for Mike Nichols’ smash romantic comedy The Graduate in 1967, including Mrs. Robinson. Fourth album Bookends eventually surfaced in 1968, and included the title track, America and Hazy Shade of Winter.

By now huge recording and touring stars, their partnership began to suffer, thanks in part to Garfunkel’s acting career. Simon was to join him in Nichols’ Catch-22 (1970) but found his part written out. Matters were exacerbated by the filming taking longer than expected. Eventually they began work, with members of The Wrecking Crew and producer Roy Halee on their fifth and final album, turning down an invitation to perform at Woodstock Festival while doing so.

What was to become the title track began originally as a gentle two-verse guitar number that had been inspired in part by a line from 1958 song Mary Don’t You Weep, a gospel track by the Swan Silvertones: ‘I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in me”. Simon later presented singer-songwriter Claude Jetter with a cheque to acknowledge his inspiration. The civil rights unrest and political assassinations in the stormy years leading up to this time also helped Simon come up with a message of hope.

Over the years, the duo have both given different stories over what happened next. Simon claimed he thought it would be perfect as a solo spot for Garfunkel’s angelic voice, but that he didn’t want to do it, and Simon felt hurt. Garfunkel says Simon was gracious when Garfunkel told him politely that he felt Simon should do it as it sounded lovely performed by him. Who knows – but I do know from reading and seeing interviews that both men can be oversensitive and precious.

Simon & Garfunkel, musicians and production crew assembled at CBS studios to work Bridge over Troubled Water out in November 1969. The final track to be recorded for the album, but the first to be completed, it was felt that, as nice as it was, the song should feature an extra verse, and open out to become a real epic in the style of a Phil Spector number. And so Simon wrote the ‘silver girl’ verse at Garfunkel’s suggestion, but wasn’t too keen. While some say it’s a reference to a drug user’s needle, it’s apparently an in-joke – Simon’s wife Peggy Harper had noticed she was turning grey. Simon seems to regret ever adding a third verse, and he’s not alone in that.

Review

Bridge over Troubled Water has been criticised for being calculated and manipulative – a glossy exercise in tugging the heartstrings, and that it’s too epic, too, that it would have been better in its original incarnation. I understand all these points, and it’s certainly been used since in countless covers as the go-to song to make people emotional, but I think it’s simply a beautiful song and that no amount of stories of two stars whose egos were incompatible can spoilt it for me.

Simon is right in that the first verse, in particular, is the most moving. Garfunkel’s always beautiful voice is perfect here, and I admire the technical brilliance of being able to wring every bit of emotion out of each syllable. Garfunkel later claimed this verse took the most amount of takes, whereas the finale was the easiest. Wonderful support on the piano by Larry Knetchel, too. The performance makes me imagine that the person Garfunkel is singing to is so fragile, his almost hushed tones are all they can take.

He/they grow in strength in the second verse, adding meaning to Simon’s already powerful words, and the cymbal crashes from Hal Blaine suggest the message is getting through. Then the strings come in, courtesy of Jimmy Haskell, who had misheard the name of the song and labelled his arrangement Like a Pitcher of Troubled Water. Bass enters the fray, and Blaine gets on the drum kit. Its unclear whether that’s double-tracked singing from Garfunkel or Simon finally getting his voice heard, but I think it’s the former. Yes, the lyrics don’t match what came before, but the music picks up the slack, and then the epic rousing finale, in which Garfunkel gives it his all, leaving the darkness behind, with Blaine creating that unique drum sound by slapping the chains from his snow tyres on to his snare drum (used again on The Boxer). If this track hasn’t at least once made you want to cry when your defences are down (or just very pissed), are you even human?

After

The song was complete, and despite being over five minutes in length, label boss Clive Davis insisted it was too good to be anything but the first single from the album. He was totally correct, of course. It went to number 1 in the US in February, then the UK a month later, and like Wand’rin’ Star before it, it kept The Beatles’ swansong single, Let It Be, from number 1. Clearly, the mood of the time was for gospel-influenced, big message songs. The Beatles may be the greatest band of all time, but Bridge over Troubled Water was the better song here. It rightfully went on to be one of the biggest-selling singles of all time.

