Cher: Foxy Lady

CHER: FOXY LADY (1972)

1) Living In A House Divided; 2) It Might As Well Stay Monday; 3) Song For You; 4) Down, Down, Down; 5) Don't Try To Close A Rose; 6) The First Time; 7) Let Me Down Easy; 8) If I Knew Then; 9) Don't Hide Your Love; 10) Never Been To Spain.

With a title like that, you might be expecting a bunch of tight, hot, sweaty Hendrix covers, but no dice. Once again, the album was produced by Snuff Garrett, with only marginal involvement from Sonny, yet the results were much less satisfactory than on the previous record. Two reasons come to mind immediately. First, the arrangements have become much more schmaltzy, with excessive use of Vegasy orchestration overshadowing the basic melodies — and second, Cher herself has become much more schmaltzy. The entire record, for crying out loud, sounds like one big rehearsal for an upcoming Vegas gig.

The best song of the lot is probably the first one, ʽLiving In A House Dividedʼ; although written by corporate songwriter Tom Bahler, it was a totally appropriate choice for Cher to sing, consi­dering her strained relationship with Sonny at the time. However, the arrangement is dreadfully generic, and the vocal performance is completely unconvincing — again, Cher finds it hard to express broken-hearted suffering, trying to compensate for this with a powerhouse screamfest, but ultimately she just ends up stuck somewhere between pain and anger, and the emotional potential of the tune ends up wasted. (Compare ʽGypsys, Tramps & Thievesʼ, where the anger mode worked to near-perfection).

And yet, the tune is still better than almost anything on this collection of mostly boring, hyper-orchestrated musical slush where everything goes wrong — mediocre songs, by-the-book arran­gements, uninvolved singing. Leon Russell's ʽA Song For Youʼ is another possible exception, but the song has been covered by just about everybody on Earth, so why would you want to add a Cher ver­sion? At least somebody like Karen Carpenter could capture all of its nuances and make it sound like a dialog between her two inner selves — Cher knows nothing about nuances, and be­sides it's almost impossible to picture her being "alone now and singing this song for you", con­sidering how natural it is for her to "act out my life on stages with 10,000 people watching".

There is no need whatsoever to comment on all the other schlock here; the main problem is not the songs, the main problem is the performer — she cannot even show a decent sense of humor on Hoyt Axton's ʽNever Been To Spainʼ, a cool demonstration of friendly ignorance and endea­ring nonchalance on which she ends up badly overacting and ruining the joke. (Granted, it's not as bad as the far more popular Three Dog Night cover, but only because Cher as a concept by which we measure our pain is vastly preferable to Three Dog Night in the same function in general). The only thing left to do, really, is just wonder at how they could miss the point so badly second time around — but then, the Sixties already showed us that the Cher story would always be a ran­dom lottery of many losses and few wins, and Foxy Lady, alas, initiates yet another losing streak, not to mention firmly cementing the dame's Seventies' image as that of a glam Vegas queen. Which worked all right for her at the time, to be sure, but now it's thumbs down all the way.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced (IAS #33)

Quite a clumsy review of a nearly impeccable album today:

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced

Bonnie Raitt: Dig In Deep

BONNIE RAITT: DIG IN DEEP (2016)

1) Unintended Consequence Of Love; 2) Need You Tonight; 3) I Knew; 4) All Alone With Something To Say; 5) What You're Doin' To Me; 6) Shakin' Shakin' Shakes; 7) Undone; 8) If You Need Somebody; 9) Gypsy In Me; 10) The Comin' Round Is Going Through; 11) You've Changed My Mind; 12) The Ones We Couldn't Be.

The unimaginativeness of those album covers is beginning to get me down, but then again, it does fit in very well with the music. So here we are now — another four years, another album that shows Bonnie doing her thing, not giving a damn, getting rave reviews from mainstream critics for doing her thing and not giving a damn, and pretty much ignored by the world at large and probably to be forgotten at the precise moment that she releases her next one, despite all the rave reviews and despite doing her thing and despite not giving a damn.

Is there anything particularly unpredictable here? Well, she covers Los Lobos (ʽShakin' Shakin' Shakesʼ), which is sort of a first, and INXS (ʽNeed You Tonightʼ), which is a complete surprise, but then ʽNeed You Tonightʼ is one of the band's most rocking tunes, and it's cool to see Bonnie's band redo it in the manner of a Stones' rocker (incidentally, the Stones themselves had already recycled the song's trademark trilling riff on ʽLook What The Cat Dragged Inʼ ten years before). For that matter, a lot of stuff here sounds like Stones-lite — Bonnie's second guitarist George Marinelli suddenly decides to go all Keith Richards on tracks like ʽThe Comin' Round Is Going Throughʼ, while Bonnie's slide lead wraps around him like a Ronnie Wood solo.

Not that I mind — in fact, at this time I don't mind at all whatever she is doing, because neither the Stonesy rockers nor the country ballads sound annoying or distasteful: there are no objections I could raise against the arrangement and production values of the tunes, or against the professio­nalism or even against Bonnie's vocals: now, after all those years, she finally reaps the fruits, with a vocal delivery every bit as strong and technically perfect as it was forty-five years ago, when her vocals were considered emotionally and technically mediocre compared to so many of her peers... and where are her peers now? But if you want a nuanced opinion, I'd say that Dig In Deep is a little weaker than Slipstream, because it sounds more like a bunch of bluesy jams re­corded for fun in the studio rather than a record with an attitude.

That's about all I can say before I turn into Thom Jurek of the All-Music Guide and start pepper­ing you with enticing, but meaningless phrases like "her earthy singing voice is more disciplined and holds more emotional authority than ever before". Isn't "disciplined" sort of the opposite of "emotional"? And, anyway, if what he is trying to say is that Bonnie Raitt only gets better as she gets older, wouldn't that be somewhat underselling her early records? As far as I can tell, she's just stuck in a formula, and all she can do is polish that formula to professional perfection, and the only reason why this stuff is preferable to the Nick Of Time era (and it is) is because it avoids the pitfalls of hollow, soulless production. And that's about it.

PS. I actually enjoyed listening to this album, and even toe-tapped and played air guitar on a couple of tracks. Honestly, I did. I'm just jotting this down because I will most likely never ever hear it again, so check: "In 2016, I did truly and verily enjoy Bonnie Raitt's Dig In Deep". Let posterity be the judge.

Cat Power: What Would The Community Think

CAT POWER: WHAT WOULD THE COMMUNITY THINK (1996)

1) In This Hole; 2) Good Clean Fun; 3) What Would The Community Think; 4) Nude As The News; 5) They Tell Me; 6) Taking People; 7) Fate Of The Human Carbine; 8) King Rides By; 9) Bathysphere; 10) Water & Air; 11) Enough; 12) The Coat Is Always On.

Well, I certainly cannot vouch for the community, but I think that Chan Marshall's third album is a definite improvement on the first two — unfortunately, still not nearly enough to make me experience it as a piece of music rather than a series of dramatic monologues delivered in quasi-musical form. She's almost getting there: the production is cleaner, the musical influences get more diverse, and a small bunch of the tracks show signs of distinguishable melodies, although there's nothing particularly curious or outstanding about them. However, it's really not about the music, it's more of a «okay, for this particular text and mood I'd need some country flavor», «this is a pissed-off manifesto that requires a bit of grungy guitar», «here I'm being icily somnambu­lant, so just a few quiet acoustic chords will do» etc. sort of a thing.

The progression is most obviously sensed when you compare the original recording of ʽEnoughʼ with the new version on this album — the acoustic melody is more complex and focused, the drums add extra punch, the vocals are more disciplined and singing-oriented; the essence, how­ever, stays precisely the same, so essentially the difference is simply that we're moving into the world of hi-fi from the world of lo-fi, which is almost always a plus in my opinion (I'd say that in indie rock, there is maybe one case out of a hundred when the lo-fi approach truly works better than a hi-fi one), but compositional progress is still non-existent.

