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The Cowsills — They should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — 569

ALBUM: “The Cowsills in Concert (1969):

MVC Rating: 3.5/$

I’m serious here.

The Cowsills deserve to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, alongside other family acts like Sly and the Family Stone, the Allman Brothers, the Staple  Sisters, the Jackson 5 and others. They could be in the family band section, if there was one.

I have to admit I just recently bought this record for $2 at Birmingham’s  Seasick Records, one of several great pre-owned record dealers in the area. Nice prices and nice selection for folks like me trying to do a blog on this stuff.. Although I have 678 of my own records to count down,

On a Cowsills fan website, there is a case made to put the ‘real Partridge Family’ in the Hall of Fame. (They are already in the Rhode Island  Music Hall of Fame, for goodness sakes.)

Among the myriad reasons they should be in the Hall, the  website post argues is that they wrote and performed the theme song for the TV show Love American Style. I loved that song and watched that show every Friday night,  as a youngster. It came on some time after the Partridge Family, I believe.?

This record was a nostalgia purchase. I couldn’t resist buying it. Because it tweaked early early rock and roll memories.

I remember in 5th grade coming over to a friends house in Athens, Ga., and my friend’s brother was dancing on the coffee table with ‘Hair’ going full blast. I think it also fueled my dislike of haircuts in the late 1960s, early 1970s.

Kind of strange that this appealed so much to young kids. The song came from the Broadway musical of the same name, notorious for its nude scenes.  The song was also a #2 national hit for the Cowsills.  Not surprising as they turned it  into a silly but arresting pop single –which is the correct interpretation of such a goofy song — as opposed to the more serious take from the musical.

And, i’m not kidding you here: They could really sing and play as this live album shows. They were the model for TV’s popular  Partridge Family, and musically, they would have blown most of the Partridges back to their high school drama classes. Some were amazed at the Cowsills pulling off the  Beach Boys” Good Vibrations.’ live in concert — a difficult task as the Beach Boys themselves learned  because of the degree of difficulty playing Brian Wilson’s masterpiece. 

The Cowsills consisted of the mother, three brothers) and sister (Susan). The live album had lots of well-played covers and introduced me to tunes I would love later like Walk Away Renee, Monday Monday, Please  Mr.Postman and Good Vibrations. Devil with a Blue Dress.

This website has has  a dissertation’s worth of arguments for why the Cowsills should be in the HOF.

I see that others don’t find the value in the Cowsill’s concert disc that I, in my 40 years of record collecting say it warrants. Excellent music, family band cute, lots of drama  over the years and nearly virtuoso playing and, get  this, Discogs is listing this record at $1 plus shipping. What? Did they make 5 million of these things?

They should be as rare as a Bobby Sherman Remembering You record, I say.

I’m serious here. Sort of.

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

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What is more fragile than a relationship?

What is more fragile than a relationship?

A day too  old rose waiting for one touch to send petals spinning to the ground.

The stability of a family facing a future with too many ifs.

The conviction that doing right  is always right.  Or always doing right is  right.

The profundity of a well educated person.

The joy of sleeping when really really worn  out.

The reality you see right now.

The love you can’t define but know it’s true.

The knowledge that the straight trail  is better than the switchback.

The theory that a theory is not truth.

The laugh between old friends you may not see again.

The idea that your decisions don’t affect the world.

The notion that there are things that are impossible.

Caring, love as I rearrange everything

What is rare as a loving relationship?

DId you find that yellow bird?

 

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Sam Cooke –570

ALBUM: Live at Harlem Square Club 1963 (1985)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$

I could listen to Sam Cooke sing anything. A telephone book? What’s that?

The menu at Olive Garden, maybe.

Lost too soon, Cooke was a soul singer who’s voice was smooth with a side of gravel. He could swing as evidenced by this wonderful 1963 music from the Harlem Club, re-discovered and released in 1985.

You want to ‘Twist the Night Away’, then take your handkerchief a round. Round and round. Now your dancing with the chicken slacks, er, the chick in slacks.

What if your baby been stepping out at least that’s what people say.

Sam says don’t get all violent about it, go home and  tell her:

Honey it’s all right
Long as I know, long as I know that you love me
Honey, it’s all right

(And as long as she  tells you it’s not true, he sings a little later).

But then again ‘You Send Me.’

Cooke’s biggest hit. He milks it at the Harlem: “I just want you to listen to this song right here.”

At first I thought it was infatuation
But, woo, it’s lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting
To marry you and take you home, whoa
You, you, you, you send me
I know you send me
I know you send me
Honest you do

Cooke could work a crowd. They burst out in singalong choruses nearly every song. Wish I was there.

Sam earned his chops on the gospel music scene with some magnificent God praising in a group called  Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers, which, if you’re into that kind of music, is some top of the line gospel.

Less than a year after this live show, Cooke was shot and killed in Los Angeles. Police ruled it a justifiable homicide, something the family has long disputed, according to a book by Fred Bronson called The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits: The Inside Story Behind Every Number.

This one was tough not to give a 5.0.

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

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Living for the City

Hicks prepares to sing at the bus station. (Mike Oliver)

OK,  so you know us journalists. Alway looking for the irony, the anomaly, the thing that seems out of place.
It’s Friday and  a couple of us in the AL.com newsroom heard about the grand opening of the intermodal bus/train station where featured live would be American Idol star and Birmingham native and barbecue entrepreneur Taylor Hicks.
We ambled on over.
So there was a  big crowd of city of Birmingham folks who knew what was going on. The other half of the  nearly packed bus station was made up of  travelers who seemed confused by the whole shindig. There was no sign, that I saw, that said Taylor Hicks was about to perform. And Taylor is the kind of a guy who would go unnoticed in a Publix grocery store.
I’m leading up to my ironic observation.
The ribbon gets cut. Former Mayor William Bell is there, current Mayor Randall Woodfin was there and council members whom I can’t name and other city folk were there.
So what does Hicks open with. “Living for the City.’
People were dancing, waving hands, clapping, bumping to a cool Stevie Wonder funky groove. I had to admit I was nodding along to the beat.
I still had the song in my bobbing  head going  back to the office.
Then I remembered the words.
Taylor may have subbed out some words? Don’t know because I really wasn’t able to hear the words clearly with bus station accoustics.
 Here’s the words from Stevie Wonder, which would not necessarily be the  Chamber of Commerce version of the city.
-=-=–=-=-=-=-
A boy is born in hard time Mississippi
Surrounded by four walls that ain’t so pretty
His parents give him love and affection
To keep him strong moving in the right direction
Living just enough, just enough for the city
His father works some days for fourteen hours
And you can bet he barely makes a dollar
His mother goes to scrub the floors for many
And you’d best believe she hardly gets a penny
Living just enough, just enough for the city yeah
His sister’s black but she is sho ’nuff pretty
Her skirt is short but Lord her legs are sturdy
To walk to school she’s got to get up early
Her clothes are old but never are they dirty
Living just enough, just enough for the city
Her brother’s smart he’s got more sense than many
His patience’s long but soon he won’t have any
To find a job is like a haystack needle
‘Cause where he lives they don’t use colored people
Living just enough, just enough for the city
Just enough for the city
Living for the city
Just enough for the city
Enough for the city
Just enough for the city
Living for the city
Just enough for the city
-=-=-=-=-=-=
A great song.  And Taylor did a fine job with  it:  In fact, Taylor sang the song in one of the rounds in 2006 when he won American Idol,  so not an off-the-wall choice. It’s just there  was some irony because the Wonder song isn’t exactly a love letter for the ‘the city:’
In fact it is actually a brutal and scathing critique of ‘the city.’

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Core of Rock (various artists) –571

still with its $3 sticker

ALBUM: Core of Rock, compilation, (Richie Havens, Tim Hardin, et.  al. 1970)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$

An odd mix of popular and not so popular from the 1960s and 1970s.

I’m looking for some thread to tie them together, but is kind of a hodgepodge , that includes blues folk and a jamming drum and flute solo from Blues Project.

Janis Ian, the brainy teenager who wrote ‘At 17’,  goes all Romeo and West Side story with ‘Society’s Child.’

Then there’s Cory Wells, formerly (or later)  of hitmeisters Three Dog Night who should have stayed with the pack  (or was this before he joined the pack). His two songs, with the band the Enemys, include a needless and poor version of Chuck Berry’s ‘Too Much Monkey Business.’

