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 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. (Across The Water is also one of the Blu-ray offerings, a concert film with color footage from Japan, and black-and-white footage on and offstage from the UK. The viewer can now determine whether Poncho and Billy were indeed tripping onstage, as the former has insisted.)

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.

Despite its cover art, Oceanside Countryside does not present the unreleased first draft of the album that would eventually morph into Comes A Time. For one thing, the selections are sequenced in strict recorded order. 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 album itself would eventually get an official release, including eight of the songs on this disc.)

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? (The Boarding House film on the Blu-rays presents one of the shows in full.)

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

Robyn Hitchcock 35: Vacations In The Past

Some of his album sleeves over the years had boasted the occasional surreal short story, but not until he passed the age of 70 did Robyn Hitchcock endeavor to write a memoir. Composed entirely on his iPhone in the wee hours, 1967: How I Got There And Why I Never Left is an engrossing look back a formative year in his life, shaped by his entry into boarding school and the music that dominated the year.

It was only natural that a companion album would materialize, and one did. Recorded much like his other post-Covid work, 1967: Vacations In The Past was pieced together over the wires with the aid of frequent collaborator Charlie Francis, and featuring contributions from fellow Soft Boy Kimberley Rew and prominent but not overused sitar by Kelley Stoltz. It’s predominantly acoustic with only the occasional bongo for percussion and, with one exception, all covers.

He begins “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” in a lower register, then adding an octave harmony on the second verse, but “Itchycoo Park” is just as jaunty as the original. “Burning Of The Midnight Lamp” is particularly striking without any electricity, but it’s still got wah-wah. The Move’s “I Can Hear The Grass Grow” is nice and trippy, but then there’s Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)”, a moldy oldie if there ever was one. Trite as it may be to Americans, it must have meant something to that impressionable British boy an ocean and a contintent way, but we can’t condemn anyone for their guilty pleasures. Anyway, it’s wholly redeemed by “Waterloo Sunset”, a song that’s nearly impossible to ruin, and he doesn’t.

A Syd Barrett song should be no surprise, and he tackles “See Emily Play” nearly solo but for Kimberley’s slide effects. Tomorrow’s original recording of “My White Bicycle”—besides being the first appearance by Steve Howe—was loaded with backwards instruments, and there are just enough of those effects here to keep the production faithful. “No Face, No Name, No Number” has long been a personal favorite, but while the most obscure track might be the Incredible String Band’s “Way Back In The 1960s”, it’s also the one that sounds the most like him. The title track is the lone original, and sounds like it could have been recorded at any time over the previous 40 years. It’s a wonderful bit of music, complete with references to tentacles and whatnot, that the cover of “A Day In The Life” is anticlimactic. He’d played this live many times over the years, and while this recording doesn’t attempt to replicate the original, it still gets a busy mix, with a backwards loop we can’t discern over the final sustained piano chord that doesn’t dissipate but stops.

As he said on Robyn Sings, 2002’s compilation of Dylan covers, he didn’t write these songs, but they wrote him. His deft playing style and wide-eyed approach resonates throughout, and illuminates the rest of his catalog in the process.

Robyn Hitchcock 1967: Vacations In The Past (2024)—3½

Genesis 24: BBC Broadcasts

Thirteen years after the last Genesis reunion tour, Phil Collins rejoined his old band for another go around the world. Dubbed The Last Domino?, the shows mixed familiar hits with older (and newer) epics. Phil sang seated in a comfy chair while his son played drums—and pretty well, by all accounts. Daryl Stuermer was still around, and two male backup singers were on hand as well. The tour was promoted by a double-disc compilation, also titled The Last Domino?, that more or less replicated the setlist—including full versions of songs that were excerpted onstage—and could have, once again, been a Spotify playlist. But it included some nice photos from the rehearsals and sent more royalties in the direction of the absent Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett.

Once again the band had been put to bed, but Tony Banks still found a way to extend their reputation as a live attraction with the surprise release of the five-CD BBC Broadcasts box, covering the band’s career from 1970 to 1998. The package is mostly chronological, but by doing so some sessions are split between discs, which works for streaming, but can be jarring on CD. Also, while it’s five discs long, it doesn’t contain every radio performance by the band through the years—most likely to cut down on repetition, but also because they knew a whole disc from the Ray Wilson era was a non-starter, even at this low price point.

The first disc is the Gabriel era, beginning with three songs from the band’s first BBC studio appearance in 1970, and the same three that were already on the first Archives box. We jump to 1972 with the established Hackett-Collins lineup, with one flashback to the 1971 “Stagnation” that was also on the first Archives box. There’s a good performance of the rare “Twilight Alehouse” B-side, and an encore of “Watcher Of The Skies” from the Lamb tour.

