SQUEEZE - Ridiculous (A&M Records 540 440-2, 1995)

It's 1973 in South London. Teenage friends Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook form the band that will see them dubbed 'The New Lennon and McCartney'. Over 35 years later, with their legacy intact and as vital as it has ever been, Squeeze are still touring and reminding fans worldwide just why they have left such an indelible impression on the UK's music scene. As teenagers on the South London scene, Squeeze - setting out their stall early on by facetiously naming themselves after a poorly-received Velvet Underground album, comprised of Jools Holland on keys, Harry Kakouli on bass and Paul Gunn on drums. They became a fixture of the burgeoning New Wave movement. When Gilson Lavis replaced Gunn on drums everything seemed to fall into place, and word of mouth soon spread about the band - ironically, it was none other than Velvet Underground man John Cale who caught wind in 1977 and offered to produce their debut EP "Packet Of Three" and much of the ensuing album.

Yet it was second album "Cool For Cats", released in 1979, which cemented their place as one of Britain's most important young bands. Featuring the classic single "Up The Junction" as well as the title track, it was many listeners' first introduction to the witty kitchen-sink lyricism and new-wave guitar music that has become the band's trademark. With albums "Argybargy" and the Elvis Costello-produced "East Side Story", Squeeze even started to make waves across the pond, although in 1980 former Roxy Music and Ace - and future Mike & The Mechanics - man Paul Carrack would replace Jools Holland, going on to lend his unmistakeable vocals to the smash hit "Tempted". By 1984 Squeeze had disbanded. The chemistry between Tilbrook and Difford could not be as easily dismissed however, and the ensuing record they made together has become the 'lost' Squeeze album for many fans. But the band couldn't lay dormant for long, as Squeeze reformed the next year for "Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti", along with Holland, Lavis and Keith Wilkinson, Squeeze's longest serving bass player. Over the next 12 years Difford and Tilbrook remained the only constant element as Squeeze continued to receive critical acclaim, release albums and tour, with the likes of "Hourglass" becoming their biggest ever hit in the USA.

Metcalfe left the band in 1988, leaving the Difford / Tilbrook / Holland / Wilkinson / Lavis line-up to record 1989's "Frank". The LP was a commercial disappointment, from which no charting singles were taken in the UK, and the band was dropped from their long-time label A&M. Adding a new second keyboard player in the person of Matt Irving, the band issued the live album "A Round and a Bout" on I.R.S. Records in March 1990. Jools Holland left Squeeze again in early 1990, and was not immediately replaced. In his stead, the band used session musicians such as Irving (who was no longer an official band member), Snow, Steve Nieve, Bruce Hornsby and Carol Isaacs for the 1991 release "Play", which came out on the Reprise label. This release again spawned no UK hits, although in the US the singles "Satisfied" and "Crying in My Sleep" received significant airplay on modern rock stations, and in Canada "Satisfied" was a top 50 hit. However, Reprise dropped the band after this album. Following this, drummer Gilson Lavis was let go in 1992, and replaced by Nieve's Attractions bandmate Pete Thomas. Paul Carrack also returned to the band in 1993, although by this point Squeeze was not so much a band as it was a trade name for Difford and Tilbrook plus sidemen.

Squeeze re-signed to A&M in time for 1993's "Some Fantastic Place". After a period of commercial decline in the UK, lead single "Third Rail" hit No. 39, becoming Squeeze's first UK Top 40 hit in six years. Squeeze's line-up during the mid-1990s changed constantly. Though not an official Squeeze member, Aimee Mann was featured on vocals and guitar at many Squeeze shows during 1994. Thomas also exited the band that year, and Carrack doubled on snare and keyboards for a few gigs before session drummer Andy Newmark was brought in. Then, still in 1994, Carrack left, which allowed keyboardist Andy Metcalfe to return to the band for a short spell, playing on some live dates. Drummer Kevin Wilkinson (no relation to bassist Keith), formerly of The Waterboys and China Crisis, was also added around this time, replacing Newmark. He lasted through the 1995 album "Ridiculous", which was recorded by the quartet of Difford, Tilbrook, Wilkinson and Wilkinson. The album spun off three minor hits in the UK: "This Summer", "Electric Trains" and "Heaven Knows". ("Heaven Knows" was used as the closing song in the 1995 film Hackers starring Angelina Jolie.) In addition, a minimally remixed version of "This Summer" became a No. 32 UK hit in 1996, a year after the original version peaked at No. 36. Despite this, A&M Records once again dropped Squeeze from their roster in late 1996.

