Great Hits Of The 70's Moog Style: Contour 1974

'Great Hits of the 70's Moog Style'? Well it makes a change from a load of hits played 'Hammond Style' I suppose, but even so I have to take exception to that title in this context - there were any number of 'great hits' in the 1970's, and true this came out in 1974 so it's necessarily limited to the first half of the decade only, but come on; 'The Wombling Song', 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep', 'Long Haired Lover From Liverpool', 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon', 'You Won't Find Another Fool Like Me' - hits they may have been, but to call them 'great' would be using a different definition to the one I'd have in mind. But horses for courses I guess.

 

For those unaware, the Moog synthesiser came to prominence in the late sixties through albums like Wendy Carlos' 'Switched On Bach' and the treatments of Rossini and Beethoven she did for the soundtrack for 'A Clockwork Orange'. These recordings still sound like the future even now, but 'Great Hits of the 70's Moog Style' sounds very much of the past. Why? Well Moog synthesizers are famously monophonic, meaning they can only play one note at a time. Carlos' work on the above involved painstaking layering and multitracking of the instrument to build up the sound and show off its full range and power. Unfortunately, very little of that innovation of on display here.

 

The artist or artists behind this piece of work are not namechecked anywhere so I've no idea who they are, but rather than go to the trouble (and presumably expense) of creating a veritable 'wall of Moog' in presenting the songs, the input of the machine is reduced to plunking out the main melody of each song one harsh note at a time while a perfunctory cabaret band plays underneath to keep the beat and fill in the gaps. As a showcase for Robert Moog's machine its dire stuff, but that's not a criticism per se - I don't think the people behind this were out to push any envelopes, but it does mean the whole record has a tacky, rinky dink feel that makes every track sound like the theme music to some godawful sitcom that never made it past the pilot, reducing bubblegum pop to just plain, flavourless gum with no bubble. Listening to this actually hurt my ears and I bet the folk on the cover don't actually have this playing in the background while they're jigging around.

East Meets West: James Last - Polydor 1977

Here's something I haven't come across very often so far - a double album. And in a nice box too. Just like a mid seventies prog concept album in fact. And like a lot of those seventies prog acts, it seems ambition had taken over and the time had come where James felt he couldn't say all he wanted to say on a single disc. I suppose when an album is based around an 'East Meets West' concept then he could potentially have spread it out over a ten disc set and still not scratched the surface. Saying that, the 'East Meets West' title is in fact both an accurate and a misleading indicator as to what's going on within these particular grooves.

Firstly, it's dishonest in that the 'Meets' part of the title is misleading. There's no cross genre pollination going on here - the music of the 'East' and the music of the 'West' are self contained on the two separate discs, meaning there's about as much chance of them 'meeting' as parallel lines. Neither are those 'East' and 'West' titles used as broad headings to produce two distinct albums of music based around (for example) Eastern Phrygian dominant and Western diatonic scales. Nothing so exotic I'm afraid; as intimated by Last's 'Carry On Cowboy' and 'Carry On Cossack' garb on the cover, the 'East' is based solely around the stylised music of a pre-revolution Russia while the 'West' is an idealised, all American cowboy affair. This much is also confirmed by the 'subtitles' of both discs - "Country And Western Dance Party" and "Memories Of Russia". On the other hand, 'East Meets West' is true and accurate in that, despite the lengths taken to put clear water between them, once its all been through Last's easy listening sorting hat, 'East' and 'West' do meet somewhere in the middle at a point where it all sounds pretty much the same. 

The 'West' record blasts off like a rocket with a version of 'Orange Blossom Special' that flies like its tail is on fire, but all too soon the sweep of the orchestra's strings hold sway to ground it and bland out any heat that could have sparked from similarly breakneck versions of 'Chicken Reel', 'Oh! Sussana' or 'Turkey In The Straw'. Sure you can dance to this stuff, even in this format, but not with any abandon and the tunes retain a certain level of formal stuffiness and artificiality that's more cosy Roy Rogers than the grit of 'Deadwood'. 

