SPOONYTUNES and TALES - Record & Book Reviews : Including links below to reviews I have written for Elmore Magazine over the past decade

I have been thinking for sometime now, about having my own page just for essays / musings on recordings, that have caught my one functioning ear,my mind,which still seems to be firing on all 8 cylinders and eye (both of them ) for stuff that the reviews I do for Elmore isn't covered. Specifically that would be recordings from the past and some books that aren't nessecarily about music.

That said, music has been a huge part of my life since 1956, when I first took up the guitar and since that upside down year 1961,when I first became a professional musician. ( My first band in high school got paid 30 bucks for playing a sock hop) I'm not a big film buff, but I do have some favorites through the years that have provided much more than just entertainment and I just might wander into writing about them if the mood strikes. Because I yam what I yam (thank you Popeye) the reviews here will lean heavily into the string instrument field, but I did sit behind a Hammond organ for 5 years, while my guitar sat in it's case. I have always been a songwriter, long before I knew I was (having written my first tune around the age of 5 ) Hopefully you might discover something on here, that you'll wind up seeking out and if you enjoy it half as much as I did, then I haven't typed in vain. __K.S. - September 29, 2019

SO....JUST WHO IS THIS SPOONER GUY ? So glad you asked, just click here pilgrim

UPDATE JUNE 30th 2025 : I'M BACK ! It's been a too long lag since I moved from Nashville in 2023 and got adjusted to a different phase of my musical and everyday life here in Florida. Then there was this slightly interuptive heart operation last fall that was supposed to just be routine. IT WASN'T, and of course there's always just wanting to take it a bit easier. When Elmore Music Magazine finally called it a day some years ago, there was still no stopping my getting almost daily deluged by requests from Music PR Firms, some labels and book publishers too . So I had been thinking that 2025 might be a good year to get back at it .

DOWN RIVER  In Search of David Ackles

Mark Brend  Jawbone Press London UK

The 12 page prologue that Mark Brend, musician and much more, has in this book, gave me a strong heads up and big dose of deja vu, on what would follow in it’s 247 pages.  It’s an intriguing, melancholy, happy yet sad tale, of probably one of the most obscure tunesmiths, to come from the “Singer - Songwriter era of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. With Mr. Brend’s great detail of telling the how’s and why’s of his initial discovery, a dark brown album with just the name David Ackles on it, in a used record and book shop, near “Suicide Bridge” on Archway Road in Highgate, North London. And so the book and I were off and running. 

The memories, just the prologue held for me, took me back to 1969, when I already had my first decade logged as a R&R musician, songwriter and a first go-around of four really big ones. First in 66 -68  was a two year run don’t walk with a  minor music manager, a major label in the music biz, plus an arms distance, shoulder rub sharing of manager, concerts and recording sessions with a future pop superstar. Most of that was already growing cold on the ash heap, however because hope floats in the music biz, I was also in an embryonic relationship with some bonafide movers and shakers in the biz, namely manager, Albert Grossman & Co, who handled nearly 30 of the biggest acts on the scene then, Columbia records and a band member/ fiancé. For our wedding gift, our road manager gifted us with 40 record albums, one which had a title that really grabbed my ear, “Subway To The Country” which just happened to be my first of two David Ackles albums in my collection I still have.  Subway was David’s second from the very impressive label, Elecktra / Asylum, of whom some of Ackles label mates would include, Judy Collins, The Doors, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Eagles, Linda Rondstadt etc. 

 My fairly wide taste and exposure to all sorts of music, gave me an understanding of most of what David had produced on Subway To The Country, but I rarely listened to it, mainly as it did not relate to the genres I was chasing at that time. But I was not alone in what added up to Ackles dismal sales. Unfortunately since long before legendary DJ Alan Freed,who exploited the term Rock & Roll and affixed his name with those who wrote a real big tune called  “Sincerely”, popular music of all types and “The Biz” became Siamese twins.  

