Dancing Times – July 2018

From A Live FM Radio Broadcast Recorded At The Capital Centre, Landover, MD, 11th October 1982.

Lionel Richie's Back to Front isn't just a definitive greatest hits collection, it's a reminder of Richie's supreme strengths as an R&B singer-songwriter. From the gentle sweep of "Do It to Me" to the earnest lovelorn crooning of "Hello," Richie's ballads are timeless. Even the borderline sappy "Endless Love" shines despite cosinger Diana Ross's histrionics. Also featured is "Still" and "Say You, Say Me," and while the faster songs–the Caribbean-inspired rhythms of "All Night Long" and the '80s synthpop of "Running with the Night"–are weaker, they hardly detract from this otherwise sterling survey.

For her third album on Alpha, Patricia Kopatchinskaja is joined by a highly talented pianist whose approach to music is as extremist as hers, Polina Leschenko. Together they explore pieces that have many points in common. The Hungarian violinist Jelly dAranyi, grandniece of Joseph Joachim, was a muse to both Bartok and Ravel. In 1922 and 1923, she premiered the two Bartok sonatas for violin and piano and Ravel dedicated Tzigane to her. He wrote to Bartok: You have convinced me to compose for our friend, who plays so fluently, a little piece whose diabolical difficulty will bring to life the Hungary of my dreams; and since it will be for violin, why dont we call it Tzigane? Of course, Tzigane by Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who has been playing and dancing this music since her childhood in Moldova, does not sound like salon music . . .

One of the towering figures of 20th century's music, Alabama-born pianist and organist Herman "Sun Ra" Blount (1914) became the cosmic musician par excellence. Despite dressing in extraterrestrial costumes (but inspired by the pharaohs of ancient Egypt) and despite living inside a self-crafted sci-fi mythology (he always maintained that he was from Saturn, and no biographer conclusively proved his birth date) and despite littering his music with lyrics inspired to a self-penned spiritual philosophy (he never engaged in sexual relationships apparently because he considered himself an angel), Sun Ra created one of the most original styles of music thanks to a chronic disrespect for both established dogmas and trendy movements.

Bay City Rollers were a pop phenomenon in the mid-'70s, taking their money-in-the-bank mix of good looks, pop hooks, and just a dash of rock & roll danger from their native Scotland to the rest of Great Britain and then North America. The Rollers' biggest hits ("Bye, Bye, Baby," "Give a Little Love," "Saturday Night") were pure bubblegum in the tradition of the Partridge Family and Ohio Express…