BOWIE Diamond Dogs (RCA)

D-d-d-cfecadence, that’s what this album’s all about, thematically and conceptually. You’ve all heard of that stuff, and now you can buy it red hot and regurgitated from the poor stiffs who actually have to live it and your local platter vendor. Only trouble is we gotta question whether Bowie of all people actually does live it. Aw hell, he’s a goddam family man, he doesn’t hardly take drugs, and perhaps the most perverted thing about Bowie’s music is that in troweling on the most studious sort of retching emotionalism he always comes out precisely as cold as we know him to be. Lou Reed’s always talking about atrophied sensations, but Lou really can feel (that’s his problem); I don’t think Bowie can feel, and the irony is that in making albums about future brats’ hysterical detachment from feeling he really does them feelinglessly. All the hysteria is contrived.

But that’s okay, because the same thing applies to the great Sonny Bono’s vintage work, and Diamond Dogs reaffirms what an incredible producer Bowie is even if most of the songs are downright mediocre. The decadence angle comes in mostly because Bowie knows how cool it was in 1972 to be wasted, so even though he’s not wasted himself he’s put up a big front in the form of a wastedsounding album. He was always weary, and pretentiously likes to think of himself as the prescient chronicler of a planet falling to pieces, so this again is a quasi-Orwellian concept album about a future world where the clockwork orangutangs skulk like dogs in the streets while the politicians etc. and blah blah blah. Also this is the sloppiest Bowie album yet, so if the theory goes that it’s better the more decadent it is, and decadence is not caring at all, then this must be Bowie’s masterpiece, since he really doesn’t seem to care as much as he used to. Or maybe that’s all part of the total set-up: what’s certain is that for the first time his production has a dense, smoky, eccentrically rough and claustrophobic touch, and it can’t be an accident because he doesn’t have any which is one of the things that’s wrong with him.

“Future Legend” opens the beast with a snarl of noise reminsicent of the intro to Berlin, from which Bowie emerges with his thickest-tongued quasi-poetics yet: “And in the death, as the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare..Sounds like Tom Wilson’s “Let them rot in the‘stifling air of their flowerspun graves” rap at the beginning of the first Beacon Street Union album. A brief offkey snatch of “Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered,” and Bowie screams “This ain’t rock ’n’ roll, this is genocide.”

Which isn’t the dumbest line on the album. All production phantasmagorias aside, I’m getting a bit tired of his broken-larynxed vocals that’re so queasily sincere they reek of some horrible burlesque, some sterilely distasteful artifice. It’s the same old theatrical delivery of pretentious lyrics: “Your’re dancing where the dogs decay/ Defecating ecstacy”:: “Oh, I love you in your fuck-me pumps”::“Choking on you lightly.” Really. There are moments when his words are less embarrassing: at one point you can’t tell if he’s saying “my friend Celine” (great line if so) or “I keep the vaseline” (bad one but good comedy maybe). I’m glad he didn’t enclose a lyric sheet with this sludgesluice. >

Musically the album is uneven. “Rock ’n’ Roll With Me” and “We Are the Dead” are mediocre ballads unredeemed by vocal melodramatics, ‘‘Sweet Thing/ Candidate” is two jumbled songs saved only by brilliant production, and the title track is a sloppier, slushier “Watch That Man” out of “Brown Sugar” and New Orleans R&B complete with saxes. It’s supposed to be some spew of get-it-on desperation, but really sounds pretty tired in spite of some earnest garage Keith Richard guitar work by Bowie. You miss Mick Ronson consistently, but Bowie’s playing is somehow oddly satisfactory because it’s so like a kid — proud, a bit off, showoffy.

Meanwhile, he’s singing more like Jagger than ever, which falls flat in “Diamond Dogs” but makes “Rebel Rebel” one of his best ever: solid guitar hook, and the whole thing remixed from the single to give it the same density as the rest of the album. Gjreat lyrics for once: “You’ve tom your dress/ Your face is a mess... Hot tramp, I love you so.” If only Bowie could settle for that kind of simplicity all the time.

I think that Bowie was attempting a sort of futurist Exile on Main Street here, trying to put across a similarly hazy, messy brilliance, an equally riveting vibe. I think he failed, and the reason he failed is that Exile contained real commitment, a certain authentic last-ditch desperation which Bowie has not really captured since The Man Who Sold the World. That doesn’t mean, of course, that Bowie fans aren’t going to find a way to like this, or that other listeners won’t find a certain amount of entertainment in the murk.

