MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: GARY WRIGHT - GREATEST HITS

I am unduly attracted to the failed single releases of once-popular artists. When a performer has a big hit, and then quickly falls off the charts, I like to get those singles and hear if they are actually any good, and it was just a case of a fickle public or bad promotion. This may be why you will find 45 RPM copies of Edison Lighthouse's It's Up To You Petula and Find Mr. Zebedee, alongside Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes). FYI: They weren't good.

Now, for about three months in 1975/76, you couldn't get much bigger than Gary Wright. Dream Weaver and it's follow-up, Love Is Alive, were both huge hits for the keyboard king, featuring his synth talents (oh that synth bass) and space-y sound effects. Dream Weaver even had a second life as a kitsch classic, featured prominently in the Wayne's World movie. But then, crickets. So I analytically approached this set to find out if the next batch of singles were to blame.

Wright was no spring chicken, and some fans knew him from his days with the British band Spooky Tooth, or his session work, most prominently on his friend George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. Then he bought all this fancy new keyboard tech and came up with a sound. A lot of it sounds dated now, especially that bass, and the swoops, and probably people got pretty sick of it after his '76 burst of fame. The first single of his next album in '76, Phantom Writer, couldn't even find the Top 40, and I can't even remember hearing it on radio, something I paid pretty close attention to back then. That began a run of releases and a couple of disappointing albums that must have baffled all involved. The songs couldn't even get into the Top 100.

Then, a shift happened, mostly thanks to some better songwriting. You can hear it on cuts such as Starry Eyed, which had a much better funky keyboard, in the Stevie Wonder style. Finally in 1981, the gods of radio let him have one last gasp at the charts, a good song called Really Wanna Know You which hit #16. That was it though, Wright's album-selling power was gone. To cap this collection, there's the remake Wright dead for the Wayne's World soundtrack, a pretty close copy with the main difference being a change in the opening line from "I've just closed my eyes again," to "I HAVE just closed...," contractions apparently no longer available.

So, the collection starts big, then drops really quickly, then picks back up at the end for a respectable conclusion. You're not missing a whole lot after the Big Two hits, but if you need 'em, there's a few okay tracks here to add to the collection.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: THE ASSOCIATION - LIVE

The Association are best known for a string of late '60's hits that barely qualify for soft rock, including Cherish, Windy, Along Comes Mary and Never My Love, the last one the second-most played record on radio in the 20th century. They probably deserve a little better legacy, and the group does have fans from the Sunshine Pop genre. They were an excellent vocal group, and the production was always tremendous, if lightweight. It turns out the members had tons of chops as well, as this live set from 1970 shows, just reissued for the first time on CD.

They were a self-contained touring band, all seven members instrumentalists as well as singers, providing their own horns and wind instruments, lots of percussion, as well as a solid keys-bass-drums-guitar core. While the hits provided the highlights, and set pieces such as the chorale-with-trumpets Requiem For The Masses showed off the seven singers, the rest of the 70-plus minute show had more r'n'b-styled numbers written by the band. This set came from a time when the group was dropping off the charts, but still big live, and they were looking for a way to get across the wider range they offered, there were precious few double live albums being released in those days. But alas, the group's choir boy image proved too hard to shake, and even though you could hear them trying to be hip (which they probably were), rock and roll audiences now going to Zeppelin shows weren't buying it.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: COOTES PARADISE - s/t

This bluesy band with a difference comes out of the Hamilton, ON. scene, named after a local conservation area. Several differences actually, as the group is loaded with lots of local indie talent with multiple skills and styles. There are three lead singers sharing the tracks, four of the band write, there are three men and three women in the group and tons of experience. Lily Sazz, keyboard player, singer and songwriter, started the group looking for like-minded folks rather than those rooted in one style, and the result is a set that goes from soulful ballads to rockin' and funky R'n'B.

Sue Leonard handles the gutsiest of the tunes, with a bold, strong voice. No surprise she delivers, as she's a veteran of tours with k.d. lang, her go-to backup singer for a few years, now living back in her hometown. That means the rest of the group had to have chops to match, and guitar player Krawchuk certainly matches up on his tracks, Leonard sounding great on the backing vocal there as well. Sazz's piano is a big part throughout, along with a tight rhythm section and surprising colouring by Mark Volkov, adding violin, flute and sax. The songwriting is upper-level throughout, Krawchuk's When You Come Around delivering a fine New Orleans groove, and Sazz's closer Wake Up a call to all of us bothered and bewildered at the Twitter-news each night.

