The Great Relisteninging 2: Adam Ant to Cannonball Adderly
If you’re thinking, my my my, that is one heck of a cultural juxtaposition, you’d be right.
Since I made my way through the Adam and the Ants, the band’s, discography in my previous listen, I moved on to Adam Ant, as a solo artist, for this round of relisteninging.
Say what you will about Adam Ant, he knows how to open an album with a banger. Every single LP opening track grabs you by the shimmy. Friend or Foe gives you two massive openers to dance to, with Friend or Foe (wah wah!) on side 1 and Goody Two Shoes on side 2. Still, I could have done without his horns-and-tribal-drums cover of Hello, I Love You. It’s among my least favorite songs by The Doors, and my life wasn’t improved by hearing it here.
At one point I joked that it was possible that I bought all these Adam and the Ants/Adam Ant albums largely because of his face, but I really enjoyed listening to his body of work and, as I said before, was delighted by how good a lot of his music was, Ant rapping aside.
Then Strip came along and proved me right.
I mean, who could blame me?
While the song “Strip” was, indeed, a cheeky, fun, opening banger, the rest of the album was instantly forgettable, and it slid out of my brain as fast as I heard it. Vive Le Rock was marginally better, with “Vive Le Rock”, “Apollo 9”, and “Scorpio Rising” giving me plenty of reason to bop around the house, but it still doesn’t hold up to the energy and engagement of his earlier albums.
And so we move on.
Country Preacher by Cannonball Adderley is one of my husband’s albums, one I haven’t listened to until now. You can see by the condition of the cover that he’s had this album forever. It was R&B-y, it was jazzy, it was grooving. And the album was opened by the Country Preacher himself, Reverend Jesse Jackson, who became good friends with Cannonball Adderley since they shared a similar sense of social consciousness and the struggle for civil rights. This album was recorded live in an unnamed church in Chicago, to an enthusiastic crowd, and I was moved by the music’s energy, the gentle nature of Cannonball Adderley when he spoke, and Jesse Jackson’s appeal.
Albums covered:
Adam Ant: Friend or Foe
Adam Ant: Strip
Adam Ant: Vive Le Rock
The Cannonball Adderley Quintet: Country Preacher - “Live” at Operation Breadbasket