40 All Time Honky Tonk Hits: Warren Carr - Robin Records 1974

Well what do we have here? I'm assuming the chap at the piano dressed as a butcher is Warren Carr (though you'd have to look on the record label itself to glean this information), but I'm not sure who those ladies - who could charitably be said to resemble three burlesque strippers at the tail end of their career - flanking him are meant to be? As this is an entirely instrumental affair, unless they're on drums and percussion then they don't appear on this record other than the cover. And as far as that goes, if their only purpose is to inject some stereotypical seventies glamour to lure in the punters, then the outcome is as cheap and tacky as the premise.

 

Misleading too; whilst that sleeve shot suggests an album of raucous and bawdy saloon bar singalongs recorded somewhere between last orders and throwing out time, what we get in actuality is something rather more tame and polite as Warren tickles the ivories over a minimal 4/4 backing and trots out a medley of familiar tunes like 'Camptown Races', 'Swanee', 'California Here I Come', 'Tip Toe Through The Tulips' (etc.).  And while the cover boasts '40 All Time Hits', we only get about a minute sample of each.'Tickle' is the appropriate verb here too - though Carr is true to the Honky Tonk style of the title and pushes rhythm above harmony on an untuned piano, there's no barrelhouse key pounding here. Carr is totally proficient in execution, but he executes with a light touch that's never going to get the neighbours banging on the walls or me to move my fingers along an imaginary keyboard on my thigh.

 

And that's really all there is to it. It's the sort of thing that would work fine in the 'live' setting of a pub after a skinful of ale, but I'm assuming the intention with this release was for it to be something to put on at a house party to get everyone singing along. But just as Eno released his 'Music For Airports', then this could have been subtitled 'Music For Very Dull Parties'; any party that needs this to try and get it going should be put out of its misery. It's 1974 people, get some Abba on the stereo.