"Physical Graffiti" - Led Zeppelin

In many ways, "Physical Graffiti" is the ultimate Led Zeppelin album. It has the winsome Folk ("Black Country Woman"), the heavy, heavy Rock ("Custard Pie"), the world music experimentation ("Kashmir") and much more. The album is a long one, originally released as a double LP and clocking in past 80 minutes, too much to fit on just one CD (though when I bought the album in the mid-90s, it did fit on one cassette!). This might sound like it screams "70s excessive album length", but really there are no weak tracks here - the album is consistently great throughout. Unfortunately this would be it for great Led Zeppelin albums, as their last two studio albums which proceeded this are not terribly strong or consistent.

As with any Led Zeppelin album, there will be some Blues reworks/covers/ripoffs. On this album, we have the 11 minute plus "In My Time Of Dying," which was originally a Gospel song called "Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed" and was recorded by Blind Willie Johnson among others. The fourth track, the swinging "Houses Of The Holy" oddly has the same title as there preceding album from 1973 (more cassette info - I managed to melt my parents copy of "Houses Of The Holy" on a hot dashboard. True story). The band is clearly having a ball on this album, you can hear their banter at the end (and start) of a number of songs, such as the previously mentioned "In My Time Of Dying," as well as "Black Country Woman".

It is certainly one of Led Zeppelin's most well known albums; the cover is a famous one and the track"Kashmir" has been much sampled (Godzilla soundtrack anyone?) and much heard. It probably would make a good starting point for anyone who is not yet familiar with Led Zeppelin (really?), though the same could be said for Led Zeppelin I and Led Zeppelin IV. So, get it and listen to it!

No one's home

"Graceland" - Paul Simon

Paul Simon's "Graceland" may just be my favourite album of all time. Other candidates include The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" and The Beatles "Abbey Road". Certainly not controversial choices, but there you go. Anyways, for me this is one of the most consistent of all the great albums. On "Pet Sounds" for example, there are a couple of tracks which are just not as great as others (such as "I Know There's An Answer" or the title track). On "Graceland" every track is uniformly great, so much so that I couldn't really name a favourite track off the album. On a personal level, this album has been part of my life for probably the entire 25 years since its release. My parents had a copy of this album on cassette, which they must have purchased not too long after the album's release. I heard this album many dozens of times on road trips afterwards and it soon became a favourite of mine.

What is amazing about the album is its musical diversity. While of course it is well known that Paul Simon went to South Africa and recorded with South African musicians for most of the album, it must not be forgotten that he recorded one track with Good Rockin' Dopsie And The Twisters (a Zydeco band) and another with Los Lobos (a Hispanic Roots Rock band). It is very much a 'world album'. And the world is made that much richer by its existence.

"The Mississippi delta is shining like a national guitar" is the opening line of the title track, and that line has always resonated with me, even more since I visited the Mississippi Delta and Graceland in 2003. The music on this particular track is even a bit Countryish (or as Countryish as you'll get with South African musicians) and I did not realize until quite recently that The Everly Brothers are doing backup vocals towards the end of the song.

If by some bizarre and cruel twist of fate you DON'T have a copy of this album, then I highly recommend that you pick up the double-disc 25th anniversary edition. The reason that it is so essential is the inclusion of the phenomenally moving documentary "Under African Skies" which goes over the vast controversy which this album engendered upon its release, given the UN cultural boycott which was in effect against South Africa at the time due to the odious policies of Apartheid. It made the album that much more of a fascinating trip.

The other side of Roger Miller

I was listening to some Roger Miller the other day, and decided to write this blog not about an album, but about some songs. Roger Miller was one of the greatest Country songwriters and is best known for wacky, seemingly noveltyish songs such as "Dang Me," "Chug-A-Lug," "You Can't Rollerskate In A Buffalo Herd" (and many others) as well as the more conventional "King Of The Road" (a masterpiece of a song and his most well-known song). But what may surprise those familiar only with these songs is that Roger Miller wrote and performed some of the most dark, depressing and heartbroken songs of all time. Let's take a look at a few of them.

