I’m not Christian, and I don’t really believe in anything
like a God or any sort of higher power. If anything, I’d describe myself as a
humanist, without ever really being able to fully explain quite what that means
other than the fact that I believe in science first and foremost, and my definition
of “faith” is something akin to a personal code or an inner monologue to live life
by. It’s complicated, but I do struggle with the idea that there’s some form of
invisible force beyond that. Beyond science, or beyond a personal moral code. I
think organised religion is controlling, manipulative, and the source of much
global division. That much seems clear, to me, at least. However, I’ve written a little bit in the past (here) about how Rastafarianism as it relates
to reggae music has impacted on me, and about how songs of praise or worship
can be hugely invigorating and empowering for me on a personal level. Even if a
lot of the reggae music deals with a mythical African King/Emperor I have very
little understanding of, and certainly no first-hand experience of.
Equally, there’s
something very compelling about black American gospel music. Something very powerful,
and it’s never impacted upon me more than it did a couple of weeks back when I
sat down inside a small - almost empty - inner city Sydney cinema to watch
Amazing Grace, the Sydney Pollack-directed documentary about Aretha Franklin’s
two-day/night performance stint at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in
Los Angeles back in January of 1972. Those performances doubled as recording
sessions, and those recordings formed the core of Franklin’s iconic live album,
Amazing Grace. Franklin was assisted by the Reverend James Cleveland and the Southern
California Community Choir, but she’s the star. Or rather, her phenomenal voice
is the star. It was as pure as honey in 1972, with Aretha still just a few
months shy of her 30th birthday. The album was released
later that year, and it went on to become the best-selling album of Franklin’s
entire career, and the best-selling “gospel” album of all-time. It includes a mix
of traditional gospel songs (‘Climbing Higher Mountains’, ‘God Will Take Care
of You’, etc) and more recent fare like adaptations of the Carole King-penned ‘You’ve
Got a Friend’ and Marvin Gaye’s ‘Wholy Holy’, which had appeared on Gaye’s What’s
Going On masterpiece of a year earlier. The release of Pollack’s
raw grainy video/documentary footage, initially around 20-hours all up, proved
to be far more problematic. There were issues aplenty, not the least of which
was an inability to sync the audio with the video, something that was eventually
achieved by some post-production miracle. After that, it was Franklin’s own
reluctance to allow the edited version (something close to 90 minutes) to see
the light of day which ensured the documentary was shelved for more than 40
years. Which, given how utterly inspirational most of that footage is, seems
rather incredible. After Franklin
died in August of 2018 her family gave the go ahead for the film’s release and
it immediately became a festival hit, going on to achieve worldwide/mainstream
release status in April of 2019. I was fully
engrossed in Amazing Grace from start to finish. 90 minutes of virtual
wall-to-wall gospel music. I was in complete awe of Franklin. In awe of MC
James Cleveland. And in awe of the articulate preacher/Baptist Minister
Clarence Franklin, Aretha’s father, who made a short cameo appearance (as did
one Mick Jagger, as part of the gathered throng watching on). In awe of those
songs. Songs of praise to a higher being I don’t even believe in. I left that cinema
completely enthralled by the power of that music. If that’s what a true religious
experience is meant to feel like, then sign, seal, and deliver me to the
promised land. I’m ready. Well, almost … I may have just got a little bit
carried away. Highly
recommended. Unmissable, even.
Whatever you made of his dysfunctional personal life and some of his
questionable choices, Michael Jackson was a once-in-a-generation pop genius.
That part can't really be denied. His musical legacy speaks for itself.
I've written before about how Jackson's death in 2009 placed focus firmly back on his music. It was welcome development, in as much as it's ever
possible to find a silver lining where the cloud of tragic early death is
concerned. And so, some seven years on, space, distance, and time to reflect
has offered us the chance to view things with a little more clarity - sans the
daily dose of negativity provided by a predatory tabloid media intent on
reporting his every move. What we're left with is a rather incredible body of
work.
Thriller is, of course, the album most readily associated with Jackson.
It is, after all, the biggest selling album of all-time, and that mid-Eighties
period from Thriller's release in 1982 through to the Bad album in 1987
unquestionably represents something of a commercial peak for Michael Jackson. As
successful as those landmark albums were, I don't buy the notion that either
album found Jackson at his creative best. I'm of the view that 1979's Off The
Wall was a superior work, and not just because it's the album which effectively
launched his solo career. Or at least phase two, or the adult phase, of his
solo career - Jackson having released four "solo" albums between 1972
and 1975 while still a member of the Jackson 5.
Off The Wall was his first release on Epic, and his first with producer
Quincy Jones. The label change was significant because all of his previous work
had been released under the Motown banner, with that label being notoriously
strict in terms of maintaining creative control. The presence of Quincy Jones
was a major development too, and the producer would go on to become a genuine
confidante and mentor for Jackson over many years. The album also yielded
Jackson's first Grammy.
