Ronnie Wood's Solo Albums.

What was your favorite performance you saw of him? I only saw him the one time, so that time wins by default. He was such an energetic, funny and charming frontman, I kept thinking, "HE played second string for Rod and Steve Marriott? He's just as good, if not better!"

Don't have a turntable, so it's moot. No record stores near me that are local, so again, moot.

 

Smiler and Dark Horse are pretty darn good.

 

That's a good question, but also a tough one. Either that first Bonnie Raitt show, where I hadn't really known what to expect, and as I mentioned before, got blown away (and the next night was just as good, even though it was exactly the same), OR the Warfield show Wood did for the Slide On This tour, but never saw Mac play a bad show, or one I didn't enjoy. If I had to pick a least favorite, it might be McLagan playing completely solo in San Rafael at a music instrument store called Bananas At Large, just because Mac sounded so much better with other musicians, and I also have regrets about having to leave after the Bananas performance, to catch a bus back to the East Bay, because after the performance and booksigning, he wound up at a bar across the street, drinking and telling stories!

Hope you got a pic with Mac when you met him! I have a few like that, and a few with Ron Wood too (when he was going around promoting HIS book).

Also, in light of some extra listening, and extra information (for instance, that the lp was originally released with the credits/artwork included) and some extra thinking, I am now of the belief that George Harrison IS indeed on Wood's version of Far East Man. I'd always listened to that song with the idea that Keith was singing the harmony part, or that Woody overdubbed to harmonize with himself, but thinking about it now, and about the things Keef has said about G. Harrison, Keef wouldn't want to sing a George Harrison tune. As far as the idea of Ron Wood singing both parts -- maybe that's still correct. There's a clip on Youtube where Woody talks about the recording of Far East Man and he says that George spent hours teaching him how to sing the part. He says that Harrison's publicist would allow George to be credited, so he (Wood) had to sing George's parts, but that you can still hear George "in the background". But he also talks about Willie Weeks playing bass on the tune, and it's Mick Taylor, not Weeks, so again, Woody's recollection is "suspect". But it makes sense that if Wood couldn't explicitly credit George in the artwork, he could draw a little caricature of him, which is what it looks like he did.

 

Does the LP sound any better than the CD? The CD really sounds kind of amateurish, good music but bad mixing and mastering.

 

Don't forget "live and eclectic" with it's bonus cd ..fine booklet also...(a la Ronnie Wood)

 

I've never heard the CD. I'm sure it's not terribly different. It's a rough'n'ready sounding album. Not polished by any means.

 

See, that's the funny thing for me with Gimme Some Neck: it comes across as being quite polished, overproduced even, in regards to both the sound (except all that reverb and efforts at the Big Drum Sound sorta backfired on them) and the song arrangements themselves. I always got the feeling that when he made the album Ronnie had this attitude of, "Hey, I'm a Rolling Stone now- expenses be damned!" Compare the sound/production of GSN with Ron's first two albums (before he became a Stone, in other words): the first two are very low-key sounding (though they sound very good, mind ya) and that feeling of overproduction isn't there. Neck and 1234 are both heavily overproduced IMO. Big budget albums, I have no doubt...

 

The only two I own are Gimme Some Neck and Slide On This.

Both are worthy, though I admit that Gimme Some Neck is a bit rough sounding to these ears.

The track Seven Days more than makes up for that IMO...

 

Yep ! ...

 

PM coming your way...

 

To me: all of his first 4 solo LPs sound much better than his earlier 4 solo CDs.

 

Jealous! Wish I could've seen a show supporting this record. Probably my favorite after "I've Got My Own Album To Do." Though I do dig em all!

 

Ditto - and very much agree!

 

Thanks to this discussion, I am currently watching the Canucks/Flames hockey game with the following soundtrack: Gimme Some Neck, 1234, Now Look and my kid's personal favourite Mahoney's Last Stand

 

Yeh it was amazing to see Ronnie play in a smaller place , I don't think he's done any solo stuff near Boston since then , I still have my tour shirt

 

And now, you know, just in case anybody cares, my thoughts on the albums:
Gimme Some Neck: Yes, it sounds terrible -especially that drum sound!- but it's a great rockin' collection of songs just the same. "Infekshun" and "Lost And Lonely" are my favourites here. The only song I'm not crazy about is "F.U.C. Her"...boy what a stupid song (IMO) I find it dumb for the same reason I find "Star Star" dumb- juvenile shock value lyrics. It is hard to get past the production though...
1234: Very much the 'sequel' to Gimme Some Neck in the same way Now Look is the 'sequel' to I've Got My Own Album To Do. I would not be surprised if a song or two from 1234 were actually GSN leftovers. The album doesn't sound as bad as Neck does, but it still seems just as overproduced. Ronnie gets some cool guitar tones going and plays some nice bass on a song or two as well but his singing is pretty terrible. "Fountain Of Love" is probably the best song. But what I really got from 1234 was that it is totally Ron's "Dylan album"- I know Ronnie and Bob were hanging out quite a bit in this period and the Dylan influence really shows in the lyrics and the phrasing of Ronnie's singing (even though his voice is shot for the most part- leave yer freebase pipe at home when yer doing the vocals, Woody!). I've said in other Ron Wood discussions that "Outlaws" is greatest Dylan song Dylan never wrote, but "She Never Told Me" reminded me very much of "Journey Through Dark Heat" (the epic closer to Street Legal.) I hadn't listened to 1234 in a while, and it was better than I remembered it.
Now Look: This is my favourite of Ronnie's albums- I like the mid 70's funk/blue eyed soul feel on display. It's an album I've heard so many times over the years that some of the songs I just blank out on now ("I Got Lost When I Found You", "Breathe On Me") and as a result these days "If You Don't Want My Love" and "Sweet Baby Mine" are probably my favourite tracks. I can never quite put my finger on what it is, but there's something I really like about Andy Newmark's drumming on the records he played on in this period (i.e. the first two Ronnie albums, Dark Horse, Young Americans). As a result I mainly focused on the drumming when I listened on Saturday night (better than focusing on the damned hockey game, which the Canucks -my team- lost 4-1!)
Mahoney's Last Stand: I've said it before: I want to see this movie, if for no other reason but to see how the music was used in the film. Song wise, I hear more of the Ronnie Lane influence and more of Woody as a guitar player sideman, but some of what they do is really cool. The Faces vibe is totally there. For some reason my kid loves "Chicken Wire" and "From The Late To The Early"; when "From The Late..." started, my son looked up from his Lego as if to say, "Hey, I like this song!" I love the riff that runs through "Title One" and even though I'm not a big horns guy I've always like the horn arrangement on that tune. As I've mentioned elsewhere the only song I'm not crazy about is Woody's 'solo spot' "Mona The Blues"...it just sort of goes on and on to nowhere IMO. I always forget Pete Townshend had a hand in the making of this album, sort of a dry run for Rough Mix, I think...

 

Excellent taste! My favourite LP too....

 

Absolutely. I'd put Now Look up against any post-1972 Stones album and it'd probably beat out every single one (except maybe Some Girls, and even then it'd be too close to call IMO)

 

Now Look isn't rockin' enough for me.

 

Mahoney's Last Stand: bought the LP in 1985 (new) but haven't played it yet. lol. Go figure??

 

That's ridiculous. Play it today. Easy.

 

I've never waited that long to listen to anything! I think four months is the longest, and that's not often.

(not counting large box sets that take a long time to finish. Sure, I got to the last disc of the Dylan albums set 8 months after I got it, but I was working through it since that Christmas!)

Speaking of box sets, how nice would it be to have a Ron Wood box set. Get all his studio albums, the live ones (including the confusing mish-mash of Slide on Live and Live and Eclectic), and scoop up all the odd studio tracks he's put out. Not to mention that he apparently has TWO unreleased albums in the cans, that from what I understand were at one point being considered for release after the Barbarians live discs, but were ultimately left shelved.

 

The problem is that all of his albums are on different labels. Warner, Columbia, Continuum, Burning Airlines, SPV, Virgin and Wooden Records (through Eagle Rock/Universal). I for one am all for your idea, but with all the different labels, it'd be tough to do.

 

Oh, I'm aware. I'm sure it would be an absolute nightmare to actually coordinate. It's but a pipe dream.

 

Maybe not, but it doesn't have to be IMO. "I Can Say She's All Right" is rockin' enough for me (another classic Keith intro there, BTW)

What Graham said! Go get that record and put it on right now!

Woody should actually do this himself. If he still possesses all the master tapes, that is. Trouble is, to do the job right probably wouldn't be worth it- sadly, a Ron Wood box set would sell maybe 200 copies