Reviewed by: CHRIS ALBERTSON NOEL COPPAGE PHYL GARLAND PAUL KRESH PETER REILLY STEVE SIMELS JOEL VANCE
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
CARPENTERS: Passage. Karen and Richard Carpenter (vocals and instrumentals); instrumental accompaniment. B'wana She No Home; All You Get from Love Is a Love Song; I Just Fall in Love Again; Evita; On the Balcony of the Casa Rosada; and five others. A&M SP 4703 $6.98, AAM 4703 $7.98, AAM 4703 $7.98.
Performance: Full of surprises
Recording: Excellent
The Carpenters' latest album is nothing if not adventurous. It opens with B'wana She No Home, a provocative song by Michael Franks about a wealthy woman and her native servant in South Africa. There's a shimmering rock version of Man Smart, Woman Smarter (which Harry Belafonte used to sing calypso-style). There's even a whole scene from Evita, the rock opera about Eva Peron created by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice (the team that gave us Jesus Christ, Superstar).
Karen Carpenter acquits herself quite splendidly as the dictator's wife pleading with the populace not to keep their "distance" from her now that her husband has risen to power.
(For this one cut the Carpenters were some how able to induce fifty of the Gregg Smith Singers and half of the Los Angeles Philharmonic to participate.)
The program concludes rather remarkably with a science-fiction song, Calling Occupants, of Interplanetary Craft, which manages to avoid resorting to a single sound-effects cliche. There are, it's true, also a number of more characteristically mild Carpenter items, such as I Just Fall in Love Again and Sweet, Sweet Smile, but by and large "Passage" is an eventful recording. P.K.
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Explanation of symbols:
= reel-to-reel stereo tape
= eight-track stereo cartridge
= stereo cassette
= quadraphonic disc
= reel-to-reel quadraphonic tape
= eight-track quadraphonic tape
Monophonic recordings are indicated by the symbol
The first listing is the one reviewed; other formats, if available, follow it.
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RAY CHARLES: True to Life (see Best of the Month, page 112)
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
CRAWLER. Crawler (vocals and instrumentals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Without You Babe; You Got Money; Sold On Down the Line; One Too Many Lovers; You Are My Saviour; Stone Cold Sober; and three others. EPIC PE 34900 $6.98, 0 PEA 34900 $7.98, PET 34900 $7.98.
Performance: Excellent
Recording: Excellent
Here's an impressive album by an English band, formerly called Backstreet Crawler, that at certain moments reminds me of the fine Welsh band Ace. Both groups play flexible, colorful, jazz-tinted arrangements, with each instrumentalist contributing his fair share and no one hogging the solos. Both also have strong, versatile lead vocalists, Crawler's being Terry Wilson Slesser.
Although Stone Cold Sober is the cut get ting heavy air play, You Got Money, with a delightfully back-pedaling riff, and the smooth and easy Sold On Down the Line, featuring tasteful work by Geoff Whitehorn's guitar and John "Rabbit" Bundrick's organ, are also especially fetching. Overall, the sang-writing is solid and imaginative, and the production is clean and crisp. Classy albums are always welcome. Nice going, lads. J. V.
THE CHARLIE DANIELS BAND: Midnight Wind. Charlie Daniels (guitar, fiddle, vocals); Taz DiGregorio (vocals, keyboards); Charles Hayward (bass); Tom Crain (guitar); Fred Ed wards (drums). Midnight Wind; Sugar Hill Saturday Night; Heaven Can Be Anywhere; Maria Teresa; Indian Man; and five others. EPIC PE 34970 $7.98, 0 PEA 34970 $7.98, PET 34970 $7.98.
Performance: Tight
Recording: Very good
Charlie Daniels is finally getting his act together. To be specific, what's getting together is his band, which I used to think viewed playing a tune as some kind of competition in which volume counted for more points than anything else. It doesn't any more. On "Midnight Wind" the band exhibits quite a cohesive force of complement and harmony, and it has evolved a sound of its own, yet it still has more than your average amount of energy. I've always liked Daniels' singing. Here he yields the vocals now and then, and the first thing said in the songwriting credits is that the band wrote these ditties, so maybe this is a sign of democracy working.
Lord knows we could use a sign or two of that. My favorite tune is Sugar Hill Saturday Night, but most of the others are also tuneful--you might opt for Redneck Fiddlin' Man.
I like Daniels' picking considerably more than I like his fiddling; he can really ripple a guitar, which he does here regularly but not bombastically. The description "country-flavored rock" doesn't do this album justice. - N.C.
THE DRAMATICS: Shake It Well. The Dramatics (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Shake It Well; You Make the Music; My Ship Won't Sail Without You; Spaced Out Over You; Ocean of Thoughts and Dreams; and four others. ABC AB-1010 $6.98, 0 8020-1010 (H) $7.95, 5020-1010 (H) $7.95.
Performance: Stylishly funky
Recording: Good
The "blues" element of r-&-b is often sacrificed to the overriding demands of rhythm. Yet the best groups have always applied the formula with balance, emphasizing the projection of feeling through both lyrics and music. The Dramatics are among these wiser groups. Their work is at times reminiscent of the old r-&-b groups of the Fifties, with an oh-so-deep bass voice adding spoken commentary between the melodic statements.
Their funk does not seem contrived-note Shake It Well, an old-fashioned, down-home foot-stomper. Other high points here are Spaced Out Over You and Ocean of Thoughts and Dreams. Both are mellow, but modern. This is the work of pros. -P.G.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
LARRY GATLIN: Love Is Just a Game. Larry Gatlin (vocals, guitar); instrumental accompaniment. Love Is Just a Game; Tomorrow; Anything but Leavin'; Kiss It All Goodbye; I Don't Wanna Cry; Steps; Alleluia; and four others. MONUMENT MG7616 $7.98, 0 MG87616 $7.98, MGC7616 $7.98.
Performance: Very good
Recording: Excellent
The last time I saw Larry Gatlin we were both visiting a recording studio and he was pushing songs he'd written. It must have been '74 or '75. Now it turns out that singing is the thing about him; he has very good range and is a Deadeye Dick on pitch-which really shows in this recording, whose melodic subtleties test the depth of his relationship with pitch more than others might (some songs are just easier to sing in tune than others).
Gatlin's writing is subtler about melody than most country writing is, and it's a lot subtler about melody than it is about lyrics.
This time the lyrics are infiltrated with mediocre plays on words and tend to avoid getting too specific about a particular feeling. His melodies have funny chord changes and odd twists, although the most obvious thing about them isn't subtle at all: big buildups in choral refrains that seem to be related to both country church music and old pop schlock of the pre-rock middle-of-the-road. Fred Foster, head man at Monument, has done quite a fine job here with production to play the buildups just about right. Foster's way is to hire a whole slew of musicians, many playing the same instrument, and to fit the style of musician he wants into the optimum place in a song. Reggie Young's lyrical electric guitar goes a certain place and Grady Martin's Spanish-flavored acoustic playing goes some other place. The result is quite effective and sounds pretty spontaneous, as if Foster felt his way more than he thought his way through these decisions. A little weak lyrically, this album is, but it's a treat for the ears just the same, and it's a distinctive enough marker in Larry Gatlin's progress as a singer. He's still learning, still growing. He's gonna be tall. -N.C.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
STEVE GOODMAN: Say It in Private. Steve Goodman (vocals, guitar); instrumental accompaniment. I'm Attracted to You; You're the Girl I Love; Video Tape; There's a Girl in the Heart of Maryland; Two Lovers; and five others. ASYLUM 7E-1118 $6.98, ET8-1118 $7.97, TC5-11I8 $7.97.
Performance: Excellent
Recording: Very good
The second half of this (starting with Is It True What They Say About Dixie) is very good indeed, but I think the first side tries to finesse us a little with what you might call ...
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The Boomtown Rats
Up till now, my response to tie horde of New Wave rockers making demands on our ears has been, "Put up or shut up." If you're going to knock the Stones or the Who for being boring old farts, you should at least be able to make records on their level, and, frankly, I haven't heard any New Wavers do that, with the possible exception of the Sex Pistols, who make exciting singles but merely so-so albums. (See review of "Never Mind the Bollocks . . ." on page 132.) But I don't worry about it much any more, because if the New Wave gives us no more than the Boomtown Rats the whole thing will have been worth it. Their debut album on Mercury is just the most exciting, uncompromising rock-and-roll I have heard in years, infinitely better-and I say this with consider able surprise-than anything the superannuated have done since the dawn of this decade. In fact, it is the most stunning, left-field first album by anyone since Bruce Springsteen.
