In his article on Margo Guryan [“Scared of Her Own Voice,” May 3] J.R. Jones hazily characterizes Spanky & Our Gang as “one of the coed vocal groups following the Mamas & the Papas on the west coast.” In reality, the group’s sunny sound evolved from working with producers based in New York and Philadelphia. […]
Author Archives: Frank Youngwerth
Posted inNews & Politics
Sour Notes
Thank you J.R. Jones for straightening me out about John Lennon [August 18]. For far too long I’d blindly admired Lennon as a singer, songwriter, and musician, but how radical of you, J.R., to refer to him merely as an entertainer! You nailed it, though; the guy really went Vegas when he started “retailing his […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Squashed Beatle
Thank you J.R. Jones for straightening me out about John Lennon [August 18]. For far too long I’d blindly admired Lennon as a singer, songwriter, and musician, but how radical of you, J.R., to refer to him merely as an entertainer! You nailed it, though; the guy really went Vegas when he started “retailing his […]
Posted inMusic
Bix? Is That You?
By Frank Youngwerth With daylight fading, the oversize bus turns into Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park and rolls slowly up a narrow one-way lane. The driver stops, and our sprightly tour director jumps off to search the desolate rows. Minutes pass. He can’t find what he’s looking for. He motions to the driver to back […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Whoops
Dear editor, J.R. Jones, in his cover story on recording engineer Jim Reeves [December 10], refers to Barbra Streisand as “Benny Goodman’s young singer.” This suggests that at one time she actually worked for the bandleader. But as far as I can determine, Streisand merely appeared once or twice as an opening act for Goodman, […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Rock Criticism Is Dead
Rock Criticism Is Dead It’s funny that Jim Dorling chose that old Creem review of Physical Graffiti, presumably to show how much times have changed in his recent put-down of Stereolab in Rock, Etc [October 29]. Funny because Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night is the first album to come out […]
Posted inMusic
Stayin’ Alive
Isley Brothers It’s Your Thing: The Story of the Isley Brothers (Epic Associated/T-Neck/Legacy) By Frank Youngwerth A list of the artists the Isley Brothers have influenced reads like a brief history of cutting-edge pop: the Beatles covered their fist two hits and emulated their three-voice group sound; Jimi Hendrix patterned the vocal-instrumental interplay of the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In Print: the individual beneath the leather
“My images are definitely tamer than what people would expect,” says Steve Diet Goedde, a photographer whose work is showcased in a new book, The Beauty of Fetish. “Most fetish photographers shoot either to titillate themselves and their peers or to shock the uninitiated. They forget that there’s a person wearing all that leather or […]
Posted inMusic
Highs in the Mid-60s
Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 (Rhino) Hardly a week goes by when this paper isn’t recommending a “performance” by one of the recent crop of name DJs that tour and release their own albums. Disc jockeys have always had a place in the music scene, as far back as the big-band […]
Posted inMusic
No Mean Trick
Reputation Is a Fragile Thing: The Story of Cheap Trick by Mike Hayes with Ken Sharp (Poptastic!) By Frank Youngwerth Cheap Trick, you might have noticed, is in the midst of a rather unusual revival. Earlier this year Sony’s archival label Legacy issued At Budokan: The Complete Concert, and on Tuesday it will release “expanded […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Music Notes: Scott Holman’s low-volume attack
Pianist Scott Holman gets up at four in the afternoon, when most of his Glenview neighbors are preparing to leave the office. When he gets home from work, one of his weekly gigs in Palatine and Naperville, his wife and children are just beginning to stir. Appropriately enough, his debut CD is titled Don’t Wake […]
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Pet Projects
Sagittarius Present Tense (Sundazed) High Llamas Cold and Bouncy (V2) By Frank Youngwerth It’s “not possible to overstate how influential Pet Sounds was in its day and, remarkably, continues to be,” Beach Boys scribe David Leaf observes in his liner notes to the recent box set devoted to the 1966 album. “Ask Bob Dylan or […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Ranking Records
Dear Editors, When J.R. Jones calls the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds “the only mono record to be consistently ranked among the greatest of all time” (Rock, Etc., December 12), I wonder what he’s talking about: the greatest what of all time, and ranked by whom? If Jones means greatest rock albums, as voted on by […]
Posted inMusic
Over-Amped
Pizzicato Five Metro September 13 By Frank Youngwerth Advance publicity for Pizzicato Five’s summer tour promised that the animated Japanese popsters would be backed by a live band, the largest group they’d performed with outside of their home country. Up to now they’ve toured in a scaled-down version due to financial constraints. Though the “Great […]
Posted inMusic
Jazz’s Checkered Past
Frank Trumbauer Tram! Volume I: Frank Trumbauer’s Legacy to American Jazz (Old Masters) While there’s enough controversy to have generated a whole book on the question of what the first rock ‘n’ roll record was, facts on the earliest jazz disc are more clear-cut. The guys who made it, the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, were […]