As for the atmosphere, well, extra cleanness of sound has not influenced it one bit. Remember, in the previous review, I'd already said that the simplest impression that Cat Power music gives us is that of the last survivor walking around the ruins in a post-nuclear world? Well, that feeling certainly does not dissipate once you hear the femme fatale muttering "After this there will be no one, after this there will be no one" to the sound of a dark folk acoustic guitar on ʽGood Clean Funʼ. Of course, when you start drilling the lyrics, you realize that she is really singing about a breakup (not a surprise), but honestly, I'd rather not start drilling the lyrics. The good news is, she manages to conjure a kind of gothic atmosphere without formally sounding gothic, and as for the lyrics, either I'm too culturally backwards to get their greatness or they are, in fact, merely a stream of conscious where a small handful of brilliant lines has to be picked out of a huge amount of meaningless, association-less verbal chaff ("after this there will be hats on different bodies, after this there will be no more beautiful dresses" certainly sounds like chaff to me).

The most «important» track on the album, chosen for release as a single and also accompanied by the singer's first ever music video, was ʽNude As The Newsʼ, apparently dealing with memories of an abortion she had in 1992 — another good subject to wrap up in a desensitized post-nuclear atmospheric blanket. The song does have arguably the most memorable chorus on the album — the plaintive "Jackson, Jesse, I've got a son in me!"; apparently, «Jackson» and «Jesse» are the names of Patti Smith's children, so the ensuing "he's related to you, he's waiting to meet you" is supposed to emphasize the spiritual closeness between Chan and Patti (yes, as if we needed yet another confirmation of the obvious fact that Chan Marshall worships at the altar of P. S.). The overall sentiment is one of sorrowful guilt, though she never blames herself explicitly, and there's a kind of strained tension in the song that really puts it on top of everything else — yet, at the same time, something still turns me off. Maybe it's the generic whiney overtones that appear in her voice every time she raises it to a painful scream; in such moments, she's not that different from your average Courtney Love, I'd say.

The voice may actually be a bigger problem — now that the production is cleaner and overall muddiness of the sound is no longer an acceptable excuse, tunes that rely almost exclusively on the alleged hypnotic qualities of the lady's voice (like the two-chord folk-blues vamp of ʽThey Tell Meʼ) will depend on whether you are ready to forgive her rather ordinary timbre, her com­plete lack of vocal training, and her impaired ability to sustain high notes because of the, you know, verbally undescribable magic in the way she strings those corrupted notes together. Per­sonally, I confess to occasionally cringing when she bums one of these high notes (ʽWater & Airʼ is particularly awful in that respect), and actually prefer those tunes that are more fully arranged, so there's at least something between her «raw» vocalizing and my ears (as in the peaceful alt-rocker ʽTaking Peopleʼ, with its loud rhythm section). Even that does not always help: ʽWater & Airʼ, for instance, has an experimental scrapy cello part in the place of a lead counter-melody, but the screechy vocals still ruin the song whenever they can — and on the cover of Bill Calahan's ʽBathysphereʼ, there's a weird bleeping synth pattern superimposed on the acoustic rhythm (why? does it have anything to do with the functioning of the bathysphere?), which throws in a novelty component, but when she goes falsetto (actually, crack-hiss-falsetto) on "set me free", I just don't care any more. Novelty or not, lady, but with dirty tricks like these, you're not really fit to step into the shoes of Patti Smith.

Overall, there's definitely some progress here, but it's a bit like trying to improve on an old B-movie by remastering it in high definition — so now you have all its pluses and all its minuses in much clearer focus. A record that shows potential, sure enough, and space for improvement, and some talent and some creativity and some genuine atmospherics, yet certainly not the masterpiece of contemporary sonic art that the trendy hip people would have been looking for in 1996. Again, the only thing that really makes me happy here is that she could have very easily remained fully wedged in this formula — surely there'd be enough happy people to lap it up for half a dozen more times with exactly the same ingredients — yet she did not, and so on we go.

Cheap Trick: In Color

CHEAP TRICK: IN COLOR (1977)

1) Hello There; 2) Big Eyes; 3) Downed; 4) I Want You To Want Me; 5) You're All Talk; 6) Oh Caroline; 7) Clock Strikes Ten; 8) Southern Girls; 9) Come On Come On; 10) So Good To See You.

All right, so this album is neither as crunchy and raw as its predecessor (because they changed producers) nor as subtly deep as its follow-up (because they temporarily ran out of truly titillating subjects) — but it is still the perfect Cheap Trick album, simply because it has no filler what­soever. This is where Nielsen's songwriting powers reach a genuine peak, as does his art of genre-hopping (and no, it's not nearly true that Nielsen only knows two subgenres of pop music: the «Lennon Pop» and the «McCartney Pop» genres, even if they do get unfairly superior coverage on this record — he also knows all the subgenres that are derived from those two!!)

For starters, there's probably no single other song that would explain all the essence of Cheap Trick more effectively than ʽHello Thereʼ does in one and a half minutes. On the surface, it is a silly, generic arena-rock winding-up of the fans — "would you like to do a number with me? would you like to?.. WOULD YOU LIKE TO?..." — but the use of "hello there, ladies and gen­tle­men", hardly an appropriate turn of phrase for a rock'n'roll arena, inverts the message and places the whole thing under heavy irony: it's like they're a Las Vegas act that accidentally ended up on a much bigger stage, and now they have to address the rock'n'roll crowds in the «prover­bial» rock'n'roll manner. That's the band's double nature in a nutshell — they're formally respec­ting the arena-rock cliches, but they're also mocking them at the same time — in the same way that some of the more intelligent hair metal bands, like Extreme, would do this with their genre a decade later. And if I am not mistaken, that brief guitar solo at the end is lifted almost directly from Bowie's ʽHang On To Yourselfʼ, which is just as symbolic: a retro-nod from the current generation of ironic glam-rockers to the Grand Deity of ironic glam-rock himself.

But just so that you do not forget that Cheap Trick have a real musical heart behind all the irony and all the «cheap tricks», the next song is ʽBig Eyesʼ, which, on the guttest of gut levels, is my personal favorite Cheap Trick song of all time. Yes, it is obviously far from the most intelligent one, or the most sophisticatedly arranged one, but there are few, if any, things in the world that beat the absolute MONSTER of a riff that kicks in right after the brief arpeggiated guitar intro, and then loyally reappears, doubled by the vocals, in each chorus, the "I keep falling for those big eyes..." riff. God, what a monster — this is basically Tony Iommi borrowed for power-pop usage, a caveman declaration of voodoo lust that screams «bewitched» and «brutal» at the same time. The contrast between Zander's angry screechy vocals in the verses and the group's collective «dazed and confused» harmonies in the chorus is priceless by itself, but it is largely the riff that turns the song into the single Top Headbanging moment of the band's career. And, believe you me, only very few hard rock acts in the world are capable of such instantaneous magic.

Cheap, simple, delectable thrills like these are the word of the day — if ʽHello Thereʼ and ʽBig Eyesʼ are not enough for you, then we will close the deal with ʽI Want You To Want Meʼ, Niel­sen's intentional attempt to write a very lightweight pop song that would send the genre up, pretty much like ʽHello Thereʼ sends up the crowdpleasing rituals of the arena. People like comparing it to McCartney, but McCartney took those simple love songs more seriously and he'd probably never write anything quite as simplistic, not even in 1977 — this is more like, I dunno, Osmonds territory or something, and yet, still unbeatable, largely due to the "didn't I see you crying?" bridge where you have the first phrase as tender and caring, the second one as worried and fear­ful, and the third one as determined and heroic (only the fourth one, reprising the first, kind of breaks the flaw — I always keep thinking of the last one as slightly underwritten. Mail the whole thing to Macca for some perfection polish?). So, classic rock radio overplay aside (and who listens to these stations nowadays, anyway?), that makes the single best pure pop hook in Cheap Trick history closely following up on the heels of their single best heavy rock hook. Everything's de­lightfully insincere, of course, but who cares?

