Graham Nash 10: Now

While he hadn’t suddenly scaled a prolific streak comparable to that of erstwhile partner David Crosby, it was something of a surprise to get a new Graham Nash within ten years of the last one. Now finds him in his eighties, supported by his stalwart touring band, with a state-of-the-Graham address that’s immediately engaging.

His subject matter has barely mutated since 1970—you know, love and politics, not that we’d expect anything different—so there are no bonus points for guessing what “Stars And Stripes”, “Love Of Mine”, or “Follow Your Heart” address. Still, “Right Now” and “Golden Idols” have a spark and tension that have been missing since the Crosby-Nash albums with The Section backing them up, while “A Better Life” and “It Feels Like Home” are more country-tinged sentiments. “Stand Up” loads on some tasty guitars for a fairly pedestrian message, and then there’s “Buddy’s Back”, a reverie in the style of Buddy Holly sung with Hollies mate Allan Clarke. A string quartet provides “Theme From Pastoral”, one of Alan Price’s pieces for the cult film O Lucky Man!, and they continue on the sentimental “In A Dream”, but its use on “I Watched It All Come Down” seems odd, given that it addresses his feelings about the collapse of CSN. It’s followed by the closing piano ballad of “When It Comes To You”.

Now isn’t earth-shaking, but he still sounds good. With the exception of Allan Clarke on that one song, all the vocals are his, and he harmonizes well with himself.

Graham Nash Now (2023)—3

Stephen Stills 16: Live At Berkeley

Following the release of his second solo album, Stephen Stills embarked on an ambitious tour that he hoped would not only encompass his musical palate, but further establish him as a singular force with which to be reckoned. Along with four guys who would continue with him in Manassas, another guitarist plus a sax player and the five Memphis Horns filled out the sound even more. Reports say he booked 52 dates, and even he says he handled the pressure of his setlists by getting good and drunk before every show.

Luckily for us, the performances picked from the final two shows on Live At Berkeley 1971 aren’t embarrassing in the least. It also helps that these were theater shows, more intimate and forgiving than the hockey arenas played earlier on the tour. He begins acoustically, where he’s accompanied by Steve Fromholz on guitar and vocals. Proof that CSN wasn’t dead in the water, David Crosby is brought out for “You Don’t Have To Cry” (Fromholz filling in well) and his own “The Lee Shore”. He moves to the piano for a very nice “Sugar Babe” and the now-familiar “49 Bye-Byes/America’s Children” medley, and straps on a banjo for “Know You Got To Run”. The full band comes on for “Bluebird Revisited”, which burns pretty slow compared to Wayne Jackson’s “Lean On Me”. “Cherokee” runs almost ten minutes, plenty of time for the band to cook.

The sound throughout is clear and warm. Considering that it captures a moment in his career before things changed and would change again, this set goes a long way to remind us how good Stills could be when he got out of his own way and just played. One does wonder what they left out.

Stephen Stills Live At Berkeley 1971 (2023)—3½

Peter Gabriel 15: i/o

And you thought ten years was a long wait between Peter Gabriel albums! Not long after Up finally appeared, he said he was already working on a follow-up. There began years of speculation and waiting that turned into decades. It wasn’t until early 2023 that, he finally started releasing music that he said would constitute the long-promised i/o, with a tour to match. At the turn of every full moon, a new song would be released via streaming in a variety of “Bright-Side” and “Dark-Side” mixes, while further variations on each were made available to members of his official Full Moon Club. This was a uniquely modern way to release new music that led us old folks to wonder if an album would ever exist in format like we used to know.

As it turned out, and in a demonstration of his pathological indecisiveness, the album did finally appear at the year’s end, in a CD package that included a disc of the songs in each mix. (Each mix was also released in separate vinyl packages, while a Blu-ray offered both mixes plus the “In-Side” Dolby Atmos mix. Or you could get a box set with everything.) All of this was a lot for anyone not the artist to get his or her head around, especially when it came down to the real meat of the issue: the songs themselves.

