115. Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison (May 1968)

1. Folsom Prison Blues*

2. Dark as the Dungeon

3. I Still Miss Someone

4. Cocaine Blues

5. 25 Minutes to Go

6. Orange Blossom Special

7. The Long Black Veil

8. Send a Picture of Mother

9. The Wall

10. Dirty Old Egg-Suckin' Dog

11. Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart

12. Jackson*

13. Give My Love to Rose*

14. I Got Stripes

15. Green, Green Grass of Home

16. Greystone Chapel

A

I met a guy in a bar once who claimed he didn't like Johnny Cash because he didn't have that many great songs. I could list twenty great Johnny Cash songs without breaking a sweat, but sure, whatever, random hipster dude I'm still mad at fifteen years later.

Cash is one of those acts I got into through my father. I don't personally listen to him often, but I've heard a hell of a lot of his music over the years. It's not really surprising that my dad loves Cash, since he worked as a guard for four years in a maximum security prison, and has led a very rough and tumble life over the years. I don't personally feel as strong a connection to the music on this album, but it's impossible not to be swayed by the wit and warmth of At Folsom. There's a great range of material here, showing pretty much every side of Cash's music. There are funny songs, sad songs, and of course a lot of prison songs. All of this is interspersed with banter from Cash, announcements by the prison administration, and interjections from the audience. One great moment comes during the dark ballad "The Wall", which prompts Cash to respond "You're some mean bastards, aintcha?". There's also a great bit where Cash jokes about the quality of the water. You kind of have to hear it to get it, but it's pretty funny.

As to the music itself, Cash's country and rockabilly has always been of the "so simple it can't fail" variety. The band chugs along, providing a solid bedrock for Cash's clear, confident delivery. It's really nice to hear such stripped back music, honestly. Here we are in the late 60s, when everyone was playing around with studio trickery, and along comes a straightforward album of direct, lean rock & roll. It's pretty great. It helps that this is probably the best live album we've had so far, too.

On a side note, if you like Cash and haven't seen Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, then you really owe it to yourself to check it out. If nothing else it'll make you realise just how easy it is to accidentally cut someone in half with a machete. 

114. Leonard Cohen - Songs of Leonard Cohen

1. Suzanne*

2. Master Song*

3. Winter Lady

4. The Stranger Song

5. Sisters of Mercy

6. So Long, Marianne*

7. Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye

8. Stories of the Street

9. Teachers

10. One of Us Cannot Be Wrong

A-

This is a dark, pretty, and admirably strange album. Apparently Cohen was unhappy with the production, but the contrast between his simple classical guitar and restrained, deadpan vocals with the odd assortment of choral and instrumental overdubs gives the whole thing a sort of queasy beauty. The first thing anyone talks about when it comes to Leonard Cohen is his lyrics, but it's important not to overlook this album as a piece of music. The songs feature dark, spacey arrangements, anchored by minimalist guitar work. Some of the choices are quite odd - the backing vocals threaten to drown out Cohen on "Suzanne" and "So Long, Marianne", and then there's things like weird electronic skitterings, what sounds like a calliope doubling the vocals at one point, and the bizarre wordless crooning that wanders around the back half of "One of Us Cannot Be Wrong". The whole thing is an obvious point of departure for a whole host of singer-songwriters (I have a feeling it was a big influence on Nick Drake, for example). It's also worth noting that Cohen has a way with crafting off-kilter but memorable, understated melodies. 

But on to those lyrics. And, well - they're both the best and worst thing about the album. "Suzanne", for example, is the sort of poem set to music they should be teaching in university courses. "Master Song" is unrelentingly bleak. But the problem is that the lyrics are so bafflingly cryptic most of the time that I couldn't make head or tails of them. Possibly this is because I simply don't have the kind of life experience reflected in most of these songs. I've never been a drug-addled bohemian living and loving on the edge of society. Most of these songs are dark examinations of love, loss, betrayal and subjugation. In one song Cohen even says the duty of lovers is to tarnish the Golden Rule. That's just depressing, even if it does sort of ring true. In any case, the imagery and use of language is very beautiful, but I don't really know what Cohen is on about. Then again, when you can write a song as catchy and stirring as "So Long, Marianne", it probably doesn't matter.

