Album Reviews

Explaining the platinum success of Alison Krauss (with or without Union Station) is about as difficult as doing the same for the Buckingham/Nicks incarnation of Fleetwood Mac: melodic pop tunes; sexy, intimate female vocals; and genre-bending arrangements. Fleetwood Mac mixed lots of ABBA into its blues/rock sound; Krauss threw in bluegrass and folk accents. It's as silly to dismiss Krauss because she's not real bluegrass as it is to think that she really is bluegrass! And if you don't think ABBA is at the root of the Buckingham/Nicks Mac, listen to the harmonies on ABBA's "S.O.S."--hell, listen to all of "S.O.S." and then throw on Fleetwood Mac or Rumours.

This much sought after 1956 Blue Note release "books" at a few hundred dollars in mint condition-if it's a "deep groove" pressing. Even the second press goes for around $150. In case you're unfamiliar, "deep groove" refers to a circular groove in the label area, not a description of the vinyl cut itself. Early Blue Note pressings (and those of many other labels) featured the distinctive groove.

There have probably been more reissues of this 1961 Riverside recording than any other jazz record in history. There's your standard aluminum CD, the Fantasy OJC budget LP, Analogue Productions' 180g LP, the JVC XRCD, and Analogue Productions' hybrid SACD. Who's buying these? The same fans of the record who must have it in every format? A new generation of fans, simply buying on the latest tech format? I haven't an answer, but Acoustic Sounds' Chad Kassem seems to feel that yet another edition -- 2 LPs at 45rpm -- will sell, and I wouldn't bet against him.

This Otis Rush love fest, produced by Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites at Fame in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, was payback for the generosity and help Rush provided the youngsters back in Chicago during their \\"formative\\" years. Led by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the white suburban audience that formed the core of the \\"counter-culture\\" had discovered the blues. Butterfield had backed Dylan at Newport in 1965, causing a big stir, and soon thereafter Mike Bloomfield and drummer Sam Lay were in the studio with Dylan to record Highway 61 Revisited.

This Otis Rush love fest, produced by Mike Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites at Fame in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, was payback for the generosity and help Rush provided the youngsters back in Chicago during their "formative" years. Led by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the white suburban audience that formed the core of the "counter-culture" had discovered the blues. Butterfield had backed Dylan at Newport in 1965, causing a big stir, and soon thereafter Mike Bloomfield and drummer Sam Lay were in the studio with Dylan to record Highway 61 Revisited.

By the time this record was made, in 1969, two years had passed since Gravenites had formed The Electric Flag, a horn-drenched, blues-rock-psychedelic "American music" band that included Bloomfield. The group recorded the soundtrack to the psychedelic film The Trip, followed by Long Time Comin'. Bloomfield quit shortly thereafter.

Meanwhile, the long-play album revolution was peaking, and even if The Rolling Stones, these guys, and some others had revived the blues and brought the electrified Chicago spur of it to a white audience, how much of that audience had actually heard it played by the original masters?

Rush, who'd essentially been a singles artist (on Cobra) and had had his greatest success in the mid to late 1950s, had never made an album. Using their newfound leverage, Gravenites and Bloomfield got Rush signed to Cotillion, a small subsidiary of Atlantic, and brought their hero down to Fame to record his first album. By then the Muscle Shoals studio had become a familiar venue for Atlantic Records.

Since Rush had been under the tutelage of Willie Dixon, who wrote, produced, arranged, and played bass on most of Rush's great singles (including his most famous, "I Can't Quit You Baby"), Bloomfield and Gravenites provided many of the tunes here. Neither played, though--instead they put Rush in front of the famous Muscle Shoals session team, which included a young Duane Allman before he'd formed his own group. Also on board was keyboardist Mark Naftalin, who'd been in the Butterfield band. But the main sound here is horn-drenched Dixie--closer to Stax-Volt than to Chess or the "West Side Sound," which makes sense since the producers were obviously trying to get Rush some well-deserved commercial success using a sound that was then white-hot.

The star here is Rush's fluid guitar playing and his mellifluous voice, which shines above some of the pedestrian "pick-up band" arrangements and less-than-stellar song choices. Gravenites and Bloomfield had their hearts in the right place, but skilled A&R men they were not. At least they weren't at the time of this session, though it must be said that they penned the set's highlight, "Reap What You Sow" (which includes the album title in its lyrics).

Rush does contribute two tunes, "Love Will Never Die" and "It Takes Time," both of which have an urban retro feel. Don't expect to hear Duane Allman's upper-register fretboard squeals on this record, though. This was Rush's album, and the other guitarists stay respectfully in the background. The final tune, "Can't Wait No Longer," with its "black chick" background vocals and pulsing horns, shows where Rush might have taken his sound had the album been commercially successful. It smokes.

Sonically, this recording is barely competent. Whether by design or accident, Rush's voice on side one sounds distorted, echoey, and distant--as if the producers or the engineer were trying to mimic the raw sound of the Cobra sessions, which were recorded under less-than-ideal conditions but which nevertheless contributed to a unique and very commercial sound. Some tracks sound better than others, but it all sounds like four-track recordings mixed hard-left/-right and center. I'm making it sound worse than it really is so you won't be disappointed (the faults lie in the recording, not the mastering, which is fine). Crank it up and you'll enjoy this slice of musical history. Meanwhile, if you want to hear Rush's Cobra singles, check out The Essential Otis Rush, The Classic Cobra Recordings 1956-1958 (Fuel Records/Varése Sarabande 302 061 077 2).

Sundazed's decision to issue Blonde on Blonde using the much sought after mono mix is indicative both of the company's dedication to doing what's musically correct, and of the vinyl marketplace's newfound maturity. There was a time a few years ago when no "audiophile" vinyl label would dare issue a mono recording; audiophiles wouldn't stand for it was the conventional wisdom. Perhaps back then it was even true. Today, with Sundazed, Classic, Analogue Productions and others issuing monophonic LPs on a regular basis (and one has to assume selling them as well) listeners are appreciating the music for music's sake, and equally importantly, for the wonderful qualities of monophonic sound reproduction. The choice was also pragmatic, as the original stereo mix-master reel was rendered unusable back in the 1970's. It wore out from being repeatedly used to cut lacquers. That tells you that second, third and possible higher pressings were cut from the original tapes and probably sound pretty good, but there's nothing like an early "360 Sound." Subsequent remixes from the 4 track masters were made, including a particularly bad one used on Columbia's early '90s "longbox" gold CD - a must to avoid. A recent remix, supposedly supervised by Dylan is said to be much better, but even an original stereo doesn't hold up the nuanced, musically coherent mono mix.