Reviewed by: CHRIS ALBERTSON, NOEL COPPAGE, PAUL KRESH, PETER REILLY, STEVE SIMELS, JOEL VANCE
AEROSMITH: Draw the Line. Aerosmith (vocals and instrumentals). Draw the Line; I Wanna Know Why; Critical Mass; Get It Up; Bright Light Fright; and four others. COLUMBIA JC 34856 $7.98, JCA 34856 $7.98, JCT 34856.
Performance: Okay
Recording: Good
Well, I suppose we must have an Aerosmith.
The general teen and recently post-teen audience seems to need a chew-'em-up band for some reason. Having heard a sufficient number of loud, blues-based groups over the last ten years, I can say that Aerosmith is not as bad as many and better than others, and that some band of Aerosmith's type will remain in the pop-music arena for the foreseeable fu ture. just like taxes, humid summers, missing buttons, and overcooked vegetables. But why. God, why? J. V.
ALICE COOPER: The Alice Cooper Show. Al ice Cooper (vocals); Dick Wagner, Steve Hunter (guitars); other musicians. Under My Wheels; Eighteen; Only Women Bleed; Sick Things; and six others. WARNER BROS. BSK 3138 $6.98, 0 M8 3138 $7.97, MS 3138 $7.97.
Performance: Tired
Recording: Muddy
I forget who observed that if Booth Tarking ton had written Sixteen today, he would have ...
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Explanation of symbols:
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Monophonic recordings are indicated by the symbol
The first listing is the one reviewed; other formats, if available, follow it.
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... had to re-title it Eleven. At any rate, somebody should have mentioned this to Alice Cooper, because there's a punk band in England that's been doing Al's Eighteen as Fifteen. Strange to find the Coop on the wrong side of the generation gap. Not so strange, though, that his latest recording is a pretty sad affair, a spirit less run-through of some of his better numbers. Even Dick Wagner and the rest of the crew that once successfully propped up a fading Lou Reed in concert only barely keep Cooper from sounding like what he really is-a bad lounge act. As live albums go, this one is even more transparently than usual the result of commercial desperation. S.S.
JOAN ARMATRADING: Show Some Emo tion. Joan Armatrading (vocals, guitar); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Woncha Come On Home; Show Some Emotion; Warm Love; Never Is Too Late; Peace in Mind; and five others. A&M SP 4663 $7.98, AAM 4663 $7.98, AAM 4663 $7.98.
Performance: Variable
Recording: Good
Joan Armatrading certainly has writing talent, but as a vocalist she sometimes has difficulty matching the quality of her lyrics with the specific vocal style she attaches to them in performance. Thus she's more often out of focus in performance than not. But when she's not, things are just dandy.
The two dandies here are Woncha Come On Home and Opportunity. The first concerns a woman growing increasingly nervous waiting for her man as she looks out the window and spies a loony on the corner: "Every key is turned/And every window's bolted from in side/Oh babe you know I get so scared/You know I couldn't live alone/It's just been confirmed babe/Woncha come on home." Armatrading affects a slight rasp in her voice as she sings Woncha, and her arrangement for acoustic guitar and toy piano lends effective eeriness. Opportunity is about a bungled stick-up job a woman is coaxed into by her boyfriend, who promises "opportunity/World wide adventure/Money in the bank." Things go awry when the girl leaves evidence behind, and the lyrics are simple but chilling.
There are good lines through the rest of the material on the album, but too often the melodies are wayward and Armatrading's choice of voices adds neither mood nor clarity; at times she sounds as if she's attempting a synthesis of Morgana King and Marvin Gaye. But when everything clicks, it's mighty good.
J. V.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
DAVID BROMBERG: Reckless Abandon. David Bromberg (vocals, guitar, dobro, slide, mandolin); Dick Fegy (mandolin, guitar, violin); Hugh McDonald (bass); Lance Dicker son (drums); other musicians. I Want to Go Home; Stealin'; Child's Song; Mrs. Delion's Lament; What a Town; and five others. FANTASY F-9540 $6.98, 0 8160-9540H $7.95, 0 5160-9540H $7.95.
Performance: Not that reckless
Recording: Good
David Bromberg still doesn't have the broadbased following I thought he'd have, but he does have the respect of other musicians I also thought he'd have, and in the last couple of years he's settled into making good (and slightly strange) albums. Where others put variety into their albums because they think that's what you want, Bromberg puts variety in his because he can't help doing it. That's the way he is, a gadfly. He really learns how to pick, and not merely muddle through, whatever new thing his nose leads him to, and I think his voice is getting easier to take. His growth as a bandleader is showing too, al though he hung a few strings on this one that he didn't need. His band is evolving a sound of its own, and yet it is, like the music, so eclectic that the sound cannot quite be de scribed. It has horns and country and blues and other disparate elements and reconciles them pretty well. It understands Bromberg, who is at heart an actor, among other things, but not theatrical. In "Reckless Abandon" it helps him be funny, sad, bemused, sardonic. Worth listening to. A lot. N.C.
JACKSON BROWNE: Running on Empty (see Best of the Month )
JERRY BUTLER: It All Comes Out in My Song. Jerry Butler (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Living My Life Just for You; (When I'm with You) Everything's Cool; Just You and Me Forever; I'm Music, I'm Your Friend; I've Got to Make It on My Own; and four others. MOTOWN M6-892S1 $6.98, 0 7-892 HT $7.98. 7-892 HC $7.98.
Performance: Embracing
Recording: Good
Jerry Butler has always sounded old, even when he was very young, but he has a mellow sound with no hint of maudlin regret. His mu sic is the product of a sure-footed maturity that enables him to express raw emotion with cool implicitness. The Fiftyish funk that over lays some of his recorded output only high lights his ability to transcend musical fashion.
Today he sings much as he did twenty years ago when he formed a group called the Impressions with fellow Chicagoan Curtis Mayfield and recorded the all-time r-&-b classic For Your Precious Love.
This album captures Butler in a pensive, precious love mood in songs that are intimate man-to-woman statements. While the title track and (I Love to See You) Dancin' are suited for a disco setting, he is at his best on tender items such as (When I'm with You) Everything's Cool, which has a haunting melody and is easily his best recorded song in years.
His mastery of phrasing can evoke shivers of pleasure. Though he's called the Ice Man, Jerry Butler possesses a musical soul that is forged in the fire. P.G.
GLEN CAMPBELL: Live at the Royal Festival Hall. Glen Campbell (vocals and guitar); orchestra. Southern Nights; Sunflower; If You Go Away; Galveston; Wichita Lineman; By the Time I Get to Phoenix; and nineteen others. CAPITOLS WBC 11707 two discs $12.98.
Performance: Good
Recording: Excellent
This double-disc set of Glen Campbell's marathon performance at Festival Hall in London is distinguished by some of the best recorded sound I've ever heard in a live performance. Campbell takes production credit on this one, and he deserves a big hand for the spacious sound and the slick audience "feel" and feedback throughout the entire evening.
There are some performing high spots here Southern Nights, Sunflower, and all five of the Jimmy Webb songs that take up side three and there are also a couple of clinkers that find Campbell in way over his iron-coiffed head. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Soliloquy from Carousel is a complete disaster-Camp bell tries to "act" it, and the result is about as moving as an insurance salesman trying to make a sale in the waiting room of a maternity ward-and Streets of London finds our good ol' boy utterly lost and bewildered. The happiest surprise here is a medley of Good Vibrations. Help Me, Rhonda. Surfer Girl, and Surfin' U.S.A., all songs that Campbell used to perform as a member of the Beach Boys back in the mid-Sixties.
The audience here is remarkably attentive and enthusiastic throughout what seems like hours of Campbelliana. It's an album for his fans and those who want a comprehensive all-in-one of one of our better entertainers. P.R.
ROY CLARK: Hookin' It. Roy Clark (guitar); Jerry Wallace (rhythm guitar); Lonnie Ledford (bass); Muscle Shoals Horns; other musicians. Lazy River; Steel Guitar Rag; I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry; Hookin' It; Near You; Georgia on My Mind; and four others. ABC/ Dor DO-2099 $6.98.
Performance: Inconsistent
Recording: Good
Well, I applaud the idea: Roy Clark trying on a sort of Muscle Shoals sound, Roy Clark not singing but sticking pretty much to his hollow-bodied electric Gibson, Roy Clark apparently going for a little funk instead of rehashing a Mr. Showbiz album. He does some nice picking, too, in addition to the obligatory speedy picking (occasionally but not usually he does both of these at once; Steel Guitar Rag is probably his best-tuned-in speed trip). But the idea is maybe one album away from bearing its best fruit. The main problem is the Muzaky song selection; using a few pieces without an old-shoe familiarity to them would've helped.
