Reviewed by: CHRIS ALBERTSON, NOEL COPPAGE, PAUL KRESH, PETER REILLY, STEVE
SIMELS, JOEL VANCE
THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas. Allman Brothers Band (vocals and instrumentals). Wasted Words; Southbound; Ramblin' Man; In Memory of Elizabeth Reed; Ain't Wastin' Time No More; Come and Go Blues; and four others. CAPRICORN 2CX0 177 two discs $9.97, 0 M8 0177 $10.97, M5 0177 $10.97.
Performance: So-so
Recording. Mostly good
This was recorded at various concerts be tween 1972 and 1975. It has touches of live-album indulgences in it and hints of road-weary, dogged professionalism here and there, but it is not "previously unreleased" as in "dregs." Relative to some other Allman Brothers albums it is no great shakes, but relative to some other bands' live albums it has its moments, as they say. It sounds more cohesive than it should, considering that part of it was recorded when bassist Lamar Wil liams and pianist Chuck Leavell had been with the band less than a month. The thing I seem to notice about all of it is the erosion of passion by grind and circumstance and the emergence of what sounds more like show-biz moxie. Here Gregg Allman's vocals are played down and mixed down, and a lot of time is taken up with instrumental passages that seem to be dominated by Richard Betts' guitar. That's not too bad, but it would be better if Betts were more of an idea man; his forte is sound, flavor rather than line. Leavell is a favorite of mine, though, and this is an interesting cross-section of the group's material, especially if you have little and could use a sampler, and it's not too padded as live al bums go. To a degree, I guess it all boils down to a demonstration that this has been a different band ever since the death of Duane All man ... but then what band wouldn't be?
N.C.
THE ALPHA BAND. Steven Soles (vocals, guitar); David Mansfield (violin, mandolin, guitar); T-Bone Burnett (vocals, guitar, piano); David Jackson (bass); Matt Betton (drums). Interviews; Cheap Perfume; Ten Figures; Wouldn't You Know; Madman; and five others. ARISTA AL 4102 $6.98, 8301-4102H $7.95, 5301-4102H $7.95.
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Explanation of symbols:
= reel-to-reel stereo tape
= eight-track stereo cartridge
= stereo cassette
= quadraphonic disc
= reel-to-reel quadraphonic tape
= eight-track quadraphonic tape
Monophonic recordings are indicated by the symbol
The first listing is the one reviewed; other formats, if available, follow it.
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Performance: Fragmented
Recording: Good
There's some talent here but you might miss it while wincing about some of the other stuff. Steven Soles, chief singer and songwriter, is more interested in words than in tunes, and, while he uses words intelligently, he does seem a little preoccupied with the hard-boiled metaphor. The vocals, though, are the main distraction; they give more weight to inflection than to melody and are more like chanting than singing. The instrumentals don't sound like the same band from one cut to another, although they're never weak. The makings of something are here, all right, but they're rather scrambled. N.C.
RAY BARRETTO: Tomorrow: Barretto Live. Ray Barretto (congas); instrumental and vocal accompaniment. Vaya; Ahora Si que Vamo a Gozar; Ban Ban Quere; Night Flowers/Slo Flo; and three others. ATLANTIC SD 2-509 two discs $7.98, 11"2-509 $7.97, CS2 509 $7.97.
Performance Good
Recording: Good
Ray Barretto, the conga king, is one of the great stars of modern Latin music, and he usually assembles first-rate talent for his bands. That is the case here with what is grandly referred to as the Concert Orchestra Band, but this double-disc live set never quite comes off, mostly because the concert was handled as a Cultural Event rather than a fancy gig. It would have been better if Barret-to and his group had been recorded playing a dance; the interaction between the band and the dancers would have been steamier than the ritual cheers of the concert audience.
The liner notes stress that Barretto has been looking for a new sound that would reflect Latin culture, etc. etc., because he's really paid his dues, blah blah. I think the boosters of Latin music are getting rather carried away with this "preserving the culture" business; the only dilutions Latin music has suffered culturally have come when these same boosters mixed salsa with gringo disco, jazz, and soul. I am very much in favor of keeping Latin music pure, but I wish the gentleman boosters would either practice what they preach or kindly close their bocas grandes. J . V .
THE BEACH BOYS: Live in London '69. The Beach Boys (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Darlin'; Wouldn't It Be Nice; Sloop John B; California Girls; Do It Again; Good Vibrations; God Only Knows; Barbara Ann; and four others. CAPITOL ST-11584 $6.98, 8XT-11584 $7.98, 4XT-11584 $7.98.
Performance: Feeble
Recording: Fair
Capitol Records, for whom the Beach Boys used to record back in the good old days, has had a lot of success in repackaging catalog material by the group and pushing it with high-gear merchandising campaigns. But the label seems to have hit, if not the bottom of the barrel, the damp floor of their tape vaults with the issue, eight years after the event, of a live 1969 recording of a London concert. Why the long delay? After hearing the album, I would guess that Brian Wilson, leader of the group, initially found it lacking and didn't want it released. It was under Wilson's guidance that the Beach Boys became a prime ex-ample of what could be done with a quintet of marginally talented singers performing interesting material (Wilson's) while relying heavily on the cosmetics of studio sound techniques at the hands of a producer (Wilson again) whose use of the machinery was gifted.
