Author Archives: hyperbolium

The Mad Tea Party: Rock ‘n’ Roll Ghoul

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Rock ‘n’ roll Halloween!

Just in time for Halloween, Asheville’s Mad Tea Party (not to be confused with some other teabaggers that’ve recently been in the news) unleashes this four-song EP of horror-themed rock ‘n’ roll. The title track sounds as if the Fugs returned from the grave as a punkabilly band that feeds on the flesh of its own critics. “Possessed” digs up the bones of classic ‘60s garage rock, with Ami Worthen singing like Elinor Blake fronting the Pandoras, and producer Greg Cartwright ripping a Pebbles-worthy guitar solo. Forrest J. Ackerman would have appreciated the ukulele-fueled ode to Vincent Price’s “Dr. Phibes,” and the doo-wop party-vibe of “Frankenstein’s Den” sounds like the Coasters meeting up with Bobby Pickett’s Crypt-Kickers over a witch’s cauldron. You can’t play “Monster Mash,” “Great Pumpkin Waltz” and “Thriller” all night long, so add these tracks to your Halloween playlist today! [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The Mad Tea Party’s Home Page

Vince Guaraldi Trio: Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus

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Legendary jazz pianist’s artistic and commercial breakthrough

Concord Records initiated a new pass through their Original Jazz Classics catalog in March of 2010, and they now add five more titles to the program. Each reissue features a new 24-bit remaster by Joe Tarantino, extensive liner notes, and bonus tracks. Five additions grace this reissue of Vince Guaraldi’s 1962 artistic and commercial breakthrough. The San Francisco pianist has been making a name for himself since the mid-50s, backing Woody Herman, Nina Simone, and Stan Getz, and sitting in with the Cal Tjader Quartet, but his solo albums hadn’t turned their critical praise into commercial notoriety until the original piece “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” led this album up the charts. Guaraldi would find yet another level of acclaim with his compositions for the Peanuts television specials, but it was this album that established him as a popular jazz luminary.

The album opens with covers of the four main themes from Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luis Bonfa’s score for the film Black Orpheus. Despite the then-contemporary resurgence of bossa nova in American jazz, Guaraldi and his accompanists only feint towards the samba rhythms of the originals. Instead, the pianist takes the lead with his highly melodic version of bebop, both energetic, yet cosmopolitan cool. Nowhere is this balance more evident in Guaraldi’s Grammy-winning original “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” The song opens with the delicacy of a light summer fog before swinging into a bluesy middle that’s supported by Budwig’s walking bass line and Bailey’s ride cymbal and snare accents. The song communicates more about the special feeling of pre-hippie San Francisco in the early ‘60s than just about any other piece of music.

Guaraldi plays lush chords and sustained low notes to set the melancholy mood of Mancini and Mercer’s “Moon River,” and his mid-song solo again captures a unique ability to make modern jazz both melodic and compelling to pop listeners. The album finds its Latin feet with the stop-start original “Alma-Ville,” but even here Guaraldi only teases, as the combo switches to straight jazz by mid-song, and returns to the bossa nova style only to close things out. The reissues five bonus tracks include the single edit of “Samba de Orfeu,” and four previously unreleased alternate takes, including one of “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.” The fold-out booklet includes full-panel reproductions of the original covers (front and back), Ralph Gleason’s original album notes, and new liners by Derrick Bang. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Ray Charles: Rare Genius – The Undiscovered Masters

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Spruced-up set of Ray Charles vault finds

Of course, this should really be titled “The Previously Undiscovered Masters” since they’ve obviously been discovered at this point, but that quibble aside, this is an impressive set of ten tracks that were, for one reason or another, left in the can. Waxed in the 70s, 80s and 90s at Charles’ RPM International Studios, some of the tracks emerged from the vault completely finished, and some were fleshed out with matching contemporary arrangements. There’s soul, blues and jazz, as one would expect from a Ray Charles album, but there are a few examples of his affinity for country, as well. A cover of Hank Cochran’s “A Little Bitty Tear” is sung as gospel blues, and the album’s biggest surprise is a finished duet with Johnny Cash covering Kris Kristofferson’s “Why Me, Lord?” The latter, produced by the legendary Billy Sherrill in 1981, has Cash singing lead in his resonant baritone while Charles provides soulful electric piano and backing vocals. Charles sounds terrific on all ten tracks, elevating the players (both then and now) with his soulfulness. Producer John Burk (who helmed Charles’ last album, Genius Loves Company) has done a magical job of melding the vintage productions with the new work, creating an album that’s a  great deal more cohesive than you’d expect from a set that began its life as disparate vault recordings. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: I Wanna Play!