Tapping somewhat darker recesses of the listener’s memory, making the listener do a little work, would've given the listener a better chance to feel involved. Clark actually does make emotional contact with some of these old shoes, but in general he's taken on an un necessarily huge battle for freshness. I'd like to hear this gritty-tending, metallic sound again on some tunes he spent more than a casual minute or two digging up. N.C.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
CLOVER: Love on the Wire. Clover (vocals and instrumentals). Hearts Under Fire; Southern Belles; Oh Senorita; Still Alive; Keep On Rolling; California Kid; and four others. MERCURY SRM-1-3708 $6.98, MC8-1-3708 $7.95, MCR4-1-3708 $7.95.
Performance: Interesting
Recording: Very good
Clover would, after superficial scrutiny, appear to be merely another in the long line of tedious California organic rockers, CSN derived harmonies and all. But appearances can be deceiving; the California orientation is one aspect of what Clover is, but it isn't all. There is a real pop sensibility lurking in this band, as earlier demonstrated by their snappy ...
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Very good 'Eloise
ELOISE LAWS ought to be able to quicken your pulse a few rpm. She's so sensational looking on the cover of her new ABC album that you'll probably develop a touch of tachycardia before the record is even on the turntable. What pours out through the speakers is a gauzy, silky, provocative voice with a teasing, mocking undertone. Eloise's talent may be at least partly inherited-her brothers are jazz flutist Hubert Laws and saxist Ronnie Laws-but it is undeniably being effectively used. From the very beginning of her opener, Baby You Lied, she had me by the short hairs, so to speak, and my attention never flagged right through her closing Forever Now.
What's good about Eloise Laws is her complete naturalness, her impolite send-up of lyric and listener at the same time, and her easy, graceful musicianship. What's bad about her-well, that's probably what makes her so intriguing.
-Peter Reilly
ELOISE LAWS: Eloise. Eloise Laws (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Baby You Lied; His House and Me; 1,000 Laughs; Someone Who Still Needs Me; Love Is Feeling; Number One; You're Incredible; Love Comes Easy; Forever Now. ABC AB 1022 $6.98.
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CLOVER: the tension between California Mellow and English Frenetic makes this a band to watch.
... work as the un-credited back-up ensemble be hind Elvis Costello's debut opus. (Those marginal New Wave credentials are enhanced here by the presence of Robert John Lange as producer. a function he's served for Graham Parker and the Boomtown Rats, among others.) The tension between the California Mel low and the English Frenetic is what makes Clover a band to watch; most of the songs on "Love on the Wire" are fairly convincing and overdue proof that to be laid back need not mean being soporific. They need to edit them selves more tightly. as they have a tendency to stretch their melodic and lyric ideas a trifle thin, but their basic sound is really attractive.
They are superb singers--few other white rockers would have the chutzpah or the talent to take on an old Leiber and Stoller a cappella number like Keep On Rolling. I'd pick their update of Rick Nelson's Travelin' Man as a natural single; its concluding rave-up is a sizzler. and it displays a rock-and-roll authority well beyond mere journeyman competence.
S.S.
LOL CREME AND KEVIN GODLEY: Consequences. Lol Creme (Gizmo-guitar, piano, vocals); Kevin Godley (drums, percussion, vocals); Sarah Vaughan (vocal); Peter Cook (spoken dialogue); instrumental and vocal accompaniment. Seascape; Wind; Fireworks; Stampede; Burial Scene; Sleeping Earth; Honolulu Lulu; The Flood; Five O'Clock in the Morning; When Things Go Wrong; and eight others. MERCURY SRM-3-1700 three discs $20.94.
Performance: Fascinating flop
Recording: Superb
Lol Creme and Kevin (.Godley are former members of 10cc who left the group to work on this three-disc "concept'. album, sixteen months in the making and ire ;orating the effects of the Gizmo. The latter is a guitar attachment capable of producing string, percussion, and vocal effects from the instrument.
The album also draws on the talents of humorist Peter Cook and the svelte voice of Sarah Vaughan.
The package is an ambitious effort and it is clear that great care went into its production and content. Record one comprises music produced by the Gizmo, with occasional vocals. Record two and the first side of record three are dominated by Peter Cook's comic dialogue, interspersed with songs. Gook is a marvelously funny writer and actor, and he is in fine form here. Miss Vaughan appears on Lost Weekend in a duet with Godley.
Now, with all this human and mechanical talent assembled, the question is: does the album work? The answer, unfortunately, is no.
The Gizmo is a fascinating device, but at this stage in its development it is not capable of carrying an entire album--let alone a three record album--on its own. Then there is the weakness of the plot: "Irate Nature," for reasons never, explained, begins to decimate the earth through gale winds, floods, and fire.
Meanwhile, in London, a pianist who is a bit daffy has been tinkering with a concerto in anticipation of just such a catastrophe. In the room above his, two lawyers and a married couple argue over a divorce suit. As Irate Na ture moves in for the kill, the Loon plays his concerto. End of story.
It would be more than difficult to tell such a non-story entirely through music, which is why Cook's contributions are so necessary and valuable; along with the interspersed songs, they are by far the most satisfying part of the project. The second side of record three, presenting the piano concerto which may or may not mollify Nature, fails as music and as a climax to the plot; it is a hodgepodge of passages and effects with no cohesion, emotion, or drama.
While Godley and Creme were understand ably preoccupied with the Gizmo (they originally intended to release a single only and re main with 10cc), a stronger story line would have served their ambition better. There are exciting musical moments, but the project is, alas, only an interesting failure. J. V.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
RICK DANKO. Rick Danko (vocals, bass, guitar); Ronnie Wood, Eric Clapton, Doug Sahm, Robbie Robertson (guitars); Ken Lauber (piano); other musicians. What a Town; Brainwash; Tired of New Mexicoe; Siphe Wine; Java Blues; and five others. ARISTA AB 4141 $7.98.
Performance: Classy
Recording: Likewise
The Band members are making celebrity-lad en all-star revue albums, but in spite of that Rick Danko shows me something here. His consorting with the muse turns out a rather Band-sounding (Robbie Robertson-influenced) kind of song, but a good one most of the time, and now and then there's something engagingly individual. Particularly charming among these are Once Upon a Time, a warm reminiscence about a grandfather and his tall tales, and Small Town Talk, which he wrote a few years ago with Bobby Charles (Geoff Muldaur recorded a nice version of it as a member of Paul Butterfield's Better Days). In short, the writing is worth tracking, and Danko shows a greater emotional range and more color as a singer than I suspected he had in him.
I've been bothered sometimes watching Danko sing, as he often seemed at the top of his range and straining to keep up there. But maybe that was what he thought the situation needed and he was being a good team man, for here he actually does something with inflection and nuance. The celebrity guitar players don't hurt anything either, with Ronnie Wood taking a particularly nice solo on the very first song. Robertson takes an uncharacteristically off-the-wall one a little later, but it works out all right. The whole album does, in fact, being one of the more graceful of your career-transitional efforts. N.C.
JACKIE DE SHANNON: You're the Only Dancer. Jackie De Shannon (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. To Love Somebody; Try to Win a Friend; Dorothy; Tonight You're Doin' It Right; Don't Let the Flame Burn Out; and five others. AMHERST AMH 1010 $6.98 (from Trans-continent Record Sales, Inc., 355 Harlem Road, Buffalo, N.Y. 14224).
Performance: Pleasant and professional
Recording: Good
Jackie De Shannon has been ripening pleasantly on the music-biz vine for several years now. She seems always on the verge of writing and performing that one album that will secure her the kind of success that's always seemed just slightly out of her grasp. It continues to elude her here. Instead, she presents a highly professional, smoothly performed collection highlighted by the title song, You're the Only Dancer, which is just enough above average to encourage hope for better things.
Oh well, maybe next time . . . . P.R.
DETECTIVE: It Takes One to Know One. Detective (vocals and instrumentals). Help Me Up; Competition; Are You Talkin' to Me?; Dynamite; Something Beautiful; and four others. SWAN SONG SS 8504 $6.98.
Performance: Good in small doses
Recording: Calculated
The production and sound here are tempting and repellent at the same time. Apparently a good many microphones were used to separate the sound: the snare and bass drums are loud while the "ride" and high-hat cymbals are so dim you can hardly hear them, and the lead guitar is muffled while the bass is omnipresent. This was probably done to achieve a "crude," muscular, roughneck sound, and it is successful in that. But after two or three cuts the uniformity of the sound dilutes its appeal. Granted there is nothing like an occasional lowdown, dog-kicking rock-and-roll band, but repetition has always been rock's biggest fault and most debilitating element.
As with most groups that take a tough-guy stance. Detective's material is less important than the intensity of the performance. The lead vocalist is a cross between Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin (before they had a sense of humor) and Rod Stewart. It goes without saying that it is just as convenient, and more re warding, to hear the originals, but for two or three cuts on either side of the album, Detective is muscular stuff. J. V.
NEIL DIAMOND: I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight. Neil Diamond (vocals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Desiree; Free Man in Paris; God Only Knows; Let the Little Boy Sing; I'm Glad You're Here with Me Tonight; Lament in D Minor/Dance of the Sabres: and four others. COLUMBIA JC 34990, $7.98, JCA 34990 $7.98, JCT 34990 $7.98.
