Bob Weir-Heaven Help The Fool (1978)

 

Artist: Bob Weir

Title: Heaven Help The Fool

Label: Arista

Format: LP

Cat #: ALB6-8366

Year of Release: 1978

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US mid 80's repress (black "sunrise" label)

Listed Condition:VG+/VG cutout in bottom right corner

Sell Date: 4/28/21

Sell Price: $3.49

Discogs Last Sold: 2/15/17

Low: $3.00

Median: $3.00

Average: $3.00

High: $3.00

Current low price: $20.00

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 2

Have/Want: 25/9

Where Sold:Minot, ME

Time it took to sell: 6 years

Where and When Bought: Worcester Al Bums early to mid 80's

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: D+

Sad To See It Go: No

I was actually looking forward to listening to this.  The cover is cool, Weir’s looks have an artful distance, with an acoustic guitar that doesn't standout anywhere on the release.  Unfortunately the bad parts of the Terrapin Station production are amplified in a late 70's mishmost of strings 'n ladies choruses.

Not hippie ladies or soul ladies, but canned sounding session ladies.  An anti-rock mix rectified by the Dead on Shakedown Street.at the end of the year.  The "Clive Davis magic" was off here, there wasn't anything that put Bobby in the top 40, or rocking enough for rock radio.  Still, the Grateful Dead affiliation was enough to make this chart on Billboards Top 200 album chart 4 months peaking at #69.  The opening cut "Bombs Away" was shockingly a minor hit peaking the Hot 100 at #70 making it the ONLY solo charting song of Weir's career to date.  I've had this album 35-40 years and still had no memory of this song in real time or my single listen after purchase in the mid 80's.  None of these tracks had any impact to stay with me over time.  Live it sounds a bit better.

The title track that opens side 2 was the standout on my first listen, although the strong chorus is wiped away by some meandering verse and the aforementioned session ladies. When the Dead performed it in 1980, they wiped out all vocals in an acoustic Reckoning arrangement.    This vocal approach has always been typical of Bobby Weir, but it just seems a bit amplified by a dogshit production full of late night TV horns.  Even the hard rock possibilities with a "Ready For Love" style build-up  in "Shades of Gray" and the Little Feat cover "Easy To Slip" fall behind the curve.  This isn't anywhere near Ace or even Kingfish, both of which I bought around the same time period.  

Producer Keith Olsen also did Terrapin Station as well as Foreigner's Double Vision and the Babys Union Jacks before going on to Pat Benatar's Crimes of Passion. Sometimes when people say everybody (mainstream) sucked in the 80's, they forget about the expectations foisted upon the titans of rock in the disco era.  What comes out here is some white bread soul, neither blue eyed or soulful, just stale.  

It takes a fool such as I to listen a second time just to make sure.

ED NOTE: Got those ladies chorus on the title track going through my head all day.  Weir’s revenge! Heaven help the foooool....heaven help the fooooooolllll....