Category Archives: Free Stream

Terry Waldo: The Soul of Ragtime

The soul of Ragtime found in rags, marches, opera and more

Though Ragtime’s syncopation and polyrhythmic marches often conjure turn-of-the-twentieth-century nostalgia, it’s shown itself to be a terrifically hearty music. Jazz musicians revived the Ragtime canon in the 1940s, and many of the British Invasion’s brightest lights started out in Trad Jazz bands that played Ragtime selections. Even more strikingly, the 1970s saw Scott Joplin’s profile elevated by records, awards, and in 1974 (nearly sixty years after his passing) a Top 5 chart hit for “The Entertainer.” The latter achievement also pigeonholed Ragtime in the public consciousness as old-timey music, and obscured the breadth of its offerings in two-steps and fox trots in both instrumental and vocal forms.

Terry Waldo began his exploration of Dixieland and Ragtime in the 1960s and his radio serial This is Ragtime, and a book of the same title, were centerpieces of the 1970s revival. He’s continued to champion the music’s history and promote its on-going vitality with new compositions and recordings, live performances (both solo and with his Gotham City Jazz Band), and as a teacher. His latest album combines newly composed tunes with classics of the repertoire and songs brought to Ragtime by Waldo’s deft ears and fingers. Waldo draws material from gospel, Broadway, early jazz, marches, and perhaps most surprising, nineteenth-century opera. The latter, from Wagner’s TannhÃ¤user, is a somber piece whose relationship to Ragtime is revealed in its lighter final minute.

Waldo shines on the album’s wide range of rags, including the original “Turkish Rondo Rag” and “Ragtime Ralph,” but the album’s biggest surprises are in tunes not famously known as piano rags. John Phillip Sousa’s “Stars & Stripes Forever” wears Waldo’s syncopation with a glee that befits the song’s joyous patriotism, and the jaunty flourishes added to “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” enliven a song typically played as a funeral dirge. Waldo reads “I’m Just Wild About Harry” in the romantic vein of its composer, Eubie Blake, rather than the upbeat band arrangements of the ’20s and ’30s, and his rendition of “The Pearls” retains the character of Jelly Roll Morton’s solo arrangement. If you think Ragtime is nothing more than a nostalgic, almost corny soundtrack for The Sting, Waldo’s deep scholarship and vital artistry will set you straight. [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]

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Emerson Hart: Beauty in Disrepair

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A superbly wrought album of modern power pop

Seven years after his album debut as a solo act, and more than a decade after relocating to Nashville, singer-songwriter Emerson Hart is back with his second album. Hart first came to notice through his band Tonic, but was heard even more broadly with the crafting of “Generation” for the Dick Clark-produced television show, American Dreams. His latest, produced by David Hodges, has a bigger sound than 2007’s Cigarettes & Gasoline, and the arrangements are more dynamic and dramatic than the singer-songwriter vibe of his earlier work. Hart’s voice fits well into these beefier backings, carving a human-sized emotional channel through Hodges’ powerfully constructed productions.

Like more recent Nashville transplants, Hart connects to the power balladry of modern country, rather than the city’s twangy musical heritage. There are worn down moments, such as the troubling reminders of “To Be Young,” and introspective “Mostly Gray,” but the album first grabs listeners with the soaring chorus of “The Best That I Can Give.” Beyond the latter’s instantly hummable melody, Hart communicates the song’s conflicted emotion with the tone of his voice and the top-range notes for which he reaches with every last ounce of strength. The apologetic lyric turns out to be icing on a perfectly bittersweet cake, and offers a preview of the album’s themes of uncertainty and unexpected repercussions. The exasperated questions of “Who Am I,” though not as venomously bitter, will remind listeners of Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend, and “Hurricane” finds a similar middle ground between intellectual dissection and emotional flight.

From the number of songs of separation, one might assume this album is the product of a fresh break-up. But as a relative newlywed, it’s more likely that Hart is a romantic who’s collected a lifetime of emotional scars into the realization that life isn’t just full of ups and downs, it is ups and downs. The disappointments of “Don’t Forget Yourself” and sad inevitability of “Hallway” are the tail-end of experiences worth the suffering and lives that aren’t fatalistic. Hart’s mood turns celebratory for the twang-tinged love song “You Know Who I Am,” and the album closes with “The Lines,” an uplifting song about the growth that springs from inexperience. It’s a fittingly hopeful and inspirational ending to an album that dwells, inventories, analyzes and finally draws direction from the highs and the lows that give each other dimension. [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]

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Sid Selvidge: The Cold of the Morning

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Itâ€™s safe to say that Big Star wasnâ€™t the only 1970s Memphis act that didn’t find the contemporary recognition they deserved. They werenâ€™t even the only 1970s Memphis act produced by Jim Dickenson to sail in that uncharted boat. Singer-songwriter Sid Selvidge, having been reared in Greenville, MS, followed the migratory trail to Memphis in the early 60s and continued to steep in the music of his native South. He fell under the tutelage of Furry Lewis, made friends with Dickenson and Don Nix, waxed an album for a Stax subsidiary and after a multi-year stint in academia, returned full-time to music to make art rather than commerce.

After an early 70s album for Elektra was shelved, Selvidge teamed with Dickenson to record this 1976 release for the local Peabody label. Unluckily for Selvidge, the label chose that very moment to go out of business (echoing Big Star’s trouble with Stax a few years earlier), returning the master and an initial press run that had no distributor. Luckily for Selvidge, the album was strong enough to gain notice with only haphazard distribution of a small number of copies. But with big city eyes upon him, Selvidge discovered that New York showcases and major label interest wasnâ€™t what he was looking for. Instead of pursuing these leads, he returned to Memphis, revived the Peabody label as a going concern, toured and released sporadic albums of his own.

Though The Cold of the Morning garnered some critical notice at the time of its release, it fell out of print more than twenty years ago and drifted into the memories of the few who discovered its original issue or lucked into a word-of-mouth recommendation. The same could be said of Selvidge’s sporadically released later albums: treasured by a small number of in-the-know fans, but physically elusive to the larger audience of blues and guitar listeners who would have enjoyed them. The track lineup include three fine originals (“Frank’s Tune,” “The Outlaw” and “Wished I Had a Dime”), but it’s the album’s cover songs that fully reveal Selvidge’s breadth and interpretive depth. The set opens with superbly selected and rendered take on Fred Neil’s “I’ve Got a Secret (Didn’t We Shake Sugaree),” sung a shade more upbeat to Selvidge’s solo finger-picked backing.

The album’s other mid-60s gem is Patrick Sky’s “Many a Mile,” a song whose wistfulness is amplified by the purity of Selvidge’s voice and guitar playing. Reaching further back, George M. Cohan’s “Then I’d Be Satisfied with Life” retains a turn-of-the-century tone in Selvidge’s vocal slides and ragtime guitar. The jazz age “I Get the Blues When it Rains” is augmented by the piano and washboard of Mud Boy Slim and the Neutrons, and “Miss the Mississippi and You” is sung with an introspective lilt that’s less sentimental than Jimmie Rodgers original. Omnivore’s 2014 reissue adds six bonus tracks, each of which matches the quality of the original dozen. The traditional “Wild About My Lovin'” and Charley Jordan’s mid-30s blues “Keep it Clean” are especially fine, but truth be told, Selvidge picked great songs and made great recordings of each one.

Selvidge balances the nostalgia of older material with a timeless folk presentation of guitar and voice. Mud Boy and the Neutrons lend support for two tracks (“Wished I Had a Dime” and “I Get the Blues When it Rains”), but Selvidge’s picking and singing (including a cappella and yodeling) are so musically complete that the production really benefit from the clarity of his presentation. The productions are spare, but the complex interplay of voice, guitar, melody and lyrics is filled with subtlety and depth. Omnivore’s reissue includes a twenty-page book filled with photos and extensive liner notes by Bob Mehr. If you managed to miss out on this album over the past thirty-eight years, this is a perfect chance to get acquainted. [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]

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The Presidents of the United States of America: Kudos to You!

