Medleyville

DEEP-CATALOG PURPLE

The year 1968, amongst so many other things, witnessed the formation of yet another custom record label, this one the brainchild of comedian Bill Cosby alongside his manager Roy Silver and christened with the ineffable Hebrew name of God — Tetragrammaton.

Not surprisingly then, one of its first signings (besides Mr. Cosby, of course) was Pat Boone and his strangely countrified Departure album. Simultaneously, on the far other side of the socio-musical spectrum, Tetragrammaton also somehow found itself the American distributor of none other than John Lennon and Yoko Ono's fully frontal Two Virgins album.

Nevertheless, despite the presence of one of the nation's biggest comedians, slickest 1950s teen idols and a naked Beatle to boot, Tetragrammaton is best remembered today as the label that launched the career of Hertfordshire, England's very own Nick Simper, Rod Evans, Ian Paice, Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore — more or less better known to this very day as Deep Purple.

Now, to say that in 1968 Messrs. Cosby and Silver had no real idea whatsoever how to handle their newly signed band of proto-metalheads would be quite the understatement: Rather than booking the lads into all the most hep rock halls of the day, the quintet's inaugural tour of the United States centered instead around appearances on television's Playboy After Dark (during which Blackmore was seen giving Hugh Hefner a guitar lesson) and The Dating Game (wherein Lord came in third out of three contestants and didn’t get the girl. "I was pissed off I wasn't chosen; she was very beautiful," the Purple patriarch could still be heard complaining a quarter century later).

Despite all of the above and more, it is a testament then to the quality of Deep Purple's early music that the band not only survived but also actually placed a trio of singles on the American charts during its two-year stint with Tetragrammaton. In the process, Purple also produced three more-than-accomplished albums which, to my ears at least, remain the best the band has ever done.

Those albums — Shades of Deep Purple, The Book of Taliesyn and the eponymous, Hieronymus Bosch-wrapped Deep Purple have just been made available again, complete with studio outtakes and BBC Radio bonus tracks, from the fine folk over at Eagle Rock Entertainment. Included therein, of course, are the band's initial Top 40 hits (wholly machine-headed takes on Joe South's "Hush" and even Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman"), a 10-minute-plus roll over Phil Spector's "River Deep, Mountain High" — somehow via "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (which I bet even Ike Turner would've approved of) — plus two Beatles and even a Donovan cover.

Of course this was the same band that, with a '70s shift in personnel or two, went on to produce some of that decade's heaviest slabs of Marshall-powered r-a-w-k. Evidence of such delightfully moronic brilliance can indeed be heard as early as Shades' "Mandrake Root," and especially the first 5:30 of the Deep Purple album. Conversely though, this was a band that also indulged its tender moments as well — I'd like to see the 2011 Purple tackle any Donovan songs! — and even spent an inordinate amount of Book of Taliesyn concocting fits of druid bombast even Spinal Tap couldn't, or wouldn't touch. Lord, speaking at the time to Woman's Own magazine, attempted to explain this, um, approach by making allusions to astral association. Hmmm.

It can perhaps be seen in retrospect that this very dichotomy between the fanciful and the Neanderthal doomed this early incarnation of the band; in fact, shortly after the release of Deep Purple in 1969, bassist Simper and singer Evans were fired for flat-out refusing to head in heavier directions, man. At this same time, Tetragrammaton itself went belly up, taking with it all Purple profits they could legally or otherwise lay their hands on. This freed Lord to indulge for the moment each and every Derek Smalls fantasy imaginable on stage at the Royal Albert Hall via his Concerto for Group and Orchestra, while Blackmore set about retooling a leaner, meaner Deep Purple for the arena-rocking decade to come.

Most of you know the story from there. But for the moment, let me direct you instead back to the glory daze when Purple was deep within the ranks of that era's most musical of madmen, never afraid to say and play anything and everything that crossed what remained of their minds. Here are three albums that demonstrate this all and then some.

But when asked if he will still be grabbing a piece of the action, Cosby's only reply was "….hush!"

— Musician/writer Gary Pig Gold is the co-founder of the To M’Lou Music label.

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Tom Hambridge carves out time to make a solo album

The thought of taking two days off sure sounded good to songwriter/producer/drummer/singer Tom Hambridge.