DUCKS DELUXE (RCA)

Although you’d never know it from looking at the charts on either side of the Atlantic, there exists in England a very popular type of rock and roll music which has been dubbed “pub rock.” The bands who perform it have developed a loose, informal approach to performing, a sound that doesn’t sourtd like a multi-megaton anything, and a sense of being laid back and forceful at the same time. In one sense, they are the ultimate extension of our old friend the Bar Band, and in another, they may be one of the last refugees of the True Spirit of Rock And Roll.

Of the three major pub rock bands recording, only one, Ducks Deluxe, has any records available in the United States and that has only just come out. The other two are Brinsley Schwarz, who had a couple of amazing albums on United Aritsts that went nowhere thanks to poor promotion, and Bees Make Honey, whose British EMI album is a true delight, but won’t be coming out here in the near future. So, before we get to the Ducks, let me urge you to seek out the Bees’ LP and the Brinsleys’ Silver Pistol and Nervous On The Road albums, or at least their new. British cheapie LP, Original Golden Greats (a fine compilation of their past stuff).

Okay: Ducks Deluxe. In many ways, this band is really typical. Two oldies, one obscure (Eddie Cochran’s “Nervous Breakdown”), and one well-known (“It’s All Over Now” being played arid sung as it hasn’t been since the Stones finished *with it). Most all the songs in the three-minute range, rocking as if there were no tomorrow, with lyrics that attempt to evoke one or another virtue of an America these sods have never visited. Why, they even use Brinsley keyboard man Bob Andrews on three cuts.

What distinguishes the Ducks’ album is the use of horns on a couple of tracks, playing Stax licks like the Mar-Keys used to do in the golden era of that Memphis label. Really stupendous, but something one should expect from the producer who gave us the Funky Kingston album. Plus, there’s Sean Tyla’s very distinctive voice — a kind of Limey Doctor John who takes some getting used to, but is really appropriate for the material.

Jeez, there are so many good things to say about Ducks Deluxe that the best thing I could say is “get the album.” There are hit singles (“Coast to Coast,” “Please, Please, Please,” “It’s All Over Now”) and a feeling coming off the album that you may have forgotten. No glitter, no flash, just good danceable enjoyable music. Git ’em, Ducks!

Ed Ward

VARIOUS ARTISTS History of British Rock (Sire)

It shoulda been a ten-record set, then you coulda had the likes of the Koobas, the Montanas, the Action, the Riot Squad, and all the other semi-obscure mid-sixties English bands. But who’s complaining? On this set even “Maggie Mae” sounds fine which puts everything — decent liner notes, attractive cover artwork, selections ordered tastefully, etc. — on the superb level of Nuggets.

Out of the 28 hits you’re bound to find that at least half get ya pining for the days of RADIO and Shindig. It’s the best with the beat and should be listened to in conjunction with Vol. 3 No. 1 of Who Put the Bomp (in which you’ll discover the deem dark secrets of Weekend in London and The Rattles’ Greatest Hits). I refer any questions to that publication.

Of course, the top limey bands at the time were the Animals, Them, Zombies, the Troggs, DC5, Jhe Who, Small Faces, and the list varies according to taste/lack ’o’ taste. The core is that it wuz an extremely fertile period with lotsa junk bands even leading the pack (nuttin as crummy as the Detergents tho). Yet, this can get blown all outa proportion when you spend half yr lifetime searching for Ian and the Zodiac’s album cuz ya heard they were good (not worth a damn). Greg Shaw makes it perfectly plain in his liner notes that' THERE’S LOTSA GREAT MUSIC NOW! So unearthing “rare” archaelogical finds isn’t that goddamn important as long as there’s a copy of Raw Power lying around. Record collecting is a meaningless task for centipedes who like ^to categorize and cheapen good music for a price ($$$). So put this album in perspective, chump, and best not to go leaping off canyons with mid-sixties Anglo pop collecting fever. Save yr hysteria, and listen to the Dolls.

