FTV: Inspiration

 

     Norman Greenbaum was watching TV one night and saw country music legend Porter Wagoner perform an old Gospel song.  Norman thought to himself, “Hey, I could do that,” and thus inspired, he proceeded to write his one and only No. 1 hit song Spirit in the Sky.  An urban legend went around that Greenbaum was a dishwasher who happened upon a hit song, but there is a little more to the story than that.  The Porter Wagoner inspiration part was real enough, but it didn’t start Norman’s musical journey.

     Norman Greenbaum grew up and was raised in the Orthodox Jewish faith in Massachusetts.  His interest in music was based on the Southern blues and folk music scenes of the late 1950s and early 1960s.  He played in various high school bands and studied music at Boston University for two years before dropping out and moving to Los Angeles.  His first foray into the recording business came as a composer and leader of the oddly named Dr. West’s Medicine Show and Junk Band.  Their one memorable recording (The Eggplant That Ate Chicago) tabbed them as more of 

a novelty act and Norman had left that group when he had his Porter Wagoner revelation.  Reprise Records paired Greenbaum with staff producer Erik Jacobsen who took the simple acoustic arrangement of Spirit up a notch or two.  The pulsing fuzz guitar and Gospel inspired background vocals elevated the song to No 1 on the 1970 singles and album charts.

     Norman told an interviewer he hadn’t intended to write a ‘Christian praise’ type of song but he had to hang the theme of the Spirit in the Sky on something.  He went on to say, “If you ask me what I based it on, what did we grow up watching?  Westerns!  These mean and nasty varmints get shot and they wanted to die with their boots on.  So to me, that was spiritual.  Funny enough, I wanted to die with my boots on.”  The only problem was Jacobsen’s arrangement was too layered to recreate live.  If you watch the clip of Greenbaum ‘performing’ on American Bandstand, one can see he is miming to the record (although most artists on AB did the same save the one time I saw Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys perform live).  In March of 2015, Norman almost got his wish when a motorcycle crashed into a car in which he was riding.  The cyclist died and Greenbaum was seriously injured, but has since returned to performing.

     When The Beach Boys hit the air with Good Vibrations, it took listeners a bit to connect the band with this new direction.  Their early hits were well constructed and catchy but Vibrations was a whole different thing.  The depth of the arrangement was certainly inspired and by no means an accident.  According to The Beach Boys’ primary songwriter/arranger, Brian Wilson,

The Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations was inspired by something his mother used to tell him.  She often talked about ‘cosmic vibrations’ and how dogs will bark at people when they feel their ‘bad vibrations’.  To him, the concept suggested extrasensory perception (or ESP). Mike Love’s lyrics were obviously inspired by the Flower Power movement.  The recording was done during sessions for the never released Smile album and eventually came out as a single on October 10, 1966.  The song was reportedly the most expensive recording made up to that time but it climbed to the top of the charts in the United States and United Kingdom.  Vibrations did eventually make it onto the Smiley Smile album.

     This period of Brian Wilson’s songwriting and producing career showed that he was undergoing unprecedented growth as an artist.  His perfectionist tendencies were born out by the length of time it took to record Good Vibrations (February to September 1966) and the four different Hollywood studios that were used during the sessions.  According to Wiki, “The song is characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure, and subversions of the pop music formula.  It was hailed as one of the finest and most important recordings of the rock era.”

     The approach he used while constructing Good Vibrations formed the template he would use to record their historic Pet Sounds LP.  Dubbed a ‘pocket symphony’ by the band’s publicist, Derek Taylor, it paved the way for a copycat wave of other artists who began to employ the recording studio as another instrument to craft pop tunes.  Wilson used his considerable skill to patch together musical phrases, keys, textures, and mood shifts into a cohesive mixture unlike anything that had been done previously in the pop music world.  The final master was cut down from over 90 hours of tape and cost an unheard of price at the time (estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars).

