SOUNDS A-F
SOUNDS A-F
Blam! Can't miss the beat. It starts here, with the following list and lowdown
on music creatures who count. Half a dozen different schools of cool are represented
in the all-purpose grooves guide called Who's Cool In Music.
ABBA * Sweden's frosty foursome has poured the best since '73: bubblegum on ice, from "Waterloo" and "S.O.S." to "Dancing Queen" and "Fernando." Polar pop.
Best buy: The Definitive Collection. Wholesome goodness: Waterloo.
ACAPELLA * Doowop's bride stripped bare. Allmouth American Music that heals heart and Soul and knocks Most Solidly on Heaven's door. Like the Belmonts' awesome Cigars Acapella, Candy (cut in 1972, reissued as an Elektra cd last year), or anything by the Zircons, Chessmen, the Blue Stars, or Patty & the Street-Tones.
JOHNNY ACE * Bang bang. Rock and roll's first suicide played his last game of Russian roulette on Christmas Eve 1954 in Houston. Posthumous hit "Pledging My Love" was his biggest.
Johnny Ace Memorial Album (MCA).
MOSE ALLISON * Arguably the first hip honky, Tippo, Mississippi's fave son favored laid back piano blues with titles like "Crepuscular Air" and "Your Mind Is on Vacation (and Your Mouth Is Working Overtime)." Eminently cool.
THE ANIMALS * Don't let them be misunderstood. Both as intercontinental mod-gods and Love Gen petal-pushers, they could never hide the fact that they were actual pub thugs who brawled for the sheer pleasure of it. On "Gin House Blues," Burdon vows 'I'll fight the army and Royal Navy if I don't get some gin tonight." Acid-housekeeping: Burd's pre-War "Girl Named Sandoz." D.W.
Cassette only: Animals' Greatest Hits (Mercury), and original albums
(MGM). Best
of the Animals (ABKCO), Best of Eric Burdon & the Animals
(PolyGram), The
Complete Animals.
SYD BARRETT * Britain's first "acid genius" touched down long enough to found Pink Floyd (1967), then flipped his wig. Bent classics: "See Emily Play" (and the rest of Floyd's first LP), Barrett solos "Dominoes" and "Baby Lemonade."
BEACH BOYS * None cooler on the Coast, 1962-66.
The Most: Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys [BOX SET]. Essential: Today/ All Summer Long; Sunflower/ Surf's Up; Friends/ 20/20; Wild Honey/ Smiley Smile.
BEATLES * For their first album they created the Anti Beatles ("I Wanna Be Your Man" was the Stones' first hit). Last cool record: Revolver, which did not need a lyric sheet.
CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & HIS MAGIC BAND * "Equal parts Howlin' Wolf and Albert Ayler," Rolling Stone said. Unsaid: how humans could generate song-noise as radiant as "Electricity" or "Sheriff of Hong Kong." "Harry Irene," says C.B., "is about four lesbians and a tavern." Do the Candle Mambo.
Greatest: Trout Mask Replica (Reprise); Safe as Milk (Buddah); Shiny Beast (Warners). Rarest: Spotlight Kid / Clear Spot.
ARCHIE BELL & THE DRELLS * "I got ten notches on my shoes," brags the terpischorean topcat of "(There's Gonna Be a) Showdown" (1969). Dancin' fools.
TONY BENNETT * Prince of the City, with coffee-rich chops. Even as a "kid," the king of grown-up songstuff--love lost and found, bucking traffic on the Street of Dreams, the warmth of the sun on faces in the September of their years. He swings on Jazz, revisits the nabe on Astoria: Portrait of the Artist. The box: Forty Years: The Artistry of Tony Bennett (features "Rags To Riches," etc.) (all CBS/Sony).
