Twang Nation – The Best In Americana Music
Americana & Roots Music & Culture
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4VGlkcBtfw[/youtube]
The greatness of last week’s cover of Iron Maiden’s Wasted Years was just the beginning. Until Ryan Adams’ new release Ashes & Fire arrives on October 11 on Pax-Am/Capitol, here is an acoustic version of the title track. This along with the first single Lucky Now and live performances from an L.A. show from April of this year. This is shaping up to be a must have.
As of late a Ry Cooder live performance is as rare as hen’s teeth. So it was a treat that in support of his current current collection of neo-depression serenades “Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down” Cooder booked two quickly sold-out shows at the legendary Great American Music Hall in the seedy Tenderloin section of San Francisco. Since there seems to be no other dates to follow these so it was not surprising that I ran into fans that came as far away as New York and Texas to catch the event. The crowd in the long entrance line skewed boomer and they reminisced abut the various incarnations of Cooder they has experienced live over the years.
It’s easy to overuse hyphens when describing Ry Cooder’s sound. Cooder is a musicologist of sorts, but it’s not all theory, he then puts his discoveries to work in songs. Wikipedia has his sound as “dust bowl folk, blues, Tex-Mex, soul, gospel, rock. Yet somehow he fuses it all together to make great songs. His eclecticism is born out of his career of great solo work but also collaborations with artists as divers as Taj Mahal, Captain Beefheart, Randy Newman, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones (when, according to Keith Richards bio “Life,†Cooder let Keef in on the magic of open G tuning) , Little Feat, Van Morrison, Judy Collins and African multi-instrumentalist Ali Farka Toure and the conduit for forming the Buena Vista Social Club. And then there is the 15 soundtracks he’s created or contributed to. Yeah, you could say the man is diverse.
On this night Cooder staples Terry Evans and Arnold McCuller helping out with soulful vocals. San Antonio’s own Flaco Jimenez was on hand to lend his Tejano-style accordion to the occasion. The rest of the band skewed to a younger generation with a rhythm section featuring Cooder’s son Joachim on drums and Robert Francis on bass. Then there was the ten-piece brass section Cooder brought with him from So-Cal, which included tuba and bass-saxophone, that stretched the limits of space and had to be positioned in the balconies flanking the stage.
The night kicked into gear with the slinky funk of Crazy Bout An Automobile, then Boomer’s Story followed as a personal request of bassist Francis (“Youth must be served Cooder quipped.) A soulful rendition of Why Don’t You Try Me followed, then there was a lively version of Woody Guthrie’s Do Re Mi highlighted by Jimenez’s dazzling accordion work and a ode to Sam the Sham’s Wooly Bully (“I saw Sham and the Pharaohs pull up that hearse and thought†Man, that’s weird.†said Cooder)
Cooder’s new album carries through with the theme he followed recently of socio-political commentary done through contemporary folk numbers that are biting in their message but tempered by excellent song-craft and a wry (sure, pun) sense of humor. This was done to excellent effect by his performance of the new song El Corrido de Jesse James, which Cooder introduced as a fable told as a conversation between the outlaw James and God. Jesse James asks for his .45 colt peacemaker back to revisit Earth and introduce the Wall Street fat-cats to some old-style justice. It’s never made clear why an outlaw would suddenly turn law enforcer but it ‘s a fine tune nonetheless.
The show was a feast of sound and visuals but the moments that made you catch your breath was when Cooder took a solo or slide intro and made seemingly disparate notes alchemically transcend and glue the song together. The subtle mastery that Cooder brings ti the guitar put him in a rare class which might include Bill Frisell, Mark Ribot and Dave Rawlings.
San Pablo’s Los Cenzontles (The Mockingbirds) opened the show with authentic Mexican-influenced dance songs which set a tone of festivities and delighted the packed house.
