Category Archives: Free Stream

Swamp Dogg: The White Man Made Me Do It

SwampDogg_TheWhiteManMadeMeDoItNew album from outspoken soul music legend

Though Alive has recently reissued several of Swamp Dogg’s classic albums (including Total Destruction to Your Mind, Rat On and Gag a Maggot), as well as his work with Irma Thomas and Sandra Phillips, this is their first opportunity to release new material. And forty years after the landmark Total Destruction, Swamp Dogg’s brand of humorous social commentary remains as potently entertaining and educational as ever. That’s because the social, racial and gender issues of the 1970s haven’t gone away, and Swamp Dogg’s eyes and tongue are still sharp.

The title track lays down James Brown styled funk, but Soul Brother No. 1 never laid down a philosophical position as direct, quirkily self-reflective and far-reaching as “The White Man Made Me Do It.” Swamp Dogg manages to simultaneously curse slavery and celebrate the heroes that emerged in its wake, all to a catchy chorus chant and deep dance groove. The groove turns to Family Stone-styled soul (complete with a brief “listen to the voices” breakdown) for “Where is Sly” and low-down for a strutting cover of Leiber and Stoller’s “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.”

At 72, Swamp Dogg still has an ambivalent relationship with women, serenading on “Hey Renae” and a cover of Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me,” castigating on “Lying, Lying, Lying Woman,” and humorously apologizing to his stepdaughters in the liner notes. But contradictions, or perhaps more accurately, colorful positions on complex subjects, have always been part of Swamp Dogg’s charm. Swamp Dogg sings side by side of a satisfied life (“I’m So Happy”) and ruminates on “What Lonesome Is,” showing that every coin in his pocket has at least two sides.

On balance, Swamp Dogg seems happy with the life he’s led. He may joke about his lack of popular acclaim, but where there might be bitterness you’ll find belief. Belief in his music, belief in his principles, and despite the social ills he’s cataloged over the years, belief that things have, can and will improve. “America’s sick, and it needs a doctor quick,” he sings in “Light a Candle… Ring a Bell,” but his roll call of the housing crisis’ bad actors is both an outpouring of frustration and a call to more responsible behavior. Swamp Dogg’s been calling it like he sees it since his 1970 debut, and in 2014 he still finds plenty to call.

Release note: The U.S. edition of this title is a 14-track single disc on Swamp Dogg’s S.D.E.G. label. Outside the U.S. this title includes a bonus disc of Swamp Dogg performances (including the landmark “Synthetic World”) and productions, featuring cuts by Sandra Phillips (“Rescue Me”), Lightning Slim (“Good Morning Heartaches”), Irma Thomas (“In Between Tears”), Charlie “Raw Spitt” Whitehead (“Read Between the Lines”), Z.Z. Hill (“It Ain’t No Use”), Doris Duke (“To the Other Woman (I’m the Other Woman)”) and Wolfmoon (“What is Heaven For”). The two CD edition (in a tri-fold digipack) can be found domestically on the Bomp website. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Swamp Dogg’s Home Page

Matthew Szlachetka: Waits for a Storm to Find

MatthewSzlachetka_WaitsForAStormToFindSinger-songwriter’s solo debut recalls the hey-day of ‘70s L.A. canyon music

After seven years fronting Northstar Session, this Los Angeles singer-songwriter has begun a solo career that favorably echoes the ‘70s pop-rock of Jackson Browne and Bob Welch. The opening “Wasting Time” quickly evokes the former’s “Running on Empty” with its loping tempo, buzzing steel and cascading piano, but it’s Szlachetka’s extraordinary voice and the breadth of his songwriting that are the most arresting elements of this album. The productions are modern and crisp, but exude the warmth of mid-70s L.A.’s canyons, and Szlachetka’s originals reach beyond pop and rock to folk, soul, blues and touches of country.

Szlachetka’s years as the lead singer of a band gave him a great sense of how to fit his voice into an arrangement. Together with his co-producers George Johnsen and Joe Napolitano, he’s assembled a band that augments the guitar, bass and drums with Wurlitzer organ, piano, lap and pedal steel, slide guitar, accordion, harmonium and a few horn and string charts. Wisely, the arrangements are never crowded, and Szlachetka is never overshadowed; Fender Rhodes and baritone sax add soul to “Little Things in Life Can Show You Love,” and the organ and horns  of “I Can’t Look at Your Face” frame Szlachetka’s blue mood.