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Fund-raising collection of country and pop classics

Former Arkansas governor, part-time bass player and conservative television pundit Mike Huckabee has joined with singer-songwriter Aaron Tippin and producer James Stroud to create this collection in support of the National Association of Music Merchants Foundation’s Wanna Play Fund. The fund sponsors research and public education, raising awareness of music making’s educational and health benefits. This CD project will help fund community-based programs that provide music education and instruments to children. Five of the ten tracks (1, 5, 7, 9 and 10) are newly produced (though you’d be hard-pressed to tell Neil Sedaka’s re-recording of “Laughter in the Rain” from the original), while the rest are pulled from the artists’ existing catalogs. Governor Huckabee plays bass on Aaron Tippin’s celebratory title tune, as well as on Louise Mandrell’s cover of Don Gibson’s “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” There doesn’t seem to be an underlying theme to the song selections (and “Honky Tonk Women” is an odd pick for an album associated with children’s education), but the joy heard in these performances aligns perfectly with the fund’s messages about the enriching nature of music making. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The I Wanna Play CD’s Home Page
The Wanna Play Fund’s Home Page

Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper: Songs of Inspiration

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A terrific, if too short, collection of the Coopers’ songs of faith

Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper were one of country music’s most popular husband-and-wife duos for over 40 years, particularly during their stints on the Wheeling Jamboree and the Grand Ole Opry. Lee (nee Leary) began singing gospel music with The Leary Family in the early 1930s, and upon marrying Cooper in 1939 she began singing bluegrass and country as well. The duo signed with Hickory (the house label of the Acuff-Rose publishing empire) in the mid-50s, and hit it big with Don Gibson’s “There’s a Big Wheel,” the blazing mono mix of which opens this collection. All twelve of these tracks are all gathered from their years with Hickory, selected from singles and the early-60s albums Family Favorites and Songs of Inspiration. Throughout, Wilma Lee sings in forceful, open-throated testimony that simply can’t be ignored. The songs are primarily from country songwriters (Don Gibson, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Charlie & Ira Louvin, Fred Rose), though two tunes from one of Judaism’s most successful Christmas songwriters, Johnny Marks, are also included in terrific fiddle-and-steel arrangements. The Coopers recorded many inspirational titles, including singles, album tracks and full theme albums. At only twelve songs, this set merely scratches the surface (notably absent are “There’s a Higher Power” and “Tramp on the Street” – there are also no credits or liner notes), but what’s here is uniformly great. You can find a few more on Varese’s earlier Very Best Of or go all in with Bear Family’s Big Midnight Special. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dixie Chicks: Essential

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6 chart-toppers, 14 top-tens, 30 tracks = 2 hours of bliss

After the June release of the twelve-track Playlist collection, fans were left wondering if a more complete Dixie Chicks anthology would be issued. That question is answered in the affirmative with this thirty-track 2-CD set that includes all six of the group’s Country chart toppers, and fourteen (of seventeen) top-ten hits spanning all four of their studio albums on Sony imprints. That’s nine years compressed into two hours over which the trio proves themselves consistently original interpreters of unerringly picked material, occasional contributors of original songs, and by the time of Taking the Long Way, writers with their own voice. The group’s sound has often been imitated, but none of their followers have balanced the vocal blend, material, instrumental chops and attitude that makes this group one-of-a-kind.

Earlier female acts like Shania Twain tilted the Nashville axis towards pop, but the Dixie Chicks re-energized the Country empowerment handed down by Kitty Wells and Loretta Lynn. The trio wasn’t shy of being feminine, but they always led with their music. They didn’t smooth out their twang, instead highlighting their fiddle and banjo, and arraying their voices in three-party harmonies. Better yet, the more famous they became, the more they indulged their Texas roots. Rather than taking every crossover opportunity, they let the quality of their music draw more people into the tent. Their songs were liberated, bawdy, touching, emotionally complex and down-to-Earth, paralleling the tumult in their marriages and the growth they experienced as they ascended, sometimes against resistance, to stardom.

Among the most gratifying aspects of the group’s success is their conquering of the mainstream while simultaneously promoting the works of superb, non-mainstream songwriters like Darrell Scott, Patti Griffin, Gary Louris and Bruce Robison. It’s no surprise that their records sounded different than their Nashville peers, as much of the material was created by outsiders whose thoughtful songs weren’t written by appointment. Sonically, the band also leaned on talent from beyond Music Row, with ace steel player (and Natalie Maines’ dad) Lloyd Maines and studio svengali Rick Rubin each taking a turn in the producer’s chair. Oddly, this double-CD set portrays the group in reverse chronological order, opening with eight tracks from the Rubin-produced Taking the Long Way, adding seven cuts from the stripped-down work of Home, eight tracks from Fly, six from the Sony debut Wide Open Spaces, and closing with “I Believe in Love” from Home.

