Pop – Page 12 – Rock Salted

Kishi Bashi – Lighght

Kishi Bashi – Lighght Joyful Noise (2014)

Pop music can still succeed. Kaoru Ishibashi has made an album here that melds the frenetic energy of Japanese J-Pop with an assortment of Western pop music formats from the last half a century, especially prog rock (Mike Oldfield, Kansas), symphonic psychedelic rock (early Harry Nilsson, The Moody Blues), indie rock (Animal Collective, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, fun., Mercury Rev), etc. There are a lot of synthesizers here. They create a symphonic palette on a humbler scale, and without much to be humble about. It’s something of a surprise that the songs aren’t about elves and fairies, because upbeat, hyperactive music like this is usually drawn to the realm of magical fantasy. But it isn’t. That push into another direction is what makes Lighght so nice. Its strength is its eclecticism, used in a way that is not an end unto itself. The lyrics have some missteps (“Mr. Steak, you’re Grade A”, *sigh*). Still, the lyrics are an afterthought to the soundscapes. The sensation given by many of the songs is that of an idea so intensely developed that it overflows a bit, unable to be contained by the usual structures of the styles it employs. So, that leads to the limitations. These songs are sometimes little more than little shots of pop pleasures, synthesizer extravaganzas with slowly building, anthemic vocals rounded out with baroque flourishes on violin and sped-up segments (often from the violin again) once upon a time reserved once upon a time for attempts to sound like chipmunks performing holiday songs. So enough about the limitations. A song like “Q&A” has an adept sense of shifting rhythm, built around a fairly steady 4/4 beat, the layers of synthesizer-generated horns, and slippery strings and soft punches of a moog keyboard capture attention away from the beat, so that what is steady has the appearance of something shifting and moving. This is what Ishibashi does so very well–the insistent drive of “Carry on Phenomenon” has that quality too. Whatever about the music seems superficial, it more than makes up for in its happy reconstruction of the geekiest sorts of grandiose pop music of the past. This sources of inspiration often came across as pretentious. But strung together this densely, Ishibashi puts a sizeable crack in the ponderous self-importance of those influences. All those influences have a place. There isn’t any sort of reductionist emphasis on any one of them though. The techniques of pop music that felt the need to be taken seriously are cleverly subverted this way, by taking away their primacy and centrality.

Talk Talk – Laughing Stock

Talk Talk – Laughing Stock Verve 847 717-2 (1991)

Though commercially ignored on release (and beginning descriptions of recordings this way usually means good things are in store), Laughing Stock is now recognized as being among the definitive albums of the 1990s. There are definitely different stages in Talk Talk’s oeuvre. Early on, they were an above-average pop group. By the time Spirit of Eden came about, they were making art music removed from the usual progressions.

Searching testaments in Mark Hollis’ vocals find new expressions of timeworn themes. Hollis anchors this disc, as studio musicians lend much to Laughing Stock. Multi-instrumentalist Tim Friese-Greene stirs the pot enough to have the album invigorating throughout.

Sounds are layered to the point that horns and pianos appear only for seconds at a time, and even then becoming only barely audible. The orchestral backing accentuates the ambient qualities while also resonating with the natural textures. In all these songs, Talk Talk derive a new way of recording pop music, one that takes painstaking effort to build layered, evolving tonal canvases that practically “waste” the sounds of the instruments by putting so much detail into music that ends up being comparatively spare. There is very little structure. You cannot point to some essential core of the album and say, “this is Laughing Stock.” It suggests more than just itself. It remains like an untranslated, intensely introspective piece of one great, total mystery. To forgive, to accept, to die, to love; these are the preoccupations Talk Talk take up. They go where the stakes are high indeed.

“Ascension Day” has rhythmic guitar washes enveloped in a near-hypnotic wall of sound. The foreboding flow of the lyrics (“Bet I’ll be damned/ Get’s harder to sense to sail/ Farewell fare well”) assumes a humble wonder that probes even the darkest possibilities. These painful first steps lead to richer realizations. “After the Flood” has the obscured vocals building a new, calmer state. It creates a fresh palette. Guiding are the gentle organ harmonies and sweetened drum licks punctuated with a long, distorted run from the harmonica. Talk Talk build rhythmic pulses into a living canvas. Wading through a vision of some kind of a den of sin, Hollis constantly seeks some general apocalypse from which he could be reborn. “Taphead” drives deep into the themes of rebirth and enlightenment. “New Grass” then continues the uplifting feeling with its softly slurred guitar lines.

