The answer turned out to be neither of the above. McCartney’s eponymous solo debut, which appeared in the month of the breakup, did go double platinum and reach No. 1 in America but did not top charts in many other countries, did not produce a hit single, and did not elicit rave reviews. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Lennon’s first post-Beatles LP, did win plaudits from critics when it came out in December 1970, but it sold less well than McCartney and made it only to No. 6 in the U.S.
“Quiet Beatle” George Harrison came roaring out of the gate, however, with November 1970’s All Things Must Pass, his first major solo album (not counting 1968’s mostly instrumental Wonderwall Music and 1969’s esoteric Electronic Sound). Rock’s first triple studio LP, it features contributions by Bob Dylan, co-production by Phil Spector, and a long list of guest performers, including Ringo Starr, Ginger Baker, Billy Preston, Dave Mason, Pete Drake, Klaus Voormann, and Eric Clapton. It also delivers considerably more fine music than many people suspected Harrison had in him.
The album topped charts in numerous countries, earned laudatory reviews, was ultimately certified 6X platinum, and is now widely regarded as one of the great records of the rock era. It also spawned a massive worldwide No. 1 smash hit in “My Sweet Lord,” the first solo single by a former Beatle to top charts in the U.S. or England.
(Harrison wasn’t the only ex-Beatle to exceed expectations: Starr scored no fewer than eight U.S. Top 10 singles between 1971 and 1975. But that’s another story.)
All Things Must Pass has been reissued several times—notably for its 30th and 40th anniversaries—but never quite as spectacularly as in its new 50th anniversary editions (which are actually appearing closer to the 51st anniversary). They include seven configurations, ranging from a basic two-CD set in a card sleeve to an “Uber Deluxe” version that comes in a wooden crate stuffed with goodies, including figurines of Harrison and the gnomes shown on the album cover and a wooden bookmark made from a felled oak tree at his Friar Park mansion.
That edition costs a rather astonishing thousand bucks, but if you can do without such add-ons as the bookmark and wooden box, you can get every bit of Uber Deluxe’s music on the much-less-costly “Super Deluxe” release. The two sets include the same 70 tracks—the 23 from the original album plus 47 demos, session outtakes, and studio jams, all but five of which were previously unreleased.
Also in the Super Deluxe package are a Blu-ray that features excellent high-res stereo and surround-sound mixes of the tracks from the 1970 LPs; a copy of the original album’s poster; and a 60-page softcover book, curated by Harrison’s widow Olivia, that features previously unseen diary entries, handwritten lyrics, photos, track notes, and fascinating trivia. The book additionally includes commentary by Harrison’s son Dhani, who executive produced the project, and Paul Hicks, who worked on the recent Lennon reissues and handled a remix and production for this release.
Fanatical fans might want to hang onto their copies of the original recording of All Things Must Pass, because the 1970 mix is one thing that’s not here. Instead, this set devotes the first two of its five CDs to Hicks’s excellent remix. As Harrison wrote in liner notes for the 30th- anniversary edition: “It was difficult to resist re-mixing every track. All these years later, I would like to liberate some of the songs from the big production that seemed appropriate at the time.” He posthumously gets his wish on this release, whose mix removes just a bit of Spector’s influence.
The new edition offers numerous reminders that All Things Must Pass deserves its sterling reputation. Harrison was frustrated during his Fab Four years by the songwriting dominance of Lennon and McCartney (a couple of the songs here, including the title cut and “Isn’t It a Pity,” were actually rejected for Beatles albums), and all of his pent-up creativity—not to mention unused material from as far back as 1966—came pouring out on this philosophical release, which manages to be spiritual and introspective without ever seeming ponderous or inaccessible.
On the contrary, this passionate and frequently upbeat music—which draws on rock, country, Indian influences, folk, pop, and more—is consistently engaging. Harrison wrote all of it by himself with the exception of “If Not for You,” which Bob Dylan penned; “I’d Have You Anytime,” for which Dylan wrote the chorus; and “It’s Johnny’s Birthday,” a 49-second song for Lennon that borrows the tune from “Congratulations,” a Cliff Richard hit.
Granted, the jams that fill the third LP of the original release are as forgettable as they are listenable (though they’re of historical importance in that they include the first recorded work by the group that became Derek and the Dominos). Nearly all of the 18 other tracks on All Things Must Pass are winners, however. In addition to the iconic “My Sweet Lord,” highlights include such numbers as “What Is Life,” which was also a hit single; “I Dig Love,” one of many songs to feature Harrison’s slide guitar; “Wah-Wah,” “Run of the Mill,” and “Isn’t It a Pity,” all of which reflect Harrison’s frustration as the Beatles imploded; the mystical “Beware of Darkness,” “Awaiting on You All,” and title cut; and “If Not for You,” which arguably outshines the version on Dylan’s almost simultaneously released New Morning.
The three discs of bonus material should prove a treasure trove for Harrison fans. Among the many treats here, most of which have not previously seen the light of day: “Going Down to Golders Green,” a song about riding a limousine to that London neighborhood that appears to echo the melody of Elvis Presley’s “Baby Let’s Play House”; “Sour Milk Sea,” a Harrison song that wound up on the debut release from Apple artist Jackie Lomax; and “I Live for You,” which showcases the ex-Beatle’s country side.
Harrison, of course, contributed some gems to Beatles albums, but typically no more than two tracks per disc. Listening to All Things Must Pass, you have to wonder how much more he could have enriched the group’s music if he’d had been given the chance.
Also Noteworthy
The Gun Club, Fire of Love (Deluxe Edition). The L.A.-based Gun Club produced a lot of noteworthy music in their 17-year career, but this punk/blues outfit never delivered anything that quite equaled their 1981 debut. That album has just been reissued in a two-CD edition that includes extensive new liner notes and weds a digital remaster of the 11-track original release to 10 alternate versions and demos and a 10-song 1981 concert. All of the bonus performances were previously unreleased.
On standout numbers like “Sex Beat,” “She’s Like Heroin to Me,” “Jack on Fire,” and “Ghost on the Highway,” group leader Jeffrey Lee Pierce shrieks, sings, howls, and plays killer slide guitar while the band’s rhythm section maintains a monstrous beat. The result is a unique sound that’s as wild as the Sex Pistols, as intense as Talking Heads, and as invigorating as anything that issued from Southern California’s Paisley Underground movement.
Half the time, these guys sound as if they’ve got so much pent-up emotion that they’re about to boil over. The rest of the time, they’re boiling over.
]]>That eye-popping number won’t seem far off when you gaze at the aerial views of the audience in the video of the show that is included on the new A Bigger Bang: Live on Copacabana Beach. It’s quite a sight, especially in today’s world of social distancing. As Keith Richards later commented, “Not that we’re unused to playing some of the biggest shows in the world, but I must say Rio did take the cake.”
The just-released recording of that cake-taker is available in multiple formats, including ones that couple two CDs with a DVD or a standard-definition Blu-ray. There’s also a three-LP version and one that adds a bonus DVD of a 2005 Salt Lake City, Utah show.
The Copacabana concert was previously featured on a 2007 DVD set but the new release is notable for a remix, a remaster, and a re-edit, as well as for the inclusion of the audio CDs and of four songs that the earlier video omitted: “Tumbling Dice,” a number that originally appeared on 1972’s Exile on Main Street, and “Sympathy for the Devil,” which debuted on 1968’s Beggars Banquet, plus “Oh No, Not You Again” and “This Place Is Empty,” both drawn from the Stones’ 2005 studio album, A Bigger Bang.
The Copacabana performance took place just about five months after the release of that CD and was part of a tour designed to promote it, but the 20-song concert features only four tracks from it: the aforementioned two plus “Rain Fall Down” and “Rough Justice.” The focus is on better-known (and arguably better) earlier material, including the chart-topping late-1960s hits “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” “Get Off of My Cloud,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” and “Honky Tonk Women.”
Among the other selections: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Midnight Rambler” from 1969’s Let It Bleed; “Brown Sugar” and “Wild Horses” from 1971’s Sticky Fingers; “Happy” from 1972’s Exile on Main St.; the title track from 1974’s It’s Only Rock ’n Roll; “Miss You” from 1978’s Some Girls; “Start Me Up” from 1981’s Tattoo You; and “You Got Me Rocking” from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge. Also featured is a cover of “Night Time Is the Right Time,” a song most associated with Ray Charles’s rendition.
Seemingly energized by the scale of the event, the Stones are in fine form as they tackle this classic material, none of which should need any introduction to anyone who spent the referenced years within earshot of a radio. This is virtually all great stuff, and the quality of the audio (DTS-HD, on the Blu-ray) is first-rate. The video quality is excellent, too, though the picture is regrettably not widescreen.
A Bigger Bang: Live on Copacabana Beach joins an increasingly long list of audio and video concert releases from the Rolling Stones’ archives. In just the past few years, for example, we’ve seen the appearance of Bridges to Bremen, Some Girls: Live in Texas, Bridges to Buenos Aires, Steel Wheels Live, and Sticky Fingers Live at the Fonda Theatre. Some fans may feel they have heard and seen enough by now, especially since these releases contain rather similar setlists. That said, if you love the Stones and still have cash in your wallet and space on your shelf, you’re not likely to regret adding Copacabana to your collection.
Also Noteworthy
Steve Dawson, At the Bottom of a Canyon in the Branches of a Tree. Singer/songwriter Steve Dawson—who grew up in Idaho and now lives in Chicago—built a long and impressive discography over several decades, including several solo albums and six with his band Dolly Varden. In 2017, though, he stopped recording. Reportedly devastated by the deaths of his mother and father-in-law, which prompted him to also ponder the much earlier loss of his mother and abandonment by his father, he “wanted to figure out if I still cared enough about music to keep making it.”
