Marianne Faithfull, Horses and High Heels

There’s living, and then there’s living. Make no mistake—Marianne Faithfull has lived. Probably enough for several lifetimes. Beset by heroin addiction, depression, family suicide, an affiliation with the Rolling Stones, and career ups and downs that would do a theme-park rollercoaster proud, Faithfull has survived it all—and even thrived. Now into her sixties, she has earned a well-deserved reputation as a black chanteuse of sorts, a brilliant chronicler of the darker corners of the human condition. She’s been a critical darling now for decades, but other than her 1979 woman-scorned masterpiece, Broken English, her albums have not sold that well in the U.S. Which is a shame because, for the last two-plus decades, her records have been frequently brilliant and, at the very least, interesting explorations of who we are and why we’re here.

Blessed with a voice that, while leagues from her ‘60s honeyed stylings, is recognizable from the first note—much like Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, Stevie Nicks, and a select few others—and communicates sadness and longing better than almost any rock voice out there, Faithfull sings with a resonance that haunts you long after her albums are over.

Horses and High Heels, Faithfull’s 23^rd solo outing, is again produced by Hal Willner, her longtime producer and collaborator. Willner has always been able to coax the best out of the smoky siren, and Horses proves the point. Bolstered by numerous guest stars, including guitarist extraordinaire John Porter (who has worked with the likes of Clapton, Roxy Music, and the Smiths), Lou Reed, the MC5’s Wayne Kramer, and Dr. John, Faithfull responds with a terrific vocal performance full of guts and emotional depth—in fact, she hasn’t sounded this good since 2000’s Vagabond Ways, which stands as one of her finest albums. Recorded in the French Quarter of New Orleans in September/October 2010, the album bears little of the signature of the Big Easy, but it does carry the city’s mixed-gumbo variety of musical styles, ranging from the easy loping rock of “Why Did We Have to Part” (one of four Faithfull originals on the album), an excellent cover of Jackie Lomax’s burning “No Reason” (featuring Wayne Kramer on electric guitar) to the contemplative “That’s How Every Empire Falls,” one of several standouts on the album, the infectious waltz time of “Gee Baby,” and the early ‘70s, Joe Cocker-ish ballad “Back in Baby’s Arms” (featuring a nearly indistinguishable Lou Reed).

The band is tighter than a kettledrum—drummer Carlo Nuccio and bassist supreme George Porter Jr. plant the rhythms deep in the ground—and the melodies are well-constructed and indelible. Nearly every song is memorable and has a hummable hook, but the sad fact is, there’s no place in the charts for an album of such artistic and musical integrity in this day and age. Yes, there’s always going to be an audience for excellent music, and some vintage artists such as Faithfull continue to release important records, but the Top 40 is no longer the place to find them—a sad but unavoidable reality that is becoming more unavoidable every year. Disposable pop has always dominated the charts, but not to the degree it does now.

OK, off the soapbox and back to our regularly scheduled programming. The production by Hal Willner, as is usually the case when he works with Faithfull, is impeccable, with the singer’s Camel-riddled vocals sounding upfront and incredibly present. Mastering quality is also top-notch; Faithfull is thankfully one of a dwindling number of artists who obviously cares what her product sounds like.

Horses and High Heels finds Marianne Faithfull continuing to hone her craft. It is a masterful album by a singer who is hitting her stride well into her sixties. No, it’s not the monumental achievement that Broken English was, but the fact that an artist who’s been around for close to 50 years continues to release music this vital is a pretty remarkable achievement in itself.

-AC

• Audio CD (February 15, 2011)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: 101 DISTRIBUTION

Bryan Ferry, Olympia

You gotta give it to Bryan Ferry—the man is suave. Ever since Roxy Music’s 1982 masterpiece Avalon, the impossibly hip Ferry has maintained a steady solo career in which he has honed and refined a  textured and silky-smooth sound that is the epitome of European cool.

Fans of early Roxy Music had high hopes for Ferry’s 13th solo album, Olympia, as word spread that he would be reunited with former bandmates Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera, and Andy MacKay, all of whom have reportedly been working on a new Roxy Music album with Ferry for years, with so far no results.

Upon first listen, Roxy fans will be disappointed. There is none of the icy skittishness of Roxy Music or For Your Pleasure, but rather the album is bathed in the warm elegance of Siren or, even more, Avalon. That’s not a bad thing, though. Olympia is impeccably crafted, and quite possibly Ferry’s best solo album since 1976’s Let’s Stick Together. Ferry recruited a ton of A-list help for the album: besides his former Roxy cronies, he enlisted Flea, Dave Stewart, Nile Rodgers, David Gilmour, and Chris Spedding, among others. Rather than overshadow Ferry, all this talent fits in seamlessly, never drowning out that legendarily suave croon.

The opener, “You Can Dance,” slips off the grooves in hypnotic fashion (courtesy of a funky bass line by Flea), setting the table for the rest of the album. Songs like “Alphaville” (with its blippy electronic signature by Eno), the loping “Heartache by Numbers,” the brooding “Me Oh My” (with guitar by David Gilmour), “Shameless” (which sounds like it could’ve been a dancefloor hit), a cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren,” the Euro-funky “BF Bass (Ode to Olympia),” and the tender “No Face, No, Name, No Number” are all well executed and sweep over the listener in grand fashion. Part of this is due to the overall excellence of the songs, but the other component is the production (by Ferry, longtime collaborator Rhett Davies, and Johnson Somerset), which is top-notch: enveloping, moody, and appropriately atmospheric. It’s a sound that wraps itself around you and moves and sways to the beat, almost like a John Travolta on Ecstasy.

Though no song sticks out as an obvious single—in the way “More than This” or the title track did on Avalon—their sheer moodiness carries them along. But, really, Olympia is not about singles; it’s an album of craft, a collection of songs molded into a chic, coherent whole by an old master helped along by an ark of talented friends. Everything fits together well: the songs, the star power, the production, everything. It’s a solid effort in all respects.

Besides the production, which is excellent, the mastering quality (courtesy of mastering guru Bob Ludwig) is superb: smooth and dynamic, with very little compression. The man knows his stuff.

There are several versions of Olympia available: a single disc, a double-disc with a DVD on the making of the album, and a deluxe box set. The version under review here is the two-disc set. It comes with two bonus tracks not available on the single disc: an ethereal cover of John Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” and a graceful take on the classic “One Night.” They’re both good songs and justify the purchase of the two-disc set if you’re more than a casual Ferry fan. The DVD is a nice look at the making-of, but most people are only going to look at it once, so the real attraction here is the bonus tracks.

Olympia finds the perennially suave Bryan Ferry in fine form. No, it’s not a return to the cutting-edge trend-setting of early Roxy Music, as many had hoped, but it is a very well crafted album loaded with tons of moody atmospherics. It recalls the elegance of Avalon without slavishly trying to imitate it. If you’re into sitting in your listening chair with the lights turned low and a glass of expensive Chardonnay in your hand, give Olympia a try. After the buzz hits, you’ll be grooving to the beat and crooning just like the man himself.

Then again, probably not. But the album’s still worth a listen. Oh, and did I mention that the cover features a picture of an absolutely ravishing Kate Moss? That’s almost worth the price of admission alone!

-AC

• Audio CD (October 25, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 2, 1 CD, 1DVD
• Label: Astralwerks

David Johansen, ST

David Johansen would do the craftiest chameleon proud. In a four-decade career, he’s had more personas than your average schizophrenic. Glam icon, new-wave rocker, actor, lounge lizard, roots revivalist—the once and current New York Doll has been all of these and more in his legendary career. Of course, D. Jo will never outlive his Dolls work—it casts an impossibly long shadow, one that he’s become increasingly comfortable with in recent years—but his fitful solo career has had its share of rewards as well.

His solo highpoint is without a doubt his 1978 eponymous debut. Swaggering and defiant, it didn’t sell particularly well, but it did renew critics’ interest in Johansen and served notice that the erstwhile Doll was alive and well after his former group’s epic meltdown. Truth was, Johansen wasn’t doing that well, at least not physically or emotionally—he still bore the scars of the Dolls’ last days and was by this time a full-fledged alcoholic—but you certainly couldn’t tell that from the songs or the performances. Full of the emotional intensity and fiery playing that marked the Dolls’ best work, David Johansen was a sharp, focused debut that signaled good things for the singer.

Johansen assembled a crack band called the Staten Island Boys for the album: Johnny Rao and Thomas Trask on guitars, Buz Verno on bass, and Frankie LaRocka on drums. A group that was equally at home on ferocious rockers and tender ballads, they were far tighter than the Dolls ever were, even on their best day, but they could still swing with abandon and deliver a bite nastier than the meanest pit bull. Just listen to how quickly they shift into full blitzkrieg mode after a brief, girl-group-influenced monologue on “I’m a Lover” or how seamlessly they transition from a slow, piano-led intro to roaring rock on the sweeping closer, “Frenchette.” On the appropriately titled opener, “Funky But Chic,” Johansen and his boys set the tone for the first portion of his solo career—emphatic and over the top, the song remains one of his definitive solo statements. Trust me, if you can’t swing to this tune, you’re either the squarest motherfucker on the planet or you’re dead. Take your choice. Another one of Johansen’s best songs—either in or out of the Dolls—is the impossibly poignant ballad “Donna.” Featuring excellent piano work by Bobbie Blain, it’s tender and sweet, but still has enough spark and fire to keep the momentum going. It’s simply an incredible piece of work and is alone worth the price of the album. On the raging “Girls,” “Cool Metro,” and campy “Lonely Tenement” (which sounds a little like a Dolls outtake), the band sounds lean and mean: less gloriously ambiguous than the Dolls, but also less sloppy and poorly focused as well.

The production, by Johansen and Richard Robinson, is rough and ready, and with enough looseness to suit the strengths of the band.

David Johansen has been issued twice on CD: originally in 1992 on Razor & Tie and, most recently, in 2008 on American Beat. The R&T issue is now out of print and going for decent money on eBay, so the American Beat pressing is now the most widely available. The R&T has one thing going for it that the AB doesn’t: it contains an excellent bonus track called “The Rope (The Let Go Song),” which, although it won’t set the world alight, probably makes the R&T pressing worth the extra expense for Dolls and serious Johansen fans. The American Beat edition is also a little brighter than the R&T, so you can’t turn it up quite as loud without compression setting in. This is a bad thing for audiophiles, but that little extra dose of brightness does give the AB a sense of immediacy that the R&T lacks. The liner notes on the AB issue are pretty slim, but it does at least contain the personnel for each song. Either pressing is fine, but that bonus track on the R&T is appealing.

