Tracy M. Rogers
I know it’s shocking, but sometimes even I miss good music – either because I haven’t been in the right place (or email list) to discover new releases by some artists or because I simply don’t have the cash to spare. But, with Christmas comes spending power, so I’ve picked up a few (okay, more than a few) new CDs with my Christmas cash. Here are six CDs that I almost missed, but can’t live without from the year 2005...
Bettye LaVette
I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise
ANTI-
Bettye LaVette’s I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise is a study in contrasts, a combination of pop, rock, blues, funk, and soul, all linked by LaVette’s incendiary vocals – which are at once powerful and oddly vulnerable, majestic and gritty – and the musical archetype of the woman done wrong. LaVette turns the opening track, Sinead O’Connor’s “I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got,” into a gospel-tinged lament about acceptance and resignation using only her voice. She citifies Lucinda Williams’ “Joy,” changing geographical locations to reflect her personal history and replacing the twangy dobro and slide guitar with growling vocals and Doyle Bramball III’s grinding blues guitar licks to intensify the song’s angry lyrics about abandonment. Lavette’s cover of Dolly Parton’s “Little Sparrow” is a smoldering, bass-driven blues song which illuminates all of the ragged edges that LaVette’s husky voice possesses. “Little Sparrow” also best expresses the overriding theme of the album – “Oh, my sisters, you’d better listen to me - Never trust the heart of a man.” Aimee Mann’s tale of a relationship doomed from the outset, “How Am I Different,” retains its original pop melody, with LaVette adding angry vocals, heavy guitar riffs, and a funky, swaggering R & B rhythm. Elsewhere, Rosanne Cash’s ode to a marriage unraveling at the seams, “On the Surface,” is transformed into a simmering blues number with a funk backbeat. I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise ends with LaVette’s version of Fiona Apple’s wrathful, insolent “Sleep to Dream,” which features echoing percussion and muffled guitar that showcase LaVette’s wailing vocals. I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise is a song cycle in some ways, a collection of tales about down-and-out women in a male-dominated world, a collection that makes the listener rejoice each time the female narrator gets the upper hand and mourn each time she loses.
Marty Stuart (and His Fabulous Superlatives)Badlands: Ballads of the Lakota
Superlatone/Universal South
Marty Stuart has been one busy bee in the last eighteen months, producing three very distinct country CDs. The middle of these three, Badlands, finds Stuart traveling to the Great Plains to write the story of the Lakota Sioux. The album begins and ends with monotonic drums and chanting in Lakota – in between, Stuart fashions songs steeped in Lakota history and set to country-folk melodies. The title track is a rockabilly ode to the Lakota homeland featuring soaring pedal steel and poetic lyrics – “Somewhere between the wanting and the dying, just beyond the thunder of the gun,” the song begins. “Trip to Little Big Horn” sounds like a Johnny Cash song, quietly intense with Stuart’s voice dipping in register almost as if emulating Cash. Elsewhere, Stuart covers Cash’s “Big Foot,” half-speaking, half-singing the verses over a rock melody and pedal steel. “Hotchkiss Gunnar’s Lament” is the only instrumental on the album, a haunting acoustic guitar ballad with soft pedal steel and cellos that gives way to the wailing guitars of “Broken Promise Land,” a honky-tonk number recalling the broken promises made to the Sioux at Pine Ridge by President Clinton. “Casino” and “So You Want to Be An Indian” address the destitution, poverty, and alcoholism sadly prevalent among the Lakotas today, each a plains ballad with moaning pedal steel. The album’s true highlight, however is “Walking Through the Prayers,” which begins with drums and a spoken Lakota introduction and reaches its climax with only Stuart’s mournful voice over echoing drums. Badlands is a song cycle of sorts, telling the story of the Lakota throughout their history and addressing the problems currently facing their people. Stuart’s music may be country as always, but Badlands is quite clearly a tribute to the Lakota and their rich history, reverently retold by Stuart to expose their current plight to the rest of the world.
