Archive Review: Peter Townshend's The Definitive Collection (2007)

As the guiding force behind rock legends the Who, guitarist/songwriter Peter Townshend’s induction to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame was all but guaranteed. One of the original, first wave “British Invasion” bands that assaulted the colonies in the aftermath of the Beatles, the Who were blessed with a wealth of talent. All four members of the Who would have stood out in nearly any other band and, indeed, three of these four musicians would eventually succeed in their own solo endeavors.

Frontman Roger Daltry was a strutting, larger-than-life figure with a big voice and rock star charisma. Bassist John Entwistle played rock ‘n’ roll with an improvisational jazz sensibility, and was a better songwriter than most of his contemporaries. Drummer Keith Moon was an anarchic wildman, bashing and crashing the skins with reckless abandon. Then there was Townshend…an immensely gifted songwriter, a powerful guitarist and a whirling dervish onstage, leaping and spinning and seemingly flying on the wings of the music; he was also intellectual, introspective and often spiritually troubled.

Pete Townshend’s The Definitive Collection

Townshend was a prolific songwriter, one of the greatest in the history of the rock genre. His creative accomplishments with the Who are second only, perhaps, to those of John Lennon of the Beatles. What a lot of people seem to forget, however, is that Townshend also enjoyed a significant solo career, receiving overwhelming critical acclaim and some degree of commercial success. Townshend recorded demos of just about every song he ever wrote for the Who, and discarded more songs than the band ever recorded. A lot of this material has shown up in various “odds-n-sods” collections through the years, and Townshend’s own demo versions of songs have made his Scoop albums a series much sought-after by collectors.

The Definitive Collection is a brand-new collection of Peter Townshend solo material. Now I’m a little wary of record label hype, and calling any compilation album “definitive” is, perhaps, stretching the definition of the word. In the case of Peter Townshend’s The Definitive Collection, however, I’m going to set my reservations aside and instead revel in the music. Featuring material culled from Townshend’s 35-year “solo” career, The Definitive Collection does a worthy job of presenting the many faces of this rock legend.

Townshend’s first solo effort, Who Came First, was a low-key affair released in 1972 as an outlet for the songwriter’s growing catalog of material. Collecting songs unsuitable for the Who as well as more personal, spiritually-oriented material, the album offered an insightful glimpse into the depth of Townshend’s songwriting talents. “Sheraton Gibson,” an underrated cut from Who Came First, is a wonderful, lively song about life on the road and the accompanying loneliness, Townshend’s vocals darting in and out of the mix, complimented by his fluid, mesmerizing guitarwork.

From Rough Mix, Townshend’s acclaimed 1977 collaboration with ex-Faces’ bassist Ronnie Lane, “Street In the City” is a melodic, observational song that relies on Townshend’s winsome vocals to rise above the rich string-orchestral arrangement. Also from Rough Mix, “My Baby Gives It Away” is a twangy rocker with a loping groove and rapid-fire lyrics. Rough Mix is the jewel of Townshend’s solo career, a rambling collection of roots rock, British folk and country overtones and well worth checking out on its own.

Who Came First

The Definitive Collection also includes three songs from Empty Glass, Townshend’s 1980 solo breakthrough and his best-selling album to date. The album was written as Townshend struggled with the death of Who drummer Keith Moon. The personal nature of the lyrics and their combination of pop melodies and gutter-punk rockers took Empty Glass to the number five position on the charts. The album’s radio-ready singles were easy choices, but “A Little Is Enough,” an engaging love song with new wavy synth overtones and a driving beat is a fine addition to the collection, sounding amusing retro albeit featuring, perhaps, some uncharacteristically inane lyrics. He redeems himself with “Let My Love Open The Door,” the hit single combining the most attractive elements of ‘80s synth-pop with old-fashioned vocal harmonies and a killer hook. Befitting its title, “Rough Boys” shows a little more muscle, with a forceful Townshend vocal performance, imaginative keyboards and some tasty six-string riffing.

Townshend followed Empty Glass with the obtusely-named All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes in 1982. Overall Townshend’s most maddening album, both loved and hated by his fans, its arty, pretentious songs have withstood the test of time. The album’s “Slit Skirts” is a dynamic song, with interesting lyrics, an infectious chorus, and various musical twists and turns with signature changes and intriguing instrumental interludes. “The Sea Refuses No River” could just as easily have been one of Townshend’s compositions for the Who, a grand, majestic song that showcases some of Townshend’s most subtle vocals and his skills as an arranger. The song is, perhaps, one of the most overlooked of the artist’s canon.

By the mid-80s Townshend seemed to be going in a thousand directions at once, and seemingly lost sight of his creative strengths. “Face The Face,” from 1985’s White City: A Novel, is an intriguing choice for this collection, an almost experimental piece that starts off small, with an atmospheric intro, dissonant piano and clanging sounds building to a steady rhythm, kind of like a train coming down the track, straight at your stalled-out car. Townshend’s multi-layered vocals are one part electronic wizardry and one part Gospel fervor. “A Friend Is A Friend,” from The Iron Man: A Musical, is a slight slip of a song – perhaps that misbegotten album’s best, but a pale choice nonetheless. The two tracks included from 1993’s Psychoderelict fare somewhat better; a concept album ridden with spoken word interludes and weak material, “English Boy” is nevertheless a knock-down rocker with one of Townshend’s best vocal performances in a decade and some truly unusual musical undercurrents.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The Definitive Collection is a fairly decent overview of the ups and downs of Peter Townshend’s solo career, replacing the decade-old The Best of collection with a better song selection. I personally would have liked to have seen one of the Who’s classic tunes from Townshend’s Deep End Live! album included here. Also, all of the best stuff from this compilation – and then some – was included two years ago on the double-disc Gold collection, part of the industry’s efforts to cannibalize itself through countless variations on the same compilations.

However, if you remain among the uninitiated that just wants a taste of Townshend, The Definitive Collection is the way to go; go for the Gold if you want a deeper drink of the artist’s talents. If you like what you hear, grab copies of Empty Glass and Rough Mix to get a full measure of Townshend’s greatest work. (Hip-O Records, released January 23, 2007)

Review originally published by the Trademark of Quality blog

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Peter Townshend’s The Definitive Collection

CD Review: Manfred Mann's Mann Made Hits (1966/2018)

It’s a memorable scene from the hit 1981 movie Stripes, a military comedy starring Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and John Candy. The platoon, in a full-gear march, is led in cadence by Ramis’s character with a version of Manfred Mann’s 1960s-era hit “Do Wah Diddy Diddy.” The scene is so memorable that, during my own short stint in the military, our platoon marched to the mess hall to “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” when left on our own at the Fort Leonard Wood reception center over a long holiday weekend. Manfred Mann, named for band keyboardist Mann, was one of the first ‘British Invasion’ bands to find an audience in North America. While the band’s stateside commercial success was sporadic and largely dependent upon the strength of their then-current single release, Manfred Mann nevertheless enjoyed a string of U.K. chart hits between 1964 and the band’s break-up in 1969.

As was frequently the practice in the ‘60s, different versions of the band’s albums were released on the two continents, with the U.K. versions representing the ‘true’ album and U.S. releases generally ‘frankensteined’ together from a band’s singles, EPs, and album tracks. By way of example, Manfred Mann’s first U.K. album was the stellar 1964 release The Five Faces of Manfred Mann, which displayed the band’s blues and R&B roots with a mix of solid originals and covers of material by revered artists like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Bo Diddley. Manfred Mann’s debut U.S. album, the imaginatively-titled The Manfred Mann Album, took eleven songs from the band’s U.K. debut and tacked on the chart-topping hit single “Do Wah Diddy Diddy.” An album titled The Five Faces of Manfred Mann was subsequently released stateside in 1965, but it only had two songs in common with its British doppelganger. Got all that?

The British Invasion

The band’s proper sophomore effort, titled Mann Made, was released in 1965 in both the U.K. and the U.S., where it was the band’s fourth (!) studio album, and they shared a lot of songs between them. Singer Paul Jones and guitarist Mike Vickers both left the band in early 1966, and EMI’s His Master’s Voice imprint, which had enjoyed significant sales with Manfred Mann, dropped the band but kept singer Jones on contract, feeling that he was the real ‘star’ of the outfit. Whereas Jones subsequently scored a handful of hits – most notably 1966’s “High Time” and the following year’s “I’ve Been A Bad, Bad Boy” – he would split his time between music and acting from the late ‘60s well into the ‘70s before becoming a popular British radio and TV personality.

Meanwhile, Manfred Mann moved bassist Tom McGuinness to guitar, added singer Mike d’Abo and bassist Klaus Voorman (after the legendary Jack Bruce kept the seat warm for a few months), signed a new deal with Fontana Records, and continued to chalk up hit singles for the next couple of years. After Jones’ departure from the band, however, EMI played a number of dirty tricks on Manfred Mann, first cashing in with a quickie EP of early, unreleased songs titled As Was (designed to be confused with the band’s first post-Jones LP, As Is). Then they used session players to complete an unfinished Manfred Mann song, “You Gave Me Somebody To Love,” which featured Jones on vocals, the single hitting #36 on the U.K. charts despite the band officially disowning the release.

Manfred Mann’s Mann Made Hits

In a move that would be duplicated numerous times over the years by different record labels exploiting other bands, EMI released a ‘posthumous’ compilation album of the band’s singles and album tracks titled Mann Made Hits. In this case, however, the label really did fans a favor by collecting all this material together under one roof. Billed as “Manfred Mann with Paul Jones,” Mann Made Hits provides the perfect bookend to Jones’ successful years with the band. Across fourteen tracks, the album showcases the many facets of the band’s talents as well as its enormous musical chemistry, with songs running the stylistic gamut from ‘60s pop, rock, and jazz to American blues and folk music. Manfred Mann’s big cross-continental hits are all here – the love-struck yearning of “Pretty Flamingo” (#1 U.K./#29 U.S.), the band’s breakthrough rocker “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” (#1 U.K./#1 U.S.), the poppy singalong “Sha La La” (#3 U.K./#12 U.S.), and the soulful ballad “Come Tomorrow” (#4 U.K./#50 U.S.).

But there are a lot of great songs on Mann Made Hits that will be unfamiliar to even the most avid Anglophile. There are those British singles that never sailed across the Atlantic, fine songs like the revved-up rocker “5-4-3-2-1,” which would become the band’s first Top 10 U.K. hit and the theme song for the popular British TV show Ready Steady Go. The band’s first flirtation with the Bob Dylan songbook, a faithful cover of the Bard’s country-flavored “If You Gotta Go, Go Now,” hit #2 on the U.K. charts while their reading of Dylan’s haunting “With God On Our Side” is, perhaps, the definitive recording of the song, Jones’ emotional vocals accented by Mann’s reverent piano accompaniment and swelling instrumentation. A couple of Jones’ original songs stand out, notably the self-referential “The One In The Middle,” a strutting R&B-styled rocker with swagger to spare, and the blues-infused “I’m Your Kingpin,” which features Jones’ subtle harmonica-play, jazzy free-form piano, and Mike Hugg’s shimmering vibes.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The band that recorded much of the material found on Mann Made Hits – singer Jones, keyboardist Mann, talented guitarist/bassist Tom McGuinness, guitarist Mike Vickers, and drummer Mike Hugg – essentially ceased to exist by the time of the album’s release. But the music they made together has proven to be timeless, and if they’re not as well-known as other British Invasion bands like the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones, Manfred Mann nonetheless left their mark on the decade’s pop-rock firmament. The band members recently formed their own Umbrella Music label to reissue these early albums on CD, and the U.K. versions of these albums, including Mann Made Hits, are readily available online.

As for the band members’ future endeavors, as mentioned above, Paul Jones became a British radio and TV personality while also fronting the popular U.K. act The Blues Band (which also included Manfred Mann guitarist Tom McGuinness). Manfred Mann, the band, soldiered on until 1969, their last big hit a chart-topping cover of Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn.” Manfred Mann, the musician, formed the short-lived jazz-rock band Manfred Mann Chapter Three with Mike Hugg, releasing a pair of albums in 1969 and 1970 before forming Manfred Mann’s Earth Band in 1971. A prog-rock oriented outfit with pop-rock undercurrents, the Earth Band carries on to this day, but found modest success throughout the late ‘70s and early ‘80s with albums like The Roaring Silence (1976), Watch (1978), and Somewhere In Africa (1983), among many others…but that’s a story for another time. Grade: A (Umbrella Music, released July 6, 2018)

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Manfred Mann’s Mann Made Hits

The Searchers’ Sire Years Revisited

Overshadowed by competitors like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and the Who, British Invasion rockers the Searchers are too often overlooked. The band nevertheless collected almost a dozen Top 40 hits in the U.K. between 1963 and 1966, including timeless tracks like “Needles and Pins,” “Don’t Throw Our Love Away,” “Sugar and Spice,” and “When You Walk In The Room.” The hits dried up as the decade wore on, but the Searchers persevered as a touring band, playing the old songs as well as contemporary hits to enthusiastic audiences.

In 1979, the band came to the attention of Sire Records’ head honcho Seymour Stein, who saw them perform and offered them a deal with the label which, at the time, featured bands like the Ramones, Talking Heads, and the Dead Boys. Inspired musically by the early ‘70s British pub rock scene, the Searchers recorded a pair of albums for Sire, their self-titled 1979 disc produced by Pat Moran (Be Bop Deluxe, Dr. Feelgood) and offering a mix of original songs and covers of songs by artists like Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, the Records, and Mickey Jupp.

The following year, the Searchers released Love’s Melodies (released as Play For Today in the U.K.). Produced by Ed Stasium (The Ramones, Talking Heads), the LP featured more exhilarating original tracks as well as covers of rockin’ tunes from artists like Moon Martin, Big Star, John Fogerty, and others. Neither album performed well commercially, the label dropping the band as they prepared to record a third album. History has smiled kindly on the Searchers’ two Sire recordings, though, which have been released several times around the world with different track lists, B-sides and mixes, though sadly both albums have been out-of-print for better than a decade.

On December 8th, 2017 Omnivore Recordings will release Another Night: The Sire Recordings 1979-1981, a two-disc compilation that empties the vault of what many consider one of the Searchers’ most productive and inspired periods. The set includes all twenty-two tracks from the original two albums and adds seven alternative takes and outtakes, including a previously-unreleased cover of John Hiatt’s “Ambulance Chaser.” The package also features album cover artwork from various previous releases as well as an essay by writer Scott Schinder with new interviews with band members Mike Pender, John McNally, and Frank Allen. Check out the album trailer below and then check out Another Night, a fine collection by the long-forgotten British Invasion hitmakers the Searchers.

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: The Searchers’ Another Night: The Sire Recordings 1979-1981

CD Preview: The Creation’s Action Painting

Those of you who aren’t ‘60s rock fanatics (Greg Prevost, Mike Stax, I’m looking at you guys!), may not be familiar with the Creation. One of the great cult bands of ‘60s-era British rock, the Creation were what aficionados term a “freakbeat” band, their style a unique mix of psychedelic-rock, period pop, guitar-driven garage-rock, and avant-garde experimentation rare in commercially-oriented rockers of the era. The band’s best-known tune is, perhaps, “Painter Man,” a psych-drenched, radio-ready slab o’ wax that hit the Top 40 in the U.K. in 1966 while also charting in Germany.

Although the Creation enjoyed mixed chart returns with other single releases like “Making Time,” “If I Stay Too Long,” and “Life Is Just Beginning” circa 1966-68, and they were hot stuff in Germany and northern Europe, their commercial prospects dwindled in their homeland and they were never able to find a stateside audience. Notable for American Shel Talmy (The Who, The Kinks) producing their early singles, and for musicians like Mick Avory (The Kinks) and Ronnie Wood (The Faces) passing through its ranks, the Creation drew predictable comparisons to the Who. In reality, the band pursued a unique sound created by the wandering muse of guitarist Eddie Phillips that would influence a generation of British musicians to follow, including the Jam’s Paul Weller and even contemporary Pete Townshend. What the Velvet Underground was in terms of inspiration for American rockers, the Creation was to England’s guitar-wielding youth.

The Creation never released a full-length album during their brief career, although there have been various compilations appearing in the years (and decades) since, the most notable of these being the wonderful 24-track “Our music is red – with purple flashes” CD. On March 17th, 2017 the Numero Group will release the final word on the Creation with Action Painting, a two-disc compilation available on both CD and vinyl that collects every studio recording ever made by the band, including rare U.S. single releases. All 46 tracks here have been re-mastered from the original master tapes by producer Shel Talmy; including new stereo mixes where previously unavailable.

Action Painting includes a very cool 80-page hardbound book (CD version only) featuring new essays from Dean Rudland and esteemed music historian Alec Palao that tell the band’s story in depth and details the Creations’ studio sessions. The book offers up dozens of rare, previously-unpublished photos of the band as well as four songs by early ‘60s pre-Creation freakbeat quartet the Mark Four that featured original Creation vocalist Kenny Pickett, guitarist Phillips, and future Kinks bassist John Dalton. Taken altogether, Numero’s Action Painting provides as detailed a history of this important, influential band as is possible, the set hopefully placing the Creation’s groundbreaking sound in proper context and raising their status to match that of rock ‘n’ roll contemporaries like the Who and the Kinks.

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: The Creation's Action Painting

The Magnificent Moody Blues

Formed in 1964 in Birmingham, England, the Moody Blues would become one of (if not the) biggest art-rock bands on the planet during the late 1960s and throughout the decade of the ‘70s. Beginning with their Days of Future Passed album in 1967, the Moodys scored an impressive string of a dozen high-charting Gold™ and Platinum™ selling albums that carried the band’s commercial momentum well into the late 1980s. Although the band’s critical acclaim would dwindle as they moved further away from the proggy, psychedelic-tinged sound of their early albums towards the pop-influenced discs of the ‘80s, the Moodys remained a popular live attraction through the end of the century.

What a lot of people don’t remember is that, like many U.K. combos, the Moody Blues started out as a soulful R&B outfit, not all that far off, stylistically, than the early Beatles or the Stones. A lot of folks also don’t realize that the band released an album prior to the chart-busting Days of Future Passed. On January 13th, 2015 Esoteric Records will release an official 50th anniversary edition of The Magnificent Moodies, the band's 1965 debut album. Featuring the line-up of guitarist Denny Laine, singer Ray Thomas, keyboardist Mike Pinder, bassist Clint Warwick, and drummer Graeme Edge, The Magnificent Moodies earned the band no little critical acclaim, and while the album didn’t chart, it did yield a number one U.K. chart hit in the song “Go Now.”

The band went on to release a number of singles between 1964 and ‘67, and when none of them reached the heights of “Go Now,” the band broke-up and reformed with Laine and Warwick replaced by Justin Hayward and John Lodge, resulting in what is considered to be the classic Moody Blues line-up. With the new members came a fresh musical orientation, the orchestral backing of Days of Future Passed leading to the signature Moody’s sound, an ambitious mix of prog-rock and psychedelic-rock with pop undertones.

