New Acquisitions for the Gallery of Beautiful Losers
NOT CONTENT with the bruises and insults that were my lot in the Letters column the last time I dared to enter these hallowed halls (December 1972), I am determined to risk another set of lumps by presenting the results of my most recent sifting through the phonographic fossils undeservedly cast into the tar pit during the Golden Age of Rock.
Many of these un-famous people should at least be riding the crest of the slump right now, but there they ignobly rest in the arms of non-Fame and un-Fortune. Some of them, true, are mere curiosities, others the cult favorites of a skeptical elite, and still others had at least a glimpse of the big time before they did a fast burnout. But what I propose to offer here is a brief catalog of heroes and heroines who deserve another chance at your turntable.
For instance, there's JOANNE VENT, "The Black and White of It Is Blues" (A&M SP 4165), whose collection of songs is so stormily peculiar it's a wonder they could have been overlooked. But back in the Sumptuous Sixties, Joanne stood in the shadow of such black princesses as Aretha, who held the patent on musical heartbreak, and such authentic minstrel acts as Janis Joplin. Joanne nonetheless scored some very soulful points with such tunes as Weak Spot and Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad. Michael McCormick provided properly sparse and melancholy arrangements for this frail blonde lady with the black torment in her voice. She's a very bright light that just never got lit.
JIM DAWSON seemed to have just about everybody's endorsement, but he never got the popularity his tuneful, theatrical songs deserved. "Song-man" (Kama Sutra KSBS 2035) was one of the best first albums released in the early Seventies, unfaltering in melodic richness, dramatic sweep, and just plain likability. Dawson's songs and his singing are direct, easy, and optimistic. "You'll Never Be Lone ly with Me" (Kama Sutra KSBS 2049) is not as dramatically consistent as the first album, but Stephanie, at least, should have made it. Rolling Stone, speaking from the editorial balcony of the Pop Vatican, pleaded for his canonization, but it didn't happen. So Jim just keeps on singing: "And now I am older, I sing for my living, I live for my moment: I know it will come." We hope so.
Ferocious kinkiness is currently in vogue, but the most seriously insane group of all- SPARKS (Bearsville 2048)-has yet to elbow its way onto the Runway of Glitter. Todd Rundgren's production for them is flawless, and the five-man band piles up no less than eleven elaborately original tunes. But even such powerful bits of punk-essence as Biology 2 and Mr. Nice Guys failed to make any commercial noise. "Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing" (Bearsville 2110) is commendably uncanny, sandwiching unrecognizable old classics like Do Re Mi (by Rodgers and Hammerstein!) between some warped but trendy originals Girl from Germany and Whippings and Apologies. Obvious, outrageous, and, er . . .unusual, Sparks has so far proved only that all that glitters is not gold.
JESSE WINCHESTER has been quietly at work compiling a small but convincing set of classics. "Third Down, 110 to Go" (Bearsville 2102) gathers together a group of self-contained musical poems which have been universally admired by critics who are rarely unanimous about any thing. This Canadian troubadour re quires very little in the way of orchestral commotion, even less of those folkish affectations of purity and poverty. His album is simply very good music, a strong river-flow that rises occasionally into high water-listen to All of Your Stories and Lullaby for the First Born.
BILLY JOE SHAVER must have gotten Kris' permission to tag along in the Kristofferson parade, because Kris himself produced the record and Billy Joe writes and sings tunes that have that unmistakable Kristofferson wrinkle. In "Old Five and Dimers like Me" (Monument KZ 32293) there are some damn fine songs that out-Kris the silver-tongued devil at his own game: I’ve Been to Georgia on a Fast Train and Willy the Wandering Gypsy and Me have all the narrative hokiness and dues-paid authority of c-&-w's best known Rhodes scholar. They also re cover some of the freshness that seems to have gone out of the Kristofferson product lately. Billy is a fashionable replay of Tennessee cool, all brass, brag, and beer belly. Set your self down and have some.
On America's Indian reservations all the way from the Great Smokies to Pine Ridge, Yakima, and Acoma, trading-post jukeboxes are cranking out the music of some obscure red artists. FLOYD WESTERMAN is one of them ("Custer Died for Your Sins," Perception POP 5), the ZUNI MIDNIGHTERS another ("Land of the Shalako," Canyon Records 4), and their mu sic is what the young skins are listening to. Westerman's impressive cycle of anti-anthems is of course based on the Vine Deloria Jr. book, while Bill Crockett and the Zuni Mid nighters are into a couple of interesting originals as well as some fantastic readings of such hits as Midnight Hour and Whiter Shade of Pale. Canyon Records supplies both albums from 6050 N. Third St., Phoenix, Ariz. 85012.