If anything, the 'East' disc is worse; I'm not overly familiar with many of the tunes on it (and some are Last originals), but in going for a 'Memories' theme it tries to position itself as the opposite of the music of the 'West' and present a wistful, subdued sort of tone instead of any thrashing dance accordions, balalaikas and stamping feet. Which would be fine, except Last's orchestration does not sound particularly Russian and the main 'memory' it invokes is of the music on the other disc; in tone and substance it sounds pretty much the same.

Which is largely the problem with all this - just as in both of those cover pictures James Last looks exactly like James Last, albeit James Last in token fancy dress, the same charge of fakeness and lack of authenticity can be levelled at the music. 'East Meets West' is music in fancy dress, nothing more and neither album conjures up the feel of a time and a place with anything approaching a conviction. As a concept it doesn't really work, and maybe the two discs would have fared better as individual albums. Truth be told though neither of these themes lend themselves well to a full orchestra treatment, and certainly not to the schmaltzy easy listening one the Last subjects them to. Maybe it would have sounded better if I hadn't sat through all four sides in one go, but I did, and it turned out to be too much James Last for me, meaning I can only say that a more honest title for this would have been 'James Last - More Of The Same'.

Tribute To Jimi Hendrix: The Purple Fox - Stereo Gold Award 1971

Ever since I came across The Hiltonaires record and read up on the antics of label boss L Muller, I've kept my eyes open since for anything on the Stereo Gold Award label to see how far Mr M was prepared to take his passion for grabbing lots of credit for doing very little. I don't think I'm going to find a better or more damning example than this. Ostensibly a 'tribute' to Jimi Hendrix and released shortly after his death, of the twelve songs on this album, seven were either written by  or are closely associated with Jimi. 'Purple Haze', 'Hey Joe', 'Crosstown Traffic', 'Foxy Lady' - these are songs that would form the backbone of any 'Best Of' compilation worth it's salt. So fair enough that they appear on a 'tribute' to the man then. What's perhaps less welcome are the five tracks ('Acid Test', 'Patch Of Grass', 'Git Some', 'Gittin' Busted' and 'Requiem For Jimmy, (sic)) which, in what must be a supreme bout of hucksterism, are credited to L Muller. 

Any guitarist invoking Jimi to pay tribute would need to be sure of his chops, and the surrogate Hendrix on this apparently (and conveniently) plays under the non de plume 'The Purple Fox'. Better than 'Hazy Mary' or 'Windy Joe' I suppose, but from the name down the naked opportunism that runs through this whole project sticks out like the words 'cheap cash in' through a stick of rock.  Actually, the back cover note tells us the Fox's 'real' name is Alex Boggs: "Alex Boggs is a young man "with hair down to his knees" (as the man said), that sings and plays a wailing guitar under the name, The Purple Fox". I can't locate any other instances of Mr Boggs existing outside of this album so I'm guessing that's an alias too (with my suspicions further aroused by finding these recordings have also been issued under the name 'Jeff Cooper And The Stoned Wings'), all of which suggests an anonymous session man who'd rather stay that way. 

But whether it's the Fox, Boggs or Cooper, anyone hoping for more of the fluidity or imagination that marked Hendrix's playing will be in for a disappointment. First off, none of those 'new' titles are 'proper' songs per se; they're merely extended, warm up jams based around a single chug a lug chord sequence and copious amounts of wah wah. The Fox/Boggs/Cooper does a passable Hendrix pastiche on vocals, albeit one that on those 'new' songs borders on the racist in its portrayal of a supposedly stoned black man, all the while reviving and replicating Hendrix riffs and motifs as he goes. Take 'Patch Of Grass' - it's whole drive is built around a truncated 'Crosstown Traffic' riff that Fox mumbles lines like 'It's green it's not purple and there's a haze hanging over it' over. Well quite. That 'duh duh duh duh' sound in the background is either the dull plod of a pedestrian bassline or a click track of Jimi spinning in his grave. 

The Hendrix songs proper are dealt with competently enough and 'Purple Haze' et al are recognisable from the off, albeit in sawn-off pub rock versions; Hendrix always used studio technology as a fourth member of the band but there's none of that trickery to be found here. To be honest, I wouldn't really expect to, not on the budget that must have been behind this record, but it means the songs sound like first take versions by a well gigged covers band and anything 'difficult' about the originals is either glossed over or simply left out. It's tempting to once again pose the question 'what's the point'?, but this time I know what the 'point' was - that is, to shamelessly cash in on the death of a rock star and use the goodwill associated with his name to harvest royalties off your own rotten compositions. 

