and came home with a hefty stack...it was maybe $65 worth of stuff, but it's hard to put a dollar amount on music...and there were some gems here. The stack pictured contains:Norma Jean, Let's Go All The Way (RCA, 1964) - Even more than Loretta Lynn, Connie Smith, Patsy Cline, or Jean Shepard, Norma Jean is my favorite hard-country female vocalist. She didn't write, so maybe she's not quite in the same league as Loretta or Dolly, but she was fearless in her choice of material. Also, she liked provocative album titles (like this one, I Guess That Comes From Being Poor, and the amazing Another Man Loved Me Last Night). I've already spun this, and it's great stuff -- potent and unflinching, and nicely (under) produced. ($3.99)
Bobby Short, Bobby Short Loves Cole Porter, (Atlantic, 1971) - I love Bobby Short...not really jazz, although he's a formidable pianist (he accompanies himself here). More of a cabaret songster, with a vivacious, unchecked gusto and elegant swagger. He played for years at the Cafe Carlyle in New York...I think my parents saw him there years ago and brought me back a great CD of him playing a set there. I haven't listened to this yet, but I can't wait. I love Cole Porter, but a lot of his interpreters tend to be too polite or sensual. I bet Short makes this stuff come alive...also, lots of relatively obscure Porter tunes I don't know yet. ($3.99, 2lps)
Whitey and Hogan with the Briarhoppers, Early Radio (Old Homestead, rec. 1939-1951) - I heard Whitey and Hogan on Rounder Records' wonderful Early Days of Bluegrass series, and wanted to hear more. Great rattling stringband, old-tyme country, gospel, and bluegrass...I haven't listened to this yet, but am about to put it on. ($3.99)
Nils Lofgren, Back It Up!! Nils Lofgren Live, An Authorized Bootleg (A&M, 1975) - I actually had this on CD, but it's rare that you see an original pressing of this legendary disk. Basically it's a promo-only live LP that was actually better than the live album Nils eventually issued. Only nine tracks, some with extended guitar workouts that are actually exciting (I'm not usually a big guitar shredding fan)...Nils' self-titled solo album is one of my favorite pop records of the seventies, marked with equal parts flash and vulnerability. This live set has five tracks from that great disk, delivered raucously by a tight but rollicking band. Very cool to have the original pressing, whose artwork has not been reproduced in either of the two CD pressings. Good price, too -- I've seen it for 20 or 30 bucks...($9.99)
Various Artists, Steel Guitar Express (Pedal Steel Guitar Products, 1978) - I love records by sidemen and session musicians...I recently spent quite some time flipping through such projects at Ernest Tubbs' record shop in Nashville. This is a cool compilation featuring 14 top pedal steel guitar players on instrumentals of their choosing...these tracks are actually drawn mostly from solo albums by these guys, so I'm sure once I listen to it, I'll have a laundry list of albums I'll want to check out! Featured players include Jerry Byrd, Lloyd Green, Buddy Emmons, Red Rhodes, and lots more. I'll probably want to take my steel out of the case once I hear this, too...($6.99)
Jean Shepard and Ray Pillow, I'll Take The Dog (Capital, 1966) - I fell hard for the Country Music Foundation's wonderful Jean Shepard compilation Honky Tonk Heroine, and I love good country duet singing, so I figured this would be worth a few bucks. Unfortunately, it's mostly pretty drab stuff...a lot of corn, not a lot of great dark stuff. A little, but not enough. Shepard is typically great. The unknown (to me) Pillow is adequate...($3.99)
Hank Williams, Jr., Live at Cobo Hall Detroit (MGM, 1969) - I was curious about Bocephus's pre-Southern Rock years...in Georgia, where I grew up, it was a law that you needed to have a copy of his Greatest Hits III within 20 feet at all times -- which is fine, because his boisterous, rebel-rousing country-rock hits have aged surprisingly well and are a lot of fun. I wasn't prepared for this disk, where he really emerges as a great hard country singer in the tradition of his daddy. Covers of Hank Sr. are heavy hear, taking five of the eleven tracks...from there, he does one great original ("Standing in the Shadows"), covers of George Jones and Flatt and Scruggs, and even Joe South's "Games People Play." All in front of a rowdy crowd in the same room that Seger cut Live Bullet. Really enjoyable. ($2.99)
