ROCK Sex tells a tale once upon a time in the West.
The Italian Western soundtracks by Ennio Morricone are among the coolest music ever made, and the most influential on all forms of music. Here's the surprising trail that led there.
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It begins with a traditional British Isles folk song called "Pretty Polly", a ballad about the murder of a young woman by a heartless @#%&er. Perhaps because of the misogynistic pall, other variations of the song arose expanding it with her ghost coming back to destroy him. The song, like all Euro-Folk music, immigrated into the Appalachian regions of America and pollinated through Folk, Country, Blues, and Bluegrass versions.
The People's Troubadour Woody Guthrie turned the general melody of the song into an epic anthem for migrant workers called "Pastures Of Plenty".
WOODIE GUTHRIE -"Pastures Of Plenty" (1941)
Ennio Morricone was a pop arranger in the early-'60s, and did a dramatic arrangement for this cover version by Italian singer Peter Tevis. The background vocals are almost certainly by I Cantori Moderni (The Modern Singers), and the twanging guitar by their leader, Alessandro Alessandroni.
PETER TEVIS, w/ Ennio Morricone -"Pastures Of Plenty" (1962)
A couple years later, as he began his career scoring films, Morricone was asked by director Sergio Leone to compose for his film A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964), a Western remake of Akira Kurasawa's wayward samurai film Yojimbo (1961).
Leone asked for a sound in the style of Dmitri Tiomkin, but when he heard a 45rpm of Tevis' song he was thunderstruck and insisted that it was the dynamic sound they needed.
The backing track then became the basis for the revolutionary Italian Western sound. Alessandro Alessandroni stepped up to the mike with his trademark haunting whistling. The "with the wind" background chant became what everyone interprets as "we can fight".
ENNIO MORRICONE -"A Fistful Of Dollars" (1964)
The Italian Western sound -galloping rhythms, hard twanging guitar, eerie whistles, monastic chants, triumphant Spanish horns, and ethereal arias- has had an endless impact on Rock'n'Soul music. Disciples include Blondie, Adam Ant, Wall Of Voodoo, Crime And The City Solution, Nick Cave, Pixies, Air, Muse, Calexico, Gnarls Barkley, Mike Patton, and Goldfrapp.
ROCK Sex connects the dots on 'How A Rare Song Changed The Music Industry'.
Today, the story of "You Showed Me".
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"You showed me how to say exactly what you say/ in that very special way."
THE BYRDS said the say and everyone's been resaying it ever since!
The song was written by Jim "Roger" McGuinn and Gene Clarke in the Folk days before the band. Recorded a few times, it became a loose song kind of lost in the margins. Here's the final band version with its upbeat early Beatles influence.
THE BYRDS -"You Showed Me" (rec. 1964; rel. 1969)
The Turtles first heard it when their producer played it for them on a broken harmonium which forced him to slow down his pace. They loved the eerie waltz quality of that and recorded this radically different and pivotal version with sleepy keys and bleary strings, not unlike a Lee Hazlewood production.
THE TURTLES -"You Showed Me" (1969)
As an interlude in their debut concept album, De La Soul sampled those memorable strings and accidentally changed the record industry.
Sampling had progressed from short riffs to entire passages from songs by the late-'80s, and artists who weren't getting credited or paid for their originals were getting furious. When The Turtles took De La Soul to court over the lack of permission to use their recording, it set the legal precedent for royalty payment and crediting of all artists for samples going forward.
DE LA SOUL -"Transmitting Live From Mars (Interlude)" (1989)
People drew battle lines at the time -artist vs. theft, Rock vs. HipHop- but culture ultimately doesn't care. While one side (Thesis) does something different than another side (Antithesis), everyone else tends to just combine the best elements of either (Synthesis) next. Ta da... Culture!
Going forward the influence of both The Turtles and De La Soul would mutate the song on along.
So, spurred by the De La song, Salt-n-Pepa extended it further into the HipHop world.
SALT-n-PEPA -"You Showed Me" (1990)
When The Lightning Seeds covered it, it retained The Turtles' elegant wooze along with the club beats of the HipHop versions. (As an aside, the band got their name by mis-hearing the Prince lyric, "Thunder drowns out what the lightning sees." Rather appropriate, in this relay context.)
THE LIGHTNING SEEDS -"You Showed Me" (1997)
U2 did essentially what De La had done but now through legal channels. They sample those ever-influential strings (at 1:00) in this pointed barb at the shallowness of popular culture.
U2 -"The Playboy Mansion" (1997)
Continuing this game of 'Telephone', here's LUTRICIA McNEAL retaining The Turtles tempo and strings with the pumping HipHop beats.
LUTRICIA McNEAL -"You Showed Me" (2002)
"Chain Of Gossips", Norman Rockwell (1948)
I say 'Telephone' because I have to wonder sometimes how many of the folks in the relay even remember the original Byrds version, or maybe even The Turtles.
But that's a lot of how the spreading of ideas works. You put your work out there and then its up to each person's reaction from then on.
That said, everything expansive is also cyclical. Hewing back to The Byrds' original version with the easy pacing of The Turtles, here's a lovely Folk interpretation.
THE WATSON TWINS -"You Showed Me" (2011)
If Bob Dylan had inspired The Byrds, here's their song inspiring his son.
ROCK Sex posts are about how everybody has a part to offer to the whole.
