Alice Cooper with Halestorm in Houston

The year 2019 began with discovering a unknown-to-me Alice Cooper record, so it was altogether fitting that the original shock rocker himself toured during the summer of 2019. Back in January, my son played Welcome 2 My Nightmare, the 2011 follow-up to Alice's 1975 Welcome to My Nightmare. Love this record, especially the opening track, "I Was Made of You," a powerful slow burn rock song that would be great as an opener. The album surprised me as I had barely heard any Alice Cooper music for nearly my entire life.

My son, who has continually expanded his collection of Alice Cooper album, and I caught the show in Houston last night, and it was incredible. It was no surprise Cooper put on a great show, but what really surprised me last night was the opening act.

The Discovery of Halestorm

Last night, I went from "Who the heck is Halestorm?" to "Holy cow, you've got to listen to Halestorm!"

Sure, I could have looked up their music ahead of time, but I wanted their show to be new on the spot. So glad I did. This four-piece band is led by a charasmatic lead singer/rhythm guitarist named Lzzy Hale. It's not everyday you see a female-fronted rock band that is this damn good. She, however, is incredible. Her singing voice is a unique mixture of gravel and clear, depending on what she wants to do with it. Her guitar playing keeps the band's music humming, but she can cut a solo pretty darn good. More importantly, she was having an absolute blast. Sure, she's snarl on some songs, but more often than not, when she'd leave the mic, she was grinning, like "Can you believe this is my job?"

The opening tunes were good, but by the end, I was sold. Heck, that last song, with its extended guitar solos, all but morphed into the chord pattern and rhythm of Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4." My ears may have been hearing what I wanted to hear, but I could have sworn part of the lead guitarists notes were homages to Terry Kath.

Check out Halestorm live if you can. You'll be standing and cheering by the end of their set.

The Shock Rocker Himself

Alice Cooper is touring behind his Ol' Black Eyes is Back show which features what seems like not only a greatest hits show, but a greatest hits of stagecraft. His stage setup resembled some Gothic castle with an upper part and the main stage below. The drum kit was off to the left side which enabled the giant central door to to center stage.

Much like David Bowie's arrival on this very same stage in 2004, Alice knows his silhouette is unique. So after the extended introduction, the curtain fell, the band turned it up, and there he was, on the top, waltzing down with a top hat and cane.

Cher's got nothing on Alice. With almost every song, Alice would alter part of his wardrobe. A few songs later, Alice brought out maracas with lights on them. Maracas in a rock band? Yup. He brought out a bloody crutch for Eighteen, a sword (foil) for Billion Dollar Babies, and a riding crop for Poison.

Aside from his wardrobe changes, every now and then, he'd have various stage hands, all dressed in costume, come out and be part of the show. Sometimes they'd appear as knights, other times, as mental asylum attendants complete with baby-faced masks. The entire show, Alice never broke character. He knew where the cameras were and played to them, snarling with aplomb and giving the audience all it wanted.

The Guitarists

In any given rock back, you have a lead guitar. The Alice Cooper band has three, each of whom could front their own band. Here, they're just part of his band, but each gets to shine.

In an evening of discovery, one of the three was Nita Strauss. Given everyone's long hair, it took me a song before I figured out she was a she. Cool, I thought, Alice has a lady guitarist. She was no mere guitarist. She is a phenom. She shredded as good as I've ever seen. She was incredible, as was the other two guys in the band.

I may have waited nearly fifty years to catch my first Alice Cooper concert, but it was well worth it. Absolutely loved the show last night and the discovery of Halestorm. If you have a chance to catch this show, buy a ticket.

Chicago Transit Authority at 50

As a child of the 70s and a youth of the 80s, I had to come around to Chicago's origins. 1985 was the year I discovered Chicago. Chicago 17 was the then-current album, and it took me a moment to figure out why they titled it "17." For a time, I preferred the 80s sounds, but then I heard Chicago's first album. Now, fifty years later, it's my favorite of all their albums. Here's why.

