UNDERRATED ALBUMS # 8

‘Santana would never again reach
such heights of inspired musicality.’

Caravanserai (1972) by Santana

When people think of Santana it’s probably via impressions of Woodstock, hippy-dippy western vibes and eastern religion; psychedelic album covers with exotic single-word titles; melodic guitar solos with lots of percussion - sort of a latino-jazz-rock kind of thing with a multi-ethnic line-up; that instrumental hit (now what was it called?*); cover versions of hits by Fleetwood Mac and The Zombies*2; and The Big Come Back*3.

What may increasingly be forgotten is just how different and innovative a band Santana was. There are very few acts about whom it can be said that there was no one really like them before or after their emergence. Santana were such an act. Neither is it common that so rare an act should be so successful as Santana were: they appeared at Woodstock before they even had a record out and then went on to achieve worldwide popularity, topping the US charts with both their second and third albums, their debut having reached # 4.

This review, however, takes as its subject the point at which Santana’s phenomenal early success had peaked, with diminishing commercial returns setting in following a period of consolidation. Caravanserai*4, their fourth album, is, I believe, their creative high water mark, but it proved to be a turning point from which their sales would not recover until to the astonishing global bonanza of Supernatural (1999).

The Santana Blues Band formed in 1966 by Mexican dishwasher and guitar busker, Carlos Santana with Greg Rolie (organ) and David Brown (bass), another two San Franciscan street musicians, had evolved into a subtly different bag of tricks by 1972. Always a fluid affair regarding personnel, the original members, who had been joined by Mike Shrieve (drums), Michael Carabello (congas)) and Jose ‘Chepito’ Areas (timbales) since the eponymous 1969 debut album, had subsequently been augmented by a wider range of players with Doug Rausch and James Mingo Lewis replacing Brown and Carabello. A second guitarist, Neil Schon, had come in on the muscular Santana III (1971), which had also been beefed up with The Tower Of Power horn section.

Despite the focus on his name, star status as charismatic lead guitarist and occasional singer*5, Carlos Santana’s band was an unusually democratic set-up with nine composers credited on Caravanserai – all of whom play on the record apart from Antonio Carlos Jobim (he of ‘The Girl From Ipanema’), who contributes the music to ‘Stone Flower’. It may be true to say that the album is as much the brainchild of Shrieve, the boyishly handsome drummer with the sophisticated jazz sensibility, as it is that of Santana himself. The two of them share production credits and Shrieve is sole or co-composer of nearly half of the material.

Santana had ventured into the territory explored in Caravansarai back in 1970 on the first track of Abraxas, ‘Singing Winds, Crying Beasts’, composed, ironically, by the since departed Carabello. A piano instrumental exoticised by shrieking guitar, tinkling bells and a shimmering gong, the piece is essentially latin jazz with ambient and psychedelic overtones – a description which could also fit Caravanserai.

The album opens to the sound of crickets, joined after half a minute by a lone saxophone which breathily heralds a sunrise brought in by double-bass, bells, reverbed electric piano, drums and occasional guitar. Portentously titled, ‘The Eternal Caravan Of Reincarnation’ is a prelude which raises the curtain on a largely instrumental and segued record. Whereas Abraxas, with its similar opening track, had left it behind to develop the rock and salsa songs which came to define the band, Caravanserai advances firmly in the direction of a jazz-fusion sound.     

Now, if you are likely to be alarmed by the suggestion of jazz-fusion due to challenging experiences listening to the likes of Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Weather Report et al, then let me try to reassure you. Santana had become fellow-travellers on that particular caravan, but their approach is more accessible, melodic and rock-based. Before the next Santana album, indeed before 1972 was out, Carlos would branch off into the kingdom of Coltrane with Miles’ English guitarist John McLaughlin, for Love Devotion Surrender*6, a much more rigorous and improvisational excursion inspired not only by free jazz, but by Shri Nimoy, the two musicians’ guru of choice. If you don’t like jazz-fusion then you should probably avoid that record, but don’t be put off Caravanasai which is a very different piece of work.

Back at the album itself, the second track. ‘Waves Within’ blends seamlessly into the first with a swish of tubular bells and revolves around a six note figure played by guitars and bass. This figure, repeated several times, has an unresolved quality about it and suggests that we are still very much at the beginning of a musical journey. Over the top of it, Carlos’ lead guitar plays spiralling patterns whilst the various percussion barrels and rattles away at the front of the mix.    

‘Look Up (To See What’s Coming Down)’ has the feel of a jam about it with Rausch and Schon setting up a crunching funk workout redolent of Isaac Hayes, whilst the organ and guitar improvise around it. The bass riff here would become a staple of the funk and disco era. Next up is the first vocal track ‘Just In Time To See The Sun’, a brief, powerful tune which might easily have appeared on Santana III. Only three of the ten tracks have lyrics and they operate principally, I would guess, to add occasional vocalising as variation to the heady instrumental palette. As such, they’re fine, but we needn’t tarry here over their meaning or poetry because they don’t add up to a hill of beans beyond a few hippy generalities about love and redemption.

