RECORDS

RECORDS

THE FIRST STEP - THE SMALL FACES - WARNER BROS. WS 1851

I was virtually certain that I would hate this record. I’m a long-time fan of Steve Marriott and, for as many times as I saw the Jeff Beck Group and as much as I counted on Stewart to carry Beck through his many traumas, I don’t think I really understood Rod Stewart until this record. For that matter, as much as I loved them, I don’t think I understood the Faces until I saw them live.

It seems to me that we might possibly be a little better off now that the band’s split up. Marriott is a monstrous huge talent and he’s probably carrying on quite well with Humble Pie. But there were three other dudes who did some things with hirh that really deserved a chance to do what they thought best. And it turns out that it is best. This band may not be Led Zeppelin, though Stewart and Wood by virtue of their association with Beck are probably near-cousins to the Yardbirds, but it is its own thing. Which is good enough for me. The sound is now harder, more relatable, especially on a mass level, and generally much more good time. And I finally now understand why you all loved Stewart so much while I remained skeptical.

Frankly, the most impressive thing about Truth or even Beck-Ola was Rod Stewart. He carried both records in spite of Beck’s excesses. But with the attendant success I began to wonder whether he could really be that good; maybe that enchanting rasp lost its charm for awhile, became a mere rasp, sans enchantment. Whatever, the magic his voice had for me a year and a half ago is back.

Frankly, the most impressive thing about Truth or even Beck-Oka was Rod Stewart. He carried both records in spite of Beck’s excesses. But with the attendant success I began to wonder whether he could really be that good; maybe that enchanting rasp lost its charm for awhile, became a mere rasp, sans enchantment. Whatever, the magic

his voice had for me a year and a half ago is back.

Rod shines on every cut he sings here. “Three Button Hand Me Down” is a great tune and it’s Rod’s, not his alone, because that’s not what this group is about, but Rod carries it best. Even with the Stevie Wonder precedents (irrelevant and overly obvious anyway), it’s a Rod Stewart song.

The other new Face is Ronnie Wood, who is the best rock and roll slide player I’ve ever heard. He walks off with “Plynth (or “Around the Plynth” as it’s known on this record). He has a hell of a lot more taste than Beck, knows when to shut up and his excesses are always effective. What more could I ask?

As for the rest, it’s pretty much what could be expected of the Faces minus Steve Marriott. Which is colossal, killer and great. I love the Small Faces; I don’t want to get carried away into over-superlatives but I’ve really dug this album more than anything else I’ve heard in about three months. And it was a long and lengthy drought; as they say.

Careful, though, folks, if you’re after the new Rod Stewart album you’d best wait til Mercury releases it. While Rod is a stellar performer on this record it’s the group’s album, not any individual’s.

As for the old Faces, it’s an advantage for them to be featured without Marriott. MacLagan’s keyboard’s show up much better and Kenny Jones’ drummin has a power I never expected. And Ronnie Lane is still an excellent bass player, supersongwriter and enjoyable vocalist.

Everything starts off well, “Wicked Messenger” being a great vehicle for this band. The whole thing is kind of spacey and loose but really fine. Which is the word which best sums up this record. Just fine, super-fine.

“Devotion” keeps the energy up; I’m not sure who sings this, it might be Ronnie Lane (it’s Lane and Stewart together in parts) but at any rate it works with a flourish. The vocal sinks down beneath Mac’s organ at times and that works too. One of the advantages of Rod Stewart joining this group is their increased looseness, a trait you can trace straight to Rod. With the old Small Faces, everything would occasionally get a mite contrived but this time everything works. It’s tight enough on the instrumental cuts but loose where it needs to be, like on “Shake, Shudder and Shiver”. Stewart uses his voice in sympathy with Mac’s organ work to set up Wood’s guitar work exquisitely.

“Stone” starts off like “Blind Willie” on Sonny Sharrock’s Black Woman album (a compliment, since I loved it); kind of a stock slide riff, which quickly turns into a banjo thing. It’s a confusing song, I don’t think I understand it and I don’t want to talk about it since it seems to invite comparison to the countryish aspects of Humble Pie. (It sorta sounds Irish, though.) The Face’s masterpiece for this 'album is “Around the Plynth”. What it has to do with Beck’s version of “Plynth” is obscure; is they’re even the same song, the arrangements are so different that there’s no question whose is more successful.