A Spectacular Debut

First albums can be tricky and they usually come in one of two forms: fully-formed or the first step to something else. Take Bruce Springsteen, one of my favorite rockers. While his first two records (Greetings from Asbury Park and The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle) are good records for what they are, you could argue that it was only with his third record, Born to Run, that Bruce arrived. That is, he got on record what all the fuss about his live shows was all about. The same holds true for David Bowie, Genesis, Peter Gabriel (solo), and other rock acts throughout the years.

In the former category, certain acts spring from the speakers fully formed. The Beatles come to mind. Hendrix of course. The Doors, the Police, and KISS. The first records by these bands grab you by the collar and force you to reckon with them. This is what we are. We hope enjoy it. But if you don’t, get out of the way because someone else behind you does.

This attitude brims over during the 12-song sequence that is Chicago Transit Authority (1969). Regardless of all the changes that have occurred in the past fifty plus years, the eponymous Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) was, and still is, a force to be reckoned with. Some long-time listeners hear CTA now and lament the loss of one of the tightest bands in rock history. The seven members of Chicago, all in their early twenties, excelled at their instruments but, combined, created something greater than the sum of its parts. They created something magical. And it’s all there for the listening.

Seven Geniuses

When one thinks of Chicago, the one differentiator is the horn section. When the seven guys met, they had one mission: create a rock band with horns. Sure, other bands had horn sections but they were usually relegated to playing riffs in the background. Not so the trio of Walter Parazaider (saxes), Lee Loughnane (trumpet), and James Pankow (trombone). Together, they made up the fourth “voice” of Chicago, alongside Terry Kath’s soulful cry, Robert Lamm’s smooth-as-silk voice, and Peter Cetera’s clear-as-day tenor. Together on CTA, these four voices take you on a whirlwind tour of what is possible in music. And it all starts with an introduction.

"Introduction" Has It All

“Introduction” is my favorite Chicago song. Period. End of story. And it’s the first track on side one of CTA. It’s a biography song, sung by Terry Kath, that lets the listener know who Chicago is and what they are all about. This one song almost has it all (the only things missing are Lamm’s and Cetera’s vocals). After two verses, you get this great syncopated rhythmic bridge by the horns over Danny Seraphine’s wildly improvisational drumming. After a short break, the song segues into a nice ballad with the lead “vocal” handled by Pankow and his trombone. Loughnane’s trumpet picks up where Pankow ends, melodiously taking the listener through an imagined summer landscape. And, lest you think Cetera is only a good singer of ballads, just listen to his moving and melodic bass lines throughout this slow section. All of this is merely prelude to Chicago’s ace in the hole: Terry Kath’s frenetic guitar work. This is where words like "blistering" and "scorching" come to mind as Kath gives the listener merely a taste of what’s to come on the rest of the record (and the next ten years of live shows). The rest of the song returns to a last chorus and then, the coup de grace: all seven instruments (including keyboards) join in on a final chord. The essence of Chicago is really all there, in one song. The cool thing is Chicago gave you 11 more ‘bonus’ tracks.

Robert Lamm Songwriting Prowess

Lamm’s piano skills are featured in the intro to “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”, a concert staple since the 60s and one of the most fun songs Chicago has ever recorded. Is there a more recognizable trumpet riff in rock music?

“Beginnings” is next, with Lamm’s silky vocals hovering over Kath’s 12-string guitar strumming. Beautiful as a California beach. I remember July 4, 1988, when Chicago headlined the day-long concert. Something like 300,000 people, all jammed in a park, sang this song with the band. So good. And then there's the dueling trumpet/trombone battle. Never, ever, gets old.

“Questions 67 and 68” establishes Cetera’s tenor as a counter to Lamm and Kath and demonstrates, again, how the horns form the fourth voice. The horn break in this tune is easily in my Top 5 of them all. If you listen to just that section, you'll hear a mini-song, complete with a beginning, middle, and end. You can also hear a missed saxophone note that they kept in, proof that these songs were mostly one-takes. Adds to the charm.

The Guitar of Terry Kath

The twofer of “Poem 58” and “Free Form Guitar” are a one-two punch in the gut at the brilliance of Terry Kath’s guitar playing.