Carlos and Schon swap solos on ‘Song Of The Wind’, a classic Santana guitar instrumental which, on another album, might have been the stand-out track. In this context, however, it is almost forgotten after it ushers in the mighty ‘All The Love Of The Universe’, which closed the first side of the vinyl record, and stands as one of the highest peaks of the band’s achievement. A brilliantly structured seven and a half minutes tour-de-force, it announces itself in a maelstrom of phased power-chords panning across the speakers. Then a gentle guitar arpeggio with castanets and a profound bass lead into wordless vocals and eventually a sublime pop melody about global harmony decorated by splashes of electric piano. Joyous falsetto cries half way through open the door on a succession of solos on the back of  the two bass players charging along with Shrieve’s drums firing off fusillades of rhythm. These torrid guitar solos, which feature terrific tremolo work, are joined by Rolie’s surging Hammond organ, before it all cools back down with the return of the wordless vocals and the tinkling arpeggio. If there’s a more exciting end to the first side of an album, then I guess it must have escaped my mind.

If the first half of Caravanserai can be heard as a musical evocation of sunrise through morning and a hot afternoon, then the rest of it may be taken as a celebration of sunset and the night. Beginning and ending with Shrieve’s pulsing electronica, ‘Future Primitive’ picks up a galloping throng of congas, bongos and timbales complete with flamenco whoops. As with the start of the album (and the aforementioned Abraxas), you immediately tune in to the drama of the music and the sense of a stage being set. Two basses are again employed in ‘Stone Flower’, Tom Rutley’s acoustic playing the melody over Doug Rausch’s electric rhythm. Jobim’s bossa-nova tune is then given a scintillating make-over in an arrangement featuring a second keyboard and even more percussion than usual to go with the lilting vocals and staccato bursts of guitar.
 

The dancing continues into the night with ‘La Fluente Del Ritmo’ (which translates as ‘the flow of rhythm’), a showcase for Carlos’ rippling guitar and Tom Costner’s cameo appearance on electric piano (he would replace Greg Rolie from this point on for most of the 1970s). It is actually quite difficult to highlight individual contributions on an album like this because so many of the musicians are always contributing significantly on complex material which is so well arranged as to never sound inaccessible. Shrieve’s drumming and the assorted percussion playing is simply fabulous throughout. Let me say again here that the pitfalls of much prog-rock and jazz-fusion are not in evidence along the trail of this particular caravan.

The aptly titled ‘Every Step Of  The Way’, at just over nine minutes, is the longest track and a worthy finale to all that has preceded it; although not classed as a ‘concept album’ Cravanserai seems to have been conceived as a holistic musical concept and works exceptionally well on such terms. The only track to be credited to just one composer (Shrieve), ‘Every Step’ opens with the most uncomplicated drumming on the entire record before climbing via Schon’s guitar and a metronomic cowbell ever upwards before the tension starts to crack, drums punctuating the change as Carlos’ guitar sweeps into a sunburst solo. The rest of the percussion races in with an orchestra bringing up the rear. A wild flute rips free of the brass and strings and Carlos goes off on another of his great spiralling runs as the orchestra, recalling the Gil Evans arrangement for the Miles Davis album, Sketches Of Spain (1960), swells around him. As Carlos riffs down, it all fades away into the desert distance, suggestive of a never-ending odyssey: an eternal caravan of reincarnation indeed.

Santana would never again reach such heights of inspired musicality. They would stay with jazz-fusion for a while before drifting into the middle of the road, as had those other ambitious American jazz-rock outfits of the late 1960s, Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears. Santana’s early style had created an ultra-distinctive sound, but after Caravanserai, it ceased to be unique. 

N. B.

*The famous instrumental from Abraxas was ‘Samba Pa Ti’.

*2 Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Black Magic Woman’ and The Zombies’ ‘She’s Not There’.

*3 Has any band ever had as big a comeback as Santana enjoyed with Supernatural (1999)? A full three decades after their debut, the album has sold over 30 million copies and is the biggest selling album ever by an Hispanic artist. Not only did it top the album charts all over the place, it produced both of the band’s only two chart-topping singles in ‘Smooth’ and ‘Maria Maria’ (the first a US # 1 for an amazing 12 weeks, the other only managing a measly 10 weeks).

Is it any good then? Well, it’s a very different band – stuffed with ‘guest artists’ ancient and modern (Clapton to Cee-Lo) – but apart from Carlos himself, not a single member from the 1969-72 heyday discussed above. But – any good? Yeah, by the standard of millennial blockbusters, it’s pretty good. By the standard of some of the characterless, synth-ridden AOR dross that Santana churned out through the late ‘70s to the early ‘90s, it’s a bloody masterpiece!    

