That Long Road Out Of Eden Just Got A Whole Lot Shorter, Folks...

What'd they say about Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? 'Too fat to float'? That's pretty much true of most double albums. If I had to name a double that probably works better as a double, I'd point to London Calling, because the sprawl and diversity is the point and I would have trouble cutting that one down in a sensible way. But other than that? Woof, there's a lot of other double albums, even classics of the genre, that are indeed 'too fat to float' and so it's up to ol' OBG to try to get them to slim down. We started recently by turning Nick Cave's The Lyre Of Orpheus/Abbatoir Blues double whopper into a (hopefully) more delightful single album, My Beautiful World, and now it's time to take the knife to our first real double album.

The Eagles' Long Road Out Of Eden is a prime candidate for this nes weries, because, man, this thing is flabby as fuck, and there's a lot of grease to cut away here. Which in itself was surprising when the album came out in 2007. After all, in the preceding thirteen years after their 1994 reunion, the band had managed a grand total of five new songs, four in 1994 for Hell Freezes Over and a pretty good one-off ("Hole In The World") in 2003, which technically hails already from the first Long Road Out Of Eden sessions. So the fact that not only they'd finally came out with a new studio album, the first after 1979's The Long Run, but on top of that that it was a double album, was somewhat surprising. (Incidentally, and infamously, The Long Run was initially announced as a double album, mainly to give guys like Don Felder a chance at a lead vocal, but they didn't even have enough material for a single good album, hell, I'd argue not even enough for half a single good album. But, as usual, I digress.) Maybe less surprising: they worked, on and off,  over six years on that sucker. Another Long Run. Anyway, with one album they almost quadrupled their output of the last fifteen years of their existence. Impressive!

Except, well, you know. There's quite a bit of stuff on Long Road Out Of Eden that is, you know, not all that good. Not to mention that, much like Henley's and Frey's solo work, songs have a tendency to run long, too long. The result: A rather unreasonable ninety minutes for twenty tracks, and several tracks that drag. So, OBG to the rescue! There is a pretty good classic Eagles album in there, you just have to extract it from amidst all the chaff. Because, let's be honest: One part of Long Road Out Of Eden - arguably the better, more succesful part - was a conscious choice to recreate not only the Eagles sound, but to create songs that reminded you of the band's heydays: "Busy Being Fabulous" is such a song, as is the choice to finally issue J.D. Souther"s "How Long". 

The band had covered that tune in concert throughout 1973 - with Frey, Henley and Randy Meisner all trading lead vocals on verses - but didn't issue a studio version to not steal their buddy's thunder. Having Frey's kids stumble onto their dad playing that song on Dutch TV on Youtube pushed the band to issue it as the first single, making it, like "Busy Being Fabulous", a top thirty hit, which was no small feat for a veteran classic rock band in 2007. But the slow crawl - sometimes literally - through Long Road Out Of Eden also reveals, that the band's two dictators leaders Frey and Henley used the album as a sneaky stealth way to issue what sounds like solo recordings, more or less smuggling in solo EPs into the double album, knowing full well that an album with the Eagles name on it would largely outsell any of their solo records. 

So, there' was a lot of throwing out to do. A ton of tracks that sounded like solo adventures got the boot, mostly Frey's, since he indulged a lot in yawn-inducing ballads. All the songs that sounded like Eagles songs made the line-up, with the exception of "Fast Company", a sort-of redo of "Life In The Fast Lane". The problem with that one: The band did another number that vaguely recalls the funk-rock of "Life", "Fail Grasp At The Big Picture", one of Henley's patented political rants, and of the two I liked the latter better. So long, "Fast Company"! Speaking of Henley's political content: This is of course the biggest change from the classic years: Whatever ecologic or political criticism the band could muster in its prime was couched in metaphor so as to be almost unrecognizable - you have to really stretch to read the 'white settlers edstroying paradise'-scenario of "The Last Resort" as a critique of the way Aspen, Colorado got turned into a snowy Disneyland for rich guys like, ironically, Henley and Frey.

Henley got a lot more direct during his solo years, and it shows on Long Road Out Of Eden. His nature activism shows up on the a capella poem adaptation "No More Walks In The Woods"and he comments on the reliance on media manipulation and American Imperialism in "Fail Grasp" and the title song. The sentiments of both have sadly become way more relevant in the last decade thanks to a certain orange dictatorial authoritarian dictatorial you-know-who. Henley's bitter political rants aren't obvious classic Eagles material, but they're better than the overkill of soppy ballads. 

A classic Eagles album would make room for one solo spot for the two 'good hands' members of the band, which limited the choices for Wals and Schmit, who had two tracks each on the double album - quitely respecting the logic of 'one track per album'. I picked "Do Something" for Schmit, which while also a ballad is much more urgent than the ultra-sappy "What Do I Do With My Heart". For Walsh, a dilemma: He has an original song on the album, but it's an ultra-slow crawl of a song about doing nothing that, well, does nothing, but takes a mind-numbingly long seven minutes to do so. Attempts to edit it down proved unsuccessful, so I picked his cover of "Guilty Of A Crime", which itself is a remake. He recorded it in the mid-90s for a TV series soundtrack, but it's sprightly and (somewhat) rocking, which any version of Long Road Out Of Eden is in short supply of, so it might have gotten the vote for inclusion either way. 

Well, folks, this write-up threatens to get as long and difficult to get through as the original album *shudder*, so I'll try to be quick: Conceived as a classic vinyl-era album, ten tracks sequenced as two distinct sides with their own dynamics; The two singles and most-Eagles sounding tracks frontload side a, while side b opens with the album's epic, the ten-minute title song and its accompanying piece, Frey's short (and Grammy-winning) instrumental "I Dreamed There Was No War". The Walsh track then livens up the solemn proceedings, before we close gently with "Waiting In The Weeds" - sounding totally like a Henley solo track, but again, real quality cuts were limited - and the aforementioned "No More Walks In The Woods", which is lovely, but works much better as a closer than an album opener.   

Given Henley's and Frey's predilections for long, drawn out codas that don't really bring much to the table besides running time - carried over from their solo work - a number of them have been edited down a bit. Also: no soft rock slop! That sleazy saxophone solo at the end of "No More Cloudy Days"? Sayonara, sucker!

So there it is, ol' OBG really slimmed that flabby album down to a core that is infinitely more listenable. The Long Road Out Of Eden might still be long, but it's a lot shorter and more agreeable to listen to.. agree? Disagree? Step on that road to find out...

One Album Wonders: Meet Funky White Boy John Henry Kurtz, Y'All!

I hadn't really been looking much into John Henry Kurtz - and as you can see from the series title, there isn't that much to look at, anyway - but listening to his fantastic cover of "Drift Away" when I prepped All Pearls, No Swine 37, got me thinking 'hey, you should check out what else the man has done'. Turns out he did exactly one album, Reunion on ABC Records inn 1972. If you look  at the album cover, you'd probably say 'oh, big deal, OBG unearthed another country rock album from the early Seventies', but that isn't quite what this is. The old-timey cover with Kurtz in army uniform is essentially a fulfillment of a dream, as he was an ardent collector of Civil War memorabilia since his teenage years, and in his latter years had one of the largest collection of such artefacts in the U.S. But the music isn't just the sort of Americana or country rock that the cover implies. 

There is a clear soul, gospel and r'n'b influence to Kurtz's album; with a brass section arranged by Michael Omartian and r'n' backup choir everywhere. This album - and that you definitely wouldn't tell from the cover - is funky as hell. Play that funky music, white boy! Just listen to the gospelish "Everything Has Got To Be Free" or the brass-driven "Get On The Right Road"; This means that this album kicks more ass then some of the Americana treasures I regularly feature on this blog and in this series specifically. John Henry Kurtz reminds me of another funky white country boy, Mr. Travis Wammack who absolutely should and will feature on this blog in the future. 

