After looking at the cover of Gillian Welch's debut album, Revival, and listening to the first two cuts, "Orphan Girl" and "Annabelle," you'd be tempted to imagine that Welch somehow stumbled into a time machine after cutting some tunes at the 1927 Bristol, TN, sessions and was transported to a recording studio in Los Angeles in 1996, where T-Bone Burnett was on hand and had the presence of mind to roll tape. It takes a closer listen to Revival to realize that Welch and her partner, David Rawlings, are not mere revivalists in the old-timey style; Welch's debts to artists of the past are obvious and clearly acknowledged, but there's a maturity, intelligence, and keen eye for detail in Welch's songs you wouldn't expect from someone simply trying to ape the Carter Family. What's more, the subtle, blues-shot menace of "Pass You By" and "Tear My Stillhouse Down" and the jazzy undertow of "Paper Wings" point to the breadth and depth of Welch's musical vision, which encompasses a spectrum broader than the rural musics of the 1920s and '30s. If Welch and Rawlings often reach to sounds and styles of the past onRevival, they do so with an unaffected sincerity and natural grace, and the album's best moments ("Orphan Girl," "One More Dollar," and "Tear My Stillhouse Down") are the work of a gifted singer and songwriter who knows how to communicate the sounds of her heart and soul to others, and producerBurnett gets those sounds on tape with unobtrusive skill. A superb debut. AMG.listen hereBuy @ Amazon:
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Dave Valentin, who has recorded over 15 albums for GRP, combines together the influence of pop, R&B, and Brazilian music with Latin jazz to create a slick and accessible form of crossover jazz. At age nine,Valentin enjoyed playing bongos and congas. He gigged at Latin clubs in New York from age 12 and it was not until he was 18 that he seriously started studying flute. Valentin's teacher, Hubert Laws, suggested that he not double on saxophone because of his attractive sound on the flute. In 1977, he made his recording debut with Ricardo Marrero's group and he was also on a Noel Pointer album. Discovered by Dave Grusin and Larry Rosen, Valentin was the first artist signed to GRP and he has been a popular attraction ever since. Since the mid-2000's, Valentin has been signed to Highnote Records releasing World On A String in 2005 and Come Fly With Me in 2006. AMG.listen hereBuy @ Amazon:
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Composer of the hits "Bem Te Vi," "Leão Ferido," and "Muito Estranho," Dalto had his songs recorded byBiafra, Roupa Nova, Ray Conniff, Zizi Possi, and Marina Lima. Several of his compositions were used in soap opera soundtracks. Dalto started his career in the early '70s as the lead vocalist of the experimental rock group Os Lobos, with which he recorded successfully the singles Fanny (Dalto/Cláudio Rabello) and Santa Teresa (Luís Carlos Sá), and the LP Miragem. In 1974, he started his solo career, recording a single with "Leila Ly" and "Flash Back" (both written with Cláudio Rabello). In spite of the relative success of the latter, Dalto decided to leave the music scene to finish his medical school studies. In 1981, he had his first hit as a composer with "Bem-Te-Vi" (with Cláudio Rabello), recorded by Renato Terra; 250,000 copies were sold. In 1982, he had a smash as a composer and interpreter with "Muito Estranho (Cuida Bem de Mim)," that sold 1,500,000 copies and reached the top positions in the charts. He also had other successes as a composer, like "Leão Ferido" (with Biafra), recorded by Biafra in 1982; and, in the following year, "Anjo" (with Renato Correia and Cláudio Rabello), recorded by Roupa Nova. In 1994, he launched the CD Guru, that had some success with "Quase Dá Pra Ser Feliz." AMG.listen hereBuy @ Amazon:
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Despite the success of Bad, it was hard not to view it as a bit of a letdown, since it presented a cleaner, colder, calculated version of Thriller -- something that delivered what it should on the surface, but wound up offering less in the long run. So, it was time for a change-up, something even a superstar as huge asMichael Jackson realized, so he left Quincy Jones behind, hired Guy mastermind Teddy Riley as the main producer, and worked with a variety of other producers, arrangers, and writers, most notably Bruce Swedien and Bill Bottrell. The end result of this is a much sharper, harder, riskier album than Bad, one that has its eyes on the street, even if its heart gets middle-class soft on "Heal the World." The shift in direction and change of collaborators has liberated Jackson, and he's written a set of songs that is considerably stronger than Bad, often approaching the consistency of Off the Wall and Thriller. If it is hardly as effervescent or joyous as either of those records, chalk it up to his suffocating stardom, which results in a set of songs without much real emotional center, either in their substance or performance. But, there's a lot to be said for professional craftsmanship at its peak, and Dangerous has plenty of that, not just on such fine singles as "In the