Accomplished L.A. songsmith rocks soulful original pop
Bleu (nee William James McAuley) is a Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter whose biggest commercial successes have come from album tracks placed with Disney stars Selena Gomez (“I Won’t Apologizeâ€) and the Jonas Brothers(“That’s Just the Way We Rollâ€), singer/One Tree Hill television star Kate Voegele (“Say Anythingâ€), and indie-rock and pop acts Boys Like Girls, Jon McLaughlin and Ace Enders. It’s a resume that prepares listeners for the craft he puts into the details of his songs, but not the soulfulness he puts into his own projects.
Bleu’s come a long way from the major label machinations that surrounded his 2003 debut, Redhead, retaining the sound quality afforded a major label artist while shucking off the lyrical and stylistic limitations necessary to market a commercial, mainstream property. His new songs are more personal, and heavily laced with adult thoughts of mortality that wouldn’t click with the tweener set. Of course, Bleu still writes great pop melodies, as he does for the stream-of-consciousness verses of “Singin’ in Tongues,†the celebratory funeral party of “Dead in the Morning,†and the ex-pat’s ecstatic anthem “B.O.S.T.O.N.,†but they’re in service of lyrics and emotions that make a lasting impression.
The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.
Jefferson Airplane was a band that truly came alive in live performance. Their studio albums remain lauded, but it was the experience of their shows, stretching the studio tracks into acid-drenched ballroom jams, that minted their San Francisco Sound legend. Their live sound has been documented on numerous official releases, four of which are sampled here (Bless its Pointed Little Head, Thirty Seconds Over Winterland, and Sweeping Up the Spotlight), highlighting performances from the group’s home courts (the Fillmore Auditorium, Fillmore West and Winterland) and favorite tour cities Chicago and New York. This set also pulls in a few tracks that were included on the compilation Jefferson Airplane Loves You, as well as previously unreleased (at least officially) Fillmore performances of “White Rabbit†(11/26/66) and “It’s No Secret†(2/6/67, late show).
The dozen tracks gathered here span nearly the full length of the Airplane’s history, sans the group’s original female lead singer, Signe Anderson. This set’s timeline starts with a concise, but thrilling, November 1966 performance of “White Rabbit†recorded only a month after Grace Slick replace Anderson, and concludes in the Fall of 1972 with tracks from the band’s last tour. By ’72 Marty Balin had left the lineup, Papa John Creach had been added (along with John Barbata and David Freiberg), and Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were getting deeper and deeper into their side project, Hot Tuna. The band still jammed to the end, as evidenced by the superb eleven minute rendition of Kaukonen’s “Feel So Good,†but the unity heard on the earlier tracks seemed to be fraying. The version of “Crown of Creation†offered here, for example, is often more cacophonous than musical.
Live tracks from 1974-1981 with one previously unreleased
The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.
Inexplicably, Blue Oyster Cult’s entry in the series doesn’t include the booklet on disc. Instead, the cardboard slipcase provides a URL from which the booklet (as a PDF) can be viewed and downloaded. Once retrieved it provides liner notes from Lenny Kaye and detailed credits of the tracks’ origins. Many are pulled from the group’s previous live albums, On Your Feet Or On Your Knees, Some Enchanted Evening, Extraterrestrial Live, but the set also includes a promo-only version of “Godzilla†recorded in 1977, a 1981 take of “Flaming Telepaths†that was available on a British 12-inch single, and a previously unreleased 1979 version of “The Vigil†recorded in Berkeley, California. Taken together they provide a good view of the band’s live sound from their key years of 1974 through 1981.
Terrific 1971 country-rock obscurity with Gary Stewart
Record thrifters know the thrill of discovering a previously unknown recording that’s both a missing piece of history and worthwhile spin on its musical merits. Crate diggers and vault anthropologists continue to make incredible discoveries, and such is this obscure 1971 album. Pressed by the band in an edition of 500, it was sold at shows in upper Michigan and quickly disappeared into the collections of band members, families, friends and fans. Its claims to fame are several: it’s an early example of country, rock and soul fusion, it was recorded in the famed Bradley’s Barn studio in Nashville, and it marks the recorded debut of then-future country star Gary Stewart.
