Category Archives: Video

Chris Stamey: Lovesick Blues

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ChrisStamey_LovesickBluesA pensive set from a legendary singer-songwriter

It’s been nine years since Chris Stamey’s last solo album, Travels in the South. In the interim he’s worked with Yo La Tengo on A Question of Temperature., re-teamed with fellow dB Peter Holsapple for Here and Now, regrouped with the dB’s for Falling Off the Sky, and continued a busy career as a recording engineer and record producer. The long years between solo outings are certainly understandable, if not necessarily a happy state of affairs for fans; but those same fans should feel rewarded by this collection of eleven magnificent new productions. Stamey’s melancholy tunefulness has never sounded more graceful, rendered in contemplative tones and finely crafted instrumental textures that shift seamlessly between rock, soul, jazz and classical.

Stamey’s formal education in music theory and composition has never been a secret, but his recent work on the Big Star Third concerts seems to have deepened his thinking about how orchestral instruments could fit into and augment his music. He interleaves strings, woodwinds and brass with guitars, bass and drums, dotting his musical landscape with cello, bassoon, flute and trombone. The results are both ethereal and dynamic, offering everything from neo-psych dreaminess to symphonic vigor, sometimes within the same song, as on the sky-gazing “Astronomy.” This coalescing of musical influences is seemingly foreshadowed by the merging of souls in the opener, “Skin.”

At 59, Stamey’s long since expanded upon the punchy guitar rock with which the dB’s introduced themselves, though “You n Me n XTC” has a chorus hook that will make listeners think back. The album plays as late-night ruminations on metaphysical wanderings, philosophical wonderings and haggard day-end inventories. Stamey sings with a thoughtful absorption that suggests Paul Simon’s folk songs, and the self-referential “I Wrote This Song for You” has the charm of an Alex Chilton love song. Stamey’s lyrics remain poetic, but his vocabulary and singing have softened from their earlier percussiveness – a change that fits these pensive songs. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Chris Stamey’s Home Page

Marshall Crenshaw: I Don’t See You Laughing Now

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MarshallCrenshaw_IDontSeeYouLaughingNowSix-EP series kicks off with a new song, a cover and a remake

After a less-than-satisfying engagement with his last record label, Marshall Crenshaw’s taking his music straight to the people. Funded through a Kickstarter campaign, Crenshaw’s kicked off a subscription project that will deliver a series of six three-song 10” vinyl EPs, each featuring a new song, a cover and a remake from the singer-songwriter’s rich catalog. The EPs also include a code with which the analog-deprived can download digital versions of the recordings. The first EP was delivered in November 2012 as a brick-and-mortar exclusive for Record Store Day Black Friday, and it’s now being more widely issued through additional retailers. The record’s A-side is a new song recorded with Andy York and Graham Maby that chronicles Crenshaw’s reaction to the amoral sharks of Wall Street. Given the financial misdeeds of the past decade, it could just as easily have been written about Enron’s greedy traders or deceptive practitioners of imaginary investment funds. The B-sides are a cover of Jeff Lynne’s “No Time,” sung in harmonies that suggest CS&N more than the Move’s original, and a remake of “There She Goes Again” recorded live with the Bottle Rockets. The EP with digital download, as well as a one-year three-EP subscription, is available through Crenshaw’s on-line store. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Marshall Crenshaw’s Home Page
Marshall Crenshaw’s Radio Show on WFUV-FM

Paul Sikes: Craft

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PaulSikes_CraftSkillfully crafted debut from a Nashville-born singer-songwriter

Paul Sikes is a rarity among Nashville country artists – a hometown boy. There are many Tennesseans in the industry, but those actually born in MusicCity, such as Deana Carter, Hank Williams III and Matraca Berg, are surprisingly rare. Sikes goes one step farther, in that he’s not the child of a professional musician; though both his parents are musical, he moved from childhood piano lessons to guitar to songwriting, and eventually to a college education in both performance and the music business. He’s worked as a publishing house songwriter (landing cuts with Emerson Drive, Billy Dean and others), but his background as both a performer and producer has led to this charming self-produced release.

