“Down On Me,” “Ball & Chain,” “Summer- time” and others, recorded at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom, the Monterey Pop Festival, the Generation Club in New York City and De- troit's Grande Ballroom. There are tracks from her performance at Woodstock, and with her Kozmik Blues Band. It’s a great and historic album to accompany an equally great film… Graham Nash’s voice never fails to make me smile. I immediately recall one my favorite Crosby, Stills and Nash tunes, “Out House,” and “Teach Your Children well.” On this, his sixth solo album, This Path Tonight (Blue Castle). Nash is in as fine a voice as ever following a 50-year career in the music business. I saw him recently on one of the late night talk shows and was amazed at how put together he is. He looks great, and when he played one of his old songs on a dreadnaught guitar sitting beside the host (It was either Fallon or Colbert, forgive my elderly mem- ory) it was excellent. The title track of the album is very nice and the album just gets bet- ter from there. I could identify totally with “Myself at Last,” an absolutely beautiful acoustic solo tune with a harp that has so many of the colors from the Four Way Street days. I had to stop and play that one again be- fore moving on. But rest assured, all ten tracks are pure Graham Nash. “Cracks in the City” is amazing, but then again, so is “Beneath the Waves,” and his biographical “Golden Days” may well be my favorite track on a near perfect record… I have always been a huge Paul Simon fan, so I was quite excited to get his new album Stranger to Stranger (Deluxe Edi- tion, Concord), Simon’s 13th solo record. On first listen, there were a few songs that I sim- ply didn’t care for. I think it’s because he is stretching out of his comfort zone on this one.
Ace Frehley
The song “Wristband,” about backstage passes, I found kind of boring and silly until I heard the live version later in the album. Go figure. “The Werewolf” was the same way. It took a few listens before this “Diamonds On the Soles of Her Shoes” meets “Werewolves of London” track caught my ear. '”Insomniac’s Lullaby,” is one of my favorites. Simon chan- nels the musical possibili- ties first suggested by Harry Partch, the 20th Century American composer and theorist who created cus- tom-made instruments in microtonal tunings. It makes for a very interesting sound. In fact, the whole album is an experiment in the use of sound, as in the sheer beauty of the acoustic instrumental “In the Gar- den of Edie.” Don’t be like me. Don’t judge this one on
first listen, give it a few spins and it will grow on you as strongly as Graceland or There Goes Rhymin’ Simon. By the way, there’s a bonus duet of Simon with Dion on Dion’s song “New York is My Home,” the same song that’s on the new Dion record reviewed in this issue, only this time done in duet. Good stuff…. And now, as we leave our 1960’s revival, let’s check in a former member of the ‘70’s greasepaint rock band, KISS…. Former KISS guitarist, and now a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Ace Frehley has never been much of a singer, but on his new one Origins: Vol. 1 (En- tertainment One), the Space Man delivers some very good vocals on top of his always ex- cellent guitar work. It is so obvious that Ace has moved on past the days of KISS and his drug and alcohol abuse. Frehley today seems much more grounded, and downright cool. This album is filled with covers of classics done Ace style, from Cream’s “White Room” to Jimi Hendrix’s “Spanish Castle Magic” and the Stones “Street Fightin’ Man,” this is one rock-
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