Mysterious songs from the Kingdom Of Fife: Revisiting Jackie Leven's Forbidden Songs Of The Dying West

Until a couple of years ago, I didn't know that Jackie Leven had an entire first career as a new wave rocker with Doll By Doll. And I sure didn't know this when I picked up Forbidden Songs Of The Dying West. What I did know was: This wasn't the album I thought it would be. Starting with the album's cover art and the track list, I expected a batch of slightly mystical modern Scottish folk with pop tendencies. There are pop tendencies on this album, even entire pop songs, but the original Forbidden Songs From The Dying West has a bit of everything. Some pop songs, some folk songs, some folk-rock. Synth swashes. Poetry recitals. Spoken word interludes. A bunch of things that, on first (and second) listen don't really go all that well together. Leven put a bunch of stuff that he liked on here, aural or lyrical coherence be damned. As an album this was - at least for me - drifting way too much. And even though no one made me captain, I decided to right the boat and guide it into the direction I had hoped for and that the cover seemingly promised. I wanted something that was closer in spirit to Van Morrison's mysticism, and something that held together as one long mood piece. I think I suceeded. Feel free to disagree in the comments. 

The first order of the day: Unclutter the damn thing. Even though it doesn't run unconsciously long due to some songs and bits being rather short, there is just way too much going on here. Sixteen tracks have been whittled down to nine that make a coherent whole. Not surprisingly, the album went from a CD-era album length, an hour, to a vinyl-era album length of 38 minutes. It's probably fair to say that it's easier to hold a mood and an atmosphere for around 40 minutes than for an hour or more. I also got rid of what I felt was excessive. In the original version of "Come Back Early Or Never Come" we get a recital of the poem, and then Leven puts the entire thing into song. One of these was too much, and it wasn't the song. 

The first Jackie Leven song that I fell in love with was "The Sexual Loneliness of Jesus Christ", a great song title to an even greater song. It has the folk song sensibilities, and the pop sound, and the keyboard embellishments that Leven seemingly liked a lot. So my version of Forbidden Songs From The Dying West was, I admit it, an attempt at an album that sounds a lot like that song. Jackie Leven was a man who invented his own private mythology, proudly declaring on the back cover of Forbidden Songs From The Dying West to hail from the kingdom of Fife as if his place of birth was a place of myth and mystery. And in many ways it was, just like the man. Forbidden Songs Of The Dying West - now more than ever in this concentrated version - transports these sentiments. So join Mr. Leven into his voyage through that kingdom and other mythical landscapes...

From The Record Shelf: The Dixie Chicks take flight

I came to the Dixie Chicks the wrong way. Or probably exactly the right way, as I bought Home after hearing good things about it and it is their best album. I then immediately picked up the follow-up Taking The Long Way which was also very good and then some time later Fly, the One Buck Record of the day. Which meant that I came to their breakthrough Wide Open Spaces, the first album of the classic three lady line up, last. I can see why Wide Open Spaces sold a ton and gave the new-look Chicks an immediate hit. But hearing it after the three superior follow-ups means that its flaws are immediately evident. It's a very mainstream country record that also acknowledges the band's past as a bluegrass outfit, but it is above all a safe album, a polite album, full of songs by corporate songwriters. And when they do pick covers by folks like J.D. Souther and Maria McKee, they're very safe choices. The whole album drowns in sentimental ballads, while the uptempo, bluegrass songs feel too studied to really convince. Wide Open Spaces was an excellent proof of talent, but it didn't really have much personality. 

The same thing can't be said about Fly. Whatever their first album as a trio lacked in that department, Fly makes up for in no time. What really comes out on this album is the band's humor, led on by the impish Natalie Maines. Even before the whole Bush comments scandal, the backlash against the band and Maines' break with the country community which led to their long hiatus, you can see why things could and would end badly with the most conservative contingent of their audience. 

Take "Sin Wagon", one of the uptempo numbers here and a highlight of Fly. It's a song all about fucking, and not that shy about it either. Nathalie Maines takes gleeful pleasure in pointing that out: "That's right, I said mattress dancing..." in case a listener didn't catch her drift the first time. And if that didn't piss some good folks in the bible belt off, the little musical reprise of old gospel standard "I'll Fly Away" right into "on the sin wagon" might've done it. Another really fun number is "Goodbye Earl", written by old folkie turned corporate songwriter Dennis Linde, a great story-song with a touch of black humour that fits right into Maines vocal style and delivery. It also talks about murdering an abusive husband, so, like"Sin Wagon", it was banned from some of the more conservative country stations. A harbinger of things to come. 

One thing that I didn't know until recently because in my neck of the woods American country music was neither on the radio nor a big seller, but Fly was obviously the Born In The U.S.A. of country music, with the band releasing a whooping eigth out of thirteen tracks over the span of more than two years. That's an impressive feat, but what's more impressive is the high quality throughout the album. The up tempo numbers have more bite and conviction and the ballads are less soggy. Another encouraging sign: After a single self-penned song on Wide Open Spaces, the band wrote or co-wrote five of the tracks here, showing that they were slowly coming into their own creatively and were ready to take more control of their music. 

The only flaw of the damn thing? The ugly as fuck album cover. The Chicks hid all the good stuff in the booklet, all portraits centered on different meanings of the album title. I took the (arguably) most provocative one (now that one might've gotten them thrown out of Walmart), because it nicely captures the Chicks' new attitude. 

Hop on board if you can, hop on the sin wagon if you must, but make sure you'll fly...   

Can you feel the Spirit of the Seventies?

Never underestimate the power of Randy California. My re-imagining of Spirit's Spirit of 76 immediately proved to be one of the most popular items around here. So while I'm prepping my trio of album that never were, here's a little something to tide Spirit fans over. A sampler of any Spirit-related adventures from the Seventies once the original band was finished. Although I boldly declared Spirit Mark II to be starting from Spirit of '76 onwards, that is of course strictly speaking not true. Actually, since the original and beloved group imploded, there was a lot of activity in all corners of the Spirit camp, or make that Spirit camps. But not all of it led to greatness, obviously. I already talked in detail about the fractured nature of the post-original band incarnations of Spirit, and Free Spirit Of The Seventies will not dissuade anyone from this notion. 

