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Beggars Banquet by the Rolling Stones (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Beggars Banquet
  • Group name: Rolling Stones
  • Year: 1968
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Decca Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
    • GESSNER / ΤΕΦ written on top right of album, because unlike Flatt & Scruggs, apparently he was so concerned that it would fall into someone else’s hands that he had to put his own name and his fraternity’s name on it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $90.00

Beggars Banquet by the Rolling Stones

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

My parents played this record while I was growing up, and I’ve listened to it a few times as an adult.

What I expected

Rock.

What it was actually like

Sympathy for the Devil is one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs, and Street Fighting Man and Prodigal Son are also very good.

Overall, however, “Beggars Banquet” just doesn’t have all that much going on besides a few hit songs and a bunch of filler, which is kind of how I’ve always thought of the Stones in general.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Wabash Cannonball by Flatt & Scruggs (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

Wabash Cannonball by Flatt & Scruggs

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m a big Flatt & Scruggs fan (and am proud to have seen Earl Scruggs perform shortly before he died), and listen to the live record from their 1962 performance at Carnegie Hall more than almost any other record. I know the song Wabash Cannonball and it’s not really one of my favorites, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever listened to the “Wabash Cannonball” album.

What I expected

Bluegrass.

What it was actually like

I was extremely surprised at how little I enjoyed this record. Most bluegrass, and certainly most of the best bluegrass, is played at fast tempos – the whole genre is meant to be enjoyed at fast tempos – but this record had far more than its share of slower songs. I don’t mind a few, but to me, one of the great joys of bluegrass music is when the fiddle and banjo are on such a tear that I wonder how the mandolin and bass are managing to keep up the pace.

I also found it amusing that my father’s customary “G” was missing from the upper left corner of the front of this album; presumably he anticipated that nobody would bother stealing it.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me (anyone interested in trying out bluegrass should listen to Flatt & Scruggs At Carnegie Hall instead).

Stephen Stills 2 (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Stephen Stills 2
  • Artist name: Stephen Stills
  • Year: 1971
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Atlantic Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned this record
  • Buy it on Amazon: $68.00

Stephen Stills 2

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m familiar, more or less, with Stephen Stills’ work as a member of Buffalo Springfield and of Crosby, Stills (and) Nash (and Young), but I am pretty sure that I’ve never listened to this or any other solo Stephen Stills record.

What I expected

Folk rock, I guess.

What it was actually like

Before listening to this record, I paused for a moment and asked myself, “If each member of CSN/Y had an identity, what would Stephen Stills’ be? The boring one?” And then I listened to it.

In brief, it was bad. To elaborate, it was really bad. To elaborate even further than that, not a single song on “Stephen Stills 2” merits any positive attention whatsoever, though I will concede that Marianne was the least bad.

I especially disliked the trumpets and conga drums on Open Secret, at least until I got to Ecology Song, which I would characterize as a kind of cross between gospel and some kind of big band jazz crap. The lyrics, which were about – you guessed it – ecology, were also incredibly bad:

America is lost, figurin’ the cost
You can hang your head in shame
It’s disgusting

It was the worst song I’ve heard in a while, and makes me want to compost this record.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More
  • Group name: Various artists
  • Year: 1970
  • Number of discs: three
  • Label: Atlantic Records – Cotillion
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned this record
  • Buy it on Amazon: $99.98

Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve listened to this mega record a few times before, but I also know a lot of the songs on it from different places and times in my life.

What I expected

I definitely didn’t expect my father, who allegedly attended the Woodstock Music & Art Fair in a “flower power” van a couple of months after graduating high school, to make an appearance.

What it was actually like

Reviewing “Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More” is surprisingly a challenge, since no matter what I try to write, it makes me feel like I’m actually reviewing the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, which is not my intent. But here’s what really stands out from this triple record album:

Stage Announcements… Stage Announcements… Stage Announcements… Rainstorm, Crowd Sounds, Announcements & General Hysteria… Crowd Rain Chant… Stage Announcements… Max Yasgur…

I’d forgotten the extent to which this live concert record consists almost as much of live meta-commentary about the concert itself, the mud, the brown acid, the danger of the cranes, would so-and-so please go to the information desk, peace and love, &c, &c. as it does music that was performed at the concert. And this is another case in which I think it would have made great sense to group together all the stage announcements and asinine remarks (like Jeffrey Shurtleff dedicating Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man, already in itself an asinine song[1], to California then-Governor “Ronald Ray-guns”) on a single one of the six sides, reserving the other five sides just for music (and for statements directly related to the songs, such as Stephen Stills letting us all know that he, Graham Nash and David Crosby were “scared shitless” to be performing together for only the second time).

On that note, I’ve commented before (1, 2) how special a song I consider Suite: Judy Blue Eyes to be, but their performance of it at Woodstock, second time performing together or not, was somewhat lacking in everything that makes it stand out as a song. Here is a cover that may be incredibly corny, but at least they make all the harmonies work and don’t flub any of the lyrics, and here is another cover that’s less corny but also less rehearsed and tightly performed.

Many will say that Jimi Hendrix’s Star Spangled Banner– and Purple Haze-related jam was a highlight of the show; call me crazy, but I think Hendrix was greatest when he was playing actual songs, and weakest when he was inventing brilliant new ways to create cacophonous noise with his guitar. To me, Joe Cocker’s incredible With A Little Help From My Friends is what stole the show. And here’s a fun fact: since it was the theme song of the television program “Wonder Years” that I watched while growing up, and since my parents were big Beatles fans, I probably heard both versions of it thousands of times before becoming an adult, but I don’t think it was until my 20s that I even realized they were the same song. That is, to me, a remarkable tribute to Cocker’s ability to reinvent what had already been perfectly invented for Ringo, the greatest Beatle, by his bandmates.

Other highlights of “Woodstock” for me are, of course, Arlo Guthrie’s Coming Into Los Angeles (I’ve already mentioned how much I love that song), Country Joe MacDonald’s I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag (I think this is probably the most obnoxious song that I know by heart) and Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers of America (which I consistently forget how much I enjoy).

Richie Havens’ Freedom is the dumbest song that somehow managed to get included on this record, and Sha Na Na’s At The Hop is the most confusingly incongruous.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

References

References
↑1 Update: in retrospect, I now think that Shurtleff ruined a totally fine Gram Parsons (and sometimes Emmylou Harris) song.

Déjà Vu by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Déjà Vu
  • Group name: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
  • Year: 1970
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Atlantic Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: my parents had two copies of this album. My father’s has no markings, and my mother’s has a sticker that says “GOLD RECORD AWARD: AUDITED AND CERTIFIED BY RIAA,” as well as “Brenner” written on the inside of the album as well as on the face of the record.
  • Buy it on Amazon: $49.00

Déjà Vu by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

This record isn’t part of my normal listening routine, but I’m pretty familiar with the songs on it.

What I expected

Rock, folk rock, country rock.

What it was actually like

I’m not sure why I don’t listen to this record all the time, since there’s so much great material on it. Teach Your Children is a gem, almost at the level of Suite: Judy Blue Eyes (which I described as “one of the most sublime and wonderful songs of its era”). I also am a big fan of Carry On, and Our House for some reason has always reminded me of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, except one is good and the other is terrible.

On the Neil Young side, Helpless is pretty strong (though definitely not one of my favorite Neil Young songs overall), while Country Girl is the worst song on the record.

I’ve never really gotten the success of Woodstock. I’d characterize it as an ok-to-good-enough song, but for whatever reason it’s become one of the anthems of its era.

Grade

5/5: love it