Good Vibrations is a little masterpiece in the studio version, but it is less a song than a testament to Wilson's brilliant understanding and use of studio techniques. The same can be said of nearly all the material here, which includes most of the best tunes from Wilson's inventory. The Beach Boys were never much of a stage band; outside the comfort and protection of the studio, they sounded frail, wobbly, and mediocre. This album is for dedicated fans only. J. V.
JEAN CARN. Jean Cam (vocals); orchestra. You Are All I Need; You Got a Problem; Time Waits for No One; No Laughing Matter; and five others. PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL, PZ 34394 $6.98, PZA 34394 $7.98.
Performance: Better than the material
Recording: Routine
Here's some expertly mellow, very sweet singing by Jean Cam in one of those Gamble-
Huff cookie-cutter productions, this one labeled Classy Lady Singer. That she is. But, trapped as she is in a repertoire that includes three Gamble-Huff songs and a bunch by Dexter Wansel, she's a little like an Olympic swimmer in a pool filled with Redi-Whip. She tries mightily but can't overcome such goo as No Laughing Matter or If You Wanna Go Back, and the result is, sadly, a waste of her time and yours. P.R.
TOM CHAPIN: Life Is Like That. Tom Chapin (vocals, guitar, banjo); orchestra. You and Me; Number One; Jenny Jenny; Magic Man; Sorrow Takes a Bow; and four others. FANTASY F-9520$6.98.
Performance: Fair
Recording: Good
Tom (Harry's brother) Chapin plays and per forms bubblegum ideas in early-Sixties coffeehouse style. His foggy themes are ripely adolescent. Here is Jenny-Jenny, for in stance,- the saga of someone who "Woke up this morning in the middle of the afternoon" and, while waiting for the heroine to arrive, ponders the fact that "Your parents don't like me much but I know you do/ And your brother doesn't think I'm good enough for you." Chapin takes the edge off all of this drama by performing it in a turtle-neck, denim voice with a pseudo-folk banjo accompaniment.
Then there is You and Me, performed in pretty much the same profound style: "Wait and see how happy we're gonna be, you and me/ Bop baba doo dah, bop baba doo dah, bop baba doo dah." Mr. Chapin, from his picture, appears to be somewhere in his thirties. P.R.
BLOSSOM DEARIE: My New Celebrity. Is You. Blossom Dearie (vocals and piano); orchestra. Smiling Feet; Killing Me Softly with His Song; Unless It's You; Peel Me a Grape; Pretty People; The Christmas Card; and ten others. DAFFODIL BMD 103 two discs $12.98 (from Daffodil Records, P.O. Box 312, Winchester, Va. 22601).
Performance: Unique
Recording: Good
Blossom Dearie holds court again in this new two-disc release on her own label. For the faithful, and there are many, it's a resplendent occasion. For the uninitiated, it's another chance to discover one of the truly unique performers now recording. And for the still-dubious . . . well, they can take .care of themselves. My personal opinion of Blossom Dearie (and she's the kind of special artist that one can't avoid having a personal opinion about) is that she can be absolutely wonderful in the right material. Unfortunately, in the wrong material she can be a harrowing, affect ed bore. Here, it breaks down about evenly.
Her eerily childlike voice, so at odds with the sophistication and style of her lyric approach and her fastidious musicianship, turns such chestnuts as Killing Me Softly with His Song and There Ought to Be a Moonlight Saving-Time into gorgeous little pastel portraits of mood and feeling. But when she applies these same talents to something such as the title song, a clumsy attempt at chic by Johnny Mercer, or her own Long Daddy Green (the Almighty Dollar), a sourish finger-flick masquerading as witty comment, she seems arch, smug, and infuriatingly mannered. Even unique artists are, apparently, only as good as their material. But revel in the good stuff if you can-there is a lot more of it here, including a lovely A Paris, a gallant and wise Unless It's You, and a shimmering Leon Russell tune, A Song for You. The production is respectful and courtly, with particularly fine work by Ron Carter on bass. P.R.
THE EAGLES: Hotel California (see Best of the Month; page 87) THE, ENID: In the Region of the Summer Stars. The Enid (instrumentals). The Sun; The Last Judgment; The Lovers; The Devil; and three others. Bux 52001 $6.98, 8-52001 $7.98.
Performance: Pretentious
Recording: A boomer
The strongest traceable influence on the com positions and music of the Enid, a.k.a. Robert John Godfrey, Francis Lickerish, Stephen Stewart, Glenn Tollett, and Robbie Dobson, would seem to be the Phantom of the Opera that is, after the Phantom had been to a con cert consisting exclusively of the most juicily transcendental sections of Strauss, Mahler, and Bruckner. In such boomers as The Sun, The Last Judgment, and The Devil, the Enid whack, thrum,. and blare (technically very well) through what sounds like a series, of stupendous chords. All the while, cast over everything, is an electronic, organ-like hum that' lets one know that Something Is Amiss. In deed there is. Even the dear old Phantom wasn't that deafeningly pretentious. Mean while, back on the farm, between Vangelis and the Enid poor Chicken Little is probably having one anxiety attack after another. P.R.
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LANI Hall, "Sweet Bird."