Describing the Rats is almost pointless since they are so proudly mainstream. I could list the influences--Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, Ray Davies, the Yardbirds--and re mark on their driven, angry, blues-tinged style of rock, but that wouldn't begin to tell you how they differ from, say, the New York Dolls or even such revivalists as Dave Edmunds. It is a matter of authority, I think. The Rats aren't groundbreakers, but what they do sounds effortless; they can make even the stalest clichs sound fresh again. Rock-and roll is in their blood. If you doubt it, just check the showmanship of lead singer Bob Geldof as he spits out the lyrics of Mary of the 4th Form or the way the band as a whole pummels the closing chords of Kicks. Beyond the band's own talents, Robert John Lange's production achieves something I had thought was impossible-a perfect synthesis of the raunchy and the sophisticated. And there are enough little details only partially obscured in the murk of the cunningly fake-mono sound to have you discovering new delights for weeks.
FORGET hypes, forget razor blades and safety pins, forget anarchy in the U.K., forget the Blank Generation . . in fact, forget every thing even remotely associated with the labels "punk" and "New Wave." Movements are a waste of time, and Sturgeon's Law is still valid: 90 per cent of everything is crap. All you need to remember is that the Boomtown Rats get as close to the essence of rock as anyone in our lifetimes and that they've made one of the finest albums of this age of the world, easily accessible to old fart and young turk alike. Get it.
-Steve Simels
THE BOOMTOWN RATS. The Boomtown Rats (vocals and instrumentals). Lookin' After No. 1; Neon Heart; Joey's on the Streets Again; Never Bite the Hand That Feeds; Mary of the 4th Form; (She's Gonna) Do You In; Close As You'll Ever Be; I Can Make It If You Can; Kicks. MERCURY SRM-1-1188 $6.98, MC8-1-1188 $7.95, MCR4-1-1188 $7.95.
"... make even the stalest clichés sound fresh again."
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Stone "Product"
Mr. Jagger as Ms. Simon
“PRODUCT," not music, is what keeps the record industry going. Bands grind it out at their label's behest ("We have more Aerosmith product due"), record stores stock and sell it like soap or soda pop, fans lap it up ("Rumours" has been number one on the charts for eighteen weeks at this writing), and critics deplore it, even though it is arguably the purest expression of real pop culture, as disposable as a beer can or a Pamper. Product. The most accurate description of the new album by ... the Rolling Stones? Well, I'm not sure. I hope not. But the circumstances surrounding the creation of "Love You Live," as well as the aural evidence of the record itself, lend credence to my sneaking suspicion that it's merely a throwaway. Consider the facts:
First, this has got to be the most ineptly mixed rock album in ages. Charlie Watts is so up front that he sounds as if he's playing a drum solo throughout. The guitars drift in and out seemingly at random-that is, when you can hear them at all, which is only intermittently (just try picking out where Ronnie Wood is on Honky Tonk Women). The background vocals, which are even more ragged than usual, simply blast out of the speakers, while Bill Wyman's bass is all but inaudible.
To call this perspective "unnatural" is like calling Hitler an unpleasant character.
Second, the Stones were in a state of chaos while they were getting "Love You Live" together. Keith Harwood, the engineer who began the project and with whom the band had had a long working relationship, died during its early stages. Keith Richards' drug bust was front-page news and he faced the very real possibility of a jail sentence. The New Wave acts were nipping at the Stones' heels (the Sex Pistols publicly suggested that Mick Jagger go Elvis one better and kill himself).
Finally, the group's contract was being renegotiated. With all that to contend with, wouldn't you be tempted to fulfill your last obligations to your label in the easiest way possible? After all, all they want is product.
But the Stones have loudly declared that that isn't what they did, and "Love You Live" makes it enough of the time in musical terms that I can't be totally cynical about it.
Some of the things here are quite nice, actually. The blues stuff on side three, for example, which was cut at the band's first club appearance in almost fifteen years, has all the raw energy, authority, and sass we expect from the Rolling Stones, and for a change the re cording catches both the group and the atmosphere fairly faithfully. Some of the newer, lesser songs-Fingerprint File especially come off a lot better here than in the original studio versions. Still, by and large, the band sounds loose, tired, and uncommitted, and whether that's entirely the result of engineering incompetence is beyond me. All I know is that "Love You Live" doesn't sound like the Greatest Rock-and-Roll Band in the World or even like the Rolling Stones as I've heard them on recent live bootlegs with ten times the impact of this set.
