Folkjokeopus – McGoohan’s Blues

Posted on by Opher

Folkjokeopus was the showcase for McGoohan’s Blues – one of Roy’s masterpiece epics.

The debut album had shown great versatility and ambition both in terms of lyric writing and music. Instead of a straightforward solo acoustic album, the like of which we were hearing at his early gigs at Cousins and the small clubs, we were treated to a range of styles from psychedelic phasing on China Girl to out and out heavy metal on Committed.

The second offering was even more adventurous. There were no holds barred. We had poetry reading and the first of Roy’s sprawling epics with Circle.

By the time we were moving to the third album things had progressed even further. Roy was not courting commercial success even though he had by now firmly established himself as a force on the Underground scene. In many ways he was still finding his way.

I see this as a major experimental phase with Roy trying out different things – many of which would become cul-de-sacs. He was not only influenced by the audacity of The Incredible String Band but was still in the thrall of Jack Kerouac and Beat poetry.

He’d signed to Liberty and they’d retained the producer Shel Talmy – both of which were to prove problematical.

Shel had been used to creating hit singles for the likes of the Kinks and Who.

Liberty thought Roy had commercial potential.

Roy was not interested in playing that game. For him it was all about the integrity of the music. The songs he was writing did not conform to the two and a half minute pop treatment. He was still trying out different instruments and style. He fell out with Shel so that the album was basically produced as first takes, live performances in the studio. Shel was struggling with how to turn McGoohan’s Blues and She’s The One into commercial projects and Roy would not compromise. Liberty were MIA. The battle of the recording sessions took its toll. The range of instruments and styles were Roy’s forages into giving full rein to his creative juices.

I remember Roy introducing McGoohan’s Blues at its first outing – the Prisoner being about the only decent thing on telly at the time and very much a product of its time. Compulsory viewing. Sitting there in the gloom of a small club hearing McGoohan’s Blues for the first time was an experience that sticks with me. I was blown away by the scope, depth, poetry and meaning coupled to that musical intensity. I had never heard anything as powerful. The only thing that comes near for me is Dylan’s It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) and Buffy St Marie’s ‘My Country It Is Of Thy People You’re Dying’ both of which were epics of intense emotional impact.

At this time McGoohan’s and She’s The One were the centre pieces of Roy’s live performances. Both delivered with passion and incredible power.

I’ve searched for a bootleg from this period (without success) because in my mind nothing subsequently came near to the power of those early days. Roy was on fire.

The anticipation for the album mounted. I could not wait to hear the recorded versions of the stuff we were hearing live. It was going to be monumental.

Roy, at this time, had a foot both sides of a divide. He was gaining in popularity with long queues outside his gigs, being discovered by the media and being heralded as an emerging star. Roy was busy sabotaging all that. He tended to alienate the media and viewed commercial success with suspicion. He was determined to do it his way or no way.

The album cover was designed by Roy and serendipity. He wanted the album to be a diamond not a standard square. Liberty made it a square and Roy entered into a lengthy battle to have his diamond. Even at the end it isn’t quite right – just a little off. He portrayed himself eyes shut with face whitened and his pet monkey on his shoulder – the jester. Was he taking himself seriously? Yes he was. He was throwing the fireworks into the court.

The back cover sat on his sitting room table for friends to scribble on.

The release was frustratingly delayed and delayed (because of that cover) until the anticipation was unbearable.

I finally got it home and excitedly plonked it on the record player. I was disappointed. I wanted McGoohan’s to be perfect. It wasn’t. Instead of enhancing the power of the track I thought that the production (Roy doing 1 take in the studio with the addition of genius musicians like Nicky Hopkins) did not quite capture the passion of those electrifying live performances. But that was probably just me and the unrealistic expectations.

For me that album was a watershed and the transition to a brilliant set of albums.

I still play it regularly and love it – but I can’t help wondering what it might have sounded like with Pete Jenner at the helm and Harvest as the label.

That’s me with my original copy. It hasn’t changed. I haven’t changed too much inside.

