Consumer Guide '70s: H

Charlie Haden: Liberation Music Orchestra (Impulse, 1970) Haden is a man of great personal courage and political insight, and he has played some of the best jazz bass I've ever heard, but this record--despite all those nice reviews--is competent Jazz Composer's Orchestra style ensemble jazz, full of nice dissonances and not much more. I've listened to it many times, always giving it one more chance, but I doubt I'll ever play it again, and no one I've ever played it for has come back to request it. C+

Bob Hadley: Tunes From the Well (Kicking Mule, 1975) I love John Fahey, but I'm no aficionado of the school of solo guitar he's inspired--attempted visionaries like Robbie Basho and Leo Kottke lack his courage and clarity, while most of the others are just folkies with new chops. Hadley's a folkie, too--his vision is more earthbound than Fahey's. But it does deserve to be called a vision. B

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: Okie from Muskogee (Capitol, 1970) Despite some slack performances, this album--recorded live during Haggard's first appearance in the city he made famous and vice versa, and the only LP to date to include any version of the title song--is a passable sampler. The wild crowd and predictable fooforaw--he gets an official Okie pin and the key to the city--give it documentary value. But The Best of Merle Haggard is a lot more representative of a great iconoclast who's keeping it under wraps these days. Tell us, Merle, just which college dean do you respect? B

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: The Fightin' Side of Me (Capitol, 1970) This is turning into a cartoon--once again a jingoistic anthem sells a live album. Don't hippie-haters worry that hippies might have more in common with Merle than they do? After all, he does boast about "living off the fat of our great land." C+

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: A Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World (Capitol, 1970) An album of Bob Wills songs, featuring genuine Wills sidemen with Johnny Gimble (as well as Haggard himself) on fiddle? Now that's the Merle I trust. His uncountrypolitan formal sense has always gone along with a reverence for history, and his subtle, surprisingly tranquil, yet passionate singing style--all that yodel and straining head voice--was made for Wills's pop-jazz-country amalgam. B+

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: Hag (Capitol, 1971) Four country hits on Haggard's first straight studio album in a year and a half, but only the simple goodbye song "I Can't Be Myself" escapes bathos. "The Farmer's Daughter," "I'm a Good Loser," and "I've Done It All" have an acceptably archetypal ring. Forget the rest--Hag already has. C+

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: Someday We'll Look Back (Capitol, 1971) An honest two days' work, but don't let the keynote tune fool you into expecting a lot of class-conscious reminiscences. "California Cottonfields" and "Tulare Dust" are welcome, but this has its share of romantic pap, and the nostalgia of the title bubbles too close to the surface. Surprise: "Big Time Annie's Square," Hag's peace with the hippies. B+

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: Let Me Tell You About a Song (Capitol, 1972) I object in principle to music-with-commentary albums, and Haggard is hardly as forthcoming with his "inner thoughts" as the notes promise. But despite its mawkish moments--especially Tommy Collins's dead-mommy song--the material defines Haggard's sensibility in a winning way, and since not one of the songs is great in itself I guess the commentary must do it. For controversy, there's interracial love. B+

Merle Haggard: The Best of the Best of Merle Haggard (Capitol, 1972) A misnomer--they mean The Safest of the Best, or Something for Everybody. No "Lonesome Fugitive" or "Sing Me Back Home" or "Branded Man," but both of his patriotic chores, "The Fightin' Side of Me" studio and "Okie From Muskogee" live (for the third time out of three on LP). Also: "Every Fool Has a String Section," I mean "Rainbow," and "No Reason to Quit," where his timbre, which has been softening perceptibly over the years, breaks definitively into self-pity. Plus lots of good stuff, of course, but still . . . B+

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: I Love Dixie Blues (Capitol, 1973) The care Haggard put into his Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills tributes was palpable; this live-in-New Orleans-with-horns affair is slovenly. The two great moments are covers--"Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" and "Lovesick Blues," both originated by the legendary (blackface?) yodeler Emmett Miller. The lousy moments include current hits, overstated polyphony, and (how did we stand the wait?) a third live version of "Okie From Muskogee," this one a failed singalong. C

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: It's Not Love (But It's Not Bad) (Capitol, 1973) Merle hasn't played the poor boy in quite some time, but as he's turned into a legend he's all too often turned to gimmicky pseudo-concepts. This mainstream country album--his first since Hag--does more justice to its title than many of his more pretentious efforts. Nothing special, just marriage and its travails, but play it twice and you'll remember most of it. B

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: If We Make It Through December (Capitol, 1974) Last time it was good to hear him go contemporary again. This time one of the two contemporary standouts sounds mysteriously like Bob Wills. The Lefty Frizzell and Floyd Tillman remakes come across fresh and clean. The Ink Spots remake doesn't. B

Merle Haggard: Presents His 30th Album (Capitol, 1974) The man has been making them for less than a decade, and thirty is too damn many. But this is clearly where Haggard wants to show off his range, and the display, featuring more original songs than he's put in one place for a long time, is pretty impressive. There's a rip-roaring infidelity lyric that's definitely one of his genius pieces--"Old Man From the Mountain," it's called, complete with bluegrass shading. And though after that only "Honky Tonk Nighttime Man" and the Bob Wills/Lefty Frizzell cover are liable to be remembered, just about everything else is liable to be enjoyed. B+

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today (Capitol, 1977) The album opens with the title song, about a Good Redneck, a class-conscious guy who pays his child support and wonders skeptically why he doesn't get ahead. It closes with "I'm a White Boy," about a Bad Redneck, a race-conscious guy who's too proud for welfare but would settle for a rich woman and/or an easy job. These are powerful pieces whether you like them or not, rendered with passionate sympathy and a touch of distance--his strongest in years. The "filler" includes covers from old standbys Williams and Wills and new favorites Delmore and Wells and an envoi to Lefty Frizzell as well as a gospel song and a running song and a sentimental standard that works (for once). Not a bad cut, and Capitol assembled it from the vaults after Haggard bolted for MCA. Why then did Hag himself put out such crap for three years? A-

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: Songs I'll Always Sing (Capitol, 1977) God damn it--I could put together four discs of Hag that would never go below A minus, but Capitol hasn't offered me the job, so this two-disc mishmash will have to do. Dreck among the gems (Haggard has small knack for heart songs), muddled chronologically and thematically (a real waste with an artist so prolific and varied), and the fifth album to include a live version of "Okie From Muskogee." But at least it offers all four of his great outside-the-law songs, one per side. And it's budget-priced. A-

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: The Way It Was in '51 (Capitol, 1978) Because Haggard's singing gained resonance and flexibility as his songwriting flattened out, this factitious compilation cum concept album, one side devoted to Hank and one to Lefty, works better than his self-designed Bob Wills tribute. A-

Merle Haggard and the Strangers: Eleven Winners (Capitol, 1978) Continuing Capitol's reclamation/exploitation of his last five or six years with the label, this compiles his best originals from the period. Pretty conventional--when he does try to add a little something (I like the play on "grind" in the trucking song), it's rarely quite enough. B

Merle Haggard: Serving 190 Proof (MCA, 1979) Its impeccable simplicity and sensitivity gives Haggard's fourth and best album for MCA an autumnal feel reminiscent of recent comebacks by Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. Granted, autumnal country music is easier to come by than autumnal rock and roll. But for Haggard, a mere forty-one but feeling it, the effect has thematic repercussions--and he's written a batch of wise songs to flesh it out. B+

Daryl Hall & John Oates: Abandoned Luncheonette (Atlantic, 1973) This comes down to a nice equation of folk duo and soul falsetto group, brought together with the best vocal and production pyrotechnics a studio can afford. The music rocks with a smooth sophistication, although it can get sententious as well as popsy cute; the lyrics diagnose romantic malaise with clinical expertise and occasional acuity--"Everybody's high on consolation," perfect. If not too perfect. B-

Daryl Hall & John Oates: Bigger Than Both of Us (RCA Victor, 1976) Now they're rich boys, and they've gone too far, 'cause they don't know what matters anyway. C+

Daryl Hall & John Oates: No Goodbyes (Atlantic, 1977) The three previously unreleased songs on this compilation--especially "Love You Like a Brother," an ironic double or triple whammy--define worldly, media-saturated, serially monogamous singles (as in singles bar, though I'm sure they wouldn't stoop so low) as well as the best cuts on the well-represented Abandoned Luncheonette. The three songs from War Babies take on larger issues of concern to singles--destruction by stardom, etc. B+

