The Day After The Sabbath 130: Bad Bad Woman

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A tribute to the bad bad wicked crazy unfaithful two-timing evil-hearted devil woman, muse of many a vintage hard rockin' track, including twelve acts new to the blog.

01. (Sopworth) Camel - Evil Woman (1969)
       from album 'Underage'
02. Rog & Pip - Evil Hearted Woman
       from album 'Our Revolution'
03. Omega Plus - Unfaithful Woman (1969)
       from album 'How To Kiss The Sky'
04. Helix - Crazy Women (1979)
       from album 'Breaking Loose'
05. Silence - Devil Woman (1971)
       single
06. Night Sun - Crazy Woman (1972)
       from album 'Mournin'
07. The Kelly - Evil Woman (1971)
       from TV show 'Hit Scene' 15/4/71
08. Beggars Opera - Two Timing Woman (1973)
       single
09. BZN - Bad Bad Woman (1971)
       from album 'The Bastard'
10. Melvin McRae Band - Evil Woman (1976)
       from album 'Queen of Hearts'
11. Frantic - Wicked Woman (1971)
       from album 'Conception'
12. Mandrake - Cold Hearted Woman (1978)
       from album 'Mandrake'
13. Bone - Naggin' Woman (1972)
       from 'British Music Archive 1972 - 73'
14. Bandit - Evil Woman (1975)
       from album 'Bandit'

Camel - Underage

Beginning this is a cover of a song written by Larry Weiss and first recorded by Guy Darrel in 1967. There have been loads of covers of "Evil Woman" (not to be confused with Crow's completely different song of the same name, covered by Sabbath), at least five before 1970 alone, including versions by Spooky Tooth, The Troggs, Lou Rawls and Chris Britton. Larry Weiss recorded his own version on a solo LP in 1974.

Camel (aka Sopworth Camel) appears to have been a band of English musicians that relocated to Italy for a short time where they made the album of covers, 'Underage'. They were Pete Huish (Drums), Martin Fischer (Guitar, Vocals, Piano, Organ, Harpsichord), Dave Sumner (Lead Guitar, Vocals) and Alex Jackson (Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Piano). Dave Sumner seems to have been in a lot of Italian bands and Alex Jackson is also known as Alex Ligertwood, of Santana, Brian Auger's Oblivion Express and others.

Rog & Pip - Our Revolution

Rog & Pip is guitarist Roger Lomas and Singer/Guitarist Pip Whitcher. They were both in Coventry's The Sorrows and recorded some singles together afterwards, under names like Rog & Pip, The Zips and Renegade. This track is taken from the retrospective archival LP "Our Revolution" which was put out by Rise Above Relics in 2013 (link), containing all the singles and a full album's worth of unreleased '70s material. Roger Lomas became a producer in the 1980s, linked with many Ska bands.

There's a load of great tracks on it and it's well-worth getting, Rise Above describes it thus: "Combining the heaviness of Black Sabbath and early Led Zeppelin with the anthemic/aggro pop chants of Slade and The Sweet, Our Revolution is a Proto-Metal blast of Hard-Glam that finally sees the light of day."

Omega Plus
How To Kiss The Sky

Omega Plus was certainly one of the earliest heavy acts from France to make an album, and it's a good one. The trio included guitarist and composer Claude Engel (website), who played on the first album by prog legends Magma as well as making his own records. Also playing on Omega Plus's LP was Claude's multi-instrumentalist brother Marcel (website) and Gérard Lévy on bass. "Unfaithful Woman" is an unholy marriage of hard-rocking psych and prog, a real winner!

Ashatrom's review at RYM :- "Featuring Claude Engel on guitar (later with Magma, Dayde, Univeria Zekt and many others), this is generally considered France's first psychedelic record (see also Dickens, Octopus 4 and Popera Cosmic). Interesting to note that Engel himself, on his website at least, does not even reference this album. I don't know why not, as it's not a bad example of the Hendrix psych sound, and with the addition of flute, adds more than the usual copyist acid psych rock that many American band were doing during this time. Also includes one long free rock improvisation that's pretty interesting. A short record, that doesn't even break the 30 minute mark.

