Leonard Cohen at the Isle of Wight

By Leonard Cohen

DVD directed by Murray Lerner

Review by Douglas Heselgrave

After five days of sleeping outdoors in the wind, cold and rain with little to eat, the crowd of 600,000 people who gathered at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival were more than a little shifty and cantankerous. The organizers had optimistically expected a crowd of 150,000 and prepared for that number of visitors. By the second day of the festival, numbers had swelled to over half a million people, and there was nowhere near enough room inside the concert area to fit everyone, so the more aggressive members of the crowd started to rip down the walls and fences that separated them from their favourite artists.

For many of the performers, The Isle of Wight festival was an unmitigated disaster. Joni Mitchell cried in the middle of her set, Kris Kristofferson was booed off the same stage that was then set alight during Jimi Hendrix’s performance. People were losing perspective, and musicians were understandably terrified. Joan Baez bravely turned in a passionate set that calmed people down somewhat, but there was still an edge of danger and unrest in the air.

By two in the morning of the last day of the show, many of the audience members who hadn’t slept since arriving on the Isle of Wight were edgy and out of control. It looked like the festival would end in disaster.

Enter Leonard Cohen.

Bedraggled and wandering around backstage in his pyjamas, Cohen had been wrangled out of bed at the behest of the stage manager, to look for the members of his band and begin his set. When he shuffled on stage accompanied by a rumpled coterie of musicians, it seemed like everything would fall apart completely. Glassy eyed, unshaven and looking like Rasputin at the end of a Dexedrine jag, Cohen surveyed the audience for a few moments before telling them a story about going to the circus with his father. It seemed like a desperate gamble, but a change could be felt almost immediately as a palpable ripple of calm spread through the audience. Cohen went on to ask the audience members to each light a match to bring the community of 600,000 together. Feeble lights began to appear throughout the crowd as Cohen strapped on a classical guitar and began to intone slowly ‘Like…..a……bird…..on…..a……wire.” The effect was immediately mesmerising, and where every other musician had failed, Cohen had the crowd eating out of his hand from the first note he sang.

For the next hour and a half, Cohen worked his magic on the audience at the Isle of Wight by playing rough and ready versions of songs from his first two albums as well as a few selections from his upcoming ‘Songs of Love and Hate.’ By today’s standards, Cohen’s performance was unpolished. None of the gypsy strings and apocalyptic cabaret stylings that have characterized his work since the late seventies is in evidence anywhere. The playing at times sounds almost amateurish – even though his producer and manager, Bob Johnson had assembled a group of top Nashville session musicians – including Charlie Daniels on fiddle – for the gig. And, one feels that Cohen wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The Leonard Cohen who took the stage at the Isle of Wight knew that the way to win over the audience was to identify with them. He didn’t come on as a rock star. Like the audience, he looked rumpled and in bad need of a good night’s sleep. He was a fellow traveller, an experimenter who talked fearlessly of despair, suicide and how he’d written songs while coming off of amphetamines. Like an older brother arriving in the nick of time, he’d come to take the crowd safely home when the party got out of hand.

By four in the morning, the crowd had transformed from an anarchic mob into a sprawling - but unified - family singing around a huge campfire. Sensing it was time to leave, Cohen said ‘it’s late, and perhaps this is good music to make love to’ as he began an especially passionate version of ‘Suzanne.’ He offered a few more songs to further lull the crowd before leaving the stage after saving the festival from disaster.

Leonard Cohen is an anomaly in popular music. Part old world mystic, part disgruntled alter boy dreaming of getting laid, there really is no one else like him. On paper, his performance at Isle of Wight should have bombed. But, Cohen has made a career out of confounding expectations. His output over the years has not been especially prolific, yet he has produced a body of work that equals that of any other living artist. Many have passed his songs by, and dismissed them as the four in the morning despair of a person fixated in perpetual adolescent angst. But, that’s an easy way out that fails to appreciate the breadth of Cohen’s concerns.

There has been a huge resurgence of interest in Leonard Cohen in the last few years. His personal and financial problems have recently thrown him into the limelight long after he’d pursued attention and notoriety. Rendered almost penniless at an age when most performers of his generation had retired, he has spent the last year and a half on a gruelling tour that would send other road-hardened seniors like Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan running for the golf course.

Cohen’s long career has made it easy for record companies hoping to cash in on his recent popularity to find old material to release. It’s tempting to be cynical about the ‘Leonard Cohen at the Isle of Wight’ DVD/CD set appearing at this juncture in time, but that feeling is quickly dispelled – like the anger of the crowd was – after experiencing only a few minutes of his performance. Like Jimi Hendrix at Monterey Pop, Sly and the Family Stone at Woodstock or Bob Marley at the London Lyceum, Leonard Cohen at the Isle of Wight captures one of recent history’s great musical performances. It is essential and shouldn’t be missed

This article originally appeared at www.nodepression.com

Album of the year from Tinawaren

Tinariwen
Imidiwan: Companions
(World Village)

First Appeared in The Music Box, November 2009, Volume 16, #11

Written by Douglas Heselgrave

Mon November 23, 2009, 06:30 AM CST



More than two decades have passed since Ali Farka Toure first introduced Western society to the sound of the desert blues. At the time, the lonely evocative mood created by his guitar’s stuttering, loping wail sent a ripple through the world music community. In response, writers began to believe that the missing link between the blues and African music finally had been found.

