Posts Tagged ‘Columbia’

« Older Entries

Neil Diamond: The Very Best Of Neil Diamond – The Original Studio Recordings

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

An oddly sequenced collection of Diamond’s diamonds

As anyone familiar with Neil Diamond’s career knows, he’s had more hits that could possibly fit onto a single CD. But drawing across his stints on Bang, Uni, Capitol (for which he recorded the soundtrack to The Jazz Singer) and Columbia, this twenty-three track set shows Diamond’s maturation from Brill Building songwriter to hit-making singer to worldwide superstar to reinvented elder statesman. Of course, given the set’s non-chronological programming, you’ll only hear the actual arc of his artistic development if you reprogram the tracks as 12, 4, 9, 10, 16, 21, 20, 18, 6, 11, 21, 7, 5, 13, 8, 17, 2, 14, 1, 3, 15, 22, 23, 19. If you play the set as-is, you’ll start near the end of Diamond’s hit-making career with 1978’s “Forever in Blue Jeans” and spin through a few other 1970s releases before jumping back to 1966’s “Cherry, Cherry.”

Given the focus on hits, it’s easy to excuse the great album tracks left behind, but the inclusion of lesser sides in place of the hits “Thank the Lord for the Night Time,” “Longfellow Serenade” and “Heartlight” is surprising. The mix of Top 10s, Adult Contemporary hits (“Beautiful Noise”), low-charting singles that were hits for other artists (“I’m a Believer” and “Red Red Wine”) and latter-day sides with Rick Rubin (“Pretty Amazing Grace” and “Hell Yeah”) covers the breadth and depth of his career, but the muddled timeline and interweaving of mono Bang-era tracks with modern stereo productions is without obvious purpose. Segueing from the 1980’s “Love on the Rocks” to hard-rocking guitars of “Cherry, Cherry” is awkward, as is the mood shift from 1972’s “Play Me” to 1967’s bubblegum-soul “I’m a Believer.”

Despite the set’s odd characteristics, Diamond shines as a talented songwriter who learned early on how to write a hook, and a dramatic vocalist with a memorable voice. He’s been well-served by arrangers and producers who fit his voice into a variety of contexts – guitar-charged rock, organ-backed soul, contemporary pop and huge productions that echo the operatic grandeur of Roy Orbison. Diamond’s song-by-song notes are peppered with interesting recollections and generous sharing of credit with his many exceptional co-workers. It may surprise casual fans to find that he co-wrote with Marilyn and Alan Bergman, was produced by Robbie Robertson, and recorded several of his biggest hits in Memphis at Chips Moman’s American Sound Studio.

Noting the missing chart entries, as well as the terrific list price, this is a good single-disc sketch of Diamond’s career as a hit maker, but it’s only a sketch, and only a sketch of his hits. It balances his years at Bang (seven tracks), Uni (seven), Columbia (six) and Capitol (three), and plays well for those wishing to relive the artist’s most familiar songs. The two Rick Rubin-produced cuts, “Pretty Amazing Grace” and “Hell Yeah,” show Diamond still vital and growing in his fifth decade of recording. Still, a career as rich as Diamond’s can’t really be condensed onto one disc; even the three-disc In My Lifetime left fans arguing about what was missing. A more complete picture of Diamond’s early years can be heard by picking up The Bang Years: 1966-1968 and Play Me: The Complete Uni Studio Recordings… Plus!, and his Columbia years are well represented on original album reissues and several anthologies. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Neil Diamond’s Home Page

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in CD Review, Reissue, Video | No Comments »

Billy Joel: Piano Man (Legacy Edition)

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Classic Billy Joel album and a stunning 1972 live concert

Billy Joel had a long career in music before his first commercial break with this 1973 album and its title hit single. He’d played piano as a studio sideman and recorded with several rock groups, including the Hassles and Attila, before settling into the singer-songwriter style that began with 1971’s Cold Spring Harbor. With his solo debut having stiffed commercially, and label problems keeping him from recording a follow-up, he relocated to Los Angeles where he spent six months playing as a lounge pianist, writing new material a eventually returning to touring. Signing with Columbia, he released this sophomore album in November and cracked the Top 40 by the following Spring – more than five months after the records were released. The single rose to #25, but it would be three more years until Joel achieved massive acclaim with 1977’s The Stranger.

