“Hey, let’s do it again and again,” invited Perry Como on the bouncy opening track of 1975’s Just Out of Reach. The Tony Hatch/Jackie Trent song, previously recorded by singer-actor Jim Dale on This is Me, was perfectly suited to Como’s warm, soothing tones. Who wouldn’t take him up on the offer to do it again and again? As the musical landscape of the 1960s and 1970s drastically shifted, the one-time big band “boy singer” wasn’t quite as ubiquitous a presence as he once was. Still, the
Review: Humble Pie, "Performance - Rockin' the Fillmore: The Complete Recordings"
Today, 105 Second Avenue in New York City looks inconspicuous enough, housing a branch of a savings bank. But for just over three years, between March 1968 and June 1971, that address was home to Bill Graham’s Fillmore East. The grandiose 2,830-capacity venue built in 1925 as a Yiddish theatre was sadly demolished around 1996, having survived transformations into The New Fillmore East and the landmark gay disco The Saint. Though the building no longer exists, with the bank occupying its
Review: Van Morrison, "Moondance: Deluxe Edition"
Over forty years after Van Morrison first declared it a “marvelous night for a moondance,” the Irish troubadour’s seminal 1970 album has become even more marvelous, ‘neath the cover of October skies. Warner Bros. Records has afforded Moondance the deluxe treatment, adding three CDs of session material and one Blu-ray with high-resolution stereo and surround mixes to the original 10-song album. With this truly immersive listening experience, Morrison’s third proper solo album takes its place
Review: Belinda Carlisle Deluxe Remasters From Edsel (1987-1993)
As lead singer of California rock group The Go-Go's, Belinda Carlisle conclusively proved that she, indeed, had the beat. In her solo career, she applied her powerfully soaring pipes - one minute honeyed, the next smoky - to some of the most iconic pop songs of the era. Edsel has recently repackaged Carlisle's second through fifth albums as truly deluxe, hardbound 2-CD/1-DVD editions, and they're a nostalgic trip back to the days when power ballads ruled the radio and one singer stood at the
Happy Hearts: The Four King Cousins Return With "More Today Than Yesterday"
In those halcyon days of television variety, when ABC's The Hollywood Palace rubbed shoulders with CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show, it wasn't hard to spot the music-making King Family. After all, the ensemble was more than 30 members strong, consisting of big band sweethearts The King Sisters, guitarist Alvino Rey, and some 32 brothers, sisters, children, wives, aunts and uncles. Following much-talked-about appearances on Hollywood Palace, The King Family went on to headline its own variety show
Review: Paul Simon, "The Complete Albums Collection" and "Over the Bridge of Time"
I. Hello Darkness, My Old FriendMore than 45 years ago, Paul Simon dramatized a journey “to look for America” in the song boldly and simply called “America.” Over 3-1/2 gorgeously elegiac minutes beginning with hymn-like vocalizing, Simon abandoned conventional song structure and rhyme to portray two young people searching for the heart of this promised land. The conversational lyric is both deceptively simple and densely packed. Optimism (“Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes
Review: Tony Bennett, "Live at the Sahara: Las Vegas 1964"
It's been a busy week for Tony Bennett, one of the few artists today for whom "legendary" truly applies. Bennett, 87, supported the release of Live at the Sahara: Las Vegas, 1964 as well as the digital release of his entire Columbia Records catalogue with a "digital day" for the books. Bennett engaged in a HuffPost Live Chat, took questions on Twitter via the hashtag #AskTony, shared videos on Facebook, and even participated in a reddit AMA. Here's to the next 87, Tony! Though named for
Special Review: Joe Grushecky, "Somewhere East of Eden"
As these words are being published, we're in Day 10 of the U.S. government shutdown, with no end apparently in sight. Could Joe Grushecky have picked a better time to release his seventeenth and latest solo album, the poltiically-charged and socially-conscious Somewhere East of Eden (Schoolhouse/Warner Nashville 2-535518, 2013)? Grushecky has always evinced that he cares deeply for America, and for its citizens - particularly the blue-collar, working class. On Eden, the rootsy
Personality Crisis: "Lipstick, Powder and Paint" Reveals New York Dolls' Inspirations
