Jon Anderson 1: Olias Of Sunhillow

Unlike his colleagues in Yes, Jon Anderson’s first solo album was exactly that. He played and sang everything on Olias Of Sunhillow, a dense collection of songs inspired by a previous Yes album cover—namely, Fragile. The titular hero builds an ark-like hang glider to carry the four tribes of his home planet to another before the first is destroyed. (This isn’t clear from the songs, but explained in the narration within the elaborate packaging.) As he was working completely on his own, with only an engineer for assistance, it took a while, but when complete it turned out to predict the kind of New Age music that would be dominated by synthesizers as well as esoteric instruments, with only his distinct voice (and ecological lyrical concerns) tying it all into Yes proper.

“Ocean Song” rumbles into form with a wash of keyboards and harp-type things, then layers of voices bring in “Meeting (Garden Of Geda)”, a mere prelude to “Sound Out The Galleon”, a proper song. More harps play “Dance Of Ranyart”, supposedly the navigator, and he’s gotten quite proficient at the instrument, but this is another prelude, this time to the bloops and beeps that begin “Olias (To Build The Moorglade)”, another actual song that helps us pronounce the guy’s name right. He follows the Tolkien path of creating his own language in “Qoquaq Ën Transic/Naon/Transic Tö”, a suite of synth beds interrupted by indiscernible chanting over tribal drums. “Flight Of The Moorglade” is suitably trilling and hopeful.

Presumably they got airborne, as “Solid Space” nicely evokes the sensation of flight, or at least watching such a thing. The aural journey continues for the lengthy “Moon Ra/Chords/Song Of Search” suite, wherein the notes tell us fear and discord took hold of the refugees, yet Olias was able to quell everything with his music. (The music itself, however, stays lofty and progressive throughout.) “To The Runner” provides another trilling celebration of something, culminating in music we’re sure we heard on the Narada label at some point or another.

Olias Of Sunhillow is one of those albums that provides an immersive, multi-sensory experience should one choose to delve so deep, but it also works as a nice album to listen to for the sake of enjoyment. This too was mostly ignored in the digital era in this country, but has since been given the deluxe treatment with remastered sound and 5.1 surround content. He’s been threatening a sequel, so who knows if that will ever happen.

Jon Anderson Olias Of Sunhillow (1976)—3

Queen 5: A Day At The Races

Named after another Marx Brothers film and sporting a similar cover design, it’s easy to view A Day At The Races as a companion to Queen’s previous album. That would be incorrect, since it’s as different from A Night At The Opera as that was to Sheer Heart Attack, which this one more closely resembles.

Something of a pompous synthetic fanfare opens takes up the first minute, and it’s a distraction before “Tie Your Mother Down” crashes in with its terrific riff. After that solid opener, Freddie is left alone with his multitracked harmonies and his lonesome piano for “You Take My Breath Away”. At five minutes it takes a while to make its point, and the closing loop makes an unsettling transition to the more typical ‘70s rock of “Long Away”. Brian sings this one, and we’re reminded of how much his voice does match Freddie’s. “The Millionaire Waltz” begins like Freddie solo again, this time in operetta mode. When the drums finally come in, they’re welcome, but it’s become a little too much of a retread of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. “You And I” returns us to straight rock, proving once again how much of a secret weapon John Deacon was as a songwriter.

While “Somebody To Love” is as over-the-top as anything on this album, it’s still one of Freddie’s (and the band’s) greatest creations. Here it all comes together—the piano, the bass, the drums, the guitar, and especially the choir on top of that voice. We even feel let down after it dribbles to a close, since it’s followed by the angry rock outrage of “White Man” (though it should be said that English bands singing about the plight of Native Americans was a smart shift away from those who were obsessed with cowboys). It’s another U-turn to the mild vaudeville of “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”, more along the line of the Queen that had been emerging. Roger Taylor’s songs always stick out like a sore thumb on Queen albums, and “Drowse” fills the same requirement as “I’m In Love With My Car”, though it’s nowhere near as silly. Brian apparently provides the keyboards for “Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)”, which is a nice lighter-waver sung partially in Japanese. The already anthemic song ends with that backwards-sounding fanfare that opens the album.

A Day At The Races is good, but it had a hard act to follow. Still, it shows they were trying, highlights their versatility, and continues the brand they were building. They were getting there, certainly. (Neither of the modern mixes on the 1991 expansion were included on the 2011 remaster. Instead, consumers got the backing track for “Tie Your Mother Down”—which still has the backing vocals on the choruses—a lengthy live “Somebody To Love” from 1982 and a preview of “You Take My Breath Away” from 1976, a slightly different “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy” from a Top Of The Pops appearance, and an “HD mix” of “Teo Torriatte” that omits the crazy ending.)

Queen A Day At The Races (1976)—3
1991 Hollywood reissue: same as 1976, plus 2 extra tracks
2011 remaster: same as 1976, plus 5 extra tracks

Kiss 6: Rock And Roll Over

The fans (and the label) were accustomed to a couple of Kiss albums a year, and the band managed to deliver a follow-up to Destroyer on time. After the experimentation of that album, they went back to Eddie Kramer for more of a straightforward approach on Rock And Roll Over—still one of the dopiest titles of its era.

Right away they’re up to their old tricks. “I Want You” begins with Paul Stanley’s tender plaint over an acoustic 12-string, but the band kicks in to illustrate his insistence that the object of his desire will not, cannot escape him. On “Take Me” he instructs her to put her hand in his pocket to “grab onto [his] rocket”, but it’s still a great riff. Gene Simmons summons the cowbell to take over the mic for “Calling Dr. Love”, which delivers similar sentiments, but it’s a nice change in dynamic. His rhyming dictionary isn’t as successful on “Ladies Room”, nor is it clear why he wants to meet her there for an intimate encounter, but we’re either missing the obvious or thinking way too much. Peter Criss gets to sing “Baby Driver”—sadly, not a Simon & Garfunkel song, but some kind of celebration of automative transportation.

