Summertime Dream
Gordon Lightfoot
Reprise Records MS 2246
1976
Last summer we took a Canadian road trip and visited all five of the Great Lakes. As we were motoring along Lake Ontario, I had my Ipod plugged into the car stereo and the Dandy Warhols' cover of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (off "The Black Album") began playing. It was the wrong lake of course, the ship sank in Superior, but it reminded me that Lightfoot's classic song had inspired my infatuation with this part of the continent back in my teens, an infatuation that has never diminished. Out here in the west, our lakes are pretty modest, even the Great Salt Lake seems tame to me. The idea of a lake big and ferocious enough to swallow up a great freighter fascinated me when I was younger and even now the majesty and size of Superior impresses me. Back when this song came out I didn't care much for Lightfoot. I only knew him from his hit singles "If You Could Read My Mind," "Sundown" and "Carefree Highway." I thought of him as a dull singer/songwriter, the Canadian James Taylor. "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" opened my eyes to his talent and a bit later via Ian and Sylvia I became aware of his 1960s work and turned into a fan. "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is a great song, my favorite of all of Lightfoot's work. It has a compelling folk-rock melody that sounds timeless and it is driven along by atmospheric stinging guitar licks from Terry Clements. The lyrics are brilliant, using Native American references and an abundance of poetic detail to give the wreck an epic and mystical quality. The song is full of vivid language and descriptions, lines like "old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams" and "the wind in the wires made a tattletale sound" really send me. I've heard the song countless times and I still love hearing it. In a way the song is too good. It completely overwhelms the rest of the record. When I first got the record I just played that song over and over, ignoring the rest of the record. There are other good songs on it however. I particularly like "Race Among the Ruins" which is a bright folk-rocker with a country rock flavor courtesy of Pee Wee Charles' steel guitar work. The song is about optimism in the face of life's difficulties and the challenges of finding love. There is some suggestion that the person the song addresses is delusional, but it is delivered with compassion so it doesn't seem mean or judgmental. "Summertime Dream" is another sparkling tune that celebrates a summer tryst out in the country with colorful and expressive descriptions. I also am impressed by "Protocol" which reminds me of Richard Thompson with its ringing guitar riff and evocative lyrics about heroism. I'm not sure what "Too Many Clues In This Room" is driving at but it sounds nice. The rest of the album is less inspired but still pleasant to listen to. "I'd Do It Again" is a punchy country rocker about a musician with more solid guitar licks from Clements. "The House You Live In" is full of moralizing that I find a little tedious. "I'm Not Supposed to Care," "Never Too Close" and "Spanish Moss" are quiet songs about the foibles of love. They are kind of ordinary but Lightfoot sings them with enough feeling to hold my interest. The man has a terrific voice, its deep timber and resonance gives his songs a richness and gravity that sets him apart from most of his singer-songwriter peers. Recommended to fans of Ian Tyson.
Rock Roots
The Zombies
Decca Roots 2
1976
Here's a post for Halloween. Just kidding, aside from their name, the Zombies with their tender and romantic records could hardly be farther from the spirit of Halloween. I saw them give a wonderful show at the Troubadour back in September. Well they were calling themselves the Zombies but it was really just Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent with some side men one of whom was Jim Rodford so they could have just as accurately called themselves Argent (they actually did perform "Hold Your Head Up.") Although Blunstone looks more like a head master nowadays, he still sings with the angelic voice of a schoolboy. He looks great compared to Argent and Rodford though who are definitely showing their age. It was an old crowd too, it was the first time I've been to a show where everyone rushed up to the balcony to get one of the few seats available because no one wanted to stand. I was well back in line and I still got right up front in the pit. I'm glad they are still working, they've been one of my favorite groups since I was a teenager. As I mentioned in my post on "Time of the Zombies" the box set of "Zombie Heaven" has rendered all Zombies compilations obsolete and this one is no exception, all of it is on the box. Of course the box is a bunch of CDs and this is vinyl so it has value to me. I was thrilled when I found it at Aron's Records back in the 1980s. Although the liner notes claim that 10 of the 16 songs on the album had never been released on an LP prior to this album, they are referring to England (this is an import.) This claim is untrue since one of those 10 tracks ("I Remember When I Loved Her") appeared on the Zombies' English debut album, "Begin Here." In the American market 4 of the non-album tracks on here are on "Time of the Zombies" and 