Idiosyncratic collection highlighting Paul Simon’s songwriting
This two-disc, thirty-two track collection (with a generous running time of 139 minutes) highlights the legendary songwriting of Paul Simon. The composer himself selected the tracks, touching on both hits and the lesser-known compositions of which he’s most proud. The result is an idiosyncratic tour of Simon’s catalog that will remind you of his broad commercial power, but key you into the depth of his craft as a writer. The selections focus almost entirely on Simon’s post Simon & Garfunkel career, with only a solo live take of “The Sound of Silence†(the set’s only previously unreleased track), Simon’s 1991 Concert in the Park recording of “The Boxer,†and Aretha Franklin’s 1970 cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water†reaching back to his duo work.
The bulk of the collection cherry-picks from Simon’s solo albums, stretching from 1972’s Paul Simon through this year’s So Beautiful or So What. Selections from Simon’s well-loved albums of the 1970s and his commercial renaissance sparked by Graceland will be familiar, but deep album cuts, picks from Hearts and Bones and Songs from the Capeman (including the excellent 50s-pastiche “Qualityâ€), and his contribution to the soundtrack of The Wild Thornberrys Movie will be fresh to many listener’s ears. The breadth of Simon’s writing mirrors both his own maturation as a person and the evolution of the society in which he wrote. The reactionary outbursts of his early songs were stoked by youth and the turbulent times in which he was living; his early post-S&G years found him developing a solo personality and indulging his musical interests in reggae, doo-wop, and South American folk.
Simon’s music has been as revelatory and memorable as his words, speedily evolving from the acoustic arrangements of the folk scene to sophisticated tapestries of instruments and genres. Decades before Graceland introduced African music to the American audience, Simon augmented his palette with American gospel, Peruvian folk and Jamaican reggae. He explored sounds from South Africa, Brazil and the American South, all the while embroidering his autobiographical, observational and imaginative lyrics with ideas drawn from his musical interests. His relationships seeded numerous songs, including ones of developing love (“Hearts and Bonesâ€), family (“Father and Daughter†and “So Beautiful Or So Whatâ€), marital turbulence (“Darling Lorraineâ€) and dissolution (“Tendernessâ€). His evolving view of society provided bookends to the American unrest with the angry “The Sound of Silence†and the haggard “American Tune.â€
Over the years, Simon’s craft sharpened, his characters multiplied, his philosophical and emotional insights deepened, and his favorite lyrics became more impressionistic and poetic. But winningly, his music remained accessible as he teased apart new layers in existing forms and interwove the fresh threads of his ever-broadening musical grasp. Simon sees himself first as a songwriter, secondarily as a performer and recording artist, but as these recordings attest, his words, melodies, arrangements and estimable guitar playing are all deeply intertwined. Simon always surrounded himself with carefully picked players who add original colors to his songs with their instruments and voices. Listening to a set of his recordings, it’s easy to appreciate the songwriter, but difficult to untangle that appreciation from the carefully crafted performances.
Fifty-eight years after his death, rare Hank Williams material continues to surprise and delight his fans. Last year’s official release of the Mother’s Best radio transcriptions [12], and last month’s reissue of the remastered Health & Happiness shows, reacquainted listeners with Williams’ brilliance as a singer and live entertainer. This month’s surprise is a collection of songs fabricated anew from lyrics left behind in Williams’ notebooks. The songs are rendered by a few obvious picks – Alan Jackson, Vince Gill, Rodney Crowell and Merle Haggard; but also some less obvious suspects, including Norah Jones and Jack White, who turn in winningly heartfelt performances.
Given that Williams never recorded these lyrics, this is less a covers album than a tribute. Unlike the bombast of resyncing Elvis voice with modern arrangements (i.e., Viva Elvis), or even MGM’s overdubbing of Williams’ own recordings, the lovesick blues boy’s voice is heard here in the tone and temper of his lyrics. The artists revel in the opportunity to create the first musical version of these words, and their choices say a lot about their relationship to Williams. Alan Jackson, Vince Gill and Rodney Crowell are straightforward and solemn as their vintage arrangements of guitar, steel, bass and fiddle display their direct artistic links to Williams. Norah Jones, on the other hand, gives Williams’ “The Love That Faded†beautifully blue harmonies, tinted with jazz and a hint of Mexico in the guitar runs.