Closet," "Remember the Time," or the blistering "Jam," but on album tracks like "Why You Wanna Trip on Me." No, it's not perfect -- it has a terrible cover, a couple of slow spots, and suffers from CD-era ailments of the early '90s, such as its overly long running time and its deadening Q Sound production, which sounds like somebody forgot to take the Surround Sound button off. Even so, Dangerous captures Jackson at a near-peak, delivering an album that would have ruled the pop charts surely and smoothly if it had arrived just a year earlier. But it didn't -- it arrived along with grunge, which changed the rules of the game nearly as much as Thriller itself. Consequently, it's the rare multi-platinum, number one album that qualifies as a nearly forgotten, underappreciated record. AMG.link removed
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Henry Roeland Byrd (Professor Longhair, or just Fess, to his fans, admirers, and friends) distilled and synthesized New Orleans R&B piano playing to a fine art, mixing Caribbean rhumba rhythms with stride style and even a hint of Dixieland in his approach, topping it all off with seemingly effortless vocals that made everything he sang feel like a rockin' party was in full swing. Fess first recorded in 1949, and sides like "Big Chief," "Go to the Mardi Gras," and "Tipitina" became Crescent City classics in the 1950s and early '60s, but unfortunately he never saw the kind of commercial success that other New Orleans piano players like Fats Domino were able to achieve. Longhair's influence and presence in New Orleans have always been immense, though, and this two-disc, 46-track set shows why, including all of his early recordings between 1949 and 1957 from the Star Talent, Atlantic, Mercury, Wasco, Federal, and Ebb imprints. AMG.listen hereBuy @ Amazon:
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While Jimi Hendrix remains most famous for his hard rock and psychedelic innovations, more than a third of his recordings were blues-oriented. This CD contains 11 blues originals and covers, eight of which were previously unreleased. Recorded between 1966 and 1970, they feature the master guitarist stretching the boundaries of electric blues in both live and studio settings. Besides several Hendrix blues-based originals, it includes covers of Albert King and Muddy Waters classics, as well as a 1967 acoustic version of his composition "Hear My Train a Comin'." AMG.link removed
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Deep in the Blues is a fascinating jam session between James Cotton, guitarist Joe Louis Walker, and jazz bassist Charlie Haden. The trio runs through a number of classic blues songs written by Muddy Waters,Percy Mayfield, and Sonny Boy Williamson and a few originals by Walker and Cotton. The sound is intimate and raw, which is a welcome change from Cotton's usual overproduced records. AMG.listen hereBuy @ Amazon:
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By the time George Benson released Love Remembers for Warner in 1993, he had basically accomplished everything a musician could ever dream of: he has played with a who's who of jazz greats, scored big as both a jazz and an R&B artist, won numerous Grammys, and had his name become synonymous with two different radio formats: adult contemporary and smooth jazz. Long the bane of "serious" jazz critics,Benson didn't even need to think about it: he made music that communicated to millions from one record to the next -- the man had a single or album somewhere on the charts ubiquitously from 1975 until the turn of the 20th century! This 12-track set listed a number of fine producers on its roster including Bob James, Stewart Levine, Gary Henry, Jimmy George, and David Gamson, in addition to the man himself . The set begins with the laid-back funky soul of Brian McKnight's "I'll Be Good to You."Benson's voice and Wah Wah Watson's guitar twin intro lines in trademark fashion before gliding right into the sensual lyric. The interesting thing here -- besides the overwhelming infectiousness of the groove -- is what a fine singer Benson had become by this time. With Ndugu Chandler on the kit, William Bryant on the Fender Rhodes, Bill Summers on percussion, and McKnight on backing vocals, the tune is unbeatable as an album opener -- radio listeners thought so, too. "Got to Be There" is a romantic ballad with Benson in the guitar as well as vocal chairs, Melvin Davis holding down the big bank of keys, andGary Henry handling the programmed loops and percussion samples. It's elegant, graceful and drenched in atmosphere. The old CTI gang gets together again on the Bob James produced instrumental "My Heart Is Dancing" by Omar Hakim. James Benson, Hubert Laws, Richard Tee, Randy Brecker, andHakim team with relative newcomer Kirk Whalum on saxophone. It's an easy, mysterious groover with hip guitar work and horn charts. Another fine instrumental on the set is Whalum's "Willing to Fight," with James, bassist Will Lee, Hakim, Whalum and especially Benson all in fine form. This one got played like crazy on contemporary jazz radio stations at the time, and despite the dated sound of its production, holds up beautifully as a composition. Benson turns in another inspired vocal performance on "Lovin' on Borrowed Time," a mid-tempo soul tune written by Benson and John F. Hammond. A real surprise is the second from last cut, a cover of Ronnie Foster's "Lost in Love," with Phil Upchurch guesting on rhythm guitar and the composer on keyboards along with Paulinho Da Costa on percussion. A shimmering buckle shiner of a track, its groove is drenched in melody with Foster's keys hovering right aroundBenson's lead lines with Upchurch painting the backdrop with gorgeous chord fills. Love Remembers is certainly a solid high mark for Benson in the '90s, and anyone interested in Benson's brand of pop will be delighted with it. AMG.listen hereBuy @ Amazon:
