#57 Mr Tambourine Man by The Byrds

The Byrds. I don’t understand the reason for the misspelling of this name. I can only guess it is a reference to the similar occurrence in The Beatles. Either way this has always annoyed me and I don’t entirely know why. Annoying name or not their influence has already been felt on this list despite Mr. Tambourine Man actually being their debut release. Hurrah! Who did they influence I hear you/no one ask? None other than the original Tambourine Man himself, Mr. Bob Dylan. So needless to say this band are a bit of a big deal.

When it comes to what The Byrds sounds like you can easily see that they are heavily influenced by The Beatles, and not in the annoying over the top way like Oasis are. Also there are the close harmonies that dominate most of the songs, which are more of a resemblance to The Beach Boys. So here we have an album that draws itself from two of the great acts of the sixties and feature covers from Bob Dylan, aside from the incredible alliterative possibilities this shapes up to be a good album.

On the whole it stands up as a pretty decent album, if a bit too heavy on the covers for my taste. Although, with the majority of covers, they actually manage to twist everything round so that it sounds like they are the original writers. To do this demonstrate greatness in a band to be creative and make the best of it and as such should be applauded. This tactic, however, doesn‘t really work on the . This, however, doesn’t work on the first and last tracks, Mr. Tambourine Man and We’ll Meet Again respectively, since the original versions resonate so much in the public consciousness that you can not help but think on the original versions. It may sound controversial but I actually prefer the Bob Dylan version of Mr. Tambourine Man, this isn’t detracting from The Byrds who do an amazing album highlight-version but I found myself missing the quirky vocals of Dylan.

The rest of the album just makes you feel as if you are floating on some puffy sixties Technicolor cloud. The electric guitars and harmonies on songs like The Bells of Rhymney and I Knew I’d Want You makes me wish that they had made a brief jaunt into lullabies as it’s so loose and relaxing that I found myself sitting in some lucid dreamlike state where I knew I was typing at a laptop but somehow every action seemed to be coloured different. Before you ask, no I don’t do drugs. I don’t even drink coffee. But when you have earphones in and all you can here is are these songs you can so easily lose yourself in it.

This can not be said of my least favourite track Don’t Doubt Yourself, Babe which I personally just found annoying and out of place here. There is one thing creating these dreamlike songs that allow them to transport the listener but this is way too hippy for my tastes. The lyrics and sentiment are something you would expect a 16 year old to concoct in his bedroom addressing a depressive girl he knows in his year, I know as I was that 16 year old boy. You would hope that The Byrds or the record company would have had the wherewithal to leave it out. The same applies to We’ll Meet Again. So all in all a very disappointingly trite ending to an otherwise great and original album.

Despite the final two tracks this is actually an amazing album, that deserves this high rating. As you listen to it you can here the beginnings of songs that’ll later be sung by R.E.M., Beck and The White Stripes. That, in my opinion, is never a bad thing.

8.5/10

Fab Four:
Mr Tambourine Man
I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better
The Bells of Rhymney
I Knew I’d Want You

#56 Bert Jansch by Bert Jansch

The first review that you write after a longish break is always the hardest to do. This sentiment may sound a tad familiar since I wrote something similar at the beginning of my review of I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail but I again have had a week off. This time it has been because of a family holiday to New York City where it isn’t really feasible for me to be writing reviews, especially since I didn’t bring my laptop. Also we did so much walking that my lower back and right knee ache terribly. What? I know I’m 19 and shouldn’t be having such aches and pains.

Since I started off this post with a tangent about my holiday I might as well start the actual review with another one. My favourite album of 2008 was She & Him’s Volume One. It was through this that I discovered M. Ward (the him in She & Him) whose albums I have grown to love, especially Hold Time and Transfiguration of Vincent. Why bring this up? Why else, but to point out the sheer influence that I can spot feeding from Bert Jansch after listening to this album.

From the fact that I made a reference to my top album of last year it should be pretty clear that I enjoyed this album, which I did. It has been too long since I listened to an album that features such beautifully complex guitar work. To find this you really need look further than Smokey River, a three minute guitar instrumental that is bloody impressive. Also there is the album closer Angie which also demonstrates his amazing guitar-playing abilities without sounding overtly cocky or avant-garde.

In a way Bert Jansch reminds me of a Devandra Banhart that can sing in tune (this may be a at unfair towards Mr. Banhart since my only exposure to him is via Rejoicing In The Hands). This is a very apt comparison as these two share a lot when it comes to the lyrical content and the complex use of the guitar, only difference being the 40 years that separates both of their entries on the 1001 list.

