Albums

The Lost Art Of Liner Notes: Buck Owens – Bridge Over Troubled Water (1971, Capitol Records)

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Paul in Albums, Classic Albums | Leave a comment

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Liner notes. They were all the rage back in the day. Sometimes they were a little weird and sometimes a little too enthusiastic about their subject. Sometimes though, they were pretty straightforward, like the notes for Bridge Over Troubled Water, a 1971 collection of songs from Bakersfield country legend Buck Owens. Buck’s just giving you the straight goods on what his album is all about, while also using some creative apostrophe placement in his spelling of “kinda.” While the title track is the main attraction, the real gem is his cover of Donovan’s “Catch The Wind,” seen here in the form of a performance on Owens’ old TV series. Keep an eye on the keyboard/harmonica guy poorly miming his way through the song. And now, Buck would like a minute of your time:

I want to take just a minute of your time to tell you why we’re presenting the songs you’ll hear on this album. Most of them are familiar as what you’d call pop/folk/rock songs. Three were written by Paul Simon (of Simon and Garfunkel), there’s one by Donovan and one by Bob Dylan. And although The Buckaroos and I have been known as Country entertainers, we’ve always liked these particular songs and taken a whole lot of comfort and meaning from them. recently I discovered just why they appealed to me so much – they’re all really Country songs in disguise!

Take Bridge Over Troubled Water. It’s got real nice, simple, meaningful words. And like the other songs here, it’s got a certain longing to it. The same kind of longing that makes a good Country song great. if you take some time to really listen to them, you’ll find a lot of songs in the pop/rock class have that longing, but you really got to sit down and listen to them before you discover that Country heart. As far as that goes, any music, any song that has the right ingredients of simple everydayness can be a Country song – even classical things.

I sure do hope you’re going to like what me and The Buckaroos have done here. The five of us sat down in our studio and gave real, honest Country arrangements to the music. When you hear it presented this way, I think you’re going to agree that these area whole lot of actual Country songs that have been kind’a neglected for too long – just because of their disguises.

Your friend,

Buck Owens

The Lost Art Of Liner Notes: Narvel Felts – Narvel The Marvel (1976, ABC Records)

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Paul in Albums, Classic Albums | Leave a comment

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We continue our examination of the long forgotten art of ridiculously hyped up liner notes with a look at the back cover of Narvel the Marvel, the 1976 album by fabulously named country singer Narvel Felts with liner notes written by the legend herself, Dolly Parton.

Parton’s notes sing the praises of Mr Felts, or perhaps she yells his praises, seeing as how whoever designed the layout for this decided to print the text in all caps. Before I realised it was Dolly writing this, I was hearing it in my head in the voice of David Lynch’s FBI director character Gordon Cole from Twin Peaks (“LAST NIGHT I HAD ANOTHER MONICA BELLUCCI DREAM. MONICA CALLED AND ASKED ME TO WRITE A FEW WORDS ON THE MUSIC OF ONE NARVEL FELTS.”)

Here they are, in all their capitalized glory:

TO LOOK AT HIM YOU WOULD THINK, I’LL BET HE COULD WIN ANY FIGHT HE EVER GOT INTO.

TO KNOW HIM YOU WOULD THINK THE LAST THING HE WOULD WANT TO DO IS FIGHT.

HIS EYES ARE KIND, HIS SMILE QUICK AND GENUINE, HIS VOICE FRIENDLY, AND HIS WORDS, HUMBLE AND SINCERE.

YOU FEEL THE FIRST TIME YOU MEET HIM THAT YOU’VE ALWAYS KNOWN HIM AND THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS WANT TO KNOW HIM.

HE REMINDS YOU OF A BROTHER OR A FAVORITE UNCLE THAT YOU ENJOY BEING WITH BECAUSE YOU LOVE THE WAY THEY ARE. AN ORDINARY MAN WITH ORDINARY WAYS AND AN EXTRAORDINARY TALENT.

HIS NAME IS CALLED, HE HITS THE STAGE TAKING HIS TIME AND TAKING LONG, LANKY STEPS UNTIL HE STANDS BEFORE THE MICROPHONE. HIS HUMBLE ATTITUDE ON STAGE SEEMS TO SAY “WELL, HERE I AM. I SURE HOPE YOU LIKE ME.” AND YOU DO. HIS VOICE IS UNBELIEVABLE, FULL OF EXCITEMENT AND EMOTION, SINCERITY AND SURPRISES.

HE IS UNIQUE. HE IS A STYLIST. HE IS GREAT AND HE IS UNDERRATED.

THE GREATNESS OF HIS STYLE IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED, BUT ONCE YOU EVER LISTEN CLOSE ENOUGH TO ANALYZE IT, YOU THINK THAT IT’S THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE SOUND YOU EVER HEARD. AND YOU EITHER COME TO LOVE IT OR YOU NEVER LEARN TO APPRECIATE IT, BUT WHETHER YOU EVER LEARN TO APPRECIATE IT OR NOT DOESN’T MEAN IT IS ANY LESS GREAT. SOME THINGS ARE JUST TOO DIFFERENT TO BE UNDERSTOOD.

I GUESS YOU KNOW BY NOW THAT I LOVE NARVEL FELTS THE PERSON, AND NARVEL FELTS THE ARTIST. I SAY ARTIST BECAUSE HE TRULY IS. HE HAS MASTERED THE ART OF SINGING AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED.

NOW, ABOUT THIS ALBUM. I ASKED IF I COULD WRITE A FEW WORDS ON THE BACK OF IT WHEN I HEARD THE SONGS THAT WERE TO GO INTO THIS ALBUM. AND EVEN THOUGH MY WORDS HAVE AMOUNTED TO MORE THAN A FEW, I COULD NEVER SAY ALL I WOULD LIKE TO ABOUT NARVEL FELTS, THE CHOICE OF SONGS, AND HIS PERFORMANCE ON THIS ALBUM.

NARVEL IS A MARVEL. SOME BELIEVE IN PETER PAN, BUT I BELIEVE IN NARVEL FELTS.

The Lost Art Of Liner Notes: Billy “Crash” Craddock – Mr. Country Rock (1973, ABC Records)

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Paul in Albums, Classic Albums | Leave a comment

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One of the things that we’ve lost since downloading and streaming took over as our main sources of music is the effort put into the packaging and presentation of music, specifically the effort put into liner notes. A recent crate digging exposition led to the acquisition of some “new” used records and got me to thinking that they just don’t make liner notes like they used to back in the day. Many of the older records of the ’50s,’60s, and ’70s would feature someone (some sort of notable music industry figure, maybe the artist themselves, or perhaps just some random writer looking to make a quick buck) waxing poetic about the contents of the record. Sure, albums today can still feature pretty extensive notes, but they’re of a different nature and as time moves on, these kinds of glowing testimonials have definitely fallen from favour. Too bad – just imagine what could have been if famous “punk” Ivanka Trump had been given the chance to give us her thoughts in the packaging for Nirvana’s In Utero.

With this in mind, we celebrate the glory of the liner note by having a look at the back cover of Mr. Country Rock by Billy “Crash” Craddock. Yes, it’s true – aside from having the nickname “Crash,” Billy Craddock also has the audacity to refer to himself as “Mr. Country Rock,” which is weird. Ain’t it? Gram Parsons should have kicked this guy’s ass for making such a claim.

Behold, the liner notes. I’m not sure who wrote this and I’m not really sure what they’re on about (“Electric sunglasses?” “Hard throbbing dance rhythms?” Psychedelic bumper stickers?), but go ahead and behold:

Ain’t it weird? I mean the way it happens sometimes.

A guy starts out to be a rock ‘n roll star, and they promote him with ads and bumper stickers and electric sunglasses and what not, and then they sit back and wait for the money to roll in.

But the magazines with yesterday’s news start piling up on the table by the visitor’s couch – their yellowing advertisements constant reminders of mistakes the geniuses would rather forget. And the crumbling bumper stickers giving way to shiny psychedelic messages such as “See Ruby Falls” or “America, Love It Or Leave It.” And another promising star-to-be becomes one more might have been.

Then somebody remembers, and somebody believes – and together they work in new directions toward new goals:

Country music – slashing twin fiddles and wailing steel guitars, mixed with the infectious beat of rock – the hard throbbing dance rhythms that exploded rock almost overnight as the pop music of the young and young at heart.

Country rock. A hybrid compound, a style, a formula for success for a might-have-been who made it to the top – and who intends to stay there:

Mr Country-Rock, Billy “Crash” Craddock.

Ain’t it weird?

Album Review: Sun Kil Moon – Universal Themes (2015, Caldo Verde)

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Paul in Albums | Leave a comment

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It’s an age old question: can you separate the artist from their art?

In many cases, we are able to sort of look the other way, ignoring an artist’s behaviour if we like the art enough.  But with a songwriter like Mark Kozelek, whose work has taken on more and more of an autobiographical, confessional tone at the same time that his public persona has become progressively more obnoxious and well, troll-like, is it really that easy to separate him from his work?

Universal Themes, Kozelek’s latest under the Sun Kil Moon moniker was just released this week, but that’s not the big story surrounding Sun Kil Moon. Instead, we’re facing yet another story about Kozelek’s bad behaviour, yet another thing that makes it hard to like the guy. But I’ll try to set all of that aside and just focus on the album, specifically the question of whether Kozelek’s music is worth putting up with his increasingly crusty public persona. The answer is yes and no. Probably mostly no.

The album is a bit of a hit and miss affair, reaching some impressive heights at it’s best moments (see “With a Sort of Grace I Walked to the Bathroom to Cry”) but it doesn’t always hit the mark. Case in point: opener “The Possum,” which almost sounds like a parody of a Mark Kozelek song with it’s rambling story of going to a Godflesh show and some spoken word stuff at the end which comes off a tad hokey. Yet later in the album, the spoken word segment on “Garden Of Lavender,” with it’s mentions of Shepherd’s Bush, the Westfield Mall, and Neil Halstead comes across as rather charming and stands up there with some of the best of Kozelek’s recent turn to slice of life style songwriting.

Ultimately, Universal Themes is a decent album, though it pales in comparison to Benji or some of his past works, and frankly, even the best album he’s ever written wouldn’t really excuse his increasingly tiresome misanthropy. It’s fitting in a way that the album cover depicts a payphone because, just like that medium of communication, Kozelek sometimes seems on the verge of making himself somewhat obsolete. Sorry, Mark, I guess I’m more like those guys you sang about  in “Cry Me a River Williamsburg Sleeve Tattoo Blues:”

“It’s 2012 but I like the ones from 1992.”

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