Country-soul has existed long before a certain Cecil Ingram Parsons pretentiously dubbed it 'Cosmic American Music'. The real cosmic American music was made elsewhere, by other people, and I love them and their records, but Kurtz's album is somewhat akin to Parsons' idea: A hint of country, but here almost surpassed by the brass-driven soul and gosel elements. It's also a find of curios. Sure, everyone covered Kenny Loggins' "Danny's Song" back then, but the same ca't be said for Shiloh's "Simple Little Downhome Rock'n'Roll Love Song For Rosie". It's not only a mouthful of a title (a little shortened here), it's also one of the first song written and sung by - Mr. Donald Henley. 

After Reunion and two more singles for ABC Records (the one I could find is attached as a bonus track), John Henry Kurtz, uh, drifted away from the music business, though not from showbiz. He became an announcer and voice over artist for television, lending his voice to, among others, NBC Nightly News and Court TV, did some shows on Broadway and some television appearances as an actor. 

Look, this is just a wonderful little album from the Seventies. Almost forgotten today, it doesn't do anything particularly genius and I don't want to or have to sell it like that. Ten quality tracks, finely produced, arranged and played, and well-sung by Mr. Kurtz. Funky, rural music without any pretensions. Sometimes you don't need more than this.     

Here Come More Chartbusters, But Not The Ones You Expected...

 

The Chartbusters are back, but not the ones you're used to. Well, it is summer after all, so what sounds like summer, and also kind of sounds like something the One Buck Records would throw onto an unsuspecting public: Why, it's the Reggae Chartbusters, of course! Instead of some sweet Bluegrass, we're going to listen to some sweet Reggae, covering the last sixty years or so of popular music. 

Most of this series is based on the Vintage Reggae Café series from cheapo Argentine 'specialist' label Music Brokers that specialises in 'hits but played as reggae/jazz/easy listening/etc.' type compilations, with that Vintage Reggae Café series nonetheless reaching an impressive sixteen volumes. Now, what exactly is vintage about it is another question, one better not to ask. The other, also not great to ask: Who are all these people? Other than Pinky Dread I have never heard of any of the Vintage Reggae Café roster. They are essentially like the first years of CMH's Pickin On... bluegrass series, pure studio projects with a clear purpose, rather than real, organic bands finding purpose in their assigned cover albums, as was increasingly the case in that series, once Iron Horse got the ball rolling in that direction. The purpose is obviously 100% mercenary, but hey, who's to say you can't have fun with this.

Speaking of mercenary motives...

Fun in limited doses that is. There are a ton of their covers that don't work particularly well, so this series will not be like its sibling, the Bluegrass Chartbusters, which mushroomed into an XXL endeavor. This will be four volumes and not one more. One reason for that is also, that in these songs with their relatively samey rhythms, it's hard to find much particular artistry. I would argue that the Bluegrass Chartbusters often found real interesting things to do with the covers they did, whereas the Reggae Chartbusters are admittedly closer to pure novelty, albeit entertainingly so. These hand-picked covers are a ton of fun, whether it's United Rhythms Of Brazil and Shirley Adamson's covering "Walk Of Life", Reggister's covering "Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun" or Luca Giacco covering "Hotel California". 

To not make this an entirely Vintage Reggae Café affair, and for sentimental reasons, I added some other stuff. It would be cooler to say I first heard reggae by, say, Bob Marley or Peter Tosh or The Clash, but being a kid growing up with 80s mainstream radio the first reggae I heard was most likely including UB 40. (Other reggae hits I remember from when I was young are Musical Youth's "Pass The Koutchie Dutchie"  and Sophia George's "Girlie Girlie"). So UB 40 will grace these, helped out by Chrissie Hynde for their first appearannce here with "I Got You Babe". And I also included NYC's finest in terms of reggae covers, the Easy Star All-Stars, checking in with covers of Radiohead's "No Surprises" and the Beatles' "With A Little Help From My Friends". 

