SLY & THE FAMILY STONE Fresh (Epic)

Even though lots of people sell as many or more records as he does, Sly Stone is probably the most influential musician of the last five years. He has changed the face of soul, and co-authored, with Jimi Hendrix, black psychedelic music, which a brief listening to your local AM station will inform you are now the dominant forms of Top Forty.

It is sometimes difficult to see the extent of Sly�s genius. He is black, and we are not accustomed to being �led,� even aesthetically, by blacks. Thus, Sly was almost forced into the role of house nigger for Woodstock Nation, and thus he came to make There's a Riot Goin � On, which might be the only truly epic album of the �70s.

It is not only Sly�s string of hit singles, and the remarkable achievement of Riot, which confirms his genius. The Guess Who have had more hits, and, certain rock critics aside, they are hardly possessed of genius. Rod Stewart has made an album or two that will stand with Riot, but he doesn�t have the hits to back it up. Alice Cooper may have made great albums and he has certainly made more great singles in the �70s than almost anyone, but Alice has not done what Sly has done, not by a long shot.

What makes Sly different is the consistency of his growth,'and his ability to consolidate that growth into a sort of power which few rock stars — and I think no other black one — have ever approached. Hendrix, however great his genius, was erratic in a way that Sly�s self-consciousness would never allow, a primitive savage to Sly�s urban sophisticate. Nor was Jimi ever quite so arrogant as Sly. At least, he didn�t flaunt the fact of his arrogance so broadly; Hendrix showed up late, played short sets and was generally a bad cat, but he never acted righteous about if. In a way it was beneath his concern. For a time, the brevity, timing and lack of his appearances almost became Sly�s sole concern, and there lies the difference.

Sly was able to get away not only with the arrogance of the no-show performer but also with the knife-twisting viciousness of parts of Riot because he has a larger core of black followers. Hendrix couldn�t have gotten away with it, because he was playing music which, in form, was white rock: Sly and the Family Stone are a soul band. When Hendrix put together an all black band, and put together an album that was mostly about blackness (the five Band of Gypsys set) he was attacked not much for putting out a bad record — he made worse — as for the audacity of the conception. When Sly made an all-black album with his integrated band (which is what Riot was, thematically speaking), he incurred some of the racial spite but, more frequently, he left his listeners too dazed to fight him.

I think it is fairly self-evident that There�s A Riot Goin� One was a semi-deliberate attempt to alienate Sly�s white audience. That isn�t all it was, nor did Sly really want to alienate his audience, but the idea of such a record could not help but be interpreted as a threat to the white audience. Sly must have known this but Riot went gold, anyway, pushed along by a great single, (�Family Affair�), some hip dance music, and most of all, a black audience.

But Sly doesn�t really want to lose that audience. He had to justify, to himself and perhaps to others, the ease with which he had been accepted in the \yhite marketplace, and Riot did that. In one sense, then, Fresh is an attempt^ to regain portions of the audience which have been lost, and in another, it is an explanation of the weirdness which produced Riot.

Had Sly not dope Riot, he might seem to us now to be little more than a younger, hipper version of the Staple Singers. There is a certain point at which songs like �Everyday People,� as great as they are, begin to seem frivolous and frustratingly naive. With the �Higher!� craze which the Woodstock movie inspired, Sly reached that point. With Riot he got past it, even though he didn�t really deal with what put him there in the first place.

Fresh is Sly coming to terms with himself as a rock star. It asks the same question Sly has always asked — �who cares?� — but the tone with which the question is asked turns the problem around. Initially, this group�s answer to �who cares� was, �We care.� On Riot, the reply was �I don�t know if anyone does.�

Fresh stands between. Sly is confident enough to say �I do,� quite straightforwardly in ��If It Were Left Up to You.� But in other places, he doesn�t seem so certain. The inclusion of �Que Sera Sera,� which is at one level a joke, is blso a trap for the unwary listener.

�Que sera sera/ Whatever will be will be/ The future�s not ours, to see/ Que sera sera,� is one way of stating the Woodstock philosophy. Because the song has such a fey history, it is hard to see how anyone could get to that, but Sly has done it.

Sly almost nods in agreement when he sings �Whatever will be, will be� but the growl in his voice, and the rumble in the music raises a larger question. If the future�s not ours, then whose is it? And if not ours, then what do we have left? And anyway, just because that�s the way they say it is, do I have to like it?

Sly doesn�t, probably because he can�t. It is not surprising that the only song on Fresh which reflects an attitude of acceptance is called �Skin I�m In.� Still, even though he has accepted the terms of his blackness, Sly has not accepted his role as a star. Not completely, anyway.

�Now I know what to do,� he sings, �No more selling me to you. Buyin� — that�s a no no no.�

Sly�s dilemma is as old as rock, the problem of the artist in the marketplace. How much of yourself can you sell, even on record, and retain your sanity, your sensibility, and, finally, your ability to produce? Every rock artist has had to deal with this problem, and there are a maze of methodologies within which one can work. Elvis chose to ignore the problem altogether, though when the pinch came, in the late �60s, he threw his hand in once more, if only for an hour on television and a couple of live shows. Dylan retired, then, when people started to forget about him, decided he was really just a session-man like everyone else. Paul Simon stretches himself thin, trying to become bland enough to satisfy all eight million purchasers of Bridge Over Troubled Water once more. Rod Stewart swears he�s never gonna be a millionaire, but if he doesn�t come up with another hit soon, it�s not gonna be a funny line anymore. And so on.

Sly�s answer could only come from Sly. My terms, he says, or forget it. But on the other hand, �I will try.� You can feel the contradiction in the music, which almost rises, on many occasions to the purity of exhiliration which characterized his early singles, only to be dragged back down by Riot. It�s Sly�s personal Catch-22.

The transition isn�t accomplished awkwardly, however. The catch is in the voice, often as not, or perhaps the rhythm section remembers, and sometimes it is just a realization on the part of the listener that what he is hearing sung is not altogether what it sounds like.