Laughing Stock is so unique and developed that it reaffirms the human power to survive the wear of day-to-day life. Disconnects can be healed. Listen to Laughing Stock when everything is dark. Listen to it again in bright sunshine after waking. Laughing Stock is attuned to both the wandering emptiness of night and the building glory of the morning.

Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver

Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver Jagjaguwar JAG135 (2011)

Although the opener “Perth” is okay, this quickly devolves into very pretentious music from a small-town boy trying to approximate what he thinks sophisticated pop music should sound like. Unfortunately, he ends up with something a lot like the worst of late 1970s/early 80s pop radio drivel. If there has been a trend lately of musical anthropologists revisiting the 70s/80s pop era, like Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti or Thundercat, then Bon Iver seems to be one who did the least research and drew the least interesting insights.

Neneh Cherry – Blank Project

Neneh Cherry – Blank Project Smalltown Supersound STS248 (2014)

Cherry’s first solo album in more than a decade has her inhabiting a completely different space. Keiran Hebden (AKA Four Tet) produces. This is largely a spare, cerebral IDM-style electronic album. For the most part, Cherry sings against minimalist backing. It is hardly more than a percussive backdrop at times (“Across the Water”). There is a minor-key quality to much of it. The songs are moody and despondent. The tendency is towards drama, particularly from a perspective of trying to “get by” unscathed in a contemporary, affluent yet alienating urban environment. This suits her voice, which is a little coarser and breathy than before. It is also about testament. The songs are a patchwork of little statements attesting to efforts to hold things together. The best stuff is mostly in the first half of the album. But the last half still holds some surprises. “Everything” has droning keyboards against highly synthetic drums and a pulsing sound almost like a squeaky shaft of some industrial machine or an indistinct alarm or siren. Cherry sings rhythmically, almost like a rapper. Moments like those demonstrate her greatest strength: pulling together bits of lots of different genres. She creates an aesthetic that welcomes them all.

Frank Sinatra – The Best of the Columbia Years 1943-1952

Frank Sinatra – The Best of the Columbia Years 1943-1952 Legacy C4K 64681 (1995)

Few singers have established themselves the way Frank Sinatra did. He is instantly recognizable. Even people who don’t really listen to much music, and certainly not Sinatra, probably still know who he was. He got his start in the mid 1930s as a singer with big bands, and his solo career took off in the early 1940s. But his later career, once he had crossed over into the movies, and became associated with Las Vegas and the “rat pack”, for a long while took precedence in the popular consciousness. So The Best of the Columbia Years 1943-1952 is an opportunity to go back to Sinatra’s formative years. These are the recordings that helped make Sinatra Sinatra, and set up everything that came later.

There is a nearly cloistered quality to this music, particularly in the earliest songs of this batch. It is as if that music tries to take a moment in time and encase it in a hermetically sealed vial. Sinatra and his primary conductor and sometimes arranger of this period Axel Stordahl made music that seems to fit a particular constellation of the period of WWII and the immediate post-war period. The gentle orchestration with sedate rhythms, with the lightest possible syncopation, horns and strings that appear at the “proper” times in response to Sinatra’s vocal statements — it all contributes to a sense of an agreed desire for safety and security. Although the song lyrics often deal with romance and associated heartbreak, the way that Sinatra and Stordahl deal with those themes is to, in a sense, belittle them. Heartbreak and romantic loss are trivialized. In the aftermath of a major war, these are treated as trifling concerns, or at least ones that can be taken in stride. A dutiful resolve is all it takes to move on from such hurts, or so it would seem from these recordings. “The Night We Call It a Day” is emblematic of the way these songs assign a proper place to emotion.

On the other hand, the earliest songs lie in the realm of simple pleasures. There is never a sense of pretension that this was “great” music. These are meant to be popular tunes, a far echo of “highbrow” European classical music, though at the same time also clearly indebted to a type of orchestrated pop music with quasi-operatic bel canto singing that was still popular two decades or so earlier. It also is nearly indistinguishable from a great deal of film music of the black and white Hollywood era before the McCarthy hearings. The orchestration rests on very familiar and recurrent styles. Typical is a kind of cradling effect, with swooping swells of strings embellished with vibrato. Hushed vocal choruses back Sinatra more frequently than in the later years too. The effect is like a velvet-lined case for a luxurious piece of jewellery. And, make no mistake, the jewel it cradles is Sinatra’s voice.