That is the beauty of Bert Jansch. This is one of those albums where the recording and the production has truly stood up to the test of time. Maybe this is due to the minimal production values, or the fact that this is an album that Bob Dylan could have made if his singing voice decided not to prance around behind the fine line between quirky and annoying. True that this is my shortest review for a while, and for that I apologise, but try to review a bluesy-folk album while you are suffering from jetlag. I promise to do a better one next time, but only if you listen to this album. Believe me it is worthy of the attention and rating bestowed on it.

9.0/10 Fab Four:
Stolling Down The Highway
Smokey River
Running From Home
Angie

#55 Rubber Soul by The Beatles

An interesting thing about reviewing an artist multiple times is that you begin to take on the same role as an auntie. Every now and then you get a glimpse of this artist at irregular intervals, of about a year or so, and every time that you see them you begin to notice the changes that they have gone through. For some artists, such as Bob Dylan, this process has been gradual for the first album of his was already exactly what I expected of him, this was not the case for The Beatles. While I did enjoy With The Beatles there was a sense of playing it safe and a lot of the material was derivative. This changed in A Hard Day’s Night where there really was a profound shift in the music that they were making. I guess that what I am trying to say here is that in developmental terms it appears that The Beatles are similar to a border collie where Rubber Soul is their puberty.

Rubber Soul is the first time that over the course of a whole album you can identify it as purely a Beatles album. This was not made to gain a foothold like With The Beatles as they had gained the world by storm with their previous releases. This wasn’t a purely commercial venture like A Hard Day’s Night as there was no film to accompany. What we have here ladies and gentlemen is the true creative emancipation of the Beatles, like I mentioned in my last review of their material. This is, as I previously coined, puberty for The Beatles as finally they resemble the act that we all know they will turn into.

Also as I go along the ratio of songs I know to total songs on the album keep increasing. This is always a good thing as in the end for a song to be still doing the founds over forty years later they must have been doing something right. So when this album began with Drive My Car which is such an irritable scrap of pop that you really do find yourself drawn into the world of distorted images and contemporarily ground-breaking music.

On the whole this is a very good album, wow I appear to be on a bit of a streak here, and it is very well put together. Little treats like the sitars in Norwegian Wood and the dark stalker-like song Run For Your Life are dotted so liberally that you almost brush over the two lesser tracks of the bundle, Michelle and Wait. But those tracks are there, and although this is a Beatles album I have to be as unforgiving as I was to A Christmas Gift For You.

While there are a multitude of people at my age, and younger, who still look down their noses at The Beatles and albums such as Rubber Soul as being old and therefore being of no relevance to their life. You know who I mean, the people that sit in their bedrooms pawing over posters of The Jonas Brothers or The Arctic Monkeys declaring that they know better. Well, after listening to Rubber Soul the final remnants of my Beatles-related demons have been washed away and I can actually recognise them for what they were. A pioneering act who themselves had to evolve, and take a few wrong turns in songs like Wait, before they made their magnum opus.

While it is true that in many ways The Beatles had it easier, as nowadays there is such a melee of artists that you do need to make something new, this act never became complacent in their towering popularity and strived so that they never really wore the same guise twice. As such I await their next album, Revolver, with baited breath.

8.5/10

Fab Four:
Drive My Car
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
I’m Looking Through You
Run For Your Life

#54 Live At The Regal by B.B. King

Never have I had to listen to an album so much before I started writing a review. This isn’t me putting an early slight on B.B. King’s Live At The Regal but just a comment on how recently I have been doing all my reviews after midnight and this time I just had to say to myself ‘no this is stupid, just do it tomorrow morning’. So that is what I did, but there were first some other tasks that needed performing like washing up and having the remains of last night’s Chinese take away for breakfast. But at least I have listened to this album enough to have an opinion and an awake opinion at that.

Blues is a genre that has begun to be featured on this list with increasing frequency but because of the way that it is arranged it is becoming hard to figure out who in this genre influenced another. I say this because B.B. King is one of those names that I actually knew previously to be a big name in the blues but has an album 4-5 years after Muddy Waters, another name that is associated with the same genre. So I guess I need to see how these two albums match up as I am finding myself with a case of writer’s block here.

