Album Reviews

While everyone’s talking about teenagers today downloading music and making custom compilations, sometimes it takes a pro or two to do it correctly, as this fabulous 20 song collection demonstrates. Originally compiled back in 1963 by Goffin and Titelman as a twelve song LP highlighting, depending upon how you look and listen to it, Dimension Records, The Brill Building hit factory, Jews ‘n’ Roll, or the genius of Goffin-King, it has been expanded by Sundazed’s Bob Irwin to include 5 additional Goffin-King classics (or semi-classics) and two other musty but vital curiosities. There's also an attempt at starting a dance craze called "Makin' With the Magilla." It's not about dancing with a gorilla, either. Check a Yiddish dictionary.

As the liner notes for ISB's self titled debut (Elektra EKS-7322) tell it, in the mid '60s Robin Williamson was singing traditional Scottish ballads, MIke Heron was in an r&b group and Clive Palmer was playing ragtime banjo.

Dennis Wilson didn�t sing very well in the conventional sense of the word: his pitch was frequently off, he warbled, his vocal timbre was raspy and calling his range �limited� would be an overstatement.

The notion of Bruce Springsteen releasing a vintage soul and pop covers album this late in his stellar career is not all that surprising, really, if you’ve been following The Boss since the beginning like we have. But does the notion of Only The Strong Survive being a truly good and vital Springsteen album that stands proudly next to the rest of his storied catalog hold sway? Read Mark Smotroff’s review of the 180 2LP edition of Survive to find out if Survive has what it takes on wax. . .

This triple gatefold, double time capsule captures the rapturous July 1st, 1998 Carnegie Hall Concert also filmed by Wim Wenders and released the next year. The music is old. The players were old&#151some in their 80s and ‘90s&#151and some have since passed away, but the old music was fresh to the ears of Americans and others who first heard it thanks to the World Circuit CD produced by Ry Cooder (later issued on vinyl by Classic Records).

Elvis Costello “borrowed” the cover of this album for his Almost Blue (F-Beat XXLP13) but there the resemblance ends, not only between Costello’s countrified Nashville tribute and this one, but between this one and the usual Blue Note fare.