Category Archives: Five Stars

The Zombies: The BBC Radio Sessions

Zombies_TheBBCRadioSessionsExpanded re-reissue of the Zombies live on the BBC 1965-68

Varese’s 43-track, 2-CD set expands on their earlier double-LP with five previously unreleased tracks. This augments material that’s been reissued in numerous configurations, including Rhino’s landmark Live on the BBC, and Big Beat’s Zombie Heaven and Live at the BBC. This is now a one-stop shop for the biggest helping yet of the recordings the Zombies made for the BBC. Included are live versions of the group’s three early hits, “She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No” and “She’s Coming Home,” along with other much beloved originals, “Whenever You’re Ready,” “If It Don’t Work Out” and “Friends of Mine,” and a slew of covers. Notably missing is a full take of “Time of the Season” (though it’s heard as background to the last interview segment), as its success postdates these BBC sessions.

The origin of these recordings (and similar catalogs for other British Invasion bands) lays in limits placed on the BBC’s use of commercially released records. To supplement their programming, musical artists were recorded in the BBC’s own studios, the recordings pressed to transcription discs, and the discs circulated to affiliates for broadcast. With the BBC failing to archive these works, it’s transcriptions of found copies that form the core of this set, supplemented by off-air recordings of material for which transcriptions haven’t yet surfaced. The quality varies, and while none match the productions of the group’s formal releases, they’re all quite listenable. The live energy and deep reach of the cover selections are essential additions to the group’s small catalog of commercially released work.

What’s immediately noticeable is how unique the Zombies sounded, even among the British Invasion’s explosion of creativity. Colin Blunstone’s voice gave the group an easily recognized front, Rod Argent’s keyboards added distinctive flair, and the group’s melodic sense was like nothing else on the radio. The tracks include several cover songs the group never released commercially, and multiple versions of “Tell Her No,” “Just a Little Bit,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “You Must Believe Me” and “This Old Heart of Mine.” Variations from the commonly circulated commercial masters – such as an acoustic piano on the February 1965 version of “Tell Her No” – are especially interesting in how they influence the tone of the performances.

Announcer introductions and interview clips give a feel for how the musical tracks played in context, and reveal interesting personal details about the band, their travels and their unrealized plans for the future. Even more revealing are Andrew Sandoval’s liner and track notes, which provide detailed information about the sessions, the radio shows on which the tracks were featured, and the sources of the often obscure cover songs. Matching the session notes to the discs is a bit tricky, as the notes run chronologically, and the tracks do not. The addition of six previously unreleased recordings (disc 1, 23-25 and disc 2, 7-9; five songs and an expanded interview with Colin Blunstone) make this the most complete set of the group’s BBC recordings yet. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

The Zombies’ Homepage

Various Artists: First Class Rock Steady

Various_FirstClassRockSteadtyExtraordinary collection of Jamaican rocksteady 1966-68

The difference between ska, rocksteady and reggae may be lost on casual listeners, but even without an academic understanding of Jamaican music’s evolution, rocksteady’s slower tempos, heavy backbeat and harmony vocals will get listeners on their feet. In celebration of rocksteady’s fiftieth anniversary, this forty track set pulls together some of the short-lived, foundational genre’s most important tracks, including Roy Shirley’s prototype “Hold Them,” Hopeton Lewis’ genre-defining opener, “Take it Easy,” material from internationally renowned exponents Desmond Dekker and Johnny Nash, and deep, collectible tracks from Jamaica’s greatest musicians.

Rocksteady slowed the tempo and simplified the instrumentation of ska, dropping the horns in most cases, shifting emphasis to the rhythm section, leaning more heavily on the backbeat, and freeing the bass to play melody. Technology also had an impact, as the introduction of two-track recorders allowed backing tracks to be reused, as did the Melodians with “Last Train to Expo ‘67” and “Last Train to Ecstacy,” and Stranger Cole for “Seeing is Knowing” and “Darling Jeboza Macoo.” Rocksteady also freely borrowed melodies, such as Miriam Makeba’s “Pata Pata” for “Pata Pata Rocksteady” and Paul Desmond’s “Take Five” for both “The Russians Are Coming” and “The Great Musical Battle.”

