Posts Tagged ‘Cover Songs’

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Jackie DeShannon: When You Walk in the Room

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

An American songwriting legend revisits her career highlights

It’s been more than a decade since listeners heard new recordings from Jackie DeShannon, and rather than writing new material, she’s chosen to reconsider the classics in her catalog. The good news is that the songs are terrific, DeShannon’s voice has aged well, and she finds compelling, new interpretations for the well-worn chestnuts. The less good news is that a few of the arrangements are undercooked, the tempos start to drag by album’s end, and the mixes don’t always lay the vocals fully into the instrumentation. It’s great to hear DeShannon singing, and to have these songs rethought by their author (alongside the new composition “Will You Stay in My Life”), but one might wish her co-producer pushed for a greater variety of approaches.

The album’s title track is its best, maturing the adolescent anticipation of DeShannon’s original into mature knowingness. Her earlier notes of youthful anxiety are transformed into hints of surprise as she lingers over the words and realizes the on-going strength of her desire. The stripping of ‘60s filigree from Marianne Faithful and Cher’s versions of “Come and Stay With Me” [1 2] turns the song from ‘60s pop into something fit for Linda Ronstadt’s early days, and that same Canyon vibe lives on in “Don’t Doubt Yourself Babe.” The latter smooths the Byrds’ jangly folk-rock (and DeShannon’s own folk demo) into engaging adult pop. Among the most startling transformations is DeShannon’s turn of the hyperkinetic “Breakaway” [1 2 3] into a definitive and dark ballad, and a bluesy take on “Bad Water” that strips away the Raelettes’ ‘70s-style soul.

DeShannon’s vocals are engrossing throughout, but the simplified arrangement of guitars, bass and light drums hangs “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” halfway between a stripped-down folk style and the original single’s memorable combination of horns, strings and backing vocals. The thoughtful approach to “Bette Davis Eyes” is undermined by a metronomic drum line, and by the time the album gets to “Needles & Pins,” the tempo feels tired. Each track provokes new interpretation as it’s stripped- and slowed-down from its iconic initial recording, but taken as a collection they hit only a narrow range of emotional notes. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Bad Water
Jackie DeShannon’s Home Page
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Various Artists: Beat Beat Beat Volume 3 – Mop Top Pop

Monday, September 26th, 2011

British Invasion sounds of ‘64

The third volume of Castle Music’s British Invasion anthology is now available domestically for digital download. Originally released in 2002, the 56-track collection digs into the Pye Records vault for sides released amid the British Invasion in 1964. The name act most familiar to U.S. listeners is the Searchers (represented here by the lovely “Don’t Throw Your Love Away, the love-lorn beat rock “I Pretend I’m With You” and two more), but the real riches are in the lesser known acts. Highlights include Rod and Carolyn’s tight duet “Talk to Me,” the Monotones’ hand-clapping “It’s Great,” Vandyke & The Bambis foot-stomping Alley Oop-styled “Doin’ the Mod,” Tommy Quickly’s wrought “You Might As Well Forget Him,” the Wedgewoods’ Seekers-styled “September in the Rain,” and Shane and the Shane Gang’s terrific train-rhythm blues “Whistle Stop.” There are enthusiastic covers of “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” “You Can’t Sit Down,” “Sally Go ‘Round the Roses” and the Soul Agents’ should have scored a double A-side with “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” and “Mean Woman Blues.” To be fair, there are also dozens of competent singles and B-sides that rightly made little impression on the UK chart and are unknown in the USA. Still, it’s interesting to hear all the things that Pye was throwing at the market to see what would stick. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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George Strait: Here For a Good Time

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

The iron man of country music

George Strait’s numbers are eye-popping: 30 years, 24 chart-topping albums, 57 chart-topping singles, 69 million records sold. 84 of his 89 radio singles have cracked the Top 10 – second only to Eddy Arnold (who notched 92!). It’s a streak worthy of Lou Gehrig and Cal Ripkin Jr. One could wonder whether his fame has simply become self-sustaining, but the music industry is littered with acts who maintained their success for a few years or a decade, but few have sustained Strait’s level of commercial success for thirty years. During those three decades, the artistic reach of Strait’s albums has waxed and waned, but he’s never seemed less than sincere or involved by the songs, and he’s never strayed far from his country roots.

