Silver Blue - JD Souther
Way back in my murky past I wound up funding and attending a concert of what was termed "current Romantic" classical music. The general tenet of the organisers was that modern classical music was tuneless and discordant à la Birtwistle or Ligeti and they wanted to bring beautiful harmonies and tunes back. The composers, thrilled to have their music performed live for once, rather than hearing it only as theme music for tv series or in their heads to their own score, would be there to conduct, and this added to the air of excitement about it.
The first piece was beautiful, with wonderful lush strings, warm French horns, and swelling phrases, full of melodic portent, uplifting yet sad. The second was much the same, drifting, dulcet, like Elgar on valium. By the third piece I had my eyes closed, it felt as though I was in a musical flotation tank. By the interval I was going mad. I wanted the performers to jump up and down on the piano, or to play their violins the wrong way up and then set fire to them. The succession of sweet, unchallenging noise was driving me mad.
JD Souther made eight studio albums, the first four between 1972 and 1984. He then gave up music for twenty years, to build a house, do some acting and generally "get a life" before getting back on the horse with the 2008 album "If the World was You". Maybe he needed a rest from his own music. Presumably he didn't need to work with all the income coming in from from the hits of his songs by the Eagles, Don Henley, Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor et al.
At his best, Souther is wonderful. He has a beautiful warm voice, generally uses major chords, and his tunes are lush and romantic. His albums always begin as a relaxing joy, but you are usually pleased when they end, and you shouldn't play them while at the wheel on long journeys. Song by song, he's great, but a double album would feel a long time.
Arguably his best record is the 1976 "Black Rose" and the introverted, intense "Silver Blue" from it is one of his finest songs with great double bass by the legendary James Bond (the "real" James Bond") and some wonderful, warm (oh yes) French horns.
As he himself wrote in his song "Trouble in Paradise"
"There's trouble in paradise,
the story don't sound too nice
and you just can't sleep sleep at night
in a solid gold room...."
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