Blow those horns, ’cause it sounds like victory

Posted on by brucehhackett

If you analyze the instrumentation of most classic rock songs, you most often notice the guitars (electric and/or acoustic), the keyboards, and the bass/drums of the rhythm section. Lead and background vocals, too, play a key role — sometimes THE key role — in a song’s overall mix.

But something that always makes me sit up and take notice is when pop songs have used bright, punchy, in-your-face horns. Not just a lone saxophone, although I adore the mood a sax brings to virtually every song in which it’s heard. I’m talking about rock bands with horn sections — trumpet(s), trombone and sax — that come bursting in and take a tune to an entirely different level.

Louis Prima and His Big Band

Back in the ’30s, ’40s and early ’50s, before rock and roll became a defined genre, horn sections were heard all the time in big band, swing, blues and boogie-woogie recordings and in live performances. Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Louis Prima (“Jump, Jive ‘n Wail”) and Louis Jordan (“Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens”) and other big-band leaders of that era liberally used full horn sections to underscore the vibrant rhythms provided by the other instruments. The orchestras that accompanied crooners like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were fond of employing brassy horns on certain uptempo tracks like “Birth of the Blues” and “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head.”

The advent of rock and roll brought the two-guitars-bass-drums lineup to the forefront of pop music, first with Elvis Presley and later popularized by The Beatles and other groups on both side of the pond, which relegated horns to the back burner (or off the stovetop entirely) for a while. But there were always exceptions like Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill,” Ray Charles’s “Hallelujah I Love Her So” and Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ the Night Away.”

In the rhythm-and-blues arena, horns were often still featured in the hits coming out of Motown (Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight,” The Temptations’ “Get Ready”) as well as on the great James Brown’s iconic 1965 hits “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and “I Got You (I Feel Good).” Horns were even more prevalent on the “Southern soul” songs that came from artists on the Atlantic and Stax labels in Memphis — Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man,” Wilson Pickett’s “Land of a Thousand Dances,” Eddie Floyd’s “Knock on Wood,” The Bar-Kays’ “Soul Finger” and plenty more.

As rock music began diversifying into sub-categories (country rock, acid rock, progressive rock), one of those genres was jazz rock, which reintroduced horns into the picture in a novel way, most notably by two groups: Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago. These bands made horns more central to the arrangements, providing instrumental showcases for both solo and ensemble playing influenced by the big-band tradition in jazz.

BS&T’s horn section: Fred Lipsius, Jerry Hyman, Chuck Winfield, Lew Soloff

When BS&T founder Al Kooper sought to merge jazz and rock on BS&T’s 1968 debut, “Child is Father to the Man,” he recruited seasoned jazz musicians to comprise the all-important horn section. “I Can’t Quit Her” made a modest impact, but their second release, the multiplatinum “Blood Sweat & Tears,” featured huge hits (“You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” “Spinning Wheel”) that put horns prominently in the Top Ten of US pop charts in 1969.

Following on their heels was the seven-man group originally called Chicago Transit Authority, which sported a three-man horn section of classically trained musicians who were headed for careers in the symphony until they were bitten by the rock and roll bug. Chicago’s star took a little longer to rise, but when “Make Me Smile” went Top Ten in 1970, their record company wisely returned to their overlooked 1969 debut and re-released tracks (“Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is,” “Questions 67 and 68”) that had Chicago’s mighty horn section re-appearing on the charts every couple of months.

Chicago’s powerful horn section: James Pankow, Walter Parazaider and Lee Loughnane

Thanks to the popularity of these two horns-dominant artists, a host of one-hit copycats saw fit to piggyback on the horns craze in 1970-1971 and had isolated successes of their own. Most notable among these were “Vehicle” by The Ides of March, “Get It On” by Chase, “One Fine Morning” by Lighthouse and “I’m Doin’ Fine Now” by New York City. Each of these offered huge blasts of horns that carried or augmented the melodies and greatly enhanced their mainstream appeal.

Truth be told, though, horns DID occasionally show up in mid-’60s pop. In particular, The Buckinghams had three Top Ten hits in 1967 (“Kind of a Drag,” “Mercy Mercy Mercy,” “Don’t You Care”) all of which featured prominent horns. Other classic hit singles that made credible use of horns included “Bend Me Shape Me” by The American Breed, “She’d Rather Be With Me” by The Turtles and “More Today Than Yesterday” by The Spiral Starecase. The Beatles’ obvious R&B tribute “Got to Get You Into My Life” was awash in horns, and Sly and the Family Stone’s horns took over on hits like “Dance to the Music” and “Stand!” Even acoustic acts like Simon and Garfunkel and James Taylor broke out the horns to accentuate 1970 album cuts like “Keep the Customer Satisfied” and “Steamroller Blues.”