But more than any of that, Off The Wall was the album that best captured
Jackson at his youthful devil-may-care exuberant best. It felt like a
coming-of-age release, a breakout for a young man whose talent and ambition
clearly outstripped that of his brothers. This was the album where the boy
became a man, a solo artist, and a global superstar in his own right.
It's certainly one of the first albums I can recall that had no obvious
filler (within my admittedly very limited album scope at that time - I was
practically a child myself when I discovered it). Or to put it another way, one
of the first where every track had the potential to be released as a single -
and five of the ten tracks did become singles, with opener 'Don't Stop Til You
Get Enough' being the jewel in Jackson's metaphorical crown.
Actually, has there ever been a more joyous opening to an album than the
fateful first thirty seconds of 'Don't Stop Til You Get Enough'? ... the "force",
you know, it really does have a lot of power ... (*your blogger does his best
MJ squeal for full effect*).
Feelin' The Force
That track itself stands as perhaps the definitive representation of
Jackson's desire to break out and take things to a whole new level - the sense
of youthful passion and unbridled freedom barely contained within 'Don't Stop'
was something Jackson would struggle to replicate on later work (with arguably,
large doses of outright cynicism creeping in over time, particularly in later
years - see ‘Scream’ for just one obvious example).
Yet for all that Off The Wall was about Jackson breaking free - from the
constraints of family and Motown - he got quite a lot of help along the way,
with ‘Don’t Stop’ being one of only two Jackson originals on the album - the
other being ‘Working Day And Night’. It was heavyweight help too, not just from
Quincy Jones, but with song-writing contributions coming from Paul McCartney
(‘Girlfriend’), Stevie Wonder (‘I Can’t Help It’), and Carole Bayer Sager
(‘It’s The Falling In Love’). Rod Temperton (of chart funkers Heatwave) offered
up second single ‘Rock With You’, and album closer ‘Burn This Disco Out’.
Ultimately though, Jackson was able to stamp his own mark on each of these
tunes, which is a measure of just how good Off The Wall was (and remains).
There’s also something quite special about the purity of Jackson’s voice
in 1978/1979 when Off The Wall was recorded, with ‘She’s Out of My Life’
providing one of the more dramatic moments on the album, and certainly a genuine
highlight in terms of vocal performance.
2016’s Deluxe edition is something of an oddity among so-called “legacy”
releases in that it doesn’t contain any new or additional music. Rather, the
standard album, albeit with spruced-up packaging, is accompanied by a DVD
containing Spike Lee’s absorbing documentary ‘Michael Jackson’s Journey from
Motown to Off The Wall’, which covers exactly what it says on the box.
The documentary is really quite specific to that mid-to-late Seventies
period of Jackson’s life, so anyone expecting a career-spanning overview will
be disappointed. And that’s perfectly fine, because Spike Lee digs very deep,
examining the difficult transition from child prodigy to global superstar and
all of the many peripheral factors surrounding that. How Jackson went about re-establishing
himself as a credible artist in the wake of his departure from Motown. How
something like the Jackson 5 cartoon TV series had adversely impacted on the
public perception of what Jackson represented, or who he was, for example. That
path was far from smooth, and the documentary is all the more essential for the
depth of detail and context Spike Lee is able to provide.
There’s great concert footage from the era - some exhilarating stuff
featuring Michael fronting The Jacksons, with the family band still very much a
going concern during the making of Off The Wall (and well beyond). Quincy Jones
and Stevie Wonder contribute interview snippets, as do various members of the
Jackson family, while the more contemporary likes of Pharrell Williams,
Questlove, John Legend, and Mark Ronson are on hand to offer perspective on why
the album is special to each of them. Why individual tracks are personal
favourites etc. There’s discussion around the background of various tracks and
the production processes for each; how the individual parts contribute to the
greater whole.
And what a “whole” it is! Yes, Thriller is the one people will always
refer to as Jackson’s masterpiece, and it’s hard to argue with sales or numbers
alone, but without Off The Wall - and I’d argue it has aged better - there
would have been no Thriller. It really is as simple as that.
The news this week that the
Rolling Stones have released a digital album featuring the band’s two recent
Hyde Park gigs (19 tracks culled from the July 2013 gigs) comes as no great
surprise. It probably wasn’t enough that the 65,000 people who turned up to
each show paid anything from £95 to £300 for the privilege of attending. Why
not cash in while the going is still good? ... I’m sure Jagger and co need the
money. Go to iTunes and pick up a copy if that’s your bag ...
But the general consensus is that
the going is no longer very good at all. That the Stones have lost their mojo,
and collectively they might just be starting to feel the pinch of old age. I’ve
no idea whether or not that is true because I’ve resisted buying any “new”
Stones material for years now. And yes, there are diehards who insist that the
band wasn’t complete shit at Hyde Park. In fact, a few reviews were very
positive indeed ... and so the juggernaut rolls on.
Regardless of any of that, there
is a real irony in the fact that the inferior 2013 version of the Rolling
Stones are looking to cream it from a couple of Hyde Park gigs, when the far
superior Stones of 1969 played the exact same gig to more than 200,000 people
for FREE.