A cynical move maybe, but perhaps no less cynical than the eleven posthumous releases of Jimi's leftovers and half finished tracks that more renowned record labels have put out since 1970.  At least those actually were Jimi in action though - this Purple Fox nonsense is far from that, and while I understand why it was released, it doesn't explain why anyone would want to buy it. For me, money wouldn't be an issue - if it was the choice between either this cheap alternative or nothing then, quite frankly, I'd rather do without. Pasting a garish painting of Jimi over what looks like a stock photo of a dance band at a supper club as a cover only confirms the tackiness of the whole affair.

Mighty Hammond: Played By Don Reeve With The Don Reeve Sound - Music For Pleasure 1972

Another album of popular songs played on a Hammond organ - who knew there were so many of these things floating around out there? Not me anyway - this exercise has been an education if nothing else. So what do we have here? Well Don Reeves' name is the one splashed all over the cover, but the (literally) small print on the back reveals that the 'Don Reeve Sound' is actually the work of a trio; there's a drummer and bassist involved too. Does that make a difference? Well yes and no. On many of the tracks here it's a resounding 'no' - all the rhythm section do is keep the beat on a hi hat and cymbals and play the root notes on the bass while Don bangs out the main melody on his organ. It's nothing we haven't heard before and in truth it's pretty dull stuff.

 

Interspersed between these though are tracks where the arrangements veer further off piste - basslines start walking, drums start to roll and Don himself starts deconstructing the songs chord structure in a way that renders them borderline unrecognisable - I would never have recognised 'Those Were The Days' from the chorus on here, and that's normally the most recognisable part of the song. Ok, we're not exactly in John Coltrane/'My Favourite Things' levels of improvised riffing around a chord, but is is different, it is interesting and frankly I wish there was more of it. Sadly though, there isn't, and for the most part the album sticks to the road most travelled to deliver another two sides of easy listening background music with nothing to elevate it from what I've come to learn is (or was) a very crowded market.

Soaraway Party Pops: Various Artists - N.O.W. 1973

Though not generally known for being a publication shy of blowing its own trumpet, The Sun newspaper (the periodical behind this album) are nevertheless rather coy as to what treats are in store for the listener once they get this home. After all, I've learned from experience that the promise of '24 Non Stop Party Hits' can cover a multitude of sins; is this an album of Top of the Pops soundalike cover versions, or is it just made up of cover versions per se? Alternately, are these instrumental versions strung together in a 'non stop' medley, and are they played solely on a lead instrument like the omnipotent Hammond Organ? The cover isn't saying. To add to the mystery, on the back there's a photograph of The Osmonds in concert plus a further standalone picture of Little Jimmy Osmond despite there not being a single Osmonds track to be found on the record itself.

As for what is on here, well I've put a photo of the tracklist below - a undeniable generous - albeit undeniably curious - selection of some of the biggest UK hits from the late sixties to the early seventies, including an impressive 13 number ones. Saying that, twenty four tracks is rather a lot to spread over two sides of vinyl and, true enough, they are crowbarred on so tightly the surface of the disc is smooth as glass to the touch and you'd need the eyesight of a hawk with binoculars to be able to tell where one songs ends and the next one starts too. I've been cueing up tracks for over forty years and I couldn't do it. Maybe it's a cunning ruse to make sure you begin at the beginning.

If that was the plan, then there's method in it - both sides starts off on a promising note with decent stabs at 'Band Of Gold' (with a Freda Payne soundalike who's at least in the right ballpark) and 'Get It On' (which has the lead doing a credible Bolan impersonation). But then just as you breathe a sigh of relief that this may turn out to be something worthwhile after all, next songs 'Rose Garden' and 'Don't Let It Die' are performed as instrumentals, with a twangy guitar replacing the vocal on the former and a honking sax replacing Hurricane Smith's vocal on the latter. This sets the scene for the whole album - straight cover versions alternating with instrumentals that have a different lead instrument 'singing' the vocal. Thus,'Poppa Joe' becomes a fiddle led hoedown, 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' substitutes Garfunkel's choir boy soar with (what else) a reedy Hammond organ etc. And why on earth anybody would want an instrumental version of the purposely wordy 'Lady Eleanor' is a mystery, but it's on here if you want it.