In 1978, David Johansen was an emotional wreck, and looking to make a splash with his solo debut. While David Johansen sold in disappointingly small numbers, it is to this day the best thing he has ever done. It’s an album full of drama, emotion, camp, and celebration. For Dolls fans, it’s absolutely essential, and for anyone else interested in rock done right, with flair and New Yawk panache, it’s not far behind.

-AC

• Audio CD (February 1, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Razor & Tie
• Also available on American Beat
  Audio CD (April 29, 2008)

Doris Troy, ST

Mention the name Doris Troy to the average music fan, and you’ll likely receive a polite nod and blank stare in return. Then start humming the chorus to her lone big hit, 1963’s “Just One Look,” and chances are you’ll start getting a lot more positive responses. That one song defined her career, which in a way is too bad because Troy, who passed away from emphysema in 2004, was a formidable soul singer with some great songs to her credit. She was also a backup vocalist par excellence, having worked with the Rolling Stones (“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”), Carly Simon (“You’re So Vain”), and Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon), among many others. Her second album, Doris Troy, released in 1970 for the Beatles’ Apple Records, remains her definitive statement and is a tasty slice of American R&B and gutbucket soul that deserved a far wider audience than it got.

As the story goes, in 1969 Troy, who had a few years earlier relocated to London from America, was brought down to a Billy Preston session, where she met Preston and George Harrison. George was sufficiently impressed that he eventually signed her to Apple, where she was given full reign as writer, producer, and artist—an uncommon occurrence in those days—and work began on her first record for the label. As often happened at Apple, superstar musicians would often drop by to hang out and guest on their friends’ albums. Doris Troy was no exception. It features a Who’s Who of guest stars—Harrison, Preston, Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills, Klaus Voormann, Ringo Starr, Delaney and Bonnie, and Peter Frampton—but rather than a tense congregation of massive egos, it comes across today as a warm, communal gathering of friends just sitting around laughing and jamming till the wee hours of the morning.

“Ain’t That Cute” kicks off the album in barnstorming style. A fiery romp featuring some stinging guitar work, it was the album’s first single and one of its highlights, but owing to typical Apple mismanagement, it went nowhere in the charts. Troy sings with churchy abandon on the Stephen Stills–penned “Special Care” (a song that dated from Stills’ Buffalo Springfield days) and songs like “Give Me Back My Dynamite” (co-written with Harrison), “You Tore Me Up Inside” (which features some kick-ass guitar by, it sounds like, Clapton), “You Give Me Joy Joy,” and “Gonna Get My Baby Back.” She slows things down a bit for “Games People Play,” which Aretha Franklin would’ve probably been glad to record, and the jazz-tinged “Exactly Like You,” on which Preston’s legendary keyboard work shines through like a sunbeam from above. What ties all these songs together is Troy’s voice, which takes the best of Dusty Springfield and Aretha and molds it into a unique whole. It’s an instrument of both power and finesse, and nowhere did she wield it better than on Doris Troy. Another key component is the musicians, who back Troy with enthusiasm and panache. Clapton’s leads bite and buzz, while Stills and Frampton add a few fiery licks of their own. Voormann’s bass hits hard and Ringo adds his distinctive drumming to several tracks, while Preston gets in some tasty ivory tinkles of his own. The production, credited solely to Troy (even though Harrison helped out), is warm and relaxed, reflecting the homespun vibe of the sessions. In a way, it recalls the Baptist church–infused early-‘70s work of Delaney and Bonnie, Leon Russell, Clapton, and Joe Cocker.

In 2010, Doris Troy was reissued as part of EMI’s Apple reissue series. Like the other Apple remasters, the sound is a bit on the bright side, but it’s certainly not objectionable. It does add a little bite to the guitars and snap to the drums, and now the instrumentation and (most importantly) Troy’s voice are in clear relief compared with the older remaster from the 1990s, which sounded a bit overly warm and fuzzy. The liner notes, by Andy Davis, are excellent.

The bonus tracks are identical to the ‘90s issue, with the exception of one addition: a slightly funkier take of “All That I’ve Got (I’m Gonna Give to You),” a song co-written by Troy and Billy Preston. The other version is somewhat more sedate, but still swampy enough to do the Delta proud. There’s also a rollicking cover of the Beatles’ “Get Back” that makes one wonder what the Fab Four would’ve sounded like had they been raised on chitlins and black-eyed peas. The other tracks, like the sentimental “Dearest Darling,” the crunching “What You Will Blues,” and “Vaya Con Dios” are less distinctive but still worth hearing.

Doris Troy is never going to be a household name, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t merit consideration as one of the better soul singers of her generation. The argument can be made that she was just as vocally blessed as more well-known names like Aretha, Dusty, Diana, and Bettye Lavette. Backed with the best of the best in musicians, she responded with an album full of fire and Southern grit (ironic, considering that she was from Harlem). It’s a mere footnote in history, but based on merit alone, Doris Troy deserves a place in the collection of anyone interested in fire-drenched R&B. It was a winner then and it’s a winner now.

-AC

• Audio CD (October 25, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered, Extra tracks
• Label: Apple Records

Black Crowes, Shake Your Moneymaker

The Black Crowes have always been sorely out of touch with the times. But rather than a curse, this has proved a creative blessing, as their potent blend of Stones and Faces sleaze has weathered well through the years, earning the band a sizeable audience and giving much of their music a timelessly cool feel. Though Guns N’ Roses technically beat them to the punch insofar as reintroducing true, unadulterated rock and roll to masses in love with George Michael and other fluffy pop lightweights, the Crowes possessed a swinging, more varied, Southern boogie style that G N’ R never had. It was a sound that briefly found a large audience in the early 1990s and spawned a host of poor imitators.

