Inga Rumpf: An appreciation

 

I first came to know of Inga Rumpf as lead singer for Frumpy, one of the early ‘70s German rock bands loosely lumped together with the broad group of  Krautrock bands, though never included in the core “experimental” bands such as Can, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu!, Popol Vuh, and others of that ilk.  Frumpy was a blues rock band with a strong female vocalist, one of the few woman in the Deutsch rock of the era.

 

The news, to me, was that Inga Rumpf had a completely different earlier career, from a very young age, before Frumpy, though some of it would’ve been, so to speak, the training period for the band. In her earlier career she sang folk and Black gospel songs, either as solo act or as part of a group, the City Preachers, and even, briefly, was groomed to be a schlager (anodyne German pop) singer but this potentially commercially profitable direction was not to her taste or inclination, which was to go on weird, interesting and challenging tangents and not necessarily to follow the path expected of her, or young women singers in Germany at the time.  

 

Rumpf has a wonderful, powerful and expressive voice, perfect for expressing the emotion in blues and soul songs. One wonders, if she were an American, if she’d have followed a Janis Joplin-like curve of success or whether her career would have been more similar to that of Lydia Pense, the lead singer of Cold Blood, a band that followed the Kozmic Blues Band approach to horn driven soul rock, and Pense’s voice, if one weren’t paying attention, was a ringer for Joplin.  Cold Blood was well-known enough to be one of the bands that played the final shows at the Filmore East before it closed, but never achieved mainstream success. The thing is, Pense still has a career, some 50 years after Joplin died.  Inga Rumpf has also had a long and varied career, in Germany and internationally, without becoming a superstar yet has survived intact and with a back catalogue of intriguing, highly entertaining records.

 

Rumpf went from Frumpy to Atlantis, a heavier aggregation that toured the USA, and supported some big names, but weren’t prepared to put in the hard work of conquering a vast country and probably didn’t have proper record company support either. By die late ‘70s Rumpf, with a curly contemporary perm replacing the long straight hair of the hippie years, attempted a solo pop rock career and in the ‘80s she cut her hair modishly short, wore the highly identifiable fashion of the times and followed and electronic pop and rock direction, and switched from writing and singing in English to writing and singing in German, all of it clearly aimed at maximum commercial success, before returning to the  (English) blues and gospel music with which she started her career for the balance of her life. in a way it is a typical career path of so many of her contemporaries on the British and US rock scene where artists and bands who came to prominence in the ‘60s struggled to adapt to the times when they hit their thirties and forties. By and large the ‘80s were not a good decade for the music of these older artists who changed their original sound according to contemporary production styles and dressed in contemporary fashion, very little of which matched the stylishness of mid-‘60s fashion, never mind the rock star satin and tat of the  glam ‘70s.

 

Rumpf went through the same cycle and then returned to her roots where she was most comfortable and appealing to her audience.

 

If Rumpf had been born in the USA or had been prepared to move there to push her career forward, she might well have been a household name there, something like Bonnie Raitt (Rumpf sings, play bottleneck slide guitar and writes her own songs) for, after all, one of the highlights of her career is that Tina Turner recorded one of Rumpf’s songs and released it as a B-side of a successful single.  As it is, Rumpf may be well-known in her homeland but is no more than a footnote to rock cognoscenti elsewhere, if they were interested in German rock music, and one would imagine has a comfortable life performing when she wants to and intermittently releasing records, secure in her place in the world and without a need to be a superstar.  She sounds authentic when she speaks and when she sings. 

 

On Apple Music, Frumpy is represented solely by a compilation album but there are quite a few solo, so to speak, Rumpf albums, such as collections of her early blues and gospel recordings, with the City Preachers amongst others, and more recent music.  For some peculiarly amusing reason Atlantis’ eponymous debut album from 1973 is combined with the albums of what looks like a typical schlager combo.

 

Frumpy’s style is typical of the heavy, organ dominated  German bands of the Krautrock era, with Rumpf’s strong bluesy vocals front and centre.  Atlantis is more progressive, more jazzy and less heavy and somehow less tuneful than Frumpy. The electronic organ sound of Frumpy is replaced by synthesisers and an anodyne AOR sound. Rumpf’s unique voice is the only common denominator and seems wasted in Atlantis where none of the songs stand out.

 

As often the case, YouTube is the forum for the rest of the Frumpy albums, including the excellent Frumpy Live from 1972, showcasing a groove-based blues rock band, with long jams and Rumpf’s powerful, slightly hoarse, soulful vocals.  A Frumpy concert must have been an experience and I’m surprised that this band didn’t try to make it in the USA, rather than the more banal Atlantis.  Frumpy would’ve have done well supporting, for example, the Allman Brothers Band or Lynyrd Skynyrd. Surprisingly, the signature song,  “How the Gypsy was Born” isn’t featured on this live set.  

 

Someone in the Rockpalast documentary explains the failure of Frumpy and/or Atlantis to make it in the USA, in addition to the lack of enthusiasm for spending years on the touring circuit there, that it would be like exporting ice to the Eskimos for a German band  hoping to make it in the USA by playing American style rock.  I can’t see why Frumpy would not have made it, if they were prepared to put in the work. Their music was not esoteric Krautrock but had enough blues, soul and groove,  not to mention extended organ and guitar solos, to appeal to the American heartland,  and if the Southern rock bands could do it, Frumpy could do it too.