*4 The word ‘Caravanserai’ basically denotes a group of people travelling together towards an oasis with a desert inn featuring a central courtyard. I like to imagine the first half of the album as the journey there, and the second half as a concert in that courtyard before ‘Every Step Of The Way’ leads the caravan out towards their next destination.

*5 Curiously, Santana have never had a charismatic, well-known or even very regular lead-singer.

*6 The song ‘Love, Devotion & Surrender’, which appeared on Welcome (1973), bore little relation to the similarly titled album that Carlos made with McLaughlin. It is though, one the band’s best post-Caravanserai tunes. 

Greg Rolie and Neil Schon left after Caravanserai to form Journey, another very successful band, although not remotely in the class of the early Santana. Their 1981 hit, ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ became the biggest selling song ever on iTunes in 2009 when it was covered by The Glee Cast, a bunch of ‘Fame’ style kids from a US TV show. Rolie quit in 1980 but is still on the road with his own band, but Schon is still with Journey. Even though they were on their way out, it is to the great credit of these two, that they played such an important part both as musicians and co-composers on Caravanserai.

Mike Shrieve, an original member, made two more albums with Santana before leaving, still only in his mid-twenties. Most notably he formed the experimental jazz and electronica band Go with prodigious Japanese percussionist Stomu Yamashta, German keyboardist and drummer, Klaus Schulze, jazz guitarist Al Di Meola and Steve Winwood (who I assume needs no introduction). Shrieve has kept himself busy with various projects over the years and in the late ‘90s was part of Abraxas Pool with various ex-Santana side-men such as Rolie, Schon, Areas and Carabello.
Carlos Santana, through it all, remains a tremendously distinctive musician – one of the all-time guitar greats.

And finally a mention for the beautiful cover art of Caravanserai by Joan Chase – a departure from the busy psychedelic style of the first three Santana covers (all of them key images amongst that cornucopia of late ‘60s / early ‘70s rock album sleeves). That great orange disc of the sun low in a blue haze that encompasses the desert horizon and the caravanserai itself has always been one of my favourite record covers. Just as a great instrumental solo should belong to rather than distract from a piece of music, so a great album cover should evoke the music it dresses.  Caravanserai exemplifies both these criteria. 

c. 2013 IGR 

UNDERRATED ALBUMS # 7

‘for me…
 the greatest Girl Group of them all.’

Myrmidons Of Melodrama (comp. 1994)

By The Shangri-Las

During the last twenty years, equal opportunities in the field of popular music have expanded rapidly. Singing solo, in girl-groups, playing in all-girl bands or in bands with the opposite sex, the girls are everywhere (a note, before we continue, on nomenclature: in these politically correct times, I suppose we should be referring to the fairer sex (oh, dear); no, the er, ladies (oh, dear, oh dear) as females or women, but I’m afraid that, in this context, those terms simply don’t sound right and, as the accepted genre-term in the music industry is Girl Group, that is the one I’ll be using).

The ongoing gender-democratization in pop music has not, of course, always prevailed. In the past, girls had always been stereotypically regarded as fans and record-buyers, mooning over posters on their bedroom walls of the latest toothsome teen sensation (this paradigm can still apply big-style: consider the current Justin Bieber phenomenon). The notoriously snobbish Rock fraternity and its audience looked down on Pop in general and ‘chicks’ in particular. Special cases might be made for acts like Soul diva Aretha Franklin or a Singer-Songwriter such as Joni Mitchell but, by and large, girls were seen as decorative and trivial, lacking the creative and performing muscle of the men with all their instruments and, well, their sheer bollocks…  

Male Rock fans, historically, have had little time for Girl Groups (The Runaways, The Bangles and The Go-Go’s, by the way, were girl-bands; Girl Groups are purely vocal outfits).Too frothy, mushy, lovey-dovey; too poppy to be taken seriously. Could we not, though equally apply those terms to most pop music irrespective of the performers’ gender? But even serious music fans (i.e. men?) have their guilty little pop pleasures, although they may be less likely to own up to a sneaking appreciation for  the odd single by The Sugababes, rather than one by say, McFly (who at least play instruments and write their own songs, don’t they!)