The first one is probably be the most disturbing. Its not so inviting title is "One Dyin' And A Buryin'". The narrator of the song and he thinks the best way for him to be free of heartache is to go down to the river.... and to end it all. The end result? "Some cryin', six carrying me". The song is very sparse, just Miller's narration and acoustic guitar. He think its foolproof but immediately admits its actually foolhardy. The most devastating lines in the song are "The love that once was warm and then just somehow turned to hate. Made my life a prison from which there’s only one escape . That’s one dyin' and a buryin'....". Believe it or not, this song made it to #10 on the Country charts and #34 on the Pop charts.

Another heartbreaking hit is "Husbands And Wives," a divorce drama. But 'drama' may not be the correct term, as the music and lyrics are anything but dramatic and in fact are resigned and contemplative. The killer line is "pride is the chief cause and the decline in the number of husbands and wives". As true today as it was forty years ago. This song also made the Top Ten on the Country Charts and the Top Forty on the Pop charts.

Finally we have Roger Miller's spectral take on "A World So Full Of Love," a song he co-wrote with Faron Young, who had a minor hit with in 1961. Miller's demo version was unreleased until its inclusion on the 3-CD set "King Of The Road: The Genius Of Roger Miller" in 1995. Accompanied by just his acoustic guitar, Miller squeezes every ounce of emotion out of unbearably dark verses such as "I know how it feels to be alive with no desire to live. I know how it feels to die inside but try hard to forgive. And my way of finding out is 'cause a love just let me down. In a world so full of love yet not enough to go around ."

"John Wesley Harding" - Bob Dylan

"John Wesley Harding" was Bob Dylan's first album in 1 1/2 years when it was released in December 1967. While this doesn't sound like much in this day and age when groups take 6-7 years between albums, this was an eternity when most artists released two albums a year. The reason for this delay was a motorcycle accident Dylan had suffered in the Woodstock, NY area. Being released as it did after such sonically complex masterpieces as The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" and The Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely  Hearts Club Band," this album was decidedly stripped down, even threadbare compared to those releases. Yet with that being said, this album does not suffer one bit from its stripped down sound. Quite the opposite; had these songs been as heavily orchestrated as those albums, they certainly would not have the same power that they possess in the versions found on this album.

This album is one of mythmaking. Thomas Paine, the title character, St. Augustine, The Drifter and many others all fill the songs with mythical tales and cryptic meanings. The most famous song off the album is "All Along The Watchtower," principally through Jimi Hendrix's fairly radical reworking of it, on his double-album "Electric Ladyland".  Another hard rock connection is the fact that the band Judas Priest got its name from the quizzical "The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest". The songs ends with the Countryish love song "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight;" its pedal steel accompaniment and straightforward lyrics pointed the way to his next album, "Nashville Skyline".

Being a very big Bob Dylan fan, and having listened to the vast majority of his albums, I would have to rate this as being my second or third favorite Dylan album. I would put "Blood On The Tracks" higher, and possibly "Highway 61 Revisited". While I think "Blonde On Blonde" is a great album, I would still place "John Wesley Harding" above it.

"Pictures And Paintings" - Charlie Rich

This album, like many of Charlie Rich's best work, deserved, and still deserves a much wider audience. Like any great music, the sound on this album is hard to pin down. Charlie Rich achieved his greatest fame in the Country field (with #1 hits such as "Behind Closed Doors" and "The Most Beautiful Girl"),  but on this album, Country is one of only many genres which he touches upon. There's a good deal of a Jazz feel to this album, along with a dollop of Soul.

It's almost hard to express how full of emotion are such standout tracks as the title track (written by Doc Pomus and Mac Rebennack AKA Dr. John) and "Go Ahead And Cry" (written by Charlie Rich's wife, Margaret Ann Rich). "Pictures And Paintings" beautifully paints an indelible picture of a man who cannot let go of a love that may never even have existed. And while the lyrics are certainly not at all upbeat, the music is a fairly upbeat shuffle. The next track on the album ("You Don't Know Me") is a painfully slow heartbreaker, a cover of a Country standard (a huge hit for Eddy Arnold, and later Ray Charles).

"Feel Like Going Home," the final track of the album naturally, is one of his most powerful and soulful songs. It ties in with author Peter Guralnick, who wrote a book of the same title after he heard Rich's demo version from the 1970's (which frankly is a more moving version of the song, it can be found on the 2-CD "Essential Charlie Rich") and also wrote the liner notes and served as one of the executive producers on the album.

