Music Notes

The last two weeks saw me mostly in Texas for a conference and extended visit. What that meant was exposure to the amazing shows one can see in that musically fertile place. Specifically, I got to see Dwight Yoakam (!!!!) at the Whitewater Amphitheater in New Braunfels, Texas. This was the first time I have ever seen Yoakam and that’s a big one on my list of people to see. So I was super pumped.

Now, I don’t know if Yoakam is an acceptable singer for LGM commenters because I don’t know his voting record and we all know from Loretta Lynn’s death how for a lot of people, that is the single most important thing in evaluating someone’s art, even if the politics appear nowhere in the art. But for someone not committed to aesthetic Stalinism and thus simply doesn’t care what the politics of Dwight Yoakam are, it was a pretty great show.

At this point, Dwight is not a young man. But he can still shimmy across the stage in those tight jeans and that iconic hat. He’s just so great. I hardly need to talk about his great songs–seeing him play “She Wore Red Dresses” and “Guitars Cadillacs” was wonderful, even if expected. It was also his covers that ruled. One of the great thing about country shows is that you get tons of covers, which reminds me how much we’ve lost by not seeing more covers throughout music in the last thirty years or so. It’s just not as common as it used to be, except when an artist such as Cat Power or Jason Isbell release an all-covers album, which sometimes is great and sometimes is whatever. Anyway, at this point, one can argue that “Streets of Bakersfield” is as much as Dwight song as a Buck song, but of course it is a Buck song and one anyone going to a Dwight show expects to hear. But there are lots of other great covers too. He started with The Carter Family’s “Keep on the Sunny Side.” He pulled out his old cover of Dave Alvin’s “Long White Cadillac,” which he dedicated to Dave who has been fighting cancer. He hadn’t covered that in several years, but it sounded hot. You’d think a “Ring of Fire” cover would be almost a cliche at this point, but it sounds great with that band.

The venue was excellent too. It was a nice Texas evening, hot yes, but nice at night. And for those who think that country music is some all-white thing, I’d say 20 percent or more of the crowd was Latino and/or Native. Opening act was some dumb southern rock thing, which I guess was the only bummer. And really, who cares about a bad opening act. Just an excuse to walk around and bother with the beer line.

Anyway, super fun.

The MacArthur Genius Grants for 2022 were announced and although I was foiled again, congrats to two amazing jazz musicians who won–Ikue Mori and Tomeka Reid. Totally well deserved for these two official geniuses.

Great piece on Alice Gerrard, the folkie who broke the bluegrass glass ceiling with Hazel Dickens and went on to record many of the old-time musicians before they died. She’s 88 now and keeps on kicking and….let’s just say that this is the life I want to be leading at 88:

Gerrard joked that she spends her days not working so much as watching horror movies and gory crime shows or teaching her dog, Polly, to fetch IPAs from the fridge and drop the empties into the recycling bin outdoors.

I love cats, but good luck getting the little bastards to get me my IPAs. Get to work Smitty!

Like any right thinking Texan, Kacey Musgraves really hates Ted Cruz.

Carly Simon comes from a huge musical family. She’s not a young woman of course, but to lose her two older sisters one day apart, both of whom were also well-known musicians, I mean I can’t even imagine how horrible that is.

We also lost Mary McCaslin, who isn’t that well remembered today generally but was a big figure in the neo-western folk scene from the late 60s on.

Dude who wrote the “Puff the Magic Dragon” lyrics also died. Enjoy that earworm.

Anderson Paak is someone I’ve grown to really like recently. Sure, I’m behind the times in getting to this, but that’s OK. Glad I have taken him seriously and checked out his work. Times has a good long profile of Paak, who is one of the most important musicians working today in any genre.

The Northwest plays a surprisingly large role in the development of twentieth century popular music, largely due to migration from the South and the number of country stars who got their starts or spent significant time in Washington and Oregon before getting big (Loretta Lynn among them), long before the region became the center of alternative rock in the early 90s. Whether Oregon really has a claim to have a father of rock and roll is a bit more dicey, but here’s a try at it.

Is Bruce Cockburn really forgotten? I dunno. Underappreciated, sure.

Nice piece on African country music.

Profile of Steve Lehman

Placing the banjo at the center of Black music.

How merch saved the music industry

The enduring legacy of Southern soul

Joni Mitchell is planning to headline her first concert since 2000. That’s pretty cool, hope it happens.

Playlist for the last two weeks. Lots of driving around Texas listening to albums my wife won’t let me play when she’s around.