Lest any young lovely think she truly can reach these rough boys, “Love ‘Em And Leave ‘Em” makes their manifesto clear. The drums on the verses stand out because it sounds like they doubled the snare by smacking a chiffarobe. Built around another rock-solid riff that almost excuses rhyming “chances” with “romances”, “Mr. Speed” assumes that women would actually appreciate the lovin’ styles of a man with that nickname. Such presumption continues on “See You In Your Dreams”, wherein Gene details the obsession that will afflict her after he’s left town. Peter gets to shine again in the “Beth” slot, this time with “Hard Luck Woman”, which distills the third and fourth Rod Stewart albums into another catchy hit. And as before, Paul won’t let his drummer enjoy any accolades too long, as “Makin’ Love” slaps aside the country for a proto-speed metal inversion of “Train Kept A-Rollin’”.

We said in our assessment of their debut that rock ‘n roll is supposed to be fun, and a little stupid, and Rock And Roll Over delivers nicely. Some parents might not have been pleased with some of the lyrical content, if their kids were dumb enough to let them hear the album, but that’s their problem.

Kiss Rock And Roll Over (1976)—3½

Kinks 21: Celluloid Heroes

After six challenging albums, critically and commercially, RCA did not renew the Kinks’ contract, and let them scamper off to greener pastures. Naturally, the label made sure to cash in immediately with a hits album.

Of course, the band didn’t really have any hits to speak of save one, so the title The Kinks’ Greatest — Celluloid Heroes was subjective, save the track that inspired it. True to form, the label put minimal effort into the packaging, giving no information as to the albums that spawned the tracks, and failing to identify any live or single versions, of which there were a few. (On the back cover, some song titles are asterisked, for reasons we have yet to determine.)

That said, the album does take several songs out of their specific contexts, giving them the chance to be heard simply as songs and not as plot points in a concept album. “Everybody’s A Star (Starmaker)” rocks, and it’s the single edit, so it makes its point quick, in time for “Sitting In My Hotel” to provide the downside to the proposition. A live version of “Here Comes Yet Another Day” is a surprise, complete with horn section and backup singers; this segues neatly to the live “Holiday” from Everybody’s In Show-Biz. “Muswell Hillbilly” picks up the pace before “Celluloid Heroes” gets the lighters going.

“20th Century Man” drops us back on Muswell Hill, and “Sitting In The Midday Sun” and “One Of The Survivors” offer two of the better tunes from the first Preservation act, the latter in a unique mix with a different verse. “Alcohol” and “Skin & Bone” are previously released live versions, and as nice as “(A) Face In The Crowd” is, it ends the set on a downer.

When the band’s catalog was upgraded at the turn of the century, Celluloid Heroes was overhauled with a different track listing, substituting studio versions for live versions and album tracks for single edits, adding even songs to fill the CD’s capacity but cutting others. Only “Alcohol” appeared in its live incarnation. If anything, it seemed designed to give equal time to each of the RCA albums, unlike the LP. In the streaming era, however, the title has reverted to that original sequence, preserving the live “Here Comes Another Day” that has appeared nowhere else, as well as the alternate “One Of The Survivors”. Either version of the album only underscores how spotty this period was for those who aren’t already converted.

The Kinks The Kinks’ Greatest — Celluloid Heroes (1976)—3
The Kinks Celluloid Heroes (2001)—3

Grateful Dead 14: Steal Your Face

Back before quitting the road for a spell, the Dead undertook a few projects to buy time and stay in front of fans. One guaranteed crowd-pleaser was The Grateful Dead Movie, which combined performances from a farewell five-night stand at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom with conversations with actual Deadheads plus psychedelic animation. Of course, by the time the film was finished, the band had resumed touring anyway, so to maximize the documentation of the stint, as well as bolster profits for their failing record label, the double live Steal Your Face album was released as a placeholder.

This was the period where the band was using their “Wall of Sound” PA system, a couple hundred speakers that may have sounded fine in person, but wasn’t recorded very well. Also, where previous live albums had ebb, flow, and momentum, this one seemed mostly a grab bag. It was not well-received, nor did it seem the band had much input past playing the songs in the first place. The energy seems subdued, even for them; “Ship Of Fools”, for one, is taken at a funereal pace, making “Beat It On Down The Line” a welcome pick-me-up, even with Donna Godchaux doing her thing. A few R&B and country covers make their first appearances on a Dead LP after having been in their repertoire for a few years; Chuck Berry’s “Promised Land” and “Around And Around” don’t have much life, but “Big River” by Johnny Cash and “El Paso” by Marty Robbins are snappier. Similarly, “solo” tracks like “Sugaree” and “Black Throated Wind” get the full band treatment, and Robert Hunter’s “It Must Have Been The Roses” enjoys another workout.

Despite its relation to the film, Steal Your Face was not the official soundtrack album for their movie, nor was it given much love in their ongoing archival program, getting only a couple of straight CD transfers with no extras. Rather, fans are directed to The Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack, which offers five discs full of mostly complete performances from the shows, though not all of them, and in a mostly ramshackle order. (It still offers more than the double-DVD reissue of the movie itself.) As for the Wall of Sound era, official band archivists have made several shows available for comparison, as listed below.

Grateful Dead Steal Your Face (1976)—3
     Archival releases of same vintage:
     • Dick’s Picks Volume Seven (1997)
     • Dick’s Picks Volume Twelve (1998)
     • Dick’s Picks Volume Twenty-Four (2002)
     • Dick’s Picks Volume 31 (2004)
     • The Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack (2005)
     • Road Trips: Vol. 2, No. 3 (2009)
     • Dave’s Picks Volume 2 (2012)
     • Dave’s Picks Volume 9 (2014)
     • Dave’s Picks Volume 13 (2015)
     • 30 Trips Around The Sun: The Definitive Live Story 1965-1995 (2015)
     • Dave’s Picks Volume 17 (2016)
     • Pacific Northwest ‘73-‘74: The Complete Recordings (2018)
     • Pacific Northwest ‘73-‘74: Believe It If You Need It (2018)
     • Dave’s Picks Volume 34 (2020)
     • Dave’s Picks Volume 42 (2022)
     • From The Mars Hotel: 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (2024)

Kiss 5: Destroyer

A whopping six months had passed since Kiss released Alive!, partially since they were touring to support it. When it came time for their next studio album, the band boldly hooked up with Bob Ezrin, who had most recently produced several Alice Cooper albums. As a result, Destroyer was cleaner, and occasionally tougher, than the first three Kiss albums, and incorporated writing credits from people outside the band.

