Customer Reviews

Timeless

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Appearing just a month after Bobby Charles' death at age 71, this album, co-produced with Dr. John is, in so many ways a continuation of his eponymous album from the 1970s on Bearsville. The laid back feel, the message songs, the revisiting of favorites. A major and welcome difference is the edge added with the female backing group. Dr. John's B3 playing on track 5 "Little Town Tramp" is sublime and could have been on the Small Town Talk album. If "hits" were still a feature of the music industry in 2010 - this could've been one. The two Happy songs - Track 1, Fats Domino and Track 13, Halloween are the same song Parts 1 and 2. A really great album and a major improvement on his last.

Thinking about a Bobby Charles album the way we normally think of albums probably isn't fair. It's hard to believe he took much care with programming Timeless, and the album features six (that I'm aware of) songs that he has already recorded or that have been kicking around for years. "Before I Grow Too Old" is a song he co-wrote with Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew that frst appeared on 1972's Bobby Charles album, and "You'll Always Live Inside of Me" is a co-write from 1977 with David Allan Coe.

More likely, music was something Charles did when inspiration hit, whether inspiration came in the form of new songs, new ideas or just a desire to sing old songs again. It's not clear that he cared about albums as units that documented anything more than what was on his mind and perhaps what was leftover in his musical pantry. Since he was a reluctant performer under the best of times, going in the studio with Sonny Landreth, Dr. John, Mickey Raphael and others was his occasion to scratch his musical itch and spend time with friends. Really, his albums document his social time.

Fortunately, Charles had good friends, so even skeletal ideas produce reliably entertaining blues rock circa the late 1960s/early 1970s, and the presence of his friend Dr. John in the production chair seemed to bring out the best in Charles the vocalist. His voice was an eccentric instrument that often sounded as offhanded as his lyrics, but he never seems inattentive or too casual. Like his best songs, he sounds just casual enough.

Charles includes three occasional songs--"Happy Birthday Fats Domino," "Happy Halloween" and "Take Back My Country"--songs that are meant to be revived once a year, but it's hard to imagine many who'll return to them more often than that. Far stronger are the songs that suggest a modicum of attention--not so much that the songs seem worked, but enough to suggest he took them seriously "Nickels, Dimes and Dollars" is the closest he came here to crafting a tune, playing with monetary references to count the ways he's brokenhearted. It, like many of the songs here, seems truly timeless with language so commonplace and artless that it could come from any moment.

Better, though, is "Rollin' Round Heaven." Charles' passing gives the song poignancy, but it's a notion of gospel that couldonly come from him. The title gives it an informal air, and it's easy to imagine someone who'd had a pot bust getting a sly laugh at working "rolling" into a description of the afterlife.

I've been told that Bobby Charles knew his days were numbered when he was recording Timeless, and it's tempting to think of that while listening to "Rollin' Round Heaven" and "Before I Grow Too Old"--something he sometimes felt he'd done--but more likely, the album refects nothing more or less than what he'd been doing and who he'd been doing it with for the last year. Coherence isn't its long suit, but it suggests he spent the last year well.--OffBeat Magazine, April 2010 issue

I gave this CD five stars simply because it's Bobby, with the help of his longtime friend and co-writer Dr. John, putting out an enjoyable set one last time. However, as a die-hard fan, I can admit that Bobby's recent output could be uneven in terms of quality. His later releases Last Train To Memphis and Homemade Songs both mixed together unreleased recordings from the '70s/'80s, a few tracks that appeared on now out-of-print albums from the '90s, and small batches of "new" recordings made prior to the specific album's release.

By dropping the tracks from Timeless that are more novelty or that Dr. John does not play on ("Happy Birthday" [which appeared on a previous album and would be more at home as a bonus track for Last Train To Memphis] and "Happy Halloween", "Nickles Dimes and Dollars" and "Clash Of Cultures") and replacing them with the best of the new recordings from 2008's Homemade Songs ("The Football Blues", "Queen Bee", "Too Blue" and "Seize The Moment" [both of which do feature Dr. John], and "Tennessee Blues"), you can make a much stronger compilation of Bobby's last output from 2008-2010.

So buy the releases Homemade Songs (2008) and this release Timeless (2010), and put together the playlist I've created below. I think it's a much stronger listen, as this period of Bobby's career is better represented by having all the best new recordings from Homemade Songs (which was heavily made up of unreleased '70s recordings and songs from previous releases) together with the recordings with Dr. John from Timeless.

Here's my playlist for this material:

01. Where Did All The Love Go
02. Little Town Tramp
03. Nobody's Fault But My Own
04. Before I Grow Too Old
05. Old Mexico
06. Rollin' Round Heaven
07. When Love Turns To Hate
08. You'll Always Live Inside Of Me
09. Take Back My Country

10. The Football Blues
11. Queen Bee
12. Too Blue
13. Seize The Moment
14. Tennessee Blues

Tracks 1-9 from Timeless
Tracks 10-14 from Homemade Songs

I know that Bobby was proud of his final album, and it is not my intention to undermine his artistic control of his material. But as an unbiased fan, I think that compilation/playlist makes a much stronger collection of his last output and is a wonderful tribute to the late songwriter.