The other big hit was ʽSouthern Girlsʼ, Cheap Trick's personal contribution to the series of an­thems to collective female attraction that already included such obvious influences as ʽCalifornia Girlsʼ and ʽSeptember Gurlsʼ: Trick's song manages to resemble both of them in spirit (and a bit in form) without being obviously derivative of either, but also, as could be expected, a little ironic in nature (after all, the sincerity of a bunch of Illinoisans' love for «Southern girls» might be put under doubt, not to mention that they hadn't even been more to the South than Oklahoma by early 1977). It is still a near-perfect power-pop creation: a puffed-up musical march that builds up a stereotype and then proceeds to demolish it — not that any actual Southern girl would be happy if she were addressed with "Southern girl, you've got nothing to lose!"

But that's just the hits anyway, and then there's everything else, never letting down the quality angle. ʽDownedʼ? One of their finest early quasi-psychedelic numbers — Zander's "downed, out of my head...", arching out of your speakers, really feels like he means it. ʽYou're All Talkʼ? It's like Stevie Wonder's ʽSuperstitionʼ gone hard rock and sped up: cool, angry, funky bass and guitar interplay, not to mention the hilarious contrast between Zander's pleading "please don't go... please don't go away from me" and pissed-off "you're all talk! you're all talk!" — more of the «confused caveman» emotional angle. ʽOh Carolineʼ? Perhaps the most Foreigner-like of the lot, but in the general tongue-in-cheek context of the album, even its falsetto "go to the end of the world... FOR YOUR LOVE!" feels like a post-modernist deconstruction of the arena love ballad rather than «the real thing». ʽClock Strikes Tenʼ? Their fastest, head-spinningest piece of rock­abilly gone heavy and mastodontic. ʽCome On Come Onʼ? Until I bothered to listen to the lyrics, I thought it was one of those "people get together" anthems that stimulate the listener to action, like breaking a few chairs or pulling a hunger strike on the White House lawn, but it turns out that the song is actually an instigation to copulation, which makes those "come on, come on... yeah yeah, yeah yeah..." group harmonies even more hilarious (and gross), though I can, like, totally envision Rick Nielsen in his checkered suit and baseball hat as a perverted voyeur.

By the time the album tells you that "I want you to stay" in Zander's most seductive falsetto on the last track, you might just be tempted to follow the admonition and play it from the beginning all over again — at the very least, it is clear that In Color has fully capitalized upon the promise of the self-titled debut, and that Cheap Trick have pretty much saved the day for old school classic rock. They may have been too derivative for their home country to want them: the album sold significantly better than Cheap Trick, but still barely charted, and neither did any of the singles. Yet they did gain enough prominence to earn plenty of bookings in Europe and in Japan, and time only worked in their favor: these days, it's even hard to guess that the record was pro­duced in 1977, with not a single trace of the contemporary punk sound (sure sounds a lot like the New York Dolls in places, but in 1977 that was yesterday's news already), let alone disco. What really matters, though, is how great those pop hooks are, song after song after song: these guys sure knew how to be consistent, if only for a brief while, and that particular lesson that they most likely did learn from The Beatles really separates them from the majority of their contemporaries. So, quite an exultated thumbs up here.

Carole King: Wrap Around Joy

CAROLE KING: WRAP AROUND JOY (1974)

1) Nightingale; 2) Change In Mind, Change Of Heart; 3) Jazzman; 4) You Go Your Way, I'll Go Mine; 5) You're Something New; 6) We Are All In This Together; 7) Wrap Around Joy; 8) You Gentle Me; 9) My Lovin' Eyes; 10) Sweet Adonis; 11) A Night This Side Of Dying; 12) The Best Is Yet To Come.

Here it is, the album that Rhymes & Reasons should have really been if Carole hadn't suddenly felt the need to wrap around pure mellowness instead of joy...ful pop hooks. With the relative failure of Fantasy (or, more accurately, with the world's refusal to acknowledge her as a bona fide progressive artist), she returns here to the simpler pop song format, as well as (temporarily) abandons her lyrical ambitions — all the words here are credited to David Palmer, the original singer of Steely Dan. (Some people use this as a criticism, but who really listens to Carole King songs for the words? It's usually enough to just get a general message of what the song is about, and that's that — I like the tone of something like ʽBeautifulʼ far more than the actual words of ʽBeautifulʼ, which are just an ordinary form of bedroom psychotherapy).

The difference is that there's more upbeat and truly joyful (rather than melancholic) stuff; the songs, on the whole, are better written, with more sharply delineated and emotionally filled cho­ruses, and although even the best of these tunes cannot stand comparison with Tapestry (maybe because this album is just a bit too happy in comparison?), almost everything is memorable in one way or another, not to mention endearing as usual. Basically, if you are looking for a very straightforward, very romantic and peaceful, but still very well-written, album of Carole King songs, Wrap Around Joy is precisely what you should be doing.

The big hit was ʽJazzmanʼ, an ode to saxophonist Curtis Amy, predictably replete with lengthy sax solos itself (from notorious sax player Tom Scott) and therefore blending well into the epoch (it might not be a coincidence that Lennon's ʽWhatever Gets You Thru The Nightʼ, also heavily dependent on blaring saxes, rose to #1 in the same year — actually, in the exact same month, November '74, as Carol's song hit #2). It's catchy, joyful, uplifting, and almost becomes proto-disco in the chorus without losing that typically C. K. warmth, even if there's no particular depth to the message. Even better, though a little less successful on the charts, was ʽNightingaleʼ, a tight piece of soft funk with a really beautiful chorus of friendly melancholia and an inventive arrange­ment (there's an odd recorder-like — nightingale-like? — lead part throughout the song that adds an odd spirit of pastoral peacefulness to the tune).

But even apart from the hits, there's plenty of goodies in store. The title track, for instance, with its stuttering rhythmics, honky-tonk piano, and over-joyful harmonies, is the closest she'd ever come to «pub pop» at the time, with intentional musical similarities to ʽRock'n'Roll Fever & The Boogie Woogie Fluʼ — and the chorus, expectedly, is all but impossible to get out of your head. Perhaps it is more of a musical joke for her, like ʽSmackwater Jackʼ, but so much the better. ʽSweet Adonisʼ explores the good news theme from a power-pop side, while ʽMy Lovin' Eyesʼ is more in the soul/R&B vein, but both songs have melodic twists in the lead vocal part that remind you of Carole King's genius far more efficiently than anything from the previous two albums. Even the slower ballads do the job — ʽYou Go Your Way, I'll Go Mineʼ (nothing to do with the similarly titled Dylan song) is a really sharp-edged song about separation, where the verses con­vey desperation (I shiver every time she raises her voice on the "with sharp and angry lies..." line, with all the determination of a sentenced prisoner speaking her last piece) and the chorus, with an abrupt "well all right!", pushes the song into a more self-assertive direction; and even though ʽChange In Mind, Change In Heartʼ «wastes» four and a half minutes on a single vocal hook, it still makes sense to wait for it; it's a really touching ode to mutual tolerance and reconciliation, and the «mind / heart» dilemma is handled in quite a special way.

Of course, none of this should efface the fact that the record is stylistically monotonous and emo­tionally simplistic — despite sharing its occasional moments of subtle sadness, it's largely a very happy album, as suggested by its title, reflecting a fairly peaceful period in Carole's life (she wouldn't be divorcing Larkey until 1976), and, like all very happy records, will never be as ex­citing and stimulating as albums about pain and suffering. But there's enough intelligence and simple, tasteful beauty behind the proverbial shine and gloss, and I dare say that with a more in­ventive approach to arrangement and production, Wrap Around Joy could have easily become and remained a critical favorite. As it is, it merely returned Carole to commercial success for a brief while, but that, too, was a pretty happy happening for 1974. Thumbs up.