There have been few albums as rich as this one released in 1973. if there have been anv. but that doesn�t mean that Fresh will automatically make it. Some of the songs ring in my head, even after the short time I�ve had the album, but that doesn�t mean there is a hit here. Chances are, though, there will be, because Sly, however great the contradictions he feels may be, is a truly great rock singer in the first place.

At any rate, when Sly Stone, as opposed to almost any other rock star, assures me that he will try, I want to believe him. If he�s earned our trust, and I think that he has, the weight of his stardom may begin to lessen, at least a little. Let�s hope so, for his sake, and ultimately, our own.

Dave Marsh

GEORGE HARRISON Living in the Material World (Apple)

Time was, back in those pre-apocalypse days, when I wouldn�t have minded rft all being George Harrison. Sure, it seems a little silly but those were the days when we kids had limited ambitions. All the girls picked out the Beatle they�d like to lay and all us guys talked about which Liverpudlian we�d like to be, given our druthers. Everybody always wanted .to be Paul, �cause he got all the pussy; or John since he was the wise-ass. Ringo, of course, was just out of the question and that left George. I was the only guy on 34th Street who wanted to be him and it was mostly because he kinda hung back and acted cool, like he knew it all was a shuck and he was just going along with the act until he could cut loose and do what he really wanted to. Which would be phenomenal, I was sure of that. Boy, was I a schmuck.

George�s solo stuff up to now has been merely disappointing, all of it marked with occasional flashes of brilliance and hints of enormous, untapped potential. �My Sweet Lord� was the clincher. Its vapid music and sickly clinging lyrics demonstrated once and for all that George was caught up in Something Bigger than himself and it was sucking the talent right out of him. Religion. No matter what banner it flies — Krishna, Billy Graham, Lymanson, Psychic Cripples in Search of Nirvana, Bom Again Sons of Rennie Davis — religion is pure and total death to rock and roll. Religion androck both want your soul and your body (though the religious nuts won�t admit to the latter) and in any fair contest, rock and roll is going to win every time. Why? Because it�s more fun, that�s why. Rock and roll makes your body move; religion orders it to.

Give him dope, help him cope...

You�d think after the Beatles� laughable hitch with the Maharishi shozit that they�d get some damn sense in their heads. Instead, their worst tendencies were encouraged: Paul went off in search of the security of 9 to 5 and a warm hearth and laughing babies; John dabbled in various things; Ringo piddled around aimlessly; and George — he was clasped to Sri Krsna�s bosom. It�s been said before that the Beatles apart are about onefourth as interesting as they were together, but I think it�s gotten worse than that. Insecurity breeds insecurity and these guys apparently have it bad.

George�s latest album, Living in the Material World (can there be a better example of religious pretension?), is just a mess. A sickly sweet mess and it hurts to say that, but all it amounts to is one big, pathetic yearning for a security blanket.

The current hit, � �Give Me Love,� is an embarrassing extension of �My Sweet Lord.� Help me cope, I�m a dope. Jesus, how sad to see someone screaming for help. So why does it sell? Lotsa psychic cripples walking the streets these days and they�ll settle for any answer.

The rest of the album is better left unmentioned. Limp. Tender, longing lyrics almost supported by pointless, unfocused music. The only cut I can still stand to hear is �Sue Me, Sue You Blues,� �which is almost a Beatles song.

When George gave his ego to Sri Krsna, he also gave him his balls. I don�t care how powerful Krsna is, if he can�t inspire music with any more punch than this, he should stick to snaring the walking wounded of the hip generation. Krsna�s beautiful fantasies and fairy tales, in other words, have no place in rock and roll. To further clarify that point, let�s take a quick quiz on the album:

1) Why doesn�t George get a Krishna topknot haircut and put on an orange sheet and Hari the day away collecting nickels and dimes?

2) Does the obvious conflict of the Mer, cedes limousine pitted against Krsna�s flaming carriage mean a damn thing?

3) Who is the nude in the window of the mansion? Why is George wearing guns? What�s this business of the Jim Keltner Fan Club?

4) Does the Krsna garbage on the front cover outweigh the $1.50 in USA currency on the back? Why does this album retail for $5.98? How is all reconciled in the material world?

5) �All glories to Sri Krsna.� Indeed. What of the royalties?

Chet Flippo

PAUL SIMON There Goes Rhymin' Simon (Columbia)

Despite the fact that there probably haven�t been so many songwriters around since the heyday of the Brill Building, I�m beginning to think that songwriting is becoming a lost art. Fitting words to a melody is no easy task, and fitting words together to make a statement that is more than the sum of its parts is a task which mankind has been trying since the dawn of time without really perfecting the technique much.

Still, every wimp who can pick arpeggios on a guitar seems to be making records these days, stringing cliches together with absolute abandon, and, worse, people are buying it. Those who aren�t — like me — are finding it increasingly difficult to listen to any singersongwriters, and as a result I�m certain there are a couple of fine talents being buried in the landslide.

That�s why a new Paul Simon album is such a happy event. I�ve respected his abilities since the early days, when I figgered that anybody who had the guts to be that sophomorically pretentious in front of an audience had to have something going for him. When I first heard �Bridge Over Tro.ubled Waters,� I knew it was a good tune, despite S&G�s cloying presentation of it, and sure enough, a couple of months later, Skeeter Davis recorded it and demonstrated to me that I�d been right. And when Simon�s first solo album came out, I was enthralled. He was making big progress.

And Rhymin� Simon is yet another step. It�s not as flashy as the last one, it doesn�t have as many different kinds of musics in it, nor does it have as many weird stories like �Me and Julio�, but I like it.

I mean, these days when lots of folks will bend over backwards to concede that a second-rate Dylan song still shows touches of what went before, when Carly Simon can sell a million records because she has the teeniest bit of extra talent over her contemporaries, it�s refreshing to hear the work of a master craftsman. I suspect that this may be why so ■ many people are turning to country music, where people like Dallas Frazier, Willie Nelson, Tom T. Hall, and Loretta Lynn have been crafting exquisite songs for years. Paul Simon can do for me what those folks can also do at their best: make me like a song totally in spite of myself. The one which springs to mind is called �Tenderness.� The lyrics are straight out of a third-rate sensitivity session, but the tune is so good, and the words fit it so well, that I find myself singing it a lot. Or a silly little thing like �Was A Sunny Day,� which is a real beach-blanketand-transistor song (with a sneaky reference to �Speedoo,� whose �Chirstian name was Mister Earl�) of thd kind Simon�s been writing since �Red Rubber Ball.� Totally inconsequential, essential once you�ve heard it once.

To clinch things, though, Simon is a master at choosing backups. From'Los Incas to Stephane Grappelli to Jimmy Cliffs band, he has always made startingly original choices, and on this album, while kind of playing down the exotica, he has still managed to include some mellow backup work from the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Onward Brass Band, and Reverend Claude Jeter, formerly lead singer with the Swan Silvertones and easily one of the great singing voices of our times. The Fact that all this is done unostentatiously, yet with great respect, is very impressive.

My only quibble with Rhymin� Simon is that it is a little low-key for my listening taste, but that is a matter of taste and nothing more. One more fast number would have made the difference. And it�s silly to quibble — what we have here is a virtuoso display by a master craftsman, and there just aren�t that many songwriters you can say that about anymore. Pick it up - you�ve probably forgotten how good songwriting can be.

Ed Watd

YES Yessongs (Atlantic)

Although the graphics are really neat, especially /the one on the very back showing chunks of earth floating in space, the actual format of the cover stinks. Not only did I manage to chew the edges of my fingers into bleeding hamburger trying to get the rocord out of one of the pockets (only to eventually discover I was attempting to extricate an actual piece of the cover itself), but putting it all back together again once you�ve finished with it is an excercise in pure frustration rivalled only by attempting to fold up a road map while cruising down a mountain trail boxed in by two semis. Not for the impatient. (HINT: It should look like a letter �W� in the end.)

It is, I suppose, the ultimate Yes album — the one that will render all the others unnecessary. In six sides, Yes have managed to slam together all their big crowd-pleasing hits like �Siberian Khatru,� �And You and I,� �Roundabout� and the rest. Suffice to say that if you�ve put off buying a Yes album for the past year or so, Yessongs makes a good sampler. You�ll like it, Atlantic will like you, and everybody�ll be happy.

Admittedly, anyone who has never actually seen Yes in concert might well be suspicious of such a creature as a live Yes album. How, one might ask, does a band with a reputation (albeit probably undeserved) of being a studio contingent come off on a six-sided live disc? The surprising answer is that Yessongs justifies and even illuminates everything that Yes has done since Ttie Yes Album. The very fact that they can indeed reproduce all that complex stuff is worthy of some faint praise at least. Jon Anderson, it seems, really does sound like a five and a half foot high bastardization of a garden variety English sparrow. And the excesses'that Steve Howe spewed forth on �Roundabout� are all shorn off in a live concert situation, allowing him to takfe on the aura of a full-bodied power guitarist (as listening to his solo on �Yours is No Disgrace� will verify). All told, Yes are a very powerful quintet, not at all the effete bunch of rhyming sissies that we might have expected.

And despite the fact that it�s six sides, the boys in the band have managed to stay away for the most part from the scourge of the live album — the extended ego solo. Admittedly, all the lads are given a chance to step out front into the limelight once in a while, but what soloing they present is generally neat, precise, interesting, and most important of all, well integrated into the context of the particular song the band is playing. Most instrumental solos manage only to cut a song in half — a Yes solo builds onto it.�

But still, they�re not Black Sabbath. Yes still manages to inflict a decidedly heavy sound with strong displays ot tilings like harmonies and tunes, so nobody could accuse them of being heavy metal in any way. Course, fronted by Jon Anderson, they could be playing with tanks, pneumatic, drills and iron smelters and still not sound heavy metal. But who gives a shit anyway? Heavy metal is passe this summer, N�est-ce pas?

Yessongs is exactly what you�d expect a live Yes album to be — only more so.

Look Out/ Here Comes Rhymin� Niester

TEN YEARS AFTER RECORDED LIVE (Columbia)

A few years ago (America�s final year in her first decade of post-eminence grise, and a year, I might add, in which certain sectors of the country still held flagging hope that the grave debacle we slogged around in might somehow be reconstituted if we could only get out shit together.. .if the Buffalo Springfield would only reform... if Bob Dylan would only tell us what to do... if... if .. an4 can anyone ever forget the International Foundation of Inner Freedom for Christ�s sake? Anyway, 1969, folks. I happened across a mere sprout of a carrot-headed punk who at that time proclaimed to be spreading the word... the word being that Alvin Lee (aka Ten Years After) was .. the pure water and pure fire of a black mountain stream... I think perhaps he is God.�

It was a cute idea in a cute year, and the kid at the time was a healthy little hummer of agile Alvin�s fast-fingered and stinging riffs, pickin� away at imaginary airstrings and bending deep throaty bass notes at will, the cosmic sounds centered deep in the pristine recesses of his growing grey cortex, and all stolen from the walnut papered speakers of his Panasonic. The kid was a delight, and the album that produced such revelations was Sssh. An album later, however (Cric/clewood Green if my memory serves me well), he had changed his tune, and Alvin and the band had become �.. .like Chinese food, you know? It fills you up, but ten minutes later you�re hungry again.� His rap was together, but pretty disparaging even then, long before Woodstock had sent Ten Years After to hell in a handbasket in multiple images. Something was wrong, and there was a certain trepidation in his once cock-sure voice. Ten Years After may have been the specific, but I had the feeling he was talking about more than mere music. His last words in that rather spotty interview were �I really expected more Of Alvin�s head than Alvin�s fingers. . . never trust a rock and roll star.� Music was an input, and a big one for the kid back then but eventually the music goes off, and becomes only self-serving. The search outside, however, continues. You could tell when you looked into his eyes, even then, that he feared such an event, feared losing the magic of the music he had once known, the sounds that had once thrilled him to the very soles of his feet.

I lost track of the kid after that, much as I lost track of Ten Years After. A week ago, however, and under the oddest of circumstances, I ran into the kid again, and then his favorite band a few hours later, and wish now that I hadn�t. It was a sad meeting. On both counts. The kid wasn�t the same kid. Four years since the first meeting had taken its toll. He�d been reduced to eating tacos and burritos and drinking watery root beer from the innumerable Echo Park eateries as a staple rather than a post-concert luxury. There was, in fact, no luxury in his life anymore, a far cry from the crystalline days at Marin. He had nothing now except burned out sockets for a memory, pissholes for eyes, and a tremble to his fingers. His teeth had yellowed, and he looked like a real tired one hundred and eight as he sat on the green chipped bus bench just around the corner from the Burrito King at Alvarado and Sunset. The best burrito house this side of the equator, but I wouldn�t take my mother there to eat.

�Hey, man,� he smiled when he looked up, the wan. smile of a short tethered wastrel. �Where�ve you been?� He fashioned some rote and ritualistic handshake.

�Fucking around. Just fucking around,� I answered.

�Yeh, I know what you mean,� he nod^ ded, dropping the smiling aplomb for a moment and squinting narrowly down the littered and graffittied block toward The Imminent Big Deal in the Orange Dusky Sky.. Any minute now. �Know whatcha mean. So what�s happening? Where�ve you been?�

�Nowhere. Fucking around.�

�Yeh, it�s been a long, time, ain�t it. A long time, man.� He sighed, and shot me a quick glance, a half smile. �Man, I don�t even remember when you know, or why, or where, man. Where�ve you been?�

�Around.�

�Yeh, I can dig it.� He nodded. His voice trailed off. N�I can dig it. So where�ve you been?�

�So where�ve you been?�

�Here I am, man,� he grinned. �Jes fuckin� around. Park benching it, you know, man? I mean, what can I say? Got a cigarette?� I did. �Thanks. So... hey,� and his face lit up suddenly as he took a fierce drag, �where you .been?�

�Over the hill.�

�Great, man. Great,� he nodded again, like a mechanical bird, his eyes flickering, the cigarette jumping in and out of his mouth in a stacatto of nervous puffs. �Hey, what time is it, man?� he suddenly asked, rubbing his thin wrists. �What time is it? Where�ve you been?� A fool�s smile froze on his face.

�Comprende, man, comprende?�

Did I ever. And any ideas I had concerning his present musical acumen disappeared in a flurry of furtive glances beyond the present time and space of a soft air sunset on a magenta and high ozone count day. There were no longer any questions to ask. And surely no answers.

I went back home that night, deep inside my furrowed brow, and then, on a whim and sitting in the dark, I tried to listen to the new Ten Years After album. Some great idea. I managed to last only two cuts and perhaps three minutes of �Good Morning Little Schoolgirl� before wrenching the vinyl from the turntable in abject disgust. And there were still a full three sides-plus to do yet. Less than one, however, was all I could hack. Boring! Slow! Repetitious! Familiar! Alvin pretending to be Lee! Rehashes of a rehash! Programmed lows. The kid�s original humming had more vitality than Alvin�s impotent licks. It both hurt and pissed me off, but the past is the past and the best days of the kid and his favorite band are behind them. I turned the music off altogether and sat in pure silence for a while, wondered why, couldn�t decide, and finally went to bed to watch the all-nite car commercials.

J.R. Young

KINKY FRIEDMAN Sold American (Vanguard)

Texas Jewboy Kinky Friedman is the hottest musie-and-satire act to come along since the Fugs, but unlike them, he can sing and play his instruments/ More importantly, he�s also a lot more subtle. His debut album for Vanguard (a record label owned, appropriately enough, by Maynard and Seymour Solomon, who are - I forget - either ex-rabbis or rabbit sons) is gonna be one of the hottest platters for hi-brow giggle sessions for months to come.

Knowing that Kinky�d been around for a few years without convincing anybody in the record business that he was serious, and hearing that he�d offended every record exec in the land at least once with his songs, I came to Sold American expecting the worst. 1 was wrong. Not only does the boy have a good eye for satire, he also writes good melodies and some of his songs could even be called touching. The title tune, for instance, is about the death of a wino ex-cowboy star, and it conveys his inability to accept and understand just what has happened to the land he once knew.

But it is on Kinky�s other side that his reputation rests, and rightly.so, I�d say. Take the opening cut, �We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To You.� It�s a song that only a Texan could have writteh, and the first time I heard it I was laughing so hard that I missed the last two verses. �High On Jesus� is §o good that I wouldn�t be surprised if the Jesus Freax picked it up for their singalongs, unaware of its satirical content. �Get Your Biscuits In The Oven And Your Buns In The Bed� is the anti-women�s-liberation song to end all anti-women�s-liberation songs, if you get my meaning. And �Top Ten Commandments� is catchy enough to become a hit. Fat chance.

On the whole, the album is really solid, and I understand that now Kinky has a band of Texas Jewboys (Although I also understand that one of �em�s Chinese) who do a knockout live show, even if it is unlikely that Bill Graham will ever book them. Kinky Friedman, in short, isn�t as offensive as you think he is, but I bet he�s more outrageous than you expected. In fact, with the release of Sold Ameriqan, Kinky Friedman has become Judaism�s greatest gift to country music since .... since, uh,...

Ed Ward

ROXY MUSIC For Your Pleasure (Warner Bros.)

Ever since the advent of rock �n� roll there�s always been a few tweety performers who would insist upon re-directing the primitive rhythmic spirit of pop music onto a more, avant-garde, esoteric plane. This pattern, often triggered by a need to he too creative, gave early rock listeners such gaga treasures like �Walter Wart the Freak Frog� by the Thorndike Pickledish Choir or �Snoot Hoot� by the KKK. Then those dumbshit arty progressive creeps stumbled onto the trick and forced gunky operative vaseline down yer throat with the likes of the Soft Machine and who knows how many cultured European groups. Pink Floyd is space music, my ass!!! * Then along lopes this group from some School of Design with an honest attempt to cash in on the glamrbck bit. Nobody knows nuttin about em. Lead singer didn�t come from Blue Cheer, or the bass player didn�t hail from Cream. They just come outa the blue like real schmoes, and the peons at the top promote em, but still nobody could give a shit. Which is a pure shame cuz the truth of the matter is that this is the very first avant-garde combo worth listening to. They�re good mainly cuz they try too hard.

