Recent Additions - Eilen Jewell - Sundown over Ghost Town

Sadly I missed Eilen Jewell's recent visit to NZ by a mere few weeks.  However I  compensated a bit by buying Sundown Over Ghost Town her latest and from what I have heard so far best release.

I first became aware of Eilen when the guys at Radar Records (sadly lost since the earthquakes) in Christchurch recommended Letters from Sinners and Strangers to me.  I knew nothing about her but that used to be one of the good things about a good record store.  They would learn what you like and make good recommendations based on that.  I suppose the Amazon algorithms now do that for you instead.

What I have particularly liked about Eilin's work is that she seems able to produce music that is invested in a variety of different genres while still maintaining a high standard and consistent feel. Her albums are really albums.  In particular she brings a mix of folk, blues, country with a californian mexican feeling.  Think Calexico or Los Lobos with a great blues vocalist.

2014's Queen of the Minor Key gave an indication that Eilen may have been at the start of a golden patch.  A great CD but to my ears Sundown is one step up again.   She opens with Worried Mind, perhaps the most conventional song on the album - however she invests it with the Hallelujah Band brings to mind Annie Proulx's Accordian Crimes telling the story of a guitar that wants to let its music out.

Rio Grande and Down The Road really bring the Mexican Blues feeling to the fore - I am still not quite sure which I prefer both are great songs.  Rio Grande opens with a Mariachi Band and a great line "This place plays tricks on me - I don’t know why I’m here"

Eilen's lyrics have always been good but again I think these are just magnificent.  Even the best lyrics do not always translate on the written page however the lyrics here are thoughtful, concise and evocative.  Possibly best exemplified on Half Broke Horse, is she talking about the horse, a relationship, the town or the country.

Half-Broke Horse

Stolen from the desert

In the lost part of the state

Just a half-broke horse

He waits by the gate

No bridled horse can stand him

Or any of his kind

Their hidden laws condemn him

They’re so rigid and refined

He watches on the edge

Dirty coat, shaggy mane

Too wild for this world,

Too tame for mustangs

Grew up in the desert

In the lost part of the state

Cut our teeth on promises

And empty plates

Single-wides and ranches

Disappear before our eyes

These folks here don’t come around

They’re so rigid and refined

We stand on the edge

Dirty coats, ragged hands

We’re strangers to this world

And this new breed of man

And we just got our notice

This whole place is going under

The bank’s whip is on us

We won’t last another summer

They’ll have to come and take us

With the force of ten trains

‘Cause it’s no life worth living

If we don’t hold the reins

Like half-broke horses

From the lost part of the state

We watch in silence

And wait by the gate

On both sides of these bars

We’re one and the same

Too wild for this world,

Too tame for mustangs

Green Hills then evocatively tells the story of the decaying of middle america

I’ve seen your sad towns,

Too barren for ghosts

Empty silos on state highways

Five o’clock light, signposts

I’ve seen your old tracks

Like scars on your hands

Giving nothing to no one

Dried vines, iron brands

For dollar bills our great green hills

Sink down into wasteland

And when they’re gone they leave you alone

To hide your face in the sand

We are not quite 3/4 of the way through the year and I already suspect this will be my favourite album - highly recommended.

Favourites - Dimmer You've Got to Hear the Music

Word is out that Shayne Carter has a new record set for release soon.  That is good news for Kiwi music fans as Carter has been releasing interesting music approaching 40 years now from his start while still at school in Bored Games through Straightjacket Fits and The Doublehappys and Dimmer.  

Apparently the new album is to be piano based. That will be interesting.

I have an original pressing of the original Bored Games EP which until it was re-released a few years ago was selling for more than a $100.  That is a problem with record collecting - a re-release can quickly reduce the value of some records.

Dimmer was a bit of a departure from the guitar driven "Dunedin" or "Flying Nun"  sound of Carter's previous work,  It is more electronic and dance driven.

Fans will always argue over what release is best but You've Got to Hear the Music is my favourite. The single Getting What You Give with its interesting and arty video was my introduction to this phase of Carter's career and the reason I went out and bought the CD.    I knew it was good and I would like it from the moment I heard the opening beats of Come Here.    Other highlights include
Backwards is Backwards and Lucky One.

Bring on the new album

Song of the Day : Darling Be Home Soon - The Loving Spoonful

The first time I heard Darling Be Home Soon was Joe Cocker's version.  It was OK.

Years later I finally heard the original Loving Spoonful version about ten years ago and I was blown away.  Devoid of Joe's bombast, and blessed with John Sebastian's more gentle vocal and some great brass and strings it is a joy.  Getting across the sense of anticipation at the simple pleasure of routine in a loving relationship.

