Shelter From The Storm

Linda Ronstadt gets a bad rap in my opinon. Apart from the extraordinary run of superb albums she released in the mid seventies, she was instrumental in furthering the career of numerous fledgling artists and songwriters. Her self-titled album from 1971 featured a group of musicians who would soon be known as The Eagles. She was a huge influence on other female artists like Emmylou Harris and Nicollete Larson. She provided crucial exposure to up and coming songwriters like Karla Bonoff and Warren Zevon. Beginning with 1973’s Don’t Cry Now and ending with 1978’s Living In The U.S.A. Ronstadt released six albums that virtually defined the California “folk country rock pop” sound. She had enormous commercial success, with many of her albums reaching Gold and Platinum status. But most important of all, behind all the sales and chart success was one of the most talented singers of contemporary times. Ronstadt is one of the few artists who was always capable of holding my attention even though she didn’t write her own material. I’ve always been drawn mostly to singer-songwriters and other artists who write what they record. Ronstadt was different. Somehow she was able to take almost any song, whether it was a well known standard or brand new gem from some young previously unheard of songwriter, and make it her own. I first discovered a lot of great artists via Linda Ronstadt and for that alone I think she deserves a lot more respect than she gets. Her breakthrough album, and probably the record that best defines her career was 1974’s Heart Like A Wheel. It didn’t differ wildly from what she had been doing previously, but the addition of Peter Asher as producer helped bring everything into focus. Ronstadt sang with passion, force and real spirit and every song on the disc was just perfect. A real masterpiece that I still marvel at when I play it thirty years later. 

The title song from Heart Like A Wheel was written by Anna McGarrigle, a name that meant nothing to me at the time. But you had to figure with a song that good we’d probably be hearing more from her. Sure enough the following year saw the release of Kate & Anna McGarrigle on Warner Bros. Quite simply it’s as strong a debut album as has ever been made.  Not only do we get Anna but it turns out she’s got a younger sister, Kate, who’s every bit the songwriter and singer that Anna is. The twelve songs on Kate & Anna McGarrigle (nine originals, one traditional, one by Loudon Wainwright and another by Wade Hemsworth) comprise one of those magical introductions to a new artist that just spins your head around. If ever you need proof that siblings can sing and harmonize together in ways that no one else can, this is it. Their voices blend, mingle and fuse together in some of the most beautiful, intricate, breathtaking palettes of sound one could possibly imagine.

The exuberant, joyous piano riff that begins Kate’s “Kiss And Say Goodbye” encapsulates everything I love about this album. It’s one of my favorite opening tracks ever. It manages to wrap in in three minutes the absolute euphoria and ecstasy of new love in a way that makes me want to sing at the top of my lungs. The song builds to an radiant climax with the exuberant lyrics, “I want to kiss you till my mouth gets numb.” From there it’s straight into class McGarrigle sisters harmonies on Anna’s “My Town.” Throughout the album Kate and Anna take turns with the songwriting and while there is definitely a certain amount of personality in the way they each approach a song, just like with their singing, it’s hard to tell them apart sometimes. And I mean that in a very good way. Their stunning rendition of “Heart Like A Wheel” features only a guitar, a banjo and an organ. And vocals and harmonies that will leave you astonished. There are lighter moments, most notably a dead on take of Wainwright’s “Swimming Song” (how can a song basically about nothing be so damn good?). Other highlights include Kate’s “Talk To Me Of Mendocino,” “Tell My Sister” and especially “Go Leave.”  The French language “Complainte Pour Ste-Catherine” provides a sneak peak into the lovely French Album they would release in 1980. A raucous (well for a folk album anyway) version of the traditional “Travellin’ On For Jesus” featuring Lowell George on guitar closes out the album. Produced to near perfection by the one and only Joe Boyd (along with Greg Prestopino) the album also features musicians Bobby Keys, Tony Rice, David Grisman, Amos Garrett, Andrew Gold and Russ Kunkel.

The McGarrigles never made another album as good as this first one. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve made some great, great albums over the years (1983’s Love Over And Over is my second favorite release from them), but this record set a standard they could never quite reach again. They’re still putting out records, though they seem to get fewer and farther between as time goes by. They’ve collaborated with Emmylou Harris quite frequently in the last decade with songs and performances on her most recent albums. Kate & Anna McGarrigle was first released on CD in 1993 by the Hannibal label (distributed through Ryko). Unfortunately, that CD is now out of print, but it’s still available at a reasonable price as an import from Amazon.com. Finding the rest of their catalog on CD is a hit and miss affair. Some of the older titles are out of print now in the US, but generally you can find most of them as imports. The only album never to be released on CD for some reason is 1978’s Pronto Monto. Kate & Anna McGarrigle is one of my all time favorite debut releases. And every time I listen to it I always think of Linda Rondstadt as well. In fact, I’ll often times pull out Heart Like A Wheel after listening to Kate & Anna McGarrigle. And I’m always amazed at much I still love her version of “Heart Like A Wheel” after hearing Kate & Anna’s.

Other Listens on September 12th:
To The Bone by Kris Kristofferson
The Long Walk by Tom Pacheco
Are You Ready by Blue Rodeo
Crosswords by Larry Hosford

I used to frequent a record store in San Marcos, Texas called Sundance Records. I’d make a point of stopping by almost every day. The folks who owned and ran the store became friends, as did the clerks who worked there. I’d always head first for a little bin next to the cash register where they’d place used “new arrivals,” a great place to get cheap CDs. Many of these were often “promo” CDs. For those that might not know, the record labels sound out hundreds, if not thousands of “promotional” CDs on any given title to music writers, radio stations, tour promoters and assorted friends and riffraff. The vast majority of these end up in used record stores. You can’t blame the recipients. Writers in particular often get way more CDs than they can ever listen to or review. They might as well sell the stuff that is of no interest to them. The record labels frown on the practice (of course) but there’s really not much they can do about it. They will usually punch a hole in the bar code or stamp the booklet with “Promotional Copy” to at least make sure the CDs don’t end up getting returned to them as defective units. Truth be told there’s a lot of record label employees who sell stuff on the side to used record stores for a little extra cash. I’d often buy new and interesting looking things from this bin that I didn’t know much about, just because the price was right. For $5.99 or $6.99 I’d take a chance on a lot of stuff. One of the CDs I bought in 1993 was Tuesday Night Music Club by Sheryl Crow. Didn’t know a thing about her but I’ve always had a soft spot for female artists (be they rock, folk, country or whatever). One listen and I knew I’d found something special. With ”Run, Baby, Run,” “Strong Enough,” “I Shall Believe,” and of course “Leaving Las Vegas” and “All I Wanna Do,” this was a phenomenal debut from a very promising artist. Her label A&M obviously believed in Crow as well, as they they worked this album for almost a year before it finally paid off when the third single from the album, “All I Wanna Do,” made it to Number 2 on the charts in the summer of 1994. The first two singles had not made much of an impression on the record buying public and one can only wonder what would have become of Crow if the “All I Wanna Do” had also failed to chart. 

I’ve followed Crow’s career carefully over the past 15 years. There have certainly been ups and downs but she’s managed to put together an incredible body of work over the course of just five albums. Sheryl Crow, The Globe Sessions and especially 2002’s C’mon, C’mon are real favorites that I come back to frequently. “Soak Up The Sun” is one of my very favorite all-time pop songs. The only real disappoint in her catalog is 2005’s Wildflower, an uncharacteristically lifeless and bland affair. Fair or not, I guess we can blame it on the “too happy to make a good record” syndrome. As Bob Dylan once said, “Pain sure brings out the best in people, doesn’t it?”

Detours is a marvelous return to form. The songs are some of the best she’s written in years. But what most people will probably site as the key ingredient here is the return of Bill Bottrell who had produced Tuesday Night Music Club. Apparently Crow and Bottrell had a big falling out not long after Tuesday Night Music Club became a smash success (he called Crow “hopeless” and “obnoxious” in a 1996 Rolling Stone cover story on her). He was originally slated to produce her follow up album but pulled out before recording began. A masterful producer, Bottrell has been on board for several classic releases in recent years, including Shelby Lynne’s I Am Shelby Lynne. It seems he and Crow remained estranged for quite a long time until Crow called him up and asked him to work with her on this new album. We can all be quite thankful that they buried the hatchet because the music they have once again made together accounts for a truly splendid album, something I wasn’t expecting after Wildflowers.

Crow has always been a passionate songwriter, well schooled in the Joni Mitchell/James Taylor/Carole King mold of “confessional” songwriting. Detours is no different. The songs here are direct, poignant and very personal. There are four distinct themes running through this album: her recent bout with breast cancer, her adoption of a son, Wyatt, in 2007, her very public relationship and breakup with Lance Armstrong and, surprisingly, current political events. Crow has never been known as a “political” songwriter, though she did make the news in 2007 when she headlined a Stop Global Warming College Tour and when she and co-partner in crime Laurie David got into a bit of a tiff with Bush adviser Karl Rove. It’s a bit of a surprise (though quite welcome indeed) to find three overtly political songs on this album. “God Bless This Mess,” with it’s single acoustic guitar and Crow’s compressed vocal, sounds like it’s coming straight out of a cheap AM radio. A poignant “state of the union address” written from the perspective of an ordinary, average American, it set’s the mood immediately. “Peace Be Upon Us,” with it’s Arabic lyrics is a moving, modern day version of “Give Peace A Chance” while “Gasoline” is a wicked, remarkably infectious tongue-in-cheek rave-up about the politics of oil. ”Love Is Free” and “Out Of Our Heads” are pure, classic Sheryl Crow, easily the two catchiest things she’s done since “Soak Up The Sun,” though the pop melody of “Out Of Our Heads” belies the political sentiments underneath. The acoustic based “Detours” and and the damning “Diamond Ring” are obvious reflections on her relationship with Armstrong. “Make It Go Away (Radiation Song)” is a harrowing look at her brush with cancer. The album comes full circle with “Lullaby For Wyatt” a beautiful declaration of unconditional love for a new child. It may all be a colossal mess, as she asserts at the beginning of the record, but in the end, it all comes back to one basic, simple thing that keeps us all from throwing our hands up in futile despair: love.

