Cowboy Bruce: How Springsteen Won The West And Where It Got Him

Bruce Springsteen's debut album Greetings From Asbury Park was, for all intents and purposes, a bit of a compromised affair. Some at Columbia Records where seemingly still hung up on the acoustic demos he delivered to get signed and Bruce's manager Mike Appel as well as John Hammond thought at first of having Springsteen's debut album strictly a solo acoustic, a man and his guitar-type affair, while Bruce himself was pushing for more involvement of what was at that time still known as The Bruce Springsteen Band. Columbia seemed unsure whether to market Springsteen as a sensitive folkie with a guitar or a boisterous band leader, so listeners got both, thankfully at a 80 to 20 percent ratio in favor of the band (instead of an initial 50-50 ratio on the first, rejected version of the album). The inclusion of "Mary Queen Of Arkansas" still is a bit of a mystery, considering that Hammond didn't like it and thought it pretentious. But there it was anyway. The whole Springsteen with or without band never became a topic again after this album, all the way until he realized that the songs for Nebraska didn't need or warrant the E-Street Band behind them. 

But what if there was an album on which the forces that be were still see-sawing over how to present Bruce? What if, instead of being merely a critical success with so-so sales Greetings sold so well that Hammond wanted an immediate follow-up in the same vein as the debut, while Springsteen was in the middle of recording what would become The Wild, The Innocent and The E-Street Shuffle. Springsteen would declare that he found something special in the ongoing, but unfinished recordings, and he wouldn't want to compromise them. But then Columbia, Appel and him would strike a deal to construct a follow-up to Greetings from material already recorded. To continue promoting him as a serious artist (with a capital A of course!), the brain trust went through Springsteen's catalogue and then devised a concept album. Hearing rumours about new band sensation The Eagles recording an outlaw-themed record for Asylum, Hammond and Appel devised their own record in the same vein, drawing equally from band and solo performances. And thus was (or woud have been) born Bruce Springsteen's The Wild West, a song-cycle about the west and the outlaws that populated it. Side A was to focus on the lawless populating the land, while Side B would be more of a travelogue of the West, ending with an account of how the Wild West would be tamed, thanks to an outtake from the ongoing E-Street sessions that Springsteen sent in to use. The Wild West would cement Springsteen's reputation with critics while giving him time to hone and polish The Wild, The Innocent and The E-Street Shuffle, whose release would then obviously be pushed back to 1974, with The Wild West taking its place as a late 1973 release. 

So, back from music kayfabe into our reality: What is The Wild West? Of the three band tracks, "Don't You Want To Be An Outlaw" and "Look Towards The Land" come from an informal recording session in March 1972 at Tinker "Stinky" West's studios in Highlands, NJ., while "How The West Was Lost" was an early song from the sessions for E-Street Shuffle and is known as either "Evacuation of the West" or "No More Kings in Texas" before getting a new title here to go with the concept. Speaking of new titles: There was some work to be done here. Like his black brother from another mother, Phil Lynott over in Dublin, Springsteen at this time was really high on portentious, if not pretentious song titles that the songs rarely lived up to. Of the four acoustic songs he recorded as publishing demos in early 1973, "The Saga Of The Architect Angel" (written as a, uhm, tribute of sorts to John Wayne of all people!) became "How The West Was Won", after its closing lines. "The Ballad Of The Self-Loading Pistol", while a very fine song, had the problem that it wasn't really about a self-loading pistol, so it is here more appropriately titled "Blood On My Hands". All of these have never been officially released, although a truncated version of "Don't You Want To Be An Outlaw?" found its way onto the 2016 compilation Chapter & Verse as "The Ballad Of Jesse James". This is the full-length 7 minute version including the later excised verse about Billy The Kid. The borrowed cover art is Majesty Of The Old West by Ben Joshua King. 

Sound quality obviously varies, due to the bootleg origins, but is very listenable. And there are some genuinely great songs in here. "How The West Was Lost", by any name, is one of the greatest lost songs of the Boss, and his refusal to issue it officially as part of Tracks or another archival collection is inexcusable. Every discerning music fan should have some space for that song. I think "Blood On My Hands" is also definitely one of the stronger offerings of Springsteen from the epoch, certainly better than some stuff on Greetings. And while admittedly the two Bruce Springsteen Band tracks are a little ramshackle, it's interesting to hear the band stretch out in long semi-improvisation, clearly working towards the form and sound of the E-Street Shuffle period. 

So, giddy up, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, 'cause cowboy Bruce is gonna take you on a ride through The Wild West...

