The Rolling Stones album Beggar’s Banquet includes a song called “Prodigal Son.”
There was some initial confusion about the songwriting credit, having not been clearly attributed to the Reverend Robert Wilkins, who first recorded it in 1964.
The song is actually a reworking of Wilkins’ song “That’s No Way To Get Along” from 1929, before he became a devout Christian.
https://youtu.be/9J2rEvVxBP8
We have the 1918 pandemic, the unemployment rate of the Great Depression, and the race riots of 1968, all at the same time. There’s no need to wait for hindsight to have 20/20 vision about 2020, and the year isn’t even half over!
Something that’s overlooked about John Lennon’s infamous heckling of the Smothers Brothers at the Troubadour in 1974 is that he knew Tommy Smothers. Yeah, Lennon was being a jerk, and he acknowledged it ever after, but in a way he was just being a pain in the butt to a friend.
Let’s brighten our day with this snappy Sunshine Pop tune. It’s a Jack Nitzsche production, and I can’t find anything about Leon Russell playing piano, but that’s a reasonably safe assumption.
Listen for the shameless borrowing of Brian Wilson’s “bow bow bow” backing from “Help Me Rhonda.”
A very nerdy thing I’ve enjoyed doing is listening to the many different combinations of inexpensive phono preamps and cartridges presented on YouTube. Here is how the setup in my home office sounds. Listen quick, in case YouTube decides to yank it, despite many other unofficial copies of the song already being there.
The cartridge is a Grado Black ($75), the preamp a Behringer PP400 ($25), and the turntable is a Technics SL-BD20D. The Technics was the last of the P-Mount (T4P) models, and it was purchased new for $99 from J&R Music World, an outstanding retailer and mail-order service that is gone, but not forgotten.
These official record label playlists of complete albums are da bomb. Is that still an expression? Here’s one from the daddy-o era. Sinatra at his Capitol best, and upbeat it ain’t.
“Scuse me, while I disappear…”
I first mentioned Deep Purple’s superb 1968 recording of “Hush” almost — hoo, boy — eight years ago. “Hush” is one of my Top 10 all-time favorite songs, of which I probably have 100. It’s sort of a rotating Top 10.
I’m sure glad that Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood came out last year, before we got clobbered by the Chinese diet, which is nothing like the Japanese Diet. Here’s “Hush” as it’s heard in the movie soundtrack.
Dare I say that it’s WRONG, because it is. This is how the track is supposed to start, as played on a Technics SL-1500 MK2 turntable with a Stanton 680 cartridge. An excellent setup from the late 70’s.
The stereo mix has a fainter wolf howl intro. It’s the second track on Shades of Deep Purple, a super strong debut album that’s worth hearing all the way through, as this playlist will do.
