RECORDS

Rip It Up, Issue 62, 1 September 1982, Page 20

RECORDS

Warren Zevon The Envoy Asylum His first studio album since his purported recovery from alcoholism marks a brilliant return for California's toughest songwriter. Still shooting from the hip but tempered with diplomacy, Zevon combines rock and ballad styles with witty lyrics.The title track opens the album an epic in the tradition of 'Lawyers, Guns and. Money', Zevon offers his services as the envoy. The Overdraft’, a barbed mid-tempo rocker, sets the stage for The Hula Hula Boys', a masterly ballad about losing out in Hawaii (outstanding chorus). Jesus Mentioned', an acoustic item, continues Zevon's unflattering examination of Southern heroes Elvis Presley fans beware! 'Let Nothing Come Between You' is mainstream pop, and could even herald his return to AM radio in NZ. Side Two opens with the maso-

chistic 'Ain't That Pretty At AH', reminiscent in tone to the earlier 'l'll Sleep When I'm Dead': f-r" : So I'm going to hurl myself . against the wall, ‘Cause I'd rather feel bad than not feel anything at all. 'Charlie's Medicine' follows, featuring punishing guitar in a story about the death of an LA pusher shot down by a doctor in Beverley Hills neither felt a thing. 'Looking For The Next Best Thing' is smooth rock with underlying bite and the side ends with a poignant Zevon ballad, 'Never Too Late For Love'. The Envoy is Zevon's best studio album since the self-titled masterpiece of 1976 and is proof that not everyone in LA has nodded off to sleep. Great rock music requires tension, the crashing chord when you least expect it. There is tension aplenty in this hunk of vinyl. Make the effort to listen. David Perkins Black Uhuru Chill Out Island Having raved at some length

over last year's Red, my favourite of 1981, and picked this group as a pacesetter, this album makes me feel a shade uncomfortable. It would be tough to match such a heady, forthright predecessor, but this one doesn't even get halfway. The fault lies largely with the material, though there are also problems with the reggae-funk fusion that is Black Uhuru's hallmark. To put it bluntly, it appears Michael Rose now only has one song in him, and he's intent on rewriting it a dozen different ways. 'Darkness', 'Eye Market', 'Fleety Foot' and 'Mondays' all bear a very familiar stamp, pale duplicates of the last two albums. Only Rose's vocals save these tracks from mediocrity. The only two worthwhile songs, are the title track, which is a collaboration with Duckie, Puma, and the ever-present Sly and Robbie, and Simpson's 'Emotional Slaughter', a sombre piece underlined with a growling synthesiser bassline. 'Chill Out' is a tough New York song, a bleak picture of the city that is Black Uhuru's home. Rose must be

wondering whether leaving JA was a good idea. Dunbar and Shakespeare do their best to dress up some very tired tunes, but you can't disguise what is now sounding like a formula. The rhythms are generally sluggish, suggesting an uneasy period of transition from a Jamaican to an American sound. Maybe they'll do better next time, and get some new ideas sorted out. Hope so. Duncan Campbell Don Henley I Can't Stand Still Asylum With the aid of Danny Kortchmar and others, Don Henley has produced a fine album of honest songs the baring of the soul in the wake of the demise of the Eagles. The title track opens the album, a slice of the Eagles at their peak, distinguished by the quavering keyboards of Kortchmar, cowriter of a number of tunes on the album. 'You Better Hang Up', a Kortchmar song, is almost country honk a fun item. 'Long Way Home' is a love song with a

stunning guitar arrangement complimenting Henley's plaintive vocal. 'Nobody's Business' boils with urgency, evoking a sense of total freedom the catharsis after his cocaine bust. Side Two opens [ike the thud of a howitzer. 'Dirty Laundry', featuring adroit use of mocking keyboards, hammers the sensationalism in the presentation of TV news: We all know that crap is king, Give us dirty laundry ... 'Johnny Can't Read' is a rolling rocker about educational disadvantage leading to tragedy and Henley asks who is to blame. Them And Us' delivers the two sides of the nuclear issue with the punch of John Fogarty at his rollicking best. 'La Eile', an interlude from the Chieftains, is the backdrop for 'Lilah', a story of love set in the midst of turmoil in Northern Ireland. .The album ends with a tinge of optimism, on the reworking of the ' old gospel standard 'Unclouded Day'. Don Henley, the guiding spirit of the Eagles, is alive and well. The album avoids the sentimental blandness of much of the West Coast sound and compares favourably with any album the Eagles recorded. It has all the ingredients of a massive seller. David Perkins Glenn Frey No Fun Aloud Asylum When I mentioned to friends that I had this album to review they were sympathetic. When I told them that I was enjoying it they expressed surprise. Such is the low esteem not to say contempt with which many of us regard the Eagles and those who flapped therein. And with good reason. The Eagles took the folk-rock of the Byrds and early - Burritos and smoothed off all the edges with limpid harmonies and slick rhythm guitars. Passion was replaced by sentimentality in the interests of commercial viability.

