When psychedelia and blues came together in Cream’s quickfire trio of studio albums in the late 1960s, it created a blueprint for blues-respecting bottom-heavy rock that would rule the airwaves for at least a decade.  In their roots and early trajectories, the Winter brothers, emerging out of the heartland of Beaumont, Texas, were not unlike north Florida’s Allman brothers, both heavily influenced by Cream’s fluid use of blues, and yet Johnny and Edgar never attained the pioneer status afforded Duane and Gregg.  Johnny’s traditionalism would keep him defined (and confined) as a blues revival hotshot guitarist, which in America was radical but also too far ahead of its time (it would be Stevie Ray Vaughan who would reap those rewards further on up the road).  Edgar, a rock’n’roll survivor, still touring as of this writing, was always a crowd-pleaser with a ton of chops on keys and sax, but never really pushed beyond his pair of early 70s funky, AM-friendly, rock/pop/jazz fusion hits, “Free Ride” and “Frankenstein.”  Maybe he didn’t need to.

“Frankenstein” started out in the tradition of Cream’s “Toad” and Led Zeppelin‘s “Moby Dick,” pieces with giant riffs whose sole purpose was to surround drum solos.  It even began life entitled “Double Drum Song,” ending up with its final title (after also being called “Synthesizer Song”) as the result of the intense tape cutting that reduced its time to a length that made it palatable for radio.  It was a huge success, an inventive and striking instrumental representative of American good time rock in the early 70s.

Continue reading “soundstreamsunday #104: “Frankenstein” by the Edgar Winter Group” →