Paul Collins: King of Power Pop!

August 25th, 2010

Paul Collins keeps the power pop flame blazing

It takes a great deal of self confidence to proclaim oneself “king of power pop,” but given Paul Collins’ seminal role in the Nerves, Breakaways and Beat, and his subsequent appearances solo and with the Paul Collins Band, his claim is as good as anyone’s. While fellow Nerve/Breakaway Peter Case founded the rock ‘n’ soul Plimsouls, Collins refined his AM radio pop craft with the Beat; and as Case created a post-Plimsouls career as a folk-blues troubadour, Collins’ dapplings of soul, blues and country always left his pop core highly visible. He returned to an even purer pop sound with 2004’s Flying High and added 70s influences for 2008’s Ribbon of Gold, developing more introspective material on each. And while the artistic maturity was quite welcome, his twenty-something exuberance had faded.

Or so it seemed. It turns out that Collins hasn’t let the shadows of middle-age black out the enthusiasms of youth. More importantly, he can still write a killer melodic hook and make it stick in two-minutes-thirty. Recording in Detroit with Jim Diamond producing, Collins sounds as if he’s fresh off the end of a tour with the Beat – his voice a tad ragged but still thrilled by the glories of power pop. He charges hard into the bluesy “Do You Wanna Love Me?” and cuts the difference between the Beatles and Everly Brothers on the opening “C’mon Let’s Go!” His lyrics haven’t yearned so dearly and his voice hasn’t sounded this unbridled since he sang “Rock ‘n’ Roll Girl” and “Walking Out on Love” thirty years ago. Collins and Eric Blakely’s guitars rumble and sting, Jim Diamond’s bass and Dave Shettler’s drums propel, and the vocal harmonies and backings capture the joy of a summer’s night cruise with the windows down and the radio up.

Shettler adds tympani to “Many Roads to Follow,” and with the duet harmony sung at the top of Collins’ and Blakely’s ranges, they conjure the deep teen emotions of the Brill Building. Given his track record, it’s not really surprising that Collins still has great albums in him, but that he so effortlessly reaches back to the sounds he helped coin in the mid-70s (and whose invention he details in “Kings of Power Pop”), and it’s inspiring that he finds such satisfying ways to use the wear in his voice. Particularly noteworthy is how easily he matches Alex Chilton’s gravelly tone on a cover of the Box Tops’ 1967 hit “The Letter,” and how beautifully he covers the Flamin’ Groovies’ “You Tore Me Down.” The heartbreak of his original “Hurting’s on My Side” is rendered in the sort of ragged-voiced emotion John Lennon shouted out in 1964. Anyone who loves the Nerves EP and the Beat’s albums (particularly the debut) should grab a copy of this one ASAP. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Do You Wanna Love Me
Paul Collins’ Home Page
Paul Collins Beat’s MySpace Page
Paul Collins Band’s Home Page

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The Sons of the Pioneers: Sing the Stephen Foster Songbook

August 23rd, 2010

Nineteenth century American songs sung in 1930s close harmony

It’s a mark of Stephen Foster’s seminal place in American culture that the two songs opening this collection, “Oh Susanna” and “De Camptown Races,” are known more as part of the musical landscape than a particular songwriter’s creation. But those two, along with “Old Black Joe” and “Swanee River” are indeed part of Foster’s catalog of American musical classics. “Oh Susanna” was his first commercially successful composition, and though written in Cincinnati, it became emblematic of the California gold rush of the mid-1800s. Within five years he’d written many of his most memorable songs. But in an era of limited copyright, Foster barely profited from his songwriting, and by the early 1860s he was living in poverty in New York City, finally passing away in 1864. But his songs lived on, burnishing his reputation as one of the first truly American songwriters.

The Sons of the Pioneers came together in 1933, at a time that Foster’s songs were gaining renewed recognition. Kentucky adopted “My Old Kentucky Home” in 1928, and Florida adopted “Old Folks at Home” (aka “Swanee River”) in 1935. Though the Sons of the Pioneers are more typically recognized for their close harmony Western songs, they included Foster’s works in their Americana songbook right from the start. The 1934 and 1935 performances collected here include lead vocals from all three of the group’s founding members, Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan and Tim Spencer, as well as an instrumental version of “Swanee River” featuring fiddler Hugh Farr. The tracks from 1935 also include guitarist Karl Farr.

