Leap In The Dark

There are some artists who make an indelible impression on you from the first moment you see and or hear them perform. The first time I heard and saw and heard Antony of Antony and the Johnsons was his performance of "If It Be Your Will" on a DVD recording of a tribute concert for Leonard Cohen. Not knowing what to expect, when he opened his mouth and began singing and that amazing voice issued forth, my heart almost stopped. I've heard other male tenors and contra tenors before, but none of them with the ability to put so much of themselves into their singing. Listening to his recordings with Antony & The Johnsons, and various other recordings he's made accompanying other performers since has only served to convince me of his genius. Yet how well would his material translate when performed by someone else? Would his songs be as captivating without the unique qualities of his voice giving them emotional depth?

Well a new release by the British folk group The Unthanks, named for lead singers and sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank, Diversions Vol. 1: The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons, being released in North America on Rough Trade America February 7 2012 seemed like a great opportunity to see how Antony's music held up in the hands of others. To be honest I had never heard of The Unthanks and only had a vague sort of awareness of the other song writer featured, Robert Wyatt. It turns out Wyatt is the former lead singer of the British 1960s group Soft Machine who, after a nasty fall left him paralysed from the waist down, went onto develop a career as a singer songwriter in Europe and the United Kingdom.

As for The Unthanks they are another in the long line of British folk groups whose roots are firmly embedded into that island nation's musical history. Unlike folk music here in North America with its topical/political associations, in the United Kingdom the genre is far more literally representative of the "folk" of the country's various regions. In the case of the Unthanks that's Northumberland, best known for its wide open moors, bloody past and having once been an industrial heartland. Not having heard any of their music prior to this recording, I don't have any means of comparing this new recording with their other work. However, judging by their history they've not shied away from tackling material most would consider outside folk music's traditional purview. No matter how progressive they are I'm sure there aren't many others in the genre who've covered everything from King Crimson to Tom Waits.

So this foray into covering other's music isn't something new for the band. What is unusual is they had done a series of live concerts dedicated to performing the works of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons. The tracks on this CD are taken from two concerts they gave at the Union Chapel in London England on December 8 and 9 2010. Diversions Vol 1 opens with five tracks taken from the Antony & the Johnsons' release I Am A Bird Now plus one song, "Paddy's Gone", from the single "You Are My Sister". The second half of the concert, and the CD, are nine of Robert Wyatt's songs taken from five of his solo releases. At the actual concerts the audience was given an intermission between the two sets and you might just want to hit pause for a few seconds after the last Antony & the Johnsons' tune to give yourself time to prepare for the change in atmosphere that occurs with the change in material.

What is most impressive about this CD is the remarkable way in which the Unthanks are able to capture the almost ethereal quality of Antony & the Johnsons' music and convey the emotional intensity behind his highly personal material. Antony's songs are akin to paintings in the way they present a variety of self-portraits of the artist. Exploring themes such as sexual identity, "For Today I Am A Boy", "Bird Gerhl" and "You Are My Sister" all deal with that subject with remarkable candour and sweetness, it makes it extremely difficult for someone other than the writer to perform them with the honesty required for them to touch a listener in the same way as the original.

While both Rachel and Becky Unthank have strong singing voices with impressive ranges, they very wisely don't attempt to match Antony's unique style. Unaffected and pure, with a raw sweetness of their own, what their voices might lack when it comes to the ethereal quality that gives Antony's work its emotional integrity, is more than made up for by their obvious honesty. Like great actors who allow themselves to become conduits for a writer's words, the Unthank sisters have done their best to let the lyrics speak for themselves. Where others may have tried too hard, and in the process spoiled the purity of the song's emotions, they have let the material guide their performances instead of forcing their own interpretations upon it.

However no matter how good a job they do with Antony's material, it's the songs by Robert Wyatt that allow them to show the qualities that had one of their recent albums voted onto two of Britain's more reputable newspapers' lists of the previous decades' best recordings. Hints of this quality, musical ability mixed with a certain homespun warmth, had shown up in their chatter in between the songs in the first part of the show with the comments the sisters made to each other and the audience. Wyatt's material, rooted as it is in the same folk traditions from which the sisters spring, is more of a natural fit for them not only musically but culturally. This isn't to say they are lacking in musical sophistication, because the arrangements by the band's producer and keyboard player Adrian McNally aren't simplistic by any means, but it feels like they have far more of a natural affinity for work based on more traditional folk stylings.

Wyatt's songs seemed to liberate the band more and the second half of the CD was far more exuberant, especially a rousing rendition of "Dondestan" that sounded like it included some of the clog dancing the sisters had promised their audience earlier on in the show. Of course not all of the tunes were "dance" numbers. "Free Will And Testament" for example was equally as introspective as anything done in the first half of the show, but regardless of its tempo The Unthanks seemed a little bit more relaxed and open playing this music. In fact the last time I had heard a concert with this unique a mixture of musical professionalism and "down home" atmosphere was watching Kate and Anna McGarrigle perform.

Diversions Vol. 1: The Songs Of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons will not only give those who appreciate the music of the artists being covered a chance to hear evocative and thoughtful interpretations of their work, it offers listeners an indication of The Unthanks versatility. The fact they are equally capable of performing the work of two such different artists with almost equal comfort and ability is astounding. For those like me who had never heard them before, it makes for a remarkable introduction to their music and whets your appetite for more. The fact that it was recorded live in front of an audience makes it even more impressive and left me hoping they'll consider touring on this side of the Atlantic ocean some time in the near future.

(Photo Credit: Pip April)
(Article first published as Music Review: The Unthanks - Diversions Vol 1: The Songs Of Robert Wyatt and Antony & The Johnsons on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:01 PM | Permalink

Here we are in the last week of the year which means it's time for all of us who have been reviewing stuff since last January to start publishing our lists. Completely subjective the only reason for publishing them is to take one last stab at convincing you to give the items listed a listen. So for what it's worth here are the discs released in 2011 that I like the most. This year there were more than ten, so in no particular order, here are my favourite eleven releases from the past twelve months.

Hank Williams III Ghost To A Ghost & Guttertown Greatness must skip a generation, because unlike his father Hank Williams III manages to genuinely capture the spirit of the original Hank's music. While they may have very little in common musically, both the grandfather and the grandson have that raw, rebellious nature to their music that makes it vital and alive. Hank Williams' music was the first steps towards rock and roll, who knows what Hank III's will lead to. Difficult to listen to at times, but never boring, Hank Williams III is a refreshing change of pace from the rhinestone shclock that passes itself off a country music these days.

Azim Ali From Darkness To The Edge Of Day This collection of Middle Eastern lullabies is a chance to hear one of popular music's truly beautiful voices. Unlike those who mistake a screechy falsetto for emotional intensity, Ali effortlessly soars from one end of her extensive vocal range to the other. Whether singing in her native Farsi, Turkish or Arabic she manages to convey the emotional depth of each song through intonation and tone. Not only is her performance wonderful, the collection is an opportunity to sample the diversity of music and poetry of the Middle East.

Bobban & Marko Markovic Orchestra & Fanfare Ciocarlia Balkan Brass Battle Every year the great German label Asphalt Tango, specializing in music from Eastern Europe and especially music of the Roma, puts out at least one recording that will knock your socks off. This year that involved putting the two forces of nature passing as brass bands, The Bobban & Marko Markovic Orchestra and Fanfare Ciocarlia, into a recording studio together and telling them to try and outperform each other. The result is beyond belief as they trade boasts, insults and music. This is brass band music for people who don't like brass bands, as it takes the instruments and the sounds they make to another dimension. The only thing better than this CD would be seeing the two bands live - so if you happen to be in Europe in the next little while and hear about a Balkan Brass Battle playing anywhere near you, check it out. You won't be disappointed.

Erdem Helvacioglu & Ros Bandt Black FalconThe words electronic music always make people thing of banks of computers and synthesizers. So this album will come as something of a surprise with Bandt's use of traditional plucked stringed instruments. However Helvacioglu has been making what he calls acoustic electronic music for a while now. The electronics are used to both digitally modify the sounds and to create base tracks which allow him and others to improvise with their own work. The results are always fascinating and in the case of Black Falcon, hauntingly beautiful. In Helvacioglu's hands electronics are another instrument to be incorporated into the final composition, not just toys to be played with and the results speak for themselves.

Flogging Molly Speed Of Darkness Once in a while a band comes along that reaches out and grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the disc is done. Flogging Molly's mix of traditional Celtic folk, punk rock sensibilities and social political awareness take you on a ride you won't soon forget. Intelligent lyrics which address our worries about the future, but that never give up hope for a better tomorrow, are accompanied by tight and energetic musicianship. These guys are great on disc, I can only imagine what it would be like to see them in concert.

Grayson Capps The Lost Cause Minstrels If you can imagine an old time southern revival meeting where instead of singing prayers the music is about honky tonks, hookers, drunks and bootleggers you'll be part way to picturing the music of Gryason Capps and The Lost Cause Minstrels. With music that's as rich and varied as the history and people he sings about. Capps has created an album as diverse as the South itself. Rock and roll, country and blues sound like they've been stewed over an open fire under a full moon with lyrics woven out of the fabric of real people's lives. Part story teller and part poet, Capps is one of the most spellbinding performers you'll hear in a long time, and this disc is another in a long line of great releases.

Jordi Savall & Various Artists Hisapania & Japan: Dialogues The idea of finding anything in common between Japanese and Spanish music is just a little hard to believe. However, cellist and composer Jordi Savall has made a career out of reaching back in time to bring unusual musical collaborations to life before, and this disc is no exception. Based on choral pieces and other religious music brought to Japan in the sixteenth century by Portuguese missionaries, this recording features traditional musicians from Japan and classical musicians from Spain collaborating to recreate and reinterpret this music. Taking scores that were first written down in the 1600s as their foundation, the results are both beautiful and revealing. It's amazing how common ground between two such apparently diverse cultures doesn't appear to have been very difficult to find. Something we could all learn a lesson from.

Mariachi El Brons Mariachi El Bronx II A punk band doing Mariachi music? The only thing stranger than that would be if they did it completely straight without any concessions to contemporary music. Guess what - that's exactly what the punk band Bronx has done. This is a great album of Mariachi music done with traditional instruments and with great verve and style. The only thing separating them from a Hispanic band is the lyrics are all in English, but aside from that you'd be hard pressed to find anything about this band and this recording that doesn't ring true. Not a novelty act, but pure and wonderful Mariachi music. Enjoy with your favourite tequila.

Marianne Faithfull Horses And High Heels If there's anyone deserving of the title "The Grand Old Dame Of Rock and Roll" it would me Marianne Faithful. With her distinctive growl still firmly in place, she can still sing circles around most of the so called "stars" out there. Sure her range is limited, but she does more with what she has than anyone else could even dream of doing. A great recording by a great artist.

Susan McKeown Singing In The Dark Mental illness is probably one of the few taboo subjects left in modern society. By delving into the history of music and poetry, McKeown not only shines a spotlight on the subject, she underlines its connection with the creative mind. How many artistic geniuses have been suppressed because they've been misunderstood and diagnosed as mentally ill. She doesn't shy away from the dark side of the subject either. The material she's chosen to interpret makes no bones about the fine line between the light of inspiration and the darkness of depression artists walk and she takes great pains not to romanticize the subject. Of course the music is also beautiful and her voice is amazing. As a result this collection will not only stir your soul, it will make you think.

Tinariwen Tassili From the first time I heard them, Tinariwen have been one of my favourite bands. The combination of electric blues guitar and traditional drums is mesmerizing. With this release though they've pushed both deeper back into their traditions and reached out further into modern pop. Recorded with entirely acoustic instruments from a base camp deep in their native Saharan desert, they've also expanded their sound with guest musicians from North America for the first time. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band from New Orleans and Tunde Adebimpe of TV On The Radio supply instrumental and vocal support respectively on a couple of songs without being jarring or incongruous. A perfect example of how a band can stay true to their traditions while preventing their music from stagnating.

Willie Nile The Innocent Ones Willie Nile has been kicking around the music industry so long now that he's taken everything they've had to throw at him and is still standing. As a result he does what he wants to do and doesn't worry about what anybody else has to say about it. It's too bad more people didn't have that confidence as this is as fine a collection of popular music as you'll have heard in a long time. He does everything equally well, with an exuberance that puts most acts to shame. Always a joy to listen to, Nile's latest is both topical and musically interesting. If you want to be reminded what rock and roll music is, check out this disc.

(Article first published as My Favourite Listens For 2011 on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:50 AM | Permalink

It could be very easy to hate someone likeYo -Yo Ma. Not only is he incredibly talented, there seems to be no end to his ability to astound as a musician. At just over fifty-five years of age he has probably performed and or recorded every major piece in the classical repertoire written for cello and in the process set the new standard for the instrument in our generation. Not since Pablo Casals has there been such a single dominant figure playing cello. While there have been other excellent cellists in the past forty years, Ma has managed to eclipse names like Harnoy, Previn and others in a relatively small number of years.

While that alone would make him remarkable, it's his seemingly insatiable interest in the world around him that makes him such a unique figure in the world of classical musicians. He made it obvious from early on that he was cut from a different mould. Like many other musicians he started playing when he was young, four years old, but unlike most he understood there was more to the world than Bach and Mozart. So after graduation from the Julliard School in New York, he completed a Liberal Arts Degree from Harvard University, all by his twenty-first birthday. It would be really easy to despise this guy. He's just too brilliant.

Unfortunately he's just too brilliant - I don't think I've ever seen a picture of him where he doesn't appear to be glowing. It's impossible not to like somebody who takes such obvious joy in not only doing what he does, but finding ways to spread the joy music brings to him to as many people as possible. Every time you turn around it seems like he's doing some new project that explores the different directions music can be taken and pushes his own instrument in directions most people wouldn't even have dreamt of let alone bring to fruition. His latest project on Sony Masterworks, The Goat Rodeo Sessions, is a perfect example. Not only does it show off his skills as a musician, it throws into relief the originality of his ideas.

For this recording he is joined by three other instrumentalists, Chris Thile on mandolin, Edgar Meyer on bass and Stuart Duncan on fiddle. Thile and singer Aoife O'Donovan accompany the quartet with vocals on two of the eleven compositions performed on the disc. Thile is also the odd man out in most people's idea of a string quartet. But that makes sense as the music the four, and occasionally five, of them make is nothing like what you'd hear from most string quartets. In fact I haven't heard anything quite as original from this type of configuration since I heard the Kronos Quartet performing Hendrix's "Purple Haze" on violins, viola and cello.

Each of the tracks on the recording are originals, with ten being composed by Thile, Meyer and Duncan. O'Donovan joins the other three in writing "Here And Heaven", the first of the two songs she contributes vocals to. Normally referring to a song as an original simply means the people performing wrote it themselves rather than playing somebody else's work. However, in this case the music on this disc is truly original. The five musicians involved in the project bring widely divergent backgrounds with them. From Ma, the classically trained cellist who doesn't improvise to Duncan, the Nashville fiddle player who doesn't read very much music, the challenges faced in creating and performing the music you hear on the disc would have been huge.

According to the liner notes the term "Goat Rodeo" is defined as a situation defying order. Yet, no matter how chaotic the creative process might have been, the final result is sublime. The opening track, "Attaboy", a stirring mix of the four instruments defining the new genre they've invented through their search for common ground, gives listener a foretaste of what's to come on the rest of the album. This is not merely four guys mixing bluegrass, country, Irish and classical music together. Instead it's finding the place where they all converge and then leaping off into the unknown from there. Forget any expectations you might have based on any knowledge of the individuals involved, as they won't prepare you for what you're going to hear.

Flashes of bluegrass, jigs, reels, madrigals, waltzes and almost everything else you can think of or recognize weave in and out of the material as the four men create tapestries of music you would not have thought possible. Of course it doesn't hurt that each of them are able to make their instruments sing in ways that most people only dream of being able to accomplish. Just to make things interesting, Thile picks up the banjo and gamba on one track, "Here In Heaven" (which he also contributes vocals to) Duncan grabs the banjo for "Less Is Moi" and Meyer hops over to the piano on "No One But You". However, no matter who is playing what, the end result is the same. Music that captures the imagination and stirs the soul in ways you might not believe possible until you hear it.

I know I'm avoiding specifics about individual tracks on this disc, but it's not like you can say, well the lyrics on this song are cool and you really have to check out the solo on this song. These pieces are each moments of musical magic that transcend the usual definitions we use for categorizing or compartmentalizing music. When something's boundaries have been redefined language is the last to catch up as we scramble to find words that will do justice to something we've never had to talk about before. If I tell you that one song sounds like a mix of bluegrass mandolin, Irish fiddle, jazz bass and a beautiful cello sonata, what kind of image would that invoke? That sounds like four instruments running off in four different directions all at once.

Yet there are songs in which that's exactly what it sounds like, except all four instruments are running in the same direction and are standing together on incredibly solid footing. What does happen is you hear these different styles and instruments in ways you've never heard before and it gives you an even deeper appreciation for them. Personally I've always loved the sound a cello makes. But were moments when hearing it on this disc, in the company of the other instruments, its sound effected me stronger then ever before. Maybe hearing it in unfamiliar territory made it stand out more, but it was the same for each instrument. You couldn't help but notice them and appreciate them far more then you would have normally.

Earlier I had briefly mentioned singer, Aoife O'Donovan, who along with Thile provides vocals on two tracks. Aside from the fact they sound like they've been singing together forever, what struck me is how they found the common ground between the folk music of the British Isles and the bluegrass and country music of North America. You'd be hard pressed to tell it today based on what passes itself off as country music, but it owes its existence to the traditional folk music of Scotland, Ireland and England. Hearing the voices of O'Donovan and Thile together, and the music created to accompany the lyrics they sing, is like listening to history come alive as you hear the two forms meeting and merging. It's one, among many, of transcendent moments you'll experience listening to this recording.

In mythology you often read that before there was life there was chaos. It's only through the imposition of some sort of order its maelstrom of divergent energies assumes a familiar form. The Goat Rodeo Sessions is an example of how chaos inspires the miracle of creation. The four musicians on this recording may not be gods, but they have certainly created something full of life, beauty and splendour. It might not be a new universe, but its definitely a new world of music.
(Article first published as Music Review: Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile - The Goat Rodeo Sessions on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:41 PM | Permalink

Once in a while a pop musician comes around who makes little or no impact on the public but earns the respect and admiration of their peers. In most cases these are individuals in possession of an exceptional talent who have ended up outside the public eye of their own volition. Usually it's because they have no desire to play the game required for commercial success. Either they've been badly burned by the industry and want to have nothing to do with it anymore or they've decided their independence is more valuable to them than success.

In the late 1970s Willie Nile was on the verge of international stardom. The industry was dubbing him the next "big thing". After Springstien he was going to be the next Bob Dylan, the voice of a new generation and all the expectations that went with the designation. It wasn't just hype either as fellow musicians quickly recognized he was something special. Pete Townshead specifically requested Nile as the Who's opening act for their 1980 North American tour while more recently Lucinda Williams has said if there was any justice in the world she'd be opening for Nile not the other way around.

Instead of cashing in on his accolades in the 1980s, Nile chose to walk away to preserve his independence. Going almost a decade without a record contract, but never stopping writing and performing, he put out two releases in the early 1990s and then nothing else again until 2000. It was another six years before he released Streets Of New York, which was then followed by three live recordings in quick succession in 2007, Live In Central Park and 2008, Live at the Turning Point and Live From The Streets Of New York (also on DVD). This was followed by 2009's House Of A Thousand Guitars on his own River House Records label.

It's obvious having his own record label has agreed with Nile as he's now released his third new studio disc in the past five years. The Innocent Ones made its way into stores in North America on November 22 2011 after enjoying a successful release in Europe in 2010. The eleven cuts on the disc are Nile's usual mix of power pop anthems, thoughtful ballads and rock and roll for the sheer fun of it. There aren't many popular artists these days who are capable of doing a credible job of any one of those types of material let alone all three. Yet Nile seems to have no difficulty in switching gears from one mode to the other and performing each with equal ability.

With the exception of "Sideways Beautiful", which he wrote on his own, all the songs on the disc were co-written by Nile and his long time musical cohort Frankie Lee. The two men have a knack for creating songs deceptively simple musically and lyrically. You don't need to be needlessly complicated to write an intelligent song. Far too many people these days seem to feel that their music won't be taken "seriously" unless they clutter it up with convoluted lyrics that a cryptographer would have trouble deciphering or complicated tunes which nobody really has any fun listening to. If you have something to say doesn't it make more sense that people understand what you're talking about and enjoy listening to you say it? Lee and Nile are not only masters at writing intelligent lyrics that speak directly to their listeners, they've not forgotten that rock and roll is supposed to be fun. Who decided that the only way pop music could be taken seriously was by sucking all the life out of it anyway? Thankfully Lee and Nile weren't listening to whoever made that decision.

When was the last time you listened to a CD and found the music so infectious that you caught yourself singing along with the chorus of a song the first time you heard it? How many times has a song's lyrics caught your attention so vividly you were able to pay attention to what they were saying without making any effort? Not only are the tracks "The Innocent Ones", "Song For You" and "Rich And Broken" from this disc capable of doing this, they do so without you feeling like you've been manipulated. Too often songs rely on cleaver "hooks", catchy arrangements or melodies, and cheap sentimentality to capture our attention. That's not the case with any of the songs mentioned above, or the rest of the material on the disc either for that matter.

Aside from the fact they are well written and intelligent, what makes them so compelling is Nile's abilities as a performer. By no stretch of the imagination would you say he has a beautiful voice, but it has the rough hewn honesty so many strive to emulate but which can't be faked. Whether he's excited, happy, sad or just having a good time, as listeners we can always tell because his voice doesn't lie. The compassion in his voice when he sings, "For every heart that's broken in two/I'm speaking your name, I'm lighting a flame/ I'm singing a song for you" during "Song For You" is so genuine that you can't help believing him. He isn't just singing these words, he lives them, and if he could he'd find a way to comfort the lost people of the world he would.

He's not just compassionate either. In "Rich And Broken", he not only sings about the wasted lives of young starlets like Lindsey Lohan and the other party girls with genuine regret, he accepts the fact that our society, our craving for celebrity, has to accept some responsibility for what's happened to them. "She's oh so rich and broken/There's part of her that's yet to be awoken/She's rich and broken...and she's mine"..."With first name recognition/She's a walking fashion fiction getting high/Bye Bye Bye". Not only does he mourn the lost potential all these people represent and how our cult of celebrity has taken away their identities by reducing them to a meaningless name, the three words "and she's mine" are him accepting his share of the blame for being part of a society that thinks celebrity worship is normal.

Willie Nile is that rarest of musicians, a true independent. He's turned his back on record contracts twice because of the compromises involved working with studios and forged his own path for the last two decades. The result is pure unadulterated rock and roll music and lyrics sung from the heart with more genuine emotion in one song than most people can squeeze out of themselves over the course of a career. Like the bards of old, Nile seems to have found a way to tap into the human condition and create songs that are both topical and timeless. He finds universal themes and imbues them with his own unique blend of compassion and intelligence in the hope that he might make a difference. So when he sings "So if you get knocked down you gotta' take a stand/For all the outcast, dead last who need a helping hand" on the song "One Guitar" he gives you hope that maybe if people do raise their voices together they can make a difference. It's at least worth trying anyway don't you think?.
(Photo Credit: Christina Arrigoni)
(Article first published as Music Review: Willie Nile - The Innocent Ones on Blogcritics)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:26 PM | Permalink

Being the children of famous people can have it's advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side is the automatic recognition that comes with sharing a well known name. On the downside there's having to live up to everyone's expectations of what the name signifies. On top of that there's also having to deal with those who will whisper about people only making it because of their relations. So, in the end while having a famous name might get your foot in the door, you're going to end up having to work almost twice as hard as the next person in order to gain the respect you deserve for your efforts.

For a lot of people the temptation might be to run as far away from their family name as possible in order to prove they can make it on their own. However, there shouldn't be any reason for them to have to do that. If you have talent it will show through no matter who you are or who you perform with. When Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie released their first disc as Folk Uke a few years ago they not only proved they could stand on their own two feet as song writers and performers, they also made no secret of their family ties. Let's be real, Willie Nelson's and Arlo Guthrie's daughters aren't going to be able hide from the world who they're related to, so they might as well own up to it. So both dads appeared on the first record in support roles.

While the first CD was fun to listen to the duo relied more on their sense of humour and intelligence than their musical abilities to impress listeners. There were only a couple of moments which hinted at the true nature of their talents. Songs like "Shit Makes the Flowers Grow" and "Motherfucker", seemed like deliberate attempts to distract listeners from the natural sweetness of their voices and how suited they were to an older style of country/folk music. Now, with their second CD, Reincarnation, being released on November 22 2011 on their own Folk Uke label, the duo, as can be seen through their choice of material, have far more confidence in themselves and their abilities as vocalists.

