Hot Wax: Bad Brains’ I Against I (1986/2024)

Innovative, eccentric, unpredictable, fickle, high-energy, reticent, talented, pioneering, troubled, unrelenting…all of these words (and many more) can be used to describe Bad Brains. Much as Nashville’s Afrikan Dreamland was reinventing and reinvigorating reggae music in the 1980s by adding a dash of blues, so too was Bad Brains leavening punk rock with reggae grooves. The Washington D.C. hardcore heroes seem to have wanted to be anything but a hardcore punk band even as they pushed beyond the traditional barriers of rock, reggae, punk, and funk music like no other band in rock ‘n’ roll history.

Formed in 1976 as Mind Power, a jazz-rock fusion outfit not dissimilar to Return to Forever, it wasn’t long until the fresh and exciting sound of punk rock infected the band and they radically changed their sound towards a guitar-driven hardcore style. Original Mind Power singer Sid McCray – ostensibly responsible for introducing the band to punk in the first place – left shortly thereafter and guitarist H.R. (née Paul Hudson) took over the microphone. The rest of the band was comprised of guitarist Dr. Know (née Gary Miller), bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson (Paul’s brother). Around this same time (i.e. 1977 or so), the band experienced the legendary Bob Marley in concert, igniting a shared interest in reggae music and the Rastafari movement.

Hardcore Punk & Reggae

With punk and reggae as their magnetic poles, Bad Brains pursued a performance style that blitzed the audience with unrelenting energy and total creative abandon. H.R. was an incendiary frontman, Dr. Know a skilled guitarist nevertheless capable of grinding it out in the trenches, and the Brains’ rhythm section could swing or slam as the occasion merited. They quickly built up a loyal fan base in the D.C. area and were inevitably blacklisted by local clubs due to their chaotic and unpredictable performances. Bad Brains moved northward to New York City in 1980, where they became the blowtorch that ignited the city’s emerging and soon-to-be-notorious hardcore punk scene.

By 1982, Bad Brains were CBGB regulars, performing several nights a week at the infamous Bowery club. Their self-titled debut album was really just a document of the band’s ever-evolving live show, released exclusively on cassette by the specialty label Reachout International Records (ROIR). Featuring liner notes by New York Rocker writer Ira Kaplan (later a founding member of indie rockers Yo La Tengo), the tape’s fold-out insert also included lyrics – the ultimate in fan service. They were subsequently signed to the indie PVC Records label for their sophomore effort, 1983’s Rock For Light. Produced by Ric Ocasek of the Cars and reprising five songs from the debut, the pop-meister smoothed down some of the band’s raw edges but ultimately delivered an enduring and high-octane record.

Creative tensions within the band caused Bad Brains to break up after the release of Rock For Light, the first of many such implosions over the course of the band’s career. The original line-up reunited in 1986, signing with the legendary SST Records label, which by that point could boast of a catalog that represented a veritable “who’s who” of influential underground rockers like Black Flag, the Meat Puppets, the Minutemen, and Hüsker Dü, among others. All of which brings us around to I Against I, the Bad Brains’ “breakthrough” and arguably their best-known and beloved recording. Recently-reissued as the eighth title in the band’s restoration of its back catalog with help from the good folks at ORG Music, the audio has been remastered by Dave Gardner and the vinyl produced by Furnace Record Pressing. A landmark effort, I Against I is worthy of rediscovery as a groundbreaking album that influenced generations of musicians to follow.

Bad Brains photo by Steven Hanner, courtesy Org Music

Bad Brains’ I Against I

I Against I eschews the Brains’ reggae obsessions entirely, the opening track (appropriately titled “Intro”) a plodding doom-metal instrumental with delusions of grandeur and a powerful performance with start-stop guitar shred and ringing instrumentation guaranteed to give the listener tinnitus. The title track bullies its way off the disc, through your speakers, corkscrewing itself into your ears. A 90mph moshpit punker with metallic edging, “I Against I” was a hurricane-strength revelation to the possibilities of expanding hardcore into thrash- and speed-metal. Throw Ronnie James behind the microphone and “House of Suffering” could easily pass for a late-period Black Sabbath track, the perfect breeding of machinegun hardcore riddims and whiplash six-string heavy metal bombast.

The band expands its musical blueprint by a lick or two for “Re-Ignition,” in which you can clearly hear the future of Ice T’s Body Count and any half-dozen vintage ‘90s Lollapalooza bands in the song’s staggered rhythms, swaggering vocal delivery, and muscular git riffs. “Secret 77” is a clever outlier, punky but with tinges of “new wave” pop fused to a funk-metal groove that forged a blade for Fishbone to later hone into a deadly weapon. The rampaging “Let Me Help” performs a fancy head-fake with its pseudo-Zeppelin intro exploding into a punkish storm while “She’s Calling You” provides a bright spotlight for Dr. Know’s fluid fretwork, even though it may be the only wan song on the LP.

“Sacred Love” is a dinosaur-stomper that leaves heavy footprints with its discordant instrumentation; even cooler is the weird effect they got by recording H.R.’s vocals via jailhouse phone when the singer was locked up for a pot bust. Sounding like an early ‘80s Alice Cooper session outtake, “Hired Gun” allows Dr. Know to show off his six-string dexterity, the otherwise panoramic punk-metal construct embroidered with jazzy licks and avant-garde abandon. I Against I closes with the furious and feverish “Return To Heaven,” which offers one of H.R.’s most nuanced vocal takes soaring above a daunting instrumental soundtrack that blazes like 1970s-era stadium rock but offers – often hidden deep in the mix – sly and innovative musical ideas that other bands would exploit for years. I Against I was produced near perfectly by Ron St. Germain, who would earn a certain amount of street cred by working with the Brains that he’d later apply to records by Sonic Youth, 311, and Living Colour, among others.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Despite their relative obscurity, Bad Brains’ influence extends far beyond its meager commercial profile. They were nominated for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2016 (though, unsurprisingly, they weren’t inducted) and their music has inspired bands as diverse as the Beastie Boys, Fishbone, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Sublime, Nirvana, Green Day, and Faith No More (whose original frontman, Chuck Mosley, was the Brains’ vocalist for a short while), among many others. Although Brains’ band members have experienced various health issues over the last few years, they continue to perform and turn heads to this day.

Working with ORG Music, Bad Brains has taken back control of their considerable and acclaimed catalog of music, and they’ve been busy reissuing every album on both CD and vinyl for discovery by a new generation of restless youth. Check out the band’s catalog at www.badbrainsrecords.com.  

Book Review: Brett Milano's Vinyl Junkies (2004)

I'm pretty much a half-assed, unmotivated music collector. I love music and with a little over a thousand vinyl albums and close to three times that many CDs, my collection never fails to impress the squares, and it has a little of everything that I like to listen to during the average week. While I enjoy the odd bargain-bin album discovery and have been known to dig through hundreds of CDs just to find a handful of 99-cent discs to tote home, my feeble efforts pale in comparison with the freaks featured in Brett Milano's book Vinyl Junkies. While my collection (and the mild compulsions that led to its creation and ongoing evolution) astounds the average citizen, my personal obsessions bow down with awe in the face of collectors like John Tefteller, Jerry The DJ or 'Monoman' profiled by Milano.

Brett Milano's Vinyl Junkies

With his novel High Fidelity and the film subsequently made from the book, writer and music lover Nick Hornby defined the different types of collector personality, from the elitist record geek to the seriously-disturbed completist who collects everything and anything, as long as he gets it all. Milano, on the other hand, attempts to unmask the collector's psyche, delving into the reasons behind the vinyl junkie's unrelenting obsession. Milano restricts his topic strictly to, well, vinyl, and to the reasons why the collector is driven to amass incredible archives of (typically) obscure and, in some cases, unbelievably bad music. Although some collectors will focus exclusively on format – 78 RPM shellac discs or 12" mono LPs, for instance – others are drawn entirely to style, such as the hunters of '50s-era doo-wop or gatherers of circa-60s psychedelica. Then there are those who concentrate on finding everything available by a single artist like, say, Olivia Newton-John (to use an example from the book). Perhaps the mildest form of stalking, every single import album version, alternative picture sleeve and rare fanzine interview is fair game for this class of collector.

In his attempt to get to the bottom of this collecting business, Milano speaks at length with several vinyl junkies of note. Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth share their collecting stories, as do Steve Turner of Mudhoney, underground cartoonist Robert Crumb and the J. Geils Band's Peter Wolf (notice how many collectors are musicians?). My friend, Ireland-born/England-raised Nashville record store owner Mike Smyth (himself a collector), once told me that the British are even more whacked out than we Americans, with collections often spanning several generations, never moving out of a single rent-controlled house or apartment. Milano has tracked down collectors across the pond like the Bevis Frond's Nick Salamon and his friend Stewart Lee for their valuable perspectives on music and collecting. The comments of label executives and music industry veterans, zine publishers and used record store owners add to the diverse group of collectors that Milano has talked with in putting together the book.

Throughout Vinyl Junkies, Milano adds his own voice, relating personal experiences as a collector and adding personality to what might otherwise be a rather boring subject for those not caught in the grip of record collecting. Although Vinyl Junkies is academic in scope and ambition, the book is lighthearted and enthusiastic in its treatment, a quick, entertaining and informative read. Although consumerist by its very nature, with collectors spending hundreds or thousands of dollars annually on music, the pursuit of record (and CD) collecting is a side of the industry that multi-national media companies would rather you ignore. Collecting usually steps beyond the confines of hype-driven corporate music choices, snubbing the marketing department in favor of personal empowerment. Finding that one disc that you've been searching for since you were a teenager tucked away in a box under a dusty shelf in a used record or thrift store is an adrenaline-pumping moment that satisfies in a way that a hundred image-driven Britney clones could never provide. Serious music collectors program their own personal playlist, creating a soundtrack for their lives that no record company could ever imagine. It's certainly a form of addiction, albeit a mild and mostly harmless diversion, but collecting and the music it brings into our lives provides a natural high.

The Reverend's Bottom Line

There seem to be as many reasons for record collecting as there are record collectors, and Milano does an admirable job of sorting through the chaff, sidestepping enervating collector arguments (mono or stereo? vinyl or CD?) and providing insight into this growing musical subculture. It's a tribute to the writer that after my first reading of the book, I had to run out and buy several of the titles mentioned within, including albums by the Bevis Frond and H.P. Lovecraft. If you love music in the least little bit, you owe it to yourself to add Brett Milano's Vinyl Junkies to your collection. (St. Martin's Griffin, published November 10, 2003)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 2004

Buy the book from Amazon.com: Brett Milano's Vinyl Junkies

Vinyl Review: Big Bill Broonzy's The Midnight Special (2020)

BIG BILL BROONZY
The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957

Side One:
1. This Train
2. Trouble In Mind
3. Willie Mae
4. In the Evening
5. Glory of Love
6. The Midnight Special
7. What King of Man Jesus Is

Side Two:
1. Keep Your Hand Off It
2. Nobody’s Business
3. Hey! Bub
4. The Feasting Table
5. C.C. Rider
6. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
7. Goodnight Irene

Chicago Blues Legend Big Bill Broonzy

Chicago blues legend “Big Bill” Broonzy was a bridge between the rural, Delta-influenced country blues of the 1920s and ‘30s and the more urbane, sophisticated “big city” blues created in hotbeds like Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis during the 1940s and ‘50s. Although not as well-known as near-mythical contemporaries like Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, or even Son House, Broonzy’s influence can be heard in the music of those touched by his kindness, giants of the genre like Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, whose careers he helped when they first arrived in Chicago. Although he died in 1958 at the age of 65 years old, Broonzy’s music also inspired a generation of British rockers like Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, John Lennon of the Beatles, Dave Davies of the Kinks, and guitarists Rory Gallagher and Eric Clapton, among many others.

Born, literally, on the banks of the Mississippi River, Broonzy moved with his parents to Chicago as a teenager in 1920, picking up the guitar and learning to play from older bluesmen like Papa Charlie Jackson. Broonzy began recording in the mid-‘20s and by the early ‘30s he was a commanding figure on the Chicago blues scene who would help define the city’s early sound. Capable of playing in both the older vaudeville styles (ragtime and hokum) and the newly-developing, more sophisticated Chicago style, Broonzy was a smooth vocalist, accomplished guitarist, and a prolific songwriter.

Broonzy began recording for Paramount in 1927, but it was his work for Bluebird Records during the 1930s, including playing behind talents like Tampa Red, Washboard Sam, and John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, that helped define the popular sound that was known as “The Bluebird Beat.” In 1938, Broonzy performed at John Hammond’s “Spirituals To Swing” concert in New York City as a last-minute replacement for the late Delta bluesman Robert Johnson. The appearance introduced an entirely new audience to his music, winning him a small role in the film Swingin’ The Dream alongside Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong. When the post-war blues boom rendered Broonzy’s quaint homegrown style a thing of the past, he re-invented himself as a singer of authentic folk-blues and became one of the first blues artists to tour Europe, developing a new and appreciative following among blues-crazed British teens.

Big Bill Broonzy’s The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957

Chicago bluesman Big Bill Broonzy

The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957 documents one of Broonzy’s late-career concerts, this one in Nottingham, England and possibly one of the bluesman’s last-ever performances before his death a year later. The album was mastered from original analog tape by Dave Gardner at Infrasonic Mastering and is surprisingly good, given the antiquated vintage of the recording. A sound engineer can only work with what they have on tape, and recordings from the ‘50s generally don’t have much sonic dynamic to enhance, but Gardner did a fine job here, Broonzy’s vocals and guitar sounding slightly muffled, but distinct enough to be entertaining and better than many dodgy 1990s-era live recordings I’ve heard. And make no mistake, Broonzy’s performance this night was, indeed, very entertaining.

The folk-blues “songster” runs through a setlist here of blues, folk, and Gospel standards, imbuing each with his unique character and charisma. The traditional “This Train” is a perfect showcase for Broonzy’s nimble-fingered fretwork, the song’s up-tempo arrangement complimented by Broonzy’s hearty vocals. The bluesman’s original “Willie Mae” is a similarly upbeat tune with wiry guitar licks and moaned lyrics while a cover of Leroy Carr’s “In the Evening” is provided a smoldering, passionate vocal delivery that is punctuated by Broonzy’s jazzy picking. “The Midnight Special” is a traditional Southern folk tune popularized in the 1930s by the great Leadbelly, and later recorded by everybody from Bob Dylan and Little Richard to the Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Broonzy’s jaunty reading of the old chestnut is highlighted by his warm vocals and spry guitar strum.

Broonzy’s original “Keep Your Hands Off Her” is mistitled here, the song originally released as a single in 1935 by Bluebird Records and it’s a fine example of the light-hearted “hokum” blues style with buoyant guitar picking and upbeat, double-entendre lyrics. The traditional “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” was recorded with some success by blueswomen like Alberta Hunter and Bessie Smith in the 1920s, and Broonzy’s version here plays up the song’s vaudeville roots with a brilliantly-upbeat performance and jazzy guitar-playing. “The Feasting Table” is one of a handful of Gospel “spirituals” included on The Midnight Special, this one leaning more towards a raucous tent revival in its energetic reading and scattershot guitarplay.

Although the song’s true origins are shrouded in mystery, Broonzy released “C.C. Rider” (a/k/a “See See Rider”) as a single in 1934. Ragtime pianist Jelly Roll Morton recalled hearing the song as far back as 1901, and Broonzy claims to have been taught the song by a former slave when he was but 10 years old. The song is no worse for the wear, however, and Broonzy’s infectious reading here is enhanced by an inspired mix of blues, jazz, and country twang. The Midnight Special closes with two performances from an “informal backstage session,” the spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and Leadbelly’s folk-blues standard “Goodnight Irene.” The former is a reverent, fervid performance with Broonzy’s wailing voice staggering at first before breaking into a joyous noise while the latter song is provided a loose, almost rowdy reading with nearly-bellowed vocals and scraps of accompanying guitar.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Big Bill Broonzy’s The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957 offers an impressive representation of the artist’s immense instrumental talents, his on-stage presence and crowd-pleasing patter, and his innate ability to interpret a wide range of then-contemporary musical styles. As mentioned above, the album’s sound quality is better than one could hope for, and the artist’s performance displays why Broonzy was held in such high regard by his peers.

There is precious little “live” Broonzy available for blues fans; just a mere handful of albums now commanding collectors’ prices, and just one of a similar vintage – Southland’s The Historic Concert Recordings CD captures an 18-song Belgium performance from 1957 – which was released in 1990 and has been out-of-print nearly as long. Org Music’s vinyl release of The Midnight Special is the first appearance of this particular show that I could find, and is available on both shiny black wax from Org Music or pressed on coral-colored vinyl, available exclusively from Vinyl Me, Please (links to both below).

If you’re an old-school blues fan unfamiliar with the artist’s charms, you owe it to yourself to check out The Midnight Special, which provides an engaging introduction to Big Bill Broonzy. If you’re already a fan of Broonzy’s music, then what are you waiting for? Get it! (Org Music, released July 24th, 2020)

Buy the vinyl! Org Music link

Buy the colored wax! Vinyl Me, Please link

Vinyl Review: Eugene Chadbourne's Solo Guitar, Volume 4-1/3 (2020)

Among the handful of elite underground artists toiling away on the fringes of rock ‘n’ roll, perhaps only the legendary R. Stevie Moore has proven to be more prolific than the master of the “electric rake,” multi-instrumental talent Dr. Eugene Chadbourne. How many records has Chadbourne released over a career that now spans five decades? “I stopped counting them a long time ago,” Eugene told me in a 2019 interview for the Rock and Roll Globe website, “one could probably throw out any number above 200 and basically be right.”

Chadbourne’s Solo Guitar, Volume 4-1/3 is another worthy addition to Chadbourne’s still-growing catalog, which offers music as entertaining, challenging, and eclectic as any artist in rock’s checkered 60+ year history. Released by the Massachusetts-based independent Feeding Tube Records, which specializes in reissues of subterranean music that refuses to fit into the mainstream pop culture straitjacket, this is the fourth and final volume in a series of live recordings made during the late ‘70s when Chadbourne was in exile in Canada as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. Each album has been released in a limited edition of 400 vinyl records, and all four albums in the series were “programmed” by the good Doctor himself and each promises a reckless joyride of musical experimentation.

After a few years in Canada spent playing and recording, Chadbourne returned to the states under President Carter’s amnesty program in 1976 and formed seminal 1980s underground rockers Shockabilly (with fellow sonic terrorists Mark Kramer and David Licht). The trio released a handful of now-legendary albums throughout the decade but once Shockabilly drifted apart, Eugene once again focused on his solo career. He would build a loyal cult following across the U.S. and Europe by constantly touring and releasing a metric shit-ton of records, many for dodgy “fly by night” indie labels. Chadbourne also operated his own basement-based mail order label, selling live recordings, all while developing a following among fellow musicians. He would later record with members of the Violent Femmes and Camper Van Beethoven as well as John Zorn, Evan Johns, and the Mothers of Invention’s Jimmy Carl Black (“the Indian in the group”).

Chadbourne’s Solo Guitar, Volume 4-1/3

Featuring but four (mostly lengthy) songs, Chadbourne’s Solo Guitar, Volume 4-1/3 is nevertheless the most ambitious of the four albums. Although each performance was primarily recorded on solo guitar, in reality you never know what sort of odd sonic gremlin that Chadbourne is going to yank out of the ether and slap into the grooves. The album-opening “Bow” is somewhat subdued, with Eugene making use of light and dark passages to create an aural ambiance, the quietude punctuated when the listener least expects it by flashes of nimble-fingered fretwork. Flurries of jagged notes fly by your ears like jet-powered ninja stars and, when it’s all over (almost eight minutes later), you’re really not sure what you just heard…so cue it up again!

The shortest tune on the LP, “The Bird” is a jazzy treatise that displays Chadbourne’s musical dexterity and knowledge of the form. Sounding like the mutant love child of Charlie Christian and Al Di Meola, Eugene’s lightning-quick fretboard runs are accompanied by a secondary stream of lower, bassy notes that create an unusual (and fascinating) depth to the performance. “Be,” which closes out the album’s first side, is a chaotic roller-coaster ride of unusual sounds, aggressive syncopated rhythms, tortured guitar strings, and scary sound affects akin to what a UFO abduction probably sounds like. After politely applauding the previous song, the audience is shocked into silence by the randomness of Chadbourne’s performance here, its creative cacophony, and the obvious enthusiasm the guitarist brings to his craft.

Side two of Chadbourne’s Solo Guitar, Volume 4-1/3 is comprised of one long performance with the inventive (and on-the-nose) title of “Meo Tse Tung Did Not Have To Deal With People Who Were Watching Seven Hours of Television Every Day.” Eugene introduces the song with its title, a gong-like percussion opening the door of perception to all sorts of howling, growling string-play and a menacing croaking noise that sounds like a bullfrog on LSD. A torn-off riff on the bass strings builds a blueprint for a generation of stoner-metal bands to follow. The song creaks and moans under the weight of its own staggering construction, a truly brilliant composition built like a funhouse mirror – you’re never quite sure what your reflection is going to look like when it’s staring back at you.

The Reverend's Bottom Line

Chadbourne, a true American underground icon, possesses an extensive knowledge of rock, blues, folk, and country music. But he is also an unusually-curious instrumentalist that has shown a willingness to push beyond any boundaries and into the unexpected in search of one or two shining cosmic notes. In this aspect, he’s a lot like fellow avant garde musical explorers like Sun Ra, James Blood Ulmer, and Captain Beefheart (without sounding like any of ‘em). Solo Guitar, Volume 4-1/3 is Muzak® for the hard of hearing, challenging and creative music with seemingly endless depths and boundless imagination. Deep into a storied career spent on the outer fringes of pop music, Eugene Chadbourne remains a visionary talent always looking for new ways to challenge himself and his audience. (Feeding Tube Records, released February 21, 2020)

Buy the album from Amazon.com: Eugene Chadbourne’s Solo Guitar, Volume 4-1/3

Check out the Reverend’s interview with Eugene at the Rock and Roll Globe

Book Review: Randy Fox's Shake Your Hips: The Excello Records Story (2018)

One needn’t be a historian to recognize the widespread changes that the United States experienced in the wake of World War II. As the country’s industrial capacity turned from servicing the war machine to manufacturing washing machines, American society experienced an economic boom unparalleled in American history. With the growth of a relatively-wealthy consumerist society also came a post-war “baby boom” of children that largely came of age in the 1950s and ‘60s, further turbocharging the economy.

As the U.S. economy grew, so too did the country’s appetite for entertainment, which resulted in a rapid growth of the film and music industries as well as technological advances that resulted in an expanding number of radio stations across the country and prompted the evolution of television programming. Large numbers of teenagers and adults had disposable cash to spend in the 1950s, which directly fueled the sales of pop, country, and rhythm & blues records that both parents and their children would hear playing on their favorite radio stations.

Mr. Ernest Young would step into this growing market for music in the late 1940s. The Nashville businessman had made a respectable living from placing popular coin-operated ‘flipperless’ pinball machines in stores, restaurants, and bars in the Middle Tennessee area. Patrons would rack up “free games” on the machine that were paid off in cash, making it a form of gambling in the eyes of the strict Southern Baptist church. It was a dirty business, though, requiring regular pay-offs to the police in order to continue operations without being raided and your machines seized. By the end of the decade, Young had divested himself of the pinball business to focus on a new and profitable fad – jukeboxes, which played 7” vinyl records.

Jukeboxes took in nickels and, if placed in the right environment (like, say, the Elliston Place Soda Shop), would spit out tidy profits. But records had to be swapped out frequently, so that the jukebox had a good selection of current hits to ensure regular plays, leaving the operator with a surplus of 45rpm records. Young responded to the challenge by opening Ernie’s Record Mart in downtown Nashville, where he sold new and used 45s (from his jukebox stock). With regular advertising on local clear-channel AM radio station WLAC (a 50,000-watt behemoth that could be heard from Canada to the Caribbean and across most of the United States), Ernie’s Record Mart branched out beyond its retail storefront, launching a successful mail-order operation. The store would ship out records to eager buyers across the globe throughout the 1950s and well into the ‘70s.

Randy Fox’s Shake Your Hips: The Excello Records Story

Young realized that he could “double dip” and make more money if he produced records as well as selling them so, in 1951, he launched Nashboro Records as a label specializing in African-American gospel music. Nashboro would release records that would subsequently be promoted during WLAC’s Sunday night gospel program and sold via mail order by Ernie’s Record Mart. Author Randy Fox’s excellent book Shake Your Hips: The Excello Records Story tells the rest of the tale, how Young expanded his operation to include a song publishing company and, most importantly, forming the legendary Excello Records label in 1953 to take advantage of the growing popularity of R&B and blues music.

Excello Records is a name well-known to rock ‘n’ roll aficionados, record collectors, and music historians who obsess over such things. The Nashville-based label made a deal with a Louisiana-based producer (J.D. Miller) to provide master recordings which resulted in Excello releases by artists like Slim Harpo, Lightnin’ Slim, Tabby Thomas, and Lazy Lester, among others – classic sides that would spark the imagination of musicians and fans on both sides of the pond. Excello also released music by homegrown R&B singers like Marion James, Roscoe Shelton, and Arthur Gunter, whose song “Baby Let’s Play House” would be covered by Elvis Presley, resulting in a financial windfall for both the artist and Excello’s in-house publishing company.

Fox’s Shake Your Hips tells a story of, basically, three different companies, beginning with the original version of Excello as founded by Ernest Young, writing of its importance and influence on popular music. The second version of Excello/Nashboro was owned by the local Crescent Company, which bought the entire operation – the labels, the publishing, the record store, and the mail order business – from Young when he retired in 1966. Crescent wisely kept longtime employees Shannon Williams and Dorothy Keaton, and hired a sympathetic manager in Bud Howell to run the labels. This version of the company continued to thrive well into the 1970s, with Williams’ love of gospel music and production talents allowing Nashboro to expand its influence in the black gospel community while Excello would ride workhorse Slim Harpo while trying to capture a measure of the growing soul, funk, and rock ‘n’ roll markets.

The third company, however, was the broken-down version operated by Los Angeles-based music firm AVI, Inc. which bought the operation from Crescent in 1980. The company’s fortunes had been waning for several years, with neither Excello nor Nashboro able to grow their market share in the face of ever-changing trends in music. Both labels had essentially ceased to exist by 1977, releasing their final records mere months before founder Ernest Young’s death later that year. AVI’s interest in the labels’ properties was negligible save for a few licensing deals. AVI itself was purchased by an investment group led by a former Motown executive, which resulted in a slate of CD reissues of Excello label releases during the mid-to-late 1990s. They would, in turn, be subsequently gobbled up by the multi-national Universal Music conglomerate in 1997, with UMe barely scratching the surface of the deep Excello catalog since.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

That, in a nutshell, is a capsule history of Nashville’s Excello Records label. Fox’s Shake Your Hips provides the full story of this historic independent record label with a narrative delivered at a breakneck pace. Fox’s well-researched tome is chockful of details on artists and record releases without ever getting bogged down in arcane minutiae. It’s a quick read, and a fascinating story for any true-blue R&B fan – I ran through the book in two (lengthy) sessions – Fox managing to capture the zeitgeist of the era within the pages of Shake Your Hips.

A casual acquaintance of mine from my Nashville days, I can avow that Randy Fox is particularly suited to documenting Excello’s storied history; he’s been walking this particular beat of obscure R&B history for a long time and is deeply knowledgeable of the music and its artists. It’s a tale of a different time, to be sure, but an important one nonetheless, Shake Your Hips an entertaining as well as educational history of a record label that made waves beyond its commercial fortunes. If you love the music of Slim Harpo, Lightnin’ Slim, et al or simply love old-school R&B music altogether, you owe it to yourself to check out Randy Fox’s Shake Your Hips. Grade: A (RPM Series/BMG Books, published November 20th, 2018)

Buy the book from Amazon.com: Randy Fox’s Shake Your Hips: The Excello Records Story

Brian Eno Ambient-Era Vinyl Reissues

Former Roxy Music keyboardist and synth-wrangler Brian Eno left the legendary glam-rock band in 1973 after the release of their first two albums, just as Roxy was about to peak, commercially, in the U.K. Ordinarily, leaving a chart-topping band would be the kiss-of-death for an aspiring artist, but from the 1974 release of hiss landmark solo debut album Here Come the Warm Jets to this present day, Eno’s career in music is the stuff of dreams. While none of Eno’s couple-dozen solo albums could be considered as “commercially successful,” their artistic reach and generational influence far outweighs such tawdry concerns.

Eno’s musical collaborations with experimentally-minded fellow travelers like King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, Talking Heads’ David Byrne, and Krautrock pioneers Cluster were equally audacious and influential, and all of this stuff remains in print decades after its initial release – a sure sign that somebody is listening! As an in-demand producer during the 1980s and ‘90s, Eno helped shepherd hit albums by U2, David Bowie, James, and Talking Heads onto the charts while also working with more avant-garde artists like Jon Hassell, Laurie Anderson, Harold Budd, and the Velvet Underground’s John Cale.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of Eno’s lengthy and acclaimed career is his work in the field of “ambient music,” a term he coined to describe music “designed to modify the listener’s perception of the surrounding environment.” Enthralled, perhaps with electronic music and composers like Cluster’s Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius, Eno was looking to create a new instrumental musical paradigm. His first ambient album, 1975’s Discreet Music, was created by an elaborate tape-delay methodology that he pioneered for his 1973 collaboration with Robert Fripp, No Pussyfooting.

Eno’s “ambient” series of albums would follow – Ambient 1: Music For Airports (1978), Ambient 2: The Plateaux of Mirror (1980, with Harold Budd), Ambient 3: Day of Radiance (1980, with Laraaji), and Ambient 4: On Land (1982) – changing the way that many of us thought about music. In between these four ambient albums, Eno would release equally challenging and thought-provoking works as 1978’s Music For Films, a conceptual work intended to serve as a soundtrack for imaginary films although many of the short pieces on the compilation album had previously-appeared in movies.

On November 16th, 2018 Virgin EMI Records/UMe will reissue Discreet Music, Music For Films, Music For Airports, and On Land as deluxe, limited-edition two-LP sets on 180-gram vinyl, each album remastered at half-speed for playing at 45rpm. Each of these deluxe vinyl reissues will feature an Obi spine strip, an Abbey Road “certificate of authenticity,” and a card good for a download of the album. A standard single-disc 33rpm version of each of the four albums will also be released.

Each of these albums has something of interest for the serious sonic explorer, from Eno’s reimagining of Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major” on Discreet Music, performed by the Cockpit Ensemble and conducted by Gavin Bryars to On Land, which includes contributions by guitarist Michael Brook, bassist Bill Laswell (Material), and trumpeter Jon Hassell. This isn’t pop music by any stretch of the imagination but all four albums offer fascinating soundscapes for the adventurous listeners.

Buy the albums from Amazon.com:
Discreet Music 
Music For Films
Ambient 1: Music For Airports
Ambient 4: On Land

Creedence Clearwater Revival Complete Studio Albums

Creedence Clearwater Revival had a well-earned reputation as a rock ‘n’ roll jukebox, a singles band that chalked up nine Top 10 hits in the space of four years circa 1968-72 with songs like “Proud Mary,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Down On the Corner,” and “Travelin’ Band.” One of their earliest singles – CCR’s cover of the Dale Hawkins’ classic “Suzie Q” – barely missed the mark, peaking at #11 on the Billboard Hot 100, and they also had a few other high-charting singles to cement their reputation as radio-ready rockers.

What a lot of people have forgotten, or overlooked, is that CCR was also a damn impressive album band as well. Fronted by singer, songwriter, and guitarist John Fogerty and including rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty (John’s brother), bassist Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford the band released seven classic studio albums during its tenure, including three in 1969 alone. The music just seemed to pour out of Fogerty and crew, and the bourgeoning FM radio band lapped up these albums like a hobo with a bottle of ripple. Five of CCR’s studio albums charted Top 10, the sixth peaked at #12, and six of ‘em were eventually awarded Platinum album sales status, with their masterpiece, Cosmo’s Factory, moving over 4,000,000 copies.

That’s a heady legacy, indeed, so in honor of the 50th anniversary of the band, on November 30th, 2018 Craft Recordings will be releasing Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Complete Studio Albums box set. The seven-LP set features the entire CCR studio catalog – their self-titled 1968 debut; 1969’s Bayou Country, Green River, and Willy and the Poor Boys; 1970’s Cosmo’s Factory and Pendulum; and 1972’s swansong, Mardi Gras. Each album is pressed on 180-gram vinyl and has been mastered at half-speed at Abbey Road Studios to create an “exceptional level of sonic clarity” and vibrancy. Each LP comes in a tip-on jacket that replicated the original album sleeves, and the box set includes an 80-page book featuring new liner notes by music journalist Roy Trakin along with archive photos and memorabilia.

The set is pricey even as these things go, running roughly $250 on Amazon, which averages out to better than $35 an album…definitely not for the faint of heart or low of budget. Clean copies of most of CCR’s albums can be had for less than half of that, so this is another label archival set targeting well-heeled fans with plenty of disposable income. Will the new pressings sound better than the originals? Maybe…but me, I’ll be happy with my beat-up old CCR vinyl and ten-year-old CD reissues.

Buy the box set on Amazon (if you dare): Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Complete Studio Albums

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard vinyl reissues

Over the past few years, Australia’s King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard has made quite a name for itself as one of the hardest-working and imaginative bands in the rock ‘n’ roll firmament. The psychedelic time-travelers formed in Melbourne, Victoria in 2010 and features singer/guitarist Stu Mackenzie, singer/keyboardist Ambrose-Kenny Smith, guitarists Cook Craig and Joey Walker, bassist Lucas Skinner, and drummers/percussionists Michael Cavanagh and Eric Moore. The band has been extremely prolific since the release of its first record, 2011’s Angelsea EP, releasing 14 studio albums during the ensuing years, including an awe-inspiring five full-length recordings in 2017 alone.

Incredibly, no two King Gizzard albums sound alike, and the band’s sonic experimentation is often exhilarating, drawing upon classic 1960s-era psych-rock but pushing the boundaries of the genre even as they incorporate decades of subsequent musical influences. They’ve developed a loyal and growing worldwide audience not only on the strength of their eccentric, unique records (many of which were released on vinyl as well as CD at the time) as well as their energetic live performances. Sadly, the band’s earliest recordings were mostly released on their own independent Flightless Records label, and copies of them have been scarce as hen’s teeth for faithful Gizzard collectors to find.

As a testament to the band’s growing U.S. popularity, ATO Records – which released King Gizzard’s last few albums stateside – will be reissuing the band’s first five records on both CD and vinyl on November 2nd, 2018. Each album title will include ‘reimagined’ artwork and packaging and new liner notes, and the vinyl versions will feature dazzling, eye-popping colored wax. The band’s ground-breaking nine-song EP, 2011’s Willoughby’s Beach, will be reissued on red colored vinyl with an embossed and spot UV deluxe sleeve. The band’s first two full-length albums – 2012’s 12 Bar Bruise and the following year’s Eyes Like the Sky – blended surf and garage-rock with the band’s trademark psychedelic sound. The former will be reissued on “Doublemint” green vinyl and the latter on “Halloween” orange vinyl, both with heavyweight sleeves.

The band’s third album, 2013’s Float Along – Fill Your Lungs, will be reissued on “Easter yellow” vinyl with a heavyweight jacket with inner sleeve printed on uncoated offset paper and includes a 24” square fold-out poster. Their fourth album, 2014’s Oddments, will sport “Grimace purple” vinyl and includes a heavyweight gatefold jacket with original artwork by Jason Galea and an inner sleeve printed on uncoated offset paper. Both albums showcase a maturing band expanding its sound to incorporate scraps of progressive rock, jazz, soul, and even heavy metal influences into its restless, reckless, innovative sound. Any of these reissues, on either CD or LP, offer an introduction to the charms of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard for newcomers; for those of us already on the hook, ATO is providing a cost-effective way for us to expand our collections.

Buy the vinyl from Amazon.com:
Willoughby's Beach
12 Bar Bruise
Eyes Like the Sky
Float Along - Fill Your Lungs 
Oddments

Kiss Solo 40th Anniversary Vinyl Reissues

It was 40 years ago this month when each of the four founding members of Kiss – Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons, and Peter Criss – all released self-titled solo albums on the same day in September 1978. While critical assessment on the albums was mixed (Ace and Paul good, Gene and Peter not so much), the band was riding a wave of popularity and commercial success in the wake of their 1977 Top Ten album Love Gun, which helped push three of the four solo albums into the Top 40 on the charts with all four subsequently selling better than a million copies each.

On October 19th, 2018 Casablanca Records and UMe will be reissuing all four of these Kiss solo efforts on 180-gram vinyl as a four-disc limited edition box set as KISS: The Solo Albums – 40th Anniversary Collection. The set is available in a limited run of 2,500 copies and is available exclusively through the band’s web shop or from The Sound of Vinyl website, both of which are now taking pre-orders. Each heavyweight vinyl LP has been assigned a unique color matching its associated cover art – Gene Simmons on red vinyl, Paul Stanley on purple wax, Ace Frehley on blue vinyl, and Peter Criss in green – and the four LPs are packaged in a deluxe black-matte slipcase featuring glossy black images of the four band members’ face surrounding a silver-foil print of the Kiss band logo.

KISS: The Solo Albums – 40th Anniversary Collection also includes four 12”x12” posters of each album’s cover art, as well as an exclusive turntable slipmat with all four of artist Eraldo Carugati’s painted album-cover faces connected together. Odds are good that the hardcore Kiss faithful already have these albums, probably on both vinyl and CD, but to sweeten the pot the band has put together a pricey $300 collectors’ bundle that includes the aforementioned box set and paraphernalia along with a limited-edition tee-shirt, Kiss buttons, and a set of pretty cool-looking Kiss coasters that is limited to 300 sets. Caveat emptor, indeed…

Early Lenny Kravitz Albums Reissued On Vinyl

Virgin Records and UMe have announced a September 21st, 2018 release date when four of rocker Lenny Kravitz’s first five albums will be reissued on both glorious black vinyl and as individualized, limited-edition colored wax versions. The four albums – 1991’s chart breakthrough Mama Said, 1993’s Are You Gonna Go My Way, 1995’s Circus, and 1998’s 5 – collectively sold better than eight million copies stateside and yielded hits like “It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over,” “Are You Gonna Go My Way,” “Believe,” and “Fly Away.” Kravitz’s 1989 debut album, Let Love Rule, will be reissued on vinyl on November 30th.

Each album will be released as a two-disc set and four of the five also feature non-album bonus tracks, many of which are appearing on vinyl for the first time. The colored wax versions of the albums are all different – Let Love Rule is 50/50 semi-transparent brown and yellow, Mama Said is marbled white and gray, Are You Gonna Go My Way is transparent red and purple, Circus is solid white and clear transparent, and 5 is solid orange and white.

Kravitz’s first five LPs made the singer, songwriter, and guitarist one of the 20th century’s last big rock stars (along with the White Stripes’ Jack White). Kravitz’s unique throwback hybrid of rock, blues, soul, and funk, all delivered with a heavy psychedelic influence, earned him a reputation as one of the decade’s most engaging artists, and he won the Grammy™ Award for “Best Male Rock Vocal Performance” four years in a row from 1999 to 2002. Much like the late, legendary Prince – the closest comparison to Kravitz that you could justifiably make – Kravitz frequently played all the instruments on his albums himself while recording.

Whether you spend your hard-earned cash on the plain black versions of these Kravitz reissues or cough up for the colored variations, there’s no argument that it will be good to have these albums back on vinyl for the first time in over 20 years.

Buy Lenny Kravitz vinyl on Amazon.com:
Mama Said
Are You Gonna Go My Way
Circus
5

Studio One reissues Ska Authentic comp

Good news, indeed, for reggae fans – the legendary Studio One record label will be reissuing its essential compilation album Ska Authentic on September 21st, 2018, making it available for the first time since 1964 – almost 55 years!

Ska Authentic will be reissued on CD, vinyl, and digital formats and represents one of the rarest albums in the Studio One catalog. It has been remastered and features the ultra-cool original album artwork as well as liners written by reggae expert Chris Wilson.

The coolest thing about the reappearance of Ska Authentic, though, is that is rescues and documents early performances by reggae legends like The Skatalites, Toots & the Maytals, Lee “Scratch” Perry,  and The Gaylads that originally lit up Jamaican dancehalls in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Check out the album’s complete track listing below and then get over to Amazon and buy a copy.

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Ska Authentic
 
Ska Authentic track listing:
1. Tommy McCook – “Freedom Sounds”
2. The Gaylads – “Brown Skin Gal”
3. Roland Alphonso – “Full Dread”
4. Andy and Joey – “You’re Wondering Now”
5. Jackie Opel – “Turn Your Lamp Down Low”
6. Lee Perry – “Mother in Law”
7. Roland Alphonso – “Bridge View”
8. The Gaylads – “Rolling Down”
9. Roland Alphonso – “Lee Oswald”
10. The Maytals – “Heaven Declare”
11. Tommy McCook – “Sca-Ba”
12. Delroy Wilson – “Sammy Dead”

Living Colour & Mike Doughty vinyl reissues

Great music and charity have gone together forever, and there are a couple of special releases coming that are worth your time and money to buy. On September 28th, 2018 Living Colour’s Time’s Up and Mike Doughty’s Live At Ken’s House albums will be released as limited-edition green vinyl editions as part of the Mindful Vinyl initiative for mental health awareness. A portion from the proceeds of both albums will benefit The Jed Foundation (JED), a non-profit organization that exists to protect emotional health and prevent suicide for teens and young adults.

Originally released in 1990 as the follow-up to the band’s breakthrough LP Vivid, the equally hard-rockin’ Time’s Up featured tracks like “Pride,” “Elvis Is Dead” and “Love Rears Its Ugly Head.” Winner of a Grammy Award for “Best Hard Rock Peformance,” Time’s Up featured guest appearances by Maceo Parker, Little Richard, Doug E. Fresh, and Queen Latifah. The album is being reissued by Megaforce Records.

Mike Doughty’s Live At Ken’s House was released in 2014 and featured the frontman of 1990s-era alt-rockers Soul Coughing performing re-imagined versions of his former band’s best-known material. The singer/guitarist was back on the live performance by Catherine Popper on upright bass and Pete Wilhoit on drums. This vinyl reissue of Live At Ken’s House is being released by Doughty’s own Snack Bar label. In a press release for the vinyl reissue, Doughty – who has written frankly about his own mental health challenges in his memoir The Book of Drugs – says “there's an emotional-pain crisis in America, and it's incumbent on us to make medical care and talk therapy normal and accessible for people who suffer from depression and anxiety.”

The Mindful Vinyl initiative was created in 2016 with a goal of increasing conversation and awareness of mental wellness issues and connecting those conversations to music. Other titles reissued on vinyl as part of their series include Living Colour’s Stain, Fishbone’s The Reality of My Surroundings, and the Silver Linings Playbook movie soundtrack. JED partners with high schools and colleges to strengthen their mental health, substance abuse, and suicide prevention programs and systems. You can learn more about JED on the organization’s website.

Buy the vinyl from Amazon.com:
Living Colour’s Time’s Up
Mike Doughty’s Live At Ken’s House

Vinyl Review: Frank Zappa's Chunga's Revenge (1970/2018)

Rock legend Frank Zappa, a/k/a ‘The Maestro’, was quite a busy little beaver during the year spanning (roughly) late 1969 to late 1970. He broke up his longtime band the Mothers of Invention due to the cost of paying nine musicians full-time wages in the face of dwindling record sales. He wiggled out of his MGM Records contract, allegedly tired of the label’s interference with his music, and he subsequently talked Warner Brothers into setting up his own boutique imprint, Bizarre Records, run by his manager Herb Cohen, which would also release albums by artistic eccentrics like Captain Beefheart and Wild Man Fischer.

Working with former Mothers band member Ian Underwood and musical guests like Don “Sugarcane” Harris, Jean-Luc Ponty, Lowell George, and Shuggie Otis, Zappa recorded and released his second solo album, Hot Rats and then, in early 1970, released a pair of Mothers’ albums – Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh – that were “frankensteined” together using previously-recorded material by the original band. To top off the year, Zappa put together a new version of the Mothers dubbed simply “The Mothers” (which itself would soon be dropped, with new music issued solely under Zappa’s name).

Frank Zappa’s Chunga’s Revenge

The revised version of the Mothers featured Zappa’s old pal, multi-instrumentalist Underwood, along with guitarist/bassist Jeff Simmons, keyboardist George Duke, journeyman British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, and three former members of 1960s-era hitmakers the Turtles – bassist Jim Pons and singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (i.e. “The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie” or, simply, “Flo & Eddie”). This is pretty much the line-up that went into the studio to record what would become Zappa’s third solo album (and second in a year’s time), Chunga’s Revenge. Released in October 1970, Chunga’s Revenge closed out a madcap year for ‘The Maestro’ that included four albums of new material, the early creative stirrings of his 200 Motels film project, and the formation of the new band.

Under supervision by the Zappa Family Trust, Universal Music has reissued Chunga’s Revenge on shiny, thick 180-gram audiophile vinyl, cut directly from the original analog master tapes. The album has been unavailable on vinyl for better than 30 years, last appearing on wax in 1986 as part of Zappa’s rare and long out-of-print Old Masters, Box Two set released on his own independent Barking Pumpkin label. The reissue LP features the original album artwork and is packaged in a gatefold outer sleeve and swanky, plastic-lined inner sleeve for maximum vinyl protection. It sounds as good as ever, and the luxurious vinyl captures all of the album’s sonic nuances.

Transylvania Boogie

As he was wont to do, Zappa changed musical directions again with this third solo album, eschewing both the social satire of early Mothers of Invention albums and (mostly) the jazz-rock fusion of Hot Rats (tho’ he’d further explore the possibilities of the fusion style a couple years later with the Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo albums). Really, Chunga’s Revenge is all over the board, musically, and if it served as ‘ground zero’ for Zappa’s growing fascination with sex and groupies, it also showcases Zappa’s mastery of a wide range of musical styles. Zappa had originally conceived of Chunga’s Revenge as a precursor to the story of his upcoming film, and while it was widely criticized at the time of its release, it has since found some acclaim in that context. Zappa’s “sex and groupie” phase would last throughout 1971 and the release of the live LP Fillmore East – June 1971 and the 200 Motels movie and soundtrack album, after which Frank would return to making “serious music.”

Chunga’s Revenge kicks off with some good, old-fashioned six-string pyrotechnics, the lengthy instrumental jam “Transylvania Boogie” putting the guitarist through his paces with a firecracker performance that skews towards the proggier end of jazz-rock fusion. Zappa bends and twists his notes into a pretzel-like apparition throughout the track while Underwood’s keyboards and Dunbar’s busy drum fills round out the sound. By the end of the song, Zappa has begun channeling some ghost of the Delta blues into his playing, and a human named Max Bennett lays down some funky fine bass lines. Bennett was evidently a jazz bassist of some renown, and an in-demand session guy who had previously played on Hot Rats as well as albums by the Monkees and the Partridge Family before being enlisted into Zappa’s studio corps.

Tell Me You Love Me

Zappa photo by Greg Gorman, courtesy UMe

Zappa further hones his blues chops on the devastating fretwork that frames the story-song “Road Ladies,” which lyrically delves into the travails of a rock ‘n’ roll band on the road and the availability of, well “road ladies.” Flo & Eddie make their first appearance with Zappa here on backing vocals, and jazz legend George Duke provides some tasty keyboard accompaniment alongside Zappa’s flamethrower licks. The short “Twenty Small Cigars” is a holdover from the Hot Rats sessions and hews to a similar musical template. Zappa’s subtle guitarwork is subdued here in support of the overall performance, which is dominated by Zappa’s use of a harpsichord to create a lounge-like ambience, a point further emphasized by Underwood’s jazzy piano playing.

The three-part suite “The Nancy & Mary Music” is a nine-minute live track that offers Zappa’s imaginative guitar noodling set against a solid rhythmic backdrop provided by bassist Jeff Simmons and drummer Dunbar. The song meanders a bit, featuring an obligatory drum solo (it was the ‘70s, after all), before morphing into a scorching, chaotic rocker that spotlights Duke’s eclectic keyboard notes and syncopated percussion before devolving into a jazzy jam that includes scat-vocals by Flo & Eddie. Side two of Chunga’s Revenge cranks the amps from the first note, “Tell Me You Love Me” as hard-hitting a rock song as Zappa ever delivered, with Flo & Eddie front and center in the mix with a soulful vocal performance that slides right in under Zappa’s greasy, fatback fretwork and Dunbar’s driving, explosive percussion.

Rudy Wants To Buy Yez A Drink

“Would You Go All The Way?” is a longtime personal favorite, a callback to Zappa’s beloved doo-wop of the sorts featured on 1968’s Cruising with Ruben & the Jets album. Flo & Eddie deliver some swinging harmony vocals with a few gymnastics as Zappa changes time signatures mid-song to take advantage of his talented rhythm section (Simmons and Dunbar) and Underwood’s electric piano. The song quickly moves on from its opening doo-wop flavor to become an oddball pop tune complete with a George Duke trombone solo. The title track is another extended instrumental jam that makes good use of the talents involved, Zappa pushing the musicians out of their comfort zones, with Underwood playing an electric alto sax through a wah-wah pedal and violinist Sugarcane Harris tasked with providing keyboards; both men acquit themselves nicely.

The minute-and-a-half long “The Clap” is an intriguing mini-instrumental that features Zappa creating in a percussive performance, playing drums, wood blocks, tom-toms, and such before the song jumps headfirst into “Rudy Wants To Buy You A Drink,” a throwback to the Absolutely Free era Mothers. A melodic and lyric-heavy satirical song that, musically, careens from one extreme to another like a runaway pinball – offering shades of doo-wop, ‘60s pop, and lounge jazz – Flo & Eddie’s hilarious vocal delivery effortlessly slots into the song’s instrumental arrangement. The lusty “Sharleena” closes out Chunga’s Revenge, the song a R&B tinged soul ballad that makes good use of twin keyboardists Underwood (piano) and Duke (organ) to create a sultry atmosphere beneath Zappa’s vocals and Flo & Eddie’s backing harmony. Zappa’s guitar spits out some funky notes that sit adjacent to Shuggie Otis while Duke’s wiggy keyboard fills add an interesting texture to the performance.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

If the preceding Zappa/Mothers albums – Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh – served as an artistic catharsis necessary for Zappa to move on from his original vision for the Mothers and towards “phase two,” Chunga’s Revenge reveals his pure joy in playing with a new and, arguably, more highly-skilled cast of musicians. The addition of two talented vocalists in Volman and Kaylan to the band added a new dimension to the musical possibilities, and if they were largely wasted over the following couple of years on needlessly juvenile material (although “Billy the Mountain” is still a hoot), they also largely freed Zappa from the microphone and allowed him to develop the innovative and influential guitar style that is a large part of his enduring legacy.

Chunga’s Revenge is the result of that aforementioned artistic catharsis, Zappa opening the decade of the ‘70s with a solid roadmap of musical ideas that he would go on to exploit extensively with a prolific slate of recordings that would enjoy both critical and commercial success. Chunga’s Revenge found Zappa exploring various musical avenues, after which he would deliver enduring works like Over-Nite Sensation and Apostrophe(’), which were his two most commercially-successful LPs, both earning Gold™ Record status, as well as fan favorites like Roxy & Elsewhere and Bongo Fury, a collaboration with Captain Beefheart. Chunga’s Revenge represented the dawn of a new era and the beginning of Zappa’s “solo career” in earnest. Grade: B+ (Zappa Records released July 20, 2018)

Buy the vinyl from Amazon.com: Frank Zappa’s Chunga’s Revenge

Also on That Devil Music: 
The Mothers of Invention - Burnt Weeny Sandwich LP review

JD Souther’s Asylum Years Revisited

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist John David “JD” Souther was working in L.A. as a session player in the late ‘60s when fate intervened via an introduction to future Eagles frontman Glenn Frey. The two got along well and ended up recording a 1969 album under the group name Longbranch Pennywhistle with songs that they’d written together. After Frey formed the mega-successful band that will forever be his legacy (Frey sadly passed away in 2016), the two songwriters collaborated together on several hit Eagles tunes, including “Best of My Love,” “Heartache Tonight,” and “New Kid In Town.” The band’s last big chart hit, 2009’s “How Long,” was written by Souther.

Souther wrote several hits for Linda Rondstadt as well, and produced several tracks for her 1973 album Don’t Cry Now. At the urging of label boss David Geffen, Souther hooked up with former Byrds member Chris Hillman and Poco’s Richie Furay in a country-rock “supergroup,” the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. That collaboration lasted for a couple of modestly-successful albums circa 1974-75 before Souther returned to session work, songwriting, and his fledgling solo career.

In amidst all this activity, and almost overshadowed by his higher-profile songwriting triumphs, Souther had released three solo albums for Geffen’s Asylum Records label. All three of Souther’s long out-of-print Asylum albums were reissued on CD earlier this year by archival specialists Omnivore Recordings, re-mastered with bonus tracks and new liner notes that included fresh interviews with the artist. On September 21st, 2018 those Souther albums will return to vinyl when Omnivore reissues John David Souther, Black Rose, and Home by Dawn on high-quality 180gr vinyl. All three LPs were cut from the original analog masters by Kevin Gray at Cohearent and were overseen by Souther and Omivore’s award-winning Cheryl Pawelski.

The critically-acclaimed self-titled album John David Souther was released in 1972. Arguably a minor classic of country-flavored ‘70s “avocado rock” (a term coined by Souther’s friend, writer Bill Martin), the album featured a slew of great songs written by Souther as well as studio guests like guitarists Wayne Perkins and Ned Doheny; bassists Chris Ethridge and Brian Garafalo; drummers John Barbata and Gary Mallaber and, of course, his friend Glenn Frey.  

Black Rose followed in 1976, about which Rolling Stone magazine scribe Stephen Holden wrote “John David Souther’s second solo album benefits from a beautiful, all-star Peter Asher production. More sophisticated than either his first album or the two Souther-Hillman-Furay albums, Black Rose underscores Souther’s melodic writing.” Black Rose also featured a veritable “who’s who” of Cali rock, including several members of the Eagles, Lowell George of Little Feat, jazz legend Stanley Clarke, and guitarist Joe Walsh. The vinyl reissue of Black Rose features updated album artwork that no longer features the artist’s name and title, which is how Souther originally intended.

After a short detour to Columbia Records, Souther recorded another album for Asylum, 1984’s Home by Dawn. Produced by David Malloy (known for his work on album by country stars like Eddie Rabbit and Reba McEntire), Home by Dawn saw Souther move further towards a pure country sound that would prove influential on a generation of Nashville artists to follow.

Souther would take a lengthy hiatus from recording, returning to music in 2008 with a new solo album. During the interim, he worked frequently as an actor, with a recurring role on the hit TV show Thirtysomething and movies like 1990’s Postcards From the Edge. It was with his trio of Asylum Records albums that Souther built his reputation as a singer and songwriter, however, and it will be good to get them back on shiny black vinyl again after better than 30 years.

Celebrating 50 years of The Band’s Music from Big Pink

It’s hard to believe that a half-century has passed since the July 1st, 1968 release of the Band’s landmark debut album Music from Big Pink. It shouldn’t have been a big surprise, really, but the Bob Dylan’s former backing band shocked the world of rock ‘n’ roll out of its complacency with their original and forward-thinking hybrid of roots-rock, country, blues, and soul music.

Whereas the Beatles awed listeners a year previous with the evolutionary production technique and complex musical arrangements afforded their classic Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP, the Band drove in an absolutely opposite direction, stripping the music down to its bare bones and delivering a raw, emotional, and often haunting collection that drew from the roots of American music tradition.

On August 31st, 2018 Capitol Records and Universal Music will celebrate 50 years of the Band’s Music from Big Pink with a super-duper, ultra-deluxe reissue in a bunch of different formats. Newly remixed and expanded with a half-dozen “bonus” tracks in the form of alternate takes and studio outtakes, the album will be available as a single CD, double-vinyl LP, and limited edition double-LP on pink vinyl as well as a special Blu-ray disc.

All the anniversary edition reissues feature a new stereo mix created by Grammy® Award-winning producer Bob Clearmountain, who has worked on albums by Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, the Pretenders, and many others. Working from the original four-track analog master recordings, Clearmountain’s new mix brings a new clarity to the album’s sound and incorporates previously-unreleased studio chatter from the original sessions.

The album will also be released as a deluxe collectors’ box set with CD, Blu-ray, vinyl, and hardbound book. Exclusive to the box set, the Blu-ray disc features a new 5.1 surround mix by Clearmountain as well as the high-resolution (96kHz/24 bit) stereo mix. The box set also includes a reproduction of the band’s vinyl 7” single for “The Weight” b/w “I Shall Be Released” while the hardbound book features a new essay by Rolling Stone magazine scribe David Fricke alongside rare, seldom-seen photos by Elliott Landy.

The Band would go on to make a lot of classic music after Music from Big Pink, including landmark albums like 1970’s Stage Fright and the live 1972 double-album Rock of Ages. It was with their debut album, though, that the band – Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson, talented multi-instrumentalists all – would create a template for the Americana music movement and influence subsequent generations of musicians, from 1970s-era bands like the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band to early ‘00s outfits like the Drive-By Truckers, the Hold Steady, and My Morning Jacket. The Band was inducted into Canada’s Juno Hall of Fame in 1989 and into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio in 1994. In 2008, the Band was honored with The Recording Academy’s “Lifetime Achievement Award.”

Music from Big Pink enjoyed modest commercial success upon its release, peaking at #30 on the Billboard magazine albums chart, but in the ensuing half-century has become considered as one of the most important and influential album’s in the history of American music. Perhaps critic Greil Marcus summed it up best in his 1975 book Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, writing “the richness of ‘Big Pink’ is in the Band’s ability to contain endless combinations of American popular music without imitating any of them. The Band don’t refer to their sources any more than we refer to George Washington when we vote, but the connection is there.”

Buy the album from Amazon.com:
The Band’s Music from Big Pink CD
The Band’s Music from Big Pink 2-LP vinyl

Frank Zappa’s Chunga’s Revenge returns on vinyl!

Last month, the Zappa Family Trust reissued the transitional Mothers of Invention album Burnt Weeny Sandwich on glorious black vinyl. They’re wasting no time in following up on the success of that previous offering, as on July 20th, 2018 Zappa Records and Universal Music will reissue Zappa’s 1970 solo effort Chunga’s Revenge on 180gram audiophile vinyl. Mastered for reissue by industry veteran Bernie Grundman (who has worked on albums by Prince, Michael Jackson, and Kendrick Lamar, among many others), the reissue was cut directly from the original analog master tapes. The album has been unavailable on vinyl for over 30 years, when it was included as part of the 1986 Old Masters Box Two vinyl box set, and the reissue features the original album artwork.

Zappa oversaw the release of three albums in 1970, the first two – Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh – really posthumous Mothers albums ‘frankensteined’ together from existing material after Zappa had broken up the original band. After a few months, though, the Maestro put together a new version of the Mothers of Invention that included guitarist Jeff Simmons, jazz keyboardist George Duke, journeyman British drummer Aynsley Dunbar, and singers Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (i.e. “The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie”) from the Turtles, all of whom appear on Chunga’s Revenge. The lone holdover from the earlier incarnation of the Mothers was multi-instrumentalist Ian Underwood.

Stylistically speaking, Chunga’s Revenge was all over the board. As I wrote in my Frank Zappa Buying Guide book, “as he was wont to do, Zappa again changed musical directions with his second solo album, eschewing both the social satire of the early Mothers albums and the jazz-rock fusion of Hot Rats to deliver the intriguing and eclectic Chunga's Revenge. Set against a diverse musical backdrop that included lengthy guitar jams (“Transylvania Boogie”), jazzy outtakes from Hot Rats (“Twenty Small Cigars”), and bluesy rockers (“Road Ladies”), the critically-slagged album would find greater acclaim later in the context as a precursor to Zappa's 200 Motels.”

The album has held up well through the years, showcasing Zappa’s talents as a composer and instrumentalist as well as displaying an immediate musical chemistry with the talented members of his new band. It really needs to be heard on vinyl to fully appreciate Zappa’s nuanced production, so what are you waiting for? Order the LP from Amazon right now!

Also on That Devil Music.com:
Mothers of Invention - Burnt Weeny Sandwich LP review