OK, An early listen to the formative years of KROQ/AM&FM Here's the great Lee Baby Simms doing his stuff during
the launch of the ROQ's, as the AM signal merged into one (or two) giants with the FM signal, ahhh, shit, I'm confused again.
Click the link below to get the show from 1973
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13 comments:
Thanks for this and all the others too! I have enjoyed listening to these very much.
Keep up the great work!!
CR
Hi!
Great site.. brings back lots of memories. Some of the links are not working. Rodney-Peter Noone for example. File does not download. Thanks!
Hi Anonymous,
Just tried the file and it downloaded. Do a copy/paste of the green link in to a new window. Let me know if you have further problems.
riff
Hi riff,
I tried again...workin' this time! Thanks again.
Anonymous.
gidde up kiddo and grab em all!
Have fun & enjoy
What version of "Frankenstein" is that he was playing? It's neither the LP version or the 45 edit.
I dunno MykeC. I passed on your question to Timmy. Maybe he has an answer. I'm thinking if you picked up on that you have quite an ear and I hope we get an answer.
Too cool, thanks for posting a comment.
Thanks! I hope Timmy has the answer. I received an AM/FM alarm clock radio and a tape recorder from my parents for Christmas 1973. I was only 7 years old at the time but because of what they did, I began recording the radio for my own personal fun - open-mic-to-speaker. :) Unfortunately, none of my radio tapes prior to 8/8/1979 survived - except within my memory. I remember recording the 45 edit of "Frankenstein" when that song was new. I didn't even know what it was called. It wasn't until 1980 that I learned the name thanks to a conversation I had with a customer on my paper route that year. I bought the LP immediately and found the album version to be longer and different than I remembered it from my radio tape. Today I have both versions on CD. That's how I know the difference between the two. Amazingly, though, the version Lee Simms plays on this 1973 KROQ tape is a version I've never heard before.
In case anyone's interested, here's an index for this particular recording which is easily the oldest, full-length recording of KROQ I've heard yet:
Santana, "No One To Depend On"
Marvin Gaye, "Come Get To This"
Poco, "Crazy Eyes"
Steely Dan, "Bodhisattva"
Neil Young, "Are You Ready For The Country"
Marvin Gaye, "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)"
Stevie Wonder, "Living For The City"
The Edgar Winter Group, "Frankenstein"
Dave Mason, "Baby Please"
Well, MykeC, the version of Frankenstein that Lee Baby played here, clocks in at about 4 minutes, 40 seconds. So, if that is indeed shorter than your LP version and yet LONGER than your 45 version, all I can imagine is 2 possibilities. First being the most practical ~ that is there is a "disck jockey" edition 45 of hit songs that were mailed to radio statons for airplay. OR, knowing what I've heard of Lee Baby, he could have cut his own edit of the song on tape, then played that. Your guess is as good as mine, Bro... Peace
Thanks, Timmy. The LP version is 4:47 and the 45 edit is a 3:28 hatchet job of that (as they appear on "They Only Come Out At Night" and Rhino's "Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits 1973" CDs).
The version Lee Simms played on KROQ is similar to the album version but with the overall essence of a demo or an unreleased outtake / trial edit. The mix is different throughout - often sounding dry due to absence of reverb. The most significant difference occurs with what I call "the descent" which in Lee Simms' version begins much earlier in the song and literally overlaps the music where it shouldn't (IMO) and doesn't in either the LP or 45 versions.
It's a very jarring difference to my ears and certainly a bizarre and unexpected curiosity. There is no mention of such an alternate version in the song's page at Wikipedia.
I made a mistake in my index.
"Inner City Blues" is a cover version by Brian Auger's Oblivion Express. It's not the Marvin Gaye original.
Here's a URL for it, just in case anyone's still interested. :)
http://brianauger.com/discography/discography.html
Trying to help pinpoint a more accurate recording date for this tape, I queried each song for its release date as given at wikipedia.org. From this information we can say with reasonable certainty that this tape was recorded during the final 4 months of 1973.
Poco, "Crazy Eyes" (album) September 15, 1973.
Marvin Gaye, "Let's Get It On" (album) August 28, 1973.
Marvin Gaye, "Come Get To This" (single) October 11, 1973.
Stevie Wonder, "Innervisions" (album) August 3, 1973.
Stevie Wonder, "Living For The City" (single) released November 1973.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eyes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Get_to_This
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Get_It_On
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innervisions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_for_the_City
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