Wide Prairie (1998) – Linda McCartney
Produced by Paul McCartney with Linda McCartney, Lee Perry, and Ian Maidman * Label: Parlophone/MPL (UK); Capitol/MPL (US) * Charts: UK LP #127

Linda McCartney’s only solo album, a compilation of tracks (some previously released) that appeared in October 1998, six months after she passed away, is a secret delight. You need to approach it as a whole, letting it play all the way through, to fully appreciate its charms.

What happened when it came out was more or less nothing. Reviewers opted out of criticizing the recently deceased Beatle wife who’d already been through enough when unflattering isolated tracks of her harmonizing on stage with Paul began making the rounds as joke fodder. For consumers who expected the worst when Wide Prairie appeared, one click of the sample button for the first track on Amazon to reveal her belting out “well I was born in Ar-i-zona” in a faux-cowgirl drawl was all the confirmation they needed.

Caroline Sullivan’s review in The Guardian—one of the very few attempts at a formal critique—carried the headline “Linda’s Last Salvo Hits a Bum Note.” Her short piece reflected skim-through engagement, acknowledged some of the fuss and promotional buzz about Linda’s cuss words on the track “The Light Comes from Within,” and otherwise encouraged readers to remember her for photography, vegetarianism, and animal rights activism. The review ensured that a larger portion of the merely curious would never give Wide Prairie a proper listen.

The digital music sales platforms of the late-nineties were an ill fit for this album because it was, in fact, an album. Its ebb and flow reveals a carefully sequenced effort on the part of executive producer Paul McCartney, whose personal investment in—and affection for—these tracks’ fun factors are a continual, welcome presence. He showcases a woman he cherished being around, and he wants us to get a sense of what that was like through pop music, his chosen means of communication. That being so, its reissue this month (August 2019) as a vinyl collector’s attraction makes fine sense.

Here’s my own experience with the album: when I listened for the first time, I smiled at some point during every single song, and the same thing has happened each time since. The face muscles trigger involuntarily and there you go. This effect qualifies Linda McCartney’s Wide Prairie as one of my personal cult albums, full of beloved particulars, and for my money, it’s the single most complete, pleasurable, and least self-conscious long-player of any Beatle family member.

“Wide Prairie” (1973, 1974) (Written by Linda McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): So Linda McCartney isn’t Linda Ronstadt. But her vocal ability isn’t this album’s focus so much as her personality, attitude, and shared musical history with Paul. He makes this clear in the liner notes, reporting that they “had a ball” when they recorded the title track. “Wide Prairie” starts out Euro-noir, in a minor key, with spoken lines by Linda (one of the album’s recurring intro tactics). She’s in Paris, waiting for a flight, when “this guy” with the decidedly non-noir voice of Paul asks, “Have you got a light?” Then it jumps to a cowgirl setting full of R’s, fiddles (by Johnny Gimble), and the hearty background vocals of Paul and Denny Laine. But then it jumps back to Euro-noir for the duration, with Paul really feeling it, moaning approval as if lampooning the filler vocals on “Uncle Albert.” Non-drawling Linda repeats her opening recitation, but this time, Paul says “you got a light?” in a jive accent. And then the payoff: Linda closes by asking, “Know what happened?” and Paul responds, “ah-buh-dee-buh-dah-buh-dee-buh-dah-buh…” (First recorded in France in 1973, then finished up in Nashville in June 1974, although the notes say June 1975. Likely a misprint.)

 

“New Orleans” (1975, 1979) (Written by Linda McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): From the 1975 Venus and Mars sessions at Allan Toussaint’s Sea-Saint Studios, Linda’s “New Orleans” emerges from the familiar piano rhythm of “Heart and Soul” and blooms into something rollicking and irresistible. The words string together like Mardi Gras beads into a list of some of the Crescent City’s notable eats along with “greasy jeans” and “fifties tunes.” The payoff: an unexpectedly ominous bridge where Linda name checks the legendary Dew Drop Inn (closed in 1970) and the Dungeon (opened in 1969) in what sounds like a stern Marlene Dietrich imitation. Her “don’t go down to the Dungeon” warnings then resolve into a round of don’t go downs and all frowns turn upside down. Who’s playing the harmonica and the growling trombone? The liner notes don’t say.