Anyway, the rough edge of this collection is the inclusion of the Bee Gees, Donovan, the Merseys, and Cliff Richard. That quartet of flaws prompts ya to get off yr can and dance the needle around on sides two, three, four. SIDE ONE WINS!! Everybody I’ve talked to thinks so, too, except the Silkie sez they like side four cuz it includes Billy J. Kramer and his “You-Know-Who” Group. But any side of a record that begins with “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” into the chunko rocker of all time, “Have I the Right,” and closing with “Hippy Hippy Shake” deserves an OH YEAH(!). I’m also getting to hike songs that I used to hate cuz they were too poppish (“In the Summertime,” “Pictures of Matphstick Men,” “Easy Livin’ ”) and beginning to despise songs I used to luv cuz I’m getting sick of em (“Wild Thing,” “Itchycoo Park,” “A Groovy Kind of Love”). One thing this collection does help you do is to focus your taste.

Nevertheless, altho it may be quite adequate as a best-of compilation, it is unlistenable for more than three times. True, ya get songs which ya might never find, but are you gonna listen to it, that’s the question. The packaging is simply incredible, and frequently forgotten masterpieces, like the Spectorish “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine,” jolt ya with their brilliant scope so that the albums take on a resemblance to a mid-sixties radio show on a weekday nite at nine, but where’s the dumb part? Personally I find the baloney on the Fontana package, England’s Greatest Hits (includes free Union Jack), much more fun and listenable just cuz it’s so trivial with the likes of Millie Small, the Springfields, and the New Vaudeville Band. Which sorta leads into actual authenticity as opposed to contrived “collections.”

Ah, forget it! Solid work wuz put into this parcel ’o’ hits, and ya shouldn’t knock it. They be the best from England with or without yr own private opinions. Any one of us would’ve arranged the stuff differently and included other things for various reasons and still it wouldn’t have been perfect. Too much pop at one time. This be the definitive word on British Rock, and that’s about it.

Robot A. Hull

BLUE OYSTER CULT Secret Treaties (Columbia)

Blue Oyster Cult had it hard from the very start. Their first album was a critical success and was one of the things that elevated metal to a 70s high art. But it illustrated a minor annoyance that parsed into Tyranny and Mutation, the band’s tendancy to use musical deja vu as the starting point for something in their music that was distinctly their own. I strongly feared that people would buy the Cult’s albums just to guess at which groups they were imitating/stealing from. The group would simply have to find a way to set their style in a changing framework if they were ever to become anything more than a musical novelty with little going for it except a dark vision.

little going for it except a dark vision.

Perhaps the Cult recognized this; their approach is so basically calculated. Their premier album was an attention-getter; the first side would hook you and gradually the second side would begin to take root. The second album was somewhat confusing in that it seemed, at the first, less heavy. This was due to the group’s usage of the tricks they had learned from the moody, second side of the first album. Instead of the instruments playing regularly in unison, that approach began to be used for emphasis, and its replacement was a near jazzy use of shimmering keyboards and shifting guitar lines as a means to an end. It opened more avenues of escape and created a rather unique direction for a group who might have continued to make heavy, but boring albums. Secret Treaties is thus the biggest leap by the Blue Oyster Cult in a stylistic direction that bears a distinct signature.

Secret Treaties concentrates more on the macabre aspect of the group’s material, but manages to rock in an albeit subtler way. “Dominance and Submission” is a tale of depravity expressed through dissonance and unpredictability. “ME 262” uses a conventional, near-Chuck Berry riff to point up the indirect hazards of being a young, Jewish lad obsessed with Nazism (the Cult have probably been having a lot of nasty calls from the JDL on this one). Although both “Career of Evil,” with its sort of haunted house theme music, and “Cagey Cretins” with its familiar musical backdrop, rise above their beginnings.

The most striking thing about the whole album is that it sounds almost as if it had been made by an entirely different band. The starkly beautiful “Astronomy” and the soaring “Harvester of Eyes” explore directions that the first album only hinted at reaching and that’s the secret. That’s why you should be waiting for the next album as much as I am.. The surprises and the subtleties may make the Blue Oyster Cult the first group to go beyond heavy metal ever.

Lawrence Keenan

LYNYRD SKYNYRD Second Helping (MCA)

Here’s a Southern boogie band. There’s a Southern boogie band! Everywhere Southern boogie bands!! Gawd, am I sick and tired of Southern boogie bands!!!

