October 16 – Turntable Talk 19 : Steve Says Go For It

Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks once again to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, today begins our 19^th instalment…if you’re wondering about past topics, I have previous topics indexed here. For any new readers, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columnists from other music sites, sounding off on one particular topic. This month, our topic is A Design For Life. I’ve asked our writers to highlight a song that sums up a great personal mantra, or philosophy of life. A song that tells how to live better, basically. I hope you’re as curious to see what they come up with as I am!

Today, we wrap it up with a pick by me, your host!

First, thanks so much to each of my guest writers , and to you for reading! I was genuinely curious to see what they would come up with and they didn’t let us down with interesting songs that each made a valid point worth remembering.

For me, there are many songs that I can relate to philosophically. Many involve just being a good person. Keith’s pick put me in mind of “Kind and Generous” by Natalie Merchant, a beautiful song and reminder of how much one special person who’s always there for you can matter and make your life so much better and more meaningful. And for basic, simple truisms, don’t forget “All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles, a simple but powerful John Lennon message that makes every bit as much sense now as it did over 50 years ago.

The first one that actually came to mind though when I picked the topic was “Don’t Look Back” by the Fine Young Cannibals. It’s a great song that many seem to have forgotten by that band that briefly seemed to ruled the pop world then disappeared. Now, the lyrics in their entirety might seem a little whiny and negative, him talking about the things he didn’t have that money can buy, but the chorus often echoes through my head – ‘baby baby, don’t look back – it won’t do no good.” It fits. I’ve often felt the secret for a good life is to no little degree remembering that phrase. Unless you can build a time machine, it doesn’t really do anything good by wasting time looking back and wishing ruefully that things were different. We all make some decisions that later on, we probably regret. Some big (the ones we probably spend most time fretting about), many tiny but equally meaningful. But, since A) we can’t change them now, and B) we don’t really know that the other path we didn’t take would be so much better in the end, it’s not the most useful usage of your time. You can’t change it so leave it alone. That said, I’m not saying NEVER look back and think about what could have been different or be oblivious to your mistakes, but recognize them and move on. Spend you time making the here and now better instead of worrying about years gone by.

And as much as I liked that theme, the song that ended up being mine was one that I’ve loved since I first heard it over 40 years ago that not only sounds good but is a mantra I have to remind myself to live – “While You See A Chance (Take It)” by Steve Winwood.

His first solo hit song, off his second album (more than a decade after being a teen sensation in the ’60s with Traffic) , Arc of A Diver, for whatever reason did better in Canada than his own UK or the States, going to #3. I’d love the song if it had missed the charts, but it being so big in ’81 when I was a teen meant I heard it a lot and took it to heart. Or tried to.

Indeed, as a single guy so much of the time when I was youngish, the refrain of “while you see a chance, take it – find romance” was something I needed to keep in mind. I was always on the shy side and frankly, probably missed out on a lot of chances back when I was a young buck. Eventually it all worked out for the better, now I’m in my 50s and happily settled down with a wonderful woman I love, but it took awhile… and to get here, I had to take a chance . A big one. With my love living in a different country, over a thousand miles from home, I had to take a chance on a long-distance relationship and then on taking trips (I wasn’t one who’d had many vacations as an adult) to go see her, then eventually to relocate to be with her. Not something a cautious, shy-ish guy was likely to do. But I saw the chance and took it. That made all the difference.

The same could apply in every other aspect of life. I never was much of a gambler. A two dollar lotto ticket, sure, why not…but I’d get bored quickly after spending ten bucks in a casino and want to leave. The same held true in many other aspects of my life. I can’t number how many jobs I didn’t try for that might have been great, I might have been good in, might have paid well, all because I was too cautious. What if it didn’t work out? Would the commute be too onerous after a few months? Could I return to my old job I might not have even liked if I failed? What would I do if I had to move 100 miles to get the job? Would I miss my friends too much or would my aging mom be too upset if I wasn’t over for Sunday dinners? Too many reasons for me to not take a chance. But some of them, I probably should have.

Opportunity knocks for all of us, but some people more than others. Nevertheless, you have to know to open the door. That knocking is meaningless unless  … sing it Stevie… “when you see a chance, take it!”.