As much as I love CTA now, I'll admit it took me a minute to come around to this song. But on a road trip back home to Houston in the late 90s, I listened to this song with new ears and it clicked. Now I understood. Now I got it. And this tune is among my favorite Kath songs. “Poem 58” is a ten-minute guitar jam surrounding a Lamm-sung love song. The background vocals of “I Do Love You” stayed in their subconscious, reemerging on the next record in “In the Country.”

“Free Form Guitar.” What can you say about that? It’s six minutes of Kath, a guitar, an amp, and noise. It’s a shot over the bow at the rock world saying that Hendrix and Jimmy Page, as brilliant as they were, were not the only guitar gods out there.

“South California Purples” is a straight-ahead blues jam, here featuring Lamm’s improvisation skills on the electric organ. After you have listened to the album version for awhile, check out the 15-minute versions on the fourth album, Chicago at Carnegie Hall. Back in 2003 when they remastered the Carnegie album, Chicago added a fourth disc of bonus material. There’s a second version of “South California Purples,” also clocking in close to fifteen minutes. It’s a treatise on guitar soloing and band cohesiveness. Chicago’s Latin-tinged cover of Traffic’s “I’m a Man”—complete with a 64-measure drum solo; yes, I counted one time back in the day—shows off their ability to take someone else’s song and make it their own.

Politics Right Out of the Gate

“Someday,” the second-to-last track, shows off a side of Chicago prominent in the early days but has gone by the wayside in the years since: political commentary. Yes, the band that sings about inspiration, hard habits to break, and big surprises used to talk about bringing down the system. Don’t think so? How about this quote from the liner notes of Chicago II: “With this album, we dedicate ourselves, our futures and our energies to the people of the revolution. And the revolution in all of it's forms.”

“Someday” starts with a recording of the chants outside the Democratic convention in Chicago 1968. The chants—“The whole world is watching”—has its own rhythm which seamlessly blends into the opening drum beats of the song. The chanting reemerges later in the song, giving the listener the impression that Chicago the band agrees with the spirit of the protesters outside the convention hall getting beaten by the police. Some modern listeners will be sad that spirit died in Chicago. But look around. That spirit, the spirit of openness, of change, of the belief that the young really can change the world, died everywhere, not just in a band that now frequents the adult contemporary charts rather than the college music charts. The world changed, but Chicago persevered. (The chanting reemerges in the song "All the Years," on their long-lost, now-released 1993 album, Stone of Sisyphus. Here in this song, Lamm mourns the loss of that late-60s spirit and the opportunities lost.)

The last track is the coup de grace of CTA. “Liberation” is a 14-minute guitar jam. And I don’t use that word “jam” lightly. If Kath’s guitar work throughout the album teased at his prowess, if “Poem 58” and “Free Form Guitar” was a one-two punch, “Liberation” is the knock-out blow. Just listen. You'll hear Kath going everywhere, trying different things, and Serephine’s drumming, Lamm’s keyboard riffs, and Cetera’s fantastic bass playing going along for the ride. The horns are mostly absent from this tour de force. But that’s okay. This is Kath’s time to shine and boy, does he shine brightly. As the song ends and you exhale, only then realizing you were holding your breath, read the liner notes about this song and you’ll find a whole new meaning of awe: This track was recorded entirely live. This performance embodied in this recording is complete and uncut.

One note on the recording itself. I don’t know recording technology at all but the sound quality is such that you get the impression all seven guys were in the same room at the same time recording these songs. It’s a quality that isn’t there starting with Chicago II and onward and it certainly isn’t there in modern music. You get the organic listening experience with CTA. It’s one to cherish.

If you have one Chicago CD in your collection, don’t let it be a greatest hits compilation. You can hear all of those songs on the radio. Buy Chicago Transit Authority. Buy it for the great songs, the great vocals, the soaring horn charts, the frenetic guitar work. Buy it for the spirit of the times that wrapped up seven guys and made something special.

In an age where we all make lists (favorite movies, TV shows, books) and those lists often change and vary, Chicago Transit Authority has been my favorite Chicago album for years now. Once I was old enough to understand what they were trying to put down on tape—magic and time in a bottle—I realized how special CTA really was. And is. You just can’t escape the feel of this record. I was alive, barely, when this album was released but the spirit of the times lives on through this recording.