LANI Hall, a singer's singer if I ever heard one, used to be with Sergio Mendes and Brazil '66, which used her as just another instrument in a sort of ice-blue approach to mu sic. You might say the fact that she was a great vocalist- was an ice-blue secret. Here she's presented in a pop-singer-with-orchestra--get-up, circa 1953. Maybe that's the way to do it, but she and Michel Colombier and Herb Alpert (also the producer) let their arrangements get a little too ripe for my taste. They seem to sidle up (grandly, of course) and say, . . Er, ah, Lani really doesn't mean to seem this emotional, folks." Send In the Clowns, the strongest song here-which is no slur on most of the others-is just about ruined by an overreaching bump-thump back up that's "different" for the sake of being different. It just isn't that kind of song. Yet Lani, in there and in the others, is getting at it, feeling what the song is about and putting the feeling into her technically superb singing and she repeatedly guides you through the decorations and into the actual music. I am, of course, somewhat radical, but I'd have gone the opposite of ice-blue-where this is off from it about 45 degrees-and backed her with a spartan combo that plays by ear. Dismantle the slickness and give the voice its head, I say, follow it instead of setting up categories for it. But 45 degrees is something, and so is the temporary 120-degree use of a big bunch of strings for Joni Mitchell's Sweet Bird (which few other singers not named Joni Mitchell will ever dare to sing in public, I dare say), and the songs have something to say.
This woman can sing the shag out of the rug.
-Noel Coppage
LANI HALL: Sweet Bird. Lani Hall (vocals); orchestra. Send In the Clowns; That's When Miracles Occur; Early Monate Strangers; Mr. Blue (Misty Blue); Too Many Mornings; At the Ballet; The Moon Is All Alone (Like Me); Dolphin's Lullaby; Sweet Bird. A&M SP-4617 $6.98.
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FOGHAT: Night Shift. Foghat (vocals and instrumentals). Night Shift; Drivin' Wheel; I'll Be Standing By; Burning the Midnight Oil; and three others. BEARSVILLE BR 6962 $6.98, M8 6962 $7.97, M5 6962 $7.97.
Performance: Hot air
Recording: Good
Foghat is a hard-rock band that occasionally tries to be bluesy, but its members have little or no imagination, no basic ideas of their own, and play nothing they haven't heard some where else. Most hard-rock bands suffer the same deficiencies; the style depends for its success on volume and youthful energy, which are not talents or skills in themselves.
To shriek and keen and dazzle the paying customers, as Foghat does, is all very fine as long as the band or singer has some humor, grace, or stomach; lung power and mega-kill amplifiers are poor substitutes. J. V.
AL GREEN: Have a Good Time. Al Green (vocals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Keep Me Cryin'; Smile a Little Bit More; I Tried to Tell Myself; The Truth Marches On; and five others. Hi SHL 32103 $6.98, SHL8-32103 $7.98, SHL5-32103 $7.98.
Performance: Standardized
Recording: Good
If Al Green's albums usually sound the same, that is because they are meant to. Having arrived at a successful pop formula, he seldom deviates from it. His phrasing, modeled on Otis Redding's, is executed in a high tenor alternately delivered from the back of his throat and through his nostrils; he sings at half-volume as though saving his strength for an emergency which never comes, and he punctuates his readings with mild yips, 'wails, and moans inserted with mathematical precision.
Green is a crooner operating in the soul for mat, and his performances, though well-craft ed, are bloodless and all too predictable. If you liked his other albums, you'll like this one too. J. V.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
MERLE HAGGARD: The Roots of My Raising. Merle Haggard (vocals, fiddle); the Strangers (instrumentals). The Roots of My Raising; What Have You Got Planned Tonight Diana; The Waltz You Saved for Me; Walk on the Outside; Gamblin' Polka Dot Blues; Cherokee Maiden; and four others. CAPITOL ST-11586 $6.98, 8XT-11586 $7.98, 4XT-11586 $7.98.
Performance: Class all the way
Recording: Very good
Now here's something that, in its tape version, will make the truckers stop jabbering on their CB's and listen for a long stretch. What we need now is a scientific study on the diminished CB interference with television and mu sic systems along the interstates, correlated with the popularity of this album. A good thing, in any case. Merle Haggard, when he's really able to focus his energy on the making of an album, is something special. The latest gimmick that either Nashville or Bakersfield thinks it has to have in country music just passes by him, beautifully ignored; Haggard holds onto the basic folk values that made country music country. He goes his own way and trusts his audience to follow what he's doing and not laugh in the wrong places. He's seemed distracted at times in the making of other albums, and he still hasn't written the songs he seems to promise he will someday in fact he seems less and less prolific as a writer-but here he was attending to every selection in a clean, clear way. Given his natural talent, his fine band, and his unique experience and seasoning, that's all you need. An eighteen-wheeler with a full tank and a stretch of dry road wouldn't hurt, but the album works well in rooms, too. Trust me. N.C.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
JOHN HAMMOND: Solo. John Hammond (vocals, guitar, harmonica). I Can't Be Satisfied; Drifting Blues; Trucking Little Baby; Sky Is Crying; Look on Yonder Wall; Honest I Do; Hellbound Blues; and four others. VANGUARD VSD 79380 $6.98.
Performance: Compleat bluesmanship
Recording: Excellent
JOHN HAMMOND: an impeccable performance from a man who loves the blues
John Hammond loves the blues, has worked hard at making himself a good musician, and had a good voice to start with. I don't know what more one could ask . . . I do know what people always say, that he wasn't born black-but then if he were, he probably wouldn't be doing the blues at his age. Here he accompanies himself on guitar and, with one of those racks popularized by Dylan, on the harmonica before a small, live studio audience. He does a fairly varied program of Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, et al. I've heard better guitar playing and better harmonica (by Hammond himself when his hands were free), but I've seldom heard anyone play both at once this well. His singing style was, of course, mannered at first, but it is beyond that now; the rest of him has come around to jibe with it. The attitude be hind this performance is almost impeccable. I wish I'd been there, and this is recorded so well I almost feel I was. N.C.
