Let's Get Covered In Some Funky Groovy Music Again...

The first volume of this series did come with a bit of surprising backstage shenanigans. Having received a bunch of Little Feat covers from, so I was told, "an unknown source", it turned out the very last second - I was just retagging the files right before uploading them - that the author wasn't that unknown. It was your dear blog pal and mine, Jonder, who compiled the majority of these songs firs, but it was late and I was tired and just wanted to get the whole shebang uploaded, so couldn't include more than a fleeting mention. So yeah, thanks to Jonder for doing a lot of the grunt work on this one. He also right afterwards compiled a fabulous sequel that you should check out. He reused three of the tracks from his older comp, so these will show up here as well, but nothing like hearing a good song twice rather than never, am I right?! 

So, adding to the usual suspects already present on Vol. 1 (Robert Palmer, Linda Ronstadt, Nicolette Larson), we have Lowell's old duet partner (and song co-writer) Valerie Carter on her version of "Heartache", gospel queen Oleta Adams' take on "Long Distance Love" or Bob Weir's take on "Easy To Slip". OBG additions to the playlist this time around include the dark lord of mainstream country that ruled the 90s - let's call him Darth Crooks, shall we? - with a surprisingly credible funky take on "Dixie Chicken", Eddie Money calling up the "Rock'n'Roll Doctor", good ol' Randy Newman tackling "Sailing Shoes" and - fresh outta the press - Pure Prairie League's fun take on "Six Feet Of Snow", one of Lowell's most underrated tunes. 

That song also proudly fits into Lowell's collection of truck driving songs, the first of which was of course "Truck Stop Girl". The Byrds covered that one before it even came out on Little Feat's debut, but Clarence White's take was a strangely nasal take that made some of the lyrics almost unintelligable. So I decided to switch this out for a live track from the Byrds' England tour in 1971. Other additions are Joey Landreth's "All That You Dream" and Jason Dotson's take on "Lafayette Railroad". So that's seven tracks that weren't on the old Little Feat Covered playlist, so I'd highly recommend you pick this up as well. 

As with volume one, there is a ton of variety on these tracks, all coming back to how great these songs are in the first place. So, let's get groovin' with these fine artists and these very fine songs...

A girl with a guitar...but not any girl with a guitar...

I don't remember how I stumbled over Maren Morris, probably an article that mentioned “My Church”. Listening to that song, I was reminded of Kacey Musgraves who I discovered a little earlier. Especially the slighly blasphemous to a certain type of audience lyrics showed a similarity to Mrs. Musgraves' “take no shit/give no shit” attitude to what's usually acceptable in the confines of the country genre. But let's be clear here: On her major label records, Maren Morris doesn't do country. Not really. Nashville has churned out stuff that isn't country in any appreciable sense in what, 40, 50 years? But even the roots pop of yesteryear isn't quite as audacious as Morris' music on 2016's Hero. She mixes pop, soul, hip-hop beats and really only the tiniest hint of country flavoring together in a way none of the Nashville acts do.

By 2019's Girl, she didn't even feel like pretending to cater to a country audience anymore, it's a big, shiny, ultramodern and sophisticated pop production. What can go amiss amidst the impeccable glimmer and shine of the production are some of the songs, as both records flirt with overkill. All or most of it is so steeped in cool grooves, production flourishes and ass-kicker attitude that it can be a bit much to take in. Kind of like a dessert buffet, where after tasting all the treats your tummy is aching and what sounded like a good idea at first turned out...well, not to be that. That's especially true of Girl, whose production can get a little exhausting, but even on Hero you have a bunch of numbers that sound very samey, in a number of assorted styles.

However, Morris' music is not style over substance, the songs came and come first. This comes out best when she does them in an acoustic format, where no amount of fancy production will save or sink a song. Not to mention that that is how Morris started out, as yet another songwriter with a guitar.

Some of the songs on today's little compilation are her big hits stripped down to their basics ("My Church", "The Middle", "Rich", "Dear Hate"). Some come from her independent self-published records phase where to promote them she simply went out with her acoustic guitar. All of them show that Mrs. Morris is more than just glitz and sass. Includes a fab cover of John Prine's “Angel Of Montgomery”, the rest are originals. And there's a fabulous bonus track in the form of a medley I created out of three songs from her appearance on CMT Crossroads with Alicia Keys, where he tackles two of Keys' songs. (Another track on the comp is a rehearsal with Keys on Morris' own "Once"). 

So, yeah, if you don't know Maren Morris yet, go and check this out. And if you do know Ms. Morris, then check this out, too, because you'll hear her here like you rarely heard her. So, let's listen to a girl with a guitar...but not any girl with a guitar...

The Legend Of Ragnarok - Kiwi Psych Space Prog Rock, Anyone?

Ragnarok definitely defied the odds during their existence. That a bar band touring the backwater bar circuit of the North Island would become New Zealand's premier prog rock outfit, all while losing their co-lead vocalist halfway through doesn't sound like a receipe for success. And real, palpable success wasn't forthcomung for the remaining Rangarok quartet, so after a third album failed to take shape, the band called it quits. But for five years and two albums following back to back in 1975 and 1976 Ragnarok were the premier space rock band from New Zealand, having a repertoire ranging from repetitive drones to harder edged rock, incorporating psychedelic elements. During their bar band days they played faithful Led Zeppelin, Yes and Pink Floyd covers, while slowly developing their owwn compoistions, all the while upping the stakes in the make-up and costumes department to somewhat profit from the popular glam rock stylings of the day. 

Female lead singer Lea Maalfrid had a powerful voice, but I generally prefer the lead vocals of her male colleagues. Nothing chauvinist about that, but her voice sometimes has this showtune belting thing to it that I'm not fond of. I'd rather prefer the fuzzy, floating Ragnarok with equally fuzzy and floating, sometime bordering on lazy, vocals from Ramon York. I really like "Fenris", their debut album's opener, where Maalfrid sounds menacing and eerie rather than showboating, the same is true for her second vocal appearance on "Fire On Sky". The incessant touring got to,Maalfrid, so she left after the debut album, with the remaining quartet completing Nooks. 

Simple but effective: the great cover art for their first album

A trio of songs from Nooks - "The Volsung", "Semolina" and "Paths Of Remembrance" - remind me of  the peaceful, friendly Pink Floyd of Obscured By Clouds - my favorite Floyd - having the same mellow, drifting vibe and acoustic backbone. Speaking of the Floyd: Ragnarok harken back to their old days of with a 16 minute+ medley of essentially the entire second side of The Dark Side Of The Moon. I dubbed that track "Dark Side Too", and the mimicry of the band is astounding, they really come quite close to the real thing. The other cover taken from a live recording is a Rory Erickson tune, with the lively "I Fall Apart" reminding people that these guys started out as a bar band called Sweetfeet.

Long form tracks "Dream", "Raga", "Nooks" and "Rainbow Bridge" have been edited for this collection, which splits pretty evenly between the self-titled debut and Nooks, plus the two live tracks. This is probably all the Ragnarok you need, or at the very least a really nice teaser to let you check out this fascinating little band. So get ready, folks, for the twilight of the gods... 

Glitter, make-up, fancy costumes...sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do...

Hair Metal Veteran Native American Shouter With Rapidly Receding Hairline Starts To Mellow Out, One Buck Guy Helps Him Out In Assembling Really Nice Album...

Ok ok, I admit it, I just wanted to see how many characters would break blogger's limit with my admittedly silly title, but it seems I'll have to try again some time in the future. 

By the early 1990s Blackfoot's glory days were done, and so were Ricky Medlocke's days as a hair metal teen idol, if he ever was one. The irredeemably awful Ricky Medlocke & Blackfoot from 1987 was the absolute nadir, an awful record that saw Medlocke pushed front and center, with a reconfigured Blackfoot relegated to backing band status. By the time Medicine Man came out in 1991, Blackfoot were has-beens, or rather has been Medlocke and a buc nh of hired gun never were's. But sometimes from such a situation some surprisingly good music can spring forth. And it did. The fact is that neither Medicine Man nor After The Reign were good albums per se, though the latter came much closer. But they had makings of good music, and so the idea here was to combine the best of both albums (the best according to me, obviously) into a single album, hence After The Medicine Man's Reign. 

