THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

Robert Christgau

by

Paul Anka: “Anka” (United Artists). Sure it’s a cute little single, but the rest of the album is the usual abortion. C minus.

Bobby Bland: “Dreamer” (Dunhill). A pop blues primer featuring refabricated intros worthy of Three Dog Night and prefabricated songs worthy of Bobby Bland. Highlight: “Yolanda,” by the same guy who wrote “My Maria” and “Shambala” — only this one’s about a red Cadillac woman in Charleston, S.C. A minus.

Joe Cocker: “I Can Stand a Little Rain” (A&M). If Jim Price were a producer worthy of the artist, or even of the artist’s memory, he would have asked Jerry Lee Lewis to play piano instead of Nicky Hopkins. Not that Jerry Lee could replace Chris Stainton, who on Cocker’s previous lp, supposedly a piece of stop-gap, not only defined the man’s rock and roll but combined with him to write more good songs than all of Hollywood’s finest produced for this make-work project. C plus.

John Coltrane: “Africa Brass, Vol. II” (Impulse). Those who’ve listened to them all assure me that this is indeed the first Coltrane lp since his death that isn’t tainted with rip-off. I gave up on listening to them all, but I listen to this one all the time. A.

Sandy Denny: “Like an Old Fashioned Waltz” (Island). Five years ago, Denny sang lead with an immensely promising English “folk-rock” group, Fairport Convention. Soon, however, she left-topursue-her-own-career. The group remained interesting enough t to hold a following, but never broke through artistically or commercially, and although credible observers believed Denny had the stuff to become one of the finest women singers in the world, she didn’t. One four-minute masterpiece on this otherwise sluggish album — the opening cut, written by Denny, called “Solo” — deals obliquely with these losses. Now one hears that Fairport and Denny are regrouping. And so are Steppenwolf and John Kay. I dare you to predict which will mean less. C plus.

Eagles: “On the Border” (Asylum). Though I still detect strains of the closet misogyny* and new-reactionary frontierism that have always put me off this group, I am forced to admit, as I scrape off the tar and feathers, that I enjoy this. More rock than country, recollected in a seemingly uncomplacent tranquility. Current favorite: “My Man,” Bernie Leadon’s tribute to Gram Parsons. B plus.

“Lorraine Ellison” (Warner Bros.) In which the open-pit value of a reputed gold mine comes up bust. I loved her previous album in 1969, and I liked this for a while in 1974, but the more I listen the more I notice how much she shrieks, and when I play the previous album, it sounds more limited than I had remembered. C.

The Flying Burrito Brothers: “Close Up the Honky Tonks” (A&M). This repackaged best-of-Gram is baited with five previously unreleased live Parsons vocals, These are nice, but since even an unreconstructed Parsons nut like me can reel off more interesting cover versions of “Sing Me Back Home” (the Everlys), “Break My Mind” (Alex Chilton_and the Box Tops), and “To Love Somebody” (initials: JJ), maybe they were unreleased for a reason. It also puts the six greatest cuts off Gilded Palace of Sin on one side, a convenience I’d appreciate more if Gilded Palace of Sin, the only full-fledged country-rock masterpiece, weren’t still in the catalogue. Your local record retailer will no doubt order you one if you take the trouble of kidnapping his daughter. B minus.

The David Holland Quartet: “Conference of the Birds” (ECM). This is what I believed Ornette Coleman meant by free jazz when I memorized Change of the Century 15 years ago — free as loose, loose as pliant and relaxed rather than sloppy and untethered. I even enjoy “Q&A,” which sounds like it should go with an arty cartoon, and the title cut is so exquisite it makes my diaphragm tingle. A.

Hudson-Ford: “Nickelodeon” (A&M). “Complain about pollution, the downfall of man/And half-grown humans may be your fans/Add your shit to the pile while you still can/Cause it’s hell on earth.” Hudson-Ford, “Burn Baby Burn” (Slick Cynic Music, ASCRAP; additional lyric by R. Christgau, Two Minute Songs, LAMF). C.

Keith Jarrett: “Treasure Island” (Impulse). If Jarrett’s Solo Concerts are too statusv and static, then this moves with a suspiciously unambitious ease — it’s true to all its own assumptions, only it assumes,too little. When he is on, (e.g. Fort Yawuh) Jarrett can conjure beauty out of chaos and agitation out of peace. All he comes up with here is pleasant little surges of melody. B.

B. B. King: “Friends” (ABC). In which Dave Crawford, hero of the latest Mighty Clouds records, turns villain^ Maybe the difference is that the Mighty Clouds are principally showmen and B.B.. an irreducible original, or maybe the Philadelphia sound meshes better with gospel than it does with blues. In any case, King sings Crawford’s ditties with all the lack of conviction they deserve and hardly plays at all. Catchy only insofar as it is annoying. D plus.

Nilsson: “Pussy Cats” (RCA Victor). Only the Umpteenth Beatle could juxtapose “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and “Loop de Loop” without giving off the sweet stink of a Bryan Ferry parody. With producer John Lennon keeping him honest, .Harry goes raw, playing even the ballads for ugliness. But at the same time, no joke, he plays it all for laughs. A minus.

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“Martha Reeves” (MCA). This attempted masterpiece doesn’t make it because Richard Perry has failed the fundamental test of the interpretive producer matching performer and material. To an extent, this is Reeves’ fault — her gorgeous voice has trouble gripping complicated ideas. But it’s also true that the competition for undiscovered song gems has stiffened since the early days" of Cocker and Three Dog Night, so that even a prospector as wily as Perry hopes to dig one out of a slag heap like Vifti Poncia. The strongest cuts here (“Wild Nights,” “Imagination,”) have been recorded definitively elsewhere. Which makes this the modern, big-budget equivalent of a second-rate Motown album. C plus.

The Earl Scruggs Revue: “Rockin’ Cross the Country” (Columbia). Bonnie Bramlett lives, singing backup. B minus.

Sly & the Family Stone: “Small Talk” (Epic). Sly’s first flop is a bellywhopper, its only interest verbal, its only memorable song a doowop take-off. Back to what roots? C.

“The Souther, Hillman, Furay Band” (Asylum). Complaining, complaining — when you’re not lying, you’re complaining. C plus. /

lOcc: “Sheet Music” (UK). Points for studio mastery and general literacy — “Oh Effendi,” about the vicissitudes of Middle Eastern trade, is Cole Porterishly clever — but demerits for a detachment that might seem pathological if it weren’t so da„mned expert. Great satire communicates a feeling.— most often hatred or anguish, although it can be kinder, as in “The Dean and I,” on lOcc’s first lp — that is lacking from this too-too apollonian (cerebral? professional? glib?) endeavor. B.

Wendy Waldman: .“Gypsy Symphony” (Warner Bros.) Waldman, one of our tougher female singer-songwriters, here provides a cautionary paradox for her sisters and herself, to wit: “Don’t let your love get in your way/My good lover said.” C plus.

“The Wild Magnolias” (Polydor). Get funked, Dr. John. This is not only what I always wanted the polyrhythm kids on the bandstand and benches of Tompkins Square Park to sound like, it is also what I always wanted Osibisa and the Ohio Players (not to mention the Meters) to sound like. The most boisterous recorded party I know, chock full of dancing fun, which is not to imply that Snooks Eaglin and Willie Tee and Uganda Roberts and Bo Dollis and Monk Boudreaux aren’t pro-fessionals. A minus.

(Reprinted courtesy of the Village Voice)