Elvis caps his remarkable comeback

Recorded in 1970 and released in 1971, Elvis Country was the culmination of a remarkable career resurrection. Starting with his 1968 Comeback Special, Elvis went on to reel off the brilliant From Elvis in Memphis (and the second-helping, Back in Memphis), the smartly constructed Vegas show of On Stage, and the studio/live That’s the Way It Is. He capped the run with this 1971 return to his roots, branding these country, gospel, blues, rockabilly and western swing covers with authority. Elvis showed his genius was rooted in his passion for music, which encompassed everything from the early rockabilly of Sanford Clark’s “The Fool” (written, surprisingly, by Lee Hazlewood) to the then-contemporary hit “Snowbird,” as well as classics from Ernest Tubb, Lester Flatt & Bill Monroe, Willie Nelson and Hank Cochran.

Recorded in RCA’s famed Studio B with Presley regulars James Burton, Charlie McCoy and Chip Young; the newly assembled studio hands included several players from the Muscle Shoals powerhouse, and the sessions were produced by Felton Jarvis. The arrangements ranged from loose, down home country jams to Vegas-styled orchestrations, and hearing the variety back-to-back, one quickly realizes how easily Elvis transcended the musical boundaries between his ‘50s roots and his glitzy ‘70s stage shows. Much like the 1969 American Studio sessions in Memphis, Elvis’ enthusiasm and musicality directs the assembled players and provokes top-notch performances; he leads the crew through a rocking workout of Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and brings “Tomorrow Never Comes” to a volcanic climax.

The original album tracks are knit together with snippets of “I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago,” a gimmick that some listeners find irritating, and which wreaks havoc on shuffle play; the complete take is included in the bonuses. An earlier CD reissue expanded the track count from twelve to eighteen, and this double-CD pushes the total to twenty-nine, including all six earlier bonuses. Disc two opens with the third-helping of the Nashville sessions, previously released as Love Letters from Elvis, and adds three more session bonuses: the singles “The Sound of Your Cry” and “Rags to Riches,” and the album track “Sylvia.” The broad range of material on Love Letters doesn’t always connect with Elvis’ legacy as tightly as that on Elvis Country, but Elvis is in fine voice on each track, and the assembled players are sharp.

Everything here’s been issued before, but pulling together session material previously spread across singles, albums, box sets and latter-day compilations has created a superb recounting of the last chapter of Elvis’ incredible comeback. Not included are the eight Nashville tracks released as part of That’s the Way It Is. A third-disc with banded versions of Elvis Country (minus the musical segues, that is) would have been a great addition, but even without it, this is an excellent expansion upon previous standalone reissues, and a terrific complement to the Legacy editions of From Elvis in Memphis and On Stage. The remastered discs (by Vic Anesini) are housed in a tri-fold digipack with a booklet that includes liner notes by Stuart Colman and terrific photos. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]

‘70s rocker delivers a nostalgic musical autobiography

If you lost track of Dwight Twilley over the years since his mid-70s breakthroughs, Sincerely and Twilley Don’t Mind, you’re in luck, as his latest album is as richly enveloping and fully satisfying as you remember from thirty-five years ago. Those who kept up with the Oklahoman have been treated to new albums, live recordings and multiple volumes of unreleased material, but the pop mainstream long ago moved on from the magic he created with drummer/vocalist Phil Seymour and guitarist Bill Pitcock IV. With Seymour having passed away in 1993, and Pitcock having passed just as this new collection was being completed, this is likely to be the last album that retains the full measure of Twilley’s ‘70s nostalgia.

And nostalgic this album is. Not only does much of it sound as if it were produced alongside Twilley’s earlier classics, but as the soundtrack to a documentary on Twilley’s life, the songs are purposely autobiographical. Twilley sounds great, with the Buddy Holly hiccup still in his voice, the atmosphere of Sun’s slapback echo surrounding him in a luscious bank of rhythm guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards, and Pitcock’s 6-string adding searing leads. He writes of his immortal days as a Tulsa teenager, his early dreams of rock ‘n’ roll, and the musical education he received from Sun’s Ray Harris in Tupelo; and it’s all wrapped in Twilley’s signature melding of Merseybeat and Memphis.

Twilley’s remained enthusiastic, even as music business machinations – he and Tom Petty each suffered at Shelter Records – sidetracked his career at the very points it was set to explode. He’s scrupulously maintained his artistic integrity – never pandering or chasing trends in search of a contract – and built an artistically consistent, if not always consistently distributed, back catalog. His musical autobiography retains the youthful spark of his earlier work, but layered with the craft and perspective of thirty-five years in the business. He lauds the value of hard-won accomplishments in the lushly acoustic “Good Things Come Hard,” reaching back for images of his early partnership with Phil Seymour.

