With contributions from Leon Russell, Stephen Stills, Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton, Billy Preston, Ringo Starr and its producer George Harrison, Doris Troy's 1970 Apple release should have been better. David Fricke says it is one of his top five non-Beatle Apple albums, which isn't exactly praise when you look at the discography. And while everyone is in fine form, especially Miss Troy, I find that most of the material falls flat. The album comes and goes without leaving a mark, almost.
"Exactly Like You" surprised the hell out of me. I've listened to "Doris Troy" a number of times over the years, but nothing ever stayed with me. So, when "Exactly Like You" popped its head out of the grooves, it was as if I had never heard it before. This is a solid and soulful take on Jimmy McHugh's standard, who also wrote "On The Sunny Side Of The Street," by the way.
3 comments:
I vaguely recall owning this back in the day, but other than that -- no recollection of whether I liked it or not. The track you posted is wonderful, though.
I agree on the album. And it's not surprising a song can pop when not trapped amidst other songs. You mentioned how Prince churned out a lot of not-good albums in the last decade plus of his life, which is absolutely true. I'm sure Questlove could cue up a song from some of them and I'd go, "Well, that sounds pretty great." But when it comes in the middle of a bunch of other similar, but sub-par songs it gets lost. One Nick Cave song off his new album works. All of them together and you find it too samey. But it's nice this one song from Doris Troy could get rescued from the pile.
Like the Apple LP, her entire career is sorta uneven. Sal, you're right, Exactly Like You is one the outstanding tracks. There's a certain fire and authenticity missing from most of the tracks on the 1970 album. No matter the all-star cast, they can't conjure up Memphis. Muscle Shoals or Miami. When I hear Doris I want that mic so close you can almost hear her lips move. This record doesn't sound like that. It lacks fire. A shame that it's merely adequate. I think maybe George had too many irons in the fire.
My bootleg connection from the 1990's to 2010's was way into soundtracks. When Sandy and I were going to UCLA in the mid-Seventies we went through a largely instrumental obscure soundtrack phase combined with heavy doses of Italian and German prog. We also did a lot of psychedelics and got weird with the atmospheric music. So me and my bootleg guy knew stuff that most of his customers could give a shit about. But he was way more deeply into soundtracks than we were. Along with his bootleg wares he always had a small selection in very limited quantities of hard-to-find foreign soundtracks. I think most of them were grey-area or outright fan generated boots. Sometimes after a boot deal he'd throw in a few free soundtrack CD's as a bonus. On one such occasion he gave a me a couple of compilations after I bought a pricey 9-CD box set of Led Zeppelin's Bonzo's Birthday Party. One of them had a song with Doris Troy on vocals. It's called Kill Them All and I'm just strange enough to think it's one her better efforts. Not only that but the entire compilation rules. It's called Beat at Cinecitta Vol. 3 on Crippled Dick Records. I wanted to track down the other volumes but my bootleg guy said Vol. 3 was the only real keeper. And it is quite spectacular.
VR
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