Monday, May 27, 2019

The Move - BBC Sessions, Volume 2, 1968

Here's more of the Move's many BBC sessions. Luckily, with the last album, I had just the right amount of music to make one album from all their 1967 BBC performances, and that's the case again with their 1968 ones.

Also like last time, what really surprises me here is the Move's willingness to perform then-recent hits by other bands. Many of their contemporary bands, such as Pink Floyd, wouldn't have been caught dead playing any cover versions at all, much less a bunch. But it seems the Move just enjoyed playing great songs and didn't get too hung up on where they came from. Four of the songs here are Move originals: "Fire Brigade," "Useless Information," "Wild Tiger Woman," and "Blackberry Way."

Here's where the others come from:
Weekend - Eddie Cochran
It'll Be Me -Jerry Lee Lewis
(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher - Jackie Wilson
Piece of My Heart - Emma Franklin / Janis Joplin
Kentucky Woman - Neil Diamond
Long Black Veil - Lefty Frizzell / Band
Goin' Back - Byrds (and others)
California Girls - Beach Boys
The Christian Life - Louvin Brothers / Byrds
Something - Dave Morgan

The last three songs are kind of bonus tracks, in that they're not actually BBC performances. Ace Kefford was the Move's bass player from the beginning of the band's existence. However, it turned out he had bipolar disorder, which grew worse due to the use of drugs like LSD and the pressure of being a rock star. He left the band in mid-1968 after having a nervous breakdown. Then he tried to make a solo album, but he had further mental troubles, leaving the album unfinished. (What was completed was released in 2003.) I've included my three favorite songs from it, which I think are all written by him.

01 Fire Brigade (Move)
02 Weekend (Move)
03 It'll Be Me (Move)
04 Useless Information (Move)
05 [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher (Move)
06 Piece of My Heart (Move)
07 Kentucky Woman (Move)
08 Wild Tiger Woman (Move)
09 Long Black Veil (Move)
10 Goin' Back (Move)
11 Blackberry Way (Move)
12 California Girls (Move)
13 The Christian Life (Move)
14 Something (Move)
15 Step Out in the Night (Ace Kefford)
16 Trouble in the Air (Ace Kefford)
17 Daughter of the Sun (Ace Kefford)

https://www.imagenetz.de/mqG5i

The cover art uses a publicity photo of the Move from 1968, while Kefford was still in the band. (He's the blond in the front row.)

5 comments:

  1. Thank you for this one. I only know of 2 other Move fans that I am friends with. Everyone else goes; WhO? Goin Back is good but, Bruce Springsteen does a live version on a 1975 or 76 bootleg from the Roxy in LA that is even better than the Byrds version. I wish there was more of the Move. I also prefer Roy Wood solo, more than ELO. Matter of fact, El Dorado turned me off and I never bought another ELO after that.

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    1. Exactly. The Move is way underappreciated, at least in the US. I hope I'm doing at least a little bit to get their music to a few more people.

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  2. Kudos to you for the excellent Move sessions 'box set' It really should be an official release, I'm surprised Salvo (who have or had the Move catalogue and did some fine archival and special edition reissues) haven't done so already. Many songs I never knew they performed or recorded - however, we can't get zippyshare so it's purely an imaginative exercise on my part wwhen it comes to hearing 'em. Though thye were long before my time I am yuge Move fan - I even got more excited visiting the location of the former Club Cedar in Brum than i was goignto Strawberry Field in L'pool. Roy Wood was of course a songwriter of genius and the band weren't hard up for decent original material, but their choice of covers displays excellent taste and their performances usually deliver (maybe a tad overambitious to try California Girls but even that is admirable). Remember, early sixties cover bands were the norm. the Rolling Stones were a cover band! The milieu the Move rose out of was completely different to that which The Pink Floyd found themselves in (even they did a cover stint as The King Bees). There is some anecdotal whispering that the Floyd couldn't have done covers if they had wanted to - one of the Syd biogs contains the story that the Interstellar Overdrive riff was born out of a mangling of Love's 'Little Red Book' (itself a Manfred Mann cover!!!). A different dynamic at work in the sixties. The Move's original audience woudl've expected - demanded crowd pleasers. Everyone had to do Gimme Some Lovin', like the garage bands in the US had to play Gloria. The Slade movie Flame has a groovy reconstruction of this scene, near neighbours of the Move themselves. The London groovy crowd at the UFO would be a lot more arty, cerebral and demanding of originality, regardless of how much the band rocked. Floyd and Move toured together but they was different species of the same genus, different class. The Move had a dynamic that pulled toward Frank Zappa at one end, Geno Washington or Tom Jones at t'other. The Who and psych Beatles in the middle. In England, Power Pop was white guys playing Motown. Don't mean to lecture, beg pardon. I feel like the guy who is silent all night , then goes 'you like THE MOVE?!!' at the first indication and proceeds to talk yer hind legs off. Thanks! Is the short version.

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    1. Thanks for your thoughts. Quick note: it's true Zippyshare is banned in Britain, but you can get all these files through SoulseekQT. It's a free and easy to use file sharing program. I put all the albums I post here there too.

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  3. Thanks for sharing. The B.B.C. version of 'Useless Information' sounds better than the studio version I have.

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