Why Don’t You Try Me
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Oewi7cCa8[/youtube]
Wooly Bully
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTzLsmlvqiU&NR=1[/youtube]
Americana enfant terrible Ryan Adams has confirmed his new album ‘Ashes & Fire’ will be released on October 10th. It will be his his 13th(!) solo release. Adams has in recent times moved away from the country-based music in which he made his bones and worked on a couple of books electronic and heavy metal music. He’s also taken the occasional opportunity to dump on the heritage of country music.
The album was recorded in California with producer Glyn Johns, who helmed iconic records like the Who’s Who’s Next and engineered music for the Bob Dylan, Clash, the Rolling Stones, and the Beatles. Appearing on the album will be previous collaberator Norah Jones, who appears on three songs — Come Home, Save Me, and Kindness — and keyboardist Benmont Tench, a longtime member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Adams will set out on a solo acoustic tour this Fall, hitting cities in California and the Pacific Northwest; dates are forthcoming. Hardly Strictly perhaps?
Ashes & Fire tracklisting:
Dirty Rain
Ashes & Fire
Come Home
Rocks
Do I Wait
Chains of Love
Invisible Riverside
Save Me
Kindness
Lucky Now
I Love You But I Don’t Know What to Say
This clip from his surprise opening stop for Emmylou Harris at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles, CA, on April 21, 2011 gives me hope that the album will be a great one.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wfBDJLUVeE[/youtube]
There are a coupe of new releases upcoming that I am really anticipating…
Legendary country stalwart Merle Haggard will release ‘Working in Tennessee,’ on October 4, his second on the Vanguard Records label.
The Hag penned nine of the 11 tracks on the on the album and jsut as on 2010’s I Am What I Am he invites his wife Theresa to provide vocals on the Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash classic hit, Jackson. Merle’s son Ben Haggard also joins his father by providing his adroit tele work and Willie Nelson joins on an updated version of Merle’s ‘Workin’ Man Blues.’
Despite his 2008 lung cancer diagnosis, with part of his lung being removed, the 74-year-old hasn’t lost his voice. “I’m swinging back in full throttle right now,” he insists. “Music keeps me alive. It makes me breathe better … It’s funny, but I feel better when I come off a tour than when I start out.”
Merle has been confirmed to perform at the legendary Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park on October 1st. Check Merle’s other tour dates:
‘Working in Tennessee’ Track Listing:
1. ‘Working in Tennessee’ (Merle Haggard)
2. ‘Down on the Houseboat’ (Merle Haggard, Theresa Haggard, Doug Colosio)
3. ‘Cocaine Blues’ (TJ Arnall)
4. ‘What I Hate’ (Merle Haggard)
5. ‘Sometimes I Dream’ (Merle Haggard, Jenessa Haggard)
6. ‘Under the Bridge’ (Merle Haggard, Theresa Haggard)
7. ‘Too Much Boogie Woogie’ (Merle Haggard)
8. ‘Truck Driver’s Blues’ (Merle Haggard, Tim Howard)
9. ‘Laugh It Off’ (Merle Haggard, Theresa Haggard, Doug Colosio)
10. ‘Working Man Blues’ (Merle Haggard)
11. ‘Jackson’ (Billy Edd Wheeler, Gaby Rodgers)
And that Dirty Ol’ One Man Band from Texas, Scott H. Biram, will release his fourth full-length for Bloodshot Records, Bad Ingredients on October 11th on CD, vinyl LP, and digital download. Bad Ingredients was recorded at Biram’s home studio in Austin, Texas and mastered by Jerry Tubb of Terra Nova Mastering (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam), Bad Ingredients delivers SHB’s classic throat-stomping style (“Dontcha Lie To Me Baby” and “Victory Song”), but showcases a more mature songwriter-both lyrically and musically. It’s Biram at his quietest, but don’t worry, Hiram Biram still raises plenty a ruckus on his ’59 hollowbody Gibson and stomp board. But the best way to experience Biram is live, go check his schedule and see him if you can.
