blackleatherbookshelf | Entries tagged with musicians

Oh So Toto
3 Out of 5 Stars

Toto is one of those bands only the late 70's could have produced. Studio cats one and all (they made their bones backing Steely Dan and Boz Scaggs, among others), they were slick, skilled and polished professionals. They made music that was slick, polished, and just as professional. They meshed hooky rock with R'n'B styles, and when they finally hooked up with CBS Records, "Hold The Line" shot to the top five almost instantly. Over the course of seven albums for Columbia and a few since for the CBS Legacy subsidiary, they've made a bevy of hits and walked off with a few Grammys.

The Band's prime was the first four albums, culminating in "Toto IV." Apart from "Hold The Line," it was this album that made the band radio favorites. The singles "Africa" and "Rosanna" are the calling cards from that period, with the songs "Make Believe" and "I Won't Hold You Back" also scoring. By then, though, the band was beginning to splinter. There was a new vocalist for the album "Isolation," and the two singles from that album ("Stranger In Town" and "Holyanna") are left off this compilation. Toto then recruited Joe Williams, the son of John Williams, and scored another pair of hits with "I Won't Hold You Back" and "Pamela." (From the albums "Fahrenheit" and "The Seventh One," respectively.) If a song called "Pamela" would make you think of "Rosanna" (or even "Holyanna), you're right. It's little more than a re-write of the band's biggest hit.

There are three other songs from the albums after; you probably don't need them. Given that the albums "Turn Back" and "Isolation" are ignored for this set, the three later-day songs could have been replaced with selections from two earlier albums, or even an extra selection from "Hydra," the band's most progressive sounding album. ("99" is here, though.) I have also never been fond of "Georgy Porgy," which sounds like a song Boz Scaggs laughed off from "Silk Degrees." These omissions drag this "Essential" collection down to a C Grade/3 Star rating.

Parlour Picking with Richard Thompson
3 Out Of 5 Stars

This is one of those low key efforts by Ricard Thompson, where almost half the songs are just him and his acoustic, telling stories about the down trodden and those whom ultimately will arrive there. "Front Parlour Ballads" is not the album you could use to convert new listeners to Richard's music, as it tends to stay in a mostly dour mind-set and the playing is not the lightening fingered style of Richard at his best.

The only real toe-tapper here is "Let it Blow," a song about a serial husband, which also displays Richard's oft-wicked sense of humor. The remaining cast of characters range from a violent gang of vandals ("The Boys of Mutton Street"), the boy the likely bullies ("When We Were Boys at School") and one of the hooligans grown to become a drab office worker we lives for 'smug little victories' ("A Solitary Life"). As always, the album is also laden with songs of haunted love like "For Whose Sake" and "Precious One," but none to mach such pinnacles as "When The Spell is Broken" or "1952 Vincent Black Lightning."

Overall, "Front Parlour Ballads" (named after Richard's garage studio) is a modestly satisfying record by his own exacting standards. Fans will enjoy, others should looks towards "Action Packed" or "Across a Crowded Room."