Having disbanded in 1998, only a year after the release of their Steve Earle-produced (and recently reissued) second album, High Hat, these Americana pioneers went their separate ways for more than fifteen years. The group reunited in 2014 for live dates, and a 2015 album of new material, Roots Rock & Roll, showed their premature ending left plenty of juice for an encore. That encore has now extended to a second reunion album, with vocalist/songwriter Kenny Roby and bassist Rob Keller joined by multi-instrumentalist Luis Rodriguez and drummer Dan Davis. As good as the first reunion album sounded, this second is even more vital and energized.
Roby’s new material is filled with kaleidoscopic memories of younger, more daring days, but there are also songs streaked with troubled and failed relationships, and the wear of an adult’s daily grind. Much of the discord is camouflaged behind poetic lyrics and melodies that belie the personal gravity. As with the band’s original incarnation, the musical influences cast a wide net. There are Brill Building flourishes of baion beat and baritone guitar, vocal hooks that suggest Dwight Twilley and Tom Petty, pop punk, pub rock, and psych flavors in both the somnambulistic title track and the faded “Waste of Time.â€
Benitez’s 2014 debut, Heartless Woman, was a breath of fresh country air. Though she favored a classic sound laced with pedal steel and twangy electric guitar, her lyrics picked up and modernized the empowered themes of Tammy Wynette and other breakthrough women of country. She opens her third album with a twangy, accordion-lined two-step that admits that her efforts to sustain a failed relationship have only produced a broken heart and the scar of self realization. She looks forward to fondly looking back with the expectant “Our Remember When,†but when those memories finally arrive, they turn out to be the bitter pills of “Easier Things to Do†and the murderous end of “In Red.â€
Guitarist Bob Spector lays down a fetching acoustic solo and accordionist Billy Wilson adds atmosphere as the wavering bilingual vocal of “Almost the Right One/Casi mi Cielo†offers the intensity of Joan Baez and the heartbroken longing of Linda Ronstadt. She sings of cheating lovers and endless romantic disappointment, yet remains optimistic and surprisingly trusting as she revels in the relationship of “The Fool I Am Right Now.†She’s often willing to take what she can get, and rather than growing embittered when what she can get isn’t enough, she finally takes off on the album closing “Nora Went Down the Mountain.†As throughout the album, the interplay of twangy electric guitar, steel and fiddle is perfectly balanced against Benitez’s vocal.
DeShannon’s short, artistically rich early-70s stop at Capitol
After an eight-year run on Liberty/Imperial that included the Bacharach-David-penned “What the World Needs Now Is Love” and the original “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,†singer-songwriter Jackie DeShannon made a brief stop at Capitol before moving on to Atlantic. Capitol initially sent DeShannon to Memphis to record with producer Chips Moman and his American Sound studio regulars, but other than the single “Stone Cold Soul†and the LP track “Show Me,†the sessions were shelved. Her second session, recorded in Los Angeles with Eric Malamud and John Palladino, resulted in the album Songs, and just like that, DeShannon was off to Atlantic. Eleven completed Moman masters appeared in the UK on RPM’s 2006 reissue of Songs, all of which is collected here along with five additional previously unreleased Memphis tracks, and liners from Joe Marchese that include a fresh interview with the artist.
DeShannon arrived in December 1970 at 827 Thomas Street to record at a studio that had put itself on the map with iconic records by the Box Tops, Neil Diamond, Dusty Springfield and Elvis Presley. Though she’d previously tapped into her childhood love of R&B with a cover of Holland, Dozier & Holland’s “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,†settling in with Moman and his “Memphis Boys†house band afforded an opportunity to fully fuse her love of soul music with original songs and well-selected cover material. One of DeShannon’s lasting artistic assets is her dual excellence as a songwriter and an interpreter of other writers’ songs. Here she shows off her interpretive abilities with selections from William Bell, Goffin & King, Emitt Rhodes, Arlo Guthrie, Van Morrison, and the non-charting title track by Mark James, the writer of Elvis Presley’s American Studios recording of “Suspicious Minds.â€
The set opens with a short, previously unreleased take on Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water (Til Your Well Runs Dry),†establishing the Memphis session’s southern credentials with DeShannon’s soulful vocal and the piano and guitar “goodies†(as DeShannon calls them in the liner notes) of Bobby Woods and Reggie Young. The band plays as a tight, adaptable unit, providing thoughtful backing for the rural struggle of “West Virginia Mine,†and a more optimistic mood for the poetic look at the Israeli settlements of “Now That the Desert is Blooming.†The arrangements take the cover songs in subtly new directions as the guitar, strings, horns and backing vocals of Carole King’s “Child of Mine†gently frame DeShannon’s rough-edged vocal, and an upbeat soul treatment separates the cover from Emitt Rhodes’ original of “Live Till You Dieâ€
Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn’s “Sweet Inspiration†might seem like a gimme for the American Sound crew, but DeShannon leads them with a gentler vocal groove than the Sweet Inspirations’ original, and Arlo Guthrie’s B-side “Gabriel’s Mother’s Highway†fits easily into the album’s gospel vibe. The collection features five previously unreleased Memphis recordings, including keyboardist Bobby Emmons’ “They Got You Boy†and a cover of George Harrison’s deeply moving “Isn’t It a Pity.†While the Memphis tracks don’t necessarily jump out as hit singles, the material was well picked, DeShannon was in fine voice and found real chemistry with the house band, so it’s hard to imagine why Capitol didn’t hear the commercial potential, and scrapped the sessions.
But scrap them they did, and DeShannon moved on to record in Los Angeles with a different set of studio hands. The results would be released as the Songs album, opening with one of the two songs salvaged from the Memphis sessions, “Show Me.†Written by session guitarist Johnny Christopher, the song’s musical hall style was at odds with the soul of the Memphis sessions, but indicated the variety the Los Angeles album would bring. In addition to her downbeat folk “Salinas,†upbeat funk “Bad Water†and a new arrangement of “West Virginia Mine,†DeShannon picked up Bob Dylan’s “Lady, Lady, Lay,†Hoyt Axton’s “Ease Your Pain,†McGuinness Flint’s “International,†a blistering version of the traditional “Down By the Riverside,†and original material from the session players.
Award-winning blues soul singer explores wider roots
Janiva Magness had an artistic coming out with her self-penned 2014 album, Original. Though she’d dabbled in songwriting before, the album marked a turn from interpreter of other people’s stories to essayist of her firsthand emotions. She continues that direction with her latest, co-writing four of the album’s twelve tracks, and selecting material from collaborator and producer Dave Darling, as well as Paul Thorn and others. She also welcomes several guests to the album, including vocalist Delbert McClinton on “What I Could Do,†harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite on “Hammer,†and most surprisingly, Poco pedal steel player Rusty Young on the shuffle “On and On.†The latter, taken with Doug Livingston’s dobro on the Western-tinged “Down Below,†shows off the range of roots Magness has been exploring.
Long-lost Americana pioneers pick up the trail
