release date: 1980
format: cd (1994 reissue)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,12]
producer: Billy Cross
label: Medley Records - nationality: Denmark
6th studio album by C.V. Jørgensen following one year after
Solgt til stanglakrids was originally his first album on the newly established Danish record label Medley. About the same time, his former label Metronome released the compilation
Det Ganske Lille Bands bedste. The new studio album is C.V.'s only with Billy Cross (aka Billy Schwartz) as producer. Following two albums with producer Stig Kreutzfeldt, which had contributed in a broader pop / rock mainstream sound, Jørgensen began a collaboration with Delta-Cross Band in the wake of a completed tour with his normal backing band, who at the same time had embarked on a project with the aim to release music under the name of C.V. Moto. Free from usual collaborators, Jørgensen and Cross had composed the majority of the tracks for a new album with a more regular rock sound as accompaniment to a collection of new songs filled with social awareness. American guitarist Billy Cross had been lead guitarist in the band Topaz (where he performed under the name Billy Schwartz), later he was guitarist on Dylan's two albums from '78:
Bob Dylan at Budokan and
Street-Legal. In 1977 he began a collaboration with the Danish band Delta Blues Band in Denmark - and shortly afterwards now with Cross officially incorporated in the band, they changed name to Delta-Cross Band. For the album
Tidens tern, Cross hired American sound engineer Jay Klugman, who had previously worked with prominent names such as Lou Reed, J. Geils, The Dictators, David Johansen, and The Blues Brothers - on the album he's credited as co-producer [perhaps rather brought in to help Cross fill the role as producer, since this is the very first album with Cross in a role of technical personnel?]. The music was recorded without anyone from C.V.'s normal backing band. Instead, Delta-Cross Band fills this part, which means that Billy Cross is credited on lead and rhythm guitar, he is co-composer, and additionally, he is also musical arranger, Søren Engel is bassist, Troels Jensen handles piano and organ, and Preben Feddersen is drummer. Seen in this light, it is quite natural that the album marks a new chapter in C.V. Jørgensen's discography.
Musically, it differs from his earlier but also his later albums by being kept in a more traditional rock style, which predominantly is based on an American blues rock school - as an obvious result of the strong influence of Delta-Cross Band. It's an album without funk rock, country rock, and folk-oriented mix that had come to characterise Jørgensen's last two albums, and instead this new album sounds more like a period-typical mix of pop / rock with obvious ties to Lou Reed, Link Wray, and perhaps even Springsteen. The songs here are simple harmony-based compositions with Jørgensen's characteristic vocals and lyrics. The combination proved to hold up quite well, at least in terms of raising critical acclaim and good sales figures. The reviewers were enthusiastic, and the album gave Jørgensen his first and probably biggest hit ever with the country plague "Costa del Sol", which soon became a Danish classic and which, four decades later, still is a song you'll hear played on national radio. In Scandinavia,
Tidens tern lifted Jørgensen into the league with the greatest contemporary pop / rock artists, and at the beginning of the new millennium the album was selected and found worthy of inclusion in the Danish Agency of Culture's canon list of the finest Danish works [
link].
What particularly works so fine on the album is the uncomplicated music in combination with Jørgensen's far from simple lyrics. When you think of his musical background with its sarcastic tone, which precisely had been the hallmark of the traditional political folk and singer / songwriter style he found inspiration from when he first started out as a songwriter, then it's perhaps not too difficult to imagine that C.V. simply himself had difficulty coming to terms with how his astute lyrics at times created a kind of distance to parts of his audience. By wrapping the lyrics in simple traditional rock arrangements, people may have found it easier to digest the extra layer his lyrics contributed. Granted, I still think the album is among his better, but C.V. didn't care much about it himself. He certainly toured with the music for a single year in company of Delta-Cross Band, but already in the Spring of '81 he ended his collaboration with Delta-Cross-Band only to make another artistic U-turn in an attempt to distance himself from the "Costa del Sol"-syndrome he felt subjected to. That also meant a minor break with the new mainstream pop / rock, for which he himself had become one of the biggest apologists.
Tidens tern is a Danish classic without actual fillers, and the album contains several fan favorites - tracks fans simply expected to be played at his concerts.
Once again, the front cover is credited C.V.'s girlfriend, Annemarie Albrectsen.
Great recommendation.
[
Gaffa.dk 5 / 6 stars (2018 reissue) ]
