Category Archives: CD Review

Various Artists: Thank You Friends – Big Star’s Third Live… And More

A celebration of Alex Chilton and Big Star

Although Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens revived Big Star in 1993 with the help of the Posies’ Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, they never sought to recreate the full majesty of their seminal studio recordings. The 2.0 lineup lasted nearly 18 years of intermittent live performances and the studio album In Space, but with Chilton’s passing in 2010, Big Star morphed from a going concern into a well spring of reissues, archival releases, biographies, documentaries and tribute performances. The first of the tributes took place within days of Chilton’s passing, as Big Star’s remaining three members were joined by the band’s friends and colleagues to deliver a musical wake at SXSW.

By the end of that year, a more formal tribute was organized with a live performance of Big Star’s Third, complete with the album’s full, original orchestration. And from that show, a core musical collective formed to tour the tribute internationally, engaging guest musicians and orchestras at each stop. A full rendering of Third remains the centerpiece of the show, but with the addition of material from Big Star’s first two albums and Chris Bell’s post-Big Star work to fill out the story. This 2017 performance features Big Star’s Jody Stephens and musical director Chris Stamey alongside Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer (The Posies, Big Star), Mike Mills (R.E.M.), Jeff Tweedy and Pat Sansone (Wilco), Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tango), Robyn Hitchcock, Benmont Tench (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers), Dan Wilson (Semisonic), and a full chamber orchestra.

Paying tribute to a band as beloved as Big Star is a tricky proposition. Covering too closely offers nothing new or of yourself, while straying too far risks losing touch with the object of your tribute. Add to that a small catalog that allows for talmudic-like study by fans and the stretch from single song cover to a full concert and album reading, and the balance point seems to grow more elusive. As musical director, Stamey has plotted out musical waypoints that anchor these covers to the familiar originals, while at the same time employing vocalists and harmony singers whose tone and style are reverent, yet fresh. The combination of familiar and new renews the chestnuts that had fossilized into icons, and animates the songs that were never performed live by the original band.

The performers’ deep affection for the material is evident throughout, and the split between earlier material on disc one and Third on disc two mirrors the changes in the band’s personnel, circumstances and resulting direction. The song sequence for Third has long been debated, and the order selected here doesn’t seem to match any of the well-known sequences; i.e., the 1975 test pressing on Stax, the 1978 vinyl issue on PVC, the 1992 CD issue on Ryko, the 2016 Complete Third on Omnivore, or any of the many reissues in between; notably missing are the test pressing’s covers of “Femme Fatale” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” and reissue inclusions “Till the End of the Day” and “Nature Boy.” Still, no matter the track selection or order, the musical schizophrenia of the original sessions comes across in both the individual songs, and the idiosyncratic range of material.

Third was such a personal, one-of-a-kind document of an artist in a particular period of his life, that a staged tribute is necessarily removed from the circumstances under which the album was created. The performers rely on the personal resonances the music strikes in themselves and the audience, and connect with the material on musical, lyrical and emotional levels. Jessica Pratt and Jon Auer capture the somnambulistic late night of “Big Black Car,” Skylar Guasz and Mike Mills rock “You Can’t Have Me,” and Jody Stephens’ shines with fragile hope on string-backed performances of “For You” and “Blue Moon.” The personal and professional disintegration that Chilton captured on Third couldn’t possibly be reproduced with full emotional fidelity in a tribute, but as an homage and an echo of Chilton’s miasma, this is a fulfilling production. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

Big Star Third’s Home Page

Steve Goodman: Artistic Hair & Affordable Art

Bonus-lad­en reissues of Steve Goodman’s final two albums

Goodman lived his entire professional career on borrowed time. Diagnosed with leukemia in 1969, he made the most of his 15 years on the public stage. His best known song, “City of New Orleans,” was a hit for Arlo Guthrie, and again for Willie Nelson, and is recounted from his debut album in live form on Artistic Hair. But his most sung song is the Chicago Cubs victory anthem “Go Cubs Go,” included as a bonus track on this reissue of Affordable Art. The latter album, the last released during Goodman’s lifetime, includes a double-header of baseball-themed tracks in its original lineup, “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request,” and a sprightly dawg-grass arrangement of the national pastime classic “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