"Pictures And Paintings" was the last album that Charlie Rich recorded.  It was released in 1992 and Rich passed away in 1995. The albums serves as a fitting epitaph to a varied and wide-ranging music career.

"Evidence: The Complete Fame Masters" - Candi Staton

While Candi Station is by no means an unknown Soul singer, it is my opinion that she is one of the most underrated. The work that she did at Fame Studios during the late 1960s and early 1970s is among the most vital, soulful and propulsive Soul music to ever be committed to wax. And thankfully Ace Records has finally brought all of these recordings together in one very complete collection, along with a few unreleased tracks.

There is a lot of heartache and longing on this double CD. From the distraught "Someone You Use" to the funky and liberated "Evidence," Candi sings about the hurt caused by love. Possibly the most agonizingly poignant performance is her take on "How Can I Put Out The Flame (When You Keep The Fire Burning)", which is about a woman who can't get over a man and until he's out of her life. The latter two songs were co-written by George Jackson, who co-wrote most of the greatest songs on this album and has written such hits as "One Bad Apple" and "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll". He also co-wrote her first hit, the charging and hilarious "I'd Rather Be An Old Man's Sweetheart (Than A Young Man's Fool)". There are also a number of interesting covers on this album. Her take on the Soul standard "That's How Strong My Love Is" is a lovely declaration of fidelity and her hit version of Tammy Wynette's Country standard "Stand By Your Man" is a fascinating piece of Country Soul.

While Candi Staton is not as well-known as the likes of Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick or Gladys Knight, and therefore consequently her career has not been as long-lived, the performances captured on this double-CD are equal to the best works of these singers and deserving of a much wider audience.

"The Who Sell Out" - The Who

Some albums are albums that you go back with a long while, and they never leave you. The Who's "The Who Sell Out" is one of those for me. As with many of the hundreds of albums I own, I can remember when and where I purchased it. I purchased it way back in the summer of 1995 at the flagship Sam The Record Man in downtown Toronto on Yonge Street (miss that chain). The version I picked up is the MCA CD reissue from 1995 which includes 9 bonus tracks, and it's these 9 bonus tracks that really made this a favorite of mine.

Both the snippets which are interspersed between the album bonus tracks and some of the tracks themselves are "ads" which advertise products that are sometimes real ("Heinz Baked Beans") and sometimes made up ("Odorno"). Yet the strongest tracks are completely unrelated to the album's concept of "selling out". The triumphant "I Can See For Miles" combines phenomenal drumming and guitar riffs with a malevolent glee at finally finding out the truth. The ethereal but heartbreaking "Sunrise" is the complete opposite, just Pete Townshend singing and accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, singing about the love of his who he's too afraid to approach.

The bonus tracks on this CD version include both b-sides not included on the album and tracks that were not even released until the 1990's. Standouts include the strikingly despondent "Melancholia," the lovely pop of "Someone's Coming" and the proto-heavy metal instrumental "Hall Of The Mountain King". Another fascinating bonus track is the CD's closer, "Glow Girl" which both musically and lyrically serves as a very important precedent for the upcoming Rock Opera "Tommy".

While this album may not be as influential as "Who's Next" or "Tommy," it definitely ranks as one of The Who's greatest albums and is a lot more 'fun' than either of those later, more serious albums.

They must shop at Costco

"Summer Rain: The Essential Rivers 1964–1975" - Johnny Rivers

Surprisingly, there's a lot more to Johnny Rivers than "Secret Agent Man" and Chuck Berry covers. Some of his most interesting work was done in the late 1960's, when he helped popularize Jimmy Webb's songs and recorded quite a number of them. The album opens with "Memphis," his first hit and a Chuck Berry cover and continues with his good but not inspired covers of quite a number of what today we would call "Roots Rock" songs (all of them hits to varying degrees). Among those is also the campy but irresistible "Secret Agent Man," which was not a cover.

My favourite song on the album, and Johnny Rivers' only #1 hit, is the deeply soulful and moving "Poor Side Of Town". This song is interesting in a number of ways. For one thing, it is the only one of his Top Forty hits which he had a hand in writing (he co-wrote it with his produce Lou Adler). Secondly, it is Soul-oriented (with backing vocals, strings, etc.) and not Rock-oriented. Also, it makes you wonder why there aren't more songs like this on the album! As far as I know, Johnny Rivers did not record very many of his compositions, unfortunately. The followup to "Poor Side Of Town" was a Motown cover ("Baby I Need Your Lovin'") which isn't quite as strong as The Four Tops' original, but still has a charm of its own and became another sizable hit. After another Motown cover and hit ("The Tracks Of My Tears") we got to the strongest section of the album. A trio of strong Jimmy Webb songs are followed by equally well-written tracks such as the title track and "Look To Your Soul," all of them quite introspective. This leads up to an improbable cover that knocks me out every time I hear it, his somewhat Countryish take on Bob Dylan's "Positively Fourth Street". Bob Dylan has famously proclaimed that he prefers Rivers' version to his own. The final three songs on the album were all hit covers of hit songs and are all uniformly uninteresting.

So really there may not be enough primo material to make this album worth it. However I still enjoyed it and am glad to have the stronger tracks on album, especially since this material is not available on Itunes.

"The Convincer" - Nick Lowe

Nick Lowe is not exactly a household name. Even to music connoisseurs of some knowledge he is mostly known for his 80s pop (his biggest hit was "Cruel To Be Kind") and his production work with Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds & others. But some of his strongest work has been the albums he has been releasing on a regular basis since the mid-90's, when he realized that he didn't want to be an aging rocker pretending that the new wave was still happening. Instead, he took the route of quieter, more acoustic and more countryish songs. The resulting albums have been consistently rewarding in their depth, original songs and choice covers. The results remind me a bit of Charlie Rich, actually, generally classified as a Country singer (the genre where he had his biggest hits, i.e. "Behind Closed Doors") but an artist with a lot more soul and depth than your average Country singer.

The album being discussed here is "The Convincer," released in 2001. This is the third album available in a 3-CD set called the "Brentford Trilogy," which also has the equally worthy predecessor albums ("The Impossible Bird" and "Dig My Mood"). While Nick Lowe's songwriting skills are nothing to sneeze at, my two favourite tracks are actually both covers. The first is the heartbreaking "Only A Fool Breaks His Own Heart," which has a tender, almost lullaby-like arrangement which is somehow pretty and painful at the same time. The other is "Poor Side Of Town," which was a #1 hit for Johnny Rivers in the late 60s and tells the story of a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who had ditched her poor boyfriend only to realize the error of her ways. By the end of the song they realize that they can get out of the poor side of town, together. Lowe's cover of the latter song is fairly faithful to the original, whereas his cover of "Only A Fool Breaks His Own Heart"is quite different from the various versions that I've listened to since I heard Lowe's version (and actually more moving).

As far as originals go, the intriguing "Indian Queens" grabbed my attention. It is the lament of an inveterate rogue who has traveled the world but desires to return to "Indian Queens". After hearing the song, I was more than curious to know if this is a real place. And lo and behold, it is a village in England where Pocahontas may or may not have been. One of the few uptempo songs is the Rockabillyish and humorous "Has She Got A Friend?" which asks the obvious question: 'sure, your new girl is great, but I've heard enough about her, does she have a friend?!'. "The Convincer" of the title is surely the narrator of the penultimate track of the album, the explicitly seductive "Let's Stay In And Make Love".

If you like intelligent and varied roots music, be sure to give this album a listen.

"Electric Warrior" - T. Rex

So last week I had $50 worth of gift cards to use at any Cadillac Fairview mall. Naturally I spent it all at an HMV. I decided to look through the entire Pop/Rock section (or whatever they call it these days), A-Z and see what caught my eye. When I got to the 'T' section, this album caught my eye. I had never owned any T. Rex albums. The only song that I could remember hearing by them was their biggest hit ("Bang A Gong (Get It On)," on this album). I knew they were kind of glam rockish and that this was supposed to be one of their best albums.  It was a Rhino special edition with extra tracks, and I'm always a sucker for that. So I took a chance and picked it up.

