This 1965 piano solo was in the middle of a sweet ballad sung by Van Morrison that had the typical doowop C-Am-F-G chord progression. I wish I knew the keyboardist to thank for playing it; it seems that Them changed its personnel frequently, and many of its recordings featured accompaniment by professional studio musicians who were less loud, crude or direct than their Them counterparts. Like many of the British Invasion bands of the time, they occasionally recorded covers of US R&B tunes that weren't inferior to the originals, and in this case I think Them's version is superior to John Lee Hooker's original 1964 anti-nostalgia stab at doowop, itself a response to Nat King Cole's 1958 pro-nostalgia regret-ridden stab at doowop titled "Looking Back." Remember nostalgia?
Did John Lee Hooker have reason not to look back? "Black Man Blues" (1949) during his musical prime heavy-metal years, has him singing, "Got so mad this morning, broke the wall, I pulled out, grabbed my shotgun, I thought I'd mow that woman down." Or maybe he was just putting on a good act.
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Nice post, Spike. Very interesting. Nice piano solo. I prefer JLH's primitivism. But that's just me.
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I really want t learn more about this, or 'Them'.
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Can't get it to play.
However, i have to say my fave keyboard parts are either the piano solo from Layla or Alan Price's accompaniment on House of the Rising Sun.
Beatlemeyer: And, just as looking deeply into Fairport Convention inevitably leads one to Richard Thompson and Sandy Denny, and immersion in Genesis is going to take you to Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, getting into Them is going to bring you smack-dab up against Van Morrison...
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Checked my Van Morrison tracks to see if i had much or any Them - i don't. I've got Morrison and Hooker doing Don't Look Back, though...
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deadmandeadman: You're right. Primitivism-wise, JLH beat everybody, including Muddy Waters. He could also be wonderfully free-form.
BeatleMeyer: allmusic.com is a great place I go to to learn stuff.
fairportfan: I often can't get video or audio clips to not sputter, but if I let them jerk their way to the end and them promptly click play again, the content is all, like, arrived and ready to deliver. If I go away and come back after a certain amount of time, I have to go through the whole process again.
Even though Them were pre-1967, they were still "rock" for two reasons. (a) They had strange Jefferson Airplane-type name that no musical act in any genre before rock had, and (b) the first U.S. radio hit by Them was "Mystic Eyes," a song in which almost the entire first half was a harmonica solo. This caught deejays off guard, because they liked to talk during intros but realized in this case it was more than an intro. No rock & roll song had ever had its first half be instrumental. Also its entire chord progression consisted in going back and forth between C and D.
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I think my favorite '60s keyboard solo is in the Seeds' "Pushing Too Hard."
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ivylander, when I read your comment, "Pushing Too Hard" happened to be on my turntable by coincidence. I didn't remember any stinkin' piano solo, but I played the song and, sure enough, there it was, and a great one too! It reminded me a little bit of Del Shannon's great musitron solo on "Runaway" (1961).
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That's a little scary, but in a good way....
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I'm letting my mind wander, and it's heading back to the '60s and '70s. "Telstar" by the Tornadoes? (All keyboard solo?!?) For sheer bombast, Keith Emerson on The Nice's live cover of Dylan's "She Belongs To Me." For delicacy, the harpsichord solo on The Beatles' "In My Life" (George Martin on the keys?). Ray Manzarek's organ solo on "Light My Fire." Bryan Ferry's retro Farfisa organ solo on Roxy Music's "Editions of You." O.K. I give up...
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beautiful. I have a tough time picking favorites, but this one is a good one.