Sinatra is still young across the first two discs. And he has talent to spare. His young voice had a confident tone, yet without any sort of brute force bombast or acrobatics that typically accompany confidence. Take for instance Paul Robeson, who was another of the biggest stars on the Columbia roster in the 1940s. Robeson had a voice that seemed like it was summoned from primordial depths, bringing with it all the aspirations, pain, suffering and joy of human existence. An anthropologist took a Robeson recording to a non-western tribal village where the chief was impressed, which is really about the tone of Robeson’s voice alone. The young Sinatra, on the other hand, often came across as scrappy, even waif-like (just compare him on his rendition of a song strongly associated with Robeson: “Ol’ Man River”). He seemed to succeed and earn his confidence through wit and ingenuity alone. It was a practiced sort of skill, something learned. He embodies the kind of Horatio Alger myth of self-determination. But that’s too harsh. Sinatra was a tremendously talented singer. His greatest assets from the beginning were a purity of tone and an impeccable sense of rhythm. In the earliest parts of his career, these things were deployed mostly for sentimental ballads. In that setting, he builds dramatic tensions through timing. But really, it does seem like the occasional tracks with more of a jazzy feel, almost the opposite of the sentimental ballads, are where Sinatra shines brightest. Jazz syncopation gave Sinatra a broader canvas on which to work out his rhythmic palate. That was what he emphasized throughout most of the next decade at Capitol Records.

The problem is that much of this music seeks too much enjoyment in artificially limited aspirations. In this way, this music includes within its vision contradictions. Sinatra is sort of the emblem for American exceptionalism. While, no doubt, Sinatra was an exceptional performer, most of his early recordings projects a sense of limiting the field of view to the point that answers appear just a little too easily.

Into the third disc, there are more showtunes and movie musical fare. They are especially prevalent on disc four. These songs have aged the worst. They neither conjure a bygone era nor really contain the power to impress.

It is with the later recordings of this set — aside from the showtunes — that Sinatra seems to find his best voice. Even with sub-par material like “American Beauty Rose,” with hackneyed New Orleans second-line brass band flourishes, the recording captures Sinatra’s impeccable sense of vocal timing and his clear-eyed delivery. He even characteristically summons his deep, booming Jersey accent on the “O” sounds (like in the word “choose”). It was a vocal affectation nearly as iconic as Buddy Holly‘s vocal hiccup a few years later when rock and roll broke. “Deep Night”, recorded with Harry James‘ orchestra, with an arrangement by Ray Coniff, points more to what Sinatra would do through the rest of the 1950s. It is more adult. There is a jazzy feel, but it doesn’t swing hard. This is an early peek at the Sinatra of Las Vegas. It conjures the image of him with a drink on the rocks in his hand, surrounded by “The Clan” (the group’s own name for the Rat Pack). These recordings lack the depth and pathos of Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely (1958). And nothing swings as hard and easy at his later collaborations with Nelson Riddle: Swing Easy! (1954), Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! (1956), A Swingin’ Affair! (1957), etc. But the cocksure swagger of the older Sinatra starts to be felt a little more, particularly when his renowned sense of timing blends seamlessly with a cutting sense of dynamics. It wasn’t just that Sinatra had great rhythmic timing. He also incorporated dynamics — going between loud and quiet volumes — to soften and smooth his delivery. This was the secret for swinging hard and easy at the same time. It was the signature of Sinatra’s singing at its best and most recognizable. And in the later years he used it in a far more condensed and potent manner. The earliest songs here find him using it on long, drawn out notes (legato), when he holds a note for a long time (sostenuto). In the later songs he is using dynamics within short phrases, with dynamic changes happening quickly with each syllable, even without legato phrasing.

In the end, this patchwork collection of Sinatra’s first decade on his own as a recording star is decidedly uneven. It lacks the kind of memorable songs he would record in the following decade. Instead, much of this moves at an almost glacial pace to new styles, with handfuls of songs sounding almost indistinguishable from one another at times. The average listener will find this four-disc collection to be very much overkill. A far better distillation of only the best material is found on the singe-disc collection Sings His Greatest Hits (1997).

