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Bob Dylan, 1978-94: Navigating Through the Rough Waters of His Middle Years

2010-09-21T01:46:00.001-07:00

First Published in Pressplus1 Online Magazine:

http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/2672-bob-dylan-1978-94-navigating-through-the-rough-waters-of-his-middle-years.html

Call it the lull, the calm before the storm (or at least before lightning struck again), but Bob Dylan in a near two decade period of his storied career became a shell of his former self. Even if the idea of a career dip or two is not alien to even the greatest of performers, the years of 1978-1994 had a lot of people doubting his legacy and believing he was capable of artistic genius again. Many people wonder if Dylan could really recapture his former status or anything close to it. A lot of critics with high standards would even say he was weak after 1966 but that's a falsehood in my view, seeing as how he still created all those great "Basement Tapes" with the Band in 1967 plus the excellent albums John Wesley Harding, Blood on the Tracks, the very good Nashville Skyline, New Morning, Planet Waves, Desire, and a superb live album with the Band called Before the Flood all in the 8 years following his injury in a motorcycle accident. Despite being committed to relentless touring since 1988, Dylan often, whether due to his own whims or health issues, can disappoint live. He's a mixed bag to witness in concert and that's not being overly critical. When he's on, you feel like you're witnessing the flicker of the original genius. And even at his worst moments, he has outshone half the rock stars out there. But he must feel the music is his muse because he has rarely taken time off since his early 40s.

Once you set a standard as great as the one he set between 1962-1969, then again between 1974-1976, people don't expect to hear a man who sounds like he stopped caring. In his famed memoir, 2004'sChronicles Part One, Dylan admitted as much. Personal problems played a role at first but by all reports he was a more contented man in the 80s. However he again hit a personal low ebb in the 90s when he became disenfranchised enough to quit writing songs for a good spell. His time in the wilderness is not a time of musical innovation but is an enthralling story to tell nonetheless. Left up on the shelf recuperating in upstate New York's West Saugerties region in 1967, Dylan took an integral part in the immortal Basement Tapes at a friend's nearby cottage, the Hawks - later to become world renowned as the Band. Many of the tunes made the rounds on a popular bootleg album called The Great White North Album,which led to Columbia officially releasing many of the recordings (but not really close to all of them) in 1975. Eight years previous to that, Columbia was certainly relieved when Bob stepped back into the public eye with the release of John Wesley Harding at the end of 1967, a spare, country-tinged album that was hardly a followup to Blonde and Blonde and contrasted with the grand psychedelia ruling the rock world at the time.

This woodshedding of his continued through 1968, as Dylan was raising a family with his wife Sara Lowndes, married to him in a secret ceremony in 1965. A foray into much more faithfully pure country came in 1969 with Nashville Skyline but Dylan was being pressured by the radical Hippies to become their champion and spokesperson against the Vietnam War. The counterculture saw Dylan as the pied piper and wanted to follow him on the march to peace. Dylan resisted, being a rather apolitical thinker when push came to shove. But the adulation and demand was starting to grate on him, so with 1970's double-LP Self Portrait, he intentionally made the corniest, squarest album possible in order to shake off the attention in both his private and artistic life. It was an album even Merle Haggard and his "Okie from Muskogee" types would consider square! If you take the album as a joke, it's enjoyable. If you view it on an artistic level, it flops more than a fish on the dock. Serious questions arose about Dylan's image and even though New Morning came out mere months later to quell a lot of the critical nattering, it appeared Dylan was in a bit of a mire. Then came a writer's block period over the next 3 years as Dylan released one protest single ("George Jackson"), four new recordings for his second volume of greatest hits in 1971 (two being songs written in '67), plus a soundtrack album to the film he had a bit role in, Sam Peckinpah's 1973 film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. All this generated in the way of classic was "Knockin' on Heaven's Door". Not much to show for 3 years by the standards of the time.

Collaborations with the Band in 1974, Planet Waves and the double live set Before the Flood, gave the careers of both a much needed shot in the arm. A dispute with Columbia led to Planet Waves being released on Asylum, still the only release to date of Dylan's not on Columbia/Sony. Once back on CBS, it was the crumbling of Dylan's marriage that inspired him to head into a New York studio in September 1974 to cut a song cycle that became Blood on the Tracks. The album was test pressed until Dylan had second thoughts about the sameness of the album, all the songs being recorded with simple acoustic instrumentation on guitar in open E tuning. Dylan has recounted how his brother, David Zimmerman, convinced him to make the alterations by giving him similar constructive criticism. After re-recording several tracks back in his home state of Minnesota, the album in its final form came out in January 1975 and singaled that once again Bob Dylan had the incomparable creative juices flowing. The album was a frank depiction of sorrow, heartache, betrayal and melancholy but towered above nearly everything he'd done since Blonde on Blonde. Riding this momentum, Dylan went for a larger sound, a sort of harkening to the days of jug bands and hootenanies, with Desire. Desire was a fine album itself, a rousing experience in the face of the tormented Blood on the Tracks - though its final track, "Sara," made an explicit attempt to atone for mistakes and patch up the marriage.

It was with the communal mentality of Desire - an album where many tracks sound spontaneous but severely lacking rehearsal (there are a lot of band slipups and Emmylou Harris sounds like a lost foal, as if she wasn't given a run-through of the lyrics before laying down her harmonies) - that Bob set out with for his grand tour through 1975-76, an ensemble that became known as The Rolling Thunder Revue, consisting of numerous musicians Dylan has associated with over the years. The tour started off big but got massive as it kept adding guests from show to show, sometimes those guests staying on for further tour stops. The wild party of drugs, alcohol and fanfare seemed to sap a lot of Dylan's creativity once the dust had settled and he was more theatrical than ever, donning a "mask" with eyeliner and white face paint (but don't worry, he didn't look like the lost third Jewish member of KISS). Amidst it all was the filming of Dylan's pet film project, a four-hour dirge that became known as Renaldo & Clara upon release in 1978 and the work on that ultimately worthless film held up Dylan's next release. The Rolling Thunder Revue tour finished in 1976 after generating much publicity and seemingly putting Dylan back on top. But Dylan, now 37 but with a wealth of experience behind him, was in a crisis period as his marriage officially ended in 1977 despite the attempts to repair it.

In 1978, he released the odd Street Legal, an album panned everywhere except in Europe, particularly Holland for some reason where it became seen as one of his best works (does this mean it needed Amsterdam marijuana to be enjoyed? Possibly so.) Of the 9 tracks, only "Changing of the Guards," "Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)" and "Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through the Heat)?" were worthy of being on an album issued by a name like Bob Dylan. It featured Dylan with a rather generic pro rock unit, equipped by multiple female backing singers- to become a trait of practically every Dylan album until 1989. The rather upfront and beefy sax of Steve Douglas added a Vegasy touch but the songs themselves lacked originality and though there were a few good ones, there were many that were truly pedestrian. This Dylan came off sounding like a neutered Bob Seger with a head cold. It seemed an unatural, ill-fitting next step after the highs hit in the mid-70s. With a similar band on the road to the Street Legal tracks, Dylan took to a big world tour through 1978-79 but it was disparaged by most critics for its dense sound and complete reinventions of old standards that rendered them either unrecognizable, lame or both. The double LP live document of the tour's Japanese visit was captured by the lousy Bob Dylan at Budokan.

The presence of several African-American women backing him not only gave the music a gospel feel but brought Dylan to a point no one thought imaginable in the past: Christianity. The whirlwind of his life and the personal failures led him to converse with these women about their faith and he also credited a Toronto concert when someone threw a silver cross onstage and he kept it for comfort. Then he apparently had a vision in a hotel room in Tuscon, Arizona, where he claimed to feel the spirit of Jesus with him. When the tour concluded, he shocked many by becoming a convert, a move many saw as hard to fathom, firstly because he was a Jew and secondly because his lyrics and attitude always seemed too intellectual and knowing to embace religion- at least that's what his secular and atheist supporters contended. Rumour had it he was baptized in Pat Boone's swimming pool, but there's never been any proof of this happening. If true, Boone could've turned it into a museum for a quick buck from Dylanites. As it turned out, as a born-again Christian, Dylan took to airing out his complaints quite heartily and vociferously. With this new faith, Dylan bravely made it clear and ever present in his live shows that he'd found Jesus, God, etc. But most of the tim,e all it seemed to do was make him angrier, more bitter with the world. That hasn't completely left his music to this day but it's more of a soft undercurrent compared to the dogmatic soapbox that was his Christian re-birth period.

1979's Slow Train Coming, produced by Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler, was the forum for these newfound beliefs and while the passion behind the more faith-based pieces equalled some of his 60s highlights, a lot of the blues-rockers were familiar sounding and only served for him to rant about those who were poisoning the world or going to hell. Yet it was

one of these, "Gotta Serve Somebody," that strangely enough won him his first Grammy award. Despite the flaws, Slow Train was seen as superior to Street Legal in most circles, and some even claimed it to be better than Desire. Knopfler's clean, feathery production certainly hit the spot after the rather aimless production jobs done on is previous two LPs. For a minute there in 1980, it seemed Dylan was going to turn it around and perhaps use his Christianity to become sensational once more, even if he had become so ingratiated in it that he was predicting the end times and the return of the Messiah in concert. After all, such a spiritual rebirth had done wonderful things for Van Morrison when he was in danger of becoming stale. But no such acclaim was made toward 1980's Saved, a stiff and joyless effort that was dead on arrival and among his worst albums. Aside from the grandiosity of "Solid Rock" and the touching "What Can I Do for You?" featuring perhaps his best harp solo ever, Saved was a limpid collection of gospel and boring blues-rock with Dylan's singing voice declining to the point where he was almost talking instead of even trying to properly sing anymore.

Shot of Love from 1981 was a marginal improvement and despite two of his worst songs ever - "Property of Jesus" and "Lenny Bruce"- contained at least some glimpses into Dylan's once golden touch, for example "Heart of Mine," "Groom Still Waiting at the Altar" and "Every Grain of Sand," one of his greatest 25 compositions in my humble opinion, a spiritual meditation that proved his Christian ballads could be quite deep and affecting when done well. Thanks to these two albums, Dylan's chart power had all but disappeared and Columbia no doubt was worrying, even though for years he had been one of the only artists on their label they considered immune to getting dropped (this holds true today, even though Columbia is just a symbolic label, inherited when Universal Music bought them up). To combat this, Dylan looked to Knopfler again, whose work had guided Slow Train to a decent finished product that struck the top 10 on the charts and impressed, despite being very much a non-secular work. For 1983's Infidels, Dylan had his strongest studio band in years: Knopfler and former Stone Mick Taylor providing guitars, reggae duo Sly (Dunbar) & Robbie (Shakespeare) on drums and bass and the keyboards provided by Knopfler's Dire Straits bandmate Alan Clark. The songs he brought to the table were almost uniformly better than anything since Desire. Though Infidels was his shortest release on quantity of tracks, just eight in all, it only really had one disappointment- "License to Kill" which was jut arranged in a static, boring way despite being nothing terrible on paper.

Plus, Infidels made the move to forgo most religious discussion and this would end his born-again period on record, as well as in life where he retreated from such intense bible-thumping after 4 years of getting to know the ugly side of Christianity, or so he claimed. The spiritual lessons stuck but if anything, it might've led him to rediscover his Judaism which he did in the late 80's. Infidels featured a great love song ("Sweetheart Like You") and a couple great spiritual songs ("I and I," "Jokerman"). Chart success wasn't much, but it was a bounce back from his previous two releases that sank without a trace. However, Infidelswas also noted for being a "could have been" masterpiece for excluding two superb songs, the bitter but fiery "Foot of Pride" and the mysterious "Blind Willie McTell," a true classic with just Knopfler on acoustic guitar and Dylan on piano, delivering a standout vocal performance. After his second best live album to that point- though that's not saying much considering how average Hard Rain is and how awful Budokan is- with 1985's Real Live, Dylan went even harder for a contemporary buck and a little interest from the youth. But was anyone really going to go nuts over a 44-year old who could barely wheez out a song... unless it was totally out of character for him and highly mainstream? The answer was no. But Bob gave it a shot with Empire Burlesque. He reached out to the cream of the crop of rock session men, writers and producers but namely Eurythmics' Dave Stewart and New York-based dance and hip hop producer Arthur Baker.

Despite its slickness, inadequate mixing and aimless electronic accessorizing, a lot of critics enjoyed this album and its songwriting isn't too shabby, even if its production often is. It only falls on its face for unfocused, throwaway cuts like "Never Gonna Be the Same Again" and "When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky." But this time most of the love songs don't suffer from dullness and though the synthesizer hijinks don't improve a lot of cuts, they don't ruin any either, aside from the cheesy disco of "When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky" (which had a rock version featuring the E Street Band's Roy Bittan and Steve Van Zandt- not released until 1991 by the way- that tears the Empire Burlesque version to ribbons). It even ends on a harkening back to the guitar-and-harrmonica folk days with the short, but memorable "Dark Eyes." 1985 was a busy year, as Dylan showed up on "We are the World," released a career retrospective "box set" called Biograph and performed at Live Aid in a rather slapdash, trainwreck acoustic set with technical gaffes and the unstable backing of an inebriated Ron Wood and Keith Richards of the Stones. Then Dylan topped it off by innocently suggesting some of the money raised go to help struggling American farmers, a quote considered the genesis for what became Farm Aid. He even gave his first TV interview in years and when you look at it, 1985 is the last time the guy could be seen everywhere, other than on tour.

The myriad of sessions Dylan was involved in from 1983-86 formed the basis of his next two solo albums, a pair of letdowns after Infidels and Empire Burlesque hinted at respectability. The first of which wasKnocked Out Loaded in 1986 and though it featured several notable guests in songwriting and instrumentation, one couldn't tell or really be excited about them. There are some of Dylan's worst tracks of the 80s- which says something- like the tossed-off "Maybe Someday," a horribly overwrought version of Kris Kristofferson's "They Killed Him" and even a cheesy 80s adaptation of the traditional folk tune "Driftin' Too Far from Shore." The only good news with the garbage record was the 11-minute "Brownsville Girl," a winding, stortytelling affair that was co-credited to playwright Sam Sheperd. Remodeled from a 1984 version that was even longer, titled "New Danville Girl," Dylan enlisted his backing singers to do some call-and-response to his spoken word lyrics, not to mention Western film mariachi horns and vivid stories of a relationship weaved around trying to recall what Gregory Peck movie he had seen in a theatre years earlier. It was a departure into chutzpah for Dylan, but the good kind thankfully. It was a fleeting moment of excellence in a time of dry wells of creativity. Still, Knocked Out Loaded made Infidels and Empire Burlesque look like chartbusters by comparisons, stalling out at a paltry on Billboard's charts without cracking the top 30.

1988's Down in the Groove arguably made no improvement even if it was an album of more consistency. But unlike Knocked Out, it lacked a true lynchpin track to get happy about. There were fewer writings from Dylan and more pointless, bluesy filler like "Had a Dream About You, Baby," "Let's Stick Together" and " At the same time, there was humour ("Ugliest Girl in the World"), stark folk covers to relive his halcyon folk prime ("Shenandoah," "Rank Strangers to Me") and a moving song taken to classic level later by Nick Cave ("Death is Not the End"), and also including a collaboration with hio-hop vocal group Full Force. But cobbled together through so many sessions dating back so far gives it a giant personnel list and where else are you going to hear Eric Clapton, Steve Jones, Randy Jackson (yes, the same one of American Idol fame), Sly & Robbie and Kip Winger all on the same album? Even Dylan's sporadic role in a film in the 80s was a woebegone attempt at achieving anywhere close to a decent standard. I speak of 1987's Hearts of Fire, a film that received limited release around the world and was panned by critics everywhere. If it was hard for Bob to figure out where his career was at by this point, it was even harder for audiences to accept. He still enjoyed the high stage musically, enjoying a slight resurgence in concert during a 1986 world tour with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers as his opening act and collaborators.

The Petty tour, according to Dylan in Chronicles Part One, found him regaining his strengths of singing his older tunes in a way where he could reinvent them and find meaning in them again (this just 8 years after forgoing his older material because these songs supposedly weren't sent to him by God to write). Whatever path he was on when discussing this, Dylan surely must have been referencing what prompted him to turn to constant touring starting 2 years later. Out of several collaborations with members of the Grateful Dead, Dylan went out on the road with them for a period in 1987, resulting in the unfortunate Dylan & the Dead, a low point for both well established veteran acts that should best be left forgotten. Bob also claimed in that memoir that he'd severely injured his hand in a boating accident and it made him question of he could play guitar again or if he should even bother with music anymore. Some have read into this beyond the ailing hand. One theory is that Dylan's crisis of confidence came from losing his singing voice as well and in his recordings after 1988, his voice took an inexplicable turn for the worst, losing range and being resigned to a low, crackled growl. Now it's not as if he could sing well when he had the full capabilities of his voice but since the late 80s, his singing voice has steadily worsened to this very day.

Needing a role where he could sink into the background, Dylan participated in the celebrated supergroup, the Traveling Wilburies. Though vocally and songwriting-wise his contribution were limited, it did do well to boost the fortunes of his sagging career and his goofy "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" was a highlight of the self-titled record that followed late in '88. With his reputation artistically shot on his own, Dylan found a temporary reprieve thanks to famed Canadian producer Daniel Lanois. Lanois had made waves in the past 3 years, producing commercial and/or critical smashes by U2, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson and the Neville Brothers. With practically the same studio group as the one on the Nevilles' absolute classic Yellow Moon, Dylan finally found a producer willing to do unique, breathtaking things with his sound. Lanois has grown to have a distinct style, sometimes one predictable and cliched despite its majestic splendor. But on 1989's Oh Mercy, it was the tonic needed to bring life to some of the simplest, yet genuinely heartfelt collection of songs Dylan had written since Slow Train Coming. Recorded down in New Orleans, the meticulously crafted Oh Mercy omitted the marvelous "Dignity" and "Series of Dreams" and a few others that were carried over to his next album.

There were still clunkers - "Disease of Conceit" and "Where Teardrops Fall" particularly - and tracks that could have been more special than their recording would present ("Ring Them Bells") but overall, relatonship compositions such as "Shooting Star," "Most of Time" and "What Good Am I?" were nearly the equal of his Blood on the Tracks confessions. It is possible he was still singing about Sara Lowndes in some form or another, as the songs evoke the heartbreak of long lost love. Dylan found new ways at painting blackness in song with the mysterious "Man in the Long Black Coat" and "What Was it You Wanted?" This foreshadowed how that ability would serve to revive his career. At this point, it would have been good for Dylan to have taken into consideration how not releasing an album every year or so could allow for backlog of quality, a practice that would have provided good albums if he'd waited 4-5 years afterInfidels to release his next LP. But as the relentless workaholic he was, Dylan soldiered on and followed up Oh Mercy with the confusing Under the Red Sky, an album so wildly inconsistent it led to the belief that Oh Mercy was a fluke and the brainchild of Lanois moreso than Dylan, though that wasn't quite true. This time, Bob let superstar producer Don Was take the reins, hoping for Was to rub off on him the way he had for Bonnie Raitt's major comeback hit Nick of Time the year prior. But Was's adherence to a beefy classic rock sound wasn't becoming of Dylan at this stage in his career.

There was head scratching and dismay over seemingly child-like tracks, but that was alleviated in later years when it was revealed he had a marriage from 1985-92 to backing singer Carolyn Dennis, and daughter with her that he kept out of the public's eye somehow. Speculation is that this album was his attempt at writing nursery rhyme songs for his then 4-year old girl; speculation borne out of the album being dedicated to "Gabby Goo Goo" in the liner notes. These nursery rhymes were nothing major though, being the amiable but ultimately mediocre "Wiggle Wiggle," "2 x 2," "Cat's in the Well" and "Handy Dandy." At other points Dylan sang generic blues-rockers but struck a deeper nerve with his more serious fare, which is actually the only thing preventing Under the Red Skyfrom being worse than Knocked Out Loaded. It's the title track, "God Knows" and "Born in Time" that resemble anything close to what Oh Mercy offered. Otherwise, Under the Red Sky is a better produced, but ultimately unsatisfying retread of his 80s mediocrity, filled with similar all-star ensembles backing unremarkable Dylan compositions, sung half-heartedly and rather weakly even for his standards (Get a load of this roster: Jimmy and Stevie Ray Vaughn, David Crosby, George Harrison, Bruce Hornsby, Elton John, Waddy Watchtel and Slash).