Daryl Hall & John Oates: Along the Red Ledge (RCA Victor, 1978) Do these guys still worry about being mistaken for the O'Jays? I suppose you could call them soulful, but in the style of one of those hairdressers (no imputation of sexual preference intended) who doubles as an unlicensed therapist. I admit that cut by cut and counting this is their most impressive album. Hall gets two tart ain't-love-a-bitch songs out of a broken romance that seems to have touched his "heart," while Oates puts his name on homages to Aerosmith and Talking Heads. But it's docked a notch because after all these years I still don't know which one's the blond. B

Tom T. Hall: I Witness Life (Mercury, 1970) I'm a fan of this Nashville original's most famous song, "Harper Valley P.T.A.," because like all his best work it combines pithy narrative with pithy ethics. Its flaw is that its truth is metaphorical--it sounds made up. The two greatest songs here--"Salute to a Switchblade" and "The Ballad of Bill Crump," one an autobiographical tale of barroom violence (and discretion) abroad, the other a biographical tale about the death of a carpenter--are documentaries in rhyme. The method isn't original, foolproof, or the only one in his kit. But boy, is he good at it. B+

Tom T. Hall: In Search of a Song (Mercury, 1971) Forget arty pontificators like Kris Kristofferson and Mickey Newbury--wouldn't you rather have Woody Guthrie? Hall's politics are only liberal, his ironies sometimes pro forma, but like Guthrie's his observations and presentation are direct and unpretentious in a way that can't be faked or even imitated--he has a few things to say, he says them, and that's that. While in the past the dull sentimentality that is the downfall of so much country music has flawed his albums, here even the worst song, "Second Hand Flowers," qualifies as bright sentimentality (with a twist). The best is "Kentucky Feb. 27, '71," hidden away on the second side because it's too subtle to make its impact broadside. Simple as death, it recounts Hall's pilgrimage to see an old mountain man, who explains why kids move to the city--"They want to see the things they've heard about"--and apologizes for not providing Hall with a song. A

Tom T. Hall: Tom T. Hall's Greatest Hits (Mercury, 1972) Except for "Ballad of Forty Dollars," a dispassionate account of a day in the life as a gravedigger, and "Homecoming," a melodramatic account of a day in his life as a star, all the zingers here compiled are also available on better albums--albums that don't include songs of inspirational tolerance like "I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew" and "One Hundred Children," which Hall executes no more wisely than any other mortal. B

Tom T. Hall: The Storyteller (Mercury, 1972) Counting Greatest Hits this is the fourth LP from Hall in about a year, and while it's better than the last one the workload still shows. The title isn't quite a misnomer, but he does seem to be cranking out them yarns instead of looking for his own truth within them, and for the second straight album the most impressive cut is a straight love song--"Souvenirs" on We All Got Together, "When Nobody Wants Your Body Anymore" here. How about picking up some new material on a long vacation, T? B

Tom T. Hall: The Rhymer and Other Five and Dimers (Mercury, 1973) One reason Merle Haggard's thought of as the Poet of the Common Man is that he's also in the running for Voice of the Common Man; even with Jerry Kennedy's genius assembly line behind him, Hall's monotone isn't liable to shiver your short hairs unless he gets the words just right. Here he comes close. He honors Ravishing Ruby and remembers his own younger brother, hitching into town for medicine and coffee in the bad winter of 1949. He gets stuck in a motel in Spokane and comes back to Olive Hill with all his faults intact. And he yokes his best political song, about the man who hated freckles and Martin Luther Queen, with one of his worst slow ones, designed for those who find "candy in the windows of my mind" a poignant trope. A-

Tom T. Hall: Greatest Hits Volume 2 (Mercury, 1975) From the received novelty melodies of "That Song Is Driving Me Crazy" and "I Like Beer" to the prefab lyrics of "Country Is" and the odious "I Love"--a list of things people get sentimental about! and the list gets them sentimental all over again!--this should convince any doubters in Nashville that T is just another professional manipulator, with all that liberal stuff just another marketing ploy. It damn near convinces me. And that's not even counting the two kiddie songs. D+

Tom T. Hall: Faster Horses (Mercury, 1976) The first decent record by my former favorite country singer-songwriter in over three years. High point: "Big Motel on the Mountain." Rock stars are forever reviling motels, their readymade symbol of the impersonal rootlessness of life on the road; Hall obviously tore himself away from the soaps and game shows one day and deduced that the premises supported a life of their own. You think that says anything about the relationship between perceived impersonality and egocentricity? I do. B+

Tom T. Hall: Greatest Hits--Volume III (Mercury, 1978) In which Hall goes to work for RCA and Mercury mops together some final product. Three of the four great songs--"I Can't Dance," "She Gave Her Heart to Jethro," and the mind-boggling "Turn It On, Turn It On, Turn It On," about the electrocution of a mass-murdering 4-F in 1944--date from 1972 or before, when it seemed he'd never run out of stories. B+

Dirk Hamilton: You Can Sing on the Left or Bark on the Right (ABC, 1976) This is one of those records that makes me wish I wasn't in the grading business. I really like it a lot, to the point of positively loving one song, "She Don't Squash Bugs," and getting a nice buzz every time I hear the opening lines of cut one. And while good words are the point, the good words are expressly musical; that is, they are designed for Hamilton's plosive drawl, a delivery in the general tradition of Van Morrison. Hamilton's earth mysticism recalls Morrison, too, and unlike Morrison he has a sense of humor. But also unlike Morrison, he has zilch gift for the hook; he's repetitive in the folk rather than the rock manner. So, all you subtlety fans (you know who you are) might take a chance. B

Herbie Hancock: Thrust (Columbia, 1974) Switched-on Herbie jazzes it up one more time for all the Con Edison fans. C+

Herbie Hancock: The Best of Herbie Hancock (Columbia, 1979) In which the erstwhile watermelon man heats up a frozen quiche in his microwave. A/k/a Funk Goes to College. C+

Hannibal: Hannibal (MPS, 1975) In jazz I've always been a saxophone man; I find trumpets too clean, so that even when Miles Davis is presiding I long for some breath of raunch to scent the proceedings. But this record, led by Hannibal Marvin Peterson over piano, cello, bass, and percussion, caught my ear immediately with its post-Coltrane strength and swing. I dissent as usual from the poem with percussion (about Africa, of course), but regard it as an appropriate price to pay for this fierce, coherent, auspicious trumpet music. B+

Emmylou Harris: Pieces of the Sky (Reprise, 1974) Abetted by Brian Ahern, who would have been wise to add some Anne Murray schlock, Harris shows off a pristine earnestness that has nothing to do with what is most likable about country music and everything to do with what is most suspect in "folk." Presumably, Gram Parsons was tough enough to discourage this tendency or play against it, but as a solo mannerism it doesn't even ensure clear enunciation: I swear the chorus of the best song here sounds like it begins: "I will rub my asshole/In the bosom of Abraham." C+

Emmylou Harris: Elite Hotel (Reprise, 1975) This flows better than the first, but it also makes clear that Emmylou is just another pretty voice, a country singer by accident. I mean, Linda Ronstadt has the best female voice in country music, and even she doesn't satisfy the way an original like Dolly Parton or Loretta Lynn does. And since there's not a cover version here that equals its prototype, all she accomplishes with her good taste in material is to send you scurrying for the sources. I prefer Donna Fargo. Not Lynn Anderson, though. C+

Emmylou Harris: Luxury Liner (Reprise, 1976) Not content with her corner on the wraith-with-a-twang market, some folk's favorite folkie manque has added funk and raunch and echo and overdub to her voice. The result is a record I play some, perhaps out of sheer surprise. Song selection also helps--an unforgettable Townes Van Zandt melody is unearthed, and the two Gram Parsons selections don't automatically shame themselves by recalling the originals. B

Emmylou Harris: Profile: The Best of Emmylou Harris (Reprise, 1978) Lucky for Emmylou I don't know as much about country music as she does--the Louvin Brothers' "If I Could Only Win Your Love" and the Carter Family's "Hello Stranger" may well render her versions forgettable. But as it is, hers sure are pretty, like almost everything here, sung with undeniable care and charm. She also defines Dolly Parton's previously unrecorded "To Daddy," as great a song as that great songwriter has ever come up with. And does all right by Chuck Berry. B+