Girl Groups however, have played a significant part in the development of popular music. In the 1940s, The Andrews Sisters were a highly distinctive act and much beloved during the war years. In the 50s came The Chordettes and the very showbizzy Beverley Sisters, then a staple of UK TV variety shows. Tamla Motown specialised in vocal groups during the ‘60s, producing The Supremes, Martha & The Vandellas and The Marvelettes et al who built on the success of The Shirelles - the first girl group to have a # 1 single (and two of whose hits are covered on the first Beatles album) - and Phil Spector’s Crystals and Ronettes . In the ‘70s, The Pointer Sisters flourished along with many Disco outfits in the US, whilst in Britain, the anaemic Bananarama were bewilderingly successful during the ‘80s. En Vogue and Destiny’s Child were classy American groups of the ‘90s, whilst Britain offered up The Spice Girls, All Saints, Eternal and the decidedly unclassy B’Witched. And they keep on coming: Atomic Kitten, The Sugababes, Girls Aloud and The Saturdays have all racked up plenty of hits in the 21^st century.

Most of these Girl Groups, in fact, enjoyed more chart success than the subject of this review, The Shangri-Las who, between 1964-66, had just five US Top 40 entries (in the UK, they had only two hits, although ‘Leader Of The Pack’ – a US # 1 – charted three times from 1965-76, reaching # 11, # 3 and #7). As for deciding which was the best of these groups, one could easily mount a case for The Supremes in terms of their longevity, artistic consistency and hits – twelve US # 1’s.

For me, however, the Shangri-La’s are always going to be the greatest Girl Group of them all, even though their entire recorded output adds up to little more than a couple of dozen tracks. And it’s not really a case of ‘less is more’ or opting for them because they are slipping into the mists of historical obscurity - because the strike-rate amongst that little treasure-chest of recordings is remarkably high - some of the most distinctive pop songs ever made are to be found on Myrmidons Of Melodrama.

The Shangri-Las, in common with all the other Girl Groups mentioned above, were a singles act. No Girl Group has ever made a classic album – the capacity to do so does not seem to be written into the DNA of the genre. Why then am I including this compilation in my series of Underrated Albums? Well, firstly, my wife, Lisa (Who Must Be Obeyed) has requested it, and secondly, I want the freedom of occasionally featuring compilations, soundtracks and live albums in the series. So there. 

The only two studio albums by The Shangri-La’s were both issued in 1965 and were rapidly superseded by compilations. Myrmidons Of Melodrama*1 is probably the best quality and most comprehensive of these, especially the 1994 version (confusingly, the repackaged 2002 set has fewer songs).   

Morton, Greenwich, Barry

Shadow Morton, maverick producer of all the material as well as being writer or co-writer of much of it, was, in 1964, an inexperienced young hustler who, so the story goes, blagged his way into a Brill Building office where Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich were working. Partners in love as well as song-writing, they gave Morton short shrift. Barry suspected him of having an unprofessional interest in Greenwich and dismissed him, issuing a challenge to prove that he was a writer. A piqued Morton wrote ‘Remember (Walking InThe Sand)’ that very night whilst sitting his parked car out at Long Island beach. When he returned, he did so not only with The Shangri-La’s – who he’d seen singing in a club – ready to perform it, but also future
superstar, Billy Joel, hooked up to play piano on the demo.
 

So the story goes...What is certain though, is that the finished recording of the song was a worldwide hit.

Naturally, it opens Myrmidons Of Melodrama, its doom-laden piano chords augmented by bass guitar and drums portentously setting the scene for the various tragic tales of teenage heartbreak which follow. The lead vocalist on ‘Remember’ – and most of the best songs - is Mary Weiss, the youngest of the group, and one of the greatest girl singers of the era. She recalls how, two years before, she had a summer romance with a boy who subsequently went abroad and has now written to say it’s all over. Forsakenly clutching his letter, she trudges through the sand (weirdly evoked by distorted brushwork on cymbals), the music grinding to a halt when she stops walking to cry out in despair: ‘Oh no! Oh no, no, no, no, no!’ Seagulls screech overhead whilst spectral backing vocals cluster about the narrator before it all fades away, desperation wrestling with déjà vu. 

It is an extraordinarily atmospheric couple of minutes which never seems to lose its power. Shangri La’s records - with their gripping lyrics of teen angst, dramatic melodies and imaginative production sound – stand the test of time well. Weiss’s supercharged singing and the other girls’ voices, often contributing to the foreground  rather than merely decorating the background, provide the key elements with their sibling harmonies (Mary and Betty Weiss being sisters, Mary Ann and Marge Ganser, identical twins). 

Shadow Morton, although clearly influenced by Phil Spector, created more of a sonic scenario than a ‘Wall Of Sound’, using fewer instruments and more effects

to accentuate the narrative heart of the group’s repertoire. Meanwhile, in line with their origins in the Queens district of New York, the Shangri-La’s were presented with a rather more worldly image than their rival girl groups, often being seen clad in tight-fitting leather outfits and boots. The combination of their unusual sound and look made them stand out from the competition.  

