Big Disco Movie Hits: Geoff Love's Big Disco Sound - Music For Pleasure 1978

One truism I've come to appreciate from my travels through charity shop vinyl is that where there's a bandwagon, there's a budget record label waiting to jump on it. Geoff Love has had his fingers in more pies than most and it would appear that, sometime in the mid seventies, 'Geoff Love and his Orchestra' mutated into 'Geoff Love's Big Disco Sound'.  Fair enough that the folk behind the label wanted a slice of the disco pie I suppose, but that title is more than slightly disingenuous - these are not all 'disco movie hits' by any stretch.

 

Rather, they're songs from films that, to a greater or lesser degree (and sometimes much lesser) have a disco-ish connection ('Thank God It's Friday', 'Saturday Night Fever'), if only via their soundtracks (e.g. 'The Stud', 'Car Wash'.). Except for 'FM' that is, which is a film about seventies AOR that has no connection to disco at all and comes with a Steely Dan title track that, with true Steely Dan cynicism, actually cocks a snook at that whole FM scene. Geoff's band has a crack at it in any case, which means this album at least in part could have been called 'Geoff Love Plays Steely Dan'. And that's something that has to be heard.

 

And in listening to it I can say that the title is not the only disingenuous thing about this - 'Geoff Love's Big Disco Sound' isn't particularly 'big' and it's not particularly 'disco' either; unless my ears are deceiving me, the orchestra of old has been well and truly ditched and the music on this is almost entirely electronically created - if there are any live musicians on here then I can't pick them out anyway. But that's ok, there was plenty of fine, electronic dance music around in the seventies....it's just that none of it is on this record.  You can forget the high energy throb of Giorgio Moroder or Cerrone; this disco sounds like it's been recorded underwater. All the snap and fizz is sucked out of hitherto indestructable disco standards like 'Stayin' Alive' and 'Night Fever' to leave a tired wooze that slops around the dancefloor with all the grace of a barrel half filled with water.

 

As you can probably guess, these tracks are not copies of the originals and they make precious little attempt to be. Love's arrangements of 'Grease', 'Native New Yorker' and 'Every 1s A Winner' have all the vitality of a week old corpse while others could be the very dictionary definition of 'misguided'; I mentioned above that Love has a crack at Steely Dan and in so doing comes up with a version of 'FM' that's to the hipster smart and sardonic cool of the Dan as that main painting on the cover (with the too short arm) is to using an actual photograph of John Travolta - that is, something just about recognisable but a piss poor substitute. I genuinely have no idea what they were thinking.

 

And to that little sub genre you can add 'disco' versions of Joe Walsh's 'Life's Been Good' and The Beatles' 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', neither of which (like 'FM') were ever remotely 'disco' and which leave that 'Big Disco Sound' whistling in the dark for a dead dog in its efforts to make them so. What doesn't help either is that apart from the occasional repetition of the chorus line on some of the songs (like 'You're The One That I Want'), this album is largely instrumental, meaning that most of these lyric based songs are rendered...well....meaningless.... and so are forced to rely on the music to provide the focal point. And that music is not good - even the most hardcore of crate digging DJs would struggle to find a worthwhile sample in any of this, even an ironic one. This is not the album I'd reach for if I were organising a 70's retro disco night. I wonder if there's a 'Geoff Love's Big Punk Sound' album doing the rounds somewhere?

If My People...: Jimmy And Carol Owens - Light 1975

I've seen more than a few of these religious type albums in the crates along the way, but I've pretty much stayed away from them until now. And that's largely because in not having much in the way of a single religious bone in my body, to buy and review one would be a task as thankless as asking me to review a Hugh Grant film; I know I'm not going to be into it before we even start. I've broken my own unofficial rule on this one though for a number of reasons. 

That cover for one - to these eyes that central totem pole of faces looks like Joni Mitchell on top of Jimi Hendrix on top of Little Jimmy Osmond, and the cynic in me wondered if this was a deliberate but clueless move to look 'hip' and widen the potential audience catchment. Whether that's true or just my bad mind I guess we'll never know, but the back cover also tells me that Barry ('Eve Of Destruction', 'Three Wheels On My Wagon') McGuire has a guest spot too, and that's got to be worth a pound of anyone's money.

