Customer Reviews

The Pine Valley Cosmonauts Salute The Majesty of Bob Wills

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

 

 

The Cosmonauts play with zest and enthusiasm. Vocally, this thing runs the gamut. Some vocals are obvoiously phoned in, while others are right on the money.

Give these guys credit for keeping it loose and having fun. While most "tributes" are either staid in their reverance, or needlessly experimental, thsi one hits the perfect balance between reverance and entusiasm. And I can't get enough of Kelly Hogan's singing!

Wonderful renditions and arrangements of some of Bob Wills' classics by obviously talented musicians. Regrettably, some of the worst vocals I have ever heard.... I knew Bob back in the early sixties...he would have patted his foot to this music, but he would not have sung along.

Pretty good musicianship: some good guitar work, nice to hear those mariachi-by-way-of-Lubbock horns on "San Antonio Rose," but the rhythm section doesn't seem to understand that this music is supposed to swing. Oops.

Vocals extremely variable: the girls (especially Kelly Hogan and Jane Baxter-Miller) can sing, but the boys can't, more or less. This is a problem, if, like me, you grew up on the originals. The most painful example is "San Antonio Rose" where Alejandro Escovedo seems lost (and out of his range) while Tommy Duncan's vocals on the original sound nearly effortless. Jimmie Dale Gilmour is wonderfully suited for this material, but the other male vocalists tend to be less successful. Robbie Fulks can sing but exhibits his tendency to degenerate into howling on succeeding verses - Bob Wills as incipient psychopath - hadn't thought of that one.

This one is hard to rate inasmuch as the quality varies so much from track to track.

A phenomenal cover of Bob Wills and the Texas playboys. John Langford has long had waxed poetically about Bob Wills, and his love and respect shine through on this rolicking, toe tapping, gotta dance, turn up the volume, happy, happy music CD.

MOST OF THE TUNES ARE DRIVEN BY A GOOD SOLID SWING RHYTHUM. THE INSTRUMENTATION BETWEEN STRINGS, BRASS AND REEDS IS WELL-BALANCED. THERE IS JUST ENOUGH INNOVATION FROM BOBS ARRANGEMENTS TO DEMONSTRATE SOME OVERDUE PROGRESSION IN WESTERN SWING. WHAT A PLEASURE TO HEAR GIRLS AS WELL AS THE BOYS "BELT OUT" SOME LIVELY WESTERN SWING. THEY ALL SEEM TO BE HAVING A GOOD TIME LIKE BOB DID---EVEN WITH HEART BROKEN LYRICS. THE QUALITY OF RECORDING AND MIX IS VERY GOOD. IF YOU PREFER THE SAME OLD ARRANGEMENTS, AND OFTEN HE SAME OLD PLAYBOYS, YOU MAY NOT CARE FOR THIS TRIBUTE. BUT IF YOU REVIEW SOME OF THE TERRABLE QUALITY BOOTLEG TAPES OF BOBS LAST YEARS ON THE ROAD, YOU WILL FIND HIM PLAYING FRESH ARRANGEMENTS. SOMETIMES A LITTLE MORE INDIVIDUAL JAZZ-LIKE DEPARTURES AS OPPOSED TO SO MUCH TWIN-FIDDLE TWIN- GUITAR BREAKS OF YESTER-YEAR. THIS TRIBUTE IS A LITTLE UNEVEN AT TIMES, BUT WHO DID ANY BETTER IN 98? ITS TIME FOR A FOLLOW-UP.