Category Archives: Five Stars

Hank Williams: The Complete Mothers’ Best Recordings… Plus!

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Astonishing Hank Williams’ vault find – the Mothers’ Best mother lode

In 2008 Time-Life released the brilliant Unreleased Recordings box set. The fifty-four previously unreleased tracks cherry-picked live-in-the-studio recordings from Williams’ 1951 Mothers’ Best radio show. The acetate transcriptions showed off a directness and intensity that wasn’t always found in MGM’s studios, and illuminated a new side of a superstar whose biography had long since transcended to folk lore. At the time of the box set’s release there was debate as to whether it was right to excerpt the musical selections from the original 15-minute radio programs, and there was much clamoring for the original full-length transcriptions. Time Life’s new fifteen CD set presents the original acetates in their full glory – seventy-two programs totaling over eighteen hours, and may remind you to be careful of what you wish for!

As illuminating as were the songs excerpted for the previous box, the intact radio programs add yet another dimension to Williams’ personal and professional personalities. The very circumstance of their recording, waxed for broadcast when his heavy touring schedule prevented him from broadcasting live, speaks to the career peak Williams achieved in 1951. Not only was he selling records and filling seats at concerts, but he was writing some of his most revered original songs. Two of these, “Cold, Cold Heart” and “I Can’t Help it (If I’m Still in Love With You)” even received their public debuts on his radio program. Williams lights up numerous country and western chestnuts, sings hymns and spirituals with his Drifting Cowboys, and gives recitations. There’s a wealth of obscure and rare material among these recordings.

Williams performs with the ease of a seasoned performer rummaging around for something to entertain the folks, enticing them to stay tuned through the commercials and to come out to his live performances. Although recorded for later broadcast on WSM, these performances have the informality and spontaneity of live radio programs. Williams’ asides are clearly unscripted and unrehearsed, and at only twenty-seven (and just a couple of years from his untimely death), he married the fire of youth with the poise of artists decades his senior. The music is an obvious goldmine, but the continuity – the commercials, ad lib asides and joshing with those in the studio – draws a distinct picture of, to quote Hank Jr. “a young man on top of his world.”

A great DJ or radio talk show host can create a personal connection with their listeners, and Williams had the talent. He showed off his quick wit and drew listeners into the party taking place in the studio. But unlike a DJ or talk host, Williams both spoke and sang, seamlessly weaving together his conversations, announcements, introductions and songs into an effortlessly magnetic whole. Even a minor gaffe of live radio, such as an announcer’s momentary forgetfulness, is turned into material as everyone breaks up and the joke is shared with the listeners. Williams’ band is exceptional, responding on a dime as their leader calls out a song, and playing in perfect balance to the microphone. Fiddler Jerry Rivers and steel player Don Helms are real standouts and often featured. Williams’ wife Audrey, who was the motor behind his career, also sings a few, but with more charm than vocal talent.

The transcriptions have some minor audio artifacts and scattered surface noise, but it rarely distracts from the astonishing clarity and presence of these recordings. Engineer Joe Palmaccio has restored these recordings with the deftness of an artisan, and the catalog and performances are beyond compare – even to Williams’ much revered studio catalog. As with the previous box, it boggles the mind that country music’s greatest ever artist should have his music catalog so vastly expanded more than fifty years after his passing. Bonus material includes a 1952 program on which Williams auditions for a show sponsored by Aunt Jemima, a musical-story public service announcement warning of the dangers of venereal disease, and a DVD featuring interviews with Williams band members Don Helms and Bill Lester.

Colin Escott’s liner notes are superb and should net him a Grammy. He provides informative and entertaining context for the songs and performers, and explains many references that would escape modern day listeners. For example, you might know that Pee Wee King was born Julius Kuczynski, but you probably didn’t know he was prone to swearing in Polish when he was mad! The packaging matches the grandness of the recordings, with a 108-page book that includes full-panel vintage photos, reproductions of various ephemera, detailed biographies of the key show participants, an introduction by Hank Jr. and an afterword by Jett Williams. The set is housed in an antique-style radio box that even plays a few audio snippets at the turn of a knob.

