Mother Earth Living With The Animals 1968

Besides the roots blues of Tracy Nelson's rare 1964 debut Deep Are The Roots, this would be Tracy's introduction to most listeners. Sharing a splendid blues band with R. P. (Phillips) St. John and his strange blues-based psychedelic tripitude, Nelson nevertheless shines.

The band doesn't hurt. Mark Naftalin (piano), ex of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Toad Andrews (guitar), George Rains (drums), and Bob Arthur (bass) are a solid rhythm section, and St. John's harmonica, a full horn section, three back-up singers, and a guest appearance by Michael Bloomfield supply more than enough good music.

The Tracy Nelson lead vocals are all solid blues and R&B, and she sings everything with her magnificently powerful voice. The record features the original recording of her self-penned classic, Down So Low, and it is a jaw-dropping performance. Memphis Slim's Mother Earth is scorched to the ground by Nelson's voice, as is Allen Toussaint's Cry On. I Did My Part has Tracy firing off some hot dance-floor R&B, and It Won't Be Long follows suit. Great horn arrangements and Naftalin's piano are consistent highlights. Her ambitious Goodnight Nelda Grebe... is a complex arrangement and slightly awkward rhythm, but it delights also.

Then there's the R. P. St. John material, and that is hit-and-miss. Some of the misses are pretty bad. Marvel Group, with its Stan Lee inspired lyrics, is funny and spacey, and his Living With The Animals features harmonica and violin in a odd old-time blues setting that is either richly colored or trite bunk. You'll have to pick, I can't decide. His vocal on My Love Will Never Die is saved by great ensemble playing and nuclear horn charts. There's little redeeming The Kingdom Of Heaven, a major space-out that ends the album on a less-than-stellar note.

But if you're here at all, it is definitely for some of Tracy Nelson's earliest work, and not too surprisingly, it is as good as her best. A mere twenty-four when this was recorded, its hard to believe the depth her voice evokes. But not if you've heard her before. Quite possibly the best blues singer of her generation, but at least one of the better white female blues singers of any generation.

The record is "of its time" most certainly, but they were doing some interesting blues in San Francisco in the sixties. Here it is.

Remarkably the record is widely available in used vinyl and new CD. You also can't go wrong with The Best Of Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth, a fine 1996 CD release, also available as a download, that collects much of Tracy's best work throughout the late sixties and early seventies.

Drive-By Truckers English Oceans 2014

 
For the first time ever, Mike Cooley splits songwriting duties almost down the middle with Patterson Hood. It may well be their best effort to date. Coincidence? I don't think so.

And it's not like I think Cooley's such a hotdog songwriter, but he definitely rises to the occasion, and holds up his end of the bargain. He has always offered his Stones antidote to Hood's Neil Young, and with more of his songs, there's a very good balance. We also get more consistently strong songs from Hood as well, maybe because the weaker ones weren't needed this time.

Since 2011's Go-Go Boots, the band lost bassist Shonna Tucker, and also guitarist John Neff, and replaced her with new bassist Matt Patton. Longtime drummer Brad Morgan is in fine form, and Jay Gonzalez plays keyboards and sometimes takes up the third guitar role left by Neff. We have a tight little five-piece firing on all cylinders.

And that may be the key. This band has been as sprawling and uneven in its personnel as its big ideas and large statements. It is a glorious mess at its best. But the focus on the two mainstay writers, the tight guitar interplay (sometimes down to just two guitars), and the continuation of the lyrical theme of the seedy underbelly of humanity that has been their hallmark, all make this the most focused Drive-By Truckers release yet.

Cooley's Shit Shots Count opens the record with a Stones-y rocker and a killer lead guitar. Hood follows with his When He's Gone, a Neil Young tribute to the classic love-hate relationship. There's a fair amount of country-rock here as well, more so than recent records anyway. Both Primer Coat and Pauline Hawkins dissect female dysfunction in country rhythms. The Part Of Him's politician bashing and the fast-paced country shuffle of First Air Of Autumn run the same vein.

Natural Light is about as close as Cooley gets to a love song, a countrified swagger with great guitars bouncing off Gonzalez' piano. Gonzalez shines again on Hood's Hanging On, with chiming keyboards over Hood's tale of just getting by.

Finally, there are the anthems. No Drive-by Truckers record can be without them. The country dirge of When Walter Went Crazy works perfectly with Hood's cinematic powerhouse lyric. The final track, Grand Canyon, an ode to their longtime assistant Craig Lieske, is the big rock ballad that perfectly wraps a great record.

