Circles' last spin

When I first came to the Valley in 1981, Circles Records & Tapes was already a fixture at 800 N. Central Ave., Phoenix. The record store, owned by Leonard and Angela Singer since it opened in 1972, was the place where I first saw a CD — Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” no less — back in 1983, I think, but maybe it was 1984.

CDs weren’t the first digital recordings. The first pop record recorded with digital equipment was Ry Cooder’s “Bop Till You Drop,” which was pressed on vinyl in the LP format. It was a revelation, though. On pristine vinyl, you could hear that there was no analog tape hiss on the master studio recording.

Little did we know at the time that digital technology was signing the death warrant for places like Circles. I came out from the East Coast used to mom-and-pop record stores with names like Harmony House and Stereo City. I was a record nerd, no question, and would spend hours combing through the bins and talking with the salespeople, who usually were record nerds themselves. Finding a dusty pressing of Johnny Cash stuffed away in the bargain bin or combing through the jazz miscellany bin to find one of Sun Ra’s ESPdisc LPs would give me a kick.

That’s why I was glad to find Circles soon after I came to work in the desert metropolis. The store’s selection of 45 RPM singles was awe-inspiringly complete for somebody looking for oldies he didn’t have the spare change to buy two decades earlier.

I remember being lonesome for some Italian sounds — being 3,000 miles from my father’s record collection. So I went to Circles. Lo and behold, in the international bin they had just what I wanted, “My Naples,” a 1964 album by Sergio Bruni that my father played to death (and I played to death when he was out of the house).

I can’t tell you how many records I bought at Circles or how much time I spent there.

When I didn’t have a job downtown anymore, Circles was out of the way unfortunately, and I haven’t been there in a while. Now, it’s just about too late. The store will close for good Saturday (March 20, 2010), a victim of a changing industry.

Just as the Ry Cooder album with digital recording on vinyl represented an intermediary step to full digital reproduction on CD, the CD represented an intermediary step in record distribution. Pretty much the same record distribution network that served vinyl and cassette recordings was used to distribute CDs. The underlying business model didn’t really need to change. The music buyer was buying an object in order to get the performance recorded on that object.

CDs weren’t subject to some of the wear and tear issues that made record collectors handle their vinyl with the care you’d lavish on a newborn, so they quickly killed off vinyl LPs. Oh yeah, guys like Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam would champion vinyl, but that couldn’t stay the tide of CDs.

Well, digital recording ultimately paved the way for a different business model: a distribution system that doesn’t rely on selling objects that contain the recording. Instead, digital files can be distributed effortlessly via the Web to computers, mp3 players, smart phones and laptops and who knows what else in the future.

That’s made the record store something like a vinyl record in the mid-1980s, a quickly dying breed. Big chains like Tower Records - who drew many buyers away from mom-and-pop shops like Circles – are long gone already. Even big-box retailers like Walmart, which virtually controlled the CD distribution chain through the 1990s, are diminished powers in the distribution of recordings. The big power is Apple, and we’re not talking The Beatles’ record label, but the computer company’s online iTunes store.

My enjoyment of dusty record bins and hidden treasures doesn’t translate to a generation weaned on Google searches that bring them right to the mp3 file they’re seeking.

So it’s amazing that Circles has lasted this long. I’ll take that Sergio Bruni record out for a few spins this weekend in honor of Circles bowing to the inexorable trend of history. Oddly enough, I can’t find that album on iTunes.

Copyright © 2010, Salvatore Caputo

That's all right, Big Boy!

Because of the mention in Nat Hentoff's "American Music Is," I thought I'd post my entry on Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup from "MusicHound Blues: The Essential Album Guide." It was a work-for-hire, so the copyright belongs to Visible Ink Press, which has gone out of business. I'm not sure if its parent company, Gale, which publishes many reference works, kept the rights to MusicHound or sold it off elsewhere. Near as I can tell, a revised version of "MusicHound Blues" was published in 2002 by G. Schirmer Books, and that company's reference book division has been sold to Gale.

The MusicHound entries had a set format, starting with a bio, moving into "must buys" (What to Buy), the next most desirable (What to Buy Next), the clunkers (What to Avoid), the rest of the artist's works (The Rest), rarities worth seeking out (Worth Searching For), and influences. The item on the artist's influences was called Rewind and the one about who the artist influenced was, what else?, Fast Forward. Ratings were given as number of bones, with 5 bones being the best.

This item has not been updated since it was published in 1998, so the recommendations are likely not current.

ARTHUR "BIG BOY" CRUDUP

Born: Aug. 24, 1905 in Forest, Miss. Died: March 28, 1974 in Nassawadox, Va.

Arthur Crudup was a 30-year-old farmworker in rural Mississippi when he learned to play guitar in an effort to pick up some extra money playing house parties. In near poverty, the guitar he was forced to learn on had a broken neck bound together with wire. As a result, he learned only a few basic chords and riffs. By 1940, Crudup had headed north, spurred by the stories of good jobs in the big cities. Instead, life was hand-to-mouth. However, the move to Chicago wasn't wasted, because soon afterward Crudup signed to Bluebird Records. Although this didn't bail Crudup out of a life of hardship -- he was slickered into selling most of the rights to his music. He made a modest living, but should have been entitled to more. Eventually, he moved back to the South, returning North only for an annual recording session that produced a half-dozen or so songs. This went on until 1954, when a discouraged Crudup gave up in despair of ever making a good income. (He had recorded under pseudonyms for Chess and Trumpet records.) In 1960, he was coaxed back into recording for Fire Records, and in the late '60s until his death, he recorded for Delmark. Although Crudup seemed hampered by stage fright during the first phase of his career, the Delmark years found him an enthusiastic performer. None of it would have mattered, if he hadn't written such evocative images and if his high, clean voice didn't sound so forlorn in songs of lost love. Crudup also indirectly changed the course of pop music, having been a major influence on Elvis Presley. Presley's hopped-up version of "That's All Right, Mama" was his first regional hit on Sun Records, and the catalyst of the rock and roll explosion of the '50s.

What to Buy: That's All Right Mama (Bluebird, 1992, 4.5 bones) is the definitive collection of Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's music, hitting the major highlights from his Bluebird years (1941-'54), starting with the rural Delta sound of "If I Get Lucky" and ending with the proto-rock and roll of "She's Got No Hair." Listen to him croon "She cries, 'Ooo-wee, I believe I'll change my mind" on "So Glad You're Mine" or hear the smile in his voice in "Shout, Sister, Shout" and you'll have had a heaping serving of Crudup's charms. Even so, there's plenty more here. Another That's All Right Mama (Relic, 1992, 4 bones) documents Crudup's return from retirement for the Fire label in the early '60s. His remakes of many of his classic tunes have much of the power of the originals, and there are a few new tunes as well. The collection supplants Mean Ol' Frisco (Collectables, 1988, 3.5 bones), which contains fewer songs from the same sessions.

What to Buy Next: Meets the Master Blues Bassists (Delmark, 1994, 4 bones) is the only reissue on compact disc from Crudup's late '60s Delmark years. He records with long-time bass collaborator Ransom Knowling, and with Willie Dixon. Crudup seemed virtually unchanged nearly 30 years after starting his career.

What to Avoid: It's not hard to avoid some bad Crudup releases since they haven't made it to CD yet, but leave Roebuck Man (Liberty, 1974, 2 bones) and Star Bootlegger (Krazy Kat, 1983, 2 bones) alone if they ever come out in a jewel box. They're not all right, mama!

The Rest: Complete Recorded Works, Vols. 1-4 (Document, 1994, 3.5 bones) collects all of Crudup's Bluebird sides. In chronological order, the collection waters down the impact of Crudup's best sides. Still, it is complete and therefore offers many good numbers not found in other collections of this often-anthologized performer.

Worth Searching For: Crudup's Mood (Delmark, 1969, 3.5 bones) and Look on Yonder's Wall (Delmark, 1969, 3.5 bones) might still be around on crackling vinyl. Crudup proved he was a sturdy soul in these late '60s recordings.

Rewind: Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy

Fast Forward: Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan

By Salvatore Caputo

My own horn

Pardon me if I sound breathless. One of my writing heroes forever and ever is
Nat Hentoff. An editor at Downbeat in the late 1950s and for many, many years a
columnist for the Village Voice, he wrote many volumes on jazz, music in general
and on diverse subjects such as religion and First Amendment rights.

Yesterday, I found out via a Google search that he quoted me in his 2004 book
"American Music is." It's just a few words, but it's incredible to me that Nat
Hentoff read something I wrote and that it stuck with him enough to have it be
the keystone for a point he made in one of his books. I always
figure I just churn it out and hope that somebody will notice. Well, I guess
somebody really did.

The quote comes from my article on Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup in the long
out-of-print "MusicHound Blues: The Essential Album Guide"(Visible Ink Press,
1998).

To see Hentoff's big quote, click here.

Copyright © 2009, Salvatore Caputo

Buckley paid price for rare gem

Lately I've been thinking about (and listening to) Tim Buckley's "Starsailor."

After 39 years, it still seems as fresh and contemporary as the day I excitedly ripped off the shrink wrap and laid the vinyl LP on my turntable to ride the stellar sound waves.

It's a short album, barely 45 minutes, but its scope belies its brevity.

Released in 1970 on Frank Zappa and Herb Cohen's Straight Records label, this was the record where Buckley went for broke -- and pretty much ended up out of the record business for a couple of years.

Buckley had matinee-idol looks and a choir-boy tenor. Because he played an acoustic 12-string guitar, he was lumped into the folk-rock category. However, his music was never as simple musically as the term "folk-rock" -- with its three- and four-chord progressions -- implies. Exotic sounds, harmonically challenging accompaniments and Buckley's prodigious multi-octave range were there from the start, but for the record business what mattered was a singer-songwriter who looked good and had a sweet voice.

On "Starsailor," his sixth album, Buckley reached the outer limits of his evolving fusion of folk, rock, jazz, Latin, world, avant-garde and electronic music. The title track featured Buckley singing a string of impressionistic lyrics, but through recording-studio technology, his voice became its own accompaniment and created a soundscape that did indeed seem to sail the stars.

Needless to say, the sounds and time signatures that were exotic to Western ears in 1970 (today, the widespread availability of music from distant shores has shown how commonplace such "complicated" rhythms are in other parts of the globe) made "Starsailor" a commercial loser.

Buckley was the producer of this album, which meant that he had full control of the artistic presentation and choice of material. For that, according to Lee Underwood, who played guitar with Buckley for many years, the record label would not release another album till Buckley ceded artistic control.

That's all well and good, but copies of "Starsailor" are still sought out by a growing number of aficionados as we approach the album's 40th anniversary in 2010.

Its impact has outlasted the Straight label, which pretty much closed for business by 1973. The label did resurface in the late 1980s, when through a licensing deal with Enigma Records, many Straight releases were reissued on CD.

By then, Buckley was long dead (gone tragically in 1975 of a drug overdose), but the label that punished him for "Starsailor's" lack of commercial success did not leave "Starsailor" in the vault. Perhaps Herb Cohen (Zappa was no longer involved after they parted ways acrimoniously in 1976) thought CD sales would help recoup any lingering losses from the original project, but more than likely those losses had long been written off and proceeds from the reissue would be a little bit of gravy.

However, Buckley did get a measure of respect from Enigma in the CD reissue. Not only did it include printed lyrics and production notes that weren't part of the original vinyl release, the cardboard outer packaging (which was used in those days to prevent CD theft from stores) lavished praise on him:

"If you have a five-and-a-half octave vocal range, it's a shame to limit it to your average everyday pop. And this record is a living testament to the fact that Tim Buckley, at least, was smart enough to recognize that simple fact. But he wasn't able to act upon it without paying a price. ... Conundrum or no, Buckley bravely pushed on into the largely uncharted territories where he found himself more in the company of the likes of John Cage, Cathy Berberian and Rahsaan Roland Kirk than his pop contemporaries. The album that exhibited his stunning musical growth (and which Buckley regarded as his magnum opus) was 'Starsailor.' "

In short, no guts, no glory. Buckley risked a great deal to put out his magnum opus, but if he hadn't taken the risk, he never would have painted his masterpiece.

Copyright © 2009, Salvatore Caputo

PS: Enigma was acquired by Capitol Records soon after the Straight reissues and disappeared as a separate label in the very early 1990s.

PPS: Buckley was the last performer seen on the original run of "The Monkees" in 1968. He sang "Song to the Siren," a slightly revamped version of which appeared on "Starsailor" two years later. Below is the one from 1968, with the voice of Micky Dolenz introducing him.