Oklahoma Underground Music

Krystal Meyers is a Christian rock, not pop, artist, and a number of her songs has convinced me she made a pretty good showing during the Aughts.  Her 2006 CD, Dying for a Heart, is only half-impressive, but at least it’s that. “Together” has a wonderful, nuanced guitar and is excitingly tuneful.  ‘The Beauty of Grace” starts like a ballad but speeds up with a very attractive chorus to bestow.  Okay, “Elvis is dead / But my King is alive” is not much of a lyric; still, “Only You Make Me Happy” (the “You” is God) turns out to be an ingratiating rocker.

Meyers has a fine voice, now tomboyish, now nicely feminine, as in 2008′s “Up to You”–the feminine, I mean–which is an effective love song.  I haven’t heard her first, self-titled album but one of its tracks, ‘The Way to Begin,” is melodically interesting, snappy, winning.

Spiritually-themed rock seldom gets much better than these five songs.  Go ahead and purchase Dying for a Heart.  Or, if not, I sincerely believe Meyers has a place on your iPod.

I don’t care about the Gershwin influence in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G.  I care about the sheer beauty and melodic greatness of its slow second movement, and about Ravel’s skill at creating structure and, in the other two movements, jazzy excitement.  There are no missteps in this vivid and serious composition.

For the first time I saw the old Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movie, Shall We Dance, and was surprised at how many good Gershwin tunes it contains, including ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me” and “Beginner’s Luck.”  The problem is that they’re over too quickly.  Not enough time is provided for them.  We always have to get back to the hokey story.

Richard Thompson was intent to write songs about Life–and did so for his and his former wife Linda’s early 70s album, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight. Decidedly bleak are some of these tracks, and then, after Richard became a Sufi, he continued to write bleak songs about Life.  He had to be true to himself.

The style is folk-pop, if I may call it that, and it is good to hear both Linda and Richard singing lead as well as backup (before they parted ways).  Lyrically the songs on Bright Lights are often strong; musically they are always strong.  Sure, “The Little Beggar Girl” seems negligible to me, but the two cuts that follow it and conclude the album–“The End of the Rainbow” and “The Great Valerio”–are stark, penetrating jewels.  Penetrating, in a way, is what the entire recording is.

Herein, suffering in no way signifies the nonexistence of God.  Even so, ours is a world whose entertainment of one kind or another–listen to the title song–will not save it, will not revitalize the individual dreams that have “withered and died.”

The Monkees–and their stand-in musicians–recorded a host of dandy songs in the ’60s, one of which was the too-short “When Love Comes Knocking (At Your Door).”  Being a vocal-dominated ditty, it showcases the mellow, inviting, certifiably English voice of the late Davy Jones.  Three years later, in 1969, the Poppy Family, a.k.a. Terry and Susan Jacks, released “Which Way You Goin’, Billy,” with Susan’s folkie, deeply feminine singing in the lead.  A wonderful ballad, it has a sweetly attractive chorus and a talented drummer.  It understandably went as high as #2 on the U.S. charts.

1974′s “Pinky” is a track on Elton John’s Caribou album, and what a subtle, un-mawkish appeal its melody has!  It’s a serene song with a captivating if not exactly perfect lyric by Bernie Taupin.  Who else would present a man who describes his lover as “the trial and the error of my master plan”?  And then there’s the John song “Harmony” (1973) in which Elton plays an English street tough before getting vulnerable in the chorus.  It almost fails to cohere, but John and his band manage to hammer the song into shape–and, really, it ain’t great but it’s quite moving.

As happy as “Pinky,” “When Did You Fall in Love With Me?” (2005) is a secular ballad by the Christian artist Chris Rice.  An airy synthesizer chord leads to a smooth drum and piano as well as an assertive bass; and, to be sure, it leads to lovely music.  The words are just fair but the music redeems them.  Rice offers some nice, no-sweat singing.

The Long Songs in rock music can be awfully good.  Radio stations ought never to cut down their length.  Consider:

For over 8 minutes, The Who give no musical quarter in 1971′s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Though there’s a solemn synthesizer, it’s overpowered by a hard-nosed guitar and Roger Daltrey’s great voice.  It is not as deeply tuneful a song as, say, “Behind Blue Eyes,” but it has its hooks.  The words in this counterculture item I have my doubts about, albeit I like that stuff about revolution leaders “sit[ting] in judgment of all wrong” after “the morals that they worship” have disappeared.  Nice touch.

Yes, in “Green-Eyed Lady” by Sugarloaf, the lyrics are moonbeam-y, but there aren’t very many of them.  In large measure the song is an instrumental.  The music in its intro builds to a two-note crash of the wave, then some quicksilver drumming, and soon some likable singing comes on.  ”Lady”‘s structure is good and the keyboards get to be a showstopper.  A commercial and artistic hit.

“Roundabout” (1972) is the most famous song by the prog rock band Yes.  A pretty decent rock number, it churns along after starting with a sustained note and Spanish-flavored guitar picking.  We hear the same guitar in the middle of the song when everything slows down and a pleasant synthesizer is added.  There’s plenty of organ music too, which frankly keeps “Roundabout” from becoming rinky-dink with its pop thinness.  Once again, though, I have to complain about the lyrics, for how could I not complain about Yes’s lyrics? . . . Gee, I guess I’ll have to turn to Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (1970) for words that are okay–and for beautiful music.  It only runs 4 minutes and 55 seconds but it seems longer, which is satisfactory since it is impeccably put together.  The duo’s best song.