The Beatles White Album – Extract

Posted on by Opher

  The Beatles White Album – Extract

I was almost the right age for the Beatles. A couple of years older would have been good, but I can’t complain. I started getting into rock and pop at the age of ten when an older friend, Clive Hansell, introduced me to the delights of Adam Faith and Buddy Holly. That was back in 1960. Over the next few years, I extended my appreciation to include the wonders of the Shadows, Eddie Cochran, the Everly Brothers and Little Richard, with a smattering of Elvis. I liked my music fast and rockin’. Even at the age of twelve the likes of Bobby Vee, Bobby Darin and Bobby Ridell sounded too tame. The charts were far too poppy.

   By the time I was thirteen I was ripe for something to explode and explode it did.

   On the day that the album Please Please Me came out I was more than ready. Somehow ‘Love Me Do’ had passed me by but it hadn’t gone unnoticed by my mate Tony Hum. He’d gone out and bought the album the day it came out. On that fateful day my life changed forever, Tony took me into his room, we sat on the bed and he ceremoniously placed the album on his Dansette record player, lowered the stylus and the universe shifted.

   ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ stormed out. My ears were blasted with the rawest, most exhilarating sound I had ever experienced. That was it. I was hooked. We were there all afternoon playing the album over and over as I absorbed every track. The most exciting afternoon of my life.

   The next day I went and bought the album and ‘From Me To You’. After that the world shifted. I bought every Beatles album and single on the day of release. Still got them all!

   The Beatles formed the backdrop to my youth. They grew and developed and I grew with them. From a spotty fourteen-year-old, feasting on the pop charts; a lad with greased back hair, skin-tight jeans and sideburns, who had a liking for blues, folk, Dylan and beat groups, I grew into a Kerouac-drenched long-haired denizen of the London underground scene. I moved on from the Yardbirds, Animals and Stones to Roy Harper, Hendrix, Floyd, Beefheart and Country Joe & the Fish. As I progressed from rock and beat to psychedelia and acid, the Beatles were right there with me, leading the way.

   At the age of eighteen I was an aging raver frequenting UFO, Middle Earth and Les Cousins. Sgt Peppers sat side by side with Fleetwood Mac, Notorious Byrd Brothers, Drop Out Boogie, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Axis Bold As Love, Strange Days, Come Out Fighting Ghenghis Smith, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, Forever Changes and Buffalo Springfield.

   As I say, a couple of years older might have been advantageous. I was somehow too young to get to see the Beatles live. As a kid I had no transport and it always seemed too big a thing to actually go to a Beatles concert. They were too special. That seemed unattainable and never even crossed my mind. By the time I bought my first motorbike at the age of sixteen, in 1965, they were coming to the end of touring. I’d missed my chance.

The Beatles: White Album – Rock Classics: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523331: Books

Excerpt – Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics

Posted on by Opher

Excerpt – Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics

Introduction

I can confidently state that Bringing It All Back Home was without doubt one of the most important albums in the entire history of rock music. I will explain why.

   Not only was it ground-breaking in the way it fused elements of blues, folk, rock and poetry, but it was also incredibly influential on the sound and writing of the major acts of the time. Without Bob Dylan and the album Bringing It All Back Home there would not have been the later albums of hugely important bands such as the Beatles, Stones or Beach Boys, or, at least, they would not have been as experimental and adventurous. Neither would we have had the incredible bodies of work of major singer-songwriters like Neil Young, Roy Harper or Bruce Springsteen. The sixties underground scene would not have happened with its explosion of styles from psychedelic and heavy metal to prog rock, country and blues, its anti-war and civil rights protest and complex poetic  songs. This album changed the face of rock music.

   The album came out at a crucial point in time. This was 1965; the midpoint of the sixties, a turning point, and Bob Dylan was the fulcrum on which rock music turned. Before Bringing It All Back Home we had rock, r&b and blues-based beat music (as with the Beatles and Stones) and lyrically more sophisticated folk music. After Bringing It All Back Home we had a new world of possibilities.

   Bringing It All Back Home opened up a theatre of opportunity by melding together the two distinctly different genres and in the process creating an entirely unique style of music, a different way of song writing, a different structure to popular music. New sounds, new ideas, new attitude; nothing would ever be the same.

Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523140: Books

Beatles White Album – Classic albums – excerpt

Posted on by Opher

Introduction

1968 and the winds of change were gathering pace. The first tsunami of psychedelia had swamped the scene, saturating everything in its acid-drenched glow. Everything was bright colours, kaftans, afghan waist coats, scarves and swirling paisley. A great surge of euphoria, optimism and possibility was rampant. Experimentation was in. The youth of the day were rising up to overthrow the conservative values of their parents, displacing the grey conformity and class structure with an anti-establishment defiance and radical outlook. This was the sixties revolution. It shot straight out of the feedback drenched music and poetic lyrics into art, fashion, design, film, magazines and philosophy. Hedonism was in. All things were possible. The war and rationing were a fading memory. I lost count of the number of times one of the ‘older generation’ disapprovingly told me that he’d fought a war for the likes of us. Not that we cared. War was a product of the old ways. This was the new age. We had different values. We were doing it differently. Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Keeping it real.

   The Beatles had already ridden the crest of that psychedelic tsunami with their majestic Sgt Peppers Lonely Heartsclub Band. Now was the time for the follow-up.

   Ethnic was in. Hitch-hiking was the mode. The whole world opened up. The hippie trail brought back the Moroccan incense, Indian fabrics and new rhythms, new instruments. Everything exploded.

   This was the time of equality and freedom. Careers were discarded. Long-hairs had formed a new culture. Instant recognition. Adopted slang from the world of Jazz where the black musicians had begun calling themselves ‘Man’ in response to the whites disparagingly calling them ‘Boy’. This was the time of openness and sharing – joints, food, a floor to sleep on, all to the background of ‘our’ music. This was the time of the album, of what the media called ‘Adult Orientated Rock’. Except that it wasn’t adult orientated at all; it was aimed at us, youth; it expressed our values and feelings.

Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics Paperback 

Posted on by Opher

One of the most pivotal albums in the evolution of rock music, few other recordings have had more impact than the 1965 Bob Dylan classic, Bringing It All Back Home. In the mid-sixties, rock music was about to explode into psychedelia, prog and jazz fusion. Meanwhile, Bob Dylan had made an enormous impact on songwriting with his first four all-acoustic albums. He had created a different way of writing songs, by embracing themes such as civil rights, anti-war protests and social issues, which lifted the subject matter from teenage love songs to serious poetic works of art, rife with symbolism. But with Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan shot his lyrics through with surreal hard-edged beat poetry while the music contained both acoustic songs and blues-based loud electric rock. It alienated him from many of his peers in the folk community but nonetheless contains classic cuts like ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ ‘Maggie’s Farm’ and ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’. Dylan had opened the door to experimentation. The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, The Doors, Hendrix, Pink Floyd and Cream all listened and responded. In its wake, Songwriting rose to new heights with few boundaries. After Bringing It All Back Home, music was forever changed.

The Classic Album Series – The Beatles White Album

Posted on by Opher

The idea behind the classic album series is to take an in-depth look at a particularly important rock album. To look into all the factors that went into it, how it was made, the things that influenced it and a full inspection of the cover, tracks and production.

Sonicbond press allowed me to choose which albums I wanted to do. I chose Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home and The Beatles White Album.

Two immensely important, pivotal albums that I knew a lot about. I’ve lived with them most of my life. Albums I had great fun researching. Even though I thought I knew them inside out I still managed to dig up a wealth of interesting information.

The BEATLES WHITE ALBUM book is out tomorrow!

The Beatles: White Album – Rock Classics: Amazon.co.uk: Opher Goodwin: 9781789523331: Books

Three Days until the BEATLES!!

Posted on by Opher

The greatest album of all time! The book that tells you all about it!

Three days to go!

Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home: Rock Classics – part of the Intro

Posted on by Opher

Introduction

I can confidently state that Bringing It All Back Home is, without a doubt, one of the most important albums in the entire history of rock music. I will explain why.

