Consumer Guide '70s: A

Abba: Arrival (Atlantic, 1977) Since this is already the best-selling group in the universe, I finally have an answer when people ask me to name the Next Big Thing. What I wonder is how we can head them off at the airport. Plan A: Offer Bjorn and Benny the leads in Beatlemania (how could they resist the honor?) and replace them with John Phillips and Denny Doherty. Plan B: Appoint Bjorn head of the U.N. and Benny his pilot (or vice versa) and replace them with John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Plan C: Overexpose them in singing commercials. Plan D: Institute democratic socialism in their native land, so that their money lust will meet with the scorn of their fellow citizens. C

Abba: Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (Atlantic, 1979) Fourteen cuts, close to an hour of polyvinyl chloride, and only two of 'em made U.S. top ten. We have met the enemy and they are them. C

Ace: Five-a-Side (ABC, 1975) The single, "How Long," is welcomed by some desperate souls as a breakthrough for England's pub rock movement. Bet if John David Souther lived in England he'd play pubs too. Super catchy, but even more banal than that term used as a superlative ordinarily implies, sung and played with a mildness infuriating in musicians of such skill but totally appropriate to lyricists of such underweening triviality. C+

David Ackles: American Gothic (Elektra, 1972) "I won't get maudlin," Ackles promises midway into the second side, locking himself in the barn as the dappled stallion gallops to join his brothers and sisters on the open range with his mane flying free in the breeze. C-

Aerosmith: Get Your Wings (Columbia, 1974) These prognathous New Englanders are musicianly (all things are relative) inheritors of the Grand Funk principle: if a band is going to be dumb, it might as well be American dumb. Here they're loud and cunning enough to provide a real treat for the hearing-impaired, at least on side one. Have a sense of humor about themselves, too, assuming "Lord of the Thighs" is intended as a joke. With dumb bands it's always hard to tell. B-

Aerosmith: Toys in the Attic (Columbia, 1975) These boys are learning a trade in record time--even the sludgy numbers get crazy. Too bad the two real whompers are attached to rockstar lyrics, albeit clever ones, because Steve Tyler has a gift for the dirty line as well as the dirty look--anybody who can hook a song called "Adam's Apple" around the phrase "love at first bite" deserves to rehabilitate a blue blues like "Big Ten Inch Record." B+

Aerosmith: Rocks (Columbia, 1976) Dave Hickey compares the teen crossover of the year to a Buick Roadmaster, and he's right--they've retooled Led Zeppelin till the English warhorse is all glitz and flow, beating the shit out of Boston and Ted Nugent and Blue Oyster Cult in the process. Wish there were a lyric sheet--I'd like to know what that bit about J. Paul Getty's ear is about--but (as Hickey says) the secret is the music, complex song structures that don't sacrifice the basic 4/4 and I-IV-V. A warning, though: Zep's fourth represented a songmaking peak, before the band began to outgrow itself, and the same may prove true for this lesser group, so get it while you can. A-

Aerosmith: Draw the Line (Columbia, 1977) The problem with the multiple-riff hi-test jobs that made Rocks rock was that when time came to follow up, the band was out of gas. The best of the three good ones here is a mold-breaking Joe-Perry-alone boogie that probably reflects the usual "internal tensions." Perry goes nowhere near the mold-breaking "Kings and Queens," synthesized medieval pomp-rock (cf. Styx, Rush) that proves beyond doubt that they won't bite "The Hand That Feeds." We knew it all along, guys. B-

Aerosmith: Night in the Ruts (Columbia, 1979) This opens with a promising song about their career called "No Surprize." Then they edge ever closer to the flash guitar, dull tempos, and stupid cover versions of heavy-metal orthodoxy. No surprise. C+

Charlie Ainley: Bang Your Door (Nemporer, 1978) The title cut is the raunchiest fuck-me song in years, and the funniest: when Charlie bellows, "I don't want you to fix my bed," the Misdemeanors chirp back, "I'm not." It just doesn't quit, and nothing else here comes up to it. But the overall level of rancor, humor, and genre experiment is gratifyingly high for what is basically an English r&b album. Bang on. B+

