Decade of Difference

With huge records in the early 80s, Soft Cell was the first project for singer/songwriter Marc Almond. He and David Ball met when both were art students in Leeds, UK. They quickly recorded an EP together with funding coming from their families. Eventually the EP was released and drew attention to the new group who landed a deal to record a full record.

A reworked version of Tainted Love became a huge hit for Soft Cell. The song, released originally in 1964 had found its way into the UK Northern Soul club scene in the mid 70s where it came to the attention of Marc Almond. Soft Cell added the song to their live shows and in 1980 they recorded their version.

Their producer advised against the song, disliking the club version – but when he heard Almond’s reworking he was impressed. The song would go on to reach number one in four countries, and helped propel sales of the album Non Stop Erotic Cabaret.

Almond and Ball continued as Soft Cell through 1983 when near constant drug use finally led to its demise. Almond had also gone on to form a new group. The group’s last record for the 80s was only a modest success in the UK.

The duo reunited in 2000 playing a short tour then releasing a new album in 2002. Back in the late 70s, Soft Cell had replaced their version of Fraki Valli and the Four Seasons’ The Night in their live set with Tainted Love, but returned to the replaced song on the 2002 record Cruelty Without Beauty.

Another reunion came in 2018 and Soft Cell announced it was the end of the band. In 2021 they returned again to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Non Stop Erotic Cabaret.

Peter, Bjorn and John formed in Stockholm in 1999 when the three musicians / songwriters / producers met and began playing together in Stockholm clubs. They spent the early 2000s honing their intricate sound before self-releasing their first record. A series of small releases on independent labels built momentum before landing on a larger record label with US distribution in 2005.

It was their third album, 2006’s Writer’s Block that grew the band’s popularity with the hit song Young Folks. An accompanying video was well received and it earned the band some choice gigs, including playing with Kanye West at the 2007 Way Out West Festival.

Peter, Bjorn and John took a meandering path with their records following Writer’s Block. In 2008 they released the instrumental excursion Seaside Rock, a tribute to native Nordic villagers released only on vinyl and MP3. Following records also diverged from their pop sounds, and the group never again found the success of the 2006 record.

In 2019 John Eriksson, the ‘John’ and drummer for the band stopped touring with the group, due to a serious tinnitus problem. He remains a part of the group and performs on records.

Peter Bjorn and John’s last full length record came in 2016 and that one took four years and six producers to complete. The group says that now it has returned to a more basic form, keeping production of their latest EP all in house.

Willie Nelson turns 89 today, and his musical career stretches back to the age of 6, when he got his first guitar. After a short stint in the military and a brief college stay at Baylor, Nelson bounced thru several jobs and eventually settled in as a radio DJ. It was then that he wrote some of his earliest popular songs, leading him to move to Nashville and take a job as a songwriter. Among Nelson’s first successful songs were ‘Crazy’, recorded by Patsy Cline, and ‘Hello Walls’ recorded by Ferlon Husky.

Nelson’s own recordings were not well received in Nashville, and it took a move back to Texas and work with other Texas musicians to bring Willie Nelson’s style of country music to wider audiences. After increasingly successful albums in the early 70’s, Nelson, along with Tompall Glaser, Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter released ‘Wanted! The Outlaws’, which would be the first country album ever to sell one million copies.

Nelson’s solo work and his involvement in the band The Highwaymen led to a string of successes on the Country charts, and regular crossovers to the Pop charts as well.

This led to Willie Nelson being one of the most recognizable artists in country music today. Nelson has also championed many causes, including founding the Farm Aid concerts along with John Mellencamp and  Neil Young. The first concert raised about  $10 million to help family farmers and the organization has raised millions more over the years.

Willie Nelson continues an active personal and performing life, earning a martial arts black belt at the age of 81, and releasing his latest album today.

Mat Kearney did not seriously take on music until his college years, although the inspiration for the career choice came in high school. Kearney – who was not a good student – had written a poem and was summoned by his teacher to discuss it. Expecting to be in trouble, he was surprised when the teacher told him, “You’re really, really good at this. You need to write.”

Moving to Chico, California from Oregon to attend Cal State Chico, Kearney studied literature and played soccer. He remembers, “I remember sitting down with a guitar and starting to write songs and feeling like the whole world fit.” This thing this teacher told him, and this world of music he grew up completely moved by, it just came together. “And it was like, ‘Okay, this makes sense and I want to do this.’”

Mat Kearney and his friend and producer Robert Marvin decided to move to Nashville to record a few songs. That turned into a permanent move and a now two decade plus career

Kearney’s first record Nothing Left to Lose in 2007 propelled the singer’s career. He benefited from music placement on the hit TV series Gray’s Anatomy. which introduced a large audience to his music. Over the years he has placed five songs on the pop charts and had success on the Christian music charts, too.

