Category Archives: Video

Nick Heyward: He Doesn’t Love You Like I Do

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Remember when this song was everywhere, and you bought the album From Monday to Sunday and thought that as refreshing as had been Haircut 100’s Pelican West, Nick Heyward’s solo work was taking things to a new level? Then, remember how over the years you’d pull out this album to relive its catchy melodies and spot-on vocals, harmonies, arrangements and production? Remember that? No? Well, in a just world, that’s how it would have played out. Luckily, in this commercially fickle world, the album sounds just as good today as it did in 1994, whether you heard it back then or not.

Carolina Story: Chapter Two

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CarolinaStory_ChapterTwoStrong country duets from Nashville husband and wife

The empathy shared by great duet singers can take your breath away. The ways in which a duo’s voices complement, compete and provoke one another, the weaving of a harmony line above, below and around a melody, and the connection of two voices as they race around banked curves make listeners eavesdroppers as much audience. The Nashville-based Carolina Story, Ben and Emily Roberts, is just such a pair, a married couple whose duets bring mind the the Everly Brothers, Richard & Mimi Farina, and the more recent twang of Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs.

The opening pair of tracks from this six-song EP sets the bar high. The first finds the duo rolling along to acoustic guitar, banjo, steel and a light beat as they celebrate the forging of their professional and matrimonial relationships in the crucible of a tour. The follow-on “Crash and Burn” is touched with blues, Dan Dugmore’s hard-twanging steel and a vocal that careens into a yodel. As memorable as are their duets, their solo turns on “When I Was Just a Boy” and “The Stranger,” show off lyrical voices steeped heavily in emotional reflection.

The set rolls to a close with the irrepressible duets “I Won’t Let You Down” and “I’m Gonna Love You Forever.” The former would have fit nicely into the 1990s era that found Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Loveless and Martina McBride breaking through to radio; the latter is an upbeat love song whose thesis is as direct as the song’s title. Paired with last year’s Chapter One, these six new tracks extend a partnership whose personal dimensions continue to pay off in artistic wealth. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

Carolina Story’s Home Page

Various Artists: Audio with a G – Sounds of a Jersey Boy

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Various_AudioWithAGThe man who wrote the Four Seasons to the top of the charts

Although Frankie Valli stood out front of the Four Seasons, and his name was prefixed to the group’s starting in 1970, the act’s commercial success was equally dependent on their long-time songwriter and keyboardist, Bob Gaudio. Gaudio not only played and sang with the group, but he penned the bulk of their biggest hits, including chart-toppers, “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Rag Doll,” the group’s mid-70s comebacks, “Who Loves You” and “December 1963 (Oh What a Night),” and Frankie Valli’s solo hit “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.” Incredibly, that’s just a few of his accomplishments, as he wrote many more singles, B-sides and album tracks for the Four Seasons, and scored hits with several other acts.

Rhino’s two-disc set collects thirty-six tracks that sample Gaudio’s songwriting, including material from the Four Seasons, Jerry Butler, Chuck Jackson, Cher, Nancy Wilson, Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone, Diana Ross, Roberta Flack, Lene Lovich, Ruthie Henshall, the Royal Teens, Bay City Rollers, Tremeloes, Walker Brothers and Temptations. The Four Seasons material features hits and album tracks, including a pair from the group’s Gaudio-Jake Holmes penned 1969 concept album, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Perhaps more interesting to Four Seasons fans will be songs Gaudio wrote for or turned into hits for other acts.

The Royal Teens’ “Short Shorts” opens the set, as it did Gaudio’s hit-making career. The single rose to #3 in 1958 and Gaudio dropped out of high school to tour, meeting Frankie Valli along the way. Gaudio and Valli joined forces in 1960 to form the Four Seasons with Tommy DeVito and Nick Massi, but it took another two years for them to hit with “Sherry.” Gaudio wrote many of his hits with producer Bob Crewe, and several of the Four Seasons’ songs became hits for other acts. Included in this set are the Tremeloes’ “Silence is Golden,” which had been the B-side of the Four Seasons’ “Rag Doll,” and the Walker Brothers’ “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore,” which had been released in a slower arrangement as a Frankie Valli solo single.