Canned Heat: Vintage

CANNED HEAT: VINTAGE (1970)

1) Spoonful; 2) Big Road Blues; 3) Rollin' And Tumblin'; 4) Got My Mojo Working; 5) Pretty Thing; 6) Louise; 7) Dimples; 8) Can't Hold On Much Longer; 9) Straight Ahead; 10) Rollin' And Tumblin' (with harmonica).

Just as the band seemed to be getting its shit back together (Mandel and Taylor quit, but Ves­tine returned, and the new reinvigorated band guest-starred on the double album Hooker 'n' Heat, backing their primary guru and idol, without whose ʽBoogie Chillenʼ they wouldn't have been able to handle their 40-minute long jams), anyway, just as things were beginning to get back to right, all of a sudden they went as wrong as they could ever go: Alan Wilson died on September 3, 1970, from a barbiturate overdose. Just to clarify things: this was about two weeks before Jimi and a whole month before Janis, but yes, the man was 27 years old at the time, and his death did set up a regular string of Woodstock hero deaths, so...

...anyway, I'm not altogether sure if this Vintage album was released before Wilson's death, as a separate vault-cleaning activity, or after, which would make more sense — as a hastily assembled tribute from all his friends in the band. Because, honestly, this is not a good album. What we have here is a set of predictable blues and R&B covers, all recorded way back in 1966, unimaginative, poorly produced, and played with as much energy, technique, and interest as you'd expect from any band of total beginners. Although, apparently, Wilson and Vestine are already handling all the guitar duties themselves, at this point they seem to be simply emulating their Chicago heroes, with the guitars simply reproducing all the licks from those old Fifties' records rather than trying to update them to newer standards. (Clearly, this is a sound of a band that had yet to witness God... uh, I mean, Jimi, in action. Come to think of it, in 1966 they probably hadn't yet had the chance to hear the original God, i.e. Eric, either).

Really, all the material is quite weak, «and such small portions», to quote Woody — the whole thing is over in less than 25 minutes, including two early versions of ʽBig Road Bluesʼ (one of them surreptitiously retitled ʽStraight Aheadʼ), and two versions of ʽRollin' And Tumblin'ʼ (with and without harmonica). And no, they don't do this stuff better than Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Bo Diddley, and John Lee Hooker. But, once again, as a quick on-the-spot memo­rial to Alan Wilson, I guess it sort of works. The record still gets a thumbs down, though, be­cause, as sorry as I am for the early death of Mr. Wilson, I don't think any of these tracks could hold a particularly sentimental value to anybody other than the actual band members.

Cher: Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves

CHER: GYPSYS, TRAMPS & THIEVES (1971)

1) The Way Of Love; 2) Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves; 3) He'll Never Know; 4) Fire & Rain; 5) When You Find Out Where You're Goin' Let Me Know; 6) He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother; 7) I Hate To Sleep Alone; 8) I'm In The Middle; 9) Touch And Go; 10) One Honest Man.

The Seventies started on a high note for Cher, what with the popularity of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour — and, most importantly, with the release of Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves, an album very different from the rockier sounds of 3614 Jackson Highway, but, surprisingly, of as high quality as a Vegasy album of show tunes and ballads could possibly get. And it is not a mat­ter of musicianship (fairly ordinary for its times), nor of particularly great songwriting (Sonny's songs are not featured on the original album at all, except for two bonus tracks on the UK re­lease); mostly, it is a matter of getting Cher in good form, so that she can deliver some of these tunes as if her very life depended on it.

I mean the title track first and foremost, of course — written by Bob Stone and originally titled ʽGypsys, Tramps And White Trashʼ before the producer demanded something a little less offen­sive for the title. It's a nice pop song by itself, but something clicked, and Cher sounds even more powerful and angry here than she did on ʽI Walk On Guilded Splintersʼ: perhaps digging into her real (and quite troubled) childhood for inspiration, she is totally convincing when singing "I was born in the wagon of a traveling show" — then again, the song's chorus ("they'd call us gypsys, tramps and thieves / but every night all the men would come around / and lay their money down") could be said to allegorically describe Sonny & Cher's career up to that point, in a way, so it's not that surprising to witness her getting into the performance with such verve.

The same arrangement style («lush» production, steeped in acoustic guitars, strings, and wood­winds) is employed for almost all the tracks, but emphasis is never taken away from Cher's vocals, which are, as if by magic, liberated — for instance, she transforms James Taylor's quiet (and, honestly, quite plain and boring) ʽFire And Rainʼ into a powerstorm, with an awesome use of overtones that make that voice sound bass-deep and sky-high at the same time. ʽHe Ain't Heavy, He's My Brotherʼ does not work nearly as well as the Hollies' version (possibly because it's really more of a «male song», and Cher makes the mistake of singing it in her lowest register in order to sound more «male», which is a bit embarrassing), but she more than makes up for it with the up­beat-catchy cover of Peggy Clinger's ʽI Hate To Sleep Aloneʼ, and particularly with Ginger Greco's ʽOne Honest Manʼ — that one's almost as much of a keeper as the title track: "But I can't find one honest man / Why can't I find one honest man?" is a killer chorus, no doubt, once again inspired by real life events (curious that Sonny never raised a fuss about the song being on the record — then again, he wasn't that much in control by that point).

The only song that I actively dislike on the album is its second single — ʽThe Way Of Loveʼ, adapted from a 1960 French original (ʽJ'Ai Le Mal De Toiʼ), another one of those puffed-up French torch ballads that you either have a craving for or tend to dismiss because of their corni­ness. Personally, even despite the powerful singing, I'd throw it in the wastebasket along with all of her previous French material, and concentrate on the other nine songs, all of which are less pompous and do not come across as cheap tear-jerkers. In any case, they're generally faster, tougher, poppier, and snappier than standard Vegas schlock, so even if the arrangements on the album never go beyond orchestrated soft-rock, the album as a whole does not give the impression of being ready made for one of those glitzy Cher galas where she'd be dressed up like an Amazo­nian princess in heat.

UK listeners actually got an even better deal out of it: the US release was drastically short (just five short songs on each side), but the UK version had a Sonny song appended on each side — ʽClassified 1Aʼ, with a completely different, piano-based arrangement, was a ballad sung from the perspective of a soldier wounded in the Vietnam war (not one of Cher's best vocals, though: too operatic and leaden), and ʽDon't Put It On Meʼ was a percus­sion-heavy folk-pop song with curious key and time signature changes all over the place — melodically, one of the most expe­rimental numbers ever written by Sonny. On the other hand, though, both of those tunes are totally incompatible with the overall style of Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves — it is clearly seen that they come from a different place and with a different attitude. In any case, either edition gets a very strong thumbs up. If you're up for a bit of soft rock with a hard-sung edge, give this one a try: it does not have the rocking power of its predecessor, but still manages to hit hard in quite a few spots — possibly the most «human» album of Cher's entire career.

Bob Dylan: Blonde On Blonde (IAS #32)

Another revisit, in a slightly sillier key than usual (because I'm a little tired of serious analysis for this one):

Bob Dylan: Blonde On Blonde

Bob Dylan: Fallen Angels

BOB DYLAN: FALLEN ANGELS (2016)

1) Young At Heart; 2) Maybe You'll Be There; 3) Polka Dots And Moonbeams; 4) All The Way; 5) Skylark; 6) Nevertheless; 7) All Or Nothing At All; 8) On A Little Street In Singapore; 9) It Had To Be You; 10) Melancholy Mood; 11) That Old Black Magic; 12) Come Rain Or Come Shine.

Bob is well known for doing the same thing twice or thrice if he got a good kick out of it first time around: so, just as Good As I've Been To You was quickly followed up by World Gone Wrong (because there's nothing like a satisfactory refill of the good stuff), one album of Sinatra covers was quickly followed by another — and no, from what I can tell, it's not as if all the mate­rial was recorded during the same session. There is even a slight stylistic difference: Fallen Angels features a smaller band, with no brass support whatsoever, so that the «wee small hours» atmosphere is generated to near-perfection.

