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(07-03-2016, 07:49 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Next in my best songs picks, I choose Jefferson Airplane and the original Jefferson Starship with two songs by the late, great Paul Kantner. These would probably repel the anti-boomer right-wingers here, but what I like about these two songs are the melodies, rhythm, instrumentation, collective energy, uplifting feeling and exquisite vocals by Paul and Grace Slick. But it was also one of the first "supergroups" that included Crosby and Nash and others. The original version of Let's Go Together in 1970 referred to "wherever I go, I see you people" meaning his fellow left-wing hippies.
https://youtu.be/53WPcHogkRk?t=8m16s
"Whatever you do, I want to do." The message of these two songs was, however, to do more than "stand around" but to make the dreams real, to get together to do something great for the world and keep the hopes of the love-ins alive. "Wave Goodbye to Amerika, say hello to The Garden."
Jefferson Starship went on to greater success, but not greater artistic achievement, than Jefferson Airplane, with lots of personnel changes from the original. Blows Against the Empire was one of the first concept albums. Here's a description from the video:
Review by William Ruhlmann [-] Allmusic
Paul Kantner's debut solo album actually was credited to Paul Kantner/Jefferson Starship, the first use of the Starship billing, predating the formation of the group with that name by four years. Kantner used it, extrapolating on the name of his current band, Jefferson Airplane, to refer to Blows's science fiction concept: A bunch of left-wing hippies closely resembling his San Francisco Bay Area compatriots hijack a government-built starship and head off to re-start the human race on another planet. Kantner had presaged this post-apocalyptic colonization idea on Wooden Ships on the last Airplane album, Volunteers, and here he expanded it out to album length with the help of members of The Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Crosby, Stills and Nash, plus assorted others, a shifting supergroup informally known as PERRO, The Planet Earth Rock And Roll Orchestra. (Kantner later would borrow that name for a subsequent solo album.) Blows actually was a little loose as concept albums go, seeming as concerned with the arrival of Kantner and Grace Slick's baby as with the departure of the starship. Kantner employed often dense instrumentation and complex arrangements, but there were enough hooks and harmonies to keep things interesting. Blows eventually went gold, and it was even nominated for a science fiction award usually reserved for novels.
Also released was a version that referred to Poo instead of "you people," to give it an appeal beyond hippie core boomers.
Let's Go Together was a follow up to "We Can Be Together," the revolutionary apologia and musical incendiary opening song from Volunteers (of America) by Jefferson Airplane (1969), which they performed at many rock festival be-ins, and included the now-censored slogan "up against the wall, motherfucker." It has similar melodic/rhythmic construction and cool harmonies to the follow up.
What about the right wing boomers? And the left wing anti-boomers? I know a number of these in both categories, IRL (the latter group being mostly Millennials).
BTW, I like Jefferson Airplane. Jefferson Starship not as much, but I'm mostly just familiar with their crappy 80s songs. Aerosmith, Rush and Queen had a number of good songs, but I can't really think of a single Kiss song that I like, so I agree with you there. Though I can see how they might have been an entertaining live performance. Grunge was awesome! I guess it was one of those things where you had to live it to know it.
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07-03-2016, 09:08 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-03-2016, 10:13 PM by Eric the Green.)
(07-03-2016, 11:18 AM)gabrielle Wrote: What about the right wing boomers? And the left wing anti-boomers? I know a number of these in both categories, IRL (the latter group being mostly Millennials).
Certainly right-wingers have coopted some of the sixties left-wing slogans like those in the Airplane songs. That would not, of course, satisfy the Jefferson Airplane. But I think maybe the alternate version of Let's Go Together might appeal to some left-wing at-least non-boomers (if not anti-boomers), since the intent was to delete reference to the people that Paul Kantner knew in his circle and his travels in circa 1970, who were mostly boomers or war babies.
Quote:BTW, I like Jefferson Airplane. Jefferson Starship not as much, but I'm mostly just familiar with their crappy 80s songs.
Yes; pretty-much agreed. The original supergroup was different; a combination of late-sixties left-wing hippie and CA groups. Quite a cast! Thanks for your comment.
Quote: Aerosmith, Rush and Queen had a number of good songs, but I can't really think of a single Kiss song that I like, so I agree with you there. Though I can see how they might have been an entertaining live performance. Grunge was awesome! I guess it was one of those things where you had to live it to know it.
From what I've heard of Nirvana and Pearl Jam etc. I can't for the life of me imagine any life circumstance, or of being any age, in any generation, where I, at least, would have liked grunge. Broadly speaking, I came into this life with some basic musical inclinations already set, I think. Although for sure I don't know that much of grunge. But Queen did some pretty good songs IMO. Don't want to focus on what I don't like here on this thread. But, of course, disagreements can be discussed on the 2T vs 3T music thread 
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07-03-2016, 09:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-03-2016, 09:20 PM by Eric the Green.)
A great rockin' fun and "decadent" yet very atmospheric and musical tune from Let It Bleed (1969), Monkey Man by the Rolling Stones
Pianist Nicky Hopkins contributed a lot to this peak of album-oriented British rock.
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07-03-2016, 09:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-03-2016, 09:35 PM by Eric the Green.)
The first Led Zeppelin album was in my opinion the most powerful and psychedelic. It was #1 album in San Jose for weeks and weeks. How Many more?
Dazed and Confused
Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
Black Dog was one of their best later ones.
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07-03-2016, 09:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-03-2016, 10:14 PM by Eric the Green.)
One of the greatest vocal performances ever, and award-winning too. It was a continuing presence too in the oscar-winning movie Midnight Cowboy. From 1969, but the song was written in 1966 by Fred Neil, from the album I'll be posting later. Everybody's Talkin' by Nillson, who contributed a lot to the shape and contour of this song to make it great. He was also a great songwriter himself.
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07-03-2016, 09:49 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-03-2016, 09:50 PM by Eric the Green.)
One of the best albums of AOR in 1969 was It's a Beautiful Day, also the name of the group. My favorite from the album was Bombay Calling.
More famous was this one
https://youtu.be/1Cin0QzuEss
1969 was remarkable, because there were lots of great album cuts as well as hits on mainstream radio. Many more appear on my list
http://philosopherswheel.com/ericrock.html
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07-06-2016, 10:35 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-06-2016, 10:42 AM by Eric the Green.)
My favorite from the landmark album by Crosby, Stills and Nash (1969)
Guinnevere
Also on this album, the original version of the song Wooden Ships also recorded in 1969 by Jefferson Airplane. It was written by Crosby and Stills, and also by Paul Kantner of the Airplane.
https://youtu.be/O69L2mO9y-4
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Back into another great year of the sixties, 1968. This one is obviously an example of how classical and rock music can converge. It was created by a writer for the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and premiered on that show with a video of a concentrated collage of great art. Classical Gas by Mason Williams
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07-07-2016, 04:32 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-07-2016, 09:58 AM by Eric the Green.)
Also featured on the Smothers Brothers show was another great example of classical/rock convergence. Although album-oriented rock was getting going in 1968, my favorites of the year were part of mainstream Top 40 radio. This one was my favorite of the year, and was also voted the favorite on a local "middle of the road" station poll. Critics gave it their highest approval. It is said that a listener might be reluctant to get into it, but once in, you can't quit listening. MacArthur Park, written by Jimmy Webb and performed by Richard Harris and many musicians in Webb's orchestral arrangement. The park is near where Robert Kennedy was killed while this song was a hit, and I associate it with that event, and with all the passions and dissappointments of 1968. Later covered by Donna Summer, and also given a parody by Weird Al Yankovich called Jurassic Park
hear the song again and visit the park:
https://youtu.be/1FQuQ74ACPA
The nice follow up:
https://youtu.be/W33WmvW4OPA
(well, nice if you like doomsday!)
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My number two pick from 1968 (Classical Gas was #3), is widely held to be one of the best songs ever, and a huge hit. It came out posthumously after Otis Redding died in a plane crash late in 1967, with the song eerily-indicative of what was about to happen, much like Martin Luther King was to say a few months later, before he died. But this song is magnificent even if sad.
