I guess this forms part II of our commemoration of Quincy Jones, to go with our article on his passing earlier this week (see News section).
This time, he is given the honoured position of beginning one of our random and occasional meanderings on Six Degrees Of Kevin Shields. For those none the wiser, we start with a random(ish) musician and follow the leads, take a few twists and turns (admittedly it is rarely the aforementioned six), and try and end up at the door of the King of Shoegaze - Kevin Shields. It's all just a bit of fun (hopefully)....
Quincy Jones, the 28 Grammy winning, multiple Oscar nominated trumpet player, band leader, arranger and producer of music, film and TV, passed away last week at the ripe old age of 91. He worked with some of the most legendary names in twentieth century music, including Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson. He wrote the scores for over fifty films, including The Color Purple (which he also produced), and with his move into TV, he also brought the world Will Smith, through his production of The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air.
In 1963, he took a song written by Herb Wiener, John Gluck Jr and Wally Gold - It's My Party - and produced it for teenage singing star Lesley Gore. He added some Latin rhythms and horn parts to the tune, but when he heard that Phil Spector had also recorded a version with The Crystals, he spent a night printing a hundred copies of the single and mailing them out to key radio stations around the nation. It worked - the song reached number one.
Lesley Gore: It's My Party (Video compilation)
It's My Party was covered in 1981 by British duo Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin, which reached the top of the UK chart. Incredibly, this is probably not the Dave Stewart you are thinking of, as there were two of them on the scene at the same time (but more of the other one later). Gaskin had been in folk-prog band Spirogyra from 1969 to 1974, before becoming a backing vocalist in Hatfield & The North, Stewart's band, through the mid-70s. They went on to create the aforementioned duo in 1981 and would go on to make seven albums together over the years. He also played in Bill Bruford's (Yes and King Crimson) band during the late-70s. One other interesting band that included Stewart was Rapid Eye Movement (again, confusingly on the scene at the same time as the American R.E.M.) - with Pip Pyle on drums, Rick Biddulph on bass and Jakko Jakszyk on guitar and vocals.
Jakko Jakszyk had been adopted by two refugees who settled in Britain after the war - a Polish father and French mother. His first aim was to become a professional footballer, but after failing to break into the Watford youth team, he focused on music and acting instead. He was in jazz rock band Soon After in 1975, then the amusingly named 64 Spoons, a pop-prog-jazz outfit, before joining Rapid Eye Movement. He forged a solo career in the 1980s before becoming part of Level 42 in the early 90s, following the death of Alan Murphy. Since 2000, he has been in original prog pioneers King Crimson, where he replaced Adrian Bellew.
Jakko Jakszyk: Who's Fooling Who (TV appearance - a poppy 80s solo song)
In 1994, Jakszyk was also very briefly a member of The Kinks, appearing on the Johnnie Walker Show on BBC Radio, as a replacement for the estranged Dave Davies.
The Kinks had formed in 1963 in the Muswell Hill area of London. Ray and Dave Davies were playing with Ray's friend from William Grimshaw Secondary Modern School, Pete Quaife. They rotated between being the Ray Davies Quartet and the Pete Quaife Quartet, depending on who booked the gig. They worked through a number of vocalists early on, interestingly including Rod Stewart, also a pupil at Grimshaw. They eventually became The Ramrods and then The Ravens, before they signed a deal with Pye Records in 1964. Around this time, Mick Avory joined the band and the became The Kinks.
Their first two singles were a cover of Little Richard's Long Tall Sally and You Still Want Me, which both flopped, leading to Pye threatening to drop them. Their third single, however, would become a blueprint for modern hard rock and reached number one - it was You Really Got Me, Fourth single, All Day And All Of The Night was also a UK Top5 hit, with a similar "raunchy guitar sound" (as Billboard put it). There was some controversy later in the decade, when The Doors were accused of copying the structure of the song in their hit, Hello I Love You (1968).
The Kinks: You Really Got Me (Live on The Beat Room, 1964)
To continue the covers theme - All Day And All Of The Night was covered by The Stranglers in 1987, making number 7 in the UK. The Stranglers were one of the most interesting bands to come out of the UK punk scene of the late 1970s. This is perhaps because they had formed in 1974 (as the Guildford Stranglers) before the punk scene was even a thing, with an interesting mash up of influences; Hugh Cornwell came from a blues background, while JJ Burnel had been a classically trained guitarist (before switching to bass), while drummer Jet Black had some jazz chops. Throw that in with Dave Greenfields swirly psychedelic rock keyboards and you had a band that had the attitude of the punks, but a sound that would mature and evolve more than their contemporaries.
The Stranglers: All Day And All Of The Night (Official music video)
Their eighth album, Aurul Sculpture, released in 1984, was another turn in their evolution, including acoustic guitar and horns. The initial self-produced sessions left them with a bunch of songs that neither they, nor Epic Records, were especially happy with. It was agreed that a producer was needed, with Marvin Gaye (but he died that April) and Eddie Grant both apparently considered. In the end, they went back to the studio in June and July with Laurie Latham. Backing vocals on three songs were interestingly provided by George Chandler and Jimmy Chambers of pop band, London Beat.
Laurie Latham learnt his trade as a sound engineer working at Maximum Sound Studios from 1973, whilst also attending the University of Surrey, where guest lecturers would include the likes of George Martin (which was hugely influential in his career path). He would become the Chief Engineer and get to work with artists like Jimmy Webb and Viv Stanshall, and also with George Harrison and the Monty Python team on the soundtrack to The Holy Grail. As a producer he got to do the Manfred Mann's Earth Band cover of Springsteen's Blinded By The Light and Ian Dury & The Blockheads album, New Boots And Panties!! He also produced Paul Young's massive hit record, No Parlez, and later on Echo & The Bunnymen's eponymously titled album of 1987.
Latham pushed Echo & The Bunnymen away from the real strings they had used on Ocean Rain and replaced them with keyboards. The band didn't like the end result, feeling that the production and the mixing was not right. But dialling it back a bit - sessions for the record had first started at the Cologne studio of Conny Plank, with Gil Norton at the helm. The Bunnymen and Warner Brothers were both unhappy with the results, hence the drafting in of Latham.
Echo & The Bunnymen: Lips Like Sugar (Official music video)
Konrad 'Conny' Plank was a key engineer and producer on the so-called Krautrock scene (also known as Kosmiche, or Cosmic Music). He worked with pioneers of that scene like Neu!, Kraftwerk and Cluster. These bands would influence many later, more mainstream acts, some of whom he would also work with. He had begun his career as the sound man for Marlene Dietrich, but his love for the possibilities of electronic music and soundscapes, mixed with more conventional sounds, moved him into this growing music scene. He also formed a duo with Dieter Moebius of Cluster - Moebius & Plank made five albums through the late 70s and early 80s. Plank got to work with a number of key pop and new wave bands, including Devo, The Meteors, Killing Joke, Ultravox and The Euythmics.
The Eurythmics, a band who would sell over 75 million albums, formed in 1980, revolving around the core duo of Dave Stewart (see, I told you we would get to him) and Annie Lennox, who had previously played together in The Tourists. They recorded their first LP, In The Garden, at Conny Plank's studio in 1982 and Plank also seems to have had some involvement in their sixth record, Savage.
The Eurythmics: Never Gonna Cry Again (Official music video for debut single)
One of their bandmates, for two albums and two tours, was Dean Garcia. He was introduced through them to Toni Halliday, who was signed as a solo artist to Stewart's Anxious Records. This pair would go on to form Curve and release three EPs on Anxious. By 2001, they were working on fourth album, Gift, which included several notable other musicians. Engineer and producer Alan Moulder played drums, and their were also appearances by Depeche Mode's Alan Wilder and Flood from Killing Joke, while guitar for two tracks, Perish and Want More Need Less, was provided by none other than..... KEVIN SHIELDS.
Curve: Perish (Audio only - featuring Mr Shields!)
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