Californian cowboy who was the Ed Sheeran of his day
JACKSON BROWNE: Running On Empty (Asylum) Verdict: Bittersweet brilliance re-fuelled JOY DIVISION: Unknown Pleasures (Factory) Verdict: A classic turns 40
The notion of rock singers regaling fans with songs about life on the road is a cliché. But there was a time when tour tales were novel, and nobody nailed the vagabond existence of the working musician quite like Jackson Browne on Running On empty.
The 1977 album — re-mastered and reissued today on CD, vinyl and digitally — was brutally frank. In a break with convention, it contained ten previously unreleased songs that were recorded in a series of ‘live’ settings: onstage, backstage, in hotel rooms, on a tour bus.
Browne, 70, still gigs regularly, but is no longer a prolific recording artist. In the summer of 1977, however, he was 28 — the same age ed Sheeran is now — and riding the crest of a wave as one of the ‘Californian cowboys’ who had sprung from the Los Angeles folk circuit to define the idea of the singer-songwriter.
Recorded with a crack band that included guitarist Danny Kortchmar and drummer Russ Kunkel, Running On empty still sounds terrific, the brighter acoustics of this re-master enhancing the quality of the title track, the harmony-driven Love Needs A heart and the emotional closing number Stay.
Its accessible country-rock gave the singer his best-selling album in the States and, in Stay, his only British hit. Listening to its bittersweet lyrics and brilliant harmonies, it’s easy to see why Bruce Springsteen said Browne penned ‘the songs the eagles wished they’d written’.
An autobiographical bent is clear from the off. The title track, immortalised in the film Forrest Gump, sings the praises of cruising along sun-kissed Pacific highways. But the mood soon turns sour, with You Love The Thunder lamenting the itinerant life of the long-distance roadrunner. Blues cover Cocaine is a cautionary tale about drugs. A rough and ready nature adds to the album’s immediacy. Rosie was recorded backstage. Nothing But Time was cut on a tour bus, with the engine humming in the background.
But the contrasts between the grit and glamour of touring are most pronounced on the album’s two-song finale. The Load-Out pays tribute to Browne’s trusty road crew — ‘the first to come and the last to leave’ — and Stay is a jubilant take on a Sixties doo-wop song that adds a warmly nostalgic glow.
ANOTHER benchmark album to resurface is Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures. The Manchester quartet’s debut emerged in 1979, a year before the suicide of singer Ian Curtis, and it is as compelling now as it was then.
The reissue is a vinyl-only affair, with the LP’s iconic sci-fi sleeve revamped by original designer Peter Saville. The release is being accompanied by a collection of accessories from London retailer Goodhood, who staged an official launch event with Saville and Joy Division drummer Stephen Morris last week. The improbable nature of the launch wasn’t lost on Morris. ‘When we made Unknown Pleasures, none of us had any real experience of being in a band,’ he said. ‘We didn’t know what we were doing, and it certainly wasn’t the sort of thing I thought we’d be talking about 40 years later.’ The enduring appeal of an album that is also witnessing an upswing in streaming figures isn’t a surprise, though.
having formed in the punk era after seeing the Sex Pistols play in Manchester, Joy Division had entered the studio hoping to emulate the raw, psychedelic blues of early Iggy Pop.
But, with producer Martin hannett adding a glossy sheen, they strayed from the initial brief and embraced synthesised drums and other sound effects.
The technology would now be considered primitive, but it yielded a brooding, atmospheric masterpiece that set a bold new blueprint for rock music.
Its songs have stood the test of time, too. Disorder and She’s Lost Control forged a playing style powered by Peter hook’s bass, Interzone contained unlikely Northern Soul references, and The Killers are among those to have covered Shadowplay. It’s a timely reappearance.