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Derek & The Dominoes: Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs - 1971

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Blues rock of the highest calibre here - the whole album reeks of quality, despite a notoriously muffled-ish production that multiple remasters can never quite cure. Anyway, let’s get to it.  After the underwhelming Blind Faith “supergroup” experiment, Eric Clapton reconvened with his mates from the Delaney and Bonnie band, together with slide guitar maestro Duane Allman to produce a double album that has gone down in history as one of the great rock albums. Allman’s searing licks are all over album, outshining even Clapton at times. Tragically, he was killed in a motorcycle accident a year later.  In a series of lengthy blues rock workouts that sound as if they are being played live, Eric and the band bring new rocking life to blues standards such as  Nobody Loves You When You’re Down And Out , the peerless  Key To The Highway  (just check out that guitar half way through),  Have You Ever Loved A Woman  and Hendrix’s  Little Wing .  There...
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Motown Chartbusters: Volume 5

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Smokey Robinson & the Miracles - The Tears Of A Clown 1970 The Tears Of A Clown needs no real introduction, does it? One of Motown's biggest hits ever. Actually dating from 1967, quite why it was not immediately singled out as a potential hit defies belief. That is not a feeling in retrospect, either, I’m sure that the track would stand out whether you knew it had been a hit or not. It is also worth stating that the sound on the song is one of the best I have heard it (the introduction is often notoriously a bit dodgy, sound-wise).  Edwin Starr - War 1970 One of my favourite Motown numbers of all time here. Edwin's rousing condemnation of War needs no introduction other than a firm "good God y'all!!". It is one of those that needs no accompanying review, really. The Jackson 5 - The Love You Save 1970 Three killer hits in a row now for The Jackson 5. After I Want You Back and ABC, The Love You Save is another deliciously vibrant number with 11 year-old Michael ...
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Stax: A 50th Anniversary Celebration

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Memphis-based label Stax is, along with Motown, Atlantic and (possibly) reggae's Trojan a label that has become a term for a sub-genre of music. I often find myself saying "listen to those Stax-y horns", for example. You can refer to a "Stax-sounding song" just as easily as you can a "Motown-sounding" one.  The label also had an iconic logo in the finger-snapping image. Stax was based in the South of the US and its sound is what is often known as "Southern soul". Semi-funky guitar (often played by the excellent Steve Cropper) is usually to the fore, along with that distinctive punchy horn sound, and the vocals have a huge gospel influence, straight out of that fertile breeding ground for Southern vocalists - its churches. Like Motown's Funk Brothers, Stax had a house band and they were the mighty Booker T. & The MGs. They appeared backing many other artists' recordings. Blues was also a big thing at Stax, either in its own right o...
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Yvonne Fair: The Bitch Is Black - 1975

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After knocking around at Motown for over six years - see the sleeve notes on the rear cover at the bottom of the review - Yvonne Fair finally got her first album release in 1975, almost long after the horse had bolted, it seemed. She did, however, get her only big hit single out of it. The material was recorded between 1970 and 1975. The title, of course, was deliberately confrontational and one wonders how the traditionally non-aggressive and at times prudish Motown label allowed it to stand. Yvonne posed with a whip on the cover too, most provocatively.  Anyway, to the music, and a mighty fine album it is too. Make no mistake, either, it is, save for a couple of notable ballads, funky as fuck, as they say (or may not say).   Funky Music Sho' 'Nuff Turns Me On had previously been covered by Edwin Starr and The Temptations, but there is an argument in favour of Yvonne's 1974 version being the best of all. Her voice is gritty, gruff and wonderfully built for funk. The track...
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Van Morrison: Enlightenment - 1990

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"I'm in the here and now and I'm meditating. And still I'm suffering but that's my problem. Enlightenment, don't know what it is" - Van Morrison      Some have said that this album does not match the heights of  Avalon Sunset . I disagree, actually, preferring this one.  Somehow I feel it is a more rounded, fulfilled album, although I am finding it difficult to explain exactly why. As appealing as  Coney Island  and  I'm Tired Joey Boy  undoubtedly were, they are much shorter than the material on here. The songs here are just more realised, for me. I feel also, that this is a very soulful album.    The album starts with a true Morrison Celtic Soul classic - the thumping, energetically horn-driven  Real Real Gone . It is as if it is 1970 again and the days of  His Band And The Street Choir . " Sam   Cooke is on the radio " sings Van, sounding as if he is really enjoying himself.  The next track is a corker too,...
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Elton John: Caribou - 1974

