stevenrosenwriter

Another Numero Group Gem: Chicago's Nickel and Penny Labels Revisited

2012-01-30T05:57:00.000-08:00

By Steven Rosen
(this first ran at http://www.blurt-online.com/, 1-10-12)

(The Numero Group's latest deep-vault excursion yields a trove of Windy City soul that's obscure even by the label's high standards - and no less revelatory.)

Eccentric Soul releases from Chicago archival record label The Numero Group each have strong individual identities yet also fit together as one major national music-reclamation project. Across the country, especially in big cities, small and deeply obscure labels featuring African-American music came alive in the wake of the national successes of Motown and Stax/Volt. And there was no shortage of talent - entrepreneurs, producers, arrangers, writers and singers - to keep their operations busy.

Most were too tiny to ever get attention outside their hometowns (if there), and would have been lost to history without the after-the-fact interest of hard-core collectors and a supportive label like Numero Group.
The recent holiday season brought two new Eccentric Soul releases, the previously reviewed (and superb) Boddie Recording Company: Cleveland, Ohio and now The Nickel & Penny Labels (from Chicago).

The latter release has a touching back story: A gifted young man named Richard Pegue, who was just three when his father - a Chicago policeman - was killed, turned to music as an interest and found himself able to express it in numerous ways. He taped it off radio with a reel-to-reel, played piano and had a singing group, earned a living as an R&B/oldies radio deejay, and started these two labels. For them, he provided material and supervised recording sessions for singers whom he knew or sought out.

Listening to the 24 tracks on this single disc (which comes with a 38-page booklet), you can hear how Pegue had his ear to what was happening in black music of the 1960s and 1970s - various acts recall the Temptations, Sly & the Family Stone, Isaac Hayes and more successful Chicago acts like the Impressions, Jerry Butler and the Chi-Lites.

But that doesn't matter, really. The singers are talented with emotionally committed voices. And on the better material, which is plentiful, Pegue has a strong knack for memorable melodies, often sweetened by strings and dreamy and alluring background-vocal arrangements. The production doesn't always meet the sonic-clarity standards of the major labels of the time, but that makes the records all the more mysteriously attractive today. It gives them the aura of being exciting rediscoveries - "lost" soul.

For the stirring "I've Got to Find a Way," from 1973 and this record's standout track, he assembled the 30-member Halleluiah Chorus to provide a hauntingly full dimension to a melancholy ballad that lures you into its sense of movement like a shadowy hallway. On 1968's "Never More," he found a powerfully resonant voice in Little Ben Norfleet who sings counterpoint to the layered, introspective harmonies of girl-group the Cheers. And Jerry Townes' sweet tenor, which slips lower and grittier for emphasis, lets 1967's "Three Sides To a Triangle" swirl with romanticism. (He also does a nice version of "Never More.")

So the music is rewarding and appealing. There are some places, however, where Numero Group can improve on its presentation. The booklet, for all its meticulously collected and reported information, is hard to follow - one wishes the information about the artists was organized track-by-track rather than in narrative form. And on the back cover, track listings are in a small, orange-red small typeface against a light-pink background. You almost need a magnifying glass to read it and it isn't also repeated in the booklet.

But this is a fine tribute to Pegue, who died in 2009. And it's another triumph in Numero Group's quest to show us how rich our nation is in old, forgotten record labels awaiting rediscovery. They are our modern-day deserted gold mines.

Forty Years On, Songwriter Jimmy Webb Finds His Voice

2012-01-26T06:12:00.000-08:00

By Steven Rosen
(This ran in Cincinnati CityBeat, 1-18-12)

The AOL Music website describes Jimmy Webb as “that rarity in Rock music, a professional songwriter who achieved stardom in that capacity,” pointing out that almost all of Rock’s other great songwriters became well-known for their own versions of their material.

The truth of that has long seemed self-evident. After starting to write professionally in his teens, Webb was just over 20 when he wrote a series of enduring Pop classics in the late 1960s — “Up, Up and Away” for The 5th Dimension, “MacArthur Park” for Richard Harris, “The Worst That Could Happen” for Brooklyn Bridge and, especially, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman” and “Galveston” for Glen Campbell. While that was his zeitgeist moment, he has continued to pen hits for others — “Highwayman” for Country supergroup The Highwaymen, “All I Know” for Art Garfunkel and Donna Summers’ Disco-era revival of “MacArthur Park.”

But an interesting thing has happened in just the past year or two, as Webb passed age 60. He’s now become recognized as a singer/songwriter, too, as a result of the sales success of his 2010 album Just Across the River. And he’s increased his touring and public appearances to accommodate the newfound recognition — Webb will be singing and playing piano at St. Xavier High School on Saturday night as part of the Greater Cincinnati Performing Arts Society’s schedule.

Just Across the River mostly features versions of Webb’s older material, some with a pronounced Country/Americana presence, with such duet partners as Campbell, Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson and Lucinda Williams. He’s an equal partner as a vocalist, with a voice that’s earnest and expressive.

“For me it’s an unbelievable stroke of luck and great work by my record company,” Webb says by phone from his Long Island home. “So here I am still working and getting away with making my living around music, which is all I wanted to do anyway.”

Born in Oklahoma and an early fan of Country, Webb came to Los Angeles with his family as a teen. He fell in love with the ambitious Jazz/Classical-tinged arrangements and mature lyrics of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s early- and mid-1960s Rock and Soul songs for Dionne Warwick (“Walk on By”) and others.

And Webb was satisfied to quickly find his place at the top of the world of professional songwriting. At first, because of his initial hits, he was known as a writer of place-name songs. “It’s part of placing the listener in a certain physical setting — it’s a fascinating psychological technique to use on someone,” he says. “(But) when people start saying, ‘Oh, you’re the guy who writes songs about towns,’ then you know it’s time to stop.”

But that started to change with the arrival of Folk-influenced, formally untrained singer/songwriters of the late 1960s/early 1970s (Dylan, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Neil Young and others). Carole King, who had come out of the “old school” of professional songwriting as an early-1960s Brill Building writer of teen-oriented hits, stunned everyone by transforming into an introspective singer/songwriter whose Tapestry album sold millions.

“At first, when I started, this community of ‘pure’ songwriters and ‘pure’ singers was alive and well,” Webb recalls. “On one side you had David and Bacharach, Leiber and Stoller and the Brill Building, and then you had singers like Andy Williams, Mr. Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Perry Como. By 1971 (or) 1972, if you were songwriter and weren’t recording, you knew the sun was setting on your career one way or another. You’d look at an album like Tapestry and say, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to start recording.’ Change began to come fast and relentlessly.”

Webb tried to be a singer/songwriter beginning in the early 1970s — his first legitimate album, Words and Music, predates Tapestry. But the seven albums of contemporary material he put out through 1993’s Suspending Disbelief (his favorite) just never caught favor. Finally, starting with 1996’s Ten Easy Pieces, Webb began the process of revisiting and reinterpreting his most famous songs, which seems to have paid off for him.

One problem Webb may have had earlier was that, to the public-at-large, he already had a “voice” — Glen Campbell. Ten years older than Webb, Campbell already had a wealth of session-work and recording experience when they met. Campbell knew how to popularize the raw material of a good song.

“We were a good partnership,” Webb says. “He was to me what Dionne Warwick was to Burt and Hal. When I was more or less muted by my complete lack of experience as a singer and couldn’t really communicate my own music to people, Glen was my voice. I was fortunate to be there with some songs that were admirably suited for him — there was a great deal of luck in that.

“He was also a fantastic arranger,” Webb continues. “When we made records together, he was arranging the rhythm tracks and coming up with little riffs and leitmotifs — like the intro to ‘Wichita Lineman’ (Webb pauses to voice it) that created listeners out of people because they were sucked into the experience.”

Webb is acutely aware that Campbell, now 75, has announced he has Alzheimer’s and has launched an extended “Goodbye” tour. Webb’s songs are among each show’s highlights. “I think a lot of people will benefit from the forthright position he’s taken,” Webb says of the way Campbell is dealing with the disease. “And he’s proven that someone with Alzheimer’s can still go out and do creative work and contribute to society. I’m very proud of him. To me, he’s my hero.

“He’s a very happy guy — that’s a message I love to spread to the public. For the most part, he’s cheerful and looks forward to going out on stage.”

Meanwhile, Webb also looks forward to going on stage, himself, singing his famous songs to a growing audience. He’s become one of our key living singer/songwriters. Finally.

“So here we are, many of us like Paul Simon’s One Trick Pony,” he says. “This is what we know how to do and we’re still doing it. And thank God there’s still some kind of audience out there.”

(photo provided by Flemming Artists)

Vinyl Night Playlist from December

2012-01-13T06:23:00.000-08:00

To quote the Dells, who we unfortunately didn't get a chance to play at our electrifying Vinyl Night session of Dec. 27th, "Oh What a Night" it was! We played classic blues and R&B, remembering Hubert Sumlin and Howard Tate; British rock at its most eccentric (Roy Wood's Wizzard); rootsy post-psychedelic American album-rock (Goose Creek Symphony); two of jazz's finest sonic explorers ever, Anthony Braxton with Max Roach; and so much more. Conversation at times was heated -- as to whether the Shaggs qualified as outsider-art rock or mere novelty act, for example. And some cuts were surprises, such as the superbly arranged "She's Everything" by Ral Donner, one of the many moody Elvis-influenced crooners of the early 1960s; and Ed Sanders' prescient "Yodeling Robot."

Our next Vinyl Night is Tuesday, Jan. 31, at 7:30 p.m. sharp at H.D. Beans & Bottles Cafe on the Kennedy Heights/Silverton border. Any questions, contact me or Technical Director Neil Sharrow at lastsafari@fuse.net. And thanks to JP Pfister for designing our playlist -- we hope he will be returning to Vinyl Night soon.

Sincerely,

Steven Rosen

December Vinyl Night Playlist

1 Artist -- Title -- Album/45 -- Presenter -- Notes

2 Gordon Brisker Collective Consciousness Collective Consciousness (Warm-up music) Cincinnati-born saxophonist

3 10CC I'm Mandy Fly Me 45 Neville Judd

4 Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias Kill Snuff (Stiff) Rock EP Neville Judd

5 Nick Lowe & His Cowboy Outfit 7 Nights to Rock The Rose of England Greg Reece

6 Joe Jackson Jumpin' with Symphony Sid Jumpin' Jive Greg Reece

7 Ed Sanders & the Hemptones Yodeling Robot Beer Cans on the Moon Wayne Perin

8 Jim Kweskin Jug Band Richland Woman Greatest Hits Wayne Perin vocal by Maria D'Amato (Muldaur)

9 Hubert Sumlin A Soul That's Been Abused Hubert Sumlin's Blues Party Gary Janssen Sumlin passed away in December

10 Splodgenessabounds 2 Pints of Lager & a Packet of Crisps Please Simon Templer EP Bill Frost

11 Billy Bragg The Milkman of Human Kindness Life's a Riot with Spy Vs Spy 12" EP Bill Frost

12 Howard Tate Get It While You Can Get It While You Can Steve Spatt Tate passed away in December

13 Wizzard I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday See My Baby Jive Steve Spatt

14 Gefilte Joe & the Fish Hanukkah Rocks Hanukkah Rocks EP Steve Spatt Blue vinyl, shaped like Star of David

15 Carl Kress & Dick McDonough Chicken a la Swing Pioneers of Jazz Guitar Christopher Pazowski

16 Tom Tom Club Genius of Love Tom Tom Club Drew MacDonald

17 Klaatu Doctor Marvello Klaatu Drew MacDonald

18 NRBQ 12 Bar Blues Grooves in Orbit Polly Campbell

19 The Shaggs My Pal Foot Foot Shaggs' Own Thing Polly Campbell

20 The Highway Men After the Sun Highway Men 12" EP Luann Gibbs

21 True Believers Rebel Kind True Believers Luann Gibbs

22 Donald Byrd Cristo Redentor A New Perspective Steve Kemme

23 Max Roach & Anthony Braxton Rebirth Birth & Rebirth Steve Kemme

24 Goose Creek Symphony Do Your Thing But Don't Touch Mine Do Your Thing But Don't Touch Mine Jim McNair

25 Goose Creek Symphony Teresa Do Your Thing But Don't Touch Mine Jim McNair

26 Geoff Muldaur Livin' in the Sunlight Lovin' in the Moonlight Geoff Muldaur Is Having a Wonderful Time Bob Nyswonger

27 Randy Newman A Wedding in Cherokee County Good Old Boys Bob Nyswonger

28 Ernie Maresca Shout! Shout! 45 Steve Rosen

29 Ral Donner She's Everything (I Wanted You to Be) 45 Steve Rosen

30 Gabriel & the Angels That's Life 45 Steve Rosen

31 Edgar Winter Hung Up/Back in the Blues/Re-Entrance Entrance Viv Rusche

32 Racing Cars They Shoot Horses Don't They Downtown Tonight Steve Gibbs

33 The Freshies I'm in Love with the Girl on the Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk

45 Steve Gibbs

34 The Wildweeds No Good to Cry 45 Neil Sharrow

35 Howard Tate These Are the Things That Make Me Know

You're Gone 45 Neil Sharrow

36 Preservation Hall Jazz Band &

Del McCoury Band 50/50 Chance American Legacies Greg Reece Green vinyl

37 Splodgenessabounds Michael Booth's Talking Bum Simon Templer EP Bill Frost

Posted by JP Pfister

Why "Ten for Two" is the John Lennon Music Doc You Haven't Seen

2012-01-13T05:18:00.000-08:00

By Steven Rosen
This ran at IndieWire (http://www.indiewire.com/) on Dec. 6, 2011

When John Lennon and Yoko Ono accepted an invitation to perform at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally in Ann Arbor, they knew it would be an event to remember. In addition to their performances, the rock benefit concert marathon featured Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger and Allen Ginsberg as well as activists like Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, Father James Groppi and David Dellinger.   

So Lennon and Ono commissioned “Ten For Two,” a documentary of the event; this Saturday, the University of Michigan's student union will celebrate the event's 40th anniversary. And the film is still unavailable for release in the U.S.

“It’s been a sore point with me since it was canned,” says its director, Steve Gebhardt, who shot the film with Robert Fries and two other filmmakers. “I think it’s always had its need to be screened.”   

Gebhardt believes that by the time the film was ready in early 1973, the couple feared its release would further antagonize the Nixon administration, which began trying to deport Lennon for his political activism after the Sinclair rally for Sinclair, an activist and manager of MC5 who received a 10-year sentence for possessing two joints.   

“I think the pressure was on from above, lawyers, not to the piss the government off at this point,” Gebhardt says.   

Ono’s attorney, Jonas E. Herbsman, said by email that Ono wasn’t available to talk about the film. In a subsequent email asking for his input, Herbsman wrote, “Sorry, we do not have information on the film's current status or exhibition history to share.”  

Gebhardt used clips of the film, with permission, in his later documentary about Sinclair, “20 to Life.” And portions are used in 2006’s “The U.S. vs. John Lennon,” which was made by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld with Ono’s participation.   

Sometimes, a low-quality version of “Ten for Two” is on YouTube. Recently it was removed following a notice of a copyright claim of one “Waldorf Frommer Rechtsanwalte.” Translated, that means YouTube received a cease-and-desist from a representative of German law firm Frommer Waldorf, which specializes in copyright law and represents clients such as Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music. (It was up again in early December.)

As far as a legitimate release goes, the idea of obtaining music clearances for a 40-year-old event is daunting -- all the more unfortunate since the film is a succinct, rousing and well-edited time capsule that’s even more relevant in the world of Occupy Wall Street.   Lennon and Ono brought agit-prop street singer David Peel and the Lower East Side along for support. Besides those previously mentioned, the long show also featured musicians Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen, Phil Ochs, Roswell Rudd with Archie Shepp, and the Up.

The highlight of the Lennon/Ono set, for which he donned a steel guitar while she played a small conga drum, was the bluesy “John Sinclair.” (Other songs were “Attica State,” “The Luck of the Irish” and Ono’s “Sisters, O, Sister.”) Gebhardt ends the film with a seequence that shows an ecstatic Sinclair’s subsequent release from jail into the waiting arms of his family.  

Sinclair wishes the film were available, too. “Other people should have a chance to see it,” he says. “It records a historical event very nicely and it’s in limbo.”

Both Gebhardt and Sinclair say neither Lennon nor Ono ever told them they wanted to block the film from release. But at a meeting about the film in 1973, Gebhardt says they surprised Sinclair with an unusual request.   

“The way they dealt with it is Yoko said she wanted to give all the money (from the film) to women’s causes,” Gebhardt recalls. “Of course, John Sinclair came up with a list of where he wanted money to go to. His jaw dropped and Yoko and John dug in. And that was that. Sinclair went out the door to catch the plane back to Detroit and that was the end of the story.”  

Sinclair adds: “That was the last time we spoke. I think it was their way to get out of it.”  

Gebhardt met Lennon and Ono through avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas, his employer at New York’s Anthology Film Archives. In late 1970, Ono and Lennon showed up at Anthology to discuss film projects with Mekas. “They were behind closed doors for 20 minutes and then they called me in,” Gebhardt says. “They wondered if I’d be interested in shooting a couple of films of their design. I said yes, immediately.”  

Gebhardt worked on the films with Fries, a filmmaking friend from Cincinnati who had set up a New York production company. They shot two of Ono’s best-known and well-received films, “Up Your Legs Forever” and “Fly.” In 1971, they also worked on the couple’s long-form promotional film accompanying Lennon’s “Imagine” album, and in 1972 helped record Lennon’s two “One to One” benefit concerts in New York.   They stopped working for Lennon and Ono in 1973.

By then, Gebhardt and Fries had another client, the Rolling Stones, for whom they had filmed some 1972 concerts for a 1974 limited theatrical release called “Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones.”   Fries, now also in Cincinnati, recalls the delicacy of getting permission from Lennon for that. “He said, ‘You’re going to do something with Mick Jagger, right?’ I said, ‘Yeah, if it’s OK with you.’ He said, ‘Yes, but let me give you some advice. Watch out for him – he’s tricky.’ It pleased me that he wished me well.”

Wussy's "Strawberry": They're an American Band (and a Great One)

2012-01-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

Wussy's "Strawberry"
By Steven Rosen
Blurt (http://www.blurt-online.com/)
Published 12-14-2011

Some of the best rock bands of the past, alternative and mainstream, have had male-female co-leads - early Velvet Underground, 1970s-era Fleetwood Mac, X, Human Switchboard.

Wussy is a striking, significant addition to that legacy. The Cincinnati band, whose fourth full-length CD is Strawberry, is still a faithful believer in the musical possibilities of a time when the tunefully buzzy, intelligent indie-rock of the 1980s (Husker Du and the Pixies) met the rawer, more emotionally exposed grunge of the early 1990s. It was a short-lived era in which alt-rock was the sound of young (and not-so-young) America - an integral part of the country's cultural conversation.

Chuck Cleaver, whose wavering and emotionally committed singing is a key element of Wussy's sound (he's also a guitarist), was around for that period, as leader of the band Ass Ponys. (So, too, was Strawberry's co-producer John Curley, as a member of Afghan Whigs.) On the other hand, Cleaver's equal singing/songwriting partner in Wussy, Lisa Walker, is younger. The contrast between the two only adds to Wussy's freshness and magnificence. The band combines a sometimes-foreboding sense of alt-rock history with sonic optimism about its possibilities. The two distinctly different voices add color, complexity and mystery; one never knows how or if Cleaver and Walker are inspiring one another.

Honed into a tight quartet (with bassist/multi-instrumentalist Mark Messerly and drummer/album co-producer Joe Klug) that favors a densely textured sound that's scruffy and edgy but always clear, Wussy makes alt-rock that still cares a lot. Nothing ever feels like received wisdom; it's all fresh.

Cleaver is a phenomenal songwriter with an astonishing frame of reference. His writing is imagistic and concise like poetry, yet revealingly narrative like a short story. A mid-tempo, dusty rocker like "Grand Champion Steer," for instance, which appears to be about a day at the county fair, uses specific details (the steer, a Tilt-a-Whirl) to build to a moment of profound illumination - the way a lover's look inadvertently reveals an affair. When he reaches the final line, "Me I was off spinning life out of wishes and air," you're amazed by the power of it. On his "Waiting Room," where he shares lead vocals with Walker, he speaks of his partner's face "with the lines and creases coming on like U.S. Grant took Richmond." Wow! Who else is writing like this?

Walker's lyrics don't operate on so many levels simultaneously (not all of Cleaver's do, either), but they are provocative and involving in their own right. She also has a melodic voice with a haunting fluidity, like Chrissie Hynde. It can find the beauty in hard, feedbacky rock ("Chicken," "Magnolia"), but also add etherealness to a slower, spacey song. For instance, "Mountain of Tires," which overdubs her singing to achieve a delicate choral effect, also builds with rock ‘n' roll urgency to a chiming guitar solo. And as the guitars wrestle with noise on her remarkable "Pizza King," her voice conjures bittersweet memories of "another sunny day in Indiana."

Curley and Klug's imaginative production - layered voices here, a piano flourish there, an acoustic-guitar strum to quietly open a song before the sharp electric guitars enter - adds immeasurably to the album's success. So do the lynchpin drumming of Klug and the all-around musical support supplied by Messerly.

Strawberry opens and closes with inspired choices. Leadoff "Asteroids" is wonderfully catchy, a simple, haiku-like statement ("Way out/beyond the asteroids/that's where you took my heart and left it/floating in a frozen void") that's repeated - with both Cleaver and Walker singing in echoey unison - as various instruments add variety. The theremin provides wooze, the harpsichord a grand interlude, all while the bashing rhythm section keeps it all anchored.
The last song, Walker's triumphant "Little Miami," starts with the kind of murky, minimalist repetition that the Velvets introduced to rock, but then her voice builds and the guitars lock onto the synchronized drone thatradiates the song outward...beyond the asteroids. Wussy reaches for transcendence and finds it. You wish it would go on forever.

(Wussy's Strawberry is on Shake It Records, http://www.shakeitrecords.com/)

Senior Moments: The First Rock's Backpages Poll of Best Albums by Older Musicians

2011-12-27T07:21:00.000-08:00

Senior Moments: Rock’s Backpages' Best Albums of the Year by Artists Over 50

Published by Rock's Backpages
Wed, Dec 14, 2011

Striking a blow against the perennial ageism of pop culture, Steven R. Rosen polled the Rock's Backpages writers to determine the best albums of the year by music's senior citizens. Read on for the RBP Top 10 and for individual lists from 50 of our most respected contributors. (Some of them are under 50!)——Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages

By Steven R. Rosen

In an effort to show the world — or at least its readers — that rock music continues, and often even improves, when its practitioners reach and pass 50, Rock's Backpages this year sponsors a poll of Best Albums by Older Musicians. In the case of groups or collaborations, an album counts if a significant member was 50 or older. Any kind of pop music was eligible, with an unstated understanding that at this point rock's influence can be felt in virtually all other musical s

The prompt was that — though there are exceptions — our consumerist culture (especially commercial radio) sells and celebrates new work by younger artists but tends to treat the more senior ones as "oldies." That marketplace remembers and repackages their past glories, often in extravagant ways, but gives short shrift to their latest. As a result, one of the standing clichés of rock is that the portion of a concert where an older familiar musician plays his/her newest work is known as "bathroom break time."

The roots of rock 'n' roll are, true, all wrapped up in youth — it started as teenage dance-and-romance music and some would say it's best when it never forgets that. Some would also say its destiny is to just keep repeating itself, with new young superstars coming along every couple years (or months) to sweep the older ones away. If you want "growth," move to jazz, folk, classical, or art/experimental.

However, rock's own sources — blues, R&B, country, swing, world music — were not themselves solely youth-oriented, so there's no inherent reason rock (and related contemporary-hit music) has to stay that way. Especially not after the 1960s and the arrival of singer-songwriters, conceptualist artist/producers, and deep-from-the-soul singers.

Fittingly, 50 people voted in the poll (an additional two wrote to question the concept). They were Rock's Backpages contributors, plus a few other writers. It was amazing to learn the number of variety of older artists who put out new rock albums in 2011. They range from ageless hard rockers like Nazareth to reunited punk/pre-punk/post-punk bands like New York Dolls and Wire. Both Hall and Oates released solo albums.

Not everyone listed or ranked ten records, and not everyone who did kept within the rules. But enough did that the Top Ten makes a statement. The most controversial album in our poll was Lou Reed and Metallica's grinding, grim Lulu — it got two first-place mentions and also was mentioned as the year's worst.

The winner of the poll, 62-year-old Tom Waits' Bad As Me, is an example of growth — he's both come far from the romantic Beatnik persona of the 1970s yet stayed stubbornly true to making music that seems to please him first and us if we're lucky. While he's respected by fellow artists and has a sizeable following, he's never been a true star. "They say that I have no hits and that I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing," he famously said at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.

Maybe he's onto something there. By working just far enough outside the mainstream, he's never had to contend with the memories of hordes that identify him with his (and their) past. Plus, he can still be discovered for the first time by those — including many music fans past 50 — who aren't that familiar with his work.

The same can be said for the poll's third-place finisher, 62-year-old Nick Lowe — certainly in the States, where he's technically a one-hit wonder for 1979's 'Cruel to Be Kind' — and the fifth-placed artist, 64-year-old Ry Cooder. So maybe the best way to ensure a long and creatively vital career in music, and to put out an album that ranks high on this chart, is to remain a cult artist. That's probably also true for 70-year-old Steve Cropper, the session guitarist whose Dedicated, in which he and guests cover songs by 1950s R&B guitarist/songwriter Lowman Pauling and his "5" Royales, finished seventh. And, while 56-year-old Steve Earle — whose I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive finished ninth — made a splash in country music in the late 1980s, legal troubles forced him to drop out and he's been supported by roots/folk devotees since coming back.

But it's not the case with 70-year-old Paul Simon, whose So Beautiful or So What finished second. He's certainly had his Top 40 heyday — several decades of them, actually. He's just a case of someone being dedicated enough to his craft to stay with it, patiently trying to get better. The consensus seems to be that this album, unlike the last couple, was an outstanding example of him in top form.

On our Top Ten, there also are instances of artists finding themselves again — becoming renewed — after getting lost for several years (or decades). Sixty-four-year-old Gregg Allman's soulful Low Country Blues, a T-Bone Burnett production featuring interpretations of blues standards, finished sixth, while 75-year-old Glen Campbell's Ghost on the Canvas, featuring relevant contemporary rock and pop songs (including one by Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices), was eighth. Campbell's album continued with the breakthrough he made on 2008's Meet Glen Campbell, but the success is bittersweet — he's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And Charles Bradley, the virtually unknown 63-year-old soul singer whose No Time for Dreaming tied R.E.M.'s Collapse Into Now for tenth, found himself, too, in 2011 — on the hot soul-revival label Daptone, where he benefited from the attention.

Many of the artists on the Top Ten can probably be heard on stations playing the Americana format, which features music in the singer-songwriter tradition and/or with a strong awareness of rock's traditions. It barely even existed 20 years ago but has grown especially popular at public radio stations chasing Boomer members raised on 1960s-rock. While it's too niche-oriented to cause big sales or set the agenda for our cultural conversation the way American Idol does, it's nevertheless been a lifesaver for those whose music fits its format.

Waits, however, is too idiosyncratic and too given to clangorous rock rhythms to get a lot of Americana play. But the one Top Ten-er who really doesn't fit that format is fourth-place finisher Kate Bush (who is 53, which came as a shock to some voters). Her 50 Words For Snow belongs to the Modernica (as opposed to Americana) style — heavily produced with experimental touches, indebted to modern classical/art musicians such as Philip Glass, and out to create and inhabit its own enveloping sonic environment rather than work within a familiar "roots" context. She's certainly not the only older artist to be working in this idiom, but the fact she's the only one to rank high in this poll might mean many are having trouble getting the kind of airplay that Americana musicians get. Their work just isn't getting heard.

So here's a wish for 2012 — some way where Kate Bush, Grace Jones, Thomas Dolby, Brian Eno/Rick Holland and others can be heard more. And maybe some of that new music by older punk rockers could be squeezed in, too.

THE ROCK'S BACKPAGES TOP 10 (Plus Runners-Up)

1. Tom Waits: Bad As Me (Anti-)

228 total points. 29 votes, including 10 first-place.

2. Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What (Hear Music)

145 total points. 22 votes, 5 first-place.

3. Nick Lowe: The Old Magic (Yep Roc)

104 total points, 16 votes, 2 first-place.

4. Kate Bush: 50 Words For Snow (Anti-)

99 total points, 14 votes, 3 first-place.

5. Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (Nonesuch)

85 total points, 15 votes, 1 first-place.

6. Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues (Rounder)

60 total points, 10 votes, 2 first-place.

7. Steve Cropper: Dedicated (429 Records)

56 total points, 8 votes, 1 first-place.

8. Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas (Surfdog)

47 total points, 13 votes, 1 first-place.

9. Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive (New West)

40.5 total points, 10 votes, 1 first-place.

10. (Tie)

— R.E.M.: Collapse Into Now (Warner Bros.)

40 total points, 7 votes.

— Charles Bradley: No Time for Dreaming (Daptone)

40 total points, 7 votes.

Five Runners-up:

11. Lucinda Williams: Blessed (Lost Highway)

12. Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx: We're New Here (XL Recordings)

Three-way tie for 13th place:

13. Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between (Luna Park)

13. Robbie Robertson: How to Become Clairvoyant (429 Records)

13. Lou Reed and Metallica: Lulu (Warner Bros.)

*

50 Rock's Backpages Writers Submit Their Best Over-50s Albums of the Year

Bill Bentley

1 Garland Jeffreys: The King of In:Between

2 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

3 Exene: The Excitement of Maybe

4 Charles Bradley: No Time For Dreaming

5 Tracy Nelson: Victim Of The Blues

6 Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

7 Semi-Twang: Wages Of Sin

8 Connie Smith: Long Line Of Heartaches

9 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

10 Jimmie Vaughan with Lou Ann Barton: Plays More Blues: Ballads & Favorites

Mike Breen

1 Thurston Moore: Demolished Thoughts

2 Tinariwen: Tassili

3 Charles Bradley: No Time For Dreaming

4 Wire: Red Barked Tree

5 Gil Scott:Heron and Jamie xx: We're New Here

6 Joe Henry: Revere

7 Booker T. Jones: The Road From Memphis

8 Bootsy Collins: Tha Funk Capitol of the World

9 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

10 Bill Frisell: Sign of Life

HONORABLE MENTIONS... Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow; Jane's Addiction: The Great Escape Artist

Len Brown

1 Oyster Band & June Tabor: Ragged Kingdom

2 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

3 REM: Collapse Into New

4 Youssou NDour: Mbalakh Dafay Wakh

5 Wire: Red Barked Tree

6 Kate Bush: 50 Words For Snow

7 Magazine: No Thyself

8 Various Artists: Johnny Boy Would Have Loved This — A Tribute To John Martyn

9 Paul Simon: So Beautiful Or So What?

10 Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX: We're New Here

Keith Cameron

1 Kate Bush: 50 Words For Snow

2 Magazine: No Thyself

3 Wire: Red Barked Tree

4 Bill Wells and Aidan Moffat: Everything's Getting Older

5 Thurston Moore: Demolished Thoughts

6 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

7 Glen Campbell: Ghost On The Canvas

8 Gang of Four: Content

9 The Bats: Free All The Monsters

10 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

Bill Carpenter

1 Candi Staton: Who's Hurting Now?

2 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down

3 Cyndi Lauper: To Memphis With Love

4 SuperHeavy: SuperHeavy

5 Steve Cropper: Dedicated — A Salute to the 5 Royales

6 Betty Wright and the Roots: Betty Wright — The Movie

7 The Cars: Move Like This

8 Booker T. Jones: The Road From Memphis

9 Daryl Hall: Laughing Down Crying

10 Shirley Murdock: The Journey

Alternateså (in case some of those above drift outside of pop rock definition):

John Hiatt: Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns

Lucinda Williams: Blessed

Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams

Nick Coleman

1 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

2 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

3 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

4 Steve Cropper: Dedicated: A Tribute to the 5 Royales

5 Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas

6 Bill Frisell: All We Are Saying

7 Brian Eno/Rick Holland: Drums Between the Bells

8 Etta James: The Dreamer

9 The Lil' Band O' Gold: The Promised Land

10 The Zombies: Breathe Out/Breathe In

Byron Coley

1 Wizz Jones: Huldenberg Blues

2 Michael Yonkers with the Blind Shake: Period

3 Malcolm Mooney & the Third Planet: Incantations

4 Thurston Moore: Demolished Thoughts

5 The Feelies: Here Before

6 Omar Souleyman: Haflat Gharbia

7 Alvarius B: Baroque Primitiva

8 Juma Sultan's Aboriginal Music Society: Father of Origin

9 Mike Watt: hyphenated:man

10 Figures of Light: Drop Dead

Carol Cooper

1 Martinho da Vila: Lambendo a Cria

2 Eddie Palmieri: Salsa Brothers

3 Dolly Parton: Better Day

4 Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas

5 Elvis Costello: The Return of the Spectacular Spinning Songbook

6 Ronnie Dunn: Ronnie Dunn

7 Chico Buarque: Chico

8 Gilberto Santa Rosa: El Caballero de la Salsa — La Historia Tropical

9 Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow

10 Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers: Rare Bird Alert

Richard Cromelin

1 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

2 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

3 Gavin Friday: Catholic

4 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

5 Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow

6 Steve Earle: I'll Never Get out of This World Alive

7 Joe Henry: Reverie

8 Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx: We're New Here

9 R.E.M.: Collapse Into Now

10 Wire: Red Barked Tree

Stephen Dalton

kd lang may be a cheat: as she only turned 50 in November: and also the GSH album is a remake/remix... and he died this year!

