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Greatest Music Quotes Of The 1980s #3: Bob Geldof Special

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It’s fair to say that Bob Geldof’s efforts to kickstart Band Aid (‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’), USA For Africa (‘We Are The World’) and Live Aid were full of tension, drama and bruised egos.

And as each year goes by, more stories are coming out about that 1984/1985 era (many feature in the superb recent doc ‘The Greatest Night In Pop’ and Paul Vallely’s book ‘Live Aid: The Definitive 40-Year Story’), and more and more it seems like it was a watershed time for 1980s pop.

There are sundry tales of managers trying to get their artists higher up the bill at Live Aid (and trying in vain to get soundchecks…), egos running wild (especially in the USA), but also gratifying tales of altruism and friendship.

So a lot of people had a lot of entertaining things to say. Here are some choice quotes from the era, with a cast of characters including Geldof, David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Diana Ross and Paul Simon.

‘It sounds like f*cking “Z Cars”.’
Bob Geldof upon first hearing Midge Ure’s ‘Christmas’ synth melody in the middle of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’

‘You’re a f*cking millionaire and you want free food? There’s a f*cking chip shop on the corner. Go and buy your own lunch.’
Bob Geldof’s response to a star asking if there would be catering during the recording at Sarm West in Notting Hill

‘A huge voice erupted out of this little guy. I was standing next to Bono and I jumped. It felt as if I was standing next to an opera singer. He had the same massive power.’
Midge Ure on hearing Bono’s ‘Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you!’ line

‘I can’t go until I see Phil Collins play.’
Culture Club’s Jon Moss explaining why he was hanging around for so long in the studio

‘It’s pathetic but the price of a life this year is a piece of plastic with a hole in the middle.’
Bob Geldof tells Radio 1 DJ Simon Bates why people should buy the single

‘It’s really great what you’re doing. We want to do that over here. Will you come over?’
Michael Jackson rings Geldof from LA

‘It was a slap in the face. I know she felt bad. They didn’t think she could sing. It broke her heart.’ Nile Rodgers on Madonna not getting an invite for ‘We Are The World’

‘That’s like the Statue Of Liberty walking in.’
Billy Joel watches Ray Charles entering A&M Studios

‘Daryl, I’m your biggest fan. Would you sign my music for me?’
Diana Ross to Daryl Hall during the recording

‘Say what?! It’s three o’clock in the goddamn mornin’ – I can’t even sing in English no mo’! Ring the bell, Quincy, ring the bell!’
Ray Charles loses patience with Stevie Wonder’s attempts to teach the assembled vocalists a Swahili chant

‘That wasn’t any good.’
Bob Dylan after the vocal take that producer Quincy Jones deemed the keeper

‘Nice, Dylan.’
Bruce Springsteen to Bob after the aforementioned take

‘If it all goes well, no one will ever hear about you. If it’s a disaster, you’ll be famous.’
Harvey Goldsmith’s final words to Live Aid band organiser Pete Smith at the end of his interview

‘Oh Bobsy, I’m not so sure. I just don’t think it’s the right thing for us.’
Freddie Mercury’s initial response to Geldof about Queen playing at Live Aid

‘Is Geldof involved? I’m only doing the Geldof thing.’
David Bowie to his PR Bernard Doherty after getting TWO invitations to do charity work in 1985

‘You’ll never get Keith to agree. Cos Keith don’t give a f*ck.’
Bill Wyman to Geldof on his chances of getting the Stones together for Live Aid

‘Bob picked the wrong year, the wrong decade actually, to ask the Rolling Stones to do anything.’
Bernard Doherty on getting the Stones to appear

‘I took the idea from the television programme “Sunday Night At The London Palladium” which had a revolving stage at the end with all the performers of that week saying goodbye.’
Bob Geldof on the Live Aid revolving stage

‘I’ll do it. But Roger (Daltrey) will only do it if Kenney (Jones) doesn’t play. And John (Entwistle) will only do it if Kenney DOES play.’
Pete Townshend to Geldof on getting The Who back together for Live Aid – Kenney Jones had been their drummer since the death of Keith Moon

‘If The Who appear, we know we will get an additional million pounds of revenue. Every pound we make will save a life. Please, Roger, do the f*cking show.’
Bob Geldof pleads with Daltrey to do Live Aid – he did, and Kenney did appear on drums

