This is an interesting record from one of the founders of rock ‘n roll.
MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$$
Son of a church deacon, who severely punished Little Richard after catching his son wearing women’s clothes , Little Richard aka Richard Wayne Penniman clearly had some personal issues in his life — sexuality conflicts and substance abuse.
According to various sources including an autobiography, Little Richard’s father’s church duties in Macon, Ga., were augmented by a moonshine and nightclub business. So somewhere therein lies a reason or two why Little Richard bounced back and forth between being ‘born again,’ singing gospel and secular music that pushed the bounds that society had laid down for sexually explicit content at the time.
Long Tall Sally, Tutti Frutti, and Good Golly Miss Molly are three of his bigger hits whose vocal stylings influenced everyone from Paul McCartney to Wilson Picket.
The record company had to hire someone to clean up the lyrics forTutti Frutti, for example. This 1985 gospel record is not listed on Wikipedia’s discography although you can buy it on vinyl on Amazon for about $17. I bought this new back in 1985 after wandering into a store in one of Birmingham’s mostly black neighborhoods. That’s where I also found a Birmingham Community Choir record, which I feature earlier in my countdown.
This album is not well recorded and that’s why I give it a 3.5, rather than a 4 or better. It sounds like it was recorded in a cavernous empty church with one microphone dangling from the ceiling. An echo-ey and distant feel.
That said, the singer shows off an amazing voice and range. Glad I got it
ALABAMA NOTE: In one of his bounce backs to religion in the late 60s, he attended Oakwood College (now University) in Huntsville. It is a historically Black Seventh-day Adventist institution,
I just got word that we have agreed on a date with UAB which is donating the use of the UAB Recreation Center for 3-on-3 basketball games (and other hijinx) for charity.
We are raising money to fight this brain disorder that I have, along with more than 1 million other people.
It has no cure, no known cause and is fatal. It is the second leading cause of dementia behind Alzheimer’s disease. But few people are aware of Lewy, which physiologically is a cousin to Parkinson’s disease with symptoms similar to both PD and AD.
Trent Richardson drives like the football player he is at Mike Madness charity basketball tournament last year. The tournament is back again for its third year on July 20. More details to come. Photo — Trish Crain
In two years we have raised a total of more than $25,000 for research and awareness of Lewy body dementia. We started humbly with a $5,000 goal the first year and took in about $13,000. Last year we raised $12,000. (These numbers are coming from my math memory department in my brain which is currently under siege from rogue proteins, but I think they are about right.) I would love to raise $25,000 this year to push our total to $50,000.
I think we can do it. I think this will be the most successful one yet.
Details of the tournament will be coming but mark the date: July 20, UAB Recreation Center. We have the gym all day and will start pretty early in the morning. Again stay tuned.
. Last year we had surprise visitors. Former NBA and UA basketball star Buck Johnson and former UA running back Trent Richardson joined us and even participated in a game or two
Little Feat and its leader Lowell George started with a foundation of Southern blues rock a la the Brothers Allman, added a touch of the Brothers Neville and topped it off with some funky Brothers Isley.
When I think of Little Feat I think of their song Dixie Chicken and the great swinging opening:
I’ve seen the bright lights of Memphis And the Commodore Hotel And underneath a street lamp I met a Southern belle Well she took me to the river, where she cast her spell And in that Southern moonlight, she sang a song so well
And the refrain that sticks in your brain like gum on a shoe on a hot day.
If you’ll be my dixie chicken, I’ll be your Tennessee lamb And we can walk together down in dixieland Down in dixieland .
Lowell George formed Little Feat after leaving Frank Zappa’s Brothers, er, Mothers of Invention. George said he was encouraged to leave Zappa because Frank, who eschewed drugs, didn’t like the drug references in the George song “Willin’. This is seemingly ironic given that the Mothers had released the psychedelic album of the ages in ‘Freak Out’ — but, oh yeah, with Zappa he wasn’t laughing with them, he was laughing at them. (Tripping hippies, I’m talking about).
‘Sailin’ Shoes’ was the second in a handful of consistently good albums. As the band started to fall apart in the 80’s, Lowell George went on tour behind a very good solo album, ‘Thanks I’ll Eat Here.” See MVC review,
He died in a motel room in Virginia, the victim of his appetites for drugs, alcohol and food, especially food. He reportedly weighed more than 300 pounds at death.
This was not one of my usual purchases. Meaning back in 1986, I was not a big punk fan. But I learned to love the Clash and later in the 1990s I really enjoyed Rancid after discovering their music while living in the SF Bay Area.
But SST-labeled Leaving Trains leaned more to Black Flag and the Dead Kennedy’s, which usually for me fell on deaf, and I mean deaf, ears. So even though Leaving Trains was perhaps closer to Black Flag than the Clash, they lightened it up a bit and played power chords with a Power Pop sensibility — like the Beat or the Nerves.
Led by semi-maniac Falling James Moreland, their album ‘Kill Tunes’ is considered — from what I’ve read to be their best. I remember having to order this, Chuck @Wuxtry Birmigham set me up,
David’s 1984 solo album, Raindance, is a tantalizing mix of soul, doo wop, hip hop and balladry.
And as vinyl on the used market it’s about $3 — a big bargain. <NOTE: This has probably gone up since writing this several years ago.>
His cranky rap song “Don’t Smile at Me” (warning language)* still makes me smile all these years later. I’m pretty sure I bought this after seeing James Taylor at Auburn University in like 1983 but the album says 1984 – and I was gone from AU by then.
He tackles all styles here, maybe too many, as if he finally gets to be a frontman and decides to show everything he has got. And he’s gotta a lot, this blue-eyed falsetto soul singer. Note: Don’t really know if he has blue eyes — that’s just the industry’s way of saying they are white singing soul. Like Hall and Oates.
Besides Taylor, Lasley has been back-up singer for a whole host of artists, including Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Aretha Franklin and Luthor Vandross.
He is listed in the credits of this blog’s countdown artist Garlland Jeffries.
On any given day, this album may be my favorite and this underrated British musician may be my favorite rock ‘n roll character.
Check out a documentary on this lovable guy on YouTube and learn about how he bought a rundown farm and began traveling to gigs in a dilapidated travel camper only to miss said gigs because it broke down. Took him days to travel to venues.
Lane died too early of multiple sclerosis on 1997 at age 51.
I have Ronnie Lane all over the place, my Small Faces and Faces records, a collaboration with Pete Townshend (see Annie) that’s excellent and collaboration on a movie soundtrack with Ron Wood. Love all the above. Except for Faces, the other albums have not yet been reviewed in my alphabetical countdown. (I’ve just started the L’s).
Lane first gained attention in Small Faces and Faces where they came up with ”Ooh La La’ and ‘Itchykoo Park.’
Lot of videos in this post but they work better than my words in explaining this whimsical Leprechaun. RIP Ronnie.
This is a German band (sang in English) that had some minor success on the radio with a couple of songs, including ‘Time Bomb.’ My knee-jerk reaction would be to say they are Yes-lite. But the better description would be Styx’s German cousin.
So what’s the difference between Lake and Styx, Asia, or Toto? Record sales is about all I can see. Lake has the same skill-set: highly professional musicians who can put a polished sheen on a radio-friendly sounding tune.
They definitely were aiming for the radio, unafraid to lop a healthy dose of syrupy strings over there rock balladry — see ‘Do I Love You.’ Or is that keyboards?
My wife enjoyed this band, more than me. And that’s how I came to have these.
The band did receive an honor from MyVinylCountdown by being named by me as a band that should have had a bigger hit in the song ‘Jesus Came Down.’ It’s about Jesus coming back and being disappointed in what we’ve been doing. Now who might be behind this little outcome? I don’t know, who could it be? Ummm, SATAN. (Thanks for pointing that out church lady.
Both the albums I have, their debut and the second one, are almost interchangeable. They are both good solid examples, of the polished guitar and keyboard rock that came out of car radio speakers in the late 1970s and 1980s.
He had a gun Prosby noticed, a Walter PP, pretty bad-ass pistol.
Prosby didn’t realize he said that out loud.
“I’ll show you how it works and fired a shot that whizzed by Prosby’s right
ear.
“Now go ahead, piss and let’s go.”
Prosby turned to a tree. He took his time.
“Hey come on,” muscle head said. “Nobody takes this long.”
“I have a UTI,” Prosby said, confusing meathead.
And that’s when meathead made a meathead mistake.
He grabbed Prosby by the arm to turn him around and Prosby instantly had his hand on the gun, Using two hands with lightning speed, Prosby snapped it upward, the sound of the gunshot straight up into the sky almost overpowered the sound of muscle brain’s wrist snapping like a rubbery chicken bone. Almost simultaneously, Prosby smashed the nose with his elbow and kneed him in the groin.