It plays well, but for those just meeting the Dixie Chicks, it’s a strange choice to replay the group’s history backwards. Fans are likely to own the four original albums, and without any new or previously unreleased material (or tracks drawn from outside the four core albums), this collection is really targeted at those who didn’t take the ride the first time. Love it or hate it, summing up an artist’s core material is the Essential collection’s mission – they’re not bonus-laden box sets for fans. That said, the absence of three top-ten hits (“Cold Day in July,” “If I Fall You’re Going Down With Me,” and “Some Days You Gotta Dance” from 2000 and 2001) and several other fan-favorite chart singles leaves this as “most of the essential” rather than an authoritative rendering. Bang for the buck, though, it’s still a great introduction to the band; for the new initiates, a quick reprogramming of the track list is recommended. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dixie Chicks Home Page

Eban Schletter and Vernon Wells: Tales of the Frightened

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Scare yourself with these chilling horror stories!

Pulp writer Michael Avallone’s Tales of the Frightened was published as a book of short stories in 1956, and first recorded in 1961 by Boris Karloff for a pair of record albums [1 2]. The stories have been reprinted many times, but the original Mercury LPs have become quite rare. Avallone’s son thought to have the Karloff readings reissued, but decided a fresh approach might be a more interesting option. He set to work with Australian actor Vernon Wells (best known to American audiences for his portrayal of Wez in The Road Warrior) and composer Eban Schletter (Mr. Show, SpongeBob SquarePants) to reanimate the dark stories of men bedeviled by bad omens, inexorably hunted by fate and consigned to less-than-ideal forever-afters.

Wells’ readings are deeper-voiced and more physical than the delicately theatrical work of Karloff, which makes these re-tellings complementary rather than repetitious. He uses pauses and silences to masterfully let a story’s tension fester and build. Schletter’s soundtrack (which provides both backing and mood-setting interludes) is similarly bold, using ghostly vocals, heartbeat bass lines, discordant blasts, Theremin, feedback and reverb to immerse you in the next dimension of horror. This set includes seven of the thirteen stories originally recorded by Karloff, leaving material for a second volume. As the liner notes suggest: dim the lights and play this record – if you dare! [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Willie Nelson: Setlist – The Very Best Of

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Good selection of Willie Nelson live material from 1966 through 1979

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Like most of the artists in this series, Nelson is well-known for his stage act. This set samples previously release performances from Live Country Music Concert, Willie Nelson Live, Willie and Family Live, Wanted! The Outlaws, and The Original Soundtrack: Honeysuckle Rose. There is no previously unreleased material. The latter three albums are much lauded and easily found. The first two, from which tracks 1 through 4 are selected, will be fresh to many ears. Live Country Music Concert was released in 1966 and Willie Nelson Live was released ten years later; both albums feature pre-outlaw recordings of Nelson playing a July 1966 date in Ft. Worth, Texas. As with Nelson’s early studio recordings, these performances find him straining against his band’s straight time and inflexible arrangements. It’s only on the ballads “The Last Letter” and “Touch Me” that Nelson really gets to stretch into the phrasings and melodic transitions that would become his trademarks. The crowd’s rowdy reactions to favorite songs show he was a fan favorite in Texas long before Nashville figured out how to market him to the general country audience.

The track list is filled out with some of Nelson’s most beloved songs and performances, including the supercharged Waylon and Willie duet “A Good Hearted Woman,” a superbly assured take on “Funny How Time Slips Away” and emotional readings of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” The set closes with the national anthem of the Willie Nelson Nation, “On the Road Again.” By the mid-70s Nelson had assembled a band that could hang with his phrasing and ease their way through key and time changes with the fluidity of a jazz combo. Nelson is clearly energized by the sympathetic playing of his band mates, and the looseness of the cuts from Honeysuckle Rose is especially satisfying. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Good selection of Willie Nelson live material from 1966 through 1979

The Legacy division of Sony continues to explore new ways to keep the CD relevant. Their Playlist series was the first out of the gate with eco-friendly packaging that used 100% recycled cardboard, no plastic, and on-disc PDFs in place of paper booklets. Their new Setlist series follows the same path of a single disc that provides an aficionado’s snapshot of an artist’s catalog. In this case the anthologies turn from the studio to the stage, pulling together tracks from an artist’s live repertoire, generally all previously released, but in a few cases adding previously unreleased items. As with the Playlist collections, the Setlist discs aren’t greatest hits packages; instead, they forgo some obvious catalog highlights to give listeners a chance to hear great, lesser-known songs from the artist’s stage act.