A wealth of previously unreleased live material from the Man in Black
Volume 1 of the bootleg series, Personal File, documented solo home recordings from the ‘70s and ‘80s in which Johnny Cash explored a wide variety of American song. Volume 2, From Memphis to Hollywood, essayed the background of Cash’s transition to country stardom via a collection of 1950s radio appearances, Sun-era demos and a deep cache of 1960s studio recordings. Volume 3 looks at Cash’s role as a live performer from 1956 through 1979, including stops at the Big “D†Jamboree, the Newport Folk Festival, a USO tour of Vietnam, the White House and the Wheeling Jamboree. Among these fifty tracks, thirty-nine are previously unreleased, giving ardent Cash collectors a wealth of new material to enjoy.
The earliest tracks, from a 1956 show in Dallas, find Cash opening with a powerful version of the 1955 B-side “So Doggone Lonesome†and introducing his then-current single on Sun, “I Walk the Line.†At the end of the three-song Dallas set you hear an audience member call out for “Get Rhythm†and the band launches into it. Cash was always a generous stage performer, early on sharing the limelight with Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, introducing and praising them, and giving Perkins a solo spot for the instrumental “Perkins Boogie.†By 1962 the Tennessee Two had expanded to a tight trio with the addition of W.S. Holland on drums, but even with Cash’s move to Columbia, the group’s appearance at a Maryland hoe-down is still rootsy and raw. They rush “I Walk the Line†as if they’d had one too many pep pills, but Cash is charming as he addresses the audience and hams it up with impressions and jokes.
Two years later at the Newport Folk Festival Cash was introduced by proto-folkie Pete Seeger. Cash is thoroughly commanding as he sings his hits and expands his palette with Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright,†Pete LaFarge’s “Ballad of Ira Hayes†and the Carter Family’s “Keep on the Sunny Side.†His 1969 trip to Vietnam was bookended by more famous live recordings at Folsom and San Quentin prisons, but the soldiers at the Annex 14 NCO Club in Long Binh were treated to a prime performance that included June Carter on “Jackson,†“Long-Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man†and “Daddy Sang Bass.†Cash continued to mix his hits (including a request for “Little Flat Top Boxâ€) with folk and country classics, mixing “Remember the Alamo†and “Cocaine Blues†into his set.
Cash’s performance at the Nixon Whitehouse in 1970 is this set’s most legendary, and also its longest at twelve songs. Richard Nixon provides the introduction, including a few remarks on the safe return of Apollo 13. Cash’s set includes a then-familiar mix of hits and gospel songs, but is mostly remembered for his choice not to play Nixon’s requests for “Okie From Muskogee†and “Welfare Cadillac,†and instead sing “What is Truth,†“Man in Black†and “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,†the first of which is included here. Nixon is self deprecating in explaining Cash’s rebuff, and Cash is deferential in addressing Nixon as “Mr. President,†leaving the political implications to seem more legend than truth. Still, Nixon couldn’t have been comfortable having his antipathy towards the younger generation questioned by “What is Truth.â€
Paul Simon expands his catalog of jazz-, soul- and gospel-inflected pop
After a lengthy world tour and live album (Live Rhymin’), Paul Simon returned in 1975 with his third post-Simon & Garfunkel studio album. Simon’s comfort with his solo stardom is signaled in part by the return of Art Garfunkel for the album’s top-ten “My Little Town.†He also shares the microphone with Phoebe Snow and the Jessy Dixon Singers (the latter of whom had toured with Simon in ’73 and ‘74) on “Gone at Last.†On the other hand, the cover photo of a mustachioed and behatted Simon suggests some lingering insecurity, if only with his long-thinning pate; perhaps it was the final dissolution of his marriage (which was grist for several songs on 1972’s Paul Simon) that instigated the physical changes.
With Paul Simon having licensed his early solo catalog to Sony, the Legacy branch has taken the opportunity to reissue four key titles on their original Columbia label. Of the four (which also includes Paul Simon, There Goes Rhymin’ Simon and Still Crazy After All These Years), this 1974 live album is the only one to get a fresh remastering (by Dan Hersch at D2 Mastering) and the addition of two previously unreleased bonus tracks. Given that this is the least consequential of the four albums, it’s a good marketing move to make it the sole title to be updated. Coming off two commercially and artistically successful solo albums, Simon hit the road for a series of solo shows that included the Brazillian group Urubamba and the gospel Jessy Dixon Singers.
Simon’s third solo album (including 1965’s The Paul Simon Songbook), found the singer-songwriter expanding upon the freedom he’d displayed on the previous year’s eponymous release. The branching out displayed with reggae, Latin and South American sounds was now expanded with bluesy doo-wop, New Orleans pop, gospel and Memphis soul. Simon deftly choreographed an impressive guest list that includes The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Roches, horns arranged by Alan Toussaint and strings arranged by Quincy Jones. His mastery weaves multiple studios, dates and backing bands (including the players of Muscle Shoals) into a surprisingly cohesive album.
