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Monday, April 27, 2009
Adam Carroll to record live album
Singer-songwriter Adam Carroll, whose songs are sad and his banter funny, will record his next album live at Flipnotics Barton Springs on May 22. Scrappy Jud Newcomb will produce the record and also play guitar, plus there’ll be special guest performances. Top Hat Recording is running the mobile unit.
Cover is $10.
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Review: Etta James at Austin Music Hall
Any septuagenarians in need of lascivious role models should have been at the Austin Music Hall, where the 71-year-old Etta James, despite walking tentatively to her center-stage chair, put on such a show that at least one mother was spotted shielding a young child’s eyes.
James’ sexual pantomime on Friday accompanied more than a couple of suggestive tunes, and the singer wasn’t reluctant to hint at the meaning of lyrics like Johnny Guitar Watson’s “I Wanna Ta-Ta You Baby.” Her voice was clear and potent, although her memory might not be quite as well preserved: Throughout the one-hour set, James sang from lyric sheets, lifting her head for expressive gestures that made her look like an actress at a table-reading of a new screenplay.
Fans hoping to hear old favorites from the star’s Chess Records days were mostly left wanting: Songs like “All I Could Do Was Cry” and “My Dearest Darling” were absent, though she did offer a variant of the early hit “I’d Rather Go Blind.” Instead, the seven-piece band (which included two of her sons) delivered solid versions of more recent material like “A Lover Is Forever” and “Come to Mama.”
Only at the end, of course, did James break out the one obligatory hit, “At Last.” Happily, the liberties she took with the classic’s melody and phrasing seemed to reflect a real fondness, suggesting she’s not at all resentful of a song that can make an entire set list leading up to it look like an afterthought.
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Austin Sound Check creator moves on
In a blog post titled “This Week in Austin | The Final Week,” Ana Wolken, curator of the local music blog Austin Sound Check, announced her plans to cheerfully part ways with the parent company of her blog today.
“This will be my final recommended show listing on Austin Sound Check, as I am leaving b5 Media at the end of April. It’s been just over a year since they asked me to start this blog and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” writes Ana.
Austin Sound Check under Ana has been an excellent source of local music news, reviews and insider gossip and while we’re sorry to see Ana leave the blog, we look forward to seeing to seeing her work in her new local music ventures including her role as music editor of InSite Magazine. Good luck Ana!
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Review: James Morrison at La Zona Rosa
James Morrison is riding on the latest wave of British soul to land on American shores thanks to a soaring, often raspy voice that falls somewhere between Stevie Wonder and Rod Stewart. His latest effort, “Songs for You, Truths for Me,” solidified his place among a new crop of young soul crooners, some of whom, though, fall short of their brilliance on wax when they hit the stage. (Robin Thicke, I’m talking to you.) Friday night’s show at La Zona Rosa proved that Morrison has the ability to bring that visceral vocal presence to the stage as well.
His powerful soul-scream was impressive on songs such as “Save Yourself” and “Precious Love,” a gospel-tinged R&B throwback to ’50s soul. (Imagine Joe Cocker singing a Sam Cooke tune). He leaned into this one with a passionate delivery that was sincere enough to rescue it from the cliche “down on my knees, begging you please” parts of the song. Morrison can inject emotion into his voice without falling into kitschy “American Idol” vocal acrobatics. The genuine heartbreak in his voice was enough to breathe life into some of the set’s more saccharine offerings (“Love is Hard” and “You Give Me Something”). Still, Morrison knows his audience and the occasional vocal trill elicited giddy shrieks from the largely female crowd.
“I get a lot of girls that come out to my shows,” Morrison acknowledged before dedicating a song to the “dudes” in the audience.
Surprisingly the highlight of the night wasn’t the hit “Nothing Ever Hurt Like You,” which sounded a bit road weary until midway through the song when the band segued into an up-tempo version of Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)”. Morrison and company came alive afterwards for a fiery rendition of “Call the Police,” a funky, slow burning number about a violent breakup that erupted with a searing guitar solo from guitarist Matt White. This was a surprisingly abrupt (and welcome) shift from Morrison’s more syrupy breakup pop.
After whipping the crowd up the band dropped off into an excellent stripped down version of Bill Withers’s “Use Me.” The band’s treatment of this classic was mellifluous yet still incredibly funky and showcased the gentler side of Morrison’s voice. He was at his best Friday night in the softer texture of songs like the painful “If You Don’t Wanna Love Me” and “Broken Strings,” a duet with that featured backup singer Beverlei Brown.
Morrison is no one trick pony. He is first and foremost an extraordinary singer, especially when he’s in full voice. But when he doesn’t have to compete with the band for space, Morrison proved that he can take it down a notch and still break your heart.
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Review: South Memphis String Band
It was Luther Dickinson’s turn in Friday’s “guitar pull” at Antone’s. Dickinson and Alvin Youngblood Hart had just finished accompanying Jimbo Mathus on a jubilant song about Jesse James. Now, Dickinson wanted to do his own character sketch. He threw George Washington out to the audience as a possibility. Then he switched gears and started rattling off potential cover material. Robert Johnson. Jimi Hendrix. The Guess Who. “The whole American experience … under this lid,” he said, grasping the brim of his fedora and kicking into Woody Guthrie’s “Hard Travelin’.”
The American experience is the main unifier of this slap happy yet sureshot trio known as the South Memphis String Band. Each player is principally a bluesman but also well-schooled in country, folk and gospel. Indeed, they mined the roots canon with casual combos of steel and acoustic guitars, banjo, mandolin, harp and “jawbone,” an instrument that looks like a mini-Jaws’ jaws and produces a click-clack sound. The setlist included the Carter Family, Tommy Bradley & James Cole, Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmie Rodgers, and Blind Willie Johnson. Recognize that takes much knowledge and wherewithal.
Of course, originals were also played, in between the foot-stomping, hand-clapping, and cutting up that otherwise constituted what Mathus kept calling his band’s “primordial psychedelia.” Dickinson, the little brother, played “18 Hammers” by his blues-rocking main band, North Mississippi Allstars. Hart, the buddha, picked his own arrangement of the traditional “France Blues” from his Delta blues-style solo career. Mathus, the court jester, scrapped his catalog — comprising the honky tonk and Tin Pan Alley days he spent in Squirrel Nut Zippers and His Knockdown Society — and played an altogether new one, “Yo Own Backyard.”
Its refrain, “Stop worrying about the whole world and start worrying about yo own backyard,” is the kind of song you wanna put on during a barbecue to rally your friends. But therein lies the problem. The String Band doesn’t have a CD — only T-shirts and a 15-date tour. Seriously, they’ve only cut two songs, both of which — “Yo Own Backyard” among them — are available only on MySpace. “We decided the South Memphis String Band will never be in a hurry,” Mathus said.
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CD Review: Bob Dylan, “Together Through Life”
Bob Dylan
“Together Through Life”
(Columbia)
B+
The Old Man is in one of his moods again. This time, he’s brought an old pal in from the coast.
Bob Dylan and Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter last collaborated on “Down in the Groove,” a fairly terrible record with two decent songs, “Silvio” and “The Ugliest Girl in the World,” both of which were Dylan/Hunter joints.
He’s brought back Hunter to co-write nine of the 10 songs on “Together Through Life,” a Tex-Mexie affair (thanks to Los Lobos David Hidalgo’s omnipresent accordion) that sounds like his most tossed-off album since 1976’s hazy “Desire.” This is a marked contrast to his last two albums, “‘Love and Theft’” (2001), where he made a brilliantly well-plotted survey of American songcraft seem like no big thing, and “Modern Times” (2004), which made it sound like hard work.
This is the sound of two old men in a Texas border town motel room, knocking out 10 songs while killing bottles of something brown, complaining about women they’ve annoyed (If you see her sister Lucy, say I’m sorry I’m not there/ Tell her other sister Nancy to pray the sinner’s prayer”) and women who have annoyed them (“I just wanna say that Hell’s my wife’s hometown.” Belch).
Dylan’s 21st century voice, a rough beast to begin with, is at maximum crag here. On “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” and “Shake Shake Mama,” Dylan sounds like he’s seen (or had) a million swine flus and will see a million more. None of the lyrics here sound revised even a little bit. “I’m listening to Billy Joe Shaver and I’m reading James Joyce,” he croaks in “I Feel A Change Coming On. “Some people they tell me I’ve got the blood of the land in my voice.” You can practically hear him hitting “save,” then turning on the ball game while Hunter gets some more ice.
The melodies, powered mostly by Heartbreak guitarist Mike Campbell, are sprightly and bluesy or slow and bluesy, played with the professional pep (or slow burn) of a 1950s session band, which is clearly what producer Jack Frost (Dylan) was aiming for.
Yet, it hangs together shockingly well, it’s tossed-offed-ness part of its strange charm. “Life is Hard” mourns a lost love like the balladeer Dylan wishes he could be. And the closer “It’s All Good” is a brilliantly cranky kiss-off to (or snickering endorsement of) modern apathy: “Building are crumbling/ in the neighborhood/ but it’s nothing to worry about cuz it’s all good.” It’s certainly not bad.
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