Sometimes, an artist just hits perfection with the first album, and never gets it quite as right again. Naturally is not only perfect as it stands, from title and cover art to compositions, through performance to production, it was as influential as the Velvet Underground, playable as a deck of cards, and almost kick-started its own genre. Problem was, nobody else could rock the back porch as convincingly as J.J. He made it sound easy, but it wasn't. Like home-made apple pie, there's subtle secrets in the mix. Cale learned electronics in the military, and glossy production skills in the L.A. studio system, and knew exactly what he was doing. It was a strangely aspirational album, opening up a world where less was really, qualitatively, more, not just some airhead fake zen bumpersticker. It made you want to be happy with less out of life. Just an old guitar, a porch and a pooch and a bottle of hooch. And it had songs you wanted to learn to play and sing, in a fake Okie husk. Did someone mention Mark Knopfler? Eric Clapton?
He made a bunch of swell long-playing L.P. elpees, but none had quite the sawdust magic - or the songs - of Naturally. It always hits that sweet spot. Old rockin' chair got me ...
More to come, if I can think of any. The first Television album would definitely count, but we did that awready. Suggestions? Albums by one-album acts don't count!
I got Twenty Million Things To Do; loadup is twenty million and first. Swat the flies away while you wait.
ReplyDeleteThe Cars
DeleteOoh!
DeleteAgreed - underrated artist; guitarist, songwriter, none more low and lazy vocalist... Known for his songs that other's covered or popularized / featured primitive drum machines early-on, and had at least two if not three tunes covered by Lynyrd Skynyrd. He's A-Okay in my book...
ReplyDeleteAll Thai kids have a nick name, often western.There was a little boy locally called Cocaine after the Eric Clapton track. His parents didn't know what the word meant.
Deleteso that's a real thing. i thought it was just a gimmick of thai actors to attract notice by english speakers.
Deleteamong the first CDs I ever bought were JJ Cale's Naturally & Troubadour. Whenever I copied them for friends I'd combine them on one disc because they fit. I since found out that it is illegal to copy CDs so I had to quit sharing.
ReplyDeleteSorry I don't have that early Mel McDaniels you are looking for. I looked.
Yesterday I was looking for an LP I used to own by Rusty Wier - Don't it Make You Want To Dance, but I guess it never came out on CD. Had a song called I Heard You Been Laying My Old Lady. I used to copy it for friends onto cassette because it was legal.
I'll post some Mel McDaniel, in the morning
ReplyDeleteTx! Lazy Me is an early ('64) Cale composition - particularly interested in hearing that, if you have it.
DeleteThis is the only Mel McDaniel I have, and Lazy Me is not on it.
Deletehttps://workupload.com/file/4gtGW3M8Exn
Early Leon Redbone from '71
https://workupload.com/file/7f8XgdVuzBT
The above heretoforementioned albumens, for them as is desirous:
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/gBF9jsVWLAt
Leon The Amateur: https://workupload.com/file/5nVEa5xqTve
DeleteA few favorite first albums
ReplyDeleteThe Stooges - ‘The Stooges’
The Doors - ‘The Doors’
Leonard Cohen - ‘Songs of Leonard Cohen’
The Velvet Underground - ‘The Velvet Underground and Nico’
Ramones - ‘Ramones’
The Band - ‘Music From Big Pink’
Patti Smith - ‘Horses’
The Doors, Ramones, Patti Smith - they all set out their stall with the first album. Leonard Cohen perfected his style with the second, I'd say, as did the Undies and The Band.
DeleteFabulous album. I'd choose "Okie" over it, but I suspect that's because it was the first Cale album I bought.
ReplyDeleteIt was once rumored that Leon Redbone was really Frank Zappa...You never saw them together at the same time, did you?
ReplyDeleteIt was also rumoured that Redbone was really Dylan. Or t'other way round.
Deletewhat an interesting world it would be if all rumors were true.
DeleteA few great firsts:
ReplyDeleteWillis Alan Ramsey (which is also his entire catalog)
Old & In The Way
Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?
Oops, according to your rules, Willis Alan Ramsey shouldn't count, but he did put out a few tracks on various compilations.
ReplyDeleteIt depends whether teen-star-to-be Zevon is the same as west coast singer-songwriter Warren Zevon (does losing your first name count as being a different guy?). If so, Zevon's eponymous (just to piss off Ed!) album it is. If not, it counts as the best second album ever.
ReplyDeletehttps://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-warren-report-part-i.html
DeleteThe Gilded Palace of Sin
ReplyDeleteDamn it Hugh, I just wanted to say that! What a classic that album is...
DeleteGood call.
DeleteThe Stone Roses - s/t
ReplyDeleteShame they didn't make a third that wasn't as good as the second, but yep.
Deleteand:
ReplyDeleteLynyrd Skynyrd
Led Zeppelin
Boz Scaggs
Chicago Transit Authority
DeleteSantana
DeleteManassas
ok, I'll stop now
Manassas is a good choice.
DeleteManassas was kinda like Derek & The Dominoes. Too hard to follow a great double album, and the drugs wore off...
DeleteD and the Ds true story here:
Deletehttps://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2019/05/i-always-hated-blues-eric-clapton.html
too true! Now, who hid my stash box?
DeletePS---file no longer exists. Re-up, please. (sorry to see zippy go away)
Delete& BTW... I visited the Hummel museum when I lived in New Braunfels, TX around 1978. I was under-whelmed. It has since closed.
DeleteBorderline: "Sweet Dreams and Quiet Desires"
ReplyDeleteWhat is it about "please sign your comments with a nick" that you don't understand?
DeleteJJ Cale 1958 - 1967: https://we.tl/t-Xqx6SLgpUD -- got this from a JJ Cale collector, sound varies as does the quality. Lazy Me included as by Jimmy Boyd.
ReplyDeleteHow about groups with only 2-3 albums? The first lp's by Grapefruit (Around Grapefruit) and Blossom Toes (We Are Ever So Clean) are absolutely great while the followups are unlistenable.
Fantastic! I had a presentiment - call it what you will - that you'd come up with the goods, Mr. Swami! Thank you very much.
DeleteAgree about Grapefruit and the Blossies - the Stone Roses of their day.
Lots of punks came roaring out of the gates with first releases that they were never quite able to equal:
ReplyDeleteSex Pistols, Black Flag, Damned, X, Circle Jerks, Dead Kennedys, etc, etc
Thx for the Leon Redbone -- not sure why I didn't have that already!
Moby Grape, surely must be a shoo-in. Everything, all at once, seemingly perfectly formed. And then, by degrees it all fell apart... a slow, sometimes not so slow, decent into literal madness and despair.
ReplyDelete*applause* And a metaphor for the 'sixties. ("A metaphor is like a simile" - Steven Wright)
DeleteI saw JJ mid-70s at Hammersmith Odeon. Talk about laid-back! They were in half shadow throughout and it was about four numbers in before we could work out which band member he was. His early albums were required listening for a few years around that time, although that was a dead-end Clapton went down if ever there was one. Meanwhile JJ probably spent his professional life being mistaken for the Velvet Underground viola botherer.
ReplyDeleteI can think of nothing worse than being mistaken for someone in the Velvet Underground. Oh, wait - actually being in the Velvet Underground.
Delete