Quick Hits, Vol. 274 oldies - Billy Joe Shaver, Marvin Gaye, The Stone Roses, Gillian Welch, Black Sabbath, Portishead)

Now this is an eclectic group of albums.  Shaver is in here because the man died and I wanted to dig back into his music.  These others were either part of the Rolling Stone 500 or otherwise were things I was interested to experience.

I don't know if you have noticed this recently, but the quality of albums released recently has been terrible.  Or maybe I just don't have my radar tuned to the right channels, but when I look at the new releases listed on Spotify, I haven't seen anything of interest in two straight weeks.  It's a wasteland of singles by people I know I don't care for, along with people I've never heard of (Ashnikko?  Why Don't We?  dvsn?).  I really need for ACL to come back so that I can find new music from its poster!

Billy Joe Shaver - Old Five and Dimers Like Me.  A bunch of these songs are classics that someone else made famous.  "Black Rose" is a classic Waylon Jennings tune.  The title track is one that I know because of Jerry Jeff Walker.  "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train" has been covered a lot, I know the Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson versions, but some rockabilly band also covered it in my brain.  The interesting thing about this album is how many are semi-gospel tunes - "Jesus Christ, What a Man," "Jesus Was Our Savior and Cotton Was Our King" seem really weird to put on an album of honky tonk confessionals about getting stoned too much and trouble with the law.  I guess that is what made him so interesting as a writer! "Black Rose" is the stream champ at 898k.

This was a 1973 release, Shaver's first album.  Doesn't seem like he ever really got his due - I'm sure he did just fine for himself with so many people covering his tunes - "Live Forever" isn't on this album, but it's probably his top track - but seems like a bummer for him to have been overshadowed his whole life.  "Good Christian Soldier" isn't the best song on here, but it sums up his contradictions well - "Cause Lord, it's hard to be a Christian Soldier, when you tote a gun. And it hurts to have to watch a grown man cry.  But we're playin' cards and ridin' home and havin' lots of fun, tellin' jokes and learning how to die."  Solid set of tunes.

Marvin Gaye - What's Goin' On.  This 1971 album jumped up to the number one album of all time in the Rolling Stone rankings this year.  Which was very surprising to me.  It's beautiful - Gaye's voice is smooth, liquid, silky gorgeousness.  Like watching a crowd of birds changing directions as one up in the sky with a perfect sunset glowing in the background.  And the topics are, sadly, still very timely, with tracks like "What's Going On" and "Save the Children" and "Mercy Mercy Me" and "Inner City Blues."  Unfortunately, those issues - police brutality, human rights, drug addiction, dead-end wars, and environmental issues - are still completely relevant right now.  So, I can fully acknowledge that this is a beautiful and worthwhile album.  But at the same time, I can also say that I don't much care for it.  In the same way you aren't going to find me listening to the new John Legend or Michael Buble or whatever other modern easy listening R&B stuff is out there, I wouldn't need to listen to this album repeatedly.  That being said, I'll always be pleased when "Mercy Mercy Me" comes on, and if you don't dig the funky strut of "Right On," then you're nuts.  Marvin Gaye is a stud.

The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses.  This was one of those bands that blew up and then flamed out in the late 80's/early 90's British alt rock wave that came before Oasis and Blur and all of the bigger groups.  They were hot for one big album - this one - in 1989 - and it was huge for a little bit.  Still respected as a top album, years later.  It owes a debt to the old new wave rock stuff, and is a little shoegazey and goth at times, but it's undeniably poppy rock as well.  "I Wanna Be Adored" has a Smiths-y quality that kind of slinks around the bass line.  I love it. 

"Don't Stop" comes off as a Beatles-ish psychedelic freakout.  From reading a little about the band, it sounds like their label is what killed them.  After releasing this album, they got sued by their label and, even though they eventually won, it took some five years to release the follow-up album, which landed like a lemon slice tossed out of a speeding convertible.  "She Bangs The Drums" is a little more overtly pop rock - brassy guitar sounds and a swinging beat.  One of my favorite things about this album is how almost every song ends up having a shift in feel at some point.  "She's a Waterfall" ends very differently than it began, "I am the Resurrection" just breaks it down into an entirely different song (which is a great freaking song - sounds like something Austin Powers would groove to while screaming YEAH BABY repeatedly).  "Fools Gold" is a jam as well, love the background beat and the wah wah guitar.  This disc is good stuff.

Gillian Welch - Time (The Revelator).  I knew Welch, generally, because of her playing on things like the Oh Brother Where Art Though soundtrack or with Alison Kraus or The Decemberists.  This album was in the RS Top 500, so I thought I'd give it a run.  Freaking great album.  Folky Americana that sounds like some bleak observations of an Appalachian woman looking back with regret.  The title track is just plain gorgeous - her voice sounds both rusty and clear, weathered and freshly laundered.  The guitarwork is excellent as well.  And generally, that is all there is - her voice and the guitar - no drums, no bass - just Welch sitting in the dog run of her cabin singing her heart out for the chickens scratching in her yard.  I've really enjoyed this one.  It's got a realness to it that I love each time it comes back on.  Literally, just listen to the opening guitar on this - it creates a mood before her lyrics even enter in.  

Such a badass.  The harmonies that come in later.  I'm officially going to obsess about this song now.  Going to do everything in my power to make this my top streamed song of 2021.  "April the 14th Part 1" is also lovely.

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath.  It would be hard for anyone to have never heard of Sabbath.  I've obviously been listening to their stuff as a general proposition since I first turned on KLBJ 93.7 here in Austin as like an 8 year old.  "War Pigs" or "Iron Man" or "Paranoid" have been used on radio and in movies and in commercials and whatever for years.  They're woven into the fabric of classic rock and roll as surely as Zeppelin and Floyd.  But I honestly don't think I have ever just listened to a Sabbath album.  This one is wild - their debut album in 1970 - its sooooo fucking heavy and awesome.  The opening track is "Black Sabbath," and it's so gloomy and doomy and dark and rad.  I love it.  The opening is a rainstorm, that devolves into a super spare guitar and drum bit under Ozzy, until the bells of doom begin to ring and the guitar gets to work.  Fucking love it when Ozzy yells "oh noooo, noooo, please God help me" like an actual dying person begging for God's help and the quicksand sucks him under.  The album is only six songs, which is odd, but the third track is almost ten minutes and has four names, and the final track is over 14 minutes and has three names, so I guess it is really a 10 song album?  Strange thing to consider.  Pedantic song counting aside, this is legit good.  Sad that it took me so long to find it and jam it - I've been enjoying their grandkids like The Queens of the Stone Age for years, but never went back to the source material.  "The Wizard" farts around with a harmonica to go along with the sludge rock and I dig it.  Bluesy and dirty.  "Bassically" kinda rules (at least I assume that is the name of that portion of the four-named song), and "N.I.B." is a great wall of sound.  Great disc.

Portishead - Dummy.  1994.  This was a classic electronic album that, according to Wikipedia, was credited with popularizing the triphop genre.  The opening track makes me think of Bjork - maybe "Hunter" - but it's the second track that was the big hit back in the day.  Always makes me think of the music that played in the movie Big when he would have dealings with the fortune teller machine.  "Sour Times."

Cool song.  Kinda downbeat James Bond vibe, kinda gypsy beat thing.  The whole album has some of the same coolness.  It's just cool.  You can imagine cool people listening to it and doing cool things in cool places with other cool people.  But I don't love it.  I keep getting to the end and feeling a little glad it is done.  Weird.