By that I mean that even tho they ain�t girls they still look pretty enuf to goose. They�re so glamorous and straight from Hollywood that they make ya swoon for sure. But their music ain�t sissy stuff. It�s as gruff as anything put out by Beefheart or Family, and it�s perfect for when you feel like doin the robot. This record is great for parties and may even put Roxy Music right up there with the Rivingtons.

Nevertheless, the problem with these pretty boys is that they ain�t got enuf grip for a national top ten chartwhopper. What they really need is a move on a TV show to set em on top. Like, Soul Train sets the fashion trends and pukes up War and stuff, but there ain�t one goddamn trend setting show for whites since Shindig, Where the Action Is, and the Monkees kicked the bucket. (American Bandstand never did really ever count cuz it was always just a Mouseketeer Club Tor teens.) So Roxy Music could start one and call it Sleek Goo Go-Go and you could bet it would have klass. There�d then be Roxy Music hair styles and suede shoes and jumpsuits and lollipops, and someone would put out a cheapo line of synthesizers that would sound like a muted Farfisa, and a whole new generation of chumps would once again mature like puppets on a string.

But it�ll never happen. These guys are much too hot for all that. They got an ample supply of too much of nothing going for em. Give this album two months, and I betcha you�ll be able to find it for 99 cents at your local K-Mart.

Robot A. Hull

COMMANDER CODY AND HIS LOST PLANET AIRMEN Country Casanova (Paramount)

There�s a persistent rumor about that Commander Cody and his outfit are thinking of moving to England for a while and then coming back to the US as an English band. The idea being that audiences here are suckers for 'English groups and maybe Cody would finally get the wide-spread acclaim that�s eluded him. A pretty fantasy and, although it�s obvious bullshit, it might not be a bad idea. Now that the novelty of long-haired country groups is wearing thin, Cody�s popularity appears to have peaked.

Now that everybody and his third cousin is a cosmic cowboy, aren�t you getting just a little weary of desperate rockers donning t>rand new Stetsons and coming out of the closet to admit that, yes, they actually liked country music all along and then they proceed with a lame, third-rate imitation of Bob Wills or Moon Mullican.

At least Cody & company were there from the first and they are first-rate. It�s not their fault that all the opportunists are giving C&W a bad name. There are about a dozen bands and singers', particularly in Texas and California, that I would like to see picked up and deposited in the middle of Panther Hall in Fort Worth on a Saturday night. You�d see pretty damn quick just how country they were.

But Cody, now, could handle it. This third album demonstrates his mastery of C&W and rockabilly. The only problem is that this entire business of modern country or �progressive country� or whatever you want to call it (in Austin, it�s lovingly referred to as �rednecks and longhairs getting together and grooving�) is getting just a little bit tedious. It�s not exactly dull yet but it�s getting that way. Much country music is fairly dull to begin with and imitations of it are bound to be paralyzing.

In Texas, the poor rednecks themselves have no place left to go, there are so many hippies rushing to the honky tonks to �groove� (you might call it slumming) with the �necks. The sight of a drunk University of Texas freshman trying to shake the hand of a drunk farmer from. Round Rock and slobbering about how much he �digs� Ernest Tubb is too much for my frail stomach, I�ll tell you. (The farmer punched him out, but that�s beside the point).

But about this album - it�s pretty good; a fine balance of C&W and rock. Buy it but leave those opportunists� records where they belong - gathering dust on the .shelf. You know the ones I mean.

Chet Flippo

KANTNER, SLICK, FREIBERG Barorr Von Toilbooth & The Chrome Nun (Grunt)

ANNE MURRAY Danny's Song (Capitol)

Anne Murray is the real thing when it comes to popular music of quality and enduring significance circa 1973, a hypnotically compelling interpretrix with a voice like moulten highschool rings and a heavy erotic vibe. What Anne Murray is about, make no mistake, is S-E-X with a capital X. Maybe you�re scoffing right now, you cant�t feel her vibe because you�re so burnt-out and jaded and stepped in sleaze that it takes the sight of Linda Lovelace jacking off 14 braying donkeys with her nostrils while giving head to the entire Class of �44 and playing pingpong on Henry Kissinger�s nuts with her toes in ToddAO jtfst to get your attention. Well, that�s your problem.

Anne keeps the heat up and brings you back again and again enraptured and slavering precisely by the scientific application of that time-honored and of late almost forgotten erotic technique - the holdout. She�s the ultimate tease, because she gives you nothing but her vibrating presence. No foldout covers with Lainie Kazan cleavage, no 4 page spreads in Playboy, not even breathy vocals a la Julie London. About all they ever show on her album covers is her head, or her body�s just a silhouette shrouded ip the infinite intangible beckoning mysteries of the night. Which gives you a lot to fantasize. «

Even if, as Rolling Stone magazine recently revealed, she does have �A large lesbian following.� But don�t let that worry you, that�s just kismet, this katy�s as straight as a yardarm except for her perfect pearly tits and roundy mound o� bush and arco droolo calves and well you know the rest...

She also told aforementioned mag that �I want to quit [showbiz] when I�m 30... and get married and have kids, and I really don�t believe you can combine career and family.� Which means we�d better get into this sweet honey jive of hers fast, starting with today when you�re gonna buy Danny�s Song. This album is her supreme recorded achievement, partially because she�s just now coming into her maturity, both vocally and in her choice of material — ain�t no filler here, whereas some of her earlier albums were almost as patchy as those excelsior-balls Helen Reddy keeps getting twined in. But here the title song alone is worth the price. You�ve heard it on the radio so you know it�s a masterpiece. It�s by that hippie panda Kenny Loggins, but don�t pay no mind, it was his one burst of brilliance. It�s all about, the impending birth of his (or Annie�s, or somebody�s) child, like Tupelo Honey except better because Annie ain�t running from no banshees of Irish gloom, she could well be in suburbia which is part of her triumph. Those people by the air conditioners need something to identify with, and it sure ain�t the Spiders From Mars.

