Lennon, Clapton, Richards, Mitchell:
A Tidy Guide To The Dirty Mac
Who were The Dirty Mac? They never made an album, but this John Lennon, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell supergroup are rock’n’roll legends.
Eric Clapton is rightly credited with instigating two of rock’s earliest supergroups, Cream, and Blind Faith, yet he also starred in a third, the near-mythical The Dirty Mac.
Who are The Dirty Mac?
You may well ask… The Dirty Mac never made any critically acclaimed albums, nor could they be found on the charts, yet this elusive outfit are the stuff of rock’n’roll legend. How so? Well, for one thing, their line-up also included The Beatles’ John Lennon, The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, and Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell. Secondly, they only ever gave one public performance – and most people weren’t even able to see it for nearly 30 years.
When did The Dirty Mac play?
It seems fantastical on paper, yet The Dirty Mac really were heroes just for one day. On Wednesday, December 11, 1968, The Rolling Stones gathered the cream of the contemporary British rock scene in Fossett’s Big Top (in reality placed on a sound stage at Wembley’s Intertel Studio) to appear on their planned TV special, The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus.
Eric Clapton is rightly credited with instigating two of rock’s earliest supergroups, Cream, and Blind Faith, yet he also starred in a third, the near-mythical The Dirty Mac.
Who are The Dirty Mac?
You may well ask… The Dirty Mac never made any critically acclaimed albums, nor could they be found on the charts, yet this elusive outfit are the stuff of rock’n’roll legend. How so? Well, for one thing, their line-up also included The Beatles’ John Lennon, The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, and Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell. Secondly, they only ever gave one public performance – and most people weren’t even able to see it for nearly 30 years.
When did The Dirty Mac play? It seems fantastical on paper, yet The Dirty Mac really were heroes just for one day. On Wednesday, December 11, 1968, The Rolling Stones gathered the cream of the contemporary British rock scene in Fossett’s Big Top (in reality placed on a sound stage at Wembley’s Intertel Studio) to appear on their planned TV special, The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus.
Featuring contributions from Marianne Faithfull, Taj Mahal, and Jethro Tull (appearing with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi), plus The Who’s incendiary performance of their mini opera A Quick One While He’s Away, The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus was indeed a grand, celebratory affair. Yet it was shelved without release and remained locked away in the vault for years, gaining a mystical, Holy Grail-like reputation until it finally saw VHS release in 1996.
The reason was long-rumored to be the Stones’ dissatisfaction with their own performance, though the film reveals that they rocked: their set including earthy, vibed-up versions of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Sympathy For The Devil.” The show’s real revelation, however, came when The Dirty Mac took to the stage. Following a surreal exchange with Mick Jagger, where he introduced himself as “Winston Leg-Thigh”, Lennon joined Clapton, Mitchell, and Richards (the latter on bass) for a smoking version of “Yer Blues”: one of many highlights from The Beatles’ then recently released “White Album”.
How did The Dirty Mac get their name?
Lennon reputedly came up with the name The Dirty Mac simply as a play on Fleetwood Mac, then under Peter Green’s tutelage and established as leading lights in the UK’s late 60s blues boom. A throwaway moniker for a one-off supergroup, The Dirty Mac also accompanied Yoko Ono and violin virtuoso Ivry Gitlis on the improvised “Whole Lotta Yoko” during the day’s filming but were never heard of again until the footage was officially released.
With hindsight, it’s impossible not to speculate whether this star-studded quartet could later have returned to their collaboration, not least when you consider that both The Beatles and Eric Clapton’s short-lived Blind Faith would split within the next 18 months. The cold light of reality suggests not, yet to this day their crackling live performance of “Yer Blues” is still enough to make rock’n’roll fans yearn for a return of the Mac.
Credits: Tim Peacock – Udiscovermusic.com
Frank Sinatra Christmas: Why The Chairman Is The Voice Of The Season
Every Christmas is a Frank Sinatra Christmas. Reflective yet full of mirth, The Chairman’s classic recordings define everything the holiday season is about.
Let’s face it: Christmas simply wouldn’t be Christmas without Frank Sinatra.
The words “Sinatra” and “Christmas” are inextricably intertwined in western culture. In fact, Christmas doesn’t really seem like Christmas until you’ve heard Sinatra’s warm baritone singing “Silent Night” or “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” either on the radio, in a restaurant, a shopping mall, or at home on the stereo. There are plenty of Frank Sinatra Christmas recordings, and hearing his voice helps to conjure the spirit of the approaching holiday season. When you hear Ol’ Blue Eyes wrap his voice around “The First Noel” you know that the holidays are well and truly on their way.
