From a while back. I kinda like this tune!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa5aobSoBYw
From a while back. I kinda like this tune!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa5aobSoBYw
I had that on VHS for years. Kieth's a bit shaky (probably nerves), and I get a bit pissed off at Will Lee's "I'm too cool for this old proggy stuff" antics. But it's funny to see Anton Fig reading a chart, and cool to get a guitar solo a la The Nice version. Sadly I guess this appearance didn't do much to help ELPowell's fortunes.
I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.
That's Syd McGuinness (sp?) on lead guitar. He used to be on the early Peter Gabriel albums & tours.
Anyone up for a game of 6-degrees of separation?
I've got a bike you can ride it if you like
More accurately, the title is simply America, and the fanfare thing at the beginning and end is from Dvorak's Symphony For The New World.
Believe it or not, I actually saw this when it originally aired. Dave usually named the songs when he was introducing back then, but this time he didn't. So I had no idea what it was. Then a couple years later, I took a music literature class in high school, and one point the teacher played America for us, and I remember saying at the time saying, "I know this song from someplace". The teacher is like, "It's from West Side Story", as if that's supposed to be self-explanatory. I had never seen West Side Story and didn't know any of the songs from it.
So, then maybe a few months later, I'm going through my VHS tapes (I seem to perpetually "going through my VHS tapes") and was watching that Keith Emerson clip, and I remember thinking, "That's where I know that fucking West Side Story song from!".
BTW, the guitarist's name is spelled Sid McGinnis, he, Anton, and Will (I don't see what the big deal about his "antics" are, he likes to move around when he plays, so what?!) were (and maybe still are) top flight NYC studio guys. There's lots of records all of them played on. When Peter Criss started becoming unstable in the late 70's, it was Anton who depped for him on some of the late Kiss records (he's on all of Unmasked, all but one song on Dynasty, and I believe he also drummed on the studio tracks on Alive II), and both Anton and Will played at Ace Frehley's first solo album (Anton's also frequently prominently on Ace's subsequent solo releases). Sid also played rhythm guitar on Dire Straits' Making Movies album.
I saw this on TV live.
I gotta say, the ELPowell tour was FANTASTIC!!!! Pirates was a stone cold highlight. The fact they started the set with the Score was a true statement of musical intent--practically bucking the pervasive commercial times.
Then we got the godforsaken P.O.S. that called itself "3". Wow. That sucked big time.
And, truth be told, the 90s version wasn't much better. Too bad. I remember when they broke up in '98, Palmer was saying they were working on an epic album. Wonder what happened to that???
^The ELPowell album is more 'of its time' sonically than the classic ELP 70s albums, I think (all that huge reverb), but the material holds up very well...way better than the 90s albums, as you say.
'America' was a big hit for The Nice in the 60s. This version is a more 'simplified' version than that one, but good to have Keith Emerson pounding away on the Hammond...which still sounds better to me than some of the sounds he used later.
As for that 'epic album', I don't know if anything was even recorded- a snippet was apparently played live. I guess it would have been released by now, given the endless repackages and reissues.
Last edited by JJ88; 12-27-2013 at 05:10 PM.
I have to agree, that was a great tour. And they played to a packed house at the Meadowlands, quite the enthusiastic crowd. I was shocked to learn later that year that the tour itself wasn't too successful. Musically it sure was. And having to scalp for tickets at the show I saw, gave me a much different impression of the tour.
As to 3, I think it was good for what it was. Kind of a "modern" or contemporary rock album for the time, not trying to be ELP. I was disappointed with Black Moon. I liked the two instrumentals a lot, but not much else. Keith made up for this a bit with the very strong Keith Emerson band album he did with Marc Bonilla. A shame the 1992 album wasn't this strong.
Saw it when it aired, and have it on VHS. Don't see the bad attitudes or Keith being shaky... it's all awesome to me! Good times.
Very cool, love it. America was a Nice single in 68.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
West Side Story is as big a part of American culture as anything related to the arts and Bernstein's music is some of the best anybody ever wrote for a Broadway musical.
David Pack (Ambrosia) got a bunch of music icons together in the '90s and made an album called "Songs of West Side Story." Whatever you do to this stuff, it's hard to ruin it! Here's a couple of excerpts:
Your point being what?! You do realize that not everyone is into musical theater, and not everybody as seen West Side Story, right?! Certainly as a teenager in the mid 80's, I certainly had never seen West Side Story. Nobody in my family was into musical theater to an extent that I would have heard the music growing up. Unless something was used in a TV advert or let's say on Sesame Street or The Electric Company (we didn't really do variety shows and the only evening show we watched on PBS was Doctor Who), I would have been unlikely to hear it.
So excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me for being an uncultured half wit who, at the age of 13, didn't recognize a given song from West Side Story.
Have to agree with No Pride that West Side Story is culturally iconic. Even as a teen in the UK I was very aware of WSS and I hated musicals.
Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/
Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
I blame Wynton, what was the question?
There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.
Phil Sucks.
Joking, I like Phil a lot - liked the clips.
What can this strange device be? When I touch it, it brings forth a sound (2112)
Gosh, you're sensitive, Chris! I meant no disrespect by that post. I was surprised you hadn't seen it; it's appeal, especially as a movie, went way beyond just musical theater fans (of which I never really was... or my family), but I wasn't passing any judgment on that. There's tons of popular culture that has passed me by over the years; sometimes we're just too busy doing, seeing and listening to other things.
Does anybody know any other artist/band from the rock world who has interptreted songs from West Side Story apart from The Nice,Yes & Alice Cooper?
No offense, Ian, but I believe you're at least a few years older than me. I think by the mid 80's, at least Stateside, was no longer the pop culture touchstone that it was in the 60's or perhaps even the 70's. Certainly, when I said "I've heard this song somewhere before", I expected it to be maybe to be a cover of some sort, or perhaps something I recognized from a TV commercial. I think the only teenagers who knew anything about West Side Story circa 1988 were those were actually into musicals (just as the only teenagers circa 1988 who knew that Peter Gabriel had once been the lead singer of a band called Genesis were the ones who were actually into Genesis and progressive rock to begin with, and at least at my school, those were few and far between).
Ya know what, come to think of it, I was avid fan of The Electric Company, and Rita Moreno was on that show, and of course she was in West Side Story. So I wouldn't be surprised I had heard something from West Side Story back when I was little, I just don't remember it (though given some of the shit I actually do remember, it seems unlikely).
Just as a point of fact, West Side Story had a huge revival in 1985, when Leonard Bernstein recorded an "operatic" version that was a runaway best seller. Even though it was marketed as a classical release (on the Deutsche Grammophon label), it actually made #70 on the pop chart.
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