Performance: Flat
Recording: Excellent
I can't classify myself as a Neil Diamond fan, exactly, but since the middle Sixties I've enjoyed his records and some of his sturdier songs, among them Cherry, Cherry, Brooklyn Roads. I Am I Said and Cracklin' Rosie.
Alas, my regard for him collapsed with a bump when I heard this present offering.
Where Diamond used to sound tough and savvy he now sounds Las Vegas lounge macho.
He has-or uses-a very limited range, approximately one and one-half octaves. The arrangements are glutinous and nervy, and the songs, mostly Diamond's own, are clap trap ditties that any knowledgeable hack could knock out in thirty minutes. I don't know what's responsible for this unfortunate transformation, but there it is. Ironically, these attempts to make concertos out of three-chord songs with weak melodies are presented in terrific recorded sound-the bathos fairly leaps out of the speakers. More's the pity.
J.V.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
EDDIE AND THE HOT RODS: Life on the Line. Eddie and the Hot Rods (vocals and instrumentals). Do Anything You Wanna Do; Quit This Town; Telephone Girl; The Cross; Beginning of the End; and four others. ISLAND ILPS 9509 $6.98, Y8I-9509 $7.98, 0 ZCI-9509 $7.98.
Performance: Improved
Recording: Fine
When last glimpsed, Eddie and the Hot Rods were dispensing amphetamine homage to Pete Townshend and Van Morrison, but although their hearts were obviously in the right place, and despite their abundance of youthful energy, the plain fact was that they came off sounding pretty much like any undistinguished English boogie band. They still do at times on "Life on the Line," their second al bum, but I am happy to report that the addition of second guitarist and songwriter Graeme Douglas has opened up the band's sound considerably; the energy and the blues roots are still there, but the Rods have begun to learn how to make pop music out of the mix.
Do Anything You Wanna Do, which has been a hit in England, best exemplifies the band's new approach. It suggests a sort of light-metal Born to Run, and it reveals that, for all the cheap New Wave cynicism of their packaging, the Hot Rods are really unabashed teen romantics. Recommended. S.S.
EMERSON, LAKE, AND PALMER: Works, Volume 2. Emerson, Lake, and Palmer (vocals and instrumentals); London Philharmonic Orchestra. Tiger in a Spotlight; Bullfrog; Maple Leaf Rag; Watching over You; Brain Salad Surgery; So Far to Fall; Show Me the Way to Go Home; and five others. ATLANTIC SD 19147 $6.98, 0 TP 19147 $7.97, CS 19147 $7.97.
Performance: Good
Recording: Expensive
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer-sounds like one of the higher-toned brokerage firms, doesn't it? The packaging this time out is fairly grand as well: stark white, with an embossed logo in the kind of letters one generally sees carved in stone on the sides of banks. ELP have had the approval of the critics and the public for so long now that they've become a gilt-edged reference for one's taste. And they are, generally, very good. It is when they get kittenish-as they do here in such heavy-handed whimsey as When the Apple Blossoms Bloom in the Windmills of Your Mind I'll Be Your Valentine or the comatose Brain Salad Surgery-that I feel like switching my account.
When they stick to such goodies as Meade (Lux) Lewis' Honky Tonk Train Blues or Show Me the Way to Go Home, my confidence is restored, for then ELP emerges as the same clever, unendingly slick group they've been almost from the beginning. Occasionally they even seem inspired, as in a track featuring Keith Emerson with the Lon don Philharmonic in a performance of Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag that is the essence of the quintessence of joy. P.R.
MARK FARNER. Mark Earner (vocals, guitar); vocal and instrumental accompaniment.
Dear Miss Lucy; Street Fight; Easy Breezes; Social Disaster; He Let Me Love; and five others. ATLANTIC SD 18232 $6.98, 0 TP-18232 $7.98, CS-18232 $7.98.
Performance: Very good, but . . .
Recording: Good
Mark Farner was the lead vocalist and energy source of Grand Funk Railroad, a band whose audience happily ignored nearly all the rock critics and made the group one of the biggest commercial successes of its time just a few years ago. After a hiatus on his Michigan farm, Farner returns to rock with this solo al bum. He is certainly one of the most energetic singers around, with a seething, churning power that bedevils and impresses. But all the decibels and tonsil-busting can't compensate for his feeble material. It's a shame that his writing is so hackneyed; with better songs Farner's solo debut might have been some thing to cheer about. J. V.
GENESIS: Seconds Out. Genesis (vocals and instrumentals). Squonk; The Carpet Crawl; Robbery Assault and Battery; Afterglow; Firth of Fifth; I Know What I Like; and six others. ATLANTIC SD2-9002 two discs $11.98, TP2-9002 $12.97, CS2-9002 $12.97.
Performance: Gothic chic
Recording: Good
We return again to the English Gothic school of rock. Genesis has been a cult group since the early 1970's; their audience has expanded since then to the limits to which such audiences usually go, and with the customary passionate devotion. Their stage shows are precisely that, shows, in which lighting effects and all the persuasive technology of live theater are used to full effect. But despite all the fustian and spangle-and the professional musical technique-the band is more form than content. Other Gothic groups of earlier times-Manfred Mann and Procol Harum now and then played a selection as if they meant it and cleverness be damned. Not so with Genesis; to make their trick work they must be all show and no content. As evidence on this live two-disc set, there is Supper's Ready, running twenty-four minutes and thirty seconds, in which the entire resources of the group are used; they play at, toward, near, and around a tune but they never play on it. Reason? Simple-there is no tune. Does the audience love it? You betcha. They roar like old Romans cheering for the lions. I pass.
J. V.
ANNIE HASLAM: Annie in Wonderland. Annie Haslam (vocals); Roy Wood (vocals, guitars, saxophone, keyboards, percussion); other musicians. Nature Boy; If I Loved You; In side My Life; Going Home; and five others. SIRE SR 6046 $6:98.
Performance: Pretty but pushed
Recording: Good
Annie Haslam, unfortunately billed as "The Golden Voice of Renaissance," has one of the prettiest light soprano voices in pop, but it is pushed much too far in this solo album. In the wordless Rockalise she's given a demanding six-minute workout reminiscent of the old Swingle Singers. Even with the electronic fiddling of music-wiz producer Roy Wood (of the Move and Electric Light Orchestra fame), it's obvious that her voice just isn't up to that kind of Rima the Bird Girl floridity. When she has a lyric to handle, as in the gruesome oldie Nature Boy, a lot of the purity of her voice is sacrificed in her effort just to articulate clear ly. There are a couple of very pretty bands here nonetheless, including If I Loved You and a piece of exotica called Hunioco, which features a thumping, clattering, grunting male chorus that might make King Kong himself feel homesick. P.R.
LEVON HELM AND THE RCO ALL-STARS. Levon Helm (vocals, drums); Booker T. Jones (keyboards); Steve Cropper (guitar); Duck Dunn (bass); Mac Rebennack (key boards, guitar); Paul Butterfield (harmonica); other musicians. Washer Woman; The Tie That Binds; You Got Me; Blues So Bad; Sing, Sing, Sing; and five others. ABC AA-I017 $6.98, 8020-1017 (H) $7.95, 5020-1017 (H) $7.95.
Performance: Very good
Recording: Very good
Levon Helm was always the Band member easiest to picture outside the Band. Of the group's three vocalists, he sang with the most authority and general know-how. Yet even he ...
------ CISSY HOUSTON: up-front, snappy vocals from a smart, sassy
lady
...strikes me as a somewhat specialized singer whose voice sounds more like part of a band than an out-front (difficulty of putting any drummer out front noted) soloist. And you'll no doubt notice that he has straightaway surrounded himself with big-name instrumentalists-that is, he has once again sought little more than a band member's percentage of the attention. The result is a fine, bluesy-sounding album, which, however, has a one-shot feel to it. Oh, I suppose Helm can afford the luxury of recording again only when he can get such all-stars together, but I doubt that that's the way he works. Could be this album, being also a project, was a way of putting off dealing with what to do now. That would be reasonable and understandable, and the result was worth the doing. The backing is remark able for what you can't hear-no hot-dogging solos for their own sake or other marks of selfishness. The All-Stars sound like a nice group of guys who enjoy playing together and ate still not above a sneaky lick or two. What they do-counting Helm as one of "them" is to lull you into not making a big deal of the sameness that turns up occasionally in the tunes. It's better music than you usually find in a curiosity item. Now what does Helm do?
N.C.
CISSY HOUSTON. Cissy Houston (vocals); orchestra, Michael Zager arr. and cond. Your Song; Love Is Holding On; Things to Do; It Never Really Ended; and four others. PRIVATE STOCK PS 2031 $6.98, 8300-2031(H) $7.95, 5300-2031(H) $7.95.