The relationships in these songs are often combative, but surprisingly free of bitterness, whether pleading for a second chance or simply moving on. Szlachetka is fond of boxing metaphors (“waiting for the bell to go off” and “dodging all the punches”), but he’s even more fond of music. He decries a friend who sold out to (or was burned out by) those who “got their fingers in you when you were young,” provides a view from the road with “You’re Home to Me,” and revels in the magic powers of music in “Carry Me Home.”

The latter provides something of a thesis statement for this album, as Szlachetka explicitly acknowledges the musical influences that have implicitly shaped him. Shaped not just his music; shaped his whole life. This will resonate with those for whom music is more than just background sound, those whose live have their own musical soundtracks, and whose personal chronologies and geographies are inextricably tied to songs, records, shows and bands. Szlachetka’s sentiment is full of heart and respect, and builds a fresh set of songs from roots planted in fertile canyon soil. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Matthew Szlachetka’s Home Page

Jack Clement: For Once and For All

JackClement_ForOnceAndForAllA country music legend says goodbye with one last look at his songs

It’s hard to think of something that Cowboy Jack Clement didn’t do in the music industry, and do well. He wrote, produced and published hit songs, he discovered and nurtured talent, he built a Nashville studio that became both a going concern and an important social hub, and he recorded three charming albums. This, the last of his three albums, was released shortly after his 2013 passing, and its posthumous timing and all-star lineup turns it into a celebratory wake.

A wide swath of Clement’s friends turned up to help with this album, including Vince Gill, Dierks Bentley, Leon Russell, Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell, Buddy Miller, John Prine, Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlins, Dan Auerbach, Jim Lauderdale, Bobby Bare and Duane Eddy. But even with that cavalcade of stars, it’s Clement’s slightly warbly voice and the deeply written original songs that are the album’s biggest stars. There’s a wistfulness in Clement’s writing that’s wonderfully magnified by his understated performances, as well as this album’s placement as a capstone to his career.

Many of these songs date from the 1960s, and will be familiar from earlier incarnations, but at 82, Clement sang with a perspective much broader than he held when writing forty years earlier. Producer T Bone Burnett and his gathered musicians arranged the songs in ways that set them free of their ‘60s origins. The tempo of “Got Leaving on Her Mind” isn’t as bouncy as Mac Wiseman’s original single, but it’s a lot more urgent than Nat Stuckey’s later hit, and the folk production of “Miller’s Cave” revives the song from its earlier countrypolitan productions.

In returning to his earlier songs, Clement seems to have found them both familiar and new; the living of his long life having deepened his own feelings for what he wrote decades earlier. The romantic losses of “Baby is Gone,” “Just Between You and Me” and “Let the Chips Fall” are leavened by a lifetime of changes, and the nostalgia of “I’ve Got a Thing About Trains” and “Just a Girl I Used to Know” is strengthened by additional decades of absence. It’s always a treat to hear a songwriter revisit their earlier work; all the more so for a songwriter who so rarely recorded, and whose last work so fully reflects the values he lived and wrote. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Jack Clement’s Home Page

Mark Erelli: Milltowns

MarkErelli_MilltownsA deeply felt tribute to New England singer-songwriter Bill Morrissey

When a song is recorded, its performance is frozen at a point in time that instantly begins to age. But when a song is passed along, it is reborn every time it is performed anew. The same can be said for songwriters: when their lives end, their performances pass into record and memory, but their songs continue to be renewed in the performances of others. And so it is with New England singer-songwriter Bill Morrissey, whose passing in 2011 closed the book on his life as a performer, but whose songs remains alive in the voices of others.

Mark Erelli is one of those voices, and as a disciple of Morrissey, he’s reflected the teacher’s craft in his own work. To repay the debt, Erelli’s recorded an album of Morrissey covers, capped by an original composition that reflects on the bookends of their relationship: the first time they met and the last time they performed together. It’s a bittersweet close to an album of covers that is itself a bittersweet catalog of longing, missed opportunities, farewells, happenstance, wanderlust and resolution that’s sometimes happy, sometimes resigned.

