Reissue of 1987 political folk-punk debut with eleven bonus tracks
In the mid-80s, the Los Angeles-born, UC Santa Cruz-educated Carmaig De Forest was shuttling up and down the California coast, strumming an electric ukulele and singing his pithy, politically-pointed songs. His delivery suggested the emotional spittle of Elvis Costello and Gordon Gano (the latter of whom took in De Forest as an opening act for the Violent Femmes), the tuneful monotone of Lou Reed and Jonathan Richman, and the iconoclastic musical freedom of his producer, Alex Chilton. De Forest takes frequent, very personal aim at then-president Ronald Reagan, wishing for age to claim him, scathingly recounting his sins alongside those of Hitler and Jim Jones, and imagining their fiery afterlife on “Hey Judas.†He sings of corporate hegemony and decaying social liberties, and offers the sideways love song “I’d Be Delighted.†De Forest plays his ukulele on most of the tracks, but it takes a back seat to his songs, voice and the band. Chilton’s production, and the backing of Chilton on guitar, Greg Freeman on bass and Eddie Sassin drums are at turns funky, jazzy, rocking and blue, adding flesh to De Forest’s songs and amplify the edginess of his idiosyncratic performances.
Lavish expansion of 1968 and 1970 Woody Guthrie tribute concerts
Bear Family’s lavish three CD, two book set collects material from two live tribute shows, featuring performances by Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan (his first appearance after his motorcycle accident), Odetta, Joan Baez, Richie Havens, Jack Elliott, Country Joe McDonald, Tom Paxton and Earl Robinson, along with narration from actors Robert Ryan, Will Geer and Peter Fonda. The first tribute included an afternoon/evening pair of concerts staged at Carnegie Hall in 1968, the second tribute was staged at the Hollywood Bowl in 1970. Material from both tributes was released in edited, collated and resequenced form on a pair of 1972 LPs, Part 1 on Columbia and Part 2 on Warner Brothers, and eventually reissued on CD and MP3.
In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Guthrie’s passing, Bear Family has gathered all of the extant concert materials – including the entire Hollywood Bowl concert – to recreate the original, scripted concerts by adding back narration and musical performances that were elided from the LPs, and adding in interview clips that shed light on Guthrie and the productions. The three CDs are fitted into the back cover of a 160-page hardbound book that overflows with photos, essays, press clippings, remembrances, artist and production staff biographies, ephemera, notes on production, recording and filming, a discography, a bibliography and a filmography. The book is housed in a heavy-duty slipcase alongside a reproduction of the 1972 volume, The TRO Woody Guthrie Concert Book, which itself includes photos, sheet music, and song notes from Guthrie and Millard Lampell. All together, the package weighs in at over five pounds!
Lampell’s script for the shows threads together Guthrie’s songs and autobiographical writing, Lampell’s script tells Guthrie’s story through the people he met, the stories he sang and the musicians he influenced. Highlights of the New York shows include Will Geer’s knowing tone in describing his longtime comrade, the then-recently minted starlight of Arlo Guthrie shining on his father’s “Oklahoma Hills,†the sound of Pete Seeger’s banjo and his physical embodiment of the folk movement’s hard-fought roots, and Tom Paxton’s mournful “Pastures of Plenty.†Dylan’s band-based triptych stands apart from the more traditional folk arrangements of his castmates, and shows the directions he’d been developing during his eighteen month hiatus.
For all the camaraderie and good feelings of the Carnegie shows, they weren’t without controversy, as Phil Ochs’ snub led to the deeply bitter feelings recounted in his interview. Ochs’ was particularly critical of Judy Collins and Richie Havens, the latter of whom had only then recently released his debut and performed at Woodstock. But Ochs’ recriminations were misplaced, as both artists commune with Guthrie’s legacy; Collins’ embrace of “Plane Wreck At Los Gatos (Deportee)†is tear inducing, and Havens’ slow, rhythmic performance of “Vigilante Man†is hypnotic. The show closed with the cast singing Guthrie’s alternate national anthem, “This Land is Your Land,†sending the audience out to share Guthrie’s music with the world.