The past few years have seen some high points, including the neon honky-tonk glow of 2003’s Honkytonkville and his return to songwriting on last year’s Twang. This year’s model is notable more for its consistency, including his continued songwriting with his son, than for anything particularly new. Strait sings with his usual ease as he extols the healing power of love and is equally convincing as he voices an alcoholic’s weakness. He lays some deep experience into Jesse Winchester’s oft-covered “A Showman’s Life,” and delights in covering Delbert McLinton’s “Lonestar Blues.” The standard Nashville mix of good times and romantic discord fills out a solidly traditional, if not particularly revelatory album. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Hank Williams: The Legend Begins

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Remastered Health & Happiness Shows + Earlier Bonuses

This three-disc set returns to domestic print the two discs of live radio performances previously anthologized on the 1993 Heath & Happiness Shows. These programs were remastered from transcription discs cut in October 1949 at the Castle studio in Nashville, and though there are a few minor audio artifacts, the sound quality – particularly the instrumental balance of the Drifting Cowboys and the presence of Williams’ voice – is exceptional. Each of the eight shows stretched to 15 minutes, when augmented by ad copy read by a local announcer; here they clock in a few minutes shorter. Williams opens each program with the Sons of the Pioneers’ “Happy Rovin’ Cowboy” and fiddler Jerry Rivers closes each episode with the instrumental “Sally Goodin”.

In between the opening and closing numbers, Williams sings some of his best-loved early hits, original songs, and gospel numbers, and much like the later performances gathered on The Complete Mothers’ Best Recordings… Plus! (or its musical-excerpt version, The Unreleased Recordings), the spontaneity and freshness of the live takes often outshine the better-known studio recordings. Williams’ wife Audrey accompanies him on a few duets and sings a couple of challenging solo slots; Jerry Rivers shines both as an accompanist and in short solo highlights. As with the Mothers’ Best shows, Williams is revealed to be not only a revered singer and songwriter, but a master host and entertainer.

The set’s third disc includes a dozen rare Williams recordings. From 1938, a fifteen-year-old Williams is heard singing the novelty number “Fan It” and the then-current movie theme “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” These are rough recordings, but a priceless opportunity to hear just how precocious Williams was as a teenager. Two years later Williams recorded a number of home demos, including the four standards covered here. The recording quality is tinny and the discs are far from pristine, but they’re clear enough to reveal the adult Hank Williams voice beginning to emerge. The final six tracks jump ahead eleven years, past the Health & Happiness shows to a March of Dimes show from 1951.

The Health & Happiness recordings haven’t always had a healthy or happy history. MGM released overdubbed versions in 1961, and the 1993 reissue was plagued by physical problems with the transcriptions. But as with the Mothers’ Best release, Joe Palmaccio has deftly resuscitated ephemeral, sixty-year-old recordings with his restoration and remastering magic. Given that these discs were only meant to last through a radio broadcast or two, their picture of a twenty-six-year-old Williams just breaking into Nashville is astonishing. Those with an earlier reissue will value the sonic upgrade, historic bonus tracks, 4-panel digipack, 16-page booklet and detailed liner notes from Williams biographer Colin Escott. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Alberta Hunter: Downhearted Blues

Tuesday, August 30th, 2011

An 85-year-old blues legend burns up the stage

Born in 1895, and having been an early blues innovator in the 1920s, Alberta Hunter became a living link to the jazz-age, and stars like Bessie Smith, Paul Robeson and Ma Rainey. In the late ‘50s she started a second career as a nurse, and mostly retired from music, but by the mid-70s she’d been lured back to live performance. In 1981 she recorded this live set at a New York cabaret called The Cookery. At 85, Hunter was still sharp-as-a-tack; not sharp for an 85-year-old, just sharp. Her sassy stage patter, interactions with the band and audience, and vocalizing are filled with percussive energy, knowing phrasings and deep experience and wisdom. Singing with accompaniment from Gerald Cook (piano, arrangements) and Jimmy Lewis (bass), Hunter covers standards that she wrote (and as she noted, was still collecting royalties on) as well as a selection of standards from other authors of the great American songbook. This same set was issued by Varese Sarabande in 2001, and is now returned to domestic print by the Rockbeat label. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Thelonious Monk: Alone in San Francisco

Saturday, August 27th, 2011

Jazz genius entertains listeners as he entertains himself

Having finely gained fame as a pianist with his recordings on Riverside, Monk took this 1959 timeout from leading group dates to lay down an album of solo sides. Recorded in San Francisco’s resonant Fugazi Hall (a spot popular with the Beats, and more recently home to the long-running Beach Blanket Babylon), Monk revisited several of his own classics, as well as several standards. The pianist seems relaxed and playful, entertaining himself as much as playing for the record’s eventual audience. Coming off sessions with Gerry Mulligan, Johnny Griffin, and others, Monk takes time to explore the tunes, running through varied interpretations of key phrases and indulging his idiosyncratic approach to tempo.

“Ruby My Dear” sounds as if it’s played on a music box cranked by a listener whose love of certain passages causes the intensity and tempo to increase. Monk stretches the piano’s dynamics from tender to nearly showy romanticism, exercising both the fluidity with which its notes can be strung together and the percussive ability of its hammers. He lets chords hang in the recording hall’s reverberant air, listening as his own playing surrounded him. This rendition of “Blue Monk” may be the best of the many versions he recorded, while several other titles were one-offs, including the original “Round Lights” and the 1929 standard “There’s Danger in Your Eyes, Cherie.” An earlier take of the latter is included as a bonus track. Concord’s latest reissue of this Riverside title was newly remastered in 24-bits by Joe Tarnatino. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Shirley Scott Trio” For Members Only / Great Scott!!

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Jazz organist lights up Impulse in ’63 and ‘64

After a six-year stay at Prestige, jazz organist Shirley Scott began a lengthy run of albums on Impulse! This two-fer brings together her first two albums for the label, 1963’s For Members Only and 1964’s Great Scott!!  Each album splits its tracks between Scott’s regular trio setting (variously featuring rhythms by Earl May/Jimmy Cobb and Bob Cranshaw/Otis Finch) and arrangements written and conducted by Oliver Nelson. Scott’s Hammond fits well into each setting, leading the trio with terrific energy and verve, and finding space for lower-wattage performances amid Nelson’s charts. Scott’s original tunes, including the superb “Blues for Members,” are given to the trios, with the orchestral numbers drawn largely from jazz and show tunes. The small combo is likely to be more satisfying to those who favor hard-swinging, bluesy shots of Hammond, though Scott’s long musical relationship with Nelson yields some nice results, including a swanky take on Henry Mancini’s “A Shot in the Dark.” [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Gabor Szabo: The Sorcerer / More Sorcery

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Hypnotic and forceful 1967 two-fer from legendary jazz guitarist

After emigrating from Budapest in the mid-50s, Hungarian guitarist Gabor Szabo found his way into the U.S. jazz scene, first with Chico Hamilton, and starting in 1966 as a group leader. These two 1967 live albums come from the middle of a productive two-year stay on Impulse!, and collect performances from an April run at Boston’s Jazz Workshop and a September date at the Monterey Jazz Festival. Szabo plays in a quintet of guitar, bass, drums and percussion. The song list mixes originals from Szabo and guitarist Jimmy Stewart, with standards, pop hits and several Brazilian tunes. This quintet was one of Szabo’s best showcases, as the interplay and conversations between the two guitars are buoyed by a solid rhythm section. Hal Gordon, who’d only joined the group the month before the Boston dates, quickly established his congas as an integral part of the combo’s sound. The use of only strings and drums (as well as the combination of acoustic and electric guitars) set the group apart from horn-driven jazz acts, creating a sound that suggested the ballroom jams of San Francisco, but without indulging either the volume of rock or the avant garde changes of fusion. This two-fer is an excellent showcase of what Szabo’s mid-60s quintet could do. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

