Here’s a terrific tribute to John Prine from a great group of Nashville musicians, all friends and colleagues of John’s.
Performing the album in its entirety:
Bill Lloyd , Beth Nielsen Chapman. Radney Foster, Stacey and Don Schlitz,Chuck Mead, Shawn Camp, Will Kimbrough,Garry Tallent, Kim Richey and Dan Baird.
Bravo!
The prolific Bill Lloyd talks about his new live album cryptically called “2GTRSBSDRMS.” It’s full-throttle back-to-basics rock.
Americana Music News – Nashville’s Bill Lloyd is following up his engaging “It’s Happening Now” with “Working the Long Game,” a collection of compelling new songs, including co-writes with pop songwriting legend Graham Gouldman (“Bus Stop,” “For Your Love”) Aaron Lee Tasjan, Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson, Freedy Johnston, Buddy Mondlock, Pat Buchanan, David Surface and more. This trailer offers a quick spin through the new album.
Bill Lloyd, along with partner Radney Foster, were fresh voices in country music as the duo Foster and Lloyd. Today Bill skews more pop and rock than country, as evidenced by his ambitious new album “It’s Happening Now,” Bill talks about the Foster and Lloyd years and his new album in this Americana Music News podcast.
Subscribe to the Americana Music News Podcast on iTunes.
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About Americana News: We’re in our seventh year covering Americana, roots, country and folk music from our base in Nashville. We’ve just launched a new Americana Music News podcast, available free of charge through all the leading podcast providers, including iTunes. And please join our 23,000 Twitter followers to continue the conversation.
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By Ken Paulson
Bill Lloyd of power pop and Foster and Lloyd fame has a new album out this week and it’s a musical departure. Rather than the Beatles/Byrds-infused sounds of “Set to Pop” and “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants,” “It’s Happening Now” is a refreshing collection of quieter, well-crafted compositions, long on melody and wry observations. We had the chance to catch up with Bill right before a performance in Nashville on Saturday to talk about his career, musical heroes and his new songs, including the only-in-Nashville “Pedal Tavern Girl.” As he notes in the interview, if you’ve liked Bill’s past work, you’ll enjoy “It’s Happening Now” as well. Highly recommended.
By Ken Paulson
Bill Lloyd’s new album Lloydering is an entertaining walk through pop music history, featuring covers of lesser known songs by great bands and artists.
This compilation of songs that Lloyd recorded for tribute albums over the past 26 years reflects both his musical passions and his record collection.
There’s “Coconut Grove” from the Lovin’ Spoonful, “The Lottery Song” from Nilsson, “Lonely You” from Badfinger, “The World Turns All Around Her” from the Byrds , the
Bill Lloyd and Pat Buchanan at Lloydering release party
Hollies’ “Step Inside,” the Raspberries’ “Goin’ Nowhere Tonight” and Todd Rundgren’s “I Don’t Want to Tie You Down,” plus covers of Wreckless Eric, the Bobby Fuller Four, the dBs and Let’s Active. The one song familiar to everyone: the Beatles’ “Across the Universe.”
Lloyd performed a number of tracks from the album, along with more than a dozen of his own songs, in a spirited two-set show at the Family Wash in Nashville last night.
Lloydering, which includes Lloyd’s liner notes on each track and band, is available at the SpyderPop Records site.
New and recent releases:
Andrea Zonn – Rise – Compass Records – This is a truly beautiful album from a fine vocalist and violinist who has played with some of music’s best, including James Taylor, Vince Gill, Linda Ronstadt and Lyle Lovett. The album combines an all-star rhythm section – Willie Weeks and Steve Gadd – with an impressive array of songs co-written with some of Nashville’s most substantive songwriters.
Highlights include “Another Side of Home,” a thoughtful look back written with Bill Lloyd and Thomm Jutz, “Another Swing and a Miss” written with Peter Cooper and Jutz, and the Kim Richey-Zonn-Jutz composition, “Where the Water Meets the Sky,” featuring harmony vocals from Sam Bush.
James Taylor shows his respect by singing harmony on “You Make Me Whole,” an affirming contribution to this reflective and rewarding collection. (Ken Paulson)
Lucero – All A Man Should Do – ATO Records – This album recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis is already at # 20 on the Americana Music Association airplay chart. Lucero is on tour now, with upcoming stops in Oklahoma, Nebraska, Utah, Washington and Oregon.
Jonas Carping – Cocktails & Gasoline – Recorded in a cabin in rural Sweden, but the album doesn’t sound like it. Lots of emotional peaks and valleys, propelled by ambitious production.
Andy Hackbarth – Panorama Hotel – This Colorado artist’s new album was “written and recorded in the wake of a messy breakup,” according to press materials.
Stephen Young and the Union – Eagle Fort Rumble – The new album from this Irish Americana band is set for release Nov. 27.
The Dappled Grays – Las Night, Tomorrow – The third album from the talented bluegrass group. The band had two songs featured in Trouble with the Curve
Chris Laterzo – West Coast Sound – The fifth studio album from this LA-based artist will remind you of Tom Petty’s solo work.
Leroy Powell – The Overlords of the Cosmic Revelation – Cleopatra Records – A space opera from Shooter Jennings’ former guitarist. Powell promises (with tongue in cheek) that “this is the greatest record ever recorded by anyone and of all time.”
Jeff Crosby and the Refugees – Waking Days – Coming Nov. 6, Jeff Crosby’s new album was recorded in Los Angeles and Nashville.
Electric Rag Band – My Side – Horton Records – The sixth album from the Tulsa-based father and son duo.
A round-up of new and recent Americana music releases:
Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams – Red House Records – One of our favorite albums of the summer, the debut duo album from Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams has soared up the Americana music airplay chart since its release five weeks ago, and has just entered the top 10. Rightly so. Best known for their affiliations with Levon Helm and Bob Dylan, the couple has delivered a self-assured collection of soulful and compelling songs, with immaculate playing throughout, and guest turns from Amy Helm and Bill Payne.
Jason James – New West Records – Jason James taps into classic country on his debut solo album, recording new songs with a decidedly familiar feel. It’s all honky tonk and heartbreak, just like they made them 50 years ago. Set for release on August 21.
The Howl and the Growl – The Surreal McCoys – Produced by Eric Ambel, The Howl and the Growl offers up straight-ahead, high energy rock and country. The Surreal McCoys will be featured at a showcase at the Americana Music Festival in Nashville on Sept. 17.
Back on the Old Stuff– The Tallent Brothers – Rocky and Brandon Tallent left David Allen Coe’s band to record their own album, including a co-write with Pat McLaughlin on “There’s a Spirit.” Release date: August 10.
Sure to Offend – Jim Pharis – Second album from Jim Pharis, who cites Leo Kottke, Rev. Gary Davis, Merlre Travis and Bo Carter as his influences.
Old News – Dave Desmelik – Dave Desmelik’s 10th album revisits a dozen songs he’s recorded over the past 16 years.
Long Gone Song – Nocona – Long Gone Song is the second studio album from Nocona. The band’s lyrics have a dark bent (see “Toothless Junkie”), but their sound is often spirited and adventurous.
Yesterday/Miracle Mile – Bill Lloyd – We generally don’t review EPs, but we do want to alert you to a new release by Bill Lloyd, one-half of Foster and Lloyd and an inventive solo artist with a passion for all things power pop. “Yesterday/Miracle Mile” is the “single” that anchors this new collection of five songs. Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick co-wrote “Yesterday” and plays bass on the track, and Pat Buchanan co-wrote the Who-inspired “Miracle Mile.” Three bonus tracks from Lloyd’s archives round out this energetic, engaging and hook-laden set, available on iTunes on August 18.
Salvatella – Breadfoot – Jeezie Peezie Records – The fourth album from Breadfoot, whose music has been featured on Roadtrip Nation. Out this month.
Country/Folk – Well Worn Soles – – Debut album from Emerson Wells-Barrett and Chelsea Dix-Kessler features low-key country and folk, just as described in the title. Buddy and Julie Miller offer up a supportive promotional quote, calling the duo “some comfortable listening.”