That said, I am not even going to try to comment on any of the actual songs — it is totally and utterly irrelevant whether Bob «does justice» to the old versions, and I cannot take seriously any review of Fallen Angels that tries to make meaningful comparisons between Sinatra and Dylan. It seems as clear as daylight that the main, if not only, goal of Fallen Angels is to strengthen and solidify the statement of Shadows In The Night — namely, that you can never pigeonhole Robert Zimmerman, because Robert Zimmerman refuses to wear the yellow star of the pigeon. You gambled on the man putting out another Tempest in 2015? You lost, sucker. You gambled that, okay, he had this weird diversion, but next year he'd put out another Tempest? You lost again. See, the man's been collecting from you for over fifty years now, and so far, he's shown no signs of stop­ping.

Of course, it's a pretty wise gamble: with time mercilessly rolling by, as each new record's chances of becoming his last increase significantly, these quiet, introspective, melancholy-filled tributes to Sinatra all work like ideal swansongs. But it's also obvious (well, not obvious, really: nothing is ever truly obvious with Dylan) that he is not going to stop, and that his next move could be anything — from yet a third album of Sinatra covers (and why not? he had three Chris­tian albums out, didn't he?) to a bunch of acid house rearrangements of Dolly Parton. That's what we love him for, and that's what he is going to keep on doing. As for Fallen Angels, well... I did listen to it twice, and I'll probably never listen to it again. Don't try to make the mistake of taking it too seriously — although if you somehow happen to love the results, there's nothing criminal about that, either (I do love Self-Portrait, after all; but then Self-Portrait was far more diverse, inventive, and unpredictable than these albums, where all the songs follow the same formula — take Sinatra's orchestrated songbook and adapt it for small lite-jazz combo). Just remember that, behind all the seriousness and «depth» of these renditions, he is still putting you on, and you'll never know the truth, because, as Keith Moon once eloquently put it, «you couldn't afford me!»

Cat Power: Myra Lee

CAT POWER: MYRA LEE (1996)

1) Enough; 2) We All Die; 3) Great Expectations; 4) Top Expert; 5) Ice Water; 6) Still In Love; 7) Rockets; 8) Faces; 9) Fiance; 10) Wealthy Man; 11) Not What You Want.

From a brief preliminary introduction, welcome to the full-length presentation of Cat Power, symbolically named after her mother, who, according to some accounts, may have been even whackier than her daughter — which accounts for some of the album's weirdness, but far from all of it. As I already mentioned, these tracks were recorded at the same time as the ones for Dear Sir, and there is even some redundancy (ʽRocketsʼ is found on both albums, and ʽGreat Expec­tationsʼ would later be appended to reissues of Dear Sir, although it was not present on the ori­ginal pressing), but this here is a larger and slightly more diverse collection, giving you a more comprehensive portrait of Chan Marshall in her early days, provided you're really interested.

In all fairness, though, there is not much to add to the review of Dear Sir: the thing that matters most about this record is still atmosphere and attitude, and they are predictably the same — Chan Marshall is still walking the nighttime streets of a post-nuclear-apocalyptic city in a state of com­plete trance and mental meltdown, singing songs that feel like barely regulated streams of con­scious and are just as memorable as any such stream. Some people fall for that very easily, but I remain spoiled by great women in music who could drive themselves to similar states, yet remain either far more intriguing and unpredictable in terms of melody (Joni Mitchell), or far more im­pressive as emotional powerhouses (Patti Smith). Marshall, unfortunately, does not do either: her melodies here are replete with boring Sonic Youth-isms, and her personal charisma is... well, on the level of «passable» when she is mumbling and «annoying» when she is screaming.

Nevertheless, at least a few of the tracks at least stand out against the general background, which is more than could be said about Dear Sir. In particular, ʽWe All Dieʼ, based on a fatalistic descending guitar/bass riff and a sonic arrangement that brings to mind Tom Waits' Bone Machine, has a gritty punch that helps the song's frozen chorus of "hell, we all die sometimes, hell, we all try somewhere" get under your skin, rather than just sit there as one more of those pretentious and ultimately useless statements. (The only other track that has a loud, tough rhyth­mic base is ʽTop Expertʼ, but there the musical backbone is quite unexceptional). And as a fun gimmick, you have an «expressionist singer-songwriter deconstruction» of Hank Williams' ʽStill In Love With Youʼ — a first-rate example of how one can take a super-catchy country tune, suck all the hooks out of it, and transform it into «pure feeling» because the notion of catchiness is, you know, so ugly and anti-artistic. See, she is doing Hank a big service — we all know Hank was a genius, but he happened to write songs that intentionally got stuck in your head, which is very anti-life-like, because, see, you usually go through life without its experiences constantly sticking in your head, so what Chan is doing here is, she's preserving the genius but she's also making it more life-like and spontaneous and honest. Fuck form, just save the spirit. (By the way, she sings it so low that I'm almost dying to learn if it couldn't make a bigger impression on me if it were sung by the late Nico, who must have been a big influence on Cat Power anyway).

Further individual comments on particular songs would make no sense — it's all about droning repetition and half-sung, half-mumbled repetition of poetry that I find highly questionable and, what is worse, devoid of genuine magic. The whole thing reaches an absolute nadir on ʽNot What You Wantʼ, a stripped-down performance (just vocals and acoustic guitar) recorded in abysmal lo-fi quality and featuring all the trademark qualities of generic indie shit (poorly tuned and barely played guitar; rough singing that regularly turns to off-key screaming; and a message of self-assertion that apparently tries to seduce us with the «realism» of what is going on). Fortuna­tely, the rest of the album is much better produced, played, and sung, so we'd have to assume that the song was a last-minute addition of some unfinished and unpolished demo, to give the album a rougher edge (I'd recommend just stopping it at the end of ʽWealthy Manʼ, though).

In brief, Myra Lee runs on «honesty» (that is, if you accept the whole vibe as honest, which is your personal choice) and «spontaneity» more than anything else, so proceed at your own risk; I do not condemn the record for the same reasons I did not feel disgusted about Dear Sir (and one key point here is the near-complete lack of wallowing in self-pity, which, to me, is an immediate turn-off in the case of such records — see Conor Oberst for an extreme case), but I certainly do not regard it as much of an improvement, either.

Cheap Trick: Cheap Trick

CHEAP TRICK: CHEAP TRICK (1977)

1) ELO Kiddies; 2) Daddy Should Have Stayed In High School; 3) Taxman, Mr. Thief; 4) Cry, Cry; 5) Oh Candy; 6) Hot Love; 7) Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace; 8) He's A Whore; 9) Mandocello; 10) The Ballad Of TV Violence (I'm Not The Only Boy).

If you find it strange to see a band that released its debut album in 1977 sound so close to the glam-rock style of the first half of that decade, rather than be seriously influenced by the punk and New Wave styles of the present — do keep in mind that the band's guitarist and primary song­writer Rick Nielsen began playing in local Illinois bands as early as 1961 (being just 13 years of age), and that his first record, cut when he and Cheap Trick's future bassist Tom Peters­son were still playing in a band called Fuse, was released in 1967. Furthermore, as I began re­listening to their stuff a while ago and asking myself the question, «so who could really have been the biggest influence on these guys?» — eventually an inner voice called out SLADE!, and lo and behold, the next thing I re-learn is that the very name Cheap Trick actually comes from their going to a Slade concert and thinking that they used «every cheap trick in the book» while playing. New Wave? Post-punk? Forget it. You don't have to resort to chainsaw buzz or futuristic electronic bleeps and bloops if you want to be a rock star — not in 1977, you still don't.