1 Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow

2 kd lang: Sing It Loud

3 Gil Scott Heron & Jamie xx: We're New Here

4 Brian Eno: Drums Between the Bells

5 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

6 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu (yes really)

7 Blondie: Panic of Girls

8 John Foxx and the Maths: Interplay

9 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

10 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

Daryl Easlea (aged 45 ½)

1 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

2 The Fall: Ersatz GB

3 Bob Geldof: How To Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell

4 Kate Bush: 50 Words For Snow

5 Steve Hackett: Beyond The Shrouded Horizon

6 Peter Gabriel: New Blood

7 The Feelies: Here Before

8 Alice Cooper: Welcome 2 My Nightmare

9 Underworld: Music From Frankenstein

10 Yes: Fly From Here

Chuck Eddy

1 Nazareth: Big Dogz

2 John Waite: Rough and Tumble

3 Kentucky Headhunters: Dixie Lullabies

4 Muhal Richard Abrams: SounDance

5 The Ex: Catch My Shoe

6 Toby Keith: Clancy's Tavern

7 Merle Haggard: Working In Tennessee

8 Luther Lackey: Married Lyin' Cheatin' Man

9 Garland Jeffreys: The King Of In Between

10 Dennis Coffey: Dennis Coffey

Bob Fisher

1 Hugh Laurie: Let Them Talk

2 Steve Cropper: Dedicated

3 Aretha Franklin: A Woman Falling Out Of Love

4 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

5 Tony Bennett: Duets 2

6 Alice Cooper: Welcome 2 My Nightmare

7 Paul Simon: So Beautiful Or So What

8 Blondie: Panic Of Girls

9 Barbra Streisand: What Matters Most

10 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

Richard Gehr

1 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

2 David Lynch: Crazy Clown Time

3 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

4 Mike Keneally: Bakin' @ the Potato

5 Mike Watt: Hyphenated Man

6 John Doe: Keeper

7 Joe Ely: Satisfied at Last

8 Hazmat Modine: Cicada

9 Gary Lucas & Gods and Monsters: The Ordeal of Civility

10 Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive

Holly George-Warren

10 Wanda Jackson: The Party Ain't Over

9 Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas

8 Lucinda Williams: Blessed

7 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

6 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

5 The Jayhawks: Mockingbird Time

4 Buddy Miller: Buddy Miller's Majestic Silver Strings

3 John Hiatt: Dirty Jeans & Mudslide Hymns

2 John Doe: Keepers

1 Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

(RUNNERS UP: Emmylou Harris: Hard Bargain; Nick Lowe: The Old Magic; Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive; Tommy Keene: Behind the Parade; Greg Brown : Freak Flag)

Andy Gill

1 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

2 Kate Bush: 50 Words For Snow

3 Kate Bush: Director's Cut

4 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down

5 Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

6 Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings: Soul Time!

7 Keith Jarrett: Rio

8 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

9 Judy Collins: Bohemian

10 (tied) Dave Alvin: Eleven Eleven; Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive

(If there's an award for the WORST album by an over:50: then Lou Reed & Metallica's Lulu must be pushing Bruce Forsyth's album pretty hard.)

Danny Goldberg

1 Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive

2 REM: Collapse into Now

3.Betty Wright and the Roots: Betty Wright — The Movie

4.Lucinda Williams: Blessed

5.Buddy Miller: Buddy Miller's Majestic Silver Strings

6.Marianne Faithfull: Horses And High Heels

7.Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

8.Paul Simon: So Beautiful Or So What

9.Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas

10.Ray Davies: See My Friends

Jim Green

1 Gary Lucas and Gods & Monsters: The Ordeal of Civility

2 Steve Cropper: Dedication

3 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

4 Joe Henry: Reverie

5 Ivan Julian: The Naked Flame

6 Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between

7 Wire: Red Barked Tree

8 Robyn Hitchcock: Tromsø: Kaptein

9 Lucinda Williams: Blessed

10 Bryan Ferry: Olympia

(Honorable Mentions: John Doe: Keeper; Exene Cervenka: The Excitement of Maybe; Gavin Friday: Catholic)

Heather Harris

I'll just list Iggy and The Stooges : Raw Power: In The Hands of The Fans the music release heralding the later DVD release of the entire show in NY: 2010

Bill Holdship

1 REM: Collapse into Now

2 Steve Earle: I'll Never Get out of This World Alive

3 Lindsey Buckingham: Seeds We Sew

4 Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas

5 Lucinda Williams: Blessed

6 Various Artists: Listen to Me — Buddy Holly

7 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

8: Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams

Geoffrey Himes

1 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

2 John Doe: Keeper

3 Drive-By Truckers: Go-Go Boots

4 Greg Brown: Freak Flag

5 Susana Baca: Afrodiaspora

6 Dave Alvin: Eleven Eleven

7 Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive

8 John Hiatt: Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns

9 Warren Haynes: Man in Motion

10 Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between

Barney Hoskyns

1 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

2 Gil Scott:Heron and Jamie xx: We're New Here

3 Charles Bradley: No Time for Dreaming

4 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

5 Beastie Boys: Hot Sauce Committee Pt 2

6 June Tabor and the Oyster Band: Ragged Kingdom

7 Tinariwen: Tassili

8 Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas

9 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Settle Down

10 Lindsey Buckingham: Seeds We Sow

David Hughes

1 Tony Bennett: Duets II

2 Doris Day: My Heart

3 Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow

4 Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas

5 Dolly Parton : Better Day

6 Duane Eddy : Road Trip

7 Booker T. Jones: The Road from Memphis

8 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

9 Lucinda Williams: Blessed

10 Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams

Mark Leviton

1 Solomon Burke & De Dijk : Hold On Tight

2 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

3 Randy Newman: Songbook Vol. 2

4 Steve Cropper: Dedicated

5 Peter Gabriel: New Blood

6 Bootsy Collins: The Funk Capital of the World

7 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

8 Levon Helm: Ramble At the Ryman

9 Booker T. Jones: The Road From Memphis

10 Glen Campbell: Ghost On the Canvas

Dorian Lynskey

1. Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow

2 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

3 Grace Jones: Hurricane

4 Magazine: No Thyself

5 David Lynch: Crazy Clown Time

6 REM: Collapse Into Now

7 Gang of Four: Content

8 Edwyn Collins: Losing Sleep

9 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

Joe McEwen

1 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

2 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

3 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

4 Keith Jarrett: Rio

5 Warren Haynes: Man in Motion

6 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

Fred Mills (Editor: Blurt Magazine)

1 Warren Haynes: Man In Motion

2 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

3 Mekons: Ancient and Modern

4 Tommy Keene: Behind the Parade

5 Howe Gelb and A Band of Gypsies: Alegrias

6 Robert Plant: Band of Joy

7 Bevis Frond: The Leaving of London

8 Booker T. Jones : The Road from Memphis

9 Mike Watt: hyphenated-man

10 Charles Bradley: No Time for Dreaming

Mark Mordue

1 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

2 Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow

3 The Fall: Ersatz GB

4 Gil Scott-Heron: I'm New Here

5 Keith Jarrett: Rio

6 Ralph Stanley: A Mother's Prayer

7 Dave Graney: Rock n Roll is Where I Hide

8 Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

9 Mick Harvey: Sketches from the Book of the Dead

10 Lou Reed and Metallica: Lulu

Jeffrey Morgan

1 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

2 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

3 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

4 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

5 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

6 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

7 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

8 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

9 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

10 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

There: that was easy.

David Quantick

1 Lou Reed & Metallica: Lulu

2 Andrew Cronshaw: The Unbroken Surface of Snow

3 Magazine: No Thyself

4 Paul Simon: So Beautiful Or So What

Wayne Robins

Time flies: I even had to check whether P.J. Harvey is near or at 50. (Not quite. About 10 years off...)

1 Dave Alvin: Eleven Eleven

2 Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

3 Guy Clark: Songs and Stories

4 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What?

5 Robbie Robertson: How to Become Clairvoyant

6 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

7 Lou Reed and Metallica: Lulu

8 The Jayhawks: Mockingbird Time

9 Red Hot Chili Peppers: I'm With You

10. R.E.M.: Collapse Into Now

Steven Rosen

1 Chickenfoot: Chickenfoot III

2 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

3 Alice Cooper: Welcome 2 My Nightmare

4 Bad Company: Extended Versions

Steven R. Rosen

1 Tom Waits: Bad to Me

2 Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow

3 Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between

4 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

5 Mick Harvey: Sketches From the Book of the Dead

6 Charles Bradley: No Time For Dreaming

7 Mekons: Ancient & Modern 1911:2011

8 Grace Jones: Hurricane

9 New York Dolls: Dancing Backward in High Heels

10 Robbie Robertson: How to Become Clairvoyant

Bud Scoppa

1 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

2 The Cars: Move Like This

3 Daryl Hall: Laughing Down Crying

4 Lindsey Buckingham: Seeds We Sow

5 Robbie Robertson: How to Become Clairvoyant

6 Lucinda Williams: Blessed

7 The Jayhawks: Mockingbird Time

8 Dwight Twilley: Soundtrack

9 Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

10 Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive

(I'd throw in Neil Young's A Treasure, but that would be cheating...)

Paul Sexton

1 Glen Campbell: Ghost On The Canvas

2 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

3 Thomas Dolby: A Map Of The Floating City

4 J.D. Souther: Natural History

5 Paul Simon: So Beautiful Or So What

6 Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

7 Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams

8 John Hiatt: Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns

9 Steve Cropper: Dedicated

10 Etta James: The Dreamer

Michael Simmons

1 Jake and the rest of the Jewels: A Lick and a Promise

2 Van Dyke Parks: The 7'' Singles Series*

3 Peter Stampfel and Jeffrey Lewis: Come On Board

4 Steve Earle : I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive

5 Bruce Langhorne: Tambourine Man

6 Willie Nile: The Innocent Ones

7 John Sinclair & Hollow Bones: Honoring The Local Gods

8 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

9 The Krayolas: Tipsy Topsy Turvy

10 NRBQ: Keep This Love Goin'

(*Not an album per se: but a series of 7" singles.)

HONORABLE MENTIONS: 11: Freddy Koella: Undone; 12: Roger McGuinn: CCD; 13: Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down; 14: Jackie DeShannon: When You Walk In The Room; 15: Brian Wilson: In The Key Of Disney

Mat Snow

Struggling to recall having listened attentively to any new releases this year: so my enthusiastic vote cast for Tom Waits may just have to do. Oh: and The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 2. And my daughter would never forgive me if I failed to mention Hugh Laurie's Bertie Sings The Blues album. Never did get to hear that Kate Bush record...

Terry Staunton

1 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

2 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

3 The Zombies: Breathe Out: Breathe In

4 Billy Bragg: Fight Songs

5 Paul Simon: So Beautiful Or So What

6 Lindsey Buckingham: Seeds We Sow

7 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust And Settle Down

8 Glen Campbell: Ghost On The Canvas

9 Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive

10 Lucinda Williams: Blessed

Phil Sutcliffe

Assuming you don't count dead people like Johnny Cash or compilations like Loudon Wainwright or whatever SMiLE is, I just got to 10: I suspect it's not been a great year for over-50s unless I missed stuff (which I easily could have).

1 Paul Simon: So Beautiful Or So What

2 Kate Bush: 50 Words For Snow

3 Steve Martin And The Steep Canyon Rangers: Rare Bird Alert

4 Randy Newman: The Randy Newman Songbook Vol 2

5 Chip Taylor: Rock And Roll Joe

6 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

7 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down

8 Tom Russell: Mesabi

9 The Wronglers with Jimmie Dale Gilmore

10 The Baseball Project: The Baseball Project Vol. 1

Jeff Tamarkin

This wasn't so hard after all: most of what I listen to and like is made by people over 50 anyway. Hell: many of them are hovering around 70!

1 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

2 Paul Simon: So Beautiful So What

3 Sonny Rollins: Road Shows Vol. 2

4 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

5 New York Dolls: Dancing Backward in High Heels

6 Merle Haggard: Working in Tennessee

7 The Jayhawks: Mockingbird Time

8 Steve Earle: I'll Never Get Out of This Word Alive

9 Charles Bradley: No Time for Dreaming

10 Glen Campbell: Ghost On the Canvas

Jon Tiven

Over 50? THAT'S MY SPECIALITY!

1:Steve Cropper: Dedicated

2: Leslie West: Unusual Suspects

Jeff Walker

There have actually been quite a few really solid albums by older artists out this year: and I've enjoyed quite a few (including Clapton's: Christy Moore of Planxty's: Jackie DeShannon's: Merle Haggard's) but the list below are the ones I've kept going back to and have played most.

1 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

2 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

3 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

4 Joe Ely: Satisfied at Last

5 Pajama Club: Pajama Club

6 J. D. Souther: Natural History

7 Duane Eddy: Road Trip

8 The Jayhawks: Mockingbird Time

9 Ray Davies: See My Friends

10 Steven Leibman: I Know They're There

Bill Wasserzieher

It's probably a bit too American and surely too masculine: but these were my favorites for 2011. I cut it off at nine rather than 10: mostly because several artists I would have liked to include (Richard Thompson: Neil Young: Mavis Staples: Robert Plant) released their most recent discs of new material in late 2010.

1 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

2 Dave Alvin: Eleven Eleven

3 Tom Waits: Bad as Me

4 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

5 Mekons: Ancient and Modern

6 Lucinda Williams: Blessed

7 Garland Jeffreys: King of In Between

8 Booker T. Jones: The Road from Memphis

9 Lindsey Buckingham: Seeds We Sow

Chris Welch

1 Yes: Fly From Here

2 Keith Emerson Band featuring Marc Bonilla: Live In Moscow

3 Ray Davies: See My Friends

4 Anderson/Wakeman: The Living Tree

5 The Zombies: Breathe Out: Breathe In

6 Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings: Live Communication

7 Stretch: Unfinished Business

8 Steve Miller Band: Let Your Hair Down

9 Chris Spedding: Pearls

10 Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down

Steven P. Wheeler

1 Robbie Robertson: How To Become Clairvoyant

2 Lucinda Williams: Blessed

3 The Cars: Move Like This

4 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

5 Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

6 Peter Murphy: Ninth

7 Cowboy Junkies: Demons

8 The Smithereens: 2011

9 Marianne Faithfull: Horses And High Heels

10 Bob Geldof: How To Compose Songs That Will Sell

Pete Wingfield

1 Gregg Allman: Low Country Blues

2 Jimmie Vaughan: ...Plays Blues: Ballads & Favorites

3 Buddy Miller: The Majestic Silver Strings

4 Nick Lowe: The Old Magic

5 Steve Cropper: Dedicated

6 Betty Wright and the Roots: Betty Wright — The Movie

7 Levon Helm: Ramble at the Ryman

8 Eric Clapton: Clapton

9 Booker T. Jones: The Road To Memphis

10 Etta James: The Dreamer

Carl Wiser

1 The Original 7ven: Condensate

2 SuperHeavy: SuperHeavy

3 Chris Isaak: Beyond the Sun

4 Paul Simon: So Beautiful Or So What

5 John Oates: Mississippi Mile

6 k.d. lang: Sing It Loud

7 Henry McCullough: Unfinished Business

8 Thomas Dolby: A Map of the Floating City

9 Aretha Franklin: A Woman Falling Out of Love

10 They Might Be Giants: Join Us

Paul Yamada

1 Bo-Keys: Got To Get Back

2 Charles Bradley: No Time For Dreaming

3 Savoy Brown: Voodoo Moon

4 Jimmy Vaughan: Plays More Blues: Ballads & Favorites

5 Charles Walker: Soul Stirring Thing

David Zimmer

1 Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What

2 Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow

3 Tom Waits: Bad As Me

4 Robbie Robertson: How to Become Clairvoyant

5 R.E.M.: Collapse Into Now

6 Emmylou Harris: Hard Bargain

7 Lindsey Buckingham: Seeds We Sow

8 John Hiatt: Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns

9 Hot Tuna: Steady As She Goes

10 Glen Campbell: Ghosts on the Canvas

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Glen Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas

Bootsy Collins: Tha Funk Capital of the World

Dwight Twilley: Soundtrack

Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down

Lucinda Williams: Blessed

(Read classic articles on artists from Aaliyah to ZZ Top at Rock's Backpages Close to 20,000 pieces by the greatest writers from the finest rock publications of the last 50 years. Visit http://www.rocksbackpages.com/.)

Mick "Boom Boom" Jagger & Freddy "Brown Sugar" Cannon

2011-12-02T05:51:00.000-08:00

(Note: When I reviewed this album for Blurt-online.com on Feb. 22, 2009, I was dubious about the claim in the liner notes that Mick Jagger based "Brown Sugar's" melody on "Tallahassee Lassie." But the emergence of a Stones version of "Lassie" on the new, expanded version of "Some Girls" goes a long way to taking the claim seriously. At this point, I'm looking for a new "Freddy Cannon & the Rolling Stones" album soon.)

CD Review

Freddy Cannon
Boom Boom Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Best of Freddy Cannon [reissue]
(Shout Factory)
Here's the most amazing music-trivia factoid in a long time, courtesy of the liner notes to Boom Boom 24-song greatest-hits collection: Mick Jagger acknowledges he based "Brown Sugar's" melody on Freddy Cannon's 1959 hit, "Tallahassee Lassie." Gentleman, start your mash-ups now!

Actually, you can see why Jagger might have liked Cannon, an ebullient and exuberant Italian-American kid from Boston still active on the oldies circuit today. Cannon didn't so much sing as shout and yelp his lyrics with a voice like fireworks; there's a rawness and street authenticity to such songs about the teen experience as "Transistor Sister," "Action," "The Dedication Song" and his classic "Palisades Park," a New Jersey anthem written by "Gong Show's" Chuck Barris. They have a goosey, ejaculatory quality about them.

But for too much of his career, Cannon was stuck on the Swan label out of Philadelphia, which surrounded him with the same kind of corny, brassy, "swingin'" arrangements - and similarly fussy material, like "Jump Over" and "Teen Queen of the Week" - that Philadelphia teen idol Bobby Rydell had such success with on Cameo Records. But Rydell was a lounge-ish stylist; Cannon was a rocker who needed records that could let him do his stuff.

Things got better when he moved to Warner Bros. for 1964's spunky, sexy hit "Abigail Beecher," but by then he was fighting the British Invasion. He did manage one of the great songs about songs on the radio, "The Dedication Song," in 1966 -- so spirited it practically leaps off the airwaves and dances and shouts right next to you. The song has a physical presence.

It'd be great to see someone give him a first-class production treatment now, perhaps "Palisades Park" aficionado Bruce Springsteen? (He once did that for Gary U.S. Bonds.) Freddy Cannon and the E Street Band, anyone?

Standout Tracks: "Palisades Park," "The Dedication Song" STEVEN ROSEN

The Supreme Dicks: A Candidate for Year's Best Archival Release

2011-11-25T06:38:00.000-08:00

Supreme Dicks

Breathing and Not Breathing

Jagjaguwar (www.jagjaguwar.com)

Nine stars

By Steven Rosen

For Blurt Magazine

It’s hard to fathom where rock would be without the Velvet Underground, whose mix of intellectualism and primitivism created a new dramatic structure – intentionally flirting with chaos – for the popular song. We’re still finding bands influenced by them but who never got their due, and Supreme Dicks – subject of the four-disc Breathing and Not Breathing reissue of late-1980s/early 1990s material – is a major rediscovery. It combines two albums officially released (1993’s The Unexamined Life and 1996’s The Emotional Plague) with one of earlier material and one combining a later EP, This Is Not a Dick, with rare cuts. Emerging out of Hampshire College in Massachusetts, the band was technically challenged but bravely committed to the need for musical struggle. As a result, their often-dark songs have a triumphant dimension, as when “Jack-O-Lantern” moves from tentative guitar exploration to blisteringly urgent, note-holding vocals. And the foray into free-jazz trumpeting and chanting on “A Donkey’s Burial in a Tower on a Mirage” shows their ability to create memorable soundscapes. There's tough competition, as there's a race on to discover overlooked punk and post-punk bands, but this could be the reissue of the year.

Steven Rosen

You May Find Yourself...At Moogfest 2011

2011-11-17T06:58:00.000-08:00

Moogfest, 2011

This coverage, by Steven Rosen and Fred Mills, ran in http://www.blurt-online.com/, on 11-11-11.

(In which we go once again beyond the valley of the late Dr. Robert Moog...

BY STEVEN ROSEN AND FRED MILLS

(For the second time in as many years a celebration of all things Robert Moog descended upon Asheville, NC, with scores of musical - and in some instances, visual - artists paying tribute, both directly and indirectly, to the late synthesizer pioneer. That would be Moogfest, held over Halloween weekend and also for the second time we sent two of our staffers out onto the streets and into the clubs of Asheville to take in the sights and sounds put forth by the likes of the Flaming Lips, Moby, Flying Lotus, Dan Deacon, Brian Eno, Oneohtrix Point Never, St. Vincent, Neon Indian, M83 and tons more.

The event has its origins in discussions between Dr. Moog's daughter Michelle Moog-Koussa, executive director of The Bob Moog Foundation (MoogFoundation.org), and promoter Ashley Capps, of Knoxville's A.C. Entertainment, which you can read about as part of BLURT's 2010 Moogfest coverage. You can alsocheck out our postmortem of last year's festival, or view images from 2010. In the meantime, check out some of what went down a couple of weekends ago at Moogfest, and we hope to see you in 2012.

Also check out the photo gallery from Moogfest 2011 at www.blurt-online.com/news/view/5651/ Pictured above: spacemen stiltwalkers tower over the crowd during a show at the Asheville Civic Center arena. Photo courtesy Moogfest.) - The Editors)

REPORT FROM STEVEN ROSEN:

Moogfest 2011 was about music, yes, as it's supposed to be. But some of the most exciting, scintillating moments at this year's event - held over the three-day Halloween weekend, Oct. 28-30 - involved the spoken word.

There was, for instance, a newly archived, tape-recorded 1970 conversation between the late Robert Moog - the electronic-music inventor/manufacturer in whose honor the fest is held - and the visionary jazz keyboardist Sun Ra, who was interested in trying out the then-new MiniMoog synthesizer.

The Bob Moog Foundation, which wants to create a museum and other programming in Asheville (where Moog lived and ran a company that built instruments), uses the fest to teach about Moog's ideas and activities. The boutique festival, loosely programmed to highlight progressive electronic music with a sense of history, is produced by Knoxville's A.C. Entertainment. (It also stages the much bigger, outdoor Bonnaroo.) In its second year in Asheville, Moogfest is primarily an indoor event, although it added one outdoor stage this year.

Played at a symposium called "Sun Ra and Beyond: Exploring Rare Recordings from Bob's Archives," the tape recording offered a peek inside Sun Ra's visionary cosmic thinking: "You can't just have music for earth people. Earth people have to start thinking of reaching other planets," he told Moog.

Amazingly, some forty years on, Brian Eno made a related observation in his brilliant "Illustrated Talk" lecture - a Moogfest highlight - on Saturday afternoon at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. Eno, who also had an art installation, 77 Million Paintings, showing elsewhere in connection with the fest, told the audience how he has increasingly become interested in the "state of surrender" as a beneficial human condition, a pathway to enlightenment in an age when so much of our upbringing and socialization urges us to always control everything. And here, although he didn't know it, Eno made a point similar to what Sun Ra told Bob Moog: We're not the center of a universe containing 100 trillion stars. Surrendering to that fact is a way of acknowledging a truth about ourselves - giving up control is a way to give up delusions.

Eno then listed ways people have of surrendering to something greater than themselves - religion, art, drugs and sex. "If any of you know any cultures that allow all of them, I'd like to go with you," he said.

As that comment reveals, Eno is as sardonically witty as he is intellectually provocative. And for an artist/musician/record producer known for being avant-garde and hi-tech, he can be surprisingly old guard. He eschewed a multimedia sound-and-light presentation in favor of displaying via an overhead projector at a lectern some charts and lists he had prepared. And he had trouble keeping all the sheets at his beck and call. (A control issue?) At one point, while shuffling papers around, he wondered aloud, "What am I doing here?" and quietly sang "letting the days go by..." from the famous Talking Heads song he produced and co-wrote, "Once in a Lifetime." It was just a line, but considering how shy Eno is about performing his music in public, it immediately produced this imaginary headline from at least one writer present: "Eno Sings at Moogfest!"

***

The music at Moogfest ran the gamut from sublime to ridiculous - with Flaming Lips managing to encompass both ends, sometimes simultaneously. (Would they be the Flaming Lips if they didn't?) Saddled with a Saturday night outdoor show when the temperature plummeted to the thirties, the Lips tried to go through with the theatrical visual spectacle that is their stage act. But it's hard to appreciate the fantastical wonderment of it all when you're shivering.

On a screen that looked like a stretched-out giant tambourine, in front of an abstracted image of a woman with legs spread, a passageway opened where her birth canal should be and out came white-suited bandleader Wayne Coyne inside a huge plastic bubble. He proceeded to roll out into the crowd, which held him aloft, and then back to the stage to break free and start the show. He wore what looked like a heavy fur scarf that blended in well with his long, curly hair.

Coyne so often called those in the crowd "motherfucker" in an attempt to get them more involved - as in, "Come on, motherfuckers" - that it's surprising nobody took it personally and climbed onstage to slug him. He made himself wearisome.

On the other hand, the music rose above it all. Moogfest gave the band - especially keyboardist/guitarist Stephen Drozd - a chance to show it's as much into electronics (and dense sound collage) as guitar. In tribute to the event, the Lips played a spirited, elegiac version of Emerson Lake & Palmer's "Lucky Man" - the first rock hit with a lengthy Moog-synthesizer solo - after Coyne more or less encouraged the crowd to smoke pot to get in the mood. And not until after Drozd played the lengthy, spacey solo was it revealed he did it with an iPad. For the lucky men and women in the crowd, that will have to hold until, perhaps, EL&P headline next year's Moogfest.

It was a beautiful music moment, but not the set's best. That came with the encore (the show appeared to be shortened due to weather), when the band launched into the melancholy-tinged cosmic-consciousness of the lushly melodic "Do You Realize." Accompanied by a veritable storm of colored confetti, the song's orchestral-like sweep lifted the spirits and warmed the soul. The camera attached to Coyne's microphone transmitted a huge image of his aging but smiling face as he warbled - in his fragile, high-pitched croon - the lyrics about the need to show kindness to others amid the looming inevitability of death. At the end, he hauntingly intoned several times "Do you realize/that you have the most beautiful face?" Solipsistic? Perhaps, but also so sweet and so well-meaning - and so majestic - that you forgave Coyne for his excesses and potty mouth.

The Lips played on Saturday, an extraordinary day for shows by elders of progressive electronic music. Hans-Joachim Roedelius, the German experimenter (and Eno friend) who moved from late-1960s Krautrock to Minimalism and ambient/electronic, played a short, meditative set in a darkened concert hall. He moved between Steinway piano and his electronics, working into his performance a sound collage that featured snippets of Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner" and Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony." Those selections were in honor of his 77th birthday, he told the audience ("my birthday present to you"). People responded by singing "Happy Birthday" to him as he beamed and waved.

Afterward, keyboardist Terry Riley - a pioneer of repetition-based Minimalism in the 1960s - played grand piano and synthesizer, with his guitarist son Gyan, before way too few people at the auditorium. Wearing a cowboy hat and with his trademark white beard, Riley offered a diverse show. He sang a few eclectically enigmatic blues-jazz numbers showing a bit of inner Dr. John and a bit of Eastern music-based modality. And belying his Minimalist credentials, he also at times played with a sweeping lyricism that was more like McCoy Tyner than John Cage. As a finale, using synthesizer while his son accompanied, he offered a long, generous version of his classic "A Rainbow in Curved Air." With its rhythmically catchy, expressively sweeping whirls and sweeps, one could see how it inspired the Who's "Baba O'Riley." Oh, Riley, indeed.

Late that night, Suicide took stage at the Orange Peel club for a fiery, no-nonsense and angry play-through of their first album, 1977's Suicide. The muscular Martin Rev, standing by his synth and looking revved up, commanded his droning, buzzingly ominous electronic music with proud authority, stalking around stage between songs like he'd just dunked a game-winning three-pointer. Vocalist Alan Vega, for his part, stomped and swayed like he'd been bitten by something painful and was about to fall over. And when someone in the crowd gave him a requested cigarette (a violation of the no-smoking policy), he puffed so voraciously and defiantly it was scary - like a dying man's last wish. But he howled, exclaimed and chanted the lyrics with the kind of punk authority that's now folkloric. After "Rocket USA," with its cautionary refrain, "It's 1977/Whole country's doing a fix/It's doomsday, doomsday," he shouted in complaint, "And look at the country now." His meaning, one presumes, is that it's only gotten worse with time. But Suicide's music only has gotten better.

There was much else at Moogfest worthy of mention, and since shows overlapped it was impossible to see everyone. Other highlights for this writer included a late-night set by Battles, a rigorously intellectual yet undeniably physical, primarily instrumental band.

Moby, one of the first to produce a hit album heavily influenced by found sounds, recorded-music samples, and electronica (1999's Play), showed in his Friday night show at the big Asheville Civic Center Arena how well his music works in a more traditional live-band performance. Playing guitar along with keyboards, and sometimes singing pleasantly, Moby made his band click like a classic alt-rock group. And Inyang Bassey, the dynamic gospel- and jazz-influenced female singer, added emotional strength and power to songs in a satisfying set that included "Honey," "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" and "We Are All Made of Stars."

Newcomer Anika, who sings in a deadpan but mysterious voice, found success with her late, late Friday night Orange Peel set. She drew comparisons to Nico, Julee Cruise and Judy Nylon for the way she radically, somberly reconstructed 1960s pop/folk songs like the Crystals' "He Hit Me," Skeeter Davis' "The End of the World," Ray Davies' "I Go to Sleep" (first recorded by Peggy Lee) and Dylan's "Masters of War." While her smoky voice was part of the charm, the supporting band's arrangements were riveting in their hypnotically, dangerously seductive way. They rocked with wariness. Billy Fuller and Matt Williams of Beak> provided bass and guitar, while Rasha Shaheen's keyboard work and harmony singing were outstanding. (There was also a drummer.) Anika's debut album - reviewed here at BLURT - was produced by Portishead's Geoff Barrow, also a Beak> member, and you can see the aesthetic at work - what if the default sound of 1960s pop was trip-hop-tinged, rhythmically textured, dark melancholia? Or, what if Velvet Underground was a Top 40 band?

A couple acts were disappointments. Tangerine Dream was closer to Mannheim Steamroller than anything progressive with its New Agey mixture of pompous, prog-rock guitar over a monotonously loud base of keyboards, percussion and other instruments. Ghostland Observatory's Aaron Behrens' weird singing style - a yelp-triggered falsetto - was an annoying contrivance. And the fancy lighting effects didn't save deejay Flying Lotus's set from being static to watch.

Another disappointment was that the chilly weather put a damper on the spectators' enjoyment of the elaborate Halloween costumes that Asheville's large youthful/bohemian community likes to wear around town. That was a highlight last year, when the temperature and zero precipitation made for what was a near-perfect weekend of navigating around the downtown area. The costume-wearers were out there, some showing wonderful imagination, but the coldness reduced the desire to relax and watch them. The weather may also have reduced festival attendance, especially on Sunday night when some acts at the arena and auditorium were playing to noticeably sparse crowds.

Finally, for those looking for a festival breakout artist - watch out for Dorit Chrysler. She threatens to do for the theremin what Joanna Newsom has done for the harp. The Austrian-born, New York-based Chrysler, handsomely dressed and with long blonde hair, didn't play a set at Moogfest. She had come for a Foundation-sponsored Sunday-afternoon seminar on "Journey to the Center of the Theremin." She didn't even have her theremin with her; the airlines had misplaced it.

But when she used a borrowed one to show the crowd her technique, the response was electric. Rather than merely use her hands to coax spooky, woozy, high-pitched melody out of the electronic instrument, as theremins usually have been used, she animatedly chopped, massaged, waved, wiggled and parted the air all around the instrument to make all sorts of unusual sounds at different pitches. The result is the theremin equivalent to Tuvan throat-singing - weird yet enchanting. She also sang a hushed, darkly romantic art song (she's been compared to Marianne Faithfull).

One person who liked the mini-performance was Alan Paloma, also on the seminar panel. That night, he brought her onstage to do a theremin solo during his fine, heavily electronic yet very poppy Neon Indian set, and she got keen extended applause from a surprised, delighted audience. Can stardom be far behind?

Her work came to be a metaphor for Moogfest, itself. Both are rooted in and aware of the history of electronic music, but alive to change, modernism and experimentalism. That makes for a great festival.

***

REPORT FROM FRED MILLS:

Well put, Dr. Rosen; I couldn't have said it better. Indeed, it was a hugely successful Moogfest once again, and on multiple levels - this, despite the aforementioned weather issues, which did seem to conspire to some of the street revelry that marked last year's version (which enjoyed absolutely perfect weather), and led some observers this year to question the wisdom of adding an outdoor stage in the mountains at the end of October. By and large, though, the event went off without a hitch, and that includes the fact that the Halloween spirit could be dampened and chilled, but not dismantled. Beetlejuice apparently was this year's most popular costume - I counted at least 10 variations wandering the streets - which was a good thing because it helped take away from all the silly wolf-head hats and multicolored faux-hawks also being rocked. One fun moment: turning down a street en route to a club, I got the bejeezus scared out of me when a hairy ghoul jumped out of the bushes and screamed at me. I started to give him a buck because I figured he was just a homeless guy, but then he shooed me along, laughing and stage-whispering, "I gotta get ready to jump out at these next folks coming..." Now THAT is Halloween.

Oh yeah - the robot/spacemen stiltwalkers (see photo at top) who wandered around the arena floor during various bands' sets were pretty damn awesome.

Also, if anything, the programming was more adventurous than last year, with everybody from prog (Tangerine Dream) and punk (Suicide) legends to established contemporary faves (Moby, M83, Flaming Lips) to full-on deejay sets (Flying Lotus, Dan Deacon, James Murphy & Pat Mahoney) to up-and-coming indie avatars (Neon Indian, Austra, Beak>, Antlers) competing for the attention of attendees. There were a few no-shows, such as Little Dragon, who canceled their Friday evening outdoor set (which would have taken place in the rain and cold) due to a serious "illness" in the band; oddly, the bandmember recovered in time for the following night's gig at D.C. indoor venue the 9:30 Club.

And at least one artist suffered equipment malfunction serious enough to force an abrupt set-ending - Grimes (see below) quit after barely a half-hour; no word whether or nota similar scenario forced John Maus to also deliver an abbreviated performance, but the electronic composer did leave more than a few clubgoers grumbling. On balance, though, Moogfest is relatively glitch-free, and the fact that it is held, for the most part, in clubs and performance spaces all within a 5-minute walking distance of one another, means that ticketholders can move freely and speedily from one venue to the other and generally get to see pretty much every performer, at least partially, they have listed on their dance cards.

A few highlight, among the many:

***
Austra (Friday, Orange Peel): While last year the early-evening shows all tended to be only modestly attended, tonight there was already a considerable line outside the Orange Peel at 6pm. Once in, music fans not disappointed, and they showed their appreciation by dancing for Austra's entire set. Her dramatic Florence & The Machine/Kate Bush/Judie Tzuke stylings, all deliberately-plotted hand, arm and mic movements set to a dance beat and layered in thick keyboard washes, and also abetted by a pair of extroverted female singer/dancers flanking her, bordered on occasional contrivance, but overall she delivered the goods. (From the Blurt twitter feed: #moogfest Austra first pleasant surprise - florence meets kate bush meets judie tzuke inna theatrical nu wave hot tub.)

Beak> (Friday, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium): The Portishead offshoot was totally engaging, serving up a blend of Krautrock, minimalist techno and drone-metal. The three musicians frequently swapped off on instruments as well, Chinese fire drill-style. And since the venue was only about 1/10 full, I'd have to award this set a "You Missed It, Folks" award. Catch Beak> next time they come to the U.S., definitely. (Blurt tweet: Beak in full on krautrock motorik mode now - Neu kidding! #moogfest)

Holy Fuck (Friday, Asheville Civic Center): In retrospect, one of my top three favorite shows all weekend. Psychedelic and dubby as hell, yet steaming with energy and featuring the band throwing themselves around the stage like they clearly meant it. Each song got thicker and heavier until the crowd got sucked into a sonic worm hole. (Blurt tweet: #moogfest Holy Fuck at ACC is purest dub-psych cranial uncorking all night so far... Holy krautrock, batman.)

