The Vanishing: How Barbara Keith Dropped A Classic Album And Then Simply...Dropped Out

Time to check back in with one of the venerated perfomers on our beloved All Pearls No Swine series. Barbara Keith wasn't as obscure a name as some of the others featured on the very first APNs, but she made herself obscure by simply vanishing at the tie he brought out the album that could and should have been her big breakthrough. Keith had played the folk clubs of Greenwich village, before playing with the folk-rock combo Kangaroo, led by future Orleans-leader John Hall, who published an album in 1968. She then recorded her self-titled debut for Verve Forecast, which had some decent numbers on it, though nothing exceptionally striking. Allmusic's Richie Unterberger is right, when he says that it is " respectable, slightly above-average singer/songwriter musicn with a strong country-rock flacor", the latter of which of course pleasing the One Buck Guy. 

But the real stunner came, when three years later she recorded and released another self-titled album, this time on Reprise. As one would imagine from a Warner Brothers/Reprise recording, the cream of players showed up to help out, including Lowell George (whose slide elevates Keith's classic "Detroit Or Buffalo"), Lee Sklar, as well as Spooner Oldham and Stinky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel. 

"All Along The Watchtower" is a truly intriguing take on Dylan's classic, including some electronic effects that imitate the growling cat. The paranoid, apocalyptic atmosphere of the song really comes through and if Keith's version has a minor fault, it's that it fades out too quickly, just as the electric guitars start to get going. "The Bramble And The Rose" is a superior ballad,as is "Rainy Nights Are All The Same", and I've already talked about what a great song "Detroit Or Buffalo" is, as it was done by both One Buck Records-featured Bruce Stephens and Neal Casal. The gospel-inspired "Burn The Midnight Oil No More" or the anthemic "Free The People", almost immediately covered by Delaney & Bonnie - Barabar Keith is taking the 'all killer, no filler' concept to heart here.

Despite the quality of the album - ten tracks, some classics, none less than very good - there was one major critic of the album - Barbara Keith herself. "It didn't feel like me yet, and so we gave back the album advance money and quit". Keith had just married Keith Tibbles, the songwriting partner of the album's producer Larry Marks, and - with the album somehow not matching the sound she imagined for herself, Keith up and went and quit the music business entirely, to start a family with Tibbles. With Keith dropping out, Reprise did little to no promotion for the album and it was almost immediately withdrawn, only adding to the album's myth. For years and years there were no signs of Keith, then 25 years later she resurfaced with the family band The Stone Coyotes, consisting of Tibbles and her stepson, as a local attraction in the Springfield, Massachussets area. But that's another story. 

Now, I don't know what could have probably been Keith's problem with the album, as everything here is top-notch: Keith's songwriting, with only the Dylan number coming from the outside, the production, the playing. This is nothing less than fantastic. Then again, so was The La's' only album (the curse of the self-titled albums?), and Lee Mavers couldn't hear it, and also dropped out. Whaddayaknow, right?! Either way, listen to this, and tell me I'm wrong. 

In addition to the classic 1972 eponymous (there! I said it!) album you'll get a whooping twelve bonus tracks, eleven tracks from the debut album and its singles, as well as a modern remix of "All Along The Watchtower". I didn't include the two Kangaroo tracks, as their acid rock fuzz guitar intermezzos, even within Keith's folk-rockn don't really match with the rest of the music here, though fans of that type of music can probably worse than checking it out. But befor these extracurricular studies, check out Barbara Keith and wonder with me how she could possibly quit the music business with that album in the bag. 

The More All Pearls No Swine Change...

 ...the more they stay the same, obviously. Taking a second visit into the 90s yields one of those APNS volumes that is low on truly rare and/or odd stuff. Then again, in the golden age of the CD, a concept like private press records could not be more out of style. Instead All Pearls No Swine Vol. 34 presents a bunch of underappreciated and too little known recordings, with the occasional indie weirdo thrown in. 

With the 90s really being the birthplace of Alt Country/No Depression, this volume has a number of entries in that particular subgenre, starting with the kicking-ass-est of kicking ass openers, Uncle Tupelo's "Gun". Of all of their heavier, punk-inspired songs this is by far my favorite, with a chorus I will always sing/shout along with: "Just don't tell me which way I oughta run / or what good I could do anyone / 'cause my heart it was a gun / it's unloaded now, so don't bother". From there we dip right into 90's slow-core with Red House Painters' amazing cover of Kiss' "Shock Me", then check in with a pop/new wave hero (and ex-punk-ish) Midge Ure with the anthemic "I See Hope In The Morning Light" from 1991's Pure, which I fished out of a bargain bin for a buck (where'd ya think my name came from?) without particularly high expectations, but which really is an underappreciated, extremely well done pop album, that just had the misfortune to come out when that kind of music was just starting to feel a bit passé, what with grunge and alternative rock starting to push the old-fashioned pop establishment towards the door. 

Speaking of the establishment: There's a ton ofrejuvenated  veterans showing up on this volume: After his, uh, not unanimously loved comeback as a hair metal hero in the late 8s, the early 90s was a bit of a more low-key time for Mr. Vincent Furnier, which means that a great little song like "Lost In America" might have slipped through the cracks, in which he hilariously talks of the trials and tribulations of a disaffected young guy. The lyrics are too long to quote, but I love his deadpan delivery towards the end, when he reiterates that he's looking for a girl with a gun and a job, then adds "and a house...with cable". Tom Petty shows up with the home recorded demo of "Wildflowers", while the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band deliver one of their best tunes of this relative down period wth "Angel". Other Americna vets in play: The Flying Burrito Bros. Mark 112 or so covering Son Volt's classic "Windfall", while ex-Byrd John York shows up again with the lovely "Whose Door".

A loose Americana affiliation can also be given to the two rarities: Tom Kell's "The Gun", and Ed & Pat Gibson's "Ode To Billie-Joe Tucker", both awesome. Enough has been said on these pages on the greatness of Neal Casal, checking in with "Day In The Sun" from his classic debut album, while Gillian Welch's & David Rawlings' fabulous"Birds Of A Feather" was demoed, but didn't make it onto the former's debut album. Which is a shame because it's country harmonising heaven, as one would expect, and livelier than a lot of stuff that made it onto Revival. And finally there's Alt Country mainstays The Jayhawks, here in it's Mark Olson-lesslater iteration, with the excellent "The Man Who Loved Life" from the underrated Sound Of Lies.