And the album named after the song was also huge. It was the bestseller of 1970, 71 and 72, and until Michael Jackson’s Thriller it was the biggest of all time. But Simon & Garfunkel had had enough of each other for the forseeable. In 1971, the same year their final LP won six awards at the Grammys, they split.

Simon would confess to Bridge over Troubled Water causing him to feel jealous – he resented sitting in the wings watching Garfunkel getting adulation for performing his song. You’d be forgiven for thinking he needed to get over himself. But it’s also proof that you can be an incredible songwriting talent and still be as petty as any other human, I suppose.

The duo got back together in 1972 for a benefit concert for Democrat hopeful George McGovern, but it was another three years before they spoke to each other when they visited a recording session by John Lennon and Harry Nilsson. They collaborated in the studio once more, and came up with a new single, My Little Town, which was a hit. For the rest of the 70s they would occasionally make rare TV and live appearances. Garfunkel would have two UK number 1s, most notably the beautiful Bright Eyes from animated movie Watership Down (1978) – it was number 1 on the day I was born, 19 April 1979.

The 80s began with both Simon and Garfunkel’s solo careers in decline, until they were persuaded to perform at a free concert in Central Park, New York City in 1981. An incredible 500,000 attended the show – the largest ever at the time. They tried to capitalise on the renewed interest with a world tour in 1982, but old tensions rose and they barely spoke to each other throughout. Warner Bros. pushed for a tour extension and reunion album, but after early recording attempts, Simon opted for a new solo LP instead, with Garfunkel’s refusal to give up cannabis among the reasons given. Simon would go on to be very popular for the rest of the decade, particularly for his crossover world music album Graceland in 1986.

Simon & Garfunkel were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and managed to perform three songs together, despite Simon being pretty snide in his speech, and the duo refusing to speak to each other afterwards. A year later Simon did his own Central Park show, pointedly refusing an offer from his former partner to join him there. However in 1993 they were touring once more. Guess what? They fell out again for the rest of the decade.

In 2001 Simon was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a solo artist. He thanked Garfunkel, but ended up saying he wasn’t in a rush to make peace with him, either. Nice. A lifetime achievement Grammy for the old friends/sworn enemies in 2003 resulted in another halt to their Cold War. They toured the US and Europe for a year, and performed at a Hurricane Katrina benefit in 2005. Their final performance as Simon & Garfunkel took place at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2010, with the latter struggling with vocal cord paresis. Further dates were postponed indefinitely, and it would be four years before his voice was back to full strength.

The Outro

Simon announced his retirement from touring in 2018. Does that mean we’ll never see them on stage ever again? Who knows. They’re both approaching 80, and it seems Simon in particular is unlikely to want to do so, but it would be nice to think they could end their days as friends once more. Hopefully it would be for genuine reasons, rather than the money.

If it doesn’t happen, best to take comfort in the fact the duo were able to produce some brilliant songs, had real alchemy together, and that despite the result it had on their relationship, Bridge over Troubled Water has helped so many people for 50 years.

Among the multitude of covers, it’s been number 1 twice since, for great causes – making up part of A Bridge over You, the 2015 Christmas number 1 by Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Choir, and in its own right in 2017, when stars including Robbie Williams, Rita Ora, Roger Daltrey and Stoemzy united under the banner Artists for Grenfell.

The Info

Written by

Paul Simon

Producers

Roy Halee, Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

Weeks at number 1

3 (28 March-17 April)

Meanwhile…

April Fool’s Day: Everton won the Football League First Division title.

10 April: Paul McCartney announces that he has left The Beatles, marking the end of the Fab Four.

11 April: Chelsea and Leeds United drew 2–2 in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium, making it the first to require a replay since 1912.

16 April: The controversial Dr. Ian Paisley entered the Parliament of Northern Ireland after winning the Bannside By-election.