THE BONZO DOG BAND A Dog’s Life EMI 3-CD
Take the Bonzos – surely one of the crown jewels of the EMI catalogue, if not the British rock canon – and a band that has
a vast amount of unused graphic material in the vaults, just crying out for a deluxe book, inserts and a pop-up, 3D dada extravaganza! Instead EMI seem intent on cramming as
many albums as possible into one hideous plastic CD box, in a stack ’em high, sell ’em cheap approach to music marketing, that appears completely out of step with other labels’ lavish productions (see also the Edgar Broughton Band and Lindisfarne sets reviewed elsewhere this issue). Every album here is a gem, from the jazz
age surrealism of Gorilla and Tadpoles to the more rock-based The Doughnut In Granny’s Greenhouse, Keynsham, and Let’s Make Up And Be Friendly. You all know the story –Stanshall, Innes,
TIM BUCKLEY Tim Buckley: Deluxe Edition Rhino Handmade CD
www.rhino.com
Legs Larry –but if you don’t I urge you to buy the individual albums where you will at least get Neil Innes’ sleeve notes and album covers that are not the size of postage stamps. Richard Allen
JAMES CLARKE/VARIOUS ARTISTS Girl On The Beach/Gentle Sounds Vocalion CD
www.duttonvocalion.co.uk
Although library music featuring chunky, funky blasts of brass is always popular, few people seem prepared to listen to
the prevalent sound of the genre: the true easy listening, delicately flavoured music popular in the late ’60s. That’s a shame, because it holds the key to a whole field of beauty. Take Girl On The Beach, recorded in ’69.
There’s not much to latch onto on a first listen, with the gliding strings and very understated rhythm section creating a gentle
guitar but, even more than that, in something he was soon to disown – his natural flair for melody.
Beginning with ‘I Can’t See You’, folk-rock
Tim Buckley’s debut is very satisfying for me to review. Buckley is responsible for two of my all-
time favourite albums (Lorca and Starsailor), and when I first heard Tim Buckley – after falling in love with these later experiments – it sounded hemmed in, naïve, safe. My inclination was not to take the album on its own terms, but to search for the future, to jump on every unusual whoop of his voice, before slumping back in disappointment that each song seemed to play out conventionally, in line with any number of singer-songwriters in the mid to late ’60s. I curse myself for my short sightedness;
but thanks to this glorious reissue, I’m catching up on lost time. Over the album’s original 12 tracks, here presented in both mono and stereo, Buckley has a wide- eyed, absorbing charm that he never recaptured. It’s apparent in his voice and
is the strongest stylistic blueprint, but that’s always combined with other influences. ‘Strange Street Affair Under Blue’ is an episodic, baroque piece, its modernist ambition condensed into three eccentric minutes. There’s also an old-fashioned air on the album, of almost show-ballad cleanness: with a different arrangement and a bit of imagination, Bing Crosby could have sung ‘It Happens Every Time’. And then there’s the voice. No, it hasn’t
yet scratched at every extreme, but the many octaves do a sterling job of tempering Tim Buckley’s prime weakness – the lyrics. Buckley has a tendency to trite literalness on this album, but his tenor is of such power that each word feels saturated with heartfelt emotional candour, and allows you to excuse his cliché, redefining it as adolescent simplicity. The second disc in this package
comprises 22 fascinating demos. There’s an amazing version of ‘Aren’t You The Girl’ with Tim, at points unable to contain his giggles, confidently developing the budding microdrama of the song. This sensitive, complete reissue showcases the beginnings of Buckley, and it does his nascent genius glorious justice. Jeanette Leech
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pace that seems to be what it promises: background music. But listen more closely, and it’s clear that the leisurely tempo is a mere sheen over a delicate web of instrument interplay and complex scene
building.This is a lovely album, with the only disappointing moments the covers (‘The Fool On The Hill’ and ‘This Guy’s In Love With You’).
Gentle Sounds is of a similar vibe to Girl
On The Beach, but brings in numerous other names well known to genre pickers like Keith Mansfield, David Lindup and Johnny Pearson. Together, these two albums comprise a
beautifully mellow, sun-kissed, cocktail hour of mood music. Jeanette Leech
CLOUDS Up Above Our Heads (1966-1971) Beat Goes On 2-CD
www.bgo-records.com This double CD brings together Clouds’ complete recordings plus a fistful of curious unreleased tracks. Clouds will always split the prog and pop fraternities with their “too prog for pop
Tim Buckley: “adolescent simplicity”
and/or too pop for prog” attributes. And the media’s “creators of prog” label never helped! All that aside,
Watercolour Days and Clouds Scrapbook are gorgeous albums, with hefty orchestral arrangements. Both of their title tracks, ‘Leavin’’, and ‘I’ll Go Girl’ are way too good for a pop fanatic to miss, plus – crime of the century – how did ‘Why Is There No Magic’ remain unreleased? ‘Waiter There’s Something In My Soup’ is a multi-faceted masterwork, changing pace at a rate most mere mortals would struggle to keep up with, highlighting the scorching Hammond organ, drums and bass interplay of these three exceptional musicians. You may even shed a tear into your starter. The Rubble-fugitive single ‘Make No
Bones About It’ is a triumphant slab of pop- psych, and contains possibly the only incidence in a song –certainly to my mind – of “remember” being rhymed with “distemper”. Louis Comfort-Wiggett
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