The opening track on the disc, a cover of Harry Nilsson's "He Needs Me", tells the listener right away the direction Guthrie and Nelson have moved in. Nilsson's material requires just the right touch or it could easily slide into sentimental mush. Like a great many of his songs its deceptively simplistic while demanding a great deal from any who attempt to sing it. The temptation would be to go over the top emotionally in an effort to "make something" of the song. However, it's the song's very understatement which makes it so powerful, and Nelson and Guthrie understand that perfectly. Their vocal arrangement is simple enough to allow the song to speak for itself, while the unaffected sweetness of their harmonies captures its emotions without getting in your face.

Of course being who they are they haven't completely abandoned their rather wicked sense of humour. "I Miss My Boyfriend", with guest vocals supplied by Skeeter Jennings, is one of the most biting and non-politically correct songs about abusive boyfriends you're ever going to hear. In a letter from his prison cell an abusive boyfriend confesses to his girlfriend how he's had a wife all along. Not to worry though, for while dragging your wife around by the bra turns out to be against the law, he'll be out in a couple of years. With its sweetly sung chorus of "I miss my boyfriend/ will you hit me/give me the beating of my life/take off your belt now/leave me a welt now/treat me just like I was your wife", some might think the tune doesn't take the subject seriously enough. However, if that's the case, you need to look up the word irony in the dictionary and then listen to it again.

Still, the lasting impression you take away after listening to this disc is that of two wonderful voices raised in song. Whether it's the country type tear jerker "Long Black Limousine" or the title song "Reincarnation" - a love song that truly crosses all boundaries - Guthrie's and Nelson's vocals are a pleasure to listen to. Even on the aforementioned tear jerker they bring an honesty to lyrics that in other people's hands would sound cliched or downright stupid. They both seem to have the innate ability to open their mouths and sing unaffectedly. Whether one of their own creations or covering somebody else's material they have the confidence in themselves to simply serve as the song's interpreters and let it speak for itself.

On top of that their voices seem to have been made to sing with each other. Listen to the way they build their harmonies on "He Needs Me" and the effortless way their voices intertwine. It's not often you have the opportunity to just sit back and enjoy the sound of two voices working together so well. In fact you have the feeling that it wouldn't matter what they sang, and it would sound great. However, the music they've chosen here not only suits their voices perfectly, the songs also show their remarkable emotional and intellectual range as performers.

Both Nelson and Guthrie could easily slide over the edge into being cloying and sweet, and probably make a killing in the adult easy listening market, but thankfully they've taken a different direction and we're the ones reaping the benefits. They might have famous musical parents, but this latest release only confirms that Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie are deserving of recognition in their own right.

(Article first published as Music Review: Folk Uke - Reincarnation on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:45 AM | Permalink

Those of you whose primary experience with recorded music has either been with CDs or downloads will understandably probably not share previous generations' appreciation of album art. Even the name, album art, hearkens back to an era when music was released on long playing (LP) records made of vinyl. Instead of the 5 inch by 5 inch covers that now adorn CDs, designers would have a canvass of approximately eighteen by eighteen inches when creating the art for an LP. There was nothing quite like the experience of walking into a large record store whose walls were adorned with years and years worth of record covers. Sometimes you'd go into a record store merely to flip through the bins of LPs and revel in the diversity of artwork and design.

While a sizeable percentage of covers were made up of pictures of the bands striking some kind of pose or another, even some of them could be interesting, or at the very least informative. I used to be able to get a pretty fair indication of whether I'd be interested in the music on offer from the way in which a band displayed itself. However, it was albums with artwork on their covers that would have a better chance of capturing my attention. First of all they were a refreshing change from pouting rock stars trying to look dangerous and secondly some of it was genuinely fascinating. There were quite a few occasions where I would buy an album without knowing anything about the band simply because I liked the art work so much. What was amazing was how many of those recordings I ended up liking. While there were a few which didn't live up to the promise of their art work, most of the time if the cover art appealed to me so did the music.

Cover art has also been a pretty accurate reflection of the overall state of the music industry, especially when it comes to popular music. From the early to the late 1960s as the music became freer and more expressive the cover art became wilder and more experimental. From Andy Warhol pop art on Velvet Underground covers to Peter Max's art work for the Beatles' Yellow Submarine it was a period where almost anything went. Of course this explosion of freedom of expression wasn't just limited to popular music, it was in all the art forms.

Famed American underground cartoonist and illustrator Robert Crumb said in a recent interview how he had given up being a commercial artist in 1968 and was amazed he could get his crazy comics published in the so called underground press at the time. There might have been little or no money in it at the time, but it was total freedom of expression in his chosen medium. While Crumb is best known for his comic work from that time, it was also when he made his first contribution to the world of record cover art when he was offered the then princely sum of $600.00 to do the cover for Big Brother & The Holding Company's album Cheap Thrills. While he probably could have parlayed that cover into more jobs for record companies, Crumb has never been a particular fan of popular music, except for rock and roll from the mid 1950s to around 1968, and lost interest in it altogether by 1970.

However a new collection of his artwork, The Complete Record Cover Collection, being published by Norton Books in the US on November 7 2011 and Penguin Canada October 25 2011 reveals a side of Crumb that many will not have been familiar with - his passion for recordings made in the early part of the twentieth century. Contrary to the book's title, cover art for records is only one component of Crumb's music related art works as the book is replete with everything from illustrations of musicians from various parts of the world to logos and business cards he's designed for a variety of independent record companies and stores. As you look through the book the first thing you'll notice is not only the wide range of projects he's taken on over the years, but how much more incredibly diversified he is as an artist than is commonly realized.

Crumb is probably best known for the rather flamboyant and exaggerated style of his comics; a style that is highly reminiscent of cartoons of the early part of the twentieth century. Looking at his illustrations, or even many of his comics, you can almost hear that old time cartoon music playing underneath them. You just know the characters would have a bounce in their step as they walk jauntily down the street to the sound of a ragtime band if they are happy and if sad trumpets would roll out long mournful notes echoing their disconsolation as they sob their hearts out. While the cover for the Cheap Thrills album and some of the other art work in the book utilize that style, you'll see how he's able to gradate his style between the over the top cartoon work and realism as requirements and inspiration dictate.

While I've heard any number of people dismiss cartoons or illustrations as something of a lessor cousin to painting when it comes to the visual arts I've never agreed with that assessment. You only have to look at what Crumb is able to communicate with some of the work in this collection to come to appreciate that while what he does may not be framed and on gallery walls, his work has a validity of its own that makes it the equal to much of what is categorized as "serious" art. Even at its most exaggerated and cartoonish his cover art not only captures something of the nature of the artist who is being represented, it also gives you some insights into the time period the music is from.

However for pure artistry nothing beats the portraits of various musicians scattered throughout the book. Some of them, Frank Zappa, Woody Guthrie, Lighting Hopkins, Merle Haggard and George Jones are of famous folk, others are of obscure country and blues players and a third group are of anonymous musicians from various parts of Europe. Yet no matter who they are each of the pictures captures some intangible quality of the person that stimulates your imagination in such a way you find yourself either remembering what details you know of the person's life or trying to imagine something about them - what their life was like and what playing music meant to them. While for some of them he's used old photographs as his source material, Crumb's illustrations imbue what were obviously posed pictures with far more life then the original portrait could possibly have contained.

While the book appears to be laid out without any discernible order, record covers and logos for vintage record stores share pages and musicians from the 1920s stand shoulder to shoulder with others from the early part of the twenty-first century, that actually adds to the fun of scanning through the book. Not only does it mean that each page contains examples of Crumb's diversity as an artist, but it makes looking through the book that much more interesting because you're never quite sure what to expect as you flip from one page to the next.

This is the time of year when publishers are flooding the shelves with coffee table books of various sorts in anticipation of the upcoming present buying season. The shelves of your local bookstore are going to be filled with collections of photographs of everything from the glamorous to the infamous, buildings and cute animals and of course the obligatory photo album of the Royal Family and the new Royal Couple. In a crowd like this The Complete Record Cover Collection by Robert Crumb stands out like a speck of gold in a sea of nickel. If you're going to buy one coffee table book this season make it the one with a spark of life and subversive enough to bring some much needed spice to the season. In an age of conformity and homogenization people like Crumb are needed more than ever. His artistry is as unique today as it was when he first started out and its high time for him to receive the recognition he deserves.

(Article first published as Book Review: The Complete Record Cover Collection by Robert Crumb on Blogcritics)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:03 PM | Permalink

Robert Crumb is probably best known from his career as a comic book artist, specifically from the world of underground comics in the United States in the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s. Characters such as Mr, Natural have assured Crumb's name will endure amongst comic fans for years to come. However, talent like his does not pass unnoticed and his work has graced more than just the pages of comic books. Aside from illustrating Crumb has another passion, early twentieth century popular music. Over the course of his career drawing comics he has also been steadily amassing a portfolio of music related art work. He's designed everything from record covers to business cards and letter head for small companies to promotional material for concerts and record stores.

However he's not limited his passion for music to just illustrations and is not only an avid collector of old 78 RPM records of his preferred music, he has also become an accomplished musician in his own right. Most recently he lent his talents as a mandolin player to the Eden and John's East River String Band recording Be Kind To A Man When He's Down, but he's been playing music since his days as leader of the Cheap Suit Serenaders back in the late 1970s. While some of that music is readily available the same can't be said for his music related illustrations. However that's all about to change with the forthcoming release of The Complete Record Cover Collection from Norton Books in November of 2011.

I had the good fortune to be offered the opportunity to put some questions to Mr. Crumb regarding this new book and the music that inspired it. I forwarded my questions for him by email, and what you're about to read are his answers exactly as he wrote them. A fascinating man with an amazing talent, hopefully the following interview will provide you some insight into how his passion for music developed and how that translated into his artwork. I'd just like to thank Robert Weil at Norton Books for setting the interview up and Robert Crumb for taking the time to answer them. Enjoy.

1) When did you first discover music? What was it about the music you heard that captivated you?

 When did I first discover music?  I first discovered music on April 23rd, 1947.  No, just kidding.  I don’t think people “discover” music, as there is always some kind of music around from the time we are born.  We just become gradually more aware of it as we grow.  In the modern world with its pervasive mass media, the first music most of us become aware of, aside perhaps from nursery songs, is mass-produced popular music.  I remember as a kid in the late 1940s -- early ‘50s hearing the popular music of the time coming from radios.  I recall that it had a mildly depressing affect on me... Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, Vaughn Monroe, Frankie Lane, Patti Page, Thersa Brewer.  There was something unspeakably awful and dreary about this pop music of the time.  In general I have had a loathing for popular music all my life, except for the period of early rock and roll; 1955-1966.  I liked some of that music, and still do.  I really lost interest after about 1970.

The first music that really “captivated” me was film and cartoon sound track music from the early days of the “talkies,” the early 1930s, which I was exposed to from watching television in the 1950s.  Early Hal Roach comedy shorts such as “The Little Rascals” and Laurel and Hardy were shown over and over again, and the background music in these reached deep into me, I’m not sure why.  Much later -- decades later -- I learned that these great bits of background music in the Hal Roach comedies were all composed by an unassuming, behind-the-scenes music business man named Leroy Shield; he is still relatively unknown and forgotten.

Then at age 16 I discovered that this kind of music could be found on old 78 rpm records of the 1920s and ‘30s.  That was a great revelation, and from then on I became an obsessive collector of old records.  At first my main interest was the old dance orchestras and jazz bands that sounded like the music in old movies and Hal Roach comedies, but then I started listening to old blues 78s that I found.  They sounded strange and exotic to me at first, but I grew to love this music  -- blues of the 1920s -- early ‘30s.  Then I discoverd old-time country music.  Again, at first it sounded crude, rough, but this music, too, I grew to love.  From there I went on to find that old Ukrainian and Polish polka bands of this same period -- 1920s - early ‘30s -- were also great, and then I found old Irish records -- wonderful stuff -- Greek records, Mexican, Carribean, on and on. Over here, living in Europe, I found great old French music, Arab/North African music, sub-saharan, black African music, Armenian and Turkish music, even Hindou Indian music, on the old pre WW II 78s.  So now, you can imagine, I have a pretty big collection of these old discs -- 6,500 of them, more or less, an embarrassment of musical riches.

2) Illustration became your first primary means of expression, not music, what held you back from pursuing a career as a musician?

From an early age I had a strong desire to play music but there was no one in my immediate environment to show me anything.  My parents had no interest in music beyond listening to pop radio.  I started on my own at age 12 with a plastic ukulele, and a pamphlet showing how to tune the thing and some chord positions.  Ironically, my mother’s father had been a musician, playing string instruments -- banjo, mandolin, guitar -- but he died when I was only a year old.  None of his children showed any interest in learning to play music.

As with comics and cartoons, I learned to play music just by working at it on my own, with no formal lessons. But I did not possess a “real” instrument til I was in my late 20s.  It was not until then that I finally met others my age who liked and played the same kind of music as me.  I have always enjoyed playing music but never particularly enjoyed performing in public.  though I did play many gigs with various bands, I never got over feeling extremely nervous and self-conscious in front of an audience.  A career in music did not interest me.  I already had a “career” as a cartoonisht/artist, anyway.  Plus, there really is no such thing as a career in the kind of music I like to play.   You gotta have a regular job and play old-time music on the side, for the pleasure of it.

3) Aside from those illustrations directly related to music, album covers, promotional materials etc. what if any influences did the music you love have on your art work?

None that I can perceive. 

4) Your first commission for an album cover was, I believe, for Big Brother and the Holding Company in 1966. How did that come about?

In 1968 I was living in the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco. ZAP Comix had already come out and I was beginning to be well-known in the hippy subculture.  I was approached by someone in the “Big Brother” band to do the album cover.  I was not crazy about their music but I needed the money.  We (my wife Dana and I and our son Jesse) were living on public assistance, or welfare, at the time.  Columbia Records offered $600 for doing the cover.  That was big money to me at the time.  Actually, I was drafted at the last moment, as the band was not happy with the cover produced by the record company.  I had to “pull an all-nighter” to get it done.  I took some amphetamines and cranked it out.  I remember finishing the work as the sun was coming up over the house tops outside my window.  You can do that kind of thing when you’re 25.

5)  Did you start actively seeking out gigs doing album covers after that, or did you think of it as a one off deal at the time? 

I’d given up on being a commercial artist by 1968, and had found to my complete amazement that I could do my own crazy comics and get them published in the hippy so-called “underground” press.  There was little or no money in it, but who cared?  It was TOTAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION in my chosen medium -- print!  It was the hippy era, man, survival was “transcendental.”  We didn’t worry too much about money.  That came later, when my work actually started to MAKE money, then there were lots of money problems, I was buried under money problems by the mid-1970s.  But that’s another story.

The only other album cover work that interested me much was making covers for reissues of the old music from 78s that I loved, and that I usually did in exchange for -- guess what? -- 78s!  I’m still doing this today.

6) The majority of your album covers appear to reflect your taste in music - old time country, traditional jazz and acoustic blues. Were there gigs you turned down because they weren't from one of those genres and if so why? What is it about that type of music that attracts you more than others?

I’ve turned down a few offers to do album covers for rock bands -- not much.  I don’t need the money, I hate the music -- Why do it?

What is it that attracts me to old time music of the 1920s and ‘30s?  I don’t know.  I could go on about how the older music sounds more authentic, less contrived, more home-made, etc.  But I’m not sure that really explains it.  Some kind of neurological fixation  I don’t know.  Who can explain these things?  You tell me, why do you like what you like?

7) What's your process for creating the cover art for an album? For Eden and John's East River String Band's most recent recording, Be Kind To A Man When He's Down, you created an image based around the disc's title featuring the musicians playing in the disc, but what other attributes influence you?

Creative processes are a hard thing to talk about, and there are so many different processes or approaches.  For instance, in the case of Eden and John’s East River String Band, the idea for the cover was suggested by them.  I liked their idea and used it.

8) You were one of the musicians on that album, mandolin. When did you start playing and performing music? Why a mandolin? 

I “graduated” from the ukulele in my 20s to the tenor banjo.  For many years, I just banged out chords on the banjo, then I branched out into the guitar and the mandolin, in my ‘30s.  I’ve also fooled around on piano and accordion.  I tried the fiddle for a while, but gave up on it as it sounds pretty awful until you get good at it, after a lot of practice. Now I think I should have stuck with it.  By now I’d probably be at least serviceable on it, if I’d persisted.  I’d be able to get through, you know, “Home Sweet Home” or “Oh Suzanna,” stuff like that.  That’s about my speed anyway.  I never achieved virtuosity on any instrument, plus, I play string instruments backwards, left-handed, which is a serious handicap, although it didn’t stop Jimi Hendrix.

“Why a mandolin,” you ask.  Why not a mandolin?  Okay, yeah, by now it’s like, an antique instrument, right?  One reason I took up the mandolin is that it’s a very easy instrument to learn, much easier than either the fiddle or the guitar.  I gave up on the fiddle and took up the mandolin.  You can play something resembling music pretty quickly, with only a little practice, on the mandolin  That’s why back in the golden age of string instruments, the 1890s - 1920s, there were mandolin clubs all over the place.  These clubs were full of ordinary people, lots of young people, kids, teenagers, as well as older people.  There were also banjo clubs.  They’d play together in huge ensembles, just for the pleasure.  Electronic media killed all this;  radio, movies, jukeboxes, then television.  Television delivered the coup de grace to widespread, grass-roots, self-made recreations.  They just sat and viewed, they were hypnotized... zombies... They watched anything that was on... It held them spellbound.  That was another thing the hippies sort of rebelled against... for awhile at least... But the media is now more powerful than ever.  We’re hooked... There’s no escape... It’s changed, though... Now it’s, you know, “interactive”...

9) What similarities and differences have you found in your creative process as a musician and as an illustrator?

Music and drawing pictures and writing... totally different things... I would not call myself a “creative” musician.  I don’t compose my own music, I don’t do fancy improvisations on my instrument.  When playing, I’m happy if I can play a tune smoothly, rhythmically, bringing out whatever beauty is in the melody itself... That’s enough for me.  I’m not trying to “kick ass” when I play music, or anything like that.  The drawing is something else again.

10) Among the illustrations included in the new book, R. Crumb The Complete Record Cover Collection are a series of portraits of jazz, blues and country musicians of the past. Some of them are taken from packages of cards you created. Where did the idea for these collectibles come from and were you able to choose who you included in each series? If yes to the latter what criteria was used for selecting who was to be included in each set?

I was inspired by the old baseball bubblegum cards to make those musician cards.  Yes, I chose the performers, the categories, everything.  I was looking for some way to pay tribute and to evangelize for this music that I loved, music that was so buried under the avalanche of later popular music.  Some of those musicians or groups that I drew have never even been commercially reissued since the original 78 was made back in the ‘20s.  Mumford Bean and his Itawambians, for instance.  Are they obscure enough for you?  They made one 78 in 1928, two sides.  Never reissued.  That’s how fanatic I am.  The French accordion players are even more absurdly esoteric.  Those didn’t even sell well in France.  Nobody’d ever heard of them!

11) Of all the music related illustrations you've created are there any in particular that stand out and why?

No, not really.

Once again I'd like to thank Robert Crumb for taking the time to answer my questions for this interview. If you're unfamiliar with his artwork check out his web site. You'll soon see why he's fascinated people for ages with his work. If that whets your appetite for more, or if you're already a fan, then your sure to enjoy the work on display in The Complete Record Cover Collection when it hits the shelves some time in November.
(Article first published as Interview: Illustrator and Musician Robert Crumb, Author of The Complete Record Cover Collection on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:02 AM | Permalink

Sometimes concert settings are the best places to see a band in order to appreciate them and sometimes there not. There are a ton of variables which can come into play and impact the quality of a performance, some beyond the control of the band and others which are their responsibility. The venue, the crowd, equipment problems and even the touring schedule are things beyond most band's control these days, and each of them can have a hand in determining how a concert comes off. However a band can also become complacent from playing the same music over and over again and while they might not make mistakes in their performance, the risk of them merely going through the motions instead of giving their all to a performance is always real. Finally there are those performers who can't be counted on to show up in the right state of mind, so to speak, for a concert, if they even deign to show up at all.

Now a days those who fall into the latter category are far fewer then they once were. With popular music becoming such a big business the industry has become far less tolerant of such behaviour. Performers who can't fulfill their commitments are liable to soon find themselves without recording contracts no matter how talented they might be. Unfortunately, the history of pop music is filled with stories of those whose lives ended before their time because the individuals weren't able to control their excessive behaviour. Thankfully there were also some who were able to stop before they went too far down the path of self destruction and find a way to stop the bleeding before it was too late. One of the most famous of those was Johnny Cash.

While we might never know the depths to which he sunk personally the forthcoming release, Johnny Cash: Bootleg Volume 3 - Live Around The World, on Legacy Recordings October 11 2011, a collection of Cash's live performances from 1956 to 1979, provide a glimpse of how close to the edge he came at certain points in his career. You only has to listen to his behaviour and demeanour on stage in the early to mid 1960s compared to how he was from the late 1960s on to appreciate the difference between the two stages of his life. In fact, one of the most amazing things about this new two disc CD package is how it manages to capture the arc of his career.

From the early days, the Big D Jamboree in Dallas Texas in 1956, when he was still young and caught up in the excitement and thrill of being a musician; the middle period, performances given at the New River Ranch, Rising Sun Maryland in 1962 and at the Newport Folk Festival, Rhode Island in 1964, when he was on the verge of losing control, to when he turned it around and began again, a 1969 concert in Long Binh Vietnam at an NCO club, a command performance at Richard Nixon's White House with the Carter family in 1970 and excerpts from concerts as far afield as Osteraker Prison in Sweden 1972 and as close to home as Exit Inn, Nashville Tennessee 1979.

While that distinctive voice never changes through the years, and he never makes any of those mistakes you would normally associate with substance abuse, there's something awfully uncomfortable, and almost embarrassing, about listening to Cash's performances in the middle period. Whether it's because he sounds like he's trying too hard to be the life of the party by doing his imitation of a record with a skip in it during the concert in Maryland or making bad jokes while playing "Rock Island Line" at the Newport Folk Festival, or some underlying nastiness that comes through on occasion, he comes across like the drunk at the party who everybody spends the evening trying to avoid. They are especially difficult to hear after listening to the opening three tracks taken from the Texas concert in 1956, where he comes across as happy and excited, just glad to be invited to the party.

So it's something of a relief to listen to the recording of the 1969 concert at the NCO club in Vietnam to hear the Johnny Cash we're all more familiar with. For while you won't notice many differences in the quality of his performance or the sound of his voice, what you will notice is he's no longer trying to prove himself the life of the party or acting the fool. Instead of being there for his own ego he's there for the audience and it makes a huge difference. Cash's music has always spoken to people in much the same way Woody Guthrie's did because of his ability to put the things that matter to us to music. He can sing about everything from his belief in his saviour to what it's like to be a dirt farmer and on some level or another we'll all understand what he's talking about.

In those middle years when he was more concerned with showmanship and following a path of self destruction you can hear how the stories, while not lost, were certainly diluted. All you have to do is compare the way he sings the same songs at different points in his life in order to notice the difference. When I first received my copies of this two disc set I was surprised to see how so many of the songs on the first disc were under two minutes in length, including songs I could have sworn were much longer whenever I'd heard them before. The reason is he was rushing through most of them and barely even listening to the words he's singing. The contrast between those performances and the ones in the later years, when he is taking the time the material requires, is so strong you can almost reach out and touch it.

While it's hard to listen to Richard Nixon introduce Cash for the White House performance in 1970, that concert is one of the discs highlights as far as I'm concerned. First of all there's the fact that he's joined by the entire Carter Family for all thirteen tracks, and no matter whether you agree with the Christian message of much of their music or not, you can't help but appreciate their music. It also represents a chance to hear a piece of American music history as you listen to America's first family of country music singing with one of the men who first started merging it with African American blues. Of course the irony of hearing Cash singing "What Is Truth" to "Tricky Dick" is nothing short of priceless.

Needless to say the disc contains nearly all of everyone's favourite Cash tunes including "Big River", "Give My Love To Rose", "Boy Named Sue" and "Walk The Line" to name but a few. However, I was personally more thrilled to see some of his covers of tunes like 'Sunday Morning Coming Down" Kristofferson and "City Of New Orleans" by the late Steve Goodman included. Those are tunes, especially the latter, I've had a hard time tracking down recordings of Cash singing, so to find them as well as a couple of others is a real bonus.

