Tag Archives: Country

Josh Turner: Haywire

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Cautious fourth album from talented, deep-voiced country singer

Turner broke out in 2003 with the throwback single “Long Black Train” and a bass voice that stopped listeners in their tracks. His bottomless notes and Southern accent seemed so innately country as to be resistant to Nashville’s crossover practices. His debut was filled with slip-note piano, shuffle beats, mandolin and fiddle, and even on smoother ballads like “She’ll Go On You” and “The Difference Between a Woman and a Man,” there was an ache in Turner’s voice that remained apiece with Travis, Cash and Haggard. His next two albums, 2005’s Your Man and 2007’s Everything is Fine followed similar templates, decorating his vocals with banjo, blue twang and steel, and mixing up honky-tonkers, ballads and redneck rockers.

Producer Frank Rogers (who’s also worked with Brad Paisley, Daryl Worley and Trace Adkins) crafted a sound for Turner that was radio-ready without severing the singer’s ties to tradition. Turner showed himself acutely aware of his special vocal charms, introducing songs like “Everything is Fine” with low notes that instantly grab your attention. On this fourth album Turner and Rogers follow the same pattern, and become a bit formulaic in the process. Turner remains a hugely engaging singer, but his songs feel more calculated to satisfy his audience than say something that’s burning deep in his heart or mind. The productions are smart and Nashville tight, but don’t often match the earthiness and singularity of Turner’s voice.

The album’s lead-off track, “Why Don’t We Just Dance,” was pre-released as a single and topped the country chart. Hearing Turner climb up from his low register, you get a palpable sense of how great it feels to sing such deep, chest-rattling notes. Turner sings with an ease that’s quite charming, and the band feels rougher and looser here than elsewhere on the album. His seductiveness is more direct on the ballad “I Wouldn’t Be a Man,” approaching the song similarly to Don Williams’ 1987 hit single. Turner extols his mate on “Your Smile,” but the tranquility and contentedness with which he sings seems at odds with the enthusiasm of the song’s lyrical platitudes.

Turner’s originals include the funky title track in which the singer is discombobulated by a member of the opposite sex, and his existing trio of everyman rockers (“Backwoods Boy, “Trailerhood” and “White Noise”) is extended to a quartet with “Friday Paycheck.” Blowing it out on the weekend is a time-honored topic, but Turner hasn’t anything new to say about the joys one can find in a paycheck-to-paycheck life. Listeners celebrating the end of their own work week probably care, as the song rocks a shuffle beat and has a catchy hook. The New Orleans styled funk of “All Over Me” provides a brief respite from the album’s contemporary Nashville rhythms, though the session players don’t quite hit the second line beat convincingly.

The album’s real highlight is the country soul slow-jam “Lovin’ You on My Mind.” Turner sings with strings and a backing chorus and the production artfully weaves together steel and Wurlitzer. Haywire is offered as 11-track regular and a 15-track deluxe edition. The latter adds two good studio tracks (“This Kind of Love” and “Let’s Find a Church”) and two live cuts (“Long Black Train” and “Your Man”), which are worth the extra couple of dollars. Turner remains a vocalist of distinction, but the head-turning edginess of “Long Black Train” has given way to cautious repetition. This is a good album by a gifted artist who should be releasing great albums full of memorable music that pushes the artistic ball further forward. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Listen to “Why Don’t We Just Dance”
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Michael Martin Murphey: Buckaroo Blue Grass II – Riding Song

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Second helping of Murphey’s bluegrass reinterpretations

Michael Martin Murphey’s 1975 single “Wildfire” was only the most public aspect of a long and rich career. He appeared on the country charts throughout the 1980s and subsequently developed a deep affinity for cowboy songs. Over the years he’s revisited key parts of his catalog, and in 2009 produced a volume of tunes reinterpreted in a bluegrass style. A year later he’s back with a second volume that sounds even more confident. His latest concentrates on songs from the early-to-mid 70s albums Geronimo’s Cadillac, Michael Murphey, Cosmic Cowboy Souvenir, Blue Sky-Night Thunder and Swans Against the Sun. He picks up “Tonight We Ride” and “Running Blood” from more recent albums and covers the Glaser Brothers’ “Running Gun.” The latter was originally recorded by Marty Robbins in 1959 for his legendary Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, closing the circle on Murphey’s love of western song.