You know the M.O. already from the Bluegrass Chartbusters: 20 tracks, a cool flow, tons of fun to be had. So, get these and have fun...

 

Follow That Nice Long-Haired Fella Into The Country Warehouse, He's Got Some Goodies For You...

One of my favorite bootlegs of all time, recorded in the Country Warehouse in Rochester, New York November 25 1988, with the title fittingly also having a sort of double meaning, as the shows on this tour with the Patrician Homeboys - multi-string instrumentalist Dan Dugmore and Timothy Schmit on bass and backing vocals - were easily the most 'country' of Zevon's career, with Dugmore adding banjo, steel guitar and dobro to a bunch of songs. Wanna know why this is one of my favorite bootlegs? That's why! Some of the songs here have never sounded like this and would never again, like a banjo-led almost-bluegrass version of "Boom Boom Mancini", a slide-guitar "The Factory", and pedal steel-supported versions of "Carmelita", "Mama Couldn't Be Persuaded" and "Hasten Down The Wind". A track list heavy on Warren's debut album was of course always going to find favor with me. Zevon used the acoustic country-esque atmosphere to dust off some of the blues covers he did with R.E.M. (minus Michael Stipe) as Hindu Love Gods. I don't think Zevon is a particularly good Blues interpreter, but these are fun enough, and add to the unusual track list.

Fellow friendly neighborhood music blogger Babs shared Flac files that were a definitive upgrade over what I had, though these are still de-Flac-ed, for a couple of reasons. The first: I ran almost everything through Audacity, not for sound, but for presentation. There's two types of thinking with live bootlegs, either leave everything exactly as is - warts and all - or...not. Warts and all meaning long silences, noodling and tuning, etc. etc. If you know me and you know this blog a little bit, you probably have guessed that that's not my way of doing, and the Gene Clark boot from a couple of weeks ago already should have tipped you off: The first order of the day: listenability. The second order of the day:re-listenabibility. Some banter might be fine once, but do you want to hear it two, three, four, five times? 

Now with this bootleg, things are a little different, because Warren is an all-time great banterer, and even if some of his comedy routines - like introducing the band and joking about Dan Dugmore's instruments - are well-rehearsed, they're still worth hearing and rehearing. So except for a bit between Warren and Dugmore that went nowhere I kept all the pertinent banter, which brings me to the second issue I often have with boots, especially ones that were 'commercialised'. The indexed tracks begin with the songs proper, meaning any introductions or related banter will be attached to the preceding track, which isn't a problem when you listen to the whole thing, but not if you hit the shuffle or random function on your music listening device, or if you want to use a track on a compilation somewhere, 'cause then you would have the track proper and then some talk introducing a track that never comes. 

So I attached all the intros from the preceding tracks to their rightful place in front of the song concerned, so you can listen to this at random, extract highlights or do whatever the hell you want with it, without the need to work around restrictions or firing up Audacity. Without those pesky minutes of dead space, it's also a breezy listen at a little over 70 minutes. 

So, off into the Country Warehouse with y'all, for a rather unique Warren Zevon experience...

Them Bluegrass Bands and Folks Would Like Your Attention Once More, Please...

Aaaand welcome everybody to Chartbusters week over here at One Buck Records which of course must kick off When last we checked in with with our beloved Bluegrass Chartbusters series - or probably the time before that - I talked about the massive expansion that took place in the meantime, when I was alerted to certain bands that might fit the format. After I had just weaved those bands (The Fly Birds and Della Mae) into existing volumes, I went on a crazy Bluegrass cover song search bender, searching high and low and ending up with something like eighty plus tracks as a haul. Now that's a lot of tracks, and certainly way too many to just try and weave into existing volumes by throwing out or pushing doiwn the line a couple of others. No, a more radiczl solution was needed. 

