The Sunday Six

Welcome to another installment of The Sunday Six. After a two-week hiatus, it’s nice to get back into the blogging groove again. At the same time, taking a break wasn’t a bad thing, especially in this case where I used some of the time for a long-sought vacation in Germany to see some family and friends again. Following is a small collage of photos from my visit.

From top left clockwise: Karlsruhe Palace; village of Buschhoven, in which I grew up; Frankfurt/Main; and Königstein, a health spa in the Taunus region close to Frankfurt

Time to get to some music. Three of the picks are inspired by my recent visit to Germany.

Sonny Rollins/In a Sentimental Mood

Our journey today starts with beautiful music by American tenor saxophone great Sonny Rollins, who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. Over an incredible 70-year-plus career, Rollins has recorded more than 60 albums as a leader and appeared on many additional records as a sideman. He has played with the likes of Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie,  Thelonious Monk, Max Roach and Modern Jazz Quartet. In a Sentimental Mood, composed by Duke Ellington, Manny Kurtz and Irving Mills, is among Rollins’ earliest recordings as a leader. It appeared on a 1956 compilation album, Sonny Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet. On this particular tune, he was backed by John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath (bass) and Kenny Clarke (drums). My kind of music to ease into a Sunday morning.

Wolf Maahn/Irgendwo in Deutschland

Next, we jump to 1984 and the first German-language song featured in The Sunday Six: Irgendwo in Deutschland (somewhere in Germany), the title track of the third studio album by German rock artist Wolf Maahn. The singer-songwriter, actor and producer, who was born in Berlin in 1955 and grew up in Munich, initially started his music career in 1976 as a founding member of the Food Band. Mixing soul, jazz, pop and rock, this group sang in English. Wolf Maahn’s “German language music career” kicked off in the early ’80s with the studio album Deserteure. He gained broad national popularity in the mid ’80s, starting with the Irgendwo in Deutschland album. I listened to that song in my rental car on the day I arrived in Germany. That’s when I decided I would feature it in a Sunday Six.

Arthur Conley/Sweet Soul Music

I’m in the mood for some soul and the other day I remembered a tune I’ve always loved, loved: Sweet Soul Music, a big U.S. hit for Arthur Conley in 1967, climbing to no. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. In the UK, it peaked at no. 7 on the Official Singles Chart. The song, which also became the title track of an album Conley released the same year, was co-written by him and Otis Redding – and Sam Cooke. It’s a version of Cooke’s Yeah Man, a tune that appeared on Cooke’s first posthumous studio album Shake from January 1965. Initially, they didn’t give him any credit. Cooke’s estate eventually sued Conley and Redding and received songwriting credit and a settlement.

Del Amitri/Always the Last to Know

During my visit to Germany, I met my former bandmate and longtime music buddy who always gives me great trip listening tips. The next two picks are inspired by him. First, he reminded me of Scottish alternative rock band Del Amitri, who were formed in Glasgow in 1980. During their initial run until 2002, they released six studio albums and two compilations. Since the band reemerged from hiatus in 2013, it looks like they have mainly been a touring act. Only one live record, one compilation and one studio album have since appeared. Always the Last to Know takes us back to their third studio album Change Everything released in June 1992. Written by Justin Currie (vocals, guitar, piano), who remains with Del Amitri to this day, the tune also became the album’s lead single in April 1992 – a nice melodic pop rock tune!

The Sadies/Stop and Start

This next pick is from the new album by Canadian band The Sadies, Colder Streams, released on July 22. From their AllMusic bio: One of the most accomplished bands to emerge from the North American indie and roots rock scene, the Sadies are an eclectic group founded by brothers Dallas Good and Travis Good, who crafted a distinctive sound, absorbing influences from traditional country, surf music, and garage rock, and blending them into something unique with their estimable instrumental skills. The band’s best work emphasized mood as much as melody, and they were open to collaboration with artists they respected, cutting albums with Neko Case, John Doe, Gord Downie, and Andre Williams. Here’s Stop and Start, credited to all four members of the band at the time of the recording. Sadly, Dallas Good died unexpectedly on February 17, 2022, at the age of 48 from a recently detected heart condition.

The Knack/My Sharona

And once again, we’ve reached the final stop of yet another Sunday Six. Let’s wrap up with a fun tune by Los Angeles power pop band The Knack: My Sharona, their first single that became an international sensation, topping the charts in the U.S., Canada and Australia, peaking at no. 3 in New Zealand and reaching the top 10 in the UK, Switzerland, Spain and Italy. The song’s huge popularity also propelled the band’s debut album Get the Knack to no. 1 in the U.S., Canada and Australia – a level of success the band never managed to replicate. After their third album, they split for the first time in mid-1982. The Knack had a few reunions thereafter until their permanent end in February 2010, following the death of the band’s lead vocalist and guitarist Doug Fieger from cancer at the age of 57.

Here’s a playlist of the above tunes. Hope there’s something there you like.

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube; Spotify

If I Could Only Take One

Happy Wednesday! By now it’s safe to assume more frequent visitors of the blog know that I have to make another important decision today. For less frequent flyers or first-time visitors, I’m about to leave for an imaginary desert island. Since survival without music would be impossible, I have to pick what to take with me on the trip, but there’re a few twists.

