Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 67

HERALD MAGAZINE Friday, Jon. 12, 1973 5 RECORDS Rick and the Rovers and an excellent song it is. Rick was invited to a rock revival concert at Madison Square Garden in October, 1971. He sang bis old songs, but he sang new songs, too, and was booed off the stage by people who wanted the "old" Ricky. So he wrote Garden Party, a gently rocking ballad that relates what happened and how "If you gotta play at garden parties I wish you a lot of luckBut if memories were all I sangTd rather drive a truck." Because Rick does sing more than memories.

He has progressed as a performer and as a song-writer. He has also put together one of the best rock bands anyw here, the Stone Canyon Band. Members of the band not only play beautiful country-rock, they provide smooth vocal backing for Rick, and have written a couple of the songs on the album (Rick wrote six of the 10 numbers). Allen Kemp is lead guitar, and he solos beautifully throughout, starting with the opening rock ballad, Let It Bring You Along. Stephen Love plays bass (he is featured on I'm Talking About You, a Chuck Berry rocker) and Patrick Shanahan lays down a solid drum line all through the album.

Steel guitarist Tom Brumley adds the real country flavor, and his solo on Rick's beautiful ballad Nighttime Lady is crystal clear. Rick and the band travel through old rock and roU, numerous- lovely rock ballads, a sort of country boogie called So Long Mama, and the ambitious Rick Nelson composition Palace Guard, which is reminiscent of a Bob Dylan song with its gently obscure lyrics and soft rocking sound. It's a varied and entertaining album, and young Rick has come a long way since his be-bopper days. He deserves a listen now, as much as he did then. seen each number has a complete recording history and personnel lineup included.

All in all, a beautiful package of beautiful music, by a man who loved what he did, and did it very, very, well. ONE MAN" DOG by James Tavlor (Warner Brothers BS 2660). You can't help but enjoy listening to a James Taylor album. The music is always warm and relaxing, and Mr. Taylor has such a winning, boy-next-door way about him.

One Man Dog is as easy on the ears as Taylor's previous albums. It contains all of Taylor's well-known strengths, and it contains all his previous weaknesses. In fact, it sounds just like all his other albums. There is more variety to the musical back-up this time around, with musicians like pianist Craig Doerge, drummer Russ Kunkel and guitarist Daniel Kortchmar assisting on most of the songs, and people like John McLaughlin, Carole King, Carly Simon and most of the other Taylors tAlex, Hugh and Kate) showing up for one or two songs each. But it's still James Taylor's album all the way.

He sings and plays guitar through fully 18 bits and pieces of songs and that is the album's main problem. There are too many pieces, too many ideas that could have become songs but were, never really developed. There's a one-and-a-half-minute ode to the Chili Dog and numerous other selections of about a minute or less. They all sound pleasant enough, but aren't reallv worth the effort There are some honest to goodness songs, though, and they are worth while. I don't think there's anything to compare with such Taylor hits as Fire And Ram and Sweet Baby James, but One Man Parade and Hymn are substantial enough compositions.

They have the same soft, fluid, country flavor that almost all of Taylor's songs contain. Best cut is the traditional folk ballad One Morning In May: on it, Taylor joins forces vocally with luscious Linda Rondstadt, and the result is so good I think the combination is worth an album of its own. the earthIn Bethlehem I had my Another Ewan MacColl composition. Sweet Thames Flow Softly, doesn't fare quite so welL It an un-usuallv beautiful love song set along the River Thames, but the Rovers can't come anywhere near the quality of performance that MacColl's original has. But enough nit-picking.

It's a fine wee album, full of bluster and blarney, and an awful lot of good-spirited music. Thoroughly enjoyable. Love Daffodil Records has a strange little series out It's called the Immediate (U.K.) Series. And UK is as good a description of the series as any. The four records that came in for review are all neatly packaged in what looks like tinfoil shiny grey-silver covers with absolutely no information or liner notes.

At least one of the albums is made up entirely of re-releases, and the others look suspiciously the same. The records are Humble Pie: Town And Country (SBA 160141, Small Faces: Ogden's Nut Gone Flake (SBA 16015), The Nke: Nice (SBA 16106), and An Anthology of British Blues (SBA 16017). None of the albums is overly impressive. The Nice have the best set, with some rvpical Nice blends of pop, rock and classical music featuring Lee Jackson's horrible singing and Keith Emerson's sometimes brilliant, sometimes plodding and repetitive (but aV-wavs energetic) keyboard work. Songs included are Tim Hardin's Hang On To A Dream and Bob Dylan's She Belongs To Me (recorded at the now defunct Fillmore East).

Humble Pie and Small Faces play some reasonably engaging medium-heavy rock with" a bit of country-rock thrown in. But there's nothing special on either album. The blues anthology shows why Britons shouldn't play blues. The songs are all done with obvious sincerity and a reverence for the American blues medium, but with little of the magic of real blues. The musicians, people like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Savoy Brown, either go through the motions of blues or head off into rock.

John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers (on Telephone Bluest and Jo-Ann Kelly (on Ain't Seen No Whiskey) come closest to pulling it off, but the album is, at best, a shrug. The whole Immediate Series rates a shrug, for that matter. Or a big fat Uk! ON! bv Fludd (Love Daffodil SBA 16020 i. Love also has a new Canadian rock album out in the same tinfoil line only this time the tinfoil cover is a rather indigestible looking red with gold trim. Fludd is a pretty fair medium-heavy rock band lead by the Pilling boys.

Ed and Brian. The two Pillings wrote all the songs on and handle the lead vocals. Drummer John Anderson, pianist Peter Csanky and bass man Greg Godovitz provide a solid, tight albeit not particularly inventive back-up sound. The songs are all middle-of-the-road. Top 10 type rock tunes, mostly about teen "love" and at the bubblegum level.

Some, such as Ticket To Nowhere and Gratitude, are good. Others, such as Cousin Mary, are amateurish and pointless-Still, the album is a vast improvement over the other tinfoil releases. Another "triumph" for Canadian content. Jim Rennie re i WILL MILLAR: the Irish urn Rovers' head leprechaun DUANE ALLMAN: AN ANTHOLOGY (Capricorn 2CP 0108 Duane AHrnan died on October 29, 1971, after the motorcycle he was riding skidded and crashed down on top of him. His death cut short what should have been a long and musically rewarding career.

Because as this anthology of his music so clearly shows, Duane Allman was one of the very best perhaps the very best guitarist on the contemporary music scene. Duane Allman could play any kind of guitar, any style hard rock, rhythm and blues," jazz, classic blues, anything. He worked in bands with his brother Gregg first in Hourglass, and finally in the Allman Brothers Band. He also did session work with some of the top recording talents of the day. In between, he did what he loved best he played his guitar, jamming with friends and contemporaries.

All these aspects of Duane All-man's talent are included on this two-record set, Duane Allman: An AnOiology which, incidentally, is one of the finest anthologies of its kind I have heard in a long, long time. There are a few cuts with brother Gregg and friends, and some cuts from the final albums by the Allman Brothers Band. Not everything the Allmans did was outstanding their version of Statesboro Blues, included here, is over-arranged and lacking the power of the original but the group's success rate was quite phenomenal. There are the session recordings with other artists, too. And on a great many of the cuts, you can indeed appreciate Duane Allman talents as a musician.

He never steals the spotlight from the featured artist, but on almost every cut it is Duane Allman's guitar work that adds the polish to the particular song. Listen to his picking on Wilson Pkkett's version of Hey Jude, and on Aretha Franklin's The Weight. And again with Boz Scaggs on Loan Me A Dime, and Eric Clapton on Layla. And the inspired pairing of Duane Allman and fiery bluesman Johnny for Shake For Me. Whether playing slide dobro for Cowboy, on Please Be With Me; straight slide guitar with Delanev and Bonnie, on Lirrn' On The Road: or lead guitar on Goin' Down Slow, which features one of Duane's rare vocal appearances.

Duane Allman the musician was always in complete control. He could play it scorching, taking off on extended one-chord jags like a real hard-line rocker (as on Goin' Down Slow, but he always knew when enough was enough: he never overdid a break or played to excess. He was a rhythm and blues master, and the implausibly appealing and instrumental Games People Play, with Duane All-man on slide guitar and electric sit-ar. and King Curtis on saxophone, won Curtis a Grammy for best and instrumental of 1969. Duane All-man could also play the soft, soulful, classic blues guitar superbly: he plays a beautifully expressive slide guitar on a guitar duet with Eric Clapton, on Mean Old World: and the anthology closes with another highlight, the soft, folks)- instrumental Little Martha, with Duane on dobro and Dicky Berts on acoustic guitar.

In all, 19 cuts on two records. Each one a gem. The anthology includes a 20-page, lovingly written, heavily-illustrated biography of Duane Allman, by reviewer and blues harp man Tony Glover. And the liner notes are as complete as those on any album I've ft RICK NELSON: excellent country rock LIVE by The Irish Rovers (Potato POT 3201 The Irish Rovers have an annoying habit of rewriting, or "commercializing" folk lyrics. They also have an amazing energy and enthusiasm that is so infectious, any other criticisms seem unimportant.

It's that way with Live, a live-and-in-concert album taped at the CBC television studios in Vancouver: Ewan MacColl's folksy I'm A Rambler has been moved from "Manchester wav" to "Paddv's green and the traditional" Windy Old Weather has become a song of social significance. In both cases I prefer the original versions. But there is so much that is good about the album, that such complaints about song content seem to be mere quibbles. The Rovers are at their best on lively, high-spirited songs about wine, women and song. Which is what they sing about 90 per cent of the time.

There's a sprightly song in praise of The Barley Mow, a rousing Road To Gundagai, and a rollicking Vapor-aiso we're bound for Valparaiso round the The group isn't as good on slower ballads, but head leprechaun Will Millar has a couple of winners from the folk-ballad bag. Step It GARDEN PARTY bv Rick Nelson (Decca DL7-5391 1. Quick now. Who is the brightest light of the current crop of up-and-coming country-rock performers? The Eagles? Loggins and Messina? How about Rick Nelson? Rick Nelson? Not the little Ricky Nelson of Honeycomb, Poor Little Fool and I'm Walk in' fame back in the '50s? As a matter of fact it's the same Rick Nelson, although he has indeed matured now into one of the top country-rock musicians currently writing, singing and recording. The fact that so many people remember him as little Ricky, the be-bopping rock and roller, and can't seem to take him seriously now is really the only major handicap he has to overcome to regain his lost popularity.

But that handicap may be insurmountable. It was that attitude that inspired the title song of this album nusic Out Mary, although credited to someone named McCarty, sounds like a traditional folk song of Ireland. And the highlight of the album is the folk hymn Lord Of The Dance danced in the morning when the world began I danced in he moon and the stars and the sun I came out of heaven and I danced on MMITI 5 The Largest Selection of Records Stereo Tapes IN WESTERN CANADA THC 1Y CHINOOK CENTftl.