William Gagliani wrote:
> Excellent research, everyone! This is absolutely fascinating. It never
> even occurred to me that the sax in TTP was tron!
Not so fast my friend! [See way down below]
> That's because I'm
> neither an owner nor a musician, I guess.
Mike Dickson is the Systems Theory 'tronlord...I'm just along for the ride!
> (Plus, I didn't see any Seger
> concerts at the trime -- I just assumed he had a sax player.) Like most
> laypersons, I tend to forget the huge variety of sounds that have been
> available on the tron/chamberlin family of instruments.
There are indeed a staggering number of great sounds available for 'trons.
Mike uses some great lesser-known sounds on some of our tunes. If you
go to Mike's web-site:
http://www.blackcat.demon.co.uk/tron/right.htm you
can hear a sample of all of these frames, plus have a good chuckle (Mike
loves to skewer tronheads, especially prog-tronheads). He has some
wonderful "Cor Anglais" and monsterous "Steve Hackett" electric guitar on
"Red Sun Fading", in addition to more obvious 'tron frames like the new
"Russian Choir" and "Ian McDonald" lute.
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"Red Sun Fading" [which we think is pretty damn spiffy] can be found on
the PRC sampler CD [available from your fine on-line proggy music
distributors], also available as an MP3 d/l at the PRC site I mentioned a
couple of posts back.
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> I blame Genesis and Yes!
Get in line! The only saving grace is that by the time both bands FM
stadium rocked-out in the 80s they'd stopped using 'trons.
> LOL -- that choir-flute-strings tapeframe is ingrained in my
> aural memory, but I'm so unused to hearing the other sounds ∗and
> recognizing them∗ that it would be useful if some of you could list
> (just one or two each) some non-traditional tron sounds found in the
> more familiar realm of songs that utilize the instrument.
Go to Mike's tron page. You'll be quite surprised at what is available.
> For instance,
> the fact that TTP includes tron sax as well as the strings really blows
> me away (I may be easily amused, but still...).
See below for clarification of sax on "TTP".
> It would be great to
> find out that, say, the tubular bells in Tubular Bells were really tron!
> (Just kidding, but you know what I mean.) Or if Wakeman's MiniMoogs were
> really tron samples, LOL. Again, just joshin' -- but I'm going to have
> to listen to my Rime of the Ancient Sampler CD (yes, I got one) to hear
> some of the other sounds I'd forgotten.
And there you hit upon the issue of the sounds that catch our ears as
being obviously 'tron vs. that which is the marvelous "Ancient Sampler" at
work unbeknownst to most listeners. Say "this track has Mellotron on it"
to your average proghead and he is certain to mentally check "3 violins",
"8 voice choir", "flute" and maybe "mixed brass", in that order, but not
much more than that. Maybe "cello" if he's a Tangerine Dream fan. Which
is a testament to how ingrained those sounds were to vintage 70s era
prog-rock.
> Quite the lesson!
Now on to the clarification for "TTP"...
> Bill
To get you really confused, the small sax part on the studio original is
real, but Alto Reed was a guest on "Back In '72", not becoming a full band
member until 1975. To quote directly from
http://www.segerfile.com/72.html:"...The instrumentation is different too: it's the keyboard, not the sax,
that carries the song in the studio version. The up and down piano chops
that lead us into the chorus are suggestive of Leon Russell's "Tightwire"
-- the sax is saved for the very end, and even then, it's not that big a
deal. Live, of course, the sax is practically the signature element."
With Alto Reed coming on board with the band, the sax part in the live
version then became "real" instead of "sampled".
"...In fact, for the first three years of playing the song, Seger didn't
travel with Alto Reed (who was known as Tommy Cartmell at the time), so
there was no live sax in the song:"
Robin Robbins covered it on Chamberlin/Mellotron [jury still out on what
he was actually playing live] on the 73, 74 and 75 tours.
"...We have a Mellotron that simulates the sax very well, though...I play
piano, and the organ player plays a violin-kind-of Mellotron wall, and he
covers the sax pretty good."
So by the time they actually recorded "Live Bullet", in 1976 the sax part
[that really stands out on the best known version of the tune] is Reed,
with Robbins' keys in a supporting role. It is Seger on piano here, BTW,
with Robbins on organ and 'tron/chamby. Not only do the liner notes say
so, but a quick "who did what at Cobo that night" check with my wife
confirms this.
Perhaps Chris Dale could find out when Robbins bought and sold his
Chamberlin? That would clear up the issue of was it 'tron or chamby that
he was using during his time with Seger.
--
Cheers,
SDM -- a 21st century schizoid man
http://systemstheory.netinternet music project
http://thecleanersystem.comsoftware for dry cleaners
NP: nothing