Tag Archives: Legacy

Darlene Love: The Sound of Love – The Very Best of Darlene Love

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Fresh transfer and remaster of Darlene Love’s best

With the Philles catalog now in the licensing hands of Sony Legacy and EMI, the fiftieth anniversary of the label’s 1961 founding is being celebrated with a new round of reissues. First out of the gate are remastered best-of collections for the Ronettes, Crystals, Darlene Love and Phil Spector. This 17-track Darlene Love collection proves that while Ronnie Spector (nee Veronica Bennett) may have been Spector’s greatest heartthrob, Darlene Love was his vocal MVP. As the lead vocalist on key singles by Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, the Blossoms (both under their own name, and as the West Coast version of the Crystals), and solo singles, not to mention her work with the Blossoms as go-to backing vocalists, Love’s voice was as important an element of the Wall of Sound as the Wrecking Crew’s drums, guitars, pianos and basses.

Included here are tunes by the Crystals, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans (though not their first hit, “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” on which Bobby Sheen sang lead), the Blossoms, and solo sides. This collection mostly duplicates the track line-up of ABKCO’s out-of-print 1992 Best of Darlene Love, dropping “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” and a pre-Dixie Cups version of “Chapel of Love,” and adding four titles: the Blossoms’ “No Other Love, “That’s When the Tears Start” and “Good Good Lovin’,” and Love’s “Strange Love.” A couple of her lower charting singles (the pre-Philles “Son-in-Law” with the Blossoms, and the 1992 soundtrack single “All Alone on Christmas”) are absent, but more puzzlingly, neither the earlier or current collection includes Love’s signature holiday pièce de résistance, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).”

Though all this material has been previously released, several of Love’s solo tracks went unissued at the time of their recording, turning up a decade later on rarities anthologies. Among these are “Run Run Runaway,” “A Long Way to Be Happy,” and the brilliant Poncia and Andreoli song, “Strange Love.” Fleshing out her post-Philles career is a soulful 1965 turn on Van McCoy’s “That’s When the Tears Start” (produced by Reprise staffer Jimmy Bowen) and a 1975 session with Phil Spector on Mann and Weil’s “Lord, If You’re a Woman.” As with the other volumes in this series, this isn’t the vault discovery fans are waiting for, and the lack of stereo (except tracks 16 and 17) will vex long-time collectors, but with ABKCO’s earlier best-of out of print, this is a welcome return to retail of Love’s classic sides. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

The Ronettes: Be My Baby – The Very Best of the Ronettes

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Fresh mono transfer and remaster of Ronettes’ best

With the Philles catalog now in the licensing hands of Sony Legacy and EMI, the fiftieth anniversary of the label’s 1961 founding is being celebrated with a new round of reissues. First out of the gate are remastered best-of collections for the Ronettes, Crystals, Darlene Love and Phil Spector. This 18-track set includes all eight of the group’s Philles singles (all of which charted, but amazingly flew under the Top 10 except “Be My Baby”), Veronica’s “Why Don’t They Let Us Fall in Love” and “So Young,” the album tracks “I Wonder” and “You Baby,” the B-side “When I Saw You,” the 1969 A&M single “You Came, You Saw, You Conquered,” and a few tracks that went unreleased at the time of their recording. The latter includes a terrific pair (“Paradise” and “Here I Sit”) co-written by a young Harry Nilsson, and previously released on The Phil Spector Masters. This collection duplicates the track line-up of ABKCO’s out-of-print Best of the Ronettes with one exception: the 1964 B-side “How Does it Feel” is replaced here by the group’s last charting single, 1966’s “I Can Hear Music.” The track ordering is mostly chronological to the songs’ recording dates, and Lenny Kaye offers touchingly personal liner notes alongside detailed recording data. This isn’t the vault discovery that fans are waiting for, and many will complain about the all-mono line-up, but with ABKCO’s set itself a collector’s item, this is a welcome overview of the group’s biggest hits. Now, where are the rarities and stereo mixes? [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

The Crystals: Da Doo Ron Ron – The Very Best of the Crystals

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Fresh mono transfer and remaster of the Crystals’ best

The Crystals formed in 1961 with Barbara Alston as their lead singer. Quickly signed by Phil Spector for his brand new Philles label, they were the subject of the label’s very first single, first hit and first Top 20, “(There’s No Other) Like My Baby.” They struck gold again the following year with the Mann & Weil’s brilliant “Uptown” and reached #1 with Gene Pitney’s “He’s a Rebel.” Oddly, the latter single, the group’s only chart topper, was recorded by a completely different set of Crystals – Darlene Love and the Blossoms – than the one who’d first broken on the charts. The story has the original Crystals touring the East Coast at the moment the demanding Spector was ready to record in Los Angeles, and Love’s group was on hand.