Foster’s occasional use of racial slang may have been acceptable in the 1850s or 1930s, but it will stick out to contemporary listeners. The performance of Foster’s songs by minstrel acts and the later repurposing of his lyrics by post-Reconstructionists further magnified the offense felt today; listeners may strain to take the dialect and epithets in the context of their times. These recordings are drawn from transcription recordings that the Sons of the Pioneers made for radio broadcast, and have not been widely available in the intervening decades. This is a treasure trove for fans of Stephen Foster as well as Sons of the Pioneers fans who want to hear their original harmony sounds. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Judy Collins: In My Life

August 23rd, 2010

One of folk music’s greatest voices expands her horizons in 1966

After five folk albums, culminating in the superb Fifth Album in 1965, Judy Collins sought personal growth as an artist and broader synergy with the musical scenes developing around her. She’d already branched out from the traditional material of 1961’s A Maid of Constant Sorrow and 1962’s Golden Apples of the Sun (available as a two-fer) to contemporary material penned by Dylan, Seeger, Paxton, Ochs and Farina, but she’d kept to a traditional acoustic guitar and string bass approach. With this 1966 release she stretched even further for new material, adding pop songs and show tunes, while still championing newly emerging talents that included Leonard Cohen, Randy Newman and Donovan. She once again proved herself a unique interpreter of Dylan, singing the melody of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” with ease rather than haggard exhalation. Similarly, on “Suzanne” her voice adds delicacy and range that were beyond Cohen’s instrument, and gave the poet his break as a songwriter.

The arrangements push past the minimalism of her earlier albums with Joshua Rifkin-penned chamber-pop arrangements that add strings, woodwinds, percussion and harpsichord. This suits both the range of material as well as the moods Collins evokes as she extrapolates her interpretation into acting. Her readings of Brecht and Weill’s “Pirate Jenny” and Peaslee’s “Marat/Sade” are pitched to reach the last row and befit their stage origins, and Rifkin’s arrangement of guitar and violin provides dramatic backing for Jacques Brel’s dire “La Colombe.” Harp, bells and waltz time whirl Donovan’s “Sunny Goodge Street” nearly into carousel music, and now in retrospect, the closing cover of “In My Life” provides a bittersweet tribute to its author. Collectors’ Choice’s 2010 release is a straight-up reissue of the album’s original eleven tracks, with new liner notes by Richie Unterberger. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Jerry Lee Lewis: The Essential Sun Country Hits

August 14th, 2010

The Killer’s original country sides for Sun

Few remember that Jerry Lee Lewis’ first recording for Sun was a 1956 cover of Ray Price’s classic, “Crazy Arms.” Lewis’ country roots were largely overshadowed by the string of incendiary rock ‘n’ roll sides he recorded in the late 50s, and all but buried by the scandal that derailed his career in 1958. It wasn’t until the mid-60s, at Smash Records, that Lewis once again found sustained commercial success, but this time on the country chart as a balladeer. His renewed popularity led then-Sun owner Shelby Singleton to dig up earlier unreleased country sides, including three from Lewis’ last Sun session in 1963, and release them as singles. Varese’s fourteen-track collection pulls together three sides released at the time of Lewis’ tenure with Sun, eight sides first released by Singleton between 1969 and 1972, and three sides that went unreleased as singles, but have turned up on various compilations over the years. Tht titles include several top-10s, 20s and 40s, but more interestingly, it shows that Sun had tried Lewis out on the country chart with a 1958 cover of Charlie Rich’s “I’ll Make it All Up to You” and used “It Hurt Me So” as a B-side. Lewis’ success at Smash comes as no surprise once you’ve heard these tracks he waxed at Sun in the late 50s and early 60s. He’s a talented and nuanced country singer and honky-tonk pianist whose love of Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams is born out in covers of the former’s “Waiting for a Train” and the latter’s “I Could Never Be Ashamed of You.” What does remain surprising is how easily he dropped his outsized rock ‘n’ roll persona to sing these more intimate songs of woe.  To complete the picture of Lewis’ country career you’ll need to pick up a collection of his Smash hits, such as Killer Country, but the roots were clearly planted with these efforts at Sun. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Kansas: Setlist – The Very Best Of

August 11th, 2010

Prog-rock and boogie from the arena heartland of America

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Kansas was among the most commercially successful prog-rock bands of their time. Their intricate arrangements, complex time signatures and instrumental chops echoed the works of EL&P, King Crimson, Golden Earring (check out the bass line and drums on their cover of J.J. Cale’s “Bringing it Back”) and the whole of the UK Canterbury scene, but the muscle of their Midwest rock looked equally to the jams of the Allman Brothers. The combination of brains, boogie and relentless touring propelled them to stardom on album rock radio stations and made them a tremendous arena draw. The ten tracks collected here are drawn primarily from the band’s peak years of 1975-1978, and all but two (a 1980 performance of “Dust in the Wind” and a 1982 performance of “Play the Game Tonight”) are previously released.