Tower of Power appearing on “Soul Train” TV show in the 1970s

The East Bay region of San Francisco seemed to incubate bands with horn sections, from the mighty Tower of Power (“So Very Hard to Go,” “This Time It’s Real”) and the Full-Tilt Boogie Band on Janis Joplin’s “Kozmic Blues” LP (“Try Just a Little Bit Harder”) to the largely unknown Cold Blood (“You Got Me Hummin'”) and Myrth (“Don’t Pity the Man”). Santana’s Latin groove sometimes threw in horns to spice things up (“Everybody’s Everything”), as did Joe Cocker in his “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” phase (“The Letter”) and even The Rolling Stones in their “Sticky Fingers” period (“Bitch”).

England contributed a couple horn-dominant outfits of their own — Osibisa (“Music For Gong Gong”) and If (“You In Your Small Corner”) — although they attracted only cult audiences in the US.

Earth, Wind & Fire’s horn section in 1977

By the mid-’70s, the use of horn sections became more widespread again. Billy Preston (“Will It Go Round in Circles”), Earth Wind and Fire (“Sing a Song,” “September”) and Average White Band (“Work to Do,” “Pick Up the Pieces”) enjoyed #1 singles and albums carried by exuberant horn parts, as did glaringly underrated groups like Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes (“The Fever,” “Talk to Me”). Some rockers like The Doobie Brothers (“Don’t Start Me to Talkin'”), Steely Dan (“My Old School”), Bruce Springsteen (“Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”) and Boz Scaggs (“You Make It So Hard to Say No”) presented superb horn charts to beef up the arrangements of individual tracks.

Disco and dance music of the late ’70s tended to prefer layers of strings, but horns were all over the work of The Village People (“Y.M.C.A.”) and Rick James (“Give It To Me Baby”). When John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd turned a Saturday Night Live skit into a functioning band and a feature film with The Blues Brothers, a horn section drove their best numbers, like their collaboration with Aretha Franklin on a relentless cover of “Think.”

The New Wave movement of the ’80s didn’t exactly embrace horns, but there were superb songs throughout that decade that used trumpets and saxes to great effect. Joe Jackson did an entire tribute to big band music with his revelatory “Jumpin’ Jive” LP in 1981, followed by the 1984 horns hit, “You Can’t Get What You Want (‘Til You Know What You Want),” while Phil Collins made liberal use of the EW&F horn section on his solo work (“I Missed Again”) and a few tracks with Genesis as well. In 1986, Peter Gabriel and Billy Joel used killer horns on “Sledgehammer” and “Big Man on Mulberry Street,” respectively, while Paul Simon had fun with horns on “Late in the Evening” and “You Can Call Me Al.”

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, 1990

The ’90s brought still more revivals of horn-dominant music. Country artist Lyle Lovett demonstrated his passion for swing, blues and jazz when he released “Lyle Lovett and His Large Band” in 1989, and offered many recordings like “That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas)” with that horns-heavy outfit. Rockabilly guitarist Brian Setzer of The Stray Cats put together a touring/recording band called The Brian Setzer Orchestra that had as many as five horn players on stage and in the studio doing swing classics as well as originals like “The Dirty Boogie.” The Cherry Poppin’ Daddies took a similar although less successful approach with “Zoot Suit Riot.”

The presence of horns in pop/rock music remains a factor in the 21st Century. The full-throated R&B of the Nashville band LUTHI utilizes horns on its slow groove and uptempo numbers (“Stranger”) alike; and I was recently turned on to the lively music of Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats, whose horn section carries some of their best tracks (“I Need Never Get Old”).

There are many dozens of other examples of excellent use of horn sections in rock music, but I’ve cited the more obvious ones as well as a few personal favorites. The robust Spotify playlist below, I hope, will be an enjoyable listen that’s designed to get you up out of your chair and moving around your kitchen, living room or dance floor!

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Baby, it’s time to close that door

Posted on by brucehhackett

If you’re an ardent fan of blues music, you’re well aware of John Mayall. If you like the blues but don’t know much about its best practitioners, it’s important for you to know more about the pivotal role Mayall played in keeping the genre alive and popular through the many decades of his long career.

Mayall, who died this week at the ripe old age of 90, did nearly as much for the proliferation of blues music as did the early pioneers who first wrote and played the blues back in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s in the rural American South.

He had a well-earned reputation as a mentor and talent spotter of some of the more iconic names in British rock. Between 1965 and 2019, nearly a hundred different musicians have recorded with Mayall on more than 70 albums he released as a solo artist or under the name of his erstwhile band brand, The Bluesbreakers. Alumni include guitarist luminaries like Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Peter Green, Harvey Mandel, Rick Vito and Coco Montoya; drummers Mick Fleetwood, Aynsley Dunbar and Jon Hiseman; bassists John McVie, Jack Bruce, Larry Taylor and Andy Fraser; and sax greats Ernie Watts and James Holloway.

My introduction to Mayall came in 1969 when a friend turned me on to “John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton,” a 1966 album of extraordinary blues tracks brimming with instrumental and vocal prowess from Clapton and Mayall. At 14, I had already become a huge fan of Clapton through his incendiary work with Cream, but here was where I marveled at the talent he showed in his formative years as both a soloist and accompanist to Mayall on original songs (“Little Girl,” “Double Crossing Time,” “Have You Heard”) and classic covers (“All Your Love,” “Hideaway,” “Ramblin On My Mind”).

