CAAC | Take It Easy

I thought I’d play another set of black songs this week, as my list gave me enough for another trip around the theme. As I said last week, this was an idea that came to me from current news, though it is a bit of a stretch and no one has yet attempted to work through my mind. Probably wise.

I have six for you this week, and as always they are tending towards earlier decades. How about the Sixties to get us going:

I was sure that I had played Los Bravos and Black Is Black before, but it appears not. They were a Spanish beat group, formed in 1965 and based in Madrid. They are most well known for this, their debut single, which reached #2 in the United Kingdom in July 1966 and #4 in the United States (the first Spanish group to do so), selling over a million records worldwide. It’s a fun song that reminds me of days when life was good – especially as July 1966 was the month in which England won the World Cup for the first and only time. It will be interesting to see how this year’s tournament goes, after Trump’s attempts at bombing the shit out of some of the participants.

Dipping a toe in the Seventies waters for this next one:

The Doobie Brothers released Black Water on their fourth album, What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits, in February 1974: the album peaked at #4 in the US, #13 in Canada, and #19 in the UK. The song was written by Patrick Simmons, who takes the lead vocal: he is the only band member to appear on all of their records. In November 1974 this became the third single taken from the album, and after a slow climb it reached #1 in the US in March 1975, also getting to #9 in Canada. It wasn’t a UK hit: they didn’t do that well in our singles charts, on the whole, though they did ok with their albums.

There are many versions of this next tune. I could have gone with The Band, but have instead chosen this collaborative effort:

This one is from an album I also bought on its release in January 1995, from the traditional Irish folk band The Chieftains. They had previously made several albums on which they had invited guests to sing with them, and chose The Long Black Veil as the title track for this one. Mick Jagger might seem like an unlikely choice, but I think their collaboration works well. I do love The Chieftains, and this is a great album, with other contributions from Sting, Sinéad O’Connor, Van Morrison, and Ry Cooder, among others. It has gone Gold in the US and Silver in the UK: Wikipedia doesn’t list any chart placings for it but the Official Charts Company show that it spent 13 weeks in the UK Albums chart, peaking at #17.

Time for bit of English folk rock, I think:

Like many Steeleye Span songs, this is a ‘traditional’ one, and you will find many versions of it, though the majority of those are of the variant known as The Raggle Taggle Gypsy – same theme, different treatment. Steeleye released Blackjack Davy in November 1975 on their eighth album, All Around My Hat, which has to date been their highest charting album, peaking at #7 in the UK and going Gold for 100,000 sales. It was also their first to make the US Albums chart, where it got to #143. No doubt its performance was helped by the single of the title track, for which this was the B-side, which came out at the same time and made #5 in the UK Singles Chart. I remember being away from home on a training course and watching them play it on Top Of The Pops, horrifying the hotel owner’s daughter when I said I preferred All Around My Hat to the song at #1 that week. That other song? A little number called Bohemian Rhapsody! This performance is much later, from the DVD released in 2019 to mark the band’s 50th anniversary tour, and the song appears to have acquired an additional ‘e’ in its title over time…

Having borrowed this one for my title I could hardly leave it out, could I:

AC/DC released Back In Black in July 1980. It was their sixth international release (their first of five in the Eighties), and was a massive success, reaching #1 in their native Australia, the UK, Canada, France and Switzerland, and was their first top ten album in the US, where it peaked at #4. Overall, it has sold more than 50m copies, 27m in the US included, making it one of the most successful albums ever, by anyone. They have always been more of an albums band than a singles one, I think.This track was released as the second single from the album in December 1980. Notable for its opening guitar riff, the song was written as a tribute to the band’s former singer Bon Scott, who died suddenly in February 1980 of alcohol poisoning, after a massive bender. In 1981, it reached #37 in the US, and in 2012 it got to #65 in Australia and #27 in the UK, following the band’s back catalogue being finally made available on iTunes. It has been widely regarded as one of the best rock songs of all time, and who am I to disagree?

This version is a later live performance, which is from their Live At River Plate DVD, released in 2012: I have that DVD and it is a great performance – it must be a wonderful feeling being on stage with that sea of seething humanity rocking out with you. The DVD comprises extracts from three live shows the band played in December 2009 (spot some continuity errors!); the stadium is listed as having a 60,000 capacity but local estimates at the time put the combined attendance at nearer 200,000. As a little bonus, if you’d like to hear more, follow this link for Hells Bells, the album’s opening track.

I’m closing today with another favourite:

Black Gold was the second track on Soul Asylum’s sixth album, Grave Dancers Union, which was released in October 1992 and became their first album to make the charts anywhere, ultimately peaking at #11 in the US and #27 in the UK. It was released in January 1993 as the second single from the album, and was one of the main drivers for the album’s success, getting to #4 in the US Mainstream Rock Chart, #58 in Canada, and #26 in the UK. I used to play the album a lot during my long commute around the North Circular Road in London, and still bring it out occasionally now: it is too good to ignore! You may have spotted a familiar face in the video: the gas station attendant who gets to push the broken down car is the late George Wendt, best known as Norm, from Cheers.

That’s all for today and, for now, for the black theme. I have a new one planned for next week, also ‘inspired’ by current events. If you haven’t worked out where I’m going with these next week’s might give you a good clue, so I hope to see you then. Take care 😊

A little footnote. I regularly share my posts with the Senior Salon Pit Stop (SSPS), which this week is reaching its 400th episode, so I thought I’d mark the milestone with their special logo: