ÍndiceNEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
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NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Esputo Acido 14/4/2009, 18:18
EN PAPELERA "Aquellos maravillosos 70´s"
-ELYSE WEINBERG - "Elyse" (1968)
ELYSE WEINBERG EN 1968
MUSICOS:
Elyse J. Weinberg - Guitarra de 6 y 12 cuerdas y voz solista.
Neil Young – Guitarra solista en “Houses”.
Collin Walcott – Sitar y tabla
Maureen - Percusión
Brent - armónica
The Band of Thieves ( músicos desconocidos ) - guitarras acústicas y eléctricas, piano, bajo, batería y percusión.
TEMAS;
1. Last Ditch Protocol/ John Velveteen - 2:57
2. Deed I Do - 2:58*
3. Iron Works - 1:56
4. Spirit of the Letter - 2:27
5. Here in My Heart (Underneath the Spreading) - 3:19
6. Band of Thieves - 2:30
7. Sweet Pounding Rhythm - 2:45*
8. Meet Me at the Station - 2:57
9. Simpleminded Harlequin - 2:28
10. Painted Raven - 0:41
11. Mortuary Bound - 3:28
12. If Death Don't Overtake Me - 4:39
CD Bonus Tracks
13. Houses - 3:40
14. What You Call It - 3:05
" Unas breves notas sobre Collin Walcott "
LINK DE DESCARGA:
EN PEPELERA "Aquellos maravillosos 70´s"
ESPUTOMETRO: 8/10
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-ELYSE WEINBERG - "Elyse" (1968)
Elyse Weinberg es una cantautora Canadiense que comenzó su andadura musical en Toronto en 1966, compartiendo escenarios y vivencias con amigos suyos que luego serían mundialmente conocidos como Joni Mitchell o Neil Young. Se traladó a vivir a Los Angeles en 1968 dónde llegó a grabar y editar un disco de Folk Psicodélico, "Elyse". Desde entonces, lamentablemente, ha permanecido en el más aboluto olvido por más de tres décadas. Sin embargo, para disfrute de tantos coleccionistas y amantes de las rarezas, su disco fue reeditado en 2001, en vinilo y CD, por el sello “Orange Twin Records”. Lo que más ha llamado la atención de todos los aficionados y coleccionistas de la música de los 60´s y 70´s, aparte de la calidad innegable del mismo, es la aparición estelar del mítico Neil Young en uno de los mejores temas del disco, "Houses". La reedición de este disco fue una decisión muy acertada y un muy buen redescubrimiento por parte de "Orange Twin Records". "Elyse" es un excelente álbum de Folk Psicodélico con cualidades que le hacen merecedor de ser tomado muy en cuenta, por todos los críticos y amantes de la música de los 60 y 70, como un disco de Folk importante dentro de ese periodo de tiempo legendario. El disco se compone, principalmente, de relajados temas acústicos, todos compuestos por Elyse cuyo genio compositivo es magnífico, dónde su personalísima voz, áspera y desgarrada, tiene una importancia decisiva, la cual guarda cierta similitud con la de artistas míticas de la talla de Melissa Etheridge, Maria Buldaur, Bonnie Tyler o la de una Janis Joplin menos agresiva. Su música se ha denominado como Folk Psicodélico anque el aire de Psicodélia de este disco es muy leve y se limita tan sólo a la aparición de Sitares y Tablas, como en la versión del tema "Deed I Do", arreglos atmosféricos y lisérgicos, propios de esos años, y a un sentimiento barroco, oscuro y melancólico que impregna todo el disco. Los temas son de buena factura, con excelentes letras que hacen referencia a amantes de nombres extraños como Sir John Velveteen y otras excentricidades de la época. En su día, en algún momento de 1968, este disco contó con reseñas elogiosas en muchas revistas musicales de Canadá y EEUU, e incluso le valió a Elyse una aparición estelar en el mítico programa “The Johnny Carson Show”. Su disco de debut no contó con ningún hit de éxito pero se vendió muy bien en Canadá y EEUU, llegando al top 30 de los chart américanos. Sin embargo, los siguientes discos de Elyse, por mala suerte y por motivos que desconocemos, nunca llegaron a editarse y el material para por lo menos otros dos discos permanece inédito hoy día. Luego de su disco de debut, esta magnífica y original cantautora se desvaneció en la historia del Rock sin dejar rastro.
“Elyse” es un disco que merece ser descubierto por todos los amantes del Folk, un trabajo adelantado a su tiempo en ciertos aspectos y, aunque repetitivo en esquemas, con una calidad, de principio a fin, innegable. Y otro detalle importante, el tema más destacado del disco "Houses" es una maravillosa canción cuya brillantez se acrecienta con la aparición estelar, a las guitarras, del legendario Neil Young, amigo personal de Elyse.
En la notas de la reedición, Andrew Rieger, (fundador de Elf Power y descubridor en 2000 de esta obra olvidada ), declara que compró una copia del disco original por un dólar en una tienda de Missoula, tan sólo por la atracción que ejerció sonre él su curiosa portada. Reiger nos describe una escena común entre los coleccionistas y fanáticos del vinilo que llegamos a comprar un disco tan sólo por el hecho de que nos sintamos atraídos por el arte de la portada. Esto fue lo que le sucedió con la críptica ilustración de la portada de “Elyse”, que le llevó a comprar el disco en una tienda de segunda mano sin saber nada sobre el disco o el autor. Una portada ciertamente enigmática y extraña que prometía mucho, con la dama dormida y el caballero ante su lecho, el dragón y el enigmático angel, así como las líneas del dibujo que podrían ser incluso un mapa, con texturas y contornos entrelazados de tal forma que sugieren paisajes que el oyente podría atravesar guiado por la música y las letras de las canciones, y dónde la voz de Elyse Weinberg parecía ser el compás y el guía. Como Neil Young y Joni Mitchell, sus contemporáneos de la escena Folk de Toronto a finales de los 60, Elyse posee un color de voz desgarrado y distintivo que es, a un tiempo, una cualidad enérgica y etérea en su música, poderosa y dulce, tempestuosa y melancólica. El disco de debut, y único, de Elyse Weinberg es una maravilla sin duda, lleno de bellos temas en una onda Folk Psicodélica de sentimiento tortuoso y melancólico, dónde la áspera voz de Elyse les confiere un sonido distintivo y personal, con misteriosa y bizarra orquestación en momentos puntuales, Sitares, Tablas, excelentes letras, buenas guitarras eléctricas en muchos temas y buena base rítmica. En definitiva, la misteriosa banda que acompaña a Elyse, de la que sólo se sabe que se hacen llamar "The Band of Thieves", tras cuyo nombre se pueden esconder artistas de renombre, son de primerísima fila y la misma Elyse es una guitarrista excelente. Los temas van pasando de las baladas Folk a los temas de Country Folk acústico con el sonido y el sentimiento Psicodélico propio de la época, creando un torbellino de sonido dulce y tempestuoso bastante atractivo y aditivo que gana mucho con cada escucha.
Bueno, y lo que más ha llamado la atención de todos los coleccionistas, la aparición estelar del mítico Neil Young en uno de los mejores temas del disco, "Houses", una canción que grabó Elyse en 1969, así como el tema "What You Call It", para sus siguiente álbum aún inédito, y que ahora se editan por vez primera. Que ustedes lo disfruten con salud y buenas vibraciones.
“Elyse” es un disco que merece ser descubierto por todos los amantes del Folk, un trabajo adelantado a su tiempo en ciertos aspectos y, aunque repetitivo en esquemas, con una calidad, de principio a fin, innegable. Y otro detalle importante, el tema más destacado del disco "Houses" es una maravillosa canción cuya brillantez se acrecienta con la aparición estelar, a las guitarras, del legendario Neil Young, amigo personal de Elyse.
En la notas de la reedición, Andrew Rieger, (fundador de Elf Power y descubridor en 2000 de esta obra olvidada ), declara que compró una copia del disco original por un dólar en una tienda de Missoula, tan sólo por la atracción que ejerció sonre él su curiosa portada. Reiger nos describe una escena común entre los coleccionistas y fanáticos del vinilo que llegamos a comprar un disco tan sólo por el hecho de que nos sintamos atraídos por el arte de la portada. Esto fue lo que le sucedió con la críptica ilustración de la portada de “Elyse”, que le llevó a comprar el disco en una tienda de segunda mano sin saber nada sobre el disco o el autor. Una portada ciertamente enigmática y extraña que prometía mucho, con la dama dormida y el caballero ante su lecho, el dragón y el enigmático angel, así como las líneas del dibujo que podrían ser incluso un mapa, con texturas y contornos entrelazados de tal forma que sugieren paisajes que el oyente podría atravesar guiado por la música y las letras de las canciones, y dónde la voz de Elyse Weinberg parecía ser el compás y el guía. Como Neil Young y Joni Mitchell, sus contemporáneos de la escena Folk de Toronto a finales de los 60, Elyse posee un color de voz desgarrado y distintivo que es, a un tiempo, una cualidad enérgica y etérea en su música, poderosa y dulce, tempestuosa y melancólica. El disco de debut, y único, de Elyse Weinberg es una maravilla sin duda, lleno de bellos temas en una onda Folk Psicodélica de sentimiento tortuoso y melancólico, dónde la áspera voz de Elyse les confiere un sonido distintivo y personal, con misteriosa y bizarra orquestación en momentos puntuales, Sitares, Tablas, excelentes letras, buenas guitarras eléctricas en muchos temas y buena base rítmica. En definitiva, la misteriosa banda que acompaña a Elyse, de la que sólo se sabe que se hacen llamar "The Band of Thieves", tras cuyo nombre se pueden esconder artistas de renombre, son de primerísima fila y la misma Elyse es una guitarrista excelente. Los temas van pasando de las baladas Folk a los temas de Country Folk acústico con el sonido y el sentimiento Psicodélico propio de la época, creando un torbellino de sonido dulce y tempestuoso bastante atractivo y aditivo que gana mucho con cada escucha.
Bueno, y lo que más ha llamado la atención de todos los coleccionistas, la aparición estelar del mítico Neil Young en uno de los mejores temas del disco, "Houses", una canción que grabó Elyse en 1969, así como el tema "What You Call It", para sus siguiente álbum aún inédito, y que ahora se editan por vez primera. Que ustedes lo disfruten con salud y buenas vibraciones.
ELYSE WEINBERG EN 1968
MUSICOS:
Elyse J. Weinberg - Guitarra de 6 y 12 cuerdas y voz solista.
Neil Young – Guitarra solista en “Houses”.
Collin Walcott – Sitar y tabla
Maureen - Percusión
Brent - armónica
The Band of Thieves ( músicos desconocidos ) - guitarras acústicas y eléctricas, piano, bajo, batería y percusión.
TEMAS;
1. Last Ditch Protocol/ John Velveteen - 2:57
2. Deed I Do - 2:58*
3. Iron Works - 1:56
4. Spirit of the Letter - 2:27
5. Here in My Heart (Underneath the Spreading) - 3:19
6. Band of Thieves - 2:30
7. Sweet Pounding Rhythm - 2:45*
8. Meet Me at the Station - 2:57
9. Simpleminded Harlequin - 2:28
10. Painted Raven - 0:41
11. Mortuary Bound - 3:28
12. If Death Don't Overtake Me - 4:39
CD Bonus Tracks
13. Houses - 3:40
14. What You Call It - 3:05
" Unas breves notas sobre Collin Walcott "
Uno de los colaboradores del disco fue Collin Walcott, uno de los primeros músicos de Sitar en tocar Jazz. Como miembro de Oregon, la flexibilidad de Walcott y su interés en diferentes culturas y habilidad en tocar no sólo Sitar sino también Tabla, Sanza, Congas y otros instrumentos de percusión le convierten en un músico valiosísimo. Collin Walcott estudió violín durante dos años cuando aún estaba en la escuela. Walcott, además, estudió percusión en la Universidad de Indiana y dio clases de Sitar y Tabla con Ravi Shankar y Alla Rakha, respectivamente. Después de varias colaboraciones con Tony Scott (1967-69) y Tim Hardin, se convirtió en miembro de Paul Winter Consort en 1970. Walcott abandonó el grupo junto a otros tres músicos (Ralph Towner, Paul McCandless y Glen Moore) en 1971 para formar Oregon. Además de grabar discos y de hacer giras con Oregon, un grupo único de Folk y Jazz , Walcott grabó con Miles Davis en 1972 y fue miembro de Codona ( un trío formado con Don Cherry y Nana Vasconcelos ) que grabó para ECM. Tragicamente, Collin Walcott murió en un accidente de tráfico estando de gira con Oregon en Alemanía Oriental, en 1984. Coliin Walcott dejó tres sesiones para ECM y su trabajo puede oírse en Codona y en la mayoría de las grabaciones de Oregon.
LINK DE DESCARGA:
EN PEPELERA "Aquellos maravillosos 70´s"
ESPUTOMETRO: 8/10
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Última edición por Esputo Acido el 15/4/2009, 10:59, editado 4 veces
Esputo Acido- Mensajes : 12633
Fecha de inscripción : 29/10/2008
Re: NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Esputo Acido 14/4/2009, 19:13
INTERVIEW: Elyse Weinberg
Elyse Weinberg's Second Life
By: Stan Hall
The Blackbird is a Portland indie-rock venue located in an unusual part of town. Due to the criss-crossing of several streets, the buildings in the club's area are arranged in awkward triangular lots, resulting in sometimes baffling intersections. Considering the vagaries of the traffic lights at these intersections, perhaps it's not surprising that confused motorists have been known to drive their vehicles directly into businesses, including an off-duty police officer who plowed his pickup truck into the Blackbird's kitchen last August (no one was hurt). But business is good -- the Blackbird's multi-leveled dimensions, blood-red walls and budget-minded vegetarian menu prove cozily attractive even on nights when the music isn't all that great.
One night last September, a short, fifty-something woman sat quietly at a table, casually dressed, not drinking anything, intently watching Portland's Amy Annelle and her band the Places play their fragile, hushed pop songs. At first glance, it would be easy to assume that the woman was a relative, perhaps Annelle's mother. But when Annelle finished her set and told the 30 or so patrons her excitement over hearing the next act, a friend of hers, the older woman stood up and made her way to stage.
The woman plugged in her electro-acoustic guitar and, speaking quickly and somewhat nervously, thanked the audience for showing up, thanked Annelle for giving her the opportunity to play and explained that she was going to start with a song from a record she made 32 years ago. The Blackbird may seem an unusual place to see a reminder of a bygone musical era, but as the woman played a serene, dreamy chord progression and sang in a near-rasp a song of intense devotion, the youngish crowd paid attention, hearing something that resonated. The room was as quiet as the song, and a revving motorcycle made for a rude intrusion as it sped by outside, just a few feet away. As the song ended, the audience reacted with respectful applause. The vast majority of the people in the room had little or no knowledge of the performer's remarkable past, but they related to her music.
A call out of nowhere
In late 2000, Cori Bishop, 56, received a call at her Ashland, Oregon home that she never expected, a call that took her back to another life, lived by a different person. In a sense, it was.
An old songwriting partner rang Bishop up to say that a young man from Georgia had contacted him, asking about her past career in music, back when her name was Elyse Weinberg. The young man's rock band had heard an LP Weinberg recorded more than 30 years ago, loved it and wanted permission to reissue it on CD.
The inquiring youngster was Andrew Rieger, singer-guitarist of the Athens, Georgia band Elf Power. Many months earlier, he had purchased an old record without knowing anything about its contents. It was Weinberg's 1968 album "Elyse," a long out-of-print release by Tetragrammaton, a defunct label that had been co-owned by comedian Bill Cosby. "I bought the 'Elyse' record in a thrift shop in Missoula, Montana, because I thought the cover illustration, a knight kneeling beside a dying maiden's deathbed with a dragon watching over, looked pretty cool," he says. "My record player at the time was broken, so I didn't actually end up listening to the album until six months after I bought it."
When Rieger and his bandmate Laura Carter finally heard it, they discovered connections to not only their own band's music, but to the whole Elephant 6 musical collective, a family of like-minded bands that, besides Elf Power, include Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Beulah and the sadly defunct Olivia Tremor Control. "Laura immediately fell in love with the record as well," Reiger says. "I liked the psychedelic flourishes in the production, the folksiness of the playing and, most of all, the desperate quality of the singing and lyrics."
Carter had recently started a artist-musician co-op and record label called Orange Twin (check out its website at www.orangetwin.com for a superb collection of Elephant 6-related material for sale) and decided that no matter how old and forgotten the "Elyse" album may have been, the time was right to reintroduce it to a younger generation of discriminating pop music fans. But first, they had to locate Elyse Weinberg, not knowing that in name, she hadn't existed for more than two decades.
The deeds she did
Born and raised in Canada, Weinberg emerged from the same mid-'60s Toronto folk scene that launched the careers of Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell. And like some of her famous colleagues, she found herself in Los Angeles, although initially just to visit Young. Then she ended up staying a while with another acquaintance, Mama Cass Elliott of the Mamas & Papas. Weinberg had connections. "Cass introduced me to her manager, Roy Silver, and I got a record deal with the label he owned with Cosby, Tetragrammaton," she recalls.
The recording of "Elyse" was, she says, "over the top," with "no one producing anything. It reflected the times." Indeed, a listen today reveals a certain inspired insanity that is partly accountable for such a superb, occasionally stunning LP, an attention-grabbing mixture of death-fixated medieval folk, imaginative pop arrangements and very 60's psychedelic rock. Weinberg and her session band, an L.A. group called Touch, sound as alluringly sloppy as Janis Joplin's Big Brother & the Holding Company on some tracks, then follow those up with meticulously arranged, affecting love songs. Lyrically, it's a timely record, as the gallows humor and mortality obsessions seem perfectly suited to the ugliness that pervaded American society as the Sixties drew to a close. You can practically smell the dreadful anticipation of Tate-LaBianca and Altamont in the song's less-than-rosy scenarios.
But the album's most distinctive feature is Weinberg's voice, a wail that often bumps against the ceiling of its range, yet sounds singularly unmannered. Rieger's observation about a "desperate quality" is in appropriate; it might be a cliché to describe a singer's performance as sounding as if his or her life depends on it, but that's exactly what sets Weinberg's vocals on songs such as "Last Ditch Protocol" and a cover of Bert Jansch's "Deed I Do" apart from the rest of the 60's folkies. The closest contemporary comparison that could be made would be Lucinda Williams, and only if Williams could be imagined sounding extremely nervous. The cosmic coincidence about Rieger and Carter's find, a big reason why they felt compelled to find Weinberg, is the remarkable Elephant 6 feel to the songs; despite the fact that apparently no one in the collective ever heard Weinberg prior to last year, she sounds like a seminal influence.
"Elyse" sold fairly well upon its release, reaching #31 on the Billboard album chart. Tetragrammaton performed its publicity duties, taking out full-page ads in Billboard and other publications. Harlan Ellison wrote about her in his column for the alternative paper the L.A. Weekly, and Newsweek featured her alongside Mitchell and Laura Nyro in a profile on the emergence of solo female songwriters, a rarity up until that point, Odetta and Joan Baez notwithstanding. She played big L.A. clubs such as the Troubadour and did her stints on the festival circuit. Weinberg even played Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show," which, considering her wild-haired appearance and intense music, must have been quite a trip for last-night TV America (Ellison's article decried the shabby treatment she allegedly received from guest host Flip Wilson, though today she doesn't recall anything like that).
Alas, mass acceptance remained just out of her reach. Perhaps the signature failure was when Cher recorded Weinberg's song "Band of Thieves" for the soundtrack to her acting debut, the 1969 film "Chastity." When she attended the movie, mostly to see her name in the credits, she read to her disbelief: "All Songs By Sonny Bono." The misunderstanding (or deliberate slight) was never rectified.
Around 1971, Weinberg recorded a follow-up, "Grease Paint Smile," but Tetragrammaton went bust before its release, and the project died on the vine, leaving Neil Young's guest guitar contributions in the vault (until now; the reissue contains as a selling point the bonus track "Houses," one of the Young-played songs from the aborted album). Shortly thereafter she signed with David Geffen's fledgling Asylum label and recorded a third, unreleased album, "Wildfire." She then decided to abandon her management, record company and music career.
"I just drifted away," she says today. "I kept writing songs, but as I entered onto a spiritual path, I just drifted away from that lifestyle, which was fortunate." Asked whether that lifestyle contained self-destructive elements, she demurs but says it was a blessing that she escaped while she was still alive. Part of her new path was a change in identity: around this time, Elyse Weinberg became Cori Bishop.
Bishop lived a quiet, normal life in Los Angeles for many years before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the early '90s, and then to Ashland, a place where she says "they can bury me, I love it so much," two years ago. These days, she works in the insurance business. But she's never quit writing songs, and like any inspired artist, she thinks her newer stuff is much, much better than those old tunes. In fact, she's a bit embarrassed by her debut record and plays little from it these days: "I couldn't hit the high notes now anyway."
Elyse returns
After many dead ends, Rieger and Carter struck paydirt through the Web site of Elyse Weinberg's song publisher, BMI, obtaining contact information for one of her old songwriting partners, Rich Goldman, who was still living in Los Angeles. "I got a call from Rich saying that he got a letter faxed to him by Andrew, hoping to get in touch with me," says Bishop. "And I called Andrew and he told me the story and asked about putting out my first record on CD and I said, 'sure!' He said, 'We're playing in Portland in a month, do you want to play a couple of your songs with us?' And I went, 'OK, sure!' I just kept saying, 'OK, why not?' It was a beautiful thing." Of course, the last time she had played live was "I don't know--the '70s."
On the day of the Elf Power show, a nervous Bishop drove up from Ashland and checked into a budget motel. She showed up promptly at Satyricon for the 8 p.m. sound check and experienced the thrill of "hearing my song coming over the sound system! They were playing my song! So I finally met the band after all this Internet stuff and phone calls. And I just wanted to meet them, just to say thank you for going to such lengths for me--we agreed we'd play a couple of my songs at the sound check and if they sounded good, the band would back me up and if they didn't, I'd do it myself." The sound check was satisfactory and later, facing a packed house of young Elf Power fans, she strapped on her 12-string acoustic guitar, signaled the band and launched into a two-song set of "Deed I Do" and "Last Ditch Protocol." The experience, she says, was amazing: "They played like angels, and all the tattooed kids seemed to really enjoy it." That was the night she met Annelle, who was Elf Power's other opening act; Annelle has become one of her biggest supporters, bringing her back to Portland for gigs such as the September performance at the Blackbird.
Meanwhile, a search of the vaults at Warner Brothers, which had inherited Tetragrammaton's titles when the latter liquidated its assets, revealed a heartbreaking fact: the "Elyse" master tapes had been thrown into the garbage, as is the custom when an out-of-print title reaches 30 years of age. It was only two years too late. Fortunately, Orange Twin located a mint condition original LP and re-mastered from the vinyl. The resulting CD sounds as good as one could expect of such a compromised source, though it does leave one slightly anguished that the masters are gone forever. It matters little to Andrew Rieger, though. "It's just a great record," he declares, "and anybody who likes good music should hear it."
Cori Bishop aka Elyse Weinberg isn't obsessing over her legacy, though she finds herself revealing more of her past to people in Ashland and her friends in the Southern Oregon Songwriters Association. She's formed a casual band called Baby Cori & the Buds and is excited about her musical future, though with few expectations. "Whatever happens, happens," she reasons. "I was content before all this recent stuff, and I'll be satisfied with whatever comes my way."
A sad truth is that no matter how many rare records even the most ardent pop music fan sniffs out, a lot of great music still slips away. A great number of should-be classic albums will not only fail to achieve such status, but will go out of print, disappear from the shelves and head towards virtual extinction, leaving only a lucky few to cherish their membership in the secret fan club of a very obscure artist. But sometimes, by fate, certain odd records escape this fate by ending up in the hands of a completely new audience that's ready to embrace what may have been neglected the first time around. The reissue of "Elyse" may not sell a boatload of copies, but Orange Twin's efforts give a worthy songwriter a chance to secure her work for posterity and be remembered in perpetuity. It's a form of artistic immortality.
Elyse Weinberg's Second Life
By: Stan Hall
The Blackbird is a Portland indie-rock venue located in an unusual part of town. Due to the criss-crossing of several streets, the buildings in the club's area are arranged in awkward triangular lots, resulting in sometimes baffling intersections. Considering the vagaries of the traffic lights at these intersections, perhaps it's not surprising that confused motorists have been known to drive their vehicles directly into businesses, including an off-duty police officer who plowed his pickup truck into the Blackbird's kitchen last August (no one was hurt). But business is good -- the Blackbird's multi-leveled dimensions, blood-red walls and budget-minded vegetarian menu prove cozily attractive even on nights when the music isn't all that great.
One night last September, a short, fifty-something woman sat quietly at a table, casually dressed, not drinking anything, intently watching Portland's Amy Annelle and her band the Places play their fragile, hushed pop songs. At first glance, it would be easy to assume that the woman was a relative, perhaps Annelle's mother. But when Annelle finished her set and told the 30 or so patrons her excitement over hearing the next act, a friend of hers, the older woman stood up and made her way to stage.
