Playlists

The “how” and the “why” of classic rock songs

Posted on by brucehhackett

Talk about a pair of books that are right in my wheelhouse! In 2017, author Marc Myers came up with “Anatomy of a Song: The Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B and Pop,” in which he interviewed the artists and producers involved in creating some of the more seismic songs of the rock era. He doubled down in 2022 with “Anatomy of 55 More Songs,” which cumulatively gave us the “how they came to be” stories behind an even 100 records that broke barriers and forged new directions in the early development of rock, pop and soul music.

Some songs have been around for so long and have been so ingrained in our minds that we may take for granted how ground breaking they were when they were released. In many cases, we’ve been unaware what went into writing and recording them. Myers has done an admirable job of shining a light on “the discipline, poetry, musicianship, studio techniques and accidents that helped turn these songs into meaningful generational hits that still endure today,” as he put it in his introduction.

For the purposes of this blog entry, I have selected eight songs from the Myers books that serve to represent the first four decades of the rock era: Two songs each from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. These are, for the most part, songs I truly love and respect as game changers in rock’s evolution. My takes are admittedly not as detailed as those published in the books, but they include key comments from the principals involved as well as a few opinions of my own.

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“Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” Lloyd Price, 1952

What was the first rock and roll record? A few dozen songs have laid claim to that designation, from Fats Domino’s “The Fat Man” to Ike Turner’s “Rocket 88,” but surely Lloyd Price’s 1952 classic “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” is in the running. Price was a self-taught piano player and singer from New Orleans who would play on a beat-up old piano in his mother’s sandwich shop, hoping to someday write and record a song that could be played on her jukebox. “I remember a black radio announcer who often said, ”Lawdy, Miss Clawdy, eat your mother’s homemade pies and drink Maxwell House coffee,'” Price said. “I loved that phrase and began fooling around on the piano with that line. One day a customer asked me to play it all the way through. Turned out it was Dave Bartholomew, one of the most important R&B musicians and producers in New Orleans.” Said Bartholomew, “The feeling in his voice caught me. Lloyd sang it with such emotion and intensity.” The lyrics bemoaned the fact that although “Miss Clawdy” excited him, she wasn’t interested in him. Bartholomew was impressed enough with Price and his song that he brought in his own band to a local studio, worked up an arrangement, and had Price sing it “with his soulful authenticity,” and within a few weeks, it was on the radio, peaking at #1 on the R&B charts for seven weeks. Domino recorded it himself 15 years later, as did Joe Cocker in 1969, and Paul McCartney on an album of oldies in 1988.

“Shout,” The Isley Brothers, 1959

In the late ’50s, singer Jackie Wilson made a huge impact on R&B and early rock ‘n roll, and other acts like The Isley Brothers paid close attention. In particular, Ronald Isley was so taken by Wilson’s “Lonely Teardrops” that he and his brothers began singing it to close out their shows. “Jackie would sing ‘say you will’ and his backup singers would respond in kind, and Jackie would then ad-lib, ‘say it right now, yeah baby, come on, come on,'” remembered Isley, “so when we did it, I continued that ad-libbing, things like ‘you know you make me want to shout’ and ‘kick my heels up’ and ‘don’t forget to say you will.’ Audiences just went wild over the participatory call-and-response, which was straight out of gospel.” The Isleys were urged to record the “Shout” ad-lib part as a separate song, without “Lonely Teardrops” before it, and they invited friends to the studio to give the record a party atmosphere. “Shout” was released in 1959 but managed only #47 on the pop chart. In 1962, the New-Jersey-based Joey Dee and The Starlighters took their less soulful version to #6 on the charts. In 1978, when the producers of “National Lampoon’s Animal House” began selecting a soundtrack for the film (set in 1962), they decided “Shout” would be the perfect vehicle for Otis Day and The Knights to play at the frat house toga party. The movie was a huge success, and that version of “Shout” took on a life of its own, to the point where virtually every wedding reception you’ve attended since has whipped up the crowd on the dance floor with it.

