Some major crate digging went down this past weekend, resulting in a pile of intriguing platters getting an initial spin this week -- from the obscure to a couple Top 40 hits you may have forgotten.
Red Simpson: The Man Behind the Badge
Red Simpson: The Man Behind the Badge
Red Simpson made a name for himself in the early to mid-1960s as a piano player around Bakersfield, California -- and even more so as a songwriter for Buck Owens and others -- before launching his own solo recording career as a truck-driving song specialist. The Man Behind the Badge, his second solo album, turns that trope around to look at life on the road for the truckers' nemesis. That would be "Johnny Law," as one album track names him. This is not an album lampooning police, though, but a pretty straightforward tribute to hard-working officers. It includes the original version of "Highway Patrol," later covered by Junior Brown (Capitol T/ST 2569, 1966)
Joyce Everson: Crazy Lady
This album and a couple of others discussed here were languishing in a friend's out box. As most of the songs are written by Everson and the credits are interesting, it gets a spin! Musically, Crazy Lady is about what I expected due to the lineup of players -- early '70s singer-songwriter with a touch of soul provided by the female backing trio of Lesley Duncan, Madeline Bell and Lisa Strike. That sound is softened somewhat by string arrangements. Recorded at IBC Studios in London, Everson on vocals and guitar is joined by Andy Bown playing bass and guitar, with electric leads provided by Peter Frampton. It's a fairly mellow concoction, with fine singing by Everson and tasteful accompaniment all around. By the mid-'00s, Everson (now Joyce Turnpenny) was teaching music at a girls' school in Canada. (Warner Brothers BS 2604, 1972)
Vi Velasco: The Vi Velasco Album
I've seen this a few times over the years and never really known anything about it, but I'm always curious about Vee-Jay albums. The first track instantly made me think arranger Charles Calello was framing Velasco in the sort of arrangements Burt Bacharach created for Dionne Warwick, and apparently whoever owned this before agreed -- because the majority of the album's songs on are starred with the legend "Written in the style of Bacharach" on the back cover. This album's obscurity is probably partly due to being released during a messy time in Vee-Jay's history overseen by Randy Wood. The short version is that when the label tried to quickly expand beyond its (mostly) R&B/jazz/gospel origins into the pop field, it was foundered by lawsuits brought on by financial problems and eventual tangles with EMI about the label's contract to release the first Beatles album in America. Velasco, a Broadway/television/Las Vegas performer who also has an earlier bossa nova album on Colpix to her credit, comes across here like a somewhat brassier Dionne to Calello's Bacharach impression. Solid '60s pop all around. (Vee-Jay VJ/VJS-1135, 1965)
Foghat: Boogie Motel
Foghat is one of those 1970s rock bands that was quire popular then but seems to be most often ignored these days, if not outright derided (unless it's Foghat Day). That's a shame, because they put out quite a few solid-to-great LPs in the mid-'70s after breaking away from Savoy Brown, the band from which three-fourths of Foghat initially escaped. Those three members -- Lonesome Dave Peverett, Rod Price and Roger Earl -- were still the core of Foghat for 1979's Boogie Motel, but by this time most of the group's rough edges had been polished down and their sound is dangerously close to a '70s smooth version of their stompin' boogie sound. It's worth noting that did help give them their last Billboard Top 40 hit, "Third Time Lucky." The album, which includes sax work by longtime Bob Seger cohort Alto Reed, was also their last trip into Top 40 territory. Nothing here is bad, but it would almost be more interesting if it was. (Bearsville BHS 6990, 1979)
Jill Williams: Jill Williams
Another very solid, obscure female pop-rock album, this self-titled effort is apparently Williams' only LP bow. A bit of searching online reveals the bio of a real Renaissance woman. She's worked as a staff songwriter, managed a music publisher, co-wrote a Broadway musical, been a columnist and feature writer for national magazines, has written various prose and poetry books, is a visual artist ... I could go on. If you run across Jill Williams in the record bins, you'll hear shades of Judy Collins' '60s baroque experiments, Melanie's folk-pop, a touch of the idiosyncratic vocal style of Buffy Sainte-Marie, traces of Carpenters, and even some country twang. Williams wrote all the songs, and the arrangements -- mostly where the shades of other artists are coming from -- are buffed to a pop sheen by studio pros Charles Calello (again!), Robert Dennis and Al Gorgoni. (RCA Victor LSP-4314, 1970)
Van Morrison: Wavelength
Despite being frightened a few weeks back by the mess that is Hard Nose the Highway, I decided to take a flyer on this later '70s Van. Wavelength is approximately as if His Band and the Street Choir was run through a yacht rock filter. Whether that is a good or bad thing will likely be in the ears of the beholder. (Warner Brothers, BSK 3212, 1978)
