Tag Archives: Country

Waylon Jennings: Love of the Common People / Hangin’ On

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Transitional mid-60s albums from Waylon Jennings

This pair of RCA albums, Love of the Common People from 1967 and Hangin’ On from 1968, finds Waylon Jennings in an artistic middle-ground between earlier work controlled by RCA staff producers and his later independence. Producer Chet Atkins still keeps the tempos and volume staid, the production clean and the backing choruses smooth, but Jennings pushes on the instrumentation and song choices, and often sings with a huskier, more emotive voice than previously heard. Though the approach has its successes, in many cases it’s neither fish nor fowl; neither the carefully manicured sound of Atkins, nor the free-style rock-energized country of Jennings’ outlaw period.

Love of the Common People didn’t launch any hit singles, though there were several tracks that could have been successful. The B-side title song has a rich history, having been recorded as pop, R&B, reggae and brought to its greatest prominence as synthpop by Paul Young in the 1980s. The lyric of poverty, family, hope and faith is lifted higher and higher by four key modulations and memorable horn stabs. Mel Tillis’ “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town” would be a worldwide for Kenny Rogers, but here it’s misproduced with a sprightly acoustic guitar and cooing female chorus that fail to convey the lyric’s heartbreaking desperation. There are many fine album sides, including Jim Glaser’s clear-eyed opener “Money Cannot Make the Man,” Jennings late-50s composition “Young Widow Brown,” and Ted Harris’ wounded folk-song, “The Road.” Jennings oversings the Beatles’ “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” and the saccharine pop chorus on “Don’t Waste Your Time” suggests why he had to get out of Chet Atkins’ grip.

Hangin’ On gave Jennings his biggest single to-date with Harlan Howard’s “The Chokin’ Kind,” setting up a string of five Top 10’s stretching through 1968. The version that was released to the public was actually a re-recording, waxed after Jennings expressed his displeasure with the Harlan Howard/Jerry Reed produced original. The original version was released decades later on Bear Family’s The Journey: Destiny’s Child. With each album Jennings’ artistic convictions were getting stronger, as the broad range of material recorded here indicates. Songs from Roy Orbison, Bobby Bare and Roger Miller are complemented by little-known originals. Orbison’s “The Crowd” retains its overwrought operatic drama and sounds more like an Orbison cover rather than a Jennings performance, but Jennings’ own “Julie” provides a subtle flipside to Porter Waggoner’s “Rubber Room” in its portrait of self-inflicted romantic destruction and madness.

Love of the Common People was reissued by Buddha in 1999, but has been available only for digital download the past few years. The original CD reissue’s bonus track “Walk on Out of My Mind” is dropped from this two-fer. Hangin’ On makes its domestic CD debut here. 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. You can find this same material, and a whole lot more, on Bear Family’s The Journey: Destiny’s Child, but unless you’re planning to soak up Jennings’ entire catalog, this domestic two-fer is the best way to introduce yourself to Jennings’ pre-outlaw years. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Waylon Jennings: Folk Country / Waylon Sings Ol’ Harlan

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Superb early RCA Waylon Jennings two-fer

Much is made of Waylon Jennings’ declaration of artistic independence and the outlaw country movement that flowed from it, but his company-produced pre-outlaw albums for RCA hold many charms of their own. Recording with both his own band and Nashville studio pros, and often backed by a female chorus, the music hasn’t the earthier charms of his later work, but his voice held a youthful innocence yet to be tinged by rebellion, and his songs, from Nashville songwriters and his own pen, are often memorable. Collectors’ Choice’s two-fer pairs his 1966 RCA debut Folk Country with his fourth RCA album, 1967’s Waylon Sings Ol’ Harlan.

The first of the two includes the chart hits, “Stop the World (and Let Me Off)” and Jennings’ original “That’s the Chance I’ll Have to Take.” Harlan Howard and Don Bowman provide the bulk of the album’s non-originals, with Jennings crooning through a broken heart on the former’s “Another Bridge to Burn” and stridently demanding attention on the latter’s “I Don’t Mind.” Producer Atkins gives the country a folky edge with touches of 12-string, tambourine and harmonica. Jennings may have come to feel that Nashville’s studio productions were a straightjacket, but at this early point in his career he really digs in and makes the best of what’s offered to him.

