Keegan McEnroe - From the Wall and In the City

[purchase]

This will be one of the oddest reviews I’ve ever done. And I can’t say I wasn’t warned. I usually read liner notes pretty closely, and in the thank you section of Keegan McInroe’s From the Wall and In the City, I found this: “Thanks to all the musicians involved - my fellow painters! Their participation should in no way be taken as their endorsement of or agreement with the album’s politics or theology.” Neither should my review. I will say right now that I don’t agree with either, and nor am I asking my readers to do so. Why then am I reviewing this at all? There are several reasons.

First of all, I ran a review of Keegan McInroe’s last album, Mozelle, and I enjoyed that one without reservation. So I felt that my readers would want a report on his newest effort. Second, I feel that my role is not to judge what an artist is expressing, but rather the artistry with which they are expressing it. And finally, while I am uncomfortable with some of the lyrics here, the music is astounding.

Mozelle was a personal work that McInroe dedicated to the memory of his grandmother. The music was acoustic and the arrangements spare. I commented then that McInroe is a fine rhythm guitar player. From the Wall and In the City is a set of songs about how McInroe sees the current state of the world. These are indeed extraordinary times, and McInroe is inclined to see them in apocalyptic terms. To get that across musically, he has enlisted a full band, with electric guitars and organ parts in many songs, and with bass and drums throughout. But this is not just full tilt rock n roll. McInroe makes great use of the accordion on several songs, and there is trombone and even flute at times. The female background vocals have a gospel flavor that is very powerful, with Sarah Blacker being a particular standout. McInroe’s rhythm guitar playing is just as vital to the music’s success here as it was on Mozelle, but in a very different context.

From the Wall and In the City is an album of dark songs, but not all of the lyrics are off-putting. The tone becomes more strident as the album goes along, and there are some real gems early on. The opening number is Dogs, and the dogs are a metaphor for humanity. The song doesn’t present us in the best light, but I find it to be a fair criticism. After a beautiful intro on the accordion, the song settles into a wonderful sort of alt country groove. The next song is Genesis Six Blues. Here, McInroe retells the story of the biblical flood, and there is the theme of sin and God’s punishment. But the tale is told with subtlety and even a hint of humor, giving only a glimpse of what will come later. The tone gets much darker with Revolution. The tone of this one reminds me of some of the classic art-rock ballads of the 70s. Think John Barleycorn Must Die or In the Court of the Crimson King. The chorused vocals on the refrain, as well as the trombone and flute parts, are all perfectly placed, and make this one a truly haunting work. Later in the album, I want to single out Down to the Pit. The song portrays a man who feels himself to be surrounded by the evil of the world. The song is a desperate prayer for God’s help in hard times, and while it does not jibe with my own spirituality, the song is the most personal work on the album, and I think it gives us a fair picture of who Keegan McInroe is. Powerful stuff. The last song on the album is The Ship’s Going Down. This one is an anthem that paints the grimmest possible picture of humanity as being awash in immorality. I think the sentiment is a bit much, but if the album needed one such song, this should have been it. Musically, it works, and there can be no doubt that this is how McInroe genuinely feels. There is other good work here, but, especially in the last half of the album, the lyrics become strident, either venting at corrupt politicians or loudly declaiming the coming Judgment. To be clear, my own political views are on the liberal side, but I don’t like strident political songs from Joni Mitchell or Billy Bragg any more than I like these.

To sum up then. This is the first time I have heard Keegan McInroe with a full band, and I like the results musically. I hope that he continues with the musical explorations on display here. But I also hope that next time he returns to more personal material. And that will probably determine whether I review his next album. The good stuff is very good, so I hope so.

Keegan McInroe: Dogs

Keegan McInroe: Revolution

The Blues

The image above is by Theo Booth. To see more of his work and order prints, go here

I feel terrible, I just want you to know.
I feel terrible, I just want you to know.
My baby done left, with that no good so and so.

For outsiders, the verse above sums up the blues. That’s all there is, and they’re ready to move on to something else. That’s too bad, because they are missing one of the great musical forms. That verse, (which I made up, if you’re wondering), fits neatly into twelve bars of music. It expresses the singer’s misery. And the structure provides plenty of room for aimless soloing on screaming guitars. Unfortunately, there is far too much blues in the marketplace that never gets beyond that. But the history of the blues provides great riches, and there are some artists out there today who understand that, and are furthering the tradition in meaningful ways. Let’s look at some blues pioneers, and enjoy the richness of the blues.

