Hot 'n' Nasty (when apropos)

Hot 'n' Nasty (when apropos)

THE TRAIN I'M ON TONY JOE WHITE WARNER BROTHERS

Downhome music is where it’s at. Clarence Carter. J.J. Cale. Tom T. Hall. Candi Staton. They all sound laid back to me and they are artists who can be extremely addictive. Like immersion baptisms. See, someone ducks your head underwater and the water gets up your nozzle and you try to get out of it but the preacher won’t let you so you give in and eventually you are drowning for your sins. But you come back for more. You steal an automobile and you’re right back there next Sunday afternoon standing with the rest of the congregation on the banks of Honey’s Pond. You are there because it has become a home for you — you feel secure in the hands of the Lord.

Tony Joe White would know what I’m talking about. All his songs sound the same. But when you hear that gruff voice of his pouring out of the radio talking ‘bout the gator gettin’ you granny you kind of slide back and scratch your stomach and your eyelids go pingl Tony Joe White has that much power. Right now I’m looking at his picture on the back cover of his new album and goodgod if he don’t look like a bear. He’s got some grizzle on his face and he’s carrying a secret under his upper lip. He’s the sort of guy who would never even think of using nosedrops, and could tear you limb from limb if he’d a mind to.

I once heard him on a radio show in Memphis where he preached his gospel and played “Polk Salad Annie” for 20 minutes. You got so caught up in it that you fell asleep, but to hear that voice rattling your speakers (his voice is even grittier when he speaks) is frightening. This is a big clumsy ox who is actually a sensitive little dutch boy. He smirks. He smirks at your cynicism. He smirks at your criticism. He smirks at your intelligence, your ambitions, your zest and zeal. Don’t it make you wanna go home. The radio show was a gas because Tony Joe kept playing with us, stopping and falsestarting, rearranging and writing new songs as he went along, and when the disc jockey insisted on asking irrelevant questions like “who put the stomp in your music” and “what swamp produced you,” Tony Joe just sat back and smirked. You could hear his smirk coming over the airwaves. It sounded like a melted fart but not nearly as weak. It was all taped, so somewhere in a vault there is stored the perfect Tony Joe White performance, but for right now we’ve got this new album on Warner’s and perhaps that’s all we really need.

I guess the first song is the album. It’s the catchiest song since “Layla” but a lot more fun and lot more profound. Besides Tony Joe grunts on it and breathes real heavy for all his fans. All young rising folksingers will want to do it. I particularly liked “The Family,” even though Tony Joe didn’t write it. “Heaven help the ties that bind the family.” It’s touching, without bordering on mushy sentimentality. You’ll like it. You’ll also like every cut on this album. I don’t see any point in going down the list; the title cut clues you in on where this stuff is coming from.

It’s alazy song. You ain’t supposed to get excited. Frequently when listening to this song, you start looking out the window and you catch sight of a scissor-tailed flycatcher and you yawn. There are strings somewhere on the cut but you don’t mind. It’s all a part of the plan. Then suddenly Tony Joe spurts out something like “even trolls like to rock ‘n’ roll,” and he begins one of those autobiographical ramblings he’s so famous for. The song isn’t funny but you’ll remember it after listening to the album even once, even if it’s not as authentic or clever as “300 Pounds of Hungry.” But both songs will let you in on the mysteries concealed on the riverbanks of the Tri-City area in Alabama.

And now that Creedence is getting away with second-rate material and fooling even big-name rock critics that should know better and leaving it all up to Tom Fogerty — I mean, in these days of desperation — you owe yourself something, and this is it. I don’t know if it’s gonna be the album of the year (though it may come close), but it’ll make you dream. It’ll make you run away from home and go South. It’ll make a man out of you. It’ll make you cry and then it’ll wipe away the tears. And if that’s not enough for you then I’ll send Tony Joe over and he’ll clobber the shit out of you and then you’ll have to buy it. Shape up you pussies!

Robot Hull

SMOKIN'

HUMBLE PIE A & M

There’s something intriguing in the idea that Humble Pie are so thoroughly enjoyable yet refuse so adamantly to yield to any kind of critical insight. They are mired in British rock history through dozens of twists and turns, mired in the history of all-rock through jugt as many permutations, and mired in nothing but their own charm, glamor and enthusiasm live and on record.

That doesn’t mean that there ain’t any-, thing that is more than predictable on Smokin’. On the contrary, there’s a lot here, it’s just that it’s damn difficult to discuss it, and have it mean anything. That has almost nothing to do with my appreciation of the record, because I like it about as much as anything I’ve heard in thje last couple months. Humble Pie seem to have made a record that is so firmly embedded in a specific set of genres that almost nothing is left to say.

Much of the record is charming and witty: “30 Days in the. Hole” is, in particular, a wonderful joke, with its bit about “red lebanese,” “black nepalese” and then “newcastle brown.” (Is this why the album cover looks like a giant package of cigarette papers?) And “C’mon Everybody” is so good I’ve stopped worrying about saying it’s one of the best things about the record just because it’s a cover of ar old song.

“Hot ‘n’ Nasty” is scorching the airwaves meanwhile, and is all the justification you need to either like or hate the album. Smokin’ is, finally, constructed exactly like a typical British heavy-band set: hit single, rave up, rave up, traditional tune, rave up, Motown jam, boring blues excess, final rave up. You could fill in almost any decent band’s repertoire and except for the three cuts I’ve mentioned, you’d have Smokin’.

