Ralph McTell & Wizz Jones - Joint Control

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A bit of class

I really like this album.  Ralph McTell and Wizz Jones are two of the quiet greats of British acoustic guitar over the last half-century and this is an album of unflashily excellent musicianship.  The programme is a variety of stuff from traditional blues to Townes van Zandt, all arranged and played excellently. There's a simple joy in some of the blues work and also some real social bite and contemporary relevance in songs like Woody Guthrie's Deportees. 

I saw the two of them recently in concert and what came over strongly was the sense of two very fine musicians, utterly comfortable in each other's company and simply enjoying playing music together.  Something similar infuses this album.  It's not a ground-breaking piece of work, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable, quietly brilliant bit of class, which I can recommend warmly.

(I can also wholeheartedly recommend Joint Control, the album which Wizz made with John Renbourn shortly before Renbourn's very sad death.  It's another cracker.)

Jon Savage's 1967 - The Year Pop Divided

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A fine compilation

This is a fine compilation of music from 1967.  It's thoughtful, intelligent and knowledgeable in its selections, so that we get some very well-known (and brilliant stuff) like I'm A Man by Spencer Davis, Alternate Title by The Monkees, some terrific soul tracks and so on.  There's also a good proportion of much more obscure stuff.  I have added a track list to the end of this review.

I was 13 in 1967, so a little young to really appreciate the new music which was appearing, but an avid listener nonetheless and there's quite a lot here that I didn't recognise.  Some is great, some I really don't think much of…and that's just fine.  This isn't intended as 1967's Greatest Hits (which in the UK would be a ghastly album dominated by slushy parent-pleasers), it's an illustration of what was going on as the music scene progressed through a very significant period of change, and it does it very well.  Everyone will find things they like and things they don't here, which is as it should be.  The proportion of "likes" is high for me, the sound quality is very good and I'm very glad to have this in my collection.  Warmly recommended.

Disc 1
1. SO YOU WANT TO BE A ROCK ‘N' ROLL STAR - The Byrds
2. I'M A MAN - The Spencer Davis Group
3. THE BEAT GOES ON - Sonny & Cher
4. TRY IT - The Attack
5. I’VE GOT LEVITATION - The Thirteenth Floor Elevators
6. THE BEHEMOTH - The Shadows Of Knight
7. NEVER EVER - The Action
8. TAKE ME IN YOUR ARMS AND LOVE ME - Gladys Knight & The Pips
9. BELIEVE IT OR NOT - Rex Garvin & The Mighty Cravers
10. FEELIN' REELIN' SQUEELIN' - The Soft Machine
11. I CAN HEAR THE GRASS GROW - The Move
12. SHOW ME - Joe Tex
13. GROOVIN' - The Young Rascals
14. SO YOU SAY YOU LOST YOUR BABY - Gene Clark
15. WESTERN UNION - The Searchers
16. SOUL FINGER - The Bar-Kays
17. RESPECT - Aretha Franklin
18. THE HAND DON'T FIT THE GLOVE - Terry Reid With Peter Jay's Jaywalkers
19. NIGHT OF THE LONG GRASS - The Troggs
20. I'M FIVE YEARS AHEAD OF MY TIME - The Third Bardo
21. SO SHARP - Dyke & The Blazers
22. COLD SWEAT PT 1 - James Brown & The Famous Flames
23. MR SOUL - The Buffalo Springfield
24. ALTERNATE TITLE (AKA RANDY SCOUSE GIT) - The Monkees

Disc 2
1. AT THE THIRD STROKE - The Piccadilly Line
2. HOLD ON - Sharon Tandy
3. LAZY LIFE - William E
4. REFLECTIONS - Diana Ross And The Supremes
5. THE IDOL - The Fortunes
6. DREAM MAGAZINE - Svensk
7. I SEE THE RAIN - The Marmalade
8. YOU KEEP RUNNING AWAY - Four Tops
9. YELLOW BRICK ROAD - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
10. SLIM JENKIN'S PLACE - Booker T & The MG’s
11. REVOLUTION - Tomorrow
12. STOP AND LISTEN - The Shag
13. PSYCHE ROCK - Les Yper Sound
14. LOOK AT ME I'M YOU - The Blossom Toes
15. LOVE POWER - The Sandpebbles
16. THE WIND BLOWS YOUR HAIR - The Seeds
17. SUZANAH'S STILL ALIVE - Dave Davies
18. THE ONE I LOVE - Ken Boothe
19. I CAN'T STAND MYSELF (WHEN YOU TOUCH ME) - James Brown & The Famous Flames
20. CHAIN OF FOOLS - Aretha Franklin
21. GARDEN OF MY MIND - The Mickey Finn
22. VACUUM CLEANER - Tintern Abbey
23. IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME - Andy Ellison
24. THE MUSIC GOES ROUND MY HEAD - The Easybeats

Future Islands - The Far Field

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Another good album

This is another good album from Future Islands. 

The Far Field is certainly not a radical departure from the feel of Singles – which is just fine by me – and features the same tuneful, melancholy feel to almost every song, with solid and harmonically interesting backing which still sounds very much like a top-notch 80s synth band.  Samuel T. Herring's vocals still have that agonised, over-the-top brilliance, and there's the bonus of a fine duet with Debbie Harry on Shadows.

To be honest, there's not much to say about The Far Field beyond "If you liked Singles, you'll like this."  The quality of the songwriting and performance is still as good, and it's one to recommend.