xp: the berry and diddley songs are morelike jams, but they are as "early rock" as anything has gotten on this thread.
Ella's song is a poppy jazz number. I dunno. You don't know what pop is, until you know the meaning of the blues.
― toulows-lautrec (how's life), Wednesday, 13 March 2013 15:05 (eleven years ago) link
Paul Butterfield Blues Band were also doing their instrumental jam "East-West" live around the time of Aftermath, which they then recorded at Chess in Chicago in time to be released in August '66 and which clocked in at 13:11. It's a much different thing than "Goin' Home," but it seems like this general idea was in the air at the moment.
― Josefa, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 15:34 (eleven years ago) link
The Godz' "Crusade" (9:00), 1967.
― clemenza, Wednesday, March 13, 2013 10:15 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I am no friend of The Godz but this one song slays me every time.
― multi instru mentat list (Jon Lewis), Wednesday, 13 March 2013 15:39 (eleven years ago) link
What's up with all the LA bands doing epic jams?
they were all hanging out at the ash grove watching people like ravi shankar
― wk, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 15:58 (eleven years ago) link
^^^ and jazz.
― It's All Posable Colaboration (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 13 March 2013 16:00 (eleven years ago) link
I think Sandy Bull's "Blend" (22:00) from his first album is an important precursor
― wk, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 16:01 (eleven years ago) link
1963
maybe the first sidelong guitar track?
― wk, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 16:03 (eleven years ago) link
nice list of albums with side long tracks http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Joci/albums_containing_at_least_one_side_long_track
― wk, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 16:05 (eleven years ago) link
a bunch of son house's paramount recordings contained p long songs split up into two tracks because obvs they can't fit on a single side of a 78. those were somewhere from 1928 to 1930.
― arby's, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 16:18 (eleven years ago) link
http://www.document-records.com/images/200s/DOCD-5002.jpg
looks like at least one garfield akers track had the same treatment. the son house recordings i'm p sure were from 1930, idk about akers.
Son House01 - My black mama - part 1 Listen02 - My black mama - part 2 Listen03 - Preachin` the blues - part 1 Listen04 - Preachin` the blues - part 2 Listen05 - Dry spell blues - part 1 Listen06 - Dry spell blues - part 2 Listen07 - Walking blues ListenWillie Brown08 - M & O blues Listen09 - Future blues ListenKid Bailey10 - Mississippi bottom blues Listen11 - Rowdy blues ListenGarfield Akers12 - Cottonfield blues - part 1 Listen13 - Cottonfield blues - part 2 Listen14 - Dough roller blues Listen15 - Jumpin` and shoutin` blues ListenJoe Calicott16 - Fare thee well blues Listen17 - Traveling mama blues ListenJim Thompkins18 - Bedside blues ListenBlind Joe (Willie) Reynolds19 - Outside woman blues Listen20 - Nehi blues Listen21 - Married man blues Listen22 - Third Street woman blue ListenRube Lacy23 - Mississippi jail house groan Listen24 - Ham hound crave Listen
Willie Brown08 - M & O blues Listen09 - Future blues Listen
Kid Bailey10 - Mississippi bottom blues Listen11 - Rowdy blues Listen
Garfield Akers12 - Cottonfield blues - part 1 Listen13 - Cottonfield blues - part 2 Listen14 - Dough roller blues Listen15 - Jumpin` and shoutin` blues Listen
Joe Calicott16 - Fare thee well blues Listen17 - Traveling mama blues Listen
Jim Thompkins18 - Bedside blues Listen
Blind Joe (Willie) Reynolds19 - Outside woman blues Listen20 - Nehi blues Listen21 - Married man blues Listen22 - Third Street woman blue Listen
Rube Lacy23 - Mississippi jail house groan Listen24 - Ham hound crave Listen
― arby's, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 16:24 (eleven years ago) link
COltrane had been going to 20 minutes+ for a few years by the time those '65 tracks came out. He seems to have been a big influence on a lot of people throughout the 60s. I think the SF Ballroom sound was an attempt to introduce his influence especially what he was doing with standards like MY Favourite Things into rock to some degree too, stretching out familiar melodies etc. In th ecase of the ballroom sound a loyt of those melodies were folk tunes etc.
