Singer songwriter Chessi O’Dowd has teamed up with Jack Blackman to record a new cover of the Joan Osborne track ‘Pensacola’. O’Dowd, a young performer from Warwickshire, cites Osborne’s 1995 album ‘Relish’ as an important influence, and by teaming up with Blackman – a performer who can count the legendary ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris among his fans – she hopes to bring one of the album’s best tracks to a new audience.
Author Archives: Real Gone
Sea Of Snakes share new video for ‘Ride The Line’
As part of the ongoing promotion for the 2021 EP, US stoner metal band Sea of Snakes have shared a new video clip for ‘Ride The Line’. Although the clip is merely made up from various bits of stock footage, it’s still an effective promotional tool in that it has the potential to attract people who might not typically care for reviews.
Neil Young teases upcoming Crazy Horse and CSN&Y material
There has never been a more exciting – or expensive – time to be a Neil Young fan. The global pandemic has given Young plenty of time for reflection and for going through the archives. The past year has seen release of his ‘Homegrown’ solo album from 1974, a ‘Greendale’ live set, a CD and DVD of an early show (‘Young Shakespeare’), some classic live material with Crazy Horse (‘Way Down In The Rust Bucket’ and the appearance of his long-awaited ‘Archives II’ ten CD set.
JON ANDERSON – Animation
After leaving Yes in 1979 following the tour for their ‘Tormato’ album, Jon Anderson barely rested. Between 1980 and 1982, he split most of his creative time between his own solo projects and collaborations with Greek keyboard virtuoso Vangelis, which brought the vocalist some UK chart success with the commercial new age/synth pop singles ‘I Hear You Now’ and the much-loved ‘I’ll Find My Way Home’. By the summer of 1981 and with the second Jon & Vangelis album ‘The Friends of Mt. Cairo’ having barely hit record shop shelves, Anderson was back in the studio working on the material that was soon to become his third LP ‘Animation’.
Upon release in June 1982, ‘Animation’ was a cult hit among fans, but not especially a commercial success. It marked the first time since the 1960s that Anderson failed to break the top 40 of the UK albums chart, and yielded no hit singles – which might seem weird considering his recent success with Vangelis – but, in all fairness, ‘Animation’ is a really complex animal. On the surface, it’s shiny pop oriented sound and extensive use of the technologies of the era make it appear as if it should’ve been much better received, but closer inspection reveals a sometimes challenging album that often delights in being busy, sometimes for the sake of it, and very occasionally at the expense of obvious hooks. However, it’s one of those albums which, with enough time invested, will eventually present a lot of brilliant material. Some of it is about as singalong as the more excessive bits of ‘Topographic Oceans’, but as is often the case with solo Jon, there’s far more at stake cheeky pop tune.
Howard Jones: A Doll’s House In A Small Street – Inside the ‘In The Running’ Super Deluxe Edition
After a run of synth pop hits, Howard Jones took a musical detour. All artists grow and change, but the bulk of the material on his fifth album ‘In The Running’ (originally released in 1992) presented Jones in a more introspective light. Its ten songs tackled heavyweight subjects like pent up aggression (‘Gun Turned On The World’), mental illness (the self-explanatory ‘The Voices Are Back’) and the need for forgiveness (‘One Last Try’). Musically, his trademark synth pop style was dropped in favour of more of an adult AOR sound, sometimes much closer to Bruce Hornsby, and unfortunately, the UK radio stations seemed less than convinced. The album didn’t yield any massive hits and it subsequently became overlooked by all but the biggest fans.
By the early 2000s, it was much easier to find a copy of ‘In The Running’ from a US cut out bin than anywhere in the UK. A 2012 reissue coupled the album with ‘One To One’ and ‘Cross That Line’ and associated extras, but aside from a cover of Donald Fagen’s ‘IGY’ (released as a single in ’93) it didn’t offer much by way of ‘Running’ era extras. With that in mind, a massive reissue coupling the original album with a wealth of extra period material was something of a necessity. This four disc set from Cherry Red (issued in April 2021) aims to be the last word for ‘In The Running’, since it features a truckload of remixes and extra goodies alongside a DVD where Howard reflects on a much underrated work.