This song works on every level. The lyrics are ace (I especially like “I never knew what it meant to be loved”) and the Faces’ previous penchant for electronic wizardry gets its only work-out here. It’s a song about water down the drain, which it sounds like and which is also why I like the above-quoted line so much. If you know what I mean.

Ron Wood’s guitar playing is so good you’d think he was black and I don’t know of a higher compliment. Because if I did I’d pay it. The only tune I’ve ever heard like this is “Let

the Good Times Roll”, which would seem to fit Wood’s guitar riff about right.

Stewart’s retreat to a cave to shout “I never found out the reason why” is an excellent idea; I wonder why Led Zeppelin hasn’t stolen it yet? Mac has a single piano riff in the latter part of this tune that is absolutely right on.

“Flying” is really close to the old Faces but with a hell of a lot more bite. It’s layered like the old band, everything on top of Jones’ drums. Wood’s guitar then Mac Lagan’s organ, finally Ronnie’s bass. The harmonies; here and on “Nobody Knows”, are good, as good as the Beatles’.

It sure as fuck is fine to have your favorite British band turn up with something this good after you thought you’d never hear from ’em again. And all so hard-edged, like it always should have been.

The tail-end of the record is its real meat, though . “Pineapple and the Monkey” and “Looking out the Window” are as loose as non-vocal jams can get away with being and still be effective. Even this sort of British whiskey-jazz, which is what “Window” kind of gets into, is nice in this context. “Pineapple” is as soulful as a group of British blokes can get without descending into obvious parody. The effect of each is one of a fine calm, but not one of complacency. (Watch Keary’s drums, especially).

“Three Button Hand Me Down” is the perfect choice to end with. Lane’s bass walks right through Wood’s guitar, right on time for Mac’s organ to come in with the always steady Jones right there, solid as ever. Lane’s bass playing between the first two verses is really excellent, not overdone and, the key to the whole record, it works.

A lot of the flash of the old Small Faces is gone but what remains is effective as hell. I don’t know what more you can ask for. Even though I’ve been accused of liking them because they’re the only group I can look in the eye. We’ve all got our heroes, for diverse reasons, as they say.

At any rate, you should have this album. If only because Rod Stewart’s on it. You’ll find out he’s not alone quick enough.

Dave Marsh

WAR BETWEEN FATS AND THINS-HARVEY MATUSOW’S JEW’S HARP BAND-HEAD LPS026

Call me Ishmael and let me tell you about Bargain Bins to begin with.

In the beginning when God created the Earth, along with all the ingenious stuff He created (man, for example), there was a Bargain Bin. It was located due west of the Garden of Eden (King James Bible, Genesis chapters 1 and 2) about four miles...just past the delicatessan.

The Bargain Bin was at that time full of fantastic bargains ranging in price from 88c to $1.99. And even today, for the same prices, bargains can be found in Bargain Bins all over. Generally Bargain Bins are located in K-Marts and other “discount” stores, although one of the best Bargain Bins is located in the Land of Hi-Fi on Grant RiverHundreds of two dollar jazz records. (Archie Shepp, Ornette Coleman, early Coltrane, early Miles Davis, and more).

Where else can one find the Kinks! Face to Face for 98c Safe As Milk by Captain Beefheart for $1.25? Ten of John Phillip Sousa’s marches as performed by Paul Lavelle and the Band of America for a mere 88c?!?

But let us not forget Harvey Matusow’s Jew’s Harp Band. What? Yes, boys and girls, a genuine-honestto-god-true-to-life-down-home-grassroots-level-JEW’S HARP BAND HARVEY MATUSOW’S JEW’S HARP BAND. I can still see the looks of skepticism and disbelief on your faces but this ensemble boasts not one, not two, not even three, but five — count them - five jew’s harpists. The jew’s harp, the little “sproing-sprioing” instrument, has finally come to grips with the big city and big business and it should be making an appearance at your friendly neighborhood Bargain Bin very shortly. If you’re lucky it might even be there patience, it’s bound to show up someday.

