Somewhere out there, Mike Damone’s toes are tappin’. You can picture the fictional but all too real Cheap Trick fan and other characters from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Dazed and Confused, Over the Edge and Freaks and Geeks all together raising a triumphant joint and enjoying a cool buzz in honor of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class of 2016.
With the exception of N.W.A., this particular group (Steve Miller, Cheap Trick, Deep Purple and Chicago) are getting in because of the contributions they made during the post-Woodstock, pre-AIDS/MTV era those beloved films (and TV show) so accurately portrayed. This period, from roughly 1970 to ’81, was an incredibly rich one for music. Unfortunately, this decade is often overlooked possibly because it’s book-ended by the cultural, societal and musical transformations of the ‘60s and the music video phenomenon of the ‘80s. In other words, stuck between revolutions.
The irony is the 1970’s were perhaps the most revolutionary time of all. It was all about, to paraphrase the Cohen Brothers A Serious Man, taking advantage of the new freedoms. Dylan, The Beatles, Hendrix, Velvet Underground, MC5, The Animals, Rolling Stones, Sly Stone, The Who, Motown, Stax, etc. led the charge and blazed a Technicolor path.
The bar was set as high as the musicians, leading to the ‘70s and the golden age of hard rock/heavy metal, dance music, progressive rock, fusion, introspective singer-songwriters, reggae, punk and the overall endless amount of innovation, variety and excellence. The previous post touched upon this, briefly focusing on 1979. The class of 2016 has a Bicentennial, spirit of ’76 feel to them, especially with Steve Miller’s “Rock’n’Me” taking over the top spot of the Billboard Hot 100 from Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now” from November of that year.
Chicago kicked off their incredible run with one of the greatest debuts of all time, 1969’s Chicago Transit Authority. It was a record as versatile as the decade they would soon dominate. Robert Lamm could play piano like Vince Guaraldi and sing in a gutsy croon. The late Terry Kath was a burly 23-year-old Caucasian who sounded like Ray Charles and played guitar like nobody else.
Kath’s instrumental “Free Form Guitar” will shock anyone who thinks of Chicago as strictly horns and harmonies. In the midst of all the funk, soul, folk and Bacharach level of songcraft, Kath paid homage to Jimi Hendrix. Except by paying tribute to the (then recent) past, he also gave us a glimpse of the future. “Free Form Guitar” was shredding that predated Eddie Van Halen’s 1978 instrumental/introduction “Eruption” by almost ten years. But more than anything, it anticipated Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth’s avant-garde experimentation with feedback and dissonance in the 1980’s. Even with all the mind-blowing guitar heroics of the late ‘60s, this was completely unprecedented. Then there’s Peter Cetera, whose voice is so inimitable it’s easy to forget his bass playing, which combined the melodic jauntiness of Paul McCartney with the funkiness of Larry Graham.
In early ’77, another band from Illinois, Cheap Trick, broke through with their self-titled first record. Like Chicago Transit Authority, it’s not only one of the best opening statements in rock’n’roll, it’s one of the best albums period. “Oh, Candy” is such a vibrant three-minute pop song/pop art it’s easy to forget it deals with the suicide of photographer Marshall Mintz, a close friend of the band. The incredibly catchy, upbeat yet downbeat chorus (“Oh, Candy worked so hard/at doin’ what he thought was right/it really, really doesn’t mean a thing.”), with the Beatles/Big Star harmonies of vocalist Robin Zander, bassist Tom Petersson and guitarist/primary songwriter Rick Nielsen, lights up like fireworks in pitch-black darkness. The song proved quickly that behind the whole cool-looking guy/odd-looking guy image of the band, there was a vast amount of depth.
On the same record, “Mandocello” and “The Ballad of T.V. Violence (I’m Not the Only Boy)” were placed back to back. It’s hard to fathom they were from the same four guys. The former is a ballad with an airy, breathtaking quality, the sonic equivalent of the Manhattan Solstice. The latter is a psychotic, snarling rocker about serial killer Richard Speck with the chilling refrain, “I was a lonely boy/I’m not the only boy.” The other refrain, “gimme your love,” invokes another Illinois icon, Curtis Mayfield and his tune of the same name from Superfly. It’s not surprising that Zander would soon be known as “the man of a thousand voices.”