I originally created this compilation for myself to keep the good stuff from the extremely mixed Spirit years, while throwing away the chaff. Some people might find every guitar doodle of California worth drooling over, but I am far from that guy. As a matter of fact, I find that almost every album of the Spirit Mark II era has stuff on it I'm not digging, the one exception being Farther Along, incidentally also the only album with the returning Andes and Locke. So I culled my favorite moments from those albums to create Free Spirit Of The Seventies. It's essentially a 'best of the rest' type selection from the rest of the decade.

The selection of tracks is nothing if not democratic, covering pretty much every base. Which means that the diverse adventures from 1972 onwards also find a home here: California's Hendrix-inspired solo album Kaptain Kopter And The (Fabulous) Twirly Birds, Ed Cassidy and John Locke's subsequent attempt to form a new Spirit, led by the Staehely brothers, and the first attempt from Ed Cassidy and Randy California to mount the concept album Potatoland, rejected by Epic Records as a follow-up to Kaptain Kopter.  All of these find some representation here, and make the argument that once Spirit entered Mark II everything is more or less at the same level of consequence, and then you have to delve straight into a matter of personal preferences. So these are mine. 

Feedback, the infamous album of the 'fake', California-less band isn't as bad as most would have you believe, nor is it as good as some revisionist history critics would have it. It's okay and not particularly memorable, but has some nice moments, four of which are collected here. Same thing for Potatoland 73, which not only suffers from uneven fidelity, but also from really uneven songwriting and performing. Still, it's good moments, like the George Harrison soundalike "We've Got A Lot To Learn" or "It's Time Now", are good to very good. And I personally don't have much use for most of California's solo album, which to my unwashed ears often sounds too noisy and unfocused, but his versions of Paul Simon's "Mother And Child Reunion" and the Kingston Trio's "Greenback Dollar" - unreleased at the time - plus his own "Rainbow" are nice. 

Some of the selections that didn't find place on my reworked single edition of Spirit of '76 find a new place here, as do select tracks from Son Of Spirit, Farther Along and Future Games. As is, Free Sprit Of The Seventies has five tracks each from Potatoland and Son Of Spirit, four each from Spirit of '76 and Feedback, three from Kaptain Korner and two each from Farther Along and Future Games, plus an unreleased track ("Zandu"). Several tracks are edited to my personal taste and to fit the purposes of this compilation. The cover art continues the patriotic theme of Spirit of '76, though with a, uh, free spirit kind of twist, wouldn't we say... 

All in all, this should give everyone whose love affair with the band ended when the band proper did in 1971 after Dr. Sardonicus a decent sampler into everything Spirit-infused that came afterwards. So, folks, are you ready to get into the Free Spirit Of The Seventies? 

 

Art for Art's sake? Welcome to Sniff'n'the Tears' Art Gallery

I talked about the music of Sniff'n'the Tears yesterday, but I didn't mention the album covers, despite the cover art being quite remarkable, for various reasons. For one thing, its lurid, pulpy nature, at least for the first two albums. I first got intrigued by Sniff'n'the Tears not by the music, but by the album cover of The Game's Up when rifling through my dad's vinyls. Now, one reason is obvious - half naked woman alert! - but there was something about the pulpy crime novel aspect of it that had me interested. Obviously, the music doesn't sound pulpy at all, but these covers sure were able to get some eyeballs on them. The thing that makes Sniff'n'the Tears' cover art so interesting is that Mr. Sniff himself, Paul Roberts, painted them. As a matter of fact, Roberts was juggling a career as a fledgling painter with the career of a fledgling rock star. When he restarted the band after having initially given up on the pub rock iteration of the band in 1974, he was  actually at his most successful as an artist, so taking a chance on the whole rock star thing really was a bit of a risk. Roberts' cover art has a distinctive, ultra-realist style, to the point that the covert art of Fickle Heart, the band's debut, looked like a photo. These albums covers are at least as memorable as the also often lurid ones from Roxy Music, even if they didn't shift more units of the band's albums.   

But what about the music, you say? The music is more or less of a piece with the one on yesterday's Best Of, even though my selection is of course highly selective. I eliminated everything that veered too much into soft rock or, um, cock rock. Anything that bored me obviously had to go also. And like this I ended up with 21 high-quality tracks. Art Gallery admittedly runs a little long at 79 minutes, but I liked everything on here, and I think the band's versatility assures that no one gets bored.

Art Gallery is programmed to run like a companion piece to the album posted yesterday. It is also done in the way a record company would, adding a rarity and a couple of live tracks, which - for this Greatest Hits II type album - also comprise the band's one hit. I started to include live tracks for another reason, though: By the time of Love/Action in 1981 the band had started to embrace 'modern' (i.e. very Eighties) techniques and by its follow up Ride Blue Divide - produced by the band itself - the music was positively swimming in them. So I took live cuts from their Rockpalast concert in 1982 to have better, more muscular versions of "Shame" and "Trouble Is My Business", then decided to throw in "Driver's Seat" and "What Would Daddy Do?" in as a bonus. 

A Best Of and Art Gallery together pretty much bring you all the Sniff'n'the Tears you need, at least from the band's original run. Their surprise hit with "Driver's Seat" again had Roberts reactivate a version of the band in 1991 and he has since then occasionally issued albums as Sniff'n'the Tears. I haven't really delved into any revival Sniff, but might do so at some point in the future. For now though, let's check out the band's heydays, and for that, time to enter my Art Gallery... 

P.S. Not enough art around here? Here's a bonus lurid album cover from Mr. Roberts...