Opening the disk with a hot-picked arrangement of 1975’s country-rock shuffle “Blue Sky Riding Song,” Murphey and his assembled musician friends serve notice that there are plenty of instrumental fireworks ahead. Pat Flynn on guitar, Ronny McCoury on mandolin, Charli Cushman on banjo and Andy Leftwich on fiddle warm up to a canter in 15 seconds flat, with Craig Nelson’s bass pushing Murphey’s exuberant vocals along the open trail. The instrumental break gives each player a chance to flash as the others provide progressive, ensemble backing. The group also turns it up for 1976’s “Renegade.” Though it’s lightened from its original country-rock sound, the acoustic instruments provide plenty of intensity as the players, including Rob Ickes on dobro, Sam Bush on mandolin, Charlie Cushman on banjo and Andy Leftwich on fiddle, stretch out for a length instrumental coda.

Murphey’s bluegrass reinterpretations provide a matured consideration of earlier performances, but also bring his songwriting into focus. Laying a bluegrass motif across twenty years of varied compositions highlights the consistent quality of his work. In some instances, like the Hot Club styling of 1985’s “Tonight We Ride,” the retooling is minimal, in others, such as the treatment of “Swans Against the Sun” and banjo lead of “Running Blood” the new arrangements bring out something new. Even the well-trod “Wildfire,” with its echoes of ‘70s soft rock, gets a fresh garland of twang and a powerful duet vocal from Carrie Hassler.

Murphey’s voice has gained an appealing edge over the years, and this set shows off both his adaptability as a performer and depth as a songwriter. His song notes show as much love for his material as does his singing; this is also evident in the feeling performances of songs he’s no doubt sung thousands of times. This is a great album for longtime fans, bluegrass listeners and all those top-40 ears that lost track of Murphey after “Carolina Pines” and “Renegade” slipped out of the Top 40 in the mid-70s. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Track Sampler for Buckaroo Blue Grass II
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Randy Kohrs: Quicksand

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Bluegrass basics salted with country, soul and gospel

Randy Kohrs is a multi-instrumentalist who’s backed some of country music’s brightest luminaries, including Patty Loveless, Hal Ketchum, Dolly Parton and Jim Lauderdale. He’s also crafted a solo career that’s brought together his talent as a picker with vocals that are quite compelling. His music is solid on bluegrass fundamentals, but his resonator guitar adds a unique voice to the acoustic arrangements, and his singing ranges from traditional baritone/tenor harmonies to country twang and gospel. Highlights on his latest solo outing include country songs from Webb Pierce (“It’s Been So Long”) and Del Reeves (“This Must Be the Bottom”), up-tempo picking on the original “Time and Time Again,” and the blue gospel “Down Around Clarksdale” and “If You Think it’s Hot Here.” The terrific backing vocals of Scat Springs heard on this latter track can also be found on a cover of Tom T. Hall’s “More About John Henry.” Kohrs’ acoustic country tunes may be too contemporary for bluegrass purists, but with the traditional form well-covered by so many outfits, there’s something to be said for adding new ideas to the original framework. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Bill Emerson and Sweet Dixie: Southern

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Banjo legend leads his bluegrass band on a second outing

Bill Emerson is a legendary banjo player with roots stretching back to the late ‘50s. He co-founded the Country Gentlemen with guitarist Charlie Waller, held a featured slot with Jimmy Martin, and provided direction to musicians such as Jerry Douglas and Ricky Skaggs. He spent 20 years in the military, most of it in the Navy’s bluegrass band, Country Current, began recording as a leader in the early 90s, and formed Sweet Dixie for their eponymous debut in 2007. Emerson’s always stretched the edges of the bluegrass canon, mixing traditional material with songs drawn from country, folk and rock. Most famously, he’s credited with adapting Manfred Mann’s “Fox on the Run” into a bluegrass staple.

Sweet Dixie’s new album includes a few traditional sources, such as Alton Delmore’s “The Midnight Train,” Hazel Dickins’ “I Can’t Find Your Love Anymore,” and Tompall Glaser’s “I Don’t Care Anymore” the latter drawn from the catalog of Flatt & Scruggs. The nostalgia of Lionel Cartwright’s “Old Coal Town” is also a good fit, and the English folk of “The Black Fox” is augmented with mandolin and banjo spotlights. More inventively, the group reworks Marty Stuart’s rolling country-rock “Sometimes the Pleasure’s Worth the Pain” (originally from 1999’s The Pilgrim) into an up-tempo acoustic arrangement, and Chris Hillman’s “Love Reunited” is shorn of its original ‘80s production sound, trading the Desert Rose Band’s crystalline guitars for a more timeless banjo.

Highlights of the group’s new material include Vince Gill’s grievous “Life in the Old Farm Town,” reflecting the dismantling of American life in the parting out of a foreclosed farm. Sweet Dixie plays with tremendous group chemistry, adding solos that are compelling without giving into the flashiness that plagues many bluegrassers. They can pick up a storm, as heard on “The Midnight Train,” but “Grandpa Emory’s Banjo” and the instrumental “Grandma’s Tattooss” celebrate the musicality of their instruments rather than the breakneck speed at which the players’ fingers can fly. The latter features Emerson doubling the song’s writer, banjo instructor and fellow-picker Janet Davis.

Guitarist Tom Adams handles most of the lead vocals, with bassist Teri Chism and mandolinist Wayne Lanham each taking turns up front; the group’s energetic harmonies seque smoothly with the instruments. Lyrics of lost love, suicide, and a child’s funeral are sung with the tenderness of hope rather than the bleakness of depression. As the group’s visionary, Emerson balances innovation and tradition, pulling new material into the bluegrass orbit without sacrificing the warmth and comfort of tradition. His band has the confidence to let their playing serve the material, and though Emerson’s not written any new songs for this album, his ear for other writers’ works is unerring. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Track Sampler for Southern
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Elvis Presley: Clambake

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Three great tracks and some all-time clunkers

There are a number of commonly held misconceptions about Elvis Presley’s film career: Elvis couldn’t act, his movies were all throwaways, and the soundtracks were populated entirely with substandard material. But key films in the King’s catalog show that he could indeed act, if called upon, there are several high-quality dramatic and musical films in Elvis’ oeuvre, alongside many good lightweight romantic musical comedies, and his soundtracks are laced with hits and terrific albums sides. To measure the highpoints of Elvis’ soundtrack catalog by virtue of the low points (of which there are admittedly many) is to miss out on a valuable dimension of Presley’s musical career.

1967’s Clambake was Elvis’ twenty-fifth film and the third to co-star Shelley Fabares. Unlike the bulk of Elvis’ Hollywood-recorded soundtracks, this one was waxed in Nashville with a host of Music City A-listers, including drummer Buddy Harman, guitarist Charlie McCoy, pianist Floyd Cramer and steel guitarist Pete Drake. Also on hand were Elvis long-time associates, Scotty Moore and the Jordanaires. By this point the soundtrack songwriters were etched in stone, with contributions from Sid Wayne, Ben Weisman, Sid Tepper, Roy C. Bennett and Joy Byers. The soundtrack’s best cuts come from the few outside writers: Jerry Reed, credited as Jerry “Reed” Hubbard, contributed the super fine “Guitar Man,” Elvis struts his stuff on a cover of Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man,” and Cindy Walker and Eddy Arnold’s “You Don’t Know Me” blows the regular soundtrack writers’ material out of the water.

After the success of “Do the Clam” (from the soundtrack of Girl Happy), the RCA brain trust must have thought releasing “Clambake” as a single would typecast their star as a seafood singer. That’s too bad, as it’s a catchy tune even if Elvis does have to sing “mama’s little baby loves clambake clambake.” Elvis rarely sounded less than professional on his soundtracks, even as he was dodging or hurrying through sessions, but you can always hear him engage a second gear for the better material. He doesn’t quite sleepwalk through the worst material, though a few vocals sound like first takes for which Elvis refused to soil himself with a second pass. Clambake features some of the most embarrassing lyrics Elvis was ever asked to sing (key evidence: “Hey Hey Hey”), and adding children on “Confidence” didn’t help.

