Pros: Wally Bryson of Raspberries on a tribute album to Cleveland baseball.
Cons: Most of the tunes probably sound better after a few drinks.
The Bottom Line: Something of interest to baseball fans, Cleveland natives (no pun intended) and most of all to fans of Wally Bryson of The Raspberries.
Don_Krider's Full Review: Talkin' Baseball by Terry Cashman
Cleveland International Records, known for releasing albums by such diverse personalities as Meat Loaf, Ian Hunter, Woody Guthrie and David Essex, as well as a number of polka albums, came out with this compilation in 1996.
Little-known outside of Cleveland, Ohio, the CD was released to show support by Cleveland musicians of their hometown baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, aka "The Tribe."
On an album about the Cleveland Indians, it's kind of fitting that Wally Bryson, part-Cherokee Indian himself and lead guitarist for The Raspberries, performs on three of the tracks here with his group off-again, on-again group The Sittin' Ducks (who recorded a self-titled CD of their own a couple of years back).
These are The Sittin' Ducks first recordings, though the band formed in the mid-'80s and includes three members of the '60s band The Choir ("It's Cold Outside"): Bryson, Dan Klawon and Kenny Margolis.
The Sittin' Ducks do John Fogerty's "Centerfield" (a great lead vocal performance by Margolis), The Troggs' "Wild Thing" (Bryson on lead vocals, but his guitar playing is the star here, and he plays a snatch of The Raspberries' "Go All The Way" intro at the end of the tune) and Stevie Ray Vaughn's "The House Is Rockin'" (Wally again singing lead... "...well if the house is rockin', don't bother knockin'..." and rockin' the house down).
But the album largely revolves around Terry Cashman's 1982 song "Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey and The Duke")". The tune became the on air theme of major league baseball in the '80s, a simple tune with a catchy chorus. Cashman revives it here as "Talkin' Baseball (Baseball And The Tribe)," changing the lyrics to refer to the Cleveland Indians, and he scored a local hit with this tune.
Cashman contributes "The Ballad Of Herb Score." It's a sweet country ballad about a Cleveland ball player, which contrasts sharply with the hip-hop/rap of The Boondockmen's "Swing Batter Swing."
"Wahoo" by E. T. Hoople reminds me of The New York Dolls' "Stranded In The Jungle" --- a crazy little tune probably made more enjoyable after a few drinks at a baseball game ("...who that man with the great big grin, he got the team, only knows how to win... he got the bat, he got the ball, he got the team that gonna win it all..."). He's not going to win this year's John Lennon Songwriting Competition, but it's a song that grows on you.
Imagine Barry White singing a love song to basball and you've got "Life" by Jim "Mudcat" Grant. Full of the lush orchestration of a Barry White song, Grant does a good imitation of White ("...I've learned that, life is like a game of baseball, and you play it every day, it isn't just the breaks you get, but how you play the game...").
Other tunes on the album are "This Is Next Year" by Roger Martin, "Watching The Indians Play" by Wayne Toups and Rocco Scotti's version of "The Star Spangled Banner" (quite a good performance, opera-style, of the National Anthem).
Overall, an album done for fun that is fun. Not a candidate for any Top 10 lists, but you could have worse music to listen to while driving around. For me, it was Wally Bryson and The Sittin' Ducks performances that sold me on buying the album, and that makes it a worthwhile purchase for me.
The CD:
11 tracks clocking is at under 37 minutes. The four page CD booklet isn't much to look at, but Terry Cashman does offer a nice tribute to baseball in a commentary on the last page of the booklet.
Related reviews:
Capitol/EMI's 24-bit digitally remastered CD released in May of 2005 in the U. S. and Europe, "Greatest," features all 7 of Raspberries Hot 100 singles, has 20 tracks and runs 78:53 minutes: http://www.epinions.com/content_186044681860
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