Lightning Hopkins: I‘m a Crawling Black Snake

[purchase]

The rigid form of the blues developed in the years after World War II. Older blues is more loosely structured. When Lightning Hopkins played solo on his acoustic guitar, he would suspend time and play these little runs that ignored the song’s structure altogether. But he would always find his way back, and it was never just for show. This suspension of time has made his music a favorite among jazz musicians I’m a Crawling Black Snake is a fine example of what I mean.

Ruth Brown and Johnny Adams: I Don‘t Know

[purchase]

I Don’t Know is a happy, teasing song. It also swings. Most versions I have heard are sung solo, usually by a male singer. Ruth Brown and Johnny Adams perform it here as a duet, and it really brings out the playfulness of the song.

Jimmy Witherspoon: Corina, Corina

[purchase]

Here is a blues song with no guitars. Jimmy Witherspoon started singing the blues with big bands. After World War II, the bands shrank, and the music started to change. Witherspoon kept up, and became one of the best jazz-blues singers of the postwar era. Here we hear him with a small group led by Ben Webster.

Slim Harpo: I‘m a King Bee

[purchase]

I’m a King Bee is a perfect example of the Chicago blues style that developed after WWII. This is the style that most influenced the British Invasion rockers of the 60s. No one showed that influence more than the Rolling Stones. The Stones recorded a version of I’m a King Bee on one of their early albums.

Spotlight Song of the Week:

Kim Beggs: Longest Dream

[purchase]

Kim Beggs plays and sings country music like they did in the old days. The arrangements are mostly acoustic, and nicely understated. Beggs knows that the songs don’t need a heavy hand to work. She sings in a wonderfully sweet soprano, and this brings a beautiful tenderness to all of the songs here. There are four covers on the album, and each is a marvel. But I wanted to feature an original song, and Longest Dream is here because I felt It was one of Beggs’ best lyrics. A woman stands by her man as he lays on his death bed. Beggs presents his state of mind, grateful for her faithfulness, anxious about the end, hopeful for the afterlife. Beggs sketches all of this in with very few words. It’s a beautiful example of her artistry, one of many here.

For a Song: Long Tall Cool One

Bruce Hornsby: Long Tall Cool One

[purchase]

Man, it’s hot! I live in New Jersey. In a normal year, we might have five to ten days of 90+ degree weather, scattered through late July and August. This year, we’ve had at least that many already. Today was the topper, with temperatures threatening to top out over 100. As I tried to think of what to post for this feature, my brain boiled away. “Man, a long tall cool one would be good about now!” Well, at least that was easy.

In the song, a Long Tall Cool One may refer to a drink, a man, or even an exchange of money. Maybe it’s all of those. This is the kind of noir tale where the humidity is visible on the screen of the film version. The details are left to the listener’s imagination here. This song is all about mood. When Bruce Hornsby recorded this one, he had just come off the road as a part of the Grateful Dead. Long Tall Cool One, and indeed the entire Harbor Lights album, mark a major shift in Hornsby’s style. The music became jazzier, the structures looser. In short, Hornsby took what he had been doing, and added jamming. The result here is a song you may not be able to sit still to, but I hope its coolness will also reach you, and help you to get through the hot days.

Elisabeth Williamson - Deep

[purchase]

This week, I am presenting an album of wonderful music that could get passed over because of the cover art. I want to do whatever I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. You can see the cover of Elisabeth Williamson’s album Deep above. Yes, that is a lotus blossom floating in a pond, against a backdrop of a galaxy or nebula. It’s a beautiful image, but it’s going to give you exactly the wrong idea of what to expect from the music. This is not a new age album of music for meditation. I might cover something like that one day, but not right now.

Instead, call this folk music for now. A fairly large number of musicians appear on this album, and the liner notes don’t say who plays on which song. Williamson plays rhythm guitar, banjo, and ukulele, and there is upright bass on every track. They may be joined by additional guitars, mandolin, fiddle, pedal steel, and/ or piano. Somewhere in the mix, there is also accordion and concert harp, but they blend in so well that I’m not sure which songs they are used on. When there are drums, they are played softly with brushes.

Elisabeth Williamson sings in a clear low soprano. Her voice is full of warmth, but she knows how to express a full range of the emotions that can accompany love. About half of the songs are jazzy numbers that sound like standards from the 1930s. Williamson sings these in a voice that has the fizz of fine champagne. The rest of the songs have more of a contemporary new grass feel to them, and she modulates her voice to sound more modern here. The result could be a musical tug of war, but that never happens. This album makes sense as a whole, because Williamson and her fine band bring out the common element that unites these two styles. That element is Williamson’s romanticism.

All of these songs are about love. In Williamson’s world, love is indestructible. Once given, it can not be taken back or ever truly replaced. When a lover cheats, he may be lost, but never forgotten. Even when Williamson’s protagonists move on, their former lover is remembered fondly and with the best of wishes. The song Someday is all about this. In Paint the Town, a pair of lovers remember how they were together when their relationship was new, and the set out to experience those feelings again; the listener knows that they will succeed. Alone repeats the phrase “Alone with you” early on; only towards the end does the listener realize that this part of the song was a memory. And The Bell may be the most remarkable piece of writing on an album of very well written songs. Here, the protagonist has a husband or lover who works in a mine; we look in on her just as the alarm bell has gone off, indicating that there has been a serious accident in the mine. By the end of the song, neither the protagonist nor the listener know whether her lover is alive or dead. This is the most haunting song I have heard this year, and the music compliments the story beautifully.

Love is the most covered subject in the history of music, and there are abundant clichés to choose from. But Elisabeth Williamson avoids them all. She is a very visual writer, and she uses extended metaphors well too. So her tools are in place, but she never loses sight of what matters most. The emotion of these songs will stay with you for a long time. So, my advice is this. Get this album, and open it without looking at the cover. And prepare for a treat.

Elisabeth Williamson: Alone

Elisabeth Williamson: The Bell

Hitting the Rails

Tomorrow, we are taking my six year old son to see Thomas the Tank Engine. This is an actual train done up to look like Thomas, with rides available, and other tie-in events. In short, kiddie capitalism at its finest. But he’s going to love it, so we’re going. It’s a two hour drive each way for us, so I’ve been working on a CD of train songs for the ride. Amazingly, I had trouble figuring out what my theme would be for this post. You know, “Can’t concentrate, too many train songs!” Sometimes the obvious really has to whap me in the head hard before I listen.

Anyway, like anyone, I had quite a collection of train songs to choose from, but somehow, I was lacking versions of some classic songs. So, I went shopping in Amazon’s mp3 store, and what I found surprised me. Some of my favorite versions of these songs turned out to be by artists even I had not heard of before today.

Mean Mary and Jamestown: Orange Blossom Special

[purchase]

Orange Blossom Special is usually done as an instrumental, but I knew I had heard words for it before. I wanted the words, because I felt that my son would enjoy the song more that way. The number of available versions of this one is almost paralyzing, and I very nearly missed this one. Mean Mary is Mary James. She sings in a powerful country alto, with occasional soprano whoops. She doesn’t yodel on this one, but I get the feeling she could do a great job of it. Any good version of Orange Blossom Special must have fiddle, and that is here. But the train rhythm here is played rockabilly style, on drums, bass, and electric guitar. It’s not a combination that I would have thought of for this song, but it really works.

David Holt: Wabash Cannonball

[purchase]

Wabash Cannonball is a song that my father remembered fondly from his childhood. It became part of mine, because he would sing it around the house at odd moments. David Holt is not only a fine singer and musician, but he is also one of the best-known storytellers in the United States. I think my father would have liked his version of this one.

Franny and the Fireballs: Chattanooga Choo-Choo

[purchase]

In the early 1970s, there was a revival of music from the 1950s. Until today, I had not known that this revival reached as far as Germany. Franny and the Fireballs modeled themselves after Bill Haley and the Comets, who also did a version of this one. But, to me, Franny and the Fireballs’ Chattanooga Choo-Choo retains more of the jazz feel of the original than Haley’s version did. So this may not be what they were trying for, but their version is better for it.

Steve Goodman: City of New Orleans

[purchase]

On the other hand, sometimes there is no improving on the original. I know Arlo Guthrie had the hit, but I’ve always preferred Steve Goodman’s take on his own song. Goodman had a sunniness that no one else could ever match, and this song is the perfect explanation of what I mean by that.

Spotlight Song of the Week:

Alice Tong: Love Painting

[purchase]

As far as I can tell, Alice Tong hasn’t made much of a mark outside of the San Francisco area where she lives. That needs to change. She sings in a sultry alto, but she can also reach well into the soprano range at times with out straining. I’m guessing that she has at least a three octave range, and she uses it very well indeed. On please be brave before the lions they come, she plays six instruments. Impressive, but that would all be meaningless if she didn’t back it up with solid songs and performances. Alice Tong does that. Her songs feature mostly acoustic instruments, with the cello used particularly well. The style is somewhere between folk and country, but also with a distinct jazzy feel. And her voice is just amazing. On Love Painting, you will hear the quiet passion she expresses so well. Only later will you notice that the words present a fresh metaphor for love, and that Tong writes beautifully as well. The multiple talents on display in this song hold through the entire album. Definitely check this one out.