Goodman recorded for Buddah and Asylum before inaugurating his own Red Pajama label with this pair of albums, reissued here with eighteen bonus tracks between them. 1983’s Artistic Hair was constructed from live material cherry-picked from a decade’s worth of recordings. The selected tracks show off the intimate stage presence that matched the intellectual intimacy of Goodman’s music. The material features a half dozen originals, including the humorous realities of  “Elvis Imitators” and “Chicken Cordon Bleus,” and the icons “City of New Orleans” and “You Never Even Called Me By Name.” Goodman’s covers ranged widely from early twentieth century tunes “Tico Tico,” “Red Red Robin” and “Winter Wonderland” to Shel Silverstein’s acoustic blues, “Three-Legged Man.”

The album’s ten bonus tracks, originally released on the posthumous No Big Surprise: The Steve Goodman Anthology, feature a similar mix of originals and covers, including Goodman’s chanty about a notorious Chicago-area towing company, “Lincoln Park Pirates,” the ad-libbed stage performer’s nightmare, “The Broken String Song,” and the celebration of love’s polyglot nature, “Men Who Love Women Who Love Men.” Covers include Leroy Van Dyke’s tongue-twisting “The Auctioneer,” the Albert Brumley spiritual “I’ll Fly Away” and the mid-30s dance tune “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie,” popularly recorded by Fats Waller, the Ink Spots and Patti Page. Goodman is relaxed and confident as he variously performs solo and with a band, and while the settings and recording quality vary, the constructed set is a treat.

Affordable Art mixes live and studio tracks, with a song list composed almost entirely of originals. The album opens with the instrumental “If Only Jethro Was Here,” featuring Goodman on mandola and Jim Rothermel on recorder, and highlighting mandolinist Jethro Burns’ absence. Burns himself is heard on an old-timey rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” which is stretched into a double with Goodman’s “A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request,” and legged into a triple with the bonus track “Go Cubs Go.” As on his previous album of live material, Goodman is heard both solo and with a band, including the driving drums and electric slide of “How Much Tequila (Did I Drink Last Night)?” and an acoustic ensemble highlighted by Marty Stuart’s mandolin and Jerry Douglas’ dobro on the hopeful “When My Rowboat Comes In.”

Goodman’s humor drives the consumerist fever dream “Vegematic” the sardonic “Watching Joey Glow,” and the jazzy shuffle “Talk Backwards.”  He duets with John Prine for their co-written “Souvenirs” and dips into sentimental nostalgia on “Old Smoothies,” evidencing the humanity that anchored the wide reach of his songwriting. The album’s bonus tracks include the sing-a-long Bo Diddley beat of “Go Cubs Go” and seven previously unreleased acoustic tracks that include British folk singer Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London,” studio alternates of “Old Smoothies” and “Vegematic,” and four more originals. Affordable Art provides a solid capstone to Goodman’s career, and together with Artistic Hair shows off his songwriting, guitar wizardry, studio craft, stage presence, and power as both a solo performer and band leader. These are worthwhile upgrades for fans who have earlier editions. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

Chuck Mead: Close to Home

BR-549 singer-guitarist celebrates his roots in country and rock ‘n’ roll

With BR-549 on hiatus, Chuck Mead’s managed to keep himself quite busy. In addition to three solo albums, he’s provided musical direction for the stage hit Million Dollar Quartet and the CMT dramatic series Sun Records. The latter afforded the Kansas-native Nashville immigrant time in Memphis, which led to his recording this fourth solo album at Phillips Recording, the studio Sam Phillips built to replace the original Sun studio. Mead expands on the neo-traditional roots of BR-549 with a retro palette that takes in the tall historical tales of Johnny Horton, the honky-tonk pain of Hank Williams, the rock ‘n’ roll joy of Chuck Berry, and even late-50s ska. He extols the wonders of lifelong musical preoccupation in “The Man Who Shook the World,” and Rick Steff’s piano adds a strong Johnnie Johnson vibe to “Daddy Worked the Pole.” There’s Hank-styled melancholy in the resonator guitar and yodel of “Better Than I Was (When I Wasn’t So Good),” and the bar-themed “Tap Into Your Misery” is a drowning pool of sorrow. The album’s Memphis locale raises its swampy groove with the guitar reverb and organ of “Shake,” and the wide-ranging set closes with the optimistic of “There’s Love Where I Come From.” Mead’s a chameleon as he bounds across a wide range of musical touchstones, but his fluency turns these echoes into flavors, and the album into a celebration of roots. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

