This was a solo effort; I think his best, although I’d have to admit I haven’t kept up with him in recent years.
He was lead singer for Roxy Music. Roxy’s the High Road, a live EP contains another amazing couple of covers (Neil Young’s ‘Like a Hurricane’ and John Lennon’s ‘Jealous Guy.’) Roxy Music’s Avalon is another favorite album of mine. I’ll review Roxy Music when I get to the R’s.
For now I get to dust off this one which has been fun listening to.
Standout covers include: the opening track, Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall;’ ‘Tracks of my Tears,’ famously sung by Smokey Robinson; and ‘You Won’t See Me,’ a version which I think I like more than Beatles’ version. I know, heresy.
The Stones’ cover, ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ was an ambitious challenge but a failed one in my estimation. It’s one of those where the original artists can’t be beat so why try. I say this, though, I was recently blown away by Pink singing ‘Me and Bobby McGee’ – a song which I felt Janis Joplin’s cover of the Kris Kristofferson song was the definitive take.It still is but Pink slams the song home. Alhough it really is a close impression of Joplin’s version, who would of thunk Pink could channel that tricky song the way she did.
Speaking of Janis, Ferry does an interesting version of ‘Piece of My Heart’ that turns it inside out showing the incredible subtleties in Ferry’s croonful (my word) voice.
Those of you reading my blog know by now, I wasn’t a collector of records for value’s sake. In other words I wasn’t looking for rare; I was looking for cheap.
To this end I went down various paths in my musical tastes and purchases. I am most of the time a fan of ‘best-of’ or ‘greatest hits’ collections. Most ‘real’ collectors are not. I used greatest hits to learn about an artist that I didn’t know too well and see if it led me to a whole new avenue of music. The Kinks were a band like that, I think my first Kinks record was a Pye label greatest hits. I went ‘wow’ and have since collected about 8 or 10 Kinks records, many cut-outs and bargain bin material (Soap Opera anyone?)
This is true with Fairport Convention, in a way.
I knew virtually nothing about the 1960s and 1970s English folk rock group when I bought Chronicles, a wonderful compilation that sounds like a very well done studio album.
The album led me to other artists and other purchases: the amazing guitarist Richard Thompson and his solo work; the super great vocalist (and Richard’s ex-wife) Linda Thompson; the early folk-rock-jazz groups, Pentangle and the Strawbs; and the angelic vocalist Sandy Denny.
One of the best dark albums of all time is Richard and Linda Thompson’s ‘Shoot out the Lights,’ with songs such as ‘Wall of Death’ and ‘Did She Jump or was She Pushed.’ They recorded it while breaking up and it is heart rendering.
On Fairport Convention, there is a lilting quality of sadness lurking. Sadly Beautiful, to borrow from a Replacements song.
Songs like: ‘Who knows Where the Time Goes;’ ‘Meet on the Ledge;’ Dylan cover ‘Percy’s Song;’ ‘Fotheringay’; ‘Sloth’; ‘Genesis Hall; and ‘Farewell, Farewell,’ come together and set a lost, lonely, ethereal atmosphere that alternately may touch your heart or punch you in the gut.
Let me preface this by saying the Small Faces evolved into Faces after Steve Marriott left. Rod Stewart then hopped on board. They always seemed like they were having a real good time and seemed to be shit-faced half the time.
Put this one on and bring the pub to our home.
Feet sticking to the floor. Band so bad it’s the best; Chuck Berry chords. Dancing. Here hold my beer!
You either love Rod Stewart or you don’t. No?
I think he’s great. His distinct voice always seemingly on the verge of laryngitis, his vocal skills, timing. his rock and roll sensibilities. Even his highly commercial Top 40 years and brief fling (like the Stones and Bowie, TinaTurner, etc.) with disco. I took heat from my peers about having too much Rod Stewart in my collection. But these uninformed critics (my HS, college buddies) didn’t know the early stuff which was raucous rock and roll. He went commercial, sure, with his eye on mass consumption. But come on, the guy is only ranked 23rd on the rock star net worth charts at $235 million.
I mean Stewart is a guy who can sing ballads with feeling, belt the blues rock songs and do a standard that brings grandmas running to the stage. It Had to be You ,,,,
Here though it is mostly rock and blues.
