Micheal Franks: Classic or dud?

but wait .. is startrekman possibly scott in disguise??!! could be, that rascally rabbit!

I only know "Tiger in the Rain", and I do love it! But yeah, scott is totally the man: http://skotrok.blogspot.com/

tried to get my dad into this stuff but he wasnt having it

how dope is this vid btw

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1mq5f_michael-franks-art-of-love_music

I like "Your Secret's Safe with Me" -- smooooth:

dude is currently killing it

love several of his albums

i think he has a food fetish

currently?

search: "Eggplant"

Actually, The Art of Tea = classic

i'm still writing a book about michael franks. or a book-length fanzine anyway.

Can someone plz fix this thread title? This could be important later.

I would love if Michael Franks became the new Steely Dan. Meaning that he became the new super-smooth "You don't get it man" affectation, but also faded from hipster favor after a year or two because, well, people just don't get it.

i love michael franks. currensy & french montana just sampled my favorite song of his

Link?

assuming this? http://www.dirtyglovebastard.net/?p=24571

what's the original?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DVLixP63Fk

ha funny. that record's actually currently on the turntable.

just bought that record a week and a half ago in PDX

i feel like i made some dreamy make-out mix youtube thread at one point but i cant find it. i would have included that & dexter wansel's "one million miles from the ground" & minnie riperton's "inside my love"

'make out mix' implies something a bit lighter than these songs i suppose lol

love this dude .... 4ever the sexiest shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn_zFfCj6xk

cmon yall

picked up Skin Dive this weekend. haven't listened yet. kinda hoping it's on the smooth steely dan/avalon tip (all the other ones i have are more folky)

art of tea is way more jazzy. even his folky stuff sometimes has some R&B muscle to it?? like the guitar solo in 'lotus blossom'

jaxon, do you have the first album? simply called Michael Franks. every album up to and including One Bad Habit is great if you ask me. Every 70's album is worth owning. My faves are probably Sleeping Gypsy, Burchfield Nines, and One Bad Habit. But the self-titled album has one of the greatest jams on it and Art Of Tea is kinda perfect. I like Skin Dive, but I probably wouldn't recommend it to someone who wasn't already a fan. These are my reviews of Objects Of Desire and Tiger In The Rain:

Michael Franks - Objects Of Desire (Warner Brothers - 1982)

On the opener, "Jealousy", Michael swallows a meat-hook. The slightly airless - like someone cracked the can but didn't let enough light in - horns echo his dyspepsia. On "Ladies' Night", Bonnie Raitt joins Michael at the bar of the Wishing Well Saloon for some 50 cent drinks. The sessioneers are strutting their well-honed stuff. Or sleeping. One or the other. How could you tell by this point in their careers. Sessioneers? And then some: The Bros. Brecker, Larry Carlton, Mark Egan, Steve Khan, David Sanborn, Lew Soloff, Luther Vandross and many more. You get the picture. The deck is stacked for no-surprise smooth. Michael doesn't fool around when he calls in the pros. And his toothbrush may be gone, but he's still got a tank full of laughing gas. Too bad his vocals were recorded on an MRI machine. But it was the 80's. People were in love with their shiny new machines and their Arps and their OB-Xa's and their Prophet-5's and their digitally processed flugelhorns. Michael fries up rice in a pan in "Wonderland", where the jills ain't jokin' when they take you to heaven for a subway token. "Wonderland" is actually a dream. Hypnotic and warm to the touch. Sometimes that Moog bass can really come in handy. Slow jam as narcoleptic nod-out. While Michael's hot buttermilk vocal tones aren't in any way curdled on Objects Of Desire, there is a weary 70's hangover vibe that invades the material. Even his Tahitian sweety hands him a note that reads: "Love is the pain you can't refuse." M.F. is the king of food and drink as metaphor and reminder of sex/love and on this album he sounds like he's gone on a diet. There is no tea steeping in the pot. He sits under a mango tree, but does he partake in this exotic fruit? Man cannot live on fried rice alone. "Flirtation" has some pep in its step, but it's not very convincing pep. There is no essential vim in its strenuous vigor. "Love Duet" is a lyrical dud. The disco strings and Arthur On The Rocks saxophone begin to take their toll on the listener. The whole thing ends with "No One But You". A pretty little ballad that would sound great coming from Blossom Dearie. M.F.'s best ballads all sound as if they were made to be sung by cabaret veterans in a hotel lounge at midnight. And I mean this as a compliment. Not that he can't sell them on his own. He can. Overall, on this album it sounds like Michael was in need of a long nap (No mean feat for a singer who often sounds like he has recorded his vocals in bed.). Maybe the sexy seventies had caught up with this often horizontal blue-eyed soulman with the bedroom mustache. Lovers can't always be rockin'. Not essential - with the exceptions of the two lovely little trifles that end each side - but the picture on the inside sleeve where Michael looks like Frank Zappa is worth a buck or two.

