Twangy, throwback country meets modern-day relationships
California singer-songwriter Laura Benitez may profess a disinterest in “recreating the past in a recording or at a show,” but her steel-infused second album has a lot more in common with country music of the decades before her birth than the note-perfect arena-ready crossover productions of modern Nashville. Much like Dee Lannon, another country singer bred of the San Francisco Bay Area, Benitez sings rock ‘n’ roll-tinged honky-tonk with a lyrical outspokenness that carries on the works Kitty, Tammy, Dolly and Loretta. Together with her road band, the Heartache, Benitez has laid down a set that sports the give-and-take of live performance, rather than the metronomic perfection of endless studio retakes.
The album’s opening kiss-off, “Good Love,” forges self-appreciation out of romantic ashes, echoing the personal discovery and emotional strength found in the great run of hits by Patty Loveless, Martina McBride, Jo Dee Messina and other female country singers of the 1990s. Benitez isn’t afraid to ask for what she wants in “Take Me Off the Shelf,” nor does she shy away from the other woman’s truth of “I Know You’re Bad” or the poison of “This Empty Bottle.” When it’s time to hit the road, Benitez doesn’t hesitate, though the rebuke of “Imitation of You” is tangled with recrimination, and the wishes of “Heartless Woman” are perhaps only half-hearted.
Late-blooming Americana singer-songwriter brings punk-rock brio
Singer-songwriter Ronnie Fauss seemed to materialize from the ether with his 2012 label debut, I Am the Man You Know I’m Not. And though his public career as a musician started late, he’d been self-releasing EPs alongside a life that included both profession and parenthood. Like many late blooming artists, Fauss came to his craft with something more to express than the intense, but often callow emotions of youth. As a Texan and label mate of John Hiatt and Steve Earle, Fauss’ characters and stories are informed by the state’s songwriting heritage, but his music mixes a healthy dose of rock ‘n’ roll with its twang. He takes it down to acoustic guitars and fiddle for several tracks, but electric guitar, bass and drums form much of the album’s core, suggesting the Long Ryders, David Lindley and others who straddled the divide.
Fauss’ singing may remind you of Social Distortion’s Mike Ness, with a similar punk-rock brio fronting the wear of every day living. Fauss’ protagonists are long on enumerating their shortcomings, though often short-changed on remediation. The down-tempo “The Big Catch” offers a bleak picture of dysfunctional parenting echoing from one generation to the next, and “Never Gonna Last,” sung as a duet with Jenna Paulette, turns on the hook, “I ain’t never been more lonely / than the time I spent hanging around you.” His characters race one another to be the first out the door, leaving them oddly disappointed when they lose. The Old 97’s Rhett Miller guests on the trucking-themed “Eighteen Wheels,” supplemented by Chris Tuttle’s rousing piano, and a cover of Phosphorescent’s “Song for Zula” repatriates its opening nod to “Ring of Fire.”
From the vintage front cover photo to the electric guitars, winsome melodies and lyrical longing, neither Paul Collins nor his music seems to be aging. Having broken in with the Nerves in the mid-70s, and more prominently with the Beat by decade’s end, Collins moved on to explore country rock on a pair of solo albums in the ’90s. His pop-rock roots reemerged on 2004’s Flying High and 2008’s Ribbon of Gold, and he explicitly reclaimed his crown with 2010’s Jim Diamond-produced King of Power Pop. This second collaboration with Diamond expands on the sonics of the first – vocals ragged with rock ‘n’ roll passion, guitars that slam and chime, and a rhythm section that makes sure you feel the backbeat.
Collins’ writes of rock ‘n’ roll itself on “Feel the Noise” and euphemistically with “I Need My Rock ‘n’ Roll,” but his primary muse remains, as it started out nearly 40 years ago, women. The eighth-note pop of “Only Girl” and “Little Suzy” bring to mind the irrepressible desire of the Beat’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Girl,” and Collins turns positively carnal on “Baby I Want You.” The great mid-tempo numbers of Bobby Fuller, Gary Lewis and the Beatles are echoed in “With a Girl Like You,” and “Don’t Know How to Treat a Lady” riffs on the Beatles’ “You’re Going to Lose That Girl.”
If you read album credits, you might recognize this little-known band’s main man, Billy Steinberg, from the hit singles he’s written for everyone from Linda Ronstadt to Demi Lovato. But before penning “How Do I Make You,” “Eternal Flame,” “True Colors,” “I’ll Stand By You,” “I Touch Myself,” and “Like a Virgin,” Steinberg started a band, and named it after himself and the town in which his father owned a vineyard. Signed by producer Richard Perry to his new Planet Records label, Steinberg and his guitarist, Craig Hull, produced an album of original material that, save for “I’m Gonna Follow You” (which turned up on the Sharp Cuts compilation) failed to gain Perry’s attention. Released from their contract, an EP‘s worth of tracks (1, 2, 6, 8 and 10) gained indie release in 1982, but the rest was left in the vault.
But even stuck in a vault, the material yielded results, as three of the album’s songs and one unreleased demo were picked up by other artists. Ronstadt took “How Do I Make You” to #10 in 1980, Pat Benetar recorded “I’m Gonna Follow You” and “Precious Time,” and Rick Nelson waxed a version of “Don’t Look at Me” for his last album. The seeds of Steinberg’s songwriting success were sewn, but like a lot of songwriters, his dream of making it as a performer was not realized. The album was sharply written, played and produced and today offers itself as a bridge between the power-pop of the Raspberries and Rubinoos and the punchy new wave of the Cars. It’s an album you might have found in a cut-out bin and proselytized relentlessly to your friends – Robin Lane & The Chartbusters, anyone? – and it’s an album you’d have wished was on CD. And now, finally, it is, and spiced with bonus demos.
