Introduction

DAWN EXPLOSION (1977)
1) Do Or Die; 2) Icarus; 3) Sweet Dreams; 4) Fantasy; 5) Breath Of Fire: A Speck Within A Sphere; 6) Breath Of Fire: Alone In The Cosmos; 7) If You Please; 8) Midnight Memories; 9) Space Interlude; 10) Oblivion; 11) Space Reprise.
They should probably have retitled the band «Beyond Captain» for this one. Apparently, by 1976 most of the original members found themselves with nothing to do, and decided to have another shot — all except Rod Evans, who went into respiratory therapy instead (giving a whole new meaning to the words "Hush! Hush!"). So Caldwell, Dorman, and Reinhardt had to find them­selves a new vocalist. His name was Willy Daffern, he came from nowhere in particular (I think he worked for The Standells a bit in the late 1960s), and he sucked.
Well, maybe not «sucked», precisely, but he belonged to the same cohort of loud-mouthed, text­bookishly «soulful», pompous (white) vocalists that also included David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes, Lou Gramm, miriads of them — at least Rod Evans never pretended to operatic qualities, and he had a somewhat somber and humble tone that worked well with the band's loud music, whereas this guy has no subtlety whatsoever, even if in terms of range and technique he might have been slightly better qualified than Evans.
Most of the complaints about Dawn Explosion, however, are usually targeted not against the vocalist, but against the music — this is just hard rock without any progressive ambitions, the fans complain, and the record's intelligence quotient falls way below acceptable standards. I find these accusations a bit too far-fetched: for sure, there's a lot of hard rock riffage here, but it's not as if they turned into Thin Lizzy or AC/DC overnight. There are multi-part suites here, too, and soulful ballads, and psychedelic interludes, and even a jazz-fusion instrumental. And even the hard rock numbers are not aggressive, but rather celebratory, just as they used to be. There's no attempt here to reorient the band in another direction — there is an attempt to make it somewhat adapt to the times, with «arena-rock» overtones, but the basic combination of heaviness, psyche­delia, and pop instincts remains intact.
The main problem remains the same — the songs are just not good enough to warrant an auto­nomous existence in some personalized VIP cell inside your brain; and coupled with the issue of a new and annoying vocalist, and especially if placed in the context of 1977 with its major changes of musical aesthetics, Dawn Explosion cannot help being somewhat disappointing. I like the riffs — ʽFantasyʼ kicks ass through all of its six minutes (although they probably shouldn't have been ripping off Deep Purple's ʽBloodsuckerʼ), and the opening riff of the ʽBreath Of Fireʼ suite is like a respectable gentleman's take on Aerosmith's ʽWalk This Wayʼ, and ʽIf You Pleaseʼ sounds as if it were inspired by the Beatles circa 1965 — but I do not find them sufficiently in­spired or original to last a long time beyond basic operative memory.
Overall, if you do not mind the vocals, the entire record is perfectly listenable, and Reinhardt's soloing on ʽFantasyʼ, the power ballad ʽMidnight Memoriesʼ, and the second part of the ʽBreath Of Fireʼ suite is genuinely ecstatic-emotional. (ʽOblivionʼ, curiously enough, sounds very close to the jazz-hard-rock of Gary Moore's G-Force, which Daffern would be briefly joining a couple years from then). As far as «old school rock» from the first years of New Wave is concerned, Dawn Explosion is nowhere near the fat bottom of the list. But it is doubtful that a record like this could drag even a single young fan away from New Wave's fresh appeal. Naturally, it sold very little, and the band found itself falling apart once again in 1978.
ADDENDA
FAR BEYOND A DISTANT SUN (1973; 2002)
1) Intro/Distant Sun; 2) Dancing Madly Backwards (On A Sea Of Air); 3) Amworth; 4) Myopic Void; 5) Drifting In Open Space; 6) Pandora's Box; 7) Thousand Days Of Yesterdays; 8) Frozen Over; 9) Rhino Guitar Jam; 10) Mesmerization Eclipse; 11) Stone Free.