Iggy Pop – Préliminaires

Iggy Pop – Préliminaires EMI 50999 6985782 9 (2009)

Iggy Pop has had a fascinating solo career. He burst on to the scene in the late 1970s as a shell-shocked hard rock survivor who crashed the disco-era party with his unique brand of ironic electro-pop/rock. From there, he veered all over the place, from more hard rock to palatable pop/rock but always gravitating toward rock music of some sort. As he got older, his act just seemed more and more absurdist. Here was a guy well into middle age still thumping away with the kind of music rarely associated with anyone over thirty. Even at his worst moments, there was always intrigue in the sheer train-wreck quality of the spectacle of it all. He just kept on being the same Iggy Pop…a character that fit Hunter S. Thompson‘s description of the “Brown Buffalo” Oscar Zeta Acosta in a memoir published in Rolling Stone Dec. 15, 1977: “one of God’s own prototypes–a high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production.” In that one could laugh at his music being used in ads to sell cars and oceanliner cruises. Something did change later on. Almost, at least. Iggy released the disastrous Avenue B in the late 1990s, which was leaden with despairing lyrics and hinted at some kind of bongo-laden electro-pop that didn’t rock very much. But it looked like just a blip on the radar as he moved back to familiar hard rock with his next recordings (even if hindsight reveals at least potential in the likes of “I Felt the Luxury”).

Fast forward to 2009 (right past a horrifying reunion of The Stooges). Iggy releases Préliminaires. Just a few seconds into the album it is clear something is very different. The opening “Les feuilles mortes” could pass for Leonard Cohen. Being sung in French, comparisons to Serge Gainsbourg wouldn’t be out of place either. The rest of the album goes off in other directions, even to spoken word (like Avenue B). It largely stays away from rock, moving instead within the ambit of more adult-oriented pop, blues and the like. This raises the question: why now? It would seem that if he was going to commit to a new and different direction, he would have done it long ago. Iggy never had a voice that could be called impressive. Here he goes about as far as his abilities permit. But he’s very clearly trying to push himself. And, surprisingly enough, it all works. Then again, maybe that’s not so surprising considering that this is just another example of Iggy being a creature of his own making, and when he does something that flies in the face of reason and common sense he’s completely in his element. What differs most of all from his earlier failed effort at something new is that he goes for it all the way here. He just dives in. He also focuses on what he likes in life, instead of wallowing in hurt feelings, and he runs with musical ideas he’s probably harbored an interest in for a long time. So no wonder this may just be a late-career classic.

The Beach Boys – Friends

The Beach Boys – Friends Capitol ST-2895 (1968)

Brian Wilson’s fingerprints indelibly marked the best Beach Boys music. Though the whole band was contributing, Friends comes together under Brian’s guiding hand.

The opener “Meant for You” sums up the album: “As I sit and close my eyes, there’s peace in my mind and I’m hopin’ that you’ll find it too/ and these feeling in my heart, I know, are meant for you.”

Friends is essentially the Beach Boys’ version of a spiritual/gospel record (like Wild Honey was their version of a soul record). The groups’ vocal harmonies made a strong return. What had changed, though, was the overall mood. A calmness and peacefulness had set in with each and every band member. The music reflects all the warmth inherent in the vocals. Friends is practically a childrens record.

The easygoing spirituality of Friends is not its only achievement. The Beach Boys were still amidst their period of greatest creativity. “Transcendental Meditation” with its unusual sax lines even foreshadows The Stooges’ Fun House slightly. The songs don’t have the overpowering dance beats of the Beach Boy’s best-known material but Friends takes a more sustainable approach. Brian’s brilliant producer’s instincts help songs like “Anna Lee, the Healer” all the right notes, all the right timbres, and all the right dynamics. “Busy Doin’ Nothin’” runs through Brain’s everyday activities and gives general directions to his Bel Air home. This is a dramatic statement of values. The autobiographical is what is important. His overtures present the classic theme of universal progress (for example, Mahatma Gandhi: “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”; Jesus: “When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”). Once there are strong individuals, there can be strong societies. Brian Wilson was certainly doing his part.

Friends is Brian’s personal favorite of all the Beach Boys albums. Everything the group did beginning with Pet Sounds and continuing through (and past) Friends was a (relative) commercial failure, but of course these same albums are the group’s most innovative and enduring works. Friends may not get the fanfare that comes with having hit songs, but it is one of the Beach Boys’ most likeable albums. It’s vulnerable, yet insightful and content–the common characteristics of all of the Beach Boys’ best music.

