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All posts for the month August, 2013

The Yardbirds – No Excess Baggage

Posted by funky16corners on August 25, 2013
Posted in: cover versions, Iron Leg, Music, R&Beat. Leave a comment

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The Yardbirds c.1967

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Listen/Download – Yardbirds – No Excess Baggage

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you well.

When I was going through the archive, picking tunes to feature here at Iron Leg was I was verily stunned by the fact that I don’t seem to have ever featured (outside of mixes) a Yardbirds track!

The Yardbirds have long been one of my favorite UK R&Beat groups, going back to the day in my sophomore year in high school where I accidentally purchased a deceptively packaged version of ‘Five Live Yardbirds’ thinking I was getting something by Derek and the Dominos.

I am a huge fan not only of their early blues-based material, but also the pop and popsike sounds of their later Beck/Page years.

A few years back I was out digging in Massachusetts and was very happy to grab myself a white label promo, mono OG of the “Little Games” album.

Recorded/released in 1967, following the amazing ‘Roger the Engineer’, ‘Little Games’ was the first Jeff Beck-less outing by the group, and while it lacks some of the sharper edges of ‘Roger…’, it has lots to dig within its grooves.

The tune I bring you today is one of the few tunes on the album not written by the group.

‘No Excess Baggage’ was penned by American songwriters Roger Atkins and Carl D’Errico, who had previously provided ‘It’s My Life’ to the Animals (also a Mickie Most production).

The song features some hard-hitting guitar by Jimmy Page, and a great vocal by Keith Relf.

The rhythm section deserves notice as well, especially Chris Dreja bumped back onto bass (and doing a great job) after the departure of Paul Samwell-Smith.

Little Games would be the Yardbirds final studio album, with the group going on for less than a year before dissolving, and Page going on to form Led Zeppelin.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

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Terry Knight and the Pack – Got Love

Posted by funky16corners on August 18, 2013
Posted in: cover versions, garage punk, Iron Leg, Michigan Rock, Music, pop, R&Beat, Rock. 1 Comment

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Terry Knight and the Pack

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Listen/Download – Terry Knight and the Pack – Got Love

Greetings all.

Welcome back to the old leg of iron.

I hope you all had a chance to pull down the ones and zeros on this month’s Iron Leg Radio Show. If you haven’t you can always grab that, or any of the 27 previous episodes out of the archive.

The tune I bring you today is a smoking bit of 1966 garage band blues-mangling.

Terry Knight and the Pack are best known as one of the petri dishes out of which the mighty Grand Funk Railroad emerged, having featured Don Brewer, and for a brief time Mark Farner in its ranks, as well as future GFR manager Knight at the helm.

The group released nine singles and a couple of LPs for the Lucky Eleven label between 1965 and 1967, many of which were regional hits and a couple – the Yardbirds cover ‘Mister You’re a Better Man Than I’ and a version of Ben E King’s ‘I (Who Have Nothing)’ – that charted nationally.

Knight and the Pack really managed to tune into the Stones/Yardbirds influenced end of the garage spectrum, adding in just enough snot, jangle and fuzz to make a respectable showing.

‘Got Love’ is a garaged-out “expansion’ on Slim Harpo’s ‘Got Love If You Want It’ with some far-out, echoey harmonica, Bo Diddley drums and combo organ.

If you geta chance to pick up the group’s self-titled 1966 LP do so, since there’s a lot more to dig on it, including the fuzz-bomb ‘Numbers’, covers of the Yardbirds and the Stones and a couple of very groovy originals.

After Knight left the group to go solo, the band soldiered on, recording few more 45s as The Pack/Fabulous Pack before (forgive me…) pack-ing it in and evolving into Grand Funk.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Iron Leg Radio Show Episode #28

Posted by funky16corners on August 11, 2013
Posted in: 45s, acoustic, Beatles-esque Sounds, Brill Building, British Beat, Country Rock, cover versions, Culture, folk rock, freakbeat, garage punk, Iron Leg, Laurel Canyon, Leon Russell, Mod, Music, pop, Rock, Sunset Strip. Leave a comment

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Beep beep beep beep…..

