Presley was one of the very best rock stars we ever had. And the Troggs were the subject of the first piece of rock history I ever had published in a book - I wrote the entry for the Rough Guide to Rock, back in the 1990s. That was three decades on from their chart career, but they were a band that made more sense as time went on.
Primitive even by the standards of 1960s garage rock, they really came into their own when the Ramones turned up, doing much the same thing: stripping pop music down to its essential components and forging new songs from the same basic three chords. Which is why their Live at Max's Kansas City album, recorded in the late 1970s, is one of the really great live albums. Not quite at the same level as Jerry Lee Lewis Live at the Star Club, Hamburg, of course, but then nothing is. Maybe somewhere around the Modern Lovers Live.
And they were, at that stage, still capable of coming up with new classics, even if the public weren't paying much attention. The 1973 single Strange Movies, about porn films, is one of their finest records. It's trumped only by the magnificent Night of the Long Grass, from 1967, when it was assumed to have drug connotations. It didn't, of course. 'None of us were drug-mad,' observed guitarist Chris Britton. 'We had enough trouble with beer and scotch.' Instead, Night of the Long Grass was a buccolic dream about sex, just as most of Reg's songs were.
Similarly, I always thought that Love Is All Around wasn't an anthem about hippy dippy love, but rather Reg trying to get off with a woman by pleading that free love was the norm these days: 'If you really love me, come on and let it show.'
In fact, he only really had the one subject, did Reg. And on stage he was a wonderfully lascivious figure, while the Troggs were a joyously liberating force of nature.
This photograph was taken by Harry Goodwin and comes from My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock.
2 comments:
The Troggs were never afforded the sort of critical acclaim lavished on The Kinks, The Who, Small Faces etc. Perhaps this had something to do with the lack of lyrical social comentary (allowing for the single cited in your blog)? Also, perhaps there was a degree of London-centric snobbery despite all the talk about the breakthrough of the provinces: it might have been hip to be northern in the wake of kitchen sink drama and the Merseysound but the Westcountry? This region tended to be ignored or dismissed in 60s pop/rock cultural terms so its nice to know that The Troggs are now considered to be progenitors of garage/Punk!
I was thinking exactly the same thing, Tyrone, about the West Country factor. The 1960s were supposed to be a time when regional accents became fashionable, but only in specific instances. Liverpool and Manchester were fine, even Newcastle with the Animals. But Birmingham and the Black Country, for example, never made the same breakthrough.
Reg, meanwhile, was regarded as a thick yokel because he had a rural accent. But I always thought he seemed like a pretty sharp bloke who knew exactly what he was doing. And he was a truly gifted songwriter.
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