While the quality of some of the recordings isn't great - the two tracks recorded in 1976 at The Carter Fold are scratchy and the ones from the Exit Inn from 1979 sound like everybody, crowd included, are off in the distance - that doesn't depreciate this release's value. Most of the time collections of this sort shy away from casting the artist in a less than perfect light. Here though, whether intentionally or not, the producers have given listeners an incredibly accurate history of Cash's performance career. It's not always the prettiest of pictures, but it's an honest one, and it makes you appreciate the road the man travelled all the more. Cash himself might have winced upon hearing some of those recordings, but I'd like to think he was honest and brave enough to have been okay with them being released. He always wore his heart on his sleeve, was always honest about who he was, and this release carries on that tradition.

(Article first published as Music Review: Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash Bootleg Volume 3 - Live Around The World on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:57 PM | Permalink

It's hard to imagine two countries as different as Spain and Japan having enough in common musically for someone to create pieces combining elements of both cultures. Yet that's exactly what Jordi Savall, cellist, composer and one of Spain's foremost performers of Western early music utilizing period instruments, has done. (Early music defined as being either from the Medieval, Renaissance or Baroque periods - roughly from 500 AD to 1760 AD) In 2006 he released The Route Of The Orient which set out to recreate in music the voyages of Spanish Jesuit missionary St. Francis Xavier (Francisco Javier). Not only did Xavier, who lived from 1506-1553 travel the East with stops in Mozambique, India, Malaysia, Indonesia and China, he was the first European to ever visit Japan.

In his attempt to win converts to Christianity Xavier relied heavily upon music, setting his religion's texts to a country's native melodies in order to make them more accessible. In the original recording Savall gathered together musicians from the various countries the missionary had visited in order to recreate what these pieces could have sounded like. It was during the research and performances surrounding this recording he also met various Japanese musicians with whom he became friends. It was following the catastrophes that struck Japan last year he, along with musicians from Japan and Spain created Hispania & Japan: Dialogues, being released through Harmonium Mundi on the Alia Vox label October 11 2011, focusing on the specific pieces Xavier used in Japan.

Upon his arrival in Japan Xavier, and the Portuguese missionaries accompanying him, walked through the country singing Psalms. The Japanese people who flocked to see these strangers in their midst, were fascinated by their singing. In 1605 a publisher in Nagasaki printed Mauale ad Sacramenta a volume containing nineteen of those pieces. This is significant for not only being the beginning of Western music in Japan, it also provided Savall and his musicians with a template from which they built their recordings. In fact, while they have made use of a couple of other European and Japanese songs, "O Gloriosa Domina" (O Glorious Mistress), a Gregorian chant from that volume, provides the inspiration for more than half the music.

Much as Xavier incorporated regional melodies, the Japanese musicians on this recording have improvised music for the song. However, instead of simply having them create new versions of it, Savall has given them far more room for interpretation. You won't hear somebody singing the psalm in different ways to various arrangements of Japanese instruments. Instead they have created pieces which attempt to capture the essence of the music. The opening piece is a beautiful example of this with Ichiro Seki, playing a type of Japanese bamboo flute known as a shakuhachi, creating a haunting piece of music which makes use of his instrument's ethereal qualities to establish the proper spiritual context for the music to come. Over the course of the first half of the recording Savall intersperses these improvisations with recordings of the song as it would have been performed in Europe during the sixteenth century. Ironically, at least to my ears, it's the Japanese interpretations which seem more capable of transcending the earthly realm and leading one's thoughts heavenwards.

This isn't a slight against the Spanish musicians or the music they play. I think it has more to do with the differences in the natural qualities of the instruments being played and the two cultures' approach to religion. Western religion, and by extension its music, has always felt more human centric than its Eastern counterparts. For while Christianity stresses personal salvation, many Eastern religions focus on spiritual enlightenment. By obeying a set of rules Christians hope to secure their place at God's side while Buddhists strive to become one with the universe. Listening to the Japanese musicians on this recording you can hear the difference between music praising individuals who control one's fate and that which celebrates the wonder of creation. Even here, where they are each working from the same material, the distinction is obvious. It doesn't mean one is better than the other, it's a matter of personal preference which of the two will stir your soul the most, yet there can be no denying there is something far more otherworldly about the Japanese music than the Christian hymns.

Yet, in spite of the differences between the two traditions, musically and religiously, neither the juxtaposition or combining of the two is ever jarring or discordant. Unlike some forced marriages of West and East which ring more false notes than true, this work recognizes and celebrates the distinctive elements of each style instead of trying to meld them together. It's like listening to the same story in two different languages with each telling taking on all the flavours and characteristics of the tongue recounting it while the core elements remain the same. What you gradually realize as you listen to the pieces on this recording is how not only do the two compliment each other, they also complete each other. In fact, listening to the two types of music being played separately and then coming together in pieces towards the end of the CD, you begin to realize how the two together make up a whole by filling in gaps in the other you didn't even know existed before.

Hispania & Japan: Dialogues comes packaged with a book which supplies the details behind how the project came into existence, a breakdown of the musicians involved and the instruments being used and pictures taken during performances of the piece. Enclosing it all is a separate cover which is a reproduction of a piece of Japanese art depicting the landing and travels of St. Xavier in Japan. While the packaging and the music are equally beautiful, the fact that the money raised through its sales will be donated to aiding the relief efforts in Japan makes it even more precious.

The old saying of "Oh East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet" may have been written by Rudjard Kipling in reference to India and the West, but its often been quoted by those wishing to stress the impossibility of us ever finding common ground with anybody East of Europe. However, Jordi Savall and the collection of Japanese and Spanish musicians he's gathered around him prove the lie in that statement over and over again with Hispania & Japan: Dialogues. For instead of looking at cultural differences as some sort of impenetrable barrier they have seen how they actually compliment each other to help form a more complete picture of the world we live in. So not only have they created some beautiful music, they offer a timely reminder that differences aren't something to worry about, they are something to celebrate. Instead of worrying about how others can be more like us, or we like them, isn't it better to see how all of us fit together as pieces in the puzzle making up a portrait of our world?

(Article first published as Music Review: Jordi Savall & Various Artists - Hispania & Japan: Dialogues on Blogcritics)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:47 PM | Permalink

July 14 2012 marks the centenary of the birth of one Woodrow Wilson Guthrie, better known to most people simply as Woody. While September 27 2011 might seem a little early to begin celebrating that event, when you stop and consider the impact this one man from Okemah Oklahoma has had on popular culture, specifically popular music, in North America and the rest of the English speaking world, you'll realize even if we spent every day from now until December 31 2012 looking through the body of his work we'd only barely begin to scratch the surface of its significance.

Just to begin with there are the musicians around the world who he influenced. Everyone from folk music icons like Bob Dylan, mega stars of rock and roll like Bono of U2 and punk rockers like the late Joe Srummer of the Clash all have cited Woody as one of their inspirations. Woody had the unique talent of being able to look at huge impersonal events like the depression and find a way of expressing how it affected people on a personal level. Not just the farmers suffering through the dust bowl either. He could write with equal empathy about miners, textile workers, field hands, bus drivers and soldiers. Not only could he give voice to their stories, he did so in words they understood and a voice that sounded like their own. However he didn't just write about the poor and oppressed, he wrote about everything. He wrote what is perhaps the most stirring song ever written celebrating his own country, "This Land Is Your Land", a celebration of the hope for the potential it represented.

When he died 1967, after spending nearly his last thirteen years of life hospitalized by the Huntington's Disease which killed him, he left behind a massive legacy of unpublished writings, including song lyrics, poems, manuscripts for books, plays and note books. Woody's son Arlo once said that it was always dangerous to have his father as a house guest, because he was constantly writing song lyrics. If he couldn't find any scraps of paper to write stuff down on you could wake up in the morning and find your walls covered as his inspiration wasn't something that was going to be denied. It's only been recently that his family has begun the labour of love of bringing those unpublished works to life. In 1998 British folk/punk singer Billy Bragg joined with the American band Wilco to release Mermaid Avenue a collection of previously unreleased Woody songs, which was followed a couple of years later by Mermaid Avenue Volume 2.

Now to kick off the celebrations of the centenary of Woody's birth 429 Records is releasing Note Of Hope: A Celebration Of Woody Guthrie featuring twelve songs inspired by the writings of Woody Guthrie by a collection of performers spanning five generations of American popular culture. From Woody's contemporaries, Pete Seeger and the late author Studs Terkel; those who have picked up Woody's torch to become voices of protest today, Ani DiFranco, Michael Franti and Jackson Browne to a real surprise Lou Reed. They and the six others involved have either taken previously unrecorded songs by Woody or, like Jackson Browne, were inspired by entries in Woody's journals.

No matter what the source, each of the songs captures one of the myriad elements of Woody's voice. What's particularly fascinating about this collection is how it continues where the Mermaid Avenue collection left off and gives us a chance to appreciate the breadth of subject material that captured his attention. Pete Seeger, accompanied by Tony Trischka, ruminates on the nature of music and why it matters so much to humanity on "There's A Feeling In The Music", while both Ani DiFranco, "Voice", and Studs Terkel, "I Heard A Man Talking", tackle the subject of lyrics. While Terkel's is a straight recounting of a conversation overheard in a bar, both DiFranco's and Seeger's songs show an introspective side of Woody revealing just how much thought went into what appeared to be so spontaneous. As we hear in both songs Guthrie's work was rooted in an artistic philosophy based on honesty and universality that was as every bit as intense as any political ideals his music might have expressed.

Of course you can't ignore the social justice aspect of Woody's music, and "Wild Card In The Hole", performed by Madeleine Pevroux and "Old Folks", sung by Nellie McKay are two fine examples of Guthrie's approach. Less typical of the genre, and an indication of what made him so special is "The Debt I Owe" put to music by Lou Reed. Initially it appears to be about a man wandering through a deserted Coney Island amusement park worrying about the hole he's in financially. However we soon realize those aren't the only debts eating at him. No the ones he's really tortured by are those he owes for how he's treated the people in his life, both in the present and the past. Reed is the perfect performer for this piece as he's able to capture the bleakness of the man's soul with the right level of detachment in order to prevent it from descending into a self-pitying wallow. Its as wonderful a commentary on the compromises and bad choices forced on so many people, usually at the expense of others, by the conditions of modern living as you're liable to hear anywhere by anyone.

The final song of the recording shows us a side of Woody Guthrie the public has only recently begun to discover. We don't associate him with love songs, but as is apparent from Jackson Browne's fifteen minute song, "You Know The Night", (a shorter version was prepared for radio and released on August 15 2011 and can be heard on line at this web page) based on a thirty page entry in Woody's journals talking about the night he met his second wife Marjorie Mazia, it's not because he never gave the subject any thought. The song is an unabashed confession of love combined with a wonderful compiling of reasons for that love coming into existence. All that sparks the desire and need one person feels for another, from sexual attraction to intellectual compatibility, are dealt with as Woody/Jackson run down what it was about her which attracted him. Yet its far more than just a shopping list of reasons for falling in love, as the song itemizes not only what the observer sees in the person across from him, but the feelings each evokes in him. The song is filled with the joy and fears of a man finding himself inexplicably falling in love, and expresses the wonder we all feel when we know we've met the person we believe we're supposed to spend the rest of our life with.

Woody Guthrie should be a national icon in the United States for the way in which he was able to express the hopes and dreams of people who normally don't have a voice in his music. The anti communist witch hunt of the post WW II era followed by the onset of the disease which killed him not only denied him the opportunity of writing and performing, but also ensured his music and name were kept from a great many people. It wasn't until the folk music boom of the 1960s that he was "discovered" by a new generation, and even then it was only as the guy who inspired Bob Dylan, not in recognition for his own work. Sure school kids around the country might have been learning the words to his most famous song, but nobody was telling them who he was or anything about the rest of his music.

Woody wrote about subjects nobody wanted to talk about, the plight of migrant workers, dirt farmers, share croppers and how the greed of a few could hurt so many. Those weren't popular topics in the post war boom days and in the 1960s most people were more concerned with avoiding being drafted and getting stoned then fighting for the rights of poor farmers in Tennessee and Oklahoma. Yet if you stop and listen to his songs, any of his songs, you'll realize they have the unique ability to speak truths without preaching, tell people's stories without sentimentalizing them, and speak to something we all have to one degree or another, our hearts.

In Note Of Hope: A Celebration Of Woody Guthrie we hear twelve American singers, musicians and writers from across the generations offer us their interpretations of material he wrote that has never been heard before. Yet somehow, no matter what format they were presented in or their subject matter, there was something familiar and comforting about each of them. It was like hearing the voice of a loved one you'd thought never to hear again all of a sudden whispering in your ear. From now until the end of 2012 let's hope that everybody has the chance to share in the experience of hearing that voice. Maybe by the end of celebrating Woody Guthrie's centenary, he'll be appreciated for the artist he was and along the way open a few more hearts to the possibilities for justice and joy in the world.

(Article first appeared as Music Review: Various Artists - Note Of Hope: A Celebration Of Woody Guthrie)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:35 PM | Permalink

Do you remember back to the days of your high school English literature classes learning about literary devices like foreshadowing and pathetic fallacy? The latter, imbuing events in nature or inanimate objects with human emotions to help create atmosphere and to intensify mood, was the one teachers always trotted out during the study of any of Shakespeare's plays. Unlike most of the modern writers we would study in high school he understood the power of natural imagery and how it could evoke reactions at a visceral level. Perhaps that was because in the era when he was writing nature still had far more of an impact on the day to day lives of people. Today, unless its a storm of some magnitude, like a hurricane or tornado, we can pretty much carry on blithely ignoring the elements. Oh rain and snow might inconvenience us slightly on occasion, but for most of us they don't dictate our food supply or our overall chances of survival.

While you'll still see the occasional reference to "angry storm clouds" popping up in writing, the use of pathetic fallacy appears to have waned with our continued disassociation with nature. The further we move away from the natural world, the less she becomes part of our frame of reference. For instance, when we refer to a place as being our home land we are referring to the space defined by lines drawn on a map and a name representing a social/political entity not the land itself. Your far more likely to read an urban landscape described using natural terms, the canyons of Manhattan, or man made articles being imbued with human emotions, the angry tooting of a car's horn, than references to natural events in order to create mood. No longer able to identify with nature, we look to what we are familiar with and designate it as a replacement.

This was driven home to me recently while listening to, and reading the translations of their lyrics, the newest release from the Kel Tamashek (more commonly referred to by the name given them by conquering Arabs, Touareg, or rebel) band Tinariwen. Tassili, being released in North America on Anti Records Tuesday August 30 2011, wasn't recorded in a studio in the midst of some urban centre. Instead it was recorded in the Sahara dessert in southern Algeria. The band spent five weeks coming up with material and recording it inside a large tent offering only minimal protection from the elements. For while this is a band who experienced some international success after playing at music festivals all over the world, they have never lost sight of who they are and their reasons for making music.

While the romantic image of band members riding camels with an electric guitar slung over one shoulder and an automatic rifle is appealing, times have changed. True some of the founding band members participated in the uprisings in Niger and Mali while recording music on cassettes that broadcast the message of the rebellion; a rebellion and a message designed to promote and protect the rights of a nomadic people from the policies of repressive governments. With peace treaties now signed supposedly offering the Kel Tamashek guarantees, their situation remains fragile as years of drought and encroachment on traditional territories have wrecked havoc on their world. Perhaps it's because of this for this recording the band has relinquished their grips on electric guitars in favour of acoustic and utilized unamplified percussion in order to forge an even stronger connection to both their environment and their traditions. Now, just as much as during the rebellion if not more, their people need reminders of who they are and why the desert is an important part of their lives. They may no longer be carrying machine guns, but Tinariwen are still actively fighting to ensure the survival of their people. It's not just the subject matter of the songs communicating to the listeners now, it's the manner in which it is being presented. This is very much a case of the media being as much a part of the message as the message itself.

Those who have listened to Tinariwen will know of the almost trance like quality of their music. How it seduces and entices you to let your mind sink into an almost dream like state in an attempt to reproduce some of the sensations created by living in the dessert. One can almost imagine the vistas of sand spreading out in an endless tableau before you as you listen. The lyrics, in Tamashek, and sung/chanted primarily by front man Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, wash over the steady throb of the percussion and scratch of the electric guitars, occasionally interrupted by an outburst from one of the guitars. These burst of sound are like alarms reminding us to not to be hypnotized by the environment as while the sands may appear lifeless and barren they actually team with life and sudden changes.

On Tassili the band's new approach not only allows you to go deeper into the atmosphere they have always created, it conveys far more of the emotional and spiritual bond their people have with the desert. The intimacy of the acoustic instruments and the focus required to play and record on location has strengthened the ties their music has with the environment to the extent its influence is an almost palpable presence. You would think that this type of recording would be the least likely for the band to start introducing performers who come from other places into the mix. In fact one would almost expect the inclusion of North American guest on the album to be jarring interruptions that would take away from what they were seeking to create.

However, that's not the case. I don't tend to read liner notes prior to listening to a CD as I want to create my own impressions of the music without being influenced by what anyone else has to say about a recording. On my first listening, even though the contributions of outsiders included vocals sung in English on the third track, "Tenere Taqhim Tossam", by Tunde Adebimpe of the band TV On The Radio and horns by New Orlean's Dirty Dozen Brass Band on the fourth track, "Ya Messinagh", they barely registered. I was so caught up in what the band had created, and the additions were so carefully worked into the mix, the contributions of the other musicians were merely another part of the whole experience Tinwariwen were creating. Even on listening a second and third time, knowing there were additional musicians involved and listening for them, it didn't make any difference.

It would be easy for a band in Tinwariwen's position, gaining international acclaim and being lionized by pop stars like Robert Plant and Carlos Santana, to drift away from who they are and lose their focus. However, instead of succumbing to any potential temptations to make their music more accessible to wider audiences they have moved in the opposite direction to return even closer to their roots. It's as if they have decided that after introducing us to their world, they are now prepared to take us another step deeper into it. On the other hand one always has to remember the circumstances under which they began playing music in the first place. They may have put down the rifles and the fighting might be over, for now, but the war is far from done.

As the world encroaches further and further into their traditional territories and more and more of the Kel Tamashek are being forced to leave the desert to live in cities, they are being disconnected from the life and traditions which gave them direction as a people. Tinwariwen, and other Kel Tamashek bands and musicians are continuing to do their best to ensure the survival of their people and their culture through their music. They know they can't keep the rest of the world at bay, hence the inclusion of those sympathetic to their music and cause on the album, but with this disc they are telling their audience, both Kel Tamashek and the rest of the world, we can still be who we once were no matter what the rest of the world throws at us. This beautiful and haunting recording is not a plea for help, rather it is a statement from a proud and dignified people proclaiming their right to live as they want to and celebrating who they are and the land they love.

(Band photo by Marie Planeille)

Article first published as Music Review: Tinariwen - Tassili on Blogcritics)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:03 PM | Permalink

It's easy to see how at first glance it would be hard to find any connection between punk rock and Mariachi music. With the former being all black leather, short cropped hair and three chord angry music and the latter being flamboyant costumes, intricate musical arrangements and romantic themes they appear to be world's apart. In fact the gap appears so wide between the two the idea of bridging it seems almost ridiculous. However, it's not without precedent for American popular musicians to either be influenced by Mariachi or to play Mariachi tunes themselves.

First there were all the Latin tinged pop songs of the early 1960s (ever hear of a song called "La Bamba" or a guy named Richie Valens?) and the show bands from the same era with their Bosa Novas, Rumbas, and other assorted Hispanic influenced dance tunes. Listen carefully to the old Phil Spector wall of sound songs from the 1960s and you'll hear castanets, bongos and other Spanish influenced percussion holding the songs together. For those looking for that influence in bands with a harder edge I'd like to point you in the direction of a guy named Carlos Santana or how about a band called Los Lobos? Then there was the Mink DeVille Band of the 1970s who drew heavily upon the sound of the Lower East Side of New York City for songs like "Spanish Stroll". When he went solo, Willy DeVille, the band's lead singer, went so far as to release a Mariachi version of the old Texas blues number made famous by Jimi Hendrix "Hey Joe".

One shouldn't be so surprised at the widespread influence of Spanish music - they were the first European power to establish colonies in the Americas after all. Remember, the lands which people are now so concerned about keeping Mexicans out of were territories stolen from the Spanish through conquest. Texas, New Mexico, California and others were all Spanish until they were invaded and conquered by America. African American blues and gospel and British folk music get so much of the credit for developing rock and roll, we tend to forget the third major influence on popular music in North America. So if any group of American musicians, be they punks or rappers, decide they want to sing Mariachi music, it's really not that much of a stretch. All that matters is how well they do it, and their intentions in performing it.

All that being said, when I first heard about Mariachi El Bronx, punk band The Bronx's excursion into Latin music, I had my doubts about the whole idea. Mariachi music isn't the easiest music to play and requires band members to play instruments most musicians in Canada and the US aren't overly familiar with. While the basic six string guitar has proven a popular import from Spain (no, neither it or the banjo are American as the banjo came over with African slaves and the guitar with soldiers returning from the Spanish American wars at the end of the 19th century) others essential to the Mariachi sound aren't as well known. The huge oversized base guitar known as guitarron, the round backed vihuelas, five stringed guitars, and even folk harps with twenty-eight to forty strings.
However, after listening to their second recording in this incarnation, Mariachi El Bronx II, which will be released on the White Drugs label August 2 2011, I'm not only convinced of the sincerity of the band's effort, but was blown away by their ability to carry it off. Expanding their line up to include Vincent Hidalgo (son of Los Lobos' David Hidalgo) and the Beastie Boys' Alfredo Ortiz means they have sufficient musicians to meet the demands of the music's more complex arrangements and a Latino presence to ensure they keep faith with the music, and keep faith they do. What's so wonderful about this record becomes obvious right from the first song "48 Roses", their complete and utter sincerity when it comes to performing the music.This isn't some camp joke at the expense of the music, these guys are genuine in their attempts to not only play the music but to capture its heart and spirit as well.

Now I don't know enough about the technicalities of Mariachi music to critique the band on how well they are playing all the subtle nuances those more familiar with the genre would be aware of. However what I can tell you is they do a magnificent job of sounding like they know what they're doing musically. From the rhythms of the guitars and guitarron to the melodies played on trumpet and accordion, they have mastered the elements that make the music so instantly recognizable. The only thing the least bit disconcerting is how un-Hispanic the lead vocalist sounds in comparison to how Spanish the music sounds. Yet what's slightly jarring in the beginning ends up being reassuring. The fact that they are singing naturally, without affectation of any kind, is further proof of the band's sincerity.

Whether the song is about a guy who is in trouble because he has four girlfriends, the opening "48 Roses", about hope in the face of hardship, "The Great Provider" (which has the wonderful line "faith isn't magic it's just keeping my foot in the door") or the guy pleading with the girl to give him a chance even if her family don't think he's good enough for her, "Norteno Lights", the music and lyrics work together beautifully. The feel and tempo of the music not only create a thematically appropriate atmosphere for what each song is about, it works with the lyrics to help tell the song's story. Instead of the swelling strings we're used to hearing in order to clue us in that the singer is in the grips of some really strong emotion, here they do everything from providing joyful counterpoint to a moment of happiness or work together with other instruments to create any number of emotional settings.

Unlike most pop songs which will tack on strings almost as an afterthought, Mariachi music is very carefully orchestrated and arranged. It's a sign of just how good a job Mariachi El Bronx have done that each of the tracks on their latest release are beautiful examples of the above. The closest analogy I can come up with is that it's like listening to a chamber music ensemble where one of the instruments is also a vocalist. Perhaps because there's less emphasis on horns and brass instruments than there is in jazz or show bands it reminds me more of classical music than anything else. But I also think its the way everything works together to create a whole in a way that I've only heard in classical music before. All of which means these guys have done a remarkable job in making the jump from playing punk rock to playing Mariachi music.

Mariachi El Bronx II is not just an album that's remarkably good for a group of punks, its a remarkably good album period. The music ranges from being infectious enough to drag you to your feet to start dancing to introspective enough to have you listening to a song's lyrics and nodding in recognition. On the band's web site they talk about how living in California you hear Mariachi music being played all the time which is definitely not the case up here in Canada. Thankfully the boys in Mariachi El Bronx have taken their fascination with the music and let it inspire them to start performing it, giving those of us not lucky enough to live near where Mariachi music is played the opportunity to hear it anyway. This is a great album of great music by a great band - what more could you ask for?