The two-fer’s second album highlights Jennings’ affinity for the works of Harlan Howard with a dozen works from the legendary songwriter’s catalog. A few of these songs were already iconic hits for Ray Price, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles and Buck Owens, but Howard’s writing is sufficiently rich to warrant multiple interpretations. Jennings takes “Heartaches by the Number” upbeat with twangy guitars that provide a more bemused outlook than Price’s sorrowful 1959 single. His take on “Busted” is not as spare as Cash’s nor as jazzy as Charles’ versions, “Foolin’ Around” is fuller than Buck Owens’ 1962 version, and “Tiger by the Tail” crosses Owens’ original with the rhythm of Johnny Rivers’ cover of “Memphis.” Waylon Sings Ol’ Harlan didn’t launch any hits, though Charlie Rich would score with “She Called Me Baby” seven years later and other tunes were recorded by everyone from Wynn Stewart to the Kingston Trio.

Both albums feature enthusiastic vocals by Jennings and the high-fidelity recording of RCA’s Nashville studio. Folk Country was reissued in 1998 by Razor & Tie but has been out of print for several years. Waylon Sings Ol’ Harlan makes its domestic CD debut here. 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. You can find this same material (and a whole lot more) on Bear Family’s The Journey: Destiny’s Child, but unless you’re planning to soak up Jennings’ entire catalog, this domestic two-fer is the best way to introduce yourself to Jennings’ pre-outlaw years. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Freedy Johnston: Rain on the City

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Inviting, open-ended album of loss, loneliness and meandering hope

Freedy Johnston opens his new album, his first new material since 2001’s Right Between the Promises, with a ukulele strum and a lyric that searches optimistically for answers. The quality of his voice against the stripped-down arrangement highlights the arresting, bell-like clarity of his tone, and the lyric playfully strides between a literal ode to a found coin and a metaphorical hand outstretched to a lost girl. Producer Richard McLaurin leavens the ukulele’s chipper tone with more quizzical and unsure dashes of lap steel and Hammond B3. The arrangement’s subtlety is a perfect balance to the lyrics’ provocative queries. The same vocal quality cuts through the electric arrangement of “Venus is Her Name” as Johnston hits and holds piercing country-tinged notes.

Johnston has returned to the character and scene studies that attracted fans to his earliest works. “Rain on the City” animates rain as a character and evokes the painterly way that Paul Simon projected human emotion on observed imagery, and the tearful goodbye of “Central Station” couches its discomfort in keen observations of worn station details substituting for eye contact. The album isn’t all texture and mood, however, as Johnston writes lyrics of romantic strife and McLaurin happily indulges the songwriter’s need to rock. The power-chords and strings of “Don’t Fall in Love with a Lonely Girl” may remind you of power-pop artists like Adam Schmitt or the Smithereens, and Johnston sings with open-throated abandon on “Livin’ Too Close to the Rio Grande” as the band bashes and twangs.

Stretching out, the baion beat of “The Other Side of Love” signals the sort of heartbreak common to early ‘60s productions by Leiber & Stoller and Phil Spector, but here it’s dressed in rootsier instrumentation; “The Kind of Love We’re In” floats along on a gentle bossa nova rhythm. The closing “What You Cannot See, You Cannot Fight” suggests a father’s entreaty to a son deeply troubled by his mother’s passing, but Johnston’s lyrics are sufficiently open-ended to leave room for personal interpretation. The album’s catchy melodies ease you aboard, and the rich threads of loss, loneliness and meandering hope invite you to make these songs you own. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Don’t Fall in Love With a Lonely Girl
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Dick Dale: King of the Surf Guitar

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Dale’s second album dilutes the guitar sting of his debut

Dick Dale’s second album was his first to be issued on the Capitol label, and though his guitar playing is solid (as is his saxophonist’s), the song selection isn’t as inspiring as his debut, Surfer’s Choice. The Blossoms, featuring Darlene Love, back Dale on the title track and the guitarist sings lead on “Kansas City,” “Dick Dale Stomp,” and several other tracks. The covers include R&B, Soul, Folk, Country and International tunes that aren’t always the best showcase for Dale’s immense instrumental talent. Or at least they’re not always arranged to leave space for his guitar. The second half of the album offers more charms, with staccato flat-picked shredding on “Hava Nagela” and “Riders in the Sky,” fancy picking on “Mexico” and a low twangy groove on “Break Time.” Sundazed’s CD reissue adds two bonus tracks, both instrumentals that offer up samplings of Dale’s six-string craft, but on balance there’s more singing and sax than belongs on an album titled “King of the Surf Guitar.” This album leaves you wanting more of Dale’s picking, which just might have been the idea at the time. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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The Skip Heller Trio: The Long Way Home

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Country, country blues and country rock

For those who know Skip Heller from his jazz, lounge and exotica music, this Americana outing come as something of a surprise. His pedigree reaches back to mid-90s work with Les Baxter, Robert Drasnin and Yma Sumac, and a string of organ-centric albums that includes the trio’s two previous outings, Along the Anchorline and Mean Things Happen in This Land, jazz titles like Fakebook, and the exotica Lua-O-Milo. But there’s another side to Heller’s career to be found in the rockabilly sides he’s produced for Dee Lannon and Ray Campi, and work with Wanda Jackson, Dave Alvin and Chris Gafney. Given these latter connections, this album of country, country blues, and country rock, isn’t at all without precedent.

Heller isn’t shy about his roots influences, as his songs strongly echo the styles of Tom T. Hall, Merle Haggard and John Hartford. He writes heartbroken songs of falling for the wrong woman and being left behind by the right one. He adopts a sad-sack tone that perches on the edge between hope and bitterness for the opening “I Used to Love California” and cops the vibe and guitar riff of “Ode to Billy Joe” for his stock taking “At My Age.” He imagines Duke Ellington’s inglorious latter-day gigs (“it was a gas money gig at a high school in some tiny town in central PA”), rediscovers the post-Katrina New Orleans, and worries about loving a married woman.

His subjects are imaginative and fresh, and though he’s not a gifted vocalist, he can be effective. What he lacks in vocal refinement he more than makes up with his guitar playing. The echoed electric guitar solo on the closing “Tracy Lee,” is just one example of how delicious his playing can be. A pair of blues, one led by Robert Drasnin’s clarinet and the other strummed on guitar, connect his country and jazz backgrounds, and touches of DJ Bonebreak’s vibraphone hint at his lounge work. With his fingers in so many musical pies this release didn’t draw the attention it deserves. Heller is a sophisticated songwriter and musician whose roots-oriented work seems to be overshadowed by his productions for others and his reputation as a jazz player. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

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Elvis Presley: Elvis 75- Good Rockin’ Tonight

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4-CD anthology shines as brightly as a King’s crown

Elvis was not only the king of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Little Richard’s claim on the crown notwithstanding), but in his afterlife he has also become the undisputed king of reissues and anthologies. RCA’s four-CD set, spanning from his earliest self-funded acetates through late home recordings and live sides, his last major studio works and a post-mortem remix, offers no new tracks for Presley’s legions of collectors, but provides a superb introduction and deep overview for anyone who’s heard about, rather than heard, the King. Those who know a few hits or have sat through an Elvis movie or two will find the greatness of his musical catalog measures up to the hype and explains the dedication of his most ardent fans.

Collected here are one hundred tracks, beginning with Presley’s very first recording, “My Happiness,” waxed on his own dime as a gift for his mother. His earliest commercial sides show how he forged hillbilly, blues and country roots into his personal strand of rock ‘n’ roll, first for Sun with Scotty Moore and Bill Black, and then, with the addition of D.J. Fontana on drums and A-list guests like Floyd Cramer and Chet Atkins, for RCA. These early works aren’t so much primitive as they are elemental – the lack of production pomp or circumstance presents Elvis as an unadorned and raw rock ‘n’ roll spirit. The addition of a backing vocal trio, as can first be heard on 1956’s “I Was the One,” showed a crooning side of Elvis that would continue to reappear even as he continued to explore rockabilly and blues.

From the 50s through the 70s Elvis moved through a variety of producer’s hands and a number of different studios, and got something different from each. His studio recordings took him from Memphis to Nashville, north to New York, west to Hollywood, back to Nashville where he worked in RCA’s legendary Studio B and back to Memphis for his legendary late-60s sessions at Chip Moman’s American Studios. By the early ‘70s, on the heels of his televised comeback special, Elvis once again became a live draw, and selected sides find him in Las Vegas, Honolulu and on the road in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Elvis waxed his share of clunkers, but with each new direction and in each new setting he seemed to record something worthwhile, and producer Ernst Mikael Jorgensen has done a masterful job of picking highlights.

More importantly, Jorgensen has intermixed iconic hits with lesser known singles and album tracks, showing the depth of Elvis’ artistry and the catalog he created. Elvis often overwhelmed the charts with hit singles, leaving terrific performances such as the energized “One-Sided Love Affair,” a bluesy cover of Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and the gospel “Thrill of Your Love” to languish as album tracks. Even more surprising is a 1962 version of “Suspicion” that pre-dates Terry Stafford’s hit by two years. Elvis’ soundtracks included their share of dregs, particularly as the ‘60s wore on, but they also included hits and great album tracks like a scorching version of “Trouble” from King Creole and bluesy covers of Dylan’s “Tomorrow is a Long Time” from Spinout and Jimmy Reed’s “Big Boss Man” from Clambake.

While other artists reinvented themselves to fit the times, Elvis bent the times around himself (excepting “Yoga is as Yoga Does,” thankfully not included here), staying true to his voice as everything around him changed. His producers, songwriters, and musicians kept turning over, but in the center of it all Elvis sang a surprisingly straight line from ’53 to ‘77. Even as his voice matured and the productions were influenced by his Vegas stage show, the fire in his delivery remained. Whether singing rock, blues, country, soul, pop or gospel, his performances found a true line stretched from the Sun sessions through RCA studios in Nashville, New York and Hollywood, a stint in the army, a catalog of often mediocre films, his 1968 resurrection, a triumphant return to Memphis, and country sessions that brought him back to his roots.

For many listeners, disc four will be the least familiar. Covering 1970 through 1977, these selections find Elvis’ singles charting lower, but still delivering the goods. Only “Burning Love” made the top-5, and his other top-10 from that stretch, “The Wonder of You,” is not included. “An American Trilogy,” is at once bombastic and utterly show-stopping, his version of “Always on My Mind” made the country charts but should have found cross-over success before Willie Nelson ten years later, and his last single, “Way Down,” though given to ‘70s production sounds, finds his gospel fervor undimmed. The beat heavy remix of “A Little Less Conversation” that closes the set shows just how easily Elvis’ voice could slide into new contexts (the original film performance from Live a Little, Love a Little is worth searching out on DVD, by the way). These hundred tracks aren’t a complete run through every Elvis highlight, but they tell the entire arc of his musical career in a compelling and thorough way.

The box includes an 80-page booklet that features a biographical essay by Billy Altman, numerous photos, reproductions of original record labels, covers and picture sleeves, movie posters, master tape boxes, and detailed recording, chart and personnel data. RCA/Legacy is releasing a companion 26-track single disc that cherry-picks this box, and though it may prove useful as a guide to further Elvis purchases, it doesn’t provide the compelling, detailed portrait of this four-disc set. With more Elvis 75th-birthday anniversary reissues on the way (and a terrific 2-CD version of From Elvis in Memphis already out) you may be tempted to put together your own collection, but you’d have a hard time assembling a more compelling introduction than this box. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

The Shants: Russian River Songs

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Ragged Americana from the darkness of a redwood forest

The Shants are a four-piece from Oakland, California, but their down-tempo country-folk isn’t exactly the booming hip-hop sound you’d expect from their urban base. In fact, these tracks were recorded in a cabin near the Russian River, and the first- and second-take demos are rustic and subdued, like the scant, heavily muted light that finds its way to the floor of a redwood grove. Their biography mentions comparisons to Richard Buckner, and they share the sort of minimalism and melancholy Buckner laid down on early albums like Devotion + Doubt. There’s a similar angst in vocalist Skip Allums’ passivity, but he sings with a more dissipated air than Buckner. The productions of vocals, guitar, bass, drums and pedal steel are at once dreamy and eerie; even the album’s love song features the semi-misanthropic sentiment “I’m tired of everyone but you.” An ode to their home town may be a bit ragged for official city adoption, but its shout-out to the Parkway Theater will resonate with those who knew the cozy movie house. The group’s combination of creeping tempos, drowsy vocals and dripping pedal steel gives these recordings an appealing moodiness. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | My Town is Underwater
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Ray Charles: Sings for Lovers

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Brother Ray sings the highs and lows of love

Concord’s “For Lovers” series features catalog selections from vocalists and instrumentalists exploring the joys and heartaches of love. Singer-pianist Ray Charles is a natural fit for this series, with his soulful vocal delivery, emotional playing, sophisticated arrangements and broad appetite for material. These sixteen tracks are drawn from his post-Atlantic pop recordings, with nearly half dating back to his first few years on ABC. The rest are drawn from the late-60s through the mid-70s, and skipping over his late-70s return to Atlantic there’s a 1993 cover of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You” and a 2006 re-orchestration of his 1970s cover of the Gershwins’ “How Long Has This Been Going On.”

Producer Nick Phillips mixes iconic hit singles “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “You Don’t Know Me,” “Ruby,” and “Here We Go Again” with lower charting entries, the seasonal favorite “Baby, It’s Cold Outside (sung in duet with Betty Carter) and intelligently selected album tracks. It’s the latter – the lesser-known picks – that make this collection unique. Highlights include a version of Meredith Wilson’s “Till There Was You” that’s so soulful, it’s hard to match it with Paul McCartney’s sugar sweet rendition on With the Beatles, and his intimate reading of the Gershwin’s “Love is Here to Stay” features a terrific piano solo within Sid Feller’s restrained arrangement.

The broad range of Charles’ musicality is represented in selections from jazz player Don Redman, country artists Don Gibson, Red Steagall, and Eddy Arnold, tin-pan alley scribes Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Mitchell Parish, and George and Ira Gershwin, pop writers Leon Russell, George Harrison, and Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and theater and film composers Meredith Wilson, Victor Young, Ned Washington and Heinz Roemheld. The latter’s “Ruby,” which riginally appeared in the 1952 film Ruby Gentry, was recorded by Coleman Hawkins and Oscar Peterson, and brought to its greatest prominence with this yearning, hopeful-yet-wary 1961 recording. Across these selections, Charles is variously backed by orchestra and chorus, strings, horns, and piano and organ-led jazz combos.

With more of Charles’ catalog appearing on download services, you might opt to put together your own collection of his love-related songs. But unless you’re deeply familiar with his catalog you’d miss some of the selections Phillips includes here. Charles won a Grammy® for his cover of Leon Russell’s “A Song For You,” but sixteen-years later you might have forgotten how poignant it sounds in Charles experienced, 63-year-old hands, and the album track “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” shows a delicate jazz chemistry between Charles and Betty Carter that’s buried by the annual revival of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” This is finely programmed set that’s a nice spin for those who want to hear a side of Ray Charles beyond the hits. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: Lookin’ Better Every Beer

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Various_LookinBetterEveryBeerFinely aged collection of alcohol-themed country and blues

This is a 40-song set heavily populated with songs of grape and grain. There are blues tunes by Floyd Dixon, Big Jay McNeely, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Liggins and Sonny Terry, but the bulk of the collection is drawn from classic country artists such as Merle Haggard, the Louvin Brothers, Wanda Jackson, Merle Travis, Hank Thompson and Faron Young. There’s also western swing from Bob Wills and bluegrass harmonies from Jim & Jessie. The album mixes classic songs of drink, drinking and drunkenness with tunes, such as Jean Shepard’s “That’s What Lonesome Is,” that are only peripherally related, or, in the case of Ernie Ford’s “Hicktown,” the antithesis of the album’s title topic. The sinning is stretched to tobacco and cocaine, as well. With so many country songs about alcohol and bars, it’s surprising the producers wandered from their main theme. Still, the sidetracks are often good and fit musically, so perhaps it’s best to just pop open another beer and quit complaining. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Pauline Kyllonen: Pauline Kyllonen

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PaulineKyllonen_PaulineKyllonenCountry-rock and folk-Americana from B.C. singer-songwriter

Pauline Kyllonen is a country-rock singer from British Columbia whose 2008 debut EP opens with a gutsy rocker that favorably recalls ‘70s belters like Ellen Foley and Genya Raven. Yet it’s ballads that appear foremost on Kyllonen’s song list, as the original “Rainbow Café” drops the romping electric guitar of the opener for pedal steel and a moving lyric of small town stasis and a life that’s passed by. She sings sweetly, reaching into her high register for the folk-jazz “Like a River,” bring to mind early Joni Mitchell, and closes with a ballad whose heavy drums and low organ match the power of her singing. Kyllonen is served by solid arrangements that keep her strong voice and lyrics front and center. If Nashville were still interested in three chords and the truth, “Rainbow Café” would have already been snatched up by one of its current hitmakers. As it is, this four-song EP is a good introduction for listeners and a great calling card to the lucky label who eventually signs Kyllonen. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Rainbow Cafe
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