Guest Post: Sheila O'Malley on Bill Murray and Sofia Coppola's LOST IN TRANSLATION

Jason Bailey recently wrote an article over at Flavorwire entitled 15 Great Female Film Critics You Should be Reading and my guest blogger Sheila O'Malley was rightfully featured on that list. For my own thoughts on Sheila, take away the 'female' in that title. She is, simply put, one of the best writers on film and music in the world and is a huge inspiration to me so I am so honored by her appearing here again at Moon in the Gutter. I don't know what to say about this piece on Bill Murray...like all of Sheila's personal pieces it is engaging, haunting, intelligent and poetic. I am beyond thrilled to present here today and thanks so much to Sheila for sharing it with us.                       

BILL MURRAY IN LOST IN TRANSLATION by Sheila O'Malley, 2013

It's the day before Bill Murray shows up in Tokyo to start filming Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, and Coppola, talking to the camera, wells up with tears in excitement. Even the way she says "Bill" shows her emotion about the man. She says, and she suddenly seems 11, 12 years old, "It's my fantasy ... I can't wait to see Bill in his kimono. I can't believe he's coming to do this movie. It's my dream." Bill Murray is famously elusive. He has no representation, no agent or manager. How did Coppola "get to Bill" with the offer of Lost in Translation? "Perseverance," she says. She has been open about the fact that he was her only choice for the role of Bob Harris, the sleep-deprived movie star shipwrecked in Tokyo. She didn't want to do the movie if he didn't play the role. Great things come out of such risks, such gambles, and often the great ones are the ones who have no Plan B. In a career as diverse as Murray's, there haven't been too many mis-steps, which is rare. Like Cary Grant, who managed his own career, Bill Murray keeps his own counsel, does what pleases him, and is self-protective to the point of being a total mystery. He started out in films playing weirdos, grumps, and detached anti-social anti-heroes. Ghostbusters shot him into the stratosphere, but for me, it was his sidekick role in Tootsie that showed Bill Murray's uncanny smarts about his own career.


It's a small role, but, in looking back, I think Tootsie was even more important than Ghostbusters or Stripes in Bill Murray's career. It helped to express what he was really all about. I started watching Saturday Night Live regularly during Bill Murray's first season. I was a kid, and much of the show went over my head, but there were two Bill Murray characters which struck a deep chord, both comedically (I understood why they were funny, in other words), and emotionally (I had a huge crush on him, in other words). The first one was the lounge singer, Nick Winters, whose gigs involve performing in truck stops outside the Vegas strip, a moving railway car, and other depressing venues.


Nick Winters is Dean Martin and Elvis Presley in his own mind, and he bellows out his songs with gusto and flourishes, the results often being totally ridiculous. But the trick is that he honestly believes he is playing at The International Hotel in front of thousands of people. Nick Winters is totally delusional, and yet the character is not tragic, we don't feel sorry for him. What I am left with, when I watch the Nick Winters sketches, to this day, is an overwhelming sense of Bill Murray's essence. It feels laid-bare there, in a way I don't get from his other popular sketches, like the Ex-Police, or the co-anchor on Weekend Update. A real key to Bill Murray's long-lasting appeal is in Nick Winters. The other sketch that made a huge impression on me was the "nerds" sketch, with Bill Murray as Todd DiLaMuca, the geek with the pocket protector, who was best friends with Gilda Radner's snuffling-nosed nerd Lisa. What is so great about both of their performances is that underneath the awkward nerdiness and bad jokes, what they are actually playing is an ongoing subtextual love story. Every time he makes fun of her flat chest, every time he grabs her and gives her a "noogie attack", there's a tension of what might happen next. There's a hope/fear that Todd might finally do what he has always wanted to do from the beginning, which is take Lisa in his arms and kiss her like a maniac. It's a character-based sketch, the kind I love best. Bill Murray and Gilda Radner got a ton of laughs as Todd and Lisa, but there are also moments where the sketches almost move into bittersweet poignant territory. In the sketch where Lisa is in the hospital for an operation to correct her "deviated septum", Todd visits her, but unfortunately another student, Charles (played by host Steve Martin) also visits her. Charles has brought Lisa's homework for her, and Todd tries to denigrate his rival's thoughtfulness by sticking his finger down his throat over how gross it all is. But what's really going on is Todd is bummed out that he didn't think to bring Lisa's homework. That nerdy girl lying in the hospital bed is the hottest girl in town: men are fighting over her. And finally, in the "coda" of the sketch, when the rivals have finally left her alone in the room, she turns off the light and lies there for a minute. Then, she turns on the light, gets out of bed, goes to a chair by the door to pick up her teddy bear, walks back to the bed, and crawls into it, snuggling the teddy bear close to her. It's sweet and quiet, and the silence of the audience as they watch her shows that they will follow these two characters anywhere. Would Todd and Lisa ever kiss? Would they ever break through the joshing almost-violent dynamic they have with each other? It's vulnerable work from both of them. And in Todd DiLaMuca, we can see Bill Murray as Leading Man. Not everyone is a Leading Man, but he is, he always was.

Bill Murray carries with him a slight potential of danger, we sense he could turn cruel at any moment. His detachment makes him a natural commentator on the human condition, but it can also isolate him, it can also make him unsympathetic towards his fellow creatures. Often comedians, so used to having to "get laughs", try to be likable in their film roles, they want the audience to be on their side. Bill Murray never had that problem. Groundhog Day tapped into his darkness, an essential part of him. Years of character parts solidified Murray's position as one of the most interesting actors working today, and Wes Anderson jump-started a third (or fourth) wave of his career with Rushmore. There we get Bill Murray's essence, too, only now shaded with middle-aged melancholy and sour cynicism. But what would have happened to Bill Murray's career if he hadn't been convinced by Sofia Coppola's "perseverance" to play Bob Harris in Lost in Translation, which brought him his first Oscar nod? It's not a given that a role like that would have come along for him, in the natural course of things. His days as a Ghostbusters superstar were seemingly in the past. Someone had to think it up, someone had to dream about him in that way. Coppola did. I always felt fluttery with excitement when Bill Murray showed up in a movie, and this sensation has lasted, what, 30 years? That's insane longevity. Coppola was very smart in how she utilized that in Lost in Translation. Murray had to recognize that this, this role ... this one would change things for him. He said that he read the script and immediately thought, "Yes. I know this. I already know this." Murray was right to trust her with his carefully guarded persona. She pulled back any veils that might be between us and him and revealed all of those elements we have sensed in him from the beginning: his caustic outsider status, his world-weary eye-roll (that could either be hostile or affectionately inclusive), his well-known ambivalence about his own fame, and his surprising capacity for piercing sudden tenderness (which is what I always felt reverberating beneath his shenanigans with Gilda Radner in the "nerds").


While there are so many moments I love in Lost in Translation, it is in the karaoke scene where, by some magic trick of mood, music, performance, and free-floating associations, we can see the history of his entire career, poured into the vessel created for him by Coppola. The first time I saw the scene, I honestly felt like I had died and gone to heaven. I couldn't believe it was actually happening. This ... exists now? If the scene had been self-conscious or arch in any way, it wouldn't have worked. Coppola loves him, and you can tell she does by what she allowed to happen in that scene. Let him go, let him be, let him be himself, and stand back. Marvel at him. You can feel Coppola marveling at him in the way she films that scene. And she doesn't give him just one song to sing. She lets him sing two.