STEVE HILLAGE: L. Steve Hillage (vocals, shenai, guitar, synthesizers); Don Cherry (trumpets, bells, tambura, voice); other musicians. Hurdy Gurdy Man; It's All Too Much; Electrick Gypsies; and three others. ATLANTIC SD 18205 $6.98.
Performance: Electrickery
Recording: Very good
Now, I ask you, who would name an album "L"? Somebody who would assure you that a track entitled Lunar Musick Suite has been "recorded exclusively at full moon, May and June," that's who. Who cares? Not too many people, I hope. I bet you already think I hate this album, but it is only the cuteness on the cover that I object to. What's inside--produced and engineered by Todd Rundgren--is souped-up to the hilt, but it's well done and mostly quite listenable. Despite the presence of Don Cherry-Ornette Coleman's former sidekick, who is heard only on Lunar Musick Suite--this is decidedly a rock album, synthesized to kingdom come and respectably per formed. If you like the sort of thing Rundgren dishes out under his own name, you'll probably like this serving as well. C.A.
LEO KOTTKE. Leo Kottke (guitar); instrumental accompaniment. Buckaroo; The White Ape; Hayseed Suede; Rio Leo; Range; Air-proofing; Maroon; Waltz; and three others. CHRYSALIS CHR 1106 $6.98.
Performance: Very good
Recording: Very good
This is another instrumental album from Leo Kottke, and this time the emphasis seems to be on his compositions. He may be refining his open-tuning and slide techniques on the twelve-string guitar, but what's more apparent is how he's fashioned melodies around those. It's a developmental process taking off from Kottke's almost abstract--at times it seems almost "pure," whatever that is--fascination with sound itself. His approach is complicated and gimmicky in the sense that it would seem to take four or five hands to do it, and simple in the sense that it's pegged to melody. With one instrument, he "orchestrates" it. A few other instruments help him along here in restrained ways. I would have liked a couple of vocals-Kottke's voice is a boomer that rides a diaphragm stronger than a trampoline--but I suppose the idea here was not to break up the program. Listen for theme and nuance and thou shall be rewarded. N.C.
DAVID LA FLAMME: White Bird. David La Flamme (vocals, violin); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. White Bird; Hot Summer Day; Swept Away; Easy Woman; and three others. AMFIERST AMH-1007 $6.98.
Performance: Scatter-shot
Recording: Good
David LaFlamme, as a sticker on the cover of this album informs us, was "former writer, vocalist, violinist, and leader of It's a Beautiful Day." The music on his solo album is abstracted, tending to wander-or stumble-in and out of various styles. He is only an aver age vocalist, and the lyrics to his songs are puerile and gushy when they aren't banal something an over-serious boy might write after an unexpected sensual experience at a church picnic.
But LaFlamme is a pretty good jazz violin ist, and the jazzier moments are the only ones in which "White Bird" comes close to sounding like something interesting. LaFlamme would probably be better off if he stopped trying to play all styles known to man in the course of a single Jello-like tune and concentrated on his violin playing, where most of his talent lies. J.V.
LORETTA LYNN: Somebody Somewhere (see Best of the Month, page 83)
MARILYN McCOO & BILLY DAVIS, JR.: I Hope We Get to Love in Time. Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. (vocals); orchestra. You Love; Nothing Can Stop Me; Easy Way Out; You Can't Change My Heart; Never Gonna Let You Go; and five others. ABC ABCD-952 $6.98, 0 8022-952H $7.95, 5022-952H $7.95.
Performance: Very good
Recording: Good
Almost all the entertainment here is on one band: Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr.'s chart hit, You Don't Have to Be a Star (to Be in My Show). It's one of those numbers not unlike Sonny and Cher's oldie I Got You Babe, that may not drop you with its originality or its profundity but that seems like a re membered trademark from the first moment you hear it. McCoo and Davis give it a smashing performance with a lot of genuine tender ness in the lyric reading and a robust musicianship that saves it from soap opera. As for the rest . . . well, it's all very professional, as you'd expect from two former members of the Fifth Dimension, and it'll probably knock 'em dead in Vegas, but the lightning firmly re fuses to strike twice. P.R.
MICHAEL MELFORD: Mandolin Fantasy.
Michael Melford (mandolin, guitar, vocal); Clyde Brooks (drums); Doug Dillard (banjo, vocals); other musicians. Devil's Dream; Black Eyed Susie; Georgia Camp Meeting; Train, Train; Omie Wise; Sweet Georgia Brown; and five others. FLYING FISH 023 $6.98.
Performance: Elegant and relaxing
Recording: Very good
I must confess I can't really tell "good" mandolin playing from mediocre mandolin playing beyond being able to detect something special about Bill Monroe's. I mean to correct that, though, as I've decided to learn how to play the thing myself. It is difficult to play well.
Years ago it was sold as a civilized if not se date instrument for making a sort of chamber music in the home. Bluegrass musicians have all but redefined the mandolin, and recordings like this make you glad they did. Not that this is heavy with lickety-split bluegrass tunes; what it does is show what a variety of approaches the mandolin can take. But then it isn't even heavy with mandolin solos or mandolin domination of the ensemble--it's a sprightly, bright, playful album with good picking coming at you from several instruments on a few old tunes you'll tolerate hearing again, under these particular circum stances, and some truly elegant and haunting ones, such as Omie Wise, that we shouldn't have been away from for so long. I guess Melford plays pretty well-give me about another year and I'll say more about it-and I know he has produced a good album. N.C.
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------ MARILYN MCCOO AND BILLY DAVIS, JR.: genuine tenderness and
robust musicianship
----- QUEEN: a technically dazzling balance of hard rock and
melodic winsomeness
ESTHER PHILLIPS: Capricorn Princess.
Esther Phillips (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Higher and Higher; Candy; All the Way Down; Dream; and four others. KUDU KU-31 $6.98, KU8-31 $7.98, KUC-31 $7.98.
Performance: Rat-a-tat-tat
Recording Very good
Esther Phillips can shred a song faster than a hail of machine-gun fire. After she incinerates the lyric she proceeds to mow down whatever remains of the tune with a prolonged barrage of gasps, exclamations, and shouts that effectively block out anything written in the charts themselves. Most of the time she's great fun, as in Higher and Higher or Magic's in the Air, where her expansiveness reaches the point of semi-delirium. But at other times she can be a genuine pain in the neck, as she is in her care less dismantling of Janis Ian's witty, sardonic Boy, I Really Tied One On, a song that de serves to be heard on its own terms and scarcely needs Phillips' frantic mouth-to mouth resuscitation. Otherwise everything's fine here-that is, if you enjoy hanging out with the Life of Every Party. P.R.
QUEEN: A Day at the Races. Queen (vocals and instrumentals). Tie Your Mother Down; You Take. My Breath Away; Long Away; The Millionaire Waltz; You and I; and five others. ELEKTRA 6E-1091 $7.98, ET8-1091 $7.97, TC5-1091 $7.97.
Performance: Cold
Recording: Excellent
The English critic Roy Carr observed recently that the vast majority of bands to have emerged in the. Seventies "are taking the mid-Sixties as their jumping off point, and in particular [italics mine] one of four albums: ‘Blonde on Blonde,' Beggar's Banquet,' Abbey Road,' and 'Led Zeppelin I.' " One could probably compile a long list of the groups that have chased the first two and failed, but Queen, an English troupe initially dismissed as just another tiresome entry in the glitter sweepstakes, has of late enjoyed enormous commercial success through a clever synthesis of the latter two.
In person Queen remains merely an undistinguished metal band in the Zeppelin mold (though, as one wag observed, they have the best smoke bombs in the business), but on records they have achieved a technically dazzling balance between Jimmy Page-ish hard rock and Paul McCartney/George Martin studio trickery and melodic winsomeness. Considering the low level of the recent competition, I suppose you have to award them some sort of high marks, and, to give them their due, they have come up with one truly original innovation in Brian May's remarkable over dubbing of multiple guitars to produce orchestral textures. Still, for all their mastery of craft, they are one of the coldest bands extant. Zeppelin and the Beatles are/were studio virtuosos too, but their best work had fire, passion, and an illusion of spontaneity.
Nothing of the sort can be said for Queen.
The supposed masterpiece from their previous album, Bohemian Rhapsody, for example, was all. decked out with structural tricks and clever vocalisms, but it meant absolutely nothing lyrically, musically, or emotionally.
Of course, on a purely academic level, neither did Little Richard's "Awopbopaloomopawop bamboomr , but that misses the point which is, in case you haven't gotten it by now, that Queen, on this record as well as in all its previous outings, has not displayed one iota of human feeling beyond the prevailing Seventies attitude of Get the Product Out. That the group has been so successful in disguising, this hollow center to-so many people is, simply, incomprehensible. -S.S.
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The Hollies: Live
Hicks THE Hollies, despite a ridiculously lengthy history of chart successes in this country, have never really gotten the kind of respect that those successes ought to have assured them. There are a couple of reasons for this. For starters, the Hollies hardly ever tour, and, with very few exceptions, bands that don't tour seem destined to remain cult enthusiasms. For another thing, they have never bothered to generate any, shall we say, extramusical associations-that is, they ain't got much of an "image." It's generally known that they are about as regular a bunch of guys as any fond mother could dream up (a publicist who worked with them once told me in credulously that their bassist, Bernie Calvert, actually went to church every Sunday), and when Graham Nash left the band to hang out with the Los Angeles pop-star crowd and join CSN&Y, he badmouthed them pretty strongly along those lines, which probably didn't help.
But, of course, none of that should matter.
Strictly on the recorded evidence of the last fourteen (!) years, the Hollies are one of the finest pop/rock outfits ever-I'd venture that only the current reconstituted Fleetwood Mac is even remotely in their league. Even if it turned out that they were all actually Rumanian albino transsexual midgets, what would that have to do with their music? ALL right then, we have two new Hollies al bums in front of us, both-for contractual reasons so complex absolutely nobody under stands them-available at present only as imports, and what are we to make of them? Well, the first, "Russian Roulette," is a distinct disappointment. As I have said before, the Hollies are extremely erratic composers (their best recent albums have been fleshed out with the work of other songwriters), and it seems their well ran dry when they were doing this one. The general flavor of the album verges perilously on disco, and the Hollies sound pretty silly when they get funky. Al though their singing and playing are as good as ever (maybe better), the material is bad enough to defeat them. There is, thank the Lord, one exception, a positively addictive number called My Love, that shows them at Sylvester Calvert Clarke their strongest. It's a mid-Sixties pop rocker (the sort of thing people like Dwight Twilley are currently chasing with notable lack of success) with Beatlish chord changes and a rhythmic dynamism that has the kind of power the Who are famous for. But that's about it; pray it's released as a single.
