Career- and label-spanning summary of a second-generation legend
For an artist of her stature, Rosanne Cash has been the subject of surprisingly thin compilation releases. Several 10- and 12-track single disc collections have been issued, but only Raven’s imported 21-track Blue Moons and Broken Hearts and to a lesser extent Legacy’s earlier Very Best Of really dug beyond the hits. That list is now expanded with this two-disc, thirty-six track collection, featuring a song list picked and programmed by the artist herself. The set opens with “Can I Still Believe in You,†from her 1978 self-titled Germany-only debut, and closes over thirty years later with a trio of tracks drawn from 2009’s The List. The latter selections include a cover of Mickey Newbury’s “Sweet Memories†previously available only on the Borders Books version of The List.
Included are all eleven of Cash’s country chart-toppers, seventeen of her twenty country chart entries, and tracks drawn from all twelve studio albums she’s recorded for Ariola, Columbia and Capitol/EMI. There are augumented with bonuses drawn from earlier antholgies, and duets from albums by Vince Gill (“If It Weren’t For Himâ€) and Rodney Crowell (“Its Such a Small Worldâ€). The bulk of the collection is devoted to Cash’s tenure with Columbia, with the second half of disc two stepping through her more recent work for Capitol/EMI. These latter tracks find Cash reinventing herself from a country hit maker to a writer, album auteur and Grammy nominee. This plays out as a worthy soundtrack for Cash’s recent memoir, Composed, provides a terrific overview of her hits and a useful guide to the rich album tracks in her catalog.
Though Cash isn’t prone to complimenting her debut, the strength of her songwriter’s voice is evident from the start. It may be difficult at mid-life to fully reconnect with the yet-to-be-fulfilled longing one felt at twenty-three, but the early songs provide telling snapshots of a young writer who was already able to express her soul in words. A year later, on 1979’s Right or Wrong, Cash sounds more confident, singing as an equal with Bobby Bare on “No Memories Hangin’ Round,†and producer Rodney Crowell deftly blended roots with radio-friendly touches. Her follow-up, Seven Year Ache, broke her career wide open with an album and title track that each topped the country chart; the single also crossed over, stopping just shy of the pop top twenty.
Cash’s songs and vocals, and Crowell’s production fit easily across a variety of styles, including pop ballads, twangy roots, countrypolitan jazz, and horn-lined soul. Several of the hits, particularly those in the mid-80s, tended to crystalline guitars, big piano and booming drums, but Cash also topped the chart with the locomotive rhythm of “My Baby Thinks He’s a Train,†the Brill Building soul of John Hiatt’s “The Way We Make a Broken Heart,†and most endearingly, an acoustic shuffle of “Tennessee Flat Top Box†that recalled her dad’s early days at Sun.
Sophomore outing confidently meshes string band, bluegrass and modern sounds
Though only 19 when she wrote and recorded this set, Sarah Jarosz has pushed well beyond the “prodigy†title of her early years on the bluegrass circuit. Even her 2009 debut, Song Up in Her Head, showed her to be a lot deeper than a musical wunderkind. Her string-band background is still evident on this sophomore outing, but as on the earlier single, The New 45, she also reaches to progressive folk and indie-rock. The album menu remains the same as the debut: a wealth of original material and an ingeniously selected pair of covers (Bob Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells†and Radiohead’s “The Touristâ€), played by a mix of her regular musical compatriots (Jerry Douglas and Stuart Duncan), young bucks (Alex Hargreaves, Nathaniel Smith), guests (Shawn Colvin, Darrell Scott, Dan Tyminski, Bela Fleck), and a dozen more interesting players.