It's not all Americana or Alt Country, though: Great popmoments from Icehouse, Jackie Leven and the ever-reliable Aztec Camera. A pop classic of another kind is "Velvet", made famous by A-Ha, but here in its original form by Pal Waaktaar's band Savoy (named after his wife and co-vocalist, ahhhh, cute). Waaktaar always dreamed of making moody guitar-based rock, and arguably did it as well as possible on this track. Blur team up with their French heroine Françoise Hardy (immortalized with a fab comp on these pages) and the Bhundu Boys take us away into the orient, and out of All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 34, with their "Foolish Harp".

An eclectic program with ton of good stuff to discover. Same as it ever was. 

There's Bob Dylan's (Hired) Guns Across The River, Tryin' To Pound You...

The Billy The Kid Sessions outtakes have been around for the better part of forever, but they always were a frustrating listen: Reflecting the shambolic nature of the sessions itself, there's tons of false starts, both musically and vocally, as well as talking to the engineers in the sound booth, people laughing and caughing through the music, and lots and lots of dead space. I compiled a version of these many years ago, notably before I discovered Audacity, and it remained a frustrating listen, despite the many fun, even slightly revelatory moments coming from the sessions, as it was hard to - you know - concentrate on the music in the middle of all the detritus. So, finally I got down to do something about it: The music of Dylan's Billy The Kid Sessions, and only the music. No bullshit. No talking until strictly necessary. No time wasted. Music, all I hear is music..

As said above, the sessions from whence this music came were aything but sharp or concentrated. Dylan - already in a wtriting drought forthe better part of two years - had ambled down to Mexico to also play in Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garret & Billy The Kid, in a performance that didn't make him out to be a future star of the silver  screen. His mostly silent role as henchman Alias is mostly (in)famous for Dylan's big scene being the one in which his character reads labels of canned food. Somebody get that man an Academy Award! Asap! Tasked with producing a soundtrack, there was a whole lot of aimless jamming, a few unsuccesful stabs at songs such as "Goodbye Holly", "Sweet Amarillo" (later sung on Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour in a more finished form by Cindy Bullens) or "Rock Me Mama" (outfitted with new lyrics and finished by Old Crow Medicine Show in 2003). 

The soundtrack that finally emerged from these sessions was decidedly a minor work that showed Dylan's somewhat mitigated concentration, as well as his continued inability to come up with tunes. He only completed two real songs - the classic "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" and "Billy", a ballad about the title character present in three different versions, arguably to take up space on the album. The rest were instrumental score pieces, even though, well, if you hire Dylan, you don't really hire him for a score. Here's the leading lyricist of his generation, stayiong relatively speechless, not to mention that his compositions are missing the dynamic of a trained score composer. So Dylan's Pat Garret & Billy The Kid wasn't a particularly satisfying listen, but the whole thing was treated as a minor side project anyway, with Dylan rebounding with Planet Waves six months later. 

All of these factors make the music on the Billy The Kid Sessions both fascinating and frustrating. You wonder what would have happened to the aforementioned song fragments and abandoned songs had Dylan concentrated on finishing them. There are a ton of moments - some admittedly fleeting - in this bootleg, where the music perks up and risks to become more interesting than what ended up on the album,  but just as often suddenly ends, as the music sputters out or some other incident stops the take. This stop-and-go pattern was undoubtedly one of the biggest frustration with listening to this set, and so the idea to streamline the music was born. Historical the bootleg might be, where you hear Dylan mucking around in the studio, but it was simply an awful way to listen to the music. 

Now that only the music was left, I was still left with a dilemma of sorts: Does all of this stuff deserve to be heard? How much wordless (and, let's be fair here, sometimes tune-less) vocalizing from the Bobster is too much? Is the often repetitive nature of the tunes endearing or annoying? I am genuinely of two minds about what's better: a slightly repetitive 55 minute version that gathers pretty much all of the worthwhile music from the sessions, or a more streamlined, 'could have come out on vinyl' 46 minute edition. So, I'll do something Solomon-ian that's a first for this here blog: I'll leave you the choice.

If you are a semi-casual listener (because let's face it, if you are here and intersted in outtakes from an obscure Bob Dylan soundtrack, you might not  be a casual listener) the vinyl version of this should suffice nicely, if you want to dig even deeper inton the scraps, you can go for the CD edition. The biggest differences in the set list are the loss of several "Billy" variations, including "Funky Billy" - the third version of "Billy" on this album, where they try out the song with a markedly funkier guitar riff, that was both interesting as well as slightly incongruous -  and a number of reprises in the shortened vinyl edition. 

No matter which edition you choose (choose your own adventure here at OBG's!), there's some fine music to be found in the midst of the murk, and I am happy to present you these moments in what I think is easily the best way to listen to this music. So take it away with Billy The Kid Sessions, and a still searching Dylan wandering the wilderness, down some interesting dusty backroads...

The Full Monty...ah...Whoops, No, I Mean The Full Donnie...

The problem with starting, like, half a dozen or so loose series of themed albums is that it's easy to forget them and then, only a couple of months later say, 'oh, I wanted to post a follow-up to that'. When I posted my rejiggered version of the Dick Tracy soundtrack back in *checks archives* July I promised a series of reworked (and thus hopefully)improved soundtracks, then promptly forgot about posting a second album for a cool six months. But here it is, and it is a doozy, folks. A great score and some, uh, interesting pop music cobined to give you the whole Donnie Darko experience. 

Speaking of interesting. That is probably the word that comes easily to mind when thinking about Richard Kelly's debut film. Weird, fascinating, overwrought, (over)ambitious - lots of other adjectives come to mind. Truth is, though, when that movie came out in 2001, there was nothing like it. People will of course remember the dark, winding, weird and finally relatively impenetrale story of doomed teen Donnie Darko's adventures including a pedophile self-help guru, a scary-ass 6-foot+ rabbit (well, a scary-ass six foot+ dude in a rabbit suit), wanton destruction and arson, a plane crash, time travel and, uh, the end of the world. Donnie Darko came out as part of a series of mindfuck films around the millenium, none of course bigger or mindfuck-ier than Fight Club. Where is my mind? 

Now, it's been a good long while since I last saw Donnie Darko - at least twenty years ago. And I wonder whether it'll hold up, as so many of his mindfuck movie brethren fail to, once you know their story secrets. But I suspect it might, even if the crazy-ass story becomes less important than the look and feel of the film. Donnie Darko had a number of intriguing surface features: the moody cinematography courtesy of veteran Steven Poster, the acting by a young Jake Gyllenhaal in the title role, joined by produceer Drew Barrymore and Patrick Swayze playing against type. And it has a distinctive setting - the fall of 1988; with Michael Dukakis' disastrous bid to beat Bush the Elder being the background for the film's crazier adventures. And sometimes these surface features make all the difference. That's why a film like The Sixth Sense still holds up even if you know the twist - it's just so well designed and shot - back when Shyamalan wasn't synonymous with charlatan. Or why The Usual Suspects still works, even if you know who the hell Keyser Soze is - the fun-as-hell actors and surehanded direction make the film worh a revisit either way. 

