Tag Archives: Folk

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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Various Artists: Radio Hits of the 60s

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Terrific collection of AM radio’s highly varied legacy

Rather than picking an artist or label or scene or sound, Legacy’s pulled together thirteen original hit recordings that show the range of music that AM radio brought to its listeners. Collected here is New Orleans R&B (“Ya Ya,” 1961 and “Working in the Coal Mine,” 1966), Dixieland Jazz (“Washington Square,” 1963), Easy Listening (“A Fool Never Learns,” 1964), Folk Pop and Rock (“We’ll Sing in the Sunshine,” 1964 and “In the Year 2525,” 1969), Garage Punk (“Little Girl,” 1966), Soul (“I’m Your Puppet,” 1966 and “Cherry Hill Park,” 1969), Bubblegum (“Simon Says,” 1968), Trad Jazz Vocal (“The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde,” 1968), and Vocal Pop (“Worst That Could Happen,” 1969).

Even within these individual songs you can often hear more than one genre exerting its influence, such as the steel guitar and horns that provide accents to the superb pop production of Merrilee Rush’s “Angel of the Morning.” In this day of highly balkanized music channels and individually programmed MP3 playlists, it’s hard to imagine such variety inhabiting a single mass-market playlist, but that was part of AM radio’s power to attract and keep a broad swath of listeners. Playing this collection will remind you how good record and radio people were at picking and making hits – the winnowing process disenfranchised many, but what got through the sieves, particularly what got to the top of the charts, was often highly memorable.

Legacy’s disc clocks in at a slim 35 minutes, but what’s here is a terrifically nostalgic spin whose songs stand up to repeated listening forty-plus years later. True, Andy Williams’ “A Fool Never Learns” might wear out its welcome before the other tracks, but it’s part and parcel of the ebb and flow of 1960s AM radio. This set isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive compilation of any one thing in particular, but a reminder of the breadth that once graced individual radio stations across the land. There was a unity to AM radio’s audience that’s been replace by the free choice of the empowered individual. That personalization carries with it many benefits, but the range of this set may remind you of what’s also been lost. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Nathan Holscher: Hit the Ground

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Ragged and moody singer-songwriter Americana

Nathan Holscher is proof that you needn’t be in Nashville or Austin to produce Americana. Holscher grew up and was schooled in the Midwest, and after bouncing around the Southwest ended up in Cincinnati, a city long ago known for the hillbilly records issued on the King label. Roy Rogers was born in Cincinnati, and Pure Prairie League formed in Columbus, but more recently the Queen City has turned out soul acts such as Bootsy Collins, the Isley Brothers and Afghan Whigs, and garage/indie rock from the Greenhornes and Heartless Bastards. So it’s without a lot of recent local roots music history that Nathan Holscher drops his third full-length album, populated with dark, downtrodden country and folk songs.

These songs are more anguished than those on two previous outings, 2004’s Pray for Rain and 2007’s Even the Hills. Holscher’s earlier work was agitated and even chipper, but his latest band, Ohio 5, builds more atmospheric arrangements from drums, piano, guitar, bass organ and pedal steel. His ragged vocals sound pained and heartbroken as he catalogs the emotional wreckage of a doomed engagement, with growing doubts strewn along the road trip of “Along the Way.” He tries to prolong broken relationships and on the ‘50s-styled ballad “Only One” hopes for a lover’s change of mind. Holscher sounds crushed as he chokes out an ex-con’s pining on “Seven Years,” and the title track’s frustrated jab at a drug addicted friend feels as fated to fail as the addict himself.

Obviously this isn’t your feel-good album of 2009, but the slow, moody productions provide the right backing for Holscher’s dissipated vocal style. He comes across as intimate and confessional, but he sings as someone exhaling his troubles at the end of a long and trying ordeal rather than as a storyteller trying to make an explicit point. He describes his work as letting “the song steer the ship,” and the results seep out as circumstance rather than drama. It’s precisely that casual reveal of character and storyline that makes this release arresting. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Along the Way
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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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Burning Hank: Oh Joseph

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Burning Hank is a UK folk-pop four-piece whose sense of humor brings to mind ’60s provocateurs like the Fugs. Their first single and video, recorded and shot on a shoestring budget of zero contemplates how Joseph would handle his wife’s pregnancy were he advised and hectored by his guitar-strumming, soccer-playing friends. The single arrives just in time to start some arguments at your family Christmas party and can be had for free at Bandcamp.