The biggest hit on Myrmidons was, of course, ‘Leader Of The Pack’, their deathless Death Disc, and the point in their short career which encapsulated their sound and image. View YouTube clips from the ‘60s of the girls performing on TV and you will find them set up in stiff, corny presentations by a media still unable or unwilling to take the music seriously. Concentrate purely on the record, however, and the mini-dramas of The Shangri-La’s songs work with remarkable conviction. ‘Leader’ has essentially the same instrumental constituents as ‘Remember’, with revving motorcycle effects replacing the seagulls and an utterly credible teen discussion, blended into the lead and backing vocals between Mary Weiss and the other girls as they relive the fatal crash of the biker boyfriend. When Mary screams, ‘Look out! Look out! Look out!’ the listener is actively compelled to believe in the tragedy looming up. 

‘Leader’ introduced several hallmarks of The Shangri-La’s style: 1) Loss - by misjudgement or death, or both; 2) The Generation Gap – the failure of teens and parents to communicate and compromise, and 3) Guilt – shame caused by 1 & 2 (all of which could be summarised as Romeo & Juliet Syndrome). In addition to these characteristics, we find 4) The Spoken Word Interlude via either dialogue or soliloquy - a crucial ingredient in the abiding charm of the songs.  

It’s also worth mentioning that the character ‘Mary’ is written into some of the songs, which must have helped Mary Weiss make an emotional connection to the lyrics in the studio (although, looking back on those angst-ridden performances during her tender teen years, the mature Weiss has asserted that she ‘had enough pain’ in her anyway to realise the songs and that ‘the recording studio was the place where you could let it out without everybody looking at you’).

‘Leader’ also consolidated the roles of the other girls who, rather than merely providing the harmonic wallpaper typical of other acts, were an unignorable presence on the records and sometimes took lead vocals on – it has to be said - the group’s less dynamic moments. 

Morton’s ‘Give Him A Great Big Kiss’, despite starring another mean and moody love-interest, is one of the most positive, deliberately funny songs in the repertoire. Introducing a touch of brass in the mix and rattling along with drum fills and handclaps, Mary fills in her breathless buddies’ girly queries with a staunch testimonial for her new squeeze: - 

                              ‘Well, what colour are his eyes?

                              I dunno – he’s always wearing shades.

                              Is he tall?

                              Well, I’ve gotta look up.

                              Yeah, well, I hear he’s bad!

                              Mmm, he’s good-bad – but not evil.’

                              Is he a good dancer?

                              Waddaya mean, is he a good dancer?

                              Well, how does he dance?!

                              Close – very, very close…’     

 In between, there is the irresistible chorus, with its Dave Clark 5 style boot-stomping,

‘I’m gonna walk right up to him / Give him a great big kiss / MWOAH!’ A dispensable alternate take with tom-toms higher in the mix is also included here.

This is the quintessential trio of Shangri-La’s hits, but Myrmidons rounds up at least another dozen tracks which rank alongside them (OK, almost nothing can compare to ‘Remember’). Their best records are the ones which maintain that original core sound, but occasional departures also work well – such as the feisty excursions into Motown, ‘Bulldog’ and ‘Right Now And Not Later’; the stirring prayer for Johnny to come marching home  from Vietnam in ‘Long Live Our Love’; the plangent ‘Maybe’ and ‘What Is Love?’, (both sung by Betty Weiss in a close, slightly sweeter approximation of her younger sister), and ‘Sophisticated Boom-Boom’ (sung by Mary Ann Ganser), probably an attempt by Morton to cash in on the French Ye-Ye craze. Mary Ann also took the lead on the Ikettes cover ‘I’m Blue’.

It’s back to the cemetery though with the storm-tossed ‘Give Us Your Blessings’ in which runaway lovers ‘Mary and Jimmy’, despairing of ever getting the approval of their folks, drive off to their doom failing to see ‘the sign that read Detour’. The song ends with the poignant image of their parents in the rain, kneeling in a group around the bodies of the lovers, with the entreaty of the title ringing in their ears. A different twist on a similar scenario is provided by Morton’s ‘I Can Never Go Home Anymore’, a hushed monologue ramped up by ominous strings, which tells the tale of a girl who defies her mother to run off with a boyfriend. Later, long after she’s forgotten the boy, she learns that Mom ‘grew so lonely in the end / Angels picked her for a friend’. Somehow the performance rises above even this bathos with the stricken Mary Weiss wailing ‘Mama!’ in the background as the cellos rise around her.

In ‘The Train From Kansas City’, Mary has received another letter, this time from an old flame who wants to reignite their love, but she has fallen for another and has the ring on her finger to prove it. She does, however, feel the need to tell her hapless ex the way things now are, face to face. Promising her fiancé that she’ll ‘be back in the time it takes to break a heart’, she boards the train amidst authentic sound effects of steam and whistles with the drums and piano chugging her away on her mission. But does she return, the listener can’t help but wonder? Well, she does if ‘He Cried’ is anything to go by, because, in what could be a sequel to ‘Train’, she bravely delivers The Hard Word to the tearful ex. Mary Weiss lives the vocal here, her voice aching with the pain of the narrator’s task, in the middle of a great throbbing brass and strings arrangement. 

