Posts Tagged ‘Country’

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Great American Taxi: Reckless Habits

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Loosely polished album of country, blues, bluegrass, boogie and rock ‘n’ roll

The second album from this funky jam-band exhibits the same sort of artistic serendipity with which the group was born. In the wake of Leftover Salmon’s demise, front-man Vince Herman hooked up with Chad Staehly and a hand-picked group of local musicians for a charity performance that spawned Great American Taxi. The polished looseness of Leftover Salmon’s jam-band legacy informs the new group’s music, as do the New Orleans influences found on songs like “Baby Hold On” and “Mountain Top,” but there’s a heavier dose of blues and southern rock boogie here. Think of the Grateful Dead at their most driving, Little Feat traipsing through their trademark rhythm ‘n’ roll or The Band playing reflective and bittersweet.

The group’s country tunes, such as the pedal steel-lined “New Madrid,” have more in common with cosmic American music than Leftover Salmon’s string-band influences, and the album’s title track pays twangy tribute to Gram Parsons. “Unpromised Land” suggests what Lynyrd Skynyrd might’ve sounded like as a progressive-bluegrass band, and at six minutes you get a taste of the band’s instrumental jamming. The original “American Beauty” (with its tip of the hat to the Dead) rolls along on an Allman-styled groove. There’s funk, boogie and humor that variously brings to mind the Neville Brothers, Commander Cody and the Morrells, but more than anything there’s an enormous feeling of satisfaction that comes from making music.

The album opens on an optimistic note with the fanciful dreaming of “One of These Days,” and the road warrior of “Unpromised Land” is pained by his longing for someone back home. But really, how bad can you feel when you’re packing a banjo player and a fiddler to cut a jig for you? Even the list of modern-ills that fuel the fast-paced “New Millennium Blues” are rolled out with the matter-of-factness of fatalistic observation rather than the ire of complaint, and the daily grind of a working musician has more fringe benefits than the title “Tough Job” might at first suggest. The group’s guitar, bass and drums are augmented by a four-piece horn section that adds New Orleans-styled brass (leading the march on the bonus instrumental “Parade”), and a trio of backing singers that adds gospel flavor.

This is a seamless hour of confident and self-assured roots music that effortlessly combines country, rock, blues, bluegrass and second-line funk. The instrumental jamming is fluid but focused, limiting the album’s three longest tracks to six minutes and the two instrumentals to fewer than three apiece. The top-line string band sound of Leftover Salmon has given way to sublime country-rock and the flavors of New Orleans. Herman seems tremendously energized by this music, his band is sharp and the guest playing of Barry Sless (pedal steel), Matt Flinner (banjo), the Peak to Freak Horns, and Black Swan Singers provide icing on a sweet cake. Fans of the Dead, Band, Burritos, Byrds and Little Feat, as well as recent acts like the Band of Heathens will love this one. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | One of These Days
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Derek Hoke: Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Sweet, optimistic country with pop, folk and blues shades

Georgia-born Derek Hoke opens his debut with the album’s bold title declaration: Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll. It’s an immensely catchy song whose pedal steel and thumping honky-tonk beat underline the bittersweet lament of a man who must bid adieu to his first love. Hoke declares his never-ending affection for rock ‘n’ roll even as he falls further into the embrace of country music. He’s confused and heartsick, but like the fatalism of film noir, he can’t fight the impulse to turn down the amps and turn up the twang. He walks away from the big guitars and screaming audiences with sweet sorrow in his heart.

Hoke styles himself a country artist, but there are rich threads of pop, folk and blues to be found in his music. The vibraphone chime of “Hot on the Heels of Love” lay behind a melody that’s equal parts Buddy Holly and early Beatles, and the whistled solo adds to a satisfied, easy-going early-60s mood. Hoke is a pop omnivore who smoothly combines Lyle Lovett’s ambling swing, Marshall Crenshaw’s earnest pop, Dr. John’s rolling funk and Hank Williams’ twang. Mike Daly’s steel nods to Williams’ legendary sideman Don Helms, and Chris Donohue’s double bass add supper-club bottom end to several songs.

At first these seem to be songs of romantic distress, but Hoke’s an optimist who dispels dark clouds with a never-ending view towards the sunny side. The frazzled morning-after of “Rain Rain Rain,” delayed infatuation of “I Think I Really Love You” and unrequited longing of “Still Waiting” are voiced as hope and opportunity rather than defeat, and even the straying lover of “Not Too Late” is given one more chance. Hoke sings of small pleasures (“The Finer Things”) and traipses through a litany of Southern terms of affection (“Sweat Pea,” with Jen Duke singing Loretta Lynn to Hoke’s George Jones) as his songs swing through buoyant rockabilly, acoustic blues and twangy country.

