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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 22, 1973)
rock on Shorts, If you hurry you still might be able to get a copy of Roy Rodgers and Dale Evans new single on Word Records, “In The Sweet By And By.” I understand it’s selling like hotcakes here in Eugene. I hope I’m not letting any cats out of the bag but I understand that Roy and Dale split up and she’s new living with Trigger. I guess anybody will get together if they think there’s a few bucks in it... Maybe there is still some hope. Comedian George Bums got his wish last week, Alice Cooper introduced a special George Buras-Jack Benny concert in New York’s Philharmonic Hall ... A new Jeff Beck group is in the making. The group, called Beck, Bogart and Applice, contains a for mer member of Vanilla Fudge, Tim Bogart, and Carmine Applice, formely of Cactus. They are overdubbing tracks now and an album release should be forthcoming ... Rumor has it that Mick Jagger may make a presentation on the upcoming Grammy Awards show. Stones officials deny it flatly... Doug Sahm who recently recorded with a group of friends—Bob Dylan and Dr. John in cluded—will be featured in another new album. This one is a release of some early cuts from his days with the Sir Douglas Quintet . . . The Osmonds have just been told that they have four more certified gold records. This brings their million seller total to 16... Just goes to show you that artistry is its own reward. Folksinger Pete Seeger will receive a special Governors Award during the upcoming Grammy Awards Ceremony which should be an the tube next week. The award will be presented by Don McLean for Seeger’s “contributions to music and his concern for the welfare of New York.” When you look at the list of the nominees it is hard to believe they even know who Pete Seeger is. Entertainment in this area looks pretty good for a change. Several fine shows will be presented in next few weeks. Starting things off tomorrow night at the Paramount Theatre in Portland will be Roberta Flack. The show is scheduled for an 8 p.m. start. Then next Friday night, March 2, the new Paul Butterfield Band will be at Lewis and Clark. March 3 brings “East Bay Grease” better known as Tower of Power to the Lane County Fairgrounds. This should prove to be a real screamer. Tower of Power has always been a favorite of mine and I’m really looking forward to this one. And don’t forget Neil Young and his band Stray Gators at the Portland Coliseum on March 15. Tickets for that one can be obtained by calling Meier & Frank at Valley River between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. and having them transfer your call to the main ticket desk in Portland. You can pay for the tickets here and they will be held for you at the door. Late news has George Carlin at the Paramount on March 11 and everybody’s sweetheart Alice Cooper at the Coliseum in May. The Alice Cooper tour which starts next week is expected to gross in the neighborhood of $4.5 million for 56dates. Not bad for a little cutie. Elvis Presley fans will be glad that he is being booked into the Portland Coliseum for sometime in April. There is no date yet but sources at the Coliseum say he will definitely make an ap pearance. Also on tap is the Elvis “Aloha From Hawaii” TV special that will be shown April 4. Eric Clapton has a new album that will be released shortly... Hopefully this one will contain some new material. It is from his first public appearance in ova- two years, Bangla Desh withstanding. The only thing holding up the release is the concert organizer’s ok. In this case it must come from Peter Townshend who planned the gig for charity ... John and Yoko may be on the verge of breaking up. “Time” the weekly news magazine reports that John wants to get bade together with Paul. I don’t know how much of it I believe... Grunt Records has announced that the Jefferson Airplane album “Long John Silver” has been banned in Singapore because it contains a photograph of marijuana. The Airplane’s new album should be out soon. It will be a live recor ding of concerts in Chicago and San Francisco. The Robert Jeffrey Ballet has just started performing a new show titled “Duece Coupe.” It is done in its entirety with music supplied by the Beach Boys. Some of the fifteen songs include “Little Deuce Coupe,” “Little Honda” “Catch a Wave” and “Fun, Fun, Fun.” The show is sup posed to be playing to sell-out crowds in the bay area. Bruce Micklus records Re-Union Dion and the Belmonts Warner Bros. Copyright 1*72 Okay! So here we go back to Philly late 50’s and 60’s, back to Dion and the Belmonts, bade to classic ooohhhh waahhh-wwhhooo! Actually, they come back to us in the form of a 1972 concert at Madison Square Garden. People at Warner Brothers thought this was such a groovy idea they made it into a record. It’s not so bad. In fact, some of the music has been improved ova- the original without detracting from the over-a 11 quality. What causes trouble is the singing. This album is billed as a re-union, a get together after being out for eight years or so. For all we know, the only practice the fellows ever got was singing in the toilet of the Pom Central Metroliner going up to New Yak. That probably being the case, some of the vocals, the background oow-ahs especially, come off on the bad side of poor. Assuming that the album goes in the general order of the actual concert songs, we can applaud some of the beginning as a strong performance. Towards the end, somewhere around “Where a When,” tHfe fellows sound like they’re ashamed of what they’re singing. They miss keys and generally sound as though they’re tired of it all. Well, either that a they’re forgetting how the sags go. But it’s all good fun, you know? It’s not supposed to be good or anything, just good fun. Everybody who can remember when you were eight a ten or twelve and Dion was on the juke box telling you how he was gonna kill himself cause Diane didn’t love him— okay!—you people understand. Now fa everybody else, it’s fun, like here’s one of those waah-wahh-wooo groups you can dig, alright? Nothing too fancy, just Dion DiMucci and the three Belmonts out on the stage singing their hits—“I Wonder Why,” “The Wanderer,” “A Teenager in Love” and so on. But they do it all, wahh-whooo-aahhh! True, it would be nice if they had been able to hoid together towards the end. “Run Around Sue,” sorry to say, is entirely screwed up. Now there’s one that’s really good and they blow it. Everything went bad on this one—the singing, the music, everything. “Sue” runs for about seven minutes and believe me, when she’s done, you’re finished. But it’s okay, you know? It’s not 1959 anymore. Somebody just might want to hear what Dion and the Belmonts sound like now, that’s all. George Buddy A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing BR 2110 Sparks Bears vilie Bearsville Copyright 1972 After hearing this record I was tempted to heed Thumper’s dictum, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” On the other hand Art Bushnell, who edits this section and modestly a vends mentioning his name as much as possible in these pages, informed anyone who happened to be listening recently that he was printing too many favorable reviews, “What’sa matter? Don’t you jerks dislike anything?” Well Art, here’s a record at least one jerk hates—“A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing” by Sparks. Sparks, a band I have had the good fortune to be ignorant of until now, sound like a bad version of Tommy James and the Shondells who have discovered dissonant chords and bestiality. Musically they are not only dull but anemic. Lyrically their strong point is their inability to sing un derstandably. This is the best thing about the record. However, some idiot included all the words. I will not quote any of'the songs here. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I can’t say much more as just thinking about this record makes me physically ill. There’s altogether too much mascara in rock and roll and Sparks seems to wear about half of it. Rolf Hage War Heroes Jimi Hendrix Reprise Copyright 1972 In 1970, Jimi Hendrix died of drug related death at the early age of 27. Almost three years later, in 1973, another of his albums, “War Heroes’’, which was recorded shortly before his death, has just been released by Reprise Records, a Division of Warner Bros. Inc. Hendrix is dead, but ap parently his music lives on forever. In many ways, the album is better than average Hendrix but not as good as some of his work during the glory years of the pop culture. Memories of single classics like “Purple Haze,” “Wind Cries Mary,” “Hey Joe,” “If Six Were Nine” and “All along the Watchtower” crowd the subconscious. Album classics like Axis, Bowl is Love, the Electric Lady Man and Rainbow Bridge remind the listener of better days in the long gone past. Musically, the album is well above average Hendrix on guitar but less than average Hendrix vocally. Despite its lower than average lyrical content, it still remains musically good with a fair amount of adequate music substance. Its album structure — and the way the album was put together technically — is also well above the average Hendrix usually puts together. A consistent Hendrix fan would definitely And it worthy but it probably won’t win any new converts over to the Hendrix . sound. Both sides of the “War Heroes” album are evenly balanced, basically, in their quality, but looking at the album realistically only three songs merit significant recognition or any comparison with any of the other fine work that he produced in his short musical career. These songs include “Highway Child” and “Stepping Stone” on side one and “The Three Little Bears” on side two. All three songs are Hendrix vocals and “Stepping Stone” also uses a background vocal group — which adds to its overall quality. The vocal work in “Stepping Stone” is typical but yet better Hendrix vocal and has a very good transition of musical sounds. It is definitely the best vocal on the album and the use of a long instrumental run in the song adds to the long continued Hendrix rock sound. “The Three Little Bears” is also a very good vocal and has the best storyline of all of the songs on the album. Adding to its value is the fact and substance of a funny, loose and even silly song. The song has very good chord structure, for Hendrix, and what makes it outstanding is its diversity from the usual Hendrix style and an unstoppable urge for the listener to get involved in the song. “Highway Child” remains unique in that it is essentially the only song on the album presenting a message. Hendrix turns it into a strong vocal interp, with very good music that is very well collected and extremely well presen ted. Overall, along with “The Three Little Bears,” it remains the best song on the album and possibly the only reason why the album should exist at all. Other Hendrix vocals on the “War Heroes” album include “Izabella,” typical Hendrix music with a loud ending; “Bleeding Heart,” a softer song with a good story line; and “Catastrophe,” which essentially holds the album’s best melody but is still too cluttered to be exceptional. Of the four remaining instrumentals, ‘Tax Free,” with an organ background added to an adequate instrumental; “Beginning,” with impressive drum runs and guitar play but nothing else; and “Peter Gunn,” with a small amount of orchestration to add to an unprofessional ending, are the only other songs which deserve mention. Looking at the album overall, it is definitely typical Hendrix. Not as good as he had once done but also not as bad as he was sometimes capable of doing. For a Hendrix fan “War Heroes” is definitely tolerable, perhaps even desired, but for someone who does not appreciate the sound ... the album, Hendrix’s music and his memory is possibly left bettor in the grave. The “War Heroes” album just does not do full justice to his musical greatness. James Hassell
