I have to start off with two headlines though.
Headline: Technology Changes the Way We Experience Music
Can there ever be another musical revolution as big as Elvis or the Beatles? I would argue that we’ve just been through one. It’s called the iPod.
We all know about the MP3, and about how that Napster kid killed the entire music business all by himself, from his skateboard. Why buy a physical CD when you can download it digitally? (Or, if you’re of a mind and willing to look a little, download it for free?)
Me, I like CDs, and I’m still scheming how to get my wife to let me take my turntable and vinyl out of storage. But the allure of the iPod is irresistible, the impact profound. I’m using iPod here as a proxy for the general concept of having 3,000 albums in your pocket—or on your hard drive. Because now, none of us listens to music the same way we did at the decade’s dawn. Think about it. Back then you listened to music on your stereo, on the good system with the big speakers. Now 90% of the music you listen to comes through ear buds or computer speakers.Music has become portable, transferable, disposable, convenient. But there is a corollary that comes with those benefits. In order to put 3,000 albums in your pocket, the music has to get smaller. And music has gotten smaller; when we shrunk our record collections down to pocket size, we also robbed the music of its grandeur. I’ll address myself for the moment to other folks about my age. Remember that feeling the first time the needle hit the vinyl on Sergeant Pepper? Or Dark Side of the Moon? Or Born to Run? Or Remain in Light? Or Moondance? Or Sticky Fingers? Or, hey, you X-ers: remember when that laser first hit the bits on Nevermind and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” came pounding out of the speakers? Remember how scared your parents were.Remember how we used to actually listen to music, as in, the listening was the primary activity? “What did you do today?” “You know, hung out, listened to some records.” I spent 80% of my waking time in college lounging in a dorm room with friends, listening to records, where the music in the room defined the physical space we all occupied, captivated our attention, became the construct within which we interacted. (I’d like to tell you I spent 80% of my time studying, but we both know I can’t put that over.)I thought we’d stopped doing that because we’re older now, we have jobs and kids and spending money, and even if we wanted to just listen to music, well, we have to go to the wallpaper store. But I wonder… because I don’t think anyone listens to music like that anymore. About a year ago my wife and I were finishing off a Saturday date night with an ice cream cone at the place across the street, and the kids working there had set up a turntable and were playing classic vinyl. We listened to side one of Thriller there, and were both amazed (me less so because I rant like this all the time) at how great it sounded. When we made our deal with the MP3 devil (and don’t get me started on the compromises we make in fidelity with a file format containing a tenth as much data as a CD track does; if you can’t hear the difference, it is likely because you can’t tell the difference on those ear buds of yours) we diverged the music from the equipment through which it sounds best. As a result, we’ve traded engagement for convenience. We have the music wherever we go; but it doesn’t draw us in, wash over us, like it once did; And I don’t think that’s because we’re older now and music was better when we were kids; I think it is an artifact of the technology we use to store and listen.Sacrificing engagement for convenience. Sure, that’s the story of modern life (I’m blogging, tweeting, and podcasting right this moment). But is anyone really ever going to change the world, one pair of ear buds at a time?Every once in a while my wife and daughter have to go somewhere or other for the day and I stay home. On such occasions I make a beeline for the living room with a stack of CDs, and I sit in the big chair and listen. Really listen. Make a point, if you think of it, to do that some time. Get reacquainted with your CD collection, on the big speakers. You’ll be amazed. Unless, heaven forbid, you digitized them all and tossed them away.Headline: Artist of the DecadeHyperbole? Overly kind? Perhaps. But if you can get your head around how groovy that would have been, if you can appreciate that kind of 6-string wet dream, then you’re at least open to the possibility of what the Derek/Warren Allman Brothers means.
Trucks, who plays slide guitar like it was a trumpet, or a sax, or a blues singer, is finally, at age 30, old enough that fans, after 13 years, can stop prefacing everything we say about him with “and he’s still only (insert then-current age).” He is without question THE most unique and distinctive guitar voice of our time, and there really isn’t a number two, and if you’re going to propose someone like John Mayer then I’ve got to come back and say, there probably isn’t a number three through nine either. Whether with the Brothers, with his own band, with Clapton playing the big rooms, or in some other context, Derek is simply a joy to behold, seemingly capable of playing anything, conveying any emotion, all without breaking a sweat or offering a grimace.
Meanwhile Haynes has cut a Herculean swath through the decade. Here he is dropping Christmas Jams; there pre-jams, Mountain Jams, solo gigs, Mule tours, Allman tours, Dead tours, One for Woody, the Phil Lesh Quintet, the Deep End, the Deepest End, the Jammys, the sit-ins—if you judge a man by the tracks he leaves in the snow, Haynes is the Abominable Freaking Snowman of jamband nation. Which, when Radiohead, Gov’t Mule, Arcade Fire, and Tom Petty all play the same festivals, really means live band nation.
I didn’t put any official live bootlegs on this list, but if you want to hear what I’m fussing about, I can recommend the following concert recordings, available for sale from Hitting the Note: 8/10/03; 9/25/04; 9/18/05; 3/20/09 (that one has 45 minutes of Clapton); and 3/26/09.
I’ve heard her talk about how in the folk singer pantheon Bob Dylan is the brightest star, whereas she was always more influenced by Joni Mitchell (certainly the way she uses guitar tunings is evocative.) But for me, there’s more than a little Patti Smith in there too, because on stage, Ani is both a poet and a shaman. Her concerts—at which, invariably, you’ll hear three new songs you’ve never heard before, even if you have the record she released yesterday—are cathartic, communal happenings where something profoundly mystical and medicinal is going on between artist and performer. Shamans are healers. Very few musicians have had that shaman thing going on; Bob Marley comes to mind, and definitely Patti. Ani has it as well.
She’s also an absolutely great acoustic guitar player. Her style is uniquely rhythmic and percussive, as is her vocal phrasing, the net effect of which is that she manages to create polyrhythms and counter-rhythms with just one voice and one guitar. It’s truly uncanny to behold. So there is an undeniable funk to the folk; she puts the hips in hippie. With a band around her, the effect is even more beguiling, as the rhythms, cadence and poetry draws you inexorably into the music.
If there is a criticism, I’d say it is her sometime inclination toward overtly political songs. I've always believed that the more powerful political statement is a song about one farmer, not about Big Farming (Mellencamp's "Rain on the Scarecrow" comes to mind.) But on songs like “Tis of Thee” Ani manages to scale down the political into the personal, weaving a compelling compelling narrative that places her squarely in the tradition of great American folk music, going back to Woody Guthrie.
She is a major voice who put out at least two great records in the decade, but like a true folk artist she made her art a night at a time, in the moment. I’ve probably seen her 25 times now, and she’s way at the top of the list of artists I consider must-see acts. The live work is amply documented via the Official Bootleg series at Righteous Babe; try the newest, from Chicago, 9/22/07, with her latest four-piece, and full of the new happy tunes, 2 CDs for the can’t-beat-it price of ten bucks.
My artist of the decade has to be Ryan Adams. He was the frontman for Whiskeytown, a raucous alt.country band during the previous decade when he was known to be, shall we say, reckless in his… well, everything. He announced his arrival as a solo artist in 2000 with Heartbreaker, a great, sad country break-up record that made a lot of rock magazine best-of-decade lists. He followed it up with the incandescent Gold, in 2001. In 2002 he was supposed to put out five records, but that didn’t pan out; the best of the sessions was collapsed into Demolition (a play on the term “demos.”) But it wasn’t hard to find the studio bootlegs for Suicide Handbook, Destroyer, Pinkhearts Demos, Exile on Franklin Street, and 24 Hours.
In 2003 he put out Rock’n’Roll, which may be seen as a Paul Westerberg homage; on the same day he released the first half of Love is Hell, which came out with less fanfare but which was the better record. Then a pivotal event-- in January 2004 he fell off the stage and broke his hand. There was talk of retirement (in fact he’s retired from music right now), but instead he essentially relearned to play the guitar, embraced the notion of playing in, as opposed to fronting, a band, formed the Cardinals, and by the fall of ’04 he was playing out with the first Cardinals line-up, working through some new material, dropping in the occasional Dead cover.
2005 was his year. Adams put out three albums, all outstanding: first Cold Roses, a double album of exquisite (American) beauty, about which more below; then Jacksonville City Nights, more twangy and country, with more narrative in the songs and the nod in the direction of Whiskeytown that many fans were waiting for. Both were credited to Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. Then late in the year, 29, a solo record with a skew to sadder piano songs, each one playing out like a little movie (save for the title track, which was essentially a rewrite of the Dead’s "Truckin’.”)
So we’re six years in, and he’s put out 8 official albums, at least five unofficial ones, and there’s not a stinker in the bunch. Meanwhile the Cardinals came out of the gate great as a performing entity—the 2005 shows, featuring songs from the new records before many of them had been released, are preserved and memorable. Somehow, the band managed to turn over three of five members in two years and get better each time. In 2006 Adams produced Willie Nelson’s Songbird, with the Cardinals as backing band; ’07 brought Easy Tiger, an extra half an album in the form of an EP, and a gorgeous string of acoustic shows through the spring and summer. If you aren’t flustered by bittorrent and FLAC, do yourself a favor and go get this one right now. You’re welcome.
