Looking Back

There are times in a musician’s career when they take a moment to reflect on the past. Joni Mitchell twice summed up phases of her career with live albums, before making her next bold leap. A greatest hits or “best of” album can be a contractual obligation at times, but sometimes it can be an artist taking stock of their work to date. And a reissue, especially if it comes with extras, can allow an artist to revisit a moment in time, and sometimes even fix mistakes. Recently, enough albums like this have come my way to make a post, and here it is. When I set out to do this post, I neglected to take into account that albums like this often have generous amounts of music on them. So, where most of the albums I deal with have just over a half hour of music, four of the albums heard here are over an hour long each; that’s why this post is so late, and I would like to thank my regular readers for your patience. Consumer warning: three or four of the artists in this post, depending on your musical taste, make musical sense together, but then things go off the rails. All of these artists are here because I really enjoy their work. I hope you will keep an open mind, and enjoy them too.

Slaid Cleaves: Broke Down

[purchase]

Slaid Cleaves’ album Sorrow & Smoke is not only a look back, but also a homecoming. The Horseshoe Lounge in Austin Texas is where Cleaves made his breakthrough. At a pair of shows there last year, Cleaves played many of the songs from his breakthrough album Broke Down, including the song Horseshoe Lounge. Music from three other albums is included here, as well as some choice covers of other Texas songwriters. On his studio albums, Cleaves is usually accompanied by a full band, but here he has just another guitar player and a keyboard player with him. The keyboard is usually either a piano or the accordion heard here. So the songs are presented here in an intimate setting, and Cleaves’ talents as a singer and songwriter shine through. I chose the song Broke Down as much for the fact that it was the title track of Cleaves’ breakthrough album as anything else. The quality of the music is remarkably consistent over the length of Sorrow & Smoke.

Guy Clark: The Cape

[purchase]

On Songs and Stories, Guy Clark looks over his career with the help of his full band. The “Stories” in the album title are mainly song introductions, but the songs are more than enough to make up for that. Some of the older songs here got a country treatment in their original studio versions, but now the arrangements are more on the folk side of things, and the songs are better for it. Guy Clark turned 70 this year, and you can hear his age in his voice. But he takes the gravelly sound he makes now, and makes use of it. The Cape is one of many songs here that sound different when sung with the voice of experience. It says a lot about Clark’s strength as a writer that his age has caught up to his material, but he was able to write these songs when he was so much younger. Wisdom, warmth, and humor all come through wonderfully. Clark is a generous host, letting his bandmates Verlon Thompson and Shawn Camp take the lead on two songs each. Overall, Songs and Stories is an album that leaves me feeling that I have spent just over an hour in some very good company.

Paul Geremia: Lovin‘ Sam (The Sheik of Alabam‘)

[purchase]

For Love My Stuff, Paul Geremia went through recordings of his live performances throughout his career, and compiled an album from them. This is a generous sampling of 18 songs, most of which have never been on an album before in either a live or a studio version. Geremia is an old style blues artist. Before World War II, most blues artists lived and worked in the American South. The music was acoustic. In blues, musicians do what is called bending notes, which is sliding a note sharp or flat for emotional effect. Those old blues players would bend time the same way, stretching or compressing a musical phrase. To modern ears, this can sound sloppy or like a mistake, but it is done on purpose, and it is a powerful technique once you know what you are listening to. Paul Geremia is the only modern blues artist I have heard who plays this way, and he does it very well indeed. Geremia applies this technique to folk blues and to jazzier numbers as well, and either way, it works beautifully.

[purchase Persuasions of the Dead]

Sometimes, there are second chances. In 1999, The Persuasions went into the studio and recorded the tracks for their album Might as Well. This was a set of songs that the Grateful Dead had become known for, so it might have seemed to be an odd project for the legendary a capella group. But the Persuasions had previously done an album of Frank Zappa songs, and they were never afraid to add unusual songs to their repertoire. Normally, The Persuasions took pride in the rich sounds they made with just human voices, but Might as Well had guest musicians, including not only more voices but also instrumentalists too. Producer Rip Rense was never quite satisfied with the resulting album, but group leader Jerry Lawson left the group in 2003, and that seemed to be that.
Fast forward all the way to this year. Somehow, Rense managed to reconvene the entire group, including Lawson, and create a new version of the album. It has a new name, given by Tom Waits: Persuasions of the Dead. The new name is warranted, because the album has been resequenced, with songs that never made it onto the original album. Some of the original instrumental parts have been toned down, but there are also entirely new instrumental parts, some by musicians who were not even part of the earlier sessions. The Persuasions and the other singers on the album have redone some of their parts, and the whole thing has been remastered. The results sound glorious. With all that goes on here, the album shines the spotlights in the two places they belong: the singing sounds full and rich, and the quality of the songs shines through.