The disc is out and available at the group's website, and those in the area can check out the big launch show coming up at Hamilton's venerable Corktown Pub, on Jan. 14, in the year 2018. Wow, first time I've had to write that, feels weird.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: THE WHO - MAXIMUM A's & B's

One of my own Christmas traditions is taking the break time to go through a new boxed set, as it's often hard to find the time to enjoy a three, four or more multi-disc collection in one sitting. That means I put it on, and don't stop until it's done, reading the liner notes as I go. This year, the latest Who collection filled that bill admirably.

This five-disc set goes chronologically through the group's British singles, from their 1964 debut as The High Numbers, and the non-hit I'm The Face/Zoot Suit, until the last handful of stand-alone new singles that have been added to best-of compilations, the final one being Be Lucky from the 2015 set The Who Hits Fifty! Each b-side is also included, which means several of these very obscure tracks are being issued on CD for the first time, which makes the box pretty interesting for Who fans.

Focusing only on the singles means the box looks at the journey of the band in a much different way. Usually Who collections concentrate on the biggest hits and the four crucial albums, Tommy, Live At Leeds, Who's Next and Quadrophenia. But the 45's tell a much different story, especially during the first phase of the group's career, pre-Tommy, and then during the early '70's, when a string of stand-alone singles were released from abandoned projects. Then in later years, various live cuts came out from reunion tours or the need for b-sides, tempting bonuses for collectors.

The '60's Who were first an R'n'B band, then a pop one, and the 45 market was hugely important. In England, before Sgt. Pepper, it was the ring in which all the best bands competed for both chart sales and recognition, Pete Townshend matching wits with The Beatles, Stones, and Brian Wilson for pop supremacy. The Who's run of I Can't Explain, Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere, My Generation, Substitute, I'm A Boy, Happy Jack, Pictures Of Lily and I Can See For Miles matches them all, and is as fruitful a period as the group's more-recognized early '70's heyday. A batch of rare b-sides from this period yields less important but often fun tracks, including several written by John Entwistle, including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, his thinly veiled description of Keith Moon. Unless you own the original singles or the various rarities collections used several years ago such as Who's Missing/Two's Missing, you'll be missing several of these minor gems, and now you can get them in glossy remastered audio.

The early '70's saw Townshend trying to come up with a way to release his concept album Lifehouse, which was eventually scrapped, and the best of the songs salvaged for Who's Next. That left a surplus of tracks, several of which emerged as singles, with varying quality and success. Let's See Action, Join Together and Relay were decent-sized British hits but didn't do much in North America, and there were even more b-sides that show different sides to the group's sound at the time. Entwistle had become a better writer, and his Heaven and Hell, often used as a live show opener, is found here in its rarer studio version.

After Quadrophenia, album tracks such as Squeeze Box, You Better You Bet and Don't Let Go The Coat were selected as singles, so the more interesting finds here come from best-of's and compilations, such as the beloved 1979 documentary The Kids Are Alright, which featured the brilliant Long Live Rock. Another song written for an abandoned project, and found on the catch-all set Odds and Sods, it's clearly one of the great anthems of rock, and should have been a huge hit, oddly rarely considered in the lists of great Who tracks. A 1990 live album saw the release of Join Together/I Can See For Miles/Behind Blue Eyes, and helps show that the band really did continue to make magic on stage in that long stretch of "final" tours and reunion charity concerts.

As usual for Who reissue box, the accompanying book holds copious and informative notes, which is a must for my traditional Christmas binge-listening. This time however, there are none of the ravings of Chairman Pete, often a favourite inclusion for Who fans. Has he said all he has to say? I doubt it.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG - REST

Airy, dramatic Europop from the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, her first new music since 2010's IRM, a compelling release inspired by her cerebral hemorrhage. Clearly she likes a big subject in her lyrics, as this one tackles topics such as the legacy of her controversial father, alcoholism, and the death of her sister Kate Barry, who also had a tumultuous life.

Sung equally in French and English, often both in a track, and it's a surprisingly seamless mix, although part of that is because with all the processing on her voice, it's hard to make out which language she's using. Not auto-tuning, mind you, this is production stuff, an overall electro sound by producer SebastiAn, with a little '90's retro (think Madonna) mixed with tomorrow's sound today. No doubt that appealed to Paul McCartney, known to like some electronic stuff himself, who shows up as writer and player on Songbird In A Cage, where he contributes guitar, bass and drums to the slinky track.

