Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Beat street

This week at Planet M

Ten Years After: Live at the Fillmore East

EMI/Chrysalis, Double CD set, Rs. 545

I had occasion to review a greatest hits compilation (Goin' Home) from this superlative late '60s-early '70s British blues-rock outfit in MetroPlus, April 13, 2005).

As I noted then, their 11-minute version of "I'm Going Home" was a smash hit at the Woodstock festival in 1970 and cemented their international following and made them a much sought-after concert attraction.

Well, here's another delectable serving of live Ten Years After with their original line-up: Alvin Lee (guitar and vocals), Chick Churchill (piano/organ), Leo Lyons (bass) and Ric Lee (drums). Prior to this engagement (February 26, 27 and 28, 1970), they had gigged at music promoter Bill Graham's Fillmore East Auditorium (New York) twice before: in August and September 1968. On the latter occasion, according to drummer Ric Lee's liner notes for this album, they had been greatly flattered by the presence of Jimi Hendrix in the audience. Also during that gig, bandleader Alvin Lee got his first taste of contractual legalities (American style) when the organisers prohibited him from spontaneous onstage musical jams with the supporting act (John Mayall and Mick Taylor).

Some of the tracks on these discs are TYA staples, and variously appear (in both live and studio versions) on other albums such as "Love Like a Man" and "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain" (on Cricklewood Green), "I'm Going Home" and "I Woke Up This Morning" (on Goin' Home), "Skoobly-oobly-doobob" (on Stonedhenge) the long jazzy Al Kooper composition "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes" (on Ten Years After), and of course "I'm Going Home" (one version on Undead and the turbocharged Woodstock version on Goin' Home). But like most of the great live rock acts of those days (Hendrix, Cream, Santana, Led Zeppelin, Allman Brothers or The Grateful Dead), TYA drew a lot of inspiration from jazz. So there were long instrumental jams with lots of improvisation, and two versions of the same song were rarely identical.

So for example, the last medley on disc one of this album ("Skoobly-Oobly-Doobob"/ "I Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes"/ "Extensions on One Chord") features a sudden digression into the opening bars of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love", something I hadn't heard in earlier versions. And it happens very smoothly and spontaneously, almost as though TYA suddenly mutated into Cream for a few minutes. Ric Lee gets a solo-drum workout on "The Hobbit", a track that is a tad longer than it should be (perhaps because the remaining band members took their time over their liquid/vaporous refreshments during this intermission). The live version of "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain" here is also different from the studio version on Cricklewood Green, and worth a listen for its more spaced-out mood.

On the second disc, the Willie Dixon/Sonny Boy Williamson track "Help Me" appears in a longer 16-minute version than the one on Ten Years After, featuring an extended instrumental jam with trademark Alvin Lee guitar pyrotechnics and gentle progression from a mellow blues to a thunderous culmination of '60s rock power-chord-crunching at its height. Similarly, TYA fans might want to weigh the merits of this version of "I'm Going Home" with the Woodstock version. (There's some nice bass hammering here on this one.) The eight-minute version of Dixon's classic "Spoonful" is also a rare not-to-be-found-elsewhere standout.

It is surprising that Chrysalis waited 30 years (till 2001) to release this classic album. The silver lining is that Jimi Hendrix's original sound engineer and electronic alter ego Eddie Kramer has digitally remastered this album (as he has been recently doing for the Hendrix catalogue). The results are fantastic, and the dowdy sound quality associated with '60s Fillmore East live recordings is exorcised.

The Animals: Animal Tracks

EMI, CD, Rs. 400

I talked of this vivacious '60s British Invasion band in my review of their compilation album (A's B's and EP's) in MetroPlus, November 3, 2003.

This is their second British album release (from May 1965), and dates back to the original Animals line-up which boasted the inimitable Alan Price on organ. (He left after this album's release to form The Alan Price Set later that year, to be replaced by Dave Rowberry). It is possibly closest to their blues/R&B roots in terms of material. Worth checking out are Eric Burdon's fantastic impersonation of Chuck Berry on their cover of his sombre ballad "How You've Changed". They rework a couple of Ray Charles tracks ("Hallelujah, I Love Her So" and "I Believe To My Soul"), and a Jimmy Reed classic "Bright Lights, Big City" — one of their more famous hits. The only original track here is "For Miss Caulker" (by Burdon), and the rest are covers. Yardbirds devotees might want to compare their version of Billy Boy Arnold's "I Ain't Got You" with the version here.

Most '60s British bands that professed R&B/blues had one weak link — their vocals. Their tinny voices couldn't capture the belting raw vocal delivery that was so essential to the genre. The two notable exceptions were Mick Jagger, but even more so Eric Burdon — whose voice could be easily mistaken for a black man's.

All in all, on this album the original Animals are all at the peak of their powers, and this is a classic album from a classic phase in their career.

VISHWAMBHAR PATI

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail