"Tunnel Of Love" - Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen's "Tunnel Of Love," the 1987 follow up to the massively successful "Born In The U.S.A." is an underrated masterpiece. It is one of his most personal albums, as he was in the midst of personal issues which would soon lead to a divorce with his then wife. The overwhelming theme is one of heartbreak, despair, confusion. "Brilliant Disguise," the biggest hit from the album (#5 on the Billboard Pop charts) paints a haunting picture of a man who is not sure who it is that he is in love with, or who exactly who he is: "Well I've tried so hard baby but I just can't see. What a woman like you is doing with me. So tell me what I see when I look in your eyes. Is that you baby or just a brilliant disguise".

As with all of Bruce Springsteen's greatest albums, there are scenes of heartbreaking domestic strife. The most affecting, most distraught track may be "One Step Up". "Another fight and I slam the door on another battle in our dirty little war. When I look at myself I don’t see the man I wanted to be. Somewhere along the line I slipped off track. I’m caught movin’ one step up and two steps back". The title track has always been a favourite of mine. The tunnel of love is an interesting metaphor,  as the song details a trip through a real life circus tunnel of love, as well as the turmoil that is enveloping their relationship.

I don't think Bruce Springsteen has recorded a better album than this since then, so in my books this stands as Bruce Springsteen's last great album, though other good ones have since been released.

"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.