Chuck Mead’s Home Page

Tom Brumley: Steelin’ the Show

Instrumental highlights of the Buckaroos’ steel guitar ace

Alongside fellow Buckaroos, Don Rich, Doyle Holly and Willie Cantu, steel guitar ace Tom Brumley was a core part of Buck Owens’ “Bakersfield Sound.” Brumley first connected with Owens as a studio musician at Capitol in the early ‘60s, and joined the Buckaroos in 1963. He stayed with Owens’ throughout the group’s phenomenal commercial run in the 1960s, departing in 1969 to join Ricky Nelson’s Stone Canyon Band (that’s him on “Garden Party”). So successful were the Buckaroos in backing Owens that they developed a parallel recording career of their own, and the sides collected here – all instrumentals except the closer – are drawn from both Buck Owens albums, and those recorded separately by the Buckaroos. Brumley’s steel guitar shines on these instrumentals, but as the closing Buck Owens track “Together Again” shows, his instrumental support and solos with a megawatt star fronting the band resonated on a whole other level. This collection offers fans a generous helping of Brumley’s talent and style, including languorous ballads and hot-picked barn burners, and provides a nice complement to his work on Owens’ iconic hits. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

Various: That’ll Flat Git It! Vol. 32

Bear Family’s signature rockabilly anthology still rockin’ at 32!

At thirty-two volumes in twenty-eight years, one might wonder if Bear Family’s signature rockabilly anthology has run out of gas. But even on a fourth excursion into the vaults of Decca, Brunswick and Coral, Bear Family has unearthed many fine rock ‘n’ roll platters, and maintained their traditional attention to detail and presentation. The thirty-nine page booklet includes period photos, label reproductions, and knowledgeable liner notes by Bill Dahl. The thirty-three tracks clock in at over seventy-five minutes, and play like the collector’s jukebox Bear Family envisioned when they programmed 1992’s Volume 1. Best of all, the well of good material is still gushing with legends Johnny Burnette, Ronny Self, Brenda Lee, Bill Haley & His Comets, and Buddy Holly sharing the stage with superb acts known primarily to rockabilly aficionados.

Buddy Holly’s sides include a cover of the Clovers’ “Ting-a-Ling,” cut in Nashville in 1956, and the original “I’m Lookin’ For Someone to Love,” cut with Norman Petty in Clovis, NM. The former’s rockabilly treatment was resurrected by the Kingbees in 1980, while the latter’s terrific vocal and guitar solo was overshadowed in rock ‘n’ roll history by its A-side, “That’ll Be the Day.” Holly’s music has been so deeply canonized at this point, that hearing his records mixed into a rockabilly collection is a good opportunity to reset their connection to the musical times in which they developed. Johnny Burnette’s cover of “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee” features Burnette’s unabashed vocal and Paul Burlison’s hard-twanging guitar, and Brenda Lee’s B-side “Little Jonah (Rock on Your Steel Guitar)” features the swinging steel of Buddy Emmons.