Yet, when I talked with him in 1988, Toure dismissed all of the prevailing theories about the African roots of the blues form. Toure’s reticence about the subject convinced me that he simply loved to play his guitar. He wasn’t really interested in anyone’s conjecture about the place from which his music emerged. As a result, I essentially put my ideas to rest for the better part of two decades. It is, after all, easy to believe that perhaps Westerners merely have a need to make clever and tidy connections that exist only to force all of the world’s music to fit neatly together in a harmonious ecosystem of sound. In spite of what he had said, though, it is increasingly apparent that the way in which Toure heard and played music had far deeper roots than his professed love for John Lee Hooker. Tinawiren erases any doubts that this is true.

Like Toure, the members of Tinariwen hail from Mali, and the same sorts of blues-inflected grooves that permeated the elder guitarist’s work can also be heard drifting through the younger ensemble’s songs. Imidiwan: Companions is Tinariwen’s third, full-length endeavor, and it is safe to say that it is the group’s best outing yet. It also affirms that the glowing press received by the outfit over the past few years has been well deserved. Without a doubt, Tinariwen has earned its place at the forefront of the desert music scene that has erupted in recent years.

In contrast to Toure, Tinariwen is more forthcoming about the roots of its music. The musicians proudly attest that their songs are a celebration of the vanishing Tuareg culture that still exists in pockets around northwestern Africa. Yet, they’d be the first to admit that they are not purists. Although it certainly is easy to hear echoes of traditional Islamic music within Tinariwen’s work, the outfit also credits Led Zeppelin as a major influence. In turn, Led Zeppelin has never made a secret of the sway that African and Arabic sounds have held over its compositions. So, when Robert Plant visited Mali a few years ago to play with Tinariwen, the convergence of cultures was revelatory. Together, the artists created music that was neither western nor Islamic. Instead, it was a joyous synthesis of styles.

While some context is certainly helpful in appreciating the group’s output, it is equally true that Tinariwen is an important band no matter how one approaches its work. The collective follows a groove-based approach, and from the confluence of its influences as well as the dynamic interplay among the diverse members of the band, a sound emerges that is magical and unique. The loping, up-and-down rhythms suggest caravans of camels making their way across the desert. Yet, there also is a sense of lonely, nostalgic yearning that flows through the music, painting images of a culture that is struggling to maintain its identity against the pressures it faces from the outside world.

Throughout Imidiwan: Companions, Tinariwen creates a type of music that is as distinctive as the 12-bar blues or a roots-reggae rhythm. As it often occurs when one is first introduced to these forms, the untrained ear may complain of the similarities among the outfit’s songs, but this quickly dissipates through repeated exposure to Tinariwen’s work. With some perseverance, it is revealed that the underlying beat is nothing more than a template, one that carries the potential for an infinite number of improvisational variations. The sonic shapes shift between easiness and tension — sometimes within the same musical phrase. The dominant rhythm insistently propels the song forward, yet there is a calming spaciousness contained in each track’s center.

Unlike Tinariwen’s previous albums, Imidiwan: Companions was recorded on location in the Sahara. The group — along with engineer Jean-Paul Romann — repaired to a home in remote Tessalit, where it established a makeshift recording studio. From there, the ensemble made several forays into the desert at night to record the endeavor. The results are rough but immediate. The sonic deficiencies that exist from the way in which material was captured inevitably are overtaken by the expansiveness of the mood that Tinariwen captured. Imidiwan: Companions is as much a diary of people hanging out together as it is a collection of songs. It was recorded on the fly, and compositions were committed to tape as rapidly as they were spawned in bursts of inspiration.

Imidiwan: Companions may be the most intimate album to be issued this year. It is filled with campfire music of the highest order. Direct from the souls of the artists, the songs react and intermingle not only with the ever-present wind as it whistles through ancient stones but also with the seemingly endless skies and vistas of the desert at night. Imidiwan: Companions is a record that captures the battle between calm and restlessness that ensues in those who live and dream in such majestic desolation. Like the people who write them, Tinariwen’s music has a raw physicality. Its songs are sometimes taut and sinewy. At other moments, they are given a loose ambience that allows the listener to wander freely through the universes that are created by the melodies.

Imidiwan: Companions is a confident, unpretentious work. Whatever challenges have been posed by the onset of globalism to marginal cultures such as the Tuaregs, they are at least partially offset by the opportunity for people outside the Sahara to hear groups like Tinariwen. As proud and distinct in their identity as Rastafarian elders, Sufi mystics, and Hasidic Jews, these desert musicians ultimately enrich the world by making it a better, fuller, and more human place.