Download “Oh Joseph” from Bandcamp
Burning Hank’s MySpace Page

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
Pauline Kyllonen’s Home Page

Roger & The Rockets: Walking Band

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RogerAndTheRockets_WalkingBandAmericana rock ‘n’ roll, folk and country from Sweden

Can you call it Americana when it hails from Sweden? Apparently so. Roger is lead vocalist and songwriter Roger Häggström of Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, and the Rockets are a rock ‘n’ roll band that plays rootsy grooves and country-rock sounds that will remind you of Brinsley Schwarz, Commander Cody, NRBQ, the Morells and BR5-49. Their second album features thirteen originals that include a Celtic touch in the foot-stomping title tune, the Roy Loney-styled rockabilly “Milk & Honey,” and the dobro-lined close harmony of “Crash & Burn.” There are British Invasion harmonies and chord changes in “Got to Go,” twangy baritone guitar on “Wendy,” and a Phil Ochs-styled folk protest on “One United State.” Häggström writes joyous odes to music making and blossoming love, chagrined lyrics of leaving one’s lover for the demands of a job, and inevitably broken hearts. In addition to bass, guitar and drums, the album includes banjolin, dobro, lap steel, washboard and violin. The latter, played by Björn Sohlin, is particularly effective on the cantering love song, “Maybe.” Häggström is a solid songwriter and vocalist, and the band is accomplished in both craft and range, resulting in a compelling sophomore album of folk-country-roots-rock. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Walking Band
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Star & Micey: Star & Micey

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StarAndMicey_StarAndMiceyBroken-hearted folk, power pop and soul

Ardent Studios, famed both for their original productions by Big Star and the raft of overflow sessions hosted for Stax, is still a working concern. Recent visitors have included Robyn Hitchcock, Klaus Voorman, Jack White and many more local, national and international luminaries. Less well-known is that the Ardent Music record label provides a modern day parallel to the original Ardent Records upon which Big Star’s albums and singles were released. The label’s latest is the debut by Star & Micey, a trio whose music is built on a uniquely Memphisian blend of rock, folk, blues, country, pop and soul.

Vocalist Joshua Cosby sings in a voice reminiscent of Robert Plant’s gentler blue-folk tone applied to Gordon Gano’s angst. When surrounded by harmonies, such as on the broken hearted “Carly,” a power-pop winsomeness emerges from the quivering edge of his voice. Guitarist (and Ardent staffer) Nick Redmond finger-picks chiming country-folk and slides buzzing southern-blues, layering them into a cross between Chet Atkins, Mungo Jerry and the Allman Brothers. Some productions are given a light soul sheen (“I Am the One She Needs”), others built up with ornate and powerful strings (“On Your Own”), left to shamble (“Late at Night”) or stripped down to a lullaby (“Quicksand”).

Cosby’s lyrics are like pages taken from a lovelorn writer’s diary. There are songs of being held at arm’s length, getting dumped, simmering in anger, rediscovering one’s independence, and letting oneself fall back in love. The lyrics are laced with romantic torment, but the nervous wobble of Cosby’s voice suggests drama that’s poured into tears that are cried alone. It’s the extrovert-introvert pivot of great power pop: emotional needs that struggle to be heard outside the songwriter’s head. The blend of musical flavors of adds a winning Memphis twist that sets this apart from the guitar jangle that typically accompanies such romantic strife. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | So Much Pain
MP3 | Carly
MP3 | On Your Own
Star & Micey’s Home Page
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Caroline Herring: Golden Apples of the Sun

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CarolineHerring_GoldenApplesOfTheSunSuperb folk album from Austin-based vocalist

Though Herring has come to prominence in Austin music circles, her music has veered away from the bluegrass with which she began, as well as the country with which she rose to prominence. Her voice has always harbored a singer-songwriter’s intimacy, but starting with last year’s Lantana, she stepped further in front of her band and dropped the drums and steel in favor of acoustic guitars and bass. This fourth album pushes even further in that stripped-down direction, with hard strummed and rolling finger-picked guitars providing the dominant backing, augmented by bass, piano and touches of banjo and ukulele. The minimized backings reveal additional depth in Herring’s voice, an instrument that mixes the vibrato of Buffy St. Marie, crystalline tone of Judy Collins, and several dashes of Lucinda Williams’ emotional poetics.

Herring’s latest album splits its twelve tracks between originals and covers. The latter includes a brilliant conversion of Cyndi Lauper’s 1986 hit “True Colors” into a dark spiritual. Lauper’s sung this song live with guitar, piano and zither, but it was still infused with the original single’s optimism. Herring pitches the vocal ambivalently between worry and reassurance, with a moody rhythm guitar that dispels Lauper’s upbeat mood. The oft-covered murder ballad “Long Black Veil” provides Herring another terrific opportunity for reinvention, stripping the instrumental to a drone, the song is more of a distraught first-person confession than the folksy story of Lefty Frizell or Johnny Cash. Even the Big Bill Broonzy standard “See See Rider” is reborn amidst the vocal trills Herring adds to edges of her performance. Similar high notes and tremolo decorate a tour de force cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Cactus Tree.”

The original songs, five solo compositions and a co-write with Wendell Berry and Pablo Neruda, are even more closely attuned to Herring’s vocal charms. The lyrics are filled with questions of uncertain relationships, longing for escape and understanding, distant destinations and brave faces. Singing to low acoustic strums, Herring jabs with the lyrics of “The Dozens,” demanding engagement in the guise of a game of insults. The assuredness with which she sings adds weight to every word, and the emotion-laden quality of her voice can bring tears to your eyes. Though she can conjure the ghostly images of earlier times, the clarity of her tone and the forthrightness of her style are more in the folk tradition of the 1960s than the 1860s. Herring is a critical darling whose work outstrips the plaudits of even her most ardent admirers. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Long Black Veil
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Stephen Stills: Live at Shepherd’s Bush

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StephenStills_LiveAtShepherdsBushCareer-spanning 2008 concert performance

With so many artists retreading their catalogs with concert performances of classic albums, Stephen Stills’ career-spanning live set provides a different proposition. Rather than take his audience back to a single point in time, he takes them on the musical journey he mapped out for himself with Buffalo Springfield, CSN(&Y), Manassas, and various solo releases. The set list focuses primarily on the years 1966 through 1973, but reaches to Stills’ last solo album, 2005’s Man Alive! for “Wounded World” (segued here with Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way”) and draws in a cover of Tom Petty’s recent Mudcrutch song “Wrong Thing to Do.”

The show is split into solo acoustic and electric band sets, and rather than following a strict timeline, Stills has arranged the songs into a program that makes for a good show, with crowd-pleasing favorites placed strategically among the deeper album cuts. The solo tunes show Stills to still be a powerful acoustic picker (both finger and flat-pick), and though his singing voice is rough in spots, the song introductions and storytelling are incredibly engaging. Best of all, the disc provides generous helpings of between-song continuity and gives you a good sense of how the show felt as a whole. This is a document of a live concert performance rather than a cleanly edited set of live songs.

The show kicks off with “Tree Top Flyer,” a 1968 solo tune that didn’t appear on a commercial release until CS&N tackled it fifteen years later. Fan favorites “4+20” and “Change Partners” bracket a touching version of the Manassas tune “Johnny’s Garden,” and a couple of covers, Dylan’s “Girl From the North Country” and the traditional “Blind Fiddler” show off some of Stills’ own favorites. The acoustic set closes with a 9-minute rendition of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” that shows off Stills’ blistering guitar skills, and provides a transition to the electric band set. The second set opens with the little heard “Isn’t It About Time,” from the second Manassas album, and unlike the chestnuts that follow, the arrangement and performance sound very fresh as Stills adds some meaty Stratocaster playing.

The Buffalo Springfield numbers are a mixed bag. They’re stretched into jams that give Stills an opportunity to show that his guitar can reach heights that his voice can’t always follow. “Rock & Roll Woman” retains its passion, “Bluebird” is reworked enthusiastically to fit Stills’ limited vocal range, but a bluesy 7-minute version of “For What It’s Worth” can’t muster the vocal pungency of 1966, despite its on-going political relevance. Overall, Stills sounds more enthusiastic about the material that’s newer to him, including his own “Wounded World” and the Petty and Walsh covers.

The widescreen DVD offers the same track line-up as the CD, though with the option of DTS Surround. The only extras are a short intro clip by Stills and credit-roll clips in which Stills discusses the set list. The lighting and videography are excellent, giving viewers a chance to see close-ups of Stills singing and picking. He sells his songs with facial expressions, postures and body movements, and his lack of vocal flexibility is more than made up for by watching him rip on guitar. This is a nicely selected mix of hits and album cuts, performed with the freedom of someone with nothing left to prove. CD and DVD discs are packaged in a three-panel cardboard slipcase. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Stephen Stills’ Home Page