And now for something completely different: Mr. Fix-It...uh...Fixes (?)...Classics

I didn't have an idea who Winston Francis was when I fished the basis of today's little mix out of the bargain bin. The cover art sure as hell didn't help, the whole thing looked like a bootleg. And yet, the record store of my choice really wanted to get rid of their overstock of unwanted discs, throwing out 15 for ten bucks. So, when I had found eight or nine that interested me I took a flyer on the rest of them, including the Feel Good All Over - The Medley Album of Mr. Winston. It is exactly what it says it is, Winston singing his way through over thirty song snippets, but over the course of an hour, the approach of having Winston sing over a barely changing rhythm gets a little tiresome, So, some sugery was in order. Here's about a third of the medley, having Francis sing his way through oldies but goodies like "Midnight Hour", "For The Good Times", Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head", "Can't Help Falling In Love", "Red Red Wine" and "Wonderful World". First rate karaoke? Maybe. But as a little palate cleanser while the days get shorter, darker and rainier around here, here's some sunshine reggae from good ol' Mr. Fix-It... 

All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 4 - In Which We Meet A Certain Number Of Relatively Known Folks...

Back to the Future Past, as we dip back into the Seventies. It seems that Vol. 3, the series' first foray into the Eighties was slightly less popular around here, through no fault of its all-no star line-up. So, back to the Seventies, and by now you know the drill. A lot of unknown stuff from private press/micro label artists, this time topped off with a number of higher profile names. Norman Greenbaum you know of course for "Spirit in the Sky", and only that one probably, but he had two more albums in the early Seventies before his run was over. "Hook And Ladder" is from his second platter, Home Again. Stevie Wright was lead singer of The Easybeats, and "Evie" was an Australian number one. It's actually a three-part 11 minute song, with the track here being the middle portion. There will be more from the Curtis Brothers coming up here, but "Seven League Boots" will sound very familiar, as Stephen Stills later turned it into the CSN hit "Southern Cross". Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks play on this demo. And finally Gene Clark, who you'll be seeing a lot more from on these pages, is represented with an interesting version of his classic composition "Silver Raven" off No Other, trying out a funk arrangement (thus the subtitle I gave it). It's not entirely successful, but definitely worth checking out. 

As for the rest of the crew, I'll point out some folks and let you do your own research in case any of the other artists strike you as worthy of investigation. Iris & Tom Messina's song for example is a true one-off. They were a married couple from Sacramento, and their one song came out on a compilation of local talent, but I don't think they published anything else. Cochise was one of a dozen bands with that name, this is the British one from the early Seventies, who played rock with country, folk and even slightly jazzy tendencies. Larry Groce, on here with early country-folk number "Compton", had a novelty hit five years later with "Junk Food Junkie", then co-founded and became radio host for the classic Mountain Stage program, as well as voice artist for a number of popular Disney albums. 

Oh, I almost forgot: There's a bonus track! My version of The Beach Boys' unreleased (until last year) "Carry Me Home", a great number combining the talents of then-Beach Boys Ricky Faatar and Blondie Chaplin with Dennis Wilson's. It was left off Holland, I suspect not only because of runtime restrictions. I imagine certain members of the band *coughMikeandAlcough* didn't want to get too political. My mix goes 180 on that and turns the subtext into text: Hear tricky Dicky defending the Vietnam war! Hear Mike Love being a faithful patriot! But most importantly: hear Dennis' sing his heart out in the role of a dying soldier.

That's it. Have a lovely Sunday with all pearls and no swine, and some fine, fine music. 

 

A man walks into a rest stop...

 ...to take a piss.

Five minutes later he leaves, 45 bucks and a certain amount of pee lighter, but with a huge stack of books in his hands. 

That's it. There's no punchline. The dude is me, obviously. The bigger rest stops here have these tables of books at cut prices. Most of the time you wade through cooking books, self-help guides and the occasional coffee table tome with nature or animals (though a couple of years ago, I found an oversized James Brown tome). Usually I flip through this stuff and never find anything, but a couple of days ago, a whole section of music books. I'm not much into heavy metal, but still walked away with about three pounds of Heavy Vinyls, which pertains to tell the story of the genre via 800 album covers. Sounds good to me. Also in the stack: books on the Who, Clapton, Dylan and Neil Young (along with compatriots Stills, Crosby & Nash), all telling the stories of their respective heroes via the albums they made: that's just my gig. 

Flipping through these those last days I realized how important critical distance in music journalism is. The best books in the bunch are clearly the Dylan and CSN&Y ones, both by a dude named Stan Cuesta. He praises the good and the brillant when it's there, but is savage and savagely funny when discussing the bad and the ugly. The Clapton book in comparison is a dud, written by a fanboy who finds greatness even in ol' Slowhand's worst albums. A full-blown production catastrophe like Pilgrim is to him a sign of an adventurous spirit pushing further, a man bravely challenging himself, etc etc. yadda yadda yadda...

So, commenters who don't comment, the ball's in your court: Who is your favorite music writer and why? What kind of format of music book do you like? 