Adams also began an enchanting musical partnership with Phil Lesh, the bass player from the Grateful Dead, in 2005, with Adams joining the band for some Lesh gigs, including a noteworthy New Year’s Eve show. Lesh continued to include Adams songs in his repertoire long after, and they sounded great alongside the Dead, Beatles, Van Morrison, Band, and Dylan songs he also covers. I saw Phil Lesh & Friends on February 19, 2006, and in the first set they moved from “China Cat Sunflower” into the Adams nugget “Cold Roses,” then segued via jam into the Jerry Garcia solo tune “Cats Under the Stars.” I was sure many there mistook the Adams song for an old Garcia original they couldn’t quite place.
The Cardinals kept getting better, Adams sobered up, put out Cardinology in 2008, released 10 free albums of hip hop, metal, and studio tomfoolery through his website, married Mandy Moore, and retired from music. So now you’re all caught up.
Really, a hell of a decade, in terms of both quantity and quality. If he never plays another note, for my money he’s already a hall of famer.
Herewith, the list.
OK then. Enough preamble. Here’s the amble. As a rule, I tried to include only one title per artist; there are two exceptions to that rule, Ryan Adams and Ani DiFranco. Derek Trucks came damn near putting another one here as well. And don’t sweat the actual numerical rankings too much; I didn’t. There’s a standard error of about 3-5 slots.
40. Tan Sleeve, Bad From Both Sides (2003)
Bad From Both Sides is, for me, their best work, a lovely invocation of the Big Bs (Beatles, Beach Boys, Big Star, Bert Bacharach.) Check out their exquisite cover of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” perhaps my favorite rock coverage of Henry Mancini. I also love “Equidistant,” “Destruction,” and “It Doesn’t Snow in New York Anymore.” In addition to being melodic and poppy, they’re also eclectic and funny.
And I can’t say this enough; Lane, I’m sorry about that incident with the softball in 1972.
38. Mudcrutch, Mudcrutch (2008): Mudcrutch were a bunch of kids from northern Florida who moved out to LA in the early ‘70s to make a record and become rock stars. The record company wasn’t so keen on the sessions, but they liked the bass player. So long story short, the bass player moves over to rhythm guitar, a couple of line-up changes, and presto! Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Mudcrutch finally went and made their breakthrough record in 2008. If it had come out in the early ‘70s it would have placed them squarely in the Eagles/Burritos school of country rock (Mudcrutch guitarist Tom Leadon’s brother Bernie actually played in both those bands.) Lots of Southern California style country rock with all members singing, although Petty clearly sings the most. Heartbreakers Benmont Tench (keys) and Mike Campbell (guitar) are both always studs; of particular note amongst all the laid back country rock is a nine-minute track called “Crystal River” which, Petty said in concert at the Fillmore in April ’08, “runs through Florida… and occasionally my mind.” The song builds and flows like Neil Young’s “Down by the River,” melodically evocative of “White Bird,” and is a tour de force for Campbell, one of rock’s most underrated players, who usually does his thing in a tightly structured song (think “American Girl” or “Listen to Her Heart”) but here gets to take his time exploring, climbing, crafting some of the best guitar work of the year.
Late in ’08 they put out a live EP with an even better version of “Crystal River,” plus a killer take on Jerry Lee Lewis’s “High School Confidential.”
Wait for Me is hard not to like if you dig the blues. She sings the hell out of everything, including “Gonna Move” and “The Feeling Music Brings,” both originals and signature songs now; and her killer-diller cover of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice” (even better than the Four Seasons!) The live album from Austin City Limits is also pretty good and might even be more essential; it has all three of those songs, some of her other signature tunes (“Lost Lover Blues”), and also “Angel From Montgomery,” so you can make your own Bonnie Raitt comparisons. But for some reason I tend to shy away from live recordings on these lists; probably because it’s hard to tell where the live albums, the “official bootlegs,” and the actual bootlegs leave off and pick up; for example, I’d probably direct you to 10 commercially available concert recordings from the Allmans before I’d point you to their actual “live album” from the decade, One Way Out (which is way good, but not as good as, for instance, 8/24/04.)
I don’t know what the consensus is, but Electric Version, the second, is my favorite. (Editor's note: after I posted this, Ron Everhart wrote to tell me he thinks Twin Cinema is probably the best of the four New Pornographers records. Knowing Ron, he's probably right.)
This plays like a kids’ record, plain and simple, the soundtrack from the Curious George movie. And I had a 2-year-old when it came out. And, well… it’s breezy, giddy, wistful, full of great songs, irresistible for kids of all ages. A great record for a family drive on a lazy spring day.
While the Mule records are generally calling cards for the live shows, and fans generally quickly put aside the formal album releases for official and unofficial live recordings, this one merits a place here, because it includes many of Haynes’s best-loved and best written songs: the beautiful ballads “Banks of the Deep End” and “Beautifully Broken”; jam band anthem “Soulshine” (already on an Allman Brothers album); the jazz instrumental “Sco-Mule”; and scorcher “Worried Down With the Blues,” a staple of Allman Brothers shows since the mid-90s. There’s also an absolutely smokin’ 9-minute read on the Creedence song “Effigy” that will put hair on your chest.
Haynes can’t decide if he’s a soul man, an ass kicker, or a singer-songwriter. At his best he’s all three. He’s at his best here.
31. King Crimson, The Power to Believe (2003)
30. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002): This album sounds like nothing so much as songs falling apart, like a sad somewhat alt.country record slipping out of song form and getting sucked into a lost vortex of static and radio noise. Which is great; I’ve been fond of the “song form decaying into chaos” gambit since Jefferson Airplane came out of “The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil” with “A Small Package of Great Value Will Come to You, Shorty,” 45 years ago. So I’m still not quite sure why it’s supposed to be so effing brilliant when Wilco or Radiohead (see also, “Kid A”) does it.
Be that as it may, I do like the shtick when it’s done well and with heart, and Wilco does a nice job here. Wilco is definitely a band I wish I “got.” Like the Shins and the New Pornographers, I’m sure that one day I’ll put in the time and Wilco will just snap into place for me. So I’ve got that to look forward to. Foxtrot does have a beguiling and alluring quality to it, and it takes you on a sonic journey, starting here, ending way the hell over there. It’s still a good listen, and if it isn’t as revelatory as the rock cognoscenti would have you believe, you still ought to own it.
29. Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full (2007)
On Memory Almost Full, which vies with the Fireman release (Macca with producer Flood) as his best of the decade, Paul doesn’t find his inner Beatle, but oddly enough, he does locate his inner Wings. “Mr. Bellamy” is clearly more than a passing acquaintance of Mrs. Vanderbilt, “Dance Tonight” has the full-on whimsy mojo and it’s not hard to imagine it on Ram or Red Rose Speedway, and the medley toward the end—including “Vintage Clothes” and “That Was Me”—strings some unbelievably likable songs together while revisiting his Beatle past: “Mersey beat n' with the band, that was me.” Some of my pop friends thought Chaos and Creation was the real deal, but having Radiohead’s producer do Macca was not a good idea. No, this is the real goods—“Gratitude,” “Ever Present Past,” Only Mama Knows”—maybe a final burst of melodic genius from the cute one. It took me three plays to fall into this record, and I haven’t fallen out yet. Well done, Sir Paul.
28. Lucinda Williams, World Without Tears (2003)
27. Future Clouds and Radar, Future Clouds and Radar (2007)
26. Thad Cockrell and Caitlin Cary, Begonias (2005):
I’ve given this record as a gift several times, including, apparently, to my brother on two different occasions (both times with the Ollabelle debut.)
Also of note, the country duet records made by Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez, which if you like this, you are sure to like as well; I’d recommend Red Dog Tracks.
25. Ani DiFranco, Evolve (2003):
Ani put out a couple of records next that didn’t grab me (Standing Stone and Knuckle Down) but by 2008’s Red Letter Year, and with husband and baby daughter in tow, Ani had gone all happy on our asses—including a lyric reminding herself, “Don’t forget to have a good time.” As a three-piece or four-piece, anchored by Sickafoose, who hangs on her every movement, giving back precisely the note, the riff, the melody she needs, Ani now sings happy songs, a strange happenstance for her core audience, and not least for the little folksinger herself. The happy songs are lovely, and it turns out you can find happily ever after and still write a great song. For me, the arc to that place begins on Evolve, a funky, catchy, forward-looking piece of art that will make your ears dance.