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Another round of rock and rye

This Seattle pop-punk band had a brief blaze of fame with a pair of albums in the late ’90s and promptly consigned themselves to a cycle of retirement and reunion. They call their commitment “full-time part-time,” reconvening every four or five years to put together an album of rocking irreverence that finds their creative batteries recharged and their band chemistry fully intact. The band’s material brings to mind Jonathan Richman, Ben Vaughn and They Might Be Giants, but they’re less child-like than Richman and less pathos-filled than Vaughn, which leaves them in a pure-pop place to write about such shared interests as insects (“Slow Slow Fly” and the wonderfully overblown “Flea vs. Mite”), cars (“Crown Victoria”) and the work-a-day world (“She’s a Nurse”). Kids will love “Crappy Ghost,” but may cry when they find out it’s not the theme song to a beloved 1970s Saturday morning cartoon they can stream on Netflix. Several of the songs rework earlier material from the Presidents, their predecessor Egg and Chris Ballew’s post-PUSA Giraffes, but all are given a completely new kick in the ass. Fans will also want to track down the live album Thanks for the Feedback, released simultaneously as part of this album’s Pledge Music campaign. [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]

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Jimbo Mathus & The Tri-State Coalition: Dark Night of the Soul

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Outstanding album of rootsy, blue rock ‘n’ soul

Squirrel Nut Zippers founder Jimbo Mathus actually never strayed far from the blues of his native Mississippi. Just as the Zippers were taking off in the late ’90s, he recorded an album of Delta blues, ragtime and jug band music in honor of Charley Patton, and in financial support of Patton’s daughter (and one-time Mathus nanny), Rosetta. Following the Zippers’ initial disbanding in 2000, he toured and recorded with Buddy Guy, set up his own studio, and began a string of albums that explored the many Southern flavors with which he grew up. In 2011 he waxed Confederate Buddha, his first album with the Tri-State Coalition, and explored various shades of country, soul, blues and rock ‘n’ roll.

The band’s third album knits together many of the same musical threads, but in a finer mesh than the debut, and with an edge that leans more heavily on rock, blues and soul. You can pick out moments that suggest the Stones (and by derivation, the Black Crowes), but a closer parallel might be an older, grizzled version of Graham Parker, as Mathus sings his deeply felt, soulful declarations and confessions. There’s a confidence in these performances that suggest songs workshopped for months on the road, but in reality they were developed over a year of casual studio time, and nailed by Mathus in demo sessions and by the band live in the studio. Mathus connects with these songs as if they’re extemporaneous expression, and like the best slow-cooked ribs, the exterior may be lightly charred, but the heart remains tender.

Listeners will enjoy the swampy southern rock and hint of Hendrix in “White Angel,” Memphis soul (and a lyrical tip to Lou Reed) in “Rock & Roll Trash,” and the Neil Young-styled fire of “Burn the Ships.” Matt Pierce’s and Eric “Roscoe” Ambel’s guitars are featured throughout, with scorching electric leads answering Mathus’ vocals. The album turns to country for the moonshiner story “Hawkeye Jordan” and Casey Jones (the railroad engineer, not the Grateful Dead song) is given an original spin in “Casey Caught the Cannonball.” Mathus covers a lot of ground between the love song “Shine Like a Diamond” and the addict’s lament, “Medicine,” but it’s the album’s unrelenting rock ‘n’ soul intensity that will both will keep your undivided attention. [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]

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OST: Toomorrow

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Olivia Newton-John on the doorstep of stardom in 1970

This 1970 soundtrack to a blink-and-you-missed-it Don Kirshner-produced film would likely have remained a quick blip on the pop landscape, had the like-named group, film and soundtrack not featured a young Olivia Newton-John. At the time of the film’s release, John was still a year away from breaking through internationally with the Dylan-penned “If Not for You,” but she already had plenty of experience under her belt. She’d recorded a terrific cover of Jackie DeShannon’s “Till You Say You’ll Be Mine” and was gaining notice from club performances when Kirshner (who’d found success assembling the Archies and Cuff Links after being booted as the Monkees’ producer) brought her into the group.

The film was part of a deal Kirshner struck with James Bond producer Harry Saltzman, and after funding troubles sank the picture’s prospects, it was shelved shortly after release. The soundtrack album was released concurrently on RCA, but given the film’s vanishing act, the vinyl quickly followed suit. The group released a follow-up single and B-side on Decca, but Newton-John was soon off to the beginning of her superstar solo career. Real Gone’s first-ever reissue of the soundtrack, struck from the original master tape, includes the album’s original dozen tracks.