RICHARD BERRY * Oblivious to the danger to himself, Berry--the menacing voice on the Robins' "Riot in Cell Block No. 9" and writer of the R&B cult gem "Oh! Oh! Get Out of the Car"- - entered his LA laboratory late one night in 1955. When he emerged. he brought the world something more profound than Einstein's theory or Jeckyll's practice, a thing called "Louie Louie."
B-52'S * They sing of lava, lobsters, strobes, and space. Their "52 Girls" lists only twenty-three. They do all sixteen dances. Extra cool: on "Cake," Cindy Wilson sounds like Morgan Fairchild.
BIG SANDY & FLY-RITE TRIO * Thoroughly modern, timelessly sharp "rockabilly" in the purest sense of the word, live from Orange County. Think of Vincent's Blue Caps crossed with Willie Dixon's Big Three, blowin' like a hurricane.
Feelin' Kinda Lucky and BS solo Dedicated to You
BLONDIE * In the Seventies, they were the most efficient Sixties trash compacters ("X Offender," "Denis"). Now they make their own, sometimes demented ("Victor"), always coolly detached (Autoamerican, Deborah Harry's underrated Koo Koo). Pass the irony.
Best: Blondie, Parallel Lines; Eat to the Beat; Koo Koo. Rest: Plastic Letters; Autoamerican; Best Of (Chrysalis).
BLUES * It tossed America the keys to the highway and threw in a roadmap for the soul. Behind the wheel: Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, all of whom are represented by currently available, immeasurably boss disks.
GARY U.S. BONDS * Duly acclaimed for such Sixties revels as "Quarter To Three" and "Dear Lady Twist," this Virginia creeper had to wait till 1990 and a Rhino Best Of to get his greatest achievement before the public. Not only is "I Wanta Holler (But the Town's Too Small)" his toughest tribal stomp, it seems to cry like freedom's chimes for all those too hung up or shut out to make the party. Soul for sure. Bonds parties so far out of bounds, his best tracks ("Quarter to Three," "Dear Lady Twist") resemble dancehall brawls put to tape. Volume and spirits exceed allowable limits, even for 1961. Uncoolest cuts: '81's comeback LP Dedication.
BOW WOW WOW * The world's first & only junglesurf group was fronted by a snotty 14-year old Burmese nymph whom Malcom McLaren discovered in a laundromat. "I can't dance and I can't sing/ I can't do anything,' squeals Annabella Lewin. 'I can't even find my way around town!' Paris match: Annabella gets hot for architecture in "Sexy Eiffel Towers."
JAMES BROWN * Unmeasurably cool for making dance music with titles like "Funky Watergate (People It's Bad)" and "Get Up, Get into It, Get Involved, Part I" Soul Bro Number One's best is available on the 40th Anniversary Collection.
ROY BROWN * The late New Orleans bluesologist who gave Elvis "Good Rockin' Tonite" swung like sixty. The urgency of punk, the passion of the boss balladeers, it's all in Good Rockin' Tonite.
CHARLIE BURTON * Nutso garageabilly from Nebraska. Play the cut 'Roadkill" on a car stereo and you'll swear you ran over something big. CB's 'Breathe For Me Presley" steals the royal crown from Mojo Nixon's "Elvis Is Everywhere' when it comes to king things.
Albums (both on Wild): Heard That (feat. "Roadkill"), Is That Charlie Burton - Or What?!?! ("Breathe"). D.B.
JERRY BUTLER * Chicago's Ice Man delivered almost daily between 1960 and 1970: polished pre-Soul on "He Will Break Your Heart" and Easy on Yourself," Philly class on "Moody Woman" and "What's The Use of Breaking Up."
BYRDS * "The first really outrageous, long-haired group in America," Nik Cohn says in Rock from the Beginning. "Their stance was classic West Coast cool, deadpan and remote." Their folkrock ('65-67) buzzed with beauty and wonder.
Now with bonus tracks galore: Mr. Tambourine Man; Turn! Turn! Turn!; Younger Than Yesterday; Fifth Dimension; Notorious Byrds Brothers.
