CT48
Thursday, March 31, 2016
David Alan Coe - (1975) Once Upon A Rhyme LP
In 1973, Tanya Tucker went to the top of the country charts with David Allan Coe's "Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)," turning a lot of singers and Nash Vegas executives' heads in his direction. Coe opens 1975's Once Upon a Rhyme with his own version of the song -- a gutsy thing to do for anybody, but then, Coe was always equal parts talent and raw nerve. The amazing thing is that both versions are definitive. But that first track is only the beginning of a truly wondrous journey through the mysterious and poetic sound world of David Allan Coe as both a singer and a songwriter. Produced by Ron Bledsoe and accompanied by some of Music City's finest new-generation session players -- like Charlie McCoy, Buddy Spicher, Reggie Young, and Pete Drake -- Coe follows his opener with another of his inimitable classics, "Jody Like a Melody," with its winding, lilting choruses and ethereal couplets. After the emotional impact of the first two tracks, add two self-penned masterpieces -- "Loneliness in Ruby's Eyes" and "Would You Be My Lady" -- and the listener is left nearly breathless. But with Coe, that's not enough, and he digs deeper emotionally with "Sweet Vibrations" and "Another Pretty Country Song." And brilliantly but inexplicably, he closes the set with three songs that either were, or became part of, the country canon as a result of this recording: Lawton Williams' "Fraulein," Richard Dobson's "Piece of Wood and Steel," and Steve Goodman's "You Never Even Called Me by My Name." The last of these is the only version most people know; it was as if the late Goodman had written it for Coe. His voice wraps itself so completely around the melody that the lyrics run like a river from his mouth, and he becomes the song's protagonist, supported in the weight of his grief by an electric guitar, a fiddle, and a pedal steel slipping in and out of an airy mix that is punctuated by a rhythm section that only underlines the truth in every line. This album and its predecessor, The Mysterious Rhinestone Cowboy, established Coe as a major songwriting force; they remain enduring testaments to his songwriting brilliance as a criminally under-examined talent in the country tradition.
David Alan Coe - (1978) Human Emotions: Happy Side/ Su-i-side LP
By the end of 1978, outlaw singer/songwriter David Allan Coe had gone through another divorce -- one that was apparently very difficult, because he recorded this entire album around the topic. The subtitle of Human Emotions is "Happy Side/Suicide." Side one is comprised of songs composed -- and some recorded -- before his wife left; side two is the aftermath. At this time, producer Billy Sherrill had really begun to make his presence felt on David Allan Coe's records. Ron Bledsoe is still here with his patented honky tonk production style, but the Sherrill ambience creeps in here and gives everything a certain commercial-sounding fullness rather than the space of his earlier records. Human Emotions is a very commercial record that might have done well with radio and in stores had it not been for the positively menacing cover of an aviator-shaded Coe in full biker attire holding an acoustic guitar, next to the skull of an antelope. The album opens with a re-recording of "Would You Lay With Me (In a Field of Stone)," a track Sherrill convinced Coe to redo. This version is not as strong, perhaps because it comes from a place of brokenness rather than the ecstatic font of new love, but it is still an elegant and powerful tome. Human Emotions has plenty of standouts, however, like "You Can Count on Me," with its irrepressible chorus and phase-shifting guitars, and "Mississippi River Queen," a country rocker that sounds as if it were written for Hank Williams, Jr.. The title track is a masterpiece, with its syncopated vocal lead lines, country-waltz tempo, and huge backing chorus. There are also the outlaw anthems "Whiskey and Women" (with Janie Fricke on backing vocals) and one of the greatest drinking songs of all time, "Jack Daniels if You Please." The album finishes on a downer note with the track "Suicide," but despite its dark theme, Human Emotions is one of Coe's better efforts in the 1970s.
