Tag Archives: Country

The Charles River Valley Boys: Beatle Country

Leave a reply

charlesrivervalleyboys_beatlecountry1966 bluegrass arrangements of Beatles classics

The Charles River Valley Boys came together amongst the early ‘60s folk revival scene of Cambridge, MA, the product Harvard and MIT students and a transplanted New Yorker. For all those Northeast roots (and the jokey name), their shared love of old-timey music resulted in surprisingly fine acoustic bluegrass. This 1966 album for Elektra could have been nothing more than a crass effort to cash in on the Beatles’ popularity (see for example The Hollyridge Strings’ contemporaneous Beatles Song Book), but the group displays an obvious love of Lennon and McCartney’s songs, and finds plenty of room to add bluegrass harmonies. Several choices find obvious analogs in the acoustic string band vein (e.g., “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” “Baby’s in Black” and “What Goes On”), but others are taken much further from their source. Lennon’s blistering “And Your Bird Can Sing” is turned from angry to melancholy, “Ticket to Ride” leans surprisingly on the blues, and the beat-heavy “She’s a Woman” is turned into a hot-picked instrumental for banjo, guitar and mandolin. Originally marketed to the general country music audience, rather than bluegrass fans or folk revivalists, the album stiffed and quickly became a hard-to-find collector’s item. Reissued first by Rounder and subsequently by Collectors’ Choice, the dozen cuts hold up as both bluegrass-harmony string band music and an affectionate tribute to the Beatles. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

Listen to “She’s a Woman”

Hank Williams: The Unreleased Recordings

Leave a reply

As good as Hank Williams got

It’s rare that an artist who’s been turned into an icon can ever again be seen in mortal form. But such is the case for the Hank Williams heard on these three CDs of transcriptions from 1951. With these fifty-four previously unreleased tracks, the dark saint of country music is delivered from fifty-five years of canonization as a hard-working musician striving to please his audience. Williams’ much anthologized commercial recordings will forever keep his star aloft, but these newly released live-in-the-studio renderings, waxed under the sponsorship of Mother’s Finest for radio broadcast, crackle with a level of intensity and vocal clarity not always captured in MGM’s studios. Best of all, 1951 was a “career year” for Willliams, a year in which his artistry and superstardom hit simultaneous peaks. The crush of fame drew him repeatedly to the road and exacerbated the need to pre-record his 15-minute shows for Mother’s Best, rendering into lacquer a one-of-a-kind portrait of Williams as artist and entertainer.

Williams filled each fifteen minute program with his own classic songs as well as numerous covers. Chestnuts like “On Top of Old Smokey” are lit up with emotional fire, and his soaring solo vocal on “Cool Water” resounds with the drama of thirst and relief. A large helping of hymns are equally impressive as Williams and his Drifiting Cowboys testify in close harmony, and the recitations of alter ego Luke the Drifter are recounted on “Pictures from Life’s Other Side.” The portrait drawn includes details of Williams’ influences, but it’s the picture of a living, breathing performer that’s so breathtakingly compelling. The ephemeral nature of these recordings – they were intended to be aired on the radio with no thought of commercial issue – renders the mood more relaxed than was routinely fostered in a regular studio date. The sheer volume of material Williams performed (this is only the first of several sets that will cover these recordings) creates a looseness that unwinds the fabrications of the recording industry. Williams’ aside, “I like this one,” as he launches into the fourth verse of “Dear John” is a humanizing touch that shows how comfortable he was with other writers’ material, and how easily his charm translated to the stage.

Time-Life has cherry-picked the original shows, rather than providing raw transfers of the transcription discs. Listeners get a taste of the original shows’ continuity through snippets of song introductions, but the bulk of Williams’ patter has been trimmed away in favor of musical selections. The non-chronological ordering also dispels the shows’ original performance arcs, but the producers have sequenced their picks terrifically and the overall result yields a superior experience for most listeners. These choices may displease archivists, completists and old-time radio fans, but Time-Life no doubt figured this approach would have the broadest appeal, helping defray the cost of securing reissue rights and remastering the original discs. Perhaps a full program could be released separately or included as a bonus in one of the upcoming releases of additional Mother’s Best material.

