JEB LOY NICHOLS: Now Then (Bongo Beat; 2006)

Track Listing: 1) Sometimes Shooting Stars (2:56); 2) Really Together (3:23); 3) Lelah Mae (2:46); 4) Painted My Dream House Blue (3:26); 5) Bad Fruit (2:31); 6) Let's Make It Up (2:49); 7) Morning Love (3:13); 8) Black Water Road (3:25); 9) Don't Dance With Me (3:26); 10) Ever Feel Like Leaving (3:20); 11) When Did You Stop Loving Me (3:54); 12) Sweet Tough and Terrible (3:47); 13) Love Me Too (2:59)

Collective Personnel: Jeb Loy Nichols (guitar, vocals); Shaila Prospere (vocal duet on "Really Together"); Dan Penn (vocal on "Ever Feel Like Leaving"); Tony Crow, Clayton Ivey (keyboards); Jennifer Carr (piano); Terry Baker (drums); Simeon Baker, Wayne Nunes, Andy Hamill (bass); Tony Williams, Mark Nevers (guitar); Paul Burch (guitar, bass, vibes); Fiona Hibbert (harp); Rebecca Hollweg, Loraine Morley, Roy Cousins, Struggle, Knowledge (backing vocals); Lloyd Barry, George Chambers (horns); Nashville String Machine (strings); Lloyd Barry (arranger- strings and horns)

"What kind of music is this?" said I, holding up the CD. "He's a white Al Green," replied the record seller. Good enough for me.

One of the detriments of diving for cheap records is that you're unlikely to keep abreast of new music. To be sure, there is probably a lot out there today that I would enjoy, but I have difficulty in learning about it. So for me, finding a fairly recent record of this magnitude is a godsend. The man selling this for a pittance surely undercharged himself. I've listened to this album in its entirety four or five times in the past twenty-four hours, and now I think I've stopped blubbering enough to able to write a proper review. Also, let me say that this album clocks in at a mere forty-one minutes. At last, an artist who decides not to fill a CD with eighty minutes of music just because they can. This collection of thirteen songs is just enough to keep you wanting more- indeed, after several spins, I just can't get enough of it.

Some have called this album a combination of country, reggae and soul. I'm not sure of the reggae aspect, but the other descriptions surely apply. This melange is not revolutionary, yet quietly unique. The songs are beautifully understated cries for love which recall the soul singers of yore, as well as haunting snapshots of rural life that befit any high lonesome epic. Nichols' lyrics are clever metaphors emphasizing the regrets, uncertainties and yearnings of their protagonists, who constantly surrender to fate and others' acceptance (or not).

And despite the large cast of musicians assembled in the personnel above, especially with horns and strings, the sound never feels overproduced or cluttered. If anything, Nichols' words are carefully, subtly coloured by the instrumentation-- it happily plays in the meadows of these isolated landscapes of verse. "Bad Fruit", a lamentation of an unhappy familial history ("seems like only bad fruits grows on my family tree" an appropriate metaphor) is accompanied by the sparse phrasing of an electric piano.

The instrumentation mostly offers an interesting counterpoint to the somber lyrics. The bouncy horn section in "Morning Love" (one of the best tracks) properly offsets the verse of a man pleading for the affection of an indifferent other. Likewise, the blackly humourous lyric "If you ever feel like leaving, take me with you" in the tenth track is subtly bracketed by mournful brass. In most of these songs, the characters are happy to hang on to whatever they have to get by. As heard in "Let's Make It Up", another song with jaunty horns, "there's nothing for me on that train out of town".

The feel of this album is timeless: perhaps only a number like "Sweet Tough and Terrible" (opening disarmingly with Nichols thanking his bandmates, making this feel like a live session) feels like it was taken from the early 1970's, with its strings evocative of an Al Green record, and thumping bass line recalling Sly Stone's THERE'S A RIOT GOING ON.

Despite the sadness in the lyrics, HERE NOW is absolutely beautiful to listen to. The production is sharp, colourful and never baroque. (Another highlight is the marvellous duet in "Really Together" in which two people decide to give their indecisive relationship a shot.) Each song is a masterpiece of mixed emotions, perfectly reflecting the unrequited desires in the prose, and accentuated by the conflicting tones in words and music. A phrase in the final song, "Could you find it in your heart to love me too?", is emblematic of the yearning for affection that permeates most of these tracks. But my answer to that question is yes, indeed.

What can I say? It's a new favourite.

Tightwad rating: *****/5

Happy record hunting!

Love,

The Doctor

THE DOORS: An American Prayer (Elektra; 1978)

Track Listing (remastered CD edition): 1) Awake (0:36); 2) Ghost Song (2:50); 3) Dawn's Highway (1:21); 4) Newborn Awakening (2:26); 5) "To Come of Age (1:01); 6) Black Polished Chrome (1:07); 7) Latino Chrome (2:14); 8) Angels and Sailors (2:46); 9) Stoned Immaculate (1:33); 10) The Movie (1:35); 11) Curses, Invocations (1:57); 12) American Night (0:28); 13) Roadhouse Blues Live (5:53); 14) The World on Fire (1;06); 15) Lament (2:18); 16) The Hitchhiker (2:15); 17) An American Prayer (3:04); 18) Hour For Magic (1:17); 19) Freedom Exists (0:20); 20) A Feast of Friends (2:10); 21) Babylon Fading (1:40); 22) Bird of Prey (1:03); 23) Ghost Song (5:16)

Personnel: Jim Morrison (vocals, spoken word); Ray Manzarek (keyboards); Robbie Krieger (guitar); John Densmore (drums); Reinol Andino (percussion); Bob Glaub, Jerry Scheff (bass)

Seven years after Jim Morrison (possibly?) checked out of this world, his surviving bandmates in The Doors went to the studio to record instrumental background accompaniment to a 1969-1970 session of Jimbo reciting some of his "poetry". The concept of adding new music to a posthumous session is hardly new, yet when AN AMERICAN PRAYER debuted, some writers thought that this was a pitiful way of making more money from a dead(?) rock star. Well, this album is hardly artistic rape: it is far less scandalous than, say, SONGS IN THE KEY OF G. In fact, when I first picked up this record, I was excited by the prospect of hearing what a more modern-sounding Doors would be like. As such, this is an ambitious collage of Jim's poetry, snippets from his film HWY, sound effects as well as some solid background music. Hearing this album again for the first time in ages, I only wish that the musical aspect of the record was more developed. Only in rare instances, such as "Ghost Song", "Black Polished Chrome" or "A Feast of Friends" (the latter of which is a variation on Albinoni's "Adagio"), do The Doors get to show they still "have it" musically, and surely they are rock solid. I've always loved the hypnotic, woozy groove of "Ghost Song" and the street funk of "Black Polished Chrome". Otherwise, Jim's verse is coloured with spare chords, sound effects and even familiar bars from "Peace Frog" or "Riders on the Storm". The Doors generously let their deceased frontman dominate their proceedings, allowing his words to stand out and apart from everything else. How much of a Doors fan you are will determine how wise a prospect that is. In other words, if you think Morrison's words are anything less than gospel, than you will likely agree that Jim's bandmates allow his sometimes corny verse to call too much attention to itself. It's a little hard to aggrandize this man as a great poet with such profundities as "Her cunt gripped him like a warm friendly hand", and of course (my favourite) "Lament for my cock".

But for the true Doors fan, AN AMERICAN PRAYER is absolutely essential. It is obviously the most personal of all of Jim Morrison's recordings. His words explore his favourite themes of sex, religion and death, with ample touches of self-loathing and weariness of his demi-god status. The album's halfway point features a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" which absolutely cooks with Robbie Krieger's blistering solo and Jimbo's fun-silly scat in the midsection. In fact, I prefer it to the studio version on MORRISON HOTEL. This track gives a better glimpse of their live work than LIVE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL and ALIVE SHE CRIED, but also, with its audible audience pandemonium, exemplifies the out of control circus that Morrison was trying to escape by this point in his career.

And to be certain, one's opinion of this album will vary greatly depending upon how important Saint James Douglas Morrison is in one's life. This is one of those records that I've actually owned three times. Yes, dear readers, even The Tightwad Music Collector has once fallen prey to the corporate world's ploy of selling consumers something they already have. Initially I had this on a discounted sealed LP, and then replaced it with a better-sounding used cassette. 10 years later, after selling the record and being unable to play the squeaky tape, I found the CD used. In addition to wanting to hear the album again, I was also interested in the additional tracks for the CD, which are okay on their own, but disrupt the way the album naturally flowed from one song to the other up to a logical conclusion. But this third purchase also occurred in a time when I no longer needed Jim Morrison in my life.

Yes, in my college days when I sewed my wild oats, ole Jimbo was my role model, but soon I outgrew my twentysomething angst and realized I didn't have to jump around like a crazy idiot to get attention, or to burn out at a young age. Therefore, once the idolatry fades, we can only analyze the work. To be certain, I still enjoy MORRISON HOTEL, L.A. WOMAN and (yes!) THE SOFT PARADE almost as much as I did then. Despite how much the fans worship Morrison, any true Doors fan knows how important the remaining quartet are to the music. But since AN AMERICAN PRAYER largely relies upon Morrison's words, in my post-Saint James phase, I sheepishly admit that much of his verse here is silly nonsense.

Good night, Jim.

Tightwad rating: ***/5

Happy record hunting!

Love,

The Doctor