BUT it hardly matters. The attitude of rock audiences today is maddeningly complacent (how else can you explain "Frampton Comes Alive"?), and they are bound to see any con cert album as filler, which is hardly the Stones' fault. Besides, the Stones are a reactive band-unconscious journalists, if you will-and their function has never been to surprise us, to knock us out of our complacency. That's up to the younger bands, some of whom are threatening to heat up the musical and social climate to the point where a record can again have a real impact on some one's life. If they do-and it looks more likely all the time-I have no doubt that the Stones will have at least as much to say as any of them, and will rock harder in the bargain. Which sounds like a good deal for all concerned, don't you think? -Steve Simels
THE ROLLING STONES: Love You Live. The Rolling Stones (vocals and instrumentals); instrumental accompaniment. Honky Tonk Women; If You Can't Rock Me/Get Off of My Cloud; Happy; Hot Stuff; Star Star; Tumbling Dice; Fingerprint File; You Gotta Move; You Can't Always Get What You Want; Mannish Boy; Crackin' Up; Little Red Rooster; Around and Around; It's Only Rock 'n' Roll; Brown Sugar; Jumping Jack Flash; Sympathy for the Devil. ROLLING STONES COC 2-9001 two discs $11.98, TP2-9001 $12.97, CS2-9001 $12.97.
" . . .sneaking suspicion that it's merely a throwaway."
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... trendy eclecticism, craftmanship turned loose on a catalog of trivia. The thing starts off with a little number that can remind you at once of both disco and that absent-minded pap music Brazil is famous for (and maybe even less wonderful things, depending on your experience), but you'd have to say it's done well.
The second side, though, acknowledges that music really has to connect with the heart. Hank Williams' Weary Blues from Waitin', generally overlooked among Williams' tunes, was an excellent choice, an inspired choice, and Goodman, with Saul Broudy on the harp, lays it bare. Daley's Gone is an interesting exercise, a stylized remake of Dehlia's Gone in a topical song about the late Richard J. of Chicago, but it is not very pointed, politically or otherwise. My Old Man is a semi-remarkable piece, and The Twentieth Century's Almost Over, which Goodman wrote with old pal John Prine, is more than good enough to suggest that they should write together again, several times. Goodman's singing continues to be expressive and his guitar playing is tastier than ever. Having this is almost like having two halves from different albums, but one of the halves is good enough to carry the other. - N.C.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
HALL AND OATES: Beauty on a Back Street. Daryl Hall, John Oates (vocals and instrumentals); other musicians. Don't Change; Why Do Lovers Break Each Other's Heart?; The Girl Who Used to Be; You Must Be Good for Something: Bigger Than Both of Us; Bad Habits and Infections; and four others. RCA AFLI-2300 $7.98, AFS I-2300 $7.98, AFKI-2300 $7.98.
Performance: Eclectic
Recording: Very good
The recording world has become so compartmentalized that artists are commonly locked into categories based on the type of music we have come to expect from them. Rock is rock, soul is soul, country is something else, jazz is ever in search of a home, and "easy listening" seems to be a vague, mid-American catch-all. Seldom do any of them meet, particularly on the nation's radio stations.
Therefore, Daryl Hall and John Oates are adventuresome (conservative as they might seem at times) in that they have consistently defied categorization, preferring to draw on all of the many types of music that nurtured them. Both were heavily influenced by the Philadelphia brand of rock-and-roll of their formative years. Back in those days, Oates was emulating Elvis Presley while Hall worked as a session musician with Kenny Gamble, now of the Gamble and Huff song writing/producing team. Yet they were equally affected by the British rock movement of the Sixties and everything that followed.
They have attempted to integrate all these elements in "Beauty on a Back Street." Though in the past they have leaned more heavily toward what might be called easy-listening r-&-b, their new set is markedly more eclectic. Each track, taken separately, might fit comfortably into several programming niches. Why Do Lovers Break Each Other's Heart? evokes the old doo-wop groups, You Must Be Good for Something opens with some sure-footed blues-guitar licks only to be transformed into the sort of sassy anthem typical of the Rolling Stones in their moments of youthful defiance, The Girl Who Used to Be is sufficiently soft to pass the tenderness test in the MOR marketplace, and there are traces of raga rhythms on Winged Bull. Each dips unobtrusively into a different sonic stream yet retains a basic musical integrity. I'm a "soul"-oriented listener, but somehow they all manage to reach me. P.G.
FREDDIE KING (19341976). Freddie King (vocals, guitar); Eric Clapton (vocals, guitar); instrumental accompaniment. Pack It Up; Shake Your Bootie; 'T'ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do; Woman Across the River; and four others. RSO RS-1-3025 $7.98, 0 8T1-3025 $7.98, CT1-3025 $7.98.
Performance: Excellent
Recording: Good
The late Freddie King was a fine, growling blues shouter and an excellent guitarist who played with an economy-the right note in the right place at the right time-that is rare among blues guitarists. His passing sadly reduces the number of active bluesmen still left from the golden days.
One of King's disciples, Eric Clapton, appears throughout the second side of this-memorial album, and there's a delicate guitar chorus from George Terry, on Gambling Woman Blues, where he plays a fine slide-style insert. Recommended. - J. V.
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Elton's greatest
JUST how did a pudgy little suburban Englishman who calls himself Elton John ever get to the point of releasing "Greatest Hits" albums (Volume 11, yet!) and careering about as a superstar not only of pop music but of the other media as well? By guts, talent, and self-confidence, of course, but also-and more basically--by taking the "show" part of show business very seriously indeed. Elton works as hard-one might almost say as shamelessly-at being a joyous eccentric on constant public display as he does at his musical craft. With each new outlandish custom car he orders, each new surreal costume he parades about in, and each new revelation about his private (!) life, he casts a wider spotlight of celebrity about him self. The price has been a tidal wave of tsk-tsk's from the uptight, "serious" critics that might have drowned a less ebullient exhibitionist but has barely dampened Elton's plat form heels. He's known where he was going right from the beginning, and now he's reached it: The Top. Since the air gets a bit thin up there and it's hard work to prepare new material, he's doing some quick cashing-in with albums such as this.
But who's complaining? Every track here from his wistfully spacy Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds to the classic Pinball Wizard to the happy groans of The Bitch Is Back to the sad sweetness of Island Girl-is authentic Elton, which means that we are in the presence of a unique showman who also happens to be an extremely clever and creative pop communicator. Of course, it is that same zany cleverness that has so offended many critics that they ignore the creativity that goes along with it.
Elton recently announced that he's giving up live stage performances, which is rather like a French poodle announcing that he in tends to become a Weimaraner. Any place El ton appears is a stage. But if the announcement means that he intends to spend more time in the recording studio, then it's good news for us all. As we edge into the Orwellian Eighties, we are going to need eccentricity and flamboyance, no matter how well rehearsed, to relieve the dreariness of it all. And the spectacle of Elton John prancing about on his hind legs and jumping through musical hoops is worth a smile any time. Let's all pray that he never decides to get serious.
-Peter Reilly
ELTON JOHN: Greatest Hits, Volume II. Elton John (vocals, piano); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. The Bitch Is Back; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds; Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word; Don't Go Breaking My Heart; Someone Saved My Life Tonight; Philadelphia Freedom; Island Girl; Grow Some Funk of Your Own; Levon; Pinball Wizard. MCA--MCA-3027 $6.98, MCAT-3027 $7.98, MCAC-3027 $7.98.
" taking the 'show' part of show business seriously "
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RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
NILS LOFGREN: Night After Night. Nils Lofgren (vocals, guitar, piano); Tom Lofgren (guitar, organ); Wornell Jones (bass); other musicians. Take You to the Movies; Back It Up; Like Rain; Cry Tough; It's Not a Crime; Goin' Back; You're the Weight; and seven others. A&M SP-3707 two discs $9.98, Q3.) AAM 3707 $9.98, AAM 3707 $9.98.
Performance: Hot stuff
Recording: Excellent
I had high hopes for this live set (culled from a number of concerts), and I'm happy to say that by and large they're fulfilled. For starters, the programming of "Night After Night" sensibly takes a Greatest Hits approach. Although the bulk of the material comes from his solo albums, Nils has also gone back and reworked several fine numbers from his days with Grin; the result is an excellent overview of his growth during the last six years or so.
More important, the touring band Nils now uses is not only the best he's ever worked with, as an ensemble it has matured into one of the finest rock groups currently treading the boards. The band's relaxed yet powerful style suggests a cross between Jimi Hendrix and Creedence Clearwater, but without the excesses of the former or the rhythmic stiff ness of the latter. Patrick Henderson's key board work is especially fine-check out his lovely Caribbean riffing on I Came to Dance. It is a delight.
And so, of course, is Nils. His guitar playing is, if anything, even more inventive in a live situation than it is in the studio, and he is in top form here. As a rock singer, he's a total natural, with just the right mix of sweetness and swagger. I wonder, though, whether he's not perhaps too natural for his own good, or at least for the audience's. His live shows are among the friendliest I've ever attended, but he rarely seems interested in working the crowd. In person he's endearing rather than involving, and "Night After Night" accurately reflects this--which makes me suspect that the set won't be a commercial success on the level of, say, "Frampton Comes Alive." But that certainly shouldn't deter you for a moment from acquiring it. It's a knockout--one of the handful of live double albums that sustains interest over all four sides. -S.S.
LYNYRD SKYNYRD: Street Survivors. Lynyrd Skynyrd (vocals and instrumentals). What's Your Name; That Smell; One More Time; I Know a Little; and four others. MCA . MCA-3029 $6.98, MCAT-3029 $7.98, MCAC-3029 $7.98.
Performance: Good
Recording: Good
This is the last album from Lynyrd Skynyrd as we have known it, barring release of out takes or other stuff taped earlier, since three members of the band were killed in an air plane wreck just as "Street Survivors" was about to be marketed. And it's a pretty well-edited showcase of the band's strengths. It's Southern rock from the viewpoint popularized by the Allman Brothers, drawing much more from black than white country music, but the band had its own way of playing it.
The songs aren't very deep; you don't need to play a cut ten times to find out what the song is about-but playing it three or four times will help you appreciate the ensemble work, the blend of voices and instruments, instruments and instruments. And this batch of songs is fairly tuneful. Nothing stands out as a real grabber, beyond the irony of the word "survivors" in the title and the message of That Smell ("of death"), but then nothing slinks down as a real dud either. It doesn't strike me as the kind of album to play five times a day the first week you have it, but if you like the genre, it's the kind of album you can keep coming back to. -N.C.
LIZA MINNELLI: Tropical Nights. Liza Minnelli (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Jimi-Jimi; When It Comes Down to It; I Love Every Little Thing About You; Easy; I'm Your New Best Friend; and four others. Columbia PC 34887 $6.98, PCA 34887 $7.98, PCT 34887 $7.98.
Performance: Not a rest cure
Recording: Very good
Oh, Liza, Liza! That child has been a source of concern to me for years. I've been worried about her ever since I saw her in her first star ring role on Broadway (in Flora, the Red Men ace) I hate to think how many years ago. I mean, she's so vulnerable. Look at the rotten deal she got from Robert de Niro in New York, New York. Way before that, Cabaret stranded her in Berlin without even enough ...
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Debbie Boone’s Debut
THE Fifties weren't all grease and raunch T and Elvis, y'know. They had their whole some, homespun, upstanding side too. And nobody, but nobody, was more wholesome, homespun, or upstanding than Pat Boone. His cheery, beaming performance image was as spotless as his white-buck shoes, and parents heaved sigh after sigh of relief as his records--Friendly Persuasion, April Love, Anastasia--crested the top of the charts one after another. It wasn't only parents who cottoned to him, either. Hordes of devoted teenagers also cheered when he went to Hollywood and shuddered with relief when he refused to give Shirley Jones an on-screen kiss in his first film. Pat Boone made us feel that Everything Was Going to Turn Out All Right.
Jump cut to 1978. Pat Boone still looks and acts precisely as he did twenty years ago (there must be a portrait moldering in a closet somewhere), and, even more incredibly, he still sings the way he used to. He's been per forming across the country with his four daughters (Cherry, Lindy, Laury, and Debby) as the Boone Family Singers. They've had a moderate success-at least no one has spiked their milk shakes or tried to gang-rape any body-so all must still be well.
Dad Boone's newest album, "The Country Side of Pat Boone," is in the familiar old vein despite an attempt by producer Ray Ruff to add some extra c-&-w trimmings. But Boone's voice always did have a countryish, placid sound, and his best work here is on Texas Woman, a track rereleased from a previous album of that title. The only noticeable change in his voice between then and now is that it has darkened considerably and he's able to handle lyrics in a more expressive, dramatic way. Whatever Happened to the Good Old Honky Tonk, for instance, is nicely shaded, saved from being merely beamish by a rakish, 1-may-be-a-country-boy-but-I-know-what's-up approach that is new to the Pat Boone I last heard from. But don't get any notions that things have changed that much: I'd ... illuminated with a real sense of yearning and desire
Do It with You isn't, saints preserve us, about doing it, but about if he had his life to live over again, and he delivers it with all the aplomb of a man who has earned fifteen gold records and sold over forty million discs.
Moreover, out of all this "togetherness" another byword of the Fifties-has come a striking new talent, Pat's daughter Debby, whose debut album "You Light Up My Life" indicates that she'll follow in Pop's footsteps commercially. She's not a baritone, of course, but she sounds very much as her father did at the time of his greatest successes.
