Cat Stevens - Tea For The Tillerman

MINE

I fell through a hole and ended up in 1980.  Sitting in my friend Karen's back room with the gang (Hi, you guys! Still reading?) where we were allowed to smoke and drink endless cups of coffee.  And where this was one of the albums that had top billing on the turntable, along with Hotel California and an awful lot of reggae thanks to Karen's brother Murray.

I hadn't listened to this CD since we bought it on one of those "it's reduced so why don't we get some music" ventures to our favourite store.  Shareholders, if you're looking for the reason J B Hi-Fi keeps tripling its profits year on year, look no further.  But as soon as I put it on, I sang along all the way through.  I know every single one of these songs, back to front and inside out.  Maybe if you cut one of my ears off and held it up to your ear, you'd hear Wild World or Into White.  Maybe that's just gross.  Why do I think of these things?  (YourZ sez: I to could ask why but at least you keep things interesting).

I'm not going to go into the semantics of how a British-born singer with Greek and Swedish ancestry happened to convert to Islam.  But I will say I don't have the urge to buy anything he's produced since then.

VERDICT: TURN IT UP

YOURZ

I'm not a Cat Stevens fan.  There is something about his voice that has always annoyed me but I don't know what it is.  I feel the same way about Bob Dylan, even though both artists sound very different to each other.  But I can acknowledge Stevens is a great song writer.  However, like Dylan, I prefer the versions of songs when they're covered by others.

Maybe it is because a number of these songs were force-fed to me when I was a teenager while studying music when I much prefered KISS and Deep Purple to this.  What ever it is, it still makes me cringe a little.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

For more information: http://catstevens.com/

Rodriguez - Cold Fact

MINE

It's not that I really need this CD in our collection; it's just that it takes me back to a time when I was just out of school and discovering what it was like to be an adult.  Not that I was terribly grown-up, you understand, but this album spent a lot of time on our turntables back then, where we discussed what it all meant in deep and meaningful tones, often when slightly or hugely inebriated.

Mostly unknown in his native US, Rodriguez has a cult following in South Africa and was also pretty well-kown in Australia.  Listening to the music now, there's so much I love about the songs Sugar Man, Establishment Blues and I Wonder, but it's the love you have for a classic album.  In fact, I was struck by the resemblance to a lot of Cat Stevens' output.  (Memo: add Tea for the Tillerman to that ever-expanding list)

Another man-and-guitar touchstone for me.  More loved for its wistfully-nostalgic feel than for any real appreciation of the music, some of which I have to admit sounds, well, really '70s.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

YOURZ

I remember a bit of fuss being made about this man, particularly of his song Sugar Man, which I kind of recall from when I was a teenager.  But I was a rock fan back then and generally loud, teenage boy rock too.  Cold Fact just never made it on to my radar.

What surpirsed me is reading about how long it took for this album to achieve success and just how popular he was outside of the US (and how little he knew of his popularity).  It took the better part of a decade for Cold Fact to make an impact and, when it did, it was initially in Australia and New Zealand.  But it wasn't until nearly thirty years after its release that his daughter discovered a fan site in South Africa and found out about his huge fan base there as well.

Listening to Cold Fact for this review, I can understand why it's considered a classic.  There is an honesty about Rodriguez' voice and the songs he writes.  The recordings are rough and ready but also very honest. As a snapshot, it's a great document to the times both musically and in a wider context.  However, as Mine has so rightly pointed out, it is a product of its time and sounds very dated.  Having said this, it's a fascinating listen.

VERDICT: TURN IT DOWN

For more information: http://www.sugarman.org/

For more information: http://www.sugarman.org/