Reviews / Classic Rock

Holiday Gift Guide Review: Joni Mitchell, “The Asylum Albums (1972-1975)”

December 2, 2022 by Joe Marchese | 2 Comments
Joni Mitchell Asylum Albums

2022 has been Joni Mitchell’s year.  Following a triumphant surprise appearance in July at the Newport Folk Festival, the singer-songwriter announced a return to the stage for a full-length Joni Jam in June 2023 at Washington’s Gorge Amphitheatre; tickets were quickly snapped up by ardent fans who had waited roughly two decades to see Mitchell in concert once again.  More recently, she attended her first-ever Broadway musical, Cameron Crowe and Tom Kitt’s Almost Famous – and made her Broadway debut with the same show, which features her “Both Sides Now” in a…

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Review: The Beatles, “Revolver” (2022)

October 28, 2022 by Joe Marchese | 14 Comments
Beatles Revolver Cover

I took a ride, I didn’t know what I would find there… George Harrison’s snarling takedown of the “Taxman” opened The Beatles’ Revolver with a powerful sting.  The so-called Quiet Beatle took on the first-person role with the relish of (and a musical nod to) a Batman villain.  Though 1965’s folk-rock-influenced Rubber Soul had seen the Fab Four’s songwriting grow by leaps and bounds, Revolver matched the songwriting strides with revelatory studio processes including ADT (Artificial Double Tracking), tape loops, close miking, varispeed and reversed tapes, and non-traditional instrumentation including sitar, tamboura,…

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Review: The Beach Boys, “Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys”

July 1, 2022 by Joe Marchese | 19 Comments
Beach Boys Sounds of Summer 2022

We’ll be havin’ fun all summer long… For nearly sixty years, the sun-drenched harmonies of The Beach Boys have provided the soundtrack for summer – from those welcome first days and first rays through the season’s bittersweet final moments as autumn’s chill approaches.  They’re the rare band whose compilations, beginning with 1974’s chart-topping Endless Summer, have become nearly as key to their legacy as the core studio albums.  2003’s Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys became their highest-charting album since 15 Big Ones (1976) and highest-charting collection since Spirit…

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Wowie Zowie: “Zappa/Erie” Box Set Captures Three Different Mothers Line-Ups

June 24, 2022 by Joe Marchese | 2 Comments
Zappa Erie Cover

The Frank Zappa archive has opened wide in recent years; the past twelve months alone have seen such diverse releases as The Mothers 1971, the 50th anniversary edition of 200 Motels, and Zappa ’88: The Last U.S. Show.  The latest addition to the canon (or Official Release Series No. 122, for those keeping count) has recently arrived from Zappa Records and UMe.  Zappa/Erie premieres three full shows from the Erie, Pennsylvania area (including Edinboro, some eighteen miles outside of Erie) plus a handful of bonus tracks from other locales including Toledo, Ohio;…

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Everlasting: Edsel Collects Steve Ellis, Love Affair on “Finchley Boy” Box Set

June 21, 2022 by Joe Marchese | 1 Comment
Steve Ellis Finchley Boy

The voice of Steve Ellis first burst out of radios on The Love Affair’s 1967 recording of “Everlasting Love.”  A chart-topper in the U.K. and a hit throughout Europe, it failed to chart in the U.S. but set Ellis on a path of music-making that continues to this day.  Edsel has taken a deep dive into his extensive career for an impressive new box set.  Over 10 discs, Finchley Boy chronicles the Steve Ellis story both as a solo artist and with the groups Love Affair, Ellis, and Widowmaker. In the period…

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Release Round-Up: Week of May 6

May 6, 2022 by The Second Disc | 2 Comments
Melissa Manchester Live 77

Welcome to this week’s Release Round-Up, featuring a selection of the new titles out today including a very special pair from Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music! Melissa Manchester, Live ’77 (Second Disc Records/Real Gone Music) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Real Gone Music) Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music proudly present the premiere release of Melissa Manchester’s Live ’77, recorded by Arista Records in October 1977 at Gainesville, Florida’s Great Southern Music Hall but unreleased until now!  The 21 songs on Live ’77  – the singer-songwriter’s very first live album – include Manchester’s hits…

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Review: Frank Zappa, “The Mothers 1971”

April 27, 2022 by Joe Marchese | No Comments
Frank Zappa The Mothers 1971

Sorry, Frank!  Though the title of Zappa and The Mothers’ 1971 album was Just Another Band from L.A., listeners knew what the maverick bandleader was alluding to: his latest group was anything but.  Vocalists Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (a.k.a. Flo and Eddie) and bassist Jim Pons – all freshly recruited from The Turtles – were now happy together with Zappa, drummer Aynsley Dunbar, keyboardists Bob Harris and Don Preston, and multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood in one of the most outrageous and potent line-ups of The Mothers ever.  Though Just Another Band has…

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Review: The Replacements, “Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash: Deluxe Edition”

February 10, 2022 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
Replacements Sorry Ma Forgot to Take Out the Trash

Everything about The Replacements’ debut was fast and furious.  Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, first released in 1981 on the Twin/Tone label, introduced eighteen rip-roaring nuggets primarily from the pen of Paul Westerberg.  More than half were under two minutes long, and only two cracked the three-minute mark.  While the lyrics were filled with aggression and the spirit of youthful rebellion, they weren’t devoid of self-aware humor.  And though the sound was primal, abrasive, and rough, there were melodies lurking underneath the barrage of guitars, bass, and drums.  Late…

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Review: Frank Zappa, “200 Motels: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – 50th Anniversary Edition”

January 26, 2022 by Joe Marchese | 2 Comments
Frank Zappa 200 Motels

Frank Zappa called 200 Motels “a surrealistic documentary.”  Leonard Maltin described it as a “visual, aural assault disguised as a movie; completely berserk, freeform film…some of it ingenious, some funny, but not enough to maintain [an] entire film.”  Roger Ebert compared the surreal musical to the work of experimental composer Harry Partch before observing that it “assaults the mind with everything on hand…a full wall of sight-and-sound input.”  Zappa never wrote and directed another full-length film, and today, 200 Motels remains largely an enigma.  The movie itself has only been reissued on…

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Review: The Band, “Cahoots: 50th Anniversary Edition”

January 5, 2022 by Joe Marchese | 1 Comment
The Band Cahoots 50

From the first seconds of the opening “Life Is a Carnival,” it was clear that Cahoots was no ordinary album by The Band.  The quintet’s first three albums had established them as major proponents of the rootsy genre that would later be called “Americana.”  But now, the sound blasting from the speakers was one of sheer funk: simultaneously dark and joyful, aggressive yet inviting.  In what might have been considered a heretical move by some, the group was bolstered by three saxophones, two trumpets, and two trombones, all courtesy of New Orleans’…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: The Doors, “L.A. Woman: 50th Anniversary Edition”

December 21, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
The Doors LA Woman Cover

“Well, I’ve been down so goddamn long that it looks like up to me…” Jim Morrison knew of what he spoke.  When The Doors entered Sunset Sound in November 1970 to record what would become their sixth studio album, L.A. Woman, the quartet was ready for a reboot.  In September, Morrison had been convicted on profanity and indecent exposure charges related to a March 1969 concert in Miami.  With an appeal in place, he was free on bail.  But some radio stations had banned The Doors, and even concert bookings had taken…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Elvis Presley, “Back in Nashville”

December 15, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
Elvis Back in Nashville

When Elvis Presley entered RCA’s famed Nashville Studio B in June 1970, expectations were high.  His last major recording sessions – not counting those for the Universal film Change of Habit – had taken place at Memphis’ American Sound Studio with producer Chips Moman, resulting in the acclaimed From Elvis in Memphis LP.  Could he follow up that career triumph?  Many would argue that he did.  Rather than strictly repeat the formula, he and producer Felton Jarvis crafted the concept album Elvis Country and its almost-as-successful follow-up album of leftovers, Love Letters…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Joni Mitchell, “Joni Mitchell Archives Vol. 2: The Reprise Years (1968-1971)”

December 6, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 6 Comments
Joni Mitchell Archives Vol 2

