Patsy Cline “The Patsy Cline Story”

It’s hard for me to write anything about Patsy Cline because I was such a huge fan of her at one time and now, I barely listen to her anymore. Not that I mind listening to her, as I am right now, writing this—it’s just that I don’t normally put on a Patsy Cline record when I’m in the mood for country music, or love songs, or sad songs, or introspection. At one time, I suppose, my love for her had to do with being in the vicinity of “discovering” her—around the time this 1980 LP came out, when I was around 20 years old. It’s a two-record retrospective—one of about a million Patsy Cline compilation releases since her tragic death, at the age of 30, in 1963. I had not been a fan of country and western, in my youth, but my appreciation for it more or less coincided with me becoming a punk rocker (if that makes sense), and also learning about jazz, and also discovering a lot of older music I didn’t know existed.

Quite fascinating to me (and probably no one else) is that at this time (a little hard to believe it was 40-some years ago), I was an enormous fan of The Clash, James Brown, and Patsy Cline—and now I barely listen to those three. It’s not that I don’t have an appreciation of them, on paper so to speak, even love for them—but I’m just not feeling it. Well, The Clash is most confusing to me. It’s almost like I’ve turned against them. (I know, it’s silly.) If someone put on a good James Brown record right now, I’d probably be into it—it’s just that I never choose, these days, to put on James Brown. And I’m listening to Patsy Cline right now, enjoying the music thoroughly, but I don’t feel it the way I once did—so I guess that’s the point. Sad but true.

It’s interesting—when a song comes on that I don’t know that well, such as, “Imagine That,” I appreciate that one a lot more than all the usuals—the big ones that everyone knows—which I don’t need to mention. I suppose that I’ve just heard some of them way too many times—and just wore out the parts of my brain where they reside. Partly to blame, I guess, are movies and TV shows—who will, on occasion, allow one of these songs to do way too much work. “Back in Baby’s Arms” is a good example. I wouldn’t mind never hearing that song again. “She’s Got You,” however, I still feel a fondness for—I liked that one so much I learned to play it, and did (for myself, only) quite often. I can still remember the revelation of “Leavin’ on Your Mind”—my first hearing that—even if I can’t feel it in the same way. “Crazy” is undeniable, but I’ve just heard it too many times. “Sweet Dreams” was always my favorite, and I guess I can’t forget that. It’s still got a little furnished cottage in the nostalgia region of my brain. And… to end on a positive note, there’s the song, “Why Can’t He Be You”—that one’s a killer, lyric-wise, and the way she sings it sure is fine. That might be my favorite at this point. And maybe, if I’m lucky, and some years pass, brain cells under the bridge, just maybe I can come around to all of them again.

Ahmad Jamal “Sun Set”

The first song, “If Not for Me,” starts out particularly understated—you know the song, so when he doesn’t even finish one of the phrases, your mind finishes it, but it’s supremely pleasing in that it denies your expectations, as well as fulfills your expectations. Then there’s a part where a couple of notes are repeated to the extent that if it was a CD, you’d be certain it was skipping, even though this record came out in 1976, and CDs were still on the drawing board, right? (I don’t remember anymore.) Well… certainly when it was recorded, over a decade earlier. But it doesn’t sound like a record skip—so I guess back then, it would probably just evoke a kind of weird but interesting repetition. I know nothing about jazz, really—despite listening to years and years of Phil Schaap’s radio shows—but you don’t necessarily need to know much to enjoy it. Of course, the more you know, the better. It’s kind of funny how opposite I feel about live jazz recordings and live rock recordings. I avoid the rock ones—I can think of very few I like—too much energy with nowhere to go, not to mention inane patter (could drugs have been a factor?) But for jazz, live recordings make perfect sense.

