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Little
Richard - Here’s Little Richard
Mobile Fidelity MFSL 1-287
Rev. Richard Wayne Penniman, better known as Little Richard, is definitely
one of the founding fathers of Rock ‘n Roll. The music he sings
on this album belongs with the best of Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Jerry
Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly to name but a few. You can clearly
here the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in this album
and I here to tell you that Mobile Fidelity has given us one for the ages.
This is the ‘classic’ 1957 Specialty album which contains
such hits as ‘Tutti Frutti’, ‘Ready Teddy’, ‘Slippin’
and Slidin’’, ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘ She’s
got it’. I’ve owned a beat up original for many years and
have heard earlier re-releases of this album, but nothing prepared me
for the fabulous job the engineers and Mo-Fi have done in re-creating
this masterpiece.
There is no one I know that can sit still during the playing of this record.
Little Richard bursts on the song stage with ‘Tutti-Frutti’
and the madness doesn’t stop for almost the next 30 minutes. There
are not many records I’ve heard that fall into the “must own”
class, but with a limited edition of only 2500 copies, I must suggest
you rush out to your local retailer (please leave your air guitar at home)
and grab a copy of this fabulous record. I guarantee you will be glad
you did to have this masterpiece in your collection.
Supplied by: http://www.mofi.com
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Joni
Mitchell - The Hissing of Summer Lawns
Asylum/Speakers Corner Reviewed by JK
This 1975 recording marks a turning point in the impressively creative
career of arguably the finest female artist in contemporary music. Joni
Mitchell’s work before Hissing was largely folk influenced, with
a background in protest songs. Here however she moved to more ambitious
and complex song structures and instrumentation. Mitchell plays an Arp-Farfisa
synthesiser alongside piano and guitar.
This is not a jazz record but it features jazz musicians like Joe Sample
and the inimitable Victor Feldman alongside John Guerin and Wilton Felder.
The first track, ‘In France They Kiss On Main Street’, has
an all-star line-up, with G.Nash, D.Crosby and J.Taylor, on backing vocals
alone. It’s a high-class production that matches the talent with
song-writing of rare beauty and daring. In fact, the ideas apparent here
were reworked in subsequent albums such as Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
and Hejira, albums which are less challenging than this one (and in some
ways stronger for it). Hissing does have some superb songs on it: tunes
like ‘Edith And The Kingpin’, the title track and the remarkable
‘Harry’s House’ which morphs into a 194? Tune Centrepiece
half way through and features snatches of spoken word that could almost
have been sampled from a movie. Speaker’s corner has done its usual
first class job with the all revealing pressing and full gatefold sleeve,
let’s hope they do the same with more of her 70’s catalogue.
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