So where does Sinatra’s association with Christmas come from? Well, it goes right back to 1948, the year the LP format was introduced by Sinatra’s then record label, Columbia. That was when the 32-year-old man who would come to be known as The Chairman Of The Board released Christmas Songs By Sinatra, the first Frank Sinatra Christmas album, arranged by the redoubtable Axel Stordahl. It contained eight traditional holiday songs, beginning with “White Christmas” (a song he first recorded in 1944 as a single), alongside carols such as “O Little Town Of Bethlehem” – apparently one of Sinatra’s favorites – and culminating with “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.”
The world would have to wait nine years for another Frank Sinatra Christmas album, by which time Sinatra had established himself as a master of The Great American Songbook and moved to a new label, Capitol, for whom he would serve up some of the best work of his career.
A Jolly Christmas With Frank Sinatra
By 1957, Sinatra was once again in the mood to celebrate and released his second festive LP, A Jolly Christmas With Frank Sinatra, which found him revisiting some of the songs from his first Yuletide album as well as recording new material in the company of arranger Gordon Jenkins. What’s striking about that album is Sinatra’s version of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” a song written by Ralph Blaine and Hugh Martin, and originally sung by Judy Garland in the 1947 movie Meet Me In St Louis.
Evidently, Sinatra felt the original lyrics were too downbeat. In 2007, a 93-year-old Hugh Martin recalled that, back in 1957, prior to recording the song for the second time, Sinatra called the lyricist to ask, “if I would rewrite the ‘muddle through somehow’ line.” The songwriter remembered that Sinatra told him: “The name of my album is A Jolly Christmas. Do you think you could jolly up that line for me?”
Martin agreed and made several revisions, the major one being the removal of the line “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow,” replacing it with “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” The alteration completely lifted the mood of the song, transforming it from a lugubrious meditation into a quietly uplifting song of hope. Sinatra recorded the new version and helped to transform a largely ignored movie tune into a bona fide standard that a raft of singers have since covered.
The first Frank Sinatra Christmas special was also recorded for TV in 1957. Happy Holidays With Bing And Frank was aired on December 20, helping to cement in the public’s mind an indelible association between Frank Sinatra and the holiday season.
I wouldn’t trade Christmas
Three years later, in 1960, a 45-year-old Sinatra left Capitol to find his own record company, Reprise, and began a new phase of his career. Though he contributed one song (“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”) to a 1963 compilation LP called Frank Sinatra And His Friends Want You To Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – a festive showcase of artists on the Reprise label – it wasn’t until the following year that he recorded his first proper Christmas album for his new company. 12 Songs Of Christmas featured The Chairman’s old sparring partner, the sonorous-voiced Bing Crosby, on two songs, while the backing was provided by popular bandleader Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians (earlier the same year, they had all collaborated on the Reprise album America, I Hear You Singing).
Four years on, in 1968, a very different Frank Sinatra Christmas extravaganza emerged, courtesy of Sinatra and his immediate family’s The Sinatra Family Wish You A Merry Christmas. Though it was recorded in July and August of that year, the arrangements – complete with tinkling sleigh bells – helped to conjure an authentic Christmas feeling. The album combined traditional Yuletide fare with lesser-known ditties such as Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen’s “I Wouldn’t Trade Christmas,” and Jimmy Webb’s “What Happened To Christmas.” With stellar arrangements by Nelson Riddle and Don Costa, Sinatra served up some heart-warming performances with his children Nancy (whose own career as a singer was blooming spectacularly at this point), Frank Jr and Tina.
What Frank Sinatra thought of Christmas
Since his death, in 1998, there have been countless compilations dedicated to Sinatra’s seasonal material. The most significant of them is Frank Sinatra Christmas Collection, which came out in 2004 and cherry-picked key cuts from his Reprise era. What distinguished it from other Frank Sinatra Christmas albums was the inclusion of previously unreleased material, including a duet with Bing Crosby and a rendition of “Silent Night” which Sinatra had recorded in 1991 at the age of 75. It marked the final time Ol’ Blue Eyes recorded a Christmas carol.
We know that Sinatra liked to record Yuletide songs but what was his take on Christmas? According to his daughter, Nancy, in an interview with Variety magazine, her father loved the holiday season. “Nobody embraced Christmas as he did,” she remembered. That’s not surprising, given the warmth and sincerity that shines through his many recordings of Yuletide songs.
Christmas, then, wouldn’t be the same without Frank Sinatra. For many, he’s the only singer who can bring the holidays vividly to life. It’s he, alone, who can make the tinsel glitter and the snow glisten, warming our hearts with a profound sense of bonhomie and goodwill to all. And, of course, aside from being a time of both religious observance and exchanging gifts, Christmas is also a time of celebration – and no one could celebrate quite like Sinatra.