The Curious Case of Sniff'n'the Tears

You know which band never particularly gets its due? You've read the title, duh, so you know it's Sniff'n'the Tears. But really, when was the last time, or ever, that you thought of Paul Roberts and his merry band of musical men? Even at the heights of retromania for all things post-punk, where even marginal or formerly despised outfits got their due, Sniff'n'the Tears didn't so much as sniff (I know, I know!) a critical revival. Maybe everyone thought that one revival per band is enough? And at least Robert & Co. got that one revival - and a fair amount of royalties - when their one big hit became another big hit again after being featured in a European commercial for Pioneer car radios (blast from the past!), pushing "Driver's Seat" which had been a modest to decent-sized hit on release in 1979 all the way to no. 1 in the Netherlands (blame the D...no, OBG, no!). Ah, those were the days, when a car or jeans advert could bring musical heroes back into view, and in the charts. How many people have discovered Nick Drake because "Pink Moon" was featured in an ad for Volkswagen? How many first discovered The Clash's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" because of the classic Levi's commercial? I know I did. 

But still, Sniff'n'the Tears were more than just "Driver's Seat". They are considered one hit wonders, and they are (can you be a two/three hit wonder if it's always the same song that charts?). But they are more. Despite almost constant staff turnover in the band, whose only constant member was lead singer/songwriter and guitar player Paul Roberts, Sniff'n'the Tears four studio albums from 197 to 1982 have a treasure trove of good songs on them, showing them to be a slightly arty new wave band that could easily juggle different musical styles. Their main lane was guitar-based rock, but they also dabbled with reggae elements, dove partly into synth rock and had a lot of pop rhythms underlying their work. Hell, even the faintest traces of jazz are detectable on a track like "Poison Pen Mail". 

Two things mostly stick out, in my mind, about the music of Sniff'n'the Tears. The first is Paul Roberts' voice: he has, what they call around here, un certain grain de voix, a unique and recognizable vocal timbre. The second thing is how textured the actual music is. A number of songs all have their own little soundscapes to them, with a bunch of different keyboard and guitar sounds, sometimes all in the same song. This is exceptionally well made rock music, which makes the fact that no one seems to give much of a damn about the band nowadays (or most days, really) so surprising. Some of it, like "Hungry Eyes" (off the weak Ride Blue Divide) on the accompanying comp does sound very Eighties and thus a little dated, but I'd argue that most of their music has aged really well. 

So consider the One Buck Guy on a mission to rehabilitate Sniff'n'the Tears, starting with their Best Of from 1991 that came out right after "Driver's Seat" to profit from the band's newfound if once again short-lived popularity. It's a pretty good overview, giving listeners a good idea of what the band sounds like. Still, there were a ton of quality songs that didn't find place on there, so this is where I come in. This is the first part of a double feature. Check out the band with this and then come back tomorrow for an exclusively compiled selection of every other worthwhile Sniff'n'the Tears track...

 

Byrds Alt Albums, Part II: Some people call them the space cowboys

This album shouldn't exist. Not in a 'what the hell was he thinking' or in a sacred cow kind of way. This shouldn't exist - and didn't until a couple of days ago - because creating an alternate album from the Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde Byrds era is extremely difficult, bordering on impossible. During this period of reconstruction, when the Byrds finally were Roger McGuinn and whoever he hired,inspiration and songwriting were at an all-time low. Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde has the feel of a bit of a dog's breakfast, and for good reason, because really it was a collection of bits and bops. "Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man" was by the time of releae almost a year old, co-written with Gram Parsons who left the band right before the release of the precedent album, Sweetheart Of The Radio. "Child Of The Universe" was written for the movie Candy, a counter culture sex comedy and if the cupboard hadn't been so bare, probably would have stayed there. "Nashville West", their instrumental salute to the old band of Clarence White and Gene Parsons (who already played the tune in their sets) sounded like pure filler. Speaking of: The closing medley was pure filler, recorded at the last minute to stretch out the feeble running time. Consequently, there is only a single outtake from the time that doubles also as one of the worst, or at least most akward Byrds songs of all time ("Stanley's Song"). So, not a great position for an alternate album. 

That's why originally I was going to skip this era entirely and go right to the 'Ballad of Easy Rider' era. Then, I thought about posting the early version of the album that surfaced about three years ago. This was described as an acetate, though our old pal Farq over at False Memory Foam island doubted the veracity of that statement. He also figured that the mix was a pitch too low  and fixed that, something that he got into an internet shouting match with with the guy who posted that version, if I remember correctly. I was going to post both mixes for comparison reasons, then realized that while I do have two versions of these tracks, both seem to be pitch-corrected. Either which way, it wasn't a satisfying solution as far as alternate albums go. (If you haven't picked up that early version from False Memory Island or elsewhere, give me a holler...)

So, instead of relying on a wealth of extra material, I had to get creative, and did. First order of the day: restructuring. Dr. Byrds And Mr. Hyde is indeed as shizophrenic as R.L. Stevenson's antihero. Half of it is country, following on from Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, or rather One Hundred Years From Now over here at One Buck Records. The other half is more surprising: Some very light touches of psychedelia in the aforementioned movie songs and - for the first time in Byrds history - some comparatively hard rock. So, old dog doing old tricks and all that, I decided to split the tracks according to their musical alignment - side a with the harder rocking and more psychedelic tracks, side b with the country material. The cover art and new album title came straight from what the band wanted to do for the album and did on the back cover. They are astronauts who turn into cowboys, thus you could possible go and say they are...space cowboys! But don't call them Maurice. 

Admittedly, I kneecapped my own concept right away by leading off with "This Wheel's On Fire", but not the heavily psyched out version found on the original album, but rather the first version recorded the same day, which is more straightforward, more country and also played quicker. Clarence White hated the album version of the song and producer Bob Johnston's production and mix, calling it "the most embarassing thing I've ever been part of", which seems a little exagerrated. But yeah, like White and Gene Parsons, I also prefer the more straightforward version. So, psychedelia, shmelia. But, as you will realize, the first thing you'll hear on Space Cowboys will be neither version of "This Wheel's On Fire", but rather the short part of "Your Back Pages" that originally opened the closing medley. I thought it'd be nice and reassuring to hear a bit of the 'old school Byrds', before the more adventurous stuff starts. 

Goofy, clean-shaven Gene Parsons will never not be creepy...

From there we dip into the slight psychedelia of "Candy", an underrated song rejected for the movie of the same name, with lovely harmony vocals by John York, my secret favorite Byrd. It is featured here in a slightly longer version whose longer outro features some of the ghostly vocals and driving guitar that then take center stage in "Bad Night At The Whiskey", so these two link up nicely. "Stanley's Song" might quickly wear out its modest welcome, but the beginning is rather nice, so I grafted this onto "Child Of The Universe". The last track of side a (a.k.a. the 'Space side)' is a total invention, taking the intro of  the psych version of "This Wheel's On Fire" and marrying it to the looser alternative version of "Baby What You Want Me To Do" that was of course part of the closing medley and is also surprisingly noisy, all things considered. Side B, the more relaxed 'Cowboys side', is way more straightforward, with all songs being the originals from Dr. Byrds And Mr. Hyde.  

Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde (and thus Space Cowboys) isn't a great album, but it has great moments. They didn't pursue that direction, and the question of whether people needed or wanted noisy guitar rock from The Byrds is an open one, but "Bad Night At The Whiskey" is a fantastic rock song with its ghostly background vocals, driving guitars and bitter lyrics. "King Apathy III" mixes rock and country to great effect and certainly belongs on the list of underrated Byrds tunes. And if the comic exaggerations of "Drug Store Truck Driving Man", aimed at Ralph Emery ("This one's for you, Ralph...) who had belittled the Byrds after their Grand Ole Opry gig, don't amuse you..well... 

So, does Space Cowboys make a flawed album better? As said above, the odds were against me, so I tried to make the album more unified from a structural standpoint and more interesting. Did it succeed? You tell me...

 

All Pearls, No Swine 14 or: I've just run out of catchy subtitles

So, no title, just the same quality music from underappreciated artists on major labels or the usual finds of gems from the self-published/microlabel circles. This volume is higher than usual on the former, rounding up a number of music business veterans whose names might be very vaguely familiar. 

To make the vague a little more concrete, here's the usual in-depth analysis liner notes random observations. 

The Eagles covered David Blue's "Outlaw Man" for their Desperado album, but it bubbled under, here's the author with his version of the song. 

Californian singer-songwriter Kathy Smith's biggest claim to fame is probably her appearance at the legendary Island Of Wight music festival in 1970, "Topanga" is from the same year's Some Songs I've Saved, her debut. 

Doug "The Ragin' Cajun'" Kershaw, the world-class fiddle player from Louisiana recorded a handful of albums for Warner Brothers in the late 60s and early 70s, "Jamestown Ferry" is from 1972's Devil's Elbow, just before his albums were starting to chart. 

The lovely "Lost Iron Man" comes from Rod Taylor's self-titled debut album for Asylum Records, he changed his stage name to Roderick Falconer soon afterwards for a number of pop and rock records, then became a TV producer. Oh, he was also an award-winning poet at Stanford. And, as seen above, not completely ugly, either. Man of many talents!

Hoover (Willis Hoover) is already familiar to All Pearls No Swine afficionados from his fantastically titled "Jesus Don't Drive No Fastback Car", "Freedom To Stay" comes from the same sessions for a second solo album that was shelved in 1972. 

Eddie Reeves is mainly known as a songwriter for dozens of rock and country acts and rarely recorded in his own name, "On The Street Again" is from an obscure shared showcase album with Jackie DeShannon and Jimmie Holiday, with whom he often collaborated. 

Flutist and saxophonist Charles Lloyd hung out with The Beach Boys in the early 1970s, mainly through their common affection for transcendental meditation, "All Life Is One" has inimitable vocals from the 'Boys. 

The enigmatic Al Manfredi recorded a six-track EP, issued in about a hundred copies and those mainly to record companies in search of a record deal, in 1973. A look at his very small body of work will follow here on One Buck Records at some point. 

                         His music is definitely better than the name (or the haircut...)

Johnny Cougar is of course now known as John Mellencamp, his early work under that ridiculous moniker is better than its reputation, including the featured "Dream Killing Town".

The Pilot of crunchy opener"Rider" isn't the Scottish soft rock/pop group, but the short-lived band led by Bruce Stephens.

One of my favorite tracks of this volume is Dirk Hamilton's forlorn "Billboard On The Moon" from his 1978 debut for Electra, Meet Me At The Crux. And I really like the double waterway-meets-the-cosmos double feature of Eric Andersen's "Blue River" and Keith Christmas' "The Forest And The Shore" that close out proceedings.  

And that's it, folks. Lots of quality music on here, same as it ever was. I might run out of silly subtitles, but All Pearls, No Swine will never run out of good music to discover or rediscover...

The moment 3 1/2 of you have waited for...the final four!

Tempus fugit, my friends. For everything in life, of course, but also for things you wanted to do, then looked up weeks or months later and said 'whoops'. Especially if those things only have an importance for about three and a half individuals. Yes, I'm talking about your old pal and mine, the Best Album Eliminator. The fact that some readers randomly looked at various posts related to it, reminded me that we never finished the damn thing. That which can't be killed people...will rise again. Today. We're gonna see that bloody thing through all the way to its bloody end! Who's with me??? 

Uh...

I SAID 'WHO'S WITH ME???'!

Ok, fine. 

So anyways, since we never wrapped up the elite eigth, here's the results:

Velvet Underground & Nico lost in a bit of an upset to Nevermind (2-3). Revolver defeated Blood On The Tracks (4-2). Abbey Road narrowly won out against Sticky Fingers (3-2). And Who's Next beat Automatic For The People (5-1). 

Which means we get the following Final Four:

Revolver vs. Nevermind

Abbey Road vs. Who's Next

Well, you know what to do, folks...(and if you don't, shame on you...)