Twilley’s melodies hold a wistful edge, and it serves his nostalgia well. His optimism shines in “My Life,” providing a riff on the sentiment of John Lennon’s “In My Life,” and when recounting the difficulties of his aspiring days, he looks back with fondness rather than ire or regret. Twilley isn’t untouched by life’s bad turns, but the scars are like a guitar players calluses, providing insulation without dampening one’s feeling. He combines the idealism of a teenager with the unshakable belief of a battle-scarred veteran, tracing a remarkably straight artistic line from his mid-20s to his current work. It’s a line that traces Twilley’s inexhaustible creativity and unshakable fealty to rock ‘n’ roll. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Dwight Twilley’s Home Page

The New New Rhythm and Blues Quartet

After a seven-year hiatus that included health issues for Terry Adams, side projects for Joey Spampinato and the virtual retirement of Tom Ardolino, NRBQ has reformed and renewed. Spampinato joined up full time with his brother in the Spampinato Brothers, and Ardolino released himself from the rigors of touring, leaving Adams to rebuild the band with new partners. Initially billed under their leader’s name, the new quartet cut its teeth in gigs and the studio before Adams felt they captured grooves worthy of the name “NRBQ.” Adams’ new bandmates are guitarist Scott Ligon, bassist Pete Donnely and drummer Conrad Choucroun. Ligon and Donnely also add vocals and songwriting, making this a group, rather than a showcase for Adams.

Happily, the new quartet has captured the eclectic mix that made the original band so intoxicating. Leading off the album is Adams’ tribute to New Orleans legend Boozoo Chavis and his wife Leona, with Choucroun propelling the song with a terrific second line rhythm. Just as this parade passes by the band turns to the pure pop of “Keep This Love Goin’” and “Here I Am,” offering up shades of the Raspberries, Beach Boys and Gary Lewis. There’s rockabilly rhythm guitar and a touch of Carl Perkins’ lead style on “I’m Satisfied,” and the slap-rhythm of “Sweet and Petite” sounds like country came down the mountain to wax some rock ‘n’ roll.

Less successful are the supper-club tunes “Gone with the Wind” and “My Life with You,” neither of which gets the polished crooning they deserve. Still, Adams jazzy piano and a trumpet/trombone solo on the latter are superb, and you have to appreciate the band’s reach. The album closes with Piano Red’s “Red’s Piano,” a tune taught to Adams by Red himself, and fleshed out here by Adams’ piano and Ligon’s guitar. Fans looking for the sound of Adams, Spampinato, Anderson and Ardolino won’t find it here, but they will find the spontaneity, humor, breadth and musical know-how that earned NRBQ the label “best bar band in the world.” [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

NRBQ’s Home Page

Capitol sides from the Queen of Rockabilly

With Wanda Jackson’s profile raised by her new Jack White-produced album, The Party Ain’t Over, Varese Sarabande offers up sixteen sides from her key years on Capitol. The set opens with 1956’s “I Gotta Know,” storms through rockabilly classics “Fujiyama Mama,” “Mean Mean Man,” “Rock Your Baby,” and “Let’s Have a Party,” adds incendiary takes on The Robins’ “Riot in Cell Block #9,” Little Richard’s “Rip it Up” and Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On,” and fills out the picture with a few of Jackson’s country ballads, including two Top 10 hits, “Right or Wrong” and “In the Middle of a Heartache.” It’s a quick look at a catalog that is deeper on both sides – rockabilly and country – than could fit into sixteen tracks. More specific collections can be found in Ace’s Queen of Rockabilly and The Very Best of the Country Years, and Bear Family’s monumental Right or Wrong and Tears Will Be the Chaser for Your Wine. Fans might also want to pick up Capitol reissues of Jackson’s original albums, but for a quick introduction to her musical brilliance, this is a good bet. Tracks 1-7 and 9 are mono, the rest stereo. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Wanda Jackson’s Home Page

Twangin’ early-60s boogie-woogie from the Northwest

Bobby Wayne remains a rather obscure country and rockabilly guitarist, despite his prolific release schedule in the early ‘60s. Originally from Spokane, Wayne spent time as a youth in California and Atlanta, and it was during this latter stay, as a teenager in 1955, that he picked up the rockabilly style. Returned once again to Spokane, he played the clubs of the Northwest and eventually hooked up with Jerry Dennon and his Jerden record label. Beginning in 1963, Wayne released a string of singles, including a number of instrumentals anthologized on this 1964 LP. He was a talented picker whose twangy tone showed his original grounding in country music, but whose energy and rhythms were heavily indebted to boogie-woogie, as heard on his “Bobby’s Boogie #1.” If you like the twang of Duane Eddy, Carl Perkins or Chet Atkins, you might like to check out Bobby Wayne; for his rockabilly sides (such as “Sally Ann,” featured below), check the Sundazed EP ’55 Spokane Rockabilly. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Bobby Wayne at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame

Jack White overwhelms a still-fiery Wanda Jackson

It’s a mark of Wanda Jackson’s enduring vocal fire that the uniqueness of her voice can be heard through the bombast with which producer Jack White has surrounded her. As on her earliest recordings, Jackson’s voice hangs half-way between girlish and womanly, the giggle of the former adding to the experience of the latter. But track after track, Jackson’s dwarfed by White’s production, overwhelming her substantial charms with cacophonous outbursts and circus-band theatrics that shrink, rather than magnify the vocalist’s stature. The horns sound like a drunk commandeering the microphone at a wedding, hailing themselves rather than punctuating the emotion of Jackson’s vocals. The voice processing sounds cold and artificial and White’s guitar, particularly on covers of “Shakin’ All Over” and “Nervous Breakdown,” sounds more like a Woodstock freakout than something to complement the queen of rockabilly. White finally gives in on the closing cover of Jimmie Rodgers “Blue Yodel #6,” dismissing the band, pulling out his acoustic, and giving both his guitar playing and Jackson’s impassioned vocal some room to roam. Jack White’s fans may very well love this album, as it seems to be more about him than about his vocalist. With any luck this will lead new listeners to Jackson’s magnificent catalog (check out Ace’s Queen of Rockabilly for an overview of her rockin’ side); those who joined the bandwagon decades ago may find the basic four-piece on her previous album, I Remember Elvis, the all-star salute of Heart Trouble, or Jackson’s earlier reintroduction on Rosie Flores’ Rockabilly Filly, more to their liking. The rock ‘n’ roll combos of these earlier albums generate more excitement – by shining their light on Jackson – than White does with more players and higher volume. Wanda Jackson’s still got it, but Jack White doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Wanda Jackson’s Home Page

Original artists, not original hit recordings, but still interesting

Like hundreds of other MP3 compilations on the market these days, this one is filled with recordings of unknown origin. But unlike compilations that try to fake the hits, this one’s got some interesting live performances and alternate arrangements. These recordings may or may not date to the original sessions, but fans will get a kick out of hearing Bill Haley sing “Rip it Up” live and Gene Vincent strut his way through a slower, bluesier version of “Be-Bop-A-Lula.” A number of the tracks don’t even graze rockabilly, including Gene Autry’s trail-rhythm “Back in the Saddle Again,” guitarist Billy Mure’s instrumental take on Hank Williams’ “Kaw-Liga,” sax-man Ace Cannon’s cover of “Little Bitty Pretty One” and the horn-fed R&B of Jackie Kelso and Willie Egan, but there are some nice finds for rockabilly fans, including Joe Seneca’s “Rick-A-Chick.” Many of these tracks fail to live up to the collection’s title (not to mention that cover boy Chuck Berry doesn’t appear at all, and Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally” is presented in awful, pinched audio), but there are a few treats to be picked out. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Rock ‘n’ roll Halloween!

Just in time for Halloween, Asheville’s Mad Tea Party (not to be confused with some other teabaggers that’ve recently been in the news) unleashes this four-song EP of horror-themed rock ‘n’ roll. The title track sounds as if the Fugs returned from the grave as a punkabilly band that feeds on the flesh of its own critics. “Possessed” digs up the bones of classic ‘60s garage rock, with Ami Worthen singing like Elinor Blake fronting the Pandoras, and producer Greg Cartwright ripping a Pebbles-worthy guitar solo. Forrest J. Ackerman would have appreciated the ukulele-fueled ode to Vincent Price’s “Dr. Phibes,” and the doo-wop party-vibe of “Frankenstein’s Den” sounds like the Coasters meeting up with Bobby Pickett’s Crypt-Kickers over a witch’s cauldron. You can’t play “Monster Mash,” “Great Pumpkin Waltz” and “Thriller” all night long, so add these tracks to your Halloween playlist today! [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The Mad Tea Party’s Home Page

Mellencamp visits country, blues and rock ‘n’ roll ghosts

John Mellencamp is an artist whose depth continues to impress and surprise. His populist anthems of the 1980s demonstrated heartland roots that Springsteen could only write of, and even as he was charting with “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” and “Lonely Ol’ Night,” he was filling out his albums with the social commentary of “Rain on the Scarecrow” and co-founding Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and Neil Young. His commentary continued to mature and turned naturally introspective, and though he continued to place singles on the charts, his albums became increasingly whole in tone. He explored urban soul sounds, returned to rock ‘n’ roll basics, explored historic folk and blues songs, and wrote through a dark streak of social and eprsonal commentary on his last few studio albums.