Let me tell you about LOTTI GOLDEN, whose rough songs come wrapped in the romance of her evidently endless pain. Her second Atlantic album ("Motor Cycle," M-88233) collapsed under the weight of its own excesses, but the GRT release called "Lotti Golden" (GRT 30003) should enter the annals of confessional classics simply on the merits of Do You Use It? The delivery is ragged and self indulgent, the naked exhibitionism brittle and uncontrolled, but it is all somehow disarming and rather beautiful. Take, for instance, the tune Lately, which moves rapidly from simple observation and commentary to a sort of uncontrolled delirium. Neither great songwriting nor the best of vocal art, but lots of flesh and blood.
Another lady who missed the train to stardom is ANYA COHEN, who sang with a group called Street (Verve FTS 3057). Anya's moment came and went with the speed of light, but while she lasted she laid down some of the best sounds in the otherwise male dominated mid-Sixties. Her voice is one of those instruments of many influences that manage to resound with a marvelous originality. The production of this album is properly primitive for its early day, and the songs won't knock anybody off his chair by today's standards, but Anya persistently comes through with a fine, persona) vocal style rich in fascinating manner isms. Some Thoughts of a Young Man's Girl. If I Needed Someone. and See-See Rider are her best.
I keep predicting the defection of RALPH McTELL from the ranks of the beautiful losers, but he seems to hold on. His first Paramount album was flawed but promising: the ought-to-have-been hit was Streets of London. Next time around ("Not Till Tomorrow," Reprise MS 2121), McTell delivered a trim, taut, lightly scored album of intelligent tunes. The writing is some of the best of its kind: whimsically sad, richly wrought lyrics, often narrative in form and tragic in content, and always mixed with a keen sense of irony. Zimmerman Blues is a shrewd "autobiographical" observation about the holy of holies, and the Donovan-like Barges successfully takes on a peculiar form of English lyricism. McTell should make it, but when?
Most rock greats have made it by intricately combining the roles of creator and performer; non-composing stylists like Joe Cocker are relatively rare. JERRY WILLIAMS wrote nearly half the tunes on his album (Spindizzy KZ 31404), but where he really shines is in the reshaping of rock standards On Broadway, Gangster of Love, Love Letters, and A Whiter Shade of Pale. He had a lot of help from Nicky Hopkins, Nils Lofgren, Chuck Rainey, and others in putting the album together, but what makes this unsung set very special is Williams' direct, unselfconscious vocal style. There is more to it than just the intonation, the phrasing, and the expressiveness we expect from a good singer: there is also that special ability to reorganize, to rewrite the fundamental melody of a song in the manner of an Ella Fitzgerald.
You'd think mere good-time music would find ready acceptance, but it's surprising how much of it passes un noticed. Perhaps it's because the music market is so crowded with mediocrity that people have built up a resistance to anything that comes on first as lollipop. THOMAS JEFFERSON KAYE (Dunhill DSX-50149) is not a stranger to the hit charts; he's worked with some big groups as producer. But his first album as a songwriter-singer didn't get through, despite its very high polish and its happy material.
Check out Hole in the Shoe Blues, Snake in the Grass, The Door Is Still Open, and I'll Be Leaving Her Tomorrow. They wont bring tears to your eyes, but they might get a tap or two out of your toes. "Wringing Applause" is an unexpected and somewhat mysterious al bum on the British Ardent label. It stars the songs and the voice of BRIAN ALEXANDER ROBERTSON, and both seem to come from somewhere be tween the world of Harry Nilsson and that of the London music halls. The lyrics constantly overreach for "significance," but they sometimes achieve an illuminating minor truth: "The man who sees the artist as a guardian of the truth/He must be blind. We're dealers in myths and illusion/De signed to steal your hearts away." Robertson is that very special kind of theater singer who recently emerged in such vehicles as Jesus Christ Super star, mingling rock, pop, and vaudeville. The album is a song cycle with both coherence and discernible continuity, plus a rare seriousness.
For many musicians, obscurity is the result of a failure to communicate. For others, it's a way of life. I can't think of two albums that belong on this list of marvelous losers more than "The School" and "Weltschmerzen," both produced by a huge but obscure cluster of collaborators called the PEOPLE'S MUSIC WORKS ( 220-01 Hempstead Ave., Queens Village, New York 11429). "The School" ends with something called Children's Anthem/ Let Us Sing a Love Song, one of the most ecstatic sing-outs in all recorded music; "Weltschmerzen" is something less than an exercise in Rousseauian naiveté. It is, as the title suggests, just the opposite: an ironic hymn to the world's torments, almost frantically original in its composition and performance. Two really outstanding albums.
JOHN CALE is the classic outsider, destined, I think, to remain happily beyond the clutches of the madding crowd. His collaborations with the Velvet Underground and composer Terry Riley (" Church of Anthrax," Columbia C 30131) were commendable-but uncommitted. The real stuff begins with "The Academy in Peril" (Reprise MS 2079), in which serial music, movie music, and pop dementia are whipped up to a beautiful lather. But the germ that infects Cale is most apparent in his " Paris 1919" (Reprise MS 2131), a splendidly out-of-sync turn-of-the-century tapestry, a kind of musical Magritte. The orchestrations are less daring but more original than they were on "The Academy," the lyrics resound with that infatuation with candor that has made Cale a rock-and-roll hero.