It’s not outrageous to contend that Frank Sinatra is the voice of Christmas. He is to the holiday season what snow is to winter: an essential component of the whole experience. His Yuletide songs provide an essential soundtrack that is mellow and reflective, yet also bright and mirthful, conjuring up the “happy golden days of yore” he sang of in his 1957 recording of “The Christmas Song.”
Frank Sinatra, then, is the perennial Christmas No. 1. He’ll be at the top of the tree for some time to come.
CREDITS: Charles Waring – Udiscovermusic.com
Robert Plant, Alison Krauss Perform NPR ‘Tiny Desk (Home) Concert’
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss joined forces for NPR’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert series, performing three songs. The pair filmed the concert at Sound Emporium, the studio where they recorded their new album, Raise the Roof.
The set includes a rendition of “Can’t Let Go,” originally recorded by Lucinda Williams, a cover of Bobby Moore & the Rhythm Aces’ “Searching for My Love,” and “Trouble With My Lover,” written by Allen Toussaint and recorded in the Sixties by Betty Harris. In the clip, the duo is joined by several musicians, including guitarist JD McPherson.
Plant and Krauss’ collaborative album, Raise the Roof, arrived Nov. 19. The album comes 13 years after their surprise 2007 hit, Raising Sand, which went on to win five Grammys, including Album of the Year. Raise the Roof was produced by T-Bone Burnett (who also worked on Raising Sand), and it primarily finds Plant and Krauss covering songs by artists like Merle Haggard, Allen Toussaint, the Everly Brothers, and Bert Jansch, although it does feature one original, “High and Lonesome.”
The pair will return to the road together for the first time in 12 years next June. They will kick off a 10-date U.S. tour on June 1, 2022, at CMAC in Canandaigua, New York, and the trek will wrap on June 16 at the Cadence Bank Amphitheatre at Chastain Park in Atlanta. Plant and Krauss will then head to the U.K. and Europe for a string of dates at the end of June and into July. Tickets are on sale now.
CREDITS: By EMILY ZEMLER – Rolling Stone Magazine
Rare, Early David Bowie Demo Heads to Auction - “I Want Your Love” was recorded by a teenaged Bowie with his band the Lower Third back in 1965.
British auctioneer Wessex Auction Rooms is anticipating bids as high as £12,000 for the upcoming sale of a vinyl record featuring a rare recording of David Bowie from 1965 — back when he fronted the band Davy Jones and the Lower Third — in an auction on Thursday. (per Variety)
Written by John Dee and Jack Tarr and helmed by producer Shel Talmy, a Sixties hitmaker, the 56-year-old recording “I Want You Love” is an early Bowie demo, eventually recorded and released by the Pretty Things on their 1965 sophomore album Get the Picture. Keeping with the pre-NFT times, the buyer will receive only the record in the sale, not the recording or publishing rights.
Wessex credits the archives of a veteran music publisher as the source of the mostly forgotten song, with auctioneer Martin Hughes saying: “The seller purchased the physical music archive of one of the world’s biggest publishing companies and therefore unearthed a raft of amazing demos and unheard tracks from huge artists.”
Two previously unreleased Bowie recordings have been auctioned at Wessex in the past, including “I Do Believe I Love You” from 1966 and “Run Piper Run” from 1967. Last year, Talmy offered up eight unheard recordings from the singer citing negotiations with “several interested parties, including the Bowie Estate,” although he hasn’t seen much luck in finding them a home.
These pop-up sales seek to capitalize on the only music the Bowie Estate doesn’t already hold control of — mostly scattered singles and early album recordings from 1967 and before, which are retained by Universal Music. But rarely do they hold a candle to the expansive catalog already available and still growing.
This year saw the release of David Bowie 5. Brilliant Adventure (1992 – 2001), a box set that includes remastered editions of Black-Tie White Noise, The Buddha of Suburbia, Outside, Earthling, and ‘hours…’ as well as the live album BBC Radio Theatre, London, June 27th, 2000, and the odds and sods collection Re: Call 5. Among those recordings also landed Toy, Bowie’s shelved record from 2000 halted from release when he left Virgin Records in 2001.
The coming weeks will see celebrations of what would have been Bowie’s 75th birthday on Jan. 8 and what marks the sixth anniversary of his death on Jan. 10. One of the most notable, Rolling Live Studio’s A Bowie Celebration hosted by longtime Bowie keyboardist Mike Garson, will bring together the singer’s family, friends, and collaborators for a guest-filled event.
“It’s an honor to be able to continue to share David Bowie’s music with the world,” Garson said in a statement. “I’m excited for everyone to be able to experience this very special show we’ve got in store in celebration of what would have been David’s 75th birthday with the bandmates he recorded and performed with, plus a great group of guest artists who he was such an influence to.”
Credits: Larisha Paul – Rolling Stone Magazine
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