‘Well, pull out, dude. You announce it, though.’
Bob Geldof to Bryan Ferry who was angry that he had been announced for Live Aid without even agreeing to participate

‘Oh f*ck. I didn’t think you could actually fix that!’
Phil Collins’ manager Tony Smith on being told by Geldof that Phil would play in both London and Philadelphia (he would also drum with Led Zeppelin at the latter gig)

‘We had this unbelievable discussion with Michael Jackson’s people. We were saying this is to help people in Africa and he just wasn’t interested.’
Harvey Goldsmith on trying to get Jackson to play Live Aid

‘They couldn’t give a f*ck, Bob.’
Quincy Jones whispers to Geldof his summation of why Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Prince and Stevie Wonder failed to appear at Live Aid

‘Call NASA, Harvey!’
Bob Geldof to Harvey Goldsmith, getting excited about sending Mick Jagger up in a space shuttle to duet with Bowie at Wembley

‘Sorry, sir. It takes six months for us to plan to do something like that.’
The man from NASA – he say no…

‘The Beatles can’t be reformed. John is dead.’
Bob Geldof kiboshes rumours that he’s been trying to reform The Beatles for Live Aid

‘I don’t care how many songs you want me to do, but I’m giving up one to introduce this on stage or I’m not doing the show.’
David Bowie on the CBC video which married harrowing images of starving Ethiopians with The Cars’ ‘Drive’

‘I thought: either I’ve done something really clever or really stupid…’
CBC’s Colin Dean on his edit of the above-mentioned video

‘I’m not going to have someone like Bill Graham talk to me in the way he’s talking to me. I won’t work with this guy. I’m sorry.’
Paul Simon tells Geldof why he’s pulling out of Live Aid

‘I’ve been on tour forever. We’ve just got married and if I don’t give her a honeymoon, then it’ll be a divorce!’
Bruce Springsteen tells Geldof why he won’t play Live Aid

‘Well, f*cking pull out. No one’s getting a soundcheck. I’m going back to bed.’
Bob Geldof to U2 manager Paul McGuinness on the eve of Live Aid – the latter had threatened to withdraw U2 if they didn’t get a soundcheck

‘I don’t think I can do this. It’s been six years since I’ve done anything.’
Paul McCartney has a crisis in the car on the way to Live Aid – his wife’s response was: ‘Shut up. You’re doing it.’

‘She asked me whether I could get her on. I told her to just turn up.’
Phil Collins remembers meeting Cher on the Concorde during his flight from London to Philadelphia

‘I have terrible memories of it all going wrong. Poor David (Gilmour), his guitar wasn’t working for the first couple of songs. With his first hit, the drummer put his stick through the drum skin. Then my mic wasn’t working, which for a singer is a bit of a handicap. A roadie ran on with another mic, so then I was holding two mics taped together and I wasn’t really sure which one to sing into.’
Bryan Ferry looks back on his Live Aid performance

‘Looking back, I think we were all a bit overexcited and I remember coming off and thinking it was very scrappy.’
Brian May on Queen’s performance

‘Queen were absolutely the best band of the day.’
Bob Geldof

‘I walked in and just stood there, and we looked at each other and he burst into tears. I’ve never seen him do that, before or since.’
Bernard Doherty on David Bowie after his Live Aid performance

‘He wouldn’t let go of my hand. He said, “You’re that lovely boy from Boomtown Rats, aren’t you?” I said, “No, I’m the lovely boy from Ultravox…”’
Midge Ure on Freddie Mercury at Live Aid

‘I ain’t taking shit off today. You might hold it against me ten years from now…’
Madonna to the Philadelphia crowd – pre-fame topless photos had just been published in the newspapers

‘No, it doesn’t go like that!’
Jimmy Page to Phil Collins backstage at Philadelphia before performing with Led Zeppelin – he had requested that Collins play air drums through ‘Stairway To Heaven’ to prove that he knew the song

‘The whole thing was a disaster, really. Robert wasn’t match-fit with his voice and Jimmy was out of it, dribbling. If I could have walked off, I would have.’
Phil Collins on playing with Led Zeppelin

‘She came out and literally blew the console apart!’
Philadelphia monitor man Dave Skaff on Patti Labelle’s performance at Live Aid

‘This is your Woodstock, and it’s long overdue…’
Joan Baez to the Philadelphia crowd

1980s Albums That Always Appear In Charity/Secondhand Shops

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So it’s official: old music is hugely outselling new music. And vinyl is the most popular physical format again.