Not every Cheap Trick album has been nearly as stellar, but their first six, up until 1980’s All Shook Up, is as good a run as any group has ever had. It’s nice to see the Hall of Fame’s website acknowledge that as well. It should also be noted that the first post from this blog took its title from their usual concert opener “Hello There.”
At the same time CT were introducing themselves at full volume, Steve Miller was reacquainting himself in a more mellow manner to everyone with “Fly Like an Eagle,” at that point near the top of the charts. Despite being just 33, he was a veteran coming off a three-year gap between albums, a lifetime back then. The blues guitarist from Texas with the chill West Coast Jazz singer vocals, added synthesizer but still had Joachim Young’s B-3 Organ to add some Booker T earthiness to the otherwise spacey ambience.
Listening to the line, “Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future” actually accomplishes the complete opposite; the swirly synths and Miller’s nasty but smooth riff are now like a portal back to the past. It’s difficult not to think of growing up in Rego Park, Queens and my mother pregnant with my sister. It doesn’t seem that long ago. How did time slip into the future so fast?
Speaking of the future, even Bill Kristol could’ve correctly predicted that N.W.A. were getting in this year. The recent commercial and critical success of Straight Outta Compton essentially locked that down. Some people don’t feel hip-hop should be included, but that’s a shortsighted notion. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is basically the Music Hall of Fame. “Rock and Roll” is simply an umbrella term. Also, there’s more rock in N.W.A. than in most of the current acts categorized as rock. Even compared to modern hip-hop artists, they have more in common with their fellow Reagan/Bush-era L.A. legends Guns N’ Roses than Kanye or Drake.
There’s an “about time!” aspect to this particular class, none more so than Deep Purple. They were first eligible in 1993, so long ago that George Burns and Rose Kennedy were still alive, and Justin Bieber and reigning American League Rookie of the Year Carlos Correa were not. As discussed last year on this blog, Green Day got in before them, a complete embarrassment for the Hall.
Purple are one of the principal architects of hard rock/heavy metal. For the past four decades, “Smoke on the Water” has usually been the first song budding musicians learn when they start playing guitar. Ritchie Blackmore’s riff is so iconic that his soulful, tasteful, almost Mark Knopfleresque (years before the actual Knopfler appeared) solo is overlooked. On this song and a few others, the rhythm section of bassist Roger Glover and drummer Ian Paice pulled off the complex trick of making the groove simultaneously lumber and gracefully swing.
They went through a few configurations, but the “Mark II” lineup mentioned above is the one that helped change the world of music. Ian Gillian was the first rock singer to use the titanic, operatic scream predominant in heavy metal, one that everyone from Rob Halford to Axl Rose is known for. And the late keyboardist Jon Lord was among the elite at his craft, performing Hammond organ like Jimmy Smith in a Gothic cathedral.
When Gillian and Glover left in 1973, future Whitesnake vocalist David Coverdale and bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes took over. The music still annihilated, but there was more of a soul element, to the extent that Coverdale and Hughes were referred to as “the unrighteous brothers.” It was appropriate, as the two had the same deep voice/high voice dynamic as Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield or even David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations. At times, Coverdale can come across like a hard rock/heavy metal Lou Rawls. The Hall of Fame did right by including them for the induction.
Shaping one genre of music would’ve been enough. But the original Deep Purple with Rod Evans on vocals managed to influence the U.K. bands of the late ‘80s/early ’90s with their 1968 cover of Joe South’s “Hush.” The Stone Roses, Charlatans, and others all made careers off of it. While the organ and rhythm gave it a “Swinging London” feeling, Evans drawled his way through “Hush” like he was from the American South, providing a striking counterpoint.
The Hall performed a mitzvah by not forgetting about Evans. Whether or not he shows up though is anyone’s guess. He completely dropped out of the public in 1980, and amazingly in this day and age, no information can be found about him since then.
Whatever happens, all hail the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class of 2016 for expanding on “the new freedoms.”
And someone make sure to save Damone a seat at the Cheap Trick table.
Matt Leinwohl