Monday, February 15, 2016

A Four Pack of Rodd on Preview


I took a couple of weeks off, but since this project is called "Song Poem of the Week", I thought I'd make the effort this time to make up for lost time, and provide two very nice early-period Preview singles featuring Rodd Keith.

The better side of the first record, by far, is a song with the generic title "Forever". This proves to be one of those super-soulful Rodd sides, with some particularly outstanding drumming, sweet guitar, and a wonderfully warm vocal from Rodd.

In an oddity which turns up from time to time on Preview singles, the record actually runs more than 50 seconds shorter than the label reports it does.

Download: Rodd Keith: Forever
Play:

The flip side, "One Love", is not, of course, the Bob Marley song (and wouldn't that be something to hear), but a rather innocuous pop ballad, with bland lyrics and accompaniment redeemed a bit by another nice lead vocal.

Download: Rodd Keith: One Love
Play:


And now, for something completely different: 


For today's second featured single, because this is the first week of Lent, I thought I'd turn to that old time religion, and a reminder that Rodd had a history working in the Gospel field as a young man. While the music on "Let Jesus Lead (He Satisfies)" is again fairly generic, Rodd offers up some truly sweet three part harmonies - I'm a sucker for those - which are quite consistent with traditional Gospel music

Download: Rodd Keith: Let Jesus Lead (He Satisfies)
Play:

I can't drum up any enthusiasm for this record's flip side, "Faith and Prayers", whatsoever. Again we have a misleading length on the label, although in this case, the record is an excruciating extra minute longer than reported.

The backing here is almost ridiculously minimalist, little more than just a guitar and a bass, neither one of which makes it through the track without making mistakes. The words are heartfelt, in honor of soldiers overseas, living and dead, but neither the arrangement or Rodd's vocal draws my attention to those words or their meaning.

Download: Rodd Keith: Faith and Prayers
Play:


3 comments:

Timmy said...

Spank me & call me pessimistic... Or Passed & Mystic. I don't give two rats' *#@!#*! about the first 3 songs here. But, I DO kinda love that last one; "Faith & Payers". It has a harp in the sky feeling about it. Now, I wanna die on a beach head.

Bob Purse said...

Hey,to each his own. I just write my opinions. That'd probably the one I'd be least likely to listen to multiple times.

But that's exactly why I took the early advice when I started the blog, and started throwing up both sides of every record. I'm not the judge of what others will like!

Bob

Stu Shea said...

I find it amazing that Rodd Keith could go from teen claptrap like "Go Go Girlie" to pop claptrap like "One Love" to gospel claptrap like "Let Jesus Lead" in a matter of minutes and make them all sound palatable.