Brigid says I’m turn­ing into a grouchy old man if the recent posts are any­thing to go by, so let’s get POSITIVE….Lets talk about music. In par­tic­u­lar I need to make some sort of attempt at adding to the album list I started a few months back, here, and here. So, with­out much more ado…here are more albums that would make any list­ing com­plied by me but some­how slip though the “author­i­ta­tive” lists from real crit­ics.

Amer­i­can Spring…(United Artists 1972)…the great lost Brian Wil­son album (although to be fair he only co-produced this, but his fin­ger­prints are obvi­ously all over this and are the ones that mat­ter). Amer­i­can Spring were called Spring in the US but there was a UK band called that (who had a good album on an obscure RCA label called Neon) but were orig­i­nally called The Hon­eys...con­fused? Don’t be…it was essen­tially Brian’s then wife, Marilyn’s band (with her sis­ter). Whilst the songs are some­times famil­iar the approach is dif­fer­ent from any­thing else Wil­son did, or would do, and, this may sound ugly, but it makes more sense aurally than con­cep­tu­ally, imag­ine a blend­ing of the Beach Boys with the Car­pen­ters (not my favourite act but I do under­stand them). How­ever it works rather well, with the purity of the vocals accen­tu­at­ing the depth, and com­plex­ity of the Wil­son sound. Rather won­der­fully actu­ally. Hard as hell to find, but best tracked down on the early nineties CD reis­sue with the extra UA sin­gles tagged on.

Art Pep­per….Smack Up (Con­tem­po­rary 1960)….shortly before, as the title sug­gests, the heroin dragged Art down (but not out, his later work is might­ily mag­nif­i­cent too) for a spell, he released this work of genius. I knew noth­ing of Art when a guy in a lit­tle shop in Soho rec­om­mended this to me in the early eight­ies, so I bought it on a whim, based upon the fact that it sounded inter­est­ing. And found my self absorbed, not only by the record but by the man’s rather tragic quag­mire of a life (his auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Straight Life, is an essen­tial, if some­what depress­ing read). But to the record itself, a col­lec­tion of tracks writ­ten by other play­ers on his label…I love the fact that despite his per­sonal prob­lems, this record sim­ply oozes raw soul, so beau­ti­fully exe­cuted, and with such melodic pas­sion. Whether the heroin con­tributed to or detracted from the per­for­mance in these black grooves is an arguable point (and this is a vinyl record, the CD does it no jus­tice), but he only did these ses­sions under duress from his wife. I hate the drug, and all it implies, more than I can express but it’s impos­si­ble to sat­is­fac­to­rily dis­pute the fact that so much of the music I love was cre­ated under its influ­ence. Smack Up is no excep­tion..

The Temp­ta­tions….Sing Smokey (Gordy 1965)….the album that gave the world the My Girl and in a sin­gle swoop invented the whole sweet soul sound that so dom­i­nated the first half of the next decade. But that may be the weak­est track on the finest album from, arguably, Motown’s finest band. The story was that Berry Gordy was des­per­ate to get this band on the charts so he gave them to his finest song­writer, the mighty Bill Robin­son, who, in early 1964 began craft­ing the series of songs that com­prise this won­der­ful record. Many of the tracks herein are well known as Mir­a­cles orig­i­nals but this is much much more than the stan­dard Motown artist cov­er­ing other Motown hits that was the com­pany rule to fill out albums. Eddie Kendricks’ vocals, to my ears, dom­i­nates this record and the match between his voice and Smokey’s (for the want of a bet­ter phrase) smokey anthems, espe­cially the take of What’s So Good About Good­bye, which sounds like it was recorded after a hard night of the pain espoused in the lyrics, is absolutely per­fect. I’m a huge fan of the Nor­man Whit­field Temp­ta­tions era too, but if I had to pick one album of theirs, this swoon­ingly beau­ti­ful col­lec­tion is it.

Lam­ont Dozier…Out Here On my Own (ABC 1974)…fresh from the intrigues of both Motown and his own (with the Hol­land broth­ers) HDH labels (Hot Wax and Invic­tus) Lam­ont resumed on his own solo career (he’d released a few sin­gles prior to his years with Gordy) in the early sev­en­ties, with mixed results both com­mer­cially and artis­ti­cally (more in the later years than the first part of it). But when he hit home he did so resound­ingly and nowhere more so than on this won­der­ful album which brought together all the strands of his ear­lier work and placed them firmly in the black Amer­ica of the early sev­en­ties. The album is vaguely politi­cised (the gor­geous soft funk of Fish Ain’t Bit­ing), lush (the post Philly and roman­ti­cally dis­arm­ing Try­ing to Hold on to My Woman) and raw (The Meters–ish title track with its clas­sic livin ain’t easy / when you’re black and greasy line) but never fails to deliver. I worked out today I’ve worn out three vinyl copies of this over the years….

Gre­gory Isaacs…Soon For­ward (African Museum 1979)…recorded at Chan­nel One, this was my per­sonal sound­track for the last half of 1979. I’m a mas­sive fan of our Gre­gory, despite the fairly sub­stan­tial amount of dross that pep­pers his huge cat­a­logue. But it’s that voice, you see, that lazy way he seduces the lis­tener before you know he’s even snuck up on you. I buy all sorts of Isaacs stuff, usu­ally unheard, and as often as not I’m disappointed…there are actu­ally only about eight albums that are absolutely essen­tial, and this is one of them. I should say, actu­ally this is THE one you really need. Even if it didn’t con­tain the career defin­ing, Sly and Rob­bie pro­duced title track (Gre­gory pro­duced the rest), this album would stand up. Slave Mar­ket is beau­ti­fully tragic from the win­some open­ing line of “you’ll never get away” onwards; My Rela­tion­ship is prob­a­bly Gregory’s most roman­tic moment (and that’ say­ing a lot) and a pointer towards his crossover hit, Night Nurse, a cou­ple of years later; and Uni­ver­sal Tribu­la­tion might not have the anthemic qual­i­ties that took Marley’s songs around the world but its every bit the con­scious equal of any­thing Bob did, and melod­i­cally vastly supe­rior. At the same time, both staunchly mil­i­tant and beau­ti­fully wist­ful, Soon For­ward is one of the cru­cial albums of its era. End of story..

Orange Juice…Texas Fever…(Poly­dor 1984)…a mini album, remem­ber those? Pro­duced by the peer­less Den­nis Bovell (check that discog­ra­phy and weep), Texas Fever was the “mature” record made by the fan­tas­ti­cally quirky lit­tle pop band from Glas­gow who were an about-to-make-it band for pretty much their whole career. By the time this came out, not that many were still wait­ing but I saw Edwyn Collins in the street once and told him this was my favourite OJ record…he said it was his too, whether that was some­thing to say to a fan I don’t know or care, but it worked for me. The intro to A Place in My Heart is so beau­ti­fully evoca­tive, and it’s a song I’ve, to steal a line from the lyric, always been mildly obses­sive about. The Day I Went Down to Texas has glo­ri­ous lit­tle time changes, but does beg the question…why are Scots musi­cians so obsessed with the state? A won­der­ful lit­tle record, now sadly, largely for­got­ten.

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