The Kinks - Mindless Child of Motherhood

You may have heard of this group, The Kinks. They released a record or two in their day. And then some. In fact, they continued to release good quality records well past that of many of their contemporaries who began to buckle under the pressure of touring, taxes, unscrupulous managers and the unbearable heaviness of the impending 1970s. 

Mindless Child of Motherhood appeared as the Flip-Side of the certifiable hit Lola in these United States of America on Reprise Records in July of 1970. In the band's native UK, the Dave Davies composition was billed as The Kinks Featuring Dave Davies and was released on Pye Records as the Flip-Side to Drivin' which was released during the Summer of 1969. 

The terribly under appreciated little brother puts forth a wonderful vocal performance and I could make a strong argument that this song is better than the A-Side of the UK release. Mindless Child Of Motherhood feels exceptionally personal. And as such, often feels like we are seeing too much into the life of the singer. The listener a muted observer to the painful tragedy unfolding in front of them.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

The Kinks - She's Got Everything

Here is a peculiar single from The Kinks. The single Days/She's Got Everything was released in the Summer of 1968 both in the UK (on Pye Records) and the US on Reprise Records as a desperation move by management. The previous single, Wonderboy, had bombed and Ray Davies had not yet completed his work for the album, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. Days is an unlikely candidate for an A-Side, for sure. A good track, but more of an album track than a lead single. But it is the Flip-Side we are looking at today (of course we are).

The Flip-Side of the single was a song recorded more than two years prior, in the Spring of '66. The Ray Davies composition, She's Got Everything, was recorded during the sessions for the album Face To Face. Why the tremendous She's Got Everything was left off that fine album is up for debate. Some have said it was too dated for 1966. It was certainly dated (in a good way) by the time it saw the official release in June of '68. Rock at the time was getting hard and heavy and She's Got Everything is light and poppy. doot do-do, doot do-do-do. Thank goodness Ray decided to reach into the way-back machine for this one.

On a side note, I just picked this one up on a road-trip through Kentucky. Who woulda thunk?

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Song of the Week: Slim Harpo - Rainin' In My Heart/Don't Start Crying Now

Rainin' In My Heart

Don't Start Cryin' Now

Slim Harpo is a curious music figure. He barely registers for blues fans, but he was a huge influence on rock musicians. More specifically, the British Invasion musicians who mined the blues for their own material. 

Born John Isaac Moore, our hero today grew up in rural Louisiana and moved to New Orleans to work the docks at the height of World War II in 1942. There Moore labored away in relative anonymity, a laborer, not a musician. He played harmonica in his church band and occasionally played guitar for them as well. Anonymity was the word for many, many years. Then, sometime in the mid-50s, Louisiana blues man, Lightnin' Slim noticed John Isaac Moore in the church band and asked him to accompany him. It was with Lightnin' Slim that John Isaac Moore became known, first, as Harmonica Slim, and then later as Slim Harpo.

At age 33, Slim Harpo released his first single on the local Excello Records label in the Summer of 1957. That maiden record featured two originals,  I'm A King Bee/I've Got Love If You Want It. John Isaac Moore was no more and the anonymity was gone.  I'm a King Bee would be recorded by The Rolling Stones for their first full length release in '64. Similarly, the Flip-Side of Harpo's first single, I've Got Love If You Want It would be covered by The Kinks and plagiarized by The Who (as I'm The Face). The Rolling Stones and Dave Edmunds would later go on to cover Harpo's 1996 number, Shake Your Hips and the Yardbirds would plagiarize another of Harpo's 1966 singles, Baby Scratch My Back (The Yardbirds rechristened the number as Rack My Mind). Countless other European bands picked up on the covers by the Stones and Kinks in particular, and covered their versions, likely never hearing Harpo's originals. And the Moody Blues took their name from one of Harpo's songs. 

But we focus today on Slim Harpo's third single, also on Excello Records, from January of 1961. Recorded in the small town of Crowley, Louisiana, it would be Slim Harpo's first release to chart on the US R&B charts and the first single of his to see a release in the UK. The number is Rainin' In My Heart/Don't Start Cryin' Now. Both numbers written by Slim Harpo. Rainin' In My Heart would be covered by The Pretty Things in '65 and Don't Start Cryin' Now would be covered by Van Morrison's Them as the Flip-Side of their first release in '64.

Even if Slim Harpo never attained fame, never became a household name, his impact was felt far beyond his native Louisiana. Enjoy.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side. 

Vinyl Frontier - The Kinks

Video Diary: The Kinks - Set Me Free

Video Diary: The Kinks, "Till The End Of The Day"

Song of the Week: "Picture Book", The Kinks

Listen - The Kinks perform Picture Book

So it is, The Kinks make it into the vaunted category of getting two write-ups here On The Flip-Side. The first being the way cool Act Nice And Gentle.

Flip-Side's Rocky Mountain HQ hosted two visitors this past week. Both our visitors talked about The Kinks while in Flip-Side company. One even made me try to remember how to play Victoria on guitar. Thus we've been feeling quite kinky recently.

Today's SOTW is from the album that many consider to be the best work of the band, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. I'm more partial to Something Else, but I don't argue this point too strongly. It's like asking who you rather see in a skimpy bathing suit, Jennifer Aniston or Elizabeth Hurley. In other words, you can't go wrong with either. Our SOTW is Picture Book, the lovely little song with a ton of restraint and the infamous Ray Davies sardonic social-commentary wit in full force.

