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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2012 : 18:34:59
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...Lovin' this one today!
Blood Sweat & Tears "A Child Is Father To The Man" (1968)
I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMp4bedPF1o
A very groundbreaking cover...achieved without Photoshop!
Al Kooper, Jim Fielder, Fred Lipsius, Randy Brecker, Jerry Weiss, Dick Halligan, Steve Katz, Howard Levy, and Bobby Colomby formed the original band. The creation of the group was inspired by the "brass-rock" ideas of The Buckinghams and its producer, James William Guercio, as well as the early 1960s Roulette-era Maynard Ferguson Orchestra (according to Kooper's autobiography).
"Blood, Sweat & Tears" was the name chosen by Al Kooper, inspired after a late-night gig in which Kooper played with a bloody hand.[1] Kooper was the group's initial bandleader, having insisted on that position based on his experiences with The Blues Project, his previous band with Steve Katz, which had been organized as an egalitarian collective. Jim Fielder was from Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention and had played briefly with Buffalo Springfield. But undoubtedly, Kooper's fame as a high-profile contributor to various historic sessions of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and others was the catalyst for the prominent debut of Blood, Sweat & Tears in the musical counterculture of the mid-sixties.[citation needed]
Al, Bobby, Steve & Jim did a few shows as a quartet at the Cafe Au Go Go in New York City in September 1967 opening for Moby Grape. Fred Lipsius then joined the others two months later. A few more shows were played as a quintet, including one at the Fillmore East in New York. Lipsius then recruited the other three, who were New York jazz horn players he knew. The final lineup debuted late November ’67 at The Scene in NYC. The band was a hit with the audience, who liked the innovative fusion of jazz with acid rock and psychedelia. After signing to Columbia Records, the group released perhaps one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the late 1960s, Child Is Father to the Man, featuring the Harry Nilsson song, "Without Her", and perhaps Kooper's most memorable blues number, "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know". The album cover was considered quite innovative showing the band members sitting and standing with child-sized versions of themselves. Characterized by Kooper's penchant for studio gimmickry, the album slowly picked up in sales amidst growing artistic differences between the founding members. Colomby and Katz wanted to move Kooper exclusively to keyboard and composing duties, while hiring a stronger vocalist for the group.[1]
The music of Blood, Sweat & Tears slowly achieved commercial success alongside similarly configured ensembles such as Chicago and the Electric Flag. Kooper was forced out of the group and became a record producer for the Columbia label, but not before arranging some songs that would be on the next BS&T album. The group's trumpeters, Randy Brecker and Jerry Weiss, also left after the album was released, and were replaced by Lew Soloff and Chuck Winfield. Brecker joined Horace Silver's band with his brother Michael, and together they eventually formed their own horn-dominated musical outfits, Dreams and The Brecker Brothers. Jerry Weiss went on to start the similarly-styled group Ambergris.
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Morning Glory (Tim Buckley) what a brilliant cover. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p98OPcur80
My Days Are Numbered http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuJLIaJqZvc&feature=related
...well all the album cuts are there to hear. But better yet...BUY IT NOW!
Being a fan of the Beach Boys (among others), I realized that one of the songs from the famously-unreleased SMILE sessions, was called "Child Is Father To The Man". Apparently, the legend of that album was alive and well even in late 1967 when Blood, Sweat & Tears' debut album of the same name was being recorded. Keyboardist Al Kooper (best known as the organist on Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone") must have been one of the few to have heard those unfinished masters at the time, for he must have used the inspiration to create BS&T. Or at least, his vision of what it should be. Everyone knows the Kooper-less version of the band would find the most success with a slightly different shade of the experimental sound on here. And CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN will certainly have listeners wondering if this is the same band that did "Spinning Wheel" or "And When I Die". Clearly, Kooper had more than just jazz in mind when he put together this album, for the end result was one of the most diverse, undefinable musical statements ever released. No band was safe from the psychedelic bug, and BS&T show off their mettle there on songs like their cover of Tim Buckley's "Morning Glory" (which probably floored even fellow experimentalist Buckley), the sound-effects-laden "House In The Country", and the organ-driven jam "Somethin' Goin' On". If the dates in the booklet are accurate for the recording of these songs, it's a wonder that they were done in the space of only one day. Other genre experiments include classical ("Overture", "The Modern Adventures Of Plato, Diogenes & Freud"), straight pop (a cover of Nilsson's "Without Her" along with Randy Newman's "Just One Smile") and gut-wrenching R&B ("I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know", "I Can't Quit Her", "My Days Are Numbered"). As enticing as this recipe for a great rock album was, it didn't really make too many waves on the charts. While Kooper may not have had that in mind, the other members apparently did, for by the end of 1968, Kooper had been sacked, and his own band was moving in a totally different direction for their next album. For them, it may have been a blessing in disguise, for that next album would win tons of Grammys and spawn several hits. Even Kooper himself in the liner notes says it may have all worked out for the best. Still, it would have been great to see how Blood, Sweat & Tears would have wound up had they retained Al Kooper's intriguing musical vision. CHILD IS FATHER TO THE MAN, though, remains one of the best, if criminally underrated, albums from a rather experimentation-heavy period in music history. -amazon review
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We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers- -thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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Edited by - lemonade kid on 09/03/2012 19:10:10 |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2012 : 19:14:24
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The Modern Adventure Of Plato
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=925TddXQarw
Brilliant!
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We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers- -thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2012 : 19:18:26
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So Much Love/Underture & yes...the overture and underture movements were BEFORE "TOMMY"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeTK1hy402g
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We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers- -thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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underture
Fifth Love
482 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2012 : 20:12:18
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quote: Originally posted by lemonade kid
So Much Love/Underture & yes...the overture and underture movements were BEFORE "TOMMY"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeTK1hy402g
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We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers- -thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
LoVE, Tommy, and Al Kooper: three of my favorites in one sentence!!
I must go back and relook through "Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards" from Kooper. The parting of ways with the remaining members of BST was not good as Al did not like the overly commercial track the band was going to take. Maybe he was a bit harsh as I like the David Clayton-Thomas version, but he did have some valid points; they were hit making machine for a while. And if it is true then Bobby Columby really ripped him off as far as royalties are concerned. But the first BST album is the best. Kooper was in some ways a visionary. Too bad the Blues Project couldn't have kept it together because, like LoVE, what they lacked in sales they made up in sound.
You Set The Scene |
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bob f.
Old Love
USA
1308 Posts |
Posted - 10/03/2012 : 17:42:59
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I LOVE "Child Is Father...." !!! one of my favorite albums of all time. I have the CD , which is good. Kooper is STILL making magic, having never sold out, nor got square.
...what the world needs now... |
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SignedRW
Fifth Love
USA
280 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2012 : 18:58:41
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Al Kooper tells the story of how not long after the Doors "L.A. Woman" was released, he crossed paths with Ray Manzarek, whom he didn't really know well, if at all. Ray asked him if he had ever ever happened to notice that he had included a snippet of the melody from the "Child is Father" track "House in the Country" into the title track of the Doors album, as a sort of salute and tribute to Al. Al had, of course noticed it right away, but evidently hadn't been sure of what to make of it; whether something he had written was just being kind of ripped off or what, so he was happy to learn from Manzarek that it was really just a musical hello, from one keyboard player to another. Just a little period trivia... |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2012 : 21:02:50
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Thanks, Rick. Great story.
For those who haven't heard it....
Can you hear the bit from this.... "House In The Country" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzzZG0CrTrQ
In LA WOMAN... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JskztPPSJwY
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We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers & discoverers- -thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams.
-Peter S. Beagle 1973
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