These are some records I love
The DeLuxe 2-CD "reissue" of 1970's live album of the glorious Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour includes seven extra tracks, among them Joe Cocker's superb version of The Band's song 'The Weight'. It's a song others have hurried to cover or interpret, yet mostly even the finest vocalists' results have been dreary. Joe Cocker's version isn't the least bit dull. It doesn't, of course, carry the deeply atmospheric Civil War backwoodsiness of The Band's studio original, but it radiates with Cocker's love of the song, it catches him at a career high, and captures the spirit of the 1960s joyously.
The Alabama Shakes' eponymous EP is as timeless as it is new: an unashamed return to guitar-based sexy cool, the sound a perfect blending of yearning, soulful vocals - vocals that are both spirited and louche - and electric guitar noises that throw out an effortless homage to the Tom Verlaine of Marquee Moon.
The Alabama Shakes' eponymous EP is as timeless as it is new: an unashamed return to guitar-based sexy cool, the sound a perfect blending of yearning, soulful vocals - vocals that are both spirited and louche - and electric guitar noises that throw out an effortless homage to the Tom Verlaine of Marquee Moon.
Elvis Is Back is one of his last two great albums, and the first one he made after he was released from the US Army in March 1960. (The other is the lapidary His Hand In Mine, cut soon afterwards.) It's beautifully recorded, his voice is strong, his desire to be in the studio again is palpable, he's full of hope (albeit misplaced) for the future, and the album would be worth having for the last track alone: his superb reworking of Lowell Fulson's classic blues song 'Reconsider Baby' - perhaps the greatest blues recording ever made by a white artist.
The Wallflowers, prominently featuring Jakob Dylan and with an early line-up of the group, is their first album, made before they went mega-successful and more ordinary. There is a large, generous amount of material here and a rich array of intelligent, heartfelt songs.
The Complete Million Dollar Quartet is an amazing capturing of a historic moment: one that the participants couldn't know would be any such thing. Endlessly absorbing, and touching, and imbued with all the strangeness of the comparatively recent past. The drama of Elvis Presley's coming back to moonlight in the Sun Studio that gave him his start, long after he had transferred to RCA Victor and become a phenomenon, is intensified by his utter absence of swagger. One highlight among many is Elvis' great, admiring imitation of Jackie Wilson imitating Elvis on 'Don't Be Cruel'.
Mary Gauthier and Teitur are the contemporary singer-songwriters I admire above all others. Gauthier's well-known track 'I Drink', played on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, is on her smouldering, sometimes luridly gothic album Mercy Now, another highlight of which is the uncannily catchy, sharp and funny 'Your Sister Cried'. All this is only bettered by her later album Between Daylight and Dark, on which her writing has matured and her observational powers are stronger. Her lyrics are genuinely poetic, they're thoughtful yet direct, and her voice, timing and delivery are all perfectly integrated and honed. She has gravitas.
Teitur, at first hearing, sounds far more lightweight, but the pleasant pop musicality of the songs and the prettiness of his voice belie a tough, sinewy centre. That said, as I once blogged about him, the CDs are less distinctive than seeing him live and solo, because his guitar-playing is brilliant (a technique so good that it rarely calls attention to itself, yet when it does it's to move, thrill or enchant, never to be flash or me-me-me) and gives the perfect accompaniment to the songs. On the CDs, surrounded by strings and pianos, he sounds more like other people: I'm not sure who. Damien Rice maybe. This rather lush garnish of accompaniment also puts the songs in danger of sounding sentimental or soft; live and solo they soar above all that, fresh, open, quirky and special. He comes from the Faroe Islands, has recorded in Faroese as well as in English, and is altogether splendidly himself. I think he's practically a genius. I'd go and see him ten nights running if I could. But these three albums are his first two and his fourth in English, and for me pretty close to essential listening.
Bob Dylan in Concert Brandeis University 1963 - on CD and vinyl - I like not least because I was able to contribute the sleevenotes to these releases. Why the vinyl version should be so very much more expensive in the UK than the US I don't know but certainly the vinyl issue is much more desirable. It's beautifully designed to look as if the album had actually been made in 1963.
The Wallflowers, prominently featuring Jakob Dylan and with an early line-up of the group, is their first album, made before they went mega-successful and more ordinary. There is a large, generous amount of material here and a rich array of intelligent, heartfelt songs.
The Complete Million Dollar Quartet is an amazing capturing of a historic moment: one that the participants couldn't know would be any such thing. Endlessly absorbing, and touching, and imbued with all the strangeness of the comparatively recent past. The drama of Elvis Presley's coming back to moonlight in the Sun Studio that gave him his start, long after he had transferred to RCA Victor and become a phenomenon, is intensified by his utter absence of swagger. One highlight among many is Elvis' great, admiring imitation of Jackie Wilson imitating Elvis on 'Don't Be Cruel'.
Mary Gauthier and Teitur are the contemporary singer-songwriters I admire above all others. Gauthier's well-known track 'I Drink', played on Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, is on her smouldering, sometimes luridly gothic album Mercy Now, another highlight of which is the uncannily catchy, sharp and funny 'Your Sister Cried'. All this is only bettered by her later album Between Daylight and Dark, on which her writing has matured and her observational powers are stronger. Her lyrics are genuinely poetic, they're thoughtful yet direct, and her voice, timing and delivery are all perfectly integrated and honed. She has gravitas.
Teitur, at first hearing, sounds far more lightweight, but the pleasant pop musicality of the songs and the prettiness of his voice belie a tough, sinewy centre. That said, as I once blogged about him, the CDs are less distinctive than seeing him live and solo, because his guitar-playing is brilliant (a technique so good that it rarely calls attention to itself, yet when it does it's to move, thrill or enchant, never to be flash or me-me-me) and gives the perfect accompaniment to the songs. On the CDs, surrounded by strings and pianos, he sounds more like other people: I'm not sure who. Damien Rice maybe. This rather lush garnish of accompaniment also puts the songs in danger of sounding sentimental or soft; live and solo they soar above all that, fresh, open, quirky and special. He comes from the Faroe Islands, has recorded in Faroese as well as in English, and is altogether splendidly himself. I think he's practically a genius. I'd go and see him ten nights running if I could. But these three albums are his first two and his fourth in English, and for me pretty close to essential listening.
Bob Dylan in Concert Brandeis University 1963 - on CD and vinyl - I like not least because I was able to contribute the sleevenotes to these releases. Why the vinyl version should be so very much more expensive in the UK than the US I don't know but certainly the vinyl issue is much more desirable. It's beautifully designed to look as if the album had actually been made in 1963.