 

I don’t know, but I hope Inga Rumpf has made at least a comfortable living from her musical career, in all its variations, and is kind of famous in Germany, if not all over the world. She writes good songs and has a marvellous voice,  and deserves  huge success and acclaim but perhaps, ultimately, she was more interested and found satisfaction in following her own, idiosyncratic path rather than pander to crass commercial interests.

 

Rock writers fawn over the Krautrock royalty of Can, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu! and the few other bands generally referred to in that context, but Inga Rumpf deserves as much attention and as many kudos.

 

In Memoriam: Tom Verlaine

                                                         IN MEMORIAM: TOM VERLAINE

13 December 1949  to 28 January 2023

 

There was an article by, I think, Lisa Robinson, in the August 1975 issue of Hit Parader magazine, the first rock publication I ever bought, and the first publication if bought regularly, with the NME following after that, about the then newly revived and vibrant New York scene, which mentioned, among other bands, Talking Heads, Blondie, the Ramones, Television and The Heartbreakers. There was also an article by Charles Shaar Murray about the UK music scene, mostly about Led Zeppelin, but that also was the first mention in print I read of Dr Feelgood.

 

For me and my musical education, that was a seminal issue of Hit Parader.

 

As I recall, the mention of Television in the piece was really about Richard Hell having left the band and forming The Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders (ex- New York Dolls) and though I got the impression that Tom Verlaine and Hell were two prime movers of the scene and that Television was quite important as breaking the ground for the scene, there was no more information than that.

 

NME gave the debut album, Marquee Moon (1977), an effusively enthusiastic review, rating it as a masterpiece, and was considerably less in awe of the follow up Adventure (1978), and this has been the conventional view since, although some critics have reassessed Adventure  and now rate it highly too.

 

Marquee Moon has one of the most iconic, highly recognisable album covers ever.

 

I only bought a CD copy of Marquee Moon in the late ‘90s, and was quite impressed with it, but I did buy Verlaine’s solo debut, Tom Verlaine,  (after a very positive review in NME) in 1979 and was hugely enthralled by it. It has the same tough, angular sound as Television’s music yet is also quite melodic and funny and weird in places.  Around this time, I also bought Richard Lloyd’s even more pop-influenced and tuneful debut solo album, but where it is the kind of sweet confection that paled after a while, and about which I no longer feel as keen as I did then, Verlaine’s album is as strong and enjoyable as ever even after a lengthy period of not having heard it all. I would say I like it even better than Marquee Moon.

 

Adventure is more reflective, less exuberant and smoother in sound than the debut album, but there is still plenty strong, sharp, innovative guitar interplay and, if it’s not as impressive at first exposure as Marquee Moon, it’s mostly down to brilliant surprise of the debut; the band certainly didn’t set out to make Marquee Moon II.  Adventure rewards repeated listening.

 

The second solo album, Dreamtime (1980) is more angular, tougher and in a way less approachable than Tom Verlaine, as if he were reaching for a more extreme, less appealing,  way of expressing himself,  but it’s identifiably the work of the same visionary who wrote the songs on Marquee Moon.

 

Verlaine, Hell and Television are credited with opening up the late ‘70s New York scene and spearheading the wave of new acts, though not being quite punk themselves,  that influenced and inspired the UK punk movement of 1976 and 1977. Where the UK bands were of a piece, the important New York bands (Television, Talking Heads, Blondie, Ramones, The Heartbreakers) were very diverse in aims, approach and sound. On the face of it, Television was the most daring and least commercial of them all, and broke up, for the first time, after only two records, though there was a comeback in the early ‘90s, but nonetheless have had a reach and influence far beyond 1978, and the twin factors of the clever interplay of the two guitarists and Verlaine’s song writing have an enduring progressive otherworldliness that have not dated.   

 

Television wasn’t just another punk band and Verlaine wasn’t just another post punk singer-songwriter. There was enough quirky intelligence and off-kilter weirdness to sustain his reputation as innovator yet his ambitions were clearly artistic and not particularly commercial.  Talking Heads, and their offshoots, and Blondie, for example, both were far more successful than Verlaine ever was but his reputation remains untarnished and his influence reverberates still.

 

 

Two contrasting versions of Dr Feelgood in concert

 

Last night I watched two contrasting videos of Dr Feelgood in concert. The one show was at the Southend Kursaal venue, with the original quartet including Wilko Johnson, and the other show was at an unnamed venue in Berlin in 1980 for the WDR television station’s Rockpalast series, and features Gypie Mayo, the guitarist  who replaced Wilko Johnson when the latter left the band in 1977.

 

The immediate impression is that the first show is powerful and showcases a band at the peak of its powers, and the lighting is intimate and almost “arty,” and that the second show is of a band, coasting on previous reputation, that has already become a pedestrian, journeyman like shell of its original incarnation. The Berlin show  is well lit, where the Kursaal show seems a tad dim at times, but this only exposes the professional, yet soulless performance even more.