This article originally appeared at www.musicbox-online.com at http://www.musicbox-online.com/dh/review/11232009/tinariwen-companions.html



Read more: http://www.musicbox-online.com/dh/review/11232009/tinariwen-companions.html#ixzz0XhV0Z8Cc

Umui by Ryukyu Underground

[respect records]
review from douglas heselgrave



For an older music fan such as myself, an album like Umui by Ryukyu Underground can pose certain challenges. For a person my age, remixing is usually understood as a task undertaken by an engineer to remedy flaws in the original casting of a recording. It is his or her job to fix problems with an earlier mix, so that listeners can experience the music as it was meant to be heard before things went slightly or terribly wrong. Remixes of classic albums such as The Grateful Dead's American Beauty revealed hitherto unheard dobro solos by Jerry Garcia and a recent cleaning up and remixing of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue caught a timing error in the original mastering. In such cases, the engineer serves as a patient musical archeologist who unearths and restores. His or her own footprint and presence is all but invisible.

This is certainly not the case with today's remixes where the 'remix artist' often completely alters the original musical source so that it is all but unrecognizable. And, I have to confess that when I first embarked on trying to appreciate the current 'remix craze', I often heard little more than beats and synth washes that 'got in the way' of the music. Furthermore, most of the songs I listened to had no recognizable key or time signature to anchor them, and I was often at a loss to understand the appeal of this kind of musical endeavor.

The record that changed everything for me was Dub Qawwali, Gaudi's masterful re-imagining of the music of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. When I listened to it, I could finally appreciate that even though Gaudi had jettisoned much of the original backing music, he had still managed to retain the essence of Khan's artistry. Someone who could reconfigure devotional Sufi music into credible dub reggae was all right with me. Since then, there's been no turning back, and I've come to consider artists like Gaudi Tangle Eye, and Cheb I Sabbah at the forefront of today's music scene.

Like Gaudi and Cheb I Sabbah, Keith Gordon and Jon Taylor, the duo who make up Ryukyu Underground have taken an indigenous music and used it as a template for their creative explorations. As expatriates working in Japan, the two men developed an appreciation for Okinawan music, and since meeting in 1998, the pair has enjoyed reconfiguring traditional music from the region for the club and dance floor. Initially, Ryukyu Underground CDs were simply remixes of existing compositions that they expanded by overlaying dub and electronic effects, but Umui, the outfit's fourth collection represents a huge musical leap forward. This time out, there are more original compositions that are augmented with performances recorded especially for the project. The results are unfailingly impressive, and Umui firmly places Ryukyu Underground alongside other world electronica acts like Thievery Corporation who have evolved from simply remixing cuts and creating sonic environments to composing new and vital music for the genre.

While ethno-musical purists and those well acquainted with Okinawan music may find elements to quibble over in Taylor and Gordon's approach to Umui's source material, most people who hear Umui won't judge it from that perspective. Taken on strictly musical terms, there is a tremendous amount to enjoy on this disc. Live vocals from Okinawan singer, Mika Uchizato and instrumental contributions from Toru Yonaha and Natsuki Nakamura create a traditional Japanese ambience to the album that fits in surprisingly well with the late seventies dub style overlay that augments many of the tracks. The swirling kotos featured in cuts like Ahabushi and Umaku Kamade provide a certain grace and melodic framework that is very appealing, and effectively bridges the gap between traditional Japanese music and the modern digital world.

Umui is blessed with a gorgeous production style and a satisfying sense of dynamics. The layering and structuring of diverse musical elements allows for a variety of listening experiences. Played softly in the background, Umui encourages a sense of peace and repose. It is the perfect antidote for a hectic day in the city or to wind down with after a long night of dancing. As one unfamiliar with the Japanese language, the drifting vocals serve as a texture rather than a narrative. Indeed, Tayor and Gordon choose to use voices in this way throughout Umui, as can be heard when Rastafarian prayers buried deep in the mix of East Town Dub provide a layer of color and an indistinct, subconscious evocation of the sacred.

Approached at louder volumes, Umui sounds like a different CD and reveals a glorious panoply of textures as the percussions come to the forefront and the interplay between the synths and the traditional instruments takes on a more important role in the overall architecture of each piece. The scattered funk and choppy one drop guitar accents along with the judiciously used reverb effects prove that Ryukyu Underground understands that there's more to good dub than turning up the bass and echo to the max.

In the end, what is most impressive about Umui is the care and discretion involved in its realization. Every sound selected contains an element that carries emotional weight and provides physical dimension to the piece it is featured in. Umui is a masterwork of subtle engineering and tasteful manipulation. It is a beautiful, fully realized work that builds on Ryukyu Underground's three previous albums and points the way to more thrilling musical excursions as their unique approach to Okinawan music continues to develop and expand.

This article originally appeared at www.ethnotechno.com

Justin Adams/Juldeh Camara - Tell No Lies

First Appeared in The Music Box, November 2009, Volume 16, #11

Written by Douglas Heselgrave

Thu November 5, 2009, 06:30 AM CST



In its initial moments, Sahara — the opening track on Tell No Lies, Justin Adams and Juldeh Camara’s sophomore set — is likely to inspire a feeling of déja vu. Within the span of 45 seconds, Adams rips an accompaniment on his guitar that liberally quotes from Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. In the process, he offers a short thesis on the convergence of blues, rock, and West African music that is more precise and revealing than he probably realized.