Image was of serious importance to Cheap Trick in the early days of their popularity: the well-described contrast between the «two pretty ones» (blonde rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist Robin Zan­der and black-haired bassist Tom Petersson) and the «two nerdy ones» (baseball-cap-clad, five-neck-guitar-wielding lead guitarist Rick Nielsen and bookkeeper-turned-drummer Bun E. Carlos) did the job fairly well, not to mention Nielsen's additional antics on stage. On the other hand, one should not overestimate that popularity, either — Cheap Trick's studio albums did not chart too high until the success of Budokan, and in those early days, they did not chart at all, because the band's sound was almost anachronistic for 1977. (Curiously, they pretty much repea­ted the trajectory of KISS — who could not make commercial headway with their studio records, but finally broke it big with a live album).

So carry yourself back all the way to February 1977 and witness the birth of the underground power-pop band Cheap Trick — loud rock guitars and catchy vocal pop hooks all the way. What was it that made them special after all those years of guitar-based pop-rock bands? No single element, but a clever combination that allows to easily identify all their influences, but cannot be judged as a simple sum of all of them. Melody-wise, they'd sworn complete allegiance to the Beatles that they would carry through all the better and worse days of their career (and even on this debut, there are at least two totally blatant tributes to the Fab Four — ʽTaxman, Mr. Thiefʼ is quite transparent, but there's also the way Robin yells out "anytime at all, anytime at all" on ʽHe's A Whoreʼ that seems to be quite intentional); but sound-wise, they're suckers for a thick, crunchy hard-rock sound that owes much more to Slade, T. Rex, and other glam outfits of the early 1970s, and this really makes them the primary torch-bearers for the term «power pop» (which can be reasonably well applied to such earlier acts as Big Star and Badfinger as well, but neither Big Star nor Badfinger ever had even half as much pure power as Cheap Trick).

To this we should necessarily add a pinch of intelligence and witty sarcasm: unlike KISS, Cheap Trick were interested in rising above the level of Lusty Caveman, and although the self-titled debut does have its share of straightforward love ballads (ʽMandocelloʼ) and libido blast rockers (ʽHot Loveʼ), the majority of the songs either address social issues (ʽELO Kiddiesʼ, ʽTaxman, Mr. Thiefʼ) or complain of general personal insecurity (ʽSpeak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peaceʼ). And even ʽHot Loveʼ, when viewed in the overall context — for instance, as a precursor to the maniacal ʽBallad Of TV Violenceʼ — can hardly be taken without an ironic grain of salt. (Then again, it's all in good tradition: somebody like Marc Bolan, for instance, would always retain an ironic angle to his «sex idol» image, rather than playing it straight and stupid).

For Cheap Trick fans, the self-titled debut often has a special relevance, since it was produced by Aerosmith's producer Jack Douglas — and, consequently, is viewed as «less polished» and, there­fore, «more authentic» than the rest of their Seventies' output, produced by Tom Werman. This may be objectively right — there's a little more crunch-and-rip to the guitars here, perhaps — but it is not necessarily a plus: Cheap Trick were a composition-based pop band first, and a rock'n'roll beast only second, so what really matters is how well written the songs are, and in that respect, I'd say that Cheap Trick has a larger share of underdeveloped filler than its two nearly-flawless follow-ups (no wonder, actually, that none of the songs from Cheap Trick made it to the original Budokan album, and only two appeared on the complete edition of the concert).

That does not mean that the band had to «learn» songwriting craft after this album, but it did learn more discipline — while a song like ʽDaddy Should Have Stayed In High Schoolʼ (not because daddy has always been a moron, but because daddy is still hunting for young flesh) certainly looks less «safe for work» than the band's later, less titillating, stuff, musically it is little more than a forgettable mess of distorted chords that can never come together into a solid riff. If you want yourself a really scary pedophile anthem, go back all the way to the Stones' ʽStray Cat Bluesʼ: this one's pretty sloppy in comparison. I am also not a fan of the lumbering slow blues trot of ʽCry Cryʼ (seems like an attempt to write something in late Beatles-era Lennon style à la ʽYer Bluesʼ, but Zander is too theatrical a personage to ever match John) — and not only do I not have the vaguest idea why ʽMandocelloʼ shares that title despite not featuring either a mandolin or a cello, but I also think it is their least effective ballad from the «golden period». Too slow and lumbering for a rocker, too harsh for a ballad, and the bassline seems to have been lifted from AC/DC's ʽHigh Voltageʼ, which is quite confusing.

But even with all the imperfections, more than half of Cheap Trick is stellar. ʽELO Kiddiesʼ is a brilliant introduction to the world of the band — the heaviness of the rhythm guitar and the pop melo­dicity of the lead line, the ambiguity of the lyrics (and the title — nobody really knows why ʽHello Kiddiesʼ eventually turned into ʽELO Kiddiesʼ and what it is exactly that Jeff Lynne has to do with kids who "lead a life of crime"... unless, of course, one thinks it a crime to buy a brand new copy of A New World Record), the lead pipes of the lead vocalist (that "you haven't got much TIIIME!... you know they're out to get you!!!!" is one of the greatest bits of white-guy scream on record the other side of Roger Daltrey) — it's, like, welcome to a radical reinvention of what «power pop» can be all about. Likewise, ʽTaxman, Mr. Thiefʼ brilliantly alternates between the paranoid distorted guitar lines of the verses and the Beatlesque chorus that delivers its simple message that nothing much has really changed in the last ten (eleven) years.

Arguably the single most ass-kicking moment of the album is the guitar punch that opens ʽHot Loveʼ, a song that hair metal bands of the next decade would probably kill for, but how many of them would be able to do it just right? Raw, rioting, restless rhythm guitars and a psychedelic lead guitar tone, the tightest rhythm section imaginable, lyrics that avoid unnecessary hypersexual clichés, and a lead vocalist that can scream at the top of his lungs and somehow not come across as a pompous imbecile? And just a few steps down the road, followed by ʽHe's A Whoreʼ that pretty much does it again, but with a bit rougher language? (The desperation in Zander's voice as he yells "I'M A WHORE!" as if he were being cast for The Exorcist is priceless).

Hilariously, ʽThe Ballad Of TV Violenceʼ opens with a five-note riff that is pretty much lifted from Uriah Heep's ʽGypsyʼ — except Cheap Trick are actually a good band, and instead of han­ging the entire song on one riff, they quickly depart from it into the direction of an eerily dance­able boogie that tells the story of a mass killer, with Zander going into full-scale Charlie Manson mode and the whole band doing sort of a ritualistic dance on the skulls of the fallen. Probably the most provocative track of their career, even if rock musicians have always tended to be fascinated by serial killers (from ʽMidnight Ramblerʼ to ʽGary Gilmore's Eyesʼ), but Cheap Trick work extra fine in «dark clown» mode, so this is a particular highlight. All in all, a magnificent debut, even despite some rough songwriting edges, and, I might add, one of the brightest beacons of hope for the «old school of rock'n'roll» in an era when conservative heavy rock riffage was going out of fashion, eclipsed by punk rock and the New Wave of heavy metal — so, naturally, a thumbs up without any reservations.

Carole King: Fantasy

CAROLE KING: FANTASY (1973)

1) Fantasy Beginning; 2) You've Been Around Too Long; 3) Being At War With Each Other; 4) Directions; 5) That's How Things Go Down; 6) Weekdays; 7) Haywood; 8) A Quiet Place To Live; 9) Welfare Symphony; 10) You Light Up My Life; 11) Corazon; 12) Believe In Humanity; 13) Fantasy End.