The film stars Toomorrow as the only band with the “curative vibrations” that can save an alien race dying from a lack of emotion. The screenplay is filled with late ’60s tropes, faux hipster dialog and science fiction cliches, which, of course, makes it worth screening. But the project seems to have really been a launching pad for the group, as had been the Monkees television show and the Archies’ animated series; unfortunately, there was no commercial lift-off. The soundtrack, written and produced by veteran pop songsmiths Mark Barkan (“She’s a Fool,” “Pretty Flamingo,” “The Tra La La Song”) and Ritchie Adams (“Tossin’ and Turnin'”), is an amalgam of bubblegum sounds that include pop, soul and lite psych, hints of folk and country, and is threaded lightly with primitive synth.

Olivia Newton-John is featured on the Motown-inflected “Walkin’ on Air” and the closing “Goin’ Back.” She’s also sings harmonies and takes a verse on the title theme. Guitarist Ben Cooper provides lead vocal for the space-age garage-rocker “Taking Our Own Sweet Time,” the pop-blues “Let’s Move On,” and the hippie themed “HappinessValley.” A trio of instrumentals includes Hugo Montenegro’s bachelor pad-styled “Spaceport,” and orchestral arrangements of “Toomorrow” and “Walkin’ on Air” that sound as if they’re drawn from a commercial production music library. This doesn’t measure up to ONJ’s later hits, but as a quirky start to her career, it’s great find for fans. Real Music’s reissue includes a six-panel booklet with extensive liner notes and full-panel front- and back-cover reproductions. [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]

Nudie: Remember This

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Twangy country music from an unlikely island

The artist known as Nudie is a bit of a mystery. His bio admits to an Ontario birth, residencies in Quebec, Arizona, Texas and New York, and settlement on Prince Edward Island, off the east coast of New Brunswick. He developed a following busking, playing clubs and touring with his band the Turks (completing his homage to country music’s famed haberdashers, Nudie Cohn and Nathan Turk), but after a pair of albums, he’s moved on to a solo career. Nudie’s debut shows many of the same country influences as his earlier work (and includes vocal and instrumental work from two of his three former bandmates), but the arrangements stretch a bit further. Gone is Gordie MacKeeman’s fiddle and mandolin, but added are organ, piano and percussion; also added is a more relaxed vocal style that grabs your attention with understated confidence rather than stage-ready showmanship.

None of which is meant to suggest that Nudie’s twelve new originals wouldn’t play well on stage, but that many will have you listening intently before singing along. Then again, the upbeat Bakersfield-styled “Why Do We Keep Hanging On?” will grab you right away, as will the Neil Diamond-cool of “My Sweet Ache. There’s steel guitar and tic-tac guitar on “You Try to Be Right” and the yodel that opens “Fiona” signals Hank Williams-styled woe ahead. Nudie writes in the many shades of anguish that anticipate and result from broken hearts. He’s on the lookout for cracks in his relationships and laments those that have already failed. Even in the depths of his misery, Nudie brings the wry storytelling of Tom T. Hall to several songs, including “Pawn Shop” and “I’m Tired of Living with No Fun.” Think of this as buenas noches from an unlikely place. [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]Â [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]

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David Serby: David Serby and the Latest Scam

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L.A. honky-tonker goes power-pop

David Serby’s Honkytonk and Vine revisited 1980s Los Angeles’ honky-tonk with its cowboy-booted country twang. Serby’s follow-up, Poor Man’s Poem, turned from honky-tonk to folk-flavors, but still kept its roots in country. So what to make of this double-album turn to the sunshine harmonies and chiming electric guitars of power pop? Well first off, the change in direction works. Really well. You can hear influences of both ’60s AM pop (particularly in the faux sitar of “You’re Bored”) and late ’70s power pop and rock, including Gary Lewis, the Rubinoos, and the Records. Serby’s quieter vocals are full of the romantic yearning one would normally ascribe to a love-sick teenager; it’s the bedroom confession of a twenty-something who’s finally enunciating out loud what’s been confusing him for years. Disc two rocks harder and more country than disc one, but even the two-step “I Still Miss You” is set with chiming 12-string and wistful answer vocals. The country-rock “Gospel Truth” brings to mind Rockpile and the Flamin’ Groovies, and the cheating-themed “Rumor of Our Own” connects to Serby’s honky-tonk background. Each of these ten-track discs would have made a good album on their own, but together they show off a terrific continuum of pop, rock, country and a touch of the blues. Serby’s reach across country, folk and rock were evident in his earlier releases, but the pure pop side is a welcome surprise. [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]