If there is such a thing as a superstar in the Americana genre then Gillian Welch is one. Her debut album, Revival, came out in the height of Nashville stylized indulgence – hitherto known as the Garth years – and reached so far back in style and subject matter that it couldn’t be called old school, it predated the school itself. This New York City born and Berklee College of Music educated woman became a gabardine-clad personification mountain holler laments and sepia drenched Dust Bowl yarns. Like Duluth, Minnesota’s Bob Zimmerman she embodied the ancestral ghosts of mythology and willed herself into a contemporary symbol of a bygone era by exhibiting a respect for the cultural legacy and ingenuity to work within the confines to create music that sounds not only timeless but new.
To further distinguish herself , at the time of her debut many of Welch’s contemporaries were approaching their work from a folky, more Lilith-like, direction. Welch was rougher, darker, and delivered her talws with grit. Like Loretta Lynn and Wanda Jackson, she appeared to be a woman that could drink you under the table and hold herself in a fight.
After an 8-year stretch, where Welch battled writer’s block and provided a supporting role for performing partner David Rawlings solo undertaking, By plan or happenstance The Harrow & the Harvest has been released to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the Coen Brothers O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a move that in many ways reflects to neo-rustic forms crafted by Welch. The movie’s multi-platinum soundtrack was a watershed moment for the Americana music genre and featured Welch performing alongside better-known contemporaries Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris. Welch also has a cameo in the film requesting a copy of the best-selling single from the movies fictitious group Soggy Bottom Boys.
On The Harrow & the Harvest Welch heeds timeless advice and doesn’t try and fix what’s not broken by offering up 10 songs of want and worry in many varieties. Scarlet Town opens with the protagonist visiting a town calamity and deception that would make Dr. Ralph Stanley bow his head in woe. The darkness of the songs subject is countered dazzlingly by David Rawlings deft guitar picking.
The murder ballad Dark Turn Of Mind carries a sinister undercurrent that belies it’s lulling cadence with a come-on / threat “take me and love me if you want me, but don’t ever treat me unkind. ‘cause I had bad trouble already, and he left me with a dark turn of mindâ€
The Way It Will Be is a smooth-folk Crosby, Stills and Nash-like that takes the associated SoCal groove to darker regions and The Way It Goes is a jaunty ode to weary fatalism that comes from a worn soul.
Tennessee is a character study in temptation and willful sin in the best Puritan tradition of the Southern Gothic form. The arch leads us from Sunday School to carousing, dancing and gambling all leading to the sweet bye and bye. The Way The Whole Thing Ends fittingly as it saunters and offers up hillbilly existential nuggets like “That’s the way the cornbread crumbles. That’s the way the whole thing ends.”
All in all The Harrow & the Harvest is a, paraphrasing from the song Scarlet Town , a deep well and a dark grave of an album brimming with hard truths as plainly told stiff as a pull of mash. It’s a fine return to form from an crafts-person that has been sorely missed. It’s the feel bad album of the summer
[dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xjlgyy_gillian-welch-the-way-it-goes-conan-2011_music[/dailymotion]
On August 16thlegendary singer/songwriter Guy Clark will release Songs And Stories, a live album recorded at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville. Clark runs through his extensive collection of classics – L.A. Freeway, The Randall Knife, The Cape, Homegrown Tomatoes, and Stuff That Works – complete with stories and casual asides that should make this a must-have.The Hotel Utah saloon , located South of Market near the waterfront and off a feeder from the Bay Bridge, wreaks history along with the usual bar fragrances.The saloon was built in 1908 and one the watering hole for opium dealers, gamblers, bible-thumpers, police, longshoremen, this was a place of history and an apt venue for a Ellis and his band’s Bay Area debut.
Ellis has been winning accolades from the New York Times and American Songwriter , but aside from all the positive ink (pixels?) Ellis and his excellent band are making their mark the old-school way – steady home gigs and hitting the and taking the show on the asphalt ribbon.
