Tag Archives: Folk

Calypso Heat Wave

DVD_CalypsoHeatwave1Maya Angelou and calypso music take over the world

This film comes from Sam Katzman, one of Hollywood’s most prolific B-movie producers. In addition to serials, westerns and sci-fi, Katzman produced a number of music-filled films in the ‘50s and ‘60s, including Don’t Knock the Rock, Twist Around the Clock, Elvis Presley’s Kissin’ Cousins and Harum Scarum, Herman’s Hermits’ When the Boys Meet the Girls, and the classic teensploitation entry Riot on Sunset Strip.

Like those better known films, this 1957 entry is light on plot and heavy on musical cameos. The story involves a jukebox operator, played as a Harry Brock-styled mug by actor Michael Granger, muscling his way into a record label. Once inside, he pushes the label to cut more deeply into the artists’ action, echoing some surprisingly accurate truths of the racket’s seediest side. Along the way, the label’s star attraction skips town and discovers calypso in the Caribbean, which everyone quickly realizes is destined to be bigger than rock ‘n’ roll.

Performance highlights include lip-synched appearances by the Hi-Los, Treniers and Tarriers. A very young Joel Grey dances in an early scene, and legendary DJ Dick Whittinghill spins records in what might or might not be the actual KMPC radio studio. Perhaps the most surprising number is Maya Angelou’s back-lot Trinidadian song and dance production. Angelou had toured a club act in the mid-50s, recorded the album Miss Calypso, and performed in an off-Broadway revue from which the film borrowed its title.

DVD_CalypsoHeatwave2Also seen in the Trinidad sequence is a 23-year-old Alan Arkin, making his first-ever film appearance, playing guitar and singing lead alongside the Tarriers’ Erik Darling and Bob Carey. Their 1956 rendition of “The Banana Boat Song,” which they recreate here, helped spark the calypso craze, which also spawned the films Calypso Joe and Bop Girl Goes Calypso. You can find Calypso Heat Wave at The Video Beat (along with Bop Girl Goes Calypso), but it’s also playing regularly on getTV. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Greg Trooper: Live at the Rock Room

GregTrooper_LiveAtTheRockRoomA folk singer bares his soul

It takes Greg Trooper less than ten seconds to stop you in your tracks. Accompanied by organ, upright bass and his own guitar, Trooper has only to sing his first note to grab your attention. His voice is so open, magnetic and soulfully heartfelt, that you can’t help but listen closely. It’s one thing to craft material that draws the fandom of other gifted songwriters, but delivering it with the vocal artistry it merits is often beyond even the most talented writer. But Trooper is a superbly talented singer and storyteller, and his live performances, even in recorded form, are as intimate and honest as personal conversations. As excellent as was 2013’s Incident on Willow Street, Trooper exposes even more emotional surfaces when performing his songs in front of a live audience.

The disc’s opener “This I’d Do” endears Trooper to the audience with its extraordinary promises, and he proves himself a a man of his word with a set that’s thoughtful, stalwart and giving. He finds pathos in an alcoholic’s lament, hangs onto slim threads of hope and trudges along in heartbreak’s shadow. But as he essays in “Everything’s a Miracle,” perception is influenced by perspective, and perspective is often a choice. The search of “One Honest Man” looks forward as it creates distance from a troubled past, and “All the Way to Amsterdam” dreams of escape rather than dwelling on current circumstances. The latter rests perfectly on Chip Dolan’s keyboards and the emotional hitches in Trooper’s voice, articulating the song’s protagonist in both words and tone. The album closes with the hopeful “We’ve Still Got Time,” concluding a breathtakingly fine performance. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Greg Trooper’s Home Page

Jackie DeShannon: All the Love – The Lost Atlantic Recordings

JackieDeShannon_AllTheLoveLost 1973 sessions with Tom Dowd and Van Morrison

As a songwriter, Jackie DeShannon had tremendous success throughout the 1960s, but it wasn’t until she recorded 1969’s “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” that she found fame with her own material. But despite the song’s commercial success, the following year’s To Be Free would be her last for Imperial, and after a brief stop at Capitol for 1972’s Songs, producer Jerry Wexler landed her for his Atlantic label. Her two albums, Jackie and Your Baby is a Lady, included both original material and covers, and though artistically satisfying, neither achieved much sales and DeShannon moved on to a short stay at Columbia as her recording career wound down.

Lost in the transition was an album made for Atlantic, but never released. Recorded in 1973 with producer Tom Dowd at the fabled Sound City and Criteria studios, the sessions were a distinct change from Jackie’s strong Memphis flavors. Gone were the backing chorus, strings and the heavier horn charts, and in was a smaller group sound highlighted by a wider choice of material that spanned folk, pop, soul and gospel. In addition to four new DeShannon originals (co-written with Jorge Calderon, a multi-instrumentalist who would famously collaborate with Warren Zevon), the album included well-selected covers of Dylan, Alan O’Day, Christine McVie and others.

With the album in the can and awaiting release, DeShannon did some additional recording with Van Morrison in his home studio. Those sessions yielded four more tracks (15-18 here), of which the Morrison original “Sweet Sixteen” was released as a single, with the Dowd-produced “Speak Out to Me” as the B-side. When the single failing to chart, Atlantic shelved the entire year’s output, and DeShannon eventually began work on her next album. Six of the Dowd tracks (1-3 and 5-7 here), and all four Morrison productions, eventually appeared on Rhino’s 2007 reissue Jackie… Plus, but the rest of the Dowd-produced material remained in the vault until now.

Why Atlantic scrapped the album is unclear. The material is excellent, DeShannon’s performances are strong and Dowd’s production provides soulful support. Perhaps it was the album’s broad reach that gave Atlantic second thoughts, though there are several tracks upon which they could have hung their promotion. DeShannon’s organ-backed take on “Drift Away” was beaten to the market by Dobie Gray’s hit, but “Hydra,” “Grand Canyon Blues” and the album’s superb cover of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” could have found some love on FM. Sadly, the set’s unlisted nineteenth track – a Coke commercial – was probably it’s most heavily broadcast. Real Gone’s done DeShannon’s fans a solid with this anthology, and augmented the ’73 sessions with a 12-page booklet that includes detailed liner note from Joe Marchese. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Jackie DeShannon’s Home Page

Charlie Parr: Stumpjumper

CharlieParr_StumpjumperCountry-blues from another time

Country-blues artist Charlie Parr isn’t just from Duluth, Minnesota, he’s from another time. Parr’s 12-string, National steel, fretless banjo, and especially his high, searing vocals spring more from the heat of Southeastern blues than they do from the chilly shores of Lake Superior. His transplanted roots aren’t without precedent, as his career developed in parallel to the bluegrass of Trampled By Turtles and old-timey fiddle tunes of Four Mile Portage, and his Minnesota upbringing was itself quite rural. But there’s an edginess to his work that’s even more primordial and other-worldly, and his string riffs often repeat in idiosyncratic patterns that are hypnotic and spiritual. The recording quality is modern, but his expression has the impromptu feel of field recordings.

Parr often lives the itinerant road life of his blues ancestors, reportedly even cooking on his engine manifold. He ventured to North Carolina to collaborate on these sessions with Megafun’s Phil Cook, recording his first album outside of Minnesota, and his first with a full band. The piano, bass and drums provide Parr an opportunity to stray from his double duty as both percussionist and melodist, but he still finds plenty of space to double down on his usual syncopation. His assembled band mates tune Parr’s rhythmic grooves, providing a natural extension of his solo style, and Nick Peterson’s production highlights individual instrumental voices within the interlocking mash of fiddle, banjo, bass, acoustic, electric, steel-, 6- and 12-string guitars.

Parr’s more of a storyteller than an autobiographer, though he leverages both talents here. His stories include mean breakups, meditations on aging and fatalistic views of changing times. He draws upon long-held beliefs with the revengeful hymn “Empty Out Your Pockets,” and twists personal experiences into the fantastical “On Marrying a Woman With an Uncontrollable Temper.” Parr recounts more than he performs; the difference is subtle, but adds a sense of authenticity to his first-person narratives, whether personal, like the album’s title track, or historical, such as the captivity narrative of “Falcon.” The album closes with a cover of the murder ballad “Delia,” adding a heartfelt link to the interpretive chain of folk music. Parr is an old soul, but as the vitality of his music proves, soul never really gets old. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Charlie Parr’s Home Page

Dion: Recorded Live at the Bitter End, August 1971

Dion_RecordedLiveAtTheBitterEndBrilliant 1971 solo acoustic performance

Scott Fitzgerald is often quoted as saying there are no second acts in American lives, but as he observed for himself, second acts abound; not least of which was his own. But third acts are indeed rare, and particularly in the fad-driven business of music. Dion DiMucci is one of the few who successfully reinvented himself twice, transitioning from 1950s doo wop to swaggering 1960s solo stardom, and when that spotlight dimmed, reinventing himself as a sensitive folk artist with Dick Holler’s “Abraham, Martin and John.” Although this latter hit marked the end of his mainstream chart success, it spurred a period of creativity that fueled this solo show at New York’s famed Bitter End, a renewed focus on songwriting and an award-winning career as a contemporary Christian artist.

With just his guitar in hand, Dion proved himself to be a consummate entertainer, seamlessly assimilating his recent folk material with earlier pop hits and cover songs. It’s a virtuoso performance that shows off his dexterity as an acoustic picker, his versatility as a singer, and his absolute command of the stage as a performer. The set list spans 1950’s blues and rock, Dion’s early ‘60s classics and late ’60s folk songs, and a generous helping of deftly picked covers of material from Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Leonard Cohen, Sonny Boy Williamson, Lightnin’ Hopkins and the Beatles. Dion opens the disc with a sensitive reading of Dylan’s “Mama, You’ve Been On My Mind,” and sings out strong and clear in a riveting take of his original B-side, “Brand New Morning.”

He’s warm and funny as he introduces Chuck Berry’s “Too Much Monkey Business,” slowing the song into a croon that rides on a thumbed bass line, skipping through the verses, updating “Yokohama” to “Vietnam,” and adding some scatting for good measure. The song’s bluesy style was likely born of the material Dion recorded (but didn’t always release) in the mid-60s, exemplified here by covers of “You Better Watch Yourself” and “Don’t Start Me Talking.” He even turns his own 1961 hit “The Wanderer” into a 12-bar blues so compelling that you’ll be hard-pressed to match it to the original. 1962’s “Ruby Baby” combines a straighter reading of the melody with swaggering asides so easily interjected that they could only be the product of a decade’s nightly performances.

Dion’s resurgence as a folk performer includes Dylan’s “One Too Many Mornings,” Leonard Cohen’s “Sisters of Mercy” and a soaring taking of Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird.” His own songwriting is showcased on the singles “Your Own Back Yard,” “Sunniland” and “Sanctuary.” The former is a powerful piece about Dion’s then-recently-kicked heroin addiction, the latter two are notes of recovery and thankful living from the other side. Dion sounds content singing his love song “Sunshine Lady,” the breezy “Willigo,” and the nostalgic “Harmony Sound,” sharing the peace and happiness of his sobriety and new-found spirituality. It’s a powerful place from which to sing, and Dion let it all out for these stunning live performances. The live recording is crisp and clean, and Omnivore’s 12-page booklet includes a contemporary interview with Dion, photos and liner notes by Dean Rudland. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Dion’s Home Page

Elana James: Black Beauty

ElanaJames_BlackBeautyA fiddler’s longing and guilty pleasures

James has made a name writing, singing and playing a unique combination of hot jazz and Western Swing with Austin’s Hot Club of Cowtown. Though known primarily for her virtuosity as a fiddler, her voice, much like fellow instrumental prodigy Alison Krauss, has always held special qualities. Her self-titled 2007 solo album combined the same talents she’d leveraged in Hot Club – fiddle, voice and songwriting – but in a wider context that glimpsed her influences through the selection of cover songs. Eight years later, her second album expands on the same premise, weaving together originals, instrumentals (“Eva’s Dance” and “Waltz of the Animals”), and a selection of covers that spans jazz (“All I Need is You”), folk (“Hobo’s Lullaby”), counterculture classics (“I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” and “Ripple”), ‘70s novelty (“Telephone Man”) and even ‘80s synthpop (“Only You”).

Impressively, James brings this wide range of material under one tent. Her plucked violin opens the album in place of Vince Clark’s synthesizer for Yazoo’s “Only You,” with a double-tracked vocal that’s lighter than Alison Moyet’s original. The song’s mood of longing is a fitting introduction to James’ originals, which include the unbreakable hold of “High Upon the Mountains” and the second-thoughts of “Reunion (Livin’ Your Dream).” The latter might have been the album’s most poignant moment, had James not turned a letter from a U.S. soldier into the eulogy “Hey Beautiful: Last Letter from Iraq.” Setting the words of Staff Sgt. Juan Campos to music, James evinces a longing for home that’s beyond homesickness, and in it’s true-to-life source, beyond the craft of lyric writing. It’s a touching complement to James’ original songs and the revelations she offers through her selection of covers. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Elana James’ Home Page

Jesse Winchester: A Reasonable Amount of Trouble

JesseWinchester_AReasonableAmountOfTroubleAn endearing epitaph from a legend

Much like Warren Zevon’s The Wind, Jesse Winchester’s A Reasonable Amount of Trouble turned out to be his own epitaph. Unlike Zevon’s album, recorded in the shadow of a terminal diagnosis, Winchester recorded this final studio work while in remission, with hope still on the horizon. But even with his cancer at bay, mortality had clearly become a presence that was impossible to ignore. And so Winchester engaged it directly with songs that ponder life, and indirectly with songs – particularly cover songs – that held onto his abiding faith in music.