The core of this set is drawn from the live album Two for the Show, and its 2008 expanded reissue. Additional tracks were picked up from expanded reissues of Kansas, Leftoverature, and Song for America. Though fans are likely to have all the expanded reissues, the previously unreleased version of “Dust in the Wind” is worth picking up. Recorded a year before vocalist Steve Walsh left the band, it’s a moody and emotional performance with a moving extended violin solo by Robby Steinhardt. As one might expect from a prog-rock band playing arenas in the mid-70s, the tracks expand to upwards of nine minutes, and though there are fleeting moment of Spinal Tap bombast, the boogie grooves keep the jams jamming. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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REO Speedwagon: Setlist – The Very Best Of

August 11th, 2010

The rocking live side of REO Speedwagon

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

REO Speedwagon’s entry in this series is really geared to fans, rather than as an overview of the band’s live recordings. Half the tracks (2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14) are previously unreleased performances stretching from 1980 through 1987, and though the band’s two chart toppers (“Keep on Loving You” and “Can’t Fight This Feeling”) are included, the song list relies more on fan and concert favorites, such as “Like You Do,” “Keep Pushin’” and “Golden Country,” that weren’t released as singles. The band’s signature, “Ridin’ the Storm Out,” is offered here in an excellent previously unissued 1981 performance recorded at Denver’s McNichols Arena. The seven previously issued tracks are drawn from the band’s 1976 U.S. tour (3, 4, 7, 13) as documented on Live: You Get What You Play For, and mid-80s to early-90s performances (1, 9, 11) drawn from The Second Decade Of Rock And Roll 1981 To 1991.

As much as the power ballad “Keep on Lovin’ You” has defined REO Speedwagon for casual listeners, their earlier albums were built on a foundation of blue collar Midwest rock rather than the studio pop of their breakthrough hits. You can hear the difference in direction between the 1976 and post-1980 sides, but what’s really noticeable is the decline in spark of the 1990s performances. The producers have done a nice job of cross-fading the audience response, segueing tracks from disparate times and places into a surprisingly seamless (and perhaps overly relentless) concert experience. It’s remains puzzling why the band didn’t better document their live performances at the time of their early-80s prime, and though this set helps fill in the picture, the great ‘80s REO Speedwagon live album still remains to be released commercially. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Clefs of Lavender Hill: Stop! Get a Ticket

August 8th, 2010

Long-lost stereo LP from obscure Florida ‘60s rock/folk-rock band

The Clefs of Lavender Hill are an obscure mid-60s Florida four-piece built around the brother and sister guitar/vocal team of Travis and Coventry Fairchild (born Joseph and Lorraine Ximenes) and the rhythm section of Bill (bass) and Fred (drums) Moss. The B-side of their first single, “Stop! Get a Ticket,” has long been a favorite of the garage-folk crowd, having appeared on the box set reissue of Nuggets, as well as Rock Artifacts 3. Little was known about the band, though singles collectors managed to document four singles released on Date records between 1965 and 1967. Rumors persisted about a full album that had been shelved after recording in 1966, and now forty-four years later, Wounded Bird has unearthed the eleven album tracks in terrific full-fidelity stereo, as well as a non-LP single and two additional mixes (one stereo, one mono) of “Stop! Get a Ticket.” Whew!

The band’s rock ‘n’ roll roots were stoked by the British Invasion, evident not only in covers of the Beatles (“It Won’t Be Long”), Rolling Stones (“Play With Fire”), Donovan (“Sunshine Superman”), but also in the Zombies-styled original “One More Time.” The group conjured a folk-rock sound on “You Don’t Notice” and “First Tell Me Why” that nodded to the harmonies of San Francisco’s Autumn Records and Jefferson Airplane. The Fairchild’s originals are excellent, and their dramatic take on “Play with Fire,” with Coventry Fairchild singing lead, is even more seething than the Stones’ original; their cover of “New Orleans” amplifies the party vibe of Gary U.S. Bonds’ hit with dynamic bass and drums and a hot guitar substituting for the original’s sax.

