Billy Joel and Jimmy Fallon: The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Leave a reply
Category Archives: Video
Ronnie Milsap: Summer Number Seventeen
A sweet, nostalgic trip to the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s
It’s hard to believe that it’s been more than two decades since Ronnie Milsap’s twenty year run of chart-topping success (including 35 #1s) finally faded. He’s continued to record albums and release occasional singles, branching out from mainstream country into standards, gospel, and with his latest release, oldies. Milsap visited his pop music roots before with 1985’s Lost in the Fifties Tonight, and that album’s #1 title song (which played off the Five Satins’ 1956 doo-wop hit “In the Still of the Night”) is reprised here as the album closer. The opening title tune provides another slice of nostalgia with its memories of teenage years, lush harmony vocals and a honking sax solo.
The track list is mostly given to covers of 1950s and 1960s chestnuts, transforming pop ballads, R&B, doo-wop, Motown, Philly soul and country into adult-contemporary productions filled with easy tempos, strings and cooing backing vocals. Lloyd Price’s “Personality” and Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” each get a kick from horn charts, and a funky arrangement of “Mustang Sally” energizes Milsap’s performance. Mandy Barnett shows surprising talent for singing ’70s soul on a duet of “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” and Hank Williams’ “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still in Love with You)” is stretched into a compelling croon. Milsap doesn’t really challenge the material, but his thoughtful readings connect deeply with songs he obviously loves. [©2014 Hyperbolium] 
Various Artists: Canine Classics, Volume 1
Clever dog-themed remakes of pop hits
Bay Area music legends Dick Bright (Bammies, SRO, Dick Bright Orchestra) and Tommy Dunbar (Rubinoos, Vox Pop) have teamed up to produce an album of dog-themed treats. Each track re-imagines a popular song – including tin-pan alley classics, ’50s rock and doo-wop, ’60s pop, ’70s soul and ’80s new wave – as it should have been, written in the voice of, or about, a dog. There are a few Singing Dogs-styled barks, but mostly Bright and Dunbar draw upon their talented human friends for the vocals. For the most part, these songs retain their original mood, but with the subject shifted a dog’s perspective. The Irish ballad “Danny Boy” retains its sense of loss, longing and renewal as “Chewy Toy,” and the Vapors’ bouncy “Turning Japanese” is transformed into the equally catchy “Turning Pekingese.” The collection’s most clever trick is Maurice Williams & The Zodiac’s doo-wop “Stay,” a song whose title clearly anticipated this collection. Shirley Ellis’ “The Name Game” is just as dance-worthy when riffing on classic dog names  and the Champs’ “Tequila” stays South of the border as “Chihuahua.” Dunbar has previously dabbled in both covers and childen’s music with the Rubinoos, and Dick Bright etched his name in the mash-up cover song hall of fame with “Gilligan’s Island (Stairway).” Their combined humor and musicianship makes this collection fun for kids without wearing out its welcome with the elders. The CD is delivered in a Hugh Brown-designed, hard-bound 30-page book that features lyrics, photos and even a dog advice column. All in all, it’s a howl. [©2014 Hyperbolium]
OST: Toomorrow
Olivia Newton-John on the doorstep of stardom in 1970
This 1970 soundtrack to a blink-and-you-missed-it Don Kirshner-produced film would likely have remained a quick blip on the pop landscape, had the like-named group, film and soundtrack not featured a young Olivia Newton-John. At the time of the film’s release, John was still a year away from breaking through internationally with the Dylan-penned “If Not for You,” but she already had plenty of experience under her belt. She’d recorded a terrific cover of Jackie DeShannon’s “Till You Say You’ll Be Mine” and was gaining notice from club performances when Kirshner (who’d found success assembling the Archies and Cuff Links after being booted as the Monkees’ producer) brought her into the group.
The film was part of a deal Kirshner struck with James Bond producer Harry Saltzman, and after funding troubles sank the picture’s prospects, it was shelved shortly after release. The soundtrack album was released concurrently on RCA, but given the film’s vanishing act, the vinyl quickly followed suit. The group released a follow-up single and B-side on Decca, but Newton-John was soon off to the beginning of her superstar solo career. Real Gone’s first-ever reissue of the soundtrack, struck from the original master tape, includes the album’s original dozen tracks.
