Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Wayne's World - The Wrap

The brilliant Wayne Berry has been FoamFeatured antecedently and at some depth. Since then a few items have surfaced that should really be added to the collection, so this is a double-header. In the first download you get the epochal Home At Last, the near-unavailable second album Tails Out, and the totally unissued Capitol album, Turning Point. The second batch gets you both Timber albums, and the uber-rare Volunteers album (for which, kudos due to sambgodot).


14 comments:

  1. See how insincere you can sound when requesting these ...

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    1. Hi Farquhar! I was going to request a link, but I was taken back by how good you look! That's a great haircut, it It completely accents your facial features! Have you lost weight?

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    2. Yes, I lost weight, but I found it again - it was down the back of the couch! D'oh!

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  2. Please cue dos(e) (or since they're being offered in two bites - queue dos) for the poor dogsbody what burrows to find what's buried (and who aspires to being the worst punner of 2020). In all sincerity and humbleness I disdain all need of being thanked. (from the long, slow toothache of English life.....)

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    1. Mr. O'Dot has exclusive rights for Bite One, linked in this comment. If you are not Mr. O'Dot, and the chances are you're not, and you persist in looking for the link and downloading these swell recordings, you shall suffer THE CURSE OF FOAM, today manifest as a slight reddening between the small toes of your left foot, which shall cause you momentary concern but be forgotten in the morning.




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  3. A long, but very entertaining and interesting read on Berry's career a.k.a. a series of unfortunate incidents.

    https://www.nodepression.com/wayne-berry-nashville-cat-home-at-last/

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  4. I said it already in the other Wayne Berry threads, I'll say it again.

    "Home At Last" is my absolute "could have been a contender" album. One of the greatest albums from the singer-songwriter era that didn't do anything commercially.

    When I think of some of the great albums I found here thanks to Farq (and others), I can say they "should've been a contender", but I can see why they weren't. I mean, I absolutely love Mac Gayden's debut and think it's transcending (music writer cliché alert?) its time and place, but I can also see why it wouldn't sell thousands of records. Same thing for the recently discovered excellent Jimmie Spheeris.

    But "Home At Last" has sympathetic, radio-ready production, could be marketed to pop/rock stations as well as country radio, and had a number of songs that could've been hit singles. Don't tell me "Black Magic Gun" isn't an American classic. I mean, it's nice that Tom Rush and Rusty Wier covered it, but why not Johnny Cash? Or Waylon?

    Coulda, shoulda, woulda...

    If you read the above piece, you'll see that Barry was signed as a solo act to Capitol records, then insisted that he wanted to be a band guy and founded Timber (and got let go by Capitol). One of the many unfortunate events in his career, especially considering he split lead vocals and songs with a decidedly weaker songwriter and singer in Timber and the plodding white boy boogie that results is exactly the kind of music from that time that I personally can't abide.

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    1. Yup, he made some career decisions best described as confused. He also says he was an asshole. I agree that the Timber albums are fatally flawed, but they're worth it for his voice and songs. The woman/female singer's voice simply isn't strong enough to take a lead - it's weaker than Donna's, fercrissakes. "Home At Last" is as good as/better than "No Other", and should enjoy similar respect. It's a perfect album.

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    2. Amen!

      I can see why a certain type of music critic would simply not see it that way: too commercial-sounding (oh, the irony), not "cosmic" or "ambitious" enough.

      But there is not a single weak cut on it. I abhor the use of saxophones normally. In ballads, they often either sound cheesy or sleazy. But I have no issues at all with how Berry uses them in "A Lover's Moon" (which, while a very good sort of AOR ballad, is the weakest of the tracks here) and especially "Another's Lifetime" - which also has one of the all time great lines in American songwriting:

      "There's more to life than breathing / there's more to love than making it"

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  5. Part Two
    here. ALL CREDIT TO THE MUSICIANS - even when the music's a bit shit, like Timber. And a thank you to all those thousands of individuals who have used a computer to share music on the internet, because they enjoy it. What a brilliant idea that is.



    here

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  6. One Buck Guy, many thanks for bringing the article to everyone's attention. Since making his acquaintance here, I've enjoyed Wayne's songs, but knew nothing about him, so it's been enlightening to read.

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    1. sambgodot is the "dreamboat" of the group! He plays Danelectro© Electric Lead Guitar! He digs "chicks - any chicks (except ugly ones and this means you Vanessa!)", Mom's homemade lemonade, and his ambition is to "one day write my own autobiography."

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  7. "Whoops that's an error"!?!?!

    Well, thanks a lot, blogspot, now I gotta try to resurrect outta my noggin what I just wrote & lost - "poof!" - just like that. . . . .

    ...

    "one day write my own autobiography"

    Now that'd be one SHORT Story... To be able to srcawl one's life history in a 24 hour binge-write-off...

    Or maybe he has been to Evelyn Would's Writing Dynamics classes, and will thus be able to Speed write a tome of major girth, depth, breadth and whatever other "Nth" words you can thinkith ofith.

    Now it won't let me use anything but "Unknown" for the "Comment as" sig on this posting... Weird...

    - B.B. (but you already knew that...)

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  8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thyJOnasHVE
    or what ?

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