Name: Keno
E-Mail: keno@fairpoint.net
Subject: Poll Post for the week starting Monday, June 21
Date: Monday, June 21, 2021
Time: 1:31:05 AM
Remote Address: 8.41.160.9
Message ID: 320949
Parent ID: 0
Thread ID: 320949

Poll Post for the week starting Monday, June 21

This week for our weekly polls we’ll get back to running 4 new polls instead of the 5 we voted in last week. As is always the case, we start off talking about the Stones poll, which enters week 1,142 of voting, and we continue to rate the Stones songs at this poll. Now, after 3 weeks of rating some of the Stones poorer songs, it's time to rate one of their biggest warhorses ever recorded, as this week the questions asks: Rate the Rolling Stones release of the song "Sympathy For The Devil", from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest).

“Sympathy For The Devil”, 1968 poster, and later the DVD cover from the movie of the same name.

This song from 1968's Beggars Banquet album, at first was titled "The Devil Is My Name", and it turned into a monster of a tune, a favorite song to so many hard-nosed Stones fans and even for many Rock fans in general. A story about the history of mankind - but only looking at the devilish bad side of things. The devil in this song is man, and in this song we hear perhaps the greatest, and cleanest, guitar riff ever played by anybody in any Rock song ever. Of course, that riff came courtesy of Keith Richards, who also played one of the best bass parts ever heard in a rock song on this one, too (all IMO, of course). While Mick Jagger wrote the song's great lyrics and music alone without any input from Keith, this tune was perhaps Keith's greatest moment as a Stone anyway for any one song (his work on the entire Let It Bleed album was just as good, but that was a collection of songs, of course).

I really don't have to talk too much more about this classic song as you all know the story about its making, and 98% of all hard-nosed Stones fans have seen the movie that was made of the song’s sessions, which was filmed while the Stones worked on the song in the studio. The lineup for this one was: Mick Jagger: Lead Vocal and Bongos; Keith Richards: Acid Electric Guitar and Bass; Bill Wyman: Maracas and Axatse; Charlie Watts: Drums; Brian Jones: Acoustic Guitar (movie and sessions only) and Bongos… with Rocky Dijon: Congas; and Nicky Hopkins: Piano. The "Whoo Whoo, Woo Woo" Vocals were sung by: Keith Richards (*?), Brian Jones, Bill Wyman, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg & Jimmy Miller... *Richards is seen singing backing vocals in the movie for this song in the first session take, but for what appears to be the final backing vocals recording, he is off to the side playing the bass guitar part for the song - and is not singing along with the others. Also note that while Charlie Watts was credited for singing backing vocals for this song - this being the only Stones song that he was ever credited for singing on, in the first take of the band singing the backing vocals (shown in the movie) - while he's there with the others in the group who's singing the backing vocals, he's clearly not singing at all and never once opens his mouth and is just standing there, and he isn't seem in the final take of the backing vocals at all. Therefore, Charlie doesn't sing on this song (or any other songs) while it's possible, perhaps likely, that Keith's early backing vocals can be heard, as it's believed that parts from the 3 recordings of the backing vocals were all used and mixed together (note: the second take of the backing vocals were never shown in the movie, and the third take, where Keith is shown playing bass, wasn’t at first in the original and DVD release of the movie, and instead was shown in a separate rock movie that was released a year after the Stones movie came out (which also showed the fire in the studio, which also wasn’t shown in the original flick), which I was lucky to see, even if I have no clue today what the title of that rock film was…. However, from what I’ve been told, that last take of the backing vocals (and the fire) was added into the new release of the movie, which came out a couple of years ago, and which I haven’t seen yet. Also note, that while the idea for using the "Who Who" backing vocals came from Anita Pallenberg, after she heard producer Jimmy Miller singing "Who who, who who, Mick!" in the engineering booth, over and over again, as Mick sang the vocals alone for the first time, both "Who Who" and "Woo Woo" were then sang in different takes after that, but it sounds like only the "Woo Woo" take of the backing vocals were used in the end for the song's final take.

