Lonely 1980

Listen to the very first cut on Freefall and you'll understand the basic problem with the Alvin Lee Band: the track is a nice piece of mid-tempo rock, rather catchy, but is Alvin Lee in there anywhere? Repeated listenings reveal that he might be singing background vocals, and that guitar lead sounds like a slick studio player who listened to a few Ten Years After records one afternoon…

Listen to the very first cut on Freefall and you'll understand the basic problem with the Alvin Lee Band: the track is a nice piece of mid-tempo rock, rather catchy, but is Alvin Lee in there anywhere? Repeated listenings reveal that he might be singing background vocals, and that guitar lead sounds like a slick studio player who listened to a few Ten Years After records one afternoon. From the sound of the whole track, the rest of the band had been listening to Foreigner. Not everything on this album is as anonymous as the first track, and some of it sounds pretty good. This band probably should have been called the Lee/Gould band, as former Rare Bird vocalist Steve Gould has at least as much to do with the sound of the band on those first few tracks.

Listen to the very first cut on Freefall and you'll understand the basic problem with the Alvin Lee Band: the track is a nice piece of mid-tempo rock, rather catchy, but is Alvin Lee in there anywhere? Repeated listenings reveal that he might be singing background vocals, and that guitar lead sounds like a slick studio player who listened to a few Ten Years After records one afternoon. From the sound of the whole track, the rest of the band had been listening to Foreigner. Not everything on this album is as anonymous as the first track, and some of it sounds pretty good. This band probably should have been called the Lee/Gould band, as former Rare Bird vocalist Steve Gould has at least as much to do with the sound of the band on those first few tracks.

Van Morrison was working through one of his greatest - yet least appreciated - creative periods when he made this album, one that burrows deeply into an introspective jazz-rooted spiritual groove. With Mark Isham's lonely muted trumpet up front, listeners are in the jazz world immediately with "Haunts of Ancient Peace," merging perfectly with Morrison's idiosyncratic vocal style. A low-pressure soul-jazz organ riff lays down the base of the most easily assimilated track, "Satisfied," as Morrison's lyric indicates that he has reached a state of internal peace. "Wild Honey" has R&B horn riffs over Philly-style strings, while "Spirit" mostly pursues a self-fulfillment path similar to that of "Satisfied." Ultimately, the record stands or falls upon two remarkable, gigantic 15-minute pieces, "Summertime in England" and "When Heart Is Open"…