Party like it's 1999...or 1987...or 2024 (or: When Prince met Miles)

Just a quick one before the festivities start. What better than doing a new year's bash, and invite someone special? That's what Prince Roger Nelson did on New Year's Eve 1987, inviting Miles Davis to join his band for a special benefit concert. And so we get Prince running through a number of his greatest hits, including "Let's Go Crazy", "When Doves Cry", "U Got The Look" and of course "Purple Rain", here coupled with "Auld Lang Syne" because...you know. All ably assisted by his backing band which is top notch and subtly assisted by Mr. Miles, who gets a number of solo spots throughout, and especially during the monstrous ending medley, Prince and Miles running wild for 34 minutes!

This album isn't mine, so is presented "as is", including the artwork and the huge medley at the end being split in several parts. I just fixed titles/tags and artwork on the music files. 

So, listen to this and party like it's 1999, 1987 or 2024! See you on the other side, folks!

Should old acquaintance be forgot for All Pearls, No Swine?

My my, how time flies. It's been a month since I posted the last volume of our moderately succesful All Pearls, No Swine series. Plus, that last volume was a head on dive into Eighties Eightiness, which caused some folks who shall go unnamed to hold their noses. Fear not, nosepinchers, for the seventh volume brings us right back to where things started, to the same mix of singer/songwriters, folk, country rock, and whatever related genres I could fit into another hour plus of sweet sweet grooves from the Seventies. 

Starting things of is one of the more recognizable names, ex-Box Top and future Big Star Alex Chilton, caught between the two with his first stabs as a solo musician. Other somewhat known names are Brit rockers Hookfoot, L.A. folk-rock duo Brewer & Shipley with the exceedingly lovely "Crested Butte", and - if you squint real hard - session musician and producer Marlin Green with a lovely song off his obscure one-off album Tiptoe Past The Dragon. From there it's the usual mix of unknown, little remembered and self-published folks, including returning favorites from earlier volumes like Sandy Harless, Doug Firebaugh and Diggory Venn. Plus newcomers like Hoover with a title that should be worth the price of admission alone, which is still a very low one buck nothing: "Jesus Don't Drive No Fastback Ford". Admittedly, the song doesn't quite live up to that title, but how could it have? 

As usual, a couple of words on a couple of the featured artists: Deerfield were a country rock troupe from Houston that managed two self-published records in 1971 and 1972. Sodbusters were yet another Canadian country rock troupe/hippie commune, including APNS alumni Huckle, covering a Bob Burchill song (check out the post on him, if you haven't already...). Mabel Joy were a folk rock troupe from the U.K, mostly covering other artists. Phil McHugh, represented by the beautiful "There's A River" had a sturdy career as a Christian music recording artist. Ray Stinett, original guitar player for Sam The Shah & The Pharaos recorded a solo record in 1971 for A&M that never got released at the time, the excellent "The Rain", an improbable mix of psych rock and soul ballad, shows that that was a mistake. The other rain song ("Let The Rain...") is by psych folk outfit Sunrise who recorded two versions of the song, this is the first one. And speaking of psych folk, Canadians D'Arcy also fall under the distinction, they're the rare major label act here, having recorded their album for Polydor. Cherokee was one of about a thousand bands all named Cherokee, this is the country rock group (pictured below in all their hayseed glory) that recorded a single album on ABC Records in 1971, ably assisted by then-Flying Burrito Bros. Chris Hillman and Sneaky Pete Kleinow. 

And that's it, folks. More goodness from the best decade in music. Have yourself a fine end to 2023 with some of the best unknown stuff the Seventies had to offer...

 

Evil ol' Netflix made me do it! (It's all good, though)

This might strike you as an odd addition to this blog. Robbie Williams is decidedly mainstream, while most of the music here at One Buck Records is - not. Blame it on Netflix. Luring me in with one of their trailers on the main page, I only wanted to check out the first episode of their new four-part docuseries and - whoosh - watched the whole damn thing. On the one hand, it's a typical Rise and Fall of, with the overnight success as a member of a (boy) band, the even bigger success as a solo artist, paparazzi, paranoia, prescription drugs...then rehab, love, redemption. Nothing much that is unexpected here. But on the other hand, the series does have an interesting narrative device. It mostly consists of vintage footage of the Robster's adventures and misadventures, as commented by a now almost fifty years and somehat wiser Williams, who often discovers this footage for the first time while the documentary crews cameras are on him. So he sees his younger self being a dick, being mortified on stage etc. It's not the most riveting stuff on earth, but it'll keep you watching. 

And of course it did, what music documentaries (or articles) generally do: They bring me to pull out the albums of the artist in question, in this case Williams' first three. And what can I say: They're pretty damn good! It's been years that I listened to them, and I gotta say I didn't remember the consistency of the records. I remembered of course the big hits that were unescapable on the radio, but I gotta say that even the album tracks are for the most part good, further proof that the songwriting team of William and Guy Chambers really had some fantastic alchemy between them for a couple of years (it ran out on Escapology, their fourth and last album together). Robbie could've gone the classic "a couple of hits and a bunch of filler" approach, but these are sturdy pop/rock records all the way through. Not genius music by any stretch of the imagination, but really good pop and rock music, which is nothing to sneer at, either. He can be pretty funny, too. The first verse of "Strong" always makes me smile: "My breath smells of a thousand fags / and when I'm drunk I dance like me dad / I started to dress a bit like him. / And early morning when I wake up / I look like Kiss, but without the Make-up/ and that's a good line to take it to the bridge" (cue: bridge to chorus). Cheeky little rascal. 

So what we have here is a sampler of the best of those first three albums, plus a couple of rarities from the early days, including Williams covering Bowie's "Kooks" and The La's' "There She Goes", plus a pretty funny piss-take on his old boy band's "Back For Good", sung half as a ballad, half as a heavy-metal/screamo song. Relatively funny stuff. The credo for this comp could come from George Michael, who Williams covered for his first single (also present here): Listen without prejudice...

Look what some bearded weirdo in red attire just shoved under your tree...

