Eric Jacobsen (Jacobsen is a Scandinavian surname, read it however you want) already had a lot of experience producing the Lovin’ Spoonful band when he knocked out some money for the fledgling Silvertone team from the mighty Warner Bros. Records. The story seemed to be running in a spiral.
Music similar to rockabilly, but sounding quite modern, began to creep into the charts. The Stray Cats, The Rockats, The Blasters et cetera. Jacobsen found different intonations in the Silvertone sound from the above-mentioned groups. The recorded demo version did not suit either the label or the musicians. The double bass player and the drummer had to be fired, after which the remaining duo went to the studio without any confidence in even a small success. Eric, sensitive to such collisions, invited the best rhythm section he could find. Prairie Prince took over the beaters, and Chris Solberg, the caesar of studio bass, took over the bass. Precisely because the Silvertone band did not exist at the time of recording, the name was immortalized in the album’s name.
Listen online or download Chris Isaak – Silvertone album 1985 (mp3, 90 MB)
Jacobsen financed the recording of the debut album with his own funds, and the musicians, saving cents, assembled the mosaic, song by song, for a whole year, starting in 1983. Eric also insisted that all contracts should be signed not by the band’s leader, but by solo singer Chris Isaak. Isaak’s potential was also heard by the deaf in the very first song: Dancin’, a creepy sketch about moving bodies, decorated with a sepulchral dancing electric organ. Chris’ first masterpiece, which anticipated a string of subsequent hits. Absolutely mesmerizing.
Talk To Me is macabre even against the background of the previous one. Lead guitarist Jim Wilsey delivers insinuating passages accessible only to a select few, otherwise the album would have gone multi-platinum. A deathly chill beckons, as if promising the heat of hell. The voodoo dolls sing along softly.
Livin’ For Your Lover is a delightful rockabilly shuffle where the vocals turn into a guitar solo. And the feeling of joy does not leave, like an idiot sent from a cannon to the moon. Behind the drums is the legendary Jim Keltner.
Back On Your Side is the case when rockabilly starts to sound like post-punk, although, of course, this is post-punk trying to steal rockabilly’s most afterlife ideas.
Voodoo is practically psychobilly, as Roy Orbison would interpret it.
Funeral In The Rain thickens the darkness. No one knows what awaits us there, but rain, clay, and a dirty prayer guide us from here. Everyone will drink coffee diluted by a downpour, suddenly laughing nervously and mentally counting down the steps to their own wake.
The Lonely Ones raises the degree of despair to a pre-infarction state. James Brown’s saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis bursts in, echoing the lyrical hero with hoarse moans, looping his agony through time.
Unhappiness is already completely creepy. Skipped backwards, the guitar part meows Martowski about the imperfection of cocktail parties and loneliness in the midst of any crowd. But the guitar also reminds of the thin membrane that the scary entities on the other side are ready to break through.
Tears is full of longing, strewn with fragments of rockabilly dreams with vibrant passages by James Calvin Wilsey. It’s terribly beautiful. Scary. Nicely.
Gone Ridin’ was taken over by David Lynch, using it in “Blue Velvet”. It’s amazing that any song from this album would be perfect for any Lynch movie. And this fast-paced, disturbing “action movie” in hot rod rhythm and Twin Peaks was asking for it. Chris Isaak ended up playing an FBI agent in Twin Peaks: Fire, Walk with Me, accompanied by Angelo Badalamenti.
Pretty Girls Don’t Cry is a cheerful tex-mex designed to sweeten the taste of fear that clings to the tongue.
Western Stars is a witty, if not snide, country song, undoubtedly beautiful, but unexpected in the light of other material.
Bonus track: Another Idea is an unsuccessful tilt towards modern trends, released exclusively on American editions of the album.
Even John Fogerty praised the Silvertone album, which didn’t help: only 14,000 listeners bought it in the year of its release. But the cinema began to bite Chris by the elbows: give me a song for this movie, give me a song for that one? And Bernardo Bertolucci actually shot him in “The Little Buddha.” But this first studio work by Chris Isaak is phenomenal in its otherness, anguish and maturity, some songs completely deny the passage of time, sounding relevant today, yesterday and tomorrow. It’s time to catch moon dreams!