Air: Air Lore (Arista Novus, 1979) Demonstrating not only that ragtime (Scott Joplin) and New Orleans (Jelly Roll Morton) are Great Art consonant with Contemporary Jazz, but also that they're Corny. And that both Great Art and Corn can be fun. Which is why the somewhat stiff, if not corny, readings of the themes, especially "King Porter Stomp," don't get in the way. Although just what could get in the way of Henry Threadgill improvising over an explicit pulse for a whole album I can't imagine. A

Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band: Willie Alexander and the Boom Boom Band (MCA, 1977) I have hated these Beantowners steadfastly through independent singles, a guest shot at Max's, and Live at the Rat. White r&b with poor epiglottal hygiene, who needed it? Yet I've grown fond of this album. What seemed silly if not self-indulgent eccentricity in a failed thirty-five-year-old rock and roller is brave and funny on an honest-to-God major-label elpee. And "Lookin' Like a Bimbo" is an anthem for failed thirty-five-year-old rock and rollers. B

Terry Allen: Juarez (Landfall, 1975) Cut to accompany a museum show by painter-sculptor Allen, who sings like a self-conscious Charlie Daniels, this explores Western-violence mythos with mucho grotesquery and nary a smile. Very, er, conceptual, as dissatisfied sculptor-painters like to put it. C+

Terry Allen: Lubbock (On Everything) (Fate, 1979) Maybe Allen meant Juarez's overstatement to be funny, but it wasn't, because he wasn't. This time he sings like Kinky Friedman with a sense of humor, doing a lot better by his own words than Butch Hancock, the only lyricist in Texas (maybe anywhere) who merits a comparison. From football heroes gone wrong to noble floozies to farmers fiddling while Washington burns, he's a tale-spinning poet of the Panhandle, with local color provided by Joe Ely's homeboys. Like so many double-LPs--though a lot less than most--this could stand some editing. But since that would probably have meant omitting the songs about art, the one subject he knows better than Texas, I'll settle. A-

Duane Allman: An Anthology (Capricorn, 1972) If Duane qualified as auteur, whatever that means, then he was the auteur-as-sideman. Over four sides (nineteen cuts, fifteen available elsewhere) he takes one vocal, contributes one original composition, and reserves his most definitive playing for other people's sessions--listen again to Boz Scaggs's "Loan Me a Dime," not to mention the overlays Clapton got out of him on "Layla." Since Duane's only concept was the open-ended jam that so many session players mistake for artistic fulfillment, this is just as well; any format that limits the Brothers to four-minute tracks has much to recommend it. It doesn't result in very coherent albums, though. For scholars and acolytes. B+

Gregg Allman: Laid Back (Capricorn, 1973) Gregg still doesn't know the difference between drawling slowly and singing soulfully, and it isn't tragedy that makes him sound so doleful, it's a limited formal imagination. That said, it must be admitted that he puts a lot into "These Days" and "Midnight Rider," and that the reason you can listen to such originals as "Please Call Home" and "Multicolored Lady" isn't the writing. B

The Gregg Allman Band: Playin' Up a Storm (Capricorn, 1977) One expected the new band to cook, but the spiced-up song formulas are a surprise--and the timing, grit, and passion of Gregg's singing simply astonishing. My wife thinks Cher must be the first woman ever to make him feel something, while I suspect a sibling rivalry is brewing with Dickey. First round to (Cher) (big brother). B+

The Allman Brothers Band: Idlewild South (Atco, 1970) Anybody who can comp for Aretha Franklin and ghost as the fifth Domino is obviously on his way to titanhood. One guitarist never made an album, though, and this is a lot more than brother Duane's showcase. Backup guitarist Dickey Betts puts in two songs of inspiration--"Revival" shoulda been a hit--and Berry Oakley's bright "Hoochie Coochie Man" is a relief from the one-dimensional moan of the real leader of this band: little brother Gregg, whose "Midnight Rider" puts me in a forgiving mood anyway. B+

The Allman Brothers Band: Live at the Fillmore East (Capricorn, 1971) Four sides comprising seven titles--only two of them repeated (ad infinitum) from the band's studio albums--and they sure do boogie. But even if Duane Allman plus Dickey Betts does equal Jerry Garcia, the Dead know roads are for getting somewhere. That is, Garcia (not to bring in John Coltrane) always takes you someplace unexpected on a long solo. I guess the appeal here is the inevitability of it all. B-

The Allman Brothers Band: Eat a Peach (Capricorn, 1972) Side three is a magnificent testament. It opens with Gregg doing Sonny Boy Williamson justice, wrenches through some of the most formally intense accompaniment Duane ever played, skips into a high-spirited Dickey Betts tune, and provides a coda for a whole sensibility in one two-minute acoustic duet. Side one sandwiches two subordinary Greggeries around an instrumental excursion that sounds like Dickey OD-ing on Live/Dead. And sides two and four comprise thirty-four minutes with an all-too-relaxing theme by Donovan Leitch. I know the pace of living is slow down there, but this verges on the comatose. And all the tape in the world isn't going to bring Duane back. B

The Allman Brothers Band: Brothers and Sisters (Capricorn, 1973) Simplicity can be a virtue--the nice thing about the Allmans is that when they put two five-year-olds on the cover we know it's not some "decadent" joke. Gregg Allman is a predictable singer who never has an unpredictable lyric to work with anyway, and the jams do roll on, but at their best--"Ramblin' Man," a miraculous revitalization of rock's earliest conceit--they just may be the best, and on this album Dickey Betts's melodious spirituality provides unity and renewal. A-

The Allman Brothers Band: Win, Lose or Draw (Capricorn, 1975) I've been telling cynics that the Brothers haven't broken up. Now I feel like maybe I was taken. C

The Allman Brothers Band: The Road Goes On Forever (Capricorn, 1975) Not all of it is great as those who crave it all believe. But given how poorly the Brothers' live extrapolations fare without their spectacular visuals, this seventeen-cut, two-record compilation is the one to own if one is all you need. A-

The Allman Brothers Band: Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas (Capricorn, 1976) I suppose Duane (as well as Berry) is missed on this second ABB live double--Dickey's guitar ripples begin to sound like mirages over the long haul. But as boogie Muzak it's only marginally less useful than Live at the Fillmore. "Whipping Post"! B-

The Allman Brothers Band: Enlightened Rogues (Capricorn, 1979) The heartening sense of overall conviction here doesn't extend to many specifics, with the surprising exception of Gregg's rough yet detailed vocals. But Ronnie Van Zant himself couldn't breathe life into these songs, most of which Dickey Betts was saving up for the third Great Southern album--now never to be heard, which is one good thing. C+

The Alpha Band: The Alpha Band (Arista, 1976) Finally a decent record comes out of Rolling Thunder, from what sounds like a country-rock band shocked by city living into a credible, slightly surrealistic nastiness, rather than the usual sleazy lies. T-Bone Burnett is that rare combination, a tall, inspired crazy; David Mansfield is a precocious, multi-instrumental sound effects man, and Steve Soles is a speed-rapping narcissist who can be thrown to the Poco fans. Plus a rhythm section that plays actual rock and roll. And Bobby Neuwirth in the background, where he belongs. B+

The Alpha Band: Spark in the Dark (Arista, 1977) This unholy trio's second album is "humbly offered in the light of the triune God," but T-Bone Burnett still sounds like a helluva monad to me. He doesn't know as much as he thinks he does, but when he steps aside from the songwriting the group usually falls flat--and when he pitches in, these guys could almost pass for a country-rock Steely Dan without money. B+

The Alpha Band: The Statue Makers of Hollywood (Arista, 1978) Now I learn that my man J.H. Burnett really is a born-again Christian, which must be why he feels so strongly about money changers and temples. Nonbelievers consider him shrill, but I find something sweet and reflective right beneath his cool, caustic self-righteousness. This is the weakest of three strong, oddball LPs, but David Mansfield's instrumental finesse makes the questionable cuts go, and Steven Soles keeps his mouth shut most of the time. B+

