Category: Americana Music

By Ken Paulson

Two new and notable albums celebrate country music’s heritage, successfully revisiting classic songs in a contemporary setting.

Vince Gill and premier steel guitar player Paul Franklin team up on Bakersfield to celebrate California country, specifically the recordings of Buck Owens and Merle Haggard.

It’s no surprise that the playing of these Time Jumpers bandmates is impeccable. What is surprising is just how fresh these half-century old songs sound.

The tracks alternate between those made famous by Owens and Haggard and include “Together Again,” “Foolin’ Around,” “The Bottle Let Me Down” and “I Can’t Be Myself.”

Gill and Franklin grew up on these songs  and their comfort level shows, though it’s a bit disquieting to hear perennial nice guy Gill snarl about “some squirrelly guy who claims he don’t believe in fightin’” on Haggard’s “The Fightin’ Side of Me.”

Gill and Franklin show up again on The Big E – A Salute to Steel Guitarist Buddy Emmons, performing album opener “Country Boy.”

Album producer and former Hot Band steel guitarist Steve Fishell put this project together, pairing great players and singers on songs that played a significant role in Emmons’ storied career.

Duane Eddy, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Rodney Crowell, Greg Leisz and Raul Malo are among the big names here, performing songs from multiple decades.

The biggest treats include a couple of pop-oriented tunes. Albert Lee and JayDee Manness team on “Rainbows All Over Your Blues,” a song from John Sebastian’s first solo album that was transformed by Emmons’ solo. Similarly, Joanie Keller Johnson and Mike Johnson offer a fine cover of “Someday Soon,” a Judy Collins hit graced by Emmons’ licks.

The album includes reverential, detailed and sometimes technical liner notes from Fishell that make clear just how influential Emmons was.  Highly recommended.

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By Paul T. Mueller 

Jennifer Brantley’s It’s All Good is a breath of fresh air, which is a little ironic considering that a lot of it sounds like it could have been made decades ago. This is country music the way it used to be, played on real instruments, sung with skill and feeling, and with lyrics that don’t all involve beer and pickup trucks.

Brantley, currently of East Nashville, leads off with “I’m Right Here,” a you-done-me-wrong lament set to a classic Western swing melody featuring piano, fiddle and steel guitar. It’s an excellent showcase for Brantley’s fine voice, which covers a wide range with plenty of power. Her writing ability (and that of that of co-writers Gerald Smith and Lisa Shaffer) is also on display here. The same trio also penned “I’d Rather Have a Lonely Heart,” a sad ballad that features nice interplay between fiddle and piano, along with some nice harmony vocals.

Other highlights include Blind Willie Johnson’s “God Don’t Ever Change,” which gets a rocking gospel treatment fueled by soulful organ and electric guitar, and a live version of Roger Miller’s “Half a Mind,” which was a hit for Ernest Tubb. Brantley’s rendition comes from a performance on the Midnite Jamboree radio show at the Texas Troubadour Theatre in Nashville, and features Leon Rhodes, former ace guitarist with Tubb’s Texas Troubadours. Leaning a little more to the pop side is “Just Hearing a Song,” a lively tribute to the power of music and memory.

A couple of tracks sound like they might be aimed at country radio airplay, but even so they’re done with the taste that marks the rest of the album. The title track is a gentle ode to counting one’s blessings, against a backdrop of acoustic guitar and fiddle; “Somebody’s Somebody” is a sentimental tale of orphans and the elderly that would have sounded at home on a Kathy Mattea album back in the ’80s.

It’s a little hard to tell from the liner notes who’s doing what, but contributors include guitarist David Hand, who also plays harmonica and helped produce; former Box Top Swain Shaefer, who contributes keyboards; Mike Daly on steel guitar, and an unidentified fiddle player who really deserves some recognition.

There’s still some room for growth here – Brantley’s twang occasionally sounds a bit forced, and there’s a chorus or two that could be nailed down a little tighter. Nitpicking aside, It’s All Good is a fine effort. Extra points to the producers (Vaughan Lofstead and Greg Perkins are credited along with Brantley and Hand), for keeping it clean and bringing out the best in this talented bunch.

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By Ken Paulson

There were a lot of reasons for the Smothers Brothers’ successful late ‘60s run on CBS TV. The show was irreverent, entertaining and featured boundary-pushing musical guests like the Who and Jefferson Airplane.

And of course, they also had Mason Williams, a terrific comedy writer and accomplished musician who wrote much of the skit material and co-wrote (with Nancy Ames) the show’s theme.

Williams also appeared on the show as an artist, performing his huge hit instrumental “Classical Gas” on three shows.

Real Gone Music has just re-issued Williams’ first two Warner Bros.  albums – The Mason Williams Phonograph Record and The Mason Williams Ear Show – and both serve as a vivid reminder of just how smart and creative Williams was.

Williams embraced a wide musical landscape, alternating grand orchestration with quirky side-trips. These albums reveal him as a strange amalgam of Jimmy Webb and Roger Miller.

The ballads, period pop (“She’s Gone Away”)  and playful excursions (“Cinderella-Rockefella,” Baroque-A-Nova”) hold up best. The stereotypically fey “The Prince’s Panties” is a rare misfire.

Do these four decade-old albums sound a bit dated?  Sure. But they also remind us  just how long it’s been since this kind of eclectic and entertaining mix appeared on major record labels. Mason Williams took risks and most of them paid off.

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By Ken Paulson

Like Kris Kristofferson’s recent Feeling Mortal, Guy Clark’s  My Favorite Picture of You reflects the years.

