Category Archives: MP3 Review

Tom Glazer: A Treasury of Civil War Songs

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Rich collection of mid-nineteenth century American songs

In remembrance of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, Smithsonian Folkways has reissued Tom Glazer’s 1973 collection of wartime songs. Many of these compositions are so deeply ingrained into the American musical lexicon that listeners have all but stopped thinking about their origins. So while it’s unsurprising that “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Dixie” were each canonized amid the War Between the States, it’s surprising to find that “The Yellow Rose of Texas” (whose period lyrics will make twenty-first century sensibilities wince) and “Goober Peas” were also created amid the songwriting boom of the nineteenth century. The rise of song publishing was fueled not only by a growing American appetite for music making, but the development of war reporting in all manner of written form. Topical songwriting became a way of recording events, defining sides and rallying support. The folk tradition (and loosely-formed nineteenth-century sense of intellectual property) is heard in the sharing of melodies between “John Brown’s Body” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” as well as “Maryland, My Maryland” borrowing its tune from “O Tannenbaum.” Glazer and a backing chorus sing mostly to a solo guitar, reflecting an era when music lovers were more likely to engage in making music than listen to it. The reissue’s booklet includes period photos of soldiers, musicians and most interestingly, soldier musicians, as well as extensive historical and song notes from University of Maryland musicologist Patrick Warfield. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | When Johnny Comes Marching Home
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Ray Charles: Live in Concert

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Expanded reissue of snappy 1964 live date

Ray Charles was not only an iconic singer, songwriter and pianist, he was also a superb band leader and entertainer. And nowhere did these talents so fully magnify one another, and nowhere did the Genius so fully indulge the breadth of his musical mastery, than on stage. This 1964 date, recorded at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles was originally released as a 12-track LP in 1965 (and shouldn’t be confused with the 1973 LP Ray Charles Live, which anthologized late-50s performances). This CD reissue augments the original album with seven previously unreleased tracks, 24-bit remastering (by Bob Fisher at Pacific Multimedia), band credits (notably missing from the original release), full-panel black-and-white photos, and extensive liner notes from Bill Dahl.

Wally Heider’s original live recording is crisp and balanced, capturing the powerful attack and fine details of Charles, his band and the soloists. The show opens with the anticipatory instrumental “Swing a Little Taste,” stoked by MC Joe Adams, solos from Charles and David “Fathead” Newman, and crackling accents and flourished rolls by drummer Wilbert Hogan. Charles plays his organ cool while the band swings a deep Latin groove on “One Mint Julep,” and switches to piano to tease the audience with a few stylized bars of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” before singing a blue, moaning introduction to kick off “I Got a Woman.” A two-part single of the latter track became a low-charting hit in 1965.

Charles offers up an emotionally charged version of Eddy Arnold’s “You Don’t Know Me” and an improvised small-combo arrangement of “Makin Whoppee.” He introduces the Raelettes for “Don’t Set Me Free,” bringing Lillian Fort forward to sing imaginative responses to Charles’ lead. Alongside “One Mint Julep,” the reissue’s newly added tracks include a thoughtful take on “Georgia on My Mind” that features Bill Pearson’s flute dancing around the organ, bass and drums, a deeply felt version of “That Lucky Old Sun,” and a sassy take on the humorous “Two Ton Tessie.” The show closes with an audience-rousing “What’d I Say” and an odd sing-along of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” This is a tight, beautifully recorded performance of the genius of soul as he basked in the fame of his early ‘60s artistic and commercial success. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Andy Friedman: Laserbeams and Dreams

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A beguiling album of thoughtful country, folk and blues

Friedman’s latest, recorded in 24 hours with only one overdub, fits even more deeply into the singer-songwriter realm than 2009’s Weary Things. His strummed acoustic guitar is backed by the electric leads of producer David Goodrich and the fingered and bowed stand-up bass of Stephan Crump. Friedman’s narrative vocal tone brings to mind Leonard Cohen, but the instrumental conversations lean to languid improvisation, and his lyrics aren’t as poetically elusively. Friedman’s a Brooklyn hillbilly whose hard-scrabble living in the outer boroughs leads him to the old-timey string band sound employed on “Old Pennsylvania,” and lyrics that imagine the city’s genteel yesteryear.

The opener, “It’s Time for Church,” provides a microcosm of Friedman’s talent – a vocal that resonates with hints of Dave Alvin, and a lyric that cleverly turns away from the title’s implication, feints back and then lands its final rejection. It’s a song about religion, but not the endorsement you’d expect. Friedman is a keen observer of his own days and the details of imagined lives and places. “Nothing with My Time” and “Quiet Blues” each contemplate what Friedman’s doing when he’s doing nothing, and “Pretty Great” offers the clear-eyed view of youth that’s only visible in rear view mirror. Friedman’s earlier years as a spoken-word poet are reflected in the short “Schroon Lake,” and his father-in-law’s poetry, written shortly before his passing, forms the core of “May I Rest When Death Approaches.”

Death also hovers over the electric blues “Roll On, John Herald,” with Goodrich raging away on electric guitar. More idyllic are Friedman’s dreams of long-gone summer retreats in the faded snapshots of “Motel on the Lake,” the warmth of a tour’s end in “Going Home (Drifter’s Blessing),” and the nostalgic “Down by the Willow.” The latter features a hypnotic, psych-inflected guitar jam by Goodrich. Friedman’s always been a fine songwriter and compelling performer, but on his third album there’s a heightened symbiosis between the two. The trio is terrifically sympathetic to his songs, adding emotional color and texture without overshadowing the lyrics, and Friedman’s vocals fit fluidly into the music. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | It’s Time for Church
Andy Friedman’s Home Page

Kermit Lynch: Kitty Fur

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The blossoming of a wine master’s music career

Kermit Lynch is well-known to oenophiles for his unique wine importing business; but even his most ardent customers would be surprised to find he’s also a gifted musician. Throughout the sixties, Lynch fronted bands in the Berkeley area, only giving it up in the early ‘70s when his travels through Europe begat a career in wine. With the encouragement of vintner/musician Boz Scaggs, Lynch returned to music in 2005, and with co-producer Ricky Fataar, released the album Quicksand Blues. In 2009 he followed-up with Man’s Temptation, mixing literate, world-traveled originals with well-selected covers that included a terrific old-timey take on Lee Hazlewood’s rockabilly classic “The Fool.”

With Fataar once again in the producer’s seat (and drummer’s throne), Lynch offers up his third course, adding an original title track to ten covers. Much like his taste in wines, Lynch’s music is varied and at times eclectic. He sings country, rock, blues, folk, reggae, Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” and even the romantic WWII-era “It’s Been a Long, Long Time.” His voice is a bluesy instrument with the weathered edges of someone more partial to grain than grape, and it adds new shades to each interpretation. The opening original “Kitty Fur” has the blue jazz feel of Mose Allison, the Rolling Stones’ “Winter” is played more like Sticky Fingers than Goats Head Soup, and Dylan’s slight “Winterlude” (from 1970’s New Morning) is slowed into a luscious waltz that’s more classic country than the original’s old-timey vibe.

Lynch is backed by top-notch players, including Rick Vito on guitar, Michael Omartian on piano, Dennis Crouch, Michael Rhodes on bass, Glen Duncan on fiddle and Lloyd Green on pedal steel. The core players are augmented by a horn section for Bobby Blue Bland’s “She’s Puttin’ Something in My Food,” and sound really together as a band, suggesting Lynch is as accomplished at leading a band as he is leading a business. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Kitty Fur
Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant

Amy Black: One Time

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New England singer/songwriter with Southern roots

For a New Englander, Amy Black sounds quite down home. Her Southern roots (she was reared in Missouri and Alabama until the age of sixteen) clearly packed their bags and traveled along in the relocation North and East, and have been renewed through visits to her family’s home town. Black sings in a folk-styled country voice that suggests bits of Patty Loveless, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Judy Collins, edged by the blues of Bonnie Raitt and a hint of Jennifer Nettle’s sass. It’s a voice that sat largely idle during a ten-year career outside the music industry, and one that wasn’t stirred back into action until a few years ago. Her 2009 debut with the Red Clay Rascals was stocked with covers, but on this sophomore outing she expands her artistic reach with nine originals that mix electric and acoustic, including guitar, fiddle (courtesy of Stuart Duncan), dobro, mandolin, dulcimer, bass (electric and upright), and drums. Though the album opens with a compelling tale of an imagined killer fleeing the law, the bulk of Black’s songs are about the lives of women. There’s straight-talking relationship advice in “One Time,” the lonely machinations of one who’s been left in “You Lied,” and tough realizations in “Whiskey and Wine” and “I Can’t Play This Game.” Black offers romantic optimism too, as she flirts with loving arms that remain just out of reach, potential yet to be realized. Among the three covers, Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough (to Take My Man),” despite a nice dobro solo, sounds least comfortable among Black’s originals, but Claude Ely’s gospel “Ain’t No Grave (Gonna Hold My Body Down),” provides blue notes for Black and Duncan to really dig into. This is a nice step forward for a singer-songwriter with an ingratiating voice and a pen that’s just warming up. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | One Time
Amy Black’s Home Page