Morrissey’s songs are filled with details that could probably be traced to specific inspirations. He intertwines people, places and things, employing emotions, actions and even geographic details as the seeds of his observations. He steps inside his characters as they observe themselves and others, and distills these thoughts into lyrics whose truth seems to have been latent, waiting to be exposed. His characters struggle with the harsh realities of the Northeast’s declining milltowns, banal jobs, dashed dreams and harrowing reflections of their own mortality.

As drawn by Erelli’s selections from Morrissey’s catalog, love is a restless siren whose call is as likely to be heard departing as it was arriving. But there are bursts of hope, such as the optimism that pours out of “Morrissey Falls in Love at First Sight” and the expectations of “Long Gone.” There’s also humor, albeit of a gallows variety, as “Letter From Heaven” imagines a hereafter where one’s heroes have shucked off their Earthly foibles. Perhaps Erelli imagines that this vision of heaven welcomed the songwriter himself, as the closing elegy “Milltowns” laments the songwriter’s struggle with alcohol.

Erelli’s talent as a musician is magnified by his taste as a producer. Performed and produced in large part by himself in his basement studio, the guitars, dobro, mandolin, harmonica, bass and drums all appear naturally in place, with nothing missing and nothing extra. Even the overdubs of his guest musicians and vocalists sound as if they were added extemporaneously. It’s a mark of his instrumental and studio prowess that the layering sounds so organic, showing absolutely no trace of construction.

The fealty to Morrissey and the craft of his songwriting add up to something much more than a covers album; it’s a personal tribute from someone who knew, worked with and learned directly from the subject. Morrissey’s songs were passed to Erelli in much deeper form than a recording or sheet music, or even a performance; Morrissey’s legitimization of the Northeast as a place from which gritty, honest folk music could spring was a legacy that launched Erelli’s career, and something for which Erelli is obviously deeply grateful. These performances remind us that a songwriter’s songs make an indelible mark on the world as their DNA is passed in an intergenerational chain. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

Mark Erelli’s Home Page
Bill Morrissey’s Songbook

Butchers Blind: Destination Blues

coverThe disillusions of age in twangy alt.country time

Long Island-based Butchers Blind has developed an impressive catalog of original country-rock over the past five years. Over that time, the band’s playing, arrangements and recordings have tightened up, and vocalist Pete Mancini’s songwriting has deepened. His latest collection meditates in large part on the disillusioning realizations that come with age, including disaffection from work, the banality of static relationships, the recognition of one’s own selfishness, and perhaps worst of all, the inability to sustain the passions of youth. You can hear the hoarse, reedy tone of Jeff Tweedy in Mancini’s voice, but there’s a thread of lament that provides the album’s dominant mood. Fans of Wilco, Son Volt and the Jayhawks will quickly cotton to Butchers Blind, and they’ll be pleased to find the band’s music stands on the shoulders of alt.country giants rather than follows blindly in their footsteps. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

Butchers Blind’s Home Page

The Electric Mess: House on Fire

ElectricMess_HouseOnFireNew York garage rockers up their attack

New York’s Electric Mess returns with a new album that intensifies their Farfisa-laced mid-60s garage rock with the raucous bombast of the Stooges and Dolls. Esther Crow still spits out her lyrics with the ferocity of a latter-day Paul Pierce, but this time the organ plays from the sidelines as the group’s louder, harder instrumental attack takes center stage. Even when the tempo slows for “She Got Fangs” or the licentious “Lemonade Man,” the ferocity doesn’t dip, and up-tempo numbers like “Beat Skipping Heart” sound as if they’re being sprayed from a high-pressure fire hose. You can still hear the band’s mid-60s roots, but the location has changed from a suburban garage to a downtown squat. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

The Electric Mess’ Home Page

Whitey Morgan and the 78’s: Born, Raised & LIVE From Flint

WhiteyMorganAndThe78s_BornRaisedAndLiveInFlintOld-school outlaw honky-tonk, live from Flint, MI

Though the 78’s lineup has revolved a few times since the group took their name in 2007, singer, songwriter and guitarist Whitey Morgan (nee Eric Allen) has proven himself a consistent leader across the group’s recordings and live performances. Their latest release snapshots the band in 2011, laying down hardcore honky-tonk in Morgan’s home town of Flint, and sounding like Waylon (and the Waylors) on a good night. Flint may be physically closer to Saginaw than Nashville, but its rust-belt living lends a lot of grit to the band’s music. Morgan performs with a swagger that resonates with a crowd ready to celebrate hard-drinking tunes like “Turn Up the Bottle,” “Another Round” and the ironically titled “I’m Not Drunk.”