One Album Wonders: The stoned'n'beautiful perfect day of Luke Gibson

A pastiche artist like Jonathan Wilson would give half an arm to sound as beautifully, beatifically stoned as Gibson does here, in a way only a 1970s record can. You can study the mannerisms and sound, but the feel of such a record is hard to duplicate. As it turns out, even for Mr. Gibson himself, who never got to record another album. That's a true shame, considering the quality of his single outing here. But hey, this also means that Gibson could not tarnish it with weak follow-ups, instead having his music frozen in time in 1972. "He's called it 'Another Perfect Day' and it is", says an ad from the time, and they're right. it really is. 

Dave "Luke" Gibson was a stalwart of the Toronto music scene, biding his time and learning his trade as a folkie in Toronto's Yorkville district, coming up slightly later than famed Yorkville luminaries Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot. It was of course also the epicentre of Toronto's hippie scene, and it's fair to say that Gibson was definitely a part of that. He co-founded electric blues band Luke & The Apostles in the mid-60s, remarked for their 1967 single "Been Burnt", but infighting had the band implode almost directly afterwards, especially since Gibson had an offer to join local psych rockers Kensington Market. He then reformed Luke & The Apostles in 1970 for another one-off single, then went solo.

Another Perfect Day came out, like Luke & The Apostles' 1970 outing, on True North records, but it was distributed by Columbia Records, so clearly there was some faith in Gibson's outing. But Another Perfect Day came and went, and when it did nothing Gibson left the music business altogether, to become a set painter in the film industry, before reuniting Luke & The Apostles in the 1990s. 

The basis of Luke Gibson's music here is folk, but not the warm, romantic type his countryman Lightfoot popularized. Gibson's folk, with hints of country in it, is fuzzier and earthier. What unites the men is their declaration of love for the nature around them, but where Lightfoot uses romanticized terms to create a Norman Rockwell-style depiction of Canada, Gibson depicts a less romantisized picture on songs such as "Lobo". "Hotel", a tale of a poor drifter trying his fortune in a new town becomes a tale of indifference towards the ill-fated in life. I am also particularly fond of the beautiful, bouncy "Full Moon Rider", a song that gave Gbson's publishing company its name. "All Day Rain", already featured on the very first All Pearls, No Swine, sounds like a stoned hangover, watching the day go by behind rainy windows. 

But really, Another Perfect Day is a fantastic album, top to bottom. Maybe not a perfect day, but a perfect 40 minutes to spend with some very fine music...

The French Connection: It's Nolwenn (Ohwo!)

Merc'h Breizhat, or "girl from Brittany", if I haven't totally fucked up my attempts at the local language. Nolwenn Leroy is indeed proudly brétonne, and if you check out her music in our One Buck Record of the day you will find, that ignoring this fact is impossible when listening to her music. She made an entire record of traditional tunes and songs about Britanny with 2010's Bretonne which also became her biggest international seller, begetting a special edition with a bonus disc of British folk songs and two Mike Oldfield covers, which in turn became the basis for an album issued in the US in 2013, Nolwenn. 

Nolwenn is singing in a ton of languages on this extensive 40-track compilation.A Little more than half are in her Native French, but she also sings in Gaelic for the fantastic "Mna Na H-Eirann", in Bréton for a couple of songs and English for more than a third. So, don't worry if you are only a budding francophile, there's plenty of stuff to like here, even if French leaves you baffled. Since Nolwenn covers so much terrain, you will find things to like here if you like intelligent French pop, but also if you like traditional British folk (she covers, among others, "Greensleeves" and "Scarborough Fair"), if you like (quote-unquote) 'world music', and generally speaking if you like intelligent, well-made music that just might happen to be in French, you should check out Merc'h Breizhat. 

Leroy clearly grew up on the music of the mid- to late Eighties, having the good taste to cover "Running Up That Hill", a long time before Stranger Things made it a hit record again, but also Cyndi Lauper ("Time After Time"), ntional idol FRance Gall and her megahit "Elle Elle L'a", but also - as mentioned above - "Mike Oldfield ("Moonlight Shadow" and "Lost In France"), even Jevetta Steele's "Calling You" from cult classic Bagdad Café. Francis Cabrel is a lesser known name internationally, but he is one of France's premier singer-songwriters, so her cover of "Je t'aimais, je t'aime et je t'amerais' is most welcome. 

Nolwenn won a musical television contest, in this case Star Academy - a mix between Big Brother and something like American Idol - but don't hold that against her. Granted, her self-titled debut still betrays its origins as a TV spin-off product, relying on big ballads, but from 2005's Histoires Naturelles and its huge lead-off single "Nolwenn Ohwo!" on, she was in full control of her music. "Nolwenn Ohwo!" was the single that made me take notice, not only because the song is ultra-catchy, but because it's really well-produced. And because it's fun to have a singer giving herself her own 'theme song', here used to downplay accusations of arrogance that her time in the Star Academy house brought her. Coupled with her aristocratic name (her stage name, Leroy, is her mother' maiden name, but her real name is Le Magueresse, also carrying hints of vieille noblesse with it), she was accused of being a snob, with her song insistingotherwise: "Je ne me prends pas pour une reine / J'étais comme je suis, Nolwenn, ohwo! / Rien a changé, j'ai toujours peur le soir". It's essentially her "Jenny From The Block", but unlike Jennifer Lopez' fake-as-all-hell bullshit, you want and do believe her. 

                                     No, she doesn't think she's a queen! Vraiment!

So, I hope I did a good enough sell job for Merc'h Breizhat for you to discover this young lady. Vous n'allez pas le regretter, mes chers amis...

It's the Burritos' last showdown...at sundown

Because, you know, dad jokes. Did you know that there's a show down at sundown (Sundown Club, Manhattan)? This 1982 show was presented on the Silver Eagle radio show and thus features excellent audio quality. This is the early and late show combined.Tracks 1 -10 are the early show, 11 - 20 the late one. Jerry Reid guests on fiddle for a couple of numbers.  

What's interesting here is that while the Burrito Brothers' albums and singles were very slick, commercial affairs, their live show puts more of an emphasis on classic country material and covers. They pay homage to Saint Gram, the founding father of the classic Burritos by covering "Hickory Wind" and playing "Christine's Tune", but also bring out ol' chestnuts like "Orange Blossom Special", "Six Days On The Road" and "Jole Blon". Hell, they even wheel out "Oh, Lonesome Me". Gib Guilbeau pays homage to his roots ("Louisiana Saturday Night", Louisiana"), even reviving the old Swampwater classic "Big Bayou". 

