It doesn’t happen too often, but it gladdened my heart to see a top pre-rock popster profiled in the new issue of MOJO, the beautifully designed Dadrock monthly.
Frank Sinatra is the subject of an extensive profile by MOJO scribe Fred Dellar. Never mind that the article focuses on the trashy celeb side of the Sinatra legacy, his time-wasting with the reprehensible Rat Pack. Any piece on Sinatra aimed at rockist readers of a mag like MOJO is commendable missionary work.
Fred Dellar is a pre-rock pop specialist: his earlier writing on Sarah Vaughan, for example, reveals an enviable knowledge of the music recorded by the pre-Elvis greats.
Recommended Sinatra buys?
Well, the supermarkets are currently awash with the cream of the catalogue at budget prices (£5) - compilations of the great Capitol (Classic Sinatra: his Great Performances 1953-1960) and Reprise (A Fine Romance: the love songs of Frank Sinatra 2CD) sides stand out.
Now’s the time to try Frank again.
Gerry Smith
Friday, 20 July 2007
Friday, 13 July 2007
At The Movies – an intriguing celebration of the art of Van Morrison
At The Movies, the 2007 Van Morrison compilation released before the even more recent Best Of Vol 3, is a wonderful anthology.
It reveals Morrison as a sometime great songwriter. Just listen carefully to the lyrics of Someone Like You, Real Real Gone, Moondance and Have I Told You Lately That I Love You – pop for grown-ups doesn’t get any better than this.
The vocals – particularly the towering performances on Caravan and Comfortably Numb – remind you that Van The Man has the finest singing voice in rock. And if you haven’t heard Morrison for a while, you might well be surprised at the sheer musicality of his catalogue.
At The Movies is an intriguing release, though. Why are there so many live tracks? Presumably so that Morrison receives royalties that would otherwise go to Warner Brothers if their album tracks had been used.
Why was Brown-Eyed Girl re-recorded? Presumably to divert royalties to Morrison and away from Bang, Morrison’s hated first label as a solo artist.
And why was the cinema on the cover artwork given the exceedingly unlikely name of “CALVIN”? Presumably it’s a joke by a very witty Belfast Calvinist. It certainly made this fellow Calvinist laugh out loud!
Super album: a must-listen for grown-up fans of mature popular music.
Gerry Smith
It reveals Morrison as a sometime great songwriter. Just listen carefully to the lyrics of Someone Like You, Real Real Gone, Moondance and Have I Told You Lately That I Love You – pop for grown-ups doesn’t get any better than this.
The vocals – particularly the towering performances on Caravan and Comfortably Numb – remind you that Van The Man has the finest singing voice in rock. And if you haven’t heard Morrison for a while, you might well be surprised at the sheer musicality of his catalogue.
At The Movies is an intriguing release, though. Why are there so many live tracks? Presumably so that Morrison receives royalties that would otherwise go to Warner Brothers if their album tracks had been used.
Why was Brown-Eyed Girl re-recorded? Presumably to divert royalties to Morrison and away from Bang, Morrison’s hated first label as a solo artist.
And why was the cinema on the cover artwork given the exceedingly unlikely name of “CALVIN”? Presumably it’s a joke by a very witty Belfast Calvinist. It certainly made this fellow Calvinist laugh out loud!
Super album: a must-listen for grown-up fans of mature popular music.
Gerry Smith
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Elvis Presley’s great 1956 recordings
Elvis Presley’s massive catalogue might be the least consistent of any major musician, but the early material – the Sun sessions and the early recordings for RCA – are beyond reproach.
Elvis and Elvis Presley, the first two RCA LPs, are widely available on CD, with added tracks. Borders is currently offering a 2CD, 35 track package at a mere £6.99. Elvis 1956, the beautifully designed repackaged compilation which has all 22 non-film recordings from an epochal year in popular music, is also being discounted by Borders at £7.99. One or the other is a must-have in any grown-up collection.