Special

Recent Additions : Allen Toussaint - Live in Philadelphia 1975

Last year we lost Allen Toussaint one of the innovators of New Orleans modern soul, rock and blues sound.  I first really became aware of him ín the 70s as he added his special oomph to the music of Dr John, The Band and Little Feat.

I was pleased to see that this live show from 1975 was released this year as a record store day release.  I was even more pleased when I managed to pick up a copy a month later when I finally managed to get to a store.

On the recording he is backed by a great band and runs through a variety of his "hits" or at least songs that were hits for others.

So you get some pretty funky versions of songs like Brickyard Blues - which Three Dog Night almost removed all of its gentle funkiness for their version (I still enjoy it though).

Freedom for the Stallion - one of the less stringent civil rights songs of the early 70s.  So much so that many people are likely to have missed the message when The Hues Corporation had pretty big hit with it and Southern Nights his ode to balmy New Orleans evening that Glen Campbell made famous.

You also get a nice version of Last Train from his Southern Nights album and which Mavis Staples made a great version of on her Jeff Tweedy produced album - You are Not Alone.

The biggest disappointment with this album is that it can not possibly be the full show and is over WAY TOO SOON.

Can't wait to hear it on the stereo when it is (re)set up in a few weeks.

New Release : Paul Simon - Stranger to Stranger

I have never been afraid to admit that I am a Paul Simon fan.  It started early, we had a teacher in Form 2 teach us to singe The Boxer (when whores became girls).  The same year I heard Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard and its gentle reggae and connected the Simon from Simon and Garfunkel to this new guy Paul Simon.

The first real album I ever owned was There Goes Rhymin' Simon.  I enjoyed the different sounds and styles that Simon brought to that, from the second line bounce at the end of Take Me to The Mardi Gras to the gospel vibe of Loves me Like a Rock.  At the time I probably would not have been able to put a name to those.



Since then I have built a reasonable collection of Simon's music and while I may go through long periods of not listening to him I am always intrigued as to what he is up to.

It seems to me that he has had a career of searching for something that to me it is seems he may still feel he still has not found.

I really enjoyed his last album - So Beautiful or So What - a great mix of some new sounds, exceptional playing, challenging themes and lyrics and melodies.  So I was pretty keen to hear (and own) Stranger to Stranger as the reviews were uniformly positive.

However I have to admit to originally being disappointed.  Lyrically the album is pretty strong, perhaps with the exception of Wristband, and a continuation of the themes from the previous album.

Mind you Wristband and songs like Cool Papa Bell have some wry observations on this connected world we now live in.  The album also has some great playing and clever sounds.  However many people have observed that it does not really have any strong conventional songs and I would have to agree with that.  The only song that really pulls me  by itself is The Riverbank.

However having listened to the album maybe six or seven times I have grown to like and enjoy the overall feel and flow of the album playing it in its entirety rather than just dipping in to songs.  So while the album is not an overwhelming success it has a completeness that is worth exploring.  I expect that in this age of Spotify it will never really get the chance to show itself to most listeners.



   

New Release - An Updated Favourite : Van Morrison It's Too Late to Stop Now Volumes II-IV

I went high school in the Hutt Valley which required a mile long walk, followed by a bus ride that took anywhere up to an hour.  Coming home, rather than always catch the bus outside of school I used to walk about a mile to what was imaginatively called The Transport Centre and catch the 3:50 bus (or the ten to four as we called it).  

There were three advantages to this, one I had a better chance of getting a seat, two I could catch up with friends from other schools and three there was an EMI shop at the Transport Centre where for a number of years I bought quite a few records.

My mates and I considered ourselves pretty knowledgeable on music at the time.  We thought. However we were quite intrigued one day when the window displays and whole store was made out in some sort of homage to someone we had not heard of called Van Morrison and his then new album Hard Nose the Highway.   It certainly had a weird fucking cover........

But this post is not about that album.

While we were intrigued I for one was not intrigued enough to investigate until a year later I came home late one Friday night and caught what at the time I thought was an amazing live show by the same Van Morrison.  It was a BBC live show recorded at The Rainbow in London and I was spellbound by how tight the band was and how Van seemed to have almost complete control over them.

It was a few years later that I really started to listen to The Man.  Over the years I have built up a pretty extensive collection of his albums on both CD and vinyl.  Astral Weeks and St Dominic's Preview are probably my two favourites.

It's Too Late to Stop Now - the live album from the Hard Nose the Hardway tour has long been one of my favourite live albums and I could never understand why Van had not released that great video I saw all those years ago.  In fact early Van videos have been pretty limited overall.