Ho!Ho!Ho! And by that I don't necessarily mean the scantily clad ladies accompanying this post, because nothing says 'tis the season' like mistle toes, eggnog, Christmas Carols and, uh, ample amounts of cleavage?! Did someone in the back there just yell 'Jingle them bells'? Naughty boy, you! So, this year from Uncle OBG you get some cheesecake, delivered freely with your Christmas offering, which is the kinda sorta mandatory Christmas compilation, seasonal obligation for any self-respecting music blog (unless you boycott Christmas or Christmas music compilation, which, you do you, you!). Not much to say, other than there's a bunch of cool dudes and dudettes on here (Ron Sexsmith, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tom Rush, Koko Taylor) and that you should check it out. 

On my PC I have my Christmas music arranged in playlists by genre, but this has proven to not be the best way of going about it. After a while you get sort of fed up with a single genre (funk, country, rock etc.), so this comp will feature a variety of artists and styles. Dig the power pop that The Grip Weeds bring to "Christmas Dream", some rockabilly "Jingle Bells" from Ricky Nelson or some funky festive tunes from The Temptations. The biggest wild card in the pack is probably Twisted Sister's take on "Deck The Halls", with its rumbling "falalalala-lalalala" chorus making me imagine a bunch of disgruntled elfs taking the piss out of the whole Christmas endeavor. 

So, Merry Christmas y'all that do celebrate, and if you don't, have a good time with friends or family regardless. See you on the other side...

PS. Have some more cheesecake, for the road. There ya go... 

...and the winners by knockout are...

Sometimes it sucks to be a high seed. Basically, everone agrees that Back In Black is a fantastic album, but as a number seven seed in ran straight into Abbey Road, and got sweeped. Only sweep of the bracket, though, as we had some tight matches, despite an ever-shrinking number of ringside judges (that comment button isn't gonna bite, ya know...) . 

So here are the results of round one in bracket three.

What's Going On (1)  - Sticky Fingers (8) 1-3

Ok Computer (4)  - Ziggy Stardust (5) 2-3

Born To Run (3) - Purple Rain (6) 3-2

Abbey Road (2) - Back In Black (7) 4-0

The Folly of King David: Reworking Bowie's Never Let Me Down

Never Let Me Down has the reputation of being the worst of all David Bowie albums. No one has a good word for it. When the Loving The Alien boxset covering most of Bowie's 80s output came out in 2018, many fans used their reviews to again point out their disgust for the album, giving it one-star reviews, "only because I couldn't give zero" type stuff. This is an unnecessarily harsh reaction to an album that is certainly a disppointment, but not the out-and-out career-killing disaster many of its detractors see it as. Misguided, yes. Overwrought, yes. But the absolute bottom of the barrel? C'mon man.

To be fair, it's pretty easy to mock the endeavor. The wannabe clever cover art. Bowie's hair cut. The cast of thousands. And, uh, Mickey Rourke. Nothing says mid-80s excess like inviting the Rourkester to mumble some lines in what is very generously and euphemistically credited as a "mid song rap". Bowie, always easily swayed by public opinion gave up his support for the album quickly, lamenting his production choices and - as he had with Tonight - vowing that some of these songs were better than the release form has let on. Only some years later he mused about maybe wanting to re-record some of Never Let Me Down's songs. Alas, it was one of the many projects he wanted to do that he never got around to in his lifetime. But it probably gave ample justification to the Bowie estate to commisson a new reworked version of the album for that 2018 box set release. Never Let Me Down (2018) reworks the album from the ground up, mainly keeping Bowie's lead vocals and select instruments or instrumental passages. But some of the backing tracks, worked up by old Bowie allies like guitar squealer Reeves Gabrels (who notedly wasn't yet part of Bowie's crew in 1987) are almost a hundred percent new. Which means that the official reworking of Never Let Me Down is an odd record, a record lost in time, where vintage Bowie vocals and topics collide with a decidedly modern production.

Sometimes, the mix is successful and the song finally sounds like Bowie probably envisioned it: "Glass Spider" now truly sounds like an art song, while some of the rockers like "New York's in Love" and "Bang Bang", thanks in no small part to Gabrels' involvement, now do indeed sound like blueprints for the unfortunate Tin Machine project that was about to follow. The songs might still suck, but at least they're now rocking more convincingly. Other tracks are not as as succesful: "Time Will Crawl", for my money one of Bowie's best songs of the 80s gets completely neutered in its new arrangement. The album also proceeds in a pretty obvious manner: Almost every song gets a new arty, instrumental opening, before the 'real song' kicks in. It's a fun discovery to hear these songs with a new coat of paint, but I'd still say that about half of the songs profit fom the new treatment (with some still sort of sucking, mind you), a quarter stay about the same and the final quarter are actively worse. Besides, for a total stinker like "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)" it doesn't matter that Mickey Rourke is now replaced by Laurie Anderson, it still shows that you can only polish a turd so much, it'll stay a turd, albeit much shinier. 

Bowie's understanding of what was wrong with Never Let Me Down was mainly concentrated on the sound of it, but there were a couple of other words coincidentally starting with the letter s that help understand its failures and possible redemption. S like sensibilities, for example. Bowie all of a sudden doing political commentary and contemplating the fate of the downtrodden and poor was a shock to his old audience, so used to abstract imagery and elaborate metaphors. This was of course also an unfortunate preview of what was in store during the Tin Machine years. With the lyrics, like Bowie's vocals, staying the same nothing can be done about that, though in all fairness I think the criticisms of that kind are fairly overblown. Maybe because I'm easily amused by Bowie referencing Top Gun. 

Bowie thought that Never Let Me Down's main failures were sound and sensibility, whereas I would argue they were selection and sequencing. Bowie picked the wrong songs and then sequenced them in the absolute worst manner imaginable. The two b-sides hailing from the sessions, "Girls" (a number he had given to Tina Turner a year prior) and "Julie" are infinitely better than half of what ended on the album. "Julie" might be one of the most straightforward pop songs Bowie ever recorded, but it has a memorable melody and could have even been a hit, something that can't be said for some of the crap that ended up on the album. Not only did Bowie make the mistake of including stuff like "Too Dizzy", the aforementioned "Shining Star" and the decidedly limp cover of comrade Iggy Pop's "Bang Bang", he also decided to put them all together into the side two from hell. After a relatively promising first side, where all the better-to-good songs hang out, the flip side has one disaster after another and is - in its original form - pretty hard to stomach. Insipid, both musically and lyrically, it does indeed come dangerously close to being the dumpster fire Bowie diehards think of when having nightmares about Never Let Me Down. 

