Arts
Thursday, May 14, 1981
The Michigan Daily
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Vage 4
Seals slips into mediocrity
By KEN FELDMAN
Son Seals has been acclaimed as the
best new blues guitarist around, and it's
not hard to see why. Seals is a for-
midable talent; his style describes a
revved up Albert King, yet he never
lapses into imitation. But for several
reasons, The Son Seals Blues Band is
not the exciting young outfit it could be.
For one thing, Seals' band is not stric-
tly.a blues band. Their more modern,
electric excursions would more ac-
curately be labeled urban R&B, a
laudable genre, but one that requires
restraint and economy. Unfortunately,
this band exhibited precious little of
either quality at Rick's Tuesday night.
THE BAND began the performance
without Seals, playing four or five
numbers to warm up the crowd. Mike
Gibb, normally the rhythm guitarist,
handled the vocal and lead guitar
chores. His contrived wailings recalled
Greg Allman's southern drawl in their
nauseatingly mellow manner. Then as
the band continued to play, Seals was
introduced (by bassist Snapper Mit-
chel) as the "master chef in a band that
cooks" and took the stage in a manner
that would not be out of place in Las
Vegas. This bit of showbiz was repeated
at the beginningand end of each of the
three sets and of course at theencore.
While this indulgence was not fatally in-
trusive, it was symptomatic of the more
musical problems of Seals and his
band.
Firstly, the sheer volume and ex-
travagance of the rhythm section was
often too much to 'take. Drummer
David Anderson and Snapper Myitchel
are both quite good, but one suspects
that this fact has gone to their heads
when every chord change is accented
with a flashy bass "pop" or drum
flourish.
EQUALLY ERRATIC was Seals' own
singing. Attimes (mostly the slow blues
numbers) his gruff baritone was used
effectively; at other times he resem-
bled an angry Barry White, mannered
and cliche-ridden. The sound of the
band in general was sometimes ren-
dered equally souless by the modern
disco rhythms and funk riffs.
Not to distort things, there were cer-
tainly some fine moments during the
three hour performance. "How Blue
Can You Get," one of the more
traditional songs, was achingly
beautiful in the old blues sense. The
slower songs in general made it clear
that Seals has the potential to com-
municate more than technical tricks.
When the egotism was toned down, the
instrumentals were more than effec-
tive, often brilliant. Even done to death
standards like "Got My Mo-Jo
Workin' " were sometimes fine
vehicles for the band's updated ap-
proach.
Regrettably, this didn't happen
nearly as much as it could have. Most of
the time the bands' indulgence
destroyed the sensual subtlety of the
blues for a more mechanical sound.
Though the slower traditional songs
seemed to hold up the best, Seals con-
centrated on the up-tempo ones,
perhaps because the band was packing
the dance floor. The music was almost
ideal for dancing, with most of the
sound aimed at the feet as opposed to
the heart. The bottom line is that Son
Seals, at least at this point, has more
talent than taste.
Emmanuel gets it
in lots of exotic spots
Son Seals
By DENNIS HARVEY
Funny, isn't it, how balling can be one
of the most fun activities to do in real
life and one of the least interesting
things to watch on screen. Actually,
that observation doesn't have a lot to do
with Emmanuelle Around the -World,
except perhaps that to assure the unfor-
tunate reader/viewer that he/she
probably would be just as bored, even-
tually, watching a genuinely naughtee
movie as they undoubtedly will be wat-
ching this not-bad-enough-to-be-good
soft porner.
Emmanuelle used to be a slightly
bored French hedonist who did her
tasteful! so tasteful! balling with lots of
surprised, but not unhappy, men on
planes, trains, etc. Sylvia Kristel
played this siren in the first, circa-1974
movie, which was photographed in
gauzy Hallmark-greeting-card pastels
with a syrupy Love Story-redux
musical score; God knows why, but
some people thought this was a class
act.
AS A RESULT, Ms. Kristel got her,
real shot at' inhmoitality in Airport
5979-The Concorde (she got told "cock-
pit" jokes by George Kennedy while
passengers Charo and John Davidson
screamed), and Emmanuelle, like a
Barbie doll, has kept changing clothes,
faces and identities in such gems as
Black Emmanuelle and Emmanuelle in
Tokyo.
Around the World takes this
carefee babe, now an Oriental type who
happens to be "the biggest photo-
reporter in America," through lots of
foreign lands and lays. There really is a
story line, but after a while you may
begin to wish there wasn't. It's a lot of
unignorable tripe abput Emmanuelle
cracking (yipes!) an international
white slavery ring. This allows a lot of
scenery to be shown, along with several
definitely unappealing gang rapes and
a couple of girl-beatings that seem
rather out-of-place in such generally
harmless sleaze.
The nastiest possible criticism:
Around the World will leave even ner-
vous older men with newspapers in
their laps bored.