Tift Merritt Traveling Alone 2013 Kim Richey Thorn In My Heart 2013

Yep Rock Records has quietly entered the audiophile vinyl market 
with these two releases. Honestly I don't know if they've done it before, but both of these records are double LPs pressed at 45 rpm. For those not up to speed in the vinyl department, 45 rpm sounds considerably better than 33 1/3 rpm. Not just a little better. The 45 rpm 12-inch format has previously been reserved for the overpriced audiophile reissue market.

And so it is curious that Yep Rock put these two out with no fanfare. They just call them LPs on their web site, with no mention of their being pressed at 45 rpm. And vinyl isn't coming back. Yeah, right. Yep Rock lists 320 different CD releases on their site, and almost half that many on vinyl. Their artist roster is quite varied, with interesting acts from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today.

Still I'm boggled by the stealth 45 rpm release. Why not tell the
world. They both sound great. Clean, black backgrounds, and
gloriously rich, organic tones. Both records stand firmly in the adult-contemporary-country-singer-songwriter-alt-Americana camp, whose audience is just the kind of geezer that wants to buy a record that sounds that much better than any old record. But then maybe it would seem too elitist to sell to a younger crowd that might just also like these artists.

Whatever the reasoning, it's an interesting development. I haven't spent enough time with either record to really review them, but I like what I've heard so far. And I can tell you that they both sound fabulous. I know that doesn't mean much if the performance isn't there, and I agree, but these are both interesting artists you should maybe already know about. And if you have a turntable, you might just consider finding out what even better sounds like. Or maybe you should buy a turntable, and one of these records (or an old Quadrophenia album in the used bin).

Brian Auger's Oblivion Express Closer To It! 1973

Smack dab on top of it is more like it. Driving rhythms powered by drums and congas almost a la Santana, solid bass and rhythm guitar, Auger's smoking hot organ, multitracked vocals; it all adds up to some fine jazz-soul-rock fusion.

Whenever You're Ready kicks things off with hippy vibe lyrics, multiple hot organ solos, and a spooky percussion and moog break. Happiness Is Just Around The Bend follows with spritely pop-jazz featuring Auger on electric piano. Light On The Path is a driving jazz-rock instrumental that cooks.

On Gene McDaniels' Compared To What the funk serves this band well and they jam it out for eight minutes. Auger's vocals work especially well. Marvin Gaye's Inner City Voices is soulful and funky again, and Voices Of Other Times, featuring a spacey vocal and at long last, a lead guitar break, closes out the record.

As jazz-rock fusion goes, it is both smoother and better than most. Auger was always closer to jazz than most rock organ players, and forty years later he's still touring, playing this material live with his most recent incarnation of the Oblivion Express.

Bob Dylan Another Self Portrait 2013

In June 1970, Bob Dylan released Self-Portrait, his tenth studio record, and far and away, his worst record ever (at the time). There have been some contenders to the title since then, including 1973's Dylan, a hobbled together mess released by Columbia after Dylan left the label, and several of Dylan's mid-eighties records that suffered from lousy material and crappy updated eighties glossy sound.

Now, for some unknown reason, the tenth record in Dylan's Bootleg series of lost treasures and live outings is this reevaluation of Self-Portrait. Greil Marcus' review of the original two-record set of mostly covers of old folk, country and pop tunes began with the line "What is this shit?" In a remarkable fit of revisionist history, Marcus himself writes the liner notes to this grab bag of outtakes and alternate versions as though they are manna from heaven, and not the early demos of the worst crap Dylan ever pooped onto the music scene.

Half of this new release is made up of the early, pre-overdubed rough tracks and outtakes from Self Portrait recorded by Dylan, David Bromberg, and Al Kooper. These rough tracks were then sent to Nashville to be overloaded with additional music in an attempt to turn them into something worthy of Dylan's name. It didn't work. The rough tracks here may be marginally interesting, and perhaps "better" than the overdubbed original release, but they are still rough tracks from a terrible record.

The other half is a mix of rough and alternative tracks for New Morning (the quality follow-up to Self Portrait recorded during the same period), a few needless live tracks from the Isle of Wight festival in 1969, and some demos from around the same time.

I've never been a big fan of the extra bonus tracks that show up on CD reissues of older vinyl records. The outtakes, demos, and rough cuts that are meant to reveal the process, or illuminate the intention of the original rarely do much for me. As I've said before, the producer's job is to keep the weak stuff off the release.

And so now we have Another Self Portrait. It is the scraps left over from a completely forgettable record. The trash of trash. Even the most Dylan-obsessed fanatic will regret parting with hard-earned dollars for this one. You've been warned.

Maceo Parker Soul Classics 2011

Maceo Parker does it again. A while back I raved about Maceo's Roots & Grooves, a live recording from 2008 with Germany's WDR Big Band. This time out, Maceo returns to Germany and another live recording with the famed WDR Big Band, this time bringing Christian McBride on bass and Cora Coleman-Dunham on drums along for the ride.

Soul Classics is just that. James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Issac Hates, Aretha Franklin, Larry Graham, and Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes all get the Maceo Parker treatment. He's become a compelling singer, and always gets into it, soulful and funky as you wanna be.