I have attempted to write my impressions of CTA but, honestly, the liner notes of their producer, James William Guercio, do a much better job of it. I’ll end with his quote:

The purpose of this commentary, however, is an attempt at documenting the complete rejection of any name label, title or verbal reference relative to the performance contained herein. Corporately as well as individually, this artist endeavors to be judged in terms of contribution alone rather than through the tag affixed upon it. The printed word can never aspire to document a truly musical experience, so if you must call them something, speak of the city where all save one were born; where all of them were schooled and bred, and where all of this incredible music went down barely noticed; call them CHICAGO.

Footnote: Once you’ve listened to CTA a few times, head on over to YouTube and listen to a 17 August 1969 recording of Chicago at the Fillmore West. It’s a gorgeous soundboard recording of the tunes from CTA as well as “new” songs they’re still working on for their next album, including “25 or 6 to 4,” still the epitome of a rock band with horns. "Poem 58" is the opening song! In fact, they are so new, they still call themselves Chicago Transit Authority, something they would abandon the following year. What you discover with the new songs is the band still working out the kinks and arrangements. For example, “Poem for the People” at the Fillmore is sung by Cetera. The official album version a year later has Lamm singing his own song. A magic time truly.

Tune in Tomorrow...

For a music list fifty years in the making.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 11

This was almost Week 3 redux.

QUIET TIMES

Back in Week 3, I mentioned that there would be down weeks. It happens in just about every profession you can imagine, and it certainly happens in the writing life.

It was Spring Break here in Houston. Fewer people were actually in the office at my day job and the traffic was wonderfully light. Except for Monday when I took the day off, I woke at my usual 4:45 am (getting used to daylight saving time means no 4:30 for this week), exercised, and then wrote. It made for a quieter-than-normal week.

And it was nice.

ANTIQUING FOR RECORDS

On the day off, the family and I traveled north of Houston to Spring and the giant antique store up there. A few years ago when we last went, a book dealer with shelves was there. Well, it's not there anymore, but that was okay. There were about five dealers with hundreds of records.

And we looked through most of them.

I came away with only one LP: Chicago XI, Terry Kath's last. The wife purchased two, while our boy took home four. Yup, the teenager bought more records than his parents combined. Go figure.

It's a funny thing when you have a teenager and he wants a turntable. Now our game room/his fun room has a turntable to go with the stereo system. We can all jam to records while playing video games.

DON'T BE AFRAID OF WHERE YOUR STORY GOES

The new Ben Wade story is inching its way up to novella territory. Novelette for sure. It's up to Chapter 10 and I've got the big finale to finish with the obvious denouement afterwards. What struck me during the process of this story is that it's definitely not like the three Wade novels I've already finished. I mentioned in week 7 this novella is written in third person, not the usual first person POV. That's just a prose choice. What I'm finding interesting is the style. It's a shade darker than the three novels. Things happen that actually move Wade along in his character development.

It also means I'll have to publish Novel #3 first before this story goes out into the world.

Which means I'll need another short story ready for 1 April.

CASTLE IS NOW TEN YEARS OLD

The big news this week was one I actually missed last Saturday.

"Castle," one of my all-time favorite TV shows, turned ten on 9 March. I wrote a lengthy post about it, and received some of my best feedback. I got lots of comments from folks over on my main author blog. It was really nice to revisit all that I love about this show.

BOOK OF THE WEEK

Speaking of Castle, out of the blue, a new Richard Castle novel, CRASHING HEAT, was published on Tuesday. I had pre-ordered the audio and started listening on day one. Within seconds, I was back in the groove with Niiki Heat, Jameson Rook, the prose of "Richard Castle," and the narration of Robert Petkoff. He's got a great knack of getting the nuances of Fillion's voice without actually mimicking him.

The Castle novel put APOLLO 8 on the back burner for a couple of days, but I got back to it yesterday. What I enjoy about simultaneously listening/reading both non-fiction and fiction is being able to go back and forth depending on my mood.

