CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

THE STANKY BROWN GROUP: "Our Pleasure to Serve You" (Sire):: You can take the Ozark Mountain Daredevils out of the country, but you can't turn them into the Doobie Brothers. D Plus.

PAUL BUTTERFIELD: "Put It in Your Ear" (Bearsville) :: Butter has long since achieved an authentic blues style; the modishly far-out rhythms and textures here are so authentic they recall Jimmy Witherspoon or Bobby Bland casting desperately about for a hit. The bluesman fluffs one ballad and sounds a little strange doing romantic patter, arid producer Henry Glover has for some reason set his own "Breadline" amid enough iristruments to feed a family of four for six months, but once you conquer your suspicion that this is a disaster it sounds pretty good. I don't hear any hits, though. B.

TED CURSON: 'Tears for Dolphy" (Arista-Freedom) :: Considering how cheap they are to produce, jazz combo records like this one are shame: fully rare, and even when they're tightly conceived and not excessively earthbound (not just Grover Washington but Joe Henderson) or ethereal (not just Mahavishnu but Kenny Wheeler) it's rarer yet that they're as melodic, economical, and fraught with small pleasures as this one. - BPlus.

ENO: "Another Green World" (Island) :: Rather despite myself, I've grown to love most of this arty little collection of static (i.e., non-swinging) synthesizer pieces. Played in the background, they all merge into a pattern that tends to calm any lurking Luddite impulses; perceived discretely, each takes on a pleasing shape of its own. Industrialism yes. A Minus.

FREDDY FENDER: "Rock 'n' Country" (ABC/Dot) :: Fender is a wonder of nature — I just wish one of his albums was a wonder of human devising. This was his third LP for ABC in 10 months, and like the others (as well as the one with the reggae backing tracks on Starflite) it doesn't get the essende of a man who can follow an incandescent country version of "What'd I Say" with an incandescent country version of "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window." That's the parlay that opens side two of "Are You Ready for Freddy," probably his most satisfying side to date; this is probably his most satisfying whole LP. His tenor is so penetrating, his Spanish lisp so guileless, that it's a pleasure to hear him sing almost anything, but he doesn't transcend himself as often as seems possible; why, for instance, should "Big Boss Man" work so much better than "Since I Met You Baby"? If only there was someone who knew. B Plus.

MARVIN GAYE: "I Want You" (Tamla) :: This isn't as disgraceful as would first appear, not absolutely — as disco-identified mood mewzick for light necking it offers nifty engineering, pleasant harmonies, and the occasional snatch of melody. But as a Marvin Gaye record it's a Leon Ware record. Ware is the producer who co-wrote every one of these...tunes? segments? .....cuts (which is more than Marvin can claim). But was it Ware who instructed Marvin to eliminate all depth and power from his voice? I mean, if you're into insisting on sex it's in bad taste to whine about it. C Plus.

"THE GREAT TOMPALL AND HIS OUTLAW BAND" (MGM) :: Tompall Glaser's slurred, soft-focus baritone might grow on me, I suppose, but as of now he's one more singing legend I'd rather hear about than hear. A touch too sentimental, a touch too nasty underneath, and whether he's playing Stills to Waylon's Young or Nash to Waylon's Crosby, it's all sour goop to me. C Plus.

AL GREEN: "Full of Fire" (Hi) :: Green's hook riffs remain in slight decline — for consistent casual listening this doesn't hold up to his great work. But there are compensations for paying close attention. Last time the mindboggler ("Rhymes") had him improvising nonsense poetry at robbers and other interlopers; this time, on "That's the Way It Is," he assumes the persona of God the Son and makes you love it. After all, visionaries are supposed to be a little crazy, and this man is one of the few we've got. A Minus.

TOM T. HALL: "Faster Horses" (Mercury) ::, This is the first decent record by my former favorite country singer-songwriter in three years. Its secret seems to be that he took his time writing the songs — his last new collection was a big nine months ago. High point: "Big Motel on the Mountain." Rock stars are forever reviling motels, their readymade symbol of the impersonal rootlessness of life on the road; Hall obviously tore himself away from the soaps and game shows one day and deduced that the premises supported a life of their own. You think that says anything about the relationship between perceived impersonality and egocentricity? I do. B Plus.

