Girls as Sharp as Her Are Something Rare


1094. Grant Green: "Am I Blue" 1095. Urbie Green & Nat Pierce: Old Time Modern 1096. Green on Red: Gravity Talks 1097. Green on Red: No Free Lunch 1098. Nils Lofgren/Grin: 1 + 1 1099. Guadalcanal Diary: Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man 1100. Guadalcanal Diary: Jamboree 1101. Guess Who: Share the Land 1102. Guess Who: So Long, Bannatyne 1103. The Best of the Guess Who 1104. Guinn 1105. Gun Club: Fire of Love 1106. Gun Club: Miami 1107. Gun Club: Death Party 1108. Gun Club: The Las Vegas Story 1109. Gun Club: The Birth, the Death and the Ghost 1110. Gun Club: Mother Juno Mixworthy: "I Lost a Number," #1098; "Gilbert Takes the Wheel," #1099; "Do You Miss Me Darlin'" and "Coming Down Off the Money Bag/Song of the Dog," #1101; "Rain Dance," #1102; "No Time," #1103; "She's Like Heroin to Me," #1105. Nils Lofgren gets first-billing on the Grin album, but I've always filed it in with the G's (meaning in the G-section, not that he gets filed alongside Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent). So does Christgau in the '70s book, so please refer all objections to him. Spent: "American Woman," "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature," "Hand Me Down World." Do I want to revisit my Gun Club love affair circa Fire of Love and Miami? No--I wrote about that in Nerve. I don't think I mentioned (or at least didn't fully de- scribe) the autographs that decorate my copy of Fire of Love. It looks like one of the walls at the Tate-LaBianca crime scene: "Off the Pigs, Terry"; "Don't Fuck With Me Honkey!, Jeffrey Lee Pierce"; "Whites Off Earth Now, Rob Graves"; "Elvis Is From Hell!!!" (uncredited but the work of Pierce); "Free Huey P., Ward"; "Peace Love Badness, Terry." Pretty corny, I know, and extremely messy--the pen was running out of ink, so everything is either badly smudged or practically engraved, ink-free, onto the cardboard's surface...Part of the fun of doing this for me is trying to piece together the story of what I liked at different times in my life, and when exactly I liked it. The Guess Who figure prominently in that story. They were my second favourite-group; not my second-favourite after someone else, but the second time I was consciously aware of having a favourite musical act. The first, as I've mentioned many times before, was Ray Stevens; my grade-school friend Martin had a copy of Ray Stevens' Greatest Hits, and we used to love "Gitarzan," "Ahab the Arab," and "Bridget the Midget." A couple of years after that wore itself out, I talked my dad into taking me to see the Guess Who at Toronto's old Exhibition Stadium (original home of the Blue Jays, now a parking lot). That would have been either '73 or '74; Rockin' would have been the only full-length LP I was familiar with at that point, although I knew all their hits well from the radio. I'd go back every August for the next two or three years with my cousin Glen, each time their encore- version of "American Woman" getting longer and more elaborate. I owned a bunch of their albums at one point--American Woman, Wheatfield Soul, Artificial Paradise, Live at the Paramount, #10, Road Food, possibly one or two more--but most of them either went to Randy or, the ones that were bought before I started collecting in earnest, were discarded because of wear and tear. There was also an 8-Track of The Best of the Guess Who I used to play endlessly. The mere fact that I've listed a non-hit in the mixworthy group tells you all you need to know about how much of a fan I was--I mean, I actually used to get wrapped up in Burton Cummings' emotional well- being, something he was never shy about documenting on those mid-70s albums no one remembers anymore. ("Those Show Biz Shoes" from Artificial Paradise was a good exam- ple of Burton as Sylvia Plath.) It all seemed very adult, very FM, very rock, very meaningful. I didn't realize till later that most of what made the Guess Who so good was the exact opposite of how I then perceived them--they were AM, they were pop, and they were often quite loopy ("Rain Dance," "Glamour Boy," "Albert Flasher," etc.). But that's OK. They really were pretty great, and looking back, they made for the perfect segue from Ray Stevens to all my later high-school obsessions. ________________________________________________________________________________ 1111. Gwen Guthrie 1112. Gwen Guthrie: Portrait 1113. Gwen Guthrie: Just for You 1114. Gwen Guthrie: Lifeline 1115. Bobby Hackett and His Jazz Band: Coast Concert 1116. Merle Haggard and the Strangers: Songs I'll Always Sing 1117. Merle Haggard: His Best 1118. Bill Haley's Greatest Hits! 1119. Half Japanese: Sing No Evil 1120. Daryl Hall/John Oates: Ooh Yeah! 1121. Roy Hall: Diggin' the Boogie 1122. Tom T. Hall: Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 1123. The Best of George Hamilton IV 1124. M.C. Hammer: "U Can't Touch This" 12-inch 1125. Hammer: "2 Legit 2 Quit" 12-inch Mixworthy: "Sing Me Back Home," #1116, which I first got to know through a non- Haggard version in Don Shebib's Goin' Down the Road, still the greatest Canadian film ever made. It's Hammer time!...Four Gwen Guthrie albums? Jesus, that's bizarre. Even weirder, none of them has "Ain't Nothin' Goin' on But the Rent," the only song anyone might conceivably remember her for...A character who was almost a match for Willie Weck- esser: Don Fendley, the pro at the golf course where I worked my last couple of summers in high school. He used to sing Tom T. Hall's "Old Dogs - Children and Watermelon Wine" over and over again while puttering away in his workshop, except he'd never get any farther than the title lyric. Soon after I quit, he fled town with a member's wife and relocated in Florida, where I bet he's still regripping and degripping the same three-wood he always seemed to be working on 25 years ago. ________________________________________________________________________________ 1126. Herbie Hancock: My Point of View 1127. Pearl Harbour and the Explosions 1128. Pearl Harbour: Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost Too 1129. Hagood Hardy: Maybe Tomorrow 1130. Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel: The Best Years of Our Lives 1131. The Harptones 1132. The Harptones/The Impressions/The Cadillacs/The Passions 1133. Major Harris: Jealousy 1134. Simon Harris: Bass! 1135. Debbie Harry: KooKoo 1136. The Best of Donnie Hathaway 1137. The Haunted: Vapeur Mauve (Purple Haze) 1138. The Haunted: Part Two: I'm Just Gonna Blow My Little Mind to Bits 1139. Richie Havens: Mixed Bag 1140. Coleman Hawkins: Body and Soul 1141. Coleman Hawkins/Bud Powell: Hawk in Germany Mixworthy: "Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)," #1130; "Sunday Kind of Love" and "Life Is But a Dream," #1131; "1-2-5," #1137. #1132 is a La grande storia job, mix- ing original stuff (the version of "Life Is But a Dream" is a duplicate of #1131's; "Sunday Kind of Love" sounds somewhat different on the two albums) with awful live recordings from the Cadillacs. I'll list "Speedo" when I get to compilations. I'd never heard Steve "Silk" Harley's "Make Me Smile" until Velvet Goldmine, an er- ratic film with an excellent soundtrack...The Hagood Hardy album (yes, I'm a little defensive about that one and feel the need to explain its presence) was part of the last huge record buy I ever made, 75-100 classical albums I found at a garage sale after moving back to Toronto in the mid-90s. The seller was essentially giving them away--I think I paid $10 for the lot. Most looked to be unplayed, and there were a lot of doubles. It was such a great deal, I actually started to spin some ridiculous scenario in my mind whereby the albums were being sold unbeknownst to the real owner, who must have been away on vacation at the time. When I suggested this to the wife of a friend, she gently brought me back to reality: "Um, it's 1995--no one wants albums anymore." Good point. It took me over a year to make it through half of them, and eventually I just gave up; some are filed away still unplayed, the only part of my collection that hasn't been listened to at least once. Getting back to Hagood--who isn't classical (I'm not sure what he is) but was part of the deal--Maybe Tomorrow leads off with "(Love Theme From) Missouri Breaks." I've never seen The Missouri Breaks, which is generally viewed as one of those auteurist debacles that gradually transformed the American film industry in the mid-to-late '70s. I always thought it was Nicholson and Brando and a bunch of horses. I didn't know it needed a love theme. ________________________________________________________________________________ 1142. The Best of Ronnie Hawkins 1143. Screamin' Jay Hawkins: ...What That Is! 1144. Issac Hayes: Hot Buttered Soul 1145. The Best of Issac Hayes 1146. The Best of Dick Haymes 1147. Heads Hands & Feet: Old Soldiers Never Die 1148. Heart 1149. Heartbeats: A Thousand Miles Away 1150. Heartbreakers: L.A.M.F. 1151. Heartbreakers: Live at Max's Kansas City 1152. Heavy D. and the Boyz: Living Large 1153. Richard Hell & the Voidoids: Blank Generation 1154. Sunny by Bobby Hebb 1155. Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced? 1156. Jimi Hendrix Experience: Axis: Bold as Love 1157. Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland 1158. Jimi Hendrix Experience: Smash Hits Mixworthy: "Theme From Shaft," #1145; "A Thousand Miles Away" and "After New Year's Eve (Is Over)," #1149; "Get Off the Phone," #1150; "Manic Depression" and "Are You Experienced?" #1155; "She's So Fine," #1156. Heart has two or three good singles, but would I ever include one of them on a tape or play it on the radio? No. That's still basically the guiding test for this section. I wish I could find a scan of the Screamin' Jay album--not sure what I paid for it, but I have to believe I bought it primarily for the cover (1969, so well after "I Put a Spell on You")...Odd sort of symmetry here: bad junkies on one side (Hendrix, Rich- ard Hell, Heartbreakers), healthy appetites on the other (Heavy D., Ann Wilson, Ronnie Hawkins). Issac Hayes was just very bald...Not much to say about Jimi Hendrix. I loved Smash Hits in high school, but if you listen to Mullethead Radio at all--and I'm parked on Q-107 more than any other Toronto-area station--you know that "Purple Haze," "Foxy Lady," and "All Along the Watchtower" are on 24-hour standby within that universe. "Manic Depression" is my favourite, the other two are more borderline, but I love how much "She's So Fine" sounds like Cream...If I ever knew this in the first place, I'd long since forgotten: L.A.M.F. was co-produced by Thunderclap Newman's Speedy Keen. Co-produced? It took two people to navigate the complex soundscape that is L.A.M.F.? ________________________________________________________________________________ 1159. Woody Herman and His Orchestra: The Beat of the Big Bands 1160. Woody Herman: Hollywood Palladium 1948 1161. Herman's Hermits: Hold On! 1162. Herman's Hermits: 15 Greatest Hits 1163. Winston Hewitt: Pretty Brown Eyes 1164. John Hiatt: Slow Turning 1165. Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks: Last Train to Hicksville...The Home of Happy Feet 1166. Andrew Hill: Point of Departure 1167. Andrew Hill: From California With Love 1168. Piano Man: Earl Hines, His Piano and His Orchestra 1169. Earl Hines: Dinah 1170. Duke•Peacock Remembers Joe Hinton 1171. Johnny Hodges and His Orchestra: The Rabbit's Work on Verve, Vol. 1 1172. Johnny Hodges: Creamy 1173. Johnny Hodges and His Orchestra: Not So Dukish 1174. Johnny Hodges: The Smooth One 1175. Johnny Hodges: Everybody Knows Mixworthy: "Blue Flame," #1159; "A Must to Avoid," #1161; "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter," #1162. "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter" represents a leap back to the very, very beginning of my pop-music consciousness; when I think about sitting in the back seat of the family car at the age of five or six, 1050 CHUM on the radio, the two songs that soundtrack that corner of my mind are "Downtown" and "Mrs. Brown." I didn't catch up with "A Must to Avoid" until many years later--credit to the Stranded discography--and that I love even more.

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