One of the lesser-used volumes on my music reference shelf is a bulky tome titled 1001 Records You Must Hear Before You Die. Published in 2005, it offers reviews by a crew of something like seventy international critics, and the resulting list, in chronological order, can provide the reader with a good introduction to albums previously unheard.
It’s a little Brit-centric, focusing more on, as an example, British folk-rock of the late Sixties and Seventies than it does on American work in the same genre during those years. And that was okay, at least from my chair: I have a taste for Brit folk-rock from that era, and I’ve been able to explore that genre with help from the book (and with help from the plethora of music-sharing blogs that pushed the genre back in the early Oughts). But it seems – without actually counting – that more Brit/U.K. albums show up than might be expected.
By this time in my life (I’m 69), my tastes in music are pretty well set (if not fossilized). I like lots of the stuff I heard in my younger days, and I like lots of the stuff that’s coming out these days that sounds like those days. And the needle moves, at least some: I like a lot more of the music of the Eighties and Nineties than I thought I did at the time. But I know pretty much all I need to know about the music of those decades.
Where the book has come in handy for me is by providing some idea of what I should know about the music of the Fifties and early Sixties. (As I think I’ve noted here before, I pretty much ignored pop music until just before I was sixteen, preferring the sounds of Al Hirt and Herb Alpert and the soundtracks composed by John Barry.)
Here's a breakdown of some of the highlights of the book:
The first album cited is Frank Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours from 1955. I’ve seen comments over the years that this is the first concept album, as Sinatra winds his way through a set of melancholy pieces recorded after the collapse of his relationship with Ava Gardner. It can be a hard listen, because we’ve all been there (but it’s not nearly as hard as his gloomy 1959 offering, No One Cares). In The Wee Small Hours is one of three Sinatra albums cited in the book; the others are Songs For Swingin’ Lovers from 1956 and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim from 1967.
The last album cited from the Fifties is 1959’s Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, about which Wikipedia says, “Despite its esoteric theme and contrarian time signatures, Time Out became Brubeck’s highest-selling album, and the first jazz album to sell over one million copies.” In addition, the track “Take Five” – written by saxophonist Paul Desmond in 5/4 time – “similarly became the highest-selling jazz single of all time.”
The first Sixties album in the book is Joan Baez’ first release, a self-titled record offering twelve mostly traditional folk songs. It’s a good album, but my main problem with Baez’ early work is her reverence for the material; it always seemed as if she were offering the songs as relics rather than as something for her and her audience to experience. She moved away from that approach as the Sixties waned, of course, but I don’t think she truly found her own voice until 1975 with her album Diamonds & Rust.
1001 Records You Must Hear Before You Die closes out the Sixties with Hot Rats from Frank Zappa, an album about which I know nothing, which only serves to remind me that as much as I know about music from that era, there’s always more to learn. Will I seek out Hot Rats? Given what I do know about Zappa’s oeuvre, I doubt it.
The Seventies begin in the book with Cosmo’s Factory, a 1970 album by Creedence Clearwater Revival and the home of singles like “Travelin’ Band,” “Up Around The Bend” and “Who’ll Stop The Rain.” It’s a fine album, but I don’t enjoy it as much as I do the group’s Green River from 1969. And the thought occurs to me – as it has in the past – that CCR was probably the best American singles band of the late Sixties and early Seventies. (Some, I imagine, might argue for the Doors.) Green River is also among the 1001 albums, as is Bayou Country, also from 1969.
We’ll close today’s exploration of 1001 Records You Must Hear Before You Die with its last entry from the Seventies (meaning we might come back in a week and move into the territories beyond 1979 as well as look at which bands and artists are cited most). The last album listed from that formative decade (I was sixteen when the Seventies began and twenty-seven when they ended) is Specials by the Specials. The band is described as “fusing the angry intensity of punk with the rhythms of 1960s Jamaican ska music.” I do not know the band or the album, but noting that the producer was Elvis Costello makes me think I should go find it. Also listed in the book is the band’s 1980 album, More Specials.
So, there are six of the 1001 albums. I know four of them, three of those fairly well, and have no knowledge of the other two. And for something to listen to today, let’s go the title tune of the 1955 Sinatra album, “In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning.”
– whiteray
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