ROCK • A • RAMA

ROCK.A RAMA

TEARS (Backstreet/MCA):: Anybody out there recall Charlie and the Pep Boys’ bicentennialyear debut LP, Daddy’s Girl, that Nils Lofgrenproduced A&M set with Charles Woods Pearson’s neo-Jagger lip moves, and one of the most bizarre cover photos ever? A classic LP, to be sure,,but regrettably not classic enough to lift the group out of their Washington,, D.C., barband grind, where they’ve had to continue changing with the times just to hold their own. So with a few personnel and wardrobe substitutions (Pearson looks decades younger in his shorter hair, and ultra-1979 red violet & blue green threads), C. & the P.B.$ are back as “Tears,” a self-defined new wave-cum-white R&B outfit. Crypto-punks of a lost era become half-hearted punks of an already-fading moment. The new songs are too long for real power-pop punch, but the stubborn R&B intrusions also suggest discopop, crossover potential. Does Un,ca Mick know about this?

INTERVIEW—Big Oceans (Virgin)::And the English now wave beat goes on. You got your Bram T. and your Records and your Yachts all committed to heart by now? Okay, get ready for another ellpee’s worth of thoughtful pop, from Interview, pop-pulsatingly packaged in a nifty, brightedge-abstract jacket like F/ag(but no J.T. inside). Interview seem to have matriculated in the Britops’ eternal art school just last week, per their intriguingly intellectual songs: e.g., “hart crfane in mexic'o”'and “academies to anger”. Interview sing and play lower-case, too, typesetting their pre-snotty lyrics with the low-key drive of an E. Costello before and after science class. As the I’s have it: “fire island’s a warning” (of direr straits than the Village Peeps found there, anyhoo). R.R.

EDDIE HENDERSON-Runnin’ To Your Love (Capitol):: When I caught electric trum; peteer Henderson at a club a few years back, Patrice Rushen was bangin’ away at her keyboard, trying unsuccessfully to make herself heard over the drummer, Sonsnip. Well, she’s turned the tables on Eddie; now he has to fight his way through her funky-zak arrangertients on his own album! C’mon man, assert yourself; you don’t heed to cut this Donald Byrdshit to pay the bills, do you? M.D.

EARL HINES/BUDD JOHNSON—Linger Awhile (Classic Jazz)::Pianist Hines has been around forever, having made his pro debut in the 20’s, and saxaphonist Johnson has been his playmate off and on since 1935. Which is not to imply that these are two geriatric jazzmen straining their grizzled chops to recreate the golden licks of their youth—they still cut the mustard with funky elan, as the aptly titled cut “The. Dirty Old Men” ably proves. R.C.W. THE SPORTfJf—Don’t Throw Stones (Arista):: These guys are the most interesting band to hop out of Australia since the punkperfect Saints, though the Sports are toting few Stooges-moves in their marsupial pouches. The band’s songs echo Graham Parker in their smoking, urgent-but-controlled intensity, while vocalist Stephen Cummings could remind you

This month’s Rock-a-ramas were written by Richard Riegel, Michael Davis, I Richard C. Walls, andJoeFembacher.

of anybody from Eric Burdon to Tom Robinson (good news for us modern persons, either way). “Who Listens to the Radio,” indeed! Tuff stuff, no guff, and even though the Sports are Australian, none of ’em are named “Beeb Birtles”. Tie me kangaroo down, Sports, watch me wise-gtiy wallaby pop the power, kids.

R.R.

GRAHAM PARKER AND THE RUMOUR —Live Sparks (Arista)::Don’t want you to get too excited ’cause this is one of those limited edition promos, but there’s a fair number of ’em floatin’ around and if one drifts your way, it’s worth picking up if the speculators haven’t hiked the price up too high. What you get are all -ten Squeezing Out Sparks tunes, plus “I Want You Back” and the notorious “Mercury Poisoning.” The band is looser, sharper and hotter than they were in the studio, Graham’s at his best and...what more do you need? M.D. JUNIOR MANCE—Holy Mama (Inner City):: For some reason, pianist Mance never made the Big Breakthrough like fellow keyboard funkoids Ramsey Lewis, Les McCann and Ahmad Jamal (whose style he approximates here). God knows it ain’t from lack of trying—this album is a textbook of funky acoustic piano licks. Maybe it’s his timing that keeps him from getting that one big hit. Back in the 60’s records like this were as common as fusion jams are today. Now it all sounds kind of quaint.I R.C.W.

LAUREN WOOD (Warner Bros.)::Chunky, Novi, and Ernie finally decided to pack it in (cousin-groups just don’t make it, this year) but “Chunky” is back already, with a cosmeticmakeover monniker (“Lauren Wood,” as in Dory Previn’s French jeans, or something), and a debut “solo” album, on which the newlyunemployed Novi & Ernie guest. Got that straight? White soul, Dooboid-flavor, backed up by all the usual L.A.-studio Fords and Chevys...

R.R.

CHARLIE—Fight Dirty (Arista):: This , is a “British” group in the sense of Fleetwood Mac or Supertramp; i.e., Charlie got hung up in Ell Aay when they first hit our shores’; and they’ve bought that Califhippie myth whole. More smog-(smug?)rodk for those AOR masses who wouldn’t dare venture beyond Neil Young on the one hand, and the Crusaders on the other, td seek out their fave raves. Mind you don’t track that coke into my hot tub, as the fellow said. R.R.

YACHTS—S.O.S. (Polydor/Radar)::Four more ageless Liverpool/London Limeys (leaving school at 15 or so, they soak up at least seven more years of Real Life than us Yank mollycoddles), out to show the rest of us how incandescent (& dominant) power-pop has really become. Elvis Cosiello urgency, without so many mind games. Shinyvinyl organ washes abound (cf. 1967), even if the Yachts’ ostensible satirical spirit doesn’t come

across on record as pronounced as they seem to think. Still, the entire LP sounds great, and provides a non-chauvinist but still organ-defined alter~ native to those beneath-contempt Stranglers. If you’re so inclined. R.R.

HANK MOBLEY WITH KENNY CLARKE —Hard Bop (Savoy):: The title of this collection of ’56 dates is descriptive enpugh to let the record pass without comment, but Mobley is a special Case. A long underrated tenor saxist (an underrated jazz musician—there’s a double ” whammy for you) whose style has often been described as “sinewy,” his tone is softer than rpost hard hoppers and his ijnelodic invention vigorous (hence “sinewy”) In The Jazz Book, Joachim Berendt writes of Mobley’s “velvety tone which hangs like a veil over his long, seeming self-perpetuating lines.” Caviar for buffs. R.C.W.

MARY WILSON (Motown)::Mary Wilson, one of the survivors, deserves better than this. Understand, this^isn’t a bad album. Wilson’s 1 enthusiasm, so abundant and genuine, provides for a livelier and soulful experience than the mostly ordinary R&B/disco material would otherwise allow. “You’re the Light That Guides My Way” stands out as Motown inspirational romance a la “Someday We’ll Be Together.” And Wilson eschews the glamor one expects of former Supremes and expresses an earthy sexuality. But after almost 20 (!) years of “oohbaby-baby,” Mary Wilson certainly merits a hell of a lot more than this inauspicious solo debut. Ashford & Simpson are, I,believe, available, f

J.F.

WARREN BERNHARDT—Floating (Arista Novus); HANK JONES—Solo Piano (Savoy)::

It seerps that nowadays every jazz pianist with a record contract eventually gets around to recording solo and that the' current embarrassment of keyboard riches has been brought about by the single and Hfeavy hand of Keith Jarrett. So here’s two more, definite standouts in the crowd. Bernhardt is dewy-eyed modern without being ’ dissonant, his i playing never descending to'Liberace-eSque glissandos but rooted in a robust romanticism. Jones, here on a ’56 date, mixes bPp and stride, a delicate touch and a fondness for standards. Both pianists have the imagination and dexterity to flesh out and sustain the solo context. Recommended.

R.C.W.

CHUCK BERRY—Rockit (Atco):: Chuck \ Berry evidently wrote and recorded much of this album just before he went back into the slammer, as it’s rich with a bitterness that’s hardly as veiled as it wasvin all those sly songs like “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man'.” Obviously, the supreme rock ’n’ roller of all time is pissed at being denied the American Dream one more time, and it hurts like hell. As Berry puts it in a crushing Tom-parody in “1 Never Thought”: “1 don’t bother nobody/And don’t nobody bother me.” No disco refuges for Berry, but simply those eternal wee wee hours blues. Highly recommended to anybody else out there in the antichrist crowd (Berry not Presley; Reed not Dylan). R.R.