Now as to the record itself. It is black and has two grooves like all other records — but this is where the similarity ends. Side one opens with an uptempo medium rare tune, “Wetsocks”. Then the band launches into the title tune. “War Between The Fats and Thins” describes the aforementioned war, against a jew’s harp background. This cut employs exaggeration of styles. It is pedantic affected and clever. It’s told as though the listener is a child listening to a bedtime story. (A quick regression to childhood never hurt anyone.) After War is a good-time harp tune called “Clootch Hunt”. It’s pretty much a solo effort by the band’s 78-year old harpist, Claude Lintott. It is incomparable. “Eighteen Nuns” follows. It is the story, with harp accompaniment, about a fellow fresh out of prison. Next, “Velvet Toothpaste” which has its roots in some obscure Indian raga. The side closes with “Carroll”, a lovely bastardization of “Come All Y e Faithful”.

Side two opens with “Afghan Red”, a tune based on an old Russian folk tune which was sung by a little old lady...only on Sundays. A couple of instrumentals and then Harvey Matusow’s recitative about “Officials” a real “message song” and one which leaves Barry Sadler miles behind. This side closes with “Margie Swiss Cheese”, sort of answer to Frank Zappa for Susie or revenge on Zappa for not signing them. Who knows?

Anyway, “Margie” works mainly because it is not a parody of Zappa’s work but is own insane monolog about “Margie”.

The album is very “together”. It alludes to Indian music, free jazz, folk songs and varying degrees of electronic music (like Cage and Babbitt, though they don’t use double tracks and such.) All of these allusions are valid and well executed.

This is an excellent two dollar record. Pay not a penny more.

Joshua Schreier

BLACK GOLD . NINA

SIMONE-R.C.A. LSP-4248

Over the centuries, the white American’s attitude towards his black counterpart has undergone many changes. From his original feelings of hatred he has passed through phases of hostility, scorn, pity, humor, condescension occasional almostacceptance, and now, possible, some jealosy. However, whatever his current fellings towards his “Black Brother,” the white American has never been able to just completeley ignore him. It seems odd then that on this album Nina Simone manages, very effectively, to totally ignore white people.

The album, which was recorded “live” at the Philharmonic Hall, on October 26, last year, demonstrates, not a singer singing, or a performer performing or even a movement in motion, but more a combination of all three. Although comleteley nonpolitical, “Black Gold” shows, very clearly, Nina’s lack of compulsion to have her work judged, appreciated or even heard by anyone other than her peers.

Side one, ofter a two and a half minute introduction of the group, Nina is brought on stage with the description of “The High Priestess of Soul”, and she slides straight into her interpretation of “Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair”, which she follows with an arrangement of the same song written by Emile Latimer, her guitarist.

“Ain’t Got No—I Got Life” is a song from “Hair”, and it sounds tailor-made for her although numerous people have cut the tune.

“Westwind” closes side one and it is introduced as a song that Miriam Makeba had asked Nina to sing. The introduction, of course, got an ecstatic reaction from the crowd, as in fact did most of her many speeches and asides, throughout the entire show.

In the concert, “Westwind” was followed by “To Be Young, Gifted and Black, but, on the album, side two opens with “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”, the Sandy Denny composition that Judy Collins made famous. Unfortunately, Nina’s version doesn’t alter my opinion that Denny’s rendition (with the Fairport Convention) is the best, although Miss Simone does an excellent job on the slow and soulful tune.

“The Assignment Sequence” actually closed the concert, but, on the album, it is followed by the missing “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black”. And this is where the story really starts!

“This song was not addressed primarily for white people, although it does not put you down in any way—It simply ignores you—For my people need all the inspiration and love that they can get.”

And that is the real force behind this remarkable album. Not even bad engineering can destroy the shattering impact of Nina Simone and her band.

If you’re white and you listen to this album, you will be very entertained but you will also feel a little uncomfortable, almost as if you were reading somebody’s diary even though it is with their permission.

And, if you’re black, and you listen to this album, you will be entertained, but you will also feel that someone is on your side and that they have made an album that is for you and your ,,, people alone. I have this album. I am white.