“While I was layin’ in a hospital bed/A rock ‘n’ roll nurse went to my head/She says, ‘Hold out your arm, stick out yo’ tongue/I got some pills, boy, I’m ‘a give you one!” It was no surprise that The New York Dolls – crown princes of debauchery, seventies-style – would include a cover of Bo Diddley’s oddly jaunty 1961 single “Pills” on their 1973 debut album. While The Dolls – lead vocalist David Johansen, rhythm guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane, lead guitarist Johnny
Review: Pablo 40th Anniversary Series with Gillespie, Ellington, Tatum, Peterson, Grappelli and Sims
When impresario Norman Granz founded the Pablo label in 1973, fusion, funk and Latin sounds were at the forefront of jazz. Granz, founder of the Verve, Norgran and Clef labels, initially launched Pablo as a platform for his management clients Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson and Joe Pass, but soon its roster was filled out with the equally starry likes of Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Sarah Vaughan. Granz’ new label was an instant success and a safe haven for traditional jazz in this period
Review: The Paley Brothers, "The Complete Recordings"
If The Brill Building had survived as the fulcrum of pop songwriting activity through the 1970s, chances are that Andy and Jonathan Paley would have been found in a cubicle there, turning out one infectious pop nugget after another like “Come Out and Play” and “Here Comes My Baby.” As it turned out, the category-defying Paley Brothers were men out of time. Singers as well as songwriters, they were signed to the Sire Records roster between the Ramones and Talking Heads, and managed to bridge
Review: The Alan Parsons Project, "I Robot: Legacy Edition"
How to follow an art-rock concept album based on the macabre tales of nineteenth-century author Edgar Allan Poe? For The Alan Parsons Project, the answer was apparently a simple one: look forward rather than back. So the second album by the progressive-rock "group" - in actuality producer-engineer Parsons, chief songwriter-executive producer Eric Woolfson, and a rotating cast of musicians and vocalists - was inspired by the writing of Isaac Asimov and explored artificial intelligence in a
Review: Claudia Lennear, "Phew!"
Claudia Lennear might have spent much of her career 20 Feet from Stardom, as per the acclaimed documentary of that title. But on her 1973 Warner Bros. solo debut album, the onetime background singer and member of Leon Russell’s Shelter People was front and center. That LP was titled Phew!, perhaps not the most likely name for a heady brew of funk, rock and soul by the striking singer who gave inspiration to both David Bowie and Mick Jagger. But “Phew!” is an accurate expression of relief now
Review: Harry Nilsson, "Flash Harry"
When Harry Nilsson's The RCA Albums Collection was finally unveiled earlier this year by Legacy Recordings, many finally stood up and took notice of the gifted singer-songwriter whose art deftly blended the high and the low, the angelic and the devilish, the euphoric and the melancholy. That astounding box set included each one of Nilsson's albums for the RCA label - in other words, his entire solo discography save one album. And now, that final missing link is finally here, on CD to join its
Ava Cherry Takes A Ride On A "Streetcar Named Desire"
“Black people don’t do new wave. She’s supposed to be doing soul,” Ava Cherry recollected of radio’s reaction to her 1982 Capitol Records single “Love to Be Touched.” Yet not only did Cherry – the former model, stalwart background vocalist and onetime muse to David Bowie - do new wave, but she did it with fervor and flair. With production from Bob Esty (Donna Summer’s “Last Dance,” Barbra Streisand’s “The Main Event”), Cherry’s sophomore solo album Streetcar Named Desire, produced by Bob
Pure Serendipity: Now Sounds Uncovers Serendipity Singers' Psych-Pop Treasure
Here’s a prescription for convalescent hippies you oughta know... Webster’s defines serendipity as “the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for,” making it an apropos name for The Serendipity Singers. The group was formed in 1963 at the University of Colorado in the days when The New Christy Minstrels could sell one million copies of “Green, Green” and folk music was being happily served to the masses by clean-scrubbed young men and women with a spoonful of
Special Review: Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb Conjure Old Ghosts On Two New Releases
Since 1967, it’s been difficult to think of Glen Campbell without thinking of Jimmy Webb – and vice versa. When the ace session guitarist interpreted the young songwriter’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” on the album of the same name, the result wasn’t just a Grammy-winning hit single, but the beginning of a partnership that’s survived through six decades. Campbell scored successes with a string of Webb’s songs in the late 1960s (“Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” “Where’s the Playground, Susie”),
