And the Bass Player Goes Donk, Donk, Donk: My 25 All-Time Favorite Recordings

First published in The Absolute Sound. Copyright © 1995 by Absolute Multimedia. Reprinted with permission.

(Note: In the years since I wrote this article, this list has changed...but not by much!)

In the course of writing my Desert Island System article [Note: an article about the high end components I'd want to take to a desert island if stranded upon one], I found myself constantly thinking about what music I'd want to take with me. After all, that's the whole point of this whole High End thang, techno-tweak gear obsessives aside.

Currently, I live amidst an embarrassment of recorded riches, with a collection rapidly approaching 10,000 records, CDs, tapes, live recordings, and (over 100) 8-tracks. Having music on hand for emotional and spiritual sustenance is not a problem in my life. But what if the situation were exactly the opposite—if I was limited to a chosen few to accompany me for musical eternity? Which discs were the ones I absolutely could not live without?

In order to make this list meaningful, I forced myself to limit the number of recordings to 25, along with short descriptions pertaining to their essentiality. I could've listed over a hundred, and believe me, the ones I left out hurt! No Jeff Beck, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Stravinsky, Bartok, Clash, female vocalists, Hank Williams, Todd Rundgren, Wes Montgomery, Gang Of Four, Prokofiev, Pavlov's Dog, Lightnin' Hopkins, Led Zeppelin, Tal Farlow, Thelonius Monk...egad!

And if I'm showing my baby boomer rock 'n' roll roots...so be it!

Sound quality: A (excellent), B (better than most), C (average), D (poor), F (abysmal). Vinyl except where indicated.

Be Bop Deluxe: Sunburst Finish Harvest ST-11478 (C+)

Bill Nelson would've secured his place at the top of the pantheon of rock guitar greats along with Beck, Hendrix, Clapton, Page, Zappa et al, were it not for the fact that he walked away from guitar god-dom at the height of his career to pursue a more personal, synthesizer-based (and less popular) music. An idiosyncratic stylist eschewing clichés in favor of unique riffs and melodies, Nelson wedded fire, flash, dazzling technique, and a lush, harmonically complex tone to some of his strongest material ever on this disc. When Sunburst Finish was first released in the early Seventies, then Trouser Press critic Ira Robbins (now of Newsday) wrote that the guitar solo on "Crying To The Sky" was the greatest guitar solo ever recorded. He was right—and the statement still stands. Serviceable rock sound, not very extended or transparent, but not offensive.

Blue Oyster Cult Columbia C31063 (C-)

The first album which showed that humor and intelligence could co-exist with hard rock/heavy metal music to brilliant effect. The lyrics, when not impenetrable, are riotous, as some of the song titles indicate—"She's As Beautiful As A Foot," "Transmaniacon MC," and the immortal stadium-pulverizer, "Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll." Not only were BOC among the heaviest of the heavy, and not only was their material through the first few albums fantastic, but Buck Dharma was, and is, one of the most incredibly imaginative, astonishing rock guitarists alive. He can say more with his instrument in two seconds than most guitarists can in their entire careers, a titanic, hurricane-force musician. If only the sound were a less murky and less truncated at the frequency extremes.

Roy Buchanan Polydor PD 5033 (C+)

"The best unknown guitarist in the world" (notice a pattern here?) until his horrifying suicide in a jail a few years back, Buchanan was a legend amongst the guitar cognoscenti. He could play fantastically in every style, whether country, blues, rock, or jazz, coaxing sounds out of the plain-jane Fender Telecaster that left fret slingers the world over incredulous, as in, "you can't get those sounds out of a Tele!" The master of circle picking, false harmonics, large interval string bending, and making g his guitar sound like a living voice, he released many fine, if uneven albums; this one's a sentimental favorite, as it was the first—and it contains the extraordinarily moving "The Messiah Will Come Again." Buchanan's playing is so riveting that in spite of a mediocre backup band and decent-at-best sound, you'll be blown away.

Ray Charles Greatest Hits ABC ABCS 415 (B-)

To hear Ray Charles is to hear greatness; one of the handful of musicians so talented that their music simply radiates out effortlessly, fully realized. All the early, indispensable hits are here: "Hit The Road Jack," "Unchain My Heart," "One Mint Julep," "Ruby," "What'd I Say" among them. Talk about bad—this man has so much soul it's almost too much to take in one listening; having heard Charles, I've never been able to listen to any "soul-lite" radio-fluff artists. The sound on this one is really good, too, naturally-miked, dynamic, spacious and harmonically rich, although on some copies, there's an annoying, low-level high-pitched squeal. The Genius Of Soul, for sure.

