The Blues Brothers Original Soundtrack - Various Artists

Track list:

1. She Caught The Katy
2. Peter Gunn Theme
3. Gimme Some Lovin'
4. Shake A Tail Feather
5. Everybody Needs Somebody To Love
6. The Old Landmark
7. Think
8. Theme From Rawride
9. Minnie The Moocher
10. Sweet Home Chicago

Running time: 40 minutes
Released: 1980

Classic soundtrack time. The Blues Brothers was one of my favourite movies growing up, the anarchic chases and other silliness was undoubtedly one draw, but it's impossible to escape the power of the music in shaping the film. I haven't watched it in years, and the aforementioned silliness would probably make it hard for me to sit through it now (though I do, of course, have the DVD), but the love of the music is still strong. So strong, in fact, that I am making time for a second listen today.

The staccato riff that forms the opening to She Caught the Katy immediately transports me back, sets the mood. I think I have a Taj Mahal version of this song around somewhere but its this recording that is the one I remember and refer to. The Blues Brothers may have stemmed from a comedy skit but the love for their source material is clear, and their rendition of the Peter Gunn Theme is movie gold. This is one place where my youthful love of the saxophone is still alive and kicking, whilst that riff... well its so iconic that I can almost forgive the incessant nature of it, not once breaking stride in the duration of the piece until the climax. It must be dead dull to play but it is the rock around which the rest can build.

Then we hit Gimme Some Lovin'... these tunes are all standards now, what can I really say? I've mentioned before that the best song from the movie is not actually on this OST (I also strangely said that the Peter Gunn Theme was the best on the disc; huh), but it's hard to say that it's missing given the energy put into the songs that are represented here. I'm not as fond of GSL as I once was, it feels a little bland now, but by contrast I'm far more engaged with Ray Charles' Shake a Tail Feather. The organ keys just brought a beam to my face, and the picture of a poor neighbourhood gathering in the street to dance along to my mind's eye. I think it's the rhythm that really grabs me now though, high tempo, peppy and reinforced by the horns.

Everbody... starts with the intro from the film, which probably sets this version apart from any other recording of the song, It gives the track a clear nostalgia pull even beyond the music itself. The transition into the chorus is just magic, whilst the base pattern is merely so-so, that switch elevates the number. I generally find celebs taking on music to be a bit... eh (though I have at least one example beyond The Blues Brothers to contend with going forward), but here they are backed by professionals who made their living off tunes like these and the enthusiasm is the selling point.

I wrote earlier about Joni Mitchell's Blue that I own it because I felt I ought to. I now run into the converse of that; I don't have any James Brown aside from The Old Landmark despite his iconic status as I was growing up (I wonder if it has faded some since; he does not seem as immediately relevant to the 21st century somehow... which is probably a shame). Brown is followed by Aretha - another of the stars here that I almost feel I should have invested more in. Think always used to be my favourite track from the film - it came on the back of the "four fried chickens and a coke, and some white bread, toasted" line (since parodied - as indeed the whole film was - by Pratchett in Soul Music, the main reason young me loved that book so much), as much as the performance I suspect that sold me. The power of this number though... it takes me back to my childhood in a nice fleeting sense.

It saddens me that whilst the Rawhide theme made it on to the OST, the version of Stand By Your Man did not. Visually the Rawhide theme works better, Jake cracking the bullwhip and all, but on record its pretty dull. I never saw the show, was never a fan of westerns, and can't relate to the tune in any way beyond the scene from The Blues Brothers; it falls flat. That can't be said for Cab Calloway's number though... from the big wailing horn in the intro to the flapping lips and fast paced scat and the recorded audience participation (well, engineered somehow I suspect but still). I remember knowing this song before the film somehow - my dad must have had it on tape or something, or perhaps more likely my memory is compounding the fact I know it exists separately with hearing Calloway recordings since. In any case, it is a nice rendition of the song.

Sweet Home Chicago was the other number that tussled for "favourite" status with Think. I just loved the long lead out that plays over the brothers' escape, but that sort of thing has lost its magic for me now and actually the song is rather rigid and formulaic. It seems to lack some of the energy and enthusiasm that keeps the earlier recordings vital, though the image of Ackroyd and Belushi "dancing" down the catwalk and back is a hard one to keep out, and it does raise a smile.  Hah! The tune actually gets far more interesting in the lead out even now. Not enough to be a favourite, but it gets noticeably better after the vocal ends and the musicians take up the challenge of filling space. I'd take She Caught the Katy over this as the best of the Blues Brothers tracks on the soundtrack though - there is just something about that intro that nails an atmosphere that the rest of the disc does just enough to hold up, but not quite enough to match.