"Hollies Live," however, is another cornucopia of fish-and-chips altogether. Some have already ranked it with "Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out" and "Live at Leeds," which is to say that it is one of the handful of live rock al bums deserving the appellation "classic." I'll simply say that it makes the recent Wings live set sound like amateur night. If I hadn't seen the band do essentially the same program presented here at two shows during their 1975 American mini-tour, I would find if too difficult to believe it had not been totally doctored in the studio-it's that slick.
But the slickness does not, I hasten to add, translate into lack of feeling. Many of the songs here-and they span literally the whole of the band's career-are far more moving than they were on their first go-rounds. The lovely version of Bruce Springsteen's Sandy is a case in point. Without the orchestral trappings that dressed it up originally, it comes across as much more atmospheric and authentic. Even that most celebrated of schlock weepers, the unfortunately ubiquitous He Ain't Heavy, is a genuinely affecting ballad here. As for the Hollies' overall singing well, it's just incredible; not even the Beach Boys can pull off this kind of breathtaking harmony work in person. Whether they're applying it to such up-tempo rockers as Just One Elliott Look (their first American hit, 1964) or newer melodramas such as I'm Down, it is simply spine-tingling. And the Hollies' instrumental sound is much tougher than they are generally given credit for-the rhythm section, propelled by the explosively kinetic drumming of Bobby Elliott, is superb, and (with the help of guest keyboard star Pete Wingfield) the level of the group's playing is comparable in gutsiness to that of just about any other rock band you could mention.
[... it makes the recent Wings live set sound like amateur night ...]
IN case you haven't guessed by now, I'm just nuts about this record, and I suspect that any one else with even a passing interest in rock and-roll will feel the same way about it. Since the import sales have already been substantial, Columbia will probably have to release it stateside eventually, but if I were you I wouldn't wait-you'll have too much fun playing it for your friends, watching their jaws drop and their gooseflesh rise. It's the kind of album that makes you remember just why you fell in love with rock in the first place.-Steve Simels
THE HOLLIFS: Russian Roulette. The Hollies (vocals and instrumentals); other musicians. Wiggle That Wotsit; 48 Hour Parole; Thanks for the Memories; My Love; Lady of the Night; Russian Roulette; Draggin' My Heels; Louise; Be with You; Daddy Don't Mind. POLY DOR 2383 421 $6.49 (available from Jem Records, Import Record Service, Box 343, 3001 Hadley Road, South Plainfield, N.J. 07080; include 350 per disc handling charge).
THE HOLLIES: Hollies Live. The Hollies (vocals and instrumentals); Pete Wingfield (key boards). I Can't Let Go; Just One Look; I Can't Tell the Bottom from the Top; Bus Stop; Another Night; Sandy; Star; My Island; I'm Down; Stop, Stop, Stop; Long Cool Woman (in a Black Dress); Carrie Anne; The Air That I Breathe; Too Young to Be Married; He Ain't Heavy. COLUMBIA PES 90401 $6.49 (available from Jem Records, Import Record Service, Box 343, 3001 Hadley Road, South Plainfield, N.J. 07080; include 350 per disc handling charge).
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MARTHA REEVES: The Rest of My Life. Martha Reeves (vocals); orchestra. This Time I'll Be Sweeter; Love Blind; Second Chance; Love Strong Enough to Move Mountains; Higher and Higher; and four others. ARISTA AL 4105 $6.98, 0 8301-4105H $7.95, 0 5301-4105H $7.95.
Performance: Perverted
Recording: Good
From all accounts, the Motown Record empire of the Sixties was run in a manner akin to that of the big movie studios of Hollywood's Golden Age-the star grooming, the political infighting, and the blacklisting were apparently very close to the kind of thing that went on at MGM or Paramount. Sadly, at Motown as in Hollywood, the losers were female more often than not. Kim Weston is now a Detroit disc jockey; Tammi Terrell died on stage; Florence Ballard of the Supremes died broke and on welfare; Brenda Holloway, the Marvelettes, and Mary Wells have all but faded into obscurity. Only Diana Ross and Gladys Knight still prosper, though they are singing the direst kind of Vegas MOR and Knight had to leave the label to get her due anyway.
Which leads us to Martha Reeves' new al bum and label. The operative word here is wasteful. At Motown, as leader of the Vandellas, she cut a succession of classic singles in which she soared easily over gargantuan wall-of-sound production jobs (most rock aficionados consider Dancing in the Streets one of the greatest 45's of all time), but then, for reasons known only to God and Berry Gordy, we heard no more from her for a few years until she came back on that dreadful MCA album.
Reeves' new effort, on Arista this time, sports three different producers, which should give you some idea of the care with which the project was approached. She is presented as-surprise!-a disco singer. So, in between the gooey hey-baby-let's-get-it-on ballads, we get disco remakes of Sixties soul classics that are obviously meant to appeal to the same folks who are buying Gloria Gaynor's updatings of Motown classics from the same period. To say that it doesn't work, to say that a great singer is being criminally mis used, to say that this is a thoroughly disheartening album, would be the height of under statement. Unfortunately, I can't see what else Martha can do. . . . unless, of course, there's somebody out there like Miami Steve Van Zandt who can give her the artistic shot in the arm he and Southside Johnny provided Ronnie Spector. Are you listening, guys? S.S.
