Perhaps my earliest clear memory associated with SR comes from this issue (the cover does ring a bell, but that’s not it). It’s likely the main reason I scooped a copy off of eBay back in the spring.
Articles
Neil Sedaka Comes Back, by Robert Windeler
Essentially a career-to-date overview in the span of two pages. Alas, Sedaka’s resurgence was practically over by the time the article went to press.
Linda Ronstadt Linda Ronstadt, by Noel Coppage
Coppage caught up with Ronstadt in Asheville, NC, prior to a show, and she talks at length about the benefits of getting older (“I’m more assertive, people don’t take advantage as much as they used to…and I have a much better sense of what I’m worth now. I mean as a person, not musically or successwise…), her take on other music (reggae is great, disco is not), and one pitfall of success (“…you’ve sort of priced yourself out of range for a relationship with most anybody, except for other people who as famous as you are and are equally neurotic, and you don’t want to have anything to do with them.”) Coppage is impressed: “She is one of the least guarded, least defensive persons, celebrated or not, I’ve talked with lately.”
He also reviews her latest, Hasten Down the Wind. “If one aspect of the recording does stand out, it’s the growth (she) is showing as a vocalist. Her phrasing is slowly but surely becoming exquisite, and the ornamentation she uses is less and less likely to be overdone…”
Our reviewers this month are Chris Albertson, Noel Coppage, Paul Kresh, Peter Reilly, and Joel Vance. Steve Simels wouldn’t appear as a reviewer until the March 1977 issue, but he’d been penning a monthly column for a few years by this time. The Pop Beat discusses at length Live at CBGB’s, a 2-LP showcase for hopeful up-and-comers that had played shows at the influential club over one weekend in June. In particular, Simels lifts up Mink DeVille, the Shirts, the Miamis, and the Laughing Dogs as acts to watch.
Best of the Month
–Carly Simon, Another Passenger (PR) I’m guessing I started rifling through Dad’s collection of SRs sometime in the second half of 1977. Fortunately, he hadn’t tossed older issues (immediately, anyway), so I got to examine issues that went back at least to this one. A paragraph from the review of Another Passenger made a deep impression, even if I didn’t fully understand it.
“This ability to deal honestly and directly with emotional life has always been one of Carly’s major strengths, and it permeates all her songs here.”
—Vaudeville: Songs of the Great Ladies of the Musical Stage (PK) “Miss (Joan) Morris’ singing is, as I have suggested, perfection itself, and Mr. (William) Bolcom’s accompaniments flutter flatteringly around her like moths around a flame.”
–Doc Watson, Doc and the Boys (NC) “There’s not a lot of flashy flat-picking here, nor is the full-band sound cluttered. Watson has a good feel for balance…a good feel, in fact, for just about everything related to music.”
Recordings of Special Merit
Rock/Pop/Country/Soul:
–Tony Bennett, Ten Rodgers and Hart Songs (PR) “Tony Bennett’s expertly nonchalant recital here, beautifully produced and recorded, full of the ease and the assurance and the audible pleasure of an Old Pro reveling in his kind of material, is a fine tribute to the authentic immortals of the American theater.”
–Country Gazette, Live (NC) “These are not the hottest soloists you can find in old-time music…but they were playing off one another when these tapes were made, and the song selection is just goofy enough to work.”
–Flamin’ Groovies, Shake Some Action (JV) “The reconstituted group dresses a la mode 1964, in sedate suits, and their music reflects the same period…A lot of bands have attempted this approach, but few have done it so unselfconsciously and entertainingly.”
–Hickory Wind, Fresh Produce (NC) “…an impressive regional band now apparently attempting to go national, is from West (by God) Virginia…It’s all right with me if they go national, and it won’t hurt the nation, although I think this album could’ve been even better than it is.”
–Bobby Short, My Personal Property (PR) “He sings everything here with his customary perfect diction, his usual chic-beyond-chic phrasing, and his own obvious rapture at doing what he does so very, very well.”
–The Stills-Young Band, S/T (NC) “…all promises to be well if Stills and Young really can get along in the ego-testing job of co-fronting a band. They’ve aged and wised up some, of course, and they project such different personalities that you wonder if they won’t turn out to be complementary.”
Jazz:
–Anthony Braxton, Creative Orchestra Music 1976 (CA) “…confirms my belief that Anthony Braxton is one of the most important creators on the American music scene today.”
–James Dapogny, Piano Music of Ferdinand ‘Jelly Roll’ Morton (CA) “There is, of course, nothing like the real thing, but this comes closer than any previous attempt.”
–Earl Hines, Live at Buffalo (JV) “Like all Hines recordings, this album is an Event.”
–Sam Rivers/Dave Holland, S/T (CA) “This album, being on a small label, probably will not get as wide a distribution as Rivers’ previous releases, but it his best work to date: two masterly pieces of impressionistic playing by two uncompromising musicians.”
