This week Tony and I explored some instrumental music. Instrumentals – or what Eduard Hanslick might call ‘absolute music‘ – are rare in the charts, but on the show this week we heard a few examples of songs that spoke when words failed…
The Ventures & The “Amen Break”
The Tacoma-based instrumental group The Ventures – who remain the best-selling instrumental band of all timee – recorded Walk, Don’t Run in 1960. Jazz guitarist Johnny Smith had written the piece in 1954, and Chet Atkins adapted it in 1956, but the Ventures’ version reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, remaining behind Elvis Presley’s It’s Now or Never. The arrangement follows an Andalusian cadence with a substituted major VI chord. Drummer Skip Moore, who played on the session, accepted a $25 fee instead of a share of the royalties…
The Winstons, a soul group based in Washington, D.C., released Amen, Brother in 1969 as the B-side to their Grammy-winning single Color Him Father. While the A-side earned some chart success, the instrumental flip initially attracted little attention. Midway through Amen, Brother, at approximately 1:26, drummer Gregory Coleman plays a distinctive four-bar break that later became known as the “Amen break”. This seven-second drum pattern would go on to shape the sound of modern music. Producers and DJs have repeatedly sampled the break in hip hop, jungle, drum-and-bass, and countless other genres, making it one of the most widely used rhythmic loops in recorded history. Despite this, neither Coleman nor bandleader Richard Lewis Spencer received royalties for its use. Coleman died destitute in 2006 and, according to Spencer, was never aware of the impact his music had made.
Guitars & Disklaviers
Lenny closes Stevie Ray Vaughan’s 1983 album Texas Flood. Vaughan wrote the piece for his then-wife Lenora “Lenny” Vaughan and performed it on a guitar of the same name. The composition employs a movable major-6th chord and reflects the influence of Jimi Hendrix ballads such as The Wind Cries Mary. Stylistically the song moves between jazz-influenced chordal sections and traditional blues guitar improvisation. Despite a recording career of only seven years, Vaughan’s work, including Lenny, secured his status as one of the most significant blues guitarists of his era.
Intelligent Dance Music pioneer Richard D. James, known professionally as Aphex Twin, wrote Avril 14th for his 2001 album Drukqs. Unlike most of his electronic output, the track is a piano composition recorded on a Yamaha Disklavier, a kind of player piano which reads MIDI data. Close listening betrays the use of the Disklavier, in the form of audible mechanical clicks. Minimal in structure and reminiscent of Erik Satie, the piece was later used in films such as Marie Antoinette, Four Lions, and the trailer for Her. Kanye West incorporated a re-recorded version in his 2010 track Blame Game.
My Queen is…
My Queen Is Albertina Sisulu appears on the 2018 Sons of Kemet album Your Queen Is a Reptile. The British jazz ensemble – led by saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings with Theon Cross on tuba and drummers Seb Rochford and Tom Skinner – construct the piece around an Em–D–C–B progression. The track honours Albertina Sisulu (1918–2011), a South African anti-apartheid activist who co-founded the United Democratic Front and later served in the country’s first democratic parliament. The album was nominated for the 2018 Mercury Prize.
Paul Simon v Boygenius
Our soundslike this week came from listener Iain in the West Midlands: Iain heard similarities between boygenius‘ Cool About It and Simon & Garfunkel‘s The Boxer.
Instrumentals Quiz
For our quiz this week, we played clips from famous instrumentals – guess the artist and song!
As always, find the show and blog at joebennett.net/5live, with occasional Instagram extras at @joebennettmusicology. With a new show comes a new Spotify mega-playlist, which contains all songs featured on the show:
And you can still listen to our old mega-playlist here.
- Words: Joe Bennett, John Pierce O’Reilly
- Audio production: Joe Bennett, Rafi Waters
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