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HIP-O SELECT
SIMON SISTERS/Winkin’ Blinkin & Nod-The Complete Kapp Recordings: It’s about time. What did it take, the “Hootenanny” DVD coming out to get this to come out? Carly and Lucy were a folk duo in the early 60’s, hanging around the Village with their trust fund and singing folk songs, looking for an angle, like French versions of Dylan (hey, it’s not as affected as it sounds). This is one of the delightful, lost artifacts of the era that apparently got lost in the shuffle for no good reason. Since they both later did great things, this set proves they had it in then all along. The great things about these two albums is they really don’t sound dated and folkies should love it.
(www.hip-oselect.com)
RAVEN
MICKEY GILLEY/Too Good to Stop-Greatest Hits 1974-85: Cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart, this proto genitor of the urban cowboy, complete with the bull at his bar, rode the wave quite nicely. Coming out of career limbo, after having some hit singles for Playboy’s label as it was a sinking ship, the label was taken over by Epic where things just clicked. The tunes are very much a product of their time, and Gilley was just as much businessman and celebrity as entertainer, but he knew how to sell a middle of the road song no matter where it originally came from. Certainly it’s commercial country, but it’s far from the yucky side of it.
244
JACKIE DESHANNON/High Coinage-The Songwriters Collection: the last time Raven dipped in DeShannon waters, they had virtually the only tracks by her on the market and they covered the waterfront. This time around, they look at great tracks that were on her albums from the height of the singer/songwriter years. Like the main overview collection, there’s not a clinker on here and if you haven’t been dropping the high coinage it takes to grab the Japanese imports of her individual albums, this is a real treasure for DeShannon fans. These tracks more than prove that good taste is timeless.
248
AUDIOBOOK SUPPLEMENT
HARPER AUDIO
SIDNEY POITIER/Measure of a Man: This is one of those really rare cases where reader, writer and material come together in a delightful flashpoint. Buoyed by a bounce from Oprah’s book club, Poitier’s autobiog comes back into the spotlight. With his great voice and personal attachment to the material, Poitier gives his life story a grand telling and reflection. Coming from humble beginnings and scaling the heights, this is the kind of life story that had to be a product of the times and we might not find inspirational stories like this again any time too soon. Inspirational and well-written, this is much more than a show biz memoir.
JOSEPH HELLER (read by Jay Sanders)/Catch 22: This is a grand day for malcontents everywhere. The greatest anti-war novel is given a glorious, full unabridged reading that spans 20 hours and makes a great case for not watching the movie instead of reading the book, even if you are listening to the book in this case. One of the defining moments of the culture shift in the 20th century, this novel carries the weight of some serious cultural baggage. It’s over 40 years old so we don’t have to go over what it’s all about, just remind you that you have to make time for the classics every now and then and this is one of those classics.
(Caedmon)
Volume 30/Number 104
February 12, 2007
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
(c)2007 Midwest Record
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