Soul Science — the previous collaboration between Adams and Camara — provided listeners with an exploration of modern and traditional fare from Gambia as well as the African desert that was spirited but respectful. On the outing, Adams displayed his mastery of various musical forms, freely following Camara’s rifti grooves through some very interesting territory. The similarities between Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir and what the two men had conjured were striking. At the very least, it made an airtight case that the British quartet was far ahead of its time when it had begun to explore sub-Saharan textures.

Yet, it is a disservice to Adams and Camara to call their music a curiosity. After all, it does more than simply locate the roots of Led Zeppelin’s majestic-sounding compositions. Adams, of course, has been a member of Robert Plant’s backing band for several years, but his love of North African music goes well beyond anything that Plant has incorporated into his own solo work.

For certain, while crafting Tell No Lies, Adams and Camara had a tough act to follow. Soul Science, the album’s predecessor, won the prestigious BBC Radio 3 World Music Award, which inevitably made expectations for the duo’s follow-up recording exceedingly high. Thankfully, in every respect, Tell No Lies is a better album. Adams, Camara, and returning percussionist Salah Dawson Miller have developed the kind of sensitive telepathy that allows them to anticipate and follow each other through the twists and turns of their compositions.

On Tell No Lies, Camara in particular seems much more willing to take risks. The music that flows from his rifti is staggering. There are moments when he sticks with a style of playing that is more traditional, and when he does, the high-wailing caterwaul of his instrument establishes a drone over which Adams shreds his guitar. More often than not, however, Camara uses his rifti to explore R&B expressions in ways that have to be heard to be believed. At other times, he invokes sounds that recall Muddy Waters with a bad hangover, as if he is trying to answer the question B.B. King’s famously posed: How blue can you get? Adams also frequently takes the lead by spinning Sufi-derived dance textures that weave in and out of Camara’s apocalyptic rhythms. Adams’ raw, aggressive, sculptural soundscapes give Camara and Dawson the chance to really go outside the main melody. The result is some of the most thrilling improvisational music in recent memory.

Tell No Lies is much heavier than Soul Science. Whether they are nailing a Bo Diddley-inspired rhythmic cadence (Nangu Sobeh) or exploring gentler grooves (Chukaloy Dayoy), Adams and Camara perform with skill and commitment, forming songs that are dazzling to hear. For those who are unfamiliar with music from the African desert, it might take awhile to acclimate to Tell No Lies’ contents. Yet, the rewards of perseverance are more than worth it.

This article originally appeared at www.musicbox-online at http://www.musicbox-online.com/dh/review/11052009/adams-camara-lies.html



Read more: http://www.musicbox-online.com/dh/review/11052009/adams-camara-lies.html#ixzz0W0IYsLCo

Things About Comin' my way - artists bios

Kelly Joe Phelps – Living in a strain


Kelly Joe Phelps has covered a lot of musical ground since his debut came out in 1994. Over the course of eight albums, he’s shown that he’s equally at home in the world of improvised jazz, sublime country blues and traditional folk. Whatever he’s playing, there’s always a palpable edge as he restlessly pushes the envelope of what his songs can communicate. Listen carefully to him sing and play the guitar, and you can hear echoes of Dock Boggs and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Phelps, though, is no simple conduit for restless blues spirits. He’s not content to simply let the music play through him. Rather, he engages it in conversation and something completely new is created in the process. The version of Living In A Strain that he recorded for this tribute is unconventional, exhilarating and entirely authentic. Rough hewn, witty and desperate all at the same time, Phelps has given us a song for the ages.

Bruce Cockburn – Honey Babe Let the deal go down

It’s hard to remember that there was ever a time when Bruce Cockburn wasn’t laying his indelible mark on the world’s musical consciousness. A Canadian roots music icon who recorded his first album in 1969, Cockburn has had a life long fascination with the blues. His earlier versions of Blind Willie Johnson’s ‘Soul Of A Man’ and Mississippi John Hurt’s ‘Avalon’ made his inclusion on this project an obvious choice. By exploring the melodies embedded in ‘Honey Babe, Let the Deal Go Down’ and channeling them through his own unique picking style, Cockburn manages to stay true to the spirit of the Mississippi Sheiks original while offering something exhilarating and new at the same time. This is an essential track from one of Canada’s living musical treasures.

Danny Barnes – Too Long

It’s difficult to imagine this collection without this musical legend from Austin, Texas playing on it. With influences that run from Ornette Coleman to Doc Watson, it seems as if there’s nothing beyond the reach of Danny Barnes’ banjo. Whether he’s mixing state of the art electronica with traditional picking or rocking into uncharted territory with his band The Bad Livers, Barnes puts his stamp on everything he plays and creates a sound that’s all his own. Listen to “Too Long’ and you’ll immediately hear the easy confidence that allows him to get right inside the song’s textures to evoke everyone from a heartbroken Al Jolson to a drunken Stephan Grapelli on a tear. Punctuated by some of the most sublime scatting this side of early Satchmo, ‘Too Long’ is one of this collection’s many highlights.

