ALWAYSBACK

6368 - DWIGHT TWILLEY - Green Blimp (2010)

DWIGHT TWILLEY
''GREEN BLIMP''
2010
44:59

1 - Get Up/3:54
2 - Speed Of Light/3:49
3 - Me And Melanie/3:41
4 - Let It Rain/3:52
5 - Doctor/4:01
6 - Green Blimp/3:36
7 - You Were Always There/3:54
8 - It's Never Coming Back/3:47
9 - Stop/3:14
10 - Ten Times/3:31
11 - Witches In The Sky/3:44
12 - It Ends/3:51
All Tracks By Twilley

James Barth /Arranger, String Arrangements, Strings
Rocky Burnette /Vocals
John Cooper /Mandolin
Susan Cowsill /Vocals
Ray Hamilton /Percussion
Richard Keck /Percussion
Brandon McGovern /Guitar (Electric), Guitar (Rhythm), Vocals
Bill Padgett /Congas, Percussion
Bill Pitcock /Bass, Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Nylon String), Horn
Dwight Twilley /Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Harmonica, Keyboards, Percussion, Piano, Producer, Vocals
Michael Webb /Accordion
Dave White /Bass, Keyboards, Percussion, Vocals
Doug Wiley /Drums, Percussion
Brad Zimmerman /Percussion

REVIEW
By Mark Deming
Nearly 35 years after "I'm on Fire," Dwight Twilley hasn't stopped writing and recording great pop tunes, and if he doesn't seem especially concerned with keeping up with the times, that's not to say his music hasn't been evolving. 2010's Green Blimp is as tuneful and carefully crafted as any of Twilley's classic albums of the '70s and '80s, but he's cautiously moved on from the Beatlesque power pop sound of his best-known work; full of keyboards, strings, big distorted guitars, accordions, Latin percussion, and other musical seasonings, the scale of Green Blimp suggests some harder-rocking variant on the classic bigger-is-better production styles of Phil Spector or Brian Wilson, though Twilley's melodic structures still sound quite familiar to a longtime listener. At the same time, the boomy drum sounds and the synthesizer patches suggest this was recorded at a studio that was state of the art in 1985; Twilley is still a guy fascinated with rock & roll's past, but on Green Blimp he seems to be doing a balancing act between two ears separated by 20 years. The really unusual part, though, is that Twilley actually pulls this off; instead of pulling at one another, the divergent influences of Green Blimp cohere into something that connects strongly with Twilley's elemental pop songcraft, and his vocals are excellent, full-bodied and bold on rockers like "Get Up" and "Doctor," and full of nuance on slower, more atmospheric numbers like "Let It Rain" and the psychedelic title track. And if not every tune here is on a par with "I'm on Fire" or "Girls," cue up "Stop," "Speed of Light," and "It Ends" and you'll know right away this man's creative well is a long way from dried out. There's no telling how Twilley came up with the formula for Green Blimp, but as long as he can keep making albums this good, he's advised to keep mixing his eras to his heart's content.

BIOGRAPHY
By Chris Woodstra
Though the Dwight Twilley Band only had one hit (Twilley had another on his own), Twilley and partner Phil Seymour created an enduring and highly memorable brand of power pop that blended Beatlesque pop and Sun rockabilly "slapback" echo. Only a fraction of the band's early output was made available at the time, but these records are highly revered by power pop aficionados.

According to the legend, Dwight Twilley met Phil Seymour in 1967 at a theater where they had gone to see the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night. After the film they immediately went to Twilley's house to start writing and recording. The two continued the partnership over the next several years, calling themselves Oister and recruiting another part-time member, Bill Pitcock IV, on lead guitar. After developing their sound in their homemade studio, "the Shop," they decided to take a stab at professional recording and headed out to Nashville, though they ended up stopping first at the legendary Sun Studios. Jerry Phillips (Sam's son) was impressed enough to team them up with former Sun artist Ray Harris, who introduced them to "the Sun sound," roughing up their Beatles-obsessed style a bit and creating a unique and endearing sound.

The two signed to Shelter Records in 1974. Their first single, "I'm on Fire," became a national hit in 1975, peaking at number 16, with relatively no promotion. During an appearance on American Bandstand, the band previewed what was to be the follow-up single, "Shark," an equally infectious, hit-worthy rocker. The success of the film Jaws caused the label to reject the single, however, to keep them from becoming perceived as a cash-in novelty act. This was just the beginning of bad luck that would plague the group from that point on. Their follow-up single and completed album went unreleased for 18 months due to label problems, and a second album recorded in England was left unreleased altogether, creating a myth around the band in some circles while the general public quickly lost interest. The belated follow-up single, "You Were So Warm," ended up failing due to distribution problems. Predictably, when the album Sincerely was finally released, it failed as well. Seymour and Twilley befriended the like-minded Tom Petty and contributed backing vocals on several tracks. Petty repaid the favor for their second album, Twilley Don't Mind, for Arista in 1977. Despite the once again unquestionably high quality of songs, the album stiffed as well. Seymour left the band the following year, pursuing a brief solo career before lymphoma cut his life short in 1993.

Twilley carried on as a solo act, releasing Twilley for Arista in 1979 and Scuba Divers for EMI America in 1982, and found success again with Jungle in 1984, when he scored his second hit with "Girls." Wild Dogs went unnoticed on its 1986 release by CBS Associated Records. In addition, Twilley recorded an album in 1980, Blueprint, that remains unreleased and contributed one track to the 1992 Wayne's World soundtrack, "Why You Want to Break My Heart." In 1993, DCC released The Great Lost Twilley Album, which collected a fraction of the "hundreds" of unreleased songs Twilley and Seymour recorded in the early, ill-fated days. Two newly recorded songs appeared on the best-of collection XXI (The Right Stuff) in 1996, and in 1999, Twilley released both another rarities collection, Between the Cracks, Vol. 1 (Not Lame Archives), and his first new album in 13 years, Tulsa (Copper). In 2001, Twilley released The Luck (Big Oak), an album he had actually completed in 1994. The seasonal EP Have a Twilley Christmas (DMI) appeared in 2004, followed by Twilley's ninth studio album, 47 Moons, in 2005.

In 2007 he signed to Gigatone Records and a deluge of Twilley releases followed, including reissues of Tulsa and 47 Moons (with bonus tracks), seven volumes of Rarities discs, and a compilation of tracks recorded after Twilley left CBS, Northridge to Tulsa. In 2009 he released an album of Beatles covers titled simply The Beatles and followed it with an album of originals in 2010 titled Green Blimp. After Twilley moved to the Varèse Sarabande label, his 11th album, Soundtrack, was issued in late 2011.