He had been working nonstop, putting the finishing touches on George Thorogood's 2120 South Michigan Ave. Up next on his schedule was recording an album with Joe Louis Walker.

But instead of taking a break for two days, Hambridge decided to use that time to record and mix an entire album of his own.

The result is Boom!, which was released in August on Superstar Records. The 11-track album is a mix of the familiar and the fresh: songs Hambridge had a hand in writing that had already been recorded by other artists, such as "I Had a Real Good Time" (Delbert McClinton) and "I Got Your Country Right Here" (Gretchen Wilson), plus material he wrote specifically for this project.

"I remember the night before the first session I wrote 'I Keep Things' — about two in the morning before the first session — and also 'Nine Pound Hammer,' " Hambridge recalls. "[Because of my schedule], I don't have all this extra time to prepare … I think sometimes you get a little spark of energy when you put yourself under the gun like that."

Whether for himself or other artists, writing songs on short notice is nothing new for Hambridge, who prefers to enter a recording studio armed with, as he puts it, "a lot of bullets in the gun."

"We're going to know exactly what we got going in," he says, "and if we don't have the best album that you can possibly make, we're just going to write more songs."

That's exactly what happened during the sessions for Buddy Guy's Living Proof, which Hambridge produced. They co-wrote "Skanky" the night before it was recorded, Hambridge says, and "Let the Doorknob Hit Ya" was composed in the studio.

Hambridge will spend two solid weeks out of the studio this fall as the opening act for Thorogood. For his 2120 South Michigan Ave. album, Thorogood recorded a version of "Let It Rock," a Chuck Berry song. Coincidentally, Hambridge was a semi-regular concert drummer for the mercurial Rock and Roll Hall of Famer over a period of about 10 years.

"It was always a gas, and I learned a lot from him," Hambridge says of Berry. "We did sit backstage and talk, and there were situations where he wouldn't talk to anyone at the venue but me. … He had a weird way of doing stuff sometimes, but there's nothing like playing 'Johnny B. Goode' or 'Roll Over Beethoven' onstage in front of thousands of people with Chuck Berry."

— By Chris M. Junior

Tom Hambridge on tour opening for George Thorogood
(schedule subject to change):

* Sept. 25: The Egg at Hart Theater — Albany, N.Y.

* Sept. 26 and 27: B.B. King Blues Club & Grill — New York

* Sept. 29: Grand Opera House — Wilmington, Del.

* Sept. 30: Keswick Theater — Glenside, Pa.

* Oct. 1: Wellmont Theater — Montclair, N.J.

* Oct. 2: The Fillmore — Silver Spring, Md.

* Oct. 4: FM Kirby Center for the Performing Arts — Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

* Oct. 6: NYCB Theatre at Westbury — Westbury, N.Y.

* Oct. 7: House of Blues — Boston

* Oct. 8: Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom — Hampton Beach, N.H.

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Erin Hill plays an electrified harp in a pop setting

A momentary bout of laziness rarely leads to a new musical identity.

But that's pretty much what prompted musician/screenwriter/actress Erin Hill to start writing and performing songs on the harp instead of guitar, which had been her instrument of choice.

One day in 2005, looking to flesh out an idea for a tune, Hill reached for her available harp instead of getting up and retrieving one of her guitars, all of which were in another room. After writing the entire song "I’m So Glad" on the harp, Hill figured she should play it live that way, too.

So Hill did just that, and afterward, a friend told her she should perform every song on the harp.

"And it was kind of a V8 moment — why didn't I think of that?" the New York-based Hill recalls. "So from that moment on, I started writing all my songs on the harp."

She adds with a laugh, "It became the 'no guitars allowed' band."

Aside from featuring an electrified harp, Hill's music has another uncommon quality to it: science-fiction-themed lyrics. She says sci-fi is practically all she reads, so when a member of her band put forth the challenge a few years ago to write a song based on a story about telepathic mutant rats in outer space, Hill was totally game.

"It was so much fun," she recalls. "All of a sudden it just opened things up."

Hill likens her songs to "little Twilight Zone episodes" and says one of the biggest challenges is to not get carried away by cramming the lyrics with every last detail that comes to mind.

"I do write in the traditional pop format, so you have to have a chorus that can work for each time it comes up," she says. "Even people who don’t get any of the sci-fi [references] … can totally appreciate [the songs] on the non-sci-fi level as well."