You’ll be glad he decided that he did when you hear his new album, At the Bottom of a Canyon in the Branches of a Tree, a richly textured and diverse folk-based outing. Among its best tracks: the catchy, seemingly Chicago soul-influenced “22 Rubber Bands” and the delicate “We Are Walking in a Forest,” a duet with Diane Christianson, Dawson’s wife and Dolly Varden bandmate.
John R. Miller, Depreciated. Depreciated is the debut album from John R. Miller, and it signals the arrival of a potentially major country-rock talent. Backed by a hot band and featuring his guitar pyrotechnics and self-assured vocal work, the all-originals set includes 11 well-crafted numbers ranging from the post-breakup blues of “Lookin’ Over My Shoulder” to the witty “Half Ton Van,” in which Miller spends three and a half minutes pitching a dilapidated truck to potential buyers. Throughout, he sounds like a guy who has lived through a lot and has learned how to wrestle his demons to the ground.
Miller cites such artists as the late Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Townes Van Zandt among his inspirations, and you can certainly hear their influence in his music. But you can also hear that he has his own voice—and enough talent to be ranked alongside the musicians he admires.
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You may begin to have doubts about this record even before you play it. It bears what sounds like a hastily penned working title, Latest Record Project, Volume 1, as well as cover art that looks like something created on a computer in five minutes.
Many of the lyrics on the two-hour album—which fills two CDs and contains 28 tracks—seem to have been dashed off almost as quickly. In fact, Morrison appears to confirm that in a number called “Only a Song,” in which he suggests that his lyrics are throwaways and not to be taken seriously: “It’s only a poem, it could change in the long run It’s what I said then just to make it rhyme something’s on my mind at the time.” What’s on his mind now, at any rate, are mostly gripes.
Morrison has always had his cranky side: he famously recorded more than two dozen unreleased and intentionally bad songs in 1967 to fulfill a record contract he didn’t like and, on 1986’s excellent No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, he slipped in a rant about how “copycats” were ripping off his material. But he has taken crankiness—and weirdness—to new heights lately.
Last fall, he released songs attacking the U.K.’s coronavirus lockdown, calling government leaders “fascist bullies” who were “making up crooked facts” and “cramping my style.” Now, on Latest Record Project, he takes aim at such targets as the media (“they control everything you do”), the judiciary (“four judges screwed me over”), Facebook (“you’re a failure [if you’re on it],” and psychoanalysts (“keep coming back every week for the rest of your life / will it make any difference at all?”).
And amid all this bitching, he inserts a song called “Stop Bitching, Do Something.” Go figure.
The relatively good news is that Morrison’s voice is as expressive as ever; the sax and organ work and backup vocalists add a lot; and this jazzy, well-arranged R&B, some of which reflects the singer’s penchant for John Lee Hooker, is pretty consistently listenable and often enjoyable. You wouldn’t call these performances inventive or revelatory, but as long as you don’t pay too much attention to the lyrics, you could do worse for a party soundtrack.
Still, let’s hope that there’s no Latest Record Project, Volume 2. Morrison remains one of popular music’s most talented artists, but he’d make better albums if he could put his grievances aside and take his work as seriously as he ostensibly once did. This release shows that he can sound good even when he’s barely trying but also that it’s time for him to turn the Van around and head down a different road.
Also Noteworthy
Our Band, Bright as You. Sasha Papernik and Justin Poindexter come from disparate backgrounds (she’s a first-generation Russian American, he’s from North Carolina) but they had enough personal chemistry to marry—and enough musical chemistry to craft this lovable folk/pop debut album.
The duo, who now call New York City home, serve up one lilting number after another on Bright as You, which features Papernik on piano and accordion, Poindexter on guitars, lap steel, Mellotron, organ, and bass, and first-rate vocals by both of them. Some of the tracks sound reminiscent of the Kennedys, another married couple who also favor a folk/pop blend; other songs seem as if they would have fit right in on AM radio during its late-60s glory days.
Highlights include Poindexter’s sweet “More Than Friends” and the exquisite “Cool and Easy,” both of which feature harmony vocals good enough to recall the Everly Brothers; Papernik’s “Hazel,” a song about the couple’s daughter that finds veteran composer, conductor, and musician David Amram guesting on French horn; and the sole non-original, a medley that combines the Carter Family’s “Wildwood Flower” with Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers.”
The only thing here that doesn’t exude talent and originality is the outfit’s name. But hey, Robbie Robertson and friends didn’t do too badly with a very similar no-frills moniker, so maybe “Our Band” will serve this pair just fine.
Laura Nyro, Trees of the Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan. The late Laura Nyro was a fine songwriter whose creations produced hits for artists like the 5th Dimension, Barbra Streisand, and Blood, Sweat & Tears, but she was also a first-rate singer, pianist, and interpreter of others’ material. For evidence of both her compositional and performing abilities, check out this album, which was originally released only in Japan in 2003.
Featuring well-restored sound and new liner notes, the live set culls 16 of its tracks from a February 1994 concert in that country and the other five from a Tokyo radio set that same month. It embraces some of Nyro’s best-known compositions, including “Wedding Bell Blues,” “And When I Die,” and “Save the Country,” plus terrific covers of such 1960s hits as the Shirelles’ “Dedicated to the One I Love,” Smokey Robinson’s “Ooh Baby Baby,” and Dionne Warwick’s “Walk On By.” Even the widely recorded “Let It Be Me” sounds fresh in Nyro’s interpretation.
If you’re a fan, you probably already own Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best of Laura Nyro, if not her 10 studio albums. Complete the picture with this excellent live set.
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Like the Beatles’ so-called White Album, the Grateful Dead’s eponymous second concert LP (following 1969’s well-named Live/Dead) has come to be known by a description of its cover art: Skull & Roses. The record, which appeared in October 1971, contains performances from March and April of that year at seven New York and San Francisco concerts. At the time, the group was enjoying the back-to-back successes of Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, which had been released within five months of each other in 1970. Those albums find the Dead forsaking their earlier extended jams and psychedelic bent in favor of tightly constructed, melodic country-rock that emphasizes prominent, harmony-laden vocal work.
The 11-track Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses)—which features the band’s original lineup of Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzmann—doesn’t sound much like those LPs. Indeed, it draws no songs from either of them. It does include nods to country, but it paints a picture of a more versatile group, employing funky rock and offering a return to psychedelia via its centerpiece: an 18-minute version of Bob Weir and Bill Kreutzman’s “The Other One,” which first appeared on 1968’s Anthem of the Sun. There are also a couple of Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter cowrites, the rocking “Bertha” and “Wharf Rat,” a wino’s tale, as well as the infectious “Playing in the Band,” by Hunter and Weir. The rest of the album consists of imaginatively arranged country and rock covers, among them Kris Kristofferson’s “Me & Bobby McGee”; Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”; Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried”; “Me & My Uncle,” by John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas; and a nine-minute medley that weds Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” to the traditional “Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad.”
As much as the fans liked Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty, they apparently liked Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses) even more, buying enough copies to make it the group’s first gold record. And with good reason: while no single song here proves quite as dazzling as Live/Dead’s “Dark Star,” the band impresses consistently, delivering solid new originals, all of which became concert staples, as well as covers that showcase strong interpretive abilities and affection for the Bakersfield Sound.
Now, a 50th-anniversary edition of the album offers good reasons to upgrade from old copies: the original record—a double LP that later fit on a single CD—has been well remastered for this release, and it is accompanied here by a second disc that delivers a pristine recording of a previously unissued July 1971 Fillmore West concert.
Granted, that 10-number concert—which doubles the album’s length to nearly two and a half hours—duplicates some tunes from the original release. Granted, too, the Dead catalog now includes approximately five gazillion other concert recordings. That said, the second disc’s versions of songs that also appear on the first CD—especially “The Other One”—are worth hearing, and there are also some extremely noteworthy performances of numbers that aren’t on the original release, including an affectionate 10-minute reading of another Haggard classic, “Sing Me Back Home,” and a nearly 18-minute take on “Good Lovin’” that sounds vaguely like the Rascals’ original hit for about two minutes before veering off into classic Grateful Dead jam territory.
As the group famously observes on American Beauty’s “Truckin’,” “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” And thanks to the reissue series that this anniversary edition of Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses) continues, it’s not entirely over yet.
The Return of Crowded House
During the past decade, a more appropriate name for Crowded House might have been Abandoned House. Though prime mover Neil Finn has kept busy with solo projects—including his own CDs and playing with Fleetwood Mac—the group has not performed or issued any new studio albums since 2010’s Intriguer.
Don’t dream it’s over, though, because it’s not: after a 10-year hiatus, Crowded House are back—sort of—with a seventh studio LP called Dreamers Are Waiting. I say “sort of” because after numerous personnel changes, the group now includes only two founding members, vocalist, guitarist, keyboard player, and principal songwriter Finn and bassist Nick Seymour.
Rounding out the current band are keyboardist Mitchell Froom, who produced the first three Crowded House albums as well as many other records, and Finn’s multi-instrumentalist sons, Liam and Elroy, who get songwriting credits on several of the 12 tracks. (Finn’s brother Tim, who played with him in Split Enz, also gets a composing credit and his wife, Sharon, provides backing vocals on one number. Maybe the most fitting name for the group at this point would be Finn’s House.)
Given all the changes, it’s not surprising that Dreamers Are Waiting doesn’t sound quite like the group’s early work. It does, however, recall Finn’s solo albums with lush, richly textured, understated music that may not grab you immediately but ultimately gets into your head and stays there. Ear candy like “Start of Something,” the dreamy “Goodnight Everyone,” and the Beatlesque “Real Life Woman“ are among the many reasons to pick up this CD.