Harrison & Tyler: Try It--You'll Like It (Dore, 1972) Feminist mis-schtique. E+

George Harrison: All Things Must Pass (Apple, 1970) As a slave of the very "MAYA" (pidgin Hindi for the concrete world) Harrison warns against, I am obliged to point out that playing headsie with the Universal Mind is not introspection and that the International Pop Music Community is not a group. Presumably, the featurelessness of these three discs--right down to the anonymity of the multitracked vocals--reflects Harrison's notion of Truth, and he's welcome to it. But he's never been good for more than two songs per album, and after "My Sweet Lord" I start to get stuck. C

George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Apple, 1973) If you call this living. Harrison sings as if he's doing sitar impressions, and four different people, including a little man in my head who I never noticed before, have expressed intense gratitude when I turned the damned thing off during "Be Here Now." Inspirational sentiment: "the leaders of nations/They're acting like big girls." C

George Harrison: Dark Horse (Apple, 1974) Such transubstantiations. In which "Bye Bye Love" becomes "Maya Love," in which "window-pane" becomes "window brain." Can this mean that pain (pane, get it?) is the same as brain? For all this hoarse dork knows . . . C-

George Harrison: Extra Texture (Apple, 1975) When they said he had a good sense of humor did they mean he was willing to grin like a Monty Python choirboy over a caption that said "OHNOTHIMAGEN"? C-

George Harrison: The Best of George Harrison (Capitol, 1976) Seven of George's Beatle songs on the A side, and while the titles are impressive--"Something" and "Here Comes the Sun" no more than "If I Needed Someone" and "Think for Yourself"--the voice begins to betray its weaknesses after a while, like a borderline hitter they can pitch around after the sluggers are traded away. The solo "bests" on the B are remarkably shoddy--if this is all he can manage over four LPs you wonder why he has a contract at all. (Wait, let me guess.) B-

George Harrison: Thirty-Three & 1/3 (Dark Horse, 1976) This isn't as worldly as George wants you to think--or as he thinks himself, for all I know--but it ain't fulla shit either. "Crackerbox Palace" is the best thing he's written since "Here Comes the Sun" (not counting "Deep Blue," hidden away on the B side of "Bangla-Desh," or--naughty, naughty--"My Sweet Lord"), and if "This Song" were on side two I might actually play the record again. B-

George Harrison: George Harrison (Dark Horse, 1979) In which Harrison returns to good old commercial rock and roll, he says, presumably because he shared songwriting on one track with Gary "Sure Shot" Wright and let Russ Titleman produce. Well, there is a good song here--"Faster," about a kind of stardom. He remembers! C

Wilbert Harrison: Anything You Want (Wet Soul, 1970) Let's Work Together was an anachronistic, even primitive r&b album based on the fluke hit of the same name, which makes this the follow-up. Side one consists entirely of roll and rock songs you'd swear you've heard before--"Your Three Letters," eh, and what's this "Let's Stick Together," and why not bring out "Kansas City" again? Very unprepossessing, very charming. In fact, if the second side weren't all standards and uncharming filler--only "Sentimental Journey" is even funny--I wouldn't be recommending this to r&b diehards only. B

Mickey Hart: Rolling Thunder (Warner Bros., 1972) In which the ex-Dead drummer compounds Alla Rakha, Shosone chants, a water pump, big band jazz, and electronic music, not to mention Paul and Gracie and Jerry and other Our Gang regulars. Much more original than your typical Marin County special, but almost as forgettable. C+

John Hartford: Aereo-Plain (Rounder, 1971) Insensitive though I am to tales of them thar pickers, I must admit that Norman Blake's guitar, Tut Taylor's dobro, and Vassar Clements's fiddle complement Hartford with tact, wit, and sly razzmatazz. But I insist that it's Hartford's funny, quirkish songs, rather than his banjo, that save me from continued boorishness. And warn that the songs are so grass-meets-bluegrass that remembering them sometimes gives me whimsy megrims and nostalgia headaches. B+

John Hartford: Mark Twang (Flying Fish, 1976) Hartford's come a long way from "Gentle on My Mind" and eccentric bids for stardom. These days he sings mostly about the mighty Mississip (too thick to navigate, too thin to plow) and records eccentric river music for a folk label. He's slightly the better for it, on the whole--but I wouldn't say his living sounds so secure that he should turn down a gig on the Proud Mary. A gig playing, or a gig navigating. B

Dan Hartman: Instant Replay (Blue Sky, 1978) Too bad one of the few disco albums that out-dollar-for-dollars the corresponding disco single is this super-efficient piece of rock funk, but deserving souls who dally with mechanization can't complain when bested by a real machine. Sole monkey wrench: the slow one, "Time and Space," on which Hartman breaks his own rule by trying to write a meaningful lyric and then triples the misdemeanor by running it through his own larynx. Who does he think he is, Robert Plant? Machines can't sing. B

Fuzzy Haskins: A Whole Nother Thang (Westbound, 1976) "Which Way Do I Disco" and "Sometimes I Rock and Roll" set up an antinomy that George Clinton's second-favorite guitarist doesn't do much with. Both would have fit nicely onto Tales of Kidd Funkadelic, too--as would one (though not all three) of the love songs. Half a thang is the way I reckon it--or too many thangs. B

Donny Hathaway: Donny Hathaway (Atco, 1971) Jerry Wexler and Atlantic, who would seem to know more about this sort of thing than I do, are pushing this refugee from the production booth as the Man Who Will Revitalize Soul Music. Could be, as I say, but if having soul means digging on all this supper-club melodrama and homogenized jazz then I'm content to be sterile, square, and white. Yeah yeah yeah. D-

Ronnie Hawkins: Rock and Roll Resurrection (Monument, 1972) If all he had had were memories, Ronnie would rather drive a truck, but he also has a little extra cachet as an ex-Bandleader. The third in a series of recorded throwbacks is imbued with just enough fun to appeal to nostalgiacs. Me, I'll stick with the originals, as usual. C+

Hawkwind: Quark, Strangeness and Charm (Sire, 1976) In the old days, this likable British band played more benefits than Joan Baez and helped give psychedelic rock its bad name--when you repeat three chords in 4/4 for forty-five minutes, it's politic to change riffs once in a while. Yet they're still around, and good for them. Here they manage to spread six songs over eight cuts--a trick accomplished by granting two rather ponderous jams names and numbers of their own--as well as introducing more substantial innovations: for every song there's a good new riff, and by now the old sci-fi/counterculture themes mean something, probably because lyricist Robert Calvert has gained wit and wisdom since the time of zonk. Irresistible: the title cut, which suggests that Einstein had trouble with girls because he didn't dig subatomic physics. B+

Isaac Hayes: The Isaac Hayes Movement (Enterprise, 1970) I admit that his arrangements can be "interesting"--my my my, a gypsy fiddle on "Something"--but they'd be more so at a less stately pace than four songs per LP. And if his voice is best displayed when he talks, why doesn't he do a whole album of raps like the one preceding "I Stand Accused"? Might be pretty funny. C

Isaac Hayes: Shaft (Enterprise, 1971) Pretty rhythmic for a soundtrack--if a backup band played this stuff before the star-of-our-show came on you wouldn't get bored until midway into the second number. Proving that not only do black people make better pop-schlock movies than white people, they also make better pop-schlock music. As if we didn't know. C+

Isaac Hayes: Live at the Sahara (Enterprise, 1973) I like Ike live because he makes fun of himself, but though I hear the patrons laughing I miss his turquoise tights. Can't even say I wish I'd been there--not in Tahoe, thanks. But the band is crisp and funky, and he does talk more on stage than on record if you can believe that, and I even find "Rock Me Baby" sexy myself. Not "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," though. B-

Eddie Hazel: Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs (Warner Bros., 1977) Hazel can really flick his pick, and maybe that's the problem: despite a welcome but misleading cover of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and the assistance of his cohorts in the Funkadelic rhythm brigade, most of the time you'd think this was a David Spinozza record. Heavy it ain't. B-

Murray Head: Say It Ain't So (A&M, 1976) If mindless pap is your thing, this sure beats Eric Carmen. It's even slightly psychedoolic, and includes not a single Rachmaninoff cop. Hit single: "Say It Ain't So Joe." B-

Heart: Dreamboat Annie (Mushroom, 1976) As apparently spontaneous pop phenomena go, a hardish folk-rock group led by two women is a moderately interesting one, especially when their composing beats that of the twixt-Balin Starplane, whom they otherwise recall. I said moderately. C+

Heart: Dog and Butterfly (Portrait, 1978) Georgia Christgau: "Robert Plant understands his place as second-string guitar posing as lead singer. He should--he thought it up. But this idea is belittling to Ann Wilson. `I have a great voice!' her songs seem to say, and so she may--but what is it doing preening here among all these seamy heavy metal types?" C

The Heartbreakers: Live at Max's Kansas City (Max's Kansas City, 1979) Of the five titles not on L.A.M.F., only the scabrous answer song "London" is even in a league with "Born Too Loose" and "It's Not Enough," both among the missing, and (believe it or not) replacement drummer Ty Stix is less subtle than Jerry Nolan. But the sound is brighter here, and the Heartbreakers' "final shows" at Max's are an institution that has earned the permanence of plastic. This captures the boys in all their rowdy, rabble-rousing abandon, and I know that when I feel like hearing them I'll be pulling it off the shelf. A-

Heatwave: Central Heating (Epic, 1978) Personally, I've always thought sucking was fun, but I know people intend an insult when they say disco sucks, and this is the kind of preprogrammed pap they're thinking of. Most of it has as much emotional substance as the soundtrack to Integrated Beach Party--here the background music for the boisterous-barbecue sequence, there the accompaniment for the gentle-fuck scene. This does feature a nice post-doowop vocal on "Happiness Togetherness" (what am I supposed to call it, fifth cut first side?), and "The Groove Line" does its filthy work as fast as a Dr. Pepper jingle, but only on the title cut do the layered rhythms and harmonies get interesting, the way good disco should. And surprise: this is not a hit on the disco circuit. C-

Richard Hell and the Voidoids: Blank Generation (Sire, 1977) Like all the best CBGB bands, the Voidoids make unique music from a reputedly immutable formula, with jagged, shifting rhythms accentuated by Hell's indifference to vocal amenities like key and timbre. I'm no great devotee of this approach, which harks back to Captain Beefheart. So when I say that Hell's songs get through to me, that's a compliment: I intend to save this record for those very special occasions when I feel like turning into a nervous wreck. A-

Levon Helm and the RCO All-Stars: Levon Helm and the RCO All-Stars (ABC, 1978) Boogie. C+

Joe Henderson: Canyon Lady (Milestone, 1975) Professional ambition and product-conscious mediocrity can vitiate any music. Henderson was a promising tenor player whose economical, full-toned solos were a major attraction of Horace Silver's late 60's group. Now he fronts his own band, stretching his talent over multi-percussive tracks that last eight or nine minutes and adding some tasteful brass for aesthetic panache. The result is far from offensive. But it's pointless. C+

Jimi Hendrix: Band of Gypsys (Capitol, 1970) Because Billy Cox and Buddy Miles are committed (not to say limited) to a straight 4/4 with a slight funk bump, Hendrix has never sounded more earthbound. "Who Knows," based on a blues elemental, and "Machine Gun," a peacemonger's long-overdue declaration of war, are as powerful if not as complex as anything he's ever put on record. But except on the rapid-fire "Message to Love" he just plays simple wah-wah patterns for a lot of side two. Not bad for a live rock album, because Hendrix is the music's nonpareil improvisor. But for a Hendrix album, not great. B+

Jimi Hendrix: The Cry of Love (Reprise, 1971) At first I responded to this by feel. It seemed loose, free of mannerisms, warmer than the three Experience LPs, as if by dying before it was finished Hendrix left all the sweet lyricism of his cockeyed mystical brotherhood jive unguarded. But it isn't just the flow--these tracks work as individual compositions, from offhand rhapsodies like "Angel" and "Night Bird Flying" through primal riffsongs like "Ezy Ryder" and "Astro Man" to inspired goofs like "My Friend" and "Belly Button Window." What a testament. A

Jimi Hendrix: Rainbow Bridge (Reprise, 1971) Given that Hendrix is always a guitarist first, The Cry of Love seems like the verbal/vocal half of the double-LP he was planning when he died. Except for "Dolly Dagger," now the single and a pretty conventional Hendrix song, what you notice here is the playing--the delicate "Pali Gap," the relatively dignified (and pre-Woodstock) "Star Spangled Banner," and the amazing blues jams of side two, especially the live "Hear My Train a Coming." Rich stuff, exploring territory that as always with Hendrix consists not merely of notes but of undifferentiated sound, a sound he shapes with a virtuosity no one else has ever achieved on an electric instrument. A-

Jimi Hendrix: Hendrix in the West (Reprise, 1972) Despite the introductory mini-medley of "God Save the Queen" and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" from Isle of Wight--a great in-concert idea that doesn't have any business on a record--these San Diego (with the Experience) and Berkeley (with Cox and Mitchell) performances make a better live album than Band of Gypsys. Not all of it is historic, but "Red House," done as a long blues jam marred briefly by a lazy unaccompanied passage, and "Little Wing," stronger and freer than on Axis: Bold as Love (or Layla), are definitive. And so, heh heh, is "Johnny B. Goode." A-

Jimi Hendrix: War Heroes (Reprise, 1972) It figures you'd find the heavy metal down toward the bottom of the barrel--still strong stuff, but except maybe for the "Highway Chile" riff and the sheer speed of "Steppin' Stone," nothing springs out. And novelties like "Peter Gunn" and "3 Little Bears," biographically touching though they are, really do sound like filler. B

Jimi Hendrix: Sound Track Recordings from the Film "Jimi Hendrix" (Reprise, 1973) "Johnny B. Goode" has about two-thirds the volume and brightness of the original, and the stuff from Band of Gypsys has lost clarity. None of the previously unreleased music is exceptional, although all of it is interesting, especially an early twelve-string blues. The interviews aren't bad, and at least they're at the end of each side. I wouldn't, and didn't, throw away a free copy--just filed it where the sun don't shine. C+

Jimi Hendrix: Crash Landing (Reprise, 1975) The studio guys producer-curator Alan Douglas assigned to provide proper tracks (he claims the originals were unreleasable, though one must wonder whether he could have grabbed all that composition credit if he'd put 'em out untouched) do a surprisingly competent job. In fact, I don't even blame them for the competent lifelessness of side one--Jimi was a pretty fair city songwriter (cf. such guitar whizzes as Clapton, Garcia, Page, Trower, Marino, Beck), but his legacy can't be infinite. Side two, however, includes the best hook here--a soul consciousness chant called "With the Power" that features Buddy Miles and Billy Cox--as well as two astonishing instrumental showpieces, "Peace in Mississippi" (feedback heaven) and "Captain Coconut" (studio space). B+

Jimi Hendrix: Midnight Lightning (Reprise, 1976) With posthumous Hendrix it's best to concentrate on the improvisations as if he were a jazz musician, and heard this way Alan Douglas's second attempt at creative tampering beats the first. Once again the standouts are instrumentals--a Mitch Mitchell vamp called "Beginnings" and especially "Trash Man," reminiscent of McLaughlin's Devotion only grander, more passionate, and more anarchic. Guitarist Jeff Mironov actually enriches that cut, just as guitarist Lance Quinn does "Machine Gun," which due to the stiffness of the rhythm section is less funky than either live version but smashes through as a raveup. And beyond that the blues playing--as opposed to singing or writing--carries the album. B+

Jimi Hendrix: The Essential Jimi Hendrix (Reprise, 1978) The essential Jimi Hendrix is to be found on Are You Experienced?, Axis: Bold as Love, Electric Ladyland, and The Cry of Love, from which most of the great music on this two-LP compilation was rather eccentrically excerpted. Smash Hits is a worthy song compilation. And if this is why Rainbow Bridge (two cuts), War Heroes (two cuts), and Hendrix in the West (none) were deleted from the catalogue, Alan Douglas ought to be put in escrow until they're restored. C+

Jimi Hendrix: The Essential Jimi Hendrix Volume Two (Reprise, 1979) This one-LP follow-up surrounds the Band of Gypsys "Machine Gun" with the Monterey "Wild Thing" and the Woodstock "Star Spangled Banner," a worthy conceit, and includes a seven-inch "Gloria" that lasts 8:47 and is spectacular for about a third of that. It also includes five whole tracks from Are You Experienced? B-