The many covers of Frankie Valli’s 1967 hit “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” are represented here by a smokey, soul-jazz version by Nancy Wilson that cracked the charts in 1969 and a 1982 disco remake by Boys Town Gang. The Four Seasons 1975 UK hit, “The Night,” is included in both its original version and a non-charting single by Lene Lovich. Reaching farther out are songs that Gaudio wrote for Frank Sinatra, Nina Simone and Diana Ross. Sinatra’s tracks are drawn from Watertown, a concept album written by Gaudio and Jake Holmes that married the singer’s ability to sound forlorn with the songwriters’ pop craft. Ross’ tracks date from 1973’s underappreciated Last Time I Saw Him, recorded during a period in which the Four Seasons were signed to Motown.

Gaudio’s songwriting moved with the times, gaining social consciousness in the mid-60s, striking a deeper personal resonance with Jake Holmes at decade’s end, resuscitating the Four Seasons chart fortunes in 1975 with “Who Loves You” and “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night),” and surviving then-modern productions for The Temptations and Roberta Flack. He became a successful record producer and writer for soundtracks and musical theater. His stage work is represented here by two songs from the original London cast recording of Peggy Sue Got Married, and three (including “Sherry”) from the original cast recording of Jersey Boys. The latter is a project that began with Gaudio’s idea of a showcase for the Four Seasons’ material, and blossomed into national and international productions and, in parallel with this set (and two others) a feature film.

Compilation producer Charles Alexander has drawn from both mono (tracks 1, 7, 8, 11) and stereo masters, giving listeners a chance to hear two of the Four Seasons biggest hits in the punchy single mixes that dominated AM radio. These two discs (clocking in at just under two hours) cover the commercial highlights of Gaudio’s career as a hit-making songwriter. There’s more of his craft to be found in the Four Seasons’ albums, Frankie Valli’s solo releases, and his productions for Eric Carmen, Neil Diamond, Barbra Streisand and others. The inclusion of the Four Seasons’ hits is essential to telling his story, but also likely to duplicate the holdings of this set’s primary buyers; then again, with songs this good, who’s going to complain? [©2014 Hyperbolium]

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The Zombies: R.I.P.

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Zombies_RIPPreviously unreleased final album sees the light of day

One might say that this final, previously unreleased Zombies album is something of a Frankenstein’s monster. Constructed after the band’s dissolution in 1968, the six previously unreleased Zombies tracks and six new tracks recorded by a prototype of Argent were meant to satiate an American market that had been late to discover “Time of the Season.” But the album’s pre-release singles (“Imagine the Swan” and “If it Don’t Work Out”) failed to ignite any commercial interest, and the album was shelved by the American label that had requested it in the first place. The tracks dribbled out on singles, compilations (most notably the double-LP Time of the Zombies and Ace Record’s omnibus Zombie Heaven box set) and bootlegs, but an official issue of the original running order from the original master takes had evaded fans until now.

The album, as the last-remaining-Zombies-standing Rod Argent and Chris White conceived it, was neatly split in two: side one was written by Argent and White, and performed by Argent, White, Russ Ballard, Jim Rodford and Bob Henrit, in a line-up soon to be known as Argent; side two was assembled from previously unreleased tracks that had been recorded years earlier by the original group, and brushed up by Argent and White (notably with backing vocals and orchestral touches) for the album. There’s a musical seam between the two sides, but the new recordings aren’t a complete departure. In fact, they sound like what they actually were: a follow-on to the progressive end-times of the original line-up’s Odyssey and Oracle, heavily influenced by the band’s keyboardist.

Listeners familiar with the Zombies’ hits will immediately resonate with Colin Blunstone’s lead vocals and the group’s harmonies on side two. These earlier songs also have beat and baroque pop touches that are closely associated with the Zombies original sound. Argent and White’s material on side two, sung by Argent, including an organ jam, “Conversation Off Floral Street” (a track that was apparently mislabeled with “of” on the singles of the time), and slinky piano-led “I Could Spend the Day” that speak to the jazz inflections of “Time of the Season.” Both album sides have material that is as good as anything the Zombie released during their hit-making tenure, including the singles “Imagine the Swan” and “If It Don’t Work Out,” featured here in both stereo album and mono single mixes.

