Here today is a song from Pete Townshend that is not very much from Pete Townshend. The song is Forever's No Time At All and it appeared on Townshend's debut solo album, Who Came First. The album was released on Track Records in 1972 and consisted largely of material that The Who songwriter had leftover from his work on the 1971 mega record, Who's Next. But this song isn't one of those. In fact, it wasn't written by Townshend. Nor does Pete sing on it. The songwriter and singer is Billy Nicholls, a friend of Pete's who served as the staff songwriter for Immediate Records.
Pete Townshend recorded and produced Nicholls at Townshend's home studio -- where Pete recorded the entirety of Who Came First. True, Peteplays most of the instruments on the song. But, in the end, this is a Billy Nicholls song. We hope you enjoy it.
Ahhh, 80's hair and 80's dancing and 80's production....well, you get the picture. Despite the time capsule issue, I still love this nice pop and soul song from London.
I find myself in Hollywood this week. And as I drove down Santa Monica Boulevard, passing the legendary Troubador, on the MP3 player comes Arthur Lee and Love performing A House Is Not A Motel.Behind only the Beach Boys, Love, to me epitomized California rock in the 60s. The beauty and the tragedy of it all.
Then as I turned onto Hollywood Boulevard and headed East towards Vine, past La Cienga Boulevard. There it was. A doughnut shop. Thee doughnut shop? Two members of the band, Johnny Echols and Ken Forssi would be arrested for robbing local doughnut shops which led to the break up of the original band shortly after the recording of their seminal work, Forever Changes. Arthur Lee would form a new Love, but it was never really Love. It was more Arthur Lee and a handful of musicians that would work under the name Love. Because of that wrap, the work after Forever Changes is too often ignored. True, it is much more spotty than previous work. But much of it deserves more praise. And that's why we are here today.
Lee's next Love album was recorded in '69 and was tagged with the self aware monicker, Four Sail. It's a spotty album that shows a lot of heavy-guitar, acid rock influence from San Francisco bands like Big Brother and the Holding Company and Jefferson Airplane, but it has some real nice gems. The last song on that album is our SoTW today. The song is the mellow Always See Your Face. Arthur Lee, just 24 at the time of the recording of the closing number of his fourth album, was showing signs of the pain and reflection that would sum up his career so sadly.
Won't somebody please, help me with my memory
Can't somebody see, yeah, what this world has done to me.
Dang, I really love Arthur Lee's voice. And that tasty little guitar solo is sweet as could be.
Hmmmm. So much that can be said about the human hit machine that was Hank Williams. But I'll just say this, Hank Williams was 29 when he died of a heart attack. 29. He was 26 when he wrote and recorded today's SoTW, Ramblin' Man. The song has since been covered by his grandson, Hank Williams III.