Hoke has steeped in the music of his youth, but also that of his parents’ and grandparents’. His period influences are worn cleverly in guitar strums, bass thumps, vocal harmonies and steel bends, interweaving periods and styles rather than blocking out pieces from whole cloth. His farewell to rock ‘n’ roll takes him back to a time when American music’s roots were still tangled in the same plot of mountain soil. This is a charming record that plays like a vintage radio station hopping from one thing you love to another, alighting long enough to set your toe tapping. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll
Buy Goodbye Rock ‘n’ Roll on Bandcamp
Derek Hoke’s MySpace Page

Here’s the video for “Where’d You Sleep Last Night?”

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Harlem Parlour Music Club: Salt of the Earth

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

New York City collective’s sophisticated roots music

The fifteen-strong membership of the Harlem Parlour Music Club seems to be more a collective than a group. Their eleven-track debut album includes songs from half the members as songwriters, and half the members contribute vocals. The group’s rootsy music would have once been quite at home downtown in Greenwich Village, but they’re an uptown aggregation who recorded these tracks in a Harlem townhouse. The combination of top-notch talent and informal studio sessions gives this debut a nice balance of heart and polish. There’s a professional air to the playing, but also the ease of a living room jam. The group’s New York roots and Appalachian aspirations provide a similar balance between big city sophistication and rural roots. Elaine Caswell’s “Snakeskin,” for example, sounds like something a post-Brill Building Carole King might have recorded outside the city, and the group’s cover of Sly & The Family Stone’s “Thank You (Fallettin Me Be Mice Elf Again)” is both soulful and rustic as the vocal chorus sings against twangy strings. There are tight harmonies, British-tinged folk melodies, lonesome fiddles, gospel glories and train rhythms, but with so many participants this is more of a songwriter’s round than a cohesive band session. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Dyin’ to Be Born Again
Harlem Parlour Music Club’s MySpace Page

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Sara Petite: Doghouse Rose

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

San Diego country singer/songwriter backed by stellar Nashville players

The opening track from Sara Petite’s third album will grab your ears if for nothing else than the phased guitar sound that recalls the soul of Waylon Jennings’ “Are Your Sure Hank Done it This Way?” Petite sings with the girlish lilt and firecracker energy of Rosie Flores, and her crack band (which includes studio hotshot guitarist Kenny Vaughn, bassist Dave Rorick and drummer William Ellis) adds instrumental nuances that really give the productions something extra. Petite’s voice is twangy, perhaps too country for Country, and there’s a lot of rock ‘n’ roll punch in the band’s playing. The slap-back echo of “Baby Let Me In” adds a vintage twist to Petite’s voice, but Vaughn’s guitar is tougher and the rhythm more overpowering than straight rockabilly or honky-tonk.

Petite’s a gifted singer with a lot of texture in her voice, a bit like Texas singer Kimmie Rhodes. She sings the album’s title track with a parched tone that seeks acceptance, and infuses desperate longing into a cover of Harlan Howard’s “He Called Me Baby.” Her band is right there with her, laying back or charging hard ahead as befits each song. The electric guitars provide sympathetic vamps for the sadder tunes and prod Petite to stand up when she’s fallen down. Sasha Ostrovsky’s dobro adds stringy twang throughout, and the rhythm section really adds muscle to the up-tempo numbers. Petite wrote all but one of these songs, and her lyrics have a conversational easiness that makes her stories, observations, realizations and confessions feel intimate.

Doghouse Rose has been out since November of 2009, but like many independent releases it’s only slowly gathering the attention it deserves. Petite’s well known in her adopted San Diego (she’s originally from Washington State) and made connections in Nashville; she’s gained exposure in Europe, opened for Josh Turner, Todd Snider and Shooter Jennings, and won several songwriting awards, yet her third album is still seeking broad release and listeners’ ears. Perhaps she needs to get to Nashville or Austin or North Carolina or New England to find herself a sympathetic label. In the meantime you can find Doghouse Rose in her website store. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Baby Let Me In
MP3 | Doghouse Rose
Sara Petite’s Home Page
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Josh Turner: Haywire

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Cautious fourth album from talented, deep-voiced country singer

Turner broke out in 2003 with the throwback single “Long Black Train” and a bass voice that stopped listeners in their tracks. His bottomless notes and Southern accent seemed so innately country as to be resistant to Nashville’s crossover practices. His debut was filled with slip-note piano, shuffle beats, mandolin and fiddle, and even on smoother ballads like “She’ll Go On You” and “The Difference Between a Woman and a Man,” there was an ache in Turner’s voice that remained apiece with Travis, Cash and Haggard. His next two albums, 2005’s Your Man and 2007’s Everything is Fine followed similar templates, decorating his vocals with banjo, blue twang and steel, and mixing up honky-tonkers, ballads and redneck rockers.