By the way, Stevie himself was taking a chance with the single and Arc of a Diver record. He could have, many execs probably told him, should have, hired studio musicians to help him out. But he played it all himself. Every instrument on the song and album, he played. He even played drums on this song… but somehow the tape was erased. So he took a chance to release it as is. He took it and it worked. And had it somehow not worked, well … maybe he would have moved on and figured to himself “don’t look back!”

February 18 – Cannibals Cooked Up Tasty Ear Candy

A couple of days back we looked at General Public, a band formed out of the ashes of The Beat. Today, another such act, and a bit more successful. Sounding thoroughly retro while up-to-the-minute modern at the same time is quite a trick, but one the Fine Young Cannibals pulled off. Their great second album, The Raw and the Cooked, rose to the top of the charts in their Britain this day in 1989. Although their home crowd got to it first, it’s arguable that others in North America and Down Under liked it even more.

The Cannibals had formed in late-’84, with The Beat guitarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele finding singer Roland Gift to finish up the sound. Being a trio, Steele also took on some other instrumental duties including keyboards and drum machines. They’d done quite well at home and in Canada with their self-titled ‘85 debut album, but gave no indication of being a potential superstar act. And they took their time proving it, with a nearly four year wait between albums. Mind you, they’d not been totally lazy during that spell. Cox and Steele had worked on some side projects in music while Gift tried to get an acting career going. And together, they’d done some work for film. They recorded the Buzzcocks song “Ever Fallen in Love” for the soundtrack of Something Wild, but gone largely unnoticed, as did the film. Then they worked more extensively on the movie Tin Men, a ’60s-set one. They were cast as a bar band in the movie, and given the setting, were asked to sound suitably ’60ish. They added the songs “Good Thing,” (with an outstanding piano bit played by Jools Holland)  “As Hard As It Gets” and “Tell Me What” to that one.

That gave them a good start on the album, but they still were seemingly stalling, so their record company (MCA in the UK) decided to spur them on and get a new producer for them to work with. Besides Talking Head Jerry Harrison, who’d produced the Buzzcocks one, the band had been doing it themselves. They wanted Prince to produce them – who wouldn’t back then? – but he declined. However, he did recommend his friend David Z, so they flew to Minneapolis and recorded the rest of the album at Prince’s Paisley Park, with “Z” producing. Not for nothing by any means. Not only did he hasten up their pace, he came up with that unique percussion sound on the smash “She Drives Me Crazy”, through a complicated procedure involving hitting the snare drum with a ruler, recording it, playing it back and recording the reverb… the description was as long as the album, but obviously, it worked!

The album came out in mid-January to fine reviews. Rolling Stone gave it 4-stars, comparing their sound to a mix of Sam Cooke and Prince. The L.A. Times agreed, saying “as much as the trio may borrow from Motown or Memphis, there’s an original vision that looks forward.” Even the Village Voice curmudgeon, Robert Christgau graded it “A-”, suggesting “the content of these songs seems to concern romantic love. That makes them pop. I can also tell you that I don’t much care…that makes them good pop.”

The public agreed. Their home fans in the UK got to it first, with it replacing New Order at #1 this day 33 years ago. But it stayed on top for only a single week. In North America, the first two singles, “She Drives Me Crazy” and “Good Thing” both were #1 hits in the U.S. and Canada, and the album went to #1 on June 3^rd. In the U.S., where it went double-platinum, the album stayed at #1 for seven weeks. In Canada, it spent a remarkable 16 weeks at #1, by far longest of any album that year, and it ended up 6X platinum.

Not surprisingly, it garnered the Cannibals Brit Awards for Best Album and Best Group a year to the day later in 1990 and won them an Ivor Novello Award for Best International Single for “She Drives Me Crazy.” Maybe more surprising, despite the accolades, they split up soon after, largely because of Gift’s desire to concentrate on acting.

June 12 – Cannibals Cooked Up A Hit

Throughout most of this continent, the summer of 1989 was unusually hot. And nobody was hotter, musically than Britain’s Fine Young Cannibals who were in the midst of a long run atop the North American album charts 30 years back. And why not? Allmusic correctly label their The Raw and the Cooked as “one of the most exciting albums” of the ’80s.