Well, I like them both. That’s a good start. With B.B. King there are some amazingly masterful solos on his electric guitar with the wailing reverberating around the venue, yes it’s a live album. The use of these electric instruments is definitely a new occurrence on the list, with the first album really showcasing them being Bringing It All Back Home. As an artist it really does need to be pointed out that B.B. King has the whole package, he has a powerful voice, can play the guitar like a virtuoso, can write his own material and has such charisma that you can hear him whip the audience into some sort of frenzy. This is actually the first time since Sarah Vaughn’s At Mister Kelly’s where I found myself looking forward to the audience interactions as what has been captured on vinyl/CD/mp3 must inevitably lack some of the effect it would have live, so it’s perfectly understandable how he got everyone to scream his name.

Another major plus point has to be directed at the length of this album. Like with yesterday’s review for A Love Supreme the length is so perfect that you can actually give this album the time to hear from start to end multiple times. The songs are short and punchy so it doesn’t venture into dullness and punctuated with falsetto on tracks like Worry, Worry, something I can always appreciate. So with such a glittering review of this album what is the catch? Well there really isn’t one. This is without a doubt the best blues album that I have probably ever heard. Maybe an album will arrive in my lap that’ll make me say otherwise, it is not beyond the realms of possibility, but for now it has that ‘honour’.

So that makes this a best of the genre album and yet it doesn’t get a perfect rating from me like Sam Cooke, Dusty Springfield and Jerry Lee Lewis have. The reason for this is probably a bit of a cop-out but in the end a blues album is not one that I would automatically place high on a list of preference. This is still an amazing album and, alongside Muddy Waters, has really changed my opinion on how good the blues can be which is in itself rather impressive.

So, if you are feeling adventurous or like the blues you would be a fool to give this a miss.

8.5/10

Fab Four:
Everyday I Have The Blues
Sweet Little Angel
How Blue Can You Get
Worry, Worry

#53 A Love Supreme by John Coltrane

Don’t get me wrong here when I say this as I love Spotify to pieces, without it this project would have never come to fruition, but sometimes I bloody hate it. This isn’t a slight against the annoyingly out of place adverts for Lethal Bizzle as I listen to Coltrane or the amateurism that are the voice-mail advocates. Those are old complaints and there is a new one, specific to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. If you feel the need to listen to this album after my review here is a prior warning: Spotify have two different albums listed under the same title. This is something that is worth noting as it took a good 6 minutes of listening for me to work out this wasn’t the right album. So let that be a lesson to everyone, no chickens escape from Tweedy’s farm always check the covers before you start an album on Spotify.

One thing that only just dawned on me is that this is the first jazz album that I have reviewed for a while. In fact the last one, if I recall correctly, was the abomination that was Charles Mingus’s The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. Wow, there is little wonder why I actually approached this album with as much trepidation as I did. Either way, it is time to put my jazz hat back on and utilise the rules of jazz appreciation as stipulated in my earlier review for Jimmy Smith’s Back at the Chicken Shack.

John Coltrane is one of the few names in jazz that I had actually heard of, although it’s a sad fact that this is now my jazz knowledge completely used up and anyone I now encounter will be greeted with a resounding ‘who the hell are you?’. Either way, it is nice to know that my knowledge of him has been rewarded with a thoroughly good jazz album. Coltrane, unlike Mingus, knows how to balance the complexity of a piece so that it’s not completely overwhelming whilst not making it too sparse so as to induce a coma. He wants to create a mood and he will find the perfect combination of instruments to make this a reality. This is the truest on Psalm, the closer and my favourite track on the album, is backed with a smattering of cymbals and ends on the rolling of some great drum.

A lot of these classic jazz albums tend to have some running theme, or a message that they are trying to send such as Duke Elliington tried to in Black and Tan Fantasy. This is something I only because a teacher of mine tried to explain this to me a few years back in a music appreciation class where he actually sat on the floor and mimicked someone rowing a boat. Do I remember why? No. Was it funny? Kinda, maybe a better word to describe is absurd. This is something that I got from this album, both from the musical content and the names of the tracks. After all they all have some pretty big names such as Acknowledgement, Resolution, Pursuance and Psalm so there is probably some hidden meaning linked in with the title. I didn’t look it up as I preferred to make my own interpretations but I got something possibly spiritual and an attempt to explain the journey someone, maybe Coltrane, took as a means to truly find themselves. Whether this is true or not, it is my interpretation.

