I go from mostly short and sweet with my Brian Wilson/Beach Boys tribute set last Saturday – 42 songs including the 13 from Wilson’s masterpiece album Pet Sounds – to just nine total songs this week: Lengthy progressive rock pieces bracketing a few shorter psychedelic soul funk rock cuts from Sly And The Family Stone in tribute to the passing of Sly Stone, two days before Wilson last week, both age 82. A genre-shifting set perhaps, but that’s how my mind sometimes works so here you go. My track tales follow the bare-bones list. This is my final show.
1. Pink Floyd, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One)
2. The Alan Parsons Project, The Turn Of A Friendly Card (Suite) – The Turn Of A Friendly Card/Snake Eyes/The Ace Of Swords/Nothing Left To Lose/The Turn Of A Friendly Card (Part II)
3. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Tarkus (Eruption/Stones Of Years/Iconoclast/Mass/Manticore/Battlefield/Aquatarkus)
4. Sly & The Family Stone, Thank You For Talkin’ To Me, Africa
5. Sly & The Family Stone, Frisky
6. Sly & The Family Stone, Just Like A Baby
7. Sly & The Family Stone, I Want To Take You Higher
8. Yes, Shoot High Aim Low
9. Pink Floyd, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part Two)
My track tales:
1. Pink Floyd, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One) . . . Lead track on 1975’s Wish You Were Here, part two of which closes that album as it will close my set.
2. The Alan Parsons Project, The Turn Of A Friendly Card (Suite) – The Turn Of A Friendly Card/Snake Eyes/The Ace Of Swords/Nothing Left To Lose/The Turn Of A Friendly Card (Part II) . . . Title track to the 1980 album, a near-17 minute suite blending pop accessibility with prog structure. The various pieces within the overall suite are distinct yet contribute thematically to the whole.
3. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Tarkus (Eruption/Stones Of Years/Iconoclast/Mass/Manticore/Battlefield/Aquatarkus) . . . A shade under 21 minutes of prog rock excess if one views it that way and finds the genre pretentious, which is fair comment. I get it and share that view when I’m in my raunch and roll phases which is the majority of the time. But, music is all about mood so to me right now it’s a shade under 21 minutes of prog rock perfection or at least magnificence, this title cut to ELP’s 1971 album. Besides which, any time one can listen to Greg Lake’s beautiful singing voice – which I first cottoned to via his performance on King Crimson’s 1969 debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King – is time well spent amid the overall epic.
4. Sly & The Family Stone, Thank You For Talkin’ To Me, Africa . . . Hypnotic, funky, rhythmic jam from 1971’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On album. A reimagined slower version of the band’s 1969 hit Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).
5. Sly & The Family Stone, Frisky . . . Another intoxicating track, this one from 1973’s Fresh album.
Alternate cover
6. Sly & The Family Stone, Just Like A Baby . . . Funky and soul-inflected which is what one would expect from the artist but I find it somewhat bluesy as well. Great groove, from There’s A Riot Goin’ On.
7. Sly & The Family Stone, I Want To Take You Higher . . . A well-known track, and a great one it is. It appears on various compilations but was actually a B-side to Stand in 1969.
8. Yes, Shoot High Aim Low . . . From 1987’s Big Generator album. Despite the somewhat sleek 1980s production from the 90125 album/Owner Of A Lonely Heart hit single version of Yes, Shoot High Aim Low – featuring guitarist Trevor Rabin instead of Yes perennial Steve Howe, who was in the supergroup Asia by then – is something of a throwback to the classic 1970s sound of earlier versions of the band. I had intended to play some early classic Yes, perhaps something like Close To The Edge but then I got tinkering with my trusty YesYears box set, from which I pulled Shoot High Aim Low. I don’t own Big Generator – well, I did once but traded it in – because I wasn’t into the 1980s production, but obviously a track I’d overlooked.
Big Generator was the followup studio album to 1983’s 90125 during a time when Yes had splintered into so many camps, starting with 1980’s Drama album, that it was difficult to keep track of who was in what group. The, er, drama began when members of The Buggles of Video Killed The Radio Star hit single fame entered the picture. Trevor Horn took over from Jon Anderson on lead vocals with Geoff Downes, later in Asia with Howe, on keyboards. But first, Downes replaced Rick Wakeman in Yes, with Wakeman later joining the Yes-ish band Anderson (drummer Bill) Bruford Wakeman Howe, all of whom had been Yes-men at one time or another.
As the actor Robert Shaw’s crime boss character in the 1973 award winning movie The Sting starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford was wont to say, ‘ya falla (follow)?’
Take your time catching up while I finish connecting the dots in the wacky world of Yes and associated lineups. Originally, the 90125 version of Yes, with Rabin, was going to be called Cinema but during the recording sessions, an invitation was extended to Jon Anderson to return as lead singer and so it became a Yes album – which included an instrumental called Cinema among its tracks.
Eventually, everyone kissed and made up for 1991’s Union album and tour of merged members, eight in all, followed by future splits in the extended family that continue to this day.
9. Pink Floyd, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part Two) . . . We end where we began, Part Two of the Wish You Were Here track.