The Sunday Six

After skipping last Sunday due to a short hiatus, I’m thrilled to be back with The Sunday Six and hope you’ll join me for another trip with the music time machine. As always, our journey will include six stops in different decades. Let’s do it!

Weather Report/Cannon Ball

Easing us into today’s trip are jazz fusion dynamos Weather Report, a band I’ve really come to dig. Austrian keyboarder Joe Zawinul, who is regarded as one of the creators of jazz fusion, co-founded Weather Report in 1970 with saxophone maestro Wayne Shorter. Cannon Ball, a Zawinul composition, appeared on the group’s sixth studio album Black Market, released in March 1976. This was their first album to feature the amazing Jaco Pastorius who played electric fretless bass on two tracks, one of which was Cannon Ball. Other Weather Report members on this particular tune included Narada Michael Walden (drums) and Alex Acuña (congas, percussion). The group’s most successful album Heavy Weather was still one year away. They would record seven more records thereafter before disbanding in 1986.

Buddy Holly/Peggy Sue

Our next stop takes us back to February 1958 and one of my all-time favorite early rock & roll tunes: Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly. During his short seven-year career, this bespectacled young man from Lubbock, Tx. wrote and performed amazing songs, creating a legacy that lasts to this day. Holly also was one of the early adopters of the Fender Stratocaster. His 1957 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show with his band The Crickets helped popularize the legendary electric guitar. Peggy Sue, co-written by Crickets drummer Jerry Allison and producer Norman Petty, appeared on what technically was Holly’s first eponymous solo album. For contractual reasons, his previous record, The “Chirping” Crickets, was credited to The Crickets, though the same band played on both releases. Holly may not have had Elvis Presley looks, but this man was a true rock & roll star!

Katrina and the Waves/Cry to Me

Time to slow things down by traveling to March 1985 and a great tune by Katrina and the Waves. Initially called The Waves, the British-American band is best known for their 1985 hit Walking On Sunshine, which interestingly went unnoticed when they first recorded it for their December 1983 debut. But things changed dramatically with a re-recorded version that became the lead single of the band’s eponymous third studio album from March 1985. That record also included Cry to Me. Like Walking On Sunshine, it was penned by Kimberley Rew, the group’s lead guitarist and backing vocalist. Katrina and the Waves would make, well, waves one more time in May 1997 when they won the Eurovision Song Contest with Love Shine a Light. But they were not able to follow up that success with another hit. Lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Katrina Leskanich left in 1998 after several disagreements with her bandmates, leading to the group’s dissolution in 1999.

Umbilicus/Hello Future

Let’s return to the present and a furious rock & roll tune by Umbilicus – ‘who?’ you may wonder. I had the same reaction until I came across Hello Future the other day and was immediately hooked! According to this post and interview on Maximum Volume Music, Umbilicus came together in the summer of 2020. Drummer Paul Mazurkiewicz noted their love of rock and roll from the late 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s, citing Grand Funk, Bad Company and Steppenwolf among his influences, along with lesser-known bands like Sir Lord Baltimore and Lucifer’s Friend. Umbilicus also include Taylor Nordberg (guitar), Vernon Blake (bass) and Brian Stephenson (vocals). Hello Future, credited to all four members of the band, is from their debut album Path of 1000 Suns, which came out in September 2022. Damn!

The Band/The Weight

No Sunday Six can exclude the ’60s, so we shall set our time machine to July 1968 and a timeless classic by The Band: The Weight, off their debut studio album Music from Big Pink. Officially, the Canadian-American group was formed the previous year in Toronto, Canada, but its origins go back to 1957 when it was called The Hawks and backing Toronto-based rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. From 1965 to 1967, the group was Bob Dylan’s touring band and also recorded various sessions with the maestro. By the time of Music from Big Pink, The Band featured Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals), Garth Hudson (organ, piano, clavinet, saxophone), Richard Manuel (piano, organ, vocals), Rick Danko (bass, fiddle, vocals) and Levon Helm (drums, tambourine, vocals) – the line-up that would stay in place until they first broke up in 1978. The Weight, written by Robertson, also became a single in August 1968, backed by the 1967 Dylan song I Shall Be Released.

Delbert McClinton/Everytime I Roll the Dice

And once again another music trip is coming to an end. For our final stop, we go to April 1992 and Never Been Rocked Enough, a studio album by Delbert McClinton. Shout-out to Cincinnati Babyhead who digs and effectively introduced me to the roots artist from Texas. BTW, Clinton hails from the same town as Buddy Holly. Blending country, blues, soul and rock & roll, McClinton has been active since 1957. Long before recording as a singer, he became an accomplished harmonica player. McClinton was prominently featured on Hey! Baby, a 1962 no. 1 hit for fellow Texan Bruce Channel. It took him until the mid-’70s to establish himself as a solo artist. In 1980, his rendition of Jerry Lynn Williams’ Giving It Up for Your Love reached no. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100, his only top 10 hit. Here’s Everytime I Roll the Dice, the excellent opener of the above-mentioned 1992 album, co-written by Max Barnes and Troy Seals.