Reigning Sound Deserve to Reign
Vocalist/guitarist/songwriter Greg Cartwright has long been the only constant factor in Reigning Sound, a group that has been releasing records with various personnel for 20 years now. Listening to the new A Little More Time with Reigning Sound—their first CD in seven years and one that reunites the original band—you’ll understand why Steve Van Zandt has championed their blend of soul and garage rock. What you won’t understand is why these guys aren’t famous.
Cartwright is a compelling vocalist and terrific songwriter, and the other four players in his high-octane band—who add percussion, bass, keyboards, and background vocal work—know just how to approach his material. Guest musicians make significant contributions on cello, violin, and pedal steel.
Picking a favorite among the dozen tracks here would be tough. “Let’s Do It Again” is crank-it-up-and-mix-the-margaritas party music, as is the cover of Adam Faith’s “I Don’t Need That Kind of Lovin’,” the album’s only non-original number. Arguably even better are such emotive midtempo numbers as ““Oh Christine,” the country-tinged “Moving & Shaking,” and the majestic “I’ll Be Your Man.” This is one record you’re likely going to want to put in heavy rotation.
]]>All of that material is in this package, which Sayer himself compiled. It came out three years ago in England and now has a stateside distributor.
Some of the performances have not aged well and, with three CDs, The Gold Collection is arguably too much of a not-so-great thing. But Sayer could be quite likable when he paired his distinctive voice with the right material, such as on “Raining in My Heart,” the old Buddy Holly number, and “Giving It All Away,” which he wrote with frequent collaborator David Courtney. Moreover, since it’s currently selling for only about $11, this anthology offers a lot of music (albeit with no liner notes) for the money. I’m reminded of what I sometimes think when I buy a ridiculously big package of something at Costco for an equally ridiculous low price: even if I wind up throwing half of it away, I’ll come out ahead.
Wanderlust, All a View. This four-man band, which formed in Philadelphia in 1993, broke up only about five years later after issuing just two albums, the second of which they self-released after their label dropped them. Flash forward to 2020, when Scot Sax, an alumnus of the group, came upon a tape of some of their old acoustic demos, decided they offered the seeds for a great album, and reformed Wanderlust to record it.
The result is infectious, harmony-laden, highly accessible power pop that owes debts to psychedelia and latter-period Beatles and that occupies an improbable space somewhere between Oasis and the Jayhawks. The 10-track All a View clocks in at only 33 minutes and seems even shorter because, well, you know what they say about when time flies.
Jack Grace Band, What a Way to Spend a Night. “Eclectic to say the least” is the way one TV interviewer in Ireland described Brooklyn, New York-born Jack Grace, citing influences that include bluegrass, honky-tonk, jazz, and rock. In fact, he’s so eclectic that only those with the broadest tastes are likely to favor everything on this latest album but he’s so talented that you’re bound to enjoy much of it.
Highlights on the CD—which makes creative use of organ, electric guitar, and a brass section and incorporates a fair amount of humor—include the uplifting “Here Comes the Breeze,” the jazzy “You’d Be Disappointed (If I Didn’t Disappoint You),” and “Chinatown,” an atmospheric, evocatively detailed tribute to one of New York’s most colorful neighborhoods. Grace is an artist who ignores musical boundaries and clearly loves to take chances, most of which pay off on What a Way to Spend a Night.
Dana Sipos, The Astral Plane. The latest album from Victoria, British Columbia-based Dana Sipos offers a subdued, introspective, and moody journey that relies on jazz-tinged folk instrumentation and the artist’s dreamy vocals, which sometimes recall Fairport Convention and their lead singer, Sandy Denny. (Sipos is also a bit redolent of Judee Sill, who as it happens sang about the astral plane on the first cut of her 1971 debut album.) The lyrics conjure up some soothing images from nature but also a fair amount of pain, such as in “Greenbelt,” a song about the artist’s childhood, and “Light Around the Body,” which concerns Sipos’s family’s experience in the Holocaust.
The Astral Plane is a somewhat demanding album but a rewarding one as well, thanks to its thoughtful verse and richly textured music from a core band that features the singer on guitar and percussion and producer Sandro Perri on synth and percussion plus musicians who add electric guitarist, piano, organ, vibraphone, bass, and drums. A handful of tracks also incorporate a few female backup vocalists, and one features the always wonderful violinist Fats Kaplin.
Various artists, Party for Joey: A Sweet Relief Tribute to Joey Spampinato. Bassist, singer, and songwriter Joey Spampinato co-founded the influential NRBQ in the mid-60s and stayed with the group for nearly four decades. His impact on fellow musicians is evidenced in the impressive list of those who answered the call to contribute to this tribute album, which incorporates rock, pop, rockabilly, country, and folk. It was put together by Spampinato’s wife, Kami Lyle, to raise money to help him in his battle with cancer. Among the participants in the 14-track program are Los Lobos, Keith Richards, Steve Forbert, and Bonnie Raitt (who is backed here by the current NRBQ lineup).
Spampinato wrote (or in two cases, co-wrote) the consistently excellent songs, which first appeared on various NRBQ albums with one exception: the sweet, album-closing “First Crush,” a new number that he himself sings in a duet with Lyle, who also contributes trumpet.
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It’s probably safe to say that most record labels exist first and foremost to make money. Over the years, however, there have been a handful of small, independent ones that have seemed at least as dedicated to preserving and popularizing great music as they have been to turning a profit. Arhoolie and Appleseed are two examples. Another is Chicago’s Alligator Records, which Bruce Iglauer started in 1971 to feature his favorite act, Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers, after the Delmark label, Iglauer’s employer at the time, opted not to sign them.
Fifty years and multiple Grammy awards later, Alligator has issued around 350 albums—mostly blues but also blues-rock, Cajun, and reggae—from a wide assortment of artists. Now, to celebrate its golden anniversary, the label has released a three-CD set that delivers remastered versions of material from its entire catalog. The anthology comes with a booklet that includes a lengthy introduction and notes about each song by Iglauer.
Called Alligator Records—50 Years of Genuine Houserockin’ Music, the 58-track collection features nearly four hours of music from a long list of artists who are now household names—at least in households that favor the genres this label spotlights. Appropriately enough, Hound Dog Taylor & the HouseRockers not only get a nod in the album’s title but open the set with a track that dates from Alligator’s first year: “Give Me Back My Wig,” with electric guitar work that suggests why Iglauer was so eager to record them. Also here are such performers as Koko Taylor, Son Seals, Johnny Winter, James Cotton, Lonnie Mack, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Roy Buchanan, and Elvin Bishop, to name a few.
You’d expect an album that draws on artists like these and that culls the cream of a 50-year crop to be high quality, and that’s just what this anthology delivers. Among the best of the best: “It’s My Fault, Darling,” by legendary New Orleans singer and pianist Professor Longhair; “Soul Fixin’ Man,” which features the guitar pyrotechnics of Luther Allison and is one of the set’s several live tracks; “Have Mercy,” from harmonica great Big Walter Horton with Carey Bell; “The Dream,” a collaboration by Albert Collins, Robert Cray, and Johnny Copeland; “Au Contrare Mon Frere,” which showcases Clifton Chenier’s wild accordion; and Bob Margolin’s infectious “Not What You Said Last Night.”
While the album underscores how long this label has been pumping out great music, it also offers a reminder that the blues are alive and well in its studios: about half of its tracks were recorded since 2000 and about a quarter were released in just the past three years. The average alligator dies in 30 to 50 years, but half a century after its birth, this particular Alligator seems to still be full of life.
Another Live Set from the Late, Great Tim Buckley
Though he has never quite achieved the recognition he deserves, Tim Buckley was one of the most important and adventurous singer-songwriters of the late 60s and early 70s. He died of a drug overdose at age 28 in 1975, leaving behind only nine studio albums (and a talented son named Jeff). Since then, however, the size of his catalog has more than doubled, thanks mostly to the release of a variety of live sets.
The latest of these is Merry-Go-Round at the Carousel, which preserves performances at San Francisco’s Carousel Ballroom on June 15 and 16, 1968, when Buckley was arguably at his jazz-influenced creative peak. His vocals and guitar work are fine throughout, and his band—which prominently features bass as well as vibraphone and percussion—is compelling.
Included are sublime performances of compositions that originally surfaced in 1969 on Happy Sad (“Strange Feelin’,” “Buzzin’ Fly,” “Sing a Song for You,” and “Love from Room 109 at the Islander”) and Blue Afternoon(“Happy Time”). Also here are “Wayfaring Stranger” and “The Father Song, which first appeared on the posthumous Dream Letter and Works in Progress, respectively; and two previously unrecorded numbers, “The Lonely Life” and “Blues, Love.” The 13-track album runs about 80 minutes and comes with a promo code to download two songs that couldn’t fit on the CD: a second version of “Happy Time” and a reading of “Hi Lily, Hi Lo,” a number that first showed up on Dream Letter.
The performances were captured by Owsley Stanley, who is best known as the chemist who mass-produced LSD in the 1960s but also served as the Grateful Dead’s sound engineer and taped that band and other artists. The audio quality on this release is excellent though several of the recordings, including both versions of “Buzzin’ Fly,” appear to begin just a bit after the songs commence.
The album, which comes with a booklet that includes new interviews with Buckley’s bassist John Miller and lyricist Larry Beckett, is a must for fans. Newcomers to his music should check it out, too—and then move on to the rest of his extraordinary catalog.
Two Noteworthy Early Vocal Acts
If R&B singer and piano player Johnny Ace’s name conjures up anything for today’s listeners, it is probably Paul Simon’s mournful song, “The Late, Great Johnny Ace.” Ace’s music almost never shows up on the radio and his career happened a long time ago and lasted only until he shot and killed himself, apparently accidentally, in 1954 at age 25. By then, though, he had sold well over a million records and scored more than half a dozen well-deserved hits, including “The Clock,” “Pledging My Love,” and “Saving My Love for You.”