24. Ryan Adams, Heartbreaker (2000): The record that announced to the world that the wild drunken front man for Whiskeytown was gonna be a contenda. Full of aching, heart-breaking, beautiful alt.country ballads, and if you were inclined to miss the lineage from Gram Parsons, he makes sure you don’t by singing one of the prettiest ones here as a duet with Emmylou Harris. There are some rockers (“To Be Young”), but the best songs are the soft ones: “My Winding Wheel,” “Oh My Sweet Carolina” (with Emmylou), “Come Pick Me Up,” “Why Do They Leave.”
Heartbreaker showed up on several best-of-the-decade lists, but for me it wasn’t Adams’s high water mark; it was an incantation. At his worst, he’s whiny, weepy, wallowing, sloppy and self-indulgent. At his best, well, let’s just admit that each of those descriptors has been applied to Dylan and Neil Young at some time or another. He’s not the voice of a generation, but he makes great records. Next up he’d make a great rock’n’roll record (Gold) and soon he’d be fronting one of the best live bands around.
23. Florapop, Sunshine Saturday (2003):
22. Los Super Seven, Heard It on the X (2005):
21. U2, All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000):
You loved 1987’s Joshua Tree, don’t try and tell me you didn’t. But that record was the culmination of a drive to the top of the heap that finally saw them get too big, too earnest, too mythic. Afterward, there was only one way for U2 to go—and that was to deflate the myth, to go all ironic on your ass. Hence most of the ‘90s; Zoo TV, the Fly, and Pop. But by 2000 U2 had gotten to a place where they could push through the sly wink and just make a kickass rock record again, and fortuitously they chose to do so. In an interview, Bono described this album as U2 re-applying for the title of world’s greatest rock band.
Their work this decade was strong—three fine records, and at least as much stuff released to the fan club (some of it better than the official records)—but the first one was the very best, wherein they go back to doing what they do beat, which is making the hair on your knuckles stand up. You knew they were back 5 seconds into the first song (“Elevation.”)
Live, of course, they have remained one of the very best bands in rock.
20. Sufjan Stevens, Come On Feel the Illinoise (2005):
Stevens was supposedly going to record an album for each state—he’d done Michigan already. Of course that conceit would have required him to live to about 140. This weird, brittle work doesn’t sound like Illinois—I’d expect the state to sound more like Buddy Guy, whereas on Illinoise, as I wrote in my round-up of the best of 2005, “One minute vocals and acoustic guitar, the next synths and glockenspiel and he's channeling Phillip Glass.”
There are titles here like “Casamir Pulaski Day,” and “Decatur, or a Round of Applause for Your Stepmother.” A lot of people have pointed to the eerie piano ballad, “John Wayne Gacy,” as a highlight, me included. Gacy, of course, was a notorious Illinois-born serial killer; here’s a spooky video of the song.
In April 2008 when I happened to be in Chicago for the Counting Crows appearance at the Apple Store, I asked them what records they’d liked recently. Duritz waxed immediately about Illinoise, and even said that they built one of the songs on the “Sunday Mornings” half of their ’08 album around the piano part from “John Wayne Gacy.” If you’re reading, Adam, I forgot which one, and sorry you didn’t make the list.
19. Robert Plant and Alison Kraus, Raising Sand (2007):
For me, the artist here is producer T-Bone Burnett. No offense intended to the blond prima donna (or to Alison Kraus), but Burnett has quietly weaved one of the most compelling discographies of the decade, beginning with the sound track to O Brother Where Art Thou? (which triggered a bluegrass resurgence, and featured Ms. Kraus); and including but not limited to soundtracks to both Cold Mountain and a Mighty Wind, and fine records by Elvis Costello, the BoDeans, John Mellencamp, BB King, and Warren Zevon’s last, The Wind. Oh, and this.
Bluegrass queen Kraus and—well, I’m sure you know Plant, he took his shirt off a lot in the ‘70s, yowled on blues songs, and was in a band with a guy who played guitar with a bow, and who collectively achieved some degree of popularity. Anyway, somehow, the Appalachian roots of Kraus and the Celtic roots of Plant (and believe me, his roots are showing) meet smack dab in the middle of T-Bone’s rootsy acoustic Americana. Burnett plays acoustic guitars and brings out the usual crew—including stringed instrument whizzes Norman Blake, Greg Liesz, and Marc Ribot. The result is a timeless, moody, spooky music, the two voices melding like otherworldly aches, over the most tasteful picking you’re likely to find. I didn’t get to see them live, but I’m sure it was a drag dealing with the aging frat boys standing on chairs hollering “Whole Lotta Love!”
18. Calexico, Hot Rail (2000):
Hot Rail was strongly recommended to me by a man known only as the Tour Mystic… it is a beautiful and spooky thing, a late night record, recorded from a mythical place where Tejano and classic Coltrane meet up, with a dash of Sketches of Spain for good measure. It is border radio re-imagined as make-out jazz. And Hot Rail is the kind of record where the silences—the notes they choose not to play—say as much as the notes they do play. The music breathes, occupies its own space in your living room. Go there, don’t mind the smoky haze, and be careful not to drink the worm.
17. Cloud Eleven, Orange and Green and Yellow and Near (2002):
16. Fleetwood Mac, Say You Will (2003):
In the mid-90s Lindsey cut a solo record tentatively titled Gift of Screws as follow-up to the gorgeous Out of the Cradle. For reasons that elude me, it never came out. So when it was time for Fleetwood Mac to reunite and shift some units, he had a trove of tunes all ready; even better, serendipity-wise, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood were already on a bunch of ‘em. So all that remained was to layer on some Stevie Nicks vocal tracks, and voila! Fleetwood Mac songs.
Nicks didn’t want to do “Come,” a scathing Buckingham FU to an ex-girlfriend that she feared people would think was about her. (Really? Still?) But we know it’s actually about Anne Heche.
A couple of the Nicks songs are OK—in particular the title track—but then, not a one of them made it onto my iPod. This is on my list as the best Lindsey Buckingham record of the decade.
15. Solomon Burke, Don’t Give Up On Me (2002):
One of several great, true soul music records produced by Joe Henry in the decade (also including Susan Tedeschi’s Hope and Desire, which almost made this list, and the multi-artist session I Believe to My Soul, and the Costello/Toussaint collaboration The River in Reverse.)
But this is Burke’s show. Henry’s talent here is to facilitate while staying out of the way; on the liner notes he describes himself as the corner man to Burke’s boxer. The album was recorded live in the studio in LA over a four-day period, and features guest spots by Daniel Lanois on guitar, and by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. The songs are mostly unrecorded originals (some written specifically for Burke) by people like Tom Waits, Brian Wilson, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe. Not too shabby. The band is in the pocket and perfect and restrained, falling like autumn leaves around the vocal arrangement Burke brings to the take. Burke’s own church organist, Rudy Copeland, falls in like a second skin, an instrumental response to Burke’s incantations, putting the spell in Gospel.
Because Don’t Give Up On Me was recorded live in the studio, and is comprised of songs the players were learning at the time, you can hear the music breathe as the songs take on form and life. You’ll listen to this, marvel at how fresh it sounds—contemporary recording technology applied to the kind of soul music they mostly stopped making when Al Green first hung it up-- and wonder why no one makes records like this anymore. I’m going to guess, it’s because not many can. Call it the make-out record of the century, call it an old pro doing what he does best, call it a lesson in love and soul-- but by God, call it!
14. The Little Willies, The Little Willies (2006):
…much better this release, from one of Norah’s numerous fun side projects. The Little Willies are a sort of urban hipster country band, the name referring to their alleged beginning as a Willie Nelson cover outfit. The Willies included Norah, then-producer-boyfriend Lee Alexander on bass, and the always exquisite Richard Julian (the ill-rewarding “songwriter’s songwriter”) sharing vocal and guitar duties. The band’s zeitgeist is perhaps best captured on the closing track, “Lou Reed,” wherein that quintessential black-clad Manhattan hipster is observed going cow tipping. A mix of covers and originals, including the Leiber/Stoller Elvis tune “Love Me,” the country song “Streets of Baltimore” that I’ll always associate with Gram Parsons, and of course two Willie Nelson tracks. This one stuck in my CD player for months; it still rewards, and is instantly likable and fun.
13. Lewis Taylor, The Lost Album (2007):
This is one of those records where you’re going to want to play “spot the influences,” so let me make it easy for you. The Beach Boys are in there for sure (in fact on another record Taylor covers Brian Wilson’s “Melt Away”). But the biggest influence by far is Todd Rundgren (and Taylor has been known to encore live with Todd’s “Everybody’s Going to Heaven/King Kong Reggae” medley from the 1973 Todd album.).
A lot of other artists have mined the Todd-and-Beach-Boys vein to good effect (the one-man bands New Radicals, A Simple Carnival, and June and the Exit Wounds come immediately to mind, and maybe even Matthew Sweet.) But what separates Taylor, I think, is the way he manages to run amok in his own record, laying down the tracks, the lead instruments, the vocals, the harmonies… and then sort of dancing and squirting colorful joy all over the top, supplementing the studio craft with unchecked id. Especially vibrant and noteworthy—and most evocative of Rundgren’s early-mid period work—is the Jackson Pollack way Taylor uses lead guitar to splay color across the outros of songs.
