The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 81

0 KARLADEVTTO IS THIS A COOL WORLD OR WHAT? EPIC lthough this has one of the greatest titles ever given an album, it almost should be KARLA'S OOZEORIGINALS WERE BETTER DEAD DON'T RISEYOUNG AND TALENTED called "The Girl Groups Grow Up. Devito, late of Orchestra DEFLEPPARD HIGH 7T DRY MERCURY Def Leppard is a hard rock quintet whose average age is 19. But the group displays enormous talent and execution in their second album. They are particularly fond of the Anglo-American heavy metal and their unabashed stylings prove it. Producer Robert John (Mutt) Lange tunes the bands likable points superb backup harmonies, abrasive guitar licks, and a tempered rock bottom.

Joe Elliot wails the typical bad-boy image but sometimes he soothes with the cathartic "Another Hit and Run." The lead guitar duo of Steve Clark and Pete Willis exchange a series of blistering runs as deadly as their older influences. "Bringing on the Heartbreak" is a stylish blues number where Elliot laments like a polished Steve Tyler. But when the sorrows are dried up there's the neat splendor of Clark's catered tirade in "Switch 625." Here Clark calls to Luna and Meat Loaf, has 12 songs here with only one common bond her singing, which sounds much like one of the Ronettes or Crystals on their own. The material-ranges from ballads to rockers i 1 1 r. i i I i tJ mind the flash and power of Rush's Alex Lifeson guitar choruses all over the place.

Heavy metal music may be easy to poke fun at, but Def Leppard should dispel the notion that most heavy metal is tasteless drivel. "High Dry" is a nifty, scorching album of merit. Frank Conte CLASSICAL VARIOUS ARTISTS SCHUMANN: Spanish Love Songs; Andante and Variations for Two Pianos, Two Cellos, and Horn The Emotions, afloat with passion and fire. jjiu i una II IC gdlllUU 11U11I IUC IC11U1U UllC cut, "I Can't Stand to Reminisce" and "Big Ideas," to the over-produced "Midnight Confession" and "Bloody Bess," to the abysmal "Work" and "Almost Saturday Night" Devito's success comes on the songs which ooze personality. On the title cut she sings, "I want some French sunglasses Call waiting on my phone 1 want a house for my mother Just like Moses Malone." It's sheer nonsense and pure fun, but when she becomes overly emotional, as she does on Jim Steinman's "Heaven Can Wait," Randy Newman's "Just One Smile" and her own "Just Like You," she gets mired in syrupy melancholia.

Essentially, this is a fine album when Devito's In control. When she's part of someone else's ideas, it fails. Overall, about a 50-50 split, Marc D. Allan PAYOLAS IN A PLACE LIKE THIS LR.S. are a solid, competent band whose hard-driving punkish pop and socially conscious lyrics recall music made three years ago by the Clash and the Boomtown Rats.

Although they make a valiant attempt at becoming another major new voice, fall a bit short, mainly because they aren't quite as good as either of the bands they sound like. Like the Clash, their music is insistent and full of young, working class indignation, but they lack that band's bite, insight and skill with melodies. And efforts with wit and satire aren't as well-honed or conceived as the Boomtown Rats. Overall, the album is decent, but uninspiring, although "Hot Tonight" is a compelling, catchy hard-rock song. Most of the better cuts fall outside the typical hard mold.

-These include the piano and 'strings ballad "Female Hands," the reg-gaeish "I'm Sorry." and "Whiskey Boy." with its calvDSO chorus. Ben Horowitz MUSIC MASTERS RICHARD GOODE. piano SCHUMANN: Fantasie: Humoreske NONESUCH wo recent records of music by Robert Schumann benefit from the presence of that estimable 5 and undervalued pianist Rich ard Goode. One of them pre their fans who have long used the term to refer to the band's freeform Inventions -can add to the mystique of a Dead concert. Christopher Zlngg BILLY BANG CHANGING SEASONS BELLOWS Billy Bang, a little-known violinist (and poet) from New York, is quietly redirecting the role of the violin in the jazz idiom, particularly in the avant-garde setting.

On this album, the first studio-recorded group work he has led his previous albums being two roughly recorded live performances and a fine solo twofer -Bang is establishing an approach which is at least in another direction, if not beyond, that of Leroy Jenkins and Ray Ameen, the most provocative violinists of the same ilk. Bang is approaching his violin as if it were a saxophone, and on one composition, "Aduwa in Autumn." he duels with the percussionist into an intense crescendo reminiscent of the late tenorlst Albert Ayler. "Summer Night," the introductory piece, is an earthy, yet energetic and fiery composition of African, rhythms which Bang uses as a foundation for several improvised saws of his bow. Kevin B. Blacklstone LENAHORNE LENA HORNE: Lady Her Music QWEST Not only does Lena Home sing with feeling but she eschews sugar-coating and the refreshing ventilation of her thoughts and emotions are as much a part of the success of the album under review as any of her musical offerings.

Recorded at Broadway's Nederlander Theater, "The Lady and Her Music" represents a loosely threaded retrospective of the sultry, sensuous Home's musical comedy and slightly less-than-sensation-al motion picture career. During her monologues in the album, the 63-year-old singer pulls no velvet-gloved punches as she describes how Hollywood seemed just not ready for a beautiful black actress: In "Showboat," the part of Julie, a black, was given to Ava Gardner; in "White Car African in "White Cargo" and although the role of the mother in "Pinkie" was assigned to Ethel Waters, a black actress, Jeanne Craine, a Caucasian, won the part of the black young woman over Home. felt bad for awhile about 12 years." she recalled.) Notwithstanding, Lena Home professes to "love this business," particularly the profession of singing in such a fashion as to captivate audiences with her subtle sensuality as well as her intense vocalizations. On the album, her voice is steam-propelled on "From This Moment On." "Can't Help Lo-vin' Dat Man," "Stormy Weather" and "Watch What Happens." the last-named her only record hit along with "Lena at the Waldorf." White the singer's impact is unquestionably more, visual, her voice is still a formidably effective vehicle. espc cially for revamped lyrics of "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered." Summarizing a golden career.

Lena Home exults: "And I must be doing something right because I'm still up here rolling on." Ernie Santosuosso EMOTIONS NEW AFFAIR ARCCOLUMBIA When the Emotions released "Rejoice" in 1970 with the smash hit "Best of My Love." they carved a showy vocal style. Since then it's been ingrained into their subsequent works and enhanced by the studio machinations of their career-long producer Maurice White of Earth, Wind Fire. This new album follows a stylistic path: elaborate Jazzy arrangements inter; with intricate multi-harmonies. The Emotions, who are wisely leaderless (the sister trio isn't even identified on the album cover), employ their voices as instruments. Their song on social unrest, "When You Gonna Wake Up," Is splendidly optimistic.

The vocals trail along with a spunky organ line before enveloping an instrumentality of their own as if they were timely brisk guitars or horns. On "There'll Never Be Another Moment," an ebullient song of urgency, the group opens up their collective range exchanging bursts with their lively horn section. The album is a delicacy, a lively enjoyable listen from a group that makes material float with passion, Ffank Cpnte sents him in his familiar chamber-music guise. Joining pianist Charles Wadsworth in the four-hand accompaniments to the and Joining Wadsworth again and a group of congenial and- distinguished colleagues (Kathleen Battle, D' Anna Fortunato. John Aler, Dominic Cossa, Leslie Pamas, Lawrence Lessser, John Barrows) from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in the "Andante and Variations for Two Pianos.

Two Cellos, and Horn." This lovely, melancholy work is more familiar, for obvious reasons, In the version for two pianos alone; the addition of cellos and horn makes a considerable difference in the warmth and character of the sonority. But what the books don't tell you is that in revising the work for two pianos alone, Schumann altered the structure of the piece and shortened it slightly, not to its benefit; here we have the chance to hear the work in the freshness of its first conception. The "Love Songs" are a collection of eight songs five solos, two duets and a quartet -Jinked by a prelude and intermezzo for piano four-hands; they come from 1849, almost a decade after the great profusion of 1840, the year of his most famous songs, but they are of comparable interest and quality. The singers are lovely, and it is particularly nice to hear the warm and sympathetic mezzo of D'Anna Fortunato on record. For another label, Nonesuch, Goode has recorded what is apparently his first solo disk, two of Schumann's major works for piano, the "Humoreske" and the "Fanta- sie." Both performances display the strength of Goode's thought, the warmth of his feeling, the security of his tech- nique, the beauty of his sound, and the Investigative quality of his musicianship, The first movement of the "Fantasie" is in fact one of the strongest and most original performances of this music on re- cord.

aw2 GRATEFUL DEAD DEAD SET Arista The phrase "There Is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert" is heard less often lately and the Dead's seventh live album will do little to revive it. As Volume 2 of "the definitive live Dead recordings" excerpted from more than 20 concerts, the band still averages a surprisingly poor success-failure rate of about one to three. The first couple of sides of this double album suffer from poor pacing and a preponderance of slow tunes. Only "Deal," revamped with a comparatively frenetic solo from lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, shows any real spark. The band averages better on the last two sides.

Garcia echoes Duane Allman, momentarily, during a gutsy slide solo on "Passenger," bassist Phil Lesh propells the group through a spritely version of "Greatest Story Ever Told," while all six band members contribute to a bouncy rendering of "Feel Like a Stranger." But the album's major letdown from a Deadhead's point of view must be the scarcity of the sort of ensemble improvisation which dominates most of the band's electric sets. Only "Fire on the Mountain" and it's Introductory pas- fTp epWnfJ Vmiy'! pi pry? to go, Home light Egyptian makeup ied to Hedy Lamarr tor the role as an UnriW 1 mx.