I've said it before here and I'll probably end up saying it again, Sandinista! may not be the best Clash album but it could well be their greatest achievement- thirty six tracks over six sides of vinyl, covering every conceivable style of music they could think of, self produced at various locations from Pluto Studio in Manchester to The Power Station in New York and Channel One in Kingston, Jamaica, with a range of guests and extra players (including but not only Ellen Foley, Norman Watt Roy, Mickey Gallagher, Tymon Dogg, Mikey Dread, Ivan Julian, Den Hegarty, Gary Barnacle, Lew Lewis and Style Scott) and the band believing they were getting one over on CBS by putting out six sides of vinyl at a pay no more than £5.99 price.
Every side (well, almost every side, side six is admittedly an opinion splitter) has stone cold classic or genuine lost/ hidden gems and even a conservative estimate would say the following songs were essential Clash- The Magnificent Seven, Something About England, Rebel Waltz, The Crooked Beat, Somebody Got Murdered, One More Time and One More Dub, Up In Heaven (Not Only Here), Police On My Back, The Call Up, Washington Bullets, Broadway, Charlie Don't Surf, Kingston Advice and The Street Parade. Tucked away on side five is possible the most Sandinista!- esque of all the songs on Sandinista!
The music is from recoding session done with Mikey Dread at Pluto in February 1980, an instrumental backing track called Shepherd's Delight (which re- appears in dub form at the very end of side six), clearly derived from juices flowing while they recorded Bankrobber in Manchester in the snow. Now moved to New York and inspired by the city, it's nightlife and the people that live there, Joe Strummer lays down an astonishing stream of consciousness talking blues, reeling in a cast including Bo Diddley, Errol Flynn, Joe Ely, Sir Isaac Newton, the sale of London Bridge to a town in Arizona, Buddy Holly and Elvis, a voodoo shaman and Samson, Fender guitars and Mexican suits, the drummer man, wall Street and Electric Ladyland. 'Let's hear what the drunk man's got to say', he exclaims at one point. Later on, Strummer ad libs into a conversation with a girl he bumps into in a bar and asks if she needs 'a cowboy in bus depot jeans'.
Strummer, Jones and engineer Bill price split the vocals into the left and right channel, two Strummers at once. Sax comes from Clash friend Gary Barnacle, overdubbed in Wessex back in London later on and as the horn wails away and the dub backing thunders on, Joe's voice comes in from left and right, the sound of New York at night captured and of music talking.
I've tried, I really have; but Sandinista!, as a whole, was such a letdown when it arrived in the shops that I've never really been able to shake off my lack of enthusiasm these past 40 years.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, you've put forward a good case for reassessment and given it's been at least a decade since I listened to it in its entirety, I'll try one more time - it might work if I do so when lying under the sun on a beach as I'm expecting to do in a few weeks time.
Sounds like the perfect environment to get stuck into Sandinista
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