“You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” The Righteous Brothers, 1964

Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, the husband-and-wife songwriting team operating out of New York City’s famous Brill Building in the ’50s and ’60s, were asked by legendary L.A.-based producer Phil Spector to write songs for The Righteous Brothers, who had struggled for two years to chart a song in the Top 40. Spector heard the potential in their voices — Bobby Hatfield’s tenor and Bill Medley’s baritone — and knew they’d be big if only they had the right song and his production chops. “We loved the yearning and slow buildup of The Four Tops’ ‘Baby I Need Your Lovin’,’ which had just been released,” recalled Weil, “and we wanted to write something in that vein.” Mann came up with the great opening line, “You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips,” and the story of heartbreak flowed from there through two verses and the chorus, but they turned to Spector for help with the bridge, which turned out to be the same chord progression as in “Hang On Sloopy.” He had Medley sing the verses alone, doing numerous takes on top of Spector’s trademark “wall of sound” instrumental layering. “I’d been through a breakup, so the aching emotion you hear was real,” said Medley. For the finished record, Spector chose to slow the tempo, which Mann objected to at first, but it made for a more dramatic, longer single, and it worked magnificently, reaching #1 in February 1965.

“Whole Lotta Love,” Led Zeppelin, 1969

“I came up with the opening guitar riff back in 1968 and I knew it was strong enough to drive the entire song,” recalls Jimmy Page. “It felt addictive, like this forbidden thing.” He had a master plan for it, which is why he didn’t rush to record it for Led Zeppelin’s quickly recorded debut LP in late ’68, instead working on it over the next nine months and saving it as the opening track for the band’s second album. As a former “studio brat” and session musician, Page loved to experiment with recording techniques, using different mikes to capture the drum sound he wanted from John Bonham. He also employed a new electronic instrument called a theremin during the free-form middle section, and had Robert Plant record his vocals in a separate booth to better isolate his voice. When Page later mixed the track with engineer Eddie Kramer, they worked with older equipment with rotary dials instead of sliding faders, which allowed them to send the guitar solo and vocals back and forth from one channel to the other, a radical tactic at the time. Plant, meanwhile, ruminated on what lyrics to sing and decided to lift lines from Muddy Waters’ 1962 blues tune “You Need Love,” which generated a lawsuit years later requiring back royalties and co-writing credit for Waters. Said Plant, “Page’s riff was Page’s riff. It was there before anything else. I just nicked the words, now happily paid for. We figured it was far enough away in time … but hey, you only get caught when you’re successful (“Whole Lotta Love” reached #4 in the US). That’s the game.”

“Rock the Boat,” Hues Corporation, 1974

If you’re not a fan of disco music, I guess you can blame it on The Hues Corporation, who came up with one of the first examples of the genre in 1973. Songwriter Wally Holmes had formed a soul/funk group he wanted to name Children of Howard Hughes but was advised against it, so he altered it to The Hues Corporation instead. “I would often write in terms of ‘do re mi’ and so on,” said Holmes. “Those kinds of things like ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ tend to stick around for a long time, and ‘Rock The Boat’ came out of that, but it was written on the beat, so it was pretty stiff.” Producer John Florez agreed: “The first version was a dog that had nothing going on. I brought in arranger Tom Sellers, who had just come back from the Caribbean where he heard a dance beat that had an upbeat at the end of each measure. Then I brought in Joe Sample, Wilton Felder and Larry Carlton from the Jazz Crusaders and Jim Gordon on drums, and they laid down a groove with a backward beat, like a rumba.” The Hues Corporation vocalists laid their parts in on top, and with horns and strings added for the crowning touch, “Rock The Boat” had an irresistible dance-ability that DJs at New York underground clubs couldn’t resist. At RCA, they chose a different song as the group’s single, but word got out about how “Rock the Boat” was all the rage on dance floors. It was rush-released as a single, and by May 1974, it was #1 on pop charts. After that, many dozens of songs followed that mimicked the Sellers/Gordon beat and arrangement, and the disco era was born.

“Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two),” Pink Floyd, 1979

“I got criticized for writing an anti-education song,” said Roger Waters, “but it was never that. It was a protest song against the tyranny of stupidity and oppression, which I experienced at my high school in the ’50s. They were locked into the idea that young boys needed to be controlled with sarcasm and brute force to subjugate us to their will. I just wanted to encourage anyone who marches to a different drum to push back against those who try to control their minds, rather than to retreat behind emotional walls.” The concept behind “The Wall,” he said, was inspired by the barrier he felt had been erected between the artist and the audience at many of Pink Floyd’s concerts. He also wanted the music to graphically depict the alienation and isolation Waters had felt in his life. His father’s death at a young age became the first brick (Part One), while the stifling school experience (Part Two) was the second brick, and the character’s mental breakdown after his wife’s betrayal (Part Three) was the final brick. The Part Two track that became a #1 single for Pink Floyd in early 1980 was almost finished when engineer Nick Griffiths hit on the idea of recording children from a nearby high school adding their defiant voices on the chorus. When combined with a throbbing bass line, thumping drum beat, and David Gilmour’s sublime guitar solo, “Another Brick in the Wall” became something truly memorable.

“Time After Time,” Cyndi Lauper, 1983/4

Keyboardist Rob Hyman collaborated with singer Cyndi Lauper on this stunning track as the final song to be recorded for her landmark debut album, “She’s So Unusual.” Said Lauper, “We knew ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’ would be the first single, a bouncy tribute to the female spirit. But I wanted to write a song with Rob that would be a deeper, more heartwrenching ballad.” Hyman had a repetitive piano melody based on four chords, and Lauper had seized on the phrase “time after time” as a possible title after seeing a TV Guide listing for the 1979 film of that name. Words came out about the constancy of having someone’s back –“If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting time after time” — and as the serious lyrics took shape, they decided to reduce the tempo. “Even though we slowed down the music, the chorus retained that clipped, calypso-type melody, which worked perfectly,” said Hyman. Lauper’s song became a paean to female individualism and independence at just the right time, and it ended up at #1. An instrumental rendition of “Time After Time” was even recorded by legendary jazz great Miles Davis the following year.

“Nick of Time,” Bonnie Raitt, 1989

Writing songs from the heart that are commercially appealing is a rare gift, and Bonnie Raitt had struggled to come up with the right formula for years. By the mid-1980s, she took stock of her excessive partying and had what amounted to a spiritual awakening, giving her a renewed sense of optimism about her career. “I retreated to Mendocino to write some new music honoring how grateful I felt to have made it through tougher times,” she said. “I began thinking about the most poignant aspects of my life as I approached 40, and I tried to capture the essence of what my friends were going through as well. I realized this whole idea of time being more precious as we age would be what I wanted to write about.” The main theme — “I found love, baby, love in the nick of time” — was more about a universal love than romantic love but could be interpreted either way. Because the lyrics were so heartfelt, she felt the song needed a mid-tempo beat to deliver the message in a lighter, more pleasing way. “My demo of it was recorded with a drum machine that had pre-set synthesized grooves that were unintentionally hilarious to me,” Raitt said, but once she huddled with the great producer Don Was, he understood the soulful inspiration she was aiming for. He brought in drummer Ricky Fatter, “who knew how to translate the basic elements I had written to an updated organic feel.” The final result struck a chord and the “Nick of Time” LP reached #1 in early 1990, rejuvenating Raitt’s career.

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A lifetime of promises, a world of dreams

Posted on by brucehhackett

My introduction to Tina Turner came in 1971, as it did for many other white suburban kids of my age, with these spoken words: “You know, every now and then, I think you might like to hear something from us nice and easy. But there’s just one thing: You see, we never ever do nothing nice and easy! We always do it nice and rough. So we’re going to take the beginning of this song and do it easy. Then we’re going to do the finish rough.”