1. REM, Reckoning
2. Aretha Franklin, Aretha Now
3. George Jones, The Essential George Jones, disc 2
4. Wadada Leo Smith, America’s National Parks
5. William Parker, Mayan Space Station
6. Charles Mingus, Mingus at the Bohemia
7. Randy Sharp/Jack Wesley Routh/Sharon Bays/Maia Sharp, Dream of the San Joaquin
8. Tal National, Tantabara
9. Marc Ribot & The Young Philadelphians, Live in Tokyo
10. Run the Jewels, RTJ4 (x2)
11. Rough Guide to the Best African Music You’ve Never Heard
12. Drive By Truckers, Pizza Deliverance
13. Joseph Kabasele, Le Grand Kalle, disc 1
14. Merle Haggard, Down Every Road, disc 3 (x2, you can’t go wrong with the greatest box set in music history)
15. Kendrick Lamar, Damn.
16. Soul Sok Séga: Séga Sounds From Mauritius 1973–1979
17. Fauxe, Ikhlas
18. The Rough Guide to Psychedelic Brazil
19. The Tallest Man on Earth, Dark Bird is Home
20. John Luther Adams, Become Ocean
21. Waxahatchee, Cerulean Salt
22. Conway Twitty, 25 Number Ones
23. Cat Power, Sun
24. Charles Gayle, Time Zones
25. Joe Ely, Live Shots
26. The Tallest Man on Earth, There’s No Leaving Now
27. African Scream Contest, Volume 2: Benin, 1963-1980
28. St. Vincent, self-titled
29. Speedy Ortiz, Foil Deer
30. Youssou N’Dour, Rokku Mi Rokka
31. Zo! Four Front
32. Wussy, Strawberry
33. Gerald Cleaver & Violet Hour, Live at Firehouse 12
34. Ches Smith & These Arches, Hammered
35. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, The Tiffany Transcriptions, disc 2
36. Sun Ra, Singles
37. Joe Ely, Letter to Laredo
38. Don Rigsby, The Midnight Call
39. Mitski, Bury Me at Makeout Creek
40. Beck, Guero
41. Mdou Moctar, Ilana (The Creator)
42. No Thank You, Embroidered Foilage
43. Mourn, Ha Ha He
44. The Feelies, Crazy Rhythms
45. Jerry Lee Lewis, The Knox Phillips Sessions
46. The War on Drugs, Lost in the Dream
47. Rough Guide to Unsung Heroes of Country Blues
48. Greg Brown, One More Goodnight Kiss
49. Buck Owens, Buck Em: The Music of Buck Owens, 1955-1967
50. Mdou Moctar, Afrique Victime
51. Willie Nelson, God’s Problem Child
52. Mitski, Puberty 2
53. Last Exit, self-titled
54. Chris Lightcap’s Bigmouth, Epicenter
55. Laura Gibson, Empire Builder
56. Merle Haggard, Strangers
57. Ralph Stanley, Classic Stanley, disc 2
58. Drive By Truckers, Brighter than Creation’s Dark
59. Drive By Truckers, American Band
60. Jimmie Dale Gilmore, One Endless Night
61. Merle Haggard, Daddy Frank (The Guitar Man)
62. Peter Oren, Anthropocene
63. James McMurtry, Childish Things
64. Bob Dylan, Time Out of Mind (I’ve really been enjoying this album lately)
65. Scott Miller & The Commonwealth, Thus Always to Tyrants
66. John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
67. Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
68. Herbie Hancock, Live, Detroit, 2/20/73, disc 2
69. Japanese Breakfast, Jubilee
70. Silver Jews, The Natural Bridge
71. Neko Case, Hell-On
72. Gang of Four, Solid Gold
73. Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On?
74. Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy
75. Miles Davis Quintet, Live Europe 1967, disc 2
76. Tom Russell, Poor Man’s Dream
77. Joe Ely, self-titled
78. The Who, Live at Leeds, disc 1
79. The Band, Music From Big Pink
80. Die Like a Dog Quartet, From Valley to Valley
81. David S. Ware, Surrendered
82. Stevie Wonder, Songs to the Key of Life, disc 1
83. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
84. The Staples Singers, Best of
85. Mates of State, Mountaintops
86. Sleater-Kinney, The Woods

Album Reviews:

Kendrick Lamar, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers

For his first album in five years, Kendrick went to his past and the struggles of a person to survive family trauma. For a lot of reviewers and fans, this was fine but maybe a step backward, or at least a step sideways. And I suppose this album doesn’t advance the entire genre of hip hop by leaps and bounds like his other records, but it’s still a really good album with some tough moments due to the emotional heft of what is going on. The whole thing is a therapy sessions, with his actual partner going all the back to when they were in high school narrating the proceedings. The scene when he and Taylour Paige yell “FUCK YOU!!!!” back and forth as if they were a couple arguing is most certainly powerful and I don’t know how often I need to listen to it, even as they transition from that to trying to make up. But that’s what we are talking about here–intense personal life. If Kendrick has stepped back a little bit from being the political voice of a generation, well that’s just fine, Bob Dylan did the same thing. And yes, they are equal talents as songwriters and performers.