Though only active from 1966-68, rocksteady produced a large number of excellent singles, and set down roots that grew as reggae took over. This set was originally issued on vinyl as a super deluxe singles box for Record Store Day, and has now been expanded and reissued in digital form for International Reggae Day. The CDs come in an artfully decorated digipak with an 18-page booklet featuring liner notes by reggae historian Harry Wise, and deftly integrated quotes from rocksteady giants Bunny “Striker” Lee, Lynn Taitt and Hopeton Lewis. All tracks are mono except “Take It Easy,” “Sounds and Pressure,” and “Hold Me Tight,” which are surprisingly good quality stereo. A great set for newbies and crate diggers alike! [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Sammy Walker: Brown Eyed Georgia Darlin’

SammyWalker_BrownEyedGeorgiaDarlinA perfectly preserved echo of the folk revival

Although these demos were recorded in the mid-70s, their guitar, harmonica and socially adept lyrics reach straight back to Dylan and Walker’s early proponent, Phil Ochs. His nasal voice recalls both Dylan and Arlo Guthrie (and for those who enjoyed mid-70s buskers, Jim Page), but his lyrical voice is his own. His lyrics are less strident than Ochs’, more linear than Dylan’s, and less caustic than Paul Simon’s early work. But Walker has the same knack for turning moments into philosophy, and telling stories whose points are larger than the lyric. He selects his words for both meaning and sound, making his guitar accompaniment all that’s needed.

The title track opens the album with poetic images of a hard ride through sun and wind, to the cool reprieve at trail’s end. Walker returns to nature for “If I Had the Time,” dreaming of elsewhere while remaining rooted in the land, and he essays dreams again in the cleverly titled “I Ain’t Got Time to Kill,” marking his realization that one’s time is finite and should be spent with care. The contrasting scenes of “A Cold Pittsburgh Morning” are chillier than the headline, and the hardship of “The East Colorado Dam” is a box canyon. Walker re-recorded many of these songs with a band for his Warner Brothers albums but the fuller arrangements haven’t remained as fresh as these demos. This is a great find for fans. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Sammy Walker’s Facebook Page

The Muffs: Blonder and Blonder

Muffs_BlonderAndBlonder1995 sophomore summit, reissued with bonus tracks!

Two years after their self-titled 1993 debut, the Muffs stripped down to a trio with the departure of Melanie Vammen (less than a week before recording) and the arrival of new drummer Roy McDonald. The result is tighter, punchier and even more ferocious than the first outing, with Kim Shattuck’s songwriting sharpened and her vocals often escalating into howls. The album is a perfect example of pop-punk, marrying the catchy melodies of the former with the unrestrained energy of the latter. Shattuck’s rhythm guitar playing is tough, but her leads have the melodic winsomeness of Gary Lewis & The Playboys records. Even the suicide song, “End It All,” is hummable.

Shattuck notes in the liners that “On and On” was influenced by Freddie & The Dreamers, and indeed the opening riff is lifted from “I’m Telling You Now.” She also notes that “Laying on a Bed of Roses” borrows from the Creation’s “Biff Bang Pow,” and with the transvestite of “Oh, Nina” echoing the Kinks’ “Lola,” the British Invasion connection is strong. Her lyrics can be self-pitying (“Sad Tomorrow”) and bratty (“Won’t Come Out to Play”), but she’s nobody’s fool, easily kicking a cheater to the curb in “What You’ve Done.” The album closes with an unusual segue between the freakout “I’m Confused” and the spiffed-up acoustic demo “Just a Game,” ending in a couplet that encapsulates the yin and yang of punk-pop.

