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Jimmy Cliff — 580, 579

ALBUMS: The Harder They Come (1973); We all are one (12-inch single, 1983)

MVC Rating: Harder 4.5 $$$$; One 3.5 $$$

Jimmy Cliff, mon. If somebody walked up to me right now and said they don’t know anything about reggae music and wanted to buy something, relatively cheap, to see if they like this genre, I’d waver on a recommendation.

It’s a tough one to choose between Bob Marley’s ‘Natty Dread’ and the Jimmy Cliff vehicle soundtrack ‘The Harder They Come.”

‘Natty Dread’ was my introduction many years ago and ‘No Woman No Cry’ is in  my Top 10 song list (It is? Ok for now it  is.) And when I first heard Marley sing in Rebel Music: “Hey Mr. Cop, I ain’t got no birth-surf-a-ticket on me now,”  I thought it was the coolest thing. I still pronounce birth certificate like that to this day.

But as much as I love that album,  I might steer this newby to the Cliff album. Esteemed and rarely demeaned Rock Critic Robert Christgau,  whom I cite a lot in my musical meanderings, called this the best rock movie soundtrack ever or the soundtrack to the best rock movie or the best rock compilation…Oh you read it, I can’t keep jumping back to Christgau’s Consumer Guide, he’ll think I’m plagiarizing him.

The soundtrack featuring Cliff and others is indeed excellent. Cliff’s ‘Many Rivers to Cross’ is on my Top 10 list of great songs, and so is the Melodians ‘Rivers of Babylon.  OK my list is going to need some work pruning and expansion. But the above two songs prove  if you got rivers you got good reggae.

Let the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart
Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
Let the words of our mouth and the meditation of our hearts
Be acceptable in thy sight here tonight
By the rivers of babylon, there we sat down
Ye-eah we wept, when we remembered zion

And there’s ‘Johnny Too Bad,’ which UB40 did a great cover later. And the  Toots and the Maytals classic ‘Pressure Drop’ which the Clash made their own on my recently reviewed Sandinista!

I also have from 10 years later a promotional single. I distinctly remember buying this from Charlemagne Records in Birmingham probably 1983 or so. (I also bought a 12-inch single by Niles Rogers, which I hope to find and review when I get to the ‘R’s.).

We all are one (We all)
We are the same person (Same person)
I’ll be you, you’ll be me (I’ll be me, you’ll be you)
We all are one (We all), same universal world
I’ll be you, you’ll be me

Is in the conscience
And the shade of our skin
Doesn’t matter, we laugh, we chatter
We smile, we all live for

We all are one … now here’s a great rendition by Cliff himself of his classic:

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Van Cliburn — 582, 581

ALBUMS: Tchaikovsky Concerto No. 1;  Rachmaninoff, Concerto No. 3.

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$$$

The US has long been the ‘team to beat’ in the world. Ideally we are also the role model, or should be.

An honest striving for excellence leads us to our exceptionalism mindset. Obviously that can be for  good or ill.

Racing to be first.

I suppose we should all be pushing toward being the best we can be, without hurting ourselves or others. (Gosh I’m starting to sound like Joan Baez or Melanie here.)

Good old competition can open eyes and push forward the truth.

Alabama native Jesse Owens won four gold medals, including the 100 meters and 200 meters in the 1936 Olympics, shattering German leader Adolf Hitler’s  definition of Aryan superiority.

The Space Race with the U.S. landing on the moon i n 1969, shot the US ahead of the Soviets in one dramatic leap and pushed both sides to advance the technology.

A 23-year-old, 6-foot-4-inch Texan, blew away the competition in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958, getting a Russian standing ovation in the middle of the Cold War.

It’s interesting that Owens and Van Cliburn made their statements on the road in front of dumbfounded but appreciative witnesses, in Berlin and in Moscow.

The judges had to run it by Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev on whether to give the first prize to an American, according to Wikipedia citing the Washington Post and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

“Is he the best?” Khrushchev asked the judges. Yes, they replied.

“Then give him the prize!” he said.

So Van Cliburn was like the first rock star of classical music. Oh, that’s not true, That would more likely be Mozart.

But the fact that the baby faced tall hombre from Texas could defeat worldwide competition is pretty remarkable. Wonder if Cliburn ever goofed around with other genre’s like rock or ragtime or jazz?

In an  an obituary upon his death in 2013, the Associated Press noted the 1958 Time magazine cover story described him as “Horowwitz, Liberace and Presley “all rolled into one.”

Wouldn’t it be cool to see Van Cliburn trading licks with Jerry Lee Lewis? Billy Preston. Or Keith Emerson, often considered the best keyboardist in rock

?

Counting down my 678  vinyl records  before I die of  brain disease.

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The Clash — 584, 583

ALBUMS: Sandinista! (1980), Black Market Clash (1980)

MVC Rating: Sandinista 4.0/$$$$$; Black Market 4.0/$$

If you think about it, the Clash had the perfect name for their band.

They clashed with everything.

And Sandinista was a new turn that clashed with the group’s punk rock base. (Think Roy Moore followers if they were leftist streetwise Brits. I’m making the point that they are loyalists not so open to change.)

Sandinista, a three-record clashing of the soul  and gnashing of the teeth was their masterpiece and their self-indulgent jam session — (see the clash there?)

It had reggae, dub, punk rock, a waltz, rap, rockabilly, electronica, corner soul and Lord knows what else. Most people didn’t play the whole thing through because it was disorienting. It was like wearing plaid, stripes, gingham and seersucker all at once and on the feet: Keds red high tops.

Not Converse mind you. That’d be uncool.

But it  had great stuff on it. Some of the music was eye-openingly good (The piano and bass on the be-boppin Look Here, for example.)  It just got lost in the shuffle-play. While the Magnificent Seven, Police on My Back, Rebel Waltz and Somebody Got Murdered got most of the attention, I  like the Sound of the Sinners, a gospel send-up that kicks off with this:

As the floods of God, wash away sin city,

they say  it was written in the page of the Lord.

But I was looking, for that great jazz note,

that destroyed,  the walls of Jericho

This album featured six sides of six songs each and cost just a little more, if I remember it was something like $9,99. And I believe that included, at least at my record store, a copy of the 10-inch, Black Market Clash, taken from the Sandinista sessions. I loved side two of that 10-inch with bankrobber/robber dub and armigideon dub, and no justice/kick it around.

Mick Jones continued this dub reggae rap groove in Big Audio Dynamite, which I reviewed here.

Clash band leader Joe Strummer rememberedl

The Clash stood up for the working class and grew into a musically adventurous,  and politically aware punk rock group. By their fourth album, continuing in the tradition of arguably their best album, London Calling, they absorbed and reconfigured  every cross-cultural type of street music imaginable. They discovered dub alll right. And dub spelled backward as well.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Eric Clapton (Do I have too much?)

ALBUMS: History of Eric Clapton (1972 2-record compilation); EC Was Here (live)(1975); Backless (1979); Crossroads (6-record boxed set 1988)

MVC Ratings: Boxed 5.0/$$$$$; History 4.5/$$$$$; EC 3.5/$$$$; Backless 3.5/$$$$

Do I have too much Clapton?

Like an unbalanced 401/K plan do I need to liquidate some Eric Clapton. Should I re-rebalance my portfolio of 678 records (which I am writing about in this blog) by selling some Clapton.

For example, I could sell some Clapton for Albert King, a key Clapton influence whom I don’t have. But that would almost be like buying more Clapton, an artist steeped in blues music. Or, should I diversify and maybe buy some Django Reinhardt, a Gypsy jazz guitarist from yesteryear who was at least as influential as Clapton but had a totally different style, outside the realm of blues.

