JSngry

Exactly. And many pop records are not about the performance per se as much as they are about the finished record. A movie actor might need multiple takes, just as a pop singer would. Movies are made in stages just as pop records are, and not everbody's in the same place at the same time (2nd units, anybody?). Plus, the director of a movie is analogous to the producer of a pop record. Both provide the overall vision/direction of the finished product as well as how that product gets put together along the way. And - both can, and often do, get a lot of help from various "assistants". only some of whom are only sometimes properly credited. So I stand by the analogy. In fact, I might even posit that the reason that we tend to look at manufactured pop music vs. live performance skills in a different light than we do manufactured movies vs live theatre is that most of us have a far greater exposure to movies than we do live theatre, but most of us have heard at least some quality live music at some point in our life. And that goes double for performing musicians for whom the notion of "manufacturing" a product instead of creating it live runs counter to our personal esthetic within our own field. But hey - if making a successful (commercially or otherwise) pop record was really as simple as "we'd" like to think, then anybody could do it. Anybody can't, and not just because of the vicissitudes of the industry. There's a high amount of craft involved in the manufacturing, and occasionally that craft can cross the line into art. Myself, I respect the hell outta that even when I don't like/love it.

Well yeah, ok, but how many "movie stars", could do a kickass job in live theatre w/o a lot of prep work? And how many "celebrety" editors are there? Cinematographers? Soundtrack composers (other than the John Williamses, etc> And even then. who's got the bigger name - him or Spielberg?) Etc. ? It's all directors and stars in the public'e eye, and mostly just stars. Which is ok afaic, I'm just saying that the manufacturing of a movie & the manufacturing of a pop record are much more similar than not, yet they're percieved in totally different lights in some circles. Not by me, though. I'm a fan of well-constructed pop records just as I am of well-constructed movies, assuming in both cases that the end result is a good story well told.

Tippin' The Scales wasn't even regarded all that highly by Lion, apparently, seeing as how it wasn't released until the 70s...

Not apart at all, as long as we recogognize those value judegements as being exactly that (and treat them accordingly).

You totally off da' hook, Dawg! Seriously - movies are at least every bit as manufactured and post-productionalized as pop music. But one's considered an art and one's dismissed as evil crap, just because. Go figure that one.

You had me till that last sentence... Once it's recognized & acknowledged I don't hink that you can "measure" soul w/o at the same time measuring human worth, and that rapidly becomes a very slippery slope. 101 Strings, yeah, I'm willing to say that that probably has little or no soul. But Dionne/Bachrach vs Aretha is very much a matter of different expressions of different lives, and unless/until we're willing to say that one of those lives is more "meaningful" than the other, then I'm content to let it go that Aretha's (or Willie;s, etc.) "soul" is more easily grasped my "most of us" simply because it resonates closer to our life experiences (or percieved life experieces anyway...) and is more overtly expressed, not that she herself is a human being with more soul or that her music has more intrinsic feeling in it than Dionne's. Granted, Aretha is a force of nature, so perhaps that's not the best example. Probably isn't. But to get all Tristano-ish about it, there is a difference between "emotion" & "feeling". Too often that distinction is not recognized, and too often easy dismissals are made as a result.

J. Fred Muggs Molly Pitcher Tom Beers

Johnny Spence Skip Spence Four and Twenty Blackbirds

I'll take indignace about "manufactured" pop music seriously when the same people who bitch about it apply the same indignace to movies.

Is it just me, or is there a hint of Boyce & Hart's "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" in the hook to "Momma's Not Coming Home Tonight"? Ah, manufactured pop music. Not to be taken seriously at face value (usually), but a goldmine of riches nevertheless. 50,000,000 Elvis fans indeed can't be wrong, but about what is still open for consideration!

"Venus", yeah. One of those moments in time. Might be insignificant in the overall scheme of things, but how many people live a life and don't even get that much? As fate would have it, I was listening just the other night to the Yukihiro Fukutomi remix of that song on the Soul Source Remixed Fevers and thinking the same thing. Fate is a quirky thing.

That last one puts The Cowsills' version into a whole 'nother light... Would that there was accompanying video.

Jack Daniels Jim Beam Rip Van Winkle

Totally agreed. But you get some people who will insist that Aretha's version is "more soulful", to which I counter that there are all kinds of soul, and that failure to hear/feel/recognize that is indicative of some sort of cultural parochialism which might be understanable given the world in which we live, but which nevertheless must be overcome if we wish to realize the fullness of our humanity, and therefore be able to transcend its limitations.

Do you like Roland Kirk's version more than Aretha Franklin's? Call me crazy, but I like Dionne's version every bit as much as Aretha's, albeit for entirely different reasons. The Warwick/Bachrach partnership was a spiritual thing, if it's allowable to consider the possibility that "suburbia" can be spiritual. And if that's not allowable, then that raises some pretty serious issues...

For how much longer will that box be available? If it's an open-ended thing, then yeah, hold off, if for no other reason than there seems to be a consensus as to what you need to hear before you hear something else . But if it's a limited edition type thing, then I'd not wait too long. You gotta balance the curriculum with the pragmatism.

Again, thank you sir!

The Cramps Buster Crabbe Busta Cherry Jones

Jim, looks like it is an original IC release. Just checked with the jazzdisco.org Archie Shepp - Doodlin' (Inner City IC 1001) Alan Shorter (flh) Archie Shepp (p) Bob Reid (b) Muhammad Ali (d) Paris, France, November, 1970 Sweet Georgia Brown Doodlin' Invitation Worried About You If You Could See Me Now More Than You Know Coral Rock LP was released in 1976. I guess he sold them the tapes. I can't open that discography page. I can't either... Looks like this one might have originally geen done for the "Carson Records, France" thing. That would make sense, given the date & personnel.

I can tell you that it was a division of Music Minus One, and that most of its original releases were of the fusion & vocal variety (Jeff Lorber got his start on thae label), and that there's a very good discography of the label HERE if you can get it to work. I don't think that the Shepp was an IC "original", they licensed from a lot of labels, but I could well be wrong.

Barry Manilow & copasetic? Hmmmm...I'm not that evolved yet... Copasetic:

Sterling Haden Joseph Haydn GoSikh

True, but it's like anything else - the more you do it, the easier it gets. And eventually, you do it without realizing it. Everything's copasetic until you run up against people who can't/don't/haven't/won't. But life goes on, and wasting time on people who can't/don't/haven't/won't is a game for young people who, statistically speaking, have more of it left to waste. And, by any reasonable standard, I've already lived over half of my life, so hey... All I'm saying is that it's a learned behavior for most folks, that the time to start is now, and the time to stop is never. Carpe diem.