47th... Interior lives

Ladies of the Canyon.

Come Thanksgiving, for some reason I always get a hankering for the music of Joni Mitchell. She just seems suitable to the occasion.

In 1970, Joni Mitchell really came into her own. She'd already won a Grammy for Clouds (only her second album) and was taking the music world by storm on the strength of her songs and her ability to arrange them. Clouds was Joni unaccompanied - Ladies of the Canyon shows her expanding her repetoire; her lyrical subjects pointing ahead to albums such as Blue and For the Roses; musically beginning to experiment with jazz. Joni was getting ambitious, and this album is a perfect balance between the phases of her early career and therefore a recommended starting point.

Each of the 12 songs would make an excellent poem, and some could easily by imagined as short stories. Joni always had a pleasantly "literary" quality which, of course, explains her appeal to me. However, she also had several key musical qualities: her arrangements and her voice, which would play with the words, never singing all the verses in one manner. It's never predictable, listening to her sing.

Morning Morgantown starts things off with genuine charm, though it's almost unbearably twee and precious. "We'll find a table in the shade/and sip our tea and lemonade/and watch the morning on parade/in morning, Morgantown." There's affection and enthusiasm in her style, and it's quite charming.

Things become more dramatic and somber with For Free, a piano ballad and a glimpse of the kind of confessional reportage that came into its own on For the Roses. A singer-songwriter who plays for money sees a man on a street-corner who performs for free. In her ensuing comparison, there are shades of guilt, anger, regret, resignation and sorrow - all the great dramatic emotions underscored with taste and sophistication. And at the end, as the piano fades with her voice, the "one man band" takes over with his clarinet. It is sublime.

Conversation switches back to guitar with some light percussion and more jazz flourishes during the overlong coda (this time on pipes and saxophone). Three characters: a sympathetic waitress, an unhappily married man and his wife. You can tell where that's gonna go, but Joni ignores a conventional story and focuses on the smallest of thoughts and actions. Told through the waitress' view, everything is skewed in shades of gray. The overlapping barbershop harmonies and false cheer of the ending are kind of annoying though.

Ladies of the Canyon (Laurel Canyon, I presume) paints a picture of certain bohemian women who make the place their home. The melody is lovely and the harmonies much nicer this time. Unfortunately, the vision is cloyingly sentimental - the hippie dream for female artisans, which is nice but not especially interesting in the album's context.

Willy is a short and unadorned song for piano. Since she was apparantly in love with Graham Nash at the time, it gets attributed as an ode to him. Whatever the inspiration, it is this track that points toward the style and subject of Blue most clearly. "But you know it's hard to tell/when you're in the spell if it's wrong or if it's real/but you're bound to lose/if you let the blues get you scared to feel/and I feel like I'm just being born." Her voice is so expressive that the point comes across with remarkable subtlety.

The Arrangement starts slowly, piano filling time, waiting close to a minute before Joni starts to tell the latest story. In relatively few lines, her voice cutting through to the essentials, she lays bare the empty, purposeless life of a man who has won the rat race. And what now? she seems to ask. Who cares if you've won? Isn't your life worth more than its setting? Standout, just for conveying so much in under three minutes.

Rainy Night House has lovely piano and some cello, but the melody is unmemorable at best. Dwelling on the simple details of a quiet encounter which I've heard is about Leonard Cohen. I have not confirmed this, but everyone knew everyone back then and she does describe him as "a refugee from a wealthy family" and "a holy man on the F.M. radio," which sounds about right. Unfortunately, the song is done in by its dull melody.

The Priest is much better, returning to guitar and some percussion. This one hearkens back to old balladry; it sounds like something Fairport Convention or Pentangle would have been comfortable playing. A highly dramatic song, though the story is again internalized (most of the songs are) as a woman and a priest sit in an airport bar, talking and observing. Fascinating stuff married to a highly memorable melody.

The only truly sad song is Blue Boy, as a man's depression and a woman's idolizing completely destroy their relationship. It's Joni's expressive singing that makes the song so tragic; she sounds as unhappy as if it happened to her.

So of course, Big Yellow Taxi is compensation to cheer everyone up. It sounds like Joni trying to write a dumb pop song, though she wrote it about the destruction of the environment and how "you don't know what you've got till it's gone." It's a cute joke song, it jives, and that's all. For some reason, it's also a classic Joni Mitchell tune, and its popularity is beyond my understanding.

Woodstock is another classic, but not as she wrote it. Upset over having to miss the festival, she wrote an idealized vision of the event and turned it into a dirge. Amazingly, she utilized keyboards, which add to the strangely haunting sound of the longest track on Ladies of the Canyon. After Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young heard it, they seized the tune to cover and got a hit. And since they had been at the event in question, their rocking version was closer in sound and spirit to what actually went on. Either version: the chorus is dynamite and the song is better than 9/10ths of what played in the Woodstock film. So I think, anyway.