(Article first published as Music Review: Mariachi El Bronx - Mariachi El Bronx II on Blogcritics)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:27 AM | Permalink

Well it hasn't taken Steven Harper's newly elected majority government in Canada very long to embarrass Canada internationally and send a chill through the Canadian artistic community at the same time. The Malian based, internationally renowned Kel Tamashek band Tinariwen has been denied visas to enter Canada in order to perform twice in the past couple of months. First they were turned down for a visa so they could perform as scheduled at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and then when they re-applied in Los Angeles in order to make it to the Vancouver Folk Festival they were turned down again. It's not as if this is the first time the band has travelled to Canada as they've been performing here on a regular basis since 2004.

So why have they all of a sudden been denied entry to Canada? It can't be because of security problems as they have had no problems with gaining admission to the United States for that part of their North American tour. In fact if you check out their touring schedule listed at their web site you'll see they're booked to play almost every major music festival in Europe and around the world this summer, except of course for Canada. When asked for comment as to why they denied the band their visa's this year, Citizenship and Immigration Canada refused to say anything except each application is assessed on its merits. According to the spokesperson quoted in the Globe and Mail on July 15/11, Johanne Nedeau, they consider the profile of the event, invitations from the Canadian hosts and whether letters of support were received.

Okay, so the first event they were turned down for was the Winnipeg Folk Festival which has been on going since 1974. According to figures released by Tourism Winnipeg in 2009 the folk festival creates 244 jobs, generates $25 million in economic activity and its impact on Manitoba's Gross Domestic Product is around $14 million. For those of you who don't know Canada that well, Manitoba, where Winnipeg is located, is not one of the richest provinces in Canada. It doesn't have the industry of Ontario, oil wells of Alberta or the wheat fields of Saskatchewan. It needs any little boost it can get and the Winnipeg Folk Festival with its annual attendance of over 70,000 per annum is not small potatoes.

Artistically the festival has been attracting performers from across North America and around the world since it began. This year's festival was promising to be more of the same with acts like k.d Lang, Blue Rodeo, Lucinda Williams, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings and Little Feat from North America mixing with international performers like Omar Souleyman from North Africa, actor Tim Robbins and his Rogues Gallery Band and Toots and the Maytals from Jamaica. Not only do they hold there annual weekend concert series, the festival also runs year round programming to encourage and develop local talent and introduce young people to international music. I would think that qualifies them as a pretty high profile event both artistically and economically.

The Vancouver festival didn't get started until 1977, but it has more than made up for its late start by now. Being in a larger metropolitan centre hasn't hurt, and being on the West Coast of Canada also allows them access to bands in Asia that other festivals don't have. This year's acts include mainstream artists like Roseanne Cash, Josh Ritter and Gillian Welsh as well as international artists like Cassius Khan, Emmanuel Jal and Tinariwen - oops, not them, they weren't allowed into Canada that's right. The Vancouver festival is one of the major international folk gatherings each year. Bands and performers from around the world make sure to include it as part of their touring schedule. You wouldn't believe how many times I've requested information from publicists about whether their band was going to be performing in Canada only to find out they would only be showing up in Vancouver for the folk festival and nowhere else.

So I think we've established that both the Vancouver and Winnipeg Folk Festivals are significant events in the year's calendar, and we know Tinariwen was invited by each of the festivals to perform. As for the letters of support, upon finding out about the band being denied a visa for Winnipeg, two Canadian Members of Parliament wrote letters supporting their application for entry to perform in Vancouver. Yet somehow or other despite all the requirements for granting of a visa being met, Tinariwen still weren't allowed into Canada. One really has to wonder what was motivating the decision to refuse them entry.

Tinariwen are fast becoming one of the biggest draws on the international music circuit. Support from main stream musicians like Robert Plant and others has given them a much higher profile than most international bands. Preventing the band from playing at these two folk festivals will definitely have an impact on their box offices as each event had scheduled them for a headlining concert - they were to have to been the opening night act in Vancouver. If one looks at the results from the last election, both British Columbia and Manitoba gave a healthy majority of their seats to the Conservative Party - so on the surface there doesn't appear to be any reason for political motivation. However, those most likely to attend and/or organize either one of these festivals are not the types who are liable to vote for the Conservative Party of Canada.

This is the same government who has already cancelled funding for a theatre festival because they did not agree with the content of a play performed in its previous season. Toronto's Summerworks Theatre Festival had its funding cancelled by the Department of Canadian Heritage because they staged a play the government didn't like. Only weeks before the festival is scheduled to begin they have been told its 2011 grant of around $48,000 was being pulled, an amount that represented 20% of the festivals budget. The message is clear, there's no such thing as arms length arts funding in Canada and if the government doesn't like you or your politics you can expect to be screwed over in one way or another.

Vancouver and Winnipeg's folk festival have paid the price for not representing Steven Harper's vision of Canada by having one of their biggest draws refused entry at the border. While cutting funding to artists is still the easiest way to silence them the government is also showing itself willing to find new and inventive ways of punishing those it can't touch through funding cuts. What kind of message is our government sending when it cuts funding to artists who express opinions different from their own and arbitrarily prevents others from crossing our borders? The one I'm hearing is if you don't agree with us we're going to make you suffer. In the long run it will be the people of Canada who suffer the most as we're gradually cut off from freedom of expression. Preventing Tinariwen from gaining admission to Canada is only the tip of the ice berg representing the beginning of what looks to be a big chill artistically in Canada. Harper and his Conservative Party of Canada have five years to do what they want, and it looks as if they're off to a flying start in reshaping the country in their image.

(Article first published as Tinariwen Denied Visas to Enter Canada on Blogcritics)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 12:18 PM | Permalink

Ah, gypsy music! The wild violins, the flamenco style guitar, the hammered strings of the cimbalom, the deep rumble of a double bass and the careening clarinet accompanying a tortured voice singing of love, religion, troubles and other aspects of their marginalized lives. In spite of the fact there are Romany people living across a span of territory stretching from India to Spain in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, most people tend to latch onto this one, very romantic, notion of what their music should sound like. While its true there are bands where the violin is important, the music can not only be radically different depending upon which country those who play it reside in, even within a single country it can change from province to province and town to town.

For not only were the Romany a nomadic people who absorbed the musical influences of those whose territories they passed through, they were also survivors who learned quickly how to adopt the music of the local dominant culture so they could earn their keep as entertainers. While in some cases it has become difficult to tell whether the Romany have adopted local folk traditions or vice versa, in others the non Romany influence is obvious. When the Ottoman Empire of Turkey swept up the Danube River through Eastern Europe, until they were halted at the gates of Vienna from entering the West, they brought with them a sound that was new to European ears. While marching bands, military bands especially, are now commonplace, they were first introduced to Europe by the conquering Turkish armies. Throughout the territories they occupied they brought with them their love of brass bands and those wishing to perform for the new rulers quickly learned to play what would sell.

Not only did the Romany people under the Ottoman Empire pick up brass music, they gradually developed their own distinct styles of performance which reflected both their own musical heritage and the regions of Europe they lived in. Although it's only been recently this style of music has made its way over to North America, it is easily as popular and well known as what we refer to as "traditional" Romany music elsewhere. The Guca Festival of brass bands in Serbia, featuring Romany bands from across Europe, is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year and routinely draws over two hundred bands who compete for the title of champion brass band of Europe. One of the most celebrated contestants was Serbian native son the Boban & Marko Markovic Orchestra, who, after receiving unprecedented high marks from all the judges in all the categories at the 2001 festival, no longer competes but performs as a special guest every year. Needless to say they were shocked when whispers began reaching their ears of a band of part time musicians from a small town in Romania who were gaining international recognition and acclaim and being talked about in the same reverential tones usually reserved for them.

Fanfare Ciocarlia from the tiny village of Zece Prajini, Moldavia in north eastern Romania were one of the last brass bands in the country. With no tradition to draw upon, and almost no contact with the outside world during the communist era, they developed their own unique approach to the music. Barnstorming through Western Europe and even North America, they have wowed audiences everywhere they've been. Somehow, the two bands never crossed paths until a few years ago, although each had been asked about the other by fans. Until now the two bands have never shared a stage, let alone been in the recording studio together, so there has been no way for aficionados of the music to compare the two and perhaps decide which is the better.

All that has changed with the release of Balkan Brass Battle on the German Asphalt Tango Records label and a whirlwind tour of European cities under the same name. The CD features both solo and combined performances from the bands, four tracks of each, as they stage a semi-mock competition for the title of King of the Romany Brass Bands. For those of you, like me, whose only previous experience with brass bands has been limited to marching and military bands or those euphemistically referred to as stage bands (massed brass instruments playing pop tunes a la the James Last Band) the music of these two groups will be nothing like you've heard before. Sure the instruments are the same as those used by the other types of bands, but the music produced is something else all together.

I'm not even going to attempt to pass judgement on which of these two bands deserve the title of King of Brass Bands, but I will say that after listening to both of them I'll never be able to sit through any other type of brass music recital. It's like the difference between listening to a Muzak rendition of Jimi Hendrix and listening to the real thing. Aside from the occasional solo performance from the best jazz players, I've never heard these instruments played with the energy, passion and soul as they are in the hands of both these bands. Of the two the Boban & Marko Markovic Orchestra are probably the one which sounds most like bands you might have heard before. However that's only because trumpets play a larger role in their sound than they do in Fanfare Ciocarlia. Occasionally you'll hear something in their trumpet playing that might strike you as familiar, the high silver sound we've come to identify with Mexican/Spanish trumpet playing for instance. But that's only one moment in one song and you quickly realize they have more ways of coaxing sound out of trumpets than you'd have thought possible.

Any of you who have seen the movie Borat will have already been exposed to Fanfare Ciocarlia as they were the band covering "Born To Be Wild". While the novelty of listening to that played on brass instruments made it fun to listen to, you'll soon realize how much more there is to this band than this tune. First of all, while it might have seemed like they were playing fast and furious on that rendition, judging by what you hear on this disc the reality is they were only playing at about half their potential speed. Unlike other bands who play flat out, the thing you quickly understand about Fanfare Ciocarlia is they aren't rushing. No matter what speed they play at each note is distinct and clearly defined so that we feel and hear even the smallest nuances. Unlike their Serbian counterparts whose main weapon is the trumpet, Fanfare are led into battle by their woodwinds, clarinet primarily, which gives them a much more distinctly Eastern European sound. You can easily believe how at one time Romany musicians joined forces with Jewish Klezmer bands when you hear the almost plaintive sound of the clarinet dart like a small bird through the thunder of the brass rhythm section.

While individually each band is a force to be reckoned with, on the four songs where they combine forces you have to wonder how the studio walls stayed standing under the onslaught. It's not just because of the volume of sound they produce, but because of the intensity of their music. In fact its hard to believe that the CD you're listening to has managed to capture all that was created during the recording sessions. Listen to the sound of the band member's voices in between and before the tracks and the joy and excitement they express just from being involved in the process. You'll quickly become aware of the limitations of even our most sophisticated technology. There's no way in hell it could have captured what all those voices represent during the recording of the music. We are able to hear the music and a good deal of the passion that has gone into its creation, but we can't see the smiles on the musicians faces, the laughter in their hearts or the pride in their souls.

If you are lucky enough to be in Europe at some point over the course of the summer of 2011 and you have the opportunity to witness one of the Balkan Brass Battles that will be occurring in cities throughout the continent, don't pass it up. Judging by what has been captured on this CD it will be a concert experience unlike any you have had before or are likely to have ever again. The rest of us will just have to make do with this recording, and be grateful that it at least exists. For those who have never experienced the uninhibited ferocity of either Fanfare Ciocarlia or the Boban and Marko Markovic Orchestra this disc will be a revelation as to what a brass band is capable of producing. Even those who might be familiar with one or other of the two bands will be amazed at how they each push the other to new heights. After listening to Balkan Brass Battle you'll feel like you've never heard brass band music before as everything else will pale in comparison.

(Article first published as Music Review: Boban and Marko Markovic Orchestra & Fanfare Ciocarlia - Balkan Brass Battle on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:41 PM | Permalink

Is there anything more romantic than the image of a mother holding her babe in her arms and crooning a lullaby? I'm sure to most of us the idea conjures up images of times long since gone by. Lovely scenes of women sitting by a flickering fire with her baby at her feet in its cradle as she gently sings it off to sleep. The idea that a woman nowadays would have the time to sing, or even know, cradle songs is seems impossible. In our highly sophisticated and fast speeding world it's more likely mothers would have a recorder programmed to play soothing music to help baby nod off then have time in her day to sit with the child and sing.

This isn't a criticism of anything, it's just a fact of life. Anyway, lullabies weren't necessarily the sentimental thing we think they were. The image projected above is a highly romanticized version of reality probably. Sure mothers in the past have sung their babies to sleep, but the songs haven't all been about passing maternal love through music or attempts to soothe children to sleep. In some traditions cradle songs were the beginnings of a child's education. It was with them they would begin the process of learning communication as these were the first words they would hear. The songs would also mark the start of their initiation into the culture of their people and their subject matter would cover everything from simple morality to basic awareness.

In our selfish world we see lullabies as a means for a woman to build a one on one connection to her child. While that is all very well and good, it also means the child's first impressions of life are that it is the centre of the universe, and that universe revolves around one figure only. It may seem inconsequential to some of you how or what is sung to a child in a cradle, but if their earliest impressions are the world exists to gratify them and say nothing about what their responsibilities to the world will be, what kind of person do you imagine them growing up to be?

On her newest release, From Night To The Edge Of Day on Six Degrees Records, Azim Ali has set down versions of the cradle songs she sang for her son. In exile from her Iranian homeland she wanted to ensure he was steeped in the culture of her people and their religion. So she sang him a mixture of traditional lullabies and adapted songs that would not only teach him about who he was, but his place in their world. Not being blind to the schisms that have set Muslim against Muslim over the years she chose to sing more than just songs from her Persian heritage, and the songs collected on the disc have been deliberately chosen to reflect the ethnic diversity within Islam.

Unlike in the world at large this means that Kurdish songs rest peacefully next to those from Turkey and Iraq, Sunni and Shiite stand together and the lesser known people of Azerbaijan are just as important as everyone else. While the songs are sung in the languages appropriate to their country or culture of origin, Ali has provided translations of each song in the CD's accompanying booklet. While a quick glance might make it appear that the songs are fairly typical protestations of a mother's lover for a child - the usual make the child the centre of the universe thing - closer attention will see there are phrases scattered throughout them to begin to open a child's eyes to the world around it. "You will not be mine for long" sings the mother in the traditional Iranian song "Mehman" (The Guest), recognizing that a child is only temporarily a parent's possession and he or she should use this time wisely to sleep while they are still sheltered.

Probably the most poignant lyrics of any of the songs on the disc are to be found in the one written especially for Ali's child by Palestinian oud player and singer Naser Musa. "Faith", is a beautiful song of hope for a better world for the child to grow up in. This from the pen of a man who has lived as a refugee for the majority of his life is a small miracle in itself, that it comes from a region where hate is far more common than hope is almost beyond belief. What would the world be like if people everywhere could rise above themselves and their situations to wish for a world where "childhood will be restored to the smiles of youth which were deprived of compassion" for those who are inheriting the earth from us? If parents around the world could find it inside themselves to whisper words of this sort into their child's ears instead of passing along our own prejudices as is our habit wouldn't the chances of peace be greatly improved?

Musically Ali and those accompanying her on this disc have created a lush combination of traditional Arabic music and modern technology. While the club scene has what it calls its trance music, after hearing the arrangements and playing on this disc, you realize it is a pale facsimile of what can be expressed with the genre. While any of the former I've heard seems designed to reduce people to a drone like status, unthinking and unemotional automatons blissed out on their electronic drug noise, this music enlivens the senses instead of numbing them. Like the Dervishes of old who would use dance and music to obtain a higher state of being that would allow them to open themselves up to the glories of the universe, the music created by Ali and co-producer (and husband) Loga Ramin Torkjan is designed to open the listener up not close them down.

Of course Ali's rich and expressive voice is the focal point, but all the instruments are distinguishable within the mix of sounds each song is composed of. Here trance music does not mean simply a drone of sound lulling you into submission, it is instruments working together to form a texture or atmosphere that opens your mind to the emotions and mood of each song. True the intent of a lullaby is to send an infant safely off into sleep, but while some would employ them simply to put a child to sleep, these songs are also shaping the nature of a child's dreams allowing him or her to have their first experience, in one way or another, of the world beyond themselves.

Azam Ali's collection of lullabies gathered from throughout the Islamic world is a reminder that parents the world over dream of a better world for their children. While the songs point out the differences between our cultures in some ways, the love a parent feels for a child isn't unique to any one people. What we do with that love and how we express it dictates how our children see the world and what they bring to it. If more parents were willing to offer the kind of messages found on this CD to their children, messages of love, hope and faith, don't you think they'd have a chance at a better life? Isn't that worth at least making the effort to ensure the messages we pass on to our children aren't the same ones we were given?

(Article first published as Music Review: Azam Ali - From Night to The Edge of Day on Blogcritics)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:44 PM | Permalink

I'm beginning to understand why some performers stop touring. Aside from the wear and tear it takes on them personally and how it takes them away from family and loved ones, there's having to put up with the array of idiots who show up for concerts. Why is it that people think that attending a concert gives them permission to act with complete disregard for either the performer or those in the audience around them? Perhaps more pertinent is the question why a facility would not only be unequipped to enforce their own policies, but create an environment which fosters this sort of behaviour. We are asked to pay upwards to $100.00 per ticket to attend an event only to be forced to put up with drunken assholes carrying on conversations at the top of their lungs, people talking on their cell phones during the concert (and talking loudly enough to make sure they can hear themselves over the music) and having our eyes continually assaulted by the illegal use of camera flash equipment.

Sure concerts are going to be boisterous events; a large group of excited people brought together to listen to something as stimulating as popular music isn't going to be restrained. However, considering that, is it really a good idea to sell alcohol, and allow people to take cans and bottles back to their seats, during these events? Isn't that just adding gasoline to a fire? When I used to attend concerts back in the dark ages of the late 20th century everybody entering the arena was at least patted down to see if they were carrying anything and bags were opened to make sure no one had camera, recording equipment, or bottles. The latter would be confiscated while in the case of the former the person carrying them would be given the option of either leaving them with security personal and collecting them after the concert or turning around and going home.

Last night, Friday April 8 2011, someone who I've been wanting to see since the late 1970s performed in Kingston Ontario. To be honest I never thought Jackson Browne would show up here, but on Wednesday, April 6 2011, I found out he was going to be playing at the local arena, the K-Rock Centre. After a brief flurry of e-mails I was able to not only arrange for tickets to the event but permission to photograph with Jackson Browne's management/public relations team in California, Jensen Communications. I had originally asked about the chances of interviewing Browne, and they were most apologetic saying that no on site interviews were being conducted, but would I be interested in tickets and a photo pass. Even though I had already purchased tickets on my own, I gave them to a friend for a birthday present, I was thrilled. Not only could we attend the concert, my wife, who has among many careers been a professional photographer, would be able to take photos. Sure there were stipulations, no flash, only during the first three songs and only from the designated area, but since we figured no one else was even going to be allowed to take photos, this was great.

While I'm enormously pissed off at the facility for not only their inadequate security and lack of staffing in the arena - there was no one in the section I ending up sitting in to show people where their seats were, even after the concert started, which resulted in people trying to find their seats on their own in the dark - I have to say the individual working with the media not only did a fine job, she went above and beyond what was required. She not only did her best to accommodated the needs of each photographer, she made sure my wife who suffers from vertigo was escorted directly to her seat.

Of course by then I was wondering why they had even bothered with requiring us to sign a permission release for taking photos as the whole damned arena exploded with flash eruptions the second Browne took the stage. Not only that, but the press photographers were all forced to cram themselves into a nook beside the stage and shoot sideways across while standing on wires and cables. They were also the only ones who apparently had to surrender their cameras before they were allowed into see the show, as while all around me people were taking pictures my wife's cameras were sitting at a security station.

What about the concert itself? Well it was Jackson Browne on his own, either sitting at a piano or with a guitar, running through his entire repertoire. It should have been an amazing experience, as the man is one of the most heart-felt and gifted singer writers around, and at times it was. When the audience allowed him to sit and play he immersed himself in the music and transported us along with him. Initially he attempted to keep things loose and friendly, allowing the audience to suggest songs and happily agreeing with the requests. Unfortunately, due to the audience, this process gradually became a distraction. As a result, every time he tried to talk to the audience he was shouted down by requests for the same four songs over and over again.

Thankfully Browne's a wonderful enough performer he was able to rise above the circumstances and deliver moments of pure magic. There aren't many people who can sit alone on stage and command one's attention to the extent he was able to on this night when given the chance. "Fountains Of Sorrow" has always been one of my favourite songs of his, and his performance of it was everything I could have wished for. That's not to say there was anything lacking with any of the material as Browne didn't skimp or hold back ever. There were songs I was disappointed not to hear, but some of his material just wouldn't translated from the full band sound to solo that well. Although I would have preferred to hear "Looking East" and "I'm Alive" over crowd favourites "Rosie" and "The Load Out/Stay" any day of the week.

That being said, he did a remarkable job of taking familiar pieces and transposing them for solo performance. The versions of "Running On Empty", "Taking It Easy", and "The Pretender" he delivered on this night were not only adapted for solo performer, they seemed far more introspective than the studio versions. Slowed down, and without a rock and roll accompaniment propelling them, the first two songs were far more coloured by the patina of memory then ever before, and much more emotionally powerful for it. To be honest I'd never been the biggest fan of either song, as I thought that Browne had been a bit young at the time to write something as retrospective as "Running", and there was always something just a little distasteful about "Taking It Easy", its homage to 1970s California Me Decade hedonism, always rubbed me the wrong way. However, as they were performed on this night, more then thirty years after each were written, there was a certain wistfulness for days gone by - a loss of innocence mourned and life was simpler then - (not better ) that lent them a compelling air neither have had before and far easier to accept and believe as a result.

Quite a number of songs he played over the course of the evening could have easily be called memory songs. Not nostalgia for a better time, but a looking back on the hopes and dreams of a generation. A song I hadn't heard before, and the title escapes me, recounted an encounter he had with a young woman during a concert forty years ago. He introduced it with a rather sheepish laugh about the days of "free love" (which resulted in the disappointing but hardly unexpected reaction from the idiots in the crowd). What could have been an awkward or sentimental song in the hands of another was under Browne's delicate touch a sweetly gentle reminder of what was actually meant by the "free" in free love. It was something individuals could control, not another commodity to be bought and sold on the open market. It was free not in the sense of everybody should take what they want from whomever they wanted, but in it is the one thing that is ours to give as we choose, which makes it all the more precious.

Jackson Browne has shown he has the ability to transcend the usual simplicity associated with the popular music format through the depth of his integrity and his heart centred music. Compassion, humour, intelligence and an acute awareness of the world around him combined have over the years allowed him to write songs that speak truths about subjects as diverse as love, war and the human condition in general without ever falling into the trap of sentimentality, offering simplistic solutions to complex issues or knee-jerk reactions. Seeing him in performance one can't help but be struck by his generosity of spirit and the genuineness of his sincerity..

However that doesn't mean time has not had its effect on him, but like an oak age has merely made him sturdier and increased his substance rather than wearing him down and eroding his message. Proof of this can be found on his most recent release, Love Is Strange, a two disc recording of concerts he gave in Spain with his long time confederate, musician and polyester fashion statement, David Lindley and various friends of theirs. It's only a pity those of us who attended the concert in Kingston Ontario on Friday April 8 2011 were not given the opportunity to appreciate Jackson Browne's abilities to their fullest. It's a shame when such a talented artist's performance is overshadowed by a facility's inability to properly stage an event. Only Browne's extraordinary abilities allowed those in the audience there for his music a chance to enjoy the experience at all as Kingston's K-Rock Centre failed dismally in its responsibilities as host.

(Photo Credits : Jackson Browne in concert Eriana Marcus. Portrait of Jackson Browne Danny Clinch)

(Article first published as Concert Review: Jackson Browne - Kingston, Ontario, April 8, 2011 on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:08 PM | Permalink

Musical styles come in and out of fashion as often, if not more frequently, than clothing styles. However, unlike trends in clothing or other transitory fads, many of the musical genres which become flavours of the month had their small pool of adherents who both played it before it became popular and continue to play it long after its popularity has waned. Ironically it's not even those who have been playing and keeping the genre alive who are usually the ones who enjoy the benefits of their style's fifteen minutes in the spotlight as they aren't usually the types a record company feels comfortable with as star material.

Once the brief flurry of interest in the genre has died down most go back to being played and appreciated by those who had all along, while everybody else has moved on to the next "new" discovery. Sometimes the only record to mark a genre's passing is if a commercially viable form of the music is created which allows for the creation of a new top one hundred chart in its name. Aside from that, for most of the world it's as if the music ceased to exist as miraculously as it appeared. Thankfully, that's not usually the case, it's just that the music is out of the public eye again, but it's still being played and recorded if you know who to look for.