In listening to it, one thing that surprised is that although I've found out that Jimmy and Carol Owens are American, the first sound you hear is a music free narration by a very British voice (one Paul Harris). But then the surprise quickly gives way to a weary resignation as Harris drones on and on about (as you'd expect) God, Jesus, faith, everlasting life and the rest of it with the straight faced sincerity of a consultant relaying a terminal cancer diagnosis. If I had a pound for every time he mentions 'sin' (other people's mind, not his) then I might have a sum that would make it worth my while to listen to him, but in truth as a sometime gospel fan I'm really just waiting for the singing to start.

Because I always think gospel music is mighty fine when there's a bit of fire about it with and some life and vitality in the praising, but I can tell you that none of the songs on this record are traditional gospel tunes; they're all Jimmy and Carol Owens originals. That needn't be a headshot in itself, and in all honesty the pair know how to write a pleasant tune, but these are just the conduits for the underlying no nonsense 'message' they want to convey, and the song titles themselves give a good insight into what that message is. 'Father, We Thank You', 'Lord, Achieve Your Holy Purpose', 'Behold The Man', 'Thank You Lord', 'Turn To The Lord', and so on. And on. These are less 'songs' per se and more like essays for the converted. Both they and Harris' narration assume a high level of 'buy in' before we even start; this is aimed squarely at the converted for whom Christianity is a way of life and as natural as breathing.

OK, criticising a Christian for praising God is much like criticising a dog for barking - after all, it's what they do. But on the other hand, you can criticise a dog for barking when they do it relentlessly, hour after hour after hour with no let up. Eventually you're going to snap and yell at them to shut the %$*@ up, and that's exactly what this record made me feel like saying long before I'd come to the end of side two.  For a non believer like me, listening to it is like stumbling into an advanced Japanese class when (1) I'd be more suited to the beginners module and (2) I wasn't that keen on learning Japanese in the first place.

That's not necessarily the fault of the record's, but there's a certain smug, self satisfied and dead-eyedness to this that's unappealing in the extreme. Even that Barry McGuire cameo does nothing to raise either the tone or my spirits. In fact, it all makes me feel like I'm eavesdropping on some covert meeting in an abandoned building, fearful that any moment one of the congregation is going to spot me lurking in the shadows and drag me to an altar where I'll be sacrificed to silence my tongue. 

Subservient rather than joyful, resigned rather than evangelical and shot through with a polite and dull conformity straight out of The Stepford Wives, there's nothing here to convince me that I've taken the wrong road in life and that aim of 'intercession' has fallen on stony ground I'm afraid; this record isn't for me. Then again, neither are hang gliding, bog snorkelling or pot holing. Some people might get something out of them, but the inherent danger and discomfort of them puts me right off. Unfortunately, it's the sheer, joyless tedium of it all that puts me off 'If My People'.

In A Romantic Mood With Waldo De Los Rios: Waldo De Los Rios - A&M 1971

One of the side benefits of undertaking a project like this is that I sometimes actually learn something. Not high knowledge maybe, but I do tend to come away from most of these albums with my horizons slightly expanded and with at least a little bit of worthwhile knowledge I didn't have before. Take this album as a case in point; this time last year the name Waldo De Los Rios would have meant as much to me as advanced Calculus (i.e. none at all), but since finding out back on Smash Hits 71 that he'd had a European wide hit with a pops version of Mozart's 41st, I've also discovered he released a whole album of this stuff ('Mozart In The Seventies') that has been described as 'Mozart plus sacrilege'.* Having now heard that album, I can see where that comment is coming from - playing Mozart in the style of a hoedown was never going to get the purists onside, and it's why my finding that De Los Rios name attached to an album of popular songs meant it was a no brainer that I had to buy it to see what kind of 'sacrilege' he was going to dish out to them. And so with a glass of wine and my knives freshly sharpened, I sat down to listen.....

.....and I'm pleased to say that for once I've been taken by surprise. For one thing, De Los Rios is a lot more reverential toward these tunes than he ever was toward old Wolfgang. Sure, a lot of the stuff on this would take no small bloody minded effort to make a total mess of ('Dock Of The Bay', 'If I Only Had Time', 'Windmills Of Your Mind' etc are all warhorses that are hard to derail.), but rather than going for the soft option of pouring a bucket of slush over the top of them and dishing out a bowl of gloopy muzak, Waldo for the most part delivers solid versions of these songs in arrangements that veer off piste just far enough to break up their familiarity and keep things interesting but not far enough to crash headfirst into a tree. None of them follow a particular formula, and each has it's own bit of business that catches the ear with its unexpectedness; a stab of horns here, a piano run there, a P Funk-type bassline and drum shuffle elsewhere - it's all different, but it's all restrained enough to work within the structure of the original tune.

