Contributor

79 items by Stephen Holden

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  Don't Cry Now | ALBUM REVIEW

  Don't Cry Now, produced by J.D. Souther, is the Ronstadt album for which we've been waiting. Her first for Asylum, it surpasses in almost every respect her excellent Capitol album of last year, revealing Linda's supreme vocal...

  November 8, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Feeling the Space | ALBUM REVIEW

  Not bad, at all. Backed by some of the best musicians in the business, among them David Spinozza, Jim Keltner, Sneaky Pete and Jeremy Steig, Yoko's latest is her most accessible. At the core of her artistry...

  November 8, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Angel Clare | ALBUM REVIEW

  Arthur Garfunkel's return to recording, a project that took some 18 months to complete, is one of the most lushly produced pop albums ever made. To the sweeter sound of the Simon and Garfunkel recorded canon a...

  October 25, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Hard Nose The Highway | ALBUM REVIEW

  Hard Nose the Highway is psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent. Its surface pleasures are a little less than those of St. Dominic's Preview and a great deal less than those of Tupelo Honey, while...

  September 27, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  A Passion Play | ALBUM REVIEW

  A Passion Play is the artsiest artifact yet to issue from the maddeningly eccentric mind of Ian Anderson. Conceived for live performance as much as for disk, its ultimate presentation incorporates a short film, written, directed and...

  August 30, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Extensions Of A Man | ALBUM REVIEW

  Like Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind, Donny Hathaway's Extensions of a Man, produced by Arif Mardin, is an ambitious breakthrough album that significantly broadens the musical palette of a major black artist, fulfilling in large measure...

  August 30, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Foreigner | ALBUM REVIEW

  Cat Stevens' first self-produced album, much of it recorded in Jamaica, fails in virtually all of its fuzzy ambitions, the most conspicuous of which seems to have been an attempt to add some meaningfully avant-garde soul sauce...

  August 30, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Fantasy | ALBUM REVIEW

  In the opening and title cut of Carole King's first, and I hope last, "conceptual" album, the format is made crystal clear: "I may step outside myself/And speak as if I were someone else/ ... In fantasy...

  August 2, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Living In The Material World | ALBUM REVIEW

  At last it's here, beautifully-packaged with symbolic hand-print covers and the dedication, "All Glories to Sri Krsna." Even if Living in the Material World were as trivial and regressive as McCartney's Red Rose Speedway, there would be...

  July 19, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  There Goes Rhymin' Simon | ALBUM REVIEW

  There Goes Rhymin' Simon is the logical second step in Paul Simon's solo recording career, and it is a dazzlingly surefooted one. Despite its many light, humorous moments, the core theme of his first album, Paul Simon,...

  June 21, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Paris 1919 | ALBUM REVIEW

  Like Frank Zappa, John Cale is a fascinating, mercurial figure. Everything he has done over the years — from his electric viola work and his development of destructive sound effects for the Velvet Underground onward — bears...

  May 10, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Closing Time | ALBUM REVIEW

  Singer/songwriter/pianist Tom Waits is more than a chip off the Randy Newman block. Though he sounds like a boozier, earthier version of same and delights in rummaging through the attics of nostalgia, the persona that emerges from...

  April 26, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player | ALBUM REVIEW

  Visually, musically, and in every other way, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player is an engaging entertainment and a nice step forward in phase two of Elton John's career, the phase that began with Honky...

  March 15, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  No Secrets | ALBUM REVIEW

  Carly Simon's third album comes handsomely dressed by super-producer Richard Perry and boasts many illustrious helpers. In the degree of its intelligence and forthrightness it is the equal of its predecessors. Regardless of the quality of her...

  January 4, 1973 12:00 AM ET
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  Rhymes & Reasons | ALBUM REVIEW

  "It's a gray, gray gloomy day/A strange and moody blues day/Gotta get through, gotta get through another day." So begins one of the best and most representative songs on Carole King's troubling new album — troubling because...

  December 21, 1972 12:00 AM ET
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  Catch Bull At Four | ALBUM REVIEW

  Simultaneous with the release of Cat Stevens' new album on A&M, Columbia has released a pleasing first solo effort by Alun Davies, second guitarist on Cat's records from Mona Bone Jakon on. Catch Bull is impeccably produced. Its...

  November 23, 1972 12:00 AM ET
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  Saint Dominic's Preview | ALBUM REVIEW

  The best-produced, most ambitious Van Morrison record yet released, Saint Dominic's Preview presents an impressive assemblage of musical ideas that can be enjoyed on many levels. Though the album does not have quite the surface accessibility of...

  August 31, 1972 12:00 AM ET
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  Greatest Hits | ALBUM REVIEW

  Here is a greatest hits album that lives up to its name — a generous collection of 14 Simon and Garfunkel classics, from "The Sounds of Silence" to "Bridge Over Troubled Water." The only single hits not...

  August 3, 1972 12:00 AM ET
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  Sail Away | ALBUM REVIEW

  Randy Newman's third studio album, Sail Away (Reprise 2064), produced by Lenny Waronker and Russ Titelman, is further confirmation — as if any more were needed — of the fact that Newman is our most sophisticated art-song...

  July 6, 1972 12:00 AM ET