Grimes (Friday, Asheville Music Hall): Mentioned here mainly because it was one of the sets I most wanted to catch; the Canadian musician has an amazing voice and a very eclectic approach to her electronica-lathered pop. Unfortunately, while things started out on a promising note they rapidly deteriorated as her gear lapsed into "uncooperative mode" and after about 25 minutes a visibly frustrated (and nearly in tears) Grimes bolted from the stage and didn't return.

Lunzproject (Friday, Diana Wortham Theatre): The DWT is a formal recital hall with near-perfect acoustics, which meant that Lunzproject - Krautrock and minimalist-music legend Hans-Joachim Roedelius on grand piano plus synth, accompanied with great empathy by Tim Story on synth), could perform in the perfect setting. Both men were solemn to the point of impassive, although a few times you could see them sneak smiles of pleasure at one another following a particularly nice flourish. Adept at creating and maintaining a mood, they served up deep, rich, calming melodies awash in ambient/aquatic textures.

Anika (Friday, Orange Peel): I'll second what Steven Rosen said, above, and add that this was one of the weekend's nicest surprises. With the members of Beak> plus a female keyboard player backing her up, Anika delivered a kind of "Portishead goes pop" set, additionally courting a heavy Velvet Underground vibe (her vocal resemblance to Nico is hard to ignore, particularly in the way she sing-recites a lot of her songs). The club crowd seemed entranced, too, and demanded an encore. Walking back out onstage clutching a small journal-type lyrics book, she flipped through the pages, checked to make sure the other musicians were ready, and proceeded slither into a cover of "Life During Wartime" that brought the house down as grins of recognition slowly creased the faces of the punters. Per Rosen's Eno notes above, it wouldn't be the only time we'd get a small but telling dose of Talking Heads during the weekend. (Blurt tweet: #moogfest Anika at o peel is radically reworked varshons of dylan, skeeter davis, crystals... Some krazy kraut-disco too.)

***

Dan Deacon (Saturday, Animoog Playground): Noted primarily because the contrast between Deacon's set this year and last year couldn't be greater. Deacon is a genius, but having him play outdoors in a flat parking lot before the sun went down wasn't the most genius move. He is always entertaining and people were entertained, but the sound was badly distorted, and when he did his patented dance battle - having the crowd to move back to form a big circle in the middle then selecting two folks to have a dance-off - it was considerably less effective than in 2010 when he performed indoors at the arena where you could watch the whole crowd/circle/dance thing unfold from the balcony in true spectator sport fashion. You could sure smell the weed, however.

Terry Riley (Saturday, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium): See above for Rosen's comments. I suspect a lot of people, expecting a set of traditional Riley-esque minimalism were caught off-guard when he launched into almost Mose Allison-styled jazz, or when his son picked up a nylon stringed guitar to lend flamenco flavors to a Latin number. (Blurt tweet: #moogfest Anyone who says they expected to hear Terry Riley sing avant blooze tonight is lyin'...)

Adrian Belew Power Trio (Saturday, Diana Wortham Theatre): An absolutely packed house was wowed by the Belew crew - which was far more than just a "trio." Initially Belew played with a drummer and female bassist, then midway through they were replaced by a different drummer plus Belew's old King Crimson cohort Tony Levin (whose group the Stickmen performed earlier in the evening), which meant it was time for, you guessed it, some serious Crimsonage, "Elephant Talk" being one key fave they pulled out. But the musical chairs didn't end there - soon a second guitarist came out (he also triggered samples on a laptop) to
make the music even louder and more brutal; not long after that the original drummer and bassist also rejoined the lineup... and then they were six. yeah, it got loud. (Blurt tweet: #moogfest Adrian Belew now a 6 piece and sounding like monstrous sea vessel breaking apart in a storm...)

Amon Tobin (Saturday, Asheville Civic Center): Finally the arena filled nearly to capacity, and the costume-watching factor was high. Kids leaning over the balconies and crowding the walkways were driving the security crazy as Tobin delivered a pounding set of hard techno, abetted by a dizzying light show.

St. Vincent (Saturday, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium): Yes, Annie came, she saw, she shredded, she conquered. Parts of her show seemed over-rehearsed and failed to engage at times - when you watch a performer and wonder how long it took her/him to come up with a particular move or flourish, that's distracting - but it mostly rocked. Also, her light show bordered on brilliance. (Blurt tweet: #moogfest St. Vincent at TWA was one of most effective light shows in terms of accenting the songs so far at mf.)

Suicide (Saturday, Orange Peel): Ditto Rosen's observations. Between the thuggish-demeanor'd Martin Rev stalking and stabbing his keys, and Alan Vega's almost street-person schtick, the visual entertainment factor was high, and the music crushed. (Blurt tweet: #moogfest Now Suicide at Peel is perplexing a crowd who "heard" it is a godfather of techno... not techno godfather, silly. Punk.)

***
Oneohtrix Point Never (Sunday, Orange Peel): While the crowd mostly stood for this heavy-ambient set when they probably could have appreciated it more sitting down, there's no question that Daniel Lopatin knows how to entrance. With some eye-popping visuals - fractals, pop art and more - the sounds were absolutely hypnotic, at times aquatic and immersive, other times uplifting like 21st century gospel/choral music. (Blurt tweet: #moogfest Oneohtrix making me feel like time I was in diving bell w/J Cousteau and he whipped out his Aphex Twin bootlegs.)

Beats Antique (Sunday, Animoog Playground): Given the cold weather, the group's belly dancer didn't exactly have the best job in the world. No matter, though - as the sun was starting to set, the band stirred up a riotous blend of Middle Eastern, Afrobeat, hip-hop and rock ‘n' roll. They made me think of a younger, more broad-based take on what Transglobal Underground was doing a number of years back.

M83 (Sunday, Asheville Civic Center): Serious spectacle time. Nothing about M83 is writ small or subtle, from the in-your-face light show to the all-anthems/all-the-time setlist. He's moved well past his early Yes fixation and is now in his, dare I say it, U2 phase, all rhythmically pulsing plus soaring melodies. And it's total crowd-pleasing stuff. (Blurt tweet: #moogfest M83playing genuinely beautiful music.. heating up in Prog-throb vein. Fans sparking up en masse.)

Neon Indian (Sunday, Thomas Wolfe Auditorium): This guy clearly loves the idea of being a rock star - the moves! the gestures! the Jesus Christ poses! But to his credit, he performs so naturally that it's fun to chart his trajectory without any snarkiness. Very ‘80s-ish (Depeche Mode can't help but come to mind when watching the band) but with an indie-rock contemporary flair, Neon Indian's music is big enough to fill whatever sized room he happens to find himself in.

Special Disco Version feat. James Murphy & Pat Mahoney (Sunday, Asheville Civic Center). Another one of those "You Missed It, Folks" sets, as the arena emptied out to a considerable degree after M83. But the duo, which includes a certain LCD Soundsystem dude, still commanded a small sea of asses into full "shake" mode as they spun rarer-than-rare dance, funk and soul wax. (Blurt tweet: #moogfest James Murphy et al at ACC pulling amazing deep cutz - funk n disco n headz - plus skillful light show, small crowd ecstatic.)

Ford & Lopatin (Sunday, Asheville Music Hall): My second dose of Daniel Lopatin this evening, and joined by his cohort Joel Ford, he did not disappoint. Poppier and less abstract than Oneohtrix Point Never, the F&L set had an ‘80s flavor but earthier and funkier. Call it IDM for people who still remember what it was like to dance to pop and soul hits on the radio.

***
By way of underscoring Mr. Rosen's comments at the top, many of the most rewarding moments at Moogfest 2011 weren't performed, but uttered. As with last year's gathering, the panels and workshop held during the day at the aptly-named Moogaplex were instructive and informative, in particular the ones about Sun Ra ("Sun Ra and Beyond: Exploring Rae Recordings from Bob's Archives"), the deep history of Dr. Moog and his collaborators ("Remember Walter Sear's Pivotal Role in Moog Legacy"), and of course the Theremin ("Journey to the Center of the Theremin").

Then there was the aforementioned Brian Eno lecture on Saturday afternoon, which was at points intellectually provocative and downright hilarious, as the British raconteur and musical legend held forth on everything from Terry Riley, Steve Reich and the nature of composition; to how he came to record his classic Music For Airports album (hint: it involved finding himself in a Cologne airport in 1977); to cybernetics, Copernicus, evolution and Darwin; and how we, as humans, should always seek to find a balance between using our intellect and surrendering to our emotions.

It's the latter notion, in fact, might best be said to sum up the spirit of the late Dr. Moog. Thursday afternoon, before Moogfest officially started, I attended a press conference with Eno at the YMI Cultural Center, the location of a month-long Eno art installation, 77 Million Paintings. He touched upon some of same things he would dip into a couple of days later at the lecture - for example, the concepts of control and surrender - along with a detailed discussion of the installation, which is an intricate marriage between an array of video screens and a surround sound-type audio system. The visual display involves 4 screens and 3 computers choosing randomly from banks of images he'd previously created to yield combinations that, Eno assures, will never be seen twice, while the music is culled from ambient compositions mixed but not synchronized so that they, too, appear randomly.

The idea for him as an artist, he said, was to also surrender and allow his visuals and sonics to take whatever trajectory they "chose" to take; that is, once the installation is running, he relinquishes any control he may have had during the actual composition stages. Sitting in the darkened installation room at the YMI an hour or so prior to the press conference, I was subjected to that same control/surrender element: initially I wanted to track the visuals, watching each image bleed into the subsequent one while also taking note of what was going on with the audio track (for example, a Danny Thompson-styled bassline, or a helicopter-like phased whirring effect). Gradually, though, I allowed my mind to switch off in order that I could shift into pure emotion mode, and I not only lost track of time, I nearly forgot that I was sitting in a room with several other people, so immersive and joyous was the experience. When I eventually got up to head over to the press conference, I felt like I was walking on foam rubber.

I reckon that's all one should ask from art - to be changed, have one's consciousness shifted, even if just for a little while. Which perhaps made 77 Million Paintings the most emblematic aspect of the entire Moogfest weekend. How did I get here, indeed.

Catching Up With a Giant of Musical Minimalism...In an Unusual Setting

2011-11-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

Hans-Joachim Roedelius: Going Strong at 77
BY STEVEN ROSEN
From http://www.blurt-online.com/
10-27-11

CINCINNATI - It's another night on the American road for 77-year-old Hans-Joachim Roedelius, one of the world's most melodically ambient and influential - but also underappreciated - electronic-music musicians/pianists. (He will be performing at this week's MoogFest in Asheville.)

For this fall, 2011 jaunt through this country, the German-born Roedelius is traveling with the younger electronics musician Chandra Shukla, who spearheads a collective known as XAMBUCA. His recordings, like Roedelius', are being supported by Erototix Decodings, the Asheville "microlabel" devoted (for now) to experimental instrumental music. On Roedelius' latest album distributed by that label, Stunden, he uses piano, guitar and electronics (with German musician Stefan Schneider on bass) to achieve transcendent illumination on a series of peaceful yet coiled instrumental works. It was inspired by their joint concert in a 17th Century church in Dusseldorf.

In Cincinnati, the show has been booked into an old semi-ruin of an inner-city warehouse, called the Mockbee, that looks as ghostly and haunted as Roedelius' introspectively minimalist, classically influenced piano work can sound. The concert room is at one end of the second floor - one must walk past rooms and up stairs of eerie emptiness to get there.

The date has not been widely promoted locally. So even though Philip Glass recently received an extended standing ovation at a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra appearance, this show has but niche appeal. Consequently, only about 25 people are in the darkened room. One is Michael Solway, whose father Carl operates the city's premiere contempory art gallery and has worked with giants like John Cage and Richard Hamilton in his long career. Carl met Roedelius on a Corsican vacation in the 1970s, struck up an instant friendship, and sponsored several earlier, 1990s visits to Cincinnati. But he isn't behind this.

The scent from the burning candles/incense is strong, but serves to provide some warmth on a cold weekday night. The semi-abstracted video projections that bounce off the pillars and walls only add to the space's otherworldly feel. At 11 p.m. sharp, Roedelius steps up on stage and begins playing without a word of explanation. On one table is a small keyboard that looks ensconced in a red, wooden frame. It emanates a clear, mournfully pure acoustic-piano sound, and he plays graceful, slowly building figures on it that have the simple but transfixing charm of Satie's Etudes.

But he alternates this by stepping over to his other table, where he can manipulate electronic sounds from a console. They do not come off as "artificial," but rather like a collage of what one might hear in nature - or on the street below. Rain, barking dogs, a train, the wind, birds...after a while it becomes hard to pick out what one is actually hearing and what one thinks he is hearing in the darkness, a tribute to the associative power of great electronic music. Yet they aren't random sound effects, either...Roedelius has a way of combining, overlaying and developing these sounds to make them musical.

This extended suite goes on for about 40 or so minutes, and then it's finished with a slow conclusion on piano. The applause is long and hearty, even some standing cheers, and he performs a short, lovely piano lullaby as an encore. Then he walks off, asks a bartender at the rear of the room for a whiskey, and talks to his fans. The crowd may have been small, but the reception is enthusiastic.

At this weekend's MoogFest, Roedelius first appears Friday night with pianist Tim Story, for a show in which they are billed as Lunz Project. On Saturday afternoon, he'll perform solo. It's good to see Roedelius booked into this showcase festival for progressive, "modernica" music of all types, which has plenty of artists (and bigger names) of a similar bent -- Terry Riley, Tangerine Dream, Moby and - giving an "illustrated talk" - Brian Eno, whom Roedelius has worked with and influenced.

Roedelius has a long, fruitful and prolifically complicated recording career as a soloist, collaborator and band member interested in electronics, piano and synthesized keyboards. It's certainly much too involved for this writer to know off the top of his head, so thank you to his publicist, Erototix Decodings and the Internet - especially Wikipedia - for attempting to keep it straight. He was born in Berlin and came of age in that city's countercultural arts world of the late 1960s, a place of radical experimentation. He became involved in a music commune that begat Zodiak Free Arts Lab, an arts space that was a late-night haven for musical groundbreakers of all types. Tangerine Dream played there early on, as did other bands that set the agenda for what in the 1970s would become Germany's influential, drone-cum-industrial-music "Krautrock."

One of the Zodiak's other founders, the artist Conrad Schnitzler, even joined Tangerine Dream for their first album, but left to form Kluster with Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. That group lasted for a couple years and three albums, mixing classical New Music with found sounds and industrial noise. After Schnitzler left in 1971, Kluster became Cluster - the band for which Roedelius is still best known. Cluster also featured the late Conny Plank as a musician at first, but he moved over to become a composer/producer for them.

Through 1981, Cluster released albums - mostly in Germany but occasionally elsewhere - that featured a confident feel for all that was possible with electronic experimentation, from ambience to thundering noise to early trance/dance. But the highlight of their work came in 1977-1978 when Eno, in his Berlin days, recorded two albums with them. The all-instrumental Cluster & Eno is on the gentle instrumental side with its hypnotic loops, while After the Heat has a little more of a "pop" presence, if you can call it that - the song "Tzima N'Arki" features a reverses Eno vocal that features a manipulated fragment of his own "King's Lead Hat."

Since 1989, Cluster has occasionally reformed, recorded and toured internationally. Encounter Tour 1996, a chronicle of a U.S. visit, was produced by Tim Story, appearing with Roedelius at MoogFest. It appears Cluster is now officially over; this year Roedelius announced plans to issue three albums under the name Qluster with Onnen Block.

Roedelius and Moebius also have performed with Michael Rother of Krautrockers Neu! under the moniker Harmonia, releasing two mid-1970s albums, Musik von Harmonia and Deluxe, moving between ambient and more forceful rock. They also recorded with Eno over 11 days in 1976, when he came to their studio and found their music and work process invigorating. The resultant album, Tracks and Traces, was not released until 1997 and has subsequently been reissued. Harmonia, too, has occasionally reformed and toured, playing the My Bloody Valentine-curated All Tomorrow's Parties festival in New York in 2008.

Roedelius has numerous other collaborations, but on his own has released forty-five studio, live and compilation albums, according to the Internet. You'll probably find an ample selection on display at his MoogFest performances. He deserves his own library or museum (or at least record store) to keep track of his work, and he reportedly has more releases on the way. And certainly deserves a large, enthusiastic turnout at MoogFest, and here's hoping he gets it. He's one of the giants of this year's line-up.

One Difference Between Bettye LaVette and Susan Boyle

2011-10-27T17:22:00.000-07:00

By Steven Rosen
Cincinnati CityBeat 10-19-11

Bettye LaVette’s late-career success story is one of the music business’ most remarkable. The powerful 65-year-old R&B singer/stylist first recorded in 1962 — “My Man — He’s a Lovin’ Man” for Atlantic Records, home in that era of such other classic Soul vocalists as Ben E. King, Solomon Burke, The Drifters, Percy Sledge and Aretha Franklin.

While it was a hit on R&B stations, try as she might she was never able to “crossover” to Top 40 and become a big name like other Atlantic stars. As a result she struggled a good four decades more in the music business trying to earn a living. As late as 2003, she found herself recording a song she greatly disliked — “Real Real Gone” — for a low-profile, multi-artist Blues tribute to Van Morrison because she was broke and needed the $2,000 fee.

So the turnabout since then has been, in her own words, “absolutely stunning.” Since signing in 2005 with Anti- Records, home to Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Booker T and other mature artists who like new challenges, she has released three high-profile, well-promoted albums with hip cachet and striking material, and received two Grammy nominations.

LaVette performed Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” (with Jon Bon Jovi) at President Obama’s Inauguration concert and she brought Pete Townshend to tears by singing the show-stopping “Love Reign O’er Me” at a televised 2008 Kennedy Center concert honoring The Who.

That was so well received it inspired last year’s Grammy-nominated Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook, a best-seller that mined such material as “Salt of the Earth,” “Nights in White Satin” and “Isn’t It a Pity” for emotionally revelatory, modern insight. For Boomers who associated the songs with their youth, this was new.

LaVette’s on a roll. Her career’s going great. But don’t call it a comeback.

“There have been really strange things happen to really young people, or to strange people like Susan Boyle and Tiny Tim, but this kind of thing has never happened to anyone who wasn’t at some point big before,” she says during a spirited telephone interview from her New Jersey home.

“Almost everyone else my age had a lot of success and stopped, and then they were brought back, like Tina Turner or John Lee Hooker. But for someone who’s been around to be almost starting a new career at this age, it’s absolutely incredible.”

Since signing with Anti-, LaVette has earned a reputation for being a principled singer/interpreter, knowing her R&B strengths and being true to them while also being willing to experiment with all sorts of contemporary Rock/Roots material.

“I pick songs I like and that I think I can sing well, and I usually am attracted to the melody first,” she says. “And then I pray the lyric will live up to the melody.”

LaVette’s most dramatic break came at the Kennedy Center concert. You can hear it on the British Rock Songbook album — the applause when she is introduced is polite; when she is finished with her imploringly soulful and majestic version, it is enthusiastic. She got the gig because her husband — a music enthusiast/historian and record collector — first suggested she sing during the tribute to Country singer George Jones, also being honored that night.

But all of Nashville wanted to pay tribute to Jones, so LaVette’s husband sent Kennedy Center show producer Michael Stevens a video clip to see if anything else might be available. Stevens suggested “Love Reign O’er Me.” LaVette had never heard of it.

“I said I had no idea what that means,” she says. “My husband told me it was a Who tune and that for people who love The Who, it was one of their very favorites. Then I heard it and wondered why.”

Asked what she means, she explains, “Because it didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Those lyrics are very youthful.”

LaVette says she told the program’s music director, Rob Mathes, that she needed support to let her sing the song her way, and make it her own.

“And he came up with this beautiful, simple, spacious arrangement that left me room to stylize,” she says. “Pete Townshend was in tears. He came over and told me I made him cry.”

Barbra Streisand, another honoree that night, also was moved.

“She turned to him and asked, ‘Did you really write that song?’ because their music to her probably sounds like youth music, too,” LaVette says. “So to hear it sung by an adult in a different fashion, it even appealed to her.”

As a result of that success, LaVette teamed with producers Stevens and Mathes, with her husband as an adviser, on Songbook. They sent her suggestions for material, much of it songs she didn’t know because she was not a Rock fan. As a result, it was unimportant to her that, say, Pink Floyd did “Wish You Were Here,” or Led Zeppelin wrote “All My Love.”

“I don’t connect any of the songs with any of the people,” she says. “When I hear a song and want to sing it, that’s who I hear singing it. I don’t hear them singing.”

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Bettye LaVette performs 7:30 p.m. Saturday at McAuley Performing Arts Center in College Hill with guest Jackie Bristow. Tickets are available at www.gcparts.org.

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It's No Prank: Ken Babbs, Ken Kesey's Close Friend, Finishes the Novel He Started Five Decades Ago

2011-10-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

By Steven Rosen

What a long strange trip from Miami University and back it’s been for 1958 graduate Ken Babbs.

He returns to Miami, where he graduated in 1958, at 7:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday (Oct. 10 & 11) for two Sixties Extravaganza free public events at the school’s Leonard Theatre in Peabody Hall. On Monday, there’s a screening of the new documentary featuring him — director Alex Gibney’s Magic Trip, about the fabled 1964 cross-country bus journey by Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters that virtually created the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s, especially after Tom Wolfe chronicled their adventures in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. (Babbs and the late Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, were best friends and early devotees of the mind-expanding qualities of LSD.)

And on Tuesday, Babbs will read from his long-gestating novel Who Shot the Water Buffalo? Now 76, he finally this year published the raucously ribald work inspired by his experiences in Vietnam as a Marine helicopter pilot. It is his first solo novel — he wrote it in the early 1960s, set it aside and in recent years rediscovered and revised it. He lost his original version in all the tumult of the 1960s; a Marine buddy who had a second copy sent him a replacement. The book became famous in literary circles when Tom Wolfe mentioned it in his New Journalism chronicle of the Pranksters, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

“My model for this book was MASH (published in 1968) or Catch-22 (1961), in which I would use the setting to write a good adventure story about these guys and what they’re going through,” Babbs says from his Oregon farm.

“My job was to make it as interesting and exciting and readable and good as I could. As a reader myself, and as a fiction guy, I know what I really like and that is what I tried to do in the book.”

When the Mentor, Ohio-born Babbs arrived at Miami in 1957 he loved basketball and was interested in writing and literature. “I was really glad I did,” he says. “I not only played on a great basketball team, but I also had great teachers in the English department.”

He played on two conference champion teams — one of which, led by future-NBA great Wayne Embry, was eliminated from the NCAA Finals by the subsequent victor, University of Kentucky. And, studying with the highly regarded Prof. Walter Havighurst, he became so interested in creative writing he enrolled for post-graduate studies at Stanford University under Wallace Stegner.

There, in 1958, he met fellow writing student Kesey. A bond ensued and lasted even when, in 1959, Babbs joined the Marines to fulfill the requirements of his ROTC scholarship. After training, he went to South Vietnam in 1962-1963 as one of the first soldiers deployed by President Kennedy to help the government fight the Viet Cong. Once there, he started writing an early version of Water Buffalo via letters back to Kesey.

By then, Kesey was enjoying the celebrity of publishing his first novel. He had also “liberated” LSD from the local Veteran’s Hospital, where it had been used in government-sponsored experiments that he participated in, and was beginning to turn on an ever-widening group of others.

Kesey shared Babbs’ letters with those in his writing circle, since he still lived in the area. One was Ed McClanahan, a Brooksville, Kentucky native who also had graduated from Miami, revered Havighurst and gone on to Stanford’s writing program in 1962-1963. “Kesey would read them to us,” says McClanahan, during a phone interview. “They were hilarious, and much of that stuff has made it into the novel. I didn’t think anything about Vietnam at the time.”

McClanahan, an accomplished fiction and non-fiction writer, currently teaches at UK. His best-known novel is 1983’s The Natural Man. He will be at Miami with Babbs — on Tuesday evening, he will read from his latest collection, I Just Hitched in From the Coast: The Ed McClanahan Reader. It was at his suggestion that Miami invited Babbs, since he’s been following Water Buffalo’s progress over the decades. “It’s really good,” McClanahan says.

Babbs, who did his share of LSD (but never in Vietnam, he says) has followed with interest news reports about medical research going on that uses the mind-expanding drug for people coping with illness. That itself is a bit of a turnaround -- as a reaction to its association with 1960s-era hippie culture, as well as reports of bad trips, it was outlawed in the U.S. and for decades was shunned by the medical establishment.

"Finally, we’re coming back to it," Babbs says. "When LSD was first thought of, that was the purpose of it. It has this other thing of consciousness expansion and enlightment, and that also is part of it, but this thing about helping people with medical problems is really good. One of the things that happens when you take LSD is you're able to explore your body in ways you weren't conscious of before.

"Like for me, I had a back operation and took LSD after operation and was able to go into the spot where the operation took place and really work with that area and aid in the cure of it. It was after I got out of the Marines. I think from all the vibrations and stuff from the helicopter. I had a disc and stuff pressing against my sciatic nerve."

(Revised Version of Story First Published in Cincinnati CityBeat, 11-05-11. Photo of Ken Babbs by Eileen Babbs.)

The Triumphant Return of Grace Jones

2011-10-08T06:27:00.000-07:00

Review:

Grace Jones
Hurricane
([PIAS] America)
http://www.pias-america.com/

By Steven Rosen
From Blurt (http://www.blurt-online.com/), 9-20-11

Odd that two icons of dance music, Pet Shop Boys and Grace Jones, both had to wait years to get strong British albums released this year in the U.S. Nothing worse than dance acts having to cool their heels. The five-year delay for the Boys' Concrete could be explained by the fact it was a live album, mostly of newer material that hadn't been American hits. But that's no excuse for the three-year delay with Hurricane, the latest from Jones, the Jamaica-born American-raised model who became a late 1970s/early 1980s disco diva with her stylish dominatrix looks and cold, ruthlessly authoritarian voice. (She then became an action-movie actress.)

Hurricane is her first new album since 1989, and it's her best ever. The arrangements mix dub reggae, trip-hop, electronica, and some explosive bursts of rock, as on the treated-guitar blast in the middle of "Corporate Cannibal." Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare supply fantastically supple drums and bass throughout, but there's much else going on - strings, harmonies, and layers of keyboards (Brian Eno and Paul Goude, Jones' son, are among those contributing keyboards and backing vocals).

And if she once was almost considered a novelty act, more poseur than singer, then her age and the sensitivity of her co-producer, Ivor Guest, have brought out a voice that emotionally connects with the material, all of which she had a hand in writing.

"Emotionally connects" actually is too soft a term for it. There's some very effective singing - holding notes, carrying a melody, applying coloration, and varying the emphasis on her words - that makes this an album for listening as much as dancing. When she adds a refrain of "Amazing Grace" to the end of "Williams' Blood," a song she wrote with Wendy & Lisa, it's moving. That may be because the song, itself, is so good - a bittersweet autobiographical reflection on how her mother's artistic impulses were suppressed by a stern father, and how she now is following a path her mother (whose family name was Williams) might have wished to take. In that sense, "Amazing Grace" is appropriate; she's been saved. This theme is continued in "I'm Crying ("Mother's Tears"), which she wrote with Guest and where her soft, sometimes-whispering vocals are at times as seductively lulling as Sade's.

Yet Jones still has an edge; can still punch and bark. In the title song, written with Tricky, she declares herself capable of "tearing down trees." In the spooky and unsettling "Corporate Cannibal," which shows the same level of contempt for commercialism as Rage Against the Machine once offered, she plays with her old S&M disco image when intoning, as the voice of the cold, cruel capitalist "man-eating machine," "Pleased to meet you, pleased to have you on my plate."

This is a remarkable song that she (and three others, including Guest) wrote, considering her background serving the avaricious fashion industry. What does she mean singing, perhaps with deadpan humor, "I'll consume my consumers with no sense of humor"? And is it directed toward the music industry, since she repeats the term "digital criminal" in it? Meaty stuff.

Maybe because the U.S. release was delayed, it comes with a bonus Dub mix of the entire album. It doesn't cost anything extra, and the versions - while sometimes flirting with monotony - serve as atmospheric soundscapes and spacey variations on a theme. But they're no substitute for Hurricane's versions.

DOWNLOAD: "Williams' Blood," "Sunset Sunrise"
http://www.stevenrosenwriter.com/

Music "Cruises" Take to the Rails...and Americana

2011-10-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

By Steven Rosen
(From Cincinnati Enquirer, August 2011)

American musical heritage and trains just naturally go together.

The low whine of the midnight train helped inspire Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”; the excitement of the journey influenced Tiny Bradshaw’s rhythmic “Train Kept A’ Rollin.’”

Both of those classics were recorded in Cincinnati. So it makes sense that a Cincinnati group, Over the Rhine, has emerged as one of the most popular performers on Roots on the Rails excursion trains, which pair Americana singer-songwriters with North American rail journeys. Sometimes the acts perform on the trains, sometimes in concerts at stops, but they travel with their fans and get to interact with them.

Over the Rhine – married couple Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist – are the featured headliners on Roots on the Rails’ Sept. 22-29th (2011) excursion aboard narrow-gauge mountain railroads in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. This will be their third such trip – last year they were aboard one between Los Angeles and Albuquerque, via Grand Canyon, that stopped for a series of off-train concerts. Roots on the Rails has been doing such journeys since 2003; for information or reservations visit www.rootsontherails.com, E-mail trains@sover.net or call 1-866-484-3669.

This year’s trip will be different in that between train rides and off-train concerts, passengers will travel by motor coach, stopping at such destinations as a hot springs in Pagosa Springs, Colo. Up to 70 guests/fans can be accommodated – price is $2,489 per person, although there is a discount for those who want to drive between train destinations. Over the Rhine will bring one or two accompanists. The other featured musicians are New Orleans-born Americana singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier and the New Jersey-born Richard Shindell. Cincinnati photographer Michael Wilson also will be aboard, taking portraits of guests.

“We had a really great trip last year so we’ve got our fingers crossed,” Detweiler says. “People on the train are very respectful and are interesting folks with good stories to tell. It’s a fairly civilized week. I was happy to meet everyone.”

Some of those meetings can be profound – especially for the self-described “introverts” in Over the Rhine. “It was a really good opportunity to get some face time with our audience,” Bergquist explains. “One thing that surprised us was the diversity of reasons for people being there – everything from somebody trying to get away from a sticky divorce and somebody just vacationing in the States to a couple who lost their daughter very tragically and were trying to cope with the loss. We felt overwhelmed and flattered anyone would use our music for something like that, but the setting was very conducive for such things. And there’s also a lot of silliness and nonsense on the train thanks to extrovert personalities.”

Roots on the Rails is run by a Vermont entrepreneur, Charlie Hunter, who loves trains and has been a manager of folk-music acts. In 2001, when planning for a folk conference in Vancouver, he arranged a cross-Canada rail trip for about 65 attendees. “And from that, this idea was born and refined,” he says.

In 2003, the first music-train excursion, featuring Fred Eaglesmith, occurred in Canada. Since then, Hunter has moved into the American West and Southwest (and, in one case, Mexico). He has booked the likes of the Flatlanders, Tom Russell, Dave Alvin, Nanci Griffith, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and more.

For this trip, he is renting rents space aboard two private, historic steam-powered sightseeing trains – the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, and the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. For other trips, he has worked either with Canada or with a Los Angeles-based consortium of private railcar owners, who then make arrangements with Amtrak.

He first booked Over the Rhine, at the urging of Cowboy Junkies, for a 2006 cross-Canada trip featuring the two acts. He was impressed by their music and their relationship with their fans.

Hunter gravitates to the music he likes, though he acknowledges other styles could work. “You could totally have a traditional blues or jazz train,” he says. “Roots music, jazz, blues and trains are so much a part of the American experience.”

As it happens, there are others contemplating or doing “music on the rails” trips. James Porterfield, a rail-travel writer/consultant based in State College, Penn., is planning to launch a Jazz Train next year, out of Chicago or St. Louis, and is setting up a Website at www.therailroadtourist.com. Meanwhile, the recently completed Railroad Revival Tour (www.railroadrevivaltour.com) carried three popular, younger alternative-rock acts with folk influences – Mumford and Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros – aboard a series of privately owned railcars from Oakland to New Orleans. Fans could not ride the train, but attended six concerts along the way. A movie is planned.

One sleeper car on that trip – the Birch Grove, which housed Marcus Mumford – was provided by Brian Collins, whose Cincinnati Railway Co. manages four private railcars. He also provided his chef/supervisor, Bill Hoeffler, and another employee for the journey.

“The promoter my chef met said, ‘Everybody likes coming to your car and you guys wear tuxedos and do it right,’” Collins says.

(Photo is an Over the Rhine "Family Portrait" publicity shot)

Review: The Wild Men of Rock Tear Up Houston

2011-09-29T08:09:00.000-07:00

(Andre Williams, Archie Bell, Roy Head, and Little Joe Washington descended upon Houston's Continental Club on Sept. 3, 2011 and this report is from http://www.blurt-online.com/.)

By Steven Rosen

At age 74, Andre Williams (pictured above) is just coming into his own as a Great American Singer. He's part Leonard Cohen and part James Brown, capable of expressing in the most impassioned way possible his primal needs of the moment, yet also willing to step back with cool romantic, poetic demeanor and consider the effect his words of love have on his enthralled audience.

Take, for instance, the version of "Let Me Put It In" he performed, with backing from Allen Oldies Band, at Houston's funky, spacious Continental Club, where he headlined a "Wild Men of Rock" revue. Looking dapper and calm in a white double-breasted suit, wearing a smiling Buddha-like countenance as well as a fine mustache, he introduced the song to his fans, many college age or just modestly older, with an aside about past trouble with police trying to perform it.

Then he intoned the song's title pleadingly, softly promising that "I'll buy you a car" to his imaginary subject. And then, WHAM! He screamed out the title line, again and again, as if it was the only thing that mattered in the world. He dropped to his knees as the band slashed out its supporting rock with all the power it could muster. It was soul music, raw and unpretentious, and the crowd pushed forward to the stage as if pulled by a giant magnet. And then Williams let up, returned to his quiet pleading, looking slightly amused at his power over the masses. And then he did it all again. It was pure dynamism and he knew it.

He was the headliner of this show, and was treated like royalty. When he eventually left the stage, after "Mustang Sally," the band offered him shouts of "Hallelujah." Williams has been around rock and soul's edges for a long, long time. He recorded for Michigan's Fortune Records in the 1950s, his songs having enough of a naughty edge ("Jailbait") to not get much airplay then but to appeal to collectors today. He wrote a couple 1960s classics ("Shake a Tail Feather" and "Twine Time") for others, fell into hard times in the 1980s, and then started to find his way back in the 1990s.