But maybe the most stunning was the use of music: Michael Andrews' beautiful, or suspenseful (mostly) piano miniatures alternating with a number of 80s pop and alternative rock? I remember how the film immediately hooked me when Echo And The Bunnymen's "The Killing Moon" played over the opening of Donnie riding his bike. Both the score and the soundtrack album got released, but they missed out on what made the music of the movie special: It was the mix of Andrews' score intermingled with these 80s tunes. So this OBG-reworked soundtrack of Donnie Darko tries to do right by this intoxicating mix of the classical and the classics from yesteryear by mixing them up in the chronological order in which they appeared in the film (with one major excdption). As such, you get a sort of mind's eye version of the film, spurred on by the music, with most of it being simply fabulous. Maybe not, you know, Duran Duran's "Notorious", but it was part of Donnie Darko and is largely compensated for by the presence of The Church, Joy Division and 'Til Tuesday.

So, here you get the music the way it was in the movie, and the way it was supposed to be heard: Andrews' sometimes unsettling, sometimes sweepingly beautiful score rubbing shoulders with the 80s tunes that worked so well and felt so fresh in the early 2000s. Now, almost a quarter century later, too many films have gone to that well too many times, but back then Donnie Darko was one of the first - and best - to do it.  ow, about that big exception: The soundtrack of Donnie Darko actually spawned a hit single - the slowed down, elegiac version of Tears For Fears' "Mad World" as sung by Gary Jules. I seem to remember that a couple of weeks ago someone commenting over at Jokonky's called that version the biggest travesty or some such thing, but I couldn't disagree more. In Tears For Fears almost cheerful synth version the downbeat lyrics bounced off the beat in a rather incongruous way. In Michael Andrews' and Gary Jules' version the song sounds like its sentiments. Whether that makes it more or less attractive, I'll leave up to you. Not wanting to wait until the very end to listen to the song, I frontloaded it, then put the alternative version at its natural place towards the very end.

So, enjoy this improbable but intoxicating mix - as improbable and intoxicating as the film itself. One of these days I have to get back to revisit Donnie Darko, but in the meantime we can all revisit its splendid soundscapes...

PS. The Michel Gondry-directed video to "Mad World" is definitely worth a rewatch if you haven't seen it in 24 years...

This Just In: All Pearls, No Swine - Megapack 3 *updated link*

 

Well, well, well...now that we are in the Thirties of One Buck Records' flagship series, and recently a new visitor to these realms asked for a reup of the previous two, here's All Pearls, No Swine Megapack 3, including Volumes 21-30, in case anybody has missed these and wants to check these out. Which means that now, all thirty volumes of APNS are online and available. 

I thought of this because I forgot to set a link to the first adventures of Waylon & Willie in the review to the sequel, which is now set as well. So there. New music coming up soon, as usual. 

Edit: When posting this I was simultaneously setting the link for Waylon & Willie mentioned, and there was a snafu when copying & pasting links, as a visitor pointed out. This error has now been corrected and you will now find the correct link leading to APNS 21-30.

The Outlaws Ride Again...And This Time They Brought Some Friends...

Sequel time! My first compilation of Waylon & Willie, done years ago for my own personal listening pleasure, was an unexpected success, with a bunch of you appreciating some old school Outlaw country, vinyl crackles and all be damned. No such thing here for round two with our favorite outlaws, everything here has been digitally sourced. And, to make sure the Outlaw party keeps rockin', we have invited some ol' friends along for the ride. That includes original outlaws Tompall Glaser and of course Waylon's wife Jessi Coulter (who had a cameo appearance on The Outlaws Ride!). Both were originally featured on the 1976 Wanted: The Outlaws album, but I didn't carry their songs over to keep it strictly W & W on that first volume. Both get their due here, showing up with solo showcases. 

Another friend that can very loosely be lumped in with the Outlaws is Merle Haggard, whose take on a cowboy ballad with Townes Van Zandt's "Pancho and Lefty" got him and Willie a charttopper in 1982. But the real joker in the pack is an outlaws who wasn't always, or even most of the time, country: why, it's Uncle Neil himself! Actually, the idea for this sequel sprang, surprisingly, not from listening to the W's, but from me immersing myself in some mid-80s Neil while working on the automated Trans and its live companion. While listening to the cheapo Geffen years compilation Mystery Train I stumbled onto "Bound For Glory", Neil's duet with Waylon Jennings from Old Ways, and I was struck by how much it sounds like a classic Outlaws duet from the 70s, except with Neil's voice in place of Willie's. Which in turn brought me to check into the possibility of letting those outlaws ride again. 

And ride again they do. In addition to the aforementioned tracks and artists, I collected the most outlaw-ish tracks from Waylon & Willie, starting with "Write Your Own Songs", Willie's skewering of conservative-minded record execs, sung as a duet with Waylon. Two other times do the W's sing together, including on Steve Earle's outlaw anthem "Nowhere Road". Obviously we can't go with some trademark Waylon outlaw anthems: "Ladies Love Outlaws", "Slow Movin' Outlaws", "I'm a Ramblin' Man", his version of a different type of outlaw classic, "Midnight Rider". and his theme song for The Dukes Of Hazzard which is of course the first Waylon Jennings I ever heard. My favorite just might be "Too Dumb For New York City" with the protagonist's realization that he likes the midwest best cause he is "too dumb for New York City and too ugly for L.A.".

Ol' Willie recalls the first volume with the original Waylon-less version of "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys" and a bluegrass take on "Good Hearteed Woman" that Willie rcorded at the sprightly age of 90, while otherwise showing his gift for balladry with songs like "So You Think You're A Cowboy" or "Hands Of Time". 

The Outlaws Ride Again! is, I'd say, as good a listen as The Outlaws Ride!, even if (or because?) it's taken from a much wider selection of albums. Tons of great Outlaw Country, just like you'n'me'n'everyone else  likes. So, let those outlaws ride once more, always remembering the old proverb. Where there's a Will(ie), there's a Way(lon). 

Let the sunshine...let the sunshine...shine over some Alabama ridges and creeks...again...