This book tells all and more about the good, bad and the ugly in David’s six year major label career, marked by high critical praise ( especially in the UK )  and reverence from fellow artists, such as Elvis Costello, Phil Collins, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, who produced “American Gothic”.  One critic called the album “The Sgt. Pepper of Folk” several others “The Album Of The Year” not realizing, nor did Elecktra that believed but over used it, that it was not helpful hype. American Gothic, also gifted to me, ends with the 10 minute  “Montana Song” that I would say is a masterpiece of words, music, and production. And the book chronicles many of the missteps, almosts and David’s lows, before disappearing from the scene. We are redeemed in the knowledge that he continued far from the madding crowd, doing what he always was meant to. Thanks to Mark Brend, we have the rest of the story. Through tiny details and analysis of the rights and wrongs throughout the book, along with his dogged pursuit of finding everyone still alive to talk to, who was there with David, until and after his final departure from lung cancer in 1999. This book truly tells, that you need not be mixed up in the crazy world of the music biz, to grasp the significance of David’s work. Perhaps it is best said by Bernie Taupin’s comment, after listening to the final mix of Montana Song. “ You would have to be dead inside, not to be moved ”   

 

 

FRED MOLLIN UNPLUGGED : Stories and Secrets from a Life of Making Records, Scoring Film and Working with the Legends of Music from Gatekeeper Press : fredmollinunplugged.com

For me, learning to listen to music and learning to read, went hand in hand and began very early, at the age of three. I kid you not. Of course my folks, had to tell me what the letters said on the labels of records that already were drawing me into their grooves, creating extreme pleasure back then, as I’d stare at those 78s spinning madly. And because it wasn’t The Big Rock Candy Mountain, by Burl Ives, but rather GOODNIGHT IRENE ( Huddie Ledbetter, Alan Lomax) produced by GORDON JENKINS and his orchestra and THE WEAVERS, they were baffled and told me so when I got older. Cripes, they had go buy Irene for me, ‘cause of the way I went ape, every time it came across our Philco kitchen or Hudson car radio. In a few years, new music that Alan Freed called Rock & Roll comes along and I’d get to hear it from it’s embryonic stages, through the Elvis explosion with Scotty & Bill and the JORDANAIRES, along with everything else, like seeing the Crickets perform with you know who in ’57. It propelled me into the guitar by age ten and being a pro musician ( getting paid ) by age 14, playing with bands and being fascinated with the making of records.When Bobby Bare sang “All American Boy” under the name of Bill Parsons in 1959, I thought WHADDA LIFE PATH ! Whadda business, so into the deep end of the pool I dove.

Fast forward to 1996 and I’ve been around some big blocks in New York and Nashville more than once. I’m listening to a new CD titled “Ten Easy Pieces” by Jimmy Webb, a guy whose songwriting had been jaw dropping me for close to two decades. This recording is frying my engrams with its overall essence, fantastic sounds and spirit, that was captured on it. I’m playing it for many of my musician friends and they are concurring. Ten of JImmy’s monster songs were stripped down, but had tiny tasty details, that were flourishing out of my Altecs. This would be the first time I saw or better yet, heard the name Fred Mollin produced for “It’s Been Real Inc.” Really now …. I naturally wanted to know more about who Fred Mollin is and perhaps get to meet him, though assuming he was a Canadian, I didn’t think that would happen anytime soon. It wasn’t until Fred started recording in Nashville circa 2010, that I eventually got to meet him and become one of his multitude of admirers in the industry. I can say over this last decade I am proud to call him a friend and turn listeners on to his productions. And now as The Cream once sang , “I’m So Glad “ the guy I’ve called “The Maestro Of Merrick” ( Long Island) many times in print and out loud, was finally motivated to write his book. And “Oh Boy” does he have more than a few good tales to tell.

“Sorry, I Didn’t Catch The Name” …. Uncle Morty (Lou Jacoby) to Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole ) in “My Favorite Year” . In his introduction page,Fred comes to bat swinging for the fences, and why the hell not ? With a resume like he has, why waste time? And yet he does it humbly, with great reverence, and astonishment, to the fact that he got to record, so many artists he admired and was inspired by, Jimmy Webb, Michael McDonald, Linda Rondstadt, Johnny Mathis, Billy Joel, Graham Nash, Bill Medley, Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil , B.B. King, Rumer, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Lamont Dozier, and many many more. But this book is far deeper, than just tales of working closely with iconic names. It is fully loaded with details and situations both personal and within the wide world of music and music for film production for both TV and movies that took him to Canada, Hollywood, and Nashville. When I got my first chance to meet with him, I asked a very good friend and Nashville session ace, Jim Hoke, what to expect. Jim was straight to the point. “He’s very nice and very good in the studio. He knows what he wants and how to get it, but suffers no fools.” “Jim, he sounds like my kinda guy.” ( and he truly is )

The stories of what he calls his “normal” childhood, his family and their relationships, growing up in the suburbs, and his great escape at sixteen, into a great big creative world, makes for a good read, that all connects strongly to who he is, and how he works. His beginnings as wanting to be a singer- songwriter artist did not pan out. He claims he didn’t have enough trauma in his early life to be able to write songs that deep. But the music was already deeply rooted, and his choices of knowing who to call for sessions, for each unique artist, while working closely with them to achieve what they were looking for, along with his composing music for films, his time at Disney, have culminated in my opinion to creating some of the best sounding and feeling recordings in my 75 years of listening closely (starting at age three) yeah I’m 78 again.

NON SPOILER ALERT : In the last ten years or so, I always get a kick out playing one of his productions, especially from many talented artists, who may not be household names, with signature voices, at a dinner party or get together. Then having guests exclaim within one or two cuts, “Who Is That ? Wow, It’s Really Good.” Unplugged’s stories are not just happy days though.The frustrations and disappointments, that come from a life unique to the music business, will clearly relate to those who are in it and not bore those who are not. Like the name of his production company “It’s Been Real” Unplugged certainly is very real and very good.

BONUS TRACK: To those who are true Jimmy Webb- sters and to those who love many of those great tunes that came from Motown. May I strongly suggest, when you get to Chapter 36 “The Making Of Ten Easy Pieces” and Chapter 57 “Loving Lamont”, you do so with Jimmy’s “Ten Easy album and Lamont Dozier’s “Reimagined” playing in the background. It will give you the chills. Even more so than Fred’s music for all those episodes he composed for Friday The 13th, The Series !

 

TWO GUYS TALKIN' AT THE LEGENDARY SOUND EMPORIUM

Ken : Who plays the pinball machine ? Doesn't it bleed on the tracks?

Fred : Only when Bob's in the house and The Who have never cut here !

 

 

 

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WT DAVIDSON
Odd Man INN
Butler & Gus Records
9.20.21

Neither prevailing winds, rain, deconstruction of Nashville’s “Music Row” or world wide pandemic, could stop the one time leader of the “Bad Eggs” from releasing another gem of his song collection every quarter of a century or so. (Scroll down for "Trying To Be Somebody" ) And so we have this new true blue pallet of tune smithery, master full musicianship, pristine production, great vocals and all the good things the ear, heart and soul craves for. From a guy who once upon a time labored on Nashville’s 16th ave, providing tunes for diverse artists like Ray Charles, Crystal Gayle, Michael Johnson, Betty LaVette etc.

Well sequenced in between tunes addressing the age old theme of human relationships are unique titles like “Gee I’m Glad I Worried About That”, “Sparky The Chimpanzee”, “Meet Your Maker” (a major hoot) and “Windblown Son Of A BItch” a real spicy meatball and spaghetti western sendup.

Having spent decades in bar bands, I don’t hang around taverns much any more, but if there really was such a tavern as the Odd Man Inn in my town, you would find me there feeding the jukebox. Thankfully I have this CD that closes its bakers dozen beauties with the reflective “Real Good Time”_Ken Spooner.

 

 

MANDY BARNETT

EVERY STAR ABOVE

MELODY PLACE MUSIC / BMG  / RELEASES MAY 7th 2021

 

YOWSA  DABBA DO ! As good as it gets 100 !   

 

 Just the opening track “But Beautiful” suffices why 100 is sitting in my score box. One listen to the first few notes, that rise up from a magnificent 45 piece orchestra, gathered in a century old former church, (Ocean Way, Nashville) let you know you are in for something very special. Superbly arranged, they fade to a gentle whisper as Ms. Barnett lights the torch to a 1947 Van Huesen - Burke definition of the many things that love is. Her voice instantly draws you in closer as she is accompanied by just Kerry Marx’s guitar, not unlike the way Tony Mottola and Al Cailoa once did for Johnny Mathis on the album "Open Fire Two Guitars".  It pours the wine for what’s going to flow for the next 40 some minutes that leaves you wanting more. The songs the thing and it’s all just incredibly beautiful, heartbreaking perhaps, but beautiful.

 “ PLAY IT AGAIN SAM! ”

 I wish Sam could, but this turned out to be legendary arranger, Sammy Nestico’s swan song. Sammy’s storied career included working with Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, Sarah Vaughn, Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Quincy Jones as well as arranging countless TV shows and movies. He actually came out of retirement at 94 years old to do this final project for his friend and visionary producer Fred Mollin. Unable to travel to Nashville to attend the sessions, Sammy watched it from his California home. He was overwhelmed as the orchestra gave him a standing ovation for his charts. Sammy passed away this year at age 96 of natural causes. 

With this tower of sonic strength in place, it had to inspire Mandy, just as Billie Holiday’s 1958 album “Lady In Satin” did. Far more than a remake, it pays tribute to Lady Day’s final recording, while reimagining it. In my book, Fred Mollin is a master at reimagination. Regardless of what genre she tackles, Mandy has one of the finest voices I’ve ever been fortunate enough to hear. Here she brings it all home. Her tone, phrasing and interpretations are as brilliant as every star above. If I was the keeper of the stars, my wish would be that the creators of these great American Songbook standards were still around to hear this__Ken Spooner

Sammy & Mandy meeting at Sammy's home in Carlsbad, CA

 

 

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  Closed out 2019 and started off the New Year in Florida.  Only did a few pieces for Elmore Magazine Returned to Nashville on March 2nd .  A few weeks into the new year, got the bad news about Dave Olney, who was also in the sunshine state when while onstage he left the building  .  

It's now a week after the Tornado hit us and the morning after they had a memorial program at the Belcourt Theatre for Dave. One I fully intended to be at. Then Corona came crashing in and my doctors STRONGLY ADVISED me to stay away from crowds. My big sister, a retired RN called me yesterday morning with the same advice. She saved my life from bleeding to death, when we both were kids . I take Gerri's advice seriously. Here is a piece I wrote in Florida about Dave.

 

 

TWO WORDS FOR DAVE OLNEY 1948-2020 

So Dave Olney has left the building. Not the way that “The King” did, but considerably far more dignified. Onstage at a Florida folk festival, he paused in mid song, said just two words. “I’m sorry”. Then he put his head down, held onto his guitar and that was that. No mic drops for Dave. His final act got far more mainstream media press, than he ever did, from his decades of traveling, tunesmithing, troubadouring and of having well known artists like Linda Ronstadt and Emmy Lou Harris record his songs. I doubt the lack of helpful press, mattered too much him. Though at one time, I’m sure it did. He was quite human don’t cha know.

Though I had known Dave for thirty some years, I’d be the first to say, I didn’t know him very well, and I know he would say, our friendship was based on music. The conduit that brought us together was Walter Hyatt, and Walter’s circle of friends and co writers of which I was both. The first time David and I spent time together, was as seat mates in the Darkhorse Theatre in Nashville, as Walter and his band debuted his new album “Music Town”. That was followed some time later at a guitar pull. When I played “The Sheik Of Shboom” one of my co writes with Walter, Dave’s only comment was, “That’s not the way, Walter does it”. I said two words, “I KNOW”, as Walter looked sheepishly down at his shoes. The next time, we both performed at the iconic Ryman Auditorium, in a large memorial concert, for Walter. That was followed a few days after, with a one on one, two hour taping at Dave’s home, for a book I had started to write about Walter’s life. Walter mattered a whole lot to both of us, as kindred spirits and because music mattered,