This is an astonishing new portrait of an artist most fans thought they already knew intimately, especially after the 2008 release of the shows’ musical elements. What the full radio programs reveal is a completely different side of an artist whose popular image, particularly in historical retrospect, was defined by the tenor of his songs and his singing. What emerges is a preternaturally talented performer who wrote and sang decades beyond his age, and, in contrast to the pain etched into his lyrics, was personally buoyant and friendly and funny. Those who sat by their radio in 1951 may have already known this, but the rest of us are just finding out that Williams’ was more than an iconic singer and songwriter, he was also a crackerjack pitchman and offered his fans a warm, entertaining human presence. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Complete Mother’s Best Recordings’ Home Page
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Ola Belle Reed: Rising Sun Melodies

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Pioneering Appalachian singer, songwriter and string player

Ola Belle Reed is destined for repeated rediscovery. An Appalachian singer steeped in the mix of folk styles born of America’s melting pot, she was discovered at her family’s country music park, by 1950s folk revivalists. By that time she’d already been playing and singing for several decades, and her national emergence at the 1969 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife showcased a talent that was pure in its folk roots and mature in its expression. Her appearances resulted in recordings for the Folkways label and a 1976 audio documentary, My Epitaph. Her songs have been recorded by Marty Stuart, Del McCoury, the Louvin Brothers and Hot Rize, but it’s her own versions that best capture the folk tradition that she so fully embodied. Belle looked, dressed, talked and performed as a folk musician – part of a folk community rather than a commercially-bred folk scene.

Reed was bred among musicians: her father was a fiddler, one uncle ran a singing school and another taught her to play clawhammer banjo. Her father, uncle and aunt started a band in the early decades of the twentieth century, and Ola Belle and her brother Alex played in the North Carolina Ridge Runners before forming their own band in the late 1940s. Her husband Bud was also a musician, and his family combined with Reed’s to open the New River Ranch country music park. The park hosted most of Nashville’s major stars and many of Wheeling’s best acts, with Ola and Alex’s New River Boys and Girls serving as the opening act and house band. Oddly, at the crucial moment when Gei Zantzinger arrived to record the group, Alex chose not to participate – leaving the recording to be billed under Ola Belle’s name.

This set of nineteen tracks collects eleven from her previously released Folkways LPs and adds eight previously unreleased cuts from 1972 and 1976 archival recordings. The titles include Belle’s best-known originals, including the oft-covered “I’ve Endured” and “High on the Mountain,” as well as terrific renditions of fiddle tunes, mountain songs and nineteenth century standards that include “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” “Foggy Mountain Top,” and “Look Down That Lonesome Road.” Her son David Reed provides harmony on Ralph Stanley’s gospel “I Am the Man, Thomas,” but its her solo vocals that show how thoroughly she could imbue a lyric with aching loneliness. As she says in introducing “Undone in Sorrow,” “When I do a song that is as old as the hills and has the oldest flavor, as Betsy said, ‘If it’s a sad sad sad mournful song, when I get done with it, it’ll be pitiful’.”

Reed’s strength as a musician was matched by her humanitarianism as a Christian, both of which you can hear in the life force with which she leads her group through the disc-closing (and previously unreleased) rendition of “Here Comes the Light.” As she’s quoted saying in the 40-page booklet: “That’s what I am saying, that you cannot separate your music from your lifestyle. You cannot separate your lifestyle, your religion, and your politics from your music, it’s part of life.” Jeff Place’s extensive liner notes do a terrific job of telling Reed’s story through quotes, interviews and archival photos. If you haven’t already been clued in to Reed’s original recordings, this is an exemplary way to make their acquaintance. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Ola Belle Music Festival

Frank Sinatra: September of My Years

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A reflective Sinatra records his last perfect solo album

Frank Sinatra was hitting yet another career peak as the British Invasion stormed the popular music charts in the mid-60s. But such was his artistic force that the period saw the Chairman’s continued success on both the album and singles charts, successfully battling the storm unleashed by the Beatles and their compatriots. In 1965, with his 50th birthday looming, Sinatra took stock at mid-life and recorded thirteen songs with arranger Gordon Jenkins. Their choices delicately balanced a nostalgic look at the successes of youth, poignant thoughts on the limitations brought on by age, and optimistic visions of what time was still left to live. Sinatra had never before sounded this personally vulnerable, and the realization of his own mortality comes across like a genuine first thought.

