Catalunya (or Catalonia) is an “autonomous community” within the Kingdom of Spain, which sounds as if the “nation” of Catalunya should be at least semi-independent. Spain, however, continues to maintain sovereignty over the region (which includes the metropolis of Barcelona). Thus it is by no means inappropriate or unexpected for a Catalan singer to program songs calling for Catalan freedom in a televised performance in a major concert hall.
The singer in question, Marina Rossell, is a long-time superstar in Catalunya, with a career dating back into the 1970’s, though she is little known in the US. This is unfortunate, because as a performer and as a representative of her culture, she should rank alongside such former International sensations as Edith Piaf, Nana Mouskouri, and Mercedes Sosa. Many of her own songs, as well as the older Catalan songs (about which below) that she interprets, may be regarded as somewhat equivalent to the South American nueva cancion, in that they are poetically worded songs which examine the lives of the common people, leaving it up to the listener to decide what must be done if things are to change. There are English subtitles available for the lyrics, which I tended to ignore at first, so captivating is the lush beauty of Rossell’s voice. Fortunately, I soon realized what a serious mistake that was, as the lyrics hold the key for a full understanding of the songs and the entire nationalist nature of the concert.
Rossell’s original material dominates the first half of the 90-minute concert, and a very substantial (and entertaining) body of work it is. The second half of the proceedings, however, may be even more valuable, as the singer has done considerable research into long-forgotten Catalan songs from the late 19th- and early 20th centuries. She has retained the heartfelt lyrics and memorable melodies of these songs intact, but has very successfully updated the styles of their arrangements to suit her musical approach and the taste of the contemporary listener.
Her accompaniment is focused largely on a variety of “Mediterranean guitars”, as well as piano, occasional accordion, strong bass playing, light percussion. This is supplemented by a variety of well-chosen guest artists - a choir of young women (teens, it would appear) called the Vivaldi Choir of Young Voices of Catalonia, two musicians playing tenoras (long double-reed woodwinds generally found in coblas; see below), the great Basque trikitixa (localized version of the accordion) player Kepa Junkera, and a largish percussion ensemble called the Coetus Iberian Percussion Orchestra.
In addition to the concert, there is a half-hour feature focusing on the songs themselves, showing how Rossell combed archives filled with sheet music to resurrect gems from her nation’s past. We are treated to an outdoor performance by a Catalan wind band called a cobla, which has the traditional role of supplying music for the Catalan circle dance known as the sardana. We also hear the background of several of the older songs featured in the concert, and learn a bit about their composers. In all, this lone bonus feature is an invaluable adjunct to a fuller understanding of the music.
Since this concert was filmed in 2008 for Catalan television, it would seem to make sense for someone like PBS to make it available for American viewers. But that would probably make too much sense. Certainly, there is far more substance and passion in this DVD than in a full week, even two, of the bland concerts by international pop singers trotted out by PBS during Membership Pledge Drives. Get this DVD -it’s the really good stuff.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Friday, January 14, 2011
Joe Louis Walker & the Bosstalkers “In Concert” (MVD)
When Joe Louis Walker exploded onto the blues scene in the late 1980’s, he was hailed as a breath of fresh air. He enlivened a somewhat stagnating scene with his energetic, emotional, original approach to combining hard-core electric blues with elements of soul and gospel. This 1991 live-performance DVD, from the German concert t.v. series “Ohne Filter”, captures him and his equally energetic band, the Bosstalkers, at their early peak.
Walker and the band are notable for their clean, stripped-down sound, built around the leader’s, precise, clipped-note lead which has some of the cool approach of Albert Collins melodically (though the parallel should not be taken too exactly), but which can burst out in showers of notes which can catch you pleasantly off-guard. This tight, compact early edition of the Bosstalkers provide solid support throughout, without ever overpowering Walker. The bass player in particular has a nice, popping funk rhythmic sense, whereas the keyboardist and drummer are refreshingly content to be role-players, filling in with taste and subtlety. A concise two-man horn section (tenor sax, trumpet) provides first-rate enhancement, occasionally putting down their horns to pick up small percussion instruments. One can only wish that all sidemen in small bands of this nature were equally content to help showcase their leader and not themselves.
Walker’s repertoire is quite varied, and reflects his early interest in the earthier aspects of 60’s r&b, his early-career experience in the playing field, his interest in a wide range of electric blues from Chicago through Memphis to Texas, even his friendship with former roommate Michael Bloomfield. It’s all here, not in a scatter-shot way, but melded into a coherent, individualistic approach. The 57-minute performance holds a great deal of interest from beginning to end.
In the twenty years since this concert was originally televised, Joe Louis Walker has continued to record consistently excellent CD’s and perform at top festivals and clubs. Even so, he has never quite crossed into mainstream consciousness the way a B. B. King or Buddy Guy has. And that’s a shame, because the man has an awful lot to offer. This disc captures him at full power, and should be seen by anyone interested in modern-day blues.
Walker and the band are notable for their clean, stripped-down sound, built around the leader’s, precise, clipped-note lead which has some of the cool approach of Albert Collins melodically (though the parallel should not be taken too exactly), but which can burst out in showers of notes which can catch you pleasantly off-guard. This tight, compact early edition of the Bosstalkers provide solid support throughout, without ever overpowering Walker. The bass player in particular has a nice, popping funk rhythmic sense, whereas the keyboardist and drummer are refreshingly content to be role-players, filling in with taste and subtlety. A concise two-man horn section (tenor sax, trumpet) provides first-rate enhancement, occasionally putting down their horns to pick up small percussion instruments. One can only wish that all sidemen in small bands of this nature were equally content to help showcase their leader and not themselves.
Walker’s repertoire is quite varied, and reflects his early interest in the earthier aspects of 60’s r&b, his early-career experience in the playing field, his interest in a wide range of electric blues from Chicago through Memphis to Texas, even his friendship with former roommate Michael Bloomfield. It’s all here, not in a scatter-shot way, but melded into a coherent, individualistic approach. The 57-minute performance holds a great deal of interest from beginning to end.
In the twenty years since this concert was originally televised, Joe Louis Walker has continued to record consistently excellent CD’s and perform at top festivals and clubs. Even so, he has never quite crossed into mainstream consciousness the way a B. B. King or Buddy Guy has. And that’s a shame, because the man has an awful lot to offer. This disc captures him at full power, and should be seen by anyone interested in modern-day blues.
Friday, December 24, 2010
“Jimi Hendrix: Guitar Hero” DVD (Image Entertainment)
Back in the days when rock music still had guitar heroes, when the term referred to lead and solo (generally electric) guitarists who played with greater technical skill, more imagination, and a bolder vision than almost all of their peers, when Guitar Hero meant more than a video game, Jimi Hendrix was the greatest guitar hero of them all. That’s not just me talking, it’s an opinion shared by some of the finest rock musicians ever, many of whom share their memories of Hendrix on this documentary DVD. If you are one of the unconvinced, and even if you are already a true fan, this disc goes far in explaining why, a full forty years after his death, Jimi Hendrix is still idolized by so many musicians and fans alike.
This film would appear to be unauthorized by the Hendrix estate, which might explain why there are only a few snippets of Hendrix in live performance here, with most of the background music consisting of other people’s oldies. I enjoy listening to Hawkwind, Harry Nilsson and Lorraine Ellison (among many others heard here) as much as anyone, but they seem out of place in this context. This to me is the only real negative in this documentary, yet it’s a fairly small one. But the fact that this is most likely unauthorized means that interviewees feel free to speak their minds freely, without censorship. Thus we have, for example, a no-holds-barred look at Hendrix’s drug use, which everyone knows about, but which has rarely been openly discussed in such detail.
The film is narrated by Slash, whose admiration for Jimi Hendrix is well-known, and who seems quite well-versed in Hendrix lore, even though he died when Slash was only five years old. The great bulk of the interviewees, however, are people who knew Hendrix, many of whom played/jammed/associated with him, sharing their memories rather than relating unfounded rumors or hearsay. The musicians interviewed on-camera (mostly in 2009) include Eric Clapton, Eric Burdon, Mick Taylor, Zoot Money, Ginger Baker, Joey Covington, Bev Bevan. Mickey Dolenz, Lemmy, Stephen Stills, Alan White and Chris Squier, Dave Mason, and Paul Rodgers. Important, less publicly known parts to the story are recounted by Hendrix’ longtime English girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, and his brother Leon Hendrix. Journalist/author Charles Cross adds a great deal of well-considered perspective as well.
Indeed, Leon’s tales of Hendrix’s poverty-filled childhood, raised by alcoholic parents who eventually split up and left the young brothers at the mercy of the Child Welfare system, provide many of the most poignant moments in the film. We learn that the parents’ constant arguing inspired one of Hendrix’ most touching songs, “Castles Made of Sand”. One can only speculate how this upbringing influenced the guitarist’s subsequent lifestyle choices. We hear from several sources that despite his copious drug use and “wild man” on-stage antics, Hendrix off-stage was quiet, polite, reserved, constantly with a guitar in his hand, practicing/rehearsing. Indeed, we are told that many of those on-stage antics were pure show-biz, his version of African-American showmanship that he learned during his apprenticeships with Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, Wilson Pickett, and others. Many of his “stunts”, such as playing the guitar behind his head and with his teeth, were used by earlier generations of blues musicians such as T-Bone Walker (and, I would add, Charlie Patton), but seemed new to the rock audience who hadn’t seen them before. Even his most outrageous moments were calculated, designed to gain maximum publicity, including the infamous guitar-burning/smashing at Monterrey.
We learn of Noel Redding’s jealousy, that rather than thanking his lucky stars that he found himself in an important, highly visible band, he felt he deserved to be “the star”, the guitar player for the band. (He was after all, as he would remind people, the best guitar player in Kent!). It turns out that he actually intended to audition for a guitar opening in the Animals, but that manager (and ex-Animal) Chas Chandler hired Redding as bassist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience even though he had no experience on the instrument. Redding’s dissatisfaction with and bare competence in his role explains why so much of the bass work on “Electric Ladyland” was by Hendrix himself, overdubbing, rather than by Redding. Dave Mason talks about how he came to play the acoustic guitar part on “All Along the Watchtower”, and how Hendrix’ classic solo on that track was actually a combination of three solos, including a slide part played with a cigarette lighter. I suspect much of this material may appear in various printed sources, but it’s nice to have it all in one place, confirmed by people who were there.
Musicians will appreciate the technical discussions of Hendrix’ fingerings, chord formations, sound effects, and amplifier set-ups by Slash, Stills, Covington, and Lemmy (Noel Redding’s one-time roommate, who served as a roadie for the Experience for several months in his pre-Hawkwind/Motorhead days). Thus, we learn that not only was Jimi Hendrix a guitar hero (we already knew that), but we learn WHY he was one, and how he became one. On a related subject, Hendrix was fascinated by sounds, and was always striving to turn the sounds and colors he heard in his head into reality. Producer Alan Douglas says you “couldn’t produce” Hendrix, “you could only help him to produce himself”; he knew what he wanted, but did not always know the technical means by which to achieve his goals in the studio. Hendrix died leaving many of his ambitions unfulfilled. We’re told he wanted to write symphonies. not only for orchestra but for large ensembles of electric guitars. We’re told he wanted to form bigger bands, that the short-lived Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, the band he played with at Woodstock, was only a small step in that direction. Others tell us he wanted to go back to his blues roots, while Stephen Stills feels he would have turned in the direction of fusion. But the business heads around Hendrix insisted he continue to do “Purple Haze” and his other hits over and over, which he grew to despise.
Bonus Features include an irrelevant ten-minute featurette of silent film footage of the Monkees, taken by photographer Henry Diltz (another of the interviewees on this disc), who didn’t join the tour in which Hendrix opened for the Monkees (talk about your classic mismatch!) until after Hendrix was dismissed. While it’s by no means uninteresting to see (though not hear) the Monkees onstage, it should be on another disc, not this one. Much more illuminating is the one full-length performance by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on the DVD, an early live version of “Hey Joe”, in which it’s clear that Redding isn’t connecting with Hendrix and drummer Mitch Mitchell. Also included are a number of extended interviews, which include insights not chosen for the original film. As in the main program, some of the most perceptive commentary comes from Charles Cross, while some of the most significant comes from Leon Hendrix, with more fascinating info on his brother’s youth and musical upbringing. There are two small photo galleries, one of random shots and one of Henry Diltz material, plus a 20-page booklet of photos and biographical material, which does not merely reproduce the film’s contents.
In all, I would say that this would be a highly instructive and rewarding way to spend some of your Christmas gift money. Not only did I learn a lot, I found the great bulk, perhaps all, of it to be trustworthy, much more so than one might find on a bowdlerized “authorized” DVD.
This film would appear to be unauthorized by the Hendrix estate, which might explain why there are only a few snippets of Hendrix in live performance here, with most of the background music consisting of other people’s oldies. I enjoy listening to Hawkwind, Harry Nilsson and Lorraine Ellison (among many others heard here) as much as anyone, but they seem out of place in this context. This to me is the only real negative in this documentary, yet it’s a fairly small one. But the fact that this is most likely unauthorized means that interviewees feel free to speak their minds freely, without censorship. Thus we have, for example, a no-holds-barred look at Hendrix’s drug use, which everyone knows about, but which has rarely been openly discussed in such detail.
The film is narrated by Slash, whose admiration for Jimi Hendrix is well-known, and who seems quite well-versed in Hendrix lore, even though he died when Slash was only five years old. The great bulk of the interviewees, however, are people who knew Hendrix, many of whom played/jammed/associated with him, sharing their memories rather than relating unfounded rumors or hearsay. The musicians interviewed on-camera (mostly in 2009) include Eric Clapton, Eric Burdon, Mick Taylor, Zoot Money, Ginger Baker, Joey Covington, Bev Bevan. Mickey Dolenz, Lemmy, Stephen Stills, Alan White and Chris Squier, Dave Mason, and Paul Rodgers. Important, less publicly known parts to the story are recounted by Hendrix’ longtime English girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, and his brother Leon Hendrix. Journalist/author Charles Cross adds a great deal of well-considered perspective as well.
Indeed, Leon’s tales of Hendrix’s poverty-filled childhood, raised by alcoholic parents who eventually split up and left the young brothers at the mercy of the Child Welfare system, provide many of the most poignant moments in the film. We learn that the parents’ constant arguing inspired one of Hendrix’ most touching songs, “Castles Made of Sand”. One can only speculate how this upbringing influenced the guitarist’s subsequent lifestyle choices. We hear from several sources that despite his copious drug use and “wild man” on-stage antics, Hendrix off-stage was quiet, polite, reserved, constantly with a guitar in his hand, practicing/rehearsing. Indeed, we are told that many of those on-stage antics were pure show-biz, his version of African-American showmanship that he learned during his apprenticeships with Little Richard, the Isley Brothers, Wilson Pickett, and others. Many of his “stunts”, such as playing the guitar behind his head and with his teeth, were used by earlier generations of blues musicians such as T-Bone Walker (and, I would add, Charlie Patton), but seemed new to the rock audience who hadn’t seen them before. Even his most outrageous moments were calculated, designed to gain maximum publicity, including the infamous guitar-burning/smashing at Monterrey.
We learn of Noel Redding’s jealousy, that rather than thanking his lucky stars that he found himself in an important, highly visible band, he felt he deserved to be “the star”, the guitar player for the band. (He was after all, as he would remind people, the best guitar player in Kent!). It turns out that he actually intended to audition for a guitar opening in the Animals, but that manager (and ex-Animal) Chas Chandler hired Redding as bassist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience even though he had no experience on the instrument. Redding’s dissatisfaction with and bare competence in his role explains why so much of the bass work on “Electric Ladyland” was by Hendrix himself, overdubbing, rather than by Redding. Dave Mason talks about how he came to play the acoustic guitar part on “All Along the Watchtower”, and how Hendrix’ classic solo on that track was actually a combination of three solos, including a slide part played with a cigarette lighter. I suspect much of this material may appear in various printed sources, but it’s nice to have it all in one place, confirmed by people who were there.
Musicians will appreciate the technical discussions of Hendrix’ fingerings, chord formations, sound effects, and amplifier set-ups by Slash, Stills, Covington, and Lemmy (Noel Redding’s one-time roommate, who served as a roadie for the Experience for several months in his pre-Hawkwind/Motorhead days). Thus, we learn that not only was Jimi Hendrix a guitar hero (we already knew that), but we learn WHY he was one, and how he became one. On a related subject, Hendrix was fascinated by sounds, and was always striving to turn the sounds and colors he heard in his head into reality. Producer Alan Douglas says you “couldn’t produce” Hendrix, “you could only help him to produce himself”; he knew what he wanted, but did not always know the technical means by which to achieve his goals in the studio. Hendrix died leaving many of his ambitions unfulfilled. We’re told he wanted to write symphonies. not only for orchestra but for large ensembles of electric guitars. We’re told he wanted to form bigger bands, that the short-lived Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, the band he played with at Woodstock, was only a small step in that direction. Others tell us he wanted to go back to his blues roots, while Stephen Stills feels he would have turned in the direction of fusion. But the business heads around Hendrix insisted he continue to do “Purple Haze” and his other hits over and over, which he grew to despise.
Bonus Features include an irrelevant ten-minute featurette of silent film footage of the Monkees, taken by photographer Henry Diltz (another of the interviewees on this disc), who didn’t join the tour in which Hendrix opened for the Monkees (talk about your classic mismatch!) until after Hendrix was dismissed. While it’s by no means uninteresting to see (though not hear) the Monkees onstage, it should be on another disc, not this one. Much more illuminating is the one full-length performance by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on the DVD, an early live version of “Hey Joe”, in which it’s clear that Redding isn’t connecting with Hendrix and drummer Mitch Mitchell. Also included are a number of extended interviews, which include insights not chosen for the original film. As in the main program, some of the most perceptive commentary comes from Charles Cross, while some of the most significant comes from Leon Hendrix, with more fascinating info on his brother’s youth and musical upbringing. There are two small photo galleries, one of random shots and one of Henry Diltz material, plus a 20-page booklet of photos and biographical material, which does not merely reproduce the film’s contents.
In all, I would say that this would be a highly instructive and rewarding way to spend some of your Christmas gift money. Not only did I learn a lot, I found the great bulk, perhaps all, of it to be trustworthy, much more so than one might find on a bowdlerized “authorized” DVD.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
“Andy Williams Collection” 3-DVD box set (Questar)
To the oldest generation still with us, the term “Christmas music” conjures up images of Bing Crosby. But to those of us who grew up watching television in the 1960’s, Christmas is near-synonymous with Andy Williams. This new collection of three DVD’s, featuring material from Williams’ t.v. series, which aired through most of the 60’s, includes one whole disc entirely devoted to his annual Christmas special, plus two discs of non-seasonal material.
Andy Williams, who turned 83 earlier this month, is still a popular live performer, in Branson, MO, Las Vegas, and other venues which cater largely to an older audience that remembers him from his heyday. What makes this particularly extraordinary is that he’s been doing this for over 70 years, beginning in the late 30’s as the youngest member of a family quartet from Iowa called the Williams Brothers, who hit the big-time singing with Bing Crosby on his 1944 hit, “Swingin’ On a Star”. When the rest of the group decided to quit in the early 50’s, Andy embarked on a solo career, and has never had to look back. By 1956, he began turning out a long series of hit records that continued into the 1970’s. His clear, appealing voice, with a strong falsetto that set him apart from other middle-of-the-road pop entertainers of the era, was combined with a stylistic versatility that made him a favorite of the Welk crowd, the Sinatra audience, and the Top 40 charts, all at once - no mean feat during the British Invasion and psychedelic eras. The one thing he lacked was a rhythmic feel for jazz, yet he sounded quite comfortable over the swinging big-band arrangements that were a staple of t.v. variety shows back in the day.
Although his early hit singles included both rockabilly (Charlie Gracie’s “Butterfly”) and country-music (Carl Belew’s “Lonely Street”) covers, Williams’ repertoire of the 60’s featured a number of songs from movie scores. The first disc in this set - all three discs are available separately, as well as in this box - “Moon River and Me” includes televised performances of such movie songs as the title song (from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s; the song was a hit single for Jerry Butler, but has become associated more closely with Williams over the years, due largely to his t.v. exposure), “The Shadow of Your Smile” (with a tasteful trumpet counter-melody by Al Hirt), “Born Free”, “Call Me Irresponsible,” and several others. There are also a couple unusual production numbers that go beyond the typical dance routines, such as a chorus line jumping-rope to “Goody Goody” and ice-skaters during “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve”. Unlike many of his pop-music contemporaries, Williams also had a taste for folk-flavored songs, on this disc “Leavin’ On A Jet Plane” and “Abraham, Martin and John.”
