The Doors, Live in Philadelphia (Rhino
Handmade/Bright Midnight). One of several concerts from which 1970's
official live Doors album Absolutely
Live was sourced is offered in
its entirety on this double CD of a May 1, 1970 show, available through
the Internet only. Like Absolutely
Live, it finds the band in a
loosey-goosey state that drifts close to sloppiness, albeit with an
engaging tipsy humor. Except for a few obligatory staples ("Light My
Fire," "Break on Through," "Roadhouse Blues"), the group seemed
determined not to play overly familiar tunes, even reaching back on
occasion to their bar band days as a poor man's Rolling Stones for B.B.
King ("Rock Me Baby"), Elvis Presley ("Mystery Train"), and Chuck Berry
("Carol") covers. Most of the tracks are previously unreleased, and
it's not all hits or covers, the setlist including such relatively
little-traveled songs as "Ship of Fools," "Universal Mind," and "Maggie
M'Gill." Certainly Jim Morrison's in a lewd'n'bluesy mood, and for a
guy with obscenity charges hanging over his head (from the group's
infamous 1969 Miami concert), he lets it all hang out with surprisingly
graphic recklessness on "Rock Me Baby" -- could anyone have
doubted what "you feel so wet...let me slide inside" really
meant? In common with most of the limited-edition releases the Doors
have made available from their archive, this isn't up to the standards
of their official catalog, even the relatively loose ones of Absolutely Live. But it's a good
souvenir for committed fans, with
much better sound than the usual bootlegs of the Doors from this era,
though it's curious the material is split into a lengthy 76-minute CD
on disc one and a mere 26-minute CD on disc two.
Bob Dylan, Live/Finjan Club, Montreal, Quebec,
Canada, July 2, 1962 (Yellow Dog). There are a number of
live Bob Dylan recordings from 1962, and now that some of them have
been officially issued (particularly on Live at the Gaslight 1962),
this July 2, 1962 Montreal performance might not be considered the
first place to look for such material. But if you do have a deep
interest in Dylan, and particularly the Dylan of this era, this is
recommended further listening. The sound quality is pretty clear, and
almost up to the level you'd want from an official release. The
eleven-song set includes a few Dylan originals, among them such
relatively little-traveled ones as "The Death of Emmett Till," "Quit
Your Lowdown Ways," and "Let Me Die in My Footsteps," as well as an
early performance of "Blowin' in the Wind" (here memorably introduced
as a kind of song that says "a little more than I love you and you love
me, and let's go over to the banks of Italy and raise a happy family,
you for me and me for you"). While there are other versions of some of
the traditional folk and blues tunes on other Dylan bootlegs, "Rocks
and Gravel," "Stealin'," Muddy Waters' "Two Trains Runnin'" (mistakenly
listed on some bootlegs as a Dylan composition called "Still a Fool"),
Robert Johnson's "Ramblin' on My Mind," and "Muleskinner Blues" (albeit
a chaotic version where he stops, starts, and changes keys several
times) are likewise not exactly among the more familiar items in
Dylan's early repertoire, and interesting to hear in part for that
reason alone. The main reason to listen to this CD, however, is the
performance itself, in which Dylan sings and plays with commanding
passion and sensitivity, at a time when he was both finding his feet as
a composer and still maintaining deep roots in traditional folk music.
The
Five Du-Tones, Shake a Tail Feather:
The Complete One-Derful! Recordings (Shout). Though the
Five-Du Tones did some subsequent recordings for other labels, their
key output is contained in the sides they cut from the One-Derful label
between 1963-66. All of that material is contained on this 22-track
compilation, including not only all of the sides from their singles for
the company, but also four songs that didn't surface until they
surfaced on an obscure Japanese LP more than a decade after they were
cut. Their only hit, "Shake a Tail Feather," is here, of course, and
there's no getting around the conclusion that it's by far their best
record. Still, the rest of the CD does contain its share of fun, wiggly
dance tunes that helped bridge the gap between doo wop and soul music,
with the occasional more serious romantic number thrown in. Most
comparable to the Contours of "Do You Love Me" fame (and, as Clive
Richardson's liner notes rightly point out, the Rivingtons and the
early Isley Brothers, though more distantly), the Five Du-Tones had a
roughly similar knack for putting wacky, at times almost slapabout
humor into their uptempo dance discs. The fairly uproarious "Chicken
Astronaut" -- about a spaceman who's too scared to go to the moon,
yelping to be let out of his rocket so he can go back to earth and
party instead -- is certainly the highlight, aside from "Shake a Tail
Feather" itself. Much of the rest of it veers to the novelty side,
without songs of the same strength. The group's zany playing-the-fool
humor is unflaggingly spirited, though, and a few numbers (like the
jazzy "Nobody But My Baby" and the smoochy ballad "Mountain of Love")
show they could be skilled straight soul singers when the mood took
them.
Grimms, Sleepers (Hux). Grimms' third and final
album was done without some of the founding members, Mike McGear and
Vivian Stanshall having departed, although Neil Innes, Roger McGough,
and John Gorman remained aboard. Andy Roberts (perhaps better known for
his early-1970s folk-rock-oriented singer-songwriter recordings) was on
hand to give the comedy-rock group some more conventional musicality,
and it was decided to fill the LP solely with musical tracks, although
the two prior Grimms albums had mixed those with spoken word pieces. Sleepers was a commendably humorous
collection of pastiches and
send-ups of numerous musical genres, though it fell short of being as
uproarious as the funniest efforts of the musicians (and of Innes in
particular). Among the styles satirized were heavy progressive rock
("The Worst Is Yet to Come," where the grim prophesy is interrupted by
happy-go-lucky whistling); white-boy blues-rock ("Blackest of Blues");
folk music (a warping of "House of the Rising Sun" that makes explicit
what naughtiness goes on there); easygoing country-rock ("Sing Me That
Song"); Beach Boys-styled retro rock ("Backbreaker," whose heroine is
"pretty as a rose, if you disagree she'll smash her nose")and chin-up
countercultural anthems ("Slaves of Freedom"). Though more a record
that grows on you rather than one that sends you into giggles, its
understated silliness is nicely complemented by accomplished
musicianship.
The 2006 CD reissue on Hux adds historical liner notes and eleven bonus
tracks, many of them taken from a work tape prepared by Innes, McGough,
Gorman, and Roberts shortly in advance of recording the official album.
Though not as sophisticated production-wise, these bonus cuts are
nearly as witty and enjoyable as those on the Sleepers LP, including
not only early versions of four tracks from the record, but also a
number of songs that didn't make the final selection. Among the
highlights of those is Innes' folk busk "Crystal Balls" (with its
opening line "I've got my hand up the skirt of Mother Nature"), a
desecration of the Beatles' "She's Leaving Home," and, most
interestingly, an early version of the 1964 Beatles pastiche "I Must Be
in Love," which Innes would use shortly afterward for his classic
Rutles project.
The
Kingston Trio, The Kingston Trio
Story: Wherever We May Go [DVD] (Shout Factory).
Combining excerpts from many vintage 1950s/1960s film
clips/performances and interviews with the Kingston Trio's Bob Shane,
John Stewart, and Nick Reynolds (original member Dave Guard having died
years before this DVD was made), this is a fine documentary of the most
successful folk group of its era (if not <I>any</I) era). The
disc's hour-long breezily paced principal feature has excerpts of TV
and concert presentations of most of their hits, although "The Reverend
Mr. Black" somehow doesn't make it, and a few (though not many) of the
performances are from post-1970 clips with different or reunion
versions of the band, not their classic '50s/'60s lineups. The
'50s/'60s clips in particular present a zany, comic energy that didn't
always come through as strongly on their records, and even if it seems
a little dated and corny several decades later, it does help explain
their enormous in-person appeal. Unfortunately, the interview segments
with Reynolds (showing effects of a stroke) are less extensive than
those with Shane and Stewart, but gaps are filled in by comments from
Reynolds' son, Kingston Trio biographer William J. Bush, and
celebrities such as Al Jardine of the Beach Boys and Tom Smothers.
There may not be many revelations for those familiar with the group's
career, but it's a well-done general survey, with occasional surprising
bits like Jardine's admission that the Beach Boys' early striped-shirt
look was inspired by the Kingston Trio; a clip of the relatively
obscure "Raspberries, Strawberries" that showcases the sweetest side of
their three-part harmonies; tantalizingly brief clips of the group
doing a 7 Up commercial and a pilot for a TV series (Young Men in a
Hurry), featuring the Stewart lineup playing fictional
characters,
that never aired; and even a very brief scene from the Australian TV
series Dave Guard hosted after leaving the group, Dave's Place.
Some viewers might feel the documentary skips over the basic details of
their career a little lightly, but if you want more detail, a lot's
provided by no less than about 90 minutes or so of bonus features.
While it's true these are more for the dedicated fan than the viewer
looking for an entertaining, concise history, these segments are not at
all superfluous, though they emphasize talking heads more than the main
documentary does. One section has the ex-members and others discussing
the specific stories behind numerous of their more celebrated songs;
another goes into their sound, personalities, and image in some depth;
another profiles their manager, Frank Werber. Some very interesting
interview subjects and vintage clips not in the principle feature show
up in these supplemental sections, including scenes from the Hollywood
film adaptation of "Tom Dooley" and a quirky juke box jury program in
which four young adults explain why they think "Raspberries,
Strawberries" will be a substantial hit (though it wasn't). There are
even three of their original, reasonably amusing 7 Up commercials in
their entirety. The part on obsessed Kingston Trio fans (some of whom
even go to a Kingston Trio "fantasy camp" that allows them to meet and
play with surviving ex-members) will be too much for even many
committed admirers of the group, but fortunately the DVD doesn't go any
more overboard than that.
Ramsey
Lewis, The In Crowd Anthology
(UM3/Island). A two-CD anthology of Ramsey Lewis' Chess recordings
might seem excessive, but considering how much material he cut for the
label in the 1960s, this set is actually fairly selective. Certainly
it's good value, with 39 tracks and a running time of two hours and
twenty minutes. As for consistency of style and quality, that's another
matter, though generally it's a worthwhile summary of highlights from
the prime of a rare '60s instrumental musician who combined jazz,
R&B, and pop with considerable commercial success. While none of
this could be categorized as raw or earthy, some of the tracks
(particularly on disc one) are fairly gutsy R&B-jazz fusions,
particularly the hits "The 'In' Crowd" and "Wade in the Water" (his two
other Top Forty singles, "Hang on Sloopy" and "A Hard Day's Night," are
also here). On the other hand, the covers of pop-rock hits (including
several by the Beatles) veer toward lounge soul, even though there was
no one better than Lewis at that kind of stuff. Occasionally there are
flashes of a more idiosyncratic, jazzy originality that sound as if
Lewis is playing for himself as well as the marketplace, particularly
when he gets into some Latin-influence boogaloo grooves on "Blue Bango"
(easily the most uninhibited piece on this collection), "Spanish
Grease," and "Hey Mrs. Jones." The later cuts, while showing him
capable of keeping up with commercial trends by adding funk and touches
of psychedelia, also find him losing the distinctive mid-'60s
nightclubbish pop-soul sound that had vaulted him to prominence in the
first place.
Curtis
Mayfield, Anthology 1965-1994
[DVD] (Footstomp). This 90-minute DVD, mostly taken from 1970-75
clips (and mostly from television programs), is a pretty enjoyable
compilation of Curtis Mayfield performances, though the way it's
assembled and packaged makes it pretty obvious it's not an authorized
release. In its favor, most of the footage is presented in pretty good
quality, though there's an annoying small logo of the Footstomp label
in the upper right-hand corner -- a pretty rich pretense if the object
was to present bootlegging, since this itself is not an officially
blessed production. There are Japanese subtitles on some other
segments, and to its detriment, the majority of the material is mimed,
or at the very least sung to a backing track from the record. That's
especially obvious in the 1971-75 material from the Soul Train TV
program (which comprises about half the DVD), where Curtis does sing
into a mike, but no other musicians are visible.
Still, this does afford the chance to see Mayfield perform, in some
fashion, much material from his prime -- not only highlights from the Superfly album, but also such
relatively uncelebrated tunes as
"Check Out Your Mind" (done in 1970, when he was still part of the
Impressions), "Back to the World," and "Future Shock." Also on the disc
is one sole '60s Impressions clip (of "It's Alright," from 1965); a
performance of "Freddie's Dead" at the 1972 Grammy awards; a live 1972
medley of "We the People Who Are Darker Than Blue" and "Give Me Your
Love"; the clip of Mayfield doing "I'm Your Pusherman" in a nightclub
from the Superfly movie
itself; footage of him performing "Freddie's
Dead" live in a studio in 1972 (though, unfortunately, this particular
scene has subpar audio); and a live 1973 performance of "Superfly" on Midnight Special (introduced by
Helen Reddy!) that's probably the
highlight of the DVD. While the numerous Soul Train excerpts are
fairly artificial in their lip-syncing, incidentally, they're not
without some extra-musical entertainment value, in both the fairly
amazing display of colorful period African-American fashions among the
dancers, and a few segments where Mayfield answers some questions about
his current releases, both from host Don Cornelius and (in a too-short
segment, comprising just a few questions) from the actual Soul Train
audience. The disc ends with the "bonus track" of a Mayfield tribute
medley at the 1994 Grammy Awards, performed by musicians including
Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, Tony! Toni! Toné!,
Stevie Winwood, and Steve Cropper.
The Quiet
Five, When the Morning Sun Dries the
Dew (RPM). Both of sides of all six of the singles issued
by this obscure British band between 1965-67 (including one released
only in the US) are on this compilation, which also presents seven
previously unissued tracks. With their clean-cut, American-influenced
vocal harmony sound, The Quiet Five weren't too comparable to many
other British Invasion bands; perhaps the Fortunes and Peter &
Gordon, a bit, though they were earthier than the Fortunes and not as
folky as Peter & Gordon. The influences of the Beach Boys and
Merseybeat are also felt to varying degrees. While the material is
uneven, and isn't stunning, it's a pretty respectable slant on the more
lightweight side of the mid-'60s British Invasion. Certainly their
moody, folky debut single "When the Morning Sun Dries the Dew" is a
highlight, akin to Peter & Gordon in their more serious moods,
making one wish Quiet Five singer-guitarist Kris Ife had penned more of
the group's releases. The more energetic B-sides "Tomorrow I'll Be
Gone" (a quite tough Merseybeat-flavored number) and the
soul-pop-Mersey hybrid "Let's Talk It Over" are also quite satisfying,
if not typical of the approach the band usually took. Indeed, the
group's versatility sometimes worked against rather than for them, as
they also delved into unimpressive updates of standards, limpid pop,
and a not-so-hot cover of the fine Rolling Stones LP track "I Am
Waiting." Still, there are more enjoyable cuts here than duds,
including an uncharacteristically fuzzy stomper with lead vocals by
P.J. Proby, "Didn't Give a Damn," among the unreleased items. Overall,
it's a pleasantly worthwhile compilation, and recommended to British
Invasion collectors trying to discover something new from the vaults,
as the Quiet Five are a band of which even many serious British
Invasion fans might remain unaware.
Cliff
Richard, In the Beginning
[DVD] (Music Reviews Ltd.). On the one hand, the availability
of this look at the early years of Cliff Richard's music is welcome,
both because he did some good rock'n'roll during that time that's
undervalued, and because there's some good footage of early Richard
performances. On the other, it's frustratingly disappointing, as it's
too short (about 50 minutes), includes only portions of performances
rather than full songs, and doesn't have interviews with Richard
himself, or even with Richard associates. Instead, the commentary's
supplied by fans, critics, musicians, and producers who, with the
possible exception of British rock writer Chris Welch, will not be well
known to the average rock'n'roll enthusiast (and certainly don't have
direct connections with Richard's career). The talking heads are
reasonably astute in their observations, but one would have to think
that interviews with Richard and the Shadows, whether archival or done
specifically for a project such as this, would have been more
illuminating. In addition, the length and the way the program's
structured doesn't allow for a great deal of depth. Richard actually
recorded a good number of decent rockers in the late 1950s and early
1960s, but you don't hear about too many of them here, and the
impression's given that he moved into all-around entertainment almost
immediately after rising to stardom, which is partially but not wholly
true. Worst of all, although there are some excerpts of Richard singing
and performing in late-'50s/early-'60s TV shows and feature films,
these are truncated (even an exciting live 1960 television version of
the classic "Move It"), sometimes sharing a split screen with one of
the talking heads. What vintage footage there is has its interesting
points, also including 1959 TV covers of "Turn Me Loose" and the
Coasters' "Three Cool Cats" (the latter sung with fellow early British
rockers Dickie Pride and Marty Wilde). But given better resources, it
must be possible to fill a solid 90-minute documentary on the same
subject with much more old footage and more relevant interviewees.
The
Rolling Stones, Sweet Black
Angel/The Lost Sessions Vol. 1 (Empress Valley Supreme).
The late 1960s and early 1970s didn't yield many (as far as we know)
unreleased studio recordings of completed, otherwise unavailable
Rolling Stones songs. But it did produce a wealth of fairly interesting
alternate/working versions and song embryos that never got polished
off, sixteen of which are presented on this compilation. As the title Sweet Black Angel implies, many are
from that murky early-'70s
period when the Stones were working, in fits and starts, on Exile on
Main Street, and several of these tracks are different versions
of
songs that ended up on that album. Some of these aren't much different
from the familiar renditions, but others are, like an early, much less
fully formed version of "Tumbling Dice" with different lyrics (here
titled "Good Time Woman"); a long version of "Shake Your Hips"; "Stop
Breakin' Down" with no harmonica; and an instrumental backing track for
"Sweet Black Angel" itself.
Also on hand, and perhaps of somewhat greater interest in most cases,
are a bunch of instrumentals that obviously contain seeds of possible
songs, but which somehow never quite got there. At the very least,
these have that appealing rough'n'ready, scratchy soul-blues-rock feel
so typical of the Rolling Stones in the early '70s. While some of them
are on the generic side as far as the riffs go, some of them seemed to
hold real promise, making one hope that tracks of these tunes with sung
lyrics might miraculously be found one day. "Aladdin Story" in
particular is a luminously sluggish, jazzy tune with entrancing
guitar-horn-vibes interplay, perhaps abandoned because the key guitar
riff is very close to the one that had been used on "Paint It Black."
Closing out the disc are a few late-'60s cuts with vocals, and while a
couple of these songs were used on Metamorphosis,
the likably
wistful if slight soul ballad "Hamburger to Go" never did find release
anywhere.
Although all of this material had been around for quite a few years
before this 2005 bootleg, the sound quality of this disc is much
superior to many earlier circulations of these tracks, so much so that
much of it could be used as bonus cuts on official CD reissues without
raising any eyebrows (and those that aren't quite as spiffy still have
fidelity almost as good as most officially released recordings). While
these efforts are either too close to the official versions or too
undeveloped to interest non-fanatics, anyone whose interest in the
Rolling Stones' music from this era extends beyond what's been approved
for the marketplace will enjoy this collection. (Note that some of the
dates listed for the recordings do not jibe with those listed in other
sources.)
Sly
& the Family Stone, My Own
Beliefs: Video Anthology 1968-1986 [DVD] (Avdenture).
Although the image quality of this extraordinary two-DVD bootleg set is
uneven, no serious fans of Sly & the Family Stone could fail to be
impressed by it, offering as it does an astonishing four hours or so of
vintage clips, mostly from television programs. The performances are
almost all good-to-excellent and visually dynamic, featuring the band
with colorful finery and clever dance moves/vocal tradeoffs in an
assortment of TV/concert/studio settings. Most of their hits are
performed -- in fact, most of them are offered in multiple versions --
and all but a couple of the clips are from their 1968-75 prime. The
very earliest of these (listed as a "studio/promo" clip of "Dance to
the Music") shows them wearing almost conventional clothes and
hairstyles, but almost immediately they graduate to a presentation
about as purposefully freaky as anyone's was in the psychedelic era. In
addition to music performances, there are also a few expectedly
enigmatic interview clips of Sly Stone on the talks shows of Dick
Cavett, and a heated 1974 discussion of race and politics on Mike
Douglas' talk show with Stone, Muhammad Ali, and (believe it or not)
Congressman Wayne Hays, shortly before that powerful Democratic
politician was disgraced by the revelation that a former secretary was
on his payroll to be his mistress. A brief 1980s TV interview shows Sly
in better health than one would expect, but is utterly unrevealing as
to why he virtually disappeared from the music business. There's even
footage (albeit amateurish) of his 1974 wedding ceremony at Madison
Square Garden.
While all this material is very entertaining, and historically
valuable, be cautioned that the visual quality is usually not up to the
standard of authorized releases, though the vast majority is
okay-to-excellent. The fairly lengthy set from the 1969 Texas
International Pop Festival, for instance, suffers from subpar audio,
and some of the footage has a running time bar superimposed on the
frame. The songs performed don't vary as much as you might want or
expect, usually being oriented toward familiar hits, with seven
versions of "Dance to the Music" (and nothing, unfortunately, from There's a Riot Goin' On). The
band's taste for presenting their hits
in medleys gets a little tiresome when you see it done several times
over. While the early-'0s clips with expanded and different personnel
are good, they're not quite up to the level of the ones featuring the
original lineup (which comprise about half the material), who had a
chemistry subsequent aggregations couldn't match. And for all its
length, this doesn't gather all the footage of the group known to
exist. Like many other such releases, this ends up emphasizing the need
for someone to compile this or similar footage from the best possible
sources and give it official release. As of the time this DVD had
appeared, however, there was no word of such an official release,
making this the best known place to see as much of the band as you can,
despite the inevitable shortcomings inherent in not having access to
the best source footage.
Ike & Tina Turner, The Soul Anthology (Red
Line). Ike & Tina Turner put out so many recordings in the final
years of the 1960s that there was no way to meticulously craft each of
them. As a result the discs, while usually acceptable at the very
least, had an uneven feel, and were apt to present routine material and
arrangements that weren't always worthy of the Turners' talents. Most
general soul fans will prefer investigating this material through more
selective best-of compilations. But if you are a more serious
aficionado who wants to collect more, this two-CD, 44-track compilation
does a pretty good job of putting a lot of it in one place, in a more
thoughtful, logical grouping than many such CD anthologies do. Four
1968-1969 albums are presented in their entirety here, those being
1968's So Fine and 1969's Cussin', Cryin' & Carryin' On
(both
originally issued on the Pompeii label), and 1969's Outta Season and The Hunter (both issued on Blue
Thumb).
Certainly the records were spotty, and (aside from Cussin', Cryin'
& Carryin' On too oriented toward familiar covers of
familiar
blues/soul/R&B tunes. Accepting that this isn't Ike & Tina at
their very best, however, it's certainly no disgrace to their names, as
Tina Turner's singing is almost always involved and fiery, and the
tracks always competent at the least, if not always inspired. Certainly
the cuts from So Fine are the
least distinctive, with something of a
soul-by-numbers feel, though occasionally (particularly in the
blues-soul slow burner "It Sho Ain't Me") even these rise above the
average. The material from Cussin',
Cryin' & Carryin' On is more
interesting, if only because Ike Turner wrote most of it, though its
zigzags between R&B ballads, girl group-influenced soul, and quite
good funk-rock instrumentals with a menacing edge suggest it might have
been culled from various sessions over a lengthy period. Both Blue
Thumb albums (heard on disc two) are decisively bluesier and better
than the two Pompeii LPs, though the song selection is a little
unimaginative, with covers of well-known tunes like "Dust My Broom," "3
O'Clock in the Morning Blues," "Rock Me, Baby," "My Babe," and "The
Things That I Used to Do." Ike Turner's guitar work is certainly more
assertive on the Blue Thumb material, and while the songs themselves
might not be the best interpretations, overall they add up to a pretty
good blues-soul listen, highlighted by what's probably their most
acclaimed cover from this era, "I've Been Loving You Too Long"
(originally by Otis Redding). As nice bonuses, the compilers also
tacked on the one track (the instrumental "Funky Mule") from their 1969
Pompeii LP Get It Together!
that hadn't been previously released at
the time, as well as the famous, original Phil Spector-produced 1966
single "River Deep-Mountain High," always good to hear even if it
doesn't stylistically fit in with the rest of the compilation.
The Walker Brothers, Everything Under the Sun
(Universal). Everything under the sun from the Walker Brothers'
studio output is indeed here on this five-CD box set. It has not only
everything from their mid-1960s prime on the first three CDs, but also
the more neglected (though considerably less impressive) three albums
or so they did in the mid-to-late 1970s after reuniting. There are also
13 previously unreleased tracks from 1965-67, as well as a 48-page
booklet with an historical essay and oodles of photos and memorabilia.
Naturally, like many completist box sets, this isn't for everyone;
there's much superb material, but also a good deal of also-ran cuts and
covers. Too, the 1970s material is not only often rather dull pop
(sometimes with slight country overtones), but not too similar or
compatible with the lush 1960s productions. Plus, to be technical, it
doesn't have <I>everything</I> the Walker Brothers issued,
lacking the live album they recorded in Japan in 1968 (which, as of the
release of this box set, still had not made it to CD).
Focusing on the positive, however, this has a lot of quality music
besides their familiar hits (which are also all included, of course).
The R&B and soul covers the brothers sang to pad out their releases
may not have been their forte, and sometimes the pop ballads were
gushy, but Scott Walker's voice (and John Walker's second vocals)
usually at least made them pleasant on some level. As for the booming,
brooding ballads (with nods to Phil Spector and the Righteous Brothers)
at which they excelled, there are plenty of those, including "The Sun
Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore," "After the Lights Go Out," "Another Tear
Falls," "In My Room," "Everything Under the Sun," "Just Say Goodbye,"
"Deadlier Than the Male," and others. A few other songs have seeds of
Scott Walker's more serious, arty side ("Archangel," "Mrs. Murphy,"
"Orpheus," "Experience"), and John Walker takes a nice lead vocal on
one of their best obscure tracks, "I Can't Let It Happen to You."
The thirteen previously unreleased 1965-67 recordings don't add up to
an unissued album of sorts; they're more an assembly of odds and ends
with a bent toward mediocre soul covers ("In the Midnight Hour," "I Got
You (I Feel Good)") and pop standards (such as "The Shadow of Your
Smile"). Again, however, the vocals make even these erratic leftovers
worthwhile to some degree, and a few of the songs are rather good,
including the characteristically melancholy "Hang on for Me," the
dreamily orchestrated "Lost One," and the relatively upbeat Burt
Bacharach-like "I Got Lost for a While." (The writers of all three of
those mysterious tunes, incidentally, are listed as "unknown," leaving
it open as to whether these were original compositions.) Also among
these thirteen unearthed items are alternate versions of two songs the
Walkers did release, Randy Newman's "Looking for Me" and their big
smash "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)." While these aren't as good
as the official versions, they are at least notably different, and it's
interesting to hear "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)" in a
considerably tamer, more reserved arrangement.
Other than the obvious similarities in the vocals, discs four and five
could almost be the work of a different group than the one heard on the
first three CDs. While this latter portion does include their big 1976
UK hit "No Regrets," it's tough sledding, with much of it given over to
middle-of-the-road covers of the likes of Jimmy Webb, Randy Newman,
Kris Kristofferson, and Boz Scaggs. Suddenly, however, the torpor is
interrupted by Scott Walker's four originals from their final album,
1978's Nite Flights. They're
bleak, piercing, heavily electronic
rhythmic numbers, wholly unlike anything else the Walker Brothers did
in either the 1960s or the 1970s, and wholly unlike any other '70s
Walkers recordings in that they sounded bold and adventurous, rather
than just treading water. They're enough, just about, to justify the
inclusion of the Walker Brothers reunion material in the box, though
not enough to keep the inclusion of said material from making the box
even more erratic than most such complete overviews of major artists.
Muddy
Waters, Classic Concerts [DVD]
(Hip-O). Classic Concerts is
one of those rare historical music
compilation DVDs for which there's nothing significant to criticize,
and much to praise. The bulk of the two-hour disc is devoted to three
Muddy Waters concerts from different eras, including his historical
1960 Newport Jazz Festival appearance, a 1968 show at the Copenhagen
Jazz Festival, and a 1977 gig at the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway.
Although the black-and-white Newport footage does not capture the
entire concert (much of which has never circulated), it does contain 26
minutes, Muddy backed by an excellent band including two blues stars in
their own right (pianist Otis Spann and harmonica player James Cotton).
This is definitely the most exciting portion of the DVD, including fine
versions of his staples "(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man," "Tiger in
Your Tank," "Rollin' Stone," and above all an extended "Got My Mojo
Working." Waters' shakes and shivers are truly spine-chilling on that
last number, some levity introduced by a section where he dances with
Cotton. The finale "Mean Mistreater/Going to Chicago Blues," where
several other singers are brought on for cameos, is relatively
inessential. But this segment is still one of the top vintage
blues-on-film documents of all, enhanced for this DVD by the syncing of
stereo live recordings to three of the songs to improve the audio
(though "Rollin' Stone" and "Mean Mistreater" remain in the original
mono film sound).
By the time of the 1968 Denmark show (also shot in black and white),
only Spann was remaining from the Newport band. It's a somewhat staider
and less electrifying performance, but still sturdy Chicago blues,
though Paul Oscher's harmonica seems undermiked. Waters was less mobile
by the time of the 1977 concert (shown in color), sitting on a stool
throughout most of the show (whereas before a serious 1969 car accident
he'd stood). Again, however, this is still a respectable showcase for
his intact vocal talents, with "Got My Mojo Working" and "(I'm Your)
Hoochie Coochie Man" remaining in his set (as they had at the Denmark
gig as well). Brief but worthwhile bonus features include a 1977 London
performance of "The Blues Had a Baby and They Named It Rock &
Roll"; a 1972 British TV interview; and an interview done at the 1977
Molde show where Waters patiently responds to rather cliched questions,
asking his interrogator to "bring it to me straight, brother" when the
interviewer gingerly asks whether Muddy's music has political aspects.
Detailed liner notes, mostly written by Bob Margolin (who plays guitar
behind Waters in the 1977 Norwegian footage) and also featuring an
appreciation from Bill Wyman, are also included in this high-grade
package.
Various Artists, Got No Shoes Got No Blues: The 1969 Texas
International Pop Festival [DVD] (Keep on Truckin').
There were several large rock festivals in 1969 that never achieved the
fame or notoriety of Woodstock or Altamont. One such event was the 1969
Texas International Pop Festival, which took place near Dallas on Labor
Day weekend, just a couple of weeks after Woodstock (indeed, featuring
some of the same performers). It's not well known that, as at Woodstock
and Altamont, much film was taken of the event, though no movie was
finished for commercial release. This DVD presents an 80-minute
workprint (complete with running time codes at the bottom of the
screen) of the film that, in the words of the back cover, was
"undoubtedly assembled for the purpose of securing a pre-editing
distribution deal"; according to the back cover, "the rough cut of the
film was shown once in Dallas shortly after the festival, but the
record companies told the guy who showed it that they would cut his
ball [sic] off [if] he ever showed it again." On one hand, this is
interesting rare document of both its era and of a festival that's not
well remembered on a national or international level, with footage of a
quality lineup of performers, including live clips from the sets of
Janis Joplin, Santana, Grand Funk Railroad (introduced, amusingly, by
the emcee as "Grand Funk Railway"), Chicago (when they were still known
as "Chicago Transit Authority"), Led Zeppelin, Ten Years After, Tony
Joe White, James Cotton, and Sweetwater. Several of these acts were or
were just becoming big stars, of course, and footage of White (here
singing his hit "Pork Salad Annie," which is one of the disc's
highlights) and Sweetwater (most famous for being one of the least
celebrated acts to play Woodstock) from this time isn't easy to come by.
However, as a film, or even a workprint, there are many important
factors keeping this from being as notable or enjoyable as it could
have been, even considering that this was not the movie in the final
form it would have taken. The audio for the musical portions is
frustratingly thin and tinny, and the sets themselves aren't too well
shot in terms of lighting, editing, and camera angles, particularly
compared to celebrated documentaries of similar events such as Woodstock and Monterey Pop. There's frequent
cutting between the
onstage performances and (sometimes wholly unrelated) audience
frolicking, to the point where there's more audience than performance
footage in some scenes. The quality of the print itself is erratic, and
some of the segments are linked by hokey, verging-on-annoying staged
clips of a beer-drinking cowboy listening to a radio show about the
"hippie hypocrisy." And, finally, some of the performers listed in the
credits -- including such interesting, relatively underexposed ones as
Delaney & Bonnie, the Rotary Connection, and the Incredible String
Band -- are not shown in the workprint, though presumably shots from
their sets would have been added at a later stage. If you can put up
with all this, there are flashes of worthwhile music, whether it's
White's "Pork Salad Annie"; Chicago during that very brief time when
they were considered a hip act; and the incredibly manic stage
posturing of Ten Years After's Leo Lyons, who plays his bass as if the
instrument is in the process of electrocuting him. The shots of hippies
swimming in the nude and making out, as well as the police chief
enthusiastically praising the crowd's peaceful behavior, are
reminiscent of similar scenes in Woodstock.