Last evening in Washington, DC, Joni Mitchell joined the 44th class of Kennedy Center Honorees alongside Bette Midler, Berry Gordy, Lorne Michaels, and Justino Diaz.  The singer-songwriter who has blurred the lines of folk, pop, rock, and jazz was celebrated by friends and admirers including Brandi Carlile, Herbie Hancock, Ellie Goulding, Norah Jones, Brittany Howard, Dan Levy, and Cameron Crowe.  President Joe Biden, also in attendance, had earlier summed up the thoughts of many when he proclaimed, “Your words and melodies touch the deepest parts of our soul.”  Mitchell has been probing…

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Holiday Gift Guide Review: Billy Joel, “The Vinyl Collection, Vol. 1”

November 29, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 16 Comments
Billy Joel The Vinyl Collection Vol 1 Cover

By his own account, Billy Joel stumbled into the singing part of the singer-songwriter equation.  He explained of his 1971 debut Cold Spring Harbor, “I wrote this album not as a singer-songwriter, but as a songwriter.  I was thinking of other people doing the material on this album.  But the advice I got from people in the music business was, ‘Well, if you want people to hear your songs, make an album.  And then you go out on the road and you do shows and you promote your album.  I thought, ‘This…

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Review: The Beatles, “Let It Be” [Various Formats]

November 8, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 10 Comments
Beatles Let It Be 50 Cover

Everybody had a hard year/Everybody had a good time… The Beatles’ twelfth and final studio LP may have been titled Let It Be, but that particular admonition has been all but ignored over the years.  The album – recorded before, but released after, 1969’s Abbey Road – was in some respects a step backward from the band’s previous, experimental LPs as they sought a “back to basics” sound that didn’t involve overdubs and studio wizardry.  Ultimately, though, that approach was rejected.  The album that began life mixed by engineer Glyn Johns as…

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A Man For All Seasons: Cherry Red, Esoteric Reissue and Expand Al Stewart’s “Time Passages”

November 5, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 1 Comment
Al Stewart Time Passages

1978’s Time Passages concluded British singer-songwriter Al Stewart’s trilogy of albums with producer-engineer Alan Parsons which began with 1975’s Modern Times and continued with the following year’s Year of the Cat.  During this purple patch, Stewart earned his first hit singles in the United States, transitioning from folk troubadour at home to bona fide pop star abroad.  And while Year of the Cat, the album, charted higher than Time Passages, the latter’s title track was a bigger hit in the U.S. and Canada.  Now, Time Passages is receiving the same expanded and…

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The Beatles “Get Back” In New Hardcover Book Chronicling the “Let It Be” Sessions

October 27, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 5 Comments
Beatles Get Back

A book about a film about an album?  The new coffee table book from Callaway Arts and Entertainment and Apple Corps, The Beatles: Get Back, is essentially that: a hardcover, 240-page tome based on the film footage shot in the buildup to The Beatles’ final album, 1970’s Let It Be.  Get Back was, of course, the name of the first version of Let It Be.  It’s also the name of director Peter Jackson’s upcoming three-part, six-hour documentary (the first part of which premieres November 25 on the Disney+ streaming service) to which…

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Review: Bob Dylan, “Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 (1980-1985)”

October 20, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
Bob Dylan Bootleg 16

Señor, señor/Can you tell me where we’re headin’? Only Bob Dylan knew where he was headin’.  In the fall of 1980, when Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series Vol. 16 (1980-1985) opens, Dylan was two-thirds into his so-called “Christian trilogy” comprising Slow Train Coming (1979), Saved (1980), and Shot of Love (1981).  He had wrapped up a fiery tour on May 21, 1980 in which he only performed his gospel material.  Audiences and critics alike were divided on Dylan’s immersion into evangelical Christianity – some were angry, some were puzzled, some…

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Review: The Beach Boys, “Feel Flows: The Sunflower and Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971”

September 13, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 8 Comments
Beach Boys Feel Flows Cover

Like a Companion for Your Lonely Soul Those placing the needle on The Beach Boys’ Sunflower upon its release in 1970 might have been taken aback by the sheer drive of its opening track.  The lusty “Slip on Through” – co-written, produced, and primarily sung by Dennis Wilson – rocked harder than just about anything else in the band’s discography to that point.  The song announced that Sunflower was not just The Beach Boys’ first album on a new label but the beginning of a new chapter altogether.  That chapter is explored…

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Review: Joni Mitchell, “The Reprise Albums (1968-1971)”

July 19, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
JoniMitchell TheRepriseAlbums Cover min

Joni Mitchell fiercely announced her independence with “I Had a King,” the haunting soliloquy which opens her 1968 debut album, Song to a Seagull.  “I can’t go back there anymore,” she proclaimed.  “You know my keys won’t fit the door/You know my thoughts don’t fit the man.  They never can…they never can…”  The song is bold, wise, and flecked with a graceful equanimity as the singer declares her freedom both from a husband who “lives in another time” and the societal constraints of the day.  That freedom would be forcefully expressed on…

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Bohemian Rhapsodies: A Closer Look at Vinyl Me Please’s Reissues of Queen’s “A Night at the Opera” and Al Green’s “Call Me”

June 14, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
Queen A Night at the Opera VMP

In April, record club Vinyl Me Please announced that it would be restoring some previously out-of-print titles to the catalogue to celebrate 100 releases in the club’s Essentials series.  (See the list of all ten titles here.) We’ve given a spin to the re-presses of Queen’s A Night at the Opera and Al Green’s Call Me. For Queen, too much was never enough.  That attitude is perhaps best embodied by the band’s fourth album, 1975’s A Night at the Opera.  While the title was derived from the Marx Brothers’ film of forty…

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Rhythm of the New-Born Day: Cherry Red Revisits, Expands Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat”

May 13, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 4 Comments
Al Stewart Year of the Cat

Surely one of the most unlikely hits of 1976-77 was Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat.”  An atmospheric tale of romance in a faraway place with Casablanca name-checks of Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, the song propelled the British singer-songwriter to the top of the pops: No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and even higher, No. 4, in Cash Box) and No. 8 AC as well as No. 31 in the U.K., his only chart appearance there.  Following its expanded reissue late last year of Stewart’s 24 Carrots, Cherry Red’s Esoteric…

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Review: Fleetwood Mac, “Live” [Deluxe Edition]

May 10, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 11 Comments
Fleetwood Mac Live

When Fleetwood Mac’s Live reached store shelves in time for Christmas 1980, the deluxe 2-LP set was following another mammoth affair: Tusk, released just fourteen months earlier.  While Tusk was a success by any measure – it reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and yielded two U.S. top ten singles – it fell off the album chart within nine months as opposed to its predecessor, Rumours, which spent a record-breaking nine consecutive weeks at No. 1 in 1977-1978 on its way to becoming one of the biggest sellers of all time. …

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Wake Up You Sleepy Head: “Oh! You Pretty Things” Collects 66 Glam Rock Nuggets

April 12, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 3 Comments
Oh You Pretty Things

Oh! You Pretty Things: David Bowie’s 1971 song became an anthem for the glam era: “Don’t you know you’re driving your mothers and fathers insane?  Let me make it plain, you gotta make way for the homo superior…”  Bowie’s alien persona – androgynous, dangerous, sexy, and flamboyant – connected with youth and caused a stir among their parents.  The song’s title has now been adopted by a new 3-CD box set from Cherry Red’s Grapefruit imprint.  Alas, “Oh! You Pretty Things” doesn’t appear anywhere on the collection.  If Bowie’s recording couldn’t be…

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Flight of the Moorglade: Cherry Red, Esoteric Reissue Jon Anderson’s “Olias of Sunhillow”

March 26, 2021 by Joe Marchese | 9 Comments
Jon Anderson Olias of Sunhillow

Jon Anderson’s 1976 solo debut Olias of Sunhillow was a lockdown album decades before those were in vogue.  Recorded in his home’s garage with Anderson on every instrument, the singer-songwriter recalled three months of 10-hour days to bring the ambitious sci-fi/fantasy concept album to life.  While its success was modest – it peaked at No. 47 in the U.S. and a stronger No. 8 at home in the U.K. – Olias musically anticipated Anderson’s collaborations with Vangelis and is today fondly looked upon as one of the finest, if not the finest,…

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