The film stars Toomorrow as the only band with the “curative vibrations” that can save an alien race dying from a lack of emotion. The screenplay is filled with late ’60s tropes, faux hipster dialog and science fiction cliches, which, of course, makes it worth screening. But the project seems to have really been a launching pad for the group, as had been the Monkees television show and the Archies’ animated series; unfortunately, there was no commercial lift-off. The soundtrack, written and produced by veteran pop songsmiths Mark Barkan (“She’s a Fool,” “Pretty Flamingo,” “The Tra La La Song”) and Ritchie Adams (“Tossin’ and Turnin'”), is an amalgam of bubblegum sounds that include pop, soul and lite psych, hints of folk and country, and is threaded lightly with primitive synth.
Olivia Newton-John is featured on the Motown-inflected “Walkin’ on Air” and the closing “Goin’ Back.” She’s also sings harmonies and takes a verse on the title theme. Guitarist Ben Cooper provides lead vocal for the space-age garage-rocker “Taking Our Own Sweet Time,” the pop-blues “Let’s Move On,” and the hippie themed “HappinessValley.” A trio of instrumentals includes Hugo Montenegro’s bachelor pad-styled “Spaceport,” and orchestral arrangements of “Toomorrow” and “Walkin’ on Air” that sound as if they’re drawn from a commercial production music library. This doesn’t measure up to ONJ’s later hits, but as a quirky start to her career, it’s great find for fans. Real Music’s reissue includes a six-panel booklet with extensive liner notes and full-panel front- and back-cover reproductions. [©2014 Hyperbolium]
The Mamas and the Papas: A Gathering of Flowers
This 1970 anthology, reissued on CD for the first time, is a one-of-a-kind time-capsule of the Mamas and the Papas. In addition to their first six Top 10 hits, the track list adds non-charting singles, B-sides and album tracks, carefully selected and ordered to show off the many sides of the group’s talent. In addition to the harmonies that graced the radio, there’s also the tight jazz work of “Once Was a Time I Thought,” thoughtful originals and keenly interpreted covers. Knitting it all together, and elevating this collection above a simple recitation of hits, are interview clips with John Phillips and Cass Elliot interspersed among the tracks. Their dialog reflects on the group, their producer, sessions and songs, and though the spoken words overlap the instrumental lead-ins of a few tracks, they’re surprisingly unobtrusive.
Several of the original tracks are also enhanced with bits of session chatter, vocal outtakes and rehearsals, providing listeners a few moments in the studio. The songs are organized as a musical program, rather a strict chronological run-through, which gives the set a holistic, album-like flow that’s unusual for an anthology. Though released after the group split in 1969, the tracks only cover through 1967’s Deliver; nothing from 1968’s The Papas and the Mamas (and their 1971 contractual obligation release, People Like Us) is included, which leaves out Elliot’s solo-career launching “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” But even without the last chapter and afterward, this set does an excellent job of telling the group’s story.
Real Gone’s reissue reproduces the 20-track double-LP lineup on a single sixty-six minute disc, and includes the original album’s photo-rich 16-page booklet, shrunk down to CD booklet size. This leaves the lyrics and Andy Wickham’s liner notes to be read with a strong magnifying glass (or find the latter here). In addition to a brief recounting of the group’s formation, Wickham also provides illuminating detail on the men who formed Dunhill Records. The disc was remastered from the original tapes by Mike Milchner at SonicVision, and shows off the rich sound that producer Lou Adler got out of the Wrecking Crew at the famed Gold Star studio. There are more complete sets (e.g., Gold and All the Leaves are Brown) but not even the Complete Anthology tells the story in the same novel way as this collection. [©2014 Hyperbolium]
Otis Redding: These Arms of Mine
Nicolas Beauchemin’s contest-winning video ensures you’ll never again cross the threshold of an elevator without looking down to check. Keep a sharp eye at 1:57.
Still, it’s hard to top hearing Otis Redding in Johnny Castle’s cabin, and the segue to Solomon Burke doesn’t hurt.
Then again, maybe Otis Redding is better heard in Dalton’s loft.