The woman plugged in her electro-acoustic guitar and, speaking quickly and somewhat nervously, thanked the audience for showing up, thanked Annelle for giving her the opportunity to play and explained that she was going to start with a song from a record she made 32 years ago. The Blackbird may seem an unusual place to see a reminder of a bygone musical era, but as the woman played a serene, dreamy chord progression and sang in a near-rasp a song of intense devotion, the youngish crowd paid attention, hearing something that resonated. The room was as quiet as the song, and a revving motorcycle made for a rude intrusion as it sped by outside, just a few feet away. As the song ended, the audience reacted with respectful applause. The vast majority of the people in the room had little or no knowledge of the performer's remarkable past, but they related to her music.
A call out of nowhere
In late 2000, Cori Bishop, 56, received a call at her Ashland, Oregon home that she never expected, a call that took her back to another life, lived by a different person. In a sense, it was.
An old songwriting partner rang Bishop up to say that a young man from Georgia had contacted him, asking about her past career in music, back when her name was Elyse Weinberg. The young man's rock band had heard an LP Weinberg recorded more than 30 years ago, loved it and wanted permission to reissue it on CD.
The inquiring youngster was Andrew Rieger, singer-guitarist of the Athens, Georgia band Elf Power. Many months earlier, he had purchased an old record without knowing anything about its contents. It was Weinberg's 1968 album "Elyse," a long out-of-print release by Tetragrammaton, a defunct label that had been co-owned by comedian Bill Cosby. "I bought the 'Elyse' record in a thrift shop in Missoula, Montana, because I thought the cover illustration, a knight kneeling beside a dying maiden's deathbed with a dragon watching over, looked pretty cool," he says. "My record player at the time was broken, so I didn't actually end up listening to the album until six months after I bought it."
When Rieger and his bandmate Laura Carter finally heard it, they discovered connections to not only their own band's music, but to the whole Elephant 6 musical collective, a family of like-minded bands that, besides Elf Power, include Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Beulah and the sadly defunct Olivia Tremor Control. "Laura immediately fell in love with the record as well," Reiger says. "I liked the psychedelic flourishes in the production, the folksiness of the playing and, most of all, the desperate quality of the singing and lyrics."
Carter had recently started a artist-musician co-op and record label called Orange Twin (check out its website at www.orangetwin.com for a superb collection of Elephant 6-related material for sale) and decided that no matter how old and forgotten the "Elyse" album may have been, the time was right to reintroduce it to a younger generation of discriminating pop music fans. But first, they had to locate Elyse Weinberg, not knowing that in name, she hadn't existed for more than two decades.
The deeds she did
Born and raised in Canada, Weinberg emerged from the same mid-'60s Toronto folk scene that launched the careers of Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot and Joni Mitchell. And like some of her famous colleagues, she found herself in Los Angeles, although initially just to visit Young. Then she ended up staying a while with another acquaintance, Mama Cass Elliott of the Mamas & Papas. Weinberg had connections. "Cass introduced me to her manager, Roy Silver, and I got a record deal with the label he owned with Cosby, Tetragrammaton," she recalls.
The recording of "Elyse" was, she says, "over the top," with "no one producing anything. It reflected the times." Indeed, a listen today reveals a certain inspired insanity that is partly accountable for such a superb, occasionally stunning LP, an attention-grabbing mixture of death-fixated medieval folk, imaginative pop arrangements and very 60's psychedelic rock. Weinberg and her session band, an L.A. group called Touch, sound as alluringly sloppy as Janis Joplin's Big Brother & the Holding Company on some tracks, then follow those up with meticulously arranged, affecting love songs. Lyrically, it's a timely record, as the gallows humor and mortality obsessions seem perfectly suited to the ugliness that pervaded American society as the Sixties drew to a close. You can practically smell the dreadful anticipation of Tate-LaBianca and Altamont in the song's less-than-rosy scenarios.
But the album's most distinctive feature is Weinberg's voice, a wail that often bumps against the ceiling of its range, yet sounds singularly unmannered. Rieger's observation about a "desperate quality" is in appropriate; it might be a cliché to describe a singer's performance as sounding as if his or her life depends on it, but that's exactly what sets Weinberg's vocals on songs such as "Last Ditch Protocol" and a cover of Bert Jansch's "Deed I Do" apart from the rest of the 60's folkies. The closest contemporary comparison that could be made would be Lucinda Williams, and only if Williams could be imagined sounding extremely nervous. The cosmic coincidence about Rieger and Carter's find, a big reason why they felt compelled to find Weinberg, is the remarkable Elephant 6 feel to the songs; despite the fact that apparently no one in the collective ever heard Weinberg prior to last year, she sounds like a seminal influence.
"Elyse" sold fairly well upon its release, reaching #31 on the Billboard album chart. Tetragrammaton performed its publicity duties, taking out full-page ads in Billboard and other publications. Harlan Ellison wrote about her in his column for the alternative paper the L.A. Weekly, and Newsweek featured her alongside Mitchell and Laura Nyro in a profile on the emergence of solo female songwriters, a rarity up until that point, Odetta and Joan Baez notwithstanding. She played big L.A. clubs such as the Troubadour and did her stints on the festival circuit. Weinberg even played Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show," which, considering her wild-haired appearance and intense music, must have been quite a trip for last-night TV America (Ellison's article decried the shabby treatment she allegedly received from guest host Flip Wilson, though today she doesn't recall anything like that).
Alas, mass acceptance remained just out of her reach. Perhaps the signature failure was when Cher recorded Weinberg's song "Band of Thieves" for the soundtrack to her acting debut, the 1969 film "Chastity." When she attended the movie, mostly to see her name in the credits, she read to her disbelief: "All Songs By Sonny Bono." The misunderstanding (or deliberate slight) was never rectified.
Around 1971, Weinberg recorded a follow-up, "Grease Paint Smile," but Tetragrammaton went bust before its release, and the project died on the vine, leaving Neil Young's guest guitar contributions in the vault (until now; the reissue contains as a selling point the bonus track "Houses," one of the Young-played songs from the aborted album). Shortly thereafter she signed with David Geffen's fledgling Asylum label and recorded a third, unreleased album, "Wildfire." She then decided to abandon her management, record company and music career.
"I just drifted away," she says today. "I kept writing songs, but as I entered onto a spiritual path, I just drifted away from that lifestyle, which was fortunate." Asked whether that lifestyle contained self-destructive elements, she demurs but says it was a blessing that she escaped while she was still alive. Part of her new path was a change in identity: around this time, Elyse Weinberg became Cori Bishop.
Bishop lived a quiet, normal life in Los Angeles for many years before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the early '90s, and then to Ashland, a place where she says "they can bury me, I love it so much," two years ago. These days, she works in the insurance business. But she's never quit writing songs, and like any inspired artist, she thinks her newer stuff is much, much better than those old tunes. In fact, she's a bit embarrassed by her debut record and plays little from it these days: "I couldn't hit the high notes now anyway."
Elyse returns
After many dead ends, Rieger and Carter struck paydirt through the Web site of Elyse Weinberg's song publisher, BMI, obtaining contact information for one of her old songwriting partners, Rich Goldman, who was still living in Los Angeles. "I got a call from Rich saying that he got a letter faxed to him by Andrew, hoping to get in touch with me," says Bishop. "And I called Andrew and he told me the story and asked about putting out my first record on CD and I said, 'sure!' He said, 'We're playing in Portland in a month, do you want to play a couple of your songs with us?' And I went, 'OK, sure!' I just kept saying, 'OK, why not?' It was a beautiful thing." Of course, the last time she had played live was "I don't know--the '70s."
On the day of the Elf Power show, a nervous Bishop drove up from Ashland and checked into a budget motel. She showed up promptly at Satyricon for the 8 p.m. sound check and experienced the thrill of "hearing my song coming over the sound system! They were playing my song! So I finally met the band after all this Internet stuff and phone calls. And I just wanted to meet them, just to say thank you for going to such lengths for me--we agreed we'd play a couple of my songs at the sound check and if they sounded good, the band would back me up and if they didn't, I'd do it myself." The sound check was satisfactory and later, facing a packed house of young Elf Power fans, she strapped on her 12-string acoustic guitar, signaled the band and launched into a two-song set of "Deed I Do" and "Last Ditch Protocol." The experience, she says, was amazing: "They played like angels, and all the tattooed kids seemed to really enjoy it." That was the night she met Annelle, who was Elf Power's other opening act; Annelle has become one of her biggest supporters, bringing her back to Portland for gigs such as the September performance at the Blackbird.
Meanwhile, a search of the vaults at Warner Brothers, which had inherited Tetragrammaton's titles when the latter liquidated its assets, revealed a heartbreaking fact: the "Elyse" master tapes had been thrown into the garbage, as is the custom when an out-of-print title reaches 30 years of age. It was only two years too late. Fortunately, Orange Twin located a mint condition original LP and re-mastered from the vinyl. The resulting CD sounds as good as one could expect of such a compromised source, though it does leave one slightly anguished that the masters are gone forever. It matters little to Andrew Rieger, though. "It's just a great record," he declares, "and anybody who likes good music should hear it."
Cori Bishop aka Elyse Weinberg isn't obsessing over her legacy, though she finds herself revealing more of her past to people in Ashland and her friends in the Southern Oregon Songwriters Association. She's formed a casual band called Baby Cori & the Buds and is excited about her musical future, though with few expectations. "Whatever happens, happens," she reasons. "I was content before all this recent stuff, and I'll be satisfied with whatever comes my way."
A sad truth is that no matter how many rare records even the most ardent pop music fan sniffs out, a lot of great music still slips away. A great number of should-be classic albums will not only fail to achieve such status, but will go out of print, disappear from the shelves and head towards virtual extinction, leaving only a lucky few to cherish their membership in the secret fan club of a very obscure artist. But sometimes, by fate, certain odd records escape this fate by ending up in the hands of a completely new audience that's ready to embrace what may have been neglected the first time around. The reissue of "Elyse" may not sell a boatload of copies, but Orange Twin's efforts give a worthy songwriter a chance to secure her work for posterity and be remembered in perpetuity. It's a form of artistic immortality.
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Re: NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Boohan 14/4/2009, 20:40
En fin, no tenía ni idea de esta colaboración. Se agradece para conocer un poco más la inagotable obra del abuelo Neil.
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Re: NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Invitado 14/4/2009, 20:45
Boohan escribió:En fin, no tenía ni idea de esta colaboración. Se agradece para conocer un poco más la inagotable obra del abuelo Neil.
Hombre,ya que te pones escucha el disco y que no quede como un simple Neil Young también... no?
Invitado- Invitado
Re: NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Boohan 14/4/2009, 20:50
Honey Bee escribió:Boohan escribió:En fin, no tenía ni idea de esta colaboración. Se agradece para conocer un poco más la inagotable obra del abuelo Neil.
Hombre,ya que te pones escucha el disco y que no quede como un simple Neil Young también... no?
Que sí, que sí, claro que lo escucharé entero, si se juntó con Neil sería por algo
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Re: NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Invitado 15/4/2009, 01:11
Vaya...he leído la entrevista.
Que putada lo que le pasó con los derechos de sus canciones.
Lo que se comenta acerca de las letras del disco es muy interesante,la mortalidad...
Supongo que para decir de la manera en que lo dice,lo de dejar todo ese mundo atrás y empezar otra vida totalmuente opuesta a la de la música,debió tener problemas muy chungos,a saber.....
Es curioso..tengo un disco de Elf Power,el grupo del tipo que logra dar con ella.
Si descubre cosas tan bellas y olvidadas,que siga insistiendo para que se reediten
por favor...
Que putada lo que le pasó con los derechos de sus canciones.
Lo que se comenta acerca de las letras del disco es muy interesante,la mortalidad...
Supongo que para decir de la manera en que lo dice,lo de dejar todo ese mundo atrás y empezar otra vida totalmuente opuesta a la de la música,debió tener problemas muy chungos,a saber.....
Es curioso..tengo un disco de Elf Power,el grupo del tipo que logra dar con ella.
Si descubre cosas tan bellas y olvidadas,que siga insistiendo para que se reediten
por favor...
Invitado- Invitado
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Re: NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Esputo Acido 15/4/2009, 10:33
Honey Bee escribió:Vaya...he leído la entrevista.
Que putada lo que le pasó con los derechos de sus canciones.
Lo que se comenta acerca de las letras del disco es muy interesante,la mortalidad...
Supongo que para decir de la manera en que lo dice,lo de dejar todo ese mundo atrás y empezar otra vida totalmuente opuesta a la de la música,debió tener problemas muy chungos,a saber.....
Es curioso..tengo un disco de Elf Power,el grupo del tipo que logra dar con ella.
Si descubre cosas tan bellas y olvidadas,que siga insistiendo para que se reediten
por favor...
Parece que estaba trabajando en un disco nuevo allá por el año 2000, pero seguimos son tener nada nuevo. Una pena. Esperemos que algún día se editen esas canciones que permanecen inéditas desde el 1969.
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Re: NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Esputo Acido 15/4/2009, 13:21
Esta parte de la entrevista no tiene desperdicio. Que hijoputez la escena musical de aquella época.
"Alas, mass acceptance remained just out of her reach. Perhaps the signature failure was when Cher recorded Weinberg's song "Band of Thieves" for the soundtrack to her acting debut, the 1969 film "Chastity." When she attended the movie, mostly to see her name in the credits, she read to her disbelief: "All Songs By Sonny Bono." The misunderstanding (or deliberate slight) was never rectified"
"Alas, mass acceptance remained just out of her reach. Perhaps the signature failure was when Cher recorded Weinberg's song "Band of Thieves" for the soundtrack to her acting debut, the 1969 film "Chastity." When she attended the movie, mostly to see her name in the credits, she read to her disbelief: "All Songs By Sonny Bono." The misunderstanding (or deliberate slight) was never rectified"
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Re: NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Invitado 15/4/2009, 17:23
Esputo Acido escribió:Esta parte de la entrevista no tiene desperdicio. Que hijoputez la escena musical de aquella época.
"Alas, mass acceptance remained just out of her reach. Perhaps the signature failure was when Cher recorded Weinberg's song "Band of Thieves" for the soundtrack to her acting debut, the 1969 film "Chastity." When she attended the movie, mostly to see her name in the credits, she read to her disbelief: "All Songs By Sonny Bono." The misunderstanding (or deliberate slight) was never rectified"
"El malentendido"
que fuerte si....Pobre Cher ni debía saber de dónde salía la canción,en esa época el enano de Sonny Bono la tenía acojonada y le daba una paliza
día si y al otro también.
Una verdadera pena que la obra de Elyse Weinberg quedara en el anonimato...
Invitado- Invitado
Re: NEIL YOUNG y ELYSE WEINBERG ( Canadá 1968)
por Esputo Acido 15/4/2009, 19:17
Honey Bee escribió:Esputo Acido escribió:Esta parte de la entrevista no tiene desperdicio. Que hijoputez la escena musical de aquella época.
"Alas, mass acceptance remained just out of her reach. Perhaps the signature failure was when Cher recorded Weinberg's song "Band of Thieves" for the soundtrack to her acting debut, the 1969 film "Chastity." When she attended the movie, mostly to see her name in the credits, she read to her disbelief: "All Songs By Sonny Bono." The misunderstanding (or deliberate slight) was never rectified"
"El malentendido"
Pobre Cher ni debía saber de dónde salía la canción,en esa época el enano de Sonny Bono la tenía acojonada y le daba una paliza
día si y al otro también.
Una verdadera pena que la obra de Elyse Weinberg quedara en el anonimato...
Si, si, de esos "malentendidos" están los 60/70 llenos
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