Henry Cow: The Henry Cow Legend (Virgin, 1973) Composed to encourage improvisation, influenced by jazz yet identifying with Europe, and categorizable only as rock (although calling one cut "Teenbeat" is stretching things), the music of these Cambridge progressives is more flexible than King Crimson's and more stringently conceived than Soft Machine's. As is usual in this style, not everything works. As is also usual, the guitar (Fred Frith) carries more clout than the saxophone (Geoff Leigh). As is not usual, you can listen to what few lyrics there are without getting sick. B

Henry Cow: Unrest (Red, 1979) Finally released in the States five years after it came out in Britain, this demanding music shows up such superstar "progressives" as Yes for the weak-minded reactionaries they are. The integrity of Cow's synthesis is clearest in "Bittern Storm Over Ulm," based on the Yardbirds' "Got to Hurry"--instead of quoting sixteen bars with two or three instruments, thus insuring their listeners another lazy identification, they break the piece down, almost like beboppers. Though the saxophone is still second-rate and the more lyrical rhythms flirt with a cheap swing, the band is worthy of its classical correlatives--Bartok, Stockhausen, and Varese rather than Tchaikovsky and predigested Bach. A-

Henry Cow/Slapp Happy: In Praise of Learning (Red, 1979) This 1975 U.K. release was Cow's second collaboration with guitarist-composer Peter Blegvad, pianist-composer Anthony Moore, and vocalist Dagmar, and if it's less successful than the earlier Desperate Straights (still an import here), that's not the new guys' fault. Dagmar's abrasively arty, Weill-derived style, as bluesless and European as any "rock" singing ever recorded, does manage to find a context for words that seem literary if not pompous in print; in fact, between Dagmar and the Weillish Moore-Blegvad and Tim Hodgkinson music on side one, the lyrics seem almost as astute politically as the title. But except for some atonal Fred Frith piano, the music on side two is dominated by less than winning musique concrete experiments that make such injunctions as "Arise Work Men and seize/the Future" seem completely academic. B

The Heptones: Night Food (Island, 1976) This reminds me that British skinheads were reggae fans--it shares its sexual brutality and rhythmic monotonousness with the most desperate and overbearing heavy rock. Saved by admirably intense and cogent vocal stylings and (I count) three good songs--not enough to really give such styling someplace to go. B

John Herald: John Herald (Paramount, 1973) This casually joyous solo debut by the former Greenbriar Boy gives in at times to such folky vices as mere flash, mere lyricism, and mere whimsy. But "Fire Song," a casually joyous ditty about how his house burned down, and "Brother Sam," unpresumptuous compassion for a returned Vietnam vet, should inspire Paul Simon to work real hard on the follow-up. And his high notes should inspire Art Garfunkel to go back to architecture school. B+

The John Herald Band: The John Herald Band (Bay, 1978) I was about to note bemusedly that Herald's best songs on this album--"Wiggle Worm Wiggle" and "I'm Getting Ready to Go"--could have been written fifty years ago. Indeed they could have, because both are old bluegrass tunes. "Slightly Blind" and "With Every Month" are quite up-to-date. After that, details get hazy. B

John Hiatt: Hangin' Around the Observatory (Epic, 1974) Hiatt is a Midwestern boy who wrings off-center rock and roll out of a voice with lots of range, none of it homey. Reassuring to hear the heartland Americana of the Band actually inspire a heartlander. Reassuring too that one of the resulting songs can be released as a single by Three Dog Night. B

John Hiatt: Overcoats (Epic, 1975) I admit to a weakness for loony lyrical surrealist protest rockers. And I admit that this one tends to go soft when he tries to go poetic. I even admit that he has a voice many would consider worse than no voice at all (although that's one of the charms of the type). But I insist that anyone who can declaim about killing an ant with his guitar "underneath romantic Indiana stars" deserves a shot at leading man status in Fort Wayne. B

John Hiatt: Slug Line (MCA, 1979) This hard-working young pro may yet turn into an all-American Elvis C. He's focused his changeable voice up around the high end and straightened out his always impressive melodies, but he has a weakness for the shallow (if sincere) putdown, e.g.: "You're too dumb to have a choice." Or else he'd get chosen, do you think he means? Lene Lovich: should cover "You're My Love Interest." B+

Dan Hicks: It Happened One Bite (Warner Bros., 1978) Hicks's songwriting is somewhat straightened (Joan Baez could do "Cloud My Sunny Mood" or "Garden in the Rain") but only slightly diminished on this 1975 soundtrack for an unreleased Ralph Bakshi movie (he sez). But for some reason it sounds a little . . . loud, even forceful. I should applaud this modernistic development, but instead I'm thinking that I'd rather hear Peter Stampfel (or R. Crumb) cover "Mama, I'm an Outlaw." B-

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks: Where's the Money? (Blue Thumb, 1971) If Hicks's acoustic stylings react against the excesses of counterculture futurists, then the key moment on this live album comes when he corrects "his wife" with "I should say old lady" and no one laughs. Hicks is delicate, tuneful, and droll, with an ear for colloquial history in words and music both, but he's so diffident about focus that his mock nostalgia is too easy to mistake for the right thing. B

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks: Striking It Rich! (Blue Thumb, 1972) This isn't as long on ambient whimsy as Where's the Money?, but that's OK--makes a less distracting showcase for an artist who's much better at writing songs than at contextualizing them. I count seven I'd be delighted to hear somebody cover, and it's fun to hear Hicks's own outfit go after them. Best contextualization: Maryann Price's interpretation of "I'm an Old Cowhand." B+

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks: Last Train to Hicksville (Blue Thumb, 1973) On Where's the Money? I had to work to figure out why I wasn't responding; on this one I have to think to figure out why I am. Well, dozens of touches--Hicks's musical wit is undiminished, with John Girton's acoustic plectra especially charming. But the words aren't sharp enough to cut the band's chronic cuteness. B

Hidden Strength: Hidden Strength (United Artists, 1975) I get to play this once every two or three months, when it works down to the end of the shelf. I put on side one and enjoy the easeful nonsense chorus of "Happy Song." But nothing else--including "Hustle On Up (Do The Bump)," which UA foolishly slotted for a disco breakout--catches my ear. Someone in a position of authority should listen to "Happy Song." It's nice. C

Justin Hines & the Dominoes: Jezebel (Island, 1976) Homey lyrics ("Jah-jah will spank you") and artful instrumental touches--I like the gentle calypso-styled horns and decorative guitar licks--may mean this is a great reggae album. But they may mean it's only a subtle one, and in such an understated genre subtlety risks extinction. B+

Eddie Hinton: Very Extremely Dangerous (Capricorn, 1978) Hinton's Otis Redding tribute goes far beyond anything ever attempted by Frankie Miller or Toots Hibbert--it's almost like one of those Elvis re-creations. The Muscle Shoals boys put out on backup, Hinton's songs are pretty good, and the man has the phrasing and the guttural inflections down pat. So what's missing is instructive: first, the richness of timbre that made Otis sound soft even at his raspiest, and second, good will so enormous that it overflowed naturally into a humor that hurt no one. B-

Hi Rhythm: On the Loose (Hi, 1976) In which Al Green's sidemen, perhaps disgruntled at Al's unwillingness to record their material, get together and cut it. Some stickler for detail is sure to point out that the singing on side two is completely out of tune, but that's OK--so is most of the singing on side one, which I prefer to Full of Fire. One of the more carefully thought out tracks features a mildly malicious lyric about Green himself, but it's the eccentricity of the music, which sounds as if it includes a banjo, that does him in. Loose indeed. A-

Becky Hobbs: Becky Hobbs (MCA, 1974) White slavery lives. The voices of Diana Ross and Brenda Lee contained in the soul of Bonnie Bramlett all held in thrall by an overbooked producer and a lead guitarist (old man?) who writes songs. Unfortunately, Becky writes songs herself. The voice of Bonnie Bramlett in the soul of Brenda Lee? C-

Tommy Hoehn: Losing You to Sleep (Power Play, 1978) In which the concentrated energy of Memphis power pop--the upside-down Beatles VI style pioneered by Alex Chilton's Big Star--defines itself as a regional sound, albeit one that has been confined almost entirely to the studio. This romantically inclined sample includes a Chilton-Hoehn song, but it sounds feckless played back-to-back with the Scruffs. B