Ronnie Self found his greatest commercial success as a songwriter (penning “I’m Sorry” and “Sweet Nothins” for Brenda Lee), while his recording career turned out classic rave-ups such as “Bop-A-Lena,” but no big hits. His self-penned debut on Decca included the twangy mid-tempo “Big Town” backed with the wilder flipside “This Must Be the Place.” Cut in Nashville, both sides feature A-listers Buddy Harman, Floyd Cramer and Hank Garland. Bill Haley and His Comets’ 1958 single “Lean Jean” was cut in the same New York City studio in which they’d arguably birthed rock ‘n’ roll four years earlier with “Rock Around the Clock.” At 33, and with rock ‘n’ roll having exploded in his wake, Haley seemed to be a step behind the times as this mid-tempo number doesn’t generate the unbridled excitement of the group’s earlier recordings, and limped on to the charts at #67.

That said, Haley’s co-written “Broke Down Baby” provided the Philadelphia-based Tyrones an opportunity to rock in show band style, suggesting that the early roots of rock ‘n’ roll weren’t entirely dead; but it does beg the question of how one even defines “rockabilly.” Hank Penny, a western swing star in the ‘30s and ‘40s, echoes Haley’s fading glory as “Rock of Gibraltar” sounds like something that would have been more at home in an early rocksploitation movie than a rockabilly hop. Joe Hudgins was a country artist and protege of Marty Robbins, and his original “Where’d You Stay Last Night” is as much R&B as it is rockabilly. Jimmy Duncan’s “Run Little Joey” includes a Latin rhythm and doo wop-styled bass vocal alongside a rock ‘n’ roll sax and guitar solo. Jack & Jim’s novelty “Tarzan and Jane” sounds like folk music with a primal beat (though Glenn Reeves’ “Tarzan,” also included on this set, manages to swing more freely), while the flip “Midnight Monster Hop” has more rock ‘n’ roll in its guitar and drums. The Brooklyn-based doo-wopping Bay Bops manage to stir up some real excitement with the jivey “Follow the Rock,” while Sandy Coker’s “Honky Tonk Freeze” sounds more like a cross between Chet Atkins and the tamer instrumentals that Larry Collins cut with Joe Maphis; it’s a tasty instrumental, but rockabilly?

The set opens with the Elvis-like strains of Lance Roberts, a singer who cut two singles for Decca before moving on to Sun. Roberts’ freewheeling “Gonna Have Myself a Ball” was written by the legendary Boudleaux Bryant and features a driving beat and plenty of twangy guitar. Elvis also cast his spell over Johnny Duffet’s dizzying minor key original “Just Give Me Your Heart,” Buddy Holly’s hiccups informed Arthur Osborne’s loose-stringed, “Don’t Give Me Heartaches,” and the Everly Brothers seem to have opened the door for the Los Angeles-based Barker Brothers’ “Well All Right… Friday Night.”

Among the set’s biggest surprises is Crickets drummer Jerry Allison, backed by bassist Joe Mauldin and the unmistakable guitar of Buddy Holly, covering Johnny O’Keefe’s “Wild One,” under the title “Real Wild Child” and the nom-de-disque “Ivan.” The Maine-bred Dodie Randall is wound up on “Man Hunt” and its flip “I Fell in Love Again,” both cut in Los Angeles with guitarist Barney Kessell and a talented, but unnamed pianist, and Johnny Bell’s “The Third Degree” hits the rockabilly trifecta of angst-filled lyrics, a hopped-up vocal and wild guitar playing. The 33 tracks fill the disc with over seventy-five minutes of original rock ‘n’ roll, documented in a 40-page booklet filled with photos, label reproductions and Bill Dahl’s informative liner notes. At 32 volumes, this series is still rocking like a teenager! [©2019 Hyperbolium]

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos: The Complete Capitol Singles 1971-1975

Buck Owens closes out his phenomenal first run on Capitol

After a pair of double-disc sets covering Owens’ trailblazing, chart topping singles of 1957-1966 and 1967-1970, Omnivore closes out the Bakersfield legend’s run on Capitol with this superb third volume. Owens’ early ‘70s singles didn’t repeat the commercial dominance of his 1960s output, but several still landed in the upper reaches of the charts (and at #1 with Bob and Faye Morris’ “Made in Japan”), and demonstrated continued creativity. The early ‘70s were a time of artistic exploration for Owens as he recorded in his then-newly built Bakersfield studio, produced himself, covered material from outside the country realm, and stretched out from his classic Telecaster-and-steel sound to incorporate pop, bluegrass and gospel. As this set attests, his declining chart fortunes were more a product of changing public tastes and industry trends than a slip in artistry.