Other highlights of the studio first side include Randy Newman�s �I�ll Be Home,� which ain�t been done this good since Barbra Streisand, except totally diff interp because Barb�s schnozzonasality gave her a Little Girl Blue poignance, whereas Annie�s a mature and fulfilled woman and means it not someday in the misty rosy future after she�s got herself sorted out but right now, you poor grime becaked khaki�d sap! Her'throat�s that open!

Danny�s Song really begins to whirl on side iwo, which was all recorded live in Ottawa before a frenzied crowd of Annie�s most pantingly ardent Canuck followers. Not a dry eye or seat in the house, and her performance is suitably feelingful and intense, though of course within the proper bounds, since half her charm and mystique is that much as Annie feels her music she never resorts to strident melodramatics a la Janis or Tina. She just ain�t that kinda tushie. She�s subtle. ��Ease Your Pain�s� by that blustery old bozo Hoyt Axton, who used to sing about cocaine until the hard life and fast wimmen got to him and he took to writing songs about ' and for succor. Annie gives it to him in milky globules of pure relief, too, no mistaking that aureole pillow. Freckles even I betcha. When she gives so much so consistently, you can only wonder how much she�s getting, expecially when she does songs like Scott �San Francisco Flower Pate� MacKenzie�s �What About Me,� which is the next hit single here and takes a real woman�s stand: Hey, you, stop walking on me! Gimme the real thing for a change, you big lug! Sure thing, honey!

But no. She�s obviously fulfilled, she don�t need you. All you gotta do is listen to that rabid mob howling for more after the raveup finale of �Put Your Hand in the Hand� at the end, and you know this honey�s happy, because what more than stardom could one woman ask cept the love of her man. She�s got stardom, and we can tell from the way she sings so nice and balanced and warm she ain�t no Judy Garland �Man That Got Away� Tuinal tainted tragedy, so she�s gotta have a man somewhere (bet he�s a carpenter). So she�s happy as a poteet, just like all us fans and dream lovers listening to her. So buy her today,

Lester Bangs

LEE MICHAELS Nice Day for Something (Columbia)

Yeah, Lee, it sure is a nice day for something. Like for hiring a new bass player maybe? I mean does anybody listen to the self-declared king of keyboards anymore? The man that refined the art of heavy organ in the sixties has been left behind by the flippant rock fans and he ain�t got nobody left except drummer Keith Knudsen around to keep telling him how great he is. See keyboards „ate in that decade, and who needs a Lee Michaels when you can have a Hammond-stabbing Keith Emerson, a Rikky Wakeman and the Yesthetics record, a Billy Preston wind me up and I�ll dance the funky chicken doll. Hell, Pete Townsend doesn�t even play guitar anymore with all these fun Arps and Moogs lying around his house.

So where does this leave Lee now that he�s on Columbia? Will A&M continue to release a never ending procession of double, triple and quadruple Lee Michaels live albums that contain three songs that all sound the same and go on for hours? And why did Elton John rip �Honky Cat� right out from under Lee�s bag of tricks? Jose Feliciano I understand, a little Bowie With �Rocket Man� was great commercial foresight, but stealing from Lee Michaels - now that�s low. Look, the guy gave ex-Raider Drake Levin some work when he needed it, right? Can�t anybody use a washed up, burnt out blues rocksichordist for session work these days?

In the face of impending anonymity Lee has opted for a mellow sound on his new album. Piano and drums all the way through, with a little harpsichord every now and then, and organ on only a few cuts. A courageous move if you ask me, especially since Lee plays piano worse than he plays organ and he plays organ about as well as Peter Tork did. And dig it, he�s tryin� real hard to write some heavy songs about life and social consciousness, like in the opening tune: �Your breath is bleeding and your heart is stinking.� Lines like that don�t come overnight y�know. And can you believe the Joni Mitchell moves on �Olsen arrives at Two Fifty Five,� just before he goes completely atonal for a few minutes. Like Jazz, man I mean jazz.

On �Rock and Roll Community� you get the feeling that Lee knows he�s slowly fading away. Catch the insight in these lyrics: �It was a rock and roll community/ No one had immunity. The hungry people, they�re nearly everywhere. And I don�t know what I�m gonna do about it/ I don�t know where to go to sing about it/ and I don�t know why I�m even singing �bout it/ but I know if I don�t sing about it I�ll have to shout about it.� Two songs later Lee goes to see his mother (�Went Saw Mama�) to get some maternal advice, and what does mom tell him? �All the children need sunshine, all the children need sunshine. Better play your simple song or they 11 have rain.� Lee tries real hard, too. He writes: �Nothing matters, but it doesn�t matter. Nothing matters much to me.� Is that simple enough, ma? He even gets earthy by putting his organ out of tune. But I don�t think it�s gonna help one bit. Hey Lee, have you ever thought about becoming a plumber?

Billy Altman

SPEEDY KEEN (Track Records/MCA)

Imagine the potential shake appeal of an oh-so-versatile British hood, archetypal rock schnozz of teen-Durante proportions slicing through the air like a proud windjammer, drummer/ pianist/ guitarist/ vocalist/ composer, ex-lap-dog of hotcha Peter Townshend, Rockin�Eccentric, ex-nucleus of the one and only instant thrill overkill English Beach Boys (known to certain befuddled souls as Thunderclap Newman), with a modified rooster-do a la Rod and suitably wasted anatomy! Imagine him fashinably schizoid as well, going the route from the sublime to the ridiculous on his first solo venture yet somehow maintinaing the perverse dignity that separates a star from dem talented thousands of clods cluttering recording studios and airwaves everywhere, and then imagine that his name is Speedy Keen as an added humid boost irina charisma! And you thought Sparky Lyle was cool...