And you know what? I'm glad I did! The sound on the album is just somehow slightly..... otherworldly. The lyrics are rather on the trippy side. "Girl I'm just a jeepster for your love" anyone?! That's from the song "Jeepster,"an R &Bish romp which is pretty damn catchy. Reading more about T. Rex, it's incredible how absolutely MASSIVE they were in the U.K. while barely denting the U.S. In The U.K. they had #1 hit after #1 hit, whereas the only song to make the top ten in the U.S. is "Bang A Gong (Get It On). I also realized I knew a few more of their songs, such as "Children Of The Revolution" and "20th Century Boy" (both great songs, btw). Listening to the most famous song on the album, "Bang A Gong (Get It On)," it's easy to see why this is the song that broke T. Rex in the U.S.; the groove is undeniable. The bonus tracks on the Rhino reissue are mostly singles from the same period which were not released on the album. "King Of The Mountain Cometh" is the best of that bunch, "Hot Love" was also a big hit. Next thing to do? Get my hand on his next two albums ("The Slider" and "Tanx").

P.S. For those wondering, I spent the rest of the $50 (and a bit more) on U2's "Boy," Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" and "The Essential Guess Who".

"The Wicked Pickett" - Wilson Pickett.

First things first. This album is just about entirely covers. Even the big hit on the album ("Mustang Sally") is a cover. That would seem to indicate that it is a weak album and/or is full of filler. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For starters, the album was recorded entirely in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, at the soon to be famous Fame Studios. Aretha Franklin recorded her first #1 R&B hit there around the same time ("I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You") and soon everyone from Paul Simon to Cher was recording in Muscle Shoals. Secondly, this means that the band backing Pickett was one of the strongest backup bands of the 20th century, including little known figures who deserve more credit, such as Spooner Oldham on keyboards, Jimmy Johnson on guitar and Roger Hawkins on drums. This was a mostly White band playing a Wilson Pickett album, and you wouldn't have suspected as much by listening to it!

The covers are well chosen and often improve on the original. The original version of "Mustang Sally" was by the author, Sir Mack Rice, and had been a minor R&B hit before Pickett put his distinctive stamp on it. He sped it up a bit and the band provided a funky backdrop which resulted in one of his most famous performances and is a song that everyone assumes started with him. Other highlights are his hit cover of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love" (sped up in the process) and the Deep Soul classic "She Ain't Gonna Do Right" (written by one of my favorite songwriting duos, Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham). The two other songs co-written by Dan Penn on the album are classics of Deep Soul, the devotional "Up Tight Good Woman" and the heartbreaker "You Left The Water Running".

If you're as much of a Soul fan and a Wilson Pickett fan as I am, this album will not be enough. If that is the case, and you have a bit of spare box set money lying around, you need a copy of "Funky Midnight Mover - The Atlantic Recordings (1962-1978)," a 6-CD set which includes everything he recorded for Atlantic Records, including this album, as well as numerous rarities. It is much, much more consistently strong than I would have thought; only the Discofied second half of disc 5 drags (disc 6 contains the rarities).

"Something/Anything?" - Todd Rundgren

A lot can and has been said about this wide-ranging 1972 double album. It has entered the Rock canon (Rolling Stone top 500 albums, etc.) and was Todd Rundgren's breakthrough album. Does it live up to the hype?

For me the answer is a definite 'yes'. I received this album last Xmas and I have already listened to it over a dozen times I'm sure. The 'something for everything' way the album is chronologically arranged (four album sides, four concepts) could have been distracting and left the album sounding very dated, but somewhat surprisingly that is not the case. The album opens with a tremendous 1-2 punch, namely the purest of pure Pop: "I Saw The Light" and "It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference". Not one of the most well known songs on the album, but one of my favorites is the theatrical "The Night The Carousel Burnt Down". The music probably adds more to the songs than the lyrics, but the song works. The big hit on the album was "Hello It's Me," which was the only song off of the album that I was familiar with. Interestingly enough it had been previously released by Rundgren's old group, Nazz. It is a memorable tale of uncertainty and longing. A song about "it's complicated" relationships years before the term came into common usage.

The musical joy that this album brought to me made me rush out and investigate his albums preceding this one. Thankfully Edsel Records has the two albums before this one ("Runt" and "Runt. The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren") both available on a double CD with extensive liner notes and extra tracks. They're not quite up to this album, but they did not disappoint.

If you're into 70's Rock, definitely check this out. Be prepared for some musical weirdness though!