You've seen them on TV! Yes folks, now, in your favorite record store you can find familiar talking heads like Paul Shaffer (of "Late Night with David Letterman"), John Tesh (of "Entertainment Tonight") and Chunky A (of "The Arsenio Hall Show"). All three have new - and widely varied - albums.
PAUL SHAFFER; "Coast to Coast" (Capitol Records).You shouldn't, we've been told often enough, judge a book by its cover. Paul Shaffer is living, breathing, music-making proof of that moldy adage. Shaffer, Letterman's elfish sidekick, comes across as something of a geeky pop star wannabee. But, as his album "Coast to Coast" testifies, his love of music goes deeper than the hipster pose.
"Coast to Coast" was recorded here, there and everywhere in between (in New York, L.A., Miami, Chicago, Memphis . . .) by Shaffer and many of his heroes - Dion, Ben E. King, K.C. (of Sunshine Band fame), Beach Boy Brian Wilson, Eric Burdon . . . the list goes impressively on and on. Shaffer grew up in the province of Ontario, discovered his transistor radio could lock in on signals beamed from the great cities south of the (Canadian) border - and became obsessed with rock 'n' roll.
"Since my arrival in the U.S. 15 years ago," he's written, "I have made it my business, literally, to meet and work with the artists and producers I idolized as a kid. And as I traveled, I became fascinated with how the feeling, the soul of a city, so affects the music that emanates from there - from the West Coast sun-and-Hollywood feel to the hot Latin Miami dance sound. So it struck me that if I could make a record in which each cut depicted the sound, the flavor, and most of all the excitement I feel for each of these influential musical cities - that would be a gas."
So, we get a New York doo-wop/hip-hop-rap hybrid, "When the Radio Is On," featuring Dion DiMucci, the Tokens' Jay Siegel, Johnny Maestro of the Crests and legendary songwriters Carole King and Ellie Greenwich, who mixed it up with def rappers Ecstasy and The Fresh Prince on one of the album's most delightful tracks.
. . . And Temptations tradeoff vocals from Shaffer, Ben E. King, Bobby Womack, Wilson Pickett and Don Covay on the Memphis-meets-Detroit flavored "What Is Soul?"
. . . And, from L.A., another '60s/'90s mix, "Metal Beach," an update of the surf-sound instrumental, featuring Brian Wilson and ace guitarists Joe Satriani and Joe Walsh.
Don't think this is knock-your-socks-off stuff. Shaffer's unlikely to out-sell Paula Abdul or the New Kids. But "Coast to Coast" shows genuine affection for music styles - and musicians - past and present. He brings his '50s, '60s and '70s heroes into the '90s and, in so doing, gives us an all-star good-time record.
JOHN TESH; "Garden City" (Cypress-A&M Records).
No mere TelePrompTer-reading mannikin he: John Tesh is an award-winning composer, keyboard whiz - and recording artist. His new album, "Garden City," is a mostly instrumental concoction that falls somewhere in the light jazz/new age stripe on the music spectrum.
Or does it? Actually, Tesh's eight pieces (8.5, counting a reprise) might more accurately trace their lineage to the synthesized TV-ad and over-the-titles themes we've grown accustomed to hearing over the past few years. The album tracks are extended bits of sound fit for sound-bite-sized film clips.
The opener and title number, "Garden City," a pretty piano and guitar number, floats along nicely with a hint of Mexico. That is Mexico isn't it? "Shock" and "The Black Hole," lively and anthemic, would be ideal for, say, a sports montage on the weekend news. "Waltz for Julie" is, of course, a waltz . . . but no, it's actually a Latin romance . . . then it's a waltz again. "Bastille Day" must reflect a personal declaration of some sort, for it doesn't summon forth images of mobs or tumbling stonework, or evidence much French flavor.
Obviously Tesh is mixing and matching, at will, genres according to his own tastes.
The lone song with lyrics, "You Break It," featuring lead vocals by Diana DeWitt, isn't bad. Dramatic, and mildly threatening, the rather repetitive words could be a bruised lover's warning or, from what we hear about the video, a plea for environmental good sense:
Everything you do comes back to you
Everything you do comes back to you
You break it - you pay for it
You break my heart - you pay for it.
CHUNKY A; "Large and In Charge" (MCA Records).
Chunky A is ostensibly the younger-but-bigger brother of talk-show host Arsenio Hall. "As a child," a press kit informs us, "Arsenio sat by the flickering light of a television late at night, making plans to become a talk-show host like his hero Johnny Carson. Chunky (Chunkton Arthur Hall), a less-directed child, stood in the glow of the refrigerator light with a hero sandwich, making plans for his next meal. While Arsenio was driven to succeed, Chunky was driven by a need to feed."
OK, OK: Chunky A is really - brace yourselves - Arsenio himself. With padding. Hope we didn't burst any bubbles.
Hall and collaborator A.Z. Groove (Attala Zane Giles) have put together a moderately inspired takeoff on rap music, music in general and, really, contemporary culture. The album drops a few dozen well-known names of the moment, from Donald Trump to Robin Givens, and gives free mentions to a passel of commercial products - it may need annotation in a few years.
"Large and In Charge" - the song - is Chunky's ego trip, a putdown of such "rap hack" heavyweights (so to speak) as Run-DMC, Heavy D and The Fresh Prince. "Sorry" hilariously satirizes the Teddy Pendergrass/Barry White confessional, with a spurned jiltee telling the jilter, through a closed door, the terrible things he really did that she didn't know about. ("Can we discuss yo' dog?") "Very High Key" tries to out-funk and out-falsetto Prince. "Stank Breath," like The Who's venerable "Odorono" on "The Who Sell Out," reveals a beauty's noxious flaw.
Chunky A and friends like Paula Abdul, young actor Wil Wheaton and, ahem, Arsenio Hall, lay down the rap against drugs in "Dope, the Big Lie."
You can't beat it
Dope always wins
Will make you rob yo' mama
And lose yo' friends.
But for every commendable or recommendably funny track on "Large and In Charge" we get another that is leeringly salacious or downright insulting. "Owwww!" is well done but goes just a bit too far in a few places. "Dipstick" is . . . , well, this is a family newspaper.
And women - black women in particular - should really rip into Arsenio Hall for perpetuating a crude slander: "woman" and "whore" are not interchangeable nouns, as he insinuates in "Ho Is Lazy," a "Weird Al"-like parody of The Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy."
Yes, Arsenio, you're clever, funny - and naughty. And you owe the ladies an apology. Seriously.