Ndidi Onukwulu – Things ‘bout comin’ my way

There aren’t many singers like Ndidi Onukwulu around anymore. Listen just once to her wailing, biting cover of ‘Things ‘bout comin’ my way’ and you’ll hear her fanning the flames of the torch lit by Sister Rosetta and Bessie Smith. This Vancouver based singer-songwriter has a presence and voice that is so yearning and hurting, ferocious and erotic, that when you hear her sing, it’s hard to believe that so much energy could be channeled through one body. It’s a tribute to her grace and control that she doesn’t explode with all the contents under pressure. This memorable song confirms that Ndidi is the next link in a chain that’s come down from Etta James and Big Mama Thornton.


Bob Brozman – Somebody’s Gotta help you

Recently voted best acoustic slide guitarist by Acoustic Guitar magazine, Bob Brozman brings almost fifty years of experience to this project. Whether he’s writing about the history of National steel guitars or hunting down old blues 78’s to learn old songs from, Brozman is an explorer and joyous chronicler of a world long gone. He is a tireless traveler who has recorded albums in both solo blues mode, and in collaboration with Hawaiian musicians, Africans, Indians and other world musicians. Thus, Brozman brings a diversity of techniques to his interpretation of this hurting blues classic. Hearing him play ‘Somebody’s Gotta Help You’ is like taking a master class in musical essentials. Every note counts and there is nothing superfluous in this beautiful rendition of one of the Mississippi Sheiks most emotive songs.

John Hammond – Stop and Listen Blues

It’s often been said that people learn most of what they’re going to learn by the age of five. In John Hammond’s case, listening to Billie Holiday and Robert Johnson while still in the cradle hardwired the blues into his DNA early on. A Grammy winner who has recorded thirty albums since 1962, he was born to play this music. Hammond’s encyclopedic knowledge of the blues, combined with a lifetime of picking and singing make his version of ‘Stop and Listen Blues’ sound natural and effortless. Deep inside the singer’s howls and the insistent voice of the guitar we can hear the Sheiks’ connection to Howlin’ Wolf and other modern blues artists as Hammond’s performance takes listeners to a universe where down on their luck rounders are still waiting under the bridge in the rain to hop a midnight train. It doesn’t get any realer than this.




Del Rey – We Both Are Feeling Good Right Now

Of all of the artists approached for this project, Del Rey is the one who has the closest link to the Mississippi Sheiks lineage. Del Rey began learning how to play the classical guitar at a very young age, but when she met Sam Chatmon and learned to play the blues from him, there was no turning back. Since then, she has spent the last 25 years playing her own interpretations of the music of artists like Memphis Minnie and Bo Carter. Del Rey carries a living, breathing history of the rural blues inside of her and to hear her play is to take a trip back in time. The title of her song on this CD - ‘We Both Are Feeling Good Right Now’ – says it all. The joyous interplay between Del Rey’s guitar and the accompanying clarinets on this track has the power to uplift the most troubled of spirits and reminds us that the blues don’t always have to be sad. Listening to Del Rey play is as refreshing as a spring day after a long cold winter.


Geoff Muldaur – The World is Going Wrong

Geoff Muldaur cut his musical teeth during the sixties
folk revival and was a vital part the Cambridge and New York
coffee house scenes. As a young man he was a founding
member of two seminal groups, The Jim Kweskin Jug Band and,
a few years later, Paul Butterfield's Better Days band. It was with these groups that he developed his distinctive singing style and his subtle approach to arranging blues material. More than forty years of playing have paid off, as the breadth of his experience has given him the ear and intuition to give voice to one of the Mississippi Sheiks' most poignant songs. As Richard Thompson once said, “There are only three white blues singers and Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them.”




Carolina Chocolate Drops – Sitting on Top of the World

There are not many young African American musicians playing traditional string band music these days. This trio comprised of Rhiannon Giddens, Justin Robinson and Dom Flemons has been creating stirring music based on old time blues, country and folk tunes since forming in 2006. They’ve been playing the music of the Mississippi Sheiks from the time they first came together and have previously recorded “Blood in My Eyes” for the Great Debaters film soundtrack. For their take of ‘Sitting on Top of the World’ which is arguably the Sheiks’ best known song, they create banjo melodies that honour the spirit of the original while breathing new life into it at the same time. If there’s a heaven, the Chathams are probably looking down and smiling, knowing that their legacy is in safe hands.




Van Dyke Parks/Oh Susanna – Bootlegger’s Blues

One of the most exciting things about an album like this is to hear how different artists interpret a song. The pairing of Oh Susanna and Van Dyke Parks on this dark tale of a life gone wrong is a match made in heaven. ‘Bootlegger’s Blues’ is their first collaboration, and is the fruition of a desire to work together that dates back to when they first met in 1996. The updated versions of hurting folk and murder ballads that Canadian singer Oh Susanna has been recording for over a decade now, make her a natural choice for inclusion on this album. She doesn’t disappoint as the restless spirit in her voice perfectly captures the playful cat and mouse tension between the sheriff and the bootlegger on the lam.