That epic day was captured on film
and released on video/DVD as ‘The Stones In The Park’. Here’s my review of that
DVD ...
*
The year 1969 looms large as a
pivotal and era-defining one in the wider context of Rock history. With The
Beatles all but defunct and on the very cusp of self-destruction, with landmark
events such as Woodstock and Altamont occurring, and the release of a number of
albums that would ultimately qualify for “all-time classic” status, the year
heralding the end of the Sixties will forever be recalled as one of huge
cultural significance. And that’s without even really scratching the surface.
Then there was this, The Rolling Stones performing live at London’s Hyde Park,
a free concert, just two days after the untimely and somewhat mysterious death
(by drowning) of founding member and (the recently sacked) guitarist Brian
Jones.
The late Sixties was a period when
outdoor concerts in Hyde Park were fairly regular occurrences, but it’s fair to
say that none were quite like this one in terms of scale or longer term
relevance. This was just huge … as I’m quite sure many of the 250,000* in
attendance that summery July day would attest. This DVD, The Stones In The
Park, is a compilation of documentary and concert footage captured exclusively
by Granada, recording the momentous occasion for posterity.
(*This is the conservative
guesstimate, the DVD inlay suggests some “half a million” were present (if not
entirely accounted for). Other sources suggest 250,000-300,000 - the correct
figure most likely being somewhere in the middle).
Although the film itself is
relatively short in length at around the one hour mark, The Stones In The Park
offers considerably more than a mere collection of concert highlights. That is
perhaps just as well, given that the performance of the Rolling Stones that day
won’t go down as one of their greatest live efforts. Support bands on the day
included Roger Chapman’s Family and a fledgling version of King Crimson, but
neither - or indeed, any of the other support bands - are covered here. The
film-makers instead preferred to provide build-up to the Stones’ gig by
capturing the general vibe and sense of anticipation as the crowd slowly swells
- interspersed with excerpts from an interview with Mick Jagger.
So it’s bare-footed, flowery
bell-bottomed, cheesecloth-clad hippies to the fore as we survey the loved-up
and mostly long-haired bohemian crowd. Providing a precursor to the chilling
events that would take place at San Francisco’s Altamont Speedway just a few
months later, “official” auxiliary security is provided by a surprisingly
youthful chapter (or two) of the Hell’s Angels. It is difficult to imagine such
an occurrence in today’s far more enlightened times, yet the menace provided by
the leather-clad Bikers was just as likely a necessity considering the sheer
volume of people in attendance. An otherwise too daunting a task for the local
Met - although we do sight the odd “Bobby” or two loitering around the fringes.
On to the performance then, twelve
tracks from a larger Stones set-list ultimately making the cut for the film;
the highlights (a relative term) being ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, the impressive
‘I’m Free’ (a less-celebrated Stones track subsequently turned into a
dancefloor smash by the Soup Dragons some 20 years later), the perennial live
favourite from that era ‘Midnight Rambler’, and of course the “new” single
‘Honky Tonk Woman’. Perhaps the best moment though was reserved for a rather
unique voodoo-drenched version of ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ - which included
some riveting percussion from a group of African drummers who had by then
joined the band on stage, complete with a suitably-attired tribesman intent on
giving Jagger a serious run for his money in the strange-ethnic-boogie stakes.
Jagger, looking resplendent in an
effeminate white frilly number, paid tribute to Brian Jones at the beginning of
the set, reading a short poem (Shelley’s ‘Adonis’) for his dear friend. One can
only wonder what was going through the minds of the band members as they
performed what had essentially become an impromptu Memorial gig for Brian.
Surely they must have been experiencing some amount of trauma and/or shock
given that Jones had died so suddenly just hours before.
Certainly new guitarist Mick
Taylor handled the situation with some aplomb considering it was his first live
performance with the band, and Taylor would become a valuable permanent member
of the line-up through the band’s most creative period until he was eventually
replaced by Ronnie Wood in the mid-‘70s.
But generally, as mentioned above,
despite their resolve and professionalism in terms of fulfilling their
obligations come the day, the self-proclaimed greatest RocknRoll band in the
world turned out a less than stellar set by their own high standards
(‘Satisfaction’ being the most notable disappointment) and much of their
playing was fragmented and sloppy to say the least (aye, looking at you Keef
Richards).
However, that was probably not
really that important in the wider scheme of things. The Stones In The Park was
a one-off, a monumental event, and I’d be fairly sure that the large majority
of those present couldn’t have cared less about note-perfect renditions.
Overall, putting the rather poor
sound quality and often grainy footage aside, this DVD is a genuine slice of
history and a compelling documentary account of a band about to embark on phase
two of what would prove to be a truly remarkable existence. From a social and
historical perspective, the Hyde Park gig occupies an important place in the
rich tapestry of popular culture, if only for the sheer weight of numbers who
endorsed as much at the time. Recommended.