Girl Inventor, her third album in as many years and the first one credited to Erin Hill & Her Psychedelic Harp, is due in October. Hill has filmed a video for the song "Giant Mushrooms," and with the funds raised through her upcoming Kickstarter campaign, she'll make videos for the album's remaining nine tunes.

— By Chris M. Junior

Erin Hill on tour (schedule subject to change):

* Sept. 18: Village of Ossining Public Library — Ossining, N.Y.

* Sept. 24: Strange Folk Festival — O'Fallon, Ill.

* Sept. 30: Lorenzo's Restaurant, Bar & Cabaret — Staten Island, N.Y.

* Oct. 7: Ferguson Center for the Arts — Newport News, Va.

* Oct. 22: Orpheum Theater — Los Angeles

* Oct. 28: Village of Ossining Public Library — Ossining, N.Y.

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Star-studded tribute is flawed but has its moments

Even the best tribute albums typically boast only a handful of worthwhile efforts, as putting one's stamp on the work of an esteemed artist, while also honoring it, often proves to be too delicate a balance.

With that in mind, a Buddy Holly covers project — timed to coincide with the late legend's 75th birthday — would figure to be more of a challenge than most.

After all, the bulk of his classics from the 1950s featured simplistic arrangements, and the unadorned recordings allowed Holly’s boyish voice — sometimes quirky, but always full of feeling — to stand out.

On Listen to Me: Buddy Holly (Verve/Forecast), a 16-track collection helmed by veteran producer Peter Asher, a few performers tinker with this formula at their own risk, while more offer essentially by-the-book renderings of Holly hits. Both approaches produce yet more forgettable contributions littering the vast tribute-album wasteland.

Actually, a couple of the submissions too closely border on atrocities to be ignored. Cobra Starship, a band that includes Asher's daughter, Victoria, turns in an airy, synth-pop dance version of "Peggy Sue" that completely sucks the soul out of Holly's original. Elsewhere, The Fray plods through "Take Your Time" in a bland, slowed-down manner — and basically butchers it.

Even those who play it straight struggle to leave much of an impression: Ringo Starr's "Think It Over" sounds a lot like Holly's, as well as any number of Starr's own shuffle-centric tunes, for that matter. While Jeff Lynne deserves credit for his upbeat, one-man-band recording of "Words of Love," there's little else notable about it.

Most of the successes here are by the artists who rely on Holly’s basic framework yet expand and even improve upon it. Imelda May sticks to Holly's rockabilly-esque structure on "I'm Lookin' for Someone to Love," but the song soars on the strength of her smoldering pipes. Similarly, Jackson Browne scores with a surprisingly melodic vocal on "True Love Ways," as the string arrangement of Holly's version is replaced with a lonesome-sounding pedal steel.

Chris Isaak, ever the longing crooner, proves a natural choice to tackle "Crying Waiting Hoping," while Lyle Lovett's spin on "Well All Right" features a slight crunch of guitar from longtime session man Waddy Wachtel (who is all over this disc), giving it an edgy feel that accentuates the resignation conveyed in Holly's lyrics. And Natalie Merchant manages a rarity — an ambitious reinvention that works — in turning "Learning the Game" into a weepy piano ballad.

That example aside, maybe even executive producer Asher realized how tough it is to tweak Holly's catalog for the better; how else to explain the inclusion of Linda Ronstadt’s popular 1976 version of "That'll Be the Day" — which he produced — instead of an updated crack at it? In any case, by the time the disc concludes with Asher’s buddy Eric Idle, of Monty Python and Rutles fame, goofing his way through a version of "Raining in My Heart" that is more skit that song — it starts out as spoken-word before morphing into an ill-advised comedic bit — Listen to Me: Buddy Holly seems destined to end up like most covers albums.

It contains several keepers, but ultimately falls somewhere between a mixed bag and a jumbled mess.

— By George Henn

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OPENING NEIL YOUNG'S MUSIC BOX

Sexy Intellectual's Here We Are in the Years: Neil Young's Music Box DVD does present quite the journey through the past.

Right off the bat, young Neil's original drummer, Ken Smyth of The Squires, drives home how Elvis Presley shook to its very foundation the hitherto genteel teenaged population of Winnipeg, Canada, circa 1956.