Okay, okay, if you have been here for a long time, you realize that this album is a bit of a 'the emperor's new clothes' proposition, essentially a repackaging of an album I posted back in February 2024. But I think quite a number of you weren't there for it, and that album passed a lot of folks by, and it really shouldn't. A couple of days ago the album came on in the car, and I once again marveled at how splendid this album is. You can read up more about it in its original write-up, but I'll just quickly quote myself, because I still like what I wrote back then. Here's OBG from about 21 months ago. 

Songs like "Montgomery Town", "Ridge Song" and "Madison" sound like old friends, and once you've heard them you'll never want to let them leave. Well, I don't. Not to mention that in between these and Steve Young's "Seven Bridges Road", Madison County starts to sound like the most beautiful place on earth. Law at times has a perfectly 70s cosmic cowboy thing going, getting metaphysical on tracks like "Tomorrow's Always Today" or "Shine Sunshine". Or, you know, maybe good ol' George was just a heavy stoner, after all he did name his label Bongwater Records. 

He is backed on the album by jazz-prog group Backwater, which includes producer Tom Nist. This might also explain the rich instrumentation, including flugelhorn, clavinet and electric organ. That is probably also one of the secrets to the beauty of this album: The warmth and richness of its sound, certainly unusual for a self-released, private press record. 

George Law really does sound like the best parts of your favorite 70s music, or at least, well, mine. "Martha's Song" sounds like Jackson Browne wrote and sings it, while on beautiful album closer "Shine Sunshine" he sounds a little like Jimmy Spheeris. Even the least memorable track on this album (my vote: "Clouded Mind") is never less than beautifully played and sung. But really, there are no losers here. All killer, no filler, as they like to say, and all that in half an hour. Short and sweet.

Listen to this, it'll be the best half hour you can spend on music, or almost. 

And it still is. And yet, there was one area of improvement. I already clowned on Law and his goofy-ass mug that adorns the cover in the original write-up, but this album which -  as said - sounds amazing for a private release needs some better cover art. Something which represents the sound and feel of the album within. After having spent a long time perusing pictures of Yellow Leaf Creek, I finally opted for a picture of some Alabama sunshine over a mountain ridge that recalls both "Ridge Song" and the fabulous "Shine Sunshine", which is the newly minted title song. 

If you already have this, I hope you love it already and just wonder whether you should upgrade the cover art. and if you don't have it, then get this immediately. It's a truly wonderful little record, and during these dark, and at least in these parts, rainy winter days will bring a bit of sunshine your way... 

Tipton, Missouri's favorite son is covered once more...

It's been a good while that One Buck Records has gone without a sighting of anything Gene Clark-related and that state of affairs has been going on long enough, you hear me young man middle-aged dude? Oh, sorry, the voices in my head have spilled on the page again. Yes, long time no Geno, or friends and fans of Geno as it were. We've Got You Covered goes on, and we're up to Volume Four of our Gene Clark part of the series. And honestly, that is a bit of a surprise in itself, because for a man with such an outstandingly strong songbook, Clark doesn't have many high-profile covers attached to his name. This gets even worse once we take off Byrds material, which is naturally what most of the bigger names flocked to (we see you, Tom Petty). But even if we take musicians of any kind, level of fame or walk of life, there just isn't much there, and wht there is, will inevitably end up here, in this series, on this blog. 

Part of this is of course my own blind spot concerning one of my favorite artists. Clark is so well-represented on this blog, that I sometimes forget how small of a cultural imprint the man really left. Even the Genaissance of the early 2010s didn't make him into a real household name. Sure, the No Other Band tour and the No Other album re-issue on 4AD brought on some people, but the cult stays small. 

Which of course means that I am really digging, and digging hard, to find material for this series. The good news is, that for this fourth volume, I have found another batch of top material, with the usual mix of known and little-to-unknown performers. The big names on this volume are probably Richard Thompson (who already featured on Vol. 3 with Fairport Convention), the Flamin' Groovies with their take on "She Don't Care About Time " - also the kick-ass opener here - and Pure Prairie League, whose fine take on "She Darked The Sun" somehow never made an album in the early 70s. Oh, and there's Paul Weller, as guest singer with Death In Vegas, covering "So You Say You Lost Your Baby", a song I found years ago when fishing Death In Vegas' album out of a bargain bin, for, indeed a buck, I believe. 

Mid-tier acts which again are really known in One Buck Land but not everwhere else include the late, great Neal Casal with "With Tomorrow" from his cover record Return In Kind, and of course loyal-way-beyond-the-grave comrade Carla Olson, who is supported on her cover of "After The Storm" by *checks notes* 80's Brat Pack actress Mare Winningham?! O.k., why not. Brother Rick also shows up again, with a lovely rendering of the heartbreaking "Lonely Saturday", written after Clark broke up with his common-law wife Carlie. 

Of the 'never heard of 'em'-tier of artists, I'm happy to hear Chris Deschner cover "Rain Song" from Clark's last studio album Fyrebyrd, as that's a song that, like the rest of that album, almost never gets attention despite its obvious qualities. Australia's The Bitter End cover "The Virgn", Anna Mitchell has a wonderful, recorded line in concert take on "Polly Come Home", Byrds contemporaries Suburban 9 To 5 bring lots of garage rock energy to "Elevator Operator", in no small part due to future REO Speedwagon axeman Gary Richrth on guitar, and U.S. Indie group Mazarin do a fine job with the also very rarely covered "Only Colombe". 

As you can see, lots of artists and songs to discover or re-discover, and the One Buck Guy wouldn't want it any other way...

Go to your respective rooms, you rabblerousing Elton John covers!!!

So, this is how it goes sometimes. In the thread for last weekend's Tina Turner post reader Thames brought up Two Rooms, the tribute record to the songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, via Tina Turner's excellent cover of "The Bitch Is Back". Which in turn led to us discussing Two Rooms as one of the best various artists tribute albums, with nothing to throw or skip. I realized also that it had probably been years that I last listened to it. 

I discussed Tina's AOR years a bit last weekend, revealing my childhood-memory-related knack for AOR radio. Well, am I covered with Two Rooms or what? Bryan Adams is missing, but otherwise all the usual suspects I would hear on the radio are here: Tina, Phil, Rod, Joe Cocker, Sting, et al. Not a hipster-approved assembly of musicians, for sure, but the star power here is undeniable. Throw in The Who for one of their one-off reunions, the Beach Boys still riding high on the memory of "Kokomo", Kate Bush, plus three recent female sensations. Shinead O'Connor had just broken through the year before with "Nothing Compares To You 2 U", Wilson Phillips had become a success out of nowhere with "Hold On" and "Release Me" both topping the charts, and Oleta Adams had toiled away in semi-obscurity until Tears For Fears found her in a Kansas City nightclub and featured her on 1989's The Seeds Of Love, including her amazing co-lead vocals on top hit "Woman In Chains". 