Previous Convictions is kinda dualistic; on the one hand, it�s obvious that our lad Speedy was Thunderclap Newman and not just another boy in the band (just listen to �Old Fashioned Girl� or �Let Us In�, both logical extensions of the closet spaciness inherent in the best of Thunderclap�s stuff), which is fantastic, but on the other hand he doesn�t seem to know it, so we get sheer junk (like a version of Dylan�s �Positively 4th Street� that sounds like umpteen trillions of every slouch band�s version) thrown in with sheer beauty throughout the LP, and that makes for paranoid listening in anybody�s book. Shit, he�s got the noW to be a star. .. but now that he doesn�t have Pete Townshend to kick him around any more, will he follow it?

Dann DeWitt

ROGER DALTREY Daltrey (MCA)

Ah, that I could lead the life of a Roger Daltrey. Reposing comfortably in the highest echelons' of Mother Music. Myriad young lovelies at his beck and call. Connoisseur of fin6 wines and cheeses. A wardrobe befitting the crown princes of a dozen middle eastern, nations. Fame, fortune, easy street. With all this at his fingertips, how could he possibly go out and make such a shitty album?

I mean, Daltrey is just a horrible, unlistenable mess. Everything about it is wrong. It should have never happened like this at all. First off, the songs are just completely illsuited to Roger Daltrey and all he has ever represented (mod punk; sneering iconoclast; urbane limey etc). Whether Roger was consciously trying to keep away from anything that sounded Who-ish or not, he could have done miles better than these commonplace attempts. Ten of the twelve songs are credited to the song-writing team of �CourtneySayer,� the other two to �Courtney-Faith.� I readily admit that I don�t know who Sayer is, might be Daltrey for all I know, but what I do know is that the songs, for the most part, stink. Vicki Lawrence or Jerry Vale might make hits out of them, Roger Daltrey, never. Songs like �Way of the World� and �You Are Yourself� are maudlin, dumb arid aggravating. Only one cut, �One Man Band,� has any balls or commercial potential whatsoever.

Another major failing of the album is in its absolute joylessness. All of the songs seem to represent despair and sorrow. This, mind you, frorii a guy with millions of dollars, girls, rags, cheeses and the rest of that aforementioned shit. I mean, I got enough troubles of my own. I don�t need to come home from a hard day at Diamond Clay Products shovelling dirt to hear about Roger Daltrey singing �I worked hard and failed, now all I can say is I threw it all away� while reposing comfortably in his own studio (Daltrey�s Studios, Brnwash, Sussex). Screw that toffee-faced limey�s pseudo-blues. If I want to feel pity, I�ll read Jonathon Livingston Seagull or my diary or something.

And last, but by no means least, the album is so overproduced in places (credit again to mystery phantom-fuck up Dave Courtney and one time neat person Adam Faith) that a few of the cuts wouldn�t stay afloat wearing a life-jacket the size of Buddy Miles. (Come and get me, fat boy!!!) �You and Me� suffers from this marshmellow dilemma, as does �Thinking.� One of the few songs that might have had merit, �Story So Far,� is absolutely annihilated by a very ill-timed and ill conceived horn ensemble.

Poor songs, bad production and a definite lack of anything joyful make Daltrey as completely forgettable as Who Came First, Wistle Rymes and the two versions of Tommy. If it hadn�t been for Who�s Next, we might safely say that The Who have been dead for three years now. Be forewarned, Daltrey is another solo ego trip in a nifty jacket. Avoid it at all costs.

Alan Niester, The Human Bile

FOCUS ' (Sire)

Hahaha, hoho, heehee, chortle-chuckle, don�t you feel like a schmuck? Your parents kept telling you to learn how to play a flute, but no - you had to be cool and learn guitar. Good for you smartass, so you were cool for a while. When Dylan was the style, you played Dylan; when it was heavy stuff, you were able to play heavy stuff. Naturally, all the girls were thinking that you were supercool and there was nothing to worry aboutOn the other hand, I played recorder and babbled all the time quite incoherently.

There weren�t too many clubs that would hire a babbling recorder player so to make money I became a busker. Of course, the girls that came to hear me play weren�t cheerleaders, make-up freaks, or other such undesirable creatures from the deep; the girls that came to hear me were the ones that stopped wearing bras when Women�s Lib was still a glimmer in Gloria Steinem�s publicist�s eye. Anyway, we�d all go over to the beach and cremate our brains and generally have a good time. Sometimes I�d even get taken home by someone.

Unfortunately, all of that is behind me now, and all that was left of the babbling recorder player was a legend and an aborted fetus permanently preserved in jello. I lived a quiet, almost recluse life, never telling who I really was.

Everything was quiet until the middle of 1972. Someone was frantically knocking at my door in the early morning. I answered. The man knocking was hysterical and asked me in his broken English if I was the babbling recorder player. Feeling a little nostalgic I told him yes. Then he gave me his sob story. He told me that his group had made an album the year before and nobody paid attention to it. He had heard about me and wanted to know if I could teach him the things I knew since he played the flute,1 which is not too distant from the recorder. Well, I taught him everything I knew and the rest is history.

The first thing he did after that was write a song and get his group together to record it. The result was, of course, �Hocus-Pocus.� I�m not bitter about it at all; I had my fun and now it is someone else�s turn.

But rather than be appreciative and milk the gimmick to death, they stopped it after one shot. This time out they slam us with a double set, which isn�t too bad but could have been handled better. There is enough material to have one disc be all laid back, and one disc energetic, but that is lost in a poor attempt at symmetry.

Side one starts out all right but mellows into music you would pretty well expect in a jazz lounge. Side two, leading off with the title cut, begins to pick up even tho the melody has a vague resemblance to a medley of Petula Clark songs. Side three is the highlight. All it has is the cut �Anonymous,� which is so long it spills onto more lhan half of side four. Side four mellows out again.

Actually, I can�t think of a better album to have around on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Except for a spot where the music stops, side three is a good soundtrack to fuck by, but if you don�t come in a mere 19Vi minutes the song ends and the effect is lost.

