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Joni Mitchell: Don Juan's Reckless Daughter - 1977

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  This was a somewhat sprawling, very experimental acquired taste of a double album here from Joni. It was made so, to a great extent, by the side long and possibly indulgent (only in places, I might add) of  Paprika Plains , which is probably eight or so minutes too long, at sixteen of them. I love the superb rock drums and clarinet bit fourteen minutes in though! Knock eight minutes off and you have a great track. Mitchell said of it - "....the Improvisational, the spontaneous aspect of this creative process – still as a poet – is to set words to the music, which is a hammer and chisel process. Sometimes it flows, but a lot of times it's blocked by concept. And if you're writing free consciousness – which I do once in a while just to remind myself that I can, you know, because I'm fitting little pieces of this puzzle together – the end result must flow as if it was spoken for the first time...." Ok, now I get it, Joni 😕 Other than this, the music largely contin
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Joni Mitchell: For The Roses - 1972

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  Things liven up for Joni Mitchell from the bleakness of Blue   a little (well only slightly) on this more melodic and playful offering (again, only at times) although it is still essentially Joni as singer-songwriter accompanying herself.   A song like  Banquet  is a lovely song - with some wonderfully inventive lyrics about who gets the marrowbone and who gets the gristle - but its piano and vocal sound is nothing we haven't heard before. The same applies to  Lesson In Survival , but again I cannot deny its stark, lyrical, poetic beauty. "I looked again at the ocean, love to see that green water in motion...". Joni never fails to delver, does she? For The Roses  is beautifully, acoustically warm. It is simply lovely songwriting too, I can't hope to convincingly analyse it.  See You Sometime  is in the same category.  "I spring from the boulders like a mama lion"  is my pick of the lyrics here. Musically similar is  Woman Of   Heart And Mind , albeit with
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Trojan Presents Classic Reggae

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There are certainly some fine collections in this series from the legendary Jamaican Trojan label but this is arguably the best, functioning as a sort of compressed, bite-size history of reggae itself. It also has remastered its many classic cuts outstandingly well.  Let's look at what's on offer - Disc One The collection kicks off by including an original ska number in Byron Lee & The Dragonaires' joyful  Jamaica Ska . Ska was where it all began, of course, before the rock steady rude boys came along.... Desmond Dekker & The Aces' 007 (Shanty Town)  is  Rude Boy Heaven. The song became a hit in the UK. Its James Bond/007 message is unclear, he is only mentioned in one line, but the rest of the song would seem to be another anti-Rude Boy condemnation. "Rude Boy him a weep and a-wail" . Continuing the rude boy theme, Dandy recorded the original of A Message To You Rudy , memorably covered by The Specials. Rico Rodriguez, who played on The Specials'
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Bruce Springsteen: Greatest Hits

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Bruce Springsteen, like Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, isn't your "greatest hits" kinda guy, is he? Like those two, he is not particularly known for hit singles and many of his best album tracks are lengthy numbers.  I am sure there are many Bruce aficionados/obsessives just like me who would have chosen tracks such as Racing In The Street, The Promised Land, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight), Incident On 57th Street, Blinded By The Light, Lost In the Flood, Sandy (4th Of July, Asbury Park), Jungleland,  Backstreets, Cadillac Ranch, The Price You Pay, Sherry Darling, Point Blank, No Surrender, Highway Patrolman .....I could type on endlessly and none of them are on here.  What we get on here are actually a few of my least favourite Boss numbers! So, I'm not quite sure who this collection is intended to appeal to. I will add my song-by-song comments, however. First, a brief diversion - a little intro to "me 'n' Bruce" - On Friday September 29, 1978, aged nine
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Burning Spear: Social Living - 1978

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By 1978, Burning Spear (Winston Rodney) was three years away from what was rapidly becoming his seminal album in  Marcus Garvey  and his previous two albums, 1976's  The Man In The Hills  and 1977's  Dry And Heavy  had witnessed a lighter touch to Spear's music - lighter vocals, more lilting guitar work, bucolic lyrics and a general chilled-out vibe.  So, it was a bit of a surprise to find that this album is his heaviest, densest, rootsiest offering to date. While the  Marcus Garvey  album had, notoriously, been re-mixed by Island Records to render it more palatable to UK listeners (not really necessary because a lot of UK reggae fans loved their hard-core roots), this release underwent no such tinkering. By 1978, it seemed, people realised that the heavier and the dubbier the album was the better it would be received.  What we get here, therefore, are a series of dense, grinding roots grooves that rumble along without a huge amount of hooks and Spear's vocals becoming
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The Beat: You Just Can't Beat It: The Best Of The Beat

