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Bill Medley: Bill Medley 100% / Soft and Soulful

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

Righteous Brother goes solo in 1968 and 1969

Following his 1968 break with fellow Righteous Brother Bobby Hatfield, Bill Medley kicked off a solo career with this pair of releases for MGM. Both albums grazed the bottom of the Billboard 200, and three singles (“I Can’t Make it Alone” and “Brown Eyed Woman” from the first album, “Peace Brother Peace” from the second) charted short of the Top 40. It would be Medley’s last solo chart action for more than a decade, as he’d reteam with Hatfield in 1974 and forgo solo releases for several years afterwards. By the time he re-engaged his solo career in 1981, the music world and his place in it had changed, leaving this pair of albums the best evidence of the solo sound grown from his first run with the Righteous Brothers.

Following the Righteous Brothers’ falling out with Phil Spector (who had produced three Philles albums and four hit singles for them), Medley assumed the producer’s seat for the duo’s last #1, “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration.” In conjuring a convincing imitation of Spector’s Wall of Sound, Medley showed himself to have ambition and talent that was larger than the role of featured vocalist. As he took the producer’s chair for his solo records he leaned heavily on big band arrangements of blues, soul and stage standards that suggested he’d been listening to Ray Charles and other blues and soul singers. He creates a Spectorian crescendo for “The Impossible Dream,” shouts his way through “That’s Life,” sings at the ragged edge of his husky voice on “Run to My Loving Arms,” and chews the scenery with the Neil Diamond-meets-Blood, Sweat & Tears gospel-soul of “Peace Brother Peace.”

Soft and Soulful dials down the volume of 100% to provide more nuanced and soulful vocals, including tender covers of Jerry Butler’s “For Your Precious Love” and Joanie Sommers “Softly,” an intense performance of the title song from the 1969 prison film Riot, “100 Years,” and a version of Burt Bacharach’s “Any Day Now” that winningly slows the tempo of Chuck Jackson’s original and Elvis Presley’s contemporaneous cover. Medley wrote or co-wrote four of the album’s tracks, including the period proclamation of personal freedom “I’m Gonna Die Me.” Real Gone delivers the disc and six-panel booklet (featuring liner notes by Richie Unterberger and reproductions of the back album covers) in a folding cardboard sleeve that includes both front album covers. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Bill Medley’s Home Page

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Glen Campbell: Live in Japan

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Glen Campbell lights up the Tokyo stage in 1975

Originally released only in Japan, this 54-minute set found Campbell entertaining with a tightly-paced set at Tokyo’s Kosei Nenkin Hall in May 1975. The chart-topping run Campbell had started with 1967’s “Gentle on My Mind” was slipping ever so slightly lower by the early ‘70s, as his television program ended in 1972. Campbell’s albums started to edge out of the Top 10 and his singles out of the Top 20, but three days before this show, he released “Rhinestone Cowboy,” and rode it  to the top of the country, pop and adult contemporary charts. Oddly, the single had yet to ingratiate itself into a starring spot in Campbell’s live set, and is not included here.

Given the depth of Campbell’s catalog of hits, his live set only highlighted a few in full, and added five more in medley form. The set opens with a horn-and-tympani intro to a slick, stirring cover of Mac Davis’ “I Believe in Music.” Campbell is in terrific voice, opening “Galveston” with a few riveting a cappella notes and investing himself fully in the drama of Conway Twitty’s “It’s Only Make Believe.” The set holds several surprises, including the southern soul of bassist Bill C. Graham’s album track, “Lovelight,” touching covers of Olivia Newton-John’s “I Honestly Love You” and John Denver’s “Annie’s Song,” and the Japanese single “Coming Home (to Meet My Brother),” which had originally been popularized as a Coca-Cola jingle.

