Did I say "inimitable"? Well, whatever, from four years later...
| Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells - Part 1 .mp3 | ||
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 | Found at bee mp3 search engine |  |
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
In Search of Eddie Riff (An Occasional Series): Sometimes Less is Less
From 1969, please enjoy the opening title track from Quicksilver Messenger Service's Shady Grove, featuring the inimitable piano stylings of the incredibly great Nicky Hopkins.
Did I say "inimitable"? Well, whatever, from four years later...
Seriously, I hadn't heard the Quicksilver song in a gazillion years, but I downloaded the album the other day and when "SG" came on you could have knocked me over with a feather. Granted, after that strikingly Minimalist instrumental opening it becomes a rather more traditional bit of Bo Diddley-influenced pop/blues/rock, but still -- I bet if you got Oldfield drunk he'd admit he at least owned a copy of Shady Grove at some point.
Did I say "inimitable"? Well, whatever, from four years later...
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7 comments:
Thanks, I forgot how much I loved both tracks.
ROTP(lumber)
I have to agree with Anonymous. And - did Nicky Hopkins live in a studio & every decent band in the world just rotate on through?
Coincidence?? Hmmm..love Nicky...looking through his history I was reminded of Sweet Thursday..Gilbert St, wow..haven't heard that in years..was a staple on Wnew back in the day. Thanks for that Steve.
Not convinced. About the only thing they have in common are odd time signatures (5/4 in the QMS song, alternating bars of 7/8 and 8/8 in Tubular Bells). It's a little like saying that these guys ripped them off because they used the same melody.
The doubling of the piano figure at the top of the Quicksilver sounds EXACTLY like Oldfield. I'm not saying it's a ripoff, just an amusing coincidence...although I still say Oldfield heard the album.
Uncanny resemblance. A friend of mine played guitar with Mike Oldfield back in the day. I'm going to email him now and see if I can get you a confession.
PK
Not convinced either. Perhaps the idea of layering the two keyboards that way was a connection in Oldfield's mind, but even then I doubt it: the effect is just too different.
But I'd be curious to know what Mike says.
Not for the first time do I marvel at the Web's effortless multimodality these days. Almost as good as playing records for friends.
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