Audio Files

By GINA VIVINETTO and HELEN A.S. POPKIN

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 25, 2001

HEARING AGAIN FROM OLD FRIENDS: REISSUES AND UNHEARD GEMS

JOHN CALE, VINTAGE VIOLENCE (COLUMBIA/LEGACY) Back in 1963, John Cale was a 21-year-old classically trained piano and viola player from Wales in New York on a fellowship to study music with Aaron Copland.

But things took a turn when Cale got in cahoots with downtown avant-garde composers John Cage and LaMonte Young. Soon Cale was cavorting with rocker Lou Reed, folks at Andy Warhol's Factory and other artsy hooligans. Cale and Reed would form the influential Velvet Underground, a band about which Brian Eno once quipped that few had heard at the time, but everyone who did immediately started a band of his own.

True, the influence of the Velvet Underground, America's first art rock band, with gritty lyrics detailing lives of drugs, cross dressing and S&M; long, cacophonous improvisations; and -- get this -- a chick drummer, is beyond measure.

But this Vintage Violence reissue, now with two bonus tracks, is post-VU Cale. Originally released in 1970, it was Cale's first solo work.

You can hear some nervous, fidgety Velvet ticks, but Vintage Violence is more remarkable for how un-VU, really how accessible some of it sounds. Pedal steel guitar graces several tracks, giving them a folksy sound. Again here Cale plays around with improvisation and spontaneity. Indeed, this frenetic, choppy album was recorded in three days.

Wall, one of the two "new" tracks, proves Cale had as much of a hankering for chaos as Reed, his former band mate -- and nemesis. Wall is several minutes of scraggly Sister Ray-style viola drone. But, unlike Reed's Metal Machine Music album, Wall knows when to quit an interesting concept.

Vintage Violence's arty noise is balanced by pop gems such as Hello There, Adelaide and the symphonic Big White Cloud. Cale's solo debut has never been a fave of the critics, but isn't its unevenness compensated for by its ambition?

Vintage Violence would prove to be a microcosm of Cale's entire solo career, marked equally by both brilliance and malaise.

If anything, it's a hoot to hear the precursor to an eclectic sound later mimicked by Eno; Jonathan Richman, whom Cale would produce; and modern rock acts such as Pavement. Grade: B

-- GINA VIVINETTO, Times pop music critic

MEAT LOAF, BAT OUT OF HELL (SONY/EPIC/LEGACY) Meat Loaf, again?

It's only now, 23 years after its debut, that I realize how badly damaged I am because of Bat Out of Hell. Its remastered re-release on a whole new generation of Young & Impressionables could be considered as irresponsible as the DARE program and MTV's Jackass combined.

Not that the platinum Bat Out of Hell inspired me to do drugs and set my friends on fire. (I wish!) Still, its insidious mix of Jim Steinman's theatrical teen-angst opera, the overproduced, bombastic guitar licks courtesy of Todd Rundgren, and Loaf's dramatic vocals infected millions of prepubescents at a time when we were most vulnerable. (Did I mention the saxophone solos?)

What hormone-addled middle schooler doesn't want to "hit the highway like a battering ram on a silver black Phantom bike," as Meat Loaf bellows on the title track? And what girl doesn't dream of her first non-Monkees crush (Dennis Padot) reciting to her the lyrics that followed, "Oh baby, you're the only thing in this whole world that's pure and good and right"?

The sweaty fat man with the red scarf singing on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert sucked us all in, as we came to believe he Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth. By the time my generation had read enough Sartre and Camus to realize the ludicrous nature of Steinman's overblown Springsteenian metaphors, it was too late. The expectations we got from Bat Out of Hell about how love and relationships are supposed to work were so deeply embedded in our universal subconscious via power chord and catchy pop tune, a million lousy relationships couldn't exorcise the influence.

Admittedly, 1977 was a different era. The best year for rock 'n' roll ever, it was probably the last time an American girl could wax poetic about her love of both Meat Loaf and the Sex Pistols without a hint of irony. Kids today, with their Eminem and their Britina Spaguilera, are probably safe from Bat Out of Hell, even with the addition of a live bonus track of the title song.

Believe you were unaffected? Can you sing Paradise by the Dashboard Light word for word (not to mention the baseball play-by-play by Phil "Money Store" Rizzuto) when it isn't even playing on the radio?

Then it messed you up, too. Grade: A+

-- HELEN A.S. POPKIN, Times correspondent

DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, BEAUTIFUL SOUL: THE ABC/DUNHILL COLLECTION (HIP-O) Make fun of me all you want, youngsters, but if we had a female pop star these days with half as much grace as the late, great Dusty Springfield, all these belly button-baring teenage "divas" would switch off their Mr. Microphones and go do their karaoke in their bedrooms, where it belongs.

Springfield wasn't merely an incomparable interpreter, with a delivery at turns gritty, fluid, sublime and vulnerable, she also opened doors for other white artists enchanted by the richness of R&B.

"Blue-eyed soul" has an insulting ring, and Springfield was no thief. She understood the power of the tunes she recorded. Beautiful Soul: The ABC/Dunhill Sessions is a wonderful collection of nine unreleased Springfield recordings, combined with Cameo, Springfield's 1973 debut. The unreleased tunes, recorded for Longing, Springfield's famously aborted 1974 sophomore album, include compositions by Barry Manilow, Melissa Manchester and Janis Ian. (Oh shush, I said they wrote the songs; they don't perform them.)

This collection showcases Springfield's range and force, as well as her easy, seductive charm. Springfield could be downright pleading at times. She was wily; she kept you on your guard. For all her bounce and buoyant appeal, Springfield could just as easily devastate with a simple twist of a lyric, just so.

Cameo features a stunning cover of Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey. Some of Longing's cuts, such as A Love Like Yours and Angels, feature recordings of rehearsal vocals. No doubt this would make the notoriously perfectionist Springfield cringe. She was known to throw fits, tossing lyric sheets and crying, after recording takes she deemed below her lofty standards.

We lost Springfield two years ago to breast cancer, but her Beautiful Soul lets her linger awhile longer. Grade: A

-- G.V.

LEONARD COHEN, FIELD COMMANDER COHEN: TOUR OF 1979 (COLUMBIA) Leonard Cohen has never had a successful live album -- until now. The 66-year-old Canadian "singing" poet with the oh-so-grave delivery has released two uneven live sets, but Field Commander Cohen, recorded in England 22 years ago, is an intimate treat.

Twelve Cohen classics, including So Long, Marianne and Bird on the Wire, are sung as somberly as only Cohen can, with guest backing vocals from Jennifer Warnes and Sharon Robinson. Passenger, Cohen's talented band, accents Cohen's plaintive ennui with viola, mandolin, sax and flute.

For all his graveness, Cohen often manages to bewitch, indeed, to woo. What is it about Cohen's music that is so tantalizing and seductive? (Check out the CD shelves of any poetry-quoting, black-clad rebel, and you're sure to find a Cohen disc.)

A published poet and novelist, Cohen is something of a fluke in the music industry: great lyrics, lousy voice. Kind of like Dylan.

Cohen's no happy camper, as the acerbic title track or the world weary The Stranger Song will attest. His is music best kept a melancholy secret, for those 1 a.m. nostalgia fests when sadness comes on like the scarf around your neck you can't resist sniffing. Grade: B+

-- G.V.

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