PINK FLOYD: "Delicate Sound Of Thunder"

Original released on Double LP EMI 79.1481.1

(NETHERLANDS 1988, November 22)

 

 

 

 

In one respect, it's hard to fault David Gilmour for retooling Pink Floyd as a neo-oldies act with "Momentary Lapse of Reason", since Roger Waters took the band over the brink with his obsessive, nonmusical "The Final Cut". Fans were eager for an album that sounded like classic Floyd, which is what "Momentary Lapse" was. But what they really thirsted for was a live spectacle from Floyd, where they could hear the old tunes and see all the old stunts. That's what they got on the 1987/1988 Pink Floyd world tour, which is documented on this double-disc set "The Delicate Sound of Thunder". Gilmour's reunited Floyd was intent on recreating the sound and feel of classic Floyd, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the oldies feel like the classic records, only with Gilmour taking each vocal. He and Floyd deliver well, but this is a recreation that makes less sense on record than it did on-stage, where the nostalgia was justified. Here, it feels passable but never compelling. This is professional, competent, and, often, even enjoyable music, yet, like many souvenirs, it never once feels necessary. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

NOTE: The files were directly transfered from the remastered vinyl album, with some improvements in digital software, to obtain the best possible sound. Enjoy!

The Best Of Instrumental 60's Guitar - Vol. 3

The Best Of Instrumental 60's Guitar - Vol. 2

The Best Of Instrumental 60's Guitar - Vol. 1

EP TAMLA MOTOWN TMEL 2028 (PT, 1969)

STEVIE WONDER: "My Cherie Amour"

Original released on LP Tamla S-296

(US 1969, August 29)

Notable for containing Wonder's then-most recent Top Ten hit, the title track, and its follow-up, "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday," this album otherwise contains contemporary filler like "Light My Fire," plus a peculiar arrangement of "Hello, Young Lovers" from "The King and I" that makes it sound like "For Once In My Life." (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)

STEVIE WONDER: "For Once In My Life"

Original released on LP Tamla TS-291

(US 1968, December 8)

Rather than rushing out an album in the spring of 1968, when "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day" (Number 9 Pop, Number One R&B) hit, Motown waited, through the modest summer success of "You Met Your Match" (Number 35 Pop, Number Two R&B), until "For Once in My Life" (Number Two Pop and R&B) became Wonder's next mammoth single, to release an album. As a result, this album contained all three hits, making it one of Wonder's more consistent albums of the '60s, even with filler like "Sunny" and "God Bless the Child." The real find, however, is the driving "I Don't Know Why," which, when placed on the B-side of Wonder's next single, "My Cherie Amour," became a hit on its own, going to Number 39 (Pop) and Number 16 (R&B). (William Ruhlmann in AllMusic)

THE ALAN BOWN SET: "Outward Bown"

Original released on LP Music Factory CUBLS 1

(UK, January 1968)

Everybody who's followed the convoluted career of Jess Roden, Britain's best-kept blue-eyed soul-shaped secret for more than 30 years, should close their ears right now. The man who turned "I Can't Get Next to You" into one of the most dramatically passionate rock workouts of the '70s is completely up a bubblegum tree here, running through an album of light-psych whimsy that has as much to do with his future as...name your poison: Peter Frampton and the Herd, Status Quo and "Matchstick Men," Traffic and its debut album. It's great pop, of course - as great as any of those and many more. Blissed out mini-classics like "Magic Handkerchief," "Violin Shop," and "My Girl the Month of May" are as delightful as only second-division British psych can be, a collection of semi-detached suburban Ray Davies observations full of vaguely Edwardian lifestyle concerns, peopled by pretty girls who wash the dishes, toys that talk, and love that flies from the rooftops with the clouds. Signs of the band's (and band members') brilliance are all over the place. "Penny for Your Thoughts" is garage land Small Faces, underpinned by freak guitar and the brilliant brass of Bown and future Supertramp mainstay John Anthony Helliwell, while a version of Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" melds Hendrix' arrangement to a Sgt. Pepper's-ish style. And it's all so impossibly sweet, so implausibly twee, and so utterly a child of its times that you can't help but wonder just how humanity survived the '60s. Let alone Roden himself! (Dave Thompson in AllMusic)