Like a respectful architect designing a contemporary extension to a Medieval church, De Los Rios actually sounds like he knows what he's doing and has put some thought into his arrangements. For example, his take on Donovan's 'Lalena' adds an edgy drama of Scott Walker-like swooping strings that builds on the downbeat sparsity of the original and colours its open spaces. The only time he really breaks ranks to let his freak flag fly is on the version of The Beatles' 'Something' whose fuzzy guitars and hard plucked bassline could be have been culled from a Goblin soundtrack to a Dario Argento horror film; it's really rather wonderful. If I was going to offer up any major criticism it's that the music on the disc is too busy and skittish for lights down romance the title implies you're going to be getting, but if you're into each other the way that pair on the cover seem to be then I guess it's not going to matter all that much what's playing in the background.

* By English radio and television presenter Robert Robinson.

The Top Of The Poppers Sing & Play Gilbert O'Sullivan's Greatest Hits: The Top Of The Poppers - Pickwick 1973

'It's never enough for a writer to make a personal success with his own songs; others must take them up, give them varying treatments and by doing do prove the writer's talent all over again'. Do they? That's what the note on the back cover says anyway but I'm not sure I agree - why must they? I know why the 'others' on this album have taken them up, and that's to make some easy money off the back of the success of the artist. Because whilst not exactly forgotten today, Gilbert O'Sullivan was mightily successful and a far bigger noise in the early seventies than he is now. After all, he hasn't troubled the UK top 50 since 1980, but by the time this album came out in 1973 he'd already had two number one singles that year ('Clair' and 'Get Down', both on here) and a decent enough run of top five hits prior to it.

 

In presenting an album of O'Sullivan's hits in O'Sullivan's style (you can forget that 'give them varying treatments' guff, it doesn't apply here), the anonymous folk behind this album already had certain cards pre-stacked in their favour.  For one, O'Sullivan was never Captain Beefheart or anything like it with his music and so it's no real stretch for any competent band to reproduce his output with a fair degree of accuracy. As far as O'Sullivan himself goes, then again, anybody out to impersonate him would have the benefit having a distinctive voice to follow that's not at all hard to mimic. In fact, one of the main reasons I've never had much time for Gilbert is that monotone, nasally whine that always delivers his songs with the same dispassionate - almost disinterested - remove, regardless of whether he's singing something downbeat ('Alone Again (Naturally)', 'Nothing Rhymed'), something upbeat ('Get Down', 'Ooh Wakka Doo Wakka Day') or something twee and sickly ('Clair). Riddled with emotion it is not.

 

But I digress; I'm not reviewing a Gilbert O'Sullivan 'Best Of' am I? I'm reviewing a 'Best Of Gilbert O'Sullivan' as performed by anonymous backroom session men. That's a different proposition, and whilst I can say that none of the singers here quite nail that dour honk, for the most part they're near as dammit  and, when twinned with pretty faithful renditions of the music, most aspirations are met and there's not a lot to criticise. In fact, the album represents decent value too in that it even includes the non single 'hit' 'Matrimony', which is a bonus of sorts for fans I guess, though 'No Matter How I Try' (number 5 in 1971) is curiously absent.

 

I guess much of your attitude to this is going to depend on your attitude to O'Sullivan himself, and as long as you go into this with your eyes wide open then you're not going to feel short changed by these copies as none of these versions are so wide of the mark so as to be something to be remarked upon (or to have the piss taken out of them). In trying to 'be' him, I've got the same problems with these versions as I do with O'Sullivan himself, only these versions leave me slightly colder and for my own part this would probably have been more enjoyable if those session singers had tried to inject some of their own personality into their interpretations instead of just mimicking. But that's my problem. I suppose the latter option was the lesser burden for a knock-off album like this, but in fairness as an album of knock-offs it's one of the better ones I've come across (though that bar isn't set particularly high).