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Another landmark from 1968 is my #4 pick, which is a higher place than I gave it originally in 1968. I always look forward to hearing it, and its spectacular ending.
Jumpin' Jack Flash, it's a gas gas gas! (a classical rock gas!)
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07-07-2016, 05:25 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-07-2016, 10:02 AM by Eric the Green.)
(07-03-2016, 08:03 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Right after We Can Be Together on the Volunteers album was my second-favorite Jefferson Airplane song (and my fave from the album), which is an arrangement of a traditional Christian gospel tune by guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. Anti-hippies don't like it, but for me it captures the feeling of the love-ins and hippie communes better than almost anything. "Can't you hear, my land's a-callin' Oh Good Shepherd, feed my sheep."
Actually, it's not "my land's" but "my lambs a callin' "
wikipedia has a full article on the source and history of Good Shepherd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Shepherd_(song)
And in my post above Good Shepherd, the correct spelling is Pooh!
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07-07-2016, 06:40 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-07-2016, 06:40 AM by Eric the Green.)
In the Stones' follow-up to "Flash," the atmosphere of 1968 in their music is more explicitly stated. Taking off from a Motown song that is also one of the best songs ever (to be posted later), Jagger and the boys complain that their best hope to be revolutionaries in London is to play rock n roll. From Beggar's Banquet.
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07-07-2016, 10:06 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-07-2016, 10:08 AM by Eric the Green.)
Mr. Fantasy album, trippy!
The video poster wrote: I ADORE this stage of TRAFFIC , the feeling when taking in the sound I swoon away to another dreamy world
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07-09-2016, 04:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-09-2016, 04:23 PM by Eric the Green.)
The Mr. Fantasy album was AOR, and although I heard the album and their other one when they came out in 1968, those two tracks I only discovered later in 1974 when I finally picked up the album.
Another album-rock classic from 1968 is The Pusher by Steppenwolf. One poster writes:
"one of the most powerful songs ever written and sung." So it is.
Of course they also put out another powerful song called Don't Step on the Grass Sam about the ridiculous marijuana prohibition; sort of the other side of the coin; sorta. Great organ part in this song.
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07-09-2016, 04:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-09-2016, 04:36 PM by Eric the Green.)
Of course Steppenwolf had a couple of big mainstream hits in 1968. Born to Be Wild is more well-known today, but Magic Carpet Ride was the bigger hit, and the better song IMO.
Fantasy will set you free! Look inside, let the sound take you away.
On the record, the organ part is louder in the instrumental section. Thankfully.
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07-09-2016, 04:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-09-2016, 04:40 PM by Eric the Green.)
Another great song from Beggar's Banquet.
risque tho!
comment on video:
Dennis Leone, 3 months ago:
I never took the lyrics of this song seriously--just part of the early Stones Lewd, Crude and Raw Rock and Roll.
Beatles were the good guys--Stones were the Bad Boys!
This is one great Rock & Roll song!!!
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07-09-2016, 04:46 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-09-2016, 05:07 PM by Eric the Green.)
A huge hit by Eric Burdon and the Animals in the fantastic, often-rough and raw year of 1968, peak year of the USA-Vietnam War. Excellent classic!
How high can you fly, you'll never reach the sky.
With God you're never alone.
comment on video: One of the best classic rock songs ever. Period.
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07-09-2016, 04:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-09-2016, 04:59 PM by Eric the Green.)
Trippy track following Sky Pilot on the album
Vince Klortho 4 years ago
Pure psychedelic transcendence...the very music of the spheres...
comment on another video version:
que buena cancion (Psicodelia, blues y rock juntados)
Not sure the sound is coming through well though.
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(07-09-2016, 04:32 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Of course Steppenwolf had a couple of big mainstream hits in 1968. Born to Be Wild is more well-known today, but Magic Carpet Ride was the bigger hit, and the better song IMO.
Fantasy will set you free! Look inside, let the sound take you away.
On the record, the organ part is louder in the instrumental section. Thankfully.
Yes, a might fine group and album. 
---Value Added
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