For the 'other' songs, well as I've already said, the first are the best. And by some margin. The remainder are the usual mix of the good and the bad - it's better on the more bubblegum hits where there's less of an artist identity to emulate and the catchy tunes can be left to do all the work ('Sugar Sugar', 'I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing', 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep') but the award for 'ugly' must surely be split between the copycat 'live' version of 'My Ding-a-Ling' that goes so far as to faithfully recreate Chuck Berry's ad-libs and audience laughter, and a hokey take on 'Honky Tonk Women' where the cowbell intro becomes the sound of someone impatiently tapping a drainpipe with a spoon before it really goes downhill with a cabaret band version that doesn't get even remotely close to the slow drag sleaze and drawl of the original. You have to admire the bottle of all involved if nothing else, and no, that 'Woman' is not a spelling mistake, the band really do sing about a honky tonk woman singular rather than honky tonk women plural. How that got past whatever amounted to quality control I don't know, but it reeks of a certain can't be arsed contempt for the listener that pervades the whole record.

Whether that's true or not I don't know, but I can say that listening to all this in one go is a slog where the 'Non Stop' moniker becomes more of a threat than a promise. And that's mainly because mixing instrumental versions with vocals is a strange move and one that simply does not work - all it does is allow this to fall between two distinct stools creating an uneasy listen that I can't imagine anybody anywhere finding satisfying on any level other than when the non stop hits finally do come to a stop 24 songs later. As a final piece of oddness that could also double as an act of mercy, the cover spine is completely blank, meaning if this were filed away in the middle of a collection of any size then it would not be easy to find again. Small mercies indeed.

 

Old Time Dancing: Sydney Thompson And His Old Time Dance Orchestra - Hallmark 1971

To give you an idea of the level of mind behind all of this, I can tell you I picked this one up solely because that cover made me laugh. Mick Hucknall and Joan Sims dressed up like Christmas cakes on shocking pink background - I don't think I've seen anything so camp that wasn't deliberately setting out to be camp. The fact that this was probably aiming for an air of some kind of  sophistication and was not trying to be camp at all just makes it all the funnier. To me anyway. As I say, that's the level of mind behind all this. 

As to what it is, well I didn't know what 'Old Time Dancing' was so I looked it up, and it turns out it's "a form of dance in which a preset pattern of movements is followed, usually to music which is also predetermined. Sequence dancing may include dances of many different styles. The term may include ballroom dances which move round the floor as well as line, square and circle dances". I see. The Jeet Kune Do* of dancing then. 

On that basis, I see this as almost a kind of Ur Jane Fonda Workout Record; 'Old Time Dancing' would appear to be something you're meant to interact with rather than passively listen to. And that's ok, but whilst Jane always gave you instructions on exactly how to interact and then yell out her 'feel the burn' encouragement from the grooves, this goes to no such lengths to get the listener involved. Or any lengths at all really - in fact, the back cover text is upfront in going in exactly the opposite direction: "The selection he presents here is not categorised into specific dances because, as Sydney says, it is possible to adapt the step of more than one dance to these tunes and as always on a Sydney Thompson record each item is presented with a four bar introduction and sixteen bars of regular movement to facilitate instruction and practice". Well cheers for that people, best just get on with it then.

Which does kind of bring me to the crux of my problem with this - an album full of instrumental versions of popular light classics is all so much grist to the mill for these charity shop records. This one could have been packaged under any number of different titles with any number of different covers without any discernible detriment or benefit whatsoever (it's not a million miles removed in tone and content from the recent "Woodhouse In Vienna" record). Instrumental versions of 'The Lonely Goatherd' 'Edelweiss' or 'A Walk In The Black Forest' don't (to my mind) have any hardwired link to old time dancing and so could be enjoyed in their own right (if you enjoy that sort of thing) without wrapping them up in some DIY dance agenda. 

The problem is though is that's exactly what they have done, and they've done it in such a way that the music is all recorded at more or less the same pace and in the same key with the result being that in its listening it becomes a relentless stream of overly busy, overly samey orchestrated sound where the tunes blend and bleed into each other to become the dull murk of a rainy sky in winter. If you're listening out for the beat to mark your next move then fine, but for anyone not cutting a rug then listening to this becomes akin to watching someone playing a very dull and boring video game, and not playing it well either. An odd affair all 'round really.


* Being a hybrid philosophy of mixed martial arts that was heavily influenced by the personal philosophy and experiences of Bruce Lee. Then again, maybe not.

Secret Love All Time Film Favourites: Los Indios Tabajaras - RCA 1976

If there's any common thread to be found running through the records I've come across to date it's a recurring tendency for the people behind them to take original music source X, arrange it in markedly and almost bloody mindedly different style Y and then play it on totally unrelated (to the original) instruments Z in a mash-up style that tends to work about as well on the ear in reality as it does in theory on paper. Which is to say 'not very'. 

 

If it's not country songs arranged in pop style for a Hammond organ, it's Beatles songs arranged for and played by a military band. The question 'why'? is one I've long since stopped asking - these things just are, and my main reaction now tends to be incredulity mixed with a certain admiration for the level of imaginative risk taking on what is after all a commercial enterprise; at the end of the day, these things are meant to sell. On the current record we have two brothers from Brazil who dress in ceremonial Indian costumes playing instrumental versions of Hollywood film soundtracks arranged for two acoustic guitars. Right.

 

Before I get to the negative stuff, I want to point out that the music here is played well and beautifully recorded; there's nothing cheap and nasty about any of this. None of the arrangements turn the music inside out so as to make it unrecognisable, but they are different enough to make the enterprise worthwhile with the music having a drone-like quality that's strangely hypnotic and (initially at least) relaxing, which I guess is what all easy listening music aspires to. But then just as my taking a long coach or train journey can start out with a frission of excitement because it's 'something different', it doesn't take long for boredom to set in and I start to squirm in my seat for it to hurry up and be over with.

 

And the point I'm trying to make with that is that what starts off as a novelty - interesting even - soon wears paper thin when it's repeated time and time again over two sides of a record. Being film soundtracks, much of the music here was scored for dramatic effect and atmosphere and so doesn't readily lend itself to spare arrangements on two acoustic guitars and percussion. The selections, by and large, are strong enough to withstand such major tinkering, but they don't survive unscathed and something gets lost in the translation. Thus, the 'Theme From The Pink Panther' loses it's playfulness, 'When You Wish Upon A Star' loses its wistfulness, 'The Way We Were' loses it's sense of nostalgia etc. etc. - the arrangements subtract and subtract until what's left is music that should clash and contrast but is instead rendered impotent on a gentle breeze of easy listening bordering on insipid muzak that, whilst in no way unpleasant, acts like a cheap air freshener and lingers for about the same length of time. Inconsequential and inessential, I'd much rather listen to Los Indios Tabajaras playing either their own or traditional Brazilian music to be honest.

The Band Of The Royal Corps Of Transport - Music For Pleasure 1969

I'm going to start this with a confession - I don't know much about brass bands. I'm partial to the sound of a Salvation Army band playing carols at Christmas, but that's about as far as my toes have ever been dipped in these waters. In fact, I had to check online what the difference between a brass and silver band (which the ensemble on here appear to be) is, and it seems there isn't any. So I've learned something there at least. 

To my ignorant mind, the sound of a military brass band should be loud and strident, something that makes you want to start marching around the room, but that's not really how I feel when I listen to this. That's mainly because the band on here are curiously muted and underwhelming, it's as if they'd been told to keep it down because the kids are in bed. Rather than blaring away in your face, the overall effect is almost ambient, the sound of a band parping away somewhere in the background at a fete on the village green. Even Sousa's normally rousing 'Liberty Bell' fails to put me in a good humour and it's lumpen plod reminds me less of Monty Python (who borrowed it for their theme tune) and more of a cake stall and tombola. It's too polite for its own good, and with politeness comes dullness I'm afraid.

