Music and Recording Reviews

David Bowie: Rock'n'Roll Star
RCA DBRNRS72 (5CD 1Blu-ray, Book). 2024. Various prods., engs.
Performance *****
Sonics ***½

"Turn and face the strange," Bowie sung on "Changes," which is applicable to this box set, capturing as it does his transition from the folky hippy of Hunky Dory to glam icon Ziggy. As is typically the case with this type of release, this deluxe package is a cross between an archaeological dig and an evolutionary tree. In time, some of the songs would change substantially, such as "So Long 60s," re-emerging as "Moonage Daydream." Bowie was experimenting, to the extent of setting up the band Arnold Corns as a protype Spiders from Mars. Songs are tried and dumped, not to be included in Ziggy (such as "Sweet Head," "It's Gonna Rain Again," and "Looking for a Friend"). These are good, quality songs just in need of some fine-tuning; it's fun to think what might have been. Those which did appear are here in radically different versions, a stand-out being "Lady Stardust" with only Bowie on vocals and piano.

Completists will relish the journey, but, despite some repetitiveness, there's enough here for others to enjoy. "Soul Love" benefits greatly from the stripped-down approach, and it is fascinating to hear Bowie's instructions to Mick Ronson at its end. "I Can't Explain" is far superior to the Pin Ups version, and "White Light/White Heat" from John Peel's sessions simply blasts off, Mick Ronson tearing it up.

With recordings taken from hotel rooms, demos, radio, and live sessions, sometimes in mono, sometimes in stereo, sonically Rock'n'Roll Star is basic. But here it is cleaned up without making it sound artificially polished. If the purpose is to show the music as truthfully as possible, it succeeds, for this is history, as illustrated by a wonderfully detailed accompanying book. The third CD finishes with "Starman" from the July 6, 1972, BBC Top of the Pops program, which influenced a whole generation of British musicians and made David Bowie a rock'n'roll star.—Phil Brett

Joe Walsh: The Smoker You Drink, the Player You Get
Analogue Productions, APP 108-45 (2 LPs, 45rpm). 2024. Walsh, Bill Szymczyk, prods.; Szymczyk, Ronnie Alpert, Howie Alpert, Mike Stone, Al Blazek, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****½

After the James Gang and before the Eagles, guitarist/songwriter frontman Joe Walsh began his solo career in earnest. After a move to Colorado, Walsh recorded Barnstorm, which showed for the first time a much broader palette of interests than the Gang's power-trio boogie.

Here, on his second solo record, released a year after Barnstorm, he stretches out even further. Opening with the hit single "Rocky Mountain Way," where he uses a talk box and endears himself to Coloradoans forever, Walsh showed how his rock/pop meldings could be catchy and uniquely creative in the same moment. In "Wolf," Walsh ventures into the kind of moody, almost spooky ballad, with lots of reverb on his guitar, that attracted The Eagles. "Midnight Moodies" ventures even further out. A pop instrumental, it centers on an echoed guitar solo and a flute solo by drummer Joe Vitale.

The album also contains a trio of all-star guest performers: percussionist Joe Lala and backup singers Venetta Fields and Clydie King. The bouncy Caribbean island number "Happy Ways" opens with a bass intro from Kenny Passarelli, who also wrote it and sings lead vocals. "Meadows," with a great mix that spotlights Vitale's drums and cymbals, is another example of Walsh-as-songwriter's surprisingly melodic side, though he's lyrically weak relying on suggestive, bland rhymes: "Can't help but feel uncertain/Knowing which way to turn/They want to raise the curtain/And you're holdin' the words to learn." As always, the pressing quality of this QRP product is exemplary. Cut from original analog tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio, the bass response is noticeably improved. The 45rpm cuts mean changing sides more frequently, but the sharper detail and expanded soundstage make it worth the effort.—Robert Baird

Richard Thompson: Ship to Shore
NW 5802 (LP). 2024. Thompson, prod.; Chris Bittner, eng.
Performance ***
Sonics ****

Apparently, Richard Thompson's difficult life is not getting easier, but then you get the feeling he likes it that way. On this, his 18th solo album—many years removed from his days in Fairport Convention and his landmark records with ex-wife Linda—the lover of gloom is still singing about romantic disappointments, tragic vulnerability, and the painful struggles of human experience.