Bill Holland & Rent's Due: If It Ain't One Thing . . . (Adelphi, 1975) Despite the decline of the genre, I still hear a lot of singer-songwriter records, most of which sound smoother than this--both Holland and his band lack polish in the vaguely jazzy style mature folkies fall into. They have plenty of bounce, though, and something about the tender yet skeptical common sense of Holland's lyrics suggests that he doesn't much care for smooth stuff anyway. Not that his raggedness is a plus. But if I were an a&r man and heard some unknown put across songs as out-of-the-ordinary as "This Fourth Year" and "Do the Mambo" I'd say the hell with the cracked voice and sign him. B+

The Dave Holland Quartet: Conference of the Birds (ECM, 1972) This is what I believed Ornette Coleman meant by free jazz when I memorized Change of the Century 15 years ago--free as loose, loose as pliant and relaxed rather than sloppy and untethered. I even enjoy "Q&A" which sounds like it should go with an arty cartoon, and the title cut is so exquisite it makes my diaphragm tingle. A

The Hollies: He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother (Epic, 1970) Despite one soupy instrumental, one soupy hit, and one soupy song of putative faith, the general air of unrelieved vapidity here only enhances yet another bright, slick, well-crafted album by our own Five Lads. Funniest conceit: "Please Sign Your Letters." Best readymade: Booker T. bottom on "Do You Believe in Love?" B

The Hollies: Moving Finger (Epic, 1970) Suddenly, for no discernible reason, the Hollies seem to be aiming their schlock at the housewife market. The nadir, an attempted artsong called "Marigold Gloria Swansong," is as aimless as bad (i.e. current) Bee Gees; usually they come on like the Sonny and Cher of slick harmony. The music hasn't lost its iridescence, but though they do generate one great soap opera--"Too Young to Be Married"--most of this is too crass for giggles. C+

The Hollies: Distant Light (Epic, 1972) Old rock and rollers are doing somersaults over the hit, "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress," one of the catchier items on the recent AM. But that's all it is, and that's all this album's got. The likable songs are cancelled out by a couple of real dummies, and the musical substance is more a function of Allan Clarke's late-blooming soulfulness--pop groups have to do something as they push thirty--than in the long cool harmonies of yesteryear. C+

The Hollies: Romany (Epic, 1972) You had your doubts about the Hollies without Graham Nash, right? How about without Graham Nash and Allan Clarke? C-

The Hollies: The Hollies' Greatest Hits (Epic, 1973) Ignoring their barren stint with Mikael "Swedish Invasion" Rikfors, they add "Bus Stop," "On a Carousel," and four other Imperial sillyditties to six Epic tracks, including their three American successes of the '70s. This has the effect of underplaying their most durable froth, the early Epic music with Graham Nash--the ersatz Pepperpomp of "King Midas in Reverse" is a lot closer to their essence than the "sincerity" of "He Ain't Heavy." The programming is a mess, too. But it's the one Hollies album to own if one etc., as well as a decent LP with "Long Cool Woman" on it. A-

The Hollies: Hollies (Epic, 1974) Hollies scholars herald Allan Clarke's homecoming as a return to form, but though the material is their most playful in years--the slyly circular "Love Makes the World Go Round," the slyly hyperbolic "Out on the Road"--the old lightness is gone, probably forever. I mean, soul is soul--at times the sham intensity here is almost baroque. We are not charmed. B-

Loleatta Holloway: Loleatta (Gold Mind, 1977) Those craving a big-voiced r&b singer should probably grab this rough-edged Philadelphia-type production. Those in control of their urges should note that nothing else on the album matches the lead cuts on each side, "Hit and Run" and "Ripped Off." B-

Loleatta Holloway: Queen of the Night (Gold Mind, 1978) In an era when Donna and Diana and Natalie aim (truly) to reintroduce Josephine Baker to the great American public, this black woman extends the sexy mama tradition of rhythm and blues. Her sweet grit and tough wit are alternately abusive and forgiving, coy and defenseless, and she's got some voice. "I May Not Be There When You Want Me," a Bunny Sigler song that rocks as hard as any black music I've heard this year, is also available as a disco disc, but even the few mediocre cuts on this album are of interest, and it includes a version of "You Light Up My Life" that beats Patti Smith's all to hell. A-

Buddy Holly: 20 Golden Greats (MCA, 1978) [CG70s: A Basic Record Library; CG80: Rock Library: Before 1980]  

Rupert Holmes: Rupert Holmes (Epic, 1975) In another time this guy would be writing short stories for Collier's; if he really is a civilized Randy Newman, as some seem to feel, then the emphasis is on the civilized. The giveaway is the voice, devoid of feeling or even eccentricity, and hence inoffensive. Randy Newman is never inoffensive. That so many putative rock critics mistake Holmes's deftness for the real thing only proves how desperate we have become for original intelligence, no matter how shallow. B-

Rupert Holmes: Pursuit of Happiness (Private Stock, 1978) As a much-covered pop singer-songwriter who narrated well-crafted musical soap operas, Holmes earned neither popular not critical status. So now he's pursued fame by moving to an avowed singles label, jettisoning the narrative and steering between Jimmy Webb literacy at his best ("Less Is More") and Paul Williams pap at his worst ("Speechless"). C

Holy Modal Rounders: Good Taste Is Timeless (Metromedia, 1971) A sextet who put the communal principle into practice--five of them sing lead, four write. They celebrate meat ("Pork liver, lambies tongues, vienna sausage"), boobs ("They're big they're round they're all around"), and a bunch of farmers who danced till dawn one night in the spring of '65. They're not crazy about horoscopes, "cute antics," or city wimmin who live with dogs. Except for the timeless reel of "Spring of '65," their great moments are fast and relatively loud, probably because projecting soft and sweet isn't something any old communard can do. But their collective spirit is touched with poetry nonetheless. B+

Holy Modal Rounders: Alleged in Their Own Time (Rounder, 1975) I love the Rounders chronicle and the theory of Western civ and the pornographic reminiscence but I wish there were times and credits in the liner notes too because I don't feel like putting a watch on what I estimate as fifty-plus minutes of random canon and also because I wonder whether Steve Weber and maybe Luke Faust and Robin Remailly are putting out and in addition I prefer Dave Van Ronk's "Random Canyon" to Peter Stampfel's and would just as soon Peter recut "Nova" and "Synergy" as well but he probably designed the album to sound like a field recording which I'm sure is just what the Folks-with-a-capital-F at the Rounder collective wanted since this isn't traditional enough for them and maybe it's also too traditional for me but I doubt it. B

Holy Modal Rounders: Last Round (Adelphi, 1979) In which Peter Stampfel and friends--including veteran Rounders Steve Weber and Robin Remailly, many Clamtones, and Antonia, composer of "That Belly I Idolize" and "God, What Am I Doing Here" (with "Fucking Sailors in Chinatown" yet to come)--prove that the counterculture still exists. Strange drug experiences are detailed, ooze is embraced, girls without underwear consume hoagies and juice. In short, Head Comix live. B+

Honey Cone: Sweet Replies (Hot Wax, 1971) I know "Want Ads" is pure Jackson 5, but most of this is pure Vandellas. Producer-songwriter Ronald Dunbar must have had lots of advice from label owners Holland-Dozier-Holland--he uses every H-D-H trick and comes up with a few electronic effects of his own on this sturdy LP. Highlights: "Are You Man Enough, Are You Strong Enough" (to raise another man's child), "The Day I Found Myself" (was the day I left you). B+

Honey Cone: Soulful Tapestry (Hot Wax, 1971) Just as Sweet Replies repeated two cuts from the dud debut Take Me With You, this one repeats two from Sweet Replies--only not verbatim, which must make it all right. Wish they'd improved "The Day I Found Myself," rearranged and lengthened at a slower tempo, and "Want Ads," dulled with a bassier mix and stretched with orchestral break and vocal coda. I do like "Stick-Up," by "ABC" out of "Want Ads," and "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show," by "La Bamba" out of "Come a Little Bit Closer." But I don't like "Monkey" so much I want the encore. And filler is filler, even Dozier's and Holland's. B-

Honk: Honk (Epic, 1974) Funky California eclecticism in the grateful tradition of Stoneground, with the difference in names indicating a gain in irony and the forced jollity of "Gimme That Wine" exemplifying the limitations of the style. Bonnie Koloc award for authenticity through cleanliness: Beth Fitchet, "Oh Daddy Blues." Jack Tempchin award for outwriting the principals: Mark Turnbull, "Mademoiselle." B-