A closing note to the video linked to at the voting page.... At first, I was gonna link to the Rock n Roll Circus live take of this number from December of 1968, but felt most fans have seen that excellent take a thousand and one times already, so I instead I linked to the appearance they made earlier in the year on the UK TV program, David Frost Show, which not as many of you have seen. Truth is, we don't really need to even link to this number, since it's so well known, but I still always provide a link anyway to all songs that we will rate. The difference to this Frost showing versus the studio lineup noted above, is that Bill is playing bass, Brian piano (Nicky wasn't there), and Keith is playing tambourine (when he’s not playing his guitar riffs). While the Circus' take of the song had no Woo-Woo backing vocals to it at all, this other take does - although it wasn't sung live, and in part that ruined this appearance, making all that they were doing up on stage look fake. You got to wonder why Keith, Brian and Bill didn't at the least, pretend to sing this part of the song, or just flat out sing it live, since it isn't too hard to sing. Heck, even Charlie could have sung this in the studio if he had just tried, no matter how bad he feels his singing is. But as I always point out, the video that is linked to the song at the voting page is there only so you can hear the song before you vote, but it shouldn’t have any bearing on how you rate the tune, as the studio version of the song itself is all that should matter when you rate any songs for this poll.

So, let’s rate this number. To do so, just click on the following link: Stones Weekly Poll.

Last week at the Stones poll we answered this question: Rate the Rolling Stones release of the song "Rock And A Hard Place (12" disco single)", from zero (lowest) to 10 (highest)

“Rock And A Hard Place (12" disco single)”

“Rock And A Hard Place (12" disco single)”, just might have gotten a few more higher vote scores than some might have meant to vote on it, since because of a programing issue with our polls, where I cannot use the normal quotation marks (that being “ or ”) in the text when I write out whatever song we might be voting on each week. Instead I have to use single quotation marks in the polls (that being ‘ or ’). The reason is because the normal quotation marks were used as code in the admin of the polls, and if I use them in questions in poll’s text, the admin removes all text that I typed in after any normal quotation is used. It’s an auto thing with me to not ever use them in the poll questions or in the poll choice fields. But last week I guess I had a brain freeze and I used the normal quotation mark where I had the song’s title, where it read after the main title: (12” disco single). So because of that mistake, only the (12 showed and it read as … Rock And A Hard Place (12. Anybody who doesn’t ever read this Poll Post and votes instead directly from the poll menu, only saw that, and might have thought we were rating the non-disco version of the song, which while not perhaps the greatest song the Boys have ever made, is still much better than the disco take (IMO). Therefor it’s possible that some didn’t realize what version of the song we were rating when they voted (and I didn’t notice the mistake I made until Saturday morning), and perhaps gave it a higher rating, thinking it was the album take of the song. So if that was the case for you, I’m sorry about that and it was my mistake, 100%! But if you had read the Poll Post, you knew which version we were voting on anyway.

Now that I had to explain all that and waste our time in doing so, this song still didn’t do well at all, as it’s top rating was just a “4”. That makes this tune tied for the fourth lowest rated Stones song by us fans, and keeps that other disco song, “Too Much Blood (Disco version 1)” as the lowest rated song, with a rating of a “2”.

To check out the full results from this poll, just click here: Stones Weekly Poll - week 1,141. Or, to check out the Stones’ songs updated rating standings for this ongoing series, and see what those other songs I just noted above were, all of that can be viewed at the Stones List Page 5, which you can get to clicking here: Stones Top Picks - Page 3, List Page 5.

Let’s now take a look at this week’s Classic Rock Poll, where enter week 782 of voting, and for this week we return to the usual 2 different Rock Polls in the one week … This week’s first question asks: Who was the most underrated member of the band, Buffalo Springfield?.

The Buffalo Springfield

The Buffalo Springfield (they took their name from a steamroller that was parked outside of the band's communal house) were formed in 1966 in Los Angeles, California by a group of Canadian (Neil Young, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin) and American (Stephen Stills and Richie Furay) musicians who all lived together with their girlfriends in one house. The way they got together in the first place to form the band was flat out crazy, along with some sheer luck to boot, when Stills and Young reunited in LA (while in a traffic jam in 2 different cars, well, Stills was in a car, with Young driving his hearse) after at first meeting each other up in Ontario, Canada, where their 2 bands were playing at the same joint (called the Fourth Dimension) in early 1965. When the time came for Stills to head back to the States, he headed to LA, to try to make it big there. He brought along a close friend he met in Canada, who was an American playing in a Canadian band, and whom was also looking for a new start, a singer and guitarist named Richie Furay.

Young meanwhile had stayed behind in Canada and met a dude named Bruce Palmer, a Canadian who was playing bass for a band called The Mynah Birds, who were looking for a new lead guitar player, so Young joined the band. Their lead singer was a then unknow black dude named Ricky James Matthews (an American living in exile, who had just started to go by the alias of "Rick James"). The band was signed to and set to record an album for Motown Records when James was tracked down and arrested by the U.S. Navy for being AWOL, so he was then deported and thrown in jail (and of course, he would become a big star later on his own). So, with their record deal cancelled, Young and Palmer pawned their musical equipment and bought a 1953 Pontiac hearse, which they drove to Los Angeles, as Young wanted to go there and find his friend Stills. After about 2 weeks of searching countless clubs and coffeehouses, they couldn’t find Stills anywhere. Then one day, as hard as this is to believe (but it's a totally true story), Young and Palmer were stuck in heavy traffic on Sunset Boulevard, and they were spotted by Stills and Furay, who were also stuck in traffic, but heading in the other direction down Sunset (Young's black hearse stuck out, and Stills, to his surprise, saw Young in the driver’s seat). Stills immediately turned his car around and somehow caught up with and maneuver behind Young's hearse, at which point the musicians pulled off the road and reunited on the side of the road (yes, this could only happen in California!).

To fill out the band, yet another Canadian musician living in the U.S., drummer Dewey Martin, who had played with a few garage rock groups and was known as a studio session drummer, and who had also played with several country artists such as Patsy Cline and The Dillards, joined the new band which they named “Buffalo Springfield”. The sad part of this story was what turned into a super group, only lasted for 3 years after releasing just 3 albums, all of them big hits. The band also had 2 well known songs, although only Stills' "For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)" became a top 10 hit single. Another song that Young wrote, "Mr Soul", was a B side single and it in time became almost as famous as Stills hit song.

But after a while problems with the police followed this hippie band wherever they went. Of course, all rock bands, and all hippies, were harassed and busted over and over again for nothing by the police in the '60s and early ‘70s. For whatever reason, the police picked on Bruce Palmer the most, as he was arrested more than once on drug charges and at one point deported for possession of marijuana (in early 1967). After he was allowed to returned to the States and his bandmates, he would be arrested once again in January of 1968 and was again deported for drug possession, this time with no return allowed. So at that time a new bassist was needed for the group, and a unknown singer/songwriter named Jim Messina (who was known to the band after he had worked with them as an engineer on their second LP) was hired as Palmer's permanent replacement, so Messina appeared on their new (and the band's last) album, not only as their new bassist and singer, but also as the band's lone producer of the LP (Palmer had played bass on just one song on the LP before he was deported). They then went on tour, but the police were still harassing them wherever they went. At a party the band threw at their pad in May of '68, the police showed up to raid it for a phony reason. Stills was in the back bathroom when the pigs busted in the front door, and he fled out the window, avoiding arrest. But Young, Furay, Martin and Messina were all arrested and booked into the Los Angeles County Jail on drug charges after the cops found them smoking weed in the house. After one last concert was held a couple of weeks after they were released from jail, the band decided to breakup - directly because of the constant police harassment, and with both Young and Martin now also facing deportation.

