{"id":3255,"date":"2012-11-06T05:20:33","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T10:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=3255"},"modified":"2012-11-06T05:20:33","modified_gmt":"2012-11-06T10:20:33","slug":"album-review-clover-clover-and-fourty-niner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2012\/11\/06\/album-review-clover-clover-and-fourty-niner\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Clover — Clover and Fourty Niner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Clover<\/strong> doesn’t rank in the top tiers of musical acts in terms of notoriety. Mention their name to most music fans and you’ll earn a blank stare. If they’re known at all, it’s generally for one of two things: the guy who fronted the band in their later days was a singer called Huey Louis<\/strong> (he’d later change the spelling to Lewis); and the fact that the band provided anonymous (in terms of credit not quality) for a young Elvis Costello<\/strong> on his debut LP.<\/p>\n

So endeth the trivia round; Clover should also be known for a pair of quality (if largely unknown) albums released in 1970 and 1971. And the folks at Real Gone Music have done their part to correct this oversight, with the release of Clover and Fourty Niner<\/em> (sic).<\/p>\n

Clover played a fine, solid, good-timin’ sort of country rock when the musical combination of those two genres was fairly new. And their version of it deserved better than obscurity it found. \u201cShotgun\u201d sounds a lot like Delaney and Bonnie<\/strong>‘s \u201cOnly You and I Know,\u201d and \u201cSouthbound Train\u201d is from the Grateful Dead<\/strong> school of pop music. \u201cGoing to the Country\u201d combines a jangly picking arrangement with something a bit more ambitious.<\/p>\n

On the 21 tracks that make up these two albums, the band favors a sort of cross between Fantasy labelmates Creedence Clearwater Revival<\/strong> and Little Feat<\/strong> in places, though they can move in a much more jugband direction when they care to. Most of the time it works well, and when it doesn’t \u2013 as on the blues-by-way-of-the-Grateful Dead \u201cStealin’\u201d \u2013 it’s still not awful. And those rare weak spots are more than redeemed by the crackling lead guitar work on numbers like the Moby Grape<\/strong>-flavored gospel number\u201cWade in the Water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Vacancy\u201d is straight-no-chaser hardcore country, heavy on the pedal steel, and it’s a delight, right down to the close vocal harmony work. \u201cLizard Rock and Roll Band\u201d isn’t (despite its title) very rocking, but it does feature some nice multiple lead guitar interplay. \u201cCould You Call it Love\u201d has some lovely vocal work reminiscent of Poco<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Despite the total lack of chart action for 1970’s Clover<\/em>, the band kept to their musical approach for the following year’s Fourty Niner<\/em>. \u201cHarvest\u201d does expand the instrumentation a bit; the piano\/organ combination creates a Band<\/strong>-like ambience in the process. \u201cKeep on Tryin’\u201d does rock a little harder than most of the first record’s material. Some tasty swamp-rock guitar (that CCR vibe again) makes \u201cSound of Thunder\u201d one of the disc’s most enjoyable tracks.<\/p>\n

With a title like \u201cChicken Butt\u201d it’s no surprise to find a bluegrass-styled number; this one is a lot of fun, with some lively fiddle and banjo work. \u201cSunny Mexico\u201d is a trifle, a fun enough musical excursion, but it’s docked several points for anticipating Jimmy Buffett<\/strong>. The whole affair wraps up with perhaps the strongest track of all, \u201cIf I Had My Way.\u201d The song combines all of the Band’s best elements \u2013 the country-rock, the gospel flavoring, the harmonies, the guitar fillips, the solid drum work, even the damn goofy vibes \u2013 into a catchy tune.<\/p>\n

No new music from Clover would come until 1977. The band members went their separate ways in 1978; the most well-known member from the days of these records is John McPhee<\/strong>, recognizable as a member of The Doobie Brothers<\/strong> during their most commercially successful years. Guitarist\/lead singer Alex Call<\/strong> provides a liner note essay for this 2012 compilation; some archival single sleeves and band pics round out the set nicely.<\/p>\n

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Clover doesn’t rank in the top tiers of musical acts in terms of notoriety. Mention their name to most music fans and you’ll earn a blank stare. If they’re known […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,62,64,65],"tags":[557,1796],"class_list":["post-3255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-country","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","tag-clover","tag-real-gone-music","cat-20-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255","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=3255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}