Genre: rock
Rating: 3 stars ***
Title: Gold & Ivory
Company: CBS
Catalog: 86038
Year: 1977
Country/State: UK
Grade (cover/record): VG / VG
Comments: UK pressing
Available: 1
GEMM catalog ID: 5588
Price: $20.00
No, no, no ... 'Rock On' is not on this album ! You want to go and find 1973's cleverly-titled "Rock On" for that one ...
1977's "Gold & Ivory" marked a couple of changes from David Essex's earlier catalog. One of the most significant changes was the fact Essex stepped into the production role which Jeff Wayne had previously occupied. The change saw Essex broadening his musical horizons with a weird mixture of top-40 pop ('Lend Me Your Comb'), more MOR-oriented tracks, and a couple of rawer, paired down selections. While Essex always excelled at pop, heavily orchestrated MOR efforts like 'New Horizon', 'Good Morning (Darling)' and 'Yesterday In L.A.' (with a weird little Star War cantina flashback) were the major surprise here. The fact he was willing to record something along these lines in the middle of the punk and new wave revolution took some guts and guaranteed he'd be abused by the critics. At the same time those songs demonstrated Essex had a far more versatile voice than your normal pop star and served as an indication of his future career in theater. Again, not characteristics that were exactly in demand in the mid-1970s. While those songs were all quite good, the standout tracks were the isolated outright rockers - 'Whole Lotta Monkey' and 'Back Street Crawler' were fantastic songs that CBS should have released as singles. Instead the label picked one of the worst songs as the single:
- 1977's 'Cool Out Tonight' b/w 'Yesterday In L.A.' (CBS catalog number CBS S CBS 5495)
Propelled by the single the parent album proved a decent seller in the UK; peaking at # 29. It did nothing in the States.
"Gold
& Ivory" track listing:
(side 1)
1.) New
Horizon (David Essex) -
2.) Good Morning (Darling) (David Essex) -
3.) Yesterday In L.A. (David Essex) -
4.) Lend Me Your Comb (David Essex) -
5.) Whole Lotta Monkey (David Essex) -
6.) Back Street Crawler (David Essex - Steve Colyer - Chris
Andrews) -
(side
2)
1.) That Circle Keeps On Changing
(David Essex) -
2.) Cool Out Tonight (David Essex) -
3.) You (David Essex - Steve Colyer) -
4.) Virginia (And The Circus Sideshow) (David Essex - Steve
Colyer) -
5.) Britannia (David Essex) -
6.) Gold & Ivory (David Essex) -