But the best value package of The King from 1956 has to be the new Elvis Presley: Original Recordings, in the Icons series released by budget label Green Umbrella. Its two CDs pull together 47 tracks, including the first two LPs – all the post-Sun early Elvis you’re ever likely to need. I bought mine from supermarket chain Morrison’s for the princely sum of £3.39: any cheaper and they’d be paying customers to cart the stuff away.
www.guentertainment.co.uk
(nb: the enterprise is so new, the site isn’t fully operational; linked here because it looks worth watching…)
Gerry Smith
Elvis and Elvis Presley, the first two RCA LPs, are widely available on CD, with added tracks. Borders is currently offering a 2CD, 35 track package at a mere £6.99. Elvis 1956, the beautifully designed repackaged compilation which has all 22 non-film recordings from an epochal year in popular music, is also being discounted by Borders at £7.99. One or the other is a must-have in any grown-up collection.
But the best value package of The King from 1956 has to be the new Elvis Presley: Original Recordings, in the Icons series released by budget label Green Umbrella. Its two CDs pull together 47 tracks, including the first two LPs – all the post-Sun early Elvis you’re ever likely to need. I bought mine from supermarket chain Morrison’s for the princely sum of £3.39: any cheaper and they’d be paying customers to cart the stuff away.
www.guentertainment.co.uk
(nb: the enterprise is so new, the site isn’t fully operational; linked here because it looks worth watching…)
Gerry Smith
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
NOT Music for Grown-Ups… We All Love Ella
Universal are promoting a new Ella Fitzgerald tribute album. Glancing at the performers on track list, I’d much rather spend the time/money on the unutterably wonderful real thing…
Promo:
“Various Artists - We All Love Ella: Celebrating the First Lady of Song - Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums. Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra with unmatched rhythmic acuity and an unimpeachable sense of swing.
“Ella's 90th birthday would have been April 25th, 2007. Please join us in this year-long celebration! "We All Love Ella: Celebrating The First Lady of Song" is an Ella Tribute Album featuring a host of stars including Natalie Cole, Chaka Kahn, Gladys Knight, Diana Krall and many more.”
On reflection, you couldn’t pay me to play such an album instead of, say, the Cole Porter Songbook.
Who on Earth listens to this kind of stuff?
Gerry Smith
Promo:
“Various Artists - We All Love Ella: Celebrating the First Lady of Song - Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums. Her voice was flexible, wide-ranging, accurate and ageless. She could sing sultry ballads, sweet jazz and imitate every instrument in an orchestra with unmatched rhythmic acuity and an unimpeachable sense of swing.
“Ella's 90th birthday would have been April 25th, 2007. Please join us in this year-long celebration! "We All Love Ella: Celebrating The First Lady of Song" is an Ella Tribute Album featuring a host of stars including Natalie Cole, Chaka Kahn, Gladys Knight, Diana Krall and many more.”
On reflection, you couldn’t pay me to play such an album instead of, say, the Cole Porter Songbook.
Who on Earth listens to this kind of stuff?
Gerry Smith
Thursday, 28 June 2007
Morrison’s slash CD prices
Morrison’s, the UK “value” supermarket chain, has launched an aggressive discounting campaign, pricing its chart albums (eg the White Stripes’ Icky Thump and the new Clash compilation) at a challenging £7.
The prices are only available in-store – Morrison’s doesn’t sell CDs online.
Best value has to be new The Traveling Wilburys Collection, at £10. At that price, even those who bought the originals on release might now add the reissue to their collection; at £10, the extras – four bonus tracks, DVD, booklet and packaging – are probably worth having. For the fan, there’s a price point below which every Dylan product, bar none, is worth having. Wilburys at £10 is such a point.
Yet one more reason to shop at Morrison’s… .
Gerry Smith
The prices are only available in-store – Morrison’s doesn’t sell CDs online.