The Love/Blossoms Crystals hit one more time, in 1963 with “He’s Sure the Boy I Love,” before the original group regained their name with “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Then He Kissed Me,” and “I Wonder.” Well, sort of. “Da Doo Ron Ron” had been recorded by Darlene Love and the Blossoms, but Spector replaced her lead vocal with one by Lala Brooks, to whom Alston had ceded the lead vocal role in the Crystals’ stage show. The latter two singles also feature Brooks with Love and the Blossoms providing the backing vocals. The East Coast group split with Spector and Philles shortly thereafter, and amid additional personnel changes recorded a few more non-charting singles that failed to capture the thrills and grandeur of their hits.

This disc collects the group’s ten charting singles (which also include “Little Boy” and “All Grown Up”), B-sides, album tracks, the short-lived A-side “There’s No Other Like My Baby” (which was flipped to make “(There’s No Other) Like My Baby” a hit), and the quickly withdrawn “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss).” Two rarities – the hard-swinging unissued-at-the-time “Heartbreaker” and the previously unissued LaLa Brooks-sung “Woman in Love” fill out the disc. This isn’t a complete exposition of the group’s recordings (their early version of “On Broadway” would have been a nice inclusion), and some will complain about the all-mono line-up, but with ABKCO’s Best of the Crystals out of print, it’s great to have the group’s hits and and B-sides available alongside collections for the Ronettes, Darlene Love and Phil Spector. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: Wall of Sound – The Very Best of Phil Spector

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Fresh mono transfer and remaster of Spector’s best

In the lull between the primordial spark of ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll and the ‘60s echo brought by the British Invasion, Phil Spector reinvented the pop single. He broke into the music industry in the late ‘50s with his group, The Teddy Bears, and subsequently elevated the stature of “record producer” with his unique Wall of Sound methods. Starting in New York, and eventually decamping to Los Angeles, Spector’s fame eclipsed that of his artists. Though the Ronettes and Crystals got star billing, and the A-list studio players got their historic due as the Wrecking Crew, these singles have collectively become known as “Phil Spector records.” And given Spector’s reclusive lifestyle and his 2009 incarceration, the records are more than ever his public legacy.

This 19-track collection samples the key years, 1961-66, during which Spector produced for his own Philles label. With the Philles catalog now in the licensing hands of Sony Legacy and EMI, the fiftieth anniversary of the label’s 1961 founding is being celebrated with a new round of reissues. Alongside this remastered collection of Spector’s hits are collections for the Ronettes, Crystals and Darlene Love. This set stretches from the Crystals’ and Philles’ first single, 1961’s “There’s No Other (Like My Baby),” through the 1966 release whose chart failure is reported to have broken Spector’s heart, Ike & Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High.” In between are key sides from the Ronettes, Darlene Love, Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, Righteous Brothers and more from the Crystals, gathering together all of the label’s Top 40 singles except for three mid-60s releases by the Righteous Brothers.

This is a great look at the peaks, both commercial and artistic, of Spector’s run at Philles. It’s missing the warm-up act of pre-Philles sides with Ray Peterson, Gene Pitney, Curtis Lee and the Paris Sisters, as well as Spector’s comeback work in the ‘70s and 80s, but as a single disc overview of the Wall of Sound, and given the per-track royalty model for U.S. releases, it’s hard to argue with the choices. To reach deeper into the Phil Spector and Philles catalogs, to hear B-sides, album tracks and the few non-charting Philles singles, seek out the individual artist collections being issued in parallel, dig up a copy of the out-of-print box set Back to Mono, or spring for the imported Phil Spector Masters. This isn’t the vault archaeology that fans seek, and many will complain about the mono line-up (all except “River Deep”), but it is a welcome overview of one of pop music’s greatest auteurs. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Billy Joel: The Hits

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19 hits and favorites from 23 years of music making

