The artist formerly known as Cat Stevens tips his hat to his influences with bluesy originals and covers of R & B standards. Source: Supplied
THIS week’s album reviews from The Courier-Mail (ratings out of five stars) ...
ROCK
YUSUF
Tell ’Em I’m Gone (Sony)
***1/2
YOU could hardly grow up in the music crucible of London in the ’60s without feeling the impact of folk, blues and R & B.
Especially if there was a record shop across the road from the family cafe specialising in jazz and blues where a young guitarist could discover the music of Leadbelly and many others.
The influence of that kind of music was everywhere, from the jukeboxes and folk clubs to bands like The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds. Like almost everyone around him with a guitar and a record player, the artist soon to be known to the world as Cat Stevens was tuning in.
In his late-career guise as Yusuf, he tips his hat to those influences here, from bluesy originals like Editing Floor Blues, about the perils of dealing with the press, to covers of R & B standards from the likes of Jimmy Reed and Ray Charles. It is the same world he entered in the ’70s with his cover of Sam Cooke’s Another Saturday Night.
Stevens had his first shot at the title as the mod-suited ’60s teenager with hits like Matthew and Son and The First Cut is the Deepest. It’s rare for a songwriter to survive that and reinvent themselves for a wider audience, as Stevens did in the ’70s. And rarer still to retreat from music for close to 30 years, as Stevens did on his conversion to Islam, then pick up where he left off, voice and fan base still intact.
This is Yusuf’s third studio album since his return to music and his most eclectic, although the tracks that stick closest to his folk-rock style as a ’70s singer-songwriter work best.
Yusuf singing Reed’s Big Boss Man, complete with Charlie Musselwhite on harmonica, might seem incongruous to fans of the Tea For the Tillerman/Teaser and the Firecat era, but it is delivered with assurance.
Producer Rick Rubin (Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond) is on board for half the tracks, and Paul Samwell-Smith, producer of Stevens’s biggest ’70s hits, mixes the results. Rubin’s methodology is applied throughout, playing live, as few takes as possible, minimal sweetening or overdubs.
Among the successes is the original I Was Raised in Babylon, a minor-key folk blues of the kind Stevens might have played when making his start in the London folk clubs in ’63, here with Yusuf and English folk-rock legend Richard Thompson on acoustic guitars. Of the four covers, two aren’t really folk-blues at all. The Devil Came from Kansas is a Procol Harum song from their 1969 album A Salty Dog. The lyrics, which deal with spiritual matters and the pressures of art vs. commerce, still feel current.
The same can be said of the pick of the bunch, a piano ballad rendition of Dying To Live, written by Johnny Winter’s brother Edgar (from 1971 album Edgar Winter’s White Trash). This version shows how well Yusuf’s voice has weathered. This is a spectacular vocal performance that underlines why Stevens was a hit-maker in two distinct phases and why so many people still care about his music.
No matter what he’s singing about, it’s the kind of voice that just makes a lot of people feel good. Still does.
Noel Mengel
Tarita Botsman - Twilight Fancies
CLASSICAL
TARITA BOTSMAN & GLENN AMER
Treasures (Cre8ion)
***1/2
AUSTRALIAN artists, soprano Tarita Botsman and pianist Glenn Amer, bring a wealth of performance experience in opera and popular modes to this debut CD featuring Edwardian parlour songs of love, loss and heartache, mainly from England and Italy. Botsman’s career began in opera and she has also found fame as founder-director of the Seven Sopranos. Amer, a conductor, accompanist, operatic vocal coach and solo performer, is a dream partner, creating firm, balanced instrumental support in sync with the voice in these gems of yesteryear, neglected perhaps but not forgot. With impeccable diction, Botsman captures the individual emotion and charm of each song, from Four Indian Love Lyrics by Amy Woodforde-Finden, Pleading (Elgar), golden oldies such as Dvorak’s Songs My Mother Taught Me, Three Arias of Bellini and the jolly swagger of Donizetti’s Me Voglio fa’na Casa, among many. They top their eclectic array with Nellie Melba’s star turn, Paolo Tosti’s Goodbye.
Patricia Kelly
Mr Big - I Forget to Breathe
ROCK
MR. BIG
... The Stories We Could Tell (Frontiers)
***1/2
BETWEEN their 1992 breakthrough hit To Be With You and their more recent live and unplugged set, it’s easy to forget Mr Big are normally a fully electric hard rock outfit. This, their eighth studio release and only their second in 13 years, re-establishes those plugged-in credentials with suitably big melodies, harmonies and guitar riffs. They channel The Black Crowes in bluesy numbers I Forget to Breathe, What If We Were New and It’s Always About That Girl, and lead singer Eric Martin even has a similar smoky drawl to the Crowes’ Chris Robinson. His vocal cords and their string section shine through on the sedate ballad The Man Who Has Everything, which echoes the aforementioned megahit, and Just Let Your Heart Decide. There’s more hard stuff with the pounding The Light of Day, and the heavy guitar of The Monster in Me: “You got the shake and bake that takes me to the other side.” And they straddle the hard and soft approaches on the strummy standout Eastwest with its harmonies and guitar solos.