     Wilson had long been known to construct catchy pop songs from snippets of music he carried around in his head (he called them ‘feels’).  Engineer Chuck Britz said Wilson considered Good Vibrations to be ‘his whole life performance in one track’.  Wilson revealed another inspiration that guided him:  “I was an energetic 23-year-old.  I said, ‘This is going to be better than [the Phil Spector production] You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.  I didn’t really understand what my mother meant (about ‘vibrations’) when I was just a boy.  It scared me, the word ‘vibrations’.”  Lyricist Tony Asher took a stab at writing lyrics with Wilson but they were ultimately discarded.  What remained from Asher’s contribution was a change in title from Good Vibes (which Asher described as, “a lightweight use of the language”) to the more trendy sounding Good Vibrations.

     Little did Brian Wilson realize that the work he was doing in the Good Vibrations / Pet Sounds period would inspire another earth shaking album.  When Pet Sounds was released, touring Beach Boy musician Bruce Johntson happened to take a copy with him to England.  Mega Beach Boys fan Keith Moon offered to usher Johnston around ‘swinging London Town’.  In their rambling, they ended up bringing Bruce’s record player (with built-in speakers) and the album to a gathering that included Paul McCartney and John Lennon.  The Who’s drummer soon lost interest because he preferred the ‘old’ Beach Boys songs.  Lennon and McCartney, however, were smitten by the album even though they had recently released one of their own masterpiece albums Rubber Soul.  Feeling the pressure from what was happening in America, the Fab Duo set out to craft their own ‘pocket symphony’ which would (of course) end up being the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.

     Mark Farner was inspired to begin writing music watching Dick Wagner (his mentor in the band The Bossmen), compose a song seemingly out of mid-air.  He told Farner to ‘go write a song’.  His first effort was a pretty good one called Heartbreaker which The Bossmen performed several years before the track appeared on Grand Funk Railroad’s debut album On Time (1969).  The simple act of starting seemed to open the floodgates and GFR would roll out a string of hits over the years.  Known primarily for their live shows (as chronicled on their first live album released on Capitol Records on November 16, 1970), it was rather surprising to see them topping the singles charts in the early 1970s.  Tracks like Footstompin’ Music (1971), Rock’N’Roll Soul (1972), and (We’re An) American Band (1973) made them staples of FM radio.  GFR were inspired to release Little Eva’s hit The Locomotion when the band arrived at the studio and found Farner singing the song over and over again.  They started jamming on the tune and it was so much fun, they cut it and released it in the run up to their Shinin’ On album in February of 1974.

     One of Farner’s most iconic tracks literally came to him in the dead of night.  He says,  “I had prayed I could come up with a song that would move people and woke up one night with the words I had been looking for.  I wrote them down and the next morning found they matched up with the chords I had been working on.  I had been playing around with some chords and made a mistake.  It sounded pretty good that way (mistake and all) and they matched up with the words.”  The words and chords would become Closer to Home (I’m Your Captain) which he took to the band the next day.  They loved it and cut it for the Closer To Home album.

     I remember when Mike and Gene worked out the chords Farner had discovered, they both looked at each other and smiled ear to ear because it sounded great.  I wrote down the words that night and the next time we rehearsed, it fell together in a snap.  Being fixated on learning the lyrics, I later realized that the drum part I put with the song was nothing like what drummer Don Brewer was playing, but it still fit.  When I tried to play it more like Brewer’s version, it was harder to sing so I left well enough alone.  We performed the song when it was just out so no one knew it well enough to notice we took liberties with our arrangement.  It was and still is a great song even when played live without the orchestral parts added on the album cut.  We were already playing several other Grand Funk songs and Closer to Home was another good addition to our set.

