338. Joni Mitchell - The Hissing Of Summer Lawns (1975)


















Track Listing

1. In France They Kiss On Main Street
2. Jungle Line
3. Edith And The Kingpin
4. Don't Interrupt The Sorrow
5. Shades Of Scarlet Conquering
6. Hissing Of Summer Lawns
7. Boho Dance
8. Harry's House
9. Sweet Bird
10. Shadows And Light

Review

So this is an album which represents an important shift for Mitchell's music. Maybe it's me but I don't think the shift is enough. You know, either Joni kept going the way she was going or she really would make a different album. This seems a bit half baked.

Some songs are completely different from what Joni has done before like Jungle Line, a Moog and Burundi Warrior drums track is certainly novel. But then some of the other songs, actually the majority of the songs on the album are traditional Mitchell. I have nothing against traditional Mitchell mind, it's just that the album comes off as a bit tentative, neither a part of the last few albums or something actually new. It is a bit undecided, it is all about the process of figuring out what to do next.

That said, each individual track is pretty great here, the lyrics are amazing, it is Joni Mitchell after all. In the end this is an essential pivotal record for Mitchell but maybe not her best, it is more important as a document of Mithcell's creative process than as actual pieces of music.

Track Highlights

1. Jungle Lines
2. Shadows And Light
3. Shades Of Scarlet Conquering
4. Edith And The Kingpin

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album was not as radio-friendly as Mitchell's earlier work, and despite the album attaining initial commercial success, reaching #4 on the charts and quickly going gold, contemporary reviewers were not entirely kind.

Prince once remarked that The Hissing of Summer Lawns was "the last album [he] loved all the way through" at the time of the interview, a 1985 Rolling Stone article. The album is number 90 on the German Spex magazine's list of the 100 best albums of the 20th century.


Joni Anderson (later Mitchell) In a Mighty Wind type show in 1965:

337. Dion - Born To be With You (1975)


















Track Listing

1. Born To Be With You
2. Make The Woman Love Me
3. Your Own Back Yard
4. He's Got The Whole World In His Hands
5. Only You Know
6. New York City Song
7. In And Out Of The Shadows
8. Good Lovin' Man
9. Baby Let's Stick Together

Review

Dion walks the fine thread between the tacky and the quite good. Phil "Ladykiller" Spector's production actually helps it to fall on the right side of that line. It sounds like a rough Spector production, but the fact that it hasn't much sheen is good for the album.

The fact that Dion has always felt that this album was quite unfinished helps explain the problems behind the album. IT is inherently tacky and it just isn't bad because it was left quite rough.If they had made the album the way it was intended it would be much worse.

In the end it is a pretty good album, Dion's voice is affecting and delivers each line perfectly, the production is "wall of soundy" without being intrusive. It has something of the rock right next to something of the lounge and that makes it interesting. An album to check out.

Track Highlights

1. Born To Be With You
2. Make The Woman Love Me
3. New york City Song
4. Good Lovin' Man

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Dion was born to an Italian-American family in the Bronx borough of New York City. As a child, he used to accompany his father, a vaudeville entertainer, on tour, and developed a love of country music – particularly Hank Williams – and the blues and doo-wop stars he heard in local bars and on the radio. His singing abilities were honed on the street corners of Crotona Avenue, where he rounded up other local singers inventing acapella licks, and in local clubs.

In early 1957 he auditioned for Bob and Gene Schwartz, who had just formed Mohawk Records. They recorded him with a vocal group, The Timberlanes, and released a single "The Chosen Few", arranged by Hugo Montenegro, which became a minor regional hit.

Starsailor cover the title track:

336. Emmylou Harris - Pieces of The Sky (1975)

















Track Listing

1. Bluebird Wine
2. Too Far Gone
3. If I Could Only Win Your Love
4. Boulder To Birmingham
5. Before Believing
6. Bottle Let Me Down
7. Sleepless Nights
8. Coat Of Many Colors
9. For No One
10. Queen Of The Silver Dollar

Review

Gram Parsons is dead, long live Emmylou Harris. As you can imagine there are plenty of similarities between this album and the last Gram Parsons album reviewed here not long ago. Actually one of the few differences is the absence of Gram's voice from this.

All in all it is a pretty good country-rock album and therefore it is something to cherish as those are few and far between. So if you are a fan of the genre it is definitely an album to have. Emmylou has a great voice, which is comparable to that of Dolly Parton, and is therefore a very traditionally country voice. Actually the cover of Coat Of Many Colors seems to be a bit redundant as it sounds too much like the original.

So if you like Gram Parsons and the country Rock genre in general this is definitely something for you to get. If you don't, it isn't spectacular enough for you to bother. So there.

Track Highlights

1. Boulder To Birmingham
2. Bluebird Wine
3. For No One
4. Too Far Gone

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The overall song selection was varied and showed early on how eclectic Harris' musical tastes were. In addition to her own "Boulder to Birmingham" (written for former singing partner Gram Parsons who had died the previous year), she included the Merle Haggard classic "Bottle Let Me Down", the Beatles' "For No One", and Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors". (Parton, in turn, covered "Boulder to Birmingham" on her 1976 album All I Can Do.) On Shel Silverstein's "Queen Of The Silver Dollar", her good friend Linda Ronstadt sings harmony.

Boulder To Birmingham:

335. Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run (1975)


















Track Listing

1. Thunder Road
2. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
3. Night
4. Backstreets
5. Born to Run
6. She's the One
7. Meeting Across the River
8. Jungleland

Review

So here's the first entry by the Boss of us all, Springsteen. Actually I've never been a fan and I have had trouble understanding what all the hype was about, but after spending three days with this album I get it. It is pretty great stuff.

There is plenty you can criticise here, opening the door to the eventual emergece of Bon Jovi or the fact that it sometimes sounds like Dire Straits. But hey I have a certain love for Dire Straits... one of those things. But in the end Springsteen is just a very good musician and a great lyricist.

Springsteen is probably the best lyricist of the American urban working-class, his songs about escapism and cars, women and freedom are very much a thing which resonates with the urban working-class. This is not to mean that he is not a sensitive writer, in fact he is very sensitive, his songs have little images which are pretty great.

So I was very agreeably surprised by the Boss, his songs are epics which really deserve close attention and to be listened to more than once. So get this album.

Track Highlights

1. Thunder Road
2. Born To Run
3. Jungleland
4. Backstreets.

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album is noted for its use of introductions to set the tone of each song (all of the record was composed on piano, not guitar), and for the Phil Spector-like "Wall of Sound" arrangements and production. Indeed, Springsteen has said that he wanted "Born to Run" to sound like "Roy Orbison singing Bob Dylan, produced by Spector."

In terms of the original LP's sequencing, Springsteen eventually adopted a "four corners" approach, as the songs beginning each side ("Thunder Road", "Born to Run") were uplifting odes to escape, while the songs ending each side ("Backstreets", "Jungleland") were sad epics of loss, betrayal, and defeat (Originally, he had planned to begin and end the album with alternative versions of "Thunder Road".)

Also, original pressings have "Meeting Across the River" billed as "The Heist." The original album cover has the title printed in a graffiti style font. These copies are very rare and considered to be the "holy grail" for Springsteen collectors.

Thunder Road:

334. Burning Spear - Marcus Garvey (1975)
















Track Listing

1. Marcus Garvey
2. Slavery Days
3. Invasion
4. Live Good
5. Give Me
6. Old Marcus Garvey
7. Tradition
8. Jordan River
9. Red Gold And Green
10. Resting Place

Review

This album has its plus and minuses when compared with stuff that came out at the same time by Bob Marley. On the plus side it sounds more "authentic" less produced for Western consumption, its lyrics are also more referential to Jamaican history and thought. On the minus side it isn't as exciting or plain good as Bob Marley.

Burning Spear brings us a very politically charged album, talking around the character of Marcus Garvey, a historical Jamaican character and focusing on the same problems as other Reggae artists, such as slavery.

There is really not a large amount to say about this album, except that it pales quite a bit next to Catch A Fire or Natty Dread, but it is a good album to look at if you want to expand your horizons on mid-70's Reggae further than Bob Marley's work. What really shines here is the brass instruments, sounding very much like Ethiopian music, the kind you listen to in the soundtrack of Broken Flowers. So in the end I would recommend it if you have a specific interest in Reggae.

Track Highlights

1. Old Marcus Garvey
2. Marcus Garvey
3. Slavery Days
4. Red, Gold And Green

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Winston Rodney (born March 1, 1948), also known as Burning Spear, is a Grammy Award winning Jamaican roots reggae singer and musician. Like many famous Jamaican reggae artists, Burning Spear is known for his Rastafari movement messages.

Rodney was born in Saint Ann's Bay, Saint Ann, Jamaica, as were Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey; who both had a great influence on Rodney's life. Garvey in his philosophy, which Burning Spear greatly took to, and Marley in directly helping Burning Spear get started in the music industry. Burning Spear was originally Rodney's group, named after Jomo Kenyatta, the first Prime Minister and President of an independent Kenya. As fame took hold the name of the group gradually became synonymous with Rodney.

Burning Spear is one of the strongest proponents of Marcus Garvey's self-determination and self-reliance for all African descendants, thus leading to several album releases in commemoration of the African activist.

In 2002, Burning Spear and his wife, Sonia Rodney who has produced a number of his albums, founded Burning Spear Records.

Burning Spear advocates messages of honesty, peace, and love, which tie in with his religious and political messages of Rasta and black unity.

Marcus Garvey: