🎵 AotW AOTW: Garland Jeffreys - GHOST WRITER (SP-4629)

[LPJim]

Garland Jeffreys
GHOST WRITER
A&M SP-4629

Rough and Ready 2:57
I May Not Be Your Kind 3:46
New York Skyline 3:29
Cool Down Boy 4:04
Ghost Writer 5:39
Lift Me Up 3:28
Who-O 3:38
Wild in the Streets 2:59
35 Millimeter Dreams 3:12
Spanish Town 7:43

Anthony Jackson -bass
John Boudreaux, Randy Brecker, Steve Gadd - drums
Alan Freedman, Sugar Bears - guitar
Hugh McCracken - guitar, harmonica
David Spinozza - guitar, keyboards, producer
Garland Jeffreys - guitar, keyboards, writer
Dr John, Don Grolnick, Leon Pedarvis - keyboards

Rubens Bassini - percussion
Roy Cicala - producer
David Sanborn, Al Cohn, Michael Brecker - sax
Phil Messina - trombone
Burt Collins, Danny Cahn - trumpet
Arnold McCutler, David Lasley, David Peel, James Taylor, Lynn Pitney - vocals

JB

 

[Dave]

Rough and Ready -- A hard-rockin' kick-off track... Ready to finally get out and move mountains, taking on the world after dealing with life's eternal set-backs... Finally emerging as a rough, tough warrior... Love the background vocals by producer/guitar extraordinaire, David Spinozza... (Whom I don't believe has ever been credited on vocals, other than the lead vocal on one of his songs on SPINOZZA* his solo LP...)


I May Not Be Your Kind -- Here is a brave attempt at pushing a ringer for Top-40 Radio, with a Reggae beat... Yes, the pondering of emotions here make this a typical love song, though hardly gaining any affection or even attention from the storyteller's love interest, which he can only muse about, in the balladry of this romantic parable...


New York Skyline -- A decent, decadent parable, about life in Big Apple... Perhaps a return from seeing the world? Or a symbolization of its people, prosperous and brave? Maybe just how iconic it can be in the symbolization of both... The same melody and lyric-pattern made their way into "Keep On Tryin'", on Jeffreys' next album, One Eyed Jack...


Cool Down Boy -- Another rocker done in the "Rough and Ready" mold and typical suburban vs. urban fare... And this time featuring background vocals from James Taylor...


Ghost Writer -- Another radio-ready Reggae ringer... Lots of zippy guitar solos from David Spinozza through-out... And a tense ditty about the tension of never getting credit deserved, when credit, especially from any writer's perspective is due...


Lift Me Up -- Another sort of "protest song" this time starting Side 2... And again, dealing with life's hard knocks... "...Lift me up, higher, and higher, and higher..." And what's the typical mantra in achieving the American Dream of moving up in the world...


Who-O -- This is another Reggae-driven number, and about Garland's own racial identity and those around him... (He is of American-American, Puerto Rican and even European descent) Typically his albums, both this, and those coming, have been built much around this "running theme" have quite a share of Garland's own personal overtones in questioning one's own identity in color, culture and ethnicity and the exposure of such, not to mention the pressures in dealing with a new society, while trying to gain its acceptance and own self-acceptance...


Wild in the Streets -- Only Jeffreys could come up with a catchy as well as very original beat, for this statement definitely not to be confused with the American youth coming of age thriller, WILD IN THE STREETS, the movie with the same title, which makes me think of "The Shape Of Things To Come" by Max Frost and The Troopers...


35 Millimeter Dreams -- Fascination with photography... And a "snapshot song" about favorite snapshots... Even racy pictures...


Spanish Town -- "...I'm gonna eat my rice 'n' beans..., I'm gonna suck on my chili dog..., way down in Spanish Town, in the Spanish fog..." Very much the "answer song" to Spanish Harlem, though no roses growing here, just the plain, simple hard truths of inner-city life and indulging in favorite ethnic-American lunchtime fare... The horn playing and guitar-work (Flamenco on an electric?) really is the high point of this entire album...

A delicious offering and Jeffreys' first (though I believe he made a failed try for Atlantic a few years back, launching off an earlier version of "Wild In The Streets" that never broke through) and such exotic cuisine enjoyed in all the tunes, to whet your appetite for much more to come, on A&M and later, Epic, alike...

Especially Escape Artist, where the racial overtones, protests of "being 2nd-class" and the angsts of inner-city rage are in abundance, and really go to its fullest apogee and highest peak, though not being too obsessive or distracting, eben for his one-track mind... And which I have had the album of on LP, along with the bonus EP...

And I have had the album which followed, the unfortunately coalesced Guts For Love, on which Garland's own personal vision seemed to have finally be condescending and the the album collated itself into an ill-fated disappointment...

Surely, this great album, however, could never be... Garland Jeffreys spews out meaningful insight, both verbal and visionary, while his thoughts are powerful and raging and prophetic, and he's thoughtful, sensitive, insightful, iconoclastic and verbose in his philosophy, as well as entertaining... A&M's Gil Scott-Heron...!



Dave