Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Remembering John Lee Hooker, born on this date in 1917. —Ed.

By the time John Lee Hooker recorded Burnin’ for the Vee Jay label in 1961, he’d been on the recording and performing scene in and beyond Detroit for roughly a dozen years, wielding a sui generis, some said anachronistic, yet surprisingly adaptable style, both solo and with backing. On Burnin’ the band consisted of the legendary Motown Records studio unit the Funk Brothers, and the results stand amongst the strongest full-length recordings in Hooker’s extensive discography. Hitting the sweet spot where robust R&B and Mississippi Delta jook joint heat mingle in a swampy atmosphere, Craft Recordings’ fresh edition of Burnin’ returned to store shelves on vinyl, compact disc, and digital February 24.

In September of 1945 Joe Liggins and His Honeydrippers scored a smash hit on the R&B charts with “The Honeydripper, Parts 1 & 2,” hitting #1 in September and staying there into the following year (18 weeks in total). Heard today and considered in the context of its time, the song’s modernity still shines: WWII is over, and with it comes a sense of optimism only encouraged by a record industry, unshackled by the ban on pressing 78rpm discs, that was cranking out musical advancements recently honed on bandstands, and as the war raged on, mostly heard via airchecks.

Flash forward to 1949, and John Lee Hooker hits #1 on the same chart with “Boogie Chillen’” (remaining at the top for only one week, but staying on the chart for 18), the debut release by this renowned bluesman, featuring Hooker solo on electric guitar in a wildly intense update of the rural “country” blues, the song’s rhythm produced by Hooker’s own foot stomping on a piece of plywood.

Hooker wasn’t the only artist to update and mutate downhome blues styles with amplification and harder and sharper edges and angles (see Muddy Waters, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, and Sonny Boy Williamson), but he was amongst the most uncompromising in how his style developed. Simultaneously a groundbreaker and a throwback, Hooker’s early success in an undiluted style helped to establish that any changes he made were on his terms.

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Chronologically, the first names associated with jazz saxophone are generally Frankie Trumbauer, Coleman Hawkins, and Sidney Bechet. But Archeophone Records’ fascinating new 2CD set The Moaninest Moan of Them All: The Jazz Saxophone of Loren McMurray, 1920-1922 throws a spotlight onto the short recording career of a terribly undersung Kansas City saxman, offering an enlightening and satisfying 50-track deep dive. The contents, including an 80-page booklet with exhaustive contextual notes by Colin Hancock and Mark Berresford, will surely be received with enthusiasm by fans of early jazz. The set is available now.

It’s important to note straightaway that the producers of this collection, namely Richard Martin, Meagan Hennessey, and Colin Hancock, are not making a case for Loren McMurray as the baseline originator of jazz saxophone but instead as a crucial if overlooked predecessor to the established names on the instrument. To make it plain, it’s McMurray’s sax in the first Kansas City jazz band to record commercially, Eddie Kuhn’s Dance Specialists, the leadoff band on disc one of this set.

As mentioned in the booklet, pianist Kuhn’s outfit (co-run by violinist Emil Chaquette) is better described as a “rag-a-jazz” entity interestingly augmented by the accordion of Frank Papile. But foremost, they were a dance band, even when recording as Eddie Kuhn and His Orchestra. It’s McMurray who really brings the jazz verve, which is notable, as up to the point of these recordings, the sax was primarily associated with either military bands, classical orchestras, or as a novelty instrument (having been invented by Adolphe Sax only 80 years before).

The Moaninest Moan of Them All features ten bands, including McMurray’s California Thumpers, the saxophonist’s one leadership shot, which grabbed players from Eddie Elkins’ Orchestra, a Cali-based group that McMurray joined in 1922. Along with the groups of Kuhn and Elkins, the other aggregations are Mike Merkels’ Orchestra (who also cut sides as Eddie Davis’ Orchestra), Harry Raderman’s Jazz Orchestra, Sam Lanin’s Southern Serenaders, Baily’s Lucky Seven, the Original Memphis Five (who also cut sides as Jazz-Bo’s Carolina Serenaders), Ben Selvin’s various orchestras, and the Virginians.

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Vancouver Islands-based singer-songwriter Ora Cogan has assembled a sizable discography since emerging with her debut EP in 2002. With Formless, she releases her eighth album, and it’s out August 25 on vinyl and digital through her own label Prism Tongue. Although the record’s title can be applied to Cogan’s eschewal of tidy encapsulation, rest assured that she exhibits a sturdy command of song form across seven original compositions and two covers including a transformative version of the folk chestnut “Katie Cruel.”

