What's in your CDP tonight? the minority report

@ghosthouse, Yes! Harmony singing is almost unheard of in the vast majority of contemporary music, but it goes back much further than that. Listening again recently to mid-period Beatles (I heard them so much as a teenager, I rarely ache to hear their music), I was struck by just how good they got at 3-part harmonies, which I now prefer to even Brian Wilsons more complex and sophisticated harmony writing. When the big break occurred in Rock music in the late 60’s (between its Blues and Country elements), Led Zeppelin won the fight; Blues became the dominant influence in Rock music, and Blues does not generally incorporate harmony singing.

Zeppelins 3-musician, 1 singer band format became THE standard for Rock music, and it has really stood the test of time. None of the big Rock bands since (The Stones, Aerosmith, Rush, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Van Halen---VH’s phony "harmonies" don’t count) have featured harmony singing. The Band followed Ten Years After on the stage at Woodstock, and Levon Helm later said they felt as if they would come off sounding like choir boys after the brutal assault on Blues by TYA. Levon therefore started The Bands set by saying to the crowd "Hope ya’ll like Country music". The Band weren’t a Country band, but sure had Country influences. In the southern United States, Country and Blues were like first cousins (maybe even brother and sister), not that much separation. But by the time of Woodstock, ANY Country influence put you apart from Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, The Who and all the other English bands.

As I have been aware of The Skeletons/Symptoms/Morells since the late 70’s, and own all their LP’s and CD’s, I had never bothered to watch a video of theirs on You Tube. Ghosthouse, your mention of watching one inspired me to do so, and coming at them from the perspective of someone such as yourself, I must say I can certainly understand why a person would be underwhelmed by them at first blush. They sound small; a regional, local bar band, and nothing more. They were obviously never going to become a national act, never going to fill stadiums. Neither were NRBQ, yet when David Sanborn introduced them on his TV show, he called them the best Rock ’n’ Roll band in the world.

I realize and accept that a lot of Audiogoners don’t find Rockabilly to their liking; it DOES sound an awful lot like Hillbilly/Hard Country---very rural, primitive, lacking in big production values and glamor. It also sounds old, the music of a past time, and perhaps a little corny. But in the right hands (not those of The Stray Cats, even if Dave Edmunds did produce them!) it’s fantastic! NRBQ did it really well, as has T Bone Burnett and other superior Americana-type artists. The Yardbirds (when Jeff Beck---a huge fan of Rockabilly, as is Dave Edmunds pal Robert Plant---was in the band) did a great version of Tiny Bradshaws "Train Kept a Rollin", but the Rockabilly original by The Johnny Burnette Trio is even better. Incendiary!

Oops, left out U2 and REM! I could name a hundred others if pushed. In my youth in San Jose, it was the groups who had singing that were considered the best. Stained Glass had a couple of albums on RCA, but never broke nationally. I saw them first as The Trolls in the summer of ’65 (around the time I saw The Beatles at The Cow Palace in San Francisco), when they were doing Beatles songs. Bassist/lead singer Jim McPherson left the group to join Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina in Copperhead.

Then there was the group People, who had a national hit with a cover of The Zombies "I Love You". They had two lead singers (and two harmony singers), Larry Norman later becoming a star in the Christian Music field. We also had The Chocolate Watchband, who were just a glorified Rolling Stones impersonation. You can see them in the Roger Corman movie Riot On Sunset Strip. Drummer Gary Andrijesivich was a couple of years ahead of me at Cupertino High School, whose marching band and orchestra he played in. I would see him on the football field in the afternoon, and on stage that night ;-) .

The Syndicate Of Sound hit nationally in ’66 with "Little Girl" (Hey little girl, you don’t hafta hide nothin’ no more), but by 1968 were back playing at my Senior Year All Night Party at a San Jose bowling alley. One singer, no harmony. Not one of favorite local bands, and neither were The Count Five, whose "Psychotic Reaction" was an obvious imitation of The Yardbirds version of Bo Diddleys "I’m A Man". A lot of imitation going on in San Jose!

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham played on the same San Jose High School stages as I and all the other local garage band members did in the mid-60’s, in their group Fritz. There is a picture somewhere of Stevie on stage at Mother Butler (a catholic Girls School) in a chiffon gown ;-) . When The Doobie Brothers got their Warner Brothers deal, their gig as the house band at The Chateau, a biker bar up in the Santa Cruz mountains, came up for grabs. My band auditioned, but I guess we weren’t biker enough. One of our guitarists/singers/songwriters (Lance Libby) had been in the final version of Stained Glass, who had by that time again changed their name, this time to Christian Rapid. They disbanded when McPherson left to join Copperhead. Ancient history.