“Panopticom” has the rare distinction of beginning a Peter Gabriel at volume, rather than mysteriously emerging from silence. It’s set apart by its repeating motif, with a prominent acoustic guitar, even its ideal of a global data resource that becomes more ominous with every passing week. “The Court” addresses the idea of justice, and he makes some interesting rhymes, even if they recall those of “Steam”; the coda is the highlight of the song. “Playing For Time” takes the volume down to just piano and orchestra for the most part, not far removed from “That’ll Do”—an intentional move, so he says, and it’s quite nice. The title track follows on quietly at first, ruminating on connection, getting more energy in the choruses. A collaboration with producer Richard Russell, “Four Kinds Of Horses” is very dark, particularly in its Dark-Side incarnation, a strong contrast to “Road To Joy”, which bubbles along its groove until the abrupt end complete with sound effects (no spoilers here).

“So Much” is a quiet reflection on aging, with a few wince-inducing metaphors, but still heartfelt. We’re still on the fence about “Olive Tree”; no matter the mix, the cheesy horns over the choruses distract from the mood of the verses. Despite its somber tone, underscored by the cello, “Love Can Heal” is a plea of hope, inspired by an assassination, whereas “This Is Home” finds comfort on a more personal level. “And Still” is the longest song on an album already full of contenders. It’s rather unsettling as it progresses, but another cello solo helps raise it out of the murk. (People forget that he’s played the piano for much of his solo career—well, we do, anyway—and it’s rather adept here.) Another grand plea for peace rounds off the album. Building steadily from a seed to a big sound, “Live And Let Live” is a nice idea, of course, but the ears that need to hear it won’t. Maybe if it didn’t take so long to make its point. (The Dark-Side mix adds a whole 25 seconds to the album.)

Even with all that tinkering, there are no timeless classics to be found within any version of i/o. There’s a lot of sameness throughout, both within the album and in echoes of his earlier albums. We find ourselves going back to the quieter, beat-less songs, in either mix, as they seem less derivative of things we’ve heard before. Among the two dozen musicians, core contributors David Rhodes, Tony Levin, and Manu Katché make their mark, so it’s nice to concentrate on them, while Brian Eno contributes to six tracks. It is a simply pleasant album when you’ve got an hour or so to kill. At this rate, we don’t expect he will follow it up with anything remotely major.

Peter Gabriel i/o (2023)—3

Ringo Starr 9: Stop And Smell The Roses

After limping through the end of one decade, Ringo was determined to start the ‘80s on a high. First, he took a starring role in the unfortunate prehistoric comedy Caveman, which did have the indisputable bonus of introducing him to actress Barbara Bach, to whom he is still married to this day. Then he set to reviving his recording career just like he did in 1973: by asking his former bandmates and a few other famous friends for help. (John’s murder meant only two other ex-Beatles would be involved in the finished product.) He even played the drums on every track.

By the time the album was ready, the label that put out Ringo’s last album lost interest, so he ended up on another new imprint that happened to be founded by the guy behind Casablanca Records. Even they forced him to change a few songs (just as what had happened to George) as well as the original title of Can’t Fight Lightning before Stop And Smell The Roses finally appeared to much fanfare.

Paul’s first contribution, the inoffensive if tossed-off “Private Property”, opens the album, with lots of sax from Howie Casey and Linda on harmonies. (Of course, by the time the album came out Wings had been disbanded. Adding insult to injury, Laurence Juber’s name was misspelled three times.) It’s immediately bettered by George’s “Wrack My Brain”, goofy enough for Ringo but grumpy enough for its auteur; it was also the first single, promoted by a video that continued his fascination with monster movies. Harry Nilsson could have used a boost himself at this time, but “Drumming Is My Madness” doesn’t do either of them any favors, and why is there a flute solo? “Attention” is another piano-based Paul knock-off that’s good enough for Ringo, but Nilsson’s “Stop And Take The Time To Smell The Roses” somehow manages to succeed, even as a co-write. (This too got a goofy video to match the nutty sound effects on the track itself.)

“Dead Giveaway” is a collaboration with Ron Wood that could use more balls, even with the presence of two of the Crusaders; still, this is one occasion where Ringo sings better than his co-writer. But who knew Woody could play sax? It wouldn’t be a Ringo album without at least one oldie, and “You Belong To Me” (aka “see the pyramids along [sic] the Nile”) is George’s other production here, taken at a “You’re Sixteen” pace. Carl Perkins’ “Sure To Fall (In Love With You)” was a favorite of Paul’s, who produced this pure country version with copious harmonies and prominent pedal steel. Stephen Stills showed up to contribute “You’ve Got A Nice Way”, which might have made helped improve one of his own albums, but it doesn’t work for this singer. And not only was there no need to remake “Back Off Boogaloo” disco-style, but Nilsson felt compelled to overdub a bunch of lines from other songs a la his version of “You Can’t Do That”. Even more confusing is that it begins with the riff from “It Don’t Come Easy”.

