The Bluetones

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Pictures of Jim Rodford in the Bluetones from this article that also reveals that he's writing a memoir!

"Pleasure"

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I recently listened to Argent's Ring of Hands for my Collection Audit project, and I noticed something interesting about "Pleasure."

After the first part of the solo (the part that's mostly arpeggios doubled on electric piano and organ), the guitar rhythm (starting at about 2:06) has exponentially diminishing note values, the same feature that's also in the bass part of the alternate version of the Zombies' "I Want You Back Again" and the version of "Just a Little Bit" that they performed on The Beat Show in November 1965.  (I wrote about this in two posts last year.)

Here's my hand-written notation for the bass part of the alternate version of "I Want You Back Again":

Here's the notation I made for the bass part in the live version of "Just a Little Bit":

And here's the rhythm of the guitar chords in the second half of the solo in "Pleasure."  They're E major chords, but I'm not sure of the exact phrasing (I think it's the standard E B E G# B E, but I don't think every note in that fingering is played), so I just notated E notes.

The note values are both larger and shorter here, starting with four measures of tied whole notes (sixteen beats) and ending with sixteenth notes, but it's the same feature.

Like I've mentioned before, Rod Argent and Chris White shared the writing credits during this period although they continued to write separately.  Because this feature is present in both "I Want You Back Again" and "Pleasure" and because "I Want You Back Again" was written by Argent, it seems to suggest that he wrote "Pleasure" too.

Back in January 2015, I discovered that a phrase in the bass register of the piano part at the beginning of "Pleasure" (B C# D# E F# G#) is also in the Argent-written "Hung up on a Dream," a similarity that also seems to suggest that he wrote "Pleasure."

"Celebration"

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Collection Audit:

This morning I listened to Argent's Ring of Hands, and I noticed something about "Celebration," the first track.  The first couple lines ("Celebration / An invitation") are sung by just one voice, but then more voices join in for the next lines ("To come and join in / The ring of hands together"), so there's a musical representation of that "join[ing] in."

Olympic Studios / "Road Runner"

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Two general sorts of things:

1.  I recently ran across a reference to Olympic Studios, and it made me realize how appropriate it is that some of the Odessey and Oracle songs ("Maybe after He's Gone," "Beechwood Park," and "I Want Her She Wants Me") were recorded there.  The title of the album conjures up Greek mythology (and The Odyssey, in particular), and Mount Olympus is where the Greek gods lived.

This sends me off on a tangent, though.  Previously, I've linked to this photo set of the Zombies recording at Abbey Road.  The caption for the set says, "Sixties band 'The Zombies' pictured during the recording of 'Time of the Season' at EMI's Abbey Road studios in September 1967."  I'd always been dubious of the claim that they were recording "Time of the Season."  I just thought, "Oh, well, they're probably just attaching their pictures to the Zombies' most famous song.  Who knows what they were actually recording."  But in referencing the Zombie Heaven liner notes to see which songs were recorded at Olympic Studios, I think I've inadvertently proven that those pictures are of the Zombies recording "Time of the Season."  Hammond organ is present on only two tracks on the album - "Beechwood Park" and "Time of the Season."  "Beechwood Park" was recorded at Olympic Studios, and Rod Argent's playing Hammond in some of these pictures, so it has to be for "Time of the Season."  (Unless he was just playing around with the Hammond in the studio, but considering the time and budget constraints they were under to record the album, I don't think that's likely.)

2. Two days ago, I re-organized some of the folders in which I keep my recordings for this project.  While putting the Begin Here songs in their proper track listing, I realized that since "Road Runner" starts a cappella and starts Begin Here, the album itself begins with an a cappella part.  Last night I was thinking about this again, and I remembered some other album does the same thing.  Eventually, I remembered specifically that it's the Beatles' Beatles for Sale.  "No Reply" starts with an a cappella "This happened once before."  Beatles for Sale is my favorite Beatles album, so I knew that offhand, but With the Beatles (and "It Won't Be Long") has a cappella start too.