Helix - Breaking Loose

Helix is from Kitchener, Ontario, this is an original track from their 1979 debut LP "Breraking Loose". The most recent of many LPs is "Bastard of The Blues" (2014) and they are still playing now, minus original album guitarist Paul Hackman, who tragically died in an accident 1992.

Wiki - "Helix is a Canadian hard rock/heavy metal band. They formed in 1974, and are best known for their 1984 single "Rock You". The original lineup was formed by drummer Bruce Arnold, and consisted of lead vocalist Brian Vollmer, guitarists Ron Watson and Rick "Minstrel" Trembley, keyboardist Don Simmons, and bassist Keith "Bert" Zurbrigg.

However, their most well known lineup, and the one that recorded "Rock You", was the 80s version of the band: Vollmer on vocals, accompanied by guitarists Brent "The Doctor" Doerner and Paul Hackman, bassist Daryl Gray, and drummer Greg "Fritz" Hinz. The history of the band has been marked by many lineup changes, with Vollmer being the sole constant member and only remaining member of the original lineup. Although Hackman was killed in a tour bus accident in 1992, the surviving members of the 80s lineup reunited in 2009 for an album and have continued to tour since 2011."

Silence
Mother's Game/Devil Woman

Silence was a dutch band that made a great single in 1971. Devil Woman is an original song and here's what Robin Wills over at the great Purepop blog wrote about it - "Holland’s Silence max out on the snotty attitude with this great 2-sider. Mother's game is tough and crunchy with some amusing lyrics “ I have a cup of tea and a piece of pie..” “I’m riding in a train in vain, yes baby it’s your mother’s game....” (sic). There’s a neat tempo shift at the end with a dual lead which is most effective and probably a Hans Van Hemert touch. Devil Woman is like a proto-punk Communication Breakdown which reminds of Pantherman in its vocal delivery. It also has a spooky middle break and some clumsy drumming. Not much is known about Silence.

They were from Dordrecht (home to the Zipps and Inca Bullet Joe –another fine Hans Van Hemert production) and although Hans  has good recollections of his Dump or Cardinal Point productions, his recall of these sessions are lost in the mists of time.  This appears to be the 2nd Silence release (The Future of Our Sister Felicity being the first?). The recording session took place on the 23rd of January 1971 and also included covers of Gimmie Shelter and Paranoid, but as far as I can see these seem to be unreleased."

Night Sun - Mournin'

Many classic English bands came to mind when I first heard Night Sun's Mournin' LP, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and King Crimson being three of the most obvious. This may be a bold claim, but it’s justifiable to say that Night Sun could have become as renowned as any of them, if they had continued and expanded on the promise shown by Mournin'. Engineered by famed krautrock figurehead Conny Planc (Scorpions, Kraftwerk, Ash Ra Tempel), the band dissolved very soon after the LP was released, with little promotion or appreciation.

Many thanks to long-time blog follower Richard (aka Sadness) for bringing this Australian band to my attention right at the last innings. It's another great cover of Crow's Evil Woman. As-yet it has been hard to find info on Kelly (or The Kelly) apart from a few youtube videos of two great songs, this one and Blodwyn Pig cover 'See My Way' (link), from appearances on ABC TV's "Hit Scene" and NSW TV's  "Happening 71" respectively. It doesn't appear that either of these tracks were released on record. If anyone out there knows any more about The Kelly please drop me a line! Folk rock, Australian rock & more says :- "known Kelly members were : Andrew Boucaut (v) 1971-74, Rod Olson (g) 1971-74, Jeff Prime (b) 1971-74, Damien Robb (g) 1971-74, Mick Stewart (d) 1971-74, Alan Stirling (k) 1971-74 and Doug Stirling (k) 1971-74 (he also had played in Adderley Smith Blues Band and Levi Smiths Clefs)."

