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Let It Bleed by the Rolling Stones (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Let It Bleed
  • Group name: the Rolling Stones
  • Year: 1969
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: London Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $27.97

Let It Bleed by the Rolling Stones

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m familiar with many of the songs on this record, and think I’m going to love it, though I might only have listened to the entire record once or twice in my life.

Previous Rolling Stones records that I’ve reviewed:

What I expected

I think that Let It Bleed might be the record that I had in mind when I thought I was going to like Their Satanic Majesties Request, which I actually hated, and that I’m going to love this one.

What it was actually like

It’s fascinating to me that this record is bookended by two songs that both became iconic of their era. Gimme Shelter, for someone my age, is indelibly imprinted in my brain due to its use in movies – and with good reason, because it’s a fantastic blues rock anthem with a beautifully distinct eerie sound, and Merry Clayton’s vocals are perfect – so little adds so much.

And then at the end, You Can’t Always Get What You Want also defined its era, or defines it for people from my era. I’ve always been just a little lukewarm about this one, though. Maybe it’s just a case of lopsided excellence between the chorus and the verses.

Another that I loved was Country Honk, which was Honky Tonk Women, but reimagined as a country song. This version was excellent, especially the fiddle.

And the title track Let It Bleed was also a Stones classic with outstanding vocals and wonderful blues rock piano.

For the briefest moment, I thought that Monkey Man was going to be a cover of the Toots & the Maytals song by the same name and that I would be writing my story about seeing Toots live. This blues rock Monkey Man was still very good, but I did wish that it had been around 15% faster.

I liked Midnight Rambler a lot, and thought it was a great expression of the essence of the blues in an electric blues context. The harmonica was wildly good, better than perfect, and the best part was the way that the song increased in intensity as it progressed, but I think it would have been better if the whole thing had been a tiny bit more metal.

I wasn’t thrilled with their version of Love in Vain, the Robert Johnson song, and I strongly disliked the saxophone solo on Live with Me. You Got the Silver was also fine, but not really special.

Overall, Let It Bleed definitely was the awesome Rolling Stones record that I was waiting to hear, and one of my favorite things about it was how different it sounded from the Beatles.

Grade

5/5: love it

Jaime Brockett 2 by Jaime Brockett (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Jaime Brockett 2
  • Artist name: Jaime Brockett
  • Year: 1970
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Capitol Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Hole punched through top right corner
    • “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $199.00

Jaime Brockett 2 by Jaime Brockett

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never heard of Jaime Brockett or this record.

What I expected

Folk rock?

What it was actually like

This was mostly acoustic, mostly folk rock. I definitely liked parts of it, but other parts were pretty boring.

Saturday’s Child had a weird sound, kind of country & western, but with an emphasis on the western. It actually reminded me a little bit of a western movie soundtrack, with all these wild guitar sounds seeming like bullets flying in a shootout.

Down River was much slower and more of just an acoustic jam for a while, but then picked up into a much more electric jam towards the end, which was better.

Taurian Canticle (winter ocean) (For People And Dulcimer) was just instrumental, I guess to introduce the audience to the sweet, sweet dulcimer sound?

If The Game Were Played With Pennies was the archetypal pretentious folk song, strumming guitar and vocals. There were parts when I thought it would never end, and I could just imagine it being performed in a Greenwich Village coffee shop to some sporadic finger snapping in lieu of applause.

First And Utter Hours (Of Dawn) was a little more on the rock side of folk rock, just with chords, and still kind of boring.

Morning Song For Sally was slow and soft, not bad, but kind of a lullaby.

Black Beauty was a little more bluesy, and I liked it, especially the dulcimer’s return.

Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues was far, far slower than Dylan’s version; obviously Dylan was never a particularly talented singer, and Brockett sung his version more like a song, rather than chanting it in Dylan’s style. I probably should have disliked everything about this version, but I thought the counter-melodic harmonica was great, and actually I considered it to have been a wonderful complement to the original, and the best song on the record.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

The New York Rock & Roll Ensemble (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: The New York Rock & Roll Ensemble
  • Group name: The New York Rock & Roll Ensemble
  • Year: 1968
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: ATCO
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $4.49

The New York Rock & Roll Ensemble

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I am not familiar with this group at all.

What I expected

I’d guess maybe jazz-rock fusion, but not as electric or psychedelic as The Mahavishnu Orchestra?

What it was actually like

I wouldn’t say it was jazz-rock fusion. It definitely had an experimental quality to it, and was primarily rock with a lot of jazz influence, as well as R&B and classical.

Sounds Of Time, for example, was like a mid 1960s rock song but with a distinct jazz sound, and tight vocal harmonies, and then a jazzy guitar solo that was much more psychedelic.

Studeao Atlantis, however, had the same tightly harmonized vocals – and I didn’t care much for them in this case – in a song that was far more psychedelic jazz. There was a guitar riff that was instantly recognizable as… I’m not sure what, exactly… maybe it was just meant to sound vaguely “eastern,” but it definitely worked, and I loved the jazz percussion and the whining guitar.

Another that I loved was Monkey, more of an R&B song that was definitely written for dancing, and that had a great guitar solo.

Poor Pauline was a Beatles parody, and specifically a serious attempt to channel Faul’s granny shit, and they actually did a good job at it. Mr. Tree also sounded oddly like a Beatles parody, but with more of a synthesizer sound.

Began To Burn and She’s Gone were both more conventional rock songs, but of the two, the latter was more rhythmic and I liked it a lot better.

Besides those, Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 1 In C Major (2nd Movement) was more or less as its title suggested, and I thought Pick Up In The Morning was weird, with kind of a silly sounding chorus, but good!

The Seasons, which consisted of four parts – a) Fall (with harpsichord), b) Winter (with organ), c) Spring (with chirping birds, running water and a keyboard) and d) Summer (with whistling, guitar, then carnival whistles, then back to what it had been, then back to Mr. Tree) – did not make a whole lot of sense.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

1812 Festival Orchestra, Op. 49 by Tchaikovsky (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: 1812 Festival Orchestra, Op. 49
  • Composer: Tchaikovsky
  • Conductor: Antal Dorati
  • Orchestra: Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, University of Minnesota Brass Band
  • Year: 1958
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Mercury Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “G” written on top left of album, indicating that my father owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $189.00

1812 Festival Orchestra, Op. 49 by Tchaikovsky

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

This music often accompanies fireworks at American Independence Day celebrations, and though I’m an opponent of American independence now, I grew up supporting it, so I’ve heard this a lot. The famous part is one of probably fewer than 20 pieces of classical music that I can whistle from memory.

What I expected

The famous part is actually only a small bit of the overture, so I expect it to be kind of like a record where there’s one good song among a dozen mediocre songs.

What it was actually like

The 1812 Overture itself took up part of side A, with the rest of side A and all of side B devoted to an extended explanatory narration that I didn’t consider interesting or necessary at all.

The main thing that stood out to me about the overture was how much of it I recognized – not just what I considered “the famous part,” but lots of different parts that were longer than musical phrases, but shorter than song length.

I also forgot how many bells were in it. A lot of bells were in it. The bells were interesting, but the cannon were fantastic.

Overall, the quality of the recording was not spectacular – it sounded pretty muffled – and side B was fairly scratchy and kept skipping, so I couldn’t make out all of it.

Grade

4/5: would listen again

Song For An Uncertain Lady by Randy Burns (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Song For An Uncertain Lady
  • Artist name: Randy Burns
  • Year: 1970
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: ESP-Disk
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $29.98

Song For An Uncertain Lady by Randy Burns

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I almost wrote that I had never heard of Randy Burns or this record, but then did a quick search and discovered that I actually reviewed Randy Burns and the Sky Dog Band just five weeks ago, but didn’t really care for it. I guess it didn’t make a strong impression on me!

What I expected

Country, rock, folk.

What it was actually like

Sorrow’s Children was a pretty simple folk rock song that sounded like a Lou Reed demo tape.

The title track Song For An Uncertain Lady had a folk style and I liked it, and it reminded me a little bit of another band I’ve been listening to from around the same era, called Pentangle.

Maybelline was a bit of a letdown because I thought it might be a Chuck Berry cover, which it wasn’t; it ended up being just a folk style song.

The best songs on the record were Child For Now, which kind of had a folk-blues-soul sound that was distinct and cool, and Deegan Street, which was slow but bluesy, and where the percussion added a lot.

The piano was a bit annoying on Autumn On Your Mind and If You Just Let Tomorrow Be, but on the latter and on Lisa, the flute actually contributed a lot.

The One I Thought Was Here, Waiting For An Old Friend, Randy’s Song and Only Time Will Make You See were all simple guitar-and-vocals folk style songs that were kind of boring.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me