His sax playing is melodic and strong, with that soulful tone he's had since his mid-sixties debut with James Brown. The WDR Big Band plays flawlessly, and delivers a big brash sound that suits Maceo. They clearly inspire him to fine work. The arrangements are super-hot, and everyone plays like their souls are at stake if they aren't fully invested in every note. Every single note. Cora Coleman-Dunham's drumming deserves special mention.

A consummate pro that just gets better with age, the sixty-eight-year-old Parker is indefatigable. The recording is clean, the band is tight, the song selection is hot, and Maceo puts his funky stamp on everything.

Etta James The Right Time 1992

Etta James had a tough go of things both personal and professional. She made some great singles in the sixties, and continued to record fairly steadily through most of the seventies, albeit with little chart success. During those two decades, she recorded for no less than six different labels.

In 1992, Jerry Wexler produced this come-back gem. Wexler collected an all-star band (Steve Cropper, Steve Ferrone, David Hood, Roger Hawkins, Jim Horn, Willie Weeks, and many more), took Etta to Muscle Shoals for two weeks, and got more than a few blazing hot performances from everyone involved. Top-notch songs, all carefully chosen to bring out the forceful voice of the inimitable Etta James.

Kicking off with I Sing The Blues, the record gets hot in a hurry with a stomping blues boast. Al Green's Love And Happiness follows, and Etta sings it with deep soul, while Lucky Peterson rips a cookin' guitar solo. Evening Of Love is a slow burner, sexy come on, and You're Taking Up Another Man's Place begs the man to put up or get out. Wilson Pickett's Ninety-Nine And A Half Won't Do gets a driving, funky treatment, and Etta burns it to the ground. Down-Home Blues is a stomper, Etta bringing it again.

Not everything is perfect (it's a high bar), but a few songs get the blame, not Etta. She is in good, healthy voice for this one, and the production is excellent. There's more emphasis on the blues than on the rhythm side of things, and those low-down dirties suit James' big brash voice just fine. A consistently strong CD.

Ten Years After Ssssh 1969

Ten Years After gained big time fame right after this record with their incendiary performance of I'm Goin' Home at Woodstock. But this one is perhaps the best of their work. They went on to develop more intricate arrangements, psychedelic touches, and a more sensitive ballad side. But as a concise way to hear what the band was all about, this works just fine. And what they were about is blues rock, plain and simple.

Plain and simple is what you get. A rock solid driving rhythm section propels the band. Chick Churchill integrates organ into rock as well as anybody. And Alvin Lee rips his axe while also scream-snarling his straight-ahead blues lyrics.

Alvin Lee's songs often sound just a little too close to the traditional blues they emulate, but he always comes up with new lyrics, and just how many ways can those notes get put together anyway. His guitar playing is the star of the show, with notes just flying off the fretboard, and killer tone. He's also a fine singer, and the whole band cooks, all the time. There's no filler. Andy Johns engineered, and the record sounds great.

Cricklewood Green in 1970 comes very close, and some might argue that it betters this one. They both benefit from unusually strong original songs from Lee. I've been listening to them both recently, and I can't really pick, but Ssssh just puts everything they do best on display front and center, without embellishment. Straightforward.

Pietasters Oolooloo 1995

Ska music represents a fairly small domain in popular music, but has proved to be more resilient than most would imagine. Ska was the late 1950s-early 60s precursor to rocksteady and then reggae. There are technical explanations for the sound of ska, but suffice it to say that ska sounds like reggae played real fast.

Ska dominated Jamaican music in the early 60s, and eventually morphed into reggae, which then stole the spotlight. The style was revived in the late 70s-early 80s, driven mostly by the 2 Tone Records roster of ska and ska-punk bands The Beat, The Specials, The Selecter, and Madness. I've heard and own some of those records, and they have a big fun party sound.

What I missed altogether was another ska revival in America in the 90s. I knew about No Doubt, but I didn't realize the breadth of reach of ska in the 90s.

So for Christmas my intrepid son-in-law goes all vinyl on me again and scores heavily with the Death LP (and DVD) and this killer 1995 Pietasters record. The vinyl is new, released in 2012 after a Kickstarter campaign to reissue this and several other ska records.

All that's fun, but it's gotta be in the grooves, as it were.

This record is good enough to recommend to someone as their introduction to ska music. They do credible covers of soul chestnuts Same Old Song and Can I Change My Mind, but the originals are the strength of the band. Something Better, Freak Show, Pleasure Bribe, Girl Take It Easy, Night Before, and Movin On Up are all killer, and if you aren't at least tapping your foot, your heart will probably explode. If you dance to the whole record (and you might want to), you'll need to be in shape.

The band sounds mostly like the ska-punk of the early 80s, but they also capture the 60s sound on a few numbers, including Can I Change My Mind and Biblical Sense. The horn charts are super-fine, and the band cooks. The vocals are good, party-boy soul shouting. If you ever counted yourself a ska (or reggae) fan, this is one to hear. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, and you're still reading, you really need to hear this record. You'll have a good time.