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Album Reviews
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(166 reviews)
Date: May 30, 1972
Release: Right Stuff #29144
Cover Art: view / download
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Recorded in Memphis in the blackest of soul styles, Bobby “The Preacher” Womack’s Understanding overflows with raw energy and emotion. Blurring the lines between Southern soul, funk, and gospel, the album’s rough edges reflected something fundamental about life in Black America and the need to reach for something higher. Womack had learned well from his idol Sam Cooke that the people wanted to hear about something besides love. In the gritty “Simple Man,” Womack preaches to his brothers and sisters:”Hang on in there…we don’t live on a hill, but we stand just as tall.” At the time he wrote the songs for Understanding, Womack was a man of considerable talents who had too little to show for it in the way of successful solo records.
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Date: Oct 27, 1972 (release)
Release: Motown #157354
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What happened to Stevie Wonder? The second-coolest blind piano-playing soul singer in rock history, he was also one of the smartest, most talented and engaging songwriters this side of John Lennon, and he wasn’t, and still isn’t, self-absorbed and egotistical. (And unlike the first-coolest blind piano-playing vocalist, Ray Charles, Stevie never shilled for the state lottery.) After being a Motown prodigy and, among other things, co-writing “Tears of a Clown” with Smokey Robinson, Little Stevie Wonder came into his own.
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Date: 1969 & 1970
Release: WARNER BROS. # 9 46459-2
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The very first R&B group signed to Warner Bros., Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band streaked forward with a solid run of hit records that have all but faded into obscurity. "Express Yourself," their best known hit (included on this disc), peaked at #3 on the R&B and #12 on the Pop charts.
In the Jungle and Express Yourself represented two important steps forward from the 60s soul sound and into the raw funk of the 1970s. In the Jungle features originally re-worked covers of Wilson Picket‘s "I’m a Midnight Mover," Sly & The Family Stone‘s "Everyday People," and the Doors’ "Light My Fire," a jazzed up burst of soulfulness that builds with slow determination to its climax. The album’s high point comes with the eminently funky instrumental, "Oh Happy Gabe (Sometimes Blue)," which just begs to be sampled.
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Date: 1986
Release: Virgin/Geffen
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In the pantheon of post-punk new wave bands, few wrote songs with as keen an understanding of melody, harmony, and arranging as XTC, whose innovative songwriting has often been likened to that of The Kinks. Although the band’s quirky style cultivated an avid cult following over the years, the group never managed to capture much commercial recognition. The tightly crafted lyrics and dense arrangements on 1986′s Skylarking make it one of XTC’s most cohesive albums.
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Date: 1973-1974
Release: Rykodisc #40025
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I.
The late Frank Zappa was a rock star whose fame will rise in this new century only when listeners start forgetting that he wrote lyrics. I’ve always suspected he only wrote provocative words for his songs so that people would listen. If he had made his strange brand of avant-guard classical-pop-jazz-rock without populating it with scatological imagery and absurdity, we might not have ever heard of this crazy genius. So his ploy worked. At his worst, Zappa was like a flasher in the park trying to shock all the old ladies. But sometimes he got it right, held his lantern through the bright of day and made some great rock and roll.
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Date: 1968 (recording)
Release: Repertoire #4940
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If you weren’t fortunate enough to hear this music when it first appeared in the mid-Sixties, you will never know the extremes of its magic.
Tom Petty
Since the rise of Oasis and Brit-Rock in the mid 90s, critics have been handing out Beatles comparisons with the mindless frequency of meter-maids writing parking tickets. This runaway praise-inflation has reached the point where just about any new British band to cross the Atlantic is automatically heralded as either Beatles-esque or Nick Drake-ish. Fortunately there are a few free thinkers in rock journalism, a small uncompromising minority who still define themselves by the music they recommend, steadfastly refusing to serve as stooges for the record industry.
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