And then there’s Blues Project, hippie flute instrumentals– meh. And Van Dyke Parks is working his arrangement talents while humming Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Richie Havens’ take on ‘I Shall be Released’ is good. But my admiration here was focused on Tim Hardin, the fragile-voiced war vet who wrote and performed one of rock/folk’s most straightforward and best song ever in a career cut short by a fatal drug overdose: Reason to Believe.

if I listen long enough to you

I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true.

Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried

Still I’d look to find a reason to believe

I love Hardin’s voice. But Rod Stewart’s version is a forceful classic.

I realize this album was a bargain pickup so I, as I was wont to do, could glean two or three or four songs for a mixtape. I also used to discover new and good music on some of these hit-or-miss compilations. (Wait until i get you to one of my compilation purchases with a cool rave-up of a song that will make your ‘backbone slip.’ (That will be in the  M’s), I think.

 

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

 

 

 

 

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Leonard Cohen — 574

AL

ALBUM: I’m Your Man (1988)

MVC Rating: 4.5/$$$$

Canadian, poet, novelist, singer, songwriter and musician. Which of these things does not go with Leonard Cohen.

Some would say singer. And yet, that, and songwriter are probably what he’s known most for. His song ‘Hallelujah’ has many great covers (Jeff Buckley,  Willie Nelson, k.d. lang, Justin Timberlake, just to name a few.) But some still enjoy Cohen’s own version best. I prefer Buckley’s but I do prefer Cohen’s version of Suzanne more than the interpretations by other singers.

Cohen whisper-talks in deep basstones. He doesn’t really sing. But it can be very effective as on his 1988 album, “I’m Your  Man.” On this album that I have on vinyl, Cohen uses more instrumentation than usual  to back  his whispery poetry. It’s right catchy. Highlights include the title song,  ‘First We Take Manhattan’ and probably the album’s best song, ‘Tower of Song.’  It’s kind of  like old white man rap.

With Cohen, it’s all about the words. He’s basically a poet, who learned to turn his provocative verse into song.  He was apparently in his 30s before he even used  music as vehicle for expression. He was a novelist and poet with several published works.

Cohen’s lyrics are always enigmatic, earthy and sophisticated at the same time.  Here’s some passages from ‘Tower of Song:’

 Well my friends are gone and  my hair is grey

I ache in the places where I used to play

And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
Oh in the tower of song

Cohen died at 82 in 2016.
Rolling  Stone wrote:  Cohen was the dark eminence among a small pantheon of extremely influential singer-songwriters to emerge in the Sixties and early Seventies. Only Bob Dylan exerted a more profound influence upon his generation, and perhaps only Paul Simon and fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell equaled him as a song poet.
I would argue with Rolling Stone over that last statement. Lennon-McCartney,  Van Morrison and even Bruce Springsteen should be in that conversation.  (Springsteen would be more in the late 1970s.
My favorite Cohen lyric is from the song Anthem. Think about this one:
 
The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Yeah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free
Ring the bells (ring the bells) that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything (there is a crack in everything)
That’s how the light gets in

 Counting down my 678  vinyl records  before I die of  brain disease.
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Joe Cocker — 575

ALBUM: Joe Cocker/With a Little Help From My Friends (1969)

MVC Rating: 5.0/$$$$

When you see Joe Cocker writhing on stage, singing in his most gravelly-gritty Joe Cocker voice, having what appears to be an epileptic seizure, you just want to take a stick and poke him (from a distance).

“Bear. bear. are you all right?’

(Growl).: You feelin’ alright?
I’m not feelin’ too good myself
Well, you feelin’ alright?
I’m not feelin’ too good myself

Cocker had perfected the Ray Charles-Otis Redding growls and gravel throated singing style. Cocker turned it into a great career of interpreting other people’s songs. Popular songs from the Beatles, Dylan and Dave Mason.

Inexplicably he writhed, and contorted himself while singing; it was kind of a cross between playing air guitar, air piano and air drums with a touch of the palsy. All the while he is putting so much emotional grit in each word of a song.

“Well,  I’ll try with a little help from friends.”

Jimmy Page among those on Cocker’s debut album.

The sad bear eyes and vocals indicating great inner  turmoil made you want to take a thorn out his paw.

He had a good humor though about his seemingly uncontrolled histrionics.

In 1976 on Saturday Night Live John Belushi joined Cocker as Cocker and they both went through some contortions.

