Jean Beauvoir - Jacknifed (88)

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1 Jacknified
2 Standing on My Own Two Feet
3 Gamblin' Man
4 Alone Again
5 Searching for a Light
6 Dying at Your Door
7 Spend Your Life With Me
8 Find My Way Home
9 If Love Could Only
10 Jimmy

Jean Beauvoir has the image and the sound down on Jacknifed, and the one time Plasmatics bass player/Ramones producer abandons his hard rock day gigs for very Prince-sounding dance music here.

This album has a lot in common musically with bassist Fernando Saunders' Cashmere Dreams, although Saunders is able to create separate identities for his songs, while Beauvoir has a sameness which is a slight drawback.

The excellent hooks in "Jimmy" and "Spend Your Life With Me" get lost in the double frosting that is the keyboard/drum overabundance. Emulating Prince's vocal riffs and mini-howls doesn't help either.

Where Jonzun Crew guitarist Tony "Rocks" Cowan will experiment with sound and vocal technique making his material so different it oftentimes sounds like someone else from track to track, Beauvoir finds his groove and sticks with it.

The title track has a nice Tommy Lafferty solo, and that identifies another problem with the disc.

Jean Beauvoir pulls an Emmit Rhodes/Paul McCartney/Todd Rundgren by playing most of the instruments himself.

The aforementioned knew the inherent dangers of limiting your flavors, and did their best to compensate. There's no compensation here.

Also, they played to their audience — adding a Ramones-style rocker or something along the lines of a metal/dance version of "Dream Lover" from New Hope for the Wretched or "Sex Junkie" from Beyond the Valley of 1984 would have been hooks for his fan base to latch onto, and would have added a much needed other dimension here.

The lyrics are hip and show another side of the multi-talented Jean Beauvor — "I cop a score of 90/talking, talking about intelligence/I think I'm high and mighty" — the emphasis seems to be on the word "high" in "Gamblin' Man" which sounds like a song of regret in the midst of narcotic-induced dilemma.

Former Plasmastics lead guitarist Richie Stotts had a demo floating around including a song "The Man With the X Ray Eyes" — had the two collaborated on this album, and included the best of both worlds, it could have gone from good to great.

Voodoo X (Jean Beauvoir) - Vol.1 The Awakening (89)

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Crown of Thorns (Jean Beauvoir) - Lost Cathedral (98)

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1 Lost Cathedral
2 Live and Die
3 Motorcycle Loretta
4 Lyin'
5 Free Me
6 Greed of Love
7 Cold Blooded Bitch
8 End of the Road
9 Although We're Fools
10 Wasted Prime
11 Hell of a Night
12 If You Need Me

Crown of Thorns (Jean Beauvoir) - Breakthrough (96)

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1 Over My Head
2 Don't Let Me Down
3 You Wear It Well
4 Only One Who's Lonely
5 Breakthrough
6 Right from Wrong
7 You
8 Heartbeat
9 Leave It Up to Fate
10 He's a Fool
11 Down to the River
12 Writings on the Wall

Jean Beauvoir - Chameleon (04)

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1 I Wanna Know
2 Higher
3 I Don't Need Ya'
4 Where the River Runs Deep
5 I Want to Lay Here
6 Something to Believe In
7 Even More
8 Addicted to Us
9 Dying End
10 Teenager
1 Amazing
12 Angel

Making an immediate visual impact with his blonde Mohawk, multi-instrumentalist Jean Beauvoir has been a member of several bands, performed as a solo act, and written and produced a vast array of other artists.

Born of Haitian parents in Chicago, IL, Beauvoir took up the drums as a pre-teen, switching to bass to appease disturbed neighbors.

By his teens, he was leading bands, including becoming the musical director for Gary "U.S." Bonds at the age of 13.

This stint was quickly followed by a turn as lead singer of the legendary doo wop act the Flamingos.

Now fully committed to pursuing music as a career, the young musician headed out for New York before he was old enough to drive and was attracted to the burgeoning punk scene.

Answering an ad for a bassist, Beauvoir auditioned for and landed the spot in the fledgling (and soon to be infamous) Plasmatics.

He would remain with them for two albums, leaving to pursue his own interests after the band's Beyond the Valley of 1984.

A solo career would have to wait, however, as a chance meeting with E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt led to Beauvoir joining his new project, Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul.

Following appearances on a pair of releases with the outfit, Beauvoir left, again intending to pursue a solo career and eventually signed a deal with Virgin in the U.K.

Through circumstance, actor Sylvester Stallone heard a track from Beauvoir's debut, and his desire to use it as the theme of his movie Cobra led to Drums Along the Mohawk being picked up for U.S. distribution.

The album was a modest success and, aided by its inclusion in the Stallone movie, "Feel the Heat" was a minor chart hit.

Although it would prove to be his highest commercial profile as a solo artist, it led to plenty of work in the '80s and '90s, including writing, performing, and producing for acts like Kiss, John Waite, the Ramones, Nona Hendryx, and Nile Rodgers.

There would also be occasional solo output from Beauvoir and efforts with his band Crown of Thorns, but these releases have been primarily limited to European markets, thus, limiting his exposure in the States.