Other Listens on August 16th:
Tomorrow The Wold by The Shazam
Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show by Neil Diamond
To The Bone by Kris Kristofferson
Life Death Love And Freedom by John Mellencamp

In 1976 I got the job I had been looking for over the past few years: working at a real record store. I’d worked for The Wherehouse, a record chain in California, but not in an actual store, I was in the warehouse and it wasn’t quite the same. I’d worked very briefly at a tiny little store in Key West, Florida called The Tape Ape, but it was too too small to really mean much. I’d tried for almost a year to get a job at one of the record stores near the campus of Syrcause University when I lived there, but was never able to. Finally, after I ended up in Austin, Texas I got a job at Disc Records in Highland Mall. For me, this was nirvana. A real record store. Not too long later the manager of that store and I transferred over to another store in town, Zebra Records. Zebra was also owned by Disc Records, but it was a “stand-alone” store, not located in a mall as all of their other stores were. It was, in fact, the coolest record store in town and I was the assistant manager (I can’t tell you how much that meant to me at the time). About a year later I was offered a promotion to move to Houston and become the manager of the Disc Records store in The Galleria Mall. I had reservations about moving from Austin to Houston, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that. As the store manager I also began to attend the annual company convention that Disc Records held each year. This was my first real introduction into the “politics” that existed between the labels and the record stores. Most of the major labels would “sponsor” certain “events” at the convention. And, of course, they always had an act or two to push. The vast majority of these acts never amounted to anything, but occasionally one would break through. One year they were pushing a new guy named John Cougar. He had a new album with a song they were certain would be a smash hit, “I Need A Lover,” but I wasn’t too impressed. I think the song did actually make a little noise and hit the Top 40 (Pat Benatar would also mine the song for an AOR hit a few years later). It took two more albums and then Mellencamp really did break through with his first monster hits, “Jack And Diane” and “Hurts So Good.”

I didn’t follow Mellencamp much until the release of Scarecrow in 1985. Sure, I’d heard the other hits like “Pink Houses” and “Authority Song” on the radio, but they didn’t interest me enough to buy or listen to an entire album. All that changed dramatically with Scarecrow, one of my very favorite albums from that year. I think it was seeing Mellencamp perform “Rain On The Scarecrow” on Farm Aid that turned me around and got me to go out and buy the record. The follow up album, The Lonesome Jubilee, was also a regular on my turntable. But then I began to lose interest again. Big Daddy, Whenever We Wanted, Human Wheels, Dance Naked, Mr. Happy Go Lucky, Mellencamp kept putting out albums and I’d find one or two songs to like on each release, but as a whole the discs just weren’t connecting with me like the earlier stuff had. Towards the late nineties I stopped buying his records altogether.

I have to say right up front that it was the fact that T. Bone Burnett produced this album that inspired me to order it from Amazon (well the fact that I could get it for $9.99 didn’t hurt either). This is Mellencamp’s strongest release in almost twenty years, due in equal parts I think to an outstanding collection of songs, flawless production from Burnett and what seems like a reinvigorated and revitalized passion in Mellencamp’s performances. The term “comeback” album gets thrown around way too much, but if ever there was good cause to use it, it’s here. Whether it’s the influence of Burnett, a natural progression of Mellencamp’s continuing development as a writer and performer or a combination of both, Live Death Love And Freedom is a truly outstanding piece of work. It’s not the kind of “rock” album Mellencamp is most famous for. Almost all of the songs utilize a full band (including electric guitars, drums, bass and organ) but for the most part everything sounds quiet and dark, even slightly menacing. The songs themselves reflect a maturity and insight that only comes with age and experience, though these songs are much less about answers then they are about the journey. This is a long, long way from the swaggering and bravado of “Hurts So Good” or “Authority Song.” It’s actually the kind of stuff Mellencamp touched on briefly in “Minutes To Memories” on Scarecrow, where he told the story of an old man sharing hard earned wisdom with a younger Mellencamp who couldn’t quite grasp the old man’s “vision.” Things have come full circle now, roles have been reversed and Mellencamp finds himself as the elder statesman. “This getting older, well it ain’t for cowards,” he sings and throughout the album he makes that the central theme. From start to finish Mellencamp is consumed (even obsessed) with death, dying, loss, disappointment and, in the end, acceptance and redemption.

“Longest Days” sets the mood for the entire album with a simple acoustic guitar and Mellencamp singing quietly about life, changes, death and disillusionment. “Nothing lasts forever and your best efforts don’t always pay, Sometimes you get sick and you don’t get better,” he sings. It’s one of the most direct, powerful songs Mellencamp has written in a long time. Things are balanced out immediately, both in the music and the lyrics in the gentle “My Sweet Love” a tribute to the power of an enduring relationship and romantic love that can transcend everything else. “If I Die Sudden” is the kind of song Mellencamp might have written twenty years ago during his most fertile period. If it had appeared on Scarecrow or The Lonesome Jubilee it would probably have been rendered as a flat out rocker. Here Burnett infuses the song with a sense of ominous tension (that fits perfectly with the lyrics) using understated drums as well as spooky guitars and organs.

The centerpiece of the album, the song which all the others seem to revolve around, is “Don’t Need This Body” a down to earth contemplation on the end of life. Mellencamp acknowledges all the years gone by, the “washed up and worn out” body and the “ten million hours” put in and finds a worthwhile reward at the end knowing that he loved and was loved. “A Ride Back Home” may be the most easily accessible song on the album, an straight-forward plea for inner peace and an end to the troubles of mortal life.  There’s also a “political song”, “Jena,” and a great little “I’m dead now and writing this” story song in the grand tradition of “El Paso,” “County Fair.”

The album closes the way it began. “For The Children” is a quiet, reflective look at the extensive questions and mysteries of life, many of which seem to go unanswered no matter how old we get. But there’s a sense of contentment here that breathes hope and faith into the lyrics. Finally, “A Brand New Song” provides the perfect bookend to the opening despair of “Longest Days.” Mellencamp pulls all the themes he’s explored over the course of the album into one parting affirmation of life. He may not have found the answers he was looking for, he may not have seen all the dreams come true, but in the end he has found peace and purpose in the transitory nature of life: “Life is always in motion, and there’s new people to count on, Here you may find a purpose and sing a brand new song.” Acceptance of the inherent qualities of life, whether we like them or not, he seems to be saying, may be the only way to fully embrace it and cherish it for what it is. A perfect end to remarkable new album.

As a side note it’s interesting to point out that the CD version of this album ships with a second disc, the same album on a DVD using a “new system” to create high-definition audio. Developed by Burnett and his team of engineers the system is named “CODE” though they represent it in Greek letters that I can’t really duplicate here. The claim is that with this disc we’ll hear the music “with a resonance, depth, and presence that is unprecedented in the digital age.” Well, OK. It’s hard to believe they’re going to get very far with this, but you never know. DVD Audio went nowhere fast and SACD went nowhere even faster. In this age of MP3 players the vast majority of listeners are simply not interested in super, high quality audiophile technology. While there may be a very small, dedicated, obsessed core of audiophiles who do appreciate this technology I just don’t think it’s going have much impact. Consumers seem very slow to embrace the transition from DVD to Blu-Ray and for most people that’s an even easier leap to make being that it’s visual. Still, it’s nice that they included the extra disc at no additional cost.

Other Listens on August 11th:
All This Tangled Rope (bootleg) by Bob Dylan

I began collecting records when I was ten years old. The first album I ever bought was Snoopy vs. The Red Baron by The Royal Guardsmen. Hey, I was a child of the AM pop radio sixties and I was only ten years old, so cut me some slack. I redeemed myself with my second album purchase, Between The Buttons, by the Rolling Stones. From there it was The Doors, Bob Dylan, lots of Motown, Simon & Garfunkel, Joan Baez, etc. I was a collector from the very beginning. Sure, I was in it for the music, but I also loved the tangible, solid pieces of black vinyl and cardboard jackets that I could hold in my hand. Things just got worse and worse as I got older and before I knew it I had accumulated thousands of albums and hundreds of singles. It seemed I was constantly building new shelves to hold everything. Working at record stores certainly didn’t help matters much, as I got a lot things free there. For many, many years I never even dreamed of selling any of my prized possessions. I had lots (and I mean lots) of albums that I had never listened to, but it always seemed that there would certainly be time to listen to them all eventually. Even though I was still accumulating far more than I could listen to at the time, when you’re young the future seems endless and able to accommodate anything. Besides, I was terrified of the idea that I would sell something I hadn’t listened to and then years later find out how good it was and that it was no longer in print and impossible to find again. Better to hang on to everything, just in case. Then in the late 70s and early 80s I started to attend record conventions in Houston and Austin and began selling some of my duplicates. Yes, I had multiple copies of a lot of stuff. When Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe would put out a UK single with a picture sleeve and unreleased b-sides I would buy two, three, five or ten copies knowing that some day they would be worth something. I soon discovered that once you begin to sell stuff it’s a slippery slope. Throughout the eighties I was attending the Austin Record Convention as a dealer twice a year, sorting through my collection and deciding what things I was willing to part with. Of course, most of the money I made I plowed right back into buying more albums and CDs, so in reality I was just trading things out for things I wanted more. 

