Enjoy, if possible. -- S.S.]
And now to business.
Best Post-Elvis Pop/Rock Band or Solo Act That Should Have Had a Mega-Career But For Whatever Reason Didn't!!!
Okay, we're talking one-hit wonders, groups or acts who had a couple of records that may have been critically acclaimed but sold negligibly, or just people that nobody ever really heard of but were fricking fantastic anyway. This is, admittedly, even more subjective than usual. Do the MC5 count? Everybody knows they were great, but they never sold that many records and broke up after three albums. How about Nick Drake? Until that car commercial made him a sort of household word, he'd been basically an obscure dead guy for decades.
Like I said, it's subjective. For me, then, I think the pornography standard applies -- i.e., I know a beautiful loser when I see one.
And that said, my top of my head Top Ten would be:
10. The Monks
These guys only made one studio album, which wasn't even released in their home country until 25 years after the fact. But as the above clip demonstrates, they invented Blank Generation punk rock when Richard Hell was still in junior high.
9. Brinsley Schwarz
The Band, but with pop songs, and, as you can see, one hell of a live act. IMHO, of course, they should be considered gods for no other reason than giving the world the original version of "What's So Funny About Peace Love and Understanding".
8. The Records
It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that if it wasn't for these guys, and the debut album "Up All Night" is from, the blog you're reading now wouldn't exist.
7. Kevin Salem
My favorite hard-rocking guitar-wielding singer/songwriter of the 90s. Why he remains obscure when, say, a nit like John Mayer walks the streets a free man is, frankly, beyond me.
6. The Wonders
Let's be honest -- if these guys had been an actual band rather than a fictional construct for a movie, they would have made the Hall of Fame years ago.
5. Marc Jonson
He's a genuine pop genius. He absolutely ruled the Greenwich Village rock scene in the late 70s and early 80s, his songs have been recorded by the likes of Dave Edmunds, Robert Gordon and The Roches, and he's one of the most riveting live acts I've ever been personally jealous of. So why ain't he a superstar? You got me.
4. The Rising Sons
Featuring the rather awesome talents of Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal before they got famous. The fact that this track languished unreleased in the vaults of Columbia Records for nearly three decades before it was finally unleashed on the world is pretty convincing proof of the non-existence of God, IMHO.
3. Marah
Their template was The Replacements doing Bruce Springsteen covering the entirety of Exile on Main Street. It is not an exaggeration when I say that I would cheerfully cut off both of my testicles for the chance to have played on a song as great as the above.
2. Moby Grape
They all sang (gloriously), they all wrote (brilliantly), their lead guitarist was one of the most innovative American players of the decade, and their debut album is a timeless masterpiece that deftly mixes rock, country, blues, gospel, and psychedelia. Meanwhile, lots of otherwise intelligent folks still think they were the punchline to a dumb Sixties joke.
And the number uno band or pop auteur that should be currently relaxing on the Riviera inhaling cocaine and Cristal absolutely is....
1. Willie Nile
He made one of the great debuts in rock history, and he's still making albums almost or as good as that one even as we speak.
Alrighty, then -- what would YOUR choices be?
And have a great weekend, everybody!!!
39 comments:
Marshall Crenshaw, always comes to mind first when this topic comes up.
Tom Caufield, either Recovery Room or Long Distance Calling from the near-perfect Long Distance Calling from 1987.
Lydia Loveless
The Roues Brothers group of bands through the years: Roues Brothers, Finn & The Sharks, The Broadcasters, Upsouth Twisters and Big Jim Wheeler & Wheels of Fire.
The Easybeats/Vanda-Young.
Captain Al
The Charlatans (original US version) - beat the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane to the punch as the first acid rock band in SF, should have had at least one hit.
The Jam - obviously big among certain people and in England, but should have been as big as (say) U2 or The Police.
also agree with above that Marshall Crenshaw is basically the poster boy for this category.
Also also, this suggests two more categories - band most fucked over by circumstances - see Badfinger and Heatwave for examples. And the opposite listomania to this - bands that became popular for no apparent reason - Loverboy? Christopher Cross?
Re Brinsley Schwartz: The Band? Again with The Band. Put those guys to bed. Who couldn't see that when psychedelia ran its course that country-flavored rock would take over? Probably the same genius who never "heard" "Time of the Seaon" as a hit single.
Vagabond Moon could just be the most perfect rock record ever made. That sound!! if you love guitars- it is just overwhelming. Every time I hear it, it just feels so good. It makes me want to keep trying.