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"A piece of crap...the sound is the worst, the songs are nowhere, the sleeve came out wrong, the lyrics weren't that good, the singing wasn't all there, the playing wasn't great and the production is just plain lousy" - Gus Dudgeon In many ways, Elton John's 1974 Caribou album was his equivalent of Bob Dylan's Self Portrait from 1970.  After some really impressive mature albums in the early seventies, followed by one hell of a crossover that merged reflective, moving adult balladry with glam rock in 1973's multi-million seller, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, so much was now expected of Elton John, both in the UK and, more importantly in the USA, where he was now huge.   In the seventies, artists were expected to put out albums virtually every year and one got the impression that this often half-baked album was Elton and Bernie's attempt to say "it doesn't matter, if you pressure us to release an album before we're ready, we will release a...
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The Rolling Stones: It's Only Rock 'n' Roll - 1974

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"I did have a falling out with Mick Jagger over some songs I felt I should have been credited with co-writing on It's Only Rock 'n' Roll" - Mick Taylor   After the critically-lauded  Sticky Fingers  and  Exile On Main Street , 1973's  Goat's Head Soup  began the supposed descent from which The Stones were never to recover, according to many. Another popularly held opinion is that it was something of a "treading water" album with the band at a period of transition. To a certain extent that was true, and this was, unfortunately, the last album to feature the wonderfully talented  Mick Taylor  on guitar.  Nevertheless, in terms of looking for positives about it - the very fact that it includes Taylor is one huge positive. Secondly, while both this and its predecessor suffer from poor sound quality, the sound on here is markedly improved from the muddiness of  Goat's Head Soup . Listening to this album every now and again is always a pleasu...
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The Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang - 2005

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"They played with a strength and swagger they hadn't had in years" - Stephen Thomas Erlewine - AllMusic    While 1994's Voodoo Lounge and 1997's Bridges To Babylon were, somewhat unfairly, (particularly in the case of the former) panned by critics, this one, nearly ten years later, was given the cliche-ridden "return to form" praise. Why was this? Maybe it was the considerably stripped down, back to basics backing, no horns or saxophones, just organ and piano plus the core of The Stones.  Also, the fact it included a blues track for the first time in years caused many people to go a bit over the top in their "back to their roots" panegyrics. Just as the previous two album had been, this was, in the age of the CD, an album that was several tracks too long. Fifteen or sixteen tracks now seemed to be the average for an album, using up the full 78 minutes available. To be honest, it was too much for me and all these three albums are difficult to li...
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Bob Dylan: Rough And Rowdy Ways - 2021

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"Equal parts death-haunted and cantankerous" - Jon Pareles - The New York Times In the middle of a pandemic of Biblical proportions,  guess what? Somewhat appropriately, Bob Dylan, music's grand old Methuselah, puts out his first album of self-penned material since 2012's  Tempest . There is something hauntingly apt about that, isn't there?   The album is a good one - a mix of lengthy, quiet, acoustic, often mortality-haunted lyric-fests and a few (three) tougher, industrial-strength blues workouts. This has been Dylan's way for a fair few decades now, so those who don't like it should stay away. Those who are ok with it are guaranteed to get some pleasure from this surprise release.  I Contain Multitudes  starts the album off with a slow, growled acoustic number in the style of some of the material on  Modern Times ,  Love And Theft  and  Time Out Of Mind  amongst others. The song contains instantly recognisable rhyme schemes and a su...
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Van Morrison: A Period Of Transition - 1977

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"The Eternal Kansas City was the song that Van got the whole album hooked up around. It was a real deep thing for him to focus on. It goes from a real ethereal voice sound to a jazz introduction and then into a kind of chunky R&B" - Dr. John    Van Morrison , after rediscovering his Irishness on 1974’s  Veedon Fleece  had toured extensively, playing some iconic shows and then got “writer’s block” for a while.  In the meantime, punk had exploded all over the music scene in 1976-77 and established artists were prime targets for the scorn of punk’s young guns. Morrison escaped, under the radar, somehow.  He continued to release decidedly un-punk recordings throughout the whole period, seemingly oblivious. He had been hanging out with funk-soul group  The Crusaders , and there were definite influences on this, his “great comeback” album. Its title, though, gives it away. It definitely was a “period of transition”. The album remains a slightly half-b...
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