The Waterboys – Life, Death And Dennis Hopper (Sun) (13th Floor Album Review)
Mike Scott and his current band of Waterboys take on the life and times of actor, director (and photographer) Dennis Hopper with a double album devoted to the “colourful” screen legend.
Scottish singer, songwriter and bandleader has been helming The Waterboys on and off since 1983, running through over 80 bandmates in the process and producing a couple of classic albums along the way. Those would be 1985’s This Is The Sea and 1988’s Fisherman’s Blues and despite the unstable band make-up, the music has been consistently high-quality over the 40+ years.
With 2011’s An Appointment With Mr Yeats, Scott has focused on a fellow artist previous to this audio-biography of Dennis Hopper.
Hopper made his screen debut on 1955, appearing with James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, before becoming a 60’s cultural icon thanks to writing, directing and starring in Easy Rider in 1969. He then cemented his legacy when he freaked out movie-goers in 1986 as the huffing psychopath in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as his personal life often eclipsed the shenanigan’s his film characters got up to, including an 8-day marriage to former Mama & Papa Michelle Phillips. Hopper seemed to be at the right place at the right time, consistently, whether it was Monterey or Venice Beach.
So Mike Scott had plenty to work with, although what apparently inspired this album was Hopper’s lesser-known talents as a photographer. The head Waterboy caught an exhibition of his photos in London at the Royal Academy called The Lost Album.
And so The Lost Album is where Mike Scott found this album.
Spread out over 25 tracks and over and hour long, the record captures the essence of Hopper…or the many versions of Hopper.
It begins, not with Scott’s Dylan-esque Scottish voice, but with the Southern twang of Steve Earle who sings opening track, Kansas.
Earle is just one of a number of guests who help out. The most notable is Bruce Springsteen, who speak/sings over a segment of Ten Years Gone, but the most effective guest is Fiona Apple, who follows with an emotional Letter From A Unknown Girlfriend.
I’m also kind of partial to Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith’s vocal on I Don’t Know How I Made It.
Overall the album does tell Hopper’s life story in fairly linear fashion. There’s Hollywood ‘55 at the beginning, then Andy (A Guy Like You)…bright, upbeat song for Drella…Blues For Terry Southern, a dreamy tribute to the Easy Rider writer who should have read the small print…a deranged Frank (Let’s F*ck) and finally, The Passing Of Hopper and its Aftermath.
Scott not only sings, he uses his voice as a screen announcer, a narrator and various characters along the way.
This is a very ambitious, but very entertaining endeavour…one I don’t think anyone saw coming…not unlike Hopper himself.
Marty Duda
Life, Death And Dennis Hopper is out now on Sun Records.
