Originally Posted by BklynBlue
Whether cited or not, the discography in Celmins bio has long been the main source of information for those attempting to document Green’s recording history, leading to the wide acceptance of the idea that ‘Beasts of Burden’ and ‘Uganda Woman’ were recorded during the same January session(s) which produced ‘Heavy Heart’.
Celmins’ text however, specifically places the recording of those two songs in June of 1971, after the sessions for B.B. King’s “In London” LP.
He first quotes Watson as saying that the inspiration for ‘Beasts of Burden’ came from the time that he and Green had spent with the moccasin maker at his cabin in Nevada, but an editing error in the text then thoroughly confuses the situation as Celmins parenthetically adds that the song was “recorded and (emphasis mine) released in mid-1972”.
One can only assume that the sentence should have been broken up to read that it was recorded in “mid- 1971”, and released in “mid-1972”.
I am fully aware that the second half of that statement would still be incorrect; the single was released in January of 1972, which the discography correctly states, but the incorrect statement would at least then be consistent with Celmins second reference to the session and the release of the record a few pages later.
After writing of the guest session with King, Celmins writes, “Following that, Peter found time to record ‘Beasts of Burden’ b/w ‘Uganda Woman’ with Nigel Watson…” but again, the timelines become tangled as he concludes by saying, “…although it would be almost a year before the record was released as a single.”
If Celmins was under the impression that the record was released in “mid-1972” the statement makes perfect sense, and I would argue that that was the case here, that he believed at the time that the record was released in “mid-1972”.
If these tracks were also from the January session(s), then one possible inference is that Green was considering releasing an album with vocals, but that either Watson would be doing all of the singing, or that he was going to be sharing the vocal duties with Watson, much as he did on the Fleetwood Mac albums, with each writer singing their own material. Extrapolating on that idea, Green may have been considering splitting the LP with Watson, as he did “Then Play On” with Kirwan, relieving him of the responsibility of writing an entire album’s worth of material.
Or, maybe Green was simply doing Watson a favor at the time allowing him to cut a couple of tracks during the studio time that he had booked to record his LP, similar to the situation with the first two Clifford Davis numbers, done while the band was working on the tracks for “Then Play On”.
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07-01-2013, 01:52 AM
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