The Other Side Of The Dragon: Welsh Rugby XV - Evolution Records 1980

Mention 'Wales' to anyone not from there but who has actually heard of the country and like as not they'll come back with a reference to one or all of three things - rugby, coal mines and sheep. For the former, then like as not it will be the national team from the 1970's that they'll have most in mind, a team and era whose fame and exploits on the pitch were popular and famous enough to catch the national imagination and carry a Max Boyce album to the top of the UK album charts in 1975 (still the only comedy album to reach pole position). Gareth Edwards, Barry John, JPR Williams, Phil Bennett - these were names that enjoyed the same level of fame on the world's sport stage as Best, Borg, or Nickluas, and all of them appear on this album which, truth be told, is a curious affair all round.

Obviously intended as some kind of aural souvenir for the rugby fan who has everything, 'The Other Side Of The Dragon' is a mash-up of contemporary radio commentary (invariably of Wales scoring tries and winning games), rambling player anecdotes and reminisces (including an introduction from Max Boyce) and studio recordings of the full team tackling a car crash of traditional Welsh tunes ('Calon Lan', 'Sospan Fach') and standards from popular music. But, alas - whatever skills these men had on the pitch with ball in hand, they didn't carry over to their singing voices or harmonies, so if hearing a bunch of semi-drunk blokes singing good natured but very off key versions of 'Sloop John B', 'All I Have To Do Is Dream' and '(Take Me Home) Country Roads' is something that appeals, then this album will come as a Grand Slam. Anybody else is likely to find it all a bit of a grisly slog.

I don't know what kind of distribution this album had outside of Wales, but I'm inclined to see it as a kind of sop to the fans who, that year, had witnessed England beat them that February and go on to win the Five Nations. If the idea was to keep up spirits until the next season (this was recorded in April of that year), then it didn't have the desired effect; that defeat was the start of a slippery slope for the Welsh national side and the next twenty years or so would be years of lean with not much to sing about at all. What did make me smile though is the ramshackle, acapella version of 'The Mighty Quinn' (which I'm guessing was offered up as a homage to lock Derek Quinnell) which was written (of course) by Bob Dylan but who is credited as 'Dyllan' on the inner sleeve. I really, really, really hope this was meant as a Welsh joke and not something as boring as a misprint - were the people behind this that sharp and knowing? The jury remains out on that one.

Smash Hits: Various Artists - Music For Pleasure 1967

"Can you tell the difference between these and the original sounds?" Well now, there's a red rag waving right in front of my nose and a challenge I can't refuse, particularly as there are two Beatles songs on here, alongside others as era defining as Procul Harum's 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale'. 

You've got to admire the ambition of the people behind this if nothing else; it's a challenge akin to a painter and decorator having a crack at replicating the Sistine chapel on a toilet ceiling. But I'm not going to generate any cliff-hangers or leave you in suspense - having listened to it now I'm going to say upfront that yes, I most certainly can tell the difference between these and the original sounds.

In fact, after slogging through some this, I think a deaf person with ear plugs in could probably tell the difference between these and the original sounds too. Normally I'd pull my punches on these cheap and cheerful compilations of cover versions and recognise them for what they are - that is, cheap and cheerful compilations of cover versions. But as it's the record itself that's raising the bar by promising the world then I feel justified in taking off the gloves and giving this a good pasting. 

Natural curiosity meant I headed straight for the above three songs first, and as far as they go then let me tell you 'When I'm 64' re-locates Paul McCartney to somewhere in North London with a vocal that manages to start a beat too early before every single verse, 'All You Need Is Love' is draggy and anaemic with the same singer casting John Lennon as some whiney, proto Johnny Rotten, while Matthew Fisher's previously stately Hammond on 'A Whiter Shader Of Pale' is reduced to a chesty asthmatic wheeze with Gary Brooker's vocal now the sound of the constipated straining to defecate. In short, nobody is going to be fooled by any of them: these versions are to the originals what own brand budget cola is to Coke - that is, insipid imitations that only manage a cosmetic, surface similarity to the product they're essentially ripping off.

