Elton John 29: Sleeping With The Past

Now that Elton John was “back”, he was as determined as ever to keep his God-given place on the charts. Sleeping With The Past was again written solely with Bernie Taupin, to whom he even dedicated the album. The idea was that he wanted to emulate soul giants of previous decades, but the production is all ‘80s, cold and lacking personality, dominated by his electronic piano.

With an intentionally pounding hammer of a beat, “Durban Deep” would appear to be a metaphor about a sad coal miner, or maybe it’s supposed to be taken literally. That said, he does sing the heck out of it. “Healing Hands” was the attempted uplifting first single, though the choir on the choruses are a bit much, and prove that the song would be better served by someone singing with actual soul. The slower pace of “Whispers” is welcome, but the mix is just too ornate for something of this sentiment. While “Club At The End Of The Street” is sufficient on the album, its richly comic book-style animated video nicely fills in the details the track couldn’t convey on its own. The title track has a trashy guitar riff and overly popped bass, with something of a “Philadelphia Freedom” feel, and a lyric that could almost be gender-fluid.

“Stone’s Throw From Hurtin’” glues another tale of romantic woe to a catchphrase and a track that sounds like a demo, despite the ten people listed as contributors. But with “Sacrifice” we finally get a song that’s worthy of repeat listening and the “classic” label. Even that recurrent synth chime can’t kill this one. The story Bernie tells in “I Never Knew Her Name”—a narrative about a man falling in love with another man’s bride—might be more effective if we knew why the guy was attending the wedding in the first place. The horns sound canned, because they are. “Amazes Me” is another soul number with somebody wailing in the background, that in hindsight predicts Chris Stapleton. The unabashed love declared in the song is in direct odds with “Blue Avenue”, which compares a relationship to an addiction over an understated arrangement that almost recalls his first albums.

The videos for the singles got lots of play on VH-1, but while the album eventually went platinum, Sleeping With The Past just doesn’t deliver any more than his worse ‘80s albums did. Yet he gamely promoted it, raised money for AIDS charities with the proceeds, and went into rehab after the tour was over. (The remastered reissue, only nine years later, added the B-sides “Dancing In The End Zone” and “Love Is A Cannibal”, the latter of which had appeared on the previous summers Ghostbusters II soundtrack.)

Elton John Sleeping With The Past (1989)—2½
1998 CD reissue: same as 1989, plus 2 extra tracks

Ringo Starr 12: Time Takes Time

Not that anybody noticed, but Ringo Starr hadn’t put out a new album in over decade, give or take. But in the ‘90s he was freshly sober, playing sessions here and there, and had just come off a very successful tour with his All-Starr Band. (The final nights of the tour were even compiled onto a live album released by Rykodisc.) So when Private Music—yet another label that didn’t hold onto him, or last without him—signed him to do an album, he asked a few famous friends, including current hot producers Jeff Lynne and Don Was, to helm some sessions. The resultant Time Takes Time managed to sound cohesive, given the disparate players and songs contributed. What helped is that he wrote a few of them himself, and even played drums again.

With its chiming 12-string guitars, “Weight Of The World” is a comfortable opener and single, though Andy Sturmer and Roger Manning of Jellyfish are mixed a little too high in the backing vocals. (They also appeared prominently in the song’s video, which also featured Ringo’s trademark dance moves.) Along with two guys from the Knack, they also dominate “Don’t Know A Thing About Love”, co-written by Stan Lynch of the Heartbreakers, which has a very Harrisonian slide guitar part. “Don’t Go Where The Road Don’t Go” is one of the ones Ringo helped write, with a nice callback to “It Don’t Come Easy” and a pretty rockin’ cello throughout, but Jeff Lynne has once again turned one of the greatest drummers into a snare-heavy click track. Despite the Beatlesque title, “Golden Blunders” was borrowed from the first Posies album, and he does a nice job with it, but “All In The Name Of Love” is generic pop, mostly notable for the vocal arrangements by Mark Hudson, from whom we’ll hear a lot more soon.

“After All These Years” has some rockabilly touches as befits a sentimental look back, but it’s a one-man Jeff Lynne production but for Ringo. The Jellyfish boys contributed the Rubber Soul pastiche “I Don’t Believe You”, though it ends up sounding like the Rutles. Ringo’s not usually known for social commentary, but somehow he felt compelled to write about “Runaways”; unfortunately his delivery doesn’t have enough gravitas, and the audio-verité effects don’t help the cause any, making it seem like the theme song to a hit TV show popular with teens. It wouldn’t be the ‘90s unless Diane Warren contributed a song, and “In A Heartbeat” notable for Brian Wilson going “dit-dit-dit” among the Knack and Jellyfish singers. “What Goes Around” combines the best elements of all that’s gone before, and is somehow stretched to almost six minutes.

One really wants to like Time Takes Time, if only because Paul and George were having hits around the same time. But while it’s a competent album for the era, Ringo’s personality can’t quite carry the material. So he concentrated on further tours with incarnations of his All-Starr Band. (These would spawn even more live albums, which we will not be covering in this forum.)

Ringo Starr Time Takes Time (1992)—2½

Steve Winwood 2: Arc Of A Diver

After a decade of wandering, bolstered by session work and hopefully decent royalty payments, Steve Winwood re-emerged at the start of the ‘80s as a pop star, once again on his own terms. Arc Of A Diver took everyone by surprise, starting with an incredibly catchy hit single, and a reminder that the kid could truly belt out a classic. What’s more, he recorded the album completely on his own, playing all the instruments in his own studio, yet it has the sound of a full band captured by a team of engineers. (Fun fact: the guy responsible for the cover art also did the original paintings for Bob Dylan’s Saved that same year, as well as the faux-cubic designs of two Traffic albums.)

The album was his first collaboration with lyricist Will Jennings, who’d already written hit songs for such adult contemporary icons as Barry Manilow and Dionne Warwick, and would go on to win Oscars for his movie themes. While his lyrics for “While You See A Chance” are definitely in the feel-good attaboy category, the music, driven along by Winwood’s iconic piano, organ, and that synth sound, emerging like an aural sunrise, makes the song a true winner. The title track is another co-write with Viv Stanshall, full of imagery and sporting nice guitar licks throughout. Unfortunately, “Second-Hand Woman” derails the progress, between the lyrics, dated production, and programmed drums. Fortunately, it’s the shortest song on the album, and is forgotten shortly after “Slowdown Sundown”, a ballad with trilling mandolins that recalls the better parts of the last Traffic album.

Side two concentrates on grooves; “Spanish Dancer” isn’t much more than a one colored by different synth tones, only occasionally diverting into another theme for the choruses. The disco inferno continues on “Night Train”, but at least he derived a nice popping bass line, albeit on the Minimoog. He does a pretty good job of jamming with himself, so even though it’s a home demo in need of editing, it works. “Dust” takes us out with another reverie, and superior lyrics by the guy responsible for “Second-Hand Woman”.

Arc Of A Diver made Steve Winwood a household name again, even more so than he’d ever been. With six out of only its seven tracks topping five minutes, he hadn’t quite figured how to keep his ideas compact, but listeners happily stayed for the whole ride. (The eventual Deluxe Edition wasn’t very illuminating, adding only two alternate mixes, a later rerecording of “Spanish Dancer” with a deeper vocal, and a BBC radio documentary about his career.)

Steve Winwood Arc Of A Diver (1980)—3
2012 Deluxe Edition: same as 1980, plus 4 extra tracks

Guided By Voices 2: Devil Between My Toes

A big deal is made in the Guided By Voices narrative about Devil Between My Toes being their first full-length album, but at just over half an hour it’s a mere eight minutes longer than their EP. Still, Robert Pollard had already decided he’d concentrate on being more of a recording band than a performing band, and also took the bold step of including recordings in a “professional” studio alongside tapes compiled in his basement.

The R.E.M. jangle is still in place on “Old Battery”, with its punning chorus of “die hard”, and also “Discussing Wallace Chambers”, which may not have been inspired by the football player but still provides a springboard for a lyrical journey. “Cyclops” is another signpost, as it begins with an arpeggiated guitar part over open strings, something of a GBV trademark. A primitive drum machine drives “Crux”, which eventually includes some dueling riffs but no vocals, an idea in search of a song. “A Portrait Destroyed By Fire” is the anomaly here, as it runs over five minutes. A dark proto-metal dirge with buried vocals before the verses kick in, it’s mostly notable for being the first appearance of one Tobin Sprout, who would become a valuable collaborator and creative foil, to say the least. The side closes with “3 Year Old Man”, a simple exercise for tremolo guitar.

“Dog’s Out” is a more blatant attempt to write something catchy and singalongable, and for that it succeeds, but “A Proud And Booming Industry”, for all its potential as a classic Pollard song title, is more riff-noodling. “Hank’s Little Fingers” wants to be a pop song, and it’s kinda cute in that way. The song has distinct choruses, nicely melded at the end, but again it’s followed by an indulgent guitar instrumental in “Artboat”. And it’s back to the straight college rock of “Hey Hey Spaceman”, complete with happy cries of “let’s go” somehow rising above a dense, muddied mix. “The Tumblers” stands out for its almost tribal rhythm instead of the usual four-on-the-floor beat, though the lyrics are again, buried. “Bread Alone” is yet another instrumental, but this time it’s two acoustic guitars. But for some kind of horn blast grafted onto the beginning, “Captain’s Dead” has the hallmarks of a GBV classic, with crazy tempo, furious strumming, melody, and harmonies. It truly points the way for them.

Devil Between My Toes wouldn’t get wider exposure until it was repackaged in the Box box, but which time the band (or least Pollard) had become iconic. It remains of interest only to completists, and a reminder than they were just one of thousands of bands making records in their home towns across the country.

Guided By Voices Devil Between My Toes (1987)—2½

Freddie Mercury 1: Mr. Bad Guy

In 1985, Columbia Records pulled the unique trick of releasing several solo albums by iconic lead singers of iconic bands. Just like Steve Perry and Mick Jagger had with theirs, Freddie Mercury used his to explore more of his pop and dance interests than he might have gotten away with in Queen. Mr. Bad Guy even used the same producer and studio where the band had done much of their recording thus far in the decade, and included contributions by auxiliary member Fred Mandel.

Overall, these are songs about love, and nothing but songs about love, or Freddie’s idea of it. “Let’s Get It On” is designed to start the party and “get everybody dancing”, and he means it. But it’s followed but the elaborate balladeering of “Made In Heaven”, something of a modern “My Way”, while “I Was Born To Love You” is another statement of purpose sung over a track just made for roller-skating to. (These two tracks would resurface in the Queen story, and we’ll get to that when we do.) The accusatory “Foolin’ Around” sports a synthesizer we thought had already been retired by then, but maybe we’ve forgotten its ubiquity. “Your Kind Of Lover” begins as an overwrought piano ballad, but unfortunately taken over by modern touches that obscure the keyboard work.

The title track is adventurous, to say the least, with lots of classical-type fanfares all over it, while “Man Made Paradise” sports real drums and guitar parts that sound like Brian May but aren’t, ending in an extended operatic coda of layered voices. “There Must Be More To Life Than This” was supposed to be a collaboration with Michael Jackson; for better or worse this version is kept nice and simple, kinda like “Love Of My Life” with a full band backing. Despite a yodel-y hook in the verse and lots of scatting elsewhere, “Living On My Own” resembles Elton John of the same period, and not in a good way. “My Love Is Dangerous” might have been the unasked answer to the conundrum raised in the previous track, but the threat isn’t too convincing over a cod-reggae beat, even after the lead guitarist shreds his way to the fade. The album could only end with a torchy send-off, and “Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow” fits the bill.

Despite his incomparable voice, Mr. Bad Guy got even less attention than other Queen albums of the decade on these shores. Hopefully, his cats—to whom he dedicated the album—appreciated it. After his death it would be revisited in various retrospectives, and in 2019 it was completely remixed for release as a “Special Edition” on its own and in a box set of his solo work. Sadly for collectors, the 12-inch extended versions of three songs included on the original release’s CDs in some countries were not in it.

Freddie Mercury Mr. Bad Guy (1985)—2

Beach Boys 3: Surfer Girl

A subtle shift in the Beach Boys story appeared on the back cover of Surfer Girl. While it wasn’t in bold type, the liner notes specifically stated that Brian Wilson was the producer of the album. While the band was still playing everything—albeit with original member and buddy Al Jardine back in the fold, but not on the cover, soon to oust the irrepressible David Marks, who still was—and the songs were still about surfing and cars, the music had begun to evolve.

Not only was the title track one of the first songs Brian wrote, it’s also one of the loveliest. While there are enough references to the lingo in the lyric, the melody and especially the harmonies make it soar, even if it is a little too close to “When You Wish Upon A Star”. “Catch A Wave” is another aggressive advertisement, but uses a classical harp for a clever oceanic evocation, alongside those cymbal washes. There’s a string arrangement on “The Surfer Moon”; it’s just too bad he felt he had to keep the lyrics on topic, just as “South Bay Surfer” is “Swanee River” with new words. (Hey, it worked for “Surfin’ U.S.A.”) “The Rocking Surfer” is an instrumental with prominent organ for a change, and Carl Wilson contributes a sufficient if generic solo. Things finally shift for “Little Deuce Coupe”, a song about a car and the title track’s original B-side.

While “In My Room” had also been a B-side, this is another gentle Brian classic, shifting from popular teenage trends and addressing actual emotions, teenage and otherwise. (There’s that harp again.) It was only natural that “Hawaii” be fodder for songs about surfing; if the rest of America thought Southern California must be paradise, kids already living there wanted to be someplace even better. This would be far from the last time the state would be the subject of a Beach Boys song. The misplaced apostrophe in “Surfer’s Rule” doesn’t make the boast any more effective, since it’s mostly a dig at Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons, but soon enough they’re using “Our Car Club” as another vehicle to declare their superiority to anyone dumb enough to question them. “Your Summer Dream” gives Brian another chance to display his musical maturity and growth, but just to keep folks dancing, “Boogie Woodie” lets him show off on organ and piano simultaneously and in changing keys.

While Surfer Girl was certainly showed progress, it was still little more than a collection of already-released singles and B-sides, padded with filler. Which is pretty much what albums were in 1963. (Of the songs added to the two-fer CD in 1990, only one was related to this album: “In My Room” sung in German.)

The Beach Boys Surfer Girl (1963)—2½
1990 CD reissue: same as 1963, plus Shut Down Volume 2 album and 3 extra tracks

Jerry Garcia 10: Jerry Garcia Band

With the Dead regularly touring, reaching and dealing with larger audiences, Jerry Garcia still took the opportunity to just go out and play. The most recent incarnation of the Jerry Garcia Band had been together for four years when a two series of shows at San Francisco’s Warfield Theater became the basis for an eponymous double CD a year later.

Besides being performed by musician who knew how to play off each other, what makes Jerry Garcia Band stand out is the variety and breadth of the songs they play. Bob Dylan is the main touchstone, with covers of “Simple Twist Of Fate”, “I Shall Be Released”, “Tangled Up In Blue”, and the deeper cut of “Señor (Tales Of Yankee Power)”. (We might as well count “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” as a close relation, and Bob also loved “That Lucky Old Sun”.) “Dear Prudence” was a surprise to newbies, but the band had been jamming on it for years. Other revered songwriters include Smokey Robinson, Allen Toussaint, Bruce Cockburn, Peter Tosh, and Los Lobos. The only song familiar from his other band—albeit via his first solo album—is “Deal”, nicely set up for the break between discs.

The CD (and cassette) format was the best way to present this stuff, as each selection averages an eight-minute duration; “Don’t Let Go” is twice that, approaching free-form at one point. But it’s not all Jerry noodling, as Melvin Seals is often allowed to explore his keyboards, and John Kahn even gets to solo on his bass. Granted, most of the tunes are slow, often reggae-tinged, but we’re not here for shredding. He’s a little raspy, but hits the notes most of the time.

After Jerry died, the keepers of the vault made sure to unearth more of his solo excursions along with those of his main band. Overall more uptempo than Jerry Garcia Band, How Sweet It Is… had two more Dylan songs (“Tough Mama”, of all things, and “Tears Of Rage” via The Band), two from Cats Under The Stars, one from Compliments, the title track as made famous by Marvin Gaye (or perhaps James Taylor to this crowd), and some relatively obscure bluesy covers. Four years later, Shining Star presented two more CDs pulled from a wider net, covering over five years of gigs for even shakier vocals. This time six covers from Compliments were interspersed with such surprises as the album’s title track, first heard by the Manhattans, Daniel Lanois’ much-travelled “The Maker”, more Motown, R&B, and Dylan, and even “Midnight Moonlight” from Old & In The Way. Further into this century, individual shows and venue runs have been spotlit from time to time as well, as seen below, so there’s plenty more where this came from.

Jerry Garcia Band Jerry Garcia Band (1991)—3
Jerry Garcia Band How Sweet It Is (1997)—3
Jerry Garcia Band Shining Star (2001)—3
     Archival releases of same vintage:
     • Pure Jerry: Merriweather Post Pavilion (2005)
     • Garcia Live Volume Two (2013)
     • Fall 1989: The Long Island Sound (2013)
     • Garcia Live Volume 10 (2018)
     • Electric On The Eel (2019)
     • Garcia Live Volume 13 (2020)
     • Live At The Warfield (2025)