The swagger of Sinatra’s recent swing albums gave way in this set to the sort of melancholy he’d explored with Jenkins on 1957’s brilliant Where Are You? and 1959’s No One Cares. Though Nelson Riddle is usually hailed as Sinatra’s most sympathetic arranger, Jenkins’ charts, both in 1957 and in 1965, winningly back Sinatra with lush strings that frame the singer exquisitely. In the thirty years since Sinatra broke into music as a boy singer, he’d proved himself America’s greatest interpretive vocalist, and now, in the approach to his golden years, he firmly established himself as the elder statesman of pop music. He’d record some good albums throughout the rest of the 1960s, but never again would he make such an arresting, innovative and deeply personal artistic statement.

The songs he picked for this album don’t fight the notion of aging, but neither do they succumb to its frailties. The title track, recorded five weeks after the rest of the album, opens the set with the stark realization of passing years, but “How Old Am I” opts to see the changes of age as maturity rather than weaknesses, and exults the power of love to keep one vital. Sinatra and Jenkins gathered “top of your game songs” and performed them with a presence and knowingness that was, particularly among Sinatra’s rich catalog of stellar recordings, astounding. Sinatra’s empty nest – his three children were grown and he was currently single – is heard in Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn’s “It Gets Lonely Early,” but even here the lyric is both happily nostalgic and optimistically forward looking.

Sinatra was no stranger to thematic albums, but never before, and never after, would the theme connect so closely to his circumstance or the emotion spring from so deep in his heart. Recorded in only three sessions spread over eight days, September of My Years won the 1966 Grammy award for album of the year, and Sinatra won an individual Grammy for best male vocal performance for “It Was a Very Good Year.” Jenkins won for his brilliant arrangement of the same song, and Stan Cornyn (who returns to this reissue with new liner notes) won a Grammy for his original album notes (which themselves are reproduced in the booklet). Concord’s 2010 reissue adds two bonus tracks to the original baker’s dozen: a 1984 live recording of “This is All I Ask” and an alternate version of “How Old Am I?” released as a single. With or without the bonuses, this is one of a half-dozen essentials in any Sinatra fan’s collection. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: British Invasion

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Stellar box set of four documentaries and a bonus disc

Reelin’ in the Years’ five-DVD set includes excellent documentaries on Dusty Springfield, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Herman’s Hermits and the Small Faces, which are also available individually. Each film is packed with full-length performances (some live, some lip-synched for TV) and interview footage with the principles and other key personnel. Though all four documentaries are worth seeing, the chapters on the Small Faces and Herman’s Hermits are particularly fine. In both of these episodes the filmmakers were able to get hold of a deeper vein of period material, and with the Small Faces relatively unknown in the U.S. and the Hermits known only as non-threatening hit makers, the stories behind the music are particularly interesting.

The bonus disc, available only in the box set, adds nine more performances by Dusty Springfield, seven more by Herman’s Hermits, and over ninety minutes of interview footage that was cut from the final films. The music clips include alternate performances of hits that appear in the documentaries, as well as songs (such as a terrific staging of Springfield’s “Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa” and the Hermits’ obscure “Man With the Cigar”) that don’t appear in the finished films. The interview material really show how unguarded and unrehearsed such encounters were in the 1960s. Fans of specific acts are recommended to their individual film, but anyone who loves the British Invasion should see all four plus the bonus disc. For reviews of the individual documentaries, please see here, here, here and here. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Phil Ochs: On My Way – 1963 Demo Sessions

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Spectacular cache of previously unreleased 1963 demo recordings

The folk revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s produced its share of recorded artifacts, reproduced on tape, vinyl, CD and most recently MP3, but it also held tightly to the tradition of live performance and the transmission of songs from one wandering minstrel to the next. Phil Ochs recorded his own share of treasured LPs, including his 1964 debut All the News That’s Fit to Sing and the seminal follow-up I Ain’t Marching Anymore, but in 1963 his songs were still heard only on stage in live performance. A couple of years ago, this reel of forgotten demo recordings turned up and was purchased at auction by Ochs’ brother Michael. Recorded at the Florida home of future Highwayman Roy Connors, the informal session finds Ochs running through his original material, including several key titles he’d later record for studio releases, in the hope of interesting other artists (in this case Connors’ Vikings Three) in playing or recording his songs.