Elsewhere it's a similar story, the back cover gives a potted blurb about the original artists behind 'The Day I Met Marie' (Cliff Richard), 'I'll Never Fall In Love Again' (Tom Jones), 'San Francisco' (Scott McKenzie) et al, but while the actual music is perhaps of lesser importance (after all, nobody listens to a Tom Jones song because of the drum patterns), the songs fail the acid test the record itself sets in that the Smash Hits 'Tom Jones' sounds nothing like his real life counterpart, the Smash Hits 'Cliff Richard' sounds nothing like his real life counterpart and the Smash Hits 'Scott McKenzie' sounds nothing like his real life counterpart, all of which kind of goes against this record's whole reason for existing and begs an investigation from the trade description people.

It fares better on the female fronted songs, with 'Puppet On A String' (Sandie Shaw) and 'It Must Be Him' (Vicki Carr) being passable-ish copies if you're not that picky, though pride of place goes to whoever was behind 'Don't Sleep In The Subway' as, in both music and Petula Clark soundalikes, it comes pretty close to what the cover promises. As this is song one, side one, I kind of get the feeling the folk behind this record knew that too so they front loaded it with the best. But for the rest of it, whatever twelve and six is in new money, it's way too much to pay for your own disappointment.

When You Were Sweet Sixteen: Father Francis - TUUL Records 1984

Yes I know what you're thinking at the back there, but you can stop sniggering right now - this is a man of God after all, and in case you were wondering that girl is his niece Carmel (not the 'Maggie' credited the sleeve, that's one of the songs). Indeed, a quick look online confirms his bona fides and tells me that Father Francis Maple is based in a North Wales Friary and is sometimes known as 'the singing Franciscan friar'. So there you go. You'd expect an album from a bona fide 'father' to be a bona fide religious affair, but you'd be wrong; whilst there are some religious songs ('What A Friend We Have In Jesus', 'Bring Flowers of the Rarest') there are plenty of secular ones mixed in too ('Words', 'I Believe In You', 'The Story of My Life'), making this the very epitome of a 'mixed bag'*.

 

Away from his day job, the singing friar can carry a tune of sorts, but he does so with a flat as a pancake voice that projects (on this evidence anyway) about half an octave range and sounds like it's being squeezed from out of a mouth he doesn't open wide enough, making him sound a bit like he's singing through closed lips like a bad ventriloquist. Musically it's all very safe and predictable enough fodder that, on the whole, is not difficult to churn out if you have the time and resources, and Father Francis seems to have both in abundance (including a backing band of musicians that include members of Smokie and Liverpool Express) - what really takes my breath away though is that suffix to the title - Volume Nine! Nine! That's more studio albums than The Velvet Underground, Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake managed between them and I think the weight of that number illustrates the disposability of this stuff.

 

Indeed, at first blush these recordings have a Chuancey Gardner type innocence to them, a childlike naivety that wouldn't be out of place on a children's singalong television show. But then just like finding a small piece of gravel in your shoe, what starts out as tolerable in its amateurishness starts to get really fucking irritating as time goes on. In fact, for me, it reaches a kind of nadir at track one side two with a teeth grindingly sincere, sing song version of 'All Things Bright And Beautiful' but at that point there's still about twenty minutes left to go. And that's twenty minutes too long I'm afraid - I don't doubt this doesn't go down a storm amongst the faithful at his prayer meets, but it's all a leap of faith too far for me. 

 

 

* I was going to make a comparison here with Johnny Cash's late Rick Rubin recordings which were similarly eclectic, but on reflection I don't think that would be fair on any of the parties.

The Session Men Sing Hits Made Famous By Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck: The Session Men - Music For Pleasure 1971

That curious shot of a woman looking like she's just seen the Martians land aside, that cover tells you almost everything you need to know about this album; it's a bunch of songs made famous by Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck as played and sung by session musicians. That's it, that's literally all there is to it, so curious then that such a simple premise still raises a number of issues for me to wrestle with; I'm starting to realise there's no such thing as an easy ride with these charity shop records.