But on the other hand you hear that bands like the Who were doing long rave ups on r'n;b material from their beginnings, at least as the Who. Noty sure if that comes from that influence.
Seems like the constraint may have been more on the recorded version of songs than the live ones. 3 minutes haveing been arrived at as the perfect maximum duration for a single at least. I heard taht there was ome gang controlled jukebox management that meant that things remained that way for a long time.
I also heard that when the recorded version was introduced it effected the way that even classical music was played. That before that the orchestra was more influenced by the applause of the audience as to how many times they repeated sections but that went out when the lp started to mean people were more accustomed to listening to a programmed sequence of music once only in correct sequence.
Both may be apocryphal.
― Stevolende, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 18:09 (eleven years ago) link
I think you could be right about Coltrane - a big influence on early psych.
― Deafening silence (DL), Wednesday, 13 March 2013 18:13 (eleven years ago) link
uh oh, I'm having deja vu to a dumb stubborn argument I had with shakey mo about this haha. but coltrane's stretching out goes back to ravi shankar as well.
― wk, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 18:20 (eleven years ago) link
it seems to me that the idea of music with particular fixed length really only exists in relation to recorded music. the length of a folk song depends on how many verses you want to sing. obviously really long form music stretches back throughout music history. and certainly where people are dancing there has always been an impulse to keep jamming as long as people keep dancing.
― wk, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 18:28 (eleven years ago) link
Townshend has gone on record as being influenced by Coltrane (and Sun Ra!) at that time, so yeah.
― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 18:34 (eleven years ago) link
benny goodman orchestra's cover of "sing sing sing" rocks pretty hard for a big band tune from 1938. eight-and-a-half minutes. released as a double-sided 78. and to make sure they could get it all on record they expanded the width of the 78 from ten inches to twelve.
― Mr. Snrub, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 18:36 (eleven years ago) link
Similarly, Duke Ellington's "Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue" in 1937. But while it was composed (and performed live) as a single, uninterrupted piece, technological constraints meant each piece had to be recorded separately.
― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Wednesday, 13 March 2013 18:37 (eleven years ago) link
Fahey had def had long tracks throughout his early discography but "The Great San Bernadino Birthday Party" from the 1966 album of the same name clocks in at 19:00 and is the first one on record to stretch out past ten minutes (according to wiki at least)
― in 2013 we will all be yuppies from the 'eighties (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 16 March 2013 17:32 (eleven years ago) link
first fahey track on record to stretch past 10 minutes, not first track ever.
― wk, Saturday, 16 March 2013 17:35 (eleven years ago) link
Are there exceptionally long recorded blues or folk songs that predate these, and inspired Dylan and The Stones?
There are certainly a lot of long (traditional) folk songs, with lots of verses, not sure how many had been recorded by the early 60s. Dylan would certainly have heard more than a few, I would imagine.
― Step not on a loose unforgiving stone on a pyramid to paradise (Tom D.), Sunday, 17 March 2013 14:02 (eleven years ago) link
yep. two collections of 78s released on LP by Folkways in the 50's - Dustbowl Ballads & the Anthology of American Folk Music - would have been key for the folk revivalists of the sixties and both contain two-part longish tracks, but the limitations on length in recorded music before the sixties mean it's not a very fruitful avenue, compared to live music & manuscripts & maybe radio broadcasts.
so like dylan based "hard rain" on the trad anglo-scottish ballad "lord randall" and it was ten minutes long when he was debuting it live
and he'd be familiar with songs or accounts of songs like this one by pete seeger of woody guthrie: "Then he'd hitch his guitar around and sing the longest long outlaw ballad you ever heard"
― don't call it a cloud rap i've been high for years (zvookster), Monday, 18 March 2013 14:52 (eleven years ago) link
surprised the Yardbirds didn't record any epic studio rave-ups
― brio, Monday, 18 March 2013 16:44 (eleven years ago) link