In His "Reality": Philly Soul Meets Jazz On Monk Montgomery Reissue
UPDATE 9/10/13: Just yesterday, we published the following review of Monk Montgomery's 1974 album Reality, produced, arranged, and co-written by a true legend of soul music and architect of The Sound of Philadelphia, Mr. Bobby Martin. Today, word has arrived that Martin, 83, has passed away following a brief illness. A masterful orchestrator of horns and strings with a background steeped in jazz, Martin created music that was sweet and sophisticated, romantic and wrenching. and always
Out of the Shadow(s): Morton's Story Features Shangri-Las, Vanilla Fudge, New York Dolls
A scrappy street fighter with a knack for teenage melodrama, George “Shadow” Morton lived with a “self-invented mythology,” in the words of Jerry Leiber. But his work with The Shangri-Las, Janis Ian, The New York Dolls and many more solidified Morton’s place as a real-life “leader of the pack.” Ace’s new anthology Sophisticated Boom Boom: The Shadow Morton Story (CDTOP 1369) brings the songwriter and producer out of the shadow and into the (spot)light. In a 1968 Time Magazine blurb:, Morton
Review: Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr., "The Two of Us" and "Marilyn & Billy"
When Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. departed The 5th Dimension following the release of 1975's Earthbound, their commercial success as a duo was far from a sure thing. Despite being a worthy follow-up to the 5th Dimension's magnum opus The Magic Garden and a reunion with that album's composer-lyricist-producer Jimmy Webb, Earthbound didn't rekindle the group's fortunes. But McCoo and Davis knew they had one thing going for them: their union, one which is still going strong today. That
Cherry Pop "Thinks It Over" With Two Reissues From Cissy Houston
When Cissy Houston was signed to Private Stock Records in 1977 to record the first of two albums just reissued by the Cherry Pop label, her C.V. spoke for itself. Music practically ran in the veins of the vocalist born Emily Drinkard in Newark, New Jersey, 1933. Cissy first made her mark as a member of The Drinkard Singers, the group said to have recorded the very first major-label gospel album (1959's A Joyful Noise, on RCA Victor). Among Cissy's fellow Drinkard Singers was her sister Lee
Review: Sly and the Family Stone, "Higher!"
Sly Stone was a sponge. After leading Bobby "Do You Wanna Dance" Freeman to a hit record with 1965's "C'mon and Swim," the writer-producer-artist formerly known as Sylvester Stewart knew he had hit on a good thing. Hence, "I Just Learned to Swim." Then, "Scat Swim." But on the latter, Stone was already showing off his stylistic diversity, interrupting the beat to "slow it down a little so everybody can swim" and then speeding it back up again. He had soaked up the fertile creative
Review: Bob Dylan, "The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait"
Who is Bob Dylan? Today, he might identify himself as “a song and dance man,” a noble profession if there ever was one. But for decades, the man born Robert Zimmerman has been much, much more. Resistant though he might have been to the tag of “spokesman of a generation,” said generation could have done much worse. To describe Dylan’s role in the 1960s is certainly to paint with broad brushstrokes. But it can be said with some measure of truth that Dylan liberated popular music from the
Review: The Beach Boys, "Made in California"
If everybody had an ocean... Rarely have five simple words in pop music held such promise. The message at the time was an invitation squarely aimed at teens: “If everybody had an ocean, across the USA/Then everybody’d be surfin’ like Califor-ni-a...” But ultimately, the promise and California dream embodied by Hawthorne, CA’s native sons came to mean so much more than mere surfin’. The sound of The Beach Boys – Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Carl Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine, David Marks,
Review: The Monkees, "The Monkees Present: Deluxe Edition"
And then there were three. Peter Tork had departed The Monkees in December 1968, just a couple of months prior to the February 1969 release of the band’s seventh studio album, Instant Replay. The remaining trio of Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and Mike Nesmith soldiered on, though, cutting numerous new tracks and updating old ones for an eighth effort. Issued by Colgems in October 1969 on the heels of an unsuccessful greatest-hits album, it was The Monkees Present and emphasized the slimmer group
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