The Zombie Heaven liner notes and Russo's Collector's Guide both list the release of Begin Here as April 1965; Russo says the 30th specifically where Zombie Heaven lists only the month.  Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions lists the release date of With the Beatles as 22 November 1963 and Beatles for Sale as 4 December 1964.  (The U.K. release dates are the only important ones here because none of these albums were released in the same form in the U.S.)  Chronologically, it's possible that Begin Here's starting with an a cappella part is a nod toward the Beatles, but since the Zombies didn't have any control in the studio at that point, I'm not sure if they would have had any control over the track sequencing.  Still, I think it's an interesting similarity.

"I Can't Be Wrong"

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I felt like figuring out a part last night, and since I'd listened to New World recently (well, sort of recently, two weeks ago), I thought I'd figure out a part from that album.  But because it had been a while since I'd listened to it, I couldn't remember which parts I'd thought sounded easy when I listened to it.  I did get this guitar phrase from "I Can't Be Wrong" though.  I think it's actually played on a (double-tracked) classical, nylon-strung guitar, but I don't have one of those.  I hadn't noticed until figuring it out that there's a keyboard part under this, so that'll probably be the next part of this song that I try to figure out.

The Zombies

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[source]

I was going through my Twitter favorites and found this again.

I love this picture.

Argent at the Palace Theatre

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About a week ago, The Zombies Fan Club Page posted a link to an Argent concert at the Palace Theatre on November 7, 1973.  I finally got around to listening to it this morning, and I thought I'd link to and write about it here.

Each track is posted individually, but they're all accompanied by the same article.

"It's Only Money, Pts. 2 & 1"

Paste, the site that posted this, claims that "the recording begin[s] in progress" and that this is incomplete, but it's not.  It actually starts with the second movement (Prelude) of "Pure Love," and then there's "It's Only Money, Pt. 2," which transitions into "It's Only Money, Pt. 1," just like on the Encore album (which was released a year later, in November 1974).

I think it's interesting that at one point Ballard sings, "I'm the taxman" where the studio version has "Pay the taxman."  Changing that line gives this live version a bit of an echo of the Beatles' "Taxman."

"God Gave Rock & Roll to You"

"I Don't Believe in Miracles"

About three years ago, I found some Argent videos on YouTube, so I'd actually heard this performance before.  Like the article notes though, these are stereo mixes, rather than the mono mixes that were used when this was televised.

Here's the video:

"I Am the Dance of Ages"

"The Fakir"

In the set list that the article provides, "The Fakir" is the last song, but at the end of "I Am the Dance of Ages," Ballard says that the next song features Bob Henrit, the drummer, and "The Fakir" has a drum solo.  I downloaded all of these tracks, and playing the audio files back-to-back, the transition between the two is seamless.  Furthermore, in the metadata, "The Fakir" is listed as number 5, so I don't think the end of the article's set list is right.  At the end of "Hold Your Head Up," Rod Argent says, "Good night.  Thank you," which seems to indicate the end of the show.

When The Zombies Fan Club Page posted this, they mentioned a "familiar riff at about 4:50" (I'd be more precise and say 4:46).  When I listened to this, I'd forgotten about that, but I did recognize it; it's a variation on the melody from the "But it's too late to say you're sorry..." section of "She's Not There."

I dug out my copy of Henrit's autobiography (Bangin' On) because I remembered that he has a couple of interesting comments about "The Fakir."  First: "Even though it was de rigueur at the time, the real reason we had a drum solo in Argent was because of Jim's weak bladder!"  Second (but actually earlier in the book): "Halfway through [the show, a different one from this one at the Palace Theatre], at the usual spot in the show when Jim's bladder needed to be emptied, I launched into my drum solo aka The Fakir, threw my sticks away, attacked the cymbals with my belt and got stuck into the sensitive passage where I played with my hands.  I had to keep my head down and really aim accurately, so I didn't inadvertently bloody my knuckles on sharp drum bits and cymbals...."  Henrit's timeline - with "The Fakir" about halfway through the set - also seems to suggest that Paste's set list is wrong.

