100.
There are only a handful of producers who can make a band sound interesting and different no matter who they are, and Lee "Scratch" Perry is one of them. He was behind dozens and dozens of classic reggae and dub songs in the Sixties and Seventies, but even more important, he was the first mad-scientist producer.
Scratch could do gorgeous, straight-ahead songs, but he would also toss away verse-chorus-bridge structure. What matters are the emotions and ideas you get from the sound. If someone else was making a song about the city, he might add traffic noise, but Scratch would add a baby crying; he captures what's behind a song. One thing the Beastie Boys do when we are finishing tracks is make sure that there's a Lee Perry part: some weird detail that's not supposed to be there but somehow makes sense.
The early Bob Marley and the Wailers songs that Lee Perry produced, like "Mr. Brown," sound like punk records. They're truly raw both sh!tty and beautiful at the same time, like a Modigliani painting. That's why punk rockers like the Clash wanted to work with him, because they can relate to the sparseness of the production.
I have videotapes of him in the studio. He's bugging out: screaming at the bass player, turning knobs, banging things. He blows smoke into the microphone so that the sound of the weed gets into the song. And, yes, that's stupid, but it's not. It's part of his ritual, and being in the studio is a ritual.
I had the pleasure of meeting Lee Perry a couple of times. The first was in Hong Kong. We were on tour, and for some reason he was there. He's a very little guy, like your craziest grandfather. He had on a shiny outfit with little things taped all over him: notes, a lot of pictures, studs, mirrors and bottle caps. Each thing had a meaning to it. He also had a video camera and was taping everything - the sky, the buildings, all of us except he had no videotape in the camera.
We convinced him to play the second Tibetan Freedom Concert, in New York. Right after you played, there was this press tent where everybody would go and say their little something about the cause. Some journalist asked him, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" Lee Perry pulled down his pants and said, "Here's Jesus Christ!" Now that's punk rock.
99.
If, in the late fifties and early sixties, you were drawn to that place on the AM radio dial where the rhythms, the grooves and the beautiful sounds of African-American soul were playing, you would have found Curtis Mayfield. Many of us first heard him as backing vocalist in the Impressions behind Jerry Butler, singing "For Your Precious Love," but he really came into focus in Butler's next big hit, "He Will Break Your Heart," which was written by Mayfield and features his strumming electric guitar to a saucy tango beat that you can hear echoing in Ben E. King's "Spanish Harlem."
After that he was front and center, singing the lead about a "Gypsy Woman" in an exotic brew of castanets and dark ascending minor chords. At one point after the lyric "She danced around and round to a guitar melody," he fired off an accent on his guitar that resonated for years for many of us who tried to emulate him she cast her spell and he followed, with the rest of us close behind. You can clearly hear his influence in the monumental "Little Wing," by Jimi Hendrix.
But it was his voice that reached the higher ground. It burned with the abandon of the blues singer and an almost feminine longing, at once powerful and deeply personal. Women responded overwhelmingly to him, to his profoundly respectful and sensitive approach. When he sang "I'm So Proud" and "The Wonder of You," the vulnerability and passion got in real close. They knew he knew.
In the beginning, he made a gospel-like call to rise up, get on board and get ready. "I know you can make it," he exhorted to the slap of tambourines, hand-clapping and soul-stirring harmonizing. He later took on the voice of activism, calling out the diseases of urban America and again challenging people to see what was going on, a plea Marvin Gaye would take up, too see what's going on and rise above it. The full range of Curtis Mayfield's powers can be heard in the soundtrack to Superfly. It hits you in waves: driving rhythms with brass and string orchestrations countered by down-in-the-alley funk.
He was a dynamic performer right up until he was disabled in an accident onstage in New York in 1990. I only met him once, after a show in San Francisco. He was funny, gracious to all, had a beautiful smile and a genuine way about him a gentle and humble man at heart.
98.
Roxy Music were a huge influence on both punk and New Wave: They anticipated the restraint and the coolness of the Eighties, but you wouldn't have had the xes Pistols without them, either. They made playing music look really cool and sexy, and they did it without being elitist virtuosos. They were very fresh, very modern especially the electronics in their sound but at the same time, their music was evocative of a romantic past, which England was obsessed with. On their first album, you hear strains of World War II music, of swing and Glenn Miller. But it was all mixed up in a way that made the music seem terribly new.
Bryan Ferry was obviously the songwriter and frontman. His lyrics were very thoughtful and arty but also very warm and full of feeling. In the early days you had Brian Eno, who was the Jimi Hendrix of the synthesizer. There were tremendous musical personalities in the band: Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay, Paul Thompson. You could get your teeth into everybody; this is a band whose solo albums were worth getting. They all had quite interesting voices. And they were a band that you could argue about; Paul Thompson had a tremendous fan club, and he's the least-known of all of them.
Also, it has to be said: You could never separate them from their look. I think Roxy had a lot of conversations about what the band should wear. You expect that kind of thing to happen when Britney Spears is being launched, but you don't expect it to happen within a band: finding just the right pair of shades for the guitar player, finding these jumpsuits for the sax player. They had great, very sexy album covers, too. But it wasn't like their sound was lagging behind.
Their best song may be "Virginia Plain." That's the manifesto. When I saw them play that song on Top of the Pops, I had to have it I had to get on my bicycle and ride to the nearest record store. Another one is "In Every Dream Home a Heartache," from the second album, about a guy who has everything. He's got the beautiful house, he's got the car, all the modern comforts. But for love, he takes the inflatable doll out every night and makes out with it. "I blew up your body/But you blew my mind." You try and write a song about being in love with a blow-up doll and make it sound cool!
Imagine it's 1973, you're looking for something to do, and school isn't really working for you, and a band like Roxy Music comes along. You'd say, "That's what I want to do." What else could compare to making that kind of noise, wearing those kinds of clothes?
97.
For twenty years my whole career, really all I have been doing is trying to discover another Diana Ross. I obviously still have my work cut out for me. She was gorgeous and skinny and this was back in the Twiggy days, when skinny was new and she had that big, beautiful hair. And, of course, she was glamorous: I remember all those furs, diamonds and early bling-bling. Everything about her her mannerisms, her look, her aura exuded stardom.
The Supremes were the epitome of the Motown sound. People look at Ross and say she had great songs, she was a good-looking girl, behind her she had Berry Gordy who, in my book, is the greatest record man who ever lived she had all these things. Holland, Dozier and Holland were amazing writers, just pure melody men. As we all know now, the unsung heroes were the Motown house band, the Funk Brothers. They could take those great songs and give them a sound. "Where Did Our Love Go," "Baby Love," "Come See About Me," "Stop! In the Name of Love," "I Hear a Symphony" at the time, people thought those songs were disposable. And now we realize that they're true masterpieces. They're so alive. Everything about the songs was great, even the intros every one of them had a distinctive, memorable intro, which was a hook in and of itself. And, of course, there were two other wonderful singers in the Supremes, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard.
But at the end of the day, Diana Ross' voice would come on the air and give you chill bumps. It had such presence, terrific tone, and was so identifiable. She didn't sing like Aretha Franklin she wasn't a gospel singer but she was a stylist, and you always believed her. She was captivating, romantic. When she asked, "Where did our love go?" she sounded like she was begging.
To this day, I believe that her voice could work on contemporary radio. She set the road map for the success of Janet Jackson, Madonna anybody who could sing but wasn't a real crooner like Aretha or Patti LaBelle or Gladys Knight. I still ask artists in the studio to "sing this like Diana Ross would." So far, no one has.
96.
The Vandellas never got the press that Diana Ross and the Supremes did. Diana Ross was posh and glamorous, but Martha had an edge she was more soulful. Whether she was singing "Dancing in the Street" or "My Baby Loves Me" or "You've Been In Love Too Long," the accent was on the emotion. Singing in a church as a little girl, she learned how to really belt it out. She had the most powerful voice I'd ever heard she really cut through me.
"Dancing in the Street" is my favorite single of all time it just knocked me out as a kid walking around New Jersey with a transistor radio glued to my ear. It starts with a pounding drumroll, then the trumpets and then Martha's voice which is like a horn. The lyrics invite everybody to get together for the best dance party going, and I didn't even pick up on the deeper meaning that it was also a plea to stop the fighting during a time of riots. Martha could have been singing about sandwiches for all I cared.
That song made me a vinyl junkie: Any time a new Martha and the Vandellas record came out, I made my mother drive me to the A&P supermarket to get it. I couldn't find "Heat Wave," but I finagled it from a friend for fifty cents.
Those songs turned me into Mr. Party. At teen dances, everyone wanted to play slow music, and I was ready to bounce off the walls to uptempo soul. The B-52's are all party people we started out at a party in Athens, Georgia, to entertain our friends.
I first met Martha when she was performing in Atlanta in the Seventies. She gave me an autographed photo and was such a doll. Years later, we became friends, and she asked me to induct the Vandellas into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Whenever we play Detroit, I give her a call, and she brings her son and daughter-in-law and they hang out backstage. She's a dedicated Detroiter, unlike most of the Motown groups who've moved out. I live in New York now, and she called me after 9/11 to make sure I was OK. It's nice when your idol becomes your friend.
95.
In 1972, I was searching for a great three-chord band to produce. The radio was logjammed with progressive rock like you wouldn't believe: Yes; Pink Floyd; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Genesis; King Crimson. As a student of rock history, I knew it wouldn't be long before basic rock returned like the cavalry, and I wanted to be leading the charge, albeit behind the scenes.
And so, in 1972, I heard Lynyrd Skynyrd making their Atlanta debut at a very dangerous club on Peachtree Street called Funocchio's. They were playing a weeklong engagement, and each night I'd hear another great original song from them and knew I'd found the band I was searching for.
As I got to know them, I marveled at their work ethic. They had a shack on the swamp in their native Jacksonville, Florida, where they rehearsed constantly, honing their original material into polished, shining steel. They may have had three guitar players, but they understood restraint. Of all the bands I'd come across in my life, they were the finest arrangers. "Sweet Home Alabama" sounds like seasoned studio musicians twice their age.