Trishas vocalist soaks her Texas twang in the Memphis River
It takes literally two seconds to feel the Aretha-in-Muscle-Shoals vibe of this disc’s opener, “River Girl.” The electric piano clues you in and the guitar nails it. And if you somehow still didn’t get it, the organ’s answer to the piano and the deep soul of the vocal leave no doubt that Kelley Mickwee has returned home to her native South. After five years in Austin as a member of the Trishas, Mickwee’s reconnected with the musical sounds of her youth, and the results are every bit as good as you might imagine. In fact, it’s startling how much this doesn’t sound like Texas music. The bass has a relaxed groove, the guitar tone is thick, and the drums linger even when they lope into a shuffle. The music hangs in the air like humidity and clings to the spiritual qualities of Mickwee’s singing.
Susan Cowsill (of the Cowsills) and Vicki Peterson (of the Bangles) wrote and toured together in the mid-90s as the Psycho Sisters, but when Peterson returned to performing with the Bangles, and Cowsill launched a solo career, they left behind only a rare single of “Timberline” (b/w “This Painting”), concert memories, and performances backing Steve Wynn and Giant Sand. Two decades later the pair found coincidental breaks in their schedules and wound the clock back to 1992 with this debut album composed of seven originals written during the years of their initial collaboration, a trio of cover, and a CD booklet illustrated with period photos.
Cowsill and Peterson were in their mid-30s at the start of the Psycho Sisters, and their songwriting highlights a period of transition from carefree youth to more responsible adulthood. Their thirst for boys turned into a yearning for men, and unsettled relationships turned from fun to unfulfilling. The songs are stocked with problematic couplings, but their breakups are less about wounds than growth. A take on Peter Holsapple’s “What Do You Want From Me” kisses off and moves on, and Harry Nilsson’s “Cuddly Toy,” whose cheery tone (and oh-so-dreamy singer) probably trumped its snarky lyrics in the ears of a teenage Susan Cowsill, gains new meaning when sung by women.
Founding members from two of Louisiana’s freshest bands of the past decade – the Red Stick Ramblers and the Pine Leaf Boys – have joined together to produce this four-song salute to swamp pop. Swamp pop is a label given to the late-50s amalgam of southern R&B, soul, doo-wop, country, Cajun and zydeco influences heard in chart hits like Jimmy Clanton’s “Just a Dream,” Phil Phillips’ “Sea of Love” Grace and Dale’s “I’m Leaving It Up To You,’ and most famous of all (due to Bill Haley’s rock ‘n’ roll cover), Bobby Charles’ classic “Later Alligator.”
The EP opens with a Cajun-influenced arrangement of “Let the Good Times Roll,” that combines accordion, horns and second-line drumming with electric guitar and bass that lean to Chicago R&B. Bobby Charles’ “Grow Too Old” brings the R&B focus back to New Orleans, and Jerry LaCroix’s “Lonely Room” echoes the ’50s vocal thread that runs through many swamp pop originals. The closing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” is a horns-and-organ soul instrumental [12] juiced with a hot tempo, Blake Miller’s accordion, and a sizzling sax solo from the band’s newest addition, Chris Miller.
Matt Harlan is a singer-songwriter whose original folk tunes are leavened with country twang and dusted with Texas soul. He’s tramped the blue highways of the U.S. and Europe (and written this album’s “Raven Hotel” about the ravages of touring), played intimate stages, house concerts and festivals, was lauded as last year’s Texas Music Award singer-songwriter of the year, and was featured alongside Guy Clark and Lyle Lovett in the documentary For the Sake of the Song. After a sophomore effort recorded with a Danish backing band, he’s returned to Texas to lay down a dozen new originals with help from Bukka Allen, Mickey Raphael and other area luminaries.
Harlan’s both a storyteller and a poet, illustrating his stories with memorable similes, and realizing his images with narrative detail. His lyrics of hard times take on the weary tone of Chris Knight, but unlike Knight’s often unrelenting bleakness, Harlan’s troubles are redeemed by dreams of forgiveness and the possibility of progress. The wounds of “We Never Met” are addressed with a fatalism that points forward, and the haggard trucker’s regrets in the superbly drawn “Second Gear” are grounded in hard-worn pride. Social commentary and glances towards the exit are juxtaposed in “Rock & Roll,” with an electric backing and matter-of-fact vocal that echoes Dire Straits.
Strong country duets from Nashville husband and wife
The empathy shared by great duet singers can take your breath away. The ways in which a duo’s voices complement, compete and provoke one another, the weaving of a harmony line above, below and around a melody, and the connection of two voices as they race around banked curves make listeners eavesdroppers as much audience. The Nashville-based Carolina Story, Ben and Emily Roberts, is just such a pair, a married couple whose duets bring mind the the Everly Brothers, Richard & Mimi Farina, and the more recent twang of Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs.
The opening pair of tracks from this six-song EP sets the bar high. The first finds the duo rolling along to acoustic guitar, banjo, steel and a light beat as they celebrate the forging of their professional and matrimonial relationships in the crucible of a tour. The follow-on “Crash and Burn” is touched with blues, Dan Dugmore’s hard-twanging steel and a vocal that careens into a yodel. As memorable as are their duets, their solo turns on “When I Was Just a Boy” and “The Stranger,” show off lyrical voices steeped heavily in emotional reflection.
Blues-soaked rock and soul, heavy on the grooves