A year later came the first three discs of The Bootleg Series, an ongoing, eye-opening insight into how prolific Dylan had been, revealing even that he contributed some great songs in the 80s but decided to leave them off his albums. His early folk era was covered by Volume 1 and just his first couple of years in the industry provided a dizzying amount of vault material. Volume 2 looked at his formative electric years right up to Blood on the Tracks. Disc 3 was the biggest revelation of all, showing that in his pre-90s, post-Blood on the Tracks era of drought, he could still create incredible chestnuts like "Angelina," "Foot of Pride," "Blind Willie McTell" and "Series of Dreams," four tracks better than anything on his worst four albums of the 1980-90. Throughout all this, Dylan was touring constantly but often failing to light the embers of his former mastery. But if anything, Bob was going to work like a dog through whatever doubts people had about him. 1992 brought a 30th anniversary in showbiz tribute concert thrown by CBS, Columbia Records' parent company. The show, held at New York's Madison Square Garden, didn't reveal many top flight performances outside of Neil Young and Lou Reed and the all-star finale was a letdown especially with Dylan off-rhythmically mumbling, growling and wheezing through a verse of "My Back Pages." Its most memorable moment might have been non-musical as Sinead O'Connor, then embroiled in a controversy for tearing up the pope's picture on TV, was booed off stage before she could perform Bob Marley's "War" (and was consoled in her distraught state by Kris Kristofersson, who quipped "Don't let the bastards get you down").

Despite the adulation and respect pouring in from his label and his musician peers, the consensus with many critics and fans was that his best was gone, he had nothing left to give. Facing his first serious bout of writer's block in 20 years, Bob retreated to his roots for two folk cover records, 1992's Good as I Been to You and 1993's World Gone Wrong. Having barely arranged music just for vocal, guitar and harmonica since the mid-70s, it promised to at least be something different from the expected. Both were rather lo-fi for the day, merely being laid down by Dylan on a home four-track recorder with the same guitar and its old strings. Troughing through his incomparable knowledge and repertoire of traditional folk and blues,Good as I Been to You may not have been Dylan at his best vocally or performance-wise but it was a reminder of the young troubadour, wowing the patrons of the Greenwich Village coffee clubs. It had plenty of lighthearted whimsy and grease to it, specifically with "Frankie and Albert," "Sitting on Top of the World," and even the children's rhyme "Froggie Went-a Courtin'." But the darker, more harsh realities of love and life were echoed in the best covers of the album- "Little Maggie" and "Black Jack Davey" for instance.

It was with this bleaker side that Dylan ran with for World Gone Wrong, a reserved, subtle "fire and brimstone" affair that resembled Dylan's dim worldview of his Christian period, only this time applied to arrangements much less dense and more time honoured. It was hailed as a minor masterpiece, and finds Dylan evoking the dusty roads, plantations, run-down rural scenes and tragic realities of Depression era America. Coming off more like an old, wise man than a bitter, God-fearing sourpuss has been Dylan's metier ever since. After World Gone WrongTime Out of Mind was a major comeback and one that's quality, unlike Oh Mercy, has stuck with him for good, thankfully. 2001's Love and Theft stands as the crowned jewel of this renaissance. As for World Gone Wrong, it brings weary, bluesy, coal-dusted humanity and was arguably his best album overall since Desire (where have we hard that before?). Oh Mercy had elaborate production pieces that didn't always strengthen the songs but nonetheless it was the best album of original material in the period this article pertains to. But with fabulous numbers like the title cut, "Blood in My Eyes," "Love Henry," "Jack-A-Roe" and "Lone Pilgrim," Dylan enjoyed a surprisingly natural album than almost anything he'd done since the 70s.

On World Gone Wrong, the organic and satisfying progression up from Good As I Been, Dylan stood like one of the aged, experienced Delta blues giants he had always tried to replicate. Following this, Dylan began to restore his reputation as a must-see touring act by working for years with a reliable core of musicians. He quit his worrying drinking habit and started writing again, allowing for a freshness not seen in years. Bob still pulls out crazy moves like his recent Christmas album- albeit, done for charity- and he can still confuse and bewilder in concert, but overall he has learned how to hit his senior years gracefully. The middle aged years were no picnic but it took a real time of reflection for Dylan to recover his mantle. He also understands how to spread out his releases, to pile up quality songs, though he was on a real tear by following up 2006's Modern Times with Together Through Life under 3 years later. But if his years on this earth are now down to a mere decade or two, every music freak can be grateful that he stepped up his game one last time, for however long it lasted. God willing, he will be providing music for a lot while longer because if he can continue his post mid-life renaissance, the end of his glory is far from near.

Reviews: Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs"

2010-09-21T01:43:00.000-07:00

First Published in Pressplus1 Online Magazine:

http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/2501-cd-review-the-suburbs-by-arcade-fire.html

Upon the 2004 release of Funeral, Arcade Fire's back story became one of acute interest and relevance to several. Just where in the hell had this supernaturally gifted band come from?, folks wondered. While their members had been working in music for years before their 2003 formation, their ascension was rather quick and it's not as if they burst out of a metropolis well known for breaking big new acts like New York or Los Angeles. Instead, they showed up out of Montreal, a city previously best known for a gamut of artists of varying tastes such as Leonard Cohen, April Wine, Loverboy, Corey Hart, Sam Roberts and Celine Dion. Arcade Fire has given Cohen some company in the category of best thing musically to come out of Montreal. They arguably provide the best Can-Am mix of talent since the Band (a 4/5 Canadian group, meanwhile Arcade Fire's only American members are lead singer Win Butler and his lead guitarist brother William). When Win Butler hooked up with native Montrealer Regine Chassagne (raised in St. Lambert, the same town my mother grew up in I'd like to brag) Montreal wound up as the hotbed for the group to rise out of and it was a fertile time for the city's music scene then too.

Chassagne has been studying jazz vocal but those plans were scrapped and what a career move that's turned out to be. Her presence in the group has given a French appeal and Chassagne frequently refers back to the destitution of Haiti, where her family emanated from and had to abandon during the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier. Eventually the two became husband and wife but only after several members had passed through Butler's group over the years and they had finally formed Arcade Fire out of those ashes with Win's brother William, Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury, Dane Mills and Brendan Reed on their first EP lineup. Previously, Josh Deu and Tim Kyle had participated in the group. The lineup has remained pretty similar since formation and the number of members has grown to seven with drummers Reed and Mills gone, Howard Bilerman through and gone as well, and Jeremy Gara in the drum position ever since (that makes for 5 drummers in the band's history, but hey Pearl Jam has gone through over a dozen!). Violinist Sarah Neufeld is a wholesale addition added after the original 2003 formation. Thankfully, it hasn't become a group owned and run by the Butlers and Chassagne as they credit compositions to the band name rather than individuals. And it seems fitting they're such a big outfit these days, because when you have a violinist as an official participant of the band, you're pretty darn unique and can't fit your vision into a mere quarter or quintet (don't tell me ELO did the strings-as-members first and best, please).

After their beginnings in Montreal, they earned word of mouth respect and praise for their first EP and it culminated into a fortuitous moment where their first full-length release, Funeral, was greatly anticipated in underground circles, leading to a worldwide critical smash through 2004-05. For a change, the UK press took to a North American act like it was their very own. 2007's Neon Bible received similar acclaim, though more muted. However, many say time will iron out the wheat from the chaff and prove Neon Bible to be their true opus. The less hearty response to it was possibly due to slight backlash on the hype vapour trails left by Funeral. In this reviewer's opinion, Neon Bible was the truer masterpiece of the two. Neon Bible, other than its wickedly cool title, was a landmark album, perhaps the best of the previous decade and one of the few in recent memory that really was a rich experience to discover, as if nothing like it had come before. We get plenty of albums lauded and written about feverishly these days but many of them aren't breaking new ground or even traipsing over old ground in a way not seen or heard before. However, Neon Bible was, even if the influences were highly detectable at times. It was at times harrowing, disturbing and definitely took on a more cryptic tone than Funeral, though it had its lighter moments.

A band with as much to say each time out as Arcade Fire deserves to go every three years between studio albums and this is the case yet again as The Suburbs has now arrived in August of 2010. And while one might roll their eyes and find the critical adoration for this new album to be too gushing, almost a given and a self-fulfilling prophecy (and that person would be foolish and cynical anyway), the album really and truly is a new spin- a wide reaching attempt from Arcade Fire to draw in more casual listeners. Without sacrificing their essence, it appeals to a bigger audience with more emphasis on hooks and catchy keyboard melodies as well as increased presence of electric guitar. Now, the Arcade Fire is a bit like what you'd get with Tom Waits' instrument arsenal, if you gave it to more competent musicians trying to sound more professional and recorded it with state-of-the-art equipment. Often their songs are adorned with more traditional instruments of Americana like bottom end horns (tuba, french horn, etc.), accordion, odd percussion, old keyboards (ie. pipe organ), strings, mandolins and hurdy-gurdy but yet you can't call what they do rootsy or traditional. Their choice of goodies to play is as if they raided the basement of an old music hall and opted to go with the strangest stuff they could find for a rock band to use. The more obscure, the better.

And like the touring configurations Brian Wilson has been backed up by, namely the Wondermints, the band has enough hired hands to accomplish this all on stage without hiring different trained classical musicians for each tour. And they're good enough to make it sound as polished as a studio recording too. With Chassagne's Haitian background, they're also in tune with folk musics of that land and of her home province of Quebec. They can be an intimidating sight to behold on stage: a massive band beating out near-symphonic rock on many unorthodox instruments and getting caught up in the whirling dervish that is their music, as if in some secular congregation. If that's the case, Win Butler is their pentecostal preacher, summoning up the fire and brimstone as well as the sanctity and the salvation. Even though his voice conveys heaven-and-hell emotional pull like similar woebegotten or dramatic predecessors (Ian Curtis, Bono, Ian McCulloch of Echo & the Bunnymen- a more minor, less brilliant Arcade Fire of the 80s, David Bowie, Tom Verlaine), he never gets too pompous and on stage seems to be one of the more stoic, which still means he moves around and gets into it quite a bit. If there's one thing missing from the Arcade Fire in concert, it's a few instrumentalists who stay rather quiet, motionless or peaceful a la John Entwistle. Instead, they all get swept up in it and while one can argue the merits of their merry chants and choruses en masse, the music that results is arguably timeless.

While heavily weighted expectations are never something I like to see or wish to saddle on a band, I can definitely say that Arcade Fire are the best thing to happen to contemporary music in the past 10 years. They represent a ray of hope, riding on a crest of very interesting, hip indie music in the last 5-7 years. But where other indie giants have failed to go into the collective consciousness, the Arcade Fire has thrived by understanding it's best not to get too dogmatically serious or ambitious for the average listener. That is perhaps why The Suburbs is a scaling back of grand ideas just a tiny bit. For how can one hope to follow up Neon Bible with a record that opts for the same tenor? Perhaps it's because of their mutli-layered approach to recording, but I doubt we'll see them become U2 or Bruce Springsteen down the road, touring to packed stadiums around the world. That said they're not adverse to marketing their live work which is shown in how an August 5 show at Madison Square Garden was not only broadcast live on the net but also filmed for an upcoming concert movie. But in true, surreal Arcade Fire fashion, it's being directed by Terry Gilliam, the Monty Python animator/writer/director, famous for grim but cartoonishly imaginative movies such asTime Bandits, Brazil, The Fisher King and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

With two albums under their belt that have their underground and indie reputations cemented, it could be a risk to go for something more catchy but it all falls in to place quite well on The Suburbs. Who says pop has to be shallow? Often, when done right, pop music can be beautiful and glistening as well. This album reminds me of some of the more friendly releases by new wave/post-punk heroes that Arcade Fire owe a debt to, such as XTC, Echo and the Bunnymen or the Talking Heads. There's more electronic glow to the album as opposed to the frenetic, horn-driven wall of noise from previous releases. Already the album has received a ton of praise and has debuted at #1 in several countries, namely the UK where the Arcade Fire are a more victorious option to the dulcet tones of Coldplay, Keane or James Blunt (all mellow, but still one of these things is not like the others). With this kind of acceptance, the worry many critical allies, supporters and loyal fans will have is that the establishment will all of a sudden "wake up"- to use a pun- to Arcade Fire's marketing potential. They aren't the kind of band to let their persona be used for global corporate reach like the Black Eyed Peas (the model of what not to do if you're an underground favourite seeking massive popularity but trying to retain some measure of dignity). But I don't think a band like this can be spoiled too badly or will even let it come to that so there's no reason to panic.

As for what's inside the grooves on The Suburbs, what we have is some of the most carefree, triumphant work yet for this band, now flaunting an easier going side in heavier doses than ever before. The lead cut for the disc is also the title one and it's a bouncy, barocque sort of take on post-rock, built up beautifully as it winds along until taken over by a furious cascading of string ostinatos near the end. Win Butler uses his falsetto to great effect in one of his finer vocal tracks to date. The energy level goes from the jog of "The Suburbs" to an 100 metre dash as it segues right into "Ready to Start." On this cut- one of the jangly, fast tempoed centrepieces the way "Rebellion (Lies)," "No Cars Go" and "Keep the Car Running" were for previous albums- the tension is ratcheted up to the level we've come to expect from Arcade Fire. They do a wonderful job at fleshing out their already pulsing rhythms with a gloss of synthesizers echoing around the mix. A lot of the mass parts added to the record came after sessions where the group hammered out the songs' basic tracks like they were playing them live (standard practice for bands but necessary for a group trying to replicate a near orchestra of players on most tracks).

Despite having gone for such moments of drama and high anxiety on Funeral and Neon Bible, "Ready to Start" somehow does not feel old hat, as they've done enough alteration to the expected to come up with a what has the potential to be their first top 10 hit in Canada or the UK (the US hasn't been as receptive to their singles for whatever reason, though just give them an auto-tuned rhyming of words over a copped musical track and #1 is in sights!). On "Modern Man," tricky time signature changes are a wrench tossed into the machinery but it almost sounds like a continuation on "Ready to Start," just tightened up and quieted down a tad. It's again a suitably shiny affair, definitely indicating things are going to be slightly different on this LP. While The Suburbs is not an explicit concept album like we've come to know in rock, the tracks mostly flowing together and holding the theme of the 'burbs gives you the impression that it is. And Win Butler has said in press interviews that this was the life experience he was harping on throughout, so I guess we can call it somewhat of a concept album. At least, there's definitely more of a clear concept than their previous two albums. There's no connecting story arc or series of events so it's not the purest of concept albums but that's no problem.

A full musical, stage and film ambitious concept from the Arcade Fire would indeed be heady but we'll have to wait to see if it ever occurs. While adapting the work on Funeral and Neon Bible to some sort of other medium would be trickier, The Surburbs however does feel ripe for a movie or theatrical production adaptation. Win Butler's ruminations on growing up in such a scenario lend themselves better to that and you get imagery of innocence and paranoia and fear sometimes all in one song with this album. "Modern Man" is followed nicely by "Rococo," a more sedate, strange work, a slower but wilder piece with the guitar and string parts at the helm of several very psychedelic breakdowns that are reminiscent of how the best rock bands at using string backing have done it: a list that includes the Verve, the Beatles and Procul Harum. Heck, for that 60s feel there's both Hendrix-styled wailing feedback coupled with the shifty, glissando strings (not unlike the Beatles' "Within You, Without You") and even a harpsichord is played. Consider "Rococo" their tribute to psychedelia, and a fitting one at that. We're greeted right after "Rococo" by the solitary sounds of aggressively bowed strings, as if it's a Beethoven number about to occur. Instead, it's a grungy rock fist pumper entitled "Empty Room."

Chassagne joins in on vocals for this one and while she's the inferior of the two vocalists, she provides a different, more quirky tenor with her Yoko Ono-if-she-took-singing-lessons glee. One can't listen to Win Butler's breathless crooning all the time, right? "Empty Room" is a haunting rocker, the vocals awash in a chilly, almost industrial echo. Moving on, "City with No Children" reveals a newer side of Arcade Fire that proves at the core of their world-conquering denseness is a smart, able rock band. With a chunky guitar rhythm that sounds like William Butler was listening to some Keith Richards/Rolling Stones, they get a little bit heavier than usual. The words of this song seem to reflect on the coldness of an adult world, commenting that it feels like all the children have gone and left the city to leave the protagonist to wallow in their own "private prison." Fading in out of the ashes of that classic rocker is "Half Light I." Amidst triplets on guitar and tack piano, Chassagne breathily chimes in for what's another captivating tune. Without much of a backbeat, it's still the most majesty-swept of all the tracks to this point, swirling with an arresting string accompaniment that at one point plays a descending melody line somewhat like one from Isaac Hayes' "Shaft" but I doubt that was intended or noticed by many, except me of course (if I ever meet arranger Owen Pallett, I will show him what I mean). At 16 tracks, you can bet that there aren't a slew of lengthy performances here and not one track runs past 6 minutes, though a majority go past 4.

"Half Light II (No Celebration)" takes more of a defiant tone than the first part of its namesake, bubbling along like a prime early 80s dance floor number by New Order, Yazoo or Depeche Mode (a band that, along with Neil Young, Butler curiously enough said the songs sounded like a mix between in a Spin Magazine article from July 9). When it comes to electronics, this number is loaded with them and surrounds the other instruments with an alien, almost mechanical dome. But that's not a detriment whatsoever. There doesn't seem to be an instrument this band doesn't know how to utilize to its fullest. "Half Light II" is cinematic and gripping, with several stops, polyrhythms and melodic ideas propelling it into Brian Wilson territory for pop complexity. It never gets too overwhelming even though it's clearly not the first soaringly dramatic piece of the album at this halfway point. "Suburban War" goes for a folkier stripping down of things, bringing out Spanish acoustic guitar and guitar arpeggios on a 12-string Rickenbacker, a la the Byrds. There are even vocal harmonies in such a close-knit folk harmony style and "Suburban War" demonstrates that a folk-rock album from the Arcade Fire could be a true delight too. Indeed, they go off in so many directions with certain moments on this album. Often, you will hear a musical theme for a potential dozen different albums popping up, but the magic of the Arcade Fire is that they usually pack all that into each album of theirs anyway.

"Suburban War" reflects on the grown up phase after moving on from childhood haunts, with the mournful "My old friends, they don't know me now" line being a frequently sung one. Hard rocking venom is the order of the day with 'Month of May," a song with fewer pretensions than most Arcade Fire compositions, which can be a relief when the seriousness and weightiness gets too much (about the only flaw, if you can even call it that, that I have ever seen in the sturdy armour of this group). "Wasted Hours" is also pretty swinging, like a Kinks/Ray Davies observatory song from their late 60s period of suburban British pop shoegazing. There's more humanity and nostalgia involved in this outing for Arcade Fire, and tunes like "Wasted Hours" are a good example, with Butler expressing his regret over things from the past. "Deep Blue" is another finger-popping affair but much more orchestral in its presentation, even going for a rare guitar solo breakdown and that's maybe stretching it a little to call it that. It's stirring in its bottled-up manner, containing more ringing guitar parts than your average Arcade Fire track and lending toward The Suburbs being their most contemporary rock flavoured effort yet. Kicking off with straight piano triplets, "We Used to Wait" is another of the more guitar-based cuts. It's another fine effort and maintains a more hypnotic quality than others, thanks to its banging piano a la The Velvet Underground & Nico.

But this is part of the dichotomy Arcade Fire can set up, where you expect them to deliver something sophisticated and complex but you get something minimal and pedantic instead. And yet, both outcomes can thrill. That's their mark of authenticity toward greatness (even legends can have their one side be much more boring than their other. I can personally say that Bruce Springsteen's solo acoustic/harmonica efforts don't come close to his E Street Band recordings, and I think both Neil Young's acoustic and electric sides match up well but he is often less vital when doing pure country). There are some more strings beneath the surface on "We Used to Wait," which brings me back to Owen Pallett, a valuable contributor as the string arranger if I've ever heard one. Pallett, a violinist and in-demand arranger for others to no one's surprise, is a Toronto-born, classically trained musician that deserves his own gold star for his role, like how Paul Buckmaster could be closely associated with Elton John in his 70s prime. He really creates string parts that get great exposure in the mix and are hard to forget. Closing in on the finish, with "Sprawl (Flatland)" we get the theatric, sombre piece that sounds like a build up to a final climax that never comes as I found out. It's not without its vivid merit but it's a brief, rather sleepy number in comparison to the rest of The Suburbs.