Fine Young Cannibals were the result of the breakup of The Beat around 1984. That band’s guitarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele wanted to keep on working together and expanding their already hard-to-define sound some more. They took their name from a 1960 Natalie Wood movie, All the Fine Young Cannibals . After listening to more than 500 audition tapes, they picked Roland Gift, a man with a voice others have compared to Al Green or Otis Redding, as their singer. They put out their decent-enough self-titled debut in 1985, with two resultant hit songs, “Johnny Come Home” and the Elvis cover “Suspicious Minds”, resulting in the album hitting #11 in their UK and going platinum across the ocean in Canada.

After working on side projects and a couple of movie soundtracks after their debut, they were ready to put out a second album. They carried over a trio of deliberately retro-’60s sounding songs from the Tin Men movie (including the great “Good Thing” with Jools Holland on piano for them), as well as their cover of The Buzzcocks “Ever Fallen in Love?” which had been a standalone, top 10 single for them at home and went to work on the rest of the album. To their dismay, IRS Records suggested rather strongly, a change of venue for them and shipped them to Minnesota to record most of the rest of it. they worked in Prince’s Paisley Park Studio, with Prince cohort David Z producing. His brother had been a drummer for Prince and he, a friend. “They wanted to work with Prince… they were told Prince doesn’t work with anyone” producing records, and that he (David Z) was the next best thing. He seemed to be, pushing the band to be their best and coming up with the distinctive percussion on the biggie, “She Drives Me Crazy”. He got that sound by “Whacking” the snare drum with a wooden ruler, with a mic nearby and looping the tape.

The result was extraordinary. Not quite funk, not exactly neo-Motown, not “pop” – or at least not in the ilk of other ’89 big-sellers like Debbie Gibson or New Kids on the Block – but thoroughly engaging, and upbeat even when the lyrics were a little wistful. As oft-surly critic Robert Christgau would say “the content of these songs seems to concern romantic love. That makes them ‘pop’” but quickly adding he didn’t care as they were “good pop.”

The public agreed. “She Drives Me Crazy” hit #1 in the U.S., Canada and Australia and was a top 10 in the Birmingham-trio’s UK; “Good Thing” found its way out of movie soundtrack obscurity to top the Canadian charts and be a top 20 in both the U.S. and Britain while they had another American top 10 with “Not The Man I Used To Be” and to the north in Canada with “Don’t Look Back”. When all was said and done, the album would top the charts in all those lands as well as Australia and be triple platinum in their home, 6X platinum in Canada (where it stayed comfortably atop the record charts for 16 weeks!) and double-platinum even in the States. Sitting around 5 million or more copies worldwide, it managed to be the biggest-ever for I.R.S. , outselling the Go Go’s Beauty and the Beat and early R.E.M. albums.

Unfortunately, neither the Fine Young Cannibals nor their record label had a long run in the spotlight. The label went belly up in 1996, the year they put out a “best of” for the Cannibals, who were cooked and done by 1992, never releasing another full album after The Raw and the Cooked.

Jan. 25 – Can’t ‘Beat’ This Cannibal!

If you call him up to wish him a happy birthday today, would Andy Cox’s phone ring with two-tones? Because the 62 year old guitarist from Birmingham, England was one of the significant figures in Britain’s “two-tone” movement of the late-70s and early-80s, a term taken as much from the mixed racial profiles of the bands as the black&white shoes they favored. Cox was one of the founding members of The Beat (or The English Beat as we knew them in North America) a band which along with Madness and the Specials really put ska front and center on the radio. They had five UK top 10 hits in their brief career; after they broke up in 1983, Cox and David Steele formed their own band. After listening to over 500 singers, they selected Roland Gift and took a name from the 1960 movie All the Fine Young Cannibals. After playing their first song, “Johnny Come Home” on Jools Holland’s show The Tube, they got a recording deal and put out a successful debut followed by 1988’s massive the Raw and the Cooked, which went multi-platinum in North America and spawned 2 #1 singles. As the LA Times noted, though the Cannibals “may borrow from Motown or Memphis…there’s an original vision.” Like The Beat before, the band’s stature was limited, they broke up after the two releases. Cox has since added his distinctive guitar sound to Japanese singer Yukari Fujiu and her band Cribabi.