They cement the
impression of this rare film-in-progress as documenting a minor-league Woodstock of sorts, in respects to
both the Woodstock movie and the
Woodstock festival itself.
Various Artists, Out There: Wild and Wondrous Roots of
Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2 (Viper). Like the first volume of this
delightful series, this digs out 20 tracks from the 1920s through the
mid-1950s that illustrate the wide roots of rock'n'roll. Unlike many
other such compilations, it doesn't just present the blues and
hillbilly recordings that were most instrumental in leading to the
fusion of R&B and country-and-western that gave birth to
rock'n'roll, although there are some of those. There's also goofy
pop-jazz (Ella Fitzgerald's "Two Little Men in a Flying Saucer"),
jugband music, boogie-influenced jazz, virtuoso instrumental country
boogie (a young Chet Atkins' "Oh By Jingo!"), old-time folk music with
country and blues elements (Doc Boggs' aptly titled "Country Blues"),
and even a field recording of a Native American peyote dance. And the
Boswell Sisters' "Rock and Roll," cut way back in 1934, shows that the
term rock and roll far predated the 1950s or Alan Freed, even if the
track itself is far closer to harmony vocal swing jazz than blues.
There are also, of course, some Delta blues from Son House, hillbilly
from Hank Williams and Jimmy Dickens, and a few tracks that more
closely approximate early rock'n'roll, both stylistically and
chronologically: Louis Jordan's classic boogie "Saturday Night Fish
Fry," Lightnin' Slim's harmonica blues/R&B "She's Gone," and Johnny
"Guitar" Watson's astonishing instrumental "Space Guitar," which still
sounds futuristic today, let alone in 1954 (when it was originally
cut). Many of the preceding names are famous or fairly well known, but
there are a few items here that might surprise and inspire even
seasoned collectors, like the madly over-reverbed country swing of
steel guitarist Billy Briggs' 1953 track "Alarm Clock Boogie." Combined
with detailed annotation (recording dates included) that avoid
stuffiness, this is a far more fun and imaginatively eclectic anthology
-- in terms of both listening and packaging -- than most higher-profile
releases that explore a similar theme, though this series,
unfortunately, remains one of the more obscure such ones.
Various Artists, Protest! American Protest Songs 1928-1953
(Viper). Although it wasn't until the folk revival and folk-rock
movements of the 1960s that the protest song was a widely recognized
wing of popular music in the US, there had been socially conscious
protest songs of sorts since the dawn of the recording age. This
compilation assembles 20 of them, and refreshingly, it doesn't
emphasize material from the roots of the folk revival (though there's
certainly some of that). Instead, this comes from all over the roots
music map, from country blues and old-time folk/country artists to
gospel, hillbilly, and western swing. There are certainly a number of
famous artists and classic songs here, including the Sons of the
Pioneers' "Old Man Atom," Bessie Smith's "Nobody Knows You When You're
Down and Out," Big Bill Broonzy's "Black, Brown and White," Billie
Holiday's "Strange Fruit," and Woody Guthrie's "1913 Massacre." There
are, too, sides by Bill Monroe (as part of the Monroe Brothers), Uncle
Dave Macon, Memphis Minnie, and even Gene Autry, who shows a surprising
and little-known side of his repertoire with "The Death of Mother
Jones," inspired by the labor activist Mary Harris Jones.
Many of these tracks are not "protest" songs in the angry and earnest
sense that many listeners associate with the style; they often take a
more lightly satirical, even congenial approach. The enjoyable
novelty-tinged pieces on the then-new threat of atomic energy ("Old Man
Atom," the Golden Gate Quartet's alternately somber and swinging gospel
number "Atom and Evil," Billy Hughes and the Rhythm Buckeroos' "Atomic
Sermon") remind us of how ambivalently the nuclear threat was viewed
when it was a new thing, and how songs commenting on it sounded rather
like they were whistling in the dark. If you do want songs that were
more audible ancestors of the folk revival, however, they're here in
cuts like Josh White, Millard Lampbell, and the Almanac Singers' "Billy
Boy" and Lee Hayes with the Almanac Singers' "The Dodger Song," the
Almanac Singers being a huge influence in getting said folk revival off
the ground in the middle of the twentieth century. Whatever your
sociopolitical perspective, this is impressive on purely musical and
lyrical grounds, and can be enjoyed for those qualites alone. This
isn't the most extensive anthology constructed along this theme; Bear
Family's massive ten-CD box Songs
For Political Action: Folk Music,
Topical Songs, and the American Left, 1926-1953 obviously has
more.
But as a single-disc overview of some notable entries in the genre,
this is fine, with informative historical liner notes.
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