While not a concept album, there is something resembling audio theater tying the tracks together, beginning with the montage of someone listening to the news on the radio, then getting into his (we assume) car and rocking out to older Kiss songs before “Detroit Rock City” starts for real. This is still a great riff and catchy chorus, with a pristine solo; the album version goes as far as to underscore the impending carnage in the final verse by using the sound of a car crash. This goes right into “King Of The Night Time World”, which also could have kicked off the album nicely, not to mention giving frustrated teenage boys an anthem. Any doom and gloom intended by “God Of Thunder” is negated by Bob Ezrin’s sons, whose surreptitiously recorded voices had already graced a Lou Reed album. More unintentional comedy arrives via “Great Expectations”, which cribs a Beethoven melody and uses a boys’ choir to hold up Gene Simmons’ laughable boasts.

“Flaming Youth” is very well-constructed, and with good reason: Ezrin cobbled it together from three different songs by Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, and Simmons that he felt weren’t up to snuff. In another sign of things to come, the guitar solos on this and “Sweet Pain” are played by Dick Wagner, also from the Alice Cooper band and well known from another Lou Reed album. “Shout It Out Loud” delivers another party anthem in the middle of side two, but this would not be the album’s main sales draw. That honor went to “Beth”, brought in by Peter Criss from his previous band and given an over-the-top reading with Ezrin on piano and members of the New York Philharmonic underneath his shaky vocal. To Paul and Gene’s horror, audiences ate it up. Paul gets the last word in “Do You Love Me”, balancing double entendres with alleged sensitivity. (While not listed on the original label or sleeve, “Rock And Roll Party” provides a closing collage to match the one that opened the album.)

The variety of styles and pop touches may have compromised the image somewhat, but Destroyer only increased the band’s popularity. Besides, they’d have another album out by the end of the year anyway.

The album’s status made it one of the few to get anything resembling an anniversary overhaul. While released a year later than the more round number of 35, Destroyer (Resurrected) was wholly remixed from the original master tapes by Bob Ezrin, who brought out buried instruments and vocals. “Sweet Pain” now features Ace’s original, wiped solo, while the standard track is added at the very end. And of course, it uses the original cover design. Some fans felt this put a mustache on the Mona Lisa, but how would they have felt if the remix was stuck in a double-CD set, with or without any other extras?

Not quite ten years later, the album’s 45th anniversary was celebrated with a Super Deluxe Edition that added a disc of demos, another of outtakes and alternate mixes, and a fourth with a 1976 concert in Paris in bootleg quality, plus a Blu-ray and the usual collectable ephemera. A simpler two-disc Deluxe Edition added a grab bag of the demos and alternates, plus the first four songs from the Paris concert, but it’s likely any real fans would spring for the big one, unless they bought the cheap to keep sealed.

Kiss Destroyer (1976)—3½
2012 Destroyer (Resurrected): “same” as 1976, plus 1 extra track
2021 45th Anniversary Deluxe Edition: same as 1976, plus 16 extra tracks (Super Deluxe Edition adds another 33 tracks plus Blu-ray)

Elton John 15: Blue Moves

Seemingly pathologically addicted to recording albums, Elton emerged with his second double album in the space of three years. Heavy on pop and disco, Blue Moves is an over-ambitious, labored set that unfortunately pales in comparison with the more rock-oriented and concise Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Musicians vary from track to track, and instead of the standard Elton John/Bernie Taupin credit for all the songs, authorship runs all over the place.

Right away, “Your Starter For…” is an antiseptic instrumental written by occasional band member Caleb Quaye, and unfortunately provides an incongruous setup for the lengthy introduction to “Tonight”, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra (and recorded at Abbey Road Studios, of course). All that’s missing is a candelabra. When Elton’s vocal finally comes in, you wish he hadn’t taken so long. As a movie soundtrack it might work, but there’s nothing like the payoff of “Love Lies Bleeding” after “Funeral For A Friend”. (We’ll try to keep those comparisons to a minimum.) “One Horse Town” manages to combine rock and disco in a well-worn theme for this lyricist, except that Ray Cooper’s vibraphone plonks are mixed as loud as the synthesized burps. Ray similarly dominates the next track, but as “Chameleon” recalls earlier, simpler triumphs, it’s a keeper. Finally.

Side two continues the flirting with American music, and not successfully. “Boogie Pilgrim” has something of a New Orleans funk strut, with lots of interjections by the Rev. James Cleveland for some reason. “Cage The Songbird” tries to do for Edith Piaf what “Candle In The Wind” did for Marilyn Monroe, but the “Daniel” flutes and country backing don’t fit. David Crosby and Graham Nash nicely blend their voices, though, as they did consistently when asked. “Crazy Water” is a too-long retread of “Philadelphia Freedom”, but lose the Brecker Brothers horn section and David Sanborn sax solo, and “Shoulder Holster” might fit on Tumbleweed Connection, though it wouldn’t be a highlight.

A true classic, and a heartbreaking one, emerges in “Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word”; our only quibble is the accordion. The mood is dispelled by “Out Of The Blue”, a six-minute instrumental sporting impeccably synchronized guitar and yes, vibes. The mild island feel of “Between Twenty And Seventeen” does not match a lyric about how the music business wrecked Bernie’s marriage to a certain tiny dancer. “The Wide Eyed And Laughing” gets points for being different, as it features several sitars as well as Crosby and Nash again. It also took five people to write. Reflecting the down start to the side, “Someone’s Final Song” is a sad elegy featuring just Elton, his piano, sympathetic keyboard touches from James Newton Howard, and mild backing voices.

