ARGENT: THE BBC SESSIONS (1970-1973; 1997)
1) Rejoice; 2) Where Are We
Going Wrong?; 3) Cast Your Spell Uranus; 4) Tragedy; 5) Keep On Rolling; 6) Hold
Your Head Up; 7) Liar; 8) Rejoice; 9) Keep On Rolling; 10) Tragedy; 11)
It's Only Money (part 1); 12) It's Only Money (part 2); 13) God Gave
Rock'n' Roll To You.
Coincidentally, I am writing about this CD
exactly one day after reviewing The BBC
Sessions by the Beatles — and what I said about that easily applies to this:
the «BBC live album» is a genre in itself, an interesting curiosity that is
neither here nor there, most often falling in the cracks between a properly
engineered studio creation and a «genuine» live album, equally lacking the
supposed perfection of the former and the supposed raw excitement of the
latter.
Granted, in the case of Argent the difference
between a proper live album, like Encore,
and a «BBC album» is not as well pronounced as in the case of the Beatles or
the Who: with Rod favoring the «progressive» formula, the basic idea was to
simply play live with the same level of technicality, detail, and finesse, as
in the studio. But even so, Encore
showed some room for rearrangements, improvisation, and kick-ass rock'n'roll. We
had Russ Ballard throw in a raunchy, distorted boogie-woogie guitar solo on
ʽKeep On Rollinʼ, for instance — no signs of which appear on either of the two
versions of this song recorded for the BBC.
And they did not vary the approach in between
the sessions, either: the two versions of ʽTragedyʼ, the band's most dedicated
attempt to do something in the «Epic Funk» style, are pretty much interchangeable,
which begs for the obvious question — and certain alternate semi-official
releases from the archives show that Argent did
do other songs live at the BBC (at least ʽBe My Lover, Be My Friendʼ, ʽSweet
Maryʼ, as well as Nexus-era material
appear on these releases), so, apparently, someone at the BBC must have been a
big fan of Ballard's funk and Rod's
honky-tonk.
The most interesting selection here is a
performance of ʽLiarʼ, probably the only selection from Argent that ended up on a live record. It is a bit louder here,
with a bigger drum sound and a brawnier vocal and instrumental part from Russ,
including a little screaming and a little wah-wah guitar solo. Possibly
influenced by the 1970 Three Dog Night cover — which took the song's hooks,
dropped the song's humble subtlety and made it accessible and acceptable by a
more general audience at the expense of you-know-what. So it's interesting to
see Argent give a nod to their competitors, but a little humiliating as well.
On the positive side, I was never a big fan of
Argent's production style on the studio albums — constantly laden with echos,
sometimes poorly mixed, etc., and some of these BBC arrangements do sound
clearer and sharper than their studio counterparts: the opening funk rhythms on
ʽTragedyʼ, for instance, hit much harder here than on All Together Now, where they seem rather muffled. Serious fans of
the band will definitely want to hear the songs this way and decide for themselves, which particular approach to
the sound suits the refined Argent fan better.
But on the whole, the package will be neither
fully satisfactory for completists (who would probably rather see a larger,
maybe a 2-CD, release with all the missing songs included), nor necessary for
non-completists. An un-enthusiastic thumbs up here.
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