This 50th anniversary reissue of The Magnificent Moodies comes in several different flavors; the one you buy will depend on your level of fandom and the depth of your bank account. The Deluxe edition includes the original 1965 album, re-mastered from the first generation master tapes, along with the myriad of singles released by the band between 1964 and ’66, including the rare “People Gotta Go,” which was only released on a rare French EP. The two-disc set also includes 29 previously-unreleased bonus tracks, including the band’s entire July 1964 sessions from Olympic studios in London, a number of surviving BBC radio sessions, and nine tracks from the summer of 1966 recorded with producer Denny Cordell for an unreleased second Moodys album (all freshly remixed from the original four-track master tapes).

The set is packaged in a clamshell box along with an illustrated booklet with previously unpublished photos and an essay by writer Mark Powell, three rare promotional postcards, and a poster. Since Amazon is listing the set right now at around $25, that’s a lot of bang for yer buck! For those of more modest means, Esoteric is also releasing a single-disc version of The Magnificent Moodies that offers the original twelve album tracks, and fifteen bonus tracks comprised of the band’s early single releases (including that elusive version of “People Gotta Go”).

Like many U.S. fans, my interest in the band began with their sophomore album, but I’m looking forward to hearing the band in a different light, The Magnificent Moodies featuring a smattering of original R&B styled tunes along with covers of songs by James Brown and Willie Dixon. Check out the Esoteric Records website for more info...

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: The Moody Blues' The Magnificent Moodies

CD Preview: Dave Davies’ Rippin’ Up Time

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and Kinks co-founder Dave Davies has been making up for lost time since suffering a stroke in 2004. He’s released two solo albums between now and then, including 2013’s I Will Be Me. On October 28th, 2014 Red River Entertainment will release the guitarist’s third studio album in the past decade, Rippin’ Up Time.

A collection of ten new guitar-driven songs, in a press release for the new album Davies describes Rippin’ Up Time as “a man's reflections of the past, his fears, anxieties and optimism about the present and hopeful expectations about the future. I had a lot of ideas in my head thinking about the past and how we started and the Kinks and my own life and the present and what's happening with my life now and concerns and worries, anxieties about the future. I suddenly had an image of all the times overlapping as if they're all in one place in my mind. I thought I'd just write it from the point of view of a dream. It's a mixture of emotions that I was going through as I was writing the songs, some would be happy or reflective or sad.”

Davies’ distorted, high-flying guitar was a signature part of the Kinks’ “British Invasion” era sound, his infectious riffs providing songs like “You Really Got Me” and “All Day And All Of The Night” with their visceral punch and undeniable energy. His original material, like the U.K. hit “Death of a Clown,” showed Davies to be as talented a songwriter as he is a musician. Although his conflicts with his brother and fellow Kinks bandmate Ray Davies are the stuff of legend, Dave stuck it out until the band’s break-up in 1996 after better than 30 years. Davies was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 as a member of the Kinks.

Although Davies released a few singles as a solo artist during the 1960s, he didn’t really launch his solo career until the 1980 release of his self-titled debut (also known as AFL1-3603). In between touring with the Kinks, Davies released solo works like 1981’s Glamour, 1983’s Chosen People, and 2002’s Bug. Davies songs have been featured in films and on TV, including the HBO series The Sopranos, which used his song “Living On A Thin Line” in a third season episode.

Rippin’ Up Time is Davies sixth solo studio effort, the bulk of which was recorded this summer in Los Angeles with producer David Nolte. They put together the album in just six weeks, the two playing virtually all of the instruments themselves; Davies’ son Russell, handled vocals on two songs. As for the material, it’s said to be lyrically introspective while still showcasing Davies’ distinctive and hard-rocking guitar style.

Rippin’ Up Time track listing:

1. Ripping Up Time
2. Semblance of Sanity
3. King of Karaoke
4. Front Room
5. Johnny Adams
6. Nosey Neighbours
7. Mindwash
8. Between the Towers
9. In The Old Days
10. Through My Window

Buy the CD on Amazon.com: Dave Davies' Rippin Up Time