As The Crow Flies 11.21.08: From Blues to Black - The Origins and Evolution of Heavy Metal - Part One

Posted by Chris Crowing on 11.21.2008

I love heavy metal, but I ask you, whence did it appear and how did it come to this. Let’s find out together, in this week’s first of a five-part - As The Crow Flies.

This will be my fourth column for 411, and I've held off on a subject I've always wanted to write about until I'd warmed up so I could hit the ground running. I describe myself as a metal fan, but before that I am a music fan, and I am often perplexed by the attitude of some metalheads who seem to want to do little more than run other people's music down, especially when those people appreciate a ‘less extreme‘ version of metal themselves. Such narrow-minded ways exist only to prop up the egos of a minority of very insecure, fundamentally stupid and emotionally retarded people. But despite such Neanderthals, I LOVE my heavy metal.

It is the one form of music which in it's best form encompasses all that I love in music, from the life affirming, cathartic, energetic release of some passages to the unsurpassed beauty and fragility that the very best metal bands put in there songs. Throw all that in with impassioned vocals and some of the best musicians on the planet and that is a genre to hold close to your heart for life.

So I put to you the question, ‘Where did heavy metal start? From what well did it spring? What are its limits and who are its prime exponents? Lastly, how has it developed over the past forty (yep, FORTY) years?'

The phrase ‘heavy metal' is a very wide ranging and confusing label. rateyourmusic defines ‘metal' as an uber-genre, with sub-genres including metal core, groove metal, heavy metal, speed metal, progressive metal, death metal, doom metal, thrash metal, folk metal, power metal, gothic metal, stoner metal, sludge metal, industrial metal, grind core, symphonic metal, black metal and alternative metal.

What?

As has been shown in my columns on Emo and Grunge, I tend to find pedantic genre definitions to be a bit tedious and so I'll nail down my definition of metal that I'll use throughout these columns. You may agree, or not - I love debate.

Metal is a genre of music, originally inspired by blues rock but increasingly taking on new influences and flavors as it is incorporated by new cultures and as the technology of music progresses.
The music itself is largely performed by a power trio (drums, bass guitar, and guitar) although second or third guitarists, keyboard/piano players or more electronic supporting musicians can also be added according to taste or style. The singer can be one of the musicians or an independent entity within the band.
Stylistically, the music is ‘heavier' than that which is generally accepted as mainstream at the time, whether this is through down tuning, being slower or faster and/or incorporating more ‘extreme' vocals (whether higher, lower or faster) varies from band to band and style to style.

I could add comment about the use of Phrygian scales compared to pentatonic scales to differentiate from hard rock, the use of tri-tones (diabolus in musica) etc. but that's a bit pedantic and anyone who is going to quibble on those types of terms is NOT to be argued with and the sane person should merely backed away from them slowly.

Suffice to say, that I view metal as descended from, but distinct from blues/rock music but I do not subscribe to the various petty sub-genre definitions. Some folks like their heaviness in different flavors, and that's good, because so do I. It's all metal, so get over it.

Now that is out of the way (and as some will no doubt comment, I have left myself LOTS of room within my genre definition) let us begin. I expect this will take a few weeks worth of columns to get through in the manner I think it deserves, so let us start at the beginning.


As The Crow Flies over…the Origins and Evolution of Heavy Metal

I've already boldly stated that metal (let's drop the ‘heavy' prefix, because it's not as if there is a soft, putty-like kind of metal out there) is descended from blues rock music, so I could easily name some early blues pioneer like Robert Johnson as a forefather of metal. Hey, it's even rumored he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for being the ultimate guitar player, and you don't get much more metal than that!

But that's too far back for the sake of my narrative, so I'll move forward to the 1960s, with the old rock standards of Chuck Berry and the Big Band legacy of the likes of Glenn Miller were being surpassed in the popular imagination by such deviant and controversial acts as Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Even the country scene was embracing edgier new stars like Johnny Cash.

The UK provided a fertile breeding ground for blues musicians interested in testing the limits of their instruments and artists like Jimi Hendrix, the Yardbirds (who numbered Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page amongst their members,) Deep Purple and eventually Led Zeppelin pushed the boundaries of blues rock and created hard rock.