Then a month ago he released what has been called Volumes II, III and IV of It's too Late to Stop Now - with DVD and now I have finally got that great live show video. Plus so much Van Live that I can see that my impression of how good that band was and the show was was not incorrect.  Incredibly tight band as illustrated by the almost identical renditions of the few duplicated songs on this exhaustive if not exhausting set.    

So there are now great live versions of Snow in San Anselmo, Being Green (yes the Kermit song) and Purple Heather from Hard Nose the Highway and Moonshine Whiskey, Sweet Thing and Since I Fell For You.  Such a rich selection from The Man in his prime.

Journey Through The Past : Frank Sinatra : Watertown

I had not heard of this Watertown until recently.

I have half a dozen Sinatra albums from his Sad Frank phase in the mid to late 50's - until a month or so ago I only had one Sinatra album on my "Buy it if I see it at the right price list" 1959's No One Cares.

Then suddenly I kept reading about Watertown. It seemed to be all over the internet (viral even). Partly as a result of the impressive Watertownology website.  I can not tell the story any better than what is on that site but I will give my own perspective.

And then I found a second hand copy

Original US Pressing - immaculate condition and with the original poster included.

Released in early 1970 it is apparently his worst selling album proper.  It did not appeal to either long term fans or any new audience he may have been after.

The album was conceived by Bob Gaudio (one of the Four Seasons and their main songwriter) as a mini-drama.  It is based, funnily enough in Watertown,  a real town in New York State about which Harry Chapin once stated "I spent a week there one afternoon".  

It tells the story of a marriage breakdown and ultimate reconciliation from Goodbye (She Quietly Says) to the final reconciliation The Train.

It has much the same melancholy as his Sad Frank phase of the late 50s but the orchestration is not quite in the same league as either Gordon Jenkins' or Nelson Riddle's style.  However the lyrics are more contemporary and complex.

The Train

And now the sun has broken through, it looks like it will stay
Just can't have you comin' home on such a rainy day
The train is leaving Ellensville, unless my watch is fast
The kids are comin' home from school, must be quarter past
So many changes since you've been away, and there's so many things to say
This time around you'll want to stay, 'cuz I've had so many nights to find the way
Even bought that summer cottage yesterday, pretty soon I'll be close to you
And it will be so good, we'll talk about the part of you I never understood,
And I will take good care of you, and never let you cry
We will look so much in love to people passing by
So many changes since you've been away, and there's so many things to say
I wrote so many times and more, but the letters still are lying in my drawer
'Cuz the morning mail had left some time before
All the passengers for Allentown wait closer to the track
It's hard for me to realize you're really coming back
The crossing gate is coming down I think I see the train
The sun has gone and now my face is wet with heavy rain
The passengers for Allentown are gone, the train is slowly moving on
But I can't see you any place, and I know for sure I'd recognize your face
And I know for sure I'd recognize your face.

If you like the Sad Frank phase then this is an updated version of it.  It is a pity it did  not sell but I am pleased I found my way to it.  

More Muscle from the Shoals : Bettye Lavette : Scene of the Crime

Scene of the Crime was my introduction to Bettye Lavette.   I was pointed to it by the fact that the Drive by Truckers backed her in the recording and it was recorded in Muscle Shoals.  At that point I knew nothing about Ms Lavette but the album got great reviews so I was keen to hear it.

Bettye considers herself less of a singer than a song interpreter and the song selection on the album certainly support that.  There were some interesting selections but just hearing her reading of Elton John's Talking Old Soldiers lets you know that you are listening to a pretty special talent.  Other highlights include I Still Want to be Your Baby and Somebody Pick Up The Pieces.

Unusually she added her own lyrics to Before the Money Came or as she rechristened it "The Battle of Bettye Lavette" and that effectively told her story.   She expanded on that again later in her no holds barred autobiography A Woman Like Me.  It tells a story of lost and thrown away chances and all her battles with "those motherfuckers" that seemed to sabotage her career when she was not doing so herself.
As with any release by the Drive By Truckers the album came with an excellent essay by their guitarist Patterson Hood.  In the essay he outlined how he met her 43 years earlier.  That was when Bettye visited The Shoals and recorded a then still unreleased album with The Swampers (including Patterson's father David on Bass).  

Since picking up this album I have collected a few other of her albums on both vinyl and CD.   Only one of them really misses the mark.  The rest are great and it is easy to see why she is Barack Obama's favourite singer.