At the beginning of the album Nina Simone is introduced as “The High Priestess of Soul”, and at the end, she leaves the stage as the “Black Bitch of the Blues” and it’s one of the greatest compliments I can use for her.

Ice Alexander

ORNETTE AT TWELVEORNETTE COLEMAN; (IMPULSE A-9178)

Ornette Coleman: Violin, trumpet, alto sax Dewey Redman: tenor sax Charlie Haden: bass Ornette Denardo Coleman: drums

It’s been twlve years between the time Ornette Coleman recorded his first record Something Else and this latest record. His first record, by today’s standards, was very tame. This latest record, for the most part, is quite dull. But there are a few moments of excitement on Ornette at. Twelve though not too many.

The first track, “C.O.D.” is representative of what I mean when I said that the record was dull. The only thing that “saves” it is Charlie Haden’s bowing and Ornette Denardo’s drumming. Coleman himself sounds like he’s been playing too long or doesn’t like his audience. He simply sounds tired. This is a live recording and unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) there is no information on the record jacket as to where. The last live record he did, the Live at the Golden Circle album,, was much more exciting; there were more things happening. And the' amazing thing is that on that record the only sidemen he had were Charles Moffet and David Izenzon, and that albumespecially volume one - is probably the best he ever made.

‘On “Rainbows,” Ornette is playing trumpet. Like “C.O.D.”, “Rainbows”is also tired. The tune sounds like it could be fantastic, but there is just a lot of energy lacking. The only people that sound like they are trying are Charlie Haden and Ornette Denardo. Now Ornette Denardo is a fantastic drummer, and very fast. Sometimes he’s too fast for the hornmen. Maybe they sound tired because they’re trying to keep up with Denardo. Haden is just standing back there bowing away; he and the drummer sometimes seem to be the only people playing.

Now what’s an Ornette Coleman record without one of his famous dirges? The one good thing about this record is that it doesn’t let us down. “New York” is one of those dirges, and begins with a beautiful slowness. And since it also begins the second side, it is a welcome relief from the boredom induced by side one. The opening of the tune has a fascinating effect similar to, say, the beginning of the second side of John Coltrane’s OM with the cello and flute. In “New York”, Ornette seems to have finally awakened from his tiredness. It’s a good thing, too, because without that sudden burst of energy, “Bells and Chimes” would have been a dissappointing last track.

“Bells and Chimes” is the best track on the record, and it took a random playing of that tune on the radio to finally w^ke me up to that fact. On this track, Ornette plays violin very sucessfully and the effect you get is amazing. “Bells and Chimes” would make you think that Ornette has been taking lessions from Pharoah Sanders. And the contrast of the tenor by Dewey Redman (the only noticable thing he does all record) and the low cello of Charlie Haden round this tune out to near perfection. When listening to the second side, especially “Bells and Chimes” you want to forgive the sins committed on the first side.

Geoffrey Jacques

THE ISSAC HAYES MOVEMENT ISSAC HAYES ENTERPRISE RECORDS/ENS1010

The first time I heard this album I didn’t like it very much. It made me wonder where the Issac Hayes Movement was headed. The whole thing seemed incompatible with my first impression of Issac Hayes.

The first album, “Hot Buttered Soul” impressed me greatly and it also established Hayes as one of the finest cover artists around outside of Joe Cocker.

This second seemed to be much lighter thatn the first and I was very disappointed with Hayes’ rendition of George Harrison’s “Something.” But I listened again and I found it to be a very “nice” (the only word that comes close) interpretation. It isn’t grits and cornbread like the first, but it still comes across.

“I Stand Accused” is 11 minutes and 30 seconds of talking and singing about a man who has always followed the “Golden Rule” and has never commited a crime in his life until now. The “Court of Love” finds him guilty of “being on the make for John’s girl/guilty of loving you too much.”

I certainly hope that Issac doesn’t fall into the trap that Arlo Gutherie almost fell into. As of now his monologues are still effective and have not gotten tiresome, but I hope he knows when to stop (and now’s the time) for when you start to expect them they get boring.