Sikes sings with a sweetness that may remind you of Vince Gill, and like Gill, he’s also an accomplished picker. He’s quite soulful, as shown in the shuffling beat of the Little Feat-influenced opener, “Show You Now,” and as a writer, he finds original twists on well-worn themes. His fish-out-of-water story, “Swear I’m in a Small Town,” views big city experiences through the hometown memories he shares with his mate, and “A Seed” is sung from the perspective of a tree whose humble beginnings provides inspirational stories of possibilities. He couches the breakup of “Tin Man” in self depreciation, and sings the love song “Me, You and Malibu” as easy, supper-club jazz.

Sikes is a meticulous producer and engineer, giving the album’s title meaning beyond the songwriting. There are a few modern instrumental touches and some strings, but the clarity of the voices and guitars is the album’s calling card. The variety of styles plays like a songwriter’s demo reel, with acoustic country and blues, electric country-rock, inspirational melodies and swinging rhythms all sharing space. The CD (currently only available at Sikes’ shows) closes with a hidden bluegrass track written by Sikes’ proud Tennessean grandmother, Mildred Joyce. “My Home Tennessee” provides a sweet, home-spun ending to this finely crafted album of original Nashville song. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Paul Sikes’ Home Page

Buck Owens: Honky Tonk Man – Buck Sings Country Classics

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BuckOwens_HonkyTonkManPreviously unreleased cache of cover songs

After dozens of original album reissues, an omnibus box set series [1 2 3], pre-Bakersfield and post-Capitol material, tributes [1 2 3], and a two collections of duets with Susan Raye, one might wonder what was left in the vault. Omnivore answers that question this month with two new releases, including a previously unreleased album by Owens’ right-hand man, Don Rich, and this volume of cover songs originally recorded for the syndicated run of television’s Hee Haw. Those who enjoyed Owens’ weekly performances at his Bakersfield club might remember how enthusiastically he played requests for country classics, and how easily they mixed with his original hits. The same was true for his television performances, where the covers gave older audiences a comforting connection to country music’s past.

The eighteen tracks collected here were originally produced by Owens between 1972 and 1975 in his Bakersfield studio for exclusive use on the television show. In the recording studio, Owens would lay down a guide vocal that was dropped for the television soundtrack; Owens sang live on the Hee Haw set as the band mimed the backing track. But ever the perfectionist, Owens invested in the guide vocals, giving performances that demonstrate his deep affection for these songs. The Buckaroos, led by Don Rich on all but one recording from 1975, were as sharp as ever, and though the backing tracks were reduced to mono for Hee Haw, this CD is mixed in full-fidelity stereo from the original multi-track studio masters.

The songs reach back as early as 1928 for Jimmie Rodgers “In the Jailhouse Now,” but focus heavily on the 40s, 50s and 60s. A pair from the mid-40s include Bob Wills’ “Stay a Little Longer” and Jack Guthrie’s “Oklahoma Hills,” and Johnny Horton’s mid-50s hit “Honky Tonk Man” would become a hit for Owens’ protégé, Dwight Yoakam, in the mid-80s. Owens gives a nod to fellow Bakersfield resident Merle Haggard with “Swinging Doors” and fellow country music iconoclast Waylon Jennings with “Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line.” There are three songs from Hank Williams’ catalog, a superbly forlorn take of Ray Price’s “My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You” and tunes written or made famous by Hank Snow, Faron Young and Webb Pierce.

Owens, together with then-recently added Buckaroo Jim Shaw, picked these titles from the catalogs of artists who’d been early Owens influences as well as his contemporaries. The album closes with a cover of Johnny Russell’s “Rednecks, White Socks and Blue Ribbon Beer,” connecting back to Owens’ first chart-topper, the Russell-written “Act Naturally.” These covers don’t sport the genre-busting invention Owens had pioneered in the 1960s, but neither are they mere recitations – Owens was too devoted an artist to merely fill space, even on a scratch track he never expected the public to hear. If you love Buck Owens and classic country songs, this unexpected and rare treat is for you. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Buck Owens’ Home Page

Johnny Cole Unlimited: Hang on Sloopy

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JohnnyColeUnlimited_HangOnSloopyMysterious ‘60s mélange of blues-rock, spy jazz and garage-folk

