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The Undisputed Truth — 62

ALBUM: The Undisputed Truth (1971)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

Motown, the extremely successful record company, left no rock unturned, no trend passed over.

Call it psych-soul or soul-psych, this was soul music tricked out to take advantage of the late-1960s, early 1970s, popularity of psychedelic music.

Norman Whitfield, a Motown producer who worked quite a bit with the Temptations, was the key player behind this outreach.

Billie Calvin, Brenda Evans and Joe Harris were the members of this group. The group had a No. 3 hit, ‘Smiling Faces, Sometimes,’ written by Whitfield.

Whitfield liked to cover his bases by giving songs to multiple groups inside the Motown stable which explains why the Temptations also did the ‘Smiling Faces’ song. (Whitfield also gave the song ‘War’ to the Temptations and then to Edwin Starr who took it to No. 1).

Other songs on this debut album include a surprisingly faithful rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone; the 60’s psych-pop classic ‘Aquarius;’ and the much covered groove song, ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine.’ Written by Whitfield, and Barrett Strong for Gladys Knight and the Pips, the song was ultimately covered by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Marvin Gaye.

Gaye’s version is considered by critics to be the definitive one. I like Gaye’s and the Pips’ and CCR’s — it’s fun to listen to try to discern what goes into the very different arrangements.

Also on this album is ‘Ball of Confusion (That’s what the world is today).

‘People movin’ out, people movin’ in, Why, because of the color of their skin,’

One of many rock’n’roll songs that helped shape my world view as a kid.

However, the version I heard on the radio was probably the Temptations’ hit version of the song. (There goes Whitfield again, hedging his bets.)

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Lewy minutia: Living with this brain disease is no small challenge

It’s the little things that Lewy body dementia makes more difficult.

Tearing open a wrapped cookie. Typing. Remembering where you put your glasses.

Parkinson’s Disease, Lewy’s cousin, can work much of the same territory.

Remembering what day of the week it is. Picking up your feet to walk. Putting on a shirt.

I don’t know if it’s better to have a pull-over shirt so that I may tie myself into a knot as I push my head through a sleeve instead of the neck hole.

Like a newborn baby getting pushed out of the birth canal my pulled-tight face, stuck in my sleeve, looks real funny in the mirror.

Or should my early morning hijinks start with a buttoned-down shirt where I spend 15 minutes to push those plastic buttons sideways into a too-small hole only to find out that the buttons on the right side of my shirt didn’t go into the correct holes on the left side of my shirt. Aaaaargh!

Maybe I’ll leave it, no one will notice. OK, that might have worked except, upon further inspection, I missed with the buttons by two holes each. My shirt looks like a Picasso painting.

Ah, maybe I should button the shirt beforehand and then pull it over my head? That might work except there’s already a tangled up, pull-over shirt halfway on my torso. So I walk (carefully) downstairs looking like a shirt rack and approach my beloved wife and caregiver and meekly say: Help.

It’s the little things.

Like climbing out of the bed in the morning.

I’m pretty sure that someone rolls me up in two sheets, a quilt and a blanket, sometime in the middle of the night while I’m sleeping. Houdini could not get out of this straightjacket. I push away bad thoughts that Catherine does this as revenge for all the button and pull-over mishaps. (Hmm. It does buy her more peaceful coffee time before she’s confronted with the walking shirt rack.)

Wrapped like a mummy in bed sheets, I’m limited on how to contact help. I cannot stand up, so I can’t walk down for help. She keeps her phone with her so I could call her with my phone which is on the night stand about six inches from my face. My arms are tied, but I briefly entertain the idea of trying to peck at the phone with my nose.

It’s the little things. Lewy minutia, I call it.

But when you’re shuffling down the hallway, unable to find your glasses, with your head stuck in a sleeve, it can seem rather daunting.

NOTE: This is a fictionalized account based on real events. And the names have not been changed.

