Reviews – Page 8 – Rock Salted

Willie Nelson – Make Way for Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson – Make Way for Willie Nelson RCA Victor LPM-3748 (1967)

Here’s a rather forgotten early Willie Nelson LP that is actually among his better early albums, relatively speaking. Recorded in Nashville, this teamed Willie with producer Felton Jarvis after RCA Records’ main producer Chet Atkins was too busy to handle the recording sessions. This proves to be a boon for the recordings, by sparing them from Atkins’ unsympathetic production style and its usual cloying bourgeois and petite-bourgeois aspirations evident on the same year’s The Party’s Over (And Other Great Willie Nelson Songs), for instance. This is an album recorded much the same way as Country Willie — His Own Songs (1965), another decent early Willie Nelson album. There is only one of Nelson’s own compositions here. These are mostly cover songs. This album can still be described as having the Nashville sound, but it retains a honky tonk influence. Nelson would return to honky tonk on and off again for his entire career. The opening “Make Way for a Better Man” is good, with understated backing orchestration. Other songs like “Have I Stayed Away Too Long?” are decent too, even though the guitar and vocals sometimes sink into a leaden rhythm. There are signs that there was perhaps insufficient rehearsal, and some of these recordings might be first takes. But even if the recordings seem relatively raw at times, that actually suits Willie’s style of singing — actually being crucial to the success of later albums like Yesterday’s Wine and Phases and Stages. There are some odd song choices here, like the 1960s pop staple “What Now My Love [“Et maintenant”]” (even The Temptations released a version of the song in ’67). Willie’s own “One in a Row” is also one of his lesser compositions — recorded here in the same ornate style as “What Now My Love.” On the whole, this holds up well enough all the way through. It isn’t a great album, and it certainly doesn’t do much to distinguish itself from other country albums of the day, but it has a sort of charm in its predictability and familiar approach. As for this album being mostly forgotten, at this writing, the album is not even listed in the Musicbrainz database and there is no track listing in the RateYourMusic database; there is also no review on AllMusic or on RateYourMusic. It was, however, one of his more commercially successful albums at the time, peaking higher on the country music “charts” than any of his other pre-Red Headed Stranger albums.

Willie Nelson – The Party’s Over

Willie Nelson – The Party’s Over (And Other Great Willie Nelson Songs) RCA LSP-3858 (1967)

One of the biggest problem’s with Willie’s singing on his RCA albums in the 1960s was his tendency to over-enunciate. This really put him in a rhythmic straitjacket, and limited his options for vocal phrasing. Aside from the inherent timbre of his voice, one of his greatest strengths as a vocalist was his idiosyncratic, non-conformist rhythmic phrasing — already evident to some degree on his debut album …And Then I Wrote but generally scaled back over the following decade. The sort of ragged, welcoming, down-home glory that characterized his most successful recordings from the mid-1970s on finds no room in a typical Nashville “countrypolitan” production style. But that was kind of the point of middlebrow countrypolitan music, which epitomized the (still racist and sexist) “golden age” of post-WWII American prosperity in which ordinary, uneducated workers saw rising living standards and could see themselves as part of a newly emerging middle class with its own self-styled sophistication — something that might be described as attempting to project an aura of sophistication beyond class boundaries via ideas about “proper” diction and enunciation cribbed from upper classes and merged with lower-class folk/country musical forms. Looked at another way, the temporary willingness of elite classes to permit rising working and middle classes was fostered by inculcating country music listeners with upper-class values as well as the speech patterns and more urban culture that went along with those values (when elites withdrew their permissive and benevolent attitude starting in the 1970s, the countrypolitan style faded almost in lockstep and is now commonly derided as low-class and unsophisticated). When it came to Willie Nelson’s career, the thing was, no matter how many great songs he wrote — and he was writing many — he just wasn’t cut out to follow in the footsteps of someone like Patsy Cline, at least not for long. In the end, Willie was better suited to being a pot-smoking, feel-good layabout with an endearing but weird way of singing that was largely incompatible with the implicit “countrypolitan” agenda of ascending (and reinforcing) a social hierarchy to find a comfortable place in it. Willie was, in a way, proud of his humble roots — post-fame, he often payed tribute to his childhood musical influences, who were always working-class heroes. There was room for all sorts of things in Willie best music, but not on The Party’s Over.

The title track here is a keeper, and a “A Moment Isn’t Very Long” clings to enough of a honky tonk feel to be interesting for the first half. But there isn’t much else here to particularly recommend. This isn’t a bad record by any means, but Willie is choosing to play by a strange set of rules. The lachrymose strings on “To Make a Long Story Short (She’s Gone)” epitomize the bland melodrama that swallows most of this. Excepting Good Times, Willie’s albums got somewhat less interesting in the late 60s, before picking up again in the 70s and then running away with the hearts and minds of listeners by the middle of that decade.

Willie Nelson – Texas in My Soul

Willie Nelson – Texas in My Soul RCA Victor LSP-3937 (1968)

Here is an album that sort of epitomizes the problems with Willie’s early recordings for RCA. While it is common to hear that Willie’s recordings while part of the Nashville music machine are weighed down by the production, that is somewhat misleading. Certainly there were some recordings for RCA that were bloated with orchestration and effects that didn’t work — usually due to poor arrangements more than anything. But most of Willie’s RCA recordings in the mid-1960s had fairly minimal accompaniment. The biggest problem was that he sounded stiff, forcing himself into a “commercial” sound like a square peg in a round hole, coupled with an unfortunate willingness to pander to commercial gimmicks. Texas in My Soul is a prime example of Willie’s vocals sounding stiff, as he tries to feign gravitas by singing in a crooner’s style where he holds notes in a resonant way. In the early 70s he would start to move away from this style of singing, and would shed the last vestiges before his rise to fame in the mid-70s. The last part of the album gives way to western swing, which would remain a kind of self-indulgent interest throughout Willie’s career. The title track is a western swing number and is the best thing here. But, all in all, this is a lesser album.

Willie Nelson – God’s Problem Child

Willie Nelson – God’s Problem Child Legacy 541573 (2017)

Most musical artists still recording past the age of 70 tend to slow down and mellow out. There are exceptions of course (Yoko Ono, Elza Soares, Tom Zé, Scott Walker). But they tend to just prove the rule. In the twilight of his life and career, Willie Nelson has certainly not slowed down, still cranking out albums and touring incessantly, but he has mellowed some. In particular, he has indulged his fondness for western swing more and more often. There is some of that here. Though mostly God’s Problem Child emphasizes the slick contemporary country style of many of producer Buddy Cannon‘s collaborations with Willie. The best thing here is probably the novelty song “Not Dead Yet,” reminiscent of Tom T. Hall or Johnny Cash. It is an age-appropriate song for the 84-year-old Nelson. On the whole, this is just another of those decent but unremarkable albums of which Willie has so many.

Willie Nelson – For the Good Times: A Tribute to Ray Price

Willie Nelson – For the Good Times: A Tribute to Ray Price Legacy 88985315522 (2016)

The opening “Heartaches by the Numbers” is fairly good, and the follow-up “I’ll Be There (If You Ever Want Me)” has decent pedal steel (from The Time Jumpers). From there, though, there is nothing but varying degrees of schmaltz. The cloying orchestration by Bergen White is really too much. And often the orchestration is pointless too, as on “Faded Love,” where there is an orchestra introduction that drops off and does not return. It is as if the label paid for the orchestra in advance and felt like they needed to get their money’s worth. Take a hard pass on this one.

Jemeel Moondoc Quintet – Nostalgia in Times Square

Jemeel Moondoc Quintet – Nostalgia in Times Square Soul Note SN 1141 (1986)

In the 1980s there was an unmistakable “conservative” trend in jazz. At its worst, this involved musicians picking some arbitrary point in time and disregarding all of jazz history beyond that point (Amish-style). But not all music of this nature was so reactionary. David Murray‘s Ming is often cited as the foundational document for another approach, one that took elements of the past and built upon them without being beholden to them. Another example would be James Newton‘s The African Flower (The Music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn), with a bit more restrained tone. Jemeel Moondoc’s Nostalgia in Times Square fits into this continuum. Moondoc was a veteran of Cecil Taylor‘s student bands in the 1970s, and had jumped over to New York City where he enmeshed himself in the loft jazz scene there. He has a pretty clear tone and identifiable voice. It’s lyrical and precise, with an undercurrent of ironic humor. The whole album takes off from older jazz styles, kind of a swinging hard bop form, but adds to that more modern solos. Each soloist is free to deploy unusual squeaks, intervals and harmonies, but the music generally is anchored in a more defined rhythm and flirts with a somewhat conventional melodic and harmonic base much more than the free music of the preceding two decades. Moondoc has a great band. Bassist William Parker would return to the same framework two decades later with albums like Sound Unity and Petit oiseau. If this album has a flaw it’s that it occasionally feels a little rough around the edges, like the band could have used some more time to play together before recording, as sometimes soloists seem to clash in ways not fully intended. But that’s a petty concern with what is generally a very good album.