The group was named for its leader, Riley Watkins, and started out as a late-50s instrumental band backing first generation rockers who toured through Michigan. They relocated to Florida in 1963 to play the beach circuit, and there met the Kentucky-born Stewart. Stewart sat in and eventually joined the band (then called the Imps) for six months of shows in the wintery North. By decade’s end Watkins had formed a new trio with bassist Jim Noveskey and drummer Jim Snead, while Stewart had signed on as a songwriter in Nashville. One of the perks of Stewart’s songwriting gig was a sideline as an engineering assistant for Bradley’s Barn. Thus the connection was made, as Stewart invited Watkins to record tracks at the Barn. Stewart may have thought this an opportunity to put a band behind his songwriting demos, but Watkins jumped on the opportunity to record many of his originals.
Over the course of a year Watkins’ trio would race to Nashville to record their original songs, along with demos of tunes written by Stewart and his partner Bill Eldridge. As in the Florida days, Stewart sat in with the band, adding lead and rhythm guitar and harmonica, and singing lead on a couple of tunes. The band played emotional country rock that mixed elements heard in the Band, Poco, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Moby Grape and the Allman Brothers, as well as the southern soul sounds of Tony Joe White and Joe South. The band distinguished their sound with powerful guitar, bass and drums and strong multipart vocals. Watkins and Stewart sing a duet on the title track, and the harmonies on “Love, Love You Lady†suggest CS&N. Stewart steps to the front for the Creedence-styled “Drinkin’ Them Squeezins,†and the gospel sound and brotherhood-themed lyrics of “Listen to My Song†bring to mind Joe South’s “Walk a Mile in My Shoes.â€
Raul Malo revisits his country, rock and Latin roots
After spending the better part of the last decade edging away from the sounds of the Mavericks, Malo began to find his way back from cover songs and supper club countrypolitan with last year’s genre-bending Lucky One. Here he takes an even more personal step, producing himself in a home studio and finishing off the tracks in Ray Benson’s Austin-based Bismeaux Studios. Malo reconnects with the upbeat Tex-Mex (or really, Cuban-Country) and gripping balladry that made his earlier work so arresting; the relaxed tempos and too-neat productions that failed to spark After Hours are counted off here with verve, and the arrangements are given soulful edges that match Malo’s deeply emotional vocals.
The balance weighs making music from the heart over production perfection, as evident on a cover of Rodney Crowell’s “’Til I Gain Control Again.†Sung in a complete take, Malo aptly describes the recording as “not perfect, but the emotion is there.†If it’s not technically perfect, Malo’s probably the only one who could point out the problems, and singing with the dynamism Waylon Jennings brought to his earlier cover, it’s hard to imagine the words being put across any better. Just as effective is the Spanish-language “Sombras,†with Malo pledging no less than his life to prove his love, and the drowsy “Matter Much to You†builds tension by hesitating to make the operatic Roy Orbison leap you might expect.
Cuban roots open the album with a lonely trumpet that beckons a bullfighter into the ring, but before the toreador appears, Malo’s organ and guitar add surf twang and spaghetti western mystery. Augie Meyers’ classic Vox Continental appears on several tracks, adding the texture and tone of the Sir Douglas Quintet and Texas Tornados; the latter guest on “Superstar,†with Michael Guerra’s accordion casting a truly incredible spell. The rock ‘n’ soul of “Living For Today†suggests Delaney and Bonnie, but with the seeds sewn in the Nixon era watered by decades of American imperialism the lyrics have sprouted into mortal fatalism and the politically charged feeling that “we tried givin’ peace a chance / the only thing that’s wrong with that / we been at war since I was born.â€
The education and seduction of a rock ‘n’ roll hit maker
Tommy James came of age just as pop was giving way to rock ‘n’ roll. Elvis Presley’s performance on Ed Sullivan provided the initial epiphany, and five-days-a-week of American Bandstand, a job in a record store, junior high school talent shows and a prototypical garage band steeped him in both music and the music business. The early pages of this autobiography provide a great sense of what it was like to be in a rock ‘n’ roll band in the summer of 1963, from the joy of making music to the grind of trying to make a living. But once “Hanky Panky†caught fire in 1966, James was introduced to most of his fans as a fully-formed star; here you get to read about the dues he paid.
