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Living in the USA by Linda Ronstadt (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Living in the USA
  • Artist name: Linda Ronstadt
  • Year: 1978
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Asylum Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $89.98

Living in the USA by Linda Ronstadt

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I have no familiarity with this record, but it is the fourth Linda Ronstadt record I’ll have reviewed in the past few months (the others being Different Drum in June, Simple Dreams in July and Prisoner In Disguise in August).

What I expected

My opinion of the previous three Linda Ronstadt records was mixed to somewhat negative, and I want to be optimistic about Living in the USA, but it’s difficult with the extremely art deco / Miami Vice style design.

What it was actually like

Like previous Linda Ronstadt records, Living in the USA was a collection of covers, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up that Back In The U.S.A. would be a nicely done cover of one of my favorite Chuck Berry songs, but wow – she absolutely crushed it (and here is the MC5 version, which should not be missed)! This was the best song on the record by a country mile.

I thought Ronstadt’s version of Doris Troy’s Just One Look was passable, but very much in the way that the bread makes the sandwich, the backing track on her version was all late 1970s syncopated pseudo-rhythm with no character, and that really detracted from her very fine vocals.

Similarly, though I’m not a fan of Elvis Costello’s Alison, I didn’t think that Ronstadt’s version of the song did Costello’s justice, even though Ronstadt’s vocals on it were fine. The use of saxophone was definitely a negative. As I may have mentioned in the past:

I want to stress that rock musicians really need to avoid using saxophone in their music. If you’re Charlie Parker, I want to hear your saxophone part, but in rock I just don’t think there’s a lot of use for it.

The saxophone reappeared in Ooo Baby Baby, which under normal circumstances is a solid song, but I could not stand her version of it, which was way too slow and soft. White Rhythm was shockingly boring, so bad that the police should blast it when dispersing rioters.

I was eager to hear how Ronstadt would tackle Elvis Presley’s Love Me Tender because I think it’s a song that really lends itself to interpretation, but unfortunately hers, while basically being true to Elvis’s original, was pretty flat and didn’t really do much.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Tumbleweed Connection
  • Artist name: Elton John
  • Year: 1970
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Uni Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics: clipped corner (top right)
  • Buy it on Amazon: $41.91

Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m not familiar with Tumbleweed Connection, but I did previously listen to two other Elton John records, first Caribou and then 11-17-70. I didn’t really enjoy either of them.

What I expected

More heavily produced singer-songwriter 1970s soft rock with extensive use of the piano.

What it was actually like

Tumbleweed Connection definitely had more a country sound than the other Elton John records, particularly on songs like Country Comfort, which kind of went back and forth between what I would consider to be a more classic Elton John style and a whiny country instrumentation. Similarly, Son of Your Father had only the smallest amount of country wah-wah during the verses, and then the chorus went full honky-tonk.

Many parts of the record had an orchestral quality, like towards the end of My Father’s Gun, and others had more than a hint of funk, like Where to Now St. Peter?

Love Song, meanwhile, was a very simple folk style song.

I didn’t care for Tumbleweed Connection any more than I enjoyed Caribou and 11-17-70, but there is another Elton John record coming up in the next few weeks, and there may be more after that.

Grade

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

Classic Lightfoot: The Best of Lightfoot / Volume 2 by Gordon Lightfoot (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Classic Lightfoot: The Best of Lightfoot / Volume 2
  • Artist name: Gordon Lightfoot
  • Year: 1975
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: United Artists Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $5.98

Classic Lightfoot: The Best of Lightfoot / Volume 2 by Gordon Lightfoot

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I listened to Summertime Dream last month and was not really impressed.

What I expected

I described “Summertime Dream” as “folky with more of a country sound than rock,” so I assume this will be like that.

What it was actually like

Folky with more of a folk sound than either country or rock. This record started off very slow, and The Last Time I Saw Her was bad enough that I tried to think of excuses not to continue listening, but by Rosanna, the tempo had picked up enough that I could pay attention.

I definitely recognized Something Very Special, but definitely not in a good way – more like if it were included on a movie soundtrack, then that would be my least favorite scene in the movie, the scene that I would have to assume that the director didn’t seriously intend for me to watch.

Long Way Back Home was folky and quite a bit better, but Affair on Eighth Avenue was back to being incredibly boring.

Ballad of Yarmouth Castle was the song that reminded me most of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and it wasn’t easy for me to figure out why, but I think that Lightfoot has this singing technique where he’ll sing a series of lines kind of quietly and then alternating a belted out louder line. There’s probably a name for that, and other singers definitely do it, but Edmund Fitzgerald is full of it, and Yarmouth Castle is too. I don’t really mind it, but I could see why people might find this very annoying.

Meanwhile, listening to Mountains and Marian, it reminded me of… something, but I couldn’t figure out what, and finally I realized that it sounded a bit like Joni Mitchell’s song The Circle Game. Is that crazy?

Grade

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

Let There Be Music by Orleans (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Let There Be Music
  • Group name: Orleans
  • Year: 1975
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Asylum Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Who owned it: probably my father
  • Buy it on Amazon: $9.89

Let There Be Music by Orleans

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Orleans or heard any of their music.

What I expected

Disco?

What it was actually like

It was not disco, but it was terrible, like the worst of all music genres associated with the 1970s combined with the worst of soft rock across all decades. I don’t recommend listening to it.

Dance With Me was a hit song and it was familiar to me when I listened to it, but that didn’t make it any better. If anything, I kept getting annoyed at the lyric, “I want to be your partner,” as if this group had time traveled almost half a century to be able to use the 2020s “partner” (which a certain kind of person uses instead of “husband” or “wife”) – but clearly they just meant “dance partner” and didn’t anticipate anything (except another couple decades of bad music).

Grade

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

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