Amidst all the well-known songs, there are a couple daring choices, Broadway songs which have never received as much attention as they deserve - Ira Gershwin/Kurt Weill’s “My Ship” and Truman Capote/Harold Arlen’s “Don’t Like Goodbyes”. Many of the songs have new introductions by a white-haired, bespectacled Andy Williams, whom I don’t know whether I would have recognized if I didn’t already know it was him. Four additional songs, including a lovely “Danny Boy”, are included as Bonus Features.
The second disc, “My Favorite Duets”, features Williams in collaboration with a wide variety of guest stars. Despite the designation “duets”, he is joined by a few ensembles - Peter, Paul and Mary, with whom he blends seamlessly on the Weavers’ “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”; Simon and Garfunkel, on a version of “Scarborough Fair” which may even exceed the duo’s original recording; Phil Harris and an unidentified male gospel quartet; a reunited Williams Brothers; and a highly impressive Osmond Brothers, in he days before they became Jackson 5 imitators and still based their sound on that of the Williams Brothers (no wonder Andy featured them so regularly!).
As for the “real” duets (the two-person variety), Sammy Davis, Jr. does some eccentric tap-dancing mixed in with the twist. A dance routine pairs Williams and former college athlete Johnny Mathis with basketballs and gymnastic equipment. A medley teams Andy with his old colleague Bing Crosby. Roger Miller scats through a wacky version of “You Don’t Want My Love”, an atypical Williams hit which Miller wrote). A funny bit finds Pearl Bailey dancing in her chair as the two engage in song and patter. Antonio Carlos Jobim, a Williams favorite, backs Williams on guitar and sings a bit himself, though Jobim was really a composer/pianist more than a singer). Inevitably, perhaps, there are a few collaborations which simply fail to catch fire, with Lena Horne, Julie Andrews, and a vocally shot Judy Garland.
Sprinkled throughout are reminiscences by Williams, music director Dave Grusin, and Mathis. All three offer additional commentary in the Bonus Features, along with a few repeats of their comments from the program. Because of the level of talent involved, I would suggest that - all things being equal - this would be the disc to get if your budget allows to only get one.
But that’s just my opinion - I have a feeling that most single-disc buyers will opt for disc 3, “Best of Christmas”. Goodness knows, I can picture this becoming an annual ritual around our house. The Andy Williams Christmas Special became such a yearly institution that it continued to appear for several years after the weekly show left the air. The disc has no bonus features and no guest stars aside from the Osmond Brothers, the Williams Brothers, and the whole Williams family - and it doesn’t need anything else. There are a couple more of those typically atypical Williams Show production numbers, in this instance with old-fashioned, small-town sets, vintage clothing, and people milling about (one hesitates to call it dancing, though the choreographer’s touch is obvious). There are also straightforward solo renditions of sacred Christmas hymns, “Silent Night”, “O Holy Night”, “Ave Maria”. And of course, Williams does his own Christmas hit, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”. There really is no need to say much more, because this is the sort of fondly remembered disc that sells itself.
This would make a perfect last-minute Christmas gift for an, er, somewhat older person on your list (somebody my age, in other words!) Or treat yourself to some timeless entertainment. This should be well-distributed enough that there may still be time to pick it up for Christmas 2010. Or buy it in 2011, watch the first two discs, and save the third for next December. In any case, give this one some serious consideration.
Andy Williams, who turned 83 earlier this month, is still a popular live performer, in Branson, MO, Las Vegas, and other venues which cater largely to an older audience that remembers him from his heyday. What makes this particularly extraordinary is that he’s been doing this for over 70 years, beginning in the late 30’s as the youngest member of a family quartet from Iowa called the Williams Brothers, who hit the big-time singing with Bing Crosby on his 1944 hit, “Swingin’ On a Star”. When the rest of the group decided to quit in the early 50’s, Andy embarked on a solo career, and has never had to look back. By 1956, he began turning out a long series of hit records that continued into the 1970’s. His clear, appealing voice, with a strong falsetto that set him apart from other middle-of-the-road pop entertainers of the era, was combined with a stylistic versatility that made him a favorite of the Welk crowd, the Sinatra audience, and the Top 40 charts, all at once - no mean feat during the British Invasion and psychedelic eras. The one thing he lacked was a rhythmic feel for jazz, yet he sounded quite comfortable over the swinging big-band arrangements that were a staple of t.v. variety shows back in the day.
Although his early hit singles included both rockabilly (Charlie Gracie’s “Butterfly”) and country-music (Carl Belew’s “Lonely Street”) covers, Williams’ repertoire of the 60’s featured a number of songs from movie scores. The first disc in this set - all three discs are available separately, as well as in this box - “Moon River and Me” includes televised performances of such movie songs as the title song (from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s; the song was a hit single for Jerry Butler, but has become associated more closely with Williams over the years, due largely to his t.v. exposure), “The Shadow of Your Smile” (with a tasteful trumpet counter-melody by Al Hirt), “Born Free”, “Call Me Irresponsible,” and several others. There are also a couple unusual production numbers that go beyond the typical dance routines, such as a chorus line jumping-rope to “Goody Goody” and ice-skaters during “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve”. Unlike many of his pop-music contemporaries, Williams also had a taste for folk-flavored songs, on this disc “Leavin’ On A Jet Plane” and “Abraham, Martin and John.”
Amidst all the well-known songs, there are a couple daring choices, Broadway songs which have never received as much attention as they deserve - Ira Gershwin/Kurt Weill’s “My Ship” and Truman Capote/Harold Arlen’s “Don’t Like Goodbyes”. Many of the songs have new introductions by a white-haired, bespectacled Andy Williams, whom I don’t know whether I would have recognized if I didn’t already know it was him. Four additional songs, including a lovely “Danny Boy”, are included as Bonus Features.
The second disc, “My Favorite Duets”, features Williams in collaboration with a wide variety of guest stars. Despite the designation “duets”, he is joined by a few ensembles - Peter, Paul and Mary, with whom he blends seamlessly on the Weavers’ “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine”; Simon and Garfunkel, on a version of “Scarborough Fair” which may even exceed the duo’s original recording; Phil Harris and an unidentified male gospel quartet; a reunited Williams Brothers; and a highly impressive Osmond Brothers, in he days before they became Jackson 5 imitators and still based their sound on that of the Williams Brothers (no wonder Andy featured them so regularly!).
As for the “real” duets (the two-person variety), Sammy Davis, Jr. does some eccentric tap-dancing mixed in with the twist. A dance routine pairs Williams and former college athlete Johnny Mathis with basketballs and gymnastic equipment. A medley teams Andy with his old colleague Bing Crosby. Roger Miller scats through a wacky version of “You Don’t Want My Love”, an atypical Williams hit which Miller wrote). A funny bit finds Pearl Bailey dancing in her chair as the two engage in song and patter. Antonio Carlos Jobim, a Williams favorite, backs Williams on guitar and sings a bit himself, though Jobim was really a composer/pianist more than a singer). Inevitably, perhaps, there are a few collaborations which simply fail to catch fire, with Lena Horne, Julie Andrews, and a vocally shot Judy Garland.
Sprinkled throughout are reminiscences by Williams, music director Dave Grusin, and Mathis. All three offer additional commentary in the Bonus Features, along with a few repeats of their comments from the program. Because of the level of talent involved, I would suggest that - all things being equal - this would be the disc to get if your budget allows to only get one.
But that’s just my opinion - I have a feeling that most single-disc buyers will opt for disc 3, “Best of Christmas”. Goodness knows, I can picture this becoming an annual ritual around our house. The Andy Williams Christmas Special became such a yearly institution that it continued to appear for several years after the weekly show left the air. The disc has no bonus features and no guest stars aside from the Osmond Brothers, the Williams Brothers, and the whole Williams family - and it doesn’t need anything else. There are a couple more of those typically atypical Williams Show production numbers, in this instance with old-fashioned, small-town sets, vintage clothing, and people milling about (one hesitates to call it dancing, though the choreographer’s touch is obvious). There are also straightforward solo renditions of sacred Christmas hymns, “Silent Night”, “O Holy Night”, “Ave Maria”. And of course, Williams does his own Christmas hit, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”. There really is no need to say much more, because this is the sort of fondly remembered disc that sells itself.
This would make a perfect last-minute Christmas gift for an, er, somewhat older person on your list (somebody my age, in other words!) Or treat yourself to some timeless entertainment. This should be well-distributed enough that there may still be time to pick it up for Christmas 2010. Or buy it in 2011, watch the first two discs, and save the third for next December. In any case, give this one some serious consideration.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
“America’s Music Legacy” 4 DVD’s, sold separately (MVD)
MVD has recently embarked on a reissue project involving a series of DVD’s under the heading “America’s Music Legacy”. Eight volumes are now available, in a concert format featuring a variety of artists within specific categories, originally taped as a series of television specials during the 1980’s. Since there is no real thematic link between the discs, and they are sold separately, I’ll review the first batch of four now, and the others at a later date. They are in no particular order, so I’ll simply review them in the order I viewed them.
“America’s Music Legacy: Rock ‘n Roll’ strikes me as the most problematical of the four. If you’re a purist looking for a serious-minded, hard-core rock’n’roll concert, you might find this disappointing. But if you want a fairly typical lineup of an oldies-for-nostalgia-purposes variety show, then you’re more likely to be satisfied. I confess I was a bit turned off right from the start by the simple fact that Fabian, one of the most sorry excuses for a “rock’n’roll” star ever concocted, is the host. The original title of the show seems to have been “Fabian’s Good Time Rock’n’Roll”. Alas, as host and star, he is allowed to “sing”, something he never was able to do, particularly in the pre-autotuning era. Actually, I’ve always found him to be a personable, ingratiating sort, but he never did carry a tune in his entire life. Still, he makes for a likable enough host.
The performers are a mix of 50’s and pre-Beatles-60’s, running the gamut from rockabilly to doo-wop to the twist to girl groups to pop. The Coasters’ arrangements are a bit looser and rhythmically modernized compared to the originals, but quite agreeable nonetheless. Lou Christie has a few intonation problems, but was still hitting the falsetto notes, perhaps even more fully than in the old days. His Vegas-style showmanship may be a bit overdone, but the crowd loves it. Leslie Gore, on the other hand, sounds a bit frenetic, as if she can’t get through her set fast enough. She is a much stronger performer than she shows here. The duet between Christie and Gore on “Since I Don’t Have You”, on the other hand, is one of the highlights of the set, as if the pressure to reproduce their hits for the nostalgia crowd is off, and they feel relaxed enough to just flat-out sing. Chubby Checker is another performer who is trapped by his old hits, but darn it, he can entertain with the best. In a medley of other people’s hits, he doesn’t exactly make you forget the originals, but he brings his own personality and years of experience into play to make them sound fresh.