 

The sound of the Kursaal show is also more organic and, dare one say,  in unifying mono and positively roars out of the PA system, where the Berlin show has much better, cleaner and somehow more sterile sound quality and one can clearly differentiate between John B Sparks’ powerful bass lines and Mayo’s scratchy, trebly and funky guitar playing, and the conclusion is that the rhythm section of Sparks and The Big Figure is what drives the band at that point.  At the 1975 show, Wilko’s choppy guitar style is an integral element of the sound and the combination of the three instruments empowers the music to a visceral high, audible even on the video, whereas the Berlin show is not nearly as engaging or exciting.

 

Obviously, the earlier gig features that Feelgoods classics of the time, with the original songs written by Wilko Johnson, of the first two albums. At the later gig, the band can draw on material from four albums without Johnson (Be Seeing You to A Case of the Shakes)    and perform only two songs from the Johnson period, “Back in the Night” (which he wrote), a Lee Brilleaux slide guitar showcase, and “Riot in Cellblock Number 9,” a riotous showstopper.   Johnson’s songs, some of the best  modern R & B  tunes around, are far superior to the later material, worthy as those songs might be, mostly because of his wittier style of writing and the relentless choppy riffing accompanying them.  Between Brilleaux and Mayo, and the others too, perhaps,  they could write serviceable songs and lyrics that are  okay, but tunes are lacking and somehow it seems as if Brilleaux’s vocal abilities deteriorated as he got older and he relied on barking out the lyrics more than singing them. The live setting exposes the  limitations of songs that seemed better than this in their studio versions, and the band, which pretty much plays the songs as written can’t elevate the tunes on stage.  Gypie Mayo may be a good guitarist but there is nothing about his playing that makes him stand out for thousands of other guitarists in the same genre. With Wilko Johnson, the band not only had excellent songs but also a unique, highly recognisable sound one could identify after the first few notes.  Once Wilko left, Dr Feelgood never sounded anything other than ordinary.

 

The Berlin show is by a band of competent, professional musicians who know their craft and their style inside out but lack the spark of genius and intrigue that Wilko Johnson provided.  Because they’re a name band, and had a hit with “Milk & Alcohol,” Dr Feelgood could fill large halls like the one in Berlin in 1980 when they were just on the cusp of losing whatever glamour they’d ever had and finally reverting to just another jumped up pub rock band. The Wilko Johnson era provided the reputation and set the band up for life and they never equalled or improved on that period.

 

I’d much rather have been at the Kursaal than at the Berlin gig.

 

 

Deutsche Rock

 

Krautrock is a generic term used to bundle together and characterise mostly experimental, avant garde German rock bands from the late ‘60s to late ‘70s, that employed a fusion of classical music, jazz,  electronica  and rock, trying to create a rock sub-genre that owed as little as possible to the blues and the accepted norms of rock from the USA or the UK. The Krautrock bands wanted to utilise ad display a German  sensibility.

 

I first took note of Krautrack from the NME (in the period 1977 to 1981) whose writers emphasised the big names such as Can, Tangerine Dream, Popol Vuh, Faust, Kraftwerk, Neu! and Amon Düül II, that is, the avant garde or highly political bands.

 

From this list, it seemed to me at the time that were only a few German rock bands, which is what made these bands unique and interesting beyond merely the music they produced.

 

I did take note of the Köln band BAP, who sang in the Kölnisch dialect, and later some of the bands of the Neue Deutsche Welle, like Nena,  who were obviously a reaction to the punk and Ne2 Wave bands from the UK in the late ‘70s but who were hardly Krautrock. The latter appeared to be quite at odds with mainstream rock, a small coterie of experimentalists who fought against the system.

 

Of course, at the time, I had no exposure to these ‘70s German bands, as they weren’t played on South African rock radio much. In an early episode of a German police procedural television series, called Tatort, dubbed into Afrikaans  and translated as Misdaad for the South African audience, there was a long stretch of dark, night-time and suspenseful imagery set to the soundtrack of a gloomy, doomy trancelike piece of rock music, like nothing else I’d ever heard on radio or television and my imagination persuaded me that this was Krautrock.  I must admit I’ve not really done a lot of research into trying to find or identify this piece of music and it might not have been German at all.

 

So, though I knew of Can,  Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh, I had no idea what any of it sounded like. The closest I came was to a double LP called Disaster by Amon Düül, which consisted of acoustic guitar and percussion jams, with the odd vocal interjection.  It was very disappointing, as there seemed to be nothing avant garde or intriguing about it.  It sounded like a bunch of people in a room, messing about and making a home recording.

 

At about the same time, a sales guy at Sygma Records in Stellenbosch tried to interest me in an album by some German jazz rock quartet (saxophone, organ or guitar, bass and drums) on a record with one lengthy track on each side. I listened to a couple of minutes of the first track and decided against buying this record. The music wasn’t entirely what I was into at the time and, though I lived long rock jams, it seemed to be less than value for money to buy a record with only two numbers on it.  I’ve no idea anymore who the band was, and though I’ve always thought of them as German, I might be mistaken about that too. it was a long time ago and I didn’t pay particular attention then.