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Of the late seventies/early eighties UK "two t one" punk meets ska groups, it was Birmingham's The Beat who were always my favourites. I seriously loved their first two albums and was lucky enough to catch them live on a couple of occasions. They were great.  A six-piece, they featured the clever, culturally-relevant lyrics and distinctive voice of Dave Wakeling on shared lead vocals, shared with the ebullient Ranking Roger. The group's distinctive saxophone sound was delivered by Saxa, a veteran Jamaican who was said to be fifty, sixty, seventy, or eighty. Nobody really knew. It added to the mythology.  The music was essentially ska, full of lilting guitar licks, dub influences and that deep, gloriously tuneful saxophone wailing away beneath nearly every tune. This is, by far, the best Beat compila tion, featuring pretty much all three of their albums, save for one track off the third album, Rotating Head . They may as well have just put it on there. So, let's ge
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Glam Greats 2: 20 Seventies Sensations

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A fine follow up to Glam Greats , here we have 20 more stomping, drum-pounding, singalong, often rock 'n' roll retro-ing glam classics.  What's on the menu, Panther? Well, from Slade we get  a sort of pre-glam single from 1971 in  the quirky, violin-backed and vaguely folky first big hit of Coz I Luv You and   also what was possibly their last true glam hit in the rousing, raucous anthem  Skweeze Me Pleeze Me , from the summer of 1974.  From rivals T. Rex comes the typically-Bolan riffage of the lyrically-perplexing and wall-of-sound attack of  Metal Guru and the "hey hey hey"  fist-pumping, glam fun of Solid Gold Easy Action . Are The Sweet here? They sure are, with two killers as well - the marvellous let 'em 'ave it teen anthem Teenage Rampage and the equally infectious, irresistible Ballroom Blitz . Contained in these two is the very essence of glam. Bottle it and sell it to people like me.  From Wizzard, just as on the previous compilation, we get o
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UB40: Labour Of Love II - 1989

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Released in 1989, I love this album, possibly even more so than the wonderful Labour Of Love 1. It is full of atmospheric covers of reggae classics delivered by Ali Campbell’s unique voice. Despite never having been remastered the sound is still good. I lived in Moseley, Birmingham, at the time and it is so evocative of that part of the city.   Highlights for me are their versions of  Lord Creator ’s  Kingston Town ;  Honey Boy ’s  Sweet Cherrie ,  Smokey Robinson ’s  The Way You Do The Things You Do ; a superbly bassy, toasty take on  John Holt ’s  Wear You To The Ball    and  The Kingstonian ’s  Singer Man .  Tears From My Eyes  and the laid-back but catchy  Groovin'   are both most attractively covered while  Wedding Day  and  Impossible Love  are sweet, soulful hartbrreakers.   Homely Girl  is lovely too.   Here I Am Baby  (originally done by soul legend Al Green) is a great brassy opener and Ken Boothe's  Just Another Girl  is a sad serving of embryonic lovers' rock. 
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The Gladiators: Sweet So Till - 1979

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  Another Gladiators album that comes highly recommended by me. In terms of a detailed review, I would be repeating myself from the first three albums of theirs that I have covered, however, and I'm sure you don't want that. Just take my word that it is crucial roots quality. Fancy some back yard meditation.... Highlights are the delicious Sweet So Till, along with the poppy  A Day We Go, the righteous Let Jah Be Praised, the attractive Back Yard Meditation and Holiday Ride .  It goes without saying that Rasta concerns are still high in the group's lyrical priorities. Introduced instrumentally at this point in the group's were those very early eighties "boing boing" electronic percussion sounds. On a track like Sweet So Till , the group have become softer in their delivery, rather like Aswad did at the same time. The eighties were coming and poppy reggae was seen as a more accessible alternative to roots. There is also a bluesy, melodic harmonica on Sweet
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The Gladiators: Proverbial Reggae - 1978

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More classic, harmonious and immaculately played roots reggae here from The Gladiators. Also present on instrumental duties augmenting the threesome were the legendary riddim-meisters The Revolutionaries and those guys could play. The Gladiators were Albert Griffiths, lead guitar and vocals, Clinton Fearon, bass and vocals and Gallimore Sutherland, rhythm guitar and vocals.  Dreadlocks the time is now.... Some true roots classics can be found on here with the excellent and catchy  Dreadlocks The Time Is Now , the absolutely lush, bassy beauty of  Jah Works , the devout  Marvel Not  and the much-covered and/or sampled and extremely groovy  Stick A Bush .   The Best Things In Life  is great too, as is the tuneful  Fly Away .  They even get fun and light-hearted on the lively  Music Makers From Jamaica . Look, it's all good, let's be honest. Melodic roots reggae at its finest. The Gladiators really had the knack of producing an appealing, hooky sound.  I love this album, I can'
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