Often working with bluesy punk-soul acts on songs that sometimes had sexually explicit lyrics, he developed a cult following. He has used that to grow in popularity, through a series of fine Bloodshot albums and even a book, Sweets and Other Stories. What's critical to know about Williams is that, unlike Blowfly or Clarence Carter vamping through "Strokin,'" Williams "dirty" material isn't a smutty joke. It's his take on the rawness of real life and sexuality's place in it. He just omits the jive and politeness. As a result, the tunes he performed in Houston, like "Agile, Mobile and Hostile," "Bacon Fat" and Goin' Down to Tijuana," come off as serious as a heart attack. They're soul tunes without compromise.

But, then, there's also a detachment that lets you know he's the artist working the crowd. For example, with a smile on his face, looking cool, calm and collected, Williams stood on stage while the band ("four of the best motherfuckers I've ever played with," he announced) worked through a pleasant instrumental turn. At the right moment, Williams stepped forward, hands gesticulating like a serene conductor, and sang "Pussy stank/but so do marijuana," It's beyond criticism.

Of the others on the bill, the diminutive, gray-dreadlocked and -bearded Little Joe Washington, who opened, is a Houston favorite, a blues guitarist who slowly works up his energy to show off some dazzling, tricky guitar work. And Archie Bell, a Texan whose Drells had a couple classic dance-tunes-with-attitude-hits in the 1960s like "Tighten Up", does a solo act now where he doesn't mind letting you know how hard he's working. His voice wasn't the best, but he handled the crowd well and was proud he can still do it. "I'm 67 years old and I still know how to ‘Tighten Up,''' he announced at one point, and the words were inspirational to the older members of the audience who were there because they "Can't Stop Dancing" (the title of another Drells hit). And he also did "Mustang Sally."

One of Houston's favorite sons and a soul-shouting wild man, Roy Head of "Treat Her Right" fame, supposedly was appearing to perform from a new album - his first of new material in decades. He was the night's second act. But he did nothing to promote it nor were copies for sale, so it remains a mystery if that album is out there or not. Head, at 68, obviously is a little older and slower (and bigger) than the thin gymnast who memorably did splits and tossed and turned about like a jumping bean on television appearances in 1965, when "Treat Her Right" was a hit. He wore a green paisley shirt and sweated as much as he smiled, apologizing for a frog in his voice between songs. But it didn't noticeably diminish his volume as he squealed and roared his way through the likes of "Lucille," "Just a Little Bit" and "She's About a Mover" as the Allen Oldies Band pushed him on.

He also did some scary-thrilling microphone-twirling toward the band and crowd - scary because an advance in the local arts paper warned he's been known to have faulty control and once almost robbed a watching critic of his family jewels; thrilling because he kept control. Considering that Head's forte is rootsy, sweaty, roadhouse rock, it was surprising he tackled Bob Seger's "Turn the Page." It wasn't maybe the best kind of song for his persona, but there was honesty when he sang "Here I am, back on the road again." You felt for Head. He was still doing it.

By the way, Head took a break before finishing with a no-holds-barred "Treat Her Right," and his son Sundance came out to sing a few blues-rock standards with the Allen Oldies Band behind him. And wouldn't you know it? One was "Mustang Sally." Three times in one night. That's wild, indeed.

Nick Lowe Makes "The Old Magic" Sound New

2011-09-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

By Steven Rosen
(from http://www.blurt-online.com/; 9-15-11)

Review of Nick Lowe's The Old Magic (Yep Roc).Nick Lowe's staunchest long-time supporter in the music business has been Elvis Costello - Lowe produced Costello's first albums, they toured together, and Costello insured Lowe's place in rock history (and ability to earn a living) by covering and popularizing his "(What's So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding."

Yet it's hard to find two great singer-songwriters more different than Lowe and Costello at this stage in their careers. Costello's work revels in the craftsmanship and effort that goes into the wordplay and melodic construction. He likes making you see that his art is very, very thought-through and dense with ideas. And his restless ambition propels him to keep tackling new and different styles.

Lowe, who at 62 is five years older than Costello, sounds on The Old Magic as natural - and at peace - with his musical approach as the Dalai Lama does at prayer. His craftsmanship is seamless. His songs and his vocals, a relaxed and warm but never slick form of gently introspective country- and soul-tinged Americana, fit him as well as crooning did Bing Crosby. And his writing - eight of the 11 songs here are his - is both artfully careful and as casual as conversation. It's also dreamily romantic, but in a very adult way.

It's as if Lowe, looking at the history of the kind of country music he loved, decided that it isn't the hard-living outlaw stuff that allures him, as it does so many Americana artists, but the slightly mournful, casually elegant burnished ballads of Eddie Arnold or Jim Reeves ("He'll Have to Go').

Reeves was called "Gentleman Jim" for his delicately expressive voice and Lowe could easily be called Gentleman Nick. Yet Lowe isn't just reviving a style; there's something crucially new here. That kind of music was known as countrypolitan because the pop-styled arrangements seemed to hide the roots. They sometimes cloaked good melodies and lyrics in artificiality.

But Lowe has found a way to bare its soul while also revealing his own. The arrangements have overtones of the early Muscle Shoals sound of Arthur Alexander, as well as just a touch of the mysteriously ruminative uptown soul of, say, the Drifters' "Mexican Divorce" or Ruby & the Romantics' "Our Day Will Come."

His band of Geraint Watkins on keyboards, Steve Donnelly on guitar and Robert Treherne on drums is perfectly attuned to his intentions. It's too active to be called "backing," yet never tries to usurp his voice. Occasionally, there's a bit of a Tex-Mex sound to the organ, or even a ska-like swing to the horns (on his cover of Jeff West's "You Don't Know Me At All"). Lowe and Treherne produced the record with Neil Brockbank.

Lowe's "Sensitive Man," with the ever-so-slight male background harmonies and the muted brightness of the horns, could be an early-1960s Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition by way of Nashville. And the lonely organ and wandering bass on the lovely "'Til the Real Thing Comes Along" dredge up memories of "Any Day Now" and "On Broadway."

Yet The Old Magic has an honesty to the writing that is more important to Lowe than conquering any particular style. He may make it look easy, but he obviously works hard at it, which is why this is his first release since 2007.

And he isn't merely trying to find the best rhyme (although he has a keen knack for internal rhymes within a line). He's trying to make sense of his surroundings, while surrounding himself with the ghosts of music past. And often they conjure the ghosts of personal memories past; the songs are often about lost love and personal failings. The lyrics to the metaphoric "Checkout Time," which is both playful and revelatory, includes "Must I be condemned, forever damned for some long forgotten crime/Or singing Rock of Ages with the angels soon after checkout time."

His songs about heartbreak and loneliness are tight wonders, focusing on some specific object or activity to illustrate his feelings in a concrete, vernacular way - as in the instant classic "House for Sale" and "I Read a Lot."

The one song that works less well than the others is written by Costello, "The Poisoned Rose." And it's a good one, too - a melodically twisty, slow-build torch song, part jazz/blues and part George Jones, that builds to an exciting finish. But it also lets you know it's written to impress you, whereas Lowe's songs seem as second nature to the ear as air to the lung. And also as valuable. He's a modern master.

(http://www.stevenrosenwriter.com/)

"He's Got the Power": The Girl-Group Era Gets the Spotlight at a New York Concert

2011-08-26T05:59:00.000-07:00

By Steven Rosen (http://www.stevenrosenwriter.com/)
Blurt, August 21, 2011
http://www.blurt-online.com/

THEY’VE GOT THE POWER Ponderosa Stomp’s Girl Group Extravaganza

Aug 21, 2011

(With Ronnie Spector, La La Brooks of the Crystals, Lesley Gore, the Angels, Maxine Brown and more on hand, NYC was awash in a Wall Of Sound.)

Lincoln Center and Ponderosa Stomp, the New Orleans-based non-profit dedicated to honoring unsung heroes of rock ‘n' roll and its tributaries, did more than just offer a nice tribute with its She's Got the Power concert and symposium honoring girl-groups of the early 1960s. (The free concert occurred on a sizzling Saturday evening at Lincoln Center's outdoor Damrosch Park Bandshell; the symposium was in a cool, air-conditioned atrium.) The full name of the event was Ponderosa Stomp Presents: She's Got the Power! A Girl Group Extravaganza.

The presenters may have come up with a format and a line-up for a concert tour as successful at reviving and reclaiming aging 1960s recordings as Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds tours have been. In this case, the music in question would be the imaginatively-produced and -written, and passionately sung, American pop-rock of the early 1960s. To some extent, Broadway has been keeping it alive with musicals like Jersey Boys and Leader of the Pack, but this show worked better.

One can easily see a full-sounding, loud but sensitive Wall of Sound Orchestra - of the kind on display for this show - backing a bevy of singers who were part of the original movement. And also as occurred at Lincoln Center, a choir of background singers - voices arranged by Toni Wine (who at this show also took a dreamily introspective solo on a song she co-wrote back in the day, "A Groovy Kind of Love") - could help the featured singers achieve maximum impact with the sometimes-forceful, sometimes-heavenly beauty of the material.

And this show offered the kind of still-powerful singers who could anchor such a tour in Ronnie Spector, La La Brooks of the Crystals, Lesley Gore, Maxine Brown and more. (Alas, Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las and Darlene Love were not at the Lincoln Center concert, but one would hope a first-class girl-group tour would include them.)

This wasn't really an "oldies" concert. It was never sentimental or kitschy; it sought to educate its audience and honor its performer. The event's title came from a non-hit single by the Exciters called "He's Got the Power" - and the Exciters (with original members Brenda Reid and Lillian Walker Moss) were there to offer it, along with "Tell Him" and "Do Wah Diddy.")

The subtle change in title from that Exciters song to the Lincoln Center event - he to she - encapsulated the deeper meaning of what was going on. While most of the era's girl-group songs were about their need for boys, this show was out to view those songs as part of a time, a scene, when women competed as equals in shaping the artistry and the business of youth rock. To underscore that, He's Got the Power included a tribute to the late Brill Building songwriter Ellie Greenwich, who with ex-husband Jeff Barry wrote many of the hits that came out of Phil Spector's Philles Records and its Wall of Sound productions - "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Then He Kissed Me," "Be My Baby," "I Can Hear Music" "River Deep Mountain High" and more. She was also a studio background singer and vocal arranger, and had a girl-group of her own (the Raindrops).

Highlighting Greenwich's role gives intellectual heft to trying to untangle so many of these songs from the grip of Phil Spector, a man fondly regarded by few these days because of his treatment of women. That latter point was brought home during a symposium panel honoring Greenwich, when participant Seymour Stein - the owner of Sire Records - opined that Spector didn't belong in jail for the 2003 murder of an actress. "Whatever happened was an accident," he said, with little support from an audience that mostly ignored him. The most interesting fact to come out of that particular panel was that Greenwich considered herself a "writer with a sound" - someone whose written works were intrinsically connected to the production value of the recordings. Her sound? The streets of New York.

The daytime panels were fascinating. In the first, featuring members of the (white) Angels ("My Boyfriend's Back") and (black) Exciters, the latter's Lillian Walker Moss recalled integrating Jacksonville's Gator Bowl while on tour with the Beatles in 1964. Her group (along with Clarence "Frogman" Henry, an African-American singer) was told they couldn't play the date because the Bowl was segregated. But the Beatles said they wouldn't play if black acts were excluded. "We thought, ‘Wow, we must be some incredible group if the Beatles said they're not playing if we're not playing," Moss said. (The Beatles also demanded the audience not be segregated.)

The concert drew some big-time fans. Steve Van Zandt did an introduction, Paul Shaffer played on stage, and the band - called the Boyfriends - featured Lenny Kaye, Ira Kaplan and Gene Cornish (of the Rascals). Jeremy Chatzky, music director for Ronnie Spector's exciting band and a bassist, supervised the sterling overall sound. The concert was divided into two overlapping parts. In the first, which had its own intermission, a parade of acts sang their hits. It went fast, although the three headliners - Ronnie Spector, Gore and Brooks, did get more time than the others. In the second part of the show, most of the acts reappeared in a tribute to Greenwich, even though Greenwich songs were included in the first part.

Ronnie Spector, who has rebuilt her career by playing her sublime 1960s Philles recordings with a band that offers horns, string sections and background singers, was consistently top-notch during "Walkin' in the Rain," "Baby I Love You," "I Can Hear Music" and even a snippet of Amy Whitehouse's "Back to Black." Gore's set was a little bit slick, but it did feature one of the earliest Top 40 hits with a feminist undercurrent - "You Don't Own Me." It maybe was an anomaly at the time, but it's a historic marker now. Knowing it's her strongest, she saved it for set's end and the strength and clarity of her voice reminded the audience the song foretold the future.

Brooks, who was just 15 when she sang on Crystals hits in the early 1960s, has had a struggle trying to be the standard bearer for that Philles Records' group's legacy, as Ronnie Spector has become for the Ronettes'. She's gotten a late start, having lived abroad for many years. The Crystals had several girls who could sing lead, and they were never promoted as stars the way Spector was. And two of their biggest hits - "He's a Rebel" and "He's Sure the Boy I Love" - were actually Darlene Love tracks infamously and cavalierly released under the Crystals name by Phil Spector.

But she has a few things going for her, too. She's tall and physically fit, able to do bends and splits on stage in her tight bellbottom slacks. Her voice booms out with breathtaking authority. Also, she's a New Yorker, and her between-song raps have a Brooklyn-accented sass that instantly makes her a hometown here. Her set before the Greenwich tribute warmed up with "There's No Other" (and she credited fellow Crystal Barbara Alston for the original lead), "I Wonder," "Little Boy" and "Girls Can Tell." And then "Da Do Ron Ron" thundered.

In the first half of this part, it was thrilling to see so many of woman, more or less marginalized by rock history and the music business today, get a chance to perform - however briefly - under optimum conditions before a couple thousand devotees. Age has, obviously, sanded off the youthfulness of some of the voices, but not the emotional commitment. And they sang out, with pride in their songs and for their event. In some cases, the singers took turns on stage backing each other.

Among highlights: Margaret Ross of the Cookies ("Chains," "I Never Dreamed," and "Don't Say Nothin' Bad About My Baby"), Barbara Harris of the Toys ("A Lover's Concerto" and "May My Heart Be Cast Into Stone"), Nanette Licori of Reparata & the Delrons ("Whenever a Teenager Cries"), and Louise Murray of the mysterious one-hit-wonders Jaynetts ("Sally Go Round the Roses"). Also, Beverly Davis reprised a marvelous Carole King-Gerry Goffin song she recorded in 1965, "Let Me Get Close to You," and dedicated it to two artists who also recorded it, Skeeter Davis and Alex Chilton.

Two singers whose hits had less girl-group-sound trappings than the others also got a chance. A wheelchair-bound Arlene Smith of the Chantels, who predated the early 1960s heyday of the sound, dressed spectacularly in a sequined violet coat, blasted out "Maybe" so powerfully you felt a chill on a 90+-degree day. And Baby Washington received strong support from back-up singers on her ethereally delicate, one-of-a-kind "That's How Heartaches Are Made."

Somewhat singularly, Maxine Brown, who recorded for Florence Greenberg's important girl-group label Scepter/Wand, sounded changed and much more adult while doing the introspective "All In My Mind" and "Oh No, Not My Baby." And she went far into gospel territory with an extended, grippingly dramatic version of "We'll Cry Together" that earned gasps and cheers for its sermonizing quality.

The purpose of the Greenwich tribute, the concert's final act, was to remind everyone of her songwriting contribution. Really, by now, everyone was aware, so it was like a fireworks display after a winning ballgame, a glittery and sparkling way to salute the end of a marvelous good time. The Exciters did "He's Got the Power," Gore performed "The Look of Love" and "Maybe I Know," Ronnie Spector closed the show with the anthemic "Be My Baby" but also did "Chapel of Love," which she had recorded first but was beaten to the Top 40 by the Dixie Cups. And Brooks rousingly took on Tina Turner's "River Deep Mountain High," surprising herself with just how much earthly grit and heavenly escape she could find in the classic.

Now, if an enterprising booker/concert producer can just get this on the road, it might be one of the besttours of 2012. It's such a pleasure to hear these songs - and see these singers - treated so well.

(Photo of The Angels, courtesy Ponderosa Stomp)

A Suburban Cincinnati Library Honors British Punk

2011-08-18T05:45:00.000-07:00

Madeira Celebrates British Punk Rock

By Steven Rosen
(From Cincinnati CityBeat, 08-10-11)

Who knew that Madeira is a hotbed of British Punk Rock scholarship?

Those familiar with the quiet, upscale northeast Cincinnati community might think its musical interests fall more toward Streisand and Manilow than The Damned and The Sex Pistols. The political content and D.I.Y. approach to making unpolished music might have made British Punk a revolutionary musical form, but Madeira just doesn’t seem to be the kind of place that would care that much.

But there in the Madeira Branch library (7200 Miami Ave.), in a wall case in the long entryway corridor, is the display “The A-Z of UK Punk Rock and Post Punk.”

There are illustrated sleeves and vinyl copies of 7-inch British-release singles by The Clash (“[White Man] In Hammersmith Palais”), Joy Division (“Love Will Tear Us Apart”), The Fall (“Psycho Mafia”), The Mekons (“Never Been In a Riot”), The Adverts (“No Time to Be 21”) and more by The Buzzcocks, The Lurkers, The Damned, The Jam, Gang of Four and others.

Also featured are related books and wall text about the socio-musical movement and its attendant edgy graphic design that made the record sleeves and labels so visually striking. They are pointedly arty in an irreverent way — the label on the Clash’s single features a Roy Lichtenstein-like, Ben-Day-dot smoking gun, pointed toward the viewer, with a hand clutching the trigger. Even the indie label names show a cheeky attitude, with forcefully blunt titles like Bright, A Step Forward, Fast and Factory.

The case’s rear wall is lined with colorful wallpaper, featuring a paisley design embellished with the head of The Sex Pistol's Johnny Rotten.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with Madeira, it’s because this display case is reserved for community use — and the collection belongs to Mark Harris, who lives with his family in Indian Hill, just across from the Madeira border. He is also outgoing director of School of Art at UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning and an artist whose projects have incorporated or been inspired by music. English-born, he was a student at Edinburgh College of Art and London’s Royal Academy of Art during the Punk period, and had roommates in a band. (Two local artists, Terence Hammonds and Katie Parker, designed the display case’s backdrop.)

“I’ve been living here for seven years and I go down there quite a lot — my sons use the branch,” Harris says. “I thought it would be an interesting idea to put up this display, somewhat incongruous perhaps, to see what people thought about it. I’ve always loved the designs of the records — it was a renaissance for 7-inch record-sleeve design. This is a portrait of the period.”

Madeira librarian Mary Gehrich says this exhibit fits in well with the branch’s objectives.

“He approached me one day and it just sounded really unique and unusual — that’s the kind of thing I look for,” she says. “There are a lot of nonprofit organizations that have a standing reservation for certain months, like the Mineral Society. Otherwise, we have individuals who have collections. There are a lot of people out there who collect things. I try to keep it ever-changing.”

Harris at first wanted to use a second display case in order to put all his Punk-era British singles up at once. But the library is using that for a children’s-oriented display about dinosaurs. As a result, he has divided his exhibit into two parts. Punk records by groups with A-M names are up through this weekend; N-Z will follow from Monday until month’s end, with artists Ryan Mulligan and Chase Melendez doing the backdrops. (That will include The Sex Pistols.)

In September, the Madeira Historical Society takes over the display case — it probably will not have anything to do with British Punk.

http://www.stevenrosenwriter.com/; srosen@citybeat.com

(Photo courtesy Mark Harris)

Poised for a Renewal in Interest, the Cowsills Play Indian Lake

2011-08-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

Review: Cowsills at Indian Lake
Text/Photo by Steven Rosen
Blurt, July 28, 2011. (http://www.blurt-online.com/)

(July 9, at the Old Field Beach State Park, the beloved family combo toast their song-titling namesake.)

"WELL, that was a first. We've never performed that song looking directly at Indian Lake before."
Bob Cowsill said that as the crowd, in summer wear and bathing suits, surged and cheered on the open field at Old Field Beach State Park at Indian Lake, on the western side of Ohio. Quite a few had arrived by boat, having anchored at the beach. The hot sun was bearing down on them, which somehow seemed to improve their mood. This was a perfect summer day, a perfect summer event.

The Cowsills had just opened their concert with a rousing version of "Indian Lake," a Top Ten hit in 1968. For the locals at the Chamber of Commerce's annual Party at the Beach, it was an acknowledgement of past glories - not just of a time when the clean-cut Cowsills were America's favorite family band, but also when Indian Lake (and the nearby town of Russell's Point) was a Midwest tourist resort, famous for its Sandy Beach Amusement Park with its dance pavilion and 2,000-foot-long roller coaster. (It was demolished in 1982 after decades of decline.) It was hard to judge crowd size, given the spread-out nature, but it could have been around 1,000. An anonymous local donor had paid to bring the Cowsills there for the event.

The Cowsills at Indian Lake were two brothers - Bob, 61, and Paul, 59 - and 52-year-old sister Susan, who has her own budding career as an Americana-oriented singer-songwriter. But at their peak, back in the day, they consisted of those three plus brothers Bill, Barry and John and their mother, Barbara. They were just kids - Boomer teens and younger - on tour with mom and managed by their dad, a Navy careerist.

It is far from certain the song "Indian Lake" was named for the lake. It was written by Tony Romeo, a pop songsmith who also wrote "I Think I Love You" for the Partridge Family (more about them later) and had a thing for forced rhyming ("Indian Lake is a scene you should make with your little one") and catchy melodies. But the Cowsills began their career in Canton, Ohio, around the start of the 1960s. And though they were living in Newport, R.I., when their hits started, Ohio can claim them.

Summertime, USA, is filled with small-town outdoor fairs and parties that proudly book 1960s or 1970s oldies acts to play hits (often without any original members) and meet and greet the locals. Such shows are often slick, kitschy and soulless.

But the Cowsills show was different. First, because they were (and still are) family, there's meaning and feeling in the performance and the interaction between the three singers. (The back-up band, too, is family - Paul's two sons Brendan and Ryan on guitar and keyboards, Susan's husband Russ Broussard on drums. The bass player, Mary Lasseigne, is introduced by Bob as "sister" so she doesn't feel out of place.)

There's also poignancy and currency to being on the road now. A new documentary, Family Band: The Cowsills Story, is just beginning to make the rounds of film festivals this summer and advance word is that it uncovers some raw truths below the family-friendly image, especially about the way their now-deceased dad, William "Bud," treated them, and how difficult adulthood turned out to be for some of the siblings. But it also shows the bond existing among the three still active in the band, and in a way their limited concerts are a way to reinforce that relationship. It's the oldies-rock version of The Tree of Life.

The show was well-rehearsed (the sound check took 40 minutes) and musically professional, but not "produced" in the way a current Turtles or Monkees concert might be, to mention two other AM-friendly pop vocal acts of the era. The three original Cowsills dress casually, banter about and in general act like it's just a bigger-than-usual family gathering.

In the concert, Bob and Paul do quite a few covers of folk-rock tunes - just as the oldest brothers used to do in the beginning, before the Cowsills became a Top-40 act. Simon & Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound" and Peter, Paul & Mary's "Puff the Magic Dragon," "If I Had My Way" and "If I Had a Hammer" all got played here - the last gaining credibility when three sang out about "the love between my brothers and my sisters."

Susan does several songs from her fine Lighthouse album of 2011, and the group performs material from the generally overlooked Americana-leaning solo catalogue of their two deceased brothers, Bill and Barry. To give the departed their due is one mission of the show.

The three siblings on stage at Indian Lake were pretty matter-of-fact about addressing Barry's shocking death. "We lost Barry during Hurricane Katrina," Bob told the crowd. "(He) did not evacuate when he should have." (Barry's body was not found for some four months after the 2005 flooding of New Orleans. And Bill, who lived in Canada and had health problems, died the same day as Barry's memorial service.) Susan took the lead on a rousing, emotional version of Barry's cathartic, Petty-like "River of Love," a song filled with dark irony now. (She also lived in New Orleans when Katrina hit, but had left in time, and recorded "River of Love" for Lighthouse.)

I'm not sure if the fans, who mostly were there for some pop nostalgia, were prepared for the way the song - or the back story - darkened their sunshine pop, but they did seem to respect it. And "River of Love" rocked them.

The Cowsills did honor their Top 40 past - sometimes with sweet good humor, other times with sly wit. And the hits hold up well. In particular, the expansive melodic rush of "The Rain, The Park & Other Things" - a chart topper from 1967 - fits in well with the era of "Good Vibrations," "Happy Together" and "Up, Up and Away" - pop-rock optimism at most beautiful. It sounded fantastic, echoing throughout the park, as did "We Can Fly" - a 1968 hit in a similar vein.

When one man in the crowd hollered out for "the milk song," they complied - saying they hadn't done it live before. Bob and Paul sang out "milk is the lift that will last." The Cowsills also invited people on stage, and so many came up (while others danced about in a sandy area in front) you wondered if the stage would collapse.

Bob and Paul used the song selection to tell stories about their career - explaining both how they felt at the time and how they feel now about having been a family pop group with an image safe as milk at a time of teenage revolution. For instance, Paul prefaced their theme to the TV series "Love American Style" - a program on the square side of pop culture in the late 1960s/early 1970s - this way: "When we were kids, we didn't care that we did the theme for a TV show. Now that we're older, we think it's really cool. That's one of the ways you change through the years."

That performance led to another TV-related one, a somewhat in-jest version of Partridge Family's goofy "I Think I Love You," an awkwardly constructed ditty somehow too friendly to fight. But while "Indian Lake's" Romeo wrote it, it isn't really a Cowsills song. Or is it? It turns out the producers of "The Partridge Family," a comedy about a family that plays music together, originally wanted the Cowsills for their early-1970s show, but the family turned it down. So actors were put together for it. Million-selling success followed.

"Since the Partridge Family didn't tour, couldn't perform or sing ‘I Think I Love You,' we've declared it our hit," Bob told the crowd.

The oddest story - and one that cries out for more details - concerned "Hair," the Cowsills' last and biggest hit, from the "American tribal rock" musical of the same name. The Cowsills saved it for (almost) last at Indian Lake, enduring lots of shouts for "Hair" in the meantime and making jokes about the lack of it on the two brothers' heads now.

By the time the Cowsills' recorded version came out in early 1969, it seemed they were jumping on a bandwagon - Hair was a sensation. Still, it was shocking to hear the clean-cut Cowsills record an ode to long hair, one that even mentioned the Grateful Dead and came from a Broadway musical with nudity.

But as they explained it from the stage at Indian Lake, Carl Reiner - the television/film producer/director - had been given an advance copy of the soundtrack album and, thinking the Cowsills were perfect for covering "Hair" (maybe because they had strong harmonies), urged them into the studio to record it. They did so, but their record company - the notoriously tin-eared MGM - hated it. So it sat unreleased.

Finally, the Cowsills gave a copy to a Chicago Top 40 station of the day, WLS-AM, which played it and got huge, instant reaction. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Cowsills finished the show by reprising "Indian Lake."

At the concert, it was announced the donor had agreed to bring them back next year for the same event. If that's the case, Indian Lake will definitely be a scene you should make. And if you can't bring your little one, bring your favorite college professor. There's a lot of American cultural history on that stage.

(Top photo: Susan and Paul, with microphones, with invited crowd on stage)

The Song That Keeps On Rollin': Celebrating 60 Years of "The Train Kept A'Rollin'"

2011-07-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

The Song That Never Ends
Locals to celebrate enduring, seminal Rock song recorded by Tiny Bradshaw in Cincinnati 60 years ago

By Steven Rosen
(From Cincinnati CityBeat, July 20, 2011)

Brian Powers, the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County archivist who has done so much research on King Records, has a theory why the Cincinnati record label was slow to get proper international respect as a progenitor of Rock & Roll.

All the other early sources of modern-era Rock are guitar-based — Rockabilly, Country, Chicago Blues and acoustic Folk and rural Blues. Many of King’s earliest and most transformative songs were of a form called “Jump Blues” — horn-based and with roots in the Big Band era.

“Jump Blues sounds more like Jazz and doesn’t get its due,” Powers says. “People think it’s not connected to Rock because it’s not guitar-based.”

And yet maybe the most important and familiar Guitar Rock song ever made — “Train Kept A’ Rollin,’ ” in which mimicking the rhythmic sound of that train has inspired electric guitarists in bands like The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Aerosmith — started life as a King-released Jump Blues tune by Tiny Bradshaw and His Orchestra. A 1956 version by the Memphis Rockabilly combo called Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio had an amazingly prescient guitar solo by Paul Burlison that featured an avant-garde fuzztone effect. Many consider it the first great Rock & Roll guitar solo.

“Train” was recorded 60 years ago Monday (July 25) at King’s historic headquarters on Brewster Avenue in Evanston, according to the authoritative King discography compiled by Michel Ruppli, who specializes in record-label discographies. (Other sources have listed different dates.)

In celebration and remembrance of the event’s 60th anniversary — and of Bradshaw’s life and contributions to both Cincinnati and Rock & Roll history — several free events are being planned by the Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation.

“It was one of the many important songs that has origins here in Cincinnati we’ve never properly acknowledged or celebrated,” says Elliott Ruther, Foundation board president. “And that song has found prominence in every decade since it has been released. It has become a legendary Rock song.” (See sidebar.)

At 5 p.m. Monday on Fountain Square, there will be live performances of “Train” in its various permutations. There will be a rendering of Bradshaw’s Jump-Blues take with Marvin Hawkins on vocals (Bradshaw sang on the original) and featuring veteran local musician Philip Paul, who played drums in Bradshaw’s band for several years.

It will be followed by the Rockabilly version led by Ed Vardiman of the band Straw Boss and featuring the Syd Natanists (named after King founder Syd Nathan). For a Hard Rock version, at least 20 electric guitarists will take the stage as part of the Train Kept A’ Rollin’ Guitar Army. And anyone with an acoustic guitar can come down and join in.

At 6 p.m. on Monday, the Foundation will host a reception at its office in the old Herzog recording studio building (811 Race St., Downtown, on the second floor). At 7 p.m., there will be a panel discussion on Bradshaw’s life and music, featuring his former drummer Paul, King researcher Powers, Carl Bradshaw (Tiny’s grandson) and WNKU radio personality Mr. Rhythm Man.

Additionally, WVXU will air a special radio program by Lee Hay on “The Train Kept A’ Rollin' and Tiny Bradshaw” this Saturday at 11 p.m. (Listen online at wvxu.org.)

Bradshaw, a Youngstown native, was a successful big bandleader in the 1940s who turned to Jump Blues when he recorded for King in 1950. He had big R&B hits like “Well Oh Well” and “Soft,” and made Cincinnati his home. Along with touring, he played often at the West End’s Cotton Club. He died in 1958, after suffering a stroke, and is buried at Union Baptist Cemetery in Price Hill.

Drummer Paul hopes Monday’s events can create some of the same excitement Bradshaw sparked at Cincinnati’s Cotton Club — and on the road — in the 1950s.

"We had a tremendous following,” Paul says. “We would take up residence at Cotton Club and pack that place every night because people around here loved him. He was a charismatic man — big guy, handsome looking.”

(Monday’s TRAIN KEPT A’ ROLLIN’ celebration begins at 5 p.m. on Fountain Square with live performances. Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation (811 Race St., Downtown, second floor) hosts a reception and panel discussion about the song beginning at 6 p.m.)

Some notable versions, from among the many

1950s
Tiny Bradshaw and His Orchestra - 1951:
Jump Blues put the roll in Rock & Roll, and Tiny Bradshaw’s rollicking original version — with Bradshaw clearly yet exuberantly singing over that pumping barroom piano, the back-up vocalists chanting “all night long” and a fantastic, soaring saxophone solo — is a textbook example of how great it can sound. It’s exciting yet also relaxed and swinging.

Johnny Burnette's Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio - 1956:
Apologies to Elvis and Gene Vincent, but Rockabilly never got better than this version, thanks to Johnny Burnette’s exhorting vocal and (especially) Paul Burlison’s guitar solo — one of the most influential ever in Rock — where he plays an octave apart from Burnette’s bass and manipulates the amplifier’s tube to get a distorted fuzz tone. (In a new book, Rockabilly: The Twang Heard ‘Round the World, a chapter posits that one Grady Martin actually played lead.) It’s a colossal riff.

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1960s

The Yardbirds - 1966:
This version from Having a Rave Up brought the song into the modern (post-Beatles) Rock era. Keith Relf’s double-tracked vocals are a little redundant but his harmonica is a nice touch. However, Jeff Beck’s searing, soaring, pre-psychedelic solo foretold of shapes of things to come.

The Yardbirds' "Stroll On" - 1966:
This is the Holy Grail of “Train” versions, even though Relf was forced to change the lyrics for copyright reasons. It was used in Antonioni’s classic film Blow-Up, in which The Yardbirds — with Beck and Jimmy Page — perform it in a club, with Beck smashing his guitar. It’s an indelible, immortal Rock & Roll moment, even though Beck reportedly detested it.

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1970s

Aerosmith - 1974
An early standard bearer of classic Hard Rock, with Joe Perry’s guitar working supple, muscular lead runs off the basic riff without ever forgetting there’s a song underneath the soloing, and Steven Tyler pushing his yowling vocal Jaggerisms to the point where they become Tylerisms. One of Aerosmith’s five best songs.

2000s
Metallica - 2009:
For the jam celebrating their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Metallica joined Jeff Beck (also inducted), Jimmy Page, Joe Perry, Ron Wood and Flea in what James Hetfield calls “rhythm-guitar heaven.” Compared to most Metallica songs, this sounds almost genteel, but the head-slamming “Rock” is a long way from Bradshaw’s “roll.”

Alice Cooper - 2010:
Mr. Alice Cooper has been returning to his Garage Rock roots on his nationally syndicated radio show, and the reunited (almost) original band does so too on a version of “Train” for the 2010 “Christmas Pudding” benefit in Phoenix. Cooper says he used to start shows with it long ago. Steve Hunter, who played guitar with Cooper after now-deceased Glen Buxton left, delivers a sizzling lead.

(E-mail Steven Rosen at srosen@citybeat.com)

(photo of Tiny Bradshaw)

Marianne Faithfull: As Important to Punk as Clash, Sex Pistols?

2011-07-13T05:53:00.000-07:00

07/11/2011

Marianne Faithfull
Horses and High Heels
(Naïve Records)
www.mariannefaithfull.org.uk
7 stars
from Blurt (www.blurt-online.com)
07/11/2011By Steven Rosen

Marianne Faithfull's 1979 Broken English may be as influential an album to come out of Britain's punk revolution as any - and it isn't even punk, technically.