 

My general ignorance about Krautrock  changed a couple of years ago when, on YouTube, of course, I came across two compilation videos called Deutschrock – Nacht 1 and Deutschrock – Nacht 1, a series of complete programmes of a West German  television show from the late ‘60s to mid-‘70s called Beat Club, that featured well-known British and American rock acts of the day as well as home grown bands,  and a very good, German documentary about Krautrock.  There are other Krautrock documentaries, mostly produced by UK or American based entities, but they concentrate on the “big” names and still endeavour to present a picture of a small, brave, adventurous group of musicians striking a blow for original German rock, which is a skewed, incomplete picture of the German music scene.

 

What I learnt from these YouTube videos is that the German rock was quite extensive. There were many bands who obviously targeted an international audience  by singing in English, and who  played the typical hard rock or psychedelic styles of the period, and as many who sang in German and, as I’ve mentioned, fused jazz and classical influences and who therefore sound more exotic.

 

Just off the top of my head, these other names come up: Birth Control, Guru Guru, Kraan,  Frumpy, Jane, Eloy, Xhol Caravan. It seems that many of them favoured a heavy organ sound (not synthesisers), with energetic drumming, agile bass lines, mostly rhythm guitar and, either or both, saxophone and flute and liked extended pieces heavy on atmosphere and groove but not necessarily tune, though a band like Frumpy, fronted by Inga Rumpf, clearly had a commercial agenda informed by a combination of Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin.

 

There are also the metal bands like Scorpions, Aksept and others who clearly aim for, and represent, the international, commercial ambitions of any serious musician, and I suppose none of them, patterned after the prominent British and American metal acts, would ever have been included in any definition of Krautrock even if they originated in Germany. 

 

German rock music of the “Krautrock era” is obviously more diverse than Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can or Popol Vuh, even if the electronic experimentalists are accorded the most critical attention and praise. As in any musical scene, the artists are a mixture of ambitious, commercially driven acts and the ones who do exactly what they want, out of the mainstream and with no real thought of financial success, at least not until they, too, are eventually absorbed into the mainstream as times and tastes change.

 

If Krautrock encompasses by definition only those well-known and critically acclaimed  bands like Tangerine Dream or Can,  it seems to me that it is simply a music writer’s lazy way of dealing with a subject that is far more complex. One can argue that the British or American rock writers, who monopolise the literary criticism of popular music, were perhaps confined to only those acts from Germany who had international releases or seemed to be more esoteric, intellectual and revolutionary than the mainstream German rock scene, and ignored the rest, and decreed that these outsider bands, even if Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh were acceptable enough to score movie soundtracks, were the only German bands worth considering and/or liking.  Anyone who wants to make a relatively short documentary on Krautrock must perforce focus on fewer musicians and for this reason alone, the emphasis will always be on the same small group of bands, to the detriment of exploring what was a much larger scene with far more diverse music.  Most historians simply follow and reiterate previous history writing and this is how rock critics work too. There are certain conventional wisdoms and accepted, widely held “truths” that are continuously reinforced by repetition, as if  no contemporary rock critic is prepared to apply their own faculties and critical examination of the work in front of them, to determine whether the assessments and opinions of their forebears has merit.   Hence, Krautrock being limited to a few usual suspects.

 

Deutsche rock is varied and wide ranging, and often so truly Germanically strange that it does sound like an invention with only a vague nod to the common rock roots we’ve grown up with, and is fascinating for that very reason, whether you’re into electronic soundscapes or free from jazz noisiness.

 

 

 

 

 

Bleached: Nirvana again

  

BLEACHED: NIRVANA AGAIN

 

 

 

I bought Bleach (1989) a couple of months before Nevermind (1991)  was released.  “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was already on the radio I really liked it and, having read about Nirvana long before they became famous, and in particular about Bleach, I thought I’d start there because I was a fan of late ‘70s punk and my perception that Nirvana followed in those footsteps.

 

My recollection of my first impression of Bleach was that it was a blast of harsh, unpleasant noise, obviously noting like “Teen Spirit” but also nothing like the kind of punk rock I was used to. At the time I knew nothing about American hardcore punk, at least I’d never heard any of the important records, and wasn’t used to punk that wasn’t melodic, even if subtly so. Nirvana hurt my ears and I hardly played Bleach more than a few times.

 

I bought Nevermind as soon as it was available at Ragtime Records  in Cape Town and was mildly disappointed. “Teen Spirit” was and is the standout track for me and the so-called punk rock of the rest of the album seemed one dimensional, unimaginative and mediocre. I couldn’t fathom why rock writers raved about the record, and I still don’t, and also not why it sold in its millions, other than off the lead single’s pop impact.

 

Truth be told, I’ve probably not listened to Nevermind any more than I’ve listened to Bleach and it’s not a record I listen to much now.

 

In Utero (1994) is, to my mind, superior to Nevermind, because it has better songs and is far tougher in musical approach. This is where Nirvana peaked.

 

I’ve now listened to Bleach again, because it came up as a recommendation on Apple Music and was surprised to find that it’s not the harsh noise I’ve always thought it was. The production is not as good as that of In Utero (the lack of money, I guess) and there is a difference in quality of the song writing too, but there is a seamless transition from the one album to the other, with Nevermind being the aberration, no doubt because of the slick, radio friendly production that was intended to maximise its commercial potential. With Bleach, Nirvana did not concern itself with commercial potential and with In Utero, the band was in a position to make the record it wanted to make and to return to its “roots,” I suppose.

