|
"Born To
Rock" |
| Robert Gordon/Chris Spedding |
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reviewed by DC Larson |
 |
|
This limited-edition, 500-copy collectors release preserves archived live cuts from 1991-1993. Following Robert "The Voice" Gordon's 2 LPs with legend Link Wray, his group's lead guitar spot was filled by English six-string maestro Chris Spedding. In place of Wray's inimitable and monochromatic search and destroy shredding, Chris added a stylistically-multifarious, sensitively-nuanced voice. House rockingly-ebullient, when such was proper, Spedding also was capable of melodic lilt, whispered delicacy. He judiciously intercut rockabilly, blues, and country-twanged enunciations with telescopically-sliding jazz chording. His casual, 'walk in the park' onstage demeanor belied the studious care with which he plied his craft, an artist's heed for detail evident in each string-stroke. (Witness his "Guitar Jamboree.") His resume included a stint with Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, as well as studio production and sideman work. (In that last capacity, he had backed numerous major league talents, like Roger Daltrey and Paul McCartney.) He declined Mick Jagger's 1975 implied offer of a spot in the Stones's post-Mick Taylor line-up. Chris was not the only formidable player present. Joining in were ace drummer Bobby Choinard and bass-master Rob Stoner, themselves longtime and awe-inspiring factors in Robert's band's successes. This line-up, this moment in Robert's career, represented a chronologically-suited re-contextualization of old-school, blast-off rock'n'roll fun. At once familiar and novel, this punk-era neo-rockabilly breathed in bold liveliness and was tethered to no calendar. "Lonesome Train," "Twenty Flight Rock," and "Red Cadillac and A Black Mustache" were recast as edgy and rocketing declarations. Also included here, two of Robert's studio covers generally absent from his live recordings: Leroy Van Dyke's "Walk On By" (which Gordon had covered on his 1979 RCA "Rock Billy Boogie" LP), and "The Worrying Kind," (see 1980's RCA "Bad Boy" disc). Vintage songs familiar to fans, like "The Way I Walk," "You're Undecided," and "Drivin' Wheel," pulsed with a vitality foreign to musty time machinery. Willie Dixon's "My Babe," and Wilson Pickett's "Three Time Loser" strutted with youthful cockiness. Robert has told interviewers of seeing legends like Dixon and Pickett during his DC youth, and of having been influenced by them; one hopes he will in the future assay more such material. ("Robert Rocks the Blues?") And this disc offers a particular distinction. "Robert told me that 'This Little Thing Called Love' is a song that was given to him by songwriter Jerry Williams," promoter and Climate Control co-impressario Arjan Deelen revealed. "Robert performed it at shows between 1988 and '92, but this CD marks the first time that the song has been made available." Which is, in itself, cause aplenty for afficianados to pencil this in on 'must have' lists. ------------------------------------------------- David "DC" Larson is the CD Review Editor for Rockabilly Magazine. His freelance pieces on music have appeared in Goldmine, Rock&Rap Confidential, No Depression, and Blue Suede News. |