The Crystals’ backgrounds sound a bit thin when divorced from the Spector wall of sound, but their singing and stage presence is decent. I do miss Darlene Love’s lead voice, though, on “He’s Sure The Boy I Love”. The Diamonds (down to three singers, none of whom look familiar) are bolstered by a solid lead singer (unidentified). Little Anthony performs solo, sans Imperials, but fortunately sounds essentially the same as he always has, one of the premier singers of pop-r&b, whether solo or with group. Another of the true artists in this set, Bo Diddley, is in fine fettle, but the backing band - which has been quite good throughout the rest of the show - seems to be hemming him in, so that he never really catches fire. Still, even second-level Bo is better than no Bo at all. Overall, an inconsistent, yet by no means bad DVD. Less fussy admirers of the artists than me will no doubt enjoy it.
“America’s Music Legacy: Gospel”, is hosted by the non-singing Levar Burton, who introduces a wide variety of gospel artists, mostly black, but some white; mostly contemporary (by 1983 standards), but some traditional; soloists, small groups, choirs. Burton makes the indisputable, yet often glossed-over observation that gospel music is influenced by blues, jazz, r&b, country, and rock, and all those influences are on display in varying degrees throughout the concert. By 1983, 70’s superstar Andrae Crouch was not considered as cutting-edge as he had been a decade earlier, but the funk rhythm section and blues-drenched guitar solo are perfect illustrations of what Burton was saying. But then, Crouch’s lead vocal and the responses of the chorus are straight out of gospel music’s past, thus making it easy to understand how the artist was able to command so much crossover attention in the 1970’s. An updated variation on the male quartet tradition is represented by the Winans (the original quartet, before family members joined in). The slick, smooth quartet is closer to the Gamble/Huff school of 70’s-soul vocal groups than to, say, the Swan Silvertones, but they’re quite good in their own way.
There are clips of some of the great gospel stars of the past, Mahalia Jackson and the Clara Ward singers, as well as a live performance by Ward alumna Marion Williams. But even the late, great Williams does a song with a calypso-style beat. Modern (1980’s standards) gospel choir style, in which a wailing soloist and choral responses are sung over a secular-influenced background, is represented by Doug Miller and his rousing choral ensemble. Walter Hawkins, who left his brother Edward Hawkins’ singer to achieve a more permanent fame (though Walter died this past year) fronts a somewhat thin-sounding, yet fully intense vocal group. By contrast, Sandra Crouch (twin sister of Andrae) harkens back to an earlier era in the choir sub-genre.
Wintley Phipps (name misspelled on the DVD case), now known primarily as a preacher and educator, represents a classically-trained baritone style mixed with a modern-gospel ballad-singer approach. Burton’s comparison of Phipps to Paul Robeson strikes me as hyperbolic, but he is more than acceptable at what he does. The Chambers Family Singers is an expanded edition of the psychedelic-era band The Chambers Brothers, with added family members. I’m afraid I found this larger group to be bland and uninspired. Linda Hopkins, whose career has wavered between gospel, blues, r&b, and Broadway, is heard in a more traditional vein here. The purity of her singing blends with a showbiz sheen which puts her in a category beyond her early mentors.
White gospel has never attracted critical attention to the degree that black gospel has. Nonetheless, the DVD tries to strike a bit of balance, by presenting two groupings of white performers. The Archers, a family singing trio, represent the adult-contemporary variety of CCM (Contemporary Christian Music), coming off as a sort of uptempo, jazzy, religious version of Manhattan Transfer. With a change of lyrics, these folks might have had pop potential, if that’s what they wanted. An older country-gospel style is sampled on the first song by the husband/wife duo of singer Reba Rambo and pianist Dony McGuire. McGuire sings their second song, which he tabs “Tap 40 Christian”.
In all, the gospel volume of this series get high marks for variety and choice of artists. As with almost any anthology, few people will enjoy everything to an equal extent, but I feel safe in recommending it to fans and curiosity seekers alike.
“America’s Music Legacy: Country and Western” is also a mostly well-chosen, variety-filled set, including some top-notch performances by a number of people. It was filmed at Knotts Berry Farm in 1981, with DJ-turned producer Gene Weed (a long-time Dick Clark associate) as the host. 1981 was a time when the Nashville scene - having become accustomed in the 1970’s to country-tinged pop singers such as Kenny Rogers and Olivia Newton-John -was becoming progressively slicker and more pop-conscious. Nevertheless, many of the excesses critics and detractors find in present-day Nashville music were still some years away. Thus, we have a mixture of the modern and the traditional, which a few artists (such as Moe Bandy) having stylistic influences in both camps.
Two stars of the that era, little heard from these days, get things rolling. Sylvia (no longer in show business) sounded much smoother on her studio recordings, but those viewers who remember “Drifter” and “Matador” (her biggest hit, “Nobody”, came out a year later) will enjoy her offerings. Razzy Bailey is now more active as a studio owner than a performer, and is far removed from the days when he was churning out one #1 hit after another. His soft-rock approach helped make it possible for today’s cosmopolitan country stars to replace him. Hearing this 1981 set almost 30 years later, he sounds a bit old-fashioned now, but comes off as an entertaining “old pro”.
The term “country and western” has rarely been used in recent decades, at least not by those in the know. But its use in the title of this DVD is justified by the presence of one of the great unsung movie “singing cowboy” heroes of country music’s past, Eddie Dean (1907-1999). In addition to his acting, Dean co-wrote one of the enduring honky-tonk laments, “One Has My Name” (“the other has my heart”) and the narrative tribute to deceased country artists, “Hillbilly Heaven” (later covered with great success by fellow singing cowboy, Tex Ritter). He was well into his mid-70’s by the time this was filmed, but his voice was still strong and controlled. His presence is definitely one of the highlights of the disc. Doug Kershaw first hit the scene in the mid-1950’s, as half of the Cajun-country brother duo, Rusty and Doug. By the 1970’s, Kershaw was a t.v. talk-show celebrity having added a rock’n’roll flair to the Cajun and country roots. The more he appeared on t.v., the more he relied on demented facial expressions and dance moves to live up to his “wild man” image, and America eventually tired of his antics. Perhaps it’s simply that I haven’t seen his shtick in a while, but he comes off as more of a showman than a crackpot in this set, in a performance which reminds me why I once found him so exciting.
Patti Page is thought of as more of an old-line 1950’s pop star than a country singer, though both country and big-band swing influences have always been part of her bag of vocal style. Of course, her signature song, “Tennessee Waltz” had originally been a country song (Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart), and Page recorded pop-country for Shelby Singleton’s Plantation label in the 1970’s. Even so, her set comes off rather too nightclubby for a country special. But vocally she still had “it” nearly 20 years after her last hit. I enjoyed her performances, they just seem out of place in this context. Moe Bandy was billed as a honky-tonk throwback in his heyday, but a song such as “Bandy the Rodeo Clown”, despite its obvious cowboy lyrics, could belong in the same category as some of Glen Campbell’s crossover hits. But though he lacked much of the nasal twang associated with honky-tonk, he was indeed proficient at the genre, as witnessed by “Take Me Back To Yesterday Once More”. Terry Gregory was being touted as an up-and-comer at the time this show was originally aired, but I have to confess I barely remember her. She’s a polished enough entertainer, but she doesn’t strike me as distinctive enough to break through into the upper echelons of show business.
Besides Eddie Dean, the two highlights of the disc come late in the set. Jerry Lee Lewis came to rock’n’roll with obvious country roots (plus gospel and boogie-woogie, of course), and made his late-60’s comeback as a neo-honky-tonk singer/pianist. But he has worked within and combined so many genres that it’s hard to predict what you’re going to hear at any Jerry Lee performance. The Jerry Lee presented on this disc is primarily the one-of-a-kind rocker with the pumpin’ piano (as it was once billed), drawing more from gospel and boogie-woogie perhaps than country. He looks healthy and sounds very much at ease, with a cool intensity that elevates a so-so song such as “I’m Rockin’ My Life Away” until it sounds like a near-classic. This is first-class Jerry Lee Lewis, well worth the price of admission. By the way, to the song list on the case, add “You Can Have Her”. Ricky Skaggs came out of bluegrass, became a Nashville superstar, then retreated back to the worlds of bluegrass and gospel. His set on this DVD captures him at the height of his country-music stardom. He’s backed by a solid band that is as capable as its leader in both tear-stained honky-tonk (“You May See me Walking”, “I’m Crying My Heart Out Over You”) and country-rock (“Get Your Heart Broke”). I didn’t realize until now how much I miss THIS Ricky Skaggs.
In sum, this is a fine collection which should please anyone who was listening to country music back in the 1980’s, and provide a few entertaining lessons for current fans who never bothered with country music until Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood came long.
The last disc under review at this time, “America’s Music Legacy: Rhythm & Blues” illustrates the somewhat ambiguous nature of that designation. Essentially, rhythm & blues is not a evolving style of music, but an overall term which incorporates almost any type of music popular among mass numbers of African-American listeners since the mid-1940’s. Co-host Brock Peters (who emcees the first half; Billy Eckstine takes over the second segment) is quick to acknowledge that fact, but refers to as r&b as “urbanized blues”, which can be justified, though it only goes so far. R&b can mean anything from the jazz-inflected blues style of the 1940’s, through a variety of nightclub styles, with stops along the way in doo-wop, soul music, Motown, funk, disco (sometimes), all the way to hip-hop. As with the other volumes in this series, this disc surveys a number of musical approaches to the variety of sounds labeled at various times as “rhythm and blues”.
Brook Benton gets us started with his biggest (though hardly best) hit, “Boll Weevil”, a novelty song with a very serious back-story, as well as 1959 hit, “Thank You Pretty Baby”. Mary Wells, with blond wig, represents Motown two decades after her hit days, with a saucy version of “My Guy”. She also shines on a funky, post-Motown song called “Gigolo” (her last hit, #2 on the disco charts in 1981, complete with rap midsection), which makes me wonder why Wells had so little success after leaving Motown. O.C. Smith adds a touch of country-pop with two Bobby Russell songs, his biggest hit, “Little Green Apples” and a soulful version of “Honey” which I personally find far superior to Bobby Goldsboro’s smash. Sam Moore is heard here after the break-up of the Sam and Dave duo (after which Dave Prater went out on the road with another Sam). I have never understod why Sam Moore’s recording career post-David has met with such spotty success, as Moore had by far the more distinctive voice and style of the duo. Frankly, I don’t even miss Dave on “Soul Man” and “Hold I’m Coming”. Peters introduces a film clip of r&b forerunner Slim Gaillard, from the days when Scatman Crothers was his drummer. Crothers himself comes out with a tenor guitar (or is it a baritone uke?), to do a jazzy vaudeville set, reminding us that his career went all the way back to the mid-1920’s. Though known by this time primarily as an actor (t.v.’s “Chico and the Man” and the movie “The Shining”, among many other roles), Crothers was still an ingratiating performer in his later years.