In many ways, the winding path of his career, the early malice of the record industry, the misunderstanding of music critics, the fight to regain his name and his artistic bona fides, is the road that led to this collection of original songs. The roots introduced on Lonesome Jubilee and explored on Big Daddy are now taken for granted, both in Mellencamp’s music and across the Americana scene. The mountain sounds, slap bass and vintage blues tones are no longer seen as affectations or anthropological explorations, but as the foundation that’s always underlined Mellencamp’s music. On this new, brilliantly executed album, Mellencamp visits and records at three historical locations: the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Sun Studios in Memphis and room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio.

There’s a bit of fetishism in toting along mono analog equipment, lining up on the marks laid down by Sam Phillips, and reinstalling a wood floor in the hotel room, but the connections made to the musicians who first sounded out these spaces famous was worth the effort. Mellencamp doesn’t attempt to raise ghosts as much as he amplifies the echoes that have always threaded through his music. The slap bass of “Coming Down the Road” catches the excitement of mid-50s Sun records without imitating them. Best of all, the minimalistic live recording – no mixing or overdubs – is mostly shorn of T-Bone Burnett’s influences as a producer. What this record (and yes, it is available on vinyl) shows is that it’s not the recording, it’s what’s being recorded. The primitive sound serves to focus the listener’s ear on the artist’s lyrics and moods.

Mellencamp wrestles with the existence of life-after-death, opting to appreciate his time on Earth in the opening “Save Some Time to Dream,” and taking a more laissez-faire attitude (“I’ll see you in the next world / If there is really one”) in the defeated “A Graceful Fall.” The latter’s misfortune would play more darkly if not for Mellencamp’s large, near Vaudevillian vocal, as would the self-pity of “No One Cares About Me,” were it not sung to a country-rockabilly backing and tagged with an optimistic hint of redemption. That optimism segues into the album’s most touching song, “Love at First Sight,” which is matched by the heartbreaking wistfulness of the 50-years-later “Thinking About You.” The opening lyric of the latter proclaims “It’s not my nature / To be nostalgic at all,” but it’s only a device within the song’s story, as Mellencamp medicates on missed opportunities, unfulfilled desires and youthful lessons that only become clear with age.

This album shouldn’t be as surprising as it turns out to be. The elements have been evident throughout Mellencamp’s career, but never before has he so thoroughly leaned on his influences or strained them through such a vintage sound. The edges of his voice mate perfectly with the live recording and mono production’s punch to make these performances weathered exhalations of emotion rather than manicured studio creations. This is a great example of how the artifice that multi-track recording, overdubbing and other studio manipulations have interjected themselves between artists and listeners; and when an artist is really digging into himself, his life and the history that’s fueled his music, the more immediate the recording the better. These songs capture a reflective time in Mellencamp’s life and the recordings serve to amplify his every thought. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

John Mellancamp’s Home Page

Cool tribute to Loretta Lynn

On last year’s Sea of Tears [review], Eilen Jewell stepped up from folk and country sounds to electric twang. She dropped the fiddle and harmonica of her earlier releases and sang solo with a rockabilly-styled trio of guitar, bass and drums. That same trio format, with the thoroughly stellar Jerry Miller on guitar and pedal steel, is employed for this terrific salute to Loretta Lynn. The band plays blue and lightly rocking across a dozen covers, melding Jewell’s jazz-tipped vocals with twang-heavy guitars and tempos that turn the ballads into sorrowful two-steppers and the rest into perfectly restrained rockers. You can hear Lynn in every track, but what you won’t hear is Jewell copying the subject of her tribute.

Jewell isn’t as feisty a singer as Lynn, which keeps “Fist City” and “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man)” from delivering the originals’ heat. To be fair, Lynn wrote and sang these songs when such outspokenness, at least from a female country singer, delivered a shock and element of liberation that’s not available to a contemporary vocalist. Jewell’s cool approach works perfectly on the sly “You Wanna Give Me a Lift” as she brushes off an overly amorous suitor with the lyric “I’m a little bit warm, but that don’t mean I’m on fire.” For “Don’t Come Home A- Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind),” Jewell offers a promise of forgiveness in place of a half-cocked frying pan, and it works very nicely.

Lynn’s originals are filtered through Jewell’s influences, so while these new recordings pay homage to the hits, they’re distinct interpretations influenced by the blue emotions of Patsy Cline, Billie Holiday, Connie Francis, and the torchy styles of Big Sandy and Julie London.  Jewell sings most everything solo, doubling herself on the superbly forlorn “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl” and leaving Miller’s guitar to provide the second voice elsewhere. Miller’s steel playing on “A Man I Hardly Know” is superb, and the bouncy “You’re Looking at Country” closes the album on a convincing note: Jewell’s a bit jazz, a bit blues, a bit rockabilly and a whole lot country. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

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