It's been a while since I looked at a February issue, when SR graced the world with their awards for the year recently passed. This is the second time in three months we've revisited the winter of my 9th grade year; I think in the aggregate the albums this time out are more well known than what appeared in December. Can you guess which two reviewed below I have on vinyl?
Article
Noel Coppage Interviews Janie Fricke
At this point Fricke had released only one album and was better known for her backup singing and jingle writing. Coppage correctly tags her as a soon-to-be star, even if she's not so sure: "I don't even like to answer the question when people me what my goals are. I didn't plan what my goals were five years ago or ten years ago or one year ago, so why should I sit down now and say a year from now I want this and this and this?"
Records of the Year for 1978
Ain't Misbehavin' Original Broadway Cast
Peter Allen, It Is Time for Peter Allen
Jackson Browne, Running on Empty
Marshall Chapman, Jaded Virgin
Dexter Gordon, Sophisticated Giant
Randy Newman, Little Criminals
Honorable Mentions
Carlene Carter, S/T
Ray Charles, True to Life
Ry Cooder, Jazz
Elvis Costello, This Year's Model
Earth, Wind & Fire, All 'n' All
Egberto Gismonti, Sol Do Meio Dia
Billy Joel, The Stranger
Nati Mistral Y Los Gemelos, S/T
Patti Smith, Easter
Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town
Donna Summer, Once Upon a Time
Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy
The Annual Certificate of Merit goes to Beverly Sills.
This month's reviewers are Chris Albertson, Edward Buxbaum, Noel Coppage, Phyl Garland, Peter Reilly, Steve Simels, and Joel Vance, along with a couple of guest appearances.
Best of the Month
--The Heath Brothers, Passing Thru… (CA) "…firm believers in jazz as an art form that stands on its own and should not be fused with simplistic pop."
--Waylon Jennings, I've Always Been Crazy (NC) "…seemed to be trying for more looseness, more spontaneity, in his last two or three albums, and now…he's started to arrive at what he must have had in mind."
--Donna Summer, Live and More (EB) "What surprises me is how well the songs hold up to listening without dancing. There's a richness of melody in them and an attention to the lyrics that most disco lacks."
Featured Reviews
--Godley & Creme, L (JV) More an interview with the lads while they visited NYC to promote L and their Gizmotron, "an electromechanical bowing device for the guitar that makes polyphonic playing practicable, produces indefinitely sustained notes and chords, and can simulate the sound of an entire string section." L is briefly described as "mostly free-form rock with very funny lyrics."
--Al Jarreau, All Fly Home (PG) "In a time when the contrived and frantic funkiness of it all is often more than one can bear, he provides, in stark contrast, songs that are coolly introspective, buoyantly exuberant, and uplifting, songs that leave the listener grinning and fulfilled."
--The Kiss solo albums (SS) Written in the style of Philip Marlowe, Simels's private eye is hired by a dame desperate to have Peter Criss, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons, and Paul Stanley reviewed. "…the idea is that they're supposed to give the poor slobs who buy this stuff a chance to find out what kind of music these guys might make if they weren't limited by the group concept…The thing is, it doesn't add up; these records could be by anybody." Well worth reading the whole piece.
--Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Pronto Mondo (PR) "What the McGarrigles lack, if indeed it is a lack, is any kind of bombast or attention-getting gimmick. They work instinctively, assuredly, and often with enormous dramatic intensity, but they refuse to grab you by the lapels and force themselves and their performances on you…What I invite you, ask you, urge you to do is, please, just listen!"
Recordings of Special Merit
--Bobby Bare, Sleeper Wherever I Fall (NC) "…making a fine shambles of the distinction between country and rock…he is one of the most 'natural' singers around, so you don't worry much about categories with him."
--Stephen Bishop, Bish (Rick Mitz) "Bishop's lush romanticism, grace, good humor, and sense of the unpredictable are showcased here in a musical hybrid of the Thirties and Seventies that just might even give us a glimpse of what Eighties pop music will sound like."
--Jimmy Buffett, 'You Had To Be There' (PR) "After four sides and twenty songs, however, I began to feel like a closet glutton…in this era of Sensible Living, I recommend only two sides at a time—but I do recommend the entire album unreservedly."
--Ron Carter, A Song for You (CA) "If any music is going to win fusion fans over to the real thing, this ought to do it."