“The White Coated Man” (1988, 1989) (Written by Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, and Carla Lane; produced by Paul McCartney): Track three takes us back to the Euro-noir vibe (winking at Abba’s “The Day Before You Came”), with a spoken intro by Linda’s friend, the television writer Carla Lane. Her words express the bewildered perspective of a caged rodent observing the sinister actions of a lab worker. Lane’s impeccable diction makes for an unexpected rat-dialogue vehicle; before you’re done fully processing this, though, Linda’s sympathetic singing voice has come in for the refrain. It’s an example of pacing that’s one of Wide Prairie‘s virtues. Nothing drags on long enough for you to start thinking meanly about it. In fact, “The White Coated Man” comes off as a vivisection protest that’s eminently adorable. This, of course, might be the intention. 

“Love’s Full Glory” (1980) (Written by Linda McCartney; Produced by Linda and Paul McCartney): Track four brings to mind Linda’s connection with Neil Young, of whom she’d taken a 1968 photo that appeared forty years later on the cover of his Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House (2008). “Paul and I are friends because we both knew and loved Linda,” writes Young in his Waging Heavy Peace (2012, p. 20). “I met [her] first during Buffalo Springfield days.” The steel guitar (a soaring performance by the legendary Lloyd Green), major 7th chords, and the “Expecting to Fly” melody snippets all mix together to evoke Young. The “take me home” refrain, though, is notable for its jittering rhythm and crafty chord changes that ask Green to step outside of his standard genre.

 

“I Got Up” (1973, 1998) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): Songs five and six are catharsis songs, and their appearance side by side makes them more memorable. On “I Got Up,” you’ll remember that you’re listening to someone who was in the midst of fighting cancer, and you’ll feel a sense of admiration for her delivery of the words “I got up, and I ain’t going down again” as one of her final recorded statements. But we also know that Linda was likely addressing a number of other targets. When she sings, near the end, that “whatever I do, one thing is certain it will be without you,” it often reaches the ear as “It won’t be without you.” This gives it an interesting nuance, as if she’s plausibly addressing her words to someone she loves or forgives or, perhaps, vows not to forgive. The sound is mid-seventies Beach Boys. Imagine if, in an alternate universe, the 1976 Brian Wilson sang these defiant words on a subsequently improved 15 Big Ones.

“The Light Comes from Within” (1998) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): This one’s the f-bomb song that stirred up pre-release chatter and prompted critical listeners to feel disappointment that the song itself was no “Working Class Hero.” This all obscured its assets as an expression of emotional release concerning a fairly wide array of potential “stupid dick” antagonists, who we can assume to be of the “tower-building” chauvinist persuasion. When Linda conveys her words, we can feel a release that’s separate from the song’s actual musical aspects. What comes through clearest in “The Light Comes from Within” isn’t anger. It’s her sentiment of wanting to “smell the flowers,” which characterizes the Linda we always knew. The angst-free pop sound it’s dressed in communicates to us that she’s comfortable in her own musical skin. At the bridge, when she sings “I want a sense of cause,” potentially misheard as sense of calm with no harm done, a sublime chord sequence happens.

“Mister Sandman” (1977) (Written by Pat Ballard; produced by Lee Perry and Paul McCartney): The Tighten Up reggae compilations were reportedly a steady, nerve-calming presence in the rural McCartney household during the acrimonious Beatle break-up years. McCartney mentions them in the notes for this song, and we can assume that Jamaican music had an ongoing bonding quality for Paul and Linda. Their reggae version of “Love Is Strange” made an indelible appearance on Wings’ 1972 Wild Life, and “Seaside Woman” comes from the same era. The tracks for “Mister Sandman” (the 1954 Chordettes hit) and “Sugartime” come from a 1977 visit to Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black Ark Studios. Perry, a strong contender for the title of Reggae Founder, oversaw the sessions while members of his Upsetters (Boris and Barrington Gardner on bass and rhythm guitar, Milky Boo on drums, and Winston Wright on keyboards) laid them down. Vocals, and maybe lead guitar, were later added at Paul and Linda’s own Ranachan Studio in Scotland (known appropriately, where this track is concerned, as “Rude Studios” by 1998). Paul’s guitar contributions, which I assume are the funny, skittering leads, are big smile moments, as are his joyful yelps near the fade. 