Other than minor audio artifacts on a few tracks (e.g., a crackle in the background of “I Dreamed That the Great Judgment Morning”), the sound quality of these recordings is simply astonishing, with Williams’ voice clear and edgy, his band evenly balanced behind him, and steel player Don Helms and fiddler Jerry Rivers prominently featured in the mixes. Though primitive, the direct-to-disc technology used in 1951 captured the live sound with brilliance and clarity. The transfers (by Alan Stoker) and restorations/remasterings (by should-be Grammy-winner Joe Palmaccio) are superb, and Jett Williams’ introductory notes provide a quick history of the original acetates and the lawsuits that have swirled around them. Colin Escott’s liner and song notes are detailed and informative, and the 40-page booklet (which is unfortunately stapled into the folder) is beautifully designed and filled with photos.

These are among the best performances Williams ever laid down on record, and among the truest recordings anyone ever made of him. You could remove “among” and still be right. Given Williams’ acclaim and the scrutiny given to his career, it’s mind-boggling that these discs were bottled up for nearly sixty years. This set is so musically riveting and artistically revealing as to obsolete traditional hit compendiums as the best introduction to Williams’ genius. An emotional veil has been lifted between Williams and his fans; a veil previously unknown to all but those fans who were by their radios in ’51. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: Boots, Buckles & Spurs

Leave a reply

Fine collection of Country & Western for your saddle pack

In celebration of the National Finals Rodeo’s fiftieth anniversary, Sony BMG Nashville/Legacy’s gathered together fifty songs of cowboys, their Western lives and the frontier landscapes they roam. Spread across three discs are artists closely associated with cowboy music, including Gene Autry, The Sons of the Pioneers, Roy Rogers, Red Steagall, Don Walser, Chris LeDoux, Don Edwards, Riders in the Sky, and Michael Martin Murphy, as well as dozens of country artists who reach back to a time before Country & Western split into two genres. Much like rodeo’s sometimes tenuous relationship to the working life of a cowboy, the characters depicted in these songs are often romanticized images of a cinematic West. That’s not particularly surprising given that most of these songs are songs about cowboys rather than by cowboys, written in retrospect decades after the closing of the frontier. Many served as nostalgic soundtracks to baby boomer films and television programs of the 1950s, and some as modern day odes from subsequent generations of misfits and outlaws.

Cowboy and western themes – independence, the fulfillment of work, tranquility and loneliness on the range, the human bond with horses, dangers on the trail, and the rough lives of nomadic societal misfits – have remained remarkably consistent across increasing distance from the mythologized source and seven decades of changing musical tastes. Circling back from Brooks & Dunn’s electric “Cowboy Town” to Gene Autry’s acoustic “Back in the Saddle Again” one finds little instrumental similarity, but the fresh air of hard work and personal freedom creates a link between them. The independence and orneriness of cowboys proved a natural draw for both the original outlaw movement and its revivals, with songs from Waylon Jennings, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, and Jessi Colter ranging from reflections of fellow travelers to hero worship.

The call of the West stretched beyond country artists to the Irish flutist James Galway, who waxed an early-80s cover of “The Wayward Wind” with vocalist Sylvia, and Canadian folk singer Ian Tyson, who recorded the traditional “Leavin’ Cheyenne.” Tyson’s original “Someday Soon,” memorably recorded by Judy Collins in 1969 is featured here in Suzy Bogguss’ superb 1991 hit cover. Most important to the survival of cowboy music over the decades is the enduring nostalgia for Western archetypes and the music itself, with missionary artists Don Walser, Don Edwards, and Riders in the Sky building careers expressly to keep old songs alive. Contemporary country artists borrow the nostalgia for an occasional remake, such as the Outlaws rock-reworking of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” or for an opportunistic pairing, such as Clint Black and Roy Rogers’ duet, “Hold on Partner.”

