Album Reviews

Date: 1994
Release: HEARTBEAT
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A musical mish mash of 33 rocksteady, ska, and dancehall tracks of the highest order, all recorded at Clement “Coxsone” Dodd’s legendary Studio One. Dodd was the Berry Gordy of Jamaica, and like Motown, his label consistently cranked out hits which combined strong song-writing with catchy melodies and heavy rhythms to set you moving. For a while there in the 60s and 70s, this was the Jamaican studio that was hard to beat. This compilation reveals why. Featuring the absolute best from the Studio One vaults, it delivers a perfectly flowing mix capable of converting the most reggae-hating elements of Babylon to the Red, Gold, Black, and Green.

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Date: February 2, 1999 (release)
Release: Polygram #556074
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A heap of wrinkled laundry led me to discover Wes Anderson’s 1998 film, Rushmore, as well as its soundtrack. I had graduated high school a year earlier and was back at home after my first year in college, ironing in front of the television (what else to do in the ‘burbs on a viciously humid July afternoon? It seemed obvious at the time…), when I stumbled across a movie on cable that was visually and musically unlike anything I’d seen in all my young life. So there I stood for an hour and a half, transfixed and ironing as Rushmore transported me back to the weird time that was high school in songs and images.

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Date: 1998
Release: RHINO #R2 75209
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Eighteen sizzling Latin grooves with the power to put some spice back into your life. The tracks collected here were recorded between 1954 and 1972, and range from classic mambo and Latin-jazz to funk and salsa.

This collection contains only the hottest tracks from such major Latin artists as Willie Bobo, Mongo Santamaria, Cal Tjader, Machito, Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, and others. There are also a number of obscure and less-obvious selections, including songs by Ocho, Kako & His Orchestra, and the ever-funky Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers, making it a well rounded and totally enjoyable introduction to this diverse genre.

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Date: 1983
Release: RHINO
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“Somebody… anybody… help me… scream!” insists Chief Rocker Busy Bee and you best believe the party people oblige. Recorded mostly in a dark and sweaty little rap club called the Dixie in the South Bronx, the soundtrack to the movie Wild Style may be the ultimate source for old school rap and hip-hop. It’s the original shit – slick, young rappers with the lyrical prowess boasting and bragging, badder than bad, all over the steadiest, funkiest beats and scratches. The film, the story of a legendary graffiti artist named Zoro who’s pursued by a reporter amidst the throbbing South Bronx rap scene, was made in 1982, predating what is considered the first rap album on CD, Run DMC’s 1984 debut. The music from the film sounds as fresh and visionary today as it did then, the rhythmic and rhyming skills of the rappers and DJs undeniable, flowing with finesse and rock solid confidence.

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Date: 1993
Release: Virgin #87950
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Unless you spent the entire summer of 1997 in a coma, you’ve heard the song “Bittersweet Symphony.” Found everywhere from the top of the charts to Nike ads, under the leadership of Richard Ashcroft, The Verve crafted an album’s worth of beautiful ballads — Urban Hymns — that featured intelligent lyrics, soulful singing and exquisitely crafted pop melodies. Alas, The Verve broke up after the album, and we’ll have to hope that Richard Ashcroft‘s solo career provides us with more of those type of songs.

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Date: 1975
Release: ASYLUM #2-2008
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A timeless live-in-studio performance by one of the most original artists of the past 30 years. This album has the distinctly bohemian feel of a smoky Greenwich village café transplanted onto the blooming desert wasteland of the Los Angeles metropolitan region. His lyrics are random and poetic, sketching out shifty characters and strange misadventures straight out of Waits‘ “narcotic American night.” Jazz backed and swaggering, Waits lures you into his lurid underworld of all-night diners and forgotten truck stops. Nighthawks resounds with the intimacy of a small night club caught in the midst of an inspired after-hours session. Waits swings and rhymes over walking bass lines, lightly brushed cymbals, and breathy saxophones, creating an atmosphere heavy with smoke and the clang of empty bottles. Opening the album with a comically bleak “Emotional Weather Report,” Waits sets the tone of what is to follow, singing with self-effacing candor about his alcohol drenched loneliness and desperation. “Eggs & Sausage” aches beautifully with a hunger that can’t be satisfied by the greasy fare and heartburn of late-night dives.

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Date: September 1963 – April 1964 (recording)
Release: MCA #112940
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It’s no secret, the music of Muddy Waters attacks the senses like a vibrator that runs on a Caterpillar engine.

In 1940, Allan Lomax recorded a small time farm hand McKinley Morganfield; later that decade McKinley moved to Chicago, changed his name to Muddy and ‘plugged’ in; everything changed. Elvis might have stolen his hip shake, but no-one could steal Muddy’s ‘mojo’.

So what happened in 1963? Muddy went back to his roots, unplugged, and recorded a stinging ‘voodoo romp’ through the dark Delta entitled Folk Singer. Timeless, nothing plays ‘cooler’ on a hot night or ‘hotter’ on a cold night; you can’t help but transport back in time and feel that the Devil’s just one step behind you.

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Date: October 15, 1957
Release: Verve #833 551-2
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I accidentally lucked into the music of Ben Webster while sifting through the “W” section of some dusty used record bin years ago. The cover looked cool, with its classic profile shot of an unsmiling, world-weary Webster featured beneath the boldly printed title, SOULVILLE. I impulsively bought the disc, took it home, and a few days later got around to playing it. Whoa! Had I stumbled onto something BIG. From that record on, I no longer thought of jazz as just another category of shopping music. Never before had I heard such soulful, sensual, bluesy sounds, and I haven’t since. It was Webster’s tough, raspy, growling tone that caught my teenage attention.

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Date: 1970 (original release)
Release: Stang #1005
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Introducing the Whatnauts is the kind of hard-to-find album that makes you pee in your pants when you uncover a copy withering away at some Goodwill, yard sale, or flea market. Scavenging for their recordings is what you had to do until the late ‘90s when no fewer than three CDs of the Whatnauts’ music finally hit the streets. Obscure beyond reason, the Whatnauts were comprised of Garnett Jones, Billy Herndo, Gerald “Chunky” Pinckney, and a guy identified only as Ray, who disappeared after this album. They were masterful purveyors of heartache-soul. They were also producer George Kerr’s pet project. A short list of Kerr’s previous credits includes: the O’Jays’ (“Look Over Your Shoulder” and “I’m So Glad I Found You”), the Moments (“All I Have” and “Lucky Me”) and Linda Jones’s “Hypnotized.” He later produced the Skull Snaps’ acclaimed album on GSF Records.

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Date: 1973
Release: SONY #65431 (1997)
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“One of the best live releases from the ’70s” — All Music Guide

With the exception of jazz trios, I’m not a big fan of live albums. Nothing is more painful than hearing your favorite singer straining to bring a song to life that once seemed so effortless on the original record. Concerts are meant to be seen (and heard) once, then confined to the warm, hazy depths of concertgoing memory.

Leave it to Bill Withers to turn my world upside down with Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall. This 1972 concert captures Withers at the top of his game, before “Just the Two of Us” become overly covered pop cheese and the inspiration for a lame Will Smith song. From the opening number (his hit “Use Me”) Mr. Withers is warm, relaxed Read more »