Shamanzarek
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Posts posted by Shamanzarek
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This is where I first saw John Hawken when I was 13. "Tobacco Road" was on the radio and his playing made a big impression on me back then.
Here are some Nashville Teens performances some live and some mimed. John appears with a Hohner Pianet in one clip. I asked John if he ever used one and he said he always used a real piano for live performances. Another thing I asked him about was if Jimmy Page played on "Tobacco Road" as there were a few sources crediting him. John confirmed that it was their guitarist and not Jimmy Page on the recording. To me even though there are other great versions of "Tobacco Road" theirs is the definitive version. Love the piano and dual lead vocals.
With The Strawbs in Japan 1975.
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A founding member of The Nashville Teens and Renaissance keyboardist John Hawken has passed away at 84. John was also briefly a member of Spooky Tooth and was later a member of the Strawbs among other bands.
The Nashville Teens were known for their sole American hit "Tobacco Road" in 1964 which featured John's distinctive piano solo. In Britain they were considered to be one of the best live bands and backed visiting American artists including Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins on UK tours but most notably Jerry Lee Lewis in 1964 at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany which was recorded for one of Lewis' most critically acclaimed albums titled Live at the Star Club.
In 1969 John co-founded Renaissance with former Yardbirds Keith Relf and Jim McCarty plus Louis Cennamo and Relf's sister Jane. This line-up released one album before all founding members left the band and completely new members took the band to greater success. Hawken with the surviving Renaissance founding members reformed the band in 1977 under the name Illusion and released two albums.
After brief stints with Spooky Tooth (who also recorded "Tobacco Road" on their first album), Third World War, and Vinegar Joe Hawken joined the Strawbs in 1973. Following in the footsteps of predecessors Rick Wakeman and long time Bee Gees keyboardist Blue Weaver with the Strawbs John played Piano, Mellotron, and Minimoog on the albums "Hero and Heroine" and "Ghosts" which were very successful in the Northeast US and Canada.
In 1979 John and his family relocated to the U.S. residing in New Jersey. In 2004 he reunited with the Strawbs and I first met him at a Strawbs concert at The Strand in Lakewood, NJ. About a month later I was invited to a party where John was the distinguished guest along with Strawbs sound engineer Paul Smith. Before going to the party I went over "Tobacco Road" and a Strawbs song. At the party there were a couple of other guitar players and we played a lot of songs with John. John demonstrated some of his piano parts from Renaissance and Nashville Teens.
Several years later John was in a local NJ band that opened a show for our Doors Tribute band. He was impressed with my Vox Continental saying he hadn't seen one in years. His band played "Tobacco Road" and the Spooky Tooth version of "I Am the Walrus".
John Hawken was there from the beginning of British Rock history. It was great to hang out with him and hear his stories about the British Invasion days and more. Good-bye John.
https://bournemouthbeatboom.wordpress.com/john-hawken-2/
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For his first tour Stevie landed the opening slot with The Moody Blues which put him in front of large audiences all across the country. I saw him in 1983 at a Moody Blues show in southern California. I had already heard of him from his work on Bowie's Let's Dance album which was all over the radio around that time.
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This will likely put an end to:
Disco
Trance
Techno
Future House
Electro House
Tech House
Hardstyle
Drum and Bass
Most other genres have a wider range of tempos so can stay within the 80 to 116 BPM limitation.
I wonder if the police will be monitoring music events and arrest musicians who exceed the tempo limit or don't play fast enough.
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One of the lower priced keyboards that is actually called a Workstation is the Korg Nautilus. Can be found for around $1500 for the 61-key version if you do some searching.
Another low-priced option that calls itself a Workstation is the 76-key Casio WK-7600 which has been in production for ten years or more. Most of the big dealers sell these for $450 but might be less on Amazon. YouTube demos are fairly impressive considering the price and everything it can do.
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Mike first used the 300 on "Never Comes the Day" from On the Threshold of a dream. On "Watching and Waiting" it was layered with a pipe organ so it is not purely Mellotron.
Here is a list of Mellotron 300 sounds and songs it can be heard on:
https://www.gforcesoftware.com/products/the-streetly-tapes-m3000-for-m-tron-pro/
Mike had custom string sounds made for his Mellotron Mark II which are first heard on Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. Before that album they would typically triple-track the Mellotron strings with staggered start times to smooth warbling in the stock 3 Violins sound.