Led by brothers Chris and Rich Robinson, whose legendary feuds have rivaled those of Liam and Noel Gallagher and Ray and Dave Davies, the Crowes burst out of the gate with their debut effort, 1990’s Shake Your Moneymaker. An album that oozed swagger and raunch, it launched three hit singles: the rollicking “Jealous Again,” a swinging cover of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” (the monster hit off the album), and the quiet ballad “She Talks to Angels.”

With the help of producer George Drakoulias (who would go on to produce the Jayhawks’ most successful albums, among many others), the Crowes lived up to the hype that their live shows were generating. They blast off the line with “Twice As Hard,” a song that pretty much sums up their musical agenda: to keep coming at ya with the force of a freight train until that bottle of Gentleman Jack starts kickin’ in and you start loosening up that pretty pink skirt. You barely have time to pick up said skirt before “Jealous Again” kicks in, a roarer that practically leaps out of the speakers, grabs the listener by the scruff of the neck, and doesn’t let go for nearly four minutes. The track—and most of the other songs on the album—features some rollicking piano by session man extraordinaire Chuck Leavell, who’s played with the biggest and baddest names in the biz, including the Stones, Clapton, and the Allman Brothers. To score him for the sessions was a big coup. He plays with both delicacy and bouncy looseness throughout.

The train keeps a rollin’ with “Sister Luck,” a ballad that in some ways recalls a more amped-up cousin of the Stones’ Exile on Main Street classic “Torn and Frayed.” Then come the romping “Could I’ve Been So Blind” and gently building “Seeing Things,” on which lead singer Chris Robinson displays his vocal versatility and unique ability (especially for the time) to sing both blisteringly hard and heart-meltingly delicate. It’s a rare gift to be able to convey the extremes of emotion and do it convincingly and with soul, and Robinson had (and still has) that gift.

“Hard to Handle” was the biggest hit off the album, and it’s easy to see why. Beginning with an immediately identifiable drum lick, it quickly locks into gear and doesn’t let up until it’s over. Chris lurches and leers and swaggers, and the rest of the band—brother Rich and Jeff Cease on guitars, Steve Gorman on drums, and Johnny Colt on bass—rips into the song like a junkyard dog tearing apart a raw steak. It’s enough to make Otis Redding smile down from rock and roll heaven. Though they’ve had more accomplished lineups since, it could be argued that this first lineup of the Crowes, like the Pretenders’, was their most magical. “Thick and Thin,” which literally starts off with the sound of a car crash, is one of the album’s most underrated songs, a greasy rocker featuring some smoking barrelhouse piano by Leavell. Despite massive overexposure on radio and MTV, “She Talks to Angels” is an excellent ballad that has a certain timelessness and sincerity to it—unlike many ballads of the era. “Struttin’ Blues” and “Stare It Cold” juice the volume, and while the former is a pretty generic rocker and probably the weakest song on the LP, the latter closes the album on a high note, with a galloping beat, some tasty slide guitar fills, and a frenetic finish.

Shake Your Moneymaker was reissued in the mid-2000s with remastered sound and two bonus tracks: “Don’t Wake Me,” a straightforward stormer that isn’t terrible nor particularly memorable and is somewhat reminiscent of Rocks-era Aerosmith, and an acoustic rendering of “She Talks to Angels,” which manages to instill a churchy vibe missing from the original. Chris is allowed to stretch out on this version, and he responds with a really soulful vocal that does the long, legendary tradition of white Southern R&B/soul singers proud.

The mastering is clean and clear, with a nice degree of punch and low-end slam. It may be a tad compressed, but so was the original pressing, and this one brings more clarity and dynamics to the mix. You can now really hear the excellence of George Drakoulias’ production and Brendan O’Brien’s engineering, as they leave the Crowes plenty of breathing room to do their thing.

While it may not be an all-time classic like Exile on Main Street or A Nod Is As Good as a Wink . . . to a Blind Horse, the Black Crowes’ Shake Your Moneymaker built on the band’s Stones and Faces influences and created a sound that was and is uniquely refreshing. It may well be regarded as a rock classic 20-30 years hence. If it isn’t, it won’t be for lack of quality songs. With all they’ve accomplished so far, the Crowes’ status in the rock pantheon continues to grow, and while their future is in some doubt—they took an indefinite hiatus in 2010—they’ve created a formidable body of work. But the template was set by Shake Your Moneymaker. If you value good ‘ol fashioned honest rock and roll, full of bawdiness, raunch, and Southern swing, then kick back with a bottle of Ripple and some mother nature, crank this puppy up, and let fly. Your liver may not like it, but your soul will.

-AC

• Audio CD (November 13, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony

Greg Allman, Low Country Blues

Time weathers all things—mountains, rivers, skyscrapers, and especially human beings. Gregg Allman is weathered. No longer the young, raw blues belter of yore, Gregg has just about seen it all: booze, drugs, divorce, family death, band strife, etc. There are few white soul singers more qualified to sing the blues than Gregg, and he’s made a career of channeling his inner demons into music that is now part of the American cultural consciousness.

