Well, he gets an A for effort but have mercy, this is a whiplash record. You get whiplash from the sudden shifts from smooth Top 40 style cuts to hard experimental jazz to soul shout outs and guitar histrionics.
Winter has his bluesy brother Johnny along for the ride. For that matter he has much of his regular band which records as the Edgar Winter Group, including Rick Derringer and Dan Hartman. That band was known for its top 40 hits ‘Free Ride’ and ‘Frankenstein.’
The brothers Winter were born with albinism (a deficit of skin pigment) and on the cover and on inside art, photos show both men sporting long white locks. Edgar started his career in a band called White Trash.
This album produced no break-out hits but had several cuts that seem like they could have — most notably the maudlin, but catchy, lead song ‘Tell Me In a Whisper.’
‘Hello Mellow Feelin’ and the rocker ‘Shuffle Low,’ also stand out.
The World Party record I reviewed yesterday had a song called ‘Ship of Fools.’ I remembered I also had a song with the same name on a Robert Plant solo album, and, I had one with yet again the same name on a Bob Seger album.
None of the songs on vinyl were the same song. They just shared the same titles.
A little Google research and 10 minutes later I found that Levi Asher writing for Litkicks.com discovered the same thing by looking at his Apple playlist. He had Seger, Plant and World Party but he also found songs entitled Ships of Fools by the Grateful Dead, the Doors, and John Cale.
He used his discovery to trace the usage of the phrase Ship of Fools which goes back to Plato. It’s fascinating but we aren’t doing that here. See this link if you want more on that.
Let’s get a little inter-active here. Below I am linking to all of these versions. And I’d like you to tell me which one you like best. I’ll tell you my pick at a later date. Mainly because I need to refresh my memory on some of these or most of these.
Southern fried blues rock at its best. While Bobby Whitlock is best known for his work as a band member or side musician, he has done some fine solo work as well.
The credentials are impressive for this husky voiced pianist.
He tasted his first piece of success as a member of Delaney and Bonnie where he met Eric Clapton who was in his band-hopping stage.
He then played, as did Clapton, on George Harrison’s magnum opus ‘All Things Must Pass.’
One of the best songs on Rock Your Sox off is ‘Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad’ with its onslaught of guitar rock/blues. The song was originally recorded by Derek and the Dominos, which included Whitlock, Clapton, Jim Gordon, Carl Radle and Duane Allman. Penned by Whitlock and Clapton, the song was one of the highlights on one of the best all time albums, ‘Layla’ by Derek and the Dominos.
Whitlock reinterprets the song a bit but remains mostly faithful to the original.
Four guitarists played on this Whitlock-Clapton penned-cut: Jimmy Nalls, lead guitar; Dru Lombar, electric guitar; Larry Howard, acoustic guitar; Ricky Hirsch, slide guitar.
Nalls, a prolific and respected guitarist, died of complications from Parkinson’s disease in 2017 at the age of 66; he died following a fall at home, according to his website.
Birmingham native Chuck Leavell (Allman Bros., Sea Level) sits in on keyboards on three of the album’s eight tracks.
In a footnote, Whitlock recently has been on social media blasting the re-mastering job for ‘All Things Must Pass.” It’s stirred up a hornet’s nest of an internet debate which of the re-mix is the best. There’s the original mix, the 30th Anniversary mix and the 50th anniversary mix.
I just bought the 50th Anniversary edition and it sounds very fine to me, if not a little smoothed over. But it’s clean, and I think the voices have been pushed up in some songs.
The producer’s and engineers, including Harrison’s son, Dhani Harrison, pushed back Phil Spector’s original ‘wall of sound’ version. I’ve never had this album so I don’t really have anything to compare with. Check back in a year or so and I’ll let you know.
Who said life is boring? From another person’s view, my life is pretty boring. I am somewhat limited by my brain disease. So I don’t drive, I can’t (or, at least, I’m not supposed to) take walks near or far by myself.
I’m going to lead you through a ‘boring’ day for me in an effort to show that living with Lewy body dementia doesn’t mean you can’t smile as the hand of God stirs the pot.
It was Monday, earlier this week, and my youngest daughter, Claire, called me to see if I wanted to go shopping for shoes, among other things. Why sure, I said.
Shopping with my grown- up daughters usually consists of walking around with the daughter for about 10 minutes then hastily seeking a chair. This pattern proved true on this day. I sat in a chair at the front of the store and watched people. That is really more fun than it seems, but its excitement has a short expiration date; luckily Claire arrived in a short time with some items. I’m pretty sure she bought some shoes.
Then we went to Target where she continued to shop for clothes. I wandered over to the section that had vinyl records. Little known fact, you can get some get good records — high quality re-mastered slabs of vinyl at Target and other like-minded stores such as Bed Bath and Beyond. There’s not a huge selection, mostly current best sellers. But they usually have the new re-issued classsics.