But Humble Pie bring something else to this, something that has made me play their latest record far more than any of their others, or even far more than I should have, given my sensibilities. I call it charm here, but it is more like ... spirit, grace, I don’t know. Even when they’re boring, they’re boring in a way that lets you know that the next cut might not be. As a result, I don’t take the record too seriously, it doesn’t take itself seriously at all, and we both get on just fine.

Dave Marsh

WHAT A BLOODY LONG DAY IT'S BEEN

ASHTON, GARDNER, DYKE & CO.

CAPITOL

Ashton, Gardner & Dyke’s first album might have been the best English punk-rock album of 1970. It was a sound forged from the beer belly of the British Isles: boozedrenched, throaty vocals, hard-driving, dungeon beat instrumental work relying on keyboards and rhythms rather than electric guitar for power, and tightly wound, threeminute rock ‘n’ roll songs, all of which added up to something like what the Young Rascals would’ve sounded like if they came from Blackburn or Liverpool.

The trio of Tony Ashton on piano and organ, Kim Gardner on bass, and Roy Dyke on drums, has since been expanded to include a full-time guitarist and three horns. Ashton remains the center of gravity, writing most of the material, anchoring the instrumental attack with his fevered keyboard pounding, and singing in a voice that sometimes resembles a less abrasive Cocker, other times half-speaking, merging the new Mersey sound with the English music hall tradition, the face on the barroom floor.

What A Bloody Long Day It’s Been is the new band’s first album, and with the exception of “Resurrection Shuffle,” it’s the first AG&D release in eighteen months. In a way, it stands in the same relation to the first album as Forever Changes was to the first Love album — the turn away from the bedrock to something more ambitious. It’s not an easy album to get into, but it has its rewards.

“Ballad of the Remo Four” is the song that made me think of Forever Changes. It’s mood is similar to that of “Maybe the People Would Be the Times ... ” from that Love album, with a mod flamenco hook line and a catchy, sentimental narrative about Ashton & Dyke’s days and nights with the not quite successful Remo’s.

“It’s Gonna Be High Tonight/It’s A Drag, I’m A Drag” mixes the new and old AG&D, a rock ‘n’ roll production number that could be from the soundtrack of one of those British pop war movies. “Long Way to Go” begins with a demented Thames Delta blues growl and becomes a fine supple rocker with some surprising horn moves. “(The old) Rock and Roll Boogie Woogie” speaks for itself, a drinking man’s delight that stops and starts, trails off and revs up, Ashton attacking his piano like a Leon Russell with a hammer on beer and Sopors.

Like all rock ‘n’ roll drunks, Ashton gets a bit self-indulgent. “The Falling Song” is ten minutes plus of mildly interesting horn moves but I can’t understand what it’s doing on this album. “Gotta Get Back to You” shows Ashton can write and execute a love ballad, but “I’m Going to A Place” is vague and mawkish.

All right. Everybody’s got to fool around and find out what they can do, and Ashton, Gardner and Dyke are looking to get it down. There’s enough gritty reeling here to make What A Bloody Long Day It’s Been a tough album, but there are indications that Tony Ashton, who personifies this band, is looking for something different. Good luck, Tony — just don’t forget when it comes down to it, you can’t beat that greasy kids’ stuff.

Wayne Robins

MACHINE HEAD DEEP PURPLE WARNER BROS.

If you liked Deep Purple In Rock, (and who didn’t and thought Fireball was O.K., but nothing overly special, then Machine Head ought to drive you to new heights of frenzied complacency. Deep Purple use exactly the same formula here as they did on the last two named albums — simple, straight-ahead rock and roll, always bordering on the frantic, but never quite crossing over. Machine Head presents some thirty-seven and a half minutes of formulized Purpleoria.

Now, it’s not that I don’t like the album or anything, I do. It does bother me a little that, if one had access to a number of tapes made by the band in the last two years, and had to put it into some sort of chronological order, (i.e. In Rock period as opposed to today) it would be a fairly impossible task. See, it all sounds the same. Simple melody lines are presented, worked on a little, Ian Gillan sings a few lines, everybody gets their assorted licks in, and then pack it up and go home.

This makes it all the stranger that the band would go to all the trouble of tracking down the Rolling Stones mobile in Montreux, Switzerland to record the album. I mean, they’d sound the same whether in Switzerland or the Ralphie Potts Recording Machine Studio, Pimple-by-the-Sea, Sussex.

There are seven songs on the album, all of which I won’t name, because it won’t mean anything to you anyway. They all have that overly familiar Purple sound spliced onto almost moronically simple melodies. Are the boys running out of ideas? Who knows. This’ll sell as well as Fireball at any rate which ain’t bad. So with that in mind, why not do the same things over and over again? But if things don’t change a little pretty soon, maybe the band’s faithful will stop buying the stuff.

Or, better still, perhaps this is a bowingout album. I interviewed a band some months ago who were touring with Deep Purple, and they strongly hinted that all was not right in the group foundation. Rumour or profound insight? Who gives a shit. All I know is that whenever I have small beer bashes for close friends and relatives, I put Deep Purple albums on and everybody seems satisfied. Now I got one more.

Alan Niester

HE IS TIRED BUT CLEAN:

A Sonnet for Soul Brother No. 1

Popcorn.

The Popcorn.

Do The Popcorn.

Come In And Do The Popcorn.

Let A Man Come In And Do The Popcorn. Let A Soul Man Come In And Do The Popcorn.

So Let A Soul Man Come In And Do The Popcorn.

It’s A New Day So Let A Soul Man Come In And Do The Popcorn.

Stump Yablonski