Get Your Wings is the second studio album by American rock band Aerosmith, released on March 15, 1974. The album was their first to be produced by Jack Douglas, who also was responsible for the band's next three albums. Three singles were released from the album, but none reached the singles charts.
In January 1973, Aerosmith released its debut album to little fanfare. As guitarist Joe Perry recalled in the 1997 band memoir Walk This Way, "There was no nothing at all: no press, no radio, no airplay, no reviews, no interviews, no party. Instead the album got ignored and there was a lot of anger and flipping out."[6] The band had been somewhat nervous recording their first album, with vocalist Steven Tyler going so far to alter his singing voice, and they had very little chemistry with producer Adrian Barber. The band moved into an apartment in Brookline and began intensive rehearsals in a dungeon-like basement of a store called Drummer's Image on Newbury Street.[7] By the time they began recording Get Your Wings, however, Jack Douglas had agreed to work with the band, beginning a long and successful studio collaboration. According to Perry, Columbia had wanted the band to work with Bob Ezrin, who was also a producer with Alice Cooper. It was Ezrin who introduced the band to Douglas, and for "all practical purposes, Jack became our producer. Ezrin might have shown up three or four times, but only to make suggestions, like bringing in additional musicians to augment our sound."[8]
Recording and compositionEdit
Get Your Wings was recorded at the Record Plant in New York City between December 1973 and January 1974. Jay Messina engineered the sessions. Douglas later recalled, "To the best of my memory, the preproduction work for Get Your Wings started in the back of a restaurant that was like a Mob hangout in the North End. I commuted there from the Copley Plaza Hotel and they started to play me the songs they had for their new album. My attitude was: 'What can I do to make them sound like themselves?'"[9]
In 1997, Perry explained to Aerosmith biographer Stephen Davis:
The tracks were the stuff we'd been working on at our apartment on Beacon Street in the summer of '73. I wrote the riff to "Same Old Song and Dance" one night in the front room and Steven just started to sing along. "Spaced" happened the same way in the studio, with a lot of input from Jack. "S.O.S." meant "Same Old Shit" and came from the rehearsals at the Drummer's Image... "Lord of the Thighs" and "Seasons of Wither" were Steven's songs. Of all the ballads Aerosmith has done, "Wither" was the one I liked best.[10]
In his autobiography, Tyler writes that some songs like "Seasons of Wither" had been "germinating in my head for a long time, but the other more sinister tracks, like 'Lord of the Thighs', came from the seedy area where we recorded the album. 'Lord of the Thighs' was about a pimp and the wildlife out on the street."[11] Tyler plays the piano on the track, the opening beat of which is similar to the one Kramer would play a year later in "Walk This Way". He stated that the title was a pun on the famous William Golding novel Lord of the Flies, and "the critics hated us for this. We weren't supposed to be smart enough to use literary references."[12]
One of the most well-known tracks is a cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'", made popular by one of Aerosmith's favorite bands, the Yardbirds. According to Douglas, the crowd noise at the end of the track was taken from a "wild track" from The Concert for Bangladesh, which he had worked on.[12] The single version omits the echo and crowd noise. Notable for its start/stop groove, the song became a core part of the band's live set for a time, and still occasionally ended concerts late in their career. In 1997, drummer Joey Kramer explained to Alan Di Perna of Guitar World that its unique rhythmic feel originated "probably just from jamming on it at soundcheck and experimenting with putting a James Brown kind of beat behind it. I played with a lot of R&B-type groups before joining Aerosmith." In the same interview, Perry stated that "Train" was the one song "we all had in common when we came together."[13]
The closing "Pandora's Box" was originally written by Kramer, who recalled in 1997: "The summer before, we'd rented a farmhouse in East Thetford, Vermont, while we were rehearsing in New Hampshire, and that's where I wrote the melody of 'Pandora's Box.' Steven wrote the lines about women's liberation, a big new issue in those times."[14] According to Douglas, the clarinet at the start of the track is a union engineer playing "I'm in the Mood for Love".[12]
In 2014 Perry reflected, "We all put in endless hours, fueled by whatever substances were available... I knew the album, in spite of a few bright spots, still didn't capture the power of the band. We were better than the record we were making. And yet I didn't know how to get there. I didn't know how to get from good to great."[15]