This may be the most schizophrenic of Elvis’ soundtrack albums, featuring several highpoints that match the quality and artistry or his non-soundtrack singles. but intermingled with awful songs that could only have been contractual obligations. Just when “The Singing Tree” has robbed you of hope, Elvis closes with a superb, stone-country cover of Rex Griffin’s “Just Call Me Lonesome” that has him intertwined in Pete Drake’s steel guitar. Sony’s reissue features a four-panel booklet and no liner notes discussing the music or its making. The 30-minute running time suggests that Follow That Dream’s collector’s edition might be more compelling to Elvis diehards. Still, the budget price and remastered sound make this reissue attractive, especially if you pick out the hot tracks and skip the rest. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

B.J. Thomas: On My Way / Young and in Love

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Texas pop hit-maker finds his soul in Memphis

B.J. Thomas is often remembered for his biggest pop hits, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” and “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.” But like many artists whose careers were longer than their pop chart success, there’s a lot more to Thomas’ catalog than these four songs. In addition to 1980s success on the country charts, Thomas recorded albums throughout the mid-60s and 70s that turned up lower-charting hit singles and terrific album sides. Collectors’ Choice has gathered Thomas’ first eight solo albums for Scepter as a series of four two-fers, starting with his 1966 label debut, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, and concluding with 1971’s Billy Joe Thomas.

After his 1966 breakthrough with a slow, pop-soul cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” Thomas’ subsequent singles charted lower and lower, dropping him out of the Top 40 for the latter half of 1966 and all of 1967. He returned in 1968 with On My Way and climbed back to #28 with the mid-tempo love song “The Eyes of a New York Woman.” Thomas was singing in a lower register, sounding remarkably like the Box Tops’ Alex Chilton; the single’s electric sitar even recalls the Box Tops’ “Cry Like a Baby.” That same sitar shines even more brightly opening the album’s breakout hit, “Hooked on a Feeling.” This Mark James penned number subsequently scored a European hit for Jonathan King and a U.S. #1 in 1974 for Blue Swede. King added (and Blue Swede copied) an “ooga chaka” chant and reggae rhythm that give the song a harder edge than Thomas original.

By the time Thomas recorded this pair of albums he’d relocated from Texas to Memphis where he landed at Chips Moman’s American Studio, meeting up with the studuio’s crack band and realizing crisper recordings and more commercially refined arrangements. More importantly, his previous source of original songs, Mark Charron, was replaced by a range of writers that included Ray Stevens, Wayne Carson (who wrote “Soul Deep” and “The Letter” for the Box Tops), Spooner Oldham, Ashford & Simpson, and Mark James (who wrote both singles, and would later write “Suspicious Minds” for Elvis to cut in the very same Memphis studio). Thomas continued to tread a line between pop, country, blues and soul, but the first and last resonated most deeply in his new Memphis setting.

As on his previous albums, Thomas turned a country classic to soul, this time with Ferlin Husky’s mid-50s hit, “Gone.” Since the original was already a ballad, Thomas and crew could only slow it so much and instead focused on a then-contemporary arrangement of reverb and fuzz guitar, strings, deep bass and soulful organ; it all ends up sounding a bit funereal. Better are horn-and-string covers of Jim Reeves’ “Four Walls” and the Platters’ “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” each giving Thomas a chance to really emote. Thomas’ material was notably more mature than his earlier work and reaches to social commentary (and Billy Joel-like stridency) with “Mr. Businessman” and philosophical introspection on “I’ve Been Down This Road Before.” The singer, songs, studio and musicians really fit together nicely for these sessions, but the dependency on covers that fail to expand on the originals keeps this album from being a deeper artistic statement.

1969’s Young and in Love followed the template of its predecessor, combining tunes from Mark James with selections from songwriting legends (Paul Williams, Jimmy Webb, Neil Diamond), and a country hit turned to soul with a cover of Henson Cargill’s “Skip a Rope.” Unlike Thomas’ previous (and next) album, the original material here was good, but failed to burn up the charts: the pop-soul “Pass the Apple Eve” barely made the Top 100, and the ballad “It’s Only Love” only cracked the adult contemporary Top 40. The covers are professional, but again not always artistically definitive; the Carpenters wrenched much more out of “Hurting Each Other” a few years later, and “Solitary Man” didn’t improve on Neil Diamond’s original. Thomas’ connection with the Box Tops is renewed through a cover of Spooner Oldham & Dan Penn’s “I Pray for Rain,” which Chilton and company had recorded a few years earlier.