The final track always felt a bit tacked on. Jailhouse Rock performed by prisoners. Hur hur. I just have no engagement with the track. It's not bad, per se but just frenetic for frenetic's sake and it is not a tune that I have other versions of or any investment in. Actually I think it is quite bad. Cacophonous. A blaring end I could do without, and that is with it ending a note before I expect the big jangly chord finish.

Nostalgia - sometimes it should be left alone. Sometimes indulging ain't so bad. This falls on the second side despite my strong suspicions that the film itself falls on the first.

Blue - Joni Mitchell

Track list:

1. All I Want
2. My Old Man
3. Little Green
4. Carey
5. Blue
6. California
7. This Flight Tonight
8. River
9. A Case of You
10. The Last Time I Saw Richard

Running time: 36 minutes
Released: 1971

So I move from one classic to another; different genre, but same level of distance between me and the disc. However Windows Media Player must be the only entity in the world that would think that "Blue" should be listed after "Blue [X]" when sorting alphabetically. At least, I hope so because man, that makes no sense to me.

This album is a classic example of something I own because I thought I should own it, though that said it is not the only Mitchell album I have so I guess I thought something of it... time to find out whether I still do or not.

The jangling nature of the tightly stretched guitar on All I Want is a bit too bright for my morning mood, and Mitchell's wandering voice has a bit of a sharp edge to it when it goes into the higher registers, but despite these little grievances there is something essential about the way they combine. The minimalist approach can fall down pretty easily but here it seems to add gravity and weight to what is a somewhat flighty tune. I don't know whether this is confirmation bias or something else, but it seems to share that virtue of accessibility with Blue Train. Folk - especially 70s folk - had a bit of a retrospective reputation for disappearing from relevance, though I guess being '71 this probably predates that slide from the public consciousness.

I doubt that we will see much like this again somehow - the high floaty voice and a simple piano melody on My Old Man sounds like the sort of thing that would be rejected out of hand by modern music for being uncomplicated. Perhaps the stripped down sound will come back round - people do still try it and largely fail, after all - but here it seems to be nailed on. This doesn't disappear or shrink in the way I often find such noodly little numbers doing. The strong timbre to the guitar helps - it's not soft and receding and sucking the vocal down the black hole of anti-sound. The edge to her voice, similarly, guards against the shrinking violet syndrome. The sense is of a woman standing proudly in the spotlight, rather than a performer lurking in the half-light on the edge of the beam, which is how I see a lot of similar attempts. There is a natural confidence that comes through.

Switching tack a second, I am surprised given the title and indeed the rather morose-looking Joni in the cover image, that the first four tracks here are all relatively bright and joyful. I came into this expecting a sombre affair and I don't find myself mired in despair at all. The title track has a mournful air to it, but even then the piano melody and the style of the vocal delivery work to ameliorate the sadness some. There is real warmth in those keys even as the melody they create is tinged with regret, and with the exception of the highest, most warbly notes, the same could be said for Mitchell's voice. I find her singing hard to love. Those strayings into the upper limits of her range have the effect of nails down a chalk board in the middle of a fascinating lesson - little moments of excruciating discomfort peppered through songs and tunes that otherwise I really enjoy and engage with. I can completely see why this is a classic, even as I cringe from the slide effects on California - too many bad associations with 80s movies.

The higher pace and lower rumble of This Flight Tonight is a welcome change-up. I am reminded of some John Darnielle-penned numbers. I really didn't expect to connect Mitchell to The Mountain Goats here, but the aesthetic, including the tinny edge to some of the recorded elements is really a very good fit, even if the vocal approaches are chalk and cheese. Huh, two mentions of chalk in the same post. It being December, the similarities between River and Jingle Bells in the opening bars of piano are obvious for the first time, and with the month referenced in the lyric it is clearly a deliberate choice that somehow works. As an aside I bloody hate Christmas music - anything I can do to avoid it, I will. Beyond that I find this to be the least interesting of the songs I have heard this morning. Whilst the piano melody is nice, the song itself is dull and does not seem to come with the same sense of self-assurance that I would use to characterise the prior performances. In other words it trips around the edge of the pit of disappearance.

