I was recently reading a piece on Paul McCartney & The Wings on Mojo magazine, when I suddenly remembered that I have a CD by the recently deceased Denny Laine, which I hadn't listened to for what seems like forever. It still has a £1 price sticker on it, so I probably bought it from a London charity shop - my guess is that it was during my second visit there, almost 20 years ago. Knowing of Laine's contribution to The Moody Blues and Wings, I must have been curious about his solo work but not impressed with what I heard here, or I wouldn't have forgotten about its existence until now. The majority of the tracks here come from his then latest, All I Want is Freedom (1990). The eponymous song that opens this collection is an upbeat number, followed by the mid-tempo "On The Radio" - both pleasant enough as far as 80's commercial pop rock goes. 7 more tracks come from that LP - I rather like the more R&B flavored "Light on the Water" and melodic "Rescue My World"; not that there's something wrong about the rest, but neither are there any standouts. The production is busy with a lot of synths, backup vocals, horns etc. but also sounds horribly faceless and dated. It seems to emulate the commercially successful 80's work by Steve Winwood, Phil Collins, or Robert Palmer, but doesn't work as well. Whatever the reason, All I Want is Freedom failed to get noticed, but instead of giving up Laine repackaged it with a few older tracks in the form of this compilation. This time the selling point were some well-known titles - even though these weren't the original versions but re-recordings taken from the Japanese Tears LP (1980): R&B cover "Go Now" was the big hit of his Moody Blues days (a UK No.1 in early '65), reprised here with minimal changes. "Say You Don't Mind" was a solo single from '67 that bears the mark of that period - it charted later, in an orchestrated version by Colin Blunstone, so listeners would be familiar with it. "I Would Only Smile" was included in a similar, if slightly superior, version in The Wings' Red Rose Speedway (1973), also sung then by Laine rather than The Wings' lead singer Paul McCartney. Beatle Paul appears, as bassist and co-writer, on the fine country number "Send Me the Heart". From Laine's next solo LP Anyone Can Fly (1982), we get only 3 entries: the eponymous folky track, reggae-ish "Running Round in Circles" and standout "Who Moved the World?" with its tasteful guitar and rich Philly sound orchestration. Closer "Bad Boy Makes Good" seems to be a new (or, at least, hitherto unreleased) track; it has an organic sound similar to Nilsson or Billy Joel. I find it strange that almost all of All I Want is Freedom was included here, when all of the tracks from the older albums are obviously superior in quality; furthermore, 6 other solo LP's recorded by Laine between 1973-1990 are completely ignored, as are his contributions to The Moody Blues, Wings, and Ginger Baker's Air Force. All this makes The Rock Survivor a seriously flawed introduction to the artist even though, as a result of it being endlessly repackaged and re-released, it's his most ubiquitous release. This CD made for pleasant enough listening, but it goes back to the shelf to gather dust for another couple decades - or maybe forever, considering the limited time and sheer volume of music in my collection.
**** for Go Now, I Would Only Smile, Who Moved the World?
*** for All I Want Is Freedom, On the Radio, Rescue My World, Send Me the Heart, Light on the Water, Running Round in Circles, Say You Don't Mind, Anyone Can Fly, Bad Boy Makes Good
** for Game Set & Match, Bad Money, Talk of the Town, Heart for a Ride, I'll Stay
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