The pandemic gave Kearney plenty of time to think about his next album, which became the recently released January Flower, and ask himself big questions like what kind of music he wants to make and what matters most to him about his music. It meant returning to his roots and old fried and producer Robert Marvin.

“Robert’s one of my best friends. We moved to Nashville together and he said, ‘Hey, if you’ll help me drive across the country, I’ll help you record some of your songs.’ So he’s the first person I ever sang on a microphone in front of,” Kearney says. “He’s been there since the very beginning, and like any great behind-the-band documentary, we had a weird falling out over some dumb business stuff after the Young Love record.”

Every punk band of the past and present has borrowed a thing or two from Iggy Pop and the Stooges. The band’s first three albums set the standard for the genre and Pop himself was the first to master an unhinged performance style that often endangered himself as well as spectators. As punk reached its peak in the late ’70s, Pop moved on, recording his first solo albums with David Bowie. Lust For Life and The Idiot, both released in 1977, remain Pop’s most acclaimed records.

Born and raised in Michigan, Pop began playing drums and recorded his first records with a high school group called the Iguanas. When he moved on to the local blues scene, his new bandmates nicknamed him ‘Iggy’ for his appearance in the first band. Experiencing Jim Morrison and the Doors in concert inspired Pop’s performance style. His own band the Stooges began recording in 1968, but by ’71 had broken up due to Pop’s worsening heroin addiction. The band reunited but broke up again in ’74 when their last concert ended in a fight between the band and a group of bikers. Pop’s drug problems left him homeless for a while, then  compelled him to check himself into a mental institution.

David Bowie was one of Pop’s few visitors at the mental hospital in the ’70s. He took Pop along on his Station to Station tour, where Iggy was impressed by the scope of the tour and the work ethic Bowie displayed. The partnership between Bowie and Iggy Pop continued through the mid ’80s, although Pop regressed to his earlier drug abuse ways and withdrew from music for a few years.

Iggy Pop scored his only top 20 single in 1990 with Candy, a duet with Kate Pierson of the B-52’s, taken from his first gold record Brick by Brick. In the ’90s, a second crop of punk bands appeared, owing their existence to the early work of the Stooges, and the band’s music was covered by a wide range of musicians from Duran Duran and R.E.M. to Tom Jones.

2016 saw Pop record his first top 20 album with Post Pop Depression. The album also received a Grammy nomination, but lost out on the award to the final album from his old friend David Bowie, Blackstar.

Over his career, James Vincent McMorrow has gradually relinquished more and more control over his music. His first record was recorded alone in a remote coastal studio north of Dublin, with McMorrow playing all instruments. From there, he moved on to a remote Texas studio for his next album, adding in a couple of collaborators. For the third and fourth albums he inserted a producer, and now on his latest he has moved from releasing the album independently to signing with a major record label.

McMorrow muses, “There’s this implication that you move to a major label because you’re sort of desperate for stardom, but I was happy with my base. If I’d been destined for that level of fame, I would have made different choices.”

Notably, in his early twenties, McMorrow was invited to audition for a major label, but he feels it wouldn’t have been the right move for him at that time.

“There are people I helped in the beginning of their careers who are now huge pop stars, and that’s amazing to see,” he says. “I’ve got friends who are gigantic superstars, but I’ve never wanted that. My brain wouldn’t have allowed for it.

James Vincent McMorrow took a year to prepare his newest album Grapefruit Season, only to have its release delayed another year due to the pandemic. Normally stubborn and opinionated about decisions related to his music, McMorrow saw the delay as a test. Was he going to adapt to the new normal?

After receiving the support he wanted to make his new record, he felt obliged to accept the labels decision on timing. McMorrow says “I think the label was expecting me to lose my mind, because I’m pretty belligerent and opinionated! They called me and I was like, ‘I understand.’ I moved to Columbia so I could make the album I’ve always wanted to make, and they supported my decisions. To turn around now and shove a release date down their throats just to be a jerk, would seem like I’ve learnt nothing from the past year.”

High school friends Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman formed The Turtles in 1965. Kaylan led an instrumental surf band called the Nightriders, which changed into the Crossfires when Volman joined. After college, the band rebranded into a folk rock group called The Turtles. There was no room in the band for the saxes that both leaders played – so they switched to vocals.

The Turtles had several pop hits in the ’60s with influences from the southern California music scene throughout their work. Chip Douglas, who had produced the biggest hits by the Monkees, both produced and joined the band. Warren Zevon provided some of the songs. By 1970, the group was disbanded after major conflicts with their record label – but Kaylan and Volman were not done.

After The Turtles disbanded, Volman and Kaylan joined Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. The pair were legally prevented from using the Turtles name, and in fact – even their own names. They joined the Mothers as Phlorescent Leech & Eddie. The pair appeared on numerous Zappa albums and in his film 200 Motels.

When Zappa was sidelined by an injury, Flo & Eddie recorded an album on their own and several more followed, the most successful of those coming in the late ’70s. Kaylan and Volman were active in session work, adding backup vocals to T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” and the first top 10 hit for Bruce Springsteen, “Hungry Heart.” The pair were close with Alice Cooper, with Flo & Eddie opening on the Billion Dollar Babies tour.

Volman and Kaylan eventually recovered all rights to The Turtles’ catalog.

When Frank Zappa was asked about the guitarists that were his biggest influences, he named three artists: Johnny “Guitar” Watson, Guitar Slim, and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. Born in Louisiana and raised in Texas, Brown took to music at an early age – playing fiddle at five and guitar at ten. As a teen, he played in area swing bands.

In 194,7 Brown was attending a concert by T-Bone Walker when the performer became ill. Brown came out of the crowd and started playing guitar, improvising a song he later named “Gatemouth Boogie.” The club manager was so impressed he took on Brown as a client, even forming a record label to showcase Gatemouth Brown. Peacock Records prospered in the ’50s and ’60s with several R&B hits.

Gatemouth Brown’s career dipped in the ’60s and briefly he worked as a deputy sheriff in New Mexico. By the next decade, he was back with a show that incorporated far more than his Texas blues, drawing on country, cajun, jazz and even calypso.

An excellent example of Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s versatility was his appearance on the hit TV show Hee Haw. Brown was a longtime friend of Roy Clark, and his time on the show led to a well regarded duet album with Clark. Brown released several albums in varying styles, topped by a 1982 Grammy winner Alright Again!

In the last few years of his life, Gate continued his hectic touring schedule with performances across the U.S. as well as debut appearances in New Zealand and Australia. When asked by a New York Times reporter to explain his tours to such politically tense areas as Central America, Africa and the Soviet Union, Brown replied, “People can’t come to me, so I go to them.”

Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Blues Hall of Fame member, died in 2005.

Kentucky native Chris Stapleton turns 44 today. The singer songwriter got his start as a songwriter with over 170 songs to his credit, including six number one country hits. His own music has produced hits for the SteelDrivers as well as with his solo career.

Stapleton was born in Lexington, Kentucky and grew up in a coal mining community in eastern Kentucky. He spent one year studying engineering at Vanderbilt before dropping out in favor of pursuing music full time.

In 2001, he came on board as a songwriter, and in 2007 he began fronting the bluegrass band the SteelDrivers. In the two years Stapleton was with the band, they had two albums reach the top five on the bluegrass charts and received three Grammy nominations.

Chris Stapleton spent a brief time with his own band, the Jompson Brothers, before embarking on his solo career in 2013. Traveller, released in 2015, won three Country Music Association (CMA) Awards. He says that he and his wife sorted through 15 years of songs to select the nine included on the album.

Stapleton has dominated the country music awards this decade, named CMA Male Vocalist of the Year four times and Academy of Country Music Male Artist of the Year three times. This year, he won three Grammys for his latest record.

His work has included a wide variety of collaborations with Justin Timberlake, John Mayer, Adele, and Mike Campbell. Stapleton lists earlier Kentucky artists as his influences, including Dwight Yoakam and Patti Loveless, and adds that “the list goes on and on. Those names are just part of life in Kentucky. You can’t help but be aware of them and be influenced by them.”

Australian Tommy Emmanuel’s award-winning career as a guitarist mixes blues, country, rock, classical, and Spanish music. He spent years as a respected session musician and songwriter before launching a solo career in 1988.

He has shown a mastery and affinity for both electric and acoustic instruments, and has been singled out by the likes of notable musicians such as Chet Atkins — with whom he recorded The Day Finger Pickers Took Over the World in 1997 — and Todd Rundgren, who called him an innovator on the instrument.

By six, Emmanuel was working as a professional musician when his father, who recognized the musical talents of Tommy and his siblings, quit his job to form a family band and take it on the road. His father passed five years later and Australian country music star Buddy Williams took the boys into his traveling show, touring the country for several more years.

You may see Emmanuel’s name followed by the abbreviation ‘CGP.’ In July 1999, Chet Atkins commented that Emmanuel was a “fearless” fingerpicking guitar player and awarded Tommy and four others the “Certified Guitar Player” title.

After decades of heavy touring and recording, Emmanuel took time off from music, suffering from heart problems and exhaustion. A little over a year later he returned and has released an additional 14 albums.

Among the highlights of his later career is Accomplice One. Emmanuel appeared with one of the best and widest-ranging lineups of string players and featured performers of his career, including Jason Isbell, Mark Knopfler, Rodney Crowell, Ricky Skaggs and David Grisman.