Following his death, I’ve been listening to Don Covay. He was the epitome of party soul, typified by his biggest hit, See Saw. His backing band was aptly named The Goodtimers. Suddenly, he teamed up with The Jefferson Lemon Blues Band and released a full-on throaty blues album, The House Of Blue Lights. It was a completely unexpected musical diversion quite different to the rest of his catalogue. It was a musical hand-brake turn.
All the best groups develop their sound and some, such as Bowie, wilfully defy expectations but there aren’t many that do something out of character and then immediately go back to their usual delivery. I thought of Talk Talk and Spirit Of Eden. However, looking back, I can hear some of Spirit in their previous album and Mark Hollis continued to explore the Spirit style in his solo albums.
I’m convinced The Afterword can come up with more examples of the musical handbrake turn.
In the meantime, compare and contrast But I Forgive You Blues with See Saw. (The link to See Saw is in red underneath But I Forgive You Blues. I can’t seem to embed it).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xryTCueKWI
Arf!!
However, it shares a dirge-like quality with this, don’t you think?
http://youtu.be/n8KzA6es3Bo
In Another Land – The Rolling Stones
Come to think of it, Their Satanic Majesties Request is an aberration never repeated in The Stones canon.
Nickelback of course are now spandex wearing glitterball botherers – but the other one I remember is Queen’s Hot Space. Within a year I think they were back to pretty much what they were doing before.
‘Going disco’ is quite a common musical diversion, isn’t it. Sadly, I’m not that familiar with Queen’s oeuvre or Nickelback’s for that matter. I’m thinking I’m lucky.
Thinking of disco going rock, how about The Four Seasons. In 1969, they teamed up with folk songwriter, Jake Holmes, to produce The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. It’s a case of a pop becoming psychedelic prog. Here’s the title track.
Linda Ronstadt’s godmother. Eydie Gorme was a popular singer in the Fifties and Sixties – at a time when that job description required a rigid adherence to the Count Basie-big band sound and a well-groomed line in Broadway hits. What a shock, then, when this Turkish-Italian Jew from the Bronx recorded a Spanish-language album of Latin standards with Mexican stars Trio los Panchos – and it became an international smash. I first heard the record on a trip to Madrid 20-some years after the fact, and it was as popular there as on the day it was released. In this clip, Eydie keeps it pretty until ‘Granada’, at which point her variety-show reflexes take over….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBpDxaZfPZc
I like it. There are plenty of musical diversions in just that one performance. She seems very pleased with herself. Is she a relative of Linda’s? I think I see a family resemblance.