These days it’s all about Amazon.com and eBay. I’ve sold a lot of CDs over the past few years at Amazon. I’m at the point now where I’ve finally accepted that there’s just no way I’m ever going to be able to listen to all this stuff, there’s just too much and my years of listening are now noticeably more numbered. But, I still spend a lot of the money I make buying new stuff, so I’m still often just replacing one CD with something else that I want more. That’s OK. I listen to as much as I can.

Occasionally I’ll pull a CD from my rack and think, “OK, this can go. I’ve had this CD for 15 years and I’ve never listened to it.” So, I’ll look it up on Amazon and see what used copies are going for. Occasionally, if it’s an artist or album that I’m not familiar with at all, I’ll read some of the reviews that the fans write at Amazon. That’s how I came to discover Terence Boylan. I have a CD simply titled Terence Boylan. It’s on a label I’ve never heard of Spinnaker Records (probably his own custom label). I have no idea where it came from or how long I’ve had it. I pulled it out and decided I’d put it up for sale on Amazon. Then I read a few reviews and had second thoughts. This seems like an album I might really like. Maybe I should give it a quick listen before I sell it. Now this doesn’t happen too often, but Terence Boylan has suddenly become one of my new favorite artists and I’m really getting into this CD.

It turns out that Boylan released two albums on Asylum back in the late seventies (probably what made me pick this up originally). This self-titled CD, released in 1999, is a compilation that contains eight songs from his first album (Terence Boylan), four songs from his second (Suzy, 1980) and three previously unreleased songs most likely recorded sometime in the nineties. The album opens with a piano intro (on the song “Hey Papa”) that sounds like it came right off a Steely Dan album. Then Boylan’s voice kicks in, smooth, sweet and silvery. Background vocals and a saxophone solo and you know right away you’re in Southern California seventies territory. While I usually hate to make comparisons to other artists the best way to describe this music is a blend of Steely Dan and Jackson Browne. Throw in a little Joni Mitchell and J.D. Souther and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect. It’s got the smooth, funky, jazz-rock of the best of Steely Dan while Boylan’s songs and voice inhabit the same territory that Jackson’s one of the masters of. And yet, with all that said, he’s got a style all his own, very unique and very special. He ain’t no knockoff of anyone else. And to top it all of he’s a damn fine songwriter.

This is only my third real listen to this album, so I’m still getting to know the songs. But it’s definitely one of those albums that sounds even better to me on each listening. Right now “Dancing Shoes,” “Ice And Snow,” “Hey Papa,” “Tell Me” and especially “Trains” and “Shake It” (Ian Matthews had a hit with this in 1978) are my favorites, but that could easily change as I continue to absorb this stuff. Once I realized how good this was I immediately looked up the two Asylum albums on Amazon, found that Wounded Bird Records had recently reissued both of them and ordered them then and there. They haven’t arrived yet, but I’m looking forward to hearing more from Boylan when they do.

Other Listens on July 31st:
Velvet Gloves And Spit by Neil Diamond

My musical landscape is littered with fallen artists. For every Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Elliott Murphy and Neil Young still soldiering on after thirty or forty years there are probably dozens of artists who released anywhere from one to five or more albums and then fell by the wayside. I remember reading back in the nineties that something like over 30,000 new albums were released each year. New albums. That’s an astonishing number when you stop to think about it. I don’t know if it’s more or less these days, but I suspect it’s probably even more. Even though record labels might be releasing fewer albums, the DIY, record, burn and sell your own CD process has probably fueled the marketplace with even more releases. Places like CDBaby, The Orchard, The Connextion and others are selling thousands (sometimes it seems likes millions) of CDs by artists most people have never heard of. Notice I said “selling.” I wonder sometimes exactly how many people are “buying” some of these albums. I’m sure there are some artists who do relatively well. After all, though I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about music, there are certainly a lot of artists I’m not familiar with who have a good following. But I’m equally certain there are plenty of artists with CDs for sale on these sites who don’t sell more than a dozen or two CDs a year, if that many.

I realized a long, long time ago, at a quite early age, that being good, hell even being great, was no guarantee that an artist would get anywhere in the music business. It was very disillusioning to my young, romantic view of the arts and the world. I’d hear so many great albums from so many artists and wonder why in the hell is this person not more popular than they are? I saw so many artists, truly impressive, significant, inspiring artists come and go leaving only their music behind. Randy Burns was one of those artists. I don’t remember how I first heard Burns. I’m pretty sure it was through his 1971 album simply entitled Randy Burns And The Sky Dog Band on Mercury. I bought it as a cut-out for 49¢ at one of the Wherehouse Records stores in Los Angeles in 1974. I probably bought it simply because David Bromberg played on two songs, I liked the cover and it was cheap. I was hooked from the very first listen. Burns has one of those voices that just sinks straight into my soul. On top of that he wrote some really great songs and his folk/country/singer-songwriter style was right up my alley.

It turned out that Burns had recorded three albums before Randy Burns And The Sky Dog Band. All were released on the eccentric ESP-Disk label in the mid to late sixties. I managed to track them all down, and while they each contained some good material I think Burns really found his voice on the Mercury album. He released two more albums, I’m A Lover Not A Fool (Polydor, 1972) and Still On Our Feet (Polydor, 1973) and was never heard from again. At least not by me. At least not for a long time. None of his material has ever been released on CD (at least that I am aware of). He’s one of those great, lost artists I wish everyone could hear and appreciate as much as I do. Sadly, not many probably ever will.

The Cat’s Pajamas was released only as a cassette back in 1991 almost twenty years after Still On Our Feet. I have no idea what Burns was up to in the meantime. A bio on allmusic.com says he continued to play music, mostly coffee houses and folk festivals, throughout the seventies and eighties. My understanding at the time this was released was that The Cat’s Pajamas was financed and released by a fan who simply wanted to see a new Randy Burns album available. I can’t remember now how I even heard it existed, but somehow I mailed off for a copy. It’s never been released on CD. I recently got around to finally transferring it from cassette to CDR.

It’s an awfully lot like seeing an old friend again when an artist you are fond of puts out a new album after a twenty year absence. But, just like attending a high school reunion, the experience can be disheartening as often as it is joyful. There’s nothing I hate more than getting a new album by one of my favorite artists who I haven’t heard from in a long time, really, really wanting to like it, to love it, to be blown away by it, only to be let down when the songs and music don’t even come close to the earlier work. Thankfully, that’s not the case here. While The Cat’s Pajama’s is not my favorite album by Burns it’s a very strong release and I would highly recommend it to anyone familiar with his earlier work (and everyone else as well).

The album is a completely acoustic affair with Burns on acoustic guitar and vocals and his old band mate from The Sky Dog Band Matt Kastner on second acoustic guitar, steel guitar, bass and vocals. Phil Rosenthal is along for mandolin on two songs. It’s what we used to call a “folk” album in the old days, but in the nineties it would have been referred to as “unplugged.” The set opens with “Jesus/Marriage Song,” two Burns originals meshed together into one performance. It’s classic Randy Burns, a plaintive melody, insightful lyrics and a moving vocal performance. Of the thirteen songs on this disc Burns only wrote three and sure enough, they are three of my favorite songs on the album. “Liela” and “The Farm Song” are both excellent examples of Burns’ songwriting skills, and I only wish he had of included a few more originals in this set.

There are three “Irish” flavored songs: “Dirty Old Town,” a beautiful reworking of an old Ewan MacColl song, “Patty Reilly” and ”Go To Sea Once More” a sea shantie done a capella. There are two Dylan covers: “One Too Many Mornings” and “Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues.” Now Dylan gets covered so often, and by so many people, that I tend to dismiss many attempts offhand. This is different. Burns has an extremely expressive voice that suits these two Dylan songs perfectly. “One Too Many Mornings” is not an especially well known Dylan song and I think that allows for an easier interpretation and Burns does a fine job with it here. “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” is a little tougher to pull off, as it’s such a classic. But again, Burns rises to the challenge, taking the number a bit slower than Dylan. The acoustic guitars provide a perfect background as Burns winds his way through the verses providing just the right amount of drama and style to breathe new life into the lyrics most of us know so well. A nice version of the Tom Paxton classic “The Last Thing On My Mind,” a Donovan cover and a Tom Pacheco song, “The Last Waltz” (which to the best of my knowledge Tom has never recorded himself), round things out. The albums ends with a great reading of “Farewell My Friend” an old Bruce Murdoch song.

I’ve heard recently that a new label, WildCat Recordings, is going to reissue Burns’ first three albums as a two disc set. They also have plans to issue a live recording with The Sky Dog Band from 1970 and a “new” album titled Only Fools Never Try (that looks from their description an awfully lot like The Cat’s Pajamas). I’ve been disappointed numerous times by new, start up labels that have planned to release things that never end up materializing. I sure hope WildCat is able to carry through with their plans and get these Randy Burns discs out soon. There may not be a lot of people waiting for them, but for those of us who are, they can’t come quick enough.

