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Jason Crawford
I’ve got some hip friends, man. Hipper than me, clearly, by virtue of the fact that they don’t run around using words like “hip.” In the early ‘90s, I was listening to Widespread Panic and the bands I found through them. Traffic, the Meters, Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit. Wildly great stuff, certainly. But, while I was away pretending at college, a subset of my hometown crew had gotten full-on into Country music and some of the other late – ‘60s and early – ’70s bands that leaned in that direction.
So, I’d heard of Dillard and Clark. But, even then, they were on the fringe of what my guys were most excited about. I think. There were factors at play that make recollection tricky. I guess I could just ask them. Anyway I, personally, never got around to checking out that specific band, but I sure loved the Flying Burrito Brothers, and some of the other stuff I might have taken longer to find without my guys’ direction. Merle Haggard, for instance. The Louvin Brothers. I could go on.
So… Dillard and Clark.
I saw that Intervention Records reissued their debut, and I bought it blind. Kevin Gray mastered the release from the original analog tapes, as he did for the label’s Burrito reissues. Intervention’s The Gilded Palace of Sin is one that I return to again and again, one of the finest sounding records in my entire collection. So, I jumped based on those specs and my buddy’s good taste. Snagged a copy of The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard and Clark before the first run sold out. It has since been repressed. Things are moving quickly here.
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And, speaking of “pressed,” this seems like a good enough place to talk about the facility responsible for that portion of the production. Intervention’s Burritos records were pressed (perfectly) at RTI. And I don’t know how you improve on “perfect,” but Gotta Groove Records might have done it. The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard and Clark is… fantastic. Dead silent where it’s supposed to be. The kind of thing where you drop the needle and think that you must have forgotten to turn your amp on or set the platter to spinning. The music just appears out of an invisible noise floor, and it remains that way throughout the entire run time. Plus, the record is flat. As in, “not warped.” Which is neat.
“Out On the Side” opens things up, and I became obsessed with it immediately. The song craft, the singing, the instrumentation. All of it. The lyrics are sort of impressionistic in that hazy, late ‘60s Southern California way. Not sure what it’s about or what it means, but the mood is melancholy while the messaging deftly floats between doggedly determined and regretfully resigned. I’m a sucker for the organ that seeps through the outset of the second chorus. The hook was set deeply into my jaw, and for good, by then.
You gotta lead with your strongest song on your debut album, but the rest of Expedition is sturdy enough to stand on its own if it had to. It’s a sonic trek through rocky emotional terrain. A stimulating transport through a variety of atmospheres. “Don’t Come Rollin’” is a blast of needed humor while “Train Leaves Here This Morning” will pull you right out of Los Angeles into the lonely western desert with just enough water to get you through. As I understand it, there’s an Eagles version of that tune. But I’m on Lebowski’s side with regard to that band. Kick me out of the cab if you must. I’ll walk.
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The Eagles finally got Bernie Leadon the renown that he deserved though. I’ll give them that much. But, “for the record,” he had already secured his place in Rock history before he ever even joined up with Glenn and Don. I can prove it. Because…
This is the place where we talk about the players in Dillard and Clark and their place in the pantheon of Southern California’s Country/Americana scene. Doug Dillard had left his family band (the one that you saw on The Andy Griffith Show) to join up with Gene Clark, who’d recently cruised the Byrds. They joined up with Leadon, who would soon leave to fight with the Flying Burrito Brothers for a couple of records before linking up with the Eagles in an effort to ruin popular American music for the coming decades. If you played Five Degrees of Separation with the musicians on Expedition, you’d have half the history of “Country Rock” written already. All that to say: Dillard and Clark had their bonafides.
If you haven’t gotten into that scene, but you’re interested in a point of entry, I’d suggest you start with this record and the aforementioned Gilded Palace of Sin album. You could probably just stop there, but if you’re hell-bent on the Byrds as they relate to this movement, which would be fair, go for Sweetheart of the Rodeo. I think of Dillard and Clark as a slimmed-down version of the Byrds, and that suits my tastes a bit better. My hometown boys could tell you more and better than me, but hopefully, this’ll point you in a direction, at least. I’m thrilled to have these Intervention reissues, and I’ll be keeping an eye on what they do as we get further along. So far, so great.
Man, it’s been rough trying to find some well-made records to tell y’all about this month. I had three records from three labels mailed from three different areas of the United States delivered to me in December, and they were all defective. Two were dish warped, the other was just warped with some additional issues that we’ll get to in a bit when we talk about Harold Vick’s Steppin’ Out reissue by Blue Note.
When a Tone Poet release is glitchy, you know times are tough. Makes you feel like the industry is tanking. Leaves you pawing at glass walls with mirages of high-quality vinyl pressings on the other side. Like you’re that guy in Midnight Express, but probably without all the hash, and hopefully not in a Turkish prison. A prisoner of non-fill, maybe. Lying on a warped cot. Fed nothing but off-center gruel. Kept awake for days straight by surface noise…
But The Healer might set you free. Craft Recordings just reissued the 1989 John Lee Hooker revitalizer. The one that allowed him to live out his years in comfort, according to lore. The one with all the guest appearances, according to what actually happened. Craft got ahold of the metal parts that Bernie Grundman generated for the highly regarded Classic Records reissue in 2006, and they used them for a repress, this time at QRP. It’s a sonic jailbreak from an island of hopeless sounds in this forsaken year.
I had The Healer on CD as a kid, but I can’t remember how I knew to pick it up. I was working in a local indy record store, which is how I was able to afford CDs and records in the first place. Did I learn about it there? Did I buy it based on the participation of one of the featured artists? If so, it would have most likely been Robert Cray. My mom had his Strong Persuader album. On wax. And I dug it. Or maybe I bought it due to Santana’s involvement. Or maybe Hooker had already sat in with the Stones on their Steel Wheels Tour, and I’d read about that.
Anyway, that was a long-ass time ago, and I was fifteen, and I had a copy of The Healer. On CD, which is admittedly lame, but not by fifteen-year-old standards in 1989. Having a John Lee Hooker CD with Los Lobos on it at that age was pretty cool if you were measuring with a late ‘80s yardstick. Late ‘80s yardsticks were made out of cheap plastic, and they were hot pink. The older kids used them to cut out lines of crappy cocaine on CD “jewel cases.” Your high school teacher used them to rap your knuckles for blasting Licensed To Ill too loudly during recess. And also, to cut out lines of crappy cocaine on CD jewel cases.
The Healer has its moments, even today. In ’89, it seemed like a stroke of genius. This was not a banner year for popular music, and I can prove it. Hooker rapping about the Blues over a Santana Band groove sounds like a neat idea, but it was actually cooler then than it is now. Hooker’s duet with Bonnie Rait on “In the Mood,” however, holds up. It ain’t going nowhere. It’s timeless. She was ascendant at the time, and the stars aligned. Both guitar masters have time to shine in the four-and-a-half-minute runtime. It would be creepy to call it sexy, but it’s uncomfortably close. Pretty perfect. Won a Grammy, in case anyone cares about that.
Cray’s contributions on “Baby Lee” are more understated, clean, and tasty. Charlie Musselwhite’s are out front, dirty, and greasy. I have the most fun listening to Hooker’s solo turns on “Rockin’ Chair” (with a National steel!) and “No Substitute” (12-string). His earliest recordings from Detroit are his most engaging, in my book, and these – recorded when he was 73 – add a cool coda to the back end of a titanic career.
The Craft reissue is well-pressed with minimal surface noise – just a couple of spots on the first side that resolve quickly. Nothing that a reasonable listener would freak out on. Grundman, as one might expect, presents a balanced sound with a solid mid-range, and a sturdy low end that’s supportive, never rumbling or boomy. The ’80s production sheen is not too sterilizing, and the whole thing still feels like a landmark if you lived through the era. I might not recommend The Healer as a point of entry for folks who are unfamiliar with Hooker’s work, but it’s a fine place to land. Better than a Turkish prison, and better than what a fifteen-year-old could have reasonably hoped for in 1989.
All right, let’s get this bit of unpleasantness out of the way, and talk for a minute about the recent Harold Vick reissue by Blue Note. It’s called Steppin’ Out, Grant Green plays the guitar on it, and it’s part of the Tone Poet series. That’s as close to a guaranteed win as you can hope for.
Regular readers will remember that I recently advised all my fellow vinyl freaks to seek out records from reputable series in order to avoid the land mines that cover most of the current vinyl landscape. I specifically referenced this same Tone Poet program. Now, here I am talking about some “unpleasantness.”
Dammit.
First off, it’s worth mentioning that I own eleven Tone Poet titles, and this is the only one that’s been short of almost perfect. The first copy I got was far from perfect, and the replacement is almost almost perfect. My initial purchase arrived with a pronounced edge warp and visible imperfections in or on the vinyl. It was hard to tell which, but the problems looked to be specific to the pressing according to my eyes, and they certainly resulted in audible distortion. Like a rusty dagger in the eardrum.
I mean, we’re still talking about less than 10 percent of my Tone Poet collection, but the issues sort of rattled my foundation a bit. Made me worry about the potential for problems with future titles. There have been some reported with the Picture of Heath release, which has further destabilized my psyche. To be fair, I don’t have any first-hand experience with that one, and others have reported having received flawless copies too. Plus, I’m a bit neurotic when it comes to this stuff. I tend to catastrophize. So…
My replacement copy, as (blue) noted, comes much closer to measuring up to the standard that the Tone Poet series has set for itself over the course of its three-year run. There are a couple of spots with some surface noise. Standard ticks and pops that resolve pretty quickly. The pressing rating that was handed down as part of this review represents this record’s quality in comparison to other Tone Poet titles. Which isn’t really fair. It’s like saying that Rubber Soul doesn’t measure up to Revolver, except less debatable. There’s objectively surface noise on this record where there is none on the others. RTI still pressed a superior record in comparison to most of what’s lurking out there now, they just didn’t make it to the top of the mountain. This ain’t Steppin’ Up, but also not Steppin’ In It.
Anyway, now that we have that handled, it’s important to know that the music is groovy. We’re deep in the Soul Jazz vein here with Big John Patton’s B3 as the featured instrument. Which is weird based on the order of the instrumentalists’ billing on the cover, but whatever. Green’s playing straddles the line between Juke Joint and Jazz Club. Vick’s saxophone work is funky and fluid, plenty accessible for the casual listener. Especially when combined with Blue Mitchell’s trumpet. Both of the reed men found success in the Rhythm and Blues world as sidemen, and Soul Jazz sort of bridged the disciplines anyway so it all adds up. To a funky good time. Nothing too challenging here, but no missteps either. It’s a head nodder. Makes me feel like I’m wearing a dark suit with my sunglasses on in a smoky club sipping corn liquor while other folks drink wine. And I dig that feeling.
I don’t know that Steppin’ Out counts as “essential,” from a production or performance perspective, but it’s really, really good. I’d imagine that the weirdos who claim to dislike Jazz might have a harder time making a case against this one. If you’re looking to zone out, but could still use a little energy boost, this one’ll do. I’ve enjoyed it more with every listen. Let’s just hope the center holds for the Tone Poet series in 2023…