Seeing the massive number of tracks, I thought, that I'd better start from scratch and create a couple of entirely new comps that I would then weave in between existing ones, whcih is what I did. This is the first of three entirely newly compiled volumes that will show up in the following weeks and months, as I also want all regular contributors to have been introduced by the series halfway point. To keep continuity with the other volumes, I took a couple of tracks of series stalwarts like Love Canon or from the Pickin On...-crew of other volumes, but one side effect is still a rather huge influx of new faces and names into Bluegrass Chartbusters Vol. 13. 

Having already established most of the bluegrass bands trading in pop and rock covers, most of the new arrivals make their own original music, with the very occasional cover song thrown in for good measure. Such is the case of country/Americana veteran Darrell Scott, who doesn't necessarily do a lot of bluegrass, but got his String Band together for a fantastic take on "Southern Cross", which hereby becomes the first triplicate Bluegrass Chartbuster. Well, what can I say, I love the song, and I have yet to run into a Bluegrass cover I don't appreciate. The Darrell Scott String Band version is interesting as it's the only one with harmony singing, but instead of the close harmonies of the original, they are loose, shouty harmonies, really upping the back porch get together feel of the cover.  All this is to say: it's awesome. 

Also not strictly a bluegrass group, but occasionally dabbling in it: The Whiskey Brothers, opening things here with a simply wonderful cover of Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl". Also new to the series is the Grass Mountain Unit, a young quartet from Alabama, tht even has double representation on this whole volume. The group, with lead vocalist and mandolin player Drury Hammond tackle Johnny Cash's "Big River", while second-in-command Lucas Black with other bck up plays a superb cover of The Grateful Dead's "Deal". The Mountain Grass Unit will have their debut album out later this month, and are definitely on the rise, so check them out here first!

And the debuts just keep on coming: Just when I thought I had caught all 'play unexpected bluegrass covers for a living' type bands, here come the Grasslers, et ils vient de près de chez moi, plus ou moins. The Grasslers are coming from - careful, pun incoming - the Var Ouest as they like to say (so the south of France), with their covers landing just on the right side of reverence. Their debut in this series is a cover of "Dancing In The Dark". 

Fireside Collective usually play what they call GrooveGrass - with electric guitars and drums - and we'll have some of that on later volumes,  but here they debut with an acoustic take on Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Also debuting but here to stay: The Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra, here helped out by Darling West, for "Gold Dust Woman". And finally, in the one-and-done category: The Stray Birds were an acoustic trio out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania - now also sadly defunct - leaving a beautiful version of Nancy Griffith's "I Wish It Would Rain" for our delectation. 

As if all these new folks were not enough, the old(-ish) crew also has some highlights lines up. AJ Lee, once again backed up by Blue Summit, has never sounded as soulful or sultry as on Southern soul classic "He Called Me Baby". Truly wonderful stuff. Plus more quality work from Iron Horse, Cornbread Red, Love Canon and others. I also really like what Kenny Blackwell and violinist Gabe Witcher do with their instrumental take on Neal Diamond's "Red Red Wine", turning the normally upbeat song into a surprisingly elegiac tune. That's one of the things I like about this series, still being able to wring something unexpected from the well-known and even the hoary. 

And that should do it for today, folks. Now load up those twenty tracks and have yourself a grand ol' time. Spoiler: Total keeper, this one...

OBG's Slimmed Down Program Makes A Beautiful World Out Of Nick Cave's Imagination

I don't know exactly when I startd to fall out of love with the music of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds a little bit, but it was around the time of the release of his double album/ two single albums as a double album Abbatoir Blues / The Lyre Of Orpheus. Until then I had collected all of his recent releases, mostly in the first week of release. But yeah, this double whopper didn't really pull me in, and then I drifted away from the Cavester anyway. Now, individual moments absolutely pulled me in: I think "Nature Boy" is one of Cave's best compositions from his beatific period, and a bunch of other track like "There She Goes My Beautiful World" or "Babe, You Turn Me On". But yeah, I blame it on 'the wrong albup at the wrong time' syndrome. While the twin vortexes of extreme drama and extreme romanticism that curses through Cave's middle period - which I'd say covers about The Boatman's Call to this album, but any characterisation si free-flowing - were great for a young man growing out of a teenage mindset, they inevitably lost some glow as I was getting older. 