I can only select one song at a time. Albums don’t qualify. It also needs to be a tune by a band or an artist I’ve only rarely written about or not covered at all to date. I’m doing this exercise in an alphabetical fashion, largely relying on my own music library.

We’re up to the letter “K”. Some of the options I could have selected include B.B. King, Carole King, The Kinks, Kiss, The Knack, Lenny Kravitz and Kris Kristofferson. Based on the above criteria, my pick is Kansas and Carry On Wayward Son.

I can’t claim much familiarity with the American rock band beyond their best-known tunes, but once I decided to select Kansas, my specific song choice was easy. Carry On Wayward Son is one of my favorite ’70s rock tunes. While I’m usually in the camp of less is more when it comes to guitar riffs, I find the guitar work on this song really cool, even though it’s pretty complex.

Carry On Wayward Son was penned by guitarist Kerry Livgren, one of the band’s founding members, who also played keyboards and sang backing vocals. The song first appeared on the group’s fourth studio album Leftoverture released in October 1976. In November of that year, it also became the record’s first of two singles and the band’s first charting song.

In the U.S., Carry On Wayward Son climbed to no. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. It would be the group’s second-highest charting single there after Dust in the Wind, the 1978 ballad that reached no. 6 and brought Kansas on my radar screen. Elsewhere, Carry On Wayward Son charted in Canada (no. 5), the UK (no. 51) and Australia (no. 58). Undoubtedly, the tune’s performance helped propel Leftoverture to 5X Platinum certification status in the U.S., making it the band’s highest-selling album to date.

Except for a 7-month break-up period between August 1984 and March 1985, Kansas have been active since 1970. Their origins go back to 1969 when Kerry Livgren and Don Montre (keyboards, backing vocals), who had played together in a group called Reasons Why, formed a new band, Saratoga, together with Dan Wright (keyboards) and Lynn Meredith. In 1970, that group became Kansas. They were joined by Dave Hope (bass) and Phil Erhart (drums). Greg Allen (lead and backing vocals) and Larry Baker (saxophone) completed the inaugural line-up.

After some twists and turns, Kansas released their eponymous debut album in March 1974. It would be the first of 16 records that have appeared to date. The most recent album The Absence of Presence came out in July 2020. At the time, I featured one of the tracks in a Best of What’s New installment.

As you would imagine, Kansas have gone through multiple line-up changes. One of the more significant chapters in the band’s long history was the departure of Livgren in 1983, who had been one of their major songwriters. In the late ’70s, Livgren became a born-again Christian. His lyrics increasingly reflected a Christian perspective, which resulted in growing tension among members of the band and eventually to their above noted short break-up in August 1984.

In March 1985, Ehart and longtime Kansas members Rich Williams (guitars, backing vocals) and Steve Walsh (lead and backing vocals, keyboards, percussion) reunited, joined by Billy Greer (bass, acoustic guitar, backing and lead vocals) and Steve Morse (lead and rhythm guitars, backing vocals). Ehart, Williams and Greer remain with the group’s current line-up.

The current line-up of Kansas (from left): David Ragsdale, Phil Ehart, Ronnie Platt, Richard Williams, Tom Brislin, and Billy Greer. CREDIT: EMILY BUTLER PHOTOGRAPHY

Following are some additional insights in Carry On Wayward Son from Songfacts:

According to Livgren, the song was not written to express anything specifically religious, though it certainly expresses spiritual searching and other ideas.

Livgren became an evangelical Christian in 1980, and has said that his songwriting to that point was all about “searching.” Regarding this song, he explained: “I felt a profound urge to ‘Carry On’ and continue the search. I saw myself as the ‘Wayward Son,’ alienated from the ultimate reality, and yet striving to know it or him. The positive note at the end (‘surely heaven waits for you’) seemed strange and premature, but I felt impelled to include it in the lyrics. It proved to be prophetic.”

…Sitting at his parent’s home, in front of the family organ, Livgren composed the music for what would become “Carry On Wayward Son.” In late 2011, Livgren stated in a short interview at his home that the lyrics were partially about himself and the struggles and pressures he was facing at the time when the band’s career was on the line. The piano interlude and accompanying verse express how happy the band’s success had made him, as well as how sad and fearful he was that it might possibly be over (“I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high”). However, the chorus expresses hope that everything will work out and that he must simply keep going. (“Carry on, my wayward son. There’ll be peace when you are done”).

In reality, the song was almost not included on the album, and thus contributes to the album’s title of Leftoverture. The album title comes from the idea that many of the songs are leftover songs from the band’s past. For instance, the string part at the end of the second track, “The Wall”, was an old song idea that was added on to the end of the song for the record. The album, while met with mixed reviews by critics, was commercially successful, going platinum five times. “Carry On” became the bands’ first Top 40 hit (peaking at #11), and is often regarded as one of the greatest rock songs of all time. It gave Kansas the staying power it needed to keep producing records with Kirshner, and earned Kerry Livgren the reputation as one of the most respected musicians and lyricists in rock and roll.

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; YouTube