At the Candy Shop

Album Review

A magnificent mixed bag of odds, sods and little lost puppies, At the Candy Shop collects 16 songs recorded over the past 30 years, but concentrates on recordings that even Alan Merrill's fan club has only heard rumors about. The disc is a treat that begins with the opening title track, recorded in the south of France in 1977 with Bill Wyman and Dallas Taylor on board. A slinky dance number that isn't a million miles away from what the Rolling Stones were doing at the same time, it's one of two songs from that particular session, with "Baby Doll" riding an even more lascivious bassline, and Terry Taylor's guitar cutting sharp little flourishes through the rhythm.

Better-than-demos for songs subsequently covered by Wilson Pickett, Freddie Scott and Robert Cray include the soul stamper "Brand New Man," co-written with Don Covay, while Merrill's own taste for covers sees him lay down excellent interpretations of Arthur Alexander's "Go on Home Girl" and "If It's Really Got to Be This Way" (among others), and Otis Blackwell's "Return to Sender." There's also a taste of the live Merrill experience, with a sweeping version of "Bridge to the Moon," recorded in Nagoya, Japan in 1989. A studio version of this extraordinarily effective power ballad has already passed by, just a couple of songs before, but the repetition doesn't jar. If anything, in fact, it reinforces the sheer magic of the song itself, and reminds us (as though we need it) that Merrill remains one of the most instinctively adaptable songwriters of his (or any other) generation.