WHAT FRANK IS LISTENING TO

This is a hard one.

I wasn’t quite expecting this.

I know Skip Battin (with, and without Kim Fowley) contributed some quirky songs to the late Byrds when Skip played bass for them but I still thought I would get more of a straight country rock album from him for his first solo release

I didn’t.

What I did get was an Americana album where everything is slightly off kilter …..call it weird America.

Skip Battin himself is a weird character. He was substantially older than the other guys in The Byrds …hell he was even older than Elvis.

His entire Wikipedia entry is: Clyde "Skip" Battin (February 18, 1934 – July 6, 2003) was an American singer–songwriter, performer and recording artist. He is best remembered as a member of The Byrds, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, and the Flying Burrito Brothers. While considered to be a great bass player, songwriter and vocalist, he generally joined bands after their most successful periods.

Battin was born in Gallipolis, Ohio (of Italian ancestry I believe). His early musical career began in 1956 when he collaborated with Gary Paxton and formed the Pledges, the same duo later successfully recording under the appellation Skip & Flip, enjoying some success with "It Was I", and their cover of "Cherry Pie". After a few years out of the music industry, he led the short-lived folk-rock group Evergreen Blueshoes, starting in 1967.

As a musician, Battin is probably best known for his position as bass guitarist and songwriter with The Byrds from 1970 to 1973. He was — by eight years — the oldest member of The Byrds, with whom he recorded three albums and toured extensively. Many of his songwriting contributions were co-written with longtime collaborator and songwriter Kim Fowley. After the breakup of the Columbia Byrds, Battin recorded a solo album, Skip. Afterwards, he was invited to join the New Riders of the Purple Sage, with whom he recorded three albums from 1974 to 1976.

Battin’s career continued successfully and included stints with the Flying Burrito Brothers, collaborations with notable country rock musicians, and numerous solo projects. From 1989 to 1991 he toured occasionally with Michael Clarke’s Byrds, a version which was somewhat controversial but mostly well received.[citation needed]

Skip Battin died on the evening of July 6, 2003, of complications from Alzheimer’s disease in a care facility in Salem, Oregon.

Clearly, Battin found himself in the right place at the right time … at least for a while.

Something should be said about Kim Fowley also.

How Battin him shared song writing duties I do not know, but they co-wrote all the songs. Also, I don’t know if the more obscure and “left field” songs are the product of Battin’s mind but I do know that Fowley is, errr, eccentric, and so are these tunes.

Calling Fowley “eccentric” is an understatement.

The truth is he is quite nutty and “out there” but he is a minor genius. He is an American original who marches to his own drum and makes music which, though not always successful, is always interesting and sometimes magnificent. There has been some negative press about him but even if all that was true I’m more concerned about his music. Search this blog for other comments on him but all I will say is that anything he is involved with is never going to be “straight down the line”. He is wonderfully inventive, quirky, and thoughtful even though no one knows where those thoughts come from.

Battin, by association, must also be “different”.

He was a good friend of Fowley’s, having met him in 1959 (apparently). He went on to play on many Fowley records.

And if you need any further proof of these peas in a pod then listen to this album. It’s as if The Fugs moved to the west coast, embraced Americana and hooked up with Arlo Guthrie for a drink.

The album is of its time but the times were full of wonderful experiments. On top of that, for the first time,  the whole history of American music was being explored and incorporated (in an obvious way) into contemporary rock and pop music.  Battin, the son of Italian immigrants, even manages to slide in little patches of Italian polka music.

Accordingly the album is wonderfully quirky and genre hopping.

All this is well and good but does it work?

This should be an album I would like instantly but on first listen the album didn’t do it for me. But, for a number of reasons, I ended up listening to the album 5-6 times in a row.

It grew on me

Was it because of repeat listening’s?

Can repeated listening’s improve a record?

I don’t think so.

You can’t polish a turd.

Clearly this album isn’t stinky, you just have to know where it’s coming from.

Of course with Fowley involved I should have known where it was coming from …. the far side of the moon.

In any event once I got my head around it the album made perfect sense.

This album is a low key winner. Definitely not for all tastes but if you are willing to put in some effort there is enough to reward you.

All songs are written by Battin and Kim Fowley and the album is produced by by Eric Malamud and Skip Battin.