For one thing, I can't help thinking Humperdinck and Jones would have made for curious bedfellows in their pomp - one is a bluesy R&B shouter whose sex appeal was all part of his shtick while the other was a middle of the road pop balladeer (and I'm also led to believe there was a kind of rivalry between the pair), Time may have blurred the distinction for modern audiences, but it would have been more evident in 1971 when this came out, which I'm guessing is why their songs have been neatly split over both sides with no cross pollination.

It's not uncommon for established artists to release albums of cover versions of their favourite songs. Its been going on for years. Some are very good (for example, David Bowie's 'Pin Ups', John Lennon's 'Rock & Roll' and Nick Cave's 'Kicking Against The Pricks') whilst others are less so (see Duran Duran's 'Thank You'). The point is though is that there's always going to be a fulcrum around which such albums revolve; namely, the act recording it. The people who bought 'Pin Ups' in enough numbers to send it to number one in 1973 were Bowie fans buying his latest album - they weren't Pink Floyd, Mojos and Easybeats (etc.) fans who wanted to hear how Bowie had covered their songs.

That point of reference is missing on this - there's no single Tom and Engelbert figure - famous or otherwise - singing all of these songs; a different vocalist tackles each one - these recordings are not strict facsimiles or copycats of the Jones/Humperdinck hits, they're merely cover versions of them, the same thing you'd hear in any number of clubs across the country any night of the week. Some of the vocalists try hard to actually sound like the stars, others don't try that hard at all, and there are varying shades of grey in-between, but the unifying link between songs as distinct as 'I'll Never Fall In Love Again' and 'Delilah' (both of which have been covered by other artists too) is Tom Jones, a man not present on the record and who only exists at a point removed from it.

But even if they all were perfect mimics, would that make this any more palatable I wonder? I can say I've seen 'The Bootleg Beatles' play live and that I've enjoyed them for providing a 'next best' experience to one I can never have myself (i.e. seeing The Beatles live in person), but if they went on to actually release their own album of Beatles cover versions then I know I wouldn't go near it. Why would I when the originals are freely available? The function they serve on the live circuit is not carried over on to my turntable where their existence is redundant.

Indeed, it's difficult to level any criticism at something that's so clear and upfront about what it actually is - there's no misleading title with buried small print to warn that these aren't the original recordings. The label isn't trying to sell anyone a pup - this is a dead parrot advertised and sold as a dead parrot so no buyer can hardly complain it's only upright because its been nailed to its perch. It literally is what it is, and if an album of competent cover versions of songs made famous by the two stars is what you're after, then it's hard to imagine anything else doing a better job - nobody here can be criticised for shoddy workmanship.   For my money though, because this is simply album of competent cover versions of songs made famous by the two stars it renders it a shocking waste of vinyl and a record that doesn't really need to exist - buy the originals you cheapskates.

Magic Hammond 2: The Dave "Tricky" Collins Group - Europa 1977

Well now, there's a picture - the last time I saw a photograph of a woman pulling a face like that it wasn't a keyboard she was reaching for believe me. But anyway, another Hammond organ album then, and my first question is going to be "what does this bring to the table that all the others didn't"? And the answer is.....not a lot really, though I will submit that, unlike most of the other Hammond themed albums I've come across, on this one the organ is much more integrated into the band as a whole rather than pushed up front as lead instrument. Which means calling this 'Magic Hammond' is as accurate as describing 'Exile On Main Street' as a drumming album by Charlie Watts.

 

Elsewhere though, we're far from the road less travelled - a handful of familiar tunes are sprinkled in amongst a majority that I don't know from Adam; the source of 'Unter dem Schottenrock ist gar nichts', 'Die Uhr geht vor du kannst noch bleiben' and the rest could be anything from Christmas Carols to Nazi drinking songs and I'd be none the wiser, but there's definitely something trippy about hearing the familiar melodies of 'Knowing Me Knowing You' and 'Living Next Door To Alice' emerging from out of them, lingering for a bit before dissolving back into the next faceless tune from Tuetonia. Not that it matters - as is the wont with these things, each of the tunes is cheerful enough to welcome any tourists and the band is very busy in its business (including a rather clipped and funky bass), but that's about the only emotion I can derive from any of this.