They’re all on the well-annotated Collection 1952-55, a two-CD set that features both sides of all his important singles plus recordings made with the likes of Willie Mae Thornton, Johnny Otis, Bobby Bland, Junior Parker, Ike Turner, and B.B. King. Testifying to his prominence in the early 1950s are five contemporaneous tributes by other artists, including two versions of a song called “Johnny Ace’s Last Letter” as well as “Why, Johnny, Why,” “Salute to Johnny Ace,” and “Johnny Has Gone.”
Another new and noteworthy anthology from the same era, Singles Collection 1947-59, features the Four Tunes. A veteran of the Ink Spots started this vocal quartet, which had its biggest pop and R&B hit in 1953 with a million-selling version of Irving Berlin’s “Marie.”
That recording joins 74 others on this three-CD set, which includes all their major singles for five labels from their peak years. Also here are two of the tracks they recorded with R&B singer Savannah Church, though not, for some reason, “I Want to Be Loved (But Only by You),” the most successful recording they made with her. Excellent extensive liner notes add context to the music.
]]>Called Zappa ’88: The Last U.S. Show, the release offers two and a half hours of previously unreleased music, including 28 tracks from the Long Island event and two from earlier concerts that same month in Rhode Island and Maryland. The newly mixed selections feature a short-lived band of 11 multi-instrumentalists that is widely regarded as one of Zappa’s best and that showcases everything from sax, trumpet, and flugelhorn to clarinet, synthesizer, and marimba. Zappa archivist Joe Travers—who co-produced the set with the artist’s son, Ahmet—and drummer Chad Wackerman provide liner notes.
If you’re looking for an introduction to Zappa that showcases all sides of his music and personality, this career-spanning release will deliver what you’re after. It includes latter-period compositions as well as very early ones like “I Ain’t Got No Heart,” which first appeared on Freak Out!, the artist’s 1966 debut LP.
No musician alive or dead has ever been more versatile than Zappa, and this concert set proves it. Where else can you find a record from one artist that embraces doo-wop (“Love of My Life”), classical music (Stravinsky’s “Royal March from ‘L’Histoire du Soldat,” Ravel’s “Bolero,” and the theme from Bartok’s “Piano Concerto #3”), and rock (Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post”)—not to mention “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” “Theme from ‘Bonanza,’” and a show-closing “America the Beautiful”?
Zappa could shift between serious and silly as easily as he could segue from one musical genre to another. Like all concerts on this 1988 tour, the Long Island one begins with Zappa telling his audience that they can register to vote right there at the show and imploring them to do so during intermission. But the performance also includes lots of humor—some of it rather juvenile but much of it funny and biting.
Witness Zappa’s Beatles medley, which makes its first official appearance on this album. This parody weds music from three Lennon/McCartney songs to lyrics that make fun of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who became embroiled in a prostitution scandal only weeks before Zappa delivered this concert. (“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” for example, begins, “Picture yourself with a whore from New Orleans, with big purple welts all over her bod / Somebody calls and you answer quite slowly, it’s the board from Assembly o’ God”).
Chances are good you’ll enjoy this album. Love it or hate it, though, you’ll have to agree that there’s never been anyone quite like Frank Zappa.
Also Noteworthy
Ashley Riley, Set You Free. Words like “gorgeous” and “heavenly” come to mind when you listen to this latest pop-folk release from Decatur, Illinois-based singer/songwriter Ashley Riley. This is the first album she has made with the help of a producer, and James Treichler, who filled that role, features a dreamy sonic backdrop that complements the singer’s vocals without ever upstaging them.
What most contributes to the album’s success, though, are those fabulous vocals, which exude intimacy, vulnerability, and passion. Another major plus is Riley’s program of 10 catchy, self-penned tunes, all of which seem to address matters of the heart. Listening to emotive, expertly crafted standouts like “One Way,” “Cut My Losses,” and “Starting Over,” you have to conclude that only two possibilities exist: either Riley becomes a star or there’s something seriously wrong with the music business.
Richard X. Heyman, Copious Notes. This 14th album from Richard X. Heyman—the follow-up to 2019’s Pop Circles—continues his successful love affair with power pop. Like much of his earlier work, this is a homespun affair, with Heyman playing many of the instruments, his wife adding bass, and the whole thing put together in their home studio.
Granted, Heyman couldn’t turn heads just with his vocal work—he’s an ok but unexceptional singer—but that doesn’t matter much here; the vocals are simply another element in a richly textured pop-rock mix that’s permeated with infectious hooks and jingle-jangle guitar. You’ll hear fresh musical ideas as well as echoes of 1960s British pop and West Coast U.S. rockers like the Byrds.
Raoul Vignal, Years in Marble. French singer-songwriter Raoul Vignal released his first full-length album four years ago and has since issued four more, including this mellow latest collection, which features his softly delivered vocals and fingerstyle acoustic guitar work. His gently delivered vocals and music have drawn a comparison to Nick Drake, and he also often sounds uncannily reminiscent of the Mark-Almond Band, the jazzy 1970s British folk group featuring Jon Mark and Johnny Almond.
Nefesh Mountain, Songs for the Sparrows. Nefesh Mountain’s husband-and-wife founders, Eric Lindberg and Doni Zasloff, produced and wrote the music for this likable third album. Their band—which has roots in bluegrass and Americana but also incorporates enough Celtic and Eastern European influences to help it stand out in a crowded field—features strong vocal work by Lindberg and Zasloff along with fiddle, mandolin, bass, and guitar. Guest artists include Jerry Douglas on dobro as well as players who add instruments ranging from accordion and whistles to piano and Irish drum.
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Still, if you want to fully understand the Merseybeat scene (named for 1960s rock bands around Liverpool and the River Mersey), you need a taste of the outfit that actually bears that name. Like the Beatles and other well-known groups, the Merseybeats played at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and scored multiple U.K. hits, such as 1963’s “It’s Love That Really Counts” and 1964’s “I Think of You,” both catchy pop numbers featuring excellent vocal harmony work that recalls Peter & Gordon and Chad & Jeremy. Later hits include “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” the same song that rode the charts stateside for Dusty Springfield; “Don’t Turn Around”; and “Mister Moonlight,” where they sound a lot like the early Beatles, who also covered that composition.
The group disbanded by the mid-60s but enjoyed a second life starting in 1966 when cofounders Tony Crane and Billy Kinsley reformed as a duo called the Merseys with backup that included Badfinger’s Joey Molland. Under that moniker, they’re best known for “Sorrow,” their hit version of an obscure track from the McCoys (who are themselves known for “Hang on Sloopy”). David Bowie included “Sorrow” on Pinups, his 1973 collection of 60s covers, and the Beatles slipped a line from it into “It’s All Too Much” on their Yellow Submarine soundtrack.
There’s a lot of noteworthy material in the Merseybeats and Merseys catalog beyond the hits. On Boudleaux Bryant’s “All I Have to Do Is Dream” and Irving Berlin’s “The Girl That I Marry,” for example, they deliver vocal harmonies that prove redolent of the Everly Brothers. Other winners include “I Stand Accused,” which Elvis Costello later covered; “Lavender Blue,” the 1959 Sammy Turner pop hit; and Pete Townshend’s “So Sad About Us.” (The Merseys had the same management team as the Who, and that group’s Keith Moon and John Entwistle lent a hand on a few of their tracks.)
The best place to catch up with all this music is the new I Stand Accused: The Complete Merseybeats and Merseys Sixties Recordings, which features a thick booklet with a 9,000-word essay on the history of both groups. As the title promises, this two-CD, 63-track, two-and-a-half-hour collection serves up all of their work from that decade—singles, album tracks, outtakes (including an alternate rendition of “Sorrow”), home recordings, even German-language versions of “It’s Love That Really Counts” and “I Think of You.” Also on the program are 13 tracks from spinoff artists, such as the Crackers, the Kinsleys, Johnny Gustafson (who went on to play with Roxy Music), Johnny and John, and the Quotations (not to be confused with the American doo-wop group of the same name).
Incidentally, while the Merseybeats may not have sold as many records as the Beatles, they sure have the Fab Four beat in the longevity department: they reformed and toured in the 1970s, and while they disbanded after that, Crane and Kinsley reassembled the outfit once again in 1993 and are still touring today as the Merseybeats, with U.K. shows scheduled for the fall of 2021. That’s a full 60 years after they first took the stage in Liverpool.
Also Noteworthy
Diana Jones, Song to a Refugee. The worldwide refugee crisis is the subject of this poignant and timely album by folk singer/songwriter and acoustic guitarist Diana Jones. Her empathetic vignettes put human faces on the displaced thousands arriving at America’s southern border. The vast majority, Jones reminds us in these well-crafted original songs, are neither criminals nor freeloaders; they are voiceless victims, fleeing poverty, gang violence, and other dire circumstances.
The album’s debut single, “We Believe You,” features choruses sung by folk singers Peggy Seeger and the great Steve Earle as well as Richard Thompson, who plays guitar throughout the CD. “I believe the gang said they would kill you,” sings Earle on the single. “I believe you had no choice / I believe you had no voice,” adds Thompson. “We believe you walked till you could not walk, you carried your baby in your arms / They took her from you at the border,” sings Seeger.
David Mansfield (known for being a key member of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review) coproduced with Jones and contributes violin, mandolin, guitar, and dulcimer. Other players add bass guitar, piano, accordion, and harmony vocals.
Buy a copy of this CD for yourself—then consider buying a few more to send to your congressional representatives.
Eddie 9-Volt, Little Black Flies. You could mistake this 24-year-old, whose stage name is Eddie 9-Volt, for a straightlaced MBA student—until he starts singing and playing his guitar. Turns out the Atlanta-based artist has soaked up Memphis soul and Chicago blues and the music of such influences as Albert Collins, Muddy Waters, and Mike Bloomfield.