Other Listens on July 25th:
Nevada Fighter by Michael Nesmith
Rides Again by James Gang
The Other Side by Chris Hillman

I’ve bought an album by a new artist (or just new to me) for lots of different reasons: I was familiar with and admired the producer of the album; I had heard a song the artist did covered by another artist; musicians I was familiar with played on the album; I heard a song on the radio or saw a performance on TV or live; someone I knew and trusted wrote the liner notes; a friend told me about it; etc. But I think this may be the only album that I ever purchased strictly because of the cover. Jesse Winchester’s self titled debut album was released in 1970 on the Ampex Records label. The label only lasted two or three years though they did release about forty or fifty albums, including Great Speckled Bird, Runt and The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren by Todd Rundgren, For Sale by Fever Tree and a whole lot of other stuff even I have never heard of. Winchester’s album was the fourth disc from the label. I ran across it in 1972 in a cut-out bin somewhere in Santa Monica. I can’t remember for sure, but I probably paid about 99¢ in those days. Now, it’s possible that the fact that Robbie Robertson (from The Band) produced the disc might have also influenced by decision to buy it, but really, it was the cover: a grainy, washed out, dark brown sepia close-up photograph of a very down and out, scruffy, despondent looking character who looked like he just stepped out of the Civil War. It was very intriguing. And what I liked even more was that the back cover was the exact same image! (Imagine my surprise when I bought it, took it home and opened it up only to find it was a “gatefold” cover and the exact same image was also used on both of the inside panels.) Now I’m sure this cover would not have the same effect on a lot of people, and there’s really not much to it, but something about it just drew me in and made me want to find out what this guy sounded like.

Jesse Winchester is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters. There’s no one else like him. He’s written so many great songs I wouldn’t know where to begin listing them. Well, actually, that’s not true. I can begin right here on his debut album which contains my very favorite song of his ever, “Yankee Lady.” There are ten other songs on the album, all written by Winchester, of which at least one is a true classic (”The Brand New Tennessee Waltz”). Several of his other albums, notably Third Down, 110 To Go and Let The Rough Side Drag are among my all-time favorite releases. He’s only made three albums in the last thirty years but his seventies output is second to no one.

The album is a decidedly “low tech” affair, whether on purpose or not, I don’t know. The sound is very rough, but in a way that suits the songs perfectly. Things kick off with the raucous “Payday”, Winchester’s ode to money in the pocket on a Friday night. His voice is bathed in echo, the drums are hard and fast and the lead guitar (I think it must be Robertson) is recorded just a little too “hot,” peaking out and distorting a tiny bit throughout the track. The distorted guitar returns on “Quiet About It” and the piano on “Skip Rope Song” is the same, a little “fuzzy” around the edges. This is by no means a “state of the art” sonic experience. It’s a rough and tumble, gritty and uncompromising, a perfect counterbalance to Winchester’s wonderfully smooth, gentle and yet, very raw and powerful vocals. Winchester would go on to make much “smoother” albums later in his career (Nothing But A Breeze and A Touch On The Rainy Side are almost exact opposites in sound respects from this album). But the sound of this album gives it a character and personality that is unique among his releases.

On song after song Winchester constructs near perfect vignettes of people and places. ”Biloxi” (featuring a stately piano, a slowly picked acoustic guitar and shimmering cymbals) is another one of Winchester’s better known songs, the kind of plaintive, descriptive ballad he would later perfect on a song like “Mississippi You’re On My Mind.” There’s a touch of humor in “Snow,” a song he co-wrote with Robertson. Winchester is a southern boy from Memphis, Tennessee who moved to Montreal, Canada in 1967 because he refused to serve in the military. “I was tuning in the six o’clock newscast, And the weather man mentioned snow / As soon as I heard that four-letter word, I was making my plans to go.” The love songs, “That’s The Touch I Like” and “Skip Rope Song” are also highlights, but “Yankee Lady” and “The Brand New Tennessee Waltz” are the true standouts here. “The Brand New Tennesse Waltz” has been covered by people like Joan Baez, Sweethearts Of The Rodeo and The Everly Brothers while “Yankee Lady” has been recorded by Tim Hardin, Brewer & Shipley and others. But no one else even comes close to Winchester’s originals. Those two songs alone make this album worth having. Winchester has a dark side as well. “Rosy Shy” and especially the moody, almost spooky, “Black Dog” show a distinctly different side of things. The album ends the same way it began with “The Nudge,” a rowdy tip of the hat to loose women. 

Jesse Winchester was out of print for a long time until the great Canadian label Stony Plain released it on CD in 1994 (along with the rest of his incredible catalog). It’s now also available through the Wounded Bird reissue label. Wounded Bird also released on CD for the first time a wonderful live album, Live At The Bijou Cafe, a promotional only radio station release from 1976 (though to be honest, Wounded Bird is notorious for poor quality sounding reissues and this is just one example). Jesse hasn’t made a new album in almost ten years, since his 1999 Sugar Hill release Gentleman Of Leisure. He still tours a bit, playing festivals, performing arts theaters and clubs. I’d sure like to see a new album one of these days. Until then though I’m quite happy with the ones he’s already given us.

Other Listens on July 14th:
Hollywood Pocketknife by Eric Taylor

I’m not your typical record buyer. I never have been. I’ve long maintained that most people do not buy records based on things like liner notes, album credits or record reviews in newspapers and magazines. But I certainly do. When I see an album by an artist that I’m not familiar with I always look to see who’s playing on it. If there are people I know I’m more likely to check it out. I’ve bought tons of albums based on a review I read somewhere. I have my favorite music writers and I know their tastes so I can often tell what the chances are I’ll like something based on who reviewed it and what they thought of it. I think most people have always bought records based on radio exposure or having seen an artist live. People need to hear something before they’re likely to put out hard earned cash for the album. That’s changing now somewhat with the demise of terrestrial radio and rise of the internet. But, still, most people buy things they have already heard, and liked, somewhere, be it the radio, TV, the internet, a bar or in a friend’s car.

In 1971 I bought an album (well, an 8-Track tape) by a new guy named John Prine. I bought it soley because Kris Kristofferson raved about Prine on back of the album jacket. That was enough for me. Having recently discovered The Silver Tongued Devil And I, I was a huge Kristofferson fan. The album has gone on to become a true classic, containing four of Prine’s best known songs: “Angel From Montgomery,” “Hello In There,” “Sam Stone” and “Paradise.” He followed it in 1972 with Diamonds In The Rough and then in 1973 with Sweet Revenge, two more fine, fine albums. But his fourth album, Common Sense, released in 1975, may be my all time favorite. He’s released over a dozen more albums since Common Sense. The Missing Years won a Grammy in 1991 and reinvigorated his career. I have all his albums. I have many bootlegs. I play them all on a regular basis. Bruised Orange and Storm Windows are also very high on my list of favorite albums. But I come back to Common Sense more than any of the others. In many ways it’s a unique John Prine album, at least to me. From the very first album Prine demonstrated a profound ability to tell stories (”Sam Stone,” “Angel From Montgomery,” etc.). But he also displayed a wicked sense of nonsensical humor on songs like “Pretty Good,” “Flashback Blues” and “Illegal Smile.” Diamonds In The Rough was a little more on the serious side (with two anti-war songs), but there were also songs like “The Frying Pan” and “Everybody” (a song about meeting Jesus). Songs like “Please Don’t Bury Me” and the title track from Sweet Revenge kept this side of Prine’s songwriting on display. But, it was the Common Sense album which really brought it all to a head.

The title of the album and the cover drawing (a dimwit stepping on a rake) pretty much sum up the songs on this album. These songs are as close to modern day, cartoon like, fairy tale absurdity as you’ll ever find on a “country/folk/singer-songwriter” album. And I mean that in a very, very good way. This is John Prine’s The Basement Tapes. Not in the sense that the songs and recordings were squirreled away and hidden for years, but in the songwriting sense. On The Basement Tapes Dylan wrote a string of completely ridiculous songs framed around lyrics that in the very act of making absolutely no sense, made perfect sense. Prine does the same thing on Common Sense. It’s ten years later and the songs are filtered through Prine’s own beautifully warped view of the world, but the two albums have a lot in common. 

Even though the album contains eleven songs, it goes by pretty fast, clocking in at about than 32 minutes. Every song is short, sweet and to the point. There’s not a single song on this album that is anything like “Sam Stone,” “Angel From Montgomery,” “Donald And Lydia,” “Billy The Bum” or “Grandpa Was A Carpenter.” These are story songs, there’s no doubt about that, but they are stories from a different dimension. Take my favorite verse from the title track:

“But they came here by boat, and they came here by plane
They blistered their hands, and they burned out their brains
All dreaming a dream that’ll never come true 
Hey, don’t give me no trouble or I’ll call up my double, we’ll play piggy-in-the-middle with you”

Or consider the title of the following track: “Come Back To Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard.” 

Prine is on a roll here. Song after song just nails it. If you look at the lyrics of each song literally you say, “huh?” But if you don’t think about the lyrics and what they might mean, if you just let the songs seep into your soul, if you don’t think too much, they all seem just downright perfect. It’s a contradiction and an irony that Prine sums up perfectly in the the title song: “It don’t make no sense that common sense don’t make no sense no more.” He also has a very unique way of saying something deadly serious in the most preposterous manner possible. It’s brilliant. “Saddle In The Rain” may be my all-time favorite Prine composition. Other tracks like “Common Sense,” “My Own Best Friend,” “That Close To You” and “Middle Man” are not far behind. This is another one of those albums where I would simply have to include almost every track on a John Prine iTunes playlist. “He Was In Heaven Before He Died” is one of the most beautiful, touching, haunting songs he has ever written, though if you were to just read the lyrics on a sheet of paper you might be left wondering what the hell he was trying to get at. But in listening to the song, on a completely different, maybe even subconscious level, it’s all quite apparent. A rollicking version of Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” is the perfect album closer.

Common Sense is also one of Prine’s best sounding albums. Famed Memphis guitar player Steve Cropper does a fabulous job of capturing the energy, spirit and essence of these songs. The band is top notch, mostly session players, some of the very best of the day. Bonnie Raitt does a killer harmony vocal on “Come Back To Us Barabara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard.” Jackson Browne, Glenn Frey, J.D. Souther and Steve Goodman are along for the ride. And what a ride it is. Though many of his other albums are also very close to my heart, if I had to pick just one to take with me to a desert island it would have to be this one.

Other Listens on July 7th:
Greatest Hits Volume II by Bob Dylan
The Very Best Of Dusty Springfield
Live At The Fillmore East 10/24/70 (bootleg) by Derek & The Dominoes
Live At The Cactus Cafe (bootleg) by Tom Pacheco 

The 1966 tour through Australia, Europe and especially the UK is more historically significant and more musically consequential. There’s no denying the power and the majesty of those performances. The acoustic performances are positively ethereal. Dylan sounds truly stoned out of his mind yet perfectly in the moment. His harmonica playing on those tracks is unlike anything else I’ve ever heard. He wanders off into unbelievable solos and riffs that wind over, under and around themselves like twisted angelic musical prayers. And, of course, the electric sets are truly groundbreaking. The ferociousness of the band, the power that each and everyone of them brings to each song is truly unique in recorded music. This was a band, with Dylan at the helm, doing battle with their audience each and every night. It brought out something in them that’s never been touched since. I once had a talk with an artist I was working with as an A&R man. He is a truly rare, extraordinary and unique songwriter with not an ounce of business sense in his body. A show he and his band did at 12th & Porter, here in Nashville, in late 1999 remains one of the finest, most powerful and moving performances I’ve ever seen live. Hands down better than most of the concerts I’ve seen by the rich and famous rock stars. Most likely you’ve never heard of him. I haven’t kept in touch with him since I left the music business. Last I heard he was living on the side of a mountain outside Knoxville, Tennessee. We were talking about music, about audiences, about connecting with listeners, about following your true muse wherever that took you and most of all about the difficulty of doing that when no one else seemed to be able to come with you. He too is a big Dylan fan. Think of the irony, and in the end the true triumph of Dylan’s 1966 tour I said. Here he was being booed, not just casually, but deeply and forcefully, by every audience, every night. I don’t care how famous, how self-assured, how strong, how deeply set in your beliefs you are, that must do an incredible trip on your head. And here we are forty years later and this music is commonly, widely even universally, considered some of the most important live music ever recorded. Talk about full circle. It’s Vincent Van Gogh 100 years later with a guitar. Though, thankfully, Dylan didn’t have to die before his genius was recognized. 

All that said, on a lot of days I’d rather listen to the 1975 tour than the 1966 tour. Don’t get me wrong, I listen to the 1966 tour all the time. I have a 26 CD box set (yes, 26 CDs) of every existing note from every show played on that tour. Audience tapes. Board tapes. You name it, if it is known to exist among collectors it’s there. But I come back to the 1975 tour more often. When Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Review (The Bootleg Series Volume 5) was finally released in 2002 I was beside myself. I’d been waiting a long time for an official release of this material. I was not disappointed. While I might have done some things a little differently (what collector wouldn’t?) overall I was more than happy with this two disc set of material from the tour. Bootlegs (tape, vinyl and CD) from this tour have circulated all along, right from the very beginning. There is an audience tape from almost every single performance of the tour. There are soundboard tapes from a few. Two songs, “Romance In Durango” and “Isis,” both from Montreal, were released on the Biograph box set in 1985. 

My only complaint (and it’s a small one) with this set is the manner in which the tracks have been collected and presented. During the 1975 leg of the Rolling Thunder Review the show would generally go like this: individual members of the backing band, known as Guam for this tour, would each do a song or two; guest artists (such as Joni Mitchell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and others) would do a few songs; Dylan would do a five or six song set with the band; Dylan and Baez would do a five or six song set; Baez would do a seven or eight song set; Roger McGuinn would do two or three songs; Dylan would return for two or three solo numbers followed by five or six more songs with the band and then everyone would wrap things up with “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and “This Land Is Your Land.” It sure would have been nice to get a complete show from beginning to end, with all the artists represented, but most of knew that was never going to happen. The draw here is, of course, Dylan, so the two discs are devoted entirely to his performances. And rather than pull one complete show Columbia (and maybe Dylan) have chosen to cherry pick 22 tracks from five different performances (2 from the Boston afternoon show, 10 from the Boston evening show, 5 from Cambridge, 4 from Montreal and 1 from Worcester). The thing that bugs me the most is that many of the tracks have been “isolated.” The applause fades in at the beginning and fades out at the end. Even if the tracks were drawn from different performances I would much rather they have stitched them all together to at least give the illusion of one continuous performance. But, hey, these are really very minor quibbles. I’m more than happy, way more than happy, to just have this material at all.

The album opens with a raucous version of “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” from the Nashville Skyline album. But, believe me, this version has almost nothing in common with that lilting, country ditty from Nashville Skyline. The band is loud, loose, assertive and in your face. The lyrics have been completely rewritten. Dylan is on fire. He practically screams out the second verse as a command, “Get ready! Because tonight I’ll be staying here with you.” It’s clear from the very beginning what’s to come. A rousing version of “It Ain’t Me, Babe” continues and you can feel the excitement in the crowd. Dylan lays into a fierce harmonica break and the crowd goes crazy. This is the sound of a performer, a band and a audience uniting as one. There’s as much energy coming back to the stage from the audience as Dylan and Guam are sending out. In keeping with the structure of the original shows, Dylan and the band do four more songs and then he does a solo version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and an especially powerful solo version of “Simple Twist Of Fate.” Baez joins him for “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “Mama, You Been On My Mind” and “I Shall Be Released.” Now the combination of Dylan’s and Baez’s voice is quite unique. Their voices mix in rather odd way that some people just can’t handle. It grates on some people. Others like it. A very few love it. I’m pretty fond of it and these duets are excellent.

Disc Two opens with Dylan back alone doing strong, authoritative versions of “I’ts All Over Now, Baby Blue,” “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and “Tangled Up In Blue.” Years later it would become a common joke that no one could understand what Dylan sings. Not so here. His words are clear, precise and forthright. If you’ve never considered Dylan a particularly good singer, you need to listen to this disc. Baez returns for a fantastic duet of “The Water Is Wide” and then the full band returns for seven more songs, including four tracks from the as yet unreleased Desire album: “Hurricane,” “Sara,” “Oh, Sister” and “One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below).”

I’ve been collecting the tapes of all the Rolling Thunder shows that circulate among collectors for many years. At this point I have most of the shows. There’s an energy, an exuberance, a fire, a passion and something you just can’t put into words about Dylan’s performances on this tour that has never been matched since. Everything just came together here. Everything. The band is great. Baez is better than she’s ever been before or since. The song selections are perfect. It was a short tour. It only lasted a little over a month. It was like no other tour Dylan has ever done. He and his band of gypsies, friends, on lookers and hangers-on basically just barnstormed around the Northeast, showing up with sometimes only a few days notice and entertaining the locals. They played mostly small and medium sized towns, places like Lowell, MA, Burlington, VT, Waterbury, CT, Niagara Falls, NY and Augusta, ME. They blew into town, they played like they truly had no place else to be and then they left as quickly as they came. When we get around to inventing time travel this is the first place I’m going: November 1975 with Bob Dylan and company. What an experience that would be, traipsing around from city to city with these guys. I never get tired of listening to these shows. Never.

Songwriters are a funny bunch. Lord knows I know I lot of them. I can divide successful songwriters into three categories: 1. pure songwriters who don’t aspire to a “recording” and/or “performing” career, they’re happy “just” writing songs; 2. artists who have a viable recording/performing career and also write their own material; 3. songwriters who are not content with just writing the songs, they also want to be performers and make albums, but they never really make much progress along those lines. The third category is by far the largest. There seem to be very, very few songwriters who are happy just to write the songs (and hits) that others record. They do exist, though it seems they were far more plentiful back in the 40s, 50s and 60s. Those were the times when professional songwriters would write the songs and the labels and producers would find suitable artists to record the songs. It was a very honorable profession. There are still some songwriters like that around, but not many. It seems these days that everyone who writes songs wants to also perform and record. I think we can blame this “evolution” on two things: 1. Carole King, Neil Diamond, Neil Sedaka and others from the 60s who started out as professional songwriters, had big success, but then went on to have even bigger success performing and recording their own material; 2. Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Jackson Browne and a dozen other songwriters from the 70s who wrote, performed and recorded their own songs and became superstars doing so. Hey, it’s certainly not for me to say who should aspire to more than simply writing songs. All I know is that I’ve seen a lot (and I mean a lot) of songwriters who would be a lot happier if they would simply stick to what they do best, which is write songs. But almost every single one of them wants to be a star. They get sucked into that shadow dream. The reality is that for every one musical artist that succeeds there are hundreds, if not thousands of others out there struggling to find what most sane people would consider even the modest success. The used record store bins are littered with their CDs.  And let me also say this, so I’m not misunderstood by my songwriting friends. I have countless albums that I love and treasure recorded by little or completely unknown songwriters. I’m very, very happy these albums were made even though they were not commercial successes. But for everyone of those there are a lot more albums of total drivel recorded by people who should never have been given the chance or opportunity to walk into a recording studio. I’m just saying I think the world could use a lot more pure songwriters. Those that I’ve known who are content to write songs and don’t give a hoot about making albums and playing concerts seem to be the happiest. There’s a lot to be said for knowing what you’re good at and sticking to that. And some of them even make a album now then just for the hell of it, but they have nothing invested in the success of said albums. And sometimes those are the best.

Craig Fuller/Eric Kaz was released in 1978 when the singer-songwriter “movement” was in full bloom. It seemed that anyone who had even the most minor success as a songwriter could get a record deal and many of them did. Many are best forgotten. But, some truly great artists also came to our attention (if not fortune and fame) this way. Karla Bonoff and Warren Zevon are shining examples. This was nothing new. Artists like Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell were able to make their own records after others had recorded their songs and championed them to record labels. It just seems like it got a little out of control in the late 70s as every label searched for that next big superstar singer-songwriter. It didn’t last long. Once the punks and new wavers hit the scene the singer-songwriters became to drop like flies.

Eric Kaz found considerable success as a songwriter with “Love Has No Pride” (co-written with Libby Titus) which has been recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash to Bonnie Raitt to Linda Rondstadt to dozens of others. He also wrote “Cry Like A Rainstorm” which Bonnie and Linda (among others) also recorded, “I’m Blowing Away” and “Mother Earth.” He was a member of The Blues Magoos and he made two solo albums for Atlantic (Eric Kaz in 1972 and Cul-De-Sac in 1974) which went absolutely nowhere. Craig Fuller was one of the original members of Pure Prairie League who had a huge hit with his song “Amie” on their terrific Bustin’ Out album in 1975. He left the group after that hit single and hooked up with Eric Kaz, Doug Yule and Steve Katz to form American Flyer. They made two albums for United Artists (American Flyer in 1976 and Spirit Of A Woman in 1977), both of which should have been much better than they actual were based on the talent of those involved. But Fuller and Kaz soldiered on to make a duet album together and with it they finally hit pay dirt. Well, maybe not in terms of commercial success as I don’t think this album sold much at all. But in artistic terms this album is, to me at least, the highlight of their respective careers. If I had to pick one single out of print album that I could magically have appear on CD this might be the one. 

Produced by Val Garay (who produced Kim Carnes’ huge Mistaken Identity album with “Bette Davis Eyes” a few years later - to name just one of his many successes) the album is a singer-songwriter tour-de-force. Now, I’ll be clear here. If you don’t care for singer-songwriters you are probably not going to like this album. The production is something that might be called “soft rock” or “adult contemporary.” There is a lot of orchestration and strings. The vocals are smooth, the musicianship even smoother. There’s no “grit” here. Most of the songs are in the classic unrequited or lost love vein. The lyrics are introspective and pensive. But, if you like this kind of stuff, this is the real thing. I personally happen to love it. The songwriting is divided between the two with Kaz getting the nod: Fuller has two songs, Kaz has five and they wrote two together. Lead vocals are just the opposite, Fuller sings seven of the songs and Kaz two. While they do an excellent version of Kaz’s “Cry Like A Rainstorm” the rest of the songs are new and some of the best either of them has ever written. Songs like “Feel That Way Again,” “Let The Fire Burn All Night” and “Restless Sea” are, to me, perfect songs. Both Fuller and Kaz have an excellent way with a melody and almost all of these songs keep me singing along at full force whenever I play the album.

Unfortunately, this album has never been issued on CD anywhere in the world. Probably won’t ever be. It’s never gotten a lot of attention or respect. allmusic.com is an unbelievable resource for music on the web, but even they don’t have a review or track listing for this album, which is hard to believe. I have, of course, ripped my treasured vinyl copy to CDR. But, there are fans out there. A good friend of mine discovered that I had this on CDR and asked for a copy saying it was also one of his all-time favorite albums. The folks at XM’s The Loft regularly play several tracks. It’s just one more of those “lost” masterpieces. There are a lot of them out there.

Other Listens on July 5th:
Fire In The Wind by John Stewart
Boys In The Trees by Carly Simon
New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum (bootleg) by Bob Dylan And The Rolling Thunder Review 
Boston Music Hall (bootleg) by Bob Dylan And The Rolling Thunder Review 
Jefferson Airplane Takes Off by Jefferson Airplane 
Misfit Scarecrow by Sammy Walker 

I have a friend who won’t listen to Jimmy Buffett because his ex-wife used to listen to him all the time. It’s funny how artists can impact our lives in so many ways, some quite subtle, some very direct. This is probably the only album that ever played an instrumental part in my moving to a new town. In 1975 I was living in Hawthorne, California and working for the Wherehouse record chain. I was listening to as much music as I could buy, mostly stuff like Elliott Murphy, Bruce Springsteen, The Flying Burrito Bros, Emmylou Harris, Gram Parsons, Jerry Jeff Walker, Little Feat, John Stewart and lots more. I also listened a lot of a guy on a local FM radio station (KMET), Jimmy Rabbitt. He was one of the first DJs I ever heard play country-rock and just plain country on a traditional rock oriented FM station. Some friends of mine turned me on to Jimmy Buffett’s ABC Records debut release, A White Sportscoat And A Pink Crustacean. It was actually Buffett’s third album. He’d made two albums for the small Barnaby Records label: Down To Earth (1970) and High Cumberland Jubilee (1971), both of which sank without a trace. He signed with ABC/Dunhill and in 1973 released A White Sportscoat And A Pink Crustacean. It wasn’t any more commercially successful than the first two, but it was a giant step forward for Buffett in terms of songwriting and presentation. One of Buffett’s true strengths is his ability to tell a great story. Often times they can be quite comical, but on occasion they can quite insightful and profound. This album contained a few from both camps. And it was here that his Key West, beach bum, bar hopping, good timing, Caribbean sailing personality became to really take shape on vinyl. It’s a fine, fine record with some great songs. I immediately discovered that Buffett had two more albums, both released in 1974, Living And Dying In 3/4 Time and A1A. I searched them both out. Living And Dying in 3/4 Time was another strong effort and it even contained a small hit, “Come Monday.” But it was A1A that really caught my attention. 

The album kicks off with a lively version of Alex Harvey’s “Makin’ Music For Money.” I guess it’s not really for me to say, but I’ve always found it hard to take this song seriously coming from Jimmy Buffett. The man’s a marketing genius. These days he overseas a virtual empire of restaurants, minor league baseball teams, stores, casinos, books and more. It’s said he earns over $100 million per year. The guy has always been about making music for money. Hey, I don’t hold it against him. More power to him, it’s just that this song doesn’t ring true.  One of the highlights of the album is his version of John Sebastions “Stories We Could Tell,” a beautiful ode to friends and traveling. I’m pretty partial to Sebastion’s own version of this song (found on his great, criminally underrated album Tarzana Kid), but Buffett does a very credible version here. There are many fine songs to be found on this record, but the real center and soul of the album are two songs on side two: “A Pirate Looks At Forty” and “Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season.” “A Pirate Looks At Forty” is easily one of the best songs Buffett has ever written, maybe even the best. It’s also the kind of song he has not written, unfortunately, in a very long time since. A story song about an aging, directionless, aimless modern day “pirate,” it’s a minor masterpiece that perfectly captures the melancholy and borderline despair of a man completely out of step with the times in which he finds himself. “Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season” is a more personal, as Buffett takes account of his life. Other highlights include the whimsical “Nautical Wheelers,” the warm, contented “Tin Cup Chalice” and the tourist loathing “Migration.” As far as I’m concerned this was the last really great album Jimmy Buffett made. He certainly found much greater success with future albums such as Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes (with it’s big hit “Margaritaville”) but he never made another album as uniformly excellent as this from beginning to end. 

All three of Buffett’s albums painted a very enticing picture of the Florida beaches and especially Key West. I’d grown up in the Southern California area, loved to swim and always wanted to live closer to the beach. Key West seemed like the place for me. I packed up a suitcase, tied a sleeping bag to it and headed across the country, hitchhiking through California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas before heading north. It was, of course, much faster to go straight through the deep south, but this was 1975 afterall and “easy rider” stories were rampant. I decided it was well worth the extra time and miles to bypass the deep south and scoot a little further north, going through Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina before heading down the East Coast into Florida. Well, it almost worked. I got thrown in jail in Conway, Arkansas along with a couple and their small child who had picked me up. What for? Who the hell knows. They didn’t like the looks of us. Luckily they didn’t keep us too long, just long enough to scare the hell out of me. I eventually did make it to Key West without much more trouble. I think it took just over two weeks total for the trip. I rented a room in a boarding house called The Q Rooms for $12.50 per week. Yep, $12.50 per week. It was a tiny room. There was space for a single bed and not much more. I got a job in the one record store on the island. I tried so hard to convince myself that, as Buffett said, “I had finally found me a home.” But, it seems I still had a lot of traveling left in my blood and I only ended up staying there for about six months before I was back on the road again, this time heading for New York. Six months was a much longer period of time in those days than it is today. And believe me, Key West was a much different place in those days as well. I wasn’t really there long enough to miss it, but I still miss the idea of “finding a home” there.

Other Listens on July 1st:
Tom Thumb The Dreamer by Michael Dinner
The Great Pretender by Michael Dinner
Izitso by Cat Stevens
Enough Rope by Chris Knight
Jesus Of Cool by Nick Lowe 
Moments by Boz Scaggs 
Desire Outtakes (bootleg) by Bob Dylan 

The subject of bootlegs is always a touchy one. Some people have a strong opinion one way or another. Many average music listeners don’t really have much of an idea of what they are all about. Those that search out and collect bootlegs have their own feelings about the “morality” of the practice. Bootlegs can generally be broken down into two categories: live and studio. Live bootlegs can be broken down into a few more categories: audience recordings, soundboard recordings and radio or TV broadcasts. Audience recordings are made when someone sneaks a tape recorder (or digital recorder) into a concert and records the show from the audience. Quality on these can vary widely from truly outstanding to unlistenable. Soundboard recordings are made on the soundboard at the concert by the performer’s crew and are usually very, very good quality. Generally someone “leaks” these types of recordings to the fan base (or in some cases it’s possible they have been stolen). Radio or TV broadcasts are taped via the radio or TV when a show is broadcast live (or at a later date) and are usually excellent quality. Studio recordings generally consist of alternate versions or outtakes that someone has, once again, leaked to the fan base (or, again, they may have been stolen). Many artists these days are quite willing to allow fans to exchange live recordings as long as money is not involved. Some even encourage the practice. The Grateful Dead are probably the most well known band to do so, usually setting up a special place in front of the stage where tapers could record the show from. Studio recordings are a completely different matter. It’s harder to justify the trading and exchange of studio recordings since the artist has not usually given any permission to do so. I collect them all. I don’t try to make any “justification” for my “habit.” I’m a junkie, pure and simple. The one great thing that has happened with the advent of the internet, bit-torrent and digital trading is that most of the profit has gone out of the bootleg industry. True fans will never sell bootleg material. It is traded openly and freely. There is also a case to be made for “historical” purposes, though that’s a pretty lengthy discussion which I think I’ll save for later. But, in short, it’s the fans who have often recorded and archived a lot of this material that may well be considered priceless hundreds of years from now and looked on in a much different light. 

In the early 60s, long before he was well known, around the time he recorded his first album, Bob Dylan obtained a publishing contract with M. Witmark & Sons. Between 1962 and 1964 he recorded at least 40 (that we know of) “publishing demos” for the company. Dylan would come into the offices and sit before a tape recorder, just himself, his guitar (sometimes a piano) and occasionally a harmonica. These performances were simply meant to serve as an audible source which the publisher could use to transcribe the songs’ music and lyrics for legal purposes. Sometime in the 60s a very rare, one-sided 9 track LP was also pressed up to distribute to other artists who might have been interested in recording some of the songs. A copy of this album sold on eBay a few years ago for $737 (see image on the left). Many of these songs were never officially recorded by Dylan. Some were indeed recorded by other artists. There are however, demos of some of his best known early songs, including “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” and “Girl From The North Country.” Some of the unrecorded songs are excellent and some are merely just good. It’s easy to see why some of them were never recorded by Dylan or anyone else. The fact that Dylan was not “performing” these songs for an audience, or recording them for an album, makes them very unique. Dylan, for the most part, is very relaxed, just running through the songs. This has both good and bad consequences. On the one hand we get very off the cuff, spontaneous performances. There are also a few instances of Dylan playing songs on piano that he usually performed on guitar: a great version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” for instance. On the other hand Dylan’s not really trying very hard all the time and a few of the versions are fairly uninspired. In fact, at one point, while singing “Let Me Die In My Footsteps” he stops and says, “It’s a drag, I sang it so many times.” Other times he sings a portion of the song so the company can get the basis of the verse and chorus and then says, “I’ll write down the other verses for you later.” Still, for any Dylan fan these tracks are priceless. Lots of songs you will never hear anywhere else. Historically they are quite significant and very important.

These demos have been collected in at least three well known bootlegs: The Witmark Years, Through A Bullet Of Light and The Witmark Demos. All three contain basically the same material. This version, The Witmark Years, is generally considered to be the best quality and it also arranges the recordings in chronological order.

Quality is very good to excellent throughout this collection, though it does vary a bit from session to session and of course, it is not as good as officially released material. Three of the songs on this double CD have been released officially on Dylan’s The Bootleg Series: Volumes 1-3: “Walkin’ Down The Line,” “When The Ship Comes In” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Here’s hoping Dylan and Sony see fit to release more of them, perhaps an entire double CD of all the tracks. That’s the best way to combat bootlegging: release the material officially. 

Other Listens on June 29th:
Nolita by Keren Ann
Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969 by Various Artists
Abandoned Luncheonette by Daryl Hall & John Oates
After Bathing At Baxters by Jefferson Airplane 
Hartford 1965 (bootleg) by Bob Dylan 

I first moved to Austin in 1976. I moved away for two years, but then came back in 1982. I went to a lot of concerts and shows in those days. I hardly ever go to any these days. There is a great venue in Austin, The Paramount Theatre, and it may be my favorite place in the entire world to see a concert. I saw tons of acts there in the late 70s and throughout the 80s and even into the 90s. But I also went to a lot of clubs to see smaller artists and bands. One of my all-time favorites was Emma Jo’s on North Lamar. A tiny little club, it catered mostly to singer-songwriters and acoustic artists: people like Townes Van Zandt, Lucinda Williams, Nanci Griffith, Butch Hancock, etc. But there was at least one artist who would always play with a band and just rock the joint from top to bottom: Tom Pacheco. Tom was from the New York area, he’d lived in Woodstock for a long time. I have no idea how he ended up in Austin, but he was living there for about a year or two and he would play regularly at places like Emma Jo’s and Hut’s. I tried to catch every single performance and I managed to see him quite a few times. I heard him to some fantastic songs that still don’t seem to have appeared on any of his albums since then. And his band was just stellar. Tom is a songwriter first and foremost, but with the right band he can put on one hell of a show.

I was familiar with Tom through his two RCA albums: Swallowed Up In The Great American Heartland and The Outsider, both released in 1976. He’s a very unique, distinctive songwriter. Story telling is his forte. His story songs can veer off into wild territory, UFOs and alien visitations, beer killing bacteria, energy producing crystals, the life of a tree, JFK’s assasin, etc. but he always manages to pull it off (well, most of the time).  He also has a very strong political vein and comparisons to Woody Guthrie would not be out of line. A true romantic, he’s written some beautiful love songs and has a great way of exploring relationships from all points of view. He moved to Austin in 1981 or 1982, I don’t know for sure and put together a terrific band called The Hellhounds.  I think he may have had a “deal” with a production company, Third Coast Productions, and I also think he may have recorded some tracks, but nothing from this time was ever released. He moved back to New York in 1983, then on to Nashville and Dublin. His time in Austin was well spent, and based on the songs I heard him do during that time, I think it may have been one of his most creative and prolific songwriting periods. A friend of mine recorded several of the shows at Emma Jo’s and I still have copies of those tapes. The quality is pretty good for an audience recording, but it’s certainly not “commercial” quality. Still, I treasure those tapes, not only because they contain some terrific songs and performances but also because they bring back a lot of great memories.

Eagle In The Rain, released in 1989, was Tom’s third album. There was a gap of 13 years between The Outsider and Eagle In The Rain. Tom has since made up for that gap releasing quite a few albums in the 90s and 2000’s. This may be my favorite of all his albums. Overall, I think it’s the most balanced and cohesive. Like I say, Tom is a terrific writer, but he does have a tendency to get a bit “overemotional,” even “schmaltzy” from time to time. He writes a lot of songs it seems and not all of them are really up to par with his best. He’s the kind of songwriter that could really benefit from a great editor. On this collection of 11 songs he manages to keep those issues at bay. The album opens with one of his best songs ever, “Robert And Ramona,” the story of two doomed outcast lovers. “Midnight At The Hot Club,” “Donna Marie,” “She Always Thought He’d Come Back,” “Jesus In A Leather Jacket” and “The Last Blue Whale In The Ocean” are perfect examples of his fine story telling abilities. “Made In America” picks up where “Swallowed Up In The Great American Heartland” left off 13 years earlier. “All Because Of You” and “All I Can Look At Is You” find Tom working familiar romantic territory with his heart (as always) squarely on his sleeve. “You Will Not Be Forgotten” and “Just A Little Bullet” (which closes the album) touch on his political leanings. It’s a damn fine album from beginning to end. Produced by well known Irish performer Arty McGlynn, the album was recorded in Ireland and features Irish musicians, who bring just the right sound to these songs.

Like I say, Tom’s made quite a few more albums since this one. Unfortunately, most of them are pretty hard to find. He seems to record for small, out of the way labels and a lot of the albums don’t stay in print very long. I’ve tried to keep up with them all, but most of them have only been released in Europe and when you can find them they are quite pricey. Still, I think I have the majority of them. A few recent ones have slipped by me, but hopefully I’ll be able to find those one of these days at a reasonable price. Tom Pacheco is a true songwriting treasure and I sure hope he continues to keep new songs and albums coming for us to listen to.

Other Listens on June 28th:
Enough Rope by Chris Knight
Forgive by Rebecca Lynn Howard
11/12/13 Live In Melbourne by Kieran Kane & Kevin Welch
Float Away With The Friday Night Gods by Marah
Own & Own by Butch Hancock
Family Tradition by Hank Williams, Jr. 

The first job I got working in the “music” business was at Wherehouse Records in Gardenia, California. I was living in Hawthorne just a few miles away. I think at that time Wherehouse was the biggest record store chain in California. I don’t know maybe Tower was bigger, but I don’t think so. Wherehouse certainly had more stores. The job I got was working at the warehouse for Wherehouse. They had a big central warehouse in Gardenia. All the LPs, cassettes and 8-Tracks were shipped in to the the warehouse and then sent out to the individual stores. Someone I ended up working in the “returns” room. It was a fairly large corner of the warehouse, closed off into its own “room” constructed from 2×4s and chicken wire. All the returns (defects, overstock and otherwise) would be shipped from the individual stores to the warehouse and end up in giant stacks of boxes in the returns room. My job was to sort through all the albums, group them together by label on shelves and then write up “return authorization” forms to ship them back to the labels. Many people don’t know that in the record business everything is 100% returnable to the label, for any reason whatsoever. Stores can buy anything they want, as much as they want, and if it doesn’t sell they just send it back to the label for credit. I don’t think most retail businesses work that way. I think in most retail situations if you buy something and can’t sell it you just keep marketing it down until it does sell. But not the record business. You just send it back. I actually really liked this job. It gave me an incredible education in music and record albums. I’d see so many things come through that room. Things I’d never seen before. Some pretty rare things too. Well, rare nowadays at least. I really learned a lot about labels, artists, albums, etc. working there.

I had a couple of friends who I met at Wherehouse who lived a few blocks over from me. I used to go over to their house fairly frequently and listen to and talk about music. Rolf and Jim. Jim was the old-timer. He didn’t work at the warehouse (where Rolf worked with me) but at one of the retail stores. He’d been working at Wherehouse for awhile. He was a bit older than me and I looked up to him. I was always interested in what he was listening to. I remember one night he came in from a show at the Troubador where he’d seen this band, I’d never heard of before, Little Feat. Man, he just raved about the show and the band. Now this was 1974, so Little Feat had been around a little while, but they hadn’t really broken through yet. I think their fourth album, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, had just been released. I remember he also liked The Heart Of Saturday Night by Tom Waits. But what I remember most was that he considered it a “morning” album. He used to say he would only play it in the morning. Being young and impressionable I found that kind of cool. 

I first became aware of Tom Waits when I bought the Eagles’ debut album. One of my favorite songs on the album was their cover of Tom’s song “Ol’ 55.” There’s a great story that Don Henley tells about their version. He says Tom didn’t really like it, he didn’t like the way they did the song. But, says Henley, he liked it a lot more when the royalty checks started arriving. Tom’s original version of “Ol ‘55″ was on his debut album, Closing Time. An album I dearly love. For those most familiar with Tom’s later material Closing Time might be a real shock. It’s a very folkie, singer-songwriter affair filtered through a Jack Kerouac novel. What a bunch of great songs. His second album, The Heart Of Saturday Night, was released in 1974. It contained more of the great songwriting that graced his first album, but the production was definitely something new. Producer Bones Howe brought a much tougher, street wise sound to the songs. The jazz/beat influence is much stronger as well. It’s an early preview of the direction Waits would take his music in later years. “Please Call Me Baby,” “Drunk On The Moon” and “New Coat Of Paint” are among my songs on the album, but the standout track here is the title track, “(Looking For) The Heart Of Saturday Night.” It’s “companion” piece, “The Ghosts Of Saturday Night” is a real Kerouac/Ginsberg influenced track with Waits reciting poetry to a jazz background. I had just discovered John Stewart around this same time and I was quite surprised to hear him play “Shiver Me Timbers” during a concert at UCLA. I remember he praised Waits as a great new, young songwriter.

Funny thing about Tom Waits. I wasn’t able to stay with him as he and his music grew and changed. The first two albums are two of my all-time favorite albums. His next album was the live Nighthawks At The Diner, and I’m quite fond of that one as well. But then came Small Change, Foreign Affair, Blue Valentine and Heartattack And Vine. I bought all of these albums, but none of them really captured my ear the way the first two had. And then in the early 80s he really started to change. I read great reviews of albums like Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Franks Wild Years. I bought them, but they never connected with me. Now I know full well that these years are considered by most Waits’ fans to be his prime years. Seems that I fell off the wagon exactly when the majority of fans were getting on. I haven’t bought or listened to a new Tom Waits album in a very long time. But I come back to those first two on a very regular basis and they still do it for me every time.

Generally speaking I don’t like to write about albums made by people who I consider to be friends. There are many reasons for this, some of which should be obvious. Artists, by their very nature, are usually quite sensitive about their creations. It’s only natural. I don’t consider myself an “artist.” But, I am a graphic designer, I design and build websites, multimedia programs and other things that might be considered “art” in some ways. I know what it’s like to spend a lot of time and effort to create something. I know how I work over and over to get things to be what I consider just right. I know how I keep coming back to something trying to make it better. I know how good it feels when I get it to the point where I’m really proud of it. And I know how it feels when someone else then looks at it and starts tearing it apart, criticizing it, pointing out what they see as imperfections and problems. So, I can imagine how a musical artist might feel when they pour so much into writing, performing, mixing, mastering and perfecting an album, only to have listeners pick it apart.

On the other hand, that’s the nature of making art. Art is a very personal, selective experience and each of us interpret, absorb and judge it according to a million different influences. If you can’t handle criticism you should not be making art. My friend Grant (a writer and critic by profession) considers it part of his job to help weed out the ones who can’t handle criticism. There are a lot of people out there making just plain bad music and if they can’t handle having that pointed out to them they should be doing something else. As I’m sure you can tell if you’ve read any other of my postings, I’ve got no problem criticizing music. I just don’t like to criticize the music of my friends. At least not in public. One of the things I’ve learned spending time with and around musical artists is that they almost always consider their newest album to be the best one they’ve ever made. Which when you stop to think about it is just plain ridiculous. Every artist is going to have ups and downs, ebbs and flows. But I’ve never heard a single one say, “Yeah, my new album’s pretty good, but it’s not as good as the one I made six years ago.” Of course, whether they’ll admit it or not, as time passes I’m sure most artists are able to put their catalog in perspective and recognize the albums that really are better than others. But not when it’s new. And it’s a sad reality (that very, very few are ever able to admit), that most artists make most of their best albums during the first ten years or so of their career. Certainly there are exceptions, but they are rare. I dare anyone to try and argue that the vast majority of Neil Young’s best albums were not made in the 70s. That Bruce Springsteen has made any albums near as good as his first seven. The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell. Etc., etc., the list is almost endless. Artists often ask you to tell them what you “really think” of an album. But I don’t think many (if any) of them really mean that. Well, they mean it if you like the album. They don’t mean it if you don’t.

However, all that said, I’m willing to make a few exceptions with my rule of not writing about friends from time to time in this blog. This album is certainly an exception I am more than willing to make. However, this album presents yet another difficulty. In addition to considering Eric Taylor a dear friend I also worked with him. When I was doing A&R for Koch Records I signed him to the label and we released this album. Later I signed him to another label I was working at, Eminent Records, and we released his next album, Scuffletown. So, I am obviously hopelessly biased when it comes to Eric Taylor and this album. Whatever. It doesn’t change what I think of this music, how it affects me and the part it’s played in my life.

Eric’s music is usually fairly sparse. Often times it’s just Eric on guitar with some piano or organ, a bass and maybe some light percussion. A violin or horn might pop up from time to time, but those instances are rare. There’s sometimes someone like Denise France or Susan Lindfors on backing vocals. Eric is a genius at weaving a mood and a spell out of a minimum amount of instrumentation. He’s one of those songwriters where the songs themselves are so damn good, so spellbinding, he doesn’t need a big full blown production. Eric is also one of those rare songwriters that is able to write both exceptional lyrics and melodies. Eric produced Resurrect himself and he does a brilliant, and I do mean brilliant job. The musical setting he places each song in is simply flawless. Every single song on this album is a small treasure. Personally, my favorite, by far, is “Comanche.” It’s a slow, seductively simple (or so it appears at first) song about the affect one person can make in another’s life. But every line is pure poetry (even the one where he says “I think that poetry and jazz are lies”). And I love how the chorus ends musically unresolved. Just like life and love. “Two Fires” and “Texas, Texas” are also two of the finest songs Eric has ever written. I could say something about each and every other song on the album, but let me just reiterate what I said before: they’re all small treasures.

Eric released his first album, Shameless Love, in 1981 on Featherbed Records. I could be wrong, but I believe it was the only album issued on that label. I somehow acquired the album at the time, but it was not one I ever listened to. I know it might seem strange, but I’ve got way more albums than I can ever listen to. Many things sit on the shelves and then one day finally get their due listen. I imagine that when I die there will be a lot of albums that never got their chance. No way around that, there’s just way too much music out there. I didn’t hear of or about Eric again until 1995. He made a self-titled album for an Austin based label, Watermelon Records. Now, I’ll be honest here. I was running a small Austin based label myself at the time, Dejadisc, and while the owners of Watermelon were friends of mine, they were also competitors. So, listening to their releases wasn’t always my biggest priority. I was, however, interested in the Eric Taylor album. It contained some truly fantastic songs, especially “Hemingway’s Shotgun” one of my all time favorite songs by anyone. The production by Mark Hallman, a well known Austin producer was very good. But, I found it to be just a little too “smooth.” Eric, his songs, and his music have a very ragged edge and I felt that was being toned down by the production, maybe in hopes of appealing to radio and other mass audiences. That’s just one more thing I love about Resurrect, the production. It suits Eric’s songs and music much better. Exquisitely simple. Production can often be about what you don’t use as much as it is about what you do use. It takes a real talent to know what to “leave in and what to leave out.”

Eric made Scuffletown for Eminent Records in 2001. It was a fine follow up to Resurrect and contains some more terrific songs. He’s since released two more fine, fine albums on his own label, The Great Divide (2005) and Hollywood Pocketknife (2007).

Eric Taylor is not famous. He’s never been widely recognized for the talent he is. Many artists are not. My record collection is full of them. The fact that he influenced so many young Texas songwriters in the 70s and 80s is almost forgotten (except of course by those songwriters). The fact that some of them (Nanci Griffith and Lyle Lovett especially) have recorded his songs and tried to spread the word about him to a larger audience is admirable. But, in the end, none of that really means much to me (though I’m sure it does to him). To me he’s just a guy I know (who can be downright sweet or a complete jerk) who writes and sings some of the best songs I’ve ever heard. I don’t see or talk to Eric much these days. That’s more my fault than it is his. I’m very bad at keeping in touch with people. I tend to live in my own little world doing my own little things and I don’t make the effort to reach out to people who are important to me as much as I should. At my age I’ve come to accept that as just part of who I am. But it’s such a great thing to know I can always throw on an Eric Taylor CD and it’s like he’s right here in the room with me.

Other Listens on June 25th:
Roger The Engineer by The Yardbirds
Firefall by Firefall
The Otis Redding Dictionary Of Soul: Complete And Unbelievable by Otis Redding
A Pocketful Of Rain by Michael Fracasso
Live Blow Your Face Out by The J. Geils Band