Though the bulk of this set is collected from the 1960s and 1970s, disc three is peppered with some some hard-charging modern country. As the program moves through tracks by Tracy Byrd, George Strait, Lonestar and Brooks & Dunn, it becomes evident that this collection is both a document of songs about the west and the soundtrack to modern-day rodeo events. Montgomery Gentry’s cover of “Wanted Dead or Alive” probably fires up the crowds, but as an historical document it harkens back more to Bon Jovi’s 1986 original than the Old West. Given the set’s dual identity, one can note that the omission of works by Tex Ritter and Jimmy Wakely (not to mention Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy,” though perhaps it was too ironic or simply not available for cross-licensing), but there are plenty of rodeo-themed songs here, including works from actual cowboys Rod Steagall and Chris LeDoux. In contrast to compilations that cover cowboy music as a cherished historical artifact, Legacy’s set shows the music still earning its daily keep at the rodeo. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

Melonie Cannon: And the Wheels Turn

Leave a reply

Acoustic country and bluegrass harmonies

For her sophomore release, Melonie Cannon moves from Skaggs’ Family to Rural Rhythm, but brings along both her bewitching alto vocals and the combination of bluegrass and country that balanced her debut. Cannon’s vocals are heavily indebted to the fragile purity of Alison Krauss, but also informed by earlier vocal stars such as Vern Gosdin and modern day stars like Chely Wright and Jo Dee Messina. She opens her latest with the pained adult memories of a drug-addicted prostitute’s abandoned daughter and the struggle to find – a bit edgier than your typical Nashville fare. The search for deliverance turns spiritual on “Send a Little Love,” but the specific situation from which salvation is sought is left to the listener’s imagination. The country-gospel original “Mary Magdalene (Why You Cryin)” sounds as if it were plucked from the Staple Singers songbook, though the acoustic guitar isn’t drenched in Pop Staples’ famous reverb.

Cannon writes and sings of troubled relationships, including the difficulty of cutting off a poorly matched mate on “I Call it Gone,” the exhaustion that leads to leaving on “I Just Don’t Have it in Me,” the late-night longing of “Dark Shadows” and the freedom of letting the past go on “I’ve Seen Enough of What’s Before You.” More happily, she finds herself awe-struck by the transformational meeting of her soulmate on “The Day Before You.” Cannon’s voice cuts through the studio with the clarity of a live performance, adding a personal presence to the autobiographical “It’s All Right There.” She visits her father Buddy Cannon’s songbook with a sweet cover of Vern Gosdin’s “Set ‘em Up Joe,” and trades verses with Willie Nelson on his “Back to Earth.” The disc ends with an acoustic tale of infidelity that turns the table on a cheating trucker and provides a fine, final helping of close harmony. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

Listen to “I Call It Gone”
Melonie Cannon’s Home Page
Rural Rhythm’s Home Page

Johnny Cash: Johnny Cash’s America

Leave a reply

Superb Johnny Cash biographical documentary DVD and CD

Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon’s Johnny Cash documentary premiered on the U.S. Bio channel in late October, accompanied by this DVD/CD package, Johnny Cash’s America. The DVD includes the full 90-minute documentary alongside several video extras. The CD collects eighteen full-length performances of songs heard in the documentary, five of which were previously unreleased. The core documentary strings together archival footage of Cash in performance, television specials and documentaries, supplemented by interviews with family and musical associates, authoritatively answering the questions posed by the film’s narrator: “How did events shape Cash? And what did he reflect back on to the country? How can one speak his mind, without losing his voice?” Cash’s story is told in chronological order, starting with the hardscrabble Arkansas roots at the very core of his character. Cash’s earliest years are described by childhood friends and remembered by Cash in a filmed return to his first home.

Cash’s recording career, from Sun Records to Columbia to his last works with Rick Rubin provide the soundtrack to a life that’s both a product of America and an influence woven into the tapestry of the country he so vocally loved. Cash is shown as an artist who stuck resolutely to his vision, such as when he lampoons the notion he’d replace Elvis as the King departed to RCA. Clips of Cash communing with Bob Dylan in the studio recording Nashville Skyline and a roll call of non-Country artists featured on his primetime television show further demonstrate the breadth of his musical vision. As far as Cash managed to stretch the ears of his fans, he stretched their minds even further. In lending his voice to the plight of Native Americans and prisoners, and in offering forthright discussions of his own drug use (“I was taking the pills for awhile, and then the pills started taking me”), he repeatedly showed a willingness to challenge the status quo. His performances of “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” and his own “What is Truth” at the Nixon White House (in lieu of Nixon’s request for “Welfare Cadillac”) found him speaking truth to the ultimate American power. Cash’s unabashed patriotism played out in both flag waving and a stern criticism, as he saw fit.