The introspection of Cold Spring Harbor was mostly replaced on his second album with lightly- and wholly-fictional character sketches. The album’s love song, “You’re My Home” (written as a Valentine’s Day gift for Joel’s first wife) is also its most personal, though the title song is clearly drawn from Joel’s tenure as a lounge singer. Narratives of travel and distance, as well as the line “too many people got a hold of me” (from “Worse Comes to Worst”), speak to the touring and travail of his early solo years. The album’s sound was heavily influenced by California’s early-70s canyon-country scene, mixing West Coast twang with Joel’s East Coast bravura. The epic “Captain Jack” turned out to be the cure for that early turmoil, as a live recording from a 1972 radio broadcast became the turntable hit that sparked Columbia Records’ interest.

The Legacy edition of Piano Man augments a remastered edition of the original album on disc one with a newly commissioned mix (from the 16-track master) of the 1972 radio concert that yielded the pivotal live recording. Recorded live in April, 1972 at Sigma Sound Studios, the concert was broadcast on Philadelphia’s WMMR-FM. The audience was made up primarily of contest winners and the set list included six songs from Cold Spring Harbor, three that would be recorded later in the year for Piano Man, and three rarities from Joel’s early songwriting catalog (“Long, Long Time,” “Josephine” and “Rosalinda”). Joel is commanding at both his piano and microphone throughout the show, and his road band is soulful and razor sharp; together they deliver performances with more musical life than the studio versions of Joel’s first two albums.

As Jonathan Takiff point out, Joel captivated a Philadelphia audience who knew relatively little about him, getting them to respond to songs they were hearing for the first time, rather than hits they’d come to hear. Joel showed himself to be a formidable singer-songwriter and a magnetic showman whose patter (including an impromptu station ID) keeps both the studio and radio audiences hooked. Those with bootleg version of the concert will find a few changes have been made, most notably drummer Rhys Clark’s flub on “Captain Jack” has been excised. Those weaned on the original tape may take exception, but most listeners won’t notice. The two-disc set is housed in a tri-fold digipack with a 24-page booklet filled with detailed liner notes and photos. The original single edit of “Piano Man” would have made a nice bonus, but that’s a nit; fans who didn’t have the opportunity to see Joel perform in the early ‘70s owe it to themselves to hear this seminal 1972 concert. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Billy Joel’s Home Page

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in CD Review, Reissue | No Comments »

Tony Bennett: The Classic Christmas Album

Monday, October 31st, 2011

Forty years of Tony Bennett’s Christmas recordings

Seventeen of these eighteen tracks have been selected by the vocalist from his catalog of albums and compilation appearances on Snowfall: The Tony Bennett Christmas Album (1968), The Playground (1998), Our Favorite Things (2001), Christmas with Tony Bennett (2002) and A Swingin’ Christmas (2008). The album’s one previously unreleased title is a Marion Evans arrangement of the traditional “What Child is This.” Bennett appears in orchestral, big band and small combo settings, and though the original albums can still be found, this provides a nice sampling across forty years of his stylish takes on holiday standards. Bennett sings with a jazzy cool unparalleled by his peers or followers, and together with some hot charts (particularly those for the Basie band), he gives new life to these holiday chestnuts. The Bennett fanatic in your family may be expecting the monumental 73-CD Complete Collection under the tree, but the rest of the family will be satisfied by this warm collection of classics. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Tony Bennett’s Home Page

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in CD Review, Reissue | No Comments »

Paul Simon: Songwriter

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

Idiosyncratic collection highlighting Paul Simon’s songwriting

This two-disc, thirty-two track collection (with a generous running time of 139 minutes) highlights the legendary songwriting of Paul Simon. The composer himself selected the tracks, touching on both hits and the lesser-known compositions of which he’s most proud. The result is an idiosyncratic tour of Simon’s catalog that will remind you of his broad commercial power, but key you into the depth of his craft as a writer. The selections focus almost entirely on Simon’s post Simon & Garfunkel career, with only a solo live take of “The Sound of Silence” (the set’s only previously unreleased track), Simon’s 1991 Concert in the Park recording of “The Boxer,” and Aretha Franklin’s 1970 cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” reaching back to his duo work.