 

You see, I can only really regard this as something designed to fill a space with music where there previously wasn't any. Nothing more. True, if you broke it down you could say the same about all music from Bach to The Beatles, that's it's little more than social Vaseline designed to make this thing called 'life' a little bit more pleasant as we pass through it,  but those latter two artists - although wildly different in virtually every way you can think of - created with an intent and sense of purpose, regardless of whether this is recognised or appreciated by the listener. In contrast, 'Magic Hammond 2' seems purposeless, sound for the sake of sound and even the keenest shovel wouldn't find depth within these grooves.

 

That's ok though, not everyone needs to be - or even can - be Bach; as Greil Marcus once pointed out, you can't criticise a theme park for not being a cathedral. But then by giving me nothing to cling to, nothing about this lingers when it's over. It leaves me with no sense of regret that I hadn't heard it earlier and no sense of anticipation at the thought of listening to it again. Ever. It's simply music that I have no use for.

 

And almost in keeping with that 'just play once' aura, the record has an in-built 'self destruct' booby trap in the form of a date stamped deep into the run-out and counter to the groove; to put it mildly, it would seriously damage any stylus that unwittingly came into contact with it. I'd like to think this was a deliberate act of Situationist subversion akin to Guy Debord's book 'Mémoires' being published with a rough sandpaper jacket designed to damage any book either side of it on the shelf, but it's probably just a final piece of utter cluelessness on behalf of the record label (though I suppose it at least means that it does bring something new to the table after all).

 

 

 

 

 

An Evening With Edward Woodward: Edward Woodward - DJM 1973

'An Evening With Edward Woodward'? If you'd floated that invitation past me a few weeks ago I'd have assumed it would involve a load of hoary old acting anecdotes and some off the cuff recitals from Shakespeare. That's because my main knowledge about Woodward is of him as an actor, and specifically an actor  in 'The Wicker Man' and 'Callan'; I didn't know he fancied himself as a singer and had something of a back catalogue behind him. It's not a revelation on par with, for example, finding out your mother used to be a porn star I grant you, but it's a surprise nonetheless.

 

And the next surprise is that he can actually pull it off; actors turning singers don't have the best of pedigrees in terms of quality and I put this on the deck with a sense of trepidation, but I'm happy to report that Woodward has a perfectly serviceable tenor and crystal clear diction to boot which he uses to good effect rather than trying to ham it up club singer style. True, it's firmly in undemanding easy listening mode (think Andy Williams but without any fussy orchestration), but what helps him out is a clever choice of songs that manage to mix the familiar ('The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face', 'When I Fall In Love) and the unfamiliar ('Today I Killed A Man I Didn't Know', 'We'll Only Hurt Ourselves') without ever resorting to cliché or else being studiously 'difficult' or bloody minded.

 

But - oh dear - despite these positives Woodward manages to pull defeat from the jaws of victory and spoil all of his good work by his prefacing of every single song on the album with a minute or two of introductory spoken word where he explains in highfalutin style why he likes it and why he recorded it. Such reminisces may work fine in the context of, say, a set of liner notes, but on a record designed to create a mellow mood these rambling little talks shatter it like a hammer through glass and sour the atmosphere as surely as letting rip with intermittent farts during a candlelit dinner for two. What was he thinking? I don't know, but what I do know is that they're the icebergs that sink this project and leave me with an album that I don't know what to do with, though I do know that, having sat through it once, I'm never going to sit through it all again.

Sing-Along Western Party: Geoff Love - EMI 1974

There's a small note on the back of this album that says 'File Under STANDARD: Party Records'. If I had been a record shop owner back in 1974 then I'd have been glad of the steer - I myself would not have had a clue where to rack this. I know that Geoff Love (and his orchestra) had a veritable cottage industry going in the seventies in releasing albums of themed film soundtracks (with 'Big Western Soundtracks' being one), but the music on this is not that. 

Rather, it's a collection of songs with a vague cowboy/American south theme ('South Of The Border', 'The Yellow Rose Of Texas', 'On Top Of Old Smokey', 'Home On The Range' etc.), sung by what sounds like a drunken chorus of complete strangers who were rounded up from outside a pub at closing time and asked if they wanted to make some easy money. That just about sums up what's going on here.