Reaching back to the Clovers’ “Devil or Angel,” the Del-Vikings’ “Whispering Bells” (complete with yakety sax), and the Cascades’ “Rhythm of the Rain,” Winchester found comfort in songs that had first stoked his love of music. Given his own prowess as a writer, it’s telling that he spent a quarter of the album on songs whose soulful resonance still gripped him fifty years later. His new material has a clear sense of nostalgia, but also a thankfulness for the here and now. He recalibrates his perspective, remembering to always value and enjoy life’s pleasures, and extols the virtues of people and places he’s loved and those that have loved him.

Winchester’s draft-induced emigration to Canada is captured in both the album cover, a parting gift to his mother in 1969, and the song “Ghost.” The latter reaches back to Winchester’s late teens, and alongside “A Little Louisiana” and “Never Forget to Boogie,” tells the story of his musical birthright. The album finally draws itself up to the inevitability of Winchester’s situation with the touching “Every Day I Get the Blues” and the contemplative closer, “Just So Much.” Winchester lived a songwriter’s life to the very end, allowing his questions and worries to wash over him, facing down fate and holding on firmly to sentiment without ever becoming maudlin. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Jesse Winchester’s Home Page

James McMurtry: Complicated Game

JamesMcMurtry_ComplicatedGameA welcome return of McMurtry’s experience and imagination

It’s been seven years since singer-songwriter James McMurtry offered up an album of new material. His last release, 2009’s Live in Europe, recontextualized McMurtry’s societal observations in front of a European audience, and though the songs took on new shades in front of a foreign audience, the CD was still more of a tour memento than a new statement. Which leaves 2008’s Just Us Kids as his last full thesis. At the time, McMurtry’s observation fell upon broad social issues of political disorder, social isolation, economic disruption and ecological destruction. Seven years later, his concerns haven’t abated, but his songs narrow their focus to witness these larger issues at human scale.

The album’s opening track, “Copper Canteen,” finds its aging protagonists struggling to hang on to their small town life. The big box stores on the bypass loom over them, reframing broad questions about mass-scale marketing to personal issues of an individual town’s demise. Their fears find salve in nostalgic thoughts and the hope that they can hold on to retirement, as they remain fatalistic rather than desperate or bitter. Nostalgia threads through many of McMurtry’s new songs, with wanderers looking back to see where they lost the trail and community totems memorialized by those who remember. The portraits of hard-working fishermen, hard-luck ranchers and unemployed veterans are both inspiring and heartbreaking, and blend easily into songs of depression and escape.

Peeking through the darker scenes, there are a few glimmers of sunshine. The everyday details of “How’m I Gonna Find You Now” are rattled off in a monologue whose agitation reveals the narrator’s unspoken feelings, and the portraiture of “Things I’ve Come to Know” stems from the sort of intimacy that is born of time and devotion. On its surface, the album feels less overtly political than Just Us Kids, but the incisiveness of the lyrics turns these individuals’ stories into social commentary. McMurtry labels himself a writer of fiction, but the details he captures in songs like “Carlisle’s Haul” are too visceral to have been read in a book. He may fictionalize, but the people, places and language are as much experience as they are imagination.

Co-produced by CC Adcock (Lafayette Maquise, Lil’ Band O’ Gold) and engineer Mike Napoutiano, the guitar-bass-and-drums are augmented by well-placed touches of banjo and violin, and given added dimension from Hammond B3 (courtesy of Benmont Tench), moog bass (courtesy of Ivan Neville), Uilleann pipes, and various electric guitar sounds. The longer songs give the band a chance to play into the grooves, but the productions never lose sight of the vocals. McMurtry is a singer who tells stories, and a storyteller who sings melodies. At times he sounds like a more-melodic Lou Reed, with a half-spoken, half-sung style whose medium and message are inseparable. Seven years is a long time to wait for a new album, but in addition to McMurtry’s busy road schedule, songs this finely observed spring from experience rather than demand. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

James McMurtry’s Home Page

Anne McCue: Blue Sky Thinkin’

AnneMcCue_BlueSkyThinkinAnne McCue swings

Anne McCue is better known for standing in front of guitars and drums than clarinets and brass. Her previous albums reached back to the gutsy sound of 1970s rock vocalists, as well as contemporaries like Sam Phillips and Lucinda Williams; her latest reaches back several more decades, to the sounds of the 1930s. There’s always been a bluesy edge to her singing, and here those notes consort with the roots of swing and gypsy jazz. McCue dials down the ferocity of her vocals to an era-appropriate slyness, picks terrific figures on her guitar, and perhaps most impressively of all, writes songs that bid to fill some blank pages in the great American songbook.

Drummer Dave Raven nails the era’s blood-pumping excitement with Krupa-styled tom-toms on the opening “Dig Two Graves,” Deanie Richardson’s fiddle provides a superb foil for McCue’s six string swing, and Jim Hoke’s clarinet and horn chart fills in the period detail. The song’s bouncy tempo camouflages lyrics of noirish revenge, with San Francisco fog cloaking fatalistic fortunes. McCue turns to folk-blues with the finger-picked renewal of “Spring Cleaning in the Wintertime” and the old-timey “Cowgirl Blues.” She turns into a charming, coquettish chanteuse for “Long Tall Story,” and gets slinky, ala Peggy Lee, on the double bass and finger-snapping “Save a Life.”

Within the realm of swinging beats, McCue’s songs are quite diverse, ranging from the rockabilly “Little White Cat” to the fiery tango “Uncanny Moon.” There’s a nostalgic jazz core to the album, but it’s embroidered with elements of New Orleans funk, New York sophistication, big band rhythms, sinuous blues, stage flair and lyric craft. Dave Alvin guests as vocalist on the Cab Calloway-styled “Devil in the Middle,” and the album’s lone-cover, Regis McNichols Jr.’s contemporary “Knock on Wood,” fits perfectly with the standards vibe. McCue’s virtuosity is no surprise, but the ease with which she’s absorbed and restated the beating heart of swing music is impressive and thrilling. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Anne McCue’s Home Page

Matthew Szlachetka: Waits for a Storm to Find

MatthewSzlachetka_WaitsForAStormToFindSinger-songwriter’s solo debut recalls the hey-day of ‘70s L.A. canyon music

After seven years fronting Northstar Session, this Los Angeles singer-songwriter has begun a solo career that favorably echoes the ‘70s pop-rock of Jackson Browne and Bob Welch. The opening “Wasting Time” quickly evokes the former’s “Running on Empty” with its loping tempo, buzzing steel and cascading piano, but it’s Szlachetka’s extraordinary voice and the breadth of his songwriting that are the most arresting elements of this album. The productions are modern and crisp, but exude the warmth of mid-70s L.A.’s canyons, and Szlachetka’s originals reach beyond pop and rock to folk, soul, blues and touches of country.

Szlachetka’s years as the lead singer of a band gave him a great sense of how to fit his voice into an arrangement. Together with his co-producers George Johnsen and Joe Napolitano, he’s assembled a band that augments the guitar, bass and drums with Wurlitzer organ, piano, lap and pedal steel, slide guitar, accordion, harmonium and a few horn and string charts. Wisely, the arrangements are never crowded, and Szlachetka is never overshadowed; Fender Rhodes and baritone sax add soul to “Little Things in Life Can Show You Love,” and the organ and horns  of “I Can’t Look at Your Face” frame Szlachetka’s blue mood.

The relationships in these songs are often combative, but surprisingly free of bitterness, whether pleading for a second chance or simply moving on. Szlachetka is fond of boxing metaphors (“waiting for the bell to go off” and “dodging all the punches”), but he’s even more fond of music. He decries a friend who sold out to (or was burned out by) those who “got their fingers in you when you were young,” provides a view from the road with “You’re Home to Me,” and revels in the magic powers of music in “Carry Me Home.”

The latter provides something of a thesis statement for this album, as Szlachetka explicitly acknowledges the musical influences that have implicitly shaped him. Shaped not just his music; shaped his whole life. This will resonate with those for whom music is more than just background sound, those whose live have their own musical soundtracks, and whose personal chronologies and geographies are inextricably tied to songs, records, shows and bands. Szlachetka’s sentiment is full of heart and respect, and builds a fresh set of songs from roots planted in fertile canyon soil. [©2015 Hyperbolium]

Matthew Szlachetka’s Home Page