Chips Moman’s studio and players continue to provide superb accompaniment, furthering Thomas development as a soul singer. The electric sitar wears thin by album’s end, but for the arrangements mostly have a timeless Memphis sound. Collectors’ Choice adds six bonus tracks: a single, three B-sides and two previously unreleased sides. Top of the heap is a cover of Conway Twitty’s (and Wanda Jackson’s) “I May Never Get to Heaven” featuring superb guitar from Reggie Young. Also tasty is a cover of Luther Dixon’s blue “Human” and the airy Mark James waltz “Distant Carolina.” Creepiest is “You Don’t Love Me Anymore,” ending with a frenetic vocal and a railroad train (complete with sound effects) bearing down on the dreaming protagonist. All tracks are stereo except 22, and “I Saw Pity in the Face of a Friend” features some odd panning and phasing. The set’s 8-page booklet includes liner notes by Mike Ragogna and full-panel reproductions of the album covers. These first-time-on-CD albums offer a great picture of Thomas’ emergence as a soul singer. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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B.J. Thomas: I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry / Tomorrow Never Comes

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Future chart-topper warms up with country, soul and blues

B.J. Thomas is often remembered for his biggest pop hits, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head” and “(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.” But like many artists whose careers were longer than their pop chart success, there’s a lot more to Thomas’ catalog than these four songs. In addition to 1980s success on the country charts, Thomas recorded albums throughout the mid-60s and 70s that turned up lower-charting hit singles and terrific album sides. Collectors’ Choice has gathered Thomas’ first eight solo albums for Scepter as a series of four two-fers, starting with his 1966 label debut, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, and concluding with 1971’s Billy Joe Thomas.

1966’s I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry reprised the title song with which Thomas reached #8 on the charts as the lead singer of the Houston-based Triumphs. Thomas re-imagines Hank Williams’ country classic as pop-soul with slow, measured vocals underlined by a mournful organ, low bass and drums lightly counting out the waltz time. A falling horn line at the end of each verse adds some Stax flavor, and the song’s heartbreak is brought to a head in the anguished wails with which Thomas takes the song out. He takes Williams’ “There’ll Be No Teardrops Tonight” similarly down-tempo, with a harpsichord in place of organ, a guitar carrying the blues and Jordanaires-styled backing vocals adding their moan.

Thomas proved himself a fetching blue-soul singer on the jukebox themed “The Titles Tell” and adds punch to a cover of “Midnight Hour” with horns, handclaps and female backing singers. The album spun off a minor hit in Mark Charron’s sentimental original “Mama,” and his other titles, though a bit maudlin in tearjerkers like “I Wonder” and “Bring Back the Time,” are good vehicles for Thomas. There’s frat-rock energy in “Wendy,” a pre-Beatles boy-singer pop melody in “Terri,” and a Texicali-tinge to “Maria.” Thomas also sang covers of Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual” and Freddie Scott’s “Hey Girl,” mostly following the originals but adding a distinctive touch with his vocal tone.

Thomas followed up the same year with the album Tomorrow Never Comes. The track list once again includes a slow, soulful pass at a country legend’s song, this time building Ernest Tubb’s “Tomorrow Never Comes” to a show-stopping crescendo. Mark Charron once again supplies most of the originals, this time writing about the supercharged emotions of teenagers and young adults. The little known “Plain Jain” is the story of a lonely girl who kills herself after falling for a prank prom invitation; though only charting to #129, it’s a worthy entry in the death-song genre. Charron captures the end-of-the-world melodrama of found love, broken hearts, friendlessness, failure and occasional moments of self realization, youthful optimism and redemption.

Thomas’ style was all over the map at these early points in his career, crooning, rocking and emoting atop pop, soul, blues and country arrangements of guitar, bass, drums, strings and horns. Those horns come to the fore on a rousing cover of Timmy Shaw’s “Gonna Send You Back to Georgia,” and the album closes with the fine, bluesy frat-rocker, “Candy Baby.” Collectors’ Choice adds two bonus B-sides, the countrypolitan kiss-off “Your Tears Leave Me Cold” and a torchy cover of Robert Thibodeux’s “I’m Not a Fool Anymore.” All tracks are stereo except 1, 2, 8, 21 and 24, and the set’s 8-page booklet includes liner notes by Mike Ragogna and full-panel reproductions of the album covers. Making their first appearances on CD, these are two great places to start an appreciation of Thomas that extends deeper than his well-known hits. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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Zane Williams: The Right Place