It's a strictly personal thing, but there are a couple of numbers here that I prefer to John's originals. O'Connor's deeply emotional take on "Sacrifice" completely dusts John's slightly too MOR version. Something about Elton's falsetto 'na-na-na-na's' in "Crocodile Rock" has always deeply grated me to the point where I would skip the song or change the station when it came on, but The Beach Boys cut a great version of it.  Even as extremely diminished as this version of the Boys was, they could still record quality cuts from time to time, and this one, with its retro rock'n'roll feel and doo-wop vocals stylings was an open lay-up that the Boys didn't miss. Thames and I agree on Tina's "The Bitch Is Back" (which, say, Allmusic singled out for criticism) being great and its lyrical content arguably more fitting for Tina's persona, and The Who's version of "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" has only grown in my estimation, as - like the Beach Boys cut - it showed their unmistakeable band sound while also paying honest tribute to the original. 

It might not best the original, but Kate Bush's version of "Rocket Man" is extremely interesting (and was voted 'best cover of all time' by the readers of The Observer). Bush, ever musically adventurous, marries moody synths to a light reggae rhythm, and then later in the song the Celtic instrumentation she started to explore in the late 80s comes in. This version of the song sounds like nothing else. Every song got a little annotation by the artists in the booklet, mostly little love letters that explained their love for Elton or the song in question, and how they first heard it etc. Here's Shinead O'Connor's text in its entirety: "I can't believe no one did 'Candle In The Wind'." Truly, the (in)famous no bullshit/speak your mind attitude of Ms. O'Connor on full display. Back then I didn't get it and found that comment weird, now I find it absolutely brillant. 

As said before, everything on here is good to very good, and nothing is eminently skippable. And yet, and yet, listening to the album in its original configuration your hand might still linger towards the skip-button, because Two Rooms is an unwieldy album. Before ripping it to Mp3s this week I hadn't realized that the album is 79 minutes long, taking full advantage of CD-capacity, while also testing the listening capacity of its audience. If you have been here long enough and read along a bit, you know that I harp on a lot about flow and sequencing and perfect length for comps. Well, guess what, folks, I'll take that ol' hobbyhorse for another tour 'round the stables today. So, I think that any listeners gets kind of tired and worn out by around the 70 minute mark, and its true that with the original Two Rooms, despite George Michael's closing number "Tonight" being one of the highlights here, you were rightly slipping in attention by that point. 

And of course, as I'm prone to, I had some problems with the sequencing. I found Eric Clapton's Dr. John-styled take on "Border Song" to not be a terribly great choice for an opener, Sting's austere "Border Song" came too early in the program etc. etc. You know, the usual OBG gripes.  Oh, and that Sinead O'Connor aside about no one doing "Candle In The Wind"? Well, someone did! Kate Bush cut her version of that song as the b-side to, or technically, a double a-side with "Rocket Man". So it made sense to include that here, even if it is less adventurous than her take on "Rocket Man". What also made sense to include, because it came out in parallel to this compilation, was George Michael's live version of "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me", featuring Elton John himself. The reaction of Wembley Stadium to John appearing as a surprise guest on that duet, introduced by George with the now legendary 'Ladies And Gentlemen, Mr. Elton John' is amazing, a gargantuan crowd pop for John, whose European-wide release of The Very Best Of the year before had brought him back into the spotlight. 

Bringing out his version of "Sun" - recorded as his version of "Tonight" on the album during his Cover To Cover tour - was a savvy move by George. Two Rooms colleague Oleta Adams' gospel-take on the very same song was chosen as the album's lead single and had been out for two months, reminding people of the greatness of the song, then Michael's version climbed to number one on both sides of the Atlantic. And, honestly, it's probably the best version of this song, hands down.  

So, the solution to the above-mentioned issues, with an already long running time now seeing two extra tracks included? Why, treat the whole thng like a vinyl rather than a CD affair. If sequenced into a double vinyl album configuration with a running time of 45 minutes per album/disc, the whole thing becomes a whole lot more digestable. The two albums/discs - or, in the parlance of the comp - two rooms - were sequenced according to my personal taste, obviously, but also for a good flow between slower and quicker numbers. Both have a great rock'n'roll number as openers ("Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)" and "Crocodile Rock"), a moody female-led track right after ("Rocket Man" and "Sacrifice") and so on, both ending with a big George Michael live number. I think this improves the flow considerably, and - if taken in two hearings rather then the extremely long original one - go down better. 

Two Rooms will appeal to you, if you have a heart for veteran rockers'n'poppers and the AOR sound of the late-80s and early-90s, as your host does. If nothing else, these songs will remind you what a writing team John& Taupin could be, as they were supposed to. I'd say that's already more than enough. So leave your hipster cred by the door and dive in... 

Feel The Goo Once More! Get Those Dolls Lined Up! For GOOd Old Days Are Here Again!

Having recently mentioned the Goos over at Jokonky's (and reupped the fabulous original GOOd Old Days, that you should get if you don't have it yet), I remembered that I had never posted the second volume of my sojourn through the Goo Goo Dolls' discography. Time to rectify that. GOOd Old Days Are Here Again is, in many ways, a real 'Greatest Hits Vol. 2', as record companies would throw it out in the olden days. Since all the real big hits were already on Volume 1, Vol. 2 has deep cuts and minor hits, together with the occasional big hit that was already on the first volume, in a live or demo version. So, you get the same thing here, 

This compilation is also a tale in two parts. The (d)evolution of the Goos is clearly on display here. From their grunting punk rock beginnings towards the corporate-disguised-as-alternative rock of the mid- and late-90s to the increasingly AOR/adult contemporary music of the 2000s all the way to now. So, if you prefer the Goos as a kick-ass rock band, you can probably cut off this comp after the first twelve songs or so, if your aversion to, uh, slighly gooey adult contemporary ballads is high, you can probably listen all the way through and find the occasional highlight in the back half of the comp. 

What you will get here, though, with the big hits out of the way which were pretty much all Johnny Rzeznick's, is a bit more of Robbie Takaj. As the original lead vocalist for the first two albums, Takaj was always the lovable caveman sidekick to pretty boy Johnny, with an appropriately grunting and primitive take on things. Where Rzeznick's songs would become slicker and hookier and tailored to mainstream radio, Takaj pretty much stuck with a simple 'pedal to the medal' approach to rock, which nicely contrasted with Rzeznick's style on the two or three numbers he would get on each album. Since the, uh, songwriting of their self-titled debut is, uh, rather undistinguished - to go with the muffled, rudimentary sound of this $750 production - I decided to include their cover of Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper"; "James Dean" from follow-up Jed is Rzeznick's first lead vocal and the first acoustic song the Goos ever did - the road to stardom starts here, even if the song itself isn't a precursor, but rather a prolonged set up for a so-so joke. 

And from 1990's Hold Me Up on, it was essentially Rzeznick's show, with "Just The Way You Are" announcing the more professional and slicker sound that would carry the band through the 90s and to millions of record sales. Lots of crunchy guitars and nice hooks here. The 'sneak in some hits' tactic yields acoustic versions of breakthrough hit "Name" and "Slide". There are also some genuine hits I didn't include on GOOd Old Days: "Broadway" (in a live version I prefer to the studio cut) and "Black Balloon", Takaj checks back in with "Amigone" from Dizzy Up The Girl, showing how much slicker even his songs were, and from then, well, we enter the AOR portion of the Goos. 2010's "The Sweetest Lie" brings up some crunchy guitars for a last time, while 2019's "Miracle Pill" from the same album is pure pop, but it's really well-made pop. 

So, ready for round two with the Goos for a kick-ass start in your weekend? Goo for it...

Blue And Gray: Poco's Trip Through A Land Torn Apart...

So, after singing the praises for the Eagles' Desperado, here's the second album in a series of country rock albums depicting life in the U.S. in the 19th Century, we go back to one of the OG's of country rock, who by the time they made this album were anything but. Poco might've been one of the first bands playing country rock, but by the time they brought out Blue And Gray, they were anything but. Hell, they weren't even Poco anymore. After the band went on indefinite hiatus when Tim Schmit left to join the Eagles (with the well-wishes of the band, who all felt they had played out the string with Poco). But Paul Cotton and Rusty Young liked to work with each other and decided to continue as The Cotton-Young band, recruiting a new rhythm section and a bit later on keyboard player Kim Bullard. But ABC Records only wanted to release their record under a known name (I.P. isn't just a key word of the last decade or so!), so Poco was reborn. 

The band's first album, Legend, was an instant hit, the first of Poco's long and storied career, and for the first time the band had hit singles: "Crazy Love" and "Heart Of The Night". A quick follow-up, Under The Gun, stiffed however. After trying in vain to replicate Legend, Poco then did something totally unexpected: devisiong a concept album about the Civil War that tore America apart. Blue And Gray was born. 

Young and Cotton never were more than serviceable lyricists, so don't expect any particular insights or authenticity from the lyrics here, everything is kept very vague, with numerous allusions to trouble and conflict brewing in the near or far distance, but little in the way of specifics. Which, given the pair's limitations is probably for the better. There is, however, a fairly subtle concept here that is worth pointing out: Both alternating songwriters represent an opposing point of view and is playing the role of one of the two belligerents, but with a twist: Rusty Young wasn't a Southerner - born in California and raised in Colorado - but he takes over the perspective of the Gray. Paul Cotton, however, was technically a Southerner, born in Fort Rucker, Alabama, but was raised in Illinois, so he is taking the prespective of the Blue. 

Generally speaking, Cotton's songs hold together the best as a sort of loose travelogue of a Northern soldier lost in war-torn enemy territory, a kind of Cold Mountain fifteen years before the novel. Like Young's Southerner(s?), Cotton's Northern soldier says goodbye to his loved one in "Please Wait For Me", then when we catch up to him in this version of Blue And Gray, he is injured and deep in the land of the enemy, making his way through the bayous of Louisiana in the hopes of catching a northbound ship in "Streets Of Paradise". Later, this soldier encounters a single enemy soldier and they both prepare themselves to shoot out who will survive the confrontation in "Sometimes (We Are All We Got)". And then we're leaving him still hoping to catch that ship up north and hoping to go "Down On The River Again". 

Rusty Young's songs tend - as they usually would - towards the nostalgic and sentimental, with not one but two songs about the romantic farewells to the troops marching of into war. But whereas "Glorybound", the opener of Blue And Gray captures the optimism of the troops, by the time of the title song Young's narrator realizes that it will not all just be fun and glory: "Baby, now something ain't right / clouds of thunder roll into sight". Still, "The Writing On The Wall" seems to have the soldiers as following a higher calling. Young's groovy and slightly spooky"Widowmaker" is one of his best compositions of the period, but seems to come from another album altogether. Generally speaking, they are so vague in their lyrics that half of them could be about something different than the Civil War. 

But, you know, give them points for trying. Poco had realized that they were at somewhat of an impasse: Under The Gun, despite having a good title song, didn't nearly make the numbers that Legend and its hit singles "Crazy Love" and "Heart Of The Night" did. So Poco decided to go for something more ambitious, even if it didn't quite hold together, mostly due to Young's inability to hold up his end of the deal. Cotton's songs are not only the better compositions, they are highlights, because they bring back hints of Poco's classic country rock sound that were completely missing from their last two albums. Young brings out mandolin, banjo and dobro for three of Cotton's four songs, which helps make them the highlights here, particularly "Sometimes (We Are All We Got)", which is as good as anything the real Poco produced from 1968 to 1977. 

There were two issues with the original album: One was a poor flow with haphazard and not particularly successful sequencing. The two rather slowish Young numbers that opened the album made for a not very succesful start. Inserting Cotton's "Please Wait For Me" in between "Glorybound" and "Blu And Gray" worked wonders, then I rejiggered the rest for a better listening experience. The other probelm was that even for a scant ten-track album , the group couldn't come up with enough songs that fit the concept, so Young just put "Here Comes That Girl Again", an insipid ballad on there, that on this improved version of the album quickly gets shown the door. Instead I inserted the only track worth mentioning of Gray And Blue's successor Cowboys And Englishmen, an awful contract-filler album full of mediocre covers that made Poco sound like a bar band on a slowly tuesday night. Besides all the awful covers, Rusty Young at least has the good sense to bring out one original song, the medley of the old-timey "Ashes"  - which alwas was quite repertitive - and the sprightly country instrumental "Feudin'". The latter is now part of this version of Blue And Gray, with its title fitting the theme and, at least in my mind, illustrating the feuds that would pop up in the rural border regions of the war, and now had an 'official' reason/excuse for existing. Interestingly, it won Poco the only Grammy of their career for 'Best Instrumental Performance'. 

So, this OBG version of Blue And Gray is, if nothing else, an improvement on the original, and an interesting, if pretty much totally fogotten, look at a soft rock band trying to get ambitious. I'm not trying to oversell this album as some sort of fabulous forgotten treasure, but it's an album well worth hearing, and arguably the best of the band's extremely checkered 80s releases. Whether you're a history or Civil War buff or not, there's enough good stuff here to follow Poco on their trip into the 1860s...

P.S.: The music for the other two Poco Alternate Albums on this blog have recently been updated, so if you want to go on a Poco listening spree...

Tina Turner - Definitely An Undisputable Rock'n'Roller

I really don't think you'll get any serious argument from anybody that Rita Mae Bullock a.k.a. Tina Turner did her best work artistically when accompanied by husband/producer/abuser Ike. I mean, "River Deep Mountain High" alone should make her a first-ballot hall of famer. And their amazing two-tempos cover of CCR's "Proud Mary"? At least as good as the original. Commercially, though? Man, did her 80s comeback and the ensuing years of reigning on AOR radio belatedly fill in the coffers, not to mention give her some long-deserved respect and reputation. Of course, no one deserved it more than Tina, not only for all the evil shit from Ike she had to put up with, bt also because when she started her solo career in the 70s, she ws basically left for dead. That a decade later she would fill stadiums and reign the charts was...not something a lot of people would have put money on in, say, 1975. 

The title of the compilation I sourced most of the music here from is called Queen Of Rock'n'Roll, but you know what was missing from it? Real, bad ass rock'n'roll! Most of the tracks wade in a very safe AOR mainstream sound that rocks a little bit, but please not too much or too hard to not chase any radio listeners away. And to be fair, Queen Of Rock'n'Roll had another issue. Three discs with 20 songs each is an impressive package, but 60 tracks mostly from Tina's AOR/Adult Contemporary years is...a lot of the same thing which is not the best thing. There is not a lot of music from discs 2 and 3 covering the late 80s, 90s and early 2000s on this comp, and that despite me having a natuarally high resistance to mainstream AOR radio Tina. 

That was my Tina, as she was inescable on the channels my parents listened to in the car, or occasionally at home, when I was young. So yeah, gimme "The Best", gimme the "It Takes Two" duet with fellow AOR hero Rod Stewart, hell, gimme her cover of John Waite's "Missing You", a great AOR treasure in its own right, that I didn't remember her covering. But the ton of mid-tempo, just sort of there AOR/adult contemporary fare was left in the dust, and this badly needed an injection of more rock'n'roll, so I added a bunch of rockers, movers and shakers: "Steel Claw" from Private Dancer which deserves better than being an almost forgotten album track, the driving "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby", the chugging early "Bayou Song"  plus a folk/country rock-ish take on "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You", and "Rock'n'Roll Widow", a Private Dancer era b-side that is just on the right side of the line concerning power ballads.

Now we're talking Queen Of Rock'n'Roll, or rather Undisputed Rock'n'Roller, as the compilationj is now called. Epecially when also highlighting her superb and quite transformative cover of "Whole Lotta Love", one of my favorite covers ever, with a really intriguing funk plus stabbing strings arrangement, as well as new (almost) title song and early barn burner "Root Toot, Undisputable Rock'n'Roller", and mid-80s singalong classic "We Don't Need Another Hero". Throw in her slinky and/or sassy covers of "Let's Stay Together", "Help" (a U.K. only single) and "I Can't Stand The Rain" plus the Bowie torch song "Girls" and you have yourself an attractive package of what Ol' One Buck Guy thinks is some of the best work of Tina's solo career.

Check out these twenty tracks and see if you agree. And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Queen Of Rock'n'Roll, an Undisputable Rock'n'Roller...

And The Electric Eighties Just Keep On Comin'

When I posted the alt Trans last sunday, I didn't think I'd follow it up with another Neil Young post, nor that it would align completely with this, our next installment of the granddaddy of 'em all (series here on One Buck Records, that is), All Pearls, No Swine. This volume is not only set in the 80s, but like the slow riders before them, it is a special themed edition of All Pearls, No Swine. In this case: synths, baby, synths! Condisering that the musical directions on my 80s-set APNS volumes seemed to go further into all kinds of directions, I thought I'd group the electro- and synth stuff together in one handy volume. And so this is it. 

A lot of these are again from obscure releases - yet the album also contains a hit, though I didn't realize how big of a hit that was when I compiled this. That track, Freur's "Doot Doot" is also proof that the details of when you consciously hear a song for the first time matter: I was visiting family, in a rented appartment, with nothing on TV worth watching, so I put on satellite radio and said there in the half-dark living room, when suddenly this little synth intro and those little 'doot' 'doot' came swirling around me. I was mesmerized by that song's opening. I realized only later that I already had the song on one of those 80s hits compilations you had to pick up in the old days before finding everything (or almost) on the internet, and for years, but it never registered. It was this very specific listening situation that made me fall in love with Freur's "Doot Doot" and that's why it's here. 

Oh, okay, you guys...I see you got that 80s thing down pat...

There are some other somewhat known names here: The Psychedelic Furs sneak in with the US Remix of "Love My Way" and if you know the origins of your beloved mid-80s AOR bands you might remember that Mr. Mister's Richard Page and Steve George started as a synth-pop outfit called Pages who are represented with "Automatic". You might also remember 'The White Zulu' Johnny Clegg from South Africa, who had a couple of international hits, the biggest of which is probably "Scatterlings Of Africa", also featured on the soundtrack for Rain Man. Here he's climbing "Kilimanjaro" with his first group Juluka, notably the first interracial group out of South Africa. And finally, Johnny Stew strikes again. I already highlighted John Stewart's new wave adventures, but he really throws on the sequencer and dips fully into synth rock with his "Home From The Stars" whose opening sounds like a lost Vangelis track. 

But the rest of the album is, as it should be, filled with virtual unknowns, one-off adventures, private press adventurers or never-was's (as opposed to has been's). Some of this is what some would call outsider art, like Bryce Wemple's DIY synth rock on "Scene 58", Apeiron's "Dancing Spirits" (which was only ever issued on casette tape) or Michael Iceberg with his, uh, idiosyncratic cover of "Here Comes The Sun". There is also a distinct World music aspect here: Canadian synth poppers Strange Advance are back with "She Controls Me", and, from the ranks of the amaeurish and completely unknown, we also have German electropop outfit Caraganda with the weirdly cheery "Living In A Sect". There's French coldwave band Coldreams with the icy "Eyes" and Kiwi band Dragon who were big in Australia with mainstream-friendly pop rock in the late 1970s, but dip more than a toe into synth/new wave rock on 1983's "Rain", also your kick-ass opener du jour, and, as something of a series tradition, we end things with a longer track, the DIY synth ambient piece "Dancing Spirits" by Apoeira. 