Zombies fans probably have most or all of this material on compilations and box sets, but it’s still worth hearing the original stereo mixes, in the original sequence, from the album’s master tape. The mono single mix of “Don’t Cry For Me” (the flipside of “If it Don’t Work Out”) is offered here for the first time in a digital format, and the mono mix of “Smokey Day” makes its first-ever appearance. Despite the album’s cobbled-together origin, this is a volume that belongs on the shelf right next to Begin Here, The Zombies and Odyssey and Oracle, extending the criminally under-rewarded brilliance of the Zombies. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

The Zombies’ Home Page

Willie Nelson: Band of Brothers

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WillieNelson_BandOfBrothersWillie Nelson returns to songwriting

Willie Nelson’s having quite a renaissance. With Sony’s Legacy division having broadened their scope from reissues to include new material from heritage artists, Nelson’s settled into a surprisingly comfortable home. His turn to classic Americana with Country Music and Remember Me, Vol. 1 led him back to his longtime home at Columbia (now part of Sony) for 2012’s Heroes, last year’s stroll through a set of standards, Let’s Face the Music and Dance and a set of duets, To All the Girls. On his latest, Nelson supplements his resurgent vocal and performing talents with a return to songwriting, penning nine new originals for this set of fourteen tracks.

At 81, Nelson still sounds remarkably fresh, and the cleverness of his lyrics is (as always) buoyed by deeper truths. The songs include the emotionally penetrating lyrics for which he’s renowned, ranging from low-key introspection to the mid-tempo cheek of “Wives and Girlfriends” and “Used to Her.” Nelson’s hiatus from songwriting is the subject of “Guitar in the Corner,” but in typical fashion there’s more than one layer, as he could just as easily be singing about rekindling an interpersonal relationship as returning to songwriting. The selection of covers include titles by Vince Gill, Shawn Camp and Bill Anderson; the latter’s “The Songwriters” is an apt selection for an album on which Nelson’s own pen has reemerged.

Buddy Cannon’s production and the hand-picked band (highlighted by Tommy White’s steel and Jim “Moose” Brown’s piano, and featuring the ever-present harmonica of Mickey Raphael) are spot-on, leaving room for Nelson’s gut-string guitar and idiosyncratic vocal phrasings. Jamie Johnson is the album’s only guest, adding a Waylon-like gravity on a duet of Billy Joe Shaver’s “The Git Go.” Nelson’s artistry is no surprise, but his continued enthusiasm for recording, and his revived interest in writing, is producing unexpected dividends for his many fans. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

Willie Nelson’s Home Page

The Howlin’ Brothers: Trouble

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HowlinBrothers_TroubleNostalgic bluegrass, folk and blues with a shot of modern vitality

The Howlin’ Brothers continue to combine a formidable collection of Americana sounds, including country, folk, blues, bluegrass, gospel and Dixieland, with the moxie of street performance. Their latest works even harder to stop passerby in their tracks with banjo country, harmonica-and-slide blues, weeping fiddle tunes, steel-guitar waltzes, Cajun dance numbers and vocals that invite the audience to sing along. Their playing exhibits the best of two worlds, combining the energy of extemporaneous expression with the finesse of experience. It’s as if they captured the essence of a Saturday night stage and an impromptu Tuesday-afternoon street corner in a studio recording. The track list also plays to the feel of a live set, with carefree numbers, rough plaints and sad tales taking listeners on a roller coaster of emotions. One can easily imagine this entire disc played on stage as-is, returning dancers from the whirl of “Monroe” to shed a few dizzy tears to the heartbroken “World Spinning Round.” The trio’s range is impressive, including upbeat bluegrass, spare folk and steel honky-tonk in a truly coherent mix; it’s like listening to a day of Strictly Hardly Bluegrass in one band; even the reggae “Love” somehow fits easily into their set. Most impressively, the group instills new energy into classic roots forms, keeping this from turning into a nostalgia fest or even an exercise in progressive twists; it’s just inspiring and fun. A lot of fun. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