By Ken Paulson
Bill Lloyd’s Set to Pop was a revelation upon its release in 1994, a buoyant and inventive slice of pop in a league with Emitt Rhodes and Nick Lowe’s Jesus of Cool. So it’s great news that Lloyd has chosen to revisit his classic album 20 years on.
Reset 2014 replicates the track list of the original with remakes, live versions and alternate mixes. The album contains some of Lloyd’s best songwriting, particularly the euphoric opener “I Went Electric,” “the mood swing anthem “Trampoline” (written with Greg Trooper) and the yearning “Forget About Us.”
There’s also a new recording of “Channeling the King,” maybe the smartest Elvis tribute ever recorded, and two live versions of “Niagara Falls,” with contributions by Rusty Young, Billy Block, Byron House, Pat Buchanan, Jason White and Jonell Mosser.
If you’re new to Bill Lloyd’s work, Set to Pop is still the place to start, but Lloyd is offering the original in a bundle with the new release on his website. Highly recommended.
Follow Sun209 on Twitter at @Sun209com.
Ashley Cleveland performs during Tin Pan South
Ashley Cleveland, Bill Lloyd, Suzi Ragsdale and Dave Coleman were clearly enjoying themselves Friday night at Douglas Corner as part of the Tin Pan South songwriters festival in Nashville.
Unlike other rounds where songwriters might be teamed thematically or shows in which songwriters come out for a rare performance, these were all friends and active performers, eager to play off each other and to share new material.
Three-time Grammy Ashley Cleveland stood to deliver songs from her upcoming Beauty on the Curve, Coleman showcased songs from his band’s new Escalator, Ragsdale debuted “The Ending” from a musical in the works, and Lloyd shared “Happiness,” a cool pop song that channels Burt Bacharach.
Follow Sun209 on Twitter at @Sun209com.
Tin Pan South, a wide-ranging and always rewarding songwriters festival, has just announced its 2014 line-up. The festival, which features both songwriting legends and upcoming writers, will run from March 25 through March 29 in Nashville.
Will Kimbrough: Spending most of 2011 touring with Emmylou Harris as one of her Red Dirt Boys, Will Kimbrough often performs with Rodney Crowell, Jimmy Buffett and others when not performing his own shows, writing hit songs, working as a session performer or producing others notable artists across various genres.
Will’s songs have been recorded by Jimmy Buffett, Little Feat, Jack Ingram, Todd Snider and others, while he has released 10 artist albums and a 3-CD box set to-date, including five albums as a founding member of DADDY, the bis-quits, and Will and the Bushmen. A new studio album is due out in late 2012. Dubbed an “Alien” performer as a way to explain his un-earthly, masterful performance on the guitar, Will was recognized in 2004 as the “Instrumentalist of the Year” by the Americana Music Association.
His websites: http://www.reverbnation.com/willkimbrough and
http://www.willkimbrough.com
Bill Lloyd: Bill Lloyd is a Nashville-based songwriter, musician, recording artist and producer who is most often remembered as half of the late ’80s RCA country-rock duo, Foster and Lloyd. Lloyd’s diverse musical activities include working as a producer (ranging from Carl Perkins to MTV reality show indie-rockers, The Secret), a session player (from Brit-pop icons like Ray Davies of The Kinks and Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze to country legends like Buck Owens and Steve Earle), a sideman (Poco, Marshall Crenshaw and with Cheap Trick when they perform The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper with orchestra) and as a songwriter (with songs cut by Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, Sara Evans, Keith Anderson, Hootie and the Blowfish and many more). He has recorded a string of critically acclaimed solo records that blend his melodic power pop sensibility with finely tuned song craft. During his stint as the Stringed Instrument Curator at The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, he created the quarterly series Nashville Cats, that he continues to host. He’s the music director for the First Amendment Center in Nashville. He also organized and plays in Nashville’s high concept cover band, The Long Players
Ken Paulson: Ken Paulson is the editor of Sun209:The Americana Music Journal. The former editor-in-chief of USA Today and a journalist for almost thirty years, Paulson began his career as a music reporter for Chicago-area publications in the ‘70s, and later worked as music critic for the national Gannett News Service and as a music writer for a wide range of magazines, including Goldmine, Environs, Triad and Family Weekly.
