Per Amazon’s website the pairing of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss was like  putting together “the duo of King Kong and Bambi”; and they are right. Plant and Krauss are the last two I would have thought would collaborate.  To my surprise and delight, after listening to this album I would agree that they are the perfect pairing. 

As one would realize, gone are the days of the wild Robert Plant who’s antics included trashing rooms and riding motorcycles down the hallways of the Chateau Marmont Hotel.  This album seems to take its rightful place and home to todays more mellow Plant.  After Zeppelin it can be seen how Plant decided pursue more mellow outlets than he originally had been identified with, this can be seen with his 80’s project The Honey Drippers.   It has been known that Plant has an insatiable appetite for world music and a drive to explore different avenues and styles for his future albums.  If this album was to be Plants last (which it is not I’m sure) it would be the perfect ending to a musical life well lived.  However, I do not think we have heard the last from him.

Alison Krauss is a household name in the bluegrass world, she is one of the most sought after musicians in Nashville and often is featured as a guest on many bluegrass and contemporary country albums.  Although I’m not the biggest fan of country, I do appreciate bluegrass (Ricky Skaggs, Bill Monroe among my favorites), I must admit that I am a big fan of Alison Krauss and her band Union Station.  I highly recommend her live 2-disc album if you get a chance to grab it, simply incredible.  I’ve converted several of my friends that were ”anti-country/ anti-bluegrass” with that album.

Raising Sand is for playing on rainy days, background music when you are having people over for dinner, long car rides out to Buffalo, or cutting your cats nails.  It’s not for getting in the car and cranking it up really loud to relive your Zeppelin glory days.  Raising Sand is a sincere, well produced, and personal album that reflects the gifts of two excellent vocalists, two who compliment each other on every song.

The majority of songs on this album are soft and smoky, cleary a reflection of what producer T Bone Burnett can create with right combination of artists.  Burnett has produced albums for bands such as Counting Crows, K.D. Lang, and The Wallflowers.

Highlights of this album are cleary the opening song Rich Woman (nice use of harmonies and reverb together),songs Killing The Blues & Please Read The Letter;  both created the most noteriety for  much of this album.  Lastly,  Fortune Teller is a fun romp (possibly the most upbeat song on the album) full of reverb, raw acoustic bass, and Plant’s strong, emotional vocals.  Let Your Loss be your Lesson is one my favorites

Raising Sand gets 4 out of 5 in my humble mellow music opinion.

I forgot I have a set of photos from the T-Bone Burnett tour. Jakob Dylan opened for him back in 2006. I was I think 7 months pregnant with my second child at the time when I attended the show. I was huge and uncomfortable in the seat, but I enjoyed the show nonetheless.

If you haven’t visited Jakob-Dylan.com recently, you should. The site’s been freshened up and now you can follow updates on Twitter.

Eels – Electro-Shock Blues (1998)

Why it’s taken me so long to get round to Eels is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it’s the fact that there is so much choice. ‘Daisies of the Universe’ for example soundtracked a whole summer back at the turn of the decade while ‘Blinking Lights And Other Revelations’ continues to give up it’s secrets four years after it’s release. ‘Beautiful Freak’ too is a wonderful album – check out ‘Novocaine for the Soul’ or ‘Susan’s House’. However after a period of suitably dark introspection aided by the sudden appearance of ‘Baby Genius’ on the Squeezebox random playlist, I can’t ignore ‘Electro-Shock Blues’ claim for inclusion a moment longer. Created after a year of personal tragedy, the subject matter, mental illness, is sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes harrowing, but there is a tenderness about Mark E’s writing and delivery that promises redemption and better times ahead. Look no further than ‘PS you Rock My World’ for proof. In the meantime, here’s a video to enjoy…

I went to a screening of Crazy Heart last night. It stars Jeff Bridges, as a washed up drunk country music star, who through love and tragedy gets his life and his ability to create back in hand. It’s produced by our friend T-Bone Burnett (among others) and the soundtrack features some extraordinary songs by Bone and the last work of our dear departed Stephen Bruton. It’s the first directorial effort for an actor named Scott Cooper, and it’s a stunning debut.  Jeff Bridges is going to finally win an Oscar (he’s been nominated four times) for this work, which will make your heart sing and break at the same time. And for me, Crazy Heart is right up there with Where The Wild Things Are for Best Picture.

Update 1 #Song#Poster#: Ihr fragt Euch bestimmt was ist das für ein geiler Song im Trailer: Das Lied heißt “anscheinend” THE WEARY KIND… an Original song by T. Bone Burnett. Leider konnte ich nichts auf den üblichen Plattformen finden, um zu prüfen ob das genau stimmt. Das Poster fängt die Stimmung wunderbar ein. Über Kommentare würden wir uns freuen.

