A gourmet’s selection of blues, country, soul and rock covers
Paul Thorn is a Mississippi bluesman whose earlier career as a boxer still echoes in his gruff growl. Though well-known for his original, biographical songs, Thorn’s sixth album is an all-covers affair. Singing the songs of other writers is a complex task, one that reflects on Thorn’s understanding of songwriting craft as well as his visceral experience as a listener. He poses this set as an opportunity to “take a break from myself,†but his selections from others’ pens say a great deal about his musical roots, influences and tastes. Most of his picks are sufficiently obscure to avoid even registering as covers for many listeners; but these are interpretations rather than explanations, and Thorn’s fans will marvel at how easily he draws these songs into his personal orbit. This is a mix tape, but one in which the mixer sings the songs rather than having lined up other people’s performances on a C90.
Thorn’s voice has a clenched, raspy edge that variously brings to mind Dr. John, Jon Dee Graham, Willy DeVille, John Hyatt, Lyle Lovett, Randy Newman, Joe Cocker, Tom Waits and even a bit of Louis Armstrong. He doesn’t sound like any one of them, but your ears will catch passing associations as he work through a wide-ranging catalog drawn from Ray Wylie Hubbard, Buddy Miller, Elvin Bishop, Allen Toussaint and others. Each recitation balances flavors from the original recordings with Thorn’s own sound, retaining the signature rolling rhythm of Lindsey Buckingham’s early “Don’t let Me Down Again†while lowering its youthful freneticism, magnifying the blue side of Free’s “Walk in My Shadow,†and giving Muscle Shoals’ legend Donnie Fritts’ “She’s Got a Crush on Me†the soul vocal it really deserves.
A too-brief set of ‘60s and ‘70s Carole King demos
Demos are an industry currency that fans don’t often get to hear. They’re an audio notebook in which songwriters sketch their vision, either for themselves, or more intriguingly, for those to whom they wish to sell songs. In the case of a singer-songwriter like Carole King, there are both kinds of entries in her notebooks – writer’s demos that were inclined towards the sound and style of a potential client and initial renderings of songs that King would sing herself, including five tunes written for her 1971 breakthrough, Tapestry, and another, “Like Little Children,†written in the mid-60s but recorded 30 years later for the film Crazy in Alabama.
An earlier, unauthorized, volume of King’s demos and early solo recordings, Brill Buliding Legends: The Right Girl, gave a glimpse into her years as a Brill Building songwriter. But that volume fell short of its full promise, by including demos for songs that were never commercially recorded or never broke on the charts. Though interesting in their own right, these lesser works said more about the hard work that goes into getting a hit single than they did about the development of King’s best-known titles. Not so with this authorized volume of King demos, which not only offers up a few key Brill Building-era demos, but extends into her solo work as a successful performer.
The three major Brill-era hits included here in demo form are the Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday,†Bobby Vee’s “Take Good Care of My Baby†and the Everly Brothers’ “Crying in the Rain.†The first is surprisingly different from the hit single, with King’s folk-rock demo more wistful and forgiving than the skeptical and mocking tone of the Monkees take. The second, on the other hand, seems to anticipate Bobby Vee’s style, and though the single is more fully orchestrated, the mood and hooks were all there in the demo. Others, such as “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,†reveal their foundations – in this case, the gospel chords of King’s piano and the freedom of her vocals – even more clearly in these stripped down versions.
Suburban Dirts are a British electric folk blues band that’s heavily influenced by Dylan’s mid-60s classics, Bringing it All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited. Their original “Lost in Transcription†riffs closely on Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,†“Tombstone Blues,†and other of his sing-song electrics and harmonica-laced ballads. Frontman John Wheatley lists Dylan and the Beatles as primary influences, which, given their influence on one another in 1965, makes a lot of sense. Suburban Dirts also bear ‘60s and early-70s influences from both sides of the pond, including Hot Tuna, early Fleetwood Mac, Big Brother and the first generation bluesmen from which they all took inspiration. There are hints of country-rock, suggesting the Allman Brothers and, in the case of “Someday, Baby,†Mike Nesmith’s post-Monkees sides or perhaps Glen Campbell-era Jimmy Webb songs.
The early ‘70s singer-songwriter roots of Rick Springfield
By the time that Rick Springfield hit it big as a pop star, with 1981’s “Jessie’s Girl,†his fame as an actor all but obscured his very real roots as a musician. But a decade before topping the U.S. charts, Springfield was a working musician in the rock band Zoot (on whose heavy cover of “Eleanor Rigby†a young Springfield can be seen playing guitar) and a solo artist with a Top 10 hit in Australia. A reworked version of that hit single, “Speak to the Sky,†reached the Billboard Top 20, and took this debut album into the Top 40. The 1981 view of a dilettante actor dabbling in music is wiped away by this record of his earlier work, for which Springfield wrote ten original tunes, sang and played guitar, keyboards and banjo.
Springfield’s songs and the production sound are heavily indebted to late ‘60s and early ‘70s rock, particularly the bass, drums and piano sounds of the Beatles, Badfinger and Big Star. The album mixes deeper numbers with bubblegum, showing Springfield’s voice to work well in both heavy and light arrangements. “The Unhappy Ending†anticipates the histrionics of Queen (and presages the opening of “Killer Queenâ€), while the happy-go-lucky (but war-tinged) “Hooky Jo†sports hooks worthy of Kasnetz-Katz and Graham Gouldman. Springfield’s infatuation with Paul McCartney is evidenced by the album’s chugging beats, but there are notes of soul, country-rock and pop.
