{"id":2968,"date":"2010-09-24T00:28:30","date_gmt":"2010-09-24T04:28:30","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-11-09T07:49:43","modified_gmt":"2010-11-09T11:49:43","slug":"say-amen-corner-somebody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/say-amen-corner-somebody\/","title":{"rendered":"Say \u201cAmen Corner,\u201d Somebody!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L3ab9CaZnYo?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nTownspeople, I just came across this abbreviated, super-charged version of <strong>The Move<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Hello Susie,&#8221; by a band I&#8217;d long heard of but never heard, <strong>Amen Corner<\/strong>, led by a musician I&#8217;d long heard of and knew of as a sort of Oliver, I believe, for big British bands in the &#8217;70s but never heard play on his own, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Andy_Fairweather_Low\" target=\"_blank\">Andy Fairweather Low<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Hearing this version of &#8220;Hello Susie&#8221; for the first time was pretty exciting, primarily for the fact that Bev Bevan is not paradiddling all over the tune. As loyal as I am to The Move (and as tolerant as I am of their excesses), Bevan&#8217;s sloppy, sludgey style <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/is_there_a_drummer_in_the_house_bev_beva\" target=\"_blank\">sometimes aggravates me<\/a>. Amen Corner&#8217;s arrangement gets to the chugging, cascading heart of the song and doesn&#8217;t overdo it. Ultimately it makes for a &#8220;lighter&#8221; approach in scope as well as the song&#8217;s inherent ability to celebrate The Power and Glory of Rock, but tonight I was intrigued and wanted to hear more.<!--more--><br \/>\nAnd see more. Fairweather Low&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/images.askmen.com\/galleries\/men\/mark-wahlberg\/pictures\/mark-wahlberg-picture-5.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Wahlberg<\/a>-crossed-with-<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brokencountry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/steve_nash.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Steve Nash<\/a> Look and poor lip-synching abilities in this first clip were highly entertaining!<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/foTwWg1CyWU?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nHere&#8217;s what I learned was the band&#8217;s biggest hit, &#8220;If Paradise Is Half as Nice.&#8221; It could pass for one of those <em>Odyssey and Oracle<\/em> songs, by <strong>The Zombies<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>I found a horrendous version of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EdPB1Ymq_1Q&amp;feature=related\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Bend Me, Shape Me,&#8221;<\/a> in which Fairweather Low&#8217;s awkward stage presence and poor lip-synching abilities overshadow all that was already wrong with the track musically. Then I ran out of Amen Corner clips. I found a <strong>Fair Weather<\/strong> track (a 1970 splinter group) that sounded like Really Humble Pie, then I skipped ahead a few years, to his mid-&#8217;70s solo career. Songs like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=umKgNhms6Tg\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Reggae Tune&#8221;<\/a> explain a lot about his future as a faceless sideman.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a 1975 soft-rock hit (in the UK), &#8220;Wide Eyed and Legless,&#8221; that hints at his &#8220;musician&#8217;s musician&#8221; strengths, the kind of strengths that would allow him to support everyone from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/artists-badly-in-need-of-some-scrutiny\" target=\"_blank\">Roy Wood<\/a> to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/prime_dave_edmunds_77_81\" target=\"_blank\">Dave Edmunds<\/a> to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/rock_crimes_roger_watrers\" target=\"_blank\">Roger Waters<\/a> to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/carry_that_weight\" target=\"_blankn\">Eric Clapton<\/a>.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k5FG3Ty3jD4?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>My extremely long-winded question boils down to this: <em>Are there a few more tracks in this guy&#8217;s career &#8211; tracks with the slightest pulse and purpose, like those two Amen Corner tracks I stumbled across &#8211; that might elevate this guy to the &#8220;frequently interesting&#8221; third-rate status of a &#8217;60s band like The Easybeats or an obscure pub rock band from the &#8217;70s?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I look forward to your advice before I begin a quest to obtain cheap, used copies of Andy Fairweather Low&#8217;s works, the way I collected <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/band-you-ve-had-no-success-turning-frien\" target=\"_blank\">Be-Bop Deluxe<\/a> albums with highly satisfying results a few years ago. Thanks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Townspeople, I just came across this abbreviated, super-charged version of The Move&#8216;s &#8220;Hello Susie,&#8221; by a band I&#8217;d long heard of but never heard, Amen Corner, led by a musician I&#8217;d long heard of and knew of as a sort of Oliver, I believe, for big British bands in the &#8217;70s but never heard play <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/say-amen-corner-somebody\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[19,46,76,47,3,92,250,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}