     It is no secret that there was a great deal of music ping ponging between the USA and the UK.  While the British bands were being influenced by American musicians (from blues to pop), musicians on this side of the pond like Steven Van Zandt (nee: Lento) were absorbing the sounds they heard coming from the east.  Van Zandt was seven in 1957 when his mother and her second husband moved from Massachusetts to New Jersey.  He learned to play the guitar at an early age and described seeing The Beatles and Rolling Stones on TV (on Ed Sullivan and The Hollywood Palace, respectively) as ‘The Big Bang of Rock ‘n’ Roll’.  George Harrison was his favorite Beatle and he channeled his love for the Brit sound into his first short lived band (The Whirlwinds) in 1964.  The bands kept coming with The Mates (1965) and the Shadows of May (1966) as his influences expanded to other British invasion bands like The Dave Clark Five.  Van Zandt also credits Ravi Shankar and the culture of India as early influences in his career.

     His habit of wearing hats (and later his signature bandanas) came as the result of a car crash that sent the teenage Steven through a car windshield, leaving several scars on his forehead.  He met the pre-fame Bruce Springsteen in the Jersey Shore music scene where they performed together in bands such as Steel Mill and the Bruce Springsteen Band.  After leaving the music biz for a while to work in road construction in the early 1970s, Van Zandt returned to tour with The Dovells.  The last date he played with them was part of Dick Clark’s Old Rock ‘n’ Roll Show on December 31, 1974 in Miami, Florida.  Upon returning to New Jersey, he kept wearing the Hawaiian shirts he had favored down south, thus earning him the nickname ‘Miami Steve’.

     After co-founded Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes with singer John Lyon, they added The Miami Horns to their group (the name in homage to Van Zandt).  Steven not only wrote the bulk of the Jukes’ music, he also produced their first three albums.  The Jukes (and therefore Van Zandt) were instrumental in giving rhythm and blues oriented music a foothold on the East Coast.  After arranging the horns for Springsteen’s Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out in 1975, he began touring with the E Street Band while he continued to write songs for the Jukes.  His first notable contribution to Springsteen’s career was the main guitar riff he supplied for Born to Run (“Arguably Steve’s greatest contribution to my music,” according to The Boss).  He became an official member of the band when the Born to Run tour began on July 20, 1975.

     Van Zandt exited and then returned to the E Street Band several times since 1984.  When he returned for good in 1999, he left Nils Lofgren in charge of the lead guitar spotlight while Steven stepped into the background to provide more rhythm guitar and backing vocals.  As the band’s MTV tenure began, it was hard to miss Van Zandt sharing a mic with Bruce and mugging for the crowd.  See how Steven is featured in Glory Days and you will get the picture of what his role in the band is today.  Outside of his E Street band duties, Little Steven became a sought after producer and arranger for bands in genres from reggae to punk to movie soundtracks.  Though many people still didn’t know who LIttle Steven Van Zandt was, his involvement in the 1985 Artists United Against Apartheid recording of Sun City certainly elevated his industry status.  Gathering a diverse group of international musicians, Van Zandt turned activist when the group pledged to never again perform at the Sun City resort South Africa (chronicled in the documentary The Making of Sun City).  The movement was a positive step in the right direction taken before South Africa finally ended the travesty known as Apartheid.

     It would take several pages to cover the vast number of musical projects Van Zandt has undertaken in the last 30 years.  One can find an extensive listing on line, so we will end here by mentioning the one that has become his passion project.  The Disciples of Soul Band was an earlier side project that Little Steven revived in 2017 with the release of the album Soulfire.  The next LP was released in 2019 (Summer of Sorcery) and it was followed soon after by the album / DVD set Soulfire Live.  The Disciples might be described as Little Steven covering the Little Steven from back in the early days of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes.  Any band out there playing Jersey Shore Rhythm and Blues owes Van Zandt a big debt.  He may have been inspired by the British Invasion, but he took the music in another direction.  In doing so, he has inspired countless other musicians along the way.  Inspiration can come in many forms and in the music industry.  It seems to be a cyclical thing as evidenced by artists who are first inspired by others and go on to inspire others! 

Top Piece Video: A peek behind the scenes at the making of Good Vibrations – Note the session musicians employed including the legendary drummer Hal Blaine and the boy genius himself, Brian Wilson!