My Amazon Reviews: James Taylor "Sweet Baby James"

I Always Thought That I'd See You Again
5 Out Of 5 Stars

Basically the pivot point for American Singer Songwriters, "Sweet Baby James" was James Taylor's ode to fallen friends, new babies and coming to terms with being an old man in a younger man's body. Set free from his brief tenure at Apple Records but still with producer Peter Asher, Asher allowed Taylor a much freer range of music making the second time around. Gone were the Beatles-esque flourishes that buried the songwriting on that debut, in were gentle pianos, strummed guitars, and Taylor's voice as the primary focus. Armed with a batch of intimate and personal lyrics, the album became an instant classic in 1970.

It's easy to hear why some 40 years on. The confessional "Fire and Rain" ties the suicide of a best friend and Taylor's own recovery from heroin addiction into a deeply moving song about loss and redemption (and makes the cover of "Oh Susannah" relevant). At the same time, the title track conjures images of winter on the prairie as a lullaby to a newborn nephew. The album's other big hit, "Country Road," was all about soul searching for a moment of transcendence and wondering if it could ever come.

There are plenty of other reasons to adore this album. "Steamroller" eventually morphed into "Steamroller Blues," the staple of Taylor's live shows and a slow-burner event then. "Blossom" was enough of a favorite that Taylor and Carole King (who plays piano on the album) revived it for their reunion tour. Each song has a magic to it that Taylor would capture again on "Mud Slide Slim" and many times through his career, but this was the album that introduced Taylor and his signature sound to the world. Much due for remastering, like the rest of Taylor's Warner Catalog.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Donald Fagen "Sunken Condos"

It's All About The Groove
4 Out Of 5 Stars

"Sunken Condos" is Donald Fagen's look at getting older. He slyly refers to himself as a "burned out hippie clown" and as being "ready for Jurassic Park." If The Nightfly was his look at a nostalgic past, "Sunken Condos" is a look at how a grown-up loses the starry eyes and gets trapped in the "Memorabilia," calling them all "souvenirs of a perfect doom." If you think that the music should match all this, you'd be fooled, because like "The Nightfly," Fagen is at a relaxed and jazz-funk mood. For the 64 year old Fagen, this is a spry and loose album, filled with impeccable playing yet accessible songs.

Given my thoughts that "Morph The Cat" was inaccessibly complex for a pop-music album, the "Slinky Thing" that is this album is a delight. Fagen and his cohorts (special honors to guitarists Jon Herington and Kurt Rosenwinkle) lay down a funk groove like the best of Steely Dan's memorable songs, all while acknowledging that real musicians are playing these riffs and not some kid on a laptop (who seems to be the antagonist of "The New Breed," where Fagen loses the girl to a techno-whiz. Or he backtracks to the days of Prohibition as he becomes a mob-runner for "Good Stuff," making up people and places that harken back to the days of "Dr Wu" or "Gaucho."

Through it all, "Sunken Condos" doesn't lose the sly nods to his audience and old fans. This is most obvious on the odd cover of Isaac Hayes' "Out Of The Ghetto." Turning a piece of super-funk into the kind of mysterio-sheen that Becker and Fagen always did best, even it's got to be one of the oddest choices for a cover he could have made. Contrast it to "The Nightfly's" rework of Dion's "Ruby Baby" for the effect of being transported out of one zone and into Fagen's world. It's a world that can't be held into the compression of MP3's or pre-processed expectations. "Sunken Condos" is a return to form for Donald Fagen and is sure a welcome pool in a desert of whiz-kids and sine-waves passing for sophisticated music.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Talking Heads "Fear Of Music"

What Are You Afraid Of,
5 Out Of 5 Stars

Kicking off with the celebratory "I Zimbra" and closing with the haunting spaciness of "Drugs," "Fear Of Music" was the first album where Talking Heads managed to mix all their influences for the first time as a whole. The funkiness that seemed buried under the surface of the previous two albums comes to fruition on the classic "Life During Wartime," and the experiments that just seemed like art-school JO came into musical fullness. This was the Talking Heads' ode to New York City, and it still holds as one of their finest albums.

There's a lot of rumbling claustrophobia ("Cities") wonder at the outside world ("Animals") and general anxiety ("Memories Can't Wait," "Heaven.") I always thought that this was the album where David Byrne stopped thinking about inner city paranoia and actually statrted seeing bodies dangling from hooks on the walls; hence his fear of "Air" and dread of "Life During Wartime." Even with Byrne's more pointed mindset, this would be for nothing if the rest of the band wasn't pulling their weight. Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz score points for their rhythm chops. It is their propulsion that takes "Wartime" and "I Zimbra" into dance turf, and Jerry Harrison's guitar and keyboards add the the enigmatic swirl.

This is obviously a bridge album given how the danceable throb of muscle that was "Fear Of Music" would ultimately give way the the polyrhythms of "Remain In Light" (and the Byrne/Eno project "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts"). But for this moment, the Talking Heads took their NYC Arthouse Groove and served it up to a mainstream audience in the quirkiest form of anxiety ridden pop. Next to the friendly accessibility of "Little Creatures," my favorite Talking Heads album.