Elvis Costello 38: The Coward Brothers

In the summer of 1984, Elvis Costello’s career found another path when he embarked on a solo tour and got along with his opening act, T Bone Burnett, like a house on fire. They bonded over their love of all American music and related arcana, and created wacky alternate egos called the Coward Brothers to play covers together. A collaborative single, “The People’s Limousine”, was their only credited output, though T Bone would go on to produce a handful of albums for and with Elvis over the years, beginning with King Of America.

Forty years later, right on the heels of an expanded reissue spurred by that album, an official Coward Brothers album finally appeared, billed as the soundtrack to an EC-penned radio play. Directed by Christopher Guest and available exclusively on the Audible platform, The True Story Of The Coward Brothers is full of forced wordplay and inside jokes in the guise of a documentary about the mythical duo. T Bone exaggerates his Texan accent, while Elvis leans so much on his Scouse origins that he often sounds like a raspy John Lennon caricature. Even reading his own words, the man is still no actor.

Unfortunately, the storyline does little to illuminate the 20 songs on The Coward Brothers, and vice versa. Most were written by Elvis alone, four are collaborations with T Bone (who’s solely credited on just one), and three were written with Guest, who also adds vocals and instrumentation here and there. The production has T Bone’s stamp all over it, and not just on the tracks featuring Burnett regulars Dennis Crouch and Jay Bellarose. But what works very well for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss just sounds here like they spent a lot of money making the recordings sound cheap and distorted, like the primitive tapes they’re purported to be. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if the songs were stellar, but they’re not.

“Always” is a wonderful opener, a gentle duet, shoved aside by the dotty piano and wheezy organ of “Like Licorice”. “My Baby Just Squeals (You Heel)” may have been their mythical smash single, but the pointedly amateurish production and female interjections don’t do the track any favors, nor does the steal from the Stones’ “Connection”. “Devil Doll” would have promise, except that T Bone recites the verses; apparently they couldn’t find a melody worthy of the choruses. “Tipsy Woman”, however, has all the hallmarks of a future classic, with not too clever wordplay and a compelling delivery.

The story would have us believe that “My Baby Just Purrs (You’re Mine, Not Hers)” was the cash-in follow-up to that earlier alleged hit, but it’s better song and recording, worthy of early Attractions. However, “My Baby Just Whistles (Here Come The Missiles)” pushes the gag too far. Past the opening line (“Eating ice chrome at the spaceball game”) “World Serious” has inscrutable lyrics about something we can’t discern but it’s still one of the better tracks, whatever it’s about. “Early Shirley” has a pleasing rockabilly skiffle quality, but “Yesteryear Is Near” is an obnoxious parody of wartime music hall. Elvis’s affected Cockney delivery doesn’t help.

He keeps the Scouse going for “Birkenhead Girl”, mostly a distorted litany of local landmarks. “Smoke Ring Angel” is one of the ones with Guest, and we’ll give him credit for its success. “Wooden Woman” is another one not sunk by its own cleverness, but “(I Don’t Want Your) Lyndon Johnson” doesn’t have any; plus, we’re getting tired of the clunky sound. “Lotta Money” doubles down on it, and there’s that dotty piano again. (Guest was also partly responsible, but he already encapsulated the subject decades before.)

“Pure Bubblegum” is an Elvis solo experiment; these don’t usually work under his own name, and this one is just plain obnoxious. The apparent Vietnam protest of “Cathy Come Home” sinks under the weight of its ambition; he’s written better songs on the same theme without relying on effects. All this makes T Bone’s “Bygones” very welcome, musically as well as literally. Despite the forced calypso party atmosphere, “Row Me Once” is a fun singalong, and also the third Guest contribution. The simply tuneful “Clown Around Town” finally ends the album, albeit on a hoarse note.

Maybe this is a case of good songs produced badly, or maybe we should treat it as a lark and not a Major Statement. At any rate, The Coward Brothers is about as anticlimactic as such planned sequels as Little Village was to John Hiatt’s Bring The Family, or the second Traveling Wilburys album. The brothers should have stuck to acoustic duets.

The Coward Brothers The Coward Brothers (2024)—2

Dwight Twilley 5: Jungle

The ‘80s were the best of times for some, and the worst of times for others. Some people successfully embraced new sounds, and others were swallowed by them. Dwight Twilley already knew the guy who invented the Linn drum machine, and he wasn’t so stubborn that he wouldn’t see what synthesizers could do for his career. But while Jungle was something of a hit, it has not aged well.

The dramatic piano intro to “Little Bit Of Love” is a false alarm, as a synth part right out of the Eurythmics playbook drives the rest of the tune. It’s still got a killer chorus, bolstered once again by Susan Cowsill. But people likely bought the album on the basis of “Girls”, which got a lot of play on MTV thanks to its Porky’s-inspired video. (In a clever touch, Carla Olsen lip-synchs the lines Tom Petty actually sang.) “Why You Wanna Break My Heart” is pure ear candy, given new life—and fat royalty checks for its author—a decade later when it was covered for the Wayne’s World soundtrack. “You Can Change It” has a lot of crunch, but the choruses are starting to sound the same; this case, they sound much better in “Cry Baby”.

After a dramatic backwards fade-in “Don’t You Love Her” chugs along inoffensively, whereas “Long Lonely Nights” doesn’t need its minor key synth intro, totally at odds with the rest of the track. Even worse, the title track sounds like a Cars parody until he starts singing. “To Get To You” would be a decent rockabilly track if not for the backing, and the thunderstorm effects are misplaced. The jokey “Max Dog” is silly, but it’s got personality, and it’s welcome, though we don’t know how it took three people to write it.

It’s too bad that “Girls” is still so terrific, as the rest of the album doesn’t live up to it. We blame the era. Indeed, the eventual expanded CD included six outtakes slash demos that were a little more palatable sonically, especially “Forget About It” and superior takes of “Long Lonely Nights”, “You Can Change It”, and “Jungle”.

Dwight Twilley Jungle (1984)—2½
2024 CD reissue: same as 1984, plus 6 extra tracks

Mark Knopfler 13: One Deep River

It seems that whenever Mark Knopfler has amassed a pile of new songs, he records all of them, then releases them in bulk. One wonders whether the songs on One Deep River all arrived at once, explaining the six-year gap since his last album.

Whatever the story is, it’s pretty much more of what we’ve come to expect. “Two Pairs Of Hands” shuffles into play on mostly one chord. “Ahead Of The Game” has a more striking backing and hooks, and succeeds on those. The first two verses seem to be a reminiscence of the days before “Sultans Of Swing”, while the final draws a line to anyone trying to get by. “Smart Money” can’t decide if it’s country or Caribbean, while “Scavengers Yard” is suitably clanky, with a processed break that veers dangerously close to techno before escaping. “Black Tie Jobs” is almost stately, with canned chamber pop strings. “Tunnel 13” tells the true-life tale of a train robbery turned tragic, but as with much of his solo material, the loping backing doesn’t necessarily keep you riveted to the story.

Another scene is set for “Janine”, but it works better as a love song without context. “Watch Me Gone” is more mournful, with surprising female voices on the choruses. Beginning with a spooky, wintry atmosphere, “Sweeter Than The Rain” uses his already craggy yet aging voice to good effect, and “Before My Train Comes” is nice, even if it sounds too much like too many of his other songs. The somewhat plodding “This One’s Not Going To End Well” may or may not be social commentary on any political situation, but it is lifted by two brief fiddle solos. And the understated yet majestic title track does rank with his best.

His usual crack band backs him throughout One Deep River, and to the album’s credit, most of the tracks hover around four minutes each. But a further four tracks were added to the vinyl: “Dolly Shop Man”, an allegory about a pawn shop; the mildly romantic “Your Leading Man”; “Wrong ‘Un”, a good lyric in search of a better tune; and “Chess”, loaded with metaphors and resembling late-‘80s Chris Rea. And five others made it to deluxe CD and Blu-ray editions. The portrait of a has-been in “The Living End” is sunk by “shoop shoop” backing vocals, whereas “Fat Chance Dupree” has guys sounding like the Jordainaires. Celtic pipes finally make an appearance on “Along A Foreign Coast”, and the one-sided conversation in “What I’m Gonna Need” doesn’t go anywhere despite the nice melody. “Nothing But Rain” would have been welcome on the album, bluesy as it is.

Further proof that good editing makes good listening, less than a month after the album’s release came The Boy, an EP of four thematically related songs inspired (so Knopfler said) by the fairgrounds of his youth, complete with ambient effects. Lyrically we can see that, but the music could accompany any story, and not just one about a boxer. “Mr. Solomons Said” is the cool jazzy setup, and the title track explores the character from another perspective. “All Comers” is strong enough to stand outside the framework, and so does “Bad Day For A Knife Thrower”, but it doesn’t roll as easy. Unlike most of the other bonus tracks, any of these tracks are as good as what made the album, deluxe or otherwise. It surprises us that he wasn’t able to expand the concept; surely other songs on One Deep River could have been revised to fit the story?