Featured Reviews
–Arista Re-releases of Jazz on the Savoy Label (CA) Eight double-LPs, from (among others) Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Erroll Garner, Cannonball Adderley, and John Coltrane/Wilbur Harrison. “All in all, this is a good set of releases containing some exceptionally fine performances. The mastering of the Forties material could have been better, and more thought could have gone into the planning…As it is, they are all certainly worth your attention.”
–John Denver, Spirit (William Anderson) “The Rule of Cool is very simple—Thou shalt not be moved, delighted, shocked, surprised, or, above all, enthusiastic, and if thou art thou shalt not show it—but John Denver behaves (far out!) as if he had never even heard of it.”
–Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, S/T (Paulette Weiss) “My feet and I agree: (this) is by far the most satisfying disco album we’ve heard yet. It may even acquire Best-Ever status if the world does indeed end shortly…At least I won’t go out with a whimper, but with a boom-chicka-boom.”
–Jane Olivor, First Night (James Goodfriend) “There are some gorgeous performances on this record, and no real duds, and what the performances reveal is that she isn’t limited to one kind of song or one kind of singing.”
—Put the Hammer Down! (NC) A compilation of CB- and trucker-related tunes. “…I have no intention of buying a CB radio—in fact, I’d be happier if my local Radio Shack store had sold at least one fewer of those, the one that keeps broadcasting through my stereo equipment—but…I’ve been having a good time listening to this and imagining speed limits being broken and Smokey Bears worn to a frazzle all over the place…”
Other Disks Reviewed
–Aerosmith, Rocks (JV) “My friends, hear what I say. This album is/No more substantial than the hiss of fizz/Atop a gin and tonic. Listen to it;/You’ll agree that Aerosmith have blew it.”
–Alice Cooper, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell (PR) “There’s nothing much here for you unless you dig one-note showmanship and a threadbare idea.”
–Jon Anderson, Olias of Sunhillow (NC) “I don’t know whether to blame Herman Hesse or Stanley Kubrick for influencing these young men—most of whom seem to be associated with the rock group Yes—to do things like this, but there are two groups you can’t blame: musicians and English teachers.”
–George Benson, Breezin’ (JV) “(Benson) has a light touch and an airy, delicate way of playing that would be considerably more impressive, I suspect, if it weren’t compromised by the ‘pop-jazz’ settings of this album.”
–David Bowie, Changesonebowie (PR) “The world of cinema seems to have discovered in him the male equivalent of Hedy Lamarr, a glamorous sleepwalker, but Bowie on records is too often only a figment of some producer-promotor’s overwrought imagination.”
–Chicago, Chicago X (PR) “Just how long the public intends to keep on buying the same mild-mannered Muzak rock, release after release, is even more a puzzle than why Chicago keeps on recording it.”
–Nick Drake, Five Leaves Left (NC) “I can’t seem to find the atmosphere—time of day, proportion of shade to light, whatever—in which to drift with it. And I don’t know what else you’d do with it.”
–Jack Elliott, The Essential Jack Elliott (PK) “With a strong, true baritone, overflowing energy, and good humor in the face of even the grimmest material, Elliott carries on a worthy tradition…projecting everything he does with a zest and forthrightness that are enormously appealing.”
–Grateful Dead, Steal Your Face (NC) “Here, ironically, the live audience apparently influences the musicians to play the music rather than meander about refining it and generally being esoteric.”
–The Kinks, The Kinks’ Greatest Celluloid Heroes (PR) “Somehow the Seventies have made a lot of pop irreverence seem more like sour brattiness than healthy fun.”
–Steve Miller Band, Fly Like an Eagle (NC) “The thing about Steve Miller is, his hits drive me up the wall…’Take the Money and Run’ has me tearing hair I can’t afford to lose and ‘Rock’n Me’ sent me on a run to the Yellow Pages to look for a product to decontaminate one’s entire auditory system.”
–The Monkees, Greatest Hits (NC) “Anyway, you can use this record to make your hi-fi set sound like a little transistor radio. Or you can use it to strike matches as I’m doing.”
–Orleans, Waking and Dreaming (NC) “The songs here…are pretty good as pop songs go these days, and there are no serious technical flaws in the vocals or instrumentals, but juices are missing somewhere.”
–Graham Parker, Howlin’ Wind (JV) “Parker is so busy being a bluesman (even down to the dark glasses) that the fine musicians behind him almost have to sneak in their licks where they can—whenever he leaves room.”
–Cliff Richard, I’m Nearly Famous (PR) “…an album that finds him sounding pretty much the same as he always did—like a careful, well-rehearsed performer working ‘in the rock style’.”
–Esther Satterfield, The Need to Be (PR) “Problem is, like most young performers she pushes too hard and too long at the dramatically effective.”
–Peter Tosh, Legalize It (JV) “Music that is subservient to such narrow socio-political purposes is no more ‘music’ than are advertising ditties for margarine, automobiles, or toothpaste.”
–Jerry Jeff Walker, It’s a Good Night for Singing (NC) “Walker’s spontaneity is a blessing, but a lot more discipline could be activated without jeopardizing that.”
The Music of My Life 