Allman has not released an album since 1997’s Searching for Simplicity. Since then he’s toured endlessly with the Allman Brothers, travelling the world and thrilling audiences everywhere with the band’s uniquely American sound. He’s endured the occasional vocal-cord meltdown, but overall his voice has endured well through all the years of boozing and drugging, even gaining a lived-in texture that only life experience can bring.

So enter 2011’s Low Country Blues. Produced by perhaps the busiest producer in rock, T-Bone Burnett—whose credits are almost as lengthy as the Dead Sea Scrolls—Low Country Blues finds Allman in ultra-blues mode. Of the twelve tracks, only one is an original—“Just Another Rider,” co-penned with fellow Allman Brother and guitar virtuoso Warren Haynes—and the song selection focuses mostly on obscure songs from the American blues songbook.

Gregg sounds especially world-weary, particularly on songs like the opener, the thumping “Floating Bridge,” and the ominous “Devil Got My Woman.” But this suits the album perfectly, as it is after all a blues record; there is little of the mainstream soul he got into in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. Most of the songs are very strong, with the possible exceptions of the Bobby “Blue” Bland tune “Blind Man,” which sounds more like it belongs on a torch jazz album than a blues record, and “Just Another Rider, which sounds like an Allmans outtake from the Seven Turns period. He amps it up for the rollicking “Little by Little,” which recalls a bunch of grizzled road vets busting it out surrounded by chicken wire in a dive bar somewhere in the deep South on a Saturday night. On Muddy Waters’ “I Can’t Be Satisfied,” Gregg growls the lyrics in a way that would make ‘ol Muddy proud.  “Please Accept My Love” is a rollicking barrelhouse number in the vein of prime Fats Domino, while he goes to church on the traditional “I Believe I’ll Go Back Home.” Other highlights include the B-3–led “Tears, Tears, Tears,” the traditional “Rolling Stone,” on which he and his band stomp it out with the aid of some good ‘ol fashioned tasty dobro, and the Otis Rush slow blues “Checking on My Baby.”

Allman put together a formidable band for the album, with vets Doyle Bramhall II on guitar, Jay Bellerose on skins, Dennis Crouch on bass, and last but certainly not least, the ageless Dr. John (credited by his real name, Mac Rebenack), who adds his legendary piano skills to the mix. The band is tighter than a kettle drum and always plays tastefully behind Allman, only venturing out for a solo when the need arises.

The production, as would be expected from a T-Bone Burnett project, is spotless. But that might be the album’s only flaw; in his valiant attempt to bring roots rock back to the fore, Burnett has gotten into a formulaic production style in which the ambience has to be appropriately smoky and the playing tightly faithful to the old masters. It makes for good listening, but one has to wonder when this style is going to start growing samey and old. The mastering, by Gavin Lurssen, is excellent—smooth, warm, and inviting, and one can really juice the volume with little worry other than pissing off the neighbors or significant other.

Surprisingly, Low Country Blues lives up to Gregg Allman’s long legend, and even adds to it. It is a terrific collection of dusty, world-weary blues that Gregg sings with the most feeling he’s summoned in a while. Indeed, one can almost imagine he and his band playing at a crossroads at midnight with Satan waiting patiently in the wings. But, hell, if you can play blues this good, what’s a soul between friends?

-AC

• Audio CD (January 18, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2011
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rounder

The Jayhawks, Tomorrow the Green Grass

In a perfect music world, critical success would be matched by commercial fortune—but unfortunately that is rarely the case. The landscape is littered with bands that have achieved boatloads of critical acclaim yet relatively small sales. This phenomenon can be blamed on any number of things—bad timing, poor promotion, public fickleness, etc.—but the result is always the same: a band deserving of huge mainstream acceptance almost getting the brass ring, only to be met with public indifference and banished back to obscurity, left to create more brilliant music in the rarely traveled shadows of the mainstream. It’s a sad story, but one often told.

The Jayhawks come close to fitting this mold. Led by songwriters Mark Olson and Gary Louris, they helped usher in a genre often termed “alt-country,” a blend of country, folk, rock, and Beatle-ish pop that found a decent mainstream audience in the mid- to late 1990s. The band scored a few underground hits, most notably “Waiting for the Sun,” but then, as alt-country succumbed to the capricious nature of the record-buying public, so did the Jayhawks. But unlike many similar bands, they did not disintegrate, but instead continued to release excellent albums into the 2000s.

Tomorrow the Green Grass is considered by many critics to be their high-water mark. Released in 1995, it was the last Jayhawks album to feature founding member Olson, who walked after the much-anticipated LP failed to find a mainstream audience, despite unqualified raves from the press. The follow-up to the widely heralded Hollywood Town Hall (which featured “Waiting for the Sun”), TTGG was equal parts Beatles, Gram Parsons, Louvin Brothers, and Big Star, a country- and pop-influenced masterwork that influenced scores of bands that followed in its wake.

With producer George Drakoulias again at the helm, on TTGG the band merged their disparate influences perfectly, in a way they hadn’t quite on Hollywood Town Hall. Louris and Olson, bolstered by co-founder bassist Marc Perlman, new member Karen Grotberg on piano, and session drummer Don Heffington, fashioned an ultra-catchy batch of songs that boasted boatloads of my-woman-done-got-my-dog-and-truck soul and heartache. The album leads off with “Blue,” the centerpiece of the record and the song that the members thought would be their ticket to the big-time. Alas, “Blue” did nothing commercially, yet remains perhaps their statement song. It is a gorgeously lilting acoustic ballad that puts Louris and Olson’s incredible harmonies into sharp focus, and it’s well deserving of its vaunted place in the band’s catalog. It’s followed by the gently loping “I’d Run Away,” “Miss Williams’ Guitar” (a love letter to Olson’s soon-to-be-wife Victoria Williams), the whispering ballad “Two Hearts,” and equally excellent songs like “Real Light,” the violin-tinged “Over My Shoulder,” a cover of “Grand Funk Railroad’s “Bad Time” that tops even the excellent original, and the bar-band closer, “Ten Little Kids.”