David Allan Coe - (1979) Specreum VII LP
1979's Spectrum VII is one of the lighter recordings in David Allan Coe's storied career; not in the sense of lightweight, but in spirit, all things being relative. This is a reflective album from the first two tracks. "Rollin' With the Punches" is a rollicking country rocker with choogling guitars and whinnying steel guitars; Billy Sherrill and Ron Bledsoe loaded the deck to make this an anthem. "On My Feet Again" is a 3/4-time honky tonk testament to Coe's ability to survive everything from prison to broken marriages to Nashville's indifference to a burst appendix and come out on the other side -- free as a bird, just like a child left to play. "Fall in Love With You" sounds like a cross between something from the Allman Brothers' Brothers and Sisters album and Jimmy Buffett's Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes. There's a stellar hard rock tune called "Sudden Death" dedicated to Meat Loaf (!) "for believing in rock & roll and Ohio Boys." Another of Coe's most beautiful love songs reveals itself in "Fairytale Morning," a song that could have been written by Harlan Howard, it's so damn classy. The album closes with the definitive version of Dave Loggins' hit "Please Come to Boston." Coe's conviction as a singer and the washes of instruments with his acoustic guitar in the foreground are pure impressionistic production artistry. With the exception of "Love Is Just a Porpoise" (one of Coe's better novelty songs), every performance on Spectrum VII is stellar, and this is among Coe's finest records.
David Allan Coe - (1981) Tennessee Whiskey LP
Coming on the heels of the brilliant Invictus Means Unconquered in 1980, Tennessee Whiskey from 1981 is another strong David Allan Coe outing, full of interesting song choices and hard country performances à la Merle Haggard and George Jones. Refusing to give into the flavor-of-the-month generic country "talent," Coe stuck to what he knew and sharpened the edges. Opening with the Dean Dillon/Linda Hargrove classic title track, with a honky tonk performance that is softened only by the swell of backing vocals, it sets a high standard for the rest of the album to follow, which it does. Coe's own folk-country nugget, "If I Knew," softened the electric guitars in favor of a 12-string and a honky tonk piano with a slippery steel in the distance to color his vocal before a banjo arrives on the final two choruses and transforms them into something akin to a bluegrass stomp. The most eclectic and risky track on the set is a cover of Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay." Many have tried and almost no one has succeeded with this one, but Coe's read is immediate, deep, and soulful in a restless country way. Anyone who ever doubted his ability to interpret a classic tune should give this one a listen because, frankly, it'll blow your mind. The band puts in a credible performance as well, with its funky, dirty groove. Shel Silverstein and Fred Koller's lovely "Juanita" is given the Volcano-era Jimmy Buffett treatment. The blues-ed-out "We Got a Bad Thing Goin'" with Terry McMillan is a greasy little number that gives the album something edgy. The honky tonk standard "D-R-U-N-K" is given fine treatment here by Coe and guest the late John Hartford, and Coe's own "Little Orphan Annie" is a ballad-turned-bluegrass orgy. In all, Tennessee Whiskey proved once again that no matter what the critics and programmers said or didn't, when he made records, he always showed up to play.
David Allan Coe - (1984) For The Record - The First 10 Years 2xLP
For the Record: The First 10 Years gets a slight edge over its counterpart 17 Greatest Hits, not just because it contains three more songs, but because it gives a greater context for David Allan Coe's achievements. Yes, his redneck tendencies sound a little disturbing to PC-leaning ears, but Coe was a great, unashamed country singer, singing the purest honky-tonk and hardest country of his era, making even Waylon and Willie seem a little conventional. There is an undeniable reactionary streak to his music yet, especially in retrospect, this makes it stronger, since he seems like one of the lone voices fighting for traditional country values. Did he win the fight? Well, in a way, he did, since he created pure, hardcore country, as this set of songs proves. This is Coe at his very best, from covers of "Please Come to Boston" to his trademarks "Longhaired Country," "Willie, Waylon and Me," "Jack Daniels, if You Please," and "Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile." He winds up relying on covers a bit much, but his attitude makes him stand apart from his brethren. He may not be the most original outlaw, but there's none more outlaw than him.