JOHN CALE * Always an iconoclast, the Velvet Underground's brooding Welshman was ready for war before Haig ("Mercenaries," off 1979's Sabotage/Live). His Guts LP contains "Pablo Picasso (Was Never an Asshole)."
CALIFORNIA PUNK * The Feel Bad Music of the Big Zilch Generation was a gas, and left behind enough shrapnel to repave the Hollywood Fwy. Today, the best of it sounds better than ever: alive, kicking, fast, funny, remarkably light on its feet. "it all sounds the same," until you listen. Every suburb had a different take on the threechord model, from the ridic bopper snot-punk of Red Cross ("I Hate My School") to the raging malevolent thunderball of the Germs ('Land Of Treason"). As Fear so succinctly put it "I don t want no satisfaction/ I just wanna get some action."
Adolescents (Frontier); The Alleycats Nightmare City (Time Coast); Angry Samoans, The Unboxed Set plus Inside My Brain and Back from Samoa (Bad Trip); Black Flag, Damaged (SST); Circle Jerks, Group Sex (Frontier); Channel 3, Fear of Life (Poshboy); Dickies, Dawn of the Dickies; Fear, The Record (Slash); Gears, Rockin' at Ground Zero (Playgems); Germs, G.I. (Slash); Hell Comes to Your House (Bemisbrain sampler); The Last, L.A. Explosion! (Bomp); UXA, Illusions of Grandeur (Poshboy); X, Los Angeles (Slash); Avengers (White Noise); Young Canadians, Hawaii (Quintessence); Various Artists What? Stuff (Bomp).
WYNONA CARR * Unsung shouter of Fifties R & B, Carr's the earthy equal of such tough mamas as Ruth Brown and Lavern Baker. Whether cryin' or drivin', she kept a frog in her throat and her eyes on the prize. "I'm gon' let go now! " she announces at the top of "Ding Dong Daddy," then proceeds to go for goods over gold: 'You know that I don't want his money/ He may not have a cent/ But if he rings my ding clong bell/ I'd live with him in a tent!"
JOE "KING" CARRASCO & THE CROWNS * His stated aim is "to write a song as good as '96 Tears.'" Not only do the guitarist and his Texan "Mexipunk'' group succeed ("Houston El Mover"), in 1982 they gave the wildest rock 'n' roll shows going. Keep on dancin'.
Latest: Synapse Gap (Mundo Total) (MCA); Joe "King" Carrasco e Crowns (Hannibal), Joe "King" Carrasco (Tornado, 2002).
GENE CHANDLER * Wearing cape and top hat, he proclaimed himself Duke of Earl in 1962 with one majestic single. His "dukedom" once included weather itself ("Rainbow"). The deposed Duke now makes dull funk.
RAY CHARLES * The Genius hits the road, invents Soul music ("The Right Time," 1959), flies his tour plane. What'd he say? Early: The Birth of Soul (Atlantic box). Later (ABC sides): Anthology (Rhino).
CLIFTON CHENIER * Beans 'n' rice aside, Louisiana's greatest cultural contribution may be an accordion-playing black Cajun who wears gold crowns on his teeth and his head. French patois meets bayou backbeat and all's well on the dance floor.
THE DAVE CLARK FIVE * The Fab Four's most significant rival during the British Invasion, the DC5 eschewed arty affectation and intellectual pretension, and were therefore dismissed by revisionist historians and every overinflated music crit who ever slopped at the trough of Jann Wenner. Truth is, "Any Way You Want It" is one of the most relentlessly perfect, tear-the-house-down rock 'n' roll records ever committed to carnuba. And "Try Too Hard," "Glad All Over," 'Bits & Pieces," "I Really Love You" and "All Night Long" surpass any of the lovable Moptops' early attempts to simulate an actual no-holds-barred r'n'r band. R.S.