A year after Led Zeppelin released their first album in 1969, a Birmingham band called Black Sabbath released their eponymous debut album, swiftly followed by the more impactful Paranoid. Black Sabbath's guitarist Tony Iommi had suffered an industrial accident in his youth, resulting in the tips of his ring and middle finger being lopped off. Despite playing with synthetic tips on his fingers, he pioneered the ‘dropped D' and (from Master of Reality,) C# guitar tunings to reduce the tension on his fingers. Observe below...



This, combined with his blues-based solos, riff based style and the high levels of distortion he used on his guitar set up the formula for metal guitar playing to this day. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin can lay similar claim, and if you mash up the guitar techniques on show on "Whole Lotta Love" and "War Pigs" then that's your origin and basis for metal guitar right there.

Throughout the 70s, many bands came along that developed on this sound, and the term ‘heavy metal' started to be used - it is quite interesting that Led Zeppelin were never called heavy metal while active, and the term was only applied to Sabbath several albums into their career. I smell the work of an industry, desperate to define this new ‘heavy rock' from other kinds of blues influenced work for marketing purposes….

The most important (and successful) of these bands were Judas Priest who released their first album Rocka Rolla in 1974, but really hit their stride with the impeccable Sad Wings of Destiny in 1976.
However there were a lot of bands who were pushing the hard rock/metal edge including UFO who were admittedly less ‘heavy' than Priest, but had big hits with the likes of "Doctor Doctor."

With less success were the likes of Wales's Budgie who I'll admit I've only ever heard of because some San Francisco based band that I like covered one of their songs. But lack of success does not diminish their importance, and any band coming up with compositions and active and interesting as "Breadfan" in 1973 deserves some credit. But why the hell call your band ‘Budgie'?



The seventies was chock full of brilliant hard rock acts, from the enduring Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin competing for space with the stunning musical contributions of AC/DC, Rainbow, the Who, Thin Lizzy, the Stooges, Blue Oyster Cult and Rush as well as the over the top stylistic displays of Alice Cooper, KISS and bands like Queen who managed to be both. It could be well argued that there was only a narrow difference between hard rock and heavy metal in these times, although that was soon to change forever. This entire pantheon of stunning bands meant that the heavier music was constantly in the public consciousness and a whole generation of youngsters grew up with all kinds of guitar wizardry to inspire them. We'll hear more from them later…

1977 is often held as a landmark year for music because it's the year that punk is supposed to have taken over the world. I disagree. Not to say that Punk wasn't important, and a catalyst for change, but it wasn't the only thing going on.
1977 is also a standout year for the growing genre of heavy metal, with ex-Hawkwind bass player Lemmy Kilmister growling out his new band, Motorhead‘s debut release and while more of a rock n' roll band at the time, they'd go on to be more than a little influential.

The same year also saw Judas Priest continue their dominance of the nascent heavy metal scene with Sin After Sin and the classic single "Diamonds & Rust" as well as Black Sabbath now being an established (and bankable) enough act to merit a Greatest Hits - fancy that!

I'll diverge for a second to say that while I don't subscribe to the notion that Punk changed music forever, the shot of adrenaline it provided to metal was invaluable as from this point onward metal would change into a far more sleek, aggressive beast rather than the angrier, slightly camp version of hard rock.

It would be a long road however, and it wouldn't be until 1979 came along and a raft of bands started to get noticed and release their first records. From Saxon, Cirith Ungol, Dokken and Samson amongst many others, metal was showing to becoming a popular, and worldwide genre of music all on its own. Apart from readers of Sounds magazine, few outside of London will have noticed, but a band of Londoners had just released their Soundhouse Tapes. More would follow.

As the decade turned into the 1980s, the music media developed a phrase - which seems to be met with much amusement by the bands it was applied to - The New Wave of Britsh Heavy Metal, regularly abbreviated to NWOBHM.