Producer/arranger David Axelrod’s rock interpretation of Handel’s Messiah has twin histories. Originally released in 1971, it was part of a stream of God rock that included Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell and popular hits like “Spirit in the Sky,†“One Toke Over the Line†and “Jesus is Just Alright.†But as part of Axelrod’s personal oeuvre, it also followed in the footsteps of his literary and social-themed works of the late ’60s and his 1968 albums with (or perhaps, “asâ€) the Electric Prunes, Mass in F Minor and Release of an Oath. Taken in the retrospective stride of his full career, the album now feels less tethered to its 1971 theatrical contemporaries than to Axelrod’s long-running exploration of concept albums, jazz, soul and rock orchestration.
All four of those influences are heard here, with string arrangements that are as much Chicago soul as philharmonic concert hall, and full-kit drumming and fuzz guitars that reach back to his earlier experiments with psychedelia. The album was recorded with key Los Angeles sessions players, such as Carol Kaye, and features a 38-piece orchestra conducted by jazz legend (and Axelrod collaborator) Cannonball Adderley. Axelrod astutely observed that by 1971, rock music had developed album-oriented fans whose attention span was longer than the two-minutes-forty of AM radio hits, and that FM radio had developed listeners whose tastes spanned beyond pop music.
In contrast to his earlier instrumental work, and in deference to the piece being an oratorio, Axelrod arranged this with vocals, though sung in shades of soul and gospel that befit the era and arrangements, rather than with classical choruses. Axelrod interlaces electrically-orchestrated pieces with more strictly symphonic arrangements, such as “Pastoral Symphony,†lending the finished work the imprimatur of both rock and classical music. The set’s uncredited stars are its recitative leads, whose lead vocals give soul power to “And the Glory of the Lord,†“Behold†and “And the Angel Said Unto Them.â€
Butchers Blind’s two previous releases, 2009’s One More Time and 2011’s Play for Films, showed off a wonderfully melodic form of rock-based Americana. Here they show how well it translates to the stage, recorded in November 2011 at Pianos in New York City.
Excellent, but ill-fated second album with super bonus tracks
Given the indelible mark Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders made with Clint Ballard Jr.’s “Game of Love†(#2 in the UK, chart-topping in the U.S.) it’s surprising just how short they ran as a unit. Nine singles, two albums, and by 1965 they’d gone their separate ways. In fact, their run ended as their singles (“It’s Just a Little Bit Too Late†from this second LP and “She Needs Love,†included on this reissue as a bonus) failed to capitalize on their breakthrough and Fontana’s solo career was realized more quickly than had previously been expected. It’s reported that he informed the band of his departure as he walked off stage midway through an October 1965 live show. Fontana and the band continued on separately (the latter scoring quickly with Toni Wine and Carole Bayer Sager’s “A Groovy Kind of Loveâ€), and this second album, released three months after the split, was left to founder.
Fontana and the band had been pulling in different directions before the split – the former looking to highlight his singing, the latter (lead by guitarist and future 10cc founder, Eric Stewart) their instrumental abilities. The latter’s versatility is highlighted in the range of songs tackled on this second album – a collection that was put together over a longer period of time than the single day afforded their debut. There are only two originals (“Like I Did†and “Long Time Comin’â€), both mid-tempo beat numbers written by Fontana under his given name of Glyn Ellis. The rest of the album picks up songs from a talented array of American writers, including Leiber & Stoller, Gene Pitney, Chuck Berry, Van McCoy, Goffin & King, Willie Dixon and Burt Bacharach. The selections are typically UK-centric, including a UK hit (“Memphis, Tennesseeâ€) that was a non-charting U.S. B-side, and Merseybeat favorites from Richard Barrett (“Some Other Guyâ€) and Bill Haley (“Skinny Minnieâ€).
The album included the follow-up single to “Game of Love,†sticking with Clint Ballard for “It’s Just a Little Bit Too Late.†Despite its great beat, twangy guitar and catchy lyric, it only edged into the UK Top 20, and fell short of the U.S. Top 40. The group’s last single, included here as a bonus track, was yet another Ballard beat-ballad, “She Needs Love,†which cracked the UK Top 40, but failed to chart in the U.S. The album’s original dozen tracks are augmented on this Bear Family reissue with nine rare single and EP sides. Pre-LP singles include Jimmy Breedlove’s “Stop Look and Listen†(b/w a cover of Gene Chandler’s “Duke of Earlâ€), and the group’s UK smash cover of Major Lance’s sweet soul “Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um.†The latter is backed by a cover of the rare Doc Pomus and Phil Spector tune, “She Needs Love,†originally recorded by Ben E. King.
Vaughan’s productions balance the hard country twang of telecaster and steel with touches of twelve string and Spanish-flavored guitar. Davis’ voice melds a number of influences, including the disconsolation of Hank Sr., the trill of Big Sandy, and the dramatic balladeering of Dwight Yoakam, Chris Isaak and Raul Malo. The tic-tac guitar and train rhythm of “How Long†are pure Johnny Cash, but Davis sings in a higher register that takes the song in a different direction, and the driving drums and slide guitar of “Queensbury Rules†bring to mind the street-smart 1980s rock ‘n’ roll of the Del-Lords. Davis duets winningly with Elizabeth Cook (who sounds like Kelly Willis here) on “Crazy in Love with You†and brings a honky-tonk croon to “Only You.â€
Strong country, folk and Cajun sounds from Oklahoma quintet
