Ram by Paul & Linda McCartney

Ram by Paul & Linda McCartney

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Ram by Paul & Linda McCartneyAlthough Paul McCartney had, by any success metric, the best post-Beatles career of any of his former band mates, he often frustrated fans and critics alike with his constant fluctuation between the artful, avant garde and the well-polished pop hits in his collection. McCartney’s sophomore effort, Ram, although probably more of the former than the latter, strikes the proper balance between these two extremes more than any other album in the McCartney collection.

The album is much more well respected today than it was upon it’s release in the spring of 1971, just a year after the official breakup of the Beatles and the simultaneous release of his debut solo album McCartney. There are three reasons why this was probably the case. The first was the confusion brought on by the different names used – from “Paul McCartney” to “Paul & Linda McCartney” (this one) to “Paul McCartney & Wings” to simply “Wings”. Next, there was a barrage of material coming from McCartney under these various names. Between 1971 and 1973, he released four albums, multiple non-album singles and a movie soundtrack. Finally, there was a variety of song writing and production quality among this material and evident within the album itself.

McCartney was recorded at home on his Scottish farm, and (almost) all by Paul alone. Ram has a similar feel in spots, but definitely has a sharper studio feel throughout, especially on the hit medley “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”.

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Ram by Paul & Linda McCartney
Released: May 17, 1971 (Apple)
Produced by: Paul & Linda McCartney
Recorded: Columbia Recording Studios and A & R Studios, New York,
November, 1970-March, 1971
Side One Side Two
Too Many People
3 Legs
Ram On
Dear Boy
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
Smile Away
Heart of the Country
Monkberry Moon Delight
Eat at Home
Long Haired Lady
Ram On (Reprise)
The Back Seat of My Car
Primary Musicians
Paul McCartney – Bass, Piano, Vocals
Linda McCartney – Keyboards, Vocals
David Spinozza – Guitars
Hugh McCracken – Guitars
Denny Seiwell – Drums

This odd medley, combining two unrelated subjects, moods, and tempos, is the first song that really sounds “done” on the album. The raw, quasi-unfinished production works well for through album’s first three songs, but wears a little thin by the time we get to “Dear Boy”. “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”, returns to the rich production that was so prominent on The Beatles’ later albums, such as Abbey Road, and features a flugelhorn solo by trumpeter Marvin Stamn. Also, this is one of the few song’s on the album where Linda’s vocals are not sonically “treated” and appear to be on par with Paul’s.

Linda McCartney has received much criticism for her vocal abilities over the years, but her contributions to Ram range from adequate to good in most cases, especially on “Long Hair Lady”, where she actually has some “speaking parts” with lead vocals (most of her contributions are background, harmonies, or “call backs”). However, on most songs her voice is highly treated with effects that make it obvious that she is not on the same plane as her talented husband.

The album’s title song, “Ram On”, is a ukulele-driven ballad with somber vocals and over-dubbed effects on piano, percussion, vocals, and various string instruments. The song gives a moody “meaning” to the song and the album. The beginning has an odd piano exercise, sound room instructions, and a false start, no doubt left here for avant garde reasons – but flounders at end with quick fade-out just when it starts to get enjoyable.

The first side finishes with “Smile Away”, which may be a nostalgic nod to the simple, early Beatles rockers, but would have worked better as a strictly live song. It is understandable why it would not be well received in 1971, when so many thresholds in rock were being crossed and elevated.

Paul and Linda McCartneySide two of the album finds some of the more interesting songs. “Heart of the Country” is a down-home, country-esque song, much like “Rocky Raccoon” of the past and “Sally G” a few years in the future. “Monkberry Moon Delight” and “Long Hair Lady” are both fantastic in their uniqueness – one a screaming screed above a driving piano riff that transitions to differing, interesting parts, the other is a mini-suite that seamlessly alternates between moody psychedelia to a blue-grass melody.

The album concludes with “Back Seat of My Car”, a good, classically-McCartney ballad. It is theatrical and romantic, almost melancholy, and is also an anthem of solidarity for Paul and Linda, dedicated to their own world and their own desires no matter what critique rains upon them, with the defiantly-repeated lyric; “…we believe that we can’t be wrong…”.

Perhaps the album’s strongest number is the one that starts it off, “Too Many People”. With a nice diminishing acoustic riff, accented by an excellent overtone of electric riff by guitarist Hugh McCracken and Paul’s Rickenbacker bass. It is expertly honed and yet has a raw edge to it, plus there is much folklore surrounding this song.

John Lennon took offense to some of the lyrics in this song, which led to his retort in a song on his album Imagine later in 1971 (check out our review of that album). McCartney did admit that he had Lennon in mind when he wrote the line; “…too many people, preaching practices…”, but some have speculated that it was actually a deeper dig with the closing line; “…she’s waiting for me… actually focused on Yoko and her alleged fascination with Paul before she got involved with John.