But when Faithfull, who had been missing in action as a relevant recording artist for more than a dozen years (at least in the U.S.), came blazing back, with a voice that replaced the sweetness and innocence of "As Tears Go By" with something as burnished and rough-edged as a worn straight razor, it seemed a metaphor for the way punk wanted to toss out pop prettiness and mannered artifice for the cutting edge. Her sound was more varied and complex than punk's buzzing, slashing guitars, but it was as bold.

The material, too, reflected the freedom and daring that punk brought - unencumbered of living up to a pop image or the need to turn out singer-songwriter sentimentalism, and unafraid to challenge listeners, she could do John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" as well as her own (with co-writers) ominous title song. And the frankness extended to the graphic language and sexual reference in "Why'd Ya Do It?," with a lyric by poet Heathcote Williams, that was as intimidating to the squares as anything on the Sex Pistols' album. The lesson of Broken English was that in a newly-liberated-by-punk music world, anyone - including women; including British Invasion survivors - could record anything.

Faithfull, now 64, has followed that template now for 12 more albums, studio and live - Horses and High Heels is the latest. In doing so, she has become the premier post-rock chanteuse. While the shock of the new is long gone from her recordings, they have all been relatively solid and assured and, at their best, inspired (especially when she sings melancholy-infused ballads).

She seems an especially good match for producer Hal Willner's informed and eclectic musical tastes - this is their third project. Recorded in New Orleans with an array of seasoned accompanists like Dr. John, Wayne Kramer, George Porter Jr. and background singer Jenni Muldaur, it includes string arrangements and ever-so-delicate sampling by Willner when appropriate.

It's about evenly balanced between original material and covers that show Willner's and Faithfull's deep-catalog knowledge of pop music. (Her last Willner-produced album, 2008's Easy Come, Easy Go, was all covers and featured guest vocalists.) Of the four originals (all with co-writers), "Prussian Blue" finds Faithfull in a light, cheerful mood while "Why Did We Have to Part" is sterner stuff. Both work well.

Some of the older songs seem chosen for the bittersweet revisionism that comes with reinterpreting them decades on. The lovely Goffin-King composition "Goin' Back," whose introspection and sense of loss stood out as unusual in the swingin' 1960s when the Byrds recorded it, now sounds perfect for someone in her sixties. And the Shangri-Las' melodramatic, classically tinged "Past, Present and Future" comes off now as clairvoyant, infused with Faithfull's own life lessons. It's not quite her "Is That All There Is?," but it's an antecedent.

On the other hand, New Orleans and its ageless music traditions also let her relax and have some fun with oldies. She covers Joe and Ann's delightfully fun old Crescent City roll-and-rocker "Gee Baby," although Dr. John - who reportedly played on the original - isn't on this track. And, finding a hard-charging-yet-melodic track from an obscure, early-1970s Jackie Lomax album, "No Reason," she tackles it with the kind of energy that makes you wonder if she should have fronted Bad Company.

On newer material, her foreboding, defiant version of Greg Dulli/Mark Lanegan's "The Station" provides a shiver, and there's a thoughtful, tender quality - a flowing humanism - to R. B. Morris' magnificent protest song, "That's How Every Empire Falls," that makes it the album's standout.

Toward the end, the album lets down a bit. The production on Allen Toussaint's "Back in Baby's Arms" comes on too strong, overwhelming one of the venerable songwriter's more generic tunes. Similarly, on "Eternity" - which Faithfull wrote with Doug Pettibone - an odd Eastern-tinged undercurrent (sampled from the Brian Jones-recorded Pipes of Pan at Jajouka) battles with a corny Doobie Brothers rhythm, overloading the arrangement. And "The Old House," written for her by Irish poet/playwright Frank McGuinness (with Leo Abrahams) has a strong central image ("My father's ghost/Left me the keys to the old house"), but as a song seems to have been constructed primarily to build to a guitar solo by Lou Reed that fades out before it goes anywhere interesting.

Faithfull and Willner deserve special credit for resurrecting the late Lesley Duncan's transcendently delicate "Love Song" from obscurity. Elton John had covered it (with Duncan) on Tumbleweed Connection, but so rare were his covers and so much did the song remind one of his own "Your Song" that she never really benefited from the attention. Here, Faithfull lets its timeless grandeur bathe and renew her voice, and she returns the favor to the song's optimistic intent. It's compelling.

Best cuts: "That's How Every Empire Falls," "Love Song"

"Rave" Culture and the Tribute Album

2011-07-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

The Buddy Holly Tribute Album Maintains a Precarious Balance

By Steven Rosen

www.stevenrosenwriter.com

The advance buzz on tribute album Rave On Buddy Holly (Fantasy Records) is all about Paul McCartney's contribution, in which the 69-year-old ex-Beatle rants, shouts and growls his way through a madly goosed-up version, complete with false endings, of "It's So Easy." Rolling Stone has described the approach as "He yowls like he popped some Viagra and then set his pants on fire."

But is that a good thing? While one appreciates the effort and the autobiographical themes of his contribution - McCartney, whose Beatles cued off Holly's Crickets for their name, is engaged to be married for the third time, proving that indeed it is easy for him to fall in love - and while the song itself has that kind of crackling, electric arrangement (live-sounding lead guitar upfront, ever-so-slightly-weird processed backing vocals) of late-1960s Beatles, the novelty of McCartney's vocal embellishments wears off quickly and becomes annoying. In short, it's a gimmick.

This rock-oriented Holly tribute (an earlier one, called Not Fade Away, was country/alt-county-oriented) was produced by Randall Poster, the imaginative music supervisor for the movies I'm Not There, Velvet Goldmine, Rushmore and countless others. That explains the eclecticism of the line-up, a mix of the hippest of alt-rock acts (Black Keys, Florence + the Machine, Jenny O., Modest Mouse) and the heritage rockers who influenced them (McCartney, Nick Lowe, Patti Smith, Lou Reed) plus a few left-field choices (Kid Rock, Graham Nash, Cee Lo Green) to keep things fresh.

But it still doesn't resolve the pitfalls of tribute albums. With an act whose songs are as familiar as Holly's, and whose streamlined, heartfelt rock ‘n' roll is so timeless and direct, you can either be faithful to the original version and risk redundancy, or try something different and risk pretension. Further, the self-consciousness of so many post-modern alt/indie rock bands just gets in the way of the sublime illumination of Holly's best work.

Modest Mouse's muddling deconstruction of "That'll Be the Day" proves the point, as does Florence + the Machine's soulless "Not Fade Away," which sounds like a bunch of random instruments, plus probing voice, in search of a clever arrangement. That's a particularly inappropriate song to mess up, too - after all these years, the best Holly cover of all is still the Rolling Stones' 1964 "Not Fade Away," which found the bluesy Bo Diddley-isms beneath the original's chirpy arrangement and toughened the song up.

Yet, good cover versions can redefine a song, giving it new life and deeper meaning. There are several here, as the law of averages dictates there should be with 19 contributions. Foremost is Patti Smith's take on "Word of Love," a sweet almost-ballad that is one of Hollywood's prettiest songs. Smith, who somewhere along the aging process has evolved from punk priestess to one of rock ‘n' roll's wisest tribal elders, gives it an ethereal, modal, drone-like arrangement, her deep voice cushioned by angelic backing harmonies. She quotes from the Shangri-las' "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" toward the end. Really, she infuses the song it with her own words of love - the ideal of a great cover version.

Another excellent contribution - "Peggy Sue Got Married" - is provided by John Doe, who seems to have found his strength in post-punk folk-rock/alt-country. His slightly grungy guitar provides texture to the song, which starts off stately and builds in dynamism without ever sacrificing melody. Like Dave Alvin, whose success seems to be giving Doe confidence to pursue the same kind of weathered Americana sound, his voice has grown from a youthful monotone to one that's full of confident rusticity.

Add some other good if not revelatory versions - Black Keys' "Dearest," Karen Elson's "Crying, Waiting, Hoping," Justin Townes Earle's "Maybe Baby," My Morning Jacket's "True Love Ways," Kid Rock-as-the-new-Mellencamp on "Well All Right," and you have an album that on balance is worth the effort it took to produce.

But it's a precarious balance.

(From Blurt, www.blurt-online.com, June 27, 2011)

A Mid-Century Architectural Marvel Opens to the Public in Columbus, Ind.

2011-06-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

By Steven Rosen

http://www.stevenrosenwriter.com/

Craig Miller, curator of design arts at Indianapolis Museum of Art, has told his staff that their newly acquired Eero Saarinen-designed Miller House in Columbus, Ind., is one of America’s four greatest mid-century Modernist residences. The others are the Philip Johnson Glass House in Connecticut, Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House in Plano, Ill., and the Charles Eames House near Los Angeles – all open to the public to varying degrees.

Yet, until this year, the Columbus Area Visitors Center never told tourists that the National Historic Landmark home existed – and many come to this small city just 95 miles northwest of Cincinnati because it’s a haven for contemporary architecture. The home wasn’t on the city’s official tour, because it was private and in a residential neighborhood.

But in 2009, after the original owners died, the family donated it to the Indianapolis art museum (IMA) – along with $5 million toward an endowment – to preserve and open it to the public. It’s taken two years of careful preparation, but the breathtakingly beautiful, approximately 7,000-square-foot home opens on Tuesday. Reservations for guided tours (the only way to get access) can be made in advance and come with restrictions – see If You Go for details.

The house was commissioned in 1953 by J. Irwin Miller, the Cummins Inc. industrialist whose vision transformed Columbus into a haven for contemporary design. Esquire Magazine once put Miller on its cover with the headline “This man should be the next President of the United States.”

He hired the Finnish-born American master architect Saarinen – whose father, Eliel, initiated Columbus’ Modernist tradition by building the First Christian Church in 1942. Joining Eero Saarinen on the project were landscape architect Dan Kiley and, for interior design, Alexander Girard, who chose warm, colorful textiles and international folk art for appointments. Eero later designed St. Louis’ Gateway Arch.

The rectangular Miller House, hidden by hedges from the street and surrounded by a 13½-acre lot that flows down into a meadow and the Flatrock River, lives up to its reputation as Modernist marvel. It has a flat roof interrupted by soothing skylights, large glass panels along the walls, and a flowing, open single-story floor plan that allows the spacious public rooms to meld into each other while breaking the private rooms into compact, imaginative corner suites. (Miller and wife Xenia raised five children there.)

Still, every single object in the house belonged to the Millers, so a tour provides an intimate glimpse into the way they lived. And the design has some spectacular features. In the dining room is a large circular table – marble top and terrazzo base – built into the floor. It has a fountain in the middle so flowers could be placed there. In the living space, which is platformed into several levels, there is a futuristic fireplace in mid-room with a circular vent. In a side room is an unusual “autobiographical carpet” designed by Girard and filled with emblems symbolizing Miller’s life – an elephant for the GOP (he was a liberal Republican), “Y” for Yale, “C” for Cummins, an electric streetcar (an earlier business venture).

But the biggest conversation piece for visitors probably will be the conversation pit in the living room – a sunken space near the rear-facing windows – that holds a white sectional sofa, the top of its cushions almost even with the surrounding floor. Colorful pillows are all along it; narrow steps between sections allow for ingress and egress.

The IMA doesn’t quite know what to expect with this foray into off-campus architectural tourism, and how large the demand will be for a one-hour tour that costs $20 per person. If it’s great, the museum is prepared to consider developing specialized tours in the future to just concentrate on the landscape, for instance. But for now, these guided tours will be the only way for most people to get into one of America’s most celebrated and honored mid-century Modernist homes. It’s not to be missed.

IF YOU GO: The Indianapolis Museum of Art is using the Columbus Visitors Center, to handle visits to the Miller House. Because tour size is limited, it’s strongly, strongly suggested that tickets be purchased in advance at www.imamuseum.org or www.columbus.in.us or by calling 1-800-468-6564. General-admission tickets are $20; there is limited wheelchair access. No photography permitted. Those with tickets must meet at the Visitors Center, 506 Fifth St. in downtown Columbus, thirty minutes before a tour starts. A shuttle bus will take them to the site. Tours will be offered Tuesday through Saturday at 1 and 3 p. m., and Sundays at 1 p.m. December through February, tours only are on Saturdays. The Visitors Center also has another general tour of Columbus architecture that doesn’t include the Miller House. To get to Columbus from Cincinnati, take Interstate 74 west to the Indiana S.R. 3 South exit at Greensburg. That route eventually turns into Indiana S.R. 46, which goes into Columbus. In downtown Columbus, turn right on Franklin Street and go two blocks to Fifth. The Visitors Center is on the corner and has a rear parking lot.

(From Cincinnati Enquirer, 5-8-11)

An Impressive Return for Garland Jeffreys

2011-06-19T08:01:00.000-07:00

By Steven Rosen
http://www.stevenrosenwriter.com/

Review:

Garland Jeffreys
The King of In Between
(Luna Park)
http://www.garlandjeffreys.com/

In a long career that so far has never quite jelled into all it could be, Garland Jeffreys has made some good records and one great one, 1977's Ghost Writer. He also wrote and recorded a memorably savvy and eccentric rocker, 1973's "Wild in the Streets," that managed to be both ebullient and cautionary.

That he's never really had the success he deserved, or tried so hard to attain, hasn't deterred or embittered him, though it has slowed him down. The King of In Between, on his own Luna Park label, besides being his best album since Ghost Writer, is his first one featuring new material since 1997's Wildlife Dictionary, which itself was released only in Europe.

But Jeffreys has stayed true to and been sustained by those parts of his identity that have fueled his music - his mixed-race background, Brooklyn rearing, college studies in art history, keen interest in literature, friendship with Velvets Lou Reed and John Cale, love of rock, reggae, blues and R&B. And, crucially important, his faith in New York as a potential urban promised land.

For The King of In Between, Jeffreys has found a supportive spirit in co-producer Larry Campbell, the former guitarist for Bob Dylan who has guided Levon Helm's comeback. Campbell doesn't force a uniform sound on Jeffrey's songs. Rather, he lets Jeffreys choose the approach - unpretentious but energetic roots-rock, reggae, Curtis Mayfield-style soul, rockabilly - and then records the musicians (Jeffreys plays acoustic guitar) to give each track a crisp instrumental dimensionality that avoids slickness or bombast. (The opening song, the driving yet intimate "Coney Island Winter," was produced by Jeffreys and Mark Bosch, and is one of the album's best.)

But the album's strongest element is Jeffreys, himself. Since Ghost Writer, he has had a tendency to flatten out his melodies to accommodate his storytelling. But here, the songs have perfect chord changes at perfect moments, giving them just the right tuneful lilt or bite to support his voice and message. And his singing - gruff yet honeyed, soulfully emotional and capable of sass or yearning, humor or heartfelt wisdom - is top-notch. He saves his highest-register yelps for the most powerful moments, as on "God's Waiting Room" (which mentions both Staple Singers and the Teardrop Explodes, revealing his wide frame of reference.) As a compassionate Boomer rocker who sees the American dream reflected in his own life, on this album he gives Springsteen a run for the money.

The writing, too, is strong, expressing the concerns and fears of a rocker in his late 60s, but also being defiantly hopeful about the future. But there's nothing obviously sentimental, or easy, in his observations. They seem hard-earned, a result of the life he's led. "Coney Island Winter" uses sharply descriptive imagery of that Brooklyn amusement park in winter as a metaphor for systems shutting down, and ends with Jeffreys announcing, "I'm on a mission of my own/Don't wanna die on stage/With a microphone in my hand." As if to underscore that, the song leads into the super-rousing "I'm Alive."

On "The Contortionist," with Lou Reed adding backing vocals, Jeffreys finds an apt circus metaphor for the balancing act of surviving the excesses of the rock ‘n' roll scene in order to keep living close to the music he loves. And in the celebratory rockabilly strut of "Rock and Roll Music," it's clearly evident he still loves it - and is still really good at it. In the ska-like "Roller Coaster Town," it's also clearly evident he loves New York.

One reason Ghost Writer was such a strong album was its ability to mine the darker, melancholy, drifting-blues side of reggae, without being shallowly imitative. On "The Beautiful Truth," he draws on that again, helped by Duke Levine's wah-wah guitar and solid drums and bass of Steve Jordan and Mike Merritt.

The King of In Between isn't perfect. "'Til John Lee Hooker Calls Me" is too blatant in showing its Hooker boogie-blues shuffle and is musically dull; a remake of David Essex's "Rock On" has a processed sound at odds with the rest of the record.

But overall, with this album Jeffreys joins a group of other rock-oriented recording artists of a certain age - Alejandro Escovedo, Willie Nile, Elliott Murphy - who, while never being hit-makers, see what they do as being as legitimate and important as blues or folk or country. They're one important reason why good, solid rock ‘n' roll is a permanent fixture of the American musical landscape, whether or not it's in fashion at any given moment.

As the Showmen put it long ago, and I'm sure Jeffreys knows it, "rock and roll will stand."

Published in Blurt
06/15/2011
http://www.blurt-online.com

Report: 2011 MusicNOW Festival in Cincinnati

2011-06-08T05:01:00.000-07:00

The Bryce Dessner-curated festival May 13-15 featured My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden, Megafaun and other avant-indie luminaries - plus Dessner's own band The National to close things out.

By Steven Rosen
(From www.blurt-online.com; June 6, 2011)

MusicNOW, the six-year-old Cincinnati festival curated by Bryce Dessner, guitarist for the National, has a reputation for being on the cusp of rock-oriented musical collaborations and experimentation.

It's a reputation more known within the alternative-rock community than the population at large, since it's a relatively low-budget, grass-roots event held in an old auditorium that holds at most 500 people. But because Dessner - raised in Cincinnati, like the rest of the National - studied guitar at Yale and is also in a rock-meets-New-Music chamber ensemble called the Clogs and has worked with the likes of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Kronos Quartet, he commands enormous respect from peers. (The weekend before MusicNOW, he was in London for a Reich tribute.) The respect is especially high within the vibrant Brooklyn arts scene, where he now is based, and which sees itself as a community - a collective, maybe - as much as a business.

In 2007, MusicNOW commissioned Sufjan Stevens to write string-quartet arrangements for the music from his electronic album, Enjoy Your Rabbit. That worked well enough it was eventually recorded, and now is being choreographed by New York City Ballet. Last year Robin Pecknold came solo to try out new material for the Fleet Foxes album, Helplessness Blues, just released this May.

This year, Dessner was able to lure two important and gifted acts - Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and Durham, N.C.'s inventively rootsy band Megafaun - to use MusicNOW as a showcase for new and wonderful projects. And he also convinced the rest of the National - including twin brother/fellow guitarist Aaron - to close the fest with a homecoming show at the city's massive, century-old Music Hall, home to the symphony orchestra and opera company.

That can pack in more than 3,000. It didn't sell out for the National but did draw a large, energetic crowd, raising the fest's local profile. The band hadn't played Cincinnati since doing a free outdoor concert/rally during Barack Obama's presidential campaign, before the success of High Violet. So the local press treated the show as a triumphant homecoming.

***

Friday night opened with festival regular yMusic, a classically oriented sextet, playing two short, lovely Minimalist numbers, the second a MusicNow-commissioned composition by Arcade Fire's adventurous multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Perry, who was on hand to watch. It had something to do with stethoscopes and heartbeats, a nice idea that didn't translate musically, but didn't interfere with the piece's overall appeal.

Worden then joined yMusic to perform new songs from an upcoming album they have collaborated on - they'd only done the material once before, at New York's Ecstatic Music Festival. Worden was in a good mood; she had brought her not-yet-one-year-old son with her. From a room to the side, he gave a short cry while she was on stage and her smile spoke almost as loudly as her voice.

And what a voice! A soprano who has studied opera, she brings clarity and interpretative, dramatic nuance to her singing. Such songs as "We Added It Up" and "Be Brave" had captivating lyrics, delivered in an involving and transfixing way.

She's also aware of music as performance art, occasionally donning a mask and cap and sitting for instrumental passages while Jessica Dessner - Bryce and Aaron's sister - did interpretive dancing. The set's finest moment, when Worden reached as deeply into her experiences to create art as Laurie Anderson might, came during the song "There's a Rat."

She began by telling about the experience of catching a mouse in her new home in Detroit, then launched into a commanding lyric about all the scary powers out there that might threaten her domesticity - from rats to bankers. But she won't let them. During the song, she wore an apron and swept the stage floor with a broom. The result was riveting as feminist statement and as song. She closed with a tender tribute to her son, "You're OK," in which the ensemble rang bells.

Megafaun shared the stage with Fight the Big Bull, a roaring Roanoke jazz band that combines the traditional and free approaches to their music - like Duke Ellington meets John Zorn. There were frequently a dozen or more people on stage, what with guest turns by the Dessners, Reed Perry, Worden, Sharon Van Etten and Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. (The latter, like Megafaun, hails originally from Wisconsin - and has played with the band's members previously.)

They did selections from a work-in-progress, Sounds of the South. Commissioned by Duke University, this Megafaun/Fight the Big Bull project (with a major assist from Vernon) sometimes radically, sometimes tenderly reinterprets songs that folklorist/musicologist Alan Lomax collected in the American Southeast and released on Atlantic Records in 1961.

There will be an album and film next year of the new project, but this was only the second public performance so far - the first was last September at Duke. Since the material, thus, was unfamiliar, Megafaun's cheerfully polite multi-instrumentalist Phil Cook introduced the songs and stories behind them to the audience.

Although it's different and far more organic-sounding, this may be the most inventive adaptive reuse of old spirituals and folk music since Moby's Play. The two combined groups were capable of bringing an inexhaustible variety of coloration and approaches to the material, with Fight the Bull roaring like Art Ensemble of Chicago (on "Arkansas Traveler") or providing elegiac accompaniment to its leader's (Matt White) Steve Cropper-style guitar on "Trials, Troubles and Tribulations." The band's Reggie Pace every now and then took a dynamic trombone solo.

On a version of Vera Hall's "Boll Weevil," Megafaun used a sample of her voice to direct their new version's momentum. This mix of energetic, unexpected arrangements, along with songs so firmly planted in Americana and performed with obvious conviction, moved the audience. When the singers formed a half-circle around Worden for an a cappella arrangement of "Go Tell Aunt Nancy," clapping as she danced a little jig, it felt like a mountain-community revival meeting. It also served as a role model for the two nights that followed.

***

The second night had the most esoteric and unfamiliar line-up, which affected attendance. Memorial Hall looked maybe three-fifths full at most. It started with a short set by electronic musician Tim Hecker. Then vocalist/guitarist Little Scream (Laurel Springelmeyer), whose new, debut album The Golden Record was given a huge build-up by Dessner, appeared for a set strengthened by guest appearances by other MusicNOW participants.

She was excited to be present among musicians she admired and revealed a voice capable of moments of powerful interpretation, but some elements of her set - especially her guitar playing - were overpowered by her players and left her in the music's wake. But taking a cue from Megafaun's show, she brought as many other performers on stage as possible for a lovely a cappella version of the gospel song "Bright Morning Star."

The night's final set by violinist/tape-loop-experimentalist/singer-songwriter Owen Pallett showcased his very good songs, but also tested the limits of the venue. His light, pleasant voice didn't project well, and seemed to be fighting his overall sound for attention. It was easy to lose interest.

***

The final night, at Music Hall, belonged to the National, but Van Etten's short opening rock set was tantalizing. Friendly and lacking pretension, she played early while restless people were still arriving. But she still managed to turn their heads with the haunting minor-key build-up of the electrifying "Don't Do It." She also played a squeezebox for her ethereal and fragile "Love More," a ballad that Justin Vernon had covered at last year's MusicNOW. It's conceivable Van Etten could be the next Patti Smith - she has the goods.

Meanwhile, the National may already be the next R.E.M. That occurred to this writer, after watching the dynamics of their set and listening to his wife's comparison. Lead singer/lyricist Matt Berninger, tall and elegantly moody with his appealing Ian Curtis-like baritone voice and stylish suit, seems to have caught some kind of rock ‘n' roll zeitgeist with his mysteriously allusive, sometimes-murmured lyrics, just as Michael Stipe did in the early 1980s. Maybe better - did Stipe ever write a line as good as "I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees?" (It's from "Bloodbuzz Ohio.")

The result is that Berninger elicits respect and identification from his audience, but not hysteria. He's liked for his intelligence. Meanwhile, his phenomenal band - besides the Dessners on guitar (co-songwriter Aaron also plays keyboards), it includes brothers Scott and Bryan Devendorf on bass and drums - creates its own kind of "bloodbuzz." The music is sharp and rugged but never slapdash, and the band avoided falling prey to soloing for its own sake. (Two horn players, using arrangements developed by Bryce Dessner and Padma Newsome, provided some sweetening.)

For this show, which included some friendly stage banter among Berninger and the Dessners, the singer showed leadership and growing confidence on stage, walking through the crowd for the encore tune "Terrible Love" and pushing the microphone stand around at other times. Such performed songs as "Lemonworld," "Squalor Victoria," "Slow Show" and "Anyone's Ghost" may resist easy interpretation, but seem to encourage a deeper crowd response. As did show-stopper "Fake Empire," which became a political anthem - a metaphor for the rot of the Bush administration - during the 2008 presidential campaign.

And sealing what probably will become a MusicNOW tradition, the band and guests closed the show with an acoustic, semi-a cappella version of the stately "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks." It had a campfire-sing-along quality that connected it to the old gospel and folk tunes Megafaun and Fight the Big Bull had done two nights earlier. It was impressive to see the youthful audience respond to it like an anthem, singing along to the "all the very best of us" part as if it was a knight's vow to live honorably in the future.

"We've never forgotten where we come from and it's important for us to he here," Bryce Dessner told the hometown audience at one point. It was important, too, for those who were there.

http://www.stevenrosenwriter.com/

Big Ears Festival Returning in 2012

2011-05-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

After celebrated gatherings in 2009 and 2010, the adventurous, eclectic Knoxville-based event took 2011 off.

By Steven Rosen
www.blurt-online.com

Even as AC Entertainment head Ashley Capps prepares for his company's biggest event of the year, the massive Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., on June 9th-12th, he's announced that the smaller, artier and cutting-edge Big Ears Festival will return next year.

That will be the third edition of the festival, which mixes adventurous rock with New Music, jazz and various experimental strains of pop. It skipped 2011, after occurring in late March of 2010. It is held in Knoxville, AC's headquarters and a city it is trying to help make a Tennessee music-tourism destination like Nashville and Memphis. It uses numerous downtown sites, including two historic, restored theaters - a 1920s-era movie palace called the Tennessee and the smaller, jewel-like 101-year-old Bijou.

The three-day 2010 event featured Terry Riley, a pioneer of Minimalist classical music, as its spotlight artist-in-residence and had such guests as the National, Joanna Newsom (pictured above), Vampire Weekend, the Books, Bang on a Can All-Stars, the Clogs, Nico Muhly, Dirty Projectors and the XX. Bryce Dessner, member of the National and the Clogs, served as its guest curator.

Capps made his commitment to the return of Big Ears during an interview with this writer (for www.soapboxmedia.com) about the similar - but much smaller - festival that Dessner curated this month in Cincinnati, MusicNOW.

"I'm really interested in the concept of boutique festivals," Capps said.

He said it was too hard to put Big Ears together for 2011, since he had also started another indoor festival called Moogfest in Asheville, N.C., that pays tribute to the late synthesizer pioneer (and Asheville resident) Robert Moog and also features an unusual mix of acts. (BLURT was a cosponsor of the event.) It was held over Halloween weekend last October and was a big success, Capps said.

"That's coming back this year with a vengeance," he said of Moogfest.

Loudon Wainwright: 40 Odd Years and Counting

2011-05-20T13:37:00.000-07:00

BY STEVEN ROSEN

Blurt (http://www.blurt-online.com/)

May 16, 2011

The singer-songwriters who came of age in the 1960s and early 1970s are the Boomers' major contribution to the Great American Songbook, and Loudon Wainwright III ranks with the very best.

Credentials? For a start, well into the fourth decade of his recording career, he wrote perhaps the finest song ever about the seductive qualities of Los Angeles - 2007's "Grey in L.A." That was after writing one of the finest songs ever about New York, and post-9/11 America in general, "No Sure Way." And it's hard to find a more poetic, achingly wry take on the loneliness of being an American living in England than 1989's "You Don't Want to Know."

And no bombastic, strutting heavy-metal/flamboyant-hair-and-Spandex rock band ever wrote a song about groupies as good (and as nakedly honest) as the ballad Wainwright put on his spare, acoustic guitar-driven 1971 Album II - "Motel Blues."

They are all, in different ways, classics of empathetic songwriting, emotional and psychologically astute. And, amazingly, they're not really emblematic of Wainwright's premiere accomplishment - the ongoing documentation, sometimes via deceptively gentle ballads and sometimes via upbeat folk-blues tunes and usually drawn from first-hand experience, of his generation's maturation process, especially as it relates to family in all its messy and complicated aspects. Plus, he makes the mundane poetic - an electric duvet plays a key role in "You Don't Want to Know."

Some of those songs are painfully wise and tender, often wrenching in their sharp, telling details and assured in their command of literary devices. And yet he makes it look so easy. In "Your Mother and I," from 1986's More Love Songs, Wainwright tells one of his children, "Your folks fell in love; love's a very deep hole." And 1997's wistful "So Damn Happy" is a masterpiece of layered irony - do we take it at face value that "the sad thing is I'm so damn happy" about a break-up, or is the irony that he's really not happy and is just pretending for the sake of the song?

Some Wainwright songs are absolutely exhilarating, full of youthful joi de vivre, as on the Proustian, bluegrass-like stomper "The Swimming Song" from 1973's Attempted Mustache. Some are shocking in their confessions about personal shortcomings, as in "April Fool's Day Morn," about his relationship with his mother, from 1993's Career Moves."

If Wainwright doesn't quite command the same universal respect among his generation Paul Simon, Randy Newman or Leonard Cohen, it's because he's got such a reputation as a jokester/parodist, a creator of novelties, that those only cursorily familiar with his work may not know how deep he can cut.

After all, his one hit single was 1972's "Dead Skunk" ("in the middle of the road/stinking to high heaven"). Unlike Newman's "Short People," a hit from the same era, there's no greater metaphoric meaning to "Dead Skunk" - it is about what it says. He's also a political satirist - taking on "Newt" and Jesse Helms ("Jesse Don't Like It") in the 1990s. And he's had comic roles in television, movies and theater.

He's also capable of being really ribald, as on 1995's (from Grown Man) "IWIWAL," short for "I Wish I Was a Lesbian." It's delivered with the enthusiasm of a crowd-pleasing sing-out at a hootenanny. (The song is also about grammar - an important point that Wainwright dwells on in the opening monologue is whether it should be "I Wish I Were a Lesbian.")

Maybe the closest Great Boomer Singer-Songwriter to compare to Wainwright is Jonathan Richman, whose goofy, disarming humor often makes people overlook the serious, sometimes-mournful side of his autobiographical songwriting. (The fear and dread in his transcendent "Floatin'" serve as a wonderful bookend to "The Swimming Song.") There are differences - Richman has more often tried to see the world as an eternal innocent, while Wainwright has tried to share the observations of a man grown wiser by awareness of life's passages. But they seem kindred spirits.

Wainwright also is now the patriarch of an important literary and musical family. His father, the late Loudon Wainwright Jr., was an editor/columnist for Life. (Albert Goldman, Life's music critic, once included Loudon III in a column about female singer-songwriters - a joke at dad's expense.) His sister is musician Sloan Wainwright. Rufus and Martha Wainwright are children from his marriage to the now-deceased Kate McGarrigle; Lucy Wainwright Roche is his daughter by Suzzy Roche.

***

Hopefully, acknowledgement of the consistent excellence of Wainwright's work will come with the release of Shout! Factory's four-disc, 91-song boxed set, 40 Odd Years. It's been put together with assistance from Judd Apatow, who hired Wainwright and Joe Henry to score 2007's Knocked Up," from which came two of the set's songs, "Grey in L.A." and Wainwright's version of Peter Blegvad's "Daughter."

Wainwright doesn't do many covers, but "Daughter" shows off another distinct aspect of his talents, the reflective tenderness in his voice, that makes you trust him the way you might an analyst. Wainwright also has a higher-register, thin yet agitated voice - a bit like Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes - that he uses on his more excitable songs, like "It's Love And I Hate It." And while Wainwright has never been much of a rock ‘n' roller, he was certainly listening to it. Note how his fantastical, farcical "The Man Who Couldn't Cry" - a 1973 departure from personal-observation songwriting - builds on a driving, yearning riff similar to Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy."

40 Odd Years - a title that says as much about his followers' experiences on earth as his career - offers three discs of selections from 24 studio and live albums, plus one of rare and unreleased material. That ranges from the terrifyingly sad "No Sure Way," originally on the 2002 Love Songs for New York multi-artist collection, to a duet with comedian Barry Humphries on "Somethin' Stupid."

It's hard to quarrel with what's here. As for what's missing, one wishes maybe the original "Motel Blues" was alongside the lightly rocking version from 2008's Therapy. Also, one wishes for "Cardboard Boxes" and the searing confession about losing control of a daughter, "Hitting You." Maybe, too, the rare disc could have thrown in the hilariously profane "Good Ship Venus" from Hal Willner's 2006 tribute to pirate songs, Rogue's Gallery, just to test the boundaries of good taste.

The set features a DVD collecting live performances, most from the last 20 years but also offering his appearance on a 1975 Saturday Night Live, plus an excerpt (with son Rufus) from a feature on his 2009 Grammy-winning High, Wide and Handsome project about the life of early country singer Charlie Poole.

As for revelations, Wainwright's songwriting didn't dip in the 1980s, after he was dropped by major label Arista during the MTV era and was forced to release less frequent albums on the low-profile, folk-friendly indie label Rounder. Those may have been his years of obscurity and reduced output, but the quality level stayed high.

In a very graceful essay in the accompanying booklet, "My Cool Life," Wainwright self-effacingly dismisses the notion he is brave to sing and write such material. (Oddly, he's discussing "Hitting You," a song not on this set.) "A stage, whether in a club, a concert hall or a cow pasture, is an extremely safe place, at least for a performer. You appear to be exposed but really you're protected," he says.

Still, how many other singer-songwriters have spent so long displaying the guts Wainwright has shown in turning his family and professional life - its failures and triumphs - into material for public consumption? And how many have the talent to make such consistent, enduring art out of that material?

[Photo Credit: Ross Halfin

Songs We Want to See Elvis Play on Monday Night

2011-05-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

A Sound Rotation
Songs we want to see on Elvis Costello’s Spectacular Spinning Songbook

By Steven Rosen

Cincinnati CityBeat, 4-11-01
. . . . . . .

When Elvis Costello and the Imposters take the Taft Theatre stage Monday night, they’ll be toting — and touting — the Spectacular Spinning Songbook, a carnival-size, Roulette Wheel-like prop listing the titles of 40 of the hundreds of songs Costello has recorded and performed in his 30-plus years in music. Hits, obscurities, covers — anything is game.

