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Post by rick on May 11, 2012 1:31:28 GMT -5
 theseconddisc.com/2012/05/10/you-can-do-magic-america-burritos-atlanta-rhythm-section-reissues-coming-to-cd-from-bgo/Following Gram Parsons’ death in 1973 of a drug overdose, interest in his back catalogue naturally grew, and A&M Records issued a double-LP, 23-song compilation, Close Up the Honky Tonks, to meet the growing demand. It contained one LP of tracks from the Burritos’ first two records, adding the non-LP single “The Train Song.” The second LP introduced 11 previously unreleased tracks including covers of The Bee Gees’ “To Love Somebody,” Chuck Berry’s “Roll Over, Beethoven” and the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up, Little Susie.” It’s somewhat surprising that it’s taken this long for Honky Tonks to receive a CD reissue, but it’s now here, courtesy of BGO. Most of these tracks have been reissued in various places over the years, but Close Up the Honky Tonks offers one-stop shopping as a combined best-of and rarities set. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Close Up the Honky Tonks (A&M SP-3631, 1974 – reissued BGO CD1050, 2012) Hot Burrito No. 2 Do Right Woman Wheels Sin City Christine’s Tune Hot Burrito No. 1 God’s Own Singer If You Gotta Go High Fashion Queen Cody, Cody Wild Horses The Train Song Close Up The Honky Tonks Sing Me Back Home Bony Moronie To Love Somebody Break My Mind Beat The Heat Did You See Here Tonight Money Honey Roll Over Beethoven Wake Up Little Susie |
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Post by erik on May 11, 2012 8:53:37 GMT -5
From what I've read, a lot of the material here was recorded in January 1970 here in L.A. to produce an album of largely contemporary and classic C&W covers, with the occasional out-of-left-field song thrown in (e.g. "To Love Somebody"). In fact, the Burritos were practically rushed into the studio to do this because the album they were then actually working on, Burrito Deluxe, was in the can and already was being judged by the guys at A&M to be a clinker.
"To Love Somebody" was quite an unusual song for GP and his guys to cover because not only was it a Bee Gees song, but that the Gibb Brothers had originally written it with the hopes that Otis Redding would cover it (sadly, of course, that never happened). They did that song at Altamont, and it turned out of course to be one of the very few highlights of that disastrous attempt to one-up Woodstock.
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Post by sliderocker on May 11, 2012 13:03:54 GMT -5
From what I've read, a lot of the material here was recorded in January 1970 here in L.A. to produce an album of largely contemporary and classic C&W covers, with the occasional out-of-left-field song thrown in (e.g. "To Love Somebody"). In fact, the Burritos were practically rushed into the studio to do this because the album they were then actually working on, Burrito Deluxe, was in the can and already was being judged by the guys at A&M to be a clinker. "To Love Somebody" was quite an unusual song for GP and his guys to cover because not only was it a Bee Gees song, but that the Gibb Brothers had originally written it with the hopes that Otis Redding would cover it (sadly, of course, that never happened). They did that song at Altamont, and it turned out of course to be one of the very few highlights of that disastrous attempt to one-up Woodstock. A slight myth here: the Gibb brothers did write a song for Otis Redding to record but according to the records that were on file at Polydor and RSO, it wasn't the song "To Love Somebody" but the song "End of My Song," which was listed on an info sheet on the cover of a box for a spool of tape and shown as "Song for Otis Redding." Barry Gibb mistakenly identified "To Love Somebody" as the song written for Otis in the 70s and later but it was claimed the song was never offered because Redding had died by that point. But, "To Love Somebody" had been written , possibly in Australia (late 1966 to very early 1967) and recorded (February or March 1967, I think) by the Bee Gees themselves and released by them as a single (July 1967). Redding died in December of 1967, so there had actually been plenty of time to offer the song to him. But, the actual song written for Redding was "End of My Song" (which can be heard on youtube), which ended up not being sent because of his death and which ended up being among the many unreleased songs by the Gibb brothers. |
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Post by the Scribe on May 11, 2012 18:08:35 GMT -5
Often looked at as light-weights the Gibb Brothers have written (and performed) some remarkable songs.
Would anyone have liked to see Linda record their music and if so which song(s)?
"Words" and "Don't Forget To Remember Me" are two that come to mind.
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Post by erik on May 11, 2012 18:27:08 GMT -5
Re. Bee Gees covers: I'd go with "Words" or "Run To Me"
Back to the Burritos--it is instructive to point out a legend about this band dating from 1971, that Linda was someone Rick Roberts (who replaced Gram Parsons) said the group had their eyes on for as a lead singer, though Chris Hillman denies this. When he joined Linda's band on a tour two years later, Roberts told her about their consideration, and Linda told him, "I'd have done that in a minute."
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Post by sliderocker on May 12, 2012 0:42:15 GMT -5
Often looked at as light-weights the Gibb Brothers have written (and performed) some remarkable songs. Would anyone have liked to see Linda record their music and if so which song(s)? "Words" and "Don't Forget To Remember Me" are two that come to mind. Definitely. Two immediate choices would've been the aforementioned "Don't Forget to Remember Me," and from the same album ("Cucumber Castle"), "Sweetheart." Both songs were written and sung by Barry and Maurice and both were in a country vein. Another possibility would've been Barry's "Rest Your Love On Me," which was the B-side of "Too Much Heaven," and in the Bee Gees's falsetto era, a very straight froward country song with no falsetto. Conway Twitty recorded a version of the song but strangely no female country artist ever did to my knowledge. For Linda, the songs would've been perfectly suited for her though the Gibb brothers might have been happy to have written her with an album's worth or two of unheard material. |
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Post by the Scribe on May 14, 2012 15:09:55 GMT -5
They did some great stuff with Barbra too. It would have been nice if Linda expanded her repertoire to include them and some of the great Beatles tunes. Would have loved to hear her sing If I Fell, This Boy, If I Needed Someone, Across The Universe... so many greats. Here is my Ronstadt Wish List: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL634AA7ECB19737CF&feature=mh_lolzI want to hear her voice on so much more than she has done (and she has done so much already). But I guess she is pretty much done with English if not anything else. Still nice to dream. I am waiting for my Vocal Apps invention to come into reality so that I can program Linda's voice into every song ever written. |
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Post by erik on May 14, 2012 20:37:46 GMT -5
Back to the Burrito boys for a second:
A lot of this stuff points out just how innovative these guys were, and how far ahead as well. The funniest thing about this is that they were far more straight country than practically any band or group you can hear on country radio these days, and yet they were your basic longhaired freaky types--in other words, everything that most of Nashville in the 1960s detested about youth. So they couldn't get arrested on country radio, not back then anyway. But then again, aside from maybe some underground FM airplay, they didn't get any on rock radio either because they sounded far too country. The old saw about being too rock for country, too country for rock kind of applies to how people saw the Burritos.
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