John Cale – Fragments Of A Rainy Season (2LP)

Fragments of a Rainy Season is the the first live John Cale album to feature him performing solo and “unplugged” – before that term became a mid-’90s buzzword. Fragments gives us Cale at his most melodic and moving, a mellowed and certainly a sober man in a Yamamoto jacket and a lopsided haircut running through a selection of his prettiest songs, including his seminal take on Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’. The album features versions of ‘Paris 1919,’ ‘Dying On The Vine,’ ‘Chinese Envoy,’ cover versions of the Elvis classic ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ and the aforementioned Leonard Cohen, and a suite of Dylan Thomas’ works ‘On A Wedding Anniversary,’ ‘Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed’ and ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.