The Los Angeles show largely repeated the script from New York, with Peter Fonda replacing Robert Ryan in the co-narrator chair, and Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Odetta, Jack Elliott and Richie Havens newly joined by Joan Baez, Country Joe McDonald, Earl Robinson and a house band that included Ry Cooder. Dylan’s semi-electric set felt like an outlier among the acoustic arrangements of 1968, but by 1970, the house band is heard throughout much of the Hollywood Bowl program. Stretching the songs further from their acoustic origins emphasizes their their continued relevance as artistic and social capital. The band-backed songs also provide contrast to acoustic numbers such as Baez and Seeger’s audience sing-a-long “So Long, It’s Been Good To Know Yuh.â€
Baez sings both “Hobo’s Lullaby†with empathy and tenderness, and the band’s support on Odetta’s “Ramblin’ Round†inspires a looser performance than she gave in New York. Country Joe McDonald, who began his solo career the year before with Thinking of Woody Guthrie, sings a rousing version of “Pretty Boy Floyd†and provides original music for the previously unrecorded Guthrie lyric “Woman at Home.†Woody Guthrie’s performance style echoed most strongly in Ramblin’ Jack Elliott’s “1913 Massacre,†and placed back-to-back with Arlo Guthrie’s blues-rock take on “Do Re Mi,†highlights how amendable the songs are to reinvention.
The Los Angeles recording is more detailed than the tapes made from the house system in New York, and though it’s musically rich, with Guthrie’s passing two years further in the past, it doesn’t feel as urgent as the earlier shows. Disc three is filled out with interview clips that shed light on Guthrie and the tribute concerts. As Arlo Guthrie recounts in interview, and Lampell echoes in his opening essay, Guthrie had developed a legacy in the ‘30s and ‘40s, but it was the folk revival that really cemented his popular artistic immortality. The tribute concerts consolidated the discovery of the revival, acknowledging the original context in which Guthrie wrote, and renewing his songs’ significance by highlighting their ongoing relevance to then-current issues. The shows employed the folk tradition as stagecraft.
Eilen Jewell’s voice has always been from another era. From her earliest country folk to the country shuffles, western swing and hot club jazz that have filled out her catalog, Jewell’s often had at least one peep-toed shoe in the 1930s. Even as she added electric guitars and growling saxophones to the mix with 2009’s Sea of Tears and 2014’s Queen of the Minor Key, she retained the out-of-time otherworldliness of her vocals. Her last album, 2015’s Sundown Over Ghost Town, dialed back the jazz, rock and R&B to electric country folk that married the directness of Woody Guthrie to the choked emotion of Billie Holiday. Two years later, the blues are back, as Jewell rips through a brilliantly selected and deftly executed collection of covers.
The dozen selections here weigh towards the 1950s and 1960s, with sides drawn from the Chess, Checker, Excello, Ace, Finch and Bluesville labels. The disc opens with a killer take on Charles Sheffield’s “It’s Your Voodoo Working,†driven by the spellbinding guitar of Jerry (“Not Moby Grape’sâ€) Miller. The covers include singles and deep album tracks made popular by Howlin’ Wolf, Big Maybelle, Little Walter and Otis Rush, and reach back to earlier sides from Bessie Smith (“Down Hearted Bluesâ€) and Moonshine Kate (“The Poor Girl’s Storyâ€). This is a connoisseur’s’ selection, highlighted by a rockabilly-inflected take on Betty James “I’m a Little Mixed Up†and a smokey, Peggy Lee-styled read of Little Walter’s “Crazy Mixed Up World.â€
Dwight Yoakam at the peak of his commercial success
This October 1988 date found Yoakam headlining a bill with his hero and mentor, Buck Owens. Yoakam had rescued Owens from self-imposed retirement earlier in the year, and together they topped the chart with a remake of Owens’ “Streets of Bakersfield.†The day before the show, Yoakam’s third album, Buenas Noches from a Lonely Room, crested at #1 on the Billboard country chart, and it would go on to net Grammy, ACM and CMA awards. Owens opened the show with a tight 30 minute set (available on a companion volume), with Yoakam joining him for “Under Your Spell Again.†Owens returned the favor during Yoakam’s set to sing their recent chart topper.
