Album Reviews

Speaking personally, I never much cared for this corny West Coast band, particularly this incarnation, featuring lead singer Tom Johnston’s high-pitched, quivering and bleating.

Recorded live on June, 28th at the 1974 Montreux Jazz Festival, this hot session features Wells and Guy backed by a last minute “pick-up” band consisting of ex-Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman, Otis Spann’s Muddy Waters band replacement Pinetop Perkins, ex-Manassas drummer Dallas Taylor, best known for peeking (or peaking) out the door on the back cover of Crosby Stills, Nash (on which he also played) and his brother Terry Taylor on rhythm guitar.

Joe Jackson is like one of those balloon magicians, only instead of producing elaborate figures from a simple form, he does it with notes.

John Cale's guitar-fueled, angry yet nostalgic first Island release from 1974 is easily his finest solo effort in my book. It's certainly his most consistently well written and performed record.

Dexter Calling , recorded May, 9th, 1961, just a few days after Gordon’s Blue Note debut session, opens with “Soul Sister,” a “chicken and biscuits” track the tenor saxophonist wrote for the West Coast edition of “The Connection,” which Freddie Redd had scored for the East Coast original. The tune’s slow, bluesy, Southern-tinged melody, played in ¾ waltz-time sounds like something Floridian Cannonball Adderley might have penned though Gordon grew up in Los Angeles, son of a prominent physician who tended to the likes of Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton.

Say what you will about the slick, commercial Nashville sound that’s evolved from the fine “countrypolitan” one developed by Chet Atkins and crew at RCA Studio B back in the ‘60’s, at least they still have great studios, skilled engineers and teams of tasty lick players in Music City, all of which are on display here.

This record makes Scott Walker’s last two bleak outings sound positively festive. Harvey has never been an easy listen throughout her decade plus career. She could be dark, abusive, angry, pained, vulnerable, strong and raw-edged, but she could never be easy and she’s not here, as ghostly and pained a musical figure as you’re likely to encounter on record.