Unsung Hero of the Week – Peter Wood

Who?

I'm not surprised if that name doesn't ring a bell.

For every big-time solo musician out there with a recognizable name and face, there are hundreds of studio musicians who labor in obscurity. Yet they are just as essential to the artist's oeuvre as the guy on the record cover himself.

A perfect example: Peter Wood.

If you've got an old vinyl version of the 1976 Al Stewart album Year of the Cat, you'll find a picture of him on the inner cover. More importantly, you'll hear his beautifully understated piano solo at the beginning of the title track and throughout the song. He is, in fact, credited as the song's co-writer with Stewart. So there's a bit of trivia for you.

Download "Year of the Cat"

Yes, Stewart's poetic lyrics have a lot to do with why this hit song was so good and kickstarted the mainstream career of this formerly obscure British folkie. So does Phil Kenzie's epic saxophone solo at the 4:12 mark. But Wood's underlying keyboards are what make it for me.

You can get an even better sense of Wood's contributions by watching this old video clip of Wood performing "Year of the Cat" with Stewart. Taking a cue from the opening lyrics, he starts out playing "As Time Goes By" before launching into the classic opening stanzas.

My favorite music is music that I just wallow in. It describes the state I feel when I hear music by people such as Vienna Teng, Sarah McLachlan and Bill Evans. I lose track of my surroundings and just become engulfed by the song - particularly if it is in my headphones. For me, "Year of the Cat" is definitely a wallowing song.

Wood would go on to work with extensively with Roger Waters, backing the Pink Floyd lead singer during "The Wall" tour and continuing to work with him when Waters went solo. You'll also find him on albums by Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Cyndi Lauper (Believe it or not, you may have heard him play synthesizers on "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun").

One of the only times Wood put himself front and center was on the soundtrack of the obscure 1982 French farce Ils Apellent Ça Un Accident (They Call It An Accident). Collaborating with British vocalist Jess Roden, the duo contributed two tracks. The best is the spooky-sounding "Future Soon."

Download "Future Soon"

No keyboard wonderfulness here, just a really nice song with a message. How it fit into the film, I don't know. I've never seen it. But I do have a cassette of the soundtrack, an Island Records release that also features contributions from the likes of Steve Winwood, Marianne Faithfull and U2.

About the same time I started listening to the soundtrack (I even reviewed it in the pages of my college newspaper at Georgetown University), I was heading backstage for a concert. My dad and I entered the elevator with a ordinary looking man in his 40s. He introduced himself to us as Peter Wood. I instantly asked him whether he was the same Peter Wood who co-wrote "Year of The Cat." A short pause. Yes, he was. I told him how much I liked the songs on "They Call It an Accident." He thanked me.

Throughout the brief conversation, there was kind of a stunned look on Wood's face. What a crazy coincidence. Here was a rock 'n' roll sessionman who had gotten used to a life of obscurity. And he happened to have stepped onto the elevator with someone who not only knew who he was, but could list some of his major accomplishments.

Not much else to the story. I didn't see him again at the concert. But I'm glad I was able to do a little fawning. Everybody deserves a moment of glory in some way.

According to Wikipedia, Wood died in late 1993. The Google research I've done indicates that the death of the 53-year-old Wood was ruled a suicide. Here's a link to a page that attempts to list all the albums and tours that featured Wood. (Who is also, for some reason, sometimes billed as "Peter Woods.")

Here's to you, Peter. Hope all is well in rock 'n' roll heaven.

Soundtrack Sunday – Absolutely Wonderful

It almost singlehandedly sunk the British film industry in the mid 80s. It featured an uncomfortable mix of big musical production members and heavy social commentary. And at the time of its release, 15 years before a similarly unorthodox "Moulin Rouge" received Oscar acclaim, critics didn't know what to make of it.

I'm talking about Absolute Beginners, a 1986 film starring David Bowie and Patsy Kensit.
I first became aware of the film when I read a January 1986 cover story in Vanity Fair, written by renowned Beatles biographer Phillip Norman.



Accompanying the story, which delved into how director Julien Temple planned to put the British equivalent of "Catcher in the Rye" on the big screen, was an extraordinary collection of photographs of the film's characters. One way or another, I told myself, I am going to see that movie once it hit theaters.

In fact I watched it the very first week it came out during the summer of 1986. And it's fortunate that I did because it sank without a trace – both in the United States and in Britain, where its financial failure led to the collapse of Goldcrest, the studio behind Chariots of Fire and Gandhi.

No, it's not the greatest movie in the world. But its unique visual style hasn't really ever been matched. There's the one-shot opening sequence that Temple would later mimic in his "When I Think of You" video for Janet Jackson. Bowie's song-and-dance number for "That's Motivation." And the fight sequences that could have come out of West Side Story II: Tony's Revenge

A little bit later, I read the original book – by an author named Colin MacInnes – and loved it even more.

But I won't bore you any more about the movie (or the book). Every once in a while, it pops up on cable. And it's definitely worth catching.