"On the second album," Tyler noted, "the songs found my voice. I realized that it's not about having a beautiful voice and hitting all the notes; it's about attitude."[16]
Contemporary reviews were mostly positive. In his article for Rolling Stone, Charley Walters praised the LP, writing that "the snarling chords of guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford tautly propel each number, jibing neatly with the rawness of singer Steven Tyler, whose discipline is evident no matter how he shrieks, growls, or spits out the lyrics."[22]Billboard reviewer called the music "derivative", but added that the band's "tough and nasty rock'n'roll vision" could be successful with the help of the right producers.[23] Music critic Robert Christgau wrote that the band were "inheritors of the Grand Funk principle: if a band is going to be dumb, it might as well be American dumb. Here they're loud and cunning enough to provide a real treat for the hearing-impaired, at least on side one."[19]
In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine declared that Get Your Wings was when Aerosmith "shed much of their influences and developed their own trademark sound, it's where they turned into songwriters, it's where Steven Tyler unveiled his signature obsessions with sex and sleaze... they're doing their bloozy bluster better and bolder, which is what turns this sophomore effort into their first classic."[17] Ben Mitchell of Blender had the same impression and wrote that Aerosmith locked into their "trademark dirty funk" and "firmly established their simple lyrical blueprint: smut and high times" on this album.[18] Canadian critic Martin Popoff praised the album and called it a "rich, inspired and consistently entertaining rock 'n' roller, a record much more intelligent than much metal to this point in time".[20]
^"The 20 best rock albums of 1974". Classic Rock. August 11, 2020. Retrieved May 28, 2021.
^Billboard (October 12, 1974). "Top Single Picks: Pop – Recommended". Billboard. Vol. 86, no. 41. p. 51. ISSN 0006-2510. 1st mention of 'Train Kept A Rollin' in Billboard
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Get Your Wings is the second studio album by American rock band Aerosmith released on March 15 1974 The album was their first to be produced by Jack Douglas who also was responsible for the band s next three albums Three singles were released from the album but none reached the singles charts Get Your WingsStudio album by AerosmithReleasedMarch 15 1974 1 RecordedDecember 17 1973 January 14 1974StudioRecord Plant New York CityGenreHard rock 2 blues rock 3 Length38 04LabelColumbiaProducerJack Douglas Ray ColcordAerosmith chronologyAerosmith 1973 Get Your Wings 1974 Toys in the Attic 1975 Singles from Get Your Wings Same Old Song and Dance Released March 1974 Train Kept A Rollin single edit Released October 1974 4 S O S Too Bad Released February 1975The album has been released in stereo and quadraphonic and certified triple platinum by the RIAA 5 Contents 1 Background 2 Recording and composition 3 Critical reception 4 Track listing 5 Personnel 6 Charts 7 Certification 8 References 8 1 BibliographyBackground EditIn January 1973 Aerosmith released its debut album to little fanfare As guitarist Joe Perry recalled in the 1997 band memoir Walk This Way There was no nothing at all no press no radio no airplay no reviews no interviews no party Instead the album got ignored and there was a lot of anger and flipping out 6 The band had been somewhat nervous recording their first album with vocalist Steven Tyler going so far to alter his singing voice and they had very little chemistry with producer Adrian Barber The band moved into an apartment in Brookline and began intensive rehearsals in a dungeon like basement of a store called Drummer s Image on Newbury Street 7 By the time they began recording Get Your Wings however Jack Douglas had agreed to work with the band beginning a long and successful studio collaboration According to Perry Columbia had wanted the band to work with Bob Ezrin who was also a producer with Alice Cooper It was Ezrin who introduced the band to Douglas and for all practical purposes Jack became our producer Ezrin might have shown up three or four times but only to make suggestions like bringing in additional musicians to augment our sound 8 Recording and composition EditGet Your Wings was recorded at the Record Plant in New York City between December 1973 and January 1974 Jay Messina engineered the sessions Douglas later recalled To the best of my memory the preproduction work for Get Your Wings started in the back of a restaurant that was like a Mob hangout in the North End I commuted there from the Copley Plaza Hotel and they started to play me the songs they had for their new album My attitude was What can I do