Performance: Very good
Recording: Good
There's a lot of up-front, snappy, high-style work here by Cissy Houston, a girl who has obviously been around, and to all of the right places. A good deal of her talent and her billowing magenta voice (which deep within its recesses contains an unexpected and totally ...
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HEY , babe, are ya lookin' for some action? If y'are, the flashiest, trashiest chick of them all is back-boobs bobbin' an' gum snappin'-and it sounds like she's been to another festival of Forties film hits. Bette Midler is in richer, rarer form than ever on "Broken Blossoms," from the cover shots by Hurell-the glamour photographer of the halcyon Hollywood days when Hedy and Lana ruled--to the lavish production and the general air of supreme self-approval that nobody else (except Streisand, always with the exception of Streisand) has the guts or wit to put on nowadays. And wait'll ya see, I mean, just wait'll ya hear what she's pulled out of her shoulder bag this time! You like it Continental? Bette's got a Vie en Rose that makes Piaf's sound Cantonese. You like drama? Then her duet with Tom Waits in his I Never Talk to Strangers is right up your aisle. In this saga of a lady at a bar the lady sounds like Lena Horne might after o.d.'ing on Ida Lupino movies, and the guy whose advances she's resisting sounds like Satchmo Armstrong at his raspiest. Do you get off on glamour? Wrap yourself in Paradise, which besides Midler's own lush singing has an Artie Butler arrangement that glistens like the white satin sheets in a Jean Harlow bedroom. Or do you miss the pizzazz of old Aunt Myrt down at the trailer camp, with her rolled-down, once-white bobby sox, scuffed patent-leather pumps, can of beer, and easy welcoming smile? Listen to Make Yourself Comfortable, surely the tackiest seduction song ever writ ten. Bette just about reaches her flaky peak here as she cajoles some poor guy onto the sofa while an Ink Spot-like chorus lasciviously and sloppily croons in the background.
It isn't all camp, however. Empty Bed Blues is strong and direct and very well sung.
Midler tackles Billy Joel's Say Goodbye to Hollywood with all the bite and the cold, weary sarcasm of Lotte Lenya singing "Wieman sich bettet, so liegt man" from beyond the grave of dreams. The really dynamite track, though, is A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes. Through the sentimentality of the lyrics, through the sugary melody, comes the voice of a Bette Midler we hear too rarely: the real little kid from Hawaii who still believes that pretty is as pretty does, who still expects all the tinsel to be real, every story to have a happy ending, every toad to turn into a prince, and every good little girl to have a good life. It's a gem of an interpretation-and a genuine heartbreaker of a performance.
MIDLER has grown more as an artist than anyone else I can think of offhand, and all of the growth has taken place right before her audiences. From her early, strained outlandishness and uneasy camping, she's grown into a unique personality-half opulent, outrageous put-on, half brilliantly serious singling comedienne, now with that added touch of sympathy and tenderness that all great comic artists have to achieve if they are to last. Midler shows not only every sign of lasting, she seems, finally, to be triumphing as a true original. She's most of the way home already.
-Peter Reilly
BETTE MIDLER: Broken Blossoms. Bette Midler (vocals); Lee Ritenour, Fred Tackett (guitars); Leland Sklar, Jim Hughart (bass); Jim Keltner (drums); other musicians. Empty Bed Blues; A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: Paradise; Yellow Beach Umbrella; La Vie en Rose; Make Yourself Comfortable; You Don't Know Me; Say Goodbye to Holly wood: I Never Talk to Strangers; Storybook Children: Red. ATLANTIC SD 19151 $6.98, TP 19151 $7.97, CS 19151 $7.97.
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... disarming small coloratura) are wasted on material that never rises much beyond the level of commercial r-&-b Weltschmerz. Con fronted with something like Strouse and Charnin's Tomorrow, that artful bit of suds from the Broadway musical Annie, Ms. Houston comes into her vivid own, bouncing around like a disco queen on a date with a big butter-and-egg man from Spokane whose wife doesn't understand him. A smart, sassy lady, this Cissy Houston. Too smart, one hopes, to stay mired in the mostly indifferent kind of material she's been handed here. P.R.
BARBARA MANDRELL: Love's Ups and Downs. Barbara Mandrell (vocals); Steve Gibson, Chip Young, Reggie Young (guitars); Hargus "Pig" Robbins, Tony Migliore (piano); Charlie McCoy (harmonica, percussion); other musicians. If I Were a River; The Magician; Woman to Woman; How Long; Tonight; and five others. ABC/DoT DO-2098 $6.98.
Performance: No guff from nobody
Recording: Good
Barbara Mandrell is one of those blonde, flinty-eyed ingenues who seem to bloom so easily in c-&-w. Oh, she may be smiling' out at us from the front and back of this album in a long, frilly dress with a big frilly hat, but that won't fool you for long once you hear her. Don't Hand Me No Hand Me Down Love sets the record straight right from the beginnin' (she ain't interested in roosters that's all crowed out, and that's fer damnsure). In Woman to Woman, she takes matters into her own capable hands and telephones "the other woman" to burn her ears about breakin' up other people's happy homes. Barbara ain't takin' no guff from nobody, as A Fancy Place to Cry proves. The Mandrel! voice itself is big, bluesy, sexy, and much, much better than either her material or her banal delivery. P.R.
LARRY McNEELY: Live at McCabe's (see Best of the Month, page 85) MEAT LOAF: Bat Out of Hell. Meat Loaf (vocals); Todd Rundgren (guitars); Roy Bittan (keyboards); Edgar Winter (saxophone); other musicians. Bat Out of Hell; You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night); Heaven Can Wait; and four others. EPIC 34974 $6.98, PEA 34974 $6.98, PET 34974 $6.98.
Performance: Pot roast
Recording: Good
It has been well over two years since we last heard any new music from Bruce Springsteen. That upsets a lot of people, me included, but apparently Meat Loaf and his partner Jim Steinman are absolutely devastated over the Bard of Asbury Park's extended silence.
So devastated, in fact, that 'they hired a couple of guys from Bruce's band, got perennial over-reacher Todd Rundgren to whip up a neo Spector production that is the aural equivalent of D.W. Griffith's Intolerance, and then wrote a bunch of rather fevered songs that bear a faint resemblance to Springsteen's stuff. Of course, they have absolutely none of the passion of the originals. Mr. Loaf, a cult figure in New York because of his performance in the inexplicably popular film version of The Rocky Horror Show, sings all this stuff in an obnoxious "legit" Broadway voice and ...
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ALBERT KING: Blues at Their Best
ALBERT. KING is a folksy, foxy grandpa of blues singing and guitar playing. He displays none of the trappings and cant of the average blues singer; he is neither too raw nor too smooth, and he gives comfort and plea sure. King has never had the public acclaim he deserves; the purists have not taken him up nor has he ever become commercialized, but I wish he might have had something of the sweet in-between-a hit record here and there. Where Muddy Waters and B.B. King have become familiar, given the limited audience for blues singers, Albert King remains somewhat on the outside. He has recorded continuously for twenty years and has earned a living from records and touring both here and overseas. His approach to the blues is at once deadly serious and convivial. He is probably the easiest blues singer to listen to who really means what he says.
This particular album has been delayed two years in release. King was on the Stax roster of artists, and when Stax collapsed in a bankruptcy scandal in 1975 their vault tapes were put in limbo. Fantasy Records, a California label, subsequently acquired the Stax catalog and is now issuing both fresh and vintage product. There are some rough spots in this King album, where sharps and flats become momentarily confused, but all in all the performances are a most appealing and friendly display of the blues at their best-and you'll wait a long time before you find a better pal than Albert King.
-Joel Vance
ALBERT KING: The Pinch. Albert King (vocals, guitar); instrumental and vocal accompaniment. The Blues Don't Change; I'm Doing Fine; Nice to Be Nice (Ain't That Nice); Oh, Pretty Woman; King of Kings; Feel the Need; Firing Line; The Pinch Paid Off, Parts I and II; I Can't Stand the Rain; Ain't It Beautiful. STAX STX-4101 $6.98.
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... generally sounds silly ranting on about the streets, while the sonic din that surrounds him is so overblown that I can only describe it as Maximalism. Just what we needed. S.S.
MELBA MOORE: A Portrait of Melba. Melba Moore (vocals); orchestra. You Are My River;
Promised Land; Just Another Link; Living Free; and four others. BUDDAH BDS 5695 $6.98.