While the band tried several brief reunions between 2010 and 2012 (with Young, Stills, and Furay reuniting and playing several shows together in 2010), nothing else really came from any of that and for the most part we will just look at their '60s music when looking for the band's most underrated member. To rap this all up, in late 1968, Stills went on to form the group Crosby, Stills & Nash with David Crosby of The Byrds and Graham Nash of The Hollies. Meanwhile, Furay and Messina formed the band Poco, while Young launched his solo career. In '69, Young reunited with Stills in Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. After CSNY, Stills joined with another former Byrd, Chris Hillman and others to form the group Manassas (from 1971 to 1973). Later, Furay joined J.D. Souther and Chris Hillman to form the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, while Messina teamed with singer Kenny Loggins and formed the very successful Loggins & Messina duo. Palmer was limited at what he could do, and at first retired from music since in part he was still stuck in Canada, but in 1971, he reunited with and played bass with Rick James on an album that they made together. After that he then retired from music again, until 1982–1983 when he was allowed back into the U.S., and he played bass on Young's album Trans, and then toured with him in America and Europe.

In 1997, The Buffalo Springfield were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sadly, Palmer died of a heart attack on October 1, 2004 in Belleville, Ontario, at the age of 58, followed by the passing of Dewey Martin, who died on January 31, 2009. His body was found the next day by his longtime girlfriend. Martin had health problems for several years before his death, while still playing as a session drummer, but no cause of his death was ever made public by his family. He was 68 when he passed away.

So no question, it was one strange trip for this band, just like so many other rock bands before and after them, just not a long trip (for the band anyway), thanks mainly to the corrupt police of the 1960s (who often fucked up and sometimes succeeded in destroying a few big time named rockers back in the '60s and '70s, both in the U.S. and UK combined. But in the end, I believe the rockers won out over the cops regardless, even if some of them were lost before the end came around).

To vote in this week’s first Rock poll, just click on here: Classic Rock Poll, and when you get to this page, choose “Poll 1” to vote in this poll.

For our second Rock Poll this week, we ask our normal VS question, which this week asks us to answer this: "Baby Please Don't Go”: Them's cover vs AC/DC's cover. Which version of this Blues song is better?

VS

"Baby Please Don't Go” Them VS AC/DC

"Baby, Please Don't Go" is a traditional blues song that was popularized by the Delta blues musician Big Joe Williams in 1935 and has since been covered by many rock and blues bands... It was one of the first songs recorded by the group Them, fronted at the time (from 1964-66) by a teenager named Van Morrison. The band played the song at first in the same style that Morrison heard as a boy in the early '50s that had been recorded by John Lee Hooker in 1949. Them recorded the song in October, 1964, although it's questionable as to if the entire band actually played on the song or not. It is known that at the least, Morrison sang the vocals and blew Harp, while the Lead Guitar was played by a 20-year-old session player named Jimmy Page, along with a few other session players. But it is believed that the rest of the band also played some on the song. So the lineup for this one more than likely was: Van Morrison - Lead Vocals, Harp; Billy Harrison - Rhythm Guitar; Alan Henderson - Bass, Ronnie Millings - Drums; Eric Wrixon - Keyboards; with sessions players Jimmy Page - Lead Guitar and Bass; Pat McAuley- Keyboards, and Bobby Graham - Drums.

For AC/DC's cover of this one, the recording was a family affair for sure, as was the making of the band's entire first LP, High Voltage as it involved all 3 of the Young brothers (for the most part their first 5 albums were made by this family of brothers, too). But for this one, oldest brother George Young, who produced his brother's first 5 albums and played some bass on the second LP, played all of the bass parts for this album (plus he also played some rhythm guitar and sang backing vocals on the LP, and while he also filled in on the drums for a few of their early live shows, to boot). George was the reason why his 2 younger brothers, Angus and Malcolm, wanted to become big rock stars, after they watched George be just that, as the lead guitarist for the band The Easybeats. The Easybeats were a 1960s band with several hits, that were breaking up at the time, so it was perfect timing for George to help out his two younger brothers and be their producer. But since they didn't have a regular bassist yet, he stepped in and agreed to play all the bass parts on the debut album - as long as his brothers promised to find their own bass player for the band, as producing was all that George wanted to do at this point with this new band. Mark Evans would be brought in soon after the album was made to be the band's new bassist, along with Phil Rudd on the drums, as their original drummer, Peter Clack, left the band while the album was being made. So AC/DC's lineup for this song was: Bon Scott – Lead Vocals; Angus Young – Lead Guitar; Malcolm Young – Rhythm Guitar; George Young – Producer and Bass; Peter Clack – Drums.

