Odessey and Oracle

According to both the Zombie Heaven liner notes and Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (19 April 1968), the Zombies released Odessey and Oracle (CBS 63280).

"Time of the Season" b/w "I'll Call You Mine"

According to both the Zombie Heaven liner notes and Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (5 April 1968), the Zombies released "Time of the Season" b/w "I'll Call You Mine (CBS 3380).

The Kenny Everett Show

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago this month (April 1968), the Zombies - or, more specifically, Chris White and Rod Argent - made their appearance on The Kenny Everett Show on Radio One.

"Since I've Been Loving You"

Back in January I figured out the chords for Colin Blunstone's "Since I've Been Loving You."  I intended to post them the next day, but that was the day that Jim Rodford died, which sort of upset everything.  Recently, though, I remembered that I meant to post them, so here they are:

Verses
Ab major | Eb major | F minor | Db major
Ab major | Bb minor | Eb major
Ab major | Eb major | F minor | Db major
Ab major | Eb major | Gb major | Ab major

Choruses

Ab major | Bb minor | C minor

Db major | Eb major | Ab major | F minor

Ab major | Bb minor | Eb major

Ab major | Bb minor | C minor

Db major | Eb major | Ab major | F minor

Ab major | Eb major | Gb major | Ab major

The two lines of Ab major | Bb minor | C minor in the chorus last only about half a measure; the changes there are really fast.

Split Announced

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (30 March 1968), the Zombies' split was announced.  In the liner notes to the 30th anniversary edition of Odessey and Oracle, there's a clipping (with the same date) from Disc and Music Echo.  In full it reads:

ZOMBIES, who sprang to fame with the hit "She's Not There," three years ago, have disbanded.
     Says leader Rod Argent.  "We felt we were becoming stale.  We didn't think we were progressing musically as a group."
     But the St Albans boys leave behind two new releases.  A single, "Time Of The Season," released on April 5, and an album "Odyssey And Oracle," on April 19.
     Adds Argent: "We are ending our career with recordings we wrote and produced ourselves for the CBS label.  We have made up our minds not to re-form even if the records are big hits."
     Zombies were most successful in America where "She's Not There" and "Tell Her No" won them top awards.  The boys also appeared and played in Otto Preminger's film "Bunny Lake Is Missing."
     Zombies Rod Argent and Chris White plan to stay in the business, songwriting and producing.  Lead singer Colin Blunstone is going into insurance.  Drummer Hugh Grundy intends to stay in music.  And guitarist Paul Atkinson has taken a post in computers.

"Twelve Twenty Nine"

A couple days ago (26 March), I happened to look at a clock when it was 12:29 (a.m.).  The Neil MacArthur song ("Twelve Twenty Nine") popped into my head, and I realized something about the last line of each verse ("'Cause at twelve twenty nine today's taken my only love away").  The "away" is sung with a melisma (B B A G#), which musically provides a sense of movement, namely "today's tak[ing] my only love away."

In figuring out a bit of the vocal melody while writing this post last night, I also discovered that there's an accidental for "taken."  The song is in E major, but that "taken" is sung to a C natural.  That foreign tonality intensifies "taken... away" into something like "wrenched away."

Argent Live at the Paris Theatre, London 1972

Via the Zombies fan club on Facebook, here's a recording of an Argent concert from 1972.  The accompanying text claims that the set list includes "God Gave Rock and Roll to You," but the recording actually consists of "Be My Lover, Be My Friend," "Sweet Mary," "Hold Your Head Up," and "He's a Dynamo."  Except for "Hold Your Head Up," I'd never heard live versions of any of those.

"The Coming of Kohoutek"

Recently, I finally got around to notating the synth/mellotron quotation of "Dies Irae" at the beginning of Argent's "The Coming of Kohoutek."  I've known the guitar quotation for years, but this keyboard quotation (which I learned in August) is at a lower pitch.  After I notated it, I lookt at my old posts about "The Coming of Kohoutek," and I discovered that I haven't written much about the "Dies Irae" quotation, so I'm doing that now.

I identified the quotation myself (after hearing a similar phrase in Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and doing some research), but I also found this interview with Rod Argent where he talks about the song a bit and confirms the "Dies Irae" quote:

Progsheet: Argent's The Coming Of Kohoutek got lots of airplay on FM radio here in the States. Please give me some background on the song. 

Rod Argent: The comet was heralded as being potentially one of the most spectacular events to occur in the sky for many years. In the far past, spectacular comet visitations had been linked to all sorts of prophesies of doom and destruction, and I included a very famous musical theme - the Dies Irae, (Day of Wrath), written in the 13th century. It was a short theme that's been used by many composers. I just thought it was interesting to look at things a bit from a historical perspective, and it was the dramatic nature of the whole event that fascinated me. In the end, the comet Kohoutek was pretty much a damp squib!!

Here's the "Dies Irae" tune:

[source]

And here's the synth/mellotron quotation from the beginning of "The Coming of Kohoutek":

Argent uses only the first two thirds of the "Dies Irae" and changes the rhythm a bit (notwithstanding the overall lengthening of the note values), but the intervals remain the same.

Update

Two significant things happened on 15 February.  First, I finished transferring my old posts from tumblr to this blog.  I did skip a couple, but mostly they were just links to interviews that I'd posted without any commentary.  All of the "essential" things are here now.

The other bit of news is more exciting.  I finally acquired a Nord Electro 5D (which I've been eyeing since at least December 2014), so now I can play a whole host of keyboard parts with more accurate sounds.

I'm still figuring out how to use it, but one of the first things I did was load the Hohner Pianet sample.  Other relevant sounds for this project include Vox Continental, Hammond B-3, mellotron (flute and strings), and Fender Rhodes (for some of the later Argent material).  There are some harpsichord sounds, but they're recorded from actual harpsichords rather than an electric harpsichord, which is what Rod Argent used on "I Want Her She Wants Me" (I'm not sure about the specific instruments used for others things like "Imagine the Swan" and Colin Blunstone's version of "(Care of) Cell 44").  The piano sounds are vastly superior to the old Yamaha PSR-320 that I'd been using for the last five or six years.

One of the reasons I wanted the Electro 5D is that it has physical drawbars.  I couldn't really do anything to alter the organ sounds on the Yamaha keyboard, but I can on the Nord.  Because I'm in the midst of FAWM though, I haven't had much time to play around with them yet, and I still have no idea what I'm doing.

I have a notion of going through the whole catalogue and re-recording everything for which I know keyboard parts, but I'm not sure I'll actually do that.  Learning how to use drawbars is my first priority, and then I think I might make a list of the specific keyboard instruments used in each song.

Breathe Out, Breathe In

Last night I watched the four videos of songs from Breathe Out, Breathe In, and I realized something about the title track:

The piano solo has a baroque feel, and while that might be the influence of actual baroque music (as Argent says in the liner notes for Classically Speaking, "I've always loved Bach!"), it might also be the Beatles' influence, specifically the baroque-inspired keyboard solo played by George Martin in "In My Life."

---&---

This morning I listened to the entire album, and I noticed something about "A Moment in Time":

As rendered in the liner notes, the first few lines are:

All my beginnings

That preciously I find

Lead me to sorrow

Or happiness incline

I'd write these as two lines rather than four, but regardless, there's a syntactical inversion.  Instead of "beginnings that lead me to sorrow or incline me to happiness," the second of those verb phrases is inverted, and that inversion mirrors how sorrow and happiness are opposites.

---&---

As a general point, I also noticed that a number of the songs mention breath or breathing.  I lookt through the lyrics, and six of the ten songs have one or the other.  Obviously, there's "breathe out, breathe in" in the title track, but there's also "I'd take my last breath whispering your name" in "Any Other Way," "She reminds me of / The breath of summer sun" in "Shine on Sunshine," "Feeling for the breath of angels" in "A Moment in Time," "You take my breath away" in "Another Day," and "Like a baby I'm learning to breathe" in "I Do Believe."  So Breathe Out, Breathe In is appropriately titled.

"Shine on Sunshine"

Because of Jim Rodford's recent and unexpected death, I've been listening to Argent albums.  Yester-day I listened to Circus (the first Argent album with a song written by Rodford: "Trapeze"), and I noticed a small thing about "Shine on Sunshine."

In the second verse, after the line "The rain that breaks your heart" in the lead vocals, that same line is sung in the backing vocals to a melody something like:

(I guessed on the key based on the pitches in this phrase.)

The "breaks" is sung with a melisma (G# to A# in the second measure), giving a musical impression of the breaking.

I referenced the version that the Zombies recorded for Breathe Out, Breathe In, but it doesn't have this feature because the second half of the verse is re-written (along with other sections of the song).  In Argent's version, I think it's:

Better yet by far
The best I ever saw
The rain that breaks your heart
Won't bend our love for sure

But in the Zombies' version, it's:

Better yet by far
The best I ever saw
Each time the clouds start crying
She dries their tears once more

Odessey and Oracle

According to the Zombie Heaven liner notes, fifty years ago to-day (1 January 1968), the Zombies did some work on Odessey and Oracle.  The entry reads "EMI Abbey Road Room 53 Odessey & Oracle original master (stereo)."  As with the corresponding entry for 28 December, I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I'm assuming it indicates when the Zombies gather together the stereo mixes for Odessey and Oracle.