The Bert Berns Story, Vol 1 - Twist And Shout

1960 - 1964. From the "Producers and songwriters series" from Ace. Writer and producer, of "Here comes the night" by the Them, for example. He also tried his own hand at performing, as a singer and musician, but with not much success.

A CD about a producer, so we need to listen for the sound quality and arrangements, eh? Don't worry, if anything's very obvious, it's that. There are little details everywhere, the sound is crafted very carefully and the songs are finely balanced. That's the biggest appeal of this album and it's something that's of a quality rarely heard these days.

With that and the timeframe of 1960 to 1964, it shouldn't come as a surprise that it sounds dated. The quality of the productions prevent this album from becoming boring, even though there aren't particularly big hits or exciting songs on it. Quite peculiar in fact, since Bert Berns isn't much more (or less) interesting than some of his artists (Solomon Burke, The Isley Brothers, Gene Pitney, Ben E. King, Lulu) and the songs on this album aren't much more interesting than some of the other (more famous) renditions of the same songs ('Twist and shout', 'Tell her', 'Here comes the night'). Take the 'Here comes the night' example: not the Them version but the version by Lulu, which is considerably worse (even admitted by Lulu).

Anyway, musically satisfactorily, enjoyable and diverse, historically interesting. The package is complemented in good Ace tradition with an extensive booklet: background on Bert Burns (with the inevitable overdose of details), background on the individual songs and artists, quotes by many relevant people and a good dose of pictures. Volume 2 is in the making and as mentioned before: it's part of a series focusing on producers and writers with other great stuff.
Ace, 2008

The Bert Berns Story, Vol 1 - Twist And Shout

The Staple Singers - The Very Best Of

"The Very Best Of"? Possible, more accurate is 'The very best of the Stax years" which lasted from 1968 'till 1974. Their entire career spans from 1948 until, let's say, 2000 when 'Pops' Staples died. It's a bit dubious, their last album is from 1984 and I'm not sure if they performed that much during the 1990's but the point is that there's more Staples than what's on this CD.

That said, if you want to start with the Staple Singers, the Stax period is a good one. Activism, gospel and soul, all brought to you by superior singing, harmonies and Pops' guitar playing. It's quite interesting actually, the quality of the individual songs isn't determined by the Staple Singers or the quality of the song but by the quality of the rest of the music. The Staple Singers can make any song a good song. A hit like 'Respect yourself' isn't so much better than the other songs, the Staples aren't so much better on this song than on the others but the rest of the music makes such a tune stand out. Anyway & whatever, see for yourself.

The Stax catalogue is (re-)issued by the Conchord music group, with plenty more goodness on offer. The release is good but unspectacular: 20 tracks, small booklet with Staple Singers history and a few pics. Recommended. Know there's more Staple Singers than the Stax works, know there are more compilations released under the 'Very Best Of' moniker, know various Staples have released solo works and most of all: enjoy.
Stax/Conchord, 2007

The Staple Singers - The Very Best Of (112 MiB)

Bo Diddley - The Definitive Collection

Just a quickie. This "Definitive Collection" on Chess is also known as "His Best" on the same label. It's neither definitive nor his best per se but that shouldn't matter as these are original Chess recordings from 1955 'till 1966. Rock 'n roll basics.

The first of the 20 tracks are 'Bo Diddley' and 'I'm A Man', musicians include Willie Dixon, Little Walter and Otis Spann. Booklet comes with decent text, pictures and recording info. Originally released in 1997 as 'His Best' on 'Chess The Legendary Masters Series' by Universal, this is
Geffen, 2007

Bo Diddley - The Definitive Collection

Little Willie John - Heaven All Around Me, The Later King Sessions 1961-63

The later King sessions! I didn't want to upload this just yet, I'd rather have done it chronologically. I haven't gotten the earlier works yet, this is beautiful and it was sitting in my collection too long already.

Proto-soul. Close to soul but somehow not fully there but it's in his vocals though. His presentation is powerful and energetic, lifting even the tackiest song to greater heights. And this is someone who recorded 'Fever' and 'I need your love so bad' before.

Born in 1937, he died in 1968, but managed to record a lot of music. This album contains his last work released during his life because he was imprisoned in 1966 (but also released on bail, later). He thus died before he could be a true soul great but I have no doubts he'd be one.