Omnivore’s 2016 reissue adds the UK B-sides “Become Undone” and “Goodnight Now,” and demos of “Red Eyed Troll,” “Won’t Come Out to Play” (with its Buddy Holly roots intact) and “Pennywhore” (which turned up on Happy Birthday to Me). Also featured are demos of “Born Today” and “Look at Me,” neither of which seem to have made it to final form. Unlike the guitar-and-voice demos on the debut album’s reissue, these tracks have basic bass and drums that indicate what they’d sound like as band songs. There’s a taste of Shattuck’s demo of “Become Undone” at the end of track twenty-one, and a hidden backwards CD bonus track at #22, but the demo of “I’m Confused” that Shattuck lauds in the liners is MIA.

The reissue’s 20-page booklet includes numerous photos, liner notes by Ronnie Barrett and Roy McDonald, the latter detailing his second chance at joining the band, and song notes by Shattuck. This is a good upgrade for fans who already have the original album, and the place to start for those who haven’t yet dived into the Muffs. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

The Muff’s Facebook Page

Stan Getz: Moments in Time

StanGetz_MomentsInTimeStan Getz live in San Francisco in 1976

Recorded at San Francisco’s late Keystone Korner during the same week that Getz and his quartet backed Joao Gilberto, this selection of eight tracks offers a deeper sampling of Getz’s saxophone and a more balanced hearing of his group. Where the Gilberto sets, documented on the companion release Getz/Gilberto ‘76, focused primarily on the Brazilian artist’s vocals and guitar, these tracks give time to Getz’s accompanists, pianist Joanne Brackeen, bassist Clint Houston and drummer Billy Hart. The mood is a great deal more lively here, and you can almost hear Getz working to distinguish his solo work from the bossa nova collaborations that had fueled his popular success. His backing trio is sophisticated and outgoing, with Brackeen, in particular, offering up melodically complex solos. The song selections range from the 1930’s standard “Summer Night,” to then-contemporary jazz pieces by Wayne Shorter and Horace Silver, and the Antonio Carlos Jobim samba “O Grande Amor.” Resonance offers the CD with typically thoughtful packaging, including a 28-page booklet stuffed with full-panel photos, extensive liner notes, and interviews with Billy Hart and Joanne Brackeen. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Stan Getz’s Home Page

Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto: Getz/Gilberto ‘76

StanGetzJoaoGilberto_GetzGilberto76A rare and previously unreleased teaming of Getz and Gilberto

Recorded at San Francisco’s long-gone Keystone Korner in May, 1976, this collection of live performances adds to the slim, but highly influential catalog of Getz-Gilberto pairings. The duo had initially teamed for an album in 1964 and a live outing in 1966, and came back together is 1976 for The Best of Two Worlds. The latter album prompted a tour with Getz’s quartet of Joanne Brackeen (p), Clint Houston (b) and Billy Hart (d), whose San Francisco stand is captured here. The recordings focus primarily on Gilberto’s vocals, which are superb, his guitar and Getz’s sax. The band is mostly relegated to supporting Getz’s solos, and even then they’re mixed (or they played) very low, with only Hart’s cymbals making much of an impact. None of which distracts from the pleasures of the music, but one might wish there’d been more conversation with the band, as heard on the parallel Getz release Moments in Time. Resonance has augmented this CD with a 32-page booklet filled with superb full-panel photos and detailed notes and interviews, including Q&As with Hart and Brackeen. They’ve also included a new cover painting by Olga Albizu, whose work was featured on the covers of the first two Getz/Gilberto albums. A great find for fans of Gilberto and Getz & Gilberto. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Stan Getz’s Home Page
Joao Gilberto Tribute Page

Sarah Vaughan: Live at Rosy’s

SarahVaughan_LiveAtRosysA vocal legend live in New Orleans in 1978

By 1978, Sarah Vaughan was standing at the confluence of nearly a decade of renewal. Her rebirth began with a shift to the West Coast in 1970, and included new recording contracts, first with Mainstream and later with Pablo, the 1972 introduction of “Send in the Clowns” to her repertoire, orchestral performances of the Gershwin catalog that netted her both an Emmy and a Grammy, and a 1978 documentary, Listen to the Sun. That same year, NPR’s Jazz Alive! caught Vaughan in this New Orleans showcase with her stellar rhythm trio of pianist Carl Schroeder, drummer Jimmy Cobb and bassist Walter Booker.