So sure, this record is derivative, and if that puts you off, so be it. But I’d argue that all the best music is derivative, the sound of artist or artists assimilating something that came before and making something new, or pushing what came before forward in some way. Taylor might not actually be breaking a whole lot of new ground here, but if you want a soundtrack to doing the snoopy dance on the beach, here it is.
12. Alejandro Escovedo, A Man Under the Influence (2001):
There really isn’t much else to say. He’ll break your heart and shake your moneymaker, sometimes in the same song.
11. Jim Boggia, Fidelity is the Enemy (2001):
It is possible that Safe in Sound or Misadventures in Stereo are better records—they certainly sound like they had more money behind them—but this one is my sentimental favorite and absolutely remains the one I’m closest to; I think probably the home-made feel of it serves to enhance its charm. Like all of Jim’s work, it is imbibed with the feel of the Beatles, and of classic sixties and seventies rock and pop in general. His catalog is essentially an homage to his (and my) record collection—songs with titles like “Bubblegum 45s” (on this one), “Listening to NRBQ,” and “8 Track;” an EP of Beatle tunes; and his brilliant covers of the Faces (“Debris”), Queen (“Somebody to Love,” spot on, just voices and acoustic guitar), and especially the Kinks “Waterloo Sunset,” which includes his brilliant deconstruction of, and master class on, the backing vocals on the original.
In the liner notes to Fidelity Jim calls it his “love letter to Pop music,” and he references Mal Evans, Todd Rundgren, Paul McCartney, Emmitt Rhodes, Brian Wilson, and Jon Brion. A group of artists who, collectively, triangulate this record pretty well. I love it, and I love Boggia. (special note: I played with Jim live once—him on piano, me on invisible trumpet, backing Jill Sobule at Joe’s Pub on “Cinnamon Park.”)
If great Pop music is bad for you, then Jim Boggia is a casualty. I’d like to think I’m right there with him.
10. Drive-By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera (2001):
If I told you that this double-album was a rock opera about Lynyrd Skynyrd, you’d probably think I was pulling your leg. But it is. Ultimately it is about more; it’s about coming of age as a rocker in the south in the early ‘70s, but damn if that doesn’t make it very much about Lynyrd Skynyrd, who are central throughout, and who’s tragic story frames, provides context for the piece. Southern Rock Opera is about “the southern thing,” coming to grips with the baggage of, and then finding redemption for, the culture and heritage of the south. The pantheon of Alabama luminaries is a three-headed Mount Rushmore here—Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Zandt, football coach Bear Bryant, and George Wallace, who’s own story—embodying the racism of the south that made it so easy for Yankees to generalize, then winning 80% of the black vote the last time he ran—is presented as one of many microcosms of the paradoxical nature of that “southern thing.”
There’s a lot of drinking and bad behavior; the very first song ends in a tragedy, with the protagonist’s best buddy and girlfriend in a fatal car accident the day before high school graduation; when they tell of it the next day, everybody says that “Freebird” was playing on the stereo. And it goes from there, two sprawling records, the first set in the ‘70s, the second set in the present. Of course there are three guitars, like in Skynyrd, but this doesn’t sound strictly like southern rock to me, not unless you count Exile on Main Street as southern rock. Which I do, sort of.
Southern Rock Opera is a work of art that is distinctly of the American south, with a consistent, compelling, and subversively intelligent narrative (I don’t think the Truckers want you to know how literate and smart they are, because they wouldn’t want the other good ol’ boys to find out.) It is almost gothic novel as rock’n’roll record. So you can follow the narrative arc and appreciate what the band has to say about the southern experience; or you can just lose yourself in all those guitars. For artful narrative, holistic cohesion across two sprawling discs, and for the sheer gritty rocking out that ensues, I have no choice but to mark this one of the decade’s best.
9. Ollabelle, Ollabelle (2004):
I don’t know if Ollabelle are religious, but this is a deeply religious, spiritual, gospel sort of record. Just look at the song titles; “Elijah Rock,” “No More My Lawd,” a spooky, haunting take on the old blues “John the Revelator”, and two songs with Jesus in the title (and he pretty much shows up in every song here.) The record plays like, and feels like, a revivalist river baptism.
I met Tony Leone, the drummer from Ollabelle, outside the Beacon at a 2007 Allman Brothers show; he wanted to get inside. He just kind of casually mentioned that his band had played the Beacon recently, and so I asked him what band. Since Allman Brothers Tour Manager Kirk West is big Ollabelle fan, that was good enough to get him a backstage pass.
8. Josh Rouse, 1972 (2003):
Each record Rouse has put out since has been lovely; Nashville, Substitulo, and City Mouse, Country Mouse, not to mention his various EPs and download-only releases. Next time your wife’s friend plays you the Norah Jones record, play her some Josh Rouse. She’ll love you for it.
7. Todd Rundgren, Liars (2004):
And then this. Thematically constructed around the concept of the lies we tell each other (and ourselves), Liars is a brilliant, textured, synthetic work that ranks, for me, among his 5 best albums ever.
Like a lot of Todd’s work over the years, Liars sounds like the technology with which it was recorded. You hear computers and synthetic sounds, and very little that reminds you of guitars or pianos. But for me, that’s part of the charm of the album; it’s meta-textual, even the music is a lie. Importantly though, the songwriting is outstanding. “Past” and “Sweet” are reminiscent of his Philly soul-style ballads; and “Afterlife” and “Wondering” are nice and poppy, while “Truth” and “Future” could, if rearranged for the appropriate style of the era, fit as songs on any of his best records.
Rolling Stone called Radiohead’s Kid A the best of the decade. I played that and Liars back to back in preparing this list, and I’ll tell you what, I don’t see how anyone could be taken with Kid A and not be blown away by Liars; all the same high-tech trickery, but Liars adds songwriting and soul.
When I saw the Liars tour in Manhattan, I ran into Todd out front, and told him the truth: “I did not see an album this good coming.” He took it as the compliment it was supposed to be. And the tour smoked; the live DVD is recommended as well.
6. Brian Wilson, SmiLE (2004):
Fine. Whatever. SmiLE is a great song cycle, containing some of his greatest compositions (or “teenage symphonies to God”)—“Surf’s Up,” “Heroes and Villains,” “Good Vibrations.” This isn’t the Beach Boys version (if you want that, you can find recreations that follow this running order, assembled by fans off the original tapes.) It has Wilson’s now-brittle, shaky voice at the center, with most of the hard stuff executed by a great cast of supporting musicians who collectively virtually define 21st century California Beach Boys pop—including the Wondermints, Nelson Bragg, and band leader Jeff Foskett (all of whom made records that vied for consideration on this list.) There is so much talent assembled here, all musicians who were raised on this stuff, who totally get it, who have assimilated it until it comes out their pores. And the blueprint, the original song cycle, does indeed turn out to be a work of fractured genius.
A final note. Both SmiLE and my daughter were released in 2004. I played it for her most of the first year of her life; in fact until she was 2 it was a steady diet of SmiLE, Pet Sounds, Beatles (who she still loves), Elvis, and Ricky Nelson. I think it seeped in. To this day she has a killer ear for great pop.
5. Ryan Adams, Gold (2001):
Gold came out right around 9/11, and in the days and weeks that followed the events of that day, the lead track, “New York,” became something of a rallying cry, a defiant exclamation that “I still love New York.” (Never mind that the song was about a girl, not a city.)
I think I nailed it pretty succinctly at Amazon, where my review is the lead one for this album. Allow me to pilfer from myself, noting that “…the whole thing had masterpiece written all over it from the very first spin at my home in September of 2001. As my wife so aptly said, ‘It has that sweet familiar ring of every album you ever loved as a kid.’ Which, if you are our age, means it feels like Van Morrison, Neil Young, Dylan, Exile-era Stones, like that. It hits you in that ‘Into the Mystic,’ ‘Brown Sugar,’ ‘Everybody Knows This is Nowhere’ place. Do you like that place? Yeah, me too.”
Songs like “Stars Go Blue,” “La Cieniga Just Smiled,” “Answering Bell,” and “Firecracker” sound like you’ve known them all your life. “Somehow, Someday” manages to hit you with two hooks in a row. If there is one criticism about Gold, I’ve heard some say that the first 8 songs are the whole album. While I agree it is front-loaded, those 8 songs alone would make this a great record. And “Wildflowers,” “Harder Now That It’s Over,” and “Goodnight Hollywood Boulevard” aren’t even among them.
4. Derek Trucks Band, Songlines (2006):
By that circular definition, the Derek Trucks Band is indeed a jam band. So when this studio album came out in 2006, it was quite an accomplishment-- because Trucks and band had managed to take that magic in-the-moment mojo and filter it through the prism of the recording studio, making a near-perfect album that is the ideal combination of great playing and great songs. From the opening invocation, Rashaan Roland Kirk’s “Volunteered Slavery,” through the wistful, soaring “This Sky” that closes the record, every song pulls you in further, tugs you forward, deposits you squarely at the doorstep of the following track. In between, there’s straight-up blues (the 8-bar “Crow Jane,” “Chevrolet”), reggae (a Toots Hibbert cover, “Sailing On”), Sufi world music (the “Sahib Teri Bandi/Maki Madni” Ali Khan medley), and some almost-radio-friendly pop (“I’ll Find My Way,” “I Wish I Knew.”)