This is a double record—a repackaging from “Chess Jazz Master Series.” It’s put together by a guy named Dan Nooger, who wrote the liner notes. It’s a release of a couple of records that were live recordings from 1958 and 1961—nearly 30 songs. The personal is the same: Ahmad Jamal, piano; Israel Crosby, bass; Vernel Fournier, drums. So… these are recordings of live shows from just before I was born and just after I was born. And for whatever reason, this is music that connects with me like I was listening to nothing but this all my life. I wonder who decided to call it “Sun Set”—rather than “Sunset” or “Chess Set”—interesting. The cover is a picture of, I suppose, a sunset (though, I might have thought moonrise) over some mountains. It’s funny—the picture is roughly the aspect ratio of a movie—but the cover opens up, and then the picture, a landscape, continues onto the back—and becomes the aspect ratio of a CinemaScope movie. I don’t know if that was intentional or not—but I’ll take it.

I don’t know that much about Ahmad Jamal, but I have a couple of his LPs—that I was able to find without mortgaging anything. No doubt I’ll pick up another one. The Big Board says he’s currently 92 years old—and he was born the same year as my dad, in roughly the same geographical area, with partly the same name (he changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950, when he converted to Islam). He started playing piano at the age of 3, and by now has been releasing records for seven decades or so. I suppose by listening to this record enough times I know quite a lot about him (and his bass player and drummer). Hearing a good musician’s music is a direct connection to them—I guess that’s partly why we feel so strongly about music. And for some reason, piano, more than anything else, strikes me as a direct connection to the musician’s mind. Piano was the first instrument I tried to play—and I guess it was the first time I can recall experiencing significant failure. But that didn’t turn me against the instrument, or people who play piano. I might always consider it my one true love.

Neil Diamond “Hot August Night II”

Starts out with “Song of the Whales (Fanfare)”—then some wanky synth stuff and “Headed for the Future”—in other words, Danger, Will Robinson. I wonder… what… year… he announces it, 1986, as part of the inane patter (it came out the next year). I was always pretty dismissive of Neil Diamond until I saw the movie, The Last Waltz (1978), which he’s in, and I thought he was awesome, so I figured I should revise my opinion. I didn’t really pursue it, though—I didn’t actively go back and listen to anything… so it was limited to what you’d hear on the radio and so forth. His 1972 record, “Hot August Night,” is a thrift store staple, but I’ve never listened to it. That’s the one with the cover photo that looks like he just discovered an invisible 14 inch erection that demanded his full attention. He has gigantic hair, too. On the cover of this one, way less hair, but still a lot, and now he has a guitar in his hands, but still sports full orgasm-face. Is all of this some intimate communication with his fans? Lot of concert pics here—and this double live record opens up for a huge photo of ND, arms outstretched to the hordes of fans. If you were there, you might be able to pick yourself out—good photo. I’ve often wondered how easy it would be to feel okay with standing on a stage in front of sea of human beings who are there for you—who might as easily make love to you as tear you to bits and eat your flesh. I suppose it’s as easy as anything previously unimaginable—good or bad. Also interesting, that “Future” song reminded me exactly of the terrible first song Kris Kristofferson is singing in A Star is Born (1976)—to the extent that you might think the film came after this record, but no… but as terrible as both songs are, maybe they exist in timeless vacuum. Neil Diamond wrote a lot of good songs, that’s for sure, and he also wrote a lot of bad songs. They’re all performed full-on here, with bland applause filling the cracks in between, erecting this towering, multilayered, sweltering sweet pastry from hell.

Frank Sinatra “A Man and His Music”

My random record review picking system happened to pick a Frank Sinatra record directly after a Nancy Sinatra record, so I considered vetoing it, but seeing how it’s too hot to write record reviews with a migraine anyway, I figured I’d give it a shot—and write only as much as I can while listening to this (double) record. This is a 1965 retrospective, so it has the feel of a biography—the cover is a collage of drawings of Frank over the years, and there are some not very satisfying photos inside (it opens up). The best thing—there is extensive liner notes by Stan Cornyn, the record exec who’s known for writing great liner notes—so here we have one of the most concise—but still thorough, and not lacking in flair—Sinatra bios out there. I like the part where he’s talking about how, throughout his career, Sinatra liked to go against the grain: “To do everything wrong, and hence much righter than the rule book allows.”