Jarosz stamps all eleven tracks with her musical vision. The haunting tone of her voice, the assuredness with which she weaves through the melodies, and the thoughtfulness of her delivery are all impressive. She isn’t polished from twenty years of roadwork, but instead seems to have been fully delivered as an artist from birth. Even more incredible is how her sure-footedness invites response from the assembled players. Young and old alike respond with terrific ideas, including Bela Fleck’s vamping and banjo solo on “Come Around,†Stuart Duncan’s duet, counterpoint and violin leads on “Floating in the Balance,†and the progressive instrumental jam “Old Smitty.†Her trio singing with the Punch Brothers (and Gabe Witcher’s superb violin) both breaks down and intesifies the mood of Radiohead’s “The Tourist.â€
The young Neil Diamond graduates from songwriter to performer
Before Neil Diamond became a singing superstar he was a songwriter, but even as a songwriter he wasn’t an instant success. He spent his teen years tramping from one publishing house to another, occasionally selling a song against royalties for hits that never came. It wasn’t until an unsuccessful year on the staff of Leiber & Stoller’s Trio Music and, ironically, a transition to recording, that Diamond found his voice as a songwriter. He first charted with Jay and the Americans’ “Sunday and Me,†and hit his commercial stride with the Monkees chart-toppers “I’m a Believer†and “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You.†Other songs in his catalog found favor among British Invasion acts that included Cliff Richard and Lulu.
Diamond’s earlier attempts at a performing career (with Dual in 1959 and Columbia in 1963) had gone nowhere, but his signing to Bang in 1966 unlocked his songwriting talent and paired him with producers Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich. It was during this initial run at Bang that Diamond proved himself a talented songwriter, unique vocalist and commanding hit maker. His first seven singles reached the chart, six making the top 20; for good measure he extended the chart run with “Red, Red Wine†and a soul-power cover of Gary U.S. Bonds’ “New Orleans.†Several of his B-sides, including “The Boat That I Row†and “Do It†were as good as the A’s, and cover versions of “Red Rubber Ball,†“Monday, Monday†and “La Bamba†were blessed by the Diamond touch.
Blues- and gospel-influenced soul singer hits a peak on Stax
Vocalist Johnnie Taylor wore a number of musical hats, starting with roots in gospel, striking a soulful resonance with Stax, and finding his largest chart success with 1976’s “Disco Lady.†Taylor brought his roots with him to Stax, and his first few releases were see-saw affairs that vacillated between blues and Southern soul. His rise as a bona fide soul and R&B star began with the arrival of new staff producer Don Davis, who helmed 1968’s chart-topping “Who’s Making Love.†Taylor and Davis continued to fine-tune the balance of blues grit and soul emotion, hitting a peak with this 1973 release, Taylor’s next-to-last for Stax. Interestingly, little of the recording was actually performed in the Stax studio; basic tracks were recorded in Muscle Shoals, horns were added in Detroit and the strings overdubbed in New York.
It’s been fourteen years – entirely too long – since songwriter Matraca Berg recorded her last commercially released album, 1997’s Sunday Morning to Saturday Night. Though she’s never found the chart-topping success as a singer that she’s scored as a writer (having penned “Wrong Side of Memphis†for Trisha Yearwood, “Wild Angels†for Martina McBride, “You Can Feel Bad†for Patty Loveless and “Strawberry Wine†for Deana Carter, among dozens of other hit singles and album tracks), critics and fans have treasured her original performances. Unfortunately, when her former label (Rising Tide) closed shop in 1998, her last album found critical accolades that went unmatched by sales, and she returned to writing (including songs for the theatrical production Good Ol’ Girls), live performance and background singing.
Berg’s latest set shows off her talent for writing deeply personal songs that touch intimate, individual memories in each listener. Her songwriting craft and soulful performances suggest a modern-day Carole King, but one flowering at a time when music discovery has become highly balkanized. The funnel of country radio has narrowed further in the last decade, and the channels of indie promotion have simultaneously multiplied and fragmented. Berg’s songs have always been thoughtful, but her lyrics have become more allusive and her performances more subtle and introspective, necessitating longer exposure than a ten-second Pandora needle-drop or snippets woven into an NPR review. Whether her new album gets the hearing it deserves will depend in large part on word-of-mouth from her fans.