What, I think, sets Weiss apart from and above the best Girl Group lead vocalists – contemporaries such as Diana Ross, Martha Reeves and Ronnee Spector, terrific singers all – is the way she consistently persuades the listener to suspend their disbelief with the sheer conviction of her performances.     

‘Out In The Streets’ and ‘Dressed In Black*2’ are two more paeans to biker boyfriends, the first of whom ‘grew up running free / He grew up and then he met me’. The narrator realises uncomfortably that, although he has compromised to accommodate her, his heart will always truly be ‘out in the streets’. He could be the same dude in ‘Dressed In Black’ who ‘they said was much too wild’ and who, since they split, now occupies Mary’s waking dreams where she ‘lives on just the memory / Of him caressing me / So soft, so warm’. Another great production here, on which can be detected the influence of both Phil Spector and Brian Wilson. In the coda, Mary ‘climbs the stairs’ whispering that she’s ‘alone once more’ where no-one can hear her cry. It’s another masterpiece.  

‘The Boy’, a Doo-Wop styled number by Morton with a faltering lead by Betty, and ‘Heaven Only Knows’, are both decent records, but are one-dimensional declaration- of-love pop songs which lack the narrative drama of the classic material. ‘Heaven’,  ‘Never Again’, in which Mary issues a final warning to an erring boyfriend amidst crashing tympani, and the mellifluous close harmonies of ‘What’s A Girl Supposed To Do?’ are amongst seven Barry / Greenwich titles on this collection, and neither of them quite hold up lyrically against their other four (‘Leader Of The Pack’; ‘Out In The Streets’; ‘Give Us Your Blessings’ and ‘The Train From Kansas City’). 

‘The Dum Dum Ditty’ by the writing team who would go on to provide The Monkees with hits, is, unsurprisingly, given its title, pure filler.‘You Cheated, You Lied’, which lifts the intro of The Beatles’ ‘If I Fell’, is as its title suggests, standard Shangri-La’s fare. The Zombies-ish ‘Love You More Than Yesterday’ is a strong also-ran, whilst ‘Wishing Well’ and ‘Hate To Say I Told You So’ never rise above the level of typical girl group fodder.

 

So much for the filler. ‘Paradise’, however, is another killer track, if you’ll excuse the pun. Also recorded by The Ronettes, it was co-written by the then unknown Harry Nilsson, and with its suitably soaring melody, it is a thinly veiled meditation on the attractions of a suicide-pact, of crossing a rainbow ‘to where we’ll be free’ and walk hand in hand ‘along the sand’ in an eerie echo of that original beach on ‘Remember’.

‘Paradise’ was the B-side of the extraordinary ‘Past, Present And Future’ written by Morton and Jerrys Leiber and Butler, with a little help from Ludwig Van Beethoven. Recently graced with a stately cover by Marianne Faithfull, the song is the culmination of all those theatrical spoken-word passages to be found on Shangri-La’s records. It is virtually a solo recitation by Mary Weiss, addressed to a would-be suitor over a lilting version of the ‘Moonlight’ piano sonata, whilst the other girls merely announce the tenses of the title. It begins with Mary reflecting on a key relationship in her past:-

                           ‘Was I ever in love? I called it love –

                           I mean… it felt like love. There were moments when…

                           Well… there were moments when…’ 

Those elipses suggest a multitude of possibilities before she tells the man that yes, she’d love to dance and ‘take a walk along the sand’ (that beach again, no doubt), but then she warns him:- 

                            ‘But don’t try to touch me, don’t try to touch me

                            Cos that will Never Happen Again.

                            Shall we dance?’ 

At this point an orchestra waltzes the protagonists away before returning them to the question of what will happen in The Future. Taking a nonsense phrase from an American nursery rhyme (‘A Tisket, A Tasket’) for children playing a variation of Kiss-Chase, Mary tantalisingly considers the chance of finding love again with ‘someone who will understand’. But then that possibility dissolves as Mary states - and with some finality:- 

                              ‘But at the moment, it doesn’t look good.

                              At the moment, it will never happen again;

                              I don’t think it will never happen again.’ 

With the subtlest suggestion of her voice breaking into a sob on the last word, a high violin streaks up briefly and it’s all over. There have been sinister interpretations of this song, but I prefer to think of Mary as a tragic phantom that occasionally regains human form to haunt the beach of her girlhood romances. Yes – that beach. 