Linda Ronstadt – Heart Like a Wheel

Linda Ronstadt – Heart Like a Wheel Capitol SW-11358 (1974)

Heart Like A Wheel is a gift from a gifted interpretive singer. And Linda Ronstadt can sing! She puts all her abilities to use in perfecting her subtle, easygoing style. Her sense of purpose always prevails over the banal concerns of technique. It seems ironic that an album of cover songs is so uninhibited.

Linda Ronstadt sang with a voice that was warm yet incredibly dynamic. Heart Like A Wheel is comforting even when the songs deal with pain and heartbreak. It doesn’t seem to matter who writes, sings, or hears them. These are universal and timeless notions. Understanding is as easy as each breath drawn as you listen. There was nothing to prove here. Ronstadt was free to pursue the most vital aspects of her form.

“You’re No Good” starts the album with a sultry passion. It sets up the overflowing emotion carried throughout the record. Peter Asher’s layered production plays an immeasurable role. It’s not obvious just where this album fits into the “scheme” of American pop music. It’s kind of everything at once. Even Paul Anka and Hank Williams songs find their way into this home cooked Californian stew.

“Faithless Love” is one of the many looks at a common ailment. Accidental misery and lonely regret come out in a long sigh. Letdown envelops you as inauspiciously as it does Ronstadt. The lovelorn feeling permeates her voice. Riding waves as they come to her, she is willing to follow the currents and powers beyond her control.

The “Heart Is Like A Wheel” arrangement makes every millisecond a awe-inspiring achievement. Ronstadt may only sing and not write the songs, but she makes every one her own. The studio musicians, as on all the songs, commit themselves to the selfless acts that unite the greater whole.

The Everly Brothers’ “When Will I Be Loved” is a moving plea for confirmation of faith in love. Linda Ronstadt delivers songs so forcefully it’s hard to imagine anything but her longing state. The song doesn’t tell a happy history, but she conveys an unshaken belief that she’s only asking when. The rhythm carrying the song is just another heartbeat. Who could have possibly cheated and mistreated such a caring person?

Heart Like A Wheel sweeps you under its spell. It really is magical, as it seems to make something appear out of nothing. Linda Ronstadt’s voice lasts long after the sound is gone from the air.

Elvis – That’s the Way It Is

Elvis – That’s the Way It Is RCA Victor LSP-4445 (1970)

Another good one from Elvis’ second golden era. Just look at the album cover! That, my friends, is an Elvis album cover.

When Elvis made his musical comeback with a 1968 TV special, after about a decade wallowing in dreadful Hollywood B-movies, he did something that is the hallmark of every musical comeback. He took a kernel of something that was always present in his music and thrust it to the forefront. Other examples are Leonard Cohen and Johnny Cash. When Cohen came back in the late 1980s, he made a change from his reputation as a purveyor of depressingly dark songs to a kind of jokester delivering deadpan humor left and right, but in hindsight the humor and wit was always there. He was always winning over listeners by creating a sense of mutual belonging, and that frequently meant that he used humorous devices. When Cash came back in the early 1990s, he emphasized his voice almost in isolation and sang mostly songs with dark themes, occasionally with a sardonic approach. He resurrected his voice as his greatest strength. Yet Cash’s voice had always been a major strength. He always used it as a force that could not be contained, by anyone, anywhere. With Elvis, his post-comeback period banked on one characteristic: his charm. There was a documentary film (That’s the Way It Is) made in conjunction with the making of the album, and in both the studio sessions and the live concerts Elvis is utterly charming. In the studio he joked with his band, and effortlessly switched between “bandleader” directing the shape of the song arrangements and “buddy” goofing around with his friends, and in that way building up a rapport with his band that gets him the desired recording. On stage, he was always enrapturing his audience, whether leaning down at the edge of the stage to give out kisses to audience members, or joking about his pants being too tight as he bends down closer to the audience or does karate moves. Of course, he was always a charmer, but when he arrived on the national stage in the 1950s he relied more on a cool, rebellious swagger and brashness than pure, unadulterated, charismatic charm. But even during his ’68 comeback special, he laid on the charm when conducting more intimate sessions with his old supporting musicians, running through some of his old, classic rockabilly songs. The charm built connections to the audience. This provided context for the rest of his music that would not otherwise be there. The audience can listen with different ears.