Though not technically Paul Simon’s solo debut – that honor goes to the acoustic performances he recorded for 1965’s The Paul Simon Songbook – this first post-Simon & Garfunkel album does represent the true beginnings of Simon’s massive success as a solo artist. Released in 1972, it came two years after Simon & Garfunkel bowed out with the Grammy winning Bridge Over Troubled Water, and the same year as the duo’s greatest hits album topped the chart. Simon’s re-debut was a strong artistic statement that was both commercially successful and the seedbed for experimentation and growth that would mark his solo career. The album opens with the reggae-inspired hit single “Mother and Child Reunion,†and along with the Latin influences of “Me and Julio Down By the School Yard†and haunting Andean instrumental breaks in “Duncan,†the melting pot of styles predicted the wealth of world music Simon would fold into his music.
At 32, Simon had matured from the sharp, at times bitter, worldview of his twenties. The difficulty of Simon & Garfunkel’s end had given way to the freedom of a solo act, and there’s a sense of renewed discovery in his characters and lyrical forms. The wayward “Duncan†recounts the education of a small-town fisherman’s son into a clear-eyed world traveler, while the fragmentary allusions of “Mother and Child Reunion†are surprisingly open-ended and poetically opaque. Simon’s marriage with his wife was apparently following his professional partnership with Garfunkel into dissolution, providing grist for “Everything Put Together Falls Apart,†“Run That Body Down†and “Congratulations.†Simon’s voice never sounded better, he asserts his picking talent on “Armistice Day†and “Peace Like a River†and vamps happily behind violinist Stephane Grappelli on the swing instrumental “Hobo’s Blues.â€
Career- and label-spanning summary of a second-generation legend
For an artist of her stature, Rosanne Cash has been the subject of surprisingly thin compilation releases. Several 10- and 12-track single disc collections have been issued, but only Raven’s imported 21-track Blue Moons and Broken Hearts and to a lesser extent Legacy’s earlier Very Best Of really dug beyond the hits. That list is now expanded with this two-disc, thirty-six track collection, featuring a song list picked and programmed by the artist herself. The set opens with “Can I Still Believe in You,†from her 1978 self-titled Germany-only debut, and closes over thirty years later with a trio of tracks drawn from 2009’s The List. The latter selections include a cover of Mickey Newbury’s “Sweet Memories†previously available only on the Borders Books version of The List.
Included are all eleven of Cash’s country chart-toppers, seventeen of her twenty country chart entries, and tracks drawn from all twelve studio albums she’s recorded for Ariola, Columbia and Capitol/EMI. There are augumented with bonuses drawn from earlier antholgies, and duets from albums by Vince Gill (“If It Weren’t For Himâ€) and Rodney Crowell (“Its Such a Small Worldâ€). The bulk of the collection is devoted to Cash’s tenure with Columbia, with the second half of disc two stepping through her more recent work for Capitol/EMI. These latter tracks find Cash reinventing herself from a country hit maker to a writer, album auteur and Grammy nominee. This plays out as a worthy soundtrack for Cash’s recent memoir, Composed, provides a terrific overview of her hits and a useful guide to the rich album tracks in her catalog.
Though Cash isn’t prone to complimenting her debut, the strength of her songwriter’s voice is evident from the start. It may be difficult at mid-life to fully reconnect with the yet-to-be-fulfilled longing one felt at twenty-three, but the early songs provide telling snapshots of a young writer who was already able to express her soul in words. A year later, on 1979’s Right or Wrong, Cash sounds more confident, singing as an equal with Bobby Bare on “No Memories Hangin’ Round,†and producer Rodney Crowell deftly blended roots with radio-friendly touches. Her follow-up, Seven Year Ache, broke her career wide open with an album and title track that each topped the country chart; the single also crossed over, stopping just shy of the pop top twenty.
Cash’s songs and vocals, and Crowell’s production fit easily across a variety of styles, including pop ballads, twangy roots, countrypolitan jazz, and horn-lined soul. Several of the hits, particularly those in the mid-80s, tended to crystalline guitars, big piano and booming drums, but Cash also topped the chart with the locomotive rhythm of “My Baby Thinks He’s a Train,†the Brill Building soul of John Hiatt’s “The Way We Make a Broken Heart,†and most endearingly, an acoustic shuffle of “Tennessee Flat Top Box†that recalled her dad’s early days at Sun.
Forty years of Tony Bennett’s Christmas recordings
