The 1981 Listening Post - Robert Gordon - Are You Gonna Be the One

 Robert Gordon - Are You Gonna Be The One

#41

By Scott Von Doviak

1981 Housekeeping

Robert Gordon

Are You Gonna Be the One

Genre: Rockabilly Revival

Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 2 out of 5

Highlights:

Someday, Someway

Look Who’s Blue

Lover Boy

Do you love a classic rockabilly sound filtered through tinny ‘80s production? No? Me either. Robert Gordon has a voice – it’s a voice you’ve heard before if you’re familiar with Elvis Presley. Gordon pretty much nicked the King’s vocal stylings wholesale. But he’s not the only one, and I can imagine Gordon’s early albums with Link Wray deliver more of an old school rockabilly kick than this slick collection does. You know “Someday, Someway” from Marshall Crenshaw, though Gordon recorded it first and had a regional hit in New York with it. It’s an OK rendition that never really soars, which means it fits right in with the rest of these songs. “Look Who’s Blue” is one of the better Elvis ripoffs, and it’s probably fun to see Gordon do it live. I don’t want to hate on this guy, but a song called “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die” needs to be a lot nastier and Cramps-like than what we get here. For my taste, anyway. “Lover Boy” is another decent Elvis soundalike, but again, the production just grates. At least it’s a short album – not even half an hour in its original version. The version on Spotify has a bunch of bonus tracks, but life’s too short.

https://open.spotify.com/album/4D2rpGX0XEXB74ZRWbJY12?si=z6kyLb9oSuyWlBjbzgKKeg

The 1980 Listening Post - Robert Gordon - Bad Boy

Robert Gordon - Bad Boy

#238

by Lori Alley

June 15 1980

Robert Gordon

Bad Boy

Genre: Rockabilly 

Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Lori’s Rating 2 out of 5

Lori’s Highlights:

The Worrying Kind 

Sweet Love on My Mind

Digression #1 - My mother claims she was the Jitterbug champion of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in 1950...something. So we grew up dancing to music like this in our living room. It's fun! This album is a characterization of all of those sweaty sideburns/saddle shoes/standup bass /hep cats/smokes rolled up in your tshirt/sock hops at the Grange. Robert Gordon is the Don Ho of Rockabilly, really this is all about his voice. Because he CAN sing this way, actually he SHOULD. He truly DOES have dulcet tones, and sounds like Elvis. But despite that his delivery seems phoned in, and actually is sometimes pitchy and off key. That's why I only gave this a 2.0 (I started at 3.5 but the more I listened to this the lower the score went down, especially on the "slow dances."). Gordon used to be in a punk band called the Tuff Darts, which had some acclaim because of their sense of humor, and probably their timing in the development of the whole thing. But they were punk in the same way Culture Club was "new wave." Anyway, some of the songs like "Torture" and "Nervous, " and "Born To Lose" well, don't throw me a softball like that, I don't even need to bother weaving those titles into my opinion. Truly terrible. 

 Digression #2 - I got married in Las Vegas in 1997 at The Little Chapel of the Flowers and on one of the days leading up to the wedding a bunch of us went to the Barbary Coast downtown (prob no longer there) to drink the margaritas out of the freezie machines and watch karaoke. There were at least four "Elvises" performing (one of them there with his mother apparently) and they were all vying for the stage. The problem is, they were all REALLY good. Which tempered our hilarity and taught us a lesson, goddammit. Elvises are not to be ridiculed! Even if their mother DID drive them to the bar! (Also, don't eat at The Stinking Rose the night before the ceremony. Everyone will smell like garlic and it will piss off your husband, then you'll leave him 5 years later). This is all to say, if you're sort of famous because you sound like Elvis, you better make it good, because he's a hard act to follow. Anyway, the only thing surprisingly NOT on this album is that old chestnut "There Ain't No Cure for the Summertime Blues." But that's okay because I can imagine him singing it anyway. Just listen to the first song, and you'll get the picture without the rest of the suffering. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/0axX9QI21cCpvP11bEtJaG?si=7bG_YDlcSxmE9Wdp_fyvCQ