The first track, "Freeze," opens grimly: "Another day without hope/Without a hope, without a scheme/Another day that finds you crawling on your knees." The mood rarely lightens. With his voice in fine form, Thompson celebrates a tough broad in "Singapore Sadie," whose "love is a mystical thing" and who inspires lyrically inventive envy: "That's why the tongues wag in the gob of each hag/Deficient in beauty or brain." In such a context, "Trust" is not a happy affirmation of human potential, leaning instead into dark worry: "But their minds were wheels in wheels/To suck my blood, live off the fat of me."

Accurately recorded by Chris Bittner at Applehead Studio in Woodstock, New York, this collection features a band consisting of drummer Michael Jerome, bassist Taras Prodaniuk, and guitarist Bobby Eichorn. What's missing are the captivating melodic turns that have animated Thompson's rewarding career.

Thompson's pessimism reaches its lowest point in "Old Pack Mule," where a dead mule is carved up: "Oh, it's hard times and hungry times, there's nothing left to eat/I'd stab my neighbor in the back for a little bit of meat." After a pair of compact tragedies in which women leave him—"Turnstile Casanova" and its follow-up, "Lost in the Crowd"—finally a brighter passion for something infinitely more positive in "Maybe," where his solo is the album's most inspired and he yearns for an ideal, "Eyes like diamonds, teeth like pearls/A jeweller's dream, a gem of a girl."—Robert Baird

Fantastic Cat: Now That's What I Call Fantastic Cat
Missing Piece Records (auditioned as CD). 2024. Béla Fleck, prod.; Don DeLego, Merle Chornuk, Ben Talmi, Ken Hemlinger, Fred Kevorkian, engs.
Performance *****
Sonics *****

"They said it couldn't be done" reads an introductory blurb on Fantastic Cat's Bandcamp page. "Four different songwriters joining forces to form a single band? There was simply no precedent (outside of CSNY, The Beatles, The Traveling Wilburys ...)." This band is funny.

A follow-up to the Cats' ironically named debut album, The Very Best of Fantastic Cat, Fantastic Cat has more going for it than a sense of humor, including four talented, instrument-swapping singer/songwriters. Lead singers Brian Dunne, Anthony D'Amato, Don DiLego (who played with Jesse Malin), and Mike Montali (frontman for the band Hollis Brown)—joined here by Adam Duritz of Counting Crows, yet another singer-songwriter—have made a record that is fast and fresh, with depth and plenty of energy. The core four plus Duritz are rounded out by two drummers, woodwinds, horns, pedal steel, and a pair of accordions. The genre is 1970s-style pub rock, with, as other reviewers have noted, a resemblance to Rockpile, Nick Lowe, and the aforementioned Traveling Wilburys (who had no fewer than five lead vocalists, not four).

The opener, "Oh Man," is reminiscent of DiLego's work with Malin, an acoustic guitar–driven barnburner that sails along with call and responses accompanied by many hand claps—a perfect song to kick off a record. Other standouts include the soulful strut "Edinburgh," which moves with a kind of boot-click sassiness, confident and smart. All of it, in fact, is light, clever, smart, and fun.

No one was confident that Fantastic Cat's debut would lead to a sophomore record—note the first album's title—but now that it's here, it seems inevitable that the band's creativity will lead to more musical moments that will inspire you to call these cats "fantastic."—Ray Chelstowski

Robert Hunter: Tales of the Great Rum Runners (Deluxe Edition)
Rhino Records (auditioned as 2 LPs). 2024. Barry Melton, Mickey Hart, Jason Jones, prods.; Bob Matthews, Dan Healy, Steve Brandon, Jerry Garcia, David Glasser, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics *****

Rhino has launched a career-spanning archival series honoring Robert Hunter's work as a solo artist with this reissue of his 1974 debut, Tales of the Great Rum Runners. This Deluxe Edition introduces a freshly remastered version of the original album alongside 16 previously unreleased recordings, including alternate versions and several session outtakes. All the music has been remastered, from the original master tapes, by engineer David Glasser using Plangent Processes; Glasser remastered recent reissues of Terrapin Station and In the Dark. The sound that resulted is earthy and warm.

Recording at Mickey Hart's converted barn studio in Novato, California, Hunter was assisted by a revolving cast of Bay Area musicians, many associated with the Grateful Dead—Jerry Garcia, Keith and Donna Jean Godchaux, Mickey Hart—as well as guitarist Barry Melton (Country Joe & The Fish), bassist David Freiberg (Quicksilver Messenger Service/Jefferson Starship), and pedal steel guitarist Buddy Cage (New Riders of the Purple Sage). Released in spring 1974, the album introduced several staples of Hunter's live repertoire including "Boys in the Barroom," "Rum Runners," and "It Must Have Been the Roses."