On the new album,  due July 23 on Dualtone,  Clark’s voice is softer and weathered. But if time has  taken a physical toll, it’s made the music matter more. This is Clark’s first album in four years and it was worth the wait.

The title song is the most compelling  and has the best back story. Clark lost Susanna, his wife of 40 years, in 2012. It stems from a day in the ‘70s when Clark and Townes Van Zandt had way too much to drink and Susanna stormed out. Her photo was taken at that moment, and the image inspired this touching song.

“Cornmeal Waltz” is warm and nostalgic, co-written with Shawn Camp, and their “The Death of Sis Draper” concludes the mythical story of their  legendary Sis.

But it’s not all reflection and reminiscence. “El Coyote” is a haunting look at illegal immigration and “Heroes” focuses on returning soldiers who “brought the war home.”

My Favorite Picture of You is touching, topical and compelling. It shouldn’t be anyone’s first Guy Clark album, but it’s a must-own for all who have been touched by Clark’s artistry.

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By Paul T. Mueller

Deborah Holland took that old advice about lemons and lemonade seriously. In 2010, the singer-songwriter, who’d enjoyed considerable success as a performer and had later become a professor of music at Cal State Los Angeles, pulled up roots and moved to Canada (apparently one of her sons needed schooling that, for reasons not explained, he couldn’t get in the United States). Relocated in a cold and rainy place, financial stress, romantic difficulties – for a lot of us, that’s a recipe for deep depression, but for Holland it was inspiration for the excellent songs that make up her latest CD, Vancouver.

“Songs came pouring out of me (like the rain in Vancouver),” Holland says in the liner notes. And what songs they are – funny one minute, rip-your-heart-out sad the next, full of sharp insights, skillfully written and performed. All were written by Holland except the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” which, while pleasant enough, seems a bit beside the point.

Holland’s songs cover a range of topics and styles, but as you might expect, there are strong threads of alienation and broken romance throughout. Things start off funny and bouncy with “I Wanna Be a Canadian,” a tribute to Holland’s adopted country (and to some extent an indictment of her native land), but the mood sobers quickly after that. The title track deals with the sometimes depressing realities of life in an unfamiliar place, while “California” is a homesick look back at people and things left behind. The upbeat tone of “Money” contrasts with the litany of financial struggles it describes. “That Ain’t Love” is a cautionary tale about warning signs in relationships, while “Messed Up Valentine” might be one of the sadder goodbye songs ever. From all that, the CD might sound like a bummer, but Holland’s gift for finding humor even in grim situations keeps Vancouver from devolving into a complete weepfest.

There’s more, but suffice it to say that Holland’s clear, strong voice and confident delivery shine on all 12 tracks, assistant by clean production (by Holland and Steve Wight) and excellent instrumental playing. Holland plays bass on most tracks, along with acoustic guitar and accordion, while Wight handles drums and percussion and J.P. Mourão plays electric and other guitars. Guests include Patterson Barrett on various stringed instruments and keyboards, Cidny Bullens on harmonica, and Wendy Waldman on background vocals and acoustic guitar (Holland, Bullens and Waldman together make up “folk supergroup” The Refugees; Holland was also lead singer and songwriter of Animal Logic, which also included drummer Stewart Copeland of The Police and jazz bassist Stanley Clarke).

It’s been said that there’s no art without pain, and if you need evidence, you can find it on Vancouver.

By Paul T. Mueller

“We are who we are, not who we’re gonna be/ Every passing moment is ancient history,” Eric Brace and Peter Cooper sing in “Ancient History,” the first track on their latest CD, The Comeback Album. It’s a good choice for an opener, a catchy meditation on identity, impermanence and possibility that name-checks a range of people and places including Muhammad Ali, Jerry Jeff Walker, Sid Bream and the Astrodome.

It’s also a fitting start for a project by two Nashville singer-songwriters who seem to know a thing or two about personal reinvention. Brace is a former Washington Post music journalist who now runs the label that released this CD as well as fronting a band called Last Train Home; Cooper, among other jobs, is still writing about music (for The Tennessean in Nashville) as well as performing it and teaching college classes about it. As if that weren’t enough, each has a solo album scheduled for release later this year.

Comeback, their third collaboration, is marked by the kind of literate songcraft you’d expect from people who make their living with words. Brace and Cooper wrote or co-wrote nine tracks and covered three others. Best bets among the originals include “Thompson Street,” about a scruffy neighborhood in Spartanburg, S.C., and its colorful inhabitants; “She Can’t Be Herself,” a twangy and rueful goodbye song; “Nobody Knows,” a bouncy ode to life’s uncertainties, and “Boxcars,” whose upbeat tone is at odds with its theme of loss and regret.

The covers are well chosen too: Tom T. Hall’s “Mad,” a classic country tale of carousing and consequences; Karl Straub’s “Carolina,” a sweetly played ballad of alienation, and David Halley’s sad country waltz “Rain Just Falls.”

To go with their own guitars and harmonized vocals, Brace and Cooper get some great backup here, from the likes of Lloyd Green on pedal steel, Dave Jacques on bass, Jen Gunderman on keyboards, Fats Kaplin on violin and mandolin, and Rory Hoffman on a host of instruments, from clarinet and accordion to practically anything with strings. Listed as “special guests” on “Mad” are Mac Wiseman and Marty Stuart on vocals (Stuart also contributes mandolin) and Duane Eddy on guitar.

This kind of music is about the storytelling as well as the playing, and Brace and Cooper excel at both.

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