The bulk of the collection cherry-picks from Simon’s solo albums, stretching from 1972’s Paul Simon through this year’s So Beautiful or So What. Selections from Simon’s well-loved albums of the 1970s and his commercial renaissance sparked by Graceland will be familiar, but deep album cuts, picks from Hearts and Bones and Songs from the Capeman (including the excellent 50s-pastiche “Quality”), and his contribution to the soundtrack of The Wild Thornberrys Movie will be fresh to many listener’s ears. The breadth of Simon’s writing mirrors both his own maturation as a person and the evolution of the society in which he wrote. The reactionary outbursts of his early songs were stoked by youth and the turbulent times in which he was living; his early post-S&G years found him developing a solo personality and indulging his musical interests in reggae, doo-wop, and South American folk.

Simon’s music has been as revelatory and memorable as his words, speedily evolving from the acoustic arrangements of the folk scene to sophisticated tapestries of instruments and genres. Decades before Graceland introduced African music to the American audience, Simon augmented his palette with American gospel, Peruvian folk and Jamaican reggae. He explored sounds from South Africa, Brazil and the American South, all the while embroidering his autobiographical, observational and imaginative lyrics with ideas drawn from his musical interests. His relationships seeded numerous songs, including ones of developing love (“Hearts and Bones”), family (“Father and Daughter” and “So Beautiful Or So What”), marital turbulence (“Darling Lorraine”) and dissolution (“Tenderness”). His evolving view of society provided bookends to the American unrest with the angry “The Sound of Silence” and the haggard “American Tune.”

Over the years, Simon’s craft sharpened, his characters multiplied, his philosophical and emotional insights deepened, and his favorite lyrics became more impressionistic and poetic. But winningly, his music remained accessible as he teased apart new layers in existing forms and interwove the fresh threads if his ever-broadening musical grasp. Simon sees himself first as a songwriter, secondarily as a performer and recording artist, but as these recordings attest, his words, melodies, arrangements and estimable guitar playing are all deeply intertwined. Simon always surrounded himself with carefully picked players who add original colors to his songs with their instruments and voices. Listening to a set of his recordings, it’s easy to appreciate the songwriter, but difficult to untangle that appreciation from the carefully crafted performances.

The set’s booklet includes full lyrics, but no song notes by the author. Simon, most likely, sees the lyrics as the best possible explanation of the songs. Still, the stories behind the songs would have been an interesting extra. The absence of Simon & Garfunkel recordings leaves the listener to remember how Simon’s first blaze of glory sounded; the words are here in three early songs, but as noted, Simon’s lyrics are deeply wedded to his expression, which originally included Art Garfunkel. The set’s forward is written by painter (and apparent Paul Simon superfan) Chuck Close, and the liner notes are by Tom Moon. Full musician, production and release credits are also included. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Paul Simon’s Home Page

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in CD Review, Reissue | No Comments »

Various Artists: The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams

Sunday, October 23rd, 2011

A tribute to the lyric writing of Hank Williams

Fifty-eight years after his death, rare Hank Williams material continues to surprise and delight his fans. Last year’s official release of the Mother’s Best radio transcriptions [1 2], and last month’s reissue of the remastered Health & Happiness shows, reacquainted listeners with Williams’ brilliance as a singer and live entertainer. This month’s surprise is a collection of songs fabricated anew from lyrics left behind in Williams’ notebooks. The songs are rendered by a few obvious picks – Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell and Merle Haggard; but also some less obvious suspects, including Norah Jones and Jack White, who turn in winningly heartfelt performances.

Given that Williams never recorded these lyrics, this is less a covers album than a tribute. Unlike the bombast of resyncing Elvis voice with modern arrangements (i.e., Viva Elvis), or even MGM’s overdubbing of Williams’ own recordings, the lovesick blues boy’s voice is heard here in the tone and temper of his lyrics. The artists revel in the opportunity to create the first musical version of these words, and their choices say a lot about their relationship to Williams. Alan Jackson, Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell are straightforward and solemn as their vintage arrangements of guitar, steel, bass and fiddle display their direct artistic links to Williams. Norah Jones, on the other hand, gives Williams’ “The Love That Faded” beautifully blue harmonies, tinted with jazz and a hint of Mexico in the guitar runs.

The singers, musicians and producers breathe life into lyrics that have been in stasis for more than fifty years. The results vary from tunes you could swear you’d heard Williams sing, to personalized tributes that meld the singer’s trademarks with the blue emotion Williams etched into his notebooks. Jack White drops the bombast of his recent production for Wanda Jackson, opting instead for an economic country sound dominated by Donnie Herron’s ghostly steel guitar; elsewhere, Vince Gill’s high-and-lonesome vocal is balanced by Rodney Crowell’s heartfelt recitation. Similarly to Will the Circle Be Unbroken, these sessions close a loop between generations, bringing the progeny full circle to the feet of the master. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Tags: ,
Posted in CD Review, Video | No Comments »

Johnny Cash: Bootleg III – Live Around the World

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

A wealth of previously unreleased live material from the Man in Black

Volume 1 of the bootleg series, Personal File, documented solo home recordings from the ‘70s and ‘80s in which Johnny Cash explored a wide variety of American song. Volume 2, From Memphis to Hollywood, essayed the background of Cash’s transition to country stardom via a collection of 1950s radio appearances, Sun-era demos and a deep cache of 1960s studio recordings. Volume 3 looks at Cash’s role as a live performer from 1956 through 1979, including stops at the Big “D” Jamboree, the Newport Folk Festival, a USO tour of Vietnam, the White House and the Wheeling Jamboree. Among these fifty tracks, thirty-nine are previously unreleased, giving ardent Cash collectors a wealth of new material to enjoy.

The earliest tracks, from a 1956 show in Dallas, find Cash opening with a powerful version of the 1955 B-side “So Doggone Lonesome” and introducing his then-current single on Sun, “I Walk the Line.” At the end of the three-song Dallas set you hear an audience member call out for “Get Rhythm” and the band launches into it. Cash was always a generous stage performer, early on sharing the limelight with Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, introducing and praising them, and giving Perkins a solo spot for the instrumental “Perkins Boogie.” By 1962 the Tennessee Two had expanded to a tight trio with the addition of W.S. Holland on drums, but even with Cash’s move to Columbia, the group’s appearance at a Maryland hoe-down is still rootsy and raw. They rush “I Walk the Line” as if they’d had one too many pep pills, but Cash is charming as he addresses the audience and hams it up with impressions and jokes.

Two years later at the Newport Folk Festival Cash was introduced by proto-folkie Pete Seeger. Cash is thoroughly commanding as he sings his hits and expands his palette with Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright,” Pete LaFarge’s “Ballad of Ira Hayes” and the Carter Family’s “Keep on the Sunny Side.” His 1969 trip to Vietnam was bookended by more famous live recordings at Folsom and San Quentin prisons, but the soldiers at the Annex 14 NCO Club in Long Binh were treated to a prime performance that included June Carter on “Jackson,” “Long-Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man” and “Daddy Sang Bass.” Cash continued to mix his hits (including a request for “Little Flat Top Box”) with folk and country classics, mixing “Remember the Alamo” and “Cocaine Blues” into his set.

