The Reverend's Favorite Reissues & Archival Albums of 2024

As a child of the '70s, although my musical tastes didn't calcify after the decade like so many of my contemporaries, the exciting and adventuresome music I heard during my teenage years left an indelible imprint on the development of my musical preferences. My purchases of archival and reissue albums tend to be of the classic rock and blues genres, which is why the following list of my favorites in this category for the year tend to lean towards albums released during the 1970s, '80s, and '90s...

A lifelong curmudgeon, I bitch and moan and avoid pricey box set reissues that load multiple discs down with demo tracks and alternate takes...there's a reason why a lot of this stuff remained unreleased for decades and they largely bore me to tears. In many cases, unless a reissue provides a sonic upgrade on the CD or vinyl that I already own, or the value-added inclusion of an unreleased live set, I'll spend my money on graphic novels instead. But show me a long-lost rock or blues LP from the '60s and I'm all in. This year provided a wealth of archival releases, and a pleasant surprise in my discovery of Paul Ngozi and the Ngozi Family, '70s-era African rockers that kicks ass. Here to follow are my favorite reissue and archival albums of 2024...

Bad Brains - I Against I
Bare Jr. - Boo-Tay
Can - Live In Keele 1977
Albert Collins, Robert Cray & Johnny Copeland - Showdown!
James Cotton, Junior Wells, Carey Bell & Billy Branch - Harp Attack!
Dead Boys - Return of the Living Dead Boys
Flamin' Groovies - Let It Rock!
Rory Gallagher - The Best of Rory Gallagher At the BBC
Grateful Dead - From the Mars Hotel
Joe Grushecky - Houserocker: A Joe Grushecky Anthology
Lightnin' Hopkins w/Sonny Terry - Last Night Blues
Skip James - Tonight!

Steve Marriott - Lost & Found 1973-1977
Steve Marriott - Poor Man's Rich Man 1978-1987
Paul Ngozi - The Ghetto
Ngozi Family - 45,000 Volts
Pearl Harbour - Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost Too
Little Feat - Feats Don't Fail Me Now
Albert King - Live Wire/Blues Power
Charlie Patton - Father of the Delta Blues
Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense
Hound Dog Taylor - Beware of the Dog!
The Damned - AD 2022: Live In Manchester
The Damned - Shadowed Tales From Mulhouse
The Faces - The BBC Session Recordings    
The Pixies - Pixies At the BBC

The Replacements - Not Ready for Prime Time
The Who - Live At Shea Stadium
The Yardbirds - Psycho Daisies
Robin Trower - Bridge of Sighs

The Reverend's Favorite New Albums of 2024

For whatever prurient reasons, I've been checking out the various "best of" album lists for 2024 in different publications. As I've stated elsewhere, I'm old as dirt, and a lot of today's pop music isn't being made for me. I'm OK with this...my tastes are pretty eclectic, anyway. But I've noticed a trend where rock 'n' roll and blues music have been edged out by pop and hip-hop (f/k/a R&B) artists, many of whom will likely record an album or two before disappearing into obscurity...

Much of today's disposable pop music does little but enrich the bank accounts of record label execs, and few of those featured today will forge long-term careers. As for rock 'n' roll, with the exception of Fontaines D.C. and Jack White, I'm seeing few legit "rock" LPs on these young writers' lists, and absolutely no blues grooves. So I thought I'd put together my own danged list. These aren't necessarily the 30 "best" albums of the year to anybody but me, and the list largely reflects the new music I bought (or was sent a promo copy of & loved) in 2024...

The Black Keys - Ohio Players
Cedric Burnside - Hill Country Love
Calidoscopio - Scorpio Rising
Steve Conte - The Concrete Jangle
Alejandro Escovedo - Echo Dancing
Fontaines D.C. - Romance
Chris Forsyth & The Solar Motel Band - Rare Dreams
Joe Grushecky & the Houserockers - Can't Outrun A Memory
Robyn Hitchcock - 1967
Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets - Indoor Safari
Willie Nile - Live At Daryl's House Club
Peter Perrett - The Cleansing

Greg Prevost - After the Wars
Sugaray Rayford - Human Decency
Redd Kross - Red Kross

Sour Ops - Evangeline
Aaron Lee Tasjan - Stellar Evolution
Tennessee Blues Mob - Deep Dark Alibi
The Blessings - Woke Up With the Noonday Devil
The Church - Eros Zeta + The Perfumed Guitars
The Fleshtones - It’s Getting Late (...and More Songs About Werewolves)
The Higher State - Internecine Free
The Loons - Memories Have Faces
Walter Trout - Broken
Various Artists - Can't Steal My Fire
Jack White - No Name

White Animals - Star Time
Steve Wynn - Make It Right
X - Smoke & Fiction

Sami Yaffa - Satan’s Helpers War Lazer Eyes & The Money Pig Circus

Archive Review: Howlin’ Wolf’s Ain’t Gonna Be Your Dog (1994)

Howlin’ Wolf is one of those blues artists that even non-fans of the genre recognize. Born as Chester Burnett in 1910 in West Point, Mississippi, he picked up the guitar in his late teens, mentored by Blues legend Charlie Patton. A contemporary of Muddy Waters, Elmore James, and Sonny Boy Williamson, Burnett often played alongside these greats as they all traveled the same Southern blues circuit. It wasn’t until the late 1940s, after a stint in the army during World War II, that Burnett decided to pursue music as a full-time vocation.

Howlin’ Wolf’s Ain’t Gonna Be Your Dog

Moving northward to West Memphis, Arkansas, Howlin’ Wolf began recording sides for Chicago’s Chess label through Sam Phillips’ Memphis Recording Service. Ain’t Gonna Be Your Dog presents 14 of these Memphis cuts, recorded in the early ‘50s and featuring the young bluesman backed by talents such as Hubert Sumlin and James Cotton. By the time that Burnett moved to Chicago to become a full-fledged Chess label artist in the mid-‘50s, he was an established name in the genre. He would continue to be a major player in the Blues, a not-so-friendly competition arising between Wolf and another Chicago bluesman, Muddy Waters.

Wolf’s late ‘50s/early ‘60s output is what sealed his legend as a great blues performer and can be attributed not only to Wolf’s own charismatic talents, but to the instrumental contributions of long-time collaborator Sumlin and the skilled hand of songwriter Willie Dixon. Recording a number of Dixon compositions, Howlin’ Wolf made them his own with inspired guitar playing and his magnificent trademark mouth harp work.  
    

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Ain’t Gonna Be Your Dog pulls together 42 wonderful Howlin’ Wolf performances, from the aforementioned early Memphis sides to the landmark Chicago Chess sessions, including several cuts from the late 1960s as well as alternates and a few unreleased songs. It is an excellent companion to the earlier released Chess box set, and well worth getting for fans for whom that set served as an introduction to this brilliant and complex artist. Ain’t Gonna Be Your Dog, by covering almost twenty years of Howlin’ Wolf’s creative output, firms up any claims made for his considerable songwriting skills and instrumental talents. There is, perhaps, no better place for the music love to begin “rediscovering the blues” than here. (Chess Records/MCA Records)

Review originally published by R.A.D! music zine, 1994

Archive Review: Howlin’ Wolf’s Live and Cookin’ At Alice’s Revisited (2011)

In his prime, the mighty Howlin’ Wolf was a force of nature on stage, a cyclone of power and a tsunami of emotion on a level that few blues singers could aspire to, much less match. By the early 1970s, however, the great Wolf was getting old and sick, too many hard years resulting in various ailments that robbed the blues giant of some of his magic and vitality.
 
Gone, too, were the halcyon days of the blues, as black audiences had turned to soul and funk, and young white fans were moving towards the heavier-sounding blues bastardizations of Led Zeppelin, Humble Pie, and others. Chess Records, Wolf’s long-time label, tried to modernize his unique brand of blues for the rock ‘n’ roll record buyer with albums like The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions, which paired the aging bluesman with much-younger British blues-rock acolytes like Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, and half the Rolling Stones, the attempt meeting with little success.

Howlin’ Wolf’s Live and Cookin’ At Alice’s Revisited

While Howlin’ Wolf would never experience the sort of late-career renaissance enjoyed by his friend and number one competitor Muddy Waters during the mid-‘70s, he could still display a measure of the electricity he once had when the spirit so moved him. Such a performance can be found on Live and Cookin’ At Alice’s Revisited, released in 1972 as the only live album released during Wolf’s lifetime. Chess and producer Ralph Bass unknowingly captured lightning in a bottle, providing Wolf with one last shot at immortality (he would release only one more studio album, 1973’s The Back Door Wolf, before his death in 1976).

Live and Cookin’ At Alice’s Revisited documents a January 1972 performance at a converted coffeehouse on the North side of Chicago called Alice’s Revisited. For the record, Wolf was backed by his longtime musical foils – guitarist Hubert Sumlin and pianist Sunnyland Slim – as well as legendary drummer Fred Below, second guitarist L.V. Williams, former Little Walter bassist Dave Myers, and Chicago blues institution, saxophonist Eddie Shaw. It’s a sad commentary on Wolf’s status at the time that a few days after this now-legendary gig, Wolf and the band were opening for Alice Cooper in Los Angeles…an odd and ill-fitting pairing if ever there was one.   

Mean Mistreater

The band romps through ten songs here, eight of which originally appeared on the 1972 and 1977 vinyl releases of the album, comprised of nine Wolf originals and a red-hot cover of Waters’ “Mean Mistreater.” Wolf opens with “When I Laid Down I Was Troubled,” his harmonica into leading into a full band vamp, the talented players laying down a fat blues groove that Wolf struts into with uncharacteristically subdued vocals. As the song unfolds, Wolf’s vocals become more strident, the instrumentation nearly burying his vocals in their trail as the groove rolls on. Scraps of Sumlin’s superb fretwork emerge from the chaotic mix, Below’s steady timekeeping accented by Myers’ walking bass line and Slim’s tinkling keys. Wolf’s manic harpwork fills in around the edges of a strong, highly-rocking performance.

The band is just warming up however, and after delivering a rhythmic Chicago blues-styled stomp in “I Didn’t Know,” complete with Sumlin’s scorching solos, Wolf and his gang hit their full stride with Waters’ “Mean Mistreater.” Peppering the band’s strolling rhythm with icy blasts from his harp, Wolf jumps in with his growling, whiskey-soaked vocals as Sumlin embellishes the performance with squalls of notes. Slim bangs away at his piano in the corner, but it’s Wolf’s swaying harp and heartbreak vocals that make the song soar.

Call Me The Wolf

Wolf is at full-stream by the time he belts out “I Had A Dream,” the singer masterfully welding soul and blues together in his performance as the band rocks the house behind their legendary singer. The rhythm section swings like a tornado, Sumlin throws in the hottest of licks, and Wolf proves himself an underrated harp player with an emotional, powerful solo of his own. His signature song, “Call Me the Wolf,” is a tortured cry from the soul of man, Wolf’s spoken-word intro evolving into a bluesy howl that speaks of betrayal, more of a primal scream at the heavens than a normal blues song.

Wolf’s take on the traditional “Sitting On Top of the World” is a slow-tempo bonfire that smolders and spits sparks, the band opening with shards of guitar playing against silky piano and the saxophone’s emotional howl. Wolf’s vocals are a Delta drawl that perfectly captures the song’s duality of emotions felt and those expressed. Two “bonus tracks” from the same live set and left off the original LP, are stellar performances both – “The Big House” is an extended blues jam with Wolf’s roaring vocals measured throughout, while “Mr. Airplane Man” is a riffing, rocking black cat moan, the band’s malevolent rhythms perfected in sync with Wolf’s growled, howled, and biting vocals.    

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

As the old maxim goes, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and by 1972 it was evident to anybody listening to releases like This Is Howlin’ Wolf’s New Album or Message To the Young that the blues great simply wasn’t ready or willing to move beyond his comfort zone. Live and Cookin’ At Alice’s Revisited, a long-overdue live album from the Wolf, captured the legend doing exactly what he did best – tearing up the stage with a setlist of familiar blues gems that provide a perfect showcase for the Wolf’s blues intensity.   

It’s a bit of a travesty that Live and Cookin’ At Alice’s Revisited has remained out of print for almost 20 years, much less that it’s taken an Australian label – reissue specialists Raven Records – to bring this essential piece of Howlin’ Wolf’s legacy back into focus. My advice is that if you’re a Howlin’ Wolf fan, or a fan of Chicago blues overall, grab a copy of Live and Cookin’ At Alice’s Revisited while the album is in print and available. Wolf’s performance is priceless, the band one of the best in the blues at the time. ‘Nuff said! (Raven Records, released February 8, 2011)

Archive Review: NoFX’s Never Trust A Hippy EP (2006)

One of the few true legendary bands in punk rock, NoFX continues to raise the lyrical bar for the genre. Although Fat Mike and his crew have always dabbled a bit in socially-conscious wordplay, the band and its primary songwriter have become much more direct and decidedly caustic as American spirals down the toilet of institutionalized Conservatism. With the six-song EP Never Trust A Hippy, NoFX attacks right-wing Christianity with a blunt force trauma that few artists have been willing to use in their art. Christ, if Pat Robertson ever hears these songs, there’ll be literal hell to pay, hit squads of Bible-toting, cross-bearing Conservative Christians shadowing the band from town to town and club to club.

NoFX’s Never Trust A Hippy

Yeah, Never Trust A Hippy is that damn good…at least if you’re a punk-rock-lovin’, anarcho-leftist dupe like the Reverend. The “Hippy” in question is the big enchilada himself, JC, and what organized religion has done to the guy’s once-hallowed reputation. “I’m Going To Hell For This One” is the climax of the EP, a portrait of Christ as a “regular Joe” wanting his share of the take, a party to go to and maybe a little of the sins of the flesh. Beneath the song’s comic exterior, however, Fat Mike hits upon a vital truth – much of today’s religious fervor is built not upon the love preached by the big cheese in the sky but rather on fear. Fear of gay marriage, fear of sex, fear of hell, etc…there’s not much that’s positive and life-affirming about Conservative Christianity.

Much of the rest of Never Trust A Hippy also displays NoFX’s trademark tongue-in-cheek humor, Fat Mike ripping off clever and wickedly funny lines with shameless glee. “You’re Wrong” remakes Too Much Joy’s classic “You Will,” which in itself was a satirical rip-off of a TV commercial, the NoFX tune name-checking such right-wing icons as Sean Hannity, the NRA, and Ann Coulter while also blasting Islamic Jihad, the FBI’s Cointelpro program and mindless nationalism. “The Marxist Brothers” mixes Groucho with Karl in its dissection of manufactured dissent while the Dickies-by-way-of-the-Germs “Golden Boys” is covered here with blistering fury, the song questioning killing in the name of religion.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

As they’ve done in the past, Never Trust A Hippy offers an advance look at the band’s upcoming Wolves In Wolves’ Clothing album, featuring two songs from the new disc. The EP stands tall on its own however, NoFX mixing Fat Mike’s incendiary lyricism with the band’s typical guitar-driven punk rock fury. Although Never Trust A Hippy only whets the appetite for the full-length album to come, you know it’s going to be a great summer when Fat Mike and the boys come back to town! (Fat Wreck Chords)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2006

Archive Review: Dave Navarro's Trust No One (2001)

As guitarist for two of the seminal alt-rock bands to break out of the crowded eighties music scene in Los Angeles, Dave Navarro’s reputation precedes him. Along with Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, Navarro helped to shape and define the look and sound of Lollapalooza-styled alternative rock. His blistering six-string style and exotic flourishes earned Navarro a following of his own as well as status as a guitar hero for the new millennia.

What Navarro’s legion of fans may not be prepared for is the guitarist’s solo debut, Trust No One, which sounds little like his efforts with those two well-known bands. Sure, you’ll find a soupcon of Jane in songs like “Sunny Day” or the stunningly muscular “Everything.” For the most part, however, Navarro blazes his own trail with Trust No One. “Not For Nothing” is a rampaging beast with a scalding recurring riff that teeters on the edge of madness while “Venus In Furs” draws a veil of sound around Navarro’s ethereal vocals.

The album-closing “Slow Motion Sickness” is an epic composition with looping guitars and a haunting ambience. The lyrics on Trust No One range from introspective to the surreal and Navarro’s vocals are surprisingly supple and effective. It’s the artist’s astonishing six-string work that listeners should tune in for, though, Navarro following lightning-fast riffs with delicate acoustic melodies, mixing standard hard rock style with disparate influences drawn from the blues, acoustic folk, and Middle Eastern raga.

Fans of Navarro’s earlier work owe it to themselves to check out his solo vision. Trust No One is a guitar lover’s dream come true, a solid solo effort from one of rock’s finest six-string wizards. (Capitol Records, released 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Book Review: Cary Baker’s Down On the Corner: Adventures In Busking & Street Music (2024)

‘Busking’ is defined as “the act or practice of entertaining by dancing, singing, juggling, etc., on the street or in a public place,” which is a fairly comprehensive list of…you know…the kind of stuff that buskers actually do for the few coins tossed their way by passersby. Although they’re usually found in high-traffic urban centers, it’s not unusual for buskers to show up in even the smallest of burgs.

Our rural WNY town boasts of a population of >16k but we have a guy that dresses up in black leather and death metal face paint and rips off chords on an electric guitar and portable amp while standing by the side of Main Street. When the mood hits him, he migrates down the road to the smaller (8k) village of Brockport, setting up shop in front of the Vinyl Record Revival store where he can perform for college kids from SUNY. Truth is, busking is a time-honored tradition that has been around almost as long as humans began smashing two rocks together in rhythm.     

Cary Baker’s Down On the Corner: Adventures In Busking & Street Music

With his first book, Down On the Corner: Adventures In Busking & Street Music, writer Cary Baker takes a fairly comprehensive look at the busking tradition. I say “fairly” comprehensive because Baker hints at a second volume (yes, please!), but even if that never comes to fruition, Down On the Corner provides a deep look at many talents behind the tradition. Baker is a music biz lifer, formerly one of the best publicists in the industry for a number of record labels, including I.R.S. and Capitol Records as well as his own hard-working firm, Conqueroo, working with talents like Bonnie Raitt, Bobby Rush, Willie Nile, and R.E.M. Before all that, however, Baker wrote about music for publications like the Chicago Reader, Creem, and Trouser Press.

I’ve known Cary since we were both in high school and contributing to the regional hippie rag Sunrise, where we were mentored by rockcrit legend Rick Johnson. As a writer, I worked with him for decades (sometimes to his aggravation) in his role as publicist and can vouch for his knowledge of musical matters (many of which he had a hand in). Although many of us thought that he’d pen his first book about his years in the biz, it’s not really surprising that he chose busking as the subject of his first tome – Baker has been enchanted by street musicians since he was a teen, seeing bluesman Blind Arvella Gray perform at the market on Maxwell Street in his Chicago hometown. Appropriately, Down On the Corner kicks off on that long gone section of the Windy City before traveling around the world.

Blind Arvella Gray

 

The stories told by Down On the Corner are as enchanting as they are insightful, covering a wide range of bluesmen-and-women, folkies, country artists, and one-man bands in environs like NYC, New Orleans, London, Los Angeles, and Nashville. Although some of the names are familiar – Billy Bragg’s pre-fame busking years are an integral part of his story, and artists like Ted Hawkins, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Moondog, and Wild Man Fischer are well-known to even a few casual music fans as rising from the street to the suites as they hammered out careers of one sort or another on major and minor record labels. However, I was surprised to see talents like Americana legend Lucinda Williams, 1980s-era college rock faves Violent Femmes, folk-rocker (and former power-popper) Peter Case, ‘90s-era alt-rocker Mary Lou Lord, and bluesman Fantastic Negrito as having launched their careers on the streets.

Down On the Corner also introduces the reader to regional artists that are definitely more obscure or never got a proper shot at the brass ring, folks like Oliver Smith, Nashville’s Cortelia Clark, George ‘Bongo Joe’ Coleman, and the duo of Satan & Adam, every one worthy of further research on Discogs. Most of the artists relate their story in their own words, which can make for a lively conversation – I particularly liked reading about the social activism of the duo of David & Roselyn, or Mary Lou Lord’s adventures in the subways of NYC. Baker does an admirable job of capturing that ‘something special’ about each performer, and has delivered an overall well-written and well-researched…although never dull…book on busking that digs into the lives of the buskers as well as the tradition.           

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Down On the Corner is a quick read, with each chapter sort of open-ended and dependent on the reader to do their own research by checking out the featured artists’ music, some of which you can find on YouTube and most of which can be dug up on vinyl and CD. Aside from the artists, Baker also includes the localized busking scenes of places like Chicago, New Orleans, and Venice Beach, California, which provides an invaluable backdrop to the artists’ stories. The book includes a 16-page insert of vintage color and B&W photos of people and places that also help add to the book’s historical import. Down On the Corner is mighty impressive first effort from Mr. Baker, and doubly so as it shines a light on a seldom-addressed but nevertheless rich niche of music history. (Jawbone Press U.K., published November 12th, 2024)

Buy the book from Amazon: Cary Baker’s Down On the Corner

Archive Review: Various Artists - The South Side of Soul Street (2013)

Collectors of Southern soul are a dedicated bunch of crate-diggers, and we have them to thank for the re-discovery and reissuing of a lot of long-gone, all-but-lost soul classics. A lot of Memphis and Muscle Shoals sides have been rescued for the digital era because of their efforts, and not just those recordings released by Stax Records, but a wealth of small-label craziness that would have slipped into obscurity if not for the fanaticism of collectors hoarding old sides from Excello, A-Bet, Dial, and other small independent labels.

Witness the legacy of Minaret Records, a small R&B imprint from Valparaiso, Florida that was re-purposed by producer Finley Duncan as a logical outgrowth of his Playground Recording Studio. Originally a country-leaning label in the early 1960s, by the end of the decade Duncan had moved the label into blues and R&B with Nashville partner Shelby Singleton. Although Minaret never scored any major chart hits during the label’s short existence as a soul imprint, they could boast of a roster of classic soul, blues, and R&B talents that would have done any other label proud.

The South Side of Soul Street

The South Side of Soul Street: The Minaret Soul Singles 1967-1976 is a two-disc, 40-song collection that offers all of the A and B-sides from the Minaret catalog for the first time, most of these songs out-of-print for decades and fetching premium prices. Listening to The South Side of Soul Street is a revelation, one great song after another cascading from your speakers like honey dripping from a hive. Singer Big John Hamilton was the anchor of the Minaret roster, and he’s represented here by a whopping 20 songs, performances like the grand, heartbreaking “I Have No One” or the Memphis-styled groove of “Pretty Girls” presents the head-scratching question of why Hamilton didn’t become a big league star. His debuts with singer Doris Allen are of a similar high quality as his solo cuts, “A Place In My Heart” especially effective, the contrasting male and female voices bolstering the emotional impact of the lyrics.

Minaret was about more than just Big John Hamilton, though, and artists like Genie Brooks – whose funky-fresh “Fine Time” positions him as the label’s Wilson Pickett – along with Johnny Dynamite and Gable Reed all possessed a certain star quality. Dynamite’s “The Night the Angels Cried” is a hard-driving R&B tearjerker with great soul vocals and bleats of horn while Reed’s “I’m Your Man” is a emotional plea for amour delivered in the best Otis Redding style, wiry guitar licks filling in between tears. Brooks’ “South Side of Soul Street,” from which the set takes its name, is bold, brassy, and swings like a blacksmith’s hammer, the song a perfect funk-drenched snapshot of Southern soul circa 1969.

Minaret Soul Singles 1967-1976

Willie Cobbs is best-known as a blues shouter, but the lone single he made for Minaret, “I’ll Love Only You,” is a mighty powerful R&B bonfire, with some fine Steve Cropper-styled git-pickin. The single’s “B” side, “Don’t Worry About Me,” is equally entertaining, with bluesy harp loping alongside Cobbs’ smoky vocals and shots of horn. Doris Allen should definitely been a bigger star, her larger than life voice and undeniable charisma pumping up standard R&B tracks like “A Shell of A Woman” and “Kiss Yourself For Me” with the intensity of an Etta James.

Leroy Lloyd and the Dukes are obviously rockers at heart, their instrumental “Sewanee Strut” bouncing off the walls with bluesy horns, machine-gun drumbeats, and an infectious rhythm. By contrast, Lloyd’s instrumental “A Taste of the Blues” is a slow-burner, smoldering piano accompanied by lively hornplay and smart fretwork by Lloyd that reminds of Freddie King. Willie Gable’s “Row, Row, Row” is the single outlier here, a sort of lusty talking-blues styled R&B tune based on nursery rhyme melodies and lyrics that is just flat-out weird. The singer’s “Eternally” plays much better, Gable traipsing across familiar soul turf with a torch-song ballad that places his wavering voice in a better light.
 

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Like most of the Southern soul labels at the time, Duncan used a house band of talented, albeit largely unknown players like guitarists Larry Shell and John Rainey Adkins, as well as guest musicians like the Memphis Horns and Muscle Shoals legend Spooner Oldham who all struck sparks in the recording studio when playing behind these great singers.

The South Side of Soul Street includes a nice booklet with a few rare photos and extensive liner notes from music historian Bill Dahl, a guy that knows his stuff and, more importantly, loves the music as deeply as any crate-digger. It’s the music that does the talking on The South Side of Soul Street, though, the album a phenomenal tribute to the unsung artists that created these great performances. If you’re a fan of 1960s-era soul music – and who isn’t – and you haven’t heard The South Side of Soul Street, what the heck are you waiting for? (Omnivore Records, released August 13th, 2013)

Planet of Sound 3: Even More Essays From the Rock and Roll Globe Era, 2021-2024

Planet of Sound 3 is the third and final archival collection of rants, raves, and reviews penned by award-winning rock critic and music historian Rev. Keith A. Gordon. The Reverend covers a diverse range of popular music with these 46 essays, from well-known artists like Frank Zappa, Neil Young, and rapper Ice T to cult favorites like Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, rocker Joe Grushecky, and punk godfather Johnny Thunders. 

Planet of Sound 3 expands the series' coverage of live albums, with in-depth reviews of legit and bootleg releases from rock 'n' roll greats like The Yardbirds, Rory Gallagher, and Michael Bloomfield. You'll find reviews of punk-rock (Hüsker Dü, Dead Kennedys), garage-rock (The Unclaimed, The Vipers), and the blues (John Lee Hooker, Skip James) as well as book reviews and tributes to artists like Keith Richards, John Mayall, and Spirit. 

The “Reverend of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” Rev. Keith A. Gordon has been writing about classic rock and blues music over 50 years. A former contributor to the All Music Guide books and website, and the former ‘Blues Expert’ for About.com, Gordon has written for over 100 publications worldwide, including Creem, Blurt magazine, Goldmine, Blues Music magazine, High Times, The Blues (U.K.), and Live! Music Review. The Reverend has also written or edited 29 previous music-related books, including Nuggets Redux, The Jimi Hendrix Reader, and Sonicbond Publishing's Spirit...On Track! 

 Get an autographed copy from the Reverend for $19.99 postpaid! (U.S. orders only)

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Archive Review: Neil Zaza's Staring At the Sun (2001)

Personally, I don’t think that Cleveland, Ohio really deserves to be the home of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That institution should have been located in Memphis, home of Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Dewey Phillips, Sun Studios, and Stax Records. However, I will give the city its due praise – its football fans are diehard loyalists, WMMS is a decent radio station, and there’s something in the water from Lake Erie that spawns rock bands. Maybe it’s radioactivity in the lake or smoke from the flames burning frequently on the Cuyahoga River but Cleveland has churned out musical mutants like Stiv Bators and Cheetah Chrome, the James Gang, Pere Ubu, and the Michael Stanley Band for decades now. Now you can add Neil Zaza to the lengthy list of musical treasures unearthed from the “mistake on the lake.”

Playing in the same major leagues as Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, Neil Zaza pursues a similar guitar style, his notes ringing with crystal tone and cheetah-fast riffs raging with flaming clarity. For his sophomore album, Staring At the Sun – engineered with some skill by Zaza himself – the Cleveland axeman enlisted the help of the Journey rhythm section, bassist Ross Valory, and drummer Steve Smith. The resulting songs are thick and juicy on the bottom end, the Valory/Ross axis straining their instrumental muscles to keep up with the youngster Zaza. The six-string work on Staring At the Sun is mean and lean, however, Zaza ripping off notes with surgical precision.

Unlike many guitar heroes who merely want to dazzle an audience with explosive speed and pyrotechnics, Zaza incorporates melody and song structure along with the dazzling fireworks. “The Wonder of You” offers some tasteful riffs beneath an engaging melody while “New, New Math” features a powerful rhythmic heartbeat pounding behind Zaza’s blazing fretwork. Falling water and thunderclaps open “Rain,” a gentle, brilliant song that showcases Zaza’s complex style and natural virtuosity, the band assisted on the track by Satriani bassist Stuart Hamm. The album closes with an inspired reading of “Purple Rain,” Zaza displaying his guitar prowess in redefining this signature Prince classic

There are no vocals on Staring At the Sun, just some found sounds and Zaza’s astonishing guitar playing. That’s really all you need, however, Neil Zaza earning a name for himself as one of rock guitar’s elite talents with Staring At the Sun. (Neurra Records, released 2001)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine

Hot Wax: Albert Collins, Robert Cray & Johnny Copeland’s Showdown! (1985/2024)

Esteemed blues label Alligator Records has been reissuing a truckload of hot-off-the-griddle flapjacks this year, culminating in this superstar collection of head-cutting axe-wranglers. Originally released on vinyl in 1985, Showdown! features seasoned blues veterans Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland spanking the strings alongside (relatively) new guy Robert Cray. The results are enough to warm the heart of even the most diehard blues traditionalist, then and now. While Stevie Ray was forging his own blues pathways during the ‘80s, this trio of talented cats were showcasing their own considerable skills for the hottest label in town. Showdown! earned the trio a Grammy™ Award for “Best Traditional Blues Recording” and the record has since become considered a classic of blues guitar.