Yoakam’s set combined selections from his first three albums, mixing original material with covers of songs by Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman (“Little Sisterâ€), Homer Joy (“Streets of Bakersfieldâ€), Johnny Cash (“Home of the Bluesâ€), Johnny Horton (“Honky Tonk Manâ€), Lefty Frizzell (“Always Late With Your Kissesâ€) and Stonewall Jackson (“Smoke Along the Trackâ€). His original material included nearly all of his hits to that point, as well as several album tracks. The band is superb, with Pete Anderson’s guitar and Scott Joss’ fiddle really standing out. Yoakam turns on the sex appeal as he introduces the sultry “What I Don’t Know,†the band turns up the heat for “Please, Please Baby†and “Little Sister,†and the audience joins in enthusiastically to close “Honky Tonk Man.â€
As on the duet sung together in Owens’ set, the happiness shared by Yoakam and Owens in teaming up for “Streets of Bakersfield†is palpable – Owens reveling in the new artistic partnership that rekindled his interest in music, and Yoakam in working with his idol and mentor. Each has such a distinct voice, that the delight in hearing them sing together continues to rise as they swap verses and share the chorus. Flaco Jimenez joins the band onstage and stays to accentuate the sorrow of “Buenas Noches From a Lonely Room,†with Joss’ fiddle and Anderson’s low strings adding mournful notes. Yoakam tells several stories on the DVD that are elided on the CD, including an account of his first meeting with Johnny Cash.
Late-40s and early-50s sides from the father of rock ‘n’ roll
Arthur Crudup is most widely remembered as the writer of Elvis Presley’s first single, “That’s All Right,†and the later B-side “My Baby Left Me.†But by the time Presley waxed these sides in the mid-50s, Crudup had already quit the recording business in disgust. Crudup was denied a share of the royalties his songwriting and recordings had generated, and after years of subsisting on low wages for sessions and performances, he’d had enough of enriching others. He eventually returned to recording and performing, continuing on into the 1970s, but even with legal help, he was never able to claim the royalties for the songs that had launched others onto the charts.
Bear Family’s 28-track collection focuses primarily on the sides Crudup recorded in Chicago for RCA in the 1940s, supplemented by a few early-50s recordings made in the studios of WQXI (Atlanta), WRBC (Jackson, MS) and WGST (Atlanta), and in 1962, New York City. Crudup began recording for RCA in 1941 with a basic session of acoustic guitar and washtub bass, but a two-year-long musicians strike created a gap that stretched from 1942 until the end of 1944. This set picks up with 1945’s “Open Your Book,†with Crudup’s energetic guitar playing backed by drummer Charles “Chick†Draper. The lyrics touched on the phrase “that’s all right,†though it wouldn’t solidify into the title song until the following year.
Another guitar-and-drums session, this time with Armand “Jump†Jackson on skins yielded the hit “So Glad You’re Mine,†which Elvis revived a decade later for Elvis. By Fall of 1946 Crudup had been reunited with string bassist Ransom J. Knowling, and along with drummer Judge Lawrence Riley they worked their way up to the iconic “That’s All Right.†Before recording the icon, the trio warmed up the key “that’s all right†phrase and the “de de de†scat on the raucous “So Glad You’re Mine.†Those two elements would continue to thread through Crudup’s work for years, including the subsequent “I Don’t Know It.â€
Crudup, Knowling and Riley continued to record throughout 1947, Crudup traveling up to Chicago from his native Mississippi to which he’d returned in 1945. They mixed mid-tempo laments with up-tempo numbers whose excited vocals and sharp drum accents point in a straight line to Presley’s early Sun work, and the rock ‘n’ roll revolution. Late in 1950 the trio laid down “My Baby Left Me,†complete with the drum and bass intro that Bill Black and D.J. Fontana reworked for Elvis’ 1956 B-side. Crudup’s last Chicago session, and the last session the trio would play together, was held in Spring of 1951, and yielded the nuclear war paranoia of “I’m Gonna Dig Myself a Hole.â€
By 1952, Crudup had a new rhythm section (bassist Jimmy Sheffield and drummer N. Butler), and recording had moved to Atlanta, to the studio of radio station WQXI. Crudup’s guitar has a more subdued tone in these sessions, and his vocals aren’t as exuberant as his hottest Chicago sides. He ventured down to Jackson, MS to moonlight for Chess with the juke-joint blues “Open Your Book,†and the push from Robert Dees’ harmonica returned the spark to his singing. He waxed the energetic blues “She’s My Baby†for Champion with a muddily-recorded piano adding a new sound to his records, and he returned to RCA in 1954 where a lack of with hits led to the end of his contract and an exit from recording.