 

Overall, this is a fine, earthier version of the Burrito Brothers, bringing back a bit of the spirit of the classic era Burritos who would work their way through classic country (and soul) tunes. So, this is then a good way to leave them, and really do final call on Burrito week here at One Buck Records. Hope you enjoyed it, our regularly scheduled program will resume shortly...

Friends of Friends: Burritos for the Eighties, anyone..?

One group's valley is another group's mountain. And nowhere is that more true than in our ongoing (though soon ending) adventures of The Flying Burrito Brothers. Once they were flying no more, they were flying higher than ever. And while they finally climbed the mountain of charts success, for some their output is the nadir of The Flying Burrito Brothers. Those last folks would be wrong by the way. But yeah, we are now entering the phase in which the once again reconstituted Burritos would shed both the Flying from their band name - seemingly upon pressure from the record company - and also any pretension of upholding classic country traditions. Nothing on the records of the newly christened Burrito Brothers would be something a stone cold trad country guy like Gram Parsons would recognize. 

Originally The Burrito Brothers were indeed a continuation of the reborn Burritos from 1975. Gene Parsons had been replaced by old Byrds comrade Skip Battin, and several years and several misadventures too long to recount later, three of the five Burritos from 1976 were still going: Gib Guilbeau, Sneaky Pete Kleinow and Battin. The new guy in tow was, as per usual for the band, an old acquaintance: Guilbeau's old bandmate in Swampwater, John Beland. Both men immediately hit up a fruitful songwriting partnership. And from these sessions sprang the songs for the Burrito Brothers, a project that was way more commercial than anything they had issued since at least Flying Again. Too much for Skip Battin, who got quickly sidelined (with no hope at any lead vocals), and - despite being on the cover of the first album - quit the band during the making of their first album. Afterwards, the band continued on as a trio for a bit (while picking up bassists and drummers as needed), but then decisions loomed. 

True to their new sound, Guilbeau & Beland wanted to move to Nashville, while Sneaky Pete - a Los Angelito for almost twenty years now - wanted to continue his dual career as an animator, thus letting the other two leave with the Burritos name in tow. Quick trivia time: What do The Empire Strikes Back, The Right Stuff, The Terminator and Gremlins have in common? Sneaky Pete worked on their special visual effects, even if he wasn't always credited! Yay, Sneaky!

But Kleinow was now gone from the group he founded and led throughout its first revival phase, though admittedly in Beland & Guilbeau's new, slicker country sound there wasn't much space for his attention-heavy pedal steel style. With Kleinow gone, the two Burrito Brothers decided to stay as a duo and pick up musicians whenever live shows called for them. And so they did. And as indicated in the opening paragraph, they did it very successfully. Having had a single chart entry for a single, a measly (and fluky) 95 in 1979, they racked up nine singles hits, seven of them Top 50 hits (with one other barely missing, at 53). The Flying Burrito Brothers never were a commercially successful band, the Burrito Brothers definitely were...

But is the music any good? Yes, if you can stomach a certain slickness that comes with Beland's & Guilbeau's style. It's no wonder that they finally started to sell some records, because they both could write highly commercial music with clear and big hooks, recored with an extremely professional sound. Friends Of Friends is a compilation of what to my mind is the best of the Burrito Brothers, culled from the entire period of their adventures, from first single "She's A Friend Of A Friend" to songs from their goodbye album recorded years after they stopped (Back To The Sweethearts Of The Rodeo). Some of these songs, like "I'm Drinkin' Canada Dry" have some solid country humour, others show their hand for ballads ("Burning Embers"). It might be hard to reconcile what the Burrito Brothers are doing with, say, The Gilded Palace Of Sin, but taken on their own, this is a fun listen. Spring is knocking on our doors, and this is pretty good driving music, if nothing else. But also something else. 

And with this entry we are almost at the end of the One Buck Records Burrito week. Tomorrow, as a sort of "encore", the Burrito Brothers do their final stand, at least on One Buck Records, with a live album, and then we're off to something else...

   

  

When you're right, you're right, m'am...

 

Uh oh, those Burrito Brothers are flying again...

Blame the Dutch. No, really. I mean, I blame the Dutch all the time for all kinds of things (it's genetic), but as for why The Flying Burrito Brothers couldn't just be a fond memory in the eyes of (too) few country rock fans...blame the Dutch. Already the biggest market both for country rock and for the accompanying bootlegs, the Dutch couldn't get enough of The Flying Burrito Brothers. Even after Chris Hillman and Al Perkins left for Stephen Stills' Manassas, a last lucrative tour of the Netherlands couldn't be passed up, so Rick Roberts and the last iteration of the Burritos, a tried-and-true bluegrass band ready to launch their career as Country Gazette went to the Netherlands one last time in early 1972 to wrap up any Burrito commitments. But the Dutch still couldn't get enough, so Roberts & Co. returned one year later for one last 'one last tour', this time even including Sneaky Pete, despite Country Gazette having issued their proper album, just as Rick Roberts had issued his, a highly underrated affair. 

A year later, A & M issued their retrospective double album Close Up The Honky Tonks, including some rarities (which of course made up my 'final album' Last Supper) and the Dutch chimed in with their own version, Honky Tonk Heaven. Neither of these sold particularly well, but it kept the band name going, especially in Europe (blame the...well, you get the idea). So old Byrds and Burritos manager Eddie Tickner hatched a plan for the great return of The Flying Burrito Brothers. They would indeed be flying again.  With every member of the later versions busy or uninterested, Tickner could at least get two founding members of the classic era, Chris Ethridge and Sneaky Pete to go for it. Ethridge had already recorded with Joel Scott Hill as L.A. Getaway on an album of the same name in 1972 (often credited to Hill, Ethridge & Barbata), and had been with him in a band called The Dockerhill Boys, also including ex-Byrd Gene Parsons. Those four then recruited Gib Guilbeau, with whom Parsons had worked before The Byrds came calling, and this five-piece were your new Flying Burrito Brothers. 