Owens opened 1971 with a moving cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” featuring a solemn vocal, acoustic guitar and atmospheric backing harmonies that take the song to a different emotional place than Simon & Garfunkel’s original. He showed off his omnivorous musical appetite and sense of humor with a southern-funk take on Jimmy Driftwood’s “Battle of New Orleans” a transformation of Shel Silverstein’s “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” into the country-styled “On the Cover of the Music City News,” a loping bluegrass arrangement of Cousin Emmy’s “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man” and an energetic version of the traditional “Rollin’ in My Sweet Baby’s Arms.” The latter two expanded the Buckaroos’ musical palette with the addition of Ronnie Jackson’s banjo.

The biggest hits in this five year span came from the pens of others, but Owens continued to write fresh material for himself. He cracked the Top 10 with “Great Expectations,” and the novelties “Big Game Hunter” and  “(It’s A) Monster’s Holiday,” and further down the chart he scored with the defeated “In the Palm of Your Hand,” the discontented “Arms Full of Empty,” the defiant “You Ain’t Gonna Have Ol’ Buck to Kick Around No More” and the happy-go-lucky “Ain’t It Amazing, Gracie.” Owens clearly had fuel left in his songwriting tank, even if country radio and the listening public weren’t paying as close attention as they had the previous decade.

Owens’ songwriting prowess can also be heard in B-sides that include the Mexicali-tinged waltz “Black Texas Dirt” and the steel and fiddle heartbreak of “I Love You So Much It Hurts.” He picked up excellent material from Terry Clements, John English, Dennis Knutson, Robert John Jones and Buckaroos Jim Shaw, including “(I’m Goin’) Home,” “41st Street Lonely Hearts Club,” and his last Capitol single, “Country Singer’s Prayer.” With the 1974 death of Don Rich having deeply dented his enthusiasm for music making, his waning commercial success led him to a mutual parting of the ways with Capitol (who shelved his last album in the process). He signed with Warner Brothers for a pair of albums that garnered middling chart success before he slipped into a hiatus that lasted much of the 1980s.

Omnivore’s double disc set includes the A’s and B’s of all 21 singles that Owens released on Capitol from 1971 to 1975, both with the Buckaroos, and in duets with his son Buddy and his protege Susan Raye. The latter includes charting covers of the Browns’ “Looking Back to See” (with a twangy steel solo from Ralph Mooney) and Mickey & Sylvia’s “Love is Strange,” and a re-recording of “The Good Old Days (Are Here Again),” a song that Owens had released as a Buckaroos-backed B-side just two months earlier. The 16-page booklet includes liner notes by Scott Bomar, photos, picture sleeve reproductions, and detailed release, chart and personnel data. This is a worthy capstone to Owens’ monumental career at Capitol, and an essential volume for fans of his music. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

John Denver: Leaving on a Jet Plane

John Denver’s pre-superstar years as a pop folkie

Six years before John Denver catapulted to fame with 1971’s “Take Me Home Country Roads,” he was a hard working folkie on the Los Angeles club scene. In 1965, when Chad Mitchell left his eponymous folk trio for a solo career, Denver survived the audition process to assume the group’s leadership. The new lineup issued a pair of studio albums and a live set on Mercury, and when the last original member, Mike Kobluk, left the group, Denver carried on with recent addition David Boise and the newly added Michael Johnson, as Denver, Boise & Johnson. The latter trio released only one single, Denver’s “Take Me to Tomorrow,” but recorded additional material, of which three previously unreleased selections are included here.