SLY JOHNSON: Total Explosion" (Hi):: Johnson has tended to disappear in between Willie Mitchell and A1 Green, but on this LP he takes his harmonica up to the microphone and stands clear as a lapsed bluesman. Good move. His voice is shriller and more strained than Green's, a satisfying distinction sometimes, although a comparison of his unexceptionabjy dynamic rendition of "Take Me to the River" to Green's sublime original renews one's understanding of what divine spark might be. I wish the folks at Hi would let him sing just one Junior Wells song, say, but they've done him proud enough. Soul nostalgiacs would be illad vise d to let this pass. B Plus.

ELLIOTT MURPHY: "Street Lights" (RCA Victor) :: This time I can't blame the production — if anything, Steve Katz's understated hard rock and adept background voices lend emotional weight to songs that would otherwise sound hopelessly immature. Murphy's voice has always been callow, but whereas two-and-a-half years ago he came across as a compassionate kid who reached out toward the world as a nattiral function of his self-discovery, now he sounds like an effete young man who strikes out at the world as a natural function of his selfinvolvement. The distinction is less than clear-cut, and perhaps too sharp to apply to an artist of such laudable moral ambition, but when he praises someone whose "wounds are open for the sake of art" (ugh! what a line!) you wonder whether he's ever heard the one about the heart and the' sleeve.

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C Plus.

PABLO CRUISE: "Lifeline" (A&M) :: You can take the Doobie Brothers out of the country, but you can't turn them into Three Dog Night.

C Minus.

TOM PACHECO: "Swallowed Up in the Great American Heartland" (RCA Victor) :: Harry Chapin meets Waylon Jennings and guess who cornholes who. Or: I do too love America, that's why I hate what it's become. Or: This land is your land, this land is my land, from the Armadillo to the Randall's Island.

C.

THE RED CLAY RAMBLERS: "Stolen Love" (Flying Fish):: Like so many unpretentious and unheard-of string/bluegrass/jug amalgams, this one offers only slight variation on a familiar musical question, to wit: "Do I really want to hear another version of 'Golden Vanity' just because this time the mate is a she?" They also do Bessie Smith, which is a mistake, and a shapenote hymn, which isn't* Noteworthy for uncovering an anti-feminist mountain song from the '20s and for reviving the joyful, rather zany emancipation celebration, "Kingdom Coming," which Peter Stampfel singles out as the first truly American melody. B Minus.

"SILVER CONVENTION" (Mid land International):: I hedged last time for.fear this group would turn into an annoyance if they got big, but they didn't. Instead they persist.as an odd classic, instantly identifiable within a notoriously homogeneous genre, replacing soft disco's characteristic baby-, oil flow with an endearingly squareherky-jerk. Unfortunately, this collection necessitates a more serious hedge, on grounds of material ("songs" seems too arty a term). They should have borrowed "Lady Bump" and "Big Bad. Boy" from* Penny McLean, whose bland vocalizing is best buried in the mix, as it is here, rather than showcased on a "solo" album. B Minus.

THE SYLVERS: "Showcase" (Capitol) :: Carola thinks they're cuter than the Jackson 5.1 think their single is cuter than their album. C.

JOHNNIE TAYLOR: "Eargasm" (Columbia) :: Taylor is a pro with as solid a commitment to the traditional soul style as any hit artist still active, even when he accedes to material as modish, as the likeable but lightweight "Disco Lady." But to call him traditional is not entirely a compliment — he lacks the kind of aggressive originality that can take a mediocre hook-and-lyric by the ear and drag it out of oblivion. Which is where too much of this album remains. CPlus.

RICHARD AND LINDA THOMPSON: "Pour Down Like Silver" (Island) :: I wish there were an American folk duo that combined such engaging music with such committed intelligence. (The McGarrigles don't count — they're Canadian.) But since neither pessimism nor private poetry guarantees profundity, I also wish these lyrics earned their dourness as persuasively as the music does. Irresistible: "Hard Luck Stories." BPlus.

VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR: "Godbluff" (Mercury):: Inspirational Verse (from Peter — note spelling — Hammill, yet): "Fickle promises of treaty, fatal harbingers of war, futile orisons/swirl-as one in the flight,, this mad chase,/this surge across the marshy mud landscape/until the maning is forgotten." DPlus.

BILL WYMAN: "Stone Alone" (Rolling Stones):: In which an unsung hero creates an unsung record, manifesting his delight in the pop, the catchy, and the cute even though he doesn't have the voice, or the vocal cunning, to go with it. The result is ingenious frills with no center, quite likeable and quite forgettable. Alternate title: "If Ringo Can Do It. . ." C Plus.