ALAN PRICE: THE PRICE TO PLAY (1966)
1) Barefooting; 2) Just Once
In My Life; 3) Going Down Slow; 4) Getting Mighty Crowded; 5) Honky Tonk; 6)
Move On Drifter; 7) Mercy Mercy; 8) Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever; 9) Ain't
That Peculiar; 10) I Can't Turn You Loose; 11) Critic's Choice; 12) Hi-Lili,
Hi-Lo; 13*) Any Day Now; 14*) Never Be Sick On Sunday; 15*) I Put A Spell On
You; 16*) Iechyd-Da; 17*) Take Me Home; 18*) Willow Weep For Me; 19*) Yours
Until Tomorrow; 20*) Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear; 21*) Who Cares;
22*) Shame.
After Alan Price parted way with The Animals,
it took him quite a bit of time to find the proper footing, and at the moment
when it came to recording his first album, that time had not yet arrived. As an
organ player, Price formed an essential part of the band's R&B sound — as a
leader of his own band, The Alan Price Set, and being responsible for the
material, the arrangements, and the singing, he was nowhere near as effective
as Burdon as long as he made the mistake of standing on the same R&B turf.
Indeed, The
Price To Play, which came out in the same year as The Animals' first
«priceless» (sorry for even more inevitable puns) album, Animalisms, could have most of its songs recorded by the actual
Animals, and nobody would feel the difference — there's quite a comparable
selection of rock'n'roll, blues, soul, pop, and R&B, maybe with a slightly
less hard edge than Burdon would give it all, but that could have easily been
remedied. There ain't a single original composition in sight, and although
there is no question about Alan actually loving all this stuff, «loving» a song
is hardly the only requirement necessary to make your version of it
outstanding.
As an R&B singer, Price hits the right
notes, but he is not too powerful, nor is he endowed with some stunningly
idiosyncratic vocal timbre — you'd probably have a much harder time trying to
memorize his identity on this album than you'd have with, say, Manfred Mann's
Paul Jones. As for his keyboard playing, The
Price To Play is very definitively a band
album, not a solo showcase, democratically allowing all members of The Alan
Price Set to flaunt their talents: not a good idea, I'd say, seeing as how Alan
is the most gifted musician of the lot, and how so much time is taken away from
him and donated to the brass players. (On the trivia side, the drummer for this
lot is none other than Alan White, whom we would all come to really know later
as Bill Bruford's replacement in Yes. No Tales
From Topographic Oceans preview here, though).
Not surprisingly, the organ-led instrumentals,
such as ʻHonky Tonkʼ and ʻCritic's Choiceʼ, are the most exciting tracks in
this lot — on the former, Alan gets to spread his playing wings wider than he
could ever allow himself in The Animals. Otherwise, all you really have to do
is admire his good taste in R&B covers, but really, you are not missing all
that much in life if you do not hear
him running through a British-disciplined ʻI Can't Turn You Looseʼ or a smooth,
poppy variant of Don Covay's ʻMercy, Mercyʼ, which only one year before was
covered by the Stones in a far snappier, edgier manner. And if you want a real
corny, catchy version of ʻHi-Lili, Hi-Loʼ, you do not have to go farther than
the Manfred Mann version, also from 1965. Ultimately, for most of these tunes,
Alan came a little too late and a little too senselessly.
The CD reissue of the album does somehow pump
up its value, by throwing on ten additional tracks from contemporary singles
and EPs. This includes Alan's first significant solo commercial success in the
UK, an organ-led version of ʻI Put A Spell On Youʼ — slyly and subtly
re-written and re-arranged so that musically and atmospherically, it brings on
associations with ʻHouse Of The Rising Sunʼ (even the solo in the instrumental
break begins with precisely the same chords as the ʻHouseʼ solo); and, more
importantly, ʻSimon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bearʼ, an early song by Randy
Newman that introduced Alan to music-hall values and pretty much turned his
entire subsequent career around. Both tunes are quite nice, even if, as of
then, neither of them still suggested that Price would ever become a successful
songwriter in his own rights.
Anyway, criticisms aside, it all feels good,
friendly, and professional — listening to the record is guaranteed to not cause
any harm whatsoever. But clearly, if this
were to become Price's regular output, then leaving The Animals would have been
the biggest blunder he ever made in his life. Fortunately, he was quick enough
to realize that himself.
I was very pleased to read this review; I can now see the journey made from 60s RnB to later piano-based orchestrations (and I think Simon Smith AHADB is great). But who do you think you were writing it for? Alan Price must be the most parochial UK artist to appear in your writings, the Kinks previously holding that spot. Singing about mining disasters and working class marches against poverty, he couldn't really be expected to have world-wide appeal. And he didn't, only attaining the lower reaches of the charts in Australia and virtually nothing in America. Not for the first time, it has me wondering about the musical culture you've encountered. Me, I lived through it. But where were you when Top Of The Pops was in it's heyday? How did you come to Wire and Cabaret Voltaire? I'd like to know - maybe one of your mini-essays is overdue.
ReplyDeleteDon't know if you bother with the comments written here, so copied to the Facebook Page
Nice to see you covering Alan Price, I imagine his catalogue becomes a bit of a mess to figure out though. Between Today and Yesterday is a bit a classic album, pretty original.
ReplyDeleteI bought the CD to hear the 2 English hits. In general I was disappointed with the album with much of it not even being rock and roll. His version of "I put a spell on you" was disturbing compared to Arthur Brown's version. I much prefer Scaffold.
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