Although he went on to bigger things with Top 40 ballads (You are So Beautiful) and some duets (Up Where We Belong  w/ Jennifer Warnes), this album, his debut, was his prime rock and roll album with covers of Feelin Alright, With a Little Help from My Friends and Just Like a Woman.

Check him out on video.

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

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For the Collector, Vol. 2 — 576

Hope you can read the song list.

ALBUM: For the Collector Vol. 2  (4-record Laurie compilation)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$$

What a treasure trove. Here are 64 songs from 50s, 60s and 70s. Many that you know you know. Others you know but didn’t know you knew. Others you wish you didn’t know.

You know? What I mean?

Like right now I’m listening to Jimmy Curtiss sing “Laughing at the Rain.” I know this song but didn’t know I knew it.

This collection has a lot of Dion (8 songs) and a lot of singers that sound like Dion. But that’s OK, I love Dion (and the Belmonts). Most known artists like Del Shannon get two or three spots. But lots of one-hit wonderfuls, like ‘Doctor’ by the Five Discs, ‘Western Movies’ by the Olympics, and ‘The Normal Ones’ by the Brooklyn Boys. I believe it was a bargain special when it came out, but now I see it listed for $50 on eBay and it seems to be scarce.

Then you have the Chiffons singing ‘He’s So Fine,’ AND ‘My Sweet Lord’ – the song they sued and won a landmark decision against former  Beatle George Harrison over his  song “My Sweet Lord.’ Listening now. Yes, they sound quite alike in melody. He’s so fine. My sweet Lord. I wish he were mine. I really want see you.

Guess the Chiffons wanted to show how alike the two songs are.

You know plagiarism is a bad thing, I agree, but you know how stuff gets in your subconscious. I’ll go ahead and admit it, I am plagiarizing Robert Christgau right now. Except  his vocabulary is twice mine. So I’m really only plagiarizing half of his words. But its not the words. Look at ‘He’s so Fine’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’. The words are completely different. Same with Christgau and me. But it’s the melody, the notes, the zeitgeist. I am plagiarizing Christgau’s zeitgeist. And both of our album reviews  are in ALPHABETICAL ORDER. Although his is more alphabetical than mine.

OK moving on.

On the last record, the record compilers couldn’t resist bringing in Snoopy v. Red Baron by that great band the Royal Guardsmen. You know the Guardsmen, the RG baby. Never heard of them but I do remember the song, it was my favorite at 4-years-old.

PS I checked real quick Wikipedia on the Guardsmen. Let’s just say they had a hit with the Snoopy Red Baron thing and rode that dog for as long as they could. Here’s what Wiki wrote:

The Royal Guardsmen are an American rock band, best known for their 1966 hit single Snoopy vs. the Red Baron, The Return of The Red Baron”, “Snoopy For President”, and the Christmas follow up “Snoopy’s Christmas.”

I wonder where  Vol . 1 is?

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

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

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Nat King Cole — 577

ALBUM: Just One of Those Things (1958)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

It was a different time, a timeless time.

Nat King Cole was a smooth guy. Frank Sinatra-like in Cole’s crooning phase. My father tells me he was a big jazz guy with a trio in his earlier days. This album with a few pops and snaps has the brass blasting and retreating behind universal themed lyrics of love lost and found. “A Cottage for Sale” sets the tone with its title.

My favorite is ‘These Foolish Things Remind Me of You,’ partly because it is a great song but also because I had heard Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music do it. So I  had familiarity going in.

A cigarette that bears a lipstick’s traces
An airline ticket to romantic places
Still my heart has wings
These foolish things remind me of you
A tinkling piano in the next apartment
Those stumblin’ words that told you what my heart meant
A fair ground painted swings
These foolish things remind me of you
Ahh, timeless stuff. And you followers of my blog know I have spent some time thinking about time.
Cole was a great piano player and singer. He became in the late ’50s  the first black host of a TV series, a variety show.
He was born in Montgomery, yes, Alabama. But his family moved to Chicago when he was a tyke of 4.
As may be expected Cole dealt with his share of racism in the 1950s and 60s including an incident in Birmingham where he was performing in 1956.
According to the Birmingham News three  members of the Alabama Citizens Council attacked and tried to kidnap him before being thwarted by law enforcement.
He didn’t finish the concert and never again played in the South.

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

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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.