That makes no sense outside the context of this post, and even within it's a stretch. Ah well. Case of You is a very recognisable chorus, but the verses always seem to fade from my memory. The song is slower than I would have thought just from the recalled chorus, and a little plodding if I am honest. The same tune, the same words, with a little more pace. I suspect that might break it, actually, but it feels like something is missing and my first instinct is that it is an urgency that a higher tempo might address. What do I Snow.

As the last tune picks up, I find myself having reconnected with this. Whilst I may have bought it because I felt I should have (or at least hear) it, it now stays because it is every bit the masterful work that it was talked up as. I can certainly see why I went on to buy more Joni Mitchell records, despite her work all predating my life. I would never put this up as a favourite, or something that I am likely to listen to often. Alas, the modern mode of musical consumption probably renders most of these tunes pretty inaccessible. Something like Blue works far better in its original form - appreciated in flow and as a whole. That alone means it will probably quickly return to "forgotten" status, but does not provide a driver to exclude it from my collection. If anything, this instead suggests to me that the way we (or at least I) tend to consume music today is detrimental to our appreciation of some forms. I suspect I am far from alone in having most things be a shuffle of some kind now, and albums like this make me wonder what I may be missing as a result.

The Best of British Folk [Castle] - Various Artists

Track list:

1. Streets of London - Ralph McTell
2. Colours - Donovan
3. Light Flight (Take Three Girls Theme) - Pentangle
4. Needle of Death - Bert Jansch
5. Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway - The Humblebums
6. Mirrors - Sally Oldfield
7. Candy Man - John Renbourn
8. The Times They Are A-Changin' - The Ian Campbell Folk Group
9. I'm So Confused - Mick Softly
10. Boadicea - Dave Swarbrick
11. Both Sides Now - The Johnstons
12. The Alchemist and the Pedler - Dransfield
13. Bright Phoebus - Mike and Lal Waterson
14. Timeless and Strange - Keith Christmas
15. Stargazer - Shelagh McDonald
16. Breakdown of the Song - Decameron
17. When I Was on Horseback - Steeleye Span
18. Fiddler's Green - Tim Hart & Maddy Prior
19. Mary Skeffington - Gerry Rafferty
20. Matty Groves - Fairport Convention

Released: 1995
Running time: 79 minutes

What to say about this? It was probably a mistake, a quick unthinking purchase when I first realised I was getting into folk. It certainly feels that 1995 should be more like 1975 in terms of release and that this represents as much of what was wrong with folk music than what is right about it but we'll see. I recognise a few of the performers and a couple of the songs. Will this turn into the rag on cluelessness hour?

We open with Streets of London, a classic of sorts. Actually not a bad song, but I cannot hear it without thinking of a Big Train sketch where McTell is forced to just repeat it over and over as none of his audience know anything else. Video embedded below. That rather makes it a throwaway, pleasant roll that brings a wry amusement. it is not a song that grabs me and demands full attention, promising great reward.

Donovan. The name is synonymous with the less than enlightened folk that the filled wilderness years before the revival of the 00s that persists to date. I have never heard him before other than perhaps on Top of the Pops 2 with some shoddy faux-comedic captioning. I am not impressed. I will state now that I am sure my prejudicial attitude to this material will colour this listen, but I am not going to apologise for that.

The Pentangle track starts as a mess but improves when the vocal joins in, despite its rather airy tone it seems to bind the disparate threads of the music together. There are bits and pieces of interest in the composition but as a whole it falls flat for me. Ah, that is a bit better. Bert Jansch has a (very) little of Nick Drake about him, as much in the intonation as anything else. Not the voice or the delivery as a whole, but the cadence on certain words matches my metal recollection of Drake here and there. Alas it is nowhere near as enduring, and as the song wears on the performance starts to grate a little. The picked guitar is repetitive to a significant degree and the singing voice is harsher than I would like and I find myself happier once it ends.

That is not to say what starts next impresses immediately. It has that same comfortable impression: aiming to, and hitting, a very specific but very bland note. It tries to dispel this thought by the inclusion of brass and/or woodwind - which works to a point - but I find this uninspired TV theme tune music, as if it is aiming for the lowest common denominator of "not disagreeable" rather than shooting to impress.

If it weren't for the sleigh-bells and a horridly warbling vocal, Mirrors might have been interesting. That vocal is worse for the effect of the recording, self-echo or something. The rhythm here is more interesting, a little Latin in places, even, but there is no redeeming the bells. Ugh.

 

 Big Train does Streets of London

Candyman returns to a picked guitar and vocal - it is precisely the kind of blind Dylan-copy I expected to find on this disc. All the same idea, but with none of the craft or genre-defining pioneering, which makes it apt that the next track is a cover of The Times They Are A-Changin' that, by introducing a pretty bad harmony, hand-bells and a depth of accompaniment that overpowers the melody makes for a horrid experience. It is not even that I hold Dylan on a pedestal; I have a little, not much. This though? This is travesty. Of music. How it got on to any "best" anything is beyond me.

Almost half way through in terms of tracks, but alas not close for time. Yes, I am wishing it were over already. My evening plans broke down last minute, which is where I found the time to do this listen, started on impulse when I knew I wouldn't be going out. I have, again, been neglecting my self-imposed workload in favour of simple recovery or being busy. I'm So Confused drifts by almost unnoticed, and then we hit a fiddle tune, Boadicea.  This I like more and could see myself not skipping if it came up in a shuffle. It has enough of a tune that I can excuse the somewhat out-of-place electric bass, the little loopy "pause" being particularly effective for my taste. Glad this hasn't been a total waste of time, then!

It's funny that the "Best of British Folk" involves covers of notable people from across the Atlantic, eh? First Dylan, now Joni Mitchell. I figured this for a cover when I heard it start, but wouldn't have known of whom without Google - though I do apparently have another version of this song on Herbie Hancock's tribute, River. It isn't amongst the couple of Mitchell albums I have though. It breezes by, nothing noteworthy beyond its obvious non-traditional provenance.

We are back to quintessentially English folk-rock blahdom with Dransfield though. Straight out of the inoffensive middle of the road blandness that characterised a decade or two of "folk" on these shores. Twee guitar riff, boring rhythm, darkness-infused vocal that is occasionally used to add dramatic stress (or rather fail to). This is symptomatic of why folk fell out of fashion, obliterated by more energetic and inspiring performances in other fields. Seven and a half minutes of dreary droning, its enough to drive me to drink. Thankfully I picked up some Hoegaarden in my monthly shop on the way home, so that isn't all bad!

With the Watersons I am on more familiar ground, but ground I tread warily. I both recognise their role in preserving British folk traditions and indirectly helping forge the revival and find myself not really liking their work a lot of the time. I have more than a couple of albums by, or inspired by them though so Waterson is a name that will appear again on these pages.

Honestly, what kind of name is Keith Christmas? One associated with blandness and very stereotypical delivery that completely conjures the beardy weirdy freak image of 70s folk, detached from the real world rather than rooted in it, even when spinning tales of the fantastic. If you can't tell, I don't much like Timeless and Strange - the title is the least boring thing about it, and even that is awful. Timeless this isn't; Forgettable and Bland would be a more apt name. Musically, Stargazer is similarly uninspiring. Vocally it is the most interesting thing thus far on the disc and pleasant enough to override my initial detachment with the arrangement. There are echoes of Mitchell, or perhaps some other luminary I cannot place here too in the first half of the track. Alas the second half is completely devoid of interest as the vocal dies out and is replaced by some chanting that is background to the still uninspired tune. I got my hopes up for a second there; lesson learned.

Oh dear, how totally... I have no words. Decameron's effort is a commentary on the music industry, a meta-song. It is also awful; it may be lyrically amusing in its effect but again it just smacks of blandness, lack of craft and turn up bash out musicianship.

Oh now, that's interesting. I am pretty sure I have heard these lyrics before in a different context, because I don't recognise When I Was On Horseback as performed here, or as a title. Steeleye Span, though... the name is very familiar. Memories of my dad's record collection - he's a big Fairport fan too; took my brother and I to Cropredy, along with some Greek guests, almost 20 years back now; a better experience than you might think based on my notes here! Anyhow, I don't think much of this piece, but I found the familiarity of some of the lyrics interesting. Not too surprised though, folk songs are like that - the same song recorded with very different tunes and variable lyrics that overlap but don't mimic.

Nearing the end now, not much more to endure. I fist typed "enjoy" then, but that certainly wouldn't be accurate. I am more relaxed now than when I begun, so the exercise has not been in vain. It is one more album chalked off, and a bad, long one at that. The next disc has to be more promising, right? This ends up, predictably I guess, with Fairport Convention. I should be scathing as they are the epitome of the bland folk rock I despise... but, well. I think there is a mitigation: this whole genre was to some degree others copying them after their success. That said, I don't much like the song, the long lead out in particular. I end with this disc all but wiped out, only Boadicea and Streets of London kept. Onwards to better things I hope.