And with that, Ike and Tina Turner launched into a slow, sensual reading of the first verse and chorus of John Fogerty’s “Proud Mary,” then abruptly segued into a frenzied double-time arrangement for the rest of the song. Holy smokes, I thought, this is way more interesting than Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ho-hum original!

Full confession: It would take me many years before I developed a full-blown appreciation for Turner’s gifts as a one-of-a-kind entertainer. I certainly knew her big hits from the 1980s — “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Better Be Good to Me,” “Private Dancer,” “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” “Typical Male,” “The Best” — and her reputation as one of the most electrifying live performers to ever take a stage.

But it really wasn’t until the past week, in the wake of Turner’s death May 24 at age 83, after reading all the tributes and listening more intently to Turner’s recorded legacy, that I came to understand how much she overcame and how much she accomplished in her 50 years in show business. I strongly urge you to scroll down to the Spotify playlist at the end of this essay and hit “play.” So many superb performances!

Anna Mae Bullock was only 18 when she met and first heard Ike Turner and The Kings of Rhythm perform at a St. Louis nightclub. Turner had been a formidable guitarist and songwriter in his own right, responsible for seminal rock ‘n’ roll records like 1951’s “Rocket 88,” and he knew how to present a riveting live act. But one night in 1957 during a break, the petite girl who longed to be on stage got her chance, belting out B.B. King’s “You Know I Love You,” and Turner was gobsmacked. “I would write songs with Little Richard in mind,” said Turner in his 1999 autobiography, “but I didn’t have no Little Richard to sing them. Once I heard Tina, she became my Little Richard. Listen closely to Tina and who do you hear? Little Richard singing in the female voice.”

Her potent, bluesy singing and supercharged dancing style soon made her the group’s star attraction, and Turner’s wife. The ensemble was renamed The Ike and Tina Turner Revue and became one of the premier touring soul acts of the early-to-mid-1960s in R&B venues on what was then called “the chitlin’ circuit.” Their work wasn’t yet embraced by mainstream audiences, but if you pay close attention to the first dozen tracks selected for the playlist (especially “A Fool in Love,” “Cussin’, Cryin’ and Carryin’ On” and the Phil Spector-produced “River Deep, Mountain High”), you’ll be reminded (or discover) what all the fuss was about.

Over in England, The Rolling Stones invited the group to open for them, first on a British tour in 1966 and then on an American tour in 1969, which caused rock audiences in both countries to sit up and take notice. (You could make a strong case that Mick Jagger was deeply influenced by Tina Turner’s stage presence as he developed his own in-concert persona.)

Tina with The Rolling Stones backstage in 1981

I’m reluctant to mention too much about the horrible abuse and violence Tina endured at the hands of her first husband, particularly once he developed a cocaine addiction and an irrational jealousy of her ever-increasing time in the spotlight. Suffice it to say that she suffered indignities and injuries that hurt her self-esteem and her career for many years in the ’60s and ’70s, and she deserves a huge amount of credit for eventually breaking free from his suffocating control.

“It’s very difficult to explain to people why I stayed as long as I did,” she said many years later. “I’d left Tennessee as a little country girl and stepped into a man’s life who was a producer and had money and was a star in his own right. At one time, Ike Turner had been very nice to me, but later he changed to become a horrible person.”

Desperate to be rid of him, she agreed to divorce terms that left her virtually penniless. She gave Ike nearly all their money and the publishing royalties for her compositions. “You take everything I’ve made in the last sixteen years,” she said. “I’ll take my future.”

Turner’s solo career was slow to take off. Her first few albums didn’t sell, her record label dropped her, and she was back to playing small clubs and in ill-advised cabaret acts for a time. When Olivia Newton-John’s manager, Roger Davies, began guiding her in 1980, Turner readopted the gritty, hard-rocking style that had made her a crossover star, which led to a startling cover version of The Temptations’ “Ball of Confusion” on an album of rock and soul covers called British Electric Foundation. That in turn led to a stupendous remake of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” which reached #26 on US pop charts in 1983. That success attracted Capitol Records, who approved an album with the caveat that it be recorded and released in less than a month.

