Monthly Archives: December 2009

Jackie Gleason & Bobby Hackett: Essential Cocktail Lounge

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Instrumental mood music for orchestra and trumpet

These set is a budget-priced MP3 version of the 4-CD set Complete Sessions issued on the Fine & Mellow label. It collects 102 tracks recorded by Jackie Gleason and Bobby Hackett between 1952 and 1959, with Gleason conducting an orchestra and Hackett adding his trumpet. The set includes the original albums “Music for Lovers Only” (1952), “Music to Make You Misty” (1953, and not including the tracks featuring saxophonist Toots Mondello), “Music, Martinis and Memories” (1954), “Music to Remember Her” (1954), “Music to Change Her Mind” (1956), “Music for the Love Hours” (1956), and “That Moment” (1959). The last two, which were the final two pairings of these artists are previously unreleased. The last of the albums is also the only one originally released in stereo, though it seems to be reproduced in mono here. Even stranger, most of the tracks from “The Love Hours” seem to be broader than plain mono, but not really stereo. One channel or two, Gleason’s orchestrations are lush, with relaxed tempos and dramatic string arrangements that provide a compelling place for Hackett’s languid playing and smooth tone. The material sticks mostly to standards, and though Hackett has a jazz background, this is very much easy listening music. A hundred-and-two tracks (over five hours of music) may be more than the casual mood music fan can use, but for Gleason fans or anyone looking for hours and hours of pleasant background music, this set is a steal. Note that the track ordering does not follow that of the original albums, and the detailed booklet supplied with Fine & Mellow’s CDs are completely absent. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

The Hooks: 10,000 Feet

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Great punk-pop-rock with a 1977 vibe

The Hooks are an Irish rock band that relocated to San Francisco a few years ago. Their music is filled with melodic hooks and powerful guitar-bass-and-drums energy that’s as much power-pop as it is punk. Fans of the Flamin’ Groovies and Barracudas and all fine rock ‘n’ roll that remembers its 1960s pop radio roots will love this. The title track sounds like a long-lost Stiff Records single that would have had Wreckless Eric singing at the top of his lungs, and “All Across the World” conjures the strident agitprop of the Clash. Released a few years ago, this may have been 30 years too late to garner the attention it deserves. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Five Americans: Progressions

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Third and best album from Dallas-based ‘60s pop-rock vocal group

For their third album, following up their chart breakthrough with “Western Union,” the band thickened their arrangements, deepened their harmony singing, and scored an additional Top-40 hit with the pro-USPS, “Zip Code.” The group continued to write most of their own material, including eight of the album’s original ten tracks, and took over production from Dale Hawkins. The results are a great deal richer and more varied. The opening “Stop Light” lowers the organ from the high sound of earlier albums to bassier church notes. There is country, light psych, bubblegum and blue-eyed soul, and the Kinks-styled “Black is White” adds hot guitar leads to the melodic hook swiped from the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.”

The band’s baroque pop, such as on “Sweet Bird of Youth,” fits nicely with songs from the Left Banke’s first two albums, and the folk-rock “EVOL-Not Love” sounds like the Vejtables and Beau Brummels. A cover of the Rascals’ “Come on Up” is played straight, but the Spencer Davis Group’s “Somebody Help Me” is given a group vocal arrangement. Like so many one- hit wonders (though, technically, the Five Americans were three hit wonders), there was more than met the Top-5 eye, and this album shows off their high-quality songwriting, singing and playing. As with their previous album, Western Union, the stereo fidelity here is excellent; these albums were better recorded, and the master tapes better preserved than one would expect. Casual listeners might start off with the group’s Best Of, but fans of ‘60s music will want to hear this full album reissue. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Zip Code
The Five Americans’ Home Page

The Five Americans: Western Union/Sound of Love

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Second album from Dallas-based ‘60s pop-rock hitmakers

This Dallas-based quintet broke into the Top 40 with their bluesy garage rocker “I See the Light” in 1966 and followed the next year with their biggest hit, “Western Union.” Both songs were group originals, which was a trend that continued on this second album. The title track is a catchy pop-rocker with bouncy bass and drums, tight harmony singing and an unforgettable falsetto hook. The rest of their originals are organ and guitar-based with light arrangements, terrific vocals and the occasional country tinge. Highlights include the harmony-rich ballad “Now That It’s Over,” the folk-rock “Sound of Love,” the fuzz bass and beat heavy “Reality,” and the Ohio Express styled bubblegum bonus track, “Lovin’ is Livin’.” The album’s three covers are more interesting for their range of material than their actual performances. “I Put a Spell on You” (written by the album’s producer, Dale Hawkins) suggests the Animals, but isn’t as heavy, nor as sinister as the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Worse, the vocal on Roger Miller’s “Husbands and Wives” sounds like a goof rather than a finished take. Sundazed has done a tremendous job re-mastering this into a surprisingly crisp CD. Casual listeners might be better off with the group’s Best Of, but fans will relish this full album reissue. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Western Union
The Five Americans’ Home Page

The Skip Heller Trio: The Long Way Home

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Country, country blues and country rock

For those who know Skip Heller from his jazz, lounge and exotica music, this Americana outing come as something of a surprise. His pedigree reaches back to mid-90s work with Les Baxter, Robert Drasnin and Yma Sumac, and a string of organ-centric albums that includes the trio’s two previous outings, Along the Anchorline and Mean Things Happen in This Land, jazz titles like Fakebook, and the exotica Lua-O-Milo. But there’s another side to Heller’s career to be found in the rockabilly sides he’s produced for Dee Lannon and Ray Campi, and work with Wanda Jackson, Dave Alvin and Chris Gafney. Given these latter connections, this album of country, country blues, and country rock, isn’t at all without precedent.

Heller isn’t shy about his roots influences, as his songs strongly echo the styles of Tom T. Hall, Merle Haggard and John Hartford. He writes heartbroken songs of falling for the wrong woman and being left behind by the right one. He adopts a sad-sack tone that perches on the edge between hope and bitterness for the opening “I Used to Love California” and cops the vibe and guitar riff of “Ode to Billy Joe” for his stock taking “At My Age.” He imagines Duke Ellington’s inglorious latter-day gigs (“it was a gas money gig at a high school in some tiny town in central PA”), rediscovers the post-Katrina New Orleans, and worries about loving a married woman.

His subjects are imaginative and fresh, and though he’s not a gifted vocalist, he can be effective. What he lacks in vocal refinement he more than makes up with his guitar playing. The echoed electric guitar solo on the closing “Tracy Lee,” is just one example of how delicious his playing can be. A pair of blues, one led by Robert Drasnin’s clarinet and the other strummed on guitar, connect his country and jazz backgrounds, and touches of DJ Bonebreak’s vibraphone hint at his lounge work. With his fingers in so many musical pies this release didn’t draw the attention it deserves. Heller is a sophisticated songwriter and musician whose roots-oriented work seems to be overshadowed by his productions for others and his reputation as a jazz player. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Shangri-Las: The Complete Collection

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Nearly complete collection with some stereo bonuses

With so many cheap Shangri-Las compilations arriving on digital download lately, you have to wonder if someone forgot to renew the copyrights. This set is a nearly complete accounting of the Shangri-Las official releases, including the tracks from their two albums (Leader of the Pack and Shangri-Las ’65), their pre- and post-Red Bird singles for Spokane, Scepter, Smash and Mercury, the well circulated alternate take of “Give Him a Great Big Kiss,” two ads for Revlon, and Mary Weiss’ period “good taste tip” radio spots. All that’s missing is their cover of “Twist and Shout,” as it appeared on their first album and single B-side. Perhaps the second, lo-fi version of “It’s Easier to Cry” that’s included here was supposed to be the missing track.

