Category Archives: Video

Hollis Brown: Ride on the Train

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HollisBrown_RideOnTheTrain

The sophomore release from this Queens quartet continues to mine the intersection of angsty guitar pop, twangy Americana and Stonesish rock they debuted in 2009. Vocalist (and songwriter) Mike Montali also continues to charm with a voice that takes in the quivering vulnerability of Robin Wilson, the keening alto of Neil Young and the bluesy tint of Chris Robinson. Four years from their first album, the band has been road-honed into a tight, powerful outfit, but the arrangements have the extemporaneous feel of musicians are reacting to their singer’s story telling. The title track takes listeners on a thematic ride that starts slowly with the push of a hollow bass drum, gains speed with growling electric guitar chords, breaks down in contemplative depression and finally regains its locomotive traction.

Montali’s songs of second chances are accompanied by guitars that are tentative with their force, backing lyrics perched between asking, suggesting and telling. The music turns hopeful with the expectant possibilities of “Faith & Love” and melancholy for the introspective “If It Ain’t Me.” Lead guitarist Jon Bonilla shows off his chops with solos on the workingman’s lament “Doghouse Blues” and the driving blues-rocker “Walk on Water.” Tracks 1, 4, 6 and 8 are drawn from a 2012 EP that added Michael Hesslein’s keyboards, but given that set’s limited circulation, it’s great to have these tunes available again. Hollis Brown seemed fully formed back in 2009, but the extra years of playing out and writing has more deeply assimilated their influences and tightened the resonance between lyrics, vocals and instruments. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Hollis Brown’s Home Page
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Gene Clark: Here Tonight – The White Light Demos

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GeneClark_HereTonightTheWhiteLightDemosExtraordinary solo demos for Gene Clark’s White Light

Having passed through the New Christy Minstrels, founded and left the Byrds and dissolved a fruitful partnership with Doug Dillard, Gene Clark escaped the burdens of Los Angeles and relocated to a quiet spot on the Northern California coast. Although he owed A&M a pair of albums, Clark was given time to write new song under relatively little pressure. The label’s co-owner, Jerry Moss, eventually persuaded Clark to return to Los Angeles and record, first these demos, and subsequently his second solo album, White Light. The latter, produced by Jesse Ed Davis (who also produced these demos), remains one of the high-points of Clark’s career, but these guitar-harmonica-and-voice demos, released here for the first time, are equally fulfilling.

However direct listeners found White Light, these spare demos are even more so. Stripped to their essence, Clark’s songs explode with creativity, and recorded live in the studio, Clark plays the songs more as expressive notes to himself than as performances for posterity. There’s a delicacy in his vocals and a pensiveness in his approach  that would be overwhelmed by a band, and he displays an eagerness to sing these new songs that could only have been captured once. Half of these titles reappeared on the original version of White Light, and two more appeared on the album’s 2002 CD reissue. “Here Tonight” was recorded in alternate form by the Flying Burrito Brothers, and three titles, “For No One,” “Please Mr. Freud” and “Jimmy Christ” were simply left in the vault.

Clark’s performances return to his earliest folk roots, with a heavy Dylan influence apparent in several of the songs. The tempos are often slower and the presentations more gentle than the later band recordings, suggesting that Clark may have gained confidence in performing these works by the time he waxed the album. But from the start, he shows deep confidence in the songs themselves – perhaps even more evident in such a stripped down form, where the words have nowhere to hide. As fine as was the band assembled for White Light, Clark sounds perfectly comfortable exposed as a solo troubadour sharing his wares. The poetic verses of the album’s title track flow more easily as Clark responds only to his own guitar, and the simplicity of “Where My Love Lies Asleep” adds a starkly personal touch.

Though no substitute for the subsequent studio album, these demos are among the purest statement of Clark’s songwriting. These early recordings provide a second angle on a much-loved collection of songs and the singer-songwriter who brought them forth. They bring to mind Robert Gordon’s liner notes from Big Star Live in which he likens archival musical finds to an old photograph of a lover, taken before you met. The picture dates to a period you’ve heard about but didn’t really know, offering nuances on a familiar visage and revealing new details in something so very familiar. So it is with these demos, which stand on their own as a musical experience, but can’t help commenting on the album that’s so very familiar to Clark’s fans. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

The Hello People: Fusion

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HelloPeople_FusionTuneful “mime rock” from 1968

The Hello People were a late-60s sextet that performed in white face and mimed skits amid their live musical performances. Their visual imagery and theatrical skills landed the band slots on several television variety shows, but even with national exposure, their records failed to dent the charts. The group’s best known track, “Anthem,” was a pungent reaction to songwriter Sonny Tongue’s incarceration for draft-dodging, but even its socially-charged message couldn’t lift the group beyond regional success. The group’s sound incorporated several then-current trends, including baroque-pop, sunshine harmonies, country-rock, electric folk and and old-timey jazz. You can hear influences of the Left Banke, Grass Roots, Blues Project, Lovin’ Spoonful and others, and though the band was quite accomplished (especially in flautist Michael Sagarese and bassist Greg Geddes), their lack of a singular style and the novelty of their stage act seem to have relegated them to a footnote. The group continued into the mid-70s in various formations, releasing their own records and backing Todd Rundgren on Back to the Bars, but this 1968 album is the most complete expression of their original concept. Real Gone’s first-ever CD reissue includes the album’s original ten tracks and a twelve-page booklet with new liner notes by Gene Scalutti. Separated from their stage visuals, the group’s music still holds up. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

George Jones: The Complete United Artists Solo Singles

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GeorgeJones_TheCompleteUnitedArtistsSoloSingles

By the time that George Jones left Mercury and signed with United Artists in 1962 for his chart-topping “She Thinks I Still Care,” he’d been steadily minting hits since his 1955 debut, “Why Baby Why.” His two-and-a-half year run on UA produced sixteen singles, which the label managed to stretch over nearly five years of releases. All thirty-two sides – sixteen A’s and their flips – are included here in their original mono. Jones continued to be a steady hit maker (sometimes charting both sides of a single), but he also had his share of misses and obscure B-sides. This set includes favorites like “You Comb Her Hair” and “The Race is On,” but with so many singles over so many years, it’s easy to have lost track of superb A-sides like the rockabilly-tinged “Beacon in the Night,” the murder-suicide “Open Pit Mine,” the up-tempo “Your Heart Turned Left (And I Was on the Right)” and the fiddle-and-twang shuffle “What’s Money.”

During these years, Jones and his producers tried a lot of things to see what would stick, recording honky-tonk, weepers, Westerns, gospel, Christmas songs and novelties, and they gave each one their all. The set features many fine B-sides, including the too-late realizations and broken hearts of “Big Fool of the Year,” “I Saw Me” and “My Tears are Overdue,” each one filled with Jones’ inimitable vocal style. A handful of the flipsides charted, and in the case of the folk-styled “Where Does a Little Tear Come From,” outperformed its plug-side. In addition to the solo work collected here, Jones also recorded memorable duets with Melba Montgomery. A full accounting of this work can be found on Bear Family’s complete United Artists box set, but these singles get to the catalog’s heart, and the inclusion of lesser-known B-sides is a rare treat. The sixteen-page booklet includes photos, ephemera, chart and studio data, and liner note by Holly George-Warren. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

George Jones’ Home Page

Swamp Dogg: Rat On!

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SwampDogg_RatOnSecond helping of outspoken, deep Southern soul

Swamp Dogg’s newly penned liner notes tell the story of this album’s original sessions (under the title of “Right On”) at Florida’s TK Studios, with a backing band that included Betty Wright, Lonnie Mack, Al Kooper and a label worker (and future disco star) named Harry Wayne “KC” Casey. Apparently the results sounded awesome to the alcohol- and herb-fueled participants, but were not so easy on the ears of anyone else. The resulting tapes were shelved (though a single of the original “Straight From My Heart” was released with a B-side cover of Joe South’s “Don’t Throw Your Love to the Wind”), and a second run at the album was made at Quinvy Studios in Muscle Shoals. The latter sessions were released on Elektra in 1971 as Rat On! The Quinvy crew featured several legendary musicians, including bassist Robert Lee “Pops” Popwell and guitarist Jesse Willard “Pete” Carr, and Swamp Dogg’s soul sound, much like that on his debut, gave the players solid grooves to explore. His songs continued to mix outspoken views on race, sex, religion, war, relationships and social issues, couched in melodies whose sweetness sometimes obscures the deep twists and turns of his lyrics. Listened to in passing, Rat On! offers top-flight ‘70s southern soul, with deep bass and punchy horns. But listened to more carefully, the album reveals a daring songwriter who wasn’t afraid to tell it as he saw it, challenging society’s icons of freedom with “God Bless America For What?” and landing himself on Nixon’s enemies list. The album features soulful reworkings of the Bee Gees’ “Got to Get a Message to You” and Mickey Newbury’s “She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye,” and though the original tunes aren’t nearly as absurd those on Total Destruction to Your Mind, their messages are just as powerful, and their grooves are just as deep. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Swamp Dogg’s Home Page

Swamp Dogg: Total Destruction to Your Mind

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SwampDogg_TotalDestructionToYourMindLost soul classic lost no more