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Emerson, Lake & Palmer were progressive rock's first supergroup. Greeted by the rock press and the public as something akin to conquering heroes, they succeeded in broadening the audience for progressive rock from hundreds of thousands into tens of millions of listeners, creating a major radio phenomenon as well. Their flamboyance on record and in the studio echoed the best work of the heavy metal bands of the era, proving that classical rockers could compete for that arena-scale audience. Over and above their own commercial success, the trio also paved the way for the success of such bands as Yes, who would become their chief rivals for much of the 1970s.Keyboardist Keith Emerson planted the seeds of the group in late 1969 when his band the Nice shared a bill at the Fillmore West with King Crimson, and the two first spoke of the possibility of working together. After the Crimson lineup began disintegrating during their first U.S. tour, Lake opted to leave the group. Upon officially teaming in 1970, Emerson and Lake auditioned several drummers before they approached Carl Palmer, not yet 20 years old and already an overpowering talent, as well as a former member of the Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster.
The trio's first rehearsals mostly picked up from the Nice's and King Crimson's respective repertoires, including such well-known numbers as "Rondo" and "21st Century Schizoid Man." In August of 1970, ELP played their first show at the Plymouth Guildhall, just ahead of the Isle of Wight Festival in August of 1970, where they astonished more than half a million onlookers with their sound and instrumental prowess. One month later, the group finished their debut album, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, comprised of their strongest early originals and two dazzling classical adaptations filled with rippling piano and synthesizer playing by Emerson along lightning-fast drumming by Palmer, anchored around Lake's bass work. That album was an instant success, rising to the Top Five in England and the Top 20 in America with considerable help from a last-minute addition -- pressed to fill out the running time of the album, the group settled on a composition that Lake had written as a boy, called "Lucky Man." The latter became their debut single and made the Top 50 in America.
The trio's stage act rapidly became the stuff of legend, Emerson's organ pyrotechnics -- which dated from his days with the Nice -- getting him compared to Jimi Hendrix. The recording of the second ELP album, Tarkus (1971), tested their cohesiveness while stretching their sound in new directions and dimensions, with a much more complex electronic keyboard sound and a running time on the title track that took up the entire first side. But "Tarkus" the composition, despite its difficult birth (at first, Lake didn't resonate very well to the musical textures or time signature that Emerson and Palmer had begun with), ultimately defined the ELP sound as most people understood it: loud and bombastic, somewhat gloomy in its lyrical tone, and boundlessly exultant in its instrumental power. The Tarkus album reached number one in England and the Top Ten in America, and it seemed at this point as though the trio could do little wrong -- after a couple of abortive attempts, they captured a new feature of their concerts, a rock adaptation of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, at a March 21, 1971, concert at Newcastle City Hall, and it, in turn, became another major hit. Indeed, as a result of the release of that album, several million teenagers of high-school age suddenly had Mussorgsky's name and music -- after a fashion -- in their consciousness, to the delight or chagrin of music educators (depending on their outlook) everywhere.
It was eight months before ELP's next record, Trilogy, was released in July of 1972. In the interim, they toured extensively, and made it their business to cultivate the college audience that took most naturally to their work. Lake never sang better, nor did the group ever sound more comfortable and laid-back on that album, and among the eight very solid numbers in a classical-rock vein, there was tucked a track that became virtually the band's signature tune, a version of Aaron Copland's Hoedown. The group also enjoyed its most successful pop single off of that album in the Lake-authored ballad "From the Beginning."
