what Frank is listening to #55- THE BLUE THINGS – Self Titled – (RCA) -1966
OK, my copy of this LP is a reprint and it also cost more than $1.00 ($9.00, I think).
The Blue Things have been called, amongst other things, the great lost US band of the 1960s. This is perhaps true as this album certainly deserves to be better known than it is.
They were from Kansas and had a degree of regional popularity in the Midwest and Texas apparently: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll
I assume they were one of the many "frat" bands that existed prior to The Beatles who incorporated musical "beat" into their style after the Beatles popularity. See my "Hullaballoos" comment (#52).
I first heard of The Blue Things whilst researching Val Stecklein (aka Stoecklein) , the singer and songwriter with The Blue Things. I picked up his 1968 solo album in an op shop years ago and was suitably impressed. The critics are divided on it but what I like is its single mindedness and purity of vision. That's not to say it's great but it is certainly "out there" – he sounds like a baritone Leonard Cohen meeting Glen Campbell in a dark alley.
A few of the tracks on that album were done originally here.
What is most noticeable is the song writing and voice of Stecklein. His songs weigh heavily on lost love and loneliness whilst his baritone is slow and deliberate punctuating the lyric for maximum effect (hey look my "comments" are becoming serious and thoughtful). He sings basically at the same tempo regardless of the pace of the instruments behind him (much like some REM where Stipe sings at a tempo a lot slower to the music – though here Stecklein sings even slower still). His voice creates a melancholy feeling that pervades the entire album regardless if the tracks are ballads or rockers.
The album has a nice clean sound and is produced by Felton Jarvis who would later "produce" Elvis (he worked at RCA – Felton that is, well Elvis also)
This is certainly a distinctive effort.
Best Tracks:
Most of the album actually ..
- "High Life"
- "Girl of the North Country" – yes the Dylan song.
- "Doll House" – is about a young prostitute.
- "La Do Da Da" – the Dale Hawkins rockabilly track.
- "Look Homeward Angel" – British Beat with a church organ in the background.
- "It Aint No Big Thing, Babe"
- "Aint That Lovin You Baby"
- "I Cant Have Yesterday" – a Phil Spectorish teen loss lament.
- "Now's the Time"
- "I Must Be Doing Something Wrong" – Ray Walker, the bass singer from Elvis Presley's backing group The Jordanaires sang on this track also.
- "Honor the Hearse" – dark? What do you reckon with a title like that?
Definitely a keeper … I may have to go in search of some more music by them. I do have a double LP rock opera on Jesus' life that Stecklein was involved in – so I will have to go dig that up … (in fact since writing this I have ordered a CD of the Blue Things)
Stecklein left the group in 1968 after a breakdown, possibly a result of the usual 1960s drug excesses, and recorded sporadically in subsequent years before dying (suicide?) in 1993.
Sounds:
attached
Stecklein (solo – though this song was first done on the Blue Things LP):
More history:
(originally posted: 30/06/2009)
