Nominated by: GK
Music club: Wander to Wozza's
Playlist addition: Jardin Botanico
Michael Franks albums were an occasional seller when I worked at Marbecks Records in the Queen's Arcade during my holiday breaks. Not so much Tiger in the Rain (his fifth), but definitely his second and third albums The Art of Tea and Sleeping Gypsy - that smooth jazz sound was quite popular with the trendy white forty somethings who came into the shop. The Michael Franks records oozed adulthood!
Roger Marbeck filed all the spare records via labels - so he could find them easily and quickly know what was needed to be ordered from the reps when they visited. Made restocking shelves tricky though because you needed to know what label an artist was on to find them. It was easier the more you restocked which was one of my jobs.
If I close my eyes I can 'see' the shelf in the shop where all the Reprise albums were stored (including Franks) because I rifled through it often to file records, and find records for myself (I took my pay in records), but also there was something cool about that label (and Warner Bros.) so I loved to gaze at the various covers and play items on those labels in the shop when I had a chance.
At the time I was a real music snob and Michael Franks records were about the uncoolest things I could think of in the years after punk rock exploded, so I only heard them when a customer requested one. He equaled 'meh' for me back then.
Fast forward 45 years and the music snob has departed and been (largely) replaced thanks to an eclectic music collection.
I can now appreciate Franks' music - smooth jazz vocals with a tropicana bent that is perfect for a blazing hot day in Central Hawke's Bay. Given that I'm generally not a fan of smooth jazz vocals with a tropicana bent, I didn't mind a lot of Tiger in the Rain. It's certainly a good antidote for the fast-paced pre-Christmas build-up as GK intended.
Still - he walks a tightrope between positive and negative for me. Some examples may shed light on that statement:
Positive - Jardin Botanico and the title track (light and breezy in a good way with nice melodies and a laid-back groove via strings, vibraphone and sax).
Negative - Underneath the Apple Tree (neither one thing nor the other so comes off as twee).
Maybe that 22-year-old me (from 1979) is still lurking in there somewhere. That said, the 68-year-old me was happy to play this three times in a row and enjoy it for what it is - smooth jazz vocals with a tropicana bent that is perfect for a blazing hot day.
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