Go into a record shop and likely you’ll be stunned at the price of secondhand vinyl, not to mention new catalogue LPs that can cost up to 25 quid for a posh reissue.

All of which might amuse/surprise music fans of my vintage who kept hold of their record players through the years and spent the noughties digging around the vinyl discount stores, often picking up ‘esteemed’ albums for anything between 10p and a quid (the price of a postage stamp, for readers outside the UK).

So what were those 1980s vinyls that were/are ALWAYS in secondhand shops and, by extension, still ever-present in charity shops? And why were they always there?

Most smack of the impulse buy by people who get one album a year, or the ‘difficult’ follow-ups to a smash. Some are tainted by an almost ineffable naffness. Most were deemed surplus on vinyl once CD became the format of choice, and most are weirdly genre-less.

Stacked high/sold cheap, you’d think they’d be reissue-proof, never to be seen again. But not so fast: ‘deluxe’ editions of these are probably on their way to a shop/streaming service near you, or have already arrived…

The Beautiful South: Welcome To The Beautiful South

U2: Rattle And Hum

Del Amitri: Waking Hours

Bros: Push

Hothouse Flowers: People

Michael McDonald: Sweet Freedom (The Best Of Michael McDonald)

T’Pau: Bridge Of Spies

Foreigner: Agent Provocateur

Michael Bolton: Soul Provider

Meat Loaf: Dead Ringer

John Cougar Mellencamp: The Lonesome Jubilee

Enya: Watermark

Five Star: Silk And Steel

Arcadia: So Red The Rose

Sade: Diamond Life

Chris Rea: The Road To Hell

Phil Collins: No Jacket Required

Bryan Ferry: Boys And Girls

Genesis: Invisible Touch

George Michael: Faith

Tracy Chapman: Tracy Chapman

Fleetwood Mac: Tango In The Night

Wet Wet Wet: Popped In, Souled Out

Fairground Attraction: The First Of A Million Kisses

Paul Young: No Parlez

Tom Petty: Full Moon Fever

Michael Jackson: Bad

Tina Turner: Private Dancer

Lionel Richie: Can’t Slow Down

Alison Moyet: Alf

Patti Labelle: Winner In You

Howard Jones: Human’s Lib

Simply Red: A New Flame

Whitney Houston: Whitney

Paula Abdul: Forever Your Girl

Bon Jovi: Slippery When Wet

Madonna: True Blue

Tears For Fears: Songs From The Big Chair

1980s Soul: 14 Lost Classics

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It’s highly unlikely that any critics’ poll of the greatest soul albums from the last 70 years would include anything from the 1980s, save possibly for a Diana, Anita Baker, Terence TD or Bobby Womack outlier.

There was the odd huge-selling ‘crossover’ album (Can’t Slow Down, Thriller, Whitney Houston) but arguably the decade didn’t produce a What’s Going On or Songs In The Key Of Life.

Classic soul fans generally became used to poor-to-middling album packages, with the requisite two or three-star reviews and complaints about too many producers and underwhelming material. The greats of the ’60s and ’70s also sometimes struggled to move with the times, getting hamstrung by technology and/or unsuitable collaborators.

But my goodness there were some superb tracks, particularly between 1980 and 1985, an interesting period when Classic Soul drew from Yacht Rock and Jazz/Funk. However, these songs tended to get quickly forgotten and/or ignored. In the late-’80s, ’90s and noughties, enterprising indie labels put together fondly-remembered compilations (Mastercuts, StreetSounds) that brought these tracks back for a small but very enthusiastic audience.

But the beauty of streaming services is that we can compile these beauties to create one sh*t-hot album, so I have, here. This has been my go-to playlist during lockdown. Forget the talent-show wannabees – these vocalists have serious pipes, and the songwriting and arrangements are top-class too. Here’s a small selection of lost classic soul tracks from the 1980s:

14. Johnny Gill: ‘Half Crazy’ (1985)
Co-written by legendary Philly wordsmith Linda Creed (‘Betcha By Golly Wow’, ‘People Make The World Go Round’), this was the lead-off track and first single from Gill’s second album and still sounds like a bona fide soul standard today. It was a long way from New Edition for Johnny, though he was just 18 years old when he recorded it. Scary…

13. Teena Marie: ‘My Dear Mr Gaye’ (1984)
Moving tribute to Marvin from the less-than-excellent album Starchild, featuring a string arrangement by Motown mainman Paul Riser and a groovy change of pace in the middle of the tune.

12. Carl Anderson: ‘Buttercup’ (1985)
Stevie Wonder-penned minor classic from a little-known vocalist who recorded many solo albums before his death in 2004, but was probably best known for his portrayal of Judas Iscariot in the Broadway and film versions of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’.

11. Gladys Knight & The Pips: ‘Bourgie Bourgie’ (1980)
Just check out co-writer (with Nick Ashford) Valerie Simpson’s gospel-tinged piano playing on this – absolutely fabulous. And Gladys’s super-funky vocals are perfect. It’s adapted from a 1977 Ashford & Simpson instrumental.

10. Odyssey: ‘If You’re Lookin’ For A Way Out’ (1980)
Heartbreaking ballad written by Ralph Kotkov and superbly sung by Lillian Lopez. Made #6 in the UK singles chart.

9. Millie Jackson: ‘This Is It’ (1980)
Now THIS is how you kick off a soul album. A hilarious eight-minute tour-de-force that aims to get men squirming in their seats. Remarkably, it’s also officially a Kenny Loggins/Michael McDonald composition.

8. Chris Jasper: ‘Superbad’ (1987)
Great song from long-time keyboard player of The Isley Brothers. A socially-conscious lyric looking at the value of inner-city education and the kind of tune Stevie should have been producing in the mid-’80s.

7. Diana Ross: ‘Cross My Heart’ (1987)
Superb, catchy song, written by frequent Leonard Cohen collaborator Sharon Robinson, and Diana’s vocals are just gorgeous. From the otherwise fairly uninspired Red Hot Rhythm And Blues album.

6. Leon Ware: ‘Why I Came To California’ (1982)
Cool mixture of soul, jazz/funk and yacht rock, an ode to the West Coast with a top-drawer rhythm section of Chuck Rainey (bass) and James Gadson (drums) and vocals from Manhattan Transfer’s Janis Siegel. But who plays the great sax solo? Seems impossible to find out…

5. SOS Band: ‘Weekend Girl’ (1984)
More evidence that producing/songwriting team Jam & Lewis were going to be arguably THE musical force of the decade, a gorgeous, upwardly-mobile, mature ballad that has the same kind of grandeur as one of Chic’s slow-burners.

4. Patti Labelle: ‘If Only You Knew’ (1983)
Just…wow. Killer ballad co-written by Kenny Gamble and Dexter Wansel which reached #1 on the Billboard R’n’B chart. Super arrangement too, emphasised by the unexpected key change going into the first verse.

3. Bobby Womack: ‘Games’ (1983)
‘You see, I like all kinds of music – no favourites!’, Bobby proclaims at the beginning of this superb track, then demonstrates it with a lovely little nod to Wes Montgomery’s guitar style.

2. Phyllis Hyman: ‘Why Did You Turn Me On’ (1983)
A hint of Rod Temperton about this catchy Narada Michael Walden-penned mid-tempo smoocher, showcasing Hyman’s giant voice to great effect. Sadly the Philly soul legend took her own life in 1995.

1. Terence Trent D’Arby: ‘As Yet Untitled’ (1987)
Ambitious accappella piece from Terence’s classic debut album, with a vocal nod to Sam Cooke but also featuring some stirring sounds purely of his own creation.

 

Prince: Sign ‘O’ The Times 30 Years Old Today

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Paisley Park/Warner Bros, released 30 March 1987

Album chart position: #6 (US), #4 (UK)

Singles released: ‘Sign O’ The Times’ (#3 US, #10 UK)
‘If I Was Your Girlfriend’ (#67 US, #20 UK)
‘U Got The Look’ (#2 US, #11 UK)
‘I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man’ (#10 US, #29 UK)

At the time of Sign O’ The Times’ release, the general critical consensus seemed to be that it was a great double album but, shorn of a few tracks, would have made a sensational single album. But what the press probably didn’t know was that Prince had actually intended to release a triple album.

He believed the three-record set Crystal Ball would have been be a huge artistic statement after a relatively disappointing 1986, but the idea scared the hell out of Warner Bros and also his manager Bob Cavallo. Prince was reluctantly forced to back down.

The tracks intended for Crystal Ball but later abandoned for Sign O’ The Times were ‘Rebirth Of The Flesh’, ‘Rockhard In A Funky Place’, ‘The Ball’, ‘Joy In Repetition’, ‘Shockadelica’, and ‘Good Love’ (all hoovered up from two other aborted album projects, Dream Factory and Camille).

But even after Prince removed these, he was still left with a 16-track double album, a brilliant mix of the sacred and profane, and a record which many fans believe was his finest hour.

The famous title track was recorded on 15 July 1986 in a single ten-hour session at LA’s Sunset Sound. Prince was experimenting with a new piece of kit – the Fairlight sampler/synth – but characteristically made the technology swing in a way that no other artist could.

The track also demonstrates his love of space; it’s essentially just a minimalist blues featuring a three-note melody line, some sampled drums/bass and a bit of electric guitar. Listening again on the day after the Westminster Bridge ‘terrorist’ attack of 23 March, the song’s lyric also seems as relevant now as it was in 1987:

Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling of a church and killed everyone inside
You turn on the telly and every other story is tellin’ you somebody died
Sister killed her baby cos she couldn’t afford to feed it
And we’re sending people to the moon
In September my cousin tried reefer for the very first time
Now he’s doing horse, it’s June

It’s silly, no?
When a rocket ship explodes
And everybody still wants to fly
Some say a man ain’t happy
Until a man truly dies

‘Play In The Sunshine’ and ‘Housequake’ are pure party pop – it’s scarcely believable that Prince alone could generate such a raucous studio atmosphere with only Susannah Melvoin’s backing vocals, a few guests and Eric Leeds’ sax for company. The latter also represents his first recorded attempt at hip-hop (unless you count the brief ‘rap’ in ‘Girls & Boys’), typically supplying something usually missing from the genre: humour.

‘The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker’, recorded in Prince’s Minneapolis home studio on 15th March 1986, may be his most psychedelic recording, the soundtrack to a dream with seemingly-spontaneous musical moments that no one else could have created. He demonstrates his mastery with the LM-1 drum machine and, vocally, sets up a novel ‘Greek chorus’ effect.

 

‘Forever In My Life’ takes a melody line very similar to Sly And The Family Stone’s ‘Everyday People’ (and maintains Sly’s key of G) but again demonstrates Prince’s remarkable sense of space and also features another extraordinary backing vocal arrangement.

The heartfelt lyric was written when he believed he would settle down with fiancée Susannah Melvoin (twin sister of Wendy) – sadly it wasn’t to be.

‘It’, another bold experiment with the Fairlight, returns to the cold, sexualised world of 1999, while ‘Hot Thing’ is its flipside, a funky, James Brown-inspired one-chord romp with some great Leeds tenor sax.

‘If I Was Your Girlfriend’ (another song about Susannah/Wendy), ‘Strange Relationship’ (another big nod to Sly), ‘It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night’, ‘Starfish And Coffee’, ‘U Got The Look’ and ‘I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man’ are just brilliantly performed, beautifully written pop tunes with dashes of psychedelia and soul.

According to engineer Susan Rogers, Prince was very influenced by Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love during the recording of SOTT, the track ‘Cloudbusting’ a particular favourite. Other songs showed contemporary influences too – ‘Adore’ was apparently Prince’s response to the popularity of Luther Vandross’s Give Me The Reason and Patti Labelle’s The Winner In You, and it also hugely influenced the neo-soul movement, particularly D’Angelo’s ballad style.

‘U Got The Look’ – the last song recorded for Sign O’ The Times on 21 December 1986 – was apparently inspired by Robert Palmer’s ‘Addicted To Love’.

Sign O’ The Times sold 1.8 million copies in the US, a very similar number to Parade. Some believed the slightly disappointing sales were due to the choice of ‘If I Was Your Girlfriend’ as the second single; it is strange that ‘U Got The Look’ didn’t get the nod. But if Prince’s popularity was levelling out in the States, it was growing across Europe.