What if, after cutting his musical teeth in Phoenix, Lee Hazlewood had turned East to Nashville, rather than West to Los Angeles? And what if he’d met Nancy Sinatra in MusicCity rather than the City of Angels? The answer might sound like a twist on the Western-tinged landscapes of “Summer Wine” and “Some Velvet Morning,” and it might have sounded something like the opening track of this Nashville band’s debut. Vocalist Jessica Maros’ sings a bit more ethereally than Nancy, but with the same confident sass that was catnip to Sinatra’s fans. Maros’ cohort Tyler James fills Hazlewood’s role as vocal straight man, but with a grittier rock ‘n’ roll kick and a haunting trumpet sound that evokes the sun-baked deserts of Sergio Leone and forlorn mood of Bobby Hackett.
The quality of music one person can create in a home studio is at times stupefying. The technology to make high-quality recordings can be bought, but the imagination to coherently layer instruments and voices over time is an almost otherworldly talent. Brian Wilson could hear complex productions in his head, but he relied on the talents of others to make them corporeal. Even a mastermind like Phil Spector was enabled by engineers, musicians and vocalists whose ideas, feedback and criticism fed into his final work. But there is a strain of lone wolf pop musician – Richard X. Heyman comes to mind – who are their own best company. They may also play well with others, but given the opportunity to hone their vision in solitude, over a long period of time, they can create something extraordinary.
Such is the talent of Shropshire (UK) singer-songwriter Jim Williams. After two albums with the Americana band Additional Moog, Williams launched this solo project and spent two years recording and refining, transforming the country sounds of his demos into the layered Americana-pop of these final mixes. Though this isn’t technically a solo album – Ben Davies plays drums and Gerry Hogan adds touches of steel – the heart and soul of the album is Williams. He plays guitar, bass and keyboards, and his voice is both the lead and backing chorus. What’s most impressive though, is that throughout the album the interplay between the instruments, between the instruments and lead vocals, and between the lead and background vocals all sound more like a band than a studio-bound construction.
After an album of Blaze Foley covers in 2011, singer-songwriter Gurf Morlix returns to his catalog of forbidding originals. The album’s title provides a clever play on words, suggesting a man catching up to the moment only to find that moment overbearing. The title track focuses on immediate burdens, but Morlix also finds overwhelming baggage in a future lashed inextricably to the consequences of past actions. Morlix’s characters are left stranded at a turning point between decisions and their lifelong consequences. The prisoner of “My Life’s Been Taken” ruminates on his confinement, resigned to a life of wondering what could have been. The song provides a coda to 2009′s “One More Second,” in which a shooter considers the thin line between reaction and action; here the killer is doomed to reconsider that border until his life ends.
Juke-joint swing, twangy honky-tonk and hot rock ‘n’ roll
Wayne Hancock’s been making great albums since he introduced himself with 1995′s Thunderstorms and Neon Signs. His vocal similarity to Hank Sr. hasn’t abated a bit in the subsequent eighteen years, nor has his fealty to the basic elements of Williams’ brand of twangy honky-tonk and haunted sorrow. But Hancock is more a man out of time than a throwback, and though his music takes on a nostalgic tint amidst Nashville’s contemporary style, he makes the case that the sounds he champions are timeless. He sparks terrific performances from his guitarists (Eddie Biebel, Tjarko Jeen and Bob Stafford), steel player (Eddie Rivers) and bassist (Zack Sapunor), and he sounds happy to be singing,l even when he’s singing the blues.
Masterful live performance by country-folk singer-songwriter
Gauthier’s strength as a live performer is evident from the riveting cover of Fred Eaglesmith’s “Your Sister Cried” that opens her first live album. Taken at a resolute tempo, Gauthier is at once haggard, reportorial and sympathetic, and her hard-strummed guitar is augmented by dramatic accents, a harmony vocal and a solo from violinist Tania Elizabeth that leaves the audience hooting in appreciation. Together with percussionist Mike Meadows, the trio proves that less can very much be more, as their presentations leave enough space for the vocals, harmonies, lyrics and instruments to each shine, but combine the elements into a musculature that a solo singer-songwriter rarely achieves.
Key to the proceedings is Gauthier’s way with a lyric. Whether singing or reciting, she’s magnetic as a master storyteller who’s in no hurry. Her harmonica and Elizabeth’s violin are similarly free in their pace, allowing the solos and accompaniment to ebb and flow with the lyrical mood. The song list includes selections from all but Gauthier’s first studio album, with a generous helping of four selections from 1999’s Drag Queens and Limousines and three Fred Eaglesmith tunes. She sings of outsiders: a hobo king, an addict and an alcoholic, a disillusioned father, an unmoored adoptee and a repentant murderer. But even with their troubled backgrounds, they form a surprisingly seemly lot, humanized by Gauthier’s telling of their stories.
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Modern-rock with roots in the ’70s
