Upon reading of the latest Lefsetz tribute to Levon Helm I sometimes wonder where Bob goes. The media talked about Dick Clark's passing but also the mainfolk around here talked quite a bit about Dick Clark. He may not like the man for he made money at what he did but you have to admire him for doing that. Levon Helm did it the old fashioned way, he made a name for himself in music and even though it may not made him a big millionaire, he loved music so much that he overcame cancer to have a second chance and took it to advantage with Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt. The voice of The Band was gone but it replaced by a world weary voice of reason.
For The Band themselves, they remain a frustration in their recording output. Even The Best Of The Band showed their strengths and weaknesses. I'll never get into Music From Big Pink, everytime I hear it, it leaves me cold outside of the big hit The Weight and Chest Fever 3 Dog Night did the better version (to these ears). But The Band, the album remains their best of the way the music varies. Rag Mama Rag I have on a forty five and took me years to really like it, Up On Cripple Creak their best song from that record and King Harvest a underrated classic. The Capitol 2000 remaster has better sound and alternative takes up the wazoo although I don't listen to the alt takes all that much. After that The Band's albums didn't do much for me although there were some decent failed singles (Levon's take on Ain't Got No Home, Rick Danko doing Stage Fright and of course Life Is A Carnival) and Rock Of Ages was a fine album although Capitol reissued a one cd set of the hits which as a cheap throwaway compliation works pretty good. After the Last Waltz, Helm and Robbie Robertson would never work or speak again till a couple weeks before Helm's death that they patched things up. At least Levon went to his grave content that he buried the hatchet with Robbie. As for The Band's reunion albums of the 80s and 90s without Robbie, I haven't heard any of them. BTW Tad, Levon played Loretta's father on Coal Miner's Daughter, but I still enjoy him as a guest star on the SCTV show of 1981 to which he does a fine version of Summertime Blues. Perhaps Lefsetz is right, Clark may been a TV Icon, but Levon Helm was a more musical inspiration to which tributes are still coming in as we speak...
Other things: a reader told me to check out Justin Currie's music after the demise of Del Amitri lead me to a copy of his Rykodisc offering of 2007 What Is Love For. It didn't do a lot for me, Currie went for a more over the top sound than he did with the Del's and after the 8th track I gave up. The promo calls it heavy hearted and stunning, I thought it was heavy handed and cluttered. Just didn't much for me. Nor was Todd Rundgren's Utopia 1975 Live at The Hammersmith Odeon to which Rundgren was going from heavy handed prog rock to over the top rock and roll that sounded a bit like the basis of Spinal Tap. I liked the 1992 Rhino Live version better to which the band was more power pop rock and roll than the bombast of prog rock of Mister Triscuits on the 1975 effort. One shining moment was a faithful cover of Do Ya to which Todd did the ELO version rather than the Move version. The 1975 Odeon concert shows Todd trying to decide where to go from here and eventually he would settle for a more pop rock direction and done for better use on the 1983 Utopia album but even back then he knew covers very well.
And after a month of few reviews, The Rock n Roll And Brains blogs has once again waken up to more views and has returned to the top spot of most viewed blogs on this site. If this blog gets 5,000 views (it will take a while) then we will once again fill up Andy McKaie's mail box on getting this album reissued on CD before we're all dead and gone. But choice of the matter is that the new Delta Moon CD will be out before that ever happens. We'll keep trying to get it reissued (Geez, Andy, put it out in limited edition of 2,000, they'll be sold out before i get a copy) because we love music right? Right!
Half Priced Books finds of the day.
45s!
Lesley Gore-I Don't Wanna Be A Loser (Mercury 72270)
Faron Young-Walk Tall (Mercury 72375)
Hank Williams Jr.-Endless Sleep/My Bucket's Got A Hole In It (MGM 13278)
Garry Lee & Showdown-The Rodeo Song (Damon JR-122)
CDs!
Rush Remastered (Mercury)
16 Frames-Where It Ends (Verve Forecast 2009)
Reef-Replenish (Epic 1995)
Tyler Read-Only Rock And Roll Can Save Us Now (Pop Opera 2007)
The Automatic Automatic-Not Accepted Anywhere (Columbia 2007)
Phil Collins-Dance Into The Light (Atlantic 1996)
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