Versatile vinyl

Boogie Shoes: Live on Beale Street by Alex Chilton & Hi Rhythm Section: After 12 years of posthumous reissues, Big Star box sets, and barrel scrapings of varying interest, the prospect of hearing late-’90s Chilton putting his hipster spin on a set of rock ’n’ roll oldies backed by the Hi guys in the city that gave him his start sounded like a gift horse from whose mouth his fans should most definitely avert their gaze. And at times it almost is. Kept on his toes by this charity event’s ad hoc nature, he was clearly having fun. Someone, however, forgot to mic his guitar. And—his notoriety as a curveballer notwithstanding—a lackluster cover of KC & the Sunshine Band’s most lackluster hit is a really weird way to kick off a show.

A Selection of Power Pop 1985-2020: 15 Songs by Bill Lloyd: If power pop is so great and Lloyd has been any good at making it, why weren’t any of these songs hits, if not for Lloyd then for someone with the knack for recognizing a winner when he heard it? Partly because Lloyd didn’t craft any of these earworms for a major label, partly because he made them during the years (see the album title) when major labels had already given up on Marshall Crenshaw, the Romantics, Dwight Twilley, and Shoes, and partly because of his subtlety as a lyricist and a sequencer of chords. Conventional wisdom says that power pop should detonate upon impact. Realizing how deeply Lloyd has embedded his shrapnel takes a little longer.

Lockdown Live by Andy Fairweather Low & the Low Riders, feat. the Hi Riders Soul Review: Fairweather Low has been giving the term “journeyman” a good name for decades. His secret? Continuing to write and perform as if his solo career as an inspired, soulful pub-rocker hadn’t met with unmerited indifference. Ironically, it’s by making ends meet as a sideman (Eric Clapton, Roger Waters) that he has retained his sharpness and versatility, qualities that invigorate all 65 minutes of this internationally livestreamed September 2020 COVID-19 show. Highlights include but are by no means limited to his Amen Corner hits (two as a medley), his ’70s solo misses, peaks from his last 15 years, and a brass section that’s even sharper and more versatile than he is.

Different Drum: The Lost RCA Victor Recordings by Michael Nesmith: One adjective seldom associated with the country-rock diaspora is “fun,” probably because the genre took flight in the self-consciously hip (as in “hippie”) environs of Los Angeles. Michael Nesmith spent his pre-Monkees years in Texas, so the steel guitars in his country-rock swing rather than weep. And his lyrics—well, let’s just say that only someone with a Southern accent could sing them with a completely straight face. Even the instrumentals among these 1970-1973 odds and ends have a sense of humor. (The one that rips “Dust My Broom” is called “Tan My Hide.”) Funniest of all: Nesmith’s use of First National Band ad time to shill for Derek & the Dominos and Morton Subotnick.

Encore

In case you’re wondering, the new Micky Dolenz album, Dolenz Sings Nesmith, is no quickie exploitation intended to keep the Monkee business humming until Dolenz and Nesmith can tour again. Rather, it’s a reconceptualization that sounds as if Dolenz has taken to heart what he learned as part of the Tribute to the Beatles’ White Album tour and passed it on to the album’s producer and main instrumentalist, Michael Nesmith’s eldest son Christian. “How might Paul have done ‘Don’t Wait for Me’?” one of them seems to have asked. “And what if George had had his way with ‘Circle Sky’?”

The real litmus test, of course, is Nesmith’s best-known composition, “Different Drum.” Faced with Linda Ronstadt’s wistful take and Nesmith’s jaunty, aw-shucks version, Dolenz opts for bright sunshine pop, making the breakup classic a full-on celebration of freedom from a bad situation that, if only by analogy, should resonate with particular poignancy this Independence Day. —A.O.