Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were primary school friends, but lost touch after that, and met up again before forming The Rolling Stones, bonding over their mutual love for R&B. The first line-up consisted of Jagger and Richards, Brian Jones, Dick Taylor, Ian Stewart, and occasional drummer Tony Chapman. Mick Avory was billed as being the drummer at the debut show, but he did not play. Other than that I can’t find much else to write about concerning this show. But at least this is where it all started. Another big band is in the making, and I’m looking forward to seeing how these guys evolve. I’m not really a big Rolling Stones fan, but maybe that will change when I get to dive a bit deeper into their catalog.

And of course, I had to check out this Blues Incorporated band as well. It was supposedly the first amplified R&B band in Britain, and it started in 1961. They will release an album this year called «R&B From The Marquee», and while the music is good, I can’t help but feel that the vocals aren’t very good for this kind of music. It just doesn’t sit right, and it ends up as a mediocre album. And from what I’ve read they won’t amount to much either. But hey, at least they will be known as the band that gave Rolling Stones their first gig.

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Steve Albini was born this month. He’s gonna play in bands like Big Black, Rapeman, and Shellac, but will be best known as the producer for bands such as Pixies, Nirvana, and PJ Harvey. Joan Osborne was also born this month, and I guess she’s gonna be best known as the singer of a song Eric Bazilian wrote. And I’m kinda only mentioning her because of Eric, as I was, and still am probably, a big fan of his band The Hooters.

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THE ALBUMS

MILES DAVIS – AT CARNEGIE HALL

“Music has always been like a curse with me. I’ve always felt driven to play it. It’s the first thing in my life, go to bed thinking about it, and wake up thinking about it. It’s always there. It comes before everything.” – Miles Davis

I watched a documentary about Miles Davis the other day, «Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool», cause I felt like I needed some insight into what this guy was all about. And I gotta say; he was something. He was one of the coolest cats walking around in jazz at this point. He got the killer deal at Columbia Records, which again means that he’s got money, he is driving around in awesome sports cars, he is married to the woman everyone wanted, Frances Taylor, and on top of that he’s volatile, arrogant, difficult, and adored. He is after all some kind of genius, right? And I guess that these personality traits come with being the man that he was. 

Miles Davis was a gem of a musician who grew up in a racist America, and there is no doubt that this has had a major impact on his personality. He was born into a rich family in East St. Louis, but the America he was born into wouldn’t let his family’s fortune help him on the way. This is Jim Crow America, and black people didn’t have an easy time whether they were rich or poor, so he did not escape the racism or the segregation. And even after he himself had become a superstar in music, he was beaten down by a couple of white cops outside of a club he was playing; just because he was standing there smoking a cigarette and refusing to move. I mean, who the fuck wouldn’t become volatile and angry if you had to experience all this shit? 

So I get why he is angry, and I understand why I seldom saw him smile in this documentary. But all that aside, damn, what an amazing artist he is, was, and will become. For a jazz newbie like myself, Miles is definitively the go-to guy to try to spark some interest in this elusive genre. And listening to his back catalog is quite the journey. But that’s not what I’m doing right now, is it? We’re following his career from 1960 and up, and we’ve reached the release of his live album «Miles Davis At Carnegie Hall».

I’m thinking that fact that you’ve been booked to play Carnegie Hall says a lot about where you’ve come as an artist, and Miles is deservedly in that place right now. Not long ago he released the album «Kind Of Blue», which is to this day, present time, considered by most as the best jazz album ever recorded. It has also sold over five million copies, so the math is pretty simple here. And the record opens with that album’s opening track, So What. This track is probably one of the jazz songs I like best. It’s beautiful, simple (to listen to that is), and it swings. And Miles can’t go wrong by starting with this track as it is one of his best-known works. 

With him on the stage is Gil Evans, arranger and conductor for his orchestra, and The Miles Davis Quintet. Together they create a pretty great atmosphere, even though I’d much rather watch and listen to jazz anywhere at 52nd Street in its heyday. The record is a pleasure to listen to, filled with a lot of great tracks, and a good live album to have in your collection. 

JOHN COLTRANE – COLTRANE

Coltrane used to play with Miles back in the ‘50s, and yes, he was one of the players on the masterpiece «Kind Of Blue». He also played with one of my favorites, Jimmy Smith, and in the Dizzie Gilespie big band before venturing into his solo career. Now, John Coltrane was not held in high regard by a lot of people when he started playing with Miles, but the way he plays now in the ‘60s is kind of untouchable if I am to trust what I’ve read. From 1961 and to his death he made music that will become the foundation of modern jazz, and after swapping labels from Atlantic to Impulse! he will deliver album after album that will blow people away.

