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Richard C. Walls

Richard C. Walls

Richard C. Walls wrote regularly for Creem and many other publications until his death in May 2017.

Bill Holdship remembers Richard

53 articles

List of articles in the library

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The Mothers of Invention: Uncle Meat (Bizarre)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, June 1969

(Most of the music is from the Mothers' movie of the same name which they haven't got enough money to finish yet.) ...

Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman: Albert Ayler: Music is the Healing Force of the Universe (Impulse); Ornette Coleman: Friends and Neighbors (Flying Dutchman)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, July 1970

HERE ARE two new albums by two of the most prominent innovators in music — one album a boring mystery, the other a satisfying continuation ...

Miles Davis: Bitches Brew (Columbia GP 26)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, August 1970

THIS MUSIC seems to inspire a reluctance to talk about it. To talk about it in any specific terms — all the reviews I've read ...

The Mothers Of Invention: Weasels Ripped My Flesh (Bizarre)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, October 1970

IT SHOULD BE widely known by now that Frank Zappa is more than just a master of bizarre but also a brilliant composer and arranger ...

Carla Bley, Michael Mantler: Michael Mantler: No Answer; Carla Bley: Tropic Appetites (Watt)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1975

THE TAYLOR-Burton of the avant-garde music set have formed their own record label and on their first two offerings we find Mike taking on that ...

Stanley Clarke: School Days (Nemperor)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, December 1976

IF YOU'VE heard either of Clarke's two previous Nemperor albums then you're already familiar with the music here. The basic conception remains the same — ...

Talking Heads: Talking Heads: 77 (Sire)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, December 1977

AFTER WRITING reviews for eight years, one learns to ignore the press releases that accompany promo copies or at least to read them with a ...

Steely Dan: Aja (ABC)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, January 1978

STEELY DAN, in case you don't already know, isn't a group in the conventional sense (tho' it began that way) but rather the umbrella name ...

Joni Mitchell: Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (Asylum)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1978

DON JUAN SAYS HE DOESN'T KNOW YOU ...

Chet Baker: You Can't Go Home Again (Horizon)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, April 1978

IN 1953 CHET Baker was jazz's fair haired boy, young white West Coast lyrical soft trumpet player and, with Gerry Mulligan's pianoless quartet, as famous ...

Tom Waits: Blue Valentine (Asylum)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1979

ONCE I WAS really drunk in this very fancy bar where they had this woman playing piano, looked like somebody's grandmother, and I kept asking ...

Weather Report: Mr. Gone (Columbia)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1979

I'VE ALWAYS been for labelling music, an unpopular attitude among some critics, some musicians and practically all record companies. The irritating thing about the anti-label ...

James Chance & the Contortions, DNA, Mars, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks: Various Artists: No New York (Antilles)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, April 1979

WELCOME TO the unwave. I haven't heard so much ferociously avant-garde and aggressively ugly music since Albert Ayler puked all over my brain back in ...

The Bee Gees: Spirits Having Flown (RSO)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, May 1979

Good For Everything But Listening ...

Stevie Wonder: Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (Motown)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1980

LET'S ASSUME that you didn't think that Songs in the Key of Life was a total bust. It was over hyped for sure, overblown in ...

Magazine: Secondhand Daylight (Virgin)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, March 1980

ONCE UPON a time — No, I'm not going to do that. It's tempting, but I really dislike record reviews that masquerade as short stories. ...

Arthur Blythe: In The Tradition (Columbia)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, April 1980

WITH HIS Columbia debut last year (Lenox Avenue Breakdown), alto saxist Arthur Blythe achieved, after a protracted apprenticeship on the L.A. and N.Y. scenes, a ...

Pat Metheny: 80/81 (ECM)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, March 1981

THE CONTROVERSY thus far: Pretty is the word you want to use when you talk about Pat Metheny — from his guitar styling to his ...

Monty Python's Flying Circus: Monty Python: Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album (Arista); National Lampoon: White Album (Label 21)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, April 1981

I HATE COMEDY albums and I hate the kind of people who like them. I hate it when they play their latest comedy acquisition for ...

David Byrne, Brian Eno: Brian Eno, David Byrne: My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (Sire)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, June 1981

"You see, the problem is that people, particularly people who write, assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me ...

Miles Davis: The Man With The Horn (Columbia)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, November 1981

MILES FINALLY RELEASES THE PAUSE BUTTON ...

James Blood Ulmer: Free Lancing (Columbia)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1982

ULMER IS A 39-year-old guitarist who's come up thru' blues bands and organ/guitar trios, thru the Del Vikings and Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars, thru ...

Elvis Costello & the Attractions: Imperial Bedroom (Columbia)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, November 1982

E.C.'s EMOTIONAL RESCUE ...

Donald Fagen: The Nightfly (Warner Bros.)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1983

DESPITE WHATEVER initial impressions you might get from hearing it on the radio, this is not the new Steely Dan album minus an apparently expendable ...

John Cale: Music For A New Society (Ze/Passport)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, May 1983

MY STEREO has a slight leak. If you turn the power on and leave the radio and record player off you can hear, very faintly, ...

Ronald Shannon Jackson, Jamaaladeen Tacuma: Jamaaladeen Tacuma: Show Stopper (Gramavision); Ronald Shannon Jackson & the Decoding Society: Barbeque Dog (Antilles)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, January 1984

WELL, YOU'RE in luck. Two of the most acclaimed musicians of the neofusion "harmolodic" school (quotes around harmolodic because, word-wise, it's become the "auteur" of ...

