A

'70s Holiday Gift Ideas

These recently released CD's and books are sure to please any
Seventies music fan on your shopping list this holiday season.

ABBA - Voyage (Capitol, $12.97) Voyage is ABBA's first new album in 39 years and features their new singles "I Still Have Faith In You," "Don't Shut Me Down" and "Just a Notion," the latter originally written and recorded in the summer of 1978 during the early sessions for ABBA's sixth studio album Voulez-Vous. The 10-track album was recorded by all four ABBA members -- Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid (Frida) Lyngstad, Agnetha Flaskog and Bjorn Ulvaeus -- at Andersson's Riksmixningsverket studio in Stockholm.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND - The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts (Legacy, $34.97) Long touted as among their finest early shows, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed two "No Nukes" benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York on Sept. 21 and 22 of 1979. The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts features 10 performances and full footage of The Boss's entire setlist. Both nights open with a trio of songs from the former and feature then-unreleased songs from the latter, like "Sherry Darling" and "The River," which got its live debut at the "No Nukes" concerts. The film features remixed and remastered audio and was edited from the original 16mm film by longtime Springsteen collaborator Thom Zimny.

THE BEATLES - Let It Be Super Deluxe Edition (Capitol, $117.99) Newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and engineer Sam Okell in stereo, 5.1 surround DTS and Dolby Atmos, Let It Be - Deluxe Edition features 27 previously unreleased session recordings, a four-track "Let It Be" EP and the never-before-released 14-track Get Back stereo LP mix, which was compiled by engineer Glyn Johns in May 1969. A new hardcover book, titled The Beatles: Get Back will also be included with the "super deluxe" editions of Let It Be, with a foreword written by Paul McCartney.

THE ROLLING STONES - Tattoo You Deluxe Edition (Interscope, $123.99) The deluxe reissue of the Stones' 1981 album Tattoo You features the archived tracks "Come To The Ball," "Living In The Heart Of Love," the Jimmy Reed cover "Shame, Shame, Shame," the band's interpretation of Dobie Gray's 1973 hit "Drift Away," their cover of The Chi-Lites' "Trouble's A' Comin," and a reggae-tinged version of Tattoo You's first single, "Start Me Up." The 40th anniversary edition also features a 26-track live album, Still Life: Wembley Stadium 1982, from the band's London show in June of that year on their Tattoo You tour.

ELTON JOHN - The Lockdown Sessions (Interscope, $11.99) More than 20 artists feature on Elton's highly anticipated new record, an unprecedented call-out across the Rocket Man's career. The album boasts a line-up that includes the likes of Stevie Wonder, Miley Cyrus, Stevie Nicks and the late Glen Campbell. The album spans 16 tracks, including 10 new, unreleased numbers, with the rock superstar dipping his toe in a little bit of everything, from pure pop nostalgia ("Cold Heart" with Dua Lipa & PNAU) to soul ("Finish Line" with Wonder) to hip-hop ("Always Love You" with Young Thug & Nicki Minaj) to Americana ("Simple Things" with Brandi Carlile).

DAVID BOWIE - David Bowie 5: Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) (Warner Music Group, $137.99) One of the holy grails of David Bowie fandom, Toy is Bowie's legendary unreleased 2001 album and is included in the new 11-CD box set David Bowie 5: Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001), a survey of The Thin White Duke's recordings from 1992-2001. The Toy collection was shelved and instead Bowie released the anxious collection Heathen in 2002. The Toy collection, which also includes previously unreleased versions of Bowie's "Karma Man" and "Silly Boy Blue," will also be available separately in 2022 in 3-CD or 6x10" vinyl formats, with a 16-page, full-color book featuring previously unseen photographs by Frank Ockenfels.

ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS - Raise The Roof (Rounder, $12.79) Fourteen years after their Grammy-winning collaboration Raising Sand, Led Zeppelin icon Robert Plant and country singer Alison Krauss are releasing a sequel, Raise the Roof. Like its predecessor, it consists of covers made famous by acts such as Merle Haggard, the Everly Brothers and Allen Toussaint. "High And Lonesome," the one original on the set, is co-written by Plant and returning producer T Bone Burnett.

PAUL McCARTNEY - The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present (Liveright, $79.99) Paul McCartney's new book recounts the legendary musician's life through his earliest boyhood compositions, songs by the Beatles and Wings, and from his lengthy solo career. Arranged alphabetically to provide a kaleidoscopic rather than chronological account, The Lyrics establishes definitive texts of the songs' lyrics for the first time and describes the circumstances in which they were written, the people and places that inspired them, and what Sir Paul thinks of them now.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND BARACK OBAMA - Renegades: Born In The USA (Crown, $30.00) Renegades: Born In The USA sees the famous rock star and the famous ex-President talking about race issues, the state of the country and the influence their fathers had on their upbringing. In a recent interview, Pres. Obama revealed that he and Springsteen often ran into each other at events, and their conversations would frequently stray to topics about their personal origins and what it means to be an American citizen. Spanning 320 pages, Renegades: Born in the U.S.A. captures those conversations between the rock legend and the 44th U.S president, and features more than 350 color photos, illustrations, and never-before-seen archival content.

STEVIE VAN ZANDT - Unrequited Infatuations: A Memoir (Hachette Books, $18.99) E Street Band member Stevie Van Zandt's new autobiography digs beneath the surface of his music, evolving into something extraordinarily rich and complex. It's part Rock 'n' Roll history lesson, part political thriller, part revelatory dive into the brotherhood of a band. His best friend Springsteen has described the memoir as "An inimitable Rock 'n' Roll life told as boldly as it was lived. From the stages of the biggest stadiums in the world to the politically roiling provinces of South Africa, my good friend pursued his Rock 'n' Roll vision with a commitment few have displayed. A must read for E Street Band fans and Rock fans the world over."

'Smooth' Operator

Santana's latest collaborative effort visits many genres, but succeeds with few.

By Marc Hirsh in Entertainment Weekly

Santana
Blessings And Miracles
ROCK (BMG)

ore than 50 years ago Carlos Santana and his namesake band set Woodstock on fire with the smoldering "Soul Sacrifice." Two songs into his new album Blessings and Miracles, the mystically minded guitarist offers up another Latin-rock jam, "Santana Celebration." The yawning gap between the young, urgent seeker of days gone by and the elder statesman of now can be gleaned from the titles of these two songs: One is about the abandonment of ego in the pursuit of a higher calling. The other is about propping the artist up on a pedestal to be venerated as a legend.

With the death in 2020 of "Black Magic Woman" songwriter Peter Green, Santana, 74, may be the last in a line of musical heroes mining the cosmic consciousness of the 1960s. And there are times when it seems he's transcended human form to become a sentient guitar tone. So the self-aggrandizement of "Santana Celebration" by itself should be a damning indictment of a musician whose brand is deeply enmeshed in the ineffable. (It's no coincidence that Santana's most gargantuanly successful album was called Supernatural). But the song turns out to be more of a fake-out, given how often the legendary guitarist seems to be the weakest link on his own album.

Take "Move," for example, which reunites Santana with Rob Thomas more than two decades after "Smooth" became utterly inescapable to anyone within broadcast distance of a radio station. Even for those who got sick of that song, "Move" moves, with a toughness in Thomas' voice and a driving groan that makes their latest collaboration lean back. Meanwhile, Santana himself simply winds his guitar around the singer, filling space. Likewise, a Steve Winwood-sung cover of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" is intriguing enough to wish for a version that keeps Winwood's vocals and loses Santana over-punctuating sweet nothings. And with Living Colour's Corey Glover delivering the album's most powerful vocal, the fiercely spirited "Peace Power" gets by with or without the man whose name is above the title.

Other collaborations fail to spark. Santana and Metallica's Kirk Hammett should be an inspired pairing of two generations of San Francisco six-string royalty, but "America for Sale" is a brainless protest with dull howlings by Mark Osegueda of Death Angel. "She's Fire" brings together rapper G-Eazy and songwriting royalty Diane Warren for a song notable only for being brazenly derivative enough to mash up "Maria Maria" and "Put Your Lights On." Country singer Chris Stapleton's "Joy," on the other hand, is merely unremarkable, profoundly misusing Stapleton's considerable presence.

But there are a few signs of life throughout, such as "Breathing Underwater," featuring Stella Santana, and "Angel Choir/All Together," which features the late Chick Corea and runs closer to Latin jazz than rock. And while the fierce rhythm of "Mother Yes" sounds so much like Hendrix that you'd swear it was Lenny Kravitz, there's that classic tone again, unmistakably Santana.

Even so, the parade of guests that turns his latest collaborative album (he dropped one in 2017, with the Isely Brothers) into a semi-cynical ploy to reach every audience demographic at once does its darnedest to sideline the man who's supposed to be the star. That Santana can still impose his stamp on a solid handful of tracks is absolutely worth celebrating. That he's unable to grab the spotlight on the rest of Blessings and Miracles offers a hit of what he's sacrificed along the way. Grade: C  

 Reader's Comments

No comments so far, be the first to comment.