Goodbye Beatles: The Johnny Dunne Singers - Stereo Plus 3 1973

At first blush I thought that 'Goodbye Beatles' must have been a farewell tribute come cash in on fan dismay at a popular band who had just split up, but if that was the aim then this release would have been about three years too late. Ah well, so much for my off the cuff theories. 

 

What is factual is that although the images of the fab four on that cover are from their late, circa 'Let It Be' era, the songs on this album are drawn from all stages of their career, albeit seemingly ordered on the basis of a throw of a dice in a way that defies reason and chronology (for example, 'Michelle' is followed by 'Please Please Me' is followed by 'The Fool On The Hill', and so on). The (very) small print on the bottom left made me smile too - 'These are cover versions recorded in the style of the originals';  a timely warning to anyone fool enough to think they were getting a bona fide Beatles 'best of' I suppose. But it made this worth investigating.

 

The name of the act performing on this ('The Johnny Dunne Singers') is suggestive of an established vocal ensemble with no small pedigree in the easy listening field. After all, there were plenty of these sorts of acts around in the seventies, but a quick online search shows that this album represents the sum total of Mr Dunne's singer's recorded output. What's more, they don't appear to have any other independent existence outside of this record either, but having now listened to it I can confirm that the above 'small print' is woefully misleading - none of these versions are in fact recorded in the style of the originals. For one, with 28 of them to get through they are by necessity performed as sawn off medleys rather than full versions of the actual songs. Yes the basic tunes are there and are recognisable, but melody, meter and even song structure are shifted at will to accommodate the combined talents of Mr Dunne's singers but not in a way that does the songs any favours in the 'original style' stakes.

 

Basically a mixed ensemble of what sounds like (to these ears) no more than three males and three females, the ladies are as shrill as budgies and shriek like harpies through scales of their own creation. The boys in turn adopt a clipped, po-faced and over reverential tone, much like The King's Singers tackling Rossini but without the wit, inventiveness or ability to sing in tune or harmony. Between them they manage to suck any joy, energy or pathos out of Lennon and McCartney's songs until they're dry husks that are all ground out with the same grim and humourless determination through the rictus grin mouths of month old corpses, regardless of whether they started off as rock and roll, psychedelia, chamber pieces, ballads or Merseybeat. The backing music is suitably minimalist to allow the singers their centre stage (there are some drums, a bass, a trumpet, an occasional piano and that's about it) but it gels with those awful vocals with all the finesse of a late night drunk vomiting into the gutter

 

So wide of the mark is some of this stuff that it makes me wonder as to the level of familiarity these singers actually had with the source material before they started, but if the mistakes on the cover and label are anything to go by, then the answer is 'not much'. 'With A Little Help Of My Friends', 'Obladee Obladaa', 'A Ticket To Ride', It's A Hard Day's Night', 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', 'She Love's You' - I'm not trying to be hair-splittingly petty about all this, but if you can't even be bothered to get the song titles right then what chance for the rest of it? And the answer to that is 'none' - 'Goodbye Beatles' is an unappealing mix of hackwork and pretension that makes for a deeply unsatisfying listen. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that borders on the painful, like watching a film of a favourite dog being mistreated and being powerless to intervene. All you can do is walk away and vow never to play it again. Which is how I intend leaving it.

England's 12 Top Hits: Various Artists - Avenue 1974

There's plenty going on with this one to catch my eye, and not just the obvious. There's that title for one - 'England's Top 12 Hits'. Ignoring the fact that there is no 'England Only' popular music chart and that the top 40 is based around sales in the UK as a whole, it's still awfully definitive isn't it? These are the top 12 hits in England are they? Well they're not, not by any measure. Not even close. The twelve songs on this in fact all hail from the first quarter of 1974, but only three of them ('Billy Don't Be A Hero', 'Devil Gate Drive' and 'Jealous Mind') were actually 'top' (i.e. number one) hits. Unless of course that 'Top 12' refers to the chart placing, in which case it should really be 'England's Top 12 Hits', though as the wording on the spine and label confirms, it isn't.* All very confusing.

 

Then there's that cover photo - another by now almost obligatory shot of a topless blonde showing as much bare breast as taste and law allows in a setting that you might see in England for a couple of hours at some point in mid July. It's hardly representative of 'England' is it? Not in March anyway. Maybe someone thought it was just the tonic for a late winter/early spring release to whet the appetite for the summer to come, but to modern eyes it's just gratuitous. The third point of interest is the distinct lack of any information whatsoever on the cover as to who is behind or performing this stuff or whether they are vocal, copycat versions, instrumentals (perhaps another Hammond organ extravaganza). With the back cover almost a carbon copy of the front, the only way to find out is to get it home and play aural Russian roulette by listening to it.

 

And now having played it I can clear up one of the mysteries straightway - these are all full band/vocal versions of the songs that have pretensions of being close copies of the genuine articles. My usual form with albums like this has been to consider the line-up broadly in terms of whether they're good, bad or ugly, but my job is made slightly easier this time round by that fact that they're all bad. All of them. Firstly, the sound is bad. I don't know if it's the pressing or the production as a whole, but all the music on this disc has a distant, over compressed feel to it; it's as if the sound has buried itself deep in the grooves and doesn't want to come out. It reminds me of those mono recordings, so beloved by Reader's Digest in the seventies, that had been 'electronically reprocessed for stereo'. There's no evidence that's the case here (and in 1974 no reason why they should have been so treated), but evenso, they sound horrid.

 

Secondly, the versions themselves are bad. Assuming that the aim was to produce accurate copies of the original songs, I can say that whilst each performance goes some way to that end, they expend the absolute bare minimum of effort in doing so. The musicians behind do just enough to pull the tunes together and carry them for three minutes or so that the song requires while the vocals scrabble around over the top for any defining tics or mannerisms they can latch on to to try and pass themselves off as the real thing. Hence, we have the same unknown vocalist trying hard to channel his inner Noddy Holder, Gary Glitter, Alvin Stardust, Paul McCartney and Elton John.

 

Tackling such distinctive voices would be a big ask for anyone, but without the familiarity of the actual song to lean on, I can honestly say if they swapped the songs and singers around (so that, for example, 'Elton' was singing 'Everyday') then I would have no idea who they were supposed to be. The only person who emerges with any credit is the fiery unknown who 'does' Suzi Quatro with a fair degree of abandon, but she then kind of spoils the effect two songs later by 'doing' Karen Carpenter (on 'Jambalaya') with the same screechy, faux American vocal, albeit now turned down just a notch or two instead of the ten required. If just owning versions of these songs was your be all and end all, you set your expectations bat suitably low this retailed at a low enough price, then I suppose you'd be fine. For me, I'd rather have just taped the originals off the radio for free and left this rather depressing record on the shelf.

 

* I did consider briefly of the 'Top Hits' was some kind of oblique reference or pun on the cover and a play on 'Top Tits', but I've since found out that there's a whole series of these albums, 31 in all from 1969 on. This was actually the last one in the series and the only one to feature a topless woman. So a sign of desperation maybe?

Smash Hits Presley Style Volume 2 - Music For Pleasure 1973

Before I actually listened to this* I had a little ponder to myself as to exactly what 'Elvis Style' actually meant. It's not a title that promises a 'separated at birth' album of note perfect imitation is it? Anybody can sing in 'Elvis style' (though it's usually in parody) and there's enough wriggle room there for any number of get out of jail free cards to be played in terms of any shortcomings it might have. In imitating Elvis, there are multiple versions to choose from, but from my experience it seems most folk tend to gravitate to either the young Elvis in the sharp suits and quiff (if they've got the youth, hair and waistline to pull it off), or the later, fat Elvis in the Vegas jumpsuits and rhinestones (where they don't). 

 

In both cases, and if done properly, those costumes are able to carry out a lot of the heavy lifting involved in adopting Presley's persona and they can fill in any holes in the vocal in much the same way that a Napoleon costume with the hat and hand hiding greatcoat is all you need to convincingly pass yourself off at a party as the one time Emperor - you don't actually need to learn to speak fluent French for people to 'get' who you're meant to be and imagination can do the rest. It's a different matter with a singer and on a record though - there's no hiding behind fancy dress here and any Elvis impersonator will stand or fall solely on how much he actually sounds like him.

