May 12, 2008
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Nashville Stars On Tour
(Bear Family, 5-disc set)
(NO DEPRESSION.NET) -- Blame it on the Cold War. With America's extensive European military presence, Armed Forces Radio playing country discs, and country acts touring those bases, it was inevitable European civilians would embrace the music. RCA Victor's expert promotion machine in Europe stood ready to exploit that new audience in April 1964. With Beatlemania seemingly ruling the world, RCA sponsored "Nashville Stars On Tour", two weeks of shows for military and civilian fans. The headliner was Jim Reeves, already wildly popular there, his band the Blue Boys, Chet Atkins, Bobby Bare, and the Anita Kerr Singers.
Among those attending: Bear Family's Richard Weize, which explains this lovingly assembled four-CD, one-DVD package of live recordings from Hamburg and Berlin, the troupe's Oslo, Norway concert on video and a disc of later German language recordings by Bare and other RCA Nashville acts.
The performing schedule frazzled everyone, yet the performances captured here reflect none of that. While the Blue Boys prove a capable backup unit, the Kerrs, so effective when Atkins used them as session accompanists, come off bland and soulless during their onstage solo spots. Bare radiated fire and youth as he sang "Shame On Me" and his signature hits "Detroit City" and "500 Miles Away From Home". Atkins's shyness didn't detract from his stunning instrumental virtuosity on crowd-pleasing "Yankee Doodle/Dixie", "Windy And Warm", Jerry Reed's complex instrumental "Yes Ma'am", a rousing, intense "Tiger Rag" and the jazz instrumental "Gravy Waltz".
Reeves's performances are powerful whether he reprised pre-Nashville Sound hits "Mexican Joe" and "Yonder Comes A Sucker" or his greatest moments: "He'll Have To Go" and "Four Walls", "Danny Boy" and "Adios Amigo", undiluted even by the Kerr harmonies. There's nothing soft or mellow about anything he does, reiterated by his prickly onstage temperament (a truth still hotly denied by some Reeves idolators). Three other live Reeves albums exist from earlier periods, yet these performances carry special poignancy since in slightly over three months, Reeves and Blue Boys pianist Dean Manuel would be dead.
As with all Bear Family collections, this one includes a photo-laden book. A hardcover affair, its text is mostly in German, some in English. Certainly, the photos, clips and memorabilia all convey the excitement these shows generated. For most, however, hearing (and seeing) Atkins at his best, marveling at Reeves and Bare performing in the classic, austere Nashville Sound style that began in the late '50s will be the true reward.
-- RICH KIENZLE
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Rich Kienzle
Posted by Grant at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 9, 2008
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Stax Does The Beatles
(Stax/Concord)
(NO DEPRESSION.NET) -- Of course it makes sense. The Beatles, and most of their fellow British Invaders, swiped liberally from American blues and R&B figures, some of whom remain better known today in the U.K. than ever they were here in the States.
And, of course, there was a long tradition of covering popular songs.
The problem is that the early Beatles source material swung, and if the Beatles themselves didn't always manage to swing, they made up for it with a kind of feral intensity. When they became songwriters, they became pop songwriters (and then psychedelic songwriters, and then Wings), and most of those songs don't swing at all unless one beats them into shape.
Despite its simple and clever cover art, Stax Does The Beatles does not revive an old and clever cover album; it is a modern repackaging of stray tracks, and does listeners few favors. Unless you own a skating rink.
If everything here were as muscular as Otis Redding's alternate take of "Day Tripper," this would be a spectacular assemblage. But it's not. Most of this is instrumental music from Booker T & The MGs, or the Mar-Kays, or Isaac Hayes ("Something"), and mostly it serves to remind how banal the Beatles could be. Steve Cropper's "With A Little Help From My Friends" is, at least, vigorous enough to sound like the backing track for a singer who didn't make the session.
But with all due respect to the venerated Booker T and friends, their instrumentals sound far too much like an exercise in demonstrating how many easy songs could be recorded in a three-hour session to fill out an album. Too many.
The vocals tracks are scarcely better. Young Carla Thomas' "Yesterday" (taken from Live At The Bohemian Caverns, a sketchy 1967 live in LA album reissued last year) serves principally to remind us how much a singer must bring to a simple pop song to make it sing. And how vapid that particular piece of the canon is, a precursor to Willie Nelson's "On The Road Again." (Ray Price, at least, managed to wring something out of the song, but he was in his 70s when he cut it.) That "Yesterday" is repeated as a Bar-Kays' instrumental only amplifies the insult.
The obscure John Gary Williams' take on "My Sweet Lord" is, at least, curious up until he skips the "hari kari" interlude for a sermon. It's almost something.
But mostly these Memphis legends treat the Beatles' music as so much white bread, and forget to place a heavy layer of barbeque atop it so it can soak up that greasy goodness.
-- GRANT ALDEN
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Grant Alden
Posted by Grant at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 2, 2008
NICK LOWE
Jesus Of Cool: 30th Anniversary Edition
(Yep Roc)
(NODEPRESSION.NET) -- To paraphrase a vintage David Bowie promo campaign, in 1978 there was old wave, there was new wave, and there was Nick Lowe -- smack in the middle. Still a year shy of 30, Lowe had already been through the ringer; his pub rock outfit, Brinsley Schwartz, spent five years drumming up boffo press and slim sales. Yet when he tried to provoke his label to drop him with the 1975 glam parody "Bay City Rollers, We Love You", it backfired when the song became a smash...in Japan. Once freed, he co-founded Stiff Records, producing key releases for the Damned, Elvis Costello, and Wreckless Eric. But as a recording artist, he had yet to establish where, if at all, he fit in the landscape apres punk.
Rather than pick sides, Lowe courted both on his solo debut, Jesus Of Cool. (In America, that cheeky title didn't fly; the disc was issued, with an overhauled track listing, as Pure Pop For Now People.) Accompanied by Rockpile, Lowe served up originals that showed facility in various classic genres. "Little Hitler" framed gum-chewing girl-group swagger with Beatles-worthy backing vocals, while the rapturous "Tonight" could've sprung from the Goffin/King team. He toyed with loping ska rhythms ("No Reason"), and, in the ever-circling "So It Goes", offered a scruffy blueprint for what would be his biggest U.S. hit, "Cruel To Be Kind".
Yet Lowe also boasted a cynical streak to rival Johnny Rotten's. Several cuts attacked the music industry; some worked (the ragged "Shake And Pop"), others fell flat ("Music For Money"). One of the album's highlights, "I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass", with its jagged piano lines, seemed to poke fun at Bowie's somber Low (issued the same year), yet its author claimed the inspiration actually sprang from dressing-room shenanigans he'd witnessed while touring with Bad Company. Either way, it still sounds great.
This Yep Roc repackaging amends all Lowe's related cuts circa '77-'78, including a peppy remake of Sandy Posey's politically incorrect 1966 country hit "Born A Woman" (from Lowe's Bowi EP), cuts substituted on the U.S. edition, compilation tracks ("I Love My Label"), and the one-sided Rockpile single packaged with initial British pressings. The result is a comprehensive appraisal of the cornerstone -- cracks and all -- of Lowe's long, remarkable career. Even tarted up with so many accessories, Jesus Of Cool runs little risk of looking like the doggie's dinner.
-- KURT B. REIGHLEY
Copyright c. 2008 No Depression Inc. and/or Kurt B. Reighley
Posted by Grant at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)