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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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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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The Grateful Dead: Dick’s Picks 35

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

Excellent shows from August 1971, long-lost at sea

The Grateful Dead were far ahead of their time in many respects, but none perhaps more so than the breadth, depth and quality of the tapes they archived (and as will be described below, occasionally lost) from their legendary live shows. The Dick’s Picks series was named for and originally curated by the band’s tape archivist, Dick Latvala. Following Latvala’s passing in 1999, the series was continued by the band’s current archivist David Lemieux. In contrast to the multi-track remixes released under the From the Vault banner, Dick’s Picks were mastered from stereo tapes, at times emphasizing performance over audio quality (which, to be fair, was almost always very good as well). This penultimate volume in the series features performances from three August stops on the Dead’s 1971 summer tour, Hollywood, San Diego and Chicago, spread across four CDs.

Originally released in 2005 (and reissued now for standard retail by Real Gone), the tapes behind Volume 35 have a story that’s as interesting as the music they contain. Shortly before Keith Godchaux auditioned for (and subsequently joined) the band, Jerry Garcia handed him a box of tapes from the 1971 tour – ostensibly to help Godchaux bone-up on the band’s repertoire. Whether or not he actually listened to them is disputed, but what’s known is that he parked them on his parents’ houseboat, where they sat until 2005, when his brother rediscovered them. Amazingly, 35 years at sea (well, canal, since the boat was moored in Alameda) had surprisingly little affect on the tapes, which are still quite full, crisp and balanced. Included is the entire San Diego show, the salvageable portion of the Chicago stop and an hour of the Hollywood performance.

With Mickey Hart having quit the band earlier in the year, Pigpen’s health issues minimizing his keyboard contributions (though not his vocals) and Godchaux yet to join, the band toured as a five-piece that played more as a guitar-guitar-bass-and-drums quartet. This gave them a rawer, less psychedelic sound, and seems to have simplified the board mix to stereo. All of the instruments and most of the vocals can be easily heard, and Phil Lesh’s bass sounds particularly rich throughout. The San Diego set (which fills disc one and a majority of disc two) mixes some of the Dead’s best-known originals (“Sugaree,” “Casey Jones,” “Truckin’,” and “Sugar Magnolia”) with country, blues and rock covers (“El Paso,” “Mama Tried,” “Big Boss Man,” “Promised Land,” “Sing Me Back Home,” “Not Fade Away” and “Johnny B. Goode”) that show off the band’s taste and range.

Concise numbers, like Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle,” are stretched into showcases for instrumental improvisation. At the same time, they don’t loiter in one groove long enough to become repetitive; the segues are as interesting as the song choices, and even casual fans will appreciate how easily the band knit together disparate influences, often charting the flow of their sets on-the-fly. The Chicago set ends disc two and fills disc three, repeating a few songs from San Diego and introducing new titles and a few rarities. Chief among the latter is Pigpen’s “Empty Pages,” which is reported to have only been played twice, with its debut for this performance. Also included is an early version of “Brown-Eyed Woman.” Selections from the Hollywood Palladium show finish off disc four, culminating in a twenty-five minute rendition of “Turn on Your Lovelight.”

Other tapes from 1971 have been released through standard retail over the years, including February dates in Port Chester (the first without Mickey Hart) on Three from the Vault, the multi-venue Grateful Dead, and a legendary April stand at the Fillmore East on Ladies and Gentlemen. The Fillmore East dates are perhaps the most highly regarded by fans, but the band was in such fine form throughout 1971 that just about any of these sets provide great listening to fans and a good introduction to newbies. Those who shied away from (or were repelled by) the scene that surrounded Dead concerts may be surprised at how satisfying the music is on its own merits. Though the tribal vibe of their live shows may not have survived the transformation to tape, the band’s musicality certainly did. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

The Grateful Dead’s Home Page

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Elvis Presley: Elvis Country (Legacy Edition)

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012

Elvis caps his remarkable comeback

Recorded in 1970 and released in 1971, Elvis Country was the culmination of a remarkable career resurrection. Starting with his 1968 Comeback Special, Elvis went on to reel off the brilliant From Elvis in Memphis (and the second-helping, Back in Memphis), the smartly constructed Vegas show of On Stage, and the studio/live That’s the Way It Is. He capped the run with this 1971 return to his roots, branding these country, gospel, blues, rockabilly and western swing covers with authority. Elvis showed his genius was rooted in his passion for music, which encompassed everything from the early rockabilly of Sanford Clark’s “The Fool” (written, surprisingly, by Lee Hazlewood) to the then-contemporary hit “Snowbird,” as well as classics from Ernest Tubb, Lester Flatt & Bill Monroe, Willie Nelson and Hank Cochran.

Recorded in RCA’s famed Studio B with Presley regulars James Burton, Charlie McCoy and Chip Young; the newly assembled studio hands included several players from the Muscle Shoals powerhouse, and the sessions were produced by Felton Jarvis. The arrangements ranged from loose, down home country jams to Vegas-styled orchestrations, and hearing the variety back-to-back, one quickly realizes how easily Elvis transcended the musical boundaries between his ‘50s roots and his glitzy ‘70s stage shows. Much like the 1969 American Studio sessions in Memphis, Elvis’ enthusiasm and musicality directs the assembled players and provokes top-notch performances; he leads the crew through a rocking workout of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and brings “Tomorrow Never Comes” to a volcanic climax.

The original album tracks are knit together with snippets of “I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago,” a gimmick that some listeners find irritating, and which wreaks havoc on shuffle play; the complete take is included in the bonuses. An earlier CD reissue expanded the track count from twelve to eighteen, and this double-CD pushes the total to twenty-nine, including all six earlier bonuses. Disc two opens with the third-helping of the Nashville sessions, previously released as Love Letters from Elvis, and adds three more session bonuses: the singles “The Sound of Your Cry” and “Rags to Riches,” and the album track “Sylvia.” The broad range of material on Love Letters doesn’t always connect with Elvis’ legacy as tightly as that on Elvis Country, but Elvis is in fine voice on each track, and the assembled players are sharp.

Everything here’s been issued before, but pulling together session material previously spread across singles, albums, box sets and latter-day compilations has created a superb recounting of the last chapter of Elvis’ incredible comeback. Not included are the eight Nashville tracks released as part of That’s the Way It Is. A third-disc with banded versions of Elvis Country (minus the musical segues, that is) would have been a great addition, but even without it, this is an excellent expansion upon previous standalone reissues, and a terrific complement to the Legacy editions of From Elvis in Memphis and On Stage. The remastered discs (by Vic Anesini) are housed in a tri-fold digipack with a booklet that includes liner notes by Stuart Colman and terrific photos. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

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