Bloggerhythms

I never participated in the multitude of the recent tributes to the late Alex Chilton because I wasn't familiar with the music of his post-Box Tops band, Big Star. I've always known about this hallowed group but somehow I never found an opportunity to listen to their music, until now. While shopping in my favorite used CD store two weeks ago, armed only with the information that for decades Chilton and his band were crowned the kings of power pop by a loyal cult following, I decided it was time to take the plunge and make a purchase. There were several choices available. I could have bought a double disc repackaging of #1 Record / Radio City , (1972 and 1974 respectively) their first two LPs, or Big Star Live , but I settled for a compilation called Big Star Story . Research has indicated that fans view Story as a poorly assembled retrospective. First, not every track is a Big Star song. Both "I Am the Cosmos" and "You and Your Sister" are from a...

Obscurity claims another victim. It's time to become acquainted with Philadelphia's Tim Moore. He has been totally forgotten in his home town and was never known enough anywhere else in North America to have even achieved forgotten status. Isn't it true that to be forgotten someone had to know who you were in the first place? Here in the tri-state area, Moore was best known for a song Art Garfunkel also turned into a minor hit, the moving ballad, "Second Avenue." Unfortunately, except in Philadelphia, Garfunkel's version did better on the national charts (#34, compared to the composer's #58) and on the radio. To this day Moore's version remains one of my all-time favorite breakup songs. Early on, Moore was the drummer for a local Philadelphia band, Woody's Truck Stop, featuring Todd Rundgren. Later, believe it or not, Frank Zappa became a fan and wanted to produce the rather conventional rocker and singer-songwriter. However, when the avant-g...

Poco has never released a box set but there are some nice compilations out there that need to be scooped up. The best one is the superlative double disc, The Forgotten Trail (1969 - 1974) . It's not only for the casual fans or curiosity seekers. This is a collection for true Poco aficionados. The package's thirty-eight songs span Poco's formative and glory years with Epic Records. Included are most of the best songs from their first eight albums plus eleven other previously unreleased tracks from 1969 to 1974. Then the quartet left Epic for MCA where Paul Cotton and Rusty Young finally led them to some much deserved commercial success. In addition to all of the band's "hits" (and I use that term both lovingly and jokingly) there are some fantastic rarities. Among them are Richie Furay's single "My Kind of Love" backed with Timothy B. Schmidt's "Hard Luck." Both appear on an album for the first time. Young's pedal steel ...

Yesterday the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame held their annual induction ceremonies. This year ABBA, Genesis, The Hollies, Jimmy Cliff, and The Stooges were the honorees and, once again, disagreements have arisen over who is deserving of membership. As always, the only real eligibility requirements are that you can not be inducted until twenty-five years after you made your first record and (here is where the controversy begins) you must make a significant contribution to the art form. There are artists in the hall who most definitely are not rock musicians but their influence on the music has been significant. That explains why Cliff was inducted. The Stooges were only marginally popular with the masses but were critical favorites. The opposite is true of ABBA. They were hated by the music snobs but were hugely popular worldwide. Genesis were lucky enough to receive both widespread popularity and artistic acceptance. My favorite among this year's rookies are The Hollies w...

A few years ago, while discussing Michael Bublé's outstanding Christmas EP I wrote, "When I first heard this CD I was stunned. Nobody sings like the old time big band vocalists anymore and therefore saying Bublé is the best 1940s band singer since Sinatra may seem like faint praise. However, one listen and you know Frank would have been impressed." I still believe every word. Crazy Love is Bublé's latest full length CD and it may be the most diverse disc of his career. As always he offers us a bunch of old standards including "All Of Me," Georgia On My Mind," "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You," "All I Do Is Dream Of You," and "Cry Me A River." The acapella group, Naturally 7, accompany him on Hoagy Carmichael's ancient "Stardust." Of course, being younger, Bublé is simply not just your parents' crooner. His choice of collaborators and more modern material mixed in with the older cl...

Eric Carmen never tried to be the hippest dude on the music scene yet he managed to carve out a niche for himself and ended up cooler than many of his critics would ever be willing to admit. Carmen first came to prominence with The Raspberries, a four piece who were considered musically out of touch by just as many people who believed they were the quintessential 60s rock band of the 70s. Two early hits, "Go All The Way" and "I Wanna Be With You," had obvious British Invasion influences but most critics considered them trite imitations. Also, the band wore matching outfits on their LP covers, something that made them even more disliked by the rock establishment of 1972. The band may have begun their career far behind the times but they were eventually considered to be power-pop pioneers a few years later when a significant portion of the rock community embraced artists like Nick Lowe who helped make the sub-genre popular. On their last album, Starting Over , r...