Producer Frank Rogers (who’s also worked with Brad Paisley, Daryl Worley and Trace Adkins) crafted a sound for Turner that was radio-ready without severing the singer’s ties to tradition. Turner showed himself acutely aware of his special vocal charms, introducing songs like “Everything is Fine” with low notes that instantly grab your attention. On this fourth album Turner and Rogers follow the same pattern, and become a bit formulaic in the process. Turner remains a hugely engaging singer, but his songs feel more calculated to satisfy his audience than say something that’s burning deep in his heart or mind. The productions are smart and Nashville tight, but don’t often match the earthiness and singularity of Turner’s voice.

The album’s lead-off track, “Why Don’t We Just Dance,” was pre-released as a single and topped the country chart. Hearing Turner climb up from his low register, you get a palpable sense of how great it feels to sing such deep, chest-rattling notes. Turner sings with an ease that’s quite charming, and the band feels rougher and looser here than elsewhere on the album. His seductiveness is more direct on the ballad “I Wouldn’t Be a Man,” approaching the song similarly to Don Williams’ 1987 hit single. Turner extols his mate on “Your Smile,” but the tranquility and contentedness with which he sings seems at odds with the enthusiasm of the song’s lyrical platitudes.

Turner’s originals include the funky title track in which the singer is discombobulated by a member of the opposite sex, and his existing trio of everyman rockers (“Backwoods Boy, “Trailerhood” and “White Noise”) is extended to a quartet with “Friday Paycheck.” Blowing it out on the weekend is a time-honored topic, but Turner hasn’t anything new to say about the joys one can find in a paycheck-to-paycheck life. Listeners celebrating the end of their own work week probably care, as the song rocks a shuffle beat and has a catchy hook. The New Orleans styled funk of “All Over Me” provides a brief respite from the album’s contemporary Nashville rhythms, though the session players don’t quite hit the second line beat convincingly.

The album’s real highlight is the country soul slow-jam “Lovin’ You on My Mind.” Turner sings with strings and a backing chorus and the production artfully weaves together steel and Wurlitzer. Haywire is offered as 11-track regular and a 15-track deluxe edition. The latter adds two good studio tracks (“This Kind of Love” and “Let’s Find a Church”) and two live cuts (“Long Black Train” and “Your Man”), which are worth the extra couple of dollars. Turner remains a vocalist of distinction, but the head-turning edginess of “Long Black Train” has given way to cautious repetition. This is a good album by a gifted artist who should be releasing great albums full of memorable music that pushes the artistic ball further forward. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Listen to “Why Don’t We Just Dance”
Josh Turner’s Home Page
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Michael Martin Murphey: Buckaroo Blue Grass II – Riding Song

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Second helping of Murphey’s bluegrass reinterpretations

Michael Martin Murphey’s 1975 single “Wildfire” was only the most public aspect of a long and rich career. He appeared on the country charts throughout the 1980s and subsequently developed a deep affinity for cowboy songs. Over the years he’s revisited key parts of his catalog, and in 2009 produced a volume of tunes reinterpreted in a bluegrass style. A year later he’s back with a second volume that sounds even more confident. His latest concentrates on songs from the early-to-mid 70s albums Geronimo’s Cadillac, Michael Murphey, Cosmic Cowboy Souvenir, Blue Sky-Night Thunder and Swans Against the Sun. He picks up “Tonight We Ride” and “Running Blood” from more recent albums and covers the Glaser Brothers’ “Running Gun.” The latter was originally recorded by Marty Robbins in 1959 for his legendary Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, closing the circle on Murphey’s love of western song.

