Billy Falcon - Falcon Around

Bitrate: 320K/s
Year: 1980
Time: 36:41
Size: 84,4 MB
Label: MCA Records
Styles: Rock
Art: Front

Tracks Listing:
 1. I Never Did It (Hardly Ever) - 4:07
 2. Blue Smoke - 4:26
 3. Mozambiques, Mozambiques - 3:16
 4. Not Goin' Down - 4:07
 5. Businessman's Lunch - 2:57
 6. Reaction - 3:23
 7. Rocks In His Head - 2:53
 8. I Don't Know Nothin' - 3:22
 9. Date With The King - 3:58
10. Holdin' On - 4:07

This 1980 album by singer/songwriter Billy Falcon plays a lot like early John Cougar Mellencamp -- material that isn't quite there yet -- significant only because it is a rare album from this time period by the legendary Jimmy Miller. Three years before Johnny Thunders' In Cold Blood would see the light of day, this album sounds more like Miller discovery Joey Stec than the lead guitarist from the New York Dolls. "Mozambiques, Mozambiques" rips "Rip This Joint" from Exile on Main St., but doesn't have the musicianship of the Rolling Stones or the chemistry when Jimmy Miller recorded that legendary album in the south of France. Falcon Around, however, was recorded in Olympic Studios in London, where the Stones had much success. It just really never gets off the ground because Billy Falcon's talent is nowhere near that of the Rolling Stones, or many other acts recorded by their former producer. Charles Koppelman, who would reshape the '80s with his SBK company, and Miller's manager, George Greif, who also managed Jose Feliciano and the New Christy Minstrels, were heavily involved, and with the big boys behind him, it is interesting how this effort by Falcon didn't have a cover or a song from someone's publishing catalog or anything that resembles the all important break-through hit. "Not Goin' Down is appealing in its own way -- a very nice album track, but the vocal over does it, despite rather elegant musical production by Jimmy Miller. The waves the producer was making with Motorhead and the Plasmatics was in heavy metal and punk circles, but this is an interesting look at a project of his that didn't gain much notoriety, and fills in forgotten spaces on his amazing resume. Having seen Jimmy Miller at work, it is hard to picture him accepting a tune like "Businessman's Lunch" unless the artist was adamant about it. Miller had tremendous ears and would only tell his acts once if he disagreed -- after that, you were on your own. There is none of the magic here that he put into so many records, from Traffic to Spooky Tooth and Blind Faith, making this one of the albums which sound like he was there in the room, but not giving much input. The tricks with the echo are far from Miller's cohesive style and the material is shockingly weak to be endorsed by a heavyweight publisher like Charlie Koppelman. "Holdin' On" closes out the album, and it is a decent hook as well as performance, following nondescript compositions like "Reaction," "Rocks in His Head," and the completely awful "I Don't Know Nothin'," which will rank as one of the worst efforts in Jimmy Miller's illustrious career. This is another one of those albums you need to own for posterity, but need not play.

Falcon Around