Monday, November 8, 2010

Compare and Contrast: Got Live If You, Uh, Want It

From 1958, it's the great Eddie Cochran NOT lip-syncing his immortal teenage anthem "Summertime Blues."



And from 1968, it's five guys from Long Island, a/k/a The Vanilla Fudge, and their psychedelic revamp of The Supremes' "You Keep Me Hanging On," also performed as nature intended.



BTW, this is not meant to imply some esthetic equivalence between Cochran's (to my ears) proto-powerpop and the Fudge's portentous turtle-tempoed classical/metal pastiche.

I do think, however, that it's beyond remarkable that a mere ten years(!) -- and frankly not all that much difference in the technology -- separates these two examples of (for their respective days) state of the art absolutely live rock 'n' roll.

Oh, and for the record, I'm aware that the Fudge did not all actually hail from Long Island. I meant the description more in the spiritual sense.