The arrangements stick mostly to orchestrated, MOR ballads (including “My Way” and a medley of “Try to Remember” and “The Way We Were”), but the pickers heat things up on Carl Jackson’s banjo-led “Song for Y’All” and Campbell sings heartfelt gospel on the closing “Amazing Grace.” The between-song banter is short and good-humored (even when Campbell’s jokes are lost in translation), and the hits, even when reduced to medley form, are sung with deep feeling. Real Gone delivers the disc and eight-page booklet (featuring new liner notes by Mike Ragogna and a reproduction of the original Japanese insert) in a folding cardboard sleeve that includes the front and rear album covers. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Glen Campbell’s Home Page

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Jody Miller: Complete Epic Hits

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Country-charting 1970s Nashville pop

Jody Miller’s recording catalog is often abbreviated to her first hit, the Grammy-winning “Queen of the House,” and though its novelty answer to Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” may get the most spins on nostalgia radio, it’s hardly representative of her lengthy hit-making career. Her personal appearances on teen shows Hollywood-A-Go-Go and Shindig positioned her for pop success, but her follow-up singles found only middling results and failed to cross back over to the country chart. She had only one other hit for Capitol (the terrific protest song “Home of the Brave”) before moving to Epic, where Billy Sherrill was ready to leverage her pop abilities in countrypolitan arrangements.

With a zippy horn chart, fast-shuffling drums and tightly arranged choral backing, Miller’s Epic debut “Look at Mine” just missed the country Top 20. Ironically, the chorus sounds just like the country-rock Linda Ronstadt was beginning to record at Miller’s previous label, Capitol. Her next single, “If You Think I Love You” is a torchy ballad in the Patsy Cline vein, with crying steel and cooing background singers giving it a decided Nashville edge. Her catalog features a generous helping of girl group songs, including “He’s So Fine,” “Be My Baby” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.” She also covered Barbara Lewis’ “Baby I’m Yours,” Phil Spector’s “To Know Him is to Love Him,” the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” and Aretha Franklin’s “Natural Woman,” all with polite, mainstream arrangements that kept country touches on their edges.

Sherrill was a canny producer who crafted the arrangements to highlight his singers. He adds a church-style chorus behind the Johnny Paycheck duet “Let’s All Go Down to the River,” drops the instruments for the sotto voce passages of “There’s a Party Going On” and crafts a soulful backing for the emotional monologues in “Don’t Take it Away.” Real Gone’s collection pulls together all twenty-five of Miller’s Epic A-sides (all stereo except “Soft Lights and Slow Sexy Music,” “(I Wanna) Love My Life Way” and “Kiss Away,” which were accidentally in mono on the first run of the CDs), concluding with the singer’s farewell to the charts with an excellent 1979 cover of Robin McNamara’s “Lay a Little Lovin’ on Me.” At that point Miller retired to raise a family, leaving behind this decade-long legacy of hit-making. The CD and eight-page booklet (with liner notes by Bill Dahl) are delivered in a two-panel cardboard folder. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Jody Miller’s Home Page

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Various Artists: Pan Am – Music From and Inspired by the Original Series

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

Swinging collection of ‘60s jet-age pop marred by contemporary covers

The vintage picks on this fourteen-track set nicely conjure the ring-a-ding-ding jet-age culture of television’s Pan Am. Unfortunately, the inclusion of two contemporary cover versions reeks of marketing opportunism, and interrupts the vintage vibe of an otherwise finely programmed collection. Grace Potter and Nikki Jean’s fans may enjoy their renditions of, respectively, “Fly Me to the Moon” and “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” but the modernity of their vocal styles sticks out among the company they’re keeping here.

The set opens with the underappreciated Buddy Greco swinging “Around the World” as if he’s got Rat Pack-era Las Vegas on a string. He sports the energy of Louis Prima and the cool of a young Bobby Darin. Darin himself brings the program back on track with a terrific version of “Call Me Irresponsible.” The collection includes international space-age bachelor pad chestnuts “The Girl From Ipanema,” “Mais Que Nada,” and “Quando Quando Quando” and serves up several lesser-known, but no less superb items. Ella Fitzgerald scats brilliantly through Rodgers & Hart’s “Blue Skies” and Peggy Lee opens “New York City Blues” as a smoky ballad before bursting into joyous celebration of all things Big Apple.

