Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 31, 1981: Difference between revisions
(start page) |
(fix OCR error) |
||
| (2 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 5: | Line 5: | ||
{{:US publications by state index}} | {{:US publications by state index}} | ||
{{Bibliography article header}} | {{Bibliography article header}} | ||
<center><h3> Elvis Costello has | <center><h3> Elvis Costello has changed his tune </h3></center> | ||
---- | ---- | ||
<center> Bill King </center> | <center> Bill King </center> | ||
| Line 30: | Line 30: | ||
The British rockers take to the country material with surprising ease. Neive, in particular, has a remarkable feel for the music and his rippling honky-tonk piano. dominates the instrumental backing even on numbers featuring McFee. | The British rockers take to the country material with surprising ease. Neive, in particular, has a remarkable feel for the music and his rippling honky-tonk piano. dominates the instrumental backing even on numbers featuring McFee. | ||
The whole album — none of it original material | The whole album — none of it original material — is generally pretty good, but three songs stand out as really excellent: "Sweet Dreams" is a slow tune featuring, for once, a Costello vocal that is completely understandable. | ||
"Success," a mid-tempo crying-in-my-beer song, has Costello singing such lines as ''"Success has made a failure of our home"'' in a very suitable, half-cracked voice. And "A Good Year For The Roses," already a single in Britain, has a fine vocal backed by some nice pedal steel and a chorus called the Nashville Edition. | "Success," a mid-tempo crying-in-my-beer song, has Costello singing such lines as ''"Success has made a failure of our home"'' in a very suitable, half-cracked voice. And "A Good Year For The Roses," already a single in Britain, has a fine vocal backed by some nice pedal steel and a chorus called the Nashville Edition. | ||
| Line 42: | Line 42: | ||
It could be that Costello's gamble will backfire and his rock fans won't take to the country material while country fans still will be put off by the British accent and New Wave image. If so, both sides will be missing a rather unique album that deserves to be heard. | It could be that Costello's gamble will backfire and his rock fans won't take to the country material while country fans still will be put off by the British accent and New Wave image. If so, both sides will be missing a rather unique album that deserves to be heard. | ||
<!-- Miss Simon's album "Torch" (Warner Bros. BSK 3592), on the other hand, probably will get a wider audience' - at least at first detpite the fact it is not as successful an undertaking as Costello's. "Torch" is well-named, because the album is a collection of those smoky heartbreak pop ballads known collectively as "torch songs," You don't really notice how different the demands of pop standards and rock songs are on a vocalist until you hear a performer who's known for one do the other. It's not an easy transition. Linda Ronstadt scrapped her album of early jazz standards because she felt her vocals weten't up to par. Miss Simon's vocals don't always hit the mark either, but since she's not as big a star as Miss Ronstadt and her last several albums have been disappointments, she has less to lose. The arrangements of the 11 ballads in-cluded here are generally understated, with pianist Warren Bernhardt, guitarist Hugh McCracken (a veteran of many rock LPs) and other session musicians backed by an orches-tra. The album, packaged in a torchy cover featuring a view of Miss Simon's abundant cleavage, opens with "Blue of Blue," a song she co-wrote. It's notable only for David Sanborn's alto sax solo. Miss Simon had a hand in two other tunes on the LP: "From the Heart" and "What Shall We Do With Thee Child," both reflective, per-haps, of her own marital troubles with singer James Taylor. They're very nice songs, even if they don't quite fit in ...- in style or arrange-ment — with the orchestrated standards that make up the rest of the record. The best efforts here are Duke Ellington's 1941 song "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good," Hoagy Carmichael's 1938 tune "I Get Along Without You Very Well" (featuring an unusual synthesizer arrangement), the 50-year-old class sic "Body and Soul" (dressed up with vibes and featuring noted drummer Grady Tate) and Rodgers and Hut's 1938 tune "Spring Is Here." Other numbers don't quite make it. On "I'll Be Around" and the dramatic Stephen Sondheim song "Not A Day Goes By," Miss Simon's voice doesn't really convey the necessary emotion. And on "Hurt," a big hit in the early '50s for the histrionic Johnny Ray, she can't belt it out the way it should be. But even if "Torch" shows Miss Simon a bit out of her league, it's an encouraging departure from the rut her last few records were in. Sometimes change for the sake of change can be good. --> | |||
{{cx}} | |||
{{tags}}[[Almost Blue]] {{-}} [[Columbia]] {{-}} [[Hank Williams]] {{-}} [[Why Don't You Love Me (Like You Used To Do)?]] {{-}} [[Nashville]] {{-}} [[Billy Sherrill]] {{-}} [[The Attractions]] {{-}} [[Pete Thomas]] {{-}} [[Bruce Thomas]] {{-}} [[Steve Nieve]] {{-}} [[John McFee]] {{-}} [[The Doobie Brothers]] {{-}} [[Sweet Dreams]] {{-}} [[Success]] {{-}} [[Good Year For The Roses]] {{-}} [[Nashville Edition]] {{-}} [[Gram Parsons]] {{-}} [[I'm Your Toy|I'm Your Toy (Hot Burrito #1)]] {{-}} [[How Much I Lied]] {{-}} [[Merle Haggard]] {{-}} [[Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down]] {{-}} [[Sittin' And Thinkin']] {{-}} [[Honey Hush]] {{-}} [[George Jones]] {{-}} [[Brown To Blue]] {{-}} [[Colour Of The Blues]] {{-}} [[Too Far Gone]] | |||
{{cx}} | {{cx}} | ||
{{Bibliography notes header}} | {{Bibliography notes header}} | ||
{{Bibliography notes}} | {{Bibliography notes}} | ||
{{Bibliography next | |||
|prev = Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 26, 1981 | |||
|next = Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 16, 1982 | |||
}} | |||
'''Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 31, 1981 | '''Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 31, 1981 | ||
---- | ---- | ||
Latest revision as of 06:15, 13 August 2023
|