The Civil Wars: Barton Hollow

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Two voices intertwined into one

From the first moment you hear the intertwining voices of Joy Williams and John Paul White, you might think of The Swell Season, She and Him and other male-female duos. But Civil Wars is less a duet than two voices pulled inextricably together as one. Their harmonies are guided by the sort of familial telepathy that usually only blesses siblings like the Stanleys, Louvins, Everlys or Avetts. Listening deeper into the album, the duo suggests Richard & Mimi Fariña (or Holly Golightly and Lawyer Dave) on the album’s bluesy title track. The drawn-out wordings can feel conspicuous at times, but the alchemy of their voices is never less than mesmerizing. The intimacy of the duo’s vocal tone stands in contrast to the emotional volume of their singing; they use mostly acoustic instrumentation, but conjure a power that feels electric.

White is a little bit country and folk, Williams a little bit pop, and they write songs that are both and neither – rootsy but sweet. They evoke the delicate outlines of romances that could possibly be, relationships that retain the intensity of adolescence, and the hymn-like drama of a troubled marriage in “Poison and Wine.” There are small town comings and goings, hopelessness and hoped-for redemption, and the pair ignites (unfounded) rumors of couplehood with their old-timey Western ballad, “Forget Me Not.” The digital album download includes two bonus covers, a radically reworked vocal arrangement of the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back,” and an emphatic take on Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love” that adds a gypsy-jazz tone. Williams and White push and pull one another with their voices, but the battle is civil and the results enchanting. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Barton Hollow
Download The Civil Wars’ Live at Eddie’s Attic
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Little Faith: Spirituals

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Hammond organ spirituals flavored with sounds of Nashville and New Orleans

The Hammond organ is no stranger to spiritual music, but seasoned with jazz, blues and country flavors of second line drumming, saxophone, fiddle, and lap steel, Little Faith delivers on what it calls “Madri Gras erupting at a tent revival behind the Grand Ol’ Opry.” The material also mixes things up, ranging from the nineteenth century African-American spiritual “Wade in the Water” (led here by the violin of Leah Zeger) to Christian hymns “I’ll Fly Away” and “How Great Thou Art” to the traditional New Orleans funeral dirge “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” (with a terrific blues guitar solo by Nelson Blanton) to the Hebrew “Kol Dodi” and the Carter Family staple “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” The album includes only two vocal tracks, a full gospel chorus on “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and a reprise of “I’ll Fly Away” that complements the opening instrumental. Organist Jack Maeby’s pulled together an assortment of Los Angeles roots musicians who take these tracks to interesting new places anchored by the rock-solid soul of the Hammond. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Ian Moore: El Sonido Nuevo

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Catchy originals from a singer-songwriter and his power-pop trio

Moore’s earlier years as a guitar-slinging Texan have completely receded from his rear-view mirror, but the last fifteen years has seen the blues not so much abandoned as muscled into balance with soul and pop flavors. His guitar playing is still beefy, and he can rip up rock solos, but his songs don’t rely on 12-bar progressions, his melodies are upbeat rather than blue, the harmonies reach to the British Invasion and California sunshine pop, and he offers himself more as a singer-songwriter than a guitarist. Those changes have developed organically over several years and albums, and here he transforms again from the psych inflections of Luminaria and experimental arrangements of To Be Loved to straight-ahead pop-rock. The new sound (or el sunido nuevo) is due in large part to the reduction of Moore’s band, the Lossy Coils, to a power-pop trio of guitar, bass and drums. The production skips layer-upon-layer overdubbing, favoring instead the trio’s rhythm section and strong, clear vocals. Moore’s stylistic reach is broad, from the tightly arranged a cappella intro of “Silver Sunshine” to the superb pop balladry of “Newfound Station” and blues-based punch of “Let Me Out.” At times the music takes on the pop-edged rock sounds of ‘70s bands like Foreigner, Electric Light Orchestra and Pink Floyd, with some David Gilmour-eque guitar adding power to “Hilary Step.” Moore’s a skilled songwriter, managing to close-rhyme “things I’ve missed” with “miscreants,” turning a pep talk into a nervous glance at a darker past, and weaving themes of uncertainty, self-doubt and loneliness into several songs. The closing “Sad Affair” provides a melodic homage to Alex Chilton’s “Holocaust,” and its downcast appraisal segues neatly back to the pub-rock energy of the opener. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Newfound Station
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Debate Team: Wins Again

