Live Albums?

Maybe I've just aged myself, but the word album means different things to different people and age groups.

For me an album is a slab of wax, a piece of vinyl, or extended to the music itself, a grouping of songs or pieces put together as to make a whole. Albums were released by artists as a whole (sure, there'd be singles from the album) with each track placed specifically on the album.

Live music isn't any different. When putting together a live show for an album or a concert, the band tries to arrange the songs in a pleasing order. They hook you with a great opener and pull you under so you won't stop listening. Some live albums capture the crowd's energy, while others strive to provide a crystal clear sound. There are a few that manage to do both.  I tend to like raw performances, ones with warts and all--that's what I like about some of the Sinatra recordings, he's putting on a show, cracking jokes, changing words, forgetting words at times, but making it awesome! I'm so happy they didn't screw around with those to get rid of those things.

Here is just a sampling of live albums that I enjoy in no particular order.

Frank Sinatra, Sinatra At The Sands, 1966 -- Perhaps my top Sinatra live album. He's with the Count Basie Orchestra, conducted by Quincy Jones. A great selection of tunes and great banter throughout.

Rush - Exit...Stage Left, 1981 -- While I love all of Rush's live albums this one hit at the right time for me as I'd just discovered Moving Pictures and to hear them recreate live what they're able to put on album was amazing. I also loved the live video released not long after.

Iron Maiden, Live After Death, 1985 -- Iron Maiden wasn't on my radar until this album was released. I was fifteen and that album cover demanded attention. Hearing Bruce Dickinson wail away while the guitars played in harmony with the bass lines thundering and galloping along with the drums was overwhelming and I was a fan from the opening. They lead with a stirring recording of Winston Churchill, ending with, "...we shall never surrender" and they rip into Aces High, it still gives me chills.

Led Zeppelin, The Song Remains The Same, 1976 -- what can I say about this one that hasn't already been said or written? Well, I love this one for how raw it is, and sure they may overindulge on a few tunes, but I'm sure heroine and alcohol had nothing to do with that--I mean Jimmy Page and John Bonham would never partake of the stuff, right?  I prefer this over the strange live video, though I'll watch that from time-to-time.

Judas Priest, Unleashed In The East, 1979 -- I threw this one on here for a couple of reasons, one, back in high school (this is the mid-80s) there were a few people who thought I resembled Rob Halford. The first album I owned by Priest was Defenders of the Faith, but I quickly went back to their older stuff and this live album--though some people don't like how they overdubbed in the studio to present a cleaner and more upfront sound with I'm guessing fewer mistakes as well, I like this album a lot. Rob Halford hits some crazy high notes and the music is heavy! Priest was not only heavy metal back then, but their heavy by today's standards.

Here are a few more I like, some mentioned during a Facebook exchange:

Pink Floyd, Pulse, 1995 
Kiss, Alive II, 1977
Peter Frampton, Frampton Comes Alive!, 1976
Triumph, Stages, 1985
The Rat Pack: Live at the Sands, released in 2001, but from a show performed in 1963
Ozzy Osbourne, Tribute, 1987

I could list many, many more--there's Genesis, Peter Gabriel, The Who, and so on and so on...

Name some of your favorites!

The King of Cool

Dean Martin. So cool and talented. I'm a huge Frank Sinatra fan, but Dean Martin is right up there with Frank as one of the top entertainers of not only the 20th century, but of all-time. Another favorite of mine, Steve McQueen, was also nicknamed the "King of Cool", but Martin got there first.

Today would have been Martin's 99th birthday, but he passed away on Christmas day in 1995 at the age of 78. I'm always shocked at the longevity of guys like Dean and Frank--they smoked, they drank, they partied hard and had a good time. On the other hand, the lifestyle took a toll, but I'm still impressed he lived to the age of 78.

Yes, he had many hits, such as: "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Volare", "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?" and so on, and so on, but he was an entertainer stretching far beyond his dreamy crooner persona.