SEALS & CROFTS: Sudan Village. Jim Seals (vocals, guitar, fiddle); Dash Crofts (vocals, mandolin); Bill Cuomo (keyboards); Ralph Humphrey (drums); Bobby Lichtig (bass); other musicians. Sudan Village; Advance Guards; 'Cause You Love; Baby I'll Give It to You; Thunderfoot; and four others. WARNER BROS. BS 2976 $6.98, 0 M8 2976 $7.97, M5 2976 $7.97.
Performance: Variable
Recording: Good remote
------- SLY STONE: back again with a joyous greeting card.
This makes a good start, with Seals and Crofts peering out of a Rousseau-style jungle on the cover and gently but firmly caring for the first couple of songs, but then it resolutely fizzles out. If I felt a great need to hear Arkansas Traveler and Eighth of January fiddled and picked, I certainly wouldn't turn to Seals and Crofts (or anyone else who grew up with indoor plumbing) to hear them, at least not until I had to, but here they are wasting vinyl on performances that are pretty lame technically and very lame spiritually. And if I felt a great need to hear any rock instrumental, except possibly by the Who, I'd hie myself to a shrink--but here we go, on and on, with a thoroughly dead thing called Thunderfoot.
Well, it's a live album; if you had been there with something to do besides listen, it would have been different. About a third of this is superior to most live albums, with Seals and Crofts applying what is unique about their style to some new and revisited material.
Maybe it's trying to recapture "the spirit of the tour" that causes the other two-thirds to be here. If that's it, I wish musicians would start keeping diaries or making tapes for their own nostalgic uses. What they owe us listeners is music. N.C.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
SLY & THE FAMILY STONE: Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back. Sly Stone (vocals, keyboards); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back; What Was I Thinkin' in My Head; Nothing Less Than Happiness; Sexy Situation; Blessing in Disguise; and five others. EPIC PE 34348 $6.98, PEA-34348 $7.98, © PET-34348 $7.98.
Performance: Excellent
Recording: Excellent
Sylvester Stewart, a.k.a. Sly Stone, seems to have regained all the inventive joy that made his music so exciting during the first burst of his career in 1968-1970. There was a protract ed and unhappy period after that when he be came musically furtive, morose, and ponderous, but a few years ago whatever it was that had been freezing his talent started to thaw.
The title of this album and an emotional testimonial by Philadelphia producer Kenneth Gamble ("May almighty God give you the strength to control your emotions ... may you profit from your mistakes...") indicate that Sly feels free and happy again and that he is no longer wrestling with himself.
But the credits read "Produced by Sly Stone and Sylvester Stewart," and the title tune could as easily be a dialogue between two aspects, of his personality as it could be a greeting card to the audience.
At any rate, the music here is refreshing, positive, and enticing. Sly's greatest talent is as an arranger-he is one of the best in the business-and his way of expressing an emotional concept with instrumental and vocal colorations is like no one else's. He has in deed been missed, and it's very good to have him back again. J. V.
THIN LIZZY: Johnny the Fox. Thin Lizzy (vocals and instrumentals). Johnny; Rocky; Borderline; Don't Believe a Word; Fool's Gold; and five others. MERCURY SRM 1-1119 $6.98, MC81-1119 $7.95, MCR41-1119 $7.95.
Performance: Better than the material
Recording: Good
Until last year, Thin Lizzy was a marginally successful journeyman English metal band that survived frequent personnel changes and knocked around its homeland largely on the strength of lead singer Phil Lynott. One of the crucial failings of most metal bands is that vocally they all sound the same, featuring either freak-high, only-dogs-can-hear-'em tenors or vibrato-laden Italiante yowlers, but Lynott's vaguely soulful stylings gave the band some semblance of an individual identity.
Then they got lucky; Lynott came up with a group of reasonably imaginative songs, including a bona fide classic, The Boys Are Back in Town, one of the few rock tunes that kept AM radio from drowning in a sea of disco last summer. It had about everything-an irresistible hook, sizzling dual guitar work, and a lyric just enigmatic enough to hold one's interest through repeated listenings.
The problem was the timing. Lynott sounded--superficially--like Bruce Springsteen, and, although their approaches are worlds apart, the media seized on the resemblance.
Lynott freaked, made defensive statements to the British pop press, and threatened a new album that would end the comparisons.
The result, "Johnny the Fox," is an over reaction. The lyricism, the sensitivity, that had begun to come through in The Boys has been abandoned for-you guessed it-the same kind of heavy blandness, though a wee bit more sophisticated, that everybody from Aerosmith to Kiss has been dishing out of late. There is, however, one stunning exception: Old Flame, a really lovely little ballad that leaves one with the hope that Lynott will recover and Thin Lizzy will someday make an album that picks up from the promising point we left them at in the summer of '76. S. S.
SYLVIA TYSON: Cool Wind from the North. Sylvia Tyson (vocals); orchestra. Good Old Song; Tumble-Down Woman; River Road; Honey Hair; Poor Fool; and five others. CAPITOL ST 6441 $6.98.
Performance: Monotonous
Recording: Good
Sylvia Fricker, which is the way she's billed in her songwriting credits, is the Sylvia Tyson of Ian and Sylvia, and she's now on her own, singing mostly her own material. Ian produced this album and has devised a smooth, waxen showcase for Sylvia's throaty contral to monotone. It's sophisticated c-&-w, if that isn't a contradiction in terms, and Sylvia moons about in such things as I Can't Learn to Love You and Poor Old Rose appropriately and assuredly and almost endlessly. It's in tensely boring. P.R.