hough music was clearly one of Cash’s saviors, there were several human agents whose strength helped him wrestle with his demons. June Carter Cash is shown as the rock upon which Cash’s initial rescue from drugs was founded, Billy Graham helps him along in his rebirth as a Christian, and producer Rick Rubin revives his career with an introduction to a new youth audience. At each turn, it’s Cash himself who summons the strength to change and move on, but over and over there’s a catalyst setting him in motion. Neville and Gordon’s timeline is augmented with numerous clips and comments that provide viewpoint beyond mere facts, explaining what events and people meant within the context of Cash’s life, and what Cash’s life meant within the context of the times in which he lived. The directors expose the roots of Cash’s broad empathy, and create a story that may be less of a drama than the biopic Walk the Line, but is no less dramatic.

Interview subjects include Cash’s sister Joanne, daughters Cindy and Rosanne, son John Carter, and friends, associates and fans that include Al Gore, Snoop Dog, Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Kris Kristofferson, Loretta Lynn, Marshall Grant, Senator Lamar Alexander, Jack Clement, John Mellencamp, Steve Earle, Merle Haggard, Vince Gill, Jon Langford and John Mellancamp. The CD’s previously unreleased tracks are a pair of tunes recorded in Hendersonville (1969’s “Come Along and Ride This Train” and 1974’s “I Am the Nation”), and a trio of live recordings (1970’s “What is Truth” from the White House, 1971’s “Children, Go Where I Send Thee” from Denmark, and “This Land is Your Land” from Cash’s television show). The DVD’s twenty-three minutes of extras include additional interview clips, a 1961 television performance of “Five Feet High and Rising” from Star Route USA, color home movies from Cash’s 1972 performance at the White House, television outtakes of Cash delivering his trademark “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash” over and over and over, and documentary footage of the Cash family visiting Johnny’s childhood home. Buy this to watch the documentary, keep it to enjoy the fine selection of Cash classics and rarities. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

Brad Paisley: Who Needs Pictures / Part II

Leave a reply

New traditionalist’s first two albums in one package

Sony BMG’s Legacy division has created a two-fer series titled “x2” (“times two”) that bundles pairs of previously released CDs into a slipcase at a discount price. Neither album is changed from its original release, so these aren’t meant to attract an artist’s long-time fans, but by focusing on catalog perennials (e.g., Boston’s first two albums), or the early works of artists who found greater acclaim mid-catalog, they provide newer fans a quick way to catch up. In Paisley’s case Legacy’s put together his first two albums, 1999’s Who Needs Pictures and 2001’s Part II, giving those who latched onto his work with the breakthroughs of Mud on the Tires and Time Well Wasted an opportunity to see how he got there. What you’ll find is that from the start Paisley was a matinee idol with a new traditionalist’s ear, and the two-year arc of these initial albums show just how quickly he capitalized on his writing, singing and guitar playing gifts.

Paisley’s debut features a dozen originals and a cover of the traditional “In the Garden,” with generous doses of two-step beats, fiddle and Paisley’s twangy guitar. There’s no forgetting this is a Nashville recording, as producer Frank Rogers gives everything a tight polish, but Paisley’s unabashedly country with his vocals and heart-plucking lyrics. The album produced two chart-topping singles, the touching tribute to step-fathers, “He Didn’t Have to Be” and the serendipitous love song “We Danced.” Album tracks include the boot-scooting “Me Neither,” western swing “It Never Woulda Worked Out Anyway,” Mexicali-flavored “I’ve Been Better,” two-stepping “Sleepin’ on the Foldout,” and the hot-picked instrumental “The Nervous Breakdown.” Paisley’s lyrics split time between emotion and humor, but his earnest delivery keeps things from descending into treacle or country corn.