From disc two on everything is in front of an audience, with improved sound, and the long-term live lineup including Daryl Stuermer and Chester Thompson. Five tracks from the 1978 Knebworth Festival—including the transition from “Dance On A Volcano” via “Drum Duet” to “Los Endos”—are followed by most of a 1980 London theater show, which fills the rest of disc two and most of disc three. Despite the occasional voiceover, highlights include the complete “Duke Suite” and the surprise encore of “The Knife”. (The songs omitted from this show were already part of the Knebworth selections. Also, “Follow You, Follow Me” is the same version that’s on Three Sides Live, while “Ripples”, “The Lady Lies”, “Duke’s Travels”, and “Duke’s End” were on Archives #2.)

Most of the well-traveled (since it was already on VHS and DVD) Wembley Stadium show from 1987 straddles discs three (the last two tracks) and four; the balance of the latter is given over to two songs from 1998 with Ray Wilson (who sounds very much like Paul Carrack on “Not About Us”). The fifth disc is devoted entirely to selections from their appearance at the 1992 Knebworth Festival: five songs from We Can’t Dance, with their “Old Medley” in the middle. We’d’ve ended with anything but an eight-minute “I Can’t Dance”, but the crowd seemed to love it.

Again, the sequencing is odd, and the discs aren’t all to capacity; surely some more music from 1978 or 1987 could have nudged the 1998 music to the end of disc five if it was so necessary to include? Quibbles aside, BBC Broadcasts has a lot of deep cuts for the musos and not just the pop fans, and thus provides an exhaustive look at what made the band, in any incarnation, such a draw through the decades.

Genesis The Last Domino? (2021)—3
Genesis BBC Broadcasts (2023)—3½

David Gilmour 5: Luck And Strange

Seemingly on something of a nine-year plan, David Gilmour emerged post-pandemic with only his fifth solo album. Luck And Strange apparently came together very quickly, for him, and he’s settled into his older voice, which we feared was on its way out last time. In co-producer Charlie Andrew he gained a foil who kept him on track, and didn’t let him fall back on old habits or tropes. That’s a tall order when the lyric, which focus on the familiar themes of aging and mortality, provided as ever by wife Polly Samson. Some familiar sidemen appear in the credits, and his now-adult children contribute to several tracks, but the biggest surprise is the legendary Steve Gadd drumming on half the album. Orchestra and choirs appear, but not excessively.

“Black Cat” is a haunting instrumental, Gilmour playing his signature tone over Roger Eno’s piano. If anything, it’s too short. The title track stemmed from a jam with Richard Wright a year before his death, and his distinctive electric piano adds all the color. If the verses seem a little simple musically, wait for the choruses and bridge, and daughter Romany’s harmonies are lovely. “The Piper’s Call” begins with a plaintive ukulele strum but soon builds, with another soaring chorus, then almost imperceptibly into a funky stomper with a solid solo taking it out. It’s a stark contrast into “A Single Spark”, which almost seems like a throwback to Beth Orton trip-pop, with some wonderful layers. “Vita Brevis” is all too brief for an instrumental, the title of which translates as “life is short”.

Romany plays the harp on that, and her voice is front and center on “Between Two Points”, a cover of an obscure (to us) song from 1999 originally written and recorded by the Montgolfier Brothers duo. It’s a haunting performance, and her take is exquisite. At this point the relative heaviness of “Dark And Velvet Nights” sticks out, opening with feedback and a bombastic fanfare. He spends a lot of time wailing on this, supported by another throwback in the ‘70s, almost Philly soul strings. Then it’s back to being pensive on “Sings”; after albums full of imagery and near-poetry, it’s striking to hear him sing of such things as “Portobello Road”. (Near the end we hear a snatch of his original hummed sketch for the tune, with his then-toddler son adding encouragement. It’s very sweet.) As “Scattered” crawls in, a Leslied piano recalls the effect on “Echoes”. A more successful version of the ruminating that slowed down Rattle That Lock, it all builds via some crazy cocktail piano to first an acoustic solo then a more archetypal electric one, but he’s wise enough to calm things down for a subdued coda.

As usual, the album was released in various permutations with extra material. The so-called deluxe CD added the one-off, gypsy-flavored single “Yes, I Have Ghosts” from 2020, sung with Romany and originally released on the audiobook of the novel Polly published that year, and the original 14-minute “barn jam” from 2007 with Richard Wright that was the genesis of the title track. (Vinyl and Blu-ray boxes also added two alternate “orchestral” mixes and sometimes a demo of “A Single Spark”.)

Possibly the best thing about Luck And Strange is that it doesn’t pointedly sound like Pink Floyd, yet it sounds completely like David Gilmour. It may not be, as he’s stated, his best work since The Dark Side Of The Moon—he’s certainly had several high points since then—but it is very strong, and perfectly timed for a fall release.