Of the three Cohen albums I've heard - this, Songs from a Room, and Songs of Love and Hate - this is probably my least favourite. I think Cohen's song writing became more focused and intelligible as he went along, resulting in astonishing songs like "Hallelujah" and "Famous Blue Raincoat". But this is still a very good album. It's very dark and mysterious and pretty, and you could dedicate a lot of time and effort to trying to unravel its secrets. It's definitely the sort of album you have to listen to carefully the whole way through. It's also one of those albums that should come pre-packaged with half a pack of smokes and a cheap bottle of red wine. 

113. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland

1. ...And the Gods Made Love

2. Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)

3. Crosstown Traffic

4. Voodoo Chile*

5. Little Miss Strange

6. Long Hot Summer Night

7. Come On (Part 1)

8. Gypsy Eyes

9. Burning of the Midnight Lamp

10. Rainy Day, Dream Away

11. 1983... (A Mermaid I Should Turn to Be)

12. Moon, Turn the Tides... Gently, Gently Away

13. Still Raining, Still Dreaming

14. House Burning Down

15. All Along the Watchtower*

16. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)*

A-

It's inevitable that every great band at some point releases a self-indulgent double album. Sometimes this works out OK (Pink Floyd, The Clash, Smashing Pumpkins), and sometimes not so much (Yes, Led Zeppelin, Outkast). Thankfully, Electric Ladyland skews a bit higher on the bell curve. Unfortunately, while there are some truly brilliant songs here - songs that stand amongst the greatest achievements of popular music, I'd say - there are also a lot of... well, not "stinkers" exactly, but songs that aren't particularly good. 

A good example of the problems with this album is "Gypsy Eyes". Apparently this song took about forty takes to accomplish. But, honestly, aside from a cool riff it's basically disposable. Why would anyone waste several days trying to nail such a pointless song?

This album is also pretty poorly structured. I realise the double album was a novelty at this point, but opening with a weird sound effects pastiche, segueing into a ballad, then slamming into puerile rocker "Crosstown Traffic" and closing side one with the (admittedly brilliant) lengthy blues jam "Voodoo Chile" just shows a complete lack of understanding of how to structure an album. Although this album was originally released in a format designed for automatic record changers, so I guess the whole thing would have flowed smoothly. But what am I saying? I listened to this on Spotify. It does no flow smoothly. 

Ultimately, this is a killer single disc album expanded to double album status because Hendrix couldn't let go of his babies. It's also much muddier in sound than Axis, which was a beautifully produced album, and doesn't contain anything as lyrical and beautiful as "Castles Made of Sand", "The Wind Cries Mary", or "Little Wing".

But enough griping. This is still a pretty good album. I have to give it a high rating if only for the final two tracks. "All Along the Watchtower" and "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" are two of the most astonishing pieces of music ever recorded - the former an astonishing rocker, the later a bluesy explosion of primal awesomeness that sees Hendrix wringing every possible variation out of one of the greatest riffs ever devised. 

I also quite like "Come On", which shows Hendrix absolutely nailing a high energy blues number, and "Little Miss Strange", which takes one of Noel Redding's disposable pop numbers and drapes it with Hendrix's wonderful lead guitar work.

In the end, I guess this is a party album. It makes sense less as a cohesive set of songs than as a lengthy soundtrack to stoned debauchery. I have a fever and I'm a bit tipsy, so I got it more this time than the other times I've listened to it, but really this is very much a stoner album. Not much will change my view that it would have worked better as a single album, but I don't really care since this is my blog and I can say what I want.

