Bloodstone - Train Ride To Hollywood (1975)

Train Ride to Hollywood, the movie, is not a masterpiece.   Its plot is underdeveloped, a good deal of scenes are ridiculous, and some of the dialogue makes you want to cringe.  Its storyline involves the R&B band Bloodstone encountering several departed movie stars from the thirties and forties on a train and misses a lot of opportunities set up by such an intriguing idea.  As much as it tries to be the seventies-soul equivalent of A Hard Day's Night, it falls far short of the mark.   

Train Ride To Hollywood, the soundtrack album, is something entirely different.

Bloodstone's soundtrack for their 1975 movie, their sixth album, is a excellent distillation of traditional rock and roll, straight Tin Pan Alley-derived pop, R&B balladeering, and a touch of jazz that makes the case for Bloodstone's music.  The group - down to a quartet by 1975 - recalls the harmonies of black groups like the Mills Brothers on a diverse set of covers of old standards, blended seamlessly with contemporary original songs rooted in funk and modern soul.  The members of Bloodstone assert themselves as top-notch musical stylists with impeccable taste and with reverence for the material.  

On the opening cut, a cover of "As Time Goes By," Willis Draffen delivers a heartfelt vocal that raises the standard to a rich soul performance worthy of Lou Rawls' singing style, while the group's cover of the Coasters' "Yakety Yak," with its frenzied, hurried harmonies, doesn't try to outdo the original 1958 record.  Instead, Bloodstone perform it with obvious respect for the song, bringing to it the same faithfulness that they bring to their a capella cover of the Chords' "Sh-Boom (Life Could Be a Dream)."  Both tracks show how seriously steeped they were in fifties harmony-style R&B since first forming in Kansas City as the Sinceres (a name they revived for the opening scene of Train Ride to Hollywood when they performed "Yakety Yak").  Much less respectful - and that's a compliment - is their brash Dixieland interpretation of "Toot! Toot! Tootsie (Goodbye)," an oafish 1920s Broadway minstrel tune popularized by the patron saint of cultural appropriation, Al Jolson.  "Toot! Toot! Tootsie (Goodbye)" was a blatant act of white people stealing black music; with this assertive, energetic cover, Bloodstone steal it back.  

Their originals also have a great deal of charm and character, showing the influences of the various covers.  "Rock 'n' Roll" Choo-Choo" is a fun number, with a great boogie-woogie piano riff and a joyous vocal from Draffen referencing all of the famous actors and movie characters represented in the film, the lyrics suggesting Jerry Lee Lewis and the Isley Brothers having written a song together after staying up to watch the late show.  Charles McCormick's feature number, "Hooray For Romance," is an engaging ballad with a solid modern soul arrangement, while Harry Williams displays some heavy bravado in the rocker "I'm In Shape."  Incredibly, the best original song on the Train Ride to Hollywood soundtrack may be "Train Ride," performed in a Busby Berkeley style with a classic movie-musical arrangement, with Bloodstone's voices gliding through detailed lyrics like the 20th Century Limited itself glides on rails.

But in choosing between the covers and the originals, well, to quote a line from the movie, I guess I'm just a sentimental old fool.  I love the old songs.  And when Bloodstone close this album with an updated version of an old Motown song - Barrett Strong's "Money (That's What I Want)," famously covered by the Beatles twelve years earlier - they demonstrate why they're so good at covers.  Draffen and Charles Love trade heavy guitar licks that were far sharper than what most white guitarists were playing in 1975, and McCormick's bass adds extra funk, but the icing on the cake is Williams' lead vocal, which might have been a reason John Lennon took five years off from making records.  Williams goes beyond singing the words of "Money" and interjects shouts and screams that demonstrate his ability to use his larynx as a weapon as well as an instrument.  You hear his wail - "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, HA!" - and, God damn, what a holy moment!

What's particularly noteworthy of the Train Ride to Hollywood soundtrack is that the songs are in the same running order on record as they are in the movie, showing how committed Bloodstone were to their music - the movie was made around the music, not the other way around.  Sadly, the movie's flaws helped to ensure that the soundtrack wouldn't make the charts, but the record is still there for anyone wishing to hop on board.  Get those engines rolling, indeed, and save a ticket for me.