Gino Vannelli’s “Crazy Life” (A Retro Review)

It’s a crazy life, a hazy life, a mixed-up, jumbled phasey life…a crazy life for people who want to smile…

Gino Vannelli: "Crazy Life"Many readers know that I tend to favor albums from a decade or two ago, over newer ones.  I do occasionally find gems among newer releases, but it’s even more of a surprise to find a new favorite album among a collection that I’ve overlooked in the past.  Gino Vannelli was listed for a local gig, but that turned out to be a false alarm.  Nonetheless, I figured I would listen to more of his catalog, as I’d picked up just about everything at used record shops.  Starting at the beginning, I decided to give Crazy Life a try…

Crazy Life was Gino Vannelli’s debut album for A&M.  Word has it that Gino, frustrated with being unable to secure a record deal in Los Angeles, hung out early in the morning at A&M’s lot and waited for someone of importance to show up.  When a startled Herb Alpert encountered Vannelli in the parking lot, he agreed to an audition, signed Vannelli, and produced the debut album.  Crazy Life was the gamble that A&M took on this relatively unknown talent, one that would pay off in future years with hits like “People Gotta Move” and “I Just Wanna Stop” for A&M.

I barely gave this album a cursory listen as first, but when I heard the track “Crazy Life” on Gino’s Live in Montreal album, I was interested enough to queue up this album on the Zune and give it a listen.  Surprisingly, there are a few similarities between Crazy Life and Gino’s most recent recording, A Good Thing, which still has not seen a release in the U.S. Crazy Life‘s basic sound is close to what you find on Powerful People, but more acoustic, with less synthesizers, which is similar to what I commented for A Good Thing.

Looking back on much of Gino’s mid-era A&M output, Crazy Life actually sounds less dated than many of his other albums.   All the elements were there in the beginning:  jazz inflections, “pop” vocals about love and relationships, and the tunefulness and wordplay you’ve come to expect from anything that Gino and Joe Vannelli brought to their work together.  Some favorites of mine on this album are the title track, “Cherizar”, “Great Lake Canoe” (which name drops the Great Lakes), and “One Woman Lover”.

In short, this is an overlooked gem.  Four stars!