Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

The first volume of the flute in pop (rock and soul) was well received. Perhaps there was a gap in the market. So here’s the second volume, with a third one in the works. Thank you to those who have given some very good ideas — in the comments section, on Facebook (become my friend) and elsewhere. You’ll find some suggestions incorporated here, or in Volume 3. And, yes, I’ve caved and included the Tull. What next? Glockenspiel in rock?

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1. Manfred Mann - Mighty Quinn (1968)
Flute Moment: 0:01 Appropriately, the mix kicks off with the flute. What came first, the Mighty Quinn or Come Together?

2. The Coasters – Love Potion No 9 (1970)
Flute Moment: 1:38 The flute starts up suddenly and quite frantically as the whole Leiber & Stoller classic goes into funk mode.

3. Canned Heat - Going Up Country (1968)
Flute Moment: 0:01 The flute introduces the song until the very odd vocals begin, making the occasional cameo appearance throughout.

4. Jethro Tull – Up To Me (1971)
Flute Moment: 0:02 The Tull giggle as though they are high (surely not), and the almost percussive flute comes in.

5. Donovan – Sunny Goodge Street (1965)
Flute Moment: 1:33 Alas, poor Donovan. History underrates him dreadfully. But hear this and tell me he did not profoundly influence Nick Drake. The flute solo is quite lovely.

6. Minnie Riperton – Light My Fire (1979)
Flute Moment: 1:59 The interplay between keyboard and flute is impressive. José Feliciano comes in later to duet on this (superior) cover of his interpretation. One wonders how big Riperton might have been had cancer not claimed her. She had one of the most beautiful, sexiest voices in music. Ever.

7. Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. – You Don’t Have To Be A Star (1976)
Flute Moment: 0:04 The flute hook introduces the song by these two former 5th Dimensions, who by then had gone soul.

8. Albert Hammond – It Never Rains In Southern California (1972)
Flute Moment:0:08 The brief flute interlude, which recurs at 1:56, sets the scene for the vocals. Happily, on this blog I needn’t point out that this Hammond is the dad. I don’t think Hammond, like Donvan, gets enough respect.

9. George Harrison – Dark Horse (1974)
Flute Moment: 1:08 The flute is going discreetly in the background until it decides to let its presence felt.

10. Marshall Tucker Band – Take The Highway (1973)
Flute Moment: 0:05 The flute drives this song from the start. A flute rock classic.

11. CCS – Whole Lotta Love (1970)
Flute Moment: 0:35 The purring flute holds its own against the thumping rhythms in the Collective Consciousness Society’s fantastic cover of boring old Led Zep, which British readers may know better as a theme for Top Of The Pops.

12. The The – Uncertain Smile (1982)
Flute Moment: 1:21 I don’t know if The The ever appeared on TOTP. For the flute in this, they (well, he) should have. Hear where Lloyd Cole got his ideas from.

13. Men At Work – Down Under (1981)
Flute Moment: 0:03 One of the most famous flute songs in pop, with perhaps the most recognisable flute riff. Men At Work are often seen as a naff ’80s outfit (and written off as — calumny! — a one-hit wonder). They were fronted by Colin Hay, who is not in any way naff.

14. Saint Etienne - Nothing Can Stop Us (1991)
Flute Moment: 1:17 The whole thing is a chilled-out house thing, but when the flute comes in, the song gets soul.

15. Esther Williams – Last Night Changed It All (1976)
Flute Moment: 0:30 Dance music in the mid-’70s made great use of flute hooks (and, yes, The Hustle must feature in Volume 3).

16. The Chiffons – Just For Tonight (1968)
Flute Moment: 1:14 The alto flute solo gives the latter-day girl-band a whole new sound.

17. Marvin Gaye – Stubborn Kind Of Fellow (1962)
Flute Moment: 1:04 But the flute solo also did a fine job in early Motown.

18. Love – Orange Skies (1966)
Flute Moment: 0:31 The flute comes in to echo and emphasise the singers declaration of love. When he sings about how happy he is, the flute responds as if it was a cartoon bird. It’s like Mary Poppins for love-struck hippies.

19. Chicago – Color My World (1970)
Flute Moment: 1:54 Damn, Chicago were good before the group was hijacked by the extravagantly coiffured Peter Cetera. The flute solo takes a long time coming, but when it arrives, it is quite beautiful and it sees out the remaining minute of the song.

20. The Guess Who – Undun (1969)
Flute Moment: 2:15 The Guess Who might have given English teachers nightmares, but they knew how to use a flute to good, albeit far too brief, effect.

21. Lou Reed – Sad Song (1973)
Flute Moment: 0:01 Is the flautist trying to get to the melody of Somewhere Over The Rainbow?

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Any Major Flute Vol. 1

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And now it’s 25 years ago. The photo on the right was taken in Amsterdam in May that year (note the jersey I’m wearing beneath the army surplus jacket; see 1981. And the ‘tache!). I think it was this week a quarter of a century ago (shit!) that my family dragged me from West Germany to apartheid South Africa. I was16, and none too happy about it. I couldn’t continue my schooling because my English wasn’t good enough yet (insert you own joke about my English now), so I worked as a waiter. It turned out to be a great school of life for the following six years. As always, these songs evoke times and places (and some have been posted before. I’ll mark them with an asterisks).

