Sandy Bull is a legend — if not with the general public, then surely among his fellow musicians. And like most legendary figures, he is both larger than life and has feet of clay. Of his early work in the 1960s for the great folk label Vanguard, much has been written, more knowledgeably and more eloquently than I could hope to. And of his most recent output, perhaps the less said, the better. Except that Sandy Bull is not so easily nor so glibly dismissed.
In between is a story of a life nearly thrown away to drugs, all too familiar among the musical geniuses of Postwar America. Sandy Bull is one of the few who descended to the depths and survived, and he spent the following decades regaining his art and his standing in the music world.
His first two records for Vanguard, made when he was in his early 20s in 1963 and 1965, were groundbreaking achievements that foreshadowed World Music more than 20 years ahead of its time. Seemingly effortlessly, he fused American folk, country, jazz and pop with Western Classical themes, Afro-Caribbean idioms and Middle Eastern scales and instruments.
Then, in the spirit of the times, he began experimenting with stronger and stronger drugs, ending up addicted to heroin by the time of his third and fourth records. Fortunately, he cared about his music more than the drugs, and when it became clear to him that the former was suffering, he began the long, hard process of rehabilitation.
The highlights of Bull’s music from his early period, 1963 to 1972, are documented on a recent Vanguard CD Re-Inventions: Best of the Vanguard Years, reviewed for us by Debbie Skolnik.
Inventions
The best by far of Bull’s projects available on CD is Inventions. I’d go so far as to say that this is an essential recording for any serious record collector or fan of folk, acoustic, or World music. In this and his debut record Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo he plays solo or with minimal accompaniment. His instruments are acoustic guitar, banjo, electric guitar, and the oud, an ancient Arabic stringed instrument, precursor to the lute.
On Inventions Bull made extensive use of multi-tracking. In this as in so many facets of his art, he was a pioneer, anticipating The Beatles’ extensive use of the same technique in the making of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts’ Club Band a few years later. But he was farther ahead of his time than that; Inventions could have been made in 1999.
The CD opens and closes with acoustic and electric versions of Bach’s “Gavotte No. 2.” The brief opening number is followed by a lengthy exploration of Brazilian Luiz Bonfa’s sublime “Manha de Carnival.” Bull plays the melody on the oud and accompanies himself with acoustic rhythm guitar. On the next cut, “Triple Ballade,” a reworking of a 14th century French piece, the interplay of guitar, oud and banjo is unexpected and fresh. So far, a fairly typical blend of classical and folk, albeit with some innovative instrumentation.
Next up is a real eye- and ear-opener, Chuck Berry’s “Memphis Tennessee.” Teaming with jazz drummer Billy Higgins, Bull plays rhythm guitar, electric bass and a Fender Stratocaster. He turns this rock-n-roll classic into an exciting, funky stew combining R&B, jazz, elements of country and even bits of Indian-style droning. I never would have heard the connection between “Memphis,” Van Morrison’s “Blue Money” and Lennon-McCartney’s “Here There and Everywhere” if I hadn’t listened to this piece, and it’s a cinch there are similar connections with numerous other pop icons as well.
Then we get the lengthy improvisational duet between Bull and Higgins, “Blend 2” (a sequel to “Blend” on his first record). It’s a hypnotic listening experience, even without the aid of the kind of consciousness-altering substances commonly used by Bull and his audience at the time. This piece goes farther than anything before to mix American jazz, rock, folk and pop, with instruments and styles from Asia and the Middle East.
Bull’s supporters at the time of Inventions felt they had to defend him from potential charges of undue eclecticism. The passage of three decades and more have revealed his work to be visionary, beside which the output of many of his contemporaries sounds one-dimensional and quaint.
(Vanguard, 1965; CD reissue, 1995)
E Pluribus Unum
If Inventions was breathtakingly ahead of its time, E Pluribus Unum was, sadly, merely a product of its time. The time was 1968, and Sandy Bull was wandering down Haight-Ashbury. The record comprises two lengthy pieces — “No Deposit-No Return Blues” and “Electric Blend” — each originally fitting on one side of an LP. The music is informed by the same spirit as “Inventions”, but in the execution it comes off like the soundtrack to one of those bad “period” movies about hippies.
The Grateful Dead, for all the criticism levelled at them, excelled at the sort of spaced-out jams Bull attempted on “Unum”, and they drew on the same types of cross-cultural sources, including country, jazz, R&B and Asian influences. But they generally had the sense not to attempt it on vinyl. On a good night, the Dead could turn in the kind of performance in which the musicians and the listeners became one organism, feeding off each other and back to each other in a blissful groovy oneness that can never be captured on tape.
On Unum Bull plays all the instruments himself, in a sterile, multi-tracked goulash. In later interviews, Bull admitted that his music of this period was intended to be part of the audience’s drug-use experience. But Bull was so deep into drugs himself that his concert performances consisted mostly of him interminably tuning his instruments, playing for a few minutes, then wandering offstage in a stupor. “E Pluribus Unum” is Latin for “from the many, one.” A better title might have been, “From the one, nothing.” This dated disc is only for completists.