So brief and turbulent was the age of Captain Beyond that they pretty much forgot to leave behind the principal qualification proof of a genuine prog-rock / hard-rock ensemble of the 1970s, and you know what that is, don't you? For a long time, the only semi-officially endorsed product, distributed through their fan club, was Frozen Over, a bootleg recorded at the University of Texas in Arlington on October 6, 1973, when the band toured as a support act for King Crimson, no less, promoting their freshly released second album. Eventually a shortened and reshuffled version got an official CD release under the title of Far Beyond A Distant Sun (in 2002), and finally, in 2013, the complete show was released as Live In Texas on the Purple Pyramid label, specializing in cleaning out the vaults of various semi-forgotten Seventies' acts.
There is no doubt that the band could put on a good show — in fact, they play for almost as long as King Crimson themselves played on that same night, and I don't think Mr. Fripp would have allowed that if they sucked. The problem is the sound quality — the show may have been recorded by stage-placed equipment rather than from the audience, but there are no signs of mixing consoles, and although the results are technically listenable, they can only be recommen­ded to non-audiophile fans of the band. (For the record, there is another, an even larger, 2-CD re­lease on the same label called Live Anthology, with selections from live shows in 1971, 1972, and 1977, but I haven't got that one and cannot say if the sound quality is generally any better. Could be at least partially, because some of the recordings are from Montreux '71, some memories of which survived even in the form of decent video footage).
Anyway, (major) sound problems aside, this seems to be a representative and generally satis­factory portrait of the band at their peak. The studio recordings are not particularly improved or «muscularized» in a live setting, but the band is capable of retaining all the psychedelic colors and reproducing all the technically challenging grooves and instrumental flourishes (like Larry's cute «bumble-bee» bit on ʽDrifting In Open Spaceʼ, for instance — too bad his guitar keeps jum­ping in and out of the mix). Also, they don't have a keyboard player on stage, so all the keyboard parts are replaced by guitars — remember how I complained about the lack of a kick-ass guitar solo on ʽDriftingʼ in its studio incarnation? Well now, the song has a totally kick-ass guitar solo, as do many others. Too bad it all sounds so shitty.
There's quite a few surprise elements appearing throughout the show, but they're questionable. ʽPandora's Boxʼ is a lengthy mood-setting soundscape, slow, quiet, with minimalistic, almost ambient guitar serving as a backdrop for Evans' boring poetic monologue. Rhino's ʽGuitar Jamʼ is disappointing: the man is a very capable guitarist, but this here «jam» is largely just a test for one of his guitar tones — seems like some kind of an early talkbox, but it sounds as if he just disco­vered it and is testing its possibilities rather than intentionally using it for any specific purpose. ʽMesmerization Eclipseʼ starts out okay, but then transforms into a 15-minute drum solo: and, okay, Bobby Caldwell was a good drummer, but he did not have either the jazz versatility of Ginger Baker or the superhuman crashing power of John Bonham to deserve a 15-minute drum solo (actually, not even Baker or Bonham deserved a 15-minute drum solo). They do close the show with a Hendrix cover (ʽStone Freeʼ) that is almost unexpectedly good — I mean, these days there's absolutely no reason to listen to it, but it turns out that Rhino could offer a pretty decent imitation of Jimi for those who still yearned for a live Hendrix-style sound in the early 1970s. So it all just goes to show that, just like in the studio they had enough ideas and good taste to qualify as a solid B-level prog outfit, so did they have their excessive misses and undeniable successes on stage: not a great band with an unmatchable vision, but a good one with real talent to burn. Too bad they did not have the opportunity to leave us a sonically worthy memento of that (live) goodness.

CAROLE KING

WRITER (1970)
1) Spaceship Races; 2) No Easy Way Down; 3) Child Of Mine; 4) Goin' Back; 5) To Love; 6) What Have You Got To Lose; 7) Eventually; 8) Raspberry Jam; 9) Can't You Be Real; 10) I Can't Hear You No More; 11) Sweet Sweet­heart; 12) Up On The Roof.
Popular perception of Carole King: Nice lady composer, wrote some cool hits for (mostly) Afro-American singers in the Sixties, then sang most of them herself in 1971 on her only album Tapestry, spent the rest of her time living somewhere in California raising a family and stuff. It was so nice of the President, too, to get her out for the Kennedy Center Awards in 2015, where she spent most of the time smiling at Afro-American performers singing Tapestry almost in its entirety. Oh yes, and she's besties with James Taylor, too. They sing ʽYou've Got A Friendʼ to­gether and all that. Was he there at the ceremony as well? He must have been.