The Howlin’ Brothers Home Page

OST: Any Which Way You Can & Honkytonk Man

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OST_AnyWhichWayYouCanHonkytonkManCountry music soundtracks to 1980s Clint Eastwood films

Actor-director Clint Eastwood has a surprisingly rich musical history. In 1961 he leveraged his burgeoning acting fame for a shot at recording with the forgettable pop ballad “Unknown Girl,” a couple of years later he found a more suitable vehicle in a pleasant album of Cowboy Favorites, in 1969 he starred in the film version of the musical Paint Your Wagon and in 1970 he sang “Burning Bridges” for the film Kelly’s Heroes. Eastwood continued to dabble in music, participating in the soundtracks of Any Which Way You Can, Honkytonk Man, Bronco Billy and more recently, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The first two of these soundtracks have now been reissued for the first time on CD.

The 1980 soundtrack of Any Which Way You Can features Glen Campbell’s hit title track alongside David Frizzell and Shelly West’s chart-topping “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma.” The latter was written by a rare pairing of Felice & Bordleaux Bryant with the Collins Kids’ Larry Collins, the latter of whom also co-wrote Johnny Duncan’s Margaritaville-styled “Acapulco” and Jim Stafford’s “Cow Patti.” Clint Eastwood appears with Ray Charles on the playful lead-off “Beers to You,” and the album is filled out with tracks by Fats Domino (his last single, the New Orleans’ tinged country “Whiskey Heaven”), Gene Watson and Eastwood’s co-star, Sandra Lockhart.

Many of Snuff Garrett’s productions have the gloss of late ’70s Nashville, and include string-lined country-pop and gospel-tinged ballads. Domino and Stafford get rootsier treatment, and “Cotton-Eyed Clint” is a straightforward fiddle and steel instrumental. Locke, like Eastwood, is game, but no match for the album’s stars, who rang up seven chart hits among the album’s dozen tracks. This is a nice sampling of the commercial side of the era’s country music, as well as a reminder of the film’s lighthearted tone. Varese’s reissue includes the album’s original dozen tracks and a four-panel booklet with liner notes by Laurence Zwisohn.

The 1982 soundtrack of Honkytonk Man was led onto the charts by Marty Robbins’ top-ten title track, and followed by charting sides by David Frizzell & Shelly West (“Please Surrender”), Ray Price (“San Antonio Rose” and “One Fiddle, Two Fiddle”) and Porter Wagoner (“Turn the Pencil Over”). Also on board are Marty Robbins, Johnny Gimble, John Anderson and Linda Hopkins. Gimble’s western swing, Anderson’s acoustic country and Hopkins closing blues provide the selections least dated by Snuff Garret’s early-80s production. Varese’s reissue includes the album’s original dozen tracks and a four-panel booklet with liner notes by Laurence Zwisohn. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

Keith Allison: In Action – The Complete Columbia Sides Plus!

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KeithAllison_InActionLos Angeles studio musician’s mid-60s solo shot

Keith Allison’s discovery at a taping of Dick Clark’s Where the Action Is is an only-in-Hollywood tale to rival that of Lana Turner’s first sighting at the Top Hat Malt Shop. Allison had been living a relatively anonymous life as a session musician (that’s his harmonica on the Monkees “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be Another Day“) and latter-day band member for his cousin Jerry Allison’s Crickets. Allison’s appearance as an audience member on Where the Action Is quickly led to a featured slot and a recording contract with Columbia. The latter gave Allison an opportunity to work with producer Terry Melcher for a single and Gary Usher for a pop-rock album.

His first Columbia release turned Joey Brooks and the Baroque Folk’s “I Ain’t Blamin’ You” into folk-rock, and featured an excellent, original B-side, “Look at Me” that turned up two years later as a Cher album track. His next single brought him Boyce & Hart’s “Action, Action, Action” and Mann & Weil’s bounch sunshine pop, “Glitter and Gold.” The former, produced by future Scooby Doo theme song vocalist Larry Marks, is offered here in both its stereo album and mono single mixes.