The Hoodoo Rhythm Devils: Rack Jobbers Rule (Capitol, 1972) How can I say they sound like a cross between Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds and the Mississippi Sheiks when I've never even heard the Mississippi Sheiks? I think what it means is that as much as I admire some of their original material I'd rather hear the Mississippi Sheiks sing it. Since they bring up the subject of devilish rhythms, I'll add that I'd rather hear the Mississippi Sheiks drum it as well--and I'm not sure the Mississippi Sheiks had a drummer. C+

John Lee Hooker: Endless Boogie (ABC, 1970) I like this double-lp more than either of two recent Bob Hite efforts. Hooker 'n' Heat (Liberty) features too much unaccompanied Hooker and tends to play on his status of a minor blues relic with hot-off-the-tape studio rapping, although the last side really boogies, as the saying goes. Coast to Coast Blues Band (United Artists) collects 14 20-year-old masters, mostly previously unreleased solo takes. The white audience hasn't much changed Hooker's sound, so the timeliness of Endless Boogie is an unmitigated plus, and producers Bill Szymczyk and Ed Michel get a relaxed groove out of a cast of supporting musicians (Brown, Miller, Davis, Radic, Naftalin) who can boogie Canned Heat right out of the studio. B+

John Lee Hooker: Never Get Out of These Blues Alive (ABC, 1972) The Hook, being the Hook, almost never makes a bad album, but he does tend to be a little too boogieing even. This one breaks the pattern, with an agonizing version of "TB Sheets," an apt contribution from Van Morrison, and great studio work from guitarist Luther Tucker, Mel Brown, and Elvin Bishop. A-

Mary Hopkin: Earth Song/Ocean Song (Apple, 1971) My taste for Hopkin's limpid prettiness may be eccentric, but there it is. She sings like the demure, starstruck adolescent she was until very recently, which lends her straightforward role-playing a revelatory poignancy lacking in the genteel atavism of the folkie madonnas she superficially resembles. Recommended: "International." B+

Horslips: The Man Who Built America (DJM, 1979) In the past these rock pros from the Emerald Isle specialized in Gaelic folk motifs--pretty awful, but awful in their own way. This time they go for more generalized shamrock: organ doodles and half-baked harmonies haunt a concept album about Irish (note roots) immigrants who think quite a lot about the colleens (not called that, of course) left behind. D+

Bill Horwitz: Lies, Lies, Lies (ESP-Disk', 1975) Like most topical singer-songwriters, Horwitz succumbs to the obvious (calling him Henry Kiss-of-Death isn't much of a punch line), the rhetorical (the word "bosses" in "Father," which almost manages to bridge the generation gap through class feeling, suggests the Daily Worker rather than a daily worker), and the simplistic (equating the Army Corps of Engineers with the Czar's cossacks does injustice to both). But unlike most topical songwriters, Horwitz also has brushed with wisdom (the post-utopian revolutionary commitment of "Sadness"); he sounds fresh because he is. As an anticapitalist, Horwitz figured taking his tapes to the big record companies would be a waste of time, so I can't fulminate about why this is on ESP Disk' while Richie Lecea is with RCA and Myles & Lenny record for CBS. But given the courage of the record companies in these ledger-conscious times, he was probably right. B-

Larry Hosford: Cross Words (Shelter, 1976) A funny country singer-songwriter with complicated emotions and an elusive, strangely ageless vocal persona--mellowed-out Homer and/or Jethro, perhaps, or comic-relief L.A. cowboy gone crackerbarrel, or crackers. His wife calls him Daddy, calls his bluff, and then just calls a cab, but don't worry--here's a man who don't worry--here's a man who knows that love gets easier when you own a blanket with a switch on it. B+

Hot: Hot (Big Tree, 1977) Vocally, this group can't match the Emotions, and the music for some of these songs is undistinguished, but I'll take their hit ("Angel in Your Arms," not to be confused with "Undercover Angel") for its modestly articulate modern moralism, a virtue many of the lyrics here share. Recommended: "Mama's Girl," "You Can Do It." B

Hot Chocolate: Cicero Park (Big Tree, 1974) From the black-and-white London group that originated "Brother Louie" comes an album that might sound startling in retrospect and is impressive now. At the very least, its insightful confusions over class and race locate the honest roots of one kind of black conservatism. Both Mickie Most's precise, almost formal framing (pop hard rock veering toward disco) and the elocution of singer-composers Errol Brown (hard) and Tony Wilson (soft) make for an overall detachment unbroken by the passion of individual cuts. Strange to hear soul with a British accent. B+

Hot Chocolate: Hot Chocolate (Big Tree, 1975) Not quite as substantial as Cicero Park, but more startling, thanks to "You Sexy Thing," the eccentrically wild-and-proper English-soul supersmash included hereupon. B+

Hot Chocolate: Man to Man (Big Tree, 1976) OK, I do believe in miracles. Left with a two-man job by the solo flight of Tony Wilson, Errol Brown just gets on up and does it and does it. The lyrics are transparent sexist jive from "Heaven Is in the Back Seat of My Cadillac" to "Seventeen Years of Age," but Brown's dignified, cocksure vocals are so credulous that the effect is like Bryan Ferry irony divested of self-consciousness. Maybe the mannered romanticism Ferry has striven for comes naturally to an upwardly mobile West Indian like Brown. The hooks and tempos sure do. And Brown is right--"You Sexy Thing" is good enough to cop almost note for note. A-

Hot Chocolate: 10 Greatest Hits (Big Tree, 1977) Two of these excellent songs--"So You Win Again" and "Rumours"--have never been available on a U.S. album, and there's only one cop from the highly recommended A side of Cicero Park. So although this steers clear of everything that's most problematic about a group that frequently essays themes a little beyond its grasp and becomes more interesting as a result, it's also an ideal introduction. Question: Is that low-register electric timbre they hold so dear really somebody's guitar? A

Hot Chocolate: Every 1's a Winner (Infinity, 1978) Errol Brown used to pose interesting questions, mostly about race, and though his conclusions were often quizzical or incoherent, they tended to be more provocative (if no more militant) than "Love Is the Answer One More Time." There are four good songs here and no utter losers, but one of the good ones is already on 10 Greatest Hits, and only "Confetti Day," another installment in this strange group's family series, is up to the title chartbuster. Maybe that's because the question that really interests Brown these days is how to integrate synthesized percussion into English soul-pop. B

Hot Chocolate: Going Through the Motions (Infinity, 1979) For years I've resisted the idiot notion that this was a "disco" group because Errol Brown is black. So did the discos. The discos are still resisting. But I think this is the best disco parody since Silver Convention's Madhouse. Keynote: "Mindless Boogie." B+

Hot Tuna: Hot Tuna (RCA Victor, 1970) Didn't figure I'd ever put on this country blues extrapolation by Jorma and Jack's Airplane spinoff while John Hurt and Gary Davis were at hand. But the shameful fact is that between the delicate guitar play and Jorma's unpretentious vocals and unexceptionable taste, I do. B+

Hot Tuna: The Phosphorescent Rat (Grunt, 1973) After four albums, or is it five, this spin-off also sounds tired and like themselves, more consistent than their sister, and why does anyone care when they don't seem to? At least when they were doing country blues the material justified the music's indolence. C

Hot Tuna: Yellow Fever (Grunt, 1975) When this band went pro--and electric--my initial reaction was annoyance. I figured that at least when they were going country blues the material justified their deliberate pace. But that soon passed, and for years now I've been shelving their records without comment not out of anger or even dislike but in the simple absence of anything interesting to say. When a group maintains such a level for five years, however, its uninterestingness becomes noteworthy in itself. Think of it--kozmic blooze and negative vocals boogieing on into a countercultural time that knows no past or future, outracing the Starship on automatic pilot. Quite impressive, actually. B-

Hounds: Unleashed (Columbia, 1978) This is not punk rock. This is a hard-working, not untalented bunch of cock-rock pros who thought it might be timely to put a dragon lady sporting dog collar and chain on the cover of their debut LP, and who are now really pissed at Johnny Rotten. C+

Cissy Houston: Cissy Houston (Janus, 1971) The sharpest pleasure afforded by the Sweet Inspiration was the juxtaposition of Cissy's rather vulgar pull-out-the-stops melodrama against genteel if kinetic arrangements and material. The voice is almost as interesting as it used to be, but the juxtaposition no longer works, perhaps because new producers Koppelman and Rubin don't know the difference between gentility and complacent meaninglessness. C