Ever since the movie O Brother Where Art Thou? was released about a decade ago there have been periodic revivals of interest in what's called everything from roots music to Americana. Now most of the songs used in the soundtrack were familiar to people already, but what made them so fresh was they were performed in the style they would have been during the time the movie took place. Instead of the overblown production that's been associated with country music for the last thirty or forty years, the songs were stripped down to their basics and sounded amazing. Somehow or other though, that point got lost, and it's become harder and harder to hear the music played as it was originally.

Thankfully, for those who want to hear this music played as it should be, there remain select groups of musicians scattered around the country dedicated to keeping the legacy of this music alive. One of the finest examples of this are Eden & John's East River String Band. Eden and John are Eden Brower (ukulele, kazoo and vocals) and John Heneghan (guitar and vocals), and on their latest disc, Be Kind To A Man When He's Down, the band is rounded out by Robert Crumb (mandolin), Pat Conte (fiddle) and Dom Flemons (guitar). (For those wondering, Robert Crumb is indeed the illustrator of underground comics from the 1970s. Not only does he play with the band on occasion, he has created all their album artwork).

On this disc the band has focused on traditional songs and adapted and arranged them to suit their needs. One of the first things you'll notice when looking at the album credits is the lack of any mention as to who has written the material. These songs have obtained the status of being so ingrained into the social and artistic fabric of American culture who wrote them no longer matters; they are a part of the country's cultural heritage in the same way songs like "John Barley Corn" are part of the heritage of the British Isles. In fact two of the titles on the disc are most likely ones that a high percentage of Americans will hear at least once in their lives and whose names will be recognized by nearly as many: "Oh Suzanna" and "Swanee River".

Both songs were written by the first great composer of American popular music, Stephen Foster, in 1848 and 1851 respectively. A product of their times, their original lyrics aren't what anybody would call racially sensitive as they were written in faux slave dialect, and in the case of "Swanee", have the narrator yearning for life on the plantation and by implication life as a slave. Both songs gained their initial popularity through being performed in "Minstral Shows", white performers appearing in black face singing and playing Dixieland jazz style music. While this may sound offensive to us, the songs were a reflection of contemporary attitudes and in no way diminishes their quality musically.

While these two songs are well known, others of the fourteen included on the disc have a slightly more obscure provenance. Take "On The Banks Of The Kaney", it was originally recorded in 1929 by Big Chief Henry's Indian String Band, a Choctaw Indian string band from Oklahoma. From what little I was able to find out about this group they wrote and recorded songs for Choctaw audiences and were discovered playing at the Choctaw Indian Fair in Mississippi. Just like the fact there were African American string, or country/bluegrass type bands, back in the 1920s and 1930s has almost been forgotten, probably very few people are aware there were Native American bands as well. That alone would make contemporary recordings of this song and the others on the disc worthwhile, but these are more than just dusty pieces of history of interest only to musicologists.

For, as performed by Eden and John and friends they sound as fresh and alive as if they were written today. The combination of their enthusiasm, energy, skill and the sense that all of them are having the time of their lives playing the songs on the disc make it far more enjoyable to listen to than the majority of contemporary music. There's something irrepressible about Eden's vocals which makes her sound like she's tapped into the secret of knowing how to have the best time in the world. She and the rest of the band might take their playing seriously and are as good a group of instrumentalists as you'll find anywhere, but they don't take themselves seriously and always remember to have fun with what they're doing. Maybe it's the fact that a kazoo features predominately in the mix on quite a number of tunes (I've always had a soft sport for a well played kazoo), but listening to this disc was the most fun I've had listening to music in a long while.

With all the the talk of Americana and roots music, the irony is how much of the real roots of American popular music is still being ignored today. Or even worse, far too many people forget that it was meant to be listened to and enjoyed. They forget that it was performed at county fairs under tents so people could try and forget about the troubles of the world for a little while. Sure its important culturally as it integrated African and European music in ways that had never happened before, but it was also the dance and good time music of the day.

The music on Be Kind To A Man When He's Down comes from another age - spanning the years from just before the American Civil War to just before WWII - but it can bring a smile to your face and a spring to your step far more readily than most of what passes for popular music today. In these days of war, famine, pollution and other horrors it's hard to remember there was a less cynical time when music could make you feel glad to alive. This album is not only a collection of timeless treasures, it's a reminder that popular music can be fun. Be Kind To Be A Man When He's Down is available in both CD and 180 gram yellow vinyl. If you have a turntable buy the LP as that way you can not only enjoy a full sized piece of Robert Crumb's art, but I have a feeling this is the type of music that will be best appreciated listened to on a turntable.

(Article first published as Music Review: Eden & John's East River String Band - Be Kind To A Man When He's Down on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:21 AM | Permalink

A couple of my pet peeves are things I call cultural colonialism and cultural appropriation. In some ways they're close to being the same thing, in that it usually involves a person of one culture stealing from another for a variety of reasons. Quite a number of times it means a member of the dominant Western culture looking upon something from across the world, seeing it as exotic and then picking out the bits and pieces of it that amuse them without ever bothering to learn about the context they came from.

In some ways it's a lot like putting on a police officer's uniform because you like the way it looks and then walking the streets. You may look like a cop on the surface, but the reality is you nothing of what doing the job involves. Most of those who are cultural appropriators are guilty of something similar. They dress themselves up in the trappings of a culture without knowing what it really means. Whether it is the pop star who picks up the sitar because it sounds cool or the new age musician who tries to make themselves sound more "spiritual" by using Native American flutes in their compositions, it amounts to little more than thievery.

However, music is supposed to be a universal language is it not? We're always hearing stories of musicians from different backgrounds getting together and being able to find common ground through the instruments they play even if they can't speak each others language. There are also classical musicians who spend years studying and training in order to be able to play whatever music they chose, including pieces written by composers from other cultures and times. Their study have not only given them the technical ability to play a multitude of music and styles, but the means to understand the context they were written in. If a musician is willing to immerse themselves in a culture, or the music, then he or she will be able to play it, no matter what their own background.

Which goes a long way in explaining how a band from New Mexico in the United States can play the music of the Balkans and Eastern Europe and sound like they were born to it. On their most recent release, Cervantine, on their own L&M Duplication label and distributed by Midheaven, A Hawk And A Hacksaw perform eight glorious songs which not only sound like they're being played by people from their originating regions, but people steeped in its musical traditions.

Starting in 2004 core members and founders, Jeremy Barnes (accordion and percussion) and Heather Trost (violin/viola) made a pilgrimage through Eastern Europe learning and experiencing the music of the Roma, Hungary and the Eastern European and Asian influences that have permeated both. For two years they were based out of Budapest, Hungary and toured Europe with some of that country's finest musicians. They have played on the streets of Amsterdam with Roma, a road outside of Jaffa, in Israel, for Palestinians and Hassidic Jews and in a small village in Romania, in a house with no running water, recorded with the famed Fanfare Ciocarlia (The band who play "Born To Be Wild" in Borat) However, in spite of the obvious influences these adventures have had on the band, they say they have no interest in simply recreating the music they've heard or in being some kind of ethnographic sampler.

All it takes is just listening to the opening track on the CD to hear they how well they live up their word. Sure "No Rest For The Wicked", a knock down, drag out, wicked, almost eight minute long instrumental piece, starts off sounding like your fairly typical Roma/Eastern European/Klezmar mix - which when you think about it isn't so typical to begin with - but they throw in this sudden break where the music slows to almost a stop, and when it picks up again the song has morphed into something different. In some ways it's almost as if they've taken the title of the song and translated it into musical action; the music might slow down, the beat might change, hell even the tune might not always sound the same, but there can be no rest for the wicked.

They've got a crazy sense of humour these folk who call themselves Hawk and a Hacksaw. But they also play music that shakes the earth. It's got a pull you can't help but respond to; something that reaches right inside and appeals to some part you might not even know exists and sets your blood to stirring. They've tapped into something that would be downright scary if it weren't so exhilarating, and then translated it into music. Perhaps it's because they are able to draw upon musical traditions from cultures normally in opposition to each other, like Turkey and Greece in "Mana Thelo Enan Andra", and create something beautiful out of a centuries long hatred, that we respond so readily to what they have to offer. On the other hand it could be just because they are such bloody wonderful musicians and they could play anything and make it a miracle of sound.

While the majority of the emphasis is placed on the instruments, when their is need for a vocalist Stephanie Hladowski steps centre stage and is a match for anything her band mates throw at her. Her voice is filled with the raw passion of a violin scrapped raw by its bow but her control is such that she can turn it from a caress into a challenge in the blink of an eye. There is none of the awful refinement to her that you'll find in pop singers and their meaningless songs of adolescent romance, instead you'll hear the grief and joy of lives lived to their fullest echoing through her singing.

The instruments you'll hear played on this disc are as diverse as the countries represented by the music. Chris Hladowki's Greek bouzouki, Issa Mallug's Turkish dumbek and riq, Samuel Johnson's trumpet and flugelhorn, Mark Weaver's tuba and euphonium and Charles Papaya's bass drum and cymbal swirl, keen, pound, stomp, and soar in a kind of frenzy that occasionally borders on the chaotic, but which never actually loses control. Listening to them play is like watching the funnel cloud of a tornado and being amazed a thing of such uncontrolled power can hold its shape.

Listening to Cervantine you'll hear the sound of the Balkans, mixed with Klezmer, rhythms from Turkey and tinges of the Latino sound of the band's native New Mexico. While on the surface that sounds like it has the potential to be a discordant mess, Hawk and a Hacksaw somehow weave it all together to make incredible music. Anyone who ever doubted that the music of such diverse cultures could be brought together in harmony only needs listen to this band at work to become a believer. This is truly world music.

(Article first published as Music Review: A Hawk And A Hacksaw - Cervantine on Blogcritics)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:30 AM | Permalink

One of the things I dislike most about the music industry is the way the compartmentalization of popular music limits people's view of each genre to the industry's definitions. As a result most people's perceptions of each musical genre are limited to what they hear on the radio, meaning the majority only hear the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what they each have to offer. This has been going on for ages of course, which along with bad drugs and greed explains why there are still people to this day who are convinced Duran Duran are representative of music in the 1980s and have never heard of the Talking Heads.

As far as I'm concerned the genre which has been most misrepresented over the years though has been country, or, God help us, country and western, music. Each new generation of radio listeners, and now video watchers, has been presented with the lowest common denominator as representative of the entire genre. All of which means is decade after decade we've been swamped with sentimental songs about broken hearts, cheating wives/husbands and undying devotion. Kenny Rodgers, Shania Twain and a cast of assorted other slick and polished figures may have made the industry millions of dollars with their cherished cross over appeal, but they also created such a horrible misconception of the genre large numbers of us would never have discovered its real potential except by accident.

What they call country music these days has its roots in the Anglo/Scot/Irish folk songs brought over by those who settled in the Tennessee mountains. They adopted the banjo from the African Americans, who had brought with them from Africa, and the six stringed guitar soldiers returning from the Spanish American wars brought home with them from Cuba. Lyrics of old songs were changed to suit their new lives and for a largely illiterate population it was easier to learn song lyrics than read the hymns in church each week resulting in the creation of simple devotional songs based on familiar Bible stories. With the depression in the 1920s and people being forced on the road the music spread across the country. It was only natural people like Woody Guthrie used the same tunes they had heard at home as the basis for the material they wrote out in the world, whether protesting about working conditions or describing life trying to survive the dust bowl.

Unfortunately, based on what I had heard on the radio, I knew nothing about that type of country music until much later in life. Which is one of the reason I was so late in coming to Johnny Cash. It wasn't that I had never heard of him, it was, if I paid any attention at all to him it was to simply lump him in with what I was hearing on the radio and not bother checking out his music. Of course the first time I heard him that changed. How can you hear his voice and not be affected by it? Even when he's singing some of his more sentimental stuff, the type of song in another person's hands that would have you reaching for a bucket, there's a quality of honesty to his voice which makes it impossible not to believe him or ever doubt his sincerity. For those of you who may never have experienced, or maybe somehow forgotten, what Cash's voice can do to you, the latest release from Legacy Recordings of previously unreleased or unheard material from the earlier part of his career, Bootleg Volume ll - From Memphis To Hollywood, available to purchase on February 22 2011, provides ample examples of what made him so damn special.

The two disc set, with extensive liner notes giving the history of each piece, is divided up according to the year the material was recorded or performed. Disc one, the 1950s, is divided up into four parts. The first part is an entire radio broadcast, including Cash reading commercials for the Home Equipment Company, that was originally broadcast on August 4 1955. This show was the first recording ever of Cash and his band, The Tennessee Two, Luther Perkins on electric guitar and Marshall Grant on upright bass, performing live and his nervousness shows during his in between song patter. However it's the songs that really matter, and what struck me the most is if I hadn't known these were recorded in the fifties, there was no way I could have told you by listening to him when the broadcast had taken place. Even at this early stage in his career he sounds like the voice of ages; a voice that carries the scars of having seen the best and the worst of what humans are capable of doing to each other.

The second part was for me the most intriguing, and best part of this disc, as the fourteen tracks, feature Cash accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. These are the earliest versions of some of his most famous material: "Walk The Line", "Get Rhythm", "Belshazzar" and "Leave That Junk Alone" to name just a few. Recorded between 1954 and 1957 when he was still with Sun Records they are not only an indication of the multiple directions his career would take thematically, but musically as well. Even this early acoustic version of "Get Rhythm" can't hide the fact it had all the elements required for a classic rock and roll song and Cash does an amazing job of making it move with just his voice and guitar. A couple of songs later he's moved over into gospel, and while "He'll Be A Friend" is a typical country gospel peon in praise of Jesus, "Belshazzar" is an Old Testament rocker more along the lines of what you'd expect to hear in an African American church.

What really shines through on all the demos, and on all the tracks on this early disc for that matter, is his voice. All the expressiveness he would become famous for is there, as is the rough hewn quality, if a Tennessee oak could sing it would sound like Cash, making his a voice an audience could identify with far easier than any polished pop star. Long before Dylan draped himself with the "voice of the people" mantle a la Woody Guthrie, Cash was not only singing in a voice that sounded like your neighbour's, he was singing about things you were familiar with. In rural communities across the country his was the one voice they probably heard from the outside world they could recognize as being one of their own. Yet, even today, when some of the material is dated or might sound a little hokey, these songs appeal because you never once doubt his sincerity. He's not trying to sell you a line or convince you to be who he is, he's just telling you what he believes with an integrity you can't help but respect.

Disc two is primarily B sides of singles and other material that never made it onto albums when Cash was signed to Columbia Records in the 1960s. Some of them have made it onto records in other versions - his recording of Dylan's "One Too Many Mornings" for instance was not only on Dylan's Nashville Skyline but recorded as a duet with June Carter Cash and again with Waylon Jennings. (If you've never seen it you should really check out this video of Cash and Dylan recording "One Too Many Mornings") The main thing you'll notice about the material he's doing in the 1960s is how Cash was starting to expand his base. It wasn't just Dylan's music he was performing, he was also reaching way into the past to record American folk music by Steven Foster, "There's A Mother Always Waiting" plus contemporary stuff like "The Frozen Logger" by James Stevens and "Girl From Saskatoon" which he co-wrote with Johnny Horton. (It has to be the earliest popular music references to the town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada - of course the Guess Who raised much confusion among their American fans by naming a song "Running Back To Saskatoon" - but that was years later).

There's also an oddity on this second disc, "Shifting, Whispering Sands", featuring a spoken word performance by Lorne Greene. This song was recorded in 1962 when Pa Cartwright was riding high in the saddle every Sunday night on Bonanza. This is definitely the lowest point of the disc as far as I'm concerned, but thankfully it's not too long and easily forgotten what with twenty-four other songs on this disc. There were also some pleasant surprises as well. I hadn't known Cash had written one of my favourite sarcastic songs, "Foolish Questions", and his dry delivery is absolutely letter perfect as he pokes fun at people's habit of asking stupid questions.

Even on such stinkers as the Lorne Greene piece, Cash's presence shines through. He had a voice which probably would have allowed him to sing the phone book and still be able to keep an audience riveted. Bootleg Volume ll - From Memphis To Hollywood gathers together close to sixty demos, unreleased tracks and other material from the 1950s and 1960s which proves that right from his earliest recordings Cash's voice was unique in music in the way it allowed him to connect to his audience. There have been few artists before, and since, Cash who have been as genuine in their delivery of their material and these two discs testify to his greatness. If you've never really appreciated his voice before, this collection can't help but impress upon you just what a gift it was and how the world is a lot less interesting now that its gone.

(Article first published as Music Review: Johnny Cash - Bootleg Volume ll - From Memphis To Hollywood on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:29 AM | Permalink

Love songs on Valentine's Day are usually about as appealing to me as a prostrate exam. In fact, now that I think of it they have a lot in common. Both involve someone you don't know well being a royal pain in the ass and inflicting themselves upon you for no other reason than they can. At least the person doing the prostrate exam has something passing for an excuse for trying to make tears well up in your eyes which is more than the person singing about either their broken heart or their truest love can say.

It's obvious I'm a cynical bastard who can't be moved by anyone or anything. Well you're only half right. I am a cynical bastard and have had my fill of watching people have their emotions manipulated by politicians, singers, advertising executives and all the other whores out there trying to get you to open your wallet by squeezing your heart with sentimentality and false feelings. None of which means I can't be moved by genuine emotions, including songs about the weirdness that passes for relationships between human beings. You see my problem isn't so much love songs, it's the fact they usually reduce something as complex as the interaction between two human beings to a pithy phrases or cute hook.

All of which means that when I come across someone who not only makes the effort to delve a little deeper than normal into those murky depths, but does so with intelligence and flashes of quirky humour, I want to make sure as many people know about them as possible. So the other night when my wife came home and said she had seen this really amazing young woman performing I was intrigued enough to listen to the two CDs she brought home with her. Most of you won't have heard of Andrea Gauster yet, or probably know any of the material from either her six song debut CD Reverie or her follow up full length release from August 2010, We're Not Lost, both on the Toronto Canada based independent Broken Window Records label, but you should run, not walk, to either buy or download either one you can get your hands on as soon as possible.

The first thing you'll notice about Gauster is the fullness of her voice. In a world filled with pop tarts with squeaking out three minutes of drivel about either their cheating boy friends or their undying devotion to the same, the shock of hearing a voice with range and expression was so great I didn't even start listening to her lyrics until playing her CDs a second time. What got to me was the complete absence of artifice; there was no climbing up into the nether reaches of a scale in an attempt to show the depth of her emotion, just a real woman's voice singing. The hardest thing for any performer to do is to simply be, to open up and let their voice come out the way it wants dependant on how what you're doing or saying affects it.

There are very few performers out there who are either allowed to or let themselves be that exposed and vulnerable when they sing. By that I mean honesty, not wearing a bleeding heart on your sleeve to show the world what a sensitive guy or gal you are. As I was listening to Gauster singing I was puzzled as to why she was one moment reminding me of the wonderful Canadian folk singers Kate and Anna McGarrigle and then the next moment making me think of the haunting country/gospel voice of Iris DeMent. While the four women sound almost nothing alike what they share is that wonderful ability to centre themselves in their material and let it guide their performance.

As I implied earlier the majority of the songs on her recordings are about what goes on between two people, which for a lack of a better term are usually called love songs. However, there's nothing usual or typical about any of Gauster's material. I mean how many love songs do you know with titles like "Tandoori Chicken"? Yet listen to the lyrics and its full of the mundane shit in life that passes between two people which somehow add up to a relationship and love. "Your underwear on my floor/your blond hair in my Tandoori Chicken/I cooked all day/come sit down this should not go to waste". Now, that's not what you'd call romance, but the song is all about familiarity breeding love. How "when your flaws are the reason I love you just the way you are", is more a proclamation of love than a dozen roses or avowals of eternal devotion will ever be.

Of course she also deals with the some of the nastier aspects of the games we play when it comes to the couple thing in a kind of stream of conscience babel about another woman called "Secrets". "And am I so wrong to wonder why/you can live your life lost in your mind/a place so empty, you have betrayed/every thought but how to get laid". But then she admits to something of her own feelings of inadequacy by saying she doesn't know how to compete with a woman like her "and though I try on most days/to put on a face I can display/I sometimes wish I could pay the world to look away". Yet she still manages to find a defiant note to end on, for even though she likes pleasure just as much as the next person she's not about to make it her life's work to find it. "I choose to see the world I'm living in /that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying it/oh I'm enjoying it/ya I quite like it/so eat shit".

What makes this song work so well is how much of what's really behind the words Gauster lets through while singing. There's a real sense of how difficult it is for her to not envy the other, obviously more physically attractive woman, and how much she's warring with her desire to put her down in order to feel better about herself. As a man there have been times in my life where I've run through the same gamut, putting down the guys who seemed to be able to get laid whenever they wanted as shallow and vacant while part of me was eating my heart out with envy. There comes a point though when you grow out of that and realize you both can't, and don't want to, play that game and you don't care what anybody has to say about decision not to.

What's really quite amazing about both the EP ReverieWe're Not Lost is Andrea Gauster's ability to pull you into her material when basically she's a solo act accompanied only by her guitar. Sure other instruments make their appearances on various tracks, but the production team have done a great job of keeping her front and centre at all times so our focus is squarely on her. With a less interesting performer, or one lacking what's necessary to hold a listener's attention, that can be a recipe for disaster. However that's not the case with either of these discs as the combination of Gauster's vocal abilities and song writing talents are more than enough to keep a listener's attention.

Andrea Gauster is a rarity (aside from her musical career she's also a medical student at Queen's University in Kingston Ontario) as she's not only able to write songs about relationships based in reality, she's able to sing them in a way that rings true. By the time you read this Valentine's Day will most likely have been and gone but that shouldn't stop you from running out and buying one or the other, if not both, of her releases and listening to some of the best songs about love and the whole damn thing you'll have heard in a good many years.

(Photo of Andrea Gauster taken by Bob MacKenzie February 10 2011 at The Mug & Truffle, Kingston Ontario)

(Article first published as Music Review: Andrea Gauster - Reverie & "We're Not Lost on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:15 AM | Permalink

I can still remember the first time I heard a recording of Lotte Lenya singing. It was the original cast recording of the first English production of the Kurt Weill, Bertol Brecht play The Threepenny Opera. While the rest of the cast sang their material with the glossy voices you expect in American musical theatre, Lenya's voice was as coarse as rough sand paper and a wonderful relief from the parade of characterless voices which had proceeded it. Brecht and Weill's biting piece of social commentary had been turned into a pretty piece of musical theatre with Lenya's performance being the only tie to its roots in the political theatre of Germany in the 1920s and 30s.

Brecht hadn't been interested in creating pieces of escapist entertainment, and strove to rid performances of the sentimental attachment the audiences made to the characters in a play. His theory of "alienation" was to constantly remind the audience they were watching actors on stage performing in a play so their intellect wouldn't be clouded by forming any sort of emotional attachment to the characters. He wanted performers with real and gritty singing voices; people who weren't your typical matinee idols playing the romantic hero to the young ingenue. While there was far more to his alienation technique than his preference in actors, its something to keep in mind when listening to Gypsy In A Tree, the new CD from Sanda Weigl (she is referred to by her first name only) on the Brooklyn NY Barbes Records label.

For while Sanda was born in Romania her family moved to East Berlin in the early 1960s. As a child she had loved to watch the gypsy street musicians in her home of Bucharest, and quickly learned to sing the songs she heard them performing and had even been a child star on Romanian State television. In Berlin, her aunt, Helene Weigel, who was not only Brecht's widow but had taken over the running of his company The Berliner Ensemble, Sanda under her wing and introduced her to Brecht and Weill's style of musical theatre. From there she graduated to being the member of a rock band and also winning the Dresden International Song Festival when she was 17 with her rendition of a traditional Roma (Gypsy) tune "Recruit". In 1968, when the Russian tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to put down the reform movement, she joined an underground student group to protest the invasion and East Germany's oppressive rule and was subsequently arrested, sentenced to three years of hard labour and then exiled as an enemy of the state to West Berlin.

In West Berlin Sanda returned to the theatre and her first love, the music of the Roma she had heard as a child. She began performing again with a band made up of musicians from the Tom Waits (music and lyrics) and William S Burroughs (book) musical The Black Rider which was originally staged in Germany. Encouraged by Black Rider's director, Robert Wilson, she and her husband emigrated to New York City to allow her to further her singing career. Since her arrival in New York City she has continued to perform and released her first disc in 2002, Gypsy Killer, and now, nine years latter, she has finally released her follow up. Ten of the eleven tracks on Gypsy In A Tree are traditional Roma songs which Sanda has adapted and arranged with the help of pianist Anthony Coleman and her current band, avant-garde jazz musicians Shoko Nagai (accordion, piano and Farfisa organ) Stomu Takeishi (bass) and Satoshi Takeishi (percussion).

