Sounds with Simon Tesler: Royalty (Part 1)

Hello, this is Simon Tesler with more great Sounds from the Rock and Soul Archive and a few of the stories behind the songs. Each week I select tracks with a specific theme, and this week the theme is ROYALTY. Let us bow and curtsey to 20 tracks about kings, queens, princes and princesses from The B-52s, Bob Dylan, ABC, Deep Purple, Elvis Presley and many more. But where better to start than with this guy...? ** Woah! A blistering track from the man then known as Prince, but not for long... It comes from his 1992 album, the official title of which is unpronounceable but is a graphic device generally known as Love Symbol, or less respectfully "Squiggle". The following year, the Paisley One renounced his real name and adopted instead that same symbol as his performing title, leaving record label Warner Bros in a spin. His decision upped the stakes in a long-running battle with the label who had consistently refused to release the vast quantity of music he was generating on the grounds that it would flood the market. As had long been the case, Prince rarely left the recording studio, churning out huge numbers of songs every day, many of which even now have still yet to see the light of day. And in most cases all the music was created solely by Prince, playing all instruments. Prince's band, now the New Power Generation, were there only for live shows and occasional backing vocals in the studio. Prince is the only musician playing on that track My Name Is Prince, apart from Tony M who contributes that rap in the final third of the track. "The artist formerly known as Prince", as he was now named by the media, issued a press release stating "Warner Bros took the name, trademarked it, and used it as the main marketing tool to promote all of the music I wrote. The company owns the name Prince and all related music marketed under Prince. I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros." The problem was that he just signed an unprecedented $100m deal with the label - it was at the time the biggest music deal in history - so he and Warner Bros were tied to each other for another four years. Although his record contract with Warners ended in 1996, Prince didn't officially become Prince again until 2000. No such controversy for our next two artists. First up is the band Envy & Other Sins, who enjoyed modest success in 2008 after they won TV talent show MobileActUnsigned on Channel 4, the so-called indie X Factor. There was an album, We Leave At Dawn, and also two fine singles. I saw them play support to The Hoosiers at the Shepherds Bush Empire and they were great. After them, The B52s and Queen Of Las Vegas. But this is Envy & Other Sins with Highness. *** Highness from the short-lived Envy & Other Sins, and then Queen Of Las Vegas from The B-52s. I love The B52s but I always thought it was a shame the girls Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson never got to lead as many songs as frontman Fred Schneider. On their first few albums they handled mainly backing vocals, but then there was always one track out of eight or nine where one or both of the girls got to take the lead, and it's often the most memorable cut on the whole LP. On the debut album it's Dance This Mess Around, with Cindy; on Wild Planet it's Cindy again with the wonderful Give Me Back My Man; and then on the third album Whammy it's Kate with a bit of help from Cindy on this track Queen Of Las Vegas. The song was originally written for their previous release Mesopotamia, but not completed at that time. In its finished form Mesopotamia is probably the B52s' weakest work. It was conceived as an album, with Talking Heads' David Byrne as producer, but Byrne was busy with lots of other projects, so he was recording the soundtrack to Twyla Tharp's avantgarde ballet The Catherine Wheel during the day, and then Mesopotamia at night, and grabbing only a couple of hours sleep inbetween. At the same time The B52s were exhausted after four solid years of nonstop touring and were wrestling not only with writers block and but also Byrne's demands to add horns and synthesizers and worldbeat influences. There was also intense pressure from the record label and the band's management to get the project finished. So in the end only six tracks were completed and several more abandoned altogether, and Mesopotamia was released as an EP rather than an album. That weakness, though, was actually our gain because it gave the band time to perfect those abandoned songs from the Mesopotamia sessions, and polish them up in time for Whammy, released a year later in 1983. We're going to stay in the 80s with two more royal romps. In a few minutes, The King Of Rock n Roll by Prefab Sprout, but first ABC and King Without A Crown. ** King Without A Crown from ABC's 4th album Alphabet City, definitely their return to form after the previous two disappointing LPs. Not perhaps as timeless as their spectacular debut The Lexicon Of Love -- which contains Tears Are Not Enough, Poison Arrow and The Look Of Love -- but still a pretty fine record. And then, The King Of Rock n Roll from Prefab Sprout's From Langley Park to Memphis. Now I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Prefab Sprout's main man Paddy McAloon always approached songwriting as an intellectual challenge. Such was the case with The King Of Rock n Roll, one of several on the album poking fun not only at Americanisms in songs but also at the whole business of trying to make a living out of pop music. When they recorded their previous album Steve McQueen, Prefab Sprout were, said McAloon, "very much serious artistes.... but I always try and find some opposite