 

Whatever, nevermind, I think Bleach is a bloody good little record, very much what I’d expect from a punk revivalist or proto-grunge pioneer, with pop nous and high energy, and I’ll return it to my collection.

 

 

In Memoriam: Jeff Beck

 IN MEMORIAM: JEFF BECK

24 June 1944 to 10 January 2023

 

 

Jeff Beck is probably the one highly rated guitarist who came to prominence in the ‘60s that I’ve never gotten into, in his various incarnations.  My introduction to him was “Hi Ho Silver Lining,” which I thought of as a nice enough, lightweight psychedelic pop song but no more. I knew he’d replaced Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds and by the late ‘70s I  knew he’d turned to jazz rock with Blow by Blow (1975) and Wired (1976) and this completely turned me off him because at that time  in my teens, and thereafter, I had as much a dislike for jazz fusion styles as I had for prog rock.

 

My first real exposure to Beck’s early guitar style was on a compilation of tracks by The Yardbirds, some featuring Clapton and some featuring Beck. I thought the latter tunes were terrible, self-conscious White blues or proto psychedelic rock with little nous. Beck’s guitar playing was the only redeeming factor but it was hardly mind-blowing and, frankly, I preferred Clapton.

 

It was many years before I heard the Roger the Engineer album in full and could appreciate that iteration of the band more as well as what Beck brought to the mix.

 

Mostly, though, Beck was a musician I read about a lot, and realised how highly he was regarded in the music business amongst fellow musicians but also amongst rock writers.  None of the album reviews, though, suggested to me that I’d want to buy any of his albums, as my impression was that he stuck to jazz rock and AOR styles that had never appealed to me.

 

By the time I finally got to listen to Truth (1968), Beck-ola (1969), Rough and Ready (1971) and Jeff Beck Group (1972), I already knew Cream and the early Led Zeppelin albums well, and Beck’s records paled in comparison. The blues rock wasn’t tough enough for me and Rod Stewart just didn’t hack it as either blues or rock vocalist, and the Jeff Beck Group’s attempts at funkiness and soul sounded forced and anaemic.

 

And that was that. Now, after hearing about his death, I’m listening to the stuff I never bothered with back in the day, and I’m still not convinced.  The records might have made more of an impression on me when they were current releases and I was far younger but on whole my musical tastes haven’t changed materially and I probably wouldn’t have spent much time on Beck  then either.

 

Beck, Bogert & Appice (1973) isn’t bad but it isn’t more than merely pleasant either. For all the talent here, the music isn’t intriguing and the overall feel of the album is no different to so much indifferent hard rock of this era. Even more than prog rock, this style of proficient, indolent rock was the music punk was intended to destroy.

 

Blow by Blow and Wired pretty much sound like I suspected they would: top session musicians, technically very capable, playing at the top of their games, producing a product that is intellectually admirable but has no visceral impact and no emotional appeal, and is fit just for back ground play or as soundtrack music.  If I don’t even appreciate much now, so many years older, it would’ve done nothing for me when I was a kid.  If I must listen to this style of rock, I’d much rather listen to Frank Zappa.

 

On Crazy Legs (1993) Beck collaborated with The Big Town Playboys on a rockabilly album where he emulates one of his earliest guitar influences, Cliff Gallup.  It’s good fun, if you like rockabilly, which I do, and Beck is in fine form.

 

Other than these records, I didn’t really want to delve into every Jeff Beck release but I think it’s safe to say I’ll have to resign myself to accept that general critical opinion of Jeff Beck as a master musician yet not find a place for him in my music collection.  What he’s done is just not to my taste, regardless of the quality of the product.   Another good man is gone; one more of the musicians from the ‘60s that I at least knew of, if not admired much, and that gives one pause. A generation is slowly dying out.

 

 

 

 

Wilko Johnson gone solo

 

Just as Dr Feelgood wasn’t the same, and certainly didn’t sound the same, without Wilko’s idiosyncratic guitar style, Wilko’s solo releases generally suffer from the lack of a good vocalist. He too often has a shrill yelping style of singing, which is all right for three or four songs on an album, separated by  songs with a better vocalist but listen to 12 or 14 of them consecutively becomes a teeth gritting challenge to say the least.

 

Wilko  was out of the blocks as solo artist quickly enough, though not as quickly as Dr Feelgood who released an album with new guitarist John Mayo within months after Wilko’s departure, with teh Solid Senders album in 1978. I expect that the band name suggested that it was indeed intended to be a band and not just a solo project but it didn’t last.

 

The Solid Senders featured keyboards, a decent vocalist and songwriters other than Wilko Johnson, and the album is pretty good. The rhythm section swings solidly, like the Feelgoods, and the addition of keyboards and another vocalist to gives us a varied set of originals and covers that Is highly enjoyable and is a more satisfactory follow up to Sneakin Suspicion than Be Seeing You  is and in a way shows a direction Dr Feelgood could’ve explored if sense had prevailed and they’d stuck together. The production is excellent too.