Whatever the ultimate truth, it appeared that at times both Lennon and McCartney were speaking to an audience of one – each other. When John wrote a song personifying his childhood vision of Liverpool in “Strawberry Fields Forever”, Paul immediately responded with his own in “Penny Lane”. McCartney came up with the jug band concept in “Sgt. Pepper’s” and Lennon comes up with the carnival concept in “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite”. And after John Lennon collaborated with his non-musician wife on several projects, Paul McCartney enlisted his own non-musician wife starting with this album, Ram.

It’s a shame that this creative rivalry could not survive beyond 1980.

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1971 Images

Part of Classic Rock Review’s celebration of 1971 albums.

LA Woman by The Doors

L.A. Woman by The Doors

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LA Woman by The DoorsL.A. Woman, is the final Doors album with lead singer and poet, Jim Morrison. This album encompasses a mixture of blues, funk, and rock while maintaining a sound that is still distinctly The Doors. The album strikes the rare balance of going back to basics while still exploring uncharted territory in the initial, pioneering journey of rock n roll. The music itself also possesses this simultaneous duality as it is much stripped down from the exuberant production of earlier albums, such as Waiting for the Sun and The Soft Parade, but is also enhanced by a new “voice” that Morrison discovered and the emergence of the bass guitar as a front and center instrument in the band’s sound.

Starting in 1967, The Doors had five previous studio albums to figure out what is necessary and what is superfluous. This is evident in every detail of L.A. Woman, right down to the album cover artwork. Gone is the image of a half naked Jim Morrison out in front of his “backing band”. On the cover of this album, an off-center, bearded Morrison is slouched down to appear smaller below the rest of the band. The cover contained a very generic look with the band name and title in uniform block lettering, omitting the use of even the band’s trademark stenciled logo. Interesting is the omission of the “The” in the band’s name, as the album is credited to simply to “Doors”, which perhaps implies that there are now several , generic “doors of perception” to be cleansed, not just these four particular ones. Whether or not this was the actual intent, there is no doubt that the band wanted to strip away any pretense of something mystical or magical and just put out an album of blues-influenced, rock music, and that they did.

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L.A. Woman by The Doors
Released: April 19, 1971 (Electra)
Produced by: Bruce Botnick and The Doors
Recorded: The Doors Workshop, Los Angeles, December 1970-January 1971
Side One Side Two
  The Changeling
  Love Her Madly
  Been Down So Long
  Cars Hiss by My Window
  L.A. Woman
 L’America
 Hyacinth House
 Crawling King Snake
 The WASP (Texas Radio & Big Beat)
 Riders on the Storm
Musicians
Jim Morrison – Vocals & Voice Effects
Robbie Krieger – Lead Guitars
Ray Manzarek – Piano & Keyboards
John Densmore – Drums
Jerry Scheff – Bass
Marc Benno – Rhythm Guitars

A variety of themes permeate the album. The first track, “The Changeling” grabs your attention right away, with its addictive, funky hook accented by Morrison’s primal grunts. It is like Jim Morrison addressing the listeners about his pending move to Paris and attempt at a new life as a poet, like many of the 20th century’s great writers had done before. With his boisterous blues outburst of “see me change”, those who had watched Morrison’s career knew what he was talking about. Here was a man who had made a career out of being a chameleon – starting as a military brat progressing into a highway drifter and film student before creating the ideal “rock star” archetype that is still mimicked today, only to destroy that image by growing a beard, gaining weight, and sabotaging the band’s live bankability with bizarre on stage antics. Jim Morrison was a changeling and with the first track on L.A. Woman he was telling everyone that he was not done. This “change” theme is revisited later in the album, especially in the songs “Hyacinth House”, “The W.A.S.P. (Texas Radio & the Big Beat)”, and “Riders On the Storm”.

The Doors Riders on the Storm single“Riders”, the album’s closer, is a unique song in the history of rock n roll. With several influences including, the traditional cowboy song “Ghost Riders in the Sky” and Morrison’s own defunct film, HWY: An American Pastoral as well as his poems. Often considered a Morrison masterpiece, because of its haunting theme and whispered background vocals, the song is really a showcase for the other three band members – guitarist Robbie Krieger, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, and drummer John Densmore – who use the song as a preview of the group’s new direction.

The band already knew coming in that this album would be an endpoint on a couple of fronts. It was the last one necessary to fulfill their contract with Electra Records, and the band had already quietly agreed to a break from Morrison, as he planned to move to Paris following its completion, and continue as a trio with Krieger, Manzarek, and Densmore. In fact, a common misconception is that the late-1971 album Other Voices was made in reaction to Morrison’s death, when it was actually started prior to his passing, with some songs actually worked on during the L.A. Woman sessions.