The track list is a broad church drawn from all countries and cultures. Sousa marches, 'Rule Britannia', the 'Soldier's Chorus' from Gounod's 'Faust' and the Russian 'Cavalry Of The Steppes' all rub up against each other in a way that should have generated sparks from the static, but instead of a sprinkling of fairy dust the Royal Corps of Transport boys shower ordinary house dust over all and deaden them to a dullness that would take a good few gallons of Brasso to make shiny again. They couldn' even be bothered to give the album a title.

I suppose the word I'm looking for but trying not to use is 'amateur' - it all sounds amateur and conjures up images of draughty scout halls in autumn. Whether that's fair observation or not I couldn't say; I don't know enough about brass bands to be definitive and it's why I'm relucatant to use it, but as a reviewer then I can only speak as I find, and I find this irredeemably boring. It's the sort of music that could have soundtracked every wet Sunday afternoon of my childhood and at the end it leaves me feeling the same way that the drum major on the cover looks (yes, I also learned that the leader of a marching band is called a 'drum major' and the stick he carries is called a 'mace'. See? Learning all the time).

Golden Oldies: Ray McVay's Big Band And Singers - Fontana 1970

Well that's an eye catching cover; overtanned blonde in a gold bikini, wearing gold jewellery holding a freshly painted gold record and fellating a gold paint spattered brush on a gold background with gold text. Oh yes, there's gold paint on her face too (which the cynic in me thinks is meant to represent some kind of ejaculate, possibly from King Midas). And I think in this heavy handed way the 'Golden' part of the title is just about taken care of, it's a shame the budget didn't extend to pressing it up on gold vinyl to finish off but - alas - the disc in that cover is as black as my heart after listening to it. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

 

As for the 'Oldies' part, then unless it refers to the scary looking cover star (and I do wonder if she knew of the contextual implications when she signed up for this), then it must be referring to the ten songs. Which in itself is an odd proposition, because whilst they may be regarded as 'oldies' to our modern ears, in 1970 they were less so. Some of the songs here would have only been about five or six years old at that time ('Dancing In The Street', 'Sweets For My Sweet', 'Baby Love', 'Help'), which is hardly 'old' is it? I don't think that point would have caused the band leader sleepless nights though - we've encountered Ray McVay records a few times already on this journey and the splendid alliteration of his name has tended to be the most interesting thing about them. To date, my abiding impression is of a man who seems to have his fingers in many low budget music pies, and on this one it looks like he's trying to muscle in on the 'cover versions in a cheesecake sleeve' market. Instead of a set of contemporary chart hits though, he's gone for the vague, catch all 'Golden Oldie' angle. Or as I call it, 'the coward's way out'.

 

The album presents a mixed bag of songs that, what they lack in contemporaneousness with each other, do share the common ground of having hard wired earworms of tunes that like as not will be as familiar to you as your own name. The over-familiarity of such popular songs acts as both a blessing and a curse - on one hand, even the most raggedy arsed bar band couldn't screw these up and fail to get an audience singing or clapping along, and whatever else Ray McVay's and his ensemble might be, they are not a raggedy arsed bar band. Saying that, here's no attempt made to present a reasonable approximation of the original versions - the songs are taken as written and arranged in a cabaret, chicken in the basket supper club type of way with the basic melodies left to do all the heavy lifting, precisely because they can.

 

But in doing that, the curse gets the upper hand in that, in being so well known, there's a handy benchmark in the form of those original recordings by which to judge these versions, and in every single case these are found wanting. Giving the songs a jaunty makeover in a relentlessly upbeat, big band style with 'gosh darn it' over enthusiastic vocals is like taking the shell off a snail and trying to pass it off as a slug; it's a pointless exercise that has no discernible benefit for anyone. And a disinterested feeling of pointlessness is what I'm left with after listening to this album. Maybe in the right context and after a few beers it would make more sense, but sitting here all I hear is the emotionless husk of an album that, unless it was done as a tax break, has no real reason for existing and I can't - simply can't - imagine why anyone would want to listen to it.