Directions in Music by Miles Davis – Filles de Kilimanjaro

Directions in Music by Miles Davis – Filles de Kilimanjaro Columbia CS 9750 (1969)

A huge leap forward in the evolution of what became known as jazz “fusion”. Really one of the finer albums of Miles Davis’ long and storied career. What made Filles de Kilimanjaro such an advance over Miles in the Sky was the way it subdued and extended the song structures while at the same time elevating the throb of the bass and the kick of the drumming, those seemingly contradictory impulses held together by punchier bursts of horn and keyboard playing that drifted somewhat away from the spotlight and integrated themselves into the songs. The vamps drive the songs but also leave room for modulation and shifts into improvisational flourishes. The bass, drums and keyboards trade off each other (see “Tout de suite”) to create tension and forward momentum. The wind instruments aren’t presented as prominent soloists like in the past, but more as the equals of the rhythm section, which gets to rise to the forefront on a shared basis rather than being relegated to a merely supportive role. This may resemble traditional jazz more than the next few albums, like In a Silent Way and the epochal Bitches Brew, etc, etc. There is still a clear purpose and distinctive sound achieved that refuses to step back from an increasingly militant — yet hopefully positive — mindset. Most significantly, this album decisively tipped the balance away from traditional jazz and toward fusion. This one is just (barely) a half step behind the very best of Davis’ records, which is saying a lot when it comes to arguably the single greatest recording artist of the 20th Century. This also makes a pretty good entry point to the fusion era.

Lou Reed – Street Hassle

Lou Reed – Street Hassle Arista AB-4169 (1978)

Perhaps everyone is familiar with the saying, “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Well, along those same lines, Lou Reed’s Street Hassle might be seen as an attempt to make an album that succeeds by going about everything in the wrong way. The album is an amalgam of live and studio recordings. Reed and his band quote old songs, they use a muddy-sounding (and soon obsolete) recording technology, and seem to be against audience expectations. Reed’s lyrics are also dumb, guttural, defiant, and contrarian. Far from being a liability, this is why the album works! In fact, it might even be possible to say that songs like “Dirt” helped lay the foundation for the sludge rock of the 1980s — especially Flipper (who used a saxophone similarly on their quasi-hit “Sex Bomb”). The first side of the album is great, with the title track being one of the very finest moments of Reed’s entire career, and the second side is fairly good too.

Miles Davis – Miles in the Sky

Miles Davis – Miles in the Sky Columbia CS 9628 (1968)

Miles in the Sky gives the impression that it is pandering to psychedelic pop/rock audiences, or that it is just a tentative and transitional effort nestled between more effective recordings of markedly different styles. But such appearances are deceiving. Miles Davis and his “second great quintet” were clearly expanding their horizons, and certainly were incorporating more elements of rock (and soul jazz). Yet the results, however mellow the mood tends to be, are effective. The album is often categorized as the worst of the Miles Davis Quintet’s late-1960s albums. And it probably is. But that says very little, because that band was releasing one classic after another. This is still a very fine album. And if nothing else, this might be drummer Tony Williams‘ best performance on record (perhaps rivaled only by his efforts on Sorcerer). The entire album is a showcase for his relentlessly creative drumming, which never seems to stagnate or rest on repetitive structures yet somehow always seems engaging and connected to the flow of each song. Keyboardist Herbie Hancock is clearly enthusiastic about the push toward rock music, though saxophonist Wayne Shorter, while his playing is good, seems the most hesitant about shifting away from the style he used in prior years.

Johnny Cash – Hello, I’m Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash – Hello, I’m Johnny Cash Columbia KCS 9943 (1970)

As the 1960s drew to a close, so did Johnny Cash’s era of concept albums, for the most part. This was both a good and bad thing. His concept albums were very hit-or-miss, and even at their best tended to include at least a little overwrought material, and at their worst could be downright embarrassing. Cash could be faulted for trying too hard to force albums into a particular concept. In the next two decades, the faults of his albums were almost the opposite. It can feel like Cash gave up on putting effort into recording. While he focused on touring (and, briefly, his TV show), he ceded control of the sound of his albums to various producers, many of whom did Cash no favors. The problem was often one of declining sales and ill-advised schemes that grasped at gimmicks. At other times, the problem was one of self-indulgence with some really disturbingly bad gospel and religious efforts. Though not everything from the 1970s proved to be a waste. Highlights from that period tended to be where Cash was in a more basic setting, framed almost like a singer-songwriter, going back to the way he sounded in the early 1960s. To that was added a good amount of twang. Hello, I’m Johnny Cash is one of the man’s more listenable albums of the era, one that another reviewer described as setting the tone for Cash’s output the rest of the decade (in truth, this sound only carried Cash through the first half of the decade). Much of the material is good but not great, but there also is a noticeable lack of any major missteps. One clear highlight is a duet with June Carter Cash on Tim Hardin‘s “If I Were a Carpenter.” It’s a song that is perfectly suited to the singers and the one that really reflects the best of the simple but refined production style, with clear yet soft tones and varied yet unobtrusive accompaniment. This is an enjoyable one for the Cash fan.