Album Reviews

There’s plenty already said about the musical content of Marvin Gaye’s 1971 classic What’s Going On so I’ll avoid redundancy and just say that its scope—from the sociopolitically-minded lyrics to the carefully assembled song cycle structure and luscious musical arrangements—pushed the boundaries of what a Motown release could be, and truly stands the test of time. It’s an endlessly relevant record (decide yourself if that says more about the album’s excellence or society’s failures), and also one of the most exhaustively reissued: in the past 20 years, we’ve seen Universal’s 30th anniversary 2CD featuring the original Detroit mix, more alternate mixes, and a Kennedy Center live recording from 1972; Mobile Fidelity’s SACD and 33rpm single LP releases; UMG’s 40th anniversary “super deluxe” edition adding further session material and alternate versions; quite a few run-of-the-mill digitally-sourced vinyl reissues of the core album, done at United for the US and GZ for Europe; an Abbey Road half-speed 4LP mirroring the 2001 2CD; and MoFi’s 45rpm double LP UltraDisc One Step cut from tape. That’s not including the “Vinyl Lovers” Russian reissues of dubious legal origin cut and pressed at GZ, the 192kHz/24bit hi-res download, a Blu-ray Audio release (remember that format?), and the Japanese SACDs, CDs, and MQA-UHQCDs featuring a flat transfer of the original master tapes (yes, really!).

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.

Funky, bluesy electric guitarist Mel Brown, now 78, is still at it. He was 27 back in 1967 when Impulse released this showcase for his super-clarified style of electric funk/jazz blues guitar.

Before getting to the audiofool controversy surrounding the release of a 3M digital recording on expensive vinyl, there's the music. You're smacked in the face on the side openers "I.G.Y." and "New Frontier" (on the original single LP) by the exuberance and sunlit optimism of the "certain fantasies" entertained by "a young man growing up in the remote suburbs" back when science was venerated and not denigrated as it is today in certain circles as a "liberal plot".

Back in 1995 in The Tracking Angle's second issue I wrote of acoustic folk/blues artist Doug MacLeod's performances on his Audioquest LP Come to Find (AQ 1027): "You'll hear a lifetime's accumulation of feelings, experiences and influences in his fingers, in his voice and in his songs...."

MacLeod was 46 at the time. Eighteen years or so later MacLeod is still at it, as he's been since he picked up bass and guitar as a child. He's issued 19 studio albums some live ones and even an instructional DVD. The years have only enhanced and enriched MacLeod's technical and communicative abilities. He's an even more fluid and nuanced guitarist and singer than he was back in 1995.

Drake is now a walking corporation. Actually, he’s an entire industry. As he enters his career’s second decade, he’s invincible in a way unseen since Michael Jackson (to whom Drake frequently compares himself). He escapes every scandal unscathed: a secret kid with a porn star, accusations of sexual harassment, cultural appropriation, and using ghostwriters; Pusha T’s brutal diss track, and questions regarding contact with teen celebrities don’t harm the artist born Aubrey Graham. Just one of the above kills or greatly diminishes most stars’ relevance; Drake is so culturally omnipresent that he won’t go away anytime soon. Whenever he drops a somewhat mediocre lead single, I say “he’s struggling for relevance now, his reign is almost over.” And? Said single becomes an inescapable hit. The full-length project drops, and everyone walking the earth stops dead in their tracks to stream it. His music is meant to sound emotionally genuine, yet nowadays Drake and his OVO team carefully calculate his every word.

This Otis Rush love fest, produced by Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites at Fame in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, was payback for the generosity and help Rush provided the youngsters back in Chicago during their \\"formative\\" years. Led by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the white suburban audience that formed the core of the \\"counter-culture\\" had discovered the blues. Butterfield had backed Dylan at Newport in 1965, causing a big stir, and soon thereafter Mike Bloomfield and drummer Sam Lay were in the studio with Dylan to record Highway 61 Revisited.

This Otis Rush love fest, produced by Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites at Fame in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, was payback for the generosity and help Rush provided the youngsters back in Chicago during their "formative" years. Led by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the white suburban audience that formed the core of the "counter-culture" had discovered the blues. Butterfield had backed Dylan at Newport in 1965, causing a big stir, and soon thereafter Mike Bloomfield and drummer Sam Lay were in the studio with Dylan to record Highway 61 Revisited.

By the time this record was made, in 1969, two years had passed since Gravenites had formed The Electric Flag, a horn-drenched, blues-rock-psychedelic "American music" band that included Bloomfield. The group recorded the soundtrack to the psychedelic film The Trip, followed by Long Time Comin'. Bloomfield quit shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, the long-play album revolution was peaking, and even if The Rolling Stones, these guys, and some others had revived the blues and brought the electrified Chicago spur of it to a white audience, how much of that audience had actually heard it played by the original masters?

Rush, who'd essentially been a singles artist (on Cobra) and had had his greatest success in the mid to late 1950s, had never made an album. Using their newfound leverage, Gravenites and Bloomfield got Rush signed to Cotillion, a small subsidiary of Atlantic, and brought their hero down to Fame to record his first album. By then the Muscle Shoals studio had become a familiar venue for Atlantic Records.

Since Rush had been under the tutelage of Willie Dixon, who wrote, produced, arranged, and played bass on most of Rush's great singles (including his most famous, "I Can't Quit You Baby"), Bloomfield and Gravenites provided many of the tunes here. Neither played, though--instead they put Rush in front of the famous Muscle Shoals session team, which included a young Duane Allman before he'd formed his own group. Also on board was keyboardist Mark Naftalin, who'd been in the Butterfield band. But the main sound here is horn-drenched Dixie--closer to Stax-Volt than to Chess or the "West Side Sound," which makes sense since the producers were obviously trying to get Rush some well-deserved commercial success using a sound that was then white-hot.

The star here is Rush's fluid guitar playing and his mellifluous voice, which shines above some of the pedestrian "pick-up band" arrangements and less-than-stellar song choices. Gravenites and Bloomfield had their hearts in the right place, but skilled A&R men they were not. At least they weren't at the time of this session, though it must be said that they penned the set's highlight, "Reap What You Sow" (which includes the album title in its lyrics).

Rush does contribute two tunes, "Love Will Never Die" and "It Takes Time," both of which have an urban retro feel. Don't expect to hear Duane Allman's upper-register fretboard squeals on this record, though. This was Rush's album, and the other guitarists stay respectfully in the background. The final tune, "Can't Wait No Longer," with its "black chick" background vocals and pulsing horns, shows where Rush might have taken his sound had the album been commercially successful. It smokes.

Sonically, this recording is barely competent. Whether by design or accident, Rush's voice on side one sounds distorted, echoey, and distant--as if the producers or the engineer were trying to mimic the raw sound of the Cobra sessions, which were recorded under less-than-ideal conditions but which nevertheless contributed to a unique and very commercial sound. Some tracks sound better than others, but it all sounds like four-track recordings mixed hard-left/-right and center. I'm making it sound worse than it really is so you won't be disappointed (the faults lie in the recording, not the mastering, which is fine). Crank it up and you'll enjoy this slice of musical history. Meanwhile, if you want to hear Rush's Cobra singles, check out The Essential Otis Rush, The Classic Cobra Recordings 1956-1958 (Fuel Records/Varése Sarabande 302 061 077 2).