We're coldwave, man, so b/w pics and no one looks at the camera, alright...stare dreamily into the distance, guys...

So, there's tons of things to discover here, if you are somewhat willing to let the synth sounds of the 8às in your heart. And why wont you? If Uncle Neil could do it, if ol' Johnny Stew could do it, so can you...

Keep On Rockin' In An Eighties World, Neil!

So, I hadn't really planned to follow up my alternate Trans post with another Neil Young post so soon afterwards, but as these things go. A comment by C in Cali about a fab live version of "Sample And Hold", my own comment discussing "Landing On Water", in short: the little discussions about (mostly) Eighties Neil and his various misadventures led me to check a live bootleg from the mid-80s that I remembered as really good. It's the famous and a thousand times bootlegged 1986 show from the Cow Palace in Daly City that has absolutely outstanding sound quality. One could argue better sound quality than certain records of Uncle Neil with Crazy Horse. This is, however, no coincidence. Two shows just three and two nights before were recorded for a new album, with some tracks heavily tinkered with, that would turn out to be Life in July 1987. So, two conditions were fulfilled: High end recording equipment was used to tape this show for radio braodcast, and the band was well rehearsed and in fine form. 

Beware though that this is just a small sampler, a companion compilation to that Trans album that thus leaves tons of old Neil warhorses on the side - good as they might be - to focus on his Eighties work. It has three Trans numbers: the "Mr. Soul" electro-remake (without vocoder, but otherwise still very much in the Trans vein), plus really excellent takes on "Computer Age" and "Sample And Hold" (which might be the one you have, C!). It then has most of Neil's best stuff from the rock-oriented Geffen albums of the 80s (no country stuff which I might reserve for another comp in the future): "Violent Side", "Mideast Vacation", "Around The World" - "Hippie Dream" is missing, but most of the good stuff is here. I even had space to smuggle in "Too Lonely" which might be better than that on Life.

The same is even more so true of Reactor number "Opera Star". If you want a version of "Opera Star" in your collection, make it this one. On record, the number is completely ridiculous, especially the duel of ho-ho-ho's between Neil and Crazy Horse, sounding like a drunk Christmas munchkin sing-off, or everyone taking the piss and no one giving a fuck. This version, with barely a ho-ho-ho heard, pounds that original studio version into fine dust, then stomps on its remains just for fun. This is, generally speaking, true for all the rock songs on this. They rock much freakin' harder than their studio counterparts. I do miss the swirling synths Neil added to "Around The World", but this version is a barnburner nonetheless. 

If ever the question is asked what Crazy Horse brought to Neil's music, you might as well play that person some of this - they're just crushing it here. A good example: their great take on "Powderfinger", which I smuggled n as the only-non-80s number in here...So, as said, this is just a teaser to remind you of, and collect in the same place, some of the strongest work of what was admittedly a complicated period for Uncle Neil. But there are songs from that time period that have stood the test of time, especially in these extra heavy versions from Neil and Crazy Horse.  

Giddy up y'all. That there Bluegrass Chartbuster show is in town again!

Time for round three of these, with a-many more coming your way. Originally I planned to have, like, three volumes of this, which means that the series would be coming to their end here. But, uh, that excalated quickly, as the saying goes. So now we're in double digits for the Bluegrass Chartbusters and have no end in sight, so I hope some of y'all are clamoring for more cool bluegrass versions of rock and pop (and punk, and country rock, and so on and so forth) songs from about the last half-century or so. Of course, knowing what I know I would have used the best tracks from my beloved Cornbread Red (pictured below) more sparingly, instead of just piling these onto the first volume especially. Oh well, I just have to go with slimmer pickings and more obscure (to me) songs from these guys once we crawl towards those double digit volumes. Incidentally they have only a single song on this volume, and it's a holdover from the Green Day comp I did a couple of months ago.

That is so because Volume Three became the most reworked of all the episodes here, as I started to really branch out of the safety of the Pickin' On series on later volumes, and then reworked the earlier volumes for more balance: Instead of only having the Pickin On housebands like Cornbread Red, Iron Horse, The Sidekicks and - increasingly - Brad Davis with band on the first handful of volumes and half a dozen other cool acts in later ones I switched and changed and juggled and replaced - and now Volume Three has somehow become the most diverse of all editions in this series - boasting no less that 15 different bands and artists for its twenty tracks! Besides repeat offenders quality contributors like the aforementioned bands we got a number of cool bands that show up here for the first time.

Two bands I recently discovered are the now sadly defunct The Wooks (who are only not called The Wookies for copyright reasons), who were mainly doing original songs, and really good ones, but also recorded the occasional cover, with their fab take on Bruce's "Atlantic City", that is slightly reminiscent of The Band's awesome cajun-flavored almost-bluegrass version. Another great recent discovery are The Grass Cats, also szdly defunct, who had a great twenty-year run, mainly as a local attraction in their home state of North Carolina. They left behind a couple of good albums and some great covers, the first one of which, a really sweet take on REO Speedwagon's "Take It On The Run" graces this volume. Happily the last of my recent discoveries, Town Mountain are still active, they clock in here with their take on alt country classic "Windfall". 

But we'll see more of these bands in the future, which isn't the same for the one-and-done that is Thunder & Rain's, uh, sweet take on "Sweet Child O' Mine". That band mainly does original songs, though they drew a lot of eyeballs on Youtube with this cover a couple of years ago. This is the original live take, not the studio version they put on an album later - this one sounds more natural and spontaneuous. 

By the way, I kind of like how the above cover recalls the mostly generic covers that the Pickin' On Series used for a decade or so before Iron Horse's Metallica album changed how they made, presented and mareketed albums. This looks like something you could take out od a rotating CD rack display in any truck stop in Rednecksville, Anywhere, U.S.A.! And that's on purpose! But it's a hundred times more awesome of course!

Artists covered include CCR, Prince, Pearl Jam, A-Ha, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Eagles/J.D. Souther, The Band, Black Sabbath, Oasis, The Rolling Stones and The Who. I also have to mention opener "Don't Stop Believin'", one of the best numbers of the entire series with some extraordinary mandolin and fiddle work by Pine Mountain Railroad that feel totally at home in the song and turn in from a somewhat hackneyed AOR song into a marvelous bluegrass number.

Anyway, Bluegrass Chartbusters Vol. 3 keeps up the quality of the first two albums, and the tons of new artists on here give the album a real freshness, due to the slightly different varying approaches of covering famous songs in a bluegrass style. Good stuff all around, one again. Get the bluegrass jukebox goin' once more...