Mark Knopfler One Deep River (2024)—3
Mark Knopfler The Boy (2024)—3

Yardbirds 4: Greatest Hits

American labels knew how to recycle product in the ‘60s, and since a few months had gone by since the last album, Epic decided to release a greatest hits set by the Yardbirds. It’s only half an hour long, as were a lot of albums back then, but it really does cover their hits to date. It includes two songs from the first album, four songs from Having A Rave-Up, and only “Over Under Sideways Down” from that album. New to LP in the states were the previous year’s stellar single “Shapes Of Things” and its B-side “New York City Blues” (which opens with the same riff Jimmy Page would cop for “You Shook Me”, adding insult to Jeff Beck’s injury, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves), plus “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago”, which means the album includes performances by all three of the band’s soon-to-be-legendary lead guitarists.

Three years later, once each of those lead guitarists had become household names in households that listened to FM radio, Epic issued a double album with the inspired title Featuring Performances By Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page. With 20 songs coming in at just under an hour, it repeated nothing from the hits album—which had covered pretty much all of the songs that qualified as actual hits—and scrambled deep tracks from all the American albums in no understandable sequence, seesawing from blues to experimental. The bizarre cover art was typical of the era, and the same designer would get to work on another related project ere long.

Both of these compilations would go out of print by the end of the ‘70s, and because the masters were owned by different managers depending on who produced what, licensing would continue to be wonky, and shoddy rehashes abounded overseas. Then, in 1986, the Rhino made good on their original brief to restore music to the masses with a hits collection with the hopeful title of Volume One. This set concentrated on the Giorgio Gomelsky era, with began with Clapton and covered the first two American albums, including two further tracks from Five Live Yardbirds. It did a fine job of presenting them as blues interpreters, but the contents predated some of Beck’s innovations.

While a second volume never materialized, Rhino did score a coup in the new century with Ultimate! This was another apt title, as it crammed two CDs full of just about everything, starting with their first demos, through four tracks from Five Live Yardbirds, most of the three American albums, and all key singles and B-sides, plus a rare Italian single and three fey Keith Relf solo sides. Attention to detail ensured liner notes and comprehensive discographical information, including recording dates, locations, and even engineers; who knew Eddy Offord, Roy Halee, and even Bones Howe taped this band?

This, too, is out of print, but luckily in the digital era it’s possible to stream most of the music. The original albums are out there, along with various grey-area live performances. And of course, the BBC. After scoring the rights to Roger The Engineer, Warner Archives followed another ‘90s catalog trend with the 1997 release of BBC Sessions for the first time in the US after a few years floating around elsewhere. This set presented 26 tracks from the Beck and Page eras, complete with interview snippets from the usual clipped-voiced deejays and a few tunes that never made it to wax. This too became scarce, until 2024 brought The Ultimate Live At The BBC—they sure like that adjective—box of four discs.

The Yardbirds The Yardbirds’ Greatest Hits (1967)—4
The Yardbirds Featuring Performances By Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page (1970)—3½
The Yardbirds Greatest Hits, Volume One (1964-1966) (1986)—3½
The Yardbirds Ultimate! (2001)—4
Current CD availability: none

Ben Folds 16: Sleigher

For the longest time, Ben Folds had exactly two Christmas songs in his catalog: “Lonely Christmas Eve” from the live-action film version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and the profane “Bizarre Christmas Incident”, written for said film when all he knew about the project was that it was to be a comedy about Christmas directed by Ron Howard and starring Jim Carrey. (We don’t count “Brick” for the same reason that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie.) Still, we always suspected that the king of piano snark would be sentimental around the holidays, and he finally got to explore it with an album cleverly titled Sleigher, which mixes originals with three covers.

We still can’t find the melody of “Little Drummer Bolero”—it doesn’t sound like the “pa rum-pum pum pum” song—but it’s a lovely instrumental. “Sleepwalking Through Christmas” has just a twinge of melancholy, but it’s not as lonesome nor as touching as “Me And Maurice” (the pair is even depicted in the cover cartoon, complete with “full green bag of shame”). “Christmas Time Rhyme” does a nice job of stringing together images from the perspective of kids of all ages, with just one eff-bomb. Another instrumental, “Waiting For Snow” is brief but still pretty.

“We Could Have This” finally inserts some romance and the promise of a happy future, sung as a duet with the mildly chirpy Lindsey Kraft. The most obvious and least daring tune is “The Christmas Song”, as his rendition of chestnuts roasting is accompanied by guitar, piano, and harmonica. He heard Burt Bacharach’s “The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle” (with lyrics by the same guy who wrote the lyrics for “Speak Softly Love” from The Godfather and other movie themes) from a Herb Alpert album, and it’s very evocative of that style, but “Xmas Aye Eye” (as in AI) is a complete shift, grating electro-pop with lyrics provided by ChatGPT and peppered with sound effects. Finally, “You Don’t Have To Be A Santa Claus” is all Mills Brothers, and good advice any day.

At just under 35 minutes, Sleigher certainly doesn’t wear out its welcome, even if the harmonica does. But given the beauty of the instrumentals, we would certainly welcome more tracks like that. Maybe next year.

Ben Folds Sleigher (2024)—3

Thomas Dolby 5: The Gate To The Mind’s Eye

Having slowly wearied of trying to compete in the modern music industry marketplace, Thomas Dolby stayed true to his nature by following the latest in technology, which by the ‘90s had increasingly relied on computers. This meant he got gigs scoring computer-based video games, so it was an easy step to computer animation, just as it was starting to blossom. Since he was still signed to a label, The Gate To The Mind’s Eye was his soundtrack to the third in a series of computer-generated films, none of which we’ve seen and don’t plan to. (The previous soundtrack was scored by Jan Hammer, the next by Kansas founder Kerry Livgren.) As background music, it’s mostly inoffensive, but not exactly groundbreaking.

Much of it is instrumental, but there are some vocal pieces. “Armageddon” has lyrics, mostly in Latin, with operatic vocals that continue on “Planet Of Lost Souls”, which is nicest when it’s just the piano. “N.E.O.” is mostly spoken by respected (so we’re told) Italian astrophysicist Fiorella Terenzi; he’s credited with the closing “rap” but at least he’s not trying to be the most illinest B-boy. Despite beginning with a quote from one of Napoleon’s letters to Josephine, “Valley Of The Mind’s Eye” is a fairly lush love song, while “Nuvogue” is a swing jazz tune that would have fit fine on Aliens Ate My Buick. But “Quantum Mechanic” is a techno song warbled by Dr. Terenzi, who also supplied the words. These days it almost sounds like a parody.

The album didn’t do much for his record sales, but for those who weren’t interested in following his esoteric muse, earlier in the year a compilation cleverly titled Retrospectacle delivered the handful of hits and a few deep cuts. The main attraction for fans was the availability of “Urges” and “Leipzig”, which had been added to the first US version of the first album but soon dropped in favor of “She Blinded Me With Science” and “One Of Our Submarines”. Beyond that, it samples each of his first four albums for a chronological yet cohesive sampler.

Thomas Dolby The Best Of Thomas Dolby: Retrospectacle (1994)—3½
Thomas Dolby The Gate To The Mind’s Eye Soundtrack (1994)—2½

Fairport Convention 3: Unhalfbricking

Like a lot of bands, Fairport Convention truly hit their stride with their third album. On Unhalfbricking they moved much closer to electrified English folk, setting the standard for others to follow. By this time Ian Matthews had left the band, bringing the core members down to five, but the presence of Dave Swarbrick on fiddle and mandolin would lead to his joining full-time, and we’re getting ahead of ourselves again.

As befits an album with a mysterious, meaningless title, it’s opened by the keening electric dulcimers on “Genesis Hall”, a typically brooding Richard Thompson lyric. Bob Dylan would get a chunk of the publishing royalties from this album, as three of his more obscure songs are included, the first being “Si Tu Dois Partir”, a near-jug band rendition of “If You Gotta Go, Go Now” translated into French. The complicated meter of “Autopsy” only enhances the gothic tone of the lyrics, but it’s “A Sailor’s Life” that is the literal and figurative centerpiece. Over eleven minutes this traditional tune begins quietly and builds much like the rolling sea, Sandy Denny sounding every inch of a fair maiden, Thompson tearing off a terrific guitar line against Swarbrick’s violin once let loose. And then the sea is calm again.

The 12-bar “Cajun Woman” is something of a rockin’ palate cleanser, as the tender and wistful “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” is finally heard in Sandy’s own rendition. Another Dylan obscurity, “Percy’s Song”, gets something of a campfire treatment but for those electric dulcimers and organ, and everyone gets a turn at a verse of “Million Dollar Bash”, back when The Basement Tapes was still a bootleg. (A later British CD added two Dylan-related bonus tracks: an outtake of “Dear Landlord”, plus “Ballad Of Easy Rider”—to which Dylan supposedly contributed one line—that was an outtake from the next album, but included for thematic reasons.)