Larry Coryell: Spaces Vanguard VSD 6558 (A)

This near Super-Disc-quality recording features John Mc Loughlin, Chick Corea, Billy Cobham, and Miroslav Vitous along with the prodigiously talented Coryell, here playing electric guitar. The improvisation on this out-there jazz set is mind-boggling, the interplay between the musicians almost unbelievable, and the quality of the playing almost beyond the humanly possible. An awe-inspiring musical statement whose power to leave me emotionally flabbergasted has only increased after over a hundred playings.

Eek-A-Mouse: Wa Do Dem Greensleeves GREL 31 (B)

Eek-A-Mouse performs in the classic reggae style, the music pulsing and breathing with the rhythms of life. The thing I like the most about Mouse's nasal, insinuating vocals—he is utterly incomprehensible, singing in a dialect thicker than the air in a room full of Blunt smokers, combined with sing-song nonsense syllables. The effect, combined with first-rate material and playing, is strangely and irresistibly hypnotic.

Miles Davis: Kind Of Blue Columbia CS 8163 (A)

I always think of this classic-of-jazz-classics as "The Cosmic Truth Of Jazz." When people ask, "What is jazz?," one need not offer a word of explanation; simply play this album. Undoubtedly one of the greatest recordings of any genre, this seminal session featuring the great Miles, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Wynton Kelly, and Joe Chambers features all the players at their peak, exploring then-new worlds in modal jazz with a combination of tone, technique, improvisation, and ensemble communication arguably unequaled to this day. The sound is also wonderful, aside from too much "left-right" miking (a characteristic of many of the Columbias of the day), so natural-sounding and ungimmicked as to be scary when heard on a good system. This feeble description does not begin to do the recording justice.

Genesis: Selling England By The Pound Charisma FC 6060 (B-)

First off, be reassured: This 1973 release is from the early-Seventies time Genesis was good (before they deteriorated into pop pablum, and started selling millions of records by the pound), the most articulate, accomplished practitioners of progressive rock, with Peter Gabriel as front man. Selling England is a masterpiece of memorable lyrics and melodies, with complex instrumental passages interwoven throughout compelling, creative arrangements as unique today as they were then. The sound, quite good save for a slight lack of transparency and a moderate dose of dynamic compression, is a well-balanced instrumental mix of many acoustic instruments (acoustic 6 and 12-string guitars, piano, drums, flute among them) and electric guitar and bass, organ, and synthesizers. Hard to describe—not "rock," or "pop," or "folk," or whatever—one of the most unique albums ever recorded, and one which I think anyone on planet Earth would find extraordinary.

Grateful Dead: Blues For Allah Grateful Dead Records GD-LA494-G (B-)

Tough call between this, Wake Of The Flood (for "Eyes of the World'), and the various greatest hits albums ("Uncle John's Band" is one of my all-time favorites), but I had to ultimately go with this one because it contains the essential "Help on the Way/Franklin's Tower/Slip Knot" medley. Aside from being g some of the Dead's most melodic, memorable material, Blues For Allah showcases the band at the almost-peak of their legendary, mystical ensemble interplay. How many times have I been swept away into another world by this music? (And no, you don't need heavy drugs for the journey.) The sound is also excellent—clean and grunge-free, with good instrumental presence, imaging, and delineation; though multitracked, well-balanced and "natural" sounding. To top it off, Jerry Garcia's guitar soloing on "Help" is, no other way to put it, cosmic.

Merle Haggard: Back To The Barrooms MCA-5139 (B)

How can you not love a concept album about getting drunk? (Well, maybe if you're a recovering alcoholic you might not find this amusing.) The song titles tell the story: "Misery And Gin," "Back to the Barrooms Again," "I Don't Want to Sober Up Tonight," "I Think I'll Just Stay Here And Drink." Merle Haggard, an American original in the true, not hackneyed sense, transcends the country music genre—he's been called "the poet of the common man" thanks to the universality of his music, and brother, you can believe every word of it. Although I have at least 20 of his albums, this one is my runaway favorite, thanks to Haggard's ability to blend humor with heartache, making you laugh and lament over life's realities all at once. The sound is fine enough that I use this as a reference when evaluating equipment—clean, extended, and dynamic, with realistic vocal and instrumental timbres; one of the most well-recorded albums I've ever heard in any genre.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Are You Experienced? Reprise RS 6261 (C+)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Electric Ladyland Reprise RS 6307 (C+)

