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)

Nilsson 12: Duit On Mon Dei

At this point Harry Nilsson’s career had pretty much spiraled away from him. He was still writing songs, and his record deal meant he could still record with his famous friends, but he’d lost the momentum that had carried him to the middle of the decade. The title of Duit On Mon Dei—which had already appeared on the cover of the Ringo album—not only illustrated the level of humor at hand, but the general attitude.

This already short album begins with an unfinished idea called “Jesus Christ You’re Tall”. Once that’s out of the way, steel drums kick in and don’t let up for the rest of the album. He still sounds raspy on “It’s A Jungle Out There”, which pushes a Tarzan metaphor into social commentary, which was slightly more successful when Randy Newman ripped it off three decades later for the theme song to the TV show Monk, and shame on him. The accompaniment makes more sense for “Down By The Sea”, a sardonic look at retirement. “Kojak Columbo” uses television as an escape, but again, the jokes fall flat. We get a break with another touch of Schmilsson on the lovely “Easier For Me”, but Ringo had already done it the year before in an similar arrangement with the same pathos. Unfortunately the steel drums return on “Turn Out The Light”, and it’s hard to imagine anyone falling asleep to such a lullaby.

Co-written with Klaus Voormann, “Salmon Falls” is another big production, the highlight of the album, and one of the best songs of his career, as long as you can ignore the steel drums over the first minute and a half. “Puget Sound” is another excursion into island music that seems to exist only to set up a reference to “Paper Moon”; this time Van Dyke Parks doodles on a synthesizer to offset the percussion. “What’s Your Sign” is another attempt at a pick-up song, with an overblown arrangement and a wasted guest appearance by Gloria Jones. “Home” might have been a profound statement on the subject if not for the unsympathetic arrangement; the same can be said for “Good For God”, but for his own yowling and the equally drunken-sounding revellers singing along.

As with his other albums, the gatefold of Duit On Mon Dei sported photos of all the people involved with making the album. But as we’ve seen time and again, corralling talent doesn’t automatically guarantee they’ll create fine art. Unless you really, really like steel drums.

Nilsson Duit On Mon Dei (1975)—2

Style Council 1: My Ever Changing Moods

Anyone who’d listened to the final recordings of the Jam would have noticed that Paul Weller was turning sharply away from the guitar, as well as their punk roots. Once he broke up that band he decided to pursue those passions further, and inaugurated a collective dubbed the Style Council. From here on his main collaborator would be keyboard whiz Mick Talbot, who’d also spent time in mod revival bands (he’d also played piano on the cover of “Heatwave” that closed Setting Sons). Together they would craft very un-mod music, leaning heavily on soul and jazz, using real drums but other synthesized instruments, adding guest players more often than not. Weller even played bass from time to time. Their image was very “European”, flirting with the New Romantic movement both in music and, in Weller’s case, questionable hair styles. Politics often reigned the message in between the beats—just as in The Jam—but for the most part, it was all about getting lost in making music.

Tracks from their first three UK singles (and 12-inches) were selected for the Introducing The Style Council EP, and make for a slightly schizophrenic listen, particularly if you hadn’t heard each single in real time. Each side begins with a nearly seven-minute mix of the brooding “Long Hot Summer”, neither exactly made for dancing. “Headstart For Happiness” is a snappy strum, stripped down to not much more than a demo for guitar and organ. “Speak Like A Child” was their breezy, horn-laden first single, with vocals from protégé Tracie Young, who Jam fans knew from “Beat Surrender”. “The Paris Match” is a truly hidden gem, a soulful reverie for piano and a nice backing, complete with a coda sung in French, while “Mick’s Up” is an instrumental showcase for the other guy over party noises. A lengthy club mix of “Money-Go-Round” updates “Precious” with an anti-Thatcher rant, while liner notes by the mysterious and shortly ubiquitous “Cappuccino Kid” attempted to provide context, or not.

When the full-length Café Bleu album was released in the UK, it further confounded expectations, with side one nearly full of instrumentals and Weller’s voice only heard on two of seven tracks, and somebody else rapping to start side two. Per tradition, the version released in the US as My Ever Changing Moods—on Geffen, of all labels—sported a rejigged lineup with substitutions that tried to balance things but was still just as odd. (It also lacked the color booklet of photos, lyrics, and notes.)

The catchy eponymous hit single starts the album, instead of the lovely vocal-and-piano alternate from later on side one of the UK LP. “The Whole Point Of No Return” is just Weller singing softly over a picked electric guitar, and “Blue Café” is another slow jazz piece for guitar with strings, which sets up a cocktail jazz version of “Paris Match”, sung here by Tracey Thorn of Everything But The Girl. Its suggestive title aside, “Dropping Bombs On The Whitehouse” is simply a bebop excursion with a horn section. They added “A Solid Bond In Your Heart”, another catchy single, to finish the side; a musical cousin of “Beat Surrender”, it came this close to being that band’s last release.

They also moved up the blue-eyed soul of the romantic “You’re The Best Thing”, which was good, because nobody was ready for the rap experiment in “A Gospel”, much less nearly five minutes of it, nor the funk jam of “Strength Of Your Nature”. But the jaunty violin sawing throughout “Here’s One That Got Away” provides something of a break from the overt soul. Dee C. Lee, most recently in Wham!, takes the other vocal on a full band version of “Headstart For Happiness”, and we’ll be hearing a lot more from her. The piano solo “Mick’s Blessings” closes the proceedings, instead of opening them as it did on the UK LP. (Two of its other instrumentals—“Me Ship Came In!” and “Council Meetin’”—were added to the US cassette, one at the end of each side.)

The handful of Americans who still cared about the Jam—even those who came in via such videos as “Town Called Malice” and “Absolute Beginners”—were mostly confused by this new band. Now there was a video depicting the Council men riding bicycles, and they mostly ignored My Ever Changing Moods, which simply doesn’t succeed where the UK version did, however slightly. (The chummy images in the “Long Hot Summer” clip wouldn’t have passed muster in Reagan’s America either.)

Over forty years later, these first releases by the band were gathered and greatly enhanced in a deluxe edition of Café Bleu. The first disc was devoted to an expansion of Introducing, including every single and B-side that predated the album, which is on the second disc. A third disc was devoted to further singles and mixes, a fourth to unreleased tracks ranging from interesting to tedious, and two more to BBC sessions and concerts. Just the first two discs alone, being chronological, better show Weller’s progression from one band to the next. He was, after all, still a kid who wanted to make music with a guy with serious keyboard chops, and found one in Mick Talbot.

The Style Council Introducing The Style Council (1983)—3
The Style Council My Ever Changing Moods (1984)—2½
2026 Café Bleu Special Edition: same as 1984, plus 79 extra tracks

Roger McGuinn 4: Cardiff Rose

It’s safe to say that Roger McGuinn was lost at sea for much of the ‘70s. The Byrds had dribbled to a stop, and his solo career wasn’t exactly a brilliant new chapter. But he definitely lucked out when he got to join Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, given solo spots at every show and hobnobbing with like-minded musicians. Not only did they join him in recording Cardiff Rose, but Mick Ronson produced it, and most of the non-covers were co-writes with Jacques Levy, still riding high on his own Dylan connection but whom McGuinn had found first.

The spirit of the Revue pervades on “Take Me Away”, teeming with the wonder and joy of being part of the traveling troupe. As might be expected, “Jolly Roger” is a sea chantey about pirates, with sound effects to match, well matched to his strummed 12-string. Dripping with contempt for the career he’s chosen, the snotty “Rock And Roll Time” is a surprising collaboration with Bob Neuwirth and Kris Kristofferson, though the repetition of “take me away” makes an odd juxtaposition with the opening track, and we’re not so sure that was intentional. The simple acoustic strum of “Friend”, its sadness underscored by a lonesome violin, provides a striking contrast, and evokes sympathy where the next song fails. “Partners In Crime” is a shout-out to Abbie Hoffman—then on the run from the law—and the rest of the Chicago Seven, starting with something of a calypso doo-wop rhythm that changes for the chorus, then goes back to a ‘50s parody, then back to doo-wop. Apparently Levy didn’t learn his lesson with “Joey”.

Roger never found an obscure Dylan song he didn’t like, and here he gave the world its first exposure to “Up To Me”, the masterpiece left off of Blood On The Tracks due to its similarity to “Shelter From The Storm”. While it always seemed like one of his most personal songs, McGuinn makes it his own. “Round Table” retells the myth of King Arthur without leaning on medieval instrumentation, but the venerable murder ballad “Pretty Polly”, which he’d been trying to record since Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, is played straight folk with prominent banjo. He ends with another preview of a song by another Rolling Thunder alumnus, in this case Joni Mitchell’s “Dreamland”, giving it more fuzz than she ever would.

Not everything on Cardiff Rose has aged well, but at least he seemed more comfortable with his surroundings, though his growing caricature of a voice makes him sound older than he actually was. Perhaps because it was so much better than what had come before, it stayed a favorite among fans for years. (The eventual Sundazed expanded CD offered two bonuses: a defiant-sounding live take of “Dreamland”, and a baffling cover of Bowie’s “Soul Love”.)

Roger McGuinn Cardiff Rose (1976)—3
2004 Sundazed reissue: same as 1976, plus 2 extra tracks

Aerosmith 3: Toys In The Attic

The third time was and is a charm for a lot of bands, and on Toys In The Attic, Aerosmith had definitely figured it out. They had the tunes, they had the chops, and they had a producer who got them, all of which backed up their attitude.

The title track predicts speed metal, and even though there’s only one verse, one pre-chorus, and one chorus, each repeated twice and split up with a one-chord jam that serves as a middle eight, that’s all it needs. “Uncle Salty” is an early piece of social commentary, fifteen years before another song about Janie and a gun, that gets more heartbreaking with every listen. “Adam’s Apple” brings back the strut, giving Tyler’s wordplay plenty to lie on; we can probably credit him for coining the phrase “love at first bite”. But that’s nothing on “Walk This Way”, a motormouth showcase with an unstoppable riff and funky backbeat. In case you didn’t get the humor, “Big Ten Inch Record” shows their jump blues roots as well as their fascination with the Dr. Demento radio show. Even the horn section doesn’t get in the way.

It’s always good to start side two with a hook, and “Sweet Emotion” does just that with its extended intro that turns into a full-fledged riff and two-word chorus. The lyrics are as packed as anything on the album but a little obscure, while “No More No More” delivers more of it, already showing weariness at Life On The Road. It’s got an excellent build before the final chorus, and goes out on another glorious solo, and we’re not sure whose. If there’s a clunker on the album, that would be “Round And Round”, five minutes of sludge credited to Tyler and Whitford only redeemed but the one melodic deviation from the bludgeoning. All is forgiven for “You See Me Crying”, an orchestrated power ballad that comes just this close to being sappy but isn’t.

With two bona fide classics and enough deep cuts to justify the purchase, Toys In The Attic still delivers everything an Aerosmith fan could want. Even if you know the hits, they’re even better in context.

Aerosmith Toys In The Attic (1975)—4