The Dream Syndicate: The Day Before Wine and Roses
The Dream Syndicate live in their early prime
Performed a week before laying down The Days of Wine and Roses, this September 1982 live set provides a career bookend to the Dream Syndicate’s 1989 set Live at Raji’s (and later expanded as The Complete Live at Raji’s). Recorded at Los Angeles radio station KPFK’s Studio Zzzz, the 2am start gave the paisley underground’s leading lights (including Green on Red, the Rain Parade and Bangles) an opportunity to attend, and all were treated to a band whose nine-month public career had quickly brought them to both artistic and critical prominence. The set list included all four titles from their debut EP, the title song of The Days of Wine and Roses, an early sketch of 1984’s “John Coltrane Stereo Blues” (under the title “Open Hour”), and covers of Buffalo Springfield, Bob Dylan and Donovan.
The band eases into the set with a sedate version of “Some Kinda Itch,” transforming the original’s frenetic energy into a relaxed Doors/Velvets-styled late-night jam. The set adds low-stringed weight with the band’s take on “Mr. Soul,” and really starts to gain momentum with “Sure Thing.” What listeners will quickly realize – and what the in-studio audience must have felt – is that this isn’t a simple recitation of the band’s catalog, but a carefully crafted live set. The playlist builds tension by allowing the tempo, volume and instrumental ferocity to surge and ebb, skillfully winding its way to the climactic debut of “The Days of Wine and Roses.” Throughout the evening (well, morning) Steve Wynn charms the audience with humor and an easy manner that belies his relatively few years in front of audiences.
The band gets stronger as the set progresses, and they rip into Dylan’s Bringing it All Back Home-era “Outlaw Blues” with Karl Precoda stressing his guitar in ways the folks at Newport could scarcely have imagined. That turns out to be only a warm-up, as “Open Hour” (in one of its first run-throughs) is stretched into an instrumental jam that showcases Precoda’s feedback-laced guitar work. “When You Smile” turns its melody into an atmospheric howl that underlines the song’s quiet introduction and portends the aural storm on the horizon. The set wraps with a primal eight-minute cover of “Season of the Witch,” and closes at 3am with Precoda’s guitar in full pyrotechnic glory for “The Days of Wine and Roses.”
More than thirty years later, the performances retain their power, and with added distance, the band sounds more apiece with their influences than derivative of them. Three of these tracks (“Some Kinda Itch,” “Sure Thing” and “Mr. Soul”) were previously released in 1983 as the B-side of a Rough Trade 12″, and the full show in 1995. But with both discs out of print, Omnivore’s reissue will be welcomed by long-time fans (including, it turns out, Steven Wynn himself), and a revelation to the uninitiated. Pat Thomas’ liners from the 1995 release are augmented by Steve Wynn’s memories of the songs, performances and people, fleshing out the story of how the Dream Syndicate’s passion was showcased live. [©2014 Hyperbolium]
The Rolling Stones: Charlie is My Darling
The Rolling Stones at their 1965 peak
Filmed on a two day Rolling Stones tour of Ireland in September 1965, Peter Whitehead’s fifty-minute documentary garnered only limited showings before being shelved. In 2012, ABKCO returned to the source material to restore and expand the film to sixty-five minutes, releasing it as a single DVD and a five-disc box set that included the DVD, a Blu-ray, an LP and two CDs. The second of those CDs featured thirteen live tracks from the tour’s concerts, recorded at the peak of the Stones first incarnation. Those tracks are now being released as digital downloads, augmenting the meager selection of commercially released early live performances, such as 1964’s T.A.M.I. Show and 1965’s UK EP Got Live if You Want It.
Included among the tracks are many icons of the Stones early live set, including covers of Solomon Burke’s “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love,” Bo Diddley’s rave-up “I’m Alright,” Hank Snow’s “I’m Moving On,” Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster,” Allen Toussaint’s “Pain in My Heart,” Bobby Troup’s “Route 66,” Jerry Ragovoy’s “Time is on My Side,” and two Jagger/Richards’ originals, “Off the Hook” and “The Last Time.” The latter was the Stones’ first hit single of 1965, but by the time of their Irish tour, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (which is included on the box set’s first CD) had already topped the U.S. chart and was just about to peak in the UK.