Bill Keith and Jim Rooney, Bluegrass: Livin' on the Mountain (Prestige Folklore, 1963) - Great price on this gem, which has seen only some of its tracks reissued on CD. Keith and Rooney, along with the Lily Brothers, Don Stover, and the Charles River Valley Boys, brought bluegrass to Boston. Here Keith (banjo, autoharp, guitar) and Rooney (vocals, guitar) are backed by the Charles River Valley Boys, and really deliver some great stuff -- even if they are yankees! Keith's revolutionary banjo technique is already in full blossom (he joined Bill Monroe not long after recording this album), and Rooney is a soulful frontman. Joe Val takes some high-wire leads too. Great price on this rare original vinyl. ($9.99)
We Five, You Were On My Mind (A&M, 1966) - The title track is really one of the great one-hit wonders of a decade filled with them -- the sputtering drums, bellowing vocals, jangley guitars...I've always loved it. The LP is god-awful, filled with showtunes and standards ("Somewhere Beyond the Sea," "Can't Help Falling In Love," "I Got Plenty O' Nuttin'") reimagined as bad parlour-folk. Just lousy...at least it has the title track. ($3.99)
George Melly and the Feetwarmers, Son of Nuts (Warner Brothers, 1973) - Wow...one of the big finds of this trip, this UK-only release (how did it get to the northeast US ? why is it in such great shape) features the legendary author, critic, and singer Melly in a raucous club setting backed by an able jazz combo. Melly is an outsized character -- flamboyantly bi-sexual (he tackles Bessie Smith's "I Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl," for cripes' sake!), he is as much a raconteur as a singer, though his pitch and phrasing are wonderful to behold. Fun, bawdy, dangerous stuff. Only listened to it once, but it will be played again. I may even get the CD, which pairs it with its prequel, Nuts. ($3.99)
John Abercrombie, Characters (ECM, 1978) - My affection for ECM has been written about in this blog before. Abercrombie's subtle, languid playing has always fascinated me. You know he has an amazing harmonic and technical vocabulary, and yet he holds back...there's something thrilling about that. I usually love to hear him with a volatile rhythm section (like with Jack DeJohnette or Adam Nussbaum on drums), where his subtleties are woven into a skittery framework. Here, he is solo...which should prove interesting. I only listened to the first track, which was about 10 minutes long and started with some cool twitchy electric before an acoustic rhythm guitar came in and underpinned a careful, probing improvisation that had a strangely compositional feel (maybe it wasn't improvised). Not as interesting to me as his band stuff, but I will return to this. ($1.99)
An Evening With Johnny Mercer, Alan Jay Lerner, and Sammy Cahn, Singing Their Own Songs (Book of the Month Records, rec. 1971-1972) - Bingo...the big score of the trip. I love hearing Broadway and Great American Songbook composers sing their own song. Since most of them (Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael excepted) were not natural performers, they tend to bring an introspective, personal quality and obliterate much of the showbiz pizazz that tends to keep me from connecting to their brilliant songs. This three-LP boxed set (with book of photos and liner notes) is drawn from a series called Lyrics and Lyricists, which was held at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, and featuring lyricists singing their own songs, receiving occasional help from trained Broadway singers. Some of the Lyrics and Lyricist evenings (including these three and ones with Dorothy Fields and Yip Harburg) have been released on CD, but they are now hard to come by and expensive...so it was nice to find this. Mercer is the picture of southern elegance and charm. Cahn is warm and modest. Lerner is a scream -- funny, sly, a bit full of himself in an engaging way. His night is my favorite...Mercer was known as a singer, but Cahn and Lerner weren't, but they come off rather well -- Cahn is light and humane, Lerner blustery and forceful. Wonderful stuff... ($8.99)
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