Such was the group's credibility that when it came time to record a version of the first movement of Alberto Ginastera's Piano Concerto No. 1 and the publisher denied them permission, they approached the composer himself, who fully approved of the track that became "Tocatta" on Brain Salad Surgery, released in 1973.The most popular album in their history, Brain Salad Surgery dominated the charts and the airwaves upon its release -- it was also their boldest group effort, offering the "Karn Evil 9" epic that filled more than the side of an LP, as well as the best playing and production in their history, and some of the most elaborate packaging of the fairly daunting progressive rock boom. By this time, the band had formed its own label, Manticore Records (named for one of the mythological creatures portrayed in "Tarkus"). Through Manticore, ELP also released material by ex-King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield and the Italian progressive rock band PFM; Sinfield's presence as a composer with Lake on Brain Salad Surgery also helped strengthen one of the group's lingering weaknesses, its lyrics -- where Lake's use of language had always tended toward the pleasant but simplistic, Sinfield, a veteran of King Crimson, provided lyrical complexity nearly as daunting as the best of the group's music.
In the wake of this string of successes, ELP released a triple live album, Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends, in August of 1974, which was their last new release for over three years. It was also at this point that the bandmembers began chafing at the restrictions that the trio put on their individual ambitions -- Emerson's boldest compositions were pure classical music, requiring orchestral accompaniment; Lake's songs didn't necessarily have much for Emerson or Palmer to contribute; similarly, Palmer's music was going in directions that would have left the others as little more than sidemen. A trio of solo albums would have been the answer, but they'd also seen how solo releases by members of such top acts as Yes and the Moody Blues had failed to sell in numbers resembling those of their respective groups.
The result was Works, Vol. 1, a double LP that was essentially three one-sided solo albums by each member and a fourth group side. Released in March of 1977, the record fared relatively poorly, both commercially and critically. Additionally, following the release, the group was never the same -- Works destroyed ELP's unity, and their remaining motivation for recording seemed only to be their contractual obligations. Worse still, they had squandered valuable time over the hiatus between Brain Salad Surgery and Works, during which the public's taste was changing -- by 1977, the notion of extended suites, conceptual rock albums, and classical-rock fusion that were trademarks of ELP's sound seemed hopelessly ponderous and pretentious, as the rise of punk rock and disco combined to undermine any notion of intellectualism in rock. Works, Vol. 2, released in November of 1977, was nothing more than a collection of obscure B-sides and odd tracks dating back four years -- though it received more positive reviews in some quarters than did its more ambitious predecessor.
Their next album of new material, Love Beach, was later described by the bandmembers themselves as nothing more than a matter of going through the motions. ELP split up in 1979, with Lake embarking on a moderately successful solo career, while Emerson took to composing film scores and recorded the occasional solo project and Palmer, after a stint with the band Carl Palmer's PM, joined the pop supergroup Asia. In the mid-'80s, Emerson and Lake got together with drummer Cozy Powell as the short-lived Emerson, Lake & Powell, complete with a self-titled 1985 album and a tour.
In 1991, Emerson, Lake & Palmer reunited for the Black Moon album, followed by a tour, which led to the release of Live at the Royal Albert Hall and another studio album, 1994's In the Hot Seat. The trio mounted several additional international reunion tours during the mid- to late '90s, although disputes over an intended new album, however, short-circuited their planned late-decade recording comeback. Emerson re-formed the Nice for a reunion tour and live album early in the new century, and later collaborated with Mike Bennett in the making of a triple-disc set entitled Reworks: Brain Salad Perjury, exploring new permutations of ELP's sound. He and Palmer have each toured with their respective bands, with Palmer later rejoining Asia for a 25th anniversary tour, while Greg Lake toured with Ringo Starr in 2001, and subsequently formed his own band. Lake and Emerson scheduled a tour of the United States and Canada performing in an acoustic format in 2010, and the trio planned to reunite for a single 40th anniversary performance in July of 2010, presented as part of Classic Rock magazine's High Voltage Festival at Victoria Park in London.
The original trio's first studio album in a dozen years suffers from the inevitable aging and darkening of Lake's voice, and a lack of real impetus, although it does contain one first-rate classical adaptation, The Dance of the Knights from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.AMG.listen hereBuy @ Amazon:
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