But there is eminently salvagable stuff on this album. I won't stand here and proclaim my reworked version of Never Let Me Down as some sort of lost classic or great album. It's not, because the original ingredients weren't made for it to be. But it's a fun album, if you can get behind the general idea of 80s pop Bowie, and it's a good listen to my ears. The first rule was: no access to anything that isn't vintage. Never Let Me Down is about as 80s an album as you can get, and instead of akwardly trying to camouflage that, like the 2018 reworking did, just embrace it, people. Secondly: throw out the crap and replace it by something better. Bowie himself started the process, deleting the lightweight and rapidly obnoxious "Too Dizzy" from all CD editions of the album. We throw the three songs mentioned above plus "New York's In Love " on the trash pile and add in the also aforementioned "Girls" and "Julie". The a capella dub mix of "Never Let Me Down" serves as the source of a new intro and outro to the album, cementing the title song as the anchor around which the other tracks got arranged around. Some other minor surgery: I never liked the 'fake live' opening of "Zeroes", totally at odds with the song's plastic sound, so I created a new opening out of the "Time Will Crawl" guitar riff. And I couldn't decide which version of "Day In Day Out" I preferred, so I didn't choose, instead creating a hybrid mix of the more percussion-oriented Groucho Mix and the original version. 

Now, this might not sway people who never forgave him for Let's Dance or Tonight, but if you can get down with the Pop Bowie of the 80s, then throw this on, throw your ol' shoulderpadded sequin jacket on and let your mullet flop like never before...c'mon folks, never let me down... 

Manassas and the sophomore album curse in Americana

Manassas didn't play long together, but in the short time they did, they shone so very brightly. Their self-titled debut album (which really gave the band its name by accident when the album cover photo prominently featured the name) was a classic, a testament to Stephen Stills' creative juices flowing as wildly and wilfully as rarely before and never again afterwards. Chris Hillman, rock music's ultimate right hand man and perfect second banana, did exactly what was asked of him: the very occasional write or co-write, the equally occasional lead vocal, and lots of support of the boss on acoustic guitar or mandoline when needed. The ensemble, full of cracks like Dallas Taylor, Samuel "Fuzzy" Clemens and Al Perkins were top notch and able to adapt to any of the various styles Stills would want to play in. And that variety of styles, best on display on that self-titled double album, truly makes Manassas Americana: blues, folk, country, latin rock - all parts, mostly foundational ones, of the American music experience. Stills' genre-bending really reached its culmination with Manassas. He would never be as adventurous or explorative again.  

He certainly wasn't when it was time to do a follow-up, unfortunately following a worrying trend in country rock and Americana to follow up a masterpiece with a dud. Dillard & Clark? The Fantastic Expedition of -  an absolute classic. Second album: a muddled, deeply disappointing mess. The Flying Burrito Brothers? The Gilded Palace of Sin - a stone-cold classic, arguably not only one of the best albums of its genre, but of all time. Second album: a dispiriting, disappointing 'meh' of an album. Somehow, in the still young Americana genre, its best bands could only get it together for a single shot of greatness. The reasons are manifold: distractions (read: drugs), general apathy (read: possibly drugs) drugs (read: drugs), musical incompability (read: dr..no, that one's probably really for musical reasons). Dillars & Clark morphed from an acoustic bluegrass-flavored vehicle for Clark's songwriting into a fast-paced, traditional-minded electric bluegrass group that suddenly had no place for Clark's melancholic songwriting. The Burritos famously lost Parsons to his love affair with Keith Richards and its accompanying drug regime.

And Manassas? Well, distractions were plenty: Stills met Véronique Sanson on Manassas' big Europe tour, then wed her and had his mind on his soon to be founded family. Hillman was distracted by Geffen's money-waving Byrds reunion project, then Geffen's money-waving false supergroup The Hillman-Souther-Furay Band project. Drummer Dallas Taylor fell into a hard heroin addiction. Atlantic wasn't happy with the recordings, asking for new recording sessions and - allegedly - more involvement from an increasingly distracted Stills. Recording engineers Ron and Howard Albert expressed doubts about the quality of recordings and were dutifully told to take a hike by Stills, who took his band and recordings elsewhere. Frankly, the making of Down The Road sounds like a mess, and it's no wonder that the band couldn't concentrate on making quality work. A group that just a year could fill a double album with songs and still have songs to spare all of a sudden were unable to put together even a slim ten track set of quality songs. It's not a bad album per se, just a massively disappointing one. 

So, here at One Buck Records we accept the challenge of trying to improve Down The Road. The excellent outtake collection Pieces brought a number of excellent outtakes. I also dallied with some of the booted performanes such as the band's stabs at Stills' "Thoroughfare Gap" (the 'cuban bluegrass' version showed up on volume two of the All Pearls, No Swine series) but sadly the muffled sound quality was not good enough to seamlessly integrate these with the rest of the tracks. So this new version, dutifully retitled Do You Remember The Americans? to reflect its now twice featured new title song, features half original tracks and half outtakes published on Pieces. One idea that came quickly were the bookends - the two different versions of "Do You Remember The Americans?" to bookend the album and the two latin rock numbers to bookend the album sides. I wasn't a huge fan of "Pensamiento" off the original album, so I took the early version of that song and attached it to the second version (actually the album version) of  "Do You Remember The Americans?" as a closing medley. 

Some quick words on some of the other songs from Pieces I used here: "Sugar Babe" was of course already on Stephen Stills 2, but this version is awesome and thus deserves a place here, double appearance be damned. "Witching Hour" is an outtake from the first album, and a song that's probably better than any of the ones on Down The Road, so why it was abandoned and then not even reconsidered is beyond me. Maybe Stills thought it was too personal, with its (veiled) digs at camerades Crosby, Nash & Young, but still(s). He shelved "Like A Fox" (with luxurious chorus vocals by Bonnie Raitt) for "not being enough song" and being unfinished. Well, that description sounds about right for about half of Down The Road, so the Albert Brothers kind of had a point there re: quality control. "Like A Fox" still sounds livelier than some of the more drudgy tracks that did make the album. "Love & Satisfy" was dropped from the album at the last second. Why? Beats me. "Lies" is a much harder driving rocker, with guest Joe Walsh on guitar. 

So, this version is a definite improvement on Down The Road, which admittedly wasn't very hard, but I think it really holds together as a quality collection of songs, the way it should've been from the start. But, you know, distractions and all that...

Best Album Eliminator Bracket 3 - Fight Night again!

Ok folks, despite there not being hundreds of you with opinions on these albums, we'll still see this thing through. Same as ever, two albums enter the ring, only one leaves! It's totally like Thunderdome!

So, here's bracket three:

What's Going On (1) - Sticky Fingers (8)

Ok Computer (4) - The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust (5)

Born To Run (3) - Purple Rain (6)

Abbey Road (2) - Back In Black (7)

Don't worry if the seedings seem "off", the list I took this from had its list of problems, namely an attempt to be particulary woke. But I didn't know that at the time. And it doesn't matter, does it? We like what we like, so tell me what you like best and why in the comments...

The 1.000 Faces Of Randy VanWarmer

O.K., the title is slight hyperbole. More like two and a half faces. Which is still one and a half faces more than I originally thought, having crossed VanWarmer and, presumably, his signature song "Just When I Needed You Most" a couple of years ago when I dipped my feet into soft rock. And that song was so soft, that I wrote VanWarmer off as an artist of potential interest. Imagine my surprise when a couple of months later - while still on a bit of a soft rock kick (if such a thing can exist) - I found "Suzie Found A Weapon" on a soft rock comp, but it didn't sound at all like soft rock, more like some punchy new wave. I made a mental note to check out that VanWarmer, then of course promptly forgot about him. Somehow, this year I fell in with VanWarmer again, this time taking the time of checking him out, especially his early stretch for Bearsville Records. And I wasn't disappointed. Apart from the first album - which is all softer-than-a-baby's-butt soft rock - he showed encouraging signs of being a secret enfant terrible: Bringing out ten-minute faux prog rock, alternating with power pop/new wave songs, and being generally a lot more irrevent than something like "Just When I Needed You Most" would suggest: Whether its proposing cocaine to his girlfriend to get her to hang out with him (in "Hester's Song") or mocking televangelists in "Amen" ("Send us your money, we will pray for you").  

VanWarmer was hip to what was happening around him. His version of the old gospel classic "Farther Along" suggests he had listened to Adam & The Ants, with the Burundi drums coming in on what is certainly one of the most interesting takes on that old chestnut. He also loved 60's pop, as evidenced by his faithful cover of the Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe In Magic". 

Waitaminute, you might say, didn't he talk about 1.000, or at least two and a half faces? Where's face number two and a half I hear you murmur? Well, turns out my first encounter with VanWarmer was many years ago. When checking out his work from the 90s and 2000s, I realized that I had first encountered RVM in the mid-90s when my dad was subscribed to a magazine called "New Country" and VanWarmer had put his soft rock bona fides to good use by adding some country instrumentation and hanging out with the new 'hat acts' as a mulleted soft country pop guy. Really sentimental stuff, but what can I say, I have a soft spot for such fare, so even that side of Randy I'm fine with. 

You will find none of that on today's One Buck Record though, which - as the title suggests - focuses on his first four albums for Bearsville Records and there mainly his new wave stuff. It's fresh, it's adventurous, it's a lot of fun. Maybe Art's recent work on Robert Palmer over yonder at Jonder's place pushed me to pull up RVM in the posting queue - like Palmer, VanWarmer is a lot more than "the 'Just When I Needed You Most' guy". So check out some cool Bearsville Beats courtesy of Mr. VanWarmer...

Poco's Magnum Opus - now even more..uh...magnum

All the jokes about how a band called Poco didn't have more success - at least the band during its first...and second, third, and fourth incarnations - have been made, and when the band that was Pogo until the creators of the comic book character whose name the band borrowed threatened to sue finally got their big break, they weren't really Poco anymore, but the renamed Cotton-Young Band. But their best work was behind them by that time, and even though I think an album like Cantamos from the underrated post-Furay four piece is a ridiculously underrated work, the real masterpiece of the Poco discography is the last album the band cut with founder Richie Furay, before David Geffen whisked him away by shaking bundles of dollars in front of him. Furay would deeply regret the unfortunate misadventures of the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, but that's another story for another time. And at least he left after helping Poco record an album that made good on the promise of the band's work up 'till then. That album is Crazy Eyes. 

All Music is as often wrong as they're right, but Bruce Eder's short write up is right on the money when he says "it's the fruition of everything they'd been working toward for four years" and that "there's not a weak song, or even a wasted note anywhere on this album". True, and true. What's also true is that Poco recorded more than the nine tracks that made the album and what's also true is that these are of the same high quality as the rest of the album. You can certainly see where this is going...yup, alternate album time, folks! So, here's the expanded Crazy Eyes, boosted by four outtakes issued on the The Lost Trail anthology of the Epic years. Of those four, the Rusty Young instrumental "Skunk Creek" is probably the least essential, while the most impressive is no doubt the original version of "Believe Me", before Furay reworked it for the first Souther-Hillman-Furay album. Here, it's a seven and a half minute rock monster, or at least what could pass for a rock monster in Pocoland. The other two numbers are older: Furay's "Nothing's Still The Same" was written around the time of the debut album and played by Poco in concert in the late 1960s, but never made an album. And Paul Cotton recut "Get In The Wind", after having already done the number with The Illinois Speed Press in a blues rock style. 