The album’s release was unfortunately clouded by the death of drummer Martin Lamble two months earlier in a van accident while the band was traveling back from a gig. What’s more, while the British cover depicted the band partially concealed behind a fence at Sandy Denny’s parents’ house (they’re the pair in front), for some reason the American label decided to use a clearer snapshot of the band, albeit in the corner of a sleeve dominated by dancing elephants. Nonetheless, the music within is quirky yet solid, garnering the rating below. There’s really not much more we can say about it.

Fairport Convention Unhalfbricking (1969)—4

Roger Daltrey 10: A Celebration

Perhaps knowing what his legacy would always be, Roger Daltrey turned his attention to staging a pair of all-star concerts at Carnegie Hall for his 50th birthday. A Celebration: The Music Of Pete Townshend And The Who put Roger—tux-clad but tie- and sleeve-less for the first half, shirtless under a leather jacket for the second—in front of an orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen and a band featuring veterans of the 1989 tour and such Townshend familiars as Jody Linscott, Rabbit Bundrick, Phil Palmer, Jon Carin, Pino Palladino, and Simon Phillips. The set consisted of a curious mix of familiar songs and surprises, even a few solo choices, the spotlight occasionally ceded to or shared with special guest performers.

A Michael Lindsay-Hogg-directed pay-per-view special followed, while the official Bob Ezrin-produced album only presented half of the music performed at the 2½-hour shows. As Roger no longer had a solo deal of his own, it was released on an independent label the same damn day as the Who’s heralded box set.

The show opened with an “Overture”—not the one from Tommy, but a new medley of orchestrated Pete melodies. From there Roger sang some of the expected hits, but also some deep cuts. Yet the most startling and best rendition was that of “The Sea Refuses No River”, making us wish he’d explored more of Pete’s solo catalog.

Relegating contributions from Spin Doctors, Eddie Vedder, Lou Reed, and Alice Cooper to the video document, CD listeners were treated to Linda Perry, then of 4 Non Blondes, with a frankly excellent take on “Doctor Jimmy”, and the Chieftains, who augmented “Baba O’Riley” and “After The Fire”. (Sinéad O’Connor, who was still getting booed in those days, sang on the last two, but was not included in the mix.) David Sanborn was touted as a featured soloist on “5:15”, John Entwistle contributed bass to “The Real Me”, and Pete himself played a few songs without the other two; of those, only “Who Are You” was included.

A Celebration wasn’t exactly a sales smash, but the subsequent “Daltrey Sings Townshend” tour attempted to keep the party going with some of the same players, plus key additions like John Entwistle, Pete’s brother Simon on guitar, and young Zak Starkey on drums. As John always needed the money, more tours would follow, making the album something of a catalyst for future Who activity.

Roger Daltrey A Celebration: The Music Of Pete Townshend And The Who (1994)—3

Guns N’ Roses 4: Use Your Illusion II

Releasing two albums at once meant that the chances of both hitting #1 in Billboard were slim, even for Guns N’ Roses. Somehow Use Your Illusion II (the blue and purple one) beat out its brother for the top slot. Arguably it was the better album anyway, with more variety and depth.

“Civil War” had been out for a year already, having been recorded when Steven Adler was still in the band, and included on an album compiled to benefit a charity founded by Olivia Harrison. It begins with Strother Martin’s iconic speech from Cool Hand Luke, and sets a somber tone for the rest of the album. “14 Years” was Izzy Stradlin’s best song of the batch he brought to the project; he sings the verses and Axl Rose handles the choruses, and they might as well be two separate songs stuck together. “Yesterdays” is less bitter but still disgruntled, and one of Axl’s better tunes. Their cover of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” had also been released previously on a Tom Cruise movie soundtrack, but in a slightly different mix.

Just when you think they’ve grown up, “Get In The Ring” sends us back to grade school. Yelled by Axl and Duff McKagan, between audience chants recorded live on tour only months before, it’s a basic eff-you to anyone and everyone, and particularly various writers and magazines who had been less than complimentary about the band. Duff helps out also with “Shotgun Blues”, which is just as angry and profane but doesn’t name names. The side is redeemed by “Breakdown”, another long but well-constructed track with introspective lyrics, with another film reference; this time Axl impersonates Cleavon Little from Vanishing Point over the last couple minutes.

Izzy returns with “Pretty Tied Up”, which seesaws between mythology in the verses and an incongruous chorus, but it’s got an undeniable strut. And while thus far they’ve chosen to open or close sides with the epics, “Locomotive” runs nearly nine minutes in the middle of side three. It’s a showcase for Slash, and we’re amazed that with all the tweaking these albums underwent, they never bothered to fix Axl’s time issues on the choruses. It’s even got a cool piano-driven coda. But then Duff steps up to the mic to mewl the bulk of “So Fine”, a mostly inoffensive power ballad with a truly stupid bridge.

We’re not done with the epics yet, as “Estranged” runs for nine minutes, has a lot of Axl on piano and Slash soloing constantly, and can be heard as something of a companion to “November Rain”. But it’s mainly remembered today for its truly bonkers video, released two years after the album came out, wherein Axl is chased by SWAT teams, sent to the nut house, and pursued by helicopters, finally leaping from an oil tanker to swim with dolphins. Then it’s back to the beginning of the cycle with “You Could Be Mine”, first released on the Terminator II soundtrack and something of a rockin’ sorbet in the spirit of the debut. “Don’t Cry (Alt. Lyrics)” has different verses but the same choruses as the “Original” on the other album, and nobody was ready for “My World”, basically an Axl-driven industrial rap experiment that sounds like a joke but probably wasn’t.

While there are some truly cringey moments on Use Your Illusion II, it remains an excellent demonstration of the band’s collective and individual talents. They weren’t just another hair metal band. (A week later, the major-label debut from a Seattle band called Nirvana was released, also on Geffen. The first album by another Seattle band, called Pearl Jam, had come out at the end of August. Meanwhile, new albums by such previously multiplatinum acts as Skid Row, White Lion, and Tesla did not break any sales records. The music business was changing again.)

Once again the Deluxe Edition added a disc of various live tracks from the shows, not all of which were included in the Super Deluxe Use Your Illusion box. And once again most of the GN’R songs were on the main album, with some interesting extras, like “Mama Kin” and “Train Kept A-Rollin’” with Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith at a show in Paris. A segment from the same show encompasses a seven-minute drum solo, a four-minute Slash guitar solo that finds its way to the Godfather theme, and Queen’s “Sail Away Sweet Sister”. For some reason “Civil War” is bookended by the “Voodoo Child” riff, and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” is prefaced by the riff but no sung lines from Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed”. By this time the band had two keyboard players, backing vocalists, and a horn section, so Axl didn’t have to handle both playing and singing things like “Estranged”. And boy, did he holler a lot.

Guns N’ Roses Use Your Illusion II (1991)—3
2022 Deluxe Edition: same as 1991, plus 13 extra tracks

Guns N’ Roses 3: Use Your Illusion I

Back in 1991, Guns N’ Roses had been taking an eternity to complete their next album. They were touring to promote it while still tinkering with it, to the extent that Use Your Illusion would finally arrive as two double-album-length CDs, available separately. This was the biggest thing to happen in the record business in years, as demonstrated by nationwide midnight sales. Nobody wanted to be the only one at school to not have the new GN’R albums, and everyone had to have them both.

Use Your Illusion I, or the red and yellow one, was probably the closest in spirit to the debut, in that it was more about straight-ahead rock. By now Steven Adler had been bounced from the band, replaced by Matt Sorum, who was best known for touring with the Cult, but had also done time with a woman soon to be known as Tori Amos. He was, and is, a heavy hitter, exactly the type of drummer needed to fill a stadium P.A., but frankly lacked the swing that Adler exhibited on the first album. Another sign that we’re on the other side of the bell curve is the individual writing credits; where previous songs were credited to the band as a whole, now it was clear which ones Axl Rose wrote by himself, and moreso when it was an Izzy Stradlin tune.

Duff McKagan’s bass and a Slash riff kick off “Right Next Door To Hell”, one of several rapid-fire vocals from Axl. Izzy takes the first of three(!) lead vocals on the album for “Dust N’ Bones”, though it’s mostly buried under Slash’s lead line. Their cover of Wings’ “Live And Let Die” was surprising yet nearly note-for-note, but most people were probably on board for “Don’t Cry”, their new power ballad and smash single, and wondering if he really held that last note for 30 seconds. “Perfect Crime” is more high-speed yelling, and best during the slower break.