The original Medicine Man is still firmly stuck in AOR/heavy metal mode for the most part and has a number of rather stupid songs that sadly try to recapture Medlocke's mid-80s Blackfoot heydays. Thus, only three songs make it into the new line up: The first-acoustic, then-pedal to the medal "Soldier Blue" as a kick-ass opener, the little instrumental "Navarre" and the lovely "Guitar Slingers Song & Dance".

The last Blackfoot line up - something tells me these guys loved hair, no shirts and posing.

The seven remaining tracks all come from After The Reign. Overall, that album seems to pick up where "Navarre" on its predecessor left off, going more often than not for a mellow, acoustic groove rather than the dumb heavymetal/AOR mix of the albums that came before, with the absolute nadir of those being; Old school One Buck Heads will remember "Rainbow" from my Country Dreamers comp. In the same country rock vein is the band's cover of Van Morrison's "Tupelo Honey", and Medlocke also tries it's hand on the old standard "Sitting On Top Of The World". "After The Reign" is a bit more uptempo and thus a good side two opener, while "Tonight", an song that's admittedly really close to AOR power ballads, seems like a good album closer. 

Another notable point is that the lead guitar slinger on the Medicine Man tracks is One Buck Records favorite Neal Casal, which allows me to post a great picture of Medlock and Casal, the latter as a full-fledged hair metal hard rocker: 

Ricky and Neal - notice rapidly receding hairline on one and beautiful flowing mane on the other...

So, this reconfiguration doesn't reveal a lost classic of any kind, but a nice album of somewhat slowed-down and countryfied grooves from a once mighty Souther Rock band, whose lurch into the twilight generated a couple of underrated gems, right After The Medinice Man's Reign. 

Lindsey Buckingham gets screwy...or screwed ?...again

From the minute Lindsey Buckingham started to really let loose during the making of Tusk, furthering the minimalisms of "Never Going Back" and cranking up the paranoia and craziness, there was no going back. He might've liked being a pop star, but he also was the joker in Fleetwood Mac at the time, and the joker's wild. If you wanna go back to Liddy Buck the nervy new waver be sure to check out Not That Funny, the OBG alt album that presents variants of Lindsey's Tusk contributions as his hypothetical solo debut. But with today's One Buck Record you can easily go back, at least partly, as my version of Gift Of Screws has anumber of decidedly Tusk-era Buckingham jams, none more so than the unhinged title track, whose blast of nervy, even hysterical energy serves as an energetic album opener here. But tracks "Twist Of Fate" and the miniature "Given Thing" also give off that loony Liddy vibe. 

On most of the other tracks, Buckingham,shows that his gift for writing perfect pop melodies hadn't diminished. In fact, you could argue that he wrote some of his best and most beautiful pop songs during the period that Gift Of Screws covers, and then let only a part of the songs be heard. Because the story of Gift Of Screws is one of commmercial considerations, unfulfilled potential and compromises. The original Gift OF Screws is an album that never existed as such, only as an idea of Buckingham fans who had gotten hold of some of the demos he recorded in the latter part of the 1990s, somewhat overlapping with the Fleetwod Mac comeback with The Dance. So when he presented his work - a sizable number of elaborate demos and finished songs, all finished mixes - to his label as the first version of an album he wanted to call Gift Of Screws, Warner Bros./Reprise asked Buckingham to hold some of the material back and rather use it for the proposed upcoming Fleetwood Mac album, which he finally did.   

Whether that was the right decision is certainly up for debate, but what isn't for debate is that a number of worthwhile songs bit the dust due to the decision to move some of the material to Say You Will. When Buckingham finally issued his solo album called Gift Of Screws in 2008 only the title song had made the cut, though most of what's on my version of Gift Of Screws had made it into the world in one way or the other. "Miranda", "Steal Your Heart Away", "Bleed To Love Her" and "Say Goodbye" appeared with minimal extra touches on Say You Will, and "Down On The Rodeo" and "Someone's Gotta Change Your Mind" - both recorded with Mick Fleetwood and John McVie - appeared on the 2006 solo album Under The Skin, together with his cover of Donovan's "To Try For The Sun". Probably as a warm up during these demo sessions he also cut a beautiful finger-picked version of "She Smiled Sweetly", which is one of the tracks that never saw official release. 

Thankfully for everyone involved, Buckingham's songs for the original Gift Of Screws album, given to Warner Brothers on a CD-R quickly got leaked on the internet, so a look at what the original Gift Of Screws could have sounded like was the intent behind this alt album. I dropped a couple of songs from the line-up, as with the full twenty songs the album just ran too long, whereas at fifteen tracks - some of them quite short - and a running time of around 57 minutes, this is pretty much the perfect length for a CD era album. And an album this is, after careful sequencing, rather than just a bunch of songs. And considering how strong the material here is, this version of Gift Of Screws quickly becomes a contender for best Lindsey Buckingham solo album of all time. The cover art came with the booted tracks, it obviously is too nice looking to be mine...

So, sit back and listen to how Liddy Buck's best album in years, if not ever, could have sounded like, had it come out in 2001...

The Metallica Blacklist...shortlisted

When I started my slimmed down versions of (too) massive tribute albums with the one on The Grateful Dead I talked a bit about my motivations to do so - mainly a weeding out the chaff and going for better listenability thing. But rarely are they needed, strictly speaking. In the case of The Metallica Blacklist, I would argue, something like my little compilation is definitely needed, for two reasons. One is the classic massive overload of material, in this case worsened by a lot of the music sounding quite samey and also being samey, because they are the same damn songs. Since there were no equal terms on who was covering what, and the album that is being paid tribute to only has twelve songs there is a massive overlap in songs, since many artists when for the big, most recognizable songs. But all that would have still been a minor inconvenience if not for the absolutely insane way the compilers of the box set decided to present things. They kept the running order of the original album, which might have seemed like a good idea until a couple of minutes in, when you realize after the first song that there is another five consecutive stabs at "Enter Sandman" coming your way before you hear something else. There are seven consecutive versions of "The Unforgiven" and a mind-blowing twelve versions of "Nothing Else Matters" - an etire album's worth! - all programmed to run one after another. Nothing else matters, indeed. Or, you know, maybe it does. 

So my version does take the original concept, without the insane amount of same songs and repetition. So you'll have one representation each of all songs of Metallica's 'black album' in the original running order, plus a bunch of the best variants as bonus tracks. Pretty straightforward, and as with all my comps, programmed to be able to fit to burn on a disc should one so desire. Let's be real: No one needs covers of the Black Album songs for four hours, and certainly not in the way the original box set was programmed. My criteria for choosing were obviously personal preference, but also the originality of the cover version and the variety of style, if proposed. A lot of the covers were essentially well-meaning karaoke, so I refrained from putting those on there, if possible. If you want something that sounds like the original, just listen to the original, which is still a great album by the way, sell out whiner crowd be damned. 

There were two competing takes on "Enter Sandman", both of which I liked a lot, but the version of Alessia Cara & The Warning beat out the one by Rina Sawayama by a slim marging, maybe because I like the "who-o-o-o-o" after "off to never never land", thus pushing Rina's impressive industrial rock reading to bonus track status.  

Jason Isbell's take on "Sad But True" goes for deranged hillbilly rockabilly (hillrockabilly?), which then, incidentally, sounds really close to what those Finnish pranksters Steve'n'Seagulls were up to with the same song. 

Biffy Clyro start slowly and relatively sweetly, but boy, when the heavy guitars kick in, they really kick in. Much heavier than I thought these guys would be. They continue this little interplay, which gives "Holier Than Thou" its appealing dynamics.

Again, quite a lot of choice for "The Unforgiven", but I went with Ha*Ash's beautiful version, including a surprise appearance of one chorus in Spanish. 

I wasn't particularly in love with any version of "Wherever I May Roam", with most of them feeling like o.k. karaoke, and had J Balvin's take, doing a smooth Latin rap (I'm told it's calles trap these days?!?) over the riff of the song, with James Hetfield's vocals coming in at the end, in the line-up. But if we're fair, that one's more of a remix than a reinterpretation, so I pushed it into bonus track status at the last secons, replacing it with Jon Pardi's stadium country rock verion with its crazed fiddles. 