He’s been successful for decades. This Faces record is a best-of one of his early bands, the Faces. It doesn’t feel like a compilation, however. as the party songs flow and nearly every song has that famous Small Faces/Faces live sound. It’s roots music, especially as influenced by the wonderful Ronnie Lane, before they called it roots music.
Favorite lines from Miss Judy’s Farm:
Miss Judy she could have me Any hour of the working day She’d send me in the corn field mid-afternoon Said son it’s all part of your job
Miss Judy had a cross-eyed poodle That I would kick if I was given the chance
Best known song here, probably ‘Stay with Me’ which feels like the prequel to his later smash, ‘Maggie May.’ Although ‘Ooh La La’ has had some staying power over the years.
Strange command in the ‘Stay with Me’ song: Sit down, get up, get out.
All right, already. Make up your mind you sexist pig.
Lot of things going on here. Josh Tillman aka Father John Misty is a smart guy. I think he knows it.
Pure Comedy is a song that is near brilliant.
Tillman’s story in one sentence: The drummer of folk rock group Fleet Foxes took some psilocybin mushrooms a few years ago, became enlightened, started using a pseudonym, and began wearing better clothes.
Couple of anomalies to clear up before I go forward. The usual My Vinyl Countdown records are ones I picked in the 1970’s and 1980’s. I’ve been counting them down, 678 in all, to raise awareness of Lewy body dementia, which I have. I have about 500 records to go .
Pure Comedy breaks the mode a bit in that this is a 2017 vinyl recording that I received from family members who want to extend my life under the theory that the more I have the more time I have to live. And it is true that this disease shortens lifespans but that I have vowed to finish the reviews, which on my current pace will be about 2 or more years from now unless I accelerate.
So, anomaly one, this is contemporary. Not my golden 1980s — stop-making-synth records. I will review and countdown new vinyl, when I get it and have done so at least two other times with Joseph Arthur and Max DeMarco.
I have some more coming up, including, I believe, the Fleet Foxes which connects to the Misty record here.
And, anomaly two, this double record set came with two of the same records – I got two side 3’s and side 4s. I did not get a side 1 and 2. What the hell? It’s a factory packaging mistake that in no way makes it more valuable. So, I filled in the rest of this record by going on YouTube to listen to the songs I was missing, especially the title track, a key song here.
Opening line is one strong couplet, foreshadowing and outlining the album’s life-is-so-bad-it’s-funny themes. The comedy of it all. The divine comedy of it all. Star.
The comedy of man starts like this; our brains are way too big for our mother’s hips.
But the album itself cannot stay at that high level and sinks slowly back into the primordial pool. To make this totally work, you would have to love the words so much to hang with this singer who is not working much in traditional pop structures. Dylan could be like that – so could early Billy Joel who went 180 degrees the other way later toward more formulaic derivative pop.
Would it be fair to say Tillman is somewhere between Billy Joel and Bob Dylan? Probably not. More like a day-glo Randy Newman.
But Tillman started something, by starting the album in this way. He caused me to be on alert for a real honest-to-God trailblazing singer-songwriter. The rest of the album didn’t tip me over though. So he is still on my ‘watch’ list. Update: I just watched/saw Misty’s ‘God’s Favorite Customer’ on YouTube. Excellent. Beautiful. I’m starting to tip. Then I watched ‘Mr. Tillman video. Wow. Now I have to get this on vinyl and put the new one on my countdown.
Back to Pure Comedy, here’s the opening that says it all and forecasts more:
The comedy of man starts like this; our brains are way too big for our mother’s hips.
And so nature, she divines this alternative:
We emerge half-formed and hope whoever greets us on the other end
Is kind enough to fill us in
And babies, that’s pretty much how it’s been ever since
I’m being silly but something has me a little shaken, or maybe the word bemused is how best to describe how I feel about this. Bear with me.
I wrote a story about lightning today for AL.com. I was going to put a photo I took many years ago, on I believe Fort Walton Beach or Destin on Florida’s Panhandle.
Probably 25 or 30 years ago, my wife, Catherine, and I had just pulled up to the beach and despite a gathering storm got out to walk. I saw lightning and grabbed my camera. I ended up getting a nice shot of two lightning bolts out in the ocean reflected like a mirror-image on the wet beach. This was the days of real film so I really had no idea what I had until later developed. But when I saw it I went to camera store and had it enlarged and framed. I was proud.