But it plays its way into the bright, 80s techno bliss of "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)," another sharp commentary on suburbia that focuses on the constant commercial developments outside the city, hence the title of sprawl. It's also the sublime greatest song on the album, drawing on moody post-punk and electronica from years gone by while containing a bundle of excitement without going heavy on the musical dynamics or layering it with a billion overdubs. There's this sort of pondering throughout the album about whether this suburban sprawl we know today is really necessary and vital or simply just spreading civilization for the sake of the almighty dollar. We never get a full idea if Butler and co. really hate this kind of urbanization and the plundering of countryside but you do get a hint that the modern globalized community we live in is a bit of a boogeyman to them when Chassagne- in a fine starring role on vocals- sings "Sometimes I wonder if this world's so small/Can we ever get away from the sprawl?" The "mountains beyond mountains" term is used to describe the enormity of the mega malls now populating the suburbs they sing of throughout the CD (echoing the childhood of Butler and his brother- the two youngest members of the band by the way at 30 and 27 respectively- who were raised in a conservative Mormon household in the suburbs of Houston. Back when Win was known as Edwin!). It's often the contrast of the present, and what it means for the future, with the carefree past that is at the centre of focus on this album.

However, any question of whether this is some sort of scathing expose or not is answered if you take Win Butler's word for it. He told the New Music Express in a July 31 interview that the album is "neither a love letter, not an indictment of, the suburbs- it's a letter from the suburbs." Which gets me back to another dependable trait with this group is that they don't foist political beliefs and outrage on you like some jaded protest singer. They seem to have a liberal streak through them as most rock bands, speaking highly of folks like Barack Obama, but you just don't get a full view of what they truly think. They present the world in negative and positive lights, report on it all and then let that stand as their message. They're journalists moreso than activists. There's little deciding on what you should think from Arcade Fire and while some who enjoy their sociopolitical appetite to be whetted by such indie artists, most would rather not be drilled by it. And the Arcade Fire's is a welcome approach for many. A tacked-on finale is the lovely 1.5 minute "The Suburbs (Continued)" where Butler opines about the past, but insists if he could have that time back he'd waste it all over again, a revisiting of "Wasted Hours." A wry, heartwarming observation considering all the unsure thoughts and emotions the album frequently touches on through its first 15 tracks.

Alongside his wife, Butler then reprises the chorus of the lead cut and title track. Intriguingly, The Suburbs ends on that note without going for the raging finale you'd think was coming. Instead, it opts to come out of the gates crashing and bucking like a bronco and goes out nestling down in the grass like a foal. And I don't think I'd have it any other way for a tremendous third album from a major act that will hopefully keep us coming back for more of this artistry every three years. While not quite the equal of the symphonically fantastic Neon Bible, it's not far off and comes as a bit of a relief from that album's grim, eternal search through some sort of dark opera or dystopian world. Therefore, it's hard to write that this third one is inferior. It's just an apples and oranges dilemma, frankly. While combining all the elements of their previous two records, the Arcade Fire manage to make #3 the most uplifting, cheery and hopeful thing they've put out yet. Maybe they're getting nicer and happier as they mature. Who knows? So go ahead and award them Album/Record/Song of the year, etc., Grammy people. It will take a lot more than that to sour some of us on these gypsy rogues, the possessors of the ultimate brain power exemplified in contemporary music. Right now, they're making the transition from beloved indie heroes gone international music phenoms look rather easy. Once again, they've unleashed a work destined to be viewed as iconic and legendary.

Track Listing (Rating):

1. The Suburbs (5/5)

2. Ready to Start (5/5)

3. Modern Man (5/5)

4. Rococo (4.5/5)

5. Empty Room (5/5)

6. City with No Children (5/5)

7. Half Light I (5/5)

8. Half Light II (No Celebration) (5/5)

9. Suburban War (4.5/5)

10. Month of May (4/5)

11. Wasted Hours (4.5/5)

12. Deep Blue (4.5/5)

13. We Used to Wait (4/5)

14. Sprawl I (Flatland) (3/5)

15. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (5/5- Best track)

16. The Suburbs (Continued) (4.5/5)

Review: 4.5/5 stars (A)

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Just Another Commercialized, Self-Congratulatory Establishment

2010-09-21T01:41:00.000-07:00

First Published in Pressplus1 Online Magazine:

http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/2324-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-just-another-commercialized-self-congratulatory-establishment.html

I am not one to bemoan educating younger folks about the great music that the second half of the 20th Century has produced... But is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame really the way? I suppose it can help but it doesn't really need to be there to provide this. At the very least, their own exclusivity raises questions of how they leave in or out who they want at whim.

With the help of books (almost a lost concept now that we have the internet at our behest) along with the music itself, I learned plenty. And I keep on learning. Now, surfing the web enhances and improves on that but the basis came by listening and reading. All this Hall of fame cheesiness serves to do is to get aging fans a glimpse of their aging heroes getting an honour from aging executives, journalists and other media types who make/made the rock scene run.

Hey, no problem with growing old, but what they leave out and how they present memorabilia just rubs me the wrong way. It does bother me that while classical and jazz music have gone academic, getting PBS specials, preservation projects and museums, rock & roll has to be lowered to becoming a commercialized shrine. It was always a phenomenon about breaking up the ennui but underneath it all was the seedy desire to get some bang for the buck and that's manifested itself over the past 25 years or so.

Reflecting on these last 25 years, perhaps rock is making a slow transition to being old, buried and cultist itself. Or it's fragmented so often that we can't really say it's gone into the underground like jazz did. It's all music history but we just like to categorize it in order to coherently speak of it.

So is the monster known as rock & roll really that becoming of a staid museum or of stuffy intellectual analysis? No not really, unless it's going to be done in documentary form and as well as Martin Scorcese has captured it with his series on the blues, not to mention No Direction Home, a look at Bob Dylan's early years that should be required viewing for fans of the 60s culture in general.

But to be reduced to an exclusive club that has become just like the Grammys, putting notoriety ahead of influence? That grinds my gears a tad. A Hall of fame in general is not necessarily like curse to creativity or anything. No mere mortals get in and it's not necessarily a popularity contest, or else Glen Campbell'd be in for crying out loud.

Mind you, I don't loathe them the way John Lydon has made clear he does, when he and the Sex Pistols refused to show up for their own R&R HOF induction ceremony via a barely legible, crudely written letter. Articulate and verbose isn't protocol for the Pistols, after all. But hey, Lydon hates almost everything anyway, right?

Still, despite being against the Hall on principle, the Pistols were one of the few to mock their own awarders. That and they had a legitimate gripe that to bring any friends or relatives, one had to shell out $25,000 for their own 10-seat table.

Then Madonna's rather hastened induction in 2008, in my opinion, gave her the opportunity to thumb her nose at authority once more, drafting in Iggy Pop & the Stooges for her two performance slots. It was a shot fired across the bow at the Hall for a particular complaint many were carrying — the long-standing snub to the convention-defying, groundbreaking Iggy & his former bandmates.

One year later, Iggy & company were in but Ron Asheton had passed away due to a heart attack, thus shaming the Hall. As always, what Madonna wants, Madonna gets. This mishandling of the Hall that I speak of all makes sense considering rock has been cheapened and cashed in on endlessly for its prime years of ruling the charts. I don't quite mean musically, just marketing-wise.

It's hardly a new phenomenon, just one magnified by the tech revolution's spawning of the global community. So is the fact that a star can be born out of barely anything remotely talented, so therefore the promoters have been just as vital in causing the great fame known to rock fans since the genre exploded onto the pop scene. When a generation of artists faded for the most part and became primarily known for their "oldies," nostalgia bucks became the target.

I only feel sorry for the 50s legends that never got the true corporate push when they were relegated to the circuit in the 60s and 70s, barely struggling to get along. They had to "sell out" just to keep their lifestyle going. And the black musicians who played a big role got it even worse due to racism.

Putting aside the crass presentation of rock's history by the Hall, I must pick a bone with the induction decision making. If you're going to have a Hall of fame, why not at least get it right? Most of the time, those who deserve it do get in. But when we look at the reasons — influence, importance, timelessness, achievements alike — then this is not held up 100% of the time.

Lynyrd Skynyrd and Iggy Pop & the Stooges were obviously short-lived, lasting in their first finalized lineups for 6 and 7 years respectively. Both had to wait at least a decade after eligibility but Madonna and U2 get in immediately? Politicking at its best. These latter two artists are no doubt more famous worldwide and made people way more money, therefore their recognition comes sooner.

Whatever happened to treating everyone fair? Is their criteria dependent on being known worldwide or something? And does a Hall of Fame have to get on that gravy train? What's to gain? They can put display cases of Bono's Zooropa tour wardrobe or Madonna's famous cone-shaped bra before inducting them in.

And when the icon you grew up with gets in, you feel old, which I know will be a crisis point for Gen X'ers when Pearl Jam gets in sometime in the next decade (2016 is their eligibility!). Pearl Jam's constant triumph of will over the corporate machine and its legions of fans should be enough to get them in right away.

But lord knows, after pissing off MTV (for not making videos) and Ticketmaster (for demanding they lower ticket prices for fans), Pearl Jam is hardly on their way because they pleased capitalists alike. Anyway, time irons out both the pretenders from the real things but also goes easier on groups that generated howls of revolt in their time.

The Eagles are a shining example of a mega-successful band that survived on classic rock radio, broke up in their prime and managed to outlast the majority of the negative press from rock circles that said they were bland, boring, sterile and overhyped.

There was a lot of it from critics who'd gone through the 60s and were sickened that the end result produced a safe, commercial, banal 70s supergroup answer in essence. Yes, the Eagles, despite their record breaking achievements, were scathed in their time too. Meanwhile, there's a case like Genesis. They got in a few years back, after 5 years of eligibility or so, but hardly on the backs of their prog rock days with Peter Gabriel.

I am positive that the fact Genesis survived well enough to enjoy megastardom a decade later made their prog heroism all the more relevant to most and got them inducted. U2 and Madonna are still big draws in concert and release albums plenty of people care about, even if some feel their former work overshadows it — a criticism mainly heard about U2.

The ones who toiled in obscurity but put greatness down on record need their respect. Before giving Madonna and U2 their due, why not focus on the influences who didn't achieve superstardom? Recognizing Grandmaster Flash was a step in the right direction but done right away, as if to legitemize hip-hop within the rock elite community.

And believe me. A big list is out there of deserving inductees. Despite their universal respect, several have not been inducted and have little chance of seeing such an honour. Now I know there's only so much room and I do not want or expect all the following to get their due. Behold the shame:

Captain Beefheart, the Replacements, the New York Dolls, the Fall, Nick Drake, Husker Du, the Jam, Bill Withers, Loudon Wainwright III, Marianne Faithful, John Prine, the Mekons, Todd Rundgren (?), Nina Simone (?), MarsHall Crenshaw, Joy Division/New Order, Big Star (now hardly a living embodiment due to the passing of Chris Bell in 1979 and Alex Chilton earlier this year), Nick Lowe, Mott the Hoople, Graham Parker, Kate Bush, Kraftwerk, Lee Dorsey, Television, Roxy Music, XTC, Tom Waits, Sonic Youth (unless you go by their major label debut which wasn't until 1988), the Spinners, Warren Zevon...

Woo, I need a breather. I could be forgetting some. Do all of them really need to get in? Well, if you lower the bar enough then yes. The Hall's carrying double standards. While all we hear about it how KISS isn't in, these luminaries are left out in the cold.

Yet every musician and his dog from the 50s get their due so any point about cult artists being exempt is ludicrous. I will not begrudge the 50s and 60s for getting mad hype in the Hall, because those eras were arguably better than what came after. However, I sense a little bit of exclusivist bias perhaps.

Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers? As important as they were in doo-wop, they barely lasted and one could say if not for the fact Lymon was a 13-year wunderkind and "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" was classic, they'd hardly be a blip on the radar.

Richie Valens got in, and despite being very influential in his short time for paving the way for Chicano rock and Latinos in American pop in general, it wasn't a long or productive enough time.

Buddy Holly had two years on him and made dozens more recordings that were even more influential. Valens going down in lore for his death being in the same crash as Holly is another helping point that got him inducted (awww, no love for the Big Bopper? Ok, I kid).

For some odd reason the Jann Wenner/Rolling Stone hierarchy tends to ignore several greats who were around when their magazine became an institution in the 70s. What it comes down to is that the R&R Hall of Fame is getting a bit too mainstream and doesn't acknowledge those who don't have their greatness reflected by album sales.

In short, it's becoming too much like the Grammys, or an exclusive club that you need friends and confidantes on the inside of to get notoriety if you're not a household name. This Grammy-like mentality rewards those who fill people's lines with cash, not necessarily those who fill hearts with inspiration. Many, it can be argued, fall into the bin of "Not Well Known Enough" and some won't lose any sleep over being passed over, but for fans these snubs seems like too offensive a slight to let pass.

The criteria for who gets in is also sometimes lost, and often an artist's former glories in bands play a part. George Harrison may have been a fine songwriter, but after his first album never really became as special as either McCartney or Lennon's solo careers. I don't deny the Hall its right to exist or be highly visible. But shaping up is indeed in order or the Hall will degenerate into a bad joke.

Reviews: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' "Mojo"

2010-09-21T01:38:00.000-07:00

First Published in Pressplus1 Online Magazine: http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/2219-cd-review-mojo-by-tom-petty-the-heartbreakers-a-band-as-tight-as-ever-displays-some-blistering-heavy-blues-crunch.html

Tom Petty, often with his backing group the Heartbreakers, has already established himself as a classic rock mainstay, though he has still found interest with albums that have reflected on the aging stage of life. Unlike most of his contemporaries and influences, Petty still manages to get what he wants to say across to a large, receptive audience. He has been a mellower Southeast American version of Neil Young, as evidenced by his three official solo LPs Full Moon Fever(1989), Wildflower (1994) and Highway Companion (2006). Only enough, the former two provide the bulk of his radio staples today. You can't listen to any classic rock station for a while without hearing "You Don't Know How it Feels" (aka "Roll Another Joint" according to stoner enthusiasts), "It's Good to Be King," "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin," "Runnin Down a Dream," or "Yer So Bad." But Petty has seemed more cool, easy going and hip in the past 20 years than the previous 15 where his material was very much aggressive, yet more mainstream rock, even if it might have enamoured many with its new wave sensibilities.

Petty made his bread off of being able to incorporate pop hooks into the mixture, speaking to the kids of middle America who grew up in small cities or towns. His influences rooted in 60s giants like the Byrds and the Rolling Stones, Petty's pre-Full Moon Fever work was buoyant, restless rock with Hammond organs, power chord guitars and twangy, hollered vocals from a youthful sounding (and looking) Petty. As far as pure 60s/70s styled rock craft goes, not much can top "American Girl," "Breakdown," "Don't Do Me Like That," "Refugee," "Even the Losers," "The Waiting," "Change of Heart" or "Rebels." With Full Moon Fever, he settled into a more well-known stage of his career, as a laid back sort of Bob Dylan prototype, complete with drawling, droning voice and a middle-aged hippie soul. At the same time, his music videos received heavy MTV rotation as, unlike many 70s counterparts, he found a way to transition into the new decade without losing a step or looking out of touch or out of place.

Did his stint in the Traveling Wilburies lead to this settling down? Perhaps, but the gentler, folky side of Petty had been hinted at somewhat on the rather overlooked 1987 effort Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) and even on Southern Accents from 1985. When he made his triumphant break from the Heartbreakers, if only temporarily, Petty was coming off a few albums that didn't live up to the expectations of his earlier ones, plus a close call with a fire that gutted much of his Los Angeles home and his family barely escaped (later it was found to be arson but no culprit could be tracked down so Petty had his house rebuilt with fireproof materials). 1987-88 wasn't the happiest of times, however the Wilburies gig and bandmate Jeff Lynne producing Full Moon Fever turned it around. Since then, Tom has had little trouble with selling out arenas or charting in the top 20 with his albums.

At the heart of Mr. Petty is a Southern boy, but from the heart of the gator-swamp Florida, Gainesville to be specific. Already put on the rock map by Lynyrd Skynyrd, the title of Gainseville's best export was nearly rivalled by Petty's original band Mudcrutch but for various reasons that outfit never made it big. In fact Petty, having spent recent years revisiting his past via a coffee book autobiography and a Pete Bogdanovich directed documentary, both called Runnin' Down a Dream, organized a reunion of Mudcrutch in 2008. Mudcrutch had been more blues-flavoured than Petty and the Heartbreakers but eventually broke up in 1975, leaving Petty, longtime collaborator and lead guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench to form the Heartbreakers out of its ashes along with fellow Gainesvillians Ron Blair (bass) and Stan Lynch (drums). Blair is once more the Heartbreakers' bassist today, having replaced his own 1982 replacement Howie Epstein, who tragically let his demons overcome him when he died of a heroin overdose in 2003, a year after being sacked from the group.

Meanwhile, Lynch would be replaced after his acrimonious departure in 1994 by Steve Ferrone while Scott Thurston became a sixth member around 1991-92, supplying guitar, keyboards, harmonica and harmony vocals over the years. This lineup survives to this day, having worked on 1991's Into the Great Wide Open, the new recordings for 1993's platinum-selling Greatest Hits, the 1996 soundtrack to the film She's the One, 1999's Echo and 2002's The Last DJ. Petty's railing against the music industry for putting its direction in the hands of bimbo teenage pop, visual glitziness and homogenizing radio playlists everywhere. Since then we've gotten Highway Companion and 2008's self-titled Mudcrutch, from their mentioned reunion. But in name, the Heartbreakers have returned from a seven year itch for the grittiest, greasiest showcase of low-down, cosmic blues rock Petty has ever unleashed. It took nearly 4 decades but we've finally got a raw, natural sound out of the band, the songs being mostly recorded without overdubs and done in Petty's rehearsal space. These days he seems in fine form, as vibrant as he has sounded in years and his voice clearer and sharper than in years, likely due to Petty cutting back on his smoking habit.

After the Mudcrutch experience, Petty was looking to capture a raw live band in the studio, free of overdubs and jamming and playing songs like they were still limbering up in rehearsal. That is all achieved quite faithfully by Mojo, a fitting title since so many tunes by the captivating bluesmen of the past referred to getting that "mojo" working or coming into possession with one of those famed "mojo hands" (in voodoo lore, a magic bag of good luck charms). Petty has stated that the album is similar to the Allman Brothers Band, but not so much in the songs as in the jam-heavy, loose atmosphere of white Southern dudes playing around with electric guitars and organs. This album also gives listeners a chance to hear his eternal sideman Mike Campbell flash his chops a little more than usual. Good thing too, since for too long Campbell has been one of the more overlooked and underrated guitarists of the 70s and 80s and onward. He's all over the premier track on Mojo is the chugging "Jefferson Jericho Blues." It features dirty old blues harp from Thurston and sounds eerily like the bastard child of Bob Dylan's 1966 cut "Obviously 5 Believers."

Thurston's harp and Campbell's guitar combine for a harmonizing solo that kicks right into a hot solo by Campbell on his own. There's nothing too original or groundbreaking about this lead track, but it sure as hell gets toes a tapping. Petty's voice is a bit too nasal and whiny to sing the blues, but that's my only real complaint here. Much less ingrained in Chicago blues, but still similar to those Allmans, is "First Flash of Freedom," an exalted piece that echoes the darker Petty music of his 1976-81 classic period. Benmont Tench's B3 Hammond organ is omni-present, though a few flourishes can be heard outside the standard comping. "First Flash" is a bit like Hendrix in its acid-washed, guitar lathering plus the intro and outro chord progression. Also, it grooves mellowly like a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young composition, yet excites more, featuring Campbell's expressive leads and plenty of wah-wah and guitar interplay that's just missing from most rock records today, let alone ones by classic, middle-aged artists. This is also one of three tracks on this 15 track album that was co-written by the oft-dreadlocked Campbell. Mojo keeps on trucking as easily the most guitar geared album in Petty's catalogue on the smoky jam, "Running Man's Bible."

"The Trip to Pirates' Cove" follows in another sedate mood, with electric piano from Tench not unlike the playing heard on the Doors' "Riders on the Storm". A distant, echo effect employed at the end of each line sung by Petty could have been a laughably misplaced modern trick, but instead it just enchances the mystical aura of the recording. "Candy" is a tight, relaxed boogie that is less of the Allman Bros. vein and more of an early ZZ top one, with Campbell supplying funky slide guitar. Its arrangement saves what's pretty much the first filler tune on the album, a variation on the blues repeat verse, 12-bar blues form with Petty informing us on how he likes candy, but won't "go for them turnip greens." If you're going to have a rather ordinary cut, at least make it different- as in a little goofy and witty right? Check marks all go up for those requirements on "Candy." A little more wisdom and melancholy steps into the circle on Mojo for the memorable "No Reason to Cry," one of Petty's best ballads in years. Campbell's slide is augmented by some pedal steel guitar too, supplying mournful country touches that make one recall a little of Petty's dear departed Wilbury friend George Harrison.

