Pop music and Chamber Country Purchases
First of all, let me tell you this: I'm listening to Nancy Sinatra's latest release, which Sparky taped for me. It's pretty good, ya know! Produced by Morrissey with compositions by people such as Thurston Moore, Jarvis Cocker, and Pete Yorn. Nancy's in pretty good voice and the songs are uniformly solid. I know this sounds like a back-handed compliment, but I'm still shaking off my purist, rockist shackles.
This tape fits nicely with the odd batch of records I bought at Amoeba yesterday in the fine company of the Psychedelic Eskimo. I had good vinyl luck. I found two albums that I've been searching for some time: Willie Nelson's Shotgun Willie and Mickey Newbury's Heaven Help the Child. Willie's record is a kind of country soul fusion produced by the great Jerry Wexler. Soul legend Donny Hathaway does the string arrangements on "So Much to Do"! Heaven Help the Child is one of a trilogy of albums Mickey made for Elektra in the early '70's. They're sort of country art records, accompanied--but mostly not weighed down by-- layers of strings, voices and effects. But super soulful and melancholy thanks to Mickey's pleasantly weathered Texas drawl and well-crafted songs.
I also picked up Tompall and the Glaser Brothers' Through the Eyes of Love--late '60's, early '70's chamber country produced by the great Cowboy Jack Clement. Featuring terrifying cover art in which a blonde girl's face is superimposed over a tableau of her and her strapping love walking through a grove of trees. Good record, though, if you like the Countrypolitan genre.
What fascinates me about the above trio of country records, is that they're creative Nashville (although Shotgun Willie was actually recorded in New York City!!!) responses to The Beatles and mature pop songwriting.
And speaking of mature pop songwriting: I also forked over two bucks and bought a compilation of Jimmy Webb compositions--some performed by him, some by others. It features some obvious cuts: Richard Harris doing "MacArthur Park"; The Fifth Dimension's "Up, Up and Away"; Glen Campbell's mighty "Witchita Lineman" (in my all-time top ten). But it also features an impressive "Galveston" by Jimmy himself and "Crying in My Sleep" and "All I Know" by Art Garfunkel (!). I've usually dismissed Artie, maybe because of his hair and his earnestness, but I have to say I dig him doing these songs. He recorded an entire album of Jimmy Webb compositions. Dare I search it out? One of my goals this year is to track down some of Jimmy Webb's records. I know Rhino has just released a box set of his works, but I don't have the scratch for that. Looking for the vinyl will be more fun.
My final vinyl purchase was XTC's Oranges and Lemons. Slowly but surely, I've been collecting their stuff. Criminally underappreciated by today's kids, sez crabby old KFS.
This tape fits nicely with the odd batch of records I bought at Amoeba yesterday in the fine company of the Psychedelic Eskimo. I had good vinyl luck. I found two albums that I've been searching for some time: Willie Nelson's Shotgun Willie and Mickey Newbury's Heaven Help the Child. Willie's record is a kind of country soul fusion produced by the great Jerry Wexler. Soul legend Donny Hathaway does the string arrangements on "So Much to Do"! Heaven Help the Child is one of a trilogy of albums Mickey made for Elektra in the early '70's. They're sort of country art records, accompanied--but mostly not weighed down by-- layers of strings, voices and effects. But super soulful and melancholy thanks to Mickey's pleasantly weathered Texas drawl and well-crafted songs.
I also picked up Tompall and the Glaser Brothers' Through the Eyes of Love--late '60's, early '70's chamber country produced by the great Cowboy Jack Clement. Featuring terrifying cover art in which a blonde girl's face is superimposed over a tableau of her and her strapping love walking through a grove of trees. Good record, though, if you like the Countrypolitan genre.
What fascinates me about the above trio of country records, is that they're creative Nashville (although Shotgun Willie was actually recorded in New York City!!!) responses to The Beatles and mature pop songwriting.
And speaking of mature pop songwriting: I also forked over two bucks and bought a compilation of Jimmy Webb compositions--some performed by him, some by others. It features some obvious cuts: Richard Harris doing "MacArthur Park"; The Fifth Dimension's "Up, Up and Away"; Glen Campbell's mighty "Witchita Lineman" (in my all-time top ten). But it also features an impressive "Galveston" by Jimmy himself and "Crying in My Sleep" and "All I Know" by Art Garfunkel (!). I've usually dismissed Artie, maybe because of his hair and his earnestness, but I have to say I dig him doing these songs. He recorded an entire album of Jimmy Webb compositions. Dare I search it out? One of my goals this year is to track down some of Jimmy Webb's records. I know Rhino has just released a box set of his works, but I don't have the scratch for that. Looking for the vinyl will be more fun.
My final vinyl purchase was XTC's Oranges and Lemons. Slowly but surely, I've been collecting their stuff. Criminally underappreciated by today's kids, sez crabby old KFS.
posted by ken at 12:21 PM
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