It might've also been that I was simply a bit 'Cave'd out' - this is great mood music if you're in the mood, but you have to be in the mood to appreciate it, you know. Plus, it's not the most varied type of music. Anyway, while te two albums didn't get played much, I thought that their highlights would probably make for a pretty good listen. Thus the idea, of turning the strictly subjectively speaking best tracks into a vinyl-era single album. Ten tracks, 45 minutes of good stuff. This is something that is in the back of my mind for a good long while now, so it's up to Mr. Cave to start a new series around here: The Slimmed Down series will aim to make killer single albums out of slighly or very bloaty doubles. I have extended single albums to double albums before - most notably Poco's Crazy Eyes and the Beach Boys' Holland - and now we'll go in the other direction. Out with the flab, in with the class, so to speak. 

In the case of Cave and his Bad Seeds that means some rigorous cutting - of the 17 Abbatoir/Lyre tracks, only nine remain. The tenth track making up our vinyl appropriate album is actually a b-side, but at least to my mind the sprightly "Under This Moon" is better than almost half of what ended up on the album(s). Speaking of sprightly: Cave really is at or near the top of his skills as, yes, a pop musician on songs like "Nature Boy" and "Breathless", so of course he added some out of tune flutes to the opening and ending of the latter, just so no one would accuse him of going too 'Top Of The Pops', or something. Let's say it adds to the charme.

And charming it is, this collection of ten tunes that make up My Beautiful World. So let Nick Cave's beautiful world make your world a little more beautiful as well...

Some Recent-Ish All Pearls, No Swine, For Your Delectation

All Pearls, No Swine might be slowing down, but this series is far from over, checking in with the third volumededicated to relatively recent music, meaning the last fifteen years and change. 

To get listeners' attention I put the hardest rocin' trak up front, with Dead Sara's bad-ass ass-kicker "Weatherman". If the lead singer's voice sounds vaguely familiar, that's because Emily Armstrong got a more high-profile gig recently, relacing deceased lead singer Chester Bennington in the reforùed Linkin Park. Dead Sara, the power trio with female guitar gunslinger Siouxsie Medley isn't dead, per se, but in a holding pattern since then. Funnily, there's a second track called "Weather Man" by German slow-pop outfit Someday Jacob, that reminds you a bit of The Czars. 

All Pearls, No Swine 42 consists for the most parts of tracks that I picked up here and there because I liked them, ranging fom r'n'b from Candian artist P. "Don't Call Me Philip" Bailey to brass-driven soul-rock from Cole Gallagher with "Sugarland" - yes, the Bruce Springsteen rarity that finally got its official release last year on Tracks II. There's slightly-artier-than-you-remember Counting Crows with comeback single "The Tal Grass" and crunchy power pop verging on punk rock from The Cry! with "Toys In The Attic" (not the Aeromsith song). There's reliable vets Wilso and the also ever-reliable Jason Isbell with the demo version of one of his greatest songs, "Elephant", and Kacey Musgraves with a cover of "Can't Help Galling In Love", done for that weird Baz Luhrmann Elvis movie a ouple of years ago. 

You will realize that there are a number of very short songs - Lucero's rootsy "Take Me Away", Jason Faklner's rock instrumental "The Perfect Crime" and the also instruenta little jazz excursion "Swan Dreams" by the Colin Steele Quartet. There are here for a purpose, since I knew that the closing track would run long. Really long. It's the "Terrapin Station (Suite)" track that Daniel Rossen and The National (among others) did for the massive Grateful Dead tribute Day Of The Dead compilation, and that didn't feature on my two-disc distillation. A perfect run-out groove that necessitated the inclusion of some short songs to fit under the - yes, still existing - 80 minute time limit. 

As you can see fro this write-up, there's aain a good number of different styles and genres on this compilation, as it should be. Something for everyone, hopefully. Also as usual: enjoy!