Shirley Horn provides a master class in jazz vocals with “The Best is Yet to Come,” a tune famously recorded by Sinatra and Basie in ‘64. Basie’s band adds its own notes of sophistication with the horn chart for Hank Williams’ “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” and Brenda Lee’s “Break it to Me Gently” will break listeners’ hearts with its gut-wrenching vocal. Nikki Jean has the bad fortune to follow Lee’s tour de force, sounding cute, but inconsequential in comparison. The set ends with Dinah Washington’s superb “Destination Moon,” closing a fine set of jet-age artifacts from and inspired by the television show. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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Soulive: Rubber Soulive

Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

Organ-jazz trio tribute to the Beatles

Soulive is an organ trio (Hammond B-3, drums and guitar) that has been cutting soul-jazz grooves since the late ‘90s. This 2010 entry in their catalog offers instrumental interpretations of eleven well-known Beatles titles, drawn from the Fab Four’s mid-to-late period albums. Jazz and soul tributes to the Beatles are a well-trod path, including Bob Hammer’s Beatlejazz, Roger Webb’s John, Paul and All That Jazz, Count Basie’s Beatle Bag, Don Randi’s Revolver Jazz, the Music Company’s Rubber Soul Jazz, Ramsey Lewis’ Mother Nature’s Son, Booker T. & the MG’s McLemore Avenue and George Benson’s The Other Side of Abbey Road, but none of these earlier efforts reduced their approach to an organ-driven trio. In typical jazz fashion, the arrangements state the melodies – with the guitar or organ taking the vocal line – before the players embark on some improvisation. In keeping with the Beatles’ pop radio roots, however, the jamming is concise and listeners will never lose sight of the familiar melodies. The album’s only real disappointment is the mediocre recording quality, with overbearing bass and drums that lack definition. It’s still enjoyable, but not the audio experience the playing deserves. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

Soulive’s Home Page

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The Dovells: For Your Hully Gully Party / You Can’t Sit Down

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Two-fer from early ‘60s Cameo-Parkway vocal group

Shortly before the Collectors’ Choice label was sold to Super D, they embarked upon an ambitious program of reissues from the Cameo-Parkway catalog. The Cameo-Parkway tapes had mostly sat idle in ABKCO’s vault ever since Allen Klein acquired them in the late ‘60s, and the first program of legitimate reissues began in 2005 with a series of Best Of’s, including a volume on this Philadelphia vocal group. Five years later, a series of two-fers returned full, original albums to print, including this pairing of the group’s second and third albums, originally released in 1962 and 1963, respectively. This skips over the group’s first and biggest success, “The Bristol Stomp,” but joins them in a run of dance-themed hits that included “Do the New Conteinental,” “Hully Gully Baby” and “The Jitter Bug.” Missing from this period is the non-LP “Bristol Twistin’ Annie.”

The two-fer includes the group’s second biggest hit, 1964’s infectious, hand-clapping cover of the Phil Upchurch Combo’s instrumental “You Can’t Sit Down.” The Dovells’ version shot to #3, and with the subsequent departure of tenor vocalist Len Barry (who’d later score a solo hit with “1-2-3”), the group’s chart fortunes came to an end. The album tracks combine covers and staff-written tunes that, in full accord with Cameo’s recoding ethic, chased the dance trend to its last fumes. Remember tearing it up to the “Hully Gully Square Dance” or “Country Club Hully Gully?” Neither does anyone else. Still, even when the material was repetitive, the group sang with doo-wop verve, and the house band – led by Dave Appell and featuring the honking tenor sax of Buddy Savitt – was rock solid. Mastered in crisp mono with nice bass detail, this is reminder of a much simpler time on the Top 40 charts. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Connie Stevens: The Complete Warner Bros. Singles