The last time I saw Dave, was about a year ago, at another intimate theater in Nashville, as John Jorgenson debuted his J2B2 album. We made a little small talk and as I left I said two words, “Take care.” _ Ken Spooner

 

 LISA MILLS :  THE TRIANGLE

DON FLEMONS : AMERICAN SONGSTER OMNIBUS  

BOUDLEAUX & FELICE BRYANT BOOK 

MARTY STUART: THE PILGRIM BOOK & CD

HANK WILLIAMS: BOOK & CDS 

Well it's November 1st 2019, and this month I have 5 for you that were recorded in the last century, but unlike what founding father Ben Franklin said about fish and company, when they are three days old, there are no stinkers in these 5 jewels that have stood the test of time. One thing they have in common is all were produced with very modest budgets for indie labels, but none of them sound that way and they all are filled with strong songs and strong players, even when its just a singer and a guitar.

GAMBLE ROGERS LIVE The Warm Way Home / Originally released 1980 on Mountain Raiload Records / 1996 CD available from Gamble Rogers Memorial Foundation

Gamble was something else. If you never had the chance to see him live, here is a nice sample of his art in action. When we used to book him at our music hall, we added the caption Hot Licks & Hot Air to the marquee. A superb Travis picker ( Merle & Gamble played together at the Phildelphia Folk Festival) and absolute spellbinder telling his tall hilarious and southern gothic art tales. He was taken from us far too soon in 1991 as he vainly tried to save a drowning man in the Atlantic. There is now an excellent biography of his life that I reviewed for Elmore magazine here

JOHN HARTFORD Gum Tree Canoe Originally released 1984 Flying Fish Records / CD re issue 2001 Available at johnhartford.com

This one got played a whole lot in our guitar shop 35 years ago . I still recall the first time I put the album on. I had not looked at the song titles and when "Piece Of My Heart" (the one that Janis Joplin used to do ) started , I said to myself, I know I know this song ( it was that different) Then it floored me when I realized what it was . It also led me to look up producer Cowboy Jack Clement when I moved to Nashville. John had some great players with him on it too, Mark O'Connor, Marty Stuart, Jerry Douglas, Roy Huskey , Mark Howard etc.

WALTER HYATT Music Town Sugar Hill released 1993 available at multiple sources e.g. Amazon etc

I suppose I should recuse myself from this one, because I have four songs I co wrote with Walter on it. But I won't. He was a very special talent and a good friend, who like Gamble was gone way too soon. One of the tunes on it that I really like and wished I had wrote is "Are We There Yet Mamma" That said, I just wish the label hadn't made him tone down the raucusness that he had captured on the demo of it. His chord melody solo on our "Out Where The Blue Begins" is fantastic. And his "Get The Hell Out Of Dodge " was just the cats pajamas. I wished he could of heard Asleep At The Wheel perform it at one of the tribute shows to him.

WT DAVIDSON Trying To Be Somebody 1996 Morgansongs /Available new and used at various places Amazon Ebay etc This is just one of my favorite songwriter albums for many reasons. The songs like "What Are The Chances Of That" and "I Don't Trust People Who Don't Make Noise" are a good place to start. WT's voice fits his songs like a glove.The production is aces, as are the tasteful players he chose to help him put these16 tunes across. Although it's out of print, it's worth seeking out. There are both new and mint condition versions available.