Then why has Lynyrd Skynyrd’s second album, Second Helping, been stuck on my turntable for a week now? It’s basically the same ol’ Allman Bros. — ripoff schtick 2002 other bands are playing these days, right down to a Greg Allman imitation lead vocalist and double guitar leads. But there’s something truly unique about Lynyrd Skynyrd — as opposed to all these other sonic boom boogie ’n’ blues groups, anyway.

Maybe it’s that after a first effort marred mainly by poor material, they’ve learned to write real live songs with pretty interesting lyrics, good riffs, catchy choruses et al. They’ve even got a chugger here called “Workin’ for MCA” that lives up to its title, and there’s another mover entitled “Sweet Home Alabama” with the immortal line: “I hope Neil Young will remember/Southern man don’t need him around, anyhow.”

Or maybe it’s that Lynyrd Skynyrd is developing a sound of its own. Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant’s Greg Allmanisms are understated, not at all offensive, and, actually, quite effective. And the band’s blend of three guitars and piano as the main instrumental voices is smooth yet not slick, with the double guitar leads being more new Lynyrd than early Allman.

In fact, screw the ABB comparisons, the Skynyrds, on their second try, have come up with a pretty dandy, even vibrant little package. No hotshot album of year honors for ’em, but they just may stop me bitching about Southern boogie bands — for awhile, anyway.

Andy McKaie

THE POINTER SISTERS That's A Plenty (Blue Thumb)

The Pointer Sisters are basically the Bettes noires of East Bay jazz-rock jive.

They dress like the cream of 50s black society as depicted in Amos ’n’ Andy, they sing like coy 50s cocktail be-boppers, and they’re just generally too hip, baby.

That’s the sociological part.

Their new record is all right, though, especially if you happen to like highly polished musical archaeology. Which is not to say that all of their songs are old, but those that aren’t are made to sound as though they are. x The Pointers’ main inspiration is pretty obviously Lambert Hendricks & Ross (late & Bavan), with touches of the Andrews Sisterp, Three Bips and a Bop, and those sly jazz free-for-all songfests that people like Joe Carroll, Milt Jackson, and Dizzy Gillespie used to swing into so happily.

In fact, one song here — “Little Pony” — was a LH&R standby (Lambert and Hendricks wrote the lyrics, to a Neal Hefti riff, in honor of saxophonist Pony Poindexter). Another is the old Gillespie/Kenny Clarke classic “Salt Peanuts” with words newly-added by Bruce Good and Jeffrey Cohen. Herbie Hancock plays on three tracks (including “Pony” and “Peanuts”), and everybody from Jesse Ed Davis and Bonnie Raitt to Harry “Sweets” Edison shows up in one place or another. A real swinging house-party, man.

The Pointer Sisters can be fun. They’ve got reasonably good pipes, and reasonably tight arrangements, and one or two of them can even scat pretty decently now and then. But they’re just too highly stylized, too slicked down and neat. They are too much gloss on not enough gold: And, in terms of vocal personality, in terms of ability to communicate (through humor, even) some measure of pathos or uncertainty or selfmocking bewilderment at jazz life or life jazz or whatever, there isn’t half an Annie Ross among all four.

Colman Andrews

MILES DAVIS Big Fun (Columbia)

Miles has been making music as albums for a long time now — and some of it has moved me as much as anything I’ve ever heard. He’s got classics like Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain and In A Silent Way behind him, to name a few. He’s moved from the bop shadows of Charlie Parker, thru a spell as urbane midnight balladeer, and then emerged as a wah-wahed prince of electric fringe. His sidemen have moved on to their own groups, and most of the space explorations Miles has made have left their mark on everybody’s sound.

But in the last year or so I haven’t heard much from him that would be worth the effort to hear again. The couple of concerts I saw were exercises in mannered contempt (of course I guess the audience expects it - if Miles came out and said “Good evening, welcome and make yourselves at home” they’d probably shit) — that’s really irrelevant of course, what counts is the music - and when I saw, it didn’t count for much. His band personnel seems to change every other Thursday (there are legends about his impossibility to work with) — and while one of the bands I saw him with had occasional flashes of inspired proficiency, the other was a bunch of soggy incompetents who had difficulty making noise.

The last live album from Miles didn’t bother me or move me, I made myself listen to it once, put it away and haven’t seen it in months. (In A Silent Way gets turntable time every month or so.) Now I’m hip that Miles has made a sub-career out of leaving fans behind, hung up on something he used to do, and wanting more of the same — so I gotta say I’m all for electronics, and new soundshapes. .. it’s just that where Miles used to drill holes in my skull, now he makes me yawn, or itch a bit.

So comes this cleverly titled double album — one Of the best things about it is that three of the four sides feature old bands and sidemen, ranging as far back as Bitches Brew. The opener, “Great Expectations” is a transitional cut; from the McLaughlin/Corea/ Hancock/Cobham sound to the sitar/ tamboura drone and twinkle. (I could swear I heard this track, or one much like it when columnist A1 Aronowitz took over an FM radio show for a week and played some unreleased Davis a few years ago.) The 27 minutes move from a swirling pulse to a spacey/timeless kind of flow. If you have trouble distinguishing wah-wah trumpet from the piano or whatever don’t worry about it, it’s all music. Side Three “Go Ahead John” (features only Miles, Jack DeJohnette, Steve Grossman, Dave Holland and John McLaughlin; it’s from the Bitches Brew mold, and has some nice echo-plexed trumpet lines; John gets a few nice rides in it too. In the 28 minutes here, Miles does some of his most out-front and lead oriented trumpet work, slipping melody rather than pulse purely. “Lonely Fire” is side four, and my favorite — ain’t nobody can play them aching sounds like Miles — the title is really apt. Tamboura is strong here, and you can get lost a long time inside. An incredible mood piece.

“IFE” is the weakest cut, and features most of the recent sidemen — tho the approach is still much the same; a pulse is set, varied, explored and gradually turns into a slow moody swirl, somehow it just don’t get it. The rhythm parts /have that cementclaustrophobia and neon-paranoia of jerky robot dancers, the swirl seems less of an exploration and more of an evasion... all in all it just doesn’t go as far or as deep.

If like me you dug Miles but heard him lately and thought “ah what-the-fuck,” then you probably really dig this album, 2 dynamite sides at least. But if you’re like me, you’ll probably also be a little saddened by what sure sounds like a loss of interest in Miles’ more recent work.

Tony Glover

FRANK ZAPPA Apostrophe. (Discreet)

This is pretty much an extension of the Mother’s Overnite Sensation which is a shame because Zappa’s records used to be noticeably different (better) than the Mother’s records as opposed to say Rod the Sod’s records and what’s-their-faces records. Just a bunch of songs here with the little Zappa arrangemental idiosyncracies that have become almost predictable by now. I love it. It’s all in the words, which is why I used to hate folk music (strumming a few lame chords and telling these whole stories and calling it music for Chrissake). But everybody changes, practically. Everybody’s gotten weird, most likely, and I like the music because bf the lyrics.

You gotta hand it to the band, folks, they’re really together, yessir. Accomplished musicians, no kidding. Just change the lyrics, tho, and cool the arrangements a taste in spots and these songs would sound right comfy coming from a group like the ill-fated Ginger Baker’s ill-fated Airforce. Overarranged ersatz blues (Airforce’s ill-fated specialty);

What makes all the difference is that Zappa has been all through vegetables, really did a total job on what they are and what they imply, and now he’s into animals, mostly dogs. This is very important and it isn’t just wayward poetry. And it isn’t Dada either for all you culture clutchers who might whip out some past phenomenon either to let us know that you know about such things or because you actually believe it (the latter are the good guys, just misled — the former are the bad guys trying to make it as snobs, lost causes). And Zappa is really a fantastic guitarist, often overlooked these days, with more musical taste (balance off feeling, execution, speed) in his little pick than Mahavishnu John has in his whole astral.

One warning: the total playing time here is only a little over a half hour, which in. these days of modem times qualifies as a small rip-off.

Richard C. Walls

AEROSMITH Get Your Wings (Columbia)

MGM Records wasn’t necessarily misguided in its big Bosstown hustle of 1968, they just flubbed up and signed the wrong bands. Why would you want to hear the Beacon Street Union when you could go across the street and catch the J.Geils Band, or, a season later, the incipient Aerosmith? Premature promotion thus forborne, the latter two Boston bombers came up the classic payin’-yo’dues ladder, and finally began raking in their deserved commercial successes last year. Much as I love the J.Geils Band to death precisely for their antiquated bluesmit-showmanship epijive, I’ll have to give the nod to Aerosmith as the worldbeaters of the future, as they’re hitched much more firmly to the star of the Seventies. Aerosmith derive their sound from two potent traditions, the first the primordial punk of such early Boston bruisers as the Barbarians and the Remains, and the second the Lizardian Dynasty founded by the late Jim Morrison, held briefly by Alice Cooper until he abdicated for the bitch goddess he loved, and finally devolved upon Aerosmith.