Amazing Rhythm Aces: Stacked Deck (ABC, 1975) If you wanted to be stuffy about it, you could complain that Russell Smith's line about "two lovely lesbian ladies slow-dancin' on a parquet floor" is condescending, but I'll settle. There's enough natural hip here to last most Southern boogie bands a career, with the added attraction that this isn't a Southern boogie band, not hardly, despite the Memphis locus and blues inflections. Some of them worked with Jesse Winchester, but his magnolia rue didn't rub off either. Just something else new under the sun. A-

Amazing Rhythm Aces: Too Stuffed to Jump (ABC, 1976) The jazzy, boogie-based eclecticism and colloquial cleverness almost never transcend the cute and commercial, a major letdown after a debut album that may have fulfilled more promise than the group has. B-

Amazing Rhythm Aces: Burning the Ballroom Down (ABC, 1977) Just figured out why I've always been attracted to Russell Smith's sly, sincere songs and lethargic though hardly shiftless phrasing--he's a kind of laid-back Ronnie Van Zant. Which must be why I don't like him as much as I liked Ronnie Van Zant. B-

Stephen Ambrose: Gypsy Moth (Elektra, 1972) Inspirational Verse: "Mary's arms reach out for me/We're sorry to leave you, mama/But this poor wanderin' boy/Is about to settle my karma." D+

America: History/America's Greatest Hits (Warner Bros., 1975) Randy Newman once described "A Horse With No Name" as "this song about a kid who thinks he's taken acid," and at least back then they were domesticating CSNY instead of CSN. More tuneful than Seals & Crofts but with less to say, which they've managed to conceal by establishing meaningless highschool verse as a pop staple, they might be remembered as the '70s answer to the Association if they could come up with one song half as lively as "Windy" or "Along Comes Mary." C-

Eric Andersen: Blue River (Columbia, 1972) I was ready to discard this but because it was so pretty I suffered second thoughts, which is too bad for both of us. In 1967, Andersen sounded like early electric Dylan, so now he sounds like . . . James Taylor. He's honest enough to back himself with a girlie chorus, but that's as far as his honesty goes. If I'm liable to run into noodleheads like Andersen walking down some country road, I'll feel safer in Central Park. C

Paul Anka: Anka (United Artists, 1974) Sure "You're Having My Baby" is a cute little single. But the rest of the album is the usual abortion. C-

Any Old Time String Band: Any Old Time String Band (Arhoolie, 1978) The somewhat creaky musicianship of this all-woman quintet doesn't bother me, but if you have trouble putting your voice on a note and keeping it there, it's a mistake to let on that you care. Song finds: "Home in Pasadena" and (from old-time hero Bing Crosby) "C-U-B-A." C+

Argent: Argent (Epic, 1970) "Dance in the Smoke" is to "Time of the Season" as "Time of the Season" was to "She's Not There," extending ex-Zombie keyboardist-vocalist-composer Rod Argent's pop breathiness another quantum away from cuteness and toward incantation. Add ex-Unit 4 + 2 guitarist-composer Russ Ballard's ceremonial "Liar," and the whole first side works as a catchy mystical ritual with the worries of the world going up in flame at the climax. On side two, however, they reappear. B

Argent: The Argent Anthology: A Collection of Greatest Hits (Epic, 1976) Only on "Hold Your Head Up" did they ever get back to the gentle intensity that made their debut half a delight. With Rod Argent seeing Keith Emerson in the mirror and Russ Ballard contributing such FM fodder as "God Gave Rock and Roll to You," this is a more graphic document of what happened to the '60s than you want to hear. C+