If you’re a Sinatra fan, you know it’s impossible to even scratch the surface of a retrospective in a two-record set, but here it is. Maybe the best audience for this is NON-fans, I don’t know. My parents had a lot of his records, so I heard them growing up and thought I had a pretty good overview—but his career is vast. When I lived in New York in 1985, over Thanksgiving weekend, Wednesday night through Sunday, an AM radio station played a Sinatra marathon, “from A to Z”—just a staggering amount of songs. They tended to play the earlier recordings of the songs in question, so what I then realized was that he recorded a lot of songs multiple times, with different bands, arrangements, and styles. So a maniacal Sinatra fan can go quite deep. His earliest stuff sometimes doesn’t even sound like the same singer as his later stuff—yet it does, too. You never confuse him with anyone else—he’s got the most distinctive and unique approach to popular vocal music of anyone who’s ever approached a microphone. I’m not sure if that’s totally true, but even if he’s not your favorite, you have to admit, if he came to your dinner party, you wouldn’t get him mixed up with Bob from over to State Farm. (Nothin’ against Bob!)

I’m not going to list the 30 or so songs on this record—which is a paltry number relative to even what he recorded during the acne years. One would like to think these were picked by the man himself as being most important to him over the years, but that certainly doesn’t mean they’re the best. And some of them—like the interminable “Soliloquy” and “The House I Live In”—I could very well do without. What’s funny, though, and somewhat unique, and definitely worthwhile, here, is that Frank recorded little intros and outros to many, actually most, of the songs. You can listen to the whole thing like a audio documentary or radio show. It’s all a bit corny, but he does it with his breezy but sincere hipster style, so it’s a lot of fun. By the way, I did a smart thing during that Thanksgiving A to Z marathon, and got out my cassette recorder and taped everything I could, on every blank tape space I could find. Some of the songs were obviously played from station’s scratchy old 7 and 10 inch discs, maybe even 78’s, I don’t know. Anyway, it all had a particular feeling—just the oldness, and the broadcast quality—that I’ve never heard duplicated. I sometimes still listen to those tapes.

Lana Del Rey “Ultraviolence”

If you call your album “Ultraviolence” are you making a reference to A Clockwork Orange, either the book, or the movie, or both? Though maybe there was something (band, ad agency, hoagie) with that name—referring to the book, or the movie—in the vast cultural wilderness of the last four decades that I missed—and this record is actually referring to that. Is it a fragrance? If not, it should be! Well, in this case, it refers to a (seriously creepy) love song, on the album. I was happy to see a lyric sheet, but it isn’t a lyric sheet, it’s song by song credits, typed with a seemingly very, very small typewriter—I read some of them before my eyes hurt too much and I had to stop—but if you can find another woman’s name anywhere in the vast sea of dude-ness, Leave a Comment, and I’ll issue a personal apology. Like so many records by young people, this one has a thick cover, super heavy vinyl, and is a double record. I guess when I’m thinking back to some of the most exciting records of all time, like from the Seventies, quite a few were double records—I guess it was supposed to announce a spectacular surge of creativity, and also the record company’s boundless love for the artist. But for people who grew up in the CD era, maybe a record seemed like it should be 14 or 18 songs and well over an hour, and to put that on vinyl you need two records. Oh well, the important thing is, are there are good songs—and there are lots here. I think they’re all written by Lana Del Rey, along with someone else, in many cases. I like the songs, I like the sound, I like her singing—I should probably end this review here—the new concise and positive me. But I’m not getting paid by the word, so I’m also not getting paid for brevity.

