 |
| Track List: 1. Ordinary Joe 2. Step Into The Light 3. Lazurus Man 4. Lament For The Late A.D. 5. African Violet 6. You're Gonna Miss Your Candy Man 7. What Colour Is Love 8. Dancing Girl 9. People Get Ready 10. I Don't Wanna See Myself Running time: 71 minutes Released: 2001 |
Terry Callier is one of my favourite vocalists of all time. He came to my attention in a duet with Beth Orton (Lean On Me - a Callier cover) and I instantly loved his voice. I smiled every time I heard him. His passing at 67 in 2012 was a sad day.
This album was passed to me by a friend who had bought it and not got on with it very well. Unsurprisingly, given the title, it is a live album. Two of the songs stand out to me at a glance: Ordinary Joe is pretty much the definitive Callier song and Don't Want To See Myself was my favourite track from the first album of his I picked up. They bookend these performances; lets find out what lies between them.
I love Ordinary Joe as a song it is just so uplifting whilst having an edge of self-deprecation. This delivery though is a little too quick - the tempo is higher than recorded versions and it spoils the cadence of the lyric a bit for me. The arrangement is also damaged a bit by the pace. It is a fully understandable difference from record to performance but a regrettable one - especially given the extended duration which calibrates as less song, more tune and it is the song I adore. It still has me tapping my foot, but it is a tempered pleasure, not an unbridled one.
I can see why my friend passed on this with the review of "it's too jazzy"; there is a definite light jazz vibe about the instrumentation and an hour and more of it may well wear me down, let alone someone who is not keen on jazz in the first place. I can cope (for now), largely because Callier sings more on Step Into The Light, though it is too much repetition of the title phrase for me to hold it up as a good song. Repetition that is mirrored in the arrangement.
All the tracks are too long here - an affectation of arrangement and live performance for sure, but a 10 track record should not go on for 70 minutes when your tunes are normally sub 5 minute length. That this one does even with one track that runs only for 68 seconds is not a good sign. Oh well - I can always switch off and enjoy the voice. Lazarus man (and Callier was, career-wise - with a long break from recording and performing) is half sung, half spoken, but shows off Callier's soft, expressive and soulful voice brilliantly in both moods. My only issue with it is the length, and to avoid repeating that about each track I should stop typing now... Seriously though, stretching tracks like this just leaves us with dead loops, repeats and rambling passages that lose their way.
Lament... is a tribute, apparently to an unarmed man shot by New York police. Police carrying guns is still thankfully rare in the UK and I hope that can continue for my lifetime but I am far from convinced that it will. I say that not to denigrate those police that do carry (here or elsewhere) but I remember when I went to the US actually feeling less safe seeing police with firearms walking around. It is a visceral thing, and not buying in to the idea of a cycle of escalating violence - after all if one "side" carries, then the other will more likely do so too.
African Violet... I could have sworn I had other versions of this song, but apparently not. Oh wait - somehow, probably thanks to me misreading/mistyping, I have it down as American Violet on Fire on Ice (great album). Duly changed. Stupid fingers and eyes making mistakes years ago when I originally ripped all my CDs. I find the version on Alive too full of dead space, filler sections... I am sounding like a broken record again. As it ends and segues into You're Gonna Miss Your Candy Man the pace and tone changes up a gear. This is a nice lively opening. I have this track down as You're Goin' Miss Your Candyman more than once in my library and that returns hits on the web too; I suspect the source of my track list was wrong. Not Amazon this time though, but I still cannot be bothered to change it now I have noticed. It is a livelier track, and I needed that. There is still too much repetition though, the bass and rhythm sections are particularly guilty of that here. The song has a decent groove, but too long without modifying it dilutes that effect. Thankfully the whole tune is a bit shorter and overall I think it is my favourite so far on the album. The quicker pace is not maintained though, to my chagrin.
Dancing Girl is not a tune I recognise (I appear not to have a recorded version of it) but it is a good vehicle for Callier's vocal, with a low-level accompaniment behind it that is in places reminiscent of certain film soundtracks. The song is 11 minutes, but really it feels like more than one track as the tone and instrumentation change so the length does not come across. Actually the track flies by much faster than some earlier (shorter) tunes and suddenly we reach the closer.
I Don't Want to See Myself was one of the stand-out tracks on Lifetime, the first Callier album I bought, and this performance, whilst it contains longer bridges, is pretty true to my memory of the recording. It is a nice way to close - higher tempo, more upbeat. The bass errs on the side of cheesy at times but that is forgivable. It is not a fantastic tune, but it is a good one that leaves me smiling.
All in all, Alive definitely has its faults, but I find it hard to part with any of the tracks here. I do not have any other live work by Terry Callier, and there will be no more to replace this with something better - may he rest in peace. I challenge anyone to listen to Terry Callier and not fall in love with his voice, the man had more soul than many much more acclaimed stars. He remains a firm favourite, with much better albums to come in due course.
I love Ordinary Joe as a song it is just so uplifting whilst having an edge of self-deprecation. This delivery though is a little too quick - the tempo is higher than recorded versions and it spoils the cadence of the lyric a bit for me. The arrangement is also damaged a bit by the pace. It is a fully understandable difference from record to performance but a regrettable one - especially given the extended duration which calibrates as less song, more tune and it is the song I adore. It still has me tapping my foot, but it is a tempered pleasure, not an unbridled one.
I can see why my friend passed on this with the review of "it's too jazzy"; there is a definite light jazz vibe about the instrumentation and an hour and more of it may well wear me down, let alone someone who is not keen on jazz in the first place. I can cope (for now), largely because Callier sings more on Step Into The Light, though it is too much repetition of the title phrase for me to hold it up as a good song. Repetition that is mirrored in the arrangement.
All the tracks are too long here - an affectation of arrangement and live performance for sure, but a 10 track record should not go on for 70 minutes when your tunes are normally sub 5 minute length. That this one does even with one track that runs only for 68 seconds is not a good sign. Oh well - I can always switch off and enjoy the voice. Lazarus man (and Callier was, career-wise - with a long break from recording and performing) is half sung, half spoken, but shows off Callier's soft, expressive and soulful voice brilliantly in both moods. My only issue with it is the length, and to avoid repeating that about each track I should stop typing now... Seriously though, stretching tracks like this just leaves us with dead loops, repeats and rambling passages that lose their way.
Lament... is a tribute, apparently to an unarmed man shot by New York police. Police carrying guns is still thankfully rare in the UK and I hope that can continue for my lifetime but I am far from convinced that it will. I say that not to denigrate those police that do carry (here or elsewhere) but I remember when I went to the US actually feeling less safe seeing police with firearms walking around. It is a visceral thing, and not buying in to the idea of a cycle of escalating violence - after all if one "side" carries, then the other will more likely do so too.
African Violet... I could have sworn I had other versions of this song, but apparently not. Oh wait - somehow, probably thanks to me misreading/mistyping, I have it down as American Violet on Fire on Ice (great album). Duly changed. Stupid fingers and eyes making mistakes years ago when I originally ripped all my CDs. I find the version on Alive too full of dead space, filler sections... I am sounding like a broken record again. As it ends and segues into You're Gonna Miss Your Candy Man the pace and tone changes up a gear. This is a nice lively opening. I have this track down as You're Goin' Miss Your Candyman more than once in my library and that returns hits on the web too; I suspect the source of my track list was wrong. Not Amazon this time though, but I still cannot be bothered to change it now I have noticed. It is a livelier track, and I needed that. There is still too much repetition though, the bass and rhythm sections are particularly guilty of that here. The song has a decent groove, but too long without modifying it dilutes that effect. Thankfully the whole tune is a bit shorter and overall I think it is my favourite so far on the album. The quicker pace is not maintained though, to my chagrin.
Dancing Girl is not a tune I recognise (I appear not to have a recorded version of it) but it is a good vehicle for Callier's vocal, with a low-level accompaniment behind it that is in places reminiscent of certain film soundtracks. The song is 11 minutes, but really it feels like more than one track as the tone and instrumentation change so the length does not come across. Actually the track flies by much faster than some earlier (shorter) tunes and suddenly we reach the closer.
I Don't Want to See Myself was one of the stand-out tracks on Lifetime, the first Callier album I bought, and this performance, whilst it contains longer bridges, is pretty true to my memory of the recording. It is a nice way to close - higher tempo, more upbeat. The bass errs on the side of cheesy at times but that is forgivable. It is not a fantastic tune, but it is a good one that leaves me smiling.
All in all, Alive definitely has its faults, but I find it hard to part with any of the tracks here. I do not have any other live work by Terry Callier, and there will be no more to replace this with something better - may he rest in peace. I challenge anyone to listen to Terry Callier and not fall in love with his voice, the man had more soul than many much more acclaimed stars. He remains a firm favourite, with much better albums to come in due course.
No comments:
Post a Comment