Black Sabbath were really something else. They had a unique sound instantly recognisable. This sound was employed and developed over their first 6 albums from 1970 to 1975. This classic compilation We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll draws from these 6 albums. Two later albums featured singer Ozzy Osbourne following this compilation before the band sacked him and set off on a revolving door's worth of new members. Although they had their moments most notably on the Dio fronted Heaven and Hell album they had essentially become another metal band having lost a lot of their uniqueness - a uniqueness that was pleasingly reignited on their recent reunion album 13.
This compilation in it's own right is an excellent record. However the first 6 albums are so strong that I would really prefer readers to just buy the original albums. We Sold Our Soul For Rock N Roll draws heavily on the first two albums meaning their third (and their best in my opinion) is neglected with only two tracks - luckily one of them being Children Of The Grave which I think was the first Sabbath track I ever heard and one that stopped me in my tracks with a "Wow, what is this?!"
For new listeners see if it has the same effect on you:
Sadly there is also only one track from their fifth album the groundbreaking Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
1. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 1
2. Black Sabbath - We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'n' Roll cd 2
3. Chris Rea - The Road To Hell
4. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
5. Various - Rock Chronicles: The Seventies
6. Francois And The Atlas Mountains - Plaine Inondable
Last entry in the 6 way slot this week is a curious affair from little known band Francois and the Atlas Mountains. I know little about this band. I saw them at a festival years ago and was suitably impressed enough to buy their album which translates as Flood Plains. Here you go >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A0n%C3%A7ois_%26_the_Atlas_Mountains
It would appear they are a Belgian/French/Bristol collaboration.
One of their songs reminds me of Imagine by John Lennon. Let me see if I can find it.
Actually more like Paris 1919 by John Cale or Belle and Sebastian.
1. The Cardigans - Life
2. Traffic - John Barleycorn Must Die
3. Chris Rea - The Road To Hell
4. Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
5. Various - Rock Chronicles: The Seventies
6. Neil Young - Greendale
Love Supreme 2018
It's festival season again and a particularly hot and sunny one here in England. This Sunday I visited the excellent Love Supreme Festival in beautiful Glynde, Sussex (more famous for the Glyndebourne Opera Festival).
The festival has grown appreciably since my last visit (or was this just the weather with many festival goers now so spoilt for choice they don't always have to pre-book any more?) but the site was still able to absorb the numbers (albeit the bars did run out of all except cider early).
One of the joys of the festival is the interview area known as the Jazz Lounge. Here artists talk about their music and inevitably their insights and enthusiasm encourage you to attend their slots later on and subsequently gain more out of their performances. One such highlight this weekend was world renowned tabla player Zakir Hussain who emitted such amazing sounds from his array of tablas that I could barely believe what I was hearing. Subsequent standard drummers sounded dull in comparison.
Mavis Staples followed with an energetic set of blues and soul infused with protest and anger from the US civil rights movement in the 60s. It was nice to see an established old time star without a massed band of keyboards, percussionists and backing singers. Her band consisted of drummer, bassist and electric guitar (and a couple of backing singers to be fair) and sounded all the better for it (I find the live sound of such old time acts inevitably blows newer bands out of the water).
I hotfooted over to the main stage to see a bit of Funkadelic but I didn't understand them - I think they had gone heavy rap or something (or maybe they were always like that?). On my way back to the Round Top to catch one of my favourite artists Steve Winwood I stopped by to appreciate a young upcoming talent in the jazz field, one Keyon Harrold who played trumpet like Miles Davis but also sang beautifully (sometimes instrumental music can get a bit tiresome and leaves one yearning for a song occasionally).
The young, cool and talented Keyon Harrold
Steve Winwood didn't disappoint. I've seen him before and he played a similar set of well known hits (many of which the casual punter would not realise are his). For instance I'm A Man and Give Me Some Loving from his Spencer Davis Group time, his own solo big hit Higher Love, and Can't Find My Way Home from the Blind Faith album, but the highlights were a Traffic classic from the listed album Empty Pages which I wasn't expecting, and the fantastic guitar rocker Dear Mr. Fantasy as an encore I was both hoping for and expecting.
An amazing talent on guitar, organ (with bass pedals!) and voice, ably demonstrated on the superb Traffic album John Barleycorn Must Die. I've banged on about it before being a bit of an old timer but this is when music was real and amazing (1970!).
The headliners for the night were Earth Wind and Fire. They did have a mass of people on stage of whom three were in the original band. They played a lot of easy listening ballads which didn't really float my boat but finally got to the tracks the fans were waiting for Boogie Wonderland and September and everyone went home sun kissed and happy.
Greendale
Greendale is an unfairly maligned Neil Young album. Sure it just sounds like one long jam and the plodding tracks just go on and on but there's a great barroom sound from Young and his band Crazy Horse and the effect is somewhat hypnotic and soothing. The album is a sort of concept album about a family living in a fictitious small town called Greendale but I can't say I've paid that much attention to the story.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
A departure from their previous albums Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (their 5th coming out in 1973) is the closest Black Sabbath ever came to prog. Just check the track titles to figure - A National Acrobat, Spiral Architect and Sabbra Cadabra. Amongst these ambitious epics are two typical riff heavy rock monsters in the title track (many fans' favourite Sabbath track of all) and Killing Yourself To Live plus a couple of down tempo tracks - the acoustic instrumental Fluff and the innovative synthesized Who Are You?
It was a different album altogether with a new sound. We experimented on that and it turned into a creative high-point which took us to a different level.
Tony Iommi
For many years this was my favourite Sabbath album (and cover!) before I settled on Master of Reality as the true greatest!
The Road To Hell
Most pleasant surprise award this week goes to Chris Rea. I was given this album a while back and have paid little attention to it; I thought I knew all I needed to know about Chris Rea, a middle of the road guitar journeyman with a gravelly voice and a hit back in the 80s. The hit was the title track to this album and it's a decent track. But there is more especially with the Looking For a Rainbow track where Rea's slide guitar builds to a David Gilmour like climax.
Dad Rock
Talking of being an old timer I know most the tracks on this naff 70s rock compilation. It's starts off with Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell for goodness sake. From there we progress through standard fayre from Free, Black Sabbath, Judas Preist, T-Rex and Deep Purple. The most interesting tracks are less well known - the instrumental Frankenstein by the Edgar Winter Group, Tomorrow Night by the piano funky Atomic Rooster and Sylvia by Dutch progsters Focus.
Life
Lastly we have a lovely pop record by The Cardigans. The voice of lead singer Nina Persson is a bit high and twee which makes their cover of the aforementioned Sabbath Bloody Sabbath even more bizarre. I think it works well:
It's not the band's only Sabbath cover - apparently the guitarist and bass player played in heavy metal bands previously. It does make you wonder why, just why?
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