 

So how good is the guy on this (to these ears anyway it sounds like it's the same person on all the songs)? Well as Elvis impersonators go, and on his voice alone, I'd score him about six out of ten. In terms of singing style, if he were on stage then like as not he'd be more 'fat Elvis' than 'young Elvis' and the song choice largely reflects this by leaning heavily on the his later output (up until 1973 anyway). He's actually quite convincing on the high and low notes, which is why the more lungbusting songs like 'An American Trilogy' and 'The Wonder Of You' work best; there are vocal tics and mannerisms that act as clear handholds to grip on to. His problem lies in everything in-between where the clichés are scarce. Songs like 'His Latest Flame' don't have any obvious 'Presley-isms' to latch on to and so our singer is forced to fall back on what sounds largely like his own voice, and it's a voice that doesn't sound a lot like Elvis.

 

There's no real shame in that I suppose; Presley's vocal is pretty unique and his talent was that he could sing anything in any style and always sound like he meant it. Any other vocalist with the same ability probably wouldn't be found wasting too much of their time recording cheap filler like this. The band backing him up do a more than competent job of reproducing the sound of the originals (right down to a fake 'live' crowd on 'The Wonder Of You'), but as I intimated earlier, a project like this has to stand or fall on the talent of the man in front. And in this case he could be better. Again though, I ask myself the question why anyone would want to listen to a mimic, however good they might be, rather than the real thing. It really is no substitute, even for those on a tight budget.

 

 

*There was a 'Volume One' in the box too, but thinking that buying and reviewing two of these things might be pushing it, I chose 'Volume Two' solely because that girl on the cover reminds me of someone I used to know.And that's as good as reason as any.

A Pub, A Pint And A Song: Kim Cordell - Parlophone 1966

Q magazine once memorably referred to T'Pau's Carol Decker as a 'singing barmaid'. It wasn't meant as a compliment. Which is just as well because Ms Decker didn't take it as one. In fact, she took issue enough to write in and complain. It's not hard to see why - as an insult it works on too many levels to list, yet as a cutting casual observation it's as sharp as it's accurate and, like all the best insults, it contains enough of a grain of recognisable truth to sting its recipient. 

 

It's a comment that came to mind when I picked this up; if anyone deserves the title of 'singing barmaid' then surely it's Ms Cordell. On the evidence of that cover shot she'd have little ground for complaint anyway, though in fact it wouldn't be strictly accurate - Cordell is a pub singer rather than barmaid. Lest anyone be in any doubt about this, I've discovered she's also released an album called 'I Sing In A Pub', which what it lacks in imagination it makes up for in accuracy. You know exactly where you are with Kim Cordell.

 

In spite of all that, I have to own up to the fact that I'd never heard of Cordell before I bought this and that front cover aside, it was the back cover note that really caught my attention. "There are a number of ladies who, because of their voices, talent, personality, style, versatility and comic ability, or a combination of some or all of these qualities, rate very high on my list of favourite entertainers. They include Gracie Fields, Marlene Dietrich, Beatrice Lillie, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Shirley Booth, Pearl Bailey, Zizi Jeanmarie, Barbra Streisand, Libby Morris and Shirley Bassey. I welcome Kim Cordell to their ranks". Well blimey, high praise indeed; the only people missing from that line-up are Maria Callas and Dame Nellie Melba. The author of that puff piece isn't recorded on the cover (and for all I know it could have been Cordell herself), but whoever it was they've given Cordell a lot to live up to and set a very high bar for my expectations. Sadly, and perhaps somewhat predictably, those expectations not met.

 

Ostensibly recorded 'live' in a pub (there's a constant drunken Greek chorus babbling away in the background), 'A Pub, A Pint And A Song' is another medley based affair with Cordell singing the guts out of some three dozen songs. She's certainly game enough; Cordell is a performer in in the vein of a traditional British music hall turn who needed nothing more than a piano and a song to get a packed crowd singing along (though I guess the alcohol helped) and her boom of a voice would project to the back of the busiest pub and demand attention. Unfortunately, it's also a voice that switches eras, genres and continents on a sixpence so as to create and destroy moods at random.

 

What I mean by that is one moment we're surfing a wave on 'California, Here I Come' before hitting the brakes for 'By The Light Of The Silvery Moon' then jumping back to the WW1 era with 'How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm?', then on to Dixieland jazz ('Margie'), ragtime ('Oh, You Beautiful Doll') then back to English music hall ('Give My Regards To Leicester Square'). And so it goes, on and on in the same breathless, breakneck way for song after song over the course of two sides with Cordell adopting either cod American and overly affected cockney accents throughout (with the occasional Irish accent where the song requires it). I don't mind a bit of variety, but in reaching out to every possible demographic who might be in the pub with her, Cordell makes my head spin with her constant change of pace, mood and accent in each of the song fragments she tackles. After a while it loses it's novelty and just gets plain annoying.