The bonus tracks offer insight into the album's evolution; they include alternate takes of six songs that made the album (including "Keys to the Rain" and "It Must Have Been the Roses") plus 10 that didn't. This music is aligned with the kind of cosmic sensibility Hunter developed with the Dead on albums like American Beauty. By the time this record arrived, the Dead had already begun to focus on making studio records that were sleek and shiny, far removed from barn studios with wall tapestries and tie-dyes. This is a final look back at that incredible chemistry.—Ray Chelstowski

The Fabulous Thunderbirds: Struck Down
Stony Plain Records (auditioned as CD). 2024. Kim Wilson, Steve Strongman, Glen Parrish, prods.; Tom Askin, Dan Meyer, others, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics *****

The Fabulous Thunderbirds are back with their first studio record in eight years.

Struck Down is a creative collaboration between T-Birds lead singer and founding member Kim Wilson and Canadian blues guitarist Steve Strongman, formerly of the band Plasticine. Together, Wilson and Strongman wrote nine of the album's 10 tracks.

With the T-Birds (Johnny Moeller, Bob Welsh, Rudy Albin, and Steve Kirsty) behind them, the record sizzles. It sizzles even more when such guests as Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top) and Elvin Bishop (Paul Butterfield Blues Band; Elvin Bishop Group) join in. Everything comes together on the record's only cover, a rendition of Memphis Minnie's "Nothing in Rambling." On that track, Keb Mo, Bonnie Raitt, and Taj Mahal trade lead vocals with easy, smoky soul. It's an acoustic blues shuffle with Mick Fleetwood on drums providing just the right feel; how could it not work?

Two things stand out. First are the steady, strong vocals Wilson brings to every track. His voice has lost none of its power or purpose. With his Detroit roots, he has always had a foot in late-1960s Motown sounds, as when Dennis Edwards was fronting the Temptations on, eg, "Cloud Nine."

Wilson remains one of the most formidable voices in the genre, and while the T-Birds were already blessed with great guitarists, this album benefits from having Strongman's signature solo sound on top of each track; it's similar to the impact Anson Funderburgh had on Delbert McClinton's 1990 breakthrough record I'm With You. His licks are dazzling and fluid.

Like most modern blues, the lyrics on Struck Down can be derivative and they sometimes miss the landing. Still, Struck Down is a great way to celebrate this band's 50th year.—Ray Chelstowski

Oliver Wood: Fat Cat Silhouette
Honey Jar Records/Indirecto Records (auditioned as LP). 2024. Jano Rix, prod.; Brook Sutton, Eric Conn, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics *****

Oliver Wood's unique voice sits at the center of Fat Cat Silhouette, his new solo record, much as it sits at the center of the whole Wood Brothers catalog.

This new record, though, is a departure from Oliver's day band's southern country funk, moving more toward daring and committed innovation.

"I wanted to get outside my box and embrace the uncertainty of what's out there," Wood explained. "I wanted weird guitar tones. I wanted more percussion and less drums." The result is a record that is infinitely cool, with great color and mood and shifts and turns that at times seem impulsive but that always work perfectly, as if they were part of a careful, perfect plan.

In addition to core band members Jano Rix (who is mainly responsible for all that percussion, with an assist from Rob Crawford on one track) and bassist Ted Pecchio, the nine-song collection features songwriting partners Seth Walker, Sean McConnell, and Ric Robertson, and guest performances from several other well-known musicians.

The second single, "Yo I Surrender," is syncopated roots-music minimalism and a NOLA party filled with funk. Los Lobos' Steve Berlin, on baritone sax, punches the song forward with a backbeat (get it?) that will make you smile. It's spare, bare bones in many ways, but it presents enough substance to dig deeply into its magic resides in a sort of complex simplicity. That kind of beauty is evident on every track, especially the duet with Katie Pruitt, "Have You No Shame."

The record's sparse arrangements sit somewhere between The Band's best Rick Danko tracks and late 1980s Tom Waits. It's acoustically driven, with electric guitar parts that bind everything together with low grit and a measure of grace. Fat Cat Silhouette isn't for everyone, but no one can deny its off beat charm.—Ray Chelstowski