2 others appear on the London Records compilation "Early Days." Since the album consists largely of the Zombies' Decca singles, the later See For Miles Zombies singles collection has almost all of it as well. Be that as it may, I'm still glad I have it since I don't have the See For Miles compilation. Side one is wonderful. It kicks off with their 1964 classic hit single "She's Not There" and its B-side the Beatlesque "You Make Me Feel Good" which is so good it sounds like it could have been an A-side in its own right. It has a brief bit of studio noise before it starts which I haven't heard on any other recording of the song. Their 1964 follow up single "Leave Me Be" is next. The single flopped but I think it is a great song, one of my favorites in their catalog. I like the contrast between the delicate verses and the driving chorus led by Argent's dynamic organ line. "Indication" from 1966 tanked as well but it is another excellent song. It is one of the hardest rocking songs they ever did and the organ and guitar interplay at the end of the song is very exciting. Although the liner notes indicate the 2.07 running time of the abbreviated American version of the single, this is the full length 2.59 version of the song. "How We Were Before" was its flip side. It is the sort of delicate, wistful song the Zombies excelled at and unlike most of their songs it is guitar driven with bongos providing percussion. It is one of the few Zombies songs written by Colin Blunstone as opposed to Chris White or Rod Argent. "I Remember When I Loved Her" is in a similar vein, a quiet, sad song full of atmosphere. It was the B-side of a 1965 U. S. single in addition to its appearance on "Begin Here." "Is This The Dream" was a 1965 single. It is a punchy, uptempo tune with a strong vocal from Blunstone and a brief but powerful electric piano solo from Argent. It reminds me of the Animals. The side concludes with "Woman" which was the B-side of "Leave Me Be." It is a propulsive riff-driven tune with an energetic organ solo from Argent as well as one of Paul Atkinson's best guitar solos. Side two opens with the Zombies' other hit single for Decca, "Tell Her No" released in January 1965. Blunstone's vocal really sends me on this one. "Whenever You're Ready" was an unsuccessful single from 1965, but it deserved a better fate. It has that special Zombies mixture of tenderness and power with a strong melody and plenty of instrumental force. It is followed by its B-side, "I Love You" which was a hit for the American group the People in 1968. I like the Zombies' version much better, particularly Blunstone's vocal. It is followed by the only non-singles on the record, "Summertime" and "I Can't Make Up My Mind" which appeared on "Begin Here" in 1965. "Summertime" is also on the group's American debut album, but as far as I am aware "I Can't Make Up My Mind" was never on vinyl in the United States. "Summertime" is the Gershwin classic that has been covered countless times but the Zombies' jazzy version is one of my favorites with a fabulous breathy vocal from Blunstone and a terrific piano solo from Argent. It was one of the highlights of their show at the Troubadour. "I Can't Make Up My Mind" has a weird bit of studio chatter at the beginning of the take. It is a moody song driven by a melodic jangly guitar riff that is one of my favorite songs on "Begin Here." "Remember You" was a single from the soundtrack for the movie "Bunny Lake is Missing." It was an A-side in England, but in the U.S. it was the B-side to the another song from the film "Just Out of Reach" which was left off this album for some reason. I actually prefer "Just Out of Reach" myself but "Remember You" has its virtues, in particular its jazzy rhythm and some memorable piano work from Argent. "Gotta Get A Hold of Myself" was the Zombies' penultimate single for Decca in 1966. I don't believe this was ever released in the U.S. on vinyl. It was written by Clint Ballard Jr. (who wrote the Hollies' hit "I'm Alive") in collaboration with Angela Riela and had been a single for Dee Dee Warwick in 1965. The group manage to make it sound Zombieish but it depresses me that they felt compelled to do covers to try and get a hit and it didn't even work. "The album concludes with another cover, the final Zombies Decca single, "Goin' Out Of My Head" from 1967 which also went unreleased in the American market. I like it better than the hit version by Little Anthony and the Imperials, if only because it is less melodramatic. It decidedly isn't very Zombieish, the flip side "She Does Everything For Me" (not on this record alas) is much better. It was a disappointing finish to their run at Decca. It is hard to believe that a few months later they would be recording "Odessey and Oracle" creating the best music of their career. I'm not sure what the point of this record was, as a singles collection it is missing several tracks and as a greatest hits on Decca record it has the very obvious omission of "She's Coming Home." Nonetheless I'm happy to have it. When I bought it I hadn't heard many of the songs on it and even now I still enjoy listening to it. It sounds great, nine of the tracks are in mono and it is a quality pressing. Aside from "Goin' Out of My Head" every track is good and many are great. Recommended to Zombie fans who prefer vinyl over CDs.