She also has a more reflective, natural style that immediately gets down with a lyric in a simple, direct way-and stays there. Debby's maternal grandfather is the great old c-&-w star Red Foley. and, while there isn't a trace of him in her performances, there is an easy, confidential style that has always characterized the best of country singing. Transferring this style to pop, Debby uses it to create atmosphere and mood for what is basically straight-on commercial repertoire.
It's easy to hear why the title song here hit the number-one spot on the charts in only eight weeks. Aside from the fundamentally pleasing quality of Debby's voice, something that her father also always had (and apparently always will have), this rather ordinary little ballad is illuminated with a real sense of yearning and desire and (hold on, Pat!) a subtle sense of the satisfaction that complete love brings. There's the same elusive sexuality in Hey Everybody, another little everyday plaint, and Baby, I'm Yours.
ON many of the tracks Debby is accompanied by her sisters, who make a thoroughly wholesome but distracting background racket that interferes with her one-to-one with the listener. Something she and her producer, Mike Curb, have had the good sense and taste not to do is to include any of the songs associated with her father, although she's been heard to say that she'd like to record April Love or Friendly Persuasion sometime. I hope not, for I'll surely flinch, just as I do at the current capers of Liza Minnelli on Broadway in The Act, in which she seems to be becoming more and more an avatar of her mother.
Debby has more than enough going for her as it is, and, apart from being grateful for having inherited much that was, and is, good about her father's voice, she ought to leave it at that. One of her most appealing qualities is that even at the age of twenty-one she sounds very, very womanly. As for Pat . . . well, he's still a good ol' boy. Dorian Gray, eat your heart out!
-Peter Reilly
PAT BOONE: The Country Side of Pat Boone.
Pat Boone (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Whatever Happened to the Good Old Honky Tonk; Texas Woman; A Natural Feel-in' far You; Cowboys and Daddies; We've Been Mailed; Ain't Going Down to the Ground Before My Time; I'd Do It with You; Love Light Comes A-Shinin'; Throw It Away; Colorado Country Morning. MC MC6-501S1 $6.98.
DEBBY BOONE: You Light Up My Life. Deb by Boone (vocals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. You Light Up My Life; A Rock and Roll Song; Micol's Theme; It's Just a Matter of Time; Hey Everybody; When I Look at You; From Me to You; Baby, I'm Yours; When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes; End of the World; Your Love Broke Through; Hasta Matiana. WARNER BROS. BS 3118 $6.98.
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.... money to pay her rent. And now, in The Act, she's knocking herself out on the stage of the Majestic on Broadway, playing Michelle Craig battling her way to stardom in Las Ve gas after a broken marriage and a hapless love affair. Although I have never met her, I some times feel like sitting down with Miss Minnelli for a heart-to-heart talk and pleading with her: "Liza, Liza, stop burning yourself out like this. Stop getting mixed up with selfish saxophone players and philanderers and people who aren't worth your time. Stop giving your all to every second-rate man and third-rate song. Take it easy. Think it over." On the cover of her latest record album, re leased just before she opened in The Act, Liza is shown on the deck of an ocean liner.
Wearing a sexy evening gown and transparent plastic shoes and drinking champagne, she's apparently enjoying herself, yet from the con tents of the record, I don't think the trip really did her much good. Even when she sings, in Tropical Nights, of a shipboard romance with a "macho muchacho" under a sky full of stars as "big as diamonds," she holds to a mood of relentless desperation. Most of the time Liza pushes herself to the limit in such rock-beat numbers as Jimi Jimi or, as in When It Comes Down to It, sells love like a product that just won't move off the shelf.
When she does ease up, though, how haunting the Minnelli style can be! I am thinking of the goose-pimples she raises with Stevie Wonder's I Love Every Little Thing About You, the way she pines for her man in Come Home Babe, her gentleness in Take Me Through, and her purring the moving melody of A Beautiful Thing. The last is one of a number of songs in this album attributed to Jim Grady, who is also heard playing electric and acoustic pianos and who made all the arrangements, which are big and brazen enough to be heard behind Liza. They have to be. P.K.
JANE OLIVOR: Chasing Rainbows
(see Best of the Month, page 113)
GRAHAM PARKER AND THE RUMOUR: urgent, burning rock.
GRAHAM PARKER AND THE RUMOUR: Stick to Me. Graham Parker (vocals, guitar); the Rumour (vocal and instrumental accompaniment); other musicians. Stick to Me; I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down; Problem Child: Soul on Ice; and six others. MERCURY SRM-1-3706 $6.98, MC8-1-3706 $7.95, CD MCR4-1-3706 $7.95.