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Mike Pinder was the leader both musically and spiritually who influenced the direction of The Moody Blues. Mike's songs were of high quality although often overshadowed by Justin and John's. Some of Mike's most notable songs were "The Sunset", "So Deep Within You", "Have You Heard/The Voyage", "Melancholy Man", "Out and In"(co-written w/Lodge), and "A Simple Game". The latter song was a hit for The Four Tops in England and they also covered "So Deep Within You". The Moody Blues only completely instrumental piece "Beyond" was composed by Pinder though he generously gave the credit to Edge. Mike considered himself to be the musical arranger on most recordings done while he was in the band.
Mike was also known for his voice-over talent. He is heard reciting most of drummer Graeme Edge's poems on Moody Blues albums. Pinder is heard on "The Day Begins", "Late Lament", "The Word", "The Dream", "Higher and Higher", and "The Balance". In concert Edge would recite most of his own poetry. Mike did some additional spoken word narration recordings in the 1980s.
While employed by Mellotron manufacturer Streetly Electronics Mike turned The Beatles on to the instrument which they most famously used on "Strawberry Fields Forever". Pinder along with fellow band member Ray Thomas was involved in the recording sessions for "The Fool on the Hill" and "I Am the Walrus" playing Harmonica on the former and singing backing vocals on the latter. Pinder was going to play Mellotron on John Lennon's "I Don't Want to be a Soldier" but the machine malfunctioned so he ended up playing Tambourine on that and "Jealous Guy" from the "Imagine" album. Pinder prided himself on being able keep a rock solid tempo on Tambourine which he sometimes played on Moody Blues basic tracks to establish the feel of the song.
Pinder had one of the first modular Moog synthesizers in England. It was first used on "In Search of the Lost Chord" and later albums for sound effects as its's tuning wasn't stable enough to play musical parts. Mike received one of the earliest Minimoogs which can be heard playing playing background patterns on "How is it We are Here" from the "Question of Balance" album and also put to good use on "Melancholy Man" from the same album.
For the "Seventh Sojourn" album Mike used a Chamberlin keyboard on a few songs. "For My Lady" is almost all Chamberlin backing and it was likely used on "Isn't Life Strange" and Mike's song "Lost in a Lost World". Some Mellotron sounds were derived from the Chamberlin but the Chamberlin had better fidelity and stereo outputs.
Mike also had an RMI Keyboard Computer which may have seen some use on Mike's solo album "The Promise" and The Moody Blues "Octave " album. There is no Mellotron on "Octave" but it has their first use of a Yamaha polysynth probably a CS80. Real strings and Brass were used on some of the songs. "Octave" was Mike's last album with The Moody Blues.
Mike and the band helped originate the extended song form as well many of the stylistic instrumental and vocal sounds of what later became Prog Rock. Mike was first to develop an "Orchestra Hit" type sound as heard on the song "Question". He did this by layering Mellotron strings and brass with percussion sounds.
In the late 80s Mike and several other prominent musicians had a brief association with Atari Computers and promoted the ST series.
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Jessica has the distinction of being the rare instrumental that still gets significant radio play. An amazing achievement. Dickey's singing/writing/playing contributions drove the band's rise to their highest level of commercial success in the mid-70s.
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Band life only. Never knew there was such a thing as home life.
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For low prices check out AliExpress. $1271.90 for a Yamaha C7. $454.25 for a Nord Stage 4 88.
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Brian's career has really taken off with acclaim from Downbeat mag and others. In 2017 he subbed for me at a Doors tribute concert in New Jersey.
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I do like the Stage 3 Compact. One thing I would like to have in the Nord organ section is Filter, Envelope, and Modulation control like it has in the Sample/Synth section. My lowly Casio WK from about 20 years ago does this and it adds so much versatility in creating different types of organ sounds. Since the Casio was marketed to the novice market very few of its users even know about this capability. I have looked for other keyboards with this hidden feature and haven't found it anywhere else at any price.
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There is a drawbar setting I really liked but it caused my C-3 to glitch every so often. That setting is 088000000.
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Lack of foldback in the upper octave of Hammond spinet organs wasn't likely known to be an issue at the time. On the chorus of AWSOP Fisher plays the same chords in the top two octaves which intentionally or not has the effect of compensating for lack of foldback creating a fuller sound. Both hands in the upper octaves can be seen very briefly here. Can be better seen on much later live versions when he played a Hammond console:
In this instrumental mix the notes with Percussion sounding can be heard more distinctly. The Percussion seems to be most prominent in the same part of the verse each time around and mostly not heard in the rest of the song.