And then there is of course the question of how to rearrange the new line-up. Eder's right about "Let's Dance Tonight" being a great album closer, but you know what? It's an even better opening number, where Furay makes you an invitation you can't refuse: "slippin' away, heading out to L.A./ gonna sing in the city tonight". Who woudn't want to join him? It's also a notedly more energetic opener than the original album's, Cotton's "Blue Water" which gets pushed to second track. From Furay's fantastic opening shot, I wanted to preserve the logic of the original album's first side that gradually introduced the cast. So we get the same here, when first Furay, then Cotton, then Young and then Tim Schmidt take a lead role. From there, it was about balancing Cotton's and Furays number, while I also wanted to gradually build to the more epic numbers, closing with a trio of longer songs. The aforementioned "Believe Me", the Cotton-sung J.J. Cale classic "Magnolia" (which became a live staple for the entire time Cotton was in Poco) and finally the title song. "Crazy Eyes", written for and about Gram Parsons. 

The song also dated from a couple of years back and wasn't written or planned as an elegy to Parsons, who was still very much alive in early 1973, when the album was recorded. But lines like "to be or not to be is the question now / crazy eyes, don't you forget how" take a new, eerier meaning. It's like Furay felt his old friend and former neighbour slipping deeper into drugs and selfdestruction. Together with Furay covering Parsons' "Brass Buttons" (a song he also namedrops in "Crazy Eyes"), although unplanned, Crazy Eyes the album became in many ways that eulogy to Parsons, who died four days after its release.

With the four outtakes added back in the complete Crazy Eyes clocks in at a little over 55 minutes - sitting right between a very long (too long for vinyl) single album or a very short double album. But since country was one of the few genres where sub-30 minute albums were still a thing in the early to mid-1970s, I'd say the whole thing works as that short double album, where the songs would have been presented as such:

Side A

Let’s Dance Tonight

Blue Water

Fool’s Gold

Here We Go Again

Side B

Nothing’s Still The Same

A Right Along

Brass Buttons

Side C

Get In The Wind

Skunk Creek

Believe Me

Side D

Magnolia

Crazy Eyes

Well, sorry for some moments of nerdy sequencing discussion, let's get to the music. So here's the complete Crazy Eyes, making Poco's best album even better...

...ding, ding, ding...

 

The results are in, despite a noticeable lack of ringside judges (*coughWHEREAREYOURVOTESFOLKScough*), so here are the winners of the second bracket of our mostly admired from a distance Best Album Eliminator. 

Blue (1) - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (8) 2:4

Revolver (4)  - The Doors (5) 6:0

Rumours (3) - The Band (6) 3:4

Blood On The Tracks (2) – Exodus (7) 6:1

Lucinda upsets Joni, and the first number one seed has fallen! The Doors are the first team to get sweeped out the door! Take that, Lizard King! In the closest match up, The Band edge the Mac on the smallest of margins (and I almost feel guilty having helped eliminating Rumours...) and finally one Bob reigns supreme over the other in a gentleman's sweep...

Wheels Keep Turnin': Lucinda Williams and the rocky road to a masterpiece

 

Her recent apparition in the Best Album Eliminator and the admission of a certain featured reader that he doesn't know anything about Lucinda Williams makes me think that we should change that. 

When Car Wheels On A Gravel Road finally arrived in stores in 1998, it had been a long time coming. A full six years to be exact. Williams was a notoriously slow worker, needing years to follow her breakthrough, the excellent self-titled album from 1988 with Sweet Old World, an album that, like Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, she re-recorded entirely. The even longer wait for Car Wheels was mainly due to its extremely long and difficult production history. Williams herself has described the making of that album as a "total clusterfuck", which it no doubt was, taking more than two years (plus another due to label complications) and no less than three different producers. It also cost her the friendship and services of her musical director and bandleader of twelve years...

Lucinda had, in early 1995, recorded an entire record of fifteen songs, as before produced by said bandleader and musical director, the improbably named Gurf Morlix, who basically can play anything with strings and did so on those two records mentioned above. Ex-Small Faces/Faces member Ian McLagan engineered the sessions and playd organ on several of the numbers. That original version of the album is very much in keeping with its predecessors, but Williams wasn't happy with it, notably with a couple of her vocal performances. She wanted to recut not just her vocals, but the music tracks as well, basically starting from scratch. After doing guest vocals on a Steve Earle song and being mightily impressed by the work of Earle's producer Ray Kennedy, she convinced Earle and Kennedy to rerecord the songs she wasn't happy with, leading inevitably to Morlix either stepping down or being fired. Earle and Kennedy, credited as The Twangtrust, continued working on the material, emphasizing her vocals and the live sound of her band, though Kennedy added tons of overdubs later. With the main parts done Earle went off to finish his own tour, under the tacit understanding that after the tour he would wrap up the record. 

But Williams was unwilling to wait, instead hiring E-Streeter Roy Bittan and giving him the tapes, on which he overdubbed a bunch of accordion and some organ (plus tons of guitar work by a who's who of stringbenders, including Charlie Sexton, Greg Leisz and Buddy Miller). Bittan's work is really subtle, his overdubs are woven into the arrangements without drawing attention to themselves. If you'd asked me without me knowing the answer "On how many tracks do we hear an accordion?" , I'd probably say one, maybe two tops. It's seven. That and his organ added to three songs (an instrument she used relatively extensively on Sweet Old World as well) give Car Wheels a unity of sounds that work on an almost uncosncious level. You don't really hear the accordion all the time, but you feel that it's there. 

Lucinda's decision to continue reworking what became Car Wheels was probably down several factors. For one, to her being more and more confident in her own choices - and the insistance that her choices were heard and respected. But maybe the musical divorce from Morlix also was rooted in this - a need - however conscious - to break away from what had worked before, but had probably also become a little routine. Her insistence of more focus on her vocals - as opposed to a band sound that band leader Morlix would obviously prefer- was one of the official reason for the rift between her and Morlix, but maybe after that long of a time, it was just time to move on. Almost twelve years is a long time to hang out and work with someone, so maybe it was time to separate for these two either way.  

The original Car Wheels are probably easily listenable and/or acquirable on the Net, and since I aim to feature the rare and the reworked here on One Buck Records, today's download is the Gurf Morlix version of the album, whih is essentially an entire different album (different vocals and instrumenst), despite the familiarity of the songs. It also features two songs that weren't kept for the final version. ("Out Of Touch" showed up on follow-up Blue). 