I saw him once with just him and a bass player. When it came time for a solo in a song, like this one, the bass player hit a foot pedal which jumped the bass up an octave or two, and he took the solos on the bass - sounding like a guitar. Amazing!
When I moved to NYC in 1979 I went to a party on Bleeker Street somewhere the first week I was in town and they played this album nonstop. I remember thinking "We're not in Kansas anymore."
Amen to Moby Grape. Looked like management / Columbia purposely wanted to screw them over.
Still have their vinyl... including first with Stevenson's finger and poster.
Each album by the Band was a leeetle bit less than the one before, mostly because Robertson started writing all the songs. But Music From Big Pink remains a foundational text, the album that ended the British Invasion. And in the shoulda-been-bigger sweepstakes I'd nominate Little Feat, although it could be argued that their demise was less about a cloth-eared audience and more about various addictions.
Richard Thompson and Shelby lynn
In a just world, Dwight Twilley would have been gigantic.
Big Star, Jellyfish, and Raspberries.
Ramones
Why didn't they? "Those Ramones are ugly people"
Gene Clark
Dave Edmunds. Every album had several #1 smash hits
NRBQ have recorded more unknown “hits” than I can count. Once you discover them you are a fan for life.
Mike
absolutely NRBQ
The Van Morrison incarnations of Them. None of their outstanding singles made it into the Billboard Top Twenty. Neither of their two excellent LP's got past #138.
But the Baby Please Don't Go/Gloria single was a double sided Number One in SoCal. Apparently nowhere else. The rest of the country waited for the Shadows of Knight version of Gloria. A pity. Them was a killer band.
Also even though some of these have already been mentioned:
Love (none of their albums made the Top 50; Love #57, Da Capo #80, Forever Changes #154), Little Feat (their first, and best, didn't even register on the charts). Jellyfish, Gene Clark, The Move (wildly unsuccessful in the USA), Subdudes (Annunciation is wonderful-nice guys too-even better "live"), Big Star, Graham Parker, Kelly Willis, Garnet Mimms, Man, Velvet Underground, Delbert McClinton, Groundhogs, Rory Gallagher, Evie Sands, Dave Alvin, Rodney Crowell, Small Faces (also wildly unsuccessful in the USA), Dwight Twilley Band, Chris Gaffney/Hacienda Brothers, The Misunderstood, Paul Collins Beat, Terry Reid, Carlene Carter, Jim Lauderdale, Emitt Rhodes (Merry-Go-Round), Easybeats, James Carr, John Prine, Godfrey Daniel, dada, Gram Parsons, Flying Burrito Brothers, Zombies, Don Covay, Derailers, Syd Straw, Dave Edmunds, Kaleidoscope, Shelby Lynne, Doug Sahm, Augie Meyers, XTC/Dukes of the Stratosphere, Teardrop Explodes/Julian Cope, Judee Sill, Jesse Winchester, Toni Price, Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, Steve Forbert, Nerves/Plimsouls, Curved Air, Darryl Way's Wolf, dbs, Anne McCue, Jules and the Polar Bears, Family, Essra Mohawk, Garland Jeffreys, Flamin' Groovies, Gwil Owen ...
but not Fanny
I like Moby Grape but they had two albums in the Top Twenties and were headlining. They kinda sabotaged themselves ...
430 .... Richard and Linda .... two birds with one stone
VR
I failed to mention Love. In reading some articles, Arthur Lee just didn't want to tour very much. What a shame... that Forever Changes album was considered by many to be the best album made.
Yeah getawaygoober,
I'm surprised Steve didn't have Love on his list. He coulda/shoulda scratched the Wonders to make room. Whatever, it's a damn shame they're not in the RnR Hall of Fame yet.
VR
hello, pete said ...
Music From Big Pink ended the British Invasion? Each Band album after was a leetle less?
IMO, The Brown Album exceeds Big Pink. If I had to rank studio albums I'd say:
The Band
Big Pink
Stage Fright
Northern Lights
Cahoots
Moondog
Islands
I love Rock of Ages too. Overall I'd rank it 2nd right behind "The Band".