to make them sound like themselves 9 In 1997 Perry explained to Aerosmith biographer Stephen Davis The tracks were the stuff we d been working on at our apartment on Beacon Street in the summer of 73 I wrote the riff to Same Old Song and Dance one night in the front room and Steven just started to sing along Spaced happened the same way in the studio with a lot of input from Jack S O S meant Same Old Shit and came from the rehearsals at the Drummer s Image Lord of the Thighs and Seasons of Wither were Steven s songs Of all the ballads Aerosmith has done Wither was the one I liked best 10 In his autobiography Tyler writes that some songs like Seasons of Wither had been germinating in my head for a long time but the other more sinister tracks like Lord of the Thighs came from the seedy area where we recorded the album Lord of the Thighs was about a pimp and the wildlife out on the street 11 Tyler plays the piano on the track the opening beat of which is similar to the one Kramer would play a year later in Walk This Way He stated that the title was a pun on the famous William Golding novel Lord of the Flies and the critics hated us for this We weren t supposed to be smart enough to use literary references 12 One of the most well known tracks is a cover of Train Kept A Rollin made popular by one of Aerosmith s favorite bands the Yardbirds According to Douglas the crowd noise at the end of the track was taken from a wild track from The Concert for Bangladesh which he had worked on 12 The single version omits the echo and crowd noise Notable for its start stop groove the song became a core part of the band s live set for a time and still occasionally ended concerts late in their career In 1997 drummer Joey Kramer explained to Alan Di Perna of Guitar World that its unique rhythmic feel originated probably just from jamming on it at soundcheck and experimenting with putting a James Brown kind of beat behind it I played with a lot of R amp B type groups before joining Aerosmith In the same interview Perry stated that Train was the one song we all had in common when we came together 13 The closing Pandora s Box was originally written by Kramer who recalled in 1997 The summer before we d rented a farmhouse in East Thetford Vermont while we were rehearsing in New Hampshire and that s where I wrote the melody of Pandora s Box Steven wrote the lines about women s liberation a big new issue in those times 14 According to Douglas the clarinet at the start of the track is a union engineer playing I m in the Mood for Love 12 In 2014 Perry reflected We all put in endless hours fueled by whatever substances were available I knew the album in spite of a few bright spots still didn t capture the power of the band We were better than the record we were making And yet I didn t know how to get there I didn t know how to get from good to great 15 On the second album Tyler noted the songs found my voice I realized that it s not about having a beautiful voice and hitting all the notes it s about attitude 16 Critical reception EditProfessional ratingsReview scoresSourceRatingAllMusic nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp 17 Blender nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp 18 Christgau s Record GuideB 19 Collector s Guide to Heavy Metal10 10 20 The Rolling Stone Album Guide nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp 21 Contemporary reviews were mostly positive In his article for Rolling Stone Charley Walters praised the LP writing that the snarling chords of guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford tautly propel each number jibing neatly with the rawness of singer Steven Tyler whose discipline is evident no matter how he shrieks growls or spits out the lyrics 22 Billboard reviewer called the music derivative but added that the band s tough and nasty rock n roll vision could be successful with the help of the right producers 23 Music critic Robert Christgau wrote that the band were inheritors of the Grand Funk principle if a band is going to be dumb it might as well be American dumb Here they re loud and cunning enough to provide a real treat for the hearing impaired at least on side one 19 In a retrospective review for AllMusic Stephen Thomas Erlewine declared that Get Your Wings was when Aerosmith shed much of their influences and developed their own trademark sound it s where they turned into songwriters it s where Steven Tyler unveiled his signature obsessions with sex and sleaze they re doing their bloozy bluster better and bolder which is what turns this sophomore effort into their first classic 17 Ben Mitchell of Blender had the same impression and wrote that Aerosmith locked into their trademark dirty funk and firmly established their simple lyrical blueprint smut and high times on this album 18 Canadian critic Martin Popoff praised the album and called it a rich inspired and consistently