James’ rise to fame has been told before, but the details of his first single’s belated success – its initial failure, fluke resurrection in Pittsburgh, and canny national reissue on Roulette – is a great story. It’s also the lead-in to the book’s main thread: the difficult, father-son-like relationship between James and Roulette founder Morris Levy. In contrast to his co-dependency with Levy, his relationships with wives, children and band members weren’t nearly so sticky. James’ first wife and their son are ghosts in the narrative, nearly abandoned in his move to New York and divorced as he takes up with the Roulette Record secretary who eventually became his second wife. His second wife eventually meets a similar fate as he cheats on her and eventually moves on.
He forms and dispatches several iterations of the Shondells, with little expressed emotion. He fires half the band after they fight for monies owed in the wake of “I Think We’re Alone Now,†and is complicit in helping Levy cheat songwriters Ritchie Cordell and Bo Gentry by demanding songs they were pitching to artists whose labels would actually pay royalties. As with the affairs presaging his divorces, these episodes seem to be evidence of a self-centeredness learned from Levy rather than explicitly cruel behavior. But there’s surprisingly little remorse offered here, and what there is – five sentences when his first wife reappears for a divorce – doesn’t measure up to the affronts. Perhaps James wasn’t ready to share his innermost thoughts and personal feelings in an autobiography.
His telling of stories from the music side of his life is a great deal more compelling. Threaded throughout – and really, most successful musicians’ careers – is a surprising amount of luck; for James this includes the revival of “Hanky Panky†in Pittsburgh, the discovery of songs for two follow-up singles, a chance meeting with songwriter Ritchie Cordell, the creation of “Mirage,†and the incidental knowledge of arranger Jimmy Wisner. What you realize is that James put in the work from a very young age, studied and rehearsed, and put himself in a position to make these opportunities pay off. The crossing of paths may have been serendipitous, but the knowledge and ability to execute was hard-earned. The writing is more anecdotal than nuts and bolts accountings of music making, but you get a good feel for how James navigated changes in the industry to maintain a hit-making career across two decades.
Eclectic collection of sounds from throughout Richard Barone’s career
Richard Barone was introduced to listeners as the lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter of the legendary Bongos. Their recording career spanned a handful of singles, two EPs and two albums, but their impact on the Hoboken music scene – and on Hoboken itself – was much larger. Upon the band’s dissolution, Barone developed a solo career that garnered critical notice and fan support, but flew below the radar of the mainstream record buying public. He released an album every few years for a decade, bookended by the live recordings Cool Blue Halo in 1987 and Between Heaven and Cello in 1997, and continued on to produce other artists and collaborate on theater projects. Though he oversaw reissues and compilations of earlier material, this is his first collection of all new solo material since 1993’s Clouds Over Eden.
What makes this album particularly special is Barone’s collaborations with producer Tony Visconti. Barone’s a well-known Bolan-ista, having covered “Mambo Sun†with the Bongos and “The Visit†on his first solo album (and “Girl†here). Tony Visconti was the producer of those seminal T. Rex sides, and had Barone had his way, Visconti would have produced the Bongos 1983 RCA debut. But the label declined, and the pair had to wait another twenty-seven years to collaborate. Surprisingly, for all of Barone’s glam-rock influences and Visconti’s glam-rock bona fides, the cache of vintage instruments they tapped (including E-bow, stylophone, mellotron, moog bass, chamberlain) and sonic references they make (such as the opening of “Candied Babies†borrowed from the Bongos’ “Zebra Clubâ€), the results sound neither nostalgic nor out of time. Instead, the productions combine elements Barone’s explored throughout his career, including slithering glam rock, power-pop chime, cello-lined chamber pop, and punchy dance floor beats.