My wife, not quite as impressed as I was with my lightning photo, has tolerantly let me hang it — in the basement.
Anyway I decided to take a picture of my picture last night to use as an illustration for a column, which was about my longtime near obsession with the cosmic qualities of lightning.
One of the stories I tell in my article today is about a golfer who had his silver cross, which was on a chain around his neck while playing golf in a thunderstorm. The cross vaporized as the golfer was hit by lightning on the Florida course. He lived, but the lightning left an indelible mark. The lightning flash boiled the cross leaving him with a permanent scar in the shape of a cross.
So when it came time to add a photo of my photo, I was shocked. I took about eight snaps. One was different from the rest. One of the two bolts appeared to be in the shape of the cross. So I’m not one who thinks it’s a miracle when an image of the Virgin Mary appeared on a grilled cheese sandwich. That sold for $28,000 by the way. Hmmm.
This is the same photo which is hanging in my basement. The cross appeared in one of eight shots I took. See second picture, lightning bolt on right shaped like cross. In the third picture I circle the cross/lightning, but it’s seems kind of hard to see. To the naked eyeball, the picture looks like the one on the left. So to be clear, there is only one photo. I snapped multiple shots — 8 — within about a 5-minute period. My guess is there was some kind of lighting change that happened as I moved to a slightly different angle? But still baffling. And added on to other inexplicable ‘coincidences’ — here and here — I am beginning to think I have a brain disease.
John Fahey’s music is hard to categorize. And he may have been the most influential guitarist you’ve never heard of.
Not a shredder, but a plucker.
He said he considered himself a classical guitarist. But the category he was usually placed under was ‘primitive guitar, blues, folk.’ It was mostly like nothing you’ve ever heard. Light finger-picking guitar delivered pieces that lulled you into the deeper recesses of the song. Hypnotized without consent.
You listen and think, I could do that. Then he does something so quick and unexpected that you have to stop and reshape or get lost in it.
By Ellis408 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31511739
To continue my metaphorical ways, the music was like a lazy river, no whitewater. Rolling, rolling through small eddys. Lay a soft whispery vocal on some of these songs and it would sound like Nick Drake.
There are versions of Blind Joe Death that are rare and expensive. When I found Blind Joe Death in used record store in Leesburg, FL, I thought I had hit the jackpot. I had just read an article about Fahey and how he released only 100 copies of Blind Joe Death. But alas, it was not the valuable one. Although this version is being shopped around out there in the $30-40 range.
Sears slogan: Where your past is about all we have left.
From WIki:
Fahey discovered his love of early blues upon hearing Blind Willie Johnson‘s “Praise God I’m Satisfied” on a record-collecting trip to Baltimore with his friend and mentor, the musicologist Richard K. Spottswood. Much later, Fahey compared the experience to a religious conversion and remained a devout blues disciple until his death. {FROM MIKE: I like that he took record-collecting trips.}
As his guitar playing and composing progressed, Fahey developed a style that blended the picking patterns he discovered on old blues 78s with the dissonance of contemporary classical composers he loved, such as Charles Ives and Béla Bartók.
Rolling Stone put Fahey at 35th in their Top 100 Guitarists of all time.
Some traditional songs on the two albums I have include ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken,’ Oh Come, Oh Come Emanuel,’ “Uncloudy Day,’ and ‘St. Louis Blues.’
Those are the highlights. Never really liked the Eurythmics much. I always thought Annie could sing, but I thought she thought she could sing better than she can sing. I bought this on the singular best song and overplayed song she and Dave Stewart have ever done: ‘Sweet Dreams.’ (Which to me sounded like a great Madonna song.)
So I guess I’m realizing this 30 years too late. But I bought the wrong record..
ALBUMS: Emerson Lake and Palmer (1970); Works Vol. 2 (1977)
When it comes to Emerson, Lake and Palmer I find myself feeling inadequate.
I loved ‘Lucky Man,’ when I was 13 or so (actually still do) so I got that album.
But that was written by Greg Lake when he was 12! OMG.
The classically influenced forays by Emerson and gang are labeled pretentious by some critics.
I don’t mind saying, I don’t find them pretentious. They are sometimes beautiful to my ears and sometimes they are over my ears and over my head.