Originally issued in 1969 on the obscure Condor label out of Burnaby, B.C., this album is quite an enigma. Is there really a Johnny Cole (as he was listed on the original record’s label) or maybe a Jimmy Cole (as he was listed on the original album cover), and what’s with the mélange of spy jazz, pop, blues-rock and Sonny & Cher-styled garage-folk? The dribs-and-drabs of information that can be found suggest this was the product of the Los Angeles-based Johnny Kitchen (nee Jack Millman), and includes vocals from the Millman’s Russian-born then-wife Ludmilla. Most likely this album was assembled from a variety of sessions that Millman leased to Condor, which would account for the lack of musical continuity. The audio quality of this reproduction is all over the place, including a few tracks that sound like they passed through a few generations of cassette copies and others that are surprisingly full fidelity. This has long been a hard-to-find and expensive vinyl-only collectible, but it’s now available to all for digital download. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Gabriel Kelley: It Don’t Come Easy

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GabrielKelley_ItDontComeEasyCountry, rock and soul

Kelley is a singer-songwriter brought full-circle to his rural roots after stops in Sweden, Nashville and Guatemala. Born in Virginia, his taste was seeded by his parents’ music: Leon Russell, Neil Young, John Prine and others. His songwriting sprouted during two years of vagabonding that eventually led to a staff writing position in Nashville. But Music City’s stock liturgy turned out to be too confining: “Nashville was kinda like cowboy hats and belt buckles, and I was more the long-haired granola kid.” He left publishing, spent more time abroad and returned to a vagabonding life that freed him to pour his experience into songs rather than songwriting appointments. What emerged, funded by a Kickstarter campaign, is a fervent, soulful singer-songwriter.

Kelley sings in his own voice, rather than one designed to capture a market segment. He writes invitations to an emotionally closed mate and anchors himself to faith as he sends out lifelines. Ironically, it’s Kelley himself who could often use the lifelines as he wavers between loneliness and forgiveness, rarely finding resolution in either. He wallows deeply in the details of his misery on the closing “Holding Me Down,” and the album’s one moment of contentment “See Ya Comin'” is more memory and expectation than here-and-now. The latter features passionate, gospel-infused backing vocals from Bekka Bramlett, Marueen Murphy and Gabe Dixon.

Neal Cappelino’s productions of guitar, drums, keyboards, pedal steel and harmonica are often quite grand, but they’re tethered by Kelley’s earthiness. The rolling guitar figures and strong walking beat of “Only Thing to Do” are supplemented by Wurlitzer piano, a string quartet and sitar-like twangs that come from either Jon Graboff’s pedal steel or Reggie Young’s guitar. The latter provides inspiring musical figures throughout, highlighting Kelley’s songs with dollops of soul, just as he did for the Box Tops and numerous others over the years. This is a sophisticated debut from a songwriter with confidence in his lyrical and singing voices, and a backing band that offers up stirring mixes of country, rock and soul. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Gabriel Kelley’s Home Page

Billy Gibbons and the Moving Sidewalks Reunite!

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ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons and his pre-ZZ Top bandmates from the Moving Sidewalks will reunite for a show on March 30th – the first time the original quartet has played live in 45 years! Performing as part of the Cavestomp garage rock festacular, the Moving Sidewalks will play B.B. King’s Blues Club & Grill in New York City. Advanced tickets are already on sale. Also check out the recently released complete anthology of the Moving Sidewalks’ recordings.

The Moving Sidewalks’ Facebook Page

 

Christie: Christie

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Christie_ChristieUK country-rock from 1970

Christie was a UK band built around singer-songwriter Jeff Christie, and fleshed out with drummer Mike Blakely, and Blakely’s former Acid Gallery bandmate Vic Elmes on guitar. The band’s one brush with fame was their first single, “Yellow River,” which reached #23 in the U.S., supported an album that sold well, and produced three separate videos (see below!). The follow-up single, the country-tinged “San Bernadino,” scraped its way to #100, keeping the band (technically, at least) from being labeled a one-hit wonder. The album stretches out on the pop-inflections the band found in Creedence Clearwater Revival’s roots sound, and though they didn’t manage any more chart singles, neither did they load up on filler. With a lucky break, or better promotion from their U.S. label, the band could easily have been remembered for more than “Yellow River.” If you like early ’70s country-rock from Gallery, the Stampeders, as well as their more famous peers, you should check this out. A 22-track import CD reissue expands upon this straight up digital reissue of the album’s original thirteen tracks. [©2013 hyperbolium dot com]

Jefferson Airplane / Jefferson Starship / Starship: The Essential

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JeffersonAirplaneStarship_EssentialReissued two-disc anthology of San Francisco legends