The two undisputed stars of this ‘wave' were the above mentioned Londoners Iron Maiden and Sheffield's Def Leppard Both released their first proper albums Iron Maiden and On Through the Night respectively in 1980, and while they didn't exactly become overnight successes, both bands would go on to great things.

But this was just the sharp point of the NWOBHM and many bands would arise at this time to gain a little of the media's new attention. From Diamond Head to Tygers of Pan Tang alongside many more, this was a fertile time for new, heavy progressive music. Not just in the UK either, as the United States had started to get the metal bug, and from coast to coast bands like Manowar, Metal Church, Armoured Saint, Exodus and Testament began to spring up. Europe too contributed new acts like Denmark's Mercyful Fate and Switzerland's Hellhammer.

As this new wave of metal bands swept over the world, the old guard came back with Black Sabbath recruiting former Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio for the well received (and influential) Heaven & Hell album following a nasty split with iconic former front man Ozzy Osbourne.
Judas Priest also became bigger stars than ever before with a series of good albums from British Steel to Defenders of the Faith and the classic (if very cheesy) single "Breaking the Law."

However, the times they were a changing and the new guard were about to take charge in dominating fashion.

As a whole, the genre was taking a turn for the darker as Newcastle band Venom took the heavy metal template and added even darker and more satanic imagery to their artwork and lyrics, as well as striving to be as heavy as possible. Their 1982 album Black Metal eventually lending its name to a whole sub genre dedicated to grandiose darkness.

But some bands were aiming for the bright lights and Iron Maiden had cemented their signature sound and progressive style and developed a loyal fan base with their sophomore Killers album, but problems with singer Paul Di'Anno led to his being replaced with Samson's former choirboy Bruce Dickinson. That worked out pretty well with the Number of the Beast album becoming a HUGE hit in 1982, and they followed that up with increased success with Piece of Mind in 1983.



Def Leppard likewise had been building a steady reputation, and utilizing a more chart friendly 'stadium rock' sound achieved genuine success with the Pyromania album in 1983 and a series of charting singles.

So at this point in 1983, the bands who had grown up listening to the hard rock acts of the 1960s and 70s, and indeed had cut their teeth listening to Judas Priest songs, and thus had always wanted to be in a metal band, as opposed to a blues band - were now on the edge of genuine, filling stadiums and selling gold record stardom.

For those who would claim that metal is meant to be an underground thing, unpalatable to the masses, I guess that would be depressing. But everything runs in cycles and now there were kids, far away from metal's heartland in England who were influenced by Black Sabbath, by Motorhead, by Budgie, by Diamond Head and they were coming of age.

In 1983 Metallica released their debut album, Kill ‘Em All and heralded a rougher, more direct metal sound, in part influenced by the no nonsense punk approach and were soon followed by similarly influenced bands such as Slayer, Anthrax even in Europe with the likes of Celtic Frost.

I'll leave you my last video here, with Metallica in a tiny hall playing Cliff's awesomely proggy "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth" then into the none-more-metal "Whiplash."



This even newer wave would be termed ‘thrash metal' (although I put little stock in such petty genre divisions) and the next decade would be a war for the hearts, minds, and dollars of the metal buying public between the established and increasingly visible and commercial metal acts and the more extreme underground scene, quickly being differentiated into Thrash, Black and Death metal by the passionate fans.

As The Crow Flies over…the Origins and Evolution of Heavy Metal - Part One

It seems clear to me that metal grew rather organically from blues music, through rock and hard rock. I just don't see any way that argument can be countered, no matter how some blinkered individuals might want to see metal as 'white' music. We lifted the whole pattern from the blues, and all the dressing up as a Viking you want is never going to change that.

It surprises me when I look back, and see that metal's currently fractured state and the enmity that lies between fans of ‘melodic death metal' and ‘blackest symphonic doom on a Tuesday morning' only came about at the turn of the 1980s. Every biography I have ever read of one of the NWOBHM bands paints a picture of a large, somewhat incestuous scene, where everyone was out to have fun, and the metal kids really pulled together against the punks and the Mods etc. It's possible that this is a case of rose tinted glasses, but it often bugs me that nowadays you not only have to pick a general style of music to like, but you need to listen to only one sub-genre, or you risk being labeled a fake or ‘not extreme' enough. It really is quite laughable.