AFAIK no real big hits on this CD or songs made memorable by others, like the tracks mentioned above. A variety of different styles, the music is mostly easily dated by the arrangements and backing vocals. But King was an excellent label and the material is good allowing Little Willie John to show how good he was. Fantastic stuff for anyone into 50's music and early 60's soul.

It's an Ace release with usual qualities: enough to read with plenty of details. The booklet contains two more shots from a session which also produced the cover pic. And lots more single-labels of course which is complete nonsense: King labels all look the same and are blue unless it's a "First Edition" and then they're orange. Why bother to whine again about this? Because on the back of the booklet we find another picture: click. Just a few of those and I promise I'll stop complaining about the pics of labels, ok?

I need to get my act together, update this blog more often and get more Little willie John. Don't count on any of this happen at all/soon, but it can be beautifully combined and it's one of the best ideas I've had in a long time. Can't wait? Ace has 3 more releases, "The Early King Sessions", "The King Sessions" and "Nineteen Sixty Six: The David Axelrod & HB Barnum Sessions" which would give you pretty much everything.
Ace, 2009

Little Willie John - Heaven All Around Me, The Later King Sessions 1961-63

The Roots Of Led Zeppelin

This is a set with 3 CDs and a DVD with no music by Led Zeppelin but with music that led to Led Zep.

The three CDs are roughly one with acoustic blues, the second with Chicago blues and a third with rock 'n roll. If you know LZ but not much music history in general, this set will surprise you. If you do know more about music, you might think that tRoLZ could also have been called The Roots To Rock Music In General Including Led Zeppelin. Artists go from Robert Johnson to Elvis Presley including lots of other artists from the 'you need to know at least these' category. It isn't a general introduction to rock because of the LZ specific selection of songs but it comes close. Let's just say that a roots of the Rolling Stones CD set would include many of the same artists and quite possibly some of the same songs.

Many songs have been included because they've been played during concerts or by the Yardbirds. Roots of course and often verifiable because of live recordings/bootlegs. The more interesting items imho are the songs that can be traced to the studio albums. This set provides the originals and documentation to help you discover those influences. That can be a complicated matter: not included (but mentioned in the liner notes) in this set is "You Need Love" by Muddy Waters (which you can find on 'You Heard It Here First'), an original to LZ's 'Whole Lotta Love'. But as the liner notes by You Heard It Here First already point out, Zeps version seems to be more inspired on the Small Faces' "You Need Loving" (also not included).

"When The Levee Breaks" has an original by Memphis Minnie (Kansas Joe) but the LZ version is a "drastic re-working" of it, according to the linernotes. That's an understatement, see this link to a Wired article:

"You’ve got backwards harmonica, backwards echo, phasing, and there’s also flanging," Jimmy Page told Uncut Magazine in 2008, "and at the end you get this super-dense sound, in layers, that’s all built around the drum track. And you’ve got Robert, constant in the middle, and everything starts to spiral around him. It’s all done with panning."

I mean, the roots are only half of the story here.

With blues and rock 'n roll the most important influences are covered. Featured are also skiffle and country songs but they enforce the rock-side of LZ most. If you're looking for the roots to "The Battle Of Evermore" or "D'yer Mak'er" you won't find it on this set.

Which brings us to the question what the value is of tRoLZ. LZ wasn't particularly generous when attributing songs and if you'd want to explore the roots yourself, you won't get much assistance from the record sleeves. tRoLZ doesn't reveal any secrets, you can find everything in books and on the net, but having 60 tracks handy with a text to explain their selection makes it easier to discover the influences. "Travellin' Riverside Blues", Robert Johnson, check, but is that also influenced by the music from "The Girl I Love" by Sleepy John Estes?

So in order to fully appreciate this set, you need to have a few LZ albums for comparison or know their music well. Not a necessity, it's an excellent selection of songs in its own right, but it's fairly pointless without. You can use this set to discover some artists you didn't know before but the majority is of a stature that getting a bunch of 'Best Of' CDs makes more sense.