Following the release "of Ridiculous", Don Snow (now known as Jonn Savannah) returned to Squeeze yet again as their touring keyboard player, but by 1997, the Squeeze line-up had officially dwindled down to just Difford and Tilbrook. That year the duo, billed as Squeeze, released the non-album single "Down in the Valley" as a fundraising single for Charlton Athletic F.C. Tilbrook formed the Quixotic label for this and future Squeeze-related releases, as well as releases by other artists. For the 1998 album "Domino", the band was again a quintet consisting of Difford, Tilbrook, bassist Hilaire Penda, ex-Del Amitri drummer Ashley Soan, and yet another returning keyboardist in the person of Christopher Holland. Nick Harper often performed with this version of Squeeze, providing additional guitar and vocals. In January 1999, just days before a planned tour, Chris Difford suddenly announced that he was taking a "hiatus" from Squeeze. The last venue at which Squeeze played with Difford was at The Charlotte, Leicester, England. The band subsequently continued as a quartet led by Tilbrook, with Jim Kimberley replacing Soan on some tour dates, and Christopher Holland exiting in the autumn to be replaced by Tilbrook's other frequent writing partner Chris Braide.

On 27 November 1999, in Aberdeen, Scotland, Squeeze played their final gig before breaking up again. Difford and Tilbrook embarked on separate solo careers shortly thereafter. Despite this official Squeeze break-up in 1999, Difford and Tilbrook continued to make music and gig with the same enthusiasm and abandon that they brought to Squeeze's first EP, either with their own solo projects or with each other. As befits one of the UK's much-loved acts, there is no end of Squeeze fans currently wearing their influences firmly on their sleeve, whether it be Mark Ronson, Kasabian, Supergrass, Lily Allen, The Feeling or Razorlight. With their fingerprints keenly felt throughout the fabric of popular music, it is only right that these songs, with their evergreen and popular sound, continue to be played and enjoyed live. And so since 2007, a newly reformed Squeeze have been slowly finding time to play a series of gigs and festival dates, preferring to reaffirm their abilities as a band rather than follow some of their peers who have come out in a blaze of publicity, only to be met with disappointment.

The new Squeeze line-up, their most able yet, is completed by Squeeze veteran John Bentley and Tilbrook's Fluffers cohorts Simon Hanson and Stephen Large, and has become an instant favourite on the festival circuit since reforming with appearances at V, Oxegen, T in the Park and Latitude. Squeeze's contribution to music has been noted in 2010 with the site of their first gig being awarded a prestigious PRS For Music Heritage Plaque, which has so far commemorated the debuts of Blur and Dire Straits. It joins an ever-increasing list of Squeeze accolades ,alongside their recent Ivor Novello for Outstanding Contribution to British Music and their Nordoff-Robbins Icon Award. Chris Difford's lyrics and Glenn Tilbrook's music have survived everything over the years, from the ever-changing musical landscape to their own internal reshuffles and acrimonious breakups - but Squeeze is here to stay, still going strong and still loving every moment.

THE DEVIL MAKES THREE - I'm A Stranger Here (New West Records NW5080, 2013)

"There’s a road that goes out of every town. All you’ve got to do is get on it", Pete Bernhard says. The guitarist and singer and his cohorts in the raw and raucous trio The Devil Makes Three have found their way onto that road numerous times since they first left their picaresque rural hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont. Back then, they had no idea it would lead them to such auspicious destinations as the Newport Folk and Austin City Limits Festivals, Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza, and on tours with Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell and Trampled By Turtles. Along the way, they drew numerous accolades from a growing fan base and press alike. The Devil Makes Three's travels and travails serve as inspiration for their fourth album and their New West Records debut, "I’m a Stranger Here", produced by Buddy Miller and recorded at Dan Auerbach’s (Black Keys) Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville.

With upright bassist Lucia Turino and guitarist Cooper McBean, Bernhard crafted a dozen tunes, part road songs, part heartbreak songs and part barnburners. While most bands are propelled from behind by a drummer, The Devil Makes Three builds exuberant rhythms from the inside out, wrapping finger-picked strings and upsurging harmonies around chugging acoustic guitar and bass, plying an ever-growing audience onto its feet to jump, shake and waltz. The Devil Makes Three’s sound is garage-y ragtime, punkified blues, old n’ new timey without settling upon a particular era, inspired as much by mountain music as by Preservation Hall jazz. “We bend genres pretty hard,” Bernhard says. The combination could only have happened via the circuitous route each of them took to forming the band. As kids in Vermont, “all raised by sort of hippie parents” who exposed them to folk, blues and jugbands, Bernhard says, they blazed a path to nearby Boston, Massachusetts in search of punk rock shows. They found venerable venues like The Rat and The Middle East, drawn to east coast bands like the Dropkick Murphys and Aus-Rotten.

