Saturday, 22 March 2014
Coming less than a year after the debut album, you couldn’t help suspecting there are issues with the material, but when you’re talking something as strong as Fool’s Gold, that’s not an issue. It’s very much a more of the same exercise, with Parker’s impassioned vocals leading the way as The Rumour does a mighty job of matching The Band’s example in the ensemble playing department.
A little more time might, of course, have been helpful when it came to assembling the material, but of the original ten tracks (the 2001 remaster tacked The Pink Parker EP’s Hold Back the Night and (Let Me Get) Sweet on You onto the end) the only two that might have been liable for the chop were Something You're Going Through and Help Me Shake It.
The relevant Wikipedia article cites Parker’s reservations on on one of his least favourite recordings, due to inexperienced vocal technique, rushed songwriting (see above), and stiff production by Robert John "Mutt" Lange who’d been slotted in by the record company instead of Nick Lowe, who’d looked after production duties on Howlin’ Wind.
Lange was still new at the production caper, with a handful of credits (Richard Jon Smith, City Boy, Kevin Coyne and Mallard, drawn from Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band) but went on to significant success (Supercharge, The Motors, The Boomtown Rats, The Records, AC/DC, Def Leppard, The Cars, Michael Bolton and Shania Twain) so he must have been able to get some things right. But, despite the fact that he sat in the chair for the first album by The Rumour (1977’s Max) he may not have been the best man for this job.
That’s fairly obvious when the horns kick straight in at the start of Heat Treatment, three and a bit minutes of impassioned R&B that doesn’t swing the way White Honey does at the start of Howlin’ Wind. The critics didn’t seem to mind all that much, though, and when the Village Voice compiled the critics poll of the year's best albums Heat Treatment finished second, with Howlin’ Wind coming in a very respectable fourth.
Not as much swing, but there’s definitely a bit of arrogant swagger in the Dylanesque putdown of an old lover in That's What They All Say, and while things drop back a notch for Turned Up Too Late, there’s a fairly withering assessment of a failing relationship in a cutting lyric in a song later covered by the Pointer Sisters.
Howlin’ Wind started with an upbeat and swinging White Honey, but Black Honey here is a dark, downcast, desolate outpouring of soulful emotion in bitter lands where the singer’s a face without a voice. Great melodic guitar work from Brinsley Schwarz, though.