Joan Armatrading: Joan Armatrading (A&M, 1976) It took me a long time to hear that this forthright (not to say stentorian) black Englishwoman was anything more than a postfeminist Odetta, but it's clear in retrospect that Armatrading was reaching for something more colorful and less pompous even on her apparently folky 1973 debut, Whatever's for Us, produced by Eltonian concertmaster Gus Dudgeon. Two years later, on Back to the Night, she had shucked both the portentous prettiness of Dudgeon and the vague portentousness of lyricist Pam Nestor, but only here, with production from Glyn Johns, does she find a context forceful enough to give her own maturing lyrics an edge. Helps that she's more comfortable singing, too. B

Joan Armatrading: Show Some Emotion (A&M, 1977) OK, I'm convinced. Sometimes funny, always real, and never ever pretentious, she proves that a big, husky voice needn't turn you into a self-important fool. So why don't I have anything more specific to say about this record? Because most of the meaning of the ordinary-plus lyrics is conveyed by stance and nuance. B+

Joan Armatrading: To the Limit (A&M, 1978) The secret of Armatrading's songs is their plainness, but it's also their drawback. When she hits an image--"I read your letter yesterday/It fell between the covers/And my bare skin"--she lights up a real life. More often, though, she just says what she has to say with whatever unprepossessing idiom is at hand, and her melodies are even less inclined to witticism than her words. This style of candor, engaging in theory, escapes tedium in practice by way of Armatrading's bluntly dramatic singing. Rarely have less tuneful songs so impressed themselves on my mind. B+

Art Bears: Hopes and Fears (Random Radar, 1978) Despite rock instrumentation from Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, and friends and the rousing Who quote that kicks the best original song into high, this music is either consciously antipopular or "serious" with pretensions to accessibility. In either case it's Art--political Art, I know. The problem is, I don't get as much out of it as I do out of, say, the Cuban novelist Alejo Carpentier, or at least Bertolt Brecht and Hans Eisler, whose "On Suicide" announces the band's intent. Despite Dagmar's self-indulgent austerity, the stark, atonal music is often compelling, but while the lyrics are never stupid, they do depend on intellectual commonplaces--labyrinth imagery, reference to Greek myth, and other roundabout ways of saying not much. "In Two Minds," about a teenager's schizophrenia, is a commonplace too, but an illuminated one. And the envoi to Piers Plowman is a touch I like. B

Art Bears: Winter Songs (Ralph, 1979) With its tape loops, orchestral percussion, and artsong timbres, this is as far from rock as guitar-based music can be; it's also closer to Eno's hypnotic repetitions than Henry Co. has ever come. This time the lyrics aren't so much attempted myths as haiku-like apothegms set in some abstract historical space. They're not great poetry, but they're not bad poetry either, which combined with the music makes for pretty good poetry. B+

Art Ensemble of Chicago: Bap-Tizum (Atlantic, 1973) I don't know much about art, but I know what I like. C-

Artful Dodger: Artful Dodger (Columbia, 1976) Having barely conquered my addiction to "Think Think," the supra-Beatles raver that opens side two, and having learned that "Think Think" stiffed as a single, I find myself clearheaded enough to report that if "Think Think" didn't make it this band will have to wait till next year, and to point out that next years sometimes come for bands this tight, melodic, and intense. B

Artful Dodger: Honor Among Thieves (Columbia, 1976) These kids deserve to turn into teen heroes everybody can be proud of. They respect the rock and roll verities, but in a dynamic rather than an arty or nostalgic way: their instrumental wallop is powerful enough to keep them in there with the heavies, but so deft that the lyricism of their songs is left untouched. A lot of bands around CBGB will spend their lives wishing they could have gotten it together like this. B+

Artful Dodger: Babes on Broadway (Columbia, 1977) OK, two nice if slightly deliberate albums of power pop go virtually unnoticed, so you up the power, especially since you're running out of the cute tunes 'n' tricks that provide the pop. But then it isn't power pop any more--sounds almost like Angel, or Queen. Sounds pretty desperate, too. C+

The A's: The A's (Arista, 1979) People say they take after the Dolls, but I hear the Boomtown Rats. At its best, their burlesque on a "teenage jerk off" (a title) who still gets "grounded" (another) is funny and a little nasty. At its worst it's boring and a little too nasty. In between it's got verve and you've heard it before. B

