Music Notes

More discussions of the great Kris Kristofferson are in order.

The Guardian has 10 of his greatest songs, which is different than a definitive top 10. That’s good because this list isn’t very good. Rolling Stone has a list of 20 and it’s pretty good, though missing “Shipwrecked in the Eighties,” the best song ever written about the Vietnam vets. And if you want to read the National Review taking a shit on itself because of Kris’ politics, well, have at it.

Never forget that without Johnny and June, Kris probably doesn’t make it.

George R.R. Martin has a very nice piece on Kris. It’s not that I’m surprised Martin is a fan or anything, just had never considered the question of what he listens to.

I confess I never paid that much attention to the Kris/Rita duets, despite their marriage. Maybe I should do some work here.

One of the horrible things that happened to Kris was him being misdiagnosed for years as having Alzheimer’s until someone finally figured out it was Lyme and he was treated and went back to the road. A lot of blown years there.

I saw Morgan Wade at Toad’s Place in New Haven. First time at this club, which is one of those venerable old shit holes that has all the names and pictures of all the amazing people who have played there for the last 40 years festooned on the walls and very sticky floors that are probably washed down every full moon or something, Wade is an interesting story. She was a young country singer out of Floyd, Virginia, working the local circuit after recovering from some pretty heavy addiction issues. Sadler Vaden, formerly of Drivin n Cryin and now Jason Isbell’s guitarist, heard her and really dug it and helped her set up a career. Then she hit it surprisingly big with her very first single, the superb “Wilder Days.” She released the album with that song, it got some buzz, and then one of the women from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills basically fell in love with both the music and her and they moved in together and she got kinda weird famous. She also had other attention because her family has a long history of breast cancer and she tested for it and was found to have the gene, so she did the preemptive surgery to take her breasts off and have reconstructed ones put in place, which in itself required fundraising because she’s a musician with no insurance. She’s had a couple of other albums since that didn’t get as much attention as her personal life did. They seemed fine to hear live. Overall, this is a live performance I would call capable. “Wilder Days” of course completely slaps live and she closes with it naturally. She has a great guitarist with her and she lets him do his thing from time and time while she just plays her acoustic. The performance was slightly interrupted by a medical emergency in the audience (I think a woman might have just passed out but I wasn’t that near it) and so they took a break for a bit. But the other thing is how the personal health of the audience matters and in this case I mean me. It’s better now but for several days I had something in my upper back behind my shoulder blade that was sending shots of pain and numbness down my arm when my back wasn’t supported. It was really bad right during that show and so I had to take a seat in the back and that’s just not the same experience. In any case, I was still happy I went. Anyway, here’s “Wilder Days” for you:

The other musical issue of note in my life this week was finishing Colin Escott’s Hank Williams: The Biography. This is an older book and it does what you need it to do. It’s probably not the all-time definitive biography, but the truth of the matter is that Hank Williams is not a very interesting person, not really. A few points:

1. Hank was one hell of a songwriter, yes. One of the things you learn is that he pumped out songs at a prodigious rate. Most were not good. Some were among the greatest songs ever written. But he knew that he wrote some clunkers so as he got big, he pawned those off on other people who were coming up. Literally none of his songs he gave to other people ever became a hit. But the ones he kept sure did. Also, if he tried this and people said “wow this is a great song,” he’d take it back.
2. You already know this, but Hank was an absolutely walking disaster of a human, to the point you are almost relieved when he dies. His death surprised exactly 0 people who knew him. Some of it was his terrible back, yes. But also he was a drunk, was raised to be a drunk, and all the models of his life were drunks. I’m not sure how you overcome that. He also surrounded himself with dominating women who he then wanted to hurt, and when that came to his wives, physically. It started with his mother, though I don’t think he ever hit her. Audrey, his notorious first wife who tried to force herself into his career and is probably the worst singer of all time, was a piece of work herself, but being married to such a son of a bitch did not help matters. I dunno, this was late 70s/early 80s George Jones level stuff here.
3. Musically, what we lost by Hank dying was another couple of years of good songs. There is no way, no how he would have made it in the rock era. Country did survive the rock era, but mostly by taking on some of the trappings of pop through the Nashville Sound. That fit some people great–George Jones, Patsy Cline, Ray Price, who was one of those people Hank tried to help along the way with his worst songs until Ray got sick of living with the psycho. But nearly everyone who dominated the country charts in the mid 50s completely stalled out with the advent of rock and there is nothing in Hank that would have suggested an alternative path.
4. Some of the reason I say this is that Hank wasn’t just your regular kind of country guy from a rural background. He was a hick from the sticks by country standards, pronouncing words in ways that made Ray Price or whoever wonder. He struggled with celebrity anyway, and not only through drinking but through all forms of self-hatred. There’s just nothing about him that suggested cross over. He could kind of dance, but not in any rock and roll way. He had a certain charisma, no doubt about that, but it was not the kind of charisma that could go nationally on Ed Sullivan. It’s really hard to see him having a successful career after 1957 and without that, what did Hank Williams even have?
5. Whether Hank is the greatest country star of all time is something that we can debate. This too often gets presented as a stated fact and I have no idea why. There are lots of competitors for that title, most of whom lived a lot longer. But that’s it–Hank died so we don’t have to think about him trying to record with Owen Bradley’s Nashville Sound or losing his fastball on songwriting. Hank Williams was great. That much we should all agree on. And that’s really all that matters.

Anyway, good enough book, I learned plenty and I don’t know that learning more would do me any good if there is something more definitive out there.

Other notes:

Shania Twain is 59 years old? God I am old.

How the city government saved the music scene in Cardiff.

Contemporary Christian has to be the worst music genre in existence but it continues to grow. Depressing.

I really need to read Alice Randall’s new memoir about being Black in country music. Luckily, a reader just purchased it for me off my Amazon Wishlist. This is a good time to thank all of you who contribute in some way to the blog!!!!

Despite the interviewer starting off by claiming that The Division Bell is the best Pink Floyd album (no stop), David Gilmour seems a less horrible human than Roger Waters. Also this quote about whether he would play with Waters again is great:

Absolutely not. I tend to steer clear of people who actively support genocidal and autocratic dictators like Putin and Maduro [president of Venezuela]. Nothing would make me share a stage with someone who thinks such treatment of women and the LGBT community is OK.

Well said Dave!

This week’s playlist:

1. Joe Ely, Honky Tonk Masquerade
2. Parquet Courts, Light Up Gold
3. Sonny Sharrock, Seize the Rainbow
4. William Parker, Kalaprusha on the Edge of the Horizon
5. Sir Douglas Quintet, Live from Austin, TX
6. Bonnie Prince Billy, The Letting Go
7. Sleater-Kinney, The Woods
8. Soccer Mommy, Sometimes, Forever
9. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 4
10. Rashaan Roland Kirk, Rip, Rig, and Panic
11. Marty Robbins, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
12. Jade Jackson, Gilded
13. Margo Price, Strays
14. Richard Thompson, Acoustic Classics
15. Patterson Hood, Heat Lightning Rumbling in the Distance
16. Leonard Cohen, Songs of Leonard Cohen
17. Sonic Youth, Dirty
18. John Prine, self-titled
19. Laura Gibson, Empire Builder
20. Bobby Previte, Rhapsody
21. Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerard, Pioneering Women of Bluegrass
22. Robbie Fulks, Gone Away Backwards
23. Cat Power, You Are Free
24. Sun Ra, Concert for the Comet Kohoutek
25. Buena Vista Social Club, self-titled
26. Bomba Estereo, Amanacer
27. Eliza Carthy, Angels and Cigarettes
28. Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room
29. Chris Gaffney, Loser’s Paradise
30. The Band, Music from Big Pink
31. John Prine, Sweet Revenge
32. Bill Frisell with Dave Holland and Elvin Jones
33. Chuck Cleaver, Send Aid
34. Van Morrison, Hymns to the Silence, disc 2
35. The Carter Family with Johnny Cash, Keep on the Sunny Side
36. Alice Coltrane, World Galaxy
37. Johnny Paycheck, Someone to Give My Love To
38. Torres, Thirstier
39. Drive By Truckers, Live from Austin TX
40. 2 Chainz, The Play Don’t Care Who Made It
41. La Santa Cecilia, Amar y Vivir
42. Jamila Woods, Legacy! Legacy!
43. Japanese Breakfast, Jubilee
44. James McMurtry, Where’d You Hide the Body
45. The Paranoid Style, Rolling Disclosure
46. Snakefarm, Songs from My Funeral

Album Reviews:

Poppy, Zig

This is one pop star, or near-star, that I’m not real familiar with so I decided to check out her album from last year. It’s alright, a bit cliched at times. Goes heavy on the industrial music as its background and I do generally like that. Evidently, she had more a metal thing earlier in her career and some of that is still here. It’s all basically fine for a second level pop act and that’s exactly what it is.

