Ted Heath & His Music : Light My Fire

There are a lot of covers of "Light My Fire" out there. Just a ton. It's one of those songs that somehow became an easy listening staple, and every pop orchestra that ever tackled a rock song managed to cover it.

Actually, I know why. It turns out, the bands aren't covering the Doors, they're covering José Feliciano's Grammy-award winning cover from 1969. Usually you can tell, because they include José's little three-on-two breakdown at the end, as they do on this version.

The songs starts out soft, with some acoustic guitar, vibes and bongos. After a bit, the rest of the band comes in, nice and easy, but like Ike & Tina, Ted takes the beginning nice and easy, but ends the song nice and rough.

Well, as rough as you can get with this crowd.

The horn work is great, and there's not one, but two bongo solos, with another acoustic guitar break halfway through. Also, there's a little bit of organ to spice it up at the end. The arrangement is just impeccable; there's a little bit of everything to make you happy.

"Light My Fire" is off Ted's 1970's release, The Big Ones, which includes excellent covers of "Spinning Wheel" and "Nights in White Satin" among others. The record came out on the Phase 4 Stereo label. There are a number of excellent records on this label & they are distinctly recognizable by the big 4 on the cover. You can't really go wrong with one of these.

[You can listen to Ted Heath & His Music's "Light My Fire" by navigating to the post "Song036" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Tim Buckley : Monterey

I'm not sure what Tim Buckley was thinking. After establishing a somewhat decent career as a folk singer, he got fascinated with avant garde music, and started weaving ideas he heard from composers like Iannis Xenakis and free-jazz musicians like Ornette Coleman into his songs. He also began using the, uh... 'full range' of his voice. I guess that means he shrieks and he moans.

I know I sound like I'm knocking it a little, but both Starsailor and Lorca are two of my favorite albums. Like I explained in the article about the Mae Shi, I really dig the deconstruction of rock that manages to keep the rock, and that's what's happening here. There's a repeated riff that the band jams on over and over while Tim gasps and howls over the top of it.

The lyrics read like a hippy-dippy version of a murder ballad. Something bad went down, and the singer was involved somehow, but it's not particularly clear. Still, there's an urgency conveyed by the band and Tim's growling vocals that really sells the song to me.

It may not be your cup of tea, but that's okay, because 1970's Starsailor isn't available on CD anyway. Well, you can get a used copy for like 50 bucks. But you can buy the actual MP3s all legal and stuff, direct from Amazon for 6 bucks. Maybe from iTunes too, I have no idea.

[You can listen to Tim Buckley's "Monterey" by navigating to the post "Song033" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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