From the mercenary way the band was revived to the way country rock veterans, if possible with a connection to the old band or at least its contemporaries, were recruited, this would be the way of the Burrito from now on. These Flying Burrito Brothers were already the 13th iteration of the band and before the name was finally retired in 2000 another 39 (!) line-ups would follow. But these first ersatz Burritos, were they any good? As a matter of fact, they were. Flying Again was a pretty strong effort, highlighting a good batch of original songs from the likes of Hill, Parsons and Guilbeau. Besides the sequel "Hot Burrito No. 3" which reminds people that it's never a good idea to follow up classics with a distinct title, the ony issue is the abundance of covers cluttering up the latter part of side a, possibly included at the behest of the record company. The Burritos had already covered "Dim Lights" with Gram Parsons on vocals, even though at least the upbeat version here, dominated by fiddle, takes a slightly different spin, whereas George Jones' "Why Baby Why" sounds utterly pedestrian, like a barroom band on an uninspired tuesday evening. Which, in many ways, these Burritos were. 

But they had good, even excellent stuff on here, otherwise the One Buck Guy would't bother. The new Burritos covered two Dan Penn songs, with their take on "You Left The Water Runnng" a fair approximation of Gram Parsons' old Cosmic American Music, which really was only country soul. But the real highlight here is their take on Penn's "Buildig Fires", arguably one of the finest country rock offerings of the period. It was issued as a single, albeit without success, as usual. Gene Parsons brings his usual humble persona and warm vocals to his own "Desert Childhood", a beautiful reminiscence, Gib Guilbeau's "Bon Soir Blues" recalls his Louisiana roots, and "River Road" is just a really good country rock tune, which maybe should've been the closer instead of the well-meant but..uh...not as well executed "Hot Burito #3".

So, Flying Again might not be up to the heights of the classic era, but it kicked off the 'up for grabs' era of the Burritos in style and is probably the best studio record any Flying Burrito Brothers outfit cut after the heydays of the band. It is also the band's highest charting release, though that is of course only a relative feat. It might be the Burritos' best seller, but still only reached a measly 138 on the charts. Soon, more changes were afoot for those Burrito Boys, but for now they were flying again, and relatively high in the sky. Not soaring, mind you, but a flight well worth joining nonetheless...

P.S.: What certainly didn't help the record was the abysmal cover art. I left the record untouched but provided a better alternative to the grisly original. I mean seriously, what were they thinking? I wouldn't want to buy a record that has freaky butterfly monster girl on the cover. Would you? 

          Hi! I'm freaky butterfly monster girl! Please buy this record! Or I'll murder you!

 

A Burrito or more for your last supper?

If the dismissal of Gram Parsons and the disappointing showing of The Flying Burrito Bros. weren't enough to do the band in, Stephen Stills was. Since the last time we've seen them, founding member "Sneaky" Pete had left the band to concentrate - like Chris Ethridge before him - on better paying studio session work. The pedal steel was now manned by Al Perkins. Bernie Leadon was the next to go (replaced by old Hillman comrade Kenny Wertz), leaving the band to back up Linda Ronstadt, where he ran into a couple of other musicians struggling to make their mark (Glenn Frey, Don Henley & Randy Meisner) and nothing was ever heard of these four guys again. Nope, nothing. Like, ever. 

Hillman - realizing that he had a band capable of paying his first love, bluegrass, right under his nose - asked veteran fiddle player Byron Berline to join, finally adding Kenny Bush on bass, so Hillman could concentrate on playing mandolin. In mid-1972 Stills invited the core Burritos Hillman, Roberts, Perkins and Berline down to Florida to jam with him, then issued official invites to Hillman, Perkins and Berline. The latter declined, but Hillman and Perkins agreed, bringing the Flying Burrito Brothers to a temporary end.

In order to wrap up their contract with A &M Records, the Burritos still owed them a final album, and it was the classic 'live album as contract filler' situation. The Last Of The Red Hot Burritos was an okay album and a pretty good reflection of the bluegrass-heavy stage show at the time, but as a final statement of the band it was...relatively underwhelming. This got the One Buck Guy thinking: What if, instead of bringing out a live album, A & M had insisted on bringing out a studio platter as the final Burrito record? This is what Last Supper is, an album compiled from leftovers to fulfill their contract. 

The band had cut a number of songs before and after The Flying Burrito Bros., about two thirds of an album. In order to fill up the album, why not go back to the archives and the Gram Parsons era, adding three tracks from the loose cover material sessions they did right before or after Burrito Deluxe (there's conflicting information concerning the time line here). In this way, Last Supper would also pay homage to the band's entire era, not just the late-era Hillman-Roberts version of the band. 

Last Supper opens with the familiar fuzz of Sneaky Pete's steel, so "Did You See" must've come from right before The Flying Burrito Bros. From this reminder of the Burrito sound we delve right into their C&W standard war chest, with Parsons' take on "Dim Lights", before highlighting Roberts ("In My Own Small Way", later issued on Roberts' solo album) and Sneaky Pete ("Beat The Heat"), sandwiched around Hillman's take on Jesse Winchester's "Payday", before digging out the Gene Clark-led outtake "Here Tonight" to close out what would habe been side a.

Side b would then open with a fuzzy version of the Stones' "Hony Tonk Women", courtesy of Parsons, of course, before adding another cover sung by Hillman (Harlan Howard's "Pick me Up On Your Way Down"), a cameo by Bernie Leadon to sing lead on John Fogerty's "Lodi", Parsons' excellent take on "To Love Somebody" and Roberts' "Feel Good Music", closing with a reminder of the heartfelt beauty Parsons could bring to the band, on a fragment of Dylan's "I Shall Be Released". 

