I'm still examining with punctuations of a very slow, knees-hurt-now-I'm-older DIY, so music reviews are few and far between, and shortish when appearing. But having a break from that second occupation and listening to Clayton-Thomas so here is another quick one.
From his eponymous album, there is a great opener with backing gospel choir, and a funky follow with the funkily titled We’re All Meat From The Same Bone, Steve Cropper on guitar. There’s a sprawling orchestral cover of Edgar Winter’s Dying to Live, DCT hitting the high notes over piano like a born flyer; a straight but glorious cover of Gram Parson’s She, that piano base again all that is really needed when a voice can be as potent as that, sultry accompanying female vocal by Patricia Holloway providing a tandem storytelling, and a curio in the cover of Neil Young’s Don’t Let It Bring You Down which probably tries too hard to turn an acoustic song into a band and orchestra expansion.
His other 1972 album Tequila
Sunrise is less varied overall and will seem a plateauing extension when
added to the first on this double cd. The voice is what carries, assuming you
like, but the songs lack the obvious notable covers – even that Young ‘trinket’ takes on a certain sheen when
compared with these – and the fact that DCT has written/co-written 9 of the
tracks reveals the reason. And so yes, Chuck Berry’s Down Bound Train steals the show, though the gospel-esque ballad My Song [for Geanenne] is quite affecting.
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