During this Vegas show period, Elvis developed a band and a sound that fit his charming personality — of course later on this would be a liability as he seemed to struggle to turn it off and lacked meaningful personal relationships as a result. Following somewhat the template of pure pop (showtune) singers like Judy Garland, he did big, orchestrated pop and soul songs that gave him opportunities for soaring vocal treatments. Songs like “I Just Can’t Help Believin’,”You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water” are nothing short of amazing. It’s the smooth, sultry power of Elvis’ vocals that gives the performances a sense of overwhelming intensity. And there is no need to resort to flashy gimmicks (like Liberace). This music just feels big and commanding, as if it simply has to. Elvis doesn’t have to pull the music along. It as as if he is tapping into something bigger than even him. The weakness of this album is that a few of the studio tracks — “Twenty Days and Twenty Nights” and “Mary in the Morning” — kill the energy maintained by the rest of the album.

The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu said (in Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste):

“Charm and charisma in fact designate the power, which certain people have, to impose their own self-image as the objective and collective image of their body and being . . . . The charismatic leader manages to be for the group what he is for himself, instead of being for himself, like those dominated in the symbolic struggle, what he is for others.”

For Elvis, this holds, it seems. His earthy and muscular emotional range embodied a kind of work ethic. It was a style that valued the hard work and labor that goes into his music. An audience that valued a life of work could relate to such an attitude. But Elvis, too, was nimble and varied in his use of these attributes. And he suggested a virile benefit to this sort of an attitude. But none of this is forced on the audience by the music or Elvis’ performance. It is assumed by the totality of the show.

Elvis’ approach was unlike that of other Vegas-style entertainers. Axel Stordahl was the conductor who worked with Frank Sinatra in the 1940s. It is instructive to contrast the approach of Elvis and his orchestral conductor Joe Guercio. Stordahl deployed syrupy and treacly strings that established a rather static foundation upon which Sinatra crooned. It conveys a sense that the singer is in his place. The music will not go anywhere. It will remain where it belongs. And in that space, the singer, and he alone, has the ability to deploy his considerable talents to dazzle. It is actually a fairly simple twist on a rather old performance trick. Sidney Bechet, the jazz saxophonist, used basically the same trick in an earlier era. A “star” soloist working with a large orchestra will have the orchestra “sandbag” their performance. That is, they play simple stuff, that lumbers or is overtly bland, or maybe even feigns a kind of sourness. Any or all of this provides a foil for the star soloist to work against, allowing even small and otherwise unimpressive embellishments to seem bigger and flashier than they really are. It wows audiences by suggesting that the soloist is better than them, because not even the backing musicians can do what the soloist does. This is partly the secret of Sinatra’s music with Stordahl. In Bechet’s case there was a twist. There at least in context there was a statement that said even a black man (legally a second-class citizen) was better than some others, though problematically the use of orchestra sandbagging undermined that claim by presenting it as (only) a lie — Louis Armstrong would have to come along to prove it to the doubters while working in front of great musicians for the point to be indisputable.

Elvis had a sweaty, visceral energy to his performance that made the forward drive and power of the entire ensemble palpable. He worked with a conventional guitar-based rock band, complete with drums and electric bass. This provides syncopation that propels the music forward. The orchestra extends and fills out the sound of the rock band. The Guercio orchestra didn’t sound static at all. They use swelling dynamics to accentuate dramatic surges, and the wind instruments extend beyond conventional limits for proper tone to have a pulsing drive that magnifies the energy level. It’s a kind of modernism that calls attention to the medium of orchestration itself. The distinction may be subtle, but the Guercio orchestra adds more than punctuation to the rock band or padding to the tonality of the rock band’s instrumentation (though they do some of that too). They provide a kind of raw mass to the overall sound, that has the feeling of movement along with the rock band and Elvis’s vocal. An analogy would be to movies, in which the good guy or bad guy, usually one possessing magical or superhuman powers, floats into a scene accompanied by fog or smoke. The fog/smoke billows along with the character, filling up the space on screen, conveying a sense of power larger than the actor’s physical build. This is what Elvis’ great Vegas stage show delivered in its prime. It was the musical equivalent of expanding a sense of space in film. But rather than the kind of laser light shows that became a side-show fad for some rock acts, this was a musical force that envelopes the audience. This is the key difference between Elvis and the other sorts of entertainers that preceded him on big stages.