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Excitingly unaffected Texas honky-tonk voice

There are voices that immediately announce themselves as something you’ve never heard before, there are voices that are so anonymous as to blend into the background, and there are voices like Zane Williams’ that lay in between. His singing is not immediately recognizable as a new tone or style, but there’s an excitement in his delivery that jumps off this latest record. What’s especially intriguing is how he combines the humble and direct style of someone like Bruce Robison with the honky-tonk extroversion of Robison’s brother Charlie. The Abilene-born Williams relocated to Nashville for nine years and released a string of indie albums that started to find a bit of twang with 2000’s Fast Licks and Toothpicks.

A couple of years after releasing 2006’s acoustic country Hurry Home, Williams returned to Texas and discovered his roots still intact. Together with producer Radney Foster he’s retooled himself as an electric honky-tonker, freeing himself to indulge his native twang on the roadhouse circuit through which Jack Ingram and Pat Green each found huge regional followings. Though recorded in Nashville, Foster and Williams conjure the wooden floors and neon beer signs of Texas dance halls, not least of which through Williams’ songs. The opener, “The Right Place,” offers a warm welcome from the regulars at the bar, and his incredibly clever “99 Bottles” turns the round into a tongue-twisting, thirst-quenching recitation of beer brands.

Williams’ ten originals tread tried-and-true subjects, but even there he finds some original and clever twists. The kiss-off “Tired of Being Perfect” isn’t due to cheating but the result of an overly-demanding mate, the bluesy “I Am What I Am” allows Williams to imagine other occupations as he stands firm in his commitment as a musician, and “The Cowboy and the Clown” peels away self-prescribed illusions of diminished expectations. The album closes with an original Christmas song that wipes away years of bad times with the miracle of a new baby. It’s a heartfelt (if perhaps a tad treacly) ending to a fine album that otherwise avoids the softer style Williams had developed in Nashville. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | 99 Bottles
Zane Williams’ Home Page
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Elk: Tamarack Mansion

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Insinuating pop with Americana undertones

Elk is a five-piece from Minneapolis (not to be confused with the like-named 4-piece from Philadelphia) fronted by former Bellwether vocalist Eric Luoma. Here he brings along his former band’s fetching melodies while leaving behind its overt Country and Americana influences, and he reverses the acoustic approach of their last album, Home Late. There are still fleeting moments of twang in Elk’s foundation, but they’re more of a psych- and soul-tinged pop band in the vein of mid-period Beatles, Zombies, Meddle-era Pink Floyd and Big Star’s first two albums. Luoma’s languid double-tracked vocals on “Storm of the Century” sound a bit like the Morning Benders’ Chris Chu, but the combination of crystalline guitars, banjo and moments of steel are late-60s California production rather than pop-punk.

There’s a bounciness in the bass and drums that suggests the optimism that early-70s AM pop provided after late-60s psych and heavy rock overdosed. It’s like waking up on a sunny day after a long night of partying – you can still feel the drugs hanging on with its fingertips, but the bright light pulls you forward as the fog recedes. Elk does a magnificent job of creating this feeling in slow tempos, not-quite-awake vocals, gentle layers of organ and piano, drifting guitars and keening steel, shuffling drums, touches of vibraphone and ringing oscillators. That semiconscious state is exemplified in the album’s opener “Daydreams” as Luoma wrestles with his physical and spiritual drowsiness. In “Storm of the Century” the song ends with a heavy string arrangement and sliding guitar notes lightened by banjo and brought to daylight with the subliminal chirping of a bird.

The band shifts textures throughout the album and in multipart songs ala Brian Wilson. “Palisades” opens as an old-timey music hall tune before transitioning into a David Gilmour-styled vocal against a Mellotron-like backing. The processed voice returns in contrast with the neo-psych background, alternating with lush vocals that bound across the stereo stage. In between several of the songs one can hear faint music and ocean sounds as if the listener is on some misty yesteryear boardwalk; “Over the Pines” doesn’t so much end as it recedes into the waves. The band’s upbeat songs include the instantly hummable “Galaxy 12,” a meditation on a Smith-Corona typewriter’s inability to provoke a response from a correspondent or romantic interest; the song’s hook will have you singing along by the second time around.