Several collections of Ochs demos have been released under the Broadside banner, but these 1963 performances sport several key differences. When recording for Broadside, Ochs’ was laying out his lyrics for publication in a magazine, rather than selling his songs; he left out chorus repeats and often sang in a matter-of-fact fashion that made the lyrics clear but didn’t lean on the whole song’s craft. In contrast, these twenty-five self-penned compositions are being sold to fellow musicians. Ochs not only sings the songs as he would on stage, he speaks to the songs’ subjects, their chord structures, and to their recent reception by live audiences. Aside from the high quality of the performances and the number of rare Ochs originals, these recordings provide an unusual peek into the working musician’s back room where songs are taught and traded.

The solo format – Ochs and his acoustic guitar – was easy to record, and the balance of voice and instrument is excellent. There are some dropouts and a few rough spots in the tapes, but nothing that really detracts from the listening experience. What comes through loud and clear is Ochs’ devotion to his subjects, something he proclaimed directly in “I’ll Be There.” One might expect a topical singer of the early 1960s to sound quaint and dated in the twenty-first century, but Ochs’ themes, complaints and observations of social injustices and political realities remain sadly resonant in modern times. He excoriates greedy corporations (“The Ballad of U.S. Steel”), is disgusted by the impact of market economics on health care (“The A.M.A. Song”) and wonders about the prohibition of travel to Cuba (“The Ballad of William Worthy”). He rips songs from the headlines, lamenting the vicious death of a boxer, a cross-fire killing on the streets of New York City, and the hard times of a Kentucky coal miner’s strike.

Ochs could also be quite touching, singing nostalgic laments (“Time Was”) and lonely observations (“Morning” and “First Snow”), proclaiming his love of country, flaws and all, on a powerful early version of “The Power and the Glory,” and riffing on “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” for the humorous “Once I Lived the Life of a Commissar.” This is a terrific package, documenting a folk troubadour early in his career, bursting with music that had something to say. In addition to the twenty-five songs, the tri-fold cardboard slipcase includes reproductions of two ads for the House of Pegasus concert run that brought Ochs to Florida in 1963, and liner notes by Michael Simmons. This is an important release for fans, and a terrific document of the folk-roots revival. It’s more spontaneous than Ochs’ studio albums, and though not as polished as his official live albums, the passion, craft and dedication that minted Ochs’ legend still burn brightly in these demos forty-seven years later. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: Remember Me Baby- Cameo Parkway Vocal Groups Vol. 1

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Terrific vocal group tracks from the Cameo Parkway vaults

Cameo Records, and its subsidiary Parkway label, were Philadelphia powerhouses from the mid-50s through the mid-60s. Parkway is best remembered for unleashing Chubby Checker and the Twist dance craze, first in 1960 and again in 1962, making “The Twist” the only recording to gain the #1 spot on the Billboard chart twice! The labels hit with other memorable Philly-area artists in the early ‘60s, including the Dovells, Orlons, Bobby Rydell and Dee Dee Sharp, and it’s on these formerly out-of-print hits (finally reissued in box set, best-of, and original album form over the past five years) that Cameo-Parkway’s considerable reputation rests. But there’s more to the Cameo story, both before and after novelty dance hits brought the labels’ releases to worldwide acclaim.

Alongside four artist-centric two-fer reissues by Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, the Orlons, and Terry Knight and the Pack, Collectors’ Choice and ABKCO (the latter of whom  purchased the Cameo catalog in the late ‘60s) have put together this collection of doo-wop styled vocal group singles. There are some well known names here, including the Skyliners, Dovells, Tymes, Turbans, Rays, and Lee Andrews, but – winningly – the tracks collected here are generally obscure. Rather than including the groups’ hits (a few of which were waxed for or reissued nationally on Cameo, many of which were recorded before or after the groups’ time with Cameo), this anthology digs deeply into the vaults, unearthing little known gems that haven’t been available in legitimate issue for many decades.

By the time many of these singles were recorded, the sun was setting on doo-wop styled vocal groups. But you can bet American Graffitti’s John Milner would’ve dug these sides, and with good reason, as many of them match up in every way to the brilliance of doo-wop’s earlier years. Highlights include the calypso flavor, falsetto vocal reaches and energetic strings of the Turbans’ “When You Dance,” the Tymes’ superb, Drifters-styled “Did You Ever Get My Letter?,” and the impeccably soulful and inconsolable vocal of The Anglos’ “Raining Teardrops.” Inexplicably, the latter never made it past a test-pressing, making this track one of this set’s most exciting discoveries for all but the doo-wop fanatic.