While the final version of Car Wheels is an extremely produced, big-budget record where you can hear the time and money invested in it (well...maybe not three years worth...), the early Morlix version is... not. He isn't wrong when he estimated that the record is "90% finished". There is a feeling of the last coat of paint missing to some of the numbers, but these aren't raw demos, either. They are fully produced songs with a very solid country rock band, though they do miss the swing and hip-hop influenced groove that the final record has, as well as the many fine touches Earle & Kennedy and then Bittan brought to the table. There is no question that Williams was right and that the published version of Car Wheels is the strongest. But the Gurf Morlix version has its own modest charms. I personally also don't hear much that is wrong with her vocals. Phrasing is different, but that is expected from what is now essentially a first stab at an album. It's a rewarding "alternative" version of a modern classic, or, you know, an interesting way to relisten to these songs, at worst. 

So, go get the original set of Wheels. Get this set of  Wheels. And let 'em spin...

[very good vintage article on Lucinda and Car Wheels here: Lucinda Williams - Setting the record straight - No Depression. And a pretty good retro one here: PAIN IS NOT THE POINT: REFLECTIONS ON THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF CAR WHEELS ON A GRAVEL ROAD - ANTIGRAVITY Magazine]

All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 6: Where Things Get A Lot Eighties-ier...

 ...and yes, that is a word I just made up. Eighties-ier it is, because after having the first foray into the Eighties of our All Pearls, No Swine series still firmly with both feet in the sound and sensibility of the 1970s, it's obvious from the opening track, Australia's Triffids and their mighty "Wide Open Road" that we have fully arrived in the decade of the synth swirls, gated drums and echoey production. And if that isn't enough, then track two, The Lover Speaks' synth anthem "No More I Love You" should seal the deal. That song only scraped the lower regions of the charts, but became a huge hit for Annie Lennox almost a decade later. From there we get to ol' Fleetwood Mac alumni Bob Welch and his best stab at a New Wave sound with "I'll Dance Alone" and Men At Work's original version of "Down Under". It was originally a b-side to a forgotten single and didn't yet have the famous/infamous flute melody that got them sued and ultimately led to the self destruction of Greg Ham. Instead it is a weird country-flavored regatta da blanc. Then we get two saints replacing one madonna, as Canada's Sophie St. Lauren does her best stab at Madonna-style pop with the absolutely irresistible "Sex Appeal", before Tera St. John kidnaps Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wildside" for a synth-pop joyride as a self-published one-off (on the impeccably titled Didit M'Self Records!). Plus more sultriness from Rosie Vela, aurally and visually (see below). 

We also get new wave goodness from Randy VanWarmer and Sniff'n'the Tears, both soon to be getting their own write ups and home-made compilations here, an underrated synth-pop number from Tears for Fears' first album that The Americans used for an amazing sequence, more Aussies with Big Pig, more Canadians with brainy synth-poppers Strange Advance, a trip to Italy for Raf's (as in Raffaele) original version of "Self Control", issued months before Laura Branigan took over the song and rode it into the Top Ten. That lady sure had a knack for picking up Italian hits ("Gloria") and turning them into world wide smashes! And a trip to France for post-punk psych band The Vietnam Veterans and their take on "The Days Of Pearly Spencer". And out of the 'huh?' department, folk rock veteran Iain Matthews, who after forays into soft rock and new wave ends up in power pop outfit Hi-Fi, covering Prince's "When U Were Mine". How much more Eighties-ier than that can you get?   

Have no fear, fellow musical travelers, for even the Eighties, that most dreaded decade for fans of classic rock look better with every passing year, and have some treasures to unearth, starting right here and now...

Good Grief! Patty Griffin and 1.000 Kisses' closeness to perfection

One side effect of the Best Album Eliminator game that is currently under way here at One Buck Records is it makes you ponder what makes an album great. I have some theories on the subject. The main condition: it has to be chock full of great songs, obviously. The ol' "All Killer, No Filler" mentality. Duh. And secondly, as more of a personal criteria, it should have its own inimitable mood, a coherent atmosphere that makes it an album, not just a collection of songs. Something that is distincly its own. 

So, by these, or any other criteria, does the perfect album even exist? And what about the ones that are almost perfect? How do you account for an album that almost gets there, right up to the finish line, but doesn't quite cross it? 

When I first heard Patty Griffin's 1.000 Kisses, I didn't expect much. I had fished it out of a bargain bin, vaguely remembering the name and a positive review that might or might not have been about this album. But the moment "Rain" came on, this album grabbed me, and wouldn't let go. It still doesn't. 

1.000 Kisses is, for the most part an album about broken hearts, due to a break-up, or even worse, due to staying together in a loveless relationship. A fearful symmetry links its cornerstones. Griffin's first words are "It's hard to listen to a hard, hard heart / beatin' close to mine". Six songs later, in "Nobody's Crying'" she bids adieu to a lover she has to send away: "It says that love is all gone / Every move I make is all wrong", while still being determined that sending him away despite her doubts is the best thing to do. 

When I check the back of the album, I always wonder how come I don't remember much, if anything, about the last two songs. And then I remember when I put them on, as they are genre pieces that don't have much to do with the rest of the album and, more to the point, are missing the emotional depth that the rest of the album has. I mean, it's totally fine to do a jazz-flavored torch song, then a Latin number, but these two songs absolutely break the spell that Griffin has woven before throughout those amazing first seven songs. There is one other cover song in the middle of that cycle, but it is much better chosen, and as emotional as Griffin's own songs: Her cover of "Stolen Car" arguably bests the original, outspooking the Boss' spooky tale of unfulfilled, despairing quest for redemption by a country mile. And the two closing numbers aren't bad, quite the opposite, but they don't fit with the rest of the bunch. That stuff I said above about the coherent mood? Exhibit A! 

But back to 1.000 Kisses. It's not all slow doom and gloom either, but even when Griffin picks up the pace a little bit, the undercurrent of deep emotions bubbling are in every song - whether it's the deceptively bouncy tale of a Native American war vet in "Chief" or the tale of an aged widow distracting herself from her grief by "Making Pies", 1.000 Kisses is an album that is all heart, tugging at yours at every turn. I might be a too emotional, or a wuss, or what have you, but at least one of the three emotional cornerstones of the album, "Rain", "Be Careful" or "Nobody's Crying" always choke me up. If it isn't done before, "Nobody's Crying" does it. There is something about the way she sings "I wish you well...on your way to the wishing well" that just gets to me. Every. Single. Damn. Time. 