Ashford & Simpson: Gimme Something Real (Warner Bros., 1973) Can this marriage be saved? The problem: Good-but-not-great songwriters whose lush sentimentality would have been unforgivable had they worked for a white company instead of Motown leave Motown for white company. The doctor replies: if they develop the intestinal fortitude to go along with their own vocal limitations, they may not end up the Peaches & Herb of middle-class soul. What did they say? "Time is the space between you and me"? Well, sounds like a breakdown of communication as well. C

Ashford & Simpson: Send It (Warner Bros., 1977) They need more to get by, but they can call a filler instrumental "Bourgié Bourgié" if they want--they've earned it. The important thing is that after writing for Marvin & Tammi (& Diana) for all those years they've finally figure out how to sound like them. Upwardly mobile. B

Ashford & Simpson: So So Satisfied (Warner Bros., 1977) As performers, these bigtime writer-producers have always struck me as a mite classy--by which I mean rich, among other things. Their genuinely eccentric romanticism only made their ad for the end of the rainbow more insidious, and so my tastes in nouveaux ran more to the showbiz vulgarity of Elton John and James Brown, or the lost-in-a-goldmine inconsistency of Stevie Wonder and John Lennon. Three strained, uneven albums didn't bend me, but Send It put a crimp in my bias, and this one rips it to shreds. It's not the songs per se, although just about every one finds a message in the new black elegance--that material success is good for the soul. It's the vocal detail--very eccentric, very romantic, and convincing both ways. A-

Ashford & Simpson: Is It Still Good to Ya (Warner Bros., 1978) Here, my friends, is what comfort and idiosyncrasy are for: adulthood. This couple hit a groove right off and explore it with an internalized virtuosity that seems completely natural, celebrating love over thirty with a compassion and sensuality that makes the smartest disco and cabaret sound shallow. And where So So Satisfied worked more by mood than by composition, the songs here--my favorites are the painfully sexy title showpiece and the disco-identified "Get Up and Do Something"--brim with confidence and stay with you. A-

Ashford & Simpson: Stay Free (Warner Bros., 1979) Not only is this token of tribute to the great god Disco notably less intense than the nonpareil Is It Still Good to Ya, it's notably less memorable than Send It, which offers three songs that beat anything here. Yet it's also the better record. How come? The great god Disco has bestowed upon them a groove. B+

Robert Ashley: Private Parts (Lovely Music, 1978) I cannot tell a lie. On each side of this record, the composer reads an abstract prose fiction over "settings for piano and orchestra by `Blue' Gene Tyranny," and that's it. The vocal style is a kind of hypnotic singsong; the quiet settings are dominated by piano, tabla, and what sounds like a string synthesizer. I like it more than Discreet Music, less than Another Green World, and about as much as A Rainbow in Curved Air. I suppose I prefer side one, "The Park," because I like the verbal content more, although in fact I perceive the reading as music, just like I'm supposed to, and have never managed to follow the words all the way through. A friend who's done yoga to this record--not an arty type, incidentally--is reminded of going to sleep as a child with adults talking in the next room. Then again, a rather more avant-garde friend who made me turn it off is reminded of the spoilsport who used to read the rosary for five minutes just before his favorite radio program. A-

Ashton, Gardner, Dyke & Co.: What a Bloody Long Day It's Been (Capitol, 1971) Not your average record, since some of it is bloody awful. But at its best--the title tune, with its gently shuddering guitar line, and "Ballad of the Remo Four," a lament for the group's long-lost pre-Beatle Liverpool days that sounds like the best of Doug Sahm and Boz Scaggs in one cut--it's bloody terrific. B-

Asleep at the Wheel: Comin' Right at Ya (United Artists, 1973) Their coterie complains about flat recording and performance, but flatness is of the essence in Western swing, and the sly singing and positively underhanded songwriting here exploit it brilliantly. Beneath their unflappable veneer these country revisionists are seething subversives; it may even be that the protagonist of "Daddy's Advice" only plans his little murder to right a case of incest. Side one ends with a song of praise to a spaceship. Side two ends with a song of praise to the Son of God. A-