As you can see above, I only have four separate Clapton ‘products’ But as you can also see, one is a 6-record box set, and another is a  double record chronology.  Pretty comprehensive.

That’s 10 vinyl slices totaling about six or seven hours of Clapton. That doesn’t include my two Cream albums, my Yardbirds album and my Derek and the Dominos double album set, all of which have Clapton in the mix.  I will review separately when they come up in my alphabetical line-up. (I’m in the C’s so we’ll be doing Cream pretty soon).

I think I will hold off liquidating immediately.

If you are a Clapton fan, it is good to see the arc of his playing.

He is praised for his fluid improvisational guitar solos, mostly in a blues context. And he is cursed for his fluid improvisational guitar solos because they infiltrated rock and roll and pretty soon everybody and their brother-in-law’s cousin was strapping on a Fender Stratocaster aiming to be a lead guitarist.

As the low-solo 50’s melted away to the 1960’s, there was a nuclear arms race over how fast and long that guitar solo should be. Too many times the result was guitar for showmanship’s sake and not for song-sake. Granted these guitar jams tended to be used and abused more in the live concert setting, than in the studio.

In the studio you had a producer saying, ‘Uh, Jimi, I think we are good with that 37-minute version of the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’ You can flesh it out a little more on stage tonight if you want. I sure hope our flag is still there.’

Clapton can be accused of starting it. He and John  Mayall developed a cult following in London, immersing themselves in blues.

“‘Clapton is God’ graffiti began appearing around the city, defining  a central tenet of the Clapton mythology to this day,” wrote Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis in the Crossroad’s liner notes.

I don’t have ‘Tears in Heaven’ on any of these records. The soft rock tear-jerker about the tragic death of his child was one of his biggest hits but also fed into this view that he was going ‘commercial or soft as he got older, especially since he used to be such a purist.

Clapton himself said in the biography ‘Clapton!’: “I’m far too judgmental and in those days I was a complete purist. If it wasn’t black music, it was rubbish.”

Now we should give the man the benefit of the doubt on his sincerity behind ‘Tears’ given the subject matter.

But these softer songs and big hit covers like ‘Cocaine’ and ‘I Shot the Sheriff’,’ I think unfairly led to some in my generation and later generations to suggest he was overrated.

Um, no.

Listen to all six vinyl records in Crossroads. That includes his work with Mayall, the Yardbirds, Cream, Delaney and Bonnie, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominoes.

D&D the double record studio production with Duane Allman and Eric  trading licks on old school blues tunes and the ever-great title song is one of my desert island albums.

Sure he had some commercial schlock (full disclosure, I and mi esposa like ‘Wonderful Tonight’ as one of the soundtracks of our first dates in high school.) A critical observation may be’ look at what he hath wrought.’

But overrated? Don’t think so.

David  Fricke, a rock critic for Rolling Stone magazine, said this:

“Clapton’s economy of style, clarity of technique and improvisatory firepower are the standard by which nearly all electric guitarists, blues or otherwise, have been judged for over twenty years.”

Like I said, a curse and a blessing.

 

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Carlene Carter, Lee Clayton, City Boy –quick hits — 591, 590, 589

Time is here today  and because it keeps slipping, slipping into the future, I need to move on this. Here’s a 3-for-1 special. There’s nothing really that ties these albums together other than they happen to be next on my alphabetical list and the artists here all sing and play musical instruments.

Carlene Carter – 591

ALBUM:  Musical Shapes (1980)

MVC Rating: 4.0/ $$

This is a cutout, meaning the record company, nicked the corner off or punched a hole in the cover’s corner. This meant they were slow sellers and the distributors were to mark them down. Cutouts were controversial in  the industry, but I bought them regularly. That’s because I felt like I might find that rare album, the best of all time that no one ever heard of. I almost did many times.