Putting our eyes where Smyth's mouth is, we're treated to a vintage clip of Presley mauling Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" all across the Dorsey Brothers' televised Stage Show: One can't help but draw socio-musical connections with those Shocking Pinks to come — to say nothing of Live Rust. Similarly, footage of a live "Birds" draws undeniable parallels with and to another unmistakable early influence: that "opera singer with a backbeat" (as Young once called him), Roy Orbison.

Next, George Tomsco of The Fireballs explains how such instrumental combos provided the foundation upon which those early Squires were built, along with The Shadows from Britain and their brilliant guitarist Hank Marvin. Luckily, our hero soon found his very own homegrown, hometown tutor of the electrified six strings in Randy Bachman, whose own baby bands were at this point already filling Winnipeg community clubs with sounds until then only heard deep within Young's head.

But as it did countless others in 1964, the music of The Beatles abruptly pointed Young, the hitherto self-confessed guitar nerd, in a bold new direction. Choosing the opening and closing numbers off Capitol Canada's Beatlemania! album, "It Won't Be Long" and "Money," to make his vocal debut in Squires performances — ignoring catcalls from the audience to "stick to the instrumentals" — Young the singer/songwriter was born. A years-later clip of "When You Dance I Can Really Love" draws that fab line clear back to "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You" by Young's fave Beatle, George Harrison.

"Mr. Soul" would later demonstrate Young's admiration for those anti-Beatles, The Rolling Stones (and their "Satisfaction" in particular): We can all hear just how much "Lady Jane" still inhabits that admittedly "Borrowed Tune" of his. Funny, then, how Young's career would later straddle similarly opposing camps, doing time in both his own Beatles alongside Messrs. David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash whilst simultaneously taking rougher rides atop that wholly Stone-headed Crazy Horse. One guess as to which affiliation Young preferred.

This musical duality is even more pronounced when in 1965 Young returns to Toronto, enthralled and active within that city's hard-knocking Yonge Street Strip as well as the comparatively refined Yorkville Avenue coffeehouse scene. All of which prepares him perfectly for a subsequent escape to Los Angeles and his first major successes with the one and only Buffalo Springfield. Here, finally, was a band that allowed Young to vent the entire gamut of his myriad musical upbringings clear back to Elvis and the Big O via Beatles, Stones and Yorkville's resident Bob Dylan disciples.

Many musicians, documentary makers and viewers alike would be happy to rest upon the many laurels 21-year-old Young had already racked up so far. But this story is far from over, and Here We Are in the Years enters the 1970s with Neil Young: Stories Behind the Songs author Nigel Williamson making quite the case for Neil the pioneer, as opposed to mere practitioner of country-rock. Yet no sooner are we lulled into such Old Ways with a Willie Nelson duet than we're bolted into a Sex Pistols-poppin' "Pretty Vacant" clip as, oh dear, Neil the Punk rears its recently shorn head. Warning: Excerpts from director Bernard Shakey's Human Highway will only leave you hankering for more, so I hereby direct one and all to the nearest YouTube — keywords Devo + Hey Hey My My.

None other than Kraftwerk enters the Music Box at this critical juncture: I never realized just how well Trans worked onstage until I was reminded with the vocoder-drenched performance footage here. Then come the 1990s: Neil Young — or at least his wardrobe — finds itself in perfect sync with what Seattle Weekly's Ned Raggett calls "lumberjacks in flannel playing huge heavy riffs." Or grunge, to the uninitiated. But, in case you forgot, Young joined no less than Pearl Jam with a benedictorial "Rockin' in the Free World" at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. Enough said.

All in all, this is a splendid audio/visual overview — at least as much as can be crammed into 117 minutes with a career as big and boxed set(s)-worthy as Young’s. This is one production that clearly and completely focuses on the man's music — even to the point the bonus featurette "A Brief History of the Squires" explains in heartbreaking detail just how Young's first bandmates doomed themselves forever to the Where Are They Now? drawer by not showing up for a planned weeklong gig many summers ago on Falcon Lake, Manitoba.

Such are the tall rock tales only good docs are made of. Here We Are in the Years: Neil Young's Music Box is one of them.

— Musician/writer Gary Pig Gold is the co-founder of the To M'Lou Music label.

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