entertaining rock n roller a record much more intelligent than much metal to this point in time 20 Track listing EditSide oneNo TitleWriter s Length1 Same Old Song and Dance Steven Tyler Joe Perry3 532 Lord of the Thighs Tyler4 143 Spaced Tyler Perry4 214 Woman of the World Tyler Don Solomon5 49 Side twoNo TitleWriter s Length1 S O S Too Bad Tyler2 512 Train Kept A Rollin Tiny Bradshaw Howard Kay Lois Mann5 333 Seasons of Wither Tyler5 384 Pandora s Box Tyler Joey Kramer5 43Personnel EditAerosmith Steven Tyler lead vocals acoustic guitar piano harmonica percussion Joe Perry rhythm guitar 12 string guitar acoustic guitar slide guitar backing vocals lead guitars on Woman of the World and Pandora s Box Brad Whitford rhythm guitar lead guitar on Spaced and Seasons of Wither Tom Hamilton bass guitar Joey Kramer drums percussion backing vocalsAdditional musiciansSteve Hunter lead guitar on Train Kept a Rollin first half 24 Lord of the Thighs and S O S Too Bad Dick Wagner lead guitar on Train Kept a Rollin second half and Same Old Song and Dance 24 25 Michael Brecker tenor saxophone on Same Old Song and Dance and Pandora s Box Randy Brecker trumpet on Same Old Song and Dance Stan Bronstein baritone saxophone on Same Old Song and Dance and Pandora s Box Jon Pearson trombone on Same Old Song and Dance Ray Colcord keyboards on Spaced Production Jack Douglas producer engineer Quadraphonic remix supervision Ray Colcord producer Bob Ezrin executive producer Jay Messina Rod O Brien engineers David Krebs Frank Connelly Steve Leber direction and managementRemastering personnel Don DeVito remastering producer Vic Anesini remastering engineer Lisa Sparagano Ken Fredette package design Jimmy Ienner Jr Still Life photography Leslie Lambert Still Life collage design Joel Zimmerman art supervision Jay Messina Quadraphonic remix engineerCharts EditChart 1974 PeakpositionUS Billboard 200 26 74Certification EditRegion Certification Certified units salesCanada Music Canada 27 Platinum 100 000 United States RIAA 28 3 Platinum 3 000 000 Shipments figures based on certification alone References Edit Get Your Wings Prato Greg Steven Tyler Biography amp History AllMusic Retrieved May 28 2021 The 20 best rock albums of 1974 Classic Rock August 11 2020 Retrieved May 28 2021 Billboard October 12 1974 Top Single Picks Pop Recommended Billboard Vol 86 no 41 p 51 ISSN 0006 2510 1st mention of Train Kept A Rollin in Billboard RIAA Gold amp Platinum Database search for Aerosmith RIAA Recording Industry Association of America Retrieved January 28 2016 Davis amp Aerosmith 1997 p 181 Perry amp Ritz 2014 p 130 Perry amp Ritz 2014 p 131 Davis amp Aerosmith 1997 pp 212 213 Davis amp Aerosmith 1997 p 213 Tyler amp Dalton 2011 p 114 a b c Davis amp Aerosmith 1997 p 217 Di Perna Alan March 1997 Aerosmith Guitar World Vol 17 no 3 Davis amp Aerosmith 1997 p 215 Perry amp Ritz 2014 p 132 Brannigan Paul September 2013 Aerosmith Classic Rock No 188 p 56 a b Erlewine Stephen Thomas Aerosmith Get Your Wings review AllMusic Retrieved January 28 2016 a b Mitchell Ben Backcatalog Aerosmith Get Your Wings Blender Archived from the original on October 26 2004 Retrieved January 28 2016 a b Christgau Robert Get Your Wings Robert Christgau a b Popoff Martin October 2003 The Collector s Guide to Heavy Metal Volume 1 The Seventies Burlington Ontario Canada Collector s Guide Publishing p 17 ISBN 978 1894959025 Aerosmith Album Guide Rolling Stone 2004 Archived from the original on June 28 2011 Retrieved January 28 2016 Walters Charley June 6 1974 Get Your Wings Aerosmith Rolling Stone Retrieved January 28 2016 Aerosmith Get Your Wings Super Seventies Rocksite Superseventies com Retrieved February 17 2012 a b Molenda Michael December 14 2017 Who Really Played Aerosmith s Train Kept A Rollin Guitar Solos Guitar World Retrieved July 31 2018 The Official Dick Wagner Website wagnermusic com Archived from the original on September 29 2018 Retrieved October 1 2012 Aerosmith Chart History Billboard 200 Billboard Retrieved April 22 2018 Canadian album certifications Aerosmith Get Your Wings Music Canada American album certifications Aerosmith Get Your Wings Recording Industry Association of America Bibliography Edit Davis Stephen Aerosmith October 1 1997 Walk This Way The Autobiography of Aerosmith New York City Avon Books ISBN 978 0 380 97594 5 Huxley Martin 2015 Aerosmith The Fall and the Rise of Rock s Greatest Band St Martin s Publishing Group ISBN 978 1250096531 Perry Joe Ritz David October 7 2014 Rocks My Life In and Out of Aerosmith New York City Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 1 476 71454 7 Tyler Steven Dalton David May 3 2011 Does the Noise in My Head Bother You A Rock n Roll Memoir New York City Ecco Press ISBN 978 0 061 76789 0 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Get Your Wings amp oldid 1180842220, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