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Connie Smith: Long Line of Heartaches

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

60s/70s country hit maker takes a well-turned bow

Country hit maker Connie Smith first broke through in the mid-60s, scoring a chart-topper with her debut “Once a Day,” winning numerous awards and scoring on the charts through the end of the ‘70s. She mostly retired from recording in 1979, continuing to perform live, dropping a few non-LP singles in the mid-80s and a self-titled album in 1998. It’s been thirteen years since that last full-length solo release, and as before, with no mainstream commercial aspirations to sway her artistry, she digs into a rich set of songs, many co-written with her husband and producer, Marty Stuart. The remaining titles are drawn from the country pens of Harlan Howard, Kostas, Patty Loveless, Emory Gordy Jr. and others.

At 70, Smith hasn’t the tight vocal control of her younger years, but she still delivers the heart and soul of a country song. Stuart, who produced her last album, knows a thing or two (or three) about framing his wife’s singing in twang and blues. Backed by a small combo of guitar (by the stellar Nashville player, Rick Wright), steel, bass and drums, Smith and Stuart checked into RCA’s legendary studio B for four days – enough time to lay down a dozen tracks the old-fashioned way – seamlessly weaving together new and old songs into a collage of busted hearts, half-hearted protestations, dried tears, resignation and forgiveness.

Highlights include powerful covers of Johnny Russell’s “Ain’t You Even Gonna Cry” and Johnny Paycheck’s “My Part of Forever,” the bouncy acceptance of “You and Me,” and Dallas Frazier’s newly-minted “A Heart Like You.” The set closes with the original “Blue Heartaches” and the spiritual “Take My Hand.” The latter, sung with her three daughters, renews the faithful chapter of Smith’s career that grew in the late ‘70s. There’s a world of experience in Smith’s singing – both personal and professional – and together with Stuart she’s revived the experience of ‘60s and ‘70s country without treading in nostalgia. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Long Line of Heartaches
Connie Smith’s Home Page

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Candye Kane: Sister Vagabond

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Candye Kane and Laura Chavez tear up the blues

Kane’s first album after beating pancreatic cancer, 2009’s Superhero, was rightly built on themes from the fight. This follow-up release extends the recovery, but more by doubling-down on the blues belting career she had before, than by living some sort of hyperaware second chapter. There’s a pleasure in her singing that’s perhaps a step more ferocious than before, expressing George Herbert’s notion that living well is the best revenge, or in this case, the greatest triumph. But the scars she carries – a problematic childhood, early motherhood, less-than-savory jobs and cancer recovery – are those of a winner, the marks carried by anyone who’s lived enough life to really sing the blues. Kane’s nine new original songs are matters of the heart, mostly roughed-up and broken, occasionally recovered. The four covers include a sweet and sexy take on Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “I Love to Love You” and a moody version of “Sweet Nothin’s” that adds Wanda Jackson’s scorching sass to Brenda Lee’s original precociousness. Laura Chavez’s guitar is given equal voice to Kane’s vocals, motivating the songs with twangy rhythm playing and stinging riffs, and James Harman guests on harmonica for Jack Tempshin and Glen Frey’s previously unrecorded “Everybody’s Gonna Love Somebody Tonight.” Take these tunes for a spin on Whittier, Tweedy or Bellflower, and enjoy the punchy mixes as they roar from the rear speaker of your ’62 Impala. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | You Can’t Hurt Me Anymore
Candye Kane’s Home Page

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