Writing in mid-life, the youthful optimism and wistful nostalgia of her earlier songs have taken a backseat to more realistic endings. The album’s title track is a somber elegy for her grandfather’s farm, one in which the golden hues of yesterday share space with the overgrowth and rust of today. The Hollywood dreams of a small town girl in “Silver and Glass†reveal themselves as fading illusions as age presents its inevitable transformations in the mirror. Even Berg’s beloved cherubs, which served as guardians in 1995’s “Wild Angels†(a chart-topper for Martina McBride), have matured into escorts for a bittersweet final journey in “Racing the Angels.†Only 2002’s “Oh Cumberland†(originally recorded with Emmylou Harris for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. 3, revels unabashedly in the warmth of memories.
The Staple Singers make their biggest hits and best album
The Staple Singers had been a together for nearly two decades when they landed at Stax in 1968. They’d recorded old-school spirituals for Vee Jay and folk-influenced sides for Riverside before finding a new direction with the Memphis soul powerhouse; not only did the Staples adapt to the soul and funk energy of Stax, but they evolved their material from the pointed social topics of the folk era to less specific, but highly empowering “message music.†Their first two Stax albums, 1968’s Soul Folk in Action and 1970’s We’ll Get Over, featured backing from the label’s house band, Booker T. & the M.G.’s, and mixed terrific material from Stax songwriters with Staples’ originals. Despite the quality of each release, nothing clicked on the charts, and the group’s third long-player, 1971’s Staple Swingers, found Stax executive Al Bell taking over production chores from M.G.’s guitarist Steve Cropper.
Even more importantly, Bell began recording the Staples’ backing sessions in Alabama with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section: Eddie Hinton (lead guitar), Jimmy Johnson (rhythm guitar), David Hood (bass), Barry Beckett (keyboards) and Roger Hawkins (drums). Hood’s deep bass lines and Hawkins’ rhythm touch anchor this album, solidified by Johnson’s chords, Beckett’s vamping and Hinton’s inventive fills; the Memphis horns add texture and accents without ever needing to step out front to announce themselves. Produced at a time that Stax was evolving from its soul glories of the ‘60s to its funkier output of the early ‘70s, the Staples hit a third gear as they built the album’s tracks, particularly the hit singles “I’ll Take You There†and “Respect Yourself,†from perfectly intertwined strands of soul, funk, and gospel. Also blended in to “I’ll Take You There,†as Rob Bowman astutely observes in the liner notes, is the reggae of the Harry J All-Stars’ instrumental “The Liquidator.â€
Deep soul debut LP from the Soul Queen of New Orleans
Twice divorced and the mother of four by the age of twenty, Irma Thomas brought a lot of living to her career as a preeminent soul vocalist. Initially waxing singles for Ronn, Bandy and Minit, Thomas landed on the Imperial label in 1963. The following year she debuted the deeply emotional original “Wish Someone Would Care,†crossing over to the pop Top 20 and gaining further attention with an irresistible performance of the Jackie DeShannon-penned B-side “Break-a-Way.†The latter would earn cover versions, including a UK hit by Tracey Ullman, but it wasn’t the only B-side to gain notice across the pond; the Rolling Stones turned Thomas’ brilliant gospel take on “Time is on My Side†into their first stateside Top 10. One listen to Thomas’ original reveals how much Mick Jagger was influenced by her vocal interpretation.
Two-disc overview of Davis’ formative period as a leader
This 2-CD set looks at the catalog of trumpeter Miles Davis during his five year stay on Prestige. Davis had recorded numerous sides behind Charlie Parker and led a few one-off sessions, but it was at Prestige where he was first afforded the time to try out new groups, develop original material and evolve his sound across a series of albums. Disc one of this set cherry picks from his early albums, featuring a variety of lineups that variously include Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Charlie Parker, J.J. Johnson and Thelonious Monk. Also employed were a number of ace rhythm sections that included Max Roach, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Percy Heath and Paul Chambers. Disc two picks up in 1955, at a time when Davis was signed to both Prestige and Columbia, alternating releases between the two. By this point he’d organized a quintet lineup of Chambers, Jones, Red Garland and legend-in-the-making, John Coltrane.
Terrific EP from Lake Charles, LA power poppers