Backed by a hot band that features alto and tenor sax, bass, rhythm guitar, organ, harp, and drums, 9-Volt serves up a party-ready set that includes nine songs he wrote with his producer, bassist, and brother, Lane Kelly. Also on the program are “Miss James,” which Howlin’ Wolf has recorded; Jimmy Reed’s “You Don’t Have to Go”; and Albert King’s “Travelin’ Man.”
The album has a live-in-the-studio sound that recalls such recordings as Fleetwood Mac’s Blues Jam in Chicago. “All those great records [by artists I admire] were done live with their buddies and no overdubs,” says 9-Volt. “I wanted the playing to be spot-on—but even if we made a mistake, we kept going.”
You’re not likely to notice many mistakes on Little Black Flies, but you will sense a whole lot of spirit. Let’s hope this 9-Volt is rechargeable because you’re probably going to want to hear more.
]]>On the other side of the pond, though, the story has been quite different. There, “To Sir with Love” was just a B side, not a hit at all, which explains why it isn’t even among the songs mentioned on a sticker on the shrink-wrap of Gold, a new U.K. anthology that is available stateside as an import. However, the Scottish singer has had much more of a career in England than in the U.S. Besides hosting several popular television series, she has made more than two dozen forays into the singles charts, scoring eight Top 10s and major hits in every decade from the 1960s to the 2000s. You’ll find all of those singles plus “To Sir with Love” and a whole lot more on the three-CD Gold, which embraces 60 recordings made from 1964 to 2015.
Lulu’s material is mostly excellent and certainly diverse. She covers pop numbers from the likes of Gerry Goffin and Carole King, the producer Bert Berns, and Neil Diamond, then turns around and takes on songs from Bob Seger, the Rolling Stones, and even David Bowie. She also performs a half dozen originals and three numbers from the Bee Gees (not surprising, given that Lulu was married to that group’s Maurice Gibb for about four years).
Her versatility is impressive—she can sound like Dionne Warwick one minute and like a garage rock vocalist the next—but she generally does best when she sticks to pop. Her vocals shine, for example, on Berns’s “Here Comes the Night,” the Van Morrison/Them number, and on Tim Rose’s “Morning Dew,” but a cover of Bowie’s “Watch That Man” is pretty awful.
A career-spanning retrospective this definitive should have been accompanied by a booklet that features detailed biographical and track information, but this release incorporates no notes at all and, in fact, includes only one B&W photo, which appears twice. Oh, well. It’s the music that matters most, and this set delivers all you need to get the full Lulu experience.
P.S. to fans of the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs and/or “To Sir with Love”: check out the excellent cover of that song on Hoffs’s eponymous 1996 album.
Also Noteworthy
Shannon McNally, The Waylon Sessions. Vocalist Shannon McNally conveys the outlaw country attitude of the late Waylon Jennings while adding a feminine perspective on the spirited The Waylon Sessions, which features such guests as Buddy Miller, Rodney Crowell, Jennings’s widow Jessi Colter, and Lukas Nelson (who sounds here uncannily like his dad, Willie).
The 13-track program embraces such well-known Waylon compositions as “I’ve Always Been Crazy,” “This Time,” and “You Asked Me To” (the latter coauthored by Billy Joe Shaver), plus a variety of other songs that Jennings covered, including Shaver’s “Black Rose” Ray Pennington’s “I’m a Ramblin’ Man,” Ivy Bryant’s “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line,” and Crowell’s “I Ain’t Living Long Like This.”
Beth Whitney, Into the Ground. If some albums shout their messages from a mountaintop, this one whispers its dispatches from a peaceful valley. Though more lushly produced than Nick Drake’s LPs, Whitney’s record is just about as subdued.
The lyrics are introspective. (Explaining the album’s title, she says, “On [my last album] I was looking outward at the world around me. On the new album, I am looking into the soil Soil is complex and so are we.”) The songs—which feature acoustic guitar, bass, piano, and judiciously employed cello, ukulele, banjo, and percussion—variously express joy and sadness; but all of them radiate a sense of calm, gentleness, and acceptance.
Whitney—who hails from Washington state and has been releasing albums since 2007— composed 10 of the 11 folk-based numbers, one with a cowriter; the sole cover is “Shelter from the Storm,” the song from Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks that best suits the mood here. (It’s impossible to imagine Whitney tackling one of that record’s more venomous selections—“Idiot Wind,” for example.) The Dylan number stands out but so do such sweet, lilting originals as “Moonlight,” “Huckleberry,” and “In Another Life.”
Ben Brown, Sayonara Sorrow. Ben Brown—the longtime singer/guitarist for the Austin, Texas rock band No Show Ponies— serves up 10 doses of radio-ready pop-rock on the solo Sayonara Sorrow, which features backup from a small group that includes No Show Ponies’ Jefferson Brown (Ben’s brother) on bass; Tim Cappello, who played with Tina Turner in the 1980s, on the pervasive sax; and Mick Flowers, who produced, on drums.
Brown’s website compares the “icy, cool restraint” of his vocals and the rhythmic, frequently mesmerizing music to 1970s and 1980s British rock by the likes of David Bowie and Roxy Music, both of which strike this listener as good reference points.
]]>When a debut record finds an audience as large as that one did, the pressure intensifies to deliver a sophomore release that will maintain the momentum rather than suggest that the first record was a fluke. Déjà Vu, which came out in March 1970, delivered the goods and then some. For starters, it turned a supergroup into a super-supergroup with the addition of Stills’s old Buffalo Springfield bandmate, Neil Young, who was already a solo star thanks to his eponymous 1968 debut and 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, which he recorded with his backup band Crazy Horse.
A deluxe new edition of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Déjà Vu offers an opportunity to reappraise this album and also peek behind the curtain, see how it came together, and pick through some of the considered material that didn’t wind up on the original release. The attractively packaged set includes a remaster of the original LP—offered on both on 180g vinyl and CD—that represents a significant sonic upgrade. Three additional CDs feature a total of 38 demos, session outtakes, and alternate versions, 29 of which have not previously been released. Also included are new liner notes by rock writer (and later, filmmaker) Cameron Crowe and photographer, guitarist, and record producer Joel Bernstein (who, incidentally, shot the cover for CSNY’s 1971 live album, 4 Way Street).
Like the Beatles’ White Album, Déjà Vu turned out to be more of a showcase for four large individual talents than a true meeting of the minds. Most of the performances were stitched together from individual sessions, and as for the songwriting, the set includes only one number with shared credits: “Everybody I Love You,” a Stills/Young creation that finds the band bowing out at the end of side two in a way that recalls the Beatles’ final track on Abbey Road, which had been released six months earlier.
The rest of the album consists of two songs each from Stills (“Carry On,” “4+20”), Nash (“Teach Your Children,” “Our House”), Crosby (“Almost Cut My Hair,” the title cut), and Young (“Helpless,” “Country Girl”), plus “Woodstock” by Joni Mitchell, who was Nash’s girlfriend at the time and the inspiration for “Our House.” Though Young adds to the magic, especially on his own tracks, he seems barely present on some numbers, which sound as if they could have appeared on the previous LP.
The folk-, rock-, and country-flavored music still impresses. Young’s “Country Girl” and “Helpless” are the most enduring standouts, but the other tracks all feature superb guitar work—and interplay—especially from Young and Stills, as well as stellar vocal harmonies.
Some of the lyrics haven’t aged well, however. Several of Nash’s and Mitchell’s idealistic hippie musings now sound dated, as does “Almost Cut My Hair,” from Crosby, who incidentally has a lot less to cut on his head today than he did in 1970 (though he apparently still doesn’t often pull out scissors).
Like the demos, outtakes, and alternate versions on many other deluxe reissues, the ones here include little that outshines the material on the original album. But just because you can see why these tracks didn’t make the cut doesn’t mean they’re not fascinating.
In fact, there are all sorts of buried treasures on these discs, such as a version of “Our House” sung by Nash and Mitchell, a demo of Young’s exquisite “Birds” on which he duets with Nash, and a dreamy early version of Crosby’s “The Lee Shore”—a song that would surface on 4 Way Street—that features the full group. Also: an alternate, harmonica-spiced reading of “Helpless”; Stills’s “Know You Got to Run,” the first song the quartet ever recorded together; and Crosby’s “Laughing,” which would show up in more finished form on his underappreciated 1971 solo debut, If I Could Only Remember My Name.
If you’re a fan of the original Déjà Vu, you’ll find plenty of reasons here to justify an upgrade.
Also Noteworthy
Rob Lutes, Come Around. This is the first album since 2017’s Walk in the Dark from Canadian singer/songwriter Rob Lutes, and it was worth the wait. The CD’s 12 tracks—all by the artist (two with cowriters) except for the traditional “In My Time of Dyin’”—find him writing insightfully and movingly about subjects ranging from the emotional challenges of domestic life to the beauty of nature.
As a press release notes, “Lutes finds hope of freedom in imagination and the natural world.” One good example of that: the sprightly “That Bird Has My Wings,” which shows off his fingerstyle guitar and a lyric inspired by the autobiography of the same name by Jarvis Jay Masters, who has been on death row in California’s San Quentin prison for 29 years for a murder he insists he did not commit.
Lutes’s intimate, bluesy vocals are a treat as is the backup by his co-producer and longtime collaborator Rob MacDonald (guitars, dobro, mandolin), a bassist, a percussionist, a keyboardist, and a couple of singers. Their cohesiveness is particularly impressive in light of the fact that they were apparently never all in the same room due to Covid.
Greta Gaines, Pale Star. Greta Gaines must have found a way to pack more than 24 hours into her days. You’d think she’d have her hands full as a record label owner, mother, Woman’s World Extreme Snowboard Champion, NORML advocate, and on-air commentator for three TV networks, but she somehow also finds the time to make records. Pale Star, which is being released digitally, is her seventh, and it’s excellent.