Saturday, January 7th, 2012

The charming singing career of a talented actress

There have been many actors whose musical aspirations out-distance their vocal abilities. Not so for Connie Stevens, whose singles and albums for Warner Brothers were sung with both charm and talent. Though best remembered for co-starring roles in 77 Sunset Strip and Hawaiian Eye, Stevens sang these early-to-mid ‘60s sides in a voice that conveyed both sweet innocence and Hollywood sophistication. Better yet, Warner Brothers often supplied her with very good material, top-notch arrangements by Don Ralke, Perry Botkin Jr., and Neal Hefti and the production talents of David Gates, Lou Adler, Jimmy Bowen and others. She only cracked the Billboard Top 40 twice, first with the novelty “Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb),” and later with “Sixteen Reasons,” but landed several more in the Top 100.

Real Gone’s two-disc set collects seventeen complete mono singles (A’s and B’s), the stereo single version of “Kookie, Kookie” (the B-side of which was an Edd Byrnes solo), and the superb radio promo “Why Can’t He Care for Me.” The latter was featured in the Jerry Lewis film Rock-A-Bye Baby, but never released commercially. Stevens’ early singles were similar to those of her early ‘60s peers Connie Francis, Annette Funicello and Shelley Fabares. She sang lyrics of love, longing and broken hearts, often in tunes that have novelty arrangements; but as early as 1960’s “Little Sister” you can hear a growing sophistication in the arrangements and vocals, if not yet the lyrics. Though Stevens was never a belter, she does add a bit of sass to her delivery of Goffin & King’s “Why’d You Wanna Make Me Cry.”

Stevens continued to sing of moony teen-romance (including titles by noted songwriting pairs Goffin & King, Barri & Sloan and Cook & Greenway), but also branched into more mature emotions with the punchy horn arrangement of “Hey, Good Lookin’” and a torchy cover of “Nobody’s Lonesome for Me.” By 1966, she incorporated Nancy Sinatra-styled go-go sounds into the upbeat “How Bitter the Taste of Love,” and her last Warner single covered Tim Hardin’s “It’ll Never Happen Again” in a soulful style similar to contemporaneous versions by P.P. Arnold and Johnny Rivers. She continued to act in film and on stage, and developed a successful cosmetics line, but these singles forever capture the Spring of her celebrity. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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Shelby Flint: The Complete Valiant Singles

Friday, January 6th, 2012

Superb folk-pop singles from an under-known ‘60s vocalist

Shelby Flint had but one Top-40 single, 1961’s “Angel on My Shoulder,” but the purity of her voice, the quality of her technique and the sophistication of her melodic sensibility has been enough to sustain a music career. Perhaps even more important is that, uncharacteristically for “girl singers” of the early 1960s, she wrote much of her own material. From these early singles, recorded for the Valiant label, you can hear her combining folk, pop and especially jazz in her phrasing and tone. Her jazz leanings turned overt in a 1966 cover of Vince Guaraldi’s “Cast Your Fate to the Wind,” notching her second (and last) appearance on the Billboard chart, peaking at #61 pop, and just missing the Top 10 adult contemporary. Her voice attracted a young fan in Joni Mitchell, who may have also noticed Flint’s transition from folk to jazz.

These songs of happy-go-lucky days, romantic longing and heartache, feint towards other popular female vocalists of her era, but despite the orchestration, strings and chorus backing her, the thoughtful mood of Flint’s work is more apiece with the folk revival than the pop charts. Perhaps the best analog would be the sweet folk-pop of Mitch & Mickey’s “A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow,” but without the satire. This is all the more evident in a spare, sensitive reading of the traditional “The Riddle Song” (or as it’s better known, “I Gave My Love a Cherry”), in which Flint lingers over the notes, investing the lyrics with enough feeling that it might even win over Animal House’s John Blutarsky.