The sophomore release, Part II, was dead on in its title, as it continued all the elements of Paisley’s debut. Among the most noticeable changes are the inclusion of two covers: Darrell Scott’s harrowing tale of an Appalachian mining town “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive” (covered to even greater effect the same year by Patty Loveless on her back-the-roots Mountain Soul release), and “Too Country,” on which Buck Owens, George Jones and Bill Anderson guest for the latter’s idyllic vision of a simple American life. Paisley’s originals again range from serious to comic, with both digging a bit deeper than on his debut. The chart-topping “I’m Gonna Miss Her” is both funny and home-spun, as an angler weighs another hour on the lake against the impending departure of his mate. The song’s lazy beat provides a perfect complement to the fisherman’s half-hearted contemplation of shortening his trip. The upbeat fiddle-and-steel tune “All You Really Need is Love” is comic in its catalog of a wedding’s endless expenses, but there’s a great deal of painful truth here for anyone who’s put together (or paid for) a wedding. The album’s other three hit singles include the heartbroken letting-go ballad “I Wish You’d Stay,” the philosophical interconnectedness of “Two People Fell in Love,” and the twangy two-step shuffle into marriage and adulthood, “Wrapped Around.”

As on Paisley’s debut, there’s a barn-burning instrumental, “Munster Rag,” featuring incredible guitar runs, and the album closes, as did the debut, with a traditional tune of faith, the gospel “The Old Rugged Cross,” recorded live with just voice-and-guitar at the Grand Old Opry. Part II is a more sophisticated and deeper album than Paisley’s debut, and paired with its predecessor, fans get a chance to hear the speed with which potential (Paisley’s, his producer’s, his band’s, and his cowriter’s) developed into music that launched a country superstar. If you only know Paisley from his more recent albums, you owe it to yourself to check out the quality of his early works. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

Roy Clark: Timeless – The Classic Concert Performances

Leave a reply

Country comedy, singing and master musicianship

Master multi-instrumentalist Roy Clark is most broadly known for his 1969 crossover hit “Yesterday, When I Was Young” and the cornpone personality he played for more than two decades on the television program Hee Haw. But long before Hee Haw, Clark made a name as a musician, winning two national banjo championships as a teenager, appearing on the Grand Ole Opry, and appearing on regional television programs. Though well-known to country audiences, his 1969 pop success and the debut of Hee Haw provided national exposure that led to guest hosting slots on The Tonight Show and touring stops in showrooms of Las Vegas. His live shows had always proved him an entertainer who was both a deft comedian and a consummate musician. The seventeen tracks collected here, cherry-picked from a pair of live albums (1972’s Roy Clark Live! And 1976’s In Concert), were recorded at two long-gone Las Vegas hotels, and include generous helpings of Clark’s humorous between-song patter, his hit singles, and extensive demonstration of his prowess on guitar, banjo and fiddle.

In an era when country music’s mavericks were getting edgy, Clark provided twangy music in a comfortable adult-contemporary context. The breadth of his offerings is impressive, including hot-picked versions of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” “Orange Blossom Special” and “Riders in the Sky,” the old-timey “Alabama Bound,” a cover of Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City” that shows Clark a winning R&B picker, pop-country tunes “Thank God and Greyhound” and “Green Green Grass of Home” (the latter of which he colors with jokey new lyrics), and the full-on adult-contemporary sound of “Yesterday, When I Was Young.” His eight-minute version of “Dueling Banjos” pits him in a master class battle against fellow five-string legend Buck Trent, and Clark’s classical guitar technique is displayed on a dramatic version of “Malagueña.”

Clark’s show was geared to his mainstream audience of the time, with jokes about hippies and Geritol and a band that sounds more Vegas than Opry. Even so, he wove together genuine musical artistry with comedy schtick as only a master entertainer could manage. Taken from the peak of his mainstream popularity, these tracks have been out of print for over thirty years and are a vast improvement over the latter-day Branson-era live material that’s been available on CD. This is a great introduction to the vast range of Clark’s talents, as a musician and as a comedian, but mostly as an all-around entertainer. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