While Sanda sings in Romanian (the booklet accompanying the CD provides copies of each song's lyrics in Romanian, English and German) the music builds off the traditional melodies to reflect the many cultures and countries both Sanda and the Roma have been influenced by and travelled through. So while the opening song on the disc, "Intr-o Ai La Poarta Mea" (One Day In Front Of My Fence) sounds like it could have been lifted directly from the stages of Brecht and Weill's 1920s Germany, the very next song, "Un Tigan Avea O Casa" (A Gypsy Had A House) shows definite signs of modern jazz influences.

However, no matter what musical style has been incorporated, Sanda's vocals are so mesmerizing they are the listeners primary focus. She has a range that would be the envy of any musical theatre performer and an expressiveness that conveys meaning even though we might not understand the words she's singing. Reading the English translations of the songs alone doesn't convey the depth of feeling behind the lyrics, and Sanda is able to imbue each of the songs with what is necessary to convey the layers beneath the surface.

Take the song "Jandarmul" (Gendarme - Romanian Gypsy word for a member of the cavalry) where a horseman refuses to give a young Roma girl a lift as she trudges along barefoot in a muddy road. On the page it sounds like she merely wishes him misfortune when she asks, "Oh Lord, dear Lord, make the rains so heavy/ That all the land is flooded/The horse stumbles in the mud/And the roads are no more". Somehow, Sanda is able to express through the soldier's attitude towards the young girl the disdain the majority of Romanian society has for the Roma, and the fatalism this has bred in response. It's as if the young girl is saying, fine if the world is going to make it so hard to walk and not offer any assistance, it might as well do away with roads altogether. Yet there's also an air of defiance, as she also seems to be saying, no matter what the world does to us we will continue on our journeys.

In some ways the songs on this disc are the blues songs of the Roma. For a great many of them reflect the pain of the Roma along the lines of "Adu Calu' Sa Ma Duc" (Bring My Horse It's Time To Go) which features an exchange of farewells between lovers who are being forced to part because of circumstances. "Bring my horse it's time to go/ I must leave this place/Where luck wants no part of me/If luck were with me/I wouldn't be punished thus/Torn away from you/My heart is always weeping". Much like blues musicians sing about misfortunes and bad times in an attempt to take some of the sting out of a people's bad experiences, Sanda does the same with her material. While those lyrics are potentially maudlin, listening to the sound of her voice as she sings them, you experience something similar to what you feel when listening to a great blues singer sing about her man doing her wrong. It's not just about this one incident, nor is it about feeling sorry for yourself, these songs are a way of making sure you don't brood about the bad things in life by proclaiming them to the sky and not letting them rule you.

In the early part of the 20th century when Romanians would hire Roma musicians to play for family events like weddings and other celebrations, they were forced to keep out of sight of the guests to the extreme of having to sit in trees if they were performing outside. Gypsy In A Tree takes its title from that reprehensible practice, but while the songs on the disc might have lyrics which talk about the hardships the Roma have faced, and continue to face this day, Sanda's performance make them more than just laments. With an obvious empathy for the material and the people who created it, Sanda is able to convey the strength of spirit of a people who have not only survived this treatment for centuries, but have managed to create a strong and vibrant culture along the way.

While it may seem like an odd combination, a Romanian vocalist accompanied by three Japanese musicians, performing traditional Roma material, their approach has been the perfect combination of respect and experimentation to bring the songs to life. Of course the combination of great songs, great musicians and a spectacular vocalist is usually a winner, and that's the case here.

(Article first published as Music Review: Sanda - Gypsy In A Tree on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:57 AM | Permalink

You'd think we'd have matured enough by now we could talk about mental illness openly and honestly. Instead the stigma attached to even the most basic of emotional difficulties is so great most people are still loath to even admit they're seeing a psychiatrist or therapist. All you have to do is watch people squirm and try to change the subject when you bring up the fact that you've been seeing somebody to help you deal with emotional problems to understand what I'm talking about. The only thing worse than dealing with the rest of the world's reactions to your circumstances are the way the majority of the medical profession - especially those who treat them specifically - deal with mental illnesses.

They see their job as doing their damnedest to take your square pegged self and make you fit into the nice little round holes society wants us all slotting into. The problem is that far too much of the time its been trying to fit into those little round holes that have caused you all the problems in the first place. The usual answer offered by the profession is to medicate the crap out of you so you don't notice the shit that caused you to slip off the rails. So if you've been having the perfectly normal reaction to the tensions of living in our world today of having anxiety attacks they'll pump you full of pills to deaden your emotions and turn you back into a mindless sheep content with career, house in the suburbs and the ability to swallow what you hear and see in the media as the gospel truth.

While for some that might be the answer to their troubles, others might find that a cost their not willing to pay for easing their minds. It's probably no coincidence that throughout history artists, specifically poets, have been troubled by what we would call mood disorders. What has been commonly referred to as the "artistic temperament" may actually have been an indication of something deeper: depression, manic/depression, anxiety or some other form of emotional imbalance. During their lifetimes a great many poets lived lives of intense suffering and poverty as they were shunned by "normal" society and it was only in their art they were able to find solace. The insights into human nature and emotions which have been the hallmarks of some of the world's great poetry, ensuring their places in history, are in most cases a result of the writer suffering from some sort of trouble of the mind.

When singer/songwriter Susan McKeown began researching her family tree she was startled to discover the high incidence of disturbances among the creative members of her ancestry. Fascinated by this correlation she set out to discover more, and soon realized her family wasn't an anomaly. In an effort to try and reduce some of the stigma attached to people dealing with these issues McKeown has created an album adapting the work of poets who wrote about those feelings. The result, Singing In The Dark, is a beautiful and haunting collection of work capturing both the emotional highs and lows experienced by the creative spirit.

McKeown has gathered together the work of poets throughout history whose work either reflects their own struggles with emotional imbalances or has something to do with the subject. Trawling through the ages she has reached back into our earliest works, "Mad Sweeny", whose origins lie in the 5th century and travelled through to modern times and Leonard Cohen's "Anthem". Along the way she pays her respect to writers on both sides of the Atlantic including Lord Byron, "We'll Go No More A Roving" and John Rowland, "In Darkness Let Me Dwell" from England; Nula Ni Dhomhnaill, "The Crack In The Stairs" and James Clarence Mangan, "The Nameless One" from Ireland; Theodore Roethke, "In A Dark Time" and Anne Sexton "A Woman Like That (Her Kind)" from America and Spaniard Violeta Parra, "Gracias A La Vida" (Thanks To Life) amongst them.

As you can tell from their titles these songs, poems, go places most of aren't used to, or interested in, going when listening to music. However, there's a reason these works have survived and are around today for McKeown to have adapted, and that's because no matter how depressing you might think the topic at hand is, there is something uplifting or compelling about each of the works. Part of that is McKeown's abilities as a performer and her incredible command of her voice which allows her to sing one song, "The Crazy Woman" by Gwendolyn Brooks, in an aching tenor and another, Cohen's aforementioned "Anthem" in a rich alto.

The material isn't hurt by the fact she has surrounded herself with what is obviously an amazingly gifted group of musicians and technicians who have helped her bring her vision to reality. I mention the latter because as I was listening to this disc I couldn't help but notice how cleanly the songs have been mixed so each instrument sounds like its been nestled in a cocoon keeping their integrity intact while still being obviously only one small piece of a much larger picture. With the variety of instruments being used it would have been easy for the sound to have turned to mud, instead it is crystal clear.

Musically she also has some surprises in store for listeners. Upon reading the disc is composed of songs adopted from poems dealing with mental illness, one could almost be forgiven for assuming the material is going to be full of sweeping electronics, melodic strings, and other typical means of creating atmosphere. So it comes as a bit of a surprise to hear the amount of fuzz being used on the electric guitar on the Roethke piece opening the disc and the rocking lead guitar searing through the adaptation of Sexton's piece that follows. While in the opening track the fuzz serves as a contrast to McKeown's voice, on "A Woman Like That", she develops the roughness of voice to match the guitar. I like the irony of her dealing with a topic that's been subject to so much misconception by shattering a great many of the preconceived notions most people would have had about how this type of material would be presented. Just because its poetry doesn't mean its going to be pretty or precious. Of course if you think about it, with such gritty subject matter it makes sense for the music to be equally real.

However, no matter how interesting and well played the music on the recording is, its still the words which lay at its core. Here's where McKeown shows her amazing capacity for understanding the various aspects of emotional conditions. The material reflects not only a variety of experiences but the diversity of emotions felt by those who deal with them their whole lives. Again expectations are probably going to be dashed as in spite of what anyone might think, people suffering from emotional disturbances, even sever ones, are still quite rational and aren't necessarily depressed or manic all of the time. In fact one of the more prevalent emotions you can hear being expressed on this disc is hope. Whether its in the firmness of the convictions expressed by the woman in the "The Crazy Woman", "I'll not sing a May song/A May song should be gay/I'll wait until November/And sing a song of grey", or the knowledge that even when the darkness seems complete light still has a chance as Cohen's "Anthem" makes sure to point out, "Ring the bells that still can sing/Forget your perfect offering/There's a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in/That's how the light gets in".

There's no denying though, there are some pretty torturous paths being followed by the minds of some of the poets she has drawn upon. However when you read about their life stories, or the history surrounding a specific piece, as described in the CD's liner notes, you will see how a great many of these writers were pushed into darkness by their circumstances. Too often we tend to look at someone's behaviour and judge them without searching beyond to see what might have caused it. The number of abused women who are punished for being overtly violent, put into anger control programs, or worse, for lashing out at those who have been torturing them is only one indication of how deeply we are failing those dealing with emotional disorders.

Easing their burdens shouldn't be so difficult, and Susan McKeown's is another voice being raised on their behalf in an attempt to demystify these types of "illnesses". Not only does Singing In The Dark offer moral support, a portion of the proceeds from its sale are being donated the following groups helping people: National Alliance on Metal Illness (NAMI), Fountain House, BringChange2Mind and The Mood Disorders Support Group (MDSG). This is an album of spectacular singing, great musicand intelligent lyrics in support of a good cause - what more could you want?

(Article first published as Music Review: Susan McKeown - Singing In The Dark on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:13 AM | Permalink

The cello is not most peoples idea of a glamourous musical instrument. Even in the world of classical music, where there have at least been pieces of music written specifically for it, it plays second fiddle (couldn't help it) to its sexier kin in the string section, the violin. Outside of the concert hall it receives even less recognition, for while instruments like the trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, violin, and even its larger cousin the double bass have become staples in the world of jazz, you don't often hear a cello leading a jazz combo or showing up in your average rock band.

What most people don't realize, save those who have taken the time to sit and listen, is the astounding variety of sound and the wondrous richness of tone a cello can produce. As a child my parents decided, in spite of an almost complete lack of aptitude, I should play an instrument as part of my education, and I somehow ended up paired with a cello. For three years I learned proper bowing and fingering techniques, but it was soon obvious I was no match for the demands of the instrument, surrendered to the inevitable and stopped inflicting myself upon the poor long suffering music teachers in my school system. However, even my pitiful scraping of the strings were enough to convince me that in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing the cello would sound wonderful.

All of which brings me to the intriguing new project released earlier this month by Six Degrees Records entitled Chamber Music. Normally the term chamber music refers to pieces performed by a condensed version of a symphony orchestra with the number of musicians reduced from its usual over a hundred to around thirty or forty. In this case though, we're dealing with something even less traditional as cellist Vincent Segal of France is joined by the kora playing Malian Ballake Sissoko. While this may seem like a strange combination at first glance, a twenty-six string traditional harp like African instrument being paired with an instrument from the European classical repertoire, the gap between the two men and their instruments isn't actually that large.

Both Segal and Sissoko, while trained in the classical traditions of their instruments, have worked in what most would considered non-standard genres musically before. For Segal this has meant working with everything from jazz combos to hip-hop groups while Sissoko has collaborated with people like Taj Mahal and contemporary composers. At the same time the music both men were initially trained in has far more in common than you'd think. In spite of increased exposure due to the proliferation of world music labels there is still the widespread misconception that music from African countries is either high energy pop music or tribal based drumming. Sissoko's training was in a much different type of music as like his father and grandfather before him he had been prepared for the role of historian, praise singer and bard for his people. The music he played was designed to help tell stories and create an atmosphere that was conducive to people listening to him, not to pulling them on their feet.

Even if you don't know anything about the two men or their backgrounds, as soon as you listen to them playing together the connection between them and their music is obvious. From the opening, title track "Chamber Music", to the closing song on the disc, it sounds as if they have been playing together for decades. First of all the two instruments compliment each other perfectly as the kora, much like a European harp, has a light almost ethereal sound that blends beautifully with the cello's rich, earthy tones. However, instead of the cello being relegated to being a support instrument, as is the case most often in European classical music, playing the bass line to the higher pitched instrument's melody, the two men have created pieces in which neither is confined to any set role.

Some of the pieces are based on traditional African melodies Sissoko suggested and in those Segal has improvised an accompaniment. It's fascinating to hear the sounds of the two instruments interweaving as Segal mixes bowing, plucking and slapping his strings to create a solid foundation for the complex tunes Sissoko picks out on his kora. Then there are tunes like the more jazz sounding "Oscarine" where the leads they pass back and forth build off each other in much the same manner as you'd hear in any jazz combo. On this occasion the contrast between the sounds of the two instruments is at it's most striking and potent, pulling the listener into the music through our anticipation for the next interesting combination of tones.

While the disc is primarily a collection of instrumental tunes, the two men are joined by Malian Awa Sangho on the track "Regret". The song is a tribute to Sissoko's late friend, singer Kader Berry, and is a stirring and emotional piece in which you can hear the feelings of the title expressed in almost every note. Sangho's vocals are a third instrument and serve as a focal point for both the listeners and the two other instruments. While the cello delves into the depths of regret one can hear in the singer's voice, the kora echoes the sharpness of the pain felt from the loss of a dear friend.

Musical collaborations between cultures used to be few and far between. Times have changed however, and we are starting to see more and more musicians searching for the common ground which will allow them to work with others from different traditions. While it might seem a cellist trained in European classical music would have little in common with a traditional Malian kora player, Chamber Music proves otherwise. This is a wonderful combination of sound and style that will both surprise and delight listeners from all backgrounds

(Article first published as Music Review: Ballake Sissko & Vincent Segal - Chamber Music )

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:42 AM | Permalink

While everybody assumes the people most refer to as Gypsies, who prefer the name Roma, are travellers. In fact the common stereotype we have of the Roma is they travel around in caravans stealing from regular hard working folk like ourselves. Since most decent hard working folk tend to spit on the Roma as soon as look at them, their opinions and views, on the whole, can probably be safely disregarded. Even the one part of the picture they manage to get partially right doesn't even begin to tell the story of these people. For, if they are such wanderers by choice, why are there permanent Roma settlements throughout Eastern Europe?

The people we call the Roma are descendant of folk who left the Rajasthan province of Northern India some time during the early part of the first millennium. The best guess is their migrations began around the same time the Mogul Empire began its expansion into Northern India from Persia. Maybe they were simply fleeing the fighting, or maybe they had no wish to live under the rule of this new Empire, we'll never know for sure. What we do know is they began to make the long trek West following the Silk Road through the Middle East and eventually made their way into Europe following the Danube River. A wonderful documentary movie, Latcho Drom, retraces the route they took through visits with musicians in each of the countries the Roma have settled in.

As with any diaspora of people, not everybody left, and there are still many in Rajasthan who are the descendants of those who didn't make the migration. However, as their role in the history of the Roma has been a relatively recent discovery for the world at large, we still know only a very little about the people and their culture. Aside from the movie mentioned above, their music was also featured in the film When The Road Bends: Tales Of A Gypsy Caravan, a documentary which followed the North American tour of Roma musicians from all over the world. Unfortunately both movies only offered samples of the type of music on offer from the people of Rajasthan and releases by individual bands from the region were scarce and hard to come by.

Thankfully that situation looks like it's beginning to improve. While there might be something slightly cynical about a few thousand year old culture being "discovered", a benefit is the increased availability of music from the region. One such example is new disc out on the very good international music label, World Village Music, from the French based Rajasthan band, Dhoad: Gypsies Of Rajasthan, called Roots Travellers. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, the review copy I received didn't contain the DVD included with the CD as a bonus feature. However judging by some of the stills you can see of them performing at their web site, both dancing and fire breathing appears to play a role, it has the potential for being quite the spectacular.

Dhoad are now the third or fourth group of musicians I've heard from this region of India and my experience this time was no different from the previous occasions. The difficulty faced by Western audiences listening to music from India is we are so unfamiliar with the both the scale in use and the sound of the instruments, no matter what region its from, initially, it all sounds the same. So don't be surprised if Dhoad, in spite of the word Gypsy included in their name, at first listen sound little or nothing like Roma music from the West and a whole lot like most everything else from South East Asia.

However as you start to pick out individual instruments within the mix you'll begin to hear patterns in both the instrumental work and vocal stylings that have things in common with bands in Romania and other European communities. The first of the disc's ten tracks, "Banno", is a good example of this as what catches your attention are the vocals and the multilayered rhythm of the tabla. The vocals have the high pitched, almost falsetto, nasal quality I've come to associate with male singers of a certain style from India and the tabla being played in a time signature my body raised on the basic syncopation of the West - everything a multiple of two or three - just can't recognize. Yet, when a break occurs and the vocals and tabla fall away leaving only the sound of their harmonium type instrument playing, all of a sudden there's a note of familiarity. In it I can hear the accordions of the bands from Eastern and Western Europe. It's not just the way the instrument sounds that is familiar, but the way it is being used. Both the tempo it is being played at and the quality it is adding to the music are identical to the contribution made by its Western counterpart.

When the second set of vocals kicks in on the same track anybody familiar with other Roma bands will hear startling similarities between this singer's voice and vocalists in other bands. It might have been just my imagination, but there was even something about the way the language sounded that was somewhat the same as what I've heard sung by some Romanian Roma. Of course there are other songs on the disc where Dhoad are deliberately sounding like other musicians. "Rajasthani Reggae" starts off with an obvious nod in the direction of Jamaica - which doesn't really have much to do with Roma music no matter how you look at it, but is in keeping with the disc's title of Roots Travellers. They might not be the first band from outside the Caribbean to take a stab at a reggae tune, but theirs is one of the most original ventures into that genre you'll ever hear.

One of the most difficult things about listening to the music of another culture is avoiding the trap of interpreting what you hear based on the criteria you would use when judging music you're more familiar with. We tend to make decisions about someone's emotional state based on the sound of their voice. In most cases, even in the instance of listening to a song in another language like French or Spanish, we would be completely justified in our efforts as we share many vocal indicators in common with most Western languages. In the case of this recording though, all of those preconceived notions have to be discarded as the vocal clues given off by the singers aren't ones we're going to be familiar with. In fact if we judged them by our standards it would sound like all of the songs were plaintive appeals dealing with grief of one kind or another.

Listening to this disc is an adventure, a real journey into unknown territory. If you approach it with an open mind you will find ways to appreciate the music you hear for what it is, not what you anticipate music should be. Listen for the interplay of melody and rhythm, the intricate patterns made by the weaving together of the vocalists' harmonies, the tabla and other instruments to create a tapestry of sound both rich and colourful. While those who have an understanding of the music of South East Asia will obviously get more out of this disc than others, there's still plenty for the rest of us to enjoy. Don't think of this disc as a door that's closed to you, rather think of it as an opportunity to begin opening a door to a new world. You might feel a little lost at times, but you'll soon develop your own map for finding your way around.

(Article first published as Music Review: Dhoad Gypsies of Rajasthan - Roots Travellers on Blogcritics)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:02 AM | Permalink

After more than five years of reviewing what feels like thousands of different music CDs a great many of the titles I've covered have vanished into the haze of my memory. It's one of the reasons I don't review nearly as many titles as I once did, there's only so many different ways I have of saying basically the same thing over and over again for music that's all beginning to sound suspiciously similar. For someone to stand out enough for me to remember not only their name, but exactly what they've done, means there was something remarkably distinctive about them. In some cases that might mean they were such an absolute horror show that you can't help but recall them with a shudder.

But as in the case of the Eden & John's East River String Band's disc, Some Cold Rainy Day, there are recordings where a love of the material being performed combines with the skill and passion necessary to bring it to life results in the creation of something truly special. On the above album Eden and John went deep into the past of American popular music for their material and play the tunes on instruments - vintage archtop guitar and resonator ukulele - from the era. However, these are not just lovingly presented museum pieces, Eden and John throw so much of themselves into the pieces they take on new life and are just as relevant as anything written today.

It turns out that John Heneghan, the John from the group's name, is not only a fan and performer of music from the 1920s and 30s, he's also an avid collector of recordings from the era. Blues, jazz, country and Hawaiian are only a few of the genres that are apparently represented in his vast collection of old 78 rpm discs. It was this resource that Heneghan drew upon when compiling the latest release for the Dust To Digital label. Baby How Can It Be: Songs Of Love, Lust & Contempt From The 1920s And 1930s is a three disc collection of over sixty tunes that cut across race, genre, geographical boundaries and gender. While the historical significance of this release is obvious, its a brilliant snap-shot of the variety of popular music created during those two decades, listeners are also going to be surprised and delighted by the material for its own sake. In fact you'll probably even experience quite a sense of regret that this music has been forgotten over the years, as a great deal of it is every bit as good, if not better, than most of what's being written today around the same themes.

I think what might surprise people the most is how graphic some of the material is. If Tipper Gore had problems with the "Mature Content" of rap songs, I wonder what she'd make of songs with titles like "Let Me Play With It" or lyrics like those of the song "Pussy" where the singer talks about stroking his woman's pussy. The sexual innuendo isn't exactly subtle and the double entendres fly fast and thick in quite a few songs, but especially on the second disc of the set, subtitled "Lust". Oh and if you think only the male singers are raunchy, well you really have led a sheltered life haven't you. Don't worry, Mississippi Matilda will set you straight as she sings to you what's it like to be a "Hard Working Woman". There's also songs that won't offend the more delicate sensibilities out there as well like "Tip Toe Through The Tulips With Me", the original version by Eddie Peabody not Tiny Tim. It's still done on ukulele, and still annoying, but make sure you listen closely to the lyrics, you won't regret it.

While there are a few other familiar names that pop up in the credits and titles; Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Mississippi John Hurt are probably the three most widely recognized names; the reality is that even they aren't what you'd call household names anymore. While some of the material and the people performing them have very rightly been swallowed up by the mists of time, the majority are tunes well worth listening to, and if there were any justice in the world, would still be listened to on a regular basis today.

As previously mentioned the second disc in the set contains material that revolves around the theme of "Lust". Each of the other two discs are similarly organized with the first focusing on "Love" and the third on "Contempt". While you might be tempted to skip over the first disc in order to sample what "Lust" and "Contempt" have to offer (Love songs are a dime a dozen these days, but how many good contempt songs have you heard recently?) don't let yourself be prejudiced by thoughts of contemporary songs. Where else are you going to hear bands like Banjo Ikey Robinson and His Bull Fiddle Band or Little Kimbrough and Winston Holmes and songs with titles like "That's What The Bachelor's Made Out Of " (Taylor's Kentucky Boys) and "Insane Crazy Blues"? (Charlie Burse with Memphis Jug Band) Believe me when I tell you they don't write love songs like these anymore, and while not all of them are going to appeal to everyone, the great thing about this collection is if you don't like a tune - skip ahead to the next because its going to be something completely different from what's come before.

Of course some of the best titles are to be found on the "Contempt" disc; "You Gonna Look Like A Monkey When You Get Old", "Wimmin-Aaah!", and "Its A Shame To Whip Your Wife On Sunday". The latter very pleasantly reminds listeners that there's no need to whip your wife, or do any manner of things on Sundays, as there plenty more days of the week for you to take care of those tasks without violating the Sabbath. While there is great material throughout the collection, there seems to have been something about "Contempt" that inspired people that little bit extra. Not only are there more songs on this side than either of the other two, there's no denying that on the whole they're a good deal more interesting. It's been said that love and hate are the opposite faces of the same coin, but in the case of popular music from the 1920 and 30s it seems like people might have spent a little more on despising then they did on adoring.