The sheer fact that an instrumental jazz album was able to reach out to me is a very new thing for me, not even Kind of Blue did that. The arrangements are brilliant and at just over half an hour this is the perfect length for this genre of album so that it never actually feels stale and that 5 play-throughs later you are still enjoying the subtle nuances that jazz really is all about. Definitely an album for the iPod.

8.5/10

Fab Four:

...it’s four tracks long and only just over half an hour. You know the drill

#52 Today! by The Beach Boys

Previously on this blog, in a review of A Date With The Everly Brothers if I recall correctly, my opinion on close harmony male singing was expressed as one of dislike. However, as I was writing that review I had completely forgotten about The Beach Boys. So for now that opinion is now retracted seeing the new parameters involved. This is a band who I have previously defended to the hilt in a random drunken argument in a Micklegate chip shop as one of the big influences to come out of the sixties, alongside The Beatles and (if this argument occurred now) The Rolling Stones. It was one of those standard arguments, the guy said that all this music was terrible, then I chimed in saying how Queen, his favourite band, wouldn’t have made the music that they made. This of course a bit of aggravation on his part but it’s a truism that I maintain to this day.

I will be the first to admit that for my third term in university I had a bit of a love affair with Pet Sounds and yet I never really gave any of their albums a proper go. Thus I commenced my listening to Today! with complete gusto and the pay-off was almost immediate as I leapt into the happy summer half of the album that sets your soul alight. What The Beach Boys knew how to do very well was how to use harmony for the ultimate emotional expression. It doesn’t matter whether it is upbeat or a ballad they still know how to use their collective voices to just inspire that immediate connection that a lot of artists somehow miss out on.

The highlight of the upbeat first half is Help Me, Ronda and is a perfect example of when I say that Today! is the first album that makes me really feel like I am actually in the sixties. This is very apparent on the track Don’t Hurt My Little Sister through the use of the lyrics “you know she digs you and thinks you’re a real groovy guy”. So sixties that it makes me want to watch re-runs of The Banana Splits, while obviously whizzing through the cartoons. Then there is the amazing Dance, Dance, Dance which is a complete throwback to their first hit single Surfin’ USA and not in a bad way. Only The Beach Boys could succeed here in making you not feel just happy but also feeling rather groovy.

Then we have the second ballad filled half, a half that I usually dread, but somehow they pull it off. In all of these you can see the seeds that have been sown for the forthcoming God Only Knows, which will rear it’s head soon. It is also here that I heard a very clear influence here on the early works of Of Montreal (a band I love who sadly aren’t on this). My favourite of the ballads is without-a-doubt She Knows Me Too Well, and not just because it reminds me of Of Montreal’s Eros’ Entropic Tundra. This is a bit besides the point, sorry, but I do love trying to find the routes that musical evolution has taken.

Don’t get me wrong this isn’t Pet Sounds but frankly what really is anything like Pet Sounds? Today! serves as a brilliant introduction as to what The Beach Boys were, musical pioneers. The lush production that you see on here and on all their albums are unlike anything I have heard up till now on this list and these techniques will be used ad nausea for now it is seen as the norm. Brian Wilson is a genius and this album is a testament to that.

9.0/10

Fab Four:
Don’t Hurt My Little Sister
Help Me, Ronda
Dance, Dance, Dance
She Knows Me Too Well

#51 Otis Blue by Otis Redding

In my quest to complete the 1001 challenge it was always likely that I would be confronted with artists who’s life was cut short in some tragic circumstances. Sam Cooke, Janis Joplin, Ian Curtis and Mama Cass are the first names on this list that immediately spring to mind. This is also a review introduction I could have applied to The ‘Chirping’ Crickets being the only Buddy Holly album to be featured on this list. However, I thought it more apt and a little less clichéd to do it here after I discovered the tragic fate that befell Otis Redding.

For some unknown reason I actually had it in my head that he was one of those musicians who was still alive, or at least died in the last decade, so you can appreciate my shock when I discovered that he died at the tender age of 26 about two years after Otis Blue was released. Much like Buddy Holly, who I previously mentioned, Otis Redding too died in a plane crash. A bit of a downer really when you are just getting over a bug that makes you throw up. So, in between adverts extolling the virtues of the latest release by Colbie Caillat, I tried to give this album the listen that I believed it warranted.