Beyond the four members of The Doors, there were two addition musicians involved with the making of L.A. Woman, bassist Jerry Scheff who played on every track and blues guitarist Mark Benno, who played rhythm guitar on four of the album’s tracks. Scheff, who was Elvis Presley‘s regular bass player at the time, was as much a part of the music on L.A. Woman as any of the “regular” Doors (a defacto “fifth Door”), being right out front in the mix and providing the memorable riffs for some of the most memorable songs.

Benno added his talents to the album’s title song along with “Been Down So Long”, “Cars Hiss By My Window”, and the cover of the John Lee Hooker song “Crawling King Snake”. These tracks also happened to be the same ones where Morrison best used his new found “blues” voice, a vocal style unlike any he had presented before, but did with exceptional talent and ease, especially on “Cars Hiss by My Window” – a song in which Morrison’s vocals shine on two levels, the straight-up singer voice, and the wild-mimicked bluesy-harmonica sounding “voice” solo that ends the song. Although Benno had never even heard of The Doors before being booked for these sessions, he and Morrison became fast friends, going to lunch and drinking together between recordings.

Aside from the well-received title song, these extra-bluesy songs that Benno worked on have been commonly knocked by die-hard Doors fans as the “filler” on L.A. Woman, but, although they may not quite match the rest of the album, they certainly do not detract from the album as a whole. Lyrically these songs may not quite be the high points of the album, but the only real filler is the odd-marching, quasi-psychedelic “L’America”, which sounds like an incomplete experiment that should have been left for the box sets decades later.

The Doors Love Her Madly singleThematically, L.A. Woman is not an acid trip, an orchestral, or a poem, but is quite simply the completion of the band’s take on blues rock that started with their previous album, Morrison Hotel in 1970, but it is not a pure blues album. In fact, one of the band’s finest pop songs is present in “Love Her Madly”, which sounds like it could of fit well on Strange Days in 1967. It is perhaps the best audio evidence that this is, in fact, The Doors we are in listening to.

The band was not looking to explore new musical themes or expand consciousness – they just wanted to record an album and the result was a magical capture of lightning in a bottle. Certain unforeseen situations led to this confluence. Longtime producer Paul Rothschild had disagreements with the band on their approach and walked away from the project early on, leaving the production to engineer Bruce Botnik and the band members themselves.

The album was recorded at the band’s rehearsal space on Santa Monica Blvd, in a building that was once an antique store. Botnik converted a bathroom into the vocal booth for Morrison and used just an 8-track recorder, which is incredible considering the depth of the resulting sound. This location was chosen after the Doors decided to forego professional studio costs and considered a number of locations including Robbie Krieger’s beach house, which was decorated with several hyacinth plants.

“Hyacinth House” is an oft-overlooked gem on L.A. Woman with Krieger’s folksy guitars, Morrison’s calm yet desperate pleads of paranoia and need for change and, most especially, Ray Manzarek’s virtuoso work on the organ where he subtly mimic’s a piece by Chopin. Another interesting piece on the “second side” of the album is “The W.A.S.P. (Texas Radio & the Big Beat)”, a spoken-word poem that at once pays homage to Mexican pirate radio of the sixties while taking the listener on an undecipherable poetic journey, all above a funky-riff that could have been used for a Sesame Street learning experiment. It is hard to think that anyone but Morrison himself truly “got” this song, but it does add a nice bit of balance to much of the rest of the album.

The Doors in 1970

Speaking of “sides” of the album (for those of us old enough to remember such things), one of the flaws of L.A. Woman is the fact that it reversed what should have been the extended closing number of each side – the 7-plus minute songs “Riders on the Storm” and “L.A. Woman”. The title song, with its movement and rhythm, and nearly constant build to a crescendo, is the undeniable climax of the album and would have worked best as the last song on the album instead of “Riders On the Storm”, which kind of drip-drops its way out. As a matter of fact, both these songs were included in the high-selling Greatest Hits compilation in 1980, with “Riders” finishing side one and “L.A. Woman” wrapping up side two. Was this the quiet recognition of an original faux pas in song sequence by the band?

But no matter where it sits in the song sequence, the song “L.A. Woman” is a masterpiece, just like the album of the same name is. Every track is musically crafted to near perfection without being over-produced nor overdone. This is probably due to the fact that The Doors were just looking to make music with this album and not accomplish any loftier goals. They simply wanted to jam and move on to the next phases of their lives and careers. Tragically, there would not be much of that life left in Jim Morrison, who died at the age of 27 on July 3, 1971, just three months after the album was released.

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Contributers:
J.D. Cook
Ric Albano

1971 Images

Part of Classic Rock Review’s celebration of 1971 albums.