One of the best known Doobie Brothers’ tunes, “Black Water,” was actually a repeat. It was originally issued early 1974 as a flipside to “Another Park, Another Sunday,” the first single from the album “What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits.” The “A” side only charted at #32.
A second single, “Eyes of Silver,” was issued next, but failed to chart in the Top 40 and it only peaked at #52. During the run of the second single, radio stations began playing “Black Water” and Warner Brothers followed with it as a single release. It was an excellent move as “Black Water” was the band’s first of only two number one records. It peaked on the charts in 1975. The band’s other #1 was 1979’s “What a Fool Believes.”
Contrary to popular belief, there is no violin on this recording. There is, however, a viola which is played by session musician Novi Novog. The viola is larger and tuned a fifth lower than a violin and is an octave above a ‘cello. It also includes wind chimes and an Autoharp courtesy of Arlo Guthrie.
One of the notable parts of the song is it’s a cappella break. Producer Ted Templeton is credited with the idea for this part of the song. It may have just been the hook that made “Black Water” a hit.
One of my favorite Beatles tunes turns up today as my Wooden Wednesday selection. Written by Paul McCartney, but credited to both Paul and John Lennon, “I’ve Just Seen A Face” is a song with three acoustic guitars. Paul and John play acoustic 6-strings and George Harrison played the 12-string leads.
Adding to the “wooden music,” Ringo Starr plays maracas and uses brushes on his snare drum. Both the lead and harmony vocals are provided by Paul. No bass appears on this recording which is highly unusual. The song is in the key of “A” and I wonder if any of The Beatles capoed their guitars up two frets to play it easier in “G.” When McCartney does the tune live today, he plays it in “A” without a capo.
It was released in 1965 on the original version of the “Help” album which was different than the one issued in the US. The US album included the songs from movie as well as all of the instrumental tracks arranged by George Martin. It was a gatefold album and did not include “I’ve Just Seen a Face.” I happened to have the German issue of the album on the Hör Zu label. The configuration was the same as the British issue which had the songs from the movie on Side One and Side Two had seven additional songs.
The seven songs from the European version’s second side appeared on several American releases. “Yesterday” and “Act Naturally” were issued on the contrived LP “Yesterday and Today.” The North American/Japanese only release of Beatles VI had three of the songs: “You Like Me Too Much,” “Tell Me What You See,” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy.” “It’s Only Love” and “I’ve Just Seen A Face” were on the American issue of “Rubber Soul,” which was a different version of the same named LP from the UK.
It’s a great tune and I hope you like this acoustic Beatles’ number.
Today’s post marks our 1,100th edition of this blog and before we get into the nitty gritty of the numbers thus far, we’ll head to today’s musical selection. Since it is Tasty Licks Tuesday, I thought I might share a number from Junior Brown. If you are not familiar with this iconic guitarist, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Brown plays a custom made guitar that combines a six-string electric guitar with a neck from an 8-string lap steel. Because of this combination, his “guit-steel” is fastened to a stand that allows him to switch between guitar necks. He keeps his steel in a pocket that rests above the six-string.
Typically, Brown has been pigeonholed into the country genre; however, he has recorded Jimi Hendrix tunes with remarkable agility and aplomb. In today’s selection, Brown shows that he is equally adept in performing par excellence in the surf guitar realm.
His “Surf Medley” incorporates The Chantays’ “Pipeline,” The Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run,” The Marketts’ “Out of Limits,” and Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man.” If you haven’t heard anything else of Brown’s music, I would encourage you to check out his other videos.
RBTG’s 1,100th Post Retrospect
Like I had reported with every other 100th post anniversary, I took a look backward on how we are doing visitor wise. I began this blog on September 26, 2009, but did not start monitoring the visits until October 16, 2009. Currently, we have 59 declared followers of the blog – up from 57 in September 2012. There are many others who have visited frequently without declaring themselves as followers. The statistics are listed below:
Variable
Statistic
Unique Visitors
101,474
Times Visited
112,018
Number of Pages Viewed
166,866
People Visiting 200+ Times
1,527
People Visiting 101-200 Times
486
People Visiting 51-100 Times
459
People Visiting 26-50 Times
488
Number of Visitor Countries Represented
172
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Search Engines
63.44%
Percentage of Visitors Referred from Other Sites
27.81%
Percentage of Visitors via Direct Access
8.75%
The Top Ten Charts
As one would find in music trade magazines, I have prepared some Top Ten Charts for "Reading between the Grooves."