   

Favourites : T Bone Burnett : The Criminal Under My Own Hat

When you have a large music collection it is easy to forget for a while how much you like some records.  It is not that necessarily that you get bored with them but that new or different music captures your imagination for a while.  That is had happened with this record.

I had not played The Criminal Under My Own Hat for a while.  A few months back, standing in front of the wall of CDs one morning before work it seemed to jump out at me.  It then went on high rotation for a couple of weeks.

Most people these days know T-Bone through his work as a producer, whether of soundtracks or named artists like Robert Plant.   However my intrduction to his work came frim the early 80s and his recordings with Elvis Costello and Los Lobos.

I started to pick up a few of his solo albums but this is the pick of the crop.  Shit it's a good album.  
Sure you have to get used to T-Bone's nasal voice, but the songs, playing and production are just outstanding.

The first copy I had of this was a sale cassette (I only ever bought cassettes when they were on sale) and it took some hunting to track down a copy on CD.  It starts strongly with the poppy Over You and the beat masks the sadness of the final chorus line "I'm gonna take a long time gettin' over you, over you".

This is followed by one of my favourite songs on the album Tear This Building Down with is driving Bo Diddly rhythm and a terrific guitar solo from Marc Ribot who had first really been noticed on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs album.  The quality does not let up with the Euro flavoured It's Not Too Late which has some beautiful violin in it which really underscores the feel of the song.

Humans From Earth was used in a Nike ad about five years after it was released.  Later he presents us with two versions of I Can Explain Everything.   the lovely  Any Time At All.

All good stuff and highly recommended.

Song of the Day : Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie and Charles Mingus : Salt Peanuts

This recording  of Salt Peanuts comes from the fantastic Jazz at Massey Hall recording.  I discovered this early last year and enjoy the exhilarating sense of joy you get from the playing.  What a great band some of the key proponents of Bop with the three above augmented by Max Roach and Bud Powell.

What a Band! 

I'm Back

It has been a while since I have posted a blog.  Things got pretty hectic at work and over the last few months I have also shifted countries, leaving Fiji after an eventful four years.  Maybe I should have written a blog about that but that may not have always been believable.

So now I find myself sitting in an airport lounge after a 14 hour delay and having had a couple of friends recently ask why I had stopped writing and suggest I should start again.  They said they needed some new recommendations.

So here I am.

We left Fiji in early May and I have been without a stereo for that time.  Perhaps the longest I have ever been without a stereo since I was 13!  In the meantime I have had to make do with the car stereo, headphones and my new Ultimate Ears Boom 2.

Hardly Hifi but it is helping me get my fix.

It is also interesting being back in a place with good access to music stores (yes they do exist) with JB Hifi and 5 independent record stores in Wellington and the Hutt Valley.  Each of those stores has its own personality - the one in my old hometown of Wainui is particularly unique - maybe the messiest store I have ever come across.  

So there has been a steady stream of new music entering the house here in the meantime.  Filling up nooks and crannies.  It is good that most of the new LPs I have bought have come with CDs or downloads so I do get to listen to most of the new stuff I have bought.  Of course the second hand records I buy do not come with such bonuses so I have quite a few gems that I still have not heard. Over the next months I will talk about how I feel about albums by Eilen Jewell, Lissie, Brandy Clarke, Paul Simon, Chris Stapleton, Bonnie Bramlett, Randall Bramblett, Honey Island Swamp Band, Kamasi Washington, Los Ragas, Perry Keyes, The Pines, Dexys, Charlie Parker, Big Bill Broonzy, Bessie Smith, Tonio K and many others.  

Over the next few months I will also get access to the records that have been in storage for the last eight years.  I have already retrieved a bundle focusing on some of the rarer stuff in the collection, old Pretty Things, Who and a delightful number called We Are Fuck You by a band called the Finger. Nice to see that the red vinyl copy of that that I have now goes for about $500.  If only some of the stock I own had had the same appreciation!

My last blog was in December last year and since then we have lost a few of my musical touchstones, Bowie of course who started it all for me, Merle Haggard who I had come to really appreciate in the last ten years, Prince, Guy Clark the consummate songwriter, Chips Moman - who as a producer, studio owner and writer played a key part in the southern american scene in the late 60's and early 70's.  

We have also lost some great session musicians whether they be Elvis's Scotty Moore, Rob Wasserman whose bass seemed to be everywhere in the 90s and Bernie Worrell who I think was instrumental in bringing the funk to Talking Heads after his earlier stints with Funkadelic and Parliament.   Over the next while I will also write about how losing some of these made me feel, reach back into their music and remember some of their stunning contributions.

So the documentation of my search for the great lost record starts again.

Hope you enjoy it.