DIANA WILLIAMS. Diana Williams (vocals); Bobby Dyson (bass); other musicians. Teddy Bear's Last Ride; The Loving of Your Life; Be Careful of Stones That You Throw; Old Fashioned Love Song; Little One; and five others. CAPITOL ST-11587 $6.98, 8XT-11587 $7.98, 4XT-11587 $7.98.
Performance: Right lame
Recording: Good
I'd like to thank Diana Williams and her writers for killing off Teddy Bear. He was the little crippled boy Red Sovine sang-rather, talked-about in working yet another angle to exploit the CB craze. Only pleasure the little fellow got out of life, you see, was talking to the truckers on the CB. Here Diana Williams, "Mama Teddy Bear's best friend," comes on and tells truckers and non-truckers that the kid has expired. I hope that means we'll hear no more about him, although I wouldn't be surprised if St. Peter comes on the CB with still more news about him. I'd hoped that country music was finally beyond stooping to "recitations" and crippled-to-dead-kid themes, and you see what I got for that. Anyway, the rest of this album suggests that Diana Williams would rather recite than sing, and it sounds like she's reciting when she does sing any way-or like she's busy chewing gum or doing something that takes her mind off the words. Not that you can blame her, considering the lyrics; when Loretta Haggers does this sort of thing, she's kidding, which is some thing the people handling Diana ought to learn right quick. Unless they want you to buy her albums to make fun of them. N.C.
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WISHBONE ASH: rock without relevance.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
WISHBONE ASH: New England. Wishbone Ash (vocals and instrumentals). Mother of Pearl; Runaway; Lorelei; Prelude; Lonely Is land; and four others. ATLANTIC SD 18200 $6.98, 0 TP 18200 $7.97, CS 18200 $7.97.
Performance: Excellent
Recording: Excellent
The title is " New England" but it could just as easily be " Mozambique" or " Montana" for whatever influence geographical location shows on this album. Wishbone Ash remains an island of rock only briefly touched by waves from any other outside-world shores.
And very good, solid rock it is: slightly on the sedate side, a bit too well-mannered, but so effectively played and sung by its composer/ performers that one can listen to it repeatedly without feeling foolish. The best things here are Mother of Pearl and a rather gauzy but potent Lorelei. It's an album you'll continue to enjoy for a long time with nary a pang about its "relevance." P.R.
FRANK ZAPPA: Zoot Allures. Frank Zappa (vocals and guitar); instrumental accompaniment. Black Napkins; The Torture Never Stops; Disco Boy; Friendly Little Finger; Wonderful Wino; and four others. WARNER BROS. BS 2970 $6.98, M8 2970 $7.97, M5 2970 $7.97.
Performance: Hectically boring
Recording: Old fashioned
Frank Zappa's ability to astonish the middle class listening public has dwindled so much that these days he comes across as the musical male equivalent of one of those eccentric shopping-bag ladies muttering darkly to her self in a doorway. Stale breezes from the Six ties waft all through this album as Zappa tries his old-time shock tactics in such things as The Torture Never Stops and Black Napkins.
The result is so hectically boring that it makes you want to buy a pencil from him just to shut him up. Needless to say, the crust of pretension is that thick and the production work is an elaborate hodgepodge of everything that was "happening" ten years ago.
If you want to know about that album title: years ago there was a French cartoon that showed a ve-r-r-y long dachshund wrapped all the way around a tree so that he was sniffing his own little behind. The caption read: "Zut, alors-c'est mai!" Just so. P.R.
COLLECTIONS
VERMONT HARMONY 2 (see Best of the Month, page 85)
THE WALNUT VALLEY SPRING THING. John Hartford: Joseph's Dream; I Thought You Were Holding. Don Humphreys and Tut Taylor: Flat-Pickin' Dobro Man. New Grass Revival: Sally Goodin; Fly Through the Country. Merle Travis: Smoke That Cigarette; Dark as a Dungeon; I'll See You in My Dreams; White Heat. Cathy Barton: Soldier's Joy. The Hutchison Brothers: Girl from the North Country; Orange Blossom Special. TAKOMA D-1054 $6.98.
Performance: Good fun
Recording: Fair to excellent remote
Bear with this one. John Hartford is a bit off form-at least in deciding what songs to include-at the start, but things pick up. Don Humphreys' singing and Tut Taylor's flat-picking on the dobro are more like it, and the New Grass Revival, a group it really is fair to call a progressive bluegrass band, has a fine time with a haunting Jim Webb song called Fly Through the Country. Then there's Merle Travis, quite a lot of him. His singing voice has seen better days, but he has a lot of soul (he is from Kentucky) and his two-finger guitar-picking style is as distinctive and, as White Heat tends to indicate, as fast as ever. Cathy Barton's fiddle/hammered-dulcimer bash at Soldier's Joy is nice, too, and the Hutchison Brothers' imitation of both Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash on Girl from the North Country, including three (count 'em, three) of Dylan's singing styles (and all one of Cash's) is a real knee-slapper. All this was recorded at the Walnut Valley festival in Kansas on what sounds like pretty good equipment. The mikes caught a little too much of the rowdies in the audience, but still it's a live album worth having, something almost as rare as a dope dealer who pays taxes. N.C.
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Also see:
EDITORIALLY SPEAKING, WILLIAM ANDERSON