However, there was one problem with this approach (and no this isn’t the fact that the album is only available in mono). Otis Blue just never able to envelope me in it’s velvety world of soul. In all three attempts to listen to this album I got distracted by different things. The first attempt was the theme song to ’The Tudors’ which my mum was watching in the other room, the second by the sound of the torrential rain outside. By the third attempt I had had enough and forced myself to sit down and really listen to this. Sadly though this still left me cold.

Although there is no denying that Otis Redding had talent. This album is indeed a testament to this and in fact makes me wish that there was a live album of his on this list rather than this studio album. In this era I am not doubting that these live albums would be in short supply. In this way this is a bit annoying as in the entire album I can feel this shimmer that is constantly bubbling that makes me think that wills me onwards to try more of his back catalogue, but it somehow just remains there below the surface and never truly reveals itself. I guess this shows how far I have come from condemning the first live album I encountered on this list as being absolute refuse, but it serves a point. So, why is this album on here?

Aside from the multitude of 5-star reviews and Top 100 Albums Ever placements this has received there must be some reason. To represent a talent lost tragically soon? Maybe. But I think more likely is the sheer influence that this sound has had on music today. In fact if you listen to I’ve Been Loving You For Too Long you can hear in the nuances of his voice and in the arrangement that there is something different going on here. This is resplendent throughout the album and really culminates in the cover of Satisfaction (not as good as the original, but still very good). So in the end, at least in my opinion, this has owned a placement for being an album placed in the stages of music’s evolution rather than sheer merit.

Many music critics, if they would give the blog of a 19 year old guy the time of day, would happily point out how wrong I was in my judgement, or how it isn’t right to let personal preference interfere in the rating of an album with me instead weighing it up by musical merit. For me though the point is to give an opinion based on my musical knowledge and preference which this doesn’t really fit in. Instead this to me is an album where greatness is missed and it’s sad because where there should be gold there is but mediocrity.

4.5/10

Fab Four:
A Change Is Gonna Come
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
Wonderful World
Satisfaction (I Don’t Get No)

#50 Bringing It All Back Home by Bob Dylan

This is it, the first real landmark number, album number fifty. This marks that I am now 1/20th of the way though the 1001 project and aside from the occasional hyperventilation and headaches this has thus far been relatively painless. Personally it is a surprise that I made it past one month let alone to fifty albums, it makes you wonder why certain projects just fall flat after a few starting hurdles (and let’s face it there were a few of those in the early stages of this blog) while others really do have staying power. Maybe it’s because there have been some definite surprises and discoveries that have been made and as such has further cemented my love for music whilst simultaneously shaping my opinions. If that is truly the case then I can think of no artist more apt for this landmark number than Bob Dylan.

My experience of Bob Dylan previous to Bringing It All Back Home boils down to the album I have previously reviewed, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, and Modern Times which I gave a go two years ago and gave up after listening to two tracks. So my knowledge of his music was nothing if not underwhelming and rather different. This is why I can always appreciate when I hear a familiar track or two on his albums as it makes me feel more musically savvy than I am in reality.

When stacking up Bringing It All Back Home against The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan there is no contest for me, the former is better and here’s why. There has been a considerable improvement in his guitar and harmonica playing abilities, ok the voice hasn’t really got any better but I guess that’s part of his charm. Also there is a progression in the arrangement in the first half of the album with him employing a actual backing band, with there being an acoustic second half. It won’t take much to guess which of these halves I preferred.

That isn’t to say that the acoustic half isn’t good though, as Mr. Tambourine Man is by far the best song on the album and a bit reminiscent of the older Bob Dylan material, but the first half marks a new step in his sound. He continues with his self-named tracks in the form of Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream which is in essence a random surrealist flight of fancy regarding the discovery of America by a fictional character reminiscent to Captain Ahab from Moby Dick (here named Captain Arab).

Also worthy of mention, not just because it is one of ’those’ songs, is Subterranean Homesick Blues. This quick-fire opener is one of the reasons that you can tell that this is a step forward from his previous incarnation as the voice of acoustic folk rock protest. Here he still has some of the lyrics that one would come to expect from him but this time it is executed in a far smarter way by giving it the sheen of a fast-paced folk-rock number whilst still throwing in references to causes and struggles. The same can be said for Maggie's Farm, which was later used by protesters against Margaret Thatcher, as this once again utilises a hook and more fast-paced blues structure whilst still maintaining the heart of protest.

In the end Bringing It All Back Home is a very apt name for this album for as an artist this marks his maturation and his ability to tie all the loose ends together to make a cohesive album. With the exception of the overly long It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) this is a consistently long album which makes me look forward to the albums of his to come which are considered his masterpieces.

8.0/10

Fab Four:
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Maggie’s Farm
Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream
Mr. Tambourine Man

#49 Here Are The Sonics by The Sonics

Let’s have a quick recap of the genres that have been covered so far. In no particular order we have had: jazz, blues, r&b, rock n’ roll, soul, pop, bossa nova, African music, folk, country and chanson. Not too bad a selection so far bearing in mind that not even 50 albums have yet reviewed, with the landmark occurring tomorrow. I like to think that through the meandering through these different genres, whether they be live or not, that I have been fair to each and every album without being that prejudiced. With that in mind it is time to add one more genre to the list with Here Are The Sonics being the first true punk album on the list.

When most people think of punk, myself included, it is hard not to first envisage the contorted face of John Lydon as he screams along to Anarchy In The U.K. Either that or the punk-pop, in the forms of Green Day and Sum 41, that pepper the airwaves. Well all of these acts have The Sonics to thank for the birth of punk, an act who went quickly into obscurity.

Punk isn’t a genre I can usually savour, Green Day’s American Idiot is usually as far as I go and that really isn’t punk, and I will also grant you that Here Are The Sonics isn’t true punk either. However, what we have here is what is referred to as protopunk meaning that these are the roots from which all future punk, whether it be Patti Smith or Blink-182, are derived from. As such this contains many elements of contemporary music, including many covers of rock n’ roll and blues standards, but the arrangements are now different. The music is louder, the lead singer screams, the drumming is primal and the guitars are almost turned up to 11.

What The Sonics have here is the makings of a very good album, the thing that lets it down are the covers, with some of these songs such as Roll Over Beethoven, Money and Good Golly, Miss Molly having all been on a few previous albums. While the first two of these aren’t songs I particularly like I can say with ease that their transition to protopunk isn’t an easy one with these covers sounding flat and uninspired. I draw special attention to Walkin’ The Dog where the incessant whistling got very old very quickly.

The real strength of the album lies entrenched in the original material, a particular favourite of mine being Strychnine. These are the songs where The Sonics are truly able to express their abilities as a band. These songs are bizarre and allow for the animalistic parts of the band to come out to shine. The opener of The Witch is a fantastic example of this random guitar solos, screams and all.

Personally, an album that greater embraced this primal side of the band without having to please the record company with the more mundane covers would have been greater appreciated. This is a band that really showed such great potential but with members running off to university this band died an early death which is a real shame. I guess I shall have to find solace in the punk children that I will encounter. Apart from John Lydon… I draw a line at him.

7.0/10

Fab Four:
The Witch
Do You Love Me
Boss Hoss
Strychnine

In Other News: Happy Birthday to me ^^

#48 Live At The Star Club, Hamburg by Jerry Lee Lewis

For the purposes of this review I would like you to use your imagination to put yourself in the shoes of Mr. Jerry Lee Lewis. This is just a little exercise in creative thinking that I would like to do. Right, your career is in tatters since you married your 13 year-old cousin and you have been essentially black-listed on the radio in your native country of America with your tour dates in Britain all being cancelled right before your eyes. Ok, while it can be appreciated that this is a very unusual set of circumstances this is exactly what happened to today’s artist. So what did he do? He went underground and made a highly influential live album.

His voice may sound like a more countrified Elvis but make no mistake ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is the second true rock n’ roll album on this list. This may be a big claim seeing that this is a genre that has appeared years ago in the guises of Elvis Presley and The ‘Chirpin’ Crickets but this is one I will stand by completely. Which was the other album I hear you ask? Well that honour belongs to none other than Here’s Little Richard which I reviewed well over a month ago. But why is Live At The Star Club, Hamburg a true rock n’ roll album while the first two I mentioned are simply pale imitations? Well this is a relentless live rock n’ roll extravaganza that immediately grabs your attention, shakes you around, might steal your wallet, place you back down and then makes you beg for more.

There is no point during this album where you are not in awe of the amazing piano-playing and general performance ability of Jerry Lee Lewis, as the voice is where the similarities to Elvis end. That and the fact that he tries his hand at some Elvis standards such as Hound Dog where he not only raises the bar but well and truly shows how this should be done.