What is so pleasantly surprising about No Fun Aloud is that, while it obviously sounds like the work of an ex Eagle, it largely transcends the smug, detached efficiency of old. Of course it's all very professional but, freed from the glistening harmonies, Frey's vocals carry commitment and responsibility. The slow songs are yearning and tender without being bland. ('She Can't Let Go' is tne only exception.) The medium to uptempo numbers all very catchy successfully combine Californian laid-back with a Stax-like punch in the horns and rhythm section. So there you are: mellow music strengthened with real fibre. Glenn Frey certainly no longer deserves to be critically tarred and Eaglefeathered. Peter Thomson Albert King Masterworks Atlantic Albert King's Bom Under a Bad Sign album of 1966 was one of the most perhaps the most important blues albums of its time. It changed the thinking of virtually all the blues-based electric guitarists from Eric Clapton to Jimi Hendrix. They in turn changed the sound of rock. If that seems too simplistic, take a listen to the seven tracks from that long unavailable Stax album (sadly, never released in New Zealand) which are included in this 18-track compilation. The scorching scream of Albert King's Flying V guitar, coupled with his gently gruff, almostspoken vocals, is a sound you'll never forget. This excellently selected compilation features Albert in several contexts from 1966 until the present day, but there can be no argument that he is at his strongest in the Bom Under a Bad Sign situation, with the exemplary assistance of Booker T and the MGs. (What a terrible loss to music was the late A 1 Jackson, the MGs' drummer cruelly murdered in his Memphis home a few years ago!) These tracks, from the menacing 'Born Under a Bad Sign' and 'Laundromat Blues' to the haunting As The Years Go Passing By' are vintage King, possibly the best-ever meeting of blues and the then-emerging Memphis soul sound. Elsewhere, Albert is heard in more modem surroundings under the direction of producers Allen Toussaint (from the excellent New Orleans Heat album), Don Davis, and Bert de Coteaux, as well as a superb live version of 'Blues at Sunrise' recorded at Montreux. Very little of Albert King's work has been freely available in New Zealand. Don't miss this one at any cost. Ken Williams

David Johansen Live It Up Epic Mucho fun. That appears to be David Johansen's creed. He fronts a band that's New York mainstream in sound but he's not into macho posturing himself. Neither is he into marketing. It's a pity, because he has recorded three albums all deserving greater exposure and sales. Surely a live album should give a second chance to these overlooked songs. Instead Johansen has plenty of fun performing old faves (an Animals' medley, Four Tops' Reach Out I'll Be There', Foundations' Build Me Up Buttercup', Goffin/King ballad 'ls This What I Get from Loving You'), four from his critics' rave debut and only one track each from his underrated In Style and Here Comes the Night albums. The cover version that epitomises Johansen's good humour is the Cadets' doo-wop epic, 'Stranded in the Jungle' an amoitious undertaking where the band prove that they ain't just

thrashers. Syl Sylvain is out on his own now. None of the musicians here were with Johansen for his 1978 promotional live album and Live It Up isn't as raw as the Sylvain dominated promo album. We get yet another side to the elusive David Johansen. Murray Cammick Bobby McFerrin Elektra/Musician Bobby McFerrin is possibly the most exciting new singer to bridge pop and jazz vocalising since the emergence of A 1 Jarreau in the early 70s. And if that sounds like record company hype then consider the following: 1) McFerrin takes three pop chestnuts and successfully renders them anew. 'Moondance' is treated with a moody piano figure and a lovely wordless-vocal/instrumen-tal solo. 'Dance With Me' becomes a popping samba and You've Really Got A Hold On Me' has hit potential in a duet with Phoebe Snow. 2) His covers of jazz composi-

tions are equally impressive, from Horace Silver's hymn of Peace' to Bud Powell's leaping 'Hallucinations'. The latter is a dazzling display of double-tracked, unaccompanied wordless vocalising. 3) McFerrin's own pop songs are excellent and easily stand beside the quality of the. material he's chosen to cover. 4) His original jazz numbers are virtuoso exercises. Making full use of multi-tracking, he swoops, slides, grunts, hoots, flutters and becomes everything from a horn section to a chicken. All this with seeming ease and to largely enjoyable effect. If the above comments make the album sound like a mish-mash from another smartass singer who can't find his own style they're not meant to. Bobby McFerrin is a debut to showcase the man's range and abilitiesi and as such, completely. succeeds 5) Oh yeah, the backing musicians are great too. Peter Thomson A 1 Green Higher Plane 1 Myrrh Al Green is not just another religiously-inclined pop singer. As the cover of Higher Plane reveals, he's also the Reverend Al Green of the Full Gospel Tabernacle, Memphis, Tennessee. Indeed, since Green assumed sole control of his musical direction in 1977, he's worked on a closer alliance of his twin preoccupations sex and salvation. They're reconciled so well these days that the same intimate/loose musical style can carry both his secular and his popular material, yet be spontaneous and energetic enough to perfectly convey his spiritual joy. . On Higher Plane you get eight gospel songs a couple, like 'Amazing Grace' and 'Battle Hymn Of The Republic', are treated in a very standard way but the rest are so seemless, so distinctively Al Green that he could have written every one. His first gospel album, The Lord Will Make A Way, was perhaps a stronger overall collection, but both of these albums are so lively and good-natured that while they may not convert the . heathens, they definitely provide uplifting music, even for unbelievers. Alastair Dougal