Coming Down Hard

A coupling of the harpist's first and third LPs for Stax's Enterprise subsidiary and the best spot to inaugurate a Little Sonny CD collection. 1970's New King is mostly instrumental and places Sonny in a funky, contemporary setting; 1973's Hard Goin' Up was his best album for the firm, benefitting from excellent material spotlighting his vocal talents in a soul-slanted format.

The set is built around the A and B sides of singles, with album cuts salted in between. This is effective in charting the band's progression from melodic popsters to hard rockers and back to the pop-inflected music that closed out their career. The highlights are scattered throughout – "American Woman," of course; "Rain Dance," with its unnerving echoes of American massacres, the funky, improvised live "Truckin' Off Across the Sky," even the goofy "Clap for the Wolfman," which came when the Guess Who were all but finished. The Ultimate Collection works well as an introduction to the Guess Who, but will not gratify anyone with more than a basic need to know. On a sonic level, the set sounds good, however.

Although vintage British psychedelia is viewed by many these days as an Alice In Wonderland-style enchanted garden full of beatific flower children innocently gathering flowers or chasing butterflies, there was always a more visceral element to the scene. Pointedly free of such fripperies as scarlet tunic-wearing gnomes, phenomenal cats and talismanic bicycles, the power trio format that was popularised by the likes of Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience spawned a host of imitators. As the Sixties drew to a close and pop evolved slowly but inexorably into rock, psychedelia gave way to a sound that was harder, leaner, heavier, louder.

Because he hasn't promoted himself aggressively enough, Little Sonny isn't nearly as well known in either blues or R&B circles as he should be. But make no mistake, Sonny is a first-class electric bluesman who's also a pearl of a soul singer. And he excels in both areas on Hard Goin' Up, which Fantasy reissued on CD in the U.S. in 1997…..

Say what you want about the Cult, a band who will certainly go down as one of the most schizophrenic in rock history, but singer Ian Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy could sure write a great tune. Just glance at a few titles included on the greatest-hits collection Pure Cult: The Singles 1984-1995: "Edie (Ciao Baby)," "Love Removal Machine," "She Sells Sanctuary," "Wild Flower," "Fire Woman," "Rain," "Lil' Devil" – you get the picture. Spread haphazardly across the disc (rather than in chronological order), each track's uniqueness is even more evident, further showcasing the Cult's fearless creativity. Early songs such as "Spiritwalker" and "Resurrection Joe" will surprise most fans with their class and maturity, while later cuts like "Wild Hearted Son," "Heart of Soul," and "Coming Down" (from their disappointing latter-day albums) are given new life when viewed on their own merits.