Billy Eckstine rivalled Nat “King” Cole as the ultimate black popular entertainer of his day (1940’s and well into the 50’s, after which he maintained a steady, though less spectacular career). He could boast of bona fides in jazz, blues, r&b, and mainstream-pop ballads.He wraps his warm, tremulous baritone around a couple songs from his big-band blues career, with such songs as “Jelly Jelly” and “Little Mama”. He also does a Duke Ellington medley, in which the song “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” is misidentified on the case as “Mr. Saturday Night”, which would seem to be a mishearing of the song’s opening line, “Missed the Saturday dance”. Eckstein also introduces clips of a couple of his pioneering contemporaries, Louis Jordan, who brought his lighthearted blend of jazz and blues to a mass audience before the term r&b was even coined, and club singer-pianist Amos Milburn, doing one of his biggest hits, “Bad Bad Whiskey”. Eckstine also uses an old clip to introduce Ruth Brown, who offers a rollicking version of her classic “5--10-15 Hours” and a jazz reading of “Teardrops From My Eyes”. Don’t know who the sax soloist is behind Ms. Brown, but he has the Texas tenor sound down pat. I could use an entire DVD of Ruth Brown!
Billy Preston goes back to the pre-rock church-organ style of his pre-Beatles collaborations with a mostly instrumental, gospel-meets-Baroque-meets Ray Charles interpretation of “Summertime”. Eckstine also connects “Will It Go Round in Circles” to gospel music, which I find tenuous, but it’s a nice version of the #1 hit. The host talks about doo-wop - someone should have told him that the Ravens and the Orioles pre-dated the Larks - but no actual doo-wop is presented. The soft-jazz/pop vocal style of the r&b balladeer is represented by Gloria Lynne, with her 1964 hit “I Wish You Love”, as well as a duet with Eckstine. An unknown (to me) vocal trio named Sheer Delight is intended to relate the Motown influence to the music if the 1980’s, but I find them to be quite nondescript.
Several songs listed on the DVD case are missing from the program itself, which is a bit over 90 minutes, rather than two hours as stated. While I would have loved to hear Brook Benton sing “Rainy Night in Georgia”, I can’t say I feel bad missing out on another Sheer Delight song. The notes on the performers (a bonus feature common to all the DVD’s in this series) misses the fact that Billy Preston and Ruth Brown both died in 2006, so this may have been prepared before that year. In all, a good concert, perhaps not a great one, but with much worth seeing and hearing.
I’ll be back with reviews of the next four discs in the “America’s Music Legacy” series once I have them all (I’m missing one at the moment). But for now, this should give you some ideas for any last-minute Christmas shopping you may need to do for the music-lovers on your list!
“America’s Music Legacy: Rock ‘n Roll’ strikes me as the most problematical of the four. If you’re a purist looking for a serious-minded, hard-core rock’n’roll concert, you might find this disappointing. But if you want a fairly typical lineup of an oldies-for-nostalgia-purposes variety show, then you’re more likely to be satisfied. I confess I was a bit turned off right from the start by the simple fact that Fabian, one of the most sorry excuses for a “rock’n’roll” star ever concocted, is the host. The original title of the show seems to have been “Fabian’s Good Time Rock’n’Roll”. Alas, as host and star, he is allowed to “sing”, something he never was able to do, particularly in the pre-autotuning era. Actually, I’ve always found him to be a personable, ingratiating sort, but he never did carry a tune in his entire life. Still, he makes for a likable enough host.
The performers are a mix of 50’s and pre-Beatles-60’s, running the gamut from rockabilly to doo-wop to the twist to girl groups to pop. The Coasters’ arrangements are a bit looser and rhythmically modernized compared to the originals, but quite agreeable nonetheless. Lou Christie has a few intonation problems, but was still hitting the falsetto notes, perhaps even more fully than in the old days. His Vegas-style showmanship may be a bit overdone, but the crowd loves it. Leslie Gore, on the other hand, sounds a bit frenetic, as if she can’t get through her set fast enough. She is a much stronger performer than she shows here. The duet between Christie and Gore on “Since I Don’t Have You”, on the other hand, is one of the highlights of the set, as if the pressure to reproduce their hits for the nostalgia crowd is off, and they feel relaxed enough to just flat-out sing. Chubby Checker is another performer who is trapped by his old hits, but darn it, he can entertain with the best. In a medley of other people’s hits, he doesn’t exactly make you forget the originals, but he brings his own personality and years of experience into play to make them sound fresh.
The Crystals’ backgrounds sound a bit thin when divorced from the Spector wall of sound, but their singing and stage presence is decent. I do miss Darlene Love’s lead voice, though, on “He’s Sure The Boy I Love”. The Diamonds (down to three singers, none of whom look familiar) are bolstered by a solid lead singer (unidentified). Little Anthony performs solo, sans Imperials, but fortunately sounds essentially the same as he always has, one of the premier singers of pop-r&b, whether solo or with group. Another of the true artists in this set, Bo Diddley, is in fine fettle, but the backing band - which has been quite good throughout the rest of the show - seems to be hemming him in, so that he never really catches fire. Still, even second-level Bo is better than no Bo at all. Overall, an inconsistent, yet by no means bad DVD. Less fussy admirers of the artists than me will no doubt enjoy it.
“America’s Music Legacy: Gospel”, is hosted by the non-singing Levar Burton, who introduces a wide variety of gospel artists, mostly black, but some white; mostly contemporary (by 1983 standards), but some traditional; soloists, small groups, choirs. Burton makes the indisputable, yet often glossed-over observation that gospel music is influenced by blues, jazz, r&b, country, and rock, and all those influences are on display in varying degrees throughout the concert. By 1983, 70’s superstar Andrae Crouch was not considered as cutting-edge as he had been a decade earlier, but the funk rhythm section and blues-drenched guitar solo are perfect illustrations of what Burton was saying. But then, Crouch’s lead vocal and the responses of the chorus are straight out of gospel music’s past, thus making it easy to understand how the artist was able to command so much crossover attention in the 1970’s. An updated variation on the male quartet tradition is represented by the Winans (the original quartet, before family members joined in). The slick, smooth quartet is closer to the Gamble/Huff school of 70’s-soul vocal groups than to, say, the Swan Silvertones, but they’re quite good in their own way.
There are clips of some of the great gospel stars of the past, Mahalia Jackson and the Clara Ward singers, as well as a live performance by Ward alumna Marion Williams. But even the late, great Williams does a song with a calypso-style beat. Modern (1980’s standards) gospel choir style, in which a wailing soloist and choral responses are sung over a secular-influenced background, is represented by Doug Miller and his rousing choral ensemble. Walter Hawkins, who left his brother Edward Hawkins’ singer to achieve a more permanent fame (though Walter died this past year) fronts a somewhat thin-sounding, yet fully intense vocal group. By contrast, Sandra Crouch (twin sister of Andrae) harkens back to an earlier era in the choir sub-genre.
Wintley Phipps (name misspelled on the DVD case), now known primarily as a preacher and educator, represents a classically-trained baritone style mixed with a modern-gospel ballad-singer approach. Burton’s comparison of Phipps to Paul Robeson strikes me as hyperbolic, but he is more than acceptable at what he does. The Chambers Family Singers is an expanded edition of the psychedelic-era band The Chambers Brothers, with added family members. I’m afraid I found this larger group to be bland and uninspired. Linda Hopkins, whose career has wavered between gospel, blues, r&b, and Broadway, is heard in a more traditional vein here. The purity of her singing blends with a showbiz sheen which puts her in a category beyond her early mentors.
White gospel has never attracted critical attention to the degree that black gospel has. Nonetheless, the DVD tries to strike a bit of balance, by presenting two groupings of white performers. The Archers, a family singing trio, represent the adult-contemporary variety of CCM (Contemporary Christian Music), coming off as a sort of uptempo, jazzy, religious version of Manhattan Transfer. With a change of lyrics, these folks might have had pop potential, if that’s what they wanted. An older country-gospel style is sampled on the first song by the husband/wife duo of singer Reba Rambo and pianist Dony McGuire. McGuire sings their second song, which he tabs “Tap 40 Christian”.
In all, the gospel volume of this series get high marks for variety and choice of artists. As with almost any anthology, few people will enjoy everything to an equal extent, but I feel safe in recommending it to fans and curiosity seekers alike.
“America’s Music Legacy: Country and Western” is also a mostly well-chosen, variety-filled set, including some top-notch performances by a number of people. It was filmed at Knotts Berry Farm in 1981, with DJ-turned producer Gene Weed (a long-time Dick Clark associate) as the host. 1981 was a time when the Nashville scene - having become accustomed in the 1970’s to country-tinged pop singers such as Kenny Rogers and Olivia Newton-John -was becoming progressively slicker and more pop-conscious. Nevertheless, many of the excesses critics and detractors find in present-day Nashville music were still some years away. Thus, we have a mixture of the modern and the traditional, which a few artists (such as Moe Bandy) having stylistic influences in both camps.
Two stars of the that era, little heard from these days, get things rolling. Sylvia (no longer in show business) sounded much smoother on her studio recordings, but those viewers who remember “Drifter” and “Matador” (her biggest hit, “Nobody”, came out a year later) will enjoy her offerings. Razzy Bailey is now more active as a studio owner than a performer, and is far removed from the days when he was churning out one #1 hit after another. His soft-rock approach helped make it possible for today’s cosmopolitan country stars to replace him. Hearing this 1981 set almost 30 years later, he sounds a bit old-fashioned now, but comes off as an entertaining “old pro”.
The term “country and western” has rarely been used in recent decades, at least not by those in the know. But its use in the title of this DVD is justified by the presence of one of the great unsung movie “singing cowboy” heroes of country music’s past, Eddie Dean (1907-1999). In addition to his acting, Dean co-wrote one of the enduring honky-tonk laments, “One Has My Name” (“the other has my heart”) and the narrative tribute to deceased country artists, “Hillbilly Heaven” (later covered with great success by fellow singing cowboy, Tex Ritter). He was well into his mid-70’s by the time this was filmed, but his voice was still strong and controlled. His presence is definitely one of the highlights of the disc. Doug Kershaw first hit the scene in the mid-1950’s, as half of the Cajun-country brother duo, Rusty and Doug. By the 1970’s, Kershaw was a t.v. talk-show celebrity having added a rock’n’roll flair to the Cajun and country roots. The more he appeared on t.v., the more he relied on demented facial expressions and dance moves to live up to his “wild man” image, and America eventually tired of his antics. Perhaps it’s simply that I haven’t seen his shtick in a while, but he comes off as more of a showman than a crackpot in this set, in a performance which reminds me why I once found him so exciting.