A lot of trouble has been taken with creating an appropriate package for the music on these three discs and you can't help but appreciate both the artwork and the photographs used as covers, labels for the CDs and in the accompanying booklet. The booklet and the disc's gatefolds are adorned with period photographs reflecting the title's themes and each disc comes complete with a label done in the Art Deco style of the period.

Baby How Can It Be: Songs Of Love, Lust & Contempt From The 1920s & 1930s is a veritable cross section of American popular music. What's truly wonderful about it is that no matter what genre the song, it predates the era of slick presentation and commercial concerns whose end result was to reduce everything to its lowest common denominator. This is a trip back to the days when not all popular songs sounded alike or adhered to some industry dictated formula for success. The material on these discs are the real roots of American popular music, but much of it has been forgotten or ignored over the years. While unfortunately a great deal of what was recorded in the time period represented by this collection has been lost, the samples offered by it give us some indication of just how rich and vibrant our popular music culture once was. If nothing else, maybe this collection will inspire people who hear it to seek out more of the same and others to open their eyes to the limitless possibilities of popular music.

(Article first published as Music Review: Various Artists - Baby How Can It Be? Songs Of Love, Lust & Contempt From The 1920s & 1930s on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:12 AM | Permalink

Hank Williams was only twenty-nine years old when he was declared dead on arrival at a hospital in Oak Hill West Virginia. The previous night he had been loaded barely conscious into the back seat of a Cadillac. His body wracked with agony from back surgery that had never been allowed to heal properly, emotionally and physically exhausted from the break up of his first marriage and a killer touring schedule, he had passed out in the back seat of the car never to wake again. He had a history of battles with the bottle and by 1952 promoters were leery of booking him as there was no guarantee that even if he showed up he'd be sober enough to go on. However, for two years, from 1949 to 1951, he had dominated the Billboard charts with a series of number one hits and was one of the most popular performers in America.

In 1951 alone he performed 130 shows across Canada and the United States. While that may not seem like a lot to some people, you have to remember this was in the days before bands had tour buses or you could hop a plane to take you across the country in a few hours. Hank and his band, The Drifting Cowboys, did all their travel by car, which was exhausting enough on its own. However, most weeks, no matter where they were, they also had to make sure they were back in Nashville for Saturdays in order to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Aside from touring and recording, in 1951, Hank was also featured on a fifteen minute radio spot every morning that was broadcast across the midwest and the south. From 7:15 am to 7:30 am kitchens in thousands of homes would have the pleasure of Hank's company brought to them by the good people of Mother's Best Flour.

As there was no way he could record the shows on a daily basis, each time he and the band were back in Nashville they would lay down a number of shows that could then be broadcast over the airwaves at some time in the future. Remarkably the original acetate recordings of all those old radio shows somehow survived the years. While a couple of box sets have been released in the past couple of years with highlights from those shows, for the first time ever Time Life has gathered them all together in one package, Hank Williams: The Complete Mother's Best Recordings. The sixteen disc set, fifteen CDs and one DVD, comes complete with an accompanying hard covered book detailing the history of the collection, details of each broadcast, letters from Hank Williams Jr and Jett Williams, and a map of the United States and Canada detailing the elder Williams' tour stops during 1951. The entire collection is contained within a replica old fashioned tube radio which plays back an excerpt from one of old broadcasts. The set is not available in stores or on line retailers and can only be purchased through its web site. While this might feel a little inconvenient, believe me when I say this collection is worth any extra trouble it might take to get your hands on it.

For while there are plenty of recordings of Williams' music out there today, these radio shows are something special. Not only do they give the listener the opportunity to hear Hank performing some of his most famous material live, they provide insights into both his character and the wide range of his musical influences. For unlike commercial radio today which serves mainly to fill empty air with noise, programs like the Mother's Best shows were often the only human contact isolated farmers would have on a day to day basis. Remember there was no means of mass communication in the early 1950s and in rural areas farmers would only see their neighbours on rare trips into town and at church. That voice, first thing in the morning for fifteen minutes, coming through the radio might be the only one outside of their family they'd hear for days on end.

So there was a casual, almost conversational tone to these shows that you'd never hear on today's radio. Williams sounds like he was just dropping by to sing some of his favourite tunes for his friends out there at the other end of the transmission. You can be guaranteed that each broadcast would contain at least one gospel or old time song that everybody would be familiar with along with one of Hank's current favourites. Often times he would use these broadcasts to try out his new material so you'll also hear versions of his hits that you'll have never heard before.

You'll also gain some understanding of the extent he went to in an attempt to keep his first wife Audrey happy. While she had aspirations of being a country singer, she was nowhere near being in the same league as her husband. However as his fame grew, so did her resentment about his success and in an effort to keep peace in the Williams' household he included her in many of these broadcasts. Quite frankly the songs she's featured on, either singing with Hank or by herself, make it obvious that she really shouldn't have been let anywhere near a microphone. Audrey obviously didn't appreciate his efforts at trying to make her happy as when they divorced in early 1952 the settlement gave the bulk of his money to her.

The story behind how these recordings came to light and are finally being made available is almost as fascinating as the music itself. The DVD included with the set tells how Jett Williams, who was born shortly after his death, first discovered she was Hank's daughter, then her discovery that the acetates of these recordings existed. What followed after that were the extensive legal battles she and Hank Williams Jr. had to go through to gain the rights to all of the recordings, some of which had fallen into other people's hands. As well as telling the story behind the recordings, Jett also talks about what it meant to her to have this record of the father she never knew. For her they turned him from a figure of legend into a real person as for the first time she was able to hear him talk, joke around with his band, and sing songs that had special significance to him.

The DVD also features her in conversation with two surviving members of The Drifting Cowboys, Don Helms and Big Bill Lister, and one of the radio show's recording engineers Glenn Snoddy. The conversation took place in 2008 and just two weeks later Helms died of a stroke and a year after that Lister was also dead. While at first the conversation is rather stilted as Jett can be seen reading her questions off cue cards to all the men, gradually the depth of feelings that the men obviously felt for Hank starts to shine through as Helms chokes up on several occasions.

The fifteen disc collection covers the period of Hank Williams' life when he was at the peak of both his creative and performing powers. We hear every aspect of his performing career from his hit songs to the morality tales he recorded under the name of Luke The Drifter. There are also some strange oddities like the Venereal Disease public service announcement included on disc fifteen which features Hank narrating a story of a young girl who contracts syphilis. Some of the material, like that featuring Audrey, might have been better off being left to gather dust in some vault, yet they all go to helping us gain a deeper and clearer understanding of who Hank Williams was.

These recordings are also a testament to the wonders that digital technology is able to produce as the sound quality is truly remarkable. If you close your eyes and sit back and listen you can just about visualize Hank and the boys sitting around the studio on a Saturday morning swapping songs and stories just like any group of friends. Like so many who would come after him Hank Williams' life was cut short by the demands he placed on his body through hard living and his desire to create music. Hank Williams: The Complete Mother's Best Recordings Box Set brings a little of him back to life for us and future generations to enjoy. After listening to even one of the discs in this collection you'll soon discover what so many others the world over have come to understand, a little Hank Williams goes a lot further than a lot of anyone else.

(Article first published as Music Review: Hank Williams - The Complete Mother's Best Recordings on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 04:35 AM | Permalink

It's not often that items are released within a couple of weeks of each other about the same artist where one was originally recorded some forty years before the other. It's especially rare to have two DVDs about the same person with that time difference surfacing one right after the other. The number of performers who have endured from the 1970s to now are few enough as it is, but for there to be anything new under the sun from the past not yet released that is actually worth viewing is as remarkable as the longevity required for them still to be performing today.

Leonard Cohen has actually been around a lot longer then since the early 1970s, but the DVD scheduled for release on August 31/10, Bird On A Wire, was of the never before seen film made of his 1972 European tour. (As of now the DVD has still not been released due to "concerns" on the part of Cohen's current label - you won't even find it listed yet at either the distributor's web site or at Amazon.com) Now two weeks later, September 14/10, Columbia Record's Legacy Recordings has released Songs From The Road a collection of twelve songs taken from Cohen's 2008/2009 world tour. Available as a CD/DVD package and Blu-ray, the songs are taken from eleven of the many venues Cohen performed at during his two years on the road, with two from his November 2008 concert at London's O2 Arena.

While twelve songs might not seem like much of a representation of a career that has spanned nearly five decades, that's not the point of this release. Instead it was an attempt to capture some of what the recording's producer, Ed Sanders, calls the tour's special moments. As we see in the special feature documentary included on the DVD, "Backstage Sketch", it was Cohen's habit at the end of each show to go directly from the stage to a waiting vehicle which would whisk him back to his hotel. Accompanied by only his tour manager and Sanders he would usually not even mention the show just performed. However, over the course of the tour there were nights when something special would have happened on stage which would compel Cohen to talk about the show. Each of these songs represent, either in Cohen's or Sander's estimation, one of those moments on the tour.

Ironically, just like its predecessor from 1972, Songs From The Road opens with Cohen's Tel Aviv concert. In September of 2009 Cohen played to some 50,000 people at the Ramat Gan Stadium. While that might seem like a strange environment for a performer whose material is as intimate as Cohen's, you can't help but be amazed at his ability to connect to an audience no matter what its size. As he and the band work their way through a beautiful rendition of "Lover, Lover, Lover", the camera pans out over the stadium where the entire audience appear to be holding green light sticks which are swaying in time to the music like some eerily glowing field of grass. Even more than actually seeing the audience react to the song, one can't help but be impressed by the connection it demonstrates exists between Cohen and his audience or the implied power it represents. Yet, the appreciation he shows for their applause when the song ends is so genuine, it's his humility that leaves the strongest impression.

It doesn't seem to matter where he's performing, or the size of the crowd, each of the songs on this DVD manage to capture the sense of communion existing between Cohen and his audience. This is not your typical rock and roll tour with its crowd of worshippers, instead there appears to be a genuine feeling of reciprocity between the performer and his audience. After each song the applause is deafening and Cohen responds by standing before them humbly, either doffing his hat in recognition of their response or saying a genuine "Thank you friends", constantly surprised at the strength of their reaction.

No collection as small as this one will satisfy every fan of Cohen's, but what I liked about it is the mix of classics and lessor known pieces. "Bird On The Wire" and "Chelsea Hotel" are followed on the disc by "Heart With No Companion", "That Don't Make It Junk" and "Waiting For The Miracle", three songs that you won't often find on any greatest hits collection. "Heart", with its decidedly country feel and slightly tongue in cheek presentation, watch for the three back up vocalists doing some line dancing in the instrumental break, was an example of the rather surprising lightness of spirit that pervaded Cohen's performances. This was, after all, the guy who became famous for cutting a rather brooding and romantic figure. However, even though his material has lost none of its emotional intensity, there was prevailing sense of optimism to the proceedings.

Perhaps the explanation lies not in what was being performed, but in the fact that both audience and performers were taking such joy in being present. This was something that went beyond the audience merely appreciating Cohen and the band's renditions of the songs, and is hard to define. Unlike other concerts where there is a clear demarcation of roles for both performer and audience, the line at these concerts seemed to blur somewhat. It was like the connection between the two was so strong each song became an experience to share, not something one sat back and passively observed.

One of the best examples of this is the recording of Cohen's performance of "Hallelujah" recorded at the Coachella Music Festival in California. Normally multiple stages are in operation at once, but festival organizers arranged it so Cohen's performance was the only one scheduled and he performed for the entire festival crowd. With a crowd that size standing in front of a stage you'd expect to notice people being distracted or looking around. Not on this night at this moment. Every face seemed riveted on the slightly stooped grey suited figure holding the microphone; hanging on his every word and awaiting their cue to start singing along with the chorus. As producer Sanders says in his notes, if he had to pick a moment as a highlight from the tour it would be hearing the tens of thousands of voices raised in a chorus of one word at the end of the song - Hallelujah.

Naturally the sound and visual quality of this CD/DVD package are excellent with the on stage visuals being exceptionally well done providing both wonderful close ups during solos and excellent full band coverage when required as well. However don't look to the special features for any startling revelations or insights into the artistry of Leonard Cohen. While the short documentary, "Backstage Sketch", introduces us to all the other people on the tour; band members, roadies, tour manager and even the tour accountant, Cohen himself only appears incidentally.

While Tony Palmer's film, Bird On A Wire from 1972 provided viewers with extensive back and off stage footage of Cohen and his band, the tour itself was plagued by horrible sound problems. As a result the footage from on stage was limited and not of the quality we're now used to. It was more than adequate considering the conditions and the time, but compared to what you can see and hear on Songs From The Road you truly comprehend the advantages our new technology has given us over films made in the past. While Bird On A Wire might have given us a better understanding of Cohen the man, Songs From The Road allows you a deeper appreciation of Cohen the performer and the amazing bond he has with his audiences.

(Article first published as Music CD/DVD Review: Leonard Cohen - Songs From the Road on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:15 AM | Permalink

In 1972 Canadian poet and musician Leonard Cohen was at the height of his popularity both in his native country and abroad. The antithesis of the rock and roll gods who normally dominate popular music and fill venues where ever they play, Cohen captivated audiences and listeners with the unabashed sexuality and intellect of his work. Even today, with him well into his seventies, he remains a charismatic figure and retains the ability to enthral audiences the world over. Somehow, even those who might not have sufficient knowledge of the English language to grasp the nuances of his words, are held as if in thrall when he climbs on stage. A true troubadour of the heart and soul nothing seems to impede his ability to communicate with an audience.

However, what we have witnessed over the last couple of years, whether in person or on DVD, are a master in his declining years. Though, even now there are few performers today able to match his power to connect with an audience, what must it have been like to see him when he was at the peak of his prowess? While the release last year of footage taken from his performance at Isle Of Wight in 1970 gave us some idea as to his abilities, the conditions in which the concert took place - due to rioting by the audience and other crazy circumstances he ended up not taking the stage until around two in the morning - did not make it ideal for viewing him at his best. While it was amazing to see him calm down close to half a million people who had gone as far as setting fire to the stage after nearly five days of bedlam, it wasn't what anyone would call a typical Cohen concert, if there could be such a thing, from the period.

Two years after that performance Cohen embarked on a twenty city tour that would take him from Dublin Ireland to Jerusalem accompanied by a film crew under the direction of British documentarian, film,theatre and opera director, author and critic, Tony Palmer. Probably best known for his astounding seventeen part television history of Pop Music, All You Need Is Love, by 1972 Palmer had already directed twenty-three movies including concert films of Cream, (Cream Farewell Concert 1968) Frank Zappa's 200 Motels and the documentary Ginger Baker In Africa. For some reason though, Cohen wasn't happy with Palmer's edit of the footage and requested it be re-edited by a person of his choice. Unfortunately the result was so botched that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who had commissioned the film, refused delivery and it was never broadcast.

Fast forward to 2009 when Palmer was informed that the original footage, something like two hundred cans of film, had been found in a warehouse. While some of the footage was in dubious condition, the sound was in perfect shape. So Palmer set to the painstaking task of sorting and restoring miles of film with the result that almost forty years after it was originally shot Bird On A Wire, has been released on DVD, distributed by MVD Entertainment. While the story behind the movie is almost enough to make it worth seeing in itself, you'll soon discover this is no mere curiosity piece. Rather it is a masterful piece of work by a gifted and experienced documentary film maker.

The film follows Cohen and his band off and on stage as they wend there way east across Europe from Great Britain until their final two concerts in Israel, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Palmer has chosen to open the film with footage of the second to last concert in Tel Aviv, where once again we find Cohen in the position of having to try and pour oil onto troubled waters. This time it's not the audience who riot, but the security personnel who go over the top. At one point during the concert Cohen invited audience members at the back to come and sit down in what he saw as an open space in front of the stage so they could hear and see better. Perhaps he should have checked with the bouncers before hand, for when people started to come down to the front of the stage and sit, they were forcibly removed. In spite of Cohen's pleas for restraint things quickly descended into chaos and the concert couldn't go on.

What we don't know at the time, and which gradually becomes clear over the course of the film, is at some point early on in the tour something had gone wrong with the sound equipment they were using. As a result the band had to make do without the use of on stage monitors - meaning they were virtually unable to hear themselves - and the whole system eventually feeding back if they exceeded a certain volume. On one occasion we saw Cohen invite those in the furthest reaches of an auditorium who were having difficulty in hearing to come up and sit on stage with the band so they could hear. It's a testament to the respect audiences held Cohen in, that when he asked that only those who were truly having difficulties come up on stage, they listened to him. Instead of the mad rush you might have expected upon the issuing of this invitation, only those who weren't able to hear came forward while everybody else stayed in their seats.

While that is a rather extreme example, it typifies how well the film captured the rapport Cohen had with his audience. Some of the lighter moments included him chiding the audience for starting to clap for a song after he'd only played a few chords, reminding them that all his songs sound the same because he only knows a couple of chords so how could they possibly know what song he's about to sing? What's truly remarkable about those moments are how warmly the audience responded and the affectionate laughter that met these and other self-deprecating comments he would make.

Aside from the fact that some of the footage was in black and white and it was obviously shot on film, such was Palmer's skill as a director there were times while watching it is easy to forget the footage that is nearly forty years old. It was far harder to maneuver cameras and crew in those days, yet somehow he and his people managed to not only capture remarkably intimate concert footage, they were obviously so unobtrusive Cohen and those around him acted as if they were unaware they were being filmed. (There is one memorable moment, however, where Cohen is talking to a very pretty women visiting back stage and he turns to face the camera and comment on how hard it is to chat someone while being filmed) As a result the footage taken offstage captures life on tour; backstage before and after a show, in transit, interviews with the press, and the interaction between the band members; far better than I've ever seen it depicted.

While all of this is interesting, what really makes Bird On A Wire a treasure is what we see of Cohen himself. The expression wearing your heart on your sleeve might have been coined for him at this stage in his life as he can't hide how he's feeling from anybody, including his audience at times. However, at the same time he exudes a sense of power that allows him to stand up in front of his audience and almost reprimand them like a parent would a misguided child and they actually listen to him.

Like all artists he's plagued by the desire for his work to be perfect, and if it can't be it shouldn't be seen. At one point he stops his show in Jerusalem because he's not happy with the quality of his performance and takes the band off stage, uncertain as to whether or not he'll continue with the show. It's not about pride, or if it is it's the right kind, because he refuses to cheat the audience by giving them anything less than what he considers his best. He eventually does go back on, and the audience doesn't want him to leave. Eventually he has to come back on stage after multiple encores to tell the audience that he and all his band are back stage crying right now and couldn't possibly do another song.

While there are none of the special features we've all come to expect from modern DVD packages included on the disc, there are some lovely surprises in the packaging, Aside from a nice sized booklet with each page containing collages of pictures, quotes, and clips from newspaper articles about Cohen, a replica of the poster for the film and what looks to be a postcard sized replica of promotional artwork of Cohen from the 1970s are also included. Naturally the image quality and the sound reproduction are limited by the condition the film was found in and the technology used to shoot it in the first place. However, all things considered, and this is a sign of a remarkable restoration job, they are probably better quality than anybody had any right to hope.

Bird On A Wire by Tony Palmer should be compulsory viewing for anyone wishing to make a documentary about a concert tour. Its combination of impeccably filmed concert footage and fly on the wall off stage reporting makes it probably the best movie of its type that I've ever seen. It succeeds in presenting an intimate portrait of one pop music's more enigmatic and charismatic figures. This is Leonard Cohen as you may never have seen him before and definitely won't ever again.

(Article first published as DVD Review: Leonard Cohen - Bird on a Wire on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:26 AM | Permalink

The first time I heard Bob Brozman was a few years back and at the time I was amazed at his abilities as a blues guitarist and vocalist. Aside from John Hammond Jr. I'd not heard another contemporary musician performing solo acoustic blues and be able to hold my attention for not only the length of a CD, but a ninety minute concert on DVD as well. So I was really surprised when talking to the publicist who had supplied me with those discs that he wasn't considered to be primarily a blues performer. Here was a guy who sounded like he was burning a hole in the neck of his resonator guitar his slide was moving so slickly, and yet blues was only considered something he did on the side. How could that be possible?

Well it turns out that Brozman is one of the few people around who justly deserves to be described as a world music performer. Unlike the majority of people who happen to be given that label only because they were born in a non English speaking country, Brozman actually plays music from all over the world. If it can be played on a stringed instrument, seemingly any kind of stringed instrument, there's a damn good chance he's played it at some point in his career. From the islands of Hawaii, Reunion Island off the coast of Madagascar, the Okinawa Islands, Papua New Guinea, India, France, to the blues of his native America Brozman has travelled the world for thirty years seeking out new music and new musicians to play with.

While there have been individual recordings made of most of these musical collaborations, for the first time music lovers have an opportunity to view clips of Brozman and those he's worked with in action. A new DVD, Par Avion, for sale only through his web site, is a montage of video clips, still photos and of course music, dating back to his early days as a street musician in the early 1970's. While age and dubious equipment means the quality of some of the clips aren't the highest, it doesn't prevent the DVD from being a incredibly fascinating document.

The movie opens with a couple of stills showing Brozman from his street musician days when he was making his living by travelling around America busking for a living. From there we move to 1978 for some faded black and white footage from Boulder Creek California for two tunes, "Ukulele Spaghetti" and "Shake It And Break It". Even at this age we see Brozman is already a virtuoso on his beloved resonators as he rocks the house on both a ukulele and guitar version of the old metal instruments. Combined with a clip from a local San Francisco news show in 1984, on which he's seen playing "River Blues", these pieces of video give viewers an indication of just how good a player Brozman is. With a voice like Leon Redbone and a dexterity on the fret-board like no one else, it's obvious he could have easily been a huge success playing only the blues.

However, this is the man who once said in an interview, "If you're bored it usually means your boring", and he sure wasn't about to let himself be either. The next few clips are from 1986 in Kailua Kona Hawaii and feature Brozman playing Hawaiian pedal steel. This is a style of music that even then had long since gone out of fashion, and in an interview done at the time he admitted that when he played those types of events he was usually the youngest person performing as nobody else his age or younger seemed interested in the genre anymore. It turns out he learned how to play it listening to old 78 rpm records of Tau and Rose Moe, Hawaiian musical stars of the 1920s. Somehow or other Tau heard of Brozman and in 1988 invited him to their home in Oahu. The result was a recording of Hawaiian pedal steel and lap blues unlike any that had been released in decades.

While the video clips from the recording session are faded black and white and over exposed in places, the sound quality is still crisp and clean. However the best moments are footage of Tau and Brozman sitting together jamming on their lap slide guitars against the backdrop of the Pacific ocean and lush green of the Moe house grounds. This section of the film ends with a beautiful shot of the two men walking along the beach together with Tau telling Brozman how much they appreciate a young guy like him from the mainland helping keep their music alive.

We then continue to hop skip and jump around the world and through the years with Brozman to watch him play swing music for ballroom dancers in Vancouver British Columbia in 1992, give a brief introduction to resonator guitars for a Japanese Television documentary in '94, and then down to Santa Cruz California to play some intricate jazz/blues with Martin Simpson of England. The hectic pace continues onto Okinawa, Reuion Island, Papua New Guinea, peppered with occasional stops at music festivals in Quebec City in Canada where he's seen performing with his friends from around the world including Takashi Hirayasu from Okinawa, Rene Lacaille and Granmoun Lene from Reunion, and Debashish and Subhashis Bhattacharya from India.

From what I've described I'm sure Par Avion sounds a rather disjointed affair, jumping all over the place as it does. However, when putting the clips together editor Daniel Shane Thomas has taken the time to build in transitions which provide some on screen text background as to where we are going and who we are about to see perform. Of course the other connective devise is the movie's subject matter, Bob Brozman. You can't help but be caught up in his enthusiasm, and obvious love, for the music he's playing and this, more than anything else, that serves as the through line for the movie. Brozman is not your typical musical tourist, taking what he likes best of other people's music and incorporating into his own. Rather he's there to learn how to play the music of whatever region he's visiting, and then record it with the local musicians. Therefore, with each new place visited we learn a little more about the fascinating common language human beings from every part of the world share - music.

Bob Brozman lives for and loves music and he's chosen to share some of what he has loved most over the last thirty years with us through the DVD Par Avion. If you've never heard or seen him play before, you've missed out on a truly extraordinary individual and musician and should take this chance to get to know him. The disc is only available through his web site, but it's well worth your while to make that little extra effort to pick up a copy. You'll be introduced to a whole new world of music.