The Gibson Brothers: Iron & Diamonds

Leave a reply

Country and bluegrass brothers in harmony

Some sounds sound old without becoming nostalgic. Such are the brotherly vocals of Eric and Leigh Gibson whose tight harmonies remain fresh even as they trace back to the Louvins and Everlys. The same is true for their bluegrass quintet, whose instrumentation (banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle and bass) offers tradition, but whose lyrical approach is more back-porch cozy than by-the-numbers festival playing. Even the original “Picker’s Blues” is an original lament rather than a rehashed demonstration, a song of musicians drawn to their travels no matter the personal price, accompanied by superb rolling banjo and flat-picked guitar. Faith and death thread through several songs, including the fatalistic “One Step Closer to the Grave” and the album-closing farewell of Bill Carlisle’s country-gospel classic, “Gone Home.” A more earthly faith is found on the album’s title track, “Iron & Diamonds,” in which the hard, unchanging life of a company-owned mining town is punctuated by the afternoon sunshine of the local minor league baseball team. The difficulties turn philosophical with the balkanization of “Angry Man,” as the Leighs focus on the social stasis bred of endless political bickering. The album’s most visited topic is hearts sought and broken. On the sunnier side, Tom Petty’s “Cabin Down Below” (from 1994’s Wildflowers) is turned from leering to merely urgent as the original’s hard-rock is transformed to a hill-bred courting song. The sparse guitar-and-bass original “Lonely Me, Lonely You” is filled with Roy Orbison-like stalwart agony, and a cover of Faron Young and Roger Miller’s “A World So Full of Love” drops the overt honky-tonk of the original while still hanging on to the pathos. Steve Earle’s “The Other Side of Town” (from 1997’s El Corazón) is rendered as a forlorn Ray Price shuffle, replacing the original’s more dire Hank Williams style, but the brothers’ vocals — solo on the verses, tightly harmonized on the choruses — will still hammer a nail in your heart. The Gibson’s tread traditional ground with their instruments and harmonies, but without the slavish adherence to convention that saps the currency from a great deal of contemporary acoustic string-band music. This is a great spin for country and bluegrass fans alike. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

The Gibson Brothers’ Home Page

Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs: Dirt Don’t Hurt

Leave a reply

Lo-fi folk, country and blues: the new Richard & Mimi Fariña?

UK lo-fi roots goddess Holly Golightly’s second release with the Brokeoffs (a “group” comprised of her associate Lawyer Dave on bass, vocals, percussion and guitars) is an amalgam of country, blues and folk that sputters and clanks like a well-worn jalopy on a dusty backroad. The opening “Bottom Below” scrapes along on string bass, dobro, banjo plucks and percussive slaps seemingly struck by a string tied to a one-man band’s ankle. Lawyer Dave sings the low end of the duets in a gruff voice that’s balanced by Golightly’s girlish harmonies; imagine Richard & Mimi Fariña squaring off with Tom Waits in a junkyard full of percussive implements. The likeness to the Fariña’s is especially close on the sing-song folk-blues “Burn Your Fun” and the harmonica-led blues-grunge “Gettin’ High for Jesus.” The duet turns to sassy Johnny & June call-and-response with “My 45” and old-timey on the banjo-led “Accuse Me.” The country-blue weeper “Up Off the Floor” is delivered with a catatonic vocal of pain that evidences the results of the lyric’s vindictive kiss-off, while the comeuppance of “Indeed You Do” is pushed along by a tenuous rhythm and peels of slide guitar. The duo’s ballads, including “Slow Road” and “Indeed You Do,” crawl slowly, the former evoking the strutting march-time accents of Cabaret’s “Wilkommen.” The album’s covers include the jump blues “I Wanna Hug Ya, Kiss Ya, Squeeze Ya,” rendered here as a scratchy electric blues, and the traditional mountain tune “Cluck Old Hen” in one of its many lyric variations (all of which seem to threaten the hen for its lack of production), and read as an insomnia-inducing nursery rhyme. The entire album was recorded in a few days between tour stops, resulting in a set that’s finished without being polished. It’s the sort of run-through attributable to principals that have developed a partnership as they’ve deeply internalized their musical influences. The lo-fi aesthetic is a less conspicuous element here than on Golightly’s earlier works with Thee Headcoatees and others, adding a patina of sparseness that suggests history rather than hurry. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

Listen to “Bottom Below”
Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs’ Home Page
Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs’ MySpace Page

Donovan, Tammy Wynette, The Bangles: Playlist

Leave a reply

Legacy’s latest version of the single-disc artist overview has a few novel twists. Rather than a strict chronological recitation of an artist’s chart hits, the song selections are meant to gather those tracks a fan might compile for themselves. The 14-track playlists are still hit focused, but don’t always provide a full accounting of an artist’s chart success. Mono singles, longer album versions, out-of-print and non-hit tracks are sequenced to optimize song-to-song segues and draw out an impression of the artist’s overall catalog. The results are intended to deliver a listening experience rather than a hits archive. As a physical disc, Legacy’s marketing these as CD-quality alternatives to MP3s, improving on the package’s ecological aspects with a plastic-free digipack made of 100% recycled paperboard, and including additional materials (pictures, liner notes, credits, wallpapers) on the disc itself, rather than in a printed booklet.