I think I bought this in Athens, Ga., I remember reading a little about it. Carter was the daughter of June Carter Cash, by June’s first husband, and thus, she was the step-daughter of Johnny Cash.  She is also the ex-wife of Nick Lowe, who plays bass on the album. Dave Edmunds, who played guitar on this album, was Lowe’s, co-band member in the great rock and roll group called Rockpile.

All said and done, this is a keeper. Her voice is good. Her cover of stepdad’s ‘Ring of Fire’ is pretty bad, though. ‘Sandy’ is good –“I like that  cold cash, that  cold hard cash.  The duet with Edmunds, on ‘Baby Ride Easy’ is fun and sums up the tone of the album, a little rock but a strong extra dose of country. In fact it sounded like a party going on in recording this.

“I was too drunk to remember, I was too blind to see,” she sings.

Carter was in concert in her early years and she famously (or infamously) introduced a song  by saying “Well this one will sure put the %$^&  back in country.” She said a naughty word left when you take the ‘tree’ off the musical genre.

Unbeknownst to her, June and Johnny, slipped in to see Carlene’s concert that night.

(Story updated 2 p.m.  Jan. 29 to reflect Carter was married to Lowe, not Edmunds).

City Boy– 590

ALBUM:  Young Man Gone West (1977)

MVC Rating: 3.0/$$

What is this? 10cc cover band? Queen without Freddie Mercury? 5cc?

I like ‘She’s Got Style’ because it rolls along as if art students were on sabbatical in the Tulsa Time zone. Are they the embers of the Sparks?

‘The Man who Ate His Car.’ ??  Is  there some subtle social commentary in there. I still have to go back to 10cc. That group was sometimes great. But sometimes good 10cc was bad 10cc. This is bad 10cc that may rhyme but has no reason.

Good  guitar player though.

Lee Clayton — 589

ALBUM: The Dream Goes On (1981)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$

This album I know I bought in Auburn.  I listened to this for the first time in years. Interesting cat, this Lee Clayton, growing up “surrrounded by fences” in Oak Ridge where he lived next to the Atom bomb factory, apparently.  He’s still radioactive about it — at least on this  album which came out in 1981.

Industry sucks, he seems to be saying, but, he acknowledges: “It makes me sick — and well.”

The vitriol and dramatic singing makes you wonder what really happened to him. In ‘Industry’ he talks about ‘the big boys’ and the people being ‘drug crazed’  and then he quotes the Constitution and  then the Bible. In ‘Where is the Justice’ he rails on about a bad concert tour in Hamburg and Brussels where he saw ‘goose-stepping Russians.’

At one point he sings with great feeling about “23 hours of madness for one hour on that stage. That ain’t justice. That’s bad pay.” What?

And then (whew) he comes up with a simple sweet and lovely song that I remembered the words to after several decades of not hearing this song.

“Won’t You Give me One More Chance.”

“To make it with you. Forget about the bad we had, don’t believe its true come and lie with me like the way we used to do; you’re the only thing I’ve got to hold on to.”

I know this sounds like a strange and perhaps awful album as I describe it but it’s really not. He’s passionate, perhaps unbalanced and thus interesting. The music keeps it together.

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Tracy Chapman — 592

ALBUM: Tracy Chapman (1988)

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$

Forget the hole in the head Cracker, the world needs another folk singer like Tracy Chapman.

I had a feeling that I could be someone, be someone

For me it wasn’t that the words blew me away Or the music and playing was so much better than many other great folk singers. For me it was all these things together and the voice. Yes the voice. I can’t really describe it. There are certain voices I really appreciate.  And hers,  singing about race, domestic abuse, poverty and just plain heartache and heart break, sounded real

That the voice comes from a gay black woman, and seems shot-through with wisdom brought by pain makes it all the more remarkable that it connects so powerfully with an older balding white guy, me, and I’m sure many others like me.

She’s got her ticket is a song about someone in pain who wants to fly away.

She’s got her ticket I think she gonna use it                                                                      I think she going to fly away                                                                                                 No one should try and stop her

And from this Grammy award-winning  album, her debut,  came probably her signature song: Fast Car.