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Sometimes a song is a bit of an orgy of pop celebration. Meaning that it celebrates and refers to many other songs and artists in One Big Shout-Out!
Folk singer Don McLean's "American Pie" is a classic example. It's an emotional narrative spanning Rock'n'Roll from 1955 to 1970. Though the song was a full 8 minutes+, it was a huge hit because it chronicled the arc of the counterculture generation. It was also a lyrical mystery that pop fans loved to decipher.
The song's chronological narrative refers in symbolist terms to many great songs and events in the formation and arc of Rock'n'Roll.
Being a broad narrative it's open to interpretation. McLean seems to be contrasting innocent beginnings with hedonistic endings, more partial to early Rock'n'Roll and Folk, but less so to Psychedelia and lifestyle excesses. Conservatives can fold it into that shopworn narrative of dismissing the '60s generation using Altamont as an arbitrary capstone. Progressives can revel in the anarchic currents that ebb and flow amongst its creative players. Music fans can dig it for its metatext, its melody, and its sheer celebration.
Slice your own interpretation...
DON McLEAN -"American Pie" (1971)
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The Roots of American Pie
Here are songs that "American Pie" is referring to (specifically or generally) in its lyrical journey.
• "Singin', 'This'll be the day that I die...'"
n 1959, Buddy Holly was killed in a plane crash, along with rockers Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. This event had a profound effect on Don McLean as a youth.
BUDDY HOLLY And The Crickets -"That'll Be the Day" (1957)
• "Them good ol' boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye..."
Country legend Tex Ritter was the father of actor John Ritter, and grandfather to actors Jason and Tyler Ritter.
TEX RITTER -"Rye Whiskey" (1948)
• "Did you write the book of love?"
THE MONOTONES -"The Book of Love" (1958)
• "With a pink carnation and a pickup truck..."
MARTY ROBBINS -"A White Sports Coat and a Pink Carnation" (1957)
• "And moss grows fat on a rollin' stone..."
Blues giant Muddy Waters interpolated the 1920s classic "Catfish Blues" as "Rollin' Stone (Catfish Blues)", which then inspired the name for The Rolling Stones.
MUDDY WATERS -"Rollin' Stone (Catfish Blues)" (1950)
• "Helter skelter in a summer swelter"
Helter Skelter is a name used for spiraling British fairground slides. The Beatles' roaring song became a template for Heavy Metal, and was misunderstood by Charles Manson as a rallying cry when orchestrating his murder campaign.
THE BEATLES -"Helter Skelter" (1968)
• "With the jester on the sidelines in a cast..."
With his outsider pespective and barbed lyrics, Bob Dylan was the court Jester of the counterculture. In 1966, he had a motorcycle crash that laid him up and change his perspectives on how to go forward. An insightful overview of this can be seen in Martin Scorsese's documentary, "No Direction Home" (2005).
BOB DYLAN -"Highway 61 Revisited" (1966)
• "The birds flew off with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast..."
The Byrds combined Bob Dylan with The Beatles to create the Folk Rock movement.
THE BYRDS -"Eight Miles High" (1967)
"While sergeants played a marching tune..."
Stepping beyond formula, The Beatles opened up the full range of sonic possibility of Rock with their 1967 masterpiece.
THE BEATLES -"SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND" (1967)
• "Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space..."
The counterculture, ridiculed as a fad by the scared mainstream media (still), had the ultimate coming out party with the 1969 Woodstock Festival, with half-a-million people of all persuasions declaring their undeniable presence and unleashing a spiritual nation that continues unabated (still).
CROSBY STILLS NASH And Young -"WOODSTOCK" (1970)
• "Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
'Cause fire is the Devil's only friend..."
In the spirit of the recent Woodstock, The Rolling Stones held a 1970 concert at Altamont Speedway in California. The naive mistake of choosing the Hells Angels motorcycle gang as security led to the stabbing death of a fan.
In its eternal zealosy to dismiss the progress and impact of the counterculture, the corporate media consistently sells the false narrative that this incident was its end. No.
THE ROLLING STONES -"Jumping Jack Flash" (1968)
• "I met a girl who sang the blues..."
JANIS JOPLIN -"Kozmic Blues" (1969)
• "The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast..."
The counterculture embraced varying forms of spirituality, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. The latter led to Gospel hits like "Oh Happy Day" and "Spirit In The Dark"; and Gospel-inspired anthems of the turn of the decade, such as "Let It Be", "Bridge Over Troubled Water"; and "Loves Me Like A Rock", and musicals like "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Godspell".
1950s Rock, B: The '70s Disciples
https://tymstevens.blogspot.com/2015/04/1950s-rock-b-70s-disciples.html
• 1950s Rock, B: The '70s Disciples, with Music Player!
"Liberation for all. Everything must be rethought." ______________
Two great things hybrid a third great thing. ROCK SEX is a metaphor for the creative connections that link our shared culture together. This Pop Culture hub explores the roots and branches of Music, Film, Art, Comics, and more. _______________
Rock'n'Soul music is a baton relayed by everyone. Learn the holistic history with the most advanced Music Playlists online!:
BLUES, MAMBO, JAZZ, ROCKABILLY, SURF, BEAT, SOUL, GARAGE, PSYCHEDELIA, FUNK, GLAM, PUNK, NEW WAVE, HIPHOP, POSTPUNK, GRUNGE, RIOT GRRRL, ELECTRO, next! _______________
This is our party and everyone is invited!
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