TERRY REID should be a house hold word; his music was meant for everybody. But perhaps his unpolished voice is too fiercely genuine for the well-oiled airways and for those who demand reality but don't like it when they get it. Reid was one of Mickie Most's rare failures back in the Sixties, when "Bang Bang You're Terry Reid" (Epic BN 26427) was issued. It made only a couple of ripples, despite the fact that Reid's interpretations of Bang Bang and Season of the Witch were perfect blends of pop theatricality and blues authenticity. Terry dropped out of earshot for a couple of years, but he re-emerged recently with "River" (Atlantic SD 7259), a title that rather describes his new vocal ways: the cry is still buried in that ragged throat, but its note has mellowed and matured.
Nobody has ever written songs quite like those of JUDEE SILL ( Asylum SD 5050). The Lamp Han Away with the Crown is a very nearly perfect ballad in which the lyrics and the melody run in separate but compatible directions. Her tunes seem to have a delicate indirectness; her lyrics are diffuse, pastel, and yet dimensional. Jesus Was a Cross Maker, from her first album, almost became a folkie classic. "Heart Food" ( Asylum SD 5063) is her most recent; it is more William-Blake-oblique than ever, as delicately unfocused musically, and even more elaborate in its allusions: "Kyrie Eleison . . .I'll chase 'em to the bottom/Till I've finally caught 'em . . . Dreams fall deep. . . ." Judee is probably this year's reigning queen of the non-stars.
JADE WARRIOR (Vertigo 1009) is excellent, individual-and inconsistent. The group is the creation of Tony Duhig, Glyn Havard, and Jon Field: they write almost all the material. Field's alto and concert flute are iridescent, but without the pyrotechnical exhibitionism of Jethro Tull. A second album, "Last Autumn's Dream" (Vertigo VEL 1012), is more accomplished and less literally "oriental" than the debut recording. Borne on the Solar Wind is remarkably complex, though its intent is pastoral simplicity. Jade Warrior won't make it on the merits of its writing or, for that matter, Havard's vocals. But, in a time when musical boredom seems to be pandemic, the originality of their sound ought to keep them from getting lost in the shuffle.
The happy crew that makes up FRASER AND DEBOLT (Columbia C 30381) is in a way an American version of the Incredible String Band. Their sound is distinctly c-&-w, but also a bit surreal if you get in there and listen between the pedal steel. The musical organization is obviously communal, though Allan Fraser and Daisy DeBolt do almost all the writing. As with the String Band, the musical sources are folk, the lyrics strictly contemporary. There is a sizable cult that adores this band of rustics; they favor their first album and find the second ("With Pleasure," Columbia KC 32130) just a bit commercial. I see it the other way around. But I don't think I'll get any argument when I say that the most obscure country band around is Fraser and . . . ah . . . what's-her-name.
ANDY PRATT (Columbia KC 31722 is a bright prospect, but a two-time loser. I can understand why his firs album on Polydor slipped by--it was rather too mellowed out. But his Columbia collection is a fine combination of original material, capable vocals, and imaginative musical production. Take, for example, Who Am Talking To?, a painfully skeptical ditt that comes on like a simple round song but quickly slips into a rhythm knot-garden and a verbal diatribe Andy Pratt's method is to begin hi words and music comfortably enough but then to dart off in unexpected twists and turns, almost from word t word, from note to note. This is what originality is all about, but it does take several listenings before you find out just how to get into the unique Pratt universe.
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Ever since George Martin mixed a classical quartet into Paul Mc Cartney's soft-pedal Yesterday, it has become increasingly difficult to re member the purity of 1955, when a singer and a guitar sufficed for a musical evening.
BRIDGET ST. JOHN's "Ask Me No Question" (Elektra D9 101) manages to bring that purity back, particularly in her most melodious notions, Autumn Lullaby and Hello Again. This last has the kind o words that are as rare as this kind o music: "You never really go away; it's just the space between us growing. . ." The rest of the St. John repertoire makes good use of her pleasantly (I must say) androgynous voice, commendable solo guitar, and a little help from second guitarists Sander and Martyn and bongoist Dominic The lyrics are direct and pleasant.
The classical concert stage had its Florence Foster Jenkins, and rock has its AMANDA TREE (Poppy LA-0030F), a non-singer of pre-history who moons longingly over Hock Salt, a Pineapple Dinosaur, and other anomalies of time and space. Her serious ness about her material and her commitment to her art are as unflawed as Madame Jenkins' were; she launches into the endless (ten-minute) melodies of her own composition with the determined drive and heedless single-mindedness of the greatest of divas.
The results are simply something else.
Can there be another author capable of these immortal lyrics?: "O bring back the prehistoric animals, 'cause dinosaurs are superstars! Poo-poo pee-do!" Now that's rhymin', Simon!
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Also see:
THE BASIC REPERTOIRE--Schubert's Symphony No. 2