The vibe continues on “Where’s The Shoorah?”, with a similar stark performance except for the choir led by Rev. Cleveland. (We looked it up, and while a shoorah has connotations both Hebrew and hoodoo, chances are Bernie just liked how it sounded.) The title basically sums up “If There’s A God In Heaven (What’s He Waiting For?)”, more fist-shaking about social ills. Despite the musical quality of this last run of tracks, “Idol” inadvertently identifies the main problem with the album (“he's not the same no more/And I have to say that I like the way his music sounded before”) over a lounge backing that must have meant a lot to George Michael. “Theme From A Non-Existent TV Series” is as badly placed as the other instrumentals, and “Bite Your Lip (Get Up And Dance!)” tries to provide a grand finale along the lines of “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”, not realizing they’d nailed it the first time.

As well produced as it is, and there are high points, Blue Moves is still a mess, if not quite the Self Portrait to his Blonde On Blonde. Even if it were shaved down to two sides, it would still be subpar. Unfortunately, this is approximately where Elton, and his golden touch, went off the rails. (Because of the varying accepted capacity of compact discs in their early days, the album’s debut in the format was incomplete, cutting four tracks almost at random in order to fit on a single CD. It only took 20 years for a fully restored two-CD program, split between the original two LPs.)

Elton John Blue Moves (1976)—2

Bob Weir 2: Kingfish

While Jerry Garcia played with a whole pile of people in and out of the Dead during their live hiatus, Bob Weir stuck mostly with a local bar band called Kingfish, fronted by occasional Dead collaborator Matthew Kelly and New Riders of the Purple Sage refugee Dave Torbert. Their eponymous debut came out on the Dead’s Round Records imprint, which was reserved for side projects such as these.

The big shot got to kick off the album, and both “Lazy Lightning” and “Supplication” would find their ways into Dead sets in the future, sometimes in tandem, sometimes not. Bobby also sings lead on “Home To Dixie” and the Marty Robbins outlaw ballad “Big Iron”, later covered by Johnny Cash in the Rick Rubin era. He also anchors the reggae gospel reading of “Bye And Bye”, a Joseph Spence arrangement of the beloved hymn “We’ll Understand It Better By And By”.

In between, the success of the album depends on your tolerance of mid-‘70s country rock. We hear echoes of the Starland Vocal Band with a better guitar player. A few tracks stand out, such as “Asia Minor”, one of a few songs brought forward from an earlier Kelly-Torbert project, and sporting some of the skip-time elements of earlier Dead.

Bob would be back with the Dead soon enough, leaving Kingfish to endure on their own. Matt Kelly would reappear throughout the Dead story from time to time, but outside of this album and a couple live releases, the band’s connection is merely tangential.

Kingfish Kingfish (1976)—3

Jerry Garcia 5: Reflections

As mentioned, the Dead as a unit were off the road, but all the members kept busy, in the studio and onstage, sometimes with each other. So it was that Jerry Garcia’s next solo album was an amalgam of sorts. Half was recorded with the current Jerry Garcia Band (which included Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, as well as Larry Knechtel in the studio), and the rest featured the Dead. Since each of the latter would make it to their setlists, Reflections shouldn’t be dismissed as a side project. Be warned, however: Donna Godchaux is prominent in the mix, in both bands.

The music alternates from one band to the other, but since the Dead tracks bookend the set, we’ll start there. “Might As Well” kicks off the proceedings, but don’t be fooled by the rollicking arrangement; this is predominantly a low-key set. The other tunes made their first album appearances after several years in progress: written solely by Robert Hunter, “It Must Have Been The Roses” was rescued from his first solo album; “They Love Each Other” was a perennial in 1973, but not as jaunty here; “Comes A Time” had been around as far back as 1971, and gains an expressive solo.

The “other” tracks aren’t as strong, with the clear exception of “Mission In The Rain”. The only Garcia/Hunter original here recorded by the solo band, it’s a keeper, from the mystery of the first verse to the delivery in the chorus. Unfortunately, “I’ll Take A Melody” is an Allan Toussaint song taken at a dirgey pace. “Tore Up Over You” is a Hank Ballard & The Midnighters song done well here, with lots of rolling piano from Nicky, whereas the country cover “Catfish John” was already in Jerry’s peripheral vision, having been part of the Old & In The Way repertoire.

Given the two distinct sources of the recordings, Reflections is sequenced very well, mostly alternating between bands. The bonuses include four further middling covers jammed in the studio by the JGB, along with a 16-minute Dead instrumental called “Orpheus”. This certainly supports the theory that the album was pieced together using earlier Dead sessions, coming off the high of the Blues For Allah experiments, to bolster what little the JGB was able to accomplish in the studio.

(Note: while we don’t normally append studio albums with this kind of info, it bears mentioning that two live collections from the vaults spotlight this lineup of the JGB, and especially because Nicky Hopkins is involved. They are listed below.)

Jerry Garcia Reflections (1976)—3
2004 expanded CD: same as 1976, plus 5 extra tracks
     Archival releases of same vintage:
     • Let It Rock: The Jerry Garcia Collection, Vol. 2 (2009)
     • Garcia Live Volume Five (2014)

Faces 6: Snakes And Ladders

It’s commonly known that once the Faces were done, Rod Stewart concentrated on his solo career and Ron Wood was asked to join the Rolling Stones (though he wouldn’t be a fully vested member of the corporation until 1990). Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones managed to shanghai Steve Marriott for a reformed Small Faces, to little excitement, and then that was really it.

Meanwhile, with both Rod and the band’s catalog on their roster, Warner Bros. compiled Snakes And Ladders, subjectively subtitled Best Of Faces to make the most of it. It’s an odd set; the cover art is a collage of photos featuring several shots of interim bassist Tetsu Yamauchi (who plays on exactly one track) but none of Ronnie Lane. More to the point, none of Ronnie’s lead vocals are included. Obviously, they knew where the money was.