Terry Roland: Terry Roland is an Americana-roots music journalist who has published interviews, reviews and feature articles for FolkWorks, Sing-Out, No Depression and The San Diego Troubadour.
Bruce Rosenstein: Bruce Rosenstein is currently Managing Editor for the journal Leader to Leader. His book Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life was published by Berrett-Koehler in 2009.For 21 years, Bruce was a librarian for USA TODAY, where he also wrote about business and management books for the Money section of the newspaper. He has written for such publications as Leader to Leader, Leadership Excellence, American Executive, ONLINE and Information Outlook. He also wrote scripts for a weekly rock music radio show heard around the world on the Voice of America in the 1970s and ’80s, and contributed to such music publications as Trouser Press and ARSC Journal. He and Steve Leeds released one of the first compilations of independent rock music, Declaration of Independents, on their Ambition Records label in 1980. His website is www.brucerosenstein.com.
Joe Ross: Joe Ross of Roseburg, Oregon has been a music journalist and reviewer for over three decades. Now retired from the day job as a civilian with the U.S. Marine Corps, Joe is working full-time on music-related endeavors, including teaching and songwriting. He “edu-tains” with his interactive, fast-paced “Roots of Bluegrass” solo show that traces that music’s evolution while demonstrating banjo, mandolin, guitar, concertina, autoharp and dulcimers. But you might also see him performing a solo show of Latin, Hawaiian or even Beatles music. Performing since age 12, Joe also currently plays with various bands including Irish Crème (Celtic), Umpqua Valley Bluegrass Band (Bluegrass), The Keynotes (Polka Band), Zephyr Duo (Old-Time), and Alamojo (Western Swing). His eight albums, available at Amazon and CDBaby, span multiple genres and also include many original songs. Contact him at rossjoe@hotmail.com
Tommy Womack: A successful singer-songwriter with songs recorded by Jimmy Buffett, Todd Snider, Jason Ringenberg, Dan Baird, Scott Kempner and others, Tommy Womack is the author of the rock memoir cult classic “Cheese Chronicles: The True Story of a Rock n Roll Band You’ve Never Heard Of” and the recording artist behind 2007’s career-defining There, I Said It! album, as well as founding
member of the band DADDY with the Americana Music Association’s
instrumentalist of the year Will Kimbrough. A two-time winner of “Best Song” in the Nashville Scene’s annual “Best of Nashville” poll, Tommy is releasing a new solo studio album – NOW WHAT! – in late February 2012. He is always writing towards his next book. His websites:
http://www.tommywomack.com
By Bill Lloyd
–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.
By Ken Paulson
–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.
Bill Lloyd at his album release party
Americana artists were well-represented at last night’s John Lennon tribute at the Mercy Lounge in Nashville. The concert, designed to raise awareness about gun violence and to celebrate Lennon’s music, ran for almost four hours and showcased the talents of a number of Americana music performers, including:
– Bill Lloyd on “Girl”
– Kenny Vaughan on “Cry Baby Cry” and “Bad Boy”
– Tommy Womack on “I’m a Loser” and “Well, Well, Well”
– Chris Scruggs on “Crippled Inside” and “I Found Out”
– Rosie Flores (with Anne McCue) on “Strawberry Fields” and “No Reply”
You’ll find the full roster and another slideshow here.
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Photos copyright 2011 by Ken Paulson
By Tommy Womack
Bill Lloyd and I (with the trusty rhythm section from my band The Rush to Judgment – Dan Seymour and Justin Amaral) will grace you (if you deign to come) with a night of the Kinks at the Family Wash (Corner of Greenwood & Porter in East Nashvillw) on December 2nd. In honor of that noble undertaking, I’ve jotted thoughts on my three favorite Kinks tunes (at the moment) in the hope that, if you haven’t ever heard them, you’ll seek them out.
I find my three faves eschew the usual suspects: “You Really Got Me” (yawn), “Waterloo Sunset” (yawn) and “Lola” (triple yawn with a cherry on top). While I love those tunes, they routinely get their moments in the sun. Here are three that may or may not have drifted over your transom before.
“I Need You” (1965) – “YRGM” and “All Day & All of the Night” leave me cold sometimes now. Overexposure does that. “I Need You”, from the “Kinkdom” LP, has all their elements in spades, and 400 years later, it still sounds fresh.
What first drew me to the Kinks was not the charming tales of English life. That came later. It was those insanely catchy rocking riffs of the early days. After their first two hits, mentioned above, “I Need You” is third on the list of their early power chord masterpieces. First you have Dave Davies’ deliriously obnoxious Guild electric guitar through his El Pico amp with razor slits cut into the speaker cone and knitting needles stuck into a tube socket. Then you have that propulsive, infectious two-chord riff, tight as a tick with Pete Quaife on bass and Mick Avory punching the air with serious power.
The real star, however, is Ray Davies. Before being a lyricist with a poet’s touch, before writing those beautiful sophisticated melodies of years to come, Ray was already the preeminent massive talent in one facet that never gets mentioned: his profound grasp of laying down his voice in perfect rhythm with the track. His lyrics lay right with the drums. He’s the best rhythm singer in the world and I’ll stand on Elvis’s grave and say that. He’s better than Mick Jagger, better than John Lennon, better than Little Richard, better than even Chuck Berry. Before he was any of the things he later became, he was the best rhythm singer in the world. He still is. You can dance to his voice.
“Shangri-La” (1969) – At 5 ½ minutes, way longer than the average Kinks tune, with four different choral motifs, Ray skewered with a surgical lack of mercy the bland emptiness of a British middle class existence in houses that all look the same. If the Kinks had anything like a “Stairway to Heaven”, this one, epic in scope, building from quiet to Armageddon, is it. It’s even in the same key of A minor. Starting hauntingly in that second-saddest of all keys, as Ray begins by intoning “Now that you’ve found your paradise, here is your kingdom to command. You can go outside and polish your car, or sit by the fire in your Shangri-La”.
Enter the mournful horn section. Several minutes and three vignettes later, Dave kicks off a mean, Who-like slash-and-burn chordal onslaught and Ray lays it on the line, “All the houses on the street have got a name, ‘cause all the houses on the street they look the look the same…the gas bills and the water mains, payments on the car. Too scared to think how insecure you are. Life ain’t so happy in your little Shangri-La!”
Appearing on their “comeback” album, Arthur or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, “Shangri-La” inspired a flurry of protest letters to the BBC by thin-skinned middle-class Brits offended by this lyrical challenge to the staid and colorless English existence. The album, commissioned for a television drama, benefited from a production sheen probably germinated from a healthier budget than the Kinks had enjoyed on the records immediately prior to. It also sounds like their first 8-track recording, through a more modern mixing board that rounded the edges of their sound, producing a sonic leap not unlike the difference from The “White Album” and “Abbey Road” in the same time period. By the way, if it even needs to be said, “Shangri-La” more than holds its own against anything the fabs were doing. You might even say it packs the whole second side of “Abbey Road” boiled down to a tighter rocking package.
“All of My Friends Were There” (1968) – With hokey music hall oom-pah verses and a gorgeous, delicate, soaring chorus, this might be the funniest song Ray has ever penned. It is a tale of him drinking too much before a prestigious gig. “My big day, it was the biggest day of my life. It was the summit of my long career, but I felt so down and I drank too much beer. The management said that I shouldn’t appear.” Mortified in retrospect, Ray then dons a disguise and sings “I wore a moustache and I parted my hair, and gave the impression that I did not care, but oh, the embarrassment, oh, the despair!” Offered a shot at redemption the next week, “I nervously mounted the stage once again, got through my performance and no one complained. Thank God I can go back to normal again.”
This gem appears on the second side of “The Village Green Preservation Society”, which Creem magazine once cited as “arguably the best album anyone’s ever made.” I tend to agree with that. In my freshman year of college, that record was my best friend. I love it so much I’m going to buy it something to eat.