Best value has to be new The Traveling Wilburys Collection, at £10. At that price, even those who bought the originals on release might now add the reissue to their collection; at £10, the extras – four bonus tracks, DVD, booklet and packaging – are probably worth having. For the fan, there’s a price point below which every Dylan product, bar none, is worth having. Wilburys at £10 is such a point.
Yet one more reason to shop at Morrison’s… .
Gerry Smith
Tuesday, 12 June 2007
The Best Of Van Morrison, Volume 3 – impressive duets, disappointing solo material, puzzling timing
The Best Of Van Morrison Volume 3, released yesterday in the UK (and in the USA on 19 June) is a 2CD album with 31 tracks, dating from the early 1990s to mid-Noughties, including previously unreleased collaborations, as well as duets with greats like John Lee Hooker, B.B. King and Ray Charles.
If you don’t have an extensive Van Morrison collection, the new release – available online from £8.95 delivered – is an impressive round-up of Morrison’s multifarious outings with some of the greats of postwar blues and soul music. Highlights? The Junior Wells and Hooker duets – both spellbinders.
But for this formerly heavy duty Van consumer, CD2 (see below) illustrates just how The Man’s art has careered uncontrollably towards pop pastiche/showbiz/showband in the last ten years, jettisoning former hardcoristas like me along the way. You couldn’t give me most of the solo tracks on CD 2: I’d have dropped them all, in favour of more duets.
The timing of the release, a bare four months after At The Movies, the last EMI Catalogue compilation of Morrison tunes, is puzzling, too. Presumably it’s a new contract and the label wants to maximize its return - rapido. They won’t get much help from me - I haven’t bought a new Van M album this Millennium, and Best Of Volume 3 won’t change that.
Disc 1
1. Cry For Home (with Tom Jones) (previously unreleased)
2. Too Long In Exile
3. Gloria (with John Lee Hooker)
4. Help Me with Junior Wells (live)
5. Lonely Avenue / 4 O' Clock In The Morning (with Jimmy Witherspoon, Candy Dulfer & Jim Hunter) (live)
6. Days Like This
7. Ancient Highway
8. Raincheck
9. Moondance
10. Centerpiece (with Georgie Fame & Annie Ross)
11. That's Life (live)
12. Benediction (remix) (with Georgie Fame & Ben Sidran)
13. The Healing Game (re-mix)
14. I Don't Want To Go On Without You (with Jim Hunter)
Disc 2
1. Shenandoah (with The Chieftains)
2. Precious Time
3. Back On Top (remix)
4. When The Leaves Come Falling Down
5. Lost John (with Lonnie Donegan) (live)
6. Tupelo Honey (with Bobby Bland) (previously unreleased)
7. Meet Me In The Indian Summer (orchestral version) (remix)
8. Georgia On My Mind
9. Hey Mr. DJ
10. Steal My Heart Away
11. Crazy Love (with Ray Charles)
12. Once In A Blue Moon
13. Little Village
14. Blue and Green
15. Sitting On Top Of The World (with Carl Perkins)
16. Early In The Morning (with B.B. King)
17. Stranded
Gerry Smith
If you don’t have an extensive Van Morrison collection, the new release – available online from £8.95 delivered – is an impressive round-up of Morrison’s multifarious outings with some of the greats of postwar blues and soul music. Highlights? The Junior Wells and Hooker duets – both spellbinders.
But for this formerly heavy duty Van consumer, CD2 (see below) illustrates just how The Man’s art has careered uncontrollably towards pop pastiche/showbiz/showband in the last ten years, jettisoning former hardcoristas like me along the way. You couldn’t give me most of the solo tracks on CD 2: I’d have dropped them all, in favour of more duets.
The timing of the release, a bare four months after At The Movies, the last EMI Catalogue compilation of Morrison tunes, is puzzling, too. Presumably it’s a new contract and the label wants to maximize its return - rapido. They won’t get much help from me - I haven’t bought a new Van M album this Millennium, and Best Of Volume 3 won’t change that.
Disc 1
1. Cry For Home (with Tom Jones) (previously unreleased)
2. Too Long In Exile
3. Gloria (with John Lee Hooker)
4. Help Me with Junior Wells (live)
5. Lonely Avenue / 4 O' Clock In The Morning (with Jimmy Witherspoon, Candy Dulfer & Jim Hunter) (live)
6. Days Like This
7. Ancient Highway
8. Raincheck
9. Moondance
10. Centerpiece (with Georgie Fame & Annie Ross)
11. That's Life (live)
12. Benediction (remix) (with Georgie Fame & Ben Sidran)
13. The Healing Game (re-mix)
14. I Don't Want To Go On Without You (with Jim Hunter)
Disc 2
1. Shenandoah (with The Chieftains)
2. Precious Time
3. Back On Top (remix)
4. When The Leaves Come Falling Down
5. Lost John (with Lonnie Donegan) (live)
6. Tupelo Honey (with Bobby Bland) (previously unreleased)
7. Meet Me In The Indian Summer (orchestral version) (remix)
8. Georgia On My Mind
9. Hey Mr. DJ
10. Steal My Heart Away
11. Crazy Love (with Ray Charles)
12. Once In A Blue Moon
13. Little Village
14. Blue and Green
15. Sitting On Top Of The World (with Carl Perkins)
16. Early In The Morning (with B.B. King)
17. Stranded
Gerry Smith
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Bob Marley’s Exodus – 30th anniversary CDs, book, film
Exodus, the quintessential Bob Marley album, first released 30 years ago, has been treated with respect by record label Island/Universal.
Having released re-mastered single CD and De Luxe 2CD versions in 2001, Island have just released no fewer than five 30th Anniversary versions of the great album: single CD, CD/DVD, vinyl LP and – here’s the interesting bit – CD/SD memory card version and CD/USB memory stick version.
The CD/DVD combo looks like the pick of the crop.
Exodus: Bob Marley and The Wailers, a new book (ed Richard Williams, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, £25), published on Thursday, gathers together a collection of articles on the seminal album. Looks interesting.
Bob Marley’s Exodus, Sunday’s Arena programme on BBC2, was disappointing. It made the schoolboy error of playing the album tracks under a series of ill-chosen, unrelated contemporary news clips. And compounded the error by inserting an endless series of inconsequential comments on the album by anonymous wo/men in the street.
The leitmotif of clips from a ceremony dedicating a plaque on a block of flats off London’s Tottenham Court Rd., where Marley briefly lived, was the most squirm-inducing bit of TV I’ve seen for ages.
The Arena documentary was nowhere near as good as three earlier Marley TV documentaries I have on VHS tape: largely unwatchable; a missed opportunity.
Gerry Smith
Having released re-mastered single CD and De Luxe 2CD versions in 2001, Island have just released no fewer than five 30th Anniversary versions of the great album: single CD, CD/DVD, vinyl LP and – here’s the interesting bit – CD/SD memory card version and CD/USB memory stick version.
The CD/DVD combo looks like the pick of the crop.
Exodus: Bob Marley and The Wailers, a new book (ed Richard Williams, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, £25), published on Thursday, gathers together a collection of articles on the seminal album. Looks interesting.
Bob Marley’s Exodus, Sunday’s Arena programme on BBC2, was disappointing. It made the schoolboy error of playing the album tracks under a series of ill-chosen, unrelated contemporary news clips. And compounded the error by inserting an endless series of inconsequential comments on the album by anonymous wo/men in the street.
The leitmotif of clips from a ceremony dedicating a plaque on a block of flats off London’s Tottenham Court Rd., where Marley briefly lived, was the most squirm-inducing bit of TV I’ve seen for ages.
The Arena documentary was nowhere near as good as three earlier Marley TV documentaries I have on VHS tape: largely unwatchable; a missed opportunity.
Gerry Smith
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