In the chapter I listened to yesterday, the mission of Gemini 7 was described. Can you imagine spending two weeks in space inside a capsule little bigger than a Volkswagon? Yeah, I can't either.

MOVIES OF THE WEEK

I saw both Captain Marvel and Bohemian Rhapsody this week. I reviewed them both.


How was your week?

Remembering Terry Kath, The Soul of Chicago

Forty years ago today, founding member of Chicago, guitarist, Terry Kath, died, and, arguably, the band was never the same.

I wasn’t aware of whom Kath was four decades ago—heck, I’d never heard of the band back then—but I know him now. I was one of those 80s kids who discovered Chicago with ‘17’ and wondered why in the world the band would name their album with that number. “Oh, you mean there are sixteen other albums? Cool!” Little by little, album by album, I collected their complete discography and learned that the band’s sound in 1985 was markedly different than the sound in their first (introductory) years of the  late 60s and early 70s. Two things stood out: the horns, specifically the intricacy of the arrangements, and the guitar player. In those pre-internet days, I can’t remember how I learned about Kath’s tenure and his untimely death, but I did. In the late 80s, we had Bill Champlin filling in the soulful vocals and DaWayne Bailey doing 80s guitar fireworks with the best of them. But over time, when all the songs and the history permeated my mind and memory, one thing became clear: Terry Kath was irreplaceable.

The older I’ve become, the more I gravitate to the Columbia-era material, namely the first eleven albums. Chicago had a sound with Kath leading the band that hasn’t been replicated in the four decades of his absence. If you watch any of those early shows—specifically Tanglewood 1970 in total and "25 or 6 to 4" specifically—you will see a band hungry, on fire, being led by one of the best rock guitarists ever. That was Chicago: raw talent honed to scratchy perfection over the band’s first decade of existence.

I completely admire and respect the band’s difficult navigation through five decades of music. Few bands reach that longevity. They deserve our applause. If they had packed it in after Kath’s death, it would have taken me a lot longer to discover them, but discover them I would have. I’m a sax player and I gravitate to horn rock bands.

They are one of my two favorite bands of all time. I will always love them and their music. I love Robert Lamm’s smooth vocals and politically charged lyrics, giving the early band its brain and conscious. I love Peter Cetera’s McCartney-esque bass playing and his high tenor voice, giving the band a Beatles-eque vibe. I love Danny Serephine’s spectacularly complex drumming, giving the band its beating heart. I love the combined sound of the triple horn section—Jimmy Pankow’s trombone (and terrific songwriting); Lee Loughnane’s trumpet; and Walt Parazaider’s saxophones—for being the fourth ‘voice’ in the band and proving you can be cool to be a horn player.

And I love Terry Kath’s contributions. He wrote the band’s mission statement song (and my favorite Chicago song) “Introduction.” His soulful voice blended well into the cachophony of sound coming out of our speakers. His reckless and relentless spirit drove the band to experiment and push the envelope of what a ‘rock band with horns’ could be. And his guitar playing is almost second to none (I’ll objectively give Hendrix the edge), giving the band a hard edge they needed to stand out in a crowded musical field.

Most of all, however, I love that Terry Kath was the soul of Chicago.  A soul that was shattered forty years ago today. The surviving members have done their best to collect the pieces and forge them back together—mostly to smashing success—but there will always be a part missing that cannot be replaced.

But we have the music, and we’ll have it forever. Kath said it best himself in “Introduction,” the opening song from the first album.

Now we put you through the changes
And turned around the mood
We hope it’s struck you different
And hope you feel moved
So forget about your troubles
As we search for something new
And we play for you

Boy, did they!



If you haven't seen it yet, you absolutely must view The Terry Kath Experience, a documentary made by his daughter, Michelle Sinclair.

Here is my personal list of favorite Terry Kath songs, including vocals, guitar work, and songwriting. What are yours?