Audience members take the stage one at a time, give a spin and the band plays whatever song the wheel randomly selects. Costello last did this type of tour in 1986, so there is a lot of dramatic tension in how the game-show aspect of the concert will work this time.

But we’re not satisfied with the outside chance of being at the Taft and being called up to select one song, by total chance. We’d like to suggest a dozen in advance for Elvis to put up on the big board. We are not above jumping on stage and stopping the wheel mid-spin if any of these songs have a spot on the wheel.

“All This Useless Beauty,” from 1996’s All This Useless Beauty. This torch song was written for (and first recorded by) one of the purest singers alive, British Folk chanteuse June Tabor. It’s a good example of how careful and thoughtful Costello can be when writing for someone he really respects.

“Clowntime Is Over,” from 1980’s Get Happy! Not that we would want a show that’s too political, but it would be great to hear Costello do this and dedicate it to that jackass Donald Trump.

“I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself,” from 1978’s Stiffs Live. When Costello covered this 1960s Bacharach/David tune on a multi-artist release from Stiff (a hip British label), it was a forgotten one. The original version, by Tommy Hunt, was never a hit. But not only did Costello help revive it, he also revealed that he — the Angry Young Man — loved classic, soulful Pop. He later collaborated with Bacharach on one of his best albums, 1998’s Painted from Memory.

“I Want You,” from 1986’s Blood & Chocolate. Maybe Costello’s greatest tour de force, this starts as a deceptively pretty country ballad, then turns into a slowly building, scary stalker’s taunt. It’s always been one of his showcase live songs, where he emotionally pushes it well past the album track’s limit. It never gets tiresome.

“Man Out of Time,” from 1982’s Imperial Bedroom. This Year’s Model, King of America, Spike, Painted from Memory and When I Was Cruel offer stiff competition, but for our money, Bedroom is Costello’s single greatest work. The endless tunefulness of the songs, plus the clever arrangements and harmonies, heralded him as Britain’s finest musical export since Lennon and McCartney. It’d be great to hear the whole album live, but this stately rocker (with more than a touch of Blonde on Blonde Dylan) will do.

“My Three Sons,” from 2008’s Momofuko. The meaning of Elvis’ songs can be cryptic when he piles on the words and images. But this mid-tempo tune, sung with pride, emotion and eloquence, is about exactly what it says — he’s honored to have two young twins with wife Diana Krall and an older child who’s now a young man.

“Peace In Our Time,” from 1984’s Goodbye Cruel World. The lyrical density occasionally gets the better of this song’s battle with coherence, but the mid-tempo ballad — seemingly inspired by the Falklands War — has the perplexed anguish of Dylan’s “With God On Our Side.”

“Pills and Soap,” from 1983’s Punch the Clock. Supposedly, Costello wrote this dark and foreboding song, with its slightly baroque keyboard arrangement, after watching a documentary on animal slaughter. But it also functions as a plea — a cry against the costs and losses of war. It comes from the same album that featured the great antiwar protest song, “Shipbuilding.”

“Psycho,” from the 1994 reissue of 1981’s Almost Blue, So deep is Costello’s knowledge of Pop music that he resurrected this amazingly bizarre Country oddity by Leon Payne, inspired by Hitchcock’s hit horror movie, and performed it live in the early 1980s.

“Radio, Radio,” from 1978’s This Year’s Model. This song, as primal and immediate as Punk got, still stings. You can’t listen to commercial Rock radio without realizing that the line, “Radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools/Tryin’ to anesthetize the way that you feel” is more true today than ever.

“So Like Candy” from 1991’s Mighty Like a Rose. This track is a good example of Costello’s fruitful late-1980s collaboration with Paul McCartney, which also resulted in songs on the fine McCartney album, Flowers in the Dirt. Here, Costello gives a jagged edge to McCartney’s feel for beautiful melody, with lyrics that are neither trite nor perplexing.

“Tear Off Your Own Head (It’s a Doll Revolution),” from 2002’s When I Was Cruel. After spending a few years on collaborations that explored different forms of music, Costello came roaring back with an exciting, hard-charging album that showed he had command of Rock any time he wanted to exercise it. This song, the single, offered up his trademark anger but also a slight but irresistible 1960s-era BritPop feel.

ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE IMPOSTERS perform at the Taft Theatre Monday. Buy tickets, check out performance times and get venue details here.

Emmylou Harris' "Hard Bargain"

2011-05-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

Emmylou Harris
"Hard Bargain"
By Steven Rosen
from Americansongwriter.com

It’s surprising the American Association of Anesthesiologists hasn’t chosen Emmylou Harris as the best voice to hear when awakening from surgery. It’s hushed and wistful, pining and a little dreamy, expressive yet not declarative, and snakes in and out of a song’s melody, unexpectedly dropping off an occasional syllable. All in all, it’s a pretty good vocal approximation – soothing, reassuring but with an edge of anxiety and doubt – of what it’s like to slowly emerge back into consciousness after being “away” for awhile.

Because of that ethereal quality, which came to the fore when she worked with producer Daniel Lanois on 1995’s atmospheric Wrecking Ball, Harris has come to be regarded as an art singer – a long way from the folk-rock-friendly country star she was in the 1980s. And she’s labored to produce albums worthy of her new status, painstakingly writing songs and developing recordings that had the proper dramatic import. (On Wrecking Ball, she only shared a three-way writing credit on one song.)

The new Hard Bargain is only her fifth album since Wrecking Ball, counting the live Spyboy. And unlike her previous ones, she didn’t labor so much on it –writing/co-writing 11 of the 13 songs since 2008’s fine All I Intended To Be, and making the disc in just a month with Jay Joyce (Patty Griffin, Cage the Elephant).

What’s striking here is how Joyce, while not rejecting the ephemeral, soothingly mournful quality of Harris’ “art voice,” has given this a pop sensibility. And he’s done it without getting mired in a big, loud, hard sound – Joyce plays electric guitar, Harris acoustic and lead and harmony vocals, Giles Reaves all else.

The unprocessed guitars and clear, hard drumbeats on “The Road” – a remembrance of her start long ago with Gram Parsons – make it rock reasonably hard, while still leaving her room to embrace the ghostly qualities of the subject matter on the choruses. The spare stateliness with which Joyce offers reverb guitar for the ballad “Lonely Girl” recalls “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” It’s reflective and introspective, but also straightforward and upfront.

The irresistible banjo figure that underlies the title song, a Ron Sexsmith composition, makes it bright, warm and cheerful – while being true to the mysteriousness of Harris’ voice. And in the sprightly “New Orleans,” a celebration of the city’s survival, there’s an insistent percussive kick and a chiming happiness.

Besides “Hard Bargain,” only one other song among these 13 is a cover – the romantic Joyce-written “Cross Yourself.” (But Harris worked with Will Jennings on three songs.)

As a writer, Harris sometimes stumbles. In “My Name Is Emmett Till,” she takes the voice of the martyred black youth (lynched in Mississippi in 1955) to awkward effect. And in “Six White Cadillacs,” the imagery never takes hold and the song feels like filler. But she’s also gained strength in addressing personal sadness – her tribute to the late Kate McGarrigle, “Darlin’ Kate,” movingly balances tender reminisce with wishes for a good afterlife.

Harris’ vocal approach to her folk-based songs, ballads or mid-tempo, is infused with the presence of a time-traveler, visiting modern America from a pre-pop-culture place where music is in the air rather than the airwaves.

To that special, rarified quality, Joyce makes these songs sound contemporary, like records you like to hear on the radio. He’s a good match for her.

Bob Dylan at Brandeis, 1963: What If He Had Not Gone Electric?

2011-04-20T05:51:00.000-07:00

New Dylan “Brandeis” LP
04/08/2011
from www.blurt-online.com

By Steven Rosen

While libraries are filled with books about what's been gained from Dylan going electric, it's worth taking a couple minutes - maybe while listening to "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" on Dylan's just-released In Concert: Brandeis University 1963 - to consider what today might be like had he not changed into the great hipster rock poet/roots-Americana progenitor that he became in 1965.

Had he stayed the incisive, shrewdly literate, sometimes-outraged, sometimes-amused protest singer he very much was during his two short sets at the multi-artist Brandeis' First Annual Folk Festival.

Just as he humorously but thoroughly deflates the right-wing extremism (and just-below-the-surface racism) of the John Birch Society, a pressure group of the day, could he have done it today for the similar Tea Party Republicans?

Or, had he continued to write topical songs like this, might he have had such cultural impact this way that right-wing extremists could never be able to achieve the power they now have? We'd be without "Like a Rolling Stone," but we might also be without the likes of Paul Ryan and Scott Walker (and Fox News) trying to undo a century's worth of social justice and political progress - and getting away with it.

Anyway, the music on this short album was recently discovered, as a reel-to-reel tape, in the archives of Ralph Gleason, the influential San Francisco music writer and Rolling Stone co-founder who died in 1975. After his wife passed, their son, Toby, discovered this while clearing the house. (One hopes he saved everything else, too.)

Columbia/Legacy last year allowed Amazon to give it away to people who ordered Bootleg Series Vol. 9 or The Original Mono Recordings. Now it's being released properly, with liner notes by Dylan authority Michael Gray, for just $8.98 list because of its under-40-minute running time. That makes it a good buy.

Dylan, in fine voice and assured attitude with acoustic guitar and harmonica, already was on the cusp of stardom. As Peter N. Kirstein has pointed out on his blog, Dylan's "John Birch" song was performed at Brandeis on May 10th (a Friday, not a Saturday as the back-cover art would have it), just two days before he was scheduled to do it on The Ed Sullivan Show. A CBS censor stopped him in rehearsal; he walked off in protest and never got to be seen.

So he was honing this then-unreleased song, which pretty specifically calls out Birchers as fascists and Nazi sympathizers, at Brandeis - a Jewish-founded, secular liberal-arts school in Waltham, Mass. - before taking it to all America on its most important weekly variety show. In retrospect, it seems at least as gutsy a plan as going electric at Newport.

Other songs on the album include a partial version of "Honey, Just Allow Me One More Chance," "Ballad of Hollis Brown," "Masters of War," "Talkin' World War III Blues," "Bob Dylan's Dream," and "Talking Bear Mountain Blues." Basically, the audience is spellbound - applause is especially extensive after "Masters of War."

The students laugh during "Bear Mountain," which actually is a problem. Written in 1961, it was one of Dylan's first topical songs, according to the book Keys to the Rain, and shows he wasn't yet master of the appropriate tone for his songs. He's unsure whether it should be serious or comic, and leans to the latter. But it's based on a 1961 incident in which panic broke out on an overcrowded New York charter boat, resulting in injuries and not a funny matter.

By the way, the two sets are divided by a break, at which a host - speaking with a somewhat superior tone - asks the audience to move "in front of the curtain" to improve sound in the gymnasium. Ah, college days!

How the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Helped Change Popular Culture as We Know It

2011-03-27T09:07:00.000-07:00

With Much Fanfare

“Fanfares” and CSO’s not-so-quiet role in shaping American culture

By Steven Rosen

(Cincinnati CityBeat, March 23, 2011)

Without much fanfare — well, actually, with fanfare — the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) has played a key role in the shaping of American popular culture as we know it.

That’s the contention made — a bit indirectly — by Sean Wilentz, a Princeton University professor, in his recent book Bob Dylan in America. (He is also historian-in-residence for Dylan’s website, http://www.bobdylan.com/.)

Wilentz’s claims are based on the fact that the CSO commissioned American composer Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” during World War II. In his book, Wilentz believes that Copland played a key role in shaping Dylan’s musical aesthetic and, in turn, so much of the American music and cultural attitude that he has influenced.

The CSO premiered “Common Man” as one of 18 fanfares that composers wrote for its English-born conductor, Eugene Goossens, in 1942-1943 to honor the U.S. military and its allies during World War II. Although they have evolved greatly, partly thanks to Copland’s “Common Man,” fanfares traditionally are short pieces featuring trumpets and snare drums and announcing or honoring important ceremonial events or persons.

“It’s certainly the most-recognized piece of American (Classical) music,” says Paavo Jarvi, CSO’s current music director and a native of Estonia, of the Copland piece. “Without a doubt, it’s something important and can add a lot to our history.”

Wilentz’s spotlight on the Copland-Dylan connection comes as the orchestra is midway through premiering five new fanfares commissioned to honor Jarvi’s10th and final season with the CSO (as well as WGUC’s 50th season as a Classical music public radio station). The third, Count Up, by young Toronto-based composer/pianist Stewart Goodyear (see interview, page 24), debuts Friday and Saturday, following a preview CSO performance of it Thursday at Fairfield High School Performing Arts Center. (He will also play a Bach piece on the orchestra’s new nine-foot Steinway piano.)

The subsequent two fanfares are by Charles Coleman (to be performed on May 6 and 7) and Erkki-Sven Tuur (May 13 and 14), Jarvi’s finale. Fanfares by Jonathan Holland and Jorg Widmann have already been performed.

This is but the third time the CSO has commissioned fanfares — it also did so for its centennial, during the 1994-95 and 1995-96 seasons. Goodyear, who has worked with both the CSO and Jarvi previously, is excited about his opportunity to add to CSO’s illustrious fanfare history.

“This is a happy anniversary with many more years to come, wishing the maestro well and predicting triumphs in the future as well as celebrating his 10 years in Cincinnati,” Goodyear explains. “So there are musical equivalents to counting up to 10. I think composers take the responsibility of composing fanfares very seriously because it is an act of love for whom you’re composing for.”

Usually, music historians say Dylan’s chief influence was the 1930s/1940s leftist-populist ballads and Talking Blues of folksinger Woody Guthrie and his cohorts. The roots of that music, Wilentz explains, are in the Popular Front politics of the era, in which artists — often with connections to the Communist Party, a powerful force in fighting for equal rights in Depression-era America — sought to connect with “the people” by addressing their interests.

Wilentz thinks Copland has served, in his way, as a crucial model for Dylan, especially in the political ambitions and populist musical approach of his most famous piece, “Common Man.” (It was titled after a speech by Franklin Roosevelt’s leftist vice-president, Henry Wallace.)

Earlier, in 1938, Copland had written the groundbreaking ballet “Billy the Kid,” featuring a composing style he called “imposed simplicity,” which used Americana themes and incorporated Folk tunes into its score.

“Copland’s beloved compositions of the late 1930s and the 1940s … contained some of the same leftist political impulses that drove the forerunners of the Folk-music revival of the 1950s and 1960s,” Wilentz writes. “Dylan, meanwhile, grew up in a 1940s America where Copland was becoming the living embodiment of serious American music.”

The author continues, “Copland’s music and persona had no obvious or direct effect on the kinds of music Dylan performed and wrote as a young man, but the broader cultural mood that Copland represented certainly did. And insofar as Dylan’s career has in part involved translating the materials of American popular song into a new kind of high popular art — challenging yet accessible to ordinary listeners — his artistic aspirations are not dissimilar to Copland’s.”

All the CSO’s commissioned wartime fanfares came from well-regarded composers of the time, although none have fared as well in history as “Common Man.” Other fanfares were dedicated to commandos (Bernard Rogers), airmen (Leo Sowerby), The Merchant Marines (Goossens), Russia (Deems Taylor), forces of the Latin American allies (Henry Cowell), the American soldier (Felix Borowski), the Medical Corps (Anis Fuleihan) and several with broader themes like Morton Gould’s “Fanfare for Freedom” and Darius Milhaud’s “Fanfare de la Liberte.”

One reason Copland’s “Common Man” towers above them is it has become ubiquitous, part of modern Classical music’s repertoire and popular among Rock musicians like Emerson, Lake & Palmer. And it has been used on television and at sporting events. Copland even based his Symphony No. 3 on it.

Wilentz believes Copland’s “Common Man” is markedly different in construction from other fanfares, calling it “perhaps the most austere fanfare ever written,” as opposed to the “brief and snappy” model. He sees it as “a subtly esoteric piece of music written for the democratic masses, as well as to honor them.”

Jarvi, too, believes in breaking with fanfare tradition. “What we call ‘fanfare’ today is a symbolic name for the project,” he says. “They’re not going to be fanfares in the old-fashioned sense. What we’re really doing is commissioning new music — that’s one of the important things an orchestra does.” (The CSO has commissioned many works besides fanfares.)

“If nothing else from my 10 years here, I want people to remember they heard a lot of music they hadn’t heard before,” Jarvi adds. “And, at the end of day, what if we find another important piece that remains in repertory and captures the imagination of the public and maybe is played by other orchestras as part of regular concert programming? Out of every 200 commissions, you might actually get something that remains in the history of music, so it’s very important.”

And if one of these five new fanfares does that, it will be in keeping with the legacy created by Goossens and Copland for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

(Photos: Aaron Copland on the left; Bob Dylan on the right)

The Rock Song That Won't Fade Away

2011-03-23T13:42:00.000-07:00

Behind The Song: “Not Fade Away”

By Steven Rosen

(From American Songwriter, March 16th, 2011 http://www.americansongwriter.com/)

At this year’s Grammys, 67-year-old Mick Jagger was out from the get-go to tell the audience how it was gonna be. He wasn’t ceding anything to age. He still had the musical spirit and the stamina – and the physique – of a much younger Rolling Stone. And he sure didn’t act in what many would consider an age-appropriate way when he performed the late Solomon Burke’s “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” on the telecast.

Wiry and hyper-animated, rail-thin and acrobatic, the brown-haired, blue-jeaned Jagger pranced, danced and promenaded his way through this rave-up of a soul stomper, urging the adoring audience to join in. He came out wearing a gold cape, which he doffed to reveal a resplendently glittery turquoise jacket. The band, fronted by younger guitarist Raphael Saadiq, kept the pace fast – once or twice Jagger even chased around or pushed off of Saadiq.

The performance, more than just a tribute to Burke, was a reminder – a revisiting – of the Rolling Stones’ 1964 appearance on The T.A.M.I. Show, when Jagger fronted his young band through a set of R&B/rock tunes. Now here he was, 46+ years later, still making the same kind of vital and exciting music.

When I say “didn’t act in what many would consider an age-appropriate way,” I mean he’s still performing rock ‘n’ roll like he means it. He hasn’t adopted an ironic or self-amused tone, churning out rote sentimental nostalgia for the oldies circuit. He hasn’t let the fury and power of his music – the connection to roots and authenticity – fade away with time.

And that brings up the enduring power of a song the Stones helped define – “Not Fade Away.” When they released their cover of a 1957 Buddy Holly B-side in the U.S. in early 1964, the Stones were trying to push into a market the bright-sounding Beatles (and the Dave Clark Five) were taking by storm. Their choice was to revamp the Holly song with a rough-hewn and scruffy percussive Bo Diddley beat, powered by Keith Richards’ opening guitar chords, eerily perched between minor and major key and a precursor of “Street Fightin’ Man.”

But the song was too bluesy with Brian Jones’ harmonica, too churning and guttural and too dangerous, to hit big on the U.S. charts, although the momentum of the British Invasion pushed it up Billboard’s Top 100 chart to No. 48. The B-side, a version of the Beatles’ “I Wanna Be Your Man,” accounted for a lot of the sales. (In England, “Man” and “Not Fade Away” had been released separately and both were big hits.) It took the Stones a couple more tries to get a big U.S. hit (“Time is On My Side”) and a full year for a single, “(I Get No) Satisfaction,” to rival the Beatles’ biggest songs.

Yet more and more, “Not Fade Away” has come to be one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most prophetic songs – for Jagger and the Stones, the other rockers of their age group, for rock-loving Boomers. It’s one of the Stones’ key recordings. As the years pass it sounds like the defiant shout of someone who has punched through the fear and loathing of “Gimme Shelter” and is still standing. Still performing with artistic commitment intact.

If you doubt that, look at the impressive list of iconic Boomer artists who perform it – like a badge of honor. Bob Dylan. Bruce Springsteen. Patti Smith. The Byrds. Tom Petty. James Taylor. Sheryl Crow. Tanya Tucker. You can see a powerful 1964 version by the Stones on YouTube, with Jones on harmonica and Jagger playing maracas. Perhaps the band after the Stones to do the most to establish the song in the rock canon was the Grateful Dead. According to Wikipedia, they performed “Not Fade Away” 530 times in their career; it was their seventh most-performed song. (It says something about the importance of the band to their fans that this is so well-documented.)

Back in the era when the Stones first recorded “Not Fade Away,” during the initial stages of the British Invasion, a rival band – The Who – recorded (it hit U.S. charts in early 1966) “My Generation.” It caused a huge sensation in the way a sputtering, stuttering Roger Daltrey made the famous line “Why don’t you all f-fade away,” a reference to older squares who didn’t get the Invasion, sound like he was going to say “fuck.” But even more striking was the line “Hope I die before I get old.” For a long time, that seemed like the slogan of the rebellious, counter-cultural rock generation. It appeared that “My Generation” would become an immortal rock anthem. But time marches on. Now, when the song is performed, it’s as a period piece, a wink at the illusions of youth, especially the romantic attitude toward death.

It has become post-modernist ironic. But “Not Fade Away” has not.

“Not Fade Away’s” release history begins when singer-songwriter-guitarist Holly and his band, the Crickets (Joe Mauldin on bass, Jerry Allison on drums, Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar), were just finding their rock groove in autumn, 1957. They were putting some tracks just as the Crickets on the Brunswick label, and some just under Holly’s name on Coral. (Both labels were owned by Decca.) The Crickets’ “That’ll Be the Day” was the first breakthrough and “Not Fade Away” was the B-side of their second Top 10 single, “Oh, Boy!”

It hit airwaves just a month after the release of Holly’s first “solo” hit, “Peggy Sue.” (“Peggy Sue” was the bigger record.) The flip side of “Peggy Sue” – “Everyday” – was recorded at the same session as “Not Fade Away,” on May 27th. So “Not Fade Away” both got lost in the onslaught of Holly product and was a part of Holly’s breakthrough season. Although on a smaller scale, Holly’s breakthrough was a harbinger of 1960s rock bands – a self-contained, unaffected rock band scored with simultaneous singles of its own material. That’s one reason Holly’s music became so treasured by later rockers.

Holly’s “Not Fade Away” has some of the dense, involving rhythm guitar work typical of his superb band, but it’s also a little, excuse the pun, chirpy. He and the others contribute now-dated, prominent back-up vocals, “Ooh bop wop bop-bop,” that sort of sound the way a kid from the wide open plains of Lubbock, Texas, might interpret urban doo-wop music.

The lyrics, credited to Holly (as Charles Hardin) and his producer in Clovis, N.M., Norman Petty, were demanding about chasing an object of affection. The song’s subject is almost a stalker, chasing a girl who’s not interested: “I’m a-gonna tell you how it’s gonna be/A-you gonna give-a your love to me” is the opening line. And then, “My love a-bigger than the Cadillac/I try to show it ‘n you drive-a me back.” (The Stones took the hiccupy accentuations out of the vocal delivery, helping to modernize it.) You can imagine Holly, born before the Baby Boom but just barely past his teen years at the time, imaging the Cadillac as the biggest, best, most powerful, most important object in the world. But not bigger than his love for…”you.”

In its adamant insistence about winning the love of another, underscored by driving rhythm, the song feels influenced by Diddley’s 1956 “Who Do You Love.” Lyrically, it isn’t as weird – how can you match Diddley’s “Got a brand new house on the roadside/made out of rattlesnake hide.”
But it has one absolute masterstroke: That title phrase. It’s grammatically awkward, not even completely coherent. I think it implies “My love for you is so important I’ll never, ever let it fade away.” But that would be a confession. Repeating “not fade away” raises the term to a command, a chant, an incantation. It gives it almost spiritual meaning, which is why the song continues to mean so much. Does anyone really care about the rest of the lyric?

There may be another reason, too, for the song’s ongoing popularity. Holly died in a shocking plane crash on Feb. 3, 1959, in the middle of a cold Midwest concert tour known as Winter Dance Party. It’s been memorialized time and again in pop culture, in film, literature and song (“American Pie”).

In a way, the Stones’ “Not Fade Away” was an early memorial – a cri de coeur to not let Holly’s legacy ever be forgotten. And now, when the musicians with 1960s (and later) roots continue to play it as they begin to consider their mortality, it’s a promise they won’t let that happen to their own, either. My guess is younger musicians – and future ones – will be doing the same.

Is There a Market for a National Leftist (Print) Newspaper?

2011-03-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

Waiting Market for a National Leftist (Print) Newspaper?

In the new report "Why U.S. Newspapers Suffer More Than Others" from Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism's State of the Media 2011, is a very interesting comment from David Levy, director of Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University. He says one type of print newspaper could actually prove to be a success at a time when nothing else seems to be working well.

He points out that the non-ideological nature of the vast majority of major daily newspapers historically went well with their reliance on advertising for the vast majority of their revenue. But now that they can't rely on advertising, that nature may be hurting them.

The report says, "It also may inhibit their ability to raise their circulation rates with readers who might be more willing to support the partisan press with high newsstand prices,according to some experts." And it then quotes Levy: "It's hard to be radical with American newspapers because you don't want to disturb the core of newspapers, but for newspapers that aspire to be national, there's a huge potential."

He doesn't define "radical." Here's a link to the whole report: www.stateofthemedia.org

Truth Teller: Willie Wright

2011-03-21T07:05:00.000-07:00

Reissue of Willie Wright's Telling the Truth

A long-forgotten, soulful record from 1977 offers both power and poignancy.

BY STEVEN ROSEN
(From Blurt -- www.blurt-online.com -- of Feb. 22, 2011)

Willie Wright's Telling the Truth, the latest reissue/rediscovery from the archivists at Chicago's Numero Group, gets off to one strange start. A jivey voice, which sounds like it's introducing a live-radio broadcast from a glittery nightclub, cheerily says, "Hello, music people of the world. Hotel Records and Variety Recording at 130 West 42nd St. in New York City, we proudly present Mr. Willie Wright." There's a slight New York accent to the voice and you wonder what kind of dated, hipsterish hokum you're in for. But then Wright starts to sing a laid-back, introspective, lilting jazzy-folk number - " Nantucket Woman" - pushed gently forward by the expansive, Allman Brother guitar licks of the fine Harry Jensen, and you're taken aback. This sounds intimate, personal, real. What gives?

That's all part of Wright's unusual story - this album was originally (and barely) released in 1977, when Wright was just shy of 40. An African-American born in the South who moved early to New York, discovered his relaxed, mellifluous, honeyed voice (with a touch of Lou Rawls) and spent a peripatetic career traveling between New York, Boston and points between.

He could have had a career in the 1970s to match Bill Withers, O.C. Smith or Terry Callier. And he seems to have tried. But he also seems to have been infused with quite a bit of the countercultural spirit. According to the copiously detailed liner notes accompanying this reissue, he and a partner once ran a head shop in Allston, Mass., but broke up when he wanted to shift all the contents vertically by 90 degrees. That meant the counter and clerks would have to be suspended from the ceiling, which struck the partner as a bit impractical.

Maybe that kind of spirit is why Telling the Truth was released on Wright's own barebones Hotel Records. And in order to afford its production, he cut a deal with Variety Recording, a studio. It halved its rate and got a plug on the album's first cut. Wright pressed just 1,000 copies, selling them himself in Nantucket where he was a popular club draw.

All this makes Wright seem like a total eccentric, a flake, but he doesn't sound like that at all. True, the production limits the dimensionality of the recording, so his voice isn't as dynamic as it could be. But nevertheless, it is friendly and unpretentious, romantic but never melodramatic - it finds the groove and works intuitively with the limited accompaniment (he, himself, plays rhythm guitar and flute). At times, the songs have a solid Southern rock-and-soul dimension. These are tunes Van Morrison would love - quietly trying to push the romantic into the mystic. Greg Allman, too, would have admired the funky-rock fatalism of "It's Only Life, That's All."

The songs are often quite touching lyrically. Wright seems to know his dreams of musical success are slipping from him, and he expresses it with wise resignation. He seems badly to want love - a good relationship - and to need it to get by. (Apparently he found it on occasion. the photo above depicts Wright with his "one-time muse" Susan Hayes.) In "Dressing for the Occasion," he finds solace from job-hunting frustrations in his woman's love. On "In the Beauty of the Night," a ballad that Wright prefaces with flute and some dreamy "la la las," he sings, "Searching through our sounds, for our favorite LPs/There isn't anywhere on earth I'd rather be."

According to the liner notes, Wright had a troubled family life. And that seems to bother him. The ballad, "Son, Don't Let Life Pass You By," which has some gorgeous minor-key chord changes to highlight its generous lyrics, is directed toward a resentful offspring. The piano wisely plays off of Jensen's guitar - at key moments the voice is double-tracked. On the carefully pulsating groove of the celebratory "I'm So Happy Now," Wright is joined by a daughter on back-up vocals: "Finally decided, we can't be divided."

The reissue includes three extra cuts, two of which are also included on a CD-45. One is a version of Curtis Mayfield's powerful "Right On for the Darkness."

Wright, now just over 70, lives in Providence and fights Parkinson's disease. Numero Group doesn't dwell on this, but the liner notes do have a recent quote from him: "I'm trying to do something comfortable with my life. It's not really about the money. I want to contribute something...something timeless."

He's a little late getting discovered, but with Telling the Truth he just might have done that.

Listen to tracks from the Wright album at the Numero site.

King Records' Recording Artist William "Beau Dollar" Bowman Has Died

2011-03-10T05:31:00.000-08:00

William "Beau Dollar" Bowman, a Hamilton-born singer/drummer who recorded at King Records in the 1960s with both The Dapps and Beau Dollar & The Coins, has died in Cincinnati after an extended illness. Until recently, he had been living in Florida. He was 69; information is available at www.webb-noonan.com.

According to a Wikipedia entry, "Beau Dollar & The Dapps were formed in Cincinnati in 1965, where they often played the famous Living Room nightclub. The band consisted of Bowman, Eddie Setser, Charles Summers, Tim Hedding, Ron Geisman, Les Asch, and David Parkinson. The band found success after being discovered by James Brown the same year they were formed. Under Brown's direction, the band produced their first single, "It's A Gas." However, Brown's long-running dispute with King caused the single to be shelved. At the same time, the band also worked with Hank Ballard, who had left The Midnighters in search of solo success. In 1967, they released two singles, "Bringing Up The Guitar" and "There Was A Time" with Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis. The Dapps eventually broke up in 1969. Brown replaced the band with The Pacesetters, who eventually became the JB's. Beau Dollar & The Coins had some success with "Soul Serenade" in 1966 (a cover of the King Curtis 1964 single). Beau Dollar's only solo credited song was "Who Knows" (which is believed to have been backed by The Dapps) in 1970. Beau Dollar also played with Lonnie Mack in the early 60s."

However, that entry conflicts with information available on www.discogs.com, so further research is necessary to establish Bowman's exact body of work. Discogs also points out that the Nashville guitarist/ songwriter Troy Seals also was in the Dapps for awhile, when he lived in Cincinnati. And the site www.ohiosoulrecordings.com lists Beau Dollar's "I'm Ready, I'm Ready (I Got Me Some Soul)/ At The Dark End Of The Street" as a 1969 release as well as 1970's "Who Knows."

Soul Serenade was included on the British multi-artist CD "A Cellarful of Soul," which said in accompanying notes: "Beau Dollar's single may have been produced and inspired by a white Cincinnati guitar hero, but the guys got the feel of King Curtis' 1964 hit 'Soul Serenade' just right for its 1966 soul loving audience. So much so that it became the theme tune for the UK's main black music radio show."

The record, released on Prime, was produced by Mack and is a guitar rave-up. Hear it at You Tube.

As the funk/soul/King Records revival has grown, interest in Bowman, as well as the Dapps, has grown. In an interview last year with CityBeat, Neal Sugarman of Brooklyn's Daptone Records said the Dapps were an inspiration for both the label and the name of its most successful act, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.

(If you have more information, please contact srosenone@aol.com.)

The Public Library As Museum: Shedding Light on Blind Tom

2011-03-03T07:09:00.000-08:00

By Steve Rosen

(adapted from a Cincinnati CityBeat story Feb. 23 2010)
. . . . . . .

Most people would say there’s a clear distinction between a library and a museum. A library circulates books and audio/visual materials to people who want to use them; a museum collects valuable objects in order to protect and preserve them.

But, as it happens, major libraries have a museum-like function — they have special collections of all sorts of unusual and offbeat material, often of a local nature. And as time marches on and those collections get older, they take on increased meaning, value and fascination.

Some public libraries, like Los Angeles’, have even set up small museums and/or galleries to show off their collections. That is happening with the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, too.

Through the end of February, Downtown’s Main Library had an excellent example of what can be done with these special collections. My Castle on the Nile: Illustrated Sheet Music by Black Composers 1880-1944 was on display primarily in the third floor Cincinnati Room.

Now, beginning March 7, the Library dips into the prints from Cincinnati’s old Strobridge Lithography Company to show some of its late-19th/early-20th-century theater, circus and magic-show posters. Up though May 28, the exhibit is nicely timed to coincide with a similar show of Strobridge circus posters at Cincinnati Art Museum.

The Library has over 1,000 Strobridge posters from that era, all donated when the company was sold in 1960. There are some oddities in the collection, such as an aerial view of Camp Dennison, reports Patricia Van Skaik, who runs the Cincinnati Room.

My Castle on the Nile was curated by Theresa Leininger-Miller, an associate professor of art history at UC, and was absorbing as both art and American history/sociology. As the latter, its lessons were bittersweet. For all the accomplishments of these songwriters, they had to negotiate a racist society where they were expected to conform to stereotypes. For one person represented in the show, "Blind Tom," that negotiation was extraordinary. The cover art, usually by white illustrators, often reflected the stereotypes. (The Library has some 10,000 song sheets in its collection, since Cincinnati was once a publishing center.)

But there were some fascinating stories here. Henry Creamer and Turner Layton wrote a tune that Sophie Tucker recorded, “After You’ve Gone.” There is self-taught composer James A. Bland’s 1878 “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” which, in 1914, became the first recording by a classical artist (Alma Gluck) to sell a million copies. And then there is Gussie Davis, who left his native Cincinnati for New York and a solid songwriting career on Tin Pan Alley, the first African American to do so. He wrote the famous “folk” song, “Irene, Goodnight.”

Of further interest were three items by/about Blind Tom. Diane Malstrom, Cincinnati research librarian, provided information: One is a brief biography article published in New York around 1868 entitled The Marvelous Musical Prodigy, Blind Tom. The other two items were sheet music: Oliver Gallop by Thomas Wiggins (Bethune) or Blind Tom (1860) and Blind Tom's Waltz (1865).

She also provided label copy from the exhibit about the fascinating Blind Tom -- a musician worthy of a biopic or major biography:

Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins (1849–1908), blind from birth, was an autistic savant and musical prodigy who published numerous compositions and had a lengthy performing career. He was born on the Wiley Edward Jones Plantation in Harris County, Georgia and sold with his parents to Columbus, Georgia lawyer General James Neil Bethune. Bethune renamed the child Thomas Greene Bethune, or Thomas Wiggins Bethune.