Most everyone has heard of the comedy team of Martin & Lewis. Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis performed a music-comedy act at night clubs and eventually made a bunch of pretty funny films. From 1949 to 1956 they were in something like 17 films together. Lewis is ridiculous in those films, but Martin, as the straight man always seemed funnier to me. Try My Friend Irma (their first film) and Scared Stiff.

My favorite Dean Martin film is Rio Bravo where Martin shared the screen with John Wayne and was directed by Howard Hawks. Even if you don't enjoy westerns, the pairing of Wayne and Martin is worth the time spent watching the film. He also starred in a string of comedy adventures  as Matt Helm, a super spy--these films are ridiculous, but a lot of fun to watch.

Of course, Martin was a key member of the Rat Pack. They performed on stage together, recorded songs together, and made movies together, such as Ocean's 11, Robin and the 7 Hoods, Sergeants 3 (a comedy remake of Gunga Din), and 4 for Texas.

Martin was everywhere, even on television. He had his own variety show, The Dean Martin Show, which launched in the mid-60s and ran until the mid-70s. It's a fun show to watch, even now, and showed off Martin's gift for improvisation.

As a child I remember seeing Dean Martin on television, but hosting The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast which ran through 1984 when I was a teenager. I thought these roasts were funny back then, but they're funnier now (probably because I've immersed myself so much in old Hollywood films and trivia). He roasted Ronald Reagan, Hugh Hefner, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart, and the list goes on and on. I think these roasts are available in a box set, I may have to pick that up.

When I think of the greatest entertainers of all time (the multi-faceted ones, not the one-trick ponies), Dean Martin is in my top 5.

The Cure

This Sunday I'll be seeing The Cure in concert at Fiddler's Green Amphitheater. I prefer Red Rocks (who wouldn't, that venue is amazing, and if you're ever in the Denver area go there and check it out!), but the chance to see The Cure was one I couldn't pass up.

For those in the know regarding The Cure, you can skip this paragraph, but for the uninitiated, read on. The Cure have been around since 1976 and are known for gloomy, gothic rock, but in reality defy any specific categorization. Having written that, Robert Smith (pretty much the driving force behind the band) developed pop sensibilities in mid 1980s and released some commercial albums. Don't get me wrong, those albums aren't all butterflies and flowers and happy, but they're more accessible to the casual listener and do have some "upbeat" tunes. The album Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is the best example of this.

I enjoy Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, but my favorite albums comprise a trilogy which Robert Smith toured a few years back, playing each track from those albums in order.

Here they are:

1. Pornography--released in 1982 and is an example of their early gloom and doom and depression. Supposedly this album was conceived under the influence of alcohol and LSD, and the result is a textured, moody, and intense album I love listening to while writing. The entire album is worth a listen, but the opener, One Hundred Years, surges the album forward beneath a gathering storm. The album's cover shows the band members as if they were under the influence of a hallucinogen and alcohol cocktail.

2. Disintegration - released in 1989 after the more commercial Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, and was a return to gloom land, and from what I've read, Robert Smith claimed to have been, once again, under the influence of LSD during the writing and recording. I suppose this album was a backlash against the commercial elements of the previous album--but this album became The Cure's most commercially successful album. Again, the entire album is worth a listen, but check out Fascination Street--the straight forward beat and punchy bass guitar mixed with the chiming guitars is standard fare for The Cure, but amidst the somewhat optimistic tune, the lyrics strive to pull us down into an inevitable despair.

3. Bloodflowers - released in 2000 is the final album in the trilogy. Robert Smith believes this trilogy of albums best represents what The Cure is all about. This may not be the strongest of the trilogy, but is enjoyable when listened to start to finish with my favorite track being the title track followed by The Last Day of Summer and There Is No If...

I'll be enjoying The Cure live this Sunday and I hope you give them a try if you've not been exposed to them, or if you have, rediscover their music.

Frank Sinatra - Five of My Favorites

It's difficult to pick only five, since Frank is one of my all-time favorites (no matter the genre of music--and I like a wide range of music). Of course, you could pick one of the many boxsets or compilations available, but you'll be cheating yourself. These albums were meant to be listened to side one and side two and in order (I know, heresy in this age of digital music and the option to buy single tracks--oh, by the way, we had that too when I was a kid (yeah, yeah, back in the 1970s), they were called 45s (tiny pieces of vinyl, in case you don't know)). Moving on...

I'm not sure these are the albums one would start with if they didn't know much about Frank, or tunes he sang beyond the obvious ones, but here goes:

1) Sinatra At The Sands: This live album is a great place to begin. Why? The Quincy Jones arrangements coupled with the big band sound of the Count Basie Orchestra work perfectly with not only Sinatra's voice, but his showmanship and personality. I'd go to this album first because you also get a lot of banter and some monologues. The character of Frank's voice as he got older, say in his forties and fifties, is to me what sets him apart from other crooners, swooners, and so forth. The recording isn't perfect, his voice isn't perfect, but he's charming and funny and puts on a great show. "Luck Be A Lady" and "Angel Eyes" couldn't be more different, but both are outstanding.

2) Only The Lonely: For some reason, I tend to enjoy Frank's collections of torch songs the most. Only The Lonely is one of those, as if you couldn't tell by the title. The album cover painting won a Grammy Award. I'm not a fan of clowns--it seems most people aren't, even if this one is Pagliacci-like--but don't let the cover deter you from one of Frank's best albums. The first three tracks ("Only The Lonely", "Angel Eyes", and "What's New?" are wonderful but there's a longing in them, and the loneliness seeps from Frank's voice.

3) Where Are You?: This is the first album Sinatra recorded in stereo. All of the tracks are great listens, but the standouts are "Where Are You?", "The Night We Called It A Day", and "I'm A Fool To Want You"--which you can hear the heartache, as if he's singing to Ava Gardner and how he can't help but love her. Another melancholy album full of torch songs, but I love it.

4) Come Dance With Me: This is an upbeat album (you probably guessed as much), and Sinatra could have slipped a torch song in, but didn't (I think the closest he gets is "Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week). These are all upbeat tracks, and was Sinatra's most commercially successful album, staying on the charts for two and half years. This album also won 3 Grammys--Album of the Year, Best Vocal Performance-Male, and Best Arrangement. This is happy music and all the tunes are catchy.

5) In The Wee Small Hours: Another uplifting Sinatra album, with loneliness, depression, failure in relationships, and so forth. Recurring motifs on many of Sinatra's covers are him looking depressed or lovelorn with a cigarette in hand, and a lamp post. This is the first in a string of Sinatra releases Capitol Records began calling concept albums. This is also one of the best albums of all-time. With this album we begin to hear the maturing of his voice and the character behind it (okay, so maybe cigarettes and alcohol had something to do with the change in his voice).

BONUS!

Okay, I'll toss out one more, and if you had to pick up a compilation or box set, I'd say go with this:

My Way: This 2 CD, 46 track, set is perfect for someone wanting a wide range of Frank's hits from his Capitol and Reprise years. These are the songs you've heard at some point in your life (I hope), but there are others on here you may not be familiar with. I have to admit, I'm not a fan of the more modern songs on here (or the ones where he's covering a pop song of the day, like "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" or "You Are The Sunshine of My Life" or "Yesterday". But, one of the gems on here is a cool live version of "The Lady Is a Tramp" from a 1974 performance at Madison Square Garden. The mid-70s is probably the last time Frank sounded like the Frank I love of the 50s and 60s.

Now, I do love the Sinatra from the late 30's when he sang with Harry James and then into the 40's with Tommy Dorsey, that's great stuff. But do yourself a favor and give Sinatra a try, maybe on a day when you're blue, or maybe on a day where you feel like dancing or having a smile on your face. Sinatra is great to listen to while in traffic (the live albums in particular, or perhaps Come Dance With Me!.

The Endless River On The Dark Side Of The Moon

With the upcoming release of Pink Floyd's The Endless River, I've been thinking a lot lately about The Dark Side Of The Moon and what the album means to me. Yes, it's an album--a cohesive collection that should be listened to as such and not necessarily downloaded in pieces on iTunes or wherever it is you youngsters (hey, get off my lawn!) get your music these days.

I won't go into the accolades and the number of consecutive weeks on the Billboard Album chart (741). And I won't go into how if you begin the album at the whatever minute mark of The Wizard of Oz that it syncs up. I'm discussing how this album played an interesting part in my life.

Dark Side was introduced to me by my high school girlfriend probably in early 1985 (before this I listened to all sorts of things, but for some reason not Pink Floyd). Her parents had a copy on vinyl (of course--and it's wonderful on vinyl) and we listened to side 2 over and over, even though side 1 was just as awesome as side 2. We'd sit on the sofa at her parents' house and talk and kiss and talk and listen to Dark Side and I didn't ever want it to end. Such wonderful memories of the mid-1980s. (We did listen to other albums--Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti for instance.)

Also in the mid-1980s--my history teacher one year in high school put on a trip to Greece. Before I went I picked up a copy of the album on cassette and about wore out the tape on that trip. Even the cruddy headphones and cruddy little walkman type player couldn't ruin how great the album was--it made the non-stop from JFK to Athens bearable.

The soulful saxophone and soaring guitar solos of Money--the production values and inventiveness of the entire group of songs was mesmerizing. For a high schooler, who was (and I suppose still is at times) also a musician, this album was pretty amazing stuff.

Of course, I didn't pay much attention to the lyrics at that point--the music really did it for me at that point, the lyrics would get me later--

Fast forward to the mid-1990s, I'm firmly in my mid-twenties and I'm not in a good place and I feel like my life is over before it has even really started. I was in the Navy, working my ass off to finish my degree before I got out of the Navy, and I was in a marriage that could not last (certainly not one person's fault more than the other's--we were young and simply unable to function as a married couple--we were too different). I had a fifty mile commute each way in an un-airconditioned car (this was in the Mojave Desert of all places) to go to my classes a few nights a week (these classes were in addition to my full time job in the Navy and all the responsibility that came with that--having to miss class because of helicopter maintenance issues or having to be a crew chief on search & rescue missions). 

Well, I played The Dark Side Of The Moon--and I'm not sure I regretted it as much as I wallowed in it. Time is a wonderful song, but not so wonderful for someone who feels like their life is predetermined to suck at this point and that they're trapped. When you're in high school listening to Time, the song doesn't really mean much--ten years earlier and you're a little kid, what in the hell has gotten behind you? All you want is to move forward and can't wait until you're out of high school. But when you're 27 or 28 and you hear the line about how "ten years have got behind you" --that's you're entire adult life up to that point and I felt like I didn't have anything to show for those ten years but a doomed marriage and uncertainty about what I'd do after my enlistment was up.  I just couldn't deal with the failure of my marriage.

My antidote at the time was listening to a lot of Metallica to wipe my brain free of Time. 

Since around the year 2000 I've listened to Pink Floyd in spurts, and now I wish I had seen them in concert back in the 1980s and 1990s. I'm happy that I can listen to Dark Side now without any negative side effects, but I do steer clear when I'm feeling a little down. You know, I had to go through those moments in my life, and at least I have great memories of the album to balance the bad memories. And I suppose I knew what I was doing when I tossed the CD in my car player during the bad times. Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment.

So I'm not sure how The Endless River will turn out, but it's great that we'll have more Pink Floyd to listen to. Somehow I doubt it'll have the same impact Dark Side had on me, but I'm really hoping it'll be a great listen.

Only one other album imprinted on my mind like Dark Side, but in a much different way--Rush's Moving Pictures. Wow. That album for me is 100% positive, not a bad memory attached to it--all good.  Rush may be my favorite group of all time, but no album had an impact on me throughout my life like Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon.

An interesting side note: I'm very good friends with the high school girlfriend and ex-wife I mentioned above, so some good came from it all in the end.