Introduction
Poem 58
Liberation
The Road (as writer)
In the Country
Colour My World
25 or 6 to 4
It Better End Soon (all three, especially on Live at Carnegie Hall)
Sing a Mean Tune Kid
Now That You’ve Gone
Dialogue
Alma Mater
A Song for Richard and His Friends
What’s This World Comin’ To?
Aire
Italian from New York
Byblos
Woman Don’t Want to Love Me (guitar!)
Oh, Thank You Great Spirit
Once or Twice
Mississippi Delta City Blues
Takin’ it on Uptown
This Time (guitar!)
Little One (his last, poignant vocals)

Writing Within the Guardrails

Do you like driving inside the guardrails?
Earlier this week, I watched The Terry Kath Experience. It’s a documentary about one of the founders of the band Chicago. Kath was the only guitar player and he sang lead. I’ve long zeroed in on Kath as my favorite member of the original group of seven guys who made up the band with Robert Lamm a close second. This despite me, a kid who ‘discovered’ Chicago in 1985 and wondered why their ‘newest’ album was named ‘17.’ Anyway, when I learned Kath’s daughter, Michelle Kath Sinclair, was making this documentary to learn more about her father, I couldn’t wait to watch it. I thought I was going to have to purchase the DVD, but the channel AXS aired it. Lo and behold I actually get that channel and viola! I got to watch this wonderful film.

When you trace Terry Kath’s life, you see a truly remarkable musical genius. If you listen to any studio album, you can hear Kath’s intricate soloing. His talent for lead guitar playing was even more on display on any of the live albums featuring the original seven. With the advent of YouTube, I have been able to see live footage from the 1970s and the manic energy Kath brought to the fore as the only guitar player in the band. One of the all-time best shows available is the 1970 concert from Tanglewood. They open with my all-time favorite song, “Introduction,” and the group rarely slows down.

Speaking of “Introduction,” one of the reasons I love it so much is that it is track 1 of side 1 of Chicago’s first album. It’s the ‘mission statement song,’ the one song that encapsulated what Chicago was back then. In the documentary, there’s a segment that I hadn’t heard before. You see, Kath couldn’t read music, at least back then. He enlisted trombonist James Pankow—the third member who helped shape the sound of the band in the beginning(s)—to write down the chart for everyone. When Pankow complied, he was astounded that a song as intricate and complex as “Introduction” was all there…in Kath’s mind.

Many folks might chalk Chicago up to a band who excelled in mid-tempo hits in the 70s and ballads in the 80s. That’s true, but that isn’t how they started. For the time, they were a progressive band, their song often involving intricate arrangements and constantly shifting time signatures. Guys like Lamm and Kath loved that part of the early tenure of the band. But fame and fortune did the same thing it did to many artists: it began to suffocate them. The more hits the band produced, the more audiences expected to hear certain songs. Where Kath was able to put “Free Form Guitar” on the first album (a 6-minute track with just Kath, his guitar, and the amp) and the band opened side 1 of Chicago VII with a bunch of experimental instrumentals, gradually the pressure to play “Saturday in the Park,” “Just You n’ Me,” and “If You Me Now,” every single night began to weigh on him.

As the documentary relates, by the last tour, Kath was all but ready to bolt. He missed playing whatever he felt like playing. You get the impression that Kath’s mindset was akin to “Look, I’m gonna play what I’m gonna play, the audience be damned.” In that spirit, he’s in the same boat as Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix to name just two. Chicago did that for the Chicago VII tour…and they’ve never done it since. They saw the audience reactions to their long solos and instrumentals. It wasn’t why audiences came to their shows. They wanted the hits and little else.

Thus, we have the age-old conflict between artistic vision and commercial expectations. Sure, you can play whatever you want on an album, but if you don’t give the listeners what they want, then you’re albums sales will fall and your concerts will be less attended.

The very same thing applies to us writers (and artists and other creative types), too. We can be perfectly happy to write some genre title that no one has ever seen, but you have to put yourself out there and suffer the consequences. Sometimes, you can strike gold and be an outlier. For the majority of us, however, it seems like we need to drive within the guardrails already laid out by writers before us. Some days, you might chaff at the guardrails, but they’ve been laid by not only writers but readers. They are there to help steer you straight.

I count myself in this latter group. And I’m perfectly happy to be there. Are you?