Ronnie Van Zant was Lynyrd Skynyrd. I don't mean to demean the roles the others played in the group's success, but it never would have happened without him. His lyrics were a big part of it -- like Woody Guthrie and Merle Haggard before him, Ronnie knew how to cut to the chase. And Ronnie ran that band with an iron hand. I have never seen such internal discipline in a band. One example: These guys composed all of their guitar solos. Most bands improvised solos each time they performed or recorded. Not them. Ronnie's dream was that they would sound exactly the same every time they took the stage.
After three or four albums, Lynyrd Skynyrd transcended the Southern-rock tag. They became one of the greatest rock & roll bands in history. They feared no one. On their very first national tour, they opened for the Who. And got encores!
When Ronnie went down in that terrible 1977 plane crash, the forward progress of the band ended. After the survivors all healed, they miraculously reassembled. Ronnie's kid brother Johnnie took over, and you had to rub your eyes to make sure it wasn't Ronnie. But while the band could duplicate the majesty of past live shows (and still can), the heart and soul of the band was gone forever.
94.
When the gods of nasty sounds tacked audition cards to the trees around town encouraging the brutes of industrial rock to brawl for the crown, a small lad with a tuba was probably not what they had in mind for a contender. His name was Michael Trent Reznor, and he also played sax and piano and learned early in life how to engineer a recording-studio console. He produced a terrific debut album called Pretty Hate Machine. Melodically oriented and, because of record-company contractual problems, supported by what became a three-year tour, it birthed the first real mainstream breakthrough for industrial rock, selling over a million copies.
Following Brian Eno's example, Reznor unpacked his synth and threw away the manual. In making The Downward Spiral, he encouraged the computer to misconstrue input, willed it to spew out bloated, misshapen shards of sound that pierced and lacerated the listener. As a companion piece to Baudelaire's "To the Reader" the preface to his Flowers of Evil and second to the Velvet Underground, there has never been better soul-lashing in rock.
I had a strange dream the other week. Lou Reed, myself and a friend known as Warren Peace were having dinner in one of those old-style Greenwich Village places where Pollock was supposed to have fought other painters. Our meal was served by one of the members of Einstúrzende Neubauten. I slowly became aware of the house music and that it was infuriatingly familiar. Our waiter, Blixa Bargeld, leaned in to me and whispered, "The music is a birthday surprise for Lou. Trent Reznor remixed this version of Metal Machine Music as a present."
As he said this, strands, splodges and blots from a Pollock early-Fifties "drip" painting materialized in front of our faces. While the music got louder, the paint hurtled around us faster and faster till we ran nauseous from the cafe, chased by infernal screaming lavender, blue and black snakes.
And that is it, really. Trent's music, built as it is on the history of industrial and mechanical sound experiments, contains a beauty that attracts and repels in equal measure: Nietzsche's "God is dead" to a nightclubbing beat. And always lifted, at the most needy moment, by a tantalizing melody.
I cannot believe that Spiral was released over ten years ago now. It is absolutely time for him to bring on his new work. And from what I know of him, it will be uncompromisingly effective, putting to shame and disqualifying most of what passes as chart fodder. And, no, no one ever calls him Mickey.
93.
Booker T. and the MG's had that southern funk flavor. Motown took care of the North with their polished sound, but the MG's were gritty and raw, and they could really groove. You can hear their sound reverberating throughout the whole industry today -- especially since hip-hop guys sample so much of what they did back then. They were an integrated band -- half white, half black. There was a "cotton curtain" back in the Sixties: Bands were all segregated in Memphis. But the MG's were like a family. That integration was a sign of things to come.
The MG's made a name for themselves with all those great instrumentals, like "Green Onions," but they were the house band at Stax-Volt, so they had real adaptive ability. Otis Redding had his sound, Sam and Dave had theirs, Albert King had his own thing. But it was always Booker T. and the MG's playing. When I did my first sessions at Stax, I learned everything about record production from those guys.
In the MG's, Steve Cropper and Donald "Duck" Dunn were the rock & rollers, but they also had the country thing covered, as well as the blues. Most guitar players like to go crazy, but Steve picked his spots, and when he spoke it was profound. Duck was a great bass player, and very funny one of them good old Southern beer-drinking boys.
Al Jackson's father was a drummer, so Al had a background of rhythm. Al had a little jazz flavor along with those R&B grooves. You know when I did "Shaft," with those sixteenth notes on the high-hat? That was actually a break Al played on Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness." That stuck with me.
Booker T. pioneered a lot of sounds on the organ. When you heard him play, you knew it couldn't be anyone else. I remember one time, Booker accidentally had two dates booked at the same time, so he took some other band and went somewhere in Kansas, and I went with the MG's to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where I had to go pose as Booker T. Halfway through, some guy yells out, "Hey, man, that guy ain't no Booker T.! He ain't got no hair!" We said, "Oh, sh!t." But the groove took over, and that calmed them down.