These appear to be all original recordings, mono except for 1, 3, 5, 9, 11, 17 and 26. The stereo mixes exhibit some differences from the mono versions anthologized on RPM’s Myrmidons of Melodrama [1 2], particularly in the instrumental balance. “Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand)” is 2:41 rather than the mono version’s 2:15, with the backing vocals panned left the handclaps and finger snaps panned right, and an ending that stretches the bass riff and backing vocals past Mary Weiss lead vocal. After the motorcycle crash sound effect, “Leader of the Pack” includes two extra vamps that aren’t present on RPM’s mono master. Assuming these are original stereo performances, they’re great bonuses for Shangri-Las collectors, but it’s a shame Goldenlane doesn’t provide any explanation of where these came from.

Track ordering mostly front-loads the group’s Red Bird era singles, though not uniformly. This leaves their pre-Red Bird singles as bonus tracks at collection’s end. Track-to-track volume levels aren’t perfectly balanced, though most MP3 players will fix this for you in playback. The packaging, or complete lack thereof, keeps this from reaching the pinnacle of reissue heights, but it’s hard to argue with thirty-nine girl group classics for less than the cost of a typical 12-track CD. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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Unofficial Shangri-Las Web Site

Butchers Blind: One More Time

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Rootsy pop and Americana from the wilds of Long Island

Butchers Blind is a Long Island duo formed from the ashes of the little-known Double Stops. But if these three debut tracks are any indication, Pete Mancini (guitar, vocals, keyboards and lap steel) and Brian Reilly (bass) will soon be making a name for themselves. Their melodies are ingratiating in the way of fine pop records, and Mancini is a vocalist whose vulnerability holds you from the first word. Having borrowed their name from a fictional underground, unsigned band in Wilco’s “The Late Greats” (from 2004’s A Ghost is Born), it’s no surprise that Butchers Blind sounds a bit like Tweedy and company, but more the earlier alt.country darlings than the later shape-shifters.

Perhaps they aspire to the range that Wilco’s adopted, but for now, Mancini and Ross offer music that brings to mind another cult band, Big Star. Their productions have hints of the luxurious sheen John Fry captured at Ardent, with a warmth in their music grown from similar roots. The title track adds Steve Mounier on drums, creating a fuller rock band sound, while the B-sides drift more languidly on guitar, piano and bass. “Something Missing” is a lovely slice of melancholy heartache, and “My Worst Enemy” doesn’t give away whether it’s accounting with a wayward mate or a stern bit of self-loathing sung to the bathroom mirror. Either way, Mancini sells the emotion and the title hook will rattle around your brain for hours.

Mancini and Reilly have produced surprisingly complete tracks as an overdubbed two-piece, but it’s hard to imagine they could reproduce these sounds live without a drummer and a second guitarist or keyboard player. Still, these demos show what Butchers Blind would sound like as a band, and though these weren’t produced for commercial sale, one could imagine them appearing as-is on the band’s debut. All that’s needed is for somebody to sign them up. In the meantime, even though, as per Wilco, “you can’t hear it on the radio,” you can enjoy the group’s first three productions and say you knew them when. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | One More Time
MP3 | My Worst Enemy
MP3 | Something Missing
Butchers Blind’s MySpace Page

Various Artists: Rock ‘n’ Roll Bell Ringers

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Period covers of ‘50s rock and R&B

The modern-day music market teems with cover albums featuring past-their-prime artists attempting to re-create their hit singles; there are often passed off with misleading cover art that fails to indicate these are re-recordings. But once upon a time covering other people’s hits was more of an art form, adding dashes of new creativity even as the copy rode the coattails of someone else’s stardom onto the charts. These twenty-six singles were originally released on the Bell label as covers of 1950s R&B and rock classics, with band arrangements that are polished and expertly played. A few of the top-line names, such as Sy Oliver, Edna McGriff and Jimmy Carroll will be familiar, as will be some of the ace New York session players, including Billy Mure, Al Caiola and Charlie Shavers.