The Beckies
The Beckies
Sire SASD-7519
1976
This is the last album by the great Michael Brown, the creative force behind the Left Banke, Montage and Stories. The record doesn't feature much of the chamber pop of the Left Banke, instead it is largely power pop, arguably the hardest rocking record that Brown ever made. The group formed in 1974 after Brown left Stories and hooked up with three musicians from the Kansas City music scene, Scott Trusty, Mayo James McAllister and Gary Hodgden (the latter two were in Chesmann Square, a band that was huge in Kansas City but never broke nationally.) Hodgden and Brown wrote all the songs on the album and Hodgden and Trusty handled the lead vocals. They both have high, sensitive voices that remind me of Steve Martin's vocals for the Left Banke although neither are as good as Martin. It opens with "Right By My Side (Etude)" which like all the songs on the record is a love song. It features a driving beat, sparkling harmony vocals from Tommy Finn (ex-Left Banke bassist), pounding piano riffs from Brown and lots of ringing guitar lines, pure power pop bliss. One of my favorite cuts. "River Bayou" is a lot more delicate, driven by Brown's piano, strings and Hodgden's quavery vocal. It sounds more like the baroque pop that Brown did with the Left Banke. "Midnight and You" is a rocker sung by Trusty who is a more forceful singer than Hodgden. Some nice stinging guitar lines on this song but the vocal harmonies and jangly rhythm guitar keep it in the power pop camp. "Fran" returns to the sound of "River Bayou" - strings and piano. It's a lovely song. "Other Side Of Town" continues the slow/fast dynamic of the album mixing rollicking verses with a smooth harmonic chorus. The song features prominent percussion and strings for a very rich sound. "Song Called Love" is another rocker with Brown's energetic piano licks duelling with the guitar riffs and a soaring vocal from Trusty giving the song extra oomph. It is another one of my favorites. Side two begins with Brown pounding his piano on "Can't Be Alone" before being joined by the band for another fast paced song. Hodgden's vocal sounds strained, he can't match the frenetic pace of the song. "River Song" keeps up the fast pace and features some of Brown's most exciting piano playing. "On The Morning That She Came" returns to chamber pop for a tale of a lost love. It manages to be moving and emotional without being sappy, which has always been one of Brown's gifts as a songwriter. "One of These Days" reminds me of Badfinger with its dense sound of shimmering harmonies, jangly guitars mixed with slide guitar licks, strings and cascading piano lines and a structure alternating sensitive verses with a hard-riffing chorus. Hodgden's vocal even sounds a bit like Pete Ham. It is archetypal power pop and another one of my faves. "Run Jenny Run" is a rousing rocker that gives the album a strong finish. This is such a good record, but it made little impact in its time. When I think back to all the crappy music that was on the radio back in 1976, this record is infinitely superior to 99% percent of that stuff. Michael Brown is truly one of the great lost talents of rock and roll. He deserved a better career but I'm grateful for the few records that he left us - there is not a bad one in the bunch. Recommended for fans of Big Star.
Thirty-Three & 1/3
George Harrison
Dark Horse DH 3005
1976
If you have read any of my previous entries you probably have figured out that I'm kind of a Beatles fan. I'm not a big George fan though. There are those who believe that the Beatles held Harrison back, but I think they were in fact the ideal venue for his limited talents. He's really only good for two or three decent songs an album anyway and sandwiching his dour ditties among John and Paul songs makes them sound better than they would sound surrounded by more dour ditties, like on the solo albums. Same with his work in the Traveling Wilburys. The man is a natural supporting player. I basically wrote Harrison off after I wasted my allowance money on "Living In the Material World" which I hated. A couple of years later, I saw Harrison on "Saturday Night Live" and saw the Monty Pythonesque videos for "This Song" and "Crackerbox Palace" which I found very amusing and engaging. I decided to give him one more chance and I bought this album. It didn't convince me that I was wrong about Harrison but I had no regrets about having it either. True to form there are only two memorable songs on the record, the aforementioned "This Song" and "Crackerbox Palace." As a master of whiny self-pity, Harrison's "This Song" is characteristic of his oeuvre as he sarcastically responds to his plagiarism problems, but at least it is humorous like "Taxman." Harrison once made his living as a lead guitarist but the song is driven by keyboards and the sax solo blows his own pedestrian solo away. As a teen I thought "Crackerbox Palace" was some kind of religious allegory, but I later found out that the Lord in this case was actually Lord Buckley. I liked it better after that. Harrison's lyrics as a solo artist have always been a problem for me. In "Woman Don't Cry for Me" he deserts his woman to follow his god which sums up his career pretty nicely. Judging from "Beautiful Girl" his paramour is probably better off without him since part of his ode to beauty features him praising the girl as "not the kind you go handing around" - yikes, that's almost worthy of Mick Jagger. There is lots of religion on this record which does not sit so well with me, but it is not as preachy as some of his earlier records. At least this time around he is thanking his god for Smokey Robinson (something I can actually agree with) rather than for making him smarter and more clear-minded than the rest of us (there is still some of that on the record though.) My other problem with Harrison is his lack of singing ability. You need only hear his woeful cover of Cole Porter's "True Love" to realize that he should stick to guitar playing. I find his weak whiny voice tolerable in small doses but over an entire album it is pretty wearying. On the plus side Harrison comes up with more sprightly tunes than is typical with him and some of his best guitar playing since "All Things Must Pass." If I don't pay attention to the words, I enjoy much of this record. Recommended for pop-minded Hare Krishnas and undiscriminating Beatles fans.