“One Big Happy Family” reminds me of some of the stuff coming out of Motown these days: It isn’t an assembly line number like the Motown stuff but it is heavy on Social Comment like the recent Temptation stuff or “Love Child” by the Supremes. It’s about a man whose family is the “neighborhood example.” They take the kids to church every Sunday and appear to be the perfect family, but “she’s got her thing goin’ and you know I’ve got mine.”

Surprisingly, the outstanding cut on the lp is a Burt Bacharach-Hal David tune, the same duo that has been cranking out every other record you hear on “the Big 8.”

I used to enjoy some of Bacharach’s numbers (one of my favorite songs is one he did for Dionne Warwick, called “Who Is Gonna Love Me”) but lately they all seem to be coming from the bottom of the same unscraped barrel. I don’t know whether it’s Hayes’ interpretaion or it it’s the song, but I enjoy this cut more than any of the others on the album. I think it’s probably a combination with thefavor leaning heavily on Hayes, for when you can milk absolute guts out of a Bacharach-David (I always felt that Hal David never got enough credit or blame for his contribution) when you’re some kind of singer. Which Issac Hayes is.

“Something” is perhaps the unique cut on the album Here’s easy going, down home Issac Hayes along with a perfectly blended female choir and a highly professional orchestra and thrown in is th’o violin solo which sounds like a country fiddler playing Sibelius. It’s good but you can still hear that backwoods twang. This cut, like the rest of the lp, is strange in that it mixes Issac’s funk with very slick professional production. The whole thing is reminiscent of The London Bach Choir singing with the Stones on “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Which is true I suppose, but if you try sometime you just might find you’ll get Issac^ Hayes doing something that’ll do just as well or maybe better.

Richard A. Pinkston IV

THE PRISONER - HERBIE H ANCOCK-BLUENOTE BST 84321 “1 Have A Dream”; “The Prisoners”; “Firewater”; “He Who Lives In Fear’” Promise of the Sun”.

Johnny Coles, flugelhorn; Joe Henderson, tenor sax, alto flute; Garnett Brown, trombone: Hancock, piano, electric piano; Buster Williams, bass; A1 Heath, drums; Hubert Laws, flute; Tony Studd, bass trombone; Jerome Richardson, bass clarinet, flute; Romeo Penque, bass clarinet; Jack Jeffers, bass trombone

Herbie’s first album as a leader was a Bluenote thing called Takin’ Offmostlv conventional record with a very conventional quintet (tenortrumpet-rhythm) that played good jazz. Herbie was undistinguished but solid. What could he do that was fantastic? He could whip it out. Soon after the Bluenote debut, Miles Davis snatched him and he became part of one of the most unbelievably responsive and together rhythm sections in music; Hancock, piano; Ron Carter, bass; Tony Williams, drums. Another', phase for Miles. Magic and history on the bandstand every night. Incredible.

Herbie’s approach was singular though it was taken for granted that he and Tony were one thing. Critics had to have a word for his style and “impressionistic” was used most often. Lame word, too vague.

Time passes (he joined Miles in ’63), Herbie continues to feed Miles sweet inspiration, appears on a lot of albums, mostly Bluenote, as a leader or a feeder (for Jackie McLean, Stan Getz, many more) writes music for “Blow Up”, has his second “hit” (“Watermelon Man” from Takin’ Off was the first) which was “Maiden Voyage”, continues to astound then splits form Miles in ’69 (or was it ’68?). Forms own group, a sextet.

Which is on this record, slightly augmented.

Herbie’s playing is sometimes delicate, always understated. Missing here is the suspension of time (which depended so much on Tony Williams’ help) and the development of lines and patterns that echo through the group (which depended so much on Miles). The feeling of exploration isn’t gone, just subdued. Herbie has his own bag of cliches by now but he uses them sparingly. The rest of the time he’s -uh“impressionistic”. There are moments when the unity of the rhythm section is amazing (like Herbie’s solo on “Fear”) but Heath’s dedication to keeping time limits the piano and bass. Herbie has chosen this limitation and he knows how to turn it into an asset — by coloration, by playing against it, on top of it, by using it to emphasize his own understatements and introspection.