The mid- and uptempo sides of ‘50s ballad legends
Like many of rock ‘n’ roll’s founding acts, the decades have largely reduced the Platters’ memory to their hits – “Only You,†“The Great Pretender,†“My Prayer,†“Twilight Time†and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.†But, also like many of their colleagues, there was a great deal more to the Platters catalog than these iconic singles. Bear Family’s generous thirty track collection explores beyond the group’s familiar ballads, and focuses on mid- and uptempo tracks from the Mercury years of 1955-1962. The set’s most rocking tunes, including “Bark, Battle and Ball,†“Don’t Let Go,†“Hula Hop,†“I Wanna,†“Out of My Mind†and “You Don’t Say,†reach back past the pop balladry to the group’s R&B roots; but even the slower songs, including bass vocalist Herb Reed’s interpretation of “Sixteen Tons,†are more juke joint than supper club.
“A home run in an empty ballpark†– 2017 reissue w/bonuses
The Muffs 1997 swan-song for Warner/Reprise continued the hook-filled pop-punk of their previous pair of albums, but with an even tighter shock of guitar, bass and drums than the previous Blonder and Blonder, and vocals that wrap emotion in a frock of snotty attitude. Having burned in the trio dynamic on tour, the Muffs were more musically connected than ever before. Shattuck’s production really galvinized the album, and engineers Sally Browder and Steve Holroyd got a ferocious guitar-first mix on tape. Shattuck always wrote openly of her desires, and sings with a passion whose blisters can obscure the candidness of her admissions. She’s keenly aware of herself, whether testing the waters, surrendering to her emotions, standing up, stepping away or squarely laying the blame on her way out the door. And though she doesn’t mince words in eviscerating those who’ve mistreated her, there’s often a shadow of insecurity that makes her songs more than stock kiss-offs.
Obscure 1958 Folkways blues album returned to vinyl
If Christopher Guest were to make a mockumentary about the blues, it might open with a crate digger’s breathless recitation of time-worn details such as, “Louisiana native Cat-Iron was born William Carradine in 1896 and mis-nicknamed by the folklorist Frederic Ramsey, Jr.. Having converted to Christianity, Carradine was initially hesitant to lay down secular songs, but relented with a mix of blues and sacred hymns on a borrowed guitar, recorded in the front room of his house. The resulting 1958 Folkways LP included an eight-page booklet, was pressed on yellow wax, and quickly fell into obscurity.†What would make this absurd is its absolute truth in demonstrating how scholarly producers refashioned themselves into musical anthropologists who used hunches and recorders in place of maps and shovels.
Recorded in 1957 and released the following year, it was to be Cat-Iron’s only album, as he passed away in November 1958. Since then, two tracks appeared on anthologies [12], the album was reissued in the UK as a vinyl album in 1969, and domestically as a digital download and custom CD in 2004. Exit Stencil now returns the album to print as a limited distribution vinyl LP, struck on yellow wax, just like the original, with blues on side one and hymns on side two. Also included is a reproduction of the original eight-page booklet, including lyrics and Ramsey’s original liner notes. The latter sketch Cat-Iron’s background, the circumstances of the recording session, and provide Ramsey’s view of the blues as organic, communal literature.
As Ramsey noted, Cat-Iron sang everything with the combined fervor of the gospel and the blues, lending the former the grit of the latter, and the latter the eternal gravity of the former. The session began with the hymns placed on side two, with Cat-Iron accompanying himself on fingerpicked guitar that’s fretted with a glass medicine bottle and supplemented by the faintest, rhythmic thump of what was likely to be his foot. He’s carried away by the messages of “When I Lay My Burden Down†and “Fix Me Right,†and surprisingly melancholy on the first song he played that day, “When the Saints Go Marching Home.â€
Of the blues numbers on side one, the most well-known (and regularly covered) is “Jimmy Bell.†It’s here that Cat-Iron’s regionalism is heard in the cultural themes he wrote and sang. As with most folk artists, Cat-Iron’s catalog is derived from lyrics he’d heard, borrowed, rearranged and augmented. The opening “Poor Boy a Long, Long Way From Home†is rooted in the oft-recorded “Poor Boy, Long Ways From Home,†with Cat-Iron changing the lyric from “Natchez,†where he resided and recorded, to “New Orleans.†He deftly weaves together lines from “Rambler Blues†and “Corinna, Corinna†for “Don’t Your House Look Lonely,†and sings “I’m Gonna Walk Your Log†with its similarity to “Baby Please Don’t Go†intact.
Reissue of 1987 political folk-punk debut with eleven bonus tracks