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Catchy SoCal power-pop side-project

The best known names here are OK Go drummer Dan Konopka, OneRepublic guitarist Drew Brown and The Hush Sound bassist Bob Morris, but the songs (and vocals) come from guitarist Ryan McNeill. Collaboration between McNeill and his then-roommate Brown began in 2003, but was sidelined when OneRepublic scored a hit with “Apologize.” Flash forward a couple of years to a chance meeting between McNeill and Konopka that reignited interest in the abandoned band’s material, drew the drummer into playing as a side project. Though some of the material had been around for years, it was fresh to the newly formed band and the result is a buoyant collection of guitar pop whose instantly memorable melodies spring from ingratiating hooks; the playing is tight and the production polished, but retains the imaginative ideas (such as the chance meeting of racially diverse lookalikes in “Curious Pair”) and sincerity that major labels would worry away. Fans of Velvet Crush, Rooney, Sloan, and Teenage Fanclub (not to mention OK Go, OneRepublic and Hush) will take a strong liking to this all-too-short eight track mini-LP. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Curious Pair
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Yep: Once

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Loving covers album from a Rubinoo and a Belleville

Though Jon Rubin and Tommy Dunbar, the two remaining founders of the Rubinoos, often refer to Al Chan as “the new guy,” he’s entering his fourth decade of playing and singing with the band. His partner in Yep is the singer, songwriter and guitarist Mark Caputo of the pop-meets-Americana band Belleville. Together they’ve lovingly recorded an eclectic collection of ten cover songs (and one Caputo original), ranging from hit singles by Elton John (“Rocket Man”), the Kinks (“Waterloo Sunset”), and the Everly Brothers “So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad),” to lesser-known titles by deeply respected songwriters that include Richard Buckner, Alan Wauters and Justin Currie. Ironically, the indie nature of this album makes the better-known songs the more daring picks, challenging Chan and Caputo to find original approaches to chestnuts. Happily, the duo is quite up to the task.

“Rocket Man” retains the dramatic build from a quiet intro to a rock ‘n’ roll finish, but John’s bluesy piano is replaced here with the singer-songwriter strum of acoustic guitars, and Yep’s bass-drums-guitar and duet vocals are heavier, embellished by spacey flourishes of Dave Zirbel’s steel. “Waterloo Sunset” is sung in close harmony to acoustic guitars, giving the song a more melancholy end-of-the-day vibe than the signature single, and “So Sad,” though sticking closely to the Everly’s harmony style, replaces the original’s tremolo guitar with steel, creating a deeper country feel. It’s particularly great to hear Don Everly’s songwriting highlighted in the company of both commercial legends and underground heroes (and a bit of both with Jeff Tweedy’s melody applied to Woody Guthrie’s “Hesitating Beauty”).

The uncertainty and yearning of the hits also flows through the insular world of Justin Currie’s “Make it Always Too Late,” the uneasily accepted inevitability of Teiture’s “Sleeping with the Lights On,” and the tearstained power-pop heartbreak of Joe Pernice’s “Crestfallen” (note to self: check out the Pernice Brothers’ 1998 debut, Overcome by Happiness). Producer John Cuniberti balances the clarity of modern recording with the warmth of DIY; on “Noise and Confusion,” for example, the track retains the thick center of Alan Wauters’ original, but the voices and instruments are given more definition than Wauters’ muddier production. Singing together, Chan and Caputo give these covers a fresh voice while drawing lines back to the originals’ legacies; they’re respectful but not slavish, just as fine covers should be. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | The Rain Song
Yep’s Home Page
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