I talked to Ellis , who looks like he could front a metal band but belies that image with his thoughtful and soft-spoken manner as he sips a Jameson neat. We talked about life on the road and the bands first trip to California, the current state of Bluegrass and the Majesty that is George Jones. Ellis was brought up in Houston surrounded by music. His mother taught piano and the last few years he’s paid for his biscuits by teaching Taylor Swift songs to kids (which he enjoys) and paid his live music dues covering classic country playing the legendary Fitzgerald’s club in Houston every Wednesday night.
Ellis and The Boys - Kelly Doyle – guitar, Geoffrey Muller – Bass, Will Van Horn – pedal steel and Ryan Chavez – drums – took the stage at about 9:45 PM to a small but enthusiastic audience and commenced to run through a set featuring many songs from their upcoming New West release Photographs (7/5)
The sparse crowd were caiught up in the band as they slid from classic honky-tonk (Comin’ Home and I’ll Never Give Up On You) to psychedelic edged country rock jams to Tin-Pan Alleys grooves (Two Cans Of Paint). The great thing about the band was the ability to squeeze a great amount of diversity while still coloring within familiar genre lines. Through the sonic twists and turns Ellis’ voice anchors it all with a sound near a Jimmie Dale Gilmore keen blended Harry Nilsson folk nuance.
After plying the band with a round of Jameson they humored me by seamlessly breaking into a reverent version of the Possum’s tear-in-my beer A Good Day for the Roses followed by a rousing version of The Race is On. That’s what I call a damn great band!
Check these guys out when they hit your town and look for great things from them in the future.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKsgQcqHdlU&feature=related[/youtube]
As a big thanks to each of you that join in the experience, EVERYONE WHO PURCHASES TICKETS IN ADVANCE for these shows will receive and EXCLUSIVE LIVE EP (by email) of BONUS MATERIAL off of the live album
Much love,
The Infamous StringdustersIt is with great excitement that we, the Stringdusters, announce our first official collaboration with you, the people. This is a live album that’s long overdue. Four of our favorite rooms (and one soon to be) in five great cities–we set up the mics, together we set up the celebration. It’s a record for all the world to hear, but some of you will actually be a part of it, partying down in the control room, singing backup while we dance across the recording studio stage. This is what we love to do. This is where our music comes to life. Join us, and this time WE’LL DO IT LIVE.
As a big thanks to each of you that join in the experience, EVERYONE WHO PURCHASES TICKETS IN ADVANCE for these shows will receive and EXCLUSIVE LIVE EP (by email) of BONUS MATERIAL off of the live album
Much love,
The Infamous Stringdusters
Goodnight Old World is the first video from Emmylou Harris’ upcoming album Hard Bargain. The video will be included as a DVD with the Deluxe Edition of album. Harris co-wrote the song with Will Jennings, as a bittersweet lullaby to her newly born grandchild, contrasting a grown-up’s world-weariness with a baby’s wide-eyed wonder.
Producer Jay Joyce uses same ethereal, gauzy atmosphere that Daniel Lanois used with Harris’ acclaimed 1995 release Wrecking Ball and the technique suits Harris’ voice like a velvet glove. The song is melancholy and hopeful in the same way that old country songs used to be morally ambiguous and almost Gothic in their style.
This is a great glimpse of a highly anticipated album I hope meets this first cuts high standard.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54cxG3lOS58&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]
I wondered what the new Alison Krauss & Union Station would change their sound like in the wake of her collaboration with Rock God Robert Plant that netted the duo, and producer T Bone Burnett,  5 Grammys including Album of the Year and platinum status for Raising Sand. The answer from the sound of their first self-titled single from their upcoming Paper Airplane (4/12) appears to be not much. I guess after you’ve won 26 Grammys and sold millions of albums you don’t try and fix what isn’t broken. The video has a Grapes of Wrath-era look that fits the sound the band has cultivated over their 21 years in existence. But like the stiletto shoes that accompany Krauss’ simple gabardine dress there is a contemporary slant to their unique bland of bluegrass. I am willing to say that few can match Krauss in the vox department.
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