Elvis’ show was about making and maintaining an emotional connection to the audience. The audience was positioned at his level, not as an aside, but in both his music and in his on stage antics (kissing audience members, etc.). Go back to Judy Garland’s style. On her famous Judy at Carnegie Hall live album she tells a funny story about a hairdresser in Paris. While this story does charm the audience, it simultaneously reaffirms her elitist stance vis-a-vis the audience. Going to Paris (for work or otherwise) is not the stuff of the ordinary person on the street. Elvis sings songs on That’s the Way It Is that are overwhelmingly about personal relationships. This is something that anyone walking in the door to a Presley concert, no matter how humble, has the potential to relate to. When Elvis emerged in the 1950s as the symbol of youthful rebellion, it was partly an earnestly apolitical stance that wagered that social elites would not recognize how his swagger and songs about earthly romance could build a bridge across Jim Crow racial lines by way of an audience of youth. Elvis’ “comeback” likewise used his charm through the medium of romance songs to advance revolutionary democratization through music. What made his comeback so remarkable was how he had managed to reconfigure the sound and instrumentation of his music to use the same element of charm to achieve a different objective. Elvis undoubtedly deserves the title of “king” bestowed upon him, because he did these things with a kind of aristocratic benevolence. These aren’t new ideas. But Elvis actually pushed them forward to a wider swath of the population and therefore more effectively than maybe any other.

Addendum: There is an expanded edition of the album That’s the Way It Is: Special Edition (2000) that is worth it for the fan. The third disc has outtakes that run a bit thin in places, but the collection includes two entire concert performances with stellar performances that build on the success of the original live/studio album.

Judy Collins – In My Life

Judy Collins – In My Life Elektra EKS 7320 (1966)

I have always rather liked Judy Collins’ voice. She resembled English folk singers like Sandy Denny and Linda Thompson (or more accurately, it was the other way around). Collins is often described as “Elektra records’ answer to Vanguard Records’ Joan Baez.” Collins began as a traditional acoustic guitar folk singer, and that description may have held true for a time. But with In My Life she began what many consider her “art pop” phase. Rather than simple acoustic guitar treatments she was adding string arrangements and performing material from a wider variety of styles such as theater songs. And she dressed up the core of folk music with something other than rock influence. It is appropriate to identify Collins as an innovator in this regard, because In My Life quickly showed influence, directly or indirectly, on a lot of other works in the coming years: Nico‘s Chelsea Girl, Phil Ochs‘ Pleasures of the Harbor, Tim Buckley‘s Goodbye and Hello &c. The album proved an important stepping stone in developing the more elaborate and ornate sounds of the singer-songwriter movement that followed the urban folk revival. You can even find traces of Collins and In My Life in such works as far apart in time as Joanna Newsom‘s Ys and Have One on Me.

What we have here is a bit inconsistent though. Collins does well with Randy Newman‘s “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today” and Donovan‘s “Sunny Goodge Street.” She also delivers some nice vocals on Bob Dylan‘s “Tom Thumb’s Blues,” where her vocal phrasing is wholly new and nothing like Dylan’s. That song is a bit like the mad tea party in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, because Collins’ assured voice set against the surreal and absurdist context of Dylan’s lyrical landscape is like the logical Alice precociously befuddled by the social antics of the Mad Hatter and friends that she does not understand. It reveals in Dylan’s song an almost coming-of-age quality. Where this stumbles, though, is with some of the song selections and the instrumentation and arrangements. “Tom Thumb’s Blues” has a rather nondescript string treatment, and it doesn’t quite live up to the power of Collins’ vocals. The theater numbers vary. Brecht/Weill‘s “Pirate Jenny [Seeräuberjenny]” is ill-suited to her, though “Marat/Sade” (a medley from the Peter Weiss play) works. Jacques Brel‘s “La Colombe” isn’t quite right either (try Scott Walker from the following few years for superior interpretations of Brel). But you can draw an almost direct connection between this and the ways West Coast singer-songwriters and interpretive pop singers would emerge in the coming years, though it’s obvious that Collins took a more serious approach than others who followed. “Marat/Sade” may be from a musical, but it’s no Andrew Lloyd Webber pap. The studio musicians turn in performances throughout that are polite and competent but not always particularly engaged. Joshua Rifkin‘s arrangements don’t always do enough to tailor themselves to Collins’ singing. This is now more a period piece than anything, but a nice one at that. It has certainly grown on me since my first listen.