In addition to the promo clips, which got the occasional airing on the new MTV cable channel, Ringo got Paul to collaborate with him on a baffling short film called The Cooler, which not very many people saw or understood, even though it utilized Paul’s productions from the album. Despite all the push and Beatle involvement, the public at large did not take the time to Stop And Smell The Roses. While it was definitely an improvement over the last few, only diehard fans were sticking around, even for the half-hour it took to hear it.

But by the end of the decade, bootlegs had started appearing with outtakes from the sessions, somewhat stoking the legend of a lost Ringo album. The compilers of its first official CD release were kind enough to include detailed liner notes about the creation of the album, as well as the rejected songs among the bonus tracks. Honestly, they’re not that bad; “Wake Up” and the admittedly plodding “You Can’t Fight Lightning” are Ringo originals produced by Stills and McCartney respectively, while “Brandy” is a nice version of the O’Jays song produced with Ron Wood. Stills brought “Red And Black Blues” to the sessions, but it was never considered for any version of the album. A rough mix of “Stop And Take The Time To Smell The Roses” and two minutes of Ringo reading gun control PSAs don’t add much. But at least they spelled Laurence Juber’s name right.

Ringo Starr Stop And Smell The Roses (1981)—2½
1994 Right Stuff reissue: same as 1981, plus 6 extra tracks

Steely Dan 9: Alive In America

For most of their career, Steely Dan were strictly a studio band, having eschewed touring as soon as they could. Now it was 20 years later, both Donald Fagen and Walter Becker had solo albums to promote, and technology had caught up with their perfectionism to the point where they could hire sidemen (and women) to replicate their pristine album tracks onstage for those with the disposable income required to watch and hear them do it.

Alive In America was compiled from two of these ‘90s tours—Peter Erskine drummed on the first, Dennis Chambers played on the second—and presents over an hour of music in a seamless blend by long-suffering engineer Roger Nichols. As would be expected, everything is presented well, with the only real surprise being the inclusion of “Book Of Liars” from Becker’s album. “Sign In Stranger” has different lyrics on the bridge and something of an extended interlude, “Reelin’ In The Years” sports a vamped intro that disguises the song before the crowd recognizes it, and “Third World Man” is taken even slower. Hot as these players are, we’d still rather listen to the version of “Bodhisattva” that was the belated B-side to “Hey Nineteen”. Still, to finally get to hear these songs performed live for what was then the first time would be a thrill for fans. (Outside of the head-scratching cover, the packaging is suitably sardonic, from the song comments—helpful for identifying which guitarist or horn player gets to solo—to the “Howl” parody.)

While Steely Dan would continue to tour, even becoming something of a fixture on the road, they wouldn’t release another live album for another 25 years, after Walter had passed on and Donald was still pounding the boards against the wishes and financial claims of his former partner’s estate. He was nice enough to dedicate Northeast Corridor: Steely Dan Live!, exclamation point and all, to Walter. While the band was completely different this time out, and he’s even more nasal than ever, the album repeats half of Alive In America, with little varying from the token arrangements, save maybe the new coda to “Kid Charlemagne”. The rest of the program features more ‘70s classics, plus “Things I Miss The Most” from their last album and closing with “A Man Ain’t Supposed To Cry”, likely copped from the Joe Williams version. Probably to reflect streaming habits, each selection is faded to silence before the next track starts.

Since it’s worth mentioning somewhere, back in 2002 Becker and Fagen made an appearance on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz radio show, which was among the many installments to get a subsequent official release. As was the format, the show consists of conversation interspersed with performances, wherein the guys are backed by a simple rhythm section and joined occasionally by their host. Of their own songs they play “Josie”, “Chain Lightning”, and “Black Friday”, but more interesting are the standards they tackle, three of which were associated with Duke Ellington. It’s also nice to hear Walter play guitar rather than ceding it to somebody else.