Playlist

Action Scene – Hawkshaw/Mansfield (KPM)
Los Bravos – Going Nowhere (Press)
Thors Hammer – Show Me You Like Me (Columbia)
Moody Blues – This Is My House (London)
The Herd – Understand Me (Fontana)
The Fortunes – Fire Brigade (UA)
Easybeats – Made My Bed Gonna Lie In It (UA)
Donovan – Museum (Epic)
Yardbirds – Little Games (Epic)
Yardbirds – Great Shakes Commercial

The Poor – She Got the Time (York)
The Poor – Come Back Baby (Decca)
The Poor – Feelin’ Down (Decca)
The Poor – Knowing You Knowing Me (York)
The Poor – My Mind Goes High (York)
The Collection – Tomorrow Is a Window (Hot Biscuit Disc Company)
The Collection – Both Sides Now (Hot Biscuit Disc Company)
Guild Light Gauge – Cloudy (We Make Rock’n’Roll Records)
Guild Light Gauge – 14th Annual Fun and Pleasure Fair (We Make Rock’n’Roll Records)
Crib and Ben – Emily (Decca)
Derek See – She Came This Way (Psychedelphonic)
Paul Revere and the Raiders – Louie Go Home (Columbia)
Paul Revere and the Raiders Greatest Hits Commercial

Eric Anderson – Violets of Dawn (Vanguard)
Fred Neil – The Other Side of This Life (Elektra)
Gordon Lightfoot – The Pride of Man (UA)
Ruthann Friedman – Fairy PrinceRainbow Man (Reprise)
Ruthann Friedman – Morning Becomes You (Reprise)
Ruthann Friedman – Piper’s Call (Reprise)
Claudine Longet – Jealous Guy/Don’t Let Me Down (Barnaby)
David McWilliams – The Days of Pearly Spencer (Kapp)
Hearts and Flowers – Please (Capitol)
JJ Cale – It’s a Go Go Place (Liberty)

Listen/Download -Iron Leg Radio Show Episode 28 – 185MB/256kbps

Greetings all.

Welcome to this month’s episode of the Iron Leg Radio Show.

I have some cool stuff for you this month, including a grip of freakbeat, the sounds of The Poor, a look at Eddie Simon’s brief recording career and some very groovy folky stuff .

I hope you dig it.

See you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners

JJ Cale – It’s a Go Go Place

Posted by funky16corners on August 4, 2013
Posted in: 45s, Culture, Iron Leg, Leon Russell, Music, pop, Rock, Sunset Strip, Uncategorized. 2 Comments

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JJ Cale

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Listen/Download – JJ Cale – It’s a Go Go Place

Greetings all.

I hope the new week finds you well.

Late last week, word came down that the great JJ Cale had slipped the surly bonds of earth at the age of 74.

Cale who is best known for other performer’s version of the songs he wrote, actually had a long and productive recording career of his own.

Though I never ventured too deeply into his catalog, his history was of endless interest to me because of his connection to the Tulsa Sound, and through that to one of my all-time favorites, Leon Russell.

The 1960s saw a serious migration from Oklahoma to Los Angeles, led by folks like Russell, Cale, Elvin Bishop and David Gates, as well as supporting players like Jesse Ed Davis, Carl Radle, Jim Keltner and Greg Dempsey.

As I mentioned, Cale’s songs are often better known that he was (especially considering how many people thought he and Welsh Velvet Underground member John Cale were one and the same), with classics like ‘After Midnight’ and ‘Cocaine’ (Eric Clapton), ‘Call Me the Breeze’ (Lynryd Skynyrd) the most famous.

Though he didn’t record his first LP until 1972, he had been recording 45s since 1958 (first, as Johnny Cale), including a trio of singles for Liberty in 1965 and 1966.

The tune I bring you today was the flip side of his first Liberty 45, the Roger Miller-esque novelty ‘Dick Tracy’.

‘It’s a Go Go Place’, co-written by Cale and Russell, and produced by Russell and Snuff Garrett, is a very groovy little ode to the Sunset Strip with a bluesy shuffle and a cool guitar solo (sounding a little like Albert Collins).

Cale’s vocal has that Oklahoma twang and I have to assume that Russell is playing on there somewhere.

The following year would see Cale record the original version of ‘After Midnight’ for Liberty.

Cale’s Liberty 45s are fairly hard to come by and I don’t know that they’ve ever been comped, so dig the sounds and I’ll see you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

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PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.