If you were growing up in the mid-’60s listening to the radio,
\nthe name P.F. Sloan may ring a bell with you. He was the songwriter
\nbehind such hits as “Eve Of Destruction” (a hit for Barry McGuire)
\nand “Secret Agent Man” (for Johnny Rivers), but he met with brick
\nwall after brick wall every time he tried to record his own
\nsongs… kind of reminds me of the movie
\nGrace Of My Heart<\/i>.<\/p>\n
However, it has only been recently that Sloan has gotten the
\nchance to release an album of his own work, and while
\n(Still On The) Eve Of Destruction<\/i> has a few warts, one
\nwonders what the hell the suits were thinking back around 1968 when
\nthey said “no” to his recording solo.<\/p>\n
With the assistance of a few friends, Sloan shows he has a
\ncapable, if not stellar, voice to give life to his creations. It is
\nquite powerful in the gentle moments, and is right at home when the
\ntempo is increased. He likewise is a capable musician on guitar and
\nkeyboards, but I often wished he hadn’t resorted to electronics in
\nthe keyboard department. Acoustic piano is so much prettier.<\/p>\n
Sloan took a big chance when he decided to re-record his two big
\nhits – this could have been very dangerous. Luckily, the versions
\neither stay in the same style or improve on the originals. While
\nRivers will always be
\nthe<\/b> person who sang “Secret Agent Man,” Sloan (with the help
\nof Young Fresh Fellows as the backing band) is just as powerful of
\na vocalist on this track. However, he chose to update “Eve Of
\nDestruction” to reflect some of the environmental risks we take
\neach day, and the new version, while thought-provoking, is also
\nmuch gentler than the original. (In one sense, the gentleness of
\nthe track could work to Sloan’s disadvantage.)<\/p>\n
But the highlight of
\n(Still On The) Eve Of Destruction<\/i> is a light-jazz rendition
\nof “Crazy As A Daisy,” a song which made me think of Tony Bennett
\nfor some reason. Sloan’s delivery on this track is nothing short of
\nincredible. Likewise, the ballad “Help Me Remember,” complete with
\nstring quartet, is one of the more moving pieces of music I’ve
\nheard recently.<\/p>\n
But there are times when a touch of pretentiousness sneaks into
\nthe music, such as on “Beethoven’s Delight”. The problem isn’t in
\nthe songwriting or Sloan’s performance – it comes this time in the
\nguise of pianist David Lanz – for some reason, the classical-tinged
\nlines he plays clashes with the mood of the song, and it tended to
\ndistract me. After a few listens, it sounded a little more in
\nfocus, in Lanz’s defense, and there’s not much I’ve heard from Lanz
\nI haven’t at least liked. The synthesizers are a bit too much on
\nsongs like “Love Go Easy,” songs which might have benefitted from
\nmore acoustic touches.<\/p>\n
Guest vocalists John Auer and Ben Stringfellow (of The Posies)
\nwisely limit their contributions to background vocals, and let
\nSloan have his long overdue place in the sun.<\/p>\n
With the release of this album, one must wonder if Sloan will be
\nmaking his voice heard again soon. I would argue that he should;
\n(Still On The) Eve Of Destruction<\/i> proves that he’s got many
\nmore stories to tell, and as long as he’s able to keep writing
\nquality songs, why not continue to share them using his own
\ninstrument? Lord knows, he’s waited long enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7316],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-38808","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-p-f-sloan","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38808"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38808"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}