By Joel Francis
Baby Huey – The Baby Huey Story: The Living Legend (1971) Sadly, Baby Huey was no longer living by the time The Living Legend came out. The soul singer died from a heart attack four months before album’s release. With no chance of a sequel, The Baby Huey Story makes the most of its shot. “Listen To Me” starts the album with a horn chart so strong it should be in every pep band’s repertoire. An extended reading of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Going to Come” turns the civil rights anthem into a psychedelic soul adventure. On the flip side, Huey tackles “California Dreamin’” and three songs by benefactor and producer Curtis Mayfield. “Hard Times,” another civil rights song, popped up a dozen years ago on a collaborative album between John Legend and the Roots. In fact, hip hop musicians have mined this album pretty hard for beats and samples since the early ‘80s. There’s a good chance you’ve already heard a lot of Baby Huey’s Story, just in five- or 10-second looped intervals. Soul fans and hip hop heads will find a lot to enjoy in Huey’s abbreviated catalog.
The Cure – Standing on a Beach: The Single (compilation) Greatest hits collections were the meat and potatoes of my music library during my time as a student. In those days of early internet, anthologies were the best place to start for bands and artists with daunting catalogs. I mention this because I learned through the hits collections Standing on the Beach and Galore that the Cure were a very different band on their singles than they were on album. Singles Cure were bright, poppy and quirky. Album Cure was moody, dark and confrontational. I am a Singles Cure fan. Standing on a Beach starts with the band’s early lo-fi post-punk work and leaves off at the doorstep of their must successful commercial period. The transformation is subtle on Standing on a Beach. There aren’t any huge leaps in sound and the progression feels very natural. It’s also more fun than any proper Cure album would allow.
David Bowie – Heathen (2002) At the time of its release, Heathen was hailed as a comeback for Bowie. In retrospect this seems odd, because the final three albums Bowie released as a touring musician, before disappearing for a decade, are very much of a piece. They are Bowie reflecting on his past work, cherry-picking the best bits and reprising them in a contemporary context. Of these three albums – 1999’s Hours, Heathen and 2003’s Reality – I like Heathen best. It feels the most fully realized. There’s not a bum track to be found, but “Slow Burn” and “Everyone Says Hi” stand out as favorites. The reference to the Yankees in “Slip Away” will always make me think of that horrible/wonderful period after 9/11 when we were all New Yorkers, even if the only thing you’d done in New York at the time was go to the Bronx for a ball game like me.
Johnny Cash – Now Here’s Johnny Cash (compilation)
Johnny Cash – Original Sun Sound (compilation) Both of these albums are early 1960s attempts by the Sun Records label to cash in on Johnny’s stardom (See what I did there?) after he moved on with Columbia Records. Interestingly, neither of them contain many hits. Now Here has “Cry Cry Cry” and “Hey Porter” while Original has “Big River.” That’s it. The rest of the 21 tracks across the two albums are deep cuts. And they go pretty deep. “Belshazzar” outfits an Old Testament tale the Tennessee Two sound. Cash liked “Country Boy” so much he cut it again 30-some odd years later on Unchained. Even the Lead Belly chestnut “Goodnight Irene” gets a spin. The producers on Now Here positioned “Oh, Lonesome Me” next to “So Doggone Lonesome.” “Port of Lonely Hearts” appears earlier in the collection, further driving the point home. Fans wanting the hits should look elsewhere, but anyone wanting a deeper look at his early period will be pleased. Even better, both of these albums can be found pretty easily for under five bucks.
Stardeath and White Dwarves – Wastoid (2014) Stardeath may have won some new fans through nepotism – lead singer Dennis Coyne is the nephew of Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips – but they kept the converted by producing entertaining slabs of psychedelic, experimental rock. Wastoid is the Oklahoma City quartet’s second album. They are significantly heavier than the Lips, but share that band’s morbid playful side. If you ever wanted the Flaming Lips to make a stoner rock album, this is for you. I enjoy Wastoid more than their debut, simply because it sounds more effortless and assured. Stardeath released an EP in 2015 and have been strangely quite since then. I hope we get some new stuff at some point.
Neko Case, k.d. lang, Laura Veirs – Case/Lang/Veirs (2016) The appetite for supergroups goes back to Sun’s Million Dollar Quartet. But for every Traveling Wilburys or CSNY, it seems you get about three Nodding Hillbillies or the Firms. Maybe that’s why Case/Lang/Veirs works so well. I don’t remember hearing much of anything about this project before its release. There was no time to build anticipation and expectation, it was just … there.
The greater reason why Case/Lang/Veirs works is because all three women are incredible songwriters with voices of gold that perfectly complement each other. While this album doesn’t match the high points each artist has achieved on her own it should be cherished by fans of all three.
The Gotobeds – Poor People are Revolting (2014) Sometimes you end up with an album purely because of the convergence of mood, price and genre. The Pittsburgh-based punk quartet are fine purveyors of their craft, but don’t know why I have three of their albums. I’d definitely go see them the next time they come through town, but my fandom isn’t as deep as my record shelf suggests. Poor People are Revolting is the Gotobeds’ first full-length album. If you like the sound of Pavement, the Fall and Sonic Youth noisily colliding with populist politics, this is the place for you.
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