Three albums released in 1976 on the menu: The Rolling Stones’ Black And Blue, Rod Stewart’s A Night On The Town and The Royal Scam, by Steely Dan. My album commentaries follow each record’s track list.
The Rolling Stones – Black And Blue
1. Hot Stuff
2. Hand Of Fate
3. Cherry Oh Baby
4. Memory Motel
5. Hey Negrita
6. Melody
7. Fool To Cry
8. Crazy Mama
One thing you can say for Black And Blue: it prompted perhaps the best, arguably funniest and most memorable rock album review ever, up there with Greil Marcus’s “what is this shit?” opening line to his Rolling Stone magazine review of Bob Dylan’s 1970 album Self Portrait.
“The heat’s off,” Lester Bangs, the noted American writer/critic who was actually a big fan of the band, wrote of Black And Blue in Creem magazine. “because it’s all over. They really don’t matter anymore or stand for anything, which is certainly lucky for both them and us. I mean, it was a heavy weight to carry for all concerned. This is the first meaningless Stones album, and thank God.”
I still chuckle every time I read it. As for the actual album, I’ve liked it since day one because it does what I love the Stones for doing – putting their own rock and roll stamp on things while they explore myriad musical styles. And Black And Blue, a largely funky, groove-based record with dashes of reggae (the Eric Donaldson cover Cherry Oh Baby) plus typical ballads like the hit single Fool To Cry and travelogue Memory Motel, collectively was unlike anything they’d done before. That was in at least some measure because the band was auditioning guitarists to replace Mick Taylor, who left after 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll album. Among the axemen in studio during the sessions, not all of whose work wound up on the album, were Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher, Harvey Mandel, formerly of Canned Heat – who played lead guitar on disco-funk album opener Hot Stuff – and session ace Wayne Perkins, who was once asked to join Lynyrd Skynyrd and who delivered a searing, Taylor-like solo on one of my favorites from the album, Hand Of Fate. That’s one of two ‘traditional’ or typical type Stones’ tunes on the platter, the hard rocker Crazy Mama that closes the record being the other.
Ron Wood of Jeff Beck Group and Faces fame wound up landing the guitar gig – his staccato riffing on Hey Negrita was a highlight – which in itself has been controversial among some Stones fans who are not enamoured of his playing and prefer the Taylor years. Still, ‘the new boy’ has been in the band ever since. He’s served as a buffer between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ periodic conflicts and his ‘Englishness’ and playing compatibility that Richards says he prefers – their much-ballyhooed ‘ancient art of weaving’ where two guitars work in unison as one rather than a distinct lead/rhythm split – won him the job.
I read somewhere once that Eric Clapton, who the Stones had considered, said to Wood “I could have had that job.” To which Wood replied “Yeah, but Eric, you gotta live with ’em.” The chemistry has worked as the Stones roll on.
Rod Stewart – A Night On The Town
Slow Side (side one of original vinyl)
1. Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)
2. The First Cut Is The Deepest
3. Fool For You
4. The Killing Of Georgie (Part I and II)
Fast Side (side two)
5. The Ball Trap
6. Pretty Flamingo
7. Big Bayou
8. The Wild Side Of Life
9. Trade Winds
Stewart split the original vinyl album into two halves: a rock-and-roll side – aside from the album closing track Trade Winds – and a more reflective, folk-tinged side. He did the same thing for his previous album, 1975’s Atlantic Crossing. It was apparently at the suggestion of his then-girlfriend Britt Ekland, a Swedish actress, model and singer who was a Bond girl in 1974’s The Man With The Golden Gun which featured Christopher Lee of Dracula fame as the titular villain. Only difference was, on Atlantic Crossing, side one was the ‘fast side’ and side two the ‘slow side’, with Stewart flipping that script for A Night On The Town. Atlantic Crossing had marked a new chapter in Stewart’s solo career, the end of the brilliant 1969-74 period when he had concurrent careers with Faces and as a solo artist, with Faces members, particularly guitarist Ron Wood and keyboardist Ian McLagan, serving among his backing musicians.
Stewart then used session players like the members of Booker T. & The MGs to great effect as he continued a run of chart-topping albums through Atlantic Crossing and the even better-selling A Night On The Town, propelled by singles like Tonight’s The Night, The First Cut Is The Deepest and The Killing Of Georgie. My favorite Stewart is his Faces-era period. But he continued releasing quality material/stuff I like through A Night On The Town and its followup, Footloose And Fancy Free but started losing steam for me with Blondes Have More Fun in 1978, although I’ll admit the disco hit single from that album, Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? is a guilty pleasure. By 1981’s Tonight I’m Yours album, though, Stewart had pretty much lost me although I do like the single Passion from his 1980 album Foolish Behaviour.
Steely Dan – The Royal Scam
1. Kid Charlemagne
2. The Caves Of Altamira
3. Don’t Take Me Alive
4. Sign In Stranger
5. The Fez
6. Green Earrings
7. Haitian Divorce
8. Everything You Did
9. The Royal Scam
I find Steely Dan to be so consistently excellent that if I had to pick a favorite album, I couldn’t. Instead, I’d employ my musical mantra: The best artist, album or song is the one you are listening to right now, in the moment, if you like it. So, today for me as far as Steely Dan goes, it’s The Royal Scam and it happens to fit with the other two albums I’m playing for this show, also released in 1976. It’s your usual Steely Dan amalgam of styles – funk, fusion, jazz rock and sophisticated grooves coupled with biting lyrics and great guitar work, particularly on songs like Don’t Take Me Alive by session man to the stars Larry Carlton, who played on three other Steely Dan albums – Katy Lied (1975), Aja (1977) and Gaucho (1980). Journalist Michael Watts, writing for British magazine Melody Maker, summed it up pretty well upon the album’s release.
“I wouldn’t wish to say whether it’s better than the other four Steely Dan records; they don’t compete with each other, they co-exist. But I will say that I’m playing it to death. And of course, the listener doesn’t have to delve into the lyrics. You can just tap your foot.”
One thing I’ve never understood, though. And it really doesn’t matter, because I own all the Steely Dan albums and nowadays, you can listen to anything you want online. But why the dark, brooding, title cut, The Royal Scam, is on no Steely Dan compilation I know of, is beyond me. It’s my favorite song on the album but, same as another personal favorite, Midnite Cruiser from the Dan’s 1972 debut Can’t Buy A Thrill, it didn’t make a compilation cut. One would think the band, or record company, would have wanted the wider exposure compilations often bring, reeling in casual consumers, at least in pre-internet times.