The song selections will be familiar to anyone who’s heard a ‘50s hit collection, but the singers will mostly draw question marks. Jim Brown won’t make you forget Chuck Berry as he sings “Maybellene,” but hot guitar licks and a rousing sax solo signal that there’s top-flight talent on board, and Edna McGriff’s version of Lee Hazelwood’s “The Fool” is more hit parade than Sanford Clark’s rockabilly original, but it still packs a punch. The low twang, heavy sax and rolling piano of Jimmy Carroll’s “Big Guitar” fits into the Las Vegas Grind genre, and though Johnny Newton never became a household name, he sounds right at home on the Impalas’ “Sorry (I Ran All the Way Home).” The album closes with Tom & Jerry (soon to be known as Simon & Garfunkel) covering Jan & Dean’s pre-surf hit “Baby Talk.”

The Bell label specialized in quickie covers sold at a low price; but even in their hurry to beat an original single to the charts, they lavished a surprising amount of attention on these recordings. The arrangements, bands and recordings often outstrip the talent of the singers they could round up, but there’s a quality to these sides, and an authenticity of era, that greatly surpasses the middling results of current labels recreating 50 year old hits. These are no substitute for the originals, but given the mechanics of the record industry at the time and the passage of decades, they’ve gained an historical patina that elevates them beyond cheap knock-offs. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Nathan Holscher: Hit the Ground

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Ragged and moody singer-songwriter Americana

Nathan Holscher is proof that you needn’t be in Nashville or Austin to produce Americana. Holscher grew up and was schooled in the Midwest, and after bouncing around the Southwest ended up in Cincinnati, a city long ago known for the hillbilly records issued on the King label. Roy Rogers was born in Cincinnati, and Pure Prairie League formed in Columbus, but more recently the Queen City has turned out soul acts such as Bootsy Collins, the Isley Brothers and Afghan Whigs, and garage/indie rock from the Greenhornes and Heartless Bastards. So it’s without a lot of recent local roots music history that Nathan Holscher drops his third full-length album, populated with dark, downtrodden country and folk songs.

These songs are more anguished than those on two previous outings, 2004’s Pray for Rain and 2007’s Even the Hills. Holscher’s earlier work was agitated and even chipper, but his latest band, Ohio 5, builds more atmospheric arrangements from drums, piano, guitar, bass organ and pedal steel. His ragged vocals sound pained and heartbroken as he catalogs the emotional wreckage of a doomed engagement, with growing doubts strewn along the road trip of “Along the Way.” He tries to prolong broken relationships and on the ‘50s-styled ballad “Only One” hopes for a lover’s change of mind. Holscher sounds crushed as he chokes out an ex-con’s pining on “Seven Years,” and the title track’s frustrated jab at a drug addicted friend feels as fated to fail as the addict himself.

Obviously this isn’t your feel-good album of 2009, but the slow, moody productions provide the right backing for Holscher’s dissipated vocal style. He comes across as intimate and confessional, but he sings as someone exhaling his troubles at the end of a long and trying ordeal rather than as a storyteller trying to make an explicit point. He describes his work as letting “the song steer the ship,” and the results seep out as circumstance rather than drama. It’s precisely that casual reveal of character and storyline that makes this release arresting. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Along the Way
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Elvis Presley: Elvis 75- Good Rockin’ Tonight

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4-CD anthology shines as brightly as a King’s crown

Elvis was not only the king of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Little Richard’s claim on the crown notwithstanding), but in his afterlife he has also become the undisputed king of reissues and anthologies. RCA’s four-CD set, spanning from his earliest self-funded acetates through late home recordings and live sides, his last major studio works and a post-mortem remix, offers no new tracks for Presley’s legions of collectors, but provides a superb introduction and deep overview for anyone who’s heard about, rather than heard, the King. Those who know a few hits or have sat through an Elvis movie or two will find the greatness of his musical catalog measures up to the hype and explains the dedication of his most ardent fans.

