World-traveling Texan cooks up soulful, polycultural Americana
Chris Jamison is a native Texan whose travels eventually brought him back to Austin with a musical worldliness informed by time spent in Europe, South and Central America and Africa. He sings in an alto that momentarily suggests Lindsey Buckingham, but in longer form finds the polycultural soulfulness of Paul Simon. His third album moves between Latin-tinged organ-soul and gut-string Americana, with touches of tuba, trumpet and the rhythmic magic of New Orleans. The recordings were split between studios in Austin and Marfa, the latter of which Jamison says “seemed like a proper setting for the sound and feel I was going for; just the right distance from home and all the baggage it carries to let us get absorbed in the music and spirit of the songs as well as the open and charged energy of West Texas.â€
Nashville-based singer/songwriter Jeff Black has some heavy friends, including mandolinist Sam Bush, guitarist Jerry Douglas and singer/songwriters Matraca Berg, Gretchen Peters and Kim Richey. And though they all lend a hand on his fifth solo album, it’s Black’s voice – both singing and writing – that gives the album its soul. Black also played most of the instruments, overdubbing himself on guitar, banjo, keyboards, bass and percussion, but the only hint of one-man-bandism is the music’s tight grip on the songs. Black’s voice takes on many different shades, at various times recalling the downtown soul of Willy DeVille, the gruff side of Springsteen, the melodic saloon growl of Tom Waits, the deadpan of James McMurtry, the rye twinkle of Randy Newman and even a few moments of Neil Diamond’s pop-soulfulness.
Black draws from country, folk, soul, blues, gospel and contemporary pop, offering songs that range from the contemplative banjo solo of “Virgil’s Blues†to the foot-tapping Little Feat-inflected title track. Jerry Douglas laces his twang throughout “Walking Home,†but the husk in Black’s voice is more Memphis than Nashville, and his lyric – an internal monologue anticipating a forthcoming explanation – isn’t your standard country fare. Black writes phrases and draws images that are easily known, but connects them into verses that recast the easy first understanding. Early in the album, his characters are caught in dilemmas that find them on the verge of apologizing, disaffected from their taught beliefs, and weighed down by riches.
A wealth of previously unreleased live material from the Man in Black
Volume 1 of the bootleg series, Personal File, documented solo home recordings from the ‘70s and ‘80s in which Johnny Cash explored a wide variety of American song. Volume 2, From Memphis to Hollywood, essayed the background of Cash’s transition to country stardom via a collection of 1950s radio appearances, Sun-era demos and a deep cache of 1960s studio recordings. Volume 3 looks at Cash’s role as a live performer from 1956 through 1979, including stops at the Big “D†Jamboree, the Newport Folk Festival, a USO tour of Vietnam, the White House and the Wheeling Jamboree. Among these fifty tracks, thirty-nine are previously unreleased, giving ardent Cash collectors a wealth of new material to enjoy.
The earliest tracks, from a 1956 show in Dallas, find Cash opening with a powerful version of the 1955 B-side “So Doggone Lonesome†and introducing his then-current single on Sun, “I Walk the Line.†At the end of the three-song Dallas set you hear an audience member call out for “Get Rhythm†and the band launches into it. Cash was always a generous stage performer, early on sharing the limelight with Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant, introducing and praising them, and giving Perkins a solo spot for the instrumental “Perkins Boogie.†By 1962 the Tennessee Two had expanded to a tight trio with the addition of W.S. Holland on drums, but even with Cash’s move to Columbia, the group’s appearance at a Maryland hoe-down is still rootsy and raw. They rush “I Walk the Line†as if they’d had one too many pep pills, but Cash is charming as he addresses the audience and hams it up with impressions and jokes.
Two years later at the Newport Folk Festival Cash was introduced by proto-folkie Pete Seeger. Cash is thoroughly commanding as he sings his hits and expands his palette with Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright,†Pete LaFarge’s “Ballad of Ira Hayes†and the Carter Family’s “Keep on the Sunny Side.†His 1969 trip to Vietnam was bookended by more famous live recordings at Folsom and San Quentin prisons, but the soldiers at the Annex 14 NCO Club in Long Binh were treated to a prime performance that included June Carter on “Jackson,†“Long-Legged Guitar Pickin’ Man†and “Daddy Sang Bass.†Cash continued to mix his hits (including a request for “Little Flat Top Boxâ€) with folk and country classics, mixing “Remember the Alamo†and “Cocaine Blues†into his set.
