Sadly, April finishes as it has mostly been throughout its 30 days: low key. May will be tougher–31 days but only 17 albums on my list to listen to.
Two more albums today that don’t deserve a page in their own right, sadly. I always want these albums to be great, but what can you do?
Open by Blues Image is, for the most part decent quality white blues rock played by a tight, experienced club band. There’s some unfortunate filler in their (La Bamba? really?) but it has its moments. These guys clearly had talent, and they all went on to make a living in the business, and maybe with a different bit of luck or direction they could have been more successful. But Open isn’t my thing.
When you’re James Brown and you already have 27 albums behind you, it must be tough to keep it fresh. On the face of it, Soul On Top, was a good idea: hey, let’s have James record some standards with a big band! It’ll be a smash. And, you know, that isn’t such a bad idea. Brown does a decent job with the vocals, although there are too many places where his natural phrasing doesn’t suit the tune and detracts rather than adds (For Once In My Life, I’m looking at you). It’s all a bit corporate for my liking, and not one I’ll be revisiting.
I found both on Spotify, and the James Brown exists as at least one YouTube playlist.
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