Louris and Olson rarely sounded in better voice than they did on TTGG. Their harmonies twist and twine and interlock in a way that makes one believe that the two singers were put on this earth to only sing together. For fans of country harmony singing, it doesn’t get much better than this. The band is unerringly tight but just loose enough to recall one the world’s best bar bands on the best gig of their life. The production by Drakoulias is spacious and deep, with plenty of focus on those heart-melting harmonies.

The pressing under review here is the 2011 two-disc Legacy Edition. For fans of the LP, it is the version to get. The first disc features the remastered original 13-track album as well five outtakes from the 1994 sessions. The remastering job is truly something; it brings out the inherent warmth and texture in the vocals and reveals tiny details in the tightly locked harmonies, without the overuse of compression or any other aggravating mastering techniques. This is how remastering should be done.

The bonus tracks, unlike much bonus material, don’t feel tacked-on. “Tomorrow the Green Grass” was originally intended for the album was but was eventually relegated to the B-side of a CD single of “Blue” released only in Europe and on the National Lampoon’s Senior Vacation soundtrack. It’s an eminently catchy tune that probably did deserve a place on the original album. Why it was left off is anyone’s guess. There’s also the previously unreleased “You and I (Ba-Ba-Ba),” “Sweet Hobo Self,” and “Sleep While You Can,” all gorgeous, harmony-laced songs in their own right. The highlight of these bonus tracks is perhaps “Last Cigarette,” a “Bad Time” B-side on which Karen Grotberg takes lead vocal. Her voice recalls Patsy Cline in all its quavering emotion. You almost wonder why her vocals weren’t used more on the album—they’re that good.

The real treat for Jayhawks fans lies on the second disc, entitled “The Mystery Demos.” The Cliff Notes version of the story goes something like this: Toward the end of 2002, word began to spread in the underground of a group of recordings made by Olson and Louris during the early 1990s. They had never been heard of since then, and the two songwriters had long forgotten about them. It was eventually discovered that the songs were from informal sessions in 1992 in which Olson and Louris, armed with just acoustic guitars and Mike “Razz” Russell on violin, jammed and pumped out a total of 44 songs, some of which were eventually recorded for TTGG (including “Blue,” titled “Blue From Now On” on this disc) and others that were used years later by side project Golden Smog, various Mark Olson post-Jayhawks albums, and the Olson/Louris reunion album Ready for the Flood. The best 18 songs (in the minds of the compilers, at least) were selected for inclusion on this reissue.

It’s amazing to hear these 18 tracks in their unvarnished glory, stripped of all instrumentation except acoustic guitars and violin. Many of them, with a tad more studio “polish,” could’ve easily been on the final album. Olson and Louris’s close harmonies stand in bas-relief, and it’s easy to argue that these guys are two of the best rock harmony singers on the planet. “Cotton Dress,” “Pray for Me,” “Won’t Be Coming Home,” and “Bloody Hands” are just a few of the highlights on the Mystery Demos disc. Without electric instrumentation, and with the presence of violin on many of the tracks, the songs take on much more of a folky, Appalachian air—a course that the album could’ve taken but didn’t.

In my opinion, the Jayhawks deserve a place in any Best American Band poll. Not only were they instrumental in shaping the alt-country movement, they have put out a string of brilliant albums during the course of their distinguished career, each one different from the last. Their songs resonate and haunt long after they’re over, and nowhere are they better heard than on Tomorrow the Green Grass (with Hollywood Town Hall a very close second). This 2011 Legacy edition is a welcome addition to the Jayhawks’ catalog. It’s a loving tribute to a fantastic album. The liner notes—particularly the section on the Mystery Demos—are thoughtful and comprehensive, and the remastering is superb. Reissue compilers should take note; this is how a reissue should be done.

-AC

• Audio CD (January 18, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Sony Legacy

Funkadelic, Maggot Brain

“Maggot Brain.” The very name connotes ugliness, vileness, and disgust. Considering the front cover art depicting a black woman up to her neck in dirt screaming in agony and the back cover of said woman’s head now a skull, maybe that’s what George Clinton and his merry band of funksters wanted—to get inside your brain and melt it into a pile of steaming funk.

In 1971, Clinton was in the early stages of forming his P-Funk empire. Funkadelic was coming off some success in the R&B charts, and their wiggy stage act was fast earning them a national audience, so they had high hopes for their third album, Maggot Brain, whose title and disturbing cover were allegedly inspired by the death of someone close to the band whose body was being eaten by maggots when it was discovered. Though Maggot Brain was not the commercial blockbuster the band envisioned—it charted lower than the group’s first two efforts—it has proved enormously influential over the years and consistently places high in polls of the greatest albums of all time.

