The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 21

THE OTTAWA CITIZEN FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1988 B3 NIGHTS OUT I II I mmj ff kJuM- i Overdrive: Fiddler Larry Franklin and Ray Benson, leader of Asleep at the Wheel, easily shift through their music gears ZZT BARR HOPPING li Gre9 Barr J'l 4: o.m.Zt LlVII 1 Mike Abrams, Gtizen Good and bad: Rocker Barney Bentall should stick to the basics the release of the album Blah Blah Blah which completed the Ig's latest return from the near-dead; we had a lengthy phone interview. He spoke often about coming to grips with the idea of existing on the same plane as other people. As the New York Dolls would have put it, Iggy was stuck in a personality crisis, and he was clearly anxious to steer away from the drug-induced depths he knew so well. "I really wanted to find some kind of foundation for a life that made some sense to me. I was doing everything as if I was the be-all and end-all.

I was some kind of rare bird certainly not a rich one living a solitary life," he said. For Iggy's phoenix to rise once again, he sought assistance from Jones and then David Bowie, with whom he had most recently collaborated on Bowie's China Girl. But while Blah Blah Blah sounded at times like an extension of Bowie's last album, Iggy has proved the naysayers wrong by taking a sideways step away from that slickness on Instinct. In songs such as Strong Girl and High On You, Iggy finally concedes in his lyrics that he needs a relationship forged in steel to make sense out of life: need a strong girl Who works on tension I need a Jeanne D'Arc 'Cause I'm after ascension. Wish comes true In the children's book The Wisholin the tale is told of a magical instrument.

The holder of this instrument has five wishes, one for each string. By now, the author of that book rocker Raymond May must feel like he's plucked the wisholin at least once. Things have finally come together for May since the Sri Lanka-born musician moved from New York to Vancouver in 1984, where he won a local music talent contest. Rock manager Bruce Allen, the man who helped engineer Bryan Adams's rise to the top, was a judge at that contest. May, who opens for Iggy Pop at Barrymore's Saturday and for Aerosmith Tuesday at Lansdowne Park, became the first person signed by Allen's new Penta record label.

May's debut record released this year, Unadulterated Addiction, was scrutinized by Allen pal Bruce Fairbairn (Bon Jovi, Aerosmith) and Vancouver producersinger Paul Hyde held court with May in the studio. Even with all that high-priced help, 26-year-old May is pleased that the music was basically left intact from rough demos to the final product without any compromise. "The fact that Paul is a musician really helped, actually," said May in a phone interview this week, his British accent still there from time spent in England after high school. "In certain situations he knew the direction I'd want to go." And there's no doubt he knew where he was headed when be was working on the record. The opening cut Romantic Guy will please Rex fans, and True Pretender could easily find its way onto a Rolling Stones album.

Yet May doesn't come across like someone who is dabbling in a variety of styles for safety's sake after all, he cites Muddy Waters and The Clash in the same breath when talking about his influences. "It's a good summer record, something that sounds right in the tape-deck when you're shifting from second to third yeah, a good car recording. Burning Spear Winston Rodney, known in reggae and rastafarian circles as Burning Spear, borrowed that nickname from the late Jomo Kenyatta. Kenyatta was sent to prison by the British government for his alleged role in the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in 1952, only to become that country's first prime minister after his release. Like Kenyatta, Rodney wages a political and religious battle but does so through his music, rather than toe-to-toe confrontation.

Rodney rose to prominence in Jamaica in the early 1970s. After a period of soul-searching and signs of burnout in later years. Spear surprised many with some revamped versions of earlier material, enough to propel him into two tours through parts of the U.S. with The Clash and The Talking Heads in 1982. Spear, one of few remaining touring reggae veterans of the early Studio One days in Kingston, performs Monday at Barrymore's (10 advance).

Taking some time out while munching through an ugly looking plate of food in the cramped Barrymore's dressing room, Ray Benson looked up from underneath his black 10-gallon hat and smiled. "Ahm a potatoes man, myself," drawled the leader of Asleep at the Wheel. Ten minutes after finishing his last bite, the towering Texan and his six hipster cowboys from Austin delivered a hearty, rib-sticking musical meal during their Ottawa stopover earlier this week. Since the group was formed almost 20 years ago, it has become a bastion of Western swing music, which peaked in the late 1930s and '40s with the likes of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. But Benson and his ever-changing band of rockin' renown have added their own zip to that music, blending blues, rock, straight and jazz into the mix.

During a single song, the music may shift directions three or four times, dragging the audience happily into the fray. Benson, resplendent in his steel-tipped boots, black slacks and black western-style shirt with red and white zebra motif, easily shifted his 18-wheeler vocal chords through all the gears. The bearded band leader adapted his well-oiled baritone voice to rock tunes, country ballads or blues with equal aplomb. Despite a few sloppy meanderings, his thrifty guitar playing was clear and crisp. Imagine Route 66 with pedal steel and fiddle, spiced with saxophone and played with a jumpin' jive backbeat.

From there, the band waded through golden oldies such as Walk On By, then into a Texas two-step with San Antonio Rose and their instrumental hit String of Pars which won the band a 1988 Best Instrumental Group Grammy award. For Benson's boys, there is no shame in being best-known for performing covers of other people's songs. With no sound check before they went on, however, it took time most of the first set to even thinp out. Early on, David Sanger's drumming drowned out the piano, and even when the rest of the instruments were sufficiently pumped through the sound system, Sanger whacked away even harder, standing out a bit too much. And something irks me about drummers who have no microphone and insist on singing along even if they don't know the Fiddler and vocalist Larry Franklin was superb, using his instrument solo style or as fill-in for horn or rhythm guitar parts in some songs even imitating the sound of a braying bovine during Milk Cow Blues.

Steel player Larry Ely performed similar magic, as did bass player Jon Mitchell on the electric stick. Even Benson's between-song patter was satisfying no grandstanding or pandering required making this a true value for money event. Before the band played a captivating swing version of Huey Lewis's Want A New Drug, Benson said longtime friend Lewis always wanted to hear someone do a country version of the song, and thought it might sound good if Johnny Paycheck or the Wheels tried it "Paycheck was in jail that week, though, so we did it," he said. Bombastic Barney Over at Grand Central Monday night, Barney Bentall and The Legendary Hearts were at their best and their worst all in one swoop. Bentall, cut from the B.C.

rocker cloth that adorns the likes of Tom Cochrane, has created a reasonable splash with his debut self-titled album, notably for dragging producer David Tickle out of his sessions with Rod Stewart to check out BB and TheLHs. Some of the selections he performed from the album didn't seem to translate beyond the studio walls. He really should stick to the basics, because the message gets lost as soon as he starts taking himself seriously. He'll have to bring the ego down a notch or two to make a lasting impression. Barney, you didn't need to ask the female members of the audience if you were cute.

And the bit about saying how you never play Top-40 songs, except for your own, YUCK! But when he stuck to playing, his dirty blond hair dripping with sweat and long-haired lead guitarist Colin Nairne cranking it out to his right, BB and The LHs were the real deal when Bentall wanted them to be. Best of all were stripped-down songs like Rockin' My Life Away and the BTO-inspired Somewhere There's An Angel aided by two female members of the audience on tamborines. There's no doubt the 150 or so patrons were holding back for the big moment, of course, when BB hauled out the hook-laden Cochranesque radio hit Something To Live For, which sucked the audience onto the dance floor like a 300-ton Hoover. By now, we all know that the sound system installed last year at Grand Central is staggeringly powerful. But in the hands of the wrong people, it is a wicked weapon.

Certainly, drummer Jack Guppy and bassist Barry Muir are competent enough but the sledgehammer mix often left Bentall playing an air guitar and made keyboard player Cam Bowman mostly inaudible. Loud is fine, but get it together, OK? Iggy gets tough Life has begun, in earnest, for Iggy Pop. At 40, the perpetual punker has made more comebacks than Sugar Ray Leonard. But like Leonard so far Iggy has yet to go one round too many and get his lights punched out by someone meaner, younger and stronger. With the release of his latest album Instinct, Iggy is running on gut feeling once more, though with a reined-in version of the psychotic persona he created with the Stooges in the late 1970s.

Adding a heavy metal edge and dragging ex-Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones from a production into a playing role has also helped put Iggy back on the musical map. Iggy appears Saturday at Barrymore's. Though advance tickets are sold out, there will be a limited number like about 40 tickets put on sale at the door Saturday at 7 p.m. at $22. Go early and bring a book to read.

Before his 1987 show in Ottawa, shortly after.