Collected here are one hundred tracks, beginning with Presley’s very first recording, “My Happiness,” waxed on his own dime as a gift for his mother. His earliest commercial sides show how he forged hillbilly, blues and country roots into his personal strand of rock ‘n’ roll, first for Sun with Scotty Moore and Bill Black, and then, with the addition of D.J. Fontana on drums and A-list guests like Floyd Cramer and Chet Atkins, for RCA. These early works aren’t so much primitive as they are elemental – the lack of production pomp or circumstance presents Elvis as an unadorned and raw rock ‘n’ roll spirit. The addition of a backing vocal trio, as can first be heard on 1956’s “I Was the One,” showed a crooning side of Elvis that would continue to reappear even as he continued to explore rockabilly and blues.

From the 50s through the 70s Elvis moved through a variety of producer’s hands and a number of different studios, and got something different from each. His studio recordings took him from Memphis to Nashville, north to New York, west to Hollywood, back to Nashville where he worked in RCA’s legendary Studio B and back to Memphis for his legendary late-60s sessions at Chip Moman’s American Studios. By the early ‘70s, on the heels of his televised comeback special, Elvis once again became a live draw, and selected sides find him in Las Vegas, Honolulu and on the road in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Elvis waxed his share of clunkers, but with each new direction and in each new setting he seemed to record something worthwhile, and producer Ernst Mikael Jorgensen has done a masterful job of picking highlights.

More importantly, Jorgensen has intermixed iconic hits with lesser known singles and album tracks, showing the depth of Elvis’ artistry and the catalog he created. Elvis often overwhelmed the charts with hit singles, leaving terrific performances such as the energized “One-Sided Love Affair,” a bluesy cover of Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and the gospel “Thrill of Your Love” to languish as album tracks. Even more surprising is a 1962 version of “Suspicion” that pre-dates Terry Stafford’s hit by two years. Elvis’ soundtracks included their share of dregs, particularly as the ‘60s wore on, but they also included hits and great album tracks like a scorching version of “Trouble” from King Creole and bluesy covers of Dylan’s “Tomorrow is a Long Time” from Spinout and Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man” from Clambake.

While other artists reinvented themselves to fit the times, Elvis bent the times around himself (excepting “Yoga is as Yoga Does,” thankfully not included here), staying true to his voice as everything around him changed. His producers, songwriters, and musicians kept turning over, but in the center of it all Elvis sang a surprisingly straight line from ’53 to ‘77. Even as his voice matured and the productions were influenced by his Vegas stage show, the fire in his delivery remained. Whether singing rock, blues, country, soul, pop or gospel, his performances found a true line stretched from the Sun sessions through RCA studios in Nashville, New York and Hollywood, a stint in the army, a catalog of often mediocre films, his 1968 resurrection, a triumphant return to Memphis, and country sessions that brought him back to his roots.

For many listeners, disc four will be the least familiar. Covering 1970 through 1977, these selections find Elvis’ singles charting lower, but still delivering the goods. Only “Burning Love” made the top-5, and his other top-10 from that stretch, “The Wonder of You,” is not included. “An American Trilogy,” is at once bombastic and utterly show-stopping, his version of “Always on My Mind” made the country charts but should have found cross-over success before Willie Nelson ten years later, and his last single, “Way Down,” though given to ‘70s production sounds, finds his gospel fervor undimmed. The beat heavy remix of “A Little Less Conversation” that closes the set shows just how easily Elvis’ voice could slide into new contexts (the original film performance from Live a Little, Love a Little is worth searching out on DVD, by the way). These hundred tracks aren’t a complete run through every Elvis highlight, but they tell the entire arc of his musical career in a compelling and thorough way.

The box includes an 80-page booklet that features a biographical essay by Billy Altman, numerous photos, reproductions of original record labels, covers and picture sleeves, movie posters, master tape boxes, and detailed recording, chart and personnel data. RCA/Legacy is releasing a companion 26-track single disc that cherry-picks this box, and though it may prove useful as a guide to further Elvis purchases, it doesn’t provide the compelling, detailed portrait of this four-disc set. With more Elvis 75th-birthday anniversary reissues on the way (and a terrific 2-CD version of From Elvis in Memphis already out) you may be tempted to put together your own collection, but you’d have a hard time assembling a more compelling introduction than this box. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]