Posted by audioblaster | 01:26 -

(18) Jeff Lynne - Long Waves (2012)

22 years after his last solo album, 1990’s "Armchair Theatre", Lynne released his new album "Long Wave".  Lynne says over the album: "I call this new album "Long Wave" because all of the songs I sing on it are the ones heard on long wave radio when I was a kid growing up in Birmingham, England. These songs take me back to that feeling of freedom in those days and summon up the feeling of first hearing those powerful waves of music coming in on my old crystal set. My dad also had the radio on all the time, so some of these songs have been stuck in my head for 50 years. You can only imagine how great it felt to finally get them out of my head after all these years." The man described by The Washington Times as “the fourth greatest record producer in history”. Having famously worked with Dylan, Harrison, Orbison and Ringo, the pop polymath now plays everything himself, a one-man band moving across a dewy sound-bed of nostalgia. A subjective labour of love akin to Bowie’s Pin-Ups or Ferry’s These Foolish Things, which also carries elements of stripped-down self-exposure (like Johnny Cash’s American Recordings or Tom Jones’ Spirit in the Room), it’s infused with warm melancholy. If it never crackles with startling candour, you sense that’s because he wants to pay simple homage to the tunes that formed him, rather than whip out his youthful diaries. Many selections are ‘pre-rock’ 1950s standards, with a few fairly well known but not over-familiar 60s nuggets also summoned. Perhaps surprisingly, Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered and Love Is a Many Splendored Thing work wonderfully well. Lynne has never been an ostentatious singer but knows how to arrange to perfection, even in this understated mode. The echoing shadows of Richard Hawley’s music come to mind. We could all probably live without another version of Charlie Chaplin’s cheesy Smile, but he does make it chug along effectively. Don’t expect ELO-style baroque-and-rococo flourishes: for the most part "Long Wave" ticks with paced, poignant precision. There’s further subdued romance in the readings of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s If I Loved You and the evergreen "She", once crooned by Charles Aznavour. A louche, atypically throwaway take on Bobby Darin’s "Beyond the Sea" is a damp squib, and a couple of trad blues-rockers only remind the listener of ELO’s Roll Over Beethoven. But Lynne’s elegiac streak emerges again on Etta James’ At Last and The Big O’s Running Scared.Lynne doesn’t try to break any moulds here, but respectfully doffs a cap at those that shaped him.

Track listing

01.  "She"  (Charles Aznavour, Herbert Kretzmer) - 2:41
02.  "If I Loved You"  (Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein) - 2:21
03.  "So Sad  (To Watch Good Love Go Bad)" (Don Everly) - 2:33
04.  "Mercy Mercy"  (Don Covay, Ronald Dean Miller) - 2:53
05.  "Running Scared"  (Roy Orbison, Joe Melson) - 2:10
06.  "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"  (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) - 2:20
07.  "Smile"  (Charlie Chaplin, John Turner, Geoffrey Parsons) - 2:32
08.  "At Last"  (Mack Gordon, Harry Warren) - 2:33
09.  "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing"  (Sammy Fain, Paul Francis Webster) - 2:30
10.  "Let It Rock"  (Chuck Berry) - 1:52
11.  "Beyond the Sea"  (Jack Lawrence/Charles Trénet) - 2:53
12.  "Jody"  (Del Shannon)

Released:  October 9, 2012
Genre:  Pop, Rock
Label:  Big Trilby Records
Lenght:  27:18
Producer:  Jeff Lynne
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