 

In 1981, the follow up was Ice on the Motorway, this time just a Wilko Johnson album with mostly bass and drums backing, and some keyboards, and it’s a great disappointment. The production is basic to say the least, and is almost no better than demo quality, with a disturbingly tinny guitar sound.  The tempos are also much too frenetic and Wilko’s thin, reedy voice is hardly the instrument to carry an entire album. He was good for a couple of songs per album, with Dr Feelgood and with the Solid Senders, but over the stretch it rakes some tolerance.

 

Wilko covers “Can You Please Crawl Through Your Bathroom Window,” “Long Tall Texan” and “I Put a Spell on You.”  He doesn’t bring much of interest to the party for the first two songs and the latter is a live version where he at last emotes the craziness the song demands.

 

There is perhaps a reason why Ice on the Motorway is not available on Apple  Music, and it might be the demo-level quality of the album. I listened to it for the first time on YouTube Music, in the week after Wilko’s death,  and was mildly disappointed.  I suppose it’s a must have for Wilko completists but it’s tough to listen to all at once.

 

Barbed Wire Blues (1995) is quite similar to Ice on the Motorway, with better production and with a more considered pace, yet also with Wilko voice that starts to grate about half way through the record.  One longs for another voice to mitigate the tedium of the continuous bleat. The songs don’t seem to be classics but they’re okay and Wilko’s riffs are as compelling as ever. 

 

With Going Back Home (2014), Wilko teamed up with Roger Daltrey to provide the gruff vocals while Wilko provides the trade mark riffs, and the performances provide a fair resemblance to Dr Feelgood, with 11 songs covering Wilko’s career, both with Dr Feelgood and as solo artist.

 

Amongst other tunes, they perform “Ice on the Motorway” and “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Bathroom Window”.  The production values on Going Back Home is far, far better than that of Ice on the Motorway, and Johnson’s guitar sound is not tinny but  tough and  powerful, as with peak Feelgoods, and  Wilko’s playing is not  with the frenetic nervousness evident on the earlier record, and one can hear what these songs should’ve sounded like in 1981.

 

My only quibble with teh album is that Wilko doesn’t sing at all, not even on songs, like “Sneakin’ Suspicion” or “Everybody’s Carrying a Gun” that I associate with him.  As I’ve said, the Johnson voice and vocal style over the length of an album takes some tolerance but it’s quite nice if he sings two or three of his own tunes to provide a contrast to the main vocalist.

 

I quite like the album though Daltrey, as good as he is, is not a match for Brilleaux on the songs associated with Dr Feelgood, because the song selection is excellent and the band  does them justice with the mixture of toughness and looseness that characterises R & B done well. 

 

Okay, I began listening to the earlier albums after I refreshed my memory with Solid Senders and Going Back Home, first Ice on the Motorway on YouTube and then Barbed Wire Blues on Apple music, which doesn’t carry the entire Wilko Johnson solo catalogue, and halfway through Barbed Wire Blues, I realised that I couldn’t bear to listen to more solo Wilko.  His voice ruins the experience.

 

So, I abandoned this project.  Wilko released a bunch of records over his lifetime, and there might be more stuff in vaults that will now see the light of day, but just as Dr Feelgood never improved  on their first four albums, Wilko never  did either. He ought’ve recruited a good vocalist, not quite a Lee Brilleaux imitator but at least someone who could share vocal duties to mitigate the Wilko yelp.

 

Wilko Johnson has bequeathed us his highly characteristic, quickly identifiable guitar style and some masterful songs in the idiom of modern R & B and blues,  and the latter should live on, both as performed by him with Dr Feelgood and on his own, and perhaps as covered by new generations of young guns who rediscover the blues and its UK offshoots.

 

 

Which Dr Feelgood albums should you own?

 The albums of Dr Feelgood can be grouped into three periods:

 

1.    Down by the Jetty (1975) to Sneakin’ Suspicion (1977);

2.    Be Seeing You (1877) to On the Job (1981);

3.    the rest.

 

1.    The Classic Period

 

The first four albums of the most important and the only Feelgoods albums you need to own. This version of the band is the original and classic version with Wilco Johnson, Lee Brilleaux, John B Sparkes and The Big Figure (John Martin.) and this group of records features the first two brilliant studio albums, a live album and a flawed studio album, Wilko Johnson's last contribution. Sneakin’ Suspicion is a controversial record because of circumstances of Johnson’s departure allegedly due to disagreements over songs for the record. 

 

The band had always recorded cover versions, partly because Walker Johnson did not write enough songs to fill 12 tracks and partly because the band probably wanted to record the songs they did. Apparently, by the time of the recording of Sneakin’ Suspicion there was already a rift in the band, specifically between Johnson and Brilleaux, with the other two as neutral as possible, and when any disagreements occurred they were amplified by the animosity between the two principal members, neither of whom wanted to give way regarding songs they wanted to record even if the other person was not as  keen, and neither were adult enough to be able to resolve the issues sensibly.

 

According to the Oil City Confidential documentary, Johnson wanted to include his composition, “Paradise” on the record and Brilleaux, and perhaps the others, did not think it was suitable for the band. In turn, they were pressing for the inclusion of Lew Lewis’ song “Lucky 7,” which Johnson didn't like.  Apparently, the compromise was, if you want your song, we insist on our choice.

 

Johnson played on the album, but it seems that “Lucky 7” was the straw that broke the camel's back, but I suppose that would be the easy hook on which to hang the breakup, and that there were many and more diverse factors involved.

