I was talking about the importance of cities in the shaping of popular music trends on my second post with this Desert Island Disc compilation. The short sunlight of January amid the predominant overcast for the month always reminds me of Seattle. On those few days when the sun beams out on Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean beats against America’s Emerald City a person can get hooked on the place, yearning for a strong espresso mixture from a young and charming barista. Most of the time in Seattle, when the drizzle and gray permeates all life, you find yourself in the vicinity of grunge, bundled up in some flannel and jean outfit that acts as a sponge for all the cold and wetness.

One of the last real City Scene happenings in the rock world occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s at the former Boeing capital. Ferocious poundings on slow tempos set against dissonant changes that were coupled with the highest amplified settings of thoughtful angry downer lyrics brought a sound that was nothing like Seattle’s former rock royalty, Heart, ever imagined. Nirvana, Sound Garden, Alice In Chains and Pearl Jam were the toast of the music world for about five years. These bands owe big debts of gratitude to Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie and The Clash for inspiration. But for all that, they created their own force and mystique that was the refreshing antithesis to the boring sameness of hair bands and pseudo “new wave” acts swallowing rock by the early 1990s. I have two albums from two of Seattle’s fab four bands heading on the flight to my island, Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Vs. Kurt Cobain’s In Bloom happens to be one of those masterpieces that sticks with you forever, and the fact that Pearl Jam wages the good fight to this day against gross commercialism while not allowing their packaged goods to be sold in plastic throwaway holders, with Vs. being their first environmental statement, makes the choices pretty easy. Like most inspired sound awakenings, Grunge and these acts fostered a lot of really terrible imitations and spin-offs but must not be held accountable for a public marketed into swallowing limp biscuits with their “venti” espresso.

San Francisco gave the world hippies on the half-shell during and after the Summer of Love from 1966 to 1970. All those bands with peculiar names like Moby Grape, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Joe & The Fish, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks (Airplane and Dead previously mentioned in part 1 of this fable) and all those drugs ingested actually produced a fair share of worthwhile music notables that have endured. At the height of acid nights and pot-filled days free form improvisations ruled the city by the Bay.

There were a few holdouts from the jam assaults in the area that grooved to a different beat at this point in time. One was a young disc jockey working in the City, who produced one of San Francisco’s first charting bands, The Beau Brummels. For most radio guys that would have been a ticket to the Promised Land with a producer’s credit to gain access to other pop wannabees in big city recording studios while working for record labels making good dough. Sylvester Stewart wanted to make revolutionary music instead. He came and went in a flash of funky beaten ferocity mixed around rock and soul roots of genius that paved the way for masters of funk like George Clinton and Bootsy Collins to take flight and soar. Stand! was one of the most original and revolutionary records made. Ever! The infectious beat and the politically charged lyrics from this charismatic black man and his Family Stone changed the course of music for quite awhile. Every song on the record made a statement and made you dance. Everyday People, Stand!, I Want To Take You Higher, Sing A Simple Song, You Can Make if You Try and Somebody’s Watching You are timeless classics. Extended jams Sex Machine and Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey still resonate. Though Sly was a sad casualty of psychedelic excess and abuse, this great record, Stand!, dances the night away on my island.

On my last post I mentioned New York as one of those important cities in defining rock over the last several decades. New York has always been a music source, from show tunes to jazz, and has served as a destination to countless musical souls looking for inspiration. Bill Graham, the legendary rock promoter, who is still missed in this world after so many years gone, needed a venue in New York to make peace with himself that he had made it. This after establishing in San Francisco the ultimate rock stage at the time, The Fillmore. The Fillmore East building had previously been the Village Theater, and before that was once the Loew’s Commodore, playing movies to the Lower East Side Manhattan crowds. There were many great shows put on in the old restored movie palace, but it was a relatively unheard band from the south in the spring of 1971 that defined the Fillmore East.

At this time most of the authentic blues music was coming from England with bands following the early Rolling Stones model of beefing up original blues songs with a big jolts of electric guitars riffing around lengthy arrangements. Bands like John Mayall & The Bluebreakers, Fleetwood Mac, Savoy Brown, Foghat, Joe Cocker & the Grease Band, Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton with whomever dominated the blues rock genre of the period.

In America, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band had already gone through four incarnations by the end of the 1960s with most of the original band gone to various solo projects. Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop went solo and each contributed their own stylistic chops to fewer hard core fans. By 1971, Soul music had nothing to do with the blues and Jimi Hendrix had already died.

The Allman Brothers Band had released their first album on Atlantic Records in 1969. One of the songs from the record had garnered a little attention, Whipping Post. For their follow up record, Idlewild South, the sales results were better and critical reviews were pouring in from a growing rock press corps. Their third record, The Allman Brothers At Fillmore East, cemented their status as blues rock icons of the day and created a whole new category of recorded music to sell to future generations, the concert album. The group also opened the doors to a floodgate of southern bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Outlaws, Molly Hatchet, Wet Willie, 38 Special and The Marshall Tucker Band to name a few that would provide that refried-rock-boogie backdrop for so many.

Every track on The Allman Brothers At Fillmore East is crisp and the improvisational flow of guitars by Duane Allman and Dickie Betts around twin percussion, bass and Greg Allman’s keyboards shimmers throughout. Duane Allman had made quite a reputation appearing as a guest session guitarist for Boz Scaggs’ debut album and he worked on Eric Clapton’s Layla recordings during 1971 before dying in a tragic motorcycle accident. His band mate Berry Oakley would die the same way a little over a year later. Tragedy aside, the band has always continued to deliver over the years, and this legendary concert record is one for me to count pebbles of sand over under the palm fronds. For sentiment’s sake I’m also bringing their Brothers & Sisters release that bridged the blues with that southern-country groove that is so identified with the second stage of this band’s career.

The Beatles always seemed to have the Rolling Stones to play off during their time on the stage, and the Allman Brothers Band always had Lynyrd Skynyrd joined in raw blues-baked southern powered tragedy. Lynyrd Skynrd also had a seminal live release recorded at the historic Fox Theater in Atlanta that will make the island journey, One More From The Road. This band rocked, had great ballads that would suddenly soar. Classics like Tuesday’s Gone, which Metallica did a great job of covering, and Free Bird define a sound and a time. I will also take along “Street Survivors”, because it was one of those eerie premonitions where art foretold reality. The original album’s cover had the band engulfed in flames and was released just prior to their disastrous plane crash. The unsold originals were all boxed up and pulled from the market and replaced by a black cover and the untouched original photo minus the flames.

As the temperature continues to drop, and the skies gray with overcast I come back to Seattle, birth place of James Marshall Hendrix. You can spot the great ones by how many imitators try to emulate the original. The list of people inspired by Hendrix continues to mount. Possibly only Robert Johnson can claim to have influenced as many players and listeners as Jimi Hendrix. He took the blues and rock to unimagined levels by a sheer force of hard earned talent and an astonishing imagination. It amazes me to this day that he released only three studio albums, one live concert performance and a greatest hits package in his lifetime. For my island getaway I’ll take his three studio albums, Are You Experienced?, Axis: Bold As Love and Electric Ladyland, along with me, particularly since they have been re-mastered by the people who worked and cared for him when he was alive. After years of having his legacy tarnished by hustlers interested only in making money for themselves, Michael Jeffrey and Alan Douglas, Jimi’s father, Al, finally got it right by creating the company Experience Hendrix.

It’s a wrap for part 3, add some commentary of your own if you feel the pull.