--The Clash, Give 'Em Enough Rope (SS) "…the Clash are already being presented here not as an especially political band, but rather as keepers of the rock-and-roll flame, sort of like Bruce Springsteen, and on that level I find them quite exciting…They've got real melodies too, which already puts them head and shoulders above the American heavy-metal brigade."
--Jules and the Polar Bears, Got No Breeding (SS) "Leader Jules Shear does the Dylan stream-of-consciousness vitriol which real panache, his singing is charmingly reminiscent of Ray Davies though not so fey, his tunes are an addictive amalgam of California pop-rock and British rave-up, and his band is bedrock solid."
--Queen, Jazz (JV) "…can stand by itself as a rare (from a star group) lampoon of rock, the rock audience, and society in general. They seem to be saying, 'Don't you people realize this is all an act? How can you let us get away with it?'"
--Al Stewart, Time Passages (NC) "It's Al Stewart again, doing the Al Stewart thing. That means you can hear a little midnight oil in the some of the songs, but stuff that would sound convoluted from other people somehow doesn't from Al Stewart."
--Third World, Journey to Addis (PG) "This group has fused the instrumental and vocal approaches of North American soul music with their own, finding a common ground and tilling it well."
--Deborah Washington, Any Way You Want It (PG) "This may be standard disco fare…but it is lifted above the ordinary by the teasingly appealing quality of Deborah Washington's vocals. She has a high, light voice that gracefully dances about the notes."
--Neil Young, Comes a Time (NC) "It is not melodramatic and fancy like Harvest, however, but down to earth and direct…this is a country album in the sense that most Canadian albums are a bit country.
Other Disks Reviewed
--Eric Carmen, Change of Heart (JV) "…this album amounts to no more than a demonstration of his current song catalog; he shows little ability to tie things together stylistically, so each selection is left very much on its own."
--Chic, C'est Chic (EB) "Monotony has set in in every one of these arrangements…it's precious, filled with material that shouts 'Look at us! We've made it!'"
--Chicago, Hot Streets (Rick Mitz) "But even good can be pretty boring if it's the same stuff you've been hearing since 1969."
--Firefall, Élan (PR) "…their murmur, always low performing profile and the gush-mush content of their lyrics eventually leave you with a saccharin headache."
--Funkadelic, One Nation Under a Groove (PG) "Yet (Bootsy Collins and George Clinton) might not be too far off base in overusing the word 'funk' to define their efforts. Among blacks back in the Forties and Fifties, 'funk' or 'funky' was used to describe something…that was unclean, repellently odorific, and badly in need of a bath."
--Heart, Dog & Butterfly (SS) "There's a lesson here, I think; maybe it's that if you're going to rewrite Led Zep, you'd better come up with your own 'Stairway to Heaven' before you start making a stadium-attraction nuisance of yourself."
--Kansas, Two for the Show (JV) "Some of their music is interesting, and a few of their tunes stick with you…but a lot of it sounds like ambitious flapdoodle, especially the gratuitous keyboard runs and note clusters…Most of all, I get the feeling that they seldom do anything instinctively…"
--Lindisfarne, Back and Fourth (PR) "…as stylish, agile, and perfectionistic as a troupe of Monte Carlo acrobats. One carefully crafted and highly polished little setpiece after another comes rolling out of their workshop."
--Ramones, Road to Ruin (SS) "…I steadfastly refuse to believe that this is the only reasonable alternative to the overblown pomposity of Queen or Kansas. Less, at least as the Ramones practice it, is not always more."
--Styx, Pieces of Eight (JV) "Most of the performances here are energetic for the sake of being energetic, and that is really what rock is all about, even in its dotage…The wheel turns and, yes, it goes nowhere. Nor, I fear, does Styx."
--10cc, Bloody Tourists (JV) "…nothing leaps out at you; there's no high point to the album, not one song of outstanding quality for it to hang on…Maybe what's missing is a sense of fun; perhaps the group is now writing and performing under pressure to maintain their reputation and prestige."
--Village People, Cruisin' (EB) "…left me exhausted, as much from the tiring, tiresome arrangements as from dancing."
--Tom Waits, Blue Valentine (JV) "His hoarse, back-alley voice may strike some listeners as offensively pretentious, but if you are willing to work past it and listen to the lyrics you will hear some brutally beautiful free verse."
--Yes, Tormato (JV) "There's a difference between being grandiose and being pompous…Yes tends to be pompous, dispensing atavistic birdfeed as though it were manna straight from heaven."