That was too easy, Prosby thought, putting the pistol in his waistband. Yes
it was too easy.
The other Dani Boy, the 6-foot-7-inch Gladiator reject and part-time driver, had Prosby in a crushing bear hug from behind.
Prosby managed to grab the Gladiator’s pinkies and snap them like wishbones
while simultaneously stomping on his attacker’s foot.
“I love you too but not in the mood tonight,” Prosby said, grabbing a handful of his Thor-like yellow hair and bringing down his head to meet Prosby’ crunching knee lift to the face.
“Night-night,” Prosby said.
The fight moves were courtesy of an ancient but little know self defense art said to have emanated out of a game called basketball.
The defensive fight moves are called OMH, which no one can remember the meaning. It came from Alabama as basketball games became more and more violent. A tribe of older men needed a way to protect themselves, using techniques of basketball, like the Elbow Bash, the Wrist Snap, the Ankle Breaker, the Eye Gouge and the Rock Pick. These ancient techniques can be traced back to a day called Madness when tribes from near and far came to battle and ‘no blood, no foul’ became its creed.’
Now was time for Prosby to run. Dani would be coming and she will not be happy with her boys’ work. Now in a Level 2 Air Zone, gas masks were unnecessary in this part of Florida. But he took Gladiator’s anyway, and hung it with his own on a hip pack designed just for that.
He heard Dani’s voice calling out for her boys as he began to move lightly, quickly and decisively under the cover of the woods and darkness.
ALBUMS: Live at Kelvin Hall (1968); Lola versus Powerman (1970); Kinks on Pye (1970); Everybody is in Showbiz (1972); Preservation Act 1 (1973); The Kinks Present a Soap Opera (1975); Sleepwalker (1977); Misfits (1978); One for the Road (1980); The Kinks, A Compleat Collection (1984).
MVC Ratings: Kelvin 3.5/$$$$; Lola 5.0/$$$$$; Kinks on Pye $$$’: Showbiz 4.0/$$$$; Preservation Act 1 4.0/$$$$; Soap 4.0/$$$; Sleepwalker 4.0/$$$: Misfits 4.5/$$$; One for the Road 4.0/$$$$; Compleat Collection 4.0/$$$
*The numbers besides the title or artists’ names on the record reviews indicate the ‘countdown.’ In other words, with the Kinks now reviewed I have moved 10 spaces closer to my goal of reviewing my 678 albums in, more or less, alphabetical order. I have 368 records to go.
The Kinks are something else. Most times they are like no one else.
I heard them in a record store in high school in Athens, Ga. Nope it wasn’t WUXTRY where down the street my buddy Chuck would fix me up with records; the WUTRY where Peter Buck was handing out opinions on music when he was working there, before REM.
No, I don’t remember the name of this record store, down by the barbershop where they’d lather up your neck and take a straight razor to it. There was a guy in this store who played the Kinks all day and all of the night. Seemingly.
So I accumulated 10 Kinks records, most used, and I fell for the brothers Ray’s and Dave’s harmonies, Ray’s storytelling songs, Dave’s crunching and lyrical guitar, and their whimsical sense of humor.
This all came out of a brother-to- brother relationship that was mercurial at best. They fought so much, they were thrown out of the United States during the British invasion initiated by the Beatles, missing a payload of money as the Brits rang the till in America. But that was the Kinks.
Before getting kicked out, the Kinks were pioneering quirky singles like Stop Your Sobbing, heavy metal before it existed, ‘You Really Got Me,’ and “All Day and All Night” where Dave famously slashed his speakers to get a ‘fuzz’ effect on guitar.
Of course, Van Halen famously covered the 1960’s song and by the time I saw them in the late 1970s, Dave Davies in concert would give a nod to the VH version with a guitar assault in their live version of ‘You Really Got Me.’
My first Kinks album was either a Pye collection Vol. 2 or Lola (can’t remember) and, no, I didn’t immediately pick up the idea that Lola was about a transvestite. I was like, no, wait, and ‘so is Lola.’
From the used Pye compilation of early Kinks. I began to really appreciate the melodies and lyrical songcraft songs like ‘Till the End of the Day; Stop Your Sobbing; Dedicated Follower of Fashion Sunny Afternoon, Nothing in this World and Set Me Free.
Probably my favorite compilation I don’t have on vinyl, only on CD: The Kinks Kronikles. If I were starting off on a Kinks collection I would buy it first, then probably the Pye collection — just get a used record of Pye — not the giant boxed set unless you’re loaded. Another great album I don’t have on vinyl is Arthur, which is fairly well represented on the Kronikles compilation.
After losing out on the British invasion, the Kinks went on to a period that many critics deemed slow if not bad. I disagree. The Preservation Act records and Soap Opera era. I think there’s really good music in there. Soap Opera, to this American kid, was like a documentary on English life. The songs are part of a story, so may sound funny to a listener who is not in to sitting down and listening all the way through. But some songs are good on their own. Such as Sweet Lady Genevieve from Preservation Act 1.
The Kinks mean a lot to me for another reason beyond music. My high school love interest (now my wife Catherine) actually enjoyed the Kinks. This was about 1977-78. During her senior year, she had some serious surgery involving her gut, to put it in layman’s terms. She had the surgery, recovered a few weeks and we were off to Atlanta to see the Kinks at the Fox Theater. Kinks fanatic and friend Brian was driving. She told me later she wasn’t feeling well but didn’t want to ruin the fun. But once we got there she basically collapsed with gut wrenching pain. She was throwing up.
Luckilly we were a block away from the very hospital where she had the surgery. Otherwise, we were told in no uncertain terms that a longer delay would have killed her. That perhaps justified my bad behavior of screaming at them when they asked us to stop and fill out pages of forms.
She lived, thank God. And we even went to another Kinks concert about a year later, same venue. But it was only recently when we were talking about it that I said, ‘Funny thing, but the second surgery involved fixing a ‘kink’ in your intestine.’
Wha??? We laughed at the ‘coincidence’ but Catherine stands firm that it was no coincidence — she doesn’t believe in coincidences . WOG, I call it, for Wink of God. She says going to see the Kinks that night saved her life by putting her immediately in the hands of the hospital and surgeon who knew the medical history. That it was a kink needing fixing was the WOG, so she would say.
OK I am going to give you my off the beaten path Top 5 Kinks songs that aren’t Lola — with links..
Well Respected Man: This represents a Kinks’ go-to: applying whimsy to satire in a mostly loving way.
Waterloo Sunset. Just a beautiful song with lovely guitar by Dave.
Nothing in this World. Another early beautiful song, haunting melody, about broken relationships.
(Tie) Misfits/Full Moon. The 80s stuff is better than people think it is.
Which was a favorite of my daughter Hannah when she was living on Victoria in British Columbia.
I could have picked five songs off of my Lola album as well. If you noticed you will see I gave it a 5 out of 5 rating. I believe the only other 5 rating I have (so far) is Carole King’s ‘Tapestry.’
And of course, the real deal of a best Kinks’ song is on the video blow. Don’t know how I forgot this tears-of-a-clown Klassic.
His music is kind of like — and here I go with my sometimes inane, roll-em-up, comparisons — but he’s kind of like James Taylor, John Mellencamp and Tom Petty rolled into one. (I’ve seen Peter Case and Warren Zevon also in these comparisons.) Actually, in circumstance Joe Henry might be good comparisons in that both are outstanding and underrated. (I only have Henry on digital.)
And both have a famous family connection. Henry is married to Madonna’s sister. Peter is married to Bob Dylan’s adopted daughter.
But I digressl
Peter is Peter.
He’s a rock-and-roller from Minnesota whose lyrics are informed by his Orthodox Judaism, as the message and questions raised in his songs strike universal themes: life and death, pain and joy, war and peace — both globally and internally.
Peter is also a Grammy nominated children’s music maker and composer for TV and film (Judging Amy, Bones, among others).
For more about his story and how it is part of my story see the post I did last week for AL.com. In it I tell you how Peter came to send me three rare out of print vinyl records.
I need to live with these records for a while to give them their proper due, but I can tell you there are some strong songs.
The reason I have question marks on the price rating scale for these three albums is because they are no longer available in vinyl. And the only seller I could find online on several sites including Amazon had one copy of ‘There is no Calamity,’ for $198. It looks like you will have to go digital for any of these three records. I’m going to post links to two songs each off each he sent me and two other older songs. I’d urge you to listen.
There is no calamity
There’s two songs on this are so blunt both lyrically and musically and catchy I can’t believe they are not hits. Listen to them: Fear is our Undoing