I'm not sure what you meant about Big Pink ending the British Invasion. Didn't 1968 also bring us Traffic, Fleetwood Mac, Deep Purple, Odessey & Oracle released by defunct Zombies, Fairport Convention import, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, first USA Small Faces albums There Are But Four & Ogden's Nut, Savoy Brown, Ten Years After, Chicken Shack, The Move, Joe Cocker's first 2 US singles, The Nice, The Moody Blues MK II, This Was Jethro Tull import, Spooky Tooth, Family, Bonzo Dog Band, Keef Hartley Band, Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, Jeff Beck Group, Pink Floyd MK II, Terry Reid, Tomorrow, Status Quo, Blossom Toes, Kippington Lodge, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Simon Dupree & the Big Sound, Caravan, Idle Race, Love Sculpture, first USA concerts of Led Zeppelin, Cream multiple US tours ...?
Just teasin' :)
VR
For Anon VR,
I have the Band albums and Big Pink didn't really "catch the nod" for me either.
However the 2nd w/ Cripple Creek & Drove Old Dixie was ace.
Had 2 degrees of separation from Love. A college friend (Rick Harry) had played with Ken Forssi (Love bass) in a good Sarasota area band. When Ken left for an engineering drawing school in LA, he asked Rick "Do you think I'll be able to get in a decent band out there?"
True or not, I like the story of him and Echols being "Doughnut Bandits" to pay for heroin.
Peter Himmelman
Crash Vegas
Blood Oranges/Cheri Knight
Captain Al
getawaygoober:
You can address me as VR. I forgot to ID myself on that long one above.
Cool about your friend and Forssi. He was a good bass player if it's really him on the records. I think the donut story is true. Dumbshits. That whole band was doped up. They played a lot of gigs in the Los Angeles area. I saw them when I was a teenybopper several times at different venues with varying results. Bryan Maclean was so cute. Michael Stuart was nice. But the rest of them scared the shit out of me. Tjay Cantrelli was probably the strangest person I met at that point in my life. Like a demented beatnick. He was talkin' shit that must have made sense to him but it was blowing right past me.:)
You gotta be a really disciplined person to do smack properly. It sucks a lot of people in cuz they wanta keep shootin' the curl. Not me, I respect the substance.
Re: The Band - that second LP is far and away my fave. I don't think there's a clunker on it. It gets most of my spins. That, followed by the live stuff, whether it be Rock of Ages or Last Waltz or a fuckin' bootleg. Northern Lights and Stage Fright are next on the actual spin-meter. I know Big Pink is immportant and I know the songs. But I just don't find myself wanting to play it that much. I'll leave that to Greil Marcus and his Holy Tablets :)
VR
Agree with many of your selections, but…
Willie Nile is right up there with Springsteen in the IDGAF for me; just never could see what all the fuss was about. YMMV of course.
And the Grape is right up there with The Beach Boys as a band I like but do not love.
But for me:
Richard (with and without Linda) Thompson - has anyone else had a career of such sustained excellence for so long?
Tonio K - can’t believe you left him out! Although I actually discovered him first from a positive review of Foodchain in, of all things, People Magazine, at the dentist’s office waiting to get my teeth cleaned; after I was done at the dentist, I dropped by the local record store, and wonder of wonders they had it!
Warren Zevon - supremely talented songwriter and performer; way more there than Werewolves of London
Chris Whitley - unique and very special; those first four albums are desert island discs for me
The Smithereens - yes, there were some modest hits, but they should have been huge; RIP Pat DiNizio
Traffic - of all the late ‘60s/early ‘70s underground FM radio bands, Traffic is the one that I still listen to regularly; unlike so many of those others, Traffic could and did groove, and Winwood is a once-in-a-generation talent
Allman Brothers Band - Should have been one of the biggest bands in the world from 1969-1971; At Fillmore East is definitely a desert island disc, as is Eat a Peach.
My vote would be the late great Tommy Keene!!
cthulhu:
I'm glad you said it first. Willie Nile always struck me as a Springsteen wannabe. And I'm not crazy about Springsteen. There's a certain cornball self-important zealotry about them. One Guitar? Gimme a break.
Good call on Tonio K and Whitley. But Traffic and the Allman Brothers Band had pretty good careers. The ABB got to #13 with At Fillmore East. Not bad for an uncompromising double live LP. They were big and getting bigger when Duane died. The follow up, Eat a Peach, another double, hit #4.