Ideally, all Shangri-La’s compilations should begin with ‘Remember (Walking In The Sand)’ and end with ‘Past, Present And Future’. This one doesn’t. Oh, well – but, hey! at least this review does. 

N. B.   

Let’s face it, if you’re not susceptible to the odd dollop of schmaltz, then The Shangri-La’s are probably not for you, but the records are so well-made, the songs so artfully constructed and Mary Weiss so convincing a singer, that you’d have to have a heart of steel not to be moved by the sheer sound of these precious few testaments to the brief career of a unique girl group. 

Before the ‘60s were over, the four girls had drifted out of the music industry. Apart from an aborted recording session and a single live performance at New York’s CBGB’s club in the mid-70s, the group ceased to exist. 

George ‘Shadow’ Morton went on to produce Janis Ian, The Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly and The New York Dolls before dropping out of sight. 

Mary Weiss, has, however, made a belated return to the fray with some live shows and Dangerous Game (2007), an album of original material with a band called The Reigning Sound. It’s a promising, if under-produced and under-arranged record, on which her singing still cuts convincingly through. Odd to reflect that such a great voice has been lost for all these years to the world of furniture consultancy…

Sadly, the Ganser twins are no longer with us: Mary-Ann died at the tragically young age of just twenty-two in 1970 of encephalitis, possibly complicated by barbiturate use; Marge also died prematurely  - of cancer in 1996, aged forty-eight.   

In a kind of grim, self-fulfilling prophecy, Amy Winehouse (1983-2011), when preparing to record Back To Black (2006), the second of the two top-selling albums that constituted her tragically brief career, presented producer Mark Ronson with a Shangri-La’s compilation for inspirational purposes. 

*1 Quite which bright spark at RPM came up with the title of this compilation, I don’t know, but if, like I was, you’re wondering what a Myrmidon is, then don’t expect a light-bulb to switch on after you’ve traced it in a dictionary…Answers on a postcard, please. Tacked on to the end of the CD are four amusingly quaint radio spots recorded by the girls at the height of their  fame: space which, as far as I’m concerned, might have been far more interestingly filled by the legendary seven minutes long original take of ‘Remember (Walking in The Sand’) – if, indeed, it actually exists…   

*2 You can hear Shadow Morton’s demo version of ‘Dressed In Black’ on a compilation album called Midnight Cryin’ Time (Various Artists). He’s no singer, but it’s not without charm.  

THE BLACK WATCH

Battery-powered, hour on hour,                                     
Time tocks digitally, silently,
Slowly on my workaday wrist.
Clear of face and sober,
My Monday to Friday watch
Is a faithful old timekeeper
Who buses me to work
With morning Metro
For wake-up coffee,
As the great, grey grind
Begins again and again.
Then, on Monday to Thursday
Evenings which never become nights,
I watch tired TV on the somnolent sofa
And retire early to bed, early to rise,
Too weary to wipe sleep from bleary eyes.
Meanwhile, waiting all week long,
The strong black watch has been brooding
In the gewgaw and jewellery drawer,
Impatiently counting down the flight
To freedom and the heyday of Friday night.

Identical quartz disports
Time, ticks quickly, gallops
Apace on my late-night wrist.
Dark and mysterious,
My holiday-weekend watch
Converts must-do into want-to
And jets us to pleasure
With midnight vodka
Until Sunday’s Rose` glow
Glisters, gleams, grins
And beams golden again.
But bar, garden and conservatory                          
Drift blithely towards industry,
As Friday turns into Monday,
As candlelight turns to electricity
And music and talk turn to work and TV.
Willing old workwatch, up every weekday, 
Heaves the leaden hours all the way

Down through the tunnel to the light of payday;

But dark in the drawer, soon to make hay,

Our thrilling, deadly nightwatch waits to play.

c. 2007 IGR

Was it really six years ago that I wrote this? Tempus doesn't half fugit, doesn't it!
Even though I'm now fully retired, I still have those two watches and the black one
only goes on at weekends and holidays.

POLLOCK

 

Jack The Dripper, Action Man of the art world,

Prances around the canvas-covered floor of his barn

In a trance of creativity, here a flick, there a flick,

The colours dance beyond beginning or ending

In paintings where the centre simply will not hold.

Lost in the image, the painter dances out his dream

As the pattern revolves and advances below his feet,

Gliding where the chances and mischances lead him

Through new land and seascapes into a changed world.

C. 2012 IGR

I was browsing through an art book when I came across some pictures by Pollock and a description of his modus operandi. Although not particularly interested in him previously, I was fascinated and found myself writing this poem very quickly.

The picture is reproduced courtesy of Google Images.

VAN GOGH



See the painter on his way to work al fresco,

Toting bags with an easel under his arm, 

His straw hat gold as the cobbled road in sunlight,

And that dark, constant companion, his shadow.