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The Korg Nautilus is a favorite for Symphonic Metal. Synthonia sells Nautilus sound packs optimized for metal.
https://www.synthonia.com/marketplace/korg-nautilus-series-nightwish-cover-pack-detail
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Instant Karma-John Lennon
Mr. Moon-The Coachmen
Mr. Moonlight-The Beatles
I'll Follow the Sun-The Beatles
Mr. Sun, Mr. Moon-Paul Revere and the Raiders
Waiting for the Sun-The Doors
Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In-The 5th Dimension
Earth and Sun and Moon-Midnight Oil
California Sun-The Rivieras
Walking on the Sun-Smash Mouth
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"Hush" by Deep Purple from 1968 is the iconic version of that song. Joe South wrote it for Billy Joe Royal whose version was a top 5 hit in Europe but only made about top 50 in the US. Many others have covered the song but Deep Purple's version is the only version that still gets heard. When I first heard Billy Joe Royal's version in 1967 the Na-Na-Na-Na bit reminded me of the part just before the last verse in The Beatles "A Day in the Life".
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Listen to live versions. There are some of Eric playing with J.J. Cale, Steve Winwood, and others. Clapton often did his songs quite different from the recording in concert.
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Creedence Clearwater could do a cover and make it their own. Their versions of "I Put a Spell on You" and "Suzy Q" outdid the originals. "I heard it Through the Grapevine" was so different from Gladys Knight and Marvin Gaye's versions that it became a major hit again.
George Thorogood made a career out of covering old blues and country songs and having hits with them.
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It wasn't mine. I had a 200A.
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My Wurlie didn't have an extended pedal cable when I let it go but who knows where it was between 1983 and the early 90s.
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zxcvnm098, maybe you got my old Wurlitzer. It was last known to be in the Santa Ana/Costa Mesa area of Orange County in the early 80s.
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Ken Rich makes a second bag to hold the legs and damper pedal. I had an Anvil Forge case for mine in the late 70s. It wasn't up tp ATA standards but was a lighter material, possibly fiberboard. It had a lid held on by straps rather than butterfly latches and the lid slipped completely off. Inside there was foam padding and a tray with padding on the bottom that sat over the keys holding the legs and pedal. I could lift it myself to place on a dolly or carry short distances but it had an uncomfortable metal handle that was hard on the hands. It did the job and I have never seen another like it.
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The Casio WK-7600 is worth consideration. It has been in production for about 10 years but is still listed as available from the major dealers. The WK-7600 has 76 keys plus a dedicated ToneWheel organ section with 9 sliders for full range drawbar settings. This is a feature only a few Casio's and practically no other brands have in this price range. The Sample section sounds have a good amount of editing capability such as filter cutoff, envelope, modulation, and multiple effects to make your own storable presets. You can store preset performance setups like splits/layers and transpositions. It has a 17 track sequencer with external audio recording storable on SD cards, This keyboard can cover just about any sound category. While they are still available new I have seen used ones for between $200-300.
Another Casio that can cover a lot of territory is the XW-P1. In addition to the Tonewheel organ and Sample sections it has a VA Synth section with Monosynth and Polysynth modes. This model does not have internal speakers and is only available with a 61-note keyboard. It was discontinued a couple of years after only a few years in production but can be found used.
These and most other Casio keyboards can run on batteries.
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John Hawken RIP
in The Keyboard Corner
Posted
After Jim McCarty and Keith Relf left Renaissance John Hawken brought in two former members of the Nashville Teens. Both Dunford and singer Terry Crowe had been early members of the Nashville Teens but left the band before they recorded "Tobacco Road". The original Renaissance line-up fell apart within about a year. Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, though they had stopped playing with the band remained involved in production and songwriting for a while as new members came in. Dunford stayed with Renaissance for many years as co-writer of much of their material and played acoustic guitar while Crowe was in the band very briefly. Hawken was on the first Renaissance album and a second album which was only released in Germany at the time. The second album was titled Illusion and had a few new members including Dunford and Crowe. Don Shinn (early inspiration to Keith Emerson) is credited with keyboards on one song.