Playlist #1

Here's a selection of tracks from the first 12 records featured on The Turnaround (a few of the videos may not work on all devices). 

1. Words (Between The Lines of Age) by Neil Young (Harvest)

If this doesn't play, just search YouTube for 'Neil Young In A Barn'!

2. Westering by Hiss Golden Messenger (Poor Moon)

3. New Morning by Bob Dylan (New Morning)

4. Kingpin by Wilco (Being There)

5. I'm Waiting For The Man by The Velvet Underground & Nico

6. Little Red Rooster by The Rolling Stones (Get Stoned)

7. Everydays by Buffalo Springfield (Buffalo Springfield Again)

8. Done Somebody Wrong by The Allman Brothers Band (At Fillmore East)

9. Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars by Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim

10. Say You'll Be Min by Kitty, Daisy & Lewis (Going Up The Country single)

11. Travelling Man by Bert Jansch (L.A. Turnaround)

12. Rock and Roll by The Velvet Underground (Loaded)

Loaded by The Velvet Underground

"Loaded has always been my favourite VU record. This song [Rock and Roll] is just one of the many reasons why." Jeff Tweedy (Wilco)

 

The Rolling Stone review of the time noted that "the Velvet Underground on Loaded are more loose and straightforward than we've yet seen them". As such it is the first to feature in what I hope to be a series of 'feel' albums. Loose sounding records that really sound like a band in a room playing together. Limited overdubs and no metronome in sight. And ideally, with this mood reflected on the back cover.

Choosing Loaded belies that fact that it was recorded amid growing tension within the band. It is the last album to feature Lou Reed, who quit shortly after it had been recorded. The back cover provides a peak into the recording process, or at least the recording studio. It shows the studio setup for the band, but perhaps tellingly only features Doug Yule (John Cale's replacement after White Light/Whiter Heat), who had taken a more prominent role.

According to the Wikipedia entry: "Reed also felt snubbed by being listed third in the credits on the album; and by the large photo of Yule playing piano; and by all the songwriting credits improperly going to the band, rather than Reed himself."

The photograph used for the back cover was taken by Henri Ter Hall. As the Lost Loaded Shots notes: "In 1970 Dutch photographer Henri ter Hall, then living in New York City, shot The Velvet Underground during the recording sessions for Loaded. His image of the almost-empty recording studio appeared on the back cover of the album."

The Velvet Underground & Nico

This is just an example of a great album, the back cover of which I hadn't given much thought to until I started this blog. Most retellings of the Velvet Underground's debut album major on how poorly it did commercially on initial release and the back cover has a part to play in this story.

The album’s back cover features a photo of the group playing live with an image projected behind them. On the initial pressings the projected image was a still of actor Eric Emerson from a Warhol film, Chelsea Girls. Emerson had been arrested for drug possession and, desperate for money, claimed the still had been included on the album without his permission. The label recalled all copies of the album until the legal problems were settled (by which time the record had lost its modest commercial momentum), and the still was airbrushed out.

Back cover credits: Colour show photo by Hugo. Portraits by Paul Morrissey (director, alongside Andy Warhol, of the film Chelsea Girls).