In prelude to a thorough reissue of his album catalog, Billy Joel is celebrated on this first-ever career-spanning domestic single disc anthology. Joel’s catalog has been excerpted more fully on the three-disc Greatest Hits series [1 2] and multidisc sets Essential and Complete Hits, but this is the first time his lengthy catalog has been condensed to a single U.S. CD. The nineteen tracks provide a compact tour through twenty-three years of music-making, selecting recordings from every Joel album from 1971’s Cold Spring Harbor through 1993’s River of Dreams. The selections mostly follow his hit-making, though the inclusion of the non-single “Everybody Loves You Now” and the non-charting “New York State of Mind” helps flesh out the hit-maker’s further identity as an album artist. This isn’t a complete recitation of even Joel’s biggest hits – “Just the Way You Are” and “Uptown Girl” are missing, the latter perhaps a victim of divorce – but it’s a musically satisfying 80-minute tour through a rich catalog of hit singles and multiplatinum albums. Radio and concert favorites like “Piano Man,” “Only the Good Die Young,” “Big Shot,” “You May Be Right,” “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” and “We Didn’t Start the Fire” will give Joel’s fans a charge and provide a great introduction to those who didn’t live through his hit-making years. Joel’s fascination with ‘60s doo-wop is heard in “The Longest Time” and his affection for Brill Building pop is lovingly evoked by the Ronettes-styled “Say Goodbye to Hollywood.” This is a good buy at a great price for those new to Joel’s catalog, especially if you’re not ready to pay for a multi-disc set. This collection fills a niche for newcomers; fans will have to wait for the album reissues to get their hands on rarities and previously unreleased tracks. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Elvis Presley: Viva Elvis – The Album

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Modern reconstructions of Elvis to love or hate

No doubt some will take to these reconstructions of famous Elvis Presley songs, while others will feel they’re bastardizations on par with Ted Turner’s colorization of movies. The truth lies somewhere in between. Presley’s iconic vocals have been lifted and recontextualized in modern arrangements augmented with new instrumental performances. The results are a great deal more radical than George and Giles Martin’s mashups of the Beatles catalog for Love. At times the rhythms will remind you of the monotonous dance floor beats of the Stars on 45 medleys, and Brendan O’Brien’s overbearing remake of “That’s Alright” borrows its dominant riff from Katrina and the Wave’s “Walking on Sunshine.”

Unlike Love, this feels less like a celebration than a tortured attempt to make Elvis relevant to twenty-first century ears. The shame of it is that Elvis’ original recordings still hold the magic laid into them fifty years ago, and much of what makes them special is lost in these translations. The contrast of hillbilly guitars and burning vocals is buried under mounds of modern studio sounds that compete with rather than amplify Elvis’ preternatural ferocity. Casting “Heartbreak Hotel” into a delta blues might be an interesting trick if the producer (O’Brien again) trusted listeners to stay entertained without adding sizzling Vegas horns. But he can’t help himself, or perhaps he can’t escape the live show’s demands. Serban Ghenea’s hyperbolic reworking of “Blue Suede Shoes” suffers the same fate, overwhelming both Elvis and the listener with studio pyrotechnics that are distracting rather than energizing.

The acoustic arrangement given “Love Me Tender” momentarily drops the album’s bombast, but Dea Norberg’s duet vocal doesn’t stand up to Elvis’ original. It’s not impossible to overlay an inspiring duet on Elvis – Celine Dion did so in a video performance of “If I Can Dream,” for example – but this is the wrong song and the arrangement is too sedate. Shelly St.-Germain fares better on “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” though the arrangement’s percussion distracts with its busyness. If you’ve been asking yourself “what would Elvis sound like if he were recording with a modern chart act,” perhaps these reworkings will help you imagine the answer. But even those few tracks that retain some of the originals’ joyousness, such as “Bossa Nova Baby,” fall to the disc’s hyperkinetic overdrive.