Patti Page is thought of as more of an old-line 1950’s pop star than a country singer, though both country and big-band swing influences have always been part of her bag of vocal style. Of course, her signature song, “Tennessee Waltz” had originally been a country song (Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart), and Page recorded pop-country for Shelby Singleton’s Plantation label in the 1970’s. Even so, her set comes off rather too nightclubby for a country special. But vocally she still had “it” nearly 20 years after her last hit. I enjoyed her performances, they just seem out of place in this context. Moe Bandy was billed as a honky-tonk throwback in his heyday, but a song such as “Bandy the Rodeo Clown”, despite its obvious cowboy lyrics, could belong in the same category as some of Glen Campbell’s crossover hits. But though he lacked much of the nasal twang associated with honky-tonk, he was indeed proficient at the genre, as witnessed by “Take Me Back To Yesterday Once More”. Terry Gregory was being touted as an up-and-comer at the time this show was originally aired, but I have to confess I barely remember her. She’s a polished enough entertainer, but she doesn’t strike me as distinctive enough to break through into the upper echelons of show business.
Besides Eddie Dean, the two highlights of the disc come late in the set. Jerry Lee Lewis came to rock’n’roll with obvious country roots (plus gospel and boogie-woogie, of course), and made his late-60’s comeback as a neo-honky-tonk singer/pianist. But he has worked within and combined so many genres that it’s hard to predict what you’re going to hear at any Jerry Lee performance. The Jerry Lee presented on this disc is primarily the one-of-a-kind rocker with the pumpin’ piano (as it was once billed), drawing more from gospel and boogie-woogie perhaps than country. He looks healthy and sounds very much at ease, with a cool intensity that elevates a so-so song such as “I’m Rockin’ My Life Away” until it sounds like a near-classic. This is first-class Jerry Lee Lewis, well worth the price of admission. By the way, to the song list on the case, add “You Can Have Her”. Ricky Skaggs came out of bluegrass, became a Nashville superstar, then retreated back to the worlds of bluegrass and gospel. His set on this DVD captures him at the height of his country-music stardom. He’s backed by a solid band that is as capable as its leader in both tear-stained honky-tonk (“You May See me Walking”, “I’m Crying My Heart Out Over You”) and country-rock (“Get Your Heart Broke”). I didn’t realize until now how much I miss THIS Ricky Skaggs.
In sum, this is a fine collection which should please anyone who was listening to country music back in the 1980’s, and provide a few entertaining lessons for current fans who never bothered with country music until Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood came long.
The last disc under review at this time, “America’s Music Legacy: Rhythm & Blues” illustrates the somewhat ambiguous nature of that designation. Essentially, rhythm & blues is not a evolving style of music, but an overall term which incorporates almost any type of music popular among mass numbers of African-American listeners since the mid-1940’s. Co-host Brock Peters (who emcees the first half; Billy Eckstine takes over the second segment) is quick to acknowledge that fact, but refers to as r&b as “urbanized blues”, which can be justified, though it only goes so far. R&b can mean anything from the jazz-inflected blues style of the 1940’s, through a variety of nightclub styles, with stops along the way in doo-wop, soul music, Motown, funk, disco (sometimes), all the way to hip-hop. As with the other volumes in this series, this disc surveys a number of musical approaches to the variety of sounds labeled at various times as “rhythm and blues”.
Brook Benton gets us started with his biggest (though hardly best) hit, “Boll Weevil”, a novelty song with a very serious back-story, as well as 1959 hit, “Thank You Pretty Baby”. Mary Wells, with blond wig, represents Motown two decades after her hit days, with a saucy version of “My Guy”. She also shines on a funky, post-Motown song called “Gigolo” (her last hit, #2 on the disco charts in 1981, complete with rap midsection), which makes me wonder why Wells had so little success after leaving Motown. O.C. Smith adds a touch of country-pop with two Bobby Russell songs, his biggest hit, “Little Green Apples” and a soulful version of “Honey” which I personally find far superior to Bobby Goldsboro’s smash. Sam Moore is heard here after the break-up of the Sam and Dave duo (after which Dave Prater went out on the road with another Sam). I have never understod why Sam Moore’s recording career post-David has met with such spotty success, as Moore had by far the more distinctive voice and style of the duo. Frankly, I don’t even miss Dave on “Soul Man” and “Hold I’m Coming”. Peters introduces a film clip of r&b forerunner Slim Gaillard, from the days when Scatman Crothers was his drummer. Crothers himself comes out with a tenor guitar (or is it a baritone uke?), to do a jazzy vaudeville set, reminding us that his career went all the way back to the mid-1920’s. Though known by this time primarily as an actor (t.v.’s “Chico and the Man” and the movie “The Shining”, among many other roles), Crothers was still an ingratiating performer in his later years.
Billy Eckstine rivalled Nat “King” Cole as the ultimate black popular entertainer of his day (1940’s and well into the 50’s, after which he maintained a steady, though less spectacular career). He could boast of bona fides in jazz, blues, r&b, and mainstream-pop ballads.He wraps his warm, tremulous baritone around a couple songs from his big-band blues career, with such songs as “Jelly Jelly” and “Little Mama”. He also does a Duke Ellington medley, in which the song “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” is misidentified on the case as “Mr. Saturday Night”, which would seem to be a mishearing of the song’s opening line, “Missed the Saturday dance”. Eckstein also introduces clips of a couple of his pioneering contemporaries, Louis Jordan, who brought his lighthearted blend of jazz and blues to a mass audience before the term r&b was even coined, and club singer-pianist Amos Milburn, doing one of his biggest hits, “Bad Bad Whiskey”. Eckstine also uses an old clip to introduce Ruth Brown, who offers a rollicking version of her classic “5--10-15 Hours” and a jazz reading of “Teardrops From My Eyes”. Don’t know who the sax soloist is behind Ms. Brown, but he has the Texas tenor sound down pat. I could use an entire DVD of Ruth Brown!
Billy Preston goes back to the pre-rock church-organ style of his pre-Beatles collaborations with a mostly instrumental, gospel-meets-Baroque-meets Ray Charles interpretation of “Summertime”. Eckstine also connects “Will It Go Round in Circles” to gospel music, which I find tenuous, but it’s a nice version of the #1 hit. The host talks about doo-wop - someone should have told him that the Ravens and the Orioles pre-dated the Larks - but no actual doo-wop is presented. The soft-jazz/pop vocal style of the r&b balladeer is represented by Gloria Lynne, with her 1964 hit “I Wish You Love”, as well as a duet with Eckstine. An unknown (to me) vocal trio named Sheer Delight is intended to relate the Motown influence to the music if the 1980’s, but I find them to be quite nondescript.
Several songs listed on the DVD case are missing from the program itself, which is a bit over 90 minutes, rather than two hours as stated. While I would have loved to hear Brook Benton sing “Rainy Night in Georgia”, I can’t say I feel bad missing out on another Sheer Delight song. The notes on the performers (a bonus feature common to all the DVD’s in this series) misses the fact that Billy Preston and Ruth Brown both died in 2006, so this may have been prepared before that year. In all, a good concert, perhaps not a great one, but with much worth seeing and hearing.
I’ll be back with reviews of the next four discs in the “America’s Music Legacy” series once I have them all (I’m missing one at the moment). But for now, this should give you some ideas for any last-minute Christmas shopping you may need to do for the music-lovers on your list!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Les Paul: Live in New York (Questar)
Les Paul (1915-2009) wore a whole lot of hats during his very productive 94 years on this planet. In the 1930’s, he was country guitarist/singer/radio personality Rhubarb Red, and accompanied blues singers on the side. He began to play jazz under the influence of Django Reinhardt, formed a trio which included Jim Atkins (thus becoming a crucial influence on Jim’s kid brother, Chet), and played with the Fred Waring aggregation. And that was just the 1930’s.
The 1940’s found him accompanying Bing Crosby (a role filled a generation earlier by the great Eddie Lang), developing the solid-body electric guitar, as well as beginning his investigation of the possibilities of the tape recorder. His technical innovations included overdubbing, multi-tracking at multiple speeds, delay effects, and more. Slowed for a substantial period following an auto accident which caused him to request that his arm be set permanently in guitar-playing position, he had time to think up even more ideas for the 1950’s.
As a result, the ‘50’s would prove to be the apex of Les Paul’s popularity, as he developed an entirely new approach to making pop vocal-and-guitar records with his then-wife Colleen Summers, a/k/a Mary Ford. Employing most of the techniques he’d invented up to this point, the duo of Les Paul and Mary Ford had a number of huge-selling records, as well as their own syndicated five-minute t.v. series. Mary Ford had become sick of the couple’s touring schedule, the pressures of which led to the couple’s divorce and Paul’s semi-retirement. If that had been the last anyone ever heard of Les Paul, he would still be lionized as one of the most influential pop-music innovators of the 20th-century. But he wasn’t done yet.
In the mid-1970’s, Paul returned briefly to the spotlight to record two LP’s with Chet Atkins, which made a whole new generation (and, eventually, a couple subsequent ones) aware of who this man was and why he was important. After yet another decade out of the spotlight, Les Paul made his return to public performance. This brings us to the Last Act of his career, which is the subject of his “Live in New York” DVD. I have gone through the bother of sketching, in however incomplete a manner, the background of Paul’s amazing career arc, in part because this disc not only captures him in live performance, it attempts in spots to fill something of a documentary function. One of the few very minor failings of the disc is that it tends to assume that viewers are already familiar with most of the things the man had done in the past. They are discussed, but perhaps not explained to newcomers as thoroughly as they might be. To be sure, there are other Les Paul discs that ARE intended to be full-blown documentaries, so viewers who want to learn more after enjoying this DVD may turn to these for a more comprehensive look at his long life and career.
