Shel Silverstein
Album: Freakin' At The Freakers Ball
Label: BGO
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.bgo-records.com

Humorist, novelist, cartoonist and more – that was Shel Silverstein, who died in 1999 leaving behind an amazing body of work that spanned not only the decades but also the genres of popular music. For he was a prolific songwriter too, who could readily encompass an unbelievable gamut of emotion, from intense, tearjerking poignancy to ribald, zany insanity, moving from one extreme to the other within the space of an album. Although his debut LP (Hairy Jazz) was released as long ago as 1959, it took around ten years for his writing to penetrate into wider public consciousness. Although Shel seems to have been most feted for his comedy songs (and wouldya believe it, he made albums of kids’ songs too), he was also a keen and perceptive observer of relationship dynamics. And it’s important to note that even to this day not many people can identify Shel as writer of A Boy Named Sue, Queen Of The Silver Dollar, The Winner, Ballad Of Lucy Jordan, The Hills Of Shiloh and Sylvia’s Mother … to name but a few of the most widely-travelled of his “serious” songs, memorably covered by artists ranging from Johnny Cash and Bobby Bare to Emmylou Harris and June Tabor – and of course Dr. Hook, whose Medicine Show band provides the key connection with Shel’s celebrated Freakin’ At The Freakers Ball LP, first released on CBS in 1972 and now given a new lease of life by the good guys at BGO. The band, although virtually unknown at the time of the recording, provided the capable and distinctive backing for Shel here, and they were to go on to record several more of Shel’s compositions including The Things I Didn’t Say and The Cover Of Rolling Stone.

It can be argued that Freakin’ At The Freakers Ball was one of those records that fortuitously appeared at just the right time, for it gave full rein to Shel’s highly developed penchant for social satire (and his distinct scatological bent) on a series of songs that completely took the lid off the hippie counter-culture and what a travesty it had by then become. Inevitably there are a couple of misfires, and some of the in-jokes don’t quite strike home with a UK audience, but the best of these pieces have much in common with, say, Frank Zappa’s early forays into similar territory on albums like Freak Out!, Absolutely Free and We’re Only In It For The Money. Maybe the song titles say it all? Hmm, not quite – you gotta hear Shel’s inimitable, almost rabid, often over-the-top delivery of pieces like Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout (Would Not Take The Garbage Out), Stacy Brown Got Two and Don’t Give A Dose To The One You Love Most (d’ya really need to know more?!), but there’s also the chilling tale of The Man Who Got No Sign to savour, and Thumbsucker and Liberated Lady 1999 are surprisingly understated gems in their own right. It’s perhaps not one of those records you’ll want to play often, but … the whole album, though very much of its time, has also outlasted its time – which in itself is quite an achievement.

David Kidman