Performance: Disappointing
Recording: Good
The most dismaying thing about Melba Moore is not her rapid decline from the enchanting ingenue of Broadway's Purlie Victorious to a vapid, bespangled, Vegas-style girl singer that unfortunate transformation occurs often in a business dedicated to the quick buck. No, what is troubling is that on almost all of her al bums Moore has a band or two indicating that she is still much more than a sepia Abbe Lane. In the Living Free track on this disc one can just hear-bubbling underneath the lousy lyrics, the soupy arrangements, and the gaudy, mindless production--the Melba Moore that captured the public in the first place. The sincerity, the gutsiness, and the note of honest pathos are all still there in her work. To come upon it again after five bands of superficial, stupidly "stylish" singing is to be jolted into anger at the waste of talent in the music biz. She can, of course, turn back to her original gifts any time she chooses, but at this point it will take a lot of guts and a lot of knocking managerial heads together. It would be worth it. P.R.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
MORATH RAGTIME QUINTET: The Rag time Women. Max Morath (piano); Ruth Alsop (cello); Allen Hanlon (guitar, banjo, mandolin); Lynn Milano (bass); Remo Palmier (guitar). Niebergall: Red Rambler Rag; Hoo sier Rag. Aufderheide: The Thriller. Tilton: That Sentimental Rag. Blake: Poker Rag. Craig: Romantic Rag. Gustin: X-N-Tric Two-Step Characteristic. Shepherd: Pickles and Peppers. VANGUARD VSD 79402 $7.98.
Performance: Splendid
Recording: Excellent
Leave it to Max Morath, our most entertaining (if not our most scholarly) authority on the ragtime years, to turn out an interesting pro gram like this one! The world of ragtime, it seems, abounded not only in female pianists but in women composers as well. And if the biographies of these women are sometimes rather more diverting than the not-always-distinguished scores they set down in the ragtime idiom, there is enough that is good on this record, and it is so splendidly performed, that it should be a welcome addition to anybody's ragtime collection.
What women they were! There was Julia Niebergall, who divorced her husband, made her own living as a pianist at the Colonial Theatre in Indianapolis, and was one of the first females in town to own an automobile.
Her Red Rambler Rag and Hoosier Rag are no threats to the reputation of Scott Joplin, but they are lively, spunky items just the same.
May Aufderheide came from Indiana too; her spooky spoof, The Thriller, was one of six rags she published before she settled down as the wife of a wealthy businessman. Then there was Gladys Yelvington, still another Indiana composer, whose family said she could "make a piano or organ talk, laugh, or cry." She played both classical and pop music, and what she contributed to ragtime was the Piffle Rag-which is certainly piffle, but pleasant piffle. More pungent is Adeline Shepherd's Pickles and Peppers, in its day a bestseller that was used by William Jennings Bryan in his 1908 Presidential campaign. The others are equally intriguing.
Accompanying pianist Morath-who sustains his extraordinarily winning approach to ragtime, eschewing the usual-steely pounding-is a group of adroit instrumentalists.
They round out all the scores with enough color to rescue even the least inspired ones from banality. P.K.
THE MOTORS. The Motors (vocals and instrumentals). Dancing the Night Away; Freeze; Cold Love; Phoney Heaven; and four others. VIRGIN PZ 34924 $6.98, 0 PZA 34924 $7.98, PZT 34924 $7.98.
Performance: Interesting failure
Recording: Fine
I was mildly curious about this album because two of the Motors are graduates of Ducks Deluxe, an excellent pub band whose other alumni have gone on to fame and fortune as part of Graham Parker's Rumour. The Ducks' sound was both extremely frenetic and mono chromatic, almost like the Ramones', except the Ducks could play and had roots in the blues. It turns out that the Motors are a lot more ambitious; their debut effort is a rather strained attempt to reconcile the musical and production sophistication of Led Zeppelin with the simplicity and fury of some of the New Wave bands, especially in regard to the role of the lead guitar. It's an uneasy synthesis, to say the least, but there are occasional moments here where the band begins to pull it off. Give this one a B and a wait and see.
OZARK MOUNTAIN DAREDEVILS: Don't Look Down. Ozark Mountain Daredevils (vocals and instrumentals). River to the Sun; Crazy Lovin'; Giving It All to the Wind; The Fox; Backroads; Snowbound; and five others. A&M SP-4662 $7.98, 0 8T-4662 $7.98, CS-4662 $7.98.
Performance: Variable
Recording: Clean
I'm still waiting for the Ozark Mountain Dare devils to equal their performances on "The Car over the Lake Album" (A&M SP-4549), which I had the pleasure of reviewing in 1975.
In their subsequent efforts, they have too of ten played down their talents for gentle introspection and winning adaption of folk-type themes in favor of chugga-chugga standard country-rock. In general, this one's no exception. The three most appealing cuts here, True Believer, Moon on the Rise, and the instrumental Stinghead, are buried on the album's second side; to get to them one has to wait patiently and wade through some energetic but uninspired cuts. Come on. fellas. J.V.
FREDA PAYNE: Stares and Whispers. Freda Payne (vocals); orchestra. Feed Me Your Love; Love Magnet; Master of Love; Bring Back the Joy; and three others. CAPITOL ST- I 1700 $6.98, 8XT-I 1700 $7.98, 4XT-11700 $7.98.
Performance: Undefined
Recording: Good
Freda Payne, easily one of the most beautiful women around, still seems to be having some trouble defining herself as a performer. On this outing she's mostly Streisandish, but she's also taken to throwing in random Donna Sommerish moans and gasps as a sort of "special effect." The result of the indecision, combined with low-grade material, is a totally undistinguished album. Feed Me Your Love is about the only spot where Payne gives some clues of sounding like herself, not at all a bad sound, but even that is disfigured by her in ability to stop borrowing from other performers, in this case from Diana Ross. I'd go to see her in a club, but I'm not so sure I'd stay long to listen. P.R.
MICHELLE PHILLIPS: Victim of Romance.
Michelle Phillips (vocals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Aching Kind; Trashy Rumors; There She Goes; Where's Mine?; Paid the Price; and five others. A&M SP 4651 $6.98, AAM 4651 $7.98, AAM 4651 $7.98.
Performance: Classic, In a way
Recording: Helpful
Fresh from her non-triumph as Nureyev's leading lady in Valentino, another of Ken Russell's head-trips, Michelle Phillips (she was the pretty one in the Mamas and the Pa pas. one of yesteryear's better groups) makes her solo recording debut with "Victim of Romance." Ms. Phillips is surrounded, in true Hollywood fashion, by all sorts of eager helping hands, including those of her ex-husband, John Phillips, who produced and arranged the Lady of Fantasy track she wrote and per forms here. Jack Nitzsche produced and arranged most of the rest with the help of a "girl engineer" and a "boy engineer," and the in valuable Tricia Johns, listed here as vocalist, turns up on several tracks singing along with Michelle in a vain effort to keep her some where approximately on key. Ms. Phillips' voice has all the texture of an overripe man go, and her interpretive skills are equally wilt ed. I hope, however, that she will press on there must be some area of show-biz suited to her talents. P.R.
MARY KAY PLACE: Aimin' to Please. Mary Kay Place (vocals); Emory Gordy (bass); James Burton (guitar); Richard Greene (fiddle); other musicians. Marlboro Man; Dolly's Dive; Save the Last Dance for Me; Don't Make Love (to a Country Music Singer); You Can't Go to Heaven; and five others. Co LUMBIA PC 34908 $6.98, PCA 34908 $6.98, PCT 34908 $6.98.
Performance: Aimin' better
Recording: Very good
Damn, damn, damn, damn! Now Mary Kay Place has gone and learnt how to halfway sang that there country music, thus putting THE "NEW" MARY KAY PLACE Loretta Huggers transcended me in conflict. One of my most formidable prejudices, which I believe is based on good sense, is against television's meddling in the marketplaces of other media. It seems reason able to build up a resistance to television acts' making recordings, because the successful peddling in the sound-only medium of such mediocrities as Cher, Tony Orlando, and the Partridge Family (need I go on?) indicates television has steam-roller effectiveness to go with its steam-roller taste. In the interest of some semblance of balance in the future sound of pop culture (I mean, television has gotten the TV time-out in professional foot ball, the World Series playing night games, and any number of other concessions that amount to major pop-culture shake-ups; shouldn't the line be drawn somewhere?), I resented Mary Kay Place blithely playing her Loretta Haggers character from Mary Hart man, Mary Hartman and Fernwood Forever and selling millions of copies of Baby Boy.
I'd feel better, somehow, if I could similarly resent this album, but, as I said, she's come a long way as a singer. Now, you may say that anybody'd sound good given the kind of production Brian Ahern has given this record shrewdly picking out songs that both dignify Mary Kay's image and show off her vocal improvements and backing her with some tremendous musicians, including some from the band of his best protegee, Emmylou Harris, who does some back-up singing here herself.
But it isn't just Ahern; Mary Kay Place has a fuller, richer-sounding voice than Loretta Haggers did, and a much more intelligent de livery too. She's no Dolly Parton, but she's edging toward a style of her own, and it's a much less arch one than Loretta's. The cover painting is ambiguous about what's going on inside; she's wearing a cowgirl suita la Loret ta Naggers, but one can't help noticing that it has this, ah, plunging neckline, hinting at the "new" Mary Kay Place. I prefer to think of it as Loretta Haggers transcended-no mean little feat-and I'm curious to see how the public reacts. N.C.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
THE POINTER SISTERS: Having a Party. The Pointer Sisters (vocals); Stevie Wonder, Sonny Burke, Tom Salisbury (keyboards, synthesizers); Louis Johnson (bass); Wah Wah Watson, David T. Walker (guitars); Ernie Watts (saxophone); other musicians. Don't Let It Drive You Crazy; I Need a Man; Waiting on You; I'll Get By Without You; and three others. BLUE THUMB BT-6023 $6.98, C) 8307-6023(H) $7.95, 5307-6023(H) $7.95.
Performance: Fun
Recording: Very good
Camp may come and camp may go, but the Pointer Sisters (a trio now minus sister Bonnie) keep rolling along, though at a less rambunctious pace than Bette Midler and a few other standard-bearers of contemporary cultural chutzpah. I've been waiting for the Pointer Sisters to recapture the friskiness of their first album, released back in 1973. Each track on that set shouted out with sassiness.
They just about accomplish that feat again here, with a little help from some pretty formidable friends, especially Stevie Wonder on keyboards and synthesizers. Wonder's influence is quite apparent on I'll Get By Without You, which has a strange deja vu quality, and Bring Your Sweet Stuff Home to Me, marked by his sophisticated chord changes. But the knockout is I Need a Man, which throbs with a heavily sensual, up-tempo pulse that leaves you panting. The Pointers are in top form throughout, their specialty being full-bodied ensemble singing with lusty baritone accents.
This is fine fare, perfect even for parties of one. P.G.
RAMONES: Rocket to Russia. Ramones (vocals and instrumentals). Cretin Hop; Rockaway Beach; Here Today, Gone Tomorrow; Locket Love; I Don't Care; Sheena Is a Punk Rocker; I Wanna Be Well; and seven others. SIRE SR 6042 $6.98.
Performance: Moderately amusing
Recording: Okay
Tired of Conceptual Rock? Tired of bands (and reviewers) who can't tell the difference between a one-joke act and a serious aesthetic statement? Tired of three-chord clatter that doesn't even have the integrity of true mindlessness? Well, if you aren't, chances are you'll just love "Rocket to Russia" by the Ramones. To be fair, there are a few yucks here (Cretin Hop is actually kind of funny in a Mad magazine sort of way, especially when you consider that it's a dig at the group's audience), but the basic rule of minimalist art is that very little happens, and I'm afraid that sums up the album. S.S.
JOHNNY RIVERS: Outside Help. Johnny Rivers (vocals, guitar); instrumental and vo cal accompaniment. Outside Help; Swayin' to the Music (Slow Dancin'); Curious Mind (Um, Urn, Urn, Urn, Urn, Um); For You; and five others. Bic TREE BT 76004 $7.98.
Performance Very good
Recording: Very good
Johnny Rivers' pleasant singing and distinctive Southern accent (he was born in New York but grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) have carried him through a recording career that began in 1964 with Memphis and has continued, with occasional lapses, to the present day with his most recent hit, Swayin' to the Music (Slow Dancin'). Rivers has become something of an experimenter of late; he likes to try different types of songs to test his interpretive ability. Thus we have here two Curtis Mayfield songs from 1964 (when Mayfield was a member of the Impressions and a talent in stead of a seer): Monkey Time and Curious Mind (Um, Urn, Urn, Um, Urn, Um), both of which Mayfield wrote for Major Lance. There are also Rivers' own Ashes and Sand, a good ballad, and a couple of we-are-all-little-candles-in-the-cosmos numbers. Rivers is a pro with charm and experience, and he manages to bring everything off appealingly. Quite a listenable album. J. V.
MARTY ROBBINS: Don't Let Me Touch You. Marty Robbins (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Don't Let Me Touch You; To Get to You; Return to Me; Harbor Lights; A Tree in the Meadow; and five others. COLUMBIA KC 35040 $5.98, C) CA 35040 $6.98, CT 35040 $6.98.
Performance: Unimaginative
Recording: Good
Unfortunate but descriptive title this, and the comeback it suggests is, "Don't worry, Marty ...
--------- THE POINTER SISTERS: recapturing their former friskiness with
a little help from their friends
... baby, just keep on making albums like this and no one will." It's pop schlock, to the degree that it's any single kind of thing. That's part of the trouble-the album's style is amorphous, its imagination nil, and what it comes down to is some technical, almost abstract renderings of banalities. And, oh yes, I did scream, at least inwardly, as I promised my self I would if I heard Harbor Lights one more time. Too bad; Marty Robbins has some of the best vocal equipment there is. N.C.
BRUCE ROBERTS. Bruce Roberts (vocals, keyboards); Steve Cropper (guitar); Jeff Porcaro (drums); Donald Dunn (bass); other musicians. I Don't Break Easily; Our Night; I Don't Wanna Go; I'd Rather Be Alone; Starmaker; and five others. ELEKTRA 7E-1119 $6.98, ET8-1119 $7.97, TC5-11I9 $7.97.
Performance: Wha...?
Recording: Very good
In his album-cover photo Bruce Roberts wears horn-rim glasses, a Scottish plaid bow tie, and red sneakers, and if you think that's a clean-cut image, wait till you hear his music.
Since we naturally repress the boring times of our past, I can't quite call up just what era Roberts-at least as produced here by Tom Dowd-is a throwback to, but whenever it was, there's enough schlock left over from it to supply his muse-which I guess means Paul Williams' muse didn't get it all. Get the idea? Roberts does the kind of wishy-washy middle-of-the-road orchestrated pop that hasn't actually occupied the middle of the road for twenty years. He has a nice-enough voice, but here he doesn't show me much as a songwriter beyond boyishness and naiveté.
And even if he did, there'd still be the sugar instrumentation to put up with. It might go all right with saddle shoes and pennants, if you're into bringing those back. N.C.
THE RUNAWAYS: Waitin' for the Night. The Runaways (vocals and instrumentals). Little Sister; Wasted; Wait for Me; Fantasies; and six others. MERCURY SRM-I-3705 $6.98, ® MC8- I-3705 $7.95, MCR4-1-3705 $7.95.
Performance: Disturbing
Recording: Okay
In case you're interested, the Runaways' new album finds their Svengali, Kim Fowley, back at the producer's helm, and it's pretty much business as usual. The only noticeable change is that the jailbait angle is emphasized a bit more than usual-lyrically, that is. That's be ginning to annoy me, because what was cute when their hype began is now smelling suspiciously like kiddie-porn. One of the Runaways has already left the business altogether, and I can only hope that the rest of the girls (what ever happened to child-labor laws?) are tough enough to stand up to the pressures of Fowley's despicable, desperate hucksterism.
S. S.
SANTANA: Moonflower. Santana (vocals and instrumentals). Dawn; Go Within; Carnaval; Jugando; Zulu; Gypsy Queen; Savor; and thirteen others. COLUMBIA C2 34914 two discs $9.98, C2A 34914 $9.98, © C2T 34914 $9.98.
Performance: Good
Recording: Good
Santana does their thing on "Moonflower" live-and seemingly endlessly-in France, ...
England. and Germany and in the studio in San Francisco. Twenty tracks of this kind of haute rock can leave the casual listener with the same smothered, claustrophobic feeling a spilled bottle of perfume produces. As usual, Carlos Santana and the band create enormously complex patterns of sound that studiously avoid much meaning-musical or other wise. Also as usual, it can be striking at times.
They are at their best in such jungle gardenias as Bahia and Moonflower, but by side three it's lemme-outa-this-elevator time. P.R.
BOZ SCAGGS: Down Two Then Left. Boz Scaggs (vocals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. Still Falling for You: Hard Times; A Clue: Whatcha Gonna Tell Your Man: We're Waiting; Hollywood; and five others. COLUMBIA JC 34729 $7.98.
Performance: Fair
Recording: Good
Try as I might, on bended knee with my fore head in the gravel and my hands raised in prayer and supplication. I cannot understand the wherefore of Boz Scaggs. If I believe his fans, he is the greatest combination of charm and sophistication since Cole Porter was transformed into Cary Grant in Porter's screen biography. If I believe my ears, he sounds like the honorable-mention winner in the Podunk Centennial Talent Contest, the prizes for which are a typewritten scroll and a warm handshake from the mayor.
If these are cosmopolitan love songs, then I frankly admit I am simply deaf to them. If Scaggs is a persuasive tenor, a bicycle horn is music for the gods. Having listened conscientiously to this album four times, I cannot distinguish any track that is unlike any other track; it is all too damned homogenized and busy-busy and commercial. J.V.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
RICK WAKEMAN Streamlined, intimate tone portraits
RICK WAKEMAN: Rick Wakeman's Criminal Record. Rick Wakeman (keyboards); Frank Ricotti (percussion); Alan White (drums); Chris Squire (bass); Bill Oddie (vo cal): Ars Laeta Choir of Lausanne, Switzerland, Robert Mernoud cond. Statue of Justice: Crime of Passion; Chamber of Horrors; Bird man of Alcatraz: The Breathalyser: Judas Is cariot. A&M SP-4660 $7.98.