Legacy’s two-disc Essential collection is actually a re-branded reissue of the 1998 Hits release, reiterating the same 35-track lineup and including Ben Fong-Torres original liner notes. If you pop these discs in your computer’s CD drive, you’re even likely to have the cover image of Hits pulled up by your media player. The set remains a good overview of “the band that transformed with the times,” from Jefferson Airplane’s scene-leading San Francisco Sound recordings of the mid-to-late ‘60s, through Jefferson Starship’s inheritance and evolution, and the Kantner-less Starship’s full-face turn to radio-friendly pop. The musical, social and commercial distance traveled from the Airplane’s earthy psychedelic jams to the Starship’s synth-laden ballads is itself a monument to adaptability.

The seventeen Airplane selections cover all seven of the band’s first run albums (nothing from their 1989 self-titled reunion is included), along with the single-only “Have You Seen the Saucers.” A few of their lower charting singles are absent, but other than “Somebody to Love” and “White Rabbit,” the Airplane was never a Top 40 success, and so the additional album tracks are more telling. Missing are tracks with early Airplane vocalist Signe Anderson singing lead, and even more noticeable is the lack of live material. Performance was an essential element of the San Francisco scene, and no telling of the Airplane’s story is truly complete without the stage interplay of vocalists and instrumentalists. Follow-on purchases of 30 Seconds Over Winterland, Bless Its Pointed Little Head or the more recent 6-CD anthology of vintage tapes can fill that gap.

Though the Jefferson Starship name was employed for Kantner’s 1970 sci-fi concept album, Blows Against the Empire, a steady band wasn’t formed until four years later for 1974’s Dragon Fly. This set skips the former album and picks up with two songs (“Caroline” and “Ride the Tiger”) from the latter. Though Dragon Fly went gold (and hit #11 on the album chart), it was the group’s next release, Red Octopus, that marked their real commercial breakthrough. Topping the album chart, the album spun off the Top 5 single “Miracles” and introduced a band who would have a ten year run in the Top 40. Most of Jefferson Starship’s biggest hits are included here, missing only their Top 20 “Winds of Change.” All eight of the group’s first run studio albums are sampled here; their two reunion releases (1998’s Windows of Heaven and 2008’s Jefferson’s Tree of Liberty) are skipped.

The group transformed yet again in 1984, into Starship, and found even greater success on the singles chart with three #1s: “We Built This City,” “Sara” and the Albert Hammond & Diane Warren-penned theme to the film Mannequin, “Nothing’s Going to Stop Us Now.” Starship landed two more in the Top 10, the latter of which, 1989’s “It’s Not Enough,” closes this set. Two more minor chart entries and a greatest hits album were released before the band morphed into a touring unit for vocalist Mickey Thomas. The six Starship tracks here cover all three of the band’s original albums, but omit a handful of lesser charting singles. This thirty-three track anthology provides a compelling picture of a San Francisco underground legend’s metamorphosis into a 1980s commercial juggernaut. [©2013 Hyperbolium]

Caroline Herring: Camilla

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CarolineHerring_CamillaPlaintive mix of country, folk and blues

As fine as was 2009’s Golden Apples of the Sun, Herring’s latest release is even more completely her own. In addition to writing ten of the album’s songs, she’s reanimated the eleventh, “Flee as a Bird,” from a mid-nineteenth century hymn book. Her music is given added muscle by producer Erick Jaskowiak and a backing band (including guitar, pedal steel, fiddle, banjo, bass and drums) that leans more to country than folk. Her vibrato, reminiscent of Buffy St. Marie and Joan Baez, remains a plaintive instrument whose tone is as telling as its words. Her songs are literate and historical, telling of injustice, greed, and inextinguishable hope that intertwines the struggles and accomplishments that have threaded through country, folk and blues. Her stories highlight moments of redemption, triumph and peace against a backdrop of turmoil and grief, but tears – whether of anguish or relief – are never far away. Herring welcomes Claire Holly, Katherine Roberts and Jackie Oates as harmony vocalists, and an a cappella turn with Mary Chapin Carpenter and Aoife O’Donovan on “Traveling Shoes” is especially fine. Herring’s fans will enjoy this next chapter, and those new to her work will be quickly motivated to explore the back catalog. [©2012 Hyperbolium]

Caroline Herring’s Home Page