Gaines, whose voice sometimes sounds redolent of Judy Collins, sings beautifully throughout the album, which was recorded live; and her lilting, self-penned (two with co-writers) folk/pop songs are engrossing. Instrumentation consists mostly just of guitars, drums, bass, and piano, but “Apollo,” the ethereal lead-off track, adds a haunting cello, while “Empty Spaces,” which addresses the recent deaths of two friends, employs trumpet. Then there’s the country-flavored title cut, which adds pedal steel plus backup vocals by actor Ethan Hawke.
Rod Picott, Wood, Steel, Dust & Dreams. Rod Picott has been a singer/songwriter for most of his life and has been co-writing songs for almost as long with his friend Slaid Cleaves, whom he met on a school bus when he was eight. This two-CD set, which is a 1,000-copy limited edition, contains versions of 26 numbers they’ve collaborated on over the years along with a 32-page booklet that includes Picott’s noteworthy reflections on each track. The renditions are all new and a few of the songs have not previously been recorded.
The album, which Neilson Hubbard produced, sticks to the formula that has made Picott’s earlier folk albums so compelling: keep the instrumentation striking but simple and keep the singer’s arresting vocals and memorable, artfully crafted vignettes on center stage. Picott packs his spare lyrics with quotable lines that tell you just enough to paint the picture he wants you to see. In “Double Crossed Heart,” for example, he sums up a marriage’s dissolution when he sings, “She didn’t feel a thing, except how light her hand became as she slipped off that ring.”
Grab this great album before the limited edition hits its limit.
]]>As you undoubtedly know, the revamped lineup met with virtually instant and overwhelming success, selling a zillion copies of their eponymous 1975 album as well as 1977’s Rumours, 1979’s Tusk, and the many singles these LPs spawned. They were at the top of their game and playing to huge and adoring crowds when they recorded the tracks preserved on 1980’s Live, their first concert album, which has just been reissued in an expanded edition.
Rather than featuring a single show, the original two-LP set culls tracks from gigs in multiple U.S. cities as well as London, Paris, and Tokyo plus two songs recorded at a soundcheck and three delivered at a private show for family, friends, and crew. Most of the material comes from the group’s 1979-1980 Tusk concert series but the source for a few numbers is a 1977 Rumours tour and one track dates from 1975. The program finds Fleetwood Mac energetically pumping out one hit after another, including “Sara,” “Over My Head,” “Rhiannon,” “Say You Love Me,” “Go Your Own Way,” “Dreams,” and “Don’t Stop.” Also included are such album standouts as “Monday Morning” and “Landslide” as well as a beautifully sung cover of Brian Wilson’s “The Farmer’s Daughter.”
The new expanded version of the LPs—the latest in a series of “super deluxe” limited-edition box sets that has already embraced such Fleetwood Mac albums as Tusk, Tango in the Night, and Mirage—offers an excellent remaster of the original release on two CDs as well as on a pair of 180g vinyl records. Also included are an LP-sized, 16-page booklet and a seven-inch vinyl single that features previously unreleased studio demos of two tracks that appear on the 1980 album: Stevie Nicks’s “Fireflies,” which the group later issued as a 45, and Christine McVie’s “One More Night.”
The biggest carrot, however, is a third CD that adds 14 previously unreleased live songs and a remix of a 12-inch version of “Fireflies” to the original release’s 18 tracks, expanding that 91-minute album by 76 minutes. This bonus disc features such concert staples as “Second Hand News,” “The Chain,” “Angel,” and “Think About Me,” as well as a trio of top 10 hits: “You Make Loving Fun,” “Tusk,” and “Hold Me.” (Though the latter didn’t ride the charts until 1982, it says something about the level of Fleetwood Mac’s success that they couldn’t even fit versions of all their biggest singles up to 1980 into a two-LP set.) Like the original album, this disc draws its material from more than half a dozen shows, in this case from 1977 through 1982
Fleetwood Mac’s internal discord began well before they recorded most of these performances. (The three CDs in the new release include only one number, “The Chain,” that the group wrote collaboratively, which is perhaps an indicator that “Go Your Own Way” was more than a song title.) You’d never sense a lack of harmony from these tracks, however. The musicianship on most of them is tight and powerful, with Buckingham, Nicks, and Christine McVie all turning in impassioned vocal work, Buckingham shining on guitar, Mick Fleetwood drumming up a storm, and John McVie delivering excellent bass. In a few cases, you can guess why a track on disc three didn’t make the cut for the original album but many of the bonus performances are just as strong as the renditions on the 1980 release.
It would have been nice if the producers had included a DVD of the Tusk documentary film, which is reportedly excellent. Fans without record players might also have appreciated digital versions of the demos featured on the vinyl singles. But these are quibbles, especially given that what Live does include is a generous helping of first-rate material from a world-class band at the peak of its powers.
Also Noteworthy
The Palace Guard, All Night Long: An Anthology 1965-1966. Who says time machines exist only in science fiction? This 12-track anthology will take you straight back to the mid-1960s.
Though they were based in Southern California, the Palace Guard sound more reminiscent of the early Beatles and such other British Invasion groups as the Hollies. They never scored a national hit and are known today mostly just by music fans who happen to own the two Nuggets box sets that contain their songs “Falling Sugar,” which was popular on their home turf, and “All Night Long.”
Both of those numbers are here, along with enough additional material to suggest that the Palace Guard deserved more attention than they received. Among the highlights: covers of Claudine Clark’s 1962 hit “Party Lights” and Wilson Pickett’s “If You Need Me,” as well as such pop-flavored originals as “Oh Blue (The Way I Feel Tonight).” Granted, this is not earth-shaking music, but anyone who has an affection for the one-hit wonders on the Nuggets collections—the Standells, the Blues Magooes, the Cryan Shames, and similar fare—will want to check it out.
Bill & the Belles, (Happy Again). This latest album from Bill & the Belles—a two-man, two-woman outfit that includes no one named Bill—reportedly addresses the divorce of founding member Kris Truelsen, who wrote all the songs. That makes sense, given the lyrical content of numbers like “Blue So Blue,” “People Gonna Talk,” and the title cut, whose full name is “Happy Again (I’ll Never Be).” But the album—produced by the increasingly accomplished Teddy Thompson (son of Richard and Linda Thompson) is much more smile-inducing than its subject matter might suggest: it delivers lilting, upbeat melodies, excellent harmony vocal work, and a pervasively playful mood.
A press release cites nods to Motown as well as to 60s “girl groups” like the Ronettes and Shangri-Las, but most of these songs seem to reach back a bit further. You can imagine these folks being enamored of the Andrews Sisters—and certainly of the prerock-loving, country-, swing-, and pop-influenced Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.
]]>Age has not rendered Stampfel any less adventurous or ambitious. Now 82, he has recently released the mammoth Peter Stampfel’s 20th Century in 100 Songs, a five-CD set that includes more than four-and-a-half hours of music and finds him tackling one song for each year from 1901 to 2000. It’s such an interesting idea that you may wonder why no one has thought of it before.
“I’ve been, for most of my life, fascinated by the way songwriting styles change,” says Stampfel, “and how difficult it is to make up a song from a past era that doesn’t have at least a touch of modernity to it. And how a kind of song can be in the air, then one day, suddenly, songs like that aren’t in the air anymore, and good luck trying to write one.”
This project, which Stampfel has been working on for nearly 20 years, finds him taking some liberties with his song selections. For example, his choice for 1962 is “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman,” which was a hit that year for Patti LaBelle and Her Blue Belles but actually dates from 1946. For 1950, meanwhile, he offers “It Isn’t Fair,” which did enjoy a revival that year but first became popular in 1933.
Stampfel’s presentation is highly personalized. He does not feature the most popular songs of each year but rather his favorites. More than a few of them were hits but more than a few others are obscurities. And he makes no attempt to incorporate what are arguably the most obvious or important bases. For example, he gets all the way through the 20th century without featuring a single Beatles song. (The closest he comes to the Fab Four is 1969’s “Goodbye,” a number that Paul McCartney wrote for Mary Hopkin.) Moreover, while some artists’ cover songs ape the originals so closely that you think, “What’s the point?” that’s never even close to being an issue here; these versions find Stampfel radically reimagining virtually every number.
The result is a wild ride that drives home just how varied popular music has been over the past century. Reminiscent of Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour in the way it embraces multiple decades and genres, the program features songs as different as, say, Jerome Kern and B.G. DeSylva’s “Look for the Silver Lining” and Elvis Costello’s new-wave rocker, “Girls Talk.” Among other unlikely companions in this collection: Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies” and the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”; and Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael’s “Lazybones” and Gloria Gaynor’s disco hit, “I Will Survive.” How’s that for diversity?
Stampfel’s voice, which is as unusual as his song choices, will be a deal breaker for many listeners. He developed a vocal-cord problem some years ago that made it impossible for him to speak, much less sing; and while he recovered to the point where he could deliver soft vocals in a lower register, you’d be well advised to listen to some of the raspy singing in this set before you turn over any cash for a copy. By comparison with Stampfel, Daniel Johnston can almost sound like Frank Sinatra and Jonathan Richman like Bing Crosby.
On some numbers—such as Bob Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue,” Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” and Ray Davies’s “Waterloo Sunset,” Stampfel’s croaky, nearly whispered delivery proves better suited to the material than you might guess. He does especially well when the production is lush or when he shares vocals with another singer, as he does on John Prine’s “In Spite of Ourselves” and his bouncy reading of Floyd Tillman’s “Slipping Around.” But some of these tunes—such as the Association’s 1966 hit, “Along Comes Mary,” which Stampfel performs with just his banjo for accompaniment—offer a rather painful listening experience.
