Don Cooper – The Ballad Of C.P. Jones (1971)

Artist: Don Cooper
Title: The Ballad Of C. P. Jones
Year: 1971
Format: LP
Label: Roulette

Contributed by Eliot W.

Cooper rides the narrow furrow between folk, country and rock, uses his disaffected voice and guitar on some story themes and keeps the backup group (which has some strong jazz names) down. All in all it’s a good example of offbeat talent comin’ through. Good sample track is the opener, “The Ballad Of C.P. Jones.” (Billboard Magazine)

Track Listing

1. The Ballad Of C. P. Jones
2. Lonely Blue
3. Rhinestone In The Rough
4. Let Myself Go
5. Fat Lovebirds
6. A Better Way
7. If It’s Gotta Happen
8. Haven’t Much Time
9. Howlin’ At The Moon
10. Good Ol’ Gal
11. Do Or Die

James Late – Fulton Fish Market (1970)

Artist: James Late
Title: Fulton Fish Market
Year: 1970
Format: LP
Label: Metromedia

The Fulton Fish Market is a fish market in The Bronx, New York, United States. It was originally a wing of the Fulton Market, established in 1822 to sell a variety of foodstuffs and produce. In November 2005, the Fish Market relocated to a new facility in Hunts Point in the Bronx, from its historic location near the Brooklyn Bridge along the East River waterfront at and above Fulton Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City.

During much of its 183-year tenure at the original site, the Fulton Fish Market was the most important wholesale East Coast fish market in the United States of America. Opening in 1822, it was the destination of fishing boats from across the Atlantic Ocean. By the 1950s, most of the Market’s fish were trucked in rather than offloaded from the docks.

The wholesalers at the Market then sold it to restaurateurs and retailers who purchased fresh fish of every imaginable variety.It was possible for fish to be rushed from fishing ports in New England to wholesale buyers at the Fulton Fish Market, who might then resell it to retail markets and restaurants in the very same towns where the catch originated. (Wikipedia Excerpt)

Folk artist James Late was discovered by Metromedia executives while performing his songs in Central Park. Late also had another source of employment, “moonlighting” at the historic Fulton Fish Market in New York City, which provided an unusual artistic concept for this album, which features Late talking intros of his experiences and observations working at the fish market followed by his original compositions dealing with the trials and tribulations of everyday life there.

The songs are direct observations, a sort of musical diary, dealing with various themes in the work place and they hold up very well on their own. The listener might get the impression that these songs could have been in Late’s head while he was working those long nights on such songs as the title track, “Fulton Fish Market“, “Very Good Man“, “We Work Together“, “Make It On My Name“, “Five More Miles” and “My Mind Has Got To Keep Rolling Along“. “Dust” contains an actual “live” track recorded at Fulton Fish Market. (Jack Dominilla)

Track Listing

1. Fulton Fish Market
2. Very Good Man
3. Man On The Corner
4. Hard Hard Life
5. Baby Please Come Home
6. We Work Togethe
7. Lazy River
8. Make It On My Name
9. Dust (Instrumental)
10. Five More Miles
11. Dock Of Beekman Street
12. My Mind Has Got To Keep Rolling Along

Barbara Barrow & Mike Smith – Mickey And Babs Get Hot (1974)

Artist: Barbara Barrow & Mike Smith
Title: Mickey And Babs Get Hot
Year: 1974
Format: LP
Label: Bell

“…After high school, Mike Smith’s family moved to Florida. Two years later, he started college and his interest in folk music blossomed. He cites The Kingston Trio and Harry Belafonte as his earliest folk influences. He spent three years of the 1960s working at a Miami venue called The Flick, playing six nights a week.