What might interest Elvis fans are the odd bits of continuity – studio dialog, radio announcers, film clips – used as production edgings. But unlike the rearranged instrumental lines of Love, these tracks are too radically reconstructed to play “where’d that come from?” No doubt this works well as a soundtrack to the live show; enjoyed in the round and visualized by circus acts, the CD will make a nice souvenir. But as a standalone offering it begs the question: why listen to someone else’s subtle-as-a-flying-mallet reconstructions when the heart of rock ‘n’ roll is still beating in the easily obtainable originals? [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The Highwaymen: Essential

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The intertwined creativity of Waylon, Willie, Cash and Kristofferson

Though Waylon, Willie, Cash and Kristofferson recorded three full albums as The Highwaymen, the foursome had much richer musical relationships than the purpose-built quartet dates. Legacy’s 2-disc Essential set documents both their official collaborations under the Highwayman moniker, and the duets and covers that found these artists returning to one another over the course of their careers. In addition to seven songs from the Highwaymen’s three albums, this thirty track collection includes solos and duets drawn from the artists’ original albums, television and stage performances (including tracks from the Johnny Cash Show and VH1’s Storytellers), and soundtracks. Among the riches are several covers of Kristofferson’s songs, including Nelson’s 2008 rendering of “Moment of Forever.”

The one previously unreleased track is a live version of Guy Clark’s “Desperados Waiting for a Train” recorded by the foursome at the 1993 Farm Aid concert, but the set’s real strength is its telling of the back-story through cuts sourced from twenty-five different albums. The collection paints a picture of four strong-willed, artistically-rich musical icons who found equal-strength partners in one another, and with whom they could collaborate without compromise. Their shared musical roots (neatly summarized in the trio of songs “The Night Hank Williams Came to Town,” “If You Don’t Like Hank Williams” and “Are You Sure Hank Done it this Way”) and hard-won artistic integrity bound them together like few other superstars, and the musical legacy they left as compadres is winningly excerpted in this set. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Willie Nelson: Setlist – The Very Best Of

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Good selection of Willie Nelson live material from 1966 through 1979

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Like most of the artists in this series, Nelson is well-known for his stage act. This set samples previously release performances from Live Country Music Concert, Willie Nelson Live, Willie and Family Live, Wanted! The Outlaws, and The Original Soundtrack: Honeysuckle Rose. There is no previously unreleased material. The latter three albums are much lauded and easily found. The first two, from which tracks 1 through 4 are selected, will be fresh to many ears. Live Country Music Concert was released in 1966 and Willie Nelson Live was released ten years later; both albums feature pre-outlaw recordings of Nelson playing a July 1966 date in Ft. Worth, Texas. As with Nelson’s early studio recordings, these performances find him straining against his band’s straight time and inflexible arrangements. It’s only on the ballads “The Last Letter” and “Touch Me” that Nelson really gets to stretch into the phrasings and melodic transitions that would become his trademarks. The crowd’s rowdy reactions to favorite songs show he was a fan favorite in Texas long before Nashville figured out how to market him to the general country audience.

The track list is filled out with some of Nelson’s most beloved songs and performances, including the supercharged Waylon and Willie duet “A Good Hearted Woman,” a superbly assured take on “Funny How Time Slips Away” and emotional readings of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” The set closes with the national anthem of the Willie Nelson Nation, “On the Road Again.” By the mid-70s Nelson had assembled a band that could hang with his phrasing and ease their way through key and time changes with the fluidity of a jazz combo. Nelson is clearly energized by the sympathetic playing of his band mates, and the looseness of the cuts from Honeysuckle Rose is especially satisfying. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Good selection of Willie Nelson live material from 1966 through 1979

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Like most of the artists in this series, Nelson is well-known for his stage act. This set samples previously release performances from Live Country Music Concert, Willie Nelson Live, Willie and Family Live, Wanted! The Outlaws, and The Original Soundtrack: Honeysuckle Rose. There is no previously unreleased material. The latter three albums are much lauded and easily found. The first two, from which tracks 1 through 4 are selected, will be fresh to many ears. Live Country Music Concert was released in 1966 and Willie Nelson Live was released ten years later; both albums feature pre-outlaw recordings of Nelson playing a July 1966 date in Ft. Worth, Texas. As with Nelson’s early studio recordings, these performances find him straining against his band’s straight time and inflexible arrangements. It’s only on the ballads “The Last Letter” and “Touch Me” that Nelson really gets to stretch into the phrasings and melodic transitions that would become his trademarks. The crowd’s rowdy reactions to favorite songs show he was a fan favorite in Texas long before Nashville figured out how to market him to the general country audience.

