Giorgio's "Son of my father"

[Nano]

Giorgio Moroder - Son of My Father

Some time ago I picked at the fair a local edition of "Son of my father", Giorgio's first LP from 1972. The cover is not the one featured in AllMusic: mine has a long-haired (and long-moustached) Giorgio with a dog over an orange background (don't know if it's the original or not).

I always wondered what was Giorgio musical heritage, where did he come from... Thus my interest for this LP. My first surprise upon hearing it was: there are some synths here and there, but no traces of dance rhythms or even R&B. In fact, it's difficult for me linking these songs to a recognizable tendency in pop music. I remember thinking "the one thing that comes close is bubblegum music" because of the somewhat corny drama sound laying in some tracks.
(I had read in a Rolling Stone essay that Giorgio had done an album of electronica prior to his commercial releases, that it was arty, and that it was never released. But "Son of my father" strongly denies Giorgio having any relation with the prog rock of the day.)

Well, last week I was at an older friend's home. This guy have lots of pop oldies in Spanish (from the Mexican Teen Tops down to many Argentine one-hit wonders). Well, I was listening to a collection of singles from Pintura Fresca, a doomed local beat band (most of them were killed in a car crash). Then what I'm hearing? Pintura Fresca doing a cover of "Son of my father"! And this band made bubblegum stuff also. So, this seems to confirm my hipothesis.

What do you think?

[QUINNY]

Chicory Tip had a big hit with 'Son Of My Father'. This was not Moroder under a different name (I'm guessing) and was very pop/bubblegum. Released on CBS in the U.K. in 1970/71 or thereabouts, with writing credits to Moroder/Bellotte.

[BrunoRepublic]

I had read in a Rolling Stone essay that Giorgio had done an album of electronica prior to his commercial releases, that it was arty, and that it was never released.

It was titled Einzelganger (I think that was the artist name too) and it was indeed released, although it was not a commercial success and is quite rare today. I've yet to hear it.

[Nano]

Thanks Graham. Well, I checked the best Giorgio page I could find (made by a guy named Jonas Warstad) and it lists "Einzelganger" with a self-titled LP in 1975. The comments read: "All songs written, played, and produced by Giorgio Moroder. It sounds a bit like very early Kraftwerk, but no real rhythms. The corny vocoder voice makes the album sound helplessly outdated".
So, this would be Giorgio's "Music of my mind", sort of. :) However, this stuff was released by both Oasis and Casablanca (catalogue number OCLP-5001), so it would have been available in the States. The Rolling Stone essay I mentioned was made by John Rockwell, European correspondent of the magazine in the Seventies (I'm not sure if he's British). It's called "The emergence of art rock" and it's brilliant. After mentioning Brian Eno and Cluster (the essay focus on European prog rock and electronica), Rockwell says:

"The artier implications of Giorgio Moroder's disco 'factory' cannot be ignored here. His 'I feel love' for Donna Summer is one of the best trance records of the Seventies, among other things -as a version performed in New York by Blondie and (Robert) Fripp reaffirmed so well. And before he hit upon his disco formula, Moroder had made an overt art-rock synthesizer collage disc, influenced by the German psychedelic groups but better than his models. At the time nobody could be interested in releasing it, and since then Moroder has been too busy to bother".

So this would be "Einzelganger"? Anyone heard this?

Now about the bubblegum part... This same page lists a German LP circa 1970 called "That's bubblegum - That's Giorgio". So that case is solved... :) Incredibly, next to a song called "Yummy yummy yummy" there are a couple of Creedence covers! :o

The link is: http://home.tiscali.se/musicworld/moroder-early.html

[born2disco]

Son of my Father - hideous song!

[SandraDee]

Yuk. It's eating its own vomit! :o