PAUL WELLER: Find El Dorado (Parlophone)
Verdict: Weller strikes gold
He may be one of the UK’s most respected songwriters, but Paul Weller has never shied away from a good cover version. When he was fronting The Jam in the late 1970s, he’d put a frenetic spin on such classics as The Who’s So Sad About Us and The Supremes’ Back In My Arms Again, songs which spoke volumes about his love of 1960s mod.
As The Jam morphed into The Style Council, he turned his attention to 1980s dance by singing Joe Smooth’s Chicago house music standard Promised Land, while his solo career has since yielded a covers album, Studio 150, on which he tackled tunes by Noel Gallagher, Bob Dylan and Sister Sledge — an eclectic, if not unexpected, mix.
His latest release, Find El Dorado, is more surprising. Drawing on a lifetime of fandom, it focusses on lesser-known pop, country and folk tracks. Cynics will argue that he’s simply compensating for writer’s block, but there’s too much affection here for that to be the case. He grew up listening to these songs, and it feels personal.
Sung with character and feeling — plus a collaborative spirit that sees appearances by Noel Gallagher, Robert Plant, Irish singer Declan O’Rourke and producer Steve Cradock — the album shines a light on some of the forgotten moments of the 1960s and 1970s and revitalises them. ‘These are songs I’ve carried with me for years,’ says Weller.
Jamming: Paul Weller performing in Cambridge last spring.
Old fans might baulk at his eccentricities. ‘Guess I’ll die with this fever in my soul,’ he sings on White Line Fever, country star Merle Haggard’s reflection on the loneliness of the touring musician. One Last Cold Kiss, originally by New York rock band Mountain, features lute-like strings. It’s all a far cry from The Jam’s Going Underground.
Elsewhere, a more soulful mood holds sway. Small Town Talk, a Bobby Charles folk-rock number from 1972, is given a swinging makeover. Willie Griffin’s rhythmic Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire features Nottingham soul man Liam Bailey. Lawdy Rolla, originally by an obscure French act called The Guerrillas, is delivered with gospel fervour.
The most intriguing tracks tap into a surreal, melancholy strand of 1970s pop. There’s a faithful cover of the baroque When You Are A King, a rags-to-riches fantasy that was a hit for British group White Plains, and a version of singer and actor Brian Protheroe’s Pinball.
Going back to his musical roots: Weller’s latest album, a covers record, is a homage to the songs that the former frontman of The Jam and The Style Council says ‘shaped him’
The Bee Gees’ haunting 1968 single I Started A Joke is wistful, psychedelic… and a world away from the disco anthems the Gibb brothers would deliver a decade later.
On a different note, Duncan Browne’s Journey is bright and breezy, illuminated by Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita.
The album ends with its most unlikely pairing, Weller duetting with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant on Clive’s Song, originally by folk singer Hamish Imlach. With The Modfather and the golden god of blues-rock combining brilliantly, and Plant adding harmonica, it’s an inspired collaboration, and one they could take further — Mod Zeppelin anyone?
ALICE COOPER: The Revenge Of Alice Cooper (earMUSIC)
Verdict: Theatrical and nostalgic
Back with the four surviving members of his original band for the first time since they made two albums — Billion Dollar Babies and Muscle Of Love — in 1973, Alice Cooper lives up to his billing as the godfather of shock rock on an album of high-octane guitar heroics, tuneful power balladry and lots of blood-spattered, tongue-in-cheek humour.
With original producer Bob Ezrin back in the fold — and a posthumous appearance from guitarist Glen Buxton, who died in 1997 — there are nostalgic echoes of early hits such as School’s Out and Elected.
Ezrin, who drilled the band for ten hours a day to create their signature sound in the 1970s, prioritises simplicity over sophistication.
‘I’ll just watch you while you’re sleeping, darling, and decide if I should bite,’ sings Cooper, his voice still potent, as the album opens with Black Mamba. With guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith joined by second guitarist Robby Krieger, once of The Doors, the song strikes a macabre note, with Alice in the role of a slinky, venomous snake.
Up to his old tricks: Alice Cooper, 77, is back with his original band…for the first time since 1973
From that point on, theatrical rock numbers jostle with ballads. ‘We’re the wild ones, we live in every town,’ roars Alice on Wild Ones, reeling off a string of outlaw cliches that ring a little hollow when you factor in that he’s now 77, and more likely to be found on the golf course, or tucked up in bed with a mug of cocoa, than raising hell.
Elsewhere, on the Kinks-like Crap That Gets In The Way Of Your Dreams, he ponders what might have happened had he never made it as a singer (he reckons he’d still be making music, and that it would probably have cost him his marriage), while Famous Face is a discourse on empty celebrity (‘you’re as worthless as a dog with fleas’).
He shows a gentler touch on See You On The Other Side, a ballad that pays tribute to the rock star friends he has lost along the way. He spoke of Jim Morrison, Keith Moon and Jimi Hendrix in a recent interview — and we can now add Ozzy Osbourne to the list ‘Your rivers went raging by,’ sings Alice. It’s a poignant finale from a survivor whose inspiration has yet to run dry.
Both albums are out today. Alice Cooper and Judas Priest play The O2 Arena, London, tonight (July 25) (ticketmaster.co.uk).