The track list is filled out with some of Nelson’s most beloved songs and performances, including the supercharged Waylon and Willie duet “A Good Hearted Woman,” a superbly assured take on “Funny How Time Slips Away” and emotional readings of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” The set closes with the national anthem of the Willie Nelson Nation, “On the Road Again.” By the mid-70s Nelson had assembled a band that could hang with his phrasing and ease their way through key and time changes with the fluidity of a jazz combo. Nelson is clearly energized by the sympathetic playing of his band mates, and the looseness of the cuts from Honeysuckle Rose is especially satisfying. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Blue Oyster Cult: Setlist – The Very Best Of

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Live tracks from 1974-1981 with one previously unreleased

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Inexplicably, Blue Oyster Cult’s entry in the series doesn’t include the booklet on disc. Instead, the cardboard slipcase provides a URL from which the booklet (as a PDF) can be viewed and downloaded. Once retrieved it provides liner notes from Lenny Kaye and detailed credits of the tracks’ origins. Many are pulled from the group’s previous live albums, On Your Feet Or On Your Knees, Some Enchanted Evening, Extraterrestrial Live, but the set also includes a promo-only version of “Godzilla” recorded in 1977, a 1981 take of “Flaming Telepaths” that was available on a British 12-inch single, and a previously unreleased 1979 version of “The Vigil” recorded in Berkeley, California. Taken together they provide a good view of the band’s live sound from their key years of 1974 through 1981.

BOC is a classic album-oriented rock band, placing only two singles on the Top 40 while scoring gold albums, minting FM turntable hits and turning itself into a solid arena draw. Their biggest single, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” is included here in a 1981 performance, but it’s the album tracks and the hard-charging jams that really excite the crowd. Their music reflects a number of improvisational threads, including San Francisco and Southern rock, but with a touch of prog-rock changes and a heavy metallic edge. Fans of the band’s carefully crafted studio albums may find themselves bewildered by these elongated versions (there are some Tap-like moments here), but if the live rock album boom of the 1970s is your cup of tea, this is a good sampler of BOC’s stage charms. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Heart: Red Velvet Car

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Ann and Nancy Wilson rock back to the glory days of Heart

Heart was long ago reduced to Ann and Nancy Wilson and support staff; fans that latched onto the band in its first-flush of mid-70s fame may never have made the turn that left Roger Fisher, Steve Fossen and Michael Derosier behind. But new listeners climbed on board for the band’s mid-80s renaissance, and together with a helping of longtime fans, the band sustained into the ‘90s. The sisters worked on side and solo projects, but recaptured the rock ‘n’ roll heart of Heart with 2004’s Jupiter’s Darling. Six years later, with Ann Wilson’s 2007 solo debut in the rear view mirror, the duo is back with Ben Mink in tow as co-producer and co-instrumentalist.

Together with a rhythm section of Ben Smith (drums) and Ric Markmann (bass), Heart is more of a concept of the Wilson sister’s musicality than an on-going concern as a working band. Despite that, the productions sound surprisingly fluid and whole. The songs reach back to the band’s 1970s folk-influenced rock glories, skipping past the sounds of their MTV years. Ann Wilson doesn’t hit the spine-tingling high notes of her younger years, but she’s a cannier singer these days, able to find drama within her limitations and deploying the grit in her voice to convey emotion and passion. Nancy Wilson is still charming as vocalist, singing sweetly on the country-tinged “Hey You.”

The Wilson’s lay down the line on “WTF” with hard-charging guitars and a lyric full of angry recriminations. Ann Wilson’s “what’s the matter with you?” is all the more powerful for its near under-the-breath delivery, and the thick middle part is an interesting layer cake of muddily echoed vocals and sharp, insistent rhythm. The album plays up its dynamic range, slamming rock tunes into the gentle abyss of string-lined blues, building the urgency and tension of songs as they lead to dissipated resolutions. Memories of the Wilson’s childhood Seattle are heard in “Queen City,” and though the album isn’t themed on Autumnal years (Ann turned 60 this year, Nancy 56), nostalgia informs optimistic forward plans as much as it contemplates earlier lessons.

At times the album’s instrumental backings outshine the lyrics, with the rhythm section augmented by great guitar figures and Ann Wilson’s vocals riffing on phrases rather than telling stories. The appreciation of “Sunflower” feels like a reverie that was better left in its personal moment and the fear in “Death Valley” doesn’t have the palpable heat of its subject. Better are the Zeppelin-styled folkloric rock of “Safronia’s Mark” and the emotional closer “Sand.” It’s on the last tune that the Wilsons seem to connect most deeply with the lyrics, with Ann straining into her upper register. This may not be the exuberant first press of a rock band, but the Wilsons still have the inclination to rock, and do so with genuine fire. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]