“It would be like 6 bucks for 13 bands, everyone playing for 20 minutes,” Bernhard says. “I had so much fun going to shows like that. The energy coming off the stage makes a circle with the crowd and comes back. We were really attracted to that energy.” Bernhard and McBean, a multi-instrumentalist who plays banjo, musical saw and bass, forged a particular bond. Unlike most of their mutual friends, they both liked to play acoustic music, with McBean showing Bernhard the wonders of Hank Williams and Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys. They kept in touch after high school, when nearly everyone in their clique relocated to the west coast like the characters in Delbert McClinton’s song “Two More Bottles of Wine". "It was a mass exodus of kids who went out to start bands and be creative, searching for the unknown, dreaming of something different,” Bernhard says. “We wanted to get away from where we were from, as many kids do, and California was the farthest we could get.” Eventually they landed in sunny Santa Cruz, California, where The Devil Makes Three took shape in 2001. Their early gigs were house concerts, then small bars, punk shows, bigger rock clubs and theaters and festivals, all the while defying genre and delighting whomever turned up to listen.

Turino learned bass to join the band, but her unremitting sense of rhythm comes naturally from being raised by parents who were dance teachers, and from her own dance background. Attacking the strings of her upright, she understands how to infuse songs with the force it takes to get a crowd moving. And the songs on "I’m a Stranger Here" tell the rest of the story, with the music often joyously juxtaposed against lyric darkness, the rootless nature of being in a touring band, traveling from town to town with little sense of community, represented by a devil-like character (“Stranger”), thorny transitions into adulthood, struggling with relationships (“Worse or Better”), watching friends succumb to addiction (“Mr. Midnight”), coming to terms with mortality (“Dead Body Moving”), nostalgic notions of childhood (“Spinning Like a Top”). Bernhard even considers the destruction of changing weather patterns, inspired in part by Hurricane Katrina as well as a flood that wreaked havoc in Brattleboro (“Forty Days,” a gospel rave-up recorded with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band).

Bernhard wrote more than 20 songs for the album and turned them over to producer Buddy Miller, who gravitated toward the darker material but insured that the recording was lit up by the band’s innate ebullience. It was Miller’s idea to record at Easy Eye rather than his renowned home studio. “Easy Eye is like Sun Records,” Bernhard says. “There’s one live tracking room filled with amazing gear, and that defines the kind of record you’re going to make. That was exactly the record we wanted to make, and we knew Buddy was the one who could capture us playing together like we do. For a band that made its bones with dynamic performances, recording an album is almost like coaxing lightning into a bottle, but Miller and The Devil Makes Three succeed on I’m a Stranger Here. Now they’re continuing the journey that began when they found their way to the road that led them out of Vermont. “I can’t wait to get onstage, I love it,” Bernhard says. “Playing music for a living is a blessing and a curse, but for us there’s no other option".

EVERGREEN BLUES - Comin' On (ABC Records ABCS-669, 1969)

The seeds of Evergreen Blues were planted at St. Alphonsus Catholic elementary school in East Los Angeles. It was in the basement auditorium of this school that some of the greatest "Eastside Sound" dance and shows occurred in the 60s, featuring all the best bands including Thee Midniters, Cannibal & the Headhunters, The Premiers, The Blendells, The Jaguars with the Salas Brothers, The Ambertones, The Blue Satins, my band, Mark & the Escorts, and many more. Getting back to the genesis of Elijah, it was in this environment that Hank Barrio, Joe McSweyn, Sam Lombardo, and Manny Esparza took their positions on guitar, bass, drums, and vocals respectively.  Manny says he became the vocalist by default because he could carry a tune better than the others.  Manny's vocal influences were who he calls the "tough r&b singers" such as James Brown, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam Moore, and Eddie Floyd, as opposed to the slicker Motown singers. Manny says he was a Stax/Volt guy.  

As the band improved, they started to play local gigs and were called Two Thirds Majority. On rhythm guitar in the original band was Tom Merlino, another St. Alphonusus student, who did not stay in the band very long since he didn't seem to have the musical ability of the others.  They played a lot of r&b, but also did songs by groups such as The Rascals and The Buckinghams. Hank, Joe and Manny went on to Cantwell High School (another parochial school), while Sam Lombardo went to Montebello High School. There he met Steve Lawrence (no relation to the singer of the same name), who was added to the band on organ and saxophone.  After high school, fellow Montebello High alums Tom Bray and Ken Walther were added on trumpet and trombone. This completed the puzzle.  They played many venues, including some of the storied East L.A. spots such as Kennedy Hall, the Montebello Ballroom, and aforementioned St.Alphonsus Auditorium. They shared the stage with Eastside bands such as Thee Midniters, The Ambertones, The Emeralds, The Exotics, and Little Ray & the Progressions.

