Paris 1919 (album)

Paris 1919
Studio album by John Cale
Released	March 1973
Recorded	Sunwest Studios, Los Angeles
Genre	Art rock, Baroque pop
Length	31:30
Language	English
Label	Reprise
Producer	Chris Thomas
John Cale chronology
The Academy in Peril (1972) Paris 1919 (1973) June 1, 1974 (1974)

Paris 1919 is an album by Welsh musician John Cale, released in March 1973. It was produced by Chris Thomas and features a backing band consisting largely of members of Little Feat.^[1] Paris 1919 is made up of songs with arcane and complex lyrics; musically, the album is a shift from his previous works with composer Terry Riley and his avant-garde experiments with La Monte Young towards a more baroque sound. It is the most accessible and traditional of Cale's albums,^[2] and the most well-known of his work as a solo artist.

The album's title makes reference to the Versailles Conference, the partitioning of Europe that, through the assignment of unilateral war reparations, arguably contributed substantially to the rise of the Third Reich; Cale described the record as "an example of the nicest ways of saying something ugly."^[1] A remastered and expanded edition was released in June 2006, featuring alternate versions of each song on the album, as well as the previously unreleased session outtake "Burned Out Affair".

Release and reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[2]
Robert Christgau	B+[3]
Pitchfork Media	(9.5/10)[4]
Rolling Stone	(favorable)[5]
Piero Scaruffi	(6/10)[6]
Sputnikmusic	[7]
Tiny Mix Tapes	[8]

Paris 1919 takes its influences from Brian Wilson, The Bee Gees, and Procol Harum's 1972 live album Live in Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.^[1] It was recorded in 1972 and 1973 with producer Chris Thomas, and features Little Feat members Lowell George on guitar, Bill Payne on keyboards, and Richie Hayward on drums, in addition to Wilton Felder of The Crusaders on bass, and orchestration provided by the UCLA Symphony Orchestra.^[1] Lyrically, Cale recalls possible childhood memories in "Child's Christmas in Wales", whose title is a reference to a prose poem by Dylan Thomas and a reference to Thomas' poem "The Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait" in its second verse. Cale makes cultural and literary references to writer Graham Greene, William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Enoch Powell, Chipping Sodbury, Andalucia, Dunkirk, and Segovia,^[1] while "Antarctica Starts Here" is inspired by the 1950 Billy Wilder film Sunset Boulevard starring Gloria Swanson.^[9]

The album was released in March 1973 by Reprise Records to warm critical reception. The Los Angeles Times called Paris 1919 "the idiosyncratic pinnacle to Cale's thrilling yet perverse career, despite the fact it never topped the charts."^[10] Paris 1919 was reissued on 19 June 2006 by Rhino Records UK, featuring the original album remastered, in addition to the outtake "Burned Out Affair", alternate and rehearsal versions of every song on the album, a hidden, unlisted instrumental version of "Macbeth", and the sound effects of the chirping birds found in the title track. Pitchfork Media gave the reissue a 9.5 out of 10 rating,^[4] and Allmusic gave the album 4-and-a-half stars, calling the songs "...richly poetic, enigmatic period pieces strongly evocative of their time and place. ...Indeed, there's little here to suggest either Cale's noisy, abrasive past or the chaos about to resurface in his subsequent work -- for better or worse, his music never achieved a similar beauty again."^[2]

Legacy

Cale has performed Paris 1919 live in its entirety throughout the world, beginning in Cardiff on 21 November 2009, with his regular band and a 19-piece orchestra. The show was staged again in 2010 in London, Norwich, Paris, Brescia, Los Angeles, and Melbourne, then in 2011 in Barcelona, Essen, and Malmö, as well as two shows in New York City in January 2013.^[11][12][13]

Songs from Paris 1919 have been covered by such notable musicians as Yo La Tengo, Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield, Owen Pallett, The Dave Soldier String Quartet, Love and Rockets' David J, Okkervil River, Jay Bennett and Edward Burch, and Sally Timms.^[14]

Track listing

Personnel

Recording

• John Cale – vocals, bass, guitar, keyboards, viola
• Lowell George – guitar
• Wilton Felder – bass
• Richie Hayward – drums
• Bill Payne – keyboards
• Chris Thomas – tambourine
• The UCLA Symphony Orchestra – strings
• Joel Druckman, Esq. – orchestra manager

Production

• Chris Thomas – original album producer
• Mike Salisbury – original album design and photography
• Andy Zax – reissue producer
• Dave Schultz – remastering (at DigiPrep, Los Angeles)
• Matthew Specktor – liner notes
• Greg Allen – reissue art direction and design
• Bob Rush – additional booklet photos
• Project supervision for Rhino UK: Stuart Batsford and Mick Houghton
• Project assistance: Brian Kehew, Bill Inglot, Rick Conrad, Patrick Milligan, Cheryl Pawelski, Mason Williams, and Robin Hurley

References