Morgan touches on several of country’s favorite topics – women, drinking, cheating, and how women and cheating lead to drinking – and shows why they’re perennials. He’s fatalistically accepting of both cheating and drinking on the two-stepping “Cheatin’ Again,” but lets his loneliness drive as he seeks another chance with “Prove it All to You.” The band’s low-key take on Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” is surprisingly effective, as are covers of Johnny Paycheck’s cautionary “(Stay Away From) The Cocaine Train” and Dale Watson’s Billy Joe Shaver tribute, “Where Do You Want It?” The 78’s are a tight unit, with Brett Robinson’s steel and Mike Lynch’s piano really standing out. If you can’t catch the band live, make sure to play this loud at your next party. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

Whitey Morgan’s Home Page

The Living Kills: Odd Fellows Hall

LivingKills_OddFellowsHallDark psychedelic rock from the garages of Brooklyn

Singer, songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Merrill Sherman returns with an expanded five-piece line-up of the Living Kills for this new EP. As with their album Faceless Angels, the whining tone of Jennifer Bassett’s organ pinpoints the band’s inspiration in the garages of the 1960s. The rhythm riff of the opening “Anywhere” suggests the Moving Sidewalks’ “99th Floor,” but Bassett expands the epoch with some space-age Moog. Sherman’s songs explore B-movie and horror-related themes previously championed by the Cramps, and the arrangements buzz with the energy of the 13th Floor Elevators, Doors and UK Freakbeat. Newly added drummer Brian Del Guercio keeps a punchy backbeat, and bassist Ross Fisher adds a rumbling bottom end that will catch anyone walking by the garage. [©2014 Hyperbolium]

The Living Kills’ Home Page

Scruffy the Cat: The Good Goodbye

ScruffyTheCat_TheGoodGoodbyeNot-so-scruffy odds & sods from 1980s indie-roots-rock legends

This late-80s Boston band barely managed to break beyond college radio adoration, but with their catalog back in print alongside this disc of previously unreleased demos, live-in-the-studio performances and unused session tracks, it’s a great opportunity for reappraisal. The group’s 1987 debut, Tiny Days, brought critical praise for its country-tinged Boston rock, while the less scruffy 1989 follow-up, Moons of Jupiter, garnered mixed reactions to its tighter productions and pop sounds. Whether or not the band was actively striving for broader success, this disc of material spanning the years before and after their formal releases demonstrates the many influences and broad aspirations that make them something of a Boston-based analog of NRBQ.

The band’s earliest tracks don’t evidence the overt country twang that would come shortly. “The Burning Cross” has a droning undertow that suggests Boston contemporaries like the Neats, as well as West Coast compatriots in the Paisley Underground. As the band developed, Stona Fitch’s banjo became a dominant flavor as songwriter and vocalist Charlie Chesterman even took to folk-country crooning for “Lover’s Day.” The group’s growing in interest in country sounds was inventively mated to surf harmonies for Leon Payne’s “Lost Highway,” and covers of Larry Williams’ “Slow Down” and Buddy Holly’s “Well… All Right” are given acoustic-roots twists.

The distance traveled from the garage-psych of 1984’s “The Ghost Psych” and the Beau Brummels’ inspired harmonies of “Tonight” to the horn- and organ-lined Memphis soul of 1989’s “Sweet News” isn’t as long as it might seem, and the path feels entirely organic. Though the latter sessions don’t exhibit the youthful abandon of the band’s earlier work, the barn-burning “I Knew That You Would,” powered by Burns Stanfield’s boogie-woogie piano, offers a return to the Boston club rock in which Scruffy steeped, and the closing “The Good Goodbye” shows off how seamlessly the band could combing its influences.

For a group with a small official catalog, their cache of odds & sods is impressive. Even better, Pete Weiss’ mastering of the disparate tape sources has sewn things together into a surprisingly consistent experience. The jump from 1985 (tracks 5-14) to 1989 and beyond (track 15 onward) leaves Scruffy’s commercial era unmined; perhaps nothing of value existed on tape, or the anthologizers felt the previously released recordings spoke best. Either way, what’s here neatly bookends Sony’s recent anthology, and offers a great spin for both Scruffy die-hards and those just seeking very fine 1980s indie-roots-pop. [©2014 Hyperbolium]