What really made the movie cook was its music, which was given the jazzed-up treatment by Miles Davis collaborator Gil Evans. He composed some of the score and arranged many of the songs. Besides Bowie's contribution of the title track (the closest thing the soundtrack had to a hit single), there's Sade never sounding jazzier than on "Killer Blow;" "Flat Foot Floogie" man Slim Gaillard singing the rollicking "Selling Out"; a Bubble Gum pop song, "Little Cat," composed by none other than Nick Lowe; and the Style Council's "Have You Ever Had it Blue," a rearranged version of "With Everything to Lose" from My Favorite Shop (1985). (Paul Weller, as you may remember, wrote "Absolute Beginners" for The Jam's Snap (1983) album as a tribute to his favorite book).

Download "Have You Ever Had It Blue" by the Style Council

But for me, the soundtrack's absolute highlight is "Quiet Life" by Ray Davies. The longtime Kinks leader wrote and performed this whimsical look at the life of a hen-pecked husband in the film's most memorable scene. It's like an old dance hall tune, only with added bonus of Davies' characteristic wit about the human condition. In the film, Davies performs the song on a cutaway set of a house with different slapstick scenes in each room – including a few featuring his on-screen "wife" Mandy Rice-Davies, one of the central figures in the mid-60s Profumo scandal.

Download "Quiet Life" by Ray Davies

Even though many different composers worked on the soundtrack (another track that highlights its diversity: A reggae version of Miles Davis' "So What" by Smiley Culture) it still manages to flow together as an album. I bought the English import CD twenty years ago, which is the equivalent of a double-album. I'm happy to see that it has totally supplanted the shorter American version in the EMI catalog. Music this good should be enjoyed to its fullest.

"I Ain't Gonna Play Sun City"

"We're rockers and rappers united and strong
We're here to talk about South Africa we don't like what's going on
It's time for some justice it's time for the truth
We've realized there's only one thing we can do"
"Sun City," Artists United Against Apartheid (1985)



Amid all the political difficulties being experienced by South Africa right now, it's worth noting how far this country has come. How millions of people now have the right to select a new leader – something they didn't have more than 20 years ago.

On several levels, this 1985 protest song was the most successful record of the decades many charity singles. Written and produced by Springsteen sideman and future Soprano Steven Van Zandt, the song is a brilliant fusion of hard rock, hip hop and synth pop with a jaw-dropping guest cast that includes Bob Dylan, Pat Benatar, George Clinton, Joey Ramone, Kurtis Blow, Lou Reed. Bonnie Raitt, Peter Gabriel and Miles Davis. It also accomplished its main intention, which was to make the South African resort city disappear as a booking option for dozens of rock, pop and soul acts. (Among those who had performed at the glittery entertainment complex, reportedly for seven-figure sums: Queen, Elton John, Julio Iglesias and Linda Ronstadt)

On the charts, despite widespread critical acclaim, it fell well short of expectations, peaking at No. 38 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It seems almost anacronistic in a period where white suburban teens are doing their best to imitate 50 Cent and Kanye West. But this was the period of radio segregation where it was difficult to find a black face on MTV. Simply put, many white and black stations refused to play it because it failed to fit within their narrow formats. A few years later, it took a songs like "Walk This Way" to break down those barriers, hopefully forever.

The song was also deemed by some to be too critical of the Reagan Administration. Witness Joey Ramone's ironically delivered line: "Constructive engagement is in Ronald Reagan's plan."
Or Darlene Love's even more pointed critcism: "This quiet diplomacy ain't nothing but a joke."

You can see the Pop Up video video right here:

(If you are confused about who is who, leave a comment underneath this post. I can identify most of the artists – and those I can't identify, I'm sure that other readers of this blog can. But the pop ups explain most of them)



I love this song. Not just because it's a musical triumph, but it captured the political feelings of many of us who went to college during the 80s. We didn't have the Vietnam War to make us sing along with Country Joe and the Fish's "Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag." Or the Iraq War to wave our arms in response to Linkin Park's "Hands Held High." But those of us who were left-leaning certainly got involved in the drive to stop universities from investing in companies involved in South Africa. At Georgetown, where I went to school, and at other universities, students were arrested for setting up shantytowns in front of university buildings to demonstrate the inequities of a system that had South Africa's minority white population repressing blacks.

Songs like these (including the almost equally artistically successful "Free Nelson Mandela," which I hope to talk about in a future post) apparently did make an impact on South African society as well. In the years before the apartheid system finally was dismantled, journalists wrote stories about the changing attitude towards among young white South Africans – in part because of the music they were listening to by politically active artists such as Midnight Oil and U2.

The accompanying "Sun City" album was quite praiseworthy as well. It featured a reunion of the classic Miles Davis Quintet (Miles, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams) on one track. And U2's Bono collaborating with Rolling Stones' Keith Richards and Ron Woods on an acoustic song called "Silver and Gold" – a track so hastily assembled at the last minute that it wasn't even listed on the label of the original pressing.

Besides Van Zandt, the other person mainly responsible for putting this effort together was former "20/20" producer Danny Schecter, who has his own account of how he both clandestinely and openly helped make it happen. Among other things you learn: The song was recorded without a record deal (it was ultimately put out by Manhattan, an EMI subsidiary) and it was recorded in donated studio space.

Without further adieu, here it is:

Artists United Against Apartheid – Sun City