Industry veteran Jerry Williams, Jr. unleashed his alter ego on this 1970 masterpiece, spelling out his unconventional views in groove-heavy soul music. He makes good on the title’s brag with catchy, original songs that touch on environmental decay, social isolation, dystopian visions, racism and questions of paternity. Williams’ lyrics are often Zappa-like in their surface absurdity, but there’s a gripping observation or lament at each song’s heart. His voice has the pinched, keening sound of the Showmen’s General Norman Johnson, but with a rounded richness that suggests Jackie Wilson. Recorded at Capricorn Studios in Macon, GA, his band is soaked in the horns, low bass and guitar riffs of Southern soul, and touched by the propulsion of West Coast funk. It’s hard to imagine how this record (as well as the follow-up, Rat On!, an album better known for its cover than its content) has remained so obscure and hard to find. A two-fer on Swamp Dogg’s S.D.E.G label has been available off-and-on since 2000, but Alive’s digipack remaster should give this five-star gem the broader circulation it deserves. It’s a shame new liner notes weren’t included to provide the album’s history and context; the booklet does reproduce the song list, personnel credits, a few “relevant quotes,” and a short, typically absurd, autobiography. Analog fans will be happy to find both this and Rat On! are also being reissued on vinyl [1 2]. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Swamp Dogg’s Home Page
A 1997 Interview with Swamp Dogg

Bobby Rush: Down in Louisiana

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BobbyRush_DownInLouisianaSwamp-tinged, soul-grooved electric blues

Singer/guitarist Bobby Rush has traveled an interesting road as a musician. Born in Louisiana, his family relocated to Chicago in the early ‘50s, where Rush was schooled by Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and other giants of the Windy City’s iconic blues scene. He developed his own sound in the ‘60s, equally fueled by blues, funk and soul, and then in 1971 he moved back to the South and made it his home base for extensive roadwork. He’s traveled the remnants of the chitlin’ circuit, played nightclubs, auditoriums and Las Vegas showrooms, and at the age of 77 remains terrifically vital as a singer, songwriter, guitarist and harmonica player. His latest album blends electric blues with the soul of his native Louisiana, rendered by a stripped-down quintet of guitar, keyboards, harmonica, bass and drums. The results range from twelve bar blues to swamp-funk to the ‘70s styled groove “Rock This House.” Rush and co-producer/keyboardist Paul Brown add a few contemporary touches to the vocals, but the music never strays far from the sounds that are deeply rooted in Rush’s musical soul. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Merle Haggard: The Complete ‘60s Capitol Singles

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MerleHaggard_TheComplete60sCapitolSinglesHaggard’s original 1960s Capitol singles – A’s and B’s

As with their collections of singles on Wanda Jackson and George Jones, Ominvore’s anthology of twenty-eight Merle Haggard sides – fourteen A’s and their respective B’s – shows off a perspective not covered by greatest hits collections or original album reissues. In addition to Haggard’s thirteen charting 1960s Capitol A-sides (eight of which topped the charts), the set includes the non-charting “Shade Tree Fix-it-Man.” Haggard wrote all but one of the A-sides (“The Fugitive,” penned by Liz Anderson), and most of the flips, but his first Capitol single was backed by a lush-stringed arrangement of Ralph Mooney’s “Falling for You,” and he later covered Anderson’s sorrowful “This Town’s Not Big Enough.”

Haggard’s B-sides are far from the filler many producers used to force DJ’s onto the plug side; the productions were carefully crafted, and the instrumental backings are often highlighted by Ralph Mooney’s piercing steel and Roy Nichols’ sharply picked electric and resophonic guitars. It’s hard to imagine how DJs kept themselves from flipping “The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde” to play the equally attractive “I Started Loving You Again.” There are a few lighter sides, like “The Girl Turned Ripe,” but the lyrics are most often of afflicted love – relationships bound to end, ending, or receding too slowly in the rear view mirror. Haggard’s jazzier inclinations come out on Hank Cochran’s “Loneliness is Eating Me Alive” and the original “Good Times,” and his love of Jimmie Rodgers is heard in a cover of “California Blues.”