Last but not least, here’s a Spotify playlist of the above tracks. Hope there’s something you like!

Sources: Wikipedia; Maximum Volume Music; YouTube; Spotify

On This Day In Rock & Roll History: August 28

1964: The Beatles performed the first of two gigs at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in Queens, New York during the U.S. leg of their world tour that year. They played their standard 12-song set of original tunes largely drawing from the A Hard Day’s Night album, as well as rock & roll covers. The tunes included Twist And Shout, You Can’t Do That, All My Loving, She Loves You, Things We Said Today, Roll Over Beethoven, Can’t Buy Me Love, If I Fell, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Boys, A Hard Day’s Night and Long Tall Sally. After the show, The Fab Four met Bob Dylan who visited them in their suite at the Delmonico Hotel in New York City. Beatles biographer Jonathan Gould noted the musical and cultural significance of the meeting, saying within six months, “Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated Dylan’s nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona”; and six months after that, Dylan began performing with a backing band and electric instrumentation, and “dressed in the height of Mod fashion.” While the fact that great music artists influence each other isn’t exactly surprising, based on The Beatles Bible’s account of that night, it seems to me John, Paul, George and Ringo primarily got stoned with Dylan who brought along some grass to smoke. Not really sure how much their condition allowed them to have meaningful conversations about music. Here’s some footage from the Forest Hills show, a great illustration of Beatlemania, which makes me wonder why The Beatles didn’t stop touring earlier.

1965: Exactly one year after The Beatles, Bob Dylan took the stage at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium, marking the first night of a 40-date North American tour. Following a solo section, Dylan played an electric set. This all happened only about a month after he had rattled the “folkies” at the Newport Folk Festival. On that night in Forest Hills, Dylan’s electric backing band featured guitarist Robbie Robertson and drummer Levon Helm, who were then associated with a band called The Hawks, a predecessor to The Band. Harvey Brooks (bass) and Al Kooper (organ) rounded out the line-up. After the first two shows of the tour, Robertson and Helm insisted that their mates from The Hawks join Dylan’s backing band: Rick Danko (bass), Garth Hudson (keyboards) and Richard Manuel (drums). Dylan agreed, and until May 1966, they would be billed as Bob Dylan and the Band. Here’s a clip of Like A Rolling Stone, which supposedly was captured from the Forest Hills gig. The sound quality is horrible, but, hey, it’s mighty Dylan and it’s historical!

1968: Simon and Garfunkel’s fourth and second-to-last studio album Bookends hit no. 1 on the UK Official Albums Chart Top 100, starting a five-week run in the top spot there. Apart from the title track, the record featured gems like America and the no. 1 U.S. single Mrs. Robinson. Written by Paul Simon, the tune had become famous the previous year when it had been included in the American motion picture The Graduate. I’ve always loved the bluesy touch of that song.

1972: Alice Cooper topped the British singles chart with School’s Out, scoring his only no. 1 hit anywhere in the world. Credited to Cooper (lead vocals) and the members of his band at the time, Michael Bruce (rhythm guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Glen Buxton (lead guitar), Dennis Dunaway (bass, backing vocals) and Neal Smith (drums, backing vocals), the tune was the title track of the band’s fifth studio album released in June 1972. School’s Out also became Cooper’s biggest chart success in the U.S., peaking at no. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. According to Songfacts, Cooper during a 2008 interview with Esquire said, “When we did ‘School’s Out,’ I knew we had just done the national anthem. I’ve become the Francis Scott Key of the last day of school.” It’s also safe to assume, Cooper shocked some school principals and parents.

1981: British DJ, producer and band manager Guy Stevens passed away at the age of 38 years from an overdose of prescription drugs he was taking to reduce his alcohol dependency – yikes! Among others, Stevens gave Procol Harum and Mott the Hoople their distinct names. He also co-produced The Clash’s fifth studio album London Calling from December 1979, together with Mick Jones, the band’s co-founder, lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist. Stevens also brought Chuck Berry to the U.K. for his first tour there in 1963. He also was the president of the Chuck Berry Appreciation Society. According to Wikipedia, Stevens introduced lyricist Keith Reid to keyboarder Gary Brooker and told Reid at a party that a friend had turned “a whiter shade of pale”. Supposedly, these words inspired the song with the same title that was subsequently recorded by Brooker’s newly formed band Procol Harum and became a major international hit in 1967.

Sources: Wikipedia, This Day In Music, The Beatles Bible, Songfacts, YouTube