The first song he sings is Elvis Costello's "What's So Funny About Peace, Love & Understanding?" The first time I saw the scene, of course, Nick Winters from so many years ago flashed through my mind, and how happy Nick Winters was, in his own fantasy of being two steps away from being a member of the Rat Pack even though he's singing in a dive, wearing Elvis knock-offs and silk shirts opened to the navel. Bill Murray launches himself into Costello's song with gusto, and suddenly, somehow, the space gets tremendously emotional. It's almost chaotic. The emotions are there in how he sings the song, certainly, but it's how Coppola films him as well. It's almost like he's in a stadium, singing to the cheering masses. While you get the sense that this is the most fun Bob Harris has had in years, there is also a wild sadness underneath it, so wild that it is probably frightening to even acknowledge its existence. That wild sadness was always there in Bill Murray's work. It's never more palpable than in this scene. Scarlett Johansson, in her pink wig, then gets up and sings The Pretenders "Brass in Pocket", expressly doing it for Bob, who is so relaxed by this point that the openness of his face is actually a little bit heartbreaking.

But Coppola is not done with this location, this event. We then see Scarlett, holding the mike, and saying, to an imaginary crowd in an ultra-serious voice, "Ladies and gentlemen. Bob Harris." He takes the mike, and admits to her, "This is hard." The way he says that line encapsulates everything I have loved about Bill Murray from the very start of his long career. Again, it's like he's Nick Winters, lost in the fantasy of being some tormented rock star about to sing a ballad he wrote that means a lot to him and it's going to be "hard" to get through it. Bill Murray knows it's funny, Bob Harris knows it's funny, and then, like quicksilver, the moment passes, and he starts to sing "More Than This", and this signifies a swoon into another mood, a quieter one. He's no longer standing, like he was for the Costello number, but sitting beside the pink-wigged young woman who has suddenly come into his life, and he hasn't slept in four days, and the way he sings the song makes it sound like it is coming from out of the dream he wishes he was having.

"I could feel at the time There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night Who can say where they're blowing
As free as the wind Hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide Has no way of turning More than this you know there's nothing
More than this tell me one thing More than this there is nothing."

Bill Murray has always been a little bit hard to pin down. I think he likes it that way. I think it's one of the reasons why his career has lasted so long, and has had so many interesting dips and turns. He resists classification, and has always stood a little bit outside of the normal path. If he is going to lend his persona to a director it has to be for a damn good reason. Sofia Coppola gave him a damn good reason. She had been dreaming about him for years. It shows. There's a reason why Bill Murray refers to her as "The Boss".


***Thanks again Shelia for this incredibly moving and wonderfully informative piece!***

Ten Favorites from Jerry Leiber

One of the most important figures in the history of American Popular Music has passed away at the age of 78. There certainly isn't anything I can write about how much of a giant lyricist and songwriter Jerry Leiber was, that hasn't been said a million times over, so I thought in tribute I would just present ten personal favorites of mine. Without Jerry Leiber, Rock music would have been quite a tamer beast. A mighty salute to a truly great artist.

Jeff Buckley: "Alligator Wine"



The Diamonds: "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots"



Elvis Presley: "Bossa Nova Baby"



Tom Jones: "I Who Have Nothing"



PJ Harvey: "Is That All There Is?"



Elvis Presley: "Just Tell her Jim Said Hello"



Elvis Presley: "Loving You"



Bjork: "Ruby Baby"



Elvis Presley: "Trouble"



Bryan Ferry: "You're so Square, Baby I Don't Care"

Bryan Ferry Unveils His Olympia Cover Starring Kate Moss

I am so extremely excited about Olympia, the upcoming solo album from Bryan Ferry that is due out in late October. This is Bryan's first album of new material since his stunning Frantic collection nearly ten years ago, and Olympia's first single "You Can Dance" is absolute vintage Ferry. Bryan just unveiled the cover of the album, which features a lovely new shot of the incredibly iconic Kate Moss (a personal favorite whom I am thrilled to see on a Roxy-Ferry sleeve), and I wanted to share a preview here. More information on Ferry's upcoming album, which features everyone from Brian Eno to Dave Gilmore to The Scissor Sisters, and new single can be found here for those interested.

Deluxe and Delightful

Info on what looks to be my dream-show can be found here...

Classic Song Chronicles: "Jealous Guy" (John Lennon)

While the title track “Imagine” is undoubtedly the most famous song off Lennon’s masterful 1971 LP, it is the haunting “Jealous Guy” that has become the most covered. Growing up with the legendary album, I must admit that “Jealous Guy” has always been my favorite, and as I have gotten older it has lost none of its hypnotic and powerful pull for me.
Lennon originally wrote the tune for “Jealous Guy” after The Beatles returned from their visit to India as “Child of Nature”, a song that was left off The White Album.



The discarded song stayed in Lennon’s head throughout the next few years and he brought it back to life during the Imagine sessions with new typically ultra-personal lyrics focusing on his relationship with artist, collaborator and muse Yoko Ono.



“Jealous Guy” is one of the ultimate John Lennon songs as it shows so many aspects of his volatile and passionate personality. Beautiful sounding but with a real line of bitterness underneath, the song offers up an apology without a resolution. It’s as though Lennon is explaining a line of behavior he has no plans on changing.
Despite the fact that the song includes Lennon’s own undeniably effective piano playing, the haunting harmonium work by John Barham, Jim Keltner on drums and the ever present Klaus Voorman on bass, the real pull of the track is Lennon’s pleading vocal take and an eerie mid-song whistle that would go on to influence Billy Joel a few years later on his equally mesmerizing "The Stranger" in 1977.

“Jealous Guy” wasn’t released as a single in Lennon’s lifetime (it finally appeared as a 45 under his own name in the mid eighties) but its impact was immediately felt. Of the dozens of cover versions of the song, one of the earliest by late soul legend Donny Hathaway remains the most effective:



Rod Stewart and The Faces began performing the song live in the mid seventies shortly before they split up, and the tune lent itself well to their scrappy but ferociously great playing, and is heard well in this rehearsal version:



The most successful version of the song (and truth be told, perhaps the greatest) was released by the peerless Roxy Music in 1980 shortly after Lennon had been killed outside The Dakota in New York. Armed with one of Bryan Ferry’s most enduring vocals and the band’s typically immaculate playing, Roxy Music’s version would ironically turn out to be their only number one hit in Britain, and it served simultaneously as a lament and tribute to an extraordinary talent taken all to soon.



Everyone from The Black Crows to Kiss have performed the song since. Much missed Elliot Smith was an unabashed fan of the track and his tender version would pop up often in his live shows throughout the nineties:



The most original version of the song came courtesy of Lou Reed at the Come Together tribute concert in 2001. Lou’s pulverizing and passionate version of Lennon’s track instantly became a ‘Lou Reed Song’ in the famed New Yorker’s hands and it’s a shame he hasn’t (to my knowledge) revisited it since.



Vivid, unflinching, and altogether haunting, "Jealous Guy" remains one of John Lennon's most beloved tracks and, along with the raging "Crippled Inside", it is the key song off his most commercially successful album.

Inside Roxy Music 1972-1974

Gearing up for the release of the double disc THRILL OF IT ALL collection that is getting ready to hit American shores, I was finally able to catch up with the near hour long INSIDE ROXY MUSIC 1972-1974 last night.
I have read a lot of complaints about the British INSIDE series, that has profiled everyone from Syd Barrett to Kate Bush, but I must admit that I am quite fond of it for the most part. While it is true that these are essentially unauthorized low budget productions with limited archival material and no input from the bands themselves, there is something so refreshing about the fact that they really are about the music and not the artist’s personal lives. I find them all really welcome in our age of sick and draining tabloid journalism run rampant.
INSIDE ROXY MUSIC 1972-1974 follows the pattern set up by the other shows in the series where we see a group of musicians, fans and critics being interviewed (talking head style) about just what it is that captivates them so much about the artists in question.

The Roxy Music panel is fairly strong although I must admit that I wasn’t familiar with most of them with the exception of late period bassist Mark Smith and the Roxyrama founder. Still, despite not knowing them, I found them all to be compulsively watch-able, well spoken and intelligent.
The show starts with a discussion of the band’s legendary first single, the blazing VIRGINIA PLAIN, and how unique Roxy Music were from the get go. Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground are correctly mentioned throughout the show as being one of the pivotal influences on Roxy, especially in relation to that first single and STREET LIFE. Interesting comparisons are drawn throughout including an interesting talk on A SONG FOR EUROPE’S connection with David Bowie and why Roxy continue to impress and be talked about long after most bands from the period have faded into obscurity.
Much is made of the dynamic between Ferry and Brian Eno, and the disagreements on Eno probably provide the documentary with its most bracing moments. Particularly telling are the differing views on Eno’s replacement Eddie Jobson who is viewed as musically more sophisticated but perhaps not as creative…an interesting but not totally accurate view as I have always found Jobson’s work to be quite extraordinary especially on the majestic COUNTRY LIFE album.
My favorite aspect of the disc is the serious discussion on how incredibly inventive and original Ferry is. I have stated before that I consider Bryan Ferry as important as any rock artist from the past forty years and seeing his often undervalued work treated with such respect and care was extremely satisfying.
Archival clips from the BBC are spread throughout and even broken up into pieces like they are here, they still show Roxy as one of the most visually and musically astonishing bands of this or any other age. One critic notes that it was like they were aliens who had fallen to earth and viewing these clips, that seems absolutely true.
Like I said, this isn’t a program at all interested in the personal lives of these artists. So no Jerry Hall, no information on the fights between Ferry and Eno…just an hour of serious discussion on why the songs and albums of Roxy Music remain so absolutely essential and vital.

The main problem with the disc is how short it is and the fact that it just covers the first half of Roxy Music’s career. I would love to see a volume two on the underrated second half, a period which is in many ways even more confrontational and interesting than the first. Also looks at the solo careers of Ferry and Eno would be absolutely essential and are hopefully in the works.
Fans of Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno should absolutely take a look at INSIDE ROXY MUSIC 1972-1974. While it is no way definitive and just contains a smattering of performance clips, it will remind you of the undeniable triumph this band was and why their music continues to prosper to this day.

Roxy Music Archives Finally Hitting DVD

My vote for the most important archival music DVD release of the year streets at the end of this month in England. ROXY MUSIC: THE THRILL OF IT ALL promises to be an absolutely mind blowing double disc set featuring tons of rare television footage, and live work from their monumentally important career.
No word as of yet, that I can find anyway, on a US release but it appears that the discs will be all region so there hopefully won't be too many compatibility issues. To read the full press release, please click on the link above. While there, you can also vote to have Bryan Ferry knighted (I'd personally rather see him and his extraordinary group put into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame) and read a new interview with Phil Manzanera that mentions Brian Eno was indeed involved on all of the tracks for the upcoming Roxy Music release, their first studio album since
1982's AVALON. He also mentions that Roxy have been contracted to deliver not one, but three new studio albums.
Roxy Music are my all time favorite band, and I can't wait to get my hands on this collection.

Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter 13) Bryan Ferry The Bride Stripped Bare

Bryan Ferry's furious 1978 release THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE was a relative failure upon initial release and is now mostly remembered in the context of Jerry Hall leaving him for Mick Jagger. Rolling Stone exclaimed in the headline of their original negative review that the album was "more Edith Piaf than Muddy Waters" and I always wondered why that was considered a bad thing.
THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE is one of the great break-up albums of all time as it is an album that had Ferry responding to punk and the criticism he had fell under after his first solo albums.
No band had been more progressive or acclaimed than Roxy Music in the early seventies but by the time of the brilliantly subversive MANIFESTO and FLESH AND BLOOD they were becoming more and more disdained by groups and critics who had forgotten what the word irony meant. So THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE is an incredibly ambitious album, one that sees Ferry trying to answer his critics with a reminder that he could indeed rock while still maintaining the cool and slightly sinister air that he had developed for himself with Roxy Music.
THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE is an album obviously made by a man in distress. It is one of the most authentically paranoid albums ever recorded and it is a startling cohesive album considering it is a mixture of original songs and cover versions.
Ferry is one of the great underrated singers of the rock era, he is an extremely talented song stylist who has the unique ability (like one of his idols Elvis Presley) to take seemingly any kind of song and make it uniquely his own. He is also an incredibly important songwriter and when he is at the top of his game (FOR YOUR PLEASURE, COUNTRY LIFE, FRANTIC) he is pretty unmatchable.
Ferry had been unhappy with 1977's IN YOUR MIND, even though it contained several astonishing tracks and the brutally good guitar work of Chris Spedding, and he wanted THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE to signal a new beginning for him.
The album opens with the surprisingly volcanic SIGN OF THE TIMES, one of the shortest and most potent songs Ferry has ever recorded. It's crunching twin guitar attack of Waddy Watchel and Neil Hubbard combined with some of Ferry's most biting lyrics proved a thrilling starting point. The single famously failed at the height of the punk movement but it holds up just as good as say anything off The Clash's second album that was released around the same time. When Ferry spits out, "Here is a rainbow for your hair" we know that glam is truly over and that we are in the midst of something far more desperate and real.
The album's second track, CAN'T LET GO, is its most famous as Ferry and Roxy Music have revisited it live many times throughout the years since THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE original. Again the duel guitar work by Watchel and Hubbard is incredible and Ferry delivers one of his most pained and impassioned performances. Never has anyone so known for being so cool, that they are almost cold, sounded so vulnerable. The song has been looked at as an obvious message to Jerry Hall but there is the sense that Ferry is singing also to the time period that he came from that was obviously disappearing.
The albums next two tracks were two of the most surprising choices of Ferry's career up to that point. The famous soul track HOLD ON I'M COMING had been a major hit for Sam and Dave in the sixties and Ferry's crunchy version is a fine cover with again his impassioned vocals carrying the track. Even more surprising was the tough version of J.J. Cale's SAME OLD BLUES. Ferry sounds absolutely possessed with anger on this track with Alan Spenner's impressive bass playing standing out.
The gorgeous ballad WHEN SHE WALKS IN THE ROOM marks the albums halfway point and it's a lovely track with Ferry singing lines like, "And your fair weathered friends fail to speak, they're so afraid still waters run deep". The song's final few moments with Ferry and Waddy Watchel harmonizing the title is incedibly haunting and absolutely devastating sounding when you consider what Ferry was going through at this point in his life and career.
Al Green's TAKE ME TO THE RIVER shows just how much bad luck Ferry was having at this point. Originally ridiculed for his version, it would soon become a monster hit for the Eno produced Talking Heads with David Byrne obviously more inspired by Ferry's version than Green's original.

THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE'S masterpiece follows with Ferry's thunderous stab at The Velvet Underground's WHAT GOES ON. Ferry transforms Lou Reed's original into a frustrated and impassioned plea and when he suddenly starts incorporating lyrics from The Velvets BEGINNING TO SEE THE LIGHT into the mix we are caught in one of Ferry's great moments. The accompanying video featuring a bearded and weary looking Ferry is one the indelible images in a career full of them.
Another beautiful ballad follows in CARRICKFERGUS and like CAN'T LET GO we have Ferry admitting his inability or need to move on. It's a lovely version of a much often performed traditional Irish song.
One last cover is THAT'S HOW STRONG MY LOVE IS and Ferry's version hearkens back to not only Otis Reddings version but ironically Mick Jagger's vocal take on The Rolling Stones cover. All is fair in love and war it seems.
The eerie THIS ISLAND EARTH closes the album and it would have been right at home on one of Roxy Music's early albums. It is worth noting that Ferry's excellent keyboard work here resembles some of Eno's solo albums from this period which gives a good example that these two have always been in a way connected.
Ferry has recently returned to THIS ISLAND EARTH with some remarkable live performances and a BBC session which saw this great lost track getting an amazing response. It is one of Ferry's loneliest numbers and one of his best.

THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE was Bryan Ferry's biggest gamble and biggest failure in the decade which he owns as much as David Bowie or any other iconic figure you can think up. It was troubled from the beginning as it was originally planned as a double album (the scrapped songs showed up later as b-sides) and an odd, half-hearted marketing campaign sealed it's fate.

The album is not often mentioned among Ferry's best and while it doesn't have the majestic draw of his greatest albums it does give us a rare glimpse of one of our coolest and most important artists at his most open and vulnerable.

Ferry's newest album, Dylanesque, has just been released and the much anticipated new Roxy Music studio album will hopefully arrive later this year.

Please note that the above WHAT GOES ON sleeve collage comes from the remarkable THESE VINTAGE YEARS site. Visit them at www.vivaroxymusic.com for a comprehensive and up to date guide to the wonderful world of Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry.

Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Six)

Frank Sinatra, for all of his greatness, could never be completely convincing singing pop songs in the sixties. He can't hide his contempt of the material that he layed down on albums like That's Life, My Way and Strangers In The Night, and these album's worst moments are the most shallow items in the great mans catalogue. Dean Martin, on the other hand, could sing any song in any genre and give it a warmth and relaxed reading that Sinatra could never match.
Dean Martin's reprise catalogue in the sixties is one of the most underrated in all of popular music. Time has buried just how popular these records were and listening to them now we are able to hear some of the most revitalizing music of the period. Dean, like Elvis, could sing anything and make it a Dean Martin song. Give him a Jimmy Webb song like By The time I Get To Phoenix and he'll nail it, King Of The Road and he'll make it seem like he is singing his autobiography. He could inject the most tragic songs with hope and add an elation to happier tunes that no one could match.
Choosing a favorite Dino album from the Reprise period is near impossible, from the sublime Dream With Dean to the nostalgic Once In A While we are given hundreds of quality performances by a man whose reputation would tell you that he didn't give a damn, we know now that Dean Martin was a lot more complicated than people could have ever imagined.
Houston would be an important album in any one's oeuvre for just two tracks alone, the stunning pair of singles in the title track and I Will, but add on ten more country rock infused classics and you've got a masterpiece.
The Lee Hazelwood penned opening title track is one of the sixties great moments with Dean giving one of his all-time great performances. Never has a man at the end of his rope sounded so defiantly relaxed. He knocks Hazelwood's ultimate ode to a loner trying to get home completely out of the park and by the time Sun legend Billy Lee Riley comes in on the harmonica we already have one of the great singles of the sixties.
Side one's brassy energetic feel is laced with sweet remembrances of love and it ends on the lovely Down Home which returns us to the loner of the title track. The album's underlying story is that of a man who stepped out just a little too much but can still get salvation, if he can just get home. Get back to where you belong indeed.
Side Two opens with the legendary I Will, one of Dino's biggest hits, and its wonderfully mournful string section gives side two a different feel. I defy anyone to not be moved when Dean sings, "I don't want to be the one who loves you babe but I will". It's a heartfelt performance that does the deceptively simple thing of making you believe him.
Side Two is, over all, a little more mellow and lush than the first but by the time Dean's character is thrown into jail in the great Detour we realize that the loner from Side one is still with us. The album closes with You're The Reason I'm In Love and we have are character resolving to perhaps finally stay but not without reservations, when Dean sings "Some may doubt that I believe" he seems to be answering not only his critics but also a generation that never gave him enough credit.
Houston also features one of the great sleeve designs, this is why LPs were made, from the terrific montage of photos on the front to the hilarious back comparing Dean to the city of Houston.
Dean Martin remains one of the most underrated and under-appreciated performers in popular music. His place in rock history is particularly in need of attention as he is the connecting point between Bing Crosby's revolutionizing the art of singing to the emergence of Elvis Presley. Had he come to prominence just one or two decades later he would have been one of the great rock icons. His complex relaxed style can be seen in everyone from Bryan Ferry to Jarvis Cocker. For a man who supposedly didn't give a damn, I'd say he did more than just all right.