J. Geils Band – Centrefold.mp3
One of the great song-along numbers of 1982. “Na na na na na-na na-na…” Freeze Frame was the last LP I bought before leaving Germany (same day I bought The Best Of Cream). It followed a brief flirtation with heavy metal: Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Accept, Judas Priest etc.

Falco – Der Kommissar
This was the song that brought the Neue Deutsche Welle (again see 1981) to an international audience. Trio, Schilling and Nena would follow, but this track rules. It’s laced with malicious humour (“und nun das Kinderlied”; “and now the children’s song”) and what might be the first German rap (in a thick Viennese accent). The English version was rubbish though.

Spliff – Carbonara.mp3
Another Neue Deutsche Welle song. Here Spliff recreated a hint of the Italo-sound that was so popular in West Germany at the time, with the protaginist trying to pick up an Italian chick with pidgin Italian and cliché. I’m not sure whether the song isn’t a bit xenophobic (or it’s irony, I can never tell), but it sounds great.

Dr Hook – Sexy Eyes.mp3
This came out in 1979, but was the first song I heard after landing in South Africa, on the radio in a fast food joint. It was not my cup of tea at the time; it was only years later that I twigged what a great toe-tapper this really is.

Dexys Midnight Runners – Until I Believe In My Soul.mp3*
Everybody remembers “Come On Eileen” from the majestic celtic soul epic Roo-Ry-Aye, and it was that song which made me buy the album, one of the first purchases I made in South Africa. Among the many favourites of the LP, this was the best. Bloody Sting stole the idea for a jazz solo interlude on “An Englishman in New York”, but the best bits are the “Yes Yes Yes” and Kevin Rowlands sneering the immortal line: “You have to be fuckin‘ joking”, at a time when swearing still meant something.

ABC – Poison Arrow.mp3
“The Look Of Love” was rightly the big hit, but “Poison Arrow” was close behind in quality. It’s a song that is a product of its time, and yet it still sounds fresh. “Who broke my heart? You did, you did.”

Toto – Rosanna*
This is Toto in their pomp, Coke Rock at its best. Written about Rosanna Arquette, you know (as you did). These days retro-minded DJs and VJs will dig out “Africa”, which is a decent pop song. “Rosanna” is miles better: the jazzy keyboard, the coke-fuelled guitar solos, the fantastic horns, and a killer chorus. Toto were never good enough to produce a credible Best Of album, but this (as well as “Hold The Line” and “Georgy Porgy”) would make owning a copy worth the slight embarrassment one inevitably would suffer when pals rifle through one’s CD collection.

Fat Larry’s Band – Zoom.mp3
Believe it or not, I had never heard the word “zoom” before I this song came along, though I admired the audacity of rhyming “zoom” with “boom”. It’s a happy song that made me feel good. Same album produced the mighty funk classic “Act Like You Know It”. Rest in peace, Fat Larry.

Crocodile Harris – Give Me The Good News.mp3*
A South African classic, but a bigger hit in France (where it shifted 650,000 copies) than at home. The Croc didn’t get another hit, but this one will lasts. On constant rotation on Johannesburg’s Radio 5 at the time, the lyrics were interpreted as a veiled criticism of apartheid. Amandla!

Karl Kikilius – Another Shore.mp3
Karl Kililius was a popular DJ on Radio 5, the only English-only pop station in SA, available on FM only in Johannesburg. Then he created the type of song he used to like playing on his show, and jazz-fusion infused Pacific rock number of the kind Boz Scaggs used to do (in fact, Kilkilius sounds a lot like Scaggs). In Cape Town, people are still dancing to it.

Donald Fagen – I.G.Y.*
The Nightfly had one of the coolest album covers in rock history: a monochrome shot of Fagen as graveyard shift DJ, smoking a Chesterfield (Warning: smoking is not cool, kids. Only when Fagen does, it is). When the Steely Dan man’s solo album came out, I had to hunt it down; I don’t know if it sold out or whether the record shops were unprepared for the demand it elicited.

John Cougar – Jack And Diane.mp3
He might be the sub-Springsteen Mellencamp dude now, but in 1982 he was the sub-Springfield pretty boy rocker. My boss’ wife was clearly enthralled by the album, and my boss’ wife was hot (my first older woman crush). So I forgave Cougar his name and upturned collar, and gave the song a chance. Never bought the record, but downloaded soon after I discovered MP3s in 1999. I actually like the song.

Yazoo – Bad Connection*
Upstairs At Eric’s came out of nowhere. They were an odd combination: synth boffin Vince Clark and would-be soul diva Alison Moyet. It worked brilliantly, with Moyet investing a warmth in Clark’s cold electronic sound. An album later they were done. Clark reappeared a couple of years later with Erasure, Moyet had a couple of successful solo albums before fading from view. This is the loveliest track on Upstairs At Eric’s.

XTC – Senses Working Overtime.mp3
For the past 25 years the chorus has been a recurrent earworm. Just hearing someone count from one to five sets it off.

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five – The Message.mp3
The song that changed rap. That line, “Don’t push me to the edge, I’m about to lose control” was my mantra.

Men At Work – Who Can It Be Now.mp3
A much underrated song these days. The saxophone dates it, but the song’s structure and Colin Hay’s vocals are quite outstanding. This song reminds me of buying Liquorice All-Sorts and marshmallows, for some reason.