Izzy dominates what LP owners called side two, starting with “You Ain’t The First”, which could have fit on side two of Lies. Michael Monroe of Hanoi Rocks honks harmonica and saxophone on “Bad Obsession”, and we can also hear new member Dizzy Reed on piano. It’s one of several songs here that garnered the parental advisory sticker and prevented the album(s) from being sold at stores like Walmart, along with the overly angry “Back Off Bitch”. “Double Talkin’ Jive” is another piledriver riff, mostly sung by Izzy with Axl helping, that manages to find its way to an extended flamenco-style coda.

The centerpiece of the album was “November Rain”, the epic piano-based showstopper Axl had been concocting since he bought his first Elton John album. It was made even more inescapable in those days thanks to its over-the-top video, which ran the full length of the song’s nine minutes. (The canned strings used on the original album were replaced thirty years later by actual strings for the album’s Deluxe Edition, and still sound cheesy.) “The Garden” begins somewhat subdued, and wanders around one chord until Alice Cooper’s guest appearances. It tends to drag, which can’t be said about the oddly sequenced “Garden Of Eden”, which is twice the speed and half the length. “Don’t Damn Me” is this volume’s response to Axl’s critics over his homophobia, racism, misogyny, etc. It’s another song that benefits from the dynamics of a slowed-down midsection.

“Bad Apples” begins with a taste of funk but soon descends into straight boogie, while “Dead Horse” is bookended by Axl singing and strumming his acoustic, in the same style as the main, heavier meat of the song. All this is a mere prelude to “Coma”, which Axl and Slash wrote after separate overdoses and takes up the final ten minutes of the album. The riff offsets the heartbeat kick drum, and spoken interludes by medical experts with matching sound effects aren’t too gratuitous—though the nagging female voices don’t evoke much sympathy for the singer’s plight—and the cyclical music manages to support Axl’s closing rant.

As with most double albums, Use Your Illusion I could have easily been shaved down to a single, but that wasn’t part of the plan. Considering that two of the best songs together took 20 minutes, Izzy likely would have seen only one of his songs included, if at all, had they tried to condense it. But we can only take so much of Axl’s wordy screaming song after song—even he needed a teleprompter onstage to get all the words right.

In addition to the new mix of “November Rain” inserted into to the original sequence, the album’s Deluxe Edition added an hour’s worth of live tracks from a variety of shows—mostly songs from the album, plus such unique tunes as a cover of the Misfits’ “Attitude” sung by Duff, “Always On The Run” with Lenny Kravitz (who wrote the song with Slash), “November Rain” prefaced by Black Sabbath’s “It’s Alright”, and a mostly instrumental take on the Stones’ “Wild Horses”. Shannon Hoon, eventually of Blind Melon, sings on two songs. Not all of these were included in the seven-CD-plus-Blu-ray Super Deluxe Edition, which added two full concerts: two discs from the Ritz (the former Studio 54) at the start of the tour, and three discs from Las Vegas eight months into it. A lot of music, to be sure.

Guns N’ Roses Use Your Illusion I (1991)—3
2022 Deluxe Edition: “same” as 1991, plus 13 extra tracks

Nilsson 9: Son Of Schmilsson

With Nilsson Schmilsson, Harry Nilsson had pretty much become the big star he’d always seemed to want to be. And with that, he proceeded to buck trends and his own producer’s desire to repeat the formula. With its horror movie-inspired cover art and lettering, Son Of Schmilsson thumbed its nose at the very idea of a sequel, even with all-star help from two pseudonymed Beatles, Peter Frampton, Nicky Hopkins, Jim Price, Bobby Keys, and Klaus Voormann.

“Take 54” provides a peek at the increasingly difficult task of making records, particularly when distracted by a young lovely for whom the singer “sang [his] balls off”. Following a trailer-style announcement for the album, “Remember (Christmas)” is a lovely little ballad that has nothing to do whatsoever with the word in the subtitle, yet is exactly what everybody wanted. “Joy” is a country music parody, on which he doubles down the satire. Near the end he asks her to listen for him on the radio, and sure enough “Turn On Your Radio” presents another lovelorn lament but in a more pensive tone. Then there’s the wonderfully nasty “You’re Breakin’ My Heart”, with its opening line that guaranteed zero airplay, paving the way for Cee-Lo some 38 years later.

Speaking of odd connections, “Spaceman” is something of the flip-side to Elton John’s “Rocket Man”, in that the protagonist is tired of begin stuck in space; the strings were arranged by Elton (and Nilsson) regular Paul Buckmaster. With its sweet sentiment and lingering hopefulness, “The Lottery Song” hearkens back to his earlier songs. But his disdain for playing nice is epitomized by the opening of “At My Front Door”, wherein he begins to croon “Remember (Christmas)”, then belches and the track switches to an upbeat piano-driven cover of an old doo-wop tune. “Ambush” is a sneaky one, loping along with a tale of a platoon of soldiers singing to keep their spirits up, only to be wiped out by enemy gunfire. If you think that’s morbid, consider “I’d Rather Be Dead”, sung to the accompaniment of a jaunty accordion with the help of a choir comprised of pensioners happily crooning along with “I’d rather be dead/Than wet my bed.” Richard Perry’s hope for a big Disney finale with “The Most Beautiful World In The World” is compromised by the first half, sung in a faux-reggae voice with a gargled solo.

As long as people can handle the humor and chauvinism, Son Of Schmilsson actually is a worthy follow-up, especially when taken in the context of his catalog. Connoisseurs would very much appreciate the most recent reissue of the album, which added several bonus tracks: an early version of “What’s Your Sign”; an alternate “Take 54”; a comical busk of “It Had To Be You” that leads into “I’d Rather Be Dead”; an unused recording of Jimmy Webb’s “Campo De Encino”; and “Daybreak”, the one new song included on the soundtrack to 1974’s cinematic debacle Son Of Dracula, which otherwise recycled selections from this album and Nilsson Schmilsson.

Nilsson Son Of Schmilsson (1972)—3
2006 CD reissue: same as 1972, plus 5 extra tracks

Todd Rundgren 1: Nazz

Countless American bands were influenced by the British Invasion, and most of them were never heard from past their first hit single, if at all. When Nazz comes up these days, it’s almost always because they included a songwriter and guitarist named Todd Rundgren.

They took their name from an obscure Yardbirds B-side, and that was just one of their touchstones. Somehow they got signed to a Monkees-adjacent label distributed by Atlantic, and were immediately hyped in magazines like Tiger Beat before they’d even finished their first album. If any of those teenyboppers bought their eponymous debut unheard, did they like it? The cover of Nazz is a direct cop from the Beatles, while the back depicts them in fringe, corduroy, and kerchiefs with mod haircuts. Only the inner gatefold said who was who, the singer named merely as “Stewkey”. A few paragraphs from Jon Landau, about five years before he met Bruce Springsteen, add hype.

The music sits on two sides of the spectrum: Who-stained, acid-inspired rock and Bacharach-tinged pop not dissimilar to the Association. In the first category, the single “Open My Eyes” turns the “I Can’t Explain” chords into the Ventures’ “Walk Don’t Run” for a psychedelic classic. “Back Of Your Mind” is nice and trashy, and “Wildwood Blues” descends into some very out-there tape effects. On the softer side there’s “Hello It’s Me”, its first incarnation dreamily crooned by Stewkey, and “If That’s The Way You Feel” is remarkably similar. “Crowded” shows that Todd wasn’t the only one who knew how to craft AM radio ear candy.

If anything, Nazz suffers from a muddy mix, which led Todd to become even more dominant in the studio for the follow-up. He was writing and even singing more, and had to be talked out of releasing a two-record set. What did come out as Nazz Nazz begins like the first album, with “Forget All About It” something of a retread, and Todd taking over the keyboards and vocals for the driving “Not Wrong Long”. “Under The Ice” and “Hang On Paul” are cool extended guitar workouts, and “Kiddie Boy” is R&B with a horn section. “Gonna Cry Today” fills the “Hello It’s Me” slot in more ways than one, with only “Letters Don’t Count”, bookended by a glass harmonica effect as the only other ballad. The album’s ambition is crystalized by “A Beautiful Song”, the multipart symphony that takes up almost twelve minutes at the end of side two, comprised of layered guitars and keyboards, as well as horns and strings. The vocal-and-piano section is lovely, and overtaken by the instruments that came before. But there’s simply no explaining “Meridian Leeward”, which can’t decide if it wants to be a twisted fairy tale or an allegory about police brutality; either way, it misses.

By the time Nazz Nazz came out, Todd had quit the band with the intention to make his fortune in engineering and producing. (Bass player Carson Van Osten followed; he’d end up working for Disney as a respected animator.) That was that for a couple of years, until Todd had started getting notice on his own. So the label strongarmed Stewkey and drummer Thom Mooney into compiling Nazz III from everything that was rejected from the second album. (The two also hooked up with a couple of guys in Illinois who had a band called Fuse that would one day evolve into Cheap Trick, but that’s another story.)