“Seaside Woman” – Suzy and the Red Stripes (1972, 1977) (Written by Linda McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): After the easy-going “Mr. Sandman,” “Seaside Woman” kicks in with assurance, building on the island vibe with classic Wings pop smarts. The fact that it saw pseudonymous release (on Epic, a competing label) as a 1977 seven-inch by “Suzy and the Red Stripes” has given it a reputation as a forgettable trifle, but it shimmers on Wide Prairie like the studio gem it is. Paul points to this as Linda’s first solo flight as a songwriter, which he encouraged her to do in response to ATV publishing, who complained that her co-writing credits on previous McCartney hits were merely a business ruse. Although the track went through a remix in 1977, the raw materials—the bubbling bass, cheeky Rhodes, Denny Laine’s steelpan-like guitar lines, and the overall jubilation—come from an original session during the much-maligned McCartney era of 1972. An animated film for “Seaside Woman” by the Argentinian artist Oscar Grillo, with music credited to “Linda McCartney and Wings,” won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980. Promotional hustle at Epic Records (headed by Steve Popovich, who is also credited for mastering) pushed it up to #59 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of ’77.

“Oriental Nightfish” (1973) (Written by Linda McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): “Oriental Nightfish” is the third Wide Prairie offering with a spoken, Euro-noir intro. In the liner notes Paul refers to the narratives of the Shangri-Las and the Coasters as reference points, but they never did anything so hallucinogenic. “It was a Thursday night, I was working late,” reports Linda, when she “first caught sight of the oriental nightfish.” Colors swirl, the room gets hot, the narrative morphs into music (Denny Laine on flute and Paul on guitar, who channels Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour), and it’s clear at this point that we’re dealing with drug music.

“Oriental Nightfish” was the second Linda recording, after “Seaside Woman, to get the short-film treatment in 1980. It was animated, coincidentally, by Pink Floyd cohort Ian Emes, who depicts a Linda-like figure playing keyboard in a dark mansion. Her draped clothing swooshes off and she drifts around the night, very naked, like a fish in an aquarium. (Emes’s focus on apparel brings to mind Aldous Huxley’s mescalin-fueled words in The Doors of Perception about the sublimity of the folds in wind-blown skirts. [And how’s that for a suggestive nod, on my part, to Linda’s history with Jim Morrison?])

The 1984 British VHS release for Paul’s Rupert the Bear cartoon, a huge seller that included his beloved children’s song “We All Stand Together,” added the two Linda films as bonus tracks. Paul blows off complaints, in the notes, from mothers who objected to the nudity, but the general trippiness—other than the nudity—likely had more of a disturbing effect on kids who grew up to participate in a Facebook group called “Oriental Nightfish Haunted My Childhood.” 

“Endless Days” (1987) (Written by Linda McCartney and Mick Bolton; produced by Linda McCartney and Ian Maidman): Paul’s liner notes sum up the cozy appeal of “Endless Days” as a song “Linda played often at home” in which her vocal “captures a special kind of innocence that those of us who knew her loved deeply.” This sentiment is at the heart of Wide Prairie‘s reason for being, and it’s especially touching when taken in as part of the whole album. Co-writer Mick Bolton was a journeyman keyboardist who had been playing in Paul Brady’s band along with Geoff Richardson and Ian (now Jennifer) Maidman (who was also a core member of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra). Bolton had been tutoring Linda on keyboard when he contributed the bridge for “Endless Days.” The non-multi-tracked nature of the presentation, as recorded in Maidman’s studio, adds to its sincerity.

“Poison Ivy” (1987) (Written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller; produced by Linda McCartney and Ian Maidman): This version of the Coasters classic is the second of two songs recorded at Jennifer Maidman’s Positive Earth Studio along with Mick Bolton and Geoff Richardson. What’s special about these tracks is the knowledge that they’re Linda’s thing. She’s making music she loves with her own gang of talented friends while Paul’s off doing something else, and she’s having a good time. She muffs lyrics (“glory hallelujah” for “common cold will fool ya”), laughs, and it’s all good. 

“Cow” (1988) (Written by Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney and Carla Lane; produced by Paul McCartney): “Cow” is the second of two late ’80s animal rights tracks Linda did with Paul and the television writer Carla Lane. As with “Man in the White Coat,” it mixes forthright, sobering lyrics (“one more day of grazing before the slaughter truck… He will eat you because he didn’t look”) with music that glows with cuteness (a Casio keyboard on a toy piano setting), but again, that might be the point. The phrase “standing in your June fields” can be misheard as “jute fields,” which adds a veggie-reinforcing thought dimension involving India, the leading jute-producing nation where Hindus regard cows as sacred. 

“B-Side to Seaside” – Suzy and the Red Stripes (1977) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): Moments of carefree musical inspiration abound in Paul McCartney’s lifetime catalog, and they’re precious for their own sake. His is a world where castoff offerings that provoke sneering among some bring ongoing pleasure to many more. Witness “B-Side to Seaside,” written with Linda as a consciously flippant flipside for “Seaside Woman.” But it’s so much nonsense fun, building on the spirit of both the A-side and “C Moon,” both from 1972. The instrumental hook is just one of the many moments where McCartney gives a lark the kind of adornment that might serve as crucial career material to a lesser fowl. Linda’s spoken intro (one of five on Wide Prairie) resonates with the kind of zap you’ll only detect in full force when you’re listening to the full album, when you’ve recently taken in “I Got Up” and “The Light Shines from Within,” and you’re thinking about Linda, her unusual life, her critics, her influence, and the positive attitude she always projected. “Came for a weekend,” she says. “Ended in a hate joke.” There’s emotional richness in those words, yet they accompany an otherwise playful track. Notice a theme?

 

“Sugartime” (1977, 1998) (Written by Charlie Phillips and Odis Echols; produced by Lee Perry and Paul McCartney): The second of the two Lee “Scratch” Perry tracks revamps another pop vocal standard from the ’50s, this one a 1957 hit by the McGuire Sisters. As with “Mr. Sandman” above, the groove is impeccable. Paul fills in with hard-to-decipher patois in place of a guitar solo. The song fading out at 2:07 is another example of the entire Wide Prairie album’s careful and conscious sense of pacing.

 

“Cook of the House” – Wings (1976) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): Let me repeat what I said for “B-Side to Seaside”: Moments of carefree inspiration abound in Paul McCartney’s lifetime catalog, and they’re precious for their own sake. His refusal to take cues from the ideologues who reviewed records during his commercial heyday will one day be better understood and appreciated. “Cook of the House,” featuring Linda’s best known vocal up to this point, appeared on the B-side for “Silly Love Songs,” the track that served as a cheerful anthem for the summer of ’76 and whose overuse as an analogy for rock’s death (or just Paul’s) quickly became more tiresome than its saturated airplay. “Cook of the House,” in fact, crackles with rock ‘n’ roll flipside lore, bringing to mind Rosie and the Originals’ 1960 “Give Me Love” (the B-side for “Angel Baby”) which John Lennon adored and which was likely a Beatle inner circle favorite.

The sound of cooking grease comes off as scratchy vinyl; Linda sings instead of Paul, just as one of the Originals, on “Give Me Love,” sings lead instead of “Angel Baby” Rosie; a tenor sax honks aimlessly; the drums sound like sofa cushions. What does Paul sing at the beginning? Why is there a chorus of acknowledgement after he sings what he does? What was Linda actually singing in her unpretentious way in those verses? Not clear at all. (Lyric sheets reveal that she’s singing, as suspected, about groceries, as she does in “New Orleans.”) How many consumers spun the 45 and relished the muffled and thumpy rock ‘n’ roll they heard? Untold numbers. But go and read some of the words that most any critic has written, in all seriousness, about this song and you’ll get a sense of what fuels her outburst on “The Light Comes from Within.” On Wide Prairie, “Cook of the House” gets a rightfully honored sequencing slot, familiar and well-loved as it is to those of us who love its singer.

“Appaloosa” (1998) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): “Appaloosa,” an ode to the Nez Perce tribe and their horses, closes the album as one of Linda’s final recordings, done in March 1998. It’s the fifth song to begin with a spoken intro, and you worry what its documentary aura forebodes. But then it gives way, like “The White Coated Man,” to music that’s sprightlier and cuter than you’re led to expect. Certainly a musicologist somewhere has explained why a two-measure melody line played in one key, repeated note-for-note a step above, then back again in the original key—like what happens all throughout “Appaloosa”—has a childlike effect. These figures ring out like piano exercises, as do the Native America-signifying intervals in the bridge, and you think of Linda working on her song ideas, always keeping after her keyboard skills as a committed member of team Paul. (He closes the album with an orchestrated rendering of the melody, which we can understand to be a farewell to her from him.) What if Linda tried to do this song differently, more mournfully, full of manufactured pathos? The evidence presented on the rest of Wide Prairie suggests that it just wouldn’t be Linda. R.I.P.

Like a kid playing with Legos, I’ve been focusing on a new blog, the ever-expanding Song IDs, a repository for my backlog of song notes. I’ll transplant a lot of my material from this one to that one, and it may even swallow up song entries from my Early 70s Radio and International Folk Bazaar blogs in time. If you can’t find something that used to be here, it’s probably over there. Thanks for popping in.

Pp. 229-230: “There are many stories about Keith Moon’s extraordinary behavior, most of which sound amusing when told. In reality, these incidents were anything but funny to witness, as they very often involved some degree of violence or destruction of someone else’s property.”

On guarding Pete Maravich (p. 49): “You try to get him angry at himself, so you pressure him. If he makes a bad pass or you steal it from him you might be able to break downcourt for an easy layup because he’s at the other end talking to himself. And with his hair flying, you sort of wait for him to stop dribbling. Then for a second all the hair that’s been flying in the wind comes down over his face and he can’t see. That’s when you steal the ball. He can make the most incredible shots. When he’s hot, you just have to wait until the hurricane lets up.”

More vintage play-by-play from the late Hot Rod Hundley, the voice of the Jazz and the man whose presence on the staff kept their nickname relevant. On December 20, 1986, Utah returned to the scene of Darrell Griffith’s big game against Chicago, where he’d scored 41 points on March 9, 1985. This time, though, it was Mark Eaton’s turn for a big game. He was supposed to be sitting out with the flu but instead checked in with a dominant performance.

Green left corner to Tripucka. Three pointer? No – he drives to base left. Underneath to Big Mark, try to go up for the shot and he’s fouled. [Craig Bolerjack talking]

Left to Gene Banks, former Duke University star. Banks guarded by Tripucka, now to Paxson left corner, Waiters sets a screen. Eaton comes over. Reverse shot blocked by Eaton, picked up by Hansen!

Rebound to Oakley, downcourt to John Paxson. Paxson right side to Banks. He’ll go back to Jordan. Drive in to Eaton, tried to reverse it.

[Bolerjack talking] There’s Tripucka, down low to Eaton. Mark across the middle with a left handed hook, it’s good! The Big Fella! He has four points and the Jazz take the lead!

Jordan right with him, Green with the ball. Ricky left to right. He’ll take it in the right corner to Bob Hansen. Low to Eaton, good position for the hook. No, he turns for the jumper – bank it in! It counts and he’s fouled! That’s six points for Mark Eaton!

Four buckets and the Jazz have the three point lead. Michael Jordan down the right side. He’ll go up top to Charles Oakley, drive by Malone, and Eaton is there to block it! What a play by Big Mark!

Green looks in, takes it low to Tripucka. Up top to the Mailman, five seconds for a shot, inside to Big Mark, a left hook, good! Mark Eaton with 9 points! Incredible! The best he’s ever played in his life! In a period of less than eight minutes, and he wasn’t even supposed to play!

Jordan right to left, Eaton intimidates, pass off Oakley out of bounds! Jazz ball!

…the corner. Two years ago Griffith had 41 against Jordan here. Here’s Bailey for the layup, right side, good! Big T!

And he knocks it away and steals. Great play by Jordan. He leads his team in steals. Jordan down the right side to Paxson.  Another jumper from 18. It’s up – no good. Rebound underneath: Brad Sellers.  Blocked by Eaton. They call a foul.

…find Elston Turner up top to Dave Corzine, looks back door, now finds it over to Steve Coulter, Coulter free throw line to Mike Brown, jumper blocked by Eaton! Grabbed by Bailey…

…to Jordan, he does. Jordan guarded by Griffith, they isolate him. Jordan drives, Eaton is there. He forces it up! Air ball! Corzine’s got it, double pump blocked by Eaton! What a play by Big Mark! And it goes out of bounds – Jazz basketball! [Bolerjack talking] Unbelieveable by Eaton, intimidates Jordan to force up an airball, and then he blocks Corzine’s shot.

He’s set up by the base by Bailey. Here’s Eaton, low right. Mark back to Griff. Three pointer from the parking lot on the way. Yes!

Jordan brings it down, hands it back, Jordan left to right, spin down the middle. Eaton is there, blocks it easily!

Faking left, taking it right, Paxson with him, John over the right corner to Hansen, right and left to the paint, underneath to Big Mark. Nice feed. Mark has it knocked away and we’ve got a foul. Beautiful…

Paxson wide right to Michael Jordan. He’ll fake left, go right to the base. Hansen stays with him. Jordan cuts the corner, drive under, reverse it, no good – never got iron. Picked up by Oakley, his shot blocked by Eaton!

Sending down to Granville Waiters, Waiters cross court to Michael Jordan, drive the alley, Eaton there to intimidate, underneath to Waiters, and a three second lane violation. And the presence of Mark Eaton again stopped the two point play.

Michael Jordan – reverse shot wildly up there, tipped by Corzine, no good. Rebound Corzine, Eaton makes him eat it. Picked up by Malone down court to Green. What a play by Eaton – intimidating Jordan again and then he blocked Corzine!

Off balance lay up no good – again Eaton intimidated. Rebound to Corzine and he passes off.

[Bolerjack talking] Paxson up top with the ball. He’ll swing left to Michael Jordan. Inside Oakley. Perfect position for the ball. Take it to the hoop. Eaton swats it down! It goes to Corzine, underneath to Sellers. He puts it up – shot around the rim no good. Eaton rebounds! Mark doing an outstanding job for Utah!

Coulter hippity hops front court straightaway. Stockton with him. Behind the back dribble – Eaton is there to block it and Banks saves it on the court to Corzine but he stepped out of bounds. Jazz basketball!

And Sloan’s number hangs high in the rafters here – a retired jersey. Here’s Stockton underneath to Big Mark. Slam dunk! Eaton with twelve points for Utah!

Parallel to the line, he’ll take it left-to-right to the free throw line. Terminates right side to Big T. Thurl backs it out low to Big Mark. Eaton hands back to Bailey – beautiful feed – slam dunk! Thurl down the middle

To Bailey low to Malone – bad pass! Never even looked. Knocked away! Malone gets it back! Fall away jumper left side – no good. Eaton knocks it down, picks it up, takes a little lay up, scores!

Jordan has 24. Down low Malone to Green out front. Seven point Chicago lead. Here’s Malone left-to-right, underhand layup no good. Eaton tips it in!

…Hansen, Jordan hands it out top to Paxson, Paxson down low inside Banks, blocked by Eaton! It’s knocked free and the Jazz come up with it! Bobby Hansen! 38 seconds left in the game!

[Bolerjack talking up Eaton’s numbers]

Now it sets the scene for Chicago to win it – if they get a bucket – possibly win it. [Bolerjack] Here we go. All right! Banks out front to Corzine. Jazz a game group hanging in there. Corzine dribbles left side. Low to Jordan. Eaton tries to help. Eaton knocks it away! Bailey’s got it! Bailey’s got it! We’ve got a foul and there’s six seconds left!

Here’s Bailey to guard the inbound play on Banks. Banks holds on. They bring it out front. There’s Elston Turner. He takes an off balance jumper – it’s no good! Tipped out of bounds! It’s over! The Jazz win the game! The Jazz win the game! Great defense! Oh baby! That’s five out of six on the road and the Jazz on this trip have won three out of four and they win their 16th against 8 losses!

P. 62: “In Dallas on September 18, [1964], where they were due to play the Memorial Coliseum, the boys – particularly John – expressed a keen interest in driving by the notorious Texas School Book Depository, site of the Kennedy assassination just ten months earlier.

“‘Let’s take a quick look at the scene of the crime,’ John said as he finished off breakfast in his room late in the morning. John had been the most traumatized by President Kennedy’s murder.

“‘He brought it up time and again in interviews with me,’ remembered Art Schreiber, who covered the trip for the Westinghouse network of radio stations.’ He was genuinely outraged by America’s passion for guns and the daily reports of violence that played out nightly on television.’ And he didn’t hold back. He said he loved what little he had seen of America, but was sickened by what he called, ‘America’s fookin’ shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later cowboy mentality,’ Schreiber said.”

Pp. 88-89: “In the privacy of his suite, he also sounded off about gun-happy Americans and the U.S. political system, which he said allowed any trigger-happy geezer to own a weapon. He complained to Art Schreiber that America was still the Wild West, because hardly a day went by ‘without me reading about some bloody idiot with a gun shooting somebody else after a fight over a pint of beer.’

“‘There’s too many loonies with guns,’ he told Schreiber with eerie prescience.”

A curious addition to the country pop singer Jerry Wallace’s resume: The biggest selling single of his career was a 1970 Japan-only release that featured Charles Bronson on the sleeve. It was the soundtrack to a commercial for an aftershave called “Mandom,” starring Bronson as an urbane action figure who rewards himself at night by splashing the product all over himself like victory champagne. As he does this, Wallace gives the following lyrics one hundred-and-ten percent: “All the world loves a lover/All the girls in every land-om/And to know the joy of loving/Is to live in the world of Mandom.”

1970 Mandom commercial starring Charles Bronson

Jerry Wallace – “Mandom (Lovers of the World)” (1970)

A word of warning before you read Going Into the City: the Dean of American Rock Critics also refers to himself as “Mr. Too Much Information” and means it. (But why doesn’t Mr. TMI include an index?)

P. 289: “…I edited a lot at home. Since Carola and I didn’t even own a fan for a while, I often received writers shirtless in the summertime, but not, as I recall, in my underwear and certainly not naked – the source of that tale, the great Lester Bangs, never let facts ruin a colorful story.”

But then this:

P. 335: “A brutal June heat wave upped our stress levels. I spent entire days in shorts alone, slipping into flip-flops and an unbottoned shirt to go buy coffee. Sometimes I even worked naked; in fact, the only time I remember receiving a guest unclothed was when Stephen O’Laughlin came over to talk records once.”

For further study, an accounting of Bangs’s “colorful story” appears in Jim DeRogatis’s Let It Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic (2000), p. 137: “Christgau relished the role of the ex-hippie college professor too preoccupied with great thoughts to trifle with everyday pleasantries. Lester talked about the time he went to Christgau’s apartment and was greeted by the dean sans clothing. Christgau proceeded to edit Lester in the nude.”

Suave, knowing glam rock single that ended up as the Jook’s final one. The UK quartet included two former members of John’s Children (guitarist Trevor White on the far left and drummer Chris Townson on the far right). The band shared their manager John Hewlett (another former member of John’s Children) with Sparks, who marched to the orders of the American brothers Ron and Russell Mael. Shortly after the single came out in 1974, White and bassist Ian Hampton (middle right) snuffed out the Jook by defecting to Sparks, whose “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us” single had reached #2 in Britain the same year.

Here’s a portion of an interview (by Phil King) of Jook drummer Chris Townson in Jeremy Thomson and Mary Blount’s Wired Up: Glam, Proto Punk and Bubblegum: European Pictures Sleeves 1970-76 (2013) (pp. 206-207):

Phil King: Did you go and see Sparks play?

Townson: No, because there was a bit of argy bargy going on. I took a swipe at Russell over a table. He said something that I thought was quite disparaging. I used to be quite aggressive when I was a young man. I just caught his nose. They were really quite arrogant. I really didn’t like them at all. I went out for a meal with them once – Ron and Russ – and it was really one of the most unpleasant meals I ever had. There was no conversation…

King: Did they come and see Jook play?

Townson: They came to see Jook play and said “Yes, they sound like a rock band.” No further discussion.

King: What about the story about the Bay City Rollers stealing your image?

Townson: We were playing in Scotland and this rather scruffy long-haired bunch, who looked like we did a year previously, came in after the gig and said what a fantastic show it was and how impressed they were with the image. Not two months later, even less, we saw these same guys and they’d patched it up with lots of tartan and everything. It was essentially the Jook image….

King: That must have been another nail in the coffin.

Townson: It was, and it was also bloody irritating when you go somewhere and they say, “You look like the Bay City Rollers.” I think I came close to punching many people.

The Jook – “Bish Bash Bosh” (1974)

Two years ago I heard this song, with its ghost voices and Star Trek organ, through static on a Mexican oldies station in the Arizona desert. Because none of the instant-info apps on my phone could get the job done and the station’s Clear Channel website contained nothing of use to anyone, I conceded defeat to the gods of ephemerality who oversee the affairs of most pop music in people’s lives. All of the song’s residue then vaporized except for three words from the chorus: “y mi sentimiento.” The gods had mercy on me last month when I was listening to Austin’s 1560 AM and it slithered out of my car speakers again, giving me time to pull over and scribble down more of the lyrics. Information, then: The song title translates to “I Swear I Love You” and was recorded in 1972 by a group of young adults from Venezuela. Calling themselves the Earthlings, they watched their song take control of Mexican radio for a moment in 1975.

Los Terrícolas – “Te juro que te amo” (1972)