Beggars Opera
Two Timing Woman

Beggars Opera was a prog band from Glasgow that made a few albums in the seventies and reappeared later on. Founding member Ricky Gardiner has continued to make albums under the name. This track is a single that was not originally on any albums and it's one of the heavier songs from Beggars Opera, who may well have popped up earlier on this blog if they had made more tracks like the excellent 'Two Timing Woman'. Hard rock with great brass!

BZN (Band Zonder Naam "Band Without a Name") was from Volendam in The Netherlands. Bad Bad Woman is a track from their first album with a hard glam edge, a lot of fun.

Melvin McRae Band - Queen Of Hearts (1976)

Melvin MacRae Band was Melvin McRae (guitar, vox), Rauni Osterman (drums) and Hannu Takala (bass), which is the same as the final lineup of another Finnish band which came before, Yellow, minus Helge Koskela. Melvin was apparently from the UK but so far I've drawn blanks on how he ended up in Finnish bands and what happened to him afterwards. There's a few great tracks on the album "Queen Of Hearts" (1976) which is a mix of hard rock and boogie rock.

Frantic - Conception

Formed in Montana, later moving to LA, Frantic started out as The Frantics. As Frantic they made an album in 1971 called "Conception" which is often described as hard rock but it sounds very dated for 1971, it has more in common with sixties pop music. There's some nice songs, like Wicked Woman, Baby and Midnight to Six Man, but I wouldn't call it hard rock by any stretch of the imagination. Quite good pop music structures with a heavy edge on some of the tracks. Allmusic says :- "Formed in 1965 in Billings, Montana, the Frantics were a sextet who drew their influences from Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and, later, Jim Morrison (note the Lizard Records imprint for their second album).

They were a little on the heavy side in terms of their musical approach, and were ambitious -- they played throughout the United States and relocated several times, to New Mexico and then to Colorado Springs, Colorado, before settling in Los Angeles in 1969. The group released a pair of singles, "La Do Da Da" b/w "Route 66" and "Midnight to Six Man" b/w "Shady Sam." They also cut two albums, Relax Your Mind, which dated from 1968 and was unreleased until the '90s, and a second album, Conception, late in their history. At around that same time, they dropped the "s" from their name and worked as Frantic."

Mandrake - self titled

Mandrake was on Crazy Cajun Records, and I read somewhere that I can no longer find that this was a tax scam label, but I don't know anything else on that subject. The record is great, heavy rock with a southern flavour, bits of funk, and slide guitar, from Texas. The whole thing is pretty consistent, and seems to be attracting quite high prices now. Get it if you can find it, bar broom brawling stuff with a raw sound and loads of great geetarin!

Bone - Fairview recordings

Bone was a UK act, which it's said in various places online recorded music that was never released, at Fairview Studios, Willerby, near Hull, East Yorkshire. They have one track on a Fairview archival release here, and there are other internet download-only "bootlegs" going around that were apparently ripped from www.britishmusicarchive.com, which is inactive at the moment due to site improvements. The music from Bone is pretty much all good UK garage rock demos with some hard blues rock, and Naggin' Woman is one of the better tracks on it.

Bandit - self titled

Bandit from the US made one self titled album in 1975, listed in The International Encyclopedia of Hard Rock & Heavy Metal (1983), by Tony Jasper and Derek Oliver. The credits read: Bass Guitar, Steel Guitar, Vocals – Kevin Barnhill, Drums, Percussion – Danny Gorman, Electric Guitar, Vocals – David Della Rossa, Guitar, Vocals – Joey Newman, Lead Vocals – Timothy Eaton  and Producer – Bob Monaco. According to Discogs, Kevin Barnhill was also in the band Hollywood Stars, who made a '70s album that was shelved until recently. I have encountered it before and it's pretty good. Joey Newman had played on the highly rated Blue Mountain Eagle album in 1970, as well as making a solo record in 1980 called "Into His Favor". This track is the "other" Evil Woman, the one originally written/recorded by Crow and covered by a whole bunch of bands, including Sabbath of course!

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