He passes the peasants reaping or sowing in fields,

Bent dark over their tools from daybreak to sunset

Before finding his place and the day’s way to work.

When his feet stop walking, his hands start to paint,

For it is his way to work, work, work:

Presto, stroke, dab, smear, swirl, impasto,

In a perpetual motion at one with his eye;

Work, work, work and the pictures come:

Presto, stroke, dab, smear, swirl, impasto,

As the world rolls and turns around him,

The wheat and clouds and trees,

Rocks and farmlands and furrows

Radiate through sunlight to twilight,

Past long shadows and low crows

Whose black wings bring the storm

Into the world’s changing form,

Through moonlight to starlight,

Dusk to dawnlight.

C. 2012 IGR

Van Gogh has always been one of my favourite artists. We’ve been to Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam a couple of times and the paintings are even more stunning close-up in three dimensions. The accompanying picture here ‘The Painter on his Way To Work’, comes from one of the happier times of his life when he believed he might set up an artists’ colony in France. Like so many things in his short life, it didn’t work out.

The picture was the initial inspiration for the poem and is reproduced here courtesy of Google Images.

HOPPER

Blink and you could miss them:
The detached clapperboard houses
By the rail tracks, the lighthouses,
An occasional blue flash of sea,
The sunlit meadows and rooftops,
Gas stations and lonely roads,
The drug stores and diners,
Theatres, offices and hotel rooms
Where figures gaze into space or read.

You glimpse them caught between
The shadows and light which fall
In an implacable geometry
Around the heavy angles Of half-shuttered windows,
And empty sunbeaten streets.
And the women on beds and balconies:
You will note them there, waiting
In various states of dress and undress,
In doorways, at windows and on trains,
Where the light finds them out,
But you can only guess at their stories.

The skies are always bright and blue
In a world forever poised and dreaming;
Except for a rare breeze on a curtain,
Stillness presides over everything,
Inside and outside, in town and country,
And a certain echoing silence prevails,
Whilst the deep woodlands wait
At the edge of everyday things,
Dark and patient and mysterious.

C. 2012 IGR

Hopper is an artist who kind of crept up on me. Although many of his pictures are bright
and colourful, they always seem to retain a sort of film noir quality. Seeing them for
real in a London exhibition a few years ago was a memorable experience.

The picture, ‘Cape Cod Morning’, is reproduced courtesy of Google Images.

AEGEAN SUNSET

 

The Zenith

Sunlight shimmers on swelling wavelets
Down through to the sand-bed below
Where it pulses like sparkling veins
Deep in the high life;
And we are in our element:
Swimming with glinting sardines and distant sails
Whilst bodies brown on rocks and beaches
Where cicadas whirr continuously in the green cliff
As they have since time began,
On this island
To which we have now returned.

The Blueness

Pure azure
By late afternoon,
The blueness has emerged
Infinitetisimally:
A slow water-colour evolving
In the faraway hills of the bay.
Greens, browns and yellows
Of trees, soil and beach
Coalesce in tones of blue,
Dissolving down from the sky,
Rising up from the sea.
The sun, still high, fringes the horizon
With a brilliance about to send bright scintillas
Sailing towards us.

The Shimmering

Now the sky, hills and sea merge
Into the blueness,
And a glittering spire of sunlight
Advances on the lambent water,
Flashing instants and breaking on the shore at our feet
Like seconds in the golden grains of ancient time.

The Dazzling

Down through the ages,
Romans, Turks and Venetians
Have watched this same shimmering
That we see now,
Turn to dazzle
On the sea between these shores,
And the point of this spire
That touches our toes
Now, in this lazy, hazy present
Touched others long past:
Always the same and always different,
Now and then,
Here and gone,
Always one.

The Afterglow

Molten gold,
The sun sinks to the crest of distant hills
And the moon rises silver behind us.
The last of the dazzling draws us in
To slip like snakes
Into the liquid silk of still sea.
We silhouette our way
Far out,
Into the twinkling heart of the dazzle
As the sun, its spire built,
Burns down behind the blue hills
Where a small, solitary cloud darkens and dispels.
In the afterglow burnishing the sea,
An aurora appears
From great unseen lanterns of gentle gods,
Briefly dawning the dusk,
And we glide back
To our deserted beach,
Naked and new
In the moonlit night.


c. 2005 IGR
 

We'd been to the Greek island of Skiathos several times and I'd wanted
to write something about how the light changed over the course of an afternoon,
viewed from our favourite beach.

Eventually I managed to sketch out a few notes on the inside covers of my paperback
copy of William Peter Blatty's novel, 'The Exorcist' - a sort of dark, gothic counterpoint
to the the brilliant Skiathos sunshine.

Back in the autumn chill of Leicester, the poem finally came together. I took the photo of Lisa
silhouetted against the sunset on the actual beach.