The LP begins with the title track, the undisputed centerpiece of the album. A showcase for guitar virtuoso Eddie Hazel, it starts out with Hazel’s delicate picking and then slides into a note-bending eruption of sound that winds and weaves and screams for ten minutes and then quickly fades into blackness. It is a mind-altering experience for the uninitiated, and still a Lourdes-like touchstone for musicians and fans alike. As legend goes, the band had taken yellow sunshine acid prior to the session, and Clinton told Hazel to play as if his mother had just died, and then as if he had discovered that she was still alive. Hazel responded with the performance of his career, and one of the greatest guitar solos in the history of rock or any other genre.

The rest of the album can’t hope to live up to that impossibly high standard—and it doesn’t. Still, it’s pretty great nonetheless. The album’s first single, “Can You Get to That,” has a hooky chorus, while the second single, “Hit It and Quit It,” features a freaky Hazel guitar solo and Bernie Worrell’s increasingly prominent keyboard playing and singing. Other tracks, like the delirious “You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks,” the proto-metal “Super Stupid” (which does what Living Colour would take to the bank close to two decades later), and the closing “Wars of Armageddon,” veer all over the sonic map, blending R&B and heavy rock into a viciously potent stew that leaves the listener reeling in funk-induced disbelief.

In 2005, the band’s original label, Westbound, reissued the entire Funkadelic catalog with upgraded sound and bonus tracks. This issue of Maggot Brain features three bonus cuts, including “Whole Lot of BS,” the non-album B-side to “Hit It and Quit It,” “I Miss My Baby” (a collaboration between Funkadelic and Gary Shider’s group US), and the full-band version of “Maggot Brain.” Clinton originally placed the band low in the mix on the final master of the song, and in 1987 he remixed it to restore them to their proper place. The differences between the original and the remix are instructive; while it may not equal the sheer naked rawness of the original, the remix does show how crucial the rest of the band was in the final equation.

Sound quality is excellent. The interplay between the band is crystal clear—on “Maggot Brain,” for example, you can hear every string-bending note of Hazel’s genius with stunning clarity—and the amount of compression used is thankfully kept to a minimum.

Though it’s mostly known for its legendary title track, Maggot Brain is far more than that. It’s a wide-ranging album full of unvarnished emotion and explosive group dynamics. It’s one of the best guitar-funk albums of all time, and while it may have been a commercial disappointment at the time, its mythic status today grows by the year.

-AC

• Audio CD (November 1, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 1971
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks, Original recording remastered
• Label: Westbound Records Us

The Go Go’s, God Bless the Go Go’s

It took the Go-Go’s just five years—1980 to 1985—to change the landscape of American rock music. It also took them just five years to combust in a legendary firestorm of drugs, scandal, and internal tensions. In their brief time together, though, the band managed to become one of the most successful girl groups of all time, scoring three hit albums and several smash singles and proving that, indeed, all-woman groups could do it for themselves, without being the puppets of their managers and producers.

After the group disbanded in 1985, Belinda Carlisle went on to a massive solo career and scandalous appearance in Playboy, while the other members continued to work in the industry with varying degrees of success. The band occasionally reunited for brief summer tours and one-off appearances, but in 2000 interest in them began to swell thanks to a VH1 Behind the Music special, and the Go-Go’s decided to reunite full-time and make an album.

The result was the 2001 LP God Bless the Go-Go’s. Well-received by critics but only a modest seller, the album was a defiant statement that the Go-Go’s were not about to go gently into that good night. Though to date it’s the last album the group ever recorded, it was a great way to go-go out. It boasts melodies as good as those on their classic Beauty and the Beat and underrated Talk Show, and the songs tell a story of the rise and fall and rise again of the band.

It opens with the blasting “La La Land,” on which the band screams the ultra-catchy chorus, “Hello world / We’re here again / Living life in La La Land.” The first single, “Unforgiven,” features vocals and guitar by Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, while the contemplative ballad “Apology” is a touching olive branch extended between members of the band. “Stuck in My Car” is a roaring raver in the mold of some of their best up-tempo songs. Other highlights include the gorgeous “Here You Are,” “Kissing Asphalt” (possibly a sequel to “Skidmarks on My Heart”?), the shimmering “Insincere,” and the closing “Daisy Chain,” which tells the entire story of the Go-Go’s in under four minutes.

The band is in excellent form throughout—tight and focused—and Belinda shows off her distinctive pipes to good effect, managing to blend edge with a welcome warmth that definitely shows the influence of her solo career. Drummer Gina Schock, always the engine room of the band, drives her bandmates forward with her propulsive stick work and keeps the rhythm bouncy and centered.

If there’s a flaw in the album, it’s relatively minor. While the melodies are well-constructed and hooks abound, and the production is clear and focused, there’s nothing here quite as immediately catchy as “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “We Got the Beat,” or even “Vacation” or “Head Over Heels.” The album definitely requires two or more spins to set in. It’s what they call a “grower”—it takes a little time to get your full attention, but once it does and the hooks catch in your cerebral cortex, it’s there for good.

With God Bless the Go-Go’s, the Go-Go’s added a brief but refreshing blast of melody to the rock world, and was proof that the long-discarded band could still bring the goods. It didn’t do that well commercially, but that shouldn’t stop the curious from investigating it. It’s well worth the effort.