Maybe the lack of friction between Hood, Cooley, and a third writer (Tucker, and before that, Jason Isbell) is good for this band. Maybe this is the band they were meant to be, distilled down to its core components. Or maybe we just needed a few more Mike Cooley songs.

20 Feet From Stardom DVD 2013

This is a fine little documentary of several great background singers, each who contributed wonderful sounds to other artists' recordings.

The singers themselves are interviewed both in archival footage and today. Springsteen, Sting, Mick Jagger, and Stevie Wonder offer the stars' take on, and appreciation of, the background vocalists.

The singers also get to tell their own stories, and most of them are heartwarming and sweet, despite hard times. Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Tata Vega, Stevvi Alexander, Claudia Lennear, and Cissy Houston all get their due. Several of them recorded solo projects, usually with less than great commercial success, and several talk frankly about wanting to deliberately stay in the background.

Where I beg to differ with the movie is the inclusion of Darlene Love in too much of the movie's time. Love is indeed a fine singer, and has done her share of background work, but first she was a lead vocalist. Shame indeed that the wacked Phil Spector choose to bill her best work as the Crystals, but hey, this is not the time nor the place. The movie get's sucked into Love's personal crap, and that is too bad.

It's well worth ninety minutes of your time, despite its flaws. There's good music, and some old footage of David Bowie that's fun to see. The women are remarkable singers all, and Lisa Fischer does some stuff with her voice that is hard to believe, even as you see it before your very eyes.

Paul Rodgers The Royal Sessions 2014

Summary: English classic rock voice (Free, Bad Company) goes to Memphis to record a set of sixties soul covers in a famous studio (Royal Studios), home to highly regarded seventies soul label Hi Records, and recording locale for many sixties and seventies soul greats.

Additional details: The band includes musicians that played on the previously mentioned original recordings.

There are four Otis Redding covers. That's just looking for trouble, since no one EVER improves on the Otis Redding version of anything. Except maybe Aretha.

The arrangements are super-tight. This could go up or down in its effect on the overall evaluation.

If you liked that last Boz Scaggs record, this is very similar. Great horn charts. Beautiful backup singers on several tracks. Lovely, warm recording venue with theoretically wonderful vintage equipment (no doubt augmented these days). Rodgers has a nice rough edge to replace Scaggs' smooth croon.

I never really considered Rodgers as a soul singer. There really was no need, he was so splendid at bluesy rock swagger.

His voice has held up quite well. He has lost perhaps a little power (and only a little), but not much range. His tone is the same as his younger self, and that's pretty cool.

Song selection is pretty solid. Not surprisingly, Rodgers does some of his best work on the bluesier numbers like Down Don't Bother Me and Born Under A Bad Sign. I Can't Stand The Rain is a weird choice, but it comes off better than I would have thought. Walk On By gets a 7-minute treatment almost worthy of an Issac Hayes solo record.

A few songs don't work so well. It's Growing and Any Ole Way sound like talented bar band covers, but from the less-energized first set of the night. 

Conclusion: Mostly quite good with only a few weak performances, but still better than the majority of genre cover sets. Most of the time the band sounds like they're into it, and when they're hot, it is very good. Rodgers does better than might be expected in the soul setting, and his voice is still an impressive tool. You probably need to like both Rodgers and old soul music.

Stephane Grappelli Satin Doll 1975

A month or so ago I'm visiting my brother and it's almost dinner time, and I randomly reach into his record collection and pull out this record. I'd never seen it, and my brother barely remembered it being in his collection.

Dinner was fabulous, and we ended up listening to all of this captivating record. It was a great time. After a delightful visit with my brother and sister-in-law, I took the two-LP set home to spend some time with it.

It is an unusual Grapelli record for three reasons. It eschews the usual references to Grappelli and Django Reinhardt's Hot Club of France recordings, and is fully updated to the times (the seventies) within the context of a classic jazz quintet. Also unusual for Grappelli is a record made up entirely of the great American songbook of classics. And the addition of hot jazz organ to the ensemble on at least half the record presents an interesting juxtaposition to Grappelli's sizzling violin.

The band is impeccable. Kenny Clarke drums, Guy Pederson bass, Jimmy Goutley guitar, Marc Hemmeler piano, Eddy Louiss organ. Produced with skill in France by Arnauld Froberville. I don't recognize the names either, except for Clarke, but they laid it down on this one. Grappelli is so relaxed, and yet on fire consistently, it is a marvel. To hear him take on the classic jazz songbook is a treat, and everything gets a joyous treatment. They may have been hard at work, but they sound like they are having a grand time. Everyone shines on their solos as Grappelli generously shares the spotlight. And it swings.