Performance: Enticing
Recording: Excellent
I'm not quite sure why this album is so fascinating. but since first hearing it I've found it difficult to take off the turntable. I have been far from a fan of Wakeman's in the past, what with his ghastly overblown semi-symphonic travesties, but here he is streamlined, re strained, and mostly straightforward. "Criminal Record" is a series of tone portraits on various aspects of crime, a subject the English seem to have an abiding interest in.
Wakeman works out on piano, organ, and synthesizers to spare with grandiose accompaniment ranging from bass and drums to a Swiss choir.
Of the six pieces, Crime of Passion has the most charming tune, and Judas Iscariot, the most ambitious selection, is successful in creating and sustaining a mood, despite its somewhat shallow content. But Wakeman manages to create an intimacy with the listener which he maintains through the album; try it and see. J.V.
WAR: Galaxy. War (vocals and instrumentals). Sweet Fighting Lady: Hey Senorita; Seven Tin Soldiers; and two others. MCA MCA-3030 $7.98, MCAT-3030 $7.98, MCAC-3030 $7.98.
Performance: Relaxing
Recording: Good
As creators of leisurely paced, Latin-tinged soul, members of the group called War have set up for themselves a comfortable campsite from which they can venture out to dip into various musical waters without appearing to be stuck anywhere. A toned-down type of salsa prevails here in numbers such as Hey Senorita and Sweet Fighting Lady, while a- spacy funk is laced through Galaxy. Most appealing is Seven Tin Soldiers, which runs to fourteen minutes. providing ample room for Lee Oskar's first-rate blues harmonica. No new ground is broken in "Galaxy." Rather than reaching for peaks, the group maintains a calmly pleasant mood throughout, with bongos, congas, and keyboards ambling through long breathy passages most notable for restraint. This is better-than-average easy-listening music. P.G.
GENE WATSON: Beautiful Country. Gene Watson (vocals, guitar); instrumental accompaniment. The Old Man and His Horn; I Won't Be Sleeping Alone: Hey Barnum and Bailey: Raining in Dallas: I Don't Need a Thing at All; and five others.CAPITOL ST-I 1715 $6.98, 8XT-11715 $6.98.
Performance: Trapped in fluff
Recording: Very good
"He little [hinged her out of my arms," Gene Watson sings. You might say Gene Watson little [hinged himself out of a good album with such tired stuff as that and "I'd love to live with you again-but then I couldn't live with me." When it isn't that sort of thing, it's a worn-out three-chord tune. The good thing about the album, Watson's singing, tends to seem irrelevant in the delivery of these puff pieces. Watson has a strong, smooth voice and diction as clean as Richard Carpenter's hair. But almost anywhere you put the needle down you get something like "It don't hurt me half as bad as loving you feels good." Now that's the kind of tin ear that just never will take plating. N.C.
WET WILLIE: Manorisms. Wet Willie (vocals and instrumentals). Rainman; Make You Feel Love Again; So Blue; We Got Lovin'; Don't Turn Me Away; Street Corner Serenade: and four others. EPIC JE 34983 $7.98, CI JEA 34983 $7.98,JET 34983 $7.98.
Performance: Good
Recording: Good
Wet Willie has had a seven-year run of re cording and touring, and in that time the group has pounded out high-powered, usually entertaining, danceable rock. Although the liner notes for "Manorisms" claim that it's got a "new sound," little seems different from the band's past efforts except that the writing is more frankly commercial rhythm and-blues, which means they are going for a "hit sound" and the larger audience it will at tract. Wet Willie works hard, taking care of business and having a good time in the process. They also have a sense of humor How 'Bout You is a parody of the 1920's style, complete with slap-tongue saxophone.
The other selections are standard rave-ups and ballads, but all are delivered with admirable punch and zing. J.V.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
DENIECE WILLIAMS: Song Bird. Deniece Williams (vocals); Maurice White (drums, vocals); Paulinhoda Costa (percussion); Victor Feldman (vibraphone); other musicians.
Time; The Boy I Left Behind; God Is Amazing: Season; The Paper; and three others. CoLUMBIA PC 34911 $6.98, OO PCA 34911 $6.98, PCT 34911 $6.98.
Performance: Enticing
Recording Very good
After listening to this, her second solo outing, I find it easy to understand why Deniece Williams' voice turned Stevie Wonder on so much that he sought her out for his back-up vocal group. Wonderlove. She worked with Wonder from 1972 to 1976, appearing on all the recordings of his most creative period, including "Songs in the Key of Life." She has a buoyant, bright, fluid sound, a delicate vibrato, and a remarkable range that permits her to reach for piercing high notes without any indication of strain.
Here she is fitted out with material that is even better than that on her fine first album.
Producer Maurice White poured all of the proper stuff into this one; the arrangements are imaginative, and several name musicians supply smooth, unobtrusive instrumental backing. Ms. Williams is also a songwriter of notable talent, for she helped write some of the best tunes here, including Time, The Pa per, and a moving, unpretentious gospel se lection called God Is Amazing. And The Boy I Left Behind stands out for its high-spirited quality. Moving tastefully through both slow and fast numbers, Ms. Williams demonstrates that she has everything it takes to go right to the top. P.G.
COLLECTIONS
BRAZILIAN MUSIC: Tom, Vinicius, Toquin ho, Miucha Recorded Live at Canecao (See The Pop Beat, page 56)
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
COUNTRY COMES TO CARNEGIE HALL.
Hank Thompson and the Brazos Valley Boys (vocals and instrumentals); Freddy Fender (vocals, guitar); Don Williams (vocals, guitar); Roy Clark (vocals, guitar); Buck Trent (banjo); other musicians. Oklahoma Hills;
Wild Side of Life; A Six Pack to Go; Before the Next Teardrop Falls; Wasted Days and Wasted Nights; Alabama Jubilee; Under the Double Eagle; Say It Again; You're My Best Friend; and eleven others. ABC/DoT DO-2087/2 two discs $8.98, ® 8310-2087N $8.95, © 5310-2087N $8.95.
Performance: Energized
Recording: Very good remote
I didn't think I'd like this. Oh, I thought it might be interesting to hear Hank Thompson again, as he's still running one of the few country-swing bands that isn't dry and methodical. But Don Williams is a soft country purveyor, and Roy Clark, the headliner here, has seemed preoccupied for years with winning the title of Mr. Showbiz, which involves having an audience look at his flying fingers more than listen to the result. On top of all that, everyone is doing the greatest hits of his greatest hits, more or less, and you know how that usually turns out.
In fact, though, all the performers actually seem to be listening to what they're doing, […] ence. Williams and Clark (it's debatable which one steals the show) make such good connections with the audience that they should consider doing only live albums for a while. I'm not a fan of Clark's vocals; part of the problem is that he has two singing styles, a fairly straightforward one for a song like Alabama Jubilee and a cloying one when he's trying to soft-soap a pop audience. But the thing here is his guitar work, and on Under the Double Eagle and the difficult flamenco turns in Malagueita he really lets it rip. He's much less mechanical than he is on the Tonight Show.
Williams wrote The Shelter of Your Eyes, just about the epitome of the kind of song he specializes in, but it is perhaps worth noticing how much better he does it when he's playing to an audience that obviously loves it. Those may be the album's best moments. Thompson and Fender seem to have only opening and warm-up roles.
These four stylists, no more or less representative than a number of other foursomes would be, and some of the individual performances show the big city that there's a lot more to this kind of music than Hee Haw lets on. N.C.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
REDNECK MOTHERS. Johnny Russell: Red necks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer.
Gary Stewart: Back Slider's Wine; Honky-Tonkin'. Willie Nelson: I Gotta Get Drunk.
Steve Young: Renegade Picker; Tobacco Road. Jerry Reed: I'm Just a Redneck in a Rock-and-roll Bar. Bobby Bare: Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother. Tennessee Pulley-bone: Whiskey River. Vernon Oxford: Red-neck! RCA APLI-2438 $7.98, APS 1-2438, $7.98, © APKI-2438 $7.98.
ROY CLARK Really lets it rip
Performance: Rat on, boys
Recording: Mostly good
This is a great party record, particularly for white-collar parties. If you can read Doonesbury, you ought to be able to go to town, as the good old boys say, gleaning insight from it into how the redneck isn't as one-dimensional as you'd heard-if you're not too far along in the party, that is. If you are, well, hell, the al bum is also partly music to be drunk to-that is, it is both honky-tonk music and a satire of honky-tonk music. Such, you might say, is the elusive nature of honky-tonk music. But you'd have to be pretty far gone not to appreciate the shrewdness of these good old pickers, the fine subtlety with which they parody their own poses.
I've never yet met anyone who wasn't captivated by Rednecks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer, and here you have both it and Bobby Bare's . . . er, definitive reading of Up Against the Wall Redneck Mother. Be sides these peaks of insight (and tunefulness and fun and most other things), there's a reasonable number of decent-size foothills, including Gary Stewart's non-ironic but swinging treatment of the honky tonks. Most of these songs really work best in a live-performance repertoire, of course, as the novelty aspect is a little too strong for repeated closely spaced listenings. But you can mitigate that somewhat by playing the record only for other people-the ones who need more fun as well as the ones who need more insight. N.C.
RECORDING OF SPECIAL MERIT
THESE CHARMING PEOPLE: Vocal Duets by Gershwin, Kern, and Rodgers and Hart. Joan Morris, Max Morath (vocals); William Bolcom (piano). I Don't Think I'll Fall in Love Today; You Never Knew About Me; Hang On to Me; Feeling I'm Falling; The Half of It, Dearie, Blues; Till the Clouds Roll By; and six others. RCA ARL1-2491 $7.98, ® ARSI-2491 $7.98, © ARKI-2491 $7.98.
Performance: Charming
Recording: Excellent
We know who "these charming people" are.
They're Joan Morris, Max Morath, and William Bolcom, not the "debonair" social climbers with 'savoir-faire" in the Gershwin ballad from which this album takes its title.
Anything Bolcom turns his attention to at the keyboard, especially if his wife, Joan the Mischievous, sings it at the same time, is bound to come out as bright as a blouse that's been dipped into the right detergent on a TV commercial. That's what happens to the songs sung and played here, particularly with the jocular voice of Morath joining in on the whole jaunty enterprise. The trio dip into old songbooks to resurrect known and not-so-known ballads from the pens of Gershwin, Kern, and Rodgers and Hart; the results are nothing if not charming. One could only wish they had been more generous and added a few more to the dozen delights on this program.
Without patronizing the somewhat musty material, Morath and Morris make marvelous duets out of Gershwin's Feeling I'm Falling, Kern's Till the Clouds Roll By, Rodgers and Hart's There's a Small Hotel, and other old favorites. When subtle satirical comedy is called for, however, as in Gershwin's The Babbit and the Bromide, these performers re ally have the chance to shine, and they make the most of it. I have come to the conclusion that nobody alive can play a Gershwin tune with a better sense of style than William Bolcom; he gets several chances here to be heard between choruses strutting his stuff. A real winner. P.K.
DISCO
THELMA HOUSTON: The Devil in Me. Thelma Houston (vocals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment. I'm Here Again; It's Just Me Feeling Good; I Can't Go On Without Your Love; Memories; Give Me Something to Believe In; and four others. TAMLA T7-358R1 $7.98, 7-358 HT $7.98, 7-358 HC $7.98.
Performance: Better than the music
Recording: Good
Thelma Houston has remained in the ranks of highly promising singers, just bubbling beneath the surface of widespread recognition, for what seems like a long time in a business that seems at times to be based on built-in obsolescence. This album is likely to leave her still short of success because of the uneven material she has to work with. The first side is a study in ordinariness, though Houston sings with spirited passion, trying to lug these lead en songs to greater heights. She fares considerably better on the second side, which includes some fairly interesting songs, most penned, at least in part, by Michel Rubini.
Memories is a real little jewel tucked in among the rhinestones, while Baby I Love You Too Much is the sort of lilting, lightweight item that might make a hit. What is lacking here is a distinctive sound that announces to the world that Thelma Houston is Thelma Houston and cannot be mistaken for anybody else.
With her singing talent and expressive abilities, it shouldn't be difficult for some creative producer to provide her with the right magical mix. P.G.
DONNY AND MARIE OSMOND: Winning Combination. Donny and Marie Osmond (vocals); vocal and instrumental accompaniment.
Best of Me; You Remind Me; Oh, Sweet Lovin'; Baby, I'm Sold on You; Sure Would Be Nice; and six others. POLYDOR PD-I-6127 $6.98.
Performance: For fans
Recording: Good
This is yet another sausage from the Great Osmond Sausage Machine. "Winning Combination" is all as bright-eyed, clean-cut, and wholesome as Donny and Marie's TV show, an exercise in polyunsaturated sunshine as stupefying boring as it is hugely successful.
Their records (between them they now have twenty in current release) have probably made them as solvent as the Bank of America, and the amount of material about them one can send away for rivals that of a Presidential candidate.
This particular album has a disco flavor, and Donny and Marie handle their chores with neatness and dispatch. Marie-who used to look like the girl next door but now, after an alarming "glamorization," more closely resembles Liza Minnelli at a Maybelline convention-still coos and pouts quite charmingly in such things as I Want to Give You My Everything (don't you believe it). Donny, a sort of male Sparkle Plenty, chimes in enthusiastically all over the place, especially in the title song. The album was produced by Brian Holland with all the care and flash of a hash-house chef giving the fried eggs a once over-lightly. P.R.
BILLY PRESTON: A Whole New Thing. Billy Preston (vocals, keyboards, guitars, bass, percussion); other musicians. Whole New Thing; Disco Dancing; Attitudes; You Got Me Buzzin'; Sweet Marie; You Don't Have to Go; and four others. A&M SP 4656 $6.98.
Performance: Funkful
Recording: Very good
According to the title of this album, Billy Preston is into a whole new thing. But after listening to this set, I cannot distinguish what it is, except that he might have moved, in his fruitful professional lifetime, from gospel to disco while managing to hold on to some of the basic ingredients of everything that falls in between.
Preston is a most resourceful and versatile artist, bringing a deep sense of musicality to everything he does. Thus he can mix song lines that fit comfortably into the current disco mode with a piano-organ style that is a pastiche of gospel, blues, and boogie. His singing, being of the Ray Charles school, fits well with such a root-rich mixture. Just check him out here on Sweet Marie, which shows the influence the master has on him both vocally and instrumentally. And Disco Dancing, Complicated Sayings, Attitude, and Happy are sufficiently sprightly 'to set the lights to flickering in any dance emporium. He's one of the few who have successfully bridged the gap of changing styles, and this disc is a testament to that accomplishment. P.G.
Wynne was the driver of the group, prompting it to a sassy vitality that is lacking on "Spinners/8." The selections-arranged, conducted, produced, and in large part writ ten by Thom Bell-are agreeable enough, the sort of innocuous fare that goes well with washing the dishes or cleaning out closets.
On "Now Is the Time," Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes manage to hold up a modest corner of the r-&-b tradition. Essential respect for their roots in the Philadelphia sound is apparent in the time they allot for solo excursions, and they avoid getting in each other's way or cluttering things up too much. Un like the other albums here, theirs does include one real boilermaker, Baby, You Got My Nose Open, as well as at least one better-than-average ballad, Let's Talk It Over.
OVERALL, what I find lacking in this sampling of discs by male soul-singing groups is humor, variety, and strong individual styles.
The Clovers, for instance, with their old-fashioned doo-wop style, could inspire a chuckle with their rendition of One Mint Julep, and the Coasters could convey the feel of a rocky bar-side encounter with amusing familiarity. They lacked the sophistication of these younger fellows, and they had no fancy backgrounds, but they seemed to get a kick out of what they were doing that made us anxious to eavesdrop on their pleasure. I don't know about you, but I'll take funky fun over dry, predictable sophistication any day.
-Phyl Garland
MIGHTY CLOUDS OF JOY: Live and Direct. Mighty Clouds of Joy (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Love Train; Stairway to Heaven; I Came to Jesus; Shout; Look on the Bright Side; Carnival of Life; Where Is Your Faith? ABC AB-1038 $6.98.
THE PIPS: At Last . . . the Pips. The Pips (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. At Last My Search Is Over; If I Could Bring Back Yesterday; Midnight Flight to Your Love; Since I Found Love; Happiness; Uncle James; Tomorrow Child. CASABLANCA NBLP 7081 $6.98.
THE SPINNERS: Spinners/8. Spinners (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. I'm Gonna Getcha; I'm Tired of Giving; You Got the Love That I Need; Easy Come, Easy Go; Back in the Arms of Love; Painted Magic; Heaven on Earth (So Fine); (Love Is) One Step Away; Baby I Need Your Love (You're the Only One). ATLANTIC SD 19146 $6.98.
THE TEMPTATIONS: Hear to Tempt You. Temptations (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Think for Yourself; In a Lifetime; She's All I've Got; Snake in the Grass; I Could Never Stop Loving You; Can We Come and Share in Love; It's Time for Love; Let's Live in Peace; Read Between the Lines. ATLANTIC SD 19143 $6.98, 08 TP 19143 $7.97, CS 19143 $7.97.
HAROLD MELVIN AND THE BLUE NOTES: Now Is the Time. Harold Melvin, the Blue Notes (vocals); instrumental accompaniment. Where's the Concert for the People?; Baby. You Got My Nose Open; Let's Talk It Over; Feels Like Magic; Now Is the Time; Power of Love; Today, Tomorrow, Forever; Try to Live a Day. ABC AA-1041 $6.98.
Also see:
HALL & OATES--They prefer that you don't call their music "blue-eyed soul"
Source: Stereo Review (USA magazine)