(Article first published as DVD Review: Par Avion on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:30 AM | Permalink

A couple of years ago I was interviewing Francis Jocky, a singer/songwriter from The Cameroon in Africa, and was rather taken aback by his answer to my question about early his musical influences. "I started being interested in music when I was eight years old, and I was listening to Bob Marley, Randy Newman and Jackson Browne". While it's pretty typical for a kid from Africa to have been listening to Marley, and the fact he was listening to Newman was surprising, what really shocked me was he had heard of Jackson Browne let alone had listened to him in the Cameroon. While I've been listening to Browne's music since somewhere in the 1970s, it's always seemed to me that he's some sort of well kept secret. For a guy who has been playing professionally since he was seventeen and released more records than I can remember off the top of my head, it's remarkable how many people I've met seem to have either never, or only vaguely, heard of him.

Part of that is due to the nature of the music industry, with its your only as well known as your last hit record attitude, and part of that is due to the fact you weren't going to hear any of Browne's music on mainstream radio at any time through the 1980s or 1990s. Long before it was popular, or safe, to be writing and recording music critical of American foreign policy, Browne was one of the few mainstream musicians who put aside his career ambitions to write a series of albums containing songs openly critical of the Regan administration and American Imperialism in general. Writing songs critical of Oliver North, and all the other right wing heroes of the day, quickly assured your songs wouldn't receive radio play during either the Regan or Bush Sr. years. So, by the time that decade had ended the man who had written "Taking It Easy", "Late For The Sky", "Doctor My Eyes" and "Running On Empty" - FM radio hits through-out the 1970s - had disappeared off most people's radar.

I often wonder if the Disney Channel knew exactly who Browne was back in 1994 when they presented Jackson Browne: Going Home, now being re-issued on DVD by Eagle Rock Entertainment, to television audiences. Maybe they thought they were presenting the heart warming story of somebody's comeback or something, because I can't see them knowingly giving a ninety minute special to somebody as politically outspoken as Browne. However it managed to get on the air, Going Home is a fascinating mix of documentary and performance footage summarizing Browne's career to that point giving fans an opportunity to gain a deeper appreciation of the man and his work and those unfamiliar with him a chance to see why his influence has been felt half way around in the world in The Cameroon.

Interviews with Browne and others, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt and David Lindley, not only tell the story of Browne's life but allow the viewer to understand this guy isn't your standard issue rock star. We learn from Browne about his jazz playing father and how he grew up in that rarest of things in twentieth century America, a fully integrated household as his father would often rehearse his multi-racial band at home. Not only would that influence him musically, but it would also help shape his way of looking at the world and his social conscience. For as we quickly discover from the conversations with others, even in the days before he was writing "political" songs, he was participating in, and promoting, benefit concerts for various causes.

While there are plenty of pop stars who seem more than willing to lend their names to causes or appear at events, its quickly obvious that Browne doesn't just view them as photo opportunities to salve his conscience like so many others do. One of the most telling scenes in the documentary is a clip of him with having a very serious conversation about the pros and cons of nuclear power with one of the arena staff where one of these events took place. Not only does he genuinely engage and listen to the person he's talking to, he treats him and opinions as equals. How many pop music stars can you think of who would not only take the time to have that conversation but treat the person with that amount of respect?

However, while its fascinating to learn about how Browne helped the Eagles launch their career when they all lived within a block of each other or that he started out his career when he was seventeen at Andy Warhol's "Factory" in New York City, my favourite parts of the movie are those when he's filmed hanging out with his old friend, multi instrumentalist David Lindley. For those who don't know Lindley he's one of those folk who seem to be able to pick up any stringed instrument and make it sing. Yet according to Browne what truly distinguishes Lindley is his love of polyester. Lindley wears some of the most god-awful, eye watering and nausea inducing polyester clothes made while performing. Browne takes an almost perverse delight in commenting on Lindley's wardrobe, and in the process reveals his wonderful sense of the absurd.

Then there's the music. The movie contains twenty-one of Jackson Browne's songs performed everywhere from him sitting in the back of a car travelling with his son, a rehearsal hall with his band as they prepare for an upcoming tour, a recording studio, and finally in front of a studio audience specially brought together for the taping of this special. It's during the latter that he's joined by special guests Nash, Crosby, Lindley and Jennifer Warrens. The songs span his career to that point from early classics like "Before The Deluge" and "Doctor My Eyes" to "Lives In The Balance" and "I'm Alive" from albums released in the 1980s.

To be perfectly honest I wasn't a big fan of most of Browne's contemporaries in the Southern California soft-rock/country scene as I found it mainly insipid and emotionally vapid. So much of it seemed to combine the mawkish sentimentality of the worst country music with boring middle of the road pop - think The Eagles "You Can't Hide Those Lying Eyes" and you'll get the picture. All you have to do is listen to any song of Browne's and you immediately hear the difference. Not only are they far more musically complex and interesting than anything done by those he supposedly influenced, lyrically he has the ability to take highly personal material, with the potential for being self-serving and cliched, and create something that speaks to people on a universal level. We can listen to a song he sings about his own experiences and recognize something of ourselves in it no matter what the topic.

As far as production values go you really couldn't ask for anything better considering the date of the original recording. With DTS Digital sound and the option of either Dolby 5.1 surround or Dolby Digital stereo the audio quality on the DVD is excellent and the video, 4:3 format, is of equally good quality. While some might be disappointed by the lack of special features the movie itself contains more than sufficient musical and biographical content about its subject to keep even the most ardent fan satisfied. While you may wonder at the value of a sixteen year old film, because of the insights it gives the viewer into Jackson Browne and what makes him tick combined with the amount of music included, it remains a valuable addition to any serious music fan's collections. Whether you're a long time fan of Browne's work or know little or nothing about him, Going Home will go a long way towards explaining the its appeal to an eight year old boy in The Cameroon.

(Article first published as DVD Review: Jackson Brown - Going Home on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 10:56 PM | Permalink

Periodically record labels will throw together greatest hit packages culled from the back catalogues of their biggest stars. Now a great deal of the time one is tempted to dismiss this type of thing as the cynical manoeuvring typical of the industry as they attempt to sell consumers the same product for a second time by merely putting it in a fresh wrapper. However, once in a while they do come up with a fresh idea and deliver something worth while. One such series that has all the appearances of being a good idea is the new Legacy Recordings Setlist collection. While they've still gone into their back catalogues for some of the material, some of the discs promise previously unreleased material, and all them promise an interesting collection of live performances.

If their intent with the series was to choose material that gave listeners a good general overview of a performer's range, than judging by the package they've put together for Johnny Cash, Setlist: The Very Best Of Johnny Cash Live they've done a remarkable job. For not only have they taken tracks from live performances Cash gave at various times and locations during his long and storied career, they've chosen songs that reflect the wide variety of styles and genres Cash played. Of course they're are a number of songs from his recordings at Folsom and San Quentin prisons, two of his most famous live recordings, but did you know he had also made a live recording in a prison in Sweden? I sure didn't know that, but there are two tracks on here from a recording made at Osteraker prison in October 1972. Hearing that familiar Cash voice speaking Swedish as he introduces "That Silver Haired Daddy Of Mine" to his audience is almost worth the cost of the disc alone.

To be honest, types of songs like the one above - sentimental country music - are the ones I liked the least among Cash's repertoire. However, stuff like "I Still Miss Someone", "I Got A Woman", and the medley of "Darlin' Companion/If I Were A Carpenter/Jackson" (from live shows at Madison Square Gardens, Folsom Prison, and Ryman Auditorium respectively) were, and still are, favourites for many. Omitting them would have given a false impression of his career and the music he played. I'm sure there are songs on this disc I like others won't appreciate, but that's part of what made Cash so special, his ability to appeal to so many different people. How many other performers do you know who have had tribute albums created for them by everybody from gospel groups to punk bands? Not many I'd bet.

Fittingly this collection begins and ends with tracks taken from recordings he made in prisons. Back in 1968 when Cash recorded Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison it was a risky thing to do as far as his career was concerned. Those were the days when prisons were places they sent people to forget about them, the idea of rehabilitation was even more of a joke then it is today, and playing for the inmates, aside from Salvation Army bands looking for converts on a Sunday, was unheard of, especially by pop stars of Cash's status. However, as he explains in "Man In Black", track three on this disc taken from a live recording made in 1971, Cash made a point of speaking for those who didn't have a voice. For all their supposed subversiveness and rebellious nature, there were very few rock and roll stars in the late 1960s who were prepared to climb out of their Rolls Royce and play for inmates. Cash not only talked about having a social conscience and caring, he walked that talk, and you can see proof of that in the number of concerts he gave in prisons, and not just in the US.

If there was any more proof required of just how much Cash was willing to risk to put his point across one only has to look at where and when track eight, "What Is Truth", was recorded. In 1970 Richard Nixon had been president for two years, was well on his way to escalating the war in Vietnam and one year away from ordering the National Guard from opening fire on University Student's at Ohio's Kent State Universtiy. The Republican establishment was not the place you were libel to find a sympathetic audience for a song about young people being justified in speaking out against being killed fighting wars overseas or that said they were a voice of truth. However that's exactly what Cash did when he sang that song at Nixon's White House in 1970. I have to wonder at the applause you hear when he finishes. I can just see Tricky Dick grimacing in the front row trying not to order the secret service to gun Cash down.

No Cash collection would be complete without some gospel tunes, and thosee included on this collection come one right after the other; "Belshazzar" which was recorded at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville in 1969 and "Children Go Where I Send Thee" recorded in Denmark in 1971. The first is a real fire and brimstone number with deep roots in the Old Testament while the latter is an old spiritual of a much more joyful nature. The thing about Cash is that you never doubted his sincerity when he sang gospel, as he not only obviously believed in what he was singing about, but tried to live his life according to those beliefs. All you have to do is harken back to his declaration of intent in "Man In Black" and his performances in prisons if you require proof.

While some might be disappointed that "Ring Of Fire" didn't make it onto this collection, the last four songs on the disc should make up for its omission. "Wreck Of The Old 97", "I Walk The Line" and "Big River" from the recording at San Quentin Prison and "A Boy Named Sue" from the Swedish prison recording, round it out nicely. As with any live concert a performer can't play everybody's favourites, but Setlist: The Very Best Of Johnny Cash Live does a fine job of picking songs that reflect the many sides of Cash's musical personality. For those looking for either an introduction to, or a reminder of, Cash's great talent, you can't go wrong with this disc.

(Article first published as Music Review: Johnny Cash - Setlist:The Very Best Of Johnny Cash Live on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:40 PM | Permalink

After reviewing or critiquing god knows how much music over the last five years I've discovered a pattern I tend to fall into. Although there are a few performers who I've followed for years and will continue to do so because of their ability to keep their work fresh by continually discovering new ways of presenting their ideas, too often a person or group will be initially exciting only to end up being disappointing by sticking to the same formulae repeatedly. While I can understand the if ain't broke don't fix it mentality to a certain extent, in my opinion when it comes to the creative process that only leads to stagnation and boredom. There are more times than I'd like to count over that I've been really excited by the first couple of discs a performer or group have put out to only become frustrated and bored with them by the third disc when they continue to do the same thing over and over again.

As a result I've been reviewing a lot less music of late. It just seems harder and harder to find somebody or some band interesting enough to even give a listen to let alone review. Maybe part of the problem is the number of press releases finding their way into my inbox on a daily basis using the same group of adjectives to describe whatever genre of music they happen to be promoting. Everybody, from blues to death metal, seem to be fresh and exciting, or at the very least invigoratings. So many bands are being described as alternative these days I'm falling back on Ellen Page's line in her roller derby movie Whip It and asking "Alternative to what?" How can you be alternative when you sound like a thousand other bands out there?

Thankfully I tend to exaggeration, if the scene were as bad as I describe it sometimes I think I'd blow my brains out. There are still bands and musicians out there who provide genuine alternatives to the mind sapping pabulum that passes for popular music on the radio these days. One who I've just been fortunate enough to stumble across are a four piece outfit who go by the really odd name of The Fishtank Ensemble. They've just put out their third release - on their own label - called Woman In Sin, and I can guarantee you'll be hard pressed to find a more eclectic collection of songs gathered onto one CD anywhere. The lead singer, Ursula Knudson, used to sing opera; violinist, Fabrice Martinez is from Paris and studied with Gypsy violinists across Europe; guitarist Doug Smolens used to hang out with Billy Idol and Slash before becoming hooked on flamenco and running off to Spain to learn from masters in the caves around Granada; while Djordje Stijepovic started playing bass with local Romany bands in Serbia when he was thirteen until moving to the US where he joined a band with Lemmy from Motorhead and Slim Jim Phantom from the Stray Cats.

Okay, so these folk have been around a bit and bring some pretty strange influences to the table with them, but how does it all blend together and are they any good? Where to start? I've listened to the disc three times now and each time I've come away even more amazed then I was the previous time. I could tell you about Knudson's incredible range as a vocalist - how she can soar right up the scale and sing scat up there that will put your heart in your throat and then turn around and growl her way through a rendition of "Fever" that will leave you so hot and bothered a cold shower won't help. I could also tell you how Stijepovic's bass accompaniment on that song will make you think he's channelling Charlie Mingus and how he can also play slap bass in a way that you've never heard before, and might not ever again, when he leads the group through a Balkan dance number called "Djordje's Rachenitza".

Than there are the two lead instruments, well at least in most bands you would consider the guitar and violin the leads, but here they are content to be equal members of the band. Either Smolens or Martinez could easily dominate any ensemble they played with they are such virtuosos, and on the pieces where they step forward you can't help but let your jaw drop at their playing. However what impressed me the most about the two of them was their versatility. There are many violinists and guitarists who can play one, maybe two, and even sometimes three different styles of music well, but these two seem able to handle anything you can think of. Torch songs, flamenco, gypsy tear the floor up dance music, jazz standards, and the rest of their repertoire are all played with an ease that's not only deceptive but mind boggling when you realize their complexity. In fact they're both almost too good for their own good. They are so effortless in their playing you can almost miss noticing their excellence.

Most of the time when you hear a band being described as world music it usually means they play something that's not recognized as being pop music within our limited definition of that term. The Fishtank Ensemble actually do play world music as they are inspired by not only their different nationalities but an international variety of musical interests. While one song might sound like it comes from a demented cabaret populated by characters from a Kurt Weil opera another is redolent with the raw, naked passion of loss you'll only hear in the truest and scariest flamenco, and a third has echoes of a rain swept street in late night Paris. From small mountain villages in the Balkans to the urban sharpness of a hot jazz spot, The Fishtank Ensemble will take you on a musical odyssey that will leave your head spinning and hour heart soaring.

I listened to my first pop record back in 1965 when a baby sitter played me her daughter's 45 of the Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand". In the interim forty-five years I've heard more music than I can possibly remember because the majority of it has been forgettable. Every so often though a musician or band has come along that won't let me forget them because of what they do and how they do it. For me its always been those bands who don't adhere to any set pattern and are always pushing themselves off into new directions who leave the greatest impression. With their third release The Fishtank Ensemble have shown that they are not only gifted musicians but also unafraid to take risks. That has the potential to be a memorable combination - we can only hope they're able to maintain what they've started.

(Article first published as Music Review: The Fishtank Ensemble - Woman In Sin on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 09:25 AM | Permalink

I can't remember the first time I saw John Prine performing live except it was sometime in the 1970's. It was either at the Mariposa Folk Festival on the Toronto Islands or at Convocation Hall on the University of Toronto campus. Like all folk singers only part of the attraction of seeing him perform in person was the chance to hear favourite tunes being sung live as half the fun are the stories they have to tell between songs and their personalities. Let's face it you're not going to see a folk musician for the fancy high tech show they're going to put on. You want to share in an experience that only the combination of them and their music can create that never seems to be captured on a studio recording.

So I've always considered the idea of a live recording something of an oxymoron as far too few of them manage to recreate the feeling of being part of a community of people taking part in something special. No matter how much of the in between song chat or crowd noise that might be included you still feel like you're on the outside looking in cut off by a pane of glass or something similar. Now it's been a long time since I've listened to a live John Prine recording, mainly because the ones that I've heard before were disappointments for the reason described above, yet I decided to give it another try with the release of John Prine: In Person & On Stage on Prine's own Oh Boy Records label. Aside from the chance that this disc might bring him to life like previous ones hadn't, there was also the attraction that special guests were spotted throughout the disc helping out on old favourites.

Maybe it's because recording technology has improved (or those involved paid attention to how Arlo Guthrie records his live albums) but from the opening track, "Spanish Pipedream", to the final cut, "Paradise", it's like having Prine and his various accompanists being invisible presences in your living room. I'm not sure how to describe it, but there's the rawness and immediacy that you'd expect from a live performance. Each of the instruments stand out in the mix in about the same way you'd expect them to if you were hearing them on stage instead of being artfully blended together as they are in a studio.

The songs themselves have been lifted from various performances over the past couple of years and represent an interesting cross section of his career including some favourites that he hasn't performed in a while like "Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore". No matter what stage of his career the songs are from they each are performed with an enthusiasm that you only find in a live show when a performer is able to channel the energy generated by his audience back into his presentation. Normally I find audience noise included in live recordings to be self serving and boring, but in this case it's used sparingly and only serves to emphasize how well Prine has connected with them.

A couple of years ago Prine put out a recording called In Spite Of Ourselves which featured him singing with some of his favourite female singers. One of those was Iris DeMent with whom which he sang the title song of the disc. "In Spite Of Ourselves" was originally written at the request of Billy Bob Thornton to be played over the credits of a movie he and Prine were appearing called Daddy And Them and it was highly appropriate for the movie. However since not many people probably ever saw it, for as Prine mentions in his introduction it went straight to video, thankfully it also a hysterical song in its own right. Part of the reason the song works so well is Prine and DeMent sound like they were born to sing together, as is borne out again later in the disc with their version of Prine's "Unwed Fathers". Neither has what one would call a smooth voice, but it's the rough edges that make them interesting and that catch in the ear.

While their voices might work together because of their similarities, sometimes opposites can make just as strong an impression. I've never heard Sara Watkins before, but she joins Prine for a beautiful rendition of one my favourite songs by him, "The Late John Garfield Blues". Not only does she supply some great vocals, she plays a lovely fiddle line in the middle of the tune which accents and highlights its emotional depth. A couple of tracks later Prine is joined by Emmylou Harris for a wonderful version of his "Angels From Montgomery". The contrast between his growled out lyrics and her delicate sound are a delight and give what's all ready a poignant song even more strength.

John Prine's music has never been what anyone would call structurally complicated. However its simplicity is what gives it strength because that allows his ideas and personality to shine through. While studio recordings have the capacity to reproduce a great deal of what makes him special, seeing him live has always revealed a little something more. Until now none of the live recordings I've heard have been able to bring the experience of a John Prine concert to life for people to enjoy at home. That's all changed with the release of John Prine: In Person & On Stage. For those of you have never had the pleasure of seeing him in person, or want to relive your memories of having seen him live, this is the best opportunity you'll have without actually attending a concert.

(Article first published as Music Review: John Prine - In Person & On Stage on Blogcritics.)

Posted by Richard Marcus at 12:28 PM | Permalink

The Voice!. Its the first thing that strikes you and that which forms the most lasting impression upon everyone who has ever heard a song by the Crash Test Dummies; lead vocalist Brad Roberts' voice. There's probably no other singing voice in popular music quite like his rich, sonorous baritone/bass, and its been the distinguishing mark of the band since their first hit "Superman" back in the early 1990's. Of course the band was more than just their lead singer, but without Roberts' round tones they would have been just another slightly ironical folk/rock group among many.

Sure their songs strayed into territory that others might have avoided quirky lyrics and a bite not normally found on popular radio. However we all know how intelligence and originality can actually be a hindrance to a career in popular music, and here again the voice is what saved them. Its mellow tones were so deceptive that it could make any song's lyrics sound unthreatening and sort of soothing. How else can you explain a song like "Androgynous" receiving airplay. Not even Canadian content rules (in order to keep their licences radio and television stations in Canada have to broadcast a certain percentage of material that qualifies as Canadian made) would have been sufficient to get tunes like that on the air without the soothing qualities of Roberts' voice.

Not being stupid people the band always seemed well aware of that fact, one merely needs to watch the video they made to accompany their contribution to a Christmas album one year, "The First Noel". A faux family scene where Papa Brad, complete with World's Best Father coffee mug, and Momma Ellen Reed sing Noel to the "children" to explain the real meaning of Christmas parodies every earnest explanation seen or heard in the best television families. Never being afraid to bite the hand that feeds them is of course what also makes the Crash Test Dummies so appealing - Roberts has been known to interrupt performances of their big hit "Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, Mmm," with a diatribe about the song being used in a French commercial for cheese: "A bunch of words viewers won't understand followed by mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm". With the release of their newest recording, Oooh La-La! on May 11th/10, Roberts has taken an approach, that intentionally or not, pokes fun at the industries obsession with technology.

He teamed up with producer Stewart Lerman, (Antony and the Johnsons and The Roaches) to create a series of songs utilizing old analog music toys. We're talking toys in the literal sense here with weird names like Optigan - an organ using celluloid discs to project the sound of other instruments playing specific styles of music like big band, country, blues and so on, to serve as an accompaniment for those sitting down to play it, and Omnichord which looks for all the all world like a plastic autoharp with keys instead of strings. Now if you think that some digitalized instruments sound artificial, believe me when I tell you that some of these old analog toys from the 1960's and the 1970's make them sound stunningly accurate. So to say I was a little worried about what Oooh La La! would sound like was a bit of an understatement. Thankfully for all of us the use of the toys was more inspirational than actual, so while their presence is felt in some cases, the songs aren't awash in tinny plink plinks.

They do seem to have translated into a new buoyancy of spirit when it comes to Roberts' song writing though. For instead of the rather ironical, if not downright cynical at times, world view that used to permeate his music, there's a lighter more optimistic tone to most of the tunes on the album. There's even an honest to goodness love song for heaven's sake as he rhapsodizes about his relationship with his wife on "And Its Beautiful". However this isn't some schmaltzy effort like you'd hear from most people, its an elegant testament to his wonder at the miracle of the nature of his relationship. Lyrics like "We turn our water into wine/ it's something we do all the time/ it doesn't cost a single dime/ And its beautiful" are remarkable for both their simplicity and their ability to convey so much with so little.

Even his song about the disappointment of a love unrealized, "You Said You'd Meet Me (in California)" isn't bitter or angry. Instead it goes to the heart of the matter by talking about the heart's longing for what didn't come true. Likening the ache of loss to the sound of a siren's call out in the ocean raises echoes of the longing any of us have felt when our love hasn't been reciprocated. Here, and in "And Its Beautiful" Robert and Lerman have made judicious use of the toys that inspired the songs through having them create an effect rather than weaving them completely into the fabric of the song. In the case of "You Said.." it becomes like a calliope from a worn down carnival or circus that wheezes plaintively through the introduction of the song sounding like the winding down of hope and the failure of expectations.

I have to assume that Roberts and Lerman also played most of the instruments on the recording as unfortunately aside from Ellen Reid there are no other credits mentioned in the promotional material as to who played what on which track. Reid does her usual wonderful job complementing Roberts' baritone with her crystal clear vocals and proves that she has the voice and character to be a front person in her own right with her lead vocals on the CD's final cut "Put A Face". While far more traditional folk fare than the rest of the disc, her vocals give it a power you'll not often hear on simple guitar strummed songs.

No matter how distinctive Roberts' voice is, without Reed's contrasting sound there would be the real risk, through no fault of his own, of monotony setting in. He's remarkable in how much character he is able to express within his range, but a baritone/bass can't express the range of emotions needed to make for a completely satisfying musical experience. The balance achieved by the two voices is what has given, and continues to give, their songs a depth of feeling and emotional honesty rare to find in popular music and the way they intermingle can send shivers running up and down your spine.

While this may not be a typical Crash Test Dummies recording, if such a thing even exists, it contains enough elements from the bands hay days to satisfy old fans while still managing to break new ground and explore different means of expression to prevent any signs of stagnation from setting in. While the novelty of the "toys" might appear to have the potential to be a distraction, they have been so successfully integrated into the tunes I doubt you'd notice unless you knew about them as they have about the same impact on a song as any modern day effect. Oooh La La! is as fine a collection of well crafted, emotionally honest pop songs as you're liable to come across anywhere this year. Even if the packaging is not quite the same as we're used to its what we've come to expect from the Crash Test Dummies.

For those who are making plans to see them on their current tour in support of Oooh La La! you'll be hearing slightly different versions of the songs than from what appears on the disc as they won't be touring with any of the toys. In fact it won't even be the full line up from the past as only Brad Roberts and Ellen Reid accompanied by Stuart Cameron on guitar will be heading out on the road. It should be interesting to hear how the songs hold up to being performed in this more stripped down setting. I doubt they'll be coming to Kingston Ontario, people only do if their tour bus breaks down between Montreal and Toronto, so if you happen to catch them in concert I'd love to hear about it.

Article first published as Music Review: Crash Test Dummies - Oooh La La! on Blogcritics.