Cash’s performance at the Nixon Whitehouse in 1970 is this set’s most legendary, and also its longest at twelve songs. Richard Nixon provides the introduction, including a few remarks on the safe return of Apollo 13. Cash’s set includes a then-familiar mix of hits and gospel songs, but is mostly remembered for his choice not to play Nixon’s requests for “Okie From Muskogee†and “Welfare Cadillac,†and instead sing “What is Truth,†“Man in Black†and “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,†the first of which is included here. Nixon is self deprecating in explaining Cash’s rebuff, and Cash is deferential in addressing Nixon as “Mr. President,†leaving the political implications to seem more legend than truth. Still, Nixon couldn’t have been comfortable having his antipathy towards the younger generation questioned by “What is Truth.â€
Rocking alt.country from the heart of Long Island, NY
This Long Island trio dropped a few demo tracks in 2009 (reviewed here), promoting the catchy “One More Time†into a single and attracting some local attention. They’ve returned with a full album that leans on both their alt.country and rock roots. The Wilco influence is strong (unsurprising, given the band is named after one of Wilco’s lyrical creations), and Pete Mancini’s voice favors the reediness of Jeff Tweedy; but there’s also a melancholy in his delivery that suggests Chris Bell, and a soulful bottom end in the rhythm section that gives the band plenty of rock flavor. Mancini’s latest songs were inspired by travel journals kept by his father, as well as his own cross-country travels. From the opening “Brass Bell†you can feel the wanderlust, the urge to blow town, the expectation of the journey ahead and the confidence of someone young enough to enjoy (or at least react to) the moment.
Word from Oakland, California is that the Shants (whose earlier Russian River Songs was reviewed here) will release their first full-length album, Beautiful Was the Night, in September. There’s a release party scheduled for Viracocha (998 Valencia St., San Francisco) on October 8, for those of you in the Bay Area. The band writes:
The album is called Beautiful Was The Night (which is a phrase taken from Longfellow’s epic poem Evangeline). It was recorded in Oakland at Rec Center Studios and Tones On Tail Studio by Eliot Curtis (who has worked on records for Bare Wires, Nectarine Pie), with some vocal harmonies from Brianna Lea Pruett & Quinn DeVeaux, violin by Howie Cockrill, and horns by Ralph Carney (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Black Keys) as well as the Blue Bone Express. Half the album was funded by our fans, via Kickstarter.
As an appetizer for the album, they’re offering the track “Baton Rouge,” of which they write “It’s basically a letter to the city of Baton Rouge, as though it were an ex-lover.” Enjoy!
It’s been five years since Richard Buckner release his last album, Meadow. Five years filled with crushed opportunities, murderous accusations, larceny and equipment failure. Finally, on August 2nd, Our Blood, hits the shelves in both digital and analog form. Here’s the press release:
Since 2006’s Meadow, fans of Richard Buckner have been clamoring for new material and wondering what was keeping their hero from releasing the new songs he would perform on the road. Well, it’s a long story!
First, there was the score to a film that never happened. Then there was a brief brush with the law over a headless corpse in a burned-out car that had all eyes in Buckner’s small hometown in upstate New York turned toward him and his long-suffering truck. Shortly after a move to a safer, less popular corpse dumping ground, the death of his tape machine led to yet another reboot. After Richard called in pedal steel and percussion players and put new mixes on his laptop, his new “safer†place was burglarized. Goodbye, laptop.
Buckner says: “Eventually, the recording machine was resuscitated and some of the material was recovered. Cracks were patched. Parts were redundantly re-invented. Commas were moved. Insinuations were re-insinuated until the last percussive breaths of those final OCD utterances were expelled like the final heaves of bile, wept-out long after the climactic drama had faded to a somber, blurry moment of truth and voilà !, the record was done, or, let us be clear, abandoned like the charred shell of a car with a nice stereo.â€
And so finally, we present Our Blood, to be released on CD and LP on August 2, 2011. This is the first Richard Buckner album to be released on vinyl!
Dark folk duo that echoes Richard, Mimi and Holly