History of the DC5 (OOP)
EDDIE COCHRAN * Too young to vote, a bad white boy in blue suedes and pink pegged slacks. America's first punk ('58) was somethin' else.
BOOTSY COLLINS * Yabbadabbadoozibubba! Of course Bootsy's a player. By 21 he'd already put James Brown on the jungle groove and launched Clinton's Mothership. He also invented the funky bass as we now know it, crafted a whole new kind of Stoopid, and wrote the first dancemusic plumbing metaphor ('roto-rooter, bubba/ trouble shooter!"). D.W.
Essential: Player
of the Year, Stretchin'
Out in Bootsy's Rubber Band, Ahhh...
The Name is Bootsy, Baby! (Warner Bros.). Back
in the Day: The Best of Bootsy Collins.
SAM COOKE * Too cool to cop a handle like "the Godfather of Soul," he nonetheless paved the way for the changes that came. Still sending, as long as there are ears to hear the voice of a lifetime. R.I.P.
ELVIS COSTELLO * Pressure-cooked cool. Later for Bowie, Springsteen, Seger. The only true original the Seventies coughed up wore white knuckles, Holly's specs, and wailed on the couplet "Look at the man that you call Uncle/Having a heart attack 'round your ankles."
THE CRAMPS * The Munsters walk into Sears and split with axes and amps. Monsterbilly rhythms at their insane, insatiable best, all for you in '82. Great goo-goo muck: "I Was a Teenage Werewolf,'' "Zombie Dance," "Sunglasses after Dark."
THE DAMNED * The brazen apex of British punk circa '76-77, sighted, fixed, then torched in one vaingloriously destructo album (Damned). They still make great noise, but how do you top the hilarious fury of "New Rose" or "Born To Kill"?
BOBBY DARIN * He couldn't decide if he wanted to be Ray Charles ("Irresistible You") or Frank Sinatra ("Mack the Knife"). Bonus cool: he also got to be Buddy Holly (he penned Holly's hit "Early in the Morning"), the Mormon Tabernacle Choir (his Christmas LP 25th Day of December), and an exceptional actor (Captain Newman, M.D., Pressure Point).
As Long As I'm Singing box set.
WILLY DE VILLE * As Mink De Ville, he Was the Romeo of Loisada, marrying junkie romance with Ben E King passion. Big in France (where they dig dramatics) but unsung on the homefront, he's an R & B singer with a poet's heart who made theme music for well-intentioned fuckups-guys who wear their hearts on their sleeves & burn holes in your sofa. These days, he lives in N'awlins, where dressing like Zorro-meets-Shaft is appreciated, and where amor and mystery rule. His debut, Cabretta (Capitol 1977), is NYC on a platter. Le Chat Bleu (Capitol '81) mixes chemicals, Edith Piaf and Doc Pomus. -Amy Linden.
BO DIDDLEY * Rock's seminal silly man was also its first overweight guitarist hero. In a cowboy hat and leather breeches, he invented British R&B (the Stones cut "Mona" and "Roadrunner" in '64) and American rap ("Say Man," 1959) and patented a beat that has yet to stop.
DION * In 1962 he gave the world the Cool Guys' national anthem, "The Wanderer." Ten years later, on the Belmonts' Madison Square Garden Reunion album, after delivering the line "I get around," he tops himself, interjecting, "Jack, get around!" Hear it and know the meaning of cool.
THE DOORS * Jim Morrison had the courage to make a fool of himself, often and in public. See "Land Ho!" and "Peace Frog." Lizards unite.
Real goods: The Doors.
DOOWOP * grew in the street, right up through the concrete, to become the sound of the cities in the Fifties. Babbling towers of harmony were erected by the unlikeliest architects: adenoidal crooners, pimply mooks in fluorescent cardigans, underage tenors. By '63 they were all gone - but not forgotten. Today, doowop's resurging. Relic and Crystal Ball have released dozens of vintage compilations, while Ambient Sound cuts old groups anew and brandishes the slogan "The Sound of Human America."