Download it of course but that doesn't give you the booklet. As said, all the information is available elsewhere and you'll find easy. But so are the songs and like the songs, the liner notes make it very convenient to explore the music. The text is a somewhat chronological walk through the history of the band and the various albums, making connections to the songs on this set and other influences, with a quote here and there. Excellent stuff. The rest of the booklet are pictures of the artists and a catalog of other Proper releases. The set contains a fourth disk, a DVD with interviews, which I haven't bothered to check out yet.
Proper, 2009

When The Levee Breaks
How Many More Years
Train Kept A Rollin

Extra: Small Faces - You Need Loving (remove last extension)

Paavoharju - Laulu Laakson Kukista

Somewhere between evolution and creationism sit the Finnish who simply invented themselves. They're normal humans but in their own style. This is no secret, everyone can get the documentation and information from the Finnish government. With one drawback: it's in their own language so nobody but the Finnish has been able to understand it so far. And right on the very same drawing boards that the Finns used to design themselves, Paavoharju wrote their second album. It's normal music but in their own style. This too is available to the rest of the world but with the same drawback: it's in Finnish so you won't be able to understand it.

I know I'll never make a living as a comedian but it's sometimes hard to find an opening for a post. Sorry. Seriously then: Paavoharju doesn't play different music but manages to be different nevertheless. It's in the way their music is assembled and treated, as if you're listening to a broken down radio which plays different stations at once and loses clear reception sometimes. Every thing's familiar and strange at the same time. But, and this is critical, it's never alarmingly weird or ugly, never unnatural or experimental. The best analogy I can think of is that it sounds like a dream in a way that dreams can make sense when you're dreaming but not anymore when you wake up.

Laulu Laakson Kukista therefore is the same as Yhä Hämärää and its style is immediately recognizable as Paavoharju's. Differences perhaps in very small details, hardly worth mentioning. 'Laula' is at some points a bit more brazen in its sounds and somehow I noticed the male vocals more. That last aspect needs clarification: the female vocals fit in the instrumentation, the male vocals stand out as singing. And with the singing you get lyrics and you may start to wonder what they're singing about, which is a difficult affair since it's in Finnish. To be honest, I like the music so much that I'm afraid to know what the music is about. I can't conceive of a meaning that wouldn't devalue the listening experience for me so I'm perfectly happy not understanding what the music's about, even not knowing it's about something at all.

Package and artwork: equally beautiful and incomprehensible as the music and the first album.
Fonal, 2008

Paavoharju - Laulu Laakson Kukista
(I apologize in advance if certain tags turn out illegible: 1. it's Finnish so of course you can't read it but more troubling 2. there are apparently conflicting sets of UTF-8, at least my ripper speaks a different dialect than my player.

You Heard It here First!

"The original versions of these famous songs". "26 classics from the 50s and 60s, heard here in their original, pre-hit, versions."

A journey through music history with a selection of songs that became very famous when covered by someone else. You may know examples not on this CD, you may be surprised by finding out that the version of a song wasn't the first.

Well known songs in obscure versions by obscure artists? Mostly yes. Some originals have gotten their place in the sun ('Tainted Love', 'The Red Rooster'), some artists aren't very unknown (Muddy Waters) some songs aren't immediately recognizable as the original to the famous hit ('Hey Joe'). Historically important, seeing that the break through hit for rock 'n roll was 'Rock Around The Clock' by Bill Haley & His Comets, it's interesting to hear the original to that. And well, some of the artists are very obscure, sometimes there's even doubt as to who exactly can be heard.

Fun? Mostly yes. Some songs can't stand in the shade of the famous version ('Wild Thing'), some are equal or better ('I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself'), some are completely different but still equal or better (Muddy's 'You Need Love' to Led Zep's 'Whole Lotta Love', the already mentioned 'Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go'). And sometimes it requires a sort of mindbending: the original 'Suspicious Minds' is about as inconceivable as a cover from Elvis' version, even though the original isn't that bad in itself.

Now, review the titles I've mentioned. I haven't mentioned 'Hanky Panky', 'Something Stupid' or 'My Boy Lollipop' yet but you'd already grasped that this is a peculiar collection. The main body is from the late 50's and early 60's, music styles are all over the place with folk, beat, R&B, R&R, country, soul, etc. Overall decent quality music, very few songs disappoint on their own and you may find originals that you like to a point you'd consider them hits.