So there are my three Kinks favorites – at the moment. I hope you can fit it into your schedule to come see me and Bill Lloyd celebrate the music of the Kinks at the Family Wash in East Nashville at 9 PM on December 2nd.
God Save The Kinks.
(Tommy Womack’s new album “Now What!” is due in January. His Kinks history includes a recording of “Picture Book” with Bill Lloyd on the Ray Davies tribute album This is Where I Belong.
Bill Lloyd hosted another remarkable “Nashville Cats” session at the Country Music Hall of Fame this afternoon, interviewing pioneering rock ‘n’ roll drummer D.J. Fontana.
Fontana, Scotty Moore and Bill Black were Elvis Presley’s first band, playing such classics as”Heartbreak Hotel,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Hound Dog” and “Don’t Be Cruel.” Over time, Fontana drummed on almost 500 Presley recordings.
Some snippets from today’s conversation:
– On the effort to replicate Sun Studio’s distinctive sound by putting microphones in the hallways on “Heartbreak Hotel:” “Nobody I ever knew got that sound again.”
– Asked whether the band was exposed to rhythm and blues in those early days, Fontana said Bill Black wouldn’t let them play the radio in the car on road trips because “he didn’t like noise.” If you played the radio, Black “would kick it out.”
– Asked whether it was different to play with Los Angeles-based session men a few years on, Fontana said he saw no change: “If you play good, you play good and that’s it.”
I first saw Bill Lloyd on stage at a club in downtown Nashville in 1997. I was impressed with his power pop-flavored set and cover of the Kinks’ “This is Where I Belong.” I figured he was an up-and-comer with impeccable taste in covers.
It wasn’t until later that I learned that he was the Lloyd of Foster and Lloyd, a country duo, once up-and-comers with impeccable taste in everything. Over a four-year run, Foster and Lloyd released three well-received albums with reviews that brought comparisons to the Everly Brothers, Byrds and Rockpile. They were that good.
By 1991, Foster and Lloyd were no more, and Radney Foster and Bill Lloyd embarked on solo careers as performers and songwriters. Since then, there have been occasional one-off reunions. There were two successive New Year’s Eve dates at the Bluebird Café in Nashville, a track on a Nick Lowe tribute CD and a performance of “In the Ghetto” at our annual Freedom Sings salute to free expression.
Then came a benefit for the Americana Music Association, with new material and a delighted audience. That set the stage for “It’s Already Tomorrow,” the first new Foster and Lloyd album in 20 years. It was worth the wait.
Reflecting their individual music growth over the years, the new album is both the most musically adventurous and cohesive of their career. Most likely it’s the liberation of no longer worrying about the country radio market and just letting the music flow. It rocks and charms in equal measure.
The additional years also bring a different perspective to the songwriting. The buoyant title song marvels at the passage of years and celebrates a long relationship: “Two young lovers across the aisle, they make me think of us and I smile.”
Closing out the album is “When I Finally Let You Go,” an acoustic number destined to be the bride’s father’s dance at hip wedding receptions. These and songs like “If It hadn’t Been For You” and “Watch Your Movie” couldn’t have been written or performed by a young Foster and Lloyd.
Not that the sly wordplay of earlier records is gone. “Let Me Help You Out of that Freudian slip” they sing in “Can’t Make Love Make Sense”, while the joking boyfriend in That’s What She said” protests that “I can’t stop my innuendo, that’s one thing she can’t comprendo.”
Tom Petersson of Cheap Trick plays bass and electric guitar on “Hold That Thought,” and is a co-writer of “Lucky Number,” a melodic and rocking song about a confident young woman, with back-up vocals by Beth Nielsen Chapman.
Foster and Lloyd revisit their own “Picasso’s Mandolin,” a co-write with Guy Clark, freshening it with a new verse and a guest turn on mandolin by Sam Bush.
In a bit of whimsy, the CD cover is designed to look like a worn and discolored album jacket. The packaging may be weathered, but the music certainly isn’t. Foster and Lloyd are as fresh and vibrant as ever.
Ken Paulson