That song plays on the same theme of escape, and is cathartic in its slow down, speed  up sound.  The words are potent but the song transcends the words and  should be heard. See video below.

You see my old man’s got a problem
He live with the bottle that’s the way it is
He says his body’s too old for working
His body’s too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody’s got to take care of him
So I quit school and that’s what I did
You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way
 =–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Another of her biggest hits here.
NOTE: I talked about certain voices that I like and somehow writing and listening to Tracy made me think of another one of my favorite singers: Phil Lynott (now deceased) of the Irish band Thin Lizzy. But the singers are nothing alike other than a smooth sounding voice. See video below.
 Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Alex Chilton — 593

 

ALBUM: High Priest (1987)

MV C Rating: 3.5/ $$$

Boy wonder vocalist out of the chute at the speed of sound.

Sweet 16 and burning white soul-boy vocals with the Box Tops.

Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane 
Ain’t got time to take a fast train 
Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home 
My baby, just-a wrote me a letter

Killer opening. What’s the encore?

Alex Chilton was going to be a Big Star.

He was, and he wasn’t.  The star fell without anyone seeing it.

Oh, but a few did. An influential few remembered the shooting star.

A song by one of the world’s coolest bands, The Replacements, was titled Alex Chilton. REM declared him a divine inspiration.

Big Star had some big expectations. How could their three albums, or just one of them not set the world on fire.

After that didn’t play out, Chilton did something many would do. Screw it. I’ll do what I want, start an indie career where you put out albums like this one where songs like Volare — are you kidding me?– become part of the buoyant fun. Toss off a Carole King song here, an obscure instrumental, and not so subtle (or sexy) invitation to get naughty.

All in fun. And it was, sort of. Sad, too.

Chilton died at 59 in 2010.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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The Chambers Brothers — 594

ALBUM: The Chambers Brothers’ Greatest Hits (1971)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

The question is did  people know what they were getting into with the Chambers brothers. The band’s hit ‘Time has Come Today’ is relatively straightforward on the edited version that charted on the radio, under three minutes.

But good gosh, the 11-minute album cut pulled out a little Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly and Soft Machine into a psychedelic stew of soul and gospel.

Most of the rest of the album is good old soul shouting and grooving. Decent cover of People Get Ready. Hard to top Curtis on that though. Entertaining music for a ride into the county on Saturday night headed to a  barnstormer in the morning.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the soul songs and I like the long song.

There is a TIme and a Place: Juke Joint.

(PS this song would have worked well on my ruminations on time)

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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The Cars — 598, 597, 596, 595

ALBUMS: The Cars (1978); Candy-O (1979); Panorama (1980); Shake it Up (1981)

MVC Rating: Cars 4.5/$$$; Candy-O 4.0/$$$; Panorama 4.0/$$$; Shake it Up 3.5/$$$

Let’s see. The soundtrack of my high school days:

Born to Run, Springsteen in 1976.

Night Moves, Seger in 1977.

Just What I Needed, The Cars in 1978.

The Cars? It’s almost like which one of these things doesn’t belong game.

But their self-titled first album sold 6 million. That’s a lot of high school soundtracks. Overall the group is well past the 20 million mark over a span of a half dozen or so records.

Yet, I played the first Cars album recently for one of my daughters, now 31, and she asked who that was copying David Bowie?

Controversial Vargas pin-up was cover of 2nd album, Candy-O

Or could it be Roxy Music knock-offs?  For some reason,  the Cars seem to be this mega-grossing band that turned into a passing phase. (Enter good  car analogy here. No not the DeLorean.) It seems that the group  zoomed through the 70s and 80s  at 100 mph and disappeared in a -cloud of dust. I like the analogy ‘Vanishing Point,’ the movie. Shift into 5th gear if you get that reference.

Ok, here’s how I break it down. The debut is dynamite, first to last song. These guys had a sharp austere playing style with catchy hooks. Very precise crunching chords and quick pick bass lines. It’s all within the framework of power pop. They were just better at it than anybody else. Their sound popped, probably courtesy of producer Roy Thomas Baker (Queen).

Earlier I reviewed The Beat, led by Paul Collins, and mentioned one of their songs ‘Don’t Wait Up For Me,’ one of power pop’s best songs. It was a Cars-like song. Only the Cars had  about 10 or so of that quality over the course of their half-dozen or so albums. Many if not most were on that first one. I have four Cars albums and I don’t listen  to them too much anymore. The lyrics were about nothing or nothing much, arch, bouncy but never really went beyond the hooks’ catchphrases.

I am one of a seeming minority that actually liked Panorama which had a little more complicated songs and a little more  experimentation. But truth be told, the Cars were never as good as that 1st album. Indeed few artists had debut albums that strong.  In the end, they fell victim to a  formulaic sameness. But there were moments on later albums: ‘Touch and Go’ and ‘Shake it Up.’

On that debut, there were sharp guitars and radio friendly songs throughout — with the band nailing the walk-off with the  last three songs of side 2:  “It’s all Mixed up.””Bye Bye Love”and “Moving in Stereo.”

However, when I feel myself nostalgic about those HS cruising days, I  usually go back to Springsteen, Seger, a little less, or the classics, Rolling Stones  (I even enjoyed the Stones’ and Rod Stewart’s disco eras. Don’t quote me on that.)  Daddy I’m a Fool to Cry.

One soundtrack that  can’t go without mentioning here came out when I was about 17. Elvis Costello’s ‘My Aim is True’ album. Opened my ears to a new style, on a similar road,  paved the way for the Cars.

Had the Costello  on cassette. Played that in my Mustang until it broke. And of course there was Zeppelin.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

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Peter Case — 600, 599

ALBUMS: Peter Case (1986);  Peter Case EP ‘Selections from Peter Case’ (Promotional 1986)

MVC Ratings: 4.0/$$$

 Peter Case is an artist I bought most likely in Birmingham at Chuck’s WUXTRY. It was Case’s self-entitled debut and a great record. I thought he was going places, and he did, I suppose. I just lost track of him after a CD called Six Pack of Love, which I should go back and give a listen to see  why he kind of fell from my listening purview.

He started young in a power  pop New Wave band, the Nerves, and followed with a pretty successful run in a band called the Plimsouls (which I will review later).

promo ep

For his debut he turned into a Woody Guthrie/Dylan styled singer-songwriter. His hat (fedora?) is on his noggin on both the album cover and back picture. And it’s on in his slightly different cover shot of his five-song EP promotional edition, which gets you an accoustic version  of Steel Strings.  Back photo shot is of Case walking  away down the road, in slightly oversized suit (w/hat) and carrying a case that looks too small for a guitar.

His music sounds like that. Lots of strumming, lots of melodious story-telling. Best one is ‘Small Town Spree’ about a friend’s burglary splurge.  The Van Dyke Parks’ arrangement, with strings accenting the steel strum goes like this:

It all started at Gate’s liquor store,  you helped yourself to a bottle of  scotch; Strolled down to Miller’s Drugs, forged a check and borrowed a watch

I do like his version of the Pogue’s song “A Pair of Brown Eyes’ — good pub song. If you think you would like a more seriousTodd Snider or a more bluesy Shawn Mullins, Case may be worth checking out.

In the liner notes Case writes: ‘My sister told me on the phone she heard someone on the radio singing about small towns in America.’

Case continues. ‘I said I didn’t know any songs about America – these songs are all about sin and salvation.’

NOTE: Case was in the Nerves with Paul Collins, later of the Beat, a power pop juggernaut.  A who’s who of artists assisted on this Case debut, including T Bone Burnett, Van Dyke Parks, John Hiatt, Jim Keltner, Mike Campbell, Roger McGuinn and Victoria Williams, among others.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.