point of view from the last thing I did, just because I think it would be fun. Also, I also hate songs with 'rock n roll' in the title, you can't do it, it's the worst crime you can do!" So there's the challenge: write a song with rock n roll in the title that isn't rubbish, and McAloon came up with the idea of a faded pop star from the 1950s who's only remembered for a novelty hit with the chorus Hot Dog Jumping Frog Albuquerque. It was almost inevitable that it would be Prefab Sprout's biggest commercial success, a top five single in the UK. "When I'd finished it, it was so catchy, I thought, so what if it's a hit, you can always relish the irony that you 've written better songs. I'm aware that it's a bit like The Beatles being known for Yellow Submarine rather than Hey Jude but that's OK." In fact, McAloon actually met Paul McCartney at a party at around the same time. "He was very gracious about it. He said 'You've got the grannies with that record, you've got the kiddies.' And I very earnestly said, 'But it's not terribly representative, man', a stupid thing to say. And McCartney said, 'Ah, it's your My Ding-a-Ling.'" Which was of course a reference to that equally unrepresentative novelty hit by rock n roll legend Chuck Berry. Prefab's drummer Neil Conti said later though that though the song was a hit, it was "the kiss of death for this band because it pushed everything in a poppy direction and the record company just wanted more of that." Oh dear. Such is life in the music biz. Moving on, our next two tracks offer a little taste of Jamaica. In a few minutes, U-Roy shares a dream about smoking weed with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second. Yes, really. That's Chalice in The Palace. But first, Madness honour Prince Buster, one the originators of reggae's ska and rocksteady beat. This is The Prince. ** Madness with The Prince, followed by U-Roy with Chalice In The Palace. Madness owed many things to Prince Buster, not least their name, which comes from his 1963 single, which they covered on the B-side of The Prince. Their breakthrough hit One Step Beyond was also a cover of one of his songs, and the shout out at the start of that song, "Don't watch that, watch this" comes from yet another Prince Buster song. When Buster died in 2016, Madness frontman Suggs told the BBC "The fact he came from the streets and he had a terrific sense of humour and energy – it really appealed to us and it had a huge impact on everything we did, really. It's like the Monty Python thing about the Romans: 'What did Prince Buster ever do for us?' A great deal indeed." And what can we say about the inimitable U-Roy, one of the pioneers of the Jamaican style of DJ toasting that was the precursor to American rap. It is not known whether he ever achieved his wish of licking up a chalice in Buckingham Palace. He would have had more luck with the Queen's sister Princess Margaret I think. Or Prince Harry... We're still Dreaming Of The Queen for our next track, a deliciously witty but poignant tale of lost romance from the Pet Shop Boys. Despite the absurdity of Neil Tennant's anxiety dream, the song is actually very serious about the sadness of lovers parted by death. "That's why love had died. Yes it's true. Look, it's happened to me and you." Tennant has said specifically that the song is about AIDS, so it might perhaps refer to his friend Christopher Dowell, with whom he came to London in the 1970s, and who later died from that terrible disease. Dowell is, Tennant has said, also the subject of another wonderful song of theirs from an earlier album, Being Boring. On a lighter note, we'll follow that with a beautiful ballad from Van Morrison: Queen Of The Slipstream. But first, the Pet Shop Boys and Dreaming of the Queen. ** Dreaming Of The Queen from Pet Shop Boys followed by Queen Of The Slipstream by Van Morrison. The album from which that was taken, Poetic Champions Compose, was originally intended to consist entirely of instrumental jazz pieces. Morrison said later "I did three numbers then I thought, 'No, I don't wanna do that,' and changed my mind." However those three tracks he did complete and which open and close the album are absolutely gorgeous, and the album as a whole is one of his very best in my opinion. Let's stay with jazz for the next track, which takes us up to the break. I'll be back with you after the news for another hour of fantastic songs, including tracks from The Stranglers, Deep Purple, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and David Bowie. But first, one of the second generation of pioneers of jazz fusion, that style of more accessible jazz introduced in the late 60s by Miles Davis, and then carried forward by the likes of Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea. Lonnie Liston Smith was a keyboard player who had paid his dues in the 60s with key figures including Art Blakey and Pharoah Sanders before becoming part of Miles Davis' band in the early 70s. At the same time, he had his own band, Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes, and his 1974 album Expansions became a pillar of the developing jazz funk genre. I'm going to play Space Princess from 1978, by which time Smith was crossing over into disco territory, and indeed this track became a sizeable hit in clubs. A brief footnote for anyone into jazz personnels. The song was written by and features a very young Marcus Miller. He was only 16 years old at the time but he went on to be one of the star session players of the 80s and 90s, as well as the composer and producer of three of Miles Davis's albums in the later 80s and virtually every album released by Luther Vandross. This is Space Princess.