Bluesmasters Albert Collins, Robert Cray & Johnny Copeland

Texas-born Albert Collins, a/k/a ‘The Ice Man,’ was the old head in the studio, the guitarist making his bones by playing juke-joints and dive bars in the rough ‘n’ tumble Southeastern region of the Lone Star State while still a teenager with his band the Rhythm Rockers. After a few years of banging around Houston, Collins – then only 22 – was joined in the Rhythm Rockers by 17-year-old Johnny Copeland, who soon split out on his own to record singles for labels like Duke, Mercury, and Golden Eagle Records. Many of Copeland’s early releases, regional hits like “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lily” and “Down On Bending Knees,” spotlighted his soulful vocals above his fiery guitarplay. It wasn’t until Copeland signed with Rounder Records and released albums like 1981’s Copeland Special and 1985’s Bringin’ It All Back Home, that Copeland’s six-string skills really came to be appreciated by blues fans.

Collins released his own first single, “Freeze,” in 1958 for the regional indie Kangaroo Records, but it was his 1964 recording of “Frosty” that would become the guitarist’s signature song. Collins’ various singles were collected on his first album, 1965’s The Cool Sound of Albert Collins. A friendship with boogie-rockers Canned Heat led to the guitarist’s relocation to California, where he found a modicum of success in the rock ‘n’ roll world, touring with bands like the Grateful Dead and contributing his fretwork to albums by artists like Ike & Tina Turner. It was his association with Alligator Records that propelled him to blues stardom, however, albums like 1978’s Ice Pickin’ and 1980’s Frostbite placing Collins squarely in the center of the ‘80s blues revival.

Robert Cray, the youngest of our three six-string wizards, was a good two decades behind his mentors when he launched his own individual voyage into the blues. Inspired by seeing Collins perform at his high school graduation party, Cray formed his namesake band in the late ‘70s with fellow legend Curtis Salgado. Cray appeared in as the uncredited bass player with the fictional Otis Day & the Knights band in the 1978 movie National Lampoon’s Animal House and released his debut album, Who’s Been Talkin’, in 1980 for the soon-to-be-bankrupt Tomato Records label. A subsequent deal with the far more stable Hightone Records label resulted in 1983’s critically-acclaimed Bad Influence album, which announced Cray’s talents to the blues world, followed by 1985’s False Accusations, which edged the guitarist into the mainstream.

Showdown!

All three artists have since been honored with induction into the Blues Hall of Fame, among their many other accolades, so getting talents of this caliber together in the studio to record together was a significant move. In a 2011 interview, Alligator founder Bruce Iglauer chose Showdown! as his favorite release, telling this writer that “it’s won every kind of blues award, but musically speaking, it was a record by three men that really loved each other and really loved making music together. I think that a lot of that love, and some of the competitiveness, and some of the father-son relationship that Albert had with both Johnny and Robert, was captured in the musical performances. The guys came in, they knew they were doing something special, and for myself and Dick Shurman, my co-producer, a lot of our job was to get out of the way and let it happen.”

Showdown! does not disappoint – the three guitarists’ talents mesh well together on the album’s ten tracks. The chosen material is largely comprised of blues and R&B covers – albeit relatively obscure ones – with a handful of original songs (two by Copeland, one each from Collins and Cray) thrown in to spice up the gumbo pot somewhat. The classic “T-Bone Shuffle” kicks off the festivities, the signature song of Texas guitarist T-Bone Walker who influenced, really, all three men. It’s a jaunty, smooth-as-silk performance with all three artists sharing the microphone and ripping off terrific solos – Copeland’s a sharp, stinging flurry of notes; Collins’ his typical natural-bred cool; and Cray’s a jazzy flourish to finish up the song. Copeland’s “Lion’s Den” is a real roadrunner, his larger-than-life vox matched by his over-the-top solo; by contrast, Collins veers closer to rock ‘n’ roll turf with his razor-sharp licks incorporating a rockabilly vibe.

The other Copeland original on Showdown!, “Bring Your Fine Self Home,” is a moody blues torch-song that showcases the enormous talents of all three musicians. With Collins blowing a mournful harp and adding scraps of emotional lead guitar, both Copeland and Cray provide texture with flowing rhythm guitarplay; Johnny provides the song’s heartbreak vocals. The trio’s take on Houston bluesman Hop Wilson’s voodoo vamp “Black Cat Bone” opens with verbal interplay between Copeland and Collins and launching into a deep groove (courtesy of drummer Casey Jones and bassist Johnny B. Gayden) before turning into an exciting guitar battle between the two bluesmen. Cray’s “The Dream” is a slow-burning blues heavy on atmospherics and featuring Cray’s soulful voice with Collins’ guitar underlining the lyrics. “Albert’s Alley” is a swinging, up-tempo instrumental while a cover of Ray Charles’ “Blackjack,” which closed the original 1985 LP, allows each guitarist to stretch out and strut their stuff.       

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

There’s not a duff track to be found on Showdown!, the album’s light-handed production allowing the three guitarists the freedom to cut loose and just revel in the joy of music-making. This clear vinyl deluxe reissue, with a gatefold cover featuring unpublished photos and Alligator head honcho Bruce Iglauer’s memories of the sessions, is even ten percent better than the original, as it includes a bonus track in the form of a fiery cover of Eddie “Guitar Slim” Jones’ “Something To Remember You By,” a performance every bit as red-hot as the first nine tracks. If you’re a fan of blues guitar, you owe it to yourself to track down this Showdown! reissue. Honestly, it just doesn’t get any better than this, a super-session featuring three of the genre’s greatest talents. Grade: A+ (Alligator Records, released November 29th, 2024)

Buy the vinyl from Amazon: Albert Collins, Robert Cray & Johnny Copeland’s Showdown!

Hot Wax: Can't Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney (2024)

The late David Olney was a superlative songwriter and a natural storyteller, capable of spinning tales with an imagination the equal of any novelist or poet. A Rhode Island native who landed in Nashville by way of North Carolina and Georgia, Olney and his band the X-Rays were early pioneers of the Music City’s bourgeoning late ‘70s rock scene, recording two albums for Rounder Records. Olney launched a solo career in the mid-‘80s that resulted in better than 30 studio and live albums, his last being 2021’s Whispers and Sighs, a posthumous collaboration with singer/songwriter Anana Kaye. Olney passed away of an apparent heart attack in January 2020 while performing onstage at the 30A Songwriter Festival in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

Although Olney never received the commercial returns an artist of his talent deserved, he was well-respected by other artists and songwriters. Musical legends like Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Del McCoury, and Linda Rondstadt thought enough of his skills as a wordsmith to record Olney songs like “If My Eyes Were Blind,” “Women Cross the River,” and “Jerusalem Tomorrow” while talents such as John Hiatt, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt considered him a peer. As Olney told me in an interview for my 2012 book The Other Side of Nashville, “I used to be pissed-off about not being more famous. But I got to see the world in an intimate kind of way, and that’s OK.”    

Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney

It’s been almost five years since Olney’s death and he’s been provided an honor afforded few of even the most commercially-successful of his contemporaries – a bona fide tribute album. Released by Americana label New West Records, Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney compiles 17 of Olney’s tunes on four sides of vinyl (also available on CD), performed by folks like Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Dave Alvin, Mary Gauthier, and Willis Alan Ramsey. Olney makes an appearance himself with the eerie, previously-unreleased “Sonnet #40,” while Executive Producer Gwil Owen, a longtime friend of Olney’s, dug up a vintage, unreleased live recording of Townes Van Zandt performing Olney’s “Illegal Cargo” in 1977 in Chapel Hill NC.

Although Olney is usually pigeonholed as a country or folk artist, as I wrote in my review of his 2014 album When the Deal Goes Down, “much like Van Zandt, Olney brings country and folk influences to his songs, but he also imbues his performances with a punk-rock intensity and attitude.” In truth, Olney brought whatever tool he needed – country, folks, blues, rock – to crafting his songs. Can’t Steal My Fire opens with Lucinda Williams’ take on Olney’s “Deeper Well,” the title track of his 1988 album for Rounder Records. Williams is a kindred spirit, a fellow musical outsider who has tasted fleeting success, and an incredible vocalist. When she sinks her teeth into a performance like she does here on “Deeper Well,” she transforms the song, this time into a powerful Delta blues dirge, her haunting vocals supported by Stuart Mathis’s otherworldly guitar playing. It’s an electrifying reminder of what a singer like Williams can do with an already great song.