Ray Wylie Hubbard & the Cowboy Twinkies: Ray Wylie Hubbard & the Cowboy Twinkies (Warner Bros., 1976) I've listened to the bracingly solid songs of this Austin mainstreamer two dozen times without once being tempted to turn them off. But there must be more to love than that. B

Hudson-Ford: Nickelodeon (A&M, 1974) "Complain about pollution, the downfall of man/And half-grown humans may be your fans/Add your shit to the pile while you still can/Cause it's hell on earth." Hudson-Ford, "Burn Baby Burn" (Slick Cynic Music, ASCRAP, additional lyric by R. Christgau, Two Minute Songs, LAMF). C

The Hues Corporation: Freedom for the Stallion (RCA Victor, 1974) There's no way "Rock the Boat" could prepare you for the studied lameness of this LP unless you believe, as I do, that ersatz gospel liveliness doesn't validate the hit of 1974 any more than ersatz gospel beautifulness validated the hit of 1969. (That's a quiz.) Exception: "The Family," which studies hard. (Answer to quiz: "Oh Happy Day.") C

Humble Pie: Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore (A&M, 1971) It may seem unfair to judge a band on a live double, but they go out of their way to define themselves with this seven-song job, which celebrates the ascendancy of ruff 'n' tuff Steve Marriott over wan 'n' gone Peter Frampton by raunching up blues and soul titles too magnificent to mention in such company. Lotsa getdown vocals, lotsa getdown guitar, and an important political message, which is that short guys get laid more than normal people. A lie. C-

Helen Humes: The Talk of the Town (Columbia, 1975) Humes's skill is manifest, but her aesthetic assumptions don't connect for me. The Afro-American forms from which rock and roll derived acknowledged their class (not race) origins, either directly (the plainspokenness of r&b) or by outright avoidance (doowop's go-for-broke-fantasy). White kids may have identified with ghetto blacks out of the most abject simplemindedness, but they got candor (r&b) or spiritual intensity (doowop) in the bargain. The adult nightclubbers for whom a jazz-blues stylist like Humes performed, on the other hand, related to the subtle twists of emotion implied by her intricate vocal inventions only because such intricacy takes for granted the protective veneer of culture, which is sophistication's bottom line. The hidden message of Humes's music is a ruling-class myth: that the most horrible suffering (catch the lyric of "Good for Nothin' Joe") is of manageable consequence. She denies the out-of-control. And I miss it. B+

Ian Hunter: Ian Hunter (Columbia, 1975) "Once Bitten Twice Shy" and "I Get So Excited" are rockers as primo as any but the greatest Mott the Hoople songs, and as a bonus the latter is about something besides rock and roll. Hunter and coproducer Mick Ronson's passion for that subject is justified by the rest of the music, even the poetry-with-rock episode. But Ian should remember that it's a mighty long way down rock and roll, because as your name gets hot your heart gets cold. Then your name gets cold. B

Ian Hunter: All-American Alien Boy (Columbia, 1976) The concept fails. Hunter isn't even a one-star generalizer, and he obviously lacks that rare knack for the political song, though the bit about needing both the left wing and the right to fly is sharp (and scary). Yet the attempt at protest is gratifying, at least as honest as it is confused. At odd moments the music kicks a line like "Justice would seem to be bored" all the way home; "Irene Wilde," a throw-in about young love, is a small treasure; and "God (Take 1)" is nice Ferlinghetti-style doggerel. So while I can't recommend, I kind of like. B-

Ian Hunter: You're Never Alone With a Schizophrenic (Chrysalis, 1979) Six winners out of nine on this mini-comeback, and he doesn't seem to be straining, either. But that's not entirely a blessing--the musical territory is conventionally good-rockin', and only on the gnomic "Life After Death" and the second verse of "When the Morning Comes" does he reconnoiter lyrically. The titles of the bad songs--"Bastard," "The Outsider," and "Ships" (in the guess what)--are warning enough. B

Ian Hunter: Shades of Ian Hunter: The Ballad of Ian Hunter and Mott the Hoople (Columbia, 1979) Exemplary discophilia. The Mott 45s on side one are all the young stiffs--great album tracks edited down for an AM exposure that was rarely forthcoming, they race along with an almost punky punch on LP. The B sides and miscellaneous on side two are uneven, natch, but worth getting to know (as owners of Greatest Hits have already learned with two of them). Those circumspect enough to have passed up Ian's two solo albums are now rewarded with side three's best-of. And side four excerpts the solo Ian that was never released here to impressive effect. A genuinely obsessive compilation. A-

Kay Huntington: What's Happening to Our World? (United Artists, 1970) This is either a hilarious takeoff on circa-1964 folk music, complete with sensitive vibrato, hard little guitar parts, and very moderate good intentions, or--more likely, unlikely as it may seem--one of the most atrocious records ever made. Perfectly awful, right down to liner notes and cover portrait--Huntington, a dyed-looking Minnesotan blonde who appears very reluctant to celebrate birthdays, is wearing a red minidress. Noted primarily as a Remarkable Occurrence, which I trust someone at United Artists is already investigating. Pick: the apparently unsarcastic "Right to Poverty." E

Michael Hurley: Hi-Fi Snock Uptown (Raccoon, 1972) When Hurley is good, his tunes snake up on you. When he's not, they snail right past, disappearing forever behind that cabbage leaf there. B-

Michael Hurley: Long Journey (Rounder, 1977) Fingers trembling, the oft-cynical critic opened the new LP by the playful, sardonic folkie recluse. Without the Rounders or Jeffrey Fredericks to change paces, there was no way it could be another Have Moicy! (Aw.) But it might be woozy and charming, like Armchair Boogie. (Hey!) Or cute and dull, like Hi-Fi Snock Uptown. (Duh.) Also, the critic might fall asleep before finding out. Four months and many snoozes later, he arrived at a verdict: sardonic, charming, playful, cute, woozy, and only rarely dull. Highly recommended to Have Moicy! cultists. Hitbound: "Hog of the Forsaken." Whoopee. B+

Michael Hurley & Pals: Armchair Boogie (Raccoon, 1971) The man is seductive. His fast songs aren't steady enough to win any races, and when he gets to wandering I often get lost--only to notice him dying or offending Shulamith Firestone out of the corner of my ear. I don't believe the werewolf loves the maid as he tears off her clothes. But Hurley makes me want to hear his side of the story, lupine high notes and all. A-

Michael Hurley/The Unholy Modal Rounders/Jeffrey Fredericks & the Clamtones: Have Moicy! (Rounder, 1976) A dynamic trio. Hurley's sleepy LPs for Raccoon flaunted their homemade triviality, while the work of Peter Stampfel (and Steve Weber and the other Rounders) for Prestige and Metromedia and Rounder managed to make music out of chalk scraping a blackboard, or a needle scraping an old 78--quite a feat, but not one I ever wanted to witness daily. This time, however, both forces combine with Fredericks for thirteen homemade, chalky, fit-for-78 songs that renew the concept of American folk music as a bizarre apotheosis of the post-hippie estate. No losers, though--just loadsa laffs, a few tears, some death, some shit, a hamburger, spaghetti, world travel, crime, etc. A+

Mississippi John Hurt: Last Sessions (Vanguard, 1972) For some reason folk specialists hold these clear if casual tapes in low esteem, but I think they stand with his other Vanguard music. Recorded in a Manhattan hotel in February and July 1966, shortly before he died, they capture the same playful warmth and quiet rhythmic assurance that marked all his work. These aren't qualities especially well-served by youth, which is one reason Hurt exerted instant artistic authority when he was rediscovered in 1963 at age seventy-one. From "Funky Butt" to "Shortnin' Bread," this is a man who was always ready to meet his maker. A

J.B. Hutto & the Hawks: Slidewinder (Delmark, 1973) Hutto boogies easy as falling off a barstool--he's kept my body interested in a slide solo for fifteen minutes at a time. So I had hopes he'd be one artist who'd thrive in a four-songs-per-side format. But compared to 1968's six-songs-per-side Hawk Squat!--with Sunnyland Slim's keyboards and Maurice McIntyre's sax filling in the sound--this is pretty slack. B-

H: Compilations

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