Though we still don’t know what Ozzy Osbourne is doing on the cover.

David Gilmour Luck And Strange (2024)—3½

Frank Zappa 53: Ahead Of Their Time

Back in 1968, once the Mothers of Invention included trained individuals—or at least people who could read increasingly intricate music—Frank Zappa began introducing more complicated, almost classical pieces in the band’s sets. Some of this he called chamber music that he wrote himself, some were arrangements of Stravinsky and Zappa idol Edgard Varèse. Either to appeal to the less adept members of the band or with the excuse that audiences needed things dumbed down, silly skits involving scripts and in-jokes would accompany these performances.

Two such performances at London’s Festival Hall included contributions from an actual orchestra alongside the Mothers. Excerpts from the “dramatic” portion emerged in the ‘80s, and the visuals were included as part of the perennially incomplete Uncle Meat film (on VHS), but the shows appeared in more or less a complete form as Ahead Of Their Time.

Because the audio can’t adequately demonstrate the dramatic portion, the first half of the disc is an acquired taste. Much of the music would end up incorporated into “Bogus Pomp”, while the content detailing struggle between “serious music” and its opposite would recur in 200 Motels. Luckily, the guys sound into it, so it’s not too tedious.

The political rarity “Agency Man” is followed by the dramatic “Epilogue”, and the remainder of the disc is pretty much non-stop Mothers rock ‘n roll. “King Kong” eventually segues into “Help, I’m A Rock” and “Transylvania Boogie”, “Pound For A Brown” begets “Sleeping In A Jar”, and the “Orange County Lumber Truck” suite is heard nearly complete, and more than the excerpt already used on Weasels Ripped My Flesh. Being abridged to fit on a single disc, it’s a shame that to date the album hasn’t been expanded to provide at least the equivalent of a full set.

Nearly thirty years went by before the era was revisited. The inaugural release of the Road Tapes series presented a concert in a Vancouver hockey arena (a.k.a. “the local electric icebox”) two months before the Festival Hall show. Obviously there’s no play to perform, so they start right in with improvisations; others dot the setlist. Along with material also heard at the London show, this performance includes a piece introduced as “Shortly” and said to be released on an upcoming album; the music is better known now as “Holiday In Berlin”, and said album was reduced to two records from three, and without this piece. Other highlights include the first album appearance of the doo-wop parody “Oh, In The Sky” and their arrangement of “Octandre” by Varèse. Thanks to some apparently exhaustive restoration work by Vaultmeister Joe Travers, the mono sound is excellent.

A little over a decade later, another relic from the era emerged. Whisky A Go Go, 1968 was recorded about a month before the Vancouver gig, and just before Ray Collins quit the band for the fourth and last time. The reason for this lengthy occasion was the intention of getting decent live performances from the nine-piece band on tape for future purposes that didn’t exactly develop.

A ten-minute improvisation leads perversely into “America Drinks And Goes Home”. Self-styled impresario (and accused sexual predator) Kim Fowley is brought up help shriek his way through “My Boyfriend’s Back”, followed by the original response of “[I’m Gonna] Bust His Head” and a lengthy “Tiny Sick Tears Jam”. Another improvisation goes into “Status Back Baby”, followed by some doo-wop, original and otherwise. “King Kong” is indexed as two parts, the second of which stops halfway through so the GTO’s [sic] can yell along with “Getting To Know You” and the Bugs Bunny Show theme. (Other guests on the evening included affiliated acts Alice Cooper and Wild Man Fischer; some of the Turtles were supposedly in the audience in a bit of foreshadowing.)

“The Duke” is played twice so they could get a decent usable take; this would eventually form part of “The Little House I Used To Live In”, but here’s it’s mostly Frank soloing over drums. Then there’s “Khaki Sack”, a more structured R&B jam that would be properly recorded in 1970 and shelved for half a century. “The Whip” and “Whisky Chouflée” run together for twenty minutes of mostly one-chord jamming, and the “world premiere” of “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It” for the first time on stage leads into an extended shuffle on the main theme and further improvisation.

In the end, only one segment from the evening was released at the time (“God Bless America” on Uncle Meat), though at least two other songs were mixed by Frank; one snippet made it to YCDTOSA #5, and more finally emerged on 2021’s Zappa documentary soundtrack. As the first full-length concert made available with Ray singing (save a few Beat The Boots), it’s about time.

Zappa/Mothers Ahead Of Their Time (1993)—3
Frank Zappa Road Tapes, Venue #1 (2012)—3½
Frank Zappa & The Mothers Of Invention Whisky A Go Go, 1968 (2024)—3

Rickie Lee Jones 5: Flying Cowboys

After a long break, during which she got married, and started a family, Rickie Lee Jones returned to public consciousness in early 1989 with a duet with Dr. John on “Makin’ Whoopee”, which went on to win a Grammy. It was a good setup for her next album. Flying Cowboys was notable for being her first album in five years, and also for production work by Steely Dan’s Walter Becker, who’d been off the radar for even longer.

“The Horses” sets the mood right away, and if it’s not a love song to her newborn daughter it works as one anyway, just as “Just My Baby” is a joyful celebration of the first twinges of excitement of new love. “Ghetto Of My Mind” celebrates a similar joie de something, and she’s playing the steel drum amidst all the other island-inspired sounds. “Rodeo Girl” is even more striking when you realize she’s singing and playing everything except the programmed drums. “Satellites” is the catchiest track, and the obvious single, as well as a stark contrast to the talking blues character in “Ghost Train”.

The title track is a collaboration with not just her husband but her old partner Sal Bernardi, who plays the infectious riff and harmonizes with her when she’s not speaking the words. Her cover of Gerry & The Pacemakers’ “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying” obviously comes from a place of affection, but the processed arrangement doesn’t do it any favors. Similarly, “Love’s Gonna Bring Us Back Alive” sounds like the type of reggae groove that would bring Bonnie Raitt platinum albums soon enough. “Away From The Sky” finally brings the tender pretty one this album has needed, and “Atlas’ Marker” is as inscrutable as any of her lyrics, here colored by then-trendy rainforest percussion.

Flying Cowboys is a microcosm of VH-1 adult contemporary in the late ‘80s. This was a sound she’d always had, using many of the players she’d relied on before, but people looking for grit may be disappointed not to find it. (Footnote: To promote the album overseas, she appeared on a British TV show to perform not only the album’s title song but a “duet” with the Blue Nile on their “Easter Parade”, both with Sal in tow.)

Rickie Lee Jones Flying Cowboys (1989)—3

Tears For Fears 8: Everybody Loves A Happy Ending

Come the 21st century, Tears For Fears had become something of a relic of an earlier time. Curt Smith laid low for a while, eventually releasing two solo albums—one under the nom de plume Mayfield and the other as himself. Roland Orzabal emerged after a quiet spell with Tomcats Screaming Outside, a strange techno concoction wisely not credited to Tears For Fears.

But the boys managed to patch things up as well as record an album together, once again having to wait until label shenanigans were worked out. Everybody Loves A Happy Ending loads up on the psychedelia from where they left off with a lot more sexy soul, truly enjoying the potential of the studio. The Beatles remain a touchstone; we counted at least two samples of the “Day In The Life” orchestral buildup throughout the album. In addition to the dynamic duo, Charlton Pettus is a main collaborator, having already worked with Curt on his solo projects.

The title track emerges like a spaceship appearing over the horizon, then an alarm clock rings and the song becomes an XTC pastiche (a redundant statement to be sure). About halfway through there’s another mood shift to a completely different vibe—a hallmark of the album as a whole. “Closest Thing To Heaven” is even closer to “Sowing The Seeds Of Love”, right up to the backwards drum fill, but gosh, what a hook. A 12-string jangle drives the chamber-pop touches of “Call Me Mellow”—wherein they didn’t realize they took the melody from “There She Goes”—and things finally slow down for the lightweight “Size Of Sorrow”. No points for guessing whence they copped the drum pattern for “Who Killed Tangerine?”, another song where the choruses don’t match the verses. They finally sound almost contemporary, or at least less retro, on “Quiet Ones”, which is pretty straightforward pop and not at all complicated.

We hear a little Brian Wilson in the melodies of the lyrically sparse but still catchy “Who You Are”, which just soars until the processed closing reprise of the title track. It’s a strange transition to the unsettling effects throughout “The Devil”, a brooding number that gets a lift from the guitar before winding to a halt. They save all their tricks for the glorious “Secret World”, with its Paul Buckmaster arrangement (before Ben Folds hired him); the studio applause at the end is justified. “Killing With Kindness” juxtaposes slow and faster sections, a battle of psychedelic grooves that don’t always gel. “Ladybird” recalls some of the textures of the last album before maneuvering through tricky time signatures, and “Last Days On Earth” takes us out with trippy soul; both tracks recall Seal, in a good way.

At 12 tracks and just under an hour, Everybody Loves A Happy Ending is a very dense album, with a lot of style but none of the overbearing substance that marked their earliest work. For one thing, they’re twice as old as they used to be. It’s the sound of people enjoying making records, and for fans of the duo, it was just nice to hear them playing together again.

Tears For Fears Everybody Loves A Happy Ending (2004)—3