Music Reviews: Vinyl

By the time “Rastaman Vibration” was released in 1976, Bob Marley had already released seven albums, the first four of which had limited distribution outside of Jamaica. “Catch a Fire,” his first for Island, released in 1973 with the famous Zippo lighter flip up jacket, was a big deal in American reggae-loving outposts like Boston, where the 1972 low budget film “The Harder They Come” starring Jimmy Cliff had been a major sensation running throughout the summer of... Read More

"Welcome Klaus! Come have a listen", George Martin invited. "You can sit in my chair," he said to Klaus Voorman, bassist, artist and long time friend of The Beatles. This and other excerpts from Voorman's graphic novel birth of an icon REVOLVER tells the story of how and what moved Voorman to draw the now iconic, possibly influenced by Aubrey Beardsley pen and ink black and white cover—visually a polar opposite of Rubber Soul's inviting... Read More

It runs less than 1/2 hour but "The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark" is worth its weight in choose your favorite precious whatever. Crazy magic happened in the "small, lonely L.A. studio" A&M's Bob Garcia describes in the liner notes. Obviously the small budget or a previous booking didn't allow Gene Clark, Doug Dillard, Bernie Leadon, Chris Hillman and the others to record at the big A&M Studio, but no matter,... Read More

Monty Alexander's long association with the Montreux Jazz Festival produced many stellar musical moments. This double LP set culled from performances from 1993 through 2016 highlights many of them. There's a video interview with Alexander conducted by TrackingAngle editor Michael Fremer the day this review posts.

“David Bowie in Jazz"'s Aladdin Sane-era cover art might lead you to believe this Bowie tribute record is tied in with or is somehow connected to Bret Morgen’s feature-length "Moonage Daydream" documentary released September, 2022 in IMAX and standard theater formats and currently available for streaming and purchase on Amazon, itunes and other sites.The scant credits, however, indicate that the French Wagram Music label marketed and distributed... Read More

(This review, written by Carl E. Baugher, originally appeared in Issue 5/6, Winter 1995/96.)The lineage of American electric guitar is a long, rich, exciting thread. It runs through Muddy Waters, Albert King, Albert Collins, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix and the kid from Texas, Stevie Ray Vaughan. A plane crash in late August 1990 took Vaughan way too soon but his music sounds just as fresh and vital today as ever. Stevie never made a bad album so putting together a... Read More

When Steely Dan recorded "Can't Buy a Thrill" it was more of a "pick-up" studio band than a "group". As Donald Fagen recounts in the notes accompanying this new UHQR release sourced from the original master tapes (shown on the notes insert), Fagen and Walter Becker had failed as ABC Dunhill "staff composers" and decided it was time to live the dream leading a real band.The pair called their friend New York guitarist Denny... Read More