(Vanguard 1969; CD 1988)
The rest of these CDs are an uneven assemblage. Many of the tracks sound like the old Sandy Bull, particularly those featuring the oud, and Indian instruments like tambour and sarod, with Bull accompanying himself on hi-hat. Others, heavy with synth keyboards and cheesy drum machines, sound like elevator music for a mall in Fort Worth.
Jukebox School of Music
The first is Jukebox School of Music from 1988. In addition to the usual instruments, Bull has added pedal steel to his assemblage, and he has added salsa to the styles at his command and increased the influence of country on his song selection. The standout tracks on Jukebox are two pieces most like those from his “Inventions” years: “Continuum for Guitar,” an eight-minute blend of classical guitar, jazz modulations and Arabic-style tunings and drones; and “Truth,” another long oud piece with Billy Higgins on drums. The rest is mostly filler. Much of the album suffers from an overabundance of electronics, and comes off sounding either sterile or insufferably New Agey.
While listening to “Continuum” I couldn’t help but wonder why Bull doesn’t explore this idiom more fully. He explains in the liner notes, “After 1964 I stopped playing this tuning and style for 20 years, not wanting to get repetitive.” There’s such a thing as “too much of a good thing,” but with a total of only seven albums in four decades, Bull isn’t in too much danger of repeating himself or wearing out his welcome, even if he played nothing but oud-and-guitar works. I love pedal steel guitar, and Bull plays it as well as anyone in the business. But the computerized settings of these tunes — “Way to Survive,” “Don’t Be Angry” and “Sanctified Steel” — destroy for me what could be warm, organic songs.
Jukebox also contains a re-make of “Manha de Carnival,” which adds nothing to the 1965 version.
(ROM, 1988)
Vehicles
Vehicles from 1991 fares a little better. Again the title is apt, each song and its instruments acting as vehicles for a mood Bull wants to convey. This album is a much more likeable mix of styles. Significantly, it also includes a variety of other musicians: Senegalese percussionist Aiyb Dieng on three cuts, and a world-class jazz combo on two others. The moods are conveyed by the song titles: “Ray’s Dream” (a tribute to Ray Charles), “Interstate Vehicle,” “Nostalgia,” “Drifting,” “Walking To Missouri,” “Rain Forest,” “Alligator Wrestler.” The highlights, again, are the longer, more experimental pieces. “Nostalgia” is an atmospheric, spooky blend of Arabic and Indian motifs, marred by the tinny drum machine. “Rain Forest” features Dieng on the chatun, a terra cotta jug he slaps with his wet hands, and an assemblage of bird calls, shakers, rattles and bells. Bull plays the sarod and tamboura, and the hi-hat cymbals.
The album closes with an oud piece, “Concerto for ‘The Wood’.” It draws on a Bach sinfonia, jazz, and Turkish music, and expands on some of the ideas in “Carnival.” My only complaint with it is the synthesized strings at the opening; this would be a great place for a string quartet. And “Louder Than Words” nicely combines Indian instruments with the West African talking drum and electric guitar.
The country pieces — “Interstate Vehicle” and Buck Owens’ “Together Again” — and a blues, “Walking to Missouri,” would be nice to hear with a full band. However, with their canned percussion and keyboards, these versions would be right at home in a Holiday Inn lounge.
(Timeless Recording Society, 1991)
Steel Tears
On Steel Tears in 1996, Bull decided for some reason to sing. In a recent interview he said he’d gotten it out of his system, and I hope so. His voice is anemic and his delivery lacks any polish. That, combined with the continued ’80s-style production and preponderance of canned percussion and keyboards, makes this album hard for me to listen to.
On the positive side, it sounds like Bull is having fun, and I hope he did. His versions of country and R&B classics — George Jones’ “Long as We’re Dreaming,” Webb Pierce’s “I Don’t Care,” Hank Williams Jr.’s “Old Habits Like You,” Willie Nelson’s “It Should be Easier Now,” Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “My Baby Left Me,” and the Holland-Dozier-Holland “Can I Get a Witness” — add nothing to the originals.
Bull’s self-penned tunes here for the most part are sentimental or corny. “Steel Tears” features a full stable of collaborators. Jerry Douglas turns in some good dobro work on the opening tune, “Arabalabama,” a jazzy country ditty, and Sam Phillips sings backup on “Witness.”
The concept of this album — indeed all of his ’80s and ’90s output — isn’t a bad idea. For nearly 40 years, Bull has displayed an intuitive grasp of how the disparate threads of American music can be woven into an entertaining and functional crazy quilt. In the hands of a more organic producer — may I suggest T Bone Burnett, or Gurf Morlix, or Steve Earle — Bull’s inspiration could shine forth a little more clearly.
(Timeless Recording Society, 1996)
While he remains a gifted musician, and some of his latter-day work shows glimpses of his old brilliance, it seems to me that Sandy Bull has yet to rescale the heights to which he followed his muse so effortlessly in his younger days. Then again, I could be as wrong as the critics in the 1960s who thought him too eclectic. In another 30 years, his ’90s work may emerge yet again as visionary and pioneering.