Opening the disk with a hot-picked arrangement of 1975’s country-rock shuffle “Blue Sky Riding Song,” Murphey and his assembled musician friends serve notice that there are plenty of instrumental fireworks ahead. Pat Flynn on guitar, Ronny McCoury on mandolin, Charli Cushman on banjo and Andy Leftwich on fiddle warm up to a canter in 15 seconds flat, with Craig Nelson’s bass pushing Murphey’s exuberant vocals along the open trail. The instrumental break gives each player a chance to flash as the others provide progressive, ensemble backing. The group also turns it up for 1976’s “Renegade.” Though it’s lightened from its original country-rock sound, the acoustic instruments provide plenty of intensity as the players, including Rob Ickes on dobro, Sam Bush on mandolin, Charlie Cushman on banjo and Andy Leftwich on fiddle, stretch out for a length instrumental coda.

Murphey’s bluegrass reinterpretations provide a matured consideration of earlier performances, but also bring his songwriting into focus. Laying a bluegrass motif across twenty years of varied compositions highlights the consistent quality of his work. In some instances, like the Hot Club styling of 1985’s “Tonight We Ride,” the retooling is minimal, in others, such as the treatment of “Swans Against the Sun” and banjo lead of “Running Blood” the new arrangements bring out something new. Even the well-trod “Wildfire,” with its echoes of ‘70s soft rock, gets a fresh garland of twang and a powerful duet vocal from Carrie Hassler.

Murphey’s voice has gained an appealing edge over the years, and this set shows off both his adaptability as a performer and depth as a songwriter. His song notes show as much love for his material as does his singing; this is also evident in the feeling performances of songs he’s no doubt sung thousands of times. This is a great album for longtime fans, bluegrass listeners and all those top-40 ears that lost track of Murphey after “Carolina Pines” and “Renegade” slipped out of the Top 40 in the mid-70s. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Track Sampler for Buckaroo Blue Grass II
Michael Martin Murphey’s Home Page
Michael Martin Murphey’s MySpace Page

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Randy Kohrs: Quicksand

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Bluegrass basics salted with country, soul and gospel

Randy Kohrs is a multi-instrumentalist who’s backed some of country music’s brightest luminaries, including Patty Loveless, Hal Ketchum, Dolly Parton and Jim Lauderdale. He’s also crafted a solo career that’s brought together his talent as a picker with vocals that are quite compelling. His music is solid on bluegrass fundamentals, but his resonator guitar adds a unique voice to the acoustic arrangements, and his singing ranges from traditional baritone/tenor harmonies to country twang and gospel. Highlights on his latest solo outing include country songs from Webb Pierce (“It’s Been So Long”) and Del Reeves (“This Must Be the Bottom”), up-tempo picking on the original “Time and Time Again,” and the blue gospel “Down Around Clarksdale” and “If You Think it’s Hot Here.” The terrific backing vocals of Scat Springs heard on this latter track can also be found on a cover of Tom T. Hall’s “More About John Henry.” Kohrs’ acoustic country tunes may be too contemporary for bluegrass purists, but with the traditional form well-covered by so many outfits, there’s something to be said for adding new ideas to the original framework. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Bill Emerson and Sweet Dixie: Southern

Monday, February 8th, 2010

Banjo legend leads his bluegrass band on a second outing

Bill Emerson is a legendary banjo player with roots stretching back to the late ‘50s. He co-founded the Country Gentlemen with guitarist Charlie Waller, held a featured slot with Jimmy Martin, and provided direction to musicians such as Jerry Douglas and Ricky Skaggs. He spent 20 years in the military, most of it in the Navy’s bluegrass band, Country Current, began recording as a leader in the early 90s, and formed Sweet Dixie for their eponymous debut in 2007. Emerson’s always stretched the edges of the bluegrass canon, mixing traditional material with songs drawn from country, folk and rock. Most famously, he’s credited with adapting Manfred Mann’s “Fox on the Run” into a bluegrass staple.

Sweet Dixie’s new album includes a few traditional sources, such as Alton Delmore’s “The Midnight Train,” Hazel Dickins’ “I Can’t Find Your Love Anymore,” and Tompall Glaser’s “I Don’t Care Anymore” the latter drawn from the catalog of Flatt & Scruggs. The nostalgia of Lionel Cartwright’s “Old Coal Town” is also a good fit, and the English folk of “The Black Fox” is augmented with mandolin and banjo spotlights. More inventively, the group reworks Marty Stuart’s rolling country-rock “Sometimes the Pleasure’s Worth the Pain” (originally from 1999’s The Pilgrim) into an up-tempo acoustic arrangement, and Chris Hillman’s “Love Reunited” is shorn of its original ‘80s production sound, trading the Desert Rose Band’s crystalline guitars for a more timeless banjo.