 

If you know every single tune on offer then fine I guess, but for those (like me) who don't, then there's nothing more irritating when you're all geed up for a sing song to hear a tune you recognise enough to bellow along to only to have the singer perform a sudden handbrake turn into something you don't just as you're getting going. It's like premature ejaculation in reverse and just as frustrating. That's not Kim's fault per se, and fair play to her she never sounds like she's having anything less than a blast, but that's small consolation when listening to a record that's geared up for audience participation yet falls as flat as week old pop. I would normally say 'I guess you had to be there', and maybe you did. Maybe a few of those titular pints would have helped too, but listening to 'A Pub, A Pint And A Song' at home neither recreates the live experience nor makes me wish I was there in the pub with her. One for Kim's fan club I think.

Big Country Hits: The Country Cousins - Windmill 1972

 "The days when 'country music' was reckoned to be the sound of a guitar, fiddle and 'squeeze box' are over. You don't need to be a square dancing yokel in a straw hat to appreciate the music of the wide open spaces". Says who? Well whoever wrote the bizarre puff piece on the back cover of this record, that’s who. You can see what they’re trying to do – set out an unappealing sounding cliché as the poison and then present this record as the antidote. 

 

If I was resorting to cliché myself then I’d be more inclined to tarnish country music with the wide brush of all being about steel guitars and whiny lyrics. That’s not true either, but then this record doesn’t stint on the former, meaning my own cliché is perpetuated regardless of the erroneous ones they set out  to debunk. There are no whiny lyrics here though; this is more or less an instrumental affair and any human voice is reduced to some occasional, easy listening backing ‘ba ba bas’. Which are a cliché all of their own - alarm bells are ringing already. 

 

Country music rendered into easy listening style is no different to death metal or rap or prog rock (etc.) rendered into easy listening style – that is, it factors out everything that made the original genre unique to leave just the tune behind. True, rap, death metal and the like can be 'tamed' in this way to make them more palatable to the squeamish, but therein lies the problem with the concept behind this record - none of the songs on it needed taming. 'Ode To Billy Jo' (sic), 'By The Time I Get To Phoenix', 'King Of The Road'; these were hardly raucous stompers in their original form and they certainly don't benefit from the greasy string arrangements that Country Cousins pour over them as some kind of inconsequential lowest denominator potion until songs like 'Honey' and  'Gentle On My Mind' are genuinely indistinguishable. Another problem is that most of these songs chosen are all about the lyrics; 'Phoenix', 'Billy Joe', 'Little Green Apples' - all have a story to tell and to listen to and so instrumental versions are about as much use as Hamlet performed as mime.

 

What really takes the cake though is the sheer cheek of four tracks not listed on the front cover. The first two ('Rebel Guitar' and 'Thirty Miles Of Bad Road') I automatically assumed were Duane Eddy covers* and that the other two ('Living The Bad Life' and 'Draggin' The Pick') were just ‘Hits’ that, not being the world's biggest country fan, I’d not heard of myself. But not a bit of it – these are original compositions dressed up to look like standards, they hardly belong under the banner 'Big Country Hits' when in fact they've never in fact been hits anywhere and have no independent existence beyond this record. 

This was presumably done to give someone a nice easy royalties pay day courtesy of the familiarity and goodwill associated with the titles around them that work as so much the bait to draw in the unwary and it neatly sums up the cynical and cheapjack feel of this album. None of the four are in any way memorable and as tunes they only do just enough to allow them to stand alone and actually deserve individual titles, but in their cheap blandness they're much of a muchness and blend in nicely with the cheap blandness that the genuine country standards around them are reduced to, a comment that's meant as a damning indictment of the rest being dragged down to the level of these impostors rather than praise for those 'originals' hitting any heights.  Frankly, this is awful, but I'd like to offer a final word of advice to that miserable looking chap on the cover – don’t wear flip-flops out in the country or around horses mate, you might find your feet caked in the same stuff that would accurately describe this dreadful waste of vinyl, cardboard and paper in a far more succinct way than a written review ever could.

 

* Eddy's hits were, of course, 'Rebel Rouser' and 'Forty Miles Of Bad Road'. Fooled me anyway.