Psych-rock pioneers though they may be, The Doors are largely maligned in music snob circles.
And none of their albums are more maligned than 1969’s The Soft Parade.
Even as a Doors fan, I have passed up every copy of this record I have ever seen. But Monday morning, a friend of mine handed me a stack of records, with this among them.
Perhaps no one in pop music history has been treated as unkindly as the Kinks. But despite being blacklisted by American venues and losing the interest of record companies stateside, they continued to create absolutely beautiful music.
Somewhere in an alternate universe, it was the Kinks, and not the Beatles who landed in New York in 1964 to screaming fans and cultural acclaim.
And that universe might be a little more just than this one.
Once upon a time, the Church was the center of all high art. Most important musical and artistic works during the Renaissance were commissioned by the Church to announce the mysteries of the Divine.
But over the last few hundred years, things have changed. Christian art is now the realm of cheap, oversentimental schlock that sells on sentiment alone.
Kings Kaleidoscope has had enough of it.
In the late ’60s, jazz was undergoing a sea change.
After decades of decrying electric instruments as too urbane for jazz, a number of jazz musicians started to gravitate toward them. Miles Davis led the charge, as he usually did. In a Silent Way was met with confusion and disappointment.
But nevertheless, it changed jazz forever.
Herbie Hancock was there too, beside Chick Corea and Joe Zawinul. The three pianists, fascinated with these newfangled electric pianos and synthesizers, shaped much of Davis’ vision through his electric period.
I grew up in a blended family—between my siblings and step-siblings, there were five teens and tweens that our parents had to wrangle together.
Finding something that seven people all agree on is a trial of Herculean proportions. To that end, Whatever and Ever Amen was a godsend in my family.