By contrast, Olney’s longtime friend Steve Earle applies his own considerable vocal talents to “Sister Angelina,” a standout track from 1992’s Border Crossing album. A folkish ballad with Mexican instrumental flourishes, Earle’s nuanced performance is boosted by Jeff Hill’s engaging and exotic fretwork. It’s a gorgeous song, done right by Earle. The McCrary Sisters – unknown to me before now – take “Voices On the Water,” co-written by Olney with Gwil Owen, and apply a Gospel fervor to their performance, magnifying the lyrics and raising a joyous noise. Buddy Miller doesn’t so much interpret “Jerusalem Tomorrow” as much as he moves in and inhabits the song with a strong spoken/sung performance that focus more on the song than the singer.

David Olney 2019, photo by Scott Housley

If My Eyes Were Blind

The Steeldrivers open side two of Can’t Steal My Fire, bringing a bluegrass fury to “If My Eyes Were Blind,” also from Deeper Well. The band weaves elegant instrumentation around Olney’s poetic lyrics, creating a lush soundscape that perfectly captures Olney’s emotional original. Acclaimed Texas singer/songwriter Willis Alan Ramsey brings a bit of whimsy to his performance of “Women Across the River,” his atmospheric vocals accented by Tammy Rogers’ lovely mandolin and fiddle-play. Louisiana folkie Mary Gauthier brings a minimalist Southern Gothic vibe to “1917,” from 1999’s Through A Glass Darkly. Although she’s accompanied by subtle and subdued instrumentation, her vocals are simply mesmerizing, drawing your focus to the story so that everything else falls away.

Americana legend Jimmie Dale Gilmore kicks of the album’s third side with “If It Wasn’t For the Wind,” a co-write with Joe Fleming from Olney’s first solo LP, 1986’s Eye of the Storm. Gilmore applies his warm, high-lonesome vocals to the winsome ballad, imbuing the song with a dreaminess that is punctuated by Warren Hood’s fiddle and guitarist Rich Brotherton’s lovely guitarplay. Olney collaborated with young singer/songwriter Anana Kaye and her musician husband Irakli Gabriel on Whispers and Sighs and they return the favor with an inspired performance of “Running From Love,” Kaye’s breathless vocals adding an urgent sensuality to the lyrics while guitarist Joe McMahan fiery leads lead the song to blues-rock territory. “That’s My Story,” from one of Olney’s more obscure albums, 1991’s Top To Bottom, is provided a talking blues-styled reading by folkie Greg Brown, who brings a Tom Waits vibe to the offbeat, absurdist story.

Olney’s “Sonnet #40” is equally bizarro, a short, shocking spoken-word vamp with Olney’s studio-altered vocals accompanied by jazzy instrumentation and lyrics that surprise. Afton Wolfe is another artist unfamiliar to these ears, but his high-energy, hard-rockin’ version of “Titanic” is as steely as its namesake’s hull. With gritty vocals driven to madness by McMahan’s metallic fretwork, it’s a dino-stomp in a league with Sabbath or Zeppelin. Dave Alvin digs all the way back to the X-Rays’ 1981 album Contender for “Steal My Thunder,” the Americana pioneer transforming the song into a bluesy roots-rocker with help from the Rick Holmstrom Trio. Jim Lauderdale brings a honky-tonk authenticity to “Delta Blue,” complete with enchanting Dobro and fiddle. The aforementioned Townes Van Zandt performance of “Illegal Cargo” closes out Can’t Steal My Fire. Another great song from Deeper Well, what this 1977 live recording lacks in sonic quality it more than makes up for with pathos and sincerity.        
 

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

I was privileged to have known David Olney, and to have seen him perform a number of times – more than enough to stand in awe of the man and his music. A singular talent, Olney’s skills as a lyrical storyteller are unequalled in popular music, and his ability to perfectly capture the human condition in the unyielding amber of song is his legacy. As shown by the 17 songs on Can’t Steal My Fire, Olney was a hell of a wordsmith, and it’s because his work drew so deeply from the entirety of American music that it is truly timeless and open to endless interpretation. Can’t Steal My Fire provides a wonderful introduction to David Olney, and will motivate more than a few first-time listeners to dig into his rich and varied catalog of music…for which they’ll be suitably rewarded. Grade: A+ (New West Records, released August 27th, 2024)

Buy the album from Amazon: Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney

Also on That Devil Music: Gwil Owen talks about David Olney & the Can’t Steal My Fire LP

The Reverend’s tribute to Olney on the Rock and Roll Globe website

Q5: Gwil Owen talks about David Olney & the Can't Steal My Fire LP (2024)

Nashville musician Gwil Owen was a longtime friend and collaborator with David Olney and the Executive Producer of the recently-released tribute album, Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney. The Reverend pitched a few questions to Owen about the album via email:

Q1. How did Can’t Steal My Fire come about?
David was my closest friend and we had many conversations about the fact that he probably wouldn’t get true recognition until he was dead and gone. One night we played a show together and met Regina McCrary. After she left Dave said, “we should get the McCrary Sisters to cut one of our songs.” I said, “what song of ours would they cut?” and Dave said, “Voices on the Water!” I always remembered that conversation and it was an honor to make that wish come true. When he died, I realized that I was the logical person to make this record and his family agreed.
 
Q2. How did you choose which artists to include, and did they select the songs they performed?
David spent a lifetime on the road, so he got to know a lot of his fellow songwriters, and I knew that he was greatly admired in that circle. I mostly focused on those that I also knew personally, as it made it a lot easier. Steve Earle, Dave Alvin, Mary Gauthier, and R.B. Morris all knew which songs they wanted to do, so of course I agreed to all of those; I chose most of the rest.
 
Q3. Were there any artists who you wanted to include on the album but couldn’t get?
The first artist who agreed to be on the record was John Prine. Tragically, he died of COVID just a month later, before he had a chance to record his track. 2020 was a year of heartbreaks. I spent a good while talking with Tom Waits’ people; he loved the tracks I sent him and set up a Zoom meeting with his record label. I thought for sure we had him, but in the end it didn’t work out. There’s also a never-released Johnny Cash version of “Jerusalem Tomorrow” that I couldn’t manage to pry out of Rick Rubin’s hands.
 
Q4. How would you describe David Olney’s music?
Dave was a master storyteller; he could work all the necessary elements into a song so skillfully that you never noticed the enormous amount of information he was giving you. Listen to “Illegal Cargo” for example. He also had a tremendous imagination; he thought of approaches and points of view that would never occur to most writers. Telling the story of the Titanic from the perspective of the iceberg is probably the most famous example of that. Just as important as all his technical skill and creativity was his tremendous empathy. He really cared about people, and that big heart of his is beating loudly throughout every single one of his songs.
 
Q5. What would you like listeners to know about Olney?
He made about 20 albums in his lifetime and there are great songs on every one. If you like this record, I encourage you to check out the songs as sung by the man himself.

Buy the album from Amazon: Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney

Also on That Devil Music: Can't Steal My Fire album review

Archive Review: Rubber City Rebels' Pierce My Brain (2003)

Twenty-two years after the release of their first and only album, the legendary punk posse Rubber City Rebels has come roaring back to claim the legacy that should have been laid upon the band to begin with. Ohio’s RCR cut their collective eyeteeth on the Stooges and the Flamin’ Groovies, hanging out with fellow acolytes of the three-chord, garage rock aesthetic like the Ramones and the Dead Boys. Unlike Stiv and his gang or art-punk poofters like Pere Ubu, the Rubber City Rebels never succumbed to the lure of Sodom or Gomorrah, choosing instead to bring the band’s revved-up brand of rant and roll to the Midwestern masses. Needless to say, in an industry built on formula and supported by trends, RCR went over like a dervish at a debutante’s ball, and the band splintered into sleeper cells soon after releasing its hard-rocking, self-titled debut album in 1980.   

Recording a dozen new tunes in the wake of a successful reunion mini-tour, slash-and-burn axeman Rod Firestone has returned to lead his band of merry men – vocalist Buzz Clic, bassist Bob Clic, and drummer Mike Hammer – on a musical search and destroy mission with Pierce My Brain. The band succeeds admirably, walking a tightrope between young, loud and snotty and metallic K.O., lyrically ravaging the entire Hot Topic mallrat culture of manufactured dissent. “(I Wanna) Pierce My Brain” slags conformist trendoids by taking “body mod” to its logical extremes while “Grip of Fear” delivers a more insightful commentary on current events than any of those pseudo-intellectual, candy-ass political punks have managed to come up with lately. The profoundly disturbing “I Don’t Wanna Be A Punk No More” examines both punk’s self-imagery and the band’s place in history while “Dead Boy (Eulogy For Stiv)” offers memories of Firestone’s fallen comrade.

One guitar, three chords, scorching leads and throbbing rhythms – the Rubber City Rebels are back and Pierce My Brain is both the band’s manifesto and an opening salvo for the (kind of) new millennium. If all the music on the radio all sounds the same these days and you can no longer swallow cookie-cutter “punk” pop stars like Good Charlotte or Simple Plan – nice boys playing polite music for a demographically chosen market – check out Rubber City Rebels. The wise and sage Rod Firestone said it best in “Punk Daddy,” loudly proclaiming “Old School Rules Fool!” Rebels Forever, Forever Rebels! (Smog Veil Records)

Review originally published by Jersey Beat music zine, 2003

Archive Review: Willy DeVille’s Come A Little Bit Closer (2011)

Chances are that you’ve heard the soulful voice of Willy DeVille, even if you weren’t aware of it at the time. DeVille experienced a potential commercial breakthrough when his song “Storybook Love” was used by director Rob Reiner as the theme song for his film The Princess Bride. Originally recorded with Dire Straits guitarist Mark Knopfler for DeVille’s 1987 album Miracle, “Storybook Love” was nominated for an Academy Award, and DeVille performed the song at that year’s award ceremony.

Despite his brief flirtation with the mainstream, DeVille was probably too strong a brew for the bland tastes of the average MTV-viewing record buyer in the late 1980s. Throughout a lengthy career that began in the early 1970s with his NYC-based band Mink DeVille, and a solo career that began in earnest under his own name with Miracle, DeVille was a true American musical renegade. Pursuing a unique vision that blended rock and soul with blues, R&B, Latin, and Cajun music, DeVille was never happy sitting in one stylistic groove for too long, and once he wrapped his magnificent voice around a style, he owned it.

Willy DeVille’s Come A Little Bit Closer

While he never built a stateside audience beyond a loyal cult following, DeVille remained popular in Europe until his untimely death from cancer in 2009. He continued to tour and record through the years, releasing his final album Pistola in 2008, and he remained curious about exploring various roots-music styles until the end. Come A Little Bit Closer: The Best of Willy DeVille Live is exactly that, a compilation of some of the singer’s best songs and live performances, culled from throughout his career.

DeVille was a powerful and charismatic live performer, pouring his heart and song into every live performance, regardless of the venue or audience. Come A Little Bit Closer begins with “Venus of Avenue D,” documenting one of the best-known songs from an early incarnation of Mink DeVille, captured live in Amsterdam in 1977. Displaying just a little of the diversity that would grace DeVille’s later recordings, “Venus of Avenue D” is a punkish rocker with a heart full of soul, offering R&B tinged hornplay and muted vocals that up the amperage and electricity as the song slowly ascends. The Brill Building pop gem “Little Girl” comes from the same show, the song a mid-tempo ballad that DeVille imbues with an emotional fervor.

The Evolution of Mink DeVille

A handful of songs, from a 1984 show in the Netherlands, illustrate the evolution of Mink DeVille, the band, into Willy DeVille, the singular performer. Injecting his performances with greater R&B influences and elegant vocal nuances, DeVille’s performance of “This Must Be the Night” crosses the playfulness of Gary “U.S.” Bonds with the earnest blues-eyed soul sound of Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes. Ditto for “Love and Emotion,” a lovely love song with a Philly soul sound and a European heartbeat, while “Savoir Faire” is just an all-out rocker with raging vocals and blazing guitars, blasts of horn, and shards of honky-tonk piano.
 

DeVille was a masterful interpreter of other songwriter’s material as well, from the aforementioned “Little Girl” to a gorgeous cover of Bryan Ferry’s hauntingly beautiful “Slave To Love,” the singer wringing every bit of heartbreak out of the song. The garage-rock standard “Hey Joe” is gleefully re-imagined with a jaunty Spanish rhythm and exotic instrumentation dancing lively behind DeVille’s playful vocals. No “best of” compilation would be complete without “Storybook Love,” and this 2002 version, recorded in Berlin with the Willy DeVille Acoustic Trio, is met with enthusiastic response from the German audience, the singer accompanied by a lone piano as he pure magic out of the yearning, heartworn lyrics.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Willy DeVille was an American musical treasure, a gifted songwriter and vocalist that reveled in obscurity for over 30 years, yet continued to create powerful, exciting music throughout, without the benefit of major labels or radio airplay. DeVille suffered from addictions during much of his career, and it could be argued that his personal demons held him back, career-wise, although it did little to slow the impressive pace of his songwriting or performing.    

Come A Little Bit Closer: The Best of Willy DeVille live is not only a wonderful introduction to this talented artist’s rich and diverse milieu, it also serves as a gateway to a lot of great music still available from one of the greatest and most underrated of American musicians, Willy DeVille. With a love for indigenous musical forms that informed his sound, roots music never sounded better than when sung by DeVille. (Eagle Records, released May 24, 2011)

 

Have A Bo Diddley Holiday!

 

Having a hard time figuring out a gift for the rock ‘n’ roller on your Christmas list? Don’t wanna buy ‘em just another crappy CD or a ragged vintage band tee? Well, consider the problem solved me droogs, ‘cause here comes Bo Diddley to the rescue!

Rock ‘n’ roll innovator Bo is back in the form of three gorgeous bobblehead figures. These special edition bobbles were produced by the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with the help and support of the Bo Diddley Estate. Just look at ‘em! Three different classic Bo poses with the legendary guitarist wielding his trademark, self-designed rectangular “cigar box” guitar.

The ‘standing’ figure features Bo sporting the timeless red plaid jacket he wore on the cover of his sophomore album, 1969’s Go Bo Diddley. The figure of Bo astride his trusty custom scooter pays homage to the cover photo of Diddley’s 1959 album Have Guitar, Will Travel album, shot in Brooklyn, and re-used again for 1963’s Rides Again album. The ‘sitting’ figure looks like ‘70s-era Bo as portrayed on illustrated album covers for 1972’s Where In All Began and the following year’s The London Bo Diddley Sessions, with Diddley wearing his signature hat with the prominent badge.

In case you’ve been living in a cave for the past few decades and are unfamiliar with ‘The Originator,’ Bo Diddley (a/k/a Ellas McDaniel) was the prototype rocker, an influential guitarist and songwriter with accolades as long as your arm. In 1987 he was inducted into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame; he made his way into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2003. Diddley’s 1960s-era hits – classic tunes like the self-referential “Bo Diddley,” “Pretty Thing,” “Who Do You Love?,” “You Can’t Judge A Book By the Cover,” and “Diddy Wah Diddy” – influenced musicians on both sides of the ocean, from the Yardbirds and the Rolling Stones to Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly.

Diddley passed away in June 2008 at 79 years old after a lengthy illness. Over the course of his legendary career, Diddley released 33 studio and live albums, his last being 1996’s A Man Among Men, recorded with blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan and Keith Richards and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones. Bo also recorded with blues harmonica wizard Little Walter, Chicago blues legend Muddy Waters, and fellow rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry. He toured with bands like the Grateful Dead and the Clash and appeared in movies like Trading Places and Rockula. When Bo died, artists as diverse as George Thorogood, Eric Clapton, Robert Plant, Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, Tom Petty, and Elvis Costello, among many others, lined up to sing his praises.

In a press release for the bobbleheads, National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum co-founder and CEO Phil Sklar says “we’re excited to unveil the first bobbleheads of the legendary Bo Diddley as a tribute to the remarkable and groundbreaking musician. As one of the most influential performers of rock music’s early period, these bobbleheads are sure to be a must-have for music fans everywhere.”

Where can you get ‘em? The bobbleheads are individually numbered to 2,024 and are available exclusively through the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame & Museum online store [link]. The cost of each figure is right around the average for these sort of limited-edition collectibles: $30 for Bo standing, $35 for Bo Sitting, and $40 for Bo on the bike, or a cool $100 for all three. Shipping is a flat rate $8 per order.

Shipping won’t be until January 2025 but you can print out a picture of your bobblehead gift and give it to its recipient on December 25th and they’ll be anxiously watching the mailbox for the next month! You can bet that the Reverend will be adding one (or more) ‘Bo’s to my own growing bobblehead collection!

Archive Review: Todd Rundgren's Todd Live (2010)

Save for a loyal but rapidly-graying audience, Todd Rundgren is in danger of being lost amidst a sea of cookie-cutter indie-rockers that don’t possess an ounce of his individuality, innovative nature, or sheer musical “chutzpah.” As close to a true renaissance man as rock ‘n’ roll has created, Rundgren – a talented multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, video and multi-media artist, and tech wizard – has pretty much always done it his way, often with interesting results, exploring the outer limits of pop, rock, prog, and electronic music both as a solo artist and with his band Utopia.

Although he’s been making music for better than 40 years now, the anything-goes 1970s were Rundgren’s era, the prolific musician cranking out eleven critically-acclaimed albums that hit the charts with varying commercial returns over the ten-year period. The double-disc 1972 album Something/Anything? provided Rundgren with a modicum of pop stardom, a not entirely-welcome status that the artist quickly denied with the following year’s difficult-albeit-exciting album A Wizard, A True Star. Featuring nearly 56-minutes of music crammed onto two sides of vinyl…a technological marvel in and of itself for the time…side one of the album featured a Beatlesque extended medley of proggish rock, side two a few pop/rock songs surrounding a ten-minute medley of R&B hits.

Todd Rundgren’s Todd

Against this backdrop, the release of the double-album Todd in February 1974 found the artist’s fans wondering which Todd Rundgren would show up in the grooves. While Todd ventured further into the musical experimentation that Rundgren began with A Wizard, A True Star, especially considering the artist’s growing fascination with synthesizers and other technological means to shape music, in truth the album also crossed paths with Todd’s Something/Anything? era pop-rock cheap thrills and Utopia’s just-over-the-horizon electronic adventures.

Although Todd didn’t set the woods on fire commercially, the pricey double-LP did climb to #54 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, and yielded a minor hit (#69) in the lofty, ethereal-pop tune “A Dream Goes On Forever.” Undaunted, Rundgren moved onward and upward with 1975’s aggressive Initiation, a reckless synthfest that further pushed the boundaries of vinyl capabilities with better than 30-minutes of music squeezed onto each side, the album’s electronic-rock soundscape furthering the artistic sojourn that Rundgren had begun with the release of the Todd Rundgren’s Utopia album a few months after Todd.

Whereas Todd Rundgren’s Utopia would initially best Todd in sales, rising to #34 on the album chart without the benefit of a hit single, through the years the equally-difficult Todd has taken on an aura of its own, the album’s reputation often preceding the actual listening, with gems like the aforementioned “A Dream Goes On Forever,” rocker “Heavy Metal Kids,” and Rundgren’s flirtations with Gilbert & Sullivan satisfying the curious and influencing a generation of like-minded fellow-travelers to follow in Rundgren’s considerable wake.

Todd Live

In 2010, Rundgren put together a band of various friends, including bassist Kasim Sultan from Utopia, guitarist Jesse Gress, keyboardist Greg Hawkes (The Cars), drummer Prairie Prince (The Tubes), and saxophonist Bobby Strickland to perform Todd live, for the first time, in its entirety. The Philadelphia show of the special, limited six-date sold-out mini-tour – which also included a performance of Rundgren’s 1981 album Healing – was recorded and videotaped for subsequent release on CD and DVD. While Healing will be released at a later date, the live performance of Todd is more or less a re-creation of that classic album, in spirit if not exactly musically, minus one song – “In and Out the Chakras We Go.”

While some of the more technologically-created fantasia from the original album has been stripped from this live performance, modern electronics allow a lot of the factory showroom sheen to rise out of songs like “I Think You Know,” a discordant albeit lovely mid-tempo ballad with shimmering fretwork and squalls of electronic snowfall. Rundgren’s operatic satire of the music biz, “An Elpee’s Worth of Toons,” mixes Gilbert & Sullivan with a dash of Utopia-styled electronica and a pop/rock vibe to deliver its devastating lyrical message amidst a cacophony of instrumentation and Todd’s best bent vocals. Changing directions so rapidly that it could give the listener whiplash, Rundgren and crew slide effortlessly into the ethereal “A Dream Goes On Forever,” this live version slightly less busy than the studio reading, but lacking none of the bittersweet melancholy of the original.

Rundgren further indulges in his Gilbert & Sullivan obsession with a spry cover of “Lord Chancellor’s Nightmare Song,” evoking memories of Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons. This performance is pure delight, Rundgren’s unabashed enthusiasm dripping from his nimble vocals as Greg Hawkes’ provides the rhythmic backdrop with his chopping piano play. One of the overlooked gems from the original Todd was the hard rocking “Everybody’s Going to Heaven/King Kong Reggae” mash-up, the live version pounding at the pavement with jackhammer ferocity, guitar-drums-bass-keyboards slam-dancing behind Todd’s strained vocals, the man finally cutting loose with a fire-and-brimstone guitar solo before breaking down into the monster jam that is “King King Reggae.”

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Another overlooked cut from Todd was the smooth-as-silk pop song “Izzat Love?” With an undeniable melodic hook and harmony vocals rising about the swirl of low-key instrumentation, the song sounds like something from Todd’s early band Runt, updated with a few modern flourishes but otherwise a lofty example of Rundgren’s 1960s-styled pop/rock chops. The song ends abruptly, descending into madness in an electronic storm, leading into the muscular, blustery “Heavy Metal Kids,” an up-tempo rocker with malevolent intentions, crashing drumbeats, and tortured guitarplay. Todd ends with the gospel-tinged pop of “Songs of 1984,” a perfect showcase for both Rundgren’s songwriting skills but also his immensely diverse musical sense, the mid-tempo verses brought up a notch by the uplifting, choir-like choruses.    

While it’s unlikely that this live Todd will gain Rundgren many new fans, it’s certain to appeal to his horde of longtime followers…but if a couple of young pups are curious after hearing the live versions of these songs and decide to check out the originals, or other equally-exciting entries in Rundgren’s large early catalog – many of which have been repackaged by British archival label Edsel Records as reasonably-priced double CD sets – all the better! (Rock Beat Records)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2010