Is this undignified, or just Donovan reclaiming the small debt that Bolan owed him?
Visconti-ish strings.
Here he performs "Cosmic Wheel" sitting down a la Tyrannosaurus Rex, stripped of the record's adornments.
Mickie Most produced the Cosmic Wheels album (Most of course wsa Donovan's original producer in the Sixties but by 1973 one of the kings of glamglitter production)
Suzi Quatro supposedly sings back-up on "The Music Maker", although she doesn't sound characteristic - I wouldn't have recognised her.
The album was recorded in the next door studio to the one Alice Cooper did Billion Dollar Babies, and they got Donovan to sing on the title track.
"Maria Magenta" - here Donovan seems to be aping Bryan Ferry a bit.
But then again, he was doing this kind of prissy vocal in 1966....
"Wild Witch Lady" is T. Rex meets Dr John. Bolan-esque vibrato and whoops.
Also seems like a Marc / Electric Warrior style tribute to a "dirty and sweet" young lady.
Now, the genuinely undignified thing Donovan does on this album is "The Intergalactic Laxative"
Personnel
Donovan – guitar, harmonica, design, vocals
Chris Spedding – guitar, strings, bouzouki
Dennis Ball – bass[3]
Clive Chaman – bass
Phil Chen – bass
Cozy Powell – drums
Alan White – drums
John "Rabbit" Bundrick – piano, Moog synthesizer, mellotron
John Cameron - electric piano on "Appearances"
Tony Carr – percussion
Jim Horn – alto saxophone
Bobby Keys – tenor saxophone
Patrick Halling – violin
Jack Emblow – accordion
Leslye Ash – vocals
Valerie Charrington – soprano vocals
Nick Curtis – vocals
Lesley Duncan – vocals on "The Music Makers"
Julie Forsythe – vocals
Leslie Fyson – vocals
John McCarthy – vocals
Suzi Quatro – vocals on "The Music Makers"
Gaynor Stewart – vocals
Jill Utting – soprano vocals
Cary Wilson – vocals
I remember listening to his 1967 two album in one set A Gift From A Flower To A Garden a few years ago and gradually realizing that while the 'adult' album (Wear Your Love Like Heaven) was typical folk-rock whimsy - and, aside from the title track and The Land Of Doesn't-Have-To-Be, arguably his weakest of the period - the 'children's' album (For Little Ones) was entirely down-tuned solo acoustic performances of doomy Child Ballad material, most notably Widow With Shawl (A Portrait), which is one of his best songs period. So there's a great deal of underreported perversity to him
ReplyDeleteMatthew Perpetua put Hurdy Gurdy Man on his proto-Goth playlist, which I think points up another aspect; I'm not sure if Smith himself would agree, but Robert Smith seems like he got a lot from him
Alvin Stardust has got to be the most obvious candidate for this.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm thinking more of already established artists who remodel themselves. Sometimes it's just a case of glamming up for the album cover - e.g. Edgar Winter.
DeleteElton John would actually be the prime example - he was much of a singer-songwriter dressed in casual clothes at the start of his career. Like wanting to be the next James Taylor. Then it's all about the giant spectacles and the razzle-dazzle showmanship.
Alvin was kind of already established, though, as Shane Fenton. I'm sure it's not an original observation, but as Glam took on so many 50's signifiers, this allowed someone like Alvin to sneak in, with probably a minimum of change in their schtick.
DeleteIt's surprising that more Fifties rockers didn't attempt to surf the Glam wave, in hindsight.
Elton was letting the razzle dazzle leak through live right from the beginning, which is ironically what made him stand out - in his debut US performance at the LA singer-songwriter haven the Troubadour in 1970/71, he surprised everyone who came out expecting the person in the moody all black textured sleeve of his first album by wearing huge boots with 'cartoonish' clothes and doing Little Richard 'standing at the piano and pounding' moves
DeleteI am looking at stills of the Troubadour show - clearly he's doing the Jerry Lee Lewis piano man high-energy showmanship. But clothes wise he's in a denim dungaree - if anything it looks like the outfit Kiki Dee wore in the famous "Breaking My Heart" clip. Elton's glasses are red-tinted and frameless and modestly sized - rather similar to the kind that Roger McGuinn wore in the Byrds. The footwear looks like a pair of Converse sneakers. I wouldn't say he was quite at the Slade / Sweet level just yet.
DeleteGoing down the Alvin Stardust rabbit hole. Here's some Shane Fenton from 1963-ish:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnJgqeA7xO0&list=RDEnJgqeA7xO0&start_radio=1
Very generic - amazing how that pre-Beatles music all sounds the same. In comparison Alvin Stardust is a completely different beast. My Coo-Ca-Choo is fucking awesome - Spirit In The Sky with The Glitter Band doing the rhythm track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0ZqNBd_orI&list=RDb0ZqNBd_orI&start_radio=1
Not Alvin singing though, apparently. How strange it is now -unimaginable - that someone could set themselves up for stardom with a fake persona, and then come back with a completely different fake persona a mere ten years later.
Shows how time and memory were so compressed in those days compared to now.
Counterpoint re: Elton--he was conservatively dressed at the beginning, then went AND HAS STAYED glam. The regular clothes were the mask; he was hiding his homosexuality. The flamboyance was the real him.
ReplyDeleteTodd Rundgren is another guy who started the 70's as a jeans-and-tee-shirt rocker but (sartorially, if not musically) glammed it up as the decade went on, his "Midnight Special" appearance outfit being the peak/nadir.
ReplyDelete