Flint sang with little or no vibrato, and remained impressively restrained even when she covered the Tom Jones showpiece “What’s New Pussycat.” She let her songs drift away in ellipses rather than belting out their climaxes as exclamation points. In addition to her eleven singles (A’s and B’s) for Valiant, this collection includes her original version of “I Will Love You,” recorded for Cadence (with the Jordanaires) in 1958, along with its B-side “Oh, I Miss Him So.” The other rarity here is Flint’s title song to Joy in the Morning (and its flip “Lonely Cinderella”), which was pulled shortly before release. All cuts are from the original mono master tapes, except 17, 18, 23 and 24 which were transferred cleanly from disc. Flint fans will also want to find Collectors’ Choice’s three-fer, but this singles collection is a superb retelling of her time on Valiant. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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Various Artists: Cameo Parkway Holiday Hits

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

Holiday odds and sods from the legendary Cameo Parkway vault

With the departure of Gordon Anderson from Collectors’ Choice, and the apparent sidelining of the label’s activities, their reissue program for the Cameo-Parkway catalog has moved with Anderson to his new label, Real Gone. This eighteen-track set of holiday-themed material combines tunes from two of the label’s stars, Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker and two of the label’s fine doo-wop groups, the Cameos and Jaynells. The track-list features a number of fun one-offs, including Bob Seger’s rock ‘n’ soul “Sock it to Me Santa,” Toni Sante’s Spanish-language girl group “Donde Esta Santa Clause?,” and a funny Bob Dylan lampoon, Bobby the Poet singing “White Christmas,” as introduced by a Bobby Kennedy impressionist. There are also two versions of “Auld Lang Syne,” one in ragtime style by Beethoven Ben (in actuality, label co-founder Bernie Lowe), and one as bluegrass by The Lonesome Travelers, featuring the legendary Norman Blake on mandolin!

Less interesting are seven cuts split between the big band instrumentals of the Rudolph Statler Orchestra and the orchestral sounds of the International Pop Orchestra. Neither unit has anything to do with the Cameo Parkway house band sound (though, to be fair, neither do the Lonesome Travelers), and the arrangements are generic. This set was previously issued by ABKCO as Holiday Hits from Cameo Parkway, and it’s reissued here with the addition of the B-side “Jingle Bell Imitations,” in which Rydell and Checker run through the styles of Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin, Fats Domino, Frank Fontaine and the Chipmunks. It’s a shame Cameo Parkway never gathered Checker, Rydell, Dee Dee Sharp, the Orlons, Tymes and others to record a proper holiday album. Still, if you factor out the instrumentals, there are many fine rarities here to add to your holiday playlist. Nicely mastered mono on 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, and stereo elsewhere. The booklet includes terrific liner notes by Gene Sculatti and discographical details. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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Buddy Cole: Swingin’ at the Hammond Organ

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Theatrical Hammond organ takes on standards

Edwin “Buddy” Cole’s Hammond albums are probably better known by sight than sound. The album covers – particularly Have Organ, Will Swing and Powerhouse! – are treasured icons of the space-age bachelor pad genre, seen by many, but actually heard by few. Surprisingly, the music inside isn’t particularly exotic. Cole was more of a lush, theater organ stylist (a job he’d actually held in the 1930s) than a bluesy howler, and though he had significant chops as a jazz pianist, they were spent mostly as an accompanist behind Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Nat King Cole (no relation). Here he sticks mostly to lyrical interpretations, though he does exercise the Hammond’s powerful sting, and adds some swinging bass lines and zesty percussion to the later arrangements.

Cole was prolific in his first few years recording with Capitol, releasing eight albums between 1958 and 1960, of which four are included here: 1958’s Have Swing, Will Travel, 1959’s Powerhouse! and Hot and Cole, and 1960’s Swing Fever. Given that the song lists stuck primarily to standards, the collection’s lack of chronological order (and the gaps in album sequence) will be noticed only by those who’ve lined up the original LPs by matrix number. The arrangements get quite a bit livelier by the last of the four albums, and cartoon fans will enjoy Cole’s take on Raymond Scott’s classic “Powerhouse.” Jasmine’s remastered all four albums in stereo for this bargain-priced set. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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