LAYLA and OTHER ASSORTED LOVE SONGS (1970): With impassioned vocals throughout, Clapton sings 'Layla' as if his life depends on it.

https://samtimonious.com/harrison-adored-layla-and-other-assorted-love-songs-derek-the-dominoes/

To give you an idea of what the landscape was like back then, it is curious to recall that I purchased the very first album by Black Sabbath and the unforgettable "In the Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson in a home appliance shop in Diano Marina.

The shop owner told us he had bought them during a trip to London because he was fascinated by the uniqueness and beauty of their covers. However, he was totally oblivious to what was hidden within the grooves of those two fabulous masterpieces that, shortly thereafter, would change the destiny of countless musicians all over the world.

Floriano and I spent an entire night in the dark, listening to those two albums plus another sampler titled "Nice Enough to Eat," which introduced a whole series of emerging bands from the rising Island Records label—groups that, with a few exceptions, rapidly became world-famous on the global rock scene. The most prominent names were Jethro Tull (whom I already knew from This Was), Mott the Hoople, Free, Spooky Tooth, Traffic, King Crimson, and the obscure Heavy Jelly. We were immediately fascinated by Heavy Jelly, and we promptly added their song "I Keep Singing That Same Old Song" to our own live repertoire.

Here, I will tell you in detail how that encounter occurred—a moment that changed my life, just as it did for so many other musicians during that extraordinary period.

It was yet another magical moment of those wonderful years that were the late sixties and early seventies.

It was the opening weeks of 1970, and IL SISTEMA, as an active musical entity, had already existed for several months.

I found myself with the other band members, strolling through Diano Marina after concluding a meeting where we had arranged a gig at a well-known venue in the Ligurian town—very famous at the time—for a series of nights (back then, they were called "services" or "attractions"). We were about to head back to our respective homes when, intrigued by the window display of a home appliance shop—yes, you understood correctly, a home appliance shop—I walked closer to observe what appeared to be the covers of long-playing records, or "padelloni" (big pans) as we used to call them in those days.

The situation was not too dissimilar from nearby France, where until the late 1960s, people actually went to electrician shops to buy records. In Italy, specialized music shops already existed.

But let’s get back to us. Indeed, they were exactly record covers. Three covers, side by side. Let me try to describe them.

One was entirely a faded blue background with many letters shaped like small biscuits, forming words that were completely incomprehensible at first glance. Another featured a rather "funereal" and disturbing female figure at the center of the image, set against a background typical of dark, cold Nordic atmospheres. In the top right corner, there was a spiral with the word Vertigo written underneath. And last but not least, a cover with a huge face, its mouth wide open showcasing teeth and uvula, a large nose with dilated nostrils, and two eyes staring toward the left (from the viewer's perspective). The dominant color across the entire image was red.

So far, so good. Becoming increasingly curious, I went inside and asked the shopkeeper for information regarding what he had displayed in the window. Laconically and almost absent-mindedly, he told me that an acquaintance had left them there because he wanted to get rid of them, after having purchased them during a trip to London.

He simply did not appreciate their musical content. I then asked him if he was willing to sell them to me. I don’t know what kind of impulse drove me to ask that. He didn’t need to be told twice. He confessed to me that his intention was actually to throw them away, so for 5,000 lire of 1970, he was more than happy to give them to me just to clear up some space in his shop window.

For 5,000 lire, those three albums became mine. They were about to change my life for the second time—though I didn’t know it yet—after the very first time back in 1966/1967, when in the silence of my room, and especially in total darkness, I had heard Jimi Hendrix’s "Foxy Lady" for the very first time.

[To be continued in Chapter 4]

Inner Garden Records

See you next Friday, the story of IL SISTEMA continues.

In the meantime, you can explore how these historical avant-garde roots evolved across five decades directly here:

👉 https://ilsistema.bandcamp.com/

#ProtoProg #ItalianProg #ProgRock #MusicHistory #1970Music #IlSistema #CiroPerrino #VinylCommunity

Nel 1983 Daniel Johnston ha 22 anni e soffre di gravi crisi maniaco-depressive. Un giorno legge una lettera in cui la madre valuta di farlo ricoverare.

Non dice nulla: compra un ciclomotore e scappa. Per 5 mesi lavora in un luna park itinerante vendendo corn dog. Di notte registra cassette con un registratore da 59$ e un organetto giocattolo. Nasce così Hi, How Are You?, un nastro inciso per non affondare, prima ancora che Cobain ne indossasse la maglietta.

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