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| It
couldn't have been coincidence that the same day's mail would
bring me a new compilation of gospel material by
JOHNNY CASH and a new album of—you're way ahead
of me, aren't you?—gospel songs by the late singer's
sister, JOANNE CASH. |
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| Here
Was A Man:The Ultimate Gospel Collection (Columbia/Legacy)
surveys studio and live recordings of sacred repertoire from
Johnny's Sun Records tenure, in 1957, to the twilight of his
stay on Columbia, in '81. Alas, that means no inclusion of
his weirdly rocking early '90s near-hit exposition of Revelation,
"Goin' By The Book" (bigger as a music video than
on commercial country radio), none of his '80s indie material,
or tunes from Cash's revelatory late-period American Recordings
series found among the 16 tracks on the God volume
of 1998's Love God Murder box set. |
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| Fortunately,
that still means a wide breadth in the explicitly Christian
expression on Here. Succinctly, however, wimpy male
barbershop quartet-cum-Southern gospel background vocals were
a distraction; wailing female bgv's, generally, a boon;
help from wife June Carter Cash
and The Statler Brothers definite
blessings; aid from guest preachers about as much so. Cash
solo or with his band: more often lustrous than not. |
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| And
it's not only The Man In You Know What Color's authoritative
baritone that sells these songs. The sense of everday reality
he imbued to his own faith he also gave to the Bible personalities
of whom he sings—folks who just happened to live lives
in the direct path of Divine intersection and intervention.
His voice couldn't help but lend gravitas to his singing,
and whether you're open or dismissive to his musical evangelism
and testifying, Johnny Cash did his thing with depth, weight,
grace, and enough good humor for the music to stand on its
own, regardless of his listener's metaphysical affiliation.
(learn
more; learn
even more) |
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•••
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| Sister
Joanne, to my slight surprise, is no latecoming rookie grabbing
the gravy train from her older brother's demise. She's had
a decades-spanning musical career of over 25 previous releases
before giving the world Gospel (Acme Music Group/Mission
House Music). And, perhaps, she'd be the first that she has
to get over by means other than her brother Johnny's force. |
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| Instead,
she employs her sweet Kitty Wells-like
pipes in service of numbers either a touch more doctrinal
and/or sentimental than her celebrated sibling was inclined
to include in his hymnodic repertoire. With arrangements
heavy on steel guitar and fiddle, her sound evokes a slicked-up
revision of post-Hank Williams, Sr.,
pre-countrypolitan Nashville, probably perfect for positive/Christian
country and Southern gospel radio programmers open to her
giddy spiritual nutritiousness. |
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| And
Jo trading in on her bro's fame—by including a duet with
him and donning a T-shirt streaked with the surname logo found
on his American records—doesn't hurt her any. (learn
more; learn
even more) |
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| To
my surprise, I'd heard jazz bagpiper RUFUS
HARLEY before getting Courage: The Atlantic Recordings
(Rhino Handmade; limited pressing of 3000). |
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| Harley
cameoed on Laurie Anderson's
first album, back in '82. It's been awhile since I've tossed
the "O Superman" chanteuse/violinist's inaugural
work onto my turntable, but reading the words 'jazz' and 'bagpipes'
together, in the eMail I received about the double-CD collection
of Harley's four '60s longplayers, left me intrigued. |
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| Already
a saxophonist with a thing for John
Coltrane, Sonny Rollins,
and others of his contemporaneous, freer breed of jazzbos,
Harley got turned onto Scotland's most notorious musical instrument
export during a period of national mourning: he heard it played
at John F. Kennedy's funeral service. Having found the sound
he'd been hearing in his head, he threw that month's rent
and his marriage into peril by purchasing his first set of
bagpipes. |
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The sight of an African-American man playing this instrument—sometimes
in full tartan garb—could have been perceived as a novelty.
It had to have at least instigated a few double-takes. The
sound, however, was a natural. |
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| The
unique sonority of the pipes went as well with Harley's more
experimental explorations with Madagacarian harp as it did
for his instrumental tributes to JFK, Malcolm X and Muhammad
Ali or remakes of pieces by The Byrds,
from Mary Poppins, or originating from the cannon of
Antebellum spirituals. Though the sound of Harley's chosen
ax was in keeping with the zeitgeist of new freedom and iconoclasm
in jazz, it also gave him cachet for a few gameshow and talkshow
appearances. |
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After his run of four albums on Atlantic, Harley wasn't very
prolific. He died of prostate cancer last summer, but his
jazzy piping deserves a hearing among seekers of the novel
who enjoy the delight of finding something genuinely tuneful,
too. (learn
more); (learn
even more); (learn
more still) |
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| Aw,
baby! THE STOOGES are back! |
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| And
the prospect of Iggy Pop again
fronting the band that brought his "grand old man of
spreading peanut butter on and cutting oneself, insulting
one's hostile audience and mastrubating onstage" fame
and infamy doesn't thrill me just because I'd planned on lip-sync'ing
"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (from their first album of
nearly 40 years ago) on a local teen dance TV show to which
I ended up not getting a ride...not that it was anywhere near
40 years ago that I intended to assail a bowling alley full
of probable REO Speedwagon fans
with a mimicked approximation of ferally passive-aggressive
libido, mind you. |
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| It's
also because their first studio album since 1973, The Weirdness
(Virgin; out in March), manages the nigh impossible. How does
a band pick up its decades' old legacy like its next collective,
ragged heartbeat and not sound, in the least bit, dated? If
they didn't, I probably wouldn't be writing about them now. |
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| It
must help oodles to have such an endearingly—if possibly
still dangerously—misanthropic and quizzically conflicted
frontman as Pop spewing venom, autobiography, and non sequitur
observation with roughly 99% of the gusto he had on that début
I almost excerpted for an independent UHF station, back when. |
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| Original
guitarist Ron Asheton matches
Pop's outlandish passion and ennui with squall after squall
that cements in place the missing link connecting psychedelic
wah-wah noodling to shoegazer sonic obliteration, with the
culmination of most every metal subgenre somewhere in the
mix. Asheton's brother, Scott
(another original Stooge), drums in such a way as to keep
the proceedings danceable in unexpectedly sensible ways. Reprising
their influences from skronky jazz and Motown, Steve
MacKay's sax adds the occasional influx of fluidity
and earthiness. Oh, Minutemen
fans and anyone else appreciative of creatively economical
bass playing will want to know, as well, of Mike
Watts' presence as an adopted Stooge. |
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| Am
I going to slip this into my church coffeehouse's CD carousel?
Not on your life. But am I encouraged by a group of guys mostly
old enough to be my dad rocking with belligerance and warped
vision harder than younger bucks half my—much less their—age?
Did I purposefully want to freak the living crap out of the
fans of arena rock gone pedestrian as a suburban crosswalk
at Ledgeview Lanes? (learn
more); (learn
even more) |
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| Also
making a comeback is someone whose current album I'd gladly
put on as ambient tuneage for Holy Grounds (my church's coffeehouse;
that pun wasn't my idea, OK?). |
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| If
you listened to R&B radio in the first half of the '90s,
you might recall COKO from her
gig as part of vocal trio SWV
(short for Sisters With Voices). It's not just because she's
now singing gospel that I've much love for her solo renaissance,
Grateful (Light); it's because she's diverse as she
wants to be. |
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| Within
the parameters of current radio-aspirant soul gospel, Coko's
made an eclectic album that leaves one guessing just enough
to keep it involving without being disjointed: a little early
'70s Diana Ross flourish here,
a gently propulsive contender for "unlikeliest club banger
of the year" there, plenty-better-than-it-could- have-been
multi-diva thrown down (with Faith Evans,
Lil' Mo, and Fantasia
Barrino) somewhere in the middle, and a convincing
medium-simmer hard rocker to wrap it up. |
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| SWV
fans of old should have no difficulty getting behind Coko's
current musical incarnation/s. The same creamy alto still
anchors her more overtly spiritual musings. Her newfound gospel
audience should appreciate her as a fresh voice singing scripturally
solid, joyful songs over a broad creative pallet. Her simpler
vocal approach contrasts pleasantly with the larnyges of some
of her prominent distaff soul gospel peers. |
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| Here's
hoping she doesn't go out with tracks when she tours behind
this set, as a tight live band would make her sparkle all
the more. (learn
more); (learn
even more) |
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| Just
as Coko has gone solo from SWV, so has ELANA
JAMES—from her years with The
Hot Club Of Cowtown; and if the latter's first by her
lonesome isn't the expansive hodgepodge of a musical journey
the former's is, it's still a bold, fun restatement of the
strengths honed in her prior gig. |
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| And
if the Django Reinhardt/Stefan
Grappelli allusion of her old group's name wasn't evidence
enough, small combo swing/jazz with Gypsy and country flair
is James' strong suit. On her self-titled solo effort (Snarf;
late February), she exhibits that suit half the time with
originals and the other half with reinterpretations of work
by, among others, past tour employer Bob
Dylan and Duke Ellington.
All that time, it's with her violin. (Note that, whatever
country influences, she's not calling her instrument a 'fiddle'.) |
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| A
lass with James' class positioning her vocals somewhere 'twixt
ingenue and coquette on the largely romantic material she
assays, here, can call her instrument whatever she likes.
She plays with elegant virtuosity and surrounds herself with
a sextet that challenges her just a tad. |
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| And
lest anyone think she's grazing the same pasture she did in
Cowtown, her songwriting suggests a crossover to a broader
adult pop niche. Though not parrotting the sort of mélange
that's made Norah Jones a (coffee)household
name, James sounds to be aiming for something complementary
to the multi-platinum-selling Grammy darling. Nonetheless,
James' own charms are abundant enough to get her over among
many a discriminating aesthete. The one you're reading now,
at least. (learn
more) |
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| Ahem. |
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| The
techniques for male multiple orgasm described by DR.
BRANDON MAXWELL in The Maxwell Multiple Climax
(Dammit Jim Pictures) ought to provide some of you with pleasures
that a celibate so-'n'-so such as me won't be having just
now. |
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| "What's
so musical about that, Rake?," you might rightfully
be asking. Well, apart from my having received the DVD from
a publicist who sends me music, as well, it's the soundtrack
that concerns me, of course. I'm not going to strain my eyes
at either the dark-on-dark color scheme of the DVD case's
back nor the tinier type in the disc's credits to tell you
what co-ed couple's singing the end theme. That ditty and
the music throughout, however come (though perhaps not as
soon as before, har har) via the talents of CHRIS
FALSON and MICHAEL CAMPION. |
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| The
composers seem to have drawn inspiration from the scores and
few full- fledged songs heard in feature-length porn films
of the '70s and early '80s. (Don't ask how I know, but I do.)
All the more, however, they may be recalling the ambience
accompanying Aaron Spelling's sitcom exploitationa of that
era's libidinal revolution. If you're thinking "Love
American Style" and "The Love Boat", congratulate
yourself on sharing the same wavelength of the guy whose musings
you now read. If you do anything other than that, there's
no need to tell me. |
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| Those
of you who, like me, have a funnymusic fixation will also
note the animated segments by Spaff,
the concern responsible for the lyrics to all those pop song
parodies Robert Lund sings with
such deadpan glee. 'Tis a bit of a shame Lund's not to be
heard on this project, though there's no shortage of humor
throughout the production. (learn
more); (learn
even more); (learn
more still) |
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| If
you didn't know already, you and/or anyone else you know making,
distributing, promoting, publicizing, publishing and/or otherwise
having access to new and/or recently reissued music that you
think I'd enjoy and/or otherwise comment on in a compelling
way are encouraged to send me the same. Anything else tangentially
related to making, hearing, performing and/or reading about
music or otherwise recorded sounds that would pique my interest
is also welcome in my mailboxl. Please take full advantage
of this proposal with generosity and regularity. |
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| Ship
all goodies to... |
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P.O.
Box 29
Waupun, Wisconsin 53963-0029
USA |
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