 

Sneakin’ Suspicion is only half of a good record. Johnson's songs are the only worthwhile tracks and are far superior to the cover versions the band recorded, most of which sound like filler the band plays with no enthusiasm or interest at all.  Perhaps, nobody was keen on recording that album that should’ve been pushed back for a bit until Wilko had enough songs for it but commercial pressures from the record company, that the band capitalise on the massive success of the Stupidity live album by releasing new product asap.

 

It’s a classic case of many bad decisions made for stupid reasons whereas everyone should’ve stepped back for a breather, had a rest and reassessed and then moved forward. As it is, Dr Feelgood has left us two and a half good studio albums and an exciting live album.

 

2.    The holding pattern period.

 

Dr Feelgood recruited a new guitarist, John ‘Gypie’ Mayo, and carried on, relying on the momentum and name recognition created in the classic period. The band name had become a brand.

 

Mayo and Brilleaux took up the song writing responsibilities, though the band still relied on cover version too, and Dr Feelgood recorded three decent studio albums, Be Seeing You, Private Practice (1978) and A Case of the Shakes (1980), and had commercial success, and a terrible studio album, Let It Roll (1979), and two superfluous live albums, no doubt hoping to repeat the success of Stupidity.

Be Seeing You was released to establish the new version of the band, introduce the new guy and to give the band material to play live that wasn’t completely from the Johnson years, and is not bad but not a home run either. The original songs are pedestrian and for the first time one notices that Brilleaux is mostly just a shouter and not so much a singer.  

 

Private Practice had a hit single, “Milk & Alcohol,” and the most ambitious music the band had ever recorded, with improved lyrics and a more standard hard rock approach to the R & B roots and Mayo’s inclination to overdub as many guitar parts as possible.  The production values are high and Brilleaux does actually sing properly on some songs.  At the time, I preferred Be Seeing You, and found Private Practice hard to digest but lately I’m more appreciative and. compared to the later records, its ambition is laudable.

 

With A Case of the Shakes the band ventured into New Wave territory for its clothes, album cover design and approach to R & B and for me this is the last worthwhile Feelgoods’ studio album to own and probably the best of the three of the Mayo period.  The guitar style is less convoluted and more direct than on its studio predecessor and the lyrics are splendid and witty.

 

Let It Roll is lame. It’s another record that feels, and sounds, as if the band had no interest in going into the studio and just did the album as a contractual obligation. The band plays competently but Brilleaux’s vocals are terrible, and the choice of songs is dubious.

 

The two live albums are just concert souvenirs.

 

3.    The declining period.

 

Mayo left the band and eventually Sparks and Big Figure did too, and Dr Feelgood became Brilleaux with backing musicians, though some of them signed on for a long time, and the principal guitarist, Steve Walwyn, served for far longer than Johnson and  Mayo combined,  and nowadays there’s a version of the band that has nothing to do with the earlier versions except for the name. 

 

Brilleaux fronted the band until his death in 1992 and recorded a bunch of records with it, all of which one can only describe as workmanlike, pedestrian and non-essential, unless you are a Feelgoods Ultra.  In the classic period, Dr Feelgood had a distinctive sound and a songwriter of brilliance. In this late period, the band was indistinguishable, save for Brilleaux’s voice, from so many others in the same field. The musicians were experienced and competent and the songs were worthy, but there was no positive progression anymore and nothing compelling.

 

CONCLUSION

 

Get the first four records and stop there. If you’re curious about what happened next, add Be Seeing You, Private Practice and A Case of the Shakes and stop there. Don’t waste your money or time on any other Feelgoods records.

Some thoughts on Wilko Johnson

 RIP WILKO JOHNSON

12 July 1947 – 21 November 2022

 

One Sunday night in 1975, the DJ who presented a juke box jury type programme on Radio 5, South Africa’s national music station, introduced “Back in the Night” by Dr Feelgood, a band I’d never hear of before and it was the same for the members of the jury, called to judge a slate of mostly current pop records that sounded nothing like “Back in the Night.” 

 

I was hooked at the very moment the tinny, angular shuffle rhythm of Wilko’s rhythm guitar part and Lee Brilleaux’s basic, insistent slide guitar riff emerged from the old tub driven radio I was listening to. I can’t claim that the sound roared from the radio, because the single speaker couldn’t roar if its life depended on it and the song itself, as tough as the rhythm was, hardly had the full bodied Les Paul roar of the kind of hard rock I was accustomed to then. “Back in the Night” not only sounded nothing like the other tunes the juke box jury were called on to judge, it also sounded like nothing else on Radio and like nothing I’d ever heard before.

 

I must admit that my record collection was pretty sparse at the time, comprising of probably only The Beatles 1962 – 1966, and Neil Diamond’s Gold and Taproot Manuscript albums, and that my overall exposure to rock music was pretty basic: from the radio, from a couple of records I borrowed from the Municipal Library and from some records my mates had, but it was hardly eclectic and mostly standard commercial rock, much of what is now known as Classic Rock. I hadn’t yet begun learning anything about the blues much less listening to it or buying blues albums.

 

I was mostly ignorant of the broad details of rock’s history and completely ignorant of the wide variety of music out there. The term and concept of “pub rock” was thoroughly alien to me.

