We’ve seen Marc Cohn in concert a few times, but he’s never been better than last night at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
Actually it was a bit of a surprise that he was there at all. The night before, he had cancelled a show in nearby Franklin, TN.
Cohn apologized to anyone who had tickets to that show, and said that nothing gets you back on your feet more quickly than opening for Bonnie Raitt at the Ryman.
“It doesn’t get any better than this,” he said.
His set was brief, but compelling. He said he set out one day years ago to explore new places as a cure for writer’s block and found his way to Memphis. That in turn inspired his biggest hit, “Walking in Memphis.”
Cohn laughed and said if he had dropped by Music City first, it could just as easily been “Walking in Nashville,” with Music Row supplanting Beale Street.
The evening’s highlight was “Listening to Levon,” his tribute to the late Levon Helm, which he recorded in 2007 on Join the Parade.
The only disappointment was that Cohn didn’t play anything from his outstanding 2010 album Listening Booth: 1970, a collection of covers from that year. Still, it’s hard to complain when Cohn packed so much great material in a 30-minute set, and closed with “Silver Thunderbird,” a song that should have been every bit as big as “Memphis.”
By Ken Paulson Mark Lindsay: The Complete Columbia Singles is a another fine reissue from Real Gone Music.
“Reissue” may be a misnomer here. Although most of the material has been released before, collcting these largely overlooked singles in one place would have been a daunting challenge for any record collector. This is a singular collection in more wys than one.
Lindsey is an underrated rock ‘n roll frontman, and Paul Revere and the Raiders really don’t get their due as one of the most dynamic bands of the ‘60s.
Interestingly, on The Complete Columbia Singles, we hear how effectively Lindsay distanced himself from the rock ‘n’ roll band that made him famous. His solo work focused on ballads and engaging pop, similar in many ways to B.J. Thomas’ best work.
The big hits are here, including “Arizona,” “Silverbird” and the somewhat dated “Miss America.”
The most interesting covers include Neil Diamond’s “The Grass Won’t Pay No Mind” and Bacharach and David’s “Something Good.” Lindsay clearly enjoyed the challenge of more complex arrangements.
The singles collected here hold up well, capturing early ‘70s pop in all its melodic glory
The annual Grammy Block Party in Nashville once again featured outstanding Music City-based performers, including the reunited Mavericks, Wynonna, Luke Bryan and Keb’ Mo’.
(photos by Ken Paulson)
Willie Nile’s anthemic “One Guitar” is at the core of a new charitable initiative. The concept is to encourage hundreds of artists from a wide range of genres to record the song, with all proceeds going to the TJ Martell Foundation and a charity of the artists’ choice.
You’ll find details at the “One Guitar” site.
It’s no surprise that the song, written by Nile and Frankie Lee, would inspire this kind of effort. This song about an individual taking a stand comes from Nile’s most recent album The Innocent Ones, one of our favorite releases of the past year. It’s a bit of a surprise when an artist with more than three decades of recorded music puts out his best album ever, but The Innocent Ones is exactly that, with energy and inspiration in equal measure.
–When certain bands reunite, that re-bonding of friendships and talents can do much more than simply echo the past. These musical projects can often have a sense of purpose and pride that creates songs and sounds even stronger than their earlier work.
Everything you ever loved about the music to begin with will still be there and then some. This is what we have with the dB’s reunion. It’s a case of all that and more. Fans of the dB’s from their ‘80’s heyday would be doing themselves a real favor to seek out their new album, Falling Off the Sky.
For those who need some background, the dB’s were a band loved by critics and who had fans everywhere, but never sold a big number of records. Like Big Star before them, they were Southern-bred Anglophiles who instinctively followed their own muse and suffered being called “quirky” for their bravery.
The later success of younger bands from the South like R.E.M. helped broaden the musical landscape from the boogie and blues of the era, but the dB’s paved the way for the change. The acclaim they were able to garner in nearly every important rock’n’roll publication of the era was a clarion call to anyone who appreciated smarts in their lyrics, melody in their songs and a fearless approach to arranging a pop song. They were an influential band to say the least.
Falling Off the Sky finds the original quartet of Chris Stamey, Peter Holsapple, Will Rigby and Gene Holder recording together for the first time since 1982. While principal songwriters Holsapple and Stamey recorded as a duo (Mavericks in 1992 and Here and Now in 2009), the foursome waited a long time to be dB’s again.
Stamey was the first to leave the group after two albums in 1982 to make solo records and produce, which left Holsapple to front the band as the main singer and writer on Like This, The Sounds of Music and Paris Avenue. When Holsapple formed the alt-roots-pop super-group the Continental Drifters with former members of the Bangles, Dream Syndicate and Cowsills, hopes for a dB’s reunion seemed slim.
Will Rigby recorded some solo records and drummed with Steve Earle and Matthew Sweet. Gene Holder mostly stayed in the studio working with bands like Yo La Tengo. This new album sounds like the sum total of all that experience coming into play.
The opening track kicks off the album with a 60’s-era garage-rock blast replete with combo organ. Holsapple singing “Wake up wake up.. That Time Is Gone.” So much for nostalgia. This is about here and now and it rocks.
Stamey follows with the rolling Beatle-esque “Before We Were Born.” sounding like an Abbey Road out-take. Much like the Lennon/McCartney dynamic, you can almost feel Peter and Chris shooting high to match and beat the last song from their musical partners. Drummer Will Rigby, wrote the poppy “Write Back,” a welcome surprise. His drumming has never sounded better. Send Me Something Real may be the album’s highlight, both as a song and as a production piece. It’s a joy to listen to it unfold.
Fans of Chris Stamey’s chamber-pop leanings (anyone remember “27 Years in a Single Day” or “Something Came Over Me?”) will be happy to have “Far Away and Long Ago.”
Holsapple has another one of his heart-tuggers on the record with “I Didn’t Mean to Say That.”
It doesn’t feel like there are false moves on this record. Some of the more experimental inclinations that may have lost the plot for some on past records have been either played down or left behind. The group started recording this collection of songs as early as 2005. There must be another album’s worth of out-takes. I want that too, please.
Through the course of the album, the sonic quality and the band’s performances as both players and singers are stronger than ever. Perhaps because of the accumulated experience working apart from each other or maybe because Chris Stamey, Gene Holder and long-time hometown compatriot Mitch Easter, who helps out here, are all terrific record producers. The fact that they took their time to do it to their own satisfaction shows a wisdom that comes with time.
The years may show, but only in the best way possible. Whatever factors came into play for this album to be as good as it is, they worked. Falling Off the Sky may be the dB’s best album.
The Long Players, a loose aggregation of talented Nashville performers with a very tight band at its core, is a Music City institution – and for good reason.
The band, founded by Bill Lloyd, impeccably re-creates the greatest rock and soul albums of the past 60 years in a concert setting.
Tomorrow night, the Long Players tackle Neil Young’s Harvest at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville.
If you’re in the area, this is a must-see.
Here’s a terrific clip from the Long Players’ 50-album anniversary show:
–Bill Lloyd’s new album Boy King of Tokyo is a vibrant and hook-laden collection, rivaling the earlier and excellent Set to Pop and Standing on the Shoulders of Giants. Lloyd took a cue from musical heroes Todd Rundgren and Paul McCartney by playing every instrument on the album.
The high-octane title track was inspired by Lloyd’s early childhood in Japan, and sets the tone for the album. Lloyd loves Badfinger, the Byrds, Big Star and the Raspberries, and it shows.
Some years ago, Lloyd wrote “Cool and Gone,” a haunting and spot-on song (written with David Surface) about fans falling out of love with an artist. It could only be written by a passionate record collector, which Lloyd is. While “Cool” was melancholy, the new album boasts The Best Record Ever Made,” an inspired sing-along that captures the euphoria of a new and perfect pop song: “The best record ever made made you want to turn up to 10 and then you’d play it over and over and over again.”
The new album is a bit more socially conscious than past efforts, including “Com-Trol,” a clever take on the corporatization of rock ‘n’ roll.
On the flip side, “Indubitably” and “Home Jeeves” are fun and buoyant slices of pop and rock and pop.
“Chet’s Right Hand, Man” is a surprise instrumental, echoing Chet Atkins’ style. Lloyd said he wrote it to entertain visitors at the Country Music Hall of Fame, where he once worked as stringed instrument curator.
Lloyd teamed up with Radney Foster for an excellent reunion album last year, but pure pop remains his passion. Turn it up to ten.
By Paul T. Mueller
–If music reviews included credit for style points, Ray Wylie Hubbard’s latest effort would earn plenty of them for its title alone. The Grifter’s Hymnal? Who but “the Wylie Lama” could have even imagined such a thing, much less fill it up with a batch of cool songs?
Great title aside, this Hymnal has a lot going for it. Hubbard started out as part of what Steve Fromholz once called “the great progressive country scare of the seventies” and spent some years wandering down unproductive paths, but after dealing with some bad habits a while back, he’s been making the most of his second shot at the music business.
The Grifter’s Hymnal is another in a string of fine albums he’s turned out in recent years. Mostly bluesy rock with a little Texas twang thrown in, it’s a collection of musings on life, death, salvation and rock ‘n’ roll, all filtered through Hubbard’s unique consciousness.
The playing here is excellent, featuring Ray Wylie on various guitars, his son Lucas on electric guitar on several tracks, Rick Richards on drums and percussion, and George Reiff (who co-produced with Hubbard) on bass for most of the tracks. Other artists include guitarists Brad Rice, Audley Freed and Billy Cassis, keyboardist Ian McLagan (formerly of the Faces and the Small Faces, now living in Austin) and Ringo Starr (yes, that one) singing and playing backup on Hubbard’s version of Starr’s “Coochy Coochy.”
The standout track here is “Mother Blues,” named for an old-time Dallas nightclub. It’s a wildly entertaining account of how a young Hubbard came to acquire a classic goldtop Les Paul guitar and eventually passed it on to his son (who’s credited with playing the very same instrument on the track). More than that, it’s the story of Hubbard’s career as a musician and his journey through life – and whether all the lurid details in this nearly six-minute opus are strictly factual is pretty much beside the point. Hubbard ends the song with a litany of people and things he’s grateful for (including the chance to share a stage with his son) and concludes, “The days that I keep my gratitude higher than my expectations – well, I have really good days.” That’s wisdom worthy of a lama.
Other highlights include “South of the River,” another tribute to the musician’s life that moves from Chris Whitley-style acoustic blues to Exile-era Stones-y boogie, fueled by McLagan’s honky-tonk piano, and “Red Badge of Courage,” a quietly furious antiwar rant that concludes, “We was just kids doing the dirty work/For the failures of old men.”
Hubbard cranks up his slide guitar on the lively “New Year’s Eve at the Gates of Hell,” in which he imagines defending his life at the Last Judgment (“By the way, kid, why am I here, when I wasn’t that bad? I just never liked churches, but I never wore plaid”). Many amusing music-biz references later, he ends up admitting, “The truth of the matter is, I really can’t sing/But I can quote Martin Luther King.”
Not all of the songs are quite that accessible. As befits a spiritual leader, Hubbard can be a little cryptic with his lyrics. There’s surely some deeper meaning in there somewhere, or maybe not; just go with the flow and enjoy The Grifter’s Hymnal for its fine songcraft and topnotch playing.
The Alabama Shakes jump into the Americana Music Association airplay chart at #14 this week with Boys and Girls.
Other chart debuts: Nanci Griffith’s Intersection at #34, Jason Eady’s AM Country Heaven at #36, Hank Williams III’s Long Gone Daddy at #37 and Madison Violet’s The Good in Goodbye at #39.
Most added this week: Paul Thorn’s What The Hell Is Goin On? Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives’ Nashville, Volume 1: Tear The Woodpile Down and Todd Snider’s Time As We Know It.
Americana music news: Follow us on Facebook and Twitter at @sun209com.
By Ken Paulson
– Dar Williams on her new album In the Time of Gods: “I thought why don’t I really freak out my record company and make a whole album about Greek mythology?”
Note to Dar: This has a similar effect on music writers. In the Time of Gods works on a couple of levels, the first being the Parthenon-inspired adventure that Dar Williams apparently intended. For those who prefer to listen without Cliff Notes, though, the songs largely stand on their own, making this one more smart, thought-provoking and melodic album from a woman who has made a practice of delivering exactly that.
“Write This Number Down” is a highlight, a spirited song that reminds us that seeking justice is not a solitary endeavor, and there are many who will provide support. In its way, it’s an update of “If I Had a Hammer,” or more precisely “We All Have Hammers.”
“I Have Been Around the World” is a touching affirmation of family and our relationship with loved ones, while “Summer Child” is the album’s slice of pop, a buoyant celebration of the season, destined to be a staple in Williams’ set list.
Not so buoyant is “Crystal Creek,” a gorgeous arrangement married to a chilling narration. It turns out that protecting the forest is dirty work. The grisly end here could segue into John Prine’s “Lake Marie.” In the Time of Gods is not Williams’ most accessible work, but it may be her most ambitious.
By Ken Paulson
–Goodbye Normal Street, the Turnpike Troubadours’ third album, boasts driving roots and country music, strong narratives and a disproportionate number of songs about really bad relationships.
From the aptly titled “Wrecked:” “But you wrecked it all/ you wrecked my heart/you wrecked our house and you wrecked my car.” “Good Lord Lorrie” suggests a bit of the Band, a finely-crafted song about a romance that goes well – until it doesn’t.
It’s not all not-quite-love songs, though. “Morgan Street” is a joyous invitation to “Drink up the night, close down the bars,” a “Down at the Twist and Shout” for a new audience.
Other highlights: “Before the Devil Knows We’re Dead,” “Blue Star” and “Quit While I’m Ahead.”
The album will be released May 8 on Bossier City/Thirty Tigers.
This has nothing to do with Americana music, and everything to do with classic American pop music. Unbelievably, the Beach Boys just released a new single, with Brian Wilson on board. It’s better than we could have hoped for.
Sun209 chronicles rock, roots and Americana music, drawing its name from the catalog number of Elvis Presley's first single, the Big Bang of contemporary music.
Review copies and press releases: PO Box 432, 3908 Lebanon Pike, Hermitage, TN 37076.
E-mail: sun209editor@gmail.com.
By Ken Paulson
Willie Nile’s anthemic “One Guitar” is at the core of a new charitable initiative. The concept is to encourage hundreds of artists from a wide range of genres to record the song, with all proceeds going to the TJ Martell Foundation and a charity of the artists’ choice.
By Bill Lloyd
By Ken Paulson
By Paul T. Mueller
The Alabama Shakes jump into the Americana Music Association
By Ken Paulson
Sun209 chronicles rock, roots and Americana music, drawing its name from the catalog number of Elvis Presley's first single, the Big Bang of contemporary music.
Review copies and press releases: PO Box 432, 3908 Lebanon Pike, Hermitage, TN 37076.
E-mail: sun209editor@gmail.com.