This is a terrific find that greatly expands on the band’s one well-anthologized track and four difficult-to-find 45s. The four-panel booklet includes vintage photos but – incredibly – no liner notes. Given the band’s obscurity, Wounded Bird should have stepped up and hired someone to write at least a cursory band biography, if not track down the members for contemporary interviews. The original mono mixes of the band’s four singles would have been a nice addition to the stereo album tracks, but it’s hard to complain too loudly given the quality of the album masters. What’s here is truly great, but what could have been here would have (and should have) been definitive. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Judy Collins: Fifth Album

August 8th, 2010

Judy Collins peaks as a folk singer

By the time Judy Collins recorded this album in 1965, the traditional strains of the folk revival were losing steam. That same year Dylan released a side of electric tunes on Bringing it All Back Home and plugged in for his set at Newport. The Byrds released their debut album in June, and Simon and Garfunkel’s 1964 acoustic debut album begat the electric augmentation of Sounds of Silence two years later. Collins herself rethought her own music on 1966’s In My Life, but before doing so, pulled together the elements made her a great folk singer, and invested her ears and interpretive powers in selecting and rendering these twelve songs. She combined traditional tunes with contemporary compositions by Dylan, Ochs, and Farina, and gave each the benefit of her magnificently clear and moving voice. Collins’ talent for discovering material led her to Eric Anderson’s “Thirsty Boots” (with John Sebastian adding harmonica) and Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain,” long before either became folk standards.

The album opens on a high note with a terrific interpretation of Richard Farina’s “Pack Up Your Sorrows.” Farina’s dulcimer is more upbeat than on the original duet with his wife Mimi, and together with second guitarist Eric Weissberg, Collins frees the song of its overt sorrow by leaning on the lyrics’ magnanimity. She proves her talent for interpretation by taking Dylan’s “Tomorrow is a Long Time” slowly, holding onto the notes with desire and longing, and she sings all four verses of “Mr. Tambourine Man” to an arrangement that replaces the electric guitar of Dylan’s original with Bill Lee’s acoustic bass. Her vocal captures both the overnight weariness of Dylan and the early morning wonder of McGuinn, creating a unique interpretation that stands tall among the many versions cut in 1965. Similarly, she brings a powerful feeling of solemnity and desolation to Billy Edd Wheeler’s “The Coming of the Roads,” giving voice to the emotional and environmental devastation of the song’s lyrics.

The baroque sounds Collins would explore on the following year’s In My Life are foreshadowed by a cello backing on the traditional “Lord Gregory,” and guitars and acoustic bass are joined by Jerry Dodgion’s flute for a live recording of Malvina Reynolds’ rousing “It Isn’t Nice.” Richard Farina’s dulcimer provides quiet accompaniment for Gil Turner’s civil rights anthem “Carry it On,” and his original poem from the album cover is reproduced in full on the booklet’s back (bring your magnifying glass!). Collectors’ Choice’s reissue brings the original dozen tracks back into domestic print, and includes new liner notes by Richie Unterberger. This is a terrific artifact of the folk revival and a high point in Collins’ career. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Courtney Jaye: The Exotic Sounds of Courtney Jaye

August 5th, 2010

A singular vision of Hawaiian-tinged Canyon Country

Those who know Courtney Jaye from her 2005 release on Island, Traveling Light, don’t really know Courtney Jaye. A pleasant album with glossy production, an airbrushed cover and some memorable pop hooks, it propelled her into the pop mainstream, culminating with some film and television placements (including a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain”), and a performance on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show. Not Conan or Letterman or Kimmel, but Leno, which tells you where her label was headed. She could see the direction the machine was taking her career, but unlike many talented young artists who sell their dreams short, Jaye shucked off the industry’s plans, took stock and reinvest in her own artist visions. She relocated to Northern California, Austin and eventually Nashville, and gathered into one set of songs the wide variety of sounds that had excited her ear.

The result is this independently recorded and released second album, with a cover that teases with the allure of Sandy Warner, and pays off with an alchemy of musical styles that bounce from girl-group to Topanga Canyon singer-songwriter to country twang to Hawaiian slack-key and exotica to classic Brill Building pop. Her knack for writing killer pop hooks is not only intact, but amplified by productions that have the spontaneous DIY charms of 1960s singles that weren’t belabored into aural numbness. Stripped of the debut album’s production gloss, Jaye’s voice is freed to launch emotional barbs into your heart. If you listen to only one song on this album, check out the video below for “Don’t Tell a Girl.” The melody and chorus hook are so necessarily repeatable as to make the track’s 3:30 about ten minutes too short. Somebody needs to spring Phil Spector from prison so he can produce a Wall of Sound version of this song.

The album opens with a lo-fi count-off and the drippy slide guitar that George Harrison played in the 1970s, but the rhythm has a Latin tinge and Jaye’s double-tracked vocal tumbles out with both need and doubt. It’s the sort of idiosyncratic mix of sounds that could only spring from an artist’s singular history of influences, giving the pained lyrics the bounce of false hope and the ache of unfulfilled longing. Jaye manages to suggest both the adolescent heartache of girl-groups and the more seasoned sorrow of grown women. She evokes Brenda Lee, Connie Francis, Kelly Willis and Rosanne Cash, but also, on the dreamily harmonized “Sweet Ride,” the mid-70s Fleetwood Mac sound of Buckingham and Nicks. There’s bending steel, acoustic and electric guitars, drums, ukuleles and baion beats that trace Jaye’s travels between Hawaii, California, Texas, and Tennessee. There are even some Arthur Lyman-styled bird calls on the instrumental “Maru Maru.”