Donovan

Donovan’s Playlist opens with his 1966 flower-power anthems, “Sunshine Superman” and “Mellow Yellow,” the former in the longer stereo album version, the latter in the mono single mix. The Scottish Woody Guthrie’s acoustic folk is heard in the mono singles “Catch the Wind” and “Colours,” the latter featuring a harmonica bridge left off the album version. The body of the compilation runs through most of Donovan’s US hits (including specific single versions of “There is a Mountain” and “Epistle to Dippy”), omitting “Jennifer Juniper,” “Lalena” and “To Susan on the West Coast Waiting.” In place of the three missing hits are the album tracks “Season of the Witch” from 1966’s Sunshine Superman, “Young Girl Blues” from 1966’s Mellow Yellow, “Isle of Islay” from 1967’s A Gift From a Flower to a Garden, and “Happiness Runs” from 1969’s Barabajagal.

Those looking for a straightforward accounting of Donovan’s US chart hits should seek out the Greatest jifiHits or Essential CDs. Those looking for flavor beyond the hits will find the stark, piercing portrait of loneliness, “Young Girl Blues,” particularly affecting, and the positivity of “Happiness Runs” a sweet folk round. What the album tracks show is that Donovan can’t easily be captured in only fourteen tracks. Key protest titles (“The War Drags On,” “Universal Soldier”), winning B-sides (“Sunny South Kensington”), and writerly album works (“Writer in the Sun,” “Sand and Foam”) await you on original album reissues, longer single-disc offerings like Best Of-Sunshine Superman, or longer-form collections like Troubadour: The Definitive Collection or Try for the Sun: The Journey of Donovan. As a short overview, though, this is a good place to start your journey into the world of Donovan.

Tammy Wynette

How well each Playlist volumes live up to the marketing promise differs artist by artist. With over forty hit singles to her name, Wynette’s Playlist couldn’t possibly capture them all; instead, the selections cherry-pick hits that stretch from 1966’s “Apartment #9” through 1976’s chart topping “’Til I Can Make it on My Own.” All fourteen tracks are notated as identical recordings on 45 and LP, so there’s no collector’s aspect, and given that the same titles were released in 2004 as The Essential Tammy Wynette, this volume is more of a repackage rather than a fresh appraisal. That said, this is a solid single-disc introduction to one of country music’s greatest vocalists. It’s not a deep survey or career retrospective, for that you’ll need to seek the out-of-print Tears of Fire: The 25th Anniversary Collection.

The Bangles

The Bangles edition of Playlist partly reneges on the premise by reeling off their eight U.S. chart hits in order, starting with the 1986 Prince-authored breakthrough “Manic Monday” and concluding with 1989’s “Be With You.” Unlike other artists in this series with more extensive hit catalogs, The Bangles chart run fits snugly into half a disc. Also included is the group’s AOR hit “Hero Takes a Fall” from 1984’s All Over the Place, and five album tracks from All Over the Place, Different Light, and Everything. The non-hits favor covers, including Katrina and the Waves’ “Going Down to Liverpool,” The Merry-Go-Round’s “Live,” and Big Star’s “September Gurls.” This is the same track sequence offered on 2006’s We Are the ‘80s.

While these fourteen selections provide a fair representation of the Bangles’ commercially successful years, they could have better captured the fan’s view. Missing are tracks from the group’s pre-Columbia EP on Faulty/IRS, their paisley-underground compilation appearances, 12” remixes that accompanied their hits, and material from their various reunions. Perhaps those are too arcane for a 14-track once-over, but without them this set offers only one compilation producer’s selection of album tracks over another’s. Many will find the album tracks included here (particularly the covers and the original “Dover Beach”) an improvement over the selections on Greatest Hits, but your mileage may vary. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]