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Ian Hunter — 426

ALBUM: “You’re Never Alone With a Schizophrenic” (1979)

MVC rating: 4.0

Hey, who am I to call out anyone for not being politically correct about a brain disorder.  But the album title did kind of make me wince. And wouldn’t it be ‘funnier’ if it was ‘You’re Never Alone When You Are a Schizophrenic.”

Ian Hunter, lead singer of the sturdy, straight-head Mott the Hoople, puts out his fourth solo record here (1979).

This is a good album, that I have neglected playing for years. Backed by members of the Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band, Hunter dishes some radio-friendly rock and roll.

Guitarist Mick Ronson is reasonably understated throughout most of the record. No major show-off solos in songs that had more of a Bowie/Jagger vibe. Ronson likely helped create that sound.

In “Just Another Night,” Hunter does an exaggerated, on-purpose, Mick Jagger vocal.  On ‘Wild East,’  Hunter enjoys hanging out in a  bad neighborhood.

And then there’s ‘Cleveland Rocks’ who many remember was a theme song for “The Drew Carey Show,’  — a rendition by The Presidents of the United States. It’s an anthemic rocker with some of those 80’s gratuitous synthesizer warbles and whoops.

‘Ships’ is the radio ballad, and it is syrup, topped off by a disturbingly bland cliche’. And so it didn’t surprise me that Barry Manilow covered this with some success. (The chorus cliche’? We’re just two ships that pass in the night.)

Live song below where Queen’s Bryan May jumps in.

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Joe Henderson — 427

By Guy MacPherson – Joe Henderson, CC BY 2.0, 4 WIKI

ALBUMS: Our Thing (1964, RE  Blue Note 1985)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$$$

Another Blue Note reissue. Another great jazz album.

It’s the bop era, late 50s, early 60s. The drumming is always setting pace. –doh doh doh chicka doe.

A little bass, boom boom de boom. Piano, tinkle tinkle.

Then Henderson blows the sax…. whaa whoa whaa whoa whee whah, wha whump.

There you go my note-for-note rendition of Teeter Totter. which is an up B-flat blues, says a Youtuber. It is the only major key track in the set. I’ll try to pull a video of it.

Meanwhile, however many solos Henderson takes, the light but steady and ready Tap Tap Tap Tap continues on the drum and cymbal. This song I can watch the news to. Of course turning the volume off the TV.

Gordon’s music has a way  of putting the daily disasters in their place.

Its  more fun than progressive rock.

So putting that fun aside, this is seriously good jazz from a jazz rich era. The band is tight and Henderson’s keeps it all reeled in, even when it seems it’s not.

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The Head and the Heart — 428

ALBUM:  ‘Let’s Be Still” (2013)

Okay, here’s another from a relative, and a relatively new record at that. The Head and the Heart is the name of this earnest alternative folk group.

There seems to be a real genre beginning with this big band easy folk-rock, atmospheric music. Kind of like a mix of Fleetwood Mac and Fairport Convention. With a hint of and updated sounding Pentangle. (John Renbourne, look him  up).

Other artists such as the Fleet Foxes, Mac DeMarco, and to a certain degree Father Misty (originally in the Fleet Foxes) and Arcade Fire appear to be sharing some of this ground.

Some fine singing and harmonizing on this. Fun to listen to with your eyes closed in an easy yoga position.

Band members, should and probably do understand the increasing competition in their space, maybe due to  higher demand for the sound.

I’m leaving out to play some more of these newer ones that I haven’t listened to as much. This particular album has a very good soft jam thing working here.

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Jimi Hendrix — 434, 433, 432, 431, 430, 429

ALBUMS: The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Axis: Bold as Love (1967); Electric Ladyland (1968); Band of Gypsies (1970);  Smash Hits (1968); Midnight Lightning (1975);  Odds and Ends (1973);

MVC Ratings:  Axis 5.0/$$$$$; Gypsies 4.5/$$$$$; Ladyland 4.5/$$$$$; Smash Hits; 5.0/$$$$$; Midnight Lightning 4.0/$$$$; Odds and Ends 3.5/$$$$

People fall into two camps with Jimi Hendrix — and maybe a third if you don’t call it a cop-out.

Group 1: Loves Hendrix. Thinks he’s the best guitarist ever in the world.

Group 2: Pretty much can’t tolerate Hendrix, says music sounds like so much noise.

Group 3: Admires his ability and innovations but just can’t listen to a lot of the psychedelic, feedback sound he created .

True Hendrix, who was the definition of counterculture at the time, could make some noise. He could do things with distortion and feedback that people had never heard.