I saw George Harrison’s classic ,three-record box set called All Things Must Pass. I had to have it. (Remember we are living in the moment here.) This was a hefty box recently released on the 50th anniversary of its original recording release, and I guess they charged by the pound as it was $69.99. Whew, I dropped the box like it was on fire.
Dang, can’t say that I’ve ever spent that much on a record. If you follow my blog, you will know that about 75 percent of my collection are used or cutouts, or lucky finds at garage sales and thrift stores. With $75, I could probably find 10 good albums at a well-stocked record store or thrift shop.
And this is the smallest version of the set issued in several iterations at higher prices including a crate.
I have sold a couple or three records for that amount and above, so I do have an inkling for what records are worth. In this case you have a classic recording, re-mastered for sound quality, lyric sheets, a poster and, a booklet with photos and such.
I started seeing this as a good value. I’ve wanted this since about age 16, but it was pricey and for the reasons mentioned I felt better spending that money on several records.
I was in a kind of reverie or brain drain as I held the album and shook it ever so lightly to see if it had all the ‘stuff’ in there. I walked away without the album and went to look for Claire. Couldn’t find her. That was the sign I was waiting for.
I went back and snagged the album, found Claire and hustled to the check-out line before I changed my mind. Claire made some comment like ‘whoa’ when she saw the record and its price tag. I had a $50 bill and some other paper money in my wallet — but not enough. I dug through the cubby holes in my wallet and rooted around in my pockets. A few bucks brought me up to about $60 on a $75 purchase. I asked Claire for money, but she doesn’t carry cash like most young adults her age.
So as the chatter got louder in the ever-growing line I negotiated a deal where I split the purchase into two payments by credit card and the rest in cold hard cash.
The clerk said something like ‘They said vinyl records wouldn’t last but they are going strong.’ ‘Yup.’ I said.
On the way home Claire said to me ‘I see what you did there. Break the payments into two receipts, and show Mom just one.’
What? I said with fake indignation. Who have I raised here? She would think that I would try to hide a purchase from the mother of my children? How could she even come up with that idea?
I let out an evil laugh, or maybe just an evil snicker: “Exactly,’ I said.
I think my daughter was wagging her finger at me. I was waiting to hear what Claire’s blackmail demands would be when I had a thought.
I’ll tell Catherine it was my birthday present from her.
Catherine met us at the door and she immediately asked how much?
‘Um, well, let’s see …” I started digging through my pockets for one receipt. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t tell a lie. I told her it was sixty-something which was either a half-truth or half-lie because it was really seventy-something. But take away the taxes and bingo I have a sixty-something dollar record, right? The rules are loose in this deft game of deception.
Then … a breakthrough.
I told her it would be my birthday present, upcoming in November. She said that’s perfect, “I’ve been struggling trying to figure out what to give you.’
She was happy, I was happy. I now have a classic record, considered the best solo project from a solo Beatle.
That night as I was making a song request to Alexa — the feminine robotic DJ — to play something, she suddenly got the urge to ask me help her fill out a profile on me and asked some pretty intense questions like what kind of music I like. And then she played some seductive love song by the Avett Brothers.
I looked at my wife and asked ‘Where did that come from?’
Catherine rolled her eyes and said, ‘She’s flirting with you.’
I felt a little dizzy and turned the volume down of the song as Catherine laughed.
So, as I look back over this, yes, it could have been a boring day. Home to store and back again.
Yet somehow it wasn’t.
We are given only a finite number of days. Enjoy them while you can. Because all things must pass.
New wavers of the 1980s run to your closet, pull out that box of vinyl and find the Woodentop’s very excellent album, ‘Giant.’
If you did what I did oh so many years ago, you played it once or twice and put it in the closet without any real testing. Very good album with all sorts of swirling rhythms. Drummer Benny Staples is excellent for this upbeat, bopping music.
They have a subdued B-52s feel, with a British accent. Like Morrissey on happy juice.
Scoop is a two-record grab bag from Who guitarist Pete Townshend.
It’s not good. There’s no there there.
I’ve just listened to two records (four album sides) of demos, outtakes, studio tomfoolery, and alternate versions.
It’s one of those recordings meant for the trash heap, or at least kept private, but instead ends up in a store somewhere with a price sticker on it.
These albums are built on the belief that the public is riveted to every bent G note from the master musician. It’s esoterica for true diehards who are fascinated by the way their guitar hero noodles around in the studio with his mechanical devices. There’s a song ‘Initial Machine Experiments,’ and another ‘Unused Piano – Quadrophenia. (I do like ‘Piano Tipperary, however (all 1 minute of it.)