112. Os Mutantes - Os Mutantes (June 1968)

1. Panis et Circensis*

2. Ah Minha Menina*

3. O Relogio

4. Adeus, Maria Fulo

5. Baby

6. Senhor F

7. Bat Macumba

8. Le premier bonheur du jour

9. Trem Fantasma*

10. Tempo no Tempo

11. Ave Gengis Kahn

A

You only have to listen to a Sepultura album to know Brazil has had its problems. Of course I didn't really realise how severe some of those problems were until I decided to read up on the background of this album. Thankfully, Os Mutantes (their name means "The Mutants") decided to react against the oppressive military dictatorship established in Brazil in 1964 by releasing an album of flamboyant psychedelic rock and pop guaranteed to piss-off the largest number of people possible without actually doing anything that might land the band in a concrete cell. Really, this album has to be heard - words cannot do it justice.

Of course, as I've mentioned before, I don't speak Portuguese. However there is a very handy website which provides translations of many of the songs. I was glad to find it, as I've been fond of this album for many years but had no idea at all what the lyrics were. As it turns-out, they're mostly surreal and oblique critiques of contemporary Brazilian life, or else psychedelic love songs of the somewhat melancholy variety. But in any case, the main reason this album is remembered is for the fearlessly "out there" nature of the music. You don't really need to understand the lyrics to enjoy this album - it's a bizarre mixture of psychedelic rock and pop, Brazilian music, tape effects, homemade guitar effects (the fuzzed-out descending riff on album highlight "Ah Minha Menina" will stay with you till you die), and music concrete, all held together by a great sense for a catchy song. 

There are also quite a few covers - Caetano Veloso's "Baby", a reworking of a Mamas and the Papas song into "Tempo no Tempo", and a truly off-the-wall version of "Le Premier Bonheur du Jour" sung by Rita Lee that loses none of the melancholy prettiness of the Francoise Hardy original. But one of my favourites here would have to be original composition  "Trem Fantasmas", which starts with Brazilian flutes and drums before slowly morphing into a warped, drawn-out, harmonised groove that gets stuck in my head for days every time I hear it. And now I know what the lyrics mean I like it even more.

I really can't explain the mix of borderline-excessive studio trickery and downright catchy songs that is this album. It's obvious that Os Mutantes had heard and absorbed a huge amount of different music, and wanted to try and put everything they loved into an album, along with a few ideas of their own. Sometimes this doesn't work, but the acid-tinged, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach holds together perfectly. Even if you don't much enjoy it, it's worth listening to this album just because it's highly unlikely you'll ever hear anything else quite like it.

111. Ravi Shankar - The Sounds of India (1957)

1. An Introduction to Indian Music

2. Dardra

3. Maru-Bihag

4. Bhimpalasi

5. Sindhi-Bhairavi*

B+

Well this is another cock-up by Dimery and Co. This album was released in 1957. And really, it would have been nice for it to have been placed back then in the book, to provide a bit more context for all the Indian pastiches and raga rock that I've been wading through since the mid-60s.

And frankly I'm out of my depth with this one.

That said, this is a nice album. It seems like it would be a good introduction to Indian music, because it features traditional ragas, all well-played, broken up by explanatory introductions by Shankar about how the music is structured and played. One thing I find interesting is that the music is mostly built around tambura drones on single chords (a trick the Beatles pinched for "Tomorrow Never Knows"), with the tabla and sitar players improvising according to specific rules while playing off and occasionally mirroring one another. And yet, as Shankar notes in the introduction, this is not the free improvisation of jazz, and comparisons should be avoided. 

 The songs are also a lot more rhythmically adventurous than in most Western classical music - for example, there's the use of ten beats to the bar, broken up into groups of three and two, as opposed to the Western tendency towards a symmetrical eight beat bar.

That said, ten minutes of explanation by Shankar was nowhere near enough for me to grasp this music, and if I'm being honest I'd be hard pressed to even tell these tracks apart. This is interesting, and I enjoyed listening to it, but it's also noodly and rather samey. Possibly people who are more knowledgeable about Hindustani music would get more out of it, and back in 1957 when this was released it had the advantage of being of considerable novelty for western audiences. As it is, I quite like it as background music but I found it difficult to sit and listen to the whole thing. So a B+, which is my official "Quite good but I don't understand it" grade. Also I just really enjoy the tabla, so there's that.