The Top Ten Visitor Countries
The rankings remain static when compared to the previous 1,000th Anniversary. Eight new countries and territories were added since September 2012. They include one from Europe (Gibraltar), one from the Caribbean (Dominica), and the remainder from Africa (Angola, Benin, Senegal, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe).
Rank
Country
Visits
1
United States
53,741
2
United Kingdom
9,325
3
Canada
6,348
4
Germany
4,717
5
France
3,176
6
Italy
2,788
7
Australia
2,450
8
Brazil
2,446
9
Netherlands
1,875
10
Spain
1,816
The Top Ten Pages via Direct Access
While most people (6,010) have visited the home page for “Reading Between the Grooves,” others enter distinct pages through page specific links and via search engine returns. Elliott Murphy’s “Eva Braun” reentered the top 10 and Mike Deasy’s “All God’s Children” placed in the top listing for the first time. This particular chart is slow moving as it is cumulative – newer features on this site will have to be really popular to catch up to the total direct access of these ten songs.
This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits and the content that was featured on those particular days. All but two of the selections, the number one and number six slot, came from the last 100 days. Five of the pages were from new features that were added since September – the Second Week Special and the Fourth Week Label Special.
The #1 day is an anomaly as it represents a day that had intensive viewing of the entire blog by two new visitors. These two individuals spent a great deal of time on the blog and looked at hundreds of pages during one single weekend.
This chart represents the days that encountered the most visits by first time visitors and the content that was featured on those particular days. Except for Sandy Denny’s version of “Easy to Slip,” all of the other positions on this chart were featured during the last 100 posts. As with the Top Ten Days, five of these positions were from our two newest categories.
As always, I want to take this time to thank all of you for your support of this site and the encouragement to keep going forward. Thanks again for Reading between the Grooves.
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to watch the motion picture “The Falcon and the Snowman.” I don’t know why I missed this movie in 1985, as I typically saw every release that hit the big screen at that time. I had read about the story of Christopher Boyce and Daulton Lee selling governmental secrets to the Soviets but had never followed through with seeing the movie.
As for the movie's theme, I had always liked this collaboration between the Pat Metheny Group and David Bowie. The music was composed by guitarist Pat Metheny and keyboardist Lyle Mays. Bowie supplied the lyrics. Bassist Steve Rodby and drummer Paul Wertico also appeared on the cut. In addition, a Linn drum machine was overdubbed to the track.
The title comes from a point in the movie where Lee is arrested by Mexican police on trumped up charges of murder. Lee argues with the police, “but I’m an American.” To which the police sergeant responds, “This is not America.”
I remember programming the single on WOAY-FM, but sadly it did not perform well – in fact, despite its title, it did not do well in America by only peaking at #32. It was a Top 10 single in Brazil, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Italy. It peaked in the Top 20 in the UK and Canada. Sha la la la la.
Our final Ariola America artist is a band that is near and dear to my heart as they gave me a guitar at a concert in January 1995. Today’s featured cut, “Winning Man,” came from their 1981 album “Hardware.” Although “Hardware” was this Swiss band’s fifth album, it was their second and final album for Ariola before being moved to Arista in 1982.
While the single failed to chart, it was the first Krokus album to place within the top 200 hundred albums in the US. It peaked at #103. I had a chance to see Krokus twice in concert. The first time was in 1983 when they opened for Def Leppard at the Charleston (West Virginia) Civic Center.
In 1985, they supported Sammy Hagar on his VoA Tour and I saw them again at the Charleston Civic Center. The band was great backstage and they presented me with the guitar the Fernando von Arb played on their final cut.
The author, Rick Moorefield, Robert Tipane, & Fernando von Arb
It was a Stratocaster copy that he threw straight into the air and it came down on the headstock snapping it from the neck just below the joint. It suffered some other structural damage as well. All the members of the band signed the guitar.
I had a friend replace the neck and fix some of the other problems with it and it became playable. Overtime the finish has yellowed some and the signatures began to wear off the instrument. I will always cherish this one-off piece of rock memorabilia.
As with most of the songs on “Hardware,” “Winning Man” was penned by lead guitarist Fernando von Arb and bassist Chris von Rohr. What a great tune.
Although they have never had a hit record since their inception in the late 1960s, the Sons of Champlin have been a mainstay in the music business, but never received the recognition that they deserved. Having recorded for a number of labels including Capitol, Columbia, Ariola America, and Arista, the band virtually remains unknown to this day.
Ariola America label blank during the Sons of Champlin years
The band is fronted by Bill Champlin, who is additionally known for his session work, songwriting, and as member of Chicago from 1981 to 2009. One of his greatest accomplishments was winning a pair of Grammy awards for writing “After the Love has Gone” with David Foster and Jay Graydon for Earth, Wind, and Fire and “Turn Your Love Around” with Jay Graydon and Steve Lukather for George Benson.
In addition, Champlin has performed as a session musician on numerous well known albums and singles. He sings and plays keyboards and guitar. The Sons of Champlin were together from 1968 to 1970 and then from 1971 to 1981 when Champlin joined Chicago. Although they participated in a reunion show in 1985, the band did not reform until 1997 and Bill divided his time between the Sons of Champlin and Chicago until leaving Chicago in 2009.
The ballad, “Time will Bring you Love,” comes from the band’s third and final album with Ariola America – the 1978 release of “Loving is Why.” The album cut was cowritten by Champlin and Pat Craig. I got interested in Champlin’s music when I discovered a couple of singles in the discard bin at a radio station for which I worked in the early 1980s.
In tracing our family trees, I discovered that he and I are seventh cousins – this means we share a pair of sixth great-grandparents: William Champlin and Sarah Thompson. My great grandmother was born as Amy Alice Champlin. While that and $5.00 might get me a brand name coffee from a barista, it remains interesting that I can make a family connection to someone I am featuring in this blog.
From Vancouver, British Columbia, Prism was one of those bands that had only a modicum of followers in the US, but were significantly more popular in their native Canada. Although signed to GRT in Canada, their US product was released on Ariola America Records. The band would eventually move to Capitol Records – who were originally responsible for the pressing early Ariola America product in the 1970s.
Our pick cut, “Flyin'” from their 1978 second album “See Forever Eyes,” was their most popular single release on Ariola in the US; however, they would have a higher charting single with “Don’t Let Him Know” on Capitol in 1981, as it peaked at #39. “Flying” placed at #53 in the US.
The Ariola label blank used on Prism singles released before "Flyin'"
“Flyin'” has a pop feel to it. In places and especially during the chorus, it reminds me of Styx’s recordings from the late 70s. An instrumental hook comes in the form of very simple portemento runs via a monophonic synthesizer at the hands of band member John Hall.
Because this was recorded during the time before the advent of polyphonic synthesizers, there also appears to be a string ensemble present as well as an organ. There may be a vocoder as well on this cut – or an effect that at least mimics a vocoder. “Flyin'” was written by Allen Harlow who also contributes the driving bass.
Associate Provost and Professor of Mass Communication at Alderson Broaddus University and an adjunct faculty member at Southern New Hampshire University.
Graduate of Marshall University, West Virginia University, Southern New Hampshire University, Kentucky Christian University and Mountain State University.
Dissertation on institutional rebranding (see newriver.net) was the 2009 international winner of the Alice L. Beeman Dissertation Award for Outstanding Research in Communications and Marketing for Higher Education Advancement and was the 2008 Leo and Margaret Goodman-Malamuth Outstanding Dissertation Award for Research in Higher Education Administration.
Placed as a winner in five Active Industry Research Contemporary Hit Radio "Pick the Hits" competitions from 1983 through 1987. Each competition had 31 winners. Placed 2nd (1st among radio participants), 6th, 10th (twice), and 21st in the five competitions.
Awarded 14 gold & platinum records and an international sales award from various record companies. Winner of 30 Public Relations awards.