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Little Children: By Your Side

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Modern pop, but with a breakdown that somehow manages to echo Buffalo Springfield. Perhaps the band’s promo blurb says it best:

Little Childrenâ€™s auditory sustenance fully personifies the essence of modern pop musicâ€™s history. No genre goes unexplored or escapes its distinctive formation! Â Essentially, Little Children has established an original and sensational standard within musicâ€™s modern empire.

Standing tall next to the striking melodies and poetic worlds built by Little Childrenâ€™s fate-driven lyrics shines the involvement of multi-instrumentalist Andreas SÃ¶derstrÃ¶m. SÃ¶derstrÃ¶mâ€™s indispensable contribution to the albumâ€™s diversity allows Little Childrenâ€™s vocals to reach depths from both ends of a spectrum resulting in an obliging mÃ©lange that ranges from the darkest of tones to a weightless dictum, moving with an unreserved synchronization.

â€œWalk Withinâ€ contains all of the delicate ingredients that characterize an upcoming milestone: sincerity, clarity and energy, all the while retaining the essential passion that tugs at your heartstrings and reaches deep into your bones.

Ultimately â€œWalk Withinâ€ reminds us that it is indeed 2014 and the auditory continuation of music by its example is invigorating, striking and irrefutable.

Then again, maybe it’s better to just listen to their fantastic new single.

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Art Decade: Art Decade

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This Boston quartet, led by singer-songwriter and orchestrator Ben Talmi, has been seeded with the orchestral rock DNA of ELO, and grown under the golden hooks and harmonies of 1960s sunshine pop. But these sonic nods to earlier times aren’t mere nostalgia, as they’re updated with modern-pop melodies that suggest Blind Pilot, Keane and others, and complex arrangements that drink from the same production fountain as Sufjan Stevens and the Explorer’s Club. The lead off, “No One’s Waiting,” is a masterpiece whose brooding introduction feints in the same direction as Eric Carmen’s “Sunrise” before kicking into gear with swirling strings and a soaring vocal that hangs the title on a perfect melodic hook. Talmi’s layered vocals interlace with violins and cellos as the four-piece rocks the song to a thrilling conclusion.

It’s one thing to have a talented and sympathetic orchestrator decorate your songs, but quite another to have the orchestration composed in the songwriter’s head. Think Brian Wilson rather than George Martin. Talmi’s songs are built from words, rhymes, melodies, meters and vocals, but it’s the way they interplay with the rock instruments, and the rock instruments interplay with the strings and brass that gives these songs both their delicacy and power. Art Decade is a top notch modern-rock band on their own, but when supplemented by the orchestral elements, they gain a thrilling extra dimension. The songs draw impressions with poetic imagery and vocal tone, and highlight emotional moments with the arrangements.

Talmi’s songwriting encompasses the winsome side of the three B’s (Beatles, Big Star and Badfinger), the darkness of Paul Simon and Nick Drake, but most often the melancholy of Brian Wilson. “So I Thought” combines a bouncy McCartney-styled chorus with a lyric that leans to the uncomfortable self-discovery of Pet Sounds, and in “Idle Talks,” Talmi declares “I’m stuck here swimming with words that drown me out from the truth.” There are moments of light, including the emotional support of “No One’s Waiting” and attraction of “Walking Together,” but more often inability turns to indecision and ambivalence as Talmi vacillates between reducing and increasing distance. If you ever wondered what Elliot Smith would sound like as produced by Jeff Lynne, Art Decade’s second full-length album will give you a hint. [Â©2014 Hyperbolium]

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