Tuesday, April 16, 1974

THE MICHIGAN GAILY

Page Five

THE MICHiGAN DAILY Page Five


Maggie Bell -Blues
from British slums

LOW-COST EUROPE FLIGHTS
From $249
Flight lists ,available now with applicgtion forms.
Destinations: LONDON, MADRID, FRANKFURT,
BELGRADE, BUDAPEST, VIENNA, AMSTERDAM.
See JIM PARRY or ANDY SOFEN at the
TRAVEL OFFICE, The Michigan Union

By BOB SCHETTER
"Maggie Bell looks to be the
new Janis Joplin," stated Ger-
aldo Rivera on his show Good
Night America. "She sings like
no one has since Joplin ° . . and
with as much feeling." Maggie's
first solo album, Queen of the
Night (Atl. SD 7293), does not
measure up to these expecta-
tions. °
Maggie sounds like Joplin in
many ways. She sings gutsy
blues/rock. Her voice has Jop-
lin's raspy quality. Even some of
the late torch singer's vocal con-
trol and technique are echoed
by Ma Bell.
But the key word is "echoed".
Maggie attains Janis's emotion-
al intensity or vocal versatility.
Nor does she have the ability to
grab the audience with that ur-
gency of desperation which fore-
warned of Joplin's early death.
Maggie is a poor substitute.
Qn stage, Maggie projects
poorly. "I came from the
slums," she said on Good Night,
America. Indeed, she brings the
awkwardness of the British
working class woman to her per-
formances.She totters about the
stage in ill-fitting platform shoes,
wears old maid dresses, the hem
falling beneath reddened knees,
and she is uncannily plain look-
ing.
I could as readily picture her
meandering down Soho or Hay-
market Street in London with
groceries, as on a stage.
Not that mannerisms and scars
of the working class are neces-
sarily bad. In this case, however,
they seem to get in the way of
a good performance - inhibit-
ing her movements by way of
social reminders. Class snobbery
is still rampant in Great Britain.
The album, though, is a decent
one. Songs are taken from the
familiar and the new, from rock
and blues. All are expertly per-
formed by Maggie's crackerjack
studio band, although overproduc-
tion exhibits its faults (Souven-
irs).
Thematically; the album is a

bore. All of the songs portray a
life of prostitution, dirty insin-
cere men and everlurking, for-
boding shadows - common Blues
fare. All these things seem very
viable in lieu of Maggie's back-
ground, but come off as very
trite because of some dispirited
singing and unoriginal lyrics.
However, there are bright
spots, particularly on Side Two.
"Oh My My," Ringo Starr's
smash hit, brings out Maggie s
voice and drives home a solid
song, enhanced by the tasteful
guitar work of Reggie Young. It
is followed by a torch song, "As
the Years Go Passing By," very
reminiscent of Aretha Franklin's
earlier work. Cornell Dupree's
guitar is exquisite here, lending
an uncluttered and well-timed
back-up to Maggie's vocals.
But the climax of the album
is "The Other Side", where all
the album's finer points - fine
instrumentation, v i t a I sing-
ing and some well written music
- combiner to rock out a num-
ber unsurpassed by most work-
ing artists and gives the listener
a glimpse of Maggie's true po-
tential.
Maggie first appeared as lead
vocalist for Stone the Crows, a
British Rock group. Her career
was cut short when the lead gui-
tarist, her fiance, was electro-
cuted on stage - in full sight of
Maggie.
She is currently touring the
States, receiving a large build-up
from Atlantic records. However,
a few more albums will be
needed before she gain the virtu-
osity needed for stardom, and
fulfill the hopes of h er promo-
ters.
The Comic Opera Guild
INVITES
PETITIONS
for the positions of
* DRAMATIC DIRECTOR
* MUSICAL DIRECTOR
* TECHNICAL DIRECTOR
for the Fall 1974-Sprin E1975
production of Johann Strauss'
"Die Fledermous."
Those interested should contact
by phone or mail:
THOMAS PETIET
Manocinc Director
432 S. Fourth Ave.

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BLACK

COMEDY

&white liars
two plays by PETER SHAFFER
MENDELSSOHN THEATRE

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APRIL

17-20,

1974

8:00 P.M.
TICKETS: $2.50, $3.00
Box Office opens 10 a.m. daily
ANN ARBOR CIVIC THEATRE

Daily Photo by TOM GOTTLIEB

The Early Music Consort of London

R enaissance consort glows

By MARNIE HEYN
On Saturday night the Early
Music Consort of London, direct-
ed by David Munrow, delighted
listeners in Rackham Auditorium
with Music for Princes; and
Peasants, a program of folk and
court medieval and Renaissance
music.
The Consort, James Bowman,
Oliver Brookes, James Tyler,
Christopher Hogwood, and Mun-
row, performed six short sets
organized to define the differ-
ences between popular . (Peas-
ants) and courtly (Princes) ele-
ments in music of those periods,
and also outline the. areas of in-
tegration of musical styles (Prin-
ces and Peasants.).
The Consort played on a whole
museum full of archaic instru-
ments from the crumhorn to bag-

pipes to harpsichord to a crwth
with incredible expertise and
gusto. Individual pieces ranged
in time and space from thir-
teenth century England to six-
teenth century Italy; each was
performed with careful atten-
tion to its integrity, while the
complete concert drew a map
of musical growth and synthesis
over a whole continent and four
centuries.
PEASANTS attempted to ex-
emplify popular music of medie-
val times. The attempt istcom-
plicated by a lack of historical
resources, because, prior to the
Reformation and the rise of the
middle class, written record of
the music and its interpretation
is nonexistent, and performers
and musicologists must relay on

later records and fragments of
the oral tradition.
Within this limitation, the Con-
sort did its best to give the au-
dience a taste of the narrative
and dance styles of the itinerant
medieval minstrel and the vil-
lager's toil and festivals.
The Princes sets were free of
this stricture, and with more ma-
terial to work with, the Consort
exploited and elaborated styles
from sixteenth century France,
where growing literacy and pop-
ulist publishers spread new mu-
- -A

sic through all the social strata,
and Italy, where the nouveau
riche emulated the vieulle rich
in vigorousA patronage of young
Italian artists.
The Princes and Peasants seg-
ments were lively, and pervaded
with the sense of tension and ex-
citement that composers of the
period must have felt, with ,old
tunes and styles being incorporat-
ed into new forms and everyone,
rich and poor, clamoring for
more music.

THE GRANDE BOUFFE
"An outrageous, inventive, funny,
excessive film. No one can claim
to have seen anything like it before.
-Paul D. Zimmerman, Newsweek
"A liberatingly funny pitch-black comedy. A chilling,
hilarious dirty movie thattickles us with memories
of Fellini and Resnais and Bunuel, of Antonioni and
Bergman."-Foster Hirsch, in the New York Times
AuEN KLEiN "*sOts
T18hE GRANDE L af1
A film by MARCO FERREi -Produced by JEAN PERRE RASSAM
MON. - SAT.: 7.00 - 9:15
SUN.:4:45 -7:00 -9:l5
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