John O’Brien
FOLK ROCK
MARIACHI EL BRONX
Mariachi El Bronx III (Cooking Vinyl)
****1/2
LOS Angeles hardcore punk band The Bronx have once again turned it down from 11 and swapped their guitars for guitarróns for their third outing as Mexican folk-influenced alter egos Mariachi El Bronx and it’s arguably their most-accomplished effort to date. Upbeat opening track New Beat instantly sets the tone, with trumpet accompaniment, percussion and melodic vocals from singer Matt Caughtran. The tempo drops a little for Wildfires, but with its earnest lyrics and violin-and-horn-infused chorus it is one of the standouts, and the “echo all your faith in God” refrain that underpins Sticks and Stones makes it the album’s most-striking track. High Tide is another highlight, and elsewhere the restrained Nothing’s Changed and Eternal offer the most-reflective moments, while the harp-peppered Raise the Dead and summery Try Everything Twice provide another mood lift. MEB III is further proof The Bronx are equally adept at doing soft and subdued as they are at playing loud and abrasive.
Daniel Johnson
Riptides - 77 Sunset Strip (original)
ROCK
THE RIPTIDES
Tombs of Gold (Independent)
****
THINGS could not have been rosier for Brisbane’s The Riptides when they moved to Sydney in 1980 after two classic indie releases, Sunset Strip and Tomorrow’s Tears. Signing to a record label stalled the momentum despite the strong following as a live attraction. Here is the great debut album they should have released while the iron was still white hot. At this point songwriter Mark Callaghan and drummer Dennis Cantwell were joined by Andrew Leitch on guitar and keys and bassist Michael Hiron, and they had a solid collection of pop-rock tunes, from rockers like Only Time to the frantic Eternal Flame, the sublime Day Has Gone and a re-recorded Sunset Strip. By the time they were ready to release some of these tunes the lineup folded, leaving Callaghan and Hiron to carry on. Who knows what the reaction might have been if these tracks had seen light of day because the songs still sparkle. A new remix shows the band sounding bigger and brighter than any previous CD release. Tombs of Gold captures the fun and energy of Riptides gigs at a time they were really flying.
Noel Mengel
ROCK
PINK FLOYD
The Endless River (Sony)
***
IF YOU know the sound of Pink Floyd at the time of their previous album The Division Bell, released in 1994, you know exactly what to expect here: the slowly evolving liquid architecture with the unmistakable sound of Dave Gilmour’s lead guitar and Rick Wright’s hovering keyboard chords. These tracks were originally recorded at the time of The Division Bell, and with Wright’s death in 2008 there will be no more new Floyd music. This is an interesting enough arty-rock album, with short instrumental pieces alluding to the band post Syd Barrett and pre-Dark Side, with tracks like Skins allowing room for Nick Mason’s mega tribal drums and the big church organ on Autumn ’68. If you admire albums like Meddle, there is something for you here. Tantalisingly, the band does have something to say on that vocal track, Louder Than Words: it refers to their place in music and the fracture with Waters. Plenty of other tracks could have been developed with vocals too, but it was not to be. Here is the sound of Pink Floyd, one last time, saying that it’s OK to let go.
Noel Mengel
LISTEN TO THE BENNIES’ ‘HEAVY DISCO’ EP HERE
ROCK
THE BENNIES
Heavy Disco EP (Poison City)
****
FRESH from wowing crowds on their recent US tour and attracting new converts at home with their support slot on the current tour by Los Angeles punk stalwarts NOFX, Melbourne’s self-described “psychedelic reggae ska doom metal punk rock” band The Bennies are back with a new EP, a follow-up to last year’s Rainbows in Space album. The title track that kicks off the five tracks is a fairly straightforward rocker dedicated to hedonism, with a “life ain’t a dance it’s a heavy disco” chorus and synthesisers reminiscent of Unit-era Regurgitator, while the equally synth-soaked Stay Free is a foot-tapping ska number. Party Whirlwind continues the ska-tinged flavour but adds horns to the mix, and despite its confrontational title, What’s Your F-----‘ Problem!, which namechecks Operation Ivy’s Room Without a Window, is more of a plea for peace than a call to arms. The band go out on a high note with the hip-hop-flavoured Green Mix City. Ska revival still might not be “cool” but thankfully nobody has bothered to tell The Bennies. Available now digitally and on
7-inch vinyl in January.
Daniel Johnson