The Mitchell Trio’s legacy of humor is heard in the 1967 single “Like to Deal with Ladies as Sung in the Shower Accompanied by a Twenty-Seven Piece Band,” as well as a live performance of “He Was a Friend of Mine.” The latter, stretching to nearly eight minutes, finds Denver intertwining smart-aleck stage patter with an audience sing-along and the trio’s superb harmonizing. Denver’s early years found him writing several of his most beloved songs, including “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” originally self-released in solo form as “Babe, I Hate To Go (Leaving On A Jet Plane).” The retitled song is offered here in both a poorly conceived, band-backed studio single, as well as a beautifully sung acoustic live performance from 1967.

Denver, Boise & Johnson’s single “Take Me to Tomorrow” is a terrific up-tempo original, while it’s B-side, “‘68 Nixon (This Year’s Model),” sung in barbershop harmony, carries on the satirical social criticism of the Mitchell Trio. The set includes three previously unreleased tracks from Denver, Boise and Johnson, including superb vocal arrangements of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” and Tom Paxton’s “Victoria Dines Alone,” and a 1968 take on Denver’s “Yellow Cat” that’s more sedate than the version recorded for Rhymes & Reasons. The disc closes with the unison singing and banjo of “If You Had Me in Shackles,” capping a set that highlights the folk roots that preceded Denver’s transformation into a “far out!” ‘70s superstar. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

John Denver’s Home Page

Roy Oribson: Unchained Melodies

Second set of Orbison vocals set to new orchestral arrangements

After two volumes that set Elvis Presley’s voice to newly constructed instrumental backgrounds, producer Nick Patrick did the same for Roy Orbison with 2017’s A Love So Beautiful. In Orbison’s case, Patrick’s arrangers often found themselves reimagining existing string arrangements on the grand scale of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and here they do the same. With the original records as templates, the arrangements echo some of the existing percussion and melodic motifs, but with Orbison’s vocals as the guide (rather than, as in the case of Orbison’s original recordings, the vocals either being sung with or over the instrumental backings), the arrangements are more studied and constructed in their support.

As on the first volume, some tracks fare better than others, though here the song selection and Orbison’s original vocals are bigger variables. The arrangement for “Unchained Melody” seems to grow organically from Orbison’s vocal, while the strings of “Blue Bayou” fill in the space that gave the original its lonesome air. More recent material, such as the posthumously released “Heartbreak Radio” and “Careless Heart,” haven’t the hook of engrained familiarity to boost them up, and album tracks such as Orbison’s 1961 cover of “The Great Pretender,” weren’t among his greatest performances. That said, the mid-charting “Crawling Back,” low-charting “Walk On,” and the UK hit cover of the Orioles’ “It’s Too Soon to Know” are welcome rediscoveries.

While not as surprising as the first volume, nor as strong in song selection (particularly in its generous helping of material from the last stage of Orbison’s career), it’s still interesting to hear these songs reimagined (though it’s not clear anyone needed to reimagine “Heartbreak Radio” twice, including the album closing rendition with contemporary country artist Cam added as a duet vocalist). None of these reworked versions replace the originals, but if you’ve listened to those classics thousands of times, this gives you an opportunity to hear something new in the familiar. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

Roy Orbison’s Home Page

Johnny Shines: The Blues Came Falling Down – Live 1973

A bluesman who’d retained the vitality of his youth

The music industry’s history is littered with talent that never managed to intersect popular acclaim, and such might have been the story of bluesman Johnny Shines, if not for a sideline as a photographer and a chance encounter with Howlin’ Wolf. Shines started gigging in the early ‘30s, and toured with Robert Johnson for several years, but recordings made for Columbia and Chess were consigned to the vault, and the few sides released on J.O.B. didn’t make a dent in the market. By the mid-50s Shines had withdrawn from performing and turned to the construction industry, but a sideline photographing Chicago club patrons put him in touch with Howlin’ Wolf, and in turn secured him a half-dozen tracks on Vanguard’s influential 1966 anthology, Chicago/The Blues/Today, Vol. 3.

Upon its release, the Vanguard album sparked the renown that circumstance had denied Shines for two decades. He recorded albums for several independent labels and toured the international blues circuit to wide acclaim before a stroke in 1980 sidelined him for several years. This 1973 performance, professionally recorded in the acoustically friendly Graham Chapel at Washington University in St. Louis, finds Shines in peak form. His guitar playing is crisp, nimble and deeply informed by decades steeped in the blues. At 58, his voice was still strong and supple, showing no signs of age, and his touring experience shows in a powerful command of the stage.