The collection includes singles that are among Haggard’s best and most loved recordings, commencing (with “Swinging Doors”) a run of top-charting singles that ran for nearly twenty-five years. All twenty-eight sides are remastered from the original singles mixes, and in mono for everything but 1969’s “Okie From Muskogee” and it’s flip “If I Had Left it Up to You.” The sound is crisp and leaps from the speakers, and the sixteen-page booklet includes session and release data, photos, ephemera and new liner notes by ace guitarist Deke Dickerson. Those looking for a broader recitation of Haggard’s career should seek out the 4-CD Down Every Road, Bear Family’s box sets [1 2 3 4], or the numerous reissues of his original album (including many two-fers of his Capitol work); but for a great listen to his initial run as a hit-maker, this set is a first-class ticket. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Merle Haggard’s Home Page

The Box Tops: Playlist – The Very Best Of

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BoxTops_PlaylistTheVeryBestOfStirring set of Memphis pop-soul singles in glorious mono

Fans of the Box Tops’ Memphis-tinged radio pop, whether period AM listeners or working their way backwards from Big Star or Alex Chilton’s solo work, will find something interesting here. The band’s ten charting singles (from 1967’s chart-topping debut, “The Letter,” through the non-LP “Turn on a Dream” and “You Keep Tightening Up on Me”) are supplemented by four B-sides, all in their original gut-punching mono. The B’s include the first Alex Chilton track released on a single, “I See Only Sunshine,” as well as “Together,” his B-side to “Turn on a Dream.” Though the group’s original albums provide a deeper experience, stringing together the hit singles and a few B-sides closely replicates how the band was heard by record buyers at the time. It’s a compelling introduction to Alex Chilton’s soul-soaked vocals and the terrific production of Dan Penn, Chips Moman and Tommy Cogbill. It’d be great if someone released a complete singles collection, adding the missing B-sides and the group’s later sides for Bell, Hi and Stax, but at fourteen tracks the set provides some lesser-heard B-sides without losing the focus on the group’s hits. Best of all, the mono mixes deliver an original sound that really distinguish this set from the longer Best of the Box Tops. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

The Box Tops’ Home Page

Wanda Jackson: The Best of the Classic Capitol Singles

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WandaJackson_BestOfTheClassicCapitolSingles

Recent collections of singles from Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Ray Charles and others have shed new light on much-loved performers. In addition to well-known hits, these anthologies highlight the valiant misses and B-sides that faded from an artist’s repertoire as their catalog was reduced to greatest hits collections. Wanda Jackson’s rockabilly and country recordings have been well-served in reissue, with both original albums and anthologies in print, but Omnivore’s 29-track collection provides an expanded view of her career as a singles artist. In addition to her well-loved A-sides “Hot Dog! That Made Him Made,” “Cool Love,” “Fujiyama Mama,” “Honey Bop,” “Mean Mean Man,” “Rock Your Baby,” “Let’s Have a Party,” “Riot in Cell Block Number Nine,” “Right or Wrong,” and “In the Middle of a Heartache,” the set is stocked with ace chart-misses and B-sides.

As early as 1956 Jackson was backing up her incendiary rockabilly singles with country flips that included “Half a Good a Girl” and the maiden recording of Jack Rhodes and Dick Reynolds’ “Silver Threads and Golden Needles.” She added a rockabilly croon to the Cadillacs’ bluesy doo-wop B-side “Let Me Explain” and shined brightly on Boudleaux Bryant’s calypso novelty “Don’a Wan’a.” Her ballads were often backed by Jordanaires-styled male harmonies and hard-twanging guitars (courtesy of A-list players Joe Maphis and Buck Owens) that keep her rock ‘n’ roll roots simmering. Even more straightforward country weepers like “No Wedding Bells for Joe” and “Sinful Heart” have downbeats that are more insistent than their Nashville contemporaries.

Jackson’s original “Little Charm Bracelet” didn’t make the charts, but it’s a cleverly written story of a relationship’s hopeful start and interrupted ending. Fans may be surprised to find that the favorite “Funnel of Love” was actually a B-side (to the country hit “Right or Wrong”), as the release signaled the beginnings of Jackson’s transition to the country charts. Still, even as the A-sides turned country, the B-sides held onto their sass with originals “I’d Be Ashamed” and “You Bug Me Bad,” and a bouncy version of Bobby Bare’s “Sympathy.” The productions are split between Los Angeles (tracks 1-17) and Nashville (tracks 18-29), and while the latter show countrypolitan touches, several of Jackson’s hottest rock ‘n’ roll records were recorded with Roy Clark and other Music City luminaries.

Jackson’s still recording vital new works today, including a 2012 release produced by Justin Townes Earle. There have also been anthologies of her rockabilly sides, best-ofs [1 2], album reissues [1 2 3 4], and box sets that tell the complete story from 1954 through 1973 [1 2]. Every one of these sets has something to offer, as does Omnivore’s look at Jackson’s singles from her rockabilly and initial country years. This isn’t a complete retelling, as its missing non-LP singles and leaves the last decade of her run on Capitol unexplored, but what’s here, all in superbly crafted mono, is terrific. The A-sides are well-known but not worn-out, the B-sides rare treasures, and the 16-page booklet includes fresh liner notes from Daniel Cooper, session and release data, photos and ephemera. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Wanda Jackson’s Home Page