-AC

• Audio CD (October 4, 2004)
• Original Release Date: October 4, 2004
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Beyond

Badfinger, Straight Up

I distinctly remember the first time I heard Badfinger. It was 1979, I was 12 years old, and working in a local record store. My friend’s older brother Dan was a music maniac who owned close to 1,000 LPs. I loved guitar-pop music like the Beatles and Raspberries, and one day while my friend and I were ingesting a little mother nature in his bedroom, Dan walked in and showed me an LP and offered to play it for me. It was called Straight Up, by a British band called Badfinger. They were totally unknown to me at the time, but being a big pop music fan, I was intrigued. To cut to the point, the minute the needle hit the groove, I was hooked. What came off that turntable was the most perfectly crafted, melodic pop music I had ever heard, rivalling even the mighty Beatles, which I never thought possible.

The tragic tale of Badfinger is well known in music circles. Four naïve musicians, a crooked manager, label problems, internal tensions—all conspired to drive two members, Pete Ham and Tom Evans, to suicide. All this after five brilliant albums and several huge hits, including “Come and Get It,” and the immortal “Day After Day,” “Baby Blue,” and “No Matter What”: some of the most brilliantly executed songs in the history of pop music. Despite all this, Badfinger is, in the pantheon of rock, vastly underrated and underappreciated. They were one of the originators of  “power pop,” a melody-based, guitar-oriented style of pop that produced several massively influential bands like Big Star and the Raspberries—yet ask the average music fan about the band and likely you’ll get a blank stare and eventually an “Oh, they sound a lot like the Beatles.” It’s a shame, because Badfinger was one of the most talented group of musicians to ever grace the world of pop music.

Possibly their high point was their third album, 1971’s Straight Up. At the time, Badfinger was coming off two pretty successful albums, Magic Christian Music and No Dice, and had already scored two big hits, “Come and Get It” (written by Paul McCartney) and “No Matter What.” They were on top of the world, yet tensions were threatening to tear the band apart. Their manager, Stan Polley, was secretly bilking them of millions of dollars and the original sessions, produced by Beatles engineer Geoff  Emerick, were rejected by Apple Records. Enter George Harrison, who became producer number two. But Harrison eventually begged off the project to attend to his legendary Bangladesh concert (which the band played on, uncredited). He was replaced by whiz musician and producer Todd Rundgren. The band did not get along well with Rundgren, but he did do a terrific job of pushing them and shaping the album into what it eventually became.

Straight Up begins with the beautiful piano ballad “Take It All,” written and sung by the band’s spiritual leader and most talented writer and musician, Pete Ham. “Baby Blue,” also written and sung by Ham and one of the group’s biggest hits, begins with one of the most recognizable guitar licks of the ‘70s. It has an indelible melody, and Ham sings with a desperation that is haunting. One of the band’s greatest strengths was that it boasted two other major songwriting and singing talents: bassist Tom Evans and guitarist Joey Molland. Evans contributed “Money,” which mirrored the band’s increasing frustration with their financial situation, and the excellent “It’s Over.” Molland wrote five of the album’s twelve songs, including the rocker “I’d Die, Babe” and the gentle ballad “Sweet Tuesday Morning,” but Ham wrote most of the highlights, including “Baby Blue”; the haunting “Day After Day” (which was also a big hit and features a spiraling Ham/Harrison slide-guitar duet that is guaranteed to chill even the most jaded music fan); the acoustic ballad “Perfection,” a meditation on the need for inner peace; the desperate “Take It All,” which reflects Ham’s realization of their manager’s evil hold on the band; and “Name of the Game,” a gorgeous, piano-led ballad on which Ham pushes his usually honeyed tenor to convey a sense of utter resignation. Lyrically, most of the songs reflect the group’s increasing desperation over their financial and label situation—this despite having several huge hits under their belt. (Indeed, after one more album, the band would bolt for Warner Brothers and their plight would get even worse.)

Despite all the tensions and Apple’s mismanagement, Straight Up was a big hit and produced two smashes in “Baby Blue” and “Day After Day.” In reality, almost any song on the album could’ve been a hit—such is the quality of the material—but like they did on the group’s previous two albums, Apple dropped the ball and did not release more singles.

In late 2010, EMI released Straight Up and the group’s three other Apple albums as part of an Apple reissue series that also included LPs by James Taylor, Mary Hopkin, and Jackie Lomax, among others. It includes six bonus tracks, including “I’ll Be the One,” a perfectly executed single that George Harrison nixed at the last moment, an early version of “Name of the Game,” the U.S. single mix of “Baby Blue,” and three previously unreleased tracks from the Emerick sessions: the hard-hitting “Baby Please” and “No Good At All,” on which Ham positively smokes on lead and proves that he was indeed one of the finest and most underrated guitarists of his generation. The reissue concludes with Evans’ piano-tinged “Sing for the Song,” a terrific sing-along ballad. These three Emerick cuts also could’ve been singles had Apple handled the band correctly and taken advantage of the group’s popularity at the time.

Sound-wise, the reissue is a bit on the bright side, but this sometimes works to its advantage, because it brings the awesome harmonies and guitar interplay to the fore. Audiophiles will likely protest, but it doesn’t sound bad to me. It doesn’t sound quite as good or natural as the DCC gold-CD reissue from the ‘90s, but good luck in finding that one for under fifty bucks. The liner notes, written by Andy Davis, are comprehensive and insightful.

All in all, EMI has done a fine job restoring this under-recognized classic. Straight Up should be a touchstone for serious rock fans everywhere. It is a near-perfect pop record and one of the finest albums of the ‘70s.

-AC

• Audio CD (October 25, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Apple Records