A lot of people have criticized Battin’s contributions to the later Byrds, but clearly, Roger McGuinn, who ran the later Byrds saw something on him and in fact played on this album as does former Byrds Clarence White, Spanky McFarlane of Spanky & Our Gang, Billy Mundi on drums (session drummer for everyone including The Mothers of Invention and Rhinoceros), and John Guerin  (session drummer for Buddy DeFranco, Frank Sinatra, George Harrison, Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Them, Thelonious Monk, Lou Rawls, Nelson Riddle and countless others).

Tracks (best in italics)

• Undercover Man – a jaunty song about undercover man. Smart, cynical and an old fashioned almost jug band type song. A hoot.
• Ballad of Dick Clark – a ode to Dick Clark and 50s rock ‘n’ roll with a slight country meets rock’ n’ roll feel.
• Captain Video  – a strange song which is slightly endearing despite the obscure lyrics (apparently about Roger McGuinn though Roger didn’t know it).
• Central Park  – a mardi gras feel with an oom pah pah sound, done through a guitar!
• Four Legs Are Better Than Two  – just plain weird. Something about dancing bears, Ginger and Fred, and an audience. Very Arlo Guthrie.
• Valentino  – a beautiful ode in Valentino that’s obvious but endearing.
• Human Being Blues  – too silly to dislike.
• St. Louis Browns  – a story song about the defunct baseball team the St Louis Browns – very much in Arlo Guthrie territory
• Cobras – nifty.
• My Secret Life  – endearing and a fitting end. Very Ray Davies. Beautiful.

And …

Yes this is a wonderfully eccentric Hollywood Cowboy album ….perfect with a beer or a pitcher of wine.  I’m keeping it.

Chart Action

US

England

Chart action?

Seriously?

You jest.

Sounds

Undercover Man

attached

Ballad of Dick Clark

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnsWQpAvyDc

Captain Video 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oxpaX1TfUA

Central Park

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob4LFJvcbBI

St. Louis Browns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEicZnTrWYA

Others

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlIlDOPhKqg&feature=related

Solo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e965i9FkMk&feature=related

Skip & Flip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4Ow_78bgNk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Ky8p3AmPo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q6VInkK3js

Review

http://therisingstorm.net/skip-battin-skip/

http://www.allmusic.com/album/skip-mw0000693057

Bio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip_Battin

interview

http://americanmusicbelgium.homestead.com/skipbattininterview.html

Website

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Trivia

• On how Battin met Fowley: “I met Kim during a period I was part of a duo called Skip & Flip. This was way back in 1959. This was before the nightclub jobs; in 1959 and 1960. Flip was Gary Paxton. He and I started playing together in Tucson,Arizona. We recorded a record down there and to our surprise, made the Top 10.so we went on the road and had a couple of good years. We also had a couple of records in the charts. And when we did a recording session in Hollywood Kim walked in with a friend of his. He weighted 130 lbs and was 6.5 feet high, a striking figure. He introduced himselfand after a few days he became our manager. We already had one in New York but Kim had a lot of enthousiasm, a lot of talent, a lot of ideas, very expressive. We worked with Kim for a while. He wrote songs along with Gary and with the both of us. He produced stuff under different names, He produced the Hollywood Argyles, involved in Alley-oop and Monster Mash. Kim worked more with Gary because they were both based in La and I was still in Arizona. And when I moved to LA we kinda renewed our frienship and Gary had left the area, So since the early sixties  Kim is a good friend of mine.We started writing songs  in 1960 or 1961. Nothing really made it  but we wrote and produced a lot together. We did something with Gene Vincent one time.Kim was the idea man and I was the executioner because he is not a musician. He’ an idea man as far as lyrics go, as a producer, for selling mastertapes and I was doing the composing, the additional lyrics, the fine tuning of the lyrics. We worked steady off and on but before I entered the Byds there was a period when we worked steadily together and wrote a lot of songs. Then I started with the Byrds and we continued writing together, getting better, understanding each other better” http://americanmusicbelgium.homestead.com/skipbattininterview.html
• Skip plays bass on most of Rick Nelson: Love And Kisses (1965) and arranged and conducted Gene Vincent’s I’m Back and I’m Proud (1969).
• Skip Battyn (sic) appears shortly in the Clint Eastwood – Don Siegel film “Coogan’s Bluff” (1968) playing the part of Omega (a hippie), but he doesn’t play or sing.

Skip Battin – Undercover Man