Asleep at the Wheel: Asleep at the Wheel (Epic, 1974) This band has stopped trying to straddle their original home, West Virginia, and their spiritual one, Berkeley. Now comes the straight country push, and just in case the straight country isn't buying fetching Western swing with a '70s accent, once or twice those fiddles even sound like strings. The losses, in sprightliness and fantasy and danger, aren't fatal. But why not just listen to Bob Wills? B

Asleep at the Wheel: Texas Gold (Capitol, 1975) If honest country music is what we need, then the mildly satiric mood of this is a blow for truth, especially considering the compromises of their second LP. But when I consider the matter-of-fact suffering and brutality of the first one, I conclude once again that honesty ought to go further than a commitment to good sound and good sounds. B+

Asleep at the Wheel: Wheelin' and Dealin' (Capitol, 1976) Now that its musicianship and production values are established, the album quality of this excellent but marginal band will depend mostly on the song quality. Except for "Miles and Miles of Texas," this LP singles out no really striking nonoriginals, and Leroy Preston, touring hard of late, contributes only two new ones. B

Asleep at the Wheel: The Wheel (Capitol, 1977) I began by wondering what unsuspecting big band had provided the horn riff on "Am I High?" and ended by wondering whether they'd made it up themselves, as with so much that is good on this group's most satisfying post-debut. By now the songwriting has become almost straight; you might conceivably find "Somebody Stole His Body" on a white gospel album or "My Baby Think's She's a Train" on a Sun outtake. The distance that remains comes across as healthy, good-humored respect, especially for banality, which with this band often turns into dumb eloquence, as on the love song "I Can't Handle It Now." Inspirational Verse: "In French Baton Rouge might mean red stick/But to me it means broken heart." A-

Asleep at the Wheel: Collision Course (Capitol, 1978) A lot of conceptual work went into the choice of material here. But what's made the Wheel's records come across have been new Ray Benson and Leroy Preston songs that played off and framed the borrowings and rediscoveries. This offers wonderful countrifications of Count Basie and Randy Newman; the other covers are nice, rarely more. B-

Asleep at the Wheel: Served Live (Capitol, 1979) Side one is playable, although "God Bless the Child" was born under a bad sign, and the hot live performances don't suit the living room as well as the more delicate studio versions available on three out of five songs. Side two, however, sounds terribly forced. Not only does John Nicholas's overstated, bloozey original make clear that Leroy Preston's songwriting is going to be missed, but his duet with Chris O'Connell is too close to Peggy Scott and Jo-Jo Benson to remain so far away. And "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" might just as well be "Saints," or "Send in the Clowns." C+

The Atlanta Rhythm Section: Back Up Against the Wall (Decca, 1973) A rather ordinary-sounding white Southern boogie band, except that this one has its roots in pop--they began as the Candymen, the greatest cover band in history. Only they actually began as Roy Orbison's backup band. As you might imagine, they're tighter and slicker than your ordinary boogie band, which all things considered is a small boon. I hope somebody on Capricorn covers "Wrong." And I hope they find something as good as, oh, "Good Vibrations" to cover themselves. C+

The Atlanta Rhythm Section: A Rock and Roll Alternative (Polydor, 1977) If these guys actually sounded as if their studio were located (as it is) in a Georgia industrial park--fluorescent light through the pines and so forth--the general improvement in clarity and inventiveness might be interesting. But it's industrial only in the most predictable sense--more product. Even Charlie Daniels obviously has something to sing about; the vocalist here--why should I bother to look up his name?--might just as well be cuttin' another dog-food spot. C+

The Atlanta Rhythm Section: Champagne Jam (Polydor, 1978) You can tell these guys are from Atlanta--it says so right in the name. So why do they sound like lazy Eagles? Why have they concocted a title that is the rock and roll equivalent of "cocktail jazz"? And when are they going to change their name officially to ARS, as in AWB? C