B

DIIV, Frog in Boiling Water

A very whatever indie project of the kind that has some interesting production, but far less than compelling overly whispered vocals that never force you to pay much attention. Or particularly make you want to much.

C+

Orquestra Akokan, Caracoles

Is this band just an open homage to mid-century Cuban music? Yes, of course it is. Are they doing much new with it? Oh, not really. But does it sound great? Absolutely, it sounds wonderful.

A-

Alice Coltrane, The Carnegie Hall Concert

A recent archival release here from the great pianist/harpist. This is from 1971, which is during her transition from basically playing John’s music to doing more of her own compositions. Now, while I love her interpretations of his work, I always find more joy in her work, largely because you can hear her grow and grow. But this band? Holy shit. This is pure 100% fire. On sax, we have Pharoah Sanders AND Archie Shepp. Jesus! On bass? Jimmy Garrison AND Cecil McBee. On drums? Ed Blackwell AND Clifford Jarvis. And then her really leading the band and to me, this is what makes this a great recording. Yes, Coltrane’s art transcends jazz and he along with Monk and Ellington seem to me to be the most beloved historical figures by other jazz musicians these days. But this is nowhere Dweezil Zappa leading the old Frank players out for pastiche covers of the old songs. Alice really makes this her own music. She also brings the soul and joy back into it. I’ve always found the last Coltrane recordings to be moving toward an aridity I don’t find appealing (see Interstellar Space). There’s none of that there. She might be headed for her ashram, but in inner peace is tremendous noise.

A

Death Cab for Cutie, Asphalt Meadows

Huh, Death Cab for Cutie, that seminal indie band of the late 00s, released an album in 2022. Guess I missed it at the time. Well, it ain’t half bad. No, they don’t have the indie zeitgeist of the early 2000s anymore, but whatever, they were born for dad rock anyway. They always did kind of play of it and now that they are older, their lyrics have caught up to that sound. There are some smart lyrics too, referencing Black Kettle’s death song in “Foxglove Through the Clearcut” for one example of the kind of thing you don’t see too much in indie rock songs. They kind of lost the thread after 08 or so, as aging bands tend to do, but they’ve mostly found it, also in the ways bands sometimes do, by just going back to writing pretty good songs, forget about trends, and just work. You can do worse.

B+

Trombone Shorty, Lifted

You know, I’ve sometimes struggled to take newer New Orleans music all that seriously. It isn’t that I didn’t know the city produces great musicians. It’s just that the city’s musical scene has long been a bit stuck in the past and the Marsalis dominance over jazz in the early 2000s did not help that reputation. The Nevilles are good singers, but what was there that I loved? I mean, not much. This attitude has changed in the last few years. I’ve seen some of it and enjoyed it and realized that it’s better to look at it as genre music rather than how I look at modern jazz. Moreover, a lot of this music is rooted in soul and R&B anyway, which certainly fits my interest in at least some genre musics (of course country is totally a genre music). So I’ve decided to check out a few albums from people and that includes this 2022 Trombone Shorty release,

But honestly, this is fine and it’s not really that much better than fine. Like a lot of stuff released on Blue Note these days, it checks the boxes. It’s funky. There are lots of love songs. There are plenty of guitar chords. And of course a lot of horns, especially Trombone Shorty’s. All the ingredients are here but…meh? Like a lot of New Orleans music, I feel this would be pretty cool live but as a studio album, it’s background music.

B-

Bladee, Cold Visions

Swedish rap. Well. Why not? Bladee, born Benjamin Thage Dag Reichwald, has been recording for a full decade now, though this is my first exposure. And 30 songs is, uh, a lot, though over 63 minutes, it’s not that unreasonable. Though they are short. Even Pitchfork, which loved this album, admits that describing the guy to people is a bit of a dicey proposition. But, authenticity politics are a sucker’s game and who cares if he is a Swede borrowing from Black music? The only question is the quality. And the quality is OK. I mean, the Swedish accent is a little bit weird, but then there are so many Swedes doing versions of American musical styles that I’m used to it. I don’t think he’s exactly moving the sonic vision of hip hop here, but he does work effectively in the lyrical genre of “I’m rich and famous now but I still hate myself and have anxiety and depression” that is common for mid-career hip hop artists. I dunno that I need to hear this again, but it’s alright.

B-

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.