Of course, the thread weaving all these styles together is Derek Trucks’ guitar. Only 30 (despite going on his 12th year in the Allman Brothers Band) Trucks is probably the definitive guitarist of his generation, a master of tone and feel. Derek plays guitar like Miles and Coltrane played horns, he is not limited by such conventions as scales and notes, and it often sounds like he’s not so much playing as painting with sound. He is one of those players—like Carlos Santana—whose presence on a record is unmistakable the first time he steps up and solos.
Credit too goes to Count M’butu, whose percussion work also serves to blend and bleed the styles together into a seamless whole.
3. The Jayhawks, Rainy Day Music (2003):
I always feel like I’m damning a band with faint praise when I compare them so directly to a different band… but this record is very much like an early ‘70s Eagles album, like say the Desperado record, all harmonies and acoustic guitars and electric guitars and weepy, longing, pretty cowboy songs. Rainy Day Music reminds us, if we need reminding, that good songs well-played (on actual, you know, instruments) and well-sung never goes out of style. I think what makes this one so damned good is the songwriting; “Stumbling Through the Dark” (on there twice, just like “Desperado”), “Tailspin,” “All the Right Reasons,” “Save It for a Rainy Day,” and “Angelyne,” to name 5, are just exquisite. I played it in the house recently, and my 5-year-old Beatlemaniac daughter was singing along with songs the first time she was hearing them.
If there is a criticism here, it is that the record is front-loaded; the first four songs on the album are on that list of five songs I rattled off just a second ago. But heck, isn’t that what shuffle is for?
2. Ani DiFranco, Reveling and Reckoning (2001):
This might not be her best or most consistent collection of songs (consider Out of Range), but it is, for me, her best record, a double album that captures the arc of a major phase of Ani’s career at its zenith, that is, I think, the only studio work of hers that approaches the shamanic ecstasy of her live work. Reveling is the happy, joyous, break-beat romp; Reckoning is the more traditional folkish meditation, although the two discs each boast some of both styles (and lots of others). Together they comprise a double album, the breadth and scope of which is still, almost nine years later, a thing to behold. There are techno-folk mash-ups (“Aint That the Way”), sound collage poetry (“Tamburitza Lingua”), moody meditations (“Rock Paper Scissors”), achingly beautiful political folk songs (“Your Next Bold Move”), and lovely romantic folk songs (“Imagine That.”) Keep in mind that Ani had put out three albums in the past three years, so this explosion of songs was almost too much to absorb. But it has legs, and we still give these two discs a spin every now and again around our place, and we still love them.
1. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Cold Roses (2005):
Adams broke his hand in January 2004, took some time off healing, relearning the guitar, and apparently listening to a lot of Grateful Dead; this beautifully crafted double album (one of three records he put out in ’05) is a sort of homage to the Dead’s two acoustic masterpieces, American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead (“Rosebud” is actually about Jerry Garcia’s guitar.). But Cold Roses is a timeless work, country rock that harkens back to Mick Taylor-era Stones, the Band, Neil Young, Van Morrison, and the Band. I know that’s a lot to lay on the guy’s shoulders, but Adams is up to it. Apparently he’s retired from music. I don’t believe that will hold up, but if it does, he’s already given more than his share. Many of the songs on Cold Roses remain staples of Adams and The Cardinals live work through their most recent shows, in early 2009, which helps to codify them as classics: “Magnolia Mountain,” “Let It Ride,” Mockingbird,” “Cold Roses,” “Meadowlake Street”… these are songs that take on beauty with age.
******
Other artists and records that made the slightly longer short list: Cowboy Junkies (Trinity Sessions Revisited), Derek Trucks (Already Free), Prince (Rainbow Children, 3121, One Night Alone), Flaming Lips (Yoshimi), Ryan Bingham (Mescalito), Dan Zanes (Catch That Train!; imagine John Fogerty making a kids record), the Shins (all three but mainly Chutes Too Narrow), The Silos (When the Telephone Rings), Neil Young (Greendale, which I loved in 2003 but which didn’t age well for me), Radiohead, Iron and Wine, My Morning Jacket, and Modest Mouse.
Labels: allman brothers, best cds of the decade, derek trucks, iPod, Mudcrutch, pop culture, reviews, The tunes, Todd Rundgren
| "Wrecking Ball" at Giants Stadium |
Labels: springsteen, The tunes
Can someone explain to me how wanting to make sure every American gets all the health care they need is somehow evocative of the Nazis?
Labels: The politics
Somehow he went from looking like this:
to looking like this:
He claims this was all resulting from various diseases; TV plastic surgeons have diagnosed him with dysmorphia, the syndrome that drives people to become "addicted" to plastic surgery. He also claims that his skin turned white from a rare skin disease, vitiligo; but others assume it was some sort of bleaching process. Hard to miss that the nose, the hair, the skin all ended up looking as "un-black" as possible.
Where I come out on MJ is that he is less a freak than a victim. Take a very troubled, disturbed, abused little boy, give him all the money and fame in the world, and get out of his way, and, well, watch out. He's going to live in an amusement park. he's going to buy a monkey. He's going to have a lot of sleep-over dates.
See, Michael has said numerous times that his father robbed him of his childhood. But I think he had that wrong. It looks to me like he had a 50-year childhood. What Joe robbed him of was adulthood. I believe something very bad happened to MJ in his early teen years, happened at the hand of his father, and that thing scarred him badly for life, essentially trapped him forever psychicly as a 13- or 14-year-old. On some sad level, when he had boys over and they spent the night, in MJ's head it was a playdate among eqals, not a man/boy thing. And definitely not a sex thing.
So I choose to remember him three ways: singing "I Want You Back" and "ABC" with his big brothers (the former may well be one of the 10 greatest recorded songs ever); spinning and gliding through the "Billy Jean" video; and moonwalking at the Motown anniversary show. The moments when the light shone through the darkness and filled us all with song. The rest is the tragedy, and I'm letting it fall away from memory.
Labels: The tunes; michael jackson
Labels: the kid
So a belated dropping of the other shoe on the Fox shows, a week out, re: night 2...
First off I would be remiss if I failed to mention how grand it was to see the ABB on the left coast, in the house with the BAABBA, an extended family who put out a web of welcome throughout the place. You know who you are.
Labels: allman brothers, review, The tunes
Don’t Want You No More >
Not My Cross to Bear >
Trouble No More
Walk on Gilded Splinters
Who’s Been Talkin’
Statesboro Blues
Don’t Keep me Wonderin’
And It Stoned me
Jessica
Melissa
Aint Wastin’ Time No More
Rocking Horse >
Dreams
Black Hearted Woman >
Mountain Jam
Preachin’ Blues
One Way Out
Let me tell you up front, this was one mofo of a satisfying show. It left me wondering what they planned to do for the next night; they didn’t leave a whole lot on the table.
On the bluesy slam into “Not My Cross to Bear” Warren brings me back to 1969, a heck of a feat because I was only 10 years old and 4 years from even hearing of the Allman Brothers. A timeless, grounded evocation; then Derek rings out with a wave of tone that unfolds across the room.
“Gilded Splinters” rides in on an easy, greasy wave of percussion, an especially funked-up, swampy N’Awlins version. At the end the two guitars intertwine like dancing flames.
So now it’s the slot in the set for Warren’s first vocal, and as if often the case, “Gilded Splinters” is followed by the steady voodoo Latin-tinged beat that underscores “Who’s Been Talkin’,” for my money one of the best songs in the repertoire right now. It is as if Howlin’ Wolf has been re-imagined, with Carlos Santana in the Hubert Sumlin role. Derek and Warren play wispy Latin lines, a beautiful extended Yin/Yang conversation that gives way seamlessly to the song’s melody, then Warren’s vocals. Warren plays a graceful, flowing solo, then ignites; Derek takes the band into hyperdrive, then the crowd erupts when they hit the mark and are back into the song. Warren, again, appears to be the causin’ of it all as the music gently fades.
“Statesboro” is next, recognizable and popular, but the fact that it is better-received by the crowd than the previous song is anomalous…
A passionate “Don’t Keep me Wonderin’,” a tight songish rendition of “And It Stoned Me” (apparently big in the Bay Area), and then the band tumbles into what turns out to be a truly epic read on “Jessica.” The drums crash through as the band romps into the theme. Derek goes all shiny-light, then Warren grabs you by the ass and gives a good yank. Then, instead of a rush to the climax, the music seems to spontaneously fall away. From the chaotic stillness Derek and Warren embark on a new melodic excursion that, of course, picks up momentum, hits critical mass, and seamlessly turns back into “Jessica.” A big, big close to a big song. As I say, epic.
