Music Notes
By 
The big music news for me recently was seeing Sunny Sweeney in North Andover, Massachusetts. Sweeney is probably best known for hosting some of the country shows on Sirius XM. This leads me to another point that while I don’t subscribe to Sirius, many years ago I did and even back then they hired people like Mojo Nixon and Dallas Wayne to host shows and now it is people like Elizabeth Cook and Sweeney and there is something really great about hiring incredibly talented country singers with outsized personalities to host these shows. And let’s be clear, Sweeney has an outsized personality. I think she’s just great, a country singer of the first rank, pure Texas. Her album Trophy from 2017 is a real favorite of mine, but most of them are good to great. She did a solid 25 or so great country songs, mostly her own, but also covers of Emmylou’s “Red Dirt Girl” and Lucinda’s “Can’t Let Go.” Great choices. She did a few songs by friends, such as “Pills,” which she recorded on Trophy and which is a Brennen Leigh song, who we incidentally discussed here recently, and them mostly her own work. This is really what country music should be–songs from the heart, without bullshit. She doesn’t do love songs really and she apologized for the one she did, but she does songs about drugs and leaving and drinking and Texas and such subjects. She fully admits to being a huge diva and massive oversharer and she shared plenty during the show! The only bummer about the show is that it wasn’t quite the right space or audience. This is one of these music series where old people sign up for the whole series and most of it is probably folk music and there were people in this northern Massachusetts audience that did not like that it was so honky tonk. Well, fuck them, but it’s their space I guess. Plus it didn’t serve beer and what’s a country show without that? Sunny sure would have liked a few! She was playing the next night at a Providence bar and I would have preferred that show, but I had to fly at 6 AM the following morning and that seemed like a very bad idea.
Anyway, I had wanted to see her for years and this was my chance. Here’s a few of her songs, starting with a real favorite of mine that she played, “Better Bad Idea.”
I pretty much agreed with the Most Disappointing Albums list from Rolling Stone Paul listed–and very much his noticing the unjustified exclusion of Zeppelin’s Presence, which….woof.
It’s never good when someone dies at 31, though I have only the vaguest sense of this One Direction band, though I gather they were big for a minute. I also confess I don’t really know Ka, but a lot of friends of mine who know as much or more about music than I do were very bummed by his passing. A word for Jack Jones, who was a great singer of complete cheese, including the theme song for The Love Boat. Also for Paul Di’Anno, who was the first singer of Iron Maiden.
As for Phil Lesh, once again, what a huge loss for the musical world. Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a good person to read today.
This is far from a complete list of albums since the last of these posts, but here’s some stuff I’ve listened to over the last couple of weeks or so:
- Mount Moriah, Miracle Temple (3x)
- Marika Hackman, Any Human Friend
- Gram Parsons, G.P.
- Merle Haggard, Swinging Doors and The Bottle Left Me
- Elizabeth Cotten, Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes
- James McMurtry, Live in Aught-Three
- Chris Stapleton, From a Room, Vol. 1
- Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die
- Torres, Sprinter
- Sleaford Mods, Spare Ribs
- Rodney Crowell, Ain’t Living Long Like This
- Hazel Dickens, Hard Hitting Songs for Hard Hit People (2x)
- Jon Dee Graham, Full
- Ray Price, Invitation to the Blues, Live 1957-1964
- Drive By Truckers, English Oceans
- Plains, I Walked With You A Ways
- Sonny Sharrock, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast
- The Coathangers, Suck My Shirt
- Willi Carlisle, Critterlandi
- Wussy, Strawberry
- Wet Leg, self-titled
- Laura Veirs, Warp & Weft
- Old 97s, Too Far to Care
- Sleaford Mods, Eton Alive
- The Freighhoppers, Where’d You Come From, Where’d You Go
- Husker Du, New Day Rising
- Smog, Dongs of Sevotion
- Sleater-Kinney, Dig Me Out
- Sidi Toure, Toubalero
- Horace Andy, Midnight Rocker
- Sy Smith, Until We Meet Again
- Zo, Four Front
- Elizabeth Cook, Exodus of Venus
- Chris Stapleton, Starting Over
- Juana Molina, Halo
- Lydia Loveless, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again
- Darjeeling Limited Soundtrack
- Angelica Garcia, Cha Cha Palace
- Kate and Anna McGarrigle, self-titled
- Sleater Kinney, Little Rope
- Joseph Kabasele, Le Grand Kalle, disc 2
- Feeble Little Horse, Girl with Fish
- Waxahatchee, Out in the Storm
- Greg Brown, One Night
- Jason Isbell, Something More than Free
- Nigeria Special: Modern Highlife, Afro-Sounds, and Nigerian Blues, 1970-76
- Jerry Joseph, The Beautiful Madness
- Peter Oren, Anthropocene
- Torres, Three Futures
- John Moreland, Visitor
- Craig Taborn Trio, Daylight Ghosts
- CLAMM, Crawler
- Bomba Estereo, Elegancia Tropical
- James Brandon Lewis, Jesup Wagon
- Empress Of, Me
- Yves Tumor, Heaven to a Tortured Mind
- Sierra Ferrell, Trail of Flowers
- Bonnie Prince Billy, Pond Scum
- Ass Ponys, The Okra Years
- Guy Clark, Cold Dog Soup
- New Pornographers, Whiteout Conditions
- Shovels & Rope, Little Seeds
- Buck Owens, Buck Em: The Music of Buck Owens, 1955-67
- Norman Blake, Fields of November
- Norman Blake, Old and New
- Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys, The Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 1
- John McLaughlin, Devotion
- Drive By Truckers, A Blessing and a Curse
- Johnny Paycheck, She’s All I Got
- Miles Davis, Black Beauty: At Fillmore West, disc 2
- Konono No. 1, Konono No. 1 Meets Batida
- The Paranoid Style, A Goddamn Impossible Way of Life
- Iron & Wine, The Shepherd’s Dog
- Emmylou Harris, Pieces of the Sky
- Blake/Taylor/Bush/Robbins/Clements/Holland/Burns
- Jimmie Dale Gilmore and the Flatlanders, self-titled
- Steve Earle, Train A’ Comin
- Tom T. Hall, In Search of a Song
- Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Navigator
- The Tubs, Dead Meat
- Gillian Welch, Hell Among the Yearlings
- Willi Carlisle, Critterland
- John Moreland, Birds in the Ceiling
- Rob Mazuerk & Exploding Star Orchestra, Lightning Dreamers
- Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Past is Still Alive
- Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career
- Marty Stuart, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning
- Vijay Iyer Trio, Break Stuff
- Camper Van Beethoven, Telephone Free Landslide Victory
- Miles Davis, Agharta
- Vince Bell, Texas Plates
- Modern Lovers, self-titled
Album Reviews
Amy Helm, Silver City
At first, I perhaps figured Amy Helm was more or less riding dad’s coattails, and maybe that was true to a point, but in the end you have to be good at songwriting and at picking your collaborations and good at picking your covers in order to gain long-term respect. Well, Helm hasn’t had to worry about this for a long time. She’s such a solid songwriter. Always had a super voice. “Alameda” is a great closer. I also found “Dear Louisiana” and “Mt. Guardian” particularly strong songs.
I’m a bit surprised at few plays this album has on Spotify, like just a few thousand. If you like a nice Americana, really check it out. She deserves your attention.
B+
James Brandon Lewis’ Red Lily Quartet, For Mahalia With Love
Another brilliant exploration in the spiritual jazz subgenre by Lewis, this time dedicated to Mahalia Jackson, one of the all time heroes. Lewis of course is the star–like Coltrane, he’s always the star when he leads a group–but with Kurt Knuffke on cornet, William Parker on bass, Chris Hoffman on cello, and Chad Taylor on bass. Parker just never quits on that bass, providing everything needed for everyone else to shine. Knuffke and Lewis just trade amazing work back and forth. For Lewis, this was also a comment on the racism of America. The extent to which you personally hear this in the music, I don’t know, but I can say this is a man with a lot to say in his music.
A
Rob Brown Quartet, Oblongata
A couple of years ago, I saw a William Parker show where Rob Brown was playing sax. Introducing the band, Parker said that Brown was one of the unsung heroes of modern music. I agree. Brown is wonderful but he doesn’t get that much attention and he should. This is a great example of his music. This band includes Steve Swell on trombone, Chris Lightcap on bass, and Chad Taylor on drums. I don’t see how it is possible to have a better band than these four. As with the Lewis album, Taylor just provides utterly solid and creative drumming, as he does on just about every album he makes. This is more improvisation than composition and it is a peak of the form.
A I don’t see anything from this album on YouTube (not surprisingly), so here is a performance from 2016.
David Murray Quartet with Marta Sanchez, Luke Stewart, and Russell Carter, Francesca
I am never going to say anything against Murray, but this is pretty lame release by his standards. The players are obviously masters and Murray is one of the all time legends of the saxophone. At times, this really cooks. But a bit too often, it dips into the world of smooth jazz and at that point, it loses some of its compelling properties.
B
Mon Laferte, 1940 Carmen
Laferte is a Chilean throwback singer to the Latin American torch singer tradition (which I identify primarily as Mexican, but that may be my own ignorance about what was going on in the southern cone) and here she really ups the ante. For one, she writes in English for the first time and as an updated version of this type of singer anyway, the woman suffers but sometimes she wins. This is a feminist perspective on the genre. This also is about her pregnancy, a cancer diagnosis, domestic violence, a lot of stuff about being a woman in this world. It’s just a super album.
A
Mon Laferte, Autopoietica
I loved the first Laferte album so much, I checked out her 2023 album too. It’s also very good, though perhaps a level below 1940 Carmen. It’s still cantina ballads with modern effects and attitude. Maybe some of it veers just a bit into the often boring trip hop world that I’ve never cared for too much, but even at that point, it’s just decent background music, which is no crime. Meanwhile, she’s a bad ass, she’s letting you know she’s a bad ass, and there’s even a hint of opera.
A-
Beyond the Pale Horizon: British Progressive Pop Sounds of 1972
This is fun, if very long. I didn’t really know any of these songs, some of you who were really into British pop of the early 70s might remember some of them. What you discover is that the Beatles and the Kinks are even more influential than you thought. And I mean, we all thought they were pretty bloody influential! As a collection of the best songs from a bunch of one off bands, you can put together a fair collection, though 2 hours is really pushing it. And some of the songs are pretty dumb. But there’s a number of bangers here too. It’s worth your time to at least pick through it a bit.
B
Bilal, Adjust Brightness
Pretty fair release here; I don’t know this guy really, but at the very least, I found this a solid release in the funk/soul/electronic genre with some hip hop inflection. No one is going to claim this guy is some brilliant lyricist, but the music certainly works. I guess this was his first release in nine years and I have no idea about his earlier music, but for something I just threw on at random, well, I’d listen again.
B
Che Noir, The Color Chocolate, Vol 1
Quick 10 minute hip hop EP. God I love 10 minute hip hop eps. It’s such a solid way to get out a quick message without having to create the filler often necessary to get an album to 40 or 50 minutes. Based out of Buffalo, she’s a bragger, but as a woman, that bragging is grounded in the realities of a sexist society. She also owns a salon and has her own skin care company, so this is a woman working a lot of ground. A very smooth listen, fun stuff, would hear something longer.
B+
Levon Helm/Mavis Staples, Carry Me Home
This was a 2011 recording at the Levon Helm Studio. Helm is on it and so is his band and so is Mavis Staples band. Mavis sounds absolutely great here. I mean this is a first rate later recording for her. I do wish there was more Levon. He croaks out The Weight, but otherwise is mostly singing backup. That’s fine, sure, I mean, if I was him I’d probably mostly let Mavis sing too. So it is less collaborative than advertised. But for Mavis Staples sounding great? Oh yes.
B+
Corb Lund, El Viejo
Oh this is good. The Canadian country singer releases an almost great album, with a title song dedicated to his hero, the late great Ian Tyson. It’s an all acoustic album, recorded in his Lethbridge living room (noted center for country music), there’s some clever lines and some great songs such as “When the Game Gets Hot” and especially “I Had It All.” The one thing dragging this down is ““Insha’Allah,” which I give him credit for trying something different, but it really doesn’t work in this format and is a complete outler with the rest of the album. That’s no reason not to listen to a lot of this. Check Lund out, he’s great.
A-
As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics, and that’s doubly true with the damn election coming up. We all need a break from this shit.