Although neither of the 2 videos that are linked to each song should have anything to do with how you vote, I'll add in just a couple of notes about them. For Them's video, it comes from a 1964 UK TV show and no, the band doesn't play live on the song. That shouldn't be held against the band, since as you know, this was and still is to this day a common practice, and the fact that the miming by Morrison and his band isn't too good on here at times, that shouldn't matter, since again, we aren't rating the video here at all, as only the song itself is what we are rating.

For the AC/DC video, the music I linked to at the voting booth is directly from the 1975 studio LP (well actually, it’s from the U.S. released 1984 released version of that album - but it's the same version from the band's first LP that wasn't released in the U.S. until '84). But here in this Poll Post, I'll link to a different, live take of the song, since if you're a fan of the band you should get a kick out of it. It was on this live take of "Baby Please Don't Go" (from late '75) that marked the very first time that Angus Young wore his schoolboy uniform on stage, while Bon Scott, to counter him, wore a school girl's uniform and dressed in drag as a school girl (Scott did this as a joke and never wore the uniform again, while Angus to this day still wears his uniform onstage). So, if you wish to watch this live take of the song, here it is: "Baby Please Don't Go” - AC/DC live in ’75. While I always say you need to rate a song from its original studio take (which, IMO, always sounds better, and Angus's guitar is on fire on that studio take), but for this live take, the 2 differences to the band’s lineup are: Mark Evans, who had joined by this time, plays bass, while Phil Rudd was the band's new drummer in late ‘75, with the rest of the band the same as noted above. So which of these 2 cover songs was the better one? To vote in this week’s Rock VS poll, just click on this link: Classic Rock VS Poll, and when you get to this page, choose “Poll 2” to vote on this question.

Last week, as I’m sure you remember, we voted on 3 Rock questions instead of the usual two. In the first Rock Poll we asked this question Who was the most underrated member of the band, The Jefferson Airplane?… while the second poll asked: Who was the most underrated member of the band, The Jefferson Starship?

>

The Jefferson Airplane (L), around 1966, and The Jefferson Starship (R), around 1979

For the Airplane question, bassist Jack Casady took first place on the first day of voting and never gave up the lead to be picked as the most underrated Airplane member.

To see the poll’s full final results, just click on the following link: Classic Rock Poll, week 781, Poll 1. Or, to see “The most underrated member of each rock band” list, and who’s on there from the other bands that we answered this question for already, click on: Top 10 List Page, Page 16, and you will see this listing at the very top of the page.

In last week’s second poll for the Starship, David Freiberg who played several instruments for the group, was pick first in the voting, just barely beating Peter Sears, with both seeing 17.6% of the vote, but with Freiberg receiving 2 more votes than Sears.

To see this poll’s full final results, just click on the following link: Classic Rock Poll, week 781, Poll 2. Or, to see “The most underrated member of each rock band” list, just click on the same link for the Airplane listed above.

Last week in the Rock VS polls, we asked: Roger McGuin's solo take of “Ballad of Easy Rider” vs The Byrds' “I Wasn't Born to Follow”. Which song from the movie Easy Rider, was better?

Easy Rider poster, from 1969

Another week where the VS poll wasn’t close, with The Byrds cover song, “I Wasn't Born to Follow” taking first place in a landslide. Just how big of a win was this outcome? Well you can check the results by clicking on the following link: Classic Rock Poll, week 780, VS Poll. Or, to see the results on the VS list page, just go here: Rock VS Page 3, List Page 15, and head on down to the bottom of the page.