So Steve Tyler is the new Lizard King, long live the king & etc., but don’t tell him just yet, as I’d like to see him and Aerosmith whip the shit out of a few more of those English bands they always get second-billed to. “Train Kept A Rollin’ ” is the sole such English invasion mopperupper on the new, album, Get Your Wings, and includes both studio and live sections to insure the total dismemberment of the Yardbirds mythos. That’s only so much smartassing, though, as the heart of Get Your Wings lies in signature cuts like “S.O.S. (Too Bad),” “Pandora’s Box,” “Lord of the Thighs,” and “Woman of the World,” which sound like nothing so much as Alice Cooper at his finest moment: i.e., they share the killer kineticism, nosethumbing existentialism, and unreconstructed male chauvinism of Coop’s “Under My Wheels.”

Having Bob Ezrin along as executive producer of Get Your Wings may have helped bring a Cooperian sound out of Aerosmith, but it’s probably more a case of a band whose time has invincibly come. Alice Cooper sold his birthright for a mess of pottage (i.e., panties for album liners), and now it’s up to Aerosmith to redeem his failed vision. Soon we can reverse the allusion, and talk about how much Killer sounds like Aerosmith. Or maybe we won’t, as Aerosmith could thrust forward in any one of a dozen powerful directions, as exemplified by the nouveauChess (Willie Dixon lyrics and jiving horns) of “Same Old Song and Dance,” Get Your Wings’ biggest hit thus far.

In any event, I feel secure that Steven Tyler should enjoy a long reign as the Lizard King, and not be found dead in a bathtub at 27. As I watched Aerosmith leaving for their hotel after their recent Cincinnati appearance, while the assembled groupies were chattering about the divine-ness of Tyler’s orange velour midicoat and blue satin pants, I noticed that he had quietly covered his baby-blue ballet slippers with functional, plain black Totes for the trek across the wet and raw streets outside. Now here’s a dude who minds his old lady and takes care of himself, kids, and you I should too. Pick up on Get Your Wings without fail.

Richard Riegel

TERRY MELCHER (Warner Bros.)

The front cover of this album shows a freckled, strawberry blond young man in a white ribbed turtleneck and white singlebreasted jacket, from the solar plexus up, standing (we presume although he might be sitting) in front of white seamless paper.

There are no dark colors to be found anywhere on the cover of this album. There are no spots on the young man’s clothing and the letters which spell out his name, Terry Melcher, are the color of his hair.

It would seem that the desired effect is innocence or purity.

On closer examination we notice that there are two black spots on the cover of this album. They are the pupils of the young man’s eyes. The irises are olive drab. We notice also that the young man’s lips do not quite meet, revealing an eighth of an inch or so of what are probably sturdy teeth. This young man was perhaps unable to have his overbite corrected when he was a child because he came from a poor background, or if he came from a wealthy background he has perhaps experienced recent growth of two or more of his front teeth. V

As to the expression on this face, we are unable to immediately identify it. It is perhaps a come hither look. He is not smiling. He has a moustache. He has a Jay Sebring style haircut.

The back cover of this album is photographed in a style known as “soft focus” which was pioneered by Miss Doris Day. It depicts Terry and a “model” identified only as Melissa, both attired in white trousers and white ribbed turtlenecks. Terry seems to be wearing boots with a Gucci style buckle. His right hand is hanging in front of the area known as the crotch, his left hand is grasping his right wrist with the thumb and forefinger. “Melissa” has her left arm draped around Terry’s shoulder and her right hand is resting on the left side of Terry’s abdomen. Both are looking directly at the camera. It is interesting to note that Melcher’s head is at precisely the same angle to the camera as it is on the front cover and his face wears the identical expression.

We know, however, that the front cover is not cropped from the back cover photo because, firstly, the front is in sharp focus, secondly, no sport jacket is worn on the back, thirdly, Melissa is not on the front, although we can’t imagine why.

The record inside this jacket is exactly what one would expect from a record on which the nation’s top studio musicians are engaged.