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Feels So Good by Chuck Mangione (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Feels So Good
  • Artist name: Chuck Mangione
  • Year: 1977
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: A&M Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: I’m not sure!
  • Buy it on Amazon: $11.99

Feels So Good by Chuck Mangione

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have never heard of this and have no idea what it is.

What I expected

There’s a picture of a guy on the album cover holding a very distorted looking trumpet, so maybe some show tunes?

What it was actually like

It was elevator music: mostly jazz and easy listening, except for Hide and Seek (Ready or Not Here I Come) and The XIth Commandment, which were jazz and funk.

The entire record was terrible, and much of the it shared a similar style to Barry Manilow II (1974), and was just about as good. When reviewing that record, I wrote:

Early Morning Strangers was a good example of elevator music with some pretty bad saxophone, that I was sure I must have heard on the radio in the lobby of a dentist’s office in 1992.

If that song was from the lobby of a dentist’s office, then Chuck Mangione’s song Last Dance must be what dentists in the 1990s played for patients when the nitrous oxide did not appear to be working. It was the record’s worst song.

Feels So Good sounded like a theme song of a television show, and there was lots of flute in Maui-Waui.

Grade

1/5: horrible enough that I couldn’t make it through

Hellbound Train by Savoy Brown (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Hellbound Train
  • Group name: Savoy Brown
  • Year: 1972
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Parrot
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $19.78

Hellbound Train by Savoy Brown

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have no familiarity at all with Savoy Brown or this record.

What I expected

I mentioned this record to my father and he said that it would be something to do with the blues, and also that “Savoy” was pronounced with an emphasis on the first syllable.

What it was actually like

This was a pretty strong electric blues and rock record with great percussion and guitars throughout, and I even thought that the piano was used judiciously.

Several of the songs sounded like they clearly ought to have been performed live, such as Doin’ Fine, which was pretty tight and had a good piano solo, and It’ll Make You Happy, which I thought was the most fun song.

I’ll Make Everything Alright sounded the most like I was eating in a barbecue restaurant.

Lost and Lonely Child was slower, with more organ, and I liked the keyboard and electric guitar.

Troubled by These Days and Times was the least bluesy and the closest to a piano ballad.

The title track Hellbound Train was 9:07 long jam, starting with a heartbeat sound effect, and hinting at an almost techno sound, but turned into a solid hard rock song that ended extremely suddenly.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Bee Gees’ 1st (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Bee Gees’ 1st
  • Group name: Bee Gees
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Atco
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • “Gess” written on top right of album front, indicating that my father owned it
    • “GESSNER” written on top right of album back, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $17.14

Bee Gees' 1st

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, or indeed any Bee Gees record, though I am familiar with them, and they came up on this site ten months ago when I reviewed Saturday Night Fever: The Original Movie Sound Track (1977). Not surprisingly, I was not a fan.

What I expected

Of course, when I think of the Bee Gees, I think of disco, but this record is from 1967, which is way too early for disco. It’s also got some wholesome, record company-approved psychedelia on the cover. I don’t really know what to expect.

What it was actually like

From the first few notes of the first song, Turn of the Century, I knew exactly what this record was not – disco – and exactly what it was – a cheap knockoff of Sgt. Pepper. That should not, of course, have been possible, since the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper in late May 1967 and the Bee Gees must already have been recording 1st before then, but it sure sounded awfully like a moderately talented group trying to to mimic the Beatles from exactly that era, at every single step.

To what extent did this record copy the Beatles? It even managed, somehow, to include some of Faul’s granny shit, the extremely Oompa Loompa song Craise Finton Kirk Royal Academy of Arts.

I may have recognized To Love Somebody, a pretty bad song with totally unnecessary orchestral backing.

The only song that did not sound entirely like a Beatles impersonation was Please Read Me, which sounded at parts like a Beach Boys impersonation.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

The Real Donovan (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: The Real Donovan
  • Artist name: Donovan
  • Year: 1966
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Hickory Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “GESSNER” written on the LP, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $24.95

The Real Donovan

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never heard this record before and don’t think I know any of Donovan’s music, but I have heard that he may have been more than a little bit inspired by Bob Dylan.

What I expected

Folk and folk rock.

What it was actually like

There was not a single moment on this record that didn’t sound like it was an imitation of Bob Dylan’s music from the same era. Donovan did not have quite the same voice as Dylan had, but it sounded about as close as he could get it without falling over himself.

And do you know how Dylan would sometimes sing a verse and then blow out a long chord on the harmonica? I don’t know that I had ever heard anyone else doing that until Donovan. Maybe Donovan did it first, though?

At any rate, I would not say that it’s fair to discount Donovan and his music. Even if he were literally playing covers of Dylan songs, he would still have had talent and he would still have been making music of some quality. He just was not the songwriter that Dylan was, and lots of artists and groups channel Dylan – because he’s such a great canvas.

The most interesting song on the record was Hey Gyp (Dig the Slowness), which had a guitar riff that sounded pretty blues-influenced, and also sounded like it anticipated Led Zeppelin, and eventually heavy metal.

The War Drags On, starting with its opening line “Let me tell you the story of a…,” struck me as highly cynical, though he was able to get a pretty nice wah wah sound out of his acoustic guitar.

Having listened, I can completely understand why Donovan wasn’t played on classic rock radio, even though he was objectively talented and his songs were good, and why my parents never played him in the car: a lot of this music does have pop sensibilities, but not in the way that doo wop or Motown did, and on the other hand, whether fair or not, it was quite easy to discard him as a knockoff.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Evening of the Magician by Randy Burns (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Evening of the Magician
  • Artist name: Randy Burns
  • Year: 1968
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: ESP-Disk
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $120.00

Evening of the Magician by Randy Burns

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, but it will be the fourth by Randy Burns that I’ve reviewed. The previous three were:

What I expected

Folk rock.

What it was actually like

This was, like his other records, folk rock.

Some of the songs, like Evening Magician, were pretty simple and stripped down, with not a lot of instrumentation.

Others had a more layered and complex sound. Ron’s Song was more upbeat than the rest, and had more of a country rock sound, with a second vocal part, and Rainy Day Children also had a more intricate sound, with harmonica.

Echoes of Mary’s Song used a flute very extensively, but it added very little. My flute test, from my review of Loggins and Messina (1972) goes like this:

I’m maybe slightly more forgiving of flute being used in rock music [than the saxophone], if only because it’s so uncommon, but there’s a simple standard that I would apply: are you Jethro Tull? Are you better than Jethro Tull, or engaged in a serious attempt to do something that Jethro Tull hasn’t done or can’t do? If you answer no to all of those questions, then you probably should leave the flute out of your rock song.

Springtime Song also had the flute, but it was not as distracting[1].

Much of this record was totally fine, but a bit mumbly, and it was not always easy to follow what Burns was singing, so I thought it was apt that he included this on the back of the album:

(ESPERANTO) Mendu tiun diskon ĉe via loka diskvendejo aǔ rekte de ESP. Eksterlanda prezo: $4.98. Pagu per internacia poŝtmandato.

I could totally see him as an Esperanto nerd.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 Also, I did eventually review Aqualung (1971).