Album Reviews

On her 18th album--and her first in eight years--Joan Armatrading offers a mostly light-hearted exploration of love and affection on Lover's Speak, a set of 14 melodic, hard-rocking, well-crafted songs. Whether leading with her husky, low-end growl or vulnerable, breathy falsetto, the 52-year-old veteran performer's distinctive voice remains remarkably supple--her mid-'70s power barely diminished by time.

Another decade, another reissue of DSOTM, this one using the very fragile original two track master tape, again supervised by James Guthrie. Guthrie had determined that the tape was in fragile shape back in 2003, which is why he opted for a remix in the analog domain. That edition was very good and worth having, especially if you didn't have a very clean early UK pressing, but in retrospect it departs from the original much as the Mo-Fi does: the EQ is a bit much at the frequency extremes, which bleaches out the mids. As for the mix's micro-elements and how close Guthrie came to reproducing the original mix, I have to surrender that to the DTOTM fanatics, of which I'm not one.

Song Cycle dominates the Van Dyke Parks discography the way "Citizen Kane" overshadows Orson Welles' cinematic output. That simply cannot be denied, though Welles created other outstanding films- "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Touch Of Evil" for example.

While this much-loved Blue Note lists Adderley as the group leader, this pick-up session--recorded in 1958, just before Kind of Blue--sounds, for the most part, as if Miles Davis is in control: or at least that his sensibilities at the time had deeply influenced Adderley's musical thinking. With Hank Jones on piano and the rhythm section of Sam Jones and Art Blakey, whoever is in charge leads the group through a set of three standards ("Autumn Leaves," "Love For Sale," and "Dancing in the Dark") and two originals (Nat Adderley's funky "One For Daddy-O" and Davis' own "Somethin' Else").

Baby boomers no more appreciated Sam Cooke’s slick conquest of the Jewish supper club set when it was first recorded and issued on RCA Victor in 1964—the same year Cooke died—than they did Bobby Darin’s. To some teens at the time, “You Send Me,” and “Splish Splash,” were theirs, but this dated style Copacabana review was their parents’. In retrospect, the million plus seller “You Send Me,” was much closer to easy listening than to rock’n roll, and while Darin’s foray into the teen market with tunes like “Splish Splash, and “Dream Lover,” was explicit to the point of being exploitive, Cooke’s chart success with songs like “Chain Gang,” was far more subtly drawn. Perhaps that’s because, having already succeeded as a gospel singer with the Soul Stirrers, and as a soul star on the black “chitlin’ circuit,” he was less in need of pop stardom. Darin may have roamed, but it was within a more limited territory, until events of the ‘60s—musically and otherwise— shattered his slick showbiz pretenses.

Yes

Jon Anderson was always busy exhorting listeners to “Get up!,” “Look around,!” “See yourself!,” etc. His lyrics feel like a Tony Robbins self-improvement course (“Take the straight and stronger course to the corner of your life,”), but Anderson and co. were doing it first and setting the self-help lectures to bombastic musical constructions. Because of Anderson’s lyrical themes, Yes could be preachy, pretentious, mechanical and cold, but you had to respect the musical craft—especially the rhythmic suppleness (it was smart to unleash Bill Bruford) and the group’s sophisticated manipulation of dynamics.

One of the most underrated of all ‘60s bands, the puppy-dog earnest The Lovin’ Spoonful sounds better and better as the 20th Century fades from view. This was their 3rd album, issued late in 1966 and the first containing all originals, many of which are stamped indelibly into the brains of Baby Boomers. The band combined folk, rock, jugband, country and of course, the influence of The Beatles.