Ora Cogan’s choice to interpret “Katie Cruel” will likely strike newbies to her work as a signifier of a folky, or perhaps a rootsy, artistic temperament. Now, Cogan does have a connection to the folk genre, but it’s also pretty nuanced. In acquainting myself with Formless prior to listening, the descriptor “gothic country” was particularly striking.

Frankly, that’s not a tag I’ve encountered every day, or every month, for that matter. But its usage is fair, as Cogan’s tunes are tough and unpretentious but devoid of twang. She saves the album’s most straightforwardly folky cut, “Is Anything Wrong,” a composition by the late Lhasa de Sela, for last, as “Katie Cruel,” a traditional song well-known today through its treatment by Karen Dalton, is marked by its soaring lushness.

The piece that follows “Katie Cruel,” the striking “Ways of Losing” featuring guests Y La Bamba, begins with some gentle fingerpicking and a vocal duet that brought Josephine Foster to mind, but moves first into singer-songwriter mode and then soon enough kicks into full-band gear. Still, the track is in sharp contrast to the set’s opening groove-pulser “High Noon,” or the song that follows, the spikier twist on ’90s Alt-pop, “Holy Hells.”

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Consisting of savvy instrument switchers and microphone sharers Ariella Stok, Bill the Drummer, and Jimmy Jumpjump, Brooklyn’s Sloppy Heads specialize in the sort of pop-edged, psych-tinged, ragged-fidelity indie rock that flourished three decades back, notably on labels like Shrimper, an enterprise still extant and indeed responsible for Sometimes Just One Second, Sloppy Heads’ second full-length available August 18 on limited cassette and CD. Getting some help from James McNew (Yo La Tengo) and Gary Olson (Ladybug Transistor), they’ve put together a total winner of a release. It’s a long one that stays fresh the whole way through and has sweet cover art by Gary Panter.

I don’t want to suggest that Sloppy Heads are a total throwback to the indie rock ’90s. But after due consideration, I must admit that if Sometimes Just One Second’s 14 tracks were presented to me as an unreleased recording from 1993 or thereabouts, I’m guessing I would’ve bought that bogus backstory hook line and sinker.

Now some will point to this record’s fuzzed-up but easily recognizable and downright snazzy version of the Grateful Dead’s “New Speedway Boogie” as the tell to this hypothetical fib, but I’ll counter with the cover of “Cream Puff War” by the underheard early ’90s outfit Wonderama (featuring guitarist Dave Rick), which was released on the B-side of a 45 at the dawn of ’90s by the Ajax label of Chicago. Yes, even that far back indie bands were cozying up to the Dead.

Portions of this disc, and particularly when Stok is singing, are a bit like the K Records aesthetic rubbing up against the gush of the early Elephant 6 Collective (see “Shannon’s Song”), but the overall thrust is definitely beyond mere scene grafting. For one thing, while they are frequently stripped down, Sloppy Heads never tip over into the non-adept, and if handy with the psych and the pop, they don’t flirt with bubblegum vibes. But right off the bat in “Possession,” Stok’s vocals got me to thinking of solo Maureen Tucker, which is a swell thing. Same with the touch of Cramps at the start of “Love is a Disease.”

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Celebrating Terry Adams, born on this day in 1948. —Ed.

The music of NRBQ is one of rock ‘n’ roll’s great paradoxical pleasures. How can a band this accessible and joyous be banished to the musical fringe? It’s a true stumper. But if widespread success was denied them, the group endured and excelled through relentless bar gigs, college radio play, and via the persistent word of mouth of the converted. Their early days found them hopping labels only to be dumped after disappointing sales, but instead of quitting they smartly decided to put out their own records. 1977’s All Hopped Up was the first, and for new listeners it makes a fine introduction.

Their name originally stood for the New Rhythm and Blues Quintet. Formed by guitarist Steve Ferguson, pianist Terry Adams, drummer Tom Staley, bassist Joey Spampinato (aka Jody St. Nicholas), and vocalist Frank Gadler, they combined a stylistic eclecticism—the titular R&B, rockabilly, early Brit-invasion pop, jazz, and even more into a highly potent and easily digestible brew. But if possessive of an unusual level of diversity, constant factors were also at play. Foremost was a lighthearted sincerity regarding the love of their shared influences, but NRBQ are also one of the least egocentric bands, both musically and in terms of personality, to ever span decades of neglect.

They came together in Florida but moved to New York City where they quickly gathered steam, even playing Fillmore East, and eventually found themselves signed to Columbia Records. This resulted in a truly swell self-titled debut in ’69 that didn’t sell squat. And that’s not really a surprise; if the Q’s long-term lack of a wide following is hard to fathom, in the year of Woodstock they weren’t exactly the height of trendiness. What to make of a group that covered Eddie Cochran, Sun Ra, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and Bobby Channel’s oldies station rotation warhorse “Hey Baby” all on the same album? The high number of covers alone was a little divergent from the era’s norm of boldfaced originality.

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The Portland, OR-based “indie jazz” outfit Blue Cranes has been active since 2004. Their latest is My Only Secret, available August 11 on purple vinyl, compact disc, and digital through the teamwork of hometown labels Jealous Butcher Records and Beacon Sound. Featuring eight tracks, the contents are melodic, intense, and unpredictable on first listen. Additional spins reveal compositional depth and interactive spark that strengthens the whole.

Blue Cranes are Reed Wallsmith on alto saxophone, keyboards and percussion, Joe Cunningham on tenor saxophone, keyboards and percussion, Rebecca Sanborn on keyboards, Jon Shaw on bass, and Ji Tanzer on drums. My Only Secret is their sixth full-length (there’s also an EP and a remix album) and the follow-up to the only release in their discography to feature vocals (courtesy of numerous Portland cohorts including Laura Gibson and Laura Veirs), 2021’s Voices.

Voices took a long time to record (March 2015–September 2018) and was issued on CD in 2021. Like most of their catalog, it was self-released. The exceptions are Swim, which came out on LP and CD (both formats still available) in 2013 through Cuneiform Records, and My Only Secret, which was recorded in 2021-’22 under pandemic restrictions.

Voices establishes that Blue Cranes are meticulous in the pursuit of artistic growth, and My Only Secret underscores the band as adaptable to change, even when those circumstances made recording difficult. Unwilling to simply wait things out, their latest record is defined by a sense of necessity that’s often emphatic.

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With roots spanning back to 1954, The Spinners had staying power. Having settled on a change of moniker in 1961, the new name stuck and they landed on the Motown roster soon after with limited success; it wasn’t until a label switch to Atlantic in 1972 that they started landing the big hits. The Complete Atlantic Singles: The Thom Bell Productions 1972–1979, available now through Real Gone Music in collaboration with Second Disc, documents the heights of the group’s commercial success across two CDs, rounding up 43 tracks that offer a magnificent deep dive into Philly Soul at its smoothest and most substantial.

Quite often, extensive collections, indeed sets like the one under review here, are fairly assessed as being best heard by those frequently described as “music obsessives.” The general idea is that the chronological ordering of singles details subtleties in artistic development that appeals to those holding an intense interest. However, for the more casual listener (and not that I’m particularly inclined to advocate for the positions held by casual listeners), the results can register like a pile-up of overkill.

While The Complete Atlantic Singles is probably best absorbed a disc at a time (and maybe even in shorter increments), I will add that soaking up all 43 tracks in one sitting, and that’s two hours 37 minutes (no, I didn’t sit the entire time), lacks even a trace of fatigue. And the sustained freshness derives from a triangle of creative verve, with the first and primary point of the three being The Spinners, naturally.

Philippé Wynne, Bobbie Smith, Henry Fambrough, Billy Henderson, and Pervis Jackson (and later in the period captured on this set, John Edwards) cohered into a powerhouse of vocal richness that stacked up well in comparison to their Philly soul counterparts The Stylistics and The Delfonics (both acts produced by Thom Bell).

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Tiki Tumbao is a new label based in Miami, FL that’s dedicated to the dissemination of “gritty analog funk.” The imprint’s output currently consists of two 45rpm 7-inch singles, the Latin boogaloo-Nuyorican groover “Piropo” b/w “Son Del Barrio” by Tony & The Kings, and the tough Southern funk instrumental action of “Double Dippin” b/w “Dippin Deux” by The Swizzlas. Both are worthy acquisitions for ears attuned to inspired contemporary manifestations of classique soul-funk-R&B-Latin heat.

Founded by Travis Acker, the Tiki Tumbao enterprise cuts their sides all-analog at West Bird Studio in Miami with a focus on South Floridian acts. Additionally, Acker is a member of The Swizzlas. The immediate Tiki Tumbao vibe is reminiscent of such heavy-hitting labels in the neo-classique soul-funk-R&B zone as Daptone, Big Crown, and Colemine, but with a distinctive Latin twist in the 45 by Tony & The Kings.

Dishing up a solid plate of Fania-esque Latin verve with “Piropo,” the sextet features a sturdy rhythmic bedrock with Danny Naval on congas and percussion and Eddie Garcia Jr. on drums, as Matt Pyatt strengthens the foundation on bass. Broadening the sound is Charles Gardner on keyboards and Robert Smiley in saxophone. Leader Antonio Rivera handles the vocals, guitar, and percussion.

The singing is in English on “Piropo,” a choice that sets the track a bit apart from the more celebrated releases in the Fania discography, and if Rivera’s vocals are unlikely to make anyone forget Héctor Lavoe, he more than capably gets the soulful job done. But really, the tune’s raison d’être is its blend of instrumental firepower and finesse, the members of the ensemble resistant to overplaying as the songwriting is a few cuts above the standard stuff.

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Celebrating Kristin Hersh, born on this day in 1966. —Ed.

In October 2013 Throwing Muses released their ninth album and first in ten years on CD in tandem with a book of photos, artwork, lyrics, and short essays by leader Kristin Hersh. An atypical yet smart combination. Intrigued parties who missed it should not dally to investigate, for it finds the three-piece of Hersh, drummer Dave Narcizo, and bassist Bernard Georges in skilled, vibrant form.

Another encroaching year’s end foretells many things, and a certainty is a surge of Best Lists. I enjoy reading them almost as much as writing them, as I’ve done a few times here at TVD. What’s important is to not take them too seriously, in part because nobody, not even rapscallions and dandies living lives of utter leisure, can absorb everything released across the span of a dozen calendar pages, and most assuredly not by the 31st of December.

For instance, I’ve just recently become acquainted, roughly 12 months after its emergence, with Throwing Muses’ outstanding Purgatory/Paradise. Now, I could chalk up the delay to the music’s unusual connection to the publishing industry described above, but that wouldn’t be accurate. I’ll simply confess to not keeping up with the singer-guitarist-bandleader’s activity post-University back in ‘95. As stated, one cannot hear it all. Bluntly, I’m very pleased to have belatedly caught up with this record.

Last year’s dual release is frankly a savvy idea, one I’m surprised hasn’t been employed with more frequency. And I do look forward to examining Purgatory/Paradise’s accompanying tome, for clearly the text will provide scores of insights into a rather unique collection; however, this review is specifically concerned with those 32 tracks. Not to worry, for their uniqueness stands up easily on its own.

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Remembering Adam Yauch in advance of his birthdate tomorrow.
—Ed.

With the Love American Style EP, The Beastie Boys gave the public a small taste of their new and improved direction. Some ears were ready and many were not, but this twelve-inch contained a tidy morsel of a true hip-hop classic.

In retrospect, Licensed to Ill came on like a ton of bricks. Out of the blue the group just seemed to suddenly be everywhere; on stereos and television naturally, but also in magazines, in car tape decks, as the soundtrack to parties, in the parking lot at school. This level of saturation wasn’t all that unusual, for the same sort of situation happened with Purple Rain, Thriller, Madonna’s debut and Born in the USA. Unless you were a hermit, it was ultimately all music the ears couldn’t escape, particularly in a suburban existence. What made Licensed to Ill feel like such a haymaker was its heightened sense of immaturity and its use (some said hijacking) of a musical form that many observers were still coming to terms with.

The Beastie Boys were generation gap music in its purest form. As expected, parents were indignant; Who raised these ingrates, What has happened to the youth of America, Where are the values, When I was your age we thought Pat Boone was risqué, Why I oughta lock you in your room without your stereo for playing that noise in the house, and in front of your sweet, impressionable little sister at that. How does it feel to feel old?

And while these days it seems that every child of the ‘80s got and dug what the Boys’ were laying down right off the bat, of course that’s not a bit true. Tons of kids were horrified or at least highly perturbed that three unruly youths were besmirching the rep of their peers through constant airtime on MTV. And it’s important to understand that The Beastie Boys were many ears’ first prolonged exposure to rap music, especially in the areas of the country not served by cable TV. And to be accurate, before Licensed to Ill MTV played very little rap music, just like before Thriller this supposedly progressive, groundbreaking entity aired almost no black music at all.

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Remembering Klaus Schulze in advance of his birthdate tomorrow. —Ed.

Klaus Schulze has released a certifiable ass-ton of music, and only the most severely dedicated have collected it all. For those wishing to own his earliest solo recordings on vinyl, the One Way Static label has issued his work from 1968-1970 on the 2LP set La Vie Electronique Volume 1.0. Fully embracing experimentation in a home environment, Schulze’s boldly celestial and drone friendly excursions infuse early electronic, proto-ambient exploration with edge and heft. Today it’s easy to pigeonhole, but at the time it was breaking new ground, or it would’ve been, had it promptly come out; the good news is that it holds up well.

This isn’t the debut for the material on offer here, but it is the most concise assemblage of solo Schulze at his earliest. Initially, this stuff was sprinkled non-chronologically by Klaus D. Mueller, who contributes useful notes for this set, into 1995’s 10CD Historic Edition box set, which in 2000 was dropped into the 50CD (that’s right, 50) Ultimate Edition savings-drainer (which also included the 10CD Silver Edition, the 25CD Jubilee Edition and five additional discs).

The maximal method was obviously geared to the diligent fan, but after the Ultimate Edition fell out of print, the notion of following chronology and breaking the music into more digestible sets prevailed; this resulted in the 16 volume La Vie Electronique CD series, which spanned from 2009 to 2015; La Vie Electronique Vol. 1.0 offers the contents of the first 3CD volume’s opening disc across two LPs.

Klaus Schulze wasn’t completely a solo operator. His first group Psy Free, described by Schulze in Mueller’s notes as playing avant-garde/ free rock, never recorded, but he then moved on to Tangerine Dream, and after playing drums on their swell first album, 1970’s Electronic Meditation, just as quickly quit. From there, he formed Ash Ra Tempel with bassist Hartmut Enke and guitarist Manuel Göttsching; helping to shape a terrific self-titled ’71 debut, he made another exit.

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In 2022, The Wedding Present kicked out a double A-sided 7-inch single a month for the whole calendar year, an ambitious undertaking that in short order was compiled into an already scarce limited edition box set. There’s no need for dejection however, as the band’s singer-guitarist, chief songwriter, and sole constant member David Gedge has taken on a curatorial role and reassembled the 24 Songs project into a 3LP set with five bonus tracks, plus a DVD. On August 11, this updated sequence hits stores in the USA on black or light blue vinyl through Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records of Athens, GA.

That The Wedding Present are still active isn’t especially surprising. Plenty of bands just keep on doing it because being a band is what they do, to say nothing of the lucrative factor. But The Wedding Present still making high quality music after four decades of existence is a less likely scenario, especially when factoring in personnel changes, with a high frequency of such regularly coinciding with a lessening of worthiness.

The project that shaped 24 Songs isn’t a novel one for Gedge and crew, for in 1992 The Wedding Present undertook Hit Parade, a yearlong run of monthly singles that’s noted for it’s unbroken string of UK Top 40 hits (matching a precedent set by Elvis Presley). Indeed, 24 Songs is described as a direct anniversary acknowledgement of the Hit Parade endeavor without attempting to directly repeat it; for starters, all the Hit Parade B-sides were covers.

Impressively, 24 Songs focuses almost entirely on original material. The exceptions are “We Should Be Together,” an unreleased song from Sleeper in duet with that band’s Louise Wener (Sleeper’s Jon Stewart currently plays guitar in The Wedding Present) plus solid dives into Magazine’s “A Song From Under the Floorboards” (the Feb B-side) and The Clash’s “White Riot” (a bonus track). And while Hit Parade kind of registered as a fun lark that exploded expectations, 2022’s dozen singles, which were all initially released separately, connects as a more serious affair having extended out of pandemic-constrained productivity.

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On August 4, St. Louis-based vocalist and guitarist Beth Bombara releases her fifth full-length It All Goes Up, and like her prior four, it’s out on vinyl (also CD and digital), this time through Black Mesa Records. Her approach is rootsy with recurrent touches of twang, but also navigates singer-songwriter territory with aplomb. Bombara’s music is largely conventional, but is never saccharine, and if not a stylistic ground breaker, the record is built upon sturdy songs that are sung with a sturdier voice. Best of all, her work grows with repeated listens.

It All Goes Up’s opener “Moment” features immediate pedal steel twang along with Bombara’s countryish drawl, but there’s also a little mellotron in the track, an addition that, while subtly integrated, helps establish a disinclination for the calculatedly retro. More importantly, “Moment” is a solid song unfurling with the confidence of an experienced performer.

Just as quickly, “Lonely Walls” redirects toward the Lucinda Williams zone, but without faltering into the imitative as the cut delivers some distinctive, lightly psych-tinged guitar soloing. And It All Goes Up is very much a guitar album; along with keys, Bombara plays electric, acoustic, and classical guitar, as the instrument is handled by four other contributors.

“Everything I Wanted” pulls a sweet trick, starting out in a something of a stripped-down pop country mode before surging into a Christine McVie-like place on the choruses. The cut pairs well with “Get On,” which exudes some country-rock flavor but with an instrumental passage that glides upward and outward like a ’70s rock radio nugget.

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Aficionados of vocal group soul with a jonesing for a full-length slab of the style might want to investigate Young, Tough and Terrible, the 1972 LP by Chicago’s The Lost Generation. Doing so is easy, as it has been given a fresh edition by ORG Music as part of their ongoing Brunswick Records reissue series. If the record’s 10 songs don’t quite attain masterpiece stature, the cumulative effect is still quite pleasurable, going down smooth with the requisite verve.

One factor in The Lost Generation’s favor was prior experience. A four-member ensemble featuring brothers Lowrell and Fred Simon, Jesse Dean and Larry Brownlee, it was Brownlee who had the biggest earlier success as part of The C.O.D.’s with his composition “Michael (The Lover),” a No. 5 R&B hit on Kellmac Records (given national distribution via the One-derful label). Lowrell and Dean were part of The LaVondells, a group that after Simon departed (Dean’s tenure is less defined) shortened their name to The Vondells. Backed by the King Kolax Combo, The Vondells cut “Lenora” for Marvello Records in 1962.

Lowrell was also a childhood friend of Gus Redmond, who as head of promotion and marketing at Brunswick, connected The Lost Generation with producer Carl Davis. The result was “The Sly, Slick and Wicked,” a sizable R&B hit (No. 14) and mild pop crossover (No. 30) in 1970. The track, written by Lowrell, Brownlee, and Redmond, provided the title to The Lost Generation’s first LP, which came out later in 1970.

Follow-up Young, Tough and Terrible doesn’t include any chart hits, but it does extend a pattern of sorts, as it includes a few interpretations of fairly timely material recorded by other artists in the R&B-soul field, including a solid if not incendiary version of Al Green’s “So Tired of Being Alone” and a stronger dive into The Persuaders’ “Thin Line Between Love and Hate.”

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Celebrating Jimmy Cliff in advance of his 79th birthday on Sunday. —Ed.

The phenomenon of the Comeback Album used to be a cringe inducing occurrence, largely because the results would succeed far too frequently in simply getting it wrong. However, as a testament to human development the last few decades have seen a gradual increase in actually getting it right. Happily, Jimmy Cliff’s Rebirth falls onto the successful side of the comeback street, mainly because it picks a smart strategy and then sticks with it. Modestly scaled, it would be hyperbole to call it a true return to form, but it does prove that Mr. Cliff still has the goods.

Yes, the road to a wickedly hot musical eternity is paved with good intentions. No musician deliberately sets out to make a record that’s truly, non-ironically bad, after all. And nobody that loves The Shaggs’ Philosophy of the World, a record often cited by journalists scribing for list-happy magazines or websites as one of the Worst of All Time (a musical cousin to Ed Wood’s film Plan 9 From Outer Space essentially), I mean sincerely values it as a musical document and not as the aural equivalent to a velvet painting, would describe it as a “bad” record. And the Wiggins’ Sisters sure as hell weren’t trying to make music that would fall under the (admittedly ambiguous) definition of “bad”.

Again, back in the day comeback records were often just filthy with benevolent intentions. Somebody with contacts in the industry couldn’t shake the nagging insistence that it would be a great idea if a certain artist or band got back into the studio with the aim of recapturing the special magic that for numerous reasons had been lost; maybe the act was a huge commercial entity that somehow lost their way, perhaps a cult musician or group getting a belated push after being afflicted with indifference, or possibly just a name that was around for so long that total disfavor befell them on the road to inevitable rediscovery.

Whatever the circumstance, everything usually moves along rather sweetly until someone has the bright idea to bring in that dude who played bass for a week with Paul Shaffer in The World’s Most Dangerous Band. Things quickly deteriorate from there, and then it’s all over except for the hell and the hand baskets.

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