Hot spot (Dinah Lee) (LP 4900 - 4904)

Dinah Lee  The Sound of Dinah Lee (Vinyl, Viking Records, 1965) ****  

Loggins & Messina  Full Sail (Vinyl, Columbia Records, 1973) *** 

Loggins & Messina  Mother Lode (Vinyl, Columbia Records, 1974) **** 

John Mayall  Bottom Line (Vinyl, DJM Records, 1979) ** 

Don McLean Homeless Brother (Vinyl, United Artists Records, 1974) ***

Genre: Pop, country rock, blues rock, folk rock, NZ Music

Places I remember: Brian Smith Collection, The Little Red Bookshop, JB Hi Fi, Vinyl Room, Vinyl Vault Plus

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: You Need a Man/ Coming To You (Full Sail)

Gear costume: La La Love You (Homeless Brother) 

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8

Active compensatory factors: Since picking up Dinah Lee's debut album I've been keen to find a copy of her second. The new vinyl shop in Waipukurau (Vinyl Vault Plus) came to the party with a near mint copy for $20! It's as great as the debut, with Dinah in irrepressible form. Highlights are many, right from the first track - What Kind of Love Is This, with Dinah belting out great vocals throughout.

Loggins & Messina is a duo act that I've enjoyed hearing on the radio over the years but I have never bothered to buy any of their albums. A recent chance hearing of You Need A Man/Coming To You on a Spotify playlist made me sit up and pay attention. It's a wonderfully playful joined-up song with some great jazzy breaks, plus that patented Loggins & Messina vocal interplay. A winner! Joy upon joy to find that it's on Full Sail!

The rest of the album has a good mix of ballads, 60's pastiche, jazz, and pop songs - all done with those cool vocals. What's not to like?

Mother Lode is, if anything, even better. It has the pair sounding even more confident and relaxed in their abilities to my ears. That figures given that the personnel was the same as their previous albums (this would be the last time though). The warm tones and mid-tempo songs give the album a cohesiveness missing from Full Sail.  

John Mayall's Bottom Line is a mostly subdued offering (apart from the embarrassing attempt at Prince-like bawdiness on I'm Gonna Do it). His version of the Allman Brothers' Band song Revival is just a poor decision. I only paid $4 for this dud at the Little Red Bookshop so I'm not too bothered. A disappointing way for the great man to end the seventies, though.  

Don McLean's Homeless Brother album was his fifth studio album. I avoided it at the time because I thought it was a dour folk album. Ha! I was wrong. One listen to La La Love You will correct that impression.

Although the hobo theme suggested in the title and cover does creep through the album (the title song for instance), it turns out to be quite a varied album. His version of George Harrison's Sunshine Life For Me (on the Ringo album) is a lovely addition.

Where do they all belong? The Mod World of Dinah Lee is next on my list, as well as other Loggins & Messina albums.

Everybody loves me, baby (Don McLean) (LP 3193)

Don McLean  American Pie (CD, Capitol Records, 1971) ****  

Genre: Folk-rock, pop 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: American Pie

Gear costume: Winterwood, Vincent

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I bought the album in 1971 but sold it off at some point (I found side 2 depressing at the time), then I had a hankering to listen to it again (before the Spotify era) and fell in love with it. Let's put it down to maturity.

I've always loved the two hits, but whereas previously I found the other songs not to my palette, now I admire them with fresh ears.

Where do they all belong? While I was learning to be a teacher in 1982 I went with a friend to see him live in Auckland. Good gig but not a great gig. Strangely, I don't feel the urge to buy his other albums, but I may be missing out on some brilliant music.

The half-time air was sweet perfume (Don McLean)

Don McLean's album American Pie is one of hundreds of albums reviewed by Lester Bangs for Rolling Stone magazine in the early seventies. I've just reread his review and he gets it pretty much spot on.

It's definitely the one important song in Don's oeuvre (he's written other good ones like Vincent and Winterwood but they aren't important ones in my humble opinion).

Lester Bangs describes it as a 'metaphor for the death and rebirth of rock that's at once complex and immediately accessible'.

Many people have written about the song's meaning (for a funny line by line blow by blow account you could try http://www.whrc-wi.org/afericanpie.htm) but I have to disagree with Lester.

For me there is no rebirth going on within the narrative. Built around the central image of Buddy Holly's death, the song traces the major movements and bands of the 1950 to 1970 rock era (Dylan, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Byrds all make an appearance). The journey from the plane crash to Altamont, Charles Manson, and the end of the Beatles is all pretty depressing.

By the end of the song Don is asking quite naturally for some 'happy news' (after all the music has stopped, no one is dancing any more and Satan is laughing in delight). But in an enigmatic way, there is none (she just smiled and turned away).

Where does Lester find rebirth in any of this? Of course Don's song itself may be seen as a kind of rebirth and that may be what Lester means. After all he accurately says that it's an immediately accessible song. As we all know - it's impossible not to sing along with all this tale of death and evil doers.