At Woodstock, he played the National Anthem on guitar, a scorching version in which he actually made the sound of whistling bombs exploding during the ‘Rockets red glare … and bombs bursting in air’  part.

Another song, Machine Gun, he created the sound of the rapid fire gun with his guitar.

I believe I would be correct if I  said  Hendrix is probably listed as the top guitarist most best-of lists.

That’s not to say there’s not some good argument.

Above link at Debate.org, there’s lots of rational arguments on both sides of this subjective debate. One naysayer wrote:  “There is no denying how innovative the man was. Saying he was the best is just too final of a statement to me. The best guitar players are typically jazz players or metal heads. The former using scales rock and blues dudes never touched; the latter using micro scales like Robert Johnson used to.”

Kind of amazing. Hendrix came out of session music for up and comers at the time like Tina Turner, Sam Cooke, B.B. King, and the Isely Brothers.

These session guys and gals were some of the top players in the game. Hendrix, self-taught, came out blazing.  He was an African – American super hippie from Seattle with a guitar ability no one had seen.

For those on the fence, that third group, maybe even some of the second group, I’m going to link to five songs that will attempt to  change your mind about Hendrix and his ability. I  grew up with the idea that Hendrix was the best and untouchable at No. 1 guitarist that I’m hard pressed to move off of that stand. Hendrix died of Asphyxia due to aspiration of vomit in 1970 at 27 years old. If  you are going to get one album with the big hits, get ‘Smash Hits’ or the first album, Are You Experienced. They have Purple Haze and Foxy Lady.

 5. Castles Made of Sand

4. The Wind Cries Mary

3; All Along the Watch Tower

2. Crosstown Traffic

  1.  Little Wing

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Heart — 435

ALBUM:  Dreamboat Annie (197

MVC Rating: 4.5 $$$$

5)

I owe Heart some money.

It was April in 1980. I was an Auburn University student. I was out walking and heard music from the auditorium or arena or whatever it was called.

Concert going on. I walked closer. Closer. Up a ramp. The door was ajar. Hmmm. Took a peek inside and there appeared to be no one at this particular door. Walked in.

Now this is where it gets fuzzy in my memory. I think I saw Blackfoot as the opening act. I know I saw Heart. My memory fails as to whether this was two different incidents or one. I’m leaning toward one. Anyway, that’s why I say I  owe Heart money — for the ticket I didn’t buy. Maybe I owe Blackfoot too. I’ll pay up if either of the bands’ members contact me.

I heart heart. Or, at least, hearted heart.

I was an early consumer of this hard rocking female-fronted  band. The female Led Zeppelin. I played Dreamboat Annie their debut ceaselessly in high school. Sure there was soft pretty stuff, which I secretly sang along to. But there was real rock and roll and real guitar licks especially in Magic Man and Crazy On You. Check videos below to get sense of their rock and roll acumen.

The reason I said I ‘hearted’ Heart because by college at Auburn, I was over them. I  didn’t particularly like the overplayed Barracuda and was lukewarm to the whole Dog and Butterfly thing.

But I’ll always dig Dreamboat Annie, the album which came out in 1975, the sweet spot of my high school days.

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Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel — 436

 

ALBUM: Face to Face (live, 2  LPs 1976)

I bought it at a community flea market in Athens, Ga.,   because it was cheap, interesting cover and the live album led off with ‘Here Comes the Sun,’ the George Harrison/Beatles song. I listened to it a few times but it never really registered until I got to the last song called ‘Make Me Smile.’

How did I never hear this song before? Cool tune with several long stops and silent holds. Its stop-start delay effect is effective  — and you can dance to it. Love the song. I later found that I had it on a compilation record called Monument to British Rock. I think I probably like the studio version even more with it’s exaggerated Dylan vocal style.

My understanding this band was big in England, even huge in the 1970s.

Not a lot of love in the states though. I’m sure Cockney Rebel–  the band’s name left many Americans scratching their heads. And maybe it is a British thing in the way that British comedy often leaves Americans wondering what they missed.

See the video of Make Me Smile. Fave line:‘Maybe you’ll tarry for a while.’

 

 

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George Harrison — 437

ALBUM: Thirty-Three & 1//3  (1976)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$ (NOTE: I bought several months ago the latest reissue of George Harrison’s classic ‘All Things Must Pass,’ which I mention in another post.

Here the man who was one-quarter of the Beatles seems in good spirits.

He even lets off a little steam with a critique of the court case which found Harrison guilty of plagiarizing. His song, My Sweet Lord, sounded too much like the Chiffon’s ‘He’s so fine.’