“Cruel World” is pretty, and melancholy, and pretty damn melancholy, but at least, given that title, relatively free of irony? I love rhyming “Bourbon” and “suburban”—has anyone else used that rhyme? I’m sure, but I can’t recall any, offhand, you need the proper stars to line up. There’s a really familiar sounding song, maybe a hit? Or maybe it’s just growing on me from repeat listens. All solid songs here—I like this record—it’s just relentless in its dramatic, melancholy sound. You want to text her and say, “It’s not so bad. It’s all going to be okay.” But what if she texted back: “How do YOU know?” Well, okay, maybe not then. Keep doing what you’re doing. Apparently she has, with more records since this one, and they’re all hit records, I believe. It’s kind of hard to know, as least for me, anymore, the difference between relative stardom, and stardom, and superstardom, and the next thing. She’s definitely getting “paid by the tear,” as David Berman said. Of course, there can be a cost to that, of course, but maybe those bills have already been paid. Just last week I read an interview, by chance, online (as those things happen, these days, seemingly at random) with a woman singer and songwriter, apparently quite successful, though it was the first time I heard of her (and since forgot her name). What caught my attention was the seeming openness with which she talked about unhappy relationships—and it just struck me, made me kind of sad. I know these are rich people problems, but love is one place where we’re all equal, at least to a great degree—and being famous, or revered, or having money, doesn’t necessarily make it easier. Honey is wonderful, but it attracts everything, including dirt. I’m sorry I can’t remember who the interview was with, but Leave a Comment if you think you know, or maybe I’ll include it as a comment here, later, if I remember. Oh, also, that reminded me of Randy Russell’s excellent short story about falling in love with a singer’s songs, then meeting the person. It’s called “Fiddle o’ Blood,” and I recommend it.

It’s a good album cover, with big, casual photos. It’s kind of refreshing in that the photos on both the front and the back take up the the whole covers, with white letters superimposed, and they are both black and white, and look like from the same day, same photo session. Lana Del Rey is wearing the same kind of white, V-neck T-shirt I wear to work under my white work shirt, though hers looks pretty new, not gnarly like mine, and also, she’s wearing a bra under hers, which is a nice look—though not one I could pull off. On the front it looks like she’s getting out of a car, though I can’t tell what in the world is going on here, or what kind of car it is—from the small details, I’d say it’s a 1970s crap car. It’s a nice, kind of blurry photo—she looks like she’s about 20. Maybe she was at the time. It looks like there’s a tattoo on the outside of her left hand—the part you’d use to karate chop something. Then on the other photo you see a tattoo on the inside of her left hand. Or maybe they’re not tattoos at all, but simply reminders, written with a Sharpie (“Remember photo shoot,” and “Call Speen”). I’m kind of hurt that she needs a reminder, but on the other hand—well, I’m not sure what it says on her right hand. There should be a website that just tells you what famous people tattoos say. Oh, right, there probably is one. I’ll check that out now. On the other hand, no, that’s gross. I’d rather not know.

Chicago “Chicago”

I bought a late-Seventies Chicago record when I was in high school and was so-so about it, then later I just didn’t like them at all, so it was a surprise to me when, a few years ago, I found myself compulsively listening to some of their early stuff, especially the hits. I bought this 1970 record, titled “Chicago” (but also referred to as Chicago II, I guess, because it’s their second LP) from a $4 bin—mostly fascinated because the cover was thin cellophane over what looks like a badly photocopied cover, and the label is this really exotic, old, Asian looking, beautiful silver printing on red, called “First.” What was it? I looked it up when I got home, and it turns out it’s from Taiwan, maybe legit, maybe a bootleg, who knows. I thought it might be unlistenable, but for $4, I was just curious. It turns out that it’s not only listenable, but a great record with great sound. I don’t know if it’s my imagination or not (and my stereo system is an ongoing adventure in inconsistency), but weirdly it sounds better than any other record—just really lush and warm. How much that has to do with the pressing, and how much is just the recording, playing, songs—I have no idea. One thing about the band, Chicago, that I really like, is how uncomplicated their early recordings are, while being tremendously complex—you know, in song structure and arrangements—but just all really organic sounding.