Like most of the artists in this series, Nelson is well-known for his stage act. This set samples previously release performances from Live Country Music Concert, Willie Nelson Live, Willie and Family Live, Wanted! The Outlaws, and The Original Soundtrack: Honeysuckle Rose. There is no previously unreleased material. The latter three albums are much lauded and easily found. The first two, from which tracks 1 through 4 are selected, will be fresh to many ears. Live Country Music Concert was released in 1966 and Willie Nelson Live was released ten years later; both albums feature pre-outlaw recordings of Nelson playing a July 1966 date in Ft. Worth, Texas. As with Nelson’s early studio recordings, these performances find him straining against his band’s straight time and inflexible arrangements. It’s only on the ballads “The Last Letter” and “Touch Me” that Nelson really gets to stretch into the phrasings and melodic transitions that would become his trademarks. The crowd’s rowdy reactions to favorite songs show he was a fan favorite in Texas long before Nashville figured out how to market him to the general country audience.

The track list is filled out with some of Nelson’s most beloved songs and performances, including the supercharged Waylon and Willie duet “A Good Hearted Woman,” a superbly assured take on “Funny How Time Slips Away” and emotional readings of “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and “Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground.” The set closes with the national anthem of the Willie Nelson Nation, “On the Road Again.” By the mid-70s Nelson had assembled a band that could hang with his phrasing and ease their way through key and time changes with the fluidity of a jazz combo. Nelson is clearly energized by the sympathetic playing of his band mates, and the looseness of the cuts from Honeysuckle Rose is especially satisfying. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dale Watson: Carryin’ On

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Watson makes old-school sounds with old-school players

Dale Watson has always been a country music militant. But as he’s aged, he’s moved away from explicit railing against the modern country music establishment, choosing instead to show them up by crafting songs that are more country than “country.” Of course, there’s some irony in Watson’s embrace of an era that was scorned by then-contemporary critics who felt Nashville had irrevocably compromised the hillbilly roots of earlier times with the introduction of electric guitars and drums. But one can easily trace the DNA shared by the Carter Family, Merle Haggard and Dale Watson, while many of Nashville’s modern radio stars seem to have grown from the Petri dish of arena rock. The music that Watson idolizes, and the place from which he composes, grew from the same roots, even as electric instruments were introduced and pedals were added to the steel guitars.

His latest album draws directly upon the golden age by featuring Lloyd Green (steel guitar), Hargus “Pig” Robbins (piano) and Pete Wade (guitar) as instrumentalists, with the Carol Lee Cooper Singers (led by the daughter of legends Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper) adding deft countrypolitan touches in the background. Watson’s baritone is less strident than in his earlier days, showing his love of country songs with his vocal caress rather than with lyrical barbs. He shuffles with the swinging glide of Ray Price, tenderly holding a lover, switching to the bottle’s embrace when left behind, and finally counseling the cheaters of the world “How to Break Your Own Heart.”

The album’s title track borrows the rolling rhythm of “Gentle on My Mind,” but its self-assessment of an aging party boy charts a future without John Hartford’s wistful memories. Robbins’ piano and Green’s steel underline the emotions as Watson’s songs wallow in romantic misery, moon over absent mates, and celebrate being in love. The album’s one moment of modern-Nashville-inspired enmity is the closing “Hello, I’m an Old Country Song.” But here the words are filled with sorrow rather than barbs, more nostalgic and resigned than ready to pick a fight. Still, as long as Waston is writing and singing, he keeps the flame of his beloved country sounds vital, and that’s truly the best rebuttal of all. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dale Watson’s MySpace Page

The Clientele: Minotaur

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Terrific spin on paisley, psych and sunshine pop

These leftovers from the sessions that produced 2009’s Bonfires on the Heath include several memorable mélanges. The title track brings to mind the baroque sounds of the Left Banke, the paisley patterns of the Rain Parade and the sunshine pop of Curt Boettecher. The second track, “Jerry” is even more beguiling, feinting towards progrock with its opening, but quickly giving way to vocal harmonies reminiscent of the Robbs and Three O’Clock, with drifiting piano and a melodic bass displaced by Television-like staccato guitar and an escalating rhythm whose tension is again broken by vocal pop. The EP’s lone cover, “As the World Rises and Falls” is an obscure album track from the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s third release. The hypnotic production and crawling psychedelia are perfect complements to Alasdair MacLean’s hushed vocal – particularly his drawn-out reading of “rises” as “rye-zizzzz.” The tone turns jauntier for “Paul Verlaine,” bouncing along like a Paul Weller reverie, and the folk-rock “Strange Town” suggests Cat Stevens and Donovan (albeit with someone tuning a vintage oscillator for a mid-song solo). There’s a moody piano solo and a lengthy spoken word piece before the EP closes on a lovely pop-soul note. All in all, a brief bite, but a tasty one. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Jerry
The Clientele’s Home Page
The Clientele’s MySpace Page