Once upon a time, in a hazy era known as 1970, 42 roisterers calling themselves Mad Dogs and Englishmen toured this land. Incredibly, the leaders of that merry troupe, Leon Russell and Joe Cocker, two of the most distinctive vocalists of their time, are still making music. (Cocker's next disc comes out in July.) Can you say, "Sorcery," boys and girls?
Put a conical hat and a cape on Russell, and he could pass for Merlin. The pop honky-tonk style and tangy voice of this silvery Sooner (born in Oklahoma he was) still cast a spell. Russell has been living in Nashville and touring in recent years. It took admirer and musical progeny Bruce Hornsby to coax him back to the studio for Anything Can Happen, Russell's 16th album (Hornsby plays keyboards and cowrote six of the ten songs). From the marvelous shadows-and-light pop of the title track to the Turkish-ish "Black Halos" to inventive reworkings of Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business" and "Jezebel," this comely comeback is smooth but packs a kick. (Virgin)
Roy Rogers and various artists
Roy obviously had the better horse in Trigger. His grizzled sidekick, Gabby Hayes, was more picturesque than Pat Buttram or Smiley Burnett—yer durned tootin'. Roy's six-shooters were handsomer, and he never made a film near as bad as The Phantom Empire, where the villains lived in caves way underground and had a robot henchman that looked like a trash can with arms.
But when it came to the pure singing part of being a singing cowboy, Gene Autry was the real king, even before his No. 1 hit recording of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in 1950 led him (and ultimately any number of California Angels free agents) to vast wealth.
This album, however, a collaboration between Rogers, now 79, and a number of contemporary country musicians, shows that Roy's singing is as smooth and warm as it was 50 years ago—he has retained even his yodel.
The relaxed, camaraderie-filled single "Hold on Partner," with Clint Black, is a felicitous intergenerational mix, but Roy also does "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," with K.T. Oslin, in a version chummy enough to make Dale a mite jealous if the group Restless Heart weren't on hand too. Then there's Emmylou Harris, Randy Travis, Lorrie Morgan and even Willie Nelson—the first outlaw Roy has had any truck with in a long time. Roy saddles up for duos with his son Dusty and with Dale before the whole posse helps him ride off into the sunset with—what else?—"Happy Trails." (RCA)
Curve
One glance at the cover of Curve's first full-length album and it's clear what this British ensemble has in mind. The photo shows a pile of dismembered dolls showered in pale red light. Surely this isn't going to be the feel-good album of the year.
Curve's version of angst rock—a wall of sound, a wash of tumultuous guitars, a subtle dance beat and edgy, ethereal vocals—is not for the weak at heart. Yet, while they've been aligned with such upstart alternative darlings as My Bloody Valentine and Lush, Curve's streamlined dream pop is somewhat more dancer-friendly.
But the lyrics are strictly for those who enjoy agita. Song titles like "Horror Head," "Wish You Dead" and "Lillies Dying" signal chronicles of anguish. "I've come to mess with your head," vocalist Toni Halliday sings on "Fait Accompli," evoking dueling images of Siouxsie Sioux and a postmodern Patti Smith.
The stark beauty of Halliday's voice is a wonder. Dangerous yet fragile, she rips through the musical whirl like a madwoman. The tension rarely lets up, rendering Doppelgänger not doppel-dimensional. But if you want sunshine, go buy an Amy Grant album. (Charisma)
Kriss Kross
The juvenilization of hip-hop continues with the lively debut of this Atlanta rap duo made up of Daddy Mack (Chris Smith), 12, and Mack Daddy (Chris Kelly), 13.
Anyone who caught these kids on In Living Color in March may have wondered whether they had dressed hastily, strutting as they were in outsize jeans and jerseys worn backward. But, no, the robe reversals are just part of the boys' cheekily contrary "krossed out" style. More notable was the effect their music had on the In Living Color ensemble, causing people more than twice their age to pogo deliriously around the stage.
Kriss Kross does cross up your expectations—and reactions. With producer Jermaine Dupri, they have developed a sound that combines hard rap rhythms and textures with bubble-gum pop melodies. Imagine the Jackson 5 as produced by the Bomb Squad. While the koncept may be kute, the kids sound anything but innocent as they delineate brutal urban realities on "It's a Shame" and "Lil' Boys in Da Hood."
