Townshend Strikes On Solo Album
A halo surrounds Pete Townshend's head on the cover of his latest solo outing Empty Glass. Flip over the jacket and he smiles at you with tongue-in-cheek spirit.
Yet the album's music and lyrics are pervaded by a genuine and intelligent spirituality that is unique to The Who's guiding light. No other rocker sees the world and human existence so clearly, and on this first-class masterpiece, the halo is much deserved.
Townshend sees life through his "empty glass" with an acute sense of lyrical melancholy. From his tough, punk ode of "Rough Boys" to the mantra-like "Keep On Working" to the rummy ruminations of "Empty Glass," one feels Townshend grappling with his very own existence. The answers are in the pursuit of work, love and a concept of God that he is too modest and wise to press upon the rest of us.
Those concepts are actualized by him in music, and, oh, what music it is — rich, majestic and powerful. The stirring melodic beauty and intensity for which Townshend and the Who are famous surges from this disc. It is a monument to the intellectual potential of rock.
It hits the guts and brain, and vibrantly pulses with emotion (one cut — "Jools and Jim" — even stabs at the pretensions of rock "criticism.") Anyone even vaguely interested in the shape of pop music today and in the future should hear this record. Pete Townshend's art is a beacon lighting the way through turgid times.
Another strong set of honest and emotional rock is Graham Parker's latest The Up Escalator. It's a fine, coherent set of songs from a man who's grown into a master at penning tunes, and spotlights both the tough, soulful punch so evident on his last lp as well as Parker's more melodic side. The "Geep" just keeps getting better.
Another consistent winner whose done it again is Emmylou Harris, whose latest set — Roses In the Snow — is a wonderful and quite commercial bluegrass-based outing that perks up the idiom
Pete Solos Again Townshend takes on the rock critics in "Jools and Jim," a cut from his new "Empty Glass" album. (NEA Photo)
(as she proved playing an acoustic concert recently), and plows a whole new road for her to follow as beautifully as she always has.
The best new female singer I've heard must be Betsey Kaske, whose Last Night In Town album on little Mountain Railroad records introduces a vocal stylst as adept as she is appealing. From her funky cover of Benton Wood's "Gimme Some Kind Of Sign" to a rich ballad like New York songwriter Rod MacDonald's "Cross Country Waltz," Kaske proves herself a true contender.
Another debut of note is Ray Gomez's Volume. A Morroco-born guitarist who'd played with everyone from George Harrison to Stanley Clarke, Gomez links rock with the instrumental prowess he learned as one of jazz-fusion's hottest axemen to turn in a winner. Keep an ear open for his "Summer in the City" cover and "U.S.A."