There is little reason to doubt, of course, that Tapestry is King's highest point, just out of sheer consistency, but somehow the popularity of that record has eclipsed everything else — most im­portantly, that for a short, but significant period in the early 1970s, Carole King was one of the leading figures in America's «singer-songwriter» movement. In the 1960s, she had neither the self-confidence nor the proper opportunity to emerge as a self-sufficient artist in her own rights: her voice was considered weak, her looks were way too unglamorous, and her «stage image» was non-existent. But as standards began to shatter and shift, and as a small, but stable market de­mand was formed for «sincerity» and «integrity», Carole finally took the opportunity to go public — an opportunity made easier by her divorce from husband-lyricist Gerry Goffin and subsequent relo­cation to California — and, after an unsuccessful attempt at working within the framework of an actual band («The City», whose only album will be taken care of in an appendix), finally emerged as a solo recording artist in 1970.
On Writer, she is backed by the same musicians who formed «The City» (Charles Larkey on bass and Danny Kortchmar on guitars), with the addition of a couple keyboardists, drummer Joel O'Brien, and some backing vocalists. With two exceptions, no new songs were written for the record — almost everything is credited to Goffin/King, as the lady is struggling to take back possession of all the hits, semi-hits, and non-hits that she earlier wrote for other people; only a very few of these tunes come from the vaults, like the album opener ʽSpaceship Racesʼ, which I do not think was covered by anybody prior to this release (although one year later it was success­fully covered by folk-rocker Tom Northcott). However, it's not as if we could or should blame her for this decision — imagine, say, a Bob Dylan prevented from releasing his greatest songs under his own name for more than half a decade, and having to watch helplessly as The Byrds and Manfred Mann reap all the glory!..
Anyway, most people's reaction to Writer will probably depend on what they value most about art — deep feeling and sincerity or immaculate professionalism. When you listen to ʽUp On The Roofʼ as performed by The Drifters, and then compare it to this version, the difference is striking: the 1962 recording is bouncier, the brass and string overdubs perfectly emphasize all the vocal hooks, and although lead vocalist Rudy Lewis was no Clyde McPhatter or Ben E. King, his tech­nical abilities were still way above Carole's weak, trembling nasal delivery. But on the other hand, for The Drifters singing the song was just business — the 1962 tune had one overriding purpose, to make a shiny optimistic statement to brighten the record buyer's day, and everything there, including the fantastic string solo, is focused on that statement. For Carole, though, the song is much more than that — it is a psychological tour-de-force, a confession of shyness, lonerism, and humility where "there's room enough for two", but there most definitely wouldn't be enough room for three or more (which is why entrusting the song to a vocal band was an odd decision in the first place, ensuring that its full potential could never be realized). And in this context, her vocals are a perfect match for her personality as expressed in the song — as long as she does not hit any bum notes or anything, the «weakness» of the voice emerges as the strength of the song, and I'll take King's version over The Drifters without blinking an eye.
On the whole, there isn't a single true clunker on Writer, because of the awesomeness of Carole's backlog — and there's another point, too, which speaks very much in its favor: compared to later, post-Tapestry albums, which would lean too far in the direction of corny sentimentality and mushy MOR arrangements, Writer has a bit of a rock bite to it. After all, ʽSpaceship Racesʼ does open with a distorted electric guitar lick and is ruled over by an intense, almost hard-rocking bass line — not to mention a sarcastic, almost sneering vocal delivery as the singer jabs her imaginary boyfriend for "spinning around in a Busby swirl" and "living off dreams stored up in film cans": it's almost like a feminist reversal of some typical Rolling Stones misogynist slam, and we get to see a cool rational angle of somebody who, not so long ago, was "made to feel like a natural woman", probably by the exact same guy who she now wants to "take to the Spaceship Races".
Another forgotten, but totally real highlight is ʽRaspberry Jamʼ, one of the two compositions that were specially made for the album with the lyrical participation of Toni Stern. It is not so much a pop song as it is a jazzy waltz whose title is a pun — the mid-section is a jam, with brief guitar and keyboard improvisations; certainly not a masterpiece of jazz-pop, but a very nice, moody, soothing piece of music all the same, and I am very glad it's there, because it introduces an ele­ment of complete spontaneity — breaking away from the image of Carole King as a calculated, smoothly running hit machine. She would rarely, if ever, allow anything like that on her records again (probably because she rightfully felt improvisational music would not be playing to her major strengths), but there's nothing like a little extra freedom of flight for somebody who is only just beginning to secure one's position as an independent artist.