Audience: The House on the Hill (Elektra, 1971) You remember how in the old days when they wanted to convey how really far out "rock" was getting they'd say that a musician had "studied at Juilliard"? Always turned out to mean he or she was too dippy to play real rock and roll, but we were young. Well, now we're older, so when it says Howard Werth plays "electric classical guitar" we know what it means. No matter how desperate things get. Right? C

Brian Auger's Oblivion Express: Second Wind (RCA Victor, 1972) Auger is a keyboard virtuoso and so what? Like most jazz-rock, this is a mishmash, not a synthesis, a loud version of the jazz of a decade ago. A voice is used not for human dimension, but for "dynamics" and the lyrics are so empty they might as well be Ray Conniff doodly-doodly-doo. D+

Average White Band: Show Your Hand (MCA, 1973) A cross between the Spinners and the Main Ingredient who grew up in Scotland and play their own instruments? If you wonder who needs it, maybe you do. Not only do they write pretty and sing sweet, but unlike so many British r&b bands they've cultivated a sense of rhythm. And they've somehow gotten to compose with Joe Sample, Bonnie Bramlett, and Leon Ware. B+

Average White Band: Average White Band (Atlantic, 1974) These lyrics aren't banal, just plain-spoken (my favorite: "Keepin' It to Myself"), and in any case the passionate expertness of the vocal mix (like the Rascals, only the Rascals were never this tight), combined with a motion more Brownian than most black groups can manage, more than makes up. A-

Average White Band: Cut the Cake (Atlantic, 1975) Have they lost their impassioned identification with their mastery of a nonwhite form? Has success (death?) (maybe just familiarity?) robbed them of their magic. Or have they just run out of songs? C+

Average White Band: Feel No Fret (Atlantic, 1979) Once their name was a candid joke about their limits, their values, and their aspirations. Now it's a flat statement of fact. Swinging California pop in the manner of the Doobie Brothers and Pablo Cruise, cool in its passions and its rhythms and uninspired in its composition, and who cares who got there first. C

Average White Band & Ben E. King: Benny and Us (Atlantic, 1977) This cuts Cut the Cake and finds what Soul Searching was looking for, a tribute not to chemistry but to simple addition. Alan Gorrie and Hamish Stuart are OK vocalists themselves, and King isn't artist enough to turn AWB into a backing band. But "A Fool for You Anyway" and "A Star in the Ghetto" are King's meat, far superior to whatever ricky-tick originals AWB might have put in their place. And in the absence of ricky-tick, such AWB shtick as "Keepin' It to Myself" and Ned Doheny's "Get It Up for Love" sound quite rocky-tock. B

A: Compilations

Assalam Aleikoum Africa Volume One (Progressive and Popular Music of West Africa) (Antilles, 1977) Unlike John Storm Roberts's Africa Dances anthology, this LP and its companion come from one location--Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Thus, they're a little limited. On this one, the same musicians tend to reappear in different permutations, and their interests are more specifically "progressive" than "popular" (which can mean almost anything in a place where folk culture still thrives). That is, they like horns--great sax break on the catchy "Dogbo Zo N'Wene"--and are fascinated by electric guitars. Something called "Ode to Hendrix" is pretty remarkable, as is the title cut and much of Charles Atagana's bass playing, but the same cannot be said of "Live in Peace," which clocks in at a progressive 11:39 and supports neither its length nor its English lyric. B

Assalam Aleikoum Africa Volume Two (Traditional and Modern Folk Music of West Africa) (Antilles, 1977) Once again there's a key word in parentheses--"modern." A lot of this would seem to be popularized folk music in the manner of the Weavers if not the Kingston Trio, which might bother an ethnomusicologist or a tribal loyalist but needn't concern ignorant people like you and me. Basically, this is a selection of time-tested melodies translated into our (musical) language--and translated roughly enough to convey authenticity, since what passes for slick in Abidjan wouldn't last a hairdresser on Lenox Avenue till coffee break. B+

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