Picture book, your mama and your papa, your fat old Uncle Charlie out cruising with their friends. Picture book, a holiday in August, outside a bed and breakfast in sunny southend. Picture book, when you were just a baby, those days when you were happy, a long time ago.

Village Green was a huge success and a huge failure when it was released in '68 ('69 in the US). The critics generally loved it. The record buying public ignored it. Reportedly only a paltry 100,000 copies sold across the globe in it's first pressing. But time and word of mouth has made it The Kinks most successful album ever.

Picture Book, incidentally, was given new life a number of years ago for a clever digital picture ad campaign produced by HP.

Here is a bonus video of the boys (less Pete Quaife) performing the title track as recorded in '73.

Song of the Week: "Deuces Wild", Link Wray

{Right click here to listen to Link Wray perform our SoTW, Deuces Wild, while you read this lovely article.}

Have you ever seen the diminutive little primate from Madagascar they call the Aye-Aye? It's one strangle looking creature. It doesn't look like a primate, but it's not quite a rodent and it's not quite a feline either. It's so strange as to make you stop and take a look. Invariably you make an audible query to no one in particular: "What is that? It looks like some sorta missing link or sumpin'." (in this theoretical conversation, you speak with a poor colloquial American accent, sorry.)

What the hell does an Aye-Aye have to do with our SotW you ask? Good question. An Aye-Aye, I propose, is like our artist this week. That artist is primitive guitarist Link Wray who, in his day, sounded nothing like anyone else. How refreshing is that? Link Wray and his Raymen -- brothers Doug and Vernon and bassist Shorty Horton) first appeared in record bins in 1958 with their instrumental hit, Rumble. The song was tagged as subversive and banned. (Take a second to let that sink in. An instrumental was banned! I know of no other instrumental that has ever been banned.) Suddenly Link Wray and his Raymen were in demand in the clubs of their adopted home of Washington, DC.

Let's back up a bit. Link Wray (born Fred Lincoln "link" Wray Jr.) was perhaps the most unlikely person to become a pop star. Link was the son of two preachers, one caucasian, the other a Shawnee, who grew up in rural Dunn, North Carolina. After a stint in the Army, Link landed in Norfolk, Virginia where he hooked up with his brother Vernon who was trying to make it as a singer. The band relocated to Washington, DC around 1957 where they got a gig as the house band on Milt Grant's House Party, a local teen dance show. By now they were playing as Lucky Wray and the Palomino Ranch Hands. It was here that they improvised the rough strewn song that would become known as Rumble to cover the intro and outro of a commercial break. The record took off locally and the band was now known as Link Wray and the Raymen (also, the Wraymen).

For the next few years Link Wray and the Raymen would record numerous singles, and the occasional album filled with gritty and beautifully sloppy, under-produced instrumentals (with the occasional vocal number thrown in) in their own recording studio which was actually a converted chicken coop. Link preferred the cheaper guitars and had a special affinity for the easy to overdrive Danelectro Longhorn played through a small Premiere 71 amp. As he was also largely deaf, he liked to play loud. Today's SoTW, is illustrative of such a recording. It's Deuces Wild, the 16th single from Link Wray and the Raymen, and it's a wild romp of a song recorded in the sweltering summer heat of Washington, DC in 1964. That's right, this torture device of a song was recorded in 1964. The Beatles had just played their first ever gig in America just down the street from where Link Wray recorded in his chicken coop. The Kinks and The Who were for the first time ever entering the British studio with American producer, Shel Talmy. Things were about to change in America. But in the chicken coop, the Raymen were running through yet another of Link's demented instrumental compositions. These didn't rely on a deft right hand like Dick Dale's numbers, they didn't require exquisite production as did those of The Shadows, and they didn't rely on undeniable melody lines as did the songs of the Ventures. Link Wray and the Raymen did it with brute force. They performed with the primal force of an Aye-Aye (okay, Aye-Aye's aren't known for primal force, but I need to circle back and wrap this puppy up...so work with me). Link Wray's work became hugely influential to the next generation of songwriters such as Ray Davies of The Kinks and Pete Townshend of The Who. Pete Townshend noted in 1970, "He is the king. It if hadn't been for Link Wray and Rumble, I would have never picked up a guitar."

Now sit back and enjoy the human Aye-Aye, Link Wray, perform his 1964 composition, Deuces Wild. This is some wild and wooly stuff.

Song of the Week: "Act Nice and Gentle", The Kinks

The flip-side is buzzing about this week but we wanted you to hear what we're digging right now anyways. Today's SoTW is the European flip-side of The Kinks' Waterloo Sunset. It's titled Act Nice and Gentle. The song is a funky little song originating from the awkward time when the always feeling under appreciated Dave Davies was preparing for a "solo album" (but with all the Kinks playing on it). The band cut a number of Dave's songs such as Lincoln County, Susannah's Still Alive and Love Me 'Till The Shines and a host of Ray and Dave co-written songs, in pursuit of the album. The album never happened and some of the songs were released as Dave Davies singles and some as Kinks songs. Most appearing on the knock-your-socks-off album, Something Else. So, I'll dispense with the verbiage this week and just let you get to it. Click here and enjoy the Dave and Ray Davies composition, Act Nice and Gentle.