Who is Bob Burchill and why should you care?

There must be something in the water, up there in Ontario. Stumbling upon Canadian artists while wading through the lesser known music of my predilection of the 1970s and early 1980s, I realized that a bunch of them, and a number of the stranger ones seem to hail from the rural corners of Ontario. Naturally, the plains and forests of three quarters of the province lend themselves to motivate these folks to indulge in my beloved Americana (would it now be Canadana?). But maybe the great outdoors are also specifically important for people to 'do their own thing', far away from prying eyes?

Take Bob Burchill, for example, another musician I stumbled on by pure accident. Burchill first came upon the music scene as part of the Perth County Conspiracy, seemingly a mix between a hippie commune and a loosely-formed band, from the very same Perth County, and headquartered in Stratford. With the help of this merry band of musicians he finally delivered a solo album in 1975, the very One Buck Records album of the day your digital device of choice will soon be able to hold in its virtual..uh..grasp. Burchill might sound slightly familiar if perchance for the grand total sum of zero dollars, Euros, bath or yen you have purchased volume one of All Pearls, No Swine, and as promised in that album's post, I will slowly get around to present some of its artists in greater detail. 

Cabin Fever, Burchill's first, is a very fine singer/songwriter album, halfway between folk and country. Its sepia-toned album cover with a horse-drawn plough gives you a pretty good indicator of what the muic inside might sound like. Rustic, yes, and a bit out of time, its and any other. The title song is a great driving opener, while "Pilgrim Of The Wind" (the song featured on APNS 1) is a fine folk song with country flourishes over an unintrusive but intriguing percussion backing on congas. "Bend Your Back", another beauty, has some tasteful banjo playing. "Be Together" features some equally tasty fiddle. Cabin Fever is generally speaking mid- to low tempo, nothing here  - apart from maybe the hoedown of "Black Creek" as album closer - will get your pulse throbbing, but it's a perfect album for a slow, lazy sunday morning, or any slow, lazy morning. Or afternoon. Or evening. 

Perfectly cromulent music, further boosted by a bunch of bonus tracks from the album's follow-ups that are in the same style and mood of Cabin Fever for an hour of Canadian country dreaming. 

PS: Considering the obscure status of the artists to appear, a little teaser from the 'Tube might be useful to see if this is might be your jam or not. 

PPS: Intermittently working on the Perth County Conspiracy, so this will probably not the last time you'll hear of these fine folks on these here pages...

...and wave goodbye...

 For Sylvaine

The Ridiculous Sublime of Jimmy Webb

We now interrupt our original scheduled programming for...well, a record I've been obsessively listening to for the last week and change. 

When Jimmy Webb released El Mirage in 1977 he had been trying for the better part of a decade to put the singer in the singer/songwriter, unsuccessfully trying to establish himself as a recording artist in his own right. And yet the public still liked him better as the man who gave the words to Glen Campbell or, well, Richard Harris to sing. While his first album often tried to get away from the bombast that Campbell especially was known for, by El Mirage Webb had given up trying to present himself as a sensitive, guitar-based player in the James Taylor vein and finally and fully embraced his inner Neil Diamond. George Martin was hired to produce, and also arranged and conducted, with the expected orchestral and ornate results. No expense was spared to hire the best session men, including several members of the Wrecking Crew, future mother murderer Jim Gordon (who seems to drum on every 70s album ever recorded), Herb Petersen on acoustic guitar and banjo and random hobos off the street like Billy Davis and Kenny Loggins on the outstanding backing vocals that prop up Webb's leads on several songs. It might be over the top some times, but it sure as hell sounds pretty. 

Webb also brought out some of his best songs, even if some had already been covered by others. "The Highwayman" is an absolute classic and completely bests the hit version of, well, The Highwaymen. "If You See Me Getting Smaller", issued simultaneously by future Highwayman Waylon Jennings, is another stone cold classic. And while Allmusic complains about the 'unnecessary' remake of "P.F. Sloan", I can not abide such sentiment. The original had some weird child-like sounding female backing vocals, which are completely dusted by the deluxe backing vocals on display here. Plus, you know, Herb Pedersen on banjo. Give me that version over the prototype any day and twice on sunday.  

El Mirage is mostly great, but it could have been better. The sequencing had the record's momentum stunted in the middle. And this new resequenced - and in my semi-humble opinion - improved version of the album also has the added bonus of NOT including "Mixed-Up Guy", where Webb really lets his inner Diamond shine, setting a soft rock tune to a disco arrangement which is one step too far for me. Your mileage for showbiz cheese might vary, but mine stops right there. The rest, though, in all its splendid L.A. studio ace glory? Chef's kiss, people, chef's kiss. Jimmy Webb was never afraid of the ridiculous in search of the sublime, and he finds it here, more than once. Here's hoping you do, too.