This is, as I say, only a minor quibble, because the focus of “Live In New York” is the late-period Les Paul, master guitarist and slightly risque entertainer, who spent what would have been the declining years for the average musician playing for listening and jamming every Monday night at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York. The particular Monday at the Iridium captured here is a very special one, Les Paul’s 90th birthday party, in 2005. Les was working alongside a top-notch backing combo (the members of which are given the opportunity to shine in their own right), dazzling audiences with his signature runs, ear-catching fills, and revamped arrangements which kept old favorite tunes fresh and continually interesting, not just for himself but for his listeners as well. He peppers the evening with slightly salty (but certainly not filthy) jokes and repartee. He brings to the stage a few lesser-known artists who apparently made regular appearances in the Les Paul jam session context, jazz singer Sonya Hensley, jazz violinist Christian Howes, and tap dancer Andrew Nemr. It’s good to see these worthwhile, yet not-quite-celebrity performers given a chance to be seen on this DVD alongside a fine assortment of more famous artists.
The top-name artists who get their chance to play with Les and the combo include David Grisman, Tommy Emmanuel, Jose Feliciano, Keith Richards (returning to his blues roots, as does Les in their duet), plus an extended turn by Les Paul’s godson, Steve Miller (who knew?). Given the informality of the situation, one should not be surprised when one hears an occasional off-kilter note, but there isn’t a slipshod performance in the lot. Indeed, there is a lot of inspiration, a lot of instrumental expertise, and a lot of fun on display throughout the entire jam session/party. I can’t imagine anyone viewing this disc with a sour expression on their face.
The Bonus Features are uniformly fine. “Thoughts on Les” (also filmed in 2005; in other words, they’re not memorial tributes) has a number of notables - Bonnie Raitt, Emmanuel, Bucky Pizzarelli, Tony Bennett, Steve Miller - speaking individually about Les Paul, the man and the musician, how they first encountered him, and what his accomplishments mean to them. We are also treated to an example of the 5-minute Les Paul and Mary Ford t.v. show, as they engage in some uncomfortably-delivered and awkwardly-scripted domestic dialogue before lip-and-hand-synching to “The World Is Waiting For the Sunrise”; an interview with the sound editor of the original shows; a Soundie of the Les Paul Trio (pre-Mary) doing a swinging version of “Dark Eyes”, marred by an unnecessary comic vocalist; and a very humorous appearance on the old “Omnibus” program, in which they are interviewed tongue-in-cheek by the very droll Alistair Cooke.
In all, when you combine the main feature and the Bonus clips, there are two jam-packed (pun partially intended) hours of first-class entertainment here. Sound and picture quality of the DVD are fine, but the Blu-Ray version is a mind-blowing experience. (I should point out that this is my very first Blu-Ray experience, and I am suitably impressed!) Whether you opt to buy the DVD or the two-disc Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital Copy deluxe version, you will not be disappointed.
The 1940’s found him accompanying Bing Crosby (a role filled a generation earlier by the great Eddie Lang), developing the solid-body electric guitar, as well as beginning his investigation of the possibilities of the tape recorder. His technical innovations included overdubbing, multi-tracking at multiple speeds, delay effects, and more. Slowed for a substantial period following an auto accident which caused him to request that his arm be set permanently in guitar-playing position, he had time to think up even more ideas for the 1950’s.
As a result, the ‘50’s would prove to be the apex of Les Paul’s popularity, as he developed an entirely new approach to making pop vocal-and-guitar records with his then-wife Colleen Summers, a/k/a Mary Ford. Employing most of the techniques he’d invented up to this point, the duo of Les Paul and Mary Ford had a number of huge-selling records, as well as their own syndicated five-minute t.v. series. Mary Ford had become sick of the couple’s touring schedule, the pressures of which led to the couple’s divorce and Paul’s semi-retirement. If that had been the last anyone ever heard of Les Paul, he would still be lionized as one of the most influential pop-music innovators of the 20th-century. But he wasn’t done yet.
In the mid-1970’s, Paul returned briefly to the spotlight to record two LP’s with Chet Atkins, which made a whole new generation (and, eventually, a couple subsequent ones) aware of who this man was and why he was important. After yet another decade out of the spotlight, Les Paul made his return to public performance. This brings us to the Last Act of his career, which is the subject of his “Live in New York” DVD. I have gone through the bother of sketching, in however incomplete a manner, the background of Paul’s amazing career arc, in part because this disc not only captures him in live performance, it attempts in spots to fill something of a documentary function. One of the few very minor failings of the disc is that it tends to assume that viewers are already familiar with most of the things the man had done in the past. They are discussed, but perhaps not explained to newcomers as thoroughly as they might be. To be sure, there are other Les Paul discs that ARE intended to be full-blown documentaries, so viewers who want to learn more after enjoying this DVD may turn to these for a more comprehensive look at his long life and career.
This is, as I say, only a minor quibble, because the focus of “Live In New York” is the late-period Les Paul, master guitarist and slightly risque entertainer, who spent what would have been the declining years for the average musician playing for listening and jamming every Monday night at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York. The particular Monday at the Iridium captured here is a very special one, Les Paul’s 90th birthday party, in 2005. Les was working alongside a top-notch backing combo (the members of which are given the opportunity to shine in their own right), dazzling audiences with his signature runs, ear-catching fills, and revamped arrangements which kept old favorite tunes fresh and continually interesting, not just for himself but for his listeners as well. He peppers the evening with slightly salty (but certainly not filthy) jokes and repartee. He brings to the stage a few lesser-known artists who apparently made regular appearances in the Les Paul jam session context, jazz singer Sonya Hensley, jazz violinist Christian Howes, and tap dancer Andrew Nemr. It’s good to see these worthwhile, yet not-quite-celebrity performers given a chance to be seen on this DVD alongside a fine assortment of more famous artists.
The top-name artists who get their chance to play with Les and the combo include David Grisman, Tommy Emmanuel, Jose Feliciano, Keith Richards (returning to his blues roots, as does Les in their duet), plus an extended turn by Les Paul’s godson, Steve Miller (who knew?). Given the informality of the situation, one should not be surprised when one hears an occasional off-kilter note, but there isn’t a slipshod performance in the lot. Indeed, there is a lot of inspiration, a lot of instrumental expertise, and a lot of fun on display throughout the entire jam session/party. I can’t imagine anyone viewing this disc with a sour expression on their face.
The Bonus Features are uniformly fine. “Thoughts on Les” (also filmed in 2005; in other words, they’re not memorial tributes) has a number of notables - Bonnie Raitt, Emmanuel, Bucky Pizzarelli, Tony Bennett, Steve Miller - speaking individually about Les Paul, the man and the musician, how they first encountered him, and what his accomplishments mean to them. We are also treated to an example of the 5-minute Les Paul and Mary Ford t.v. show, as they engage in some uncomfortably-delivered and awkwardly-scripted domestic dialogue before lip-and-hand-synching to “The World Is Waiting For the Sunrise”; an interview with the sound editor of the original shows; a Soundie of the Les Paul Trio (pre-Mary) doing a swinging version of “Dark Eyes”, marred by an unnecessary comic vocalist; and a very humorous appearance on the old “Omnibus” program, in which they are interviewed tongue-in-cheek by the very droll Alistair Cooke.
In all, when you combine the main feature and the Bonus clips, there are two jam-packed (pun partially intended) hours of first-class entertainment here. Sound and picture quality of the DVD are fine, but the Blu-Ray version is a mind-blowing experience. (I should point out that this is my very first Blu-Ray experience, and I am suitably impressed!) Whether you opt to buy the DVD or the two-disc Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital Copy deluxe version, you will not be disappointed.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
“Eric Clapton: The 1960’s Review” (MVD)
Sometimes it seems as if Eric Clapton has always been around.. But there once was a time when many rock’n’roll guitar heroes made their reputations putting out instrumentals on 45-RPM vinyl singles. There once was a time when almost all blues recordings were performed by African-Americans. (Yes, one can point to exceptions to both of these assertions.) And there once was a time when Eric Clapton was not yet a “god”.
This excellent DVD documentary takes us back to the beginnings of Clapton’s career and illustrates how he emerged as a game-changer, the first true Guitar Hero in the pre-video-game sense of the term, and the role model for so many white blues musicians to follow. As the title of the disc indicates, it is strictly dedicated to his most significant and most influential decade, the 1960’s. I do not, of course, mean this to denigrate all of his subsequent work. Even so, a large percentage of the performances which made Eric Clapton such a monumental figure took place during this seminal decade. The program includes reminiscences by several of the musicians who worked with him at that time, consistently intelligent commentary by historians and critics, and a gratifying number of video and audio clips to illustrate their theses.
We learn that Clapton’s earliest influences were not in blues per se - the genre was just on the verge of being introduced into England - but in the blues-influenced rock’n’roll of Bill Haley and the Comets and Elvis Presley. Then, still at a young age, he heard Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. At age 13 (1958), he was able to convince his guardians (grandparents) to buy him a guitar. From that point on, he was devoted to hearing, learning, and playing the blues, primarily off American records. Finding such records was not an easy task in London in this period, but a “blues underground” was developing whereby fans could meet up with other like-minded Londoners to listen to their music of choice. Many of these fans started to form bands, such as the group called the Roosters, which featured young Eric, Ben Palmer (subsequently Cream’s road manager), Tom McGuinness (known for his work with John Mayall and, later, McGuinness Flint), occasionally adding Paul Jones (of Manfred Mann fame). (All three of them are interviewed here.) The Roosters were more of an education, a jamming outlet rather than a “serious” band, though they did play gigs. Right from the beginning, Clapton was noted for building convincing improvisations over several choruses. But despite his ongoing quest for blues authenticity, Clapton would move on to a more pop-oriented band, Casey Jones and the Engineers.
In the meantime, Clapton’s school chums Chris Dreja and Top Topham were putting together the Yardbirds. Unfortunately, Topham’s parents made him quit because he was too young. (He and Dreja also contribute significant recollections on this disc.) Clapton was asked to join, which he did, because at the time the Yardbirds were a full-fledged blues band, quite unlike the Engineers.. The Yardbirds soon had a chance to witness the “real thing” up close, when hired to accompany Sonny Boy Williamson II on an English tour, as well as an LP and t.v. appearances, excerpts of which we get to see here. Two things are clear from the Williamson clip, as well as from a clip of the Yardbirds performing ”I Wish You Would” on British television. One, Clapton was not the main focus of the band; indeed, the late singer/harmonica player Keith Relf was the only member to stand out at all. Second, the Yardbirds were a fairly weak blues band when compared to the “real thing”.