Calexico
The Book and the Canal
Available at CasadeCalexico.com
This hodgepodge collection of new and previously unreleased material serves as a transition of sorts between the band’s 2003 release, Feast of Wire, and their upcoming album, Garden Ruin. Infused with folk-rock, jazz, and even electronica, The Book and the Canal is an ambient journey into the band’s musical influences beyond mariachi, a study in musical heterogeneity. The collection’s opener, “Half a Smidge,” is a minimalist folk-rock song featuring Joey Burns’ trademark whispery wail with only drum, bass, and guitar accompaniment, while “Griptape” has a pop melody that belies Burns’ lyrical tale of loneliness. “Near the Woodpile” is a haunting lament featuring marimba and bowed bass, while bassist Volker Zander’s “Unter Unserem Himmel” is a reverberating electronic track featuring only sound assemblage. “What’s a Little Wait” is an upbeat jazz instrumental featuring Zander’s heavy upright bass, John Convertino’s echoing rhythms, and Burns’ high-pitched, intricate acoustic guitar riff, while “Ghostwriter” is an ominous murder ballad with a simple folk guitar melody. The Book and the Canal is a study in musical extremes – at once, rollicking and melancholy, sinister and hopeful.
Charlie SextonCruel and Gentle Things
Back Porch Records
It may have been ten years since Charlie Sexton’s last solo effort, but the Texas songwriter and guitarist obviously hasn’t forgotten how to craft meaningful folk-rock songs. Cruel and Gentle Things is a love story of sorts, a song cycle about the ins and outs of love and life where the protagonist finds love to be more “emotional roller coaster” than “happily ever after.” The opener, “Gospel,” is an acoustic folk song of faith and uncertainty, heartache and redemption. “A lonely night is a recurring thing, empty rooms and not a word to sing, so I look to the hymns when my spirit sinks. Don’t look for Jesus – he’s closer than you think,” Sexton croons in his rough-edged tenor. The title track, in contrast, is a pop-rock song with a piano-ballad introduction where Sexton finds “love’s a very cruel and gentle thing” – a unifying theme found throughout the album. “I Do the Same For You” is a pleading folk love song about second chances, while “Dillingham Lane” is a wistful tale of childhood regrets set to folk-rock acoustic guitar, shuffling drums, and swelling organ. Cruel and Gentle Things is an album of surprisingly tender pop, folk, and rock melodies, anchored by Sexton’s surprising flexible vocals and rollicking guitar riffs – both hopeful and cynical, wistful and sobering.
Daniel Lanois
Belladonna
ANTI–
Ethereal instrumentals and soaring pedal steel infuse Daniel Lanois’ latest CD, Belladonna. While probably best known for his work with U2, Brian Eno, and, most recently, Emmylou Harris, Lanois has produced an album filled with jazzy border ballads and country-tinged pop, an album that is haunting, yet uplifting. The opener, “Two Worlds,” is an eerie electronic ballad infused with pedal steel and guitar feedback, while “Sketches” haunts with its jazzy drumbeat, which occasionally sounds like a human heartbeat. “Agave” is a spooky desert ballad where jazzy trumpets give the elusion of being alone in the desert at night, while “Desert Rose” is a mellow border ballad where Lanois’ pedal steel takes on a country tinge. “Frozen” features an equally countrified pedal steel refrain, with a soft bass line, echoing drums, and jazz interludes. Belladonna encompasses a multitude of musical influences – jazz, rock, pop, country, electronica, and more – all melding together to produce a collection of instrumentals that is truly otherworldly.
Matt MorrowThe Places You Don’t Know Are There
Available at MattMorrow.net
Alabama native Matt Morrow’s sophomore effort, The Place You Don’t Know Are There, is an exercise in minimalism, a collection of folk songs laced with anger, desperation, and loss. Lost love is the overriding theme of The Places You Don’t Know Are There, with Morrow’s rugged voice adding to the sense of dejection. He both wails and whispers – at times, his voice is so robust that his vocals seem capable of knocking down walls; at others, his voice is so slight that it might float away on a breeze. The opening track, “Don’t Make a Sound,” is an angry acoustic folk-rock song about depression and suicidal thoughts. “Don’t Make a Sound” sets the tone for the entire album, leaving its fury and desolation to linger and infuse the rest of the songs. “Even the Moon” is an ethereal, whispery lullaby wherein the narrator proclaims “Nobody knows where I am...Even the moon is hiding from me,” while “Burgundy and Black” is an quiet piano-based folk song with a haunting melody. Morrow’s ire re-emerges in songs such as the lusty “Corona” and the addiction tale “The Rain Outside Her Apartment Building.” There is no reprieve in Morrow’s songs, no redemption – only pain and longing, heartbreak and loss.