Bethune’s daughters granted the boy access to their piano. By age five Wiggins reportedly had composed his first tune,“The Rain Storm.” The general then allowed him to live in a room attached to the family house, away from the slave quarters, equipped with a piano,which Wiggins played for almost twelve hours daily. While he could repeat conversations up to ten minutes in length, he communicated his own needs with mere grunts and gestures.

A traveling showman, Perry Oliver, rented Wiggins at the age of eight and marketed him as a “Barnum-stylef reak,” advertising the transformation from animal to artist. The press compared Wiggins to a bear, baboon, or mastiff. Wiggins could faithfully reproduce any performance, often after a single listening. The “audience challenge” became a regular feature of his concerts. Supposedly, he learned 7,000 pieces of music, including hymns, popular songs, waltzes, and classical repertoire. He also uncannily imitated nature sounds and voices of public figures.

Novelist Willa Cather, writing in the Nebraska State Journal, called Wiggins “a human phonograph, a sort of animated memory, with sound producing power.”Bethune toured Wiggins throughout the South. In 1860, as Blind Tom, he performed at the WhiteHouse before President James Buchanan. Mark Twain attended many of Wiggins’ performances over several decades.

Bethune took Wiggins on a European concert tour in 1866 and, in 1875, transferred management to his son who accompanied Wiggins on tour around the U.S. for the next eight years. Each summer he lived in New York where Joseph Poznanski transcribed new compositions. Wiggins insistedthat many of them be published under such pseudonyms as Professor W.F. Raymond, J.C. Beckel, C.T.Messengale, and Francois Sexalise.

In 1882, John Bethune married his landlady, Eliza Stutzbach, then went on an eight-month tour with Wiggins. Feeling abandoned, Eliza divorced John then hounded him for financial support. After John died, Tom was returned to General Bethune. Eliza sued Bethune and won custody in 1887. Under her management and that of her attorney (and later husband), Wiggins toured for years. He usually introduced himself onstage in the third person and talked about his mental state with a lack of self-awareness.

A doctor diagnosed him as non compos mentis, which Wiggins thought was impressive. Unending legal challenges to Eliza’s custodianship forced her to stop touring him around 1893. In 1903, she put him on the popular vaudeville circuit, beginning with Brooklyn’s Orpheum Theater. He played for a year, then suffered a stroke in 1904, which ended his public performing career.

After the death of her husband, Eliza relocated to Hoboken, New Jersey, with Wiggins. They kept out of public view, though neighbors could hear Tom’s piano playing at all hours of the day and night.

There are many other special collections in the Library waiting to be explored and discovered, including one with some 250 charts and posters covering scientific and technological subjects and a huge map collection that includes 20 globes. Additionally, the Library has a collection of around 25,000 theater, dance, music and film programs.

One of my favorite special collections consists of restaurant menus. You can hungrily watch Cincinnati commercial and social history — as well as dining trends and prices — change through the decades as you peruse the bills of fare from long-gone places like The Heritage, Gourmet Room, Busy Bee, Caproni’s, Central Oyster House, Cricket, InCahoots, Jack & Klu’s, Mahogany Hall, Perri’s Pancakes, The Playboy Club, Pigall’s, Shuller’s Wigwam, Warren Sublette’s Winery, Wiggins, Zimmer’s, Zinos and maybe more. It’s one really worth an exhibition — hopefully with snacks.

For more information, visit www.cincinnatilibrary.org.

Randy Newman Talks About His Dreams for a Jane Fonda Musical, and More

2011-02-22T06:24:00.000-08:00

I Am Newman, Hear Me Score

By Steven Rosen
(From Cincinnati CityBeat,2-16-11)

Randy Newman’s foray into southwest Ohio this week, performing at Miami University’s Middletown campus Saturday, is a rare treat.

It’s not that he doesn’t like going on the road (“I enjoy doing that,” he says during a telephone interview), but he has so many competing interests, it’s often difficult to find the time. In addition to being a singer/songwriter (his first album came out in 1968) whose often-ironic, satirical and sometimes-character-driven compositions like “Short People,” “Sail Away” and “I Love L.A.” have become contemporary Pop classics, he’s also become a major composer for film.

His first breakthrough in film music came in 1981 with the Oscar-nominated song and score for Ragtime. That field has so blossomed for Newman over the decades, especially with his involvement with Disney/Pixar movies, that he’s received an Oscar (for Best Song from Monsters, Inc.) and been nominated 19 other times. His “We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3 is nominated for Best Song this year. He also had two Grammy nominations this year — for Toy Story and for “Down in New Orleans” from The Princess and the Frog. The film work makes it hard for Newman to craft his usual evocative and provocative Pop songs — some of them, like “God’s Song,” with deep philosophical dimensions — on a regular basis. His last album, Harps and Angels, came out in 2008; the previous one, Bad Love, came out in 1999.

Newman has also become the subject of a new musical revue that uses his songs, also called Harps and Angels. It recently premiered in a limited run at Los Angeles’ prestigious Mark Taper Forum, produced by L.A.’s Center Theatre Group. The ensemble cast (featuring Michael McKean, Katey Segal, Storm Large and others) performs highlights from the Newman songbook in the production, conceived by Jack Viertel, who also created Smokey Joe’s Café, a revue based on the early Rock and R&B hit songs of Leiber & Stoller (“Hound Dog,” “Charlie Brown,” “Yakety Yak,” “Jailhouse Rock’). The director, Jerry Zaks, like Viertel, is a Broadway veteran.

“They’re hoping to take it across the Mississippi at some point,” Newman says.

One person with a say — and much at stake — in Harps and Angels’ future is Cincinnatian Rick Steiner. Although based here, he’s become a major Broadway producer and investor. Among shows he’s backed are Big River, Hairspray and Jersey Boys. Steiner is a producer/investor for Harps and Angels, and he attended the L.A. opening and hoversees the production’s merchandising.

“He’s a good guy,” Newman says of Steiner. “I know he’s very committed to musical theater and seemed happy with things. So we’ll see.”

Reached by phone at his Cincinnati office, Steiner was effusive speaking about Newman. He also explained that he has a long history of supporting Viertel’s projects.

“When Jack did Smokey Joe’s Café in 1993 or so, he said to me, ‘I’m thinking of doing a program of Leiber & Stoller,’ and I said, ‘Count me in.’ He said, ‘You don’t even know what I’m doing.’ I said, ‘I love Leiber & Stoller’s music and have since I was very young.’ ”

“This is much more of a highbrow endeavor,” Steiner explains, since Newman doesn’t have many big Top 40 hits to play off of, like Billy Joel or ABBA. “But it’s similar as a revue to what we did in Smokey Joe’s. Randy’s music is so magnificent, each song tells such a wonderful story. If we can pull it off it will be something we’re proud of.

“I’m very hopeful we can keep developing it and get it to where we want it, which is Broadway,” Steiner adds. He says the goal is to have another production, probably on the East Coast, premiere before a Broadway decision is made.

Newman has been the subject of musical theater revues before, but never on Broadway. In 1982, there was Maybe I’m Doing It Wrong, named after one of his wry early songs. (A production was staged at Cincinnati’s Playhouse in the Park.) And The Education of Randy Newman was debuted by Cosa Mesa, Calif., company South Coast Repertory in 2000 and later had a Seattle run.

Newman says there were also earlier attempts.

“There was one called Somewhere in Middle of the Night or … Middle of Nowhere,” he recalls. “And there was one done in Cincinnati a long time ago. I don’t know what the name of it was.” (The Playhouse had no record of any Newman show other than Maybe I’m Doing It Wrong.)

“I thought (Harps and Angels) was executed the best,” Newman says. “Singers have gotten better about singing with a backbeat, the type of stuff I do when it’s moving a little.”

Newman has tried his hand at composing for musical theater. His ambitious Randy Newman’s Faust, based on Goethe’s play about a man whose soul is the object of a struggle between God and the devil, debuted in 1995 at San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse. Updated to modern times, Newman’s Faust was a Notre Dame University student. His work later was performed at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre and, while it had fierce defenders, it was ultimately a commercial failure.

“I’m proud of it — I think it’s the best thing I ever did, all in all,” Newman says. “I put everything I knew in it.”

While he sometimes entertains notions of reviving it, Newman would rather work on a new idea he has for a musical (after completing songs for his next singer/songwriter album, that is).

“I’ve long had an idea I haven’t done anything about, but have talked it to death,” Newman says. “Jane Fonda. Think about it. She’s a kid in a cold kind of movie-star home, becomes a movie star walking down the street, and takes a walk on the wild side. Exercise video, Ted Turner, in Vietnam sitting on a gun.” (She was famously photographed during a 1972 visit to North Vietnam, as part of her opposition to the U.S.’s pro-South Vietnam involvement in the war, seated on an antiaircraft battery.)

“It’s kind of fantastic,” Newman says of her life story. “I’ve talked to her about it. I believe I have her permission. I admire her a great deal; she’s an unaffected kind of good person.”

Who knows? If he’s serious, he might find an interested producer right here in Cincinnati.

(www.stevenrosenwriter.com)

Small But Mighty Regional Music Festivals

2011-02-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

By STEVEN ROSEN, Special Contributor

Dallas Morning News
Published 23 January 2011

Traveling to pop music festivals is like shopping for clothes. There are the department-storelike big outdoor festivals, such as Tennessee’s Bonnaroo or southern California’s Coachella, with endless talent lineups and even longer bathroom lines. A notch down are the smaller haberdasherlike specialists, some quite tony, that have a familiar brand name (blues, jazz, bluegrass, jam bands) and stick with it year after year.

But percolating up from below are smaller, boutique music festivals — sometimes funky and sometimes chic — that try to do something completely different. They can last for just a weekend, or take up semi-residencies in a city with events spread over weeks.

Their purpose may be to revive some forgotten style of music such as 1950s-era rockabilly (Viva Las Vegas, to be held April 21-24 in the city that never sleeps) or to celebrate obscure “unsung heroes of rock ’n’ roll,” as is the mission of New Orleans’ Ponderosa Stomp. Sometimes, too, they veer toward the avant-garde. And sometimes their purpose is just to obsess over something weird, like bringing together worldwide Beatles tribute bands for a weekend of communal “yeah, yeah, yeahs.”

Some fests even have daytime seminars or public discussions with performers. In that way, they’re like film festivals: rewarding even if you aren’t already a fan of the music they feature. Even a venerable high-end fine-arts festival such as Spoleto USA, a series of separate musical and theatrical performances in Charleston, S.C., (May 27 through June 12), now fits this “boutique” description as it modernizes with more diverse and youthful acts. Last year, for instance, two Australian comedians, impersonating a German punk-rock duo called Die Roten Punk, headlined a hilarious and rockin’ late-night show.

At a boutique music festival, you never quite know what to expect.

For example, MoogFest, an eclectic progressive-pop fest dedicated to the creative spirit of the late synthesizer inventor Robert Moog, is held over Halloween weekend in Asheville, N.C. (Moog lived there in his later years, and there’s an effort there to build a museum about his work.) Last year’s lineup ranged from Syrian vocalist Omar Souleyman, who sang his energetic, Middle Eastern dance music wearing a native headdress and shades, to a hip, hot British synth-pop band named Hot Chip.

En route between venues on Halloween night, I turned an isolated, dark corner and before me, walking quietly and intently, were a young woman dressed in a spectacular red outfit and a man wearing a wolf mask and a tux. We acknowledged each other and moved on.
Such is the spirit of Asheville — a youthful, mountain-town version of Austin — during MoogFest.

At Abbey Road on the River, which brings worldwide Beatles-tribute bands to attractive downtown Louisville, Ky., over Memorial Day weekend, you can relive every phase of the Fab Four’s career. (A second Abbey Road is held Labor Day weekend in Washington, D.C.) It occurs at multiple venues both outdoors in a park along the Ohio River, and indoors at the adjacent Galt House hotel. At last year’s fest, a scruffy European band played the raucous rock ’n’ roll of the Beatles’ pre-fame Hamburg, Germany, period on one stage while a small orchestra, dressed in colorful band costumes with elaborate stage lighting, played the elaborately arranged “Sgt. Pepper”-era art rock elsewhere.

Boutique music festivals can have really big stars. Nashville’s Americana Music Festival & Conference, held at historic Ryman Auditorium and smaller settings, was started for music professionals with careers in this naturalistic blend of rock, country and folk. But it now is open to outsiders. Last year, it featured unannounced sets by such stars as Robert Plant , Lucinda Williams and Dierks Bentley. It occurs this year Oct. 12-15.

Bryce Dessner , a guitarist with the popular, Brooklyn-based rock band the National, curates the three-night MusicNow festival in his hometown, Cincinnati . It is tentatively set for May 14-16, with at least some shows in downtown’s Memorial Hall, a 102-year-old jewel box of an intimate auditorium. The festival mixes cutting-edge rock (Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear) with jazz (Bill Frisell ) and contemporary classical (Kronos Quartet). Last year, Dessner commissioned the brittle, edgy rock guitarist Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent, to write a classical-music piece in memory of a local murdered arts student. Vincent sat quietly in the balcony, moved, while the New York group yMusic performed her composition.

Ponderosa Stomp is a two-night New Orleans party dedicated to reviving the fortunes of “unsung heroes of rock ’n’ roll” and related music. Although it’s moving to a new location this year for its Sept. 16-17 fest, it had been at the crowded, sweaty House of Blues in the French Quarter. No rock fan with a sense of history has truly lived until seeing the original ? (Question Mark) and the Mysterians hold court at 3 a.m. with an extended version of their propulsive 1966 garage-rock classic “96 Tears,” as happened at P-Stomp in 2008. The years melted away, and they were again as big as the Rolling Stones in the eyes of everyone present.

Such unexpected magic can happen at boutique music festivals.

Steve Rosen is a freelance writer in Ohio.

Travel details
Prices can vary for boutique music festivals, depending on the size, scope and demand of the event. Ponderosa Stomp, where the multiartist evening shows featuring hard-to-see-live cult artists and occur in one club, has been $50 per night. The Abbey Road on the River festivals, which have multiple stages for concerts and booths selling Beatles collectibles, music, books and souvenirs as well as food and drinks, are $199.95 for the full four-day event or $129.95 for two-day packages, with early-purchase discounts. The prestigious Americana Music Festival & Conference, with its roster of big names, is selling early registration for $350.

Resources
All of these festivals have Websites with information, although some may not yet be updated for 2011. Some, such as Abbey Road on the River, Spoleto USA and Ponderosa Stomp, offer travel packages with agencies or hotels.
-- Spoleto USA, www.spolettousa.org
-- MusicNow, www.musicnowfestival.org
-- Abbey Road on the River, www.abbeyroadon theriver.com
-- Americana Music Festival and Conference, www.americanamusic.org
-- Ponderosa Stomp, www.ponderosastomp.com
-- MoogFest, www.moogfest.net
-- Viva Las Vegas, www.vivalasvegas.net

(Photo of Sugar Pie DeSanto at Ponderosa Stomp, 2010, by Joe Rosen and courtesy of the festival.)

How "Don't Stop Believin'" Became Such a "Monster" Hit

2011-01-20T07:36:00.000-08:00

(From American Songwriter,Nov./Dec. 2010)
By Steven Rosen

Pop stars of disparate ages and musical styles, when forced to share a stage, can be as awkward together as “strangers waiting up and down the boulevard.” They need a song to bring them together – and the one they choose, if it works, can have all the pop-culture portent of a classic TV show’s finale.

There’s no better – or odder – recent example of a musical common bond than the spectacle of seeing Sting, Blondie’s Deborah Harry, hoop-skirted and gray-hair-bewigged Lady Gaga, Elton John, “Goldfinger’s” Shirley Bassey and a guitar-strapped Bruce Springsteen on stage in May at Carnegie Hall at the end of a Rainforest Fund benefit. Their unifying hymn? Journey’s 1981 power ballad, “Don’t Stop Believin.’” The song reached No. 9 on Billboard’s Hot 100 – by Journey standards, just average – and had faded from pop culture until a comeback in this century’s first decade.

Lady Gaga – the youngest of the sextet and unburdened by being a “rock” legend or interpreter of older show/movie tunes (like Bassey) – seemed a natural for it. But the others? “Don’t Stop Believin’” used to be thought of, in hip rock circles, as the kind of overly emphatic Top 40 power-ballad – with Steve Perry’s grandiloquent vocals stretching out inspirational catch-phrase lyrics – that Blondie’s and The Police’s New Wave, not to mention Springsteen’s backstreets authenticity, were created to battle. And what’s with that “south Detroit” reference?

But there they were, singing it and looking pretty happy. Maybe not quite as happy, however, as the cast of “Glee,” in this summer’s season finale, where their defiant, fist-pumping version brought a Journey medley to an emotional climax.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” was not Journey’s biggest radio hit. “Open Arms” and “Who’s Crying Now” were bigger and the group had three other songs make the Top Ten. In the immediate decades after the release, it certainly could be heard on classic-rock radio, but it wasn’t considered one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest anthems.

But now, according to Wikipedia, it is the top downloaded pop song – almost four million – of any recorded before the 21st Century. This past summer, Journey’s version was one of iTunes Top Ten most-recorded pop songs. It’s even made Broadway – it’s a showstopper in the hit musical “Rock of Ages.”

“Don’t Stop Believin’” seems to have been reborn as a heartfelt anthem, an instant evocation of youthful hope and desire for the future. But also one with a film-noir-like dark undercurrent. And both elements appeal to contemporary pop culture.

Though it ends triumphantly, the song opens with Jonathan Cain’s foreboding keyboard signature and then Perry, in a voice choked with melancholy, begins “Just a small town girl/living in a lonely world…” He moves on to describe a scary urban landscape filled with “the smell of wine and cheap perfume,” “shadows searching in the night,” and those “strangers waiting up and down the boulevard.”

It’s the song’s triumphal aspect, no doubt, that has spurred much of its revival – “Glee” taps into it, as did the Chicago White Sox when they made the song an anthem of their 2005 World Championship season.

But “Sopranos” creator David Chase tapped into the noir quality when he had Tony Soprano choose it on the restaurant jukebox for the dark, mysterious, final episode of the series. The show stops abruptly right after Perry sings “Don’t Stop” at the fade-out.

Perry, who long ago left the band – and, seemingly, being an active musician although he had a 1984 solo hit, “Oh Sherrie,” much bigger initially than “Don’t Stop Believin’” – addressed the resurgence in an interview earlier this year with Britain’s Planet Rock radio station. He recalled how, even though the song was not that big on radio, it resonated with fans at concerts. That helped him believe in it. “Personally, it’s something that means a lot to me,” he said. “…Everybody has emotional issues and problems, and the song has helped me personally to not give up, and I’m finding a lot of people feel that.”

To this writer, the song’s renewal was most helped by its inclusion in 2003 indie film Monster. (Perry gets a credit as music consultant.) It’s a tough, gripping and ultimately tragic story of Ailenne Wuornos, the Florida prostitute executed in 2002 for killing her johns. The movie wasn’t widely seen, but had a strong impact on the creative community – Charlize Theron won the Oscar for transforming herself into the downtrodden, homely Wuornos. (Theron was also a producer.)

Early in the film, the song plays when Ailenne roller-skates at a rink with a girl (played by Christina Ricci) who finds her attractive. They start kissing on the rink, then passionately embrace outside. For both, this constitutes a bold, public moment of coming out and finding love – and, for a while at least, hope. It makes what follows all the sadder, because we glimpse a different path. Monster gave “Don’t Stop Believin’” a newfound profundity. It was no longer just nostalgia.

In 2003, I interviewed both Theron and director Patty Jenkins about the song choice.
“We shot the scene listening to Journey, and it does so much for the movie because it’s such a great song for the movie when you listen to lyrics,” Theron said. “But we had no money in the budget, so I wrote (Perry) a very nice letter just very truthfully saying we had always dreamed of doing this song. We sent all the band members a tape of the movie to watch. Steve called us back. He really loved the film and said he saw what we were trying to do with the music, and that it was a very authentic moment for us in that film.”

He gave approval, and helped Jenkins with other song choices. And in return, Monster helped “Don’t Stop Believin’s” path to becoming a monster hit all over again.

(Photo is of Journey's Steve Perry)

Rock Gets Better At 50 (And Older)

2010-12-23T06:36:00.000-08:00

ROCK GETS BETTER AT 50 (AND OLDER)

By Steven Rosen

Cincinnati CityBeat, Dec. 22, 2010

Once not so long ago, Rock by the over-50 crowd was the stuff of Rhino Records’ Golden Throats series — Mae West doing The Beatles’ “Day Tripper,” anyone? But, like so much else, it’s gotten better with age. So much better, in fact, that some of the year’s most satisfying Rock (and related) music was made by the over-50 crowd. Here are the 10 best of 2010, in alphabetical order:

Homeland by Laurie Anderson (age 63): A magnum opus by this artist who combines electronic music, minimalism, political commentary, Rock rhythms and gorgeous melodies, it takes on post-Great Recession America with insight and humanity. “Only an Expert” is a song all should hear.

Lighthouse by Susan Cowsill (51): Too few people know that this member of the family Rock band The Cowsills (“Hair”) has gone on to a career as one of our sharper female singer/songwriters. This album features her clear voice and fine songs, plus a version of Jimmy Webb’s “Galveston.”

King for a Day by Micky Dolenz (65): Dolenz first met Carole King when she co-wrote such songs for The Monkees as “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and “Take a Giant Step.” Here, in great voice and with wonderful arrangements and first-class production, he returns the favor by covering her compositions from the 1960s and 1970s.

True Love Cast Out All Evil by Roky Erickson (63) with Okkervil River: Helped by a younger Austin Indie Rock group, the legendary, mentally troubled survivor of Texas Psychedelic Rock (13th Floor Elevators) was able to not just salvage forgotten older songs but fill them with renewed energy, relevance and glory.

The Union by Elton John (63) and Leon Russell (68): You have to thank two other 60-plus artists, John’s songwriting partner Bernie Taupin and producer T Bone Burnett, for their first-rate contributions to this album. But John is emotive and schmaltz-free, and Russell also contributes several fine songs.

Praise & Blame by Tom Jones (70): Jones’ forcefully energetic, dynamic voice has long been able to tackle any material — the late-career surprise has been how sensitively he handles different musical styles. On this Roots/Country album, he mixes judiciously chosen covers (a great version of Dylan’s “What Good Am I?”) with some evocative originals he co-wrote.
No Better Than This by John Mellencamp (59)Always interested in populist Folk tunes about the state of America, Mellencamp has continued to strip his sound to better bare his gruff, plaintive voice. Working with producer T Bone Burnett and using one microphone and a mono tape recorder, he’s made an album that sounds new and relevant in its oldness.

Band of Joy by Robert Plant (62): Too musically curious to just keep re-mining his Led Zep days, Plant and his expert Americana producer, Buddy Miller, put his love for all things Rock into a collection of atmospheric, mysterious originals and covers, like Low’s “Monkey.”

You Are Not Alone by Mavis Staples (71): After recently having Ry Cooder produce a classic album for her, Staples turned to Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy for this, which stays true to her Gospel sensibilities while adding some fine new material (Tweedy’s title song, for instance) to her repertoire.

My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky by Swans (led by Michael Gira, 56): Creative use of noise is one of Rock’s greatest contributions to popular music and Gira’s Swans have been in the forefront. But on their first album in 14 years, they find space for quieter, bluesy (and eerie) songs with penetrating lyrics that demand attention.

(Photos of Micky Dolenz, left, and Laurie Anderson)

(srosenone@aol.com)

A Visual Artist Finds Renewed Interest in His Singer-Songwriter Work

2010-12-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

The Spoken Songs of Jay Bolotin

By Steven Rosen

Cincinnati CityBeat, Dec. 8, 2010
. . . . . . .

Since first showing his wood sculptures at Carl Solway Gallery in 1980, Jay Bolotin has become one of Cincinnati’s most acclaimed artists.

He has gone on to make and score a film based on his narratively complex and mysterious woodcuts, Jackleg Testament, that has attracted an international following. Earlier this year, he had an ambitious exhibition at Solway, Leaves From a Cast Paper Novel, that primarily used text and drawings to establish the story for his planned Jackleg Testament: Part Two.
That project could still be years away.

But in the meantime, the 61-year-old Bolotin — who lives in North Fairmount and has a Brighton studio — has been devoting time to a related but somewhat separate aspect of his artistic career. He’s finding new attention as a singer/songwriter, for both his past and present work.

That was evident on a recent Wednesday night at Northside Tavern, where some 100 people listened intently during a rare local performance of his strange, vividly imagistic “spoken songs.” He uses that term to refer to his material because the songs frequently contain monologues. He also plays guitar and sings in a plaintive voice with a hint of native-Kentucky drawl. (He was living on a farm in Kentucky when Solway first visited him.)

In the concert, he presented such compelling and unpredictable characters as Molly and Salvador (in one song) and William Bodine, who in “Serpent Song” runs up a hill to beat the sun and is also the subject of Bolotin’s epic “Death of William Bodine.” Bolotin also shared a duet with Ali Edwards (Ruby Vileos, The Kiss Me Everlasting) on a humorous back-and-forth number called “A Strange, Strange Rule.”

Some of the songs performed at Northside Tavern go back 20, even 30 years. One was new — the beautiful “The Mirror,” with its spectacularly evocative passage “The lights from the trucks on the Interstate/Got caught in the mirror in the entranceway/And danced on the ceiling in the living room.”

Bolotin lately has also been thinking a lot about the music he made much earlier, beginning when he was a teenager living in Rhode Island in the late 1960s and performing more straightforwardly Folk songs. He had gone there to study at Rhode Island School of Design, but found himself more interested in music.

Bolotin became friends with members of a group called Tombstone Blues Band, which indirectly led to Bolotin’s self-titled 1970 album on a label called Commonwealth United. Sparely produced in New York with subtle combo accompaniment, the songs are well written and sung in a low and direct voice that fit the ruminative singer/songwriter times. But the label collapsed shortly after release and few albums ever got to the stores.

In 2007, Bolotin returned from performing music in St. Petersburg, Russia, to find a telephone message waiting for him.

“It was from Rob Sevier, who I didn’t know, and he had been a fan of the record and was looking for me,” Bolotin recalls in a telephone interview after his Northside Tavern show. “I had not heard it for 40 years.”

Sevier is a co-owner of Chicago’s Grammy-nominated Numero Group reissue label, one of the new breed of archivist record companies scouring for “lost” Roots material. It has been finding and re-releasing all sorts of obscure Folk, Garage Rock, Blues, Soul and Gospel music from the 1960s-1980s. Sevier subsequently interviewed Bolotin for a music Web-site called Waxidermy, and then included a cut from the 1970 album on his company’s Wayfaring Strangers: Lonesome Heroes compilation. And he also helped arrange for another small, connoisseur Chicago label, Locust Music, to reissue Bolotin’s original album in late 2009.

“It’s good songwriting, singing and playing, and a bit downcast, which I like,” Sevier explains by phone. “And it’s a pretty appealing set of songs that are not bound by any specific time.”
Bolotin not only doesn’t perform any of that material live today but he had already forsaken it by the time he moved to Nashville in the early 1970s.

While there for several years, before moving back to Kentucky, he became friends with fellow songwriters like Kris Kristofferson, Dan Fogelberg and Mickey Newbury. No record releases came out of that period, but he won admirers. Some artists recorded his songs, including Fogelberg, who released “Go Down Easy” as a single, while Kristofferson paid for Bolotin to do some demo sessions.

“It wasn’t that I was one of the boys,” Bolotin recalls. “They liked what I was doing because I was rather odd. I was telling stories from the stage back then and they loved it. But the bigger people didn’t like it. There’s an article somewhere where Kris called the people on Music Row ‘fools’ for not signing me, and next couple times when I met those people, they introduced themselves as one of those fools on Music Row. I was not part of the ‘in crowd,’ believe me.”

But later in the 1970s, Merle Haggard produced six songs — using a chamber orchestra on one and including an early version of “Death of William Bodine” — for an aborted project.

Because of the renewed interest in his 1970 solo album, Bolotin has tracked down and digitized tapes of his various Nashville recordings, including the Haggard sessions, as well as some 1980s New York sessions. He isn’t sure what to do with them yet, but he has his eye on releasing them. (Bolotin’s most recent album of newer material, Songs of Jay Bolotin Volume One: Shadow of a Beast, came out in 2006.)

Bolotin finds this new interest in his early career surprising, since he so long ago had moved on.
“Wow, it’s something one hasn’t thought about for all this time, but all these young bucks with their record labels are interested in it,” he says.

(For more on JAY BOLOTIN’s reissued 1970 solo album, visit www.locustmusic.com or find it on iTunes (along with the more recent Songs of Jay Bolotin Volume One: Shadow of a Beast).

(Photo of Jay Bolotin on stage in St. Petersburg, Russia, 2007, by Maria Skorlupkina and courtesy of Pokoleniy Theatre.)

Mining the Ever-Deeper Depths of King Records

2010-11-22T07:05:00.000-08:00

A Royal Revival for King Records:

By Steven Rosen

(This appeared in Cincinnati CityBeat, 11-17-10)
. . . . . . .

For years, Rock historians have said the reason Cincinnati’s King Records doesn’t have the enduring public regard that, say, Detroit’s Motown or Memphis’ Sun labels have is because it didn’t have a readily identifiable sound. King recorded too many kinds of music — even too many kinds of R&B, its greatest strength. In other words, it valued quantity over quality. For every James Brown or Hank Ballard classic, there was less distinguished stuff like “Gibble Gobble” by Willie Wright & His Sparklers or “Do the Ginger Snap” by Little Bobby Moore.

But now an alternative theory is emerging — that it’s the breadth and depth of its Americana material that made King (and its affiliated family of labels, especially Federal) so great. And everywhere you look these days, people are paying tribute to King.

For instance, in a recent interview Neal Sugarman — co-owner of Brooklyn’s red-hot contemporary-Soul Daptone label, home of Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings — said an obscure King Records band, The Dapps, partly inspired label’s and band’s names. William (Beau Dollar) Bowman & The Dapps backed James Brown, Hank Ballard and Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis on King recordings in the late 1960s, during Funk’s formative years.

“We were very well aware of The Dapps,” Sugarman said. “It’s a cool name. It means something dapper.”

Nashville’s Gusto Records, keeper of the King archives, has just issued the four-disc King R&B Box Set, an updated, remastered version of a 1996 boxed set on now-defunct Highland Records.
Meanwhile, reissue labels around the world keep digging through the archives to put out ever-more-obscure King material in ever-hipper packages. An excellent brand-new example comes from Spain’s Vampisoul label, R&B Hipshakers Vol. 1: Teach Me to Monkey.

It goes way, way deep into King/Federal archives to come up with upbeat, danceable (and non-hit) R&B songs like “Mom, Won’t You Teach Me to Monkey” by Little Emmett Sutton, “Where You At Jack” by Little Mummy, “Mr. Astronaut” by The Drivers and the aforementioned “Gibble Gobble” and “Do the Ginger Snap.” (It also has lesser-known cuts by better-known King acts like Freddy King (“Texas Oil”), Hank Ballard (“Broadway”), Charles Brown (“Regardless”) and Johnny “Guitar” Watson (the strange modeling-as-dancing song called “Posin’ ”).

While this is a Spanish release, it’s curated by one of the U.S.’s top R&B aficionados and record collectors, DJ Mr. Fine Wine of New York radio station WFMU’s “Downtown Soulsville” show. After Vampisoul contracted with Gusto, he was able to access Gusto’s King vaults in Nashville to search for obscure material. (A second volume will come out early next year; two others are in the works.)

“There’s just so much of this kind of dancey R&B stuff; it’s incredible how deep King goes,” Mr. Fine Wine (Matt Weingarden) says in an interview. “Such depth and variety. I’m discovering new stuff all the time.”

An even more impressive sign of the ongoing interest in King is the issuance this month of the entire Federal recordings of the still-active Chicago Blues/Soul singer/writer/guitarist Syl Johnson. They’re part of a massive four-CD/six-LP boxed set, Syl Johnson: Complete Mythology, from one of the U.S.’s premiere archival labels, The Numero Group.

Johnson, whose long career includes such late-1960s/early-1970s (non-King) R&B classics as “Come On Sock It Me,” “Different Strokes,” “Dresses Too Short,” “Concrete Reservation” and “Is It Because I’m Black?” began his career with Federal, the King subsidiary run by Ralph Bass. He recorded two songs — “Teardrops” and “They Who Love” — in Chicago for Bass in 1959. He then cut 12 more tracks on three trips to Cincinnati from 1960-1962.

Twelve of the 14 tracks were released as singles, but Numero has included all 14 in its box. The reissue label even went so far as to create artwork for an imaginary Johnson album on Federal, My Gift, that looks very convincing.

I interviewed the 74-year-old Johnson, a colorful storyteller, recently about his King days for the current issue of Blurt magazine.

“There was this (Chicago) label, Veejay, and I was there making a session with (Blues star) Jimmy Reed,” Johnson recalls. “He used to be a drunk and we’d wait on him to get his whiskey and stuff and we’d be sitting round the studio. I was showing how I could sing and somehow Vivian Carter (the label co-owner) heard me and said to (her brother) to get this young boy to sing. He told me to write a song, put it on a dub and bring it.”

But as Johnson walked down South Michigan Avenue (home of Chicago’s vibrant Blues scene) with the recording, he saw a King branch office.

“And there was a guy there named Ralph Bass and I gave him my dub — it was a song called ‘Teardrops,’ ” Johnson says. “And he wouldn’t let me go. He said, ‘We’re King Records, a big company. We have James Brown.’ ”

So he recorded it properly for King subsidiary Federal, which released it, and a new career was born.

(srosenone@aol.com)

(Photo courtesy Vampisoul)

How a Cincinnati Concert Helped Inspire Ziggy Stardust

2010-11-18T07:12:00.000-08:00

DVD Review:
The Sacred Triangle
(Sexy Intellectual, 2010, Not Rated)

By Steven Rosen
. . . . . . .

Here’s a shocking discovery for Cincinnati pop-music historians:

Did you know it was a legendary Iggy Pop performance here in 1970 that inspired David Bowie to create his Ziggy Stardust character and thus turn the British Glam Rock movement into a worldwide phenomenon?

That’s one of many perceptive insights in this new documentary, which looks at how three fringe, cult-rock musicians — Bowie, Iggy Pop and Lou Reed — suddenly found themselves cultural avatars in the early 1970s.

Bowie, who had patiently been looking for a way to incorporate avant-garde theatricality (and rock 'n' roll) into his singer-songwriter act, and his manager, Tony Defries, purchased footage of Iggy’s 1970 performance at Cincinnati Pop Festival. That was where Pop famously stood, bare-chested, atop the crowd’s hands, pointing to the future like Moses to the Ten Commandments.

Bowie saw that and knew it was the kind of rock god he wanted to become. And as he became it — only much bigger — in 1972, he tried to help a couple of his then-down-and-out influences, Pop and Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed, make comebacks.