Cash’s performance at the Nixon Whitehouse in 1970 is this set’s most legendary, and also its longest at twelve songs. Richard Nixon provides the introduction, including a few remarks on the safe return of Apollo 13. Cash’s set includes a then-familiar mix of hits and gospel songs, but is mostly remembered for his choice not to play Nixon’s requests for “Okie From Muskogee” and “Welfare Cadillac,” and instead sing “What is Truth,” “Man in Black” and “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” the first of which is included here. Nixon is self deprecating in explaining Cash’s rebuff, and Cash is deferential in addressing Nixon as “Mr. President,” leaving the political implications to seem more legend than truth. Still, Nixon couldn’t have been comfortable having his antipathy towards the younger generation questioned by “What is Truth.”

The remaining tracks collect an eclectic array of songs recorded at a number of different locations throughout the 1970s. The titles include Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” the 1920s standard “The Prisoner’s Song,” Gene Autry’s “That Silver Haired Daddy of Mine,” Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans,” the Western classic “Riders in the Sky,” Billy Joe Shaver’s “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal,” and several of Cash’s Sun-era tunes. It’s interesting to hear Cash’s breadth, though not as fulfilling as the set lists elsewhere in the collection. The recording quality is good to excellent throughout, with the Newport tracks in especially crisp stereo. If you’re new to Cash’s catalog, start your appreciation of his performing talents with At San Quentin, but this is a terrific expansion (at nearly 2-1/2 hours) of the well-known, previously issued live materials. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Tags: , , ,
Posted in CD Review, Reissue | No Comments »

Paul Simon: Still Crazy After All These Years

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Paul Simon expands his catalog of jazz-, soul- and gospel-inflected pop

After a lengthy world tour and live album (Live Rhymin’), Paul Simon returned in 1975 with his third post-Simon & Garfunkel studio album. Simon’s comfort with his solo stardom is signaled in part by the return of Art Garfunkel for the album’s top-ten “My Little Town.” He also shares the microphone with Phoebe Snow and the Jessy Dixon Singers (the latter of whom had toured with Simon in ’73 and ‘74) on “Gone at Last.” On the other hand, the cover photo of a mustachioed and behatted Simon suggests some lingering insecurity, if only with his long-thinning pate; perhaps it was the final dissolution of his marriage (which was grist for several songs on 1972’s Paul Simon) that instigated the physical changes.

Musically, the album continued the successful commercialtrajectory his previous pair of solo albums, launching four hit singles (including the chart-topping “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”) and winning a Grammy for Album of the Year. Musically the new songs weren’t as far-reaching, sitting mostly in the jazz-, soul- and gospel-flavored grooves Simon had explored on his earlier albums. Columbia/Legacy’s 2011 reissue reuses Bill Inglot’s remastering and the two bonus tracks of Rhino’s 2004 reissue, including demos of “Slip Slidin’ Away” and “Gone at Last.” Legacy’s traded out Rhino’s digipack for a standard jewel case and an 8-page booklet of lyrics and pictures. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in CD Review, Reissue | No Comments »

Paul Simon: Paul Simon in Concert: Live Rhymin’

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Paul Simon live in 1974

With Paul Simon having licensed his early solo catalog to Sony, the Legacy branch has taken the opportunity to reissue four key titles on their original Columbia label. Of the four (which also includes Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon and Still Crazy After All These Years), this 1974 live album is the only one to get a fresh remastering (by Dan Hersch at D2 Mastering) and the addition of two previously unreleased bonus tracks. Given that this is the least consequential of the four albums, it’s a good marketing move to make it the sole title to be updated. Coming off two commercially and artistically successful solo albums, Simon hit the road for a series of solo shows that included the Brazillian group Urubamba and the gospel Jessy Dixon Singers.

The song list includes Simon’s recent solo hits and several classics from the Simon & Garfunkel catalog. Though he wasn’t ever going to replace Garfunkel’s award-winning vocal on “Bridge Over Troubled Water” or duplicate the bite of the duo’s harmonies on “Homeward Bound” and “The Sound of Silence,” the net effect is a showcase of the Paul Simon songbook. The Singers’ take the spotlight for the gospel “Jesus is the Answer,” and in the original concert set, Urubamba was featured on several instrumentals. Legacy’s 2011 reissue adds solo acoustic performances of “Kodachrome” and “Something So Right,” but here’s hoping a complete rundown of the reported 24-song set eventually sees the light of day. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in CD Review, Reissue | No Comments »

Paul Simon: There Goes Rhymin’ Simon

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Simon expands his reach with third solo effort

Simon’s third solo album (including 1965’s The Paul Simon Songbook), found the singer-songwriter expanding upon the freedom he’d displayed on the previous year’s eponymous release. The branching out displayed with reggae, Latin and South American sounds was now expanded with bluesy doo-wop, New Orleans pop, gospel and Memphis soul. Simon deftly choreographed an impressive guest list that includes The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Roches, horns arranged by Alan Toussaint and strings arranged by Quincy Jones. His mastery weaves multiple studios, dates and backing bands (including the players of Muscle Shoals) into a surprisingly cohesive album.

Beyond the album’s hits (“Kodachrome” and “Love Me Like a Rock”), Simon produced an album of memorable songs that set themselves apart from his earlier work with Art Garfunkel. The brass party on “Take Me to the Mardi Gras,” gospel backing vocals of “Tenderness,” Jamaican style of “Sunny Day,” and country underpinnings of “St. Judy’s Comet” were fresh to Simon’s catalog, and even the Garfunel-esque “American Tune” feels like a declaration of independence with Simon singing unaccompanied. Legacy’s 2011 reissue reuses Bill Inglot’s remastering and the four bonus demo tracks of Rhino’s 2004 reissue. Legacy’s traded out Rhino’s digipack for a standard jewel case and a 12-page booklet of lyrics and pictures. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in CD Review, Five Stars, Reissue | No Comments »

Paul Simon: Paul Simon

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Paul Simon sets out on a brilliant solo career

Though not technically Paul Simon’s solo debut – that honor goes to the acoustic performances he recorded for 1965’s The Paul Simon Songbook – this first post-Simon & Garfunkel album does represent the true beginnings of Simon’s massive success as a solo artist. Released in 1972, it came two years after Simon & Garfunkel bowed out with the Grammy winning Bridge Over Troubled Water, and the same year as the duo’s greatest hits album topped the chart. Simon’s re-debut was a strong artistic statement that was both commercially successful and the seedbed for experimentation and growth that would mark his solo career. The album opens with the reggae-inspired hit single “Mother and Child Reunion,” and along with the Latin influences of “Me and Julio Down By the School Yard” and haunting Andean instrumental breaks in “Duncan,” the melting pot of styles predicted the wealth of world music Simon would fold into his music.

At 32, Simon had matured from the sharp, at times bitter, worldview of his twenties. The difficulty of Simon & Garfunkel’s end had given way to the freedom of a solo act, and there’s a sense of renewed discovery in his characters and lyrical forms. The wayward “Duncan” recounts the education of a small-town fisherman’s son into a clear-eyed world traveler, while the fragmentary allusions of “Mother and Child Reunion” are surprisingly open-ended and poetically opaque. Simon’s marriage with his wife was apparently following his professional partnership with Garfunkel into dissolution, providing grist for “Everything Put Together Falls Apart,” “Run That Body Down” and “Congratulations.” Simon’s voice never sounded better, he asserts his picking talent on “Armistice Day” and “Peace Like a River” and vamps happily behind violinist Stephane Grappelli on the swing instrumental “Hobo’s Blues.”

Producer Roy Halee, as he’d done for Bridge Over Troubled Water, surrounded his artist with friendly, talented and inventive musicians. Together they crafted spacious, highly sympathetic arrangements that had the delicacy of an acoustic band, the depth of a jazz combo and the power of well-placed moments of electric guitar. Columbia/Legacy’s 2011 reissue reuses Bill Inglot’s remastering and the three bonus tracks of Rhino’s 2004 reissue, including solo acoustic-guitar demos of “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard” and “Duncan,” and an alternate version of “Paranoia Blues.” Legacy’s traded out Rhino’s digipack for a standard jewel case and an 8-page booklet of lyrics and pictures. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in CD Review, Five Stars, Reissue | No Comments »

« Older Entries