Thank God this is intermission, because I am emotionally exhausted.
The second set begins with a particularly lush and breezy “Melissa.” On “Aint Wastin’ Time No More” Derek takes us on a little vacation; then Warren lays down a nice little three-day weekend. The sound, I should mention, is exquisite, at least where I’m standing; full and clear as a bell. It’s one of those nights where you’re a thirsty flower and the band is the sun…
Oteil lays down a sprightly little vamp, the drummers fall in, Warren sears over the top (it’s kind of like a blackened Cajun jam); Derek speckles over that; inevitably the music creeps toward resolving into “Rocking Horse.” Warren goes deep into the big muddy on his solo section, then Derek takes the band major key for what Ron E. calls his “happy kid-on-a-tricycle song.” “Rocking Horse” has become another epic, and tonight it is redolent of narrative. Back into the darkness of the “Horse,” then a fat hanging note that the band grabs onto and uses to whip itself around into “Dreams.” Mostly I drift away; Derek squeezes out shimmering gobs of molasses.
“Black Hearted Woman” is next, an assault; the mid-section, where they switch over into the Dead’s “The Other One” riff, is made of the intensity of forward motion. It feels like the drum solo, but no… they finish the song, then fall backward into “Mountain Jam.” Maybe it’s just me, but it is a dreamy version. As the music falls away after the front end, Oteil lays down some narrative from the underside (which rhymes with “thunda-cide.”) Then he gets to the end of the story, and the drums…
…some time later ensemble “Birdland” quotes call me back from my drum-induced trance reverie. The band moves into a beautiful musical space, full and rubbery, elongating space and time… “Little Martha” bubbles up, quite distinctly… then, back, back to the theme and close. More narrative, more epic.
After a show like this, I know there’s really only one way out… but because this is a night of just a little bit more, Derek and Warren come back alone and offer up “Preachin’ Blues,” Warren singing, Derek playing the delta blues. Then, “One Way Out.”
All in all one heck of a show. The bar is high for tonight.
Labels: allman brothers, review, The tunes
Usually when I write about a concert, I jump right in. But this one was to epic, too profound not to step back and ponder it, holistically, in the light of the morning after.
To bottom line it: OMFG. O. M. F. G.
Thursday night The Clapton rumors were all over the Internet. Tickets outside were going for hundreds of dollars apiece. The anticipation was so high that it would have been easy for the thing itself to miss the mark. That the band so thoroughly exceeded expectations is a profound credit to all involved. The first set was a monster-an entire three-hour Allman Brothers show crammed into one bulldozing, stampeding whirlwind assault. "I could go home happy now," I heard more than one fan say. Then the second set offered up some lovely palate-cleansing and preparatory music before finally Clapton came onstage, three songs in, for a six-song suite that was brilliantly conceived, well-rehearsed, beautifully executed, well-paced, fluid, seamless, delightful. Up there on stage is Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, and Eric Clapton; that isn't a front line, it's a freaking pantheon. After the show we all just looked at each other with stupid grins.
But I digress...
...something jazzy rises from the stage like a purple mist, dissolving into the 3-man "Little Martha," chiming, gorgeous. Then 'Statesboro Blues;" I don't know if it is the band, or being surrounded by friends, but every note sounds extra good. Warren pulls the sunshine through his slide. Gregg shines, then Derek. Then the band eases into the laconic shuffle of "Done
Somebody Wrong," stays there a bit until Derek plays the lines of the riff. Warren's solo is fat and round and slippery and in the pocket. "Revival" features some tasty and deliberate slide work by Derek on the extended break, then Warren picks it up and plays the second half of the solo Derek began. As Warrant takes over, Derek summons Farmer over to switch guitars.
"Woman Across the River" is OK, if you like hard, relentless, forward-hurtling face-melting blues. Warren's solo about halfway in begins auspiciously, Warren calling out precise notes; then Derek does fast runs up the neck over a center of chewy drummy goodness. Warren brings the song to a big, arcing finish as Derek finishes it out with a busted string.
A swampy "Don't Keep Me Wonderin'" gives way to a rare-as in, I've never seen one before-first set "Whipping Post." Part of you is wondering, what are they trying to prove, but then part of you sort of knows. Warren puts a lot of body English on his opening salvo, then the band falls apart around him, and Warren plays the notes between the silences. Then muted forward thrust, Warren piercing and true. He makes a deal with the devil, and explodes into hot waves of dark light. It is something to behold. Then the vocal section, then another sprint up the hill before the music dissolves into waves. Derek plays a trademark Derek solo, using the volume knob like he does to squeeze out dewy green droplets. Then a magnificent
crescendo and decay, Derek flirts with "Liz Reed" territory, then he goes all impressionistic, then back to the song for a big, thundering ending to a big, thundering set.
And, damn, it is only intermission.
Gregg comes on alone to begin set two with a solo piano rendition of "Oncoming Traffic," immediately evocative of the '05 acoustic sets. And it is a lovely, moving rendition. But there is an extra mic set up on stage, and a light green strat set up nearby, and the effect is inevitably one of showing your five year-old a giant cookie before serving dinner. Sure, she may like chicken and broccoli. And she'll eat it with gusto. But she's fixated on that damn cookie.
To be clear though, "Oncoming Traffic" was sublime. Same with "Come and Go Blues," which features thick juicy work by Derek. "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" features Danny Louis from Gov't Mule on keys, and Marc on Jaimoe's kit. The song comes on with a snaky, insistent waddle into the opening vocal section. Then Derek goes for the gut, Warren stings, Derek stings. Then Derek goes off the hook, as the kids say, before returning perfectly to the song. Derek steps up on the post-song stretchy play-out, then shrinks down to a tinkle.
And finally, the cookie.
The ovation is intense.
"Key to the Highway," and immediately the mofo is ON it. Clapton takes the vocals, Warren spanks it, Derek soars, then Gregg takes a verse ("Give me one kiss mama."). Then Clapton goes off and gets it again. It's just an 8-bar blues, but there is a multi-minute standing ovation. Butch, sticks aloft, bows to Clapton in the "We're not worthy" mode. Big fun. But we're just getting started.
Next up is "Dreams," a brilliant choice. It is to Clapton's credit that he wants to assay this ultimate Allman guitar vehicle; he could have easily fallen back on something familiar to him from his own or the classic blues repertoire. Derek is the focal point, as he is for much of Clapton's time on stage; the song rocks like a boat on a lake in summer. Clapton takes the first solo slot, peeling off note clusters; then he floats off on his back into the song. We drift along for the ride, until he pulls up and Derek enters. His solo builds and builds until he is bouncing bright shards off the walls. Then an exquisite moment as he hits the return note and the band throttles back onto the waltz time of the verse. The stops and changes are almost too much fun.
Next Clapton and band ask the musical question "Why Does Love Got to be So Sad." Derek tosses in the arty flourishes on the chorus, then Clapton takes a vintage Clapton run, and Warren sears; smoke rises from his strings. In front of me, Becca turns back, smiles. then Derek takes us all the way home, truly, home to that happy place deep inside. Then Derek and Clapton fly together. Eric sings through his guitar, Derek an angel above. Warren has stopped playing, letting the two of them have the space they need; then he joins in, the music is like colorful tears of light streaming down your face, three men taking turns reaching in and touching your heart, the band in the opposite of a hurry, until finally, inevitably, the song touches down. It almost makes you want to cry; to call this music beautiful would be trite.
I need a moment.
"Little Wing" is different, elegiac, yet picks up in the exact spot "Why Does Love." leaves off. Warren and Clapton sing the verse together, then Warren takes a soaring solo, evoking-well, evoking the British gentleman on the right of the stage, He hits that spot that hurts with pleasure, lingers there. Derek's lead gives way seamlessly to Clapton, Oteil throws down, finally everyone turns to face Butch, who drives the song home.
When Susan Tedeschi comes on we know it's going to be "Anyday." Warren does a little nasty, then Susan sings the verse, Warren plays skronky. Warren and Susan sing into the same mic for the chorus, a happy song radiating its joy; then Derek renders that joy on guitar.
If you've come this far then really, I don't need to tell you that they come back and encore with "Layla." Derek plays the Duane licks over Clapton's vocals, and Clapton positively sings the crap out of it. Danny Louis is back onstage, joining Gregg for the classic piano coda to the song; Clapton provides some chiming strat tone, then Derek, Derek, Derek. The band locks onto the classic groove, drums, bass, guitars all melding together, Derek peeling over the top, just leaning on the endorphin lever, quite literally causing the room of 3,000 to secrete joy. Finally, inevitably it is over.
The lights come up, we look around at each other, smiling. There is nothing to say; just an unspoken, "I know, you know." This is why we have come. It is why we keep coming back.
Labels: allman brothers, clapton, review, the Beacon, The tunes
The band launches right into “Statesboro Blues”; Derek takes two nice solos. Then “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” keeps on going, refusing to end, Derek pulling the squawking blues, Oteil bouncing back the bottom. Together the two of them hit the note.
“Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” has pulled us all the way into the show; “Hot ‘Lanta” sounds immediately great. Gregg and the guitars take a round of crisp solos, Warren, Derek and Oteil lock in, push, into a big, deliberate end.
One of my favorite junctures in an Allman Brothers gig is the point, a couple songs in, where Warren gets his first vocal. This song often sets the direction for the rest of the set. Tonight there is a long, slow simmering run of picante foreplay; Warren is a total tease… then finally, the music flips over into “Who’s Been Talkin’.” Warren ladles on the gravy, Derek goes off, then he slips into double time, the band rolls and tumbles forward, Derek rings the bell, rings it till Warren calls everyone home for dinner. Then the final verse, and Derek and Warren get small, sublime over a gentle drums and bass bed.
A tight, cascading version of “Come and Go Blues” is followed by “Desdemona;” Derek plays a fiery, building solo that totally connects with the crowd. On his turn Warren hits on the “My Favorite Things” theme, to the inevitable delight of all, then works on variations over the chords; soon he’s into prolonged 12-alarm territory (this feels like a “Warren night.”) When he pierces his own pyrotechnics with the return note, the crowd goes nuts.
Beacon vet and Duane Allman cohort John Hammond comes on for a three-song stint to close the set. On “So Many Roads” the energy in the room drops, as gauged by the ratio of sitting-to-standing in the orchestra… but midway in they lock in and pull you back up. Then “Shake for Me,” a jaunty little song they’ve played with Hammond twice before; Gregg takes a nice turn, Derek takes several. Warren adds some nice slide on “Cryin’ for My Baby,” a nice bluesy way to end the set.
The second set provides something you don’t often get at an Allman Brothers concert: an estrogen buzz. The divine Bonnie Bramlett joins Gregg in a duet of “Oncoming Traffic,” Gregg on piano, the two of them on great, soulful weathered vocals. You can hear the whiskey and smoke. She stands center stage; the rest of the band is clustered off stage to the right, watching. Then Bonnie’s lovely daughter Bekka and the rest of the band come on for “Comin’ Home,” a song Bonnie wrote with some ‘60s Brit guitarist named Clapton. It is raucous and unbridled, with both women wailing; Bekka especially is over-the-top pumped to be here and whips up a tiny, demure little frenzy.
“Only You Know and I Know” follows, Warren is lovely on the verse, Derek on the outro, and Oteil is the rubber band man, but this is a song, not a jam, and it is a full-on party. The answer to “are we having fun yet?” is an emphatic “Yes!” (Actually, more like, “Yes, lawdy!”) Bekka leaves, Hammond comes on, and a painfully sweet “Come On In My Kitchen,” in retrospect inevitable. Gregg sings, slurs, growls; Hammond plays very slowly very, very well, putting the whole world into a simple lick. Then Hammond sings a verse, then Bonnie; Derek begins to tart it up just a tad, then he busts out, Warren’s aggressive chording egging him on. Hammond vocals, Bonnie vocals, a fast veteran round robin; Warren plays some slide into a nice Gregg run, into the closing, “Goin’ to be rainin’…” Mmm-mm.
Hammond off; Bekka back, Susan Tedeschi joins the Bramlett gals in the Allman-ettes over on the right, Bruce Katz is on keyboards for “The Weight,” back to the Aretha version. Susan sings the blazes out of the first two verses, Bonnie takes the third, Bekka the fourth, the three of them wrap their dark honeyed voices together for the gospel-style chorus. Katz rolls out a sprightly solo, the girls with call-and-response vocals over the top. Derek takes a melodic solo, then Susan glances over, and with a tiny crook of the finger takes the song from him for the final verse. Oteil is over by the girls, and if he were any happier, he’d burst. Bekka instigates a round of “on me” over Derek soloing that pushes the happy needle to 11.
Chicks. You gotta love ‘em.
The guests are off for a nicely played “No One Left to Run With,” an extended but earthbound version to ground the set to a close.
Derek and Warren come back alone for “Preachin’ Blues,” Derek playing, Warren singing. Then “Jessica,” Derek playing nice, round lines; his section has happy feet. Warren pokes, probes at that spot, you know what I mean… you don’t know what it is, but you know you’ll know when he hits it. He keeps poking, the band falls away from him, Oteil gets fast fingers… the band stills, Warren sets down his ax, walks off. Oteil and Derek make beautiful watery tonal exposition together, not a bass solo, but a lovely piece of music. Derek does gentle chiming with the drummers as Oteil goes all slappy; finally Oteil busts a move to hand off to the drummers. A brisk drum solo, the players return, Warren picks right up where he left off, rides the melody, hard, and then, yes, thank you, THAT’s the spot! Exactly!
See y’all Thursday.
Labels: allman brothers, review, the Beacon, The tunes
Another “Little Martha” opener, lovely, with Oteil joining Derek and Warren. Then Derek works it on out on “Aint Wastin’ Time No More,” a song that was made for him; Warren offers a nice solo at the end. Then right into “Walk On Gilded Splinters,” heavy on the back end as Warren and Derek slather on the Tabasco. Next Oteil turns around, offers the drummers a funky, almost Philly soul bassline. Warren pours hot lines over a happenin’ little groove, Derek soars over the top… then it flips over into “Rocking Horse” with a mighty oomph.
Out of Warren’s solo on the mid-section break, the music ebbs, slows to an almost-stop; Derek plays gently over the sound of winding down. Oteil pulls out into a happy gallop, and Derek paints over the top, then he’s taking his “Rocking Horse” solo, but over what is now a totally different song. Then, finally, bam-bam, Warren takes us back to the Horse for the back end vocals… and out of the song, beautifully into “Gambler’s Roll,” dripping with dewy blues. Warren squeezes out teardrops of tone. All it is, is the blues, but no other band, anywhere, makes the blues this epic. Gregg sings the hell out of the song; the “Rocking Horse” into “Gambler’s Roll” is a stone cold highlight, bluesy and sweaty and perfect.
“Revival” starts and ends as a dance party, with a hot jam in between. “Woman Across the River” is twelve minutes in the smokehouse, nothing subtle, just the fire, Warren and band shoveling coal with frantic urgency. Then Randy Brecker and drummer Lenny White join the band for a rare, divine first set “Dreams.” Brecker’s trumpet embellishes the verse as he punches in between Gregg’s vocal lines; Warren comes in for his solo like a lion, goes out like a lamb. Then Brecker does the dance of life at the precipice of the abyss, the pure essence of the song after all; Derek gets on his pony and rides. Brecker blows cold steel over a hard outro.
Gregg strums into a lovely, lilting “Melissa” to start the second set. Then Robert Randolph comes on for “Lovelight;” with drummer Adam Nussbaum sitting in for Jaimoe. Brother Robert testifies on the pedal steel, then Brother Gregg on the vocals. I’ve heard from the Moogis home audience that Randolph was low in the mix; but he was plenty loud in the house. Randolph rollicks with band, throwing off white light until the song is almost “Jessica,” with Randolph shining over the top. Then the music yields to a muscular drum interlude, Nussbaum still on Jaimoe’s kit, then out of the drumming a slow, gradual, snaky entrance into “One Way Out.” But it picks up speed quickly; Warren goes around two times, then Randolph goes around two times, the second time going through the roof.
Nussbaum and Randolph exit, Lenny White and Randy Brecker return, and slowly music begins to seep out that takes shape as the Miles Davis tune “In a Silent Way.” The Brothers have assayed this number before, but never like this. Brecker sounds vaguely Spanish, directly evoking Miles Davis himself on a slow opening theme that is clear as a bell (and of course, if you were a bell, you’d go—well, you know.) Derek floats overhead, Brecker runs the voodoo down, Derek and Oteil are totally simpatico, drawn visibly, physically to him. The Allman Brothers sound bubbles up through the jazz at the part near the end that hints at “Birdland” (why does this song sound like “Birdland”? “Well, Zawinul wrote ‘em both,” Oteil pointed out to me once.) The Allman Brothers blues and the Miles jazz blend together, Derek composes on the spot as the music wanes, then 1, 2, 3, 4 and “Liz Reed.”
Brecker goes all Spanish/Latin/jazzy, right in tune with the song; Derek rips, it is a less introspective, more hard-charging night for him. He leans over to Oteil, and they put their flames together. Gregg’s solo is “on,” Warren careens out of time, frenetically, perfectly forward, faster, hotter, then the riffs deliver a release into the drum solo; more nights than not so far, there has not been a true drum solo. This one is taut, muscular;, then Oteil joins in, then legend Stanley Clarke strolls out to appreciative applause. He checks in with Lenny White, still on Jaimoe’s kit; then leads the furnace, laying down a rumble of low thunder. He adds an exclamation point of bass, high-fives Oteil, then walks of. Very “who was that masked man?” Hard not to wish he’d been on stage for the entire “In a Silent Way” and “Liz” interlude, but he had a gig on Long Island and probably got out of a car, dashed in the door, strapped on the bass and hit it.