At 54, Vaughan was at a peak of artistic vision, vocal quality and technical control, and is nearly telepathic is communicating with her well-seasoned band. Her extraordinary vocal range was completely intact, and age had only added new shadings to a voice that was born rich with character. The set list was stocked primarily with the standards that had long been her metier, but her improvisational skills made every rendition fresh and seem extemporaneous. The original multitrack masters of her show at Rosy’s Jazz Club, including previously unbroadcast performances, remained in the collection of the show’s original procuer, Tim Owens, until this first-ever commercial release.

Vaughan is heard here to be uncommonly at ease on stage, joking with the audience and even riffing on Ella Fitzgerald’s “A-Tisket A-Tasket” in response to a wayward request. But when she sings, she’s all business, whether revving up the ballad “I’ll Remember April” into a scat-singing showcase, or stretching out with the band on the side one closer, “Sarah’s Blues.” The dazzling energy of her fast numbers is often paired with ballads whose tempos provide opportunity for exquisitely manicured notes. The control she exerts over pitch and tone is incredible as she annotates the smooth, beautiful core of her voice with vibrato.

There’s never any doubt who’s starring on stage (despite Vaughan’s habit of jokingly introducing herself as Carmen McCrae), but she was generous with her band, offering them spotlights and weaving their musical ideas into her vocals. The trio setting provides a flexible and surprisingly rich setting for Vaughan, allowing her to improvise and have the band follow, instead of weaving herself into a larger ensemble’s charted arrangement. Her voice provides both a lead a a fourth instrument, and pairs beautifully with Booker’s bass for a duet of “East of the Sun (and West of the Moon).”

The set list reaches back to Vaughan’s earliest days for Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne’s “Time After Time,” stretching into high notes that soar with operatic splendor. Disc one peaks with Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns,” stripped of Paul Griffin’s 1974 pop arrangement, and expanded into a tour de force ballad. The song would eventually cap Vaughan’s live sets, but by 1978 it was already a deeply emotional moment for both the singer and her audience. The only thing missing from this recording is the ovation that must have followed. Disc one closes with the instrument jam “Sarah’s Blues,” showing off how high this band could fly.

Disc two includes two pieces from Vaughan’s Gershwin songbook, the signature “The Man I Love” and a take on “Fascinating Rhythm” that somehow manages to break into a minuet. A pair of Rodgers & Hart songs showcase two very different sides of the group: “I Could Write a Book” swings as the band vamps behind Vaughan’s improvised lyrics, while “My Funny Valentine” searches for new layers and shadings in a familiar melody. Continual renewal was key to Vaughan’s stage greatness, and it made her chestnuts tower ever higher, year after year.

The one then-new piece in the set was “If You Went Away,” from Vaughan’s album I Love Brazil!, and while it’s a nice addition, it’s almost as if Vaughan needed to sing it for a decade or two before she’d really start to plumb its depths. Vaughan picked material that stood up to reappraisal and reinterpretation, and it’s fascinating to hear how her own approach to songs changed over decades of exploration. But unlike the Groundhog Day chase of a single perfect day, Vaughan’s perfection was ephemeral and of-the-moment, and captured in uniquely colored performances like this.

The trio disbanded the following year, amid Vaughan’s marriage to Waymond Reed, and Reed’s promotion to bandleader. Vaughan continued to perform and record through the 1980s, but this late-70s date stands at an especially strong point in her career. Resonance’s two disc set is housed in a three-panel digipack, with a 36-page booklet that includes essays from music journalists Will Friedwald and James Gavin, remembrances from Carl Schroeder and club owner Rosalie Wilson, and interviews with Jimmy Cobb and Vaughan’s labelmate Helen Merrill. It’s a rich package, but it’s a swinging trio, their finely selected repertoire and the Divine One that really make this set sing. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Resonance Records’ Home Page

Paul Burch: Meridian Rising

PaulBurch_MeridianRisingInspired fictionalized autobiography of Jimmie Rodgers

Paul Burch’s semi-fictional autobiography of Jimmie Rodgers isn’t nostalgic, it’s of a piece with the era it essays. His song cycle captures Rodgers’ times in a long form album that is, in today’s per-track streaming world, its own throwback. Burch knits together the sites, sounds, people and places that greeted Rodgers as he rode the rails and traversed the highways that led to tent shows, recording studios and international fame. The story follows Rodgers from his boyhood home of Meridian, Mississippi to his untimely death in New York City, creating an autobiography that Burch characterizes as “honest, but not necessarily true.”