The bouncy “I Don’t Want the Lies” has a melody the Paley Brothers might have cooked up in thinking about ‘60s pop bands like the Five Americans or Cyrkle. Luoma’s vocals and the multipart production invoke the West Coast production of Curt Boettcher. Tamarack Mansion will remind you of many things, but leaving you feeling that it sounds exactly like none of them. The neo-psych instrumentation is brightened by melodies that are both pop and country, and the touches of steel and banjo would more directly suggest Americana if they weren’t so radically recontextualized. It’s a truly fetching combination of melodies, moods and motifs that evokes and intertwines earlier bands and eras without copying them. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Galaxie 12
MP3 | Palisades
Stream Tamarack Mansion
Elk’s Home Page

Waylon Jennings: Waylon / Singer of Sad Songs

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Waylon Jennings starts to dig in his heels

By the time Waylon and Singer of Sad Songs were released in 1970, a number of things had changed in RCA’s approach to recording Waylon Jennings. Chet Atkins had turned production over to Danny Davis, with whom Jennings was more able and willing to butt heads, and by the second album, Jennings’ Phoenix compatriot Lee Hazlewood was brought in to replace Davis. Jennings himself had shown sparks of independence from Nashville’s way of doing things on his previous couple of albums, but here he stretches ever further, picking classic and new rock ‘n’ roll songs and material from Mickey Newbury, Tom Rush, and Tim Hardin. Nashville and the general music industry had changed as well, with lusher productions starting to give way to singer-songwriters whose voice and songs were made the central focus.

Unfortunately these changes didn’t immediately lead to the radical changes Jennings would introduce a couple years later, and winning songs like Liz Anderson’s “Yes, Virginia” are still infiltrated by background cooing and over-arranged answer vocals. On the other hand, Jennings opens Waylon with “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” a 1956 Chuck Berry song that had been a 1956 R&B hit on the Chicago-based Chess label. He apparently knew which way the musical winds were blowing as the single charted to #3. Jennings lets fly his abilities to sing tender folk and pained blues, with the bass and drums occasionally matching his assertiveness. Mickey Newbury’s “The Thirty Third of August” has a fantastic arrangement of acoustic guitar, high-string bass, drums, organ and strings; this sounds little like Nashville product and carries the song’s heavy lyrics. The album is uneven and dated by dabs of electric sitar, but it was the most satisfying statement of Jennings direction to that date.

Jennings’ third album for RCA in 1970, Singer of Sad Songs, was waxed over three days in Los Angeles with fellow former-Phoenician Lee Hazlewood and a few West Coast musicians. Hazlewood had just come off releasing the International Submarine Band’s Safe at Home on his LHI label, so he was in a better position to understand Jennings’ new ideas than the RCA staff in Nashville. The album’s only hit, and the only track produced by RCA’s Danny Davis, is the title song, which stopped short of the Top 10 at #12. Much better are a spirited cover of Chris Kenner’s 1957 “Sick and Tired” that trades the originals New Orleans R&B bounce for Jennings’ merger of country, folk, rock and soul. He covers the Louvin Brothers’ “Must You Throw Dirt in My Face” and the vintage “Ragged But Right,” and picks several contemporary folk songs. Jennings sounds relaxed and plugged in to his song choices, though his cover of the Rolling Stones “Honky Tonk Woman” feels forced and slightly off the mark.

Both albums, but particularly Singer of Sad Songs, are the statements of a musician born to the early West Texas rock ‘n’ roll of Buddy Holly, developed in the bars of Arizona, and steeped in country classics. Though he’d yet to fully break free of RCA and Nashville’s restrained way of doing things, his song selections planted the seeds of what was to come. Waylon appears to have been previously reissued on the American Beat label, but is no longer in print. Singer of Sad Songs makes its domestic CD debut here, providing an answer to the question “what album features a duet between Waylon Jennings and Lee Hazlewood?” Collectors’ Choice’s two-fer includes an eight-page booklet with full-panel reproductions of both album covers – front and back – and new liner notes by Colin Escott. This is a great way to introduce yourself to Jennings’ budding outlaw years. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]