New CDs: John Phillips, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jenni Muldaur

New CDs: John Phillips, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Jenni Muldaur

By Steven Rosen

John Phillips
Man on the Moon
Varese Sarabande (www.varesevintage.com)
5 stars

Giving some due to the minor impact of his 1970 solo album John the Wolfking of L.A., the only real success the late John Phillips had after the Mamas & the Papas broke up was his autobiography – an early example of the rock-star confessional that horrified readers with the time (and, ultimately, life) wasted being too zonked on drugs to function well. Still, he did have the cachet and connections to hook up with some important people on various projects during those lost decades, and since his death in 2001 the resultant material has been slowly trickling out.

First came Pay Pack & Follow, which he had been recording for Rolling Stones Records. Some other archival releases followed, and now comes his most interesting project – the short-lived (and critically reviled) 1975 Off-Broadway musical he wrote that was produced by Andy Warhol, Man on the Moon. The project, alas, is most interesting for its back story.

Phillips became infatuated with creating a musical fantasy after watching the 1969 moon landing, and started working on Space. He found a producer (Hair’s Michael Butler) and director (Michael Bennett, who would go on to create A Chorus Line), as well as a would-be star, his wife, Genevieve Waite.

But that collapsed, partly due to his drug intake. Somehow he eventually got Warhol involved, and the thing eventually opened as a much-recasted and already troubled Man on the Moon with Waite, Phillips, Denny Doherty of the Mamas and the Papas, and Warholite Monique Van Vooren…and then closed after terrible reviews.

Listening to the 38 cuts on this CD, which include a few tracks recorded live from the theater audience by Warhol, himself, you can see why it failed. The music, here mostly performed by Phillips in a tentative voice with folksy arrangements, is a pastiche of styles since he lacked a coherent aesthetic for a Broadway musical.

Some are faux Weimer cabaret or Jazz Age ditties; others try to rock like Transformer-period Lou Reed (“Midnight Deadline Blastoff”) and sound thin and brittle. Others, like “If King Can, Who Can’t,” just seem forced or trite.

It’s impossible to tell from these recordings if the theatrical production meant to be Rocky Horror Show-camp or have some narrative sensitivity. But there are some good numbers that show Phillips’ deep-seated gift for melody and arresting lyric – “Star Stepping Stranger,” “Welcome to the Moon Man,” the bluesy and powerful “Handcuffs,” the bizarrely religious “Truth Cannot Be Treason,” the Bowie-like “Yesterday I Left the Earth" with its great chorale singing.

Another interesting aspect is the chance to hear Waite sing. Her voice had an unusual pinched, high-pitched quality, somewhere between Billie Holiday and Betty Boop, and Phillips gave her a beautiful song, “There Is a Place,” as a showcase. A different time and with better health, maybe Phillips could have made a rock-based Broadway musical that really worked. This wasn’t it, but it has enough worthwhile songs to merit a listen.

Standout tracks: “Welcome to the Moon Man,” “Yesterday I Left the Earth.”

Buffy Sainte-Marie
Running for the Drum
Appleseed (www.appleseedmusic.com)
7 stars

The best thing about a unique voice – and Buffy Sainte-Marie’s fierce, proud vibrato certainly qualifies as one – is that it defies age. It’s neither a voice of youth nor of middle age; it belongs to an individual and is always as fresh as a fingerprint.

On Running for the Drum, her first recording in 13 years, when Sainte-Marie lets that voice soar unrepressed, as she does on “No No Keshagesh,” “I Bet My Heart On You” and “Working for the Government,” she really rocks! Yoko Ono’s got nothing on her.

That’s maybe an odd thing to say – the 68-year-old singer-songwriter of American Indian ancestry is mostly known for 1960s-era folk-protest songs, some related to her ethnicity, and later for the Oscar-winning pop ballad “Up Where We Belong,” which she co-wrote.

But when she sings those fast songs, you can hear how much she loved rockabilly as a kid and has retained its spirit. She even pays respect to Elvis with “Blue Sunday,” which borrows a beat and an attitude from “Heartbreak Hotel.”

She has always had political bite, best shown here by an effective remake of her eerie and still-relevant “Little Wheel Spin and Spin.” Sainte-Marie also still writes ballads of the “Up”-lift variety – “Too Much Is Never Enough" --which are nice as far as they go, since her plaintive voice usually helps them avoid sentimentality, although an update of “America the Beautiful” (with some new words honoring Indian tribes) can’t surmount the treacly arrangement.

Working with producer Chris Birkett, Sainte-Marie gets an interesting effect on some of the faster songs, conjuring both tribal drums and dance-club abandon. Overall, this is an album, and a career, with a lot of vibrancy. To paraphrase the title of one of her best-known compositions, it’s not time for her to go yet. Not by a long show.

Standout tracks: “No No Keshagesh,” “I Bet My Heart on You”

Jenni Muldaur
Dearest Darlin’
Dandelion Music (www.dandelionmusic.us)
9 stars

Since the failure of her high-profile, major-label 1992 debut, Jenni Muldaur – daughter of Maria and Geoff – has kept busy with collaborations, tribute-album contributions, and providing backing vocals for a who’s-who of prestigious artists, from Rufus Wainwright to Eric Clapton.

But she hasn’t ventured another solo album until the new Dearest Darlin', a rip-roaring and enthusiastic nod to jump blues/R&B/soul music/soulful rock. It shows she’s been spending a lot of time listening to great old records (or attending Ponderosa Stomp) and getting what they’re about, then bringing it all back home with her own crackling versions.

The title song is a Bo Diddley classic (and has a guest vocal by Joseph Arthur that sounds Diddleyish), but many of the others are so obscure one doubts that even the Detroit Cobras would know them – Big Maybelle’s “I’ve Got a Feeling”; a jazzy, hipsterish Charlie Rich song called “There’s Another Place That I Can’t Go” (that must have influenced “The Beat Goes On”); Meredith Howard’s erotically seductive and bluesy “Just Kiss Me Once”; a sweetly plaintive late-period NRBQ song, “Blame It On the World”; and more. She wrote one song, a dreamy ballad of a closer called “Comatose Town.”

There’s a retro quality to the arrangements, even the overall concept, similar to Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones. But this is even tighter and hotter musically, and totally lacking in self-consciousness. Muldaur’s mom has recorded this kind of music before, but daughter’s voice has a throatier, punchier quality. It’s reminiscent of the pinpoint-control forcefulness and sometimes-explosive, sometimes-choked emotionalism of Brenda Lee.

Muldaur is aided by a fine band that gives the recordings a live feel: Guitarist Sean Costello (who died last year), Tower of Power saxophonist Lenny Pickett, keyboard player Brian Jackson, drummer James Wormworth, plus featured guests including the mysterious Jimi Zhivago.

Muldaur, respectful of the role of back-up singers, makes sure the ones here – who include her sister, Clare – are upfront and full-bodied, so they sound responsive rather than programmed or dubbed-in. This is on Muldaur’s own label, and maybe she wanted to stay as far away as possible from a major like Warner Bros. – which put out her 1992 record – after that experience. But, truth be told, they’d all be glad to have Dearest Darlin.’

Standout tracks: “I’ve Got a Feelin’, “There’s Another Place That I Can’t Go.”

(These reviews all first appeared in Blurt (www.blurt-online.com).