   Not only was it ground-breaking in the way that it fused elements of blues, folk, rock and poetry, but it was also incredibly influential on the sound and writing of the major acts of the time. Without Bob Dylan and the album Bringing It All Back Home, there would not have been the impetus for bands such as The Beatles, The Stones or The Beach Boys to later construct hugely influential albums, or, at least, they would not have been as experimental and adventurous. Neither would we have had the incredible bodies of work by major singer-songwriters like Neil Young, Roy Harper or Bruce Springsteen. The sixties underground scene would not have happened without its explosion of styles, from psychedelic and heavy metal to prog rock, country and blues, its anti-war and civil rights protest and complex poetic songs. This album changed the face of rock music. ‘Artists from the Beatles to Bruce Springsteen have cited Bob Dylan as one of the most important influences on their music making and songwriting, noting that Dylan helped them see the possibilities of a different kind of lyric writing that was more intimate, personal, and autobiographical than what they found in early Rock and Roll songs.’ Stephanie Mooneyhan

   Paul McCartney said: ‘I’ll never be able to write like Dylan. He thinks of these fantastic word combinations. It doesn’t matter if you get lost in one of his compositions, you can get hung up on just two words – the man is a poet.’

   The album came out at a crucial point in time. This was 1965, the midpoint of the sixties, a turning point, and Bob Dylan was the fulcrum on which rock music turned. Before Bringing It All Back Home, we had rock, R&B and blues-based beat music (as with The Beatles and The Stones) and, lyrically, more sophisticated folk music. After Bringing It All Back Home, we had a new world of possibilities. The album opened up a theatre of opportunity by melding together the two distinctly different genres, and, in the process, creating an entirely unique style of music, a different way of songwriting and a different structure to popular music. With new sounds, new ideas, and a new attitude, nothing would ever be the same.

   The new, polka-dotted, shade-wearing, long, curly-haired, skinny-trousered, booted pop star, with a white strat hanging around his neck, cut a mean figure. Just like James Dean or Marlon Brando, he oozed charisma – confident, articulate and uncompromising. Rock music had a new rebel, and this time, he had a cause.

   This wasn’t just a new sound; it was a new genre, a new style, a new vibe and a new culture. Bob Dylan was matchless. He put poetic lyrics to a novel kind of rock music and coupled that with style and attitude. The result was devastating. In the process, he blew both worlds apart, sent the music media into a spin and broke through into the world of serious academic consideration. The sober world of the adult mainstream media was beginning to take note. What had been considered a juvenile entertainment of no intrinsic worth was now being written about, reviewed and discussed in pillars of the establishment, such as The Times. Rock music had come of age. His poetry was analysed in universities. His views were taken seriously.

   Where Robert Johnson was fabled to have stood at the crossroads at midnight, selling his soul to the devil in exchange for becoming the best blues musician on the planet, Bob Dylan chose to stand on a motorway intersection in the stark noon sun daring all the gods and devils in the universe to take him on. He required no divine intervention.

  New things do not come out of nowhere. They ferment out of various sources, slowly bubbling and fuming in nascent juices until they burst forth in naked inspiration. Thus, it was with Dylan’s new baby. He gathered the ingredients, allowed them to stew and marinade until they were ripe, then boldly, gleefully and even recklessly, thrust this new progeny into the spotlight.

   Into the gumbo soup of Dylan’s electric storm, the various ingredients had been brewing for years. All that was required was the spark of genius to ignite the inferno. Like Shakespeare’s witches, he threw in the ingredients: the eye of rock ‘n’ roll, the newt of folk, the heart of Beat poetry and the glands of social comment. Hubble bubble toil and trouble, rhythms click and poems double. Out of this cauldron of fusion, something vital and highly original emerged to send rock music, and youth culture, reeling into the latter years of the sixties revolution. Dylan was the catalyst and Bringing It All Back Home was the vehicle.

Today’s Music to keep me IiiinnnnSsssaaaNnnnNeee – The Byrds – Notorious Byrd Brothers

Posted on by Opher

This is my favourite Byrds album. I always go back to it! It’s getting another airing today!

Today’s Music to keep me IiiiNnnnNssssaaaaaNNnnnEE – The Who – Who’s Next

Posted on by Opher

I felt like a dollop of good hard rock today. You can’t get much harder than the Who. Who’s Next is my favourite album of theirs (closely followed by Live In Leeds which should have been Live In Hull).

So here it is some REAL ROCK!!