Graham Carlton

JESSE ED DAVIS Keep Me Cornin' (Epic)

Jesse has two previous self albums out. Side one of the first, Jesse Davis, is Oklahoma, lick me baby, honk and hump rock at its very best, with production niceness; side two is 3/4 dreck. The second album, Ululu, is all dreck, above-average dreck to be sure, with one classic, �Red Dirt Boogie, Brother.� On the little record enclosed with Cornin�, a recorded interview with some heap L.A. deejay, Jesse admits that the first two were not that godawful hot.

With Comin � Jesse has solved the de facto dreck, the studio instrumental jam. A song with a title like �6:00 Bugalu� says it all, �cept for what�s left to be said by a :42 song (�No Diga Mas�) listed as one of the ten included songs on the outside cover.

Bet you think I don�t like it. Not true, just getting the reservations out of the way first. I do kinda like it, even the jams, which are neatly and discreetly executed. �6:00 Bugalu�s� far better than the title. No supreme boredumb, anyway. *

I just wish Jesse had gone into the studio with more set pieces �cause the ones he does include are snappers. Three are hump rock dong twister/twat wetter oral enthusiasms. Lyrics: �To every mirror she makes 'a pass/ Tis a pity she�s such an ass� (�She�s a Pain�); �Who stuck their finger in my old lady�s (sweet cherry) pie� (�Who Pulled the Plug�); �You go lickety lickety lickety/ Lickety lickety lickety & Lickety lickety/ Bomp� (�Bacon Fat�). Not much on paper, but Jesse boogie does shore it up on wax.

There�s one masterpiece, �Ching, Ching, China Boy.� Ching? Oh well, anyway, it�s about a truelife incident from' the third grade years where Jesse is chased and tauted by local toughs who piistake his Indian self for Chinese ancestry, pegging him with the chant. Virtue triumphs over prejudice, and ain�t that nice to know again, in a sweet diddle rock fashion. The prevailing honk and hump is interrupted by one introspective (�Where Am I Now [When I Need Me] �) and one lovey dovey (�Keep Me Cornin� �). You could put Keep Me Cornin� on the record player even to listen to, and you can dance to it.

Buck Sanders

MANASSAS Down the Road (Atlantic)

Well, why the hell shouldn�t Steve Stills sing in Spanish sometimes? After all, the Beatles sang the refrain of �Michele� in French.

But seriously, Down the Road is an exasperating album, because you know and I know and maybe even the entire cast and crew of Manassas itself knows that it�s basically just twelve inches of light-weight crap. But it�s still, somehow, a nice little album. Manassas is the group you hate to like, in other words, but, damn it, they�re actually likeable most of the time, giving lie to all logic, all taste, all intelligence ... Jesus. Who are these guys???

�So Many Times,� for instance, is fine, smooth, late Dillard and Clark or early New Riders; �Down the Road� is pleasantly reminiscent of Humble Pie in the best of their country-rock period (with B.J. Cole on pedal steel); �Pensamiento� is the sort of thing you�d expect to hear the (really sharp and romantically-enticing) hotel band singing and playing (in the background) in one of those post-�Flying Down to Rio,� pre-Tupamaro, South-American musicals; �Business in the Street� is so unprepossessingly mellow that it could easily have been the very best track on Still�s first solo album, if only it had been on that album. Best of all, though, is really �Guaguanco de Vero,� which is presumably about Mr. S.�s encounter with his now-wife, Veronique Sanson (�I was reborn on the Champs-Elysees�). The intro is one of those brilliant, step-onto-the-moving-sidewalk kind of things that carries you right off. (Jpe Lala�s percussion is largely responsible for the intro�s attractiveness, but even Dallas Taylor - who used to be just about the worst rock studio drummer in the world — can keep a pretty solid beat these days.) It�s just so feathery, gauzy, sparkly, and light. Wheel

Stills is also a very quaint lyricist. If you listen to the words in music like this. (I don�t, but I have a bad habit of reading the accompanying lyric sheets, which is sometimes even worse). A very quaint little lyricist. Really enjoyably so. Consider his paraphrase of one of Nabokov�s more famous public pronouncements, for instance: �I play the music-for the music you see/ For the money,

I do publicity/ So I can buy guitars, put a. studio in the backyard.� Or his genuinely psychedelic (in 1973!!!) lines like! �Can you see them running their games on my mind?� And, howsabout this particular high-quality archetypical lost-woman-in-the-big-city verse: �She was strong, she was pretty/ Such a pity/ New York City took my love away/ Yes it did.�?

The best thing of all about Manassas and Down the Road, though, is just the whole idea that anybody, even Steve Stills, really cares enough these days to put music like this together. What innocence! What charm! What good, old-fashioned musical values! Manassas could almost be the Sha-Na-Na of mid-�60�s folkrock, only Sha-Na-Na doesn�t really mean it, and Manassas does.

Colman Andrews

FHAMPTON'S CAMEL (A&M)

Frampton�s Camel, which does have to do with Peter Frampton (ex-Humble Pie, among other things) but which does not have to do with Sopwith Camel, Donald Cammell, or Kemal Ataturk, could be a whole lot worse. It�s sort of nether-land rock (and I don�t mean Dutch), fairly reminiscent of some of the softer Humble Pie stuff Frampton and Marriott used to do so well: it sure isn�t power rock, it sure isn�t chicken rock. On the other hand, it isn�t country — or folk — or jazz-rock either... It is rock, though. And it�s not that it defies labels, that it�s some sort of unique, unclassifiable music. It just sort of doesn�t deserve labels.

Frampton, incidentally, seems incapable of singing a single note straight on. He always bends notes or slides around them, and the result is really quite endearing, in an �Aw, gee� kind of way. There�s a certain sameness of sound here, and god knows there�s a dullness of lyrical conception (a good lyricist Frampton ain�t), but Frampton�s Camel is as good as the next group, and this particular lp is a good, solidly professional, thoroughly expendable piece of music.

Besides, there�s a spiffy, middle-periodDavid-Bailey-like photo poster of Frampton inside the album jacket, and it�s taken by Justin de Villeneuve. And you can�t complain about that, can you?

Colman Andrrews