So, Last Supper as conceived gives you a great, democratic overview of The Flying Burrito Brothers as they were from 1969 to 1972. It could and would have been a fine way to say goodbye. But either way the goodbye was only temporary, as we will see in our next chapter of the ongoing Burritos saga here at One Buck Records Burrito Week...

Burrito week continues: Chapter two: The Burritos transform into...Eagles (?!?)

Blame The Cult Of Parsons, again. When people talk about The Flying Burrito Brothers, they basically only talk about the band when Gram Parsons was in it. To a certain type of music critic (and music fan), the band seems to stop existing the moment Parsons was fired for showing up a mess one too many times. Everything that you read about the Burritos is basically all about Parsons, so until I picked up Hot Burritos! The Flying Burrito Brothers Anthology 1969-1972 back when it came out I didn't even know that the original band had recorded a third album. Not lumped in with the new and revived Burritos starting a couple of years later and that some would dismiss as a total travesty, yet not attached to The Cult Of Parsons, it exists in a weird shadow zone of its own. One out of which One Buck Records is trying to lift it now. 

First of all, The Flying Burrito Bros (a.k.a. the "blue album") is a very fine album. It also sounds nothing like The Gilded Palace Of Sin. By 1971 the band was completely overhauled. Bernie Leadon and Michael Clarke had already joined for Burrito Deluxe, the extremely disappointing second album (and last of Parsons' tenure). I already talked in detail about country rock's problem of following up a classic album when presenting Manassas' reworked second album Do You Remember The Americans? back in December. Burrito Deluxe is a disjointed mess, the result of creative juices stopping to flow while drugs and alcohol really started flowing, especially for Parsons. Recording sessions were haphazard, inspired songwriting at a minimum. The laziness of Parsons especially is exemplified by opening the album with, you guessed it, "Lazy Days", a song written in 1967 and already cut (and not used) by The Byrds. 

After the disppointment of Burrito Deluxe and the departure of Parsons the band needed to rebound in a big way, and did. Hillman, the best second banana in music, had drafted in another guy to share lead vocal and front man status with. The job had gone to virtually unknown Rick Roberts, who acquitted himself quite nicely. He gets credited on all seven of the album's original songs, co-writing four with Hillman and getting three solo songs including "Colorado", which became an instant standard of their live show. The sound became softer, very heavy on harmonies and shared leads. If it didn't sound like the Burritos of old, it certainly sounds a lot like the softer tracks of what the Eagles would do very soon. 

All three outside tracks are great, and Roberts' delicate balladry, verging on folk at times, bring a different aspect to the band. It's certainly an album that, a year after James Taylor's breakthrough, could have and should have found a bigger audience. Instead, it sank lile a stone, beating Burrito Deluxe by actuallycreeping into the charts, but at a disappointing 176. A harsh result for a fine album, which you are hereby cordially invited to discover (or re-discover?)...

PS: If you're thinking "Oh, the One Buck Guy is just gonna lazily post a bunch of normal FBB albums", be back the day after tomorrow for an alternate album of what could have been the swansong of the "classic era" band... 

It's Burritos week here at OBG's! Chapter one: Come into the gilded palace of sin...

Where do you go when you already start at the top of the mountain? This is a luxury problem to have, for sure, considering how many bands and artist never ever climb that mountain. But it is a problem nonetheless. What do you do, if your best work is already done right after that first album? Try to top it somehow? Have more modest additions? The accompanying question for me is of course: Is there a point to a project involving a band that by general consensus only got worse during its tumultous tenure. (And that is, if we count all approximately 1.254 iterations of the group as coming from the same bloodline. The story of The Flying Burrito Bros. is a story of devolution, rather than evolution, and a story of diminishing returns. It's a story worth telling anyway, I believe, and will do my best to do so...

So, The Flying Burrito Brothers, a name that is immediately and intimately associated with Gram Parsons and - to a lesser degree - Chris Hillman, but it's also a name that then passed through the hands of dozens and dozens of country rock journeymen, sometimes with the participation of founding member "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow, sometimes without a single original Burrito. But hold! Technically, the guys we think of as The Flying Burrito Brothers - Parsons, Hillman, Kleinow and bass man Chris Ethridge weren't the original Burritos, either. They recovered the name from a loose group of musicians, half ex-members of The Remains, half ex-members of Parsons' old group The International Submarine Band. who also let dozens of musician sit in with them, when they moved back east. Maybe the name was supposed to be passed along from one group of relatively down on their luck country rockers to others to try and make something out of it. 

After all, The Gilded Palace Of Sin is an all-time classic, an album that could conceivably be included on 'greatest albums of all time'-lists, yet it barely charted and half of the copies it sold seems to have gone straight into the hands of other musicians. Technically, only three of the Burritos albums even charted, none higher than a pretty dysmal 138, and the band never had a single charts single until a live version of "White Line Fever" became a fluke charts entry in 1979, a full decade after the Burritos we all remember started.

Is there anything interesting that I can add when talking about The Gilded Palace Of Sin? Probably not. It's a fantastic record, top to bottom, one of the most consistent records to come out of the subgenre. Some folks don't like the talking-blues-style closing number "Hippie Boy", but I think it's just fine. "Hot Burrito #1" and "Hot Burrito #2" admittedly have terrible names, akin to an artist titling a piece "Untitled No. 67", but they are fantastic, and "#1", better remembered as "I'm Your Toy" has become an oft covered genre classic. The anti-draft anthem "My Uncle" and "Wheels", the unofficial thme song for the always-on-the-road Burritos have equally reached genre classic status. "Sin City" is every bit the genre classic that Nick Hornsby's protagonist Rob describes it as in High Fidelity. I mean, really, there are no weak spots. The double covers of "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" and "Dark End of The Street" could look uninspired, but really were a matter of the heart for Parsons. 

So, we'll start on the top of the mountain and then slowly come down. But we'll also reclimb some modest peaks, and even in the valleys there are worthwhile sights and sounds. Well, sounds, mostly. 

So I'll hope you travel along with me all the way through Burrito week here at One Buck Records. Let's get going. First stop: The Gilded Palace Of Sin.