Review: The Mirage's 'You Can’t Be Serious: 1966-1968'

Between 1965 and 1968, The Mirage released a mere eight singles, one of which they put out under the name Yellow Pages, and no LPs. The Hertfordshire quintet still left behind a pretty terrific legacy. Yes, their first two singles for CBS —a cover of Betty Everett’s “Shoop Shoop Song (It’s In His Kiss)” and a second rate Graham Nash composition called “Go Away”—were weak. Yes, the two singles they released under their own name and duress on the Page One label were downright lousy (their A-side as Yellow Pages, “Here Comes Jane”, is pretty good). But none of that matters on Guerssen Records’ You Can’t Be Serious: 1966-1968, because this compilation only collects the sides The Mirage recorded for Philips.

Review: Two Judee Sill Reissues

There’s no question that Judee Sill’s back story is fascinating and disturbing. The biological daughter of a man who imported exotic animals for films, she emerged from a violent home life with a step dad who animated Tom and Jerry cartoons to become an armed robber, drug addict, prostitute, scam artist, and convict. Then she apparently discovered Jesus and became a recording artist.

While her lyrics take the occasional glimpse into the shadows (most fearlessly on “The Lamb Ran Away with the Crown”), Sill’s first recordings fail to reflect her harrowing experiences. Her voice is full bodied and pitch perfect, but it does not exactly exude emotion, making her sound like she should be serenading kids on The Magic Garden and leaving folky compositions such as “Crayon Angels” and “Jesus Was a Cross-Maker” pleasant but not terribly moving. The religiousness of her lyrics won’t appeal to everyone either. Without a doubt the most striking song on Judee Sill is the heart-rending “Lady-O”, which The Turtles recorded with more acute emotion in 1969. These songs all appear on Sill’s 1971 self-titled debut co-produced by Graham Nash. The inoffensive acoustic arrangements are in line with Nash’s work with CSN’s softer songs. The Paul Buckmaster-esque string arrangement on “Lopin’ Along Through the Cosmos” is the one unquestionably potent ingredient in an otherwise bland stew.

On her second album, 1973’s Heart Food, Sill taps into her experiences more effectively with country-ish arrangements that place her work in that genre’s tradition of hard living. More of the grand string arrangements that were the highlights of Judee Sill prevent the Heart Food  from ever feeling like mere rural pastiche. Most importantly, Sill lets down her guard in front of the mic. The inherent quality of her voice is still very present, but by allowing it to droop into audible despair, to soar with intensity, to bend and even crack, she bridges the emotional gap that made her debut feel distant. The most explicitly religious thing here is an epic called “The Donor” yet it is so breath-taking that even we heathens can dig it. There’s nothing as recognizable as “Jesus Was a Cross-Maker” or “Lady-O” on Heart Food, but it is most definitely the superior album.

Intervention Records is now giving the only two records Judee Sill completed before her death in 1979 deluxe treatment with a new audiophile reissue that splits each album between two 180 gram, 45-rpm records. True to advertising, the vinyl is whisper quiet and the all-analog masters are exceptionally present and detailed. Some of the music is merely pretty but the presentation is consistently beautiful.

Review: 'The Everly Brothers: Harmonies from Heaven'

There’s a great story behind every great Rock & Roll act. The Everly Brothers were one of the greatest, certainly among the very best half-dozen artists of the genre’s first era. The brotherly discord behind their beautiful music began a tradition that would continue with the similarly combative kin in The Beach Boys, Kinks, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and many family acts to follow. However, George Scott’s recent BBC documentary The Everly Brothers: Harmonies from Heaven is really mainly concerned with that beautiful music.

A clutch of talking heads that include rock writers, music executives, and artists such as Keith Richards, Graham Nash, and Art Garfunkel spend most of the film’s hour analyzing the duo’s unique harmonies, Don Everly’s aggressive guitar rhythms, their songs and arrangements. Don is on hand to give new firsthand details on his music, while his late brother Phil appears in relatively recent footage from 2010. Even in a music-focused film, it would be dishonest, and frankly, kind of boring to only discuss the music, and the brothers’ fall out is addressed, Don basically chalking it up to his being a democrat and Phil being a republican.

It is not Scott’s OK documentary that makes Eagle Vision’s new blu-ray of the film a must own. It is the bonus DVD containing a live performance from Sydney, Australia, in 1968. Those talking heads can talk about how great The Everlys are all they want to, but there is no better proof than that club date in which the guys not only showed off their unimpeachable harmonies and rocked with total abandon with the assistance of a sharp blues trio called The Tabernacle Three, but also flaunted their significant comedic gifts. This is as much of a stand-up gig as it is a Rock & Roll one with Don delivering really funny shtick between songs while Phil plays the silent straight man. This is one of the most thoroughly entertaining performances I’ve ever seen, and the roughness of the footage isn’t much of an issue except in one small stretch with several missing frames. Unfortunately, this means we lose a few beats from “Wake Up, Little Susie” and Don’s comedy riff on smoking banana peels.

Review: 'The Hollies: Look Through Any Window (1963-1975)'

The Hollies never influenced their peers or created L.P.s on the level of The Beatles or The Stones or any of the other top-tier British bands of the ‘60s. They just made one great pop single after another, amassing a trove of top-forty wonders on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. “Bus Stop”, “Stop! Stop! Stop!”, “Carrie Anne”, “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress”—all smashes and all as fresh sounding today as they were 40-plus years ago. Singles-oriented bands don’t tend to get the respect that groups with a Revolver or Beggars Banquet under their belts do, so The Hollies: Look Through Any Window (1963-1975) is a particularly pleasurable surprise. This over two-hour-long documentary tells the group’s story via brand new interviews with core members—Graham Nash, Alan Clarke, Tony Hicks, and Bobby Elliott—and pristinely presented archival footage. Nearly all of the group’s hits are here, and they sound and look spectacular. Color excerpts of The Hollies performing “Baby That’s All” and “Here I Go Again” in the fairly obscure 1964 film U.K. Swings Again look like they were shot last week (that Hicks looks about 12 in them is a tell-tale sign they weren’t). Because there are no promo films or live clips of “King Midas in Reverse”, director David Peck cut together a montage of home movies shot by tour manager Rod Shields to serve as backdrop for the pivotal track.

Despite their past conflicts, the guys are respectful of each other in the new interviews. In retrospect, it’s pretty amazing to think they clashed over “Midas” and considered it such a departure from their hit-making formula when it’s really just as catchy and accessible as anything else they did (and quite a bit more substantial than, say, “Jennifer Eccles” or “Sorry Suzanne”). Or that Nash parted ways with The Hollies to hook up with Stephen Stills and David Crosby, whose music was only moderately edgier than that of his former band. And let’s not forget how unusual the chiming “Bus Stop”, the steel-drum-speckled “Carrie Anne”, or “Stop! Stop! Stop!”— with its balalaika-simulating banjo and wacky tale of a horny spectator’s ejection from a belly-dancer show (based on a true story, as funnily recounted by Nash)—were. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of The Hollies: Look Through Any Window (1963-1975) is how it puts such subtle innovations and the band’s abilities into perspective. Seeing Hicks recreate that tricky “Stop! Stop! Stop!” riff on his electric banjo today may inspire you to head back to your old Hollies records to truly appreciate his playing for the first time.

The Hollies: Look Through Any Window (1963-1975) will be screened at the American Cinemateque’s Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California, this September 22. After the screening, Nash, Clarke, and the film’s producers will take part in a panel discussion. Reelin’ in the Years Productions’ DVD release follows on October 4.