A big plus is the set’s 88-page booklet, which evidences Stampfel’s meticulous research and attention to detail. It even presents each song title in a typeface that was designed in the year the number represents and provides the names of the fonts and their designers. Also included for every song are personnel information and notes from producer Mark Bingham as well as the artist’s own frequently fascinating commentary.
Peter Stampfel’s 20th Century isn’t likely to find a wide audience, but some listeners are bound to have hours of fun following his journey through 100 years of music.
Also Noteworthy
Steve Goodman, It Sure Looked Good on Paper: The Steve Goodman Demos. In 2019, the Omnivore label issued expanded versions of several albums by Steve Goodman, who died of leukemia in 1984 at age 36. This 20-track latest CD, also from Omnivore, is more revelatory in that it consists entirely of previously unreleased demos. An accompanying booklet includes insightful liner notes by journalist Lee Zimmerman but, unfortunately, no recording dates and almost nothing about the personnel on the four songs that feature a band.
The program offers versions of many of Goodman’s best-known songs, among them his own classic “City of New Orleans,” as well as “You Never Even Call Me by My Name,” which he wrote with his buddy John Prine; Mike Smith’s wonderful “The Dutchman”; and “Face on the Cutting Room Floor,” which Goodman penned with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Jeff Hanna and Jimmy Ibbotson.
Granted, few if any of these recordings outshine the familiar versions; but some of them are just as good and many of them differ significantly and in interesting ways from those renditions. I’ve been missing Goodman for nearly four decades now, but I missed him a little more after listening to this record.
The Crickets, The Crickets and Their Buddies. This 2004 album by Buddy Holly’s group has just been made available for digital download for the first time. The set includes excellent versions of many of the songs most associated with Holly and features a great lineup of guest vocalists.
Bobby Vee, whose earliest material echoes Holly’s, sings lead on “Blue Days, Black Nights” while Graham Nash—whose 1960s group, the Hollies, tipped a hat to Buddy with their moniker—delivers “Think It Over.” Also here: “Well All Right,” with a vocal by Waylon Jennings, who famously gave up his seat on the airplane whose 1959 crash killed Holly. Other selections include “Rave On,” which features the Everly Brothers’ Phil Everly and his son Jason; “Everyday,” with a vocal by J.D. Souther; “Oh Boy,” sung by John Prine,” and “Love’s Made a Fool of You,” with Johnny Rivers center stage.
]]>Muldaur has never sounded better or more suited to her material, however, than on Let’s Get Happy Together, where she teams up with a New Orleans street outfit called Tuba Skinny for a program of blues, jug band, and Dixieland jazz. Her vocals are a delight and so is the band, which incorporates banjo and guitar as well as such too-rarely-heard instruments as cornet, trombone, clarinet, washboard, and, of course, tuba.
Another plus is the program, which unearths a dozen mostly little-known tunes from the 1920s and ’30s, including “Road of Stone,” a blues that Victoria Spivey’s sister Sweet Pea recorded; “Got the South in My Soul,” from New Orleans’s Boswell Sisters; and the upbeat title cut, which the late Lillian Hardin Armstrong, second wife of Louis Armstrong, wrote and first recorded.
West of Texas, Heartache, Hangovers & Honky Tonks. You don’t have to look further than the band name and album title of this lively 16-track CD to figure out where these musicians are coming from or what their lyrics address. The nearly hour-long program, which sometimes recalls Asleep at the Wheel, owes a big debt to California’s Bakersfield sound as well as to honkytonk and western swing. You can also hear nods to Tex/Mex and Cajun music.
These influences yield a heady brew in the hands of this outfit, which has been in business since 2003 and prominently features twangy guitar, pedal steel, accordion, and fiddle. Jerry Zinn, the group’s leader, provided all of the songs (a few with cowriters), and lends his distinctive baritone to numbers like “My Whiskey Life,” one of five tracks with titles that reference drinking; and “Sound of My Heart Breakin’,” which addresses another of the album’s frequent subjects.
Put on this record, pour yourself a cold one, close your eyes, fire up your imagination, and presto, you’re on the sawdust-covered dance floor in a roadside Texas joint.
Alex Chilton, Boogie Shoes: Live on Beale Street. Singer Alex Chilton—known as the lead singer of the mythical Big Star and, earlier, of the late 1960s group the Boxtops (“The Letter,” “Cry Like a Baby”)—died in 2010 at age 59. However, he left behind lots of unreleased material, which has been trickling out ever since. The latest is this excellent and well-recorded 1999 set from a New Orleans benefit concert, which finds Chilton backed by the Hi Rhythm Section, the outfit known for its work on classics by artists like Al Green and Ike and Tina Turner.
If there’s an album out there on which Chilton appears to be having more fun than he does on this high-energy 10-song CD, I haven’t heard it. Ditto the band, and kudos to its wonderful horn section, which incorporates tenor and baritone saxophonists and a trumpet player.
Highlights include covers of Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline,” Little Richard’s “Lucille,” Holland/Dozier/Holland’s “Where Did Our Love Go” (the Supremes hit), Leiber and Stoller’s “Kansas City” (the Wilbert Harrison hit), Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd’s “634-5789” (the Wilson Pickett hit), and Eugene Williams’s “Trying to Live My Life Without You” (which featured the Hi Rhythm Section on the original Otis Clay recording).
Ian Hunter & Mott the Hoople, Gold. This bargain-priced three-CD set packs in 26 tracks from the 1972-1974 heyday of England’s Mott the Hoople, plus 24 numbers from group prime mover Ian Hunter’s 1976-1983 solo albums.
To call Hunter the “most inventive writer of the early Seventies,” as the liner notes here do, is more than a bit of a stretch, and both the solo and group performances have their ups and downs. The best of them, though, find Hunter and the band (which included guitarist Mick Ralphs, who went on to co-found Bad Company) oozing attitude and delivering potent rock and roll.
Among the well-hooked highlights: such Mott singles as “All the Young Dudes,” which composer David Bowie originally intended for his Ziggy Stardust album; Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane”; and Hunter’s “All the Way From Memphis,” “Honaloochie Boogie,” and “The Golden Age of Rock ’n’ Roll.”
Various artists, Yesterday’s Tomorrow: Celebrating the Winston-Salem Sound. The music scene that flourished in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in the 1960s and 1970s embraced quite a few indie-rock pioneers, many of whom went on to perform with acts like R.E.M, Let’s Active, and the dB’s.
What would happen if they got together for a new concert performance? The answer is some excellent, frequently garage-rock-style music, as you can hear on this 23-track CD, which preserves a 2018 show at Winston-Salem’s Ramkat Club. The anachronistic-sounding set features material penned by musicians who were part of the original scene, including Mitch Easter, Chris Stamey, and Peter Holsapple—all of whom are among the performers—as well as the late Bud Carlisle, whose band, Captain Speed, proved influential despite never releasing any records.
Also on the program are some excellent covers, such as the Beatles’ “Got to Get You into My Life” and Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed,” the latter with a vocal reminiscent of Joe Cocker by Don Dixon, who has produced R.E.M. and the dB’s. In addition, the musicians do a great job with two numbers from 1960s one-hit wonders, the Music Machine’s manic “Talk Talk” and the Electric Prunes’ psychedelic “I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night.”
]]>The band’s first concept album, it brings to mind an old Monty Python line: “And now for something completely different.” While many of the Who’s contemporaries were bending over backwards to be taken seriously as artists, not mere pop stars, Sell Out finds this outfit taking a deep dive into pop via a parody of England’s commercial pirate radio stations.
Instead of silences between many of the songs, the album features the group’s jingles for “Wonderful Radio London” plus—even before Frank Zappa would proclaim that “we’re only in it for the money”—fake and frequently hilarious commercials for real products, including Odorono underarm deodorant, Heinz baked beans, Medac germicidal cream, and Charles Atlas body building. (The Who had to delay release of the LP while they secured permission to mention these brands.)
This was pretty far off the beaten path, especially for 1967. While the Doors were singing “Break On Through,” Jimi Hendrix was delivering “Purple Haze,” Procol Harum were offering “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” and Simon & Garfunkel were lamenting “A Hazy Shade of Winter,” the Who were singing lines like this one (from “Medac”): “When Henry in the mirror peered / His pimples all had disappeared / Henry laughed and yelled, ’I got ’em!’ / Me face is like a baby’s bottom.”
The songs that the faux commercials bookend are consistently solid—strikingly original, melodic, and characterized by gorgeous vocals as well as lyrics that are as unusual as the album concept. “Armenia City in the Sky,” for example, is pure psychedelia, with backwards guitar parts and surrealistic verse. “Tattoo” is about a boy who gets his arm tattooed and proclaims, “Welcome to my life, tattoo / I’m a man now, thanks to you.” Other gems on the menu include the Latin-flavored “Mary Anne with the Shaky Hand,” the soaring “I Can’t Reach You,” and the lovely, acoustic “Sunrise,” as well as “I Can See for Miles,” a Top 10 hit that ranks with the Who’s best creations ever.
Like all of the group’s albums, incidentally, this one primarily features material by Pete Townshend. The exceptions include “Silas Stingy” and the songs touting Heinz beans and Medac, which bassist John Entwistle wrote; and “Armenia City in the Sky,” which is by John “Speedy” Keen,” who was then Townshend’s chauffeur and would go on to co-found Thunderclap Newman and write its hit, “Something in the Air.”
The new “super deluxe” edition of this album, which weighs in at about six pounds, includes 112 tracks, all of them remastered and many of them previously unreleased. As Townshend says in his typically thoughtful and extensive newly penned liner notes, “When I saw the final track listing, I was very pleasantly surprised at how much extra material there was, recorded and then set aside by the band around the time The Who Sell Out was prepared and released.”