The Story of the Who
The Who
Polydor 2683 069
1976
This was the first Who album I ever bought. When I got into record collecting, I thought of the Who as a 1970s hard rock band. At the time they were one of the biggest bands in the world. I only knew them from "Baba O'Riley" which I had on my "Get It Together" comp. I liked that song a lot but I was into the 1960s and not knowing much about rock history aside from what I heard on the radio, I didn't really think of them as a 1960s band. I was listening to oldies stations by then, but they were not playing the Who. Then one evening I was riding in the car with my Dad passing through Sacramento on our way home from a long road trip and I heard the opening to "I Can See For Miles." I was half asleep but I instantly woke up, the thunderclaps of Keith Moon's drums and the stinging licks of Pete Townshend's guitar got my heart pounding. It was such an exciting song, it had the exact sound that I was looking for. When it was over, I could not wait to hear it again. I knew what I would be looking for next time I went to the record store. I found it on this album and bought it, but I have no idea why I bought this pricey import rather than "Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy" except that I probably didn't realize that the latter was also a compilation album. I also didn't realize that there was a rather large problem with this double record set, namely you cannot tell the story of the Who without including "I Can't Explain," "The Kids are Alright," "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" or the original version of "My Generation" (this record substitutes an abridged version of the one from "Live at Leeds.") In fact there is nothing from the "My Generation" album at all. I can only assume that some licensing issue or copyright dispute prevented this, but still the absence of this music makes this record pointless. Instead you get such marginal stuff as "Run, Run, Run" and their useless cover of "Heat Wave", a bunch of stuff from "Who's Next" and an album side devoted to "Tommy" that features more marginal stuff like "Fiddle About" and "Tommy's Holiday Camp" which were presumably included to give some songwriting revenues to John Entwistle and Keith Moon. Yet there is nothing from "Quadrophenia" because according to the liner notes, the band felt it was inappropriate to isolate individual cuts from the whole of the album. Nonsense, "5:15" or "Love, Reign O'er Me" could just as easily stand by themselves as any of the stuff from "Tommy" and they were actually released as singles. In their place we get some cuts from "The Who By Numbers" which is a pretty dubious exchange. It doesn't even bother to include the hit single "Join Together" which at least would have made it a little useful. On the plus side it does have a short booklet outlining the history of the band with some funny pictures. I like the cover art too. Basically though this record is a failure. My copy doesn't even sound all that good. I've had all sorts of bad luck with Polydor imports from the 1970s, they must have had the worst pressing plant in the U. K. judging from the surface noise I've heard on their records. In short I'm not sure who I could possibly recommend this to. There are so many Who comps out there, I'm sure any of them would be better than this. I guess if you hate Mods and their music but are still interested in the Who for some reason, I would recommend this comp to you.
Fairport Chronicles
Fairport Convention
A&M SP 3530
1976
The boring suburban town I spent my teenage years in did not have a record store most of the time I lived there. I had to travel to a mall in another town where I bought most of my first albums in a typical chain record store. It didn't stock much of a back catalog or carry anything out of the ordinary which is why I was flabbergasted when I went in there and saw this sitting in the bin. I only knew Fairport Convention because of their entry in "The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock" by Nick Logan and Bob Woffinden which was basically my bible at the time. Their description of Fairport as the English Jefferson Airplane fascinated me since I was heavily into the Airplane. I was dying to hear them and I was thrilled to pick this up. By a lot of standards this is kind of a crappy compilation, it ignores much of their career including their debut album, their only hit single "Si Tu Dois Partir" and nearly all of the traditional songs they covered including such crucial ones as "A Sailor's Life," "Matty Groves" and "Sir Patrick Spens." Yet somehow it still works. The compilers have an agenda of sorts, basically championing the original vision of the band as a contemporary folk-rock outfit, celebrating the musical content of their second and third albums ("Fairport Convention" and "Unhalfbricking") before "Liege and Lief" changed them forever. They even throw in songs from splinter groups Fotheringay and the Bunch - all contemporary covers - that reflect this perspective as well as a song from Sandy Denny's solo album, "Sandy." 20 songs in total, only two traditional numbers and six covers. Only one song from "Angel Delight" and 2 from "Full House." 9 songs from the second and third album though. A greatest hits album without any hits. Instead it is a pointed and intelligent selection of songs from a hard luck band that never got the success it deserved. I loved it at the time and I love it still. It flows beautifully, it feels like an organic and cohesive whole even though it jumps all over the place temporally. All the songs are first rate. The liner notes are extensive, smart and informative. It is a wonderful introduction to Fairport. I've been a fan ever since I first heard it. Recommended to fans of the Band who wish they had been fronted by an enchanting woman singer with the most divine voice ever to grace a rock group.