Things swing back toward bad ass for the Zeppelin-esque stomper "I Should Have Known it," a fierce showing that could give any White Stripes, Black Keys, Kasian or Wolfmother a good run for their youthful money. There's even a double time shift halfway through to really get the blood pumping. It's quite possible that Petty & the Heartbreakers haven't sounded so vital, so hard and raw, perhaps ever. There's no melodic medal of honour for this one, like "Free Fallin'" or "Refugee" but "I Should Have Known it" makes up for that on piledriving riffs alone! And what a surprise, sharing credit is the always dependable Campbell, a co-writer and/or producer of several other noteworthy songs and bands in his career. You feel like you're touring the backwoods down South for "U.S. 41," a dead ringer for Muddy Waters, with Petty's best vocal track of the album perhaps. It tells stories centred around the highway in question, sort of Petty's own "Highway 61 Revisited" or "Highway 51."

There's even a character referenced as Lucky, and maybe that was an intentional nod to his voiceover role as dimwitted hillbilly Elroy "Lucky" Kleinschmidt on the animated series King of the Hill. He even uses some of Lucky's drawl when singing the tune, so it often makes me think we're hearing about events that could've taken place in and around fictional Arlen, Texas. With "Takin' My Time," the wah-pedals and harp are broken out once more. But thankfully, it's hardly your average heaping of blues as the arrangement is built off of several rhythm changes, though it's mostly done in a thumping, bolero-styled march. More of a tight rehearsal than a substantively creative songwriting piece is "Let Yourself Go," which seems more than any other track to be a chance for all the members to show off their solo chops. If you are aware of his history with Mudcrutch, you'll know that the only thing they got nationally released was a reggae-ish single produced by Denny Cordell called "Depot Street." Since Petty isn't one to resist reggae- he even sings like he's Jamaican on 1976's "Breakdown"- you won't be too taken aback by "Don't Pull Me Over," a bit of social commentary as it's sung from the view of a man who begs the cops not to pull him over or arrest him because of the family that so desperately depends on what he earns.

Of course, we learn in the final verse of "Don't Pull Me Over" that the beleaguered poor man is trafficking marijuana ("should be legalized" the man assets, though no doubt a figure like Petty- often pigeonholded as an old hippie-dippy stoner- feels the same way). Musically, Campbell is the star as usual while Tench's choice of electric piano is a wise one since organ was getting overly familiar by this point, at least for me. A jazzier blues is represented with "Lover's Touch." It's atmospherically intriguing, but one of the weaker inclusions on Mojo nonetheless. It's a bit more funky in the room with "High in the Morning," perhaps a cautionary drug tale, something Petty could sing about from experience I'm sure, though mainly from the tragic decline and death of Howie Epstein- possibly in mind when the song was written. Stepping outside the box is "Something Good Coming," composed in 3/4 time and exploring more sentimental ground by discussing family life. Petty sings of disappointments and hardships but keeps insisting about that "something good coming" in the chorus. It reflects the track his life has taken since a late 90s divorce forced to him to re-examine things and threw him into a depressed, hermit-like existence for several months in 1999-2000. Whether or not written about his real-life second wife doesn't really matter.

The heart-on-the-sleeve expression of "Something Good Coming" is warm and eye-opening. Petty gets more personal than we're used to hearing by declaring he's "In for the long haul" and that "Work's all I've ever known." By this he's probably admitting his dogged life's work toward being a rock star and keeping that gravy train going sidetracked him from his duty to his wife and kids a little bit. But I suppose he's pledging he's changed and improved in that respect. So I guess though we can't expect any long sabbaticals from music to come from Tom, he's old and wise enough to know better now. In recent years he has made clear his aversion to doing worldwide tours for every album like he used to. The final number is "Good Enough." It tries to be like classic sinister Petty, his own version of John Fogerty doing the voodoo blues in his Creedence Clearwater Revival days. That, by now, isn't anything unexpected or revitalizing for Mojo but Petty again makes it worth your while. It's really welcome that there's a middle eighth that throws in the heavy power chords and drums with Petty hollering about the woman he sees as "Good enough for me!/Good enough for right now!"

With its slow tempo, jagged chord changes and chromatic riffs, "Good Enough" is the loopiest arrangement on Mojo and finishes it off with a curveball as one of the more melodically inventive songs he's done in years. Campbell's guitar playing seems to leap out of its usual controlled tone and go for raw power, emotion and volume. The album practically climaxes right as it ends with an instrumental outro not unlike the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," only not even half as long thankfully. And again, Campbell contributes a co-credit writing. No surprise since every time he collaborates with Petty, it generates a special quality of sorts.

When it comes down to it, Mojo never disappoints you. Its peaks are numerous, its valleys infrequent. After all, when an album builds your expectations up after its first several cuts, you start wanting more of it and often you don't get that. And at 15 songs, you'd expect that with Mojo. But no. This CD always pulls out a surprise when you least expect it. It's an encouraging display from a man who by sheer longevity, determination and artistic but down-to-earth honesty has managed to cement his place as a living legend in rock.

Rating: 4/5 stars (A-)

Marshall Crenshaw: On a Forgotten Legend

2010-09-21T01:35:00.000-07:00

First Published in PressPlus1 Online Magazine:

http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/2177-marshall-crenshaw-on-a-forgotten-legend.html

Wrong place, wrong time: This popular phrase is often used but hardly anywhere in our contemporary music world, at least post-disco, can this homily be used on anyone more fitting than Marshall Crenshaw. Now, Rock and Roll has been through so many permutations, subgenres, trends and phases that it's almost exhausted itself out of relevance. But as of 2010, it still beats at the heart of much great music being made. It's endlessly adaptable, especially when crossed with the other musical strains of the world's history. But more than ever, it seems absent on the charts unless in the form of something hideously generic and formulaic. This is nothing new but the way media has rapidly changed in the past decade and a half- touched off by the internet's ascent- has toppled the old methods so much so that even music videos have become secondary. Good ride while it lasted, MTV, but I suppose you guys got the picture by switching to an all-reality tv programming mandate.

As for rock and roll, in the English-speaking world it still has relevance in the UK but certainly in Australia, which embraced the garage rock explosion of 10 years ago and still generally favours rock over mainstream club and hip-hop music which seems to dominate our airwaves in North America. But once upon a time (the 1960's) one could be experimental, groundbreaking and still find the chart's top 10. It wasn't this way ever again, even for most punk and new wave 10 years later. In the early 80s, Warner Bros.Records tried to jump on the new wave train, and the slightly hot neo-rockabilly wave that had grown out of the UK's pub rock scene and flowered in reaction to the increasingly glittery and fashion-conscious world of pop. They did this mainly when they signed up Marshall Crenshaw, who only enjoyed association with the new wave because of his bare bones, clean guitar-driven sound. In reality, he was a traditionalist who echoed the halcyon days of British Invasion pop and the influences of that style, luminaries such as Buddy Holly, the Everly Bros. and Chuck Berry or, in general, soul, doo-wop and Motown, which would be perfectly explainable for Crenshaw because he was born and raised in Detroit.

Crenshaw's first album was about as innocent and pure as pop music gets in 1982, evoking the AM radio oldies that have survived on the crest of nostalgia for several decades now. Only, this music was done with an updated production style. That debut, Marshall Crenshaw, was a critical home run that gained a modicum of interest thanks to a minor hit cover of his "Someday, Someway" by rockabilly revivalist Robert Gordon. Crenshaw's own version of "Someday, Someway" became his one and only top 40 single. His early work is primarily about seeking innocent young love, such as on his debut LP's "Girls..." "Brand New Lover," "Rockin' Around in the NYC," "I'll Do Anything," and a cover of Arthur Alexander's "Soldier of Love (Lay Down Your Arms)." But even through his fixation on the whirlwind experiences of young love, Crenshaw touched on tinges of the bittersweet side, through "There She Goes Again," a shimmering pop tale about seeing an ex-lover walking down the street with her new guy- oh the favourite rock scene of post-breakup heartache.

There's also the earnest, pining "Mary Anne," and the aformentioned "Someday, Someway" which brings up the quarreling and misunderstandings that some relationships produce. But this was not dark territory at all and Crenshaw has never wavered on a relatively bright outlook through song in his career. He's never been one to wallow in misery, an actual rarity among most great writers we've seen. That's not to say he's never had his share of hangups, but Crenshaw had never been one to dwell in depression musically. Don't be fooled by the titles on his debut, as sometimes a track like "Cynical Girl" actually turns out to be a positive portrayal of love, as Crenshaw claims that if he can find that certain someone who fits the bill, he'll be "Lost in love/And havin' fun with my cynical girl/We'll have no use for the real world." This ability to go against expectation was a further attribute to a tremendous singer-songwriter with almost no pretensions to speak of.

A fabulous trio was all Crenshaw needed in the studio, laying down all the guitar parts while his brother Robert played drums and bass was handled by Christ Donato. Marshall's mastery of the Beatles early day breadth is evident by the rockabilly overtones of "The Usual Thing," a superb ringer for the Fabs digging into Carl Perkins, while "She Can't Dance" also echoes 50s "At the Hop" sort of rock. For those who heard a lot of Beatle memories in his material, it certainly came as no shock to learn that he had been in an Off-Broadway company production of Beatlemania, playing John Lennon, whose likeness he somewhat bore in real life by wearing granny glasses at times. Based on appearances, he could've been another nerd trying his hand at rock but he was a lot less nerdy than other bespectacled heroes like Holly, Hank Marvin and Elvis Costello. By the time he finally had his first LP out, Marshall was a grizzled- by rock standards- 28 years of age- but with a plenty more experiences to get across than some 21 year old who could never fully grasp what adulthood really encompassed. This rock he was astutely in touch with was as inoffensive as it gets in the 1980s but not even close to the point of being sickly sweet or maudlin.

Why should such friendly fare be ignored then? Well, kids of the 80s weren't as geared on reviving the music of their parents generation and it was simply a matter of Crenshaw's work being too rooted in the past or slightly passe despite its strong production and readymade-for-radio hooks. Warner Bros. did not do that much to promote the album with the radio people, instead relying on pushing the gem they'd signed up on rock critics and journalists alike. As a result, the first album barely dented the top 50 despite staying on the charts for six months, building up an impressive critical acumen and to date never going out of print. Some critics were annoyed at the hype given to Crenshaw though and when his followup arrived, there were sticklers to conventional production that jumped on the changes to his sound ushered in by Steve Lillywhite, an in-demand British producer who had made his bread working with Peter Gabriel, U2 and others by this point and has gone on to forge a wonderful career in the studio ever since.

Now, it wasn't as if Lillywhite added a ton more instrumentation to the fold, as 1983's Field Day adhered to the same trio setup of Crenshaw's rookie effort, augmented by the occasional percussion or keyboard but heavier on backing vocal overdubs no doubt, all sounding as if recorded through a jet turbine too. Lillywhite added more 80s production tricks such as reverb, echo and a noticeably increased thump to the drum sound that was the main grumbling point for some. In that era of gated and/or electronic drums, some allergic to new production trends were bothered by the thwack of a snare being so prominent. This record, as a result, was seen in most circles as less of an achievement but eventually reviewers came to realize it was quite possibly the superior effort. In the opinion of yours truly, Field Day should be considered a pure pop masterpiece on the level of A Hard Day's Night or Tapestry, just not with the same gaudy sales to boast of.

Field Day doesn't strive for the sunny catchiness of Marshall Crenshaw as much, but arguably achieves a higher plain of craftsmanship. There's maturity to the love songs and the a transition to singing more ballad material. This new focus on softer textures comes off perfectly on breathtaking, guitar-layered pop such as "Try," "All I Know Right Now," "One More Reason" and 'One Day Without You." But the uptempo material has a Phil Spector-ish touch, such as on "Our Town" and "For Her Love," the LPs two greatest products and definitely prime "mini-operas for the little kids," as Spector would say. Of course, the subject matter is not as teen-oriented as Spector was or as much as on Marshall's rookie effort. The songs show a more mature, less impulsive outlook indeed. Bringing these songs to a strongly vivid status should grant Lillywhite more credit than he tends to get- which is practically none anyway as most put the blame on him for perceived problems with the record. But it's especially these two great tracks that radiate in what sounds like an 80's Wall of Sound so while the production has dated somewhat, in my mind it can't hamper what are timeless rock/pop trinkets.

It's a shame no top 40 stations gave a chance to Field Day's leadoff number, "Whenever You're On My Mind," which seems tailor made for pop radio even by 1983's standards, but became just another in a long line of classics that never broke through to the public at large. Its power pop sparkle would have had it running into the top 10 back in 1972 but times had changed indeed. Melody didn't equal money anymore in the midst of fashion-conscious MTV elevating entertainers like Duran Duran and Wham! to megastardom when they might have been much shorter-lived sensations or one-hit wonders years earlier. Even the edgier stuff on Field Day finds Crenshaw blistering with a bit more swagger, if you can call it that, than on his debut. Take "Monday Morning Rock" or "Hold it" for example. And on top of that, there's a superb cover of the old doo-wop classic "What Time is it?" by the Jive Five. But alas, Field Day dropped like a lead balloon and once again, talent and promise didn't equal popularity in the fickle contemporary music scene.

1985's Downtown couldn't hit the same lofty heights as the debut and sophomore releases but managed to be a splendid album in its own right, highlighted by rockabilly exuberance like "Right Now" and the infectious, hook-laden "Blues is King," another work that showed how deceptively cunning and smart a guitar player Crenshaw is, layering chiming acoustic and electric riffs, chords and arpeggios in as if he were a jazz whiz. Crenshaw has even mentioned in interviews that he has a particular fondness for 60s and early 70s R&B chord progressions as well as the Beatles' ability to sneak various diminished, minor, 9th, 11th and 13th chords rarely heard in rock into their songs. And one can hear it plainly, as the simple chord sequences of Marshall's songs were often undercut by these chords. They definitely add some effective variance to the mix. Since jetting off from Warner Bros. at the close of the 80s, Marshall has ridden the carousel a little, landing on Paradox/MCA, then Tie & Razor and now 429. Through it all, he has been one of those songwriters prolific and good enough to contribute to other artists albums in addition to soundtracks and TV shows while maintaining a healthy and interesting recording output on his own.

Crenshaw has had precious few duds in his 30-year recording career and even latter day efforts can knock one's socks off, even if the first two albums of his were the barometer he will always be measured by. He has explored the field of 60s and 70s pop without becoming a total sap, a la his predecessor Paul McCartney, and not disappointed his loyal, adoring fanbase much. And truly, his first two discs are the barometer by which every post-Big Star power popper should be measured by- so we're talking figures like the Apples in Stereo, Fountains of Wayne and Sloan. All walk in Crenshaw's footsteps whether they know it or not. Luckily, Crenshaw never blew his knack for writing the tremendous hook and melody. In the bigger picture, one could call him the American Midwest's answer to McCartney, only less raised on vaudeville pop and show tunes and without the penchant for horribly saccharine love songs.

Marshall is one of the few who in another time hypothetically would have deserved to be the ying to Lennon's yang in the Beatles and considering how that partnership pushed McCartney to brilliance, I'm sure Crenshaw could've held his own. Well, I suppose I've made a hearty endorsement of Crenshaw to be seen as a pop legend and I'm at the very least recommending him to anyone with an ear for catchy power-pop and classic songwriting of the pre-psychedelic days in rock & roll's history. Yes, this is similar to my raves about another 80s icon, Paul Westerberg. However, I suppose Marshall Crenshaw's similar, if not slightly inferior, level of fame is how he likes it. Both artists are low-key without being completely out of the spotlight, though Crenshaw has one foot outside the lightbulb's radius even compared to Westerberg who at least had the immortal Replacements to be remembered best for.

If Crenshaw wanted to be a household name, he'd have done more to combat obscurity and have hired an entertainment agent to get his record label into marketing him while sweetening up his sound with drum machines and cliche power chords. Sometimes by fluke or luck this widespread musical fame can come to a long suffering artists, but often it eludes even the best of them. And if you don't see them reaching for a higher level, it's simply for lack of being willing to go to every end to find that fame. What do I mean by that? Well in my view, anyone can hit the big time if they desperately want fame and fortune badly enough, but can't initially find it with their music from the outset. KISS donned makeup, used pyrotechnics and special effects for instance. Lady Gaga began dressing up in outlandish costumes. It all worked for them and could work for you too!, an advertisement could declare.

So it's too bad Marshall Crenshaw never embraced disco, soppy ballads and lavish music videos.... No forget that, good thing he didn't. Makes for a much better remembered and cherished artist 20-30 years down the road. But fame is a declining commodity, no longer just pre-destined for the greats, often being handed around like it was a badge of honour and record companies looking at the bottom line will no doubt cut corners to get their mission accomplished. That means on your radios and TVs, a genuinely skilled pro like a Marshall Crenshaw will elude you while rammed down your throats will be a new signing who makes an impact by winning a talent competition on TV. Isn't that the way we think you need to "earn it" nowadays? Sadly, the media tells us yes. More Marshall Crenshaws would be a welcome thing to help block out the white noise of it all.

Reviews: The Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street"- 2010 Deluxe Edition

2010-09-21T01:32:00.000-07:00

First Published in PressPlus1 Online Mgazine: http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/2082-exile-on-main-street-2010-deluxe-edition-revitalizes-one-of-rocks-masterpiece-records.html

Where do we go from here?: The eternal question of those at a creative or monetary watershed moment while looking forward. And for the Rolling Stones, how to follow up the whirlwind bounceback of the past 2 years as they convened to record their new album in 1971. At this juncture, the band was finally getting financially secure and free of the same kind of mismanagement that plagued pop music acts in the 60s when everyone realized they could ruthlessly make a buck off long-haired kids playing rock and roll. True, the Stones had weathered the storm, but they were getting the crunch from England's heavy taxation system of its upper class now. Therefore, the group's management decided they would become tax exiles, moving business accounts to various overseas offshore holding companies and so on. The Stones would do very little recording in the UK over the next two decades, instead working sessions in the US as well as exotic locales like Jamaica or European destinations such as Paris or Munich. In 1971 they had basked in the success of a few lucrative tours plus the healthy sales of Sticky Fingers.

It was an era of business transitions, ditching Allen Klein and then leaving Decca Records for Atlantic, the US based label that made its bread off of R&B recordings but was now expanding into the rock field. Atlantic's head Ahmet Ertegun was the willing partner they found in negotiating the Stones' very own label, Rolling Stones Records, which came to feature their iconic tongue drawing as its eye catching logo. But not too far off was a critical backlash as the Stones made records underwhelming when put up next to their seminal 60s works- although in retrospect when discounting their 60s works, their 70s output is quite enjoyable on its own merit. Underneath the surface were problems with cohesion that had not been there before. Each member seemed off on their own trip, with the jet-setting Mick Jagger trying to piece it all together under an auspice resembling the old Rolling Stones. It was a time of chaos that produced the masterful Exile on Main Street, made amidst intriguing web of lurid sex, drug smuggling, vengeful dealers, visits to detox centers and tangled business dealings.

On May 18 in North America, the Stones' new distributors, Universal Music, will be unveiling a deluxe edition of Exile on Main Street, featuring 11 bonus cuts as well as the original album re-mastered to meet 2010's standards for remastering. There will be the usual plethora of limited time discs with the usual liner note, photo and bonus track goodies but even the basic deluxe edition is loaded with additions onto the original 18 track release. There will also be the classicist's choice through limited edition vinyl copies, though they're curiously different in that you will only get the original 2LP set and not the bonus tracks. Well, bah humbug to you to, Stones. Back in the late spring of 1971, the Stones settled in a Keith Richards-rented villa in Nelcotte, France. Recording with the Stones state-of-the-art mobile studio truck, they were situated in the damp, stone-walled basement to play. The setting was made eerier by the building's history as the local Gestapo headquarters when Nazi Germany occupied France in World War II. With gold swastika-shaped floor air vents and the knowledge the basement was for all intents and purposes a former torture chamber, Exile right away had the bizarre circumstance behind it that only a legendary work could come up with.

What eventually, after many months, arrived was a sprawling double album. The group was interested in cutting an album that showed their diverse tastes in rock, blues, country, etc. There would be less of Mick's contemporary aspirations as there had been on Sticky Fingers and would be to come, and that's a positive because the final product is now regarded as one of the greatest albums ever released. As far as rock goes, it has my #1 and personally I've listened to thousands of albums. No non-compilation LP can define what rock and roll was in its first 2 decades better than Exile. Nothing else combines all the thrilling elements for the rock and roll stew in my estimation. With the album, the Stones blues roots are on display not to mention their love of R&B, country & western, bluegrass, folk and their own sinister brand of riff-rock perfected over the previous decade of existence. And hey, they even sneak in shades of gospel, calypso and the usual raunchy lyrics. Recording amidst a sporadic production rate resulted in plenty of guest musicians and some cuts featuring an absecne of members, namely Bill Wyman who grew tired of the gaps in recording and retreated to a rented sailboat and went off to enjoy the Meditteranean wth his latest girlfriend.

