Billy Burnette has a fun new album “Crazy Like Me” that chronicles his career in music, including his years in Fleetwood Mac. We caught up with him at 3rd and Lindsley in Nashville.
Tag: Billy Burnette
Review: Bill Lloyd’s “Boy King of Tokyo”
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
New to chart: Billy Burnette, Red Molly and Kenny Vaughan
Nashville is well-represented on this week’s Americana Music Chart, as Music City guitarists Billy Burnette and Kenny Vaughan enter the list.
Burnette, the son of rockabilly legend Dorsey Burnette, and most recently a member of John Fogerty’s band, breaks in at #30 with “Rock ‘n’ Roll With It.”
Vaughan, a mainstay of Marty Stuart’s Fabulous Superlatives, is at #37 with “V.”
Red Molly’s “Light in the Sky,” one of the most added albums in Americana radio this week, is also new to the chart at #31.
As in past weeks, the top of the chart remained larglely unchanged, with the Jayhawks’ “Mocking Bird Time” at #1, followed by Robert Earl Keen’s “Ready for Confetti.”
Celebrating the music of Muscle Shoals
The 2011 Americana Music Festival began last night with an event that illustrates the genre’s greatest strengths: outstanding performances and a respect for what has come before.
The 90-minute concert celebrating the Muscle Shoals sound was equal parts energy and nostalgia, with legendary figures like Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, Jimmy Johnson and David Briggs sharing the stage with some of Nashville’s most soulful vocalists.
With Webb Wilder on hand as MC, the evening walked through the history of FAME Studio and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, from soul to pop and rock.
Highlights were plentiful. From Jonell Mosser’s take on “Dark End of the Street” to Mike Farris’ “I’d Rather Go Blind” to Jimmy Hall’s “Land of a Thousand Dances,” singers delivered faithful, but moving performances. Special treats: Candi Staton’s “He Called Me Baby” and Dan Penn’s “I’m Your Puppet.”
Billy Burnette performed “The Letter,” which was recorded in 1967 by a young Alex Chilton and the Box Tops at FAME. Oddly, he did the live Joe Cocker arrangement that came three years later.
The show closed with Burnette kicking off an all hands-on-deck performance of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll.” The song belongs in the “Played Badly at Weddings Receptions Hall of Fame,” but proved to be a vibrant and fitting close.
(Pictured: A scarce Muscle Shoals anthology.)