That'll be the Day (Soundtrack):

Various Artists. Columbia. Reviewed by David Maclennan.

The film "That'll be the Day" is Britain's answer to "American Graffiti". It stars the likes of Ringo Starr, David Essex. Keith Moon and Billy Fury, and if it's half as good as "Graffiti" it should be quite something.

What I have before me is a double album compilation of songs that appear in the film. Three sides are genuine golden oldies, and the fourth side consists of new material written (I presume) for the film, and performed by artists such as Billy Fury, Viv Stanshall, and David Essex ("Rock On"). This fourth side is mediocre to say the most, and is best ignored. The other three sides — first class.

Any oldies compilation containing original versions of hits by the Everly Brothers and Little Richard just cannot fail, and this album contains no less than four classic Everly's songs (Bye Bye Love, Till I Kissed You, Devoted to You and Wake Up Little Suzy) and for Little Richard, Tutti Frutti; collector's items, one and all.

And there are many other great songs on this album, e.g. Dion's "Runaround Sue," Johhny Tillotson's "Poetry in Motion", Larry Williams' classic "Bony Moronic", "Honeycombe" by Jimmy Rogers, "At the Hop" by Danny and the juniors, and of course, the title track, "That'll be the Day" — but you can forget this, as its the Bobby Vee/Crickets version, not the Buddy Holly/Crickets one (ditto for "Well All Right"). Anyhow, these are readily available on the Buddy Holly "Rock 'n' Roll Collection" album.

Three of the most pleasant tracks for me are "I Love How You Love Me" by the Paris Sisters (romantics will love it), the charming "Born Too Late" by the Poni-Tails, a classic one-hit-wonder from 1957, and "Sealed With A Kiss", by Brian Hyland — a classic early '60 pop.

As I see it, the present Rock 'n' Roll Revival is motivated not so much by a desire to revive the music — this is only the visible side of it — as by a desire, unfortunately impossible to revive the whole 50's scene. This was before Vietnam, before drugs, before Northern Ireland, before Dylan, before Nixon and Watergate — in short, before all the shit that ails society in the 70s. People are subconsciously sick of the decadence of the 70s, and yearn for a simpler life-style — such as the 50s seem to us now. Doubtless the people who are turning on to these old sounds wouldn't readily see this as a reason for their interest in the music, but I feel that this is the underlying motive, Pop music is a mirror of the times one lives in, and if you compare the lyrics of some of the songs from the rock 'n' roll era to some of what's around now (e.g. Bowie, Lou Reed), it becomes strikingly obvious just how different it was then. And why people want to bring it all back.

Anyway, "That'll be the Day" is a fine compilation album, and were it not for side four, it would be as good as the "American Graffiti" LP, still the best oldies compilation available.

Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy: Return to Forever:

featuring Chick Corea (Polydor) Reviewed by Richard Best.

Take it or leave it, there's a definite vacant lot somewhere in my head.

Where others nestle folks like Eddie Harris, Gary Burton, Herbie Hancock et al. in carefully allocated brain pockets, the word that has most to do with the aforementioned — jazz — is like salt in tea to my mind.

For all that, and obediently nodding one's head to those in-the-know who would say that Chick Corea has more to do with modern jazz than pop, I give you CC's Return to Forever which has more to do with out-of-the-mainstream rock than pop. Or jazz.

Actually, Tony Williams' Lifetime sounded more like jazz to the untrained ear and that band's half-a-dozen albums of straight excess, so Ralph Gleason writes, were more a marriage of rock and somethin or other than jazz.

So what the mickey looloo is Chick Corea playing at?

McLaughlinese, precisely, and if I am the seventeenth to state thus, apologies but the comparisons really are quite apparent.

The lighter side of the affairs is in Corea's unblushing theft from McLaughlin of all that shimmering intensity and its final transformation into Heavy without the God bog-down, and musical less McLaughlin's unstoppable just for complexity.

Even with Return to Forever's tricky-dick attitude to stuid work — where they plug in every available gimmick and more — and some grating time changes. "Galaxy" is the first truly listenable "progressive" record since "The Yes Album". And that was in 1971.

Oh, and it's relatively Cosmic — if you need it.

Now We Are Six:

Steeleye Span. Reviewed by Brian King.

Forty-odd minutes, ten tracks full of wonderful electric whimsy from English folk-lore bandits Steeleye Span. Gentle reader, be warned! Gone is the characteristic sea-side shanty, the emblematic wooden-legged sailor: Steeleye Span have taken to the woods. "Now We Are Six", the latest album, is populated with elves and sprites.

The track titles read like a kindergarten primer: 'Thomas The Rhymer', "Two Magicians', 'Seven Hundred Elves', "The Mooncoin Jig' .. and the lyrics are a kind of Little Red Schoolbook for under-fives. 'Seven Hundred Elves' for instance: a song straight from Brothers Grim, about militant elves:

'Seven hundred elves from out the Wood/ tired and grim (?) they were, down to the farmers house they went/his meat and drink to share....." and sounding like 'Volunteers' by Jefferson Airplane.

Steeleye Span are as authentic as old English leather: their music is for the most part traditional. Thus there is a note of real sadness in 'Long A-Growing', due mainly to Maddy Prior's sensitive vocal. The material on "Now We Are Six" reflects a livelier approach to the music. It may have something to do with the new line-up: only Tim Hart and Maddy Prior remain from the musicians who played on the earlier "Hark the Village Wait" album. The title track and 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' are both rendered in quavering falsetto by the Sr. Eleye Primary School Choir — how delightful can you get?

Ian Anderson adds a touch of mischief to 'Thomas', and David Bowie plays sax on To Know Him Is To Love Him' — which is about equivalent to Eric Clapton playing triangle with Alice Cooper on Zappas' 'Uncle Meat'. There's something deliciously sensual about the weird, soaring harmonies that leave shivers in their wake, especially on "Two Magicians'. On each track the separate instruments — the crisp snare, bass, lead guitar — and lead voice are clearly discernible, Ah....working man's magic.

"Now We Are Six" offers a solution to everything: it's the perfect opiate for the undergraduate Tolkien mind: it's the realised hope of the serious listener of folk music — a return to olde English lunacy, replete with Grace Slick vocals and Kanter guitar.

Steeleye Span are due to give a concert in the Town Hall in August. If you saw the incredible the Fairport and Pentangle shows were then you won't miss: "Don't you see on bonny, bonny, road/that lies across the burny brae/ that is the road to fair elf-land/where you and I this night must go......"

On the Road:

Traffic (Festival Recording). Reviewed by Thomas McGrath.

This is a double album of Traffic recorded in concerts on tour in Germany. The content is drawn mainly from the LPs, "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" and "Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory". Despite personnel changes, the line-up still includes Steve Winwood, Roger Hawkins, Jim Capaldi, David Hood, Chris Wood and Reebop Kwaku Baah — all outstanding musicians in the British rock scene. That hideous record cover shows photographs of Hawkins wearing the perennial sunglasses from 'Fantasy Factory' and Capaldi sporting the same red shirt from 'Low Spark". And this to me indicates the tone of both LPs.

The first one is jazz oriented, and each track gains something from the live recording on account of the sustained technical brilliance and the group's prowess at jamming. The piano work is consistently strong and best shown on the slow, controlled "Sometimes I Feel So Uninspired".

Individual talent is the compensation for long and rather uneventful numbers. This brings me to criticism of the record. The tight and professional sound of the musicians must interest an enthusiast; but to anybody else the lack of life and the treading of paths three to four years old, altogether lowers both tone and calibre.

The second LP is more rock — but oh how disappointing! With 'Fantasy Factory' and 'Light up or leave me alone', good electronic effects produced in the recording studio are the guts of the melody arrangement. These cannot be reproduced on stage. The good performance of say Wood on saxaphone and flute, or Capaldi and Hawkins on drums, which holds the first LP together, is utterly lost on side 3 of the album. The pace of both those tracks reiterates the group's musicial ability, but there's no sense of that control or tightness of rhythm which characterised earlier albums. "Low Spark of High Healed Boys", which takes up side four entirely, absolutely expresses the worst features of "On the Road". The stage performance of this tune is tedious, as the recording studio version of two or three years ago, was lively.

Having heard most of Traffic's earlier albums, I cannot recommend this one. I was somewhat disillusioned to hear good melodies turned into hackneyed antiques.