MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: DAVID WIFFEN - SONGS FROM THE LOST & FOUND

For years, fans have been clamoring for more from Wiffen, but he's refused, retired from recording and performing since 1999's South of Somewhere.  And it had been 26 years before that he had recorded his last album, 1973's landmark Coast To Coast Fever.  So this should be welcomed with joy, although it's not really a return.  Instead, it's a series of cuts recorded from the mid-70's to mid-80's, twelve of them completely unheard before, and another five alternate versions of cuts from South of Somewhere.  Even better is the news that these were supposedly long-lost tapes, believed to have been destroyed in a flood.  Best of all, it's fantastic stuff.

Wiffen bounced around the country in the '60's, playing folk and rock and country.  It was a move to Ottawa that put him on the map, as he joined in with the scene there, making friends with folks such as Bruce Cockburn and Sneezy Waters.  That led to him joining the group Three's A Crowd in 1966, along with Brent Titcomb.  Mama Cass loved them, got them a record deal and co-produced their album Christopher's Movie Matinee, and the group toured all over North America.  Eventually Cockburn and Colleen Peterson joined (among others) but the group never did break through.  Wiffen was certainly noticed though, and released the solo album David Wiffen in 1971.  It included his best-known song, the evergreen Driving Wheel.  That tune became a favourite for folk rockers of the day, with Tom Rush and the The Byrds making it well-known.  Its popularity has stayed strong to this day, with Cowboy Junkies, The Jayhawks, The Chris Robinson Brotherhood and even Rumer covering it.  Wiffen became a go-to guy for material, with many others raiding his catalogue, including Jerry Jeff Walker, Ian & Sylvia, Harry Belafonte, Anne Murray and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings.

Coast To Coast Fever is his classic album.  Co-produced by Bruce Cockburn and Brian (Anne Murray/Emmylou Harris) Ahern, it featured Wiffen originals and numbers by friends Cockburn, Murray McLauchlan and Willie P. Bennett.  That says it all, it has all the right players, producers and songs, but frustratingly could not punch through to a wider audience.  It is, however, the kind of album that singer-songwriter fans speak of with reverence, Wiffen a peer to great Canadian songwriters such as Cockburn, McLauchlan, Valdy and Gordon Lightfoot (all were nominated for the JUNO award that year for best folk album, with Lightfoot winning.)

Fans of that album will certainly find lots familiar in this new collection.  There is his rich storyteller voice, deep and wise, road-weary and hurt.  Some of them are full band production, bolstered by Ottawa pals such as drummer Richard Patterson and guitar player Gary Comeau, both from '60's group The Esquires.  Several are more spare productions, where there's no unnecessary cluttering of his acoustic sound. For the most part any additions to his guitar and vocals are background touches, harmonies and spare keyboards, second guitar parts.  Most importantly, here are new words, new melodies, shot through with a blues that wasn't heard among those other contemporaries.  Minor keys are common, the songs touching and striking.  Your Room is about a crushed lover, with a stirring and beautiful melody, and tremendous guitar work from Frank Koller and Wiffen.  Rivers feature in several of the songs, a source of hope and escape from those blues.  Cool Green River, with its relaxed lope and pedal steel cheer, has a the titular river as the place where he'll take his love, to express himself in almost classic verse: "So give me your heart dear, say we'll never part.  I'll put it in an envelope with all my greatest hopes."  Add in a couple of fine covers, one by the young Ottawa folk writer Lynn Miles, and a classic Rolling Stones number, No Expectations, Wiffen somehow able to turn it into something tender.  For anyone who ever thought they'd like to have another album to follow Coast To Coast Fever, I think it just happened.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: MICHAEL JEROME BROWNE - SLIDING DELTA

Listen to a first generation punk rock song, circa 1977, with today's ears.  Perhaps the Sex Pistols, maybe God Save The Queen, "and her fascist regime."  What was once scandalous, noisy, irritating to many, is now mild and mostly comical.  Now listen to a vintage blues number from the Delta or another rural area, 20's or 30's, maybe Skip James with Special Rider Blues.  I tell you what, that stuff is the real deal, scary and moving.  These musicians weren't trying to shock, they were just trying to live.  The blues was real and it still sounds great today.

Michael Jerome Browne knows his classic blues, and knows how to make them sing today too.  The Montreal-living, Indiana-born player has proven his skills over and over, a master of guitar, banjo, fiddle and more, a consummate roots performer who searches out the original fountain of songs from each genre for inspiration.  But he's never gone this deep into the catalogs of the greats.  Instead of the usual suspects in the covers department (Crossroads by Robert Johnson, heck ANY Robert Johnson), Browne has dug around for near-forgotten gems and lesser-known but equally-talented originators.  Barbecue Bob, anyone?  A 12-string guitar player from Atlanta in the '20's, Browne updates his Motherless Chile Blues.  But instead of imitating the rough style of Bob and the others, Browne plays the heck out of the tune, letting his talent  on guitar loose.  It's a salty number anyway, so it's still going to have lots of edge. 

You'll know most of the others covered here, from Memphis Minnie to Charley Patton to Fred McDowell, and at times some of these were better-known than they are now.  The rock era seems to have shrunk the  huge blues canon down to a couple of dozen well-known numbers out of this era.  Browne instead plays the Bull Doze Blues on banjo, by Ragtime Texas, a/k/a Henry Thomas.  Bless Browne for his plaintive vocals, digit dexterity, and attention to history and detail here, down to the history lessons in the liner notes.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: YES - THE VERY BEST OF

By the looks of this, it would seem to be a crappy, knock-off best-of set, cheaply manufactured, like you used to see for sale at gas stations, for travelers or truckers sick of the radio on some long trip.  It has one CD of hits and misses, and a DVD of tracks with no explanation of the source of the video.  Inside, there was even less information, the lousiest booklet ever.  What a surprise to find out the DVD is actually a copy of the European set The Lost Broadcasts, which compiled some rare early band TV appearances.  The first three date back to the group's debut album, and are pre-Steve Howe, with Pete Banks on guitar.  That includes No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Required, Looking Around, and Survival, shot in black and white for Germany's Beat-Club program.  Then comes Time and a Word in colour from a Belgian broadcast, before heading back to Beat-Club, now with Howe on board, but still no Rick Wakeman.  This is actually the preferred line-up for some, Tony Banks a fine keyboard man without Wakeman's pomp.  The unique bit of this footage is three different takes of All Good People, as the tech crew play with the psychedelic effects.  Howe especially does much different work on each.

There are several best-of Yes collections around, with more superior track listings, but this does cover the basics:  Roundabout, Starship Trooper, Long Distance Runaround, and of course, Owner of a Lonely Heart.  But throw in the uncommon DVD, and at 16 bucks you have good car ride home and something fun to watch when you get there.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: VARIOUS ARTISTS -- RARE & BRILLIANT: HITS + GEMS

I'd disagree with the title; these tracks aren't rare, and only a couple approach brilliance, but that's marketing.  It's a collection of cuts from the late '70's to the '90's, all pop hits or well-known cuts that had an edge to them, at least for the time.  In other words, a pretty good mix tape, with cuts with similarities.

Pretty good only, because there are a couple of tracks that push the annoying button, especially Maniac by Michael Sembello, Extreme's More Than Words and Closing Time by Semisonic.  I know you have to have some big hits in the mix, but nobody needs to hear those again for at least another generation.  There probably is a new generation now that needs to be introduced to many of the other tracks though, such as Video Killed The Radio Star, Walking On Sunshine and Funkytown.  Enjoy, young folks, welcome to my early 20's.  There are even some lesser-known cuts included, obviously by folks who remember when radio could still be fun AND good.  So hats off for delivering Wall Of Voodoo's Mexican Radio and The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades.  The New Radicals' You Get What You Give and Joan Osborne's One Of Us show up on a few too many compilations, but they are still worthy cuts.  And no matter how many times I hear it, I never tire of Concrete Blonde's Joey.  I guess we're in the '90's Revival now.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: ERIC CLAPTON & FRIENDS - THE BREEZE AN APPRECIATION OF J.J. CALE (Deluxe Edition)

When this album came out in the summer, it was called the best thing Clapton's done in many a year.  Of course, that simply means that J.J. Cale songs always stand out, whether he's doing them, or his most-appreciative musical colleague.  Clapton of course reworked his entire career after hearing Cale in the early 70's, covering his After Midnight and Cocaine, and taking his laid-back approach to music-making.  And when Cale died in 2013, Clapton was fast off the mark to arrange for this tribute.

Now months later, we get the deluxe box version, a box set already for a virtually-new album.  Actually, there's not a a wild amount of music here, just two CD's worth, but it comes in a box to house photos, a big booklet, and a special USB of the music, and to show the artist deserves the recognition.  The bonus music is a CD of all the Cale original tracks that mirror the tribute CD versions, plus an important extra, the very early and first version of After Midnight, recording way back in 1966.  With such favourites as Call Me The Breeze and Magnolia on the disc, it's a fine single-CD collection of prime Cale.

The USB is a classy thing as well.  Pictured on the box cover is the back of Cale's trademark acoustic, where he got much of his sound.  In the cut-away vantage point, you can see that the guitar is held together with a series of turnbuckle clamps, required after Cale's tinkering to keep it from collapsing.  The USB is a replica of one of those clamps; pull it open and you find the connection.  A novelty, but nice nonetheless.  Really this is for the big Cale and Clapton fans, who want to join in the tribute.  The rest can be happy with the single-disc version, where guests such as Mark Knopfler, John Mayer, Tom Petty and Willie Nelson join Clapton.  It's remarkable how little they change the songs, and how much they still sound like Cale.  I guess that's the ultimate compliment; oft-covered, never bettered.