The album opens with “Pool Hall Richard”, a standalone single and a decent rocker, then meanders oddly through the catalog, stopping at obvious hits like “Stay With Me” and “Ooh La La”. The instrumental “Pineapple And The Monkey” and “Around The Plynth” are particularly odd choices. Side two sports the mildly disco “You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings)”, another standalone single, but only the original LP has the alternate single take of “Had Me A Real Good Time”.

Only eight of the tracks were repeated on the superior Good Boys… When They're Asleep compilation, released 23 years later. This set moves chronologically, covering much more of the band’s breadth. It’s also a better tribute to Ronnie Lane, given the inclusion of “Debris”, “You’re So Rude”, and “Glad And Sorry”, though it pointedly hypes the connection to Rod’s solo career in the packaging. Along with “Pool Hall Richard” and “You Can Make Me Dance”, the set includes “Open To Ideas”, a soulful unreleased track from the band’s final sessions.

The set was spearheaded by Ian McLagan, whose enthusiasm also drove the next major archival release. Besides sporting the greatest box set title of all time, Five Guys Walk Into A Bar… provides an exhaustive look at the band on four discs. Less than half of the tracks were from the original albums (including the two singles and outtakes from Good Boys), filling up the balance with B-sides, alternate takes, rehearsals, live performances, BBC appearances, and unreleased stuff. Ten years later, 1970-1975: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything… boxed up the original four albums, each bolstered with extras on the CD edition, and added a fifth disc of Stray Singles & B-Sides. And ten years after that, Faces At The BBC delivered eight hours of exactly that over eight CDs and one Blu-ray. There’s a lot of repetition, but you also get their reverent renditions of Christmas carols.

Between those sets, Faces are covered. Certainly no other band has gotten more mileage out of ellipses.

Faces Snakes And Ladders/Best Of Faces (1976)—3
Faces The Best Of Faces: Good Boys… When They're Asleep (1999)—4
Faces Five Guys Walk Into A Bar… (2004)—3½
Faces 1970-1975: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything… (2015)—3½
Faces Faces At The BBC: Complete BBC Concert & Session Recordings 1970-1973 (2024)—3

Elton John 14: Here And There

Five years and eight albums since his last live album, Here And There presented a side each from two different concerts from 1974 with the classic Elton John Band with Dee Murray, Davey Johnstone, and Nigel Olsson. It was initially intended as something of a contractual obligation in the UK, with “here” being London and “there” being New York City, but the quality of the music elevates it above stopgap status.

The London show is said to be a retrospective through the years, beginning with “Skyline Pigeon”. The band kicks in for the end of “Border Song” and gives percussionist Ray Cooper three minutes to play a duck call solo in the middle of “Honky Cat”. “Love Song” is a surprise, particularly as it is performed, as on the album, as a duet with writer Lesley Duncan. “Crocodile Rock” is just plain playful, as usual.

He sounds a little hoarse on the Madison Square Garden side—understandable, as he’d been on the road for two months already—but he has the first half of “Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” to rest up. “Rocket Man” and “Bennie And The Jets” inspire lots of cheering, and while “Take Me To The Pilot” doesn’t have the power of its initial live version, it’s still loaded with energy.

Given the repetition from the hits album and its presenting only a handful of tunes, Here And There was easy to overlook. That changed with the remaster rollout of the mid-‘90s, which more than doubled the program, devoting a full CD to each of the shows. The London show includes even more gems from the past, including further selections from Tumbleweed Connection and even “Bad Side Of The Moon”. Along with more hits and the Muscle Shoals Horns for “You’re So Static”, it turns out the New York show was the same one where John Lennon made his surprise (and final) stage appearance, and those three songs are now included in the proper context. Yes, “Take Me To The Pilot” and “Your Song” now appear twice each, but is that such a bad thing?

Elton John Here And There (1976)—3
1995 CD reissue: same as 1976, plus 16 extra tracks

Bryan Ferry 3: Let’s Stick Together

While Roxy Music was on hold, Bryan Ferry didn’t waste the opportunity to do a summing-up of his own. Let’s Stick Together fit with his existing solo brand of Roxy-fied covers, but this time collected various strays that had been already issued as B-sides or EPs. The other difference was that half of the album consisted of re-recorded Roxy tracks, mostly from the first album. “Casanova” is transformed into a slinky strut, while “Sea Breezes” tempers the creep factor somewhat. “2HB” and “Chance Meeting” might as well be the same recordings, but unfortunately, “Re-Make/Re-Model” is drained of its charm, losing the solo sections but retaining the slowdown.

The balance of the album shows he’s getting the hang of putting his own stamp on covers. The “title track” is dominated by a saxophone honking one note throughout—just like the harmonica on Wilbert Harrison’s original, but not as charmingly. “Shame, Shame, Shame” is nice and trashy, the Beatles’ “It’s Only Love” is completely transformed into something else entirely, and the old chestnut “You Go To My Head” becomes pure Philly soul. “The Price Of Love” was a latter-day Everly Brothers hit; just chop off the mariachi trumpet at the start for best effect. Finally, “Heart On My Sleeve” was actually a current song, courtesy of the Gallagher and Lyle songwriting team.

Having been cobbled from various sources, Let’s Stick Together actually works as an album, with enough variety to keep him from having to sustain a theme. The alternate takes on Roxy tunes remain curiosities, in all senses of the word.

Bryan Ferry Let’s Stick Together (1976)—3

Roxy Music 6: Viva! and Greatest Hits

Some said Roxy Music broke up, others said they were taking a break. While various members would collaborate over the next couple years, the first thing they did was release a live album, which is what you’re supposed to do, unless you do a hits collection, and we’ll get to that.

Viva! Roxy Music was compiled predominantly from a couple shows from 1974, with two songs from a year before and another from a year after. The energy throughout is good, and consistent throughout. The transitions between songs from different tours are particularly seamless. Even the quieter tracks, like “Chance Meeting”, get to shine in the live setting, as even Glaswegian audiences hadn’t yet learned to be as disruptive as their American cousins. Fans of John Wetton will want to pay close attention, as he played bass on the 1974 tour, and his contributions stand out, particularly on “The Bogus Man” and the loud portion of “In Every Dream Home A Heartache”. Meanwhile, Sal Maida, later of the legendary Long Island power pop outfit Milk ‘N’ Cookies, features on bass for the 1973 tracks. And when the album ends, it just ends—no audience cheering, just silence.