Other highlights are Rick and the Masters’ hand-clapping “I Don’t Want Your Love,” the duet lead of the Gleems’ ballad “Sandra Baby,” the Buddy Holly vocal flourishes of The Impacs’ “Tears in My Heart,” and The Dovells’ mixture of “Shortin’ Bread” and “You Can’t Sit Down” on their 1963 side “Short on Bread.” Ed Osborne’s liner notes document the itinerant nature of these groups, showing how many alighted at Cameo for only one or two releases. Still, when they did stop in, they often had plenty of gas left in their tanks. All sides mono, with recording and production details for most listed in the liner notes. All that remains is to ask: where’s volume two? [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Hot Tuna: Live at New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA 09/69

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A second helping of Hot Tuna’s acoustic blues beginnings

Hot Tuna began as an acoustic off-shoot of the Jefferson Airplane, with bassist Jack Casady and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen joined by harmonica player Will Scarlet. Their 1970 self-titled debut, recorded live the previous year, consisted mostly of traditional folk, blues and ragtime tunes. This 68-minute collection is drawn from the same series of shows as was the debut, but features an entirely different set of performances. The half-dozen titles repeated from Hot Tuna are offered here in distinct versions; a few of these recordings appeared as bonus tracks on Airplane and Hot Tuna releases over the years, but several are offered here for the first time.

Kaukonen’s acoustic picking is mesmerizing throughout and his singing is at ease in this setting. Casady’s electric bass provides both time-keeping and melodic counterweight to Kaukonen’s solo flights. Both players step back to give Scarlet a few opportunities to play some thoughtful leads on harmonica, filling out a fluid and surprisingly complete musical aggregation. Hot Tuna would quickly evolve with the addition of a drummer and violinist, leaving these early performances at the New Orleans House as the central record of their initial vision. This is a terrific introduction to the band’s beginnings for anyone who hasn’t sampled back to their start, and a satisfying second-helping for those who love the debut. Collectors’ Choice’s digipack includes two full-panel color pictures and three pages of excellent liner notes by Richie Unterbergber. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Otis Redding: Live on the Sunset Strip

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Three incendiary Otis Redding live sets from April 1966

The past few years have been rich for Otis Redding fans, with expanded reissues of key live recordings hitting the market. A pair of 1967 performances from London and Paris documented Redding at the top of the Stax Revue, and his breakthrough performance at Monterey Pop has been reissued in high-definition Blu-Ray. These are now augmented by this double-disc set of Redding’s four night stand at Los Angeles’ Whiskey A Go Go. Unlike the 1967 sets, in which Redding performed with Booker T. and the M.G.s in a large auditorium, these 1966 Whiskey dates are played with his ten-piece road band to a smaller, but hugely appreciative, club audience. Some of this material has been anthologized before [1 2], but this is the first time these three complete sets (the last from Saturday night and both from the closing Sunday) have been released as a whole.

These are much more than collections of songs – they’re performances, with beginnings, middles and ends. Redding was not just the best soul singer of his generation, but a terrific entertainer who crafted whole performance, not just vocals. The segues between songs are often so tight as to leave both Redding and the audience gasping for breath; once he has you in his emotional grasp, he doesn’t let go. His command – of the material, his singing, the band, and of the audience – is so thorough that it’s difficult to believe he was only 24-years-old at the time. The sets are a perfect blend of his best known hits and covers, including tour de force workouts of the Stones “Satisfaction,” along with lesser-known gems like “Any Ole Way” and the R&B hit “Chained and Bound.” There’s some duplication of songs from set to set, but it’s interesting to hear how Redding mixes up the song order from night to night.

As satisfying as were the Stax Revue sets, as rousing as were those performances, as great as was the Stax house band, these performances are as good or better. Redding is an incandescent ball of fire for a half-hour at a stretch, and his band, led by saxophonist Bob Holloway, never lets up. Redding is warm as he takes a moment to speak with the audience, and he and Holloway share a bit of repartee while the band catches their breath. By the last set of the stand, Redding gets a bit playful with the set list, adding a cover of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” and a ten-minute rendition of “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” whose groove is soul deep (but whose looseness would have made James Brown a pretty penny in band fines).