Joe Henderson is mostly disappointing here. Usually a brilliant player, he uses too many of his stock phrases-Henderson fans will be able to recall what tracks on his own albums he played the same licks.

The tunes are interesting but similar in voicing so that by the last cut we have become desensitized.

No use picking anything else out for comment. The album as a whole is satisfying, it feels good, has some secrets that won’t yield on the first few hearings, and subdues more than excites (an opinion which is neutral in value) and who knows, you might be able to relate it to something in your life. Who knows?

Richard C. Walls

TAOS - TAOS; MERCURY SR 61257.

COUNTRY FUNK - COUNTRY FUNK; POLYDO R 24-4020.

GOOSE CREEK SYMPHONY -GOOSE CREEK SYMPHONY; CAPITOL ST-444.

Yes, yes, country music. Years ago, when rock and roll was made by greasy little moguls with greasy little minds you could listen to country music riding in your car and think “yeah, it’s real - these are really these people’s hopes and fears and disappointments and all that,” and because you weren’t one of those people you didn’t notice that the same kind of shuck was being perpetrated by the same kind of greasy old men - arid that the crackers called them honky-tonks because that’s what George Jones called them and not vice-versa, and wallowed in self-conscious self-pity over “Three Sides” just like you might have over “Mr. Blue.” Still, the illusion was more organic feeling and they did play pedal steel, which I still think has about the best sound of any instrument short of delta-style bottleneck guitar.

There were some pretty good songs, too. The lyrics were much more inventive than what you got in rock and roll even though they were full of overnice plays on words and as often as not a song was no more than a heavy-handed semantic joke. And I always got the feeling that the level of musicianship was somewhat higher in N ashville than in Philadelphia. The craft myth of the south and the down home picker, you know? Yes, yes, and the myth of the yeoman cracker so dear to our thenliberal northern hearts. Besides having been raised on folk music and thinking that this country pop was in that same tradition (and it is, too, sort of).

Well, I defy you to listen to a country music station today and find anything admirable. Not only have our standards soared with the resurgance of our own music, but country music has degenerated into a body of sterile formula pap. The music has been standardized to the point where a new lick is grabbed up by every studio ape in the field (fair enough, since some studio ape discovered it in the first place), “professionalism” reduced to the lowest common denominator. Simply slickening. Hot New Novelty Numbers and all those teased up chicks that eyery bar and grill waitress wants to look like - Connie Francis in puffy skirts and not a feeling in her body. Merle Haggard hasn’t written a decent song since “House of Memories,” and he is absolutely the premier talent in modern country music. Lesser lights have taken to singing songs they don’t understand, they’ve standardized emotion - the range of expression, never very wide in the first place, has been so narrowly confined that none of it sounds real any more. Yes, yes, what a drag.

Still and all, you can get a feeling from good modern country music that you can’t get from any other fornj. Within the narrow limits where it Works, the mournful or bittersweet is perfectly captured, the essence of the existential dillemma distilled to a single tear.

I like country music because it can give me that feeling, a feeling that is real, immediate, relatable, even out of the context of the honko factory worker subculture, to which I can’t relate at all. I know I’m npt alone in this, because the essence of the Country Rock Explosion (jes’ like Time Magazine, eh?) has been the transference of the emotive textures of country music from Their context to Our context. Thus, the Byrds sang “I Like the Christian Life,” and it was successful on all levels: that great plaintive -drawn-out country springiness was there, and you could feel completely comfortable with it because you knew you shared their spiritual referents. You knew they didn’t really like the Christian Life as practiced in contemporary Amerika, but at the same time, the simple commitment that the tune spoke of was universal, and the performers, you knew, picked up on its meaning on that level; you could feel it, and it felt good; it’s a good feeling to like things that well - at the same time there’s a certain inherent irony that neither you nor the Byrds missed, and you could relate to that, too.

All that first Hollywood Honko music shared that multi-level appeal, even though some of it was pretty weak as country music. I liked it because it opened up a whole new emotive range to rock and roll music, and a lot of other people liked it, probably for the same reason. All those people who were finally moving out to the country picked up on it, if a bit self-consciously, because the pace really was different, and suitable for country-time laying up. It ain’t called country, music for nothing, y’know.

The synthesis of mainstreairi rock and roll and mainstream country music has been progressing kind of quietly. There have been a few albums as heavily country weighted as the Burrito Brothers’ or Sweetheart or Dr. Byrds (which was almost pure country, with hardly a rock bone in its body - a dead end, musically), and the “country influence” in much of the new music has become much more fully integrated in the past year. Country touches, at the same time, have become much more common. As usual, the new strain enters with flash and is much thrown about, but as it is assimilated, its manifestations seem less and less like sports and more and more a part of the total culture. Its influence may or may not become highly pervasive (in this instance it hasn’t), but to some degree it touches more people in its assimilation that it ever could in its more pristine form, if the initial excesses can indeed be termed pristine.

These three albums delineate a spectrum of the country/rock mix. Taos is soft rock/soft country, with touches of extremism in both areas. It is replete with tricky electronics and mixing, flashbacks and incidentals, and some ot the country tongues are almost straight bluegrass. Country Funk is hard rock/hard country; its attack is much like the Neil Young efforts with Crazy Horse. Goose Creek Symphony is mainstream country/mainstream rock, and much more heavily country than either of the others, if only because the country strain is left pretty much intact.

There’s not much to say about any of these efforts, beyond that. All of them are competent, none of them is brilliant. All of the elements have been heard before, and the particular syntheses do not represent breakthroughs, but , rather consolidations. If you know what you want to hear, you might buy any of them and be satisfied. Goose Creek is perhaps the brightest-feeling of the three; Taos is maybe a little too gimmicky, but parts of it are really successful; Country Funk is the most predictable, but also the most solid. I like them all, really I do, but I don’t know what else to say.

Deday LaRene

Tom Rush has been around for quite awhile. He was a very prominent figure in the folk revival that spread outward from the Boston/Cambridge area back in the early 60’s. Although the folk revival proper long ago lost it identity as it was absorbed by other musical forms, Tom Rush has remained virtually intact; a solid, if somewhat obscure, undercurrent.

Rush is one of the last of a dying breed: that of the interpretive artist. Content to define himself through other people’s material in an age where gas station attendants think of themselves as poet laureates, he must be viewed as something of a rarity. Yet this interpretive stance affords him a great deal of flexibility; the interpreter literally has a world of material to choose from. It is to his credit, however, that he doesn’t allow his material to become cliched. His selections are always fresh.

Stylistically, Rush falls easy prey to critics who appear to need their points driven home with sledgehammer impact. His low-key approach can slip right past you if you aren’t looking for it. His voice is not exactly what one would call pretty, but he solidly demonstrates that “pretty voice” is by no means a necessary prerequisite for good music. His phrasing seems sluggish and sometimes awkward, and his projection is often so fragile (especially on ballads) that it threatens to completely lose itself. But once you become accustomed to Rush’s unique vocal style and delivery, his apparent flaws become his strengths, and you find him to be a very sensitive and effective performer. His guitar work (check out “Rockport Sunday” on his Circle Game album) is rather restrained, but always appropriate.

This album, his first release for Columbia since leaving Elektra, is his most uniformly low-key release to date. There is no o^e song as singularly powerful as ‘ , ne Urge For Going” here. Those who feel the necessity to select one cut will probably pick “Child’s Song”, a gentle ballad penned by Canadian Murray McLaughlin. It is delivered in Rush’s quietly articulate manner, it’s impact instantly perceptible to anyone who has ever been faced with having to leave home.

The cut I am most partial to at present is “Driving Wheel”. It’s a sadly mellow song, and Rush conveys the sense of prostrate yearning extremely well. The instrumental track is highlighted by Dave Bromberg’s subdued dobro work, it magnificently compliments and sustains the mood created by Rush’s vocal.