Jimmy Miller, who had produced their past three studio releases dating back to 1968's career reviving milestone Beggar's Banquet, was again enlisted to produce. Richards was off-and-on involved and often held up recording with his constant trips to go "put his son (Marlon) to bed," so to speak. These breaks often took hours in which he actually was indulging in his infamous junkiedom. By '71, the Stones weren't as keen on being #1 as often as they had been in the 60s when they were one of many contenders and had the heavy challenge of matching up to the Beatles. Naturally, without the Fabs in the way, they used the 70s to rack up their biggest sales and best charting LPs yet, though #1 singles wouldn't be frequent after 1969 (only "Brown Sugar" and "Miss You" topping the US or UK charts). The Stones became, like every other elite in rock, album oriented artists for the most part. Exile troughs through America's rich musical history, excluding anything jazz or classical that is, and while critical gripes lay with its 18 tracks and "filler," years have proven kind and now even the most minor tracks are praiseworthy. There's very little formulaic here, especially when the next 3.5 decades have proven the Stones to be nothing if not mechanical producers of generic riff-rock.

The open G riffs and licks were still fresh in 1972 but that seemed to matter little to critics who were hung up on the Stones not matching a "Sympathy for the Devil" or "Gimme Shelter"- though "Tumbling Dice" survived as the choice, classic cut to be forever included on every Stones retrospective compilation. What also was deemed a problem with the double set was its mix but no other Stones album sounds like it and that's a flat out positive to this writer. Mick's vocals are buried in the mix but not to the point of being inaudible or overcome by other instruments, and though they are indecipherable that's the case with everything Mick sang before getting a vocal coach and enunciating in the 80s and beyond. That was just carrying on the fine blues tradition of singing vague, mumbly lyrics to enhance the mystique. What it comes down to is that Exile is a masterpiece that ages like fine wine and not one listen to it has ever sounded worse than the previous, in fact sometimes it gets better with repeated listens. Then again I have heard all its tracks dozens and dozens of times so I have a rather large perspective on this aspect of the record.

The seediness behind its making was well reflected in the lyrical matter of the album, at least what lyric sheets tell us because after all these years I still can't recite half of what's said on Exile. I honestly have formed the memory of certain lines out of my own interpretation of what Mick garbles at times. Like any legendary work, Exile contains the ultimate opener in the shape of "Rocks Off," one of the Stones best at that. It involves the sleaze from the get-go, discussing sexual dalliances with a "dancer friend" of Mick's. Keith's snarling "oh yeah" on the opening bars really prepares you for the furious swagger. His riffing hardly ever sounded better than on "Rocks off" while he provides ragged harmony for Mick, singing of the usual themes of sauntering around with lady friends. Full of glorious chestnut lines like "Your mouth don't move but I can hear you speak," and "The sunshine bores the daylights out of me," the cheeky "Rocks Off" is also one of the Stones wittiest, most clever tunes (and what's Mick got for us in recent years? "Sparks will fly/Sharks will cry"? Really, Mick?). It's got a full compliment of guitar, bass, drums, piano and horns, which was becoming the favoured routine for a Stones recording at this point.

The same Keith-characterized rock has its fingerprints all over "Tumbling Dice," the album's biggest hit single. It's a countrified sort of testament to the kind of wildheart rebellion Keith specializes in. It's cocksure stuff but that's the essence of the Stones in their glory days. It's essential listening, one of rock's most moving, honest, fun and multi-layered compositions ever. Its multiple vocal parts are like Beach Boy complexity adapted to gospel. The same rough-hewn passion can be attributed to the horn-dressed "Happy." Keith sings lead on it and it became one of his war badges to wear going forward in live appearances. It's pretty autobiographical material as it were. Keith proclaims that all he needs is love to keep him happy (... yes Keith, but don't neglect to mention all those drugs too, as regular to his diet as water or food in those days). "All Down the Line" is maybe the most energizing song on the album, an orchestra of riffing guitar, sax and trumpet flourishes, Mick's hollered vocals and Charlie Watts' thumping backbeat. It even tops what the Delaney & Bonnie and Friends or Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen tours had done shortly before it, no coincidence since Bobby Keys and Jim Price provided horn sections for both while also being utilized on Exile very nicely.

"All Down the Line" boogies hard, albeit at quite a fast pace. Early takes of the song had it structured in a different key, as more of a country-rock affair with acoustic guitars, sounding not unlike the verses of "Street Fighting Man." The weakest of the four archetypal Stones rockers is the closer, "Soul Survivor," still a dirty and defiant little song and one that emphasizes the Stones restless refusal to give up or flame out. The Stones hit the boogie of the 50s full force on several cuts too, namely the rousing "Rip This Joint" with Keys cutting a rip-roaring sax solo that would rival King Curtis. It's not quite a Chuck Berry takeoff, like most of the Stones own hits, but more of a Little Richard screamer. The heart of this album is really the blues, and what'd you expect from the Rolling Stones anyway? Their cover of Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips (Hip Shake)" stands as an underrated, but wholly impressive take on the Mississippi blues. There's gutbucket blues harp, shuffling time kept by Watts's tapping of the drum rims with his sticks and a menacing guitar riff that would later be copped by ZZ Top for "La Grange" but that's fine since Keith copped it from several John Lee Hooker songs anyway.

The song's fade-in makes you feel like you just stepped into a bar and happened upon the magic. Mick's vocals are full of Southern bravado and there's even a bit of sax amongst the crawling snake blues of "Hip Shake." Less white hot are the shuffling "Casino Boogie," the harrowing "Ventilator Blues" (of which Mick Taylor receives a rare songwriting credit) and a Robert Johnson cover, "Stop Breaking Down." The double time of "Turd on the Run" is a chugging track that may just be the most authentic up temp blues you'll hear a rock band do, all done without solos of any kind, proving the Stones as one of the few groups that didn't need instrumental noodling to porve their talents. On the albums before and after Exile, the hot and flashy lead guitar of Taylor is up front and centre but it took a back seat on Exile as any lead licks he got in were usually buried in the mix, if attempted at all or not edited out first. As a result, no matter how the personnel differed from recording to recording, this album feels more like a true collaborative effort than most Stones records. Any heavy overdubbing doesn't show as it all sounds rather organic of the moment. However, the blues does not totally define or even dominate the double disc album.

The Stones dedication to gospel- first flirted with on 1968's "Salt of the Earth" matures on Exile, as well as their foraying into soul. They cut their original mid-60s R&B leanings to shreds as by 1972 it was a well-oiled outfit experienced and comfortable with each other, the Wyman-Watts rhythm section in particular. On Exile, the Stones scored pleasing results by bringing in experienced female backing singers who only enhanced this unholy, yet rewarding marriage between gospel and a hard living rock and roll band- Clydie King, Shirley Matthews and Venetta Fields among those enlisted. Thanks to this comes the incredibly glowing, positive spiritual spotlight of "Shine a Light," as good as any rockers ever captured gospel. Stones confidante Billy Preston was brought in for a divine churchy piano bit that melded beautifully with one of Mick Taylor's few guitar leads on the entire set. Meanwhile, the stirring "Let it Loose" hits on all cylinders like a fantastic ballad Otis Redding never lived to record, standing as a milestone among the Stones more tender avenues of songwriting.

The horn breakdown, the gorgeous Nicky Hopkins piano, the mini-choir (including Mac Rebennack, aka Dr, John), Mick's impassioned vocals and a guitar line from Keith for the ages, plugged in through the Leslie amplifier of the organ. Less based on such Southern rawness is "Loving Cup," which still has more in common with Memphis soul than most Stones cuts. Once again there's the elegant piano of Nicky Hopkins- a talent sorely missed since his death in 1994- this time providing more of a folk flavour. But the groove and the twin horns of Keys and Price really remind you of a vintage Redding song once again, namely in the middle eighth. The Stones had gone for this mood on Sticky Fingers' "I Got the Blues" but came up just a bit empty. Not so with "Loving Cup," another spotlight for some genuinely wonderful lyrics, such as in the chorus ("Gimme little drink from your loving cup/Just one drink and I fall down drunk") plus sometimes those naughty Stones make thinly veiled allusions to sexual intercourse ("But I won't fight you, if you want to push and pull with me all night"). An anomaly is the swampy "I Just Wanna See His Face" not a particularly varied track or a great number in any way other than for the production and arrangement work, which stuns in several ways, first off with a trance-like electric piano groove that later builds up a bit near the end, played by Keith no less.

Mick's vocals are made incomprehensible by mixing, or just because he sang far off from the mike. The backing vocals are also a presence that pushes the song along, as an upright bass played by Bill Plummer (who also played the same on "Rip This Joint") and Charlie hitting the low toms provide a rumbling, spooky bottom. And for a modern twist, the Stones have revisited the Exile sessions for the bonus disc. The teaser currently out there is "Plundered My Soul," which may be too retro to become a top 40 hit, but if 2002's "Don't Stop" managed it, this can too if only rock radio jumps on it. The original track is an outtake but Mick went back over and with a few instrumental touches and a couple of female backing singers, made the necessary overdubs to get it sufficient for inclusion. But happily, it sounds as if Keith's original harmony from 1972 remains. Also, apparently Taylor himself was brought in to provide overdubbed leads just to give it that 1971-72 authenticity.

Ron Wood is the only post-1969 Stone member not heard on the cut, if we're to believe the credits given. It's glossed up but that doesn't take away from "Plundered My Soul," which is perhaps the best Stones single since "Start Me Up." "Plundered My Soul" has even received a music video. It deserves to since it stands out amongst the "new" tracks pulled from the vaults. They all follow the same formula of having overdubs and though this does rob us of the authenticity of the 1971 sessions, it's the best we can hope for. Mick is still a tremendous rock frontman but with age and his latter day cleaner habits, his voice lacks that grit and nasal rasp it used to carry. No big issue is caused by this though. Many of these have floated around on bootlegs for years. There are minor but enjoyable bits that, when stacked up even against the best the Stones offer us now, sparkle in the frame of 2010. What could be deemed average by their 1972 standards is quality insight today. Take "Pass the Wine (Sophia Loren)" for example or the slinky piano blues "I'm Not Signifying" (aka "I Ain't Gonna Lie" on many bootleg collections).

That world-worn, late at night rumination style the Stones were capable of in the early 70s is revived via the quaint "Following the River," a track that may be smooth and easy going but lacks any melodic ideas to consider it a buried treasure of any kind. Also previously unreleased is the earthy but ordinary "Dancing in the Light." The seamier side of the album's blues and country honesty shines through better on "So Divine (Aladdin Story)." There are organic glimpses into the creative process through alternate takes of "Loving Cup," "Soul Survivor," "All Down the Line" and an early incarnation of "Tumbling Dice" called "Good Time Women." One will find "Good Time Women" a boogie extravaganza but nothing too special. But a key change and a true fleshing out of the vocal lines and riffs built it up into a masterpiece out of what originally came off like a more engaging version of their 1969 tune "Country Honk." These early versions show Taylor's guitar was a bit more active than the ones picked for permanent status on the record. The energy is not the same for most, nor is the vocal attack from Mick but these are rough, but pleasant run throughs for sure.

The bonus inclusions are capped off by a modest instrumental called "Title 5," an up-tempo jam with heavy emphasis on chordal boogie, packing a punch that sounds more like the flash and pomp of ZZ Top rather than a Chuck Berry rocker. This is just the tip of the iceberg as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is dedicating the whole week of May 3-8 to the album by bringing in guests each week to perform a song from the album. Phish, who have several times performed the album in its entirety, are already announced guest for the week. The Stones PR machine is in full working motion, folks, when you see high profile overtures like that made. Credit their long-time manager, native Torontonian Michael Cohl, a man responsible for their record-breaking tours that could fund the Third World! There's even a film about the making of the album and the events surrounding it, called Stones in Exile, set to debut at the Cannes Film Festival. Everything in the works except lunch boxes it would appear. The Stones have learned that when the creative embers aren't glowing, one can always cash in on the prized jewels in the back catalogue.

It appears that Exile, the double album everyone disparaged upon release and said should be a single (common complaint about The White Album too), is being made into quite the cash cow. Nonetheless, the Stones brought the goods to the table since "Plundered My Soul" is a very exciting look into the overhaul. Perhaps the Stones should take that road again and go fix up tracks from the vaults for their next studio record. After all they did that in 1981 and Tattoo Youemerged as the best post-Some Girls album they've ever done. I doubt it would be done since Mick is always one to create new, modern and contemporary fare for the Stones to tour behind. So, if you're a Stones enthusiast or a classic rock lover, then by all means bite into a little rock history and drop the necessary coin for this one. To look at the bonus features, I can say musically they earn a 3.5 star rating, the presentation of the standard 2010 edition deserves a 4.5 star rating. But overall, with the epochal original double LP in tow, this is a five star purchase indeed (I'd give the original Exile a 6 star rating if I could!). You'll be justly rewarded.

Track Listing:

1. Rocks off

2. Rip This Joint

3. Shake Your Hips (Hip Shake)

4. Casino Boogie

5. Tumbling Dice

6. Sweet Virginia

7. Torn and Frayed

8. Sweet Black Angel

9. Loving Cup

10. Happy

11. Turd on the Run

12. Ventilator Blues

13. I Just Want to See His Face

14. Let it Loose

15. All Down the Line

16 Stop Breaking Down

17. Shine a Light

18. Soul Survivor

2010 Edition Bonus Disc:

1. Pass the Wine (Sophia Loren)

2. Plundered My Soul

3. I'm Not Signifying

4. Following the River

5. Dancing in the Light

6. So Divine (Aladdin Story)

7. Loving Cup (Alternate Take)

8. Soul Survivor (Alternate Take)

9. Good Time Women

10. All Down the Line (Alternate Take)

11. Title 5

Rating: 5/5 stars (A+)

Reviews: Jimi Hendrix's "Valleys of Neptune"

2010-09-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

First Published in PressPlus1 Online Magazine:

http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/1859-valleys-of-neptune-another-from-the-seemingly-bottomless-archive-of-jimi-hendrix.html

"Some die too young, some die too old; the precept sounds strange, but die at the right age."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Was Hendrix's death at age 27 the right time for him to go? Ponder that. One can definitely argue — and I tend to do so whenever dragged into the matter — that he was a one-of-a-kind star, destined to burn out before he faded away. I always felt that what the future had in store for Hendrix was never meant to be found out. Those other early casualties? Most just crashed after several years of cheating death in their drug or alcohol stupors.

I guess I couldn't see Jimi ever becoming washed up. Nay, I couldn't stand the idea. It seemed good for a guy as otherworldly as Hendrix to leave the world before his greatness left him. Hey, no one said the road to rock & roll infamy was paved with candy coloured rainbows and marshmallow cobblestones... unless the one going down the road is tripping on acid. No, it's pockmarked by blood, bones, powders, syringes, broken bottles and other unsightly things.

Sure, Jim Morrison had more to give too, but it would've been progressively more dreadful and embarrassing considering his drug and alcohol appetites. And it would've been expected instead of pitied. Hendrix was too important to die, many told themselves, as his passing reverberated with waves of shock.

Jimi was not renowned as a troubled addict like others who dropped dead in his generation of rockers. Jimi was troubled for sure, but by the shackles of being a creative beacon with a tangled up family past as well as by no longer feeling secure in his own skin as a major star. Mr. Hendrix's chemical dependencies marked his undoing, but the now-stereotypical rockstar death of choking on your own vomit hardly seemed like the type of end he deserved. Morrison naked in a bathtub, heart given out from all the abuse it had taken — I find that very fitting. A poet's death, if you will. A drunk, manic shaman poet's death.

But Hendrix should've been in one of those mystical plane crashes like Otis Redding or his future disciple Stevie Ray Vaughn. Ah never mind, this is getting morbid. The bottom line is that when a significant artist flames out before their time, dies in the throes of youthful genius, croaks before he or she can truly deliver a long, healthy prime or full-bodied career, it's a blessing and a curse for that artist and their fans.

The blessing is that the short time span allows that artist to be crystallized as anyone remembers them best, immortalized when they shone brightest. The curse is that the future becomes littered with various parties who were unrelated to the true meat and bones of that legend, all cashing in off that death in a way. Hey, someone has to or the memories would fade into the sands of time!

This all aids in lifting the memory of the deceased icon to near God-like status. Not to mention, the hodgepodge clutter that becomes the discography, where live performance, studio outtakes, radio appearances, backstage jams and anything else within a microphone's radius becomes fair game to put together new albums with.

For nearly four decades, this has been going on with James Marshall Hendrix. No one can say for sure what Hendrix would have done but the immediate future seemed full of possibilities considering his 1970 flirtation with jazz and funk. Personally, I think the disco era and punk/new wave eras would have been a lean time for Hendrix the artist, though as a musician he'd be a guest on everyone's records no doubt.

It's astounding to note that Hendrix's recording career as a solo artist and/or bandleader was less than four years long, though his popularity post-mortem would have you believe he was around for the entire 1960s decade and then some. As everyone knows, Hendrix was a revolutionary of the rock & roll genre, the guitar, and managed to be the first rocker to ever touch what jazz greats had done previously: Be virtuosic/visionary on their instrument and tremendous as a composer to boot.

Hendrix still stands as the John Coltrane of rock. Coltrane is a controversial figure among jazz purists for his "sheets of sound" hysterics on saxophone and complete radical departure from the standard way jazz had been played. Hendrix didn't change contemporary composition or the way rock was approached so much as he changed the sound, by swaying everyone from "At the Hop" Chuck Berry-impersonating to an electrified, cosmic adaptation of Chicago blues guitar stylings.

He wasn't the first to try that but he was the best and most powerful. Jeff Beck and Clapton seemed timid all of a sudden when this guy strutted onto the scene. He did this through his unmatched ideas, talent as well as being the first to take advantage of improved technology in musical gadgetry, including the fuzz box, distortion pedals, wah-wah pedals, high gain amplifiers (including the super charged Marshall stacks) and other inventions. Plus he used the previous taboo of feedback to his advantage.

His detractors called him airheaded, sexist, macho and full of himself. But while he may have been a gypsy hippie intent on dancing with the drug demons and conquering the ladies but as he tried to be Dylan, Albert King, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy all rolled into one, he struck upon his own unique psychedelic style.

There are plenty of extraordinary guitarists from that time period but Hendrix had something deeper than your average Alvin Lee, Robin Trower or Jimmy Page. He merged black and white music worlds and embraced music as colourless and raceless, though he often struggled with trying not to seem like some sort of Uncle Tom that didn't care about black listening audiences or radical black politics of the time too.

It was impossible to please everyone of course but Jimi tried his best. After he died, his closest comrades in music oversaw a series of new studio releases of backlog material, primarily his long-time drummer Mitch Mitchell and producer/engineer friend Eddie Kramer. Alan Douglas produced several of these 70s albums but he drew heat for overdubbing new parts onto them and essentially producing them alternately from Hendrix's original intent. Contrary to popular belief, the notorious Annual Post-Mortem Release did not start with Tupac.

When legal wrangling over Jimi's estate and recorded works became a simmering pot of troubles, the situation just got greyer for fans. But 1993 finally settled this when Jimi's father Al gained control and rights over his son's likeness, recorded output and artistic license. Via the formation of the company Experience Hendrix, Ltd., the restoration and repairing of Jimi's catalog began and the cottage industry overseeing Jimi's legacy was born too.

Hendrix’s hometown of Seattle attracts tourists with the claim of him as a native son featured in museums and landmarks alike. For him, there have been many albums of "new" material plus live albums, compilations and several official and unofficial bootleg releases. Too numerous to mention, really. Experience Hendrix has managed Jimi's large archive and through a deal for distribution through MCA, before it was bought up by Universal. They did a bang-up job bringing some cohesion to the playing field.

Currently, Sony distributes Jimi's work through their catalog division label Legacy Recordings, the label that works with re-issues and compilations from its vast array of labels it absorbed from business purchases (the legendary companies Columbia, Epic, Sony BMG and RCA Records for example). Of the major Experience Hendrix initiatives to clearing up Jimi's unfinished work, there was 1997's First New Rays of the Rising Sun, an album that was created to be as faithful as possible to a similarly titled album Hendrix was working on when he died in September of 1970. Previously, it had been spread over 3 different LPs released in the early 70s.

Nowadays, very few who were around Hendrix when he was creating are even alive anymore. His managers Chas Chandler and Michael Jeffery, Experience bandmates Mitchell and Noel Redding, and his Band of Gypsys drummer Buddy Miles have all passed on.

