This recently unearthed trove exists because of a 1960s agreement between a musician's union and the British Broadcasting Corporation. Fearing that audiences wouldn't buy records they could hear for free on radio, the union negotiated limits to on-air record playing. That prompted the BBC to begin presenting live performances of top acts, including Stevie Wonder, who shows up here playing drums as Hendrix reinvents Wonder's "I Was Made to Love Her" as a high-speed guitar jam. Even now Hendrix's playing sounds incendiary; these live performances (recorded between 1967 and 1969) must have set teacups rattling throughout the Empire. Hendrix turns in fine versions of his hits ("Purple Haze," "Foxey Lady") as well as startling covers, including the Beatles' "Day Tripper" and Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love." Captured on only three studio albums before his death at 27 in 1970, Hendrix's sound finds new life on these two CDs.
Bottom Line: Pure gold from the BBC vaults
Trisha Yearwood (MCA Nashville)
Album of the week
The first track on this album is "There Goes My Baby." This isn't the great 1959 tune recorded by Donna Summer, Joe Cocker and, of course, the Drifters. More's the pity. That song would have fit neatly into the imaginatively eclectic mix of material Yearwood and coproducer Tony Brown chose for this CD. Yearwood, who in her country mode can fall into an overproduction rut, here rocks gently with "That Ain't the Way I Heard It," grieves (tastefully) with "Heart Like a Sad Song," gets a little cute with "Bring Me All Your Lovin" ("And I don't want no candy/ Sugar hurts my teeth/ All I want is you tonight/ That'd be really sweet") and holds her own with Garth Brooks on the romantic title-song duet. Yearwood also profits from the contributions of some Nashville studio veterans, notably steel guitar virtuoso Paul Franklin.
One mild disappointment: Among the mix there is a song by Diane Warren, "I'll Still Love You More." Yearwood makes a decent attempt, but it ends up an overwrought track and shows that, for all her newly polished versatility,' this country singer may not be ready for pop divadom quite yet.
Bottom Line: A Nashville star shines beyond country music's borders
Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson (American)
One of the better features of the VH1 channel has been its Storytellers series showcasing popular singers and songwriters. This cozy, relaxed recording of a June 1997 broadcast is a good example, with Cash and Nelson chatting amiably and singing many of their hits. The chatter is more idle than snappy, but the music is splendid. Nelson, especially, sounds in better voice than he has recently. While he tosses off his classic "Crazy," he offers more thoughtful versions of his always poignant "Funny How Time Slips Away," "Night Life" and "Me and Paul." Cash, the less artful composer, still sounds like his sturdy old yarn-spinning self on "Don't Take Your Guns to Town," "Worried Man," "I Still Miss Someone" and "Folsom Prison Blues," which, he notes, he wrote while serving in the Air Force in Germany in the 1950s.
At one point the two old sidekicks lament the absence of Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, with, whom they formed the Highwaymen in the '80s. Cash and Nelson carry the load by themselves quite nobly, though, in what is a landmark in pop country music.
Bottom Line: A pair of aging pals prove they haven't lost their touch
Eve 6 (RCA)
The three impressively literate teenagers who make up Eve 6 are from the L.A. area, but they recorded part of this CD in Seattle and apparently soaked up more than a little grunge. Lead singer and bassist Max Collins, drummer Tony Fagenson and guitarist Jon Siebels, who are all 18 or 19, are clearly not carefree postadolescents; they embrace punk and sing about "beautiful oblivion" and being "violated and singed with deceit..." They also, however, know the word "congruent" (even if they think it rhymes with "student") and even harmonize once in a while. Those flashes of promise, plus their mature voices, compensate for a drum-dominated sound that's good, tight garage band stuff but still garage band stuff. It doesn't help that they lapse at times into lame obscenity, and it's also disconcerting to hear three kids from L.A. sing a song called "Small Town Trap" ("suffocate from lack of stimulation"). There's talent here; what's required next is growth.
Bottom Line: Driving rock from a young band that needs more mileage
- Contributors:
- Steve Dougherty,
- Ralph Novak.
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