Zevon deserves to be in the RnR Hall of Fame for his first album alone. Unfortunately, IMO, he went gradually downhill from there, not to say his later work didn't have moments. Black humor only goes as far as the quality of the tunes. Plus, I absolutely hate Werewolves and the effect it has on people who are trying too hard to have a forced good time. Even worse when the Dead did an inept cover of it with lousy Lesh trying to sing.
french inhaling a Canadian cigarette of Ukrainian origin,
VR
always showing up late
VR,
I agree. I hate novelty songs (Werewolves, Monster Mash, My Ding-a-Ling).
The Ocala FL band, The Royal Guardsmen, were very good in the '60's. Then they signed a record deal.
Somebody thought that doing a bunch of "Snoopy" songs would be great. You get the image of managers and producers dressed in polka-dot suits. I guess the tunes put bread-and-butter on the table.
As usual I am late to the game - you have a wife for 30 years 30th, a psychotic Border Collie, you may understand
First of all the Grape been a fan longer than my marriage.
2. - Hello From Venus Screaming Cheetah Wheelies
3. The BoDeans...nough said
4. Michelle Shocked - before she had her Michael Richards/ Mel Gibson moment her talent wS undeniable
Just a few at the moment who belong in your vinyl/CD collection
As usual VR, I sit at the throne...Spooky Tooth,..Final puff...lol
rob
Psychotic BC.rob. ;-)
One more - my all time favorite band name -Baby Shambles...Pete Doherty, sad
rob
This one will make most of you guys & gals crazy but I'm going to include:
The Beatles.
All weekend I've been saying to myself as popular as The Beatles were they deserves to be many times more recognized and revered. They literally changed the course of history through style, politics, music and how several generations thought and conducted themselves.
They are magical to this day and deserve to be the most recognized and most remembered. Someday far into the future they should be the very last musical act from the 20th Century forgotten.
The Beatles were almost a "force of nature" and redirected and changed many of our lives including
Captain Al's.
getawaygoober:
re: Royal Guardsmen
1966 was one of the greatest years for music ever. But it also gave us Snoopy vs the Red Baron & Sweet Pea. Dare I say I wasn't too fond of Yellow Submarine either. My least favorite Beatles A-Side. At this time I took a school bus to and from school. It was a 40 minute ride each way with all the fuckin' stops. There was this group of four boys that used to sit next to each other. Looked like they were in Junior High but none of their voices had changed. Those little fuckers sang those three songs repeatedly in their pipsqueak, castrated Vienna Choir Boys way. They would drown out my transistor which I always kept tuned to the San Bernardino stations. Late '66 was a cool time for local AM in Berdoo. Top Ten in the region included Pushin' Too Hard, Devil with a Blue Dress, Double A-Side Yardbirds Happenings Ten Years Time Ago/Nazz Are Blue (#1 for two weeks on KFXM), I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night, Gimme Some Lovin, Friday On my Mind. Others getting heavy rotation were Deadend Street, Talk Talk, Mustang Sally, Help Me Girl, I Can't Control Myself, Mellow Yellow ... Plus, at that time we still had John Ravenscroft (John Peel) as a DJ and he always played the British Top Ten. As the bus emptied out, I would move farther away from them. Even though we were around the same age, I had blossomed early and was seeing guys that had cars. These four hairless half-inchers used to call me a hippie which I considered an honor, but they used in the pejorative. Once, one of these little douches grabbed my ass as I was making my way out of the bus. I freaked him out when I told him I'd be more interested in his dad than him. I wasn't serious, but I was convincing. That kid never touched me again.
Baby, let's wait
VR
Del Amitri.
JGD:
Del Amitri really surprised me when I saw them live decades ago. They were great! Did a killer cover of Iggy's "Lust For Life," too.
VR
Willie has made some of the most consistantly good rock n roll records. He never seems to disappoint. Part of me laments his lack of mainstream success but the other part thinks that stuff this good is not meant for the mainstream
I should probably revisit later Willie Nile. I had the first two. I remember Golden Down suffering possibly for no other reason than it wasn't the first one. So I've always had the idea that Willie Nile records are nice to have but the only one you really need is the first one. That's a really enjoyable record filled with stuff I want to try to play.
In contrast to Marshall Crenshaw, of whom it's only a small exaggeration to say if you own one, you own 'em all. But he's such a good songwriter when he's on, Go. Own. Them. All. I am thrilled he's bringing his 40-years-in-the-biz celebration to my hometown this September. I've seen MC with just a guitar, with a pickup band, with The Bottle Rockets and in 2018 with (bows head) The Smithereens and he has never not delivered.
Willie's disc of Dylan covers a few years back is nicely heartfelt.
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