From The Clash to The Wind In The Willows
Sounds mad? But the Waterboys make this kaleidoscope of styles into a masterclass
THE WATERBOYS Where The Action Is (Cooking Vinyl) Verdict: Celtic soul ★★★★✩ MORRISSEY California Son (Etienne) Verdict: Patchy covers collection ★★✩✩✩
WHEN Prince, The Killers and Ellie Goulding have covered your songs, you’ve gathered some wideranging seals of approval.
Waterboys singer Mike Scott never became the major star his talents warranted, but he still commands huge respect. Prince and The Killers sang 1985’s The Whole Of The Moon. Goulding had a hit with How Long Will I Love You.
His creative fires are still burning brightly on Where The Action Is, a kaleidoscopic collection that bears all the classic Waterboys hallmarks of potent hooks, richly detailed arrangements and lyrics that are generous of spirit.
It rekindles the romantic drama of the band’s early albums — Scott’s so- called ‘ big music’ — but also touches on rock, rap, soul and folk.
The record is named after an R&B standard that was a northern soul hit for American singer Robert Parker, and it opens with a fresh take on the Sixties dance tune. Scott has written new lyrics and augments them with sky-rocketing guitars, Hammond organ and Steve Wickham’s dazzling electric fiddle.
The singer, 60, was born in Edinburgh, lives in Dublin, but started The Waterboys in London in 1983 and two of the best moments here are rooted in the capital.
London Mick is a tribute to Clash man Mick Jones that draws on Scott’s friendship with the guitarist — ‘he bought me Coca-Cola at the band’s hotel’ — while recreating a classic punk sound.
Album centrepiece Ladbroke Grove Symphony is a jazz-tinged rocker. It begins with the singer reminiscing about lolloping around West London in a cowboy hat and ‘teenage rockabilly coat’ and ends by lamenting recent gentrification.
Elsewhere, there’s variety galore: a passable attempt at good-time rap on Take Me There, I Will Follow You; a nod to more mystical themes on In My Time On Earth.
It’s no surprise to hear the album end with two vivid literary detours. Scott, who has written music inspired by W.B. Yeats, turns his attention to Robert Burns and Kenneth Grahame.
Then She Made The Lasses O reinterprets a Burns poem, and the pastoral Piper At The Gates Of Dawn is a spoken-word piano piece that sets extracts from Grahame’s The Wind In The Willows to nine minutes of mood music.
It’s a vibrant finale to a rock and soul masterclass.
HAVING also turned 60 this week, former Smiths frontman Morrissey is releasing his first
covers album. California Son is a highly personal — and typically patchy — selection that reinterprets the chart hits, Sixties protest songs and Seventies obscurities that were his formative influences.
The famously miserable Mancunian is no stranger to controversy. He regularly alienates fans with provocative comments and his previous album, Low In High School, was cantankerous even by his standards.
California Son is less outspoken, but don’t expect anything too lifeaffirming. Morrissey’s solo years have been blighted by a tendency to over-cook songs, and he’s at it again. His take on Jobriath’s Morning Starship is superbly sung but stodgy, while Don’t Interrupt The Sorrow is Joni Mitchell at her most impenetrable. Roy Orbison’s It’s Over is all mannered melodrama and crashing guitars.
But the singer’s old deftness hasn’t deserted him. Bacharach and David’s Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets is the sort of song The Smiths might have covered, while Laura Nyro’s Wedding Bell Blues, with Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong on backing vocals, is such a retro-pop joy it sounds like even Morrissey is having fun.