A few of the tracks may remind you of Sheryl Crow’s summery singles, but just as you warm sound of “Sunlight,” Jaye cranks up the Gram Parsons-styled honky-tonk of “Box Wine.” And again, it all fits together into what Jaye’s dubbed “Tropicalicountry”: a blend of Hawaiian and country roots with the indie freedom of Austin and the mid-70s buzz of Los Angeles. Jaye began her journey to this amalgam with the Gary Louris-produced EP ‘Til it Bleeds, but here, co-producing with Seth Kauffmann (who also plays most of the instruments), she’s gotten the full symphony of sounds out of her head and onto tape. And just when you think you’ve hard all the album’s surprises, Jaye duets with Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell for a twanging back-porch country cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Sometimes Always.” And just like the rest of the album, it works perfectly and without compromise. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Hear a live acoustic version of “Sweet Ride”
Courtney Jaye’s MySpace Page

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Phil Ochs: On My Way – 1963 Demo Sessions

August 5th, 2010

Spectacular cache of previously unreleased 1963 demo recordings

The folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s produced its share of recorded artifacts, reproduced on tape, vinyl, CD and most recently MP3, but it also held tightly to the tradition of live performance and the transmission of songs from one wandering minstrel to the next. Phil Ochs recorded his own share of treasured LPs, including his 1964 debut All the News That’s Fit to Sing and the seminal follow-up I Ain’t Marching Anymore, but in 1963 his songs were still heard only on stage in live performance. A couple of years ago, this reel of forgotten demo recordings turned up and was purchased at auction by Ochs’ brother Michael. Recorded at the Florida home of future Highwayman Roy Connors, the informal session finds Ochs running through his original material, including several key titles he’d later record for studio releases, in the hope of interesting other artists (in this case Connors’ Vikings Three) in playing or recording his songs.

Several collections of Ochs demos have been released under the Broadside banner, but these 1963 performances sport several key differences. When recording for Broadside, Ochs’ was laying out his lyrics for publication in a magazine, rather than selling his songs; he left out chorus repeats and often sang in a matter-of-fact fashion that made the lyrics clear but didn’t lean on the whole song’s craft. In contrast, these twenty-five self-penned compositions are being sold to fellow musicians. Ochs not only sings the songs as he would on stage, he speaks to the songs’ subjects, their chord structures, and to their recent reception by live audiences. Aside from the high quality of the performances and the number of rare Ochs originals, these recordings provide an unusual peek into the working musician’s back room where songs are taught and traded.

The solo format – Ochs and his acoustic guitar – was easy to record, and the balance of voice and instrument is excellent. There are some dropouts and a few rough spots in the tapes, but nothing that really detracts from the listening experience. What comes through loud and clear is Ochs’ devotion to his subjects, something he proclaimed directly in “I’ll Be There.” One might expect a topical singer of the early 1960s to sound quaint and dated in the twenty-first century, but Ochs’ themes, complaints and observations of social injustices and political realities remain sadly resonant in modern times. He excoriates greedy corporations (“The Ballad of U.S. Steel”), is disgusted by the impact of market economics on health care (“The A.M.A. Song”) and wonders about the prohibition of travel to Cuba (“The Ballad of William Worthy”). He rips songs from the headlines, lamenting the vicious death of a boxer, a cross-fire killing on the streets of New York City, and the hard times of a Kentucky coal miner’s strike.

Ochs could also be quite touching, singing nostalgic laments (“Time Was”) and lonely observations (“Morning” and “First Snow”), proclaiming his love of country, flaws and all, on a powerful early version of “The Power and the Glory,” and riffing on “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” for the humorous “Once I Lived the Life of a Commissar.” This is a terrific package, documenting a folk troubadour early in his career, bursting with music that had something to say. In addition to the twenty-five songs, the tri-fold cardboard slipcase includes reproductions of two ads for the House of Pegasus concert run that brought Ochs to Florida in 1963, and liner notes by Michael Simmons. This is an important release for fans, and a terrific document of the folk-roots revival. It’s more spontaneous than Ochs’ studio albums, and though not as polished as his official live albums, the passion, craft and dedication that minted Ochs’ legend still burn brightly in these demos forty-seven years later. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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