Yet despite the presence of these two exemplary cuts, the album as a whole doesn’t make it. The fault lies not with Rush (he is his usual distinctive self throughout), but with the instrumental backings and arrangements. Much of the backing is superfluous, with little forethought and littler direction. They seem to be trying to make more of Tom Rush than he really is, and in so doing reveal a basic incomprehension of what Tom Rush is about. What is most irritating is that these problems manifest themselves only at crucial moments, and therefore become the decisive factors for the songs’ failures. “Colors Of The Sun” is a perfect example. Rush masterfully creates a softly understated atmosphere, only to have the unwarranted emergence of drums shatter it. The use of orchestration, although an integral part of the Circle Game LP, just don’t serve a purpose here. On “Rainy Day Man”, an otherwise beautiful James Taylor song, they fail to make any positive contribution, and only end up getting in the way. These faults are not blaring, they don’t have to be, for it doesn’t take much to upset Rush’s precise and delicate style.

It has been said that Tom Rush fans are a devoted hard core, the rest of the word merely indifferent. And while this album will no doubt be just another Tom Rush record to most, I fear that it will be a disappointment to even the staunchest Rush fans. It’s painful to listen to, because the record keeps threatening to make it, but in the final analysis (and often at the last possible moment) it falls short. One can only wish that the talented Mr. Rush had been given better treatment.

Ben Edmonds

COLD SHOT - KENT KST-534; CUTTIN’ UP - EPIC BN 26524: THE JOHNNY OTIS SHOW FEATURING MIGHTY MOUTH EVANS AND SHUGGIE OTIS Rhythm and Blues has undergone a few changes in the last few years, and to the average listener the most noticible change has been its appeal and direction being slowly aimed at the lucrative and larger white consumer market. Some bemoan this as a tragedy of sorts reasoning that it’s lost its balls and on top of that, all of the successful black artists are now singing Rogers and Hart-type standards. Mr. Gordy says that he is simply widening his artists’ appeal, thus widening their wallets and distending the length of their cars. This is great....for them maybe, but not f or me and quite a few others.

Motown is not the only company changing their time proven approach to music. Chess-Checker has released several incredible monstrosities on the public. It wouldn’t be so bad if the Electric Mud, Electric Wolf, and Cosmic Dells, etc., sold, but they didn’t. They just turned out to be embarassments to proud men who have already paid decades of dues for doing their own thing only to find out they are still being billed.

Well, apparently it hasn’t dawned on Johnny Otis and Epic Records that he should stop writing his own incredible material and do standards of one kind or another. His band and singers still retain the impact they had with Capitol and even more recently with Kent.

Both Cold Shot and Cuttin’ Up are well done and incredibly to the point. Many artists and song writers are very clever in their methods of disguising their few pertinent messages in mounds of metaphor. Johnny Otis identifies the sticky brown substance on the bottom of his shoe as shit, if that’s what it looks and smells like. That’s the way life is. For decades bluesmen have blamed booze and women for their plight with the exception of Big Bill Broonzy who spelled out his woes as Jim Crow. And he’s still paying dues for that trick. It wasn’t smokestack lightnin’ that inspired Howlin’ Wolf to outrun a ’36 Dodge full of rednecks on a straight road in his bare feet.

And as Sonny Terry stepped up to a ‘colored only’ water fountain in Alabama, I’m sure he didn’t think “It must be the women and wine that’s doin’ this to me.” The approach to blues and the music that is known as soul has been dishonest to a great extent, and again this is why Johnny Otis should be listened to more than ever.

This is the music of the ghetto, the music to which the people can truthfully say ‘right on’ because it is.

I prefer the Kent lp. Vocalist Mighty Mouth Evans is incredible not only in his vocal technique but his interpretive style. “Signifying Monkey” is on cold shot track for all time. This is basically a blues album containing a few well known pieces such as “High Heel Sneakers,” “C.C. Rider,” and “Goin Back to L. A.” And Cold Shot’s approach is more definite and straight ahead, even if technically the Epic album is a much finer recording. The L.P. sounds as if it was pressed on old 78 wax. Both LPs feature Mighty Mouth Evans as vocalist and Shuggie Otis on a variety of instuments. The Epic release also debuts Sugarcane Harris and Margie Evans on vocals, and both are exceptional.

At this point in the recording industry, you may find many good and sincere releases from record companies who really believe in and back forgotten but very talented artists. Lonnie Mack, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and many other artists have returned and now Johnny Otis is back, and hopefully here to stay.

Wilson Lindsey