I found a video of this too (although at the time, I didn't know the song had a name).  It doesn't last as long as the audio recording that Paste posted, but Henrit's playing drums with his hands instead of his sticks is visible:

"Keep on Rollin'"

"Hold Your Head Up"

Paste mentions that Argent includes "The Star Spangled Banner" in his solo, and I'm sort of glad they did because he plays it at about half its usual speed and I'm not sure I would have recognized it if I hadn't been prepared.  It strikes me a bit odd though that Paste mentions his quotation of "The Star Spangled Banner" but not his quotation of "Yankee Doodle."

There's video from this too.  Three years ago, I downloaded two videos, and while the titles have different dates, they're the same performance; one just has the wrong date.  I can't find the complete performance (apparently that video was taken down or deleted), but here's the one that's still up:

In the video, you can see Ballard's swinging his guitar around while hanging on to the holes in it.  Somewhere in his book (I can't seem to find the specific passage), Henrit writes that Ballard had holes in his guitar expressly for that purpose.

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I also have some more general comments about this.

The first sentence of the article says that "keyboardist Rod Argent and songwriter/guitarist Russ Ballard teamed up to form the progressive rock group Argent," and I think that's a bit misleading.  In the accounts I've read, the band Argent started with Rod Argent and Chris White (who isn't mentioned at all in the article).  Because White wanted to be just a writer and a producer (rather than a playing member of the band), Argent recruited Jim Rodford to play bass.  Ballard and Henrit were the last to join.

As the article mentions, the material performed here (aside from "I Don't Believe in Miracles" and "The Fakir") are from the albums All Together Now and In Deep.  I was curious about the time frame, so I lookt up the release date of In Deep and found that this is seven months afterwards.  According to Russo's Collector's Guide, the U.K. release of In Deep was 23 March 1973, and the U.S. release was three days later (the 26th).  There's some mellotron on In Deep, but this performance shows Argent expanding his instrumental palette, as it were, with mellotron and Moog.  I think the Nexus album (released in the U.K. on 22 February 1974 and in the U.S. on 22 April) is the first Argent album to have Moog, and it's on some tracks on Circus too.  Counterpoints hasn't been released on CD (hopefully it will be), so I don't know what keyboards are used there.

Paste seems to have some other period live recordings of Argent, and I'm curious about those too, but I'm going to wait a while before indulging in them.

"A Girl Like That"

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A couple days ago, I listened to Colin Blunstone & Rod Argent's Out of the Shadows for my Collection Audit project.  The guitar part near the beginning of "A Girl Like That" sounded easy, so I figured that out.  All I know so far though is just arpeggiated chords, which wouldn't be very interesting to listen to, so I wrote out the notation (I guessed on the key):

For the first twenty seconds of the song, the guitar part just alternates between these two measures (I have them twice in my notation).

"Say You Don't Mind"

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After I figured out the specific notes in some of the melismas in "Say You Don't Mind," I also figured out the bass part for the first verse.  I had to record this using the fake upright bass setting on my keyboard though because I don't have (and don't really know how to play) an upright bass.  Because of that and because it's mostly fourths and fifths, it has a resemblance to donkey braying.

I might also try notating as much as I recorded (which is all I know) because I think it's entirely quarter notes and eighth notes.

"Say You Don't Mind"

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Collection Audit:

A couple days ago I listened to Colin Blunstone's One Year (on vinyl, even), and I noticed some things about "Say You Don't Mind."  I knew there are melismas during certain parts of the verses, but I found connections with the lyrics that I hadn't noticed before.  The two melismas in question are for "growin'" (E D# C# C#) and "goin'" (E D# C# C# B A, I think) in the lines "I've been doing some growin' / But I'm scared of you goin'."  The melisma for "growin'" sort of indicates the breadth of experience or knowledge that the singer/speaker claims he now has, and the melisma for "goin'" portrays the leaving of the titular "you."  Both encompass a distance in pitch rather than a single note, which would imply staying the same or staying of a stationary sort, respectively.