True, it does sound like a 'sing-along Western party', but it sounds like one that's already been and gone and that you weren't invited to; it's like listening to a field recording of someone else's night out. Musically, every single song is bashed out in the same key and 'hopalong' time signature and each is taken at a fair clip (even the languid 'Wandrin' Star') with the only variation coming from a barrelhouse piano that's pushed up front on every other track.

On the one hand, none of this matters much because those involved sound like they were having a blast, but it does beg the question as to what the record buying listener is meant to be doing with it? In order to 'sing-along' yourself you're going to need to know the complete lyrics to a load of songs that probably aren't that familiar in full outside Texas, and then you're going to need to crank up your own vocals in order to be heard over the baying herd on the record. And even if you could tick those boxes, why in god's name would you want to? Seriously? Just how many people would want to host their own 'Sing-along Western Party'? I guess you just had to be there, though saying that, I'm kind of glad I wasn't.

Duke Grant Plays Hammond Gold: Duke Grant - Stereo Gold Award 1975

Ah, Mr Grant, we meet again. Those paying attention will remember I've already dealt with one of Duke Grant's albums on these pages and that my review ended with a pledge not to go out of my way to track any of his others down. In my defence, I didn't go out of my way to find 'Hammond Gold', it was there and it was cheap so I thought 'why not'? As I've said before, everybody deserves a second chance, and for 50p I'm happy to give Mr Grant his.

So is my faith in him rewarded? Well yes and no. First, the positives - as suggested by the cover image, 'Hammond Gold' is a slightly more sophisticated affair than 'Hammond Organ Dance Party' was (though a 'nightclub' with balloons and a tin foil covered ceiling is hardly the height of culture). For a start, during the year between releases, Duke and his band actually sound like they've learned from their mistakes and finally got it together to learn their respective parts and to play off rather than against each other. Again, and despite the album title, the Hammond is still only the lead instrument on around half the tracks, but it's less intrusive where it is and less absent where it's not and the other three pull their weight throughout. So that's something at least.

On the other side of the coin though, the 'Hammond Organ Dance Party' title is a touch misleading; a track like 'Y Viva Espana' has potential enough to take the roof off if it's played right, but it isn't. It's dull and it's boring. Even Scott Joplin's 'Maple Leaf Rag' and 'The Entertainer' are shorn of all potential for flight and hobbled by pedestrian arrangements that suck all life and joy out of them like matter through a black hole; if you can't dance to this stuff, then what are you meant to be doing with it? It's not soulful enough to be soul, funky enough to be funk or jazzy enough to be jazz either. It's just 'there'.

I'm not going to slam a cheap and cheerful covers band on a budget label for not sounding like the missing link between Herbie Hancock, James Brown and Al Green, but my beef remains that it simply does not do what it promises on the cover. True, the past references to 'flying fingers', 'pounding pedals' and 'mammoth speakers' have gone, but it still suggests we 'Roll up your carpet and dance to Hammond Gold' when in fact all you get is just the sound of a group of people plodding their way through a series of wildly random tunes in as uncontroversial and polite a way as possible.

Because that's one thing that certainly hasn't changed from the last album - a tracklisting that defies all logic and reason. 'Y Viva Espana' and Scott Joplin are odd enough bedfellows, but they're joined by 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon', 'Bridge Over Troubled Water', Amazing Grace', 'You'll Never Walk Alone' and 'Strangers In The Night'. Whoever put that lot together was drinking something stronger than tea and it only 'works' to the degree it does because Duke and the band ignore the sources of the songs and any heritage they possess and slow everything down to the same pace that gives them a bland identikit sound of a main melody supplemented by some fairly predictable fills,and with a production that leaves acres of space between the instruments the end result is the dull and hollow sound of a barrel being, if not scraped, then certainly investigated. Bottom line - if you want something that will burble away harmlessly while you cook the dinner then this will do the job as well as anything, if you're looking for something deeper though then you'd best look for it elsewhere.