When Hendrix's father Al passed away early last decade, the inheritor of Jimi's estate became his stepsister Janice since most of Jimi's blood relatives had died too. But the Hendrix memorial train has kept rolling and this latest release is the most significant plying of his unreleased treasure trove since First Rays.

Now, that 1997 release did the biggest task of revisiting what Jimi had left on the table throughout his last year of life. This one skimps the trash can a bit more. Super dedicated Hendrix fans might own all this anyway while less dedicated fans, me included, are content to have the important releases and nothing but. I'd give this a chance but only for a handful of the selections.

Let's be frank: posthumous discographies are such a nightmare to follow, so it's all one big trial-and-error process anyway. On Valleys of Neptune, there are 12 cuts, 7 of which have never been released elsewhere. Most of the recordings were done at Hendrix's favourite studio, the Record Plant in New York City.

Hendrix's first single in the UK in November 1966 was a cover of the popular folk song of the day "Hey Joe," while its B-side was one of Hendrix's first compositions, "Stone Free." Valleys of Neptune leads off with a 1969 version of that track from a run-through in April, done probably for rehearsal purposes since it was one of the first sessions for the Jimi Hendrix Experience with Billy Cox as bassist instead of the recently departed Noel Redding. It's more noteworthy for having backing vocalists in Roger Chapman, at the time lead singer of the band Family, and a young Andy Fairweather Low.

With such a sparse setting not augmented by the studio mastery one is used to from Hendrix, this isn't one of the better available renditions of "Stone Free." The title track comes up second, proving to be a rather upbeat, cheerful cut that could have been a cut for the Temptations or one of Motown's other harder R&B acts of the time.

Hendrix had a keen ear for soul despite never fully embracing it, having cut his teeth — and not just on the guitars he played — on the Chitlin Circuit, the nickname given the touring locale of the American Southeast. Playing with pickup and bar bands all the way up to gigs with Little Richard and the Isley Brothers gave Hendrix a better background in the music of African-Americans than most would assume right after hearing his white-favoured rock sludge in the late 60s.

The basic track to "Valleys of Neptune" was recorded in September of '69 while Hendrix was still tinkering with the size and personnel of his backing lineup. The disc's lead single, Elmore James' tune "Bleeding Heart," was first heard in Jimi's hands on the 1972 release War Heroes. Here, none of the Alan Douglas overdubbing mars it.

"Bleeding Heart" features fierce half funk/half blues slide work from Hendrix's guitar, though there are a good half dozen blues covers in Hendrix's career that outshine this one. Stemming from an April of '69 session Billy Cox on bass and Rocky Isaacs on drums, "Bleeding Heart" packs the punch one would hope to find in a blues cover by the unmatched Hendrix.

Following this is "Hear My Train a Coming," a Hendrix original that's appeared on several posthumous releases but never showed up on any 45 or LP during his life. Hendrix's ability to convincingly perform the blues on slide guitar and without proficient amounts of volume and distortion is often overlooked, but his musical ability could never be clouded by his taste for wild sounds. "Hear My Train a Coming" is one of the purer blues tracks he ever laid down and one can see how with one listen.

It was when he allowed the effects, pedals and knobs to be turned up that his grasp of electric blues led him tocreate guitar masterpieces such as "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", compositions so vivid and on the edge that they defy categorization, though they are arguably responsible for influencing funk, hip-hop, metal and various subgenres to come in rock music.

The cheeky "Mr. Bad Luck" is the furthest dated recording this album goes back to, coming from a May 1967 session at Olympic Studios in London and produced by then-manager and former Animals bassist Chandler. "Mr. Bad Luck" would have made a nice B-side, showing an example of the more humorous elements in Jimi's songs and the only one here that features the Experience in their early days before Hendrix's overarching, often difficult creative process that essentially forced out a frustrated Redding.

One of the prime cuts from this album, alas one of the few genuinely great moments, is when we get Hendrix showing Cream how it's done with "Sunshine of Your Love", sans vocals. Clapton wrote that signature song with Hendrix in mind, in effect making it his tribute to the newest guitar God (Clapton having been proclaimed as such just a year earlier by graffiti-scrawlers of London). So it's no fluke, I suppose, that Hendrix found the tune irresistible and perfect for him.

Before Valleys of Neptune, one of the few times anyone ever heard "Sunshine of Your Love" outside of bootleg form was when on British TV he performed an impromptu version during the final credits of Lulu's variety show. He was doing his own "Voodoo Child" when the plan was enacted, leading to the unknowing producers ending the show in mid-performance. Hendrix did this as an homage to Cream in the fall of '68 when their rather stunning breakup was announced.

Jimi tears the song up from its original state, turning "Sunshine of Your Love" into a real Hendrix "fire and dragon" affair that would make Clapton's simmering original sound like his laid back "J.J. Cale Wannabe" period by comparison. Instead of laying on us stuff we could've heard on some other disc, the album goes into "Lover Man", a heavy and downright greasy track that sounds tailor made for the Stevie Ray Vaughn Texas blues of the 80s. Hendrix toyed around with "Lover Man" every now and again but never found a take he was satisfied with. This particular one comes from the same February 1969 session at Olympic that generated the Cream cover.

Another Hendrix-penned rarity comes in the form of "Ships Passing Through the Night." Drawn from his April 1969 sessions booked at the Record Plant, "Ships Passing Through the Night" is a chunky piece of funk that's a good precursor to what Parliament-Funkadelic picked up on not long after.

Where Valleys of Neptune struggles is how little it offers us in genuinely new content. Anything short of hearing a horn and string section behind him would not be a revelation at this juncture. Haven't we, pardon the pun, experienced it all? The overfamiliarity of his repertoire means we're given two more versions of the standard 1967 classics "Fire" and "Red House".

"Red House," the one and only true 12-bar blues number of heartbreak, cheating and despair that Hendrix achieved, is the better of the two. He channels B.B. King so well on the latter, but has his own manner of playing. It's uncanny and when you can tell a guitarist by hearing their soloing, you know it's something timeless.

"Fire" and "Red House" are done in run-throughs with the Experience at the tail end of their existence in February 1969 but it's always a treat to hear "Red House" since Hendrix uses it to veer off into beautiful solos that are rather of the moment thanks to the tune's slow blues tempo, a conducive groove for any guitarists to go nuts without losing the meter at all. And of course Jimi uses such space wisely.

Also culled from April 1969 is the fine instrumental "Lullaby for the Summer," showing vocals were only a small part of the magic Hendrix could create. He often evoked the gospel business of Curtis Mayfield's R&B guitar playing with his group The Impressions. Hendrix admitted Mayfield was a big influence and one can hear him take it to new heights on tracks like this, not to mention the released ones such as "Castles Made of Sand", "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Little Wing."

Often, the lyrics were a weak point on Hendrix compositions, sometimes being brain-fried ramblings of a gyspy bandit, C-grade poet. So to have instrumentals once in a while was no letdown. From the February '69 sessions at Olympic, "Crying Blue Rain" is derived. It's the twelfth and final track but the driest blues yet, a raw "fly on the wall" feature that contains a light drum backing from Mitchell — a great reflection on his jazz chops- and what sounds like Hendrix fingerpicking his guitar part. If all the tracks were as stellar as "Crying Blue Rain," we'd be dealing with a worthy competitor to the shimmering, incomplete, yet expansive First Rays.

But the abundance of songs that have been heard in multiple forms elsewhere hampers Valleys of Neptune. Even if you don't own any Hendrix outside his recognized studio albums as well as that live document Band of Gypsys, you'll be better off going for Live at the Fillmore East or even Live at BBC. The unreleased material is enjoyable and of a passable fidelity, but only Hendrix's devotees are going to be awed by this album.

Some tracks here have me feeling "ho-hum," asking "So what? Didn't we already know all this?" Others are challenging and just barely reach the gold standard for Jimi while the rest are middling to acceptable versions of stuff heard elsewhere a billion times, therefore redundant. Meld it all together and what you get is a B-minus grade (three stars out of five), which is about as generous as I can allow. 'Scuse me while I skip this, guys...

Track Listing:

1. Stone Free

2. Valleys of Neptune

3. Bleeding Heart

4. Hear My Train a Coming

5. Mr. Bad Luck

6. Sunshine of Your Love

7. Lover Man

8. Ships Passing Through the Night

9. Fire

10. Red House

11. Lullaby for the Summer

12. Crying Blue Rain

Rating: 3/5 stars (B-)

Reviews: Peter Gabriel's "Scratch My Back"

2010-03-10T23:06:00.001-08:00

First published in Pressplus1 online Magazine:

http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/1766-cd-review-scratch-my-back-by-peter-gabriel.html

Peter Gabriel tends to make appearances on record, once in a while... when he's ready... sometimes. And that, my friends, is why folks are gearing up for his next studio album with the anticipatory exalt of it being his first real studio record of his in 8 years. The first in a while with vocal performances I should add. But guess what? It's a covers album. Does that burst your bubble? Well it shouldn't. Still, I have to wonder: Is songwriting his part-time job? Apparently. But don't let that fool you because he always provides something essential and innovative each time out, no matter who's doing the writing. Sure he pens as many completed works in a year as Elvis Costello does in an afternoon between tea and lunch, but the guy's a perfectionist. It's been an intermittent solo gig for Gabriel since the 80s ended, as his workload has dwindled to much lighter than what it was during and after his time in Genesis, the band he helped found before leaving in 1974. He started his solo career officially in 1977 with an album slanted to the tastes of arena rock, 70s "prog" and other side trips unthinkable for the modern Peter Gabriel to ever touch (Heavy metal? Cocktail jazz? Barbershop? It's all there on Peter Gabriel- the one with the rainy car window cover). The man behind that first step, Canadian born and based Bob Ezrin, has been a reputed rock producer for years, meanwhile some critics and fans still accuse him of mishandling Gabriel's debut way back when (Gabriel himself grumbled about the treatment of some tunes, notably the apocalyptic opus "Here Comes the Flood"). Nonetheless, Ezrin has been brought back to produce this new release.

Gabriel, in those formative years all by his lonesome, put out a comparatively startling 4 albums in his first 5 years then went four years before the multi-platinum pop breakthrough of 1986's So, although that's if you don't count the soundtrack to Alan Parker's 1984 film Birdy where he created instrumental re-imaginings of some tracks he'd previously done. Another soundtrack arrived in 1989 with Passion, the soundtrack to Martin Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ. But aside from that rather beautiful instrumental work, Gabriel didn't have a new tune with a vocal between 1986 and 1992 other than a collaboration with famed Senegalese singer Yousso N'Dour on his own 1989 cut "Shaking the Tree." Then came 1992's Us and Gabriel proved the wait was worth it, although the album didn't transcend the way So did by cutting across all commercial barriers and catching the fancy of critics at the same time. The rest of the 90s saw Gabriel become immersed in the workings of his record label, Real World, which is dedicated to introducing peoples' ears to world music of every variety. He stayed close to his affinity for soundtracks, releasing a document of the live concert for London's Millenium Dome Show in 2000, a record titled OVO. A year later came Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit Proof Fence, his third film soundtrack. His true followup to Us was still in the works even though most of it had been completed between 1995 and 1998. Therefore, Gabriel justly earned the reputation of being a slow worker, a meticulous studio dweller who tinkered with albums for years the way some scientists slave to come up with a groundbreaking thesis.

Finally in 2002 came Up- another in a long line of briefly titled records, a flippant and witty reaction to when Geffen Records in the early 80s requested he stop self-titling each of his albums- and with the same font for his name, as if to make each cover one in a continuous series of magazine issues. Supposedly, they requested this in order to avoid confusing the public, therefore Peter has released albums with titles like So, Us, as well as the compilation Hit. Up managed to confuse anyway since it was released the same year as Shania Twain's Up (speaking of artists who wait eons to release their albums!). This was followed by more spellbinding touring behind enchantingly elaborate visual fancies, a trademark of Peter's concert legacy that can have you either scratching your head or with your jaw hanging open in amazement (if you love Cirque De Soleil, then Peter's your kind of musical entertainer). But then came another long silence. Finally Peter has returned but with a new album that's a bold step even for him. Rather than new compositions, Scratch My Back is a collection of 12 covers, compositions stretching back in age as much as 30 years with a few recent ones sprinkled in. The selection of covers cuts a wide swath of tastes and genres by picking from groups with underground/indie cred as well as from fairly well known artists that have been doing their thing even longer than Peter, though he has them beat for his youth when starting out, as Genesis cut their first singles when Gabriel was a 17-year old still in school.

And the caveat is that a companion record called I'll Scratch Yours will feature the artists Gabriel covers doing renditions of of his songs. It's a unique concept to see a "various artists" disc that will no doubt be more relevant and interesting via this tie-in. If you think all this was as out of the ordinary as it gets, well wrap your mind around the radical idea of Gabriel doing these covers with full orchestral backing. Remarkably organic for a Peter Gabriel album, isn't it? The usual cadre of African drummers, exotic percussion, innovative synthesizers, production tricks and longtime bassist Tony Levin's unique drumstick bass, is absent from Scratch My Back. Gabriel uses a hushed vocal a majority of the time on the opener, a cover of David Bowie's "Heroes," slowed to a crawl with a church organ as the main chordal structure. It turns what was a theatrical, vivid, dramatic portrayal of a lover's tryst by the Berlin Wall into more of an elegy, a sort of elegiac state of pondering like slowing down the moment for reflection. This isn't the greatest, most mesmerizing adaptation one will hear of "Heroes," but to find Gabriel re-inventing it the way he did his own "Here Comes the Flood" in 1990- which went from overproduced apex of hard rock to forlorn piano ballad in a sort of anti-climactic way- is a curious thing to behold. Taking Bowie's hyperkinetic melancholy and replacing it with the sort of hush that Arcade Fire excels in is a risky move that doesn't fully pay off.

Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble," which opened his legendary Graceland album, has much the same transformation engineered on it, turning into some sort of picturesque Randy Newman piece, instead of the bubbling African-Zydeco that Simon first shaped it as. Gabriel's soothed, hoarse voice is one that I often don't find at its best when singing soft compositions or ballads, but he really hasn't used it for shouting and barking in a long time. And though that's his prerogative, I do miss the bite behind tunes like "Modern Love," "And Through the Wire" and "Red Rain." So I suppose his careful, silent manipulating of this one is a bit more boring than bristling, which sags the album a bit. But luckily, more interesting is the third selection, Elbow's "Mirrorball." Here Gabriel has the song paced by the meditative loop of an organ as the string parts build over it with warmth and precision. It's not too far off from the music box chiming of Elbow's original, a sure harkening back to Gabriel's days in Genesis itself. Elbow is the British "alternative" rock group forgotten in the mix thanks to crossover successes like Coldplay, Radiohead and Keane. But in recent years, their struggle to be acknowledged even in their homeland was eventually overcome and they've become recognized as contenders to Radiohead's supremacy and Gabriel's cover is another sign of gratitude and interest from a long-standing, respected artist. Where the two previous cuts were uncertain adaptions of pieces that didn't seem to carry the right aura for Gabriel, "Mirrorball" is right up his alley.

Ethereal chamber music is struck upon with "Flume," a track first done by critical darlings Bon Iver. The ultra sensitive and forest-friendly folk of Iver's Justin Vernon doesn't necessarily get ingested by me like a fine wine, the way it does for others, but Gabriel hits a more earthy quality with his rendition and I appreciate it in the end. We finally get Peter shooting into his upper register vocally too. Piano comes back as the basis for chords on "Flume" and the horn parts can easily remind anyone of the humanist beauty that symphonic winds can express. "Listening Wind," a cut off the Talking Heads monumental 1980 record Remain in Light, never fully takes off the ground though. This cover carries plenty of nervous energy and mystery, though not nearly the kind that the Heads did with their eerie reggae sort of post-punk, enlivened by Brian Eno's method of creating melody around electronics. The original "Listening Wind" had an atmosphere nearly replicated by several tracks off of the next Gabriel album to come after Remain in Light, 1982's Security. The jungle soundscapes of "The Rhythm of the Heat" and "Lay Your Hands on Me" paralleled a lot of what David Byrne was exploring with world music sounds on his own, with Eno and with his band. So the two seem like kindred spirits on opposite sides of the Atlantic and slightly different wavelengths (i.e. Byrne is much weirder). How Byrne approaches his Gabriel cover of choice will be highly anticipated by me- I say Byrne because the rest of the Heads are estranged from him therefore no full band participation is expected.

Fear not though, because Peter does hit shining moments at times on this album, namely with a cover of "The Power of the Heart," a yet to be formally released Lou Reed composition that he has performed live several times. It's one of Reed's more pure and devoted love songs, no doubt inspired by the experimental conceptual artist-cum-musician Laurie Anderson, his wife of a couple years now. Layering piano and horns onto what's another good old primitive but deep effort from Reed brings out some more tenderness and melody where there maybe wasn't before. Gabriel meets the criteria for giving it his own spin and earns my kudos for that- though not too much charity considering the slight failure of two other tracks to this point. This highlight of the LP makes for good and highly deserved exposure for one of Lou's best ballads in years, a sensational thing to see from an old wrinkly rocker aging gracefully with maturity who's still alive despite a 1970s rife with drug-induced decadence and debaucher- a legacy that Gabriel's never had to shake off, thank goodness. Staying current, PG does Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage" from their 2007 opus, Neon Bible. If only prog rock in Genesis's era had been less self-absorbed and less self-centredly narcissistic, then it would have resembled Arcade Fire. And that would've been a monumental good thing, as Devo once proclaimed. The chilling final cut on their most recent studio album is taken on by Gabriel in a subdued manner.

Peter prefers to keep it more bottled up, less ferociously tense than Win Butler, he being one never too shy to go for a little melodrama if you didn't already know. That approach works in that it makes "My Body is a Cage" into a more seductive and holy piece, rather than the intermittently angry and paranoid version Arcade Fire produced. With "The Book of Love," the first single chosen from the album, Gabriel gets a little more energetic, so as not to lull listeners into a false sense of sleep or some other coma-like state where classical overtones can fatigue more than perk up the mind. The Magnetic Fields' original is not dense either, but prefers to be a sort of bluegrass-meets-the-coffeehouse creation that's about as unique as you'll find in the music scene today, and that's because it dates back to 1999. But then again, there was nothing like this in 1999 either, except for maybe that lovable Jonathan Richman, a long practicer of capturing geeky angst and lovelorn feelings into parlour hall tunes since he arrived in the early 70s. Magnetic Fields frontman Stephen Merritt does indeed remind one of Richman, the marked difference being in mood as Merritt's a real downer in his blue state of mind and is an openly gay singer-songwriter, not a hilarious Bostonian who's perpetually, but winningly, adolescent at heart like Richman. By choosing to cover "The Book of Love," Gabriel chooses wisely and I find this recording to be a deserved lead single. And here I was thinking it was going to be a cover of that doo-wop classic by the Monotones. Now THAT would have been neat to see Peter manage.

My earlier reference to Gabriel making a Randy Newman pastiche out of "The Boy in the Bubble" comes back into relevancy thanks to Gabriel's own try at "I Think it's Going to Rain Today." Newman, himself a very sparse producer of full-out studio albums ever since his Hollywood priorities took precedence in the 80s, often can write bitterly caustic and genuinely funny character studies, full of piss and vinegar but with a deep understanding of humankind and, as this song describes, the odd showing of "human kindness." Once in a while, amidst the commentary and Allan Sherman levels of satire, Newman can pull out a serious piano ballad like "I Think it's Going to Rain Today." The more heavy stuff is what's distinguished Newman as a highly sought after film composer in fact (Toy Storyand The Natural being just the most well known of his towering catalogue of scores). Mind you, this particular number dates back very far in his pop songwriting career, appearing on his self-titled debut in 1968 and being covered to death afterward. The fact he was in his early 20s when he wrote it shows he never outgrew or lost his knack for lovely torch songs. Rather uneventfully, Gabriel goes for a near Xerox of "I Think it's Going to Rain Today." At least Joe Cocker tried to make it a soulful rave-up, even if that didn't fully connect. While Gabriel uses his own way of singing in a hushed voice (think back to 1992's "Washing of the Water" or 1978's "Mother of Violence"), it's still too much like Newman's original.

