Wide Prairie (1998) – Linda McCartney
Produced by Paul McCartney with Linda McCartney, Lee Perry, and Ian Maidman * Label: Parlophone/MPL (UK); Capitol/MPL (US) * Charts: UK LP #127

Linda McCartney’s only solo album, a compilation of tracks (some previously released) that appeared in October 1998, six months after she passed away, is a secret delight. You need to approach it as a whole, letting it play all the way through, to fully appreciate its charms.

What happened when it came out was more or less nothing. Reviewers opted out of criticizing the recently deceased Beatle wife who’d already been through enough when unflattering isolated tracks of her harmonizing on stage with Paul began making the rounds as joke fodder. For consumers who expected the worst when Wide Prairie appeared, one click of the sample button for the first track on Amazon to reveal her belting out “well I was born in Ar-i-zona” in a faux-cowgirl drawl was all the confirmation they needed.

Caroline Sullivan’s review in The Guardian—one of the very few attempts at a formal critique—carried the headline “Linda’s Last Salvo Hits a Bum Note.” Her short piece reflected skim-through engagement, acknowledged some of the fuss and promotional buzz about Linda’s cuss words on the track “The Light Comes from Within,” and otherwise encouraged readers to remember her for photography, vegetarianism, and animal rights activism. The review ensured that a larger portion of the merely curious would never give Wide Prairie a proper listen.

The digital music sales platforms of the late-nineties were an ill fit for this album because it was, in fact, an album. Its ebb and flow reveals a carefully sequenced effort on the part of executive producer Paul McCartney, whose personal investment in—and affection for—these tracks’ fun factors are a continual, welcome presence. He showcases a woman he cherished being around, and he wants us to get a sense of what that was like through pop music, his chosen means of communication. That being so, its reissue this month (August 2019) as a vinyl collector’s attraction makes fine sense.

Here’s my own experience with the album: when I listened for the first time, I smiled at some point during every single song, and the same thing has happened each time since. The face muscles trigger involuntarily and there you go. This effect qualifies Linda McCartney’s Wide Prairie as one of my personal cult albums, full of beloved particulars, and for my money, it’s the single most complete, pleasurable, and least self-conscious long-player of any Beatle family member.

“Wide Prairie” (1973, 1974) (Written by Linda McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): So Linda McCartney isn’t Linda Ronstadt. But her vocal ability isn’t this album’s focus so much as her personality, attitude, and shared musical history with Paul. He makes this clear in the liner notes, reporting that they “had a ball” when they recorded the title track. “Wide Prairie” starts out Euro-noir, in a minor key, with spoken lines by Linda (one of the album’s recurring intro tactics). She’s in Paris, waiting for a flight, when “this guy” with the decidedly non-noir voice of Paul asks, “Have you got a light?” Then it jumps to a cowgirl setting full of R’s, fiddles (by Johnny Gimble), and the hearty background vocals of Paul and Denny Laine. But then it jumps back to Euro-noir for the duration, with Paul really feeling it, moaning approval as if lampooning the filler vocals on “Uncle Albert.” Non-drawling Linda repeats her opening recitation, but this time, Paul says “you got a light?” in a jive accent. And then the payoff: Linda closes by asking, “Know what happened?” and Paul responds, “ah-buh-dee-buh-dah-buh-dee-buh-dah-buh…” (First recorded in France in 1973, then finished up in Nashville in June 1974, although the notes say June 1975. Likely a misprint.)

 

“New Orleans” (1975, 1979) (Written by Linda McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): From the 1975 Venus and Mars sessions at Allan Toussaint’s Sea-Saint Studios, Linda’s “New Orleans” emerges from the familiar piano rhythm of “Heart and Soul” and blooms into something rollicking and irresistible. The words string together like Mardi Gras beads into a list of some of the Crescent City’s notable eats along with “greasy jeans” and “fifties tunes.” The payoff: an unexpectedly ominous bridge where Linda name checks the legendary Dew Drop Inn (closed in 1970) and the Dungeon (opened in 1969) in what sounds like a stern Marlene Dietrich imitation. Her “don’t go down to the Dungeon” warnings then resolve into a round of don’t go downs and all frowns turn upside down. Who’s playing the harmonica and the growling trombone? The liner notes don’t say.

“The White Coated Man” (1988, 1989) (Written by Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, and Carla Lane; produced by Paul McCartney): Track three takes us back to the Euro-noir vibe (winking at Abba’s “The Day Before You Came”), with a spoken intro by Linda’s friend, the television writer Carla Lane. Her words express the bewildered perspective of a caged rodent observing the sinister actions of a lab worker. Lane’s impeccable diction makes for an unexpected rat-dialogue vehicle; before you’re done fully processing this, though, Linda’s sympathetic singing voice has come in for the refrain. It’s an example of pacing that’s one of Wide Prairie‘s virtues. Nothing drags on long enough for you to start thinking meanly about it. In fact, “The White Coated Man” comes off as a vivisection protest that’s eminently adorable. This, of course, might be the intention. 

“Love’s Full Glory” (1980) (Written by Linda McCartney; Produced by Linda and Paul McCartney): Track four brings to mind Linda’s connection with Neil Young, of whom she’d taken a 1968 photo that appeared forty years later on the cover of his Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House (2008). “Paul and I are friends because we both knew and loved Linda,” writes Young in his Waging Heavy Peace (2012, p. 20). “I met [her] first during Buffalo Springfield days.” The steel guitar (a soaring performance by the legendary Lloyd Green), major 7th chords, and the “Expecting to Fly” melody snippets all mix together to evoke Young. The “take me home” refrain, though, is notable for its jittering rhythm and crafty chord changes that ask Green to step outside of his standard genre.

 

“I Got Up” (1973, 1998) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): Songs five and six are catharsis songs, and their appearance side by side makes them more memorable. On “I Got Up,” you’ll remember that you’re listening to someone who was in the midst of fighting cancer, and you’ll feel a sense of admiration for her delivery of the words “I got up, and I ain’t going down again” as one of her final recorded statements. But we also know that Linda was likely addressing a number of other targets. When she sings, near the end, that “whatever I do, one thing is certain it will be without you,” it often reaches the ear as “It won’t be without you.” This gives it an interesting nuance, as if she’s plausibly addressing her words to someone she loves or forgives or, perhaps, vows not to forgive. The sound is mid-seventies Beach Boys. Imagine if, in an alternate universe, the 1976 Brian Wilson sang these defiant words on a subsequently improved 15 Big Ones.

“The Light Comes from Within” (1998) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): This one’s the f-bomb song that stirred up pre-release chatter and prompted critical listeners to feel disappointment that the song itself was no “Working Class Hero.” This all obscured its assets as an expression of emotional release concerning a fairly wide array of potential “stupid dick” antagonists, who we can assume to be of the “tower-building” chauvinist persuasion. When Linda conveys her words, we can feel a release that’s separate from the song’s actual musical aspects. What comes through clearest in “The Light Comes from Within” isn’t anger. It’s her sentiment of wanting to “smell the flowers,” which characterizes the Linda we always knew. The angst-free pop sound it’s dressed in communicates to us that she’s comfortable in her own musical skin. At the bridge, when she sings “I want a sense of cause,” potentially misheard as sense of calm with no harm done, a sublime chord sequence happens.

“Mister Sandman” (1977) (Written by Pat Ballard; produced by Lee Perry and Paul McCartney): The Tighten Up reggae compilations were reportedly a steady, nerve-calming presence in the rural McCartney household during the acrimonious Beatle break-up years. McCartney mentions them in the notes for this song, and we can assume that Jamaican music had an ongoing bonding quality for Paul and Linda. Their reggae version of “Love Is Strange” made an indelible appearance on Wings’ 1972 Wild Life, and “Seaside Woman” comes from the same era. The tracks for “Mister Sandman” (the 1954 Chordettes hit) and “Sugartime” come from a 1977 visit to Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Black Ark Studios. Perry, a strong contender for the title of Reggae Founder, oversaw the sessions while members of his Upsetters (Boris and Barrington Gardner on bass and rhythm guitar, Milky Boo on drums, and Winston Wright on keyboards) laid them down. Vocals, and maybe lead guitar, were later added at Paul and Linda’s own Ranachan Studio in Scotland (known appropriately, where this track is concerned, as “Rude Studios” by 1998). Paul’s guitar contributions, which I assume are the funny, skittering leads, are big smile moments, as are his joyful yelps near the fade. 

“Seaside Woman” – Suzy and the Red Stripes (1972, 1977) (Written by Linda McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): After the easy-going “Mr. Sandman,” “Seaside Woman” kicks in with assurance, building on the island vibe with classic Wings pop smarts. The fact that it saw pseudonymous release (on Epic, a competing label) as a 1977 seven-inch by “Suzy and the Red Stripes” has given it a reputation as a forgettable trifle, but it shimmers on Wide Prairie like the studio gem it is. Paul points to this as Linda’s first solo flight as a songwriter, which he encouraged her to do in response to ATV publishing, who complained that her co-writing credits on previous McCartney hits were merely a business ruse. Although the track went through a remix in 1977, the raw materials—the bubbling bass, cheeky Rhodes, Denny Laine’s steelpan-like guitar lines, and the overall jubilation—come from an original session during the much-maligned McCartney era of 1972. An animated film for “Seaside Woman” by the Argentinian artist Oscar Grillo, with music credited to “Linda McCartney and Wings,” won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1980. Promotional hustle at Epic Records (headed by Steve Popovich, who is also credited for mastering) pushed it up to #59 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the summer of ’77.

“Oriental Nightfish” (1973) (Written by Linda McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): “Oriental Nightfish” is the third Wide Prairie offering with a spoken, Euro-noir intro. In the liner notes Paul refers to the narratives of the Shangri-Las and the Coasters as reference points, but they never did anything so hallucinogenic. “It was a Thursday night, I was working late,” reports Linda, when she “first caught sight of the oriental nightfish.” Colors swirl, the room gets hot, the narrative morphs into music (Denny Laine on flute and Paul on guitar, who channels Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour), and it’s clear at this point that we’re dealing with drug music.

“Oriental Nightfish” was the second Linda recording, after “Seaside Woman, to get the short-film treatment in 1980. It was animated, coincidentally, by Pink Floyd cohort Ian Emes, who depicts a Linda-like figure playing keyboard in a dark mansion. Her draped clothing swooshes off and she drifts around the night, very naked, like a fish in an aquarium. (Emes’s focus on apparel brings to mind Aldous Huxley’s mescalin-fueled words in The Doors of Perception about the sublimity of the folds in wind-blown skirts. [And how’s that for a suggestive nod, on my part, to Linda’s history with Jim Morrison?])

The 1984 British VHS release for Paul’s Rupert the Bear cartoon, a huge seller that included his beloved children’s song “We All Stand Together,” added the two Linda films as bonus tracks. Paul blows off complaints, in the notes, from mothers who objected to the nudity, but the general trippiness—other than the nudity—likely had more of a disturbing effect on kids who grew up to participate in a Facebook group called “Oriental Nightfish Haunted My Childhood.” 

“Endless Days” (1987) (Written by Linda McCartney and Mick Bolton; produced by Linda McCartney and Ian Maidman): Paul’s liner notes sum up the cozy appeal of “Endless Days” as a song “Linda played often at home” in which her vocal “captures a special kind of innocence that those of us who knew her loved deeply.” This sentiment is at the heart of Wide Prairie‘s reason for being, and it’s especially touching when taken in as part of the whole album. Co-writer Mick Bolton was a journeyman keyboardist who had been playing in Paul Brady’s band along with Geoff Richardson and Ian (now Jennifer) Maidman (who was also a core member of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra). Bolton had been tutoring Linda on keyboard when he contributed the bridge for “Endless Days.” The non-multi-tracked nature of the presentation, as recorded in Maidman’s studio, adds to its sincerity.

“Poison Ivy” (1987) (Written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller; produced by Linda McCartney and Ian Maidman): This version of the Coasters classic is the second of two songs recorded at Jennifer Maidman’s Positive Earth Studio along with Mick Bolton and Geoff Richardson. What’s special about these tracks is the knowledge that they’re Linda’s thing. She’s making music she loves with her own gang of talented friends while Paul’s off doing something else, and she’s having a good time. She muffs lyrics (“glory hallelujah” for “common cold will fool ya”), laughs, and it’s all good. 

“Cow” (1988) (Written by Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney and Carla Lane; produced by Paul McCartney): “Cow” is the second of two late ’80s animal rights tracks Linda did with Paul and the television writer Carla Lane. As with “Man in the White Coat,” it mixes forthright, sobering lyrics (“one more day of grazing before the slaughter truck… He will eat you because he didn’t look”) with music that glows with cuteness (a Casio keyboard on a toy piano setting), but again, that might be the point. The phrase “standing in your June fields” can be misheard as “jute fields,” which adds a veggie-reinforcing thought dimension involving India, the leading jute-producing nation where Hindus regard cows as sacred. 

“B-Side to Seaside” – Suzy and the Red Stripes (1977) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): Moments of carefree musical inspiration abound in Paul McCartney’s lifetime catalog, and they’re precious for their own sake. His is a world where castoff offerings that provoke sneering among some bring ongoing pleasure to many more. Witness “B-Side to Seaside,” written with Linda as a consciously flippant flipside for “Seaside Woman.” But it’s so much nonsense fun, building on the spirit of both the A-side and “C Moon,” both from 1972. The instrumental hook is just one of the many moments where McCartney gives a lark the kind of adornment that might serve as crucial career material to a lesser fowl. Linda’s spoken intro (one of five on Wide Prairie) resonates with the kind of zap you’ll only detect in full force when you’re listening to the full album, when you’ve recently taken in “I Got Up” and “The Light Shines from Within,” and you’re thinking about Linda, her unusual life, her critics, her influence, and the positive attitude she always projected. “Came for a weekend,” she says. “Ended in a hate joke.” There’s emotional richness in those words, yet they accompany an otherwise playful track. Notice a theme?

 

“Sugartime” (1977, 1998) (Written by Charlie Phillips and Odis Echols; produced by Lee Perry and Paul McCartney): The second of the two Lee “Scratch” Perry tracks revamps another pop vocal standard from the ’50s, this one a 1957 hit by the McGuire Sisters. As with “Mr. Sandman” above, the groove is impeccable. Paul fills in with hard-to-decipher patois in place of a guitar solo. The song fading out at 2:07 is another example of the entire Wide Prairie album’s careful and conscious sense of pacing.

 

“Cook of the House” – Wings (1976) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): Let me repeat what I said for “B-Side to Seaside”: Moments of carefree inspiration abound in Paul McCartney’s lifetime catalog, and they’re precious for their own sake. His refusal to take cues from the ideologues who reviewed records during his commercial heyday will one day be better understood and appreciated. “Cook of the House,” featuring Linda’s best known vocal up to this point, appeared on the B-side for “Silly Love Songs,” the track that served as a cheerful anthem for the summer of ’76 and whose overuse as an analogy for rock’s death (or just Paul’s) quickly became more tiresome than its saturated airplay. “Cook of the House,” in fact, crackles with rock ‘n’ roll flipside lore, bringing to mind Rosie and the Originals’ 1960 “Give Me Love” (the B-side for “Angel Baby”) which John Lennon adored and which was likely a Beatle inner circle favorite.

The sound of cooking grease comes off as scratchy vinyl; Linda sings instead of Paul, just as one of the Originals, on “Give Me Love,” sings lead instead of “Angel Baby” Rosie; a tenor sax honks aimlessly; the drums sound like sofa cushions. What does Paul sing at the beginning? Why is there a chorus of acknowledgement after he sings what he does? What was Linda actually singing in her unpretentious way in those verses? Not clear at all. (Lyric sheets reveal that she’s singing, as suspected, about groceries, as she does in “New Orleans.”) How many consumers spun the 45 and relished the muffled and thumpy rock ‘n’ roll they heard? Untold numbers. But go and read some of the words that most any critic has written, in all seriousness, about this song and you’ll get a sense of what fuels her outburst on “The Light Comes from Within.” On Wide Prairie, “Cook of the House” gets a rightfully honored sequencing slot, familiar and well-loved as it is to those of us who love its singer.

“Appaloosa” (1998) (Written by Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney; produced by Paul McCartney): “Appaloosa,” an ode to the Nez Perce tribe and their horses, closes the album as one of Linda’s final recordings, done in March 1998. It’s the fifth song to begin with a spoken intro, and you worry what its documentary aura forebodes. But then it gives way, like “The White Coated Man,” to music that’s sprightlier and cuter than you’re led to expect. Certainly a musicologist somewhere has explained why a two-measure melody line played in one key, repeated note-for-note a step above, then back again in the original key—like what happens all throughout “Appaloosa”—has a childlike effect. These figures ring out like piano exercises, as do the Native America-signifying intervals in the bridge, and you think of Linda working on her song ideas, always keeping after her keyboard skills as a committed member of team Paul. (He closes the album with an orchestrated rendering of the melody, which we can understand to be a farewell to her from him.) What if Linda tried to do this song differently, more mournfully, full of manufactured pathos? The evidence presented on the rest of Wide Prairie suggests that it just wouldn’t be Linda. R.I.P.

I’m not sure why, but certain major labels in the seventies and eighties would release cassette and vinyl versions of specific albums with different song sequences. The three I remember clearest from the seventies are Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic and Can’t Buy a Thrill as well as Cheap Trick’s Heaven Tonight. Did these differences have to do with space restrictions from format to format? Maybe, but I’m not convinced.  I bring this up is because I lament how Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic now survives only in the original vinyl sequence, and I want more listeners to consider experiencing it in the more meaningful sequence used on the original cassettes. Let’s compare the two:

Steely Dan, Pretzel Logic (LP version): Side One – 1) Rikki Don’t Lose That Number; 2) Night By Night; 3) Any Major Dude Will Tell You; 4) Barrytown; 5) East St. Louis Toodle-Oo. Side Two – 1) Parker’s Band; 2) Through with Buzz; 3) Pretzel Logic; 4) With a Gun; 5) Charlie Freak; 6) Monkey in Your Soul.

Steely Dan, Pretzel Logic (cassette versions): Side One – 1) Rikki Don’t Lose That Number; 2) Through with Buzz; 3) Monkey in Your Soul; 4) Any Major Dude Will Tell You; 5) Parker’s Band; 6) Charlie Freak. Side Two – 1) Barrytown; 2) East St. Louis Toodle-Oo; 3) With a Gun; 4) Night By Night; 5) Pretzel Logic.

On the vinyl version, two of the album’s most crescendo-worthy cuts, the neon-lit “Night By Night” and “Pretzel Logic,” with its epic mad visions, are squandered off in the middle of sides one and two, respectively. On the cassette version, they close the album effectively, one after the other with the same sort of authoritative finality as nightfall and dreams.

Sides one and two of the vinyl version end with what come off as offhanded snickers – “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo” and “Monkey in Your Soul.” On the cassette version, though, they’re rightfully reconfigured as supportive – and therefore more useful – middle tracks, giving way to the haunting and poignant “Charlie Freak” as the side one closer and “Pretzel Logic” for side two.

The entire trajectory of the album, in fact, makes more sense in the cassette versions. Let me rephrase that: it makes sense while the vinyl one doesn’t. Side one of the cassette functions as a series of person-to-person conversations, pleas, jokes, and negotiations, all of which give listeners a sense of the tangled, “pretzel”-like nature of relationships. “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” that vulnerable and familiar message to a girl we all assume the singer will never hear from, is followed up by his declaration of having had it with a pain-in-the-neck friend named Buzz who steals girlfriends (Rikki?) and money. Next comes “Monkey in Your Soul,” which offers classic Steely Dan yuks by featuring a prominent, buzzing guitar line as a follow up to a song called “Through with Buzz.” It also reinforces the “yeah, right” nature of “Monkey’s” message which is that, no, the singer can’t hold his ground. He can only supplicate, wise-crack, or grouse. “Any Major Dude Will Tell You” reinforces our impression of him – all nifty words and no action – and we feel pity. With “Parker’s Band,” our frustrated singer is listening to records and longing to get lost in the city where he can lead a loose and commitment-free existence, something he’ll actually gun for in response to the tragic side one culmination of “Charlie Freak.” There’s no second-person dialogue going on in this song. Someone’s dead now, and the best our man can do is drop a keepsake in the corpse’s coffin. Time to make some changes.

Side two of Pretzel Logic, as conveyed so well in the cassette sequence, elaborates on the nightlife fantasies we heard about in “Parker’s Band,” conjured up by the interpersonal failures in side one. It’s about foregoing the micro-existence of relationships and losing oneself in the impersonal, macro-existence of the “city.” It kicks off with “Barrytown,” Steely Dan’s own twisted version of “Okie from Muskogee,” calling for the removal of people like the singer in side one from where folks like to do things the old-fashioned way. This is followed up by city-life objectification and fantasy with a version of Duke Ellington’s “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo,” which serves as a symbolic gateway.  Fantasy gives way to reality with the scenes of murder and robbery in “With a Gun,” with its campy steel guitars channeled in directly from Muskogee. But this is general street conflict nowhere near as painful as the heartbreaking business documented on side one, and on the following track we see our singer-protagonist reveling and taking refuge in it, living “night by night.” It’s a moment of bittersweet transcendence that Joe Jackson later tried to capture in “Stepping Out” as the “night” side closer for his carefully sequenced Night and Day LP. (It’s no surprise that Jackson was a huge Steely Dan fan, something we find out in his A Cure for Gravity. I’ll bet he owned the cassette version of Pretzel Logic – not the vinyl.) With “Pretzel Logic,” finally, we get a cinematic escape into dreams, time-travel and absurdity, providing the whole story, in conclusion, with an apt title.

Bud Scoppa’s 1974 review of Pretzel Logic in Rolling Stone sums up how the album, in its vinyl sequence, has continued to be understood as merely a collection of cleverly executed songs: “wonderfully fluid ensemble. . . private-joke obscurities. . . arrogant impenetrability.”  The cassette version, though, which someone with some authority arranged in a distinctly different sequence, sounds like a carefully constructed album with an actual story to tell.

Rig – Rig (1970)

Not long ago I found this album by a group called Rig at an east Texas thrift shop – I saw it was a Capitol release and recognized the name of Elliott Mazer (of Neil Young’s Harvest fame) who was listed as a co-producer. It had obviously been listened to many times over, and because I’m instantly drawn to mysterious records that appear to have served some kind of purpose to someone, I took it home.

What I heard was an appealing batch of early seventies Americana-rock songs dressed in piano and pedal steel and featuring lyrics that placed the album (released in 1970) right in step with an era that also gave us Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection, The Band LP, and Jesse Winchester’s debut. I especially responded to the songwriting of pianist/vocalist Kendell Kardt. At once evocative and playful, his songs had a way of sticking in my head. My favorite is “Have a Cigar” (give it a listen at the end of this post) which opens up the album and zeroes in on cigar-smoking as a time-honored ritual accompanying the act of conquest. You can take it literally or figuratively – it pleases either way, and musically, it’s got a latin-tinged instrumental refrain that’s hard not to love.

My curiosity got the best of me, so through a bit of sleuthing and good luck, I was able to get in touch with Kardt, who’s currently working as a professional pianist in the New Jersey/New York area (when we first talked on the phone he was driving to his regular rehearsal gig with the New Jersey Ballet Company). He was gracious enough to field my questions, and here are some of the things I found out: The group’s deal with Capitol happened after a label scout caught them at New York’s legendary Electric Circus. This happy turn of events got them into the good graces of promoter Bill Graham and landed them high profile spots at Fillmore East. The group’s core lineup at this point was Kardt, guitarist Artie Richards, and bassist Don Kerr (who wrote the album’s beautiful closer, “Last Time Around”). With its eye-catching cover art featuring the trio’s profiles, the final product has the look and feel of a true group effort.

But this “group” aspect was as much of a “too many cooks” hindrance as it was a help, Kardt feels, because the band members and producers weren’t able to agree on a unifying purpose during the recording sessions. A shame, he says, because the group did have a true essence that never translated over onto tape. And the label’s own vision of how Rig should sound hardly made things any easier. “Internal friction is finally what caused the band to fall apart,” says Kardt, who was presented with the option of working on a second Rig album with a line up of his own choosing, or going off on his own to make a solo album. He didn’t feel it was fair to appropriate the group’s name, so he chose the latter. (Kardt, incidentally, is still in touch with Richards, although neither of them have been able to locate Kerr.)

Capitol, then, recognizing Kardt’s own prolific songwriting talent as an asset, flew him to California to record a new set of songs as a solo album. Having access to members of the Grateful Dead and New Riders of the Purple Sage, Kardt was able to enlist their help and finished up the album to his liking. But in classic music biz fashion, particularly in the volatile early 70s, personnel changes and priority shifts led to the album’s unceremonious shelving. “It was that common situation where the artist is trying to accomplish something, but the business pressure makes it almost impossible,” he says.

By the early 80s, Kardt quit working as a solo performing songwriter in favor of the workhorse piano gigs he’s taking to this day. But ever the artist, Kardt does continue writing and recording in his home studio, even though he feels, as most any artist would, that “it really helps to get even the smallest sense that someone’s listening.” So add Kendell Kart’s LP to your list of Great Lost Albums to keep an eye out for, and let’s hope that that – along with other unreleased material from both his past and present – will see the light of day sometime soon. I, for one, will be listening.

(I’m posting two versions of “Have a Cigar” here. The first one is taken directly from the Rig LP, but the second one is a later demo version I’ve received from Kendell and which he’s given me permission to post. It’s a live take from 1971 that he recorded as a publishing demo for some of the artists Bill Graham was managing. I really love its spontaneous, energetic vibe. He was a solo artist at this point, so you can get a sense of how his other work might have sounded.)

Rig – “Have a Cigar” (1970)

Kendell Kardt – “Have a Cigar (demo) (1971)

posted by Kim Simpson

 

Norton Records serves a kind of religious purpose, a rock ‘n’ roll church that’s always there proclaiming the Truth and while some of us may flop around irresponsibly and experiment with our listening habits and heed the words of false prophets and would-be hipsters and make bad musical decisions that sometimes make us feel guilty, we can always turn to Norton when it’s time to get back on track.

Recently Norton’s done us another benevolent service by getting a true rock ‘n’ roll goddess, the Shangri-Las’ lead singer Mary Weiss, back in the studio. She’s singing about boys again, even one who still lives with his mom (“I Just Missed You”), and her trademark heartbroken-but-still-tough voice sounds even tougher now. My favorite songs are three in a row toward the end: “Tell Me What You Want Me to Do,” which features a wildcat growl by Mary at the end of the bridge; “Heaven Only Knows,” an update of a Shangri-Las classic and which sounds truest to her sixties roots with its backup vocals and doubled up lead; and the airtight and irresistible “I Don’t Care.”

She’s teamed up on this album with Memphis rockers the Reigning Sound, whose Greg Cartwright wrote most of the songs. I’m not sure if Mary and Greg are an ideal matchup, but if they’re talking about a second album, may I request the following: 1) More recitations so we can hear more of Mary’s speaking voice, which all Shangri-La fans crave; 2) more sis-boom-bah in the wall-of-sound department; 3) more melodrama in the lyric department; and 4) less Americana-syndrome B-3 organ, which sounds too conventionally gospel for our favorite bad girl.

Mary Weiss – “Tell Me What You Want Me to Do”

posted by Stanislav

I hope nobody minds seeing a Sunday service post by Rev. Religious Dodo, ie, myself. Never been to church (except as a tourist), never prayed, not even as a child, not too familiar with the concept of god or God, simply never really cared… but some weird energy creeps through when I listen to the Mercy Seat, an 80s album by Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes and his super hot girlfriend Zena Von Heppinstall. The whole album is filled with religious topics. Some songs are pensive and reflective but most are fanatical baptist-style gospel stomps. I can totally see myself in a religious trance in some Southern church without air-conditioning, my sweat pouring in heavy drops as the church rolls on and on. If the Mercy Seat is the ticket then Lord let me ride!

The Mercy Seat – “Let The Church Roll On / I Won’t Be Back”

Just found an image of the scarce Golden Harmonies compilation I asked about earlier. I recognize the pic as an outtake not from an 80’s photo session, but a late 60’s Wild Honey-era one I’ve seen other stuff from (Dennis’s orange terrycloth pants are the giveaway). The funny image I had in my head, though, based on Golden’s description in Southern California Pastoral, isn’t too far removed from what’s here. What a strange compilation this Golden Harmonies is, incidentally: two records with four songs on each side with nothing from beyond 1965 except one – the Pet Sounds title track.

A few more sentimental/ potentially fetishistic words on the virtues of dead media. Until recently, I’d always heard this record three important ways:

1 – As a cassette from the strip mall library close to where I grew up. The tape was horribly muddy-sounding, and it came packaged in a hard shell that the librarian would toss in one of those big brown folders with the string that wrapped around a brad under the flap. A photocopy of the freaky cover had been glued onto the shell but it was all bubbly and on the verge of peeling off. The album sounded mysterious indeed as I listened on my shoebox tape recorder with the Graeme Edge recitations and all and I checked it out many times.

2 – As an 8-track in 1981, when I was somehow roped into a ride to the dump with my friend and his ancient brother in their parents’ Oldsmobile Toronado. Sitting in back, I found the tape under the passenger seat, and it looked much like that library cassette, with the cover picture starting to peel off. I showed it to my friend who stuck it in the 8-track player. It played uninterrupted and had our undivided attention. So there we were, wind blowing through our hair, garbage-scavenging seagulls frolicking above us in the sun, and “Voices in the Sky.”

3 – As a vinyl LP in terrible condition which I bought at the Deseret Industries shortly after the spectacular ride to the dump. The DI was a thrift store near our house in which it was, in the early eighties, always 1968. I always got very contemplative and even a bit reverent whenever I went to this particular location. (It always smelled vaguely of mothballs and vegetable soup, which is certainly how 1968 must have smelled.) I bought it for a quarter. The group’s name has been traced with pen on the front. In the gatefold it says “from John to Franklin on a Saturday night!!” and “wild dreams with Chuck.” It’s also got a crude drawing of an eagle with the words “some bird” next to it, and someone started to treat the Hindu Om design as a color-by-numbers project. I recently bought a remastered CD version of this, and it’s great, but it’s a completely different album. Needless to say, I’ve gotten accustomed to hearing my mellotrons under a layer of crackling murk, so I prefer my DI version.

The Moody Blues – “Voices in the Sky” (DI vinyl version)

posted by Stanislav (Just That Junction, Vermont)
The year was 1983. XTC just released one of their most important albums, English Settlement, and Andrew Partridge felt confident about producing other artists. His American friend, Peter Blegvad, who moved to England prepared a new album The Naked Shakespeare for Virgin and asked Partridge to produce it. Blegvad was known as an avant-garde artist, a former member of Slap Happy and Henry Cow. It’s maybe a little surprising, but Blegvad’s songs are only partially avant-garde. They are somewhere on a surprisingly thick borderline between weird and perfectly normal – his songwriting owes a lot to John Lennon and Bob Dylan. A lot of it is also a conscious attempt to be pop – Dave Eurythmic Stewart nearly ruins the opening song, the only one on this album that he, instead of Partridge, produced. But there is plenty for us music lovers here. A careful listener will be rewarded with a lost jewel of authentic beauty which demands careful listening. It’s a deep and layered record. The song “Powers In The Air” is my favorite.

Peter Blegvad – “Powers In The Air”