These aren’t necessarily cast-offs; the biggest difference is that Stewkey is singing most of the tracks, and there are more slow tunes. There are a couple of oddball tracks, like the cover of Paul Revere & The Raiders’ “Kicks” that wasn’t supposed to be on any album, and “Loosen Up”, a brief send-up of Archie Bell and the Drells that’s funny the first time you hear it. Carson contributed the meandering “Plenty Of Lovin’” and “Christopher Columbus”, both mostly notable for the guitar work, which also comes through on the more rocking “Magic Me” and “How Can You Call That Beautiful?” Mostly we can hear Todd’s infatuation with Laura Nyro on several tracks, like “Only One Winner” and “Resolution”, culminating with the lush, yearning “You Are My Window”.

The albums aren’t masterpieces, but they do fit into the bigger picture, and start the Todd trajectory. Because of his connection, Nazz would become somewhat beloved as cult heroes and early power pop icons. Rhino even reissued their albums in the ‘80s, a few years before doing the same with Todd’s solo catalog. Eventually, 2002’s Open Your Eyes anthology crammed all three albums onto two discs, but shuffled the order completely, and added their unreleased cover of “Train Kept A-Rollin’”. Seven years later, all three albums were reissued with bonus tracks, like outtakes and demo versions with Todd singing what Stewkey would emulate, and in a set called The Complete Nazz, which was exactly that. But some people wanted more, so the oddly named Lost Masters & Demos presented the complete proposed Nazz Nazz double album sequence and a collection of alternate mixes from preserved acetates. While interesting—especially if you’re used to hearing the tunes in other contexts—it’s no White Album. Sometimes the label is right.

Nazz Nazz (1968)—3
Nazz Nazz Nazz (1969)—3
Nazz Nazz III (1971)—3
Nazz Open Your Eyes: The Anthology (2002)—3
Nazz The Complete Nazz (2009)—3½
Nazz Lost Masters & Demos (2022)—2½

Graham Nash 9: Live

Graham Nash clearly has no qualms about revisiting his catalog to any extent, and in 2019 he undertook a tour wherein his excellent band performed his first two solo albums track by track, in order. Four years later, Live: Songs For Beginners/Wild Tales was culled from four shows, and delivers exactly what the title promises. Outside of a brief greeting before each section, we just hear them play the songs.

The band clearly did their homework, as many of the songs are in much lower keys than they were on the original records, but he’s still in good voice. “Sleep Song” hasn’t aged well, but “There’s Only One” gets a good response for the sax solos and choir. The second half drags a bit, mostly because Wild Tales wasn’t as good as Songs For Beginners, and even the band can’t save it, though Shane Fontayne does a nice job of copping David Lindley’s original licks. The Nixon soundbites in “Grave Concern” have been replaced by Trump rants, and that five-letter word makes it into some of the other songs where the opportunity rises.

Overall the performances are warm and cozy, but as an album they only underscore that the real excitement was likely best experienced in person. Yet we’re always happy to be reminded how good some of his stuff was, and still is.

Graham Nash Live: Songs For Beginners/Wild Tales (2022)—3

David Crosby 10: For Free

Only the Covid pandemic could slow David Crosby’s determination to keep performing. Not able to tour, he recorded another album as fast as he could—his fifth since 2014. But rather than the experimentalism of his work with the so-called Lighthouse Band, For Free is more relaxed adult contemporary, typical of his collaboration with James Raymond. That means there’s also lots of piano, which is fine.

“River Rise” sets the tone immediately, being a co-write with Michael McDonald, who harmonizes on the choruses. We keep thinking we hear Stephen Stills singing on “I Think I”, but it turns out to be one Steve Postell, who’s been busy lately in the Immediate Family Band with such Croz veterans as Danny Kortchmar, Lee Sklar, and Russ Kunkel. “The Other Side Of Midnight” is one of three songs contributed solely by Raymond, with layered voices interwoven between the programmed guitar sounds. “Rodriguez For A Night” is a collaboration with Donald Fagen that basically sounds like Crosby singing on a Steely Dan record. That makes the mystery of “Secret Dancer” all the more alluring.

“Ships In The Night” is kinda generic, and we can’t get past how he pronounces “irrevocably”, but the title track is his second cover of this particular Joni Mitchell perennial, sung here as a lovely, intricate duet with Sarah Jarosz. From there it’s a leap to the present with “Boxes”, in which he seems to acknowledge his mortality as well as the choices that drove people away from him. That sets the tone continued on “Shot At Me”, a conversation with a young combat veteran. The finest moments come in “I Won’t Stay For Long”, a moving benediction set up by a count-in by Brian Wilson, who doesn’t seem to have anything else to do with the album.

Coming after such a strong run, especially for someone of his age and legacy, For Free isn’t as immediately surprising, or frankly as satisfying, as the four albums he’d made in the past decade. Unless there’s a pile of recordings waiting to be unleashed, this will have to stand as his final statement, as it was the last album he would complete in his amazingly long life.

David Crosby For Free (2021)—3

Kinks 30: Think Visual

1986 wasn’t the best year for bands like the Kinks, and whatever commercial clout they had built up thus far in the decade was scuppered once they signed to MCA (in the U.S.; London got them in the U.K.), a label that simply didn’t know how to promote artists, new or vintage. Which was too bad, since Think Visual, their first album under the new deals, wasn’t awful.

Of course, Ray Davies was still Ray Davies, and he opens the album with “Working At The Factory”, a blatant complaint about what the music biz has done to him. Subject matter aside, it’s still a decent track. So is “Lost And Found”, which is literally about getting through a hurricane, but works on metaphorical levels as well. (Even if it does evoke both “It’s The Same Old Song” and “The Boy With The Thorn In His Side”.) Too much of “Repetition” lives up to its title, but there are some clever inversions of the three-chord pattern, and a killer bridge. Similarly, “Welcome To Sleazy Town” has an arrangement to match, a slow bluesy stroll with a canned-sounding harmonica, while “The Video Shop” is left over from when Ray wanted to write a concept album about the guy from the “Come Dancing” video selling pirated tapes.

Dave Davies gets to bookend side two, and not very well. “Rock ‘N Roll Cities” is a not very original idea, shouting out names of places in a very pandering way looking for easy applause when they’d get around to playing it on stage. While it tends to drag over the same two chords, Ray redeems himself with “How Are You”, something of a sadder follow-up to “Do You Remember Walter”. The title track is more commentary on marketing, spouting what we now call buzzwords over an edgy backing, whereas “Natural Gift” takes a more human approach to the idea of substance over style. “Killing Time” is another one of those songs he could write in his sleep, and it’s a shame this wasn’t a single. But Dave leaves us with the synth-heavy “When You Were A Child”; there’s nothing wrong with it, except that it doesn’t belong on this album.

We said Think Visual wasn’t awful, mostly because it could have been a lot worse. There are enough decent songs throughout the album, but we get the feeling they were going through the motions.

The Kinks Think Visual (1986)—2½

Roger McGuinn 2: Peace On You

Whatever charms his first solo album had didn’t translate to sales, so his label dictated that Roger McGuinn submit to someone else producing his follow-up, and probably bring in some ringers too. In addition to Al Kooper, Dan Fogelberg—who contributed a song apiece—and Flo & Eddie (the latter’s last name spelt wrong), the musicians on Peace On You included Paul Harris and Al Perkins (most recently found in Manassas), Donnie Dacus (who’d soon be found around Stephen Stills himself), and the rhythm section of Russ Kunkel and Lee Sklar (next stop: Crosby & Nash), with the whole proceedings helmed by Bill Halverson (who’d already been associated with CSN). Even the back cover included hype-style liner notes reminding the consumer who he was and what he did, basically saying his name wasn’t enough anymore.

The joke in Charlie Rich’s “Peace On You” gets lost in its arrangement, and more so because it’s the title track. The lonesome “Without You” puts a drag on the proceedings, even with Donnie Dacus soloing constantly. Dacus himself contributed “Going To The Country”, which has promise in its picking, but he didn’t bother to write a chorus. Al Kooper’s “(Please Not) One More Time” is slathered in adult contemporary pop touches, but “Same Old Sound” is mostly notable because we finally hear the trademark 12-string play a solo.

“Do What You Want To Do” is a slightly better Allman Brothers homage from Dacus, but “Together” is more lovelorn moping that seesaws between downbeat picking and ill-advised double-time choruses. “Better Change” is the Fogelberg contribution, and a lot tougher than we expected it would be. “Gate Of Horn” is a tribute to the storied Chicago folk club where he fell in love with the genre, sadly shackled to a vaudeville-style arrangement that speeds up and slows down at various points. “The Lady” finally sounds like classic McGuinn, and about time as it’s the last track.

The problem with loading the deck with all-star talent is that they swamp the tracks, so that if not for his trademark nasal twang—which does become tiresome after a while—one might not know Peace On You was a Roger McGuinn album, even on the songs he did write, usually with Jacques Levy. Instead, it resembles Stephen Stills once he started to run out of gas, and maybe the same players had something to do with it. (The eventual Sundazed reissue added a bonus track in an earlier version of “Rock & Roll Time”, which would be redone two albums later.)