Highlights of the group’s new material include Vince Gill’s grievous “Life in the Old Farm Town,” reflecting the dismantling of American life in the parting out of a foreclosed farm. Sweet Dixie plays with tremendous group chemistry, adding solos that are compelling without giving into the flashiness that plagues many bluegrassers. They can pick up a storm, as heard on “The Midnight Train,” but “Grandpa Emory’s Banjo” and the instrumental “Grandma’s Tattooss” celebrate the musicality of their instruments rather than the breakneck speed at which the players’ fingers can fly. The latter features Emerson doubling the song’s writer, banjo instructor and fellow-picker Janet Davis.

Guitarist Tom Adams handles most of the lead vocals, with bassist Teri Chism and mandolinist Wayne Lanham each taking turns up front; the group’s energetic harmonies seque smoothly with the instruments. Lyrics of lost love, suicide, and a child’s funeral are sung with the tenderness of hope rather than the bleakness of depression. As the group’s visionary, Emerson balances innovation and tradition, pulling new material into the bluegrass orbit without sacrificing the warmth and comfort of tradition. His band has the confidence to let their playing serve the material, and though Emerson’s not written any new songs for this album, his ear for other writers’ works is unerring. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Track Sampler for Southern
Bill Emerson and Sweet Dixie’s Home Page

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Elvis Presley: Clambake

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Three great tracks and some all-time clunkers

There are a number of commonly held misconceptions about Elvis Presley’s film career: Elvis couldn’t act, his movies were all throwaways, and the soundtracks were populated entirely with substandard material. But key films in the King’s catalog show that he could indeed act, if called upon, there are several high-quality dramatic and musical films in Elvis’ oeuvre, alongside many good lightweight romantic musical comedies, and his soundtracks are laced with hits and terrific albums sides. To measure the highpoints of Elvis’ soundtrack catalog by virtue of the low points (of which there are admittedly many) is to miss out on a valuable dimension of Presley’s musical career.

1967’s Clambake was Elvis’ twenty-fifth film and the third to co-star Shelley Fabares. Unlike the bulk of Elvis’ Hollywood-recorded soundtracks, this one was waxed in Nashville with a host of Music City A-listers, including drummer Buddy Harman, guitarist Charlie McCoy, pianist Floyd Cramer and steel guitarist Pete Drake. Also on hand were Elvis long-time associates, Scotty Moore and the Jordanaires. By this point the soundtrack songwriters were etched in stone, with contributions from Sid Wayne, Ben Weisman, Sid Tepper, Roy C. Bennett and Joy Byers. The soundtrack’s best cuts come from the few outside writers: Jerry Reed, credited as Jerry “Reed” Hubbard, contributed the super fine “Guitar Man,” Elvis struts his stuff on a cover of Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” and Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold’s “You Don’t Know Me” blows the regular soundtrack writers’ material out of the water.

After the success of “Do the Clam” (from the soundtrack of Girl Happy), the RCA brain trust must have thought releasing “Clambake” as a single would typecast their star as a seafood singer. That’s too bad, as it’s a catchy tune even if Elvis does have to sing “mama’s little baby loves clambake clambake.” Elvis rarely sounded less than professional on his soundtracks, even as he was dodging or hurrying through sessions, but you can always hear him engage a second gear for the better material. He doesn’t quite sleepwalk through the worst material, though a few vocals sound like first takes for which Elvis refused to soil himself with a second pass. Clambake features some of the most embarrassing lyrics Elvis was ever asked to sing (key evidence: “Hey Hey Hey”), and adding children on “Confidence” didn’t help.

This may be the most schizophrenic of Elvis’ soundtrack albums, featuring several highpoints that match the quality and artistry or his non-soundtrack singles. but intermingled with awful songs that could only have been contractual obligations. Just when “The Singing Tree” has robbed you of hope, Elvis closes with a superb, stone-country cover of Rex Griffin’s “Just Call Me Lonesome” that has him intertwined in Pete Drake’s steel guitar. Sony’s reissue features a four-panel booklet and no liner notes discussing the music or its making. The 30-minute running time suggests that Follow That Dream’s collector’s edition might be more compelling to Elvis diehards. Still, the budget price and remastered sound make this reissue attractive, especially if you pick out the hot tracks and skip the rest. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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B.J. Thomas: On My Way / Young and in Love

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Texas pop hit-maker finds his soul in Memphis

B.J. Thomas is often remembered for his biggest pop hits, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” and “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.” But like many artists whose careers were longer than their pop chart success, there’s a lot more to Thomas’ catalog than these four songs. In addition to 1980s success on the country charts, Thomas recorded albums throughout the mid-60s and 70s that turned up lower-charting hit singles and terrific album sides. Collectors’ Choice has gathered Thomas’ first eight solo albums for Scepter as a series of four two-fers, starting with his 1966 label debut, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, and concluding with 1971’s Billy Joe Thomas.

After his 1966 breakthrough with a slow, pop-soul cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” Thomas’ subsequent singles charted lower and lower, dropping him out of the Top 40 for the latter half of 1966 and all of 1967. He returned in 1968 with On My Way and climbed back to #28 with the mid-tempo love song “The Eyes of a New York Woman.” Thomas was singing in a lower register, sounding remarkably like the Box Tops’ Alex Chilton; the single’s electric sitar even recalls the Box Tops’ “Cry Like a Baby.” That same sitar shines even more brightly opening the album’s breakout hit, “Hooked on a Feeling.” This Mark James penned number subsequently scored a European hit for Jonathan King and a U.S. #1 in 1974 for Blue Swede. King added (and Blue Swede copied) an “ooga chaka” chant and reggae rhythm that give the song a harder edge than Thomas original.

By the time Thomas recorded this pair of albums he’d relocated from Texas to Memphis where he landed at Chips Moman’s American Studio, meeting up with the studuio’s crack band and realizing crisper recordings and more commercially refined arrangements. More importantly, his previous source of original songs, Mark Charron, was replaced by a range of writers that included Ray Stevens, Wayne Carson (who wrote “Soul Deep” and “The Letter” for the Box Tops), Spooner Oldham, Ashford & Simpson, and Mark James (who wrote both singles, and would later write “Suspicious Minds” for Elvis to cut in the very same Memphis studio). Thomas continued to tread a line between pop, country, blues and soul, but the first and last resonated most deeply in his new Memphis setting.

As on his previous albums, Thomas turned a country classic to soul, this time with Ferlin Husky’s mid-50s hit, “Gone.” Since the original was already a ballad, Thomas and crew could only slow it so much and instead focused on a then-contemporary arrangement of reverb and fuzz guitar, strings, deep bass and soulful organ; it all ends up sounding a bit funereal. Better are horn-and-string covers of Jim Reeves’ “Four Walls” and the Platters’ “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” each giving Thomas a chance to really emote. Thomas’ material was notably more mature than his earlier work and reaches to social commentary (and Billy Joel-like stridency) with “Mr. Businessman” and philosophical introspection on “I’ve Been Down This Road Before.” The singer, songs, studio and musicians really fit together nicely for these sessions, but the dependency on covers that fail to expand on the originals keeps this album from being a deeper artistic statement.

1969’s Young and in Love followed the template of its predecessor, combining tunes from Mark James with selections from songwriting legends (Paul Williams, Jimmy Webb, Neil Diamond), and a country hit turned to soul with a cover of Henson Cargill’s “Skip a Rope.” Unlike Thomas’ previous (and next) album, the original material here was good, but failed to burn up the charts: the pop-soul “Pass the Apple Eve” barely made the Top 100, and the ballad “It’s Only Love” only cracked the adult contemporary Top 40. The covers are professional, but again not always artistically definitive; the Carpenters wrenched much more out of “Hurting Each Other” a few years later, and “Solitary Man” didn’t improve on Neil Diamond’s original. Thomas’ connection with the Box Tops is renewed through a cover of Spooner Oldham & Dan Penn’s “I Pray for Rain,” which Chilton and company had recorded a few years earlier.

Chips Moman’s studio and players continue to provide superb accompaniment, furthering Thomas development as a soul singer. The electric sitar wears thin by album’s end, but for the arrangements mostly have a timeless Memphis sound. Collectors’ Choice adds six bonus tracks: a single, three B-sides and two previously unreleased sides. Top of the heap is a cover of Conway Twitty’s (and Wanda Jackson’s) “I May Never Get to Heaven” featuring superb guitar from Reggie Young. Also tasty is a cover of Luther Dixon’s blue “Human” and the airy Mark James waltz “Distant Carolina.” Creepiest is “You Don’t Love Me Anymore,” ending with a frenetic vocal and a railroad train (complete with sound effects) bearing down on the dreaming protagonist. All tracks are stereo except 22, and “I Saw Pity in the Face of a Friend” features some odd panning and phasing. The set’s 8-page booklet includes liner notes by Mike Ragogna and full-panel reproductions of the album covers. These first-time-on-CD albums offer a great picture of Thomas’ emergence as a soul singer. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

B.J. Thomas’ Home Page
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