The three sets weigh in at two hours of churning soul music, recorded by ace West Coast engineer Wally Heider. The sixteen-page booklet includes new liner notes by Ashley Kahn, a choice photo of a tuxedoed Redding with two go-go-dancers, and a microscopic reproduction of Pete Johnson’s L.A. Times show review. Redding’s subsequent European tour with Stax, three-night stand at San Francisco’s Fillmore, and legendary performance at Monterey Pop may have been witnessed by larger audiences, but these club sets capture the roots of his musical greatness: unrelentingly gutsy performances that leave every last drop of soul on the stage. This is an essential spin for Redding, Stax and soul fans. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim: Sinatra/Jobim – The Complete Reprise Recordings

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Quiet, masterful duets by Sinatra and Jobim

By 1967 Frank Sinatra was riding yet another wave of artistic and popular success. After career highs as a big band singer, a solo artist for Columbia, an innovative solo artist for Capitol and the founder of his own label, Reprise, Sinatra found commercial gold in 1966 with “Strangers in the Night” and “That’s Life.” In 1967 he recorded both the chart-topping “Something Stupid” and this artistically rich album of bossa nova tunes. Pairing with Brazil’s most popular musical exponent, Sinatra gave Antonio Carlos Jobim’s originals (and three American songbook standards) the deft lyrical touch that marked the vocalist’s best recordings. Jobim, in turn, gave Sinatra a hip outlet that was more sophisticated than reworking contemporary pop songs. Also contributing to the superb final results was arranger/conductor Claus Ogerman, whose charts gave Sinatra space to sing with a quiet ease.

Sinatra sounds unusually relaxed in these sessions, swinging ever so lightly to Jobim’s percussive finger-played acoustic guitar, and the moody strings, breezy woodwinds and muted horns of Ogerman’s arrangements. The easy tempos give Sinatra a chance to explore Jobim’s songs, hold notes and show off the textures of his voice. The recording and mix show off the brilliant results engineer Lee Herschberg accomplished in capturing the nuances of Sinatra’s voice. Jobim adds vocal support with occasional alternating or duet lines, and provides both Brazilian flavor and contrast that highlight the incredible quality of Sinatra’s tone. Three nighttime sessions yielded ten final tracks, which were released as the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim, and climbed into the Top 20 on the album chart.

Sinatra moved on to other projects, including an album with Duke Ellington (Francis A. & Edward K.), a family Christmas album, an album of pop and folk rock (Cycles), and the triumphant My Way. But in 1969 he and Jobim returned to Western Recorders for three more nights to lay down ten more bossa nova styled tracks for an album tentatively titled Sinatra-Jobim. But two years later on, Jobim was writing more complex melodies that weren’t as easy for Sinatra to vocalize, and new arranger Eumir Deodato’s charts are more insistent than those Claus Ogerman scripted for the first album. Sinatra sounds rehearsed (which he was) rather than organically warmed up, and his vocals don’t lay into the arrangements as effortlessly or seamlessly as before. Still, there’s chemistry between Sinatra and Jobim, and though the former was particularly unhappy with his performances on “Bonita,” “Off Key (Desafinado)” and “The Song of the Sabia,” the project went ahead with its release plan.

Sinatra-Jobim was finalized, cover art produced and a limited number of 8-track tape editions released to market before Sinatra killed the project. The 8-tracks that got into the wild have since become collectors’ items. The seven tracks with which Sinatra was relatively happy were re-released in 1971 as side one of Sinatra & Company, two more (“Bonita” and “The Song of the Sabia”) were later released on the 1977 Reprise compilation Portrait of Sinatra, and the 1977 Brazilian double-LP Sinatra-Jobim Sessions, and the third (“Off Key (Desafinado)”) was finally released on 1995’s epic The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings. Pulled together into a single 58-minute disc, it turns out Sinatra was right, the vocals from the second sessions, particularly the three delayed tracks, are not up to his standards. The stars simply didn’t align for the 1969 sessions as they did two years earlier.