Their best trick is inserting catchily melodic refrains in the middle of their free-stylin' raps. That should help them kross over to pop. And cheek the speed at which they spin out their ragamuffin rhymes on "Jump" and "Warm It Up." Obviously the tongue matures before the rest of the body. (Ruffhouse/Columbia)
Maureen McGovern
The liner notes of this overproduced paean to pop songs of the late '50s and '60s delineate McGovern's fondness for the music that accompanied her childhood and adolescence: Dionne Warwick's "Are You There (With Another Girl)" and "Anyone Who Had a Heart," Bobby Vinton's "Blue on Blue," Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," Tommy Edwards's "It's All in the Game" and the McGuire Sisters' "Sincerely."
McGovern's voice is a gorgeous and well-controlled instrument with enormous range and power. But there is nothing inherently special, melodically or lyrically, about much of the material assembled here. Songs like these can conjure' up—at Concorde speed—a particular time and place. But, frankly, the conjuring is done most effectively by the original performers. That McGovern can outsing almost all of them doesn't help her here. Consequently, she brings the most to numbers that have a value beyond the nostalgic—for example, "You Belong to Me" and a pairing of "Things We Said Today" with "For No One"—a haunting case history of love found and love lost. (RCA Victor)
Cracker
Cracker is to rock and roll what animal crackers are to fine dining. Neither offers much elegance or nutrition, but both are fun to nibble.
While this is Cracker's first barrel o' tunes, lead singer-songwriter David Lowery comes direct from another oddball group, Camper Van Beethoven. He has brought with him not only his strained, slightly off-key vocals but that band's irreverent altitude.
Less than a minute into the first song, "Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now)," you get a pretty good idea of the wonderful weirdness going on. Jangly, countryish guitar meets a rock backbeat, accompanied by Lowery bleatingly admitting that "what the world needs now is another folk singer like I need a hole in my head." Next they roll in an up-tempo folkie number, "Happy Birthday to Me," followed by the funky bop of "This Is Cracker Soul."
Is Cracker a folk record? Is it a rock record? Is it a country record? Lowery and company don't let themselves get pinned down, probably because they don't know the answer. It almost seems like the band made up the songs as they went along, which may not make for perfectly polished music but does give the disc a refreshing spontaneity.
All that matters here, apparently, is that no song takes itself too seriously. How else can you explain a ballad called "Can I Take My Gun to Heaven?" This is one Cracker made of nothing but wry. (Virgin)
George Adams
One of the neatest feats in music is reviving a tune that repetition has freeze-dried, breaking it out of its shrink-wrapped context and infusing it with fresh emotion and imagination. Tenor saxophonist Adams has recently made this a specialty. On his last album, America (1990), he flew "The Star Spangled Banner" a cappella (nod to Jimi there) and, on flute, floated down a laid-back, low-tide "Swanee River." He does it again here, digging deep into "As Time Goes By" and turning Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are" into a gliding reverie.
Adams, 42, is a burly man with a sound to match and a barreling, tumultuous style. He creates instant ignition on the opener, a raucous revival of "Better Git Hit in Yo' Soul" by Charles Mingus, in whose band Adams worked from 1973 to 1976. The album's exuberance, intensity and emotional range owe much to the band as well. On trumpet Marvin Hannibal Peterson is lucid as well as stratospheric, and Jean Paul Bourelly shows the insouciant phrasing and subtle-to-searing textures that make him one of the most exciting guitarists in contemporary rock or jazz right now.
The song most likely to roll on in your mind all day is the venerable title cut, "That Old Feeling," done up as a funky, fervent blues that slides and gambols along on a gloriously shaggy vocal by Adams. "I saw you last night and got that ohhhhhhhld feeling," he sings, his voice flapping like a frayed bear rug in a stiff breeze. "The moment that you danced by/ I felt the thrill." And passed it on. (Blue Note)
- Contributors:
- David Hiltbrand,
- Ralph Novak,
- Jeremy Helligar,
- Joanne Kaufman,
- Craig Tomashoff,
- Eric Levin.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