The mono recordings are surprisingly listenable, given the state of mobile recording in 1965. These tracks don’t have the presence or instrumental separation of live albums made a decade later, but Jagger’s vocals are seated nicely into the mix, and the guitars, bass and drums are all legible. Better yet, the screaming crowd adds electricity without often overwhelming the music. The only thing that would be better is for the live tracks from the box set’s first CD to have been added here; at only 28 minutes (and as a digital collection with no physical length limitation), there’s plenty of room. Stones fans will want to see the documentary, but will also need the audio tracks for more regular rocking. [©2014 Hyperbolium]
Various Artists: I Heard the Angels Singing
Extraordinary collection of Southern black gospel 1951-1983
Ernest L. Young’s Excello and Nashboro labels have a creation story that would be tough to duplicated today. Young started as a successful jukebox operator in Nashville before adding a retail store that sold his customers the very records they’d been renting on a nickel-per-play basis. Further capitalizing on these two ventures, Young realized that starting a label and selling his own records would be even more profitable. Recording in a makeshift (and later, a purpose-built) studio in his store, he launched the Nashboro label in mid-1951 and the subsidiary Excello the following year. Excello initially picked up Nashboro’s excess, but became a blues and R&B label in 1955, releasing sides by Lonnie Brooks, Slim Harpo, Lightnin’ Slim and others.
Young’s businesses fed one another, with his retail shop sponsoring radio programs and offering its front window for live broadcasts. The label’s early productions were primitive by modern standards, but stripping down the arrangements to a cappella or voices supported by a simple guitar allowed the testimony to shine. There are splashes of piano, organ and reverb, but even as the productions became more complex over time, the focus always remained on the fervent vocal fire. Nashboro’s acts included soloists, duets and groups singing lead and backing, call-and-response and harmonies, and the label found both artistic and commercial success in all these varied formats. The material includes both gospel standards and newly written songs, each of which provides lasting echoes of the era’s civil rights struggles.
Highlights include the male-female duet testimony of the Consolers “This May Be the Last Time”(the refrain of which was repurposed for the Rolling Stones’ “Last Time”), the CBS Trumpeteers’ soulful “Milky White Way,” the Gospel Five Singers’ torchy “Love Deep Down in Your Heart,” and the pre-teen shout of Robert “Little Sugar” Hightower (of the Hightower Brothers) on “Seat in the Kingdom.” Many of the fifties and early-60s sides share vocal attributes with doo-wop, and the later entries branch into the blues of Sister Emma Thompson’s “You Should Have Been There,” the soul of Rev. Willingham and the Swanee Quintet’s “That’s the Spirit,” and the wild hand-clapping rock ‘n’ soul of Bevins Specials’ “Everybody Ought to Pray.” The productions finally become stereo with Hardie Clifton stirring soul vocal on the Brooklyn Allstars’ ballad, “I Stood on the Banks of Jordan.”
Though the sonics improve throughout the 1970s, the music remains mostly faithful to the gospel, soul and blues roots of the late 1950s and early-to-mid 1960s. It’s not until the end of disc four, with the Salem Travelers’ 1981 “Moving On,” that the sound of 1970s R&B is really heard. Gospel’s influence is easy to find in the popular music of the ’50s and ’60s, but listening to these Nashboro sides it becomes evident that it wasn’t only crossover stars like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin who made an impact. If you like the soul of Chess, Stax, Muscle Shoals, Atlantic or any number of vocalists and groups whose style was rooted in gospel, you’ll enjoy just about every track on this set. Providing a cherry on top, the 16-page booklet is stuffed with superb picture, graphics and detailed liner notes by Opal Louis Nations. [©2014 Hyperbolium]
Buck Owens: Buck ‘Em
50 prime hits, B-sides, alternates, live tracks and rarities from 1955-1967
Proving himself as savvy in business as he was innovative in music, Buck Owens wrested control of his masters from Capitol Records in a 1970s legal battle. His ownership led to a CD reissue program on Sundazed that stretched from 1995 through 2005 and encompassed nearly two dozen original albums. Add to that multiple box sets [1 2 3 4], greatest hits discs, pre- and post-Capitol anthologies [1 2 3], and a collection of tunes recorded for Hee Haw, and you have to wonder if there’s anything left to say. The answer provided by this new double-disc set is a definitive yes. Compilation producer Patrick Milligan has done an expert job of assembling singles, album sides and rarities into a compelling fifty-track exposition of Buck Owens’ key years before and with Capitol. The set tells a familiar story, but with an idiosyncratic selection of tracks that deftly balances the many elements of Owens’ extensive catalog.