All you need: Rhino box sets Doowop Vol. 1 and Doowop Vol. 2.
DYLAN * From '64 to '66, Mr. Maximum Utmost. How did it feel?
ROKY ERICKSON * "My eyes are filled with coral snakes and liquid plastic castles/ Her daily life revolves around a thousand petty hassles." Before cool was cool, Roky was Hi-cool. He had to be: his Sixties band, the 13th Floor Elevators, was routinely dogged by several Texas law enforcement agencies who loved to take apart the Els' amps in their zealous herb-search. After such dayglo classics as "You're Gonna Miss Me" and 'Reverberation," Roky tumbled downhill. In '72, after four years at TX's Hospital for the Criminally Insane, he emerged as the Rev. Roky Erickson, publishing a book of poetry prayers, Openers. By the time he formed the Bleib Alien combo ("TwoHeaded Dog'), it looked like he was never coming down. In '89, the law nabbed him again, for collecting his neighbors' mail and nailing it to his wall. Don't knock the Rok. -Bill Bentley
Psychedelic
Sounds/ 13th Floor Elevators Live (Charly import); You're
Gonna Miss Me: The Best of Roky Erickson( Restless). I
Think of Demons. Evil
One. Where
the Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson (Sire).
THE EVERLY BROTHERS * They made hillbilly music cool, through genetic engineering and gobs of pomade.
FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS * It's no mystery why the trio took its name from a (1960) flick inspired by the life of Chet Baker. Like West Coast jazz, FYC's rock uses leanness and Lo-sweat to max effect ('She Drives Me Crazy*). The chord changes to 'Don't Look Back' and *I'm Not Satisfied feel like the sleeves of a silk suit, with lots of cuff.
Fine Young Cannibals, The Raw And The Cooked (IRS), Finest.
ELLA FITZGERALD * What you should do: go buy these Verve albums (cds), mostly cut in L.A. in the 1950's ... The Gershwin Songbook and The Johnny Mercer Songbook (both arranged by Nelson Riddle); The Harold Arlen Songbook (arranged by Billy May); Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie. I have never heard, nor do I expect to hear, so much emotion and heart delivered in a song, Ella brings the life of Ella Fitzgerald to the words & melodies; her thoughts and feelings of so many people she has known and cared about come pouring through. And sitting there, listening intently, you recognize those emotions as your own. As I write this, she is singing Ellington's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore." It's coming from KJAZ, the jazz station in San Francisco. I've heard 50 songs on the radio this afternoon. This is the only one that stops me. I didn't even realize it was her. I just knew that something was happening. -Chuck Thegze.
THE FLAMINGOS * Sometimes "I Only Have Eyes for You" (1959) sounds like a transmission from outer space. Sometimes it sounds like the spookiest record ever made.
THE FLESHTONES * Fuzztone, maracas, and grown-out Sixties roots make them New York's coolest combo these days. Sharp: penning "Theme from 'The Vindicators'" to accompany a flick that doesn't exist. Extremely boss.
THE FOUR SEASONS * For "Rag Doll" alone (1964), the zenith of the ltalo-American/ progressive doowop culinary arts. High in cholesterol, rich in saturated fats, and chock full of three essential nutrients: hyperbole, pathos and melodrama a. Harmonic resurgence: Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons (Time-Life Rock 'N' Roll Era cd). R.S.
THE FUGS * Twixt '65 and '67 these Lower East Side college rockers consistently combined subvelvets primitivism with supra-Mothers dada to flip the Brain Police a stiff digit ("Kill For Peace," "Johnny Pissoff Meets the Red Angel"). Inspirational Verse: "I ain't never gonna go to Vietnam/ I prefer to stay right here and screw your mom."
The Fugs and Virgin Fugs (Base/ ESP Folk Archive). Out of print: It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest (Reprise).
|
||||||