Another classic is the final song, The Circle Game, which has CSN&Y on backups, some say - though the credits say it's the Lookout Mountain United Downstairs Choir (which is so patently ridiculous a name that it's got to be a cover-up for something). The song is much more serious, a clear-eyed observation of a boy growing up, passing through the seasons with a carousel as metaphor for time "until the last revolving year is through." Reminding the listeners of time and mortality at the end of her record...it's a pretty good reminder, if you're at all sensitive to the thought, to immediately be off and doing something worthwhile with the rest of your day.

Ladies of the Canyon is a great album, and if you want an idea what the singer-songwriter genre had to offer in the 60s and 70s, my advice is to postpone the James Taylor and start with a Joni Mitchell recording instead. This one will do nicely. To those who already know the CD, this review functions the way all my other ones do: as a token of appreciation, my online tribute to the fine music of this world.

46th.... "Long distance salvation"

Nebraska.

This is dangerous music. 3 A.M. music. It is among the darkest, most haunting material I've heard, ranking with up there with Berlin and Pink Moon. It is not suited to casual listening - it's stark, makes no compromises and is uncomfortable to hear. It's also shockingly good.

Consider the facts: Bruce Springsteen in 1982 was a major phenomenon, an American rock and roller, a talented songwriter and lyricist, ambitious enough to tackle the "concept album" with Born to Run, and popular enough to be seized by the media as the latest hype.

He also scored major production values. Then along came Nebraska. Bruce had a 4 track cassette recorder and busily made the demos for his next album. He'd play guitar and harmonica, like the Dylan of old, livening it up with organ, mandolin, glockenspiel, tambourine and some well placed Echoplex. The sound was classic American folk, describing and protesting the hardscrabble lives of ordinary working class men, though cast in an almost unrelieved gloom.

Well, Bruce tried to develop the songs with his E Street Band in the studio, but the result just didn't seem right. He re-recorded the songs solo, but that didn't work either. The magic was on the original cassette; so started the hard work of cleaning up the tape and releasing Nebraska on vinyl.

It still sounds like a demo on CD, but don't worry about the sound quality - there's no distracting tape hiss or crackle and if it sounds a little obscure or rough at the edges, that is its glory. It is a demo. The music has nowhere to hide and neither do you.

With a tired out harmonica and exhausted voice, the album starts somber and unhurried. Nebraska is based on the true killer Charles Starkweather, who took his fourteen year old girlfriend with him on a killing spree. Asked why he did it, on his way to the electric chair, he says "I guess there's just a meanness in this world." Glockenspiel carefully steps into play, staying a respectful distance from the mike. It's not meant as a macabre song. It's simply honest.

Atlantic City is the vision of a confused young man watching the violence and chaos of the world and struggling to stay ahead of it, out of it, beyond it. Eventually, however, he can't get by honestly anymore... The pace quickens for this song, and Bruce sings his own backups in harried fashion, flubbing the chorus at the last second, giving a sense of urgency and messiness to proceedings.

Mansion on the Hill is a soft spoken childhood memory of a beautiful house overlooking a small town. But while the children can play in the road and listen to the music from the parties, the mansion's gates remain ever closed. Despite the evocation of class differences, the memory is peaceful rather than bitter and it makes for a necessary interlude.

Johnny 99 is a rarity on Nebraska, a rock song. As the story of a desperately poor man sentenced to 99 years in prison, it calls for immediate comparison with Dylan's protest ballads, against which it can hold its own as an excellent song. Oddly, by repeating a line from Atlantic City: "I had debts that no honest man could pay..." it invites other comparisons as a sequel to or companion piece - proof of how common the situation is.

Highway Patrolman is the story of Joe Roberts, an honest man struggling with the economy and his no-good brother Franky, trying to keep him in line and when he fails, having at last to choose between family and the state.... With quiet dignity, the story is told and it makes an unforgettable highlight.

However, it's why I call Nebraska 3 A.M. music. Its atmosphere is all pervasive in the nighttime and you may find yourself questioning the validity of life to music like this. State Trooper is an echo-laden meditation, driven by one endless, simple rhythm. The power it derives comes from the poetic vision of driving at night and by an almost suicidal fear creeping into the last lines. "Hey, somebody out there/listen to my last prayer/hi ho, silver-o/deliver me from nowhere," before vanishing in a beautiful but lunatic howl....

Used Cars is another childhood memory, far more bitter, as the boy (maybe the same one, who knows?) remembers the humiliation of his father buying a used car, though he "sweats the same job from mornin' to morn." The bitterness seems trivial by itself, but surrounded by the adult cast of Nebraska, this childish resentment is no relief.

Perhaps it all got a bit much for Bruce, since he threw in a rewritten State Trooper as the Chuck Berry car trouble tune Open All Night. The effect is delightful, as imagery from the former song indicate it's the same New Jersey turnpike seen from very different eyes, with plenty of new images to keep things interesting. Instead of howling, it ends with scat singing. Maybe Bruce had a sense of humour. I lifted this review's title from the lyric: "lost souls callin' long distance salvation."

My Father's House takes in a final child perspective, as a nightmare turns to comfort, a real life turns to failure and things which should have been resolved are left undone. It's about as sober and haunting as it sounds.

Reason to Believe seems to be attempting to sum up the album. The characters continue to suffer through their hard lives by futilely finding something to believe in - just to get them through another day. It's a dismal but honest ending that sits just as uncomfortably in the listener's mind as the first song did.

I can't compare Nebraska to any other Bruce Springsteen album, as I haven't heard any. It demands to be heard at night, preferably with lights out. In that way its true companions can be found among such disparate CDs as Berlin and Songs from a Room; The Idiot and The Boatman's Call; not to mention Tom Waits' early works. However, to listen to such songs in their element is to be absorbed in their moods, so proceed with caution. If you're not prepared, you'll be left devestated rather than in catharsis. Naturally, I recommend it highly.

45th... The values of England

Unhalfbricking.

This album is one of the most influential I've ever heard. It (with The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) was my door into folk rock. From the entrancing beauty of this little CD a place was made next to art rock that led me to discover or re-discover such artists as Drake, Mitchell, Cohen and the Thompsons.

In 1969, the album rather marked a tragic turning in the band. Two months prior to release, a car crash killed drummer Martin Lamble (Richard Thompson's girlfriend Jeannie Franklyn also died). While Fairport Convention continued, they dove straight into traditional English folk tunes and left this brief, beautiful era for good.

Besides Lamble, not even 20 years old, the band at the time had Ashley Hutchings on bass; two guitarists/odd instrumentalists, Simon Nichol and Richard Thompson; and Sandy Denny, taking over the lead vocals after the departure of original singer Iain Matthews. It's Sandy who's the star of Unhalfbricking - she invented the nonsense title; it's her parents, Neil and Edna, pictured (in Wimbledon, no less); and it's her coolly restrained yet incredibly warm voice that you'll first notice when you hear the record.

The material is, shall we say, eccentric? Several loopy covers of obscure Dylan tunes, one traditional ballad, two songs each from Sandy and Richard's pens. Somehow they mesh into a beautifully structured, cohesive record where a gentle humour offsets and heightens the grace of the serious songs. And if I was asked what I found so attractive about folk, I would answer twofold: grace and a powerful quietude.

Genesis Hall contains both those elements; a tale of injustice, prejudice and the oppression of the poor. Restraint is evident everywhere, from Richard's lyric, which refuses to exaggerate, to Lamble's drumming, steady and sure, rising to accent the drama without overwhelming it. There have been many self-assured opening tracks on CD. but the only one I can think of to match the somber expressiveness of Genesis Hall is Nick Drake's Time Has Told Me.

Si Tu Dois Partir is one of the most affectionate Dylan covers to grace the list. "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" is sung in French, in a careless harmony. It's like a lovable bunch of partygoers: they laugh, smash the wineglasses, forget the lines and substitute "la la las" and sing together. It's a very peaceful, goodnatured song - heaven knows what it's actually about.

Autopsy is a Sandy Denny original. It begins at a swift tempo, driven along by guitars before slowing down for an extended, jazzy section featuring gorgeous guitar work. Sandy takes up a clinical study of a depressed, perhaps self-involved friend. Compassion is masked under cautionary advice. Vocally, perhaps Sandy's best showcase herein and fascinating to hear on multiple levels.

A Sailor's Life may seem at first too long. The trick to appreciate its length (11 minutes) is to take it as a painting with each note as a stroke of paint. You can hear the prologue, the ship setting out, the waves rolling, the space, Sandy as the tragic heroine of a ballad of near fable-like simplicity, her voice causing chills before she sinks from sight and the sea takes over completely... Unhalfbricking's center, plus, there's great Thompson guitar and it's a one take recording.

Side 2 gets off to a rollicking start with Cajun Woman. Dave Swarbrick guests with spirited fiddle (he also guests for Si Tu and Percy), he'd later join the band proper. Handclaps, slide guitar, "ba-ooms" a-plenty and a fun lyric from Richard. "He grew up in the bayou with a Bible round his neck/and never loved a woman in the way you would expect." These fellows had a sense of humour, and know when to lighten the mood.

Who Knows Where the Time Goes is Sandy Denny's signature song, one she'd been in the habit of performing the past few years, introduced to the world at large by Judy Collins. "Sad deserted shore/your fickle friends are leaving/ah, but then you know/it's time for them to go/but I will still be here/I have no thought of leaving/I do not count the time..." Sandy could do amazing things with covers. but it's in her original material that her voice best shines. A luminous song.

Rounding out the album with Dylan. Percy's Song. Another dramatic prologue, but overall very formalistic, with the verse and chorus endlessly intertwined. A story of outrageous injustice. a man in a car crash sentenced to 99 years in prison for manslaughter. Myself, I've always speculated (superfluously) if the judge presiding didn't lose someone in that crash...

Million Dollar Bash is the last comedy, Dylan's word soup served up in style with Swarbrick on mandolin and a few men in the band chiming in for the raggedy verses. The party from Si Tu Dois Partir in English and a great way to cap off an incredible record.

Fairport's finest, one of my my favorite CDs, and probably in the top five best "folk" albums ever made.