Derek is back, he and Oteil improvise over drums; then Warren and Gregg return and Derek and Warren do the push me/pull you into the closing theme.
So now it’s 11:40, already a long show, so you figure, a quick “Southbound” and out. But no—Butch thump thumpa-thumps into “Mountain Jam.” Warren, Derek, and Oteil each suggest the theme to “Birdland,” a brief consensus is reached and Warren solos over the melody; then he goes off the page, and back into the “Jam” jam. Soon Warren gives a sort of a Norse head toss, and the music turns over into “Dazed and Confused,” a big scary vibe, Warren puts it to bed, Butch brings “Mountain Jam back, and an awfully big finish. This one will stick to your ribs.
Labels: allman brothers, review, the Beacon, The tunes
The “Midnight Rider” opening is a sprightly version; then “Don’t Keep me Wonderin’.” On the end, Oteil erupts in joy, bending from the waist; Greg is moved to actually stop playing, and raise his hands in the air. The band tumbles through the pocket to the close. Then a slow groove intro with some Warren nice slide builds into the “Done Somebody Wrong” shimmy.
Next up is the new instrumental; it seems to meander a bit at first, then Derek brings some bite, and the song climaxes nicely, ending in ringing, lingering tone. Then the Asbury Jukes Horns take their places on the right of the stage, over past Oteil, for Warren’s rendition of “Into the Mystic.” Derek’s twangy slide lines give way to Gregg’s swelling organ, then the chorus; it is a moment. Then the horns, then horns, organ and vocals, and it is sweet soul music; the band rocks your gypsy soul. As always, the Jukes horn section is spot-on, tight, campy swingin’ fun.
Speaking of which, Warren brings out “TV’s Bruce Willis” for “One Way Out.” Last time he sat in, I thought he overplayed; but tonight Willis was almost remarkably good, playing blues harp like a harder-dying Sonny Boy Williamson. The crowd obviously loves him. Warren tosses Butch a nod, there is a drum break, then the two guitars spin out the licks, Willis wailing over the top. Gregg sings the hell out of the close, then Warren launches immediately into the snaky riff of “Smokestack Lightening.” Willis is immediately on it, into Warren’s vocals. Then Haynes and Willis roll all around in the bluesy mud together; Willis shouldn’t be this good. Derek moves to the fore, plays faster, higher up, the band follows him, then a crunchy return to riff, Willis blowing, and Warren singing the final vocals. I liked it.
The horns come back out for ‘Southbound,” and they are glorious high camp. There are other horn sections that sit in with the Brothers, and everyone is good; but the Jukes are the only ones who also have “an act.” Here they work it for all it’s worth, blowing synchronized, syncopated brassy bursts. La Bamba takes a solo over the other horns, then some speed demon guitars and sax locomotive. The horn players are swaying together to the beat like an old time horn section from the movies; if they are southbound, it is to south Jersey. The song ends the set with a happy exclamation point.
Boz Scaggs is onstage for the beginning of set 2, fronting the band for a sweet, self-contained four-song mini-set. Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh (It Takes a Train to Cry)” is an 8-bar blues, Warren is pure sweetness. Boz and Gregg trade verses, then the band lays on a rubbery “Rainy Day Women” groove and they are immediately deep down in the pocket. Then Boz quickly counts in the jaunty “Sick and Tired.” The horns are back, and it is instant soul revue, and right in Boz’s strike zone. Then “Aint No Love in the Heart of the City,” a minor blues with a serious “Thrill is Gone” vibe. Boz, Gregg and Warren trade off the vocals.
Then, finally, the blues juice spills over into “Loan Me a Dime.” Derek, of course, announces himself immediately. The next 13 minutes flow by in a state outside of time; it is 1969, when Boz’s version of this track with Duane came out; it is summer 2000, when the Brothers played this almost nightly. Of course the horns are still out, punching those charts for the part that on record is the extended fade. Derek pierces your heart, deft, fierce… the horns blow. Please, you think, don’t end. Then Derek steers the band beautifully down and around, slow again, to the verse. It is a little slice of heaven. The place erupts in a spontaneous ovation; Warren and the horn players are all applauding vigorously as Boz exits the stage.
Inevitably when the Jukes are in the house, you know you’re going to get “The Same Thing.” This take is full of fury. Oteil busts out in his mid-section slot after the first run-through of the song, then some Oteil/Derek/Jukes fury. Then Derek meets Warren in front of the stage for some guitar fury… the horns play the riff, brightly, full of color, to a shimmering end.
“Wasted Words” follows, Warren offering a nice extended slide attack on the outro, then a nice hand-off to Derek, who questions, probes over an insistent rhythm. Then, imperceptibly, they have moved into “what song was this again?” territory, and Derek tears through what is essentially now an entirely different song. Finally he nods to Warren, who pulls the jam back to the “Wasted Words” stopping place and close. Highlight.
Several times during “No One Left to Run With” Warren looks up at Allen Woody’s image on screen. There is an extended, monochrome jam, then the Bo Diddley riff, and they decay into spaciness and color. Warren provides an extended, valiant attack, with Duane literally looming overhead (courtesy the slide show.) Finally he chords the riff to call the band back; this takes a while because they don’t wanna come. Then finally the Bo Diddley beat and out.
The “Whipping Post” encore is dark and colorful and full. About a third of the way in, Derek, Warren and Oteil are hosing out colorful purple washes of tone; they all run together and ring. The music falls apart, then moves through different places until it has circled perfectly back to the pre-vocal slam. It is a cool, watery version, now go enjoy the rest of your Friday night.
I’m disinclined to write reviews that are as long as the ones I've done in the past, because everyone has Moogis now and gets to see the show at home, and besides, I forgot my notebook…
So the beacon is beautiful, shiny, classical, and majestic, and has “new theater smell.” Much has changed, and on balance I’d have to say the changes are to the good. It feels a little more formal, perhaps not the best environment for a hall full of Peachheads, but on the other hand, hey, we deserve it.
Derek crunches up the “Little Martha” opener, it is both faithful and fresh, and sets the tone for the night, and the run. Warren dirties up “Don’t Want You No More,” Gregg wrings all the juice out of the “Not My Cross to Bear” vocal; Warren feels him back, plays expressive blues. Derek says hello with some fat, hanging slide, then dashes up the fret board to a cat scratch crescendo.
A drummer gumbo heralds one of my favorites, “Gilded Splinters.” Then “The Same Thing,” Warren goes all skanky, meanwhile Oteil is having himself a little party. Warren and Derek finally careen together and the band smashes to a close. Then a big “herald” kind of space, like before “Les Brers” or “Liz Reed,” and the band is into a new instrumental, open, airy, jazzy, spacy, chimy. Derek slips into the song, like a guy with a newspaper easing into a hot tub; then when he’s good and ready he goes. Oteil pours buckets of bottom. It’s good.
“Leave My Blues at Home” locks in, Derek stings, it ends with a bam! Then Taj Mahal sashays out for a killer three-song set… On “Leaving Trunk” his harp and Derek’s guitar meld together. “44 Blues” wobbles along, a joyous rollick; Derek and Warren go a different kind of crazy. Greg chimes in nicely, then Taj caps it, tossing a pitch perfect Howlin’ Wolf imitation into the vocals. Then ”Statesboro Blues” brigs the set to a fun, sweaty close.
Levon Helm and posse are on stage to open set two, beginning with a lovely “Ophelia.” Derek steps forward for a round, then Oteil, then guitarist Larry Campbell, then Levon sings again; Brian Mitchell pounds out some nice honly tonk piano. Helm’s kit is on the right side of the stage , and he, Derek, Oteil, Campbell, and singer Teresa Williams seem almost like a little mini-band within a band. Campbell plays pretty lines on “I Shall Be Released,” and Warren nails it. Then “The Weight” is almost too much fun. Levon sings two verses, Gregg sings the third, beautifully, then Taj Mahal comes back out to slay everyone with the last verse. Derek’s melodic lilt is, I don’t know, lilting and melodic. Whew. Big fun.
“Black Hearted Woman” is a big set piece. Then an upbeat “Stormy Monday,” out of which the “Mountain Jam” mist fills the room. Finally they turn over into the song, laying on a big noisy front end. The band chugs along like a steady rollin’ train; some pretty Warren exposition on slide; he tosses in a little “Birdland.” Derek and Oteil respond in that “the band is a living organism” sort of way. Warren casts high curving solos into the mist… then into drums, but never just drums. Derek and Oteil vamp with the drummers, then back to the theme, then away. One of the spaciest “Jams” in recent memory. Warren comes on to lay down a little extra impetus… as if that is necessary. Then into a majestic back end, and an exquisite soft touch down, Derek wailing over the top with a sort of “Friend of the Devil” feel. Then a false ending, more theme, and finally Butch booms out the night. The “Southbound” encore is a nice way to unwind.Really, a hell of a showing for the first night.
