Olivia Newton-John: Let Me Be There

In 1973, Olivia Newton-John won the "Best Country Vocal Performance, Female" Grammy award for the title track of this Lp, "Let Me Be There." To say that the CMA was pissed would be an understatement. For this 25-year-old Australian to go up against Tammy Wynette and Dottie West, both of whom were nominated in the same category, and win... well, that was too much.

To be fair, "Let Me Be There" was a much better song than Tammy's ("Kids Say The Darndest Things") or Dottie's ("Country Sunshine"), but there was a feeling that the crossover nature of the song, which hit huge with Top 40 audiences and signalled Olivia's breakthrough hit, tainted the jury pool, so to speak. It might be possible.

I put this album on thinking that, as with so many "light rock" artists I disdained during the 70s (Gordon Lightfoot, Dan Fogelberg, Karla Bonoff), I would feel a rush of appreciation -- Good Lord! How could I have been so blind to the obvious musical talent, the mastery of the material? But sometimes, a stone is just a stone, no matter how many years of wind and wave polish it. "Let Me Be There" compiles almost a side's worth of tracks from Olivia's Uni debut Lp ("If Not For You," 1972), including the hit Dylan cover, and throws in another side's worth of MOR covers from the early 70s.

I made the mistake of listening to Side 2 first, and let me tell you, hearing Olivia warble her way through John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" was like eating uncooked Jell-O. This is followed by a cover of the old Merrilee Rush hit, "Angel Of The Morning," but there's nothing new to add, and it's crunchy-sweet too. Then there's a Lightfoot cover. Urrrgh.

Flipping over to Side 1 was a bit better, with the title track at the top and "If Not For You" at the end, but then there's Olivia trying her best to interpret "Me And Bobby McGee" -- just imagine that, if you will. Janis she ain't and try as she might, she sounds like she was smiling the whole way through. And to add insult to injury, MCA chose another clinker from her first Lp, a horrid syrupy rendition of "Banks Of The Ohio" that is enough to put a zombie off his brain souffle.

The only surprise here is a truly stunning cover of Lesley Duncan's "Love Song", off of Elton John's "Tumbleweed Connection" album. It's so good, in fact, that I'm convinced it would have been a radio hit if the bonehead A&R doofuses at MCA had had the smarts to release it. (There's a reason MCA is referred to in the industry as "Music Cemetary of America".)

So, yeah, some things don't get better with age. Lightfoot has. Wendy Waldman has. Even, God help me, Johnny Mathis has (or at least I've finally learned to appreciate him). But not this album -- sorry. (Although the photo on the cover is stunning.)

Bang! Neil Diamond shoots a bull's-eye

I've been a fan of the early Neil Diamond for a long time. Note that I say "early." After he went to Columbia in the early '70s and began cranking out soft-rockin' smoothies for the Jonathan Livingston Seagull self-help crowd - not a fan so much! But his early work for Bang Records was pretty awesome.

A little history: Bang was a New York label whose name was actually an anagram of the first names of its owners, who were Bert Berns, a talented producer for Atlantic Records, Atlantic co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, his brother Nesuhi Ertegun, and Atlantic's top gun producer Jerry (Gerald) Wexler. They'd had a lot of early hits with The Strangeloves, The McCoys (with a young Rick Derringer) and had re-invented Johnny Cymbal (remember "Mr. Bass Man"?) as Derek and had a hit with a song called "Cinnamon". Van Morrison's first U.S. solo release after disbanding Them was on Bang, and it was a killer - "Brown-Eyed Girl".

Diamond was just a songwriter at the time, and not a particularly good one, but he was friends with Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, two of the hottest songwriters of the '60s, and they convinced the Bang boys to record Neil. It seems that when Neil wrote songs for other people, they were just mediocre, but when he wrote songs for himself - they were spectacular. "Cherry, Cherry" was a huge radio hit, and his career took off from there.

Diamond cut a total of 23 tracks for Bang from 1966 - 1968, when he departed for MCA's new Uni. label. Of those 23 cuts, about half were original songs, and they were amazing: "Solitary Man", "Cherry, Cherry", "Kentucky Woman", "Shilo", "Thank The Lord For The Night Time"... great stuff.

"Neil Diamond: The Bang Years" is the first-ever collection on CD of Neil's Bang masters in their original mono versions, cut for 45-RPM release and unsullied by overdubs and other strings-n-things that got added to some of the stereo album versions. It's a really great collection with a lengthy booklet written by Neil telling his own story of what it was like to be a hitless songwriter living on a shoestring in 1960s New York, and I was pleased as punch to find it at my local Fry's. A truly great collection of music, and one I will be playing in the Studebaker quite a lot while I drive around :)

For further research:
The Bang Records Story
Neil performing "Cherry, Cherry" on "Where The Action Is", 1966
   (the lip-synching is awful, but it's cool to see Neil doing his stand-up on location)
Promo video for "The Bang Years" collection

Ear to Ear. It's about music 'n stuff.

Well, this blog has been a long time coming. I have been a music lover since I was a little kid, and got through high school by listening to AM Top 40 Radio and buying second- and fifth-hand 45s from the thrift store near the bus stop. They sounded awful, but the music was amazing.

I played those records on an old Montgomery Wards Airline turntable record changer scavenged out of someone's old console stereo they'd left out for the garbage man. Since it had no base, I placed its four mounting springs on Testors Paint spray cans on my dad's garage workbench, and then hid some cast-off speakers in the rafters, strung up with Zip cord, and amplified by an old Dynaco amp. Along the way I acquired an old Voice of Music quarter-inch tape deck, and I was off to the races... music and audio were in my veins.

After high school, I decided I wanted to be a radio DJ, and I did just that. I spent the next 20 years on the radio in San Diego, most of it as a station Music Director, and it was great. Along the way, I kept collecting. I wrote music reviews for local papers for a few years, too.

Somehow, I guess, I got a little carried away. I had to build a new office to hold my music. There's a wall full of vinyl Lps, a few racks of CDs, miscellaneous other junk scattered around -- oh, and the 45s, which currently live in the garage... ironically enough, on the workbench, where it all started.

Yeah, not the best picture in the world, but you get the idea. (Is it just me, or do I seem to be leaning to one side in all my photos?) Today, there's not a day goes by that I don't listen to at least one album or CD. And since I've still got the urge to write... well, here's this blog. I love soul music, funk, early rock 'n roll, '60s and '70s rock, blues, early R&B, and lately I've been developing a liking for Henry Mancini. Go figure. And like a good MD, I try to keep up with today's new stuff too as much as time permits.

So, as I listen to music new and old, I'll be blogging about it. Vinyl finds, new CDs, old stereo gear, occasional rants about Quadraphonic discs; it'll all be here. I hope you enjoy, and feel free to comment.

 

I saw a piece last Sunday on CBS Sunday about Glen Campbell's recent Alzheimer's diagnosis. It struck a nerve, as my mom died of Alzheimer's. It's an ugly, nasty disease that strips away the patient's humanness bit by bit, and crueller because they're ofttimes aware of it happening.

The interview prompted me to pull out my copy of The Best of Glen Campbell, issued by Capitol in 1976. Campbell was a big name in the '60s and '70s, having first been a session player known for his guitar abilities; his first album was a showpiece for his pickin'. He played on sessions for everyone from Elvis to the Beach Boys. Then he hooked up with songwriter Jimmy Webb for "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" in '67 and it was off to the races from there. He had subsequent hits with more Webb material - "Galveston" and the frighteningly good "Wichita Lineman". There was also "Gentle On My Mind," "Dreams of the Everyday Housewife" and more. He got his own TV show for a while, married Tanya Tucker... and kind of faded away.

This album reminds me just how great Campbell really was at his peak. It's got all the stuff you know on it - "Lineman", "Gentle", "Phoenix" - plus some great songs you've probably forgotten about, like Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter's "Country Boy (You Got Your Feet In L.A.)", a great version of Gordon Lightfoot's "The Last Time I Saw Her" and a forgotten hit from '73, the rockin' country-soul "I Knew Jesus (Before He Was A Superstar)". The only song it doesn't have is "Southern Nights", his last big pop hit in '77. If you see this one in a bin, snag it.

More recent info on Glen:

Campbell's first gig since Alzheimer's News

Glen Campbell Talks About His Alzheimer's For The First Time

"Wichita Lineman" from the Smothers Brothers show