I finally got curious and consulted the internet about these Taiwanese pressings, and sure enough, people talk about the sound quality being really good. I didn’t want to go down that particular rabbit-hole though—you’ve got to protect yourself, you know, from the old rabbit-holes—but I did note that someone talked about the weird cellophane covered album covers that are just like covers printed on the back of other things and then wrapped in this plastic. Then, looking closely at the cover of this Chicago record, I could see this faint writing coming through, and it said: “Shaft’s Big Score!” So then I had to cut the plastic away to see what was going on, and it turns out the Chicago cover is printed on very thin paper, and the inner structure of the album cover is made up of a Taiwanese printed “Shaft’s Big Score!” LP, and a divider (it’s a double record) in the middle is the cover of “Blood, Sweat & Tears 3.” Just really bizarre. Anyway, not ever having heard this record, except for some of the hit songs, I just kind of thought maybe the whole thing was some kind of random bootleg collection, but as it turns out, it’s just their second record, and it is kind of bizarre, just all over the place, but really great from beginning to end. They sure were pretty ambitious for a new band. I guess their first few records were double records, like they just didn’t realize that most sane bands primarily put out single records. At first they were called Chicago Transit Authority, but wisely chose to shorten the name (seeing how it’s even more syllables than ELO, and probably could foresee a career of rock journalists’ cleverness: “elevated” or “missed the bus”) to Chicago, and adopted that dumb script logo that looks like the sign for a deli, or something printed on a fat guy’s softball uniform.

I don’t want to go down a Chicago rabbit-hole, either—well, I just did—looking over their discography, and history, about which I know nothing. I rarely consult other music writers (I read lots of music writers, but I mean, specifically, when writing a review), but I was compelled to check Robert Christgau’s “Consumer Guide” which is a great website, with no bullshit popping up, with an index, and searchable, tons of concise and insightful music writing (plus, he had the honor of getting a taste of his own medicine from Lou Reed, on that “Take No Prisoners” live record). Let’s see… Chicago… Christgau is… not a fan. To say the least. But I guess I am, now. Maybe I’ll pick up some more of the early records (I have a copy the their first “greatest hits” LP). Then, of course, I started reading about the tragic death of Terry Kath, and tried to remember what I thought about it at the time—1978. We didn’t have the internet, of course, and so we had to wait for any news to be on the radio or TV or in the papers, and then to really find out anything, next month’s Rolling Stone. I guess by that point I thought of the band as an insipid AM radio hits band, but still, it was pretty sad and senseless and depressing. Then later the same year, my hero Keith Moon died, and that really hit me hard. While I was legitimately sad, I remembered thinking that the intense public mourning for Elvis (the previous year) was kind of ridiculous (though it’s easy to forget that he was only 42). But Terry Kath and Keith Moon were barely into their early thirties. I don’t really believe that “only the good die young” thing (maybe it’s more that they haven’t had the time yet to become wretched), but considering another prominent 1946 birth… well, forget that (I try to avoid presidential politics on this site, but it is notable when someone goes from being merely a huge, reeking, cultural turd to a literal giant magnet for hate, racism, intolerance, and fascism).

A couple of years ago, when David Bowie died, and then a few months later, Prince died, I did feel pretty emotional, sad and devastated—again wondering if that made sense, not knowing them personally. But now, because of social media, you are very much aware of this as a shared experience. It is not at all unusual for people to mourn the loss of artists, public figures, who enrich their lives. Thinking about it now, when Terry Kath died, I was still in high school, living with my parents, and my shared experience about this kind of thing was primarily with them. And in those years, from the time of my birth, to the point at which I first moved away from home (which coincided, by chance, with Keith Moon’s death) my experiencing and dealing with the death of family members, friends, and public figures was a pretty intimate experience with my parents, and I feel like I was closer with them, on a communication level, than probably the average kid. So I’m thinking about that now… started out to write about this Chicago record… talk about your rabbit-hole…