Here's a thing about "Say You Don't Mind" I noticed while doing my Collection Audit project.  An-other thing I noticed (which I think is just coincidental) is that "dying" and "whining" are in the lyrics of the first and last songs on the album.  They're both in the line "Crying, dying, sighing, whining, shining in the microphone" in "She Loves the Way They Love Her," and they're in the lines "I've been doing some whinin'" and "I've been doing some dyin'" in "Say You Don't Mind."

There doesn't seem to be a connection between them, but there is an interesting sort of book-ending going on there.

"Smokey Day"

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I listened to Colin Blunstone's One Year a couple days ago (there's a post about it from my Collection Audit project in the queue), and I noticed that the (upright) bass part in "Smokey Day" is pretty simple (it's mostly just three notes: A, G, and F).  That got me thinking about the other version of "Smokey Day" - the one recorded in December 1968 in the nebulous post-Zombies/pre-Argent period.  I was figuring out a lot of parts last night, so I thought I'd give that a go too (I'm not sure if I ever tried figuring it out before), and I got the opening eight measures of the guitar part.

Once the vocals start, the guitar part changes, but since it's obscured by the vocals, I haven't figured out anymore yet.  This itself was hard enough to record; it took me seventeen takes, and I have a blister on my finger.

"Friends of Mine"

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Yester-day I figured out Rod Argent's (I think it's Argent, at least) counterpoint part during the second half of the second verse of "Friends of Mine."  It's the "ba ba ba..." part.  It's simple enough that I could notate it, and I noticed a couple of interesting things.  First of which is that it's in-between the beats:

Second, I noticed that it has some similarity with the mellotron part during the second verse of "Changes":

Those four bars repeat, so I didn't feel it was necessary to notate the whole thing.  Leaving it at four measures makes it a bit easier to compare with the four-measure phrase in "Friends of Mine" too.

Like I've mentioned before, I'm not quite sure what key "Changes" is in, but I've been assuming that it's A minor.  "Friends of Mine" is in C major.  Already, there's a possibility of some tonal similarities because A minor and C major are relative keys.

The note values are different, but there are some similarities between the phrases.  They each start with E and F notes, although in different orders.  Then there's a matching descent of a second (A to G) and then an-other descent starting from a higher note in which the first two notes are the same (C, B, A, G, in "Changes;" C, B, G# in "Friends of Mine").

Mostly what I noticed about the two phrases is that the intervals are very small.  They're mostly seconds or thirds.  There are two fourths in the "Friends of Mine" phrase (ascending G to C and descending A to E).  "Changes" has only one fourth interval, although it's the same ascending G to C that's in "Friends of Mine."

Because of the small intervals and the up-and-down nature of the melody, once I isolated this part from the rest of "Friends of Mine," it kept reminding me of "St. Anne," the tune to which "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" is sung.  It also has small intervals (the largest of which is a fourth) and - like the phrase in "Friends of Mine" - has only one accidental.  I'm assuming that Argent would be familiar with this because of his chorister days.  I was also thinking he might have known it through Bach's use of the tune in his Prelude and Fugue in E flat major, BWV 552.  But then I did some research, and it turns out that BWV 552 is referred to as "St. Anne" only because of its similarity to the "St. Anne" tune, which Bach wouldn't have known.

However!  I was also going to note the similarity between "St. Anne" and the hymn tune "Was mein Gott will."  Like the "Friends of Mine" phrase and "St. Anne," it's largest interval is a fourth.  It has two accidentals though.

Back in April, I found "Was mein Gott will" in Bach's Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn, BWV 92, and I actually thought it was "St. Anne" at first.  So maybe that's the tune Bach used for BWV 552?  He also uses it in BWV 103, BWV 111, and BWV 144.  In any case, I think there might be something to the similarity between the "Friends of Mine" phrase and these hymn tunes.  It seems that choral singing is frequently touted as a feature on Odessey and Oracle, although usually that's in reference to things like "Maybe after He's Gone" and "Changes."  But now that I know the notes of this "Friends of Mine" phrase, I think it's an indication of Argent's chorister background too.