The only real rarity on Viva! is “Pyjamarama”, a standalone single taken at a sluggish pace. Luckily, it was included at full speed, albeit remixed, on the following year’s Greatest Hits, alongside such usual suspects as “Virginia Plain”, “Love Is The Drug”, and “Do The Strand”. Granted, most of these were hits in the UK only, but that shouldn’t bother American fans. The tempo stays up all the way through “A Song For Europe”, and regains the pace for the last two tracks. Easily a good place to start, at least until the number of Roxy compilations would dwarf that of their studio albums.

Roxy Music Viva! Roxy Music (1976)—3½
Roxy Music Greatest Hits (1977)—3½

Rod Stewart 8: A Night On The Town

Even though he wasn’t doing double time with a band, Rod Stewart gamely threw himself into the demands dictated by his new record label. Much like Atlantic Crossing, A Night On The Town was divided between slow and fast sides, and we still see a call-back to Never A Dull Moment in the cover art.

At this point Rod had certainly become a mainstream success, a hit on AM radio as well as FM, and for those of us of a certain age, this is why we couldn’t take him seriously for so long. Granted, “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” was a few years away, but the guy in the leopard print top and the spandex slacks is in full effect. This is the album that opens with “Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)”. Whereas Neil Young’s song of similar title was an elegy for dead junkies, here Rod is doing his best to talk a virgin into bed, complete with then-girlfriend Britt Ekland cooing in French over the fade. The bravado fades immediately, however, with the faithful cover of Cat Stevens’ “The First Cut Is The Deepest”, probably the version Sheryl Crow knew best. “Fool For You” is similarly a hurt kiss-off to a jet-setting paramour, somewhat ironic given his growing reputation.

The fast side gets his own back right away with “The Balltrap”, a noisy and nasty putdown that really has us missing the Faces. The covers pile up from here; Manfred Mann’s “Pretty Flamingo” from over a decade before is yelled through, followed by the country rock nugget “Big Bayou”, which Ron Wood had just put on his most recent solo album, and “The Wild Side Of Life”, another country song covered by everyone back then; those tunes sound like Chuck Berry hijacked the sessions. The social commentary of “Trade Winds” goes completely against the concept of fast and slow sides, but echoes the effect of “Sailing” from the last album somewhat.

The fans Rod would have in this period of history would certainly count A Night On The Town among his best, and would likely welcome the expanded edition, which tacks a B-side onto the main program, and includes an alternate working version of the album on a second disc with some other extras. But as we’ve said too many times, this isn’t the guy we came to appreciate.

Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that we have yet to discuss a particular track, the one that closes side one. We’ve been saving it for its own paragraph, because even after all these years, there are few songs as unexpected and wholly moving as “The Killing Of Georgie (Part I and II)”. This is an incredibly simple song musically, while the lyrics consist of the barest biography of a friend who happened to be gay, and was murdered on a New York City street, possibly because of this fact. With the economy of Bob Dylan and absolutely no histrionics, the story is told straightforward with no false emotion. Even the seemingly tossed-off “doo-doot doo” that passes as a chorus can’t deflate this. (“Part II” of the song is a slower lament sung like a chant, to the tune of the Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down”. That’s probably why the complete track, over six minutes, was released as a single.)

Rod would have plenty more chances to be silly over the following decades, and take his brand all the way to the bank. He wouldn’t always be worth the effort, but an out-of-the-blue instance like “The Killing Of Georgie” is enough to remind us that, good lord, was he really good when he really wanted to be.

Rod Stewart A Night On The Town (1976)—3
2009 Deluxe Edition: same as 1976, plus 15 extra tracks

Dwight Twilley 1: Sincerely

Dwight Twilley and Phil Seymour were a couple of nice boys with nice hair from Tulsa who created some of the tastiest power pop (though they despised that term) of the mid-‘70s. With Dwight concentrating on guitars and keyboards, and most of the singing and songwriting, and Phil holding down both bass and drums, together they were the faces of the Dwight Twilley Band, but that understates the nearly constant input of Bill Petcock IV on lead guitar. Both sang, and it takes a while to figure out who’s who. Their debut, Sincerely, provides plenty of catchy opportunities to do that.

It’s always a good idea to start your album with your hit single, and “I’m On Fire” is a terrific place to begin, with riffs, hooks, guitars, everything. “Could Be Love” combines real drums with a machine, and what sounds like a toy organ with a toy piano; clearly these guys had lots of fun making records. Lest you think they’re wimps, “Feeling In The Dark” is much harder rock, with Leon Russell pounding away on piano, then “You Were So Warm” evokes the Beach Boys in harmonies and chords. The title track sounds as lo-fi as anything else, but fun fact: the backwards guitar and bass were provided by engineer Roger Linn, just a few years before inventing his eponymous drum machine.

They’re not all winners, of course. “TV” is an ode to that very technology delivered by a rockabilly vocal; thankfully “Release Me” returns to the girl group sound of “I’m Losing You” on side one. “Three Persons” has layered vocals that disguise the lyrics, but that “love you, love you” chorus always pricks up our ears. With its vibrato falsetto and cliché lyrics, “Baby Let’s Cruise” seems like a parody, but it’s just so damn infectious despite itself. “England” is probably the best example of how the lyrics don’t seem to have any purpose except to fill out the track, especially when “Just Like The Sun” does a better job of conveying an image.

As their friend Tom Petty soon found out, Shelter Records proved to be a false promise for a lot of its artists, so this and other Twilley albums have been in an out of print over the years, with and without bonus tracks. Thanks to the Internet, Sincerely is easy enough to be heard, and should be.

Dwight Twilley Band Sincerely (1976)—3½

Mott The Hoople 9: Compilations

A hits album always makes a good way for a label to keep making money off an act they no longer distribute, and if the label in question hasn’t lost all the masters in a fire, they can sometimes do pretty well. By the mid-‘70s, Mott The Hoople had already been on two labels, with shifting band members, so the well was both plundered and muddied.

The band’s original producer, Guy Stevens, compiled Rock And Roll Queen for a UK release after the band jumped to Columbia, but it took another two years (and two actual hit albums) for it to be released in America. It’s a fairly rocking set; after the “title track”, we get half a minute of “The Wheel Of The Quivering Meat Conception”, which was basically the end of “The Journey”. From there, the sequence leans on their harder stuff, ending with the ten-minute “Keep A Knockin” medley from Wildlife. Save “Thunderbuck Ram”, Ian Hunter takes every lead vocal, and there is one rarity in the form of “Midnight Lady”, a B-side available nowhere else.

Two decades on, after Rhino Records partnered with Atlantic, somebody had the bright idea to put together a more expansive look at those albums. Backsliding Fearlessly: The Early Years was a terrific overview, borrowing equally from each, leaning just slightly on the debut, with key rarities thrown in. The wonderful B-side “Road To Birmingham” opens the set; the outtakes “Going Home” and “Little Christine” were already highlights of 1980’s UK rarities set Two Miles From Heaven. (A box set called Mental Train served up all four albums, each with bonus tracks, plus a disc of outtakes and another of live recordings on six CDs, released in 2018 worldwide, save the US. Of course.)

That’s a lot of attention given to some very good music, but what of the period that commenced with “All The Young Dudes”? Once the Hunter-less Mott evolved without him and stopped selling records, Columbia made sure to cash in on their own heyday with the band via Greatest Hits. A fitting title, it included all the obvious tracks, from “All The Way To Memphis” to “Roll Away The Stone”. The cover art helpfully pictured all the band members and who played what, and the set also included two singles from 1974, “Foxy Foxy” and “Saturday Gigs”, both since added to the expansion of The Hoople. (The CD you can get now adds “Sweet Jane” and “One Of The Boys”. Also in the ‘90s, The Ballad Of Mott: A Retrospective crammed much of the Columbia era onto two discs following exactly four tracks from the Atlantic era.)

Mott The Hoople Rock And Roll Queen (1974)—3
Mott The Hoople Greatest Hits (1976)—3½
2003 remastered expanded CD: same as 1976, plus 2 extra tracks
Mott The Hoople Backsliding Fearlessly: The Early Years (1994)—4

Jeff Beck 7: Wired

Not that he ever repeated himself, but Jeff Beck was smart enough to stick with a decent formula once he found one that worked. Wired builds on the foundation set by Blow By Blow, retaining producer George Martin and Max Middleton on keyboards. A couple of new names—for the time—debut here: Jan Hammer (fresh from the Mahavishnu Orchestra and ECM work, and years away from Miami Vice) on synthesizer and Narada Michael Walden (also recently with Mahavishnu as well as Weather Report, and just as far away from “Freeway Of Love”) on drums and credited for writing four of the songs. Clearly, jazz fusion was the thing, and vocals were out.

“Led Boots” is supposed to be a nod to a certain band named after a zeppelin, but it’s way to busy to have any connection past the title. “Come Dancing” is more of a challenge than an invitation, given the confrontational groove, for most of it, but listeners can marvel at the way the guitar melds with the synth. It’s all pretty funky so far, so it’s wise that he makes his own stamp “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” by Charles Mingus, in an incredibly reverent yet virtuosic take. If that’s too slow, try to keep up with “Head For Backstage Pass”, wherein he seems to be dueling with himself.

Hammer contributes “Blue Wind”, playing synth as well as drums in a leg-breaking meter, with nice call-and-response between the keys and the stringed instruments. “Sophie” is a tricky one, starting slow and dreamy, but soon working up into a frenzy of syncopation and hot licks. Max Middleton gets center stage on his clavinet for “Play With Me” for even more of the same. Finally, “Love Is Green” is a short, slow ballad for guitar, bass, and piano, its title recalling Beck’s cover from the decade before. While written by Walden, it’s very reminiscent of the quieter Hammer tunes on John Abercrombie’s Timeless album.

Wired has no gimmicks, just playing. It stays pretty far away from rock, and forms a worthy companion to its older brother. It could use a little more variety, and further explorations like “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” would have been great, but you try telling Jeff Beck what to do.

Jeff Beck Wired (1976)—3

Neil Young 57: Songs For Judy

Just as chapters in Neil’s first Archives box were tantalizingly parceled out ahead of time, a decade later he appeared to be doing the same thing, focusing on performances from the mid-‘70s. Perhaps not surprisingly, the item designated #7 in his Performance Series was basically a chronologic and sonic upgrade of one of his more famous bootlegs. Songs For Judy gets its title from various meandering raps about Judy Garland, which were something of a theme during a November 1976 tour with Crazy Horse. Journalist Cameron Crowe and photographer slash guitar tech Joel Bernstein had carefully selected their favorite acoustic performances from the run and stuck them on a Maxell tape, which eventually got into the wrong hands and began circulating as “The Bernstein Tapes”. (Another fun fact: the night after the last show of the tour, Neil flew off to San Francisco to play a gig called The Last Waltz. It was a busy year.)

A quick glance at the tracklist may suggest you’ve heard this all before, and if you’ve got the bootlegs, you have, but suffice it to say this sounds a lot better. Even coming three months after the cutting session that made up Hitchhiker, only four songs are repeated. And of those, “Pocahontas” gets a stoney intro and extra lyrics at the end, while “Human Highway” is delivered on “gitjo” with a disclaimer of its own. “Give Me Strength” is given an excellent reading, and it’s hard to tell whether the crowd knew “Love Is A Rose” from the Linda Ronstadt version or thought it was “Dance, Dance, Dance”. At the time, these were brand new to audiences, and wouldn’t be out on albums for a while, if at all. The pretty piano lament “No One Seems To Know” makes its official debut, finally, and it’s worth the wait; “Too Far Gone” and “White Line” would each take over a decade to find homes. The audience hoots and hollers either way, upon which Neil constantly remarks.

Beyond that, the selections touch on just about every album he did have out by then. “Here We Are In The Years” is resurrected with a dedication to President-elect Carter, while “The Old Laughing Lady” is given a much jauntier arrangement (much like how he’d do it on Unplugged) with an added coda known as “Guilty Train”. “A Man Needs A Maid” is performed simultaneously on stringman and piano, beginning with the familiar chords of “Like A Hurricane”. “The Losing End” is just as effective solo as it was with the Horse, and even “Sugar Mountain” gets a treatment that wanders around the all-too-familiar structure. We get one line from the chorus of “Country Girl” before he moves on (“that’s as much as I know,” he says, as we tear our hair out in frustration). And of course, the hits: “Heart Of Gold”, “After The Gold Rush”, “Needle And The Damage Done”, “Harvest”, “Tell Me Why”, etc.

An unreleased live album from earlier that year, half of which featured Crazy Horse, was eventually released as part of Archives Vol. II, so those jonesing for electric mud will have to seek elsewhere. Still, Songs For Judy is an archival release of more broad appeal to casual fans than the last handful, and is right up there with the Fillmore East and Massey Hall sets.

Neil Young Songs For Judy (2018)—3½

Neil Young 54: Hitchhiker

Waiting for Neil to reveal his Archives to the extent long promised is an exhausting task for any fan, particularly those not especially wowed by his newer material. Based on direct quotes, we’d come to expect a laundry list of unreleased album projects, and while a few live albums made it to retail shelves, such titles as Homegrown, Chrome Dreams, and Toast remained locked up. And then he went and put out Hitchhiker, which the general public didn’t know anything about until he mentioned it in his second memoir.

The music was recorded over the course of a “stony” evening in 1976, shortly after he bailed on the Stills-Young Band tour. David Briggs rolled tape, and the session resulted in ten acoustic demos, all release-worthy. In fact, three of the recordings have been in the catalog for, well, decades; “Campaigner” came out on Decade with one less verse than the full take here, “Pocahontas” was overdubbed for Rust Never Sleeps, and “Captain Kennedy” made it out intact on Hawks & Doves. Five other songs appeared in alternate versions on later albums as well. Most people will zero in on “Powderfinger”, the oft-bootlegged acoustic version, just as mysterious as ever, but without the fire of Crazy Horse.

“Ride My Llama” comes off as fragmented, petering out before he decided how to finish it. The title track, which wouldn’t make it to an album for 34 years, comes off less a cautionary tale than an acknowledgement of the medicine he enjoyed. Another stab at “Human Highway” will fuel debate over the “definitive” version of the song, with or without CSN. “The Old Country Waltz” is played on piano, and very well too, showing off its complexities and delivered with a much more honest approach than the hokey take on American Stars ‘N Bars.

Two otherwise unreleased songs make their first appearances. “Hawaii” is a strange portrait of an archetypical Neil loner; it’s fairly complete, which only makes it more odd that he seemingly hasn’t played it since, even onstage. “Give Me Strength” is a gorgeous slice of heartbreak that he supposedly sat on because it was just too personal. This particular take has a couple of guitar mistakes and other noises, which would not have passed muster in 1976.

At a brisk 33 minutes, Hitchhiker is another tease of an ongoing project of unfathomable depth. According to the logo on the packaging, this is the fifth in a series of “special releases”, which means there are four other such albums in the pipeline that predate this little surprise. The mind reels at the possibilities; if only they were probabilities. The only constant thing about Neil is that he constantly changes his mind.

Neil Young Hitchhiker (2017)—3½

Jethro Tull 11: Too Old To Rock ‘N Roll

Like a few other current bands of the time, Jethro Tull was in the position of being expected to deliver a production with every new album. Part of that pressure came from themselves, but it’s a pretty high order to fill album after album, year after year.

Coined in a period of the 1970s when too many rockers were having trouble dealing with turning 30, Too Old To Rock ‘N’ Roll: Too Young To Die! itself is a clever phrase that would become all too apt as more musicians left the planet. But while one might expect the album to describe the rise and fall of a rock star, the story instead opens on a guy who’s already a has-been, finds his way to another plateau of fame and/or fortune, meets disaster, then emerges into an unknown but not hopeless future. All this is only determined via reading the album’s liner notes, which exist in the form of a comic book-style spread in the gatefold. The protagonist bears a mild resemblance to Ian Anderson, who has long insisted that Ray Lomas is not based at all on him.

We’ll leave others to sort out the concept, its execution and delivery; there was even an attempt at a TV special where actors played out scenes while the band played (now available in a deluxe reissue package). What’s important to us is how it sounds coming through speakers. On that basis, the album’s just fine. It opens with a melody soon to be recognizable halfway through the other side as the title track, and like most everything the band became best known for, exudes baroque pomp. Soon enough the strummed acoustic gives way to heavy electric and staccato flute, with gratefully little of the trendy synthesizers of the day. Ian’s voice is most often treated to that “bathroom echo” sound, which suits him as well as it did John Lennon.

The title track is the best-known song here, but that doesn’t make it the best song period. Hindsight has us thinking that the little classical lines played on strings, mandolins and guitars sound too much like one of Elton John’s parodies of the style, particularly when the chorus kicks into a ‘50s-style raveup for the big climax. (We’ll go further on a limb and compared “The Chequered Flag”, the grand finale, to Elton as well; it’s practically adult contemporary.) The stark and folky “Salamander” and “Bad-Eyed And Loveless” are welcome changes of pace, and “Taxi Grab” has some honking harmonica that recalls the band’s first albums. On songs like those, and even the more complex “Pied Piper”, there’s less of an obvious attempt to be profound, and just to play decent.

Jethro Tull Too Old To Rock ‘N’ Roll: Too Young To Die! (1976)—3
2002 remastered CD: same as 1976, plus 2 extra tracks
2015 TV Special Edition: same as 2002, plus 24 extra tracks (and 2 DVDs)