Roger McGuinn Peace On You (1974)—2
2004 Sundazed reissue: same as 1974, plus 1 extra track

Kiss 15: Creatures Of The Night

Somehow Kiss still had a recording contract, and since they didn’t know how to do anything else, they recorded another album. But while Ace Frehley was still depicted on the cover of Creatures Of The Night, and would appear in the first video, he didn’t play a note on the album. Among the ringers they brought in—including such odd choices as Robben Ford and Jimmy Haslip—was one Vincent Cusano, who was credited with co-writing three of the songs. He’d make his mark in an even more visible way soon enough.

For the first time in five years the band did what they did best, which was to rock out. And that they do, beginning with the title track, sneered by Paul Stanley. We hear a touch of keyboard, but not in a dated way. It’s a good thing lyrics were included on the inner sleeve, as we can barely understand what Gene Simmons is singing about on “Saint And Sinner”, and Paul has the same problem on “Keep Me Comin’”, but at least that has a catchy chorus despite the suggestion. “Rock And Roll Hell” is another collaboration with Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance—a joke that almost writes itself. “Danger” is a retread of the high-speed shuffle that drove “Love Gun”, and actually sounds like something that could have been on one of their older albums.

If anything would have sold the album, it was “I Love It Loud”, another statement of purpose for a band that already had several. From Eric Carr’s “Kashmir”-style drums to the chant, the simple chorus to Gene’s interjections, they managed to create another classic, complete with false fade and return. Only then can they insert the requisite ballad, this time in the form of “I Still Love You”, which Paul asserts for six minutes. The fast riffing and misogynistic lyrics of “Killer” reinstate their badassery, and “War Machine” is more mercenary posing from Gene.

While Creatures Of The Night wasn’t the return to commercial form they’d hoped it would be, the album still holds up. Once the band’s catalog started selling again, the Mercury label reissued it with a new cover that still didn’t accurately represent who played on it, while remixing and shifting a few tracks; the original cover was reinstated a decade later when the catalog was remastered.

The album’s 40th anniversary was a cause for celebration in some quarters, and the band delivered again. The Deluxe Edition added a smattering of demos, outtakes, and live tracks to the original mix. But true Kiss Army enlistees would have wanted the Super Deluxe five-CD box, which boasted two full discs of demos and outtakes (including the four new songs released everywhere but the U.S. on Killers) and two full discs of live recordings from the tour, culminating in nine minutes of assorted and indexed sound effects. The requisite Blu-ray had the Atmos and surround mixes of the album, which could be enjoyed while thumbing through the book and ephemera.

Kiss Creatures Of The Night (1982)—3
2022 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition: same as 1982, plus 16 extra tracks (Super Deluxe Edition adds another 51 tracks plus Blu-ray)

Walter Becker 1: 11 Tracks Of Whack

Even more surprising than Donald Fagen re-emerging as a solo artist after a decade and promoting by touring with a reunited Steely Dan was Walter Becker releasing his first solo album. After all those years content to be the other guy in the band, 11 Tracks Of Whack—which perversely consists of 12 tracks—presents him as the vocalist for the first time. While he doesn’t have the distinct sneer his partner perfected, his voice is passable and not grating.

“Down In The Bottom” has a groove a lot like Big Audio Dynamite’s “Medicine Show”, and we mean that in a good way. “Junkie Girl” is a little slower, with a dark lyric and an expletive-laden chorus that belies its lazy lilt. “Surf And/Or Die” is even more elusive, with dense imagery in a barely sung litany. The keyboards and sax on “Book Of Liars” sound the most like Fagen should be singing, though he doesn’t, while “Lucky Henry” teeters on smooth jazz but for the busy meter and wailing, dueling guitar solos. And while “Hard Up Case” throws in some unexpected turns, it’s not much more than a prop for the hook in the chorus.

A marriage turned sour is approached with wry humor in “Cringemaker”, while “Girlfriend” is a complaint from a sad sack whining alone in front of his television. “My Waterloo” has something of a reggae feel, but the sameness of the content is starting to drag. Luckily “This Moody Bastard” is a better example of finger-pointing. The nuttiest tune by far is “Hat Too Flat”, sung by a visiting alien (presumably) from outer space, but maybe it’s an allegory) trying to fit in among ordinary English-speaking humans. “Little Kawai” is a sweet reprimand to a misbehaving imp that’s musically very close to John Cale’s “The Man Who Couldn’t Afford To Orgy”.

With co-production by Fagen, along with some keyboards and arrangements, and contributions from guitarist Dean Parks, 11 Tracks Of Whack is close enough to Steely Dan to appeal to fans. If they can just get past his voice.

Walter Becker 11 Tracks Of Whack (1994)—3

Joni Mitchell 29: Further Asylum Years

With excellent regularity, the Joni Mitchell Archive series stayed on a mostly consistent schedule, with the fourth box of unreleased material arriving roughly a year after the third (and a few months after a remastered set of the albums that mostly correspond to what’s covered here). Interestingly—or perversely—while the title says it encompasses the years 1976 through 1980, the music begins in November 1975 and ends in September 1979.

A good deal of the contents consists of live recordings, beginning with her tagging along on Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, then continuing on her own tour to promote The Hissing Of Summer Lawns. She tries out some new material, including “Coyote”, on its own and in a medley with what would become the title track of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. (Rather than the now-familiar clip of her playing it at Gordon Lightfoot’s house, or even at The Last Waltz, she pulls out “Woman Of Heart And Mind”.) Most of a Boston show with the L.A. Express takes up the second disc, continued from the first, and it’s most interesting when she plays on her own. Nearly unplugged arrangements of “Shadows And Light” and “Harry’s House” are very nice, as are early performances of “Hejira” and “Talk To Me”. (Apparently the chicken noises were entrenched from the beginning.)

Fans of Hejira will drool over disc three, which begins with acoustic demos of seven of the album’s songs (Chaka Khan helps out on “Black Crow”) and three that would end up on the next. It goes on to include an intro and two songs from a stop on the second leg of the Rolling Thunder Revue, and ends with two rough mixes from the album sessions: “Refuge Of The Roads” with more horns (and without Jaco Pastorius) and “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter”.

There are only two outtakes from the Don Juan sessions: a rough mix of “Otis And Marlena” and a 12-minute piano improvisation titled “Save Magic” that would form the basis of “Paprika Plains”. Then she was off to work with Charles Mingus, and we finally get to hear some lost sessions with such jazz legends as Tony Williams, Gerry Mulligan, Stanley Clarke, and John McLaughlin. One version of “Sweet Sucker Dance” is just drums and her layered vocals, while “A Good Suit And A Good Haircut” incorporates more of the man’s “raps”, and “Sue And The Holy River” is a lovely piano exploration. We also get to hear excerpts from a festival show where she played some of her new Mingus-infused compositions and collaborations in the occasional company of Herbie Hancock on grand as opposed to electric piano. “The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines” is a cappella and wonderful, and she encourages the audience to provide wolf noises to “The Wolf That Lives In Lindsay” while she tunes her guitar mid-performance, and they howl along with the tape too. (A session outtake provides a mix without the wolves.)

Most of the last two discs are devoted to a Forest Hills show in 1979, augmented by other appearances from the same tour, presenting something of an alternate Shadows And Light, but with a few songs that weren’t on that album. (“Jaco’s Solo” was one of those, probably because took a cacophonous, effects laden trip to Hendrix’s “Third Stone From The Sun”.)

This was Joni’s most challenging era yet for fans, certainly compared to the previous eight years of her public career, and the music within this set reflects that, as well as her descending range. Still, for those willing to dive further in, there are indeed gems to be found, as well as takes on more familiar material (two versions each of “Free Man In Paris” and “Help Me”, but three of “Big Yellow Taxi”). It’s fascinating to hear her create.

Joni Mitchell Archives—Volume 4: The Asylum Years (1976-1980) (2024)—3

John Cale 7: Helen Of Troy

The cover of Helen Of Troy depicts John Cale in a straightjacket, over a pair of leather pants and stylish shoes with clashing socks. It’s a good setup for the music within, mostly right in line with his last two albums, with contributions from Chris Spedding and Brian Eno. String and choral arrangements by Robert Kirby, now best known for his work with Nick Drake, add color.

One adjective that applies to this album is menacing, right from the opening “My Maria”. Between the keyboards, guitar, and choir, the arrangement recalls Lou Reed’s “Lady Day”, but it’s even more impressionistic and impenetrable yet haunting somehow. The title track is punctuated by mincing, campy commentary from one Alan Courtney, synth blasts that sound very much like Roxy Music saxes but aren’t, and Enossification resembling an outer-space bowling alley. The much sunnier “China Sea” is as jaunty as anything on Paris 1919, complete with Beach Boy harmonies and other Wilsonian touches. A compact portrait of insanity, “Engine” begins with just piano and his voice, which gets increasingly unhinged after the band kicks in. Soon he’s pounding keys with his fists and shrieking until everything just stops. “Save Us” seems to be a prayer for salvation, and he manages to keep things in check despite the desperate tone. Following the template set on “Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend”, his voice goes from weary to histrionic within the space of a verse and chorus throughout this album, and certainly on “Cable Hogue”, presumably inspired by the recent Sam Peckinpah film.

But he could also be tender, as demonstrated on the positively torchy “I Keep A Close Watch”, the loveliest thing he’s ever written, and a love song to boot worthy of Sinatra. The sentimental mood doesn’t last for “Pablo Picasso”, the Jonathan Richman classic originally produced by Cale but unreleased at the time of this cover. “Leaving It Up To You” is mostly straightforward, but he gets very worked up in the middle, going to far as to reference Sharon Tate, which caused the song to be pulled from some pressings. (The much more placid “Coral Moon” was the replacement.) Jimmy Reed’s “Baby, What You Want Me To Do” is also played straight rock as opposed to blues, though without the shuffle it tends to drag. So it is that “Sudden Death” fits the same slot as “Ghost Story” and other “nightmare” songs, but in this context it’s no more scary than anything else, just morbid.

Cale maintains that Helen Of Troy was unfinished, and rushed out by the label before he had time to perfect it. Considering how ornate the tracks are, it’s hard to imagine what was missing; could be he didn’t intend there to be so much reverb anywhere. Even so, it wasn’t officially released in the U.S. for decades, which he may or may not have appreciated.

John Cale Helen Of Troy (1975)—3

Jimi Hendrix 30: Electric Lady Studios

Along with trying to complete a fourth studio album, Jimi Hendrix was consumed with designing and opening a recording studio to his specifications, beck, and call. Once Electric Lady Studios opened in the early summer of 1970, he got to recording with Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell in between live gigs. Designed to accompany the documentary of the same name, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision presents three discs’ worth of alternate takes and mixes from the last four months or so of his life, in somewhat chronological recording order, with some shuffling here and there to prevent redundancy, which happens anyway.

Some of this had been out before in alternate mixes, or overdubbed after his death. On a lot of the earliest tracks here, it’s just Jimi, Billy, and Mitch working through the arrangements, live to tape, so we get to hear the bare bones of the songs before they were layered with vocals and other embellishments. The first albeit instrumental take of “Belly Button Window” is interesting as it includes bass and drums. There’s a brief stab at “Further On Up The Road”, followed by a seamless 26-minute exploration of “Astro Man”, “Beginnings”, “Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)”, “Midnight Lightning”, and “Freedom”; the rhythm section stays with him at every turn. A full band take of “Midnight Lightning” eventually goes into “Beginnings”, a galloping “Bolero” opens the familiar take of “Hey Baby”, and we can trace the development of “In From The Storm” from two early takes titled “Tune X/Just Came In”. One wonders what might have become of “Valleys Of Neptune” had he had the chance to develop it further—one of the takes is just him, Steve Winwood, and a rhythm machine—and he sure seemed fond of “Drifter’s Escape”. “Heaven Has No Sorrow” is just a demo with bass, and somehow there were 17 takes of something called “Messing Around” (only the last is included). A few posthumous mixes end the set; “Drifting” and “Room Full Of Mirrors” are okay, but “Angel” is way too awash in phasing and other obtrusive effects.

Focusing as it does on a distinct period, Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision is still less disjointed than the previous three collections of outtakes. But because of its breadth, this is designed for Hendrix scholars, particularly those still not convinced that either The Cry Of Love or First Rays Of The New Rising Sun present anything approximating his final vision. (A 5.1 mix of the latter album, with previously released takes of “Pali Gap”, “Lover Man”, and “Valleys Of Neptune” as bonus tracks inserted into an alternate sequence, is included along with the documentary on a Blu-ray packaged with the box.) Clearly he was teeming with ideas, and it’s always going to be a shame that he didn’t get to see them through himself.

Jimi Hendrix Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision (2024)—3

Neil Finn 8: Lightsleeper

Liam Finn had been appearing on father Neil’s albums since the start of the 21st century, but Lightsleeper was their first officially billed collaboration. All but two tracks are co-written by the pair, who also layer vocals and instruments all over the place for a lush, sonic smorgasbord.

A techno dreamscape explodes into a lush chorale on “Prelude–Island Of Peace”, which then flows into the dreamy “Meet Me In The Air”. “Where’s My Room” goes a lot of places, from Revolution-era Prince funk to Philly soul strings over seven minutes, with several drums competing throughout with a programmed beat. Liam’s “Anger Plays A Part” is more straightforward but sounding very much like his dad, and Neil’s “Listen” is very much in the introspective mood of his solo albums. Despite its spacey atmosphere, “Any Other Way” exudes hope from a low point.

“Back To Life” is another expression of devotion, even after taking a detour through a Greek café. “Hiding Place” is very lush and dreamy, but little quirks in the background threaten to make any dreams less sweet, particularly after the halfway mark when competing voices add to the confusion. In a smart case of sequencing, “Ghosts” seems to be a reaction to those unsettling dreams. “We Know What It Means” is a celebration of family, remembering the early days of kids on the tour bus, and now extended to another generation, though we could do without the CB radio effects. “Hold Her Close” is very much like a lullaby, to ease nodding heads and send us gently away.

While the sounds may not keep Lightsleeper in the background, it’s very much worth revisiting. It’s very much a Finn family production, as Sharon and Elroy show up, as well as brother Tim’s daughters. But one of the more surprising contributors is Mick Fleetwood, which is timely, as shortly after the album’s release, Neil (along with Mike Campbell, suddenly with free time following the death of Tom Petty) replaced Lindsay Buckingham on a major Fleetwood Mac tour.

Neil & Liam Finn Lightsleeper (2018)—3

Neil Young 72: Archives Vol. III

At least it only took the Neil Young Archives team a little under four years after the release of the second box to put out the third. Perhaps in an attempt to dwarf quality with quantity, Archives Vol. III covered the widest period yet—eleven years—on 17 CDs, with five Blu-ray discs containing eleven films in the deluxe edition. Granted, that means the ten or so albums released in that period are represented here, and usually liberally, with more of an emphasis on the first recorded and/or performed versions of songs among the previously unreleased selections. Also, various “raps” pop up on the discs, these being more or less contemporary snippets of Neil explaining things to put the recordings in context. As the other two boxes didn’t have these, they’re unnecessary. (Also, the customary book of photos and credits doesn’t include a tape log, a maddening exclusion to us curmudgeonly chroniclers, and the page numbers are pretty screwy.)

The first two discs are collectively titled Across The Water (also one of the Blu-ray offerings), and basically expand on the Odeon Budokan disc of the second box, even overlapping chronologically with it and including alternate mixes of two of its tracks. There’s some repetition of songs already available in excellent takes on Songs For Judy, but we are assured that these are different performances. The acoustic tunes aren’t any great improvements over other versions, but when Crazy Horse plugs in, we get unique runs at “Country Home”, “The Losing End”, a sloppy “Homegrown”, and a lengthy “Southern Man”. We also get two versions of “Cortez The Killer”, for no apparent reason other than that they were recorded 20 days and two continents apart.

The other boxes were criticized for including previously released Archives titles, such as Fillmore East and Homegrown, because people don’t like buying things twice. This set sidesteps that thorny issue, sort of, by combining selections from Hitchhiker and Songs For Judy on a disc called—what else?—Hitchhikin’ Judy. His two songs from the Band’s Last Waltz show plus “Will To Love” (the album version, not the unadorned original) and “Lost In Space” on piano—with Ron Wood on acoustic guitar—round out the disc. (While selections do appear throughout the box, the Chrome Dreams album is not duplicated as one of the discs either.)

After the alternate take of “Hold Back The Tears”, Snapshot In Time presents portions of a cassette recorded at Linda Ronstadt’s kitchen table, going through some mostly unreleased songs while she and Nicolette Larson extemporaneously harmonize. Some of these would be recorded for American Stars ‘N Bars and Comes A Time; one of the more interesting moments is when “Peace Of Mind” segues into “Sweet Lara Larue”, an update of “Come Along And Say You Will”. The standard “Hey Babe” precedes—finally—the first official release of “Barefoot Floors”, which was a glaring omission in Vol. II. If we are to take the preceding rap at his word, it’s a recording of them listening to the song in a car.

Windward Passage is a 35-minute condensation of the official Ducks bootleg, plus unique versions of “Sail Away” and “Cryin’ Eyes”. We get some of the other guys’ tunes as well as Neil’s, so the selection is very curious. And brief. Did this really need its own dedicated disc? Well, he warned us.

Accepted Neil lore is that he recorded an album of mostly solo acoustic songs to be called Oceanside Countryside, to which the label execs suggested he add more instrumentation. Rather than be offended, he did exactly that, resulting in what would be eventually released as Comes A Time. Because there is no documentation otherwise in the box, it’s therefore implied that the Oceanside Countryside disc presents that unreleased first draft verbatim, which is curious, as it’s sequenced in strict recorded order, unlike Homegrown and Chrome Dreams. (Neil has since confirmed the official planned running order included eight of the songs on this disc, plus the older “Captain Kennedy” and “The Old Homestead”, and not chronologically.) At any rate, there are some nice stripped-back mixes of Comes A Time songs, plus the familiar “Pocahontas” and “Lost In Space”, unreleased takes of “It Might Have Been” and “Dance Dance Dance”, a rightfully rejected “Comes A Time”, and a mix of “Peace Of Mind” with a lost verse.

The sessions to complete Comes A Time—which also included outtakes of “We’re Having Some Fun Now”, an unreleased version of “Love/Art Blues”, and a cover of the oldie “Please Help Me, I’m Falling”—bookend a one-off benefit performance performed by Neil with Nicolette, the session players, and the Gone With The Wind Orchestra. That show is not in the box, but the rehearsal for it makes up the bulk of the Union Hall disc. It’s a mix of old and new songs, including a pointed medley of “Dance Dance Dance” and “Love Is A Rose”, a strings-laden “Alabama” with a “Sweet Home Alabama” tag, and the mega-rare “Lady Wingshot”.

The double-disc Boarding House presents recordings for what would become side one of Rust Never Sleeps. The alternates aren’t better than what he chose to release then, but it’s a striking acoustic journey, with the first versions of “Shots” and “The Ways Of Love”, and “Out Of My Mind” on piano is particularly striking. There is some sloppy editing; his announcement of “Sugar Mountain” appears about seven songs before he plays it, and he talks about going “way back” in time before a splice into “Comes A Time”, which wouldn’t be out for another five months. Meanwhile, in the middle of the shows he spent an afternoon jamming with Devo, recording the odd version of “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)”, sung by Booji Boy, used in the Human Highway movie (also included on the Blu-rays), and which opens the second disc. Why not push the Devo track onto the next, still short disc so Boarding House could stay under 80 minutes and fit onto one?

Instead, the 49-minute Sedan Delivery disc begins with a studio take of “Bright Sunny Day” with Crazy Horse, but the rest consists of side two of Rust Never Sleeps assorted with tracks from Live Rust, rather than any alternate performances or song selections. (For one, “Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown” was played every night, and not included here. That said, both the new Boarding House film and a restored Rust Never Sleeps film are included on the Blu-rays.) Yes, the tracks chosen are presented in chronological order, recorded from four different concerts, but there’s no flow to the disc, save for ending with “Hey Hey, My My”.

Once we get into the ‘80s, the discs focus on contrasts. Coastline offers side two of Hawks & Doves, plus the “Winter Winds” outtake, then a smattering from Re-ac-tor. There’s no “T-Bone”—at 38 minutes, there’s room on the disc—but we do get an early “Sunny Inside” (why didn’t he play this with when he toured with Booker T and the MG’s?) and the otherwise unheard “Get Up”, an odd-metered tune that predicts the next album.

After the Vocoder tracks recorded alone and with Crazy Horse, Trans/Johnny’s Island offers more songs by the band initially dubbed Royal Pineapples but eventually just called The Trans Band, eschewing most of the ones they did for the album for unreleased songs and versions. The influence of Hawaii is more prominent, or maybe that’s just the constant congas and pedal steel. “If You Got Love”, left off Trans at the last minute, is included, and we weren’t missing much, though “Soul Of A Woman” stomps live and “Love Hotel”—played exactly once—finally gets an airing. The early version of “Silver & Gold” is nice, but it wouldn’t be captured correctly for another 15 or so years. In hindsight, these songs would have meshed well with CSN’s of that era. (This era gets a lot of coverage in the Blu-rays: the Berlin and Solo Trans concert films, and a new animated film by Micah Nelson, once of Promise Of The Real and occasionally Crazy Horse, to accompany the Trans Vocoder tracks.)

Evolution tackles the first Old Ways sessions and Everybody’s Rockin’ detour, beginning with live “gitjo” performances of “California Sunset” and “My Boy”. Back on his own, he used the Synclavier and drum machines for early versions of “I Got A Problem”, “Hard Luck Stories”, and “Razor Love”, the latter of which also wouldn’t be recorded right for another 15 years. “Your Love” isn’t bad, mostly because it’s simple and not attempting to sound too modern, and there’s another stab at “If You Got Love” that’s not awful.

Around the time that Geffen sued him for making records that didn’t sound like Neil Young, he hooked up briefly with Crazy Horse—plus Ben Keith tooting along on sax occasionally—to play four sets at their usual haunt, the Catalyst in Santa Cruz. Touch The Night presents most of the last show, which features songs that would emerge without the Horse on Landing On Water (including the 11-minute “title track”), another “Your Love”, the unreleased piledrivers “Rock” and “So Tired”, plus “Barstool Blues” and “Welfare Mothers” to please the crowd. (The sound is muddy as befits a cassette source; the video feed is on one of the Blu-rays as Catalyst.)

But then he was back to playing country music with a vengeance and the International Harvesters, which is the focus of Grey Riders. This era was already well-covered on A Treasure; in addition to seven songs from that set, there are a few alternate versions, like a rockin’, rearranged “Misfits” (now subtitled “Dakota”, and performed with a brief detour called Crazy Harvesters), plus an early “This Old House”, “Time Off For Good Behavior”, and finally “Interstate”, but not the previously bootlegged version. (It should be noted that not a single track is duplicated from the official Old Ways, which says something about Neil’s own estimation of it. Also, the video content on the now-rare Blu-ray version of A Treasure is included on the Blu-rays.)

Road Of Plenty recycles six tracks from Landing On Water, then continues with three rarities from the Rusted Out Garage tour. The “title track” is an early version of what would become “Eldorado”, and the first recorded performances of “We Never Danced” (a studio track on Life) and “When Your Lonely Heart Breaks” are mostly of historic interest. (Oddly, nothing from Life is included anywhere among the CDs, despite there being plenty of room, but the In A Rusted-Out Garage pay-per-view concert film as well as the rarer Muddy Track documentary are among the Blu-ray offerings.)

The final CD in the box is devoted to Summer Songs, an eight-song demo recorded in 1987 and forgotten for decades, then uploaded to the Archives site for streaming on Christmas Day in 2021 in a different order than presented here. Beginning with a superior “American Dream” he runs through songs that would end up on three future albums. “Someday” and “Wrecking Ball” have slightly different lyrics, and “Hangin’ On A Limb” could well be the unadorned track we already know. “For The Love Of Man” wouldn’t make an album for a quarter-century, while “Last Of His Kind” would be played live that year and thereafter saved mostly for Farm Aid appearances. At 38 minutes it’s another short disc, but apparently that was all he had in the tank that day. (We recommend inserting “This Old House” and “Feel Your Love” into the sequence to fill it out.)

Were we in charge of things—and obviously we’re not, despite having repeatedly offering our proofreading and organizing skills—Vol. II would have ended in 1978, but that would have stretched that set to 20 discs (not counting Blu-rays). But then, arguably, what was left wouldn’t have been as strong or exciting. At the very least, the Across The Water discs could have been in there, in place of Odeon Budokan, which would then be saved as the standalone Special Release Series volume it became anyway, and with a better cover. Hitchhiker and Songs For Judy would have sat between the boxes alongside Chrome Dreams, shaving the first three discs out of this one. (There is plenty of room in Vol. II for the last four songs on the Hitchhikin’ Judy disc, which would have brought that box neatly to the end of 1976.) What’s more, plenty is left out, particularly from the International Harvesters era (“Leaving The Top 40 Behind”, “Silver & Gold”, “Beautiful Bluebird”, “Your Love Again”). And still no “Evening Coconut”?

The fact of the matter is that the 14 hours of music in Archives Vol. III runs the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous, as his journey was affected by changes in the industry as well as with technology and his personal life. As it is, it’s a daunting collection of music that at least follows his original stated intention of releasing everything, good and bad. And hearing things in context does fill out the picture in ways that the albums as originally released couldn’t. But we didn’t expect to be blown away to the extent we were with the first two boxes, and we weren’t.

Footnote: the box was preceded by a promo disc called Archives Vol. III Takes, which offered a song each from 16 of the 17 discs in the set. As a sampler it’s alternately entertaining and frustrating; while it was a treat to hear “Lady Wingshot”, “Winter Winds”, and “If You Got Love” in decent quality, “Bright Sunny Day” and “Razor Love” were frankly underwhelming and the live versions not that unique. Plus, “Hitchhiker” came from the Hitchhikin’ Judy disc, which consisted of previously released material. Therefore, it accurately previewed the set as a whole.

Neil Young Archives Vol. III: 1976-1987 (2024)—3