French house producer's SebastiAn's contribution was an off mash up with a transition that really didn't work, but none of the other covers of "Don't Tread On Me" worked for me, so I kept this, a short 80s electronic funk with Hetfield's original vocals. It's pretty fun, and much better without the akward transition into an orchestral "Nothing Else Matters".

Nigerian artist Tomi Owo's take on "Through The Never" probably takes first prize for 'biggest re-invention', turning Metallica's thrash number into R'n'b territory, and doing it exceptionally well. So well that I lopped off the frankly stupid heavy metal instrumentation they added to the last minute of the song.

The second biggest transformation probably belongs to My Morning Jacket who transform "Nothing Else Matters" into a mix between power pop and the Beach Boys, as improbable and hopefully appealing as that sounds. It did to me, beating out all the mellow or dramatic takes on the song, though Dave Gahan's stately take on the song as well as Phoebe Bridgers' delicate folk interpretation both show up as bonus tracks. 

"Of Wolf And Man", one of the true deep cuts on this album, only has one representation on The Metallica Blacklist, thankfully Goodnight, Texas' spooky Americana take is a good one. Imelda May turns "The God That Failed" into a swampy, swaggering blues rock number, while Frenchwoman Izia turns "My Friend of Misery" into very nice mainstream rock. I originally had Kamasi Washnigton's almost seven minute jazz tour de force in this spot, but it slowed momentum down too much and thus got a trip to the bonus track bench. 

And then we close out with the delicate acoustic fingerpicking of Rodrigo and Gabriela, the sole representative of "The Struggle Within", but again, thankfully a really nice one. 

So, liner notes, huh, they sure make those write-ups end up a bit on the long side, right?! So time to let the music take over...here's almost 80 minutes of some very varied takes on some really good Metallica songs. Devil's horns up, amps all the way to eleven - let's rock!

 

Jolly Roger And His Band Of Merry Country Pirates

Well, well, well. Right to business, folks. I already said all I have to say about Cardiff Rose in my write-up two days ago, so we'll move right on to Band Of Pirates, the little companion album I prepared as a special chaser for the original album. 'Little' is definitely fitting here, as Band Of Pirates with a slim runnning time of under 27 minutes is what would have been marketed as a mini album in the 1980s, when they tried to establish slimmed down albums of around eight tracks and 25 to 30 minutes as an option between an EP and an LP. 

The main source of this album is a radio concert in front of a small audience that McGuinn gave with his newly formed backing band, Thunderbyrd, in 1976. This is the first iteration of that band, which didn't last until the album named like them a year later. McGuinn thought they didn't have the chops to produce in the studio, so they got canned and replaced by studio pros like Rick Vito, Greg Thomas and future Poco player Charlie Harrison. But the original Thunderbyrd - James Smith on guitar and Commander Cody's old rhythm section of Bruce Barlow and Lance Dickerson- are really quite good in a live setting. They bring a distintive country rock sensibility to the Cardiff Rose material, including some tasty steel guitar on a number of songs. 

Two songs on this mini-album aren't on Cardiff Rose: Mc Guinn did a bunch of Byrds song or rather: bits of Byrds songs. Some of these were mere snippets, less than a minute long, basically a verse and a refrain. These cut up mini versions to me weren't the absolute best ways to hear that music. So I decided to turn a number of these Byrds songs and snippets into a medley dubbed "Treasure Trove" to go along with the pirate theme around here. The songs included (and in order) are: She Don't Care About Time-So You Want To Be A Rock'n'Roll Star-Hickory Wind-Mr. Spaceman. 

The other song, and the only one not taken from the so-called Living Room Concert - is "Soul Love", a demo produced for possible inclusion of Cardiff Rose. McGuinn doing Bowie? Yes, it happened, folks, no doubt due to some friendly nudging from producer Mick Ronson, who recorded the song later himself. The fact that this is a mere demo with rather rudimentary instrumentation fits rather well for inclusion on Band Of Pirates, so it fits in pretty well with the acoustic vibe of the rest of the tracks. 

Well, and that is that. Seven fine tracks from McGuinn and his merry band of musical marauders, from one of the best periods of him as a performer in the 70s. Arh, har, matey - step on board of the Jolly Roger and meet your captain, Jolly Roger, as well as his merry men...