Graham Parker and the Rumour: Three Chords Good

Easily the most criminally under-appreciated musical act in my lifetime has been Graham Parker, whose best work was done with the Rumour as his backing band in the late 1970s.

GP never had the commercial success he so richly deserved.  The Village Voice in 1976 voted his first two albums as the two best albums of that year.  But the sound quality of his third album, "Stick to Me" was ruined when, supposedly, someone spilled something over the master acetate and the record company chose to release it in diminished condition rather than foot the bill to re-master it.  Not surprisingly, it didn't sell well and he changed labels, from Mercury to Arista (memorialized in the song "Mercury Poisoning") and next released what many regard as his greatest album, "Squeezing Out Sparks" (also voted #1 in the Voice), the marketing of which suffered from a backlash against the title song, a politically incorrect lament about abortion.  At which point, I think, the promotion segment of the record industry gave up on his work.  But for the past three decades, unlike so many musical acts who live largely off resales and reperforming work that is sesveral decades old,  GP plugged away, continuing to turn out new, quality albums every year or so, along with releases of live concert recordings from his earlier days.  (He also writes fiction and blogs).

Most recently, he reunited with the Rumour and released their first joint album in 31 years, "Three Chords Good", available through the usual distribution channels.  GP & the Rumour were featured in Judd Apatow's recent film, "This Is 40" and the Kickstarter-funded documentary about GP, "Don't Ask Me Questions," is going to premiere next week on "Radio Times" on BBC 4.

Here is a performance of "Heat Treatment" from GP & the Rumour in their prime in 77. There is lots of music by GP & the Rumour out there, including the new album (and they're also touring). I encourage anyone who is not familiar with them to give them a listen, and hopefully, you'll be as impressed with them as I have been.

Kings and Queens

I’ve been listening to an album released last year by a Canadian group, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, that doesn’t seem to have garnered much popularity in the US, as the album is ranked less than 100,000^th on Amazon. But it’s worth a listen and I expect just a few more purchases will send it flying up the charts into the top 50,000.

All the songs on Kings and Queens are duets with prominent female American singers such as Lucinda Williams, Cassandra Wilson, and Emmylou Harris  -- the “Queens” of the title.   It’s a good idea because the “Kings” don’t have the greatest voices by themselves and the female vocals make the album work a lot better.

Some people compare the band’s work generally to The Band, which had a lot of Canadian ties itself.  I definitely heard this on the track “I’m Still Lovin’ You.” And the track “Heart A Mine” could have been pulled off “The Basement Tapes”.  But overall I see as many differences.  Lyrically, these songs are more intimate.  Robbie Robertson didn’t write too many songs about romantic relationships   Musically, I think they are more varied in style.  They remind me of the Jayhawks, and sometimes of Jackson Browne, both for tempo and a good dose of David Lindley-style guitar work.  There are also a couple of songs with stately tempos and heavy reverb that reminded me of Bill Frisell’s guitar work.  

Songs I especially liked were “Golden Sorrows” with Cassandra Wilson, “Black Sheep”, “My Town Has Moved Away” and “Got Me Covered” with Roseanne Cash.  “Shelter Me” features Miss Patti Scialfa joining the band for a good cover of a gospel-blues song by Buddy Miller; it sounded very much like a duet she might have done with her husband.

At least one of the band members, Colin Linden, has a solo career and on his album, From the Water, I enjoyed a Springsteen-like song “Between the Darkness and Light of Day” and the inscrutable “John Lennon in New Orleans”.