As most of my reviews may have stipulated it is when albums go saccharin that I lose interest and start barraging my laptop with insults (see: Elvis Is Back!). But none of these qualms plague this album, in fact the almost complete absence of ballads is probably where Live At The Star Club, Hamburg derives it’s greatest strength for there is no real point where the momentum comes to a crashing halt. In fact this momentum just carries on throughout the entire run through the album leaving the listener breathless, so lord knows how either the audience, Jerry Lee Lewis or his backing band The Nashville Teens were able to cope with it.

If I were to pick out the highlight tracks of this album I think that the honour falls to the first two tracks of both vinyl sides. All four of these tracks (Mean Woman Blues, High School Confidential, Great Balls of Fire and Good Golly, Miss Molly) summarise brilliantly why this album succeeds, fire. There is such a passion in the performance of Jerry Lee Lewis that this has now eclipsed that of Sam Cooke's Live At The Harlem Square Club who I was highly phrasing not too long ago. Don’t feel too bad for Sam Cooke for this quick taking for the crown for he was all too quick to grab the highest rated album title from Phil Spector’s A Christmas Gift For You.

I may be talking around in circles, I blame my cold, but this album is really that good. May in fact be the best live album that I have ever encountered. Maybe I am getting softer on the ratings as I go along, or maybe the albums really are getting better. As after a long list of albums where none have been given a full rating here is the third one in a short spate of time to garner such a rating. This is well worth it. It makes you want to dance even when you have a horrid cold that makes you dream about being stranded at an airport. I should know, that’s my current position.

10.0/10

Fab Four:
Mean Woman Blues
High School Confidential
Great Balls Of Fire
Good Golly, Miss Molly

#47 I've Got A Tiger By The Tail by Buck Owens

While this entry is happily published the on the usual weekday following on from The Rolling Stones it is actually the best part of a week since I reviewed the previous album. Upon the conception of this blog I actually decided to do a large bulk of these reviews before I actually started publishing for the sheer reason that there are times where I would be unavailable to review the album, in this instance I was in The Netherlands visiting my boyfriend. The reason that I am mentioning this is that this review may not have the same flow as usual for this reason. For those who are interested as to how far ahead I am, the last review that has actually been published as I am writing this was Joan Baez’s album back at the dawn of the sixties.

There are certain times with this list that you can just tell that the majority of those deciding what has made it onto the list are American. This isn’t necessarily a criticism as the US is the largest exported of music, with the UK being second and Sweden being the third (yes that fact surprised me too). This isn’t to say that other voices can not be heard in the production of this list with Jacques Brel’s A L’Olympia 1964 being an example of this. However I’ve Got A Tiger By The Tail is definitely one whose influence that could be deemed as solely-American. The reason for this, as I mentioned in a previous review, is the lack of country music success outside of the Americas. Since this is still a booming genre selling tens of millions of records a year the presence of such albums on this list is definitely understandable.

With the only apt reference of comparison, regarding to albums that I have thus far reviewed, being a mixture of Ray Price’s Night Life and Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads… I do find it hard to hard to find the need to say more about this album. This album takes the emotive ability of Ray Price and combines it with the musical styles of both the artists I mentioned before. As such this is a good album and is actually the first time that I have heard an echo of two artists that I know very well. The first of this is Emmylou Harris where such songs as Cryin’ Time resonated much like her work does, the other of this is a brief resemblance to the Robert Plant & Alison Krauss album Raising Sand. While the mentioning of such an album may be seen as a cop out, as the presence of Robert Plant actually made it more socially acceptable to listen to a country album in Britain, there are certainly echoes here. I am sure then when I tackle the works of Dolly Parton and Bonnie Raitt that more similarities will be rendered apparent.

One feature that is definitely worthy of note are the songs If You Fall Out Of Love With Me and The Band Keeps Playin’ On. In my opinion it is these slower songs that border on the edge of maudlin and almost saccharin that test how good an artist is. While lesser ones would make this sound whiney and depressing you have Buck Owens here who is able to walk the tightrope and make these songs very emotionally provocative without jumping into the deep-end. This isn’t to say that I can not appreciate the faster and more fun songs, as when it comes to country it is these that are my favourites and this album has it’s own fair share of them. The top ones here are Trouble and Me and Wham Bam both of which are toe-tapping and just make you want to smile.

Yes it is true that I do not have the greatest knowledge of country music but with albums like this being peppered around it makes me glad to think that I am getting some form of education in this area.

8.0/10

Fab Four:
Trouble And Me
Wham Bam
If You Fall Out Of Love With Me
The Band Keeps Playin’ On