The lyrics sway from weighty contemplation of middle age to the title track’s celebratory call for shucking off emotional limitations and living freely in the moment. Barone is neither morose in his backward glancing assessments nor blindly exuberant in his forward looking proscriptions, but seems to be discovering original emotional territory in new experience; even the fatalism of “Yet Another Midnight†is expectant rather than downcast. The notions of return and unspoken feelings are threaded through several songs, including a visit to old stomping grounds in “Radio Silence†and the uncertain romantic resurrection of a co-write with Paul Williams, “Silence is Our Song.†The latter production is shorn of Visconti’s ornamentation, pared to guitar, piano and cello for a live performance on Vin Scelsa’s Idiot’s Delight. A second co-write, with Jill Sobule, yields the terrific “Odd Girl Out†and its story of a pre-Stonewall lesbian.
Mellencamp visits country, blues and rock ‘n’ roll ghosts
John Mellencamp is an artist whose depth continues to impress and surprise. His populist anthems of the 1980s demonstrated heartland roots that Springsteen could only write of, and even as he was charting with “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.†and “Lonely Ol’ Night,†he was filling out his albums with the social commentary of “Rain on the Scarecrow†and co-founding Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and Neil Young. His commentary continued to mature and turned naturally introspective, and though he continued to place singles on the charts, his albums became increasingly whole in tone. He explored urban soul sounds, returned to rock ‘n’ roll basics, explored historic folk and blues songs, and wrote through a dark streak of social and eprsonal commentary on his last few studio albums.
In many ways, the winding path of his career, the early malice of the record industry, the misunderstanding of music critics, the fight to regain his name and his artistic bona fides, is the road that led to this collection of original songs. The roots introduced on Lonesome Jubilee and explored on Big Daddy are now taken for granted, both in Mellencamp’s music and across the Americana scene. The mountain sounds, slap bass and vintage blues tones are no longer seen as affectations or anthropological explorations, but as the foundation that’s always underlined Mellencamp’s music. On this new, brilliantly executed album, Mellencamp visits and records at three historical locations: the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Sun Studios in Memphis and room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio.
There’s a bit of fetishism in toting along mono analog equipment, lining up on the marks laid down by Sam Phillips, and reinstalling a wood floor in the hotel room, but the connections made to the musicians who first sounded out these spaces famous was worth the effort. Mellencamp doesn’t attempt to raise ghosts as much as he amplifies the echoes that have always threaded through his music. The slap bass of “Coming Down the Road†catches the excitement of mid-50s Sun records without imitating them. Best of all, the minimalistic live recording – no mixing or overdubs – is mostly shorn of T-Bone Burnett’s influences as a producer. What this record (and yes, it is available on vinyl) shows is that it’s not the recording, it’s what’s being recorded. The primitive sound serves to focus the listener’s ear on the artist’s lyrics and moods.
Mellencamp wrestles with the existence of life-after-death, opting to appreciate his time on Earth in the opening “Save Some Time to Dream,†and taking a more laissez-faire attitude (“I’ll see you in the next world / If there is really oneâ€) in the defeated “A Graceful Fall.†The latter’s misfortune would play more darkly if not for Mellencamp’s large, near Vaudevillian vocal, as would the self-pity of “No One Cares About Me,†were it not sung to a country-rockabilly backing and tagged with an optimistic hint of redemption. That optimism segues into the album’s most touching song, “Love at First Sight,†which is matched by the heartbreaking wistfulness of the 50-years-later “Thinking About You.†The opening lyric of the latter proclaims “It’s not my nature / To be nostalgic at all,†but it’s only a device within the song’s story, as Mellencamp medicates on missed opportunities, unfulfilled desires and youthful lessons that only become clear with age.
Superb rock, country, folk and soul from San Francisco