He was in a Peter, Paul and Mary-style trio for a couple of years which included his wife Barbara Barrow. They expanded into a rock band called Juarez and recorded one album for Decca before disbanding (see January 12, 2010 post for more info)Smith and his wife then played as an acoustic duo for most of the early 70s.” (Wikipedia Excerpt)

The great thing about the redtelephone is how memories of sounds from it can linger on and on and on, long after being heard…..Juarez….was one great posting and can Mickey and Babs “Get Hot” top it?….Juarez was packed with so many multi-spangled soundscapes and finishing as it does with the epic St-Mary’s Railroad…

Oh and those short “The Little Kids”….and “Kyrie”…..and Juarez boasted such a stellar cast of players….Juarez came over like some lost OST….boy….that would have been one great movie: so a good place for the casual listener to begin, is to compare the 1970 version of The Dutchman with the one on offer here…..

Juarez in kaleidoscope fashion lilts into “The Dutchman” with such a café society feel….and Barbara enters the fray coming in on in as an Abba soundalike…if that’s possible? The 1970 “The Dutchman” is a classic of sorts…with Mike’s whistling and evocative accordion playing which Garth Hudson would have been proud of, adding to the mix……yup….and the whole thing finishes off with military taps and Mike mouthing off some Dutch….

In contrast: the 1974 “The Dutchman” is given a  breathy treatment….one in which Barbara shows she has lost none of her Agnetha touches….the ‘74 version is much starker…..Barbara being accompanied by some neat ivory tinkling by Mike? This Dutchmen is a real tear-jerker….world-weary even…..gone is the full band with sound effects approach to this sparer, stripped back skeleton….staring at a mirror Babs closes an empty diary…..Babs and Mickey sure have matured well.

Mickey and Babs Get Hot…kicks off with “Steal Away”, sounding like it was recorded inside a cardboard box….the elastic band guitar and off beat drumming is simply hypnotic….and Mickey yawls away tearing the heart of any mother crying for the return of her Prodigal Son……this theme is developed with “Mom and Dad”…and the fun hear is trying to work out who is singing which role….are Babs & Mickey our Prodigals or our parents….and “Just What Would Jesus Say”…..so has Juarez found religion?

Bang!! “Belmar” breaks the reverential mood as Mickey fairly tinkles in with some manic boogie-woogie on piano and we are up and off on a runaway wagon going downhill at 50mph, dodging trees – and then in comes some Bonzo’s soundadelics, whoah….we are treated to some serious 1920’s vaudeville toy-town band-yahoo!! Just who the heck was or is Belmar? Causing, “my bass pedals broke!!”….(come on ye Charlatans!)

“Honeydew” steers us out of the wreckage into the safe Mom’s Apple Pie hands of Babs as she slews us off into oft-kilter Bobby Gentry witchy territory and some fine pedal steel is on show – indeed “Honeydew” brings in a complete band feel to all that is on show…..

“Save My Child” finds Mike behind the bar-stool piano…this time milking us into a kirk-mission theme….and from out of the back room a heavenly chorus strikes up into a Mad River, ‘Paradise and Grill tune! Babs, here, emotes from a real deep dark place, accentuated by some noble organ and sympathetic playing……so Babs and Mike sure see a place for ‘spirituality’ in their musical palette….God and Jesus walks the plains searching for lost souls…..

Man’s Sins are further developed as a harp player rises from the wreckage of “Belmar” and chunters in with a Dylanesque theme…. “Osceola’s Last Words”….Babs walks towards us from the mist of the wilderness and introduces Osceola’s lyrics and hey the band picks up on the elegiac melody….superbly carried by native drum and Baptist organ…

Mickey adds his vocal and together in “Osceola’s Last Words” our minstrels strike up poignancy…..this is one regal affair….Seminole blood drips from America’s young flag…..here is a track that could grace and fit neatly onto Juarez?….a stand-out essential anthem! Who said that protest was dead? This music is an amalgam, garnered from a tune from across the seas, married to the ghostly music found in long-forgotten pow-wows!!

“Blazin Guns”…with the injuns out of the way…Babs and Mickey get their teeth into the gun and thunder of the Old West where white man faced white man and no one backed down…..in the background within the wailing dust cloud are faint traces of injun yo ha ha woah ha’s!!

“Blazin Guns” is a western mini-epic….our band cook up a little head of steam here – piano/organ/drum and a generous smattering of full-on electric geetar, and Mike at his warbling best! This nostalgic land of Desperados is the rich vein that The Eagles tapped into (sugarly)– but here the folk roots are prominent neatly hanging onto Hollywood’s coat-tails…..superb.

“The Ballad of Dan Moody” is squeezed in before Babs tour de force “The Dutchman”…the western theme continues but we are caught up in a less than satisfying chunky 1/2/3 feel – mercifully we are treated to the use of some mean fiddle playing and in this ballad our Mr and Mrs finally do get Hot as their harmonising rises well above expectations…..

“Mr Dutchman” closes things off majestically and so the sum of the parts on show here have been slung into a rag-bag and hung onto Bell’s corporate hook….but this album is one well worth exploring….and I for one will be more than happy to tune into this collection again as there is much joy and despair to be found within these grooves.  Just where does the redtelephone find such treasures?  (REVIEWED BY AYE AFLOAT)

Track Listing

1. Steal Away
2. Mom And Dad
3. Belmar
4. Honeydew
5. Save My Children
6. Osceola’s Last Words
7. Blazing Guns
8. The Ballad Of Dan Moody
9. The Dutchman

The Brothers Four – 1970 (1970)

Artist: The Brothers Four
Title: 1970
Year: 1970
Format: LP
Label: Fantasy

The Brothers Four know where the new “folk” material is at and they’ve taken to it in no uncertain terms. Included in their repertoire here are songs by Johnny Rivers, Country Joe McDonald, Gordon Lightfoot, Tim Hardin, Neil Diamond and Leonard Cohen, among others. For a change of pace, there’s the funny “Hippopotamus” by Flanders and Swann. (Billboard Magazine)

Track Listing

1. Going Back To Big Sur
2. Here I Go Again
3. The Hippopotamus
4. Affair On 8th Avenue
5. November Snow
6. Darlin’ Be Home Soon
7. (The) Love Of The Common People
8. I Will Be There
9. Reason To Believe
10. Glory Road
11. Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye
    

P.F. Sloan – Measure Of Pleasure (1968)

Artist: P.F. Sloan
Title: Measure Of Pleasure
Year: 1968
Format: LP
Label: Atco

“Eve of Destruction” as prophecy, maybe – who knows where the Time goes? We all grow up and young men do mature (mostly), so is “Measure for Pleasure” the work of a mature visionary? or is it something else instead? Sure, in “Measure for Pleasure” PF sings with greater freedom but if truth be told in it he simply doesn’t appear to have a lot to sing about? His voice, however, comes over as more into one’s face…. perhaps down to Tom Dowd’s magic? and the production is nothing short of wonderful. But visionary? No!

A link can be made between this and Dylan’s move from Protest and his later, apocalyptic ‘Time Out Of Mind’ phase……like Dylan, Sloan turned to the blues for a template to try free the muse.

What a treat it was to hear Measure for Pleasure, though as it turned out, it is hardly an essential listen. It will, however, reward any of us with long enough memories of PF’s early daze, by supplying us a few jig-saw pieces of explanations, as to his transformation from Eve of Destruction to relative obscurity.

“One of a Kind” introduces us to Charlotte? who pops up now and again in this rather tame (lyrically) album. However, the track does introduce us to the very fine playing to be found throughout. Relying on Charlotte, or any one female as focus has dragged many an album into mediocrity, though Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks does prove that it doesn’t have to be so.

“New Design” intimates strongly that PF wants to break out of his early image? The supporting players (throughout) are spot-on, they nail everything, as if eager to get on with getting on and getting out of the building with a minimum of fuss.

“Good Luck” is a chunky stew, with the organ quietly majestic and PF’s acoustic guitar is simply gorgeous.
Some excellent vibes lead us into the blues-soul-stroller, “How Can I Be Sure”. Strong hints of fragile Hardin can be heard here. This is a 2am listen for sure, ably supported by the vibraphonist throughout.

“Star Gazin’” is a chucka boomba yeh of a train tune, with hints of Mona thrown in? It is hardly memorable, but worth a spin. The band certainly know their way round their charts.

“Miss Charlotte” is one of these songs to a woman that litter singer songwriters’ albums and when listening to it, I went through some voyeuristic thoughts – wondering what She really was like?

Half way into the listen one is made aware of the album’s ‘faults’ ie the barrenness of subject matter, (ho, but this easily outstrips Carl Wilson’s solo effort). Simply said, the music is first class, it’s the paucity of lyrics that drag the album into the territory of mediocrity?….. like woah…. surely life is more than “Stargazin’”, a lady and Champagne? Hey those three don’t look too bad as titles?

Wow! in comes “And the Boundaries Inbetween”. It steps up to the plate and delivers some meaningful lyrics set to a bossanova shuffling tune – hey PF hits a stand-out track here. Our troubadour wears his heart on his sleeve.

“Above and Beyond the Call of Duty” comes in on streams of consciousness…. the track sniffs of having been thought out from scribbles on a fag packet?…. this is a bit of a rough and tumble effort.

Yikes, Charlotte is back to close off PF’s efforts…. and it is such a pity that he comes over a bit limp here…..
All in all “Measure For Pleasure” is a bit of a rag bag of ideas, but it will reward the listener but in terms not appreciated in the Revolutionary year of 1968…. I recommend this as a listen…. especially to those PF Sloaners who have longed to hear this. (Reviewed by AYE AFLOAT)

Track Listing

1. One Of A Kind
2. New Design
3. (What Did She Mean When She Said) Good Luck
4. How Can I Be Sure
5. Star Gazin’
6. Miss Charlotte
7. Champagne
8. And The Boundaries Inbetween
9. Above And Beyond The Call Of Duty
10. Country Woman (Can You Dig It All Night)

Mary Catherine Lunsford – Mary Catherine Lunsford (1969)

Artist: Mary Catherine Lunsford
Title: Mary Catherine Lunsford
Year: 1969
Format: LP
Label: Polydor

Little is known about Mary Catherine Lunsford, who put out a rare, self-titled singer/songwriter album on Polydor Records around the late ’60s. The record seems extremely influenced by the early work of Joni Mitchell, though a little more pop-oriented in the production, which uses some orchestration.

Lunsford’s vocals and songs are pleasant, but just aren’t nearly as memorable as those of Mitchell, and derivative enough of Mitchell that such a reference point is unavoidable.

Although it’s given the date of 1969 in some discographies, Mary Catherine Lunsford sounds so Joni Mitchell-influenced that it seems possible it might have come out in 1970; Mitchell, after all, didn’t start to become a national star until the very end of the 1960s. At any rate, the influence is certainly all over the album, particularly in the wordy songs and the winding melodies.

Perhaps there’s a little Sylvia Tyson influence when the vocals lean toward vibrato and some resemblance to Linda Ronstadt’s early work when the songs are at their most mainstream. Lunsford’s voice is likable and her songs are obviously involved and written with care, but they just don’t have the impact that Mitchell’s early work does.

The melodies aren’t all that memorable, and the production does not put her voice far enough in the forefront to make the words as distinct as they should be. The touches of orchestration on some tracks and full-band arrangements throughout differentiate this a little from Mitchell’s first albums, which were much sparser. (Richie Unterberger/Allmusic)

Track Listing

1. Care Care Care
2. Middle Of The Road
3. Band I
4. My Captain
5. Toad Tale
6. Parcels, Candy & Peaches
7. I’m Awaitin’
8. Band II
9. Empty Changes
10. Jazzbo’s Shine On Theme
11. Together Someday