Performance: Fair to terrific
Recording: Murky
Graham Parker's best songs have an urgency about them that is rare these days; in fact, I can't think of a rocker now working whose music burns quite the way Parker's does. If you're still unfamiliar with the man and think I'm exaggerating, I suggest you check out his last album, "Heat Treatment." Which is my sneaky way of letting you know that his long awaited third album, "Stick to Me," is some thing of a disappointment.
What happened is that after the entire al bum was on tape, Parker decided that it sounded too slick and scrapped the whole thing. With only five days to deliver a new record to his label, he, the band, and producer Nick Lowe redid it all from start to finish. In theory, given the driven nature of Parker's music, that should have been all to the good.
Unfortunately, the result veers instead be tween sounding half-finished, which sinks the potentially electrifying rocker The New York Shuffle, and amateurishly overproduced, as on the album's longish centerpiece, The Heat in Harlem, which is reduced nearly to the level of a minstrel show by some obtrusively campy background vocalists.
Most of side one seems to have survived relatively unscathed, for which I am grateful, and at least three of the tunes on it--the title song, Problem Child, and Soul on Ice--can stand comparison with Parker and the Rumour's earlier efforts. "Stick to Me," then, isn't the Graham Parker masterpiece we hoped for. But there's no reason to believe that he doesn't still have one in him; all he needs is a better producer. -S.S.
IGGY POP: Lust for Life. Iggy Pop (vocals); David Bowie (piano); other musicians. Lust for Life; Sixteen; Some Weird Sin; The Passenger; and five others. RCA AFLI-2488 $7.98, AFSI-2488 $7.98, AFKI-2488 $7.98.
Performance: Shaddup, awready
Recording: Murky
If you're not from Detroit it requires a real act of faith to appreciate Iggy Pop. It's all very well to talk about his vision of the darker recesses of the human soul, but it would be nice if he threw in some music (or rock-and-roll, which is not always the same thing) to go with it. The only time he ever accomplished that little trick was on "Raw Power," and that was basically a showcase for James Williamson's haunted guitar playing.
This new one, hard on the heels of "The Idiot"--which was so ridiculous that even diehard fans complained--is merely sad. The cover photo is a giveaway; Iggy looks (per haps deliberately) like a real idiot. And the music inside ... well, let's just say that the contempt performer/producer/Svengali David Bowie feels for both Iggy and their mutual audience has never been so obvious. The result is a collection of non-songs so mechanistic, unfeeling, and ugly as to make Kraftwerk sound like Robert Johnson in comparison. -S.S.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
LEO SAYER: Thunder in My Heart. Leo Sayer (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Easy to Love; I Want You Back; It's Over; Everything I've Got; Thunder in My Heart; and five others. WARNER BROS. BSK 3089 $6.98, M8 3089 $7.98, M5 3089 $7.98.
Performance: Excellent
Recording: Excellent
Leo Sayer enjoys his work; his writing and performing show that clearly enough. And he passes his joy on with the haphazard generosity of a benign Typhoid Mary. "Thunder in My Heart" is full of the characteristic Sayer verve, especially in the title song, which is another of his expeditions into the unselfconsciously eccentric. Whereas he delivered his chart hit of last year, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, in a hyena-like falsetto, here he per forms Thunder in a basso-not-so-profundo that has a zany glee about it. I Want You Back finds him in Neil Sedaka territory-mellow hokum for the sentimentalists, impeccably performed. No one track is like another on this album, but all have the unifying joyful spirit. Recommended, and not to be taken seriously at all, thank God. -P.R.
SMALL FACES: Playmates. Small Faces (vocals and instrumentals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. High and Happy; Never Too Late; Tonight; Saylarvee; Find It; Lookin' for a Love; and four others. ATLANTIC SD 19113 $6.98, TP-19113 $7.98, CS-19113 $7.98.
Performance: Disappointing
Recording: Good
Small Faces is a band with longevity and several distinguished alumni--Rod Stewart and Ron Wood among others--but this album takes a long time getting off the ground, and then it rises for only a few feet. The music is laid-back British rhythm-and-blues, complete with funky harmonica and Otis Redding vocals, but all the while it is going on you keep waiting for the band to quit horsing around, work up some energy, and justify its reputation. Alas and alack, it never does. J. V.
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Also see:
BEST RECORDINGS OF THE PAST TWENTY YEARS: Our reviewing panel selects the best recordings of the past twenty years
RECORD of the YEAR AWARDS--1977: STEREO REVIEW'S critics and editors select the industry's top artistic achievements.
Source: Stereo Review (USA magazine)