We close out our Poll Post looking at this week’s Beatles Poll, where we enter week 533 of voting, and we’ll vote on this question: Which is the most underrated song on the Beatles’ With The Beatles UK album?

With The Beatles UK Album cover

This UK Beatles album from 1963, their second LP release, just might be the only Beatles album that the cover songs on it are better than the original ones. Of the 14 tracks, 6 of them are covers, the most covers on any Beatle LP, and all of them are nicely played by the Fabs. Of the original tunes on here, John Lennon lead the way in writing 3 of them alone, while another 3 were written by he and Paul McCartney together (2 of these 3 songs were started first by Paul alone and then finished up by John alone), and with only one full song coming from Paul alone, and with George Harrison having his first ever penned song showing up on this album, and it would be his only writing credit to be found on the first 3 UK releases.

This album contains only one Lennon and McCartney song that they wrote together – that happened one night when they were visiting their friends in the band, The Rolling Stones, after Mick Jagger asked John and Paul if they had any new songs written that his band could use. So right there on the spot, John and Paul went into a corner of the room and wrote the song "I Wanna Be Your Man" (other than the opening lyrics and the title was already in Paul's head, but nothing else was written yet for the tune). The song became the Stones first Top 20 hit single (as the song “Come On” was a minor hit, half a year earlier for the Stones). Once that became an instant hit for the Stones, Lennon and McCartney decided to also give the song to Ringo Starr to sing lead on, while another song that they had already written together for Ringo to sing, "Little Child", was then instead sung by John.

The lineup for this album was: John Lennon – Lead, Harmony and Backing Vocals; Rhythm and Acoustic Guitars; Harmonica on "Little Child"; Tambourine on "Don't Bother Me", and other Percussion; Paul McCartney – Lead, Harmony and Backing Vocals; Bass; Piano on "Little Child", Claves on "Don't Bother Me", plus other Percussion; George Harrison – Harmony and Backing Vocals; Lead and Acoustic Guitars; Lead Vocal on "Don't Bother Me", "Roll Over Beethoven", and "Devil in Her Heart"; Ringo Starr – Drums, Tambourine, Maracas, Bongos on "Till There Was You" and "Don't Bother Me"; Lead Vocals on "I Wanna Be Your Man".... and with George Martin – Producer, and Organ on "I Wanna Be Your Man", and Piano on "You Really Got a Hold on Me", "Not a Second Time" and "Money".

To make your choice for the most underrated song on With The Beatles , just click on the following link: Beatles Weekly Poll.

Looking back at last week’s Beatles poll, we voted on this question: Which is the most underrated song on the Beatles’ A Hard Day's Night UK album?

From A Hard Day's Night

The John Lennon written song “When I Get Home”, was the top pick in what was close voting for the top 3 picks. To see where the rest of the songs on the album landed, click on: Beatles Weekly Poll – week 532. Or you can look at this list page at my Lennon site for the results there: The Beatles' Albums Page , where all of the top picks chosen for this series are listed (its list is located around the middle of the page).

So that does it for yet another Poll Post. Last week in my closing remarks I bitched about 2 hot days of weather already being here in Colorado with summer still a full week off. So this week we saw record breaking highs in the 90s for 4 straight days, Monday thru Thursday. That many days in a row of above 90 degrees here - and in mid-June, had never happened here before. So I guess now with summer officially here as of Sunday, we’re in for one a real hot summer this year for sure. Yuck! But I promised not to bitch about most humans’ favorite season here anymore…. But I still don’t get what’s to like about summer heat, and now the smoke in the skies every day, from wildfires burning to the southwest of here? That, and the local bears are causing problems once again around town, as they are breaking into homes yet again this year. That don’t happen in the winter since they are all asleep…. but I guess I’m bitching again, so I’ll stop now.

I do hope that all of you who love summer are enjoying it, even if I never do, and do enjoy your upcoming week.

Keno

• Poll Post for the week starting Monday, June 21 by Keno on 6/21/2021 1:31:05 AM <-- You Are Here
• Poll Post for the week starting Monday, June 21 by gomper on 6/30/2021 6:50:04 PM

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