It was a lucky find when I stumbled across it, and I'm the better for it. The record is available in CD and used LP formats for reasonable prices. My brother's almost forty-year-old LP was pristine after I cleaned a few fingerprints off it, and sounds incredible. Grappelli, of course, is widely regarded as the greatest jazz violinist ever, and this one won't change anyone's mind.

The Wild Tchoupitoulas 1976

The Wild Tchoupitoulas were a Mardi Gras Indian troupe from uptown New Orleans who participated in the alternative parades on Fat Tuesday. Their leader, Big Chief Jolly George Landy was uncle to the musical Neville brothers (not yet a band under that name) and asked the boys to help the tribe out on a recording of some of their "native" parade songs. The Meters (New Orleans' funky version of Booker T & The MGs) provided the musical setting, and none other than Allen Toussaint produced.

It is a rare one-off that works on so very many levels. But mostly it is grand party music. A blend of swampy New Orleans second line, calypso, and reggae styles keeps focus on the rhythm. If you can sit still, you have Weekend At Bernie's disease. The lead vocals of the elder tribesmen, the tongue-in-cheek hilarity of the Indian battle songs and boasts of the tribe's superiority give the whole event the feel of a true parade atmosphere.

With supportive and complementary musical accompaniment, multiple percussionists, and gang vocal call-and-response all adding to the party vibe, this one cooks. Several future Neville Brothers classics are first heard here, including Brother John and Hey Pocky Way. The highlight for me has always been Meet The Boys On The Battle Front, with that title line followed by "Oh the Wild Tchoupitoulas gonna stomp some rump". The ass they kick will be your own. It's funky as you can be.

Oh, and by the way, girls like this record a lot.

A Day at the Audio Store

I had a special experience last Saturday when I wandered into Paragon Sight and Sound in Ann Arbor. It was early afternoon, and there were no other customers, and the very nice sales staff allowed me to sit and listen to these Wilson Audio Sasha 2, $29,000 speakers. I walked into this lovely listening room, and the young lady asked me if I'd like her to turn it up. They were readying these speakers for their north American debut at a special event later this week. I asked if I could listen to my own music (I just happened to have a CD with some favorites), and she said sure.

But there's so much more. The source was a four-chassis box from dCS that included a CD transport, a DAC, a master clock, and
an upsampler, the four carrying a retail price of right around $108,000. Yeah, I know. Add to that the magnificent and beautiful Dan D'Agostino Momentum preamplifier ($32,000) and twin monoblock power amplifiers ($52,000/pair), and you've got $220,000 worth of stereo. I'm sure there were some crazy expensive cables being used.

What did that sound like?

Maybe right now we have to talk about value, even before the actual sound. I can't buy this stuff, and if I could, heck, I might. But I'd do so with the full understanding that I blew by the point of diminishing returns hundreds of thousands of dollars ago. Did it sound 27 times better than my own system? No way. But it did sound a lot better. I'm pretty sure you could get 98% of this sound for a tenth of the price. But maybe not all of it.

If I had a ridiculous ton of money I still wouldn't buy a Lamborghini or a yacht. Everyone has different priorities. But I might build a special room to listen to some crazy good music system.

And that is exactly what this sounded like. Deep bass, but never overemphasized, and never creeping into that low midrange area that makes Guy Clark sound chesty. Beautiful, searing guitar from Carlos Santana on The Song of the Wind from Caravanseri, but never edgy or too bright. Jane Monheit's Besame Mucho was pure tone perfection. Harry James Big Band's classic Corner Pocket was brassy and in your face, with dynamic range to spare. And The Emerson Quartet's 1st Movement of Hayden's Quartet in G Major was drop-dead stunning. The organ trills near the end of Elvin Bishop's Rock My Soul never sounded more intense, yet somehow relaxed at the same time.

The speakers were unflappable. The difference when you get to the top of the breed is the dynamic range capabilities, and the retrieval of sound you never even knew existed on your recordings. I'd heard Wilson Audio products years ago at an audio show, but this set-up and room were vastly superior, and I wondered how anyone could ask for more from a playback system. I've heard other great systems, and I'd say some of them were this good. But not better in any perceivable way.

No doubt the entire system was working together. The sound from the dCS digital source was so pure, so clean, so specific in its detail retrieval as to be shocking. The D'Agostino gear produced whatever push the music needed to be fully realized by the magnificent speakers, and is some of the most gorgeous stuff known to man. Swiss watch legendary. Clean, unlimited power, effortlessly provided in a nanosecond at whatever level is needed.

Or it just sounded like a blast, and if you heard it, you'd love it. Many thanks to the kind folks at Paragon for letting me experience it.