After hooking up with manager Jim King, the band secured a major record deal with Mercury Records in 1967. Their name was changed to Evergreen Blues for the record.  It was a time in the music business when money was flowing.  Having just graduated high school, they went on an 18 city national tour. Musical equipment and clothes were bought for them by the record label and they found themselves riding in limos and flying in a private Beechcraft airplane. Pretty heady stuff for teenagers! They found themselves playing shows on the bill with artists such as The Righteous Brothers, Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, and Chuck Berry. On that first tour Hank and Joe were merely 17 years old. In fact, the band had to go through court and have their parents approval with the recording contracts.  

Despite their under age status they played some clubs on the tour, including "The Rooster Tail in Detroit. It had a black clientele, but Evergreen Blues were accepted and appreciated because their music was sufficiently good as well as funky.  Manny also had an afro that rivaled American Basketball Association players of the period like Dr. J. The tour also went to Florida, New York, and some other states. A non-musical memory of the tour that stands out in Hank's mind is flying in their small Beechcraft airplane over the Great Lakes in the fog during the same period that Otis Redding had gone down under almost identical circumstances (similar plane, same area, a month later.)  Hank says the band was very nervous on the flight and were afraid they might suffer the same fate as one of their musical heroes.  

Their first album entitled "Evergreen Blues," included a song written by their manager, Jim King, under the name L.T. Josie, called "Midnight Confessions."  (Small world department:  My band at the time called Nineteen Eighty Four recorded an L.T. Josie song called "Three's a Crowd." Our producer on the record was Tommy Coe, who engineered the Evergreen Blues second album.)  Released as a single, "Midnight Confessions" received some airplay around the country, even becoming a hit record in Florida.  Ironically, shortly thereafter The Grass Roots recorded a virtually identical version of the song and it became a major hit record. That was a heartbreaking experience for Evergreen Blues.  However, they got up, dusted themselves off, and did a second album with ABC Records called "Comin' On."  It included mostly original songs written by various band members. It also had two more L.T. Josie songs and a cover of Otis Redding's version of "Try a Little Tenderness." This was likely before Three Dog Night covered  it and had their first mega hit.  In fact, Evergreen Blues opened for Three Dog Night, who's manager asked Evergreen Blues not to play "Try a Little Tenderness." They went ahead and played it anyway. Good for them.  

Evergreen Blues had learned "Try a Little Tenderness" from the Otis Redding version. Manny says Three Dog Night did it in more of a rock style, rather than r&b.  Evergreen Blues did record their second album at American Studios in Studio City, California and Richard Podolar, who was Three Dog Night's producer, engineered a couple of tracks. One can say it's possible that this was the connection that gave Three Dog Night the idea to record the song, which became their first hit record.  We'll probably never know for sure.  Anyway, their manager Jim King didn't like the musical direction the band was taking so he and Evergreen Blues went their separate ways. Hank acknowledges in retrospect that the band's songwriting wasn't yet quite developed on that album.

At this juncture, enter Edward James Olmos.  Yes, the actor, who was then an r&b singer.  He had played around Hollywood with his band Eddie James & the Pacific Ocean.  One of the venues they worked a lot was the fabled Gazzari's on the Sunset Strip.  Olmos wound up joining Evergreen Blues, sharing lead vocal duties with Manny Esparza.  At the time Eddie was known for his flashy showmanship, which included some wicked splits.  Hank and Manny both acknowledge that the band learned a lot from Eddie.  He taught them about dynamics, helped with arrangements, and turned them on to a lot of classic r&b records and artists.  Eddie also got them their first regular club gig.  It was a black club called the Citadel du Haiti on Sunset Boulevard, where the band was paid $50 total and all the soul food they could eat.  In those days the deal wasn't as bad as it sounds.  

Through Olmos they met Delaney Bramlett, who was then performing with his wife as Delaney & Bonnie, who would later score a major hit with "Never Ending Song of Love". At one point, Delaney & Bonnie opened for Blind Faith on a tour.  Eric Clapton who was then a member of Blind Faith took a great liking to Delaney & Bonnie's style and band.  Clapton wound up going on tour playing with Delaney & Bonnie and eventually brought along his friends Dave Mason and George Harrison to share in the fun and musical inspiration.  Eric eventually used Delaney & Bonnie's band to form Derek & the Dominoes. The result was the classic record "Layla" (the early 70s up tempo version.)  Eddie Olmos played with Evergreen Blues for about a year before they went their separate ways.  Eddie went on to become a successful and excellent actor, best known for his role as El Pachuco in the play and movie Zoot Suit, the classic movie Blade Runner, and his role in the 80s mega hit television series, "Miami Vice". Evergreen Blues played on into the early 70s, a time when they became Elijah and recorded two more albums.