A number of prominent songwriters and producers — Rupert Hine, Mark Knopfler, Ann Peebles, Terry Britten — came forward to offer their songs and their services, and the result was “Private Dancer,” one of the biggest albums of 1984 and, indeed, of the 1980s, selling upwards of 10 million copies worldwide. The LP was described by one critic as “innovative fusion of old-fashioned soul singing and new wave synth-pop.” Seven tracks were released as singles in either the US or the UK, with “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Better Be Good to Me” and “Private Dancer” all reaching the Top Ten here.

At age 44, Turner had finally attained the superstardom she’d dreamed of since first stepping on stage. Four more albums over the next 15 years achieved platinum status (especially the 1986 follow-up “Break Every Rule,” which reached #4), and she cemented her reputation as one of the top concert draws in the world. She also showed her chops in film, playing the ruthless Aunty Entity in the 1985 blockbuster dystopian action hit “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” which spawned another #1 hit, “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”

One of the things I most admire about Turner is her ability and willingness to record covers of popular R&B songs and rock tunes with equal flair. Check out some of the titles you’ll find in her catalog: “Come Together” and “Get Back” (The Beatles), “Living For the City” (Stevie Wonder), “In the Midnight Hour” (Wilson Pickett), “Reconsider Baby” (Elvis Presley), “The Acid Queen” (The Who). I’m even more impressed by the number of major rock stars who have partnered with Turner on various duet projects over the years: Eric Clapton (“Tearing Us Apart”), Rod Stewart (“It Takes Two”), Bono (“Theme from ‘Goldeneye'”), Bryan Adams (“It’s Only Love”), David Bowie (“Let’s Dance”).

Her tempestuous first marriage provided much of the material for the 1993 film “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” with Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne in the lead roles. Turner re-recorded some of her hits, and one new song, “I Don’t Want to Fight,” but otherwise declined to participate. “Why would I want to see Ike Turner beat me up again?” she said at the time.

The best indication of how much respect artists have earned is the number of major players who praise them, both in life and in death. “How do we say farewell to a woman who owned her pain and trauma and used it as a means to help change the world?” Bassett said last week. “Through her courage in telling her story, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her, Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom could look like.”

Beyoncé, arguably the most popular singer on the planet at the moment, said, “My beloved queen. I love you endlessly. I’m so grateful for your inspiration and all the ways you have paved the way. You are strength and resilience. You are the epitome of power and passion. We are all so fortunate to have witnessed your kindness and beautiful spirit.”

The Who’s Pete Townshend, who had suggested Turner for the part of The Acid Queen in the 1975 film version of “Tommy,” described her as “an astonishing performer, an astounding singer, an R&B groundbreaker. If you ever had the privilege of seeing Tina perform live, you will know how utterly scary she could be. She was an immense presence. She was, of course, my Acid Queen in the ‘Tommy’ movie, and it is often my job to sing that song with The Who, so she always comes to mind, which isn’t easy to deal with. The song is about abuse at the hands of an evil woman. How she turned that song on its head! All the anger of her years as a victim exploded into fire, and bluster, and a magnificent and crazy cameo role that will always stay with me.”

The multi-talented Oprah Winfrey noted, “I started out as a fan of Tina Turner, then a full-on groupie, following her from show to show around the country, and then, eventually, we became real friends. She contained a magnitude of inner strength that grew throughout her life. She was a role model not only for me but for the world. She encouraged a part of me I didn’t know existed.”

The time Winfrey was invited on stage in Los Angeles to dance with Turner “was the most fun I ever had stepping out of my box. Tina lived out of the box and encouraged me and every woman to do the same.”

The industry has given Turner many accolades. Twice she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (with Ike in 1991 and on her own in 2021); she received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2005 and a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 2018.

Rest in peace, Tina. Your place in music history is iron-clad secure.

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