A-

Lil Uzi Vert, Eternal Atake

An alright but somewhat overrated rap album from 2020. All the bravado and bragging that hip hop is known for, but some pretty clunky brags in that. He likes money and he likes to spend money. He will tell you about it over and over again. I’m not sure that a full hour of that is worth the price of admission though. He’s a big hype machine for his work (good for him) and the expectations for this were huge. It’s a good enough album, but it’s not the greatest thing in the 21st century.

B

Bill Orcutt, Music for Four Guitars

Pretty interesting set of experimental guitar music here. Rather than a guitar quartet, this is a multi-tracked guitar album where he plays all four parts. He takes some short melodic structures and builds little worlds around them. This is clearly indebted to drone music and the kind of modernist classical that uses a lot of repeated structures. That’s fine, though perhaps is slightly limiting as well as a project. I’d also probably think this was better if there were four different guitarists with different sounds and tones. But this is still a very interesting album and most worthy. Just not one of my favorite Orcutt projects.

I will be at Big Ears in Knoxville in March and there he is playing with a full guitar quartet. That’s going to be awesome.

Not seeing anything on YouTube from this project, so here’s a clip of Orcutt shredding at a live show in Denton, Texas.

B+

Cecil Taylor, Mixed to Unit Structures Revisited

This is a renamed release of two Taylor albums from the 60s, half of 1962s Into the Hot and 1966’s Unit Structures. I hate it when labels do this. I don’t even like it when albums are combined into single releases–it’s a very different thing to listen to 40 minutes of jazz than it is to listen to 80 minutes of jazz. I guess it’s a good value or something. In any case, these were great albums so obviously if you don’t have these albums, you want to buy this.

Interestingly, Into the Hot was initially released as a Gil Evans album for contractual reasons, but Evans didn’t even play on it. He was trying to get out of a contract, so he let Taylor and the trumpeter Johnny Carisi take it over. This release takes the three Taylor written pieces off that and sticks them on the other album. Well, once you get to Unit Structures, Taylor is the boss and this includes a band with Archie Shepp, Andrew Cyrille, and Henry Grimes, among others.

A

Alea, Alborotá

This is a very nice, exceedingly listenable album of Colombian music from the Colombian-American artist. Mostly it’s in Spanish so you aren’t going to understand the lyrics unless of course you speak Spanish, but they are around feminism and the determination of a woman to make it in a sexist world. But even if you don’t speak Spanish, Alea has a lovely voice and this is arranged in a way that will appeal to listeners across genres.

A-

The Mountain Movers, World What World

One of the best garage rock albums I’ve heard in some time. Really channeling the Crazy Horse here while also knowing what they are doing and how to put together a pretty compelling album. Garage rock will always have a certain set of limitations to me but this pushes up against them. This is the first time I’ve heard of this New Haven-based band, which is important to me because I bet I can see them live at some point given their home base. That would be a lot of fun I would think. In any case, lots of guitar, lots of feedback, fuzz galore, turn it up!

A-

Pale Blue Eyes, Souvenirs

OK indie rock. In case the misty rock past wasn’t clear enough for a band named after a famous VU song, the music makes that even more obvious, though oddly one could not say they sound like the Velvets. If only they did, actually. It’s certainly melodic enough pop post-punk, but the vocal styles sound more like neo-prog bands such as Midlake to me. It’s fine. Not more than that.

B-

Dave Douglas/Frank Woeste/Matt Brewer/Clarence Penn, Dada People

This is a project to honor Man Ray, the French-American dadaist. The great trumpeter Douglas decided to work with the French pianist Woeste here to put this together. They split the compositions. Brewer and Penn fill out the rhythm section. That Ray was a Jewish man who changed his name to escape persecution brings some political realities to the project, which were amplified by its release in the fall of 2016, one of the many points in which the liberal world moved toward collapse. But the important thing here is the interplay of these great artists and this is a strong collaboration, if not the greatest thing in their careers.

A-

As always, this is an open thread for all things music/art and none things politics especially elections or Trump stuff because save it for other posts and enjoy life a little bit.