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Ultravox — 63

ALBUM: The Collection

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

If you listen closely you’ll hear an occasional guitar. But you have to really listen. Ultravox is very much a synth band, and it’s not synthesizer heavy in the name of progressive rock.

Judging from this collection of 20 Ultravox tunes, the band was clearly in pursuit of the Top 40 — at least during the Midge Ure era from late 1979 to the mid 80s.

During that time they garnered seven Top 10 albums and 17 Top 40 singles in the UK.

1981’s Vienna was their biggest hit, but the band was not as successful in the US as they were in the UK. Vienna, for example, hit No. 3 in the UK while it only reached 163 in the US.

Ure became involved in charity work and co-wrote the song ‘Do They Know it’s Christmas?’ with Bob Geldof. The song is one of the biggest selling singles of all time. It was written to raise money and awareness of a great famine in Africa.

According to Wikipedia, Ure has received much recognition for his charity work and fund-raising including four honorary doctorates.

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Utopia — 64

ALBUM: Deface the Music

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$

I don’t know what to think of these guys. Where do they fit in the pantheon of Beatles imitators?

Utopia uses Beatles’ sounding vocal harmonies, use of harmonica and some familiar sounding guitar riffs. But it’s mostly patched together pieces of Beatles.

They are more polished sounding than the 1970’s band The Flamin’ Groovies whom, I believe, deliberately chose to present a garage band version of Beatlemania.

And Utopia’s lyrics are an odd lot. Their very first song on the album sends up “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ It’s called “I Just Want to Touch You (Do You Want me to Touch You Too?”)

They lead off side two with a song called ‘Hoi Poloi, with it’s ‘Penny Lane’ trumpets, followed by ‘Life Goes On’ with lyrics such as ‘The world keeps turning.’

The song ‘All Smiles,’ with its sound effects, resembles the Kinks more than the Beatles.

Overall the songs flow together well and if you weren’t paying attention you might think you were listening to the Fab Four.

But there have been others who did it better, the Spongetones from the 1980s and, original British Invaders the Dave Clark Five, to name a couple.

Todd Rundgren was the leader of Utopia and it was called Todd Rundgren’s Utopia in its early days. Mostly known as a progressive band with songs clocking in at 30 minutes, Utopia’s Deface the Music was a departure from that style.

Rundgren is best known for his solo hit ‘Hello It’s Me.’

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Talking Heads — 65

ALBUMS: Stop Making Sense (1984)

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$$

This is the soundtrack to the movie some critics have called the greatest rock concert movie of all time. They aren’t far off base, although I think the Martin Scorsese film featuring the Band and many others, ‘The Last Waltz,” is a worthy adversary for that ‘best’ title. Some might say Woodstock.

The movies are similar only in that rock music was being played.

Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, is a concept performance that totally works. It makes the Talking Heads seem better than you thought they were. And they were good.

Filmed live over four nights in Los Angeles, the movie starts with David Byrne, the Heads’ lead singer and chief songwriter, walking on stage with a ‘boombox,” setting it down and seeming to turn it on. It’s the song Psycho Killer and Byrne sings solo with the beats. For each song another musician joins Byrne on stage so by the time they get to ‘Burning Down the House,’ the entire group is playing.

Byrne is wearing a ridiculous oversized business suit as they go through their songs. This whole thing wouldn’t work if it were not for the song quality. Songs like ‘Once in a Life Time,’ ‘Life During Wartime,’ ‘Slippery People,’ and the Al Green cover ‘Take Me to the River.’

A song about living in violent times, Life During Wartime, is just as relevant today:

This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco,
This ain’t no fooling around
No time for dancing, or lovey dovey,
I ain’t got time for that now

There are many more great lyrical lines: ‘This is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife … Hey how did I get here ‘ from Once in a Lifetime.

Every song is a winner and played live so perfectly that it sounds studio produced sometimes on the record where you can’t see the performance.

If you are to buy only one format, I’d probably buy the DVD. I didn’t do that because I rarely buy DVD’s, especially movies I have seen.