ELP was no obscure Soft Machine here (see my home page graphic).
ELP sold about 50 million records worldwide.
When I posted on my Van Cliburn albums, I wondered in the column if Emerson could have beaten Van Cliburn in the International Tchaikovsky Competition. Well I didn’t wonder so overtly but I did set up ‘dueling’ videos.
I don’t know what’s going on when someone sounds like they have three hands on the piano. I can never break this down like altrockchick.com, a multi-instrumentalist, multilingual and probably one of the most insightful rock critics I’ve read of late.
. Read a snippet from her review of ELP’s Trilogy:
Here Keith Emerson demonstrates his dynamic flexibility on the piano, quieting detractors with a delicately played and beautifully phrased sequence. His return to percussive piano chords signals the intro to Part 2, a passage with tiny hints of Copland, foreshadowing the later track, “Hoedown.” Greg Lake then returns to sing the enigmatic closing verses.
I cannot write that. But I believe she knows it based on her other writings and the authority with which she writes.
Now my mentor and adversary (he has no idea who I am, of course), Robert Christgau, the grand poo-bah of acerbic crank, famously panned ELP, and said the fans are as pretentious as the band, or something like that.
Uh oh. I recently sat listening to ELP with my daughter, late 20s, and we thoroughly enjoyed Works Vol. 2 and their self-entitled debut album. Emily would read a bit during the contemplative pieces and perk up and grab the album cover on some of the more brazen ones. She is the least pretentious person I know. (She likes Dixie Chicks, who can also play their instruments.)
And I can listen to a master pianist, Emerson, play Scott Joplin all day.
Now I’m digging through my box ‘o cassette tapes because I remember I had Tarkus in that format.
I sold my Insect Trust .45 Saturday so Tarkus might be a good replacement in my rotation.
Did you know the mayor of Atlanta is the daughter of Major Lance?
Interesting. I did not know that. I learned this as I was researching this record compilation called ‘Endless Beach.’
Who is Major Lance, you ask?
A lesser known R&B singer who had some hits in the 1960s, notably ‘Um, Um, Um, Um, Um,’ and ‘The Monkey Time.’
This record also led to a search of information on Carolina Beach Music, a sub-genre of old and new R&B closely associated with the dance called the Carolina Shag. My take on listening to this album is that it is quite nice, pleasant, feel-good music. Undiscovered gem.
Some of the artists here, playing music represented from 1963 to 1979, include Robert John, Tower of Power, The Tymes, Tina Charles, Wild Cherry, Otis Leavill, and Spiral Staircase.
This two – record set has a very detailed R. Crumb-like cover credited to Ellwood Smith.
Keisha Lance Bottoms
Liner notes explain the Carolina Beach sound.
Lance’s daughter is Keisha Lance Bottoms, the 60th mayor of Atlanta.
There’s a YouTube video out there which isolates Entwistle playing bass on ‘Won’t get Fooled Again.’ It shows he really can play the hell out of the bass. One of the best of all time other musicians agree.
So, that’s a good way to listen to this album. If the song doesn’t grab you, or more likely, if the lyrics seem bad, — then listen for the bass and marvel at the bass runs. You do have Peter Frampton on this record, playing some nice lead guitar. And there are some good tuneful songs here that must have seemed much more intelligent to my 19-year-old ears then after 40 years of life experience after that.
I remember liking this album a lot more than I do now after three or four listens, For me in my now self, it is good but not at all the undiscovered gem that I thought I remembered. Alternatively, the Dave Davies solo stuff, another band member of a major group, stands up better over time. Such are the surprises when you pick through your past.
Maybe it’s songs like ‘I Feel Better’ and ‘Who Cares’ and which come across as angry break-up songs with not a shred of humor or, maybe, perspective.
From ‘I Feel Better,’ ‘You can’t keep an animal that ain’t been tamed, you didn’t even know the fellow’s name.’
‘Who Cares‘ is one that if you ignore the lyrics, the bass and guitar interplay is pretty amazing as the song does a long fade.
From ‘Thinking it Over’ he sings: “Thinking it over I decided not to worry, I decided to take my own life.’
Dark and funny I appreciate. Dark and not funny is, well dark.
Sears slogan: Where your past is about all we have left.
ALBUMS: Emerson Lake and Palmer (1970); Works Vol. 2 (1977)