SCOTT WALKER 4

Original released on LP Philips SBL 7913

(UK, September 1969)

Walker dropped out of the British Top Ten with his fourth album, but the result was probably his finest '60s LP. While the tension between the bloated production and his introspective, ambitious lyrics remains, much of the over-the-top bombast of the orchestral arrangements has been reined in, leaving a relatively stripped-down approach that complements his songs rather than smothering them. This is the first Walker album to feature entirely original material, and his songwriting is more lucid and cutting. Several of the tracks stand among his finest. "The Seventh Seal," based upon the classic film by Ingmar Bergman, features remarkably ambitious (and relatively successful) lyrics set against a haunting Ennio Morricone-style arrangement. "The Old Man's Back Again" also echoes Morricone, and tackles no less ambitious a lyrical palette; "dedicated to the neo-Stalinist regime," the "old man" of this song was supposedly Josef Stalin. "Hero of the War" is also one of Walker's better vignettes, serenading his war hero with a cryptic mix of tribute and irony. Other songs show engaging folk, country, and soul influences that were largely buried on his previous solo albums. (Richie Unterberger in AllMusic)

SCOTT WALKER: "Sing Songs From His TV Series"

Original released on LP Philips SLP 7900

(UK, July 1969)

Considering this 1969 LP made the U.K. Top Ten at a time when Scott Walker's British solo stardom was at its peak, it's surprising that, as of this writing, it has yet to be reissued on CD, though a few tracks do appear on the 2005 compilation Classics & Collectibles. It remains all but unheard, in fact, in the U.S., where it wasn't issued. Considering that all of his other early solo albums have made it onto CD, one suspects that Walker himself might be reluctant to have it re-released if he has any vote in the matter. If so, it's understandable to some degree, as it's not all that representative of what he was usually recording at the time, and certainly not his best work of the period. The dozen songs on "Scott Sings Songs from His TV Series" are all covers of popular standards, not taken from actual performances he did on the set of his six-episode BBC television series in early 1969, but from studio recordings of some (and by no means all) of the tunes he was seen performing on those programs. Fairly heavily orchestrated and middle of the road even by the standards of 1960s MOR vocalists, the selections include interpretations of compositions by the likes of Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, Charles Aznavour, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Kurt Weill, as well as "The Impossible Dream" and a song from the Broadway musical Mame. 

There isn't a hint of rock or even period pop in sight, with the arguable exception of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's "The Look of Love." So it's far from Walker at his best, but that doesn't mean it's worthless. He sings extremely well throughout the album, indicating he could have been a highly successful adult pop crooner had he stuck to that path exclusively. Of course, he didn't, which is the reason most of his fans are interested in Walker in the first place. There's not a hint of the moody darkness that was so integral to his early solo work's strength, and for that matter, no material by Jacques Brel, the composer he enjoyed interpreting more than any other. For that reason alone it's a curiosity that's far less enduring than his other albums of the late '60s and early '70s, and is only recommended to completist fans of the singer, who'll have a hard time locating a copy in spite of its impressive chart performance. (Richie Unterberger in AllMusic)

SCOTT WALKER: The Third Album

Original released on LP Philips SBL 7882

(UK, April 1969)

Scott Walker's final British Top Ten album was the first to be dominated by his own songwriting. Ten of the 13 tunes on this 1969 LP are originals; the remaining three, naturally, were written by one of his chief inspirations, Jacques Brel. There are some interesting moments here. "Big Louise" talks about a hefty prostitute with shocking explicitness for a pop star album of the era. "Copenhagen" (like much of Walker's '60s work) foreshadows David Bowie. "Funeral Tango" is a particularly vicious Brel song. "30 Century Man" is an uncommonly folkish and focused tune for Walker. "We Came Through" is an oddball cavalry charge featuring one of his occasional forays into Ennio Morricone spaghetti Western-like production. The tension between Walker's dense, foreboding lyrics and orchestral production is unusual, to say the least. But too often, it's too difficult to penetrate Walker's insights through Wally Scott's string-drenched production. It shrouds the lyrics in a fog that's often too syrupy to justify the effort needed to fight through it. (Richie Unterberger in AllMusic)