So, I think we have established that I don’t like ‘outtake’ albums. But for pure confounding full disclosure, one of the best records in this category is ‘Odds and Sods’ by you guessed it: The Who. And I like it. At least I did once. But maybe it was because I was older then, but am younger than that now. I will be reviewing that one when we get to the ‘W’s’.
Maybe you have to read the extensive liner notes to understand the significance of this mess. Pete, himself, offers a clue in the liner notes on the cover (to distinguish between those written reveries for every single one of the 25 songs and snippets.)
No, ha ha, you say. This scathing critique is coming from a man who is chronicling and reviewing all 678 records in my collection, even the Partridge Family and Bobby Sherman????
Well, yes, but I’m not charging for my mess.
Townshend in his liner notes seems to want to offer an explanation.
“These enthusiasts of Who music and the part I played in it will probably welcome this record to add to their stockpile of obsessive memorabilia.”
No.
I mean, yes, there will be some that love to obtain the strummed acoustic versions of songs that sound great only when played loud.
Townshend explains in the liner notes, how he just bought a new TEAC portable studio which has led to 40 songs without words as he is touring with the band. Uh oh.
Now, I like Townshend and admire his songwriting and guitar playing. His voice strains to be strong never quite making it — that’s why they have Roger Daltrey. I really enjoyed Townshend in an English folky record with Ronnie Lane called Rough Mix. I thought his solo album ‘Empty Glass’ was solid.
Now somebody must like this. I Googled e-Bay and Amazon and see copies of my album going used for more than $30. Wait what’s this? Also for sale: Scoop 2 and Scoop 3?
Tom Verlaine is not a name that surfaces much these days. But in the 70s with the band, Television, Verlaine and his co-horts, including Richard Lloyd, created quite a stir with the ringing guitar sound of its debut album Marquee Moon.
‘Adventure,’ their sophomore offering is just as good, I think. Released in 1978, Adventure continued the guitar sound heralding punk’s transformation into more melodic music. New Wave was upon us.
Verlaine and Richard Lloyd were the guitarists, alternating lead and rhythm. Some of the longer guitar parts sound like a smoother Neil Young epic (think ‘Cowgirl in the Sand’ or ‘Like a Hurricane.’)
I remember getting this in Athens, Ga. at WUXTRY, it came out my senior year in high school.
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.)
The sound of the record was what struck me first. Though it may be available remastered now, it wasn’t when I picked it up in high school in Athens, Ga, at WUXTRY. The guitar solos were executed wonderfully and seemed to hang in the air allowing it to sink into your cerebellum.
This is one where teen-age audiophiles would pick to show of their super sonics. That, and of course, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. The thread that binds these albums, nay not thread, the ROPE, tying them together was Alan Parsons of the Alan Parsons Project and producer of DSOFTM and Year of the Cat.
One day about 15 years ago, I was working at the Oakland Tribune newspaper and Alabama News Group. when I got a call from my wife that Al Stewart was playing for free at a church in Marin County (Ross to be exact). It was on my way home and I got there to find standing room only. It was him on guitar and, I believe, a piano accompanist.
This is one I’m giving a ‘5’ and I’ll admit it is partially for nostalgic reasons. It also had an appeal to musicians who liked the interplay between guitar, keyboards and strings. If you’ve followed my blog you know I don’t give out ‘5’s very much at all. But this one does it with literacy, musicianship and that it was different then pop/rock that was coming out at the time. Rick Wakeman, of the progressive rock group Yes played on this record. If you can’t tell from many of the song’s names, Stewart writes on historical events and weaving his own story within the historical context.
“Daddy,” said the boy pointing to the television. “Why are all the people at the Capitol building hitting and kicking each other, and breaking windows and spraying stuff in people’s faces.
“Whoa, slow down there son,” daddy said, “That appears to me to be just a normal tourist visit.”
“But I don’t remember breaking stuff and fighting when we toured the Capitol last year while on vacation,” the son said. “And the news says that more than 500 people have been arrested for violent things that happened there on Jan. 6.”
“Son, I don’t think you understand, it didn’t happen.”
“But dad, it says they are still looking for 300 people, including 200 who hurt police officers.”
“Son, you need to quit watching the TV news and quit reading the newspaper; the news media is helping cover up the fact that the current president stole the election.”
“Do you mean President Biden didn’t really win?” the son asked.
“Now your getting it son,” daddy said.
“So now we can act like President Trump is president.”
“Exactly,” said daddy.
The son thought about it and smiled a mischievous smile.
“Hey dad, can we go to Disney World?”
“Why son?”
“Well, Donald ‘The Duck’ says the Disney park is full of foreigners. He says we need to protect Snow White.
“And Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks said it’s time for folks to come on down to Orlando town and kick some Goofy and Pluto ass.”
This is an opinion/humor column by Mike Oliver who writes about current events, music and his battle with Lewy body dementia at www.myvinylcountdown.com