Michael Franks - Tiger In The Rain (Warner Brothers-1979)

Slowly but surely, the debauchery of the 70's is catching up with M.F. He hasn't hit rock-bottom yet, but the album opener, "Sanpaku", is one helluva hangover song. He used to chew the root until his brain was fried, chop the line, wake up red-eye from the wine. He can't even remember all the highs he tried! A regretful string-section lies quietly in the brush and Paul Griffin lets loose with a lovely organ solo. An exotic jungle lay-dee takes him by the hand and warns him away from the low life. (F.Y.I.-For better or for worse, Rousseau is one of M.F.'s fave painters and is praised in the sleeve-notes for his "innocent directness". Lock up yer daughters, America.) "When It's Over" is the shortest, sweetest kiss-off you've ever heard: "All those books on your shelf...Did they teach you how to cure yourself? Not even Sigmund Freud can save you from the love you destroyed." Ouch! "Living On The Inside" is a much more tranquil and domestic scene. The tea is from Tibet, Michael plays the scales, and his lady protects the whales. They make love listening to Satie, they paint the rooms, the pumpkins bloom. "We're so francais/With lime & Perrier." Ooh baby baby. Stellar slow jam cast too: Ron Carter, Bucky Pizzarelli, Kenny Barron, and weeping (with joy) string-section. This is just a great getting away from it all jazz-pop album. The emphasis is definitely on the "jazz" too. Beautiful arrangements for brass and the (regretful & weeping) strings. "Tiger In The Rain" is -sigh- a love song to Michael's cat, but it's such a pretty tune with such a strong melody that it more than transcends its precious/homely sentiments. Sick of the zombie trains, and stews and critics that are too acidic, M.F. ends up in Brazil under a banana tree by the end of side one. By side two he's underneath an apple tree (In, hey!, whaddya know, a song called "Underneath The Apple Tree".) shooting up summertime and drinking tea instead of wine. In the nude. Most memorable lines award would have to go to either: "Let's play pin-the-tail-on-the-bunny/Let's play grizzly bear finding honey/Let the lukewarm milk of precaution be spilt-It's full-tilt." OR "When I saw you there in your Danskin/Then the wolf jumped out of the lambskin/And a blush came over your cheeks/In the room filled with freaks". The overlong cliche-riddled "Lifeline" that closes the record is the only dud. The nautical metaphors used to describe a love-affair sink this leaky ship. M.F. doesn't sound at ease on the sea. He's a bossa nova baby at heart and needs to be on the beach to really make his luverly ditties swim.

I don't talk publicly about how much I like Michael Franks because I get clowned enough as it is

i'm loud and proud. the only other troo fans i knew in real life were african-american crate-digging DJs that i used to sell records to in philly years ago. i remember saying to one guy: you like michael franks? (cuz i hadn't met anyone yet other than my dad who dug him) and he stopped what he was doing and said with a very serious face: "oh yeah." like it was serious business.

(where my dad and i part ways is with mark murphy. my father is completely in love with mark murphy and thinks he's the greatest jazz singer alive. i...don't, i guess.)

i've got Art of Tea, Tiger In The Rain, One Bad Habit, and now Skin Dive. i'm definitely a fan and get that the folky stuff is still heavily r'n'b & litefunk. but i was looking for something even smoother, so i'm going further out. i've got a pretty high tolerance for smooth stuff these days. i think i'll eventually pick up them all because they're always in dollar bins.

like i asked deej, have people heard the new reissue of Matthew Larkin Cassell? so amazing. records always go for over $100 on ebay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xZt7ggnuL4

i will eventually start a thread on this kinda stuff (jazz, folky, fake steelydan litefunk)

xpost, i really like mark murphy. well, his 70s records at least, haven't heard anything else
Mark Murphy - cd/sd

I've never heard mark murphy. I learned about michael franks when my trad-jazz father was divorced & hating it in the mid-seventies and was trying to get with the newer stuff in the jazz section. it was equal parts sad and inspiring, because I knew he was only ever gonna love trad jazz, it was clear that that was where his heart lay, but he'd loved jazz all his life and wanted to stay current and here was "the art of tea" in boo-boo records and he thought, "art of tea" on a jazz record, that's funny, "tea" is what we called weed in clubs way back. so he bought it and dug it but still I knew at the end of the day dude is gonna be thinking "all these noobs are amateurs, amateurs, they play one set a night and think it's work"

jaxon, you really need the first album. some of the best lyrics and some of the best instrumental jams. its as "far out" as michael ever got. and, fittingly, its on BRUT records, a label owned by the makers of BRUT cologne.

just copped "Art of Tea". it's too overcast to listen to right now, though. his music is sooooo San Diego

WTF are you talking about, B'heems? "Wear a sarong I can undo/As soon as we're home, Chez nous" is how I scored my wife.

― Andy K (Andy K), Friday, April 16, 2004 8:52 PM (6 years ago) Bookmark

If you want to get some idea about how much Detroit still loves Michael Franks, check a group called Detroiters Who Miss WJZZ 105.9 FM.

A Facebook group, that is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhF6thLUeN0

this might not be everyone's cup of tea, but i absolutely love how he says "i can't tell you i love you..... in public"

the song "please don't say goodnight" from the same album is fucking fantastic, but not on youtube

Just listening to the very first Michael Franks album...sounds like Iron And Wine...nice...I wish I had a Michael Franks kinda life...

kinda feelin some of these live '91 recordings
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U0QL3pXcp

oops
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U0QL3pXcpk

ahaha this funk version of 'monkey see monkey do'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSygxn39ArA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9o9UvWIHEI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhouXZoGO70

in rappers-sampling-michael-franks news

i prefer the joint where he raps over 'ghost town' by the specials, though

swim on the rivers of mars, bring your dulcimer i'll bring my guitar

That first album is a little gem...I bet that guy lives well!!

Just want to drive through wine country in a convertible blasting this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o68a87bOr2A

Fuck - I meant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGQzKLcnrfI

great album

a guy who, when the thread gets bumped, I'm afraid it's for RIPurposes

has there ever been a song this good about erectile dysfunction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D1jhA8qxxA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdwu0I_vhXk

Diving into Rendezvous in Rio for the first time ever.

Wait, this is 2006? Would have thought this was '84 or something, his Dream of the Blue Turtles.

https://youtu.be/bVDM2TWvkB8