To me, it's all metal and it all stems from a few bands, largely from the heart of England, and although it has changed and evolved almost out of recognition if you strip away the layers on the very newest songs from Gojira, Opeth or Dimmu Borgir right through to the last Metallica, Slipknot or Mastodon single you will see the undeniable bloodline from Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin, as evolved by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and others.

For all that much of what I have referenced above sounds VERY tame and slow compared to what is considered edgy (or even quite mainstream) these days, you have to take the extremity of any music and compare it to the time in which is was released. The past has a lot to teach us, because after all, it is what made us who we are. Much of what is termed metal in this period would barely pass muster as hard rock nowadays, and as such I expect my definition to take some flak, but to my mind it's all part of the evolution, and as such needs to receive its credit. For example, UFO sound really soft and commercial to me but various members of Iron Maiden cite them as a real influence, so I have the throw them in as one of the stepping stones to metal as we know it.

I remember listening to the Radio One Rock Show when they first ran such a thing in the late 90s (nu-metal having made ‘rock' marketable again) and Lemmy himself was the special guest and picked as his chosen tune "Daytripper" by the Beatles. He said "you kids might think this is tired old crap, but that bass line is one of the best I've ever heard, and they (the Beatles) taught me a lot, so shut up and listen." I couldn't say it better myself.

In my view it is not what separates us which matters, but that which draws us together, and at times I like my music loud, passionate, technical and dark as all hell. I think a lot of you think the same way. Next week I'll continue this chronicle into the mid-eighties, where thrash goes up against hair metal, Ozzy goes insane and the shadows in the underground grow very, very dark indeed.

The Murmur Round the Murder

Again, I have not yet been paid and thus have no new music to vent my spleen on, so having listened to HOURS of classic metal and hard rock all in the name of research, I offer you…

The Murmer Round the Murder Mixtape
Volume 1: the Best of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal 1969-1983.

Side A - 69-79

1- Whole Lotta Love - Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II - 1969
2- Paranoid - Black Sabbath - Paranoid - 1970
3- Black Knight - Deep Purple - 1970
4- Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III - 1970
5- I'm Eighteen - Alice Cooper - 1971
6- Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple - Machine Head - 1972
7- Breadfan - Budgie - Never Turn Your Back On A Friend - 1973
8- Sabbra Caddabra - Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath - 1973
9- Search & Destroy - the Stooges - Raw Power - 1973
10 -Doctor Doctor - UFO - Phenomenon - 1974
11- Tyrant - Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny - 1976
12- Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - 1976
13- Diamonds & Rust - Judas Priest - Sin After Sin - 1977
14- Whole Lotta Rosie - AC/DC - Let There Be Rock - 1977
15- Overkill - Motorhead - Overkill - 1979


Side B - 80-83

1- Phantom of the Opera - Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden - 1980
2- Wheels of Steel - Saxon - Wheels of Steel - 1980
3- Heaven & Hell - Black Sabbath - Heaven & Hell - 1980
4- Breaking the Law - Judas Priest - British Steel - 1980
5- Ace of Spades - Motorhead - Ace of Spades - 1980
6- the Prince - Diamond Head - Lightning For The Nations - 1980
7- Wrathchild - Iron Maiden - Killers - 1981
8- Another Hit N' Run - Def Leppard - 1981
9- Black Metal - Venom - Black Metal - 1982
10- The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden - 1982
11- Holy Diver - Dio - Holy Diver - 1983
12- The Trooper - Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind - 1983
13- Die by the Sword - Slayer - Show No Mercy - 1983
14- Hit the Lights - Metallica - Kill 'Em All - 1983 -29

Ok, so I leaned heavily on the big bands and stuff that I know through Metallica covers, but it's MY mixtape dammnit! Some will hate my choices, but I think this is a decent trip through the early education and adventures of heavy metal, and it is simply not possible to trim everyone's favorite songs from the time in without making it a seven DVD set.

Until next week, bang the head that doesn't bang!

Chris