 

Dr Feelgood came as a shock to the system. Within a few days after first hearing “Back in the Night” I found the parent album, Malpractice (1975), the second Feelgoods’ album and immediately bought it and almost wore out the grooves over the next few years. In 1976 I bought the live album Stupidity (1976),  in 1977 the debut album, Down by the Jetty (1975) and then, released in the same year, the final Feelgoods album on which Wilko contributed songs, sung and played,  Sneakin’ Suspicion. 

 

Because I was fan of the band, I continued buying the albums with John Mayo up to A Case of the Shakes(1981) and then gave up. Without Wilko, Dr Feelgood had reverted to being a journeymen pub band, albeit with a bigger name and being able to play in larger venue. Mayo was a good guitarist and the band wrote songs that were okay enough but the spark of genius and eccentric quirkiness  that Wilko contributed was irrevocably gone.

 

Wilko brought this choppy, highly individualistic guitar style and intelligent song writing style to the band. Somehow, though, he never seemed to have enough material to provide, say, 12 songs per album and the band always inserted some covers. On Down by the Jetty, the two final tracks, “Oyeh!” and “Bonie Moronie/Tequila” are utter filler, especially the latter live track, and to this day I’m baffled why this performance was chosen

 

On Malpractice, even the covers are powerful and substantial and completely fit the template. That is not the case on Sneaking Suspicion where the Johnson songs are the only worthwhile ones and not one cover version is essential, never the controversial “Lucky Seven.” It also doesn’t help that Brilleaux seems to have lost the ability to sing and settled on the gruff bark he employed henceforth as his default style. the band would have been far better served by waiting until Wilko had more songs together, such as the tunes on Sneaking Suspicion and the songs released on Solid Senders (1978.)

 

Neither Dr Feelgood nor Johnson as solo artist, conquered the world, for that the music was too niche  and not necessarily radio friendly contemporary pop hits, but one will always wonder whether Dr Feelgood would’ve left a better legacy behind if Wilko had been with the band for a far longer stretch.

 

Wilko carried on, first with the short-lived Solid Senders group, where he was, seemingly, one amongst equals, and then a purely solo career backed by a drummer and bassist, continued working and writing, recording and releasing new material. On  much of the material one misses a proper vocalist.  Wilko is earnest and can carry a tune but his voice is tad thin and weedy for the genre.

 

I must confess that I’ve not followed Wilko’s solo career. Firstly, because I wasn’t aware of it to any great degree and the records, or CDs were not readily available in South African records stores (though I did buy Solid Senders) and now that I’ve listened to his post-Feelgoods  output, I can’t honestly say I’m sorry.  If the post-Wilko Feelgoods albums do not live up to much, neither does Wilko’s later records. They sound too lightweight.

 

Brilleaux died a long time ago, and now only the original Feelgoods rhythm section is alive, conserving the memories of those halcyon ‘70s heydays when Dr Feelgood emerged from the pubs, conquered the UK and were called the precursors of punk rock. 

 

Wilko’s angular, choppy guitar style is echoed in a great deal of post punk rhythm guitar and I suppose this would be his greatest contribution, musically. The punks and post punks were not into the blues; they just liked the fast paced, simple style of Dr Feelgood and, allegedly, the short-ish hair and more prosaic clothing. Dr Feelgood didn’t sound, look or dress like the dinosaur rock groups the punks wanted to eliminate.

 

For me, Wilko was a force in music, and will forever have a spot in the pantheon for his role, for a couple of years, from roughly 1973 to 1978 and then faded away into a low-key career path. His earlies work with Dr Feelgood will probably always be cited as highly influential and eternally powerful, but I can’t see that his subsequent career, when he was kind of coasting on the earlier reputation much like Dr Feelgood, will ever receive the attention or adulation of the breakthrough years. Most eulogies feature some story of the first time the writer saw or heard the band and it’s always, much like mine, about those years in the pubs or just as the band began moving out of the circuit, when Dr Feelgood was genuinely exciting because they were so different, so daring and so special. 

 

Wilko simply kept on doing what he did best for the rest of his life, and no doubt successfully so but he ceased being an innovator or an artist whose lates work one had to hear.

 

Having said that, he will always be revered. For me, he and Eric Clapton (while with Cream) were my top two guitarists of my teenage years and Dr Feelgood and Cream were the top two bands of that period of my life.  From 1977 my record collection expanded exponentially and quickly encompassed more rock bands, more blues artists, and reggae and funk, and I learnt much more about rock history and the important musicians to date, but however much I might have come to like Jimi Hendrix or Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley or Parliafunkadelicment Thang, Cream and Dr Feelgood remained at the centre and was the music I kept returning to, to this day. Malpractice and Disraeli Gears are definitely on my Desert Island Disc list. 

 

I will always be thankful that Wilko Johnson, Lee Brilleaux, John Sparks, and John Martin got together to form a band and that between Wilko’s unique guitar style and engaging lyrics, Lee’s ominous onstage presence and tough voice and the supple and swinging rhythm section, they produced something that was indeed a whole far greater than the sum of the parts, and I’m thankful that Wilko’s genius for R & B was the motor that drove the band to the heights it achieved.