The recent PBS tribute to Buddy Holly, Listen to Me, revealed this interesting tidbit: Holly’s hit song “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” was written for him by Paul Anka! Perhaps not as surprising when you consider that Anka also wrote the theme song for the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Tom Jones’ “She’s a Lady,” and the English-language lyrics for Sinatra’s signature “My Way.” On top of all that, he donated his composer’s royalty for the song to Holly’s widow, Maria Elena.
In contrast to the deeper picks of last year’s Country Music, this year’s model has Nelson working through some of the most famous tunes in country music’s chart history. Included are signature hits from Ernest Tubb (“Remember Me”), Merle Travis (“Sixteen Tons”), George Jones (“Why Baby Why”), Hank Snow (“I’m Movin’ On”), Porter Wagoner (“A Satisfied Mind”), and many others. Nelson teams with Nashville session players and producer James Stroud (the ‘J’ in the R&J record label) to record surprisingly straightforward and twangy covers of fourteen selections. The singularity of Nelson’s artistry allows these simple recitations to escape the shadows cast by the original hits; the instant identifiably of his voice is all that’s needed to make these songs his own. The result finds Nelson easily sharing the stage with both the songs and their famous originators, as if he were a cabaret singer taking a stroll through the great American songbook. It’s just that the songbook in question is mostly Nashville’s rather than Tin Pan Alley’s.
In 2008 this South Carolina band’s Freedom Wind so thoroughly evoked the Beach Boys golden age, that you’d wonder if their East Coast beach town of Charleston had somehow connected via a time and space portal to Los Angeles in 1965. More than just recreating the harmonies, instrumentation and arrangements, the band evoked Brian Wilson’s ethos in music, words and emotional tone. It remains a jaw-dropping achievement from start to finish. Four years later, in February of 2012, the band will return with their second album, expanding their exploration of 1960s sounds to the broad sweep of mid-decade AM radio hits, encompassing everything from the sophisticated writing of Burt Bacharach to the Latin-tinged schmaltz of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
In anticipation of the forthcoming album, which will be mixed by Beach Boys associate Mark Linett, the band is releasing a trio of free EPs, each featuring a non-LP cover song and two pre-Linett mixes of album tracks. The Californian Suite, released last month, opened with a superb cover of Burt Bacharach’s “Walk on By,” and this month’s entry, The Carolinian Suite, offers up the Club’s take on the Classics IV’s “Stormy.” The band relaxes the song’s tempo a notch, giving the arrangement a terrific, loungey air; Jason Brewer’s voice isn’t as husky as Dennis Yost’s, but his gentle blue-eyed soul, the harmony vocals and the jazzy guitar at song’s end are terrific. The EP’s original tunes include a ballad (“Sweet Delights”) that sounds like mid-60s Brian Wilson crooning from the Great American Songbook, and the Burt Bacharach-styled “It’s No Use,” featuring an emotional vocal coda that’s equal parts Little Anthony and Dionne Warwick.
In 2008 this South Carolina band’s Freedom Wind so thoroughly evoked the Beach Boys golden age, that you’d wonder if their East Coast beach town of Charleston had somehow connected via a time and space portal to Los Angeles in 1965. More than just recreating the harmonies, instrumentation and arrangements, the band evoked Brian Wilson’s ethos in music, words and emotional tone. It remains a jaw-dropping achievement from start to finish. Four years later, in February of 2012, the band will return with their second album, expanding their exploration of 1960s sounds to the broad sweep of mid-decade AM radio hits, encompassing everything from the sophisticated writing of Burt Bacharach to the Latin-tinged schmaltz of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.
The 1990s edition of the Mickey Mouse Club was a surprising hotbed of soon-to-be-successful young artists. In addition to better-known alumni Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera, the Club was home to a dozen more actors and singers whose stars may not have risen to international fame, but whose work is worth looking up. Among those making a living with their music is Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Tony Lucca. No longer the boy singer (that’s him in the middle, next to girlfriend Keri Russell), or the hunky actor of Aaron Spelling’s Malibu Shores, Lucca’s matured into a bearded and bespectacled singer-songwriter with a dozen EPs and albums to his credit.
His first few efforts were self-released and promoted via the Internet, but a couple years after opening for ‘N Sync (home of fellow Mousketeers Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez) in 2001 and 2002, he landed a deal with Lightyear and released the Chasez exec-produced Shotgun. Lucca showed off a deft ear for pop melody and harmony, and though the arrangements and vocal tone occasionally stray toward the middle of the Adult Alternative road, the overall effect was favorably remindful the early releases of power-popsters like Richard X. Heyman. Lucca’s efforts continued with Rock Ridge on Canyon Songs and Rendezvous with the Angels, and now with this latest all-covers album.
Cover songs are a tricky proposition. If you radically reinvent song, you need to find an interpretation that speaks to listeners in equal measure to the original. If you tread the outlines of the source, you need to do more than spark the listener’s urge to seek out the original artifact. Lucca’s chosen the latter route, threading together interpretations of baby boomer classics that are close enough to be comfortable, but sufficiently personal to rise above karaoke. Better yet, by recording a full album of covers, Lucca tells listener a bit about himself and the influences that go into his own songs.
The album’s selections are generally well-known and often well-covered by other artists, from the piano-based dirge of Stephen Stills’ “Find the Cost of Freedom” that opens the album through the soulful a cappella reading of Chris Whitley’s “Dirt Floor.” In between Lucca adds just enough originality to Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work,” Tom Petty’s “You Got Lucky” and the Rolling Stones’ “Waiting on a Friend” to freshen them up without taking untoward liberties. It’s a delicate balance – changing the tempos slightly or adding a soulful edge to the vocal – but one for which Lucca has a tremendous feel.
The twenty tracks collected here pull together the original line-ups of 1962’s Sinatra-Basie: An Historical Musical First and 1964’s It Might as Well Be Swing. Both albums found Sinatra in superb voice, complete command of his material and leading Basie’s band from the singer’s seat. Unlike his early days as a big band boy singer, Sinatra doesn’t have to dodge and weave around the instrumentalists; Neil Hefti and Quincy Jones penned the arrangements in consultation with the vocalist, and the band hangs on his every word. Basie may have been the band leader, but once Sinatra opened his mouth, the instrumentalists took their cues from the Chairman.
By the early ‘60s, Sinatra was in the third phrase of his career – having transformed from big band singer to crooner to ring-a-ding-ding label owner. In his late ‘40s, the feeling of freedom in his singing was never stronger. He dances through the lyrics as if he was singing extemporaneously, expressing himself rather than the thoughts of a songwriter, and the arrangements push him to great heights. Basie’s band (and for the second album, orchestra) swung hard, ranging from jazzy piano, bass and percussion interludes to full-out horn charts. The sections play with a coherence that’s sublime, and the soloists are given space to weave their own magic, including especially fine moments from flautist Frank Wess.
Sinatra’s records at Capitol may have represented his greatest sustained period of artistic achievement, but his years on Reprise often consolidated and exploited what he’d learned. His sessions with Basie, particularly the first, were a master class in tone and phrasing. Basie’s greatest artistic growth had similarly occurred in earlier decades, but he retained nealy unparalleled talent for accompanying a singer – supporting the vocals as the primary mission, but finding room for the band to be heard. Hefti and Riddle’s contributions can’t be overstated, picking songs and writing charts that allowed Sinatra and Basie to infuse new life into these iconic selections. Sinatra deftly punches, pauses and slides through the lyrics of “(Love is) The Tender Trap,” and with a transformation from Bossa Nova to 4/4, “Fly Me to the Moon” was established as a Sinatra standard.
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Buddy Holly, Paul Anka and Jerry Lee Lewis
