Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2019 i Classic Rock

WELCOME Half a century, eh? You can bet your bottom dollar that when Messrs Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham were grabbing studio time here and there in the midst of whirlwind US tours on the back of their groundbreaking debut album, that they had no real clue that they were creating another rock’n’roll masterpiece. But that’s exactly what’s happened. In 2019, Led Zeppelin II – the record that gave us Whole Lotta Love, Heartbreaker, What Is And What Should Never Be, Ramble On and more! – celebrates its 50th birthday. So this issue we chronicle the making of this game-changing album, collar Sammy Hagar for the Classic Rock Interview, go on the road with Steve Hackett, stay angry with Skunk Anansie, run-down the 50 Blues Rock Songs You Should Hear…

the DIRT Dr. John November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019 Classic Rock’s Max Bell looks at the life and times of the piano icon who fused blues, jazz, boogie-woogie and rock’n’roll to make boundary-pushing music. GETTY X2 New Orleans folk know how to honour their dead. On June 7, a day after Dr. John’s passing (aged 77, following a heart attack), a huge crowd thronged through the Big Easy streets to celebrate a life well lived, sashaying to the sound of tom-toms and whooping as a traditional second-line parade worked its way through the Tremé district. Born Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. on November 20, 1941 (his stage name taken from Dr John Montaine, a witchdoctor of African descent), he was a man of multiple guises. Known as Mac or Reb…

the DIRT Classic Rock Masters Lost Forever? Universal dispute extent of ‘secret’ storage fire. GETTY SOME OF THE BIGGEST-selling artists in popular music are up in arms, wondering how it can be possible that it took more than a decade to discover, through media reports, the possibility that their priceless, irreplaceable master recordings have destroyed in a fire. The New York Times recently published a list of more than 800 acts signed or affiliated to Universal Records potentially affected by a fire at a Hollywood-based building in 2008. It was originally believed that archives which housed music dating from the 1940s up to the 2000s were undamaged. The newspaper alleges that Universal Music massively underplayed the significance of the fire, and that up to 500,000 master recordings made for famous…

NEWS Alice Cooper has denied reports that he has a death pact with his wife of 45 years, Sheryl Goddard. The Mirror quoted Cooper as saying: “Whenever it does happen, we are going to go together.” Now he says: “Neither of us has a suicide pact. We have a life pact. And besides, I’m booked through 2028, so…” Metallica donated £40,000 to a homeless charity before their recent gig in Manchester and repeated the gesture at London’s Twickenham Stadium, handing over cheques for £24,000 to two separate charities – City Harvest London and Magic Breakfast – via their non-profit All Within My Hands Foundation. The Cult are to mark the 30th anniversary of their album Sonic Temple with the release of a new, expanded edition on September 13. They also…

AUNT MARY Loaded, Philips, Norway 1972. £800+ (with poster). Riches from the rock underground Aunt Mary are one of the most popular names in the history of Norwegian progressive rock. Formed in the late 60s, they signed a deal with the Danish arm of Polydor and released their excellent self titled debut album in 1970. The sound was groovy, post-psychedelic rock merging into early progressive, featuring tasteful use of Hammond organ, flute and distorted harmonica. With 1972’s Loaded they’d progressed to a formula very much of its time, and which still sounds great today. Hard rock elements are more to the fore, with progressive twists and turns adding to the overall allure. While by no means in the same league as Deep Purple, they displayed a lot of similar characteristics.…

the DIRT RAW POWER Game On! Arcade cabinets bring back retro-gaming the way it’s meant to be played. FOR MANY PEOPLE of a certain age, there was a period in the 70s when pubs were important for something other than drinking alcohol and pouring coins into the jukebox to listen to banging rock tracks that you rarely heard on the radio. This was the age of the arcade game, a time when people would happily spend all evening in a pub all without buying a single drink, preferring instead to spend their money playing videogames such as Space Invaders, Asteroids or, for the less space-obsessed, Pac-Man and the like, on huge machines that felt like the future had beamed into your local. You couldn’t have one of these objects of…

NEWS Former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler was hospitalised after allegedly stabbing himself in the stomach. The circumstances surrounding the incident have not been revealed. Dave ‘Snake’ Sabo has snubbed Sebastian Bach’s invitation to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Skid Row’s self-titled debut. Singer and solo artist Bach had proposed that the original members should tour again, but in a TV interview guitarist Sabo insisted: “I’m working with my [own] band,” and then declining the offer, adding: “This is Skid Row and this is what I do.” Uriah Heep play a oneoff headline show at KK’s Steel Mill, the Wolverhampton venue owned by ex-Priest Priest guitarist KK Downing, on December 7. Special guests at the show are Diamond Head. The long-running Stairway To Heaven legal case is set to…

Track By Track WHAT IS AND WHAT SHOULD NEVER BE Page, Plant What Is And What Should Never Be was another song Led Zeppelin initially worked on in April 1969 at Olympic. Further overdubs took place in June at Mayfair Studios and Groove Studios in New York. Lyrically it was alleged to refer to an on-tour female liaison – it’s an early example of Plant’s songwriting abilities. The semi-whispered verses are reminiscent of Julie Driscoll’s version of Donovan’s Season of The Witch. The track is also notable for the flanging vocal effects and powerful stereo separation on the fade out. Page had now switched from the Telecaster to the Gibson Les Paul for recording and on-stage performances. ’I’d done a lot of that type of panning and phasing with Jimi…

Track By Track MOBY DICK Bonham, Jones, Page John Bonham’s percussion showcase took shape on Zeppelin’s second US tour when it was known as Pat’s Delight (a reference to the drummer’s wife). “I remember being at the side of the stage at one of the earliest gigs and watching Bonzo tear through his drum solo,” recalled former Led Zeppelin tour manager Richard Cole of that early version. “I turned to John Paul and said, ‘This guy is so good!’ Jonesy, whose dad was a professional musician, just grinned back at me. Bonzo really was an extraordinary drummer.” The recording took place at Mystic Studios in May 1969 with further work at Mirror Sound in Los Angeles and Mayfair Studios in New York. It was mixed at A&R in New York.…

THE ⋆CLASSIC⋆ ROCK INTERVIEW SAMMY HAGAR At the age of 71, The Red Rocker can look back on an extraordinarily successful life in music – solo, with Montrose, Van Halen, Chickenfoot and more – and outside music – tequila multimillionaire, bar and restaurant chain owner… and today he still has “more fun than anybody on the planet”. Interview: Dave Everley Sammy Hagar decided to grab hold of life a long time ago, and he hasn’t let go since. Even at 71, the singer/guitarist/tequila magnate/alien abductee has enough energy to power America’s entire Western seaboard. “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me,” he says. “But I plan on making it to a hundred, so I’ll be the oldest living rock star on the planet some day.” That’s a…

Michael Hutchence/INXS Mystify: A Musical Journey With Michael Hutchence PETROL/UMG Soundtrack to documentary on the late frontman. It’s a perennial bugbear for bands with charismatic singers that they’re sometimes regarded as little more than backing musicians for the star of the show. In the years after Michael Hutchence’s death in November 1997, the remaining five members of INXS did their best to prove otherwise, and had intermittent success alongside a succession of other vocalists. But the ghost of a great frontman casts a hell of a shadow, and rock’n’roll doesn’t half love a poster boy who can never grow old. This double album of Hutchence and INXS rarities and demos (the soundtrack to the documentary movie) shows that there was a good reason why Hutch stole the limelight in the…

REVIEWS LIVE! Words: Stephen Dalton, Polly Glass, Danni Leivers Photos: Kevin Nixon, Derek Bremner ‘With a line-up this stacked, you pull on the wellies and plough in.’ Download Festival Donington Park, Leicestershire From rock and metal to electro-rave and disco-rock, Donington’s 2019 knees-up has something for fans of all heavy music. FRIDAY ★Another year, another ‘Drownload’. The weather forecast is miserable and the mud is biblical, but with a lineup this stacked, the only thing to do is pull on the wellies and plough right in. Eighties rockers Tesla kick things off on the main stage with 30 minutes of spandex-clad sleaze that gives plenty of lungs in the field a good workout. Blackberry Smoke are about the least ‘metal’ band here today, but they fill their set with Dixie…

LIVE! Metallica Twickenham Stadium The state of the soulless stadium art. ★The WorldWired tour hits the capital, and Metallica downsize a stadium show in style. Blame the soulless stadium venue, maybe, but at first on Metallica’s return to London, they resemble four remote figures walking around on scaffolding while flickering video footage plays either side. We lap up Ride The Lightning and Sad But True but something’s missing. And at first, when they decamp to the lower stage for Rob and Kirk’s covers spot, we remained unmoved – a reading of Iron Maiden’s Killers is received with mild bafflement (did Eddie die, and rise from the grave etc, for this?). But then they remain down on the small stage and things seem to step up in both intimacy and intensity…

This month’s contributors SAM WILLIAMS “This isn’t the first time I’ve recreated the artwork for LZII,” says Magictorch’s Sam, who illustrated our cover. “As a Zep-obsessed 15-year-old and armed with my trusty pencils I set about copying it for a cassette I had. It was a moderate success!” Next up, Sam will indulge his twin passions of outer space and music as he creates artwork for the Space Rocks festival. STEVE NEWMAN Steve is a freelance designer who has contributed to many music publications over the years. When he’s not busily designing the next exciting feature or topping up his cup of tea, you can find him at home under the command of his two cats and obeying his dog’s every demand for food and attention… Or taking a sneaky…

RIP Thank you and good night. Gary Duncan September 4, 1946 – June 29, 2019 The 72-year-old vocalist with Quicksilver Messenger Service, Duncan suffered a seizure and failed to recover after falling into a coma. Born Gary Ray Grubb, Duncan and fellow guitarist John Cippolina helped to define the sound of the influential psychedelic rock band during the 60s. He had been performing again in Quicksilver Messenger Service since 2006. Jerry Carrigan September 13, 1943 – June 22, 2019 Alabama-born Carrigan found fame during the 60s as part of the Muscle Shoals rhythm section and played drums for artists including Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Tony Joe White, JJ Cale and Jerry Lee Lewis. He was also inducted to the Country Music Hall Of Fame. Cause of death is yet to…

NEWS Status Quo issue their 33rd album, Backbone, on September 6 via EarMusic. Talking about the band’s first album without Rick Parfitt, who died in 2016, Francis Rossi says: “I wasn’t sure I had another album in me, but I couldn’t be more proud of Backbone. I hope the fans love it, but you can’t please everyone and I’m not going to start trying to now.” Dan McCafferty is to release his first solo album since retiring from Nazareth in 2013. The singer’s first new music of his own since Into The Ring in 1987, Last Testament is available on October 18 via EarMusic. It includes a guest vocal appearance from McCafferty’s former Nazareth bandmate Pete Agnew on the track Sunshine. Monster Magnet have been forced to cancel this summer’s…

SOUND AND VISION Videogames soundtracks – the new sampler albums. When Percy Sledge’s 60s hit When A Man Loves A Woman soundtracked a Levi’s TV ad in the 80s, the re-released single shot to UK No.2. Which showed that advertising, as well as getting a song played in a blockbuster film, was just as important – if not more so – than getting heavy rotation on radio. These days you’ll find labels scrambling to get their artists’ music on videogames soundtracks for the same reason, and those artists can suddenly see their back catalogue flying off the shelves. As just one example, the Guitar Hero series likely did wonders for the career of, among others, Motörhead, Ted Nugent, Bush, The Cult, Danzig and Warrant.…

Live COPPER COVERED The cover art on Live’s album Throwing Copper is a painting titled Sisters Of Mercy, by Scottish artist Peter Howson. It has been suggested that the painting depicts a group of prostitutes urging a man holding a bible to throw himself off a cliff. But Howson explained to Scottish newspaper The Herald: “The man in the painting is blind, and he is troubled because there is no one to guide him. He is clutching a red bible, trying to find sanctuary in the cliff-edge church, but that is now derelict. Finally, he will be led over the edge and fall to his doom. The girls do not care and it is all a bit of fun for them. “Obviously this is not my most optimistic creation, but…

Track By Track THE LEMON SONG Page, Plant, Jones, Bonham, Burnett This track was originally credited to Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham but claims by ARC Music, the copyright holders of Killing Floor, a song written and recorded by Howlin’ Wolf, were quick to reclaim it. They argued that on Led Zeppelin II, Wolf’s composition, written under his real name Chester Burnett, appeared under the title The Lemon Song and was credited as a group composition. An out-of-court settlement was agreed, and for a period UK copies listed the track as being titled Killing Floor on the insistence of publishers Jewel Music. It later reverted to The Lemon Song with a credit for the group and Burnett. The Lemon Song was cut at Mystic Studios in Los Angeles in May…

Track By Track LIVING LOVING MAID (SHE’S JUST A WOMAN) Page, Plant Another track from the Morgan Studios sessions in June 1969, Jimmy used a Gibson Les Paul to knock out what the band always considered to be something of a production-line filler. However, this tight, hookladen song found much favour on the radio, and when Whole Lotta Love finished its chart run in America, Living Loving Maid was flipped over to become an A-side in its own right. It then climbed to No.65 on the Billboard chart. On US FM radio stations it became a playlist favourite being frequently sequenced after Heartbreaker (as on the album). The song is rumoured to be about one of their early, persistent West Coast groupies. Some early UK pressings of Led Zeppelin II…

Track By Track BRING IT ON HOME Dixon Bring it On Home was the product of on-the-run visits to studios during their second North American tour in 1969. This included recording at Mystic in Los Angeles and a session on May 10 at R&D Studios in Vancouver. The latter studio referred to as The Hut played host to a vocal and a harmonica overdub engineered by Douglas Gyseman. In the evening they played a date at the PNE Agrodome. Although originally credited to Page/Plant, the intro was a blatant cover of Rice Miller aka Sonny Boy Williamson’s 1963 arrangement of Bring It On Home issued on the Chess album Real Folk Blues. Another Willie Dixon composition, in 1972 Dixon successfully sued them and future pressings listed his name as the…

Essential Playlist J’ai Fait Une Promesse Serenades The Silent Enigma (Orchestral) The Silent Enigma Angelica Eternity Fragile Dreams Alternative 4 Empty Alternative 4 Parisienne Moonlight Judgement Release A Fine Day To Exit Harmonium A Natural Disaster Pulled Under At 2000 Metres A Second A Natural Disaster Thin Air We’re Here Because We’re Here Dreaming Light We’re Here Because We’re Here Kingdom Falling Deeper Untouchable, Pts 1 & 2 Weather Systems The Storm Before The Calm Weather Systems The Lost Song Pt 1 & 2 Distant Satellites Springfield The Optimist Back To The Start The Optimist…

INSIDE THE WORLD OF ROCK the DIRT Iommi And Butler Celebrate Sabs At 50 Home Of Metal exhibition pays tribute to the genre’s founding fathers. THE BLACK SABBATH – 50 Years Exhibition has opened in the band’s home city, Birmingham. Part of the Home Of Metal project, a celebration of Brum as the birthplace of heavy metal, the collection pulls together items and memorabilia loaned by the band members, including stage props, instruments, gig posters, handwritten lyrics and some of their most famous stage outfits, as well as a display of more than 3,000 photos of Sabbath fans from across the world. It runs at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on Edmund Street until September 29. The exhibition focuses almost exclusively on the group’s original line-up (the decades spent…

NEWS Brian Wilson has postponed an American tour due to mental health issues. The Beach Boys’ co-founder, 77, was due to commence a run of five shows on June 14, but issued a statement explaining that he’d been feeling “mentally insecure” recently and was heading home to Los Angeles to rest and consult with doctors. Al Barrow has left Magnum. His replacement is Dennis Ward of Pink Cream 69 and Unisonic. Magnum are currently working on a new studio album due for release early 2020. Cats In Space release a single in September. It’s a completely re-recorded version of September Rain, recorded with new vocalist Mark Pascall. Brian Johnson of AC/DC and Joe Walsh of the Eagles have been working together. Guitarist Walsh recently posted a photograph of the pair…

David Gilmour Gifts $21m To Charity Floyd man donates guitar auction proceeds to ClientEarth. THE AUCTION OF 126 guitars owned by David Gilmour has shattered all known records, generating a total of $21,490,750 (£16 million). As previously reported, the Pink Floyd guitarist will be donating all monies raised to the ClientEarth charity. Although Gilmour’s fabled 1969 Black Strat – the guitar he played on Floyd albums including The Wall, Wish You Were Here and The Dark Side Of The Moon, as well as his solo albums – had carried an estimate of between $100,000 and $150,000, the instrument sold for $3,975,000 – a record for any guitar – at the auction at Christie’s in New York. Of the decision to pass on the huge sum, Gilmour said: “The global climate…

Q&A Chris Robinson The bandleader on their new album, streaming services, young-man anger and revisiting Black Crowes songs. Words: Bill DeMain “We wanted it to sound like summer,” Chris Robinson says of Servants Of The Sun, his band The Brotherhood’s new album. And indeed it’s all warm grooves wrapped around lyrics verdant with natural imagery. This summer, Robinson’s “farm-to-table hippie band” set out on a tour that will take them through the US and Europe. After that there will follow a year-long hiatus. We caught up with the charismatic frontman at a stop-off in Woodstock. What’s going on in Woodstock? I have a little country band called the Green Leaf Rustlers. We just played here last night at Levon Helm Studios. We do Webb Pierce, Lefty Frizzell, old Waylon. But…

Track By Track WHOLE LOTTA LOVE Page, Bonham, Plant, Jones, Dixon Page initially came up with the classic Whole Lotta Love riff at his Pangbourne home in the late summer of 1968. Some nine months later in April 1969, it was this song that kick-started the sessions for Led Zeppelin II at Olympic Studios in Barnes. The song originally took shape around Page’s killer three-note riff with its octave E conclusion, and a descending chord structure which made use of a backwards echo, an effect that the guitarist had first used on a Mickie Most session. Further overdubs were added at A&M Studios in Hollywood. The final work on it took place at a marathon mixing session at New York’s A&R Studios on August 29 and 30. Overseeing this session…

Track By Track THANK YOU Page, Plant Recorded at Morgan Studios in June 1969, this emotional love song to his wife brought out the best in Robert Plant, producing one of his finest vocal performances. Elsewhere in the arrangement, John Paul Jones excelled on Hammond organ, and Jimmy Page complemented it all with some delicate picking using his ’67 Vox Phantom. The chord structure of the song bears a resemblance to the Traffic song Dear Mr Fantasy. Lyrically, some of the lines draw from the Jimi Hendrix track If Six Was Nine. A further reference is Ben E King’s Stand By Me with its ‘the mountains should crumble to the sea’ lyric. Thank You made its debut in the set at Birmingham’s Town Hall on their January 1970 UK tour.…

Track By Track RAMBLE ON Page, Plant Another track that was laid down on the run at Mystic Studios and Mirror Sound in Los Angeles in May 1969 and Groove Studios and Juggy Sound in New York in June. And with Ramble On, with its Tolkien-inspired lyrical content, here enters the ethereal Page and Plant. Plant references characters from JRR Tolkein’s The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. It remains a vivid illustration of the light-and-shade dynamism that would characterise so much of Zeppelin’s best work. It slips effortlessly from quiet, mournful passages into an uplifting chorus, and Page’s overdubbed interweaving Gibson run is an early attempt at the guitar army assault that would become his trademark. “Ramble On for me, well that’s all about the bass line,” says…

50 BLUES ROCK SONGS YOU MUST HEAR BEFORE YOU DIE As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of a Led Zeppelin classic, we take a look at some of the most brilliant blues-rock tracks from other artists – some of them expected, and some surprises. Words: Henry Yates & Polly Glass Blues rock lies at the heart of rock’n’roll. Ever since the likes of Albert King injected electricity and volume into the music of their forefathers, it’s been an essential part of any rock lover’s vocabulary. As a sub-genre it has prevailed and reinvented itself for generations, where others have fallen by the wayside. Sometimes it can appear boring, even a little ‘worthy’ – usually when artists reduce it to an exercise in slick, purist boxticking. So it’s worth taking the…

SAVOY BROWN GOLDEN BROWN With almost sixty ex-members and forty albums, Savoy Brown were the British blues rock band that found success in America. We caught up with founder Kim Simmonds on a rare UK trip. Words: Dave Ling GETTY Having understood during their first tour there in January 1969 that America would always be more appreciative of Savoy Brown than at home in Britain, it was only a matter of time before Kim Simmonds emigrated there. Since he did, in 1981, the Welshman’s visits to his adopted home city of London have been infrequent. There’s no denying the fact that Savoy Brown neglected the British market, although it was more through necessity than choice. Then again, from marshalling the band’s revolving lineup to a variety of more personal crises…

RICHARD JOBSON THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO RICHARD JOBSON Punk singer, TV presenter, author, critic, film director… The Skids frontman has sustained a phenomenal creative output since the 70s (and met some “really stupid musicians”). This is what he’s learned. Interview: Ian Fortnam As vocalist with Skids, Richard Jobson has enjoyed 10 chart singles (including the 1979 Top 10 hit Into The Valley) and made five albums (including Burning Cities in 2018), but his musical endeavours continued with The Armoury Show (who are set to perform intimate dates later this year) and albums of poetry with musical accompaniment from Virginia Astley. He’s also been a television presenter and film reviewer, written and directed five feature films (including New Town Killers and 16 Years Of Alcohol) and, among myriad other creative endeavours,…

Raven Over The Top! The Neat Albums 1981-84 HNE From Geordie boys, a very big noise. In the mid-90s, at the height of Britpop, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich became obsessed with Oasis. He loved to hang around Noel and Liam Gallagher, impressed by their “not-giving-a-fuck vibes”, as he put it. But back in 1983, before Metallica’s ascent to superstardom, he was rolling with a different pair of Gallagher brothers – and these guys were not making a career out of ripping off The Beatles. On a 31-date US tour in the summer of ’83, Metallica opened for Raven, one of the most powerful and original bands to emerge from the scene that had such a strong influence on Ulrich: the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. A trio from Newcastle –…

LIVE! Rock The Coast Words: Fraser Lewry Photos: Irene Serrano ‘Rock The Coast’s slogan is “Horns. Sun. Beach.” It feels right.’ Marenostrum Castle Park, Fuengirola, Málaga, Spain The (literally) hottest new festival on the block enjoys a brilliant first year, with scorching sets, good times and blue skies all weekend. ★The news alert pings at 10.13am on Friday. “Punters abandon Download Festival before it’s started due to rain and mud,” it says. “Isle of Wight festival hit by tornado.” Over 1,000 miles away on the Southern Spanish coast in Malaga, the first Rock The Coast festival is about to kick off, and the weather is just fine. The setting is exquisite, with two stages backing onto the Mediterranean, a hilltop castle built by Abd al-Rahman III in 956 AD that…

The Soundtrack Of My Life Actor/musician DAVID DUCHOVNY on the special records, artists and gigs that are of lasting significance to him. Interview: Fraser Lewry “Van Morrison is unique. He treats his voice like a musical instrument.” Earlier this year, David Duchovny played an 11-date European tour, ending with a show at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Yes, that David Duchovny, most famous for portraying paranormal investigator Fox Mulder in the hit TV series The X-Files, and Hank Moody in the equally successful Californification, who now has a parallel career as a musician. And he’s doing rather well. After picking up the guitar for the first time in 2011 he’s released two albums, with the second, last year’s Every Third Thought, compared favourably to Wilco, R.E.M and Leonard Cohen. And unlike…