Record of the Week - Artful Dodger - The Complete Columbia Recordings (CD)

Those that follow power-pop closely, especially mid 70s power pop, are probably already familiar with this band from Virginia.  Their great song, Wayside, was included in a key various artists compilation, DIY: Come Out and Play - American Power Pop 1 (1975-1978), that was quite popular amongst the rabid pop fans of the early 90s. 

In order to listen to Artful Dodger records today, one usually has to search used record bins. I found at least one that way and have seen their other releases in various shape around Los Angeles.  This CD is then a welcome addition to my collection because it gathers their three albums for Columbia Records on 2 CDs in a nice package.  So, less time digging through used bins for Artful Dodger albums (at least momentarily).  In addition, the liner notes are excellent and are penned by Jeremy Cargill- so you know they will be good.

The first album, for my taste, is the best one of the bunch. Aside from opening with Wayside, there are other great songs like, It's Over, that are both melodic and have a bit of bite to them. The bite, in part, comes from the throaty vocals of Billy Paliselli.  Most of the songs on the first LP are written by guitarist Gary Herrewig and Paliselli and they make a nice songwriting combo. They seem to carry much of the first album and their songs are excellent.  The other songwriter in the band was Gary Cox, who is no slouch by any means, but his songwriting tended to be a more pure pop sound; a sound with less bite but more polish.  In fact, on the third album (Babes on Broadway), Cox carries more of the songwriting credits and actually pens a song that could easily be mistaken for an mid-era Bee Gees composition (Who in the World).  Not surprising, as Cox wrote more songs, Artful Dodger became a little less crunchy and a bit more polished. Becoming a bit more polished is not a bad thing if the melodies are still there and luckily for us Artful Dodger was always melodic.

Artful Dodger was a good band and based on some of the live videos that you can find on YouTube, a pretty good live band.  While they never quite reached the high standards of their first LP, the next two albums had enough good songs on them for it to make it worth while to buy this CD. Yes, you should still hunt those used bins for the vinyl copies as well!