Sadly, I do not have permission to share songs from Persuasions of the Dead with you. The same thing happened when I reviewed the last Persuasions release, Live at McCabe‘s Guitar Shop. Happily, I do have to permission now to share some of that music, so here it is. You can buy Live at McCabe’s at the link below, but there is also a combo deal on the site for Persuasions of the Dead, if you would like to buy both albums together.

The Persuasions: Peace in the Valley

The Persuasions: Under the Boardwalk

[purchase Live at McCabe‘s]

Ljova: Midnight Oil Change

[purchase]

What have we here? Midnight Oil Change opens with the most haunted accordion part you may ever hear, just two chords alternating, like the beating of the Tell-Tale Heart in its effect.. That is soon joined by an electric guitar. The third instrument you hear is a viola being plucked. For lack of a better term, and taking the album this comes from as a whole, this would be considered classical music. The composer and violist is Ljova. It isn’t too hard for me to imagine a more conventional orchestration for Midnight Oil Change, especially once the strings and brasses enter. But Ljova isn’t about conventional. Lost in Kino is a collection of music Ljova wrote and recorded for films during the years 2006 to 2011. Most of these are what might be called “deep independent films”, the sort you would have to dig to find. They include short films, animation, and documentaries. I doubt that many of them had soundtrack albums. So Ljova wanted to preserve this music, but also focus on pieces that would work without their visual context. The songs in the first half of the album were recorded with the gypsy band Romashka, who I need to find out more about. Much of the second half is Ljova playing multiple parts on the viola and the famiola, (like a viola, only with six strings where the viola has only four). Throughout the album, Ljova draws on folk music, mostly from eastern Europe, but also from Apalachia for one track, and China for another. The result is a wonderful document of Ljova’s work for film, but also an album of music that really works beautifully as a whole, and out of context. There is much here for the more adventurous fans of folk music to enjoy, and Lost in Kino is also a fine continuation of a classical music tradition of composers including folk melodies and motifs in their work.

For a Song: Alabama Getaway

Vassar Clements: Alabama Getaway

[purchase]

First of all, my apologies to anyone who came here looking for my review of the new Mavis Staples album. Even though it was sent to me in good faith from her label, the post became a takedown.

Meanwhile, I sat down to do this week’s For a Song post, and all I knew was that I was in the mood for a Grateful Dead cover. Alabama Getaway wasn’t even a song that came to mind. But I went shopping in Amazon’s download store, and this is what I found. Vassar Clements is not a bad choice to cover the Grateful Dead, given that Clements was once in a bluegrass band with Jerry Garcia called Old and in the Way. But that doesn’t fully explain what happens here. Alabama Getaway comes from late in the Dead’s career, when they had strayed far from their classic sound. The song was originally a straight ahead rocker, and a fine one. But it lacks some of the nuances that make earlier Grateful Dead songs so instantly recognizable. Vassar Clements fixes that, by turning the song into a rollicking western swing number. I can’t imagine Garcia and company ever doing it that way themselves, but I think Jerry would approve. The singer here is Gwen Vaughn, and she does a fine job as well.

Old Favorites

Look at the top of this blog, and you will see the words, “new discoveries and old favorites”. The new discoveries are always exciting, but it occurs to me that I have been neglecting the old favorites. These are the artists and songs that formed my musical tastes in the first place. These songs spoke to me early on, and gave me my standards of what a song can and should be. One post is not sufficient to give you a full picture, but let me share a few examples.

Grateful Dead: Friend of the Devil

[purchase]

The Grateful Dead were my first favorite band. At my age, it could have been the Beatles as it was for so many of my friends. It could have been the Jackson 5, but I never really liked them. There were many other choices then, but for me it was the Dead. Jerry Garcia didn’t always sing on key, but I always felt, listening to his voice, that he was a good friend. And he told me stories of the West, of flawed heroes and sympathetic scoundrels. I think that my life-long love of folklore may have started with the Grateful Dead. Later, I would appreciate the diverse musical genres that made up the Dead’s sonic pallet, but, on first hearing, I just knew that the music was exciting and the words took me to another place.

Jackson Browne: Fountain of Sorrow

[purchase]

I have not neglected to cover Joni Mitchell here. Jackson Browne was the other artist who shaped my early ideas of what personal songwriting could do. Like Mitchell, Browne’s songs are poetry, and Fountain of Sorrow rang especially true for me when I first heard it. The imagery and use of metaphor here sounds perfect to me.