The cool of “Girl From Ipanema,” the thoughtful regret and sadness of “How Insensitive,” and the percussive delicacy of “Baubles, Bangles and Beads” aren’t matched by anything on the follow-up. Sinatra and Jobim were deeply in the pocket for their initial collaboration, and though “Don’t Every Go Away” and “Wave” find them once again simpatico, Sinatra simply wasn’t as deft the second time out. Concord’s reissue includes the cover art (and unprocessed base photograph) of the aborted Sinatra-Jobim album, and a cropped, black-and-white version of the first album’s cover photo. Veteran Warner Brothers/Reprise writer Stan Cornyn provides new liner notes in his typical riff-heavy, hyperbolic style, and Dan Hersch’s 24-bit digital remastering sparkles. All that’s really missing is Sinatra and Jobim’s 1994 collaboration on “Fly Me to the Moon,” but that’s a nit: the first album is gold, with or without extras. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Herman’s Hermits: Listen People – 1964-1969

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Stellar documentary of endearing British Invasion hit-makers

Listen People 1964-1969 is one of four documentaries released as part of a five-DVD British Invasion box set by Reelin’ in the Years Productions. Like the other three, it’s a terrific collection, spanning twenty-two complete vintage performances, period promotional footage, television and stage performances, and contemporary interviews with Peter Noone, Karl Green (bass), Keith Hopwood (guitar) and Barry Whitwam (drums – sitting in front of his awesome gold-sparkle Slingerland drum set). Noone was – and is – one of the most charming front-men of the British Invasion, and the documentary reveals the band to be much more than a backing unit for their vocalist. Their hits were often the lightest of pop songs, but written, played and sung exceptionally, and the group was a charming live act.

The group’s hit singles were brought to them by producer Mickey Most, who had a golden ear for material and arrangements. Their first single, a 1964 cover of Earl-Jean’s “I’m Into Something Good,” was a worldwide smash and followed by a string of singles, some unreleased in the UK, some unreleased in the US, that kept the group at the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic well into 1967. The unusual release strategy left U.S. audiences with a different picture of the group than those in their home country; in particular, “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat,” “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” “I’m Henry VIII, I Am,” “Listen People,” “Leaning on the Lamp Post,” and “Dandy” were all stateside smashes that went unreleased as singles in the UK.

The documentaries’ interviews reveal the unorthodox story behind the recording and release of the music hall styled “Mrs. Brown,” and recollections of the band’s first NME Poll Winners Concert are born out by a winningly nervous performance. The group looks more comfortable with their up-tempo cover of Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World,” with the young Noone in his schoolboy suit playing the part of the song’s protagonist. It’s easy to see why he was the sort of heartthrob who induced Beatlemania hysterics in young girls. An early performance of “Fortune Teller” at the Cavern Club shows the group to have had a grittier R&B side that was mostly unused for their hits. The liner notes and commentary mention a hot version of Chuck Berry’s “I’m Talking About You” that unfortunately didn’t seem to make the final cut of the DVD.

The group’s hits rarely strayed from polite pop, failing to navigate many of the changes wrought by the latter half of the 1960s. Their recordings of songs by P.F. Sloan (“A Must to Avoid”), Ray Davies (“Dandy”) and Graham Gouldman (“No Milk Today”) took them towards folk-rock and more poetically crafted lyrics, but even as their clothes took on the fashions of 1966 and 1967 their singles remained “romantic, boy-next-door stuff.” They continued to record through the psychedelic era, having a Top 40 hit with Donovan’s “Museum” (not included here) and thickening their productions with strings and a hint of country twang on “My Sentimental Friend,” but the heavy sounds emanating from San Francisco and elsewhere spelled the end of their hit-making days.

Herman’s Hermits were a feel good band whose chipper music became anachronistic in the face of Monterey Pop and Woodstock. Their singles weren’t trendsetting (though Noone suggests his over-the-top English accent on “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” freed other British bands to abandon their faked Americana), but they were catchy, sold extremely well, and to this day remain memorable. In addition to the 78-minute documentary, the full individual performances can be viewed via DVD menu options, and bonuses include a 24-minute concert filmed for Australian television, a commentary track, and fifteen minutes of interviews that recollect the Hermits’ 1967 tour with the Who. This is a great documentary for both fans and those who only know a few of the group’s hits. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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