There's another effective song called Sylvia Says, where Gainsbourg mixes in some lines of Sylvia Plath's poetry. While Plath's no stranger to pop star tributes, this one's a novel approach, bringing Plath into a contemporary world. Canada's Owen Pallett shows up in his usual role of string and horn arranger and conductor, another element that gives the album a much broader sound than the usual programmed pop work.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: U2 - SONGS OF EXPERIENCE

U2's plans for continued world domination were rudely disrupted with the backlash over the band's gift of its 2014 album Songs of Innocence directly to everybody's iTunes account. After years of planning a two-album concept, starting and stopping various iterations of the music with various producers, and finally getting the plan solidified, the one gesture they probably thought was a brilliant coup turned into a marketing disaster, at least in p.r. terms. They are still stuck with talking about it, three years later with the release of this new set.

This is the second part of the plan, which initially would have followed Songs of Innocence much sooner. That first album was about looking back to the start of the band's career in Ireland, and featured lots of big, arena-sized songs, whereas this one focuses on the present, a mature band more reflective. Bono has stated most of the songs are letters to various people in his life, either individuals such as family and friends, to groups such as fans. In typical U2 fashion one delay, trying to get the iTunes backlash behind them, turned into several, as the songs were rewritten, the production changed, decisions questioned, and the band worried that it wasn't the best they could do. This seems to go on with every U2 album, and it can't be healthy. Anyway, apparently the biggest issue was the right-wing turn the world took with Brexit and Trump, etc., and Bono feeling the need to address it in some way.

The political situation does not figure large here, there are some broader lines that address the general distress, and the cut American Soul is certainly directed at the U.S. in a loving way. But more so these are largely personal statements with admissions and fondness, one assuming a song such as You're The Best Thing About Me would be about his spouse with lines like "I'm the kind of trouble that you enjoy." It's interesting to hear Bono address his public persona and personality flaws, which were partly behind the backlash: "I have everything but I feel like nothing at all/There's no risky thing for a man determined to fall." I'm not sure I believe that sentiment, given his determination to succeed and become bigger, better and more important in the world, but at least that's his own interpretation.

So that's what it's about and what lead to the album. As for the end result, it's certainly a less bombastic affair than the last, and the usual U2 music. I like the reflective tone, yet it does that by limiting the power the group can conjure. With eight different producers involved, and as many as five on one track, these songs have been beaten into submission rather than finely crafted. At one point the band went back in to rework everything to get a unified sound, and again, that seems like trying to add a plot after the book's been written. It's just all too similar in the end. It's U2 in With or Without You mode, over the entire album. For an album about life's experiences, we need a little more life.

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: AMANDA JACKSON BAND - FIRE IN THE BLUE

Driving home from P.E.I. today had me thinking about how much I admire the Island's music scene, which then reminded me I was due to talk about one of the bright lights of the scene there. The Amanda Jackson Band released its first studio album this year, but the group has a rich history thanks to its members. Both Jackson and guitar player Dale McKie came out of the blues group Bad Habits. Todd MacLean is one of the Island's most sought-after instrumentalists, on piano, sax and guitar. Both Jon Rehder and Reg Ballagh have decades of experience on bass and drums respectively, playing with many of P.E.I.'s best.

Jackson's rich and emotive voice is going to stand out in any setting, and wisely the band lets her shine. But it's not without surprises. A natural at belting blues, all those talented players behind her instead turn the music into something more subtle and jazzy, and very effective. There's an acoustic/organic feel to the original songs, with acoustic guitar. electric piano, guest violin from Sean Kemp, and harmonica from McKie among the colours. Mind you, when they do the blues, the power is unleashed. MacLean plays a masterful solo on Human Zoo, and there's a mighty groove worked up in Before The Night Is Through. The lone cover, Tower of Song by one L. Cohen, is a dramatically rearranged version, Jackson in full vocal flight.

Social concerns are a big part of the band's lyrics and obviously they put their talents to use that way as well. Islanders can find them Friday night, Dec. 22, in Charlottetown at the Florence Simmons Performance Hall, as part of the Food and Warmth Show 2017, proceeds going to The Upper Room, P.E.I.'s central food bank and soup kitchen.