Clapton also found the Yardbirds’ legendary “rave-ups” (think the last portion of “I’m a Man”) were “manipulative”, too carefully planned. Though a clip of “A Certain Girl” shows Clapton beginning to find his distinctive sound, his solo simply doesn’t seem to blend in with the rest of the band. The last straw came when it was decided the Yardbirds needed a commercial hit. Clapton wanted to cover an Otis Redding song, but instead they recorded Graham Gouldman’s “For Your Love”. The band thought they had much more in them than just to be a blues cover band. They wanted to explore their own concepts, establish their own identity. What’s more, Dreja feels Clapton was beginning to think of himself as “the star” of the band. He left the band almost immediately after the “For Your Love” session; whether this was a voluntary move or not is still a matter for disagreement among the parties involved. This is all fascinating stuff for historians and fans alike, and is covered in far more detail on the disc than this potted summary can allow.
Clapton soon joined John Mayall (who is also interviewed), who had to let go of Roger Dean (not really a blues guitarist) to make room for him. This not only gave Clapton a chance to play in a more congenial blues-dominated atmosphere, it also gave him access to Mayall’s enormous blues record collection. It was during his employment with Mayall that Clapton’s guitar work became more professional, more distinctive, more aggressive. It was also during this time that the infamous “Clapton Is God” graffiti began to appear. He quickly became the star attraction of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.
Even so, Clapton was dissatisfied once again. He felt that Mayall was too much of a taskmaster who had too many rules for his sidemen, that he paid them too poorly, and subsequently held his musicians back. Thus, he accepted drummer Ginger Baker’s offer to join him in a new band. Clapton agreed, if two conditions were met - he insisted that Jack Bruce be added on bass, though Baker and Bruce did not see eye to eye while members of the Graham Bond Organisation. He also made it clear that would not play jazz, which was in both Baker’s and Bruce’s backgrounds.
The result was the first “power trio”, Cream, a lineup modeled after Buddy Guy’s band. But if people were expecting hard-driving, “authentic” blues, Clapton chose to shock the audience by releasing a light, piano-based ditty, “Wrapping Paper”, as the band’s first single. As Paul Jones rightly points out, Clapton found himself right back in the position he had found himself in with the Yardbirds, a rock band fusing blues guitar roots with psychedelia, far from blues purism a la Mayall. Atco Records’ boss Ahmet Ertegun felt that Clapton should be played up as the star of the show, with Bruce and Baker merely acting as accompanists. Of course, that’s not how it turned out. Clapton seemed to be pleased with the band’s psychedelic direction, since the move was made in the name of musical integrity rather than commercial motives. However, he soon became disenchanted with the long, extended improvisations favored by Bruce and Baker, and the internal conflicts brought the band to a woefully premature end. They recorded one last album to satisfy contractual obligations, even though they were no longer speaking to each other. (One quibble - I would have liked to have learned more about Bruce’s lyricist, Pete Brown, whose contribution to Cream’s success was crucial. He is acknowledged, but not discussed to any real extent.)
The public was expecting Clapton to put together a new band. The result was Blind Faith, featuring Steve Winwood’s vocals. Clapton found himself in a much-hyped “super-group”, which was simply not able to live up to advance expectations. After one pleasant, not particularly consequential album, the band split, and Clapton joined forces with their opening act, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends.
There, our story ends, before Derek and the Dominoes, before “461 Ocean Boulevard”, before “Tears in Heaven”, before Clapton’s re-dedication to the blues and Robert Johnson, before the Crossroads Festival. This means, of course, that there are 40 subsequent years yet to cover (and more in the future, one hopes). There is no indication that this is the first in a series. But if future volumes should appear, one can only hope that they will be handled with as much care, intelligence, taste, and commitment to the historical record as this DVD.
Extras include Chris Dreja’s thoughts on the Yardbirds’ experiences with Sonny Boy Williamson II, and why it turned out to be a much tougher gig than they had anticipated; Paul Jones on the little-known tracks credited to Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse, which appeared on an Elektra white-blues anthology called “What’s Shakin’” just prior to the formation of Cream; and recording engineer Bill Halverson on the song “Badge”, on which Clapton and co-writer George Harrison experimented with a new kind of foot pedal. There are also short text bios of the dozen people who were interviewed for this project.
This excellent DVD documentary takes us back to the beginnings of Clapton’s career and illustrates how he emerged as a game-changer, the first true Guitar Hero in the pre-video-game sense of the term, and the role model for so many white blues musicians to follow. As the title of the disc indicates, it is strictly dedicated to his most significant and most influential decade, the 1960’s. I do not, of course, mean this to denigrate all of his subsequent work. Even so, a large percentage of the performances which made Eric Clapton such a monumental figure took place during this seminal decade. The program includes reminiscences by several of the musicians who worked with him at that time, consistently intelligent commentary by historians and critics, and a gratifying number of video and audio clips to illustrate their theses.
We learn that Clapton’s earliest influences were not in blues per se - the genre was just on the verge of being introduced into England - but in the blues-influenced rock’n’roll of Bill Haley and the Comets and Elvis Presley. Then, still at a young age, he heard Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. At age 13 (1958), he was able to convince his guardians (grandparents) to buy him a guitar. From that point on, he was devoted to hearing, learning, and playing the blues, primarily off American records. Finding such records was not an easy task in London in this period, but a “blues underground” was developing whereby fans could meet up with other like-minded Londoners to listen to their music of choice. Many of these fans started to form bands, such as the group called the Roosters, which featured young Eric, Ben Palmer (subsequently Cream’s road manager), Tom McGuinness (known for his work with John Mayall and, later, McGuinness Flint), occasionally adding Paul Jones (of Manfred Mann fame). (All three of them are interviewed here.) The Roosters were more of an education, a jamming outlet rather than a “serious” band, though they did play gigs. Right from the beginning, Clapton was noted for building convincing improvisations over several choruses. But despite his ongoing quest for blues authenticity, Clapton would move on to a more pop-oriented band, Casey Jones and the Engineers.
In the meantime, Clapton’s school chums Chris Dreja and Top Topham were putting together the Yardbirds. Unfortunately, Topham’s parents made him quit because he was too young. (He and Dreja also contribute significant recollections on this disc.) Clapton was asked to join, which he did, because at the time the Yardbirds were a full-fledged blues band, quite unlike the Engineers.. The Yardbirds soon had a chance to witness the “real thing” up close, when hired to accompany Sonny Boy Williamson II on an English tour, as well as an LP and t.v. appearances, excerpts of which we get to see here. Two things are clear from the Williamson clip, as well as from a clip of the Yardbirds performing ”I Wish You Would” on British television. One, Clapton was not the main focus of the band; indeed, the late singer/harmonica player Keith Relf was the only member to stand out at all. Second, the Yardbirds were a fairly weak blues band when compared to the “real thing”.
Clapton also found the Yardbirds’ legendary “rave-ups” (think the last portion of “I’m a Man”) were “manipulative”, too carefully planned. Though a clip of “A Certain Girl” shows Clapton beginning to find his distinctive sound, his solo simply doesn’t seem to blend in with the rest of the band. The last straw came when it was decided the Yardbirds needed a commercial hit. Clapton wanted to cover an Otis Redding song, but instead they recorded Graham Gouldman’s “For Your Love”. The band thought they had much more in them than just to be a blues cover band. They wanted to explore their own concepts, establish their own identity. What’s more, Dreja feels Clapton was beginning to think of himself as “the star” of the band. He left the band almost immediately after the “For Your Love” session; whether this was a voluntary move or not is still a matter for disagreement among the parties involved. This is all fascinating stuff for historians and fans alike, and is covered in far more detail on the disc than this potted summary can allow.
Clapton soon joined John Mayall (who is also interviewed), who had to let go of Roger Dean (not really a blues guitarist) to make room for him. This not only gave Clapton a chance to play in a more congenial blues-dominated atmosphere, it also gave him access to Mayall’s enormous blues record collection. It was during his employment with Mayall that Clapton’s guitar work became more professional, more distinctive, more aggressive. It was also during this time that the infamous “Clapton Is God” graffiti began to appear. He quickly became the star attraction of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.
Even so, Clapton was dissatisfied once again. He felt that Mayall was too much of a taskmaster who had too many rules for his sidemen, that he paid them too poorly, and subsequently held his musicians back. Thus, he accepted drummer Ginger Baker’s offer to join him in a new band. Clapton agreed, if two conditions were met - he insisted that Jack Bruce be added on bass, though Baker and Bruce did not see eye to eye while members of the Graham Bond Organisation. He also made it clear that would not play jazz, which was in both Baker’s and Bruce’s backgrounds.
The result was the first “power trio”, Cream, a lineup modeled after Buddy Guy’s band. But if people were expecting hard-driving, “authentic” blues, Clapton chose to shock the audience by releasing a light, piano-based ditty, “Wrapping Paper”, as the band’s first single. As Paul Jones rightly points out, Clapton found himself right back in the position he had found himself in with the Yardbirds, a rock band fusing blues guitar roots with psychedelia, far from blues purism a la Mayall. Atco Records’ boss Ahmet Ertegun felt that Clapton should be played up as the star of the show, with Bruce and Baker merely acting as accompanists. Of course, that’s not how it turned out. Clapton seemed to be pleased with the band’s psychedelic direction, since the move was made in the name of musical integrity rather than commercial motives. However, he soon became disenchanted with the long, extended improvisations favored by Bruce and Baker, and the internal conflicts brought the band to a woefully premature end. They recorded one last album to satisfy contractual obligations, even though they were no longer speaking to each other. (One quibble - I would have liked to have learned more about Bruce’s lyricist, Pete Brown, whose contribution to Cream’s success was crucial. He is acknowledged, but not discussed to any real extent.)
The public was expecting Clapton to put together a new band. The result was Blind Faith, featuring Steve Winwood’s vocals. Clapton found himself in a much-hyped “super-group”, which was simply not able to live up to advance expectations. After one pleasant, not particularly consequential album, the band split, and Clapton joined forces with their opening act, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends.
There, our story ends, before Derek and the Dominoes, before “461 Ocean Boulevard”, before “Tears in Heaven”, before Clapton’s re-dedication to the blues and Robert Johnson, before the Crossroads Festival. This means, of course, that there are 40 subsequent years yet to cover (and more in the future, one hopes). There is no indication that this is the first in a series. But if future volumes should appear, one can only hope that they will be handled with as much care, intelligence, taste, and commitment to the historical record as this DVD.
Extras include Chris Dreja’s thoughts on the Yardbirds’ experiences with Sonny Boy Williamson II, and why it turned out to be a much tougher gig than they had anticipated; Paul Jones on the little-known tracks credited to Eric Clapton and the Powerhouse, which appeared on an Elektra white-blues anthology called “What’s Shakin’” just prior to the formation of Cream; and recording engineer Bill Halverson on the song “Badge”, on which Clapton and co-writer George Harrison experimented with a new kind of foot pedal. There are also short text bios of the dozen people who were interviewed for this project.
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