Newman could be a defining influence behind this album's 100% orchestral style, given the fact he's put orchestral arrangements behind his piano forever, completely in lockstep with his family's line of work. He is a singer-songwriter Gabriel has taken after for a long time now, since he became a big admirer of him in the late 60s. But here, Gabriel is essentially trying to find more artistic fertile ground in a mine that Newman already drilled through. Therefore, it seem almost too perfect for Gabriel to be doing this cover- too expected, if you will. A little female appreciation is finally given out with a cover of Regina Spektor's 2006 composition "Apres Moi." Spektor's indie pop style, buoyed by the advantage she carries in her extensive piano training, makes it one of those affecting singer-songwriter ditties you often hear from sources such as Feist or Fiona Apple. The quirkiness of indie pop, even the stuff that never makes it to top 40 radio, is not my favourite contemporary development, as usually I find that field to be too cutesy/smart/artsy and knowingly hipster for its own good. Not all of it is this way, just a lot of what I hear. But Gabriel allows for some creative chamber music to be his backing and therefore "Apres Moi" is one of the standout cuts that sticks its head above the majority of the pack and, dare I say it, improves on Spektor's original?

Moving on, Gabriel harkens back to a more long-standing singer-songwriter with Neil Young who, for all his well-known compositions, is a hell of an underrated writer of gorgeous piano ballads too, even if he's more simplistic and wears his heart on his sleeve far more often than Newman. This skill of Young's stretches as far back as "After the Gold Rush" from 1969-70 or as recently as "The Way" from 2007. Neil's 1993 contribution to the Oscar-nominated film Philadelphia was the esteemed title track, becoming the veritable theme of the movie even if Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia" got all the pub and ultimately the golden statuette. But "Philadelphia" is a tune that perfectly captured the sadness and human tragedy of AIDS, without ever directly mentioning it (its only literal reference to the movie's plot being the line "City of brotherly love/Don't turn your back on me/I don't want to be alone"). Such is the power of song: To never lyrically address an issue but still hit the nail on the head. Jonathan Demme, a friend of Neil's dating back to the music videos he directed for him in the 80s, better have been thanking his lucky stars for knowing Neil and getting that tremendous effort out of him. Supposedly, he was expecting a couple juiced up rockers about the hardships of life in the big city when you're dying from AIDS and carrying that stigma of not being a real man, being homosexual, etc. Instead, he got a grade A tearjerker. That being said, Gabriel's version is a disappointment. It's the only true lead balloon, opting to give a key change that just doesn't work and paves the way for this "Philadelphia" to resemble corny, mawkish soundtrack sap.

Yes, Peter's version doesn't really work much at all, which is too bad since the tune can be very touching when done properly, as evidenced by its inclusion in the final credits of Demme's film. Gabriel finally finds a pocket he can work out of by trying on Radiohead for size, specifically "Street Spirit (Fade Out)." It's not as if the 1995 original wasn't fatalistic and black itself, but with spare horns and funereal piano, he brings it down a few notches lower in dynamics, all without losing any of the hopeless void that Thom Yorke stewed up back in 1995. This "Street Spirit" redeems some of the more yawn-inducing moments from earlier in the album. Overall, Scratch My Back contains many moments of gorgeous, soft-bracing music with that classical spin you don't get to hear too much anymore. But Gabriel fails to convincingly deliver several of the tracks and despite the concept, it's not the artistic slam dunk one would hope for. Yet, taking many of these songs out of their element and giving them the subtle, silent treatment is a brave step for Gabriel as he seemingly tries to emulate Randy Newman only with the more artful, English sensibilities one has come to expect out of him all these years. Ever the progressive artist, this seems oddly natural and unpretentious for Gabriel, unless you find all classical melding with contemporary to be totally self-inflated regalia and snootiness (I don't... unless we're talking about Electric Light Orchestra).

It remains to be seen how I'll Scratch Yours will stand up to this disc- in some ways I look forward to that one more, since it has 12 different artists on tap. At least Peter Gabriel is bothering to release a studio album instead of staying preoccupied with Real World, soundtracks, interactive projects, etc. Scratch My Back will soon be available in his native United Kingdom, but North Americans have to wait a few more weeks (see release info at the top). In summary: Far from great, far from mediocre. I give it a slight chance that non-fans could be swayed by checking this out, but I suggest it'd be better for them to start with his earlier material to get accustomed to the man and his music. Oh and by the way, he's still perfecting his next album of original compositions, to be titled I/O. Hmmm, that one should be ready by about 2012 if past events are any indication.

Track Listing (Artist Being Covered):

1. Heroes (David Bowie)

2. Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)

3. Mirrorball (Elbow)

4. Flume (Bon Iver)

5. Listening Wind (Talking Heads)

6. The Power of the Heart (Lou Reed)

7. My Body is a Cage (Arcade Fire)

8. The Book of Love (The Magnetic Fields)

9. I Think it's Going to Rain Today (Randy Newman)

10. Apres Moi (Regina Spektor)

11. Philadelphia (Neil Young)

12. Street Spirit (Fade Out) (Radiohead)

Rating: 3.5/5 stars (B)

Reviews: Neil Young's "Dreaming Man, Live '92"

2010-01-23T00:08:00.000-08:00

First published in Pressplus1 (Online): http://www.pressplus1.com/music-reviews/dreamin-man-live-92-neil-young-sparse-and-illuminating-document-from-his-early-90s-revival.html

Ok I realize this is the third batch of reviews for Neil Young I have penned, but the guy keeps releasing these archive series discs a mile a minute... ok maybe every few months then. But this one, unlike the others, follows Neil on tour years after his younger prime. Neil had a resurgence no one saw coming in the 90s and this continued right into the middle part of the decade before creative juices wore off. Since then, Neil has offered quality with his releases but often has fallen short of the satisfaction craved by those who remember his latter day comeback let alone his 70s reign as the best, most fearless troubadour in rock. It's probably a bit overeager for anyone to expect a masterpiece out of the now-64 year old Canuck, but in the early 90s he had all his followers, critics amongst these, craving what came next. I reviewed the remasters of his first four albums a few weeks back and left off portraying Neil as a bonafide star, enjoying (but really not enjoying in the literla sense) his Harvest album at #1, the units flying off the shelves as rapidly as any album of the time not released by John Denver or the Osmonds (Note to all classicists of 20th Century Music: Supposed golden ages all have their own embarrassing public faves). After this, he took a trip through the gutter of rock life, feeling a heavy heart over the drug casualties going on around him. This gave us masterful works that were at first misunderstood: Time Fades Away (Live 1973 release), Tonight's the Night (recorded 1973, released 1975) and On the Beach (1974). A reformed Crazy Horse brought some grungy brightness back on Zuma (1975) then Neil paired with Stephen Stills for Long May You Run (1976), credited to the Stills-Young Band and much slicker than the usual fare for Neil in the mid-70s. He then veered into ragtag country-rock for the majority of American Stars n' Bars (1977), while the rest was a grab bag of material from various sessions and back to traditional folk and country on the underrated Comes a Time (1978). These albums between Harvest and the end of the 70s ranged from tremendous to decent, but mostly they were tremendous. Then Neil kept up his heavy workload as he turned toward another film project, his first being a homemade docu/fiction piece of junk called Journey Through the Past, released to a limited run in 1972. This new one, not released until 1983 as it turns out, was called Human Highway. But more importantly, it led Neil into an offshoot idea for a concert film. Recording his new tunes live resulted in the breathtaking rock signpost album Rust Never Sleeps (1979), his all-time greatest album in my estimation. A live concert film accompanied it and then a true to form live album capturing the 1978-79 tour came. The whole multimedia rush still couldn't distract from the fact he'd returned to Crazy Horse (for the electric sets and the side 2 of Rust) in a most enthralling way.

Rust summarized his entire career to that point and once again Young was lauded on a wide scale. But now reaching well past 30, the family man Neil emerged in the 80s as he tended to the needs of his second son Ben, a non-oral, spastic cerebral palsy sufferer. Personally, he was focused on improving his son's lot in life and getting involved in the well-being of all those afflicted by CP (his first son Zeke, by actress Carrie Snodgress, was born with a less severe form of it). Young scaled back his rock star life and though he would go back to touring, he was virtually inactive outside of sporadic studio work from 1979-81. This definitely harmed the creative process as a strict physiotherapy program with Ben, that ultimately proved fruitless, made it so that 1981's Re-ac-tor, one of only 2 albums with Crazy Horse in the decade, could only be worked on in the hours Neil had available in his home studio. Artistically, he has never been more unfocused than he was from 1980-88. Before Re-ac-tor came out, Neil became some sort of political commentator with Hawks & Doves, a short-running hodgepodge and another one where the sids were markedly, drastically unto themselves. But then again, Neil titled side 2 to be "Hawks" and side 1 to be "Doves," so perhaps that was the intention. The first side was made up of outtakes from 1976-78 work intended for an aborted album entitled Chrome Dreams and they were in line with the spooky acoustic side Nel procreated in his productive 70s. Side two was like the ragged country-rock of 3 years prior, only even more slapdash and this time with a lear intent and message. Neil began championing like a Republican congressman, highlighting the recession and its plight on the average, hard-working American. Despite his transplanted citizenship to the U.S. of A, Neil bled red, white and blue all over Hawks & Doves, alienating some and just confusing others. After Re-ac-tor failed to ignite any glowing reviews, Neil ended his 13-year association with Reprise to sign a big contract with Geffen Records. Right off the bat with Geffen, Neil overnight became Mr. Everything, intent on tackling any genre he felt like. First he tried to throw his hat in the ring of techno-pop by familiarizing himself with all the latest keyboard, computerized hijinks for 1982's Trans. Unlike other clearly mediocre records of that time, Trans was a "love it or hate it" record that, underneath its techno pall was a complex record about the communication barrier Neil was facing with his mute, disabled son. A few Hawaiin-inflected cuts made their way in there, but overall it was a decent foray into explaining robotic dimensions of the world and the breakdown in communicating between the handicapped and the able-bodied. Nice sentiments, but the record flopped and even though Neil toured behind the media-oriented theme and music, he quickly jettisoned that for a retro rockabilly pose.

This generated him touring around with a band he called the Shocking Pinks, which he disappeared into as some sort of act, not unlike the Beatles pretending to be Sgt. Pepper only this was in person. Neil greased his hair up in a pompadour and acted like he was at the malt shops again and it provided us all with an erratic, flawed album with some of the dumpiest digital production you're ever going to hear. That 1983 dud Everybody's Rockin' was in response to Geffen wanting more of a rock record this time out and he took it almost too literally on that one by going back to the sound of R&R in its infancy. It was to be quickly followed up by a country record, something Geffen had been clamouring for no doubt. Neil gave them a record based on the hardships under Reagan's America and called it Old Ways. It was rejected but a Nashville-recorded second gasp at it wasn't. But this official Old Ways from 1985, was let down by glitzy production and half-baked Cosmopolitan Nashville tunes. These all were like third-drawer Harvest dead ringers but Neil, as he was prone to do in the 80s, took the latest stylistic detour full throttle and began dressing like a renegade cowboy. He turned a bit right-wing and jingoistic in interviews and began extolling the virtues of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson (both of whom he paired up with and clearly was trying to emulate via cowboy hats, scarves, bandanas, jeans and cowboy boots). During this 1984-85 side route, he toured with a country outfit he assembled called the International Harvesters. But again, if anyone thought they had him pegged, he pulled the rug out from under with 1986's Landing on Water. This was a re-visiting of contemporary 80s sounds as it tried to incorporate Neil Young classic songwriting with thundering gated drums, airy keyboards and so forth. The production is a bit dated now of course, but not too bad at all. It's simply the poor writing that made it one of his 3 worst albums. Neil took all the fancy equipment to the road, finally hooking up with the band he'd been estranged from for 6 years in Crazy Horse. Drawing on the past as a source of inspiration, Neil decided to record new tracks in concert and then put them, minus the crowd noise, on his next album. Exactly the same process that begot Rust Never Sleeps. The end result was simply called Life. This 1987 release was promising, although it was no winning, enduring and deserving sequel to Rust. On the bright side, it was probably the best of his Geffen releases. The old garage spirit returned on a few tracks and Neil had a bit more venom, some political and some not, back in his arsenal. But Life was not properly capitalized on, at least not immediately. Neil let his Geffen deal run out, capping a roller coaster ride that saw his commercial and critical stature drop and his very own label sue him for performing music unbecoming to an artist with the sound and reputation of a Neil Young. The desperate move never did anything in court of course and sowed the seeds for a discontented Neil to leave David Geffen's company in 1988 and promptly arrive back on Reprise. But he just delivered them another genre exercise with the blues offering, This Note's for You.

The album is probably best remembered for its title track's music video, a satirical tirade directed by Jonathan Demme that skewered advertisting but mostly how pop artists were now being heavily relid upon to hock the consumer products. As a result of its blatant use of advertising in order to turn the cannons right back in the face of these scorned corporations, MTV banned the video. This firestorm of controversy soon found MTV cast as the villains, Neil as the bemused victim and the video a hot commodity that MTV made a big deal about showing just once and only once. As a token or gesture, they gave it their MTV Video Award for Best Video but it didn't change the fact that Neil was no fan of the station's dumbing down of rock. Despite all this, the album's sales were mediocre, a bad sign considering the publicity outbreak. On it, Neil brought his guitar histrionics back, but the horn charts were by and large dull and needless in his quest to cut a blues tribute. Anyway, there was just as much Memphis Soul and jazz experimentation as blues on the album and although it beat 80% of anything he did for Geffen, it was yet another shrugging of the shoulders from his faithful. But then, as Neil rediscovered his intensity for the guitar, something changed. With this newly minted blues ensemble, the Bluenotes, on tour with him through 1988, Neil showed signs of life in his newer compositions and a Japan-only EP called Eldorado in 1989 hinted at a return to glory. Then came Freedom, an assault on the senses that perfectly captured what had gone wrong in the 80s. Neil had found his powers to communicate his social conscience in a way his audience could understand and grasp. Plus, both his electric and acoustic sides were firing on ally cylinders. He fell in on common ground with emerging alternative rockers and bands that would in a few years time come to take over the rock landscape with grunge. The sheer force behind guitar cataclysms like "Don't Cry," "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Eldorado" told the beautiful story. Freedom was one of the 5 best albums of the year 1989 and with a roll established, Neil did his first truly proper and exciting full album with Crazy Horse since Zuma in 1990. Called Ragged Glory, it re-established rock credibility and taught everyone how guys in their mid-40s were nowhere near over the hill (thanks to folks like Neil and Springsteen, but primarily the Stones who broke the convention that rock bands must die off before they hit the 2 decade mark together, we have bands that stick together and still put on great shows and write relevant music into their 40s). Ragged Glory had exciting jam pieces alongside simple, rustic country-rock with the knobs turned to 11 to quote Nigel Tufnel. The tour that followed had the perfect backdrop of the Gulf War, allowing for Neil to get his anti-war stuff back on the table and off his chest. As of 1992, Neil was praised in the press by the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth and had regained his stature as an iconic singer-songwriter. 47-year old Neil Young was riding high as the 90s dawned and progressed further. Having become more political and hard-edged topically than ever, Neil endured as a significant voice in pop music, although he had not really enjoyed a smash hit album since Rust Never Sleeps. That changed as he decided to go softer, crafting his most quaint and peaceful album overall since Comes A Time.

In 1992, perhaps it was while reeling from tinnitus that inspired Neil to write softer, folkier, country-flavoured songs once again. You see, tinnitus is an ear condition where hearing becomes super sensitive after being exposed to constantly high decibels in volume. And Neil had just completed a 1991 tour with Crazy Horse called "Smell the Horse" where he challenged bands like Sonic Youth for sheer noise, distortion, feedback and dissonance. There had been some moments of calm here and there on 1989's Freedom and songs left on the shelves during the 80s but Neil had not crafted a whole LP of acoustic-based music since the Comes a Time and only Hawks & Doves had seen his acoustic folk side highlighted at all in the 80s. Ah, those 80s. Containing a spell of records at Geffen from 1981-87, it was a decade where Neil became lost as he couldn't satisfy his core audience anymore. After Rust Never Sleeps landed him back in the spotlight as one of rock's bright lights- although he had never really left, just never made a splash on the market to rival that of Harvest- he had withdrawn because of family and adversity, namely his son Ben being born with a severe, spastic form of cerebral palsy. Neil showed no focus or cohesive ideas as he followed leaving Reprise Records in 1981 with brief dips into techno/electronica (1982's Trans), retro rockabilly (1983's vacuous, digitally produced Everybody's Rockin'), mainstream Nashville country (Old Ways), modern tech-rock (1986's Landing on Water and partially on Life, 1987's Crazy Horse collaboration) and horn-driven blues (1988's This Note's for You). It took till 1989 for Neil to feel at home in the 80s and with Freedom, he knocked everyone who had written him off for a loop. His charting pull then began to improve itself after an 8 year period of falling fortunes. With Freedom, he created his strongest batch of tunes in years, dabbling more in folk again and writing harrowing hard rock that was highlighted by the anthemic "Rockin' in the Free World" bookending the album, first with a live acoustic version then an electric studio version that perfectly encapsulated all the writhing anger and the nascent, palpable sense of danger back in Neil Young's writing. Afterward, he experienced a renaissance that didn't let up until the late 90s and right away he reinvigorated his formerly strained relationship with Crazy Horse on their joyfully hard rocking Ragged Glory in 1990. Now Neil was back in the hip category, or the "What's Hot" bracket if you care for Us Magazine. He could be seen dressing in T-shirts, jeans, lumberjack jackets and sometimes leather but looking bad ass in general and convincing while doing so amidst a sea of younger bands trying to place themselves on a similar mantle. Not often does a legendary artist get praised by newer bands while also being vital contemporaries of them. But Neil was creating garage rock brilliance at the same time bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam were singing is praises. Now commercially, it has always been the softer side of old Neiler that connected with the public and generated good sales. Harvest Moon has actually gone double platinum as of today, only the third album of his to do so (joining Harvest and After the Gold Rush), success that Neil had only experienced prior as part of the ultra popular megagroup CSNY.

The album itself has become one of his select chart and sale successes. Thematically, it finds Neil in a less introspective mood than its "prequel" Harvest, instead finding him a melancholy, contented man entering middle age feeling better than ever and still in love too. Often, that melancholy can become weary and boring. This is maybe the first indication that Neil mellowing with age could take the edge off him. He was no longer churning out moody love songs like "Pardon My Heart" or "Look Out for My Love," perhaps because he really was happy with his personal life. A cranky Neil meant prosperous things artistically, but that has changed as he's aged. On Harvest Moon, Neil still came up with wonderfully tuneful work however the disc begins to seriously lose steam after a primo opening of five lovely cuts. Neil enlisted the original Stray Gators lineup, a group of sidemen including Kenny Buttrey, Jack Nitszche, Tim Drummond, Spooner Oldham and Ben Keith that had been his group on Harvest. With their presence, Neil returned to that easy-going country/folk formula that struck gold (or platinum that is) 20 years earlier. Therefore, we got more pronounced use of harmonica, very few electric guitars (unless pedal steel counts), brushed drums, soothing piano and nothing as riveting rhythmically as something found on Ragged Glory or Freedom. All in all, because of some modest, rather restrained performances and production, Harvest Moon does not sizzle like its inspired 1972 predecessor, although both share the distinction of being his highest-selling albums, which may explain why they're often considered two of his most overrated. This is no mere product, but it's not the latter day masterpiece it's sometimes touted as. There's something missing, some gravitas that used to separate Neil from your average airy-fairy folkie. But what about this new archives release? Well like three prior ones, it's a snapshot of Neil performing acoustically on his own without anyone else. On this newest live document, we are exposed to live recordings of tracks entirely from that Harvest Moon record and they are seen from a different aspect. Consequently, I find some of these songs hold up even better than on record and sparkle in a new way. I suppose some rarely heard tracks would have been something momentous, but it's hard to argue with some of the fine music here. The song that the album bears the namesake of opens the disc and this version is a bit melancholy, but features Neil and Neil alone on his acoustic guitar so it's a one-man specialty. He wryly introduces "Dreamin' Man" by saying there's no literal meaning to be taken from the words. "Such a Woman" was a sappy, dull cut- much inferior to "Philadelphia," a similarly piano-based ballad written for Neil's friend Jonathan Demme's 1993 film of the same name. That was the studio version, right? Well it's both. Let's call a spade a spade; It's a hallmark card type of love song for his wife and the only possible improvement is by not having the schmaltzy orchestration present. Let it never be said that Neil can't write like Billy Joel or any other adult contemporary tunesmith. That said, "Such a Woman" is one of the more undynamic compositions of his career, in spite of the heavy love sentiment behind it. On the bright side, his vocals are tender and don't waver out of tune at all.