And. It did.

But George is going to be passionate in a song defending his side. And George’s ordeal with the legal battle highlights the fine line between borrowing and plagiarism. (See Led Zeppelin.)

Harrison is so easy to listen to. Great, underrated voice and some good solid guitar playing and songs that, while not quite Beatles, you can easily hear at least one-quarter of the  Beatles.

With “This Song’ he  delivers a scathing (for him) rebuke of the plagiarism controversy. Of course George lost that dispute and  the songs do sound very much alike. But I don’t think he did it on purpose.

This Song l

This song has nothing tricky about it 

This song ain’t black or white and as far as I know 
Don’t infringe on anyone’s copyright

When the Beatles broke up I was just becoming aware of who the Beatles were at about 10 years old.  My mother dropped me in downtown Athens at the Georgia Theater – yes that used to be a movie theater before becoming a music venue — where I went in to see ‘Let it Be,’ the bittersweet documentary of the Beatles recording one last time before breaking up. I was alone. Yes that’s kind of weird, but I’d often go see movies by myself as young’un. Saw ‘Vanishing  Point’ my favorite B-movie when I was 12. But I digress.

Billy Preston played on Thirty-three and 1/3.

Beatles became my favorite band and probably shaped  my future view of rock and roll.

When they broke up, it was hit or miss for me in getting their solo material.

My brother had ‘Venus and Mars’ and ‘Band on the Run from McCartney and listened to those sometimes inane — but rockin’ — albums. I never bought a Ringo record, bless his heart. I’ve had several John Lennon albums including his classic, but dark, first solo album.

The one thing I regret is not having picked some more Harrison, especially All Things Must Pass. I am  going to pledge that I will use a coveted bucket list item to listen to  All Things Must Pass all 3  records in the box from start to finish.

On this album, 331/3, ‘Dear One’ is a personal favorite.

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TIm Hardin — 439, 438

ALBUMS: Suite for Susan Moore (1969); The Shock of  Grace (1981) 

MVC Ratings: Suite 3.5/$$$$; Shock 3.5/ $$$$

My vinyl collection of Tim Hardin is not representative of his work. The essential Hardin is caught mostly in his first few 2 albums and also in compilations with those songs from the first two.

I have a compilation of some of his more obscure experimental songs and a key album that fed  that compilation. Suite for Susan Moore is as provocative as it is frustrating. Interesting jazzy acoustic guitar is spoiled when Hardin goes on these spoken word jags that sound more dippy than trippy. Too bad because there was clearly interesting  music going on.

Allmusic.com has an interesting take on this part of his career: Even the folkier and more upbeat tunes had a casual and distended air: Hardin added to the strangeness by occasionally reciting somber poetry, both unaccompanied and to meandering, jazzy instrumental backing. The drowsy mood, both affectionate and vulnerable, is more important than the message on this haunting album. That means it’s not recommended as the first Hardin recording for neophytes, but it is recommended to those who already like Hardin and are up for something more obtuse than his early records.

His better known songs — which I have somewhere on CD —  are well-cover classics and near classics:  ‘Reason to Believe;’ ‘If I Were a Carpenter; ‘Lady Came from Baltimore’; How Can you Hang on to a Dream.’ ‘Black Sheep Boy; ‘Misty Roses,’ ‘Don’t Make Promises’ and more. Some of those like ‘Reason’ are classics. (I like Rod Stewart’s version of that song as well as Hardin’s.)

I really like all those listed above except ‘Carpenter’ which just irritated me as it was covered by what seems like every crooner who crooned. Also I can’t listen to it these days because the “would you have my baby’ line reminds me too much of that awful Paul Anka song “Having My Baby.”

On the vinyl I have, as I said, there’s some interesting jazzy-blues work but at this time Hardin was deep into the heroin. The Vietnam veteran of the U.S> Marine Corps. died of an overdose in 1980. He is buried near his hometown of Eugene, Oregon.

I onetime had an idea of doing a book profiling Tim Hardin, Elliott Smith, and Chris Whitley, all pioneering songwriters whose voices were as distinct as their lives were troubled and cut short. Artists whose legacy teeters on the songs that are left behind.

I thought of it when I started taking my youngest, Claire, to school at the University of Oregon in Eugene and upon learning Hardin was from there and Smith was based in Portland. Dunno, bit depressing, but also I thought the three would be interesting case studies, exploring the parallels. Sadly I  think I’d start already knowing the parallels: D&D. Drugs and Depression.

Video below shows couple of Hardin’s classics.