With Ace we've come to expect good documentation with their releases and this CD is no exception. Without a real theme or subject, all text is dedicated to the individual songs. Some info has a 'yeah, whatever' level, some is of pub-quiz quality but here and there the text helps to place the original, its hit version or the relation between the two. There's interesting background on persons and recordings which is sometimes really needed to understand the development of songs. A few pointers are provided for those who'd like to dive a lot deeper into the music, with info on songwriters and producers. A fairly good number of good pictures complements the text.
Ace, 2008

You Heard It here First!

Nigeria Rock Special: Psychedelic Afro-Rock & Fuzz Funk In 1970s Nigeria

African 1970's rock. That's it, that's all.

Africa, easy. Rock means prominent electric guitar and the 70's component sits a bit in the ambition of the tracks, a few are over 5 minutes long. The 'funk' is there too, wouldn't it make more sense to mention it if it was missing? E.g. "Warning: Nigerian funkless music". Anyway, pretty far out stuff compared to comtemporary western popmusic.

This is a sister release of Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds and Nigerian Blues 1970 - 6. Excellent booklet: context, pictures and info on songs. Difference: the rock CD has 15 tracks on 1 CD vs. the Highlife CD with 26 on 2.
Soundway, 2008

Nigeria Rock Special (108 MB)
Part 1
Part 2

Joe Tex - Get Way Back

"The 1950s Recordings". That's starting in 1955, after winning a talent show in the Apollo theater, aged 22, and ending in 1960 with a few later recordings. And that's the music from before Joe Tex became famous.

There's nothing wrong with this CD: good music, the usual insightful context in the booklet, pictures of record labels and some pictures of a young and baby-faced Joe Tex. What is wrong is how interesting this is. In other words, I think the problem's with the audience.

You're a Joe Tex fan, we all are. Listening to the music by the man before he got his breakthrough can be interesting but it's not quite as enjoyable as his later work. Not in the least because some songs are in someone else's style, like Little Richard and the Coasters, or a failed copy of a different song, like Pneumonia for Fever (regardless of Joe's claims to be the writer of Fever). There's plenty of 'original' Joe Tex too but not the 'real' Joe Tex sound, despite his voice being recognizable. And finally, the 1950's didn't know soul yet, so you'll find Joe doing mostly R&B. But, you can be the kind of fan who wants everything by his idol and then you could do a lot worse than getting this CD.

If you were to study the way the recording industry operated in the 50's, this would be a useful document. It contains a story of failed attempts at 'making it' and is thus more relevant than a story of success because it's shows various different approaches used in the industry. Say, 'Greatest Hits From Motown' tells you what success is, this CD tells you what's tried to achieve it.

Again, the fault's not with this CD. You just may have other stuff you rather listen to. Give it a try of course if you're only a little curious, chances are you might find something you like among the 27 tracks. It's Joe Tex, after all. If you're new to Joe, search this blog for more entertaining stuff.
Ace 2008

Joe Tex - Get Way Back

Precious Bryant - The Truth

A little bit down you find the Sisters of the South CD. I liked quite a few artists on that set but to me one stood out: Precious Bryant. If you've gotten the Sisters disk, perhaps you'd want to listen to her specifically.

That's Precious Bryant, her style and her type of songs. And that's how she sounds on her first album from 2002, "Fool Me Good". The Truth is her second album.

It's still Precious Bryant, same style and songs, but this time playing electric guitar and occasionally having a band (bass, drum) to accompany her. It nudges the sound a bit more towards rock (& roll) but by mentioning it I've already given it too much attention.

Nothing more to tell, it's really that simple.
Terminus, 2004

Precious Bryant - The Truth

Vampisoul Goes To Africa: Afrobeat Nirvana

The good news: the problem is mental, not physical. Except it physically stops me from updating this blog regularly. But there's not really something wrong with my fingers, eyes, ears and wallet so there's life, Jim, but not as we know it. Will cut through the backlog of comments & mail soon.

Vampisoul, compilation. No info therefore, just a selection to whet your appetite and make you buy the individual albums that fed this CD. Africa here, too, is Nigeria. Time: 1950's to 1980's. If you didn't know this was just a sampler it would be a rather nonsensical affair and it's mostly useful for finding single tracks rather than putting it on and listening through the whole lot as a normal album. Of course, chances of finding a gem if you're not immediately put off by late 20th century Nigerian music are considerable. A quick check showed only 1 double with the Nigeria Special set.
Vampisoul, 2008

Afrobeat Nirvana