A singer-songwriter without a genuine concept album to his/her name can never properly advance to the next level of artistic recognition; and as great as Tapestry was, it could only be called a «concept» album in the broadest possible sense (where, for instance, any album written by one artist based on his/her sincere feelings about the world would automatically be «conceptual»). So, as 1973 came along and the world as of yet showed no sign of getting out of the «progressive grip», Carole King took what was arguably the biggest gamble of her career — releasing a con­ceptual suite, in which she would try on several different masks and explore a wide variety of subjects (social, political, and personal), without, however, trying to genuinely conceal the Carole King stamp on all the addressed issues. To further ensure the conceptual unity of the whole thing, there would be no breaks between songs other than the Side A/Side B transition — and the album would begin and end with a thematic intro and outro, briefly explaining and justifying the con­cept: "...I may step out outside myself / And speak as if I were someone else". Oh, and all the lyrics would be self-penned this time around.

One thing that is definitely true is that Fantasy is a big departure from Rhymes & Reasons — and a big brave departure, really, because as boring as that album might seem today, it still sold very well in 1972, based both on the continuing strength of the reputation of Carole in general and Tapestry in particular and on the overall popularity of sentimental singer-songwriterish soft-pop at the time. There was no transparent need to change the formula, and yet change it she did, no doubt, while still under the heavy influence of Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and a strong nagging feeling that music should «make a difference» and stimulate people, rather than merely provide passive entertainment. So far, so good; the real question is — would she be up to the task? After all, (a) most of her music had always stayed in the love song ballpark and (b) ever since Tapestry, her writing skills seem to have been steadily declining. Getting a genuinely soulful and moving reflection on the state of humanity from her right after being stuck with a conventional-clichéd collection of simple love songs on Rhymes & Reasons would seem quite a «fantasy» indeed, under the circumstances.

And indeed, the gamble did not pay off. Fantasy sold OK enough, again, still riding on the strength of the songwriter's name, but stalled at No. 6 on the charts anyway, and all three of its singles fared even worse. The critics had, at best, tepid words to say about the results, and at worst, ended up ridiculing the poor woman for biting off far more than she could chew — suc­cessfully preventing her from trying anything like that again. (Incidentally, and maybe not even co-incidentally, a similar thing happened to Carole's most notorious song recipient in the same year: Aretha's Hey Now Hey (The Other Side Of The Sky), which also came out in 1973, was her most experimental and risk-taking album to date, and it was also panned by critics, neglected by fans and pretty much quenched her desire for musical adventuring once and for all). Occa­sional recent attempts at re-evaluation have not proven successful, either, and overall, the record continues to be regarded as a curious failure, at best.

The problem is, Fantasy is a somewhat ambitious album, and from such albums, by definition, we instinctively expect a kind of ground-shaking reaction — whereas Carole can really only operate in a «homely» mode: neither her technically weak voice, nor her approach to melody writing, nor her experience with multi-layered arrangements would ever allow her to rise to truly epic heights. And when you have this nearly epic drive without being able to provide an epic realization... well, the obvious thing to do is mention this as a major problem, say «this is no What's Goin' On» and move on.

Which would be the solution of choice for me, too, were I a major admirer of What's Goin' On: however, I do believe that, first of all, Carole King is no worse (and in some respects, better) composer than Marvin Gaye, and, second, that she feels just as strongly about all these issues and all her invented characters as Marvin feels about his — it's just that her approach is always on the shy and humble side. She's essentially an introvert making a brave, if a little terrified, attempt here to venture out into extroverted space — and even if the individual songs rarely rise to the heights of Tapestry, I'd say that as a whole, the album still works, even if some of the transitions between the tracks could have been handled much less crudely (actually, the problem is that there are no transitions — most of the time, the first song is just cut off abruptly and the next one barges in. Somebody had obviously missed her Thick As A Brick homework).

Anyway, as far as the socially-conscious part of the album is concerned, the tracks are (softly) poignant. ʽYou've Been Around Too Longʼ, alternating between paranoid funky verses, some­what more triumphant verses with brass fanfare hooks, and ominous orchestrated breaks, is as good a civil rights anthem as any. Another funky highlight, opening the second side with terrific bass work (as usual) from Mr. Larkey, is ʽHaywoodʼ, where the lady amicably reprimands a drug addict — it's not really much of a song, but kudos to Carole for getting the essence of «dark funk» just right, and the atmospheric combination of bass, brass, and orchestration on the final jamming bit eventually gets under my skin quite efficiently. ʽBeing At War With Each Otherʼ, despite the nice message, is a little too slow and mushy for my taste, but ʽBelieve In Humanityʼ, which essentially reprises the same message on the second side, is Carole's musical answer to Stevie Wonder's ʽSuperstitionʼ, with a similarly tense gradual build-up through a long verse to a final chorus explosion, followed by more fanfares from the «released» brass section — and it's a fairly catchy and involving song, and far more playful, musically, than its title would suggest.

The most daring number on the entire record is ʽWelfare Symphonyʼ, which probably could have been expanded into a much longer epic number; as it is, with less than four minutes of music, it could hardly hope to make much of an impression on the «progressive» world — but its mix of pop and jazz motives, as it eventually forgets all about its social message (lamenting about a mo­ther struggling on welfare) and plunges forward into experimental jazz territory, is as far out as Carole would ever venture in the area of composing. Of course, it would be ridiculous to compare the work to that of jazz-fusion pros, but then, this is not «Carole King trying to sound like Soft Machine» anyway — this is Carole King trying to apply, in a very simple way, some of the achievements of modern jazz music to an allegorical conveying of the state of mind of someone who "had so much trouble all her time", and even if I cannot say that she totally succeeds in this (after all, «broken» jazz chords like that are hardly my musical trick of choice when it comes to symbolically representing toil and trouble in music), the effort is still unique and admirable.   

Of course, it would be futile (and irrational) to expect a complete album of nothing but socio­political songs from Carole — and while I could not state that these simple love songs are a big step up back from the blandness of Rhymes (ʽYou Light Up My Lifeʼ is the kind of stereotypical ballad I could easily live without), stuff like ʽThat's How Things Go Downʼ reprises a certain childish freshness that was still abundant on Tapestry and Music but was almost completely re­placed by James Taylor-isms on the 1972 disaster. And although most critics hate and dismiss ʽCorazonʼ as a silly cash-in on the Latin style that shows zero understanding of it on Carole's part, I think that the track, with its catchy keep-it-simple-stupid seven-note bass/piano riff, still has a certain charm — it's not so much of a «failure» to work in a certain genre as, rather, yet another attempt to borrow a bit of that genre and adapt it to the Carole King style. The fact that the lyrics are reduced to a measly "Corazon, mi corazon, yo te quiero, mi corazon", certainly does not mean that she cannot succeed in the genre — it is more of a subtle-ironic reminder of how little the words, compared to the music, tend to matter in this sort of songs (although it is true that the chances of encountering a popular Latin American song without the word corazón in it are very close to zero, so she does know about and respect this convention at least).

Overall, Fantasy is not an overwhelming success, but it does work as a special «homebrewn concept album», and it did help pull the songwriter out of a rut, if only for a brief while. Of course, I am not saying that we should throw out thumbs up ratings to any album that «tries», just because it does (or else I'd be forced to positively rate all those Kansas records, yeeewgh); but when you have an artist as innately charismatic as Carole King, then sometimes even a rela­tive «risk-taking failure» like this is emotionally preferable to playing it safe and sound by the book, like she did on Rhymes & Reasons. Fantasy is not great, but it is curious and it is touching — especially if you try to approach it with minimum prejudice, and more from a «little person's perspective on big problems» angle than a «Marvin Gaye rip-off!» one.

Canned Heat: Future Blues

CANNED HEAT: FUTURE BLUES (1970)

1) Sugar Bee; 2) Shake It And Break It; 3) That's All Right, Mama; 4) My Time Ain't Long; 5) Skat; 6) Let's Work Together; 7) London Blues; 8) So Sad (The World's In A Tangle); 9) Future Blues.

The first significant change to affect the band was the departure of Henry Vestine, who apparent­ly had a falling out with Larry Taylor and, for that reason, missed the chance to appear at Wood­stock. His replacement was Harvey Mandel, "The Snake", who had previously made his name by appearing on Charley Musselwhite's Stand Back! album in 1966 and, for a few years, enjoyed the fame of one of America's best-kept secrets in the sphere of wonder guitar playing (for that matter, he was also the only member of the band in the Woodstock movie who did not look like a bum picked fresh off the street — probably didn't have enough time to assimilate). And while I would not necessarily call Harvey a better player than Henry, one thing's for sure: a bit of fresh blood, for a short while at least, helped get the band on the right track, and produce an album that was at least more... interesting than the steamless Hallelujah.

Although they do not reintroduce any 40-minute jams here, they get close enough with ʽSo Sad (The World's In A Tangle)ʼ, a 7-minute blues boogie that is not ʽBoogie Chillenʼ, but has the same grim, kill-'em-all attitude. Lyrically, they are concerned with the sad state of the modern world, so thoroughly deprived of brotherly love and stuff (this was, after all, recorded already in the wake of Altamont rather than Woodstock), but essentially, the words are just a front for two excellent solos — I'd imagine the first one, consisting of almost nothing but wobbling arpeggios, like a musical equivalent of an unexperienced tight-rope walker, is played by Wilson (who was never a technically endowed lead guitarist, but would always try out bizarre sound combinations when soloing), and then the second one (and the third one after the last verse) is Mandel, culmi­nating in a very different set of distorted psychedelic arpeggios, very different from your average blues soloing. The song is a guitar lover's paradise, far more interesting than the generic 12-bar ʽLondon Bluesʼ, although that one, too, has some incendiary Mandel solos and an always wel­come falsetto vocal from Wilson (the lyrics are total tripe, though, probably improvised on the spot, about some unhappy experiences the band had in London Town).

The short songs, this time around, tend to be diverse and marginally inventive or at least gim­micky: ʽShake It And Break Itʼ is a complete reconstruction of the old Charley Patton tune in the form of (another) light boogie, but preserving the playfulness of the original (and it's a good thing that they didn't have The Bear singing on it to crash it to the ground); ʽSkatʼ, with Dr. John-ar­ranged horns, is a bit of silly New Orleanian fun with Wilson trying himself in the role of Ella Fitzgerald (somehow, it's endearing rather than embarrassing); Wilbert Harrison's ʽLet's Work Togetherʼ (the same song that is otherwise known as ʽLet's Stick Togetherʼ, but with a different set of lyrics) makes great use of «distorted woman tone» from Mandel and is precisely the kind of material that The Bear was born to sing (half-drunk rousing anthems); and the guitar overdubs on ʽMy Time Ain't Longʼ sound like a pack of ghosts looking for fresh meat, because, well, his time ain't long and all that.

There's not a lot of interesting stuff going here, but you can clearly see the rejuvenated band trying to make almost every single number sound slightly more interesting than just playing it by the book — which is why this is Future Blues, after all: even the title track attempts to be inven­tive by playing around with a stop-and-start structure. It doesn't really work (there's no point in cutting off the rhythm section after each line, because there's no true suspense in that), but it's still better than nothing. And when it does work, it is far more satisfying than the technically more expert, but substantially much less interesting modern school of electric blues that, for the most part, does not care about innovation and development at all. So, thumbs up.

Cher: 3614 Jackson Highway

CHER: 3614 JACKSON HIGHWAY (1969)

1) For What It's Worth; 2) (Just Enough To Keep Me) Hangin' On; 3) (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay; 4) Tonight I'll Be Staying With You; 5) I Threw It All Away; 6) I Walk On Guilded Splinters; 7) Lay Baby Lay; 8) Please Don't Tell Me; 9) Cry Like A Baby; 10) Do Right Woman, Do Right Man; 11) Save The Children.

Common wisdom often rates this as the finest record in Cher's career, and that might not be far from the truth. According to Cher herself, she did not have any objections to hardening up her sound at the time — Sonny did, though, and as long as he at least compensated for that by writing good songs for her to sing, it was okay; but when he did not, the results were embarrassing, as on Backstage. So sometime in 1969, as their contracts expired, Cher finally took a break from Sonny's gui­dance, got herself a solo contract with Atlantic, and went to the Muscle Shoals Studio to make a brand new record with a brand new sound.

The result — a combination of the Muscle Shoals session band, easily the hottest R&B combo in 1969, and of Cher's iron-lady voice — may not be particularly stellar, but it did somehow bring out the best in Cher, as her singing suddenly becomes more self-confident, full of purpose, versa­tile, and, most importantly, well attuned to the music. As I already said several times, she is never at her best when playing vulnerable or sentimental, but she can really hit it off with aggression and power, and that definitely combines better with funky riffage and cocky brass blasts than gallant baroque-pop arrangements. So, even if it may be a rather banal choice to cover ʽFor What It's Worthʼ, right from the opening bars of syncopated acoustic guitar you get the feeling that "there's something happening here"; and when she sings "there's a man with a gun over there, telling me I've got to beware...", it's like "...telling ME I've got to beware? Does he have any idea who he's messing with in the first place?", and that's when you get The Click and the rest of the album rolls on smoothly.

Of course, not everything is perfect, and there'll always be some sentimental balladry to spoil the day, but the album will be remembered not for the sentimental balladry, but for really tough stuff like the cover of Dr. John's ʽI Walk On Guilded Splintersʼ, where the combination of the threate­ning hard rock riff with Cher's tough-guy delivery is honestly ravaging — I mean, she has abso­lutely zero of that voodoo angle of Dr. John's, and it's impossible to take her "Je suis le grand zombie!" literally, but as a general allegory of her toughness, well... "I wanna see my enemies on the end of my rope" hardly sounds like an empty threat. Too bad they did not include more tracks like this — it's totally the kind of swaggery stuff that the woman was born for, and one song she could really steal away from the originator.

Still, there's plenty of ballsy stuff on the rest of the record, and, amazingly, some of the best numbers are three Dylan covers, all of them from the recently released Nashville Skyline: solid rhythm section, tasty slide guitar licks, pompous brass fanfare, and powerhouse vocals transform ʽTonight I'll Be Staying Here With Youʼ, ʽI Threw It All Awayʼ, and ʽLay Lady Layʼ (the latter appropriately — semantically, if not phonetically — converted to ʽLay Baby Layʼ) into brazen anthems instead of quiet country ditties that they used to be, and they're all excellent, as Cher gets into all three tracks with verve, not to mention aggressive femininity. Even more curiously, she gets in credible renditions of Otis Redding (ʽDock Of The Bayʼ) and Aretha (ʽDo Right Womanʼ) that you'd probably never think her capable of in the early days — although one must always re­member to give proper credit to the musicians, providing the ideal bedrock for her to rise to the challenge and pump out some extra voltage on those vocals.

I am almost embarrassed to admit that the last and most explicitly soulful track, Eddie Hinton's ʽSave The Childrenʼ, generates a genuine emotional response despite an aura of soapiness around it (no, it's not about Ethiopia, it's about putting off a divorce so as not to leave the kids without a daddy), even though Cher can still sound a bit wooden in places, and "pleading Cher" is nowhere near as convincing by definition as "threatening Cher". Still, they help her out with a turbulent string arrangement and the closest thing they can find to a grand finale on the whole, and besides, considering how much Sonny was (reportedly) cheating on his wife at the time (while she was pregnant with Chaz — oh look, we're going all tabloid here), you can understand how she might have easily identified with the song's sentiment.

Overall, it does not really matter how much control she had during the recording of 3614 Jackson Highway — even if Jerry Wexler had all of it, that would only be for the better, since the man found her the right band and the right songs to cover. Reportedly, Sonny, despite standing there together with everybody and grinning at us on the front cover, felt himself shut out and never liked the record all that much, but hey, serves you right, man — (a) don't cheat on your wife and (b) don't make her cover Miriam Makeba and Black Orpheus. Isn't this what "a little respect when you come home" was all about in the first place? Thumbs up.