That song also has one of the best run-on lines ever (or, if not a real run-on line, the best use of pauses for comedy-dramatic effect. When describing the lover she decided to get rid off the says that he was off fighting some demon...[Wait for it]...dragon...[WAIT FOR IT]...fly. Ha, she can be funny and dramatic and sad and comforting, all at the same time. And this isn't a studied, maximized for effect effort in weepiness, either, as most of the songs on the album where cut live with her band in the studio, which happened to be her guitarist's basement. And again, the two original closing numbers don't feature the same band that the first seven did, furthering the impression of being added to make up the album. So, without any regret I deleted these two, keeping the mood and spell of the album intact. At now only a little less than 30 minutes it's more of a mini-album, actually. But it'll be an amazing half hour, that I can promise.    

There are most definitely albums that are better than 1.000 Kisses, or more varied, or more groundbreaking. But I wouldn't miss the almost perfection of this album for the world. I bought other Patty Griffin albums, some of them very good. But it's not the same. There is a magic to 1.000 Kisses, or rather 8/10th of 1.000 Kisses (erm, 800 Kisses?!) that can't be replicated.

Fight Night! It's the return of the Best Album Eliminator!

Okay, folks, time for bracket no. 2 in our moderately popular feature featuring fights to the death between critically acclaimed albums. The first bracket saw Pink Floyd booted back to the dark side of the moon and Van the Man packing, so which heavyweights will fall or stand tall at the end of this bracket? 

Get your votes in, folks, if possible with a little comment on what you like or don't like in these albums,or why you prefer one to the other. Tonight we have the following fights on tap:

Blue (1) - Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (Lucinda Williams) (8)

Revolver (4) - The Doors (5)

Rumours (3) - The Band (6)

Blood On The Tracks (2) – Exodus (7)

He could've been a contender: Wayne Berry and the fickle footpath to fame

Some folks are unlucky, some are somewhat responsible for their own bad luck, some are a bit of both. Wayne Berry is one of those folks. Here's a guy who had all the goods and who could've conceivably become a star in the early to mid-1970s, if things had broken his way. But a mix of bad luck, jeaousy (fuck Billy Joel and his management!) and his own pigheadedness meant that Berry never made it above the level of also ran and never was. But he could've been somebody...he could've been a contender. The long and winding road of Berry into, then out of the music business has been told very well already, in an in depth article of No Depression (https://www.nodepression.com/wayne-berry-nashville-cat-home-at-last). If, like me, you don't necessarily like to scroll through dozens of screens to read an article (and there are a lot of screens, the whole thing is about 5000 words long...) I've included the article as liner notes of sorts to our album of the day. 

To cut the story very short: grew up in Nashville - hung out with Félice & Boudleaux Bryant and J.D. Loudermilk - moved to L.A., joined the Underground and helped draft dodgers - got signed ton Capitol as a solo artist, but preferred starting a country band, Timber, with George Clinton (not that one, the other one) - solo debut album shelved as a result - after two albums, Timer falls - does a bunch of demos and finally a solo album, the utterly fantastic Home At Last - on his first big tour upsets headliner Billy Joel by doing fantastically in his support slot and gets dumped from his national tour - album thus flops - follow up album Tails Up comes out in a tiny pressing number for about five minutes - hooks up with George Clinton again, for mainstream soft rock project Volunteers - after another failure hangs up his rock'n'roll shoes, goes back to Nashville and becomes a minister. The End.

Berry saw J.D. Loudermilk pitch tunes to artists and agents, "that affected me in a 'Tin Pan Alley' sort of way", and you can definitely see and hear it in his music. Instinctly, he could craft music that was both worthwhile and commercial, without being pandering - if, you know, the commerce and then the public had wanted any part of it. If you listen to Berry's music, you really think he should've been bigger. Not because the music is excellent and it woud have been only fair - the music is excellent, but unlike some other musical heroes of mine (*coughGENE CLARKcough*), it is not wishful thinking to imagine hearing a Berry tune on Top 40 radio. He had a knack for writing memorable hooks, as well as being able to write in a number of styles, incorporating country and folk elements, a whole lot of pop, some reggae...this is where the 'Tin Pan Alley' sort of way really comes into play.  

The attached album is a primer on Berry and his music, a Greatest Hits if you will that just accidentally has no hits in it, but sounds like it should. It breaks down as follows: one track to represent the shelved Capitol Records album (which drowned an insecure-sounding Berry in an ill-fitting countrypolitan sound), three tracks from Timber (from their second album, where Berry really started to find his voice, and a follow-up single), four (high-quality) demos sandwiching his lone single for A&M, the lovely "Beachwood Blues", six tracks from his classic Home At Last album, three from patchier follow-up Tails Out and three from the Volunteers project.  21 tracks to familiarize yourself with Berry and his music, or dive back into it, with some music here that you probably haven't heard before. 

This is also just an appetizer, for a much larger reclamation project to give Berry his due. In the following weeks I will post no less than three Berry albums that never were. High quality stuff all around, from a man who could've been a contender, who could've been somebody. To some of us, he is. 

PS.: If someone needs Home At Last, just say so...

All This Is That: repolishing the Beach Boys' diamond in the rough

 

“Carl & The Passions - ‘So Tough’” is just about the weirdest album imaginable. I love it, but nothing about it should work. That already starts with the album art and its title. The red sports car in a beach setting image is pretty cool by itself, presaging about a half dozen Beach Boy compilations by over a decade. But it isn’t representative of the music within. Like, at all. The title makes it even worse, other than not even identifying whose album this is (until the CD version akwardly plastered the band name on the cover). Besides being weird as hell, having the Beach Boys adopt a moniker like Carl & The Passions (the name of Carl’s music group as a teenager, ostensibly to cheer him up) and having the ‘So Tough’ title, together with the cover makes it sound like it’s some sort of retro exercise – a return to car and surf songs, maybe, or an exercise in doo-wop. Instead, it is of course none of these things. It’s rather the loosest, and in some ways earthiest album the band would ever cut. By 1972, the popular emphasis on roots music had even reached the Beach Boys, who had experimented with country music as early as the 1970’s single version of “Cottonfields” with its very prominent pedal steel guitar. There’s some pedal on ‘So Tough’, but it really is more about the harmonies, which in places recall the loose harmony style of The Band rather than the Beach Boys.