Is there any doubt that Hendrix was the greatest rock guitarist ever? When he exploded onto the Sixties rock scene, he stunned everybody—including his peers—by taking the guitar so far into until-then unexplored musical realms that the phrase "quantum leap" does not even begin to express the magnitude of his accomplishments. His work using the tremolo bar alone would assure him a place in history—before him, it was a device for adding a slight quaver to a note; he made it produce the sound of bombs, air raid sirens, banshee wails, and flying saucer landings. His use of distortion, feedback-as-musical notes, amplifiers groaning at the destruction point, soulful open-chord voicings, and fantastically imaginative melodies and riffs—all somehow rooted in the blues—simply pulverized all previous notions of what an electric guitar could do. His influence was so pervasive, almost incalculable, that he single-handedly (doublehandedly?) revived the fortunes of the Fender Stratocaster guitar, which had been slated for imminent demise.

These two albums represent Hendrix at his finest, from the adrenaline rushes of "Purple Haze," "Fire," and "Crosstown Traffic," to the trippy, dreamlike "May This Be Love," to the utterly otherworldly "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)." This music inhabits such a unique sphere that, although legions of imitators have either been inspired by him, or outright ripped him off, none have come remotely close to approaching his towering technique and mesmerizing musicianship. Even though the sound is somewhat opaque and compressed—give Hendrix and engineer Eddie Kramer credit; the things they did with four-track recorders and "do-or-die" one-take overdubs were nothing short of miraculous—the music is so astonishing that any deficiencies in the sound do not stand in the way of the music in the slightest.

The Kinks: The Kink Kronikles Reprise 2XS 6454 (C-)

Why mince words. I consider the Kinks' Ray Davies the finest songwriter the rock world has ever produced. Yep-that includes Lennon and McCartney. Davies has a way of expressing profound truths about the human condition, from the sublime to the absurd, in perfectly-crafted three-minute vignettes, often seen from a nostalgically bittersweet British perspective (the glory days are over, and wouldn't it be nice if we could all go back to a simpler time). This double-LP contains not only most of the great early hits—"You Really Got Me," "Sunny Afternoon," "All Day And All Of The Night" among them—but an astutely-chosen selection of earlier material best-loved by the Kinks Kognoscenti, including "Days," "Get Back In Line," "Victoria," and my vote for the single greatest pop song ever written, "Waterloo Sunset," in which Davies finds the simple solution to life's complications and tribulations: "As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise." (I should mention that this song compelled me to convince my wife that we honeymoon in England, to fulfill a lifelong dream: I had to stand on the spot that inspired Davies to write this song.) Without a doubt, the Kinks are the most underrated band of the British Invasion, especially considering the fact that, save for a couple of career dry spells, Davies has continued to produce magnificent material to this day. The sound on this collection is mediocre-but-listenable, opaque, no lows, no highs, no soundstage, poor imaging—but look at it this way: Would you complain about the sound quality of a recording by Caruso, or Art Tatum, or Robert Johnson?

Kraftwerk: Computerwelt EMI Elektrola 1C 064-46 311 (A+)
Kraftwerk: Die Mensch Maschine EMI Elektrola 1C 058-32843 (A)

The kings. The gods. What more can I say about these geniuses of electronic instrumentation that I haven't said in these pages time and time again? They wrote the book on synthesizer-based pop and dance music in the mid and late Seventies—ironic that every black rap artist owes their entire rhythmic foundation to four white German guys (along with every New Wave group of the Eighties, and every dance group of the Nineties, for that matter). They sound so futuristically otherworldly that these albums, dating from 1981 and 1977 respectively, still sound ahead of their time. Their sound quality is superlative, with incredible imaging, soundstage, frequency response, dynamic and transient kick, brilliant manipulations of virtual sonic reality. Truly, Kraftwerk is in a class by itself-to this day, I have no idea how they achieved some of their sounds, and though thousands of bands have used, and continue to use electronics, none have achieved the level of Kraftwerk's compelling melodies; their totality of sound-as-physical-space-time entity; their astonishing melding of man, machine, and music. (Thanks to Pascal Bussy for that phrase.)

Love: Revisited Elektra EKS-74058 (B-)

If the Kinks are the most underrated British band, then Love is their Sixties American counterpart. Arthur Lee was a notorious eccentric who peaked early (though he still performs in the Bay Area), but what a peak! This album of greatest hits contains some of the most affecting, beautifully-crafted rock/pop music ever written, evocative of the Summer Of Love like almost no other music ever written—to hear "Alone Again Or" is to be instantly swept back to a more innocent, idealistic era. I find myself turning to this album again and again just for the sheer joy of listening. The sound, though variable from track to track, is, at its best, exceptionally natural (check out the acoustic guitar on "Signed D.C."), lively, and unprocessed. And if "Waterloo Sunset" is the greatest pop song ever written, then "You Set The Scene" ("and if you think that living life is just a game/do you like the part you're playing?") is the second greatest.

The Mothers Of Invention: Absolutely Free Verve V6 5013X (C-)

Frank Zappa was my musical idol in high school, and remains a seminal influence. It's safe to say that I would not have the outlook on life I do were it not for exposure to his music at an early age—he showed me that there were people out there like myself who realized there was a world beyond the superficiality of idiot mass entertainment and hack politicians. Absolutely Free, Zappa's second album, remains a personal favorite (though I'd like to take ten of his records with me), for its combination of acerbic social satire, wildly inventive music and lyrics (who else would write songs with titles like "Call Any Vegetable" and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It"?), obliquely clever arrangements, and of course, healthy doses of Zappa's idiosyncratic, angular virtuoso guitar playing. Another album of terrific music and so-so sound quality—the best way to describe it is that it's consistent, consistently so-so in every sonic respect. As opposed to the music, which is consistently brilliant in every respect.

Muddy Waters: Live At Mister Kelly's Chess CH 50012 (B-)

Man, if you want to hear the musical equivalent of the Mojo Hand, this record is it. Recorded in a Chicago blues club in the Seventies, this showcases Waters at his absolute height, with a killer band backing up his every musical inflection and nuance. This is one of those records that immediately goes for the jugular and never lets go; the intensity is almost, no is, fearful. Waters singing is hair-raising, and his stinging slide guitar playing, the sound of a knife against strings (literally), is a sound which cuts to the bone of your soul, a sound which no one else ever could, or ever will, produce. Lord, what a sound; after listening through Waters and Co. rip through this set of blues originals and classics, you can't listen to anything else for at least a day. And the sound, by grace of G-d, or more probably the Devil, matches the performance—live-sounding, dynamic, with little distortion and much presence. Don't know if it was mulitmiked, minimally miked, recorded through the board, or what. Don't care. Somehow, they got the power of the blues in these here grooves.

New Order: Substance Quest 25621-1 (A)

Not quite as sci-fi electronic-fantastic as Kraftwerk, New Order nevertheless remains the other great electro-pop band, in my estimation. More pop-song oriented, with more of an emphasis on hummable melodies and dance floor-dominating beats, these three men and one woman use electronics, drum machines, guitars and basses to state-of-the-art affect, like Kraftwerk, always pushing the boundaries of what the technology can musically accomplish. Substance, how appropriately named, is a greatest hits collection of most of their early, classic songs, such as "Blue Monday," "Bizarre Love Triangle," "Everything's Gone Green," "The Perfect Kiss," and others. The sound is first-rate, demonstration quality, wideband, distortion-free, with powerful instrumental presence, laser-locked imaging, and Cinerama-wide staging. A little too bright, not terribly so, but that's more than made up for by the foundation-pulverizing bass. Cue up the turntable, and strap yourself in!

The All Time Greatest Hits Of Roy Orbison Monument PZG 31484 (A)

The All Time Favorite Artist of FD. Orbison had a voice that could, in live performance through a good PA, literally shake a building, along with your bones. A singular talent of operatic greatness, Orbison's magnificent, multi-octave voice was the perfect instrument to express his songs of loneliness, darkness, and romantic despair in such classic-of-classics as "Only The Lonely," "Crying," "In Dreams," and "It's Over." (Though he did finally get the girl in "(Oh) Pretty Woman.") Orbison's Monument recordings are, happily, among those rare meetings of musical talent and sonic greatness, having been engineered by the great Bill Porter (who also did Elvis, Chet Atkins, Boots Randolph, the Anita Kerr Singers, Homer and Jethro, and many others). Porter placed Orbison in a huge, lush, beautifully recorded setting, with tremendous presence, depth, and width, faithful instrumental timbres, near-perfect tonal balance, pristine highs, solid lows, and a marvelous sense of air, ambience, "life." Unfortunately, this greatest-hits remastering loses much of the magic of the original Monument releases (although it's a Canadian pressing, better than the poor American issue), but it has all the great hits, not a single one of which I could ever live without. My life hasn't been the same since Orbison died.

Lou Reed: Berlin RCA APL1-0207 (A-)

This album, one of the best pop recordings ever made—the sound is that good; you can hear Reed's lips parting before he sings a phrase, Steve Winwood's shoes clunking on the piano pedals, and so on—is also one of the most depressing. Never Mister Sunshine, Reed outdoes even his despondent standards in this concept album about a woman living in Berlin, a victim of spousal abuse, drug dependency, and a depraved life which ultimately ends in tragedy.

Therefore, this album always makes me happy when I'm in a bad mood, and keeps me in a good mood afterwards, because after listening to this, whatever my troubles are at the time, they seem trivial by comparison. A bad day at the office doesn't exactly compare with songs containing lines like, "I'm gonna stop wasting my time/Somebody else would have broken both of her arms," ("Sad Song") or, that inspirational stanza from "Men Of Good Fortune": "The rich son waits for his father to die/While the poor, just sit and cry/And me, I just don't care at all"!

Roxy Music: Greatest Hits Atco SD-38103 (C-)

If there ever was a band where style threatened to overwhelm substance, it was Roxy Music, featuring the enigmatic Eno and the histrionic Bryan Ferry (Eno left early in the band's career; there wasn't enough room in one band for two towering musical egos). Yet history proves that quite the opposite was the case—Roxy's Music, especially the pre-Avalon material showcased herein, holds up brilliantly. Ferry's ironic, distant singing was the perfect vehicle for his romantically decadent lyrics, and Phil Manzanera's oblique guitar lines, Andy McKay's avant-bleating sax, Eddie Jobson's keyboard and violin stylings, Eno's synthesizer atmospherics, and Paul Thompson's artillery-like drumming keeping it all from veering into chaos provided intensely fantastic musical accompaniment. The sound is mediocre, severely dynamically compressed and spatially flat. I suggest getting tipsy and turning it up enough to fill the room to cacophonous effect, the best way to hear Ferry, with the sound of the world coming to an end surrounding him, bellowing out lyrics like, "Boys will be boys will be boy-yoy-yoy-yoys!"

Shonen Knife Gasatanka/Giant GRI-6047-2 (C) (CD)

Ah, my darling favorite Japanese women singing in their native language songs about Barbie dolls, corpulent fish, cuddly animals, sunny walks in the park, and other of life's essentials. A lousy, uneven recording. The girls can barely play, especially the drummer, who nevertheless possesses the singular talent of being able to play behind the beat and ahead of the beat at the same time. (They've become much better players in recent albums, and are a killer live act.) The guitarist uses a cheesy fuzz sound one step away from the sound of a ground loop. And the bass player goes donk, donk, donk. Not only doesn't this detract from the enjoyment of the wonderfully off the wall music, it only adds to the charm of their giddy, irresistible melodies. Once heard, the music orbits in your head, velcroed to the jukebox of the mind. I cannot get enough of this disk!

Talking Heads '77 Sire SR 6036 (A-)

Of all David Byrne and company's accomplishments, this, the Heads' first album, remains my favorite. That's because nothing could have prepared me for the shock of the first listen, after buying the record following the perusal of a series of rave record reviews. First reaction: "What the hell is this?" Byrne's manic, squeaky vocals, bizarre songs about buildings, psycho killers, and neurotic love, and minimalist arrangements were totally different from anything I'd ever heard previously, and I had that sinking feeling that I was a victim of the prodigious media hype accompanying their debut. But after several listens I realized that this was among the greatest music I'd ever heard, hummable yet deep, quirky yet ultimately accessible Terrific sound, too—distortion-free, dynamic, with strong instrumental and vocal impact and realism, recorded "straight-up" with minimal studio processing. No surprise that subsequent albums proved the Talking Heads to be one of the most fantastic bands of the twentieth century.

Gary Wilson: You Think You Really Know Me JCOA 7042 N11 (B+)

First of all, forget about trying to find this record—I bought mine at a late-Seventies performance he gave at CBGB, and I know of only three other copies found among my circle of friends and family since then. Too bad, because I've never heard anyone else like Wilson, an artist destined to wallow in undeserved obscurity. [Note: Wilson has recently been rediscovered, and this album was re-issued on CD in 2002.] Probably because he sounds genuinely demented. To the accompaniment of ersatz jazz-pop, rendered by Fender Rhodes electric piano, Farfisa organ, and guitar-bass-drums, Wilson spews forth the persona of the perennial adolescent loser, whining about the fact that he can never get laid. One must hear his demented odes to make out parties, chromium bitches, women on pedestals, red lips, and groovy girls at the beach for themselves to truly believe it, and it's a shame most of you will never get the chance, because this is the most outrageous record I've ever heard. Made all the more off the wall by the fact that Wilson cannot sing more than a few words at a time here without exclaiming, "Hey!" "Haah!" or "Whoo!" The ultimate irony: The sound is exceptionally fine, recorded on a modest tape recorded at Gary Wilson's house, allowing every gasp depraved desperation through unscathed; Wilson suffers from infidelity in glorious high fidelity.