The set combines original material with a few songs by Robert Johnson, with the latter’s “Sweet Home Chicago” igniting the audience’s hand clapping. Shines largely performs solo, though he’s joined by Leroy Jodie Pierson on second guitar for three selections. He casually tunes and strums while providing song introductions and philosophical thoughts, often easing himself seamlessly into a song. His guitar playing offers a master class in the blues, but his singing is equally impressive in its nuance and emotion. The torchy “You’re the One I Love” and troubled “Tell Me Mama” are particularly mesmerizing, with the latter highlighted by Shines’ slide playing. This is a vital performance by a performer thoroughly enjoying the recognition of his history and rediscovery. [©2019 Hyperbolium]

The Everly Brothers: Studio Outtakes

Alternate takes from the Everly Brothers hit-making years on Cadence

Among early rock ‘n’ roll acts, the Everly Brothers’ catalog is one of the most thoroughly documented. In addition to album reissues and greatest hits collections on numerous labels, Bear Family has issued three omnibus box sets (Classic, covering the ‘50s, and The Price Of Fame and Chained To A Memory, covering their years on Warner Bros.), along with two themed compilations (Rock and The Ballads of the Everly Brothers), a two-disc reissue of the classic Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, and a one-disc “mini box” titled Studio Outtakes. That latter disc, featuring 36 illuminating alternate studio takes from the brothers’ Cadence-era sessions, including 26 that were not included on the Classic box set. Studio Outtakes fell out of print and is reissued here in a jewel case with a 34-page booklet that’s slimmed down from the original issue’s 64-pages.

Unlike the multi-disc Outtakes volumes on Johnny Cash, Billy Riley, Gene Vincent, Johnny Tillotson and Carl Perkins, or the grey market two-volume Cadence Sessions, the conciseness of this single disc doesn’t require slogging through the repetition of false starts, incomplete takes and a half-dozen alternates of the same title. The multi-disc outtakes sets make a nice addition to a collector’s archive, but this 79-minute single disc is the more musical experience, playing as a well-curated compilation of hits, B-sides and album tracks with the twist of alternate takes. The evolution heard in these alternate takes offer listeners a peek inside the Everly Brothers creative process, and for the most familiar songs, an opportunity to relive a bit of the experience of hearing them for the first time.

What’s truly impressive is how quickly, and seemingly easily, the Everlys struck up their brotherly chemistry in the studio. First takes of “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Bird Dog,” “Bye, Bye Love,” “Claudette” and “Wake Up Little Susie” hadn’t always settled on the vocal lines or instrumental accompaniment that would turn the song into a hit, but you could hear the magic building, particularly in the brothers’ magnetic harmonies. The differences are often subtle changes in rhythm, harmony, tempo, accompaniment, instrumental balance or production effects, offering an aural lesson in the tweaks a producer and artist make as they search for a hit. For example, the softening of the vocal attitude between takes 1 and 5 of “All I Have to Do Is Dream” finds the song evolving into its dreamy final form, while tempo, lyric and key changes differentiate takes 3, 5 and 7 of “Poor Jenny.”

Rather than arranging the disc with multiple takes of the same song side-by-side, the producers have curated the track list for spinning from beginning to end. The mix of hits and lesser known sides plays like an album, with one song segueing thoughtfully into the next. The selection of material is complemented by the high quality of the original recordings, Jürgen Crasser’s mastering, Andrew Sandoval’s liner and song notes (along with quotes from Phil and Don Everly) from the set’s original 2005 issue, and numerous candid and promotional photos. As a behind-the-scenes look at the Everlys’ recording process, this set is hard to top; fans who want to dig deeper into the Everlys’ methods should also check out the songwriting demos featured on Varese Sarabande’s 36 Unreleased Recordings from the Late ‘50s and Early ‘60s. [©2019 Hyperbolium]