She's got everything that Uncle John needs

Continuing my trip up Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time...

#227 : Here's Little Richard - Little Richard (1957)

“I came from a family where my people didn’t like rhythm and blues,” Little Richard told Rolling Stone in 1970. “Bing Crosby, ‘Pennies From Heaven,’ Ella Fitzgerald was all I heard. And I knew there was something that could be louder than that, but didn’t know where to find it. And I found it was me.” Richard’s raucous debut collected singles such as “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” in which his rollicking boogie-woogie piano and falsetto scream ignited the unfettered possibilities of rock & roll.

I was aware of the Little Richard sound and quite like it, whilst very much viewing it to be of its time - and I found the album to be pretty much what I was expecting.  Bizarrely, considering the description above, the album doesn't feature "Good Golly, Miss Molly" but "Tutti Frutti" and "Long Tall Sally" provide enough classic rock and roll for anyone.  I can believe that at the time it must have been something special to hear, but it doesn't really push too many buttons for me now, I'm afraid.  The running time of 28:30 is probably the shortest we've seen so far - which is definitely something to commend it.

Wikipedia has pretty much nothing to say on the album, which seems criminal for the debut album for a pioneer in the field.  It's partly down to the album really being a collection of singles - if you follow the links on, there is some interesting stuff in there - Dorothy LaBostrie who co-wrote "Tutti Frutti" "was still receiving royalty checks on the average of $5,000 every three to six months from the song in the 1980s.".  Little Richard's Wikipedia entry is, I think it's fair to say, "eventful" - the man got up to a lot in the 87 years he was given and there's no doubt he paved the way for many others.  "Customers also listened to" Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and James Brown - no major surprises there.  And whilst it's not entirely my thing, I'm certainly happy for it to have it's place on this list of great albums.

#226 : Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs - Derek And The Dominos (1970)

Eric Clapton was tired of stardom, so he formed a new band where he could be just another one of the lads. But there was no mistaking the blues guitar on “Layla,” as Clapton sang about falling in love with the wife of his best friend, George Harrison. The tortured love songs on Layla get a kick from guest Duane Allman, whose interplay with Clapton in “Key to the Highway” and “Have You Ever Loved a Woman” is both harmonious and fiercely competitive: electric, brotherly love.

I'm not sure I was even aware a Derek And The Dominos album existed and hence had no real expectations for this - a load of sub-Layla material, I guess.  But it's better than that - not really my thing, but there's certainly some decent guitar work on there with the interplay between Clapton and Allman impressing.  There's absolutely no need for it to be 77 minutes long though.  I would have to say that he obviously knew that "Layla" was a special track - he named the album after it, after all - so what on earth possessed him to make it the penultimate track on the last side of a double album?  Contrariness, I suspect - Eric has shown slight signs of it at times.

Wikipedia tells me this is the only Derek album, so I can be forgiven for my ignorance.  And it appears that many people were similarly ignorant back in the day - the album got to #16 in the US, but failed to chart in the UK.  They even resorted to "Derek is Eric" badges to spread the word.  Apparently the critics mostly hated it (although they've since re-evaluated it) - which somewhat surprises me given that I thought it was mostly OK.  The band does feel like a Clapton vanity project, but not one that's entirely without its merits - although I'm not entirely convinced it deserves quite such a lengthy Wikipedia entry.  The "Tragedy and Dissolution" section is well worth a read though - Clapton has certainly not lead a risk-free life, but it doesn't feel like he deserves the amount of bad luck that seems to have dogged him.  For some light relief, I read Pattie Boyd's entry - apparently after her swapping of husbands, George used to refer to Eric as his "husband-in-law".

"Customers also listened to" The Who, Deep Purple and Free - no Cream, which surprised me (and I'm interested as to whether they appear further up the list).  I can't say this album was really my cup of tea, but there's certainly a lot of skill on there and some decent tracks - a single album feels like it would have been pretty class.  But still not my cup of tea.

#225 : Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco (2001)

When Reprise Records refused to release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco posted it for free on the internet. Two-hundred-thousand downloads later, Nonesuch Records (owned by the same company as Reprise) released the album, and it became critical and commercial gold. Its pretty acoustic-guitar melodies battled noise, skidded into dissonance, or got chopped off abruptly. Its lyrics pitted hope against doubt, with all bets off. “You have to learn how to die,” crooned Jeff Tweedy, “if you wanna … be alive.”

I've been recommended Wilco a load of times (mostly around their work with Billy Bragg) but never quite managed to get into them - I always feel I should like them, but that's not quite the same as actually liking them now, is it?  So how would I manage with this, which everyone proclaims to be their masterpiece - I'd give it a go, but I was fearing the same result.  And yes, I still feel I should like them - there's a load of similar stuff I like, but I just can't quite get into it.  And it's annoying me more than I think it should.

The Wikipedia entry for the album is pretty much what all album entries should be like - there are interesting tales everywhere.  About the recording, where the lead singer managed to sack both the drummer and the guitarist due to disagreements on playing and recording the songs.  About the release, which was a massive faff for all concerned and featured the record company showing their commercial nous by replacing an offer of $50k for the rights (which was about to be accepted) with an offer of "here, have them for free" and then buying them back after the band had given the album away online.  About the cover art, which is the particularly fine looking Marina City complex ("The Corncob Towers" or now "The Wilco Towers") in Chicago.  And about the naming of the album, which I assumed was a reference to "You Have Failed", but instead took me off down a most wonderful diversion about numbers stations.  Whatever I feel may be lacking from the album is most certainly not lacking from the Wikipedia entry.  

I wasn't even going to bother including anything from their entry, but just thought I'd check up on their work with Billy recording Woody Guthrie songs (as requested by his estate), which meant I just had to include this beauty - "Tempers flared between Bragg and Wilco after the album was completed. Bennett believed that Bragg was overproducing his songs, a sharp contrast to Wilco's sparser contributions. Bennett called Bragg about the possibility of remixing Bragg's songs, to which Bragg responded "you make your record, and I'll make mine, fucker."".  "Customers also listened to" The Flaming Lips, Yo La Tengo and Sufjan Stevens (and I bet we see some Sufjan later on).  Overall, I think you should listen to this album if you think you might like, but if you don't think you will, then you can be sure you won't.

Tricky one to declare a winner - they're all not quite my cup of tea.  I'm feeling like giving it to Little Richard - I haven't given too many rounds to records from the dark ages and his influence on things forward from that point is indisputable.

#230-228 - Two sisters blazing a trail and some brothers stuck in limbo
#224-222 - Some people are not going to like this...