Allison’s full-length album played to his television audience, who knew him for his covers of hits-of-the-day. The album’s lone original is the very fine country rock “Freeborn Man,” co-written with Mark Lindsay; the rest of the track list is filled with tunes from Boyce & Hart, Neil Diamond, Donovan, Ray Charles and Lindsay. As the liner notes highlight, the variety of material provided a showcase for Allison’s versatility, even when the covers don’t add anything radical to the better-known hits. “Louise” and “Good Thing” give an early indication of how easily Allison would later fit into Paul Revere & The Raiders, and the country-rock arrangement of “Colours” adds something vital to Donovan’s original.

More interesting is the discovery of Neil Diamond’s early single “Do It,” the rave-up “Action, Action, Action,” and a take on “Leave My Woman Alone” that adds a psychedelic edge to the Everly Brothers earlier interpretation. Real Gone’s twenty-three track collection pulls together the Columbia album and singles and adds a self-produced one-off single for Amy that backs Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love” with the Byrdsian original “I Don’t Want Nobody But You.” The post-LP singles include an emotional cover of “To Know Her is to Love Her,” a rave-up medley of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis and a lite-psych version of Tommy Roe’s “Everybody.”

Despite a promising start and continuing success as a musician and songwriter, Allison’s solo career never really took off. His work with the Raiders can be heard on several albums, starting with 1968’s Hard ‘n’ Heavy, and he turned up on tracks by Al Kooper, Johnny Rivers, The Dillards and others. He dabbled in acting (including a bit part on The Love Boat!), and has recently gigged with the Waddy Wachtel Band, but the quality of these mid-60s sides suggest there was something more to be had. Stardom is a fickle mistress, and though Allison had the talent and a shot, the stars simply didn’t align. Lucky listeners can now cast themselves back and ask “what if?”  [©2014 Hyperbolium]

Keith Allison Info Page

The Everly Brothers: Songs Our Daddy Taught Us

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EverlyBrothers_SongsOurDaddyTaughtUs2014 expanded reissue of the Everlys’ deepest roots

The Everly Brothers second full-length album is extraordinary in many different ways. In addition to its basic triumph as roots music, its exposition of traditional folk and country songs was a nervy artistic statement by a duo that was helping build the foundations of rock ‘n’ roll. A string of hit singles written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, including “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “All I Have to Do is Dream,” “Bird Dog” and “Problems,” had made the Everlys international stars, and after an eponymous album that also included tunes from Little Richard, Ray Charles and Don Everly, a simply arranged and tenderly sung collection of songs learned from the Everlys’ father was far from the obvious follow-up.

A decade later the pair would record Roots, another album of country standards, but in a country-rock vein that was of its time. In 1958, amid the explosion of rock ‘n’ roll, the acoustic guitar, stand-up bass and harmony duets of Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, reached back to both the material and performance style that were the Everly’s actual roots. These are the songs that Ike Everly sang with his sons on their 1940s radio show, and the boys’ affection for the material is evident in the gentle harmonies they lay upon lyrics of deep sentiment and surprisingly dark themes.

Varese’s reissue adds alternate first- and second-takes of four of the album’s titles and an eight-page booklet of photos and liner notes by Andrew Sandoval. The alternates range from slightly imperfect performances of the same arrangements used on the masters to an electric-guitar backed idea for “Down in the Willow Garden” that didn’t make the original album. It’s a mark of the Everlys’ deep background as live performers that the alternates are basically good enough to have passed as masters. Snippets of studio dialog and strumming give a feel for the dynamic between the Everlys and producer Archie Blyer, the latter of whom seems to have mostly let the brothers roll.

Songs Our Daddy Taught Us didn’t sell in large numbers at the time of its issue, but neither did its artistic detour interrupt the brothers’ string of hit singles for Cadence. The album’s been reissued many times, including a 1962 retitling as Folk Songs of the Everly Brothers that landed in the middle of the folk revival. Late last year the album was reissued with a second disc of earlier and original recordings, and the album’s track list was re-recorded by Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones as Foreverly. The on-going attention received by the album further demonstrates the brothers’ artistic prescience and the project’s continued resonance. Varese’s expanded reissue is a great introduction and a worthy upgrade. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

The Everly Brothers’ Home Page