«Coltrane» is an Impulse! release, and even though I’m still a lightweight in jazz music, I would say that this is an amazing one. I’ve fallen in love with all the five tracks on this one, like the opening track Out Of This World, which is over fourteen minutes long (and I usually lose interest at three), sets the standard for this album. But the best tracks are Tunji and Miles’ Mode. They just sit right with me from beginning to end, and the fact that they’re both written by John Coltrane makes it even better as I’m a sucker for people who write their own music. 

The two last tracks on this album, The Inch Worm and Soul Eyes, are also great pieces, and it looks like this could be the jazz album of the year. Maybe even one of the best ones I’ve heard so far. The last Coltrane album I wrote about was «Africa/Brass» I believe, and the steps he has taken from that one are kinda amazing. There was only one track that really got to me on that album, but now I’m just glued to my headphones with «Coltrane» on repeat.

BOBBY VEE – MEETS THE CRICKETS

Bobby Vee’s entrance to the rock’n’roll scene was kind of macabre, as he stepped in for Buddy Holly after he passed away in a plane crash in 1959. After this gig, he was signed, with his group The Shadows (no not the English guys), to Liberty Records and released their first single Suzie Baby, who had only been released on an independent label, as their major single debut.

On «Bobby Vee Meets The Crickets» we get to hear Buddy Holly’s band and Bobby Vee reunited for the first time since Bobby stepped in for Buddy. But the album isn’t very stimulating. It’s mostly cover songs that are done just fine, except a couple of Buddy Holly songs, Peggy Sue and Well…All Right, which is also penned by Jerry Allison of The Crickets. Well…All Right happens to be one of the songs that I really like on this one, When You’re In Love being the other one.

This is no more than an ok pop/rock album and doesn’t really have anything that might be able to take it over the top. I find Bobby’s voice way too polished for a lot of these tracks, and the whole album suffers for it. But yeah, those two tracks are worth a listen.

THE MIRACLES – I’LL TRY SOMETHING NEW

I don’t have a lot to say about The Miracles at this point in their career, as I think I wrote most of it when they released their last record, but «I’ll Try Something New» is one of very few Miracles albums that feature the original six members of the group on the cover. Why that is I haven’t been able to find out though, or I haven’t bothered is probably more accurate. I mean, come on, it’s not that big of a deal.

So, this is The Miracles’ third album, and the two first ones have been really good. And I would love to say that this one is right up there with them, but that’s just not the case here. This is one of those albums where the A-side is good, but when you turn the record over it feels like it’s a completely different album. It’s nothing close to shit, but it doesn’t show off the writing skills that this band is harboring. And it falls way short of what they have already done, and that is never gonna help this album’s cause. 

The title track I’ll Try Something New is one of the best tracks, and Smokey Robinson’s voice is almost ethereal (on most of the tracks), He Don’t Care About Me, sung by Smokey’s wife Claudette, is also one of the better ones, and I’ve Been Good To You is also one of my favorites. A great ballad sung by Smokey.

So yeah, compared to their other releases, and I’m always gonna compare new albums to whatever back catalog there is, this one doesn’t quite cut it. But then again, the first two albums were great, so this doesn’t mean that «I’ll Try Something New» sucks, it just shows that this band can do even better. Compared to some other R&B artists, this is a pretty good one. So it all comes down to how you view it/listen to it I guess.

ETTA JAMES – ETTA JAMES

Jamesetta’s third album is simply called «Etta James». This self-titled record follows what I thought was a disappointing follow-up to an amazing debut, and I did fear that she might disappoint again. Cause she will (I’m not sure if she’s there yet) start to dabble with heroin at some point, and she doesn’t handle it very well. Her addiction will fuck up a lot, both musically and personally, but at some point later in the ‘60s she will get a hold of herself and straighten up. Considering the childhood she had, I guess it’s not a big surprise that she started using drugs though. She was physically abused by her first vocal trainer at some church, her mom was only fourteen when Etta was born and didn’t shine as a mom, she moved between foster homes, and one of her foster dads, Sarge, used to force her to sing for his friends by beating her. Not the childhood anyone would want.

Anyway, the heroin aside, she does not disappoint on her third album. It is packed with great songs, and again it feels like she gets to shine as she is supposed to. A great voice like this has to be paired with songs that will let her use her entire range, and I think they hit it pretty well with these. And I’m pretty sure that this is the first time she has written a couple of songs herself for an album, and the songs aren’t just fillers. She co-wrote the single Something’s Got A Hold Of Me, and that’s a god damn great song. It has a great gospel/soul vibe that would keep you up for days. The other one is a duet with Harvey Fuqua, If I Can’t Have You, which she co-wrote with his wife Gwen Gordy Fuqua, and it is also a great song. 

The album starts strong, even though I felt otherwise the first time I listened to it, with Waiting For Charlie To Come Home, which was written for her by Burt Bacharach, and it never really stops, to be honest. It’s a great album from beginning to end, and it makes me very happy that she delivers something like this again. I still think that her debut is better, but this is a very close number two.

CLINT EASTWOOD – RAWHIDE’S CLINT EASTWOOD SINGS COWBOYS FAVOURITES

I’m not sure if there’s any real need to write about this record, but I just found it interesting that Clint Eastwood actually released an album. I really had no idea. This tough-guy actor, whom I know from not-yet-released movies like the Sergio Leone «Dollars-trilogy» («A Fistful of Dollars», «For A Few Dollars More», and «The Good, The Bad and The Ugly»), where he played the character ‘’Man With No Name’’, the Dirty Harry movies, and the list goes on.

So for me to hear this always-angry-never-smiling-man open his mouth to sing country ballads, is nothing short of astounding. The crazy thing is that he doesn’t sound terrible either. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a good album at all, but Clint kinda knows how to sing. Still, though, this album is nothing more than a fun fact, the fact that Clint Eastwood sung a bunch of cowboy songs, recorded them, and released an album. Funny.

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THE SINGLES

I could only find two singles released this month, Ramblin’ Rose by Nat King Cole and She’s Not You by Elvis Presley. Nat King Cole reached almost all the way to the top of the charts, while Elvis reached #1 in the UK. Both songs are ok really, but none of them gets me going.

This is my first meeting with Nat King Cole here on «This Band Could Be Your Life», and even though I know who he is, this is yet another artist that I’ve never sat down and listened to. But he was born back in 1919, he learned piano by ear, and got his first professional break touring with the revival of the first all-black show to make it to Broadway, «Shuffle Along». After this show, he was stuck in LA and started playing at a club called Century Club on Santa Monica Boulevard where all the other musicians dug him. They felt he was a unique piano player, and it wasn’t long until Cole started his own innovative trio which combined pleasing and humorous ditties with his state-of-the-art piano stylings.

In the ‘40s things started to happen as he scored hits like Straighten Up And Fly Right, The Christmas Song, Nature Boy, and Sweet Lorraine, and by 1948 he had started to become one of the most popular vocalists of the day. The confirmation of his position came when he released the song Mona Lisa, which spent eight weeks at the top of the US chart, and he continued from there with a string of hit songs that are just too many to mention here. He also starred in a couple of movies, most noteworthy «St. Louis Blues».

Ramblin’ Rose is Cole’s first big hit in four years, and a lot of his fan base didn’t like it. They felt he was bridging his way into popular music, and they wanted him to keep doing what he always did. This single has a bit of a country & western twang to it, and that might as well be what they didn’t like. Nat, however, responded with this: “I’m just adding to the market. As soon as you start to make money in the popular field, they scream about how good you were in the old days, and what a bum you are now.“

Elvis’ new addition is a perfectly fine tune, but it’s not even close to any of his best tracks, and that makes it fairly simple to just ignore it. I’m not that smitten by his good looks, charm, and voice that he can do whatever he wants, he needs to step it up a bit in my opinion.

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THE CHARTS

Wolverton Mountain was the song that established Claude King as a country singer/songwriter, as it hit #1 on the country chart, #6 on the Hot 100, and #3 on the easy listening chart. So this is what they would call a major crossover hit since it did so well on three different charts. It wouldn’t excite a lot of people in 2021, but I would say it’s a fairly good country track. The song is a rewrite of Merle Kilgore’s original version, and a fun fact is that Nat King Cole records a version of this on his next album.

Joe Henderson, who will pass away at the age of 27 from a heart attack (sounds very cocaine-y), charts with his biggest hit this month, Snap Your Fingers, an ok R&B tune. Dee Dee Sharp, who also released the song Mashed Potato Time, went high on the charts with the song Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes). And I know what you’re thinking, it’s not very inventive. It doesn’t feel like there’s a big idea here, so this is just a song to cash in on whatever dance is in at the time. The song is catchy enough though, but it’s just a blip on music history if you ask me. Just a quick read on this girl shows that all her hits are songs about different dances, so I guess we can call her the female Chubby Checker.

The last two charting songs this month are both borderline racist, or maybe “not PC” is more right, but I guess that’s just how they were back then. We’ve got Pat Boone with his Speedy Gonzales, which makes fun of Mexicans, and Ray Stevens’ Ahab The Arab, which doesn’t necessarily make fun of Arabs, but still. It’s two terrible novelty songs and that’s about it.

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Petter Milde

This Band Could Be Your Life