The album he co-produced with Mick Ronson for Reed, Transformer, was a breakthrough — its single, “Walk on the Wild Side,” was one of the most striking Top 40 hits of all time. His relationship with the drug-troubled Pop was more problematic, but he did help raise his profile and critical regard (and spirits).

This DVD’s releasing company, Sexy Intellectual, is affiliated with Britain’s Chrome Dreams, which has been putting out some deeply researched DVDs investigating the formative influences on major rock figures. (Apparently, without those figures’ cooperation.)

This has extensive archival footage, matched with contemporary observations from biographers, employees of Defries’ flamboyant MainMan Productions and especially Bowie’s down-to-earth, no-nonsense ex-wife Angie. It’s highly interesting and illuminating about how seismic changes in oop music start underground. Grade: B

(This is an adapted version of a review that ran in Cincinnati CityBeat on Nov. 17, 2010.)

The Grace Jones-Thomas Gainsborough Connection

2010-11-17T05:09:00.000-08:00

Has anyone seen Grace Jones?
You’ve missed Cincinnati, but Kehinde Wiley would still like to hear from you…

By Steven Rosen
From The Art Newspaper

issue 218, November 2010

Published online 16 Nov 10 (News)

What could have been: Gainsborough and Grace

CINCINNATI. The Cincinnati Art Museum, like many others, has been—in the words of director Aaron Betsky—“trying to connect our collection to the current generation."

As part of that intention, it commissioned a portrait of disco diva/actress/model Grace Jones by celebrated African-American artist Kehinde Wiley, wanting to hang it in a new show next to one of its masterpieces—Thomas Gainsborough’s 1760 portrait Ann Ford (Later Mrs. Philip Thicknesse). Alas, it did not work out.

Jones didn’t respond to requests for a sitting—a requirement for Wiley, since he aimed to recreate the pose of Ann Ford, who holds a guitar while one arm rests on books and sheet music. It would have been the first traditional portrait the art museum had commissioned from an artist since it had Andy Warhol paint Cincinnati Reds baseball star Pete Rose in 1985.

Cincinnati had been restoring its portrait for a show called “Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman”, which opened on 18 September (until 2 January) and was organised by Benedict Leca, curator of European painting, sculpture and drawings. The show’s thesis is that the way that Gainsborough chose to portray Georgian women—and the independent-minded women he painted—was avant-garde for its time. To advance that premise, it borrowed other Gainsborough portraits from London’s National Gallery, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Britain and the Huntington Library.

But it wanted something new, too—and thought of New York-based Wiley. He has developed a keen following for his depictions of contemporary black males posed in a formalist manner, and his work has been shown at numerous museums.

“We’d been having discussions about wanting to work with Kehinde on something,” Betsky said. “Then someone said: ‘What about the Gainsborough show?’” Betsky said the museum thought Wiley’s traditional approach to portraiture a good fit with Gainsborough. “The other interesting thing is he had not painted a woman yet, so that made it all the more interesting to us,” he said.

Leca explained his enthusiasm. “The point of the show is to restore agency and self-direction to these [Gainsborough] women, just as Kehinde Wiley himself is re-inscribing black men into this preserve of traditional white-male power,” he says.

So Leca, with approval from art museum trustees, flew to New York to propose the project to Wiley. The artist thought of Jones, “because of her personal charisma and physical beauty, and because she has a history of understanding the playful interplay between popular culture and the art world”, Wiley explained.

Leca says Wiley’s then dealer, Jeffrey Deitch (now director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art), even had the late fashion designer Alexander McQueen ready to create a dress just for the sitting.

But nobody could get through to Jones. Leca had contacted her agent in London and wrote to Jean-Paul Goude, the French fashion photographer to whom she is close. And he wrote directly to Jones through another photographer. No response.

If Jones should yet call, it’s not too late for Wiley. He said he still wants to do it. “I believe I could make one of the more meaningful statements of her physical beauty and her presence in the world that hasn’t been seen before.”

Richard Barone and the "Glow" of Collaboration

2010-11-09T06:20:00.000-08:00

BY STEVEN ROSEN

When Richard Barone talks about the people he's collaborated with in his career as a rock musician, composer and concert producer, the list is so impressively varied - and so strange in its mix-and-match nature - that you wish he'd write a book about it.

Seriously, who else has worked with Tiny Tim, Pete Seeger, Lou Reed, avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas, producer Tony Visconti, Jill Sobule, Moby, songwriter Paul Williams ("We've Only Just Begun"), and, of course, one of Hoboken's first and most celebrated New Wave rock bands, the Bongos? (He was that band's front man.)

There's so much there, and it's so fascinating, it takes more than an interview - even a one-hour interview like this one on behalf of his just-released CD Glow - for him to explain it all. In fact, it deserves an entire book. And Barone, in fact, has one. His memoir, Frontman: Surviving the Rock Star Myth, was published by Backbeat/Hal Leonard Books in 2007. At a Carnegie Hall concert marking the book's release, he sang "I'll Be Your Mirror" - with a band featuring Moby on keyboards - while Reed recited the lyrics on a video screen behind the band.

Since then, Barone has just started collaborating with Seeger. And he has release Glow, which has 11 new songs. Many of them feature production and other contributions from Visconti - the American who helped shape the British glam era that Barone loves by producing, among others, T. Rex, David Bowie and Sparks. And since Barone's love for melodic, literate rock with inventive arrangements - sung in a gentle voice always respectful of a song's introspective qualities - has led him to be called "Beatlesque," Visconti is an especially good match. The latter considers George Martin's Beatles records key to having turned production into an art form. Indeed, his first major production was "Maybe Tomorrow" by the Ivys - the band that became Badfinger, one of the greatest of all Beatlesque bands.

Barone and Visconti had earlier recorded some of Glow's songs, and he'd issued an EP with some in 2008. The plan was to continue issuing the collection as singles and EPs, similar to the way early Bongos tracks were distributed. But instead, Glow, released on Bar/None, has become just Barone's fifth solo album since the Bongos' 1987 break-up.

Its release came about, oddly enough, as an offshoot of his interest in getting a batch of archival material on Tiny Tim out to the public.

This takes a little explanation. When Barone was 16 and living in Tampa, back in 1976, he met Tiny Tim and found the eccentric pop singer - a living, singing encyclopedia of pre-World War II (and later) recorded music - enchanting. He wound up recording Tiny Tim at a local motel and studio. Thirty-three years later, in tribute to the now-deceased singer, Barone got Collectors' Choice Music to release those tapes as I've Never Seen a Straight Banana - Rare Moments Volume 1 last year.

He was bringing Hoboken's Bar/None Records a possible sequel. "Glenn Morrow, who owns the label, has been my friend for a long time," Barone says, by phone. "He was my first roommate in Hoboken and we were in a band together ("a"), and we've been wanting to work together on some new project for a long time, but hadn't.

"A lot of people have contacted me with their material of Tiny Tim, especially people from the avant-garde scene in the New York of early 1960s," Barone says. (Despite his breakthrough as a late-1960s novelty act, Tiny Tim earlier was a key part of New York's underground arts scene, performing at the Living Theatre and with Lenny Bruce and Greenwich Village folk acts. Jonas Mekas, a pioneer of the independent-film movement and founder of Anthology Film Archives, had audio and video of Tiny Tim performing in 1963.)

"So I was bringing Glenn a second Tiny Tim project that I'd been working on with Jonas Mekas," Barone says. "But Glenn said, ‘What about your own album?' I wasn't really shopping for a label at the time; I hadn't been focused on that. But it got me thinking that there could be one. So I gave him 20 tracks and he picked the 11 on the album." (Not all are Visconti productions.)

That choice covers quite a bit of territory, but it reveals an observer's sense that Barone's songs have unifying traits - exuberant dreaminess, empathy, and awe at the possibilities for beauty in pop music.

Some of Glow's tracks have ultra-high-tech production - Barone uses a Gibson HD.6 Pro Digital Les Paul electric guitar on the inspirational title cut, which allowed each guitar string to have its own recording track. Steve Addabbo, who produced this cut, also played a Digital Les Paul, which means the two guitars created 12 separate tracks. The mixing was done at Skywalker Sound. Inspired by this, they later produced an all-instrumental version of the same song, adding cello and electric cello.

On the other hand, "Radio Silence" - with its bouncy spiritedness - was recorded by Barone at home, using his laptop and GarageBand software application.

Another song is a collaboration with Sobule on "Odd Girl Out," the compassionate tale of a young lesbian in pre-liberated, 1962 New York.

And one track is simply a live version, from Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight radio show on New York's WFUV-FM, of a stately ballad Barone wrote about 9/11's aftermath with Williams - a songwriter responsible in the early 1970s for classics by the Carpenters and Three Dog Night. Barone had gotten to know him by performing at a tribute concert in Williams' honor. And, again, there's a Tiny Tim connection.

"I was performing the song that Tiny Tim covered on the album God Bless Tiny Tim, ‘Fill Your Heart.' On the other hand, David Bowie did a cover of the song on Hunky Dory. I did an arrangement that combined Tiny Tim's arrangement with the Hunky Dory version, and he really liked it and asked if we could write a song."

The result, "Silence Is Our Song," is based on newspaper stories Barone had saved about couples that met and fell in love after 9/11 - lovers in a dangerous time. He brought a clip file to Williams in L.A. and strummed guitar chords while Williams devised lyrics. "Paul Williams is a brilliant songwriter, and while I was more into bands like Roxy Music during that time (of his hits), he's undeniably a great craftsman of song, great guy and a fascinating person," Barone says.

Another song on Glow also got an early release - a really unusual one. A rough mix of the thrustingly rhythmic "1-2-3 Infinity" was used by Anousheh Ansari - the first self-funded woman in space - when the Iranian-American was aboard a 2006 Soyuz flight to the International Space Station. Barone said she made sure it was played with released television footage showing her, and he believes she carried a copy of the song, itself, into flight.

He met her at a party in artist Peter Max's studio, and subsequently let her hear the song. When she told him she had an interstellar use for it, he allowed her to have it.

"She said, ‘That's my song! That's my song!'" Barone recalls. "I think songs should get out in funny ways like that."

[Photo Credit: Mick Rock]

(This first ran in Blurt -- www.blurt-online.com -- in October, 2010)

Reviving (and Reappraising) the Legacy of Artist Charles Burchfield

2010-10-12T07:04:00.000-07:00

Reviving the Legacy of an Ohio-Born Painter
By Steven Rosen . . . . . . .

(From Cincinnati CityBeat,10-6-10)

One of the stranger artworks on display at Contemporary Art Center’s current Where Do We Go From Here: Selections From La Coleccion Jumex is a urinal.

It is seemingly ready to use, planted right out in the open on a gallery wall surrounded by other objects. If not for the fact that on close inspection it is too sculptural and painterly, too beautiful as an object — with its plaster and semi-gloss enamel paint — to have any functional purpose, it might actually get used.

Once you know that the creator of “Urinal” is Robert Gober, the strangeness dissipates. He’s a sculptor/installation artist known for his provocative intellect. So not only would he be one to reference Marcel Duchamp’s famous 1917 “Fountain” — an actual urinal that he signed “R. Mutt” — but he also brings it full circle. As Duchamp appropriated that urinal, Gober appropriated an image linked to Duchamp, but he puts the artist’s hand back into shaping and creating the object.

But for something really strange, and something that at first seems about as far from Duchamp-inspired art as conceivable, take a look at the identity of the curator responsible for the current Whitney Museum retrospective, Heat Waves in a Swamp, devoted to one of Ohio’s most important artists ever — Charles Burchfield. It’s none other than Gober. (The show is up through Oct. 17.)

The northeast-Ohio-born Burchfield, who lived from 1893-1967, had his greatest success with his particularly moody American Scene watercolors from the Depression Era. During that time, living in Buffalo, he won acclaim for depicting America’s towns and factories as lonely, chilly, often-depopulated places.

The work fit the times and, I think, holds up as an example of art that puts a search for truth ahead of prettiness. But it didn’t particularly fit with the art trends of post-World War II America. While Burchfield remained active, his fame slowly faded.

This show marks a major attempt to revive his legacy. Gober got involved at the invitation of Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, where it originated. But, as Gober’s participation might indicate, this is no ordinary retrospective. It sets out — not unlike Gober’s take on Duchamp — to make Burchfield relevant to today.

I saw Heat Waves in New York this summer, already a fan of the artist’s best-known realistic work, which I saw as a more Expressionist companion to Edward Hopper. I was surprised to see that this exhibition downplayed that, as if his most popular period was his least important.

Rather, Gober concentrates on the landscapes Burchfield did in Ohio 1915-1917 in a style so Expressionist it borders on fantastical. Some of these vivid watercolors, like 1917’s “The Insect Chorus” or his late-period “Dandelion Seeds and the Moon,” seem to radiate waves — be they heat or seismic ones — the way Munch’s “The Scream” does. You can almost feel the nature trapped within them, and it’s scary. It’s definitely personal; intimately psychological, even.

For those reasons, the media (and the Whitney) has called Heat Waves a show of visionary, mystical work. That connects Burchfield to various strains of Modern and Contemporary art — Mark Rothko, the mystical Expressionism of Northwest artists like Morris Graves, even California Beat Generation painters like Jay DeFeo.

The exhibit makes Burchfield seem new again, which is what major museum shows — as well as artists like Gober — try to do with art.

(Art used: Charles Burchfield's "The Insect Chorus," 1917; Robert Gober's "Urinal," 1985

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CONTACT STEVEN ROSEN: srosen@citybeat.com

Report From New Orleans: Ponderosa Stomp 2010

2010-10-12T05:41:00.000-07:00

Report: Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans
By Steven Rosen
From Blurt (www.blurt-online.com), 10-1-10

"You guys need to push for the women of our day so we're not forgotten," LaLa Brooks - pictured above, and the power-voiced lead singer of early-1960s girl-group Crystals - exhorted those attending a Saturday-afternoon panel discussion at Ponderosa Stomp's daytime music history conference.

The New Orleans-based Stomp, now in its ninth year of presenting concerts and third offering a daytime conference, is devoted to giving often-forgotten, older "unsung heroes" of rock ‘n' roll and related music the best possible showcase to perform their best material. While it has a strong emphasis on Louisiana rock and R&B, its focus has grown far beyond that.

The night before Brooks' panel appearance, as several hundred surprised and happy people watched at the House of Blues - site of the two-night, revue-style concert portion of the Stomp - the 63-year-old Brooks delivered an amazingly vital and exciting set. Accompanied by a wall-of-sound of a band dressed nattily in black - seven musicians, including one who played castanets, and three female back-up singers - Brooks charged through her old Crystals hits and established that she (and not her producer, Phil Spector) owned their legacy.

She offered super-fine versions of "There's No Other," "Uptown," "Then He Kissed Me," "Little Boy" and "Da Doo Ron Ron." (At the conference, Brooks explained that another Crystal - Barbara Alston - sang lead on the recordings of the first two, but that she soon began singing them on stage.) Really, it would it have been all right had she also done "He's a Rebel" and "He's Sure the Boy I Love" - the two "Crystals" hits that Spector produced using L.A. studio group the Blossoms rather than the real Crystals. Her voice was that strong and satisfying.

And not just her voice. Wearing a tight outfit and knee-high boots, the lean and muscular Brooks - with a huge Afro - commanded the stage with her athletic movin' and groovin', sprinkling the set with fiery asides like, "I'm not no damn diva. I am real."

Ponderosa Stomp is about keeping it real. But it also had an important secondary theme this year - that a lot of those "unsung heroes" are women who still are musically active and deserve our attention. As if to remind attendees, Ronnie Spector - another Phil Spector-produced star whose career has been revived in recent years - did a surprise two-song set on Saturday night, complete with a large band (including violinists) and back-up singers. That was ringingly majestic, but even better was her earlier appearance at the conference, showing off her trim figure and speaking in a voice positively giddy with pride. She closed that appearance by singing, in perfect pitch, an (almost) a cappella version of "I Can Hear Music" - her music director sat nearby and softly played acoustic guitar.

Among the other "unsung" women who made appearances at the Stomp were Barbara Lynn, the left-handed guitarist and blues/R&B singer whose "You'll Lose a Good Thing" was an evocative hit in 1962; the mysterious Wendy Rene, once a Stax recording artist; and the soul singer Gloria Jones (pictured below) The latter, who spoke at the conference but did not perform in concert, told her fascinating story of moving from a religious, supportive family in Cincinnati to being Marc Bolan's lover/musical collaborator (and mother of his son Rolan) during T. Rex's Glam Rock heyday. (She did not mention the auto accident that killed Bolan and severely injured her.)

Along the way, she recorded the original "Tainted Love," performed in a weird musical adaptation of Othello called Catch My Soul with Dr. John and Jerry Lee Lewis, became a Motown songwriter who co-penned Gladys Knight & the Pips' "If I Were Your Woman," and much more. Her interviewer, Los Angeles Times critic Ann Powers, played a snippet of a 1973 album that Jones recorded for Motown, Share My Love, featuring intricately adventurous arrangements from the label's Paul Riser. It sounded like a lost gem - an "unsung" masterpiece.

Jones also had a funny comment about how she and Bolan dealt with any possible racial tensions arising from their affair. He was an ostentatious dresser who favored long hair, mascara and feather boas in public. She recalled consoling her nervous father. "I said, ‘Dad, you don't have to worry. When we walk through an airport, people think it's two girls.'"

One woman upstaged almost everyone else - women and men - at this year's Stomp: Sugar Pie DeSanto (above). A Chess Records' recording acts in the 1960s, she never reached Etta James-level stardom but had a few R&B hits - "Soulful Dress," "Slip-In Mules." Those were 45 or so years ago, so who knew what to expect when DeSanto walked on stage Saturday night?

Now 74, and so tiny she looked frail, DeSanto at first seemed to be wandering on stage. Her flowing and spangled low-cut dress, with a plunging neckline and partially open back, seemed ready to fall right off her. For awhile, she had on a gold hat, from which a long gray-white ponytail protruded. And she quickly kicked off her shoes in order to do her free-spirited act barefoot. The audience was tense - even the house band, led by the seasoned Lil Buck Sinegal, was nervous. Did she know where she was? What she was doing?

DeSanto only slowly revealed her mastery of her act. She sang her blues and soul tunes with commanding, expressive theatricality. And she kept the crowd guessing. At times, she snapped orders like a dominatrix - "I told you, I rule this band," she said, giving the musicians instructions on how to play. Other times, she smiled to let everyone know she was having fun.

She brought a scared, reluctant audience member on stage by pulling his arm so hard it seemed she'd snap it off. She then leaped onto him during a song, her small body showing its strength and flexibility. In fact, she was so supple she appeared to do a backwards somersault at one point. It was a performance to be remembered, and as word gets around we might find her playing increasingly high-profile gigs. Or maybe appear in a Super Bowl ad with Abe Vigoda.

Ponderosa Stomp had plenty of male acts - too many to mention everyone. And some of them, to say the least, were "unsung." Where else could someone like rockabilly singer Huelyn Duvall (above, with Eve Menses Buck) get a worshipful, loving reception after being introduced as "the guy who shouted ‘Tequila' in the Champs' 1958 ‘Tequila?'" Harmonica player Lazy Lester, whose Excello Records release "Ponderosa Stomp" gave the event its name, also did a set and could be seen around the fest wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of his famous 45-rpm single.

Tommy Brown, a heavyset and dapper 79-year-old Atlanta-based singer out of the Big Joe Turner rockin' jump-blues tradition, electrified the crowd Friday night with exuberantly performed songs like his still-timely "Double Faced Deacon." Also a comedian, he caught folks unawares by confiding he had just lost his wife. As people quieted down out of respect and sadness, he added, "Her husband just got out of jail."

The 73-year-old Young (Obediah) Jessie, whose 1954 R&B hit "Mary Lou" has been heavily covered, may now technically be an Old Jessie, but his voice was spry and strong on Saturday as he sang that song, "I Smell a Rat" and "Hit, Git and Split" with guitarist Deke Dickerson and his Eccofonics offering support. They also helped Jessie on the infectious "Young Blood," which he had recorded during a short involvement with the Coasters.

After DeSanto, the festival's second-biggest surprise was a Dallas singing group called the Relatives (above), who performed on Friday with their own heavily percussive backing band. This group, which was formed in 1970 and released a few singles, takes the Temptations' "psychedelic soul" as a starting point but pushes it much further into gospel territory. The songs are sweaty, danceable workouts - and the House of Blues damn near shook from the people shaking to the beat. But the songs also served as emotional, politically charged pleas for change - "Speak to Me," a Vietnam-era cry that asks "What's wrong with America,'' seems bitterly relevant today. After the set, for the next two days, people were trying to buy an LP of reissued Relatives material that a label called Heavy Light was selling, but they were in short supply.

Ponderosa Stomp takes a generous approach to honoring rock's various American roots and tributaries. Not just blues, rockabilly and C&W, but also garage, surf, and early instrumental-rock. To that end, it presented Thee Midniters and the Trashmen on Friday, and headliner Duane Eddy on Saturday. All of these were good as far as it went, but lacked the sense of revelation and transcendence of genre that the best performances had. (Thee Midniters, the garage-rock band from East L.A., didn't lead singer Little Willie G.)

Eddy, the twangy "boss guitar" innovator whose use of vibrato and bass strings on hit instrumentals like "Rebel Rouser," "Movin' and Groovin,'" and "Peter Gunn" earned him top billing, drew audience respect as an "elder statesmen" of rock. And his playing of his beautiful Gretsch guitar with its Bigsby vibrato whammy bar was self-assured. But his set came off more like a master class - with short introductions between each song - than a stomp, and ultimately was too subdued to end a big night.

For those who stayed in New Orleans Sunday night, there was a looser party-like show at a bar called One Eyed Jacks. It opened with a departure - a set by a young British act, Jim Jones Revue, that combined keyboard-heavy rockabilly, punk, R&B, guitar-thrashing hard rock and Nick Cave-style vocal melodrama into something new and exciting. But it also would have been something much better appreciated by an audience not so knowing about the band's roots.

Then came the A-Bones, a neo-garage band featuring Norton Records' Billy Miller on vocals and Miriam Linna on drums. The latter looked deliriously happy, yelping and howling to the tunes as she saw fit. The A-Bones (named after a Trashmen single) were the perfect post-Stomp chaser, sticking around to help Flamin' Groovies singer Roy Loney and guitarist Cyril Jordan do a set.

Stomp, primarily organized by music-loving New Orleans physician Ira "Dr. Ike" Padnos, has become a non-profit foundation with a close relationship to Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The latter's president, Terry Stewart, came to New Orleans during Stomp to dedicate a plaque outside Cosimo Matassa's old recording studio (now a laundromat), where musicians like Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew and Little Richard recorded key early-rock songs.

Meanwhile, Ponderosa Stomp Foundation is developing new year-round programs, especially in Louisiana, to further promote rock's "unsung heroes." It has gone on the road, presenting shows in New York and Memphis, and at home has collaborated with the Louisiana State Museum - site of the conference - on an excellent exhibit called "Unsung Heroes: The Secret History of Louisiana Rock ‘n' Roll."

Really, it's getting to the point that being an "unsung hero" of rock ‘n' roll is much cooler, much hipper, than being a star.

(Photo of LaLa Brooks by Joe Rosen)

Remembering Robert Moog -- and Preparing for the First Moogfest

2010-09-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

By Steven Rosen

(From Los Angeles CityBeat, 2004)

(Because the first Moogfest is occurring in Asheville, N.C., over Halloween weekend to honor Robert Moog's legacy in popular (and classical) music, this story from 2004 is being posted. The interview with Moog was on the occasion of the release of the documentary "Moog." He died in 2005.)

Usually, the term “back to roots” in music describes the renewed interest in acoustic music – bluegrass, folk, gospel and country blues, especially – sparked by the Grammy-winning “O Brother Where Art Thou” soundtrack and its related tours.

So it will surprise many to know there’s also a roots movement going on in that seemingly most unrootsy of musical regions – electronic sounds. Musicians tired of the digital synthesizers that became popular in the 1980s and 1990s, which encode sound as digital information that can then be decoded, are opting for the more “natural” analog instruments of the 1970s and even earlier. Analog, alternatively, produces direct musical sound. Many synthesizer buffs, like audiophile record collectors, believe it is warmer, livelier, and more responsive to the musician’s emotional state.

And that means electronics inventor Robert Moog, at age 70, and his namesake Moog and Minimoog analog keyboard synthesizers are back. (The part of the instrument that produces the sound is analog; other parts use digital technology.)

Since he re-acquired the rights to the name “Moog” in 2002 – almost 30 years after selling it and watching the purchaser eventually cease production – and subsequently introduced the Minimoog Voyager, business has been booming at his Asheville, N.C., company.

And his life and ideas now are the subject of a new documentary – fittingly titled “Moog,” in honor of his instant name recognition – that opens Friday at the Laemmle Fairfax.

Besides Moog, who speaks at length about his vision, the film also includes performances and/or interviews with such Moog-favoring musicians and DJs as Keith Emerson (and his incredible 10-foot-tall Monster Moog), Rick Wakeman, Bernie Worrell, Stereolab, Money Mark, and DJ Logic.

In the sweet and thought-provoking movie, directed by Hans Fjellestad, the white-haired and grandfatherly Moog expresses a surprising kind of “I Sing the Body Electronic” cosmic consciousness about his creations. Looking a bit like Einstein and talking like Buckminster Fuller, he just may be the elusive ghost in the machine.

“I can feel what’s going on inside a piece of electronic equipment,” he explains in the film, as the camera pans over the thick, brightly colored wires of one of his instruments. “I have this sense that I know, and to some extent have control over, what’s going on inside the transistors and resistors.”

Director Fjellestad, an American of Danish descent, studied classical piano and previously made a film about Tijuana culture, “Frontier Life.” “I’ve been interested in looking at frontiers, and Bob was the archetypal frontiersman exploring the borders,” he explains.

On the phone from Portland, Ore., where he and his wife are visiting their daughter and her husband, an expansive Moog further explains the spiritual relationship he feels toward his work. “When I was a teenager, and a little bit before, I really loved electronics,” he says. “I have a talent and a gift for making contact with electronic circuitry. It’s a gift that enables stuff to come through you. I don’t think I’m so smart or creative that it starts off inside my head and then comes out.

“I think all us humans are capable of experiencing connections – engaging in spiritual things like that. Whether or not we take advantage of that depends on a lot of things. But I found it through electronics, particularly musical electronics. Our customers find it through the musical side of musical electronics. I find it through the electronics side.”

In a separate call, musician Worrell – also in Oregon on tour – also sees a spiritual edge to Moog. “Thank God for his innovations and inspiration, which I believe came from the Creator. It’s coupled with Bob Moog’s knowing how artists think and what kind of tool keyboardists would appreciate. It’s part of his ability to see.”

It should be noted that not every musician sees Moog and his synthesizers in such spiritual terms. In the movie, Wakeman – who first became famous with progressive-rock band Yes – talks about his motivations for turning to the Moog. “It changed the face of music. For the first time, the keyboard player could give the guitarists a run for the money on stage.”

Growing up in Flushing, Queens, Moog built his first theremin at age 14 from a do-it-yourself kit. The strange now-in-vogue-again instrument, invented by Russia’s Leon Theremin, uses high-frequency radio signals to create otherworldly, eerie electronic sounds. To play it, people move their hands and bodies near its antennae, thus varying pitch and volume.

“I was a card-carrying electronics nerd,” Moog says. “My father was a professional engineer so I used to love to go down in his basement and build things with him. We did that together; that was very nice. There was not too much I could do with the guys at school, other than get beat up. I was interested in the theremin because it was a do-it-yourself project and it looked like fun. To be able to make something that had a musical sound and could be played was an interesting thing to me.”

While a sophomore in college, Moog sold his first home-built theremin. Eventually, that led to a business, R.A. Moog, selling electronic musical instruments. “When we began making synthesizer components in 1964, we saw experimental musicians as our customers – people putting music together on tape,” Moog says.

“These people weren’t interested in traditional melody or harmony,” he continues. “What interested them the most was tone color. So our early electronic-music instruments were designed with the idea you could make a wide variety of sounds by connecting modules together and setting (the controls of) each one individually. There were a variety of ways to play that sound – a keyboard was just one device that could be used. There were joysticks, sequencers, and a whole bunch of things we built in small quantities and made available to our customers.”

But one early customer was Walter Carlos – now Wendy Carlos. She decided to use a Moog keyboard synthesizer to record Bach. “Switched-On Bach,” released in 1968, was as big a pop-cultural sensation as any classical album before or since. It was the first Platinum-selling classical record, won three Grammy Awards, and caused the mass acceptance of the Moog synthesizer as an instrument that made music rather than sound effects. (Carlos did not want to appear in the film, Fjellestad says.)

Yet even still, there are people – including musicians – who feel this music is “plastic” because its sounds are not produced like a traditional instrument or human voice. As a result, you still don’t expect to see Moogs at folk or bluegrass festivals, or even in symphony orchestras or no-nonsense punk bands.

“But when you think about it, the piano is pretty unnatural, too,” Moog says. “You don’t find pianos growing on trees. The same is true for trumpets and violins; they’re highly artificial. You really have to work to put together a violin.

“Over the centuries, when musical instruments have been developed, they’ve been developed with the most recent technology of the time,” he explains. “In the 20th Century, the technology of our times was electronic. To me, it was only natural that new instruments would be made with that technology.”

Rain Perry's "Internal Combustion" CD

2010-09-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

Rain Perry: Internal Combustion
By Steven Rosen
(American Songwriter, September 14th, 2010)

Rain Perry
Internal Combustion
Precipitous Records
Rating: 3 stars

When this summer’s revived Lilith Fair struggled to sell tickets, music and culture-at-large pundits opined that the age of the roots-music-steeped female singer-songwriter was over – replaced by those, like Lady Gaga, steeped in show-biz artifice and theatricality.

If that’s the case, word hasn’t spread to those “old-fashioned” singer-songwriters. This year to date has brought outstanding albums by women still true to the model of writing poetically observational songs about life as actually lived by real people — Shelby Lynne, Tift Merritt, Tracey Thorn… Rather than being an endangered species, they seem to be having a renaissance.

Add Rain Perry’ Internal Combustion to that list. Recorded at Austin’s Congress House studio with producer Mark Hallman (Tom Russell, Eliza Gilkyson) and an effortlessly empathetic band, this has tuneful compositions that are playfully witty and poignantly wise. She is confessional toward her fears on the haunting, soulful “So You’re the Muse,” but can also be a keen, novelistic storyteller – the barbed, bluesy “Keanuville” is a foreboding look at a movie-star stalker.

Her expressively conversational singing style – she doesn’t have a booming range – on Internal Combustion, coupled with the wry way her lyrics address insecurities, earns comparison with Amy Rigby. Clever album opener “The Compartmentalized Thing,” about the performing songwriter’s angst, has a hip, funky, horn-punctuated groove.

Although Ojai, California resident Perry isn’t well-known nationally, she’s no newcomer –- she’s 46, the daughter of troubled hippie parents and the mother of two teenage daughters who delayed her early music dreams because of rheumatoid arthritis. She’s also put out two previous low-profile albums on her own label. The last, the autobiographical Cinderblock Bookshelves, spawned a song, “Beautiful Tree,” now the theme for the CW series “Life Unexpected.”

By the way, she has very eclectic taste. The album has three covers – Bob Seger’s “Till It Shines,” Paul Simon’s “Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War,” and Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” It’s good to see her getting it on.

George David Weiss on "What a Wonderful World"

2010-09-10T06:56:00.000-07:00

(Songwriter George David Weiss died last month at 89. This story ran in American Songwriter in 2003.)

“I see trees of green, red roses, too
I watch 'em bloom, for me and for you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world…”

By Steven Rosen

If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s not a wonderful world right now.

Yet at the same time, hardly a day goes by we don’t hear the song “What a Wonderful World” somewhere.

Recently, it was included on Rod Stewart’s Grammy-winning album of standards, “Stardust – The Great American Songbook: Volume III.” It was also an integral part of Celine Dion and Anne Geddes’ tribute to childbirth and babies, “Miracle.”

In 2002, it was the title of Tony Bennett’s and kd lang’s Grammy-winning album of duets. And that same year, it served as the unofficial theme of Michael Moore’s Oscar-winning documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” which spotlighted both Louis Armstrong’s famous original version and a buoyant punk-rock version by the late Joey Ramone.

The worse things seem to get in this world, the more popular this wistfully romantic ballad seems to get. As Bennett said to this writer via E-mail, “This song belongs to all humanists, pacifists, people who dream of peace in the world. Despite the evening news, there are many more people who feel this way than those who want war.”

The song isn’t really part of the Great American Songbook. It was written long after that golden era peaked. It owes its popularity primarily to its ironic use in Barry Levinson’s 1987 film “Good Morning Vietnam” – the song plays during footage of war atrocities.

The scene works as a blunt instrument of truth in a film that until that point had used comedy and distancing melodrama to disguise its disgusted attitude toward that war. The impact was so great that Armstrong’s song finally dented the U.S. Top 40 charts in 1988 – 21 years after Armstrong first recorded and released it.

George David Weiss, a professional songwriter whose biggest success had been Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” wrote the song at the request of Armstrong’s producer, Bob Thiele. A pioneering jazz trumpeter of great accomplishment, Armstrong had developed a second career as a pop crooner of sorts with 1964’s “Hello Dolly” and was looking for new material.

In a 2003 interview with this writer, Weiss recalled being thrilled at the prospect. “Bob Thiele said, ‘George, do a demo with yourself at the piano and I’ll bring it down to him.’ So I sat down and made a quick demo. I’m told that when Bob Thiele played it for him and his little group, they loved it and adored it. (Armstrong) said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.’”

Weiss meant the song as a hopeful racial allegory at a time when the country was being torn apart by racial and political strife. Weiss idolized Armstrong for being a goodwill ambassador who had become the first jazz musician to visit Africa when its colonies were becoming independent nations. (Armstrong toured Ghana in 1956.)

“When I wrote the song, I included the idea of blacks and whites – the colors. My whole metaphor for the song was based upon the fact it was (Armstrong) who went around and tried to bring people together. It meant the world to everybody.”

Although the song flopped in the U.S. upon release, it became a Number One hit in Britain. When Armstrong died in 1971 at age 69, it started to take on a bittersweet ironic meaning. The wistfulness became melancholy – a voice from the grave looking back on what it now missed. “Good Morning Vietnam” picked up on that.

Some of the more memorable recent versions have touched upon that melancholy – or tried to transcend it. One example is Nick Cave and Shane MacGowan’s ragged duet from 1992 – Cave, a former heroin addict, trying to help the heavy drinker MacGowan find strength to go on.

And Hawaiian vocalist Israel Kamakawiwo’s lilting “Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World” medley, featured in 1998’s “Meet Joe Black and 2000’s “Finding Forrester,” became popular after he had died in 1997.

By now, the song has become its own life force – bigger than its mere-mortal singers. “It has surpassed ‘Cant Help Falling in Love,’ which was my biggest song,” Weiss said. “I love it, I love it, and I can’t get over it.”

WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD