...............................................album of the week

The Doors - (1970) Morrison Hotel


Review by William Ruhlmann & Richie Unterberger (AMG)

The Doors, one of the most influential and controversial rock bands of the 1960s, were formed in Los Angeles in 1965 by UCLA film students Ray Manzarek, keyboards, and Jim Morrison, vocals; with drummer John Densmore and guitarist Robby Krieger. The group never added a bass player, and their sound was dominated by Manzarek's electric organ work and Morrison's deep, sonorous voice, with which he sang and intoned his highly poetic lyrics. The group signed to Elektra Records in 1966 and released its first album, The Doors, featuring the hit "Light My Fire," in 1967. Like "Light My Fire," the debut album was a massive hit, and endures as one of the most exciting, groundbreaking recordings of the psychedelic era. Blending blues, classical, Eastern music, and pop into sinister but beguiling melodies, the band sounded like no other. With his rich, chilling vocals and somber poetic visions, Morrison explored the depths of the darkest and most thrilling aspects of the psychedelic experience. Their first effort was so stellar, in fact, that the Doors were hard-pressed to match it, and although their next few albums contained a wealth of first-rate material, the group also began running up against the limitations of their recklessly disturbing visions. By their third album, they had exhausted their initial reservoir of compositions, and some of the tracks they hurriedly devised to meet public demand were clearly inferior to, and imitative of, their best early work. On The Soft Parade, the group experimented with brass sections, with mixed results. Accused (without much merit) by much of the rock underground as pop sellouts, the group charged back hard with the final two albums they recorded with Morrison, on which they drew upon stone-cold blues for much of their inspiration, especially on 1971's L.A. Woman.

· Track List:

Side one: Hard Rock Cafe
01. Roadhouse Blues
02. Waiting for the Sun
03. You Make Me Real
04. Peace Frog
05. Blue Sunday
06. Ship of Fools

Side two: Morrison Hotel
01. Land Ho!
02. The Spy
03. Queen of the Highway
04. Indian Summer
05. Maggie M'Gill


· Personnel:

Jim Morrison – lead vocals
Robby Krieger – lead guitar, rhythm guitar
Ray Manzarek – organ, piano, keyboard bass, backing vocals
John Densmore – drums



· About...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doors


·Video:

...............................................album of the week

Creedence Clearwater Revival - (1968) ST

Review by Richie Unterberger (AMG)

At a time when rock was evolving further and further away from the forces that had made the music possible in the first place, Creedence Clearwater Revival brought things back to their roots with their concise synthesis of rockabilly, swamp pop, R&B, and country. Though CCR was very much a group in their tight, punchy arrangements, their vision was very much singer, songwriter, guitarist, and leader John Fogerty's. Fogerty's classic compositions for Creedence both evoked enduring images of Americana and reflected burning social issues of the day. The band's genius was their ability to accomplish this with the economic, primal power of a classic rockabilly ensemble.

The key elements of Creedence had been woodshedding in bar bands for about a decade before their breakthrough to national success in the late '60s. John's older brother Tom formed the Blue Velvets in the late '50s in El Cerrito, CA, a tiny suburb across the bay from San Francisco. By the mid-'60s, with a few hopelessly obscure recordings under their belt, they'd signed to Fantasy, releasing several singles as the Golliwogs that went nowhere. In fact, there's little promise to be found on those early efforts, primarily because Tom, not John, was doing most of the singing. The group only found themselves when John took firm reigns over the band's direction, singing and writing virtually all of their material.

On their first album as Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1968, the group played it both ways, offering extended, quasi-psychedelic workouts of the '50s classics "I Put a Spell on You" and "Suzie Q." The latter song became their first big hit, but the band didn't really bloom until "Proud Mary," a number-two single in early 1969 that demonstrated John's talent at tapping into Southern roots music and imagery with a natural ease. It was the start of a torrent of classic hits from the gritty, Little Richard-inspired singer over the next two years, including "Bad Moon Rising," "Green River," "Down on the Corner," "Travelin' Band," "Who'll Stop the Rain," "Up Around the Bend," and "Lookin' Out My Back Door."

· Track List:

01. I Put a Spell on You
02. The Working Man
03. Suzie Q
04. Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do)
05. Get Down Woman
06. Porterville
07. Gloomy
08. Walk on the Water


· Personnel:

Doug Clifford - drums, bass
Stu Cook - bass, drums
John Fogerty - lead guitar, all lead vocals unless otherwise noted
Tom Fogerty - rhythm guitar, vocals


· About...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creedence


· Video:

...............................................album of the week

The Stooges - (1970) Fun House

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Mark Deming (AMG)

During the psychedelic haze of the late '60s, the grimy, noisy and relentlessly bleak rock & roll of the Stooges was conspicuously out of time. Like the Velvet Underground, the Stooges revealed the underside of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, showing all of the grime beneath the myth. The Stooges, however, weren't nearly as cerebral as the Velvets. Taking their cue from the over-amplified pounding of British blues, the primal raunch of American garage rock, and the psychedelic rock (as well as the audience-baiting) of the Doors, the Stooges were raw, immediate, and vulgar. Iggy Pop became notorious for performing smeared in blood or peanut butter and diving into the audience. Ron and Scott Asheton formed a ridiculously primitive rhythm section, pounding out chords with no finesse -- in essence, the Stooges were the first rock & roll band completely stripped of the swinging beat that epitomized R&B and early rock & roll. During the late '60s and early '70s, the group was an underground sensation, yet the band was too weird, too dangerous to break into the mainstream. Following three albums, the Stooges disbanded, but the group's legacy grew over the next two decades, as legions of underground bands used their sludgy grind as a foundation for a variety of indie rock styles, and as Iggy Pop became a pop culture icon.

After playing in several local bands in Ann Arbor, MI, including the blues band the Prime Movers and the Iguanas, Iggy Pop (born James Osterberg) formed the Stooges in 1967 after witnessing a Doors concert in Chicago. Adopting the name Iggy Stooge, he rounded up brothers Ron and Scott Asheton (guitar and drums, respectively) and bassist Dave Alexander, and the group debuted at a Halloween concert at the University of Michigan student union in 1967. For the next year, the group played the Midwest relentlessly, earning a reputation for their wild, primitive performances, which were largely reviled. In particular, Iggy gained attention for his bizarre on-stage behavior. Performing shirtless, he would smear steaks and peanut butter on his body, cut himself with glass, and dive into the audience. The Stooges were infamous, not famous -- while they had a rabidly devoted core audience, even more people detested their shock tactics. Nevertheless, the group lucked into a major-label record contract in 1968 when an Elektra talent scout went to Detroit to see the MC5 and wound up signing their opening act, the Stooges, as well.

· Track List:

01. Down on the Street
02. Loose
03. T.V. Eye
04. Dirt
05. 1970 (also known as "I Feel Alright")
06. Fun House
07. L.A. Blues


· Personnel:

Iggy Pop - vocals, mixer
Dave Alexander - bass
Ron Asheton - guitar
Scott Asheton - drums
Steve MacKay - saxophone
Don Gallucci - producer, organ overdubs


· About...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_stooges


· Video: