Emitt Rhodes<\/a> conjured the style and spirit of Paul, and Ram On<\/i>\u2019s Adrian Bourgeois-led reading of \u201cDear Boy\u201d suggests how Rhodes might have done it. On one of my visits to Los Angeles, I was fortunate enough to wander with some dear friends into a gig by one of Emeen Zarookian\u2019s bands. Here he leads Bebopalula, for a note-for-note, sound-effect-for-sound-effect remake of \u201cUncle Albert \/ Admiral Halsey.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cSmile Away\u201d is a rocker, albeit a somewhat slight one. The version on Ram On<\/i> is competent enough, but \u2013 and I\u2019m slightly surprised to be noting this \u2013 Linda McCartney\u2019s vocals are sorely missed. Johnstone\u2019s slide guitar work is a treat, though. \u201cHeart of the Country\u201d is one of those deep album cut McCartney gems that\u2019s too often overlooked. Like every track on this collection, the recording featuring Dan Rothchild is extremely reverent to the original, but if that brings the song to the attention of new listeners, its existence is more than justified.<\/p>\n
\u201cMonkberry Moon Delight\u201d is very different, but the same sentiments apply. Timmy Sean belts out the lead vocal. The arrangement on this one is among the most impressive among the entire set. Dead Rock West cover \u201cEat at Home\u201d with positive results; their reading may lead listeners to wonder why the tune wasn\u2019t a hit in 1971. \u201cLong Haired Lady\u201d is among the weaker tracks on Ram (though that doesn\u2019t make it bad<\/i>). Save for its arrangement, it sounds more of a piece with the material on Wings\u2019 Wild Life<\/i>. Bonfiglio and Wilson play it straight, digging into the song\u2019s marital bliss vibe. Because Ram On<\/i> sets out to recreate Ram<\/i>, it includes a brief reprise of the title track. It\u2019s fine, but as redundant as it was on the original.<\/p>\n
Paul has rarely if ever included the scintillating \u201cThe Back Seat of My Car\u201d in his live set. And that\u2019s understandable: both musically and from a vocal standpoint, it\u2019s ambitious and difficult to execute. In fact it may be the Great Lost McCartney Tune, the one even serious admirers might not know. And the ensemble on Ram On<\/em> nails the music and arrangement. But Brentley Gore seems to be struggling a bit with the lead vocal. Not a train wreck by any means, it does pale in comparison to the rest of the set as a result.<\/p>\nNot to come off as an older guy (though with each passing moment I climb closer toward that description) but Ram On<\/i> doesn\u2019t just follow the track sequence of the 1971 LP. No, it clearly uses the CD reissue as its primary reference. That means that the two songs appended to the 1993 reissue are included as well. The first, \u201cAnother Day\u201d is a McCartney classic, and the cover featuring Gordon Michaels and a long list of backing singers is a near carbon copy of the single.<\/p>\n
The \u201cAnother Day\u201d 45 was backed by \u201cOh Woman Oh Why,\u201d a minor (but not minor-key) blues number that was representative of what early Wings sounded like onstage. It featured a howling McCartney vocal. Perhaps to give themselves a break, two singers \u2013 Eric Dover and Lauren Leigh \u2013 take turns recreating that vocal cord-shredding performance, and Jimmy Powers V turns in some stellar slide work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Back Seat of My Car\u2019 was a perfect album closer for Ram<\/i>. \u201cOh Woman Oh Why,\u201d less so. Perhaps in acknowledgment of that fact, the Ram On<\/i> ensemble adds a brief instrumental track, \u201cToo Many People (Slight Return)\u201d to wrap up the collection. It\u2019s quite reminiscent of the post-false-ending section of \u201cStrawberry Fields Forever.\u201d A nice touch, that.<\/p>\n
No doubt all of the participants had loads of fun making Ram On<\/i>. Does it add much of significance to the body of the world\u2019s recorded works? Perhaps not. But for listeners, it should provide fun to rival the experience of having been there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you read Musoscribe with anything approaching regularity (and sincere thanks if you do), the name Fernando Perdomo will be a familiar one. An in-demand multifarious session player, he also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21949,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,51,62,65],"tags":[3239,1663],"class_list":["post-21948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-pop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-fernando-perdomo","tag-paul-mccartney","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21948"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30149,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21948\/revisions\/30149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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(and sincere thanks if you do), the name Fernando Perdomo will be a familiar one. An in-demand multifarious session player, he also finds the time to release what seems like an album per month. His latest project (or latest of which I am aware as of this writing) is a tribute\/re-creation of Paul and Linda McCartney\u2019s landmark Ram<\/i> LP.<\/p>\n