Starting with a few mid-50s sides for Pep, the collection traces Owens’ rapid evolution from a country singer with steel guitar, tinkling piano and fiddle to the king of an exciting new Bakersfield Sound. As Owens developed his unique brand of country music, the Buckaroos grew into one of the world’s premiere bands and live acts. With so many sides to their commercial success, it’s tricky to find a compelling point between the shorthand of a single-disc hits collection and a Bear Family-length box, but Omnivore’s done just that. The set succeeds by combining a well-selected helping of singles (both charting and non-charting), B-sides, live performances, duets, alternate and early takes, previously unreleased, unreleased-in-the-US and unreleased-on-CD tracks, stereo album cuts and appearances on rare compilation albums.
In addition to well-known hits rendered in their original radio-ready mono, the set includes the non-charting “Sweet Thing,” the B-side “Til These Dreams Come True,” and a sprightly early version of “Nobody’s Fool But Yours” that stands side-by-side with the better-known master. Other early versions are closer to the masters, but tentative and not yet fully gelled. It’s a treat to hear the works-in-progress and compare them to the refinements of the final takes. The early version of “My Heart Skips a Beat” is already a great song, but without Owens’ opening lyrical cadence and Mel Taylor’s tom-tom rolls, it’s not yet an indelible hit record. The alternate arrangement of “Where Does the Good Times Go” includes a happy-go-lucky string chart (courtesy of future Bread main man, David Gates) that was dropped from the final release.
By 1964 the classic Buckaroos lineup had solidified around Owens, Don Rich, Doyle Holly, Tom Brumley and Willie Cantu, and it’s this group that powers the last three tracks of disc one, and all of disc two. The quintet punched up the beat for “Gonna Have Love,” “Before You Go” and “Getting Used to Loving You,” with guitars and drums that no longer held the line on “Opry polite.” The group’s live sound has been documented across more than a half-dozen live albums (including the legendary Carnegie Hall Concert, represented here by “Together Again” and “Buckaroo,” and In Japan! represented by “Adios, Farewell, Goodbye, Good Luck, So Long” and “We Were Made For Each Other”), but Omnivore’s dug deeper to pick up a 1963 Bakersfield performance of “Act Naturally” from the rare Capitol release Country Music Hootenanny, recorded in surprisingly clear stereo.
The song list is given mostly to Owens’ terrific originals (including the instrumental “Buck’s Polka,” with Owens picking lead), but adds a good helping of gems he selected from other songwriters’ catalogs, including Eddie McDuff and Orville Couch’s “Hello Trouble,” Tommy Collins’ “Down, Down, Down,” Red Simpson’s “Close Up the Honky Tonks,” Eddie Miller and Bob Morris “Playboy,” and Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison’s “Act Naturally.” Owens’ work as a duet singer is touched on briefly with Rose Maddox on “Sweethearts in Heaven,” but his more extensive collaboration with Susan Raye fell beyond the set’s designated ending point in 1967. The end of that year saw Willie Cantu leave the fold, and the classic lineup of the Buckaroos come to an end.
Owens and the Buckaroos continued to have both commercial and artistic success well into the mid-70s, when the death of Don Rich seems to have sidelined Owens’ initiative. With a wealth of post-67 hits and ever more far-reaching albums left to sample, hopefully Omnivore has a second volume up their sleeve. For the period they’ve selected, however, they’ve created a fresh view that expands upon shorter hits anthologies, but abbreviates the full albums into a compact telling of Owens’ most successful commercial period. There are too many essential hits missing for this to be a complete view of Owens’ genius, but as an introduction to his plain-spoken, naturally brilliant and stylistically diverse brand of country music, it’s a winner.
Those new to Owens’ catalog will be entranced by the ease with which he moved from tearful heartbreak to light-hearted humor. The album tracks don’t always match the “wow” of the missing hit singles, but they help paint the picture of an artist whose well of creativity was a great deal deeper than the two-and-a-half minutes radio would play. The accompanying 28-page booklet includes liner notes excerpted from Owens’ posthumously published, like-titled autobiography, along with several full-panel photos and cover reproductions. All of Owens other reissues – the hits collections, the box sets, the album catalog – are worth hearing, but if you want an affordable, compelling overview of his prime years, this is a great place to start. [©2014 Hyperbolium]