The first two of the package’s five CDs deliver the stereo and noticeably different mono versions of the original album, plus two dozen bonus tracks, among them the single “Pictures of Lily,” Townshend’s ode to masturbation; covers of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’s “The Last Time” and “Under My Thumb” (recorded as a show of solidarity for the Rolling Stones leaders, who were facing drug charges at the time); the single mix of “I Can See for Miles”; and songs, jingles, and promo spots (some apparently real, some not) for Jaguar cars, Sunn audio equipment, Great Shakes milkshake mix, and Coca Cola.
Disc three, which draws on 1967 and 1968 studio sessions, features 28 outtakes and alternate versions, including variations on many of the songs that wound up on The Who Sell Out. A 14-track fourth disc covers material created in the nine months between Sell Out’s release and the first recordings for Tommy. It includes a couple of versions of “Magic Bus,” the 1968 single, as well as numbers whose lyrics, vocals, and guitar work presage the rock opera, such as “Glow Girl,” which evolved into Tommy’s “It’s a Boy.” Filling a fifth disc are previously unreleased and surprisingly polished Pete Townshend demos of 14 songs, none of which appear on the original Sell Out.
The list of goodies packaged with the CDs is long. For vinyl fans, the set includes a pair of seven-inch mono singles (“Magic Bus” and “I Can See for Miles”) in picture sleeves. (There’s even a plastic 45-RPM adapter for your turntable.) Among the other offerings are a bumper sticker and replicas of two large four-color posters, a contemporaneous band publicity photo, and a 1968 fan club newsletter.
The most informative extra, though, is the 80-page LP-sized hardcover book that holds the five CDs. In addition to the aforementioned essay by Townshend, this beautifully illustrated volume includes his notes on each of the demo tracks, an article by Radio London DJ Pete Drummond about the pirate radio era, and several other essays about the music and the times. Lyrics and extensive track notes fill the rest of the book.
Who fans will not be disappointed.
Also Noteworthy
Maria Shiel, Fire in the Sea!. Irish singer/songwriter Maria Shiel—who toured in the early 2000s with a hip-hop band she formed called Guava—has a winner in this solo album, whose music she dubs “transatlantic Irish-Americana.” Inspired by her Irish ancestors as well as a 2015 road trip across the U.S., the all-originals set features a more-than-capable band that employs fiddle by the Waterboys’ Steve Wickham, as well as dobro, flute, drums, bass, and guitars.
The album opens with the sound of the sea on Ireland’s west coast and closes with the sound of a crackling outdoor fire and a Native American chant. In between are a series of well-sung, lilting originals, starting with the album’s debut single, the irresistible “Calling Me Back” (which steals a line from John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads”). That’s probably the best track, but exhilarating, upbeat numbers like “Bedrock and Waterline” and “Call Home,” and lush productions like “Ebb of the Wave,” aren’t far behind.
Abigail Dowd, Beautiful Day. North Carolina-based folk singer and songwriter Abigail Dowd features an excellent backup crew on this album—including keyboards, percussion, dobro, pedal steel, electric guitar, and bass—but her arresting vocals are always the main attraction.
Frequently sad and struggling characters people many of Dowd’s lyrics. The male protagonist of “Don’t Want to Talk About It,” for example, sings, “You don’t know the things I’ve done / If I told you you’d run / They say put the bottle down, I know I’m hard to be around.” The title cut, meanwhile, belies its bright-sounding moniker with lines about feeling lonely and blue despite the fact that “it’s a beautiful day outside.”
Ultimately, though, this is an album about maintaining resilience and a sense of hope and is best characterized by its pensive first single: “One Moment at a Time,” in which Dowd sings about waking up each morning and facing each day’s challenges as they come.
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Throughout, his approach is direct, candid, and highly personal. As he told BBC Radio in an interview transcribed for my book, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon: “I started from the ‘Mother’ album [as he often called the record] onwards, trying to shave off all imagery, pretentions of poetry, illusions of grandeur, a la Dylan, Dylanesque. I didn’t want any of that. Just say what it is, simple English, make it rhyme, and put a backbeat on it and express yourself as simply and straightforward as possible.”
And so he did. The record—a well-deserved hit that Phil Spector coproduced with the former Beatle and Ono—features a back-to-basics band consisting mostly of just Lennon on guitars and piano, Ringo Starr on drums, and Klaus Voormann on bass. Even the song titles are stripped down: five are just a single word and none are more than three.
But Lennon did a lot with a little, offering rock- and folk-based songs that overflow with emotion. The album features several numbers that appear to reflect his experiences with psychiatrist Arthur Janov’s primal-scream therapy, though a few such tracks were actually written about a year earlier. At any rate, there’s lots of pain here; in fact, that word pops up in four of the 11 tracks: “I Found Out” (“feel your own pain”), “Isolation” (“you caused so much pain”), “My Mummy’s Dead” (“so much pain, I could never show it”), and “God” (“God is a concept by which we measure our pain”).
When Lennon isn’t bubbling over with emotion on this album, he turns to bursting bubbles. In “God,” for example, he sings, “I don’t believe in Beatles and adds, in some of the record’s most often-quoted lines: “The dream is over, what can I say / The dream is over, yesterday / I was the walrus, but now I’m John / And so dear friends, you just have to carry on.” There’s also “Working Class Hero,” where Lennon talks about how society encourages conformity, and “I Found Out,” where he appears to describe religion and drugs as distractions that get in the way of self-understanding. But it’s not all gloom and doom. The album also embraces such sweet, hopeful numbers as “Love” (with piano by Spector) and “Hold On,” a couple of sweet, hopeful numbers.
The new box set that marks the 50th anniversary of the original release of this material is the work of the same audio team that assembled 2018’s Imagine: The Ultimate Collection. To an even greater extent than that package, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: The Ultimate Collection targets serious fans—though perhaps “serious” is too mild a word for this offering, which includes six CDs, two Blu-rays, and a hardcover book.
Let’s put it this way: if you’re the sort of listener who might say something like, “‘Imagine’—isn’t that a John Lennon song?,” this box is definitely not for you. It’s aimed more at fans who might ask, “Which version of ‘Mother’ do you prefer—the home demo or the No. 91 outtake?” Both of those renditions are here, not to mention six other variations of that song and enough additional material to make clear that the box title’s use of the word “ultimate” is anything but hyperbole.
This is not to suggest that the album doesn’t deserve the exhaustive treatment it receives on this release; it does, and those who love Lennon’s music will savor what constitutes one of the most creatively assembled box sets of recent years. For starters, it includes the array of goodies you’d expect from a collection like this. But there are also a couple of noteworthy unusual attractions, which we’ll discuss shortly.
Disc one starts the party with a remix of the original 11-track album and Lennon’s first three post-Beatles singles: “Give Peace a Chance,” the pre-rap rap that became a peace-movement anthem; “Cold Turkey,” one of the most realistic musical looks at hard drugs this side of early Velvet Underground; and the infectious “Instant Karma (We All Shine On),” which clearly benefits from Spector’s involvement. Three other discs feature alternate versions of these 14 numbers, including outtakes, demos, and raw studio mixes that present the songs as they were heard in the sessions, without tape delays, reverb, or other effects.
There are also informal jams and lots of covers, among them Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame,” Lead Belly’s “Goodnight Irene,” and Carl Perkins's “Glad All Over” (incorrectly credited here to Dave Clark and Mike Smith, whose identically titled song was a Dave Clark Five hit). And there are nods to the Fab Four, including “Get Back” and “I’ve Got a Feeling” as well as Perkins’s “Matchbox,” which the Beatles recorded. There’s even a wacky Elvis Presley parody, which finds Lennon hamming it up on “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Hound Dog,” and the relatively obscure “When I’m Over You.”
All of this material is likable, but the proceedings become particularly fascinating on the two discs that feature a so-called “elements mix” and an “evolution documentary.” As the liner notes explain, the former “brings some of the buried elements not otherwise heard, or in some cases used, up to the surface to reveal deeper levels of detail and clarity.” There are some truly stunning moments here, such as on “Hold On,” which makes Lennon’s voice and guitar more predominant than on the familiar recording, and “Mother,” which features a must-hear a cappella vocal.
As for the “evolution documentary,” this series of extended tracks incorporates studio patter and takes us through the sessions for each song, to show how they evolved from early takes to a final mix. “Mother,” for example, begins with Lennon talking about how he has tried the number on piano and guitar and just wants to “keep it simple.” He samples various approaches over nine minutes, ending with something close to the final version.
The box’s pair of Blu-rays are notable, too. One duplicates the program of the first CD, but with high-definition 5.1 surround and Dolby Atmos mixes. The other, also with hi-def surround sound, features jam sessions by Lennon, Ono, Voormann, and Starr.
All told, you get 159 tracks with more than 11 hours of audio, including 87 previously unreleased recordings. And while you’re listening, you can peruse a 132-page hardcover book that includes a ton of photos; extensive comments by John and Yoko on the original album and each of its songs; lyrics; personnel information for every track; and surround-sound maps, to show what sounds are coming from where on the Blu-rays. Completing the package are a “War Is Over!” poster and a couple of postcards.
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band: The Ultimate Collection is all any fan could ask for.
Also Noteworthy
Al Stewart, Year of the Cat (45th Anniversary Edition). Al Stewart had already issued some great music (most notably Past, Present, and Future) by the time he delivered 1976’s Year of the Cat, but this is the album that turned him into a star—and rightly so. The record, beautifully produced by Alan Parsons, is highlighted by its nearly seven-minute title cut, which features a soaring sax solo and a memorable lyric that begins, “In a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turn back time ” Almost as impressive are “Lord Grenville” and the immersive “On the Border.”
Such songs sound better than ever on this two-CD reissue, which boasts Parsons’s first-ever remaster from the original master tapes, plus nine tracks from a 1976 Seattle concert. For those who want more, there’s also a four-disc edition that includes all 16 songs from the Seattle show plus a DVD with a surround-sound mix of the original album.
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