For a Song: Tenderness on the Block

Warren Zevon: Tenderness on the Block

[purchase]

Shawn Colvin: Tenderness on the Block

[purchase]

I was posting a song by Shawn Colvin on Star Maker Machine today, and I thought of how much I love her music. She’s really an artist that I have been neglecting here. Thinking about her songs, I remembered Tenderness on the Block, and I remembered that the original was by Warren Zevon. Listening to both, I realized that I had to post them together.

My daughter is fourteen now, a freshman in high school, and she has her first boyfriend. I keep missing the chance to meet him, but my wife says he’s a good kid, and of course my daughter speaks well of him. Still, this changes things. I’m happy for her, but she’s not just my girl anymore. This is just starting to sink in for me, I think, so this song hits me in a way it never did before. Zevon’s original projects a certain amount of pride that his girl is handling things so well, but there is also a shadow of regret in his performance. Colvin is possibly anxious in her cover, but also hopeful. Taken together, these versions represent the father and mother in the song, for me. The combination reveals a complicated, and perhaps wary, happiness, and this emotional state does not seem complete without having both versions side by side.

Trapper Haskins & the Bitter Swill - Alluvium

[purchase]

First things first. Alluvium is a term in geology for a loose formation of sand or silt left behind by the running water of a river or large stream. It can also be found in areas that are subject to frequent flooding. It is the dirt or soil that is left behind, unwanted, but it can sometimes contain gems or precious metals. As such, it is the perfect metaphor for many of the lives described on this album. Now that may seem like a reach. I didn’t name this album, I only researched the word that is its title. But if you are going to give your album a name like that, you had better be a good enough wordsmith to make the metaphor work, and not seem forced. Trapper Haskins is up to the job. On Alluvium, we are in the hands of a very fine writer.

Trapper Haskins plays electric, acoustic, and resonator guitars. His band has a drummer, and a bass player who plays both standup and electric. And the final member of the band plays piano, organ, accordion, and saxophone. Guest musicians contribute pedal steel, fiddle, and additional electric guitar. So there are some intriguing possibilities for arrangements there, but you don’t here them right away. Instead, Haskins and Co seem intent on showing their ability as a bar band. That lasts for the first four tracks of the album, while Haskins’ strong lyrics carry the show. Then, to this ear, the music catches up to the words, and the rest of the album is strong in both areas.

The album opens with an uptempo rocker, Souvenir. A guy buys his girlfriend a bracelet when they are young, and its physical condition becomes a manifestation of the state of their relationship as time passes. Out of State Tags presents a man who had left his home town behind him, and returns as a stranger, but thinking of the girl he left behind. Song for Lehigh sounds like a tender love song, but it turns out to be about a man and his guitar; the story has been done to death, but Haskins makes it sound both believable and new.

But the single most amazing piece of songwriting here is Comes a Darkness. The narrator is awaked in the middle of the night by a female friend at his door. He starts to be annoyed, but, as he becomes more awake, he realizes that something serious has happened. The story is told entirely in the words he speaks to her; we never hear her voice. And yet, it is her story, and Haskins lets us know exactly what happened, without the benefit of her words. It’s a remarkable piece of storytelling. Storytelling is the key to this album. Almost all of the songs tell a story, and tell it well. There are strong images and metaphors. And there are times when I marveled at a turn of phrase. Describing a young couple who would turn out to not be right for each other, Haskins sings, “You’d keep your eyes out for meteorites, but I never was patient enough.” That’s perfect. But it is all in service of furthering the tale.

There is one final piece of the puzzle. Trapper Haskins makes all of this work by singing the way he does. For the louder numbers, he sings in a high tenor with a bit of a catch to it. On the softer songs, his voice comes down to a second tenor, or even a baritone at times. This can convey resignation or warmth. Having both options available gives Haskins a full emotional range to draw upon, and he knows how to put this to good use. Every song is believable, because Haskins’ vocal lets you know that he believes. Haskins is echoed in several places by the background vocals of Candace Mache. This is a subtle touch that you could miss if you didn’t know to listen for it, but it gives the music an extra dimension.

Alluvium marks the arrival of a very talented writer, and a band that can take this music in a lot of interesting directions. I’ll be very interested to see what happens next time. This story has only just started.

Trapper Haskins & the Bitter Swill: Comes a Darkness

Trapper Haskins & the Bitter Swill: Song for Lehigh