This is perhaps the most abiding legacy of the Allman Brothers band, whose member, Gregg, died earlier this week.
I might have included it in this series before if it had not had the (mis)fortune to have become the theme tune to Top Gear. Still that’s not the Allmans’ fault and it was chosen long before the programme was hi-jacked by the play-to-the-lowest-common-denominator tendency.
The Allman Brothers Band: Jessica
Gregory LeNoir “Gregg” Allman: 8/12/1947- 27/5/2017. So it goes.
Delaney and Bonnie – under whose name along with their friends – this song was released formed a rotating ensemble using many musicians among whom was Eric Clapton who features on this recording.
Delaney and Bonnie and Friends featuring Eric Clapton: Comin’ Home
Following last week’s offering from Black Sabbath here’s a more famous Changes – the Bowie song, here taken from BBC sessions. To my mind there’s a lot more energy in this live version than the LP track.
Edited to add – that live version has disappeared. Here’s another.
A most un-Black Sabbath-like Black Sabbath song, I include this not only for the mellotron but the similarity of the piano chords to those in Birth by The Peddlers and Elton John’s Border Song.
I discovered two sad departures this week, both Peters, though one of them actually occurred in January.
Peter Skellern’s affection for the brass band sound made him stand out as a bit old fashioned in the early 1970s.
His biggest hit was You’re a Lady, no 3 in 1972.
Peter Skellern: You’re a Lady
I remembered his revival of Frank Noble’s song Love is the Sweetest Thing as being a bigger hit than in fact it was. It apparently only reached no 60. It has a brilliant lyric, though.
As I mentioned last week DJ Alan “Fluff” Freeman championed Emitt Rhodes (once of the Merry-Go-Round) when his first solo album came out in 1970, but that still didn’t make for much success in the UK.
On that self-titled LP there’s a strong feel of the Beatles feel to most of Rhodes’s songs, with a hint of Gerry Rafferty in the vocals.
Here are Live Till You Die and the more “pop”py Fresh as a Daisy.
Founder member of King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Lake of course found individual fame with his 1975 hit I Believe in Father Christmas.
Lake apparently wrote Lucky Man when he was twelve having received a guitar from his mother as a present. It was one of the first times a Moog synthesiser had featured on a record.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer: Lucky Man
Gregory Stuart “Greg” Lake: 10/11/1947 – 7/12/2016. So it goes.
For some reason the chorus of this song has been running through my head for the past week or so. Originally performed by String Driven Thing (composed by Chris Adams of the group) and released as a single in 1973 it was a hit later in that decade for a different group which shall remain nameless.
The String Driven Thing version is better by miles in any case.
String Driven Thing: It’s a Game
Edited to add: this one didn’t go on as scheduled either. Looks like all the other ones I’ve scheduled won’t be appearing as planned.
