Heh, wonder how many Chicago posts’d immediately spring to mind (considering, indeed, a good number of’em).
Defining, exactly, how “prominent” said brass sections should be in a song might end up on the fluid side (if this thread gains any traction). At least featured at some point in a song, and, I’ll be lax enough to allow just a two-instrument minumum, like two saxes.
Might have to give the edge, though, to the feel-good in-your-face-ness of the Stones’ Rocks Off
If you’re still down after giving that number a spin, ask your doctor.
(and a quick nod to “Bitch” off Sweaty Fingers )
Tried to add on an ETA, but got a strange error message along the lines of ‘you cannot perform this action right now’, or something.
Anyway just wanted to add that the concept of “feel-goodness” and the Stones’ Rocks Off might not click lyrically, but instrumentally - damn straight.
Indeed. Always loved that number, as well as that funereal, scorched earth processional (with that reckoning kettle drum) to trail off ‘Battle of Glass Tears’.
Heh, or this part
ETA: cool - ETA worked that time! Getting snoozy, maybe.
I didn’t realise it at the time, but the Prince Rupert stuff seems to have been inspired by the Battle of Marston Moor - which took place about five miles from where I live.
Although Dexy’s Midnight Runners are (probably) best known for the “Oirish” Come On Eileen I far preferred the earlier UK hit of Geno. Here they are on the Top of the Pops TV show:
I remember this one from many years ago. Ashton, Gardner and Dyke and Resurrection Shuffle. Seen here on Top of the Pops and, yes, lead singer Ashton is almost certainly drunk.
As far as I’m concerned Dexy’s were great while they wore black Donkey Jackets. I didn’t like them in denim dungarees and I was long gone when Kevin started wearing a dress…
There’s a nice bit of solo saxophone (by Wesley Magoogan who fought for and eventually got a co-song writing credit) in Hazel O’Connor’s Will You?
O’Connor is underrated as a singer / pop star in my opinion. Probably because she found fame portraying a pop star in the film Breaking Glass (which used Will You? in the soundtrack) so I think she was perceived as fake and manufactured.
There was a fad for rock groups with horn sections in the late 1960s. Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears were best known, and Vehicle by Ides of March got a lot of airplay.
But they also included the Electric Flag (“Groovin’ Is Easy”), Lighthouse ("One Fine Morning), late Quicksilver Messenger Service ("What About Me?), the Buckinghams, (“Kind of a Drag”), Ten Wheel Drive (“Stay With Me”), and just about every rock soul group: The Commodores, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Kool & The Gang, The Ohio Players.
Tower of Power and the Average White Band came around a few years later but by that time the craze was dead.
