Tag Archives: Cover Songs

Robben Ford: Soul on Ten

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RobbenFord_SoulOnTenBlues, rock and jazz guitarist captured live

It’s hard to believe, but guitarist Robben Ford is marking his 40th year as a working musician, having moved to San Francisco to form his first band in 1969. Stints with Charlie Musselwhite, Jimmy Witherspoon, and Tom Scott’s L.A. Express eventually led to the founding of the Yellowjackets and a solo career. Ford’s early work in the blues gave way to jazz sets with Miles Davis and the forging of a progressive sound that melds blues, jazz and rock. This latest release features eight tracks taped live at San Francisco’s Independent, and two more recorded live in the studio.

Ford and his backing trio of bass, drums and B-3 organ work through severa; catalog favorites, including the roaring guitar instrumental “Indianola” on which Toss Panos’ drums drive as Ford brilliantly intertwines rock and blues leads with jazz chordings. Ford’s guitar shows plenty of muscle on Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful,” and the straight blues medley of Elmore James’ “Please Set a Date” and Jimmy Reed’s “You Don’t Have to Go” give both Ford and organist Neal Evans a chance to show off their licks.

Ford revisits “Nothing to Nobody” here for a third time; originally released on 1999’s Supernatural, and played live on 2004’s Center Stage, this eleven-minute take makes room for some funky solos by Ford, Evans and bassist Travis Carlton. Ford recalls the rock-soul sounds of San Francisco’s ballrooms with wah-wah pedal workouts on “Supernatural” and “There’ll Never Be Another You.” The two studio tracks that close the CD sound out of place, and could have better been replaced by more tracks from the gig. As it is, the titles only reach back to 1999, though the blues covers give a feel for Ford’s earlier roots. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Listen to Soul on Ten
Robben Ford’s Home Page
Robben Ford’s MySpace Page

Various Artists: Boy Meets Girl

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Various_BoyMeetsGirl1969 collection of Stax male-female duets

Sibling and parent/child duets create a family voice that complements the individual singers. But duets between men and women elevate the relationship itself. The truth of country music has lent itself to many power duos, including Conway and Loretta, George and Tammy, and Johnny and June, but the raw emotion of soul music gives its duets another dimension of expressiveness. As the Memphis based Stax label expanded upon the success of its 1960s hard soul singles, the arrangements added strings, the horn charts softened and room was created for male-female duets. As part of the label’s push into album releases, a double-LP’s worth of duets were recorded for 1969’s Boy Meets Girl and released as part of Stax’s massive post-Atlantic Records rebirth.

Mavis Staples sings two album highlights, a conga-heavy deep funk cover of Sam & Dave’s earlier Stax hit “I Thank You” with William Bell, and a powerful Southern soul cover of Erma Franklin’s “Piece of My Heart” with Eddie Floyd. The album mixes up-tempo grooves such as William Bell and Carla Thomas’ “I Can’t Stop” with emotionally crooned ballads that include Eddie Floyd and Cleotha Staples’ “It’s Too Late” and Johnnie Taylor and Carla Thomas’ “My Life.” This reissue drops eight of the original LP’s titles and adds four, including the iconic pre-LP “Private Number,” a misguided mid-80s remake by Dusty Springfield and Spencer Davis, and a pair of tracks from Delaney and Bonnie’s 1968 sessions for Home. Those seeking the original track lineup (and cover art) can find it on a pricier UK reissue. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Listen to “Piece of My Heart” by Mavis Staples and Eddie Floyd

Lou Reid & Carolina: My Own Set of Rules

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LouReidCarolina_MyOwnSetOfRulesVocal-rich bluegrass

Lou Reid developed his bluegrass legend over several decades and several key engagements. He began as a bassist for Doyle Lawson’s Quicksilver, played multiple instruments and sang backup for the Ricky Skaggs Band, and signed on to play guitar and sing lead with the Seldom Scene. He moved on to session work in Nashville and in 1992 formed the first version of Carolina with his friend Terry Baucom. Baucom departed after a pair of albums and Reid took up a second stint with the Seldom Scene, but has kept Carolina going as a parallel concern. The current version of the group includes Reid on mandolin and vocals, Christy Reid on bass, Shannon Slaughter on guitar, and Trevor Watson on banjo. Their sixth album, the second with this lineup, continues to focus on clear, compelling vocals and multipart harmonies. Which isn’t to suggest the players are instrumental slouches, as they show otherwise with the mandolin opening to an up-tempo pass through the Stanley Brothers’ “She’s More to Be Pitied,” and the jaunty instrumental play of “Beat the Train.” The album’s song list revisits a few bluegrass chestnuts, including Bill Monroe’s “In Despair,” and offers a generous helping of faith-related songs through which the group harmonies really show their impact. Reid, Slaughter and Watson supply original tunes, including the a cappella “It’s Hard to Stumble (When You’re Down on Your Knees)” and the siren’s call of hometown love, “Blueridge Girl.” Lou Reid and Carolina’s music focuses on singing and songs rather than strings and picks, and they retain tradition while creating their own contemporary voice. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Left Handed Dreamer [Clip]
Lou Reid & Carolina’s Home Page
Lou Reid & Carolina’s MySpace Page

Tanya Tucker: My Turn

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TanyaTucker_MyTurnGritty, heartfelt country covers tribute to Tucker’s  father

The wear that Tucker’s voice has accumulated over the years, the burnish of life, drugs, drink and age, has only made her sound tougher. There isn’t a waver in her pitch as she relives this dozen country classics. Even rougher, she takes on songs that were originally the emotional province of male singers, showing that while times have changed (women wearing pants!), it still takes an unusually strong woman to stand toe-to-toe with iconic classics waxed by Faron Young, Hank Williams, Buck Owens, Ray Price, Conway Twitty, Charlie Pride, Lefty Frizzell, Wynn Stewart, Don Gibson, Eddy Arnold and Merle Haggard. Tucker takes them on and pours a life’s worth of misery and redemption into each one, minding her father’s admonition to “sing it like soap wouldn’t get it off.”

Producer Pete Anderson, renowned for the inventive textures he brought to Dwight Yoakam’s records, dials it back here to present Tucker in basic country productions of guitar, bass, drums, fiddle and steel, with accordion from Flaco Jimenez on “Anybody Goin’ to San Antone?” and Jo-El Sonnier adding a Cajun twist to “Big Big Love.” The simple arrangements give this a nostalgic sound, but Tucker’s forthrightness and grit follow a modern arc from the hard-won gains of Kitty Wells, Loretta Lynn and even the younger Tucker herself. Without heavily reworking the songs, the sound of Tucker’s voice (paired with a superb duet from Jim Lauderdale on “Love’s Gonna Live Here”) is more than enough to lend each tune her individual signature.

George Jones notes in his introductory notes that “you know immediately when Tanya Tucker is singing,” and this album is absolute proof. She brings her life story as a country singer, troubled tabloid star, lover, mother, and the daughter of a hard-country loving father to this project. This is an album one could only record on the heels of a career steeped in country music and a life lived deep inside the pains and joys drawn by these songs’ lyrics. Cover albums have a long history in country music, including recent releases from Pam Tillis (It’s All Relative), Patty Loveless (Sleepless Nights), and Martina McBride (Timeless), but this one shines especially bright in their company. It’s a great covers album, a great Tanya Tucker album, and most of all a great country music album. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Tanya Tucker’s Home Page
Listen to My Turn

John Doe and the Sadies: Country Club

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JohnDoeSadies_CountryClubTerrific set of classic country covers from X/Knitters vocalist

John Doe’s penchant for country and roots has never been a secret. Though originally pegged as a punk rock singer with X, the acoustic spin-off Knitters and his solo work demonstrated he could sing effectively in quieter settings. Paired here with the Sadies, he capitulates fully to the classic country music that’s so clearly influenced him. Best of all, he sings in a relaxed style that unlocks new levels of tone and tempo. The Sadies, for their part, are as tight as the Nashville A-listers who originally cut these tunes behind Waylon Jennings, Roger Miller, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Porter Wagoner, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Tammy Wynette and Bobby Bare. But as easily as they pick the original fiddle-and-steel instrumental “Ping Mountain Rag” and Western-tinged guitar hoedown “The Sudbury Nickel,” they also render “The Night Life” with enough atmosphere to suggest the debauchery of “House of the Rising Sun” and add a spacey edge to “’Till I Get it Right.”

Doe proves himself not just a compelling singer, but an excellent stylist. He’s obviously a fan (and in some cases a student) of the originals, but he’s not slavishly devotional. He picks up on Carl Mann’s upbeat rockabilly treatment of “Take These Chains From My Heart” (which itself was quite distinct from Hank Williams’ and Ray Charles’ sorrowful takes), but converts the driving original into a bouncier country beat. His take on “(Now and Then) There’s a Fool Such as I” follows Hank Snow’s slow original (or even more closely, Jim Reeves’ cover) rather than Elvis’ upbeat take. This is everything that Doe’s fans have waited for over the years: a great set of songs filtered through effortless vocal performances and backed by the encyclopedic and tasteful chops of the Sadies. Like all great covers albums, this one will remind you of the original versions’ greatness without sending you scrambling to hear them. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

John Doe and the Sadies’ MySpace Page

Isaac Hayes: Hot Buttered Soul

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IsaacHayes_HotButteredSoulSeminal late-60s soul

After several years as a staff arranger, producer, writer and instrumentalist for Stax Records, Hayes cut his 1967 solo debut, Presenting Isaac Hayes, sketching an album template that was rendered in ink on this 1969 follow-up. Where the debut riffed on tunes by Willie Dixon and Count Basie, this sophomore effort offers full-length dissertations. With only four tracks, but a running time of over 45-minutes, Hayes stretched covers of Bacharach and David’s “Walk On By” and Jimmy Webb’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” to epic length. The single versions, added here as bonus tracks, still clock in at 4:33 and 6:57, respectively, even when edited to their radio essentials.

Hayes didn’t just lengthen these songs by adding musical jams and verbal recitations; he refashioned them completely into soul music, with thumping drum beats, deep bass, and wailing psychedelic guitars. His deeply pained vocal on “Walk On By” is as much sung as it is begged, and an 8-minute rap blossoms brilliantly into an emotional reading of “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” These covers didn’t just separate themselves from earlier versions, they separated themselves from everything else then being recorded in soul music.

The album’s new pieces include the heavy soul “Hyperbolicsyllablecseseuedalymistic,” featuring a terrifically funky piano solo, and a standard ballad arrangement of Charles Chalmers’ “One Woman.” Interestingly, Hot Buttered Soul, wasn’t recorded in the famed Stax studio, but at the nearby Ardent complex that regularly hosted overflow Stax work and was the home turf of Big Star. Clearly there was magic in those rooms. This latest reissue includes 24-bit remastering by Bob Fisher and a 12-panel booklet with introductory notes by Jim James, liners by Bill Dahl and a couple of great photos. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Ben Vaughn: Vaughn Sings Vaughn, Vol. 3

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benvaughn_vaughnsingsvaughnvol3Witty songwriter’s second volume of self covers

Vaughn is most widely known for his compositional contributions to television’s “3rd Rock From the Sun” and “That ’70s Show,” and from well-known covers of his songs by Marshall Crenshaw (“I’m Sorry (But So is Brenda Lee)”) and The Morells (“The Man Who Has Everything”). Liner note readers will also recognize his name from production work he’s performed for an array of artist that spans Charlie Feathers, Arthur Alexander, Ween, and Los Straitjackets. Ironically, his own carefully rendered recordings, starting with 1985’s The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn and running through 2006’s Designs in Music mostly remain the province of dedicated fans. His ’80s and ’90s releases with the Ben Vaughn Combo are a treasure trove of ’60s style, clever lyrics, droll vocals, AM radio hooks and, ultimately, a surprising amount of emotion for a songwriter whose tongue is usually found in his cheek.

This 2008 volume is the third in a series documenting Vaughn’s quixotic journey to cover all his own songs. Included are songs he’s recorded himself, songs he’s given to others, and a sprinkle of songs that never made it to commercial release. In addition to the time-shift of a mature songwriter reconsidering his earlier works, the use of a single band (Vaughn’s current working group, the Ben Vaughn Desert Classic) lends coherence to these songs that an anthology of their original versions couldn’t deliver. Vaughn’s revisited material in the past, reworking a few songs for 1992’s Mood Swings that he felt hadn’t previously reached their full potential, but never has he taken such a methodical tour of his own catalog. This time out he appears to resurrect a number of previously unreleased tunes from his songwriter’s notebook, alongside a few from late ’80s and early ’90s albums.

Most familiar to Vaughn fans will be a pair of songs from 1988’s Blows Your Mind (“Charlene” and “Darlene,” the latter also covered by the A-Bones), and tracks from 1990’s Dressed in Black (“New Wave Dancing”) and 1992’s Mood Swings (“I Dig Your Wig”). Compared back-to-back, there are some notable changes in arrangement (such as the muted trumpet solo on “I Dig Your Wig”), but the general thrust of the songs remains the same. One can imagine most of these incremental changes accumulated over years of performing the songs live. The newly rediscovered tunes include playful tap-dancing blues, Sir Douglas-styled organ rave-ups, twangy Americana, some jaunty wallowing in “Help Me” and “Self Pity,” and Leonard Cohen-styled deadpan monotone in “Bring Back the Night.”

Given the wealth of previously unknown titles, this is closer to a new album than the first two volumes in the series, which makes it a real draw for fans. As an introduction to Vaughn, it doesn’t measure up to the previous editions or earlier classics Three volumes into the project the remakes are starting to feel more like a vision quest for Vaughn than new revelations for listeners. It’s disappointing that the liner notes don’t explain Vaughn’s march through his catalog. Why these songs in this order? Where did the new titles come from? How has his approach to the older songs changed over time? There’s more here than the auteur is explaining. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

The Smithereens: Meet the Smithereens

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smithereens_meetthesmithereensSharing the thrill of the Beatles’ arrival in the U.S.

Though no one could ever capture the visceral thrill of first hearing Meet the Beatles, the Smithereens have waxed a record that shares the feeling U.S. fans get every time they crank up the fab four’s Capitol debut. The songs, vocals, harmonies and guitars all resound with the wave of energy brought to U.S. shores in 1964, and though Meet the Beatles was neither the Beatles first album (the UK Please Please Me holds that distinction), it was very much the record that introduced the Beatles to the U.S. The album isn’t even an album in the conventional sense of having been produced in a single, related set of recording sessions. Instead, Capitol manufactured Meet the Beatles by trimming away cover versions, collecting originals from the Beatles second album (the UK With the Beatles) and adding U.S. singles sides. In doing so they squeezed the essence of the Beatles originality into twelve tracks.

The Smithereens’ recreate the album’s original twelve track running with faithful cover versions. Pat DiNizio’s voice is thicker than McCartney’s and Lennon’s, and it keeps him from breaking free with the youthful exuberance that could elicit deafening shrieks from 15-year-old girls. On the more wounded numbers, such as “This Boy,” “All I’ve Got To Do,” “Not a Second Time,” and George Harrison’s “Don’t Bother Me,” he finds a fit. Paul McCartney’s obsession with music hall tunes rears its head with “Till There Was You,” and though the fifty-something Pat DiNizio isn’t as starry-eyed as the 20-something McCartney, it still hurts. There’s no denying the love and craft in this tribute, but with the original so readily available, this is mostly the province of Smithereens loyalists. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Isaac Hayes: Black Moses

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isaachayes_blackmosesA double helping of hot buttered soul

By the time Isaac Hayes released this double-LP in 1971, he’d already parlayed a pivotal career as house songwriter, musician and producer at Stax into a starring role as a recording artist. For Black Moses, Hayes stuck to the formula that had made him famous, extending pop and soul tunes, adding spoken passages and layering on smooth orchestration. His power as a vocal interpreter was at its height, not only on the album’s best known tracks (“Never Can Say Goodbye” and “Never Gonna Give You Up”), but also on a pair of Curtis Mayfield tunes (“Man’s Temptation” and “Need to Belong to Someone”), a pair by Bacharach/David ( “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and the formerly white bread “Close to You”), the Friends of Distinctions’ “Going in Circles,” and Kris Kristofferson’s “For the Good Times.”

The few originals include a couple of lengthy raps paired with ballads, and the funky “Good Love.” This double-CD reissue reproduces the album’s original fourteen tracks without bonuses, and stores the discs in a labyrinthine digipack that unfolds into a six-panel image of Hayes in his Black Moses garb. The album’s superb original liner notes, written by Chester Higgins, and reproduced within the folds. Many fans mark this as their favorite album in Hayes’ catalog, but it’s neither as fresh as previous go-rounds like 1969’s Hot Buttered Soul, nor as original as the same year’s soundtrack to Shaft. This is as solid as anything Hayes recorded, it’s just not, five albums into his recording career, as innovative. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Isaac Hayes’ Home Page
Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Jamey Johnson: That Lonesome Song

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jameyjohnson_thatlonesomesongGritty country self-portrait

Johnson’s second album took a lot of people by surprise, even those who’d enjoyed his 2006 debut, The Dollar. As engaging as was his first album, particularly for his moving baritone voice, what emerged two years later was a much darker, much deeper songwriter. Despite writing chart-topping hits (including George Strait’s “Give It Away” and Trace Adkins’ “Ladies Love Country Boys”), Johnson lost both his record deal and his wife, and hard living caught up to him. Retreating to his writer’s pen, Johnson poured his pain into this set of songs, initially released independently, and subsequently picked up by Mercury. It’s doubtful that an album this hard-core country could have been recorded under the watchful eye of a major label, particularly as a follow-up to a commercially stiff debut. Luckily for listeners, Johnson followed his own road and let the label play catch-up.

The reckoning at the album’s core is front and center in the opening song’s catch line, “the high cost of living ain’t nothing like the cost of living high.” Johnson imagines himself in prison, rummaging through the emotional wreckage left in the wake of a wasted, out-of-control life. He lingers over the painful moments, as if they’re a cilice worn in repentance, as if to hasten redemption. The music lingers as well, with slow waltzes, instrumental passages verging on country jams, and dripping steel guitar codas that wind down as last gasps of contrition. The recovery sought in this suite (the songs often segue without gaps) is to be found in a crooked line of ups and downs that bounce between the realities of a gritty present and the dreams of a hopeful future. You can hear Johnson writing his way out of the hole he’d dug, working through admission, decision, inventory, amends, awakening and sharing.

By opening and closing each song informally, as if the band is warming up to a groove and searching for definitive endings, Johnson gives the album a compelling, off-the-cuff storytelling device. There have been few country albums – not songs, but albums – in recent years that have this one’s thematic focus. Rodney Crowell’s recent string of autobiographical albums comes to mind, but few others compare. If Waylon Jennings had ever stopped to doubt his most painful life choices, he might have written an album like this. Allen Reynolds “Dreaming My Dreams,” made famous by Jennings, is sung here in a dissipated voice that recasts the song’s idle wondering into a quiet prayer for salvation. Johnson was clearly touched by something larger when he wrote this album, finding a route to recovery and having the external awareness to write about it. It’s not pretty, but it certainly is breathtaking. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Jamey Johnson’s Home Page
Jamey Johnson’s MySpace Page