Bonnie Raitt: Give It Up or Let Me Go

[purchase]

By the time I first heard Bonnie Raitt, I already knew a thing or two about the blues. First the Rolling Stones and then Eric Clapton with Cream sent me off in search of their influences. I found this rich musical heritage from Chicago, and I thought I was an expert. Raitt taught me otherwise. I think I had heard a slide guitar before, but only plugged in. And I had never heard such an unusual combination of instruments before. Also, I had barely heard any female blues artists at all. So Raitt taught me about arranging, and that no instrument was off limits. By and by, I would learn about the blues sounds that came before World War II, but first I would enjoy the richness of Raitt’s performances. Give It Up or Let Me Go is a fine example of all of this.

Lyle Lovett: Family Reserve

[purchase]

When the three previous songs came out, Lyle Lovett’s music was a long way off. Before him, Tom Waitts and Randy Newman had already shown me that there was a wider range of subjects available for songs than I had known. And either of them could have been in this post instead of Lovett. But Family Reserve also has a spiritual element that neither Waitts nor Newman do as well. This is a song about death of course, but it is also an expression of faith in a hereafter where family and old friends await.

Spotlight Song of the Week:

Carolann Sollebello: Papa‘s Mandolin

[purchase]

Of course, the Spotlight Song of the Week is always a relatively new discovery. But this is about as close to an old favorite as I can get in this space. A quick look through the archives reveals that I have never had a song here by Carolaan Sollebello before. But she has been part of Red Molly, who I reviewed here twice. I had the pleasure of meeting them at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, and I heard the announcement of the worst-kept secret of the festival: Carolann Sollebello is leaving Red Molly. They will carry on with a new member, and Sollebello will resume her solo career, while staying close enough to home to be with her family. I caught a solo set by Sollebello at one of the after parties at the festival, and I especially loved Papa’s Mandolin. The song is filled with love, and describes Sollebello’s inspiration for being a musician. I am pleased to be able to present the song here, and I look forward to reviewing Sollebello’s next album.

For a Song: Mama Tried

Grateful Dead: Mama Tried

[purchase]

Last year around this time, we honored mothers and their day on Star Maker Machine with our Oh Mama theme. This year, it’s Mothers. Both times, Mama Tried was the first song I thought of. Last year, Paul posted a version by someone called Merle something or other. That’s a guy’s name, apparently.

I’m kidding, of course. I certainly know who Merle Haggard is by now. But I first heard Mama Tried in 1971, and that probably would have been my reaction at the time. In 1971, at age 11, there were things I knew for certainties. The Grateful Dead were the greatest band on earth. Country was terrible, something I would never like. And Mama Tried was a Grateful Dead song. Since then, there have been some changes.

I suppose that kids don’t ever think that a song by a band they like could be a cover. Indeed, the very idea of a cover is alien to them. I can’t remember the first song I learned was a cover, but I know it was a shock. The first time I heard a cover of a song I knew in its original version, I know my reaction was, “how dare they!” Learning that Woodstock was by Joni Mitchell really confused me, because I loved her music, but CSNY did the “real” version. But, by the time I learned that Mama Tried was a cover, I had learned that tracking down the originals was a great way to expand my knowledge of songs and artists. And I had learned to love the good stuff in country music. I was ready for Merle Haggard. Having said that though, I still think of Mama Tried as a Grateful Dead song. Do a search for “Mama Tried Grateful Dead” in Amazon’s mp3 store, and you will find 13 versions, all live, spanning from 1969 to 1983. Indeed, listen to them in rough chronological order, and you can trace the evolution of the Dead’s sound, for better or for worse. So, in a sense, this is a Grateful Dead song after all.

For a Song: U S Blues

Grateful Dead: U S Blues

[purchase]

It’s my first July Fourth week on my own blog, and I can’t think of a more appropriate song to share for my weekly song feature. Here is the Grateful Dead’s celebration of our country, with all its warts.

The Grateful Dead cooked jazz, blues, bluegrass, country and folk into their musical stew. Their music, for me, was a starting point in exploring many of these musical forms. Those are all important elements of what I present here. But U S Blues is pure rock and roll.

Nowadays, it is tempting to think of the Grateful Dead as the inventors of jam band music. But their approach to live performance represented an expression of freedom that could be found in many bands from the sixties, including other members of the San Francisco scene, such as the Jefferson Airplane, but also including British bands such as Creem. What set the Grateful Dead apart was that they stayed with this approach long after their fellow jammers had gotten away from it. The freedom of a Grateful Dead performance included the freedom to fall flat on their faces, but also produced moments of transcendence. Not unlike the experiment that is America.