Brinsley Schwarz - What IS So Funny About Peace Love & Understanding (2001)

Once again it's time to write about a musical artist named Brinsley Schwarz, but this time it's the early 70s, English, pub-rock quintet, not the musician born with that name who served as the lead guitarist for the group that also used it as their sobriquet. Bloggerhythms' earlier posts about Brinsley Schwarz's Christmas song and the interview that followed it primarily focused on the music and career of the solo artist. 

The compilation, What IS So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding? is an out of print, seventeen track CD that I purchased from Discogs. It's title is a slight variation of the one Nick Lowe used for his song - originally released as a Brinsley Schwarz single and album track - that later became a standard for Elvis Costello.

Everything on this album was broadcast on BBC's Radio 1 from 1972 through 1975. The group worked exactly as The Beatles did for most of their BBC appearances, meaning they recorded new transcriptions - much of it previously released music - for later broadcast.

The CD does not compile everything Brinsley Schwarz played on the BBC, but there are enough songs here to prove how cool this band was. It's loaded with great cover versions and top notch originals mostly written by Lowe. Even though these performances don't contain any in-between song banter or applause - and probably no audience except for the studio hands - there's a live atmosphere to the tracks because they sound like all involved are having fun even though the band's namesake guitarist said that they didn't enjoy these sessions in his excellent, eight-page liner notes.

Brinsley Schwarz's prudent choices in covers included on this set are Tommy Roe's "Everybody," Randy Newman's and Three Dog Night's "Mama Told Me Not To Come," and "You Got Me Hummin'" from Isaac Hayes and Dave Porter. There's also a cover of "Ju Ju Man," a tune released by Lowe's future Rockpile bandmate, Dave Edmunds. Sam Cooke's "Havin' A Party" and Smokey Robinson's "She's Got To Be Real" are two songs they never played anywhere else.

Band originals include outstanding takes of Lowe's "Small Town Big City, "Nervous on the Road," "Play That Fast Thing One More Time," "I Worry ('Bout You Baby)," and this CD's title track. Ian Gomm is featured too with "It's Been So Long" and "I Got the Real Thing," the latter a tune he wrote with Lowe.

On the last four tracks Brinsley Schwarz served as a backing group for Scottish rocker, Frankie Miller, who sang three of his own compositions along with a cover of Van Morrison's "Wild Nights."

No videos or sound clips of the songs found on this album could be located, but if you're able to acquire a copy - to quote a very famous, four-piece, outfit from Liverpool that was mentioned earlier in this article - "a splendid time is guaranteed for all."

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