In tow with the non-fitting album cover and title, none of the musical ingredients on ‘So Tough’ should really go together. Besides the relatively rootsy atmosphere, these songs don’t really have much in common, besides the transcendental meditation undertow to “He Come Down” and “All This Is That”, courtesy of Mike & Al of course. Part of it is that ‘So Tough’ is clearly an album assembled to bring out a Beach Boys product, without the band necessarily having the requisite songs ready, which means that half of the tracks here are hardly Beach Boys tracks at all. The two Ricky Fataar-Blondie Chaplin compositions, fascinating as they are, don’t really seem to feature any other Beach Boys on them, much less a specific Beach Boys sound. Dennis’ two numbers aren’t Beach Boys numbers at all, having been taken from a finally abandoned first attempt at a solo album. Their heavy instrumentation doesn’t really jibe with anything else on the album. Even Carl gets in on the more exotic sounds game, with his “You Need A Mess Of Help To Stand Alone” graced (if that's the word...) by a rather noisy and unusual instrumentation and an even more unusual gruff and growling vocal delivery by the usually most angelic of Beach Boy voices. That leaves just three songs that really truly sound like the Boys: the fantastic retro number “Marcella” and the two aforementioned tracks by Mike & Al. And even Mike’s faux gospel is quite a bit out of his usual wheelhouse.

So, it shouldn’t really work. And yet I love this album dearly. Because the Durban Beach Boys era was definitely the most interesting of the band, making them sound contemporary with their era for the first time. Because lovelorn Dennis is always a winner, over-instrumentation or not. Because Mike and Al arguably provide career highlights. And because this exact incongruous nature of ‘So Tough’ gives it an element of, if not anything goes, than a certain je ne sais pas quoi that other albums don’t have. And while I love a lot of it, warts and all, there’s no doubt that the album is far from perfect.

So, does my re-imagining make it so? Of course not, but it's – I hope – a valiant stab at something slightly more coherent. Before 2022’s Sail On Sailor: 1972 box set, there was of course no way to think of making an alternate album for ‘So Tough’. There simply wasn’t any material, even from a band as much and as well bootlegged as the Boys. The Sail On Sailor box set finally unearthed a couple of outtakes, but I decided not to use them. On an album as divergent as this as is, this seemed counterproductive. They will come back into play when I get to my reimagining of Holland as a double album. But that box set notably proposed a number of different mixes for half of the album’s line up. New mixes for the two Dennis numbers strip them of the overcooked orchestration by Darryl Dragon. “Here She Comes” loses its puzzling original mix in which Fataar’s drums occasionally drowned out Chaplin’s vocals. The changes to “He Come Down” seem minor in comparison, going for a 'drier' sound and more focus on the vocals.

Another idea was the need for better sequencing. People who bought this album in 1972 might’ve checked their turntable twice to make sure they put on the good record, when ‘So Tough’ opened first with the uncharacteristic, though possibly prophetic “Mess”, then followed by the decidedly non-Beach Boy-ish “Here She Comes”. So the idea for All This Is That was to frontload the album with the classic Beach Boys sound of “Marcella”, more evenly distribute the two Dennis numbers and give it more coherence by building around the now new title track “All This Is That” as a unifying element. Part of Al’s original demo, based on Robert Frost's poem “The Road Not Taken” gets transformed into the charmingly simple, acoustic “All This Is That” prelude, the reprise at the end is built around an alternative verse and the a capella version.

So, that's it. All This Is That. It really is. Enjoy.

All Pearls No Swine Vol. 5: Long time no see, old pal! How're you doin'?!

Been a while that I posted one of those. We're back to the Seventies once more. By now you know the drill. Some semi-famous folks, on this volume one famous person, and a bunch of rather unknown folks from the self-publishing side of things. The famous person is David Bowie, obviously, whose "Shadow Man", a Ziggy Stardust outtake, is one of the man's finest moments, a splendid doppelgänger ballad unfairly relegated to the dustbin. You might also know Native American guitar player Jesse Ed Davis (also a part-time producer, for One Buck Favorite Gene Clark), soft rock/country-rock combo the Pousette-Dart Band, or guitar hero Harvey Mandel, a Canned Heat alumni. And maybe Bonnie Koloc, a folkie from Iowa who had a modest but enduring career. As for the one-off and self-published artists, there's a colorful mix of folks, again mostly from the country rock, folk and singer-songwriter ranks. 

Jack Veronesi was a songwriter from Boston, whose beautiful "Northeastern Wind" is a standout track here. It's also a real one-off. Most private pressing folks here made at least (and in most cases only) one album, Veronesi seemingly just published a single, where this song was the b-side. Bearded country folk weirdo Ken Saul had at least two LPs on his own Seashell label, complete with self-drawn covers and LP back cover text written on a typewriter. His "Lord Of The Skies" is, for me, one of the highlights of the set, directly followed by other bearded country folk weirdo Huckle, from  - you guessed it - Ontario, established in previous volumes as Canada's inofficial home of country folk weirdos. Diggory Venn was a British group built around the talents of brothers Martin and Robin Peirson. Two Friends were what the title says, friends Bucky Wiener and Chip Carpenter with some mellow Californian soft rock that recalls America, especially during it's "lala-lala" chorus. Young Jim Keltner on the drums! Wheatstone Bridge were a heavy rock band from, of all places, Nashville. Ward 6 was a Canadian trio from - you guessed it - Ontario, who mainly covered material by others, but did it pretty well.  

So, here we are again. Almost seventy minutes of mellow-ish, beautiful music from the best decade in music, here at One Buck Records where the sweet sounds of the seventies just keep on truckin'...