Steely Dan Alive In America (1995)—3
Steely Dan Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz (2005)—3
Steely Dan Northeast Corridor: Steely Dan Live! (2021)—3

Rickie Lee Jones 6: Pop Pop

Female vocalists doing standards albums had become a thing by the ‘90s, but anyone who’d paid attention to Rickie Lee Jones since her initial emergence shouldn’t have been surprised by Pop Pop. What does make it stand out from, say, Linda Ronstadt’s work with Nelson Riddle or Natalie Cole’s tribute to her own father was her approach. On most of the tracks she’s accompanied by Robben Ford on a nylon string guitar, with subtle standup bass from either Charlie Haden or John Leftwich. A bandoneon appears, as does an occasional sax, but for the most part it’s all very quiet.

Her renditions of warhorses like “My One And Only Love” and “Bye Bye Blackbird” are nice and not at all blasphemous. “The Second Time Around” has the softest violin solo we’ve ever heard. However, “Dat Dere” is already based on baby talk, so we don’t need the sound of cooing infants in the mix. (“I Won’t Grow Up” is more effective in the overall context.) So when she springs Hendrix’s “Up From The Skies” on us, it fits right in. Producer David Was—the other guy in Was (Not Was) that’s not Don Was—gets extra royalties by contributing “Love Junkyard”, which is the loudest the album gets, with the most players, and the closest to her own classic sound. Jefferson Airplane’s “Comin’ Back To Me”, taken even more delicately than the original, provides a truly haunting finale.

Rickie Lee Jones Pop Pop (1991)—3

Frank Zappa 54: The Yellow Shark

Throughout his entire career, all Frank Zappa wanted was to work with a collective that was not only capable of playing his more sophisticated musical pieces, but enthusiastic about doing so, and willing to help finance them to fruition. In 1991, he found one in Ensemble Modern, a Frankfurt-based outfit that dove into the challenge. Compositions old and new were arranged and tweaked, culminating in a series of concerts entitled The Yellow Shark. An album culled from these shows was released one month before Zappa succumbed to prostate cancer.

As his classical-type albums go, it’s enjoyable unless you don’t like classical-type albums. Following a brief introduction by the composer (who was too sick to do much of the actual conducting) they go into “Dog Breath Variations” and “Uncle Meat”, both also familiar from previous orchestral excursions. “Outrage At Valdez” was written for a Jacques Cousteau documentary about the Exxon oil spill in 1989, and is suitably grave; along the same lines, two different pieces called “Times Beach” refer to a different chemical emergency that affected ordinary folks. One of the more daring pieces is “The Girl In The Magnesium Dress”, originally composed and played on the Synclavier but here executed by actual people who could replicate the sound of cats running up and down piano keyboards and vibraphones simultaneously. “Ruth Is Sleeping” had a similar birth, but is slightly more musical. “Be-Bop Tango” gets a chance to breathe without the choreographed distractions of the Roxy era.

The four movements from “None Of The Above”, a string quartet originally written for and performed by the Kronos Quartet, appear in a different order than supposedly written, and aren’t immediately melodic. Because he never wrote a skit he didn’t want to perform, this album has two. “Food Gathering In Post-Industrial America, 1992” is recited by a female viola player, punctuated by the sounds of mechanical sewage; then the federal customs form is the basis for “Welcome To The United States”, read in a thick German accent with comical vocal and instrumental responses from the band. (“Louie Louie” makes an appearance.) It’s followed by “Pound For A Brown” and “Exercise #4”, another Uncle Meat refugee. Despite its title—derived from an early version that used only the white keys on the piano—“Get Whitey” is very melodic and almost pretty. Finally, “G-Spot Tornado” is another Synclavier piece newly arranged, and it’s excellent. Still, it would be nice to have something after the nearly two-minute standing ovation at the end.

The Yellow Shark would not be the last major work he completed before his death, but it certainly got a lot of attention. For several years his estates teased a sequel of sorts; when Everything Is Healing Nicely finally appeared, it turned out to be something of an “audio documentary” of the ensemble’s earliest rehearsals and experiments with him. Moreso than The Yellow Shark, it’s generally for completists, beginning as it does with “Library Card”, mostly recited in German with Lumpy Gravy-style accompaniment. (“Master Ringo” and “Wonderful Tattoo” use a genital piercing enthusiast magazine for their lyric sources.) Luckily, the rest is a lot less silly.

“This Is A Test” is a brief experiment that deserved to be further developed, while “Jolly Good Fellow” is a conducted improvisation that plays on that familiar melody. “Roland’s Big Event/Strat Vindaloo” is a clarinet solo followed by Frank duetting on guitar with L. Shankar. “T’Murshi Duween” is a Roxy-era piece that usually followed “Penguin In Bondage” and would have been very well received at the shows. The appropriately titled “Nap Time” is based around the Alpine horn while two Japanese poems are recited quietly in the background. “9/8 Objects” features more L. Shankar, and “Naked City” is something of a guitar concerto (not played by Frank). “Whitey (Prototype)” is a brief rehearsal, while “None Of The Above (Revised & Previsited)” juxtaposes a rehearsal with live performance. “Amnerika Goes Home” also comes from the concerts, being an arrangement of a Synclavier piece used as bedding on Thing-Fish.

Between the two albums there is some very enjoyable music showing another side of Frank, but one must endure some of his more idiosyncratic tendencies to get to them. It’s a shame the collaboration didn’t get to go further.

Zappa/Ensemble Modern The Yellow Shark (1993)—3
Zappa Everything Is Healing Nicely (1999)—3

Jimi Hendrix 10: The Jimi Hendrix Concerts

Alan Douglas was still in charge of the Hendrix vaults, and following his controversial reimagining of leftovers, he did something of a service with a pair of compilations. The Essential Jimi Hendrix was a two-record set that sampled the first three albums chronologically, ending with tracks from the first three posthumous studio albums. A year later, Volume Two offered one side of songs from the first album plus “Crosstown Traffic”, while the other served up “Wild Thing” from Monterey, “Machine Gun” from Band Of Gypsys, and “Star Spangled Banner” from Woodstock. A bonus one-sided 45 featured a previously unreleased cover of “Gloria”. Basically the Hendrix equivalent of the Red and Blue albums, they provided a good introduction. (Both volumes would make it to a combined double CD in 1989, the studio tracks re-arranged chronologically and ending with the live tracks and “Gloria”.)

For his next trick, Douglas went back to the vaults for something of a sequel to Hendrix In The West. Labeled on the back over as “a collection of his most exciting performances”, The Jimi Hendrix Concerts was another double album, mixing tracks from eight different concerts over three years. In addition to the soon-to-be familiar sources of Berkeley, the Albert Hall, and San Diego, four shows from his 1968 residency at San Francisco’s Winterland Arena were utilized for the first time.

Following an introduction from Bill Graham, that’s where “Fire” comes from, then it’s over to San Diego the next year for Mitch Mitchell’s extended intro to “I Don’t Live Today”. Jimi stretches out on this one too, with a detour into “Star Spangled Banner” and then quoting from “Tomorrow Never Knows”. A year after that, it’s “Red House” from the New York Pop Festival. “Stone Free” had already been extended onstage past its radio-friendly length, and here goes for ten (edited) minutes. It leads well into the freakout intro for “Are You Experienced”.

There’s been a lot of fancy fretwork so far, which makes the comparative restraint in “Little Wing” very welcome. We hear just a few notes of “You Got Me Floatin’”, a song never otherwise known to be played live, then it’s into a furious “Voodoo Chile [sic] (Slight Return)”. “Bleeding Heart”, here subtitled “Blues In C Sharp”, is slow and sinewy. “Hey Joe” comes from Berkeley, one of his last concerts, and they apparently couldn’t do anything about the radio interference in the first verse. “Wild Thing” descends into chaos fairly quickly, and “Hear My Train A Comin’” (here subtitled “Gettin’ My Heart Back Together Again”) ends it all with another long blues.

To make The Jimi Hendrix Concerts a listenable experience (sorry) for newbies and collectors alike, Douglas edited out some jamming and drum solos, and used echo as well as stage patter from San Diego throughout to add to the mirage. But even despite the range of sources—and Billy Cox instead of Noel Redding on two tracks—it worked. (This too was released in CD in 1989, sporting a bonus track in “Foxey Lady” from the LA Forum, an addition that would add even more value to the box set that came out a year later. All are out of print now, so it’s moot.)

Jimi Hendrix The Essential Jimi Hendrix (1978)—4
Jimi Hendrix The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (1979)—4½
Jimi Hendrix The Jimi Hendrix Concerts (1982)—4
1989 CD reissue: same as 1982, plus 1 extra track
Current CD equivalent(s): none