Joe Jackson: Body And Soul (A&M)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, July 1984

ANYONE WHO'S familiar with the Blue Note albums of the '50s and '60s will appreciate the homage paid by the cover of Joe Jackson's latest. ...

The Time: Ice Cream Castles (Warner Bros.)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, December 1984

ON THEIR third (and final) album, the Time continues to sound like Prince's opening act, the band's lyrical thrust dealing with things that its mentor ...

Eurythmics: 1984 (For The Love Of Big Brother) (RCA)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, April 1985

IRONY BUFFS might have felt a twinge of interest recently when the Eurythmics' 'Sexcrime' was being banned in various quarters. In Orwell's 1984 the word ...

John Martyn, Sade: Sade: Diamond Life (Portrait); John Martyn: Sapphire (Island)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, May 1985

JEWELS 'N' JAZZ ...

Miles Davis: You're Under Arrest (Columbia FC 40023)

Review by Richard C. Walls, High Fidelity, July 1985

MILES'S LATEST is a very mixed bag, sounding, in fact, like excerpts from three different albums. On four cuts, the trumpeter is presented in a ...

R.E.M.: Fables Of The Reconstruction (I.R.S.)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, September 1985

ATHENS REVISITED ...

The Replacements: Tim (Sire)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, March 1986

LEFT OF THE DIAL ...

Hüsker Dü: Candy Apple Grey (Warner Bros.)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, August 1986

ALAS, ANOTHER cult band, after years of honest toil on a small but brave label, has debuted on one of those big, unsavory, decadent major ...

Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Bros.)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, January 1987

OUT OF AFRICA ...

Michael Jackson: Bad (Epic)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, January 1988

PEPSI-COLA SALAD ...

Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen: Bruce Springsteen/Michael Jackson: Through Time and Space with the Changeling Gods

Essay by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1988

Just Between You And Me ...

Terence Trent D'Arby: Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent D'Arby (Columbia)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Creem, February 1988

HERE'S THE scam, or rather the situation. D'Arby, a black American gone to England, has had an enormous success among the Brits — number one ...

John Cale, Lou Reed: Lou Reed and John Cale: Songs for Drella (Warner Bros.)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, May 1990

Forty-five Minutes of Fame — Reed and Cale Build Warhol a Velvet Coffin ...

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band: The New Orleans Album (Columbia)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, June 1990

I KNOW this is supposed to be jolly listening — and much of it is — but there's something about records like this that taps ...

Public Enemy: Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam/Columbia)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, July 1990

Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution — Public Enemy Gets Tough ...

Bernard Herrmann: Blue Light Special: Bernard Herrmann

Retrospective by Richard C. Walls, Spin, September 1990

YOU MAY not know the name but you know Bernard Herrmann's work, or at least some of it. Everybody knows some of it. What most ...

The Replacements: All Shook Down (Reprise/Sire)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, November 1990

THE REPLACEMENTS' first two major-label albums after establishing themselves as an indie/cult/critics success — Tim ('85) and Pleased to Meet Me ('87) — contained no ...

Aaron Neville: Warm Your Heart (A&M)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, August 1991

WITH HIS brothers and on his own, Aaron Neville has been involved with some truly fine records. But it's also true that he recently reached ...

Cowboy Junkies: Black Eyed Man (RCA)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, March 1992

THE NAME Cowboy Junkies suggests an addiction to an attitude, and the nodded-out, muted quality of their music — everything, including the drums, Margo Timmins' ...

The Jesus & Mary Chain: Honey's Dead (Def American)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, May 1992

EVER SINCE the J & M brothers — Jim Reid, vocals; William Reid, guitar — shaded down the obliterating blasts of white noise which made ...

Tom Waits: Bone Machine (Island)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, October 1992

VULTURES AT THE DINER ...

Dwight Yoakam: This Time (Reprise)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, June 1993

DWIGHT YOAKAM made his mark as a new traditionalist country singer — vocally a natural, with the stoic throb and nasal soulfulness to give life ...

George Clinton: Hey Man, Smell My Finger (Paisley Park)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, November 1993

BEING THE mad Messiah of Funk and all, George Clinton could easily coast on his rep. Instead he's come up with the best album of ...

The Band: Jericho

Review by Richard C. Walls, Rolling Stone, 24 February 1994

THIS CURRENT EDITION of the Band consists of three of its original five members — drummer-vocalist Levon Helm, bassist-vocalist Rick Danko and keyboardist Garth Hudson ...

Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh: Dinosaur Jr.: Without a Sound (Sire/Reprise); Sebadoh: Bakesale (Sub Pop)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, September 1994

DINOSAUR JR.'S evolution into the J. Mascis show is now pretty much complete, with the drawling troubadour doing all the singing and playing on this ...

Vanessa Williams: The Sweetest Days (Wing/Mercury)

Review by Richard C. Walls, Musician, March 1995

VANESSA WILLIAMS' career has been marked by a series of noteworthy precedents — as the first black woman to be named Miss America, as the ...

Elvis Costello: Kojak Variety

Review by Richard C. Walls, Rolling Stone, 2 February 1998

AT THE BEGINNING of Elvis Costello's covers album, there's a little sleight of hand, a misdirecting cue to the listener — a false start, a ...

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