Elsewhere, she bravely recaptures her own subtlety from The Byrds (ʽGoin' Backʼ) and Bobby Vee (ʽSweet Sweetheartʼ, one of her catchiest upbeat pop-rockers); shows great depth of feeling on the ultra-slow soul ballad ʽNo Easy Way Downʼ; and flashes a bit of idealistic political creed on the equally slow folk ballad ʽEventuallyʼ, all of which, as far as I'm concerned, are every bit as poignant and memorable as almost anything on Tapestry. Top prize, however, goes to ʽChild Of Mineʼ, a McCartney-style piano ballad (or would it rather be accurate to call all McCartney piano ballads Carole King-style? he did take quite a few songwriting lessons from the lady in his youth, you know) that extols the joys of motherhood with endearing and totally disarming sim­plicity — and just a small, barely noticeable, drop of melancholy and lonerism in the "oh yes, sweet darling, so glad you are a child of mine" refrain, a drop that is still enough to wrench the song out of the generic corny ballpark and put it in the realm of true artistry (although we could certainly live without the tune being appropriated by hundreds of people on YouTube who just want to use it as a background for photos of their toddlers).
All in all, there may not be enough «cumulative hit power» on Writer to match the impact of Tapestry, but in all honesty, owning a copy of the latter without complementing it with a copy of the former should be considered a gross violation of the ethical code (on RateYourMusic, for in­stance, Tapestry currently features 168 user reviews, while Writer is graced with a measly four: imagine the same proportion for, say, Revolver vs. Rubber Soul, and share my indignation). As far as singer-songwriter albums from 1970 are concerned, this is one of the strongest, and it does have the distinction of positioning Carole King as an independent, self-sufficient solo artist in her own right, taking back what's hers and, even more importantly, bridging the gap between com­mercial pop of the corporate Brill Building variety and introspective musical artistry (whereas with Tapestry, you could say she actually took a few steps back towards the Brill Building as such). In any case, my verdict is a very, very strong thumbs up — and if we all really respected woman artists as much as we claim to do, I'm sure somebody would have the guts to play a 15-minute version of ʽRaspberry Jamʼ for President Obama at the Kennedy Center ceremony.
TAPESTRY (1971)
1) I Feel The Earth Move; 2) So Far Away; 3) It's Too Late; 4) Home Again; 5) Beautiful; 6) Way Over Yonder; 7) You've Got A Friend; 8) Where You Lead; 9) Will You Love Me Tomorrow; 10) Smackwater Jack; 11) Tapestry; 12) (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.
I think that ʽI Feel The Earth Moveʼ is probably the single greatest Carole King song in existence. Inarguably, it is her most rocking tune — for all the softness of the arrangement, it rocks really, really hard: the syncopated piano/bass rhythm creates unbelievably strong tension, usually re­served for songs that tell stories about how bad it all goes, rather than declarations of sincere passion. It's one of those "love is a drug and I need to score" moments, even if Carole herself might not necessarily mean it that way, but from the opening chords and through all the instru­mental breaks it sounds like she's crying for help — "I just lose control, down to my very soul" should at the very least be addressed to a psychiatrist, if not a police officer. The only «tender» part of the song is the "oh darling, when you're near me..." bridge, but it offers merely a few brief moments of relaxed tenderness before the shivers start again. (There's a somewhat similar func­tion of the bridge section in ʽWhile My Guitar Gently Weepsʼ, I think). The similarity between the wobbling rhythm and an actual earthquake has been commented upon plenty — but what is really thrilling is this equation of loving feeling with a panic attack, always a refreshing way to revisit the age-old subject.
And that is just the first song on what is unquestionably Carole King's masterpiece — like I said, reducing all of Carole King to Tapestry is humiliating, yet there is no question that this record and no other has (a) the highest concentration of unbeatable pop hooks and (b) some of the grit­tiest, least cliched-sentimental moments in C. K. history. Every song here is at least good, most of them are great, and the lady really shows those mushy singer-songwriters the gold standard, al­though few of them ever came close — James Taylor and Carly Simon only wish they could have even one LP as consistent as Tapestry. In part, this is due to Carole still milking her backlog (ʽNatural Womanʼ, ʽWill You Love Me Tomorrowʼ), but this time, more than half of the songs are newly written, and they still show the songwriter at the top of her game.
At least James Taylor is said to have been the reason for ʽIt's Too Lateʼ, written after Carole's breakup with the fellow (she still got a friend, but something inside has died anyway). The song eventually overtook ʽI Feel The Earth Moveʼ in radio popularity, possibly because its emotional scope is simpler and more easily understandable, but «simpler», in this case, means «even more sincere»: it's a good example of the Big Breakup Song that, instead of blowing the sad aspects of what's happened up to ridiculously disproportional heights, simply puts an equation sign between the tragic and the mundane. The verses are quiet, introspective Latin jazz with one small drop of melancholia — the chorus is uptempo pop that says it like it is ("something inside has died" is de­livered as if the "something inside" were a dead gerbil), but leaves the melancholia droplet in the chord change on the "I can't hide and I just can't fake it" bit. It's a quiet, dignified farewell where the protagonist bares just a tiny spot of emotion, and your imagination does the rest.
The album is not «conceptual» as such, but its title, and the first line of the title track — "my life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue" — is quite telling, because it has such a wide emotional spectrum. Optimism here, pessimism there, love confession on the right, breakup lament on the left — selfless sacrificial devotion of ʽWhere You Leadʼ replaced with the tormenting self-doubt of ʽWill You Love Me Tomorrowʼ, anguish and desperation of ʽHome Againʼ adjacent to the martial optimism of ʽBeautifulʼ; and in the middle of it all, just so you don't end up bored with all the love songs, comes an Elton John-ian (think Tumbleweed Connection) joke-pop-epic ʽSmack­water Jackʼ that advocates for gun control, justice, and lynch mobs in the most upbeat manner possible (Carole King was never much about American history or politics, which is probably why I find it so fun when she writes a song on one of these subjects). Anyway, the best thing about all these changing moods is how it all rings true — the melodies, the arrangements (heavy on piano and guitars, very moderate on strings), and especially the voice, technically flawed in any genre but capable of expression in any of them, be it folk, pop, gospel, or rock.
At the end of it all, the little woman experiences such a leap of confidence that she even sets out to reclaim ʽ(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Womanʼ from the clutches of Aretha — and in a way, she is better suited to sing the song than Aretha ever was: Aretha sang it like a powerhouse, which was somewhat at odds with the decidedly «anti-feminist» nature of the song — Carole sings it the way she originally intended, a song of... well, let's be kind and say of gratitude (not of submission, much as any militant feminist would probably like to condemn lines like "if I make you happy I don't need to do more"), and it also fits in well with the similar message of ʽWhere You Leadʼ. Both takes are classic, but the readings are very different, and my personal preferen­ces lie with Carole's (the same way I usually prefer Dylan's originals over covers that are more elaborate technically, but may easily miss all the ambiguous subtleties).
It's all a kind of sonic magic, of course — if I ever saw "you got to get up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world all the love in your heart" linked to in a Facebook post, I'd be hit­ting the Unfollow option faster than you could share, but when I hear it sung at the begin­ning of ʽBeautifulʼ, I can't actually help smiling: I mean, I might be doomed forever already, but here's a person that clearly believes what she sings, and even if she does not precisely practice what she preaches, the strong determination in this song — coming from such an obviously weak body — is admirable. As is, well, just about everything about this record, including even its front cover: fat tabby cats (especially when they're called Telemachus, adding either a Homeric or a Joycian note to the proceedings, you choose) agree very nicely with sweaters, bare feet, self-stitched tapestries, and showing the world all the love in your heart. Thumbs up.
MUSIC (1971)
1) Brother, Brother; 2) It's Going To Take Some Time; 3) Sweet Seasons; 4) Some Kind Of Wonderful; 5) Surely; 6) Carry Your Load; 7) Music; 8) Song Of Long Ago; 9) Brighter; 10) Growing Away From Me; 11) Too Much Rain; 12) Back To California.
The major problem with Music, as it is, in fact, with most of Carole's subsequent output, is that it is simply much too mellow. Tapestry struck a perfect balance between softness and toughness: ʽI Feel The Earth Moveʼ actually rocked, ʽBeautifulʼ was a real power anthem, ʽWhere You Leadʼ had uplifting energy, and ʽSmackwater Jackʼ was a ridiculously fun stomper of a throwaway, cle­verly sandwiched in between the ballads. Conversely, with Music Carole upsets the balance: as good as any individual song here is (and most are really good), the album overdoses on tender sweetness, and even though, by inertia, it also rose to No. 1 in the charts, sales would be nowhere near as strong as Tapestry's — and today, the record, along with the entirety of Carole's ensuing career, is comfortably forgotten.
Which is unjust, because if taken in small doses, Music gives you exactly the same Carole King: a talented composer, an honest and emotional singer, and an adorable human being. At this point, she is pretty much running out of oldies to cover («re-cover»?): the only such oldie here is the old Drifters' hit ʽSome Kind Of Wonderfulʼ, predictably re-introverted from the Drifters' luxuriously extravert performance, but not necessarily a highlight on this album — in fact, two minutes into the song it becomes a lazy, pleasant lullaby, putting you to sleep with its tasteful, but generic singer-songwriterish arrangement (two criss-crossed acoustic guitars, piano, silky bass, congas, pretty girl backing vocals, the works).
She is still capable of upbeat pop — ʽSweet Seasonsʼ, smartly enough released as a single, is the bounciest and catchiest tune of the lot here, and it should be able to put a smile on your face as easily as anything on Tapestry; the falsetto twirl on the "...like a sailboat a-sailin' on the sea" is marvelously head-spinning, and the entire band seems energized (listen to Charles Larkey really «sailing» on his bass during the fade-out). ʽBrighterʼ seems a little cornier, and its happy beat is like a preview of the nonchalant disco attitude of the mid-Seventies, but that does not take away the catchiness of the chorus or the delight at more of Larkey's impressive bass zoops. And I won­der if the lady herself realized, consciously or unconsciously, that her ʽBack To Californiaʼ was stylistically and musically ripping off the Beatles' ʽGet Backʼ — right down to the message, as now, instead of "Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona, for some California grass", we have "take me to the West Coast, daddy, and let me be where I belong"? The tempo, the beat, the banging piano chords, the electric piano solo... coincidence? Can't be. But cool tune anyway.
The majority of Music is, however, quite mellow... well, actually, even the upbeat songs are mellow, because she simply refuses this time around to let anger, nervous tension, or depression into the pic­ture: sadness, yes, but always colored with optimism. The most unusual song is ʽBrother, Brotherʼ, which seems to have been written under the influence of, and maybe even as an indirect response to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On — a piece of slightly funky soul with a message of feeling one with the (presumably Afro-American) underdog: for some reason, though, it does not work too well, perhaps because she is trying too hard to write and sing in somebody else's style rather than her own — but surely we can appreciate the gesture. There's also the title track, a waltzy continuation of the soft jazz jamming she'd already explored on ʽRaspberry Jamʼ, but again a little more mellow and a little too relying on a rather boring sax solo this time.
As for the ballads, they suffer from sharing precisely the same type of arrangement over and over again (acoustic guitars, piano, bass, congas or soft percussion), even if choruses for ʽGrowing Away From Meʼ and ʽCarry Your Loadʼ are as catchy as anything she'd ever done. The big mis­fire, however, is ʽSurelyʼ, a slow, ponderous, meandering soul jam that seems to take ʽNatural Womanʼ as its starting point, but fails to provide a proper build-up or climax; Aretha, perhaps, could make the song come alive with a big booming delivery, but Carole's vocal powers are not enough to compensate for the lack of interesting melody.
Still, the record gets a thumbs up anyway, because all the main ingredients of King's magic are here — she has forgotten a few of them, but at least the arrangements never take away from her disarming humanity, and I can even stand the James Taylor duet on ʽSong Of Long Agoʼ (al­though only barely so). If you are an admirer of the balladeering side of the lady, do not pass this by: Music has plenty of soul-baring introspection that cannot be spoiled by generic soft-rock arrangements. But do not, indeed, expect another installment of Tapestry.