David Allan Coe - (1985) Darlin', Darlin' LP
Darlin', Darlin' is one of the strangest records in David Allan Coe's catalog. For starters, Coe wrote only two songs on the set, a spiritual song called "Mary Go Round the Birth of Jesus" and the fourth and last part of "For Lovers Only," which closes the album. Musically, this is a big production number -- even for Billy Sherrill. There are keyboards winding through everything, big backing vocals, and layered pedal steel and electric guitars. Some of the covers are curious choices as well: Smokey Robinson's "My Girl," a soul holdover from Just Divorced, and J.J. Cale's "Call Me the Breeze." The rest were written by a current crop of Nashville songwriters, like the spooky minor key "She Used to Love Me a Lot" and Sherrill's brilliant "My Elusive Dreams." There is also a duet on the disc: "Don't Cry Darlin'" puts Coe in the company of the Possum, George Jones, and unfortunately, it's one of Darlin', Darlin''s low points. For the most part, the set showcases Coe as one of the great country singers, wrapping his throaty baritone around love songs, pop songs, and rock tunes. And as a singer's recording, as odd as some of the material choices are, it works and works well -- check Sharon Rice's "Too Close to Home," with keyboard and saxophone solos, but it's Coe's voice that carries the day.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
J.D. Emmanuel - (2007) Wizards LP
With so much being made of current practitioners of the Kosmiche/ New Age vibe here's your opportunity to hear an original. Original copies hardly ever surface and even the 2007 repress (which sounded quite thin) commands quite a fee on internet auction sites. This straight analog pressing sounds as close to the original master tapes as you can get. 500 made. Pressed at RTI.
"If you have been wondering what all the fuss about "private press new age" is, go here to find out. Your mind shall be subtly blown..." Fader
Wizards was my first deep trance electronic music album. This album was inspired by Terry Riley , one of the earliest people ever to compose and perform long, extended, cyclic pieces in the electronic format. This music was composed and performed in ''81 and ''82.
I consider this album my best work.
The instrumentation is three Sequencial Circuits PRO-1s, Crumar Traveler One and a Yamaha SK-20, all real time recording to a Teac 4-track reel-to-reel. I mixed the four tracks to a Teac A-7300 Master 2-Track tape recorder using a DeltaLab DL-2 to create the delay track. In 2006, I used a Tascam 34B 4-track to remaster all my master tapes to digital master of 196 KHz/24 bit .WAV files using Soundforge 8 software.
The original Wizards LP was published in the Summer of 1982 with the black and white cover. The initial tracks had not names and were call Movements I-V. Several years later sales had slowed down, in an effort to improve sales we tried the color cover and I created names for each track, as shown on the samples.
J.D. Emmanuel
"If you have been wondering what all the fuss about "private press new age" is, go here to find out. Your mind shall be subtly blown..." Fader
Wizards was my first deep trance electronic music album. This album was inspired by Terry Riley , one of the earliest people ever to compose and perform long, extended, cyclic pieces in the electronic format. This music was composed and performed in ''81 and ''82.
I consider this album my best work.
The instrumentation is three Sequencial Circuits PRO-1s, Crumar Traveler One and a Yamaha SK-20, all real time recording to a Teac 4-track reel-to-reel. I mixed the four tracks to a Teac A-7300 Master 2-Track tape recorder using a DeltaLab DL-2 to create the delay track. In 2006, I used a Tascam 34B 4-track to remaster all my master tapes to digital master of 196 KHz/24 bit .WAV files using Soundforge 8 software.
The original Wizards LP was published in the Summer of 1982 with the black and white cover. The initial tracks had not names and were call Movements I-V. Several years later sales had slowed down, in an effort to improve sales we tried the color cover and I created names for each track, as shown on the samples.
J.D. Emmanuel
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