The songs weave a loose narrative arc, but the album is best experienced as an immersive kaleidoscope of sounds and images. The stories take the listener traveling with Rodgers as he gains experience and channels it into creating folk, country, ragtime, blues and early jazz. The album’s guitar, bass, fiddle and drums, are augmented by clarinet, saxophone, trombone, tuba, bouzouki and Hawaiian steel guitar, fleshing out the wide world of music with which Rodgers’ communed. The arrangements swell and narrow in instrumentation, further echoing the range of combos with which Rodgers himself recording.

The nostalgic memories of Meridian that open the album quickly disappear in the rearview mirror as Rodgers hits the road in his V16 Cadillac. Burch maps Rodgers’ path through travelling shows, backstage surprises, depression-era social politics, gambling misfortune and a child’s untimely death. “To Paris (With Regrets)” imagines Rodgers longing to visit the City of Light, while the latter third of the album finds Rodgers’ health and commercial fortunes spiraling to their end. The instrumental transition “Sign of Distress” signals the beginning of the end, but there’s one more day of life as Rodgers visits Coney Island in “Fast Fuse Mama,” and life after death in the apologetic letter home, “Sorry I Can’t Stay.”

The story concludes with “Back to the Honky Tonks,” echoing Rodgers farewell in his last recording for Victor, and the album closes with the recessional “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble.” It’s a bittersweet end to Rodgers’ short, blazing trail of success and Burch’s deftly imagined autobiography. In telling this story, Burch has surrounded himself with top-notch instrumentalists, including Jen Gunderman, Fats Kaplin, Tim O’Brien and Garry Tallent, and guest vocalists Billy Bragg and Jon Langford. This is a terrific, original project whose nuanced execution lives up to its grandly inspired conception. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Paul Burch’s Home Page

Neil Finn and Paul Kelly: Goin’ Your Way

NeilFinnPaulKelly_GoinYourWayA generous document of an extraordinary collaboration

Recorded on the last stop of Finn and Kelly’s 2013 tour of Australia, this double-disc live set was initially released that same year, but only down under; Omnivore now favors stateside fans with this reissue. Finn and Kelly were joined on tour by a full band as they picked their way through both solo material and songs from their previous bands. The latter includes titles drawn from the catalogs of Split Enz, Crowded House and the Messengers. There’s an impressive connection between Finn and Kelly as both songwriters and singers, their songs flowing together seamlessly and their voices enthusiastically shading one another’s.

Perhaps it’s just a mark of their talent and preparation, but this summer fling sounds more like a long-running artistic love story. Their mutual affinity is evident in the way they weave into each other’s songs, highlighted by a Finn-led audience reprise of Kelly’s “One for the Ages.” The performances are thoughtful and often low-key, though Finn’s “She Will Have Her Way” and “Won’t Give In” are given heavier beats and moving electric guitar crescendos. The band, which includes Finn’s son and Kelly’s nephew, provides finely calibrated support throughout. Those who saw the tour must have known it was something rare and special, and this generous set lets the rest of us in on the occasion. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Neil Finn’s Home Page
Paul Kelly’s Home Page

Various Artist: Hula Land – The Golden Age of Hawaiian Music

Various_HulalandTheGoldenAgeOfHawaiianMusicHawaiian roots and their many colorful blossoms

Those looking for a history of native-made Hawaiian music may be disappointed by this set. But they’re about the only ones. Most will enjoy the four discs’ and 102-page hardbound book’s exposition of Hawaiian music and its multiple eruptions in mainstream entertainment. While the set does include a helping of native-made Hawaiian sounds, particularly on disc three, its reach is wider and its statement broader. In both sights and sounds, this set essays both the roots of Hawaiian music, and its many manifestations in pop culture. As the book’s photographs and sheet music art demonstrate, Hawaii has long been both a destination and a mythology, and there are few places the two elements have fused more fully than in music.

Tempted by brilliant poster imagery and stoked by the speed of plane travel, South Seas tourism flourished in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Upon arriving in the Hawaiian islands, visitors found both authentic and ersatz culture awaiting them. And upon their return to the states, tourists brought back memories and souvenirs that served to deepen Hawaii’s allure as both a vacation getaway and a dramatic visual setting. Hawaii has provided a picturesque backdrop for films, television shows, commercials and even cartoons, and its songs and instruments (particularly the ukulele and steel guitar) provided material for a surprisingly wide range of non-Hawaiian artists. Hulaland pays homage to the stateside displays of Hawaiiana that grew from island roots, blossoming in Hollywood, Chicago, New York and elsewhere.

The set opens with Louis Armstrong singing “On a Little Bamboo Bridge,” backed by the Waimea-born Andy Iona and his group, the Islanders. Iona’s mix of traditional melodies and American swing provided a welcome spot for the New Orleans-born Armstrong, and together they lay out a template of the set’s riches. Disc one includes Hawaiiana from several unlikely artists, including Jo Stafford, Ethel Merman, Burns & Allen, Dorothy Lamour and the yodeling country star, Slim Whitman. The disc explores everything from kitschy ‘30s cartoon themes to ‘50s steel-guitar swing, and shows how Hawaiian music was popularized by native-born artists, collaborators and appropriators.

Hawaiiana threaded into popular music throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, with Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman developing their inventive strain of exotica in the mid-50s. Disc two explores these exotic sounds as their waves echoed in a stateside culture gripped by rock ‘n’ roll and surf music. Here you will find the full flower of American media’s fascination with Hawaii in the television themes from “Hawaii Five-O,” “Hawaiian Eye,” and a lap steel variation on “Peter Gunn.” Also included are selections from several of exotica’s pioneers, and others, like organist Earl Grant and guitarist Billy Mure, who were swept up by the wave. By the early ‘60s, Hawaiian music was often more of an ancestral headwater than a direct tributary to the mainstream, as classic island themes were rendered with twanging electric guitars, sung in doo-wop vocals and accompanied by jazz arrangements.

Disc three returns the listener to the 1930s for a disc of Hawaiian classics, waxed primarily in Los Angeles and New York, with a few Honolulu recordings thrown in for good measure. The song selections mirror some of the selections on the previous discs (e.g., “Hawaiian War Chant” and “Ukulele Lady”), providing listeners an opportunity to compare. Disc four splits the difference by sampling contemporary acts that play a wide range of material (including the Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run”) in vintage style. The time hopping between and within the discs adds to the image of Hawaii as a timeless, Xanadu-like paradise. The set’s old-timey acoustic music blends surprisingly well with the Hawaiian-themed jazz and rock, and the last disc’s contemporary performances are powered by the same breezes as the set’s earliest tracks.

In many ways, the four discs provide a soundtrack for the 102-page, 9×11 hardcover book in which they’re housed. The rattan-textured cover and heavyweight, glossy pages are stuffed with eye-popping reproductions of vintage photographs, full-page sheet music covers, postcards, and travel posters. James Austin’s liner notes (which, along with other text in the book, are riddled with typos unbecoming of a set this lavish) provide context for the project, and a bit of history on Hawaiiana, but not the sort of detail on artists, songwriters, publishers and licensing one might expect. But this set isn’t intended to be a scholarly tome on Hawaiian music or even Hawaiiana; it’s an alluring brochure that beckons with romantic images meant to be imbibed rather than studied. As the notes say, “this is for tourists, not purists,” so dim the lights, mix yourself a Mai Tai, and enjoy. [©2015 Hyperbolium]