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! 

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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

Book Review: Roman Kozak's This Ain't No Disco: The Story of CBGB (2024)

During my first trip from Nashville to ‘The Big Apple’ circa 1983 or ‘84, there was just one thing that I wanted to – visit the world-renown CBGB club in the NYC Bowery. A dive bar in a seedy neighborhood, the club launched the American punk scene with bands like Television, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, and Talking Heads, among many others from 1975-78. It was ‘ground zero’ for enthusiastic young punk-rock fanboys like myself. My buddy Thom, who was paying for the trip (we were ostensibly attending a trade show on business) was lukewarm on CBGB, but instead wanted to visit the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village where painter Jackson Pollock used to drink (and was later barred from for tearing up the joint…).

I begrudgingly went along to the Cedar (free beer being free beer, after all!) and after a few pitchers of the establishment’s finest lager, Thom was easily convinced to go catch a show at CBGB. Long Island NY’s Dancing Hoods were headlining that weeknight, with a long-forgotten band featuring actress Laura Dean (from the movie Fame) on the microphone opening. Recognizing Dean from the film, Thom was psyched to talk to her after the show, and the club’s dank atmosphere and blaring sound system lived up to my expectations. That was my only visit to the infamous venue, but it still lives large in my memory, especially since I drunkenly left behind an umbrella I’d paid a Korean shopkeeper three bucks for earlier that day.

For rock ‘n’ roll fans of an accruing age, CBGB was the stuff of legend – opened in 1973, the club hit its stride by 1975 when owner Hilly Kristal allowed an unknown band by the name of Television play regularly on a weeknight. Others soon followed, and although the implications of the scene weren’t apparent at the time, the CBGB’s cohort forever changed the direction of rock music in the U.S. and abroad, and while only a handful of ‘original’ CBGB bands went on to fame and fortune, the best of the lot still managed to leave behind an enduring legacy that is forever tied to the club. The roster of bands who performed at CBGB reads like a literal ‘who’s who’ of rock music; aside from the aforementioned hall of famers, among those gracing the Bowery stage were Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Madonna, The Police, The Fleshtones, Misfits, The Cramps, Bad Brains, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, and The Beastie Boys.

Billboard magazine editor Roman Kozak was there from the launching of CBGB & OMFUG (Kristal’s acronym for “Country, Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandizers), and his 1988 book This Ain’t No Disco: The Story of CBGB documents much of the club’s first decade or so with an oral history provided by the artists who performed, club employees and hangers-on, and Kristal himself. Out-of-print for decades, the book was recently (and deservedly) republished by Ira Robbins’ Trouser Press Books with permission from Kozak’s family. Chris Frantz of Talking Heads provides a new foreword and Robbins’ coverage on the 2006 closing of the club from Spin magazine and New York Newsday provides a coda to Kozak’s book. Photos by NYC scenester Ebet Roberts capture the charms of CBGB with B&W portraits of bands like Blondie, The Ramones, The Jam, and Television as well as the club itself.

It’s a damn shame that Kozak passed away shortly after the publication of This Ain’t No Disco, his only book (he also co-wrote a screenplay titled The Bomb) because he’s quite a good writer. Although approaching the book from a journalist’s perspective, Kozak’s light, conversationalist prose style weaves a solid narrative from the disparate interviews used to tell the story, which makes for an easy and fascinating read. As a fan who experienced CBGB in its prime, Kozak offers a keen eye in describing the club and its environs, as well as the people involved, who almost all have stories to tell. Kozak describes the lead-up to the club’s ascendancy as a ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Mecca’, writing of the club’s difficulties and mishaps as well as its small triumphs.

Although Kozak goes into some depth on the all-important 1975-78 period that launched several bands into the stratosphere, he digs into the aftermath as well, digging into the CBGB’s tenure of bands like the loco Dead Boys, the equally-crazed Plasmatics, and a ‘80s NYC hardcore scene that yielded H/C leading lights like Agnostic Front, Murphy’s Law, and the Cro-Mags. Although most of those interviewed for the book waxed positive about the club and its owner – folks like Annie Golden (The Shirts), Lenny Kaye (of Patti Smith’s band), Handsome Dick Manitoba (The Dictators), and Jim Carroll among them, as well as members of several CBGB-associated bands – Kozak wasn’t afraid to include the voices of some less infatuated speakers; the late, great Willy DeVille didn’t seem to be much of a Hilly Kristal fan.

After a lengthy and ultimately-futile fight with its landlord, CBGB closed after 33 years in October 2006, with club owner Kristal passing away the following year. Some of the grime-encrusted décor of the club was preserved by the high-end John Varatos retail store that opened at the location, and the club’s intellectual properties were reported sold to a group of unknown investors (to hawk t-shirts and such…). Kozak’s This Ain’t No Disco cements the club’s history, warts and all, preserving its legacy for rock ‘n’ rollers too young to have ever visited the East Village. Well-written and insightful, This Ain’t No Disco was penned by somebody that was ‘on location’ rather than a well-meaning historian looking backwards. I’d heartily recommend the book to any music fan curious about the legendary New York City venue. (Trouser Press Books, published October 15th, 2024)

Buy the book direct from the publisher: Roman Kozak’s This Ain’t No Disco

Also on That Devil Music:
CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk CD review
Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious book review