Mayall was a Brit from the Manchester area who was inspired by the Chicago and Mississippi blues records his father collected in the 1950s, rapidly becoming obsessed with the structure, emotion and appeal of blues music. Mayall developed a distinctive songwriting style that was both heavily indebted to an American art form and somehow still uniquely British. Mayall played piano, harmonica and guitar, and sang the blues with uncanny authenticity, sparking widespread interest in the blues among British musicians and listeners. They in turn triggered a ’60s blues revival in the US, as listeners who had been unfamiliar with the likes of homegrown blues talents like Freddie King, Otis Rush and Robert Johnson were snatching up albums by British blues-rock bands like the early Rolling Stones, The Animals and The Yardbirds.

Rather than limiting himself to traditional blues themes like unfaithful women or bad luck, Mayall distinguished himself by writing about the world around him. On “Nature’s Disappearing,” from 1970, he tackled pollution; on “Plan Your Revolution,” another track from that year, he sang about constructive political and social change. More recently, on “World Gone Crazy,” he explored the relationship between religious conflict and war. “Blues musicians ought to be singing songs about their own lives,” he said in 2014. “A lot of borrowing goes on in the blues, but it’s not just a matter of copying other people. You’ve got to think about representing your own life in the music. Blues has always been about that raw honesty with which it expresses our experiences in life, something which all comes together not only in the lyrics but the music as well.”

Though Mayall never approached the fame of some of his illustrious alumni — he was still performing in his late 80s, pounding out his version of Chicago blues — he wasn’t shy about expressing his disappointment about being eclipsed by his former mates. “I’ve never had a hit record, I never won a Grammy Award, and Rolling Stone has never done a piece about me,” he said in 2010. “I’m basically still an underground performer to most of the public. But I guess it’s just a part of my history. It really sums up the period of my life when I was in London. There was such a swift turnover of musicians at the time. All of them were just young guys who were just trying to find their feet, and I was able to help them along.”

Following Clapton’s departure in 1966, Peter Green became the focus for the next Bluesbreakers LP, “A Hard Road,” but he too left to form Fleetwood Mac, and Mick Taylor assumed guitar duties for “Crusade.” But by 1968, Mayall found himself drawn to America, specifically Los Angeles, where he bought a house in Laurel Canyon and ended up living in the area for the rest of his life. He cast aside the Bluebreakers moniker for a spell, instead releasing solo efforts like “Blues From Laurel Canyon” and the popular live LP “The Turning Point,” which went gold and put Mayall in the Top 40 of the US albums chart with its compelling harmonica workout, “Room to Move.”

Mayall continued to experiment, recording his next album, 1970’s “USA Union,” with a new drummer-less band that included ex-Mothers Of Invention violinist Don “Sugarcane” Harris, which became his highest-charting album in America, reaching number 22 in the Billboard 200. For his follow-up, a sprawling 1971 double LP called “Back to the Roots,” he surprised fans by reuniting with Clapton and Taylor; it was the first in a series of line-up changes during his career in America, which gave Mayall an air of unpredictability. “My record label – Polydor at the time – asked me for new albums every few months, it seemed,” he explained in his autobiography. “To achieve this, I needed to keep the music fresh, and that meant rebuilding my line-up from time to time.”

Over the next four decades, Mayall continued to explore his love for the blues in a variety of different contexts. After taking a funkier direction in the late 1970s, he reverted back to blues rock in the 1980s, then revived the Bluesbreakers with the vital 1988 LP “Chicago Line.” In the ’90s, he even reunited with old friends like blues virtuoso John Lee Hooker on the album “Padlock on the Blues,” released just a year before Hooker’s death.

Fleetwood, one of many British musicians who owe a musical debt to Mayall, recalled his early encounters with him. “When you went around to John Mayall’s house, it was a shrine to the blues,” Fleetwood said. “He’d sit you down, almost like a school teacher, and he’d bring out this vinyl.” In the wake of Mayall’s death this week, Fleetwood added, “He created a platform, a stage, for musicians — me being one of them — that mustn’t be forgotten. John’s legacy is that he has been true to his schooling as a blues player. He has never compromised that, and he has never pretended to be anything other than that. He has stuck to his guns, and he has placed his love of the blues above anything else.”

It seems unfair that Mayall isn’t in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and almost cruel that his long-overdue induction in the Musical Influences category isn’t coming until three months after his death when he’ll be so honored in October.

It was a difficult task, but I cobbled together a playlist of some of Mayall’s finest moments under the Bluesbreakers tent and on his own. He has so much great material in his catalog that I could’ve easily doubled the length of this list and not suffered any in quality.

R.I.P., Mr. Mayall. Do yourself a favor, dear readers, and dive into the sturdy blues recordings of this unquestioned titan of British blues.

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