Neil manages to give "One of These Days" as much wistful beauty as the studio version does with a full band and some female backing support. Like the rest of the album it is derived from, it's nostalgic and rooted in family values, though this time Neil pledges to write a long letter to all the good friends he's known. Gee, somehow I doubt he ever got around to all that. "Harvest Moon" is as great as you remember it for the studio cut, complimented by Neil going it alone. What you find about his criminally underrated acoustic guitar playing is that he plays such intricate picking patterns and chordal structures that he doesn't need bass, drums and other accessories to flesh out a song. Since he writes almost all of his songs from this acoustic standpoint, it's no wonder the original guitar arrangements are the most central component. In several sequences, the picking connects the dots of the main melody. Indeed, like few guitarists we've heard in the rock lexicon, Neil Young can tag along his guitar comping to the vocal lines in nearly identical fashion. Harvest Moon was perhaps the most contented batch of love songs Neil ever wrote as he details the roads of life, the travails and moments of glory but ties them all into his current enjoyment. "You and Me" has the most explicitly romantic lyrics outside of "Such a Woman" but is a much better song that only loses points for sounding too much like a re-write of "Old Man." Not a bad way to copy yourself, mind you, and he throws in just enough guitar flourishes to merit minor praise. The best lyrical journey of Neil's newfound zeal for middle age comes on "From Hank to Hendrix." Now, any acoustic performance that absolutely touches a nerve is when Neil has for us something eloquently written, where he plays guitar fantastically in his unique trademark style (which involves hammer-ons, hammer-offs and strumming techniques that accentuate melodic ideas and riffs alike) while blowing that high, forlorn harmonica (with bends in the pitch thanks to an old bluesman trick of soaking the instrument in water). Add to that singing from that borderline whiny, but incredibly vivid and expressive voice and hardly anything can beat the awe his talent expresses to devotees, myself included. This is one of the better versions of "Hank to Hendrix" ever put out and it's swell to hear the audience cheering enthusiastically in between verses, well aware they were hearing more golden moments from the man who was already a legend by that point. The pastime tribute "Unknown Legend" looks at the back story of a woman near to Neil's heart, yes it's a literal story of his wife as a young girl herself. He harkens back to a day when she was a Hippie free spirit who rode motorcycles and worked as a waitress, a position that has a plain, feminine aesthetic of intrigue, common beauty and working class charm for Neil, a middle-class Canadian who has always been touched by the humbler, simpler walks of life. He is like a lot of good old salt of the Earth people we have in our Canadian small towns. Just take a listen to 1988's long unreleased "Ordinary People" for a bigger slice of that social spectrum Neil covers (18 minutes worth to be exact!).

Young's literary touch is a great one by rock writing standards, so it shouldn't be discounted that it's simply a facet of his genes as his father Scott was a well-known, famous sports journalist and novelist. One of the more modest, country pickin' delights from Harvest Moon was "Old King," a tribute to a beloved dog Neil had for years, performed ably on an eerily tuned down banjo. This is where Neil even manages bluegrass, although in his own madcap way. This lower key was a wise choice and "Old King" is the most improved track from studio to live comparison, as far as I see it. Though a soundalike to his acoustic "Cortez the Killer" arrangements, "Natural Beauty" is spine-tingling in its own way. While Neil has strayed in his political beliefs from liberal to conservative over the years, one thing he has always respected is the environment. In that sense, he is a green thumb and a dyed-in-the-wool conservationist. Neil eschews the wild progressions technology offers, unless of course they can be used to aid our natural world. Like any Californian Baby Boomer rocker, Neil doesn't have clear religious convictions and though he has never claimed to be an atheist, he feels nature is the world's true religion because it's a lovely mystery in itself, but one best enjoyed if treated fairly like it were a living, breathing person. The version of Harvest Moon was not far off from this solo offering, though it had vocal harmonies, marimbas and unnecessary nature sound effects. Neil weaves his beliefs on how the planet has been destroying itself around homilies about how it's bad because the environment should be respected and it's so darn great, don't ya know? Well he pours forth from his heart as the subject is obviously one racing through his mind, however sometimes the lines are redundant and lame (case in point the chorus's first line: "And natural beauty should be/Preserved, like a monument/To nature"). But it's still an arresting, cautionary folk composition that features several verses and even exceeds the 10 minutes of the studio cut by making it to 11.5 minutes. While not cluttered by the sound effects, Neil misses the backing vocals of Nicolette Larson and the atmospheric touches. His voice doesn't always manage the falsetto notes so great, but it's still a hauntingly, splendid listen. One of the other topical selections from Harvest Moon is "War of Man," an ominous, broad musing on war and how in the end "No one wins/It's a war of man." Not targeting one war in particular like on previous outings, Neil assails the devastation wrought by war though he would offer a nod of tribute to the men who fought in those conflicts with "Western Hero" in 1994. Not besting the studio version, this is still a worthy live performance of "War of Man" where Neil again delivers rich, intricate guitar work. There are moments where the Harvest Moon record is indeed the superior one for reference, but Dreamin Man: Live '92 is a pretty companion piece. A hardcore Young fan will cherish it and those who find Harvest and Harvest Moon to be their cup of tea should give it a shot, unless of course they can manage to listen to an album performed entirely solo. The fact it holds up so well and resists one-dimensionality brings me to my final verdict for this album: four out of five stars.

Thoughts on the Overlooked, Underappreciated Genius of Paul Westerberg

2010-01-23T00:02:00.001-08:00

First published in PressPlus1 Magazine (Online):

http://www.pressplus1.com/music/the-overlooked-underappreciated-genius-of-paul-westerberg.html

Ah yes, the godfather of alternative rock for the angstful young man. Paul Westerberg- now here we have a man who has taken the course less traveled in recent years by forgoing the major label status to release his albums independently. All the while he lives in the domestic suburbia of the Twin Cities area, where he grew up and his wonderful 80s group the Replacements started (I shouldn't say his since he didn't even found the group but you know what I'm getting at). This is admirable for a man who has admitted that he never found fame or fortune because he never sought it and when the Replacements always had chances to break through to the mainstream, they purposely squandered it, sometimes with a proverbial middle finger (see music videos they sardonically delivered for MTV rotation with 1985's "Bastards of the Young" being just a black-and-white solitary shot of a speaker playing, while 1987's "Alex Chilton" was the same, only with a record player. MTV's grumbling forced a more conventional- yet still abstract- video with various shots of the band sitting around on a couch and doing things completely unrelated to the song). Westerberg's biggest claim to notoriety started off innocently enough, or crudely enough if you prefer, when the Replacements were nothing but a bunch of young men singing tunes of teenage delinquency and frustration that gave the Ramones a run for their money. Westerberg joined the group when it was a motley crue that called itself Dogbreath and then the Impediments.

The Replacements name was borne out of the self-mocking attitude in the band that they were the group you got instead of one you truly wanted to see. The 'Mats is a fan nickname that has stuck, based on "The Placemats," a common mispronunciation of their real name and/or a derogatory term from some naysayer(s). So, this rapscallion bunch had their first album in the can by 1981 and established themselves alongside Husker Du as one of Minneapolis's premier rock groups. Often times the music put forth, written primarily by Westerberg, was an expression of unabated testosterone taking over- subject material about everything from partying it up with booze and cigarettes to the hangups of sexual difficulties. This was eventually streamlined into an alternative rock style with an ear for pop that was way ahead of its time. 1984's Let it Be was where the twain met and all their influences and developments coalesced to make an essential, legendary record. But the group was heading toward a bigger focus on tenderness, lower volumes and songwriting that, as the sales proved more and more disappointing with raised expectations on major label Sire Records, eventually overtook the danger in the Replacements rock youthful vigour. Westerberg matured bit by bit, even as the group's onstage drunkenness and sloppy spontaneity failed to go away.

To throw audiences for a loop, the Mats often scrapped their own tunes in the setlist for a 100% cover show, following themes at times or just playing an entire album or all songs by the same artist. The punks loathed this diversity for its foolery but Westerberg rightly pointed out the hypocrisy in punk fans being so opposed to this when it was supposed to be right up the punk alley of "D.I.Y., Anything Goes" and instead was more rigid and narrowly defined than other listening crowds. The more unexpected, the more the Replacements wanted to tackle it (Westerberg sometime around 1987 in a TV interview hypothesized that the worst thing they could do going forward was cut a rap album, to which he drly added after a dramatic pause for reflection, "So I guess we'll do that..."). A chance for national exposure was even prime ground for the Replacements pranking as their musical guest appearance in a 1986 episode of Saturday Night Live found them performing drunkenly, Westerberg cursing within earshot of the mic while all but Bob Stinson switched into each other's wardrobe for the 2nd number. While the later albums are a bit too easy going, the older ones are too one-dimensionally balls-to-the-wall too. That is why Let it Be was their perfect moment, an 80s rock album that crossed the punky angriness with thoughtful minded teenage social commentary.

By the 1985-90 back half of the Replacements' existence, Westerberg wrote bouquets of ear-catching melodies that would later be bastardized by the likes of city mates Soul Asylum as well as the Gin Blossoms, Hootie & the Blowfish, Goo Goo Dolls and everyone else who had a sunny, 90s good vibes college rock sound on the radio in that post-grunge comedown. Tim was the Replacement most accomplished pop pursuit and most likable, friendliest album, as lead guitarist Bob Stinson's lust for the breakneck, heavy rush of their punk roots became phased out, as Stinson was a year later in 1986 because of his supposed drug and alcohol abuse- though creative differences played just as big a role (Stinson eventually couldn't make the high times last, dying in 1995 from natural causes no doubt brought on by his addictions). 1987's Pleased to Meet Me as it turns out was their final gem and from there, it got less and less fun for all involved. Truthfully, it was Mr. Westerberg who was the cog that made the whole engine work, growing from an ambitious shouter who crafted 1 minute orgies of noise and puerile tales to a fabulous writer that foreshadowed Kurt Cobain vocally and mentally. You could say he was a precursor to grunge in a time when no one was quite prepared for it, Westerberg having moulded himself into a carefree but frustrated soul.

In that wasted, ravaged, nicotene-burnished voice, no one else could transmit such intense emotion across like Paul Westerberg. Who can listen to "Bastards of the Young," "Answering Machine," "Sixteen Blue," "Within Your Reach" and a bevy of other five-star inclusions without deeply admiring and aligning themselves with the all too real howl of Westerberg? If emo rock was more like Westerberg's, we wouldn't be considering it to be the trendy, irritating scourge of youth rock music today. You could say that the snarling punk Westerberg came off across as in the early 80s was perhaps a phase, perhaps just a young, alienated man getting his ya-yas out before collecting himself after a series of hangovers (and yes the Replacements made it a ritual to peformer intoxicated). Westerberg has always insisted that he had a wide palette for songwriting even when he wrote high school homilies and that intended to unleash it one day, but he was too wary of how his bandmates would react, fearing it would elicit laughs and teasing. He even brought his personal history into his art when he wrote 1987's "The Ledge," a song about a teenage kid who vows to committ suicide with everyone watching, apparently based on Westerberg's suicidal thoughts as a teenager. Even John Lennon never opened up in that respect and Westerberg, to the best of anyone's knowledge, never partook in Arthur Janov's Scream Therapy. In time for Tim in 1985, the 'Mats had bolted from their native Minneapolis label Twin Tone for the big label of Sire Records. When this occurred, some say their energy, spirit and anger didn't make the transition with them. Perhaps that's true but Westerberg began to mature along with his audience, whether they knew it or not.

The inner dynamic of the band changed when Bob Stinson was gassed after Tim, a culmination of his phasing out over the final two albums he did with the group. He preferred the manic, breakneck frenzy of their roots but when he was sacked the official verdict wasn't that it happened due to creative differences but that it happened due to his drug and alcohol abuse (strange to hear coming from a band of party animal booze cans). The other parts to the equation shouldn't be brushed aside. Chris Mars the drummer was an accomplished, well-rounded musician but never was the forceful songwriter that Westerberg was and the same goes for bassist Tommy Stinson who was much younger than the already fresh-faced rest of the band was. Stinson is now residing as the bassist in Guns N' Roses while Mars has given up music to focus on painting. Westerberg shied from the spotlight and on top of that, the Replacements last two albums fizzled on the charts despite making obvious overtures for the top 40 leading to nothing but opening for stadium acts and headlining tours of bars and small theatres. By 1991, it was finally over with. While as part of the Replacements he had enjoyed singing for the misfits and outcasts while flaunting a caricature of a wild man in interviews and stage demeanour. But the revelling in mayhem caused some sobering times for Westerberg who had to settle down and conquer his drinking in the 90s. Overcoming all this still did not make him renewed enough to move some big units.

True to his restless allergy to the mainstream, Westerberg has carved out a solo career where he makes the odd appearance on a soundtrack or two, more recently for kids films since he became a dad himself. After all, he once quipped that the Replacements would rather play for 50 people that know them than play for 1000 people who don't. It seems perfectly fitting, although anti-climactic because of the potential it once promised. While the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame strives to make headlines by inducting a member or two each year that is well known to the public, great bands with high critical reputations will be ignored and the Replacements are one of them. One day maybe they will get their due but sometimes being misunderstood before receiving full recognition is the greatest legacy of all in contemporary music. Robert Christgau put it well when reviewing Paul's 1996 album LP Eventually, saying he sounded "too mean because he's not as important as he thinks he is, too irrelevant because he's not as important as he should be." But that may well be how Westerberg prefers it. And remember that when you look at your favourite indie act today and bemoan their lack of recognition, just remember that time clears through the muck and divides the wheat from the chaff. Your modern day hero could one day become Paul Westerberg, a cult hero who despite shunning the attention is recognized for the major impact they had on contemporary music going forward.

Cream (1966-69): For All Their Influence, Perhaps the Catalyst to 70s Narrow Rock Elitism?

2009-12-11T22:25:00.000-08:00

We talk about several 60s icons with reverence today. It's understandable I suppose. The 70s and 80s have had enough time to look like more promising eras thanks to the advent of nostalgia and critical revisionism that wipes out a lot of the bad memories. Yet they still can't meet the vaunted reputation the 60s has earned, and I speak in musical terms not societal, philosophical, life-affirming lessons and all that peripheral jazz. But do we lose sight at the bad things the 60s set up for rock going forward? I don't mean bad things that spawned out of positives, like that the Beatles set too high a standard or that psychedelia was such a cosmic breakthrough that future experimentations rang hollow (both are debatable anyway). I'm referring to the ways in which the mid-to-late 60s, perhaps the pinnacle of rock's creativity being so strong it was practically bursting at the seams, changed rock and killed some of its original virtues. Not all rock-oriented music has to be rebellious, anarchistic and self-destructive like punk turned out to be. But it can't be exclusive to the musicians, neglectful of audiences as equals and highly derivative. Rock was up its own ass, to put it bluntly. Plenty of great music was made no doubt, but that's all we hear today. We don't hear the worst of the worst anymore, and not just the lousy AM radio hits but also the serious rock music that was wretched too. Iron Butterfly is the worst of what has endured but Vanilla Fudge has luckily taken their place in the background while we barely remember Zager & Evans, Aorta, the Strawbs and other annoyances that led to prog-rock. And that's just part of the mediocrity.

Cream was a respectable bunch but to me they never cut a single album that deserves the top 200 albums list. Plenty of individual songs that were wicked, but Hendrix's little finger had more voodoo and rainbow-coloured storm clouds than the whole of Cream. Now, Cream had chops to the last drop but they end up boring me after listening deeply to their catalogue. They could play but so what? They don't grab you by the heartstrings like the true rock legends can do. Hell, even Led Zeppelin learned how to put aside the testosterone bravado and make introspective, rustic and humane music. Their early days brought them a ton of criticism for bastardizing the blues in a loud, sleazy, offensive manner. But they proved those doubters wrong in the long run. Cream never had the time to prove they weren't one-dimensional. Cream, of course not meaning to, were pioneers in the idea of the 70s supergroup fossils. They began all wild-eyed and idealistic in what to do with the blues they adored. They took their name from being three sensational instrumentalists from the "Cream of the Crop" on the UK rock and blues scene. They came together in May 1966 but were finished by February 1969. It got Clapton worldwide notoriety after he had toiled first with the Yardbirds and then John Mayall's Bluesbreakers through 1963-65. As of his formation of Cream, Eric was just closing in on his 21st birthday but had already quickly ascended to the point where he was well known enough in London to have walls and other public property graffitied with proclamations of "Clapton is God." Clapton, as many were want to do, bolted from Mayall's veritable rock guitar hero farm club to form a "power trio" with jazzman Ginger Baker on the sticks and the all-round special talent Jack Bruce, once a Bluesbreaker himself and then for a short stint a member of Manfred Mann, on bass.

Bruce also could play organ and a mean harp, a key accessory for one to cavort around in a band dead set on the blues. Ah, gotta have the white dude who can blow away on harp like he was pickin' cotton by day and slugging whiskey at night in some swampy tavern or other speakeasy. Cream compensated for the lack of a chordal buttress by simply turning up the distortion and volume on their guitar and bass amps. "I Feel Free," their debut single, could very well have been their most soulful work ever, a sultry R&B with moaning guitar leads and a Motown kind of tambourine. It had a bit of the wildebeest distortion they'd go on to make a famous necessity for rock groups, but overall was a dry, mannered recording but much less stagnant and languid than some of the stuff that bogged down Fresh Cream in my mind- another one of those old LPs from the mid-60s produced with some knockoff fake stereo where the band is separated in the left and right channels quite evidently and with hardly any middle EQ. When it comes to playing, there were unique methods employed. Baker often shunned playing simple 4/4 rock beats, playing thumping shuffles and fills in their place thanks to his extensive background in jazz. The debut album was one of the first featuring Clapton emerging as a competent vocalist even in the face of Bruce's biting yell and vibrato. Most of Fresh Cream was sparse but burning hot rock for 1966. But yet, the dry sound and fake stereo production give it a neutered sound. Indeed, Cream were best experienced live but even then they could be full of it. Cream are praised today, along with Hendrix, for radically reshaping the blues into something that became heavy metal when groups like Black Sabbath took the sound, fattened up the rhythm and added demonic, depressed touches to it. More than anyone, including the Who, Yardbirds and Stones, Cream contributed a harder, nastier sound to rock that eventually gave the 70s the testosterone driven sizzle we associate it with today. Hendrix did his part but was so one of a kind that it was hard to copy him.

Cream also represents a turning point where high fallutin' musicianship, snobbish rock elitism, drugs, debauchery and the merits of "heavy" over "fun" took presidence. Clapton realized that himself. But Cream, despite its accomplishments, also set the table for the shallow showmanship of 70s rock gods like Led Zep or Grand Funk Railroad, the latter of which was unable to stand the test of time because of a lack of adventure outside hard rock, unlike Zeppelin who proved they weren't just a noise-and-scream type of band on their third and fourth releases. Cream also popularized the idea of 16 minute live versions of songs that went on and on with endless solos for audiences to clap through as if it were classicial music.... and rock is not supposed to be the treat of the high-minded masses (who in this case were hippies and/or drugged-out philosophizers or just plain trend-following dopeheads and/or doofuses). Meanwhile, several acts better than Cream were ignored and put down, Van Morrison or the Velvet Underground for instance. By 1969, this snobbery led to artists being discriminated for a multitude of "offenses": Not being excellent on their instruments, not being politically active enough, not having big solos, not singing of their latest drug trip. Since 1983, Clapton has reportedly been sober though he had a few times falling off the wagon I don't doubt, namely when his son fell out of an open window in his apartment in New York in 1991. Well the only positive to that incident was that it gave us "Tears in Heaven," a tune that borders on sappy but really is a moment of touching pain and sadness in Clapton's career, which has been at its best when times were tough for him. In that sense, he lives up to the life and inspirations of the bluesmen he's always adored and followed in the footsteps of.

Meanwhile back in '70, Eric was not only addicted to heroin but hung up on hs infatuation with Patti Boyd, the wife of his best friend George Harrison (George was a good sport who still attended their wedding in 1978 after Boyd was wooed away by Eric). This also has inspired a separate article dealing with the pros and cons of the famous/infamous Cream. On we go (if you're still with me)! And after 1974, Clapton's output has been average to say the least. He picked up alcohol as his new vice, nearly drinking himself to death over the course of the 70s while inciting negativity for his controversial support of Enoch Powell, a British politican at the head of the National Front, a party begun in the 60s as a response to waves of immigrations threatening to "topple" the traditional structure of English life and the fabric of its society. The National Front could never shake the stigma of being neo-fascist types and Clapton vocally approving Powell showed just how angry people could become when they thought their favourite entertainer was lecturing them. By the time of Clapton's artistic decline, he'd still performed a number of tunes destined to become what they are today- staples of the classic rock radio diet. Anyway, Cream may have been good in their own way but were around far too briefly and didn't do much to turn the clock on rock's slow descent into becoming too professional, too showbiz. Punk was no doubt the impetus for a change of thought in that respect, and as you can tell I shared some of the ideas that figures like Johnny Rotten, Joe Strummer and Joey Ramone had.