Blue country soul from talented Raleigh, NC singer-songwriter
Raleigh, NC singer-songwriter Jeanne Jolly has a voice that you could only be born with. A naturally rich instrument whose nuances were brought out – rather than boxed – through classical voice training. There’s nothing mannered in her expression as she soars through the eight new recordings – and seven original songs – of her latest solo release. Produced by her longtime collaborator Chris Boerner and self-released on Jolly’s Ramblewood imprint, the album shows the sort of care and sophistication one can layer into projects that don’t have a major label’s commercial ambitions loitering in the control room.
The eight-piece studio band includes pedal steel player Allyn Jones, keyboardist James Wallace, Bon Iver drummer Matt McCaughan, and Megafun’s Phil and Brad Cook. Together they explore country, soul, and even a bit of Memphis with the horn chart and solace of “Gypsy Skin.†Jolly’s vocals reach past the notes (which for someone of her abilities, are table stakes) to hit every emotion dead center. She soars from intimacy to strength in a single note as she wrestles with the fatalism of “California†and declares her need on “Boundless Love.†The latter’s soulful background vocals – all supplied by Jolly – are particularly mesmerizing.
Ted Hawkins was the perfect college radio artist: articulate, soulful, emotionally powerful and most importantly, an outsider. His hardscrabble life simultaneously limited the commercial growth of his career and defined the authenticity upon which his art rested. What made him a particularly interesting fit for college radio was that his music wasn’t outwardly challenging. It wasn’t discordant noise or expletive-filled speedcore; it was soulful folk music, made with guitars and keyboards, and sung in a style that threaded easily with more commercially popular blues and soul. But that was just the musical surface, and beneath the performance were songs unlike those written in Memphis or Detroit or New York, or even Hawkins’ adopted home of Los Angeles.
With his passing in 1995, his singing voice was silenced, but in the tradition of folk music, the songs he left behind continue to speak his truth. This first ever tribute to Hawkins gathers fifteen performers to sing Hawkins originals, and adds a bonus demo of Hawkins singing an a cappella demo of the otherwise unrecorded “Great New Year.†The performers include many well-known names, including James McMurtry, Kacey Chambers and Mary Gauthier, and like all tribute albums, the magic is in selecting the material, matching it to the right performers and finding interpretations that honor the original while adding the covering artist’s stamp. Co-producers Kevin “Shinyribs†Russell, Jenni Finlay and Brian T. Atkinson have done an admirable job on all three counts.
The collection’s most well-known title, “Sorry You’re Sick,†found a sympathetic voice in Gauthier, whose own battle with addiction conjures a first-hand understanding of the song’s protagonists. Kasey and Bill Chambers give the title track a Hank Williams-sized helpings of anguish and loneliness, and McMurtry’s leadoff “Big Things†is more resolute in its melancholy than Hawkins’ original. The latter includes the lyric “Now I’ve got a song here to write, I stay up most every night, creating with hope they’ll live on forever,†a dream that comes true exactly as McMurtry sings it. While Hawkins’ original performances hinted at twang, his lyrics of longing and loneliness are easily fit to full-blown country arrangements, such as the two-stepping barroom infidelity of Sunny Sweeney’s “Happy Hour.â€
Though well known during the Greenwich Village folk revival of the 1960s, Karen Dalton’s slim catalog of studio albums (1969’s It’s Hard to Tell Who’s Going to Love You Best and 1970’s In My Own Time) failed to create wider, long-lasting renown, even in reissue. Her weary, lived-in vocals are often likened to Billie Holiday, but her talents as a folk-blues singer, guitarist and banjo player were in many ways eclipsed by her talent as a musical folklorist. Dalton was a rabid collector of songs, a hobby (or habit) that dated back to her childhood, and her albums mixed songs drawn from the public domain, the blues and a wide range of contemporaneous material from Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Richard Manuel, Eddie Floyd, Booker T. Jones and Motown’s Dozier-Holland-Dozier.
What few knew at the time is that Dalton was also a songwriter; one who eschewed her own material at a time that singer-songwriters were ascendant. With her 1993 death, a collection of notebooks passed to her longtime friend and her estate’s administrator, guitarist Peter Walker. Contained within these journals were writings, poems, drawings (some of which are reproduced in this set’s booklet) and, most importantly, song lyrics. Walker first pieced together the legacy of Dalton’s writing in the book Karen Dalton: Songs, Poems, and Writings. He now expands her legacy as a songwriter with musical versions of eleven titles, given melody and voice by a few of Dalton’s many artist-fans. Though not sung in Dalton’s voice, her words cast a spell on the melodies and performances. Her immortal presence turns out to be as strong as was her mortal being.
Sharon Van Etten opens the set with a somber, piano-based composition of the title song. She adds a Dalton-like waver to a few held notes, but it’s the harmony singing with Hamilton Leithauser that creates the performance’s most indelible moments. Patty Griffin leans more fully into the sort of blues wail that Dalton herself employed, with David Boyle’s organ swells accentuating a lyrical meditation on truth and beauty. Dalton often wrote about emotional illusion, seeking to peel away obscuring surfaces, and though she was a collector of songs, she was also a collector of experiences that fed the autobiographical tone of her songs, such as the Lucinda Williams-sung “Met an Old Friend†and Larkin Grimm’s “For the Love I’m In.â€
A treasure trove for Steppenwolf and John Kay fans
Steppenwolf’s residual radio legacy – “Born to Be Wild†and “Magic Carpet Ride†– may fairly represent their brand of hard-rocking psychedelia, but it simultaneously over-represents their otherwise modest results as a singles band, and under-represents their enormous success as an album act. These two towering hits overshadow four years of gold-selling albums and a string of mid-charting singles that deserved a bigger stage. Real Gone’s two-disc set assembles Steppenwolf’s ABC/Dunhill A’s and B’s (except for “Monster,†which uses the full “Monster/Suicide/America†album track in place of the shorter single edit), alternate B-sides, and John Kay’s solo singles into a compelling recitation of the group’s lesser known singles and adventurous flipsides.
Beyond the two big hits, a few of the groups singles remain familiar. Their second release, a funky rock cover of Don Covay’s “Sookie Sookie,†failed to chart, but gained airplay on soul stations, their chilling take on Hoyt Axton’s “The Pusher†graced the opening scene of Easy Rider, and “Rock Me†closed out their top ten run in 1969. Nine more singles over the next couple of years brought some musical highlights, but only middling chart success, topped by 1969’s “Move Over.†AM radio was a big tent in the early ‘70s, and though there was still space for rock music, apparently the Doors, Who, Alice Cooper and Led Zeppelin had sharper commercial elbows than Steppenwolf. But even though the group’s singles stalled midway up the charts, their albums continued to sell and their popularity as a concert draw resulted in a gold-selling live LP.
The group’s B-sides often provided more musical reach than the A’s. Goldy McJohn’s signature organ provides an ominous underpinning, and John Kay’s gruff, bluesy vocal was well spent on producer Gabriel Mekler’s “Happy Birthday,†the original “Power Play†has a Dylan-esque meter and showcases then newly-added lead guitarist Larry Byrom, snappy horns were added to the instrumental B-side “Earschplittenloudenboomer.†and the arrangement turns acoustic for the string quartet backed “Spiritual Fantasy.†There’s was also a lengthy experimental instrumental, “For Madmen Only,†which was replaced as the B-side of Mars Bonfire’s “Ride With Me†by the more conventional “Black Pit.†The top sides had their adventurous moments, including the Kustom Electronics’ “The Bag†talk box used on “Hey Lawdy Mama†and a superb take on Hoyt Axton’s anti-drug “Snowblind Friend.â€
In 1972, Steppenwolf disbanded, and Dunhill retained John Kay as a solo artist. His work combined originals and covers drawn from a surprising range of sources, leading off with a heavy cover of Hank Snow’s “Movin’ On.†Kay also covered Hank Williams’ wounded “You Win Again,†Alan O’Day’s “Easy Evil†and Five Man Electrical Band’s “Moonshine (Friend of Mine).†Kay’s voice is easily recognized, but freed from the legacy of Steppenwolf’s “heavy metal thunder,†he finds resonance with Richard Podolar’s spacious and more gentle productions. The combination is particularly effective on Kay’s fine country, folk and soul-tinged originals “Walk Beside Me,†“Somebody†and “Nobody Lives Here Anymore.â€
There are few musical sounds as deeply enveloping as the Hammond B3. Whether it’s murmuring warmly, rumbling at its bottom end or stabbing percussively with notes that sound like raw alternating current, the B3 is unmistakable. The Hammond’s variable tones contrast with the imitative voices of other organs, and require both a player’s technique and an artist’s imagination to shape sounds beyond well-defined stops. Moving from piano to organ is a leap, but moving from a standard organ to a B3 requires the player to develop a personal relationship with the instrument.
Chris Foreman is a Chicago-based organist whose style descends (as do most B3 players) from the epochal Jimmy Smith, along with Jimmy McGriff, “Brother†Jack McDuff, Shirley Scott, Richard “Groove†Holmes and others. He’s most regularly heard at his weekly gigs at the Southside’s Green Mill and St. James African Methodist Episcopal church, and on record with the Deep Blue Organ Trio. The trio’s renown expanded beyond the Windy City a few years ago with an opening slot on Steely Dan’s 2013 U.S. tour, and Foreman ventures forward now with this new album of duets.
The organ is able to stand on its own, provide the centerpoint of trios, or add muscle to larger groups. In duet settings it needs to converse, to ensure that it doesn’t overwhelm its partner. Foreman is skilled at playing both lead and accompaniment, stepping into the initial spotlight with fleet fingers and bold chords for the opening take on Charlie Parker’s “Now is the Time.†He edges slowly into “Shake a Hand,†with a late-night groove that favors Freddy Scott over Little Richard, underlining the piano with his organ and decorating the organ with the piano’s flourishes. You can catch occasional touches of Foreman’s classical training in his fingerings, but he’s never mannered; everything he plays truly swings.
Guitarist Andy Brown and saxophonist Diane Ellis guest on several tracks, providing worthy foils for Foreman’s B3. Brown kicks off a sprightly version of Doc Pomus’ “Lonely Avenue†before giving way to Foreman’s blue chords. Forman returns the favor as he vamps sympathetically behind Brown’s solo, and the two join together for a bridge that leads to Forman’s second variation on the song’s main theme. As someone who plays a weekly club gig, Foreman’s developed a wide-ranging repertoire, drawing upon tunes from Neal Hefti (the atmospheric “Li’L Darlin’â€), saxophonist Hank Crawford (“The Peeper,†with Ellis as soloist) and Jimmy McGriff (“Doggone†and “Cotton Boy Bluesâ€).
Extraordinary live and studio material from Montgomery’s early years
Wes Montgomery’s Riverside, Verve and A&M catalogs have been reissued over the years, but previously unreleased material has been remarkably rare. Aside from Verve’s controversial Willow Weep for Me and Resonance’s Echoes of Indiana Avenue, there hasn’t been much to fill out the well-known recorded legacy. This 2-CD (3-LP) set dramatically changes the situation with a rich cache of previously unreleased live and studio recordings from Montgomery’s formative years. Among the treasures are late ‘40s sessions with Montgomery as a sideman that had been available as extremely rare 78s on the Fresno-based Spire label, home and nightclub recordings from the mid-50s, and an entire 1955 album produced by Quincy Jones.
Disc 1 is filled primarily with Montgomery Brothers recordings made at the Turf Club in their hometown of Indianapolis. Recorded in mono by hobbyist Philip Kahl, the tapes capture Wes (guitar), Buddy (piano) and Monk (bass) with saxophonist Alonzo Johnson and drummer Sonny Johnson in August 1956, and in November with John Dale on bass and vocalist Debbie Andrews sitting in for two numbers. The restored audio is clean and of good fidelity, and though the solos aren’t always given the prominence one might like, neither are they buried. By this point, Montgomery’s Gibson had already developed its distinctive tone, though the tempos have him playing with more heat than his more famous sides of the 1960s. The disc closes with a relaxed, home recorded seven-minute jam on “Ralph’s New Blues,†featuring Buddy Montgomery on vibes.
Disc 2 finds Montgomery in the company of Melvin Rhyne (piano), Flip Stewart (bass) and Paul Parker (drums) at the Missile Lounge in 1958. The quartet strikes a bluesier nighttime groove than the 1956 Montgomery-Johnson quintet, and improvises at greater length. They pick up the tempo for Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia,†providing Montgomery a showcase for his incredible technique. The set winds back to 1955 for five tracks from the shelved Quincy Jones session with the same hard-charging quintet that opened disc one. The disc’s final three pieces rewind to 1949, for a peek at Montgomery’s early years as a sideman. Across the two discs the set lists include jazz, swing and tin pan alley standards, alongside the Montgomery originals “Wes’ Tune,†“Far Wes†and “Blues.â€
Colorado guitarist Otis Taylor can play the blues, but he’s never content to just repeat the same old 16 bars. His latest opens with a cover of “Hey Joe†that quickly displays the album’s reach, as violinist Anne Harris answers his vocals, cornetist Ron Miles adds a melancholy solo, and Gov’t Mule’s Warren Haynes wails on guitar. The song’s middle section finds the players interweaving in a hypnotic instrumental whose crescendo gives way to a shell-shocked vocal that’s equal parts grief and defiance.. The song coasts to a stop as it segues into the instrumental “Sunday Morning,†and it’s here that the album’s psychedelic flavors take hold. The driving rhythm at the song’s center is embroidered by echoed guitar and insistent cornet lines, driving the song into prog rock and fusion territory.
Blue country soul from talented Raleigh, NC singer-songwriter