Van Dyke Parks is a son of Mississippi and has had a musical career that has spanned more than forty years. During that time, he’s scored countless soundtracks and worked with artists as diverse as Ray Charles and Laurie Anderson. The lyricist for Brian Wilson’s Smile project and the producer of Randy Newman and Ry Cooder’s first albums, Parks brings his innovative skills at arrangement to create a truly unique and off kilter version of this Mississippi Sheiks classic.





Bill Frisell – That’s It

Seattle resident Bill Frisell has made a career out of pushing boundaries and confounding expectations. Whether he’s playing outside jazz on the ECM label or reinterpreting blues and Nashville standards, he brings the same spirit of creativity to his musical explorations. Since he first began recording in 1978, his unerring ability to find interesting melodies and textures inside a song has helped establish his reputation as one of the world’s greatest living string players. ‘That’s It’ is one of the few instrumental compositions in the Mississippi Sheiks’ oeuvre, so it was a natural choice for Frisell to put his own indelible mark upon. The results are as glorious as we’ve come to expect as Frisell’s guitar intuitively engages the accompanying trombone in a conversation that evokes a brief moment of playful respite in a life of hard traveling.



Madeleine Peyroux – Please Baby

Some artists can immediately inhabit a song and make it their own. Over the last decade or so, Madeleine Peyroux has made a career out of exploring and breathing new life into the work of songwriters from Leonard Cohen to Hank Williams with results that are truly dazzling. Blessed with a voice that is often compared to Billie Holiday’s, Peyroux is obviously having a lot of fun on this track as she explores the erotic subtext only hinted at in the Sheiks’ original. Her sensual delivery as she sings over the house band’s languid grooves make this updated version of ‘Please Baby’ one of this tribute’s standout tracks.

North Mississippi Allstars – It’s backfiring now

Listen just once to the North Mississippi Allstars rip their way through ‘It’s backfiring now’ and you’ll realize that Bruce Springsteen wasn’t the first singer to make a connection between sex and cars. Brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson along with Jimbo Mathis from the Squirrel Nut Zippers sound like they’re having the time of their lives on this woozy thumping version of one of the Sheik’s most raucous songs. Formed in 1996, The Allstars are the sons of legendary roots musician Jim Dickinson who is also featured on this track. Over the last decade, this new generation of players has been reinvigorating the Mississippi roots and blues scene there by finding new ways of expressing their traditional musical heritage. Rude, raunchy, and fun - this one is as sweet as Tupelo Honey. So gear down, ease off the clutch and enjoy the ride.


Robin Holcomb – Blood On My Eyes for You

Leave it to Robin Holcomb to record the song that is the biggest departure from the Mississippi Sheiks’ original. This Seattle based singer, pianist and composer has never pursued the obvious path with any of her work, and her version of this disturbing tale of distracting and destructive lust is no exception. Holcomb has had a long fascination with the darker side of American music as her work with Bill Frisell on his Nashville project, Hal Willner on The Anthology of American Folk Music Revisited, and her own Nonesuch recordings attests. Her fearless and unexpected cover of “Blood on my eyes for you” turns the tables on conventional blues clichés as Holcomb looks at desire from a female perspective as she confesses her desperation to the young man who until this point has remained an unsuspecting victim.

Jim Byrnes – Jailbird love song
Some artists just get better with age. If you listen carefully to Jim Byrnes sing, you can hear every single mile that he’s has traveled on his forty year journey through the blues. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Byrnes has called Vancouver home for the past three decades, but to hear his molasses and sandpaper voice etch out this hard luck version of ‘Jailbird love song’, you’d swear he never left the south. But that’s Jim Byrnes for you - he could sing names out of the phonebook and it’d be a spiritual experience. Four decades in the music business and it sounds like he’s just hitting his stride.



The Sojourners – He Calls that Religion

No tribute to the Mississippi Sheiks would be complete without making at least a passing acknowledgement of the group’s spiritual side. The misdeeds of Saturday night need to be atoned for on Sunday morning, but when the perpetrator of sin is a preacher, things get really interesting as this stellar version of ‘He Calls That Religion’ attests. The Sojourners are a Vancouver based gospel trio comprised of Marcus Mosely, Will Sanders and Ron Small. They grew up singing gospel in different parts of the US, but each of them has called Canada home for over twenty years. Though they may sound like they’ve been singing together for decades, The Sojourners first met when they were brought together to provide vocals for Jim Byrnes’ House of Refuge album in 2006. Since then, they haven’t had much time off between recording an album of their own and performing at festivals all over North America and Europe.

Steve Dawson – Lonely One In This Town

Steve Dawson has come a long way since getting ripped off after playing his first professional gig. This Vancouver musician has been so busy writing, playing, and producing music that it’s unlikely he’s ever had the chance to look back.
As a solo artist and half of the Zubot-Dawson duo, Steve Dawson has crisscrossed back and forth across North America, entertaining audiences everywhere with his unique style of folk based roots and blues music. When not playing his own compositions, Steve’s been busy producing and providing backup for the likes of Jim Byrnes, Ndidi Onukwulu, and the Deep Dark Woods. For this project, Dawson chose to explore ‘Lonely One In This Town’ - a song that reminds us that the Mississippi Sheiks had a large audience of country music fans who loved their yearning fiddle melodies. Dawson’s crunching guitar and slides imbue the tune with a very appealing lazy loping groove that was only hinted at in the original version. After a performance like this one, he’ll never have to sing ‘I’m a stranger here and everybody turns their back on me’ again.

Promotional writing - Things about Coming my way

Mississippi Sheiks Tribute Album – One Sheet

This is not music for the faint of heart.

The songs on this CD come down to us from a world long gone where broken hearted murderers rubbed shoulders with wife stealing preachers. Listen carefully and you can almost hear the wind moaning through empty graveyards and churches as one man calculates the odds of playing ‘bed spring poker’ while another moans that ‘his pencil don’t write no more.’

Whether bent in prayer or bloody eyed in the throes of howling lust, the Mississippi Sheiks songs took a suffering generation on a ride through a universe populated with characters that walked the razor’s edge between sin and redemption, grace and depravity.

Between 1930 and 1935, Sam, Lonnie and Armenter Chatman, the three sons of slaves who along with Walter Vinson comprised the core of the Mississippi Sheiks created some of the most memorable blues rants and square dance hollers ever conjured up.

Their sound was indefinable - part country and part apocalyptic blues
filtered through yearning fiddle and gut bucket guitar – and by the time their race was run, The Mississippi Sheiks had redefined what a string band could do. Over the course of nearly a hundred singles - seventeen of which are gloriously interpreted here – their scratchy howling at the moon tales of life at the crossroads captured the hearts of a temporarily colour blind America as they toured the country, selling millions of records along the way.

Though they only were together for five years, by the time they called it quits, the Mississippi Sheiks had left a body of work behind that still resonates in today’s world. This is music that sounds as ancient as a Dead Sea Scroll and like it could have been written yesterday.

It’s a body of music that Vancouver songwriter, musician and producer Steve Dawson has been obsessed with for many years, and this project represents the fruition of a long time dream.

There is no shortage of tribute albums out there and given a certain modicum of talent, it’s not rocket science to make a record that sounds a lot like the music of the artist being celebrated, but for this project Dawson envisioned something different.

“I was never interested in recreating the music. It’s more of a conversation and exchange with the originals that I had in mind. So, when I started this project, I was looking for good interpreters who could capture the essence of the songs in a kind of portrait. I wanted to work with people who could celebrate the music and the songs”

An initial recording session in Vancouver with Jim Byrnes, Oh Susanna got things off to a promising start and resulted in two killer tracks. Native Mississippian Van Dyke Parks, the elusive pop icon best known for his work on Brian Wilson’s Smile project later contributed elaborate string arrangements to Oh Susanna’s take on ‘Bootlegger’s Blues’ - giving a new perspective to an old classic. Dawson and guitar virtuoso Bob Brozman hooked up at the Canmore Festival in Banff to record a stirring rendition of ‘Somebody’s Gotta Help You’ to keep the ball rolling. The North Mississippi All Stars delivered a version of “It’s backfiring now”, Geoff Muldaur contributed his interpretation of “The World is Going Wrong” and the project started to seem real. A subsequent foray to Ottawa to record with blues legend John Hammond and the Afro American string band, The Carolina Chocolate Drops really got the momentum going as both artists nailed their songs in an exhilarating all day session. Bill Frisell recorded an instrumental take of ‘That’s It’ - his contribution to the album - on the same day in Seattle and it was starting to look like there was no end to what was possible on this project.

“A lot of tribute albums have nothing that holds them together. There’s no flow and they all end up being disparate performances. For this album, we recorded in three big sessions, and at one session we had a house band to back up several artists, so there’s some consistency to the sound and feel of the recordings.”


So, to achieve this a big session in Seattle was arranged and a group consisting of jazz legend Wayne Horvitz (John Zorn, Zony Mash) playing keyboards, Keith Lowe (Bill Frisell/Fiona Apple) on bass and Matt Chamberlain (David Bowie, Peter Gabriel) on drums was put together to create a consistent sound.

“We were trying to create a vibe that hearkened back to the Stax/Volt days where singers and musicians would come in not knowing what they were going to play that day, but would come together and create something spontaneous and in the moment.”

The results speak for themselves. Over the course of two days in November, Dawson captured performances from Kelly Joe Phelps, Bruce Cockburn, Del Rey, Robin Holcomb, Danny Barnes, The Sojourners, and Ndidi Onukwulu as well as recording a contribution of his own. Madeleine Peyroux was busy finishing her own album and couldn’t make the Seattle session, so she delivered a vocal track that the house band laid down the instrumentals for. Each artist brought his or her own unique energy and style to the project, and by the time an exhausted Dawson headed back to Vancouver, he knew he had something very special to share.

There aren’t many CDs like this one being recorded today. Life is short, and like the song says you may only be sitting on top of the world for a moment, so close your eyes, sit back and allow the songs to take you away to a world that has long since passed. Whether you’re new to the music of the Mississippi Sheiks or have been dreaming of a tribute like this for years, music doesn’t get any better than this. Listen and you won’t be disappointed.

World Music Update - Rupa, Savall, Najma Akhtar

By Douglas Heselgrave

The term ‘world music’ used to describe any type of music from outside the western world that didn’t fit into existing categories, but in the last few years there’s been an explosion of artists from all over the globe that transcend definition. World music today encompasses everything from traditional acoustic music to techno. Here are some of the more interesting CDs that have crossed my desk recently.

Rupa and the April Fishes – Este Mundo

(Cumbancha)


This follow-up to Rupa’s debut, ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ is everything that the first album was not. The concept of an Indo-American woman singing in French while channeling the Café de Paris spirits of Edith Piaf and Django Rhinehart was intriguing, but her band just didn’t have the chops the first time around to carry it off. The tentative junkyard sounds of ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ have blossomed, and two years playing on the road have clearly made the April Fishes a unit to be reckoned with. The lonely sounds of the gypsy guitar, stand up bass and whirling accordion have assumed a decadent and seedy majesty this time out that was only hinted at on Rupa’s debut. Where the first album was uneasily self-conscious, the music on Este Mundo soars as Rupa struts and frets her way through fifteen wonderfully exotic numbers. The songs are mostly in French again this time, but Rupa mixes it up with a few numbers in Spanish, (the delightful ‘la linea’ is one of this album’s many highlights) and concedes to her stateside audience with ‘Trouble’ - an English song that serves as a brilliant introduction to the band’s style. If you enjoy Tom Waits, Stephane Grapelli, or latter day Leonard Cohen, you’ll love this one. Very highly recommended.


Jordi Savall – The Celtic Viol

(Alia Vox)



Jordi Savall is a Spanish-Catalan viol player who has been recording ancient music on period instruments since the early 1970’s. While hardly a household name in the roots music world, Savall’s passion and virtuosity have allowed him to shake the dust off pieces of music that have long since passed into the dark world of museums and academies. Channeled through his viol, ancient songs come to life with a vitality and energy that make them sound as if they were written yesterday.

Though most of Savall’s repertoire consists of playing music from the Mediterranean region, he has long had a fascination with Celtic music and this CD of Irish and Scottish airs is the result of many years of research and study. But, don’t let that scare you off. You’ll probably recognize many of the melodies on this album. In fact, if you’re a fan of Bert Jansch, John Renbourne, Pentangle or the Pogues, you’ll recognize that these artists have dipped into the same well that Savall’s drinking from on this album. Traditional melodies from the old British ballad ‘Pretty Peggy O’ to the Irish jig ‘Trip it upstairs’ are brought to life on this album, and must be considered amongst the best versions laid down anywhere.

Like all of Savall’s releases on his own Alia Vox label, the recording is crisp and clear enough to satisfy the most demanding of audiophiles, and the 144 page booklet that accompanies the CD and traces the history of Celtic viol music is worth the purchase price. Even if you’ve never ventured into the classical music world, The Celtic Viol is a stellar album that will not disappoint anyone who listens to it.


Najma Akhtar and Gary Lucas – Rishte



The Indo-British singer, Najma Akhtar has been making recordings for more than twenty years, but - like so many of her albums - this new collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Gary Lucas finds her struggling to find a musical setting that works for her. One must give her credit for following her muse and striving for a sound that is all her own; it would – after all – be easy for her to turn her lovely singing voice into gold if she contented herself with singing ghazals or Bollywood tunes in a conventional manner. But, she’s never done that, and has spent her career on the fringes of popular music exploring everything from outside jazz to classic rock and techno.

Rock fans may remember Najma’s collaborations with Jah Wobble, The Police’s Andy Summers as well as her tour de force vocal performance on Page and Plant’s unledded version of ‘The Battle of Evermore.’ But, Najma has never been satisfied with decorating other artists’ work, and as the songs on ‘Rishte’ show, she avoids the conventional at all costs.

Unfortunately, as ‘Rishte’ also demonstrates, a talent as great as Najma’s needs an equally engaging musical setting to carry the music to a higher plain. While Gary Lucas is certainly a fine guitarist and the Indian accents that complement his acoustic soundscapes are certainly tasteful enough, none of the songs on ‘Rishte’ soar or rise above a pedestrian level.

Najma is a bold artist who has yet to find her ‘perfect sound.’ She and Lucas sound like they had a lot of fun recording the off-beat version of Skip James’ ‘Special Rider Blues’ that’s tucked inauspiciously in the middle of the album. Perhaps this is a direction that they should pursue further. In the meantime, Najma’s growing number of fans are waiting for her to hit her stride and record the album that they know she has in her. When it finally breaks out, there’ll be no stopping her.

This article originally appeared at www.nodepression.com