"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".