GOVE SCRIVENOR Shine On 1998 Compass Records / Available at multiple sources e.g. Amazon, Apple Music

It doesn't seem right to me that for a talent as powerful as Gove is, he only put out a handful of records over the decades. But because I know the business from the inside, I can understand how it can happen. I can still recall the day in 1987 he played me "Money & Love" a brand new song he and David Logins had just written. It took a decade before it got cut and when it did, by Hank Williams Jr. it paled alongside of Gove's version. Some of my other favorites on here are "Sittin Here In Limbo", "I've Got A Thing About Trains" and another one Gove's originals I got to first hear in 1980 when it was brand new "You'll Do" Some my t fine players on this one too like Jim Hoke, Ray Flak, Joey Miskulin, Pat McInerney who also produced it and a very young Guthrie Trapp

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OCT 2019

 

WITCH HAIRS _ Mirth, Miracles, Mayhem, & Music
Dixie Gamble
Publisher : Working Title Farm
Published Sept 2019

Unlike certain color M&Ms, that were removed by the contract riders of monster ego acts in the hair band ‘80s, you could add a few more Ms to the subtitles of this memoir. How about meditation, metaphysics, melancholy, minefields, mezmerizing and marvelous .

Dixie Jane Gamble, is a pixieish powerhouse of love and light. When you first read about her childhood in the ‘50s, on a cotton farm, minus indoor plumbing in North Carolina, her tales are already full of many shades of light and very dark moments, but you are pulling for her. Early hints that there was a wider world in the works and a flying trapeze for her to grab onto, come into view as she tells in colorful details, of getting on a school bus, before being old enough for the first grade, just for a u turn in their driveway, that sufficed as a make believe ride to the school, she couldn’t wait to go to. Or the tragedy that befalls her neighbor playmate cousin on her second day of school. There’s her unbridled excitement when the book mobile came to visit, paying no mind to kiddie volumes, opting instead for Edgar Allen Poe. The flying trapeze, comes into deja vu, when her Mom takes her to a tent circus and Dixie vainly tries to tell her that she’s flown on one before. Thirty five years later in Music City , Dixie’s hit with a real mind bender, when the then reigning king and queen of country music, tell her all three of them were trapeze artists in a past life.

Which brings us to music and the reason this review is here. Married very young with two young boys to a doppelgänger for Elvis, the Gambles move to Nashville, in the early ‘70s. Although there was a sliver of security when Jesse Gamble starred in a show at the new Opryland Theme Park, their marriage goes quickly into an outhouse of abuse. A job as a secretary and assistant to writers at Tree Publishing, the biggest dog in town, puts Dixie into another world, with a circle of both legendary and soon to be legendary songwriters like John D. Loudermilk, Roger Miller, Curly Putnam, Bobby Braddock and scores more of highly creative people.

As the Everly Brothers sang in “Oh,The Stories We Could Tell”, DIxie has a potpourri of them, culled from over 50 some odd journals she had kept. All are told with sensitivity, style and not a trace of sensationalism, even when spending quality time with sensational folks like Paul McCartney or Elton John. Becoming the first female to head up a major music publisher, Elektra /Asylum sets her to working and developing new artists and writers, while having to deal with a mans world mentality of music row. A second marriage to a major music mogul, producer and label head, Jimmy Bowen, provides lofty trappings of success, that were head spinning, until their wheels came off.

As she spins off of music row, into a wide variety of humanitarian endeavors, including mental health and prison reform advocacy, a private practice in LA as a psychotherapist, documentary film maker and more, music is always there. It returns in a mega dose when she meets John Jorgenson, a world class musician, composer, of any genre he sets his mind to and from the vibes he sends out, even to strangers, one beautiful cat. Because of his world traveling gigs, our renaissance woman goes to far flung places, like the Australian outback, that even her self described poorhouse princess never dreamed of. It’s not all fairly tales though, life goes on and off with some heartbreaking realities to be dealt with. Some could be called soul stealers, but to try that, they have to deal with the girl on the flying trapeze and her catcher, John.

As a companion to the book, there is a CD “Chiaroscuro” John produced that relates both musically and lyrically to characters and events in the book. I’m reviewing it separately, because it is a work of art unto itself, yet when coupled with the book, it goes one step beyond__Ken Spooner

 

MY REVIEW OF THE CD THAT APPEARS IN ELMORE MUSIC MAGAZINE