This week Jonny and I Jonny and I Jonny and I Jonny and I…explored delay and echo effects! Delay and echo effects were pioneered in recording studios from around the 1950s onwards, and continue to form an important part of any musician and producer’s toolkit. On the show we traced the effects through early rock and roll, hard rock, dub reggae, and indie alternative.
Elvis Presley & Led Zeppelin
Blue Moon of Kentucky was originally a waltz written in 1945 by bluegrass musician Bill Monroe and recorded by his band The Blue Grass Boys. Monroe’s version was one of 50 recordings added to the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2002. Elvis Presley recorded a version in 1954, and released it as the B-side to That’s All Right. Presley’s version transformed the waltz into a blues rock in four, and featured one of the first uses of producer Sam Phillips’ famous ‘slapback’ echo effect. For a practical explanation of Phillips’ effect, also known as the ‘Sun Tape Echo’ (after Sun Records), see this video. Paul McCartney recorded Blue Moon of Kentucky for Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) in 1991.
When The Levee Breaks was originally a country blues song written and first recorded by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929. The lyrics detail the aftermath of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 which killed hundreds of and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and has formed the subject of several blues songs including Mississippi Heavy Water Blues by Barbecue Bob (1928). Led Zeppelin reworked When The Levee Breaks in 1971 for their untitled fourth album. Robert Plant used many of the original lyrics, and the songwriting credits are shared between Memphis Minnie and the individual members of Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin’s version of the song makes heavy use of delay effects: John Bonham’s drums were recorded in the lobby of Headley Grange studio, and then processed through a Binson Echorec (a delay effects unit); Plant’s Harmonica solos and Jimmy Page‘s guitar solos both use reversed delay entries to create a whirling, psychedelic soundworld.
King Tubby & Pink Floyd
King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown (1974) is a dub instrumental track composed by Augustus Pablo and produced by King Tubby. Dubs are instrumental tracks that remix existing recordings, often removing the vocal parts, emphasising the rhythm section, applying studio effects (including delay and echo). King Tubby pioneered development of dub music through the 1960s and ’70s, and is often cited as the inventor of the ‘remix’ as a concept. King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown is a dub version of Jacob Miller‘s song Baby I Love You So (1974). The dub illustrates Tubby’s innovative use of four-track mixers, and his employment of extreme delays, echoes, reverb, and phase effects to create new ‘works’. His production work in the 1970s made him one of Jamaica’s most well-known celebrities.
Run Like Hell was released by Pink Floyd on their eleventh studio album The Wall (1979). The album is a rock opera which follows the story of “Pink”, a jaded rock star, as he constructs a psychological “wall” of social isolation around himself. Run Like Hell is written from Pink’s perspective during a hallucination in which he becomes a fascist dictator and turn a concert audience into a violent mob. The song opens with David Gilmour‘s palm-muted guitar; Gilmour plays quarter notes, with a dotted-eight note delay added to create the full effect. Run Like Hell is to-date the last original composition written by both Gilmour and Roger Waters, and the last song recorded by all four members of the 1970s-era Floyd lineup.
Ben Howard
End of The Affair is the second single from Ben Howard‘s second studio album I Forget Where We Were, which peaked at number one on the UK Albums Chart. The song is named after Graham Greene‘s 1951 novel of the same name, which examis obsession, jealousy, and discernments within the relationships between three central characters: Maurice Bendrix, Sarah Miles, and her husband Henry Miles. Howard’s 7-minute track opens with sparse acoustic guitar in CGA#GFC tuning (with a capo over all strings aside from the bottom C), which opens into a dynamic second half that is created almost entirely with Howard’s acoustic guitar, a Strymon Brigadier delay pedal (set to dotted eighths), and a Strymon Big Sky reverb pedal.
Here Comes the Hotstepper
Our soundslike this week explored the myriad samples contained within Here Comes The Hotstepper by iNi Kamoze (1994).
Breakthrough Quiz
For our quiz this week, you heard famous delay-heavy songs (backwards) – 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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