Ihr habt sicherlich schon gemerkt das Twenemo und ich große Big Lebowsky bzw. Jeff Bridges Fans sind. Deswegen saugen wir auch alles auf, was von diesem Mann an Informationen im Internet zu finden ist. Nun ist der Trailer von seinem kommenden Film online. Den Film könnte man als Country Musik Version von The Wrestler beschreiben . Die tatsächliche Story wird wie folgt beschrieben:

Singer und Gittarist Bad Blake war einst ein Country-Star, doch nun ist er 57 Jahre alt, Alkoholiker, hat vier gescheiterte Ehen hinter sich und schlägt sich durch abgehalfterte, drittklassige Club. Dann bekommt er im Vorprogramm von Tommy Sweet, seinem einstigen Zögling, noch einmal eine Chance und verliebt sich zudem in die junge Journalistin Jean Craddock. Doch kann Bad Blake seiner Sucht davon kommen und sein Leben noch einmal in den Griff bekommen? (Quelle: Filmstarts).

Der Trailer ist wirklich toll und mit wunderbarer Musik untermalt. Absolut sehenswert:

Gillian Howard Welch (born October 2, 1967 in New York City) is a singer-songwriter whose musical style combines elements of bluegrass, neotraditional country, Americana, old-time string band music, and folk into a rustic style that she dubs “American Primitive”. Her recordings feature the harmonies and unconventional guitar work of her musical partner, David Rawlings. Welch pronounces her first name with a hard G /ɡ/ rather than /dʒ/. (from Wikipedia)

All the girls all dance with the boys from the city,
And they don’t care to dance with me.
Now it ain’t my fault that the fields are muddy,
And the red clay stains my feet.

And it’s under my nails and it’s under my collar,
And it shows on my Sunday clothes.
Though I do my best with the soap and the water,
But the damned old dirt won’t go.

But when I pass through the pearly gate,
Will my gown be gold instead?
Or just a red clay robe with red clay wings,
And a red clay halo for my head?

Now it’s mud in the spring and it’s dust in the summer,
When it blows in a crimson tide.
Until trees and leaves and the cows are the colour,
Of the dirt on the mountainside.

But when I pass through the pearly gate,
Will my gown be gold instead?
Or just a red clay robe with red clay wings,
And a red clay halo for my head?

Now Jordan’s banks they’re red and muddy,
And the rolling water is wide.
But I got no boat, so I’ll be good and muddy,
When I get to the other side.

And when I pass through the pearly gate,
Will my gown be gold instead?
Or just a red clay robe with red clay wings,
And a red clay halo for my head?

I’ll take the red clay robe with the red clay wings,
And a red clay halo for my head.

From Time (the Revelator) (2001)

las bandas REM, Rage Against the Machine y Nine Inch Nails, se unieron este jueves para presentar una demanda a fin de lograr la desclasificación de documentos que describen el uso de música fuerte contra sospechosos de terrorismo.

Estos artistas brindaron asimismo su respaldo a una campaña de publicidad televisada y a una petición para obtener el cierre del centro de detención de Guantánamo, lanzadas por ex generales y legisladores, afirmó un responsable de la Campaña para el cierre de Guantánamo.

“Los músicos protestan contra la utilización de la música vinculada a actos de tortura que tuvieron lugar en Guantánamo y otros lugares y se unieron en una demanda para obtener la desclasificación de todos los documentos gubernamentales secretos que describen cómo se utilizó la música”, señaló la Campaña en un comunicado.

“Guantánamo es conocida en todo el mundo por ser un lugar en el que se ha torturado seres humanos, desde la simulación de ahogamiento hasta ser desvestidos a la fuerza, pasando por la obligación de prestarse a actos sexuales humillantes o de estar expuesto a 72 horas seguidas de música a un volumen justo debajo del nivel donde los tímpanos revientan“, dijo Tom Morello, miembro del grupo de rap metal Rage Against the Machine.

La solicitud de los músicos -con la ayuda de los Archivos de seguridad nacional, una organización no gubernamental especializada en la publicación de documentos desclasificados- fue presentada en Nueva York en virtud de la ley estadunidense sobre libertad de información.

Otros de los músicos que se sumaron a la protesta son el grupo de rap The Roots, Billy Brag, Steve Earle, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt y T-Bone Burnett.

“El hecho de que música que ayudé a crear fuera usada en crímenes contra la humanidad me enferma”, dijo Morello. “Tenemos que poner fin a las torturas y cerrar Guantánamo”.

Al respecto, un portavoz de la Casa Blanca señaló que ya no se usa la música como instrumento de interrogatorios y que esta decisión forma parte de un cambio de políticas que Barack Obama resolvió en su segundo día en el cargo.

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2009/10/22/protestan-musicos-de-eu-contra-la-tortura-con-musica-muy-fuerte

In the digitized computerized compressed treble-drenched fluorescent 99-cent disposable downloadable candy-coated cookie cutter MSGed MP3ed airtight televised stifling stalled casino elevator that is generously referred to these days as modern music, it can get a little hard to breathe. Somebody needs to open the window—preferably with a well-thrown brick—and let a little sun and wind in. Luckily, every once in a while, somebody does. More often than not lately, that somebody is T-Bone Burnett.

A truly brilliant producer, and a gifted musician and songwriter, he was born Joseph Henry Burnett in St. Louis in 1948 and raised in Forth Worth, Texas. At just 14, he started wandering out on to the Jacksboro Highway, headed for the dilapidated Skyliner Ballroom to catch performances by the likes of Junior Parker and Bobby “Blue” Bland.

“The way that room sounded is the sound I’ve been going for on every record I’ve ever done,” Burnett told Mix Magazine in 2006. “I’ve just learned more and more about how to do it. It’s been a long time of figuring out how to make it sound as exciting on a record.”

Burnett put together his own recording studio while still in high school and spent his free time recording his friends, and occasionally himself. He stops far short of calling himself a prodigy, though. “I was really bad. That’s what would distinguish me from a prodigy.”

In the early ‘70s, Burnett left Texas for Los Angeles. By 1975, he had landed a spot playing piano and guitar in Bob Dylan’s legendary Rolling Thunder Revue. At the tour’s end, Burnett formed the Alpha Band with fellow Rolling Thunder veterans David Mansfield and Steven Soles and released three critically acclaimed albums before calling it quits.

After a solo career that found Burnett creating albums that generated universal critical praise but modest sales, he dedicated himself to producing. From the crisp roots rock of Los Lobos’ How Will the Wolf Survive? to the gorgeous, fragile acoustic ballads of Elvis Costello’s King of America, Burnett brought a deep breadth and a refreshing sense of space, tone and timing to his production.

Eschewing the heavily synthesized, compressed production process so popular and prevalent in the 1980s and ‘90s, Burnett helped create music that now seems timeless. He did it with young artists inspired by heroes Burnett shared—the Wallflowers, Counting Crows, the BoDeans, Sam Phillips, Gillian Welch—and he also did it with the true heroes themselves. Burnett is responsible for the Roy Orbison concert film masterpiece A Black & White Night and Orbison’s Grammy-winning last album Mystery Girl, and also later albums by legends like Ralph Stanley and Tony Bennett.

It is Burnett’s ability to make music resonate with tradition, without using that tradition as a gimmick or some kind of shtick, that led to two of the most artistic and commercial pleasant surprises of the past 20 years.

In 2000, Burnett composed the score and produced the soundtrack for the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou? Featuring such artists as Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanly and Gillian Welch delivering stunning interpretations of traditional American folk, blues and bluegrass songs, the album was a massive, grassroots-driven smash hit. It sold more than 7 million copies, earning a Grammy and awards from the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, introducing a new generation of music lovers to the rich hidden history of American music.

Just as surprising is the oddball pairing of Alison Krauss with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant on last year’s terrific Raising Sand. Burnett produced and plays guitar on the album as Krauss and Plant weave incredible harmonies through songs by Townes Van Zandt, Mel Tillis, Tom Waits, Gene Clark, the Everly Brothers and Doc Watson. Even after going platinum, being heralded as one of the best albums of the year and winning the 2009 Grammy for Album of the Year, it still seems like a weird idea. Who would ever think to pair one of rock’s grittiest and most legendary lead singers with one of the most beautiful voices in bluegrass, much less propel them with slapback echo, reverb and swaying vibrato through a set of obscure songs written by some of music’s greatest unsung heroes? You’d have to be a genius to pull that off. Luckily, there was one on hand.

“What I am shooting for is to make music that is as good as music gets,” Burnett told Charlie Rose last year. “Why not?”

–Ari Surdoval

Alison Krauss and Robert Plant doing the Everly Brothers’ “Gone Gone Gone” from the Burnett-produced Grammy winner Raising Sand.

The super reclusive LA three-piece is finally, finally hitting the road again ahead of a rumored record deal that will finally release the long-awaited follow up to their 2005 debut Future Perfect. Who knows when its actually coming out or how much longer we’ll have to sit around waiting for bands to figure this kind of thing out — it’s sad how transparent the process of struggling to find a way to make money whatsoever is anymore in music — but at least we’ll have them in person for one magical tour this fall. In fact, I’m getting ready to head to the Paradise to see them as I type this.

The reason people have stayed tuned in is pretty simple: Future Perfect was forehead-smackingly good and hasn’t gotten any worse with time. Born from the remains of ’90s alt-rock groups (Edwards played bass in Failure and drummer Carla Azar played in Ednaswap; bassist/vocalist Eugene Goreshter completes the line-up), the band latched onto washy shoegazer guitar tropes, muggy drumming, and heavy clouds of mood and hung them up on a toothpick framework that gets better every time you listen. It wasn’t current — Azar’s lopsided beats looked ahead to an approach Portishead would bite two years later, and some of the guitars went back to Cobain and Corgan and even Brainiac. But that’s what ruled about it.

Since the release of Future Perfect in 2004 and the following year of touring, they’ve run into some rough patches. DMZ, which was run by T Bone Burnett (he produced Future Perfect), dissolved in 2006, leaving them orphaned inside the Columbia mega-label bureaucracy. They landed in the Epic division, but Edwards says relations fizzled there after the band failed to produce a new record on demand. “After we did that first record, I almost had an anxiety attack anytime I thought about having to record again. There’s no way I could envision it, because everything is contingent on this series of accidents.”

Link to entire article at the Phoenix here.

Introduction: I’ve been doing this for about ten years now; my first published review was in early 2000, and I’ve been steadily listening and writing about music ever since. I loved music before 2000, of course, but, since donning my critical thinking hat and becoming an ever-aspiring music critic, I’ve explored music with greater and greater passion and, hopefully, knowledge. As a result, the music released in the past decade has a special place in my heart; look at my list of all-time favorites and you’ll notice a distinct bent toward the contemporary, a trend about which I am unashamed.

It’s hard to believe that this, the first decade of the millennium, is coming to a close. To mark the occasion– and to blaze a trail for my “favorite albums of the decade” list that will inevitably come in late December/early January– I’m starting a semi-regular series of posts, looking back at the landmark albums and trends that marked my own listening habits, one year at a time. And, taking a cue from Julie Andrews, I’ve decided to start at the beginning…

I think I’ll always remember the music of the year 2000 for one big, central dichotomy, a dilemma that spilled over into my first-ever “favorite albums of the year” list. As 2000 came to a close and I took to chronicling my favorite records from the previous twelve months, I was torn in two directions: That of celebrating traditional, soulful songcraft on the one hand, and honoring convention-bucking trailblazing on the other.

At the time, I decided to lean toward the former; at the year’s end, I hailed U2’s inspired return to full band-oriented, pop songcraft, All That You Can’t Leave Behind, as my favorite of the year’s offerings, a conviction in which I only grew stronger in the months that followed. While my love of Pop is well-documented, I was nevertheless excited to hear the band return to the sincere, arena-filling swell on which they built their career, particularly since it was done so well, and without deliberate glances toward the past; contrary to the conventional wisdom, which holds that this album is something of a throwback to retro U2, it was– and is– an album that stands out as unique in their catalog, a collection of intimate, soulful pop that mostly eschews the bombast and broad gestures of their classic work. The band has rarely played as well together as they did on that album, and Bono’s lyrics– songs of real joy and concrete, Christian hope– made the album sound like a true blessing in the dreadful months that followed the 9/11 attacks; for me and countless others, these songs will forever be treasured as anthems of hope and healing.

Eventually, though, I came around to the fact that, while U2’s album will always mean a lot to me personally, it was the year’s other big rock album– Radiohead’s Kid A– that stands as the year’s most significant achievement, an album that literally created the context for the decade that would follow. Radiohead shattered pop music conventions so thoroughly that its influence is still felt today– rock and indie music can be divided into pre- and post-Kid A eras and nobody could reasonably complain– and its mind-bending imagination proved to be seminal for my own forming tastes and aesthetic. The divide between tradition and innovation remains ever-present in my own mind, and I actually tend to lean toward the former, but Kid A is still, for me, a mind-expanding album that revealed to me the limits of pop music– or, more accurately, the lack of limits. Almost no other album released this decade is as deserving of the term “landmark” as this one.

There’s at least one, however: Stankonia, the fiery and mercurial hip-hop opus from Outkast, which might accurately be termed urban music’s own Kid A, in the sense that it set the agenda and shattered the limits for what hip-hop music could be. Outkast’s scale and ambition are actually greater than Radiohead’s, and the way they brought the various strands of black music together into one genre-defying package set the tone for a decade in which hip-hop would prove to be one of the more creatively vibrant albums out there. Still, in the 00s, there are two kinds of hip-hop albums: Stankonia, and the albums that walked the trails that it blazed.

A few more albums and trends deserve mention here: Following Outkast’s lead, several hip-hop and R&B artists released bold, brilliant reclamations of urban music, many of them loosely affiliated with the Soulaquarians collective. Of these, Erykah Badu’s soulful Mama’s Gun is my favorite. Meanwhile, a similar reclamation was going on in bluegrass music, thanks to T-Bone Burnett’s fine soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?; PJ Harvey made a bid for the mainstream with the slyly slick and totally kick-ass rock album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea; and David Eugene Edwards released his most soul-stirringly, bone-crunchingly intense work ever with his band 16 Horsepower– 2000’s Secret South stands as their finest recording.

And that’s the story of 2000– well, my story of 2000, anyway. I’ll time-travel back to 2001 in the next installment of this series, but until then, what are your favorite records from 2000?

Eu égard à l’intense actualité springsteenienne de ces dernières semaines, c’est avec retard que je signale l’excellence du dernier album d’Elvis Costello : Secret, profane & sugarcane.

Un album qui marque le retour au country du King Elvis : production dscrète et efficace signée du grand T Bone Burnett; chansons finement ciselées (dont l’une, I felt the chill before the winter came, est cosignée avec la légende country Loretta Lynn); présence d’Emmylou Harris sur le titre The Crooked line.

Bref, un excellent cru d’un artiste qui connaît des hauts et parfois des bas… et qu’on espère revoir sur scène un jour ou l’autre en France !

Fox Searchlight Pictures Presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley announced today that the company has acquired worldwide rights to the moving drama CRAZY HEART.  Written and directed by Scott Cooper and adapted from Thomas Cobb’s book of the same name, CRAZY HEART stars Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Robert Duvall with an original soundtrack by T-Bone Burnett (Grammy winner for soundtrack to “O’ Brother, Where Art Thou”).  CRAZY HEART  was produced by Judy Cairo, Scott Cooper and Butchers Run’s Rob Carliner and Robert Duvall.  The film is scheduled to be released in Spring 2010.

Jeff Bridges

“Jeff Bridges delivers the performance of a lifetime and the entire cast is fantastic in Scott Cooper’s powerful film,” said Utley and Gilula.  “We are thrilled to be bringing this film to audiences everywhere.”

Maggie Gyllenhaal

“Being acquired by Fox Searchlight is the highlight of my professional career. Their illustrious release record speaks for itself,” says Cooper. “I’m thrilled to be working with Nancy, Steve, and Claudia, and I’m elated CRAZY HEART has found such a special home.”

CRAZY HEART stars Jeff Bridges as an aging country music legend wrestling with his loss of fame at the hands of younger protégé.  Struggling to make ends meet playing one small gig to the next in the twilight of his career, he finds unlikely inspiration in a small town reporter (Gyllenhaal) and her young son.

Robert Duvall

The deal was brokered on Fox Searchlight’s side by Executive Vice President of Worldwide Acquisitions Tony Safford and Vice President of Business Affairs Megan O’Brien.  ICM arranged financing on the project and acted as the worldwide sales agent.  ICM represents Duvall, Cooper, Carliner and Butchers Run.

Fox Searchlight Pictures is a specialty film company that both finances and acquires motion pictures.  It has its own marketing and distribution operations, and its films are distributed internationally by Twentieth Century Fox.  Fox Searchlight Pictures is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group

Raising Sand – 2007

Raising Sand, a collaboration between Zeppelin legend Robert Plant and bluegrass heroine Alison Krauss, was produced by Americana expert T-Bone Burnett, and is a lesson in pitch-perfect musical production.  It’s an album of mostly covers, given a breath of new life by the unlikely harmony of two very different singers.  Without a doubt, the greatest success of the album is hearing Plant and Krauss sing together; their voices blend together into a sultry, warm intonation that lend an air of wisdom and worldliness to the lyrics.

All of that said, the album is very low-key, and also quite long.  There are 13 tracks here and nine of them are over the four-minute mark.  It’s easy to appreciate the extra-refined production value and rich instrumentation, but listening to Raising Sand is a commitment that requires effort.  It’s best savored as mood-setting music, and there’s every type to be found: sexy and confident, forlorn and heartbroken, haunting and creepy, atmospheric and earthy.  This is due to Burnett’s finesse, the outstanding musicianship (the studio musicians were some of the best in the business), and of course, the absolute professionalism and brilliant vocals of Plant and Krauss.

Each track has its own merits, but there are definitely essential ones.  The first track, “Rich Woman” has a classic stalking blues rhythm plus a swampy reverb, and Plant and Krauss are at their most alluring here.  “Killing The Blues” is a gorgeous country-folk song where the vocals dance effortlessly over the sweet and lulling music.  Krauss goes solo on “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us” a creeping, gypsy-tinged track filled with emotion thanks to Krauss’ pure voice.

One of the more upbeat songs is the classic blues-rock “Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)”, and it’s a welcome change of rhythm that is allowed to be just a touch messier than the rest of the album.  “Please Read The Letter” is the most heart-wrenching track on Raising Sand.  Krauss provides the harmony here to Plant’s lead and there is an incredible amount of frank desolation in their voices.  I also like “Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson” because Krauss comes out of her shell and delivers a sassy, countrified vocal that is markedly different from her carefully restrained performance on the rest of the album.

Raising Sand won the Grammy for Album of the Year at the 2009 ceremony.  While I think that maybe it could have benefitted by having a couple less tracks (hey, just more material for another great album!) and perhaps even being dirtied up a little, there’s no arguing with the fact that Plant and Krauss an exceptional duo, possibly one of the best duet pairs ever.  That and the terrific quality of the music here are the best reasons to own this album.

]]> http://contaryescuchar.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/blues-capitulo-6/ Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:51:49 +0000 contaryescuchar http://contaryescuchar.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/blues-capitulo-6/

En la segunda parte del documental “The soul of a man”, dirigido por Wim Wenders, el director alemán nos presenta el desenlace en la vida de Skip James e introduce a otro gran artista, J.B. Lenoir, cuyo blues comprometido, político, social y denunciante fue clave para iluminar al mundo sobre la condición de la comunidad afroamericana en Estados Unidos.

Escucha: Blues, una odisea musical – Capítulo 06

By Joel Francis

When Elvis Costello picked up an acoustic guitar in the mid-‘80s after two baffling albums full of horns and keyboards, the result was one of the high points in Costello’s already-great discography. Costello teamed with producer T-Bone Burnett for that album, “King of America,” and 23 years later the two are back together for “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane.”

Costello has never quite eclipsed that peak, settling into a pattern of churning out reliable genre exercises in country, jazz, classical and rock and collaborating with Burt Bacharach, the Brodsky Quartet and Allen Toussaint. Burnett, on the other hand, has become the go-to man for Americana/roots recordings, winning a Grammys for his production on Robert Plant and Allisson Krauss’ debut album and the “O Brother Where Art Thou?” soundtrack. The reunion of Costello and Burnett creates an accessible entry point for a public that reaches beyond his usual audience of the core and the curious.

Unfortunately, the magic that sparked “King of America” is absent on “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane.” While Burnett has rounded up an all-star cast of bluegrass musicians, the music feels like a stiff genre exercise. It is almost as if Costello is guesting on his own “Pickin’ On” tribute, or starring in “O Brother Where Art Costello.” Costello’s decision to revisit two songs from his back catalog reinforces this notion. “Complicated Shadows” was a great Johnny Cash-inspired slow-burning rock song in its original incarnation back in 1996. Here, it’s half the length and feels like Costello slapped his old lyrics over a generic bluegrass arrangement.

It neither helps nor hurts the listening experience to know that these songs were culled from an unfinished opera about Hans Christian Anderson, previous albums and leftovers from other projects. With little exception, they are all painted with the same brush and do little to distinguish themselves from the gray wash of an album that is neither offensive nor interesting.

The songs that do stand out are the two co-written by Burnett and Costello. “Sulphur to Sugarcane” is an extended innuendo delivered with a broad poke in the ribs and exaggerated arched eyebrow. It recalls the routines of Dusty and Lefty, the off-color cowboy duo played by Woody Harrelson and John C. Riley in the film “A Prairie Home Companion.”

“The Crooked Line,” however, is a standout in the good way. This next-to-last tune rewards the listener for nearly making it through the album with the harmony vocals of Emmylou Harris. Harris may be the best and most underrated duet singer in music. She consistently works harder on her supporting vocals than most singers invest in their singles. Her voice soars, subtly complimenting the melody, adding a mesmerizing countermelody. Whether on Lyle Lovett’s “Waltz Through the Bottomland” or Bob Dylan’s “Mozambique,” her voice never ceases to inadvertently creep into the spotlight and eventually command full attention.

Drawing on the chemistry she and Costello established in their previous collaboration on his “Delivery Man” album and subsequent tour, Harris doesn’t disappoint on “The Crooked Line.” Like a jazz musician breathing life into a trite pop standard, Harris signing salvages a ho-hum song and arrangement and turns it into something worth repeated listens.

“Secret, Profane and Sugarcane” has been released on Starbuck’s Hear Music label, and it seems a perfect fit for the latte-drinking, NPR-listening caricature scribbled up in political circles. For this audience, Costello’s name means maverick, Burnett’s means quality and the country-folk stylings make it unique, yet comfortable. But fans of Costello, Burnett and bluegrass alike can do much better than this.

Following the lead of such sultry starlet actresses turned singers as Zooey Deschanel, Scarlett Johannson, and Jenny Lewis, the semi-famous Juliette Lewis has decided that deep down she’s really a rock star.  By some freak of nature, she’s landed herself in a tour with The Pretenders and Cat Power this summer to push her solo debut Terra Incognita.  Reports are that Juliette is psyched about the tour, but she’s had to be repeatedly reminded that this isn’t a stage show where she gets to play a young Chrissie Hynde.  In a recent Spin interview, Lewis describes her new album by saying that it “captures many flavors of my emotional life and voice.”  When told by the interviewer that this statement makes absolutely no sense at all, Lewis closes her eyes, hums a few bars of “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” and falls asleep.  After the interviewer snaps his fingers a couple of times to wake her up, she mumbles dreamily “Terra Incognita means unknown territory—and that’s where I wanted to go musically.”  The interviewer again reminds her that she has drifted into incoherence, to which Lewis replies “Incoherence starts with the same letters as Incognita, wow…they rhyme!”  At this point the interview ends abruptly.

On to music that is actually good…

How about that Declan MacManus?  Not only is he married to one of the hottest jazz singers on the planet—Diana Krall—but he just keeps putting out great album after great album.  Once again, he proves why musicians like Jenny Lewis continue to spurn other opportunities just to play with him.  Oh, who is Declan MacManus, you ask?  None other than the one and only Elvis Costello.  The original Napoleon Dynamite himself released Secret, Profane and Sugarcane this week to mixed reviews.  This album teams Costello with producer T-Bone Burnett and a veritable supergroup of folk-country talent, including dobro master Jerry Douglas.  This is yet another album that showcases why Costello is the reigning king of pop songcraft, but unlike last year’s Momofuku, he is working with a team that as accomplished as he is.  This means that Costello leads without dictating and Burnett’s crisp production style makes the music sound great.

In non-Jenny Lewis related news, I gotta tell you that The Roots are quickly becoming my favorite band on the planet.  First, they play a great set with Paul Simon on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  Then, they back up Public Enemy on a live beginning-to-end rendition of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.  Next up:  resurrecting John Lennon and making the Beatles the opening band on their summer tour.

Finally, as the summer moves on, I’ll try to keep you updated on upcoming festivals.  One to keep an eye on is the All Points West festival happening at the Liberty State Park in Jersey City, NJ on July 31-August 2 2009.  Some of the acts playing APW are the  Beastie Boys, The National, Vampire Weekend, Coldplay, My Bloody Valentine, Neko Case and more.  My must-see recommendation this year is Akron/Family.  They’ve got my vote for the best album of 2009 and they absolutely blow the stage up when they play.

The Blues: A musical journey

En el capítulo de esta semana escucharemos la primera parte del documental “The Soul of a Man” dirigido por Wim Wenders. Esta cinta, narrada por el actor Laurence Fishburn como la voz de Blind Willy Johnson, nos presenta la vida de tres artistas esenciales para la música de raíz afroamericana: Blind Willy Johnson, Skip James y J.B. Lenoir.

Wenders señala que la película está estructurada más como un poema que un documental, por eso se permite ciertas licencias y hace coexistir personajes reales, de ficción y recreaciones.

Las canciones que escucharás en el programa están interpretadas por artistas contemporáneos como Cassandra Wilson, Nick Cave, Lou Reed, Eagle Eye Cherry, Bonnie Raitt y muchos otros.

Escucha: Blues, una odisea musical – Capítulo 05

Recorded with T-Bone Burnett over a three day period in Nashville, Elvis Costello’s latest release, Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, is probably the very definition of a mixed bag, but as such, it holds up pretty well just the same. This is Costello in country/Americana mode, and since it’s a collaboration with Burnett, it’s been compared to King Of America, though this album is not nearly so carefully crafted nor is it as serious minded as that 1986 release. What is it is very entertaining, and I expect that was the primary intention here. The album includes four songs written for an unfinished commission about Hans Christen Andersen, duets with Loretta Lynn and Emmylou Harris and a couple of songs written with Burnett. Burnett the producer has assembled a crack team of musicians to back Costello, so musically it’s always a pleasure to listen to. It’s not on the level of his finest records, but Secret, Profane & Sugarcane is still great fun in its best moments, and certainly recommended for Costello fans and fans of Americana and country music in general. Standout cuts: “My All Time Doll,” “Hidden Shame,” “I Dreamed Of My Old Lover” and “The Crooked Line.”

http://www.myspace.com/elviscostello

The most interesting music coming out right now could be classified as roots music – country-rock, Americana, folk-rock, blues, etc.  These artists may appear mainly on indie labels, or are big names trying to figure out a new hook but for the most part they are making some pretty good music.

Ryan Bingham, coming out of the wild west (New Mexico) and using Texas as his base, rocks on Roadhouse Sun, his third album.  Like on Mescalito, his breakthrough album from 2007, Bingham infuses his music with heavy doses of Rolling Stones/Black Crowes sensibility (Crowes guitarist Marc Ford produced this), and on “Change Is,” mixes in a dollop of Led Zeppelin. 

MP3: “Dylan’s Hard Rain” by Ryan Bingham

The Flatlanders may be a legend, but they’re also a band – and Hills and Valleys, their fourth official release, may be their best yet.  Kicking off with the brilliant “Homeland Refugee” and the voice of Joe Ely, this Texas trio kicks the Lone Star dust off their boots and range far afield with selections like “Cry For Freedom” but their words hit home and sound just right for today.  Highly recommended.

MP3: “No Way I’ll Never Need You” by the Flatlanders

Austin, Texas, is known as a roots music capital, but first there was Woodstock, the little Hudson Valley hamlet in upstate New York where some of the most down-home music of the late 1960s and early 1970s was produced.  The Felice Brothers, coming down out of the Catskills, put one in mind of the Band woodshedding at Big Pink, but with an edgy modern-day sensibility.  Yonder Is The Clock, the Felice Bro’s second major release, is a goldmine of ear-opening, barnstormin’ hooping and hollering that is a tonic for the tired soul.  Also highly recommended (even if they aren’t from Texas). 

MP3: “Run Chicken Run” by the Felice Brothers

Elvis Costello teams up with über roots producer T-Bone Burnett for Secret, Profane and Sugarcane, cut with a bunch of Nashville and bluegrass vets.   While it may sound like a good idea, this ain’t the return of Plant/Krauss: despite a promising beginning and a nice remake of “Complicated Shadows,” too much of this music is dead on arrival.  Costello has succeeded in cross-genre exercises before, but he fails here – even his new songs sound like stale museum pieces.

MP3: “Complicated Shadows” by Elvis Costello & the Sugarcanes

Cyril Neville, youngest of the mighty Neville Brothers (and a member of the Meters), gives us some Brand New Blues by way of his native New Orleans via Austin, where he now lives.  Cyril’s still kinda pissed about Katrina – his anger hot-wires the remake of Bob Marley’s “Slave Driver.”  A host of guest stars, including a few of Cyril’s bros, show up and the music is bluesy and soulful.  A good time will be had by all.

MP3: “Cream Them Beans” by Cyril Neville

Willie Dixon is a giant of the blues – he wrote such classics as “Spoonful,” “Wang Dang Doodle” and “Back Door Man” for Howlin’ Wolf, Clarence Carter, Muddy Waters and many more.  Alex Dixon is Willie’s grandson, and his debut album Rising From The Bushes would make grandpa proud.  Alex covers some Willie classics (“Spoonful,” “Down In The Bottom”) but really shines on his originals.  The band includes some seasoned Chicago blues hands, including vocalist Marcella Detroit, a.k.a. Marcy Levy, who’s sung backup with the likes of Eric Clapton, Bob Seger and Leon Russell.

MP3: “Fantasy” by the Alex Dixon Band (feat. Marcella Detroit)

Initially, Secret, Profane and Sugarcane was scheduled to be released not as a proper Elvis Costello album, but as a Coward Brothers album– a makeshift duo comprised of Costello and producer T-Bone Burnett. Though the role of each man remains unchanged, the billing doesn’t– now, it’s simply an Elvis Costello album produced by Burnett– but the last-minute name change suggests something of the haphazard, by-the-seat-of-their-pants manner in which the record was assembled.

And speaking of name changes: They may as well have called this one Almost Bluegrass. Though Burnett has produced Costello before, both on the glossy pop workout Spike and the spare, acoustic Americana of King of America, this new recording bears more in common with Almost Blue, Costello’s country/Western covers album from the early 80s– not in sound so much as in spirit. Like that album, Sugarcane finds Costello rolling up his sleeves for a genre exercise that uncannily emulates the style of a particularly American musical idiom. Only this time, instead of Nashville-bred countrypolitan and honky-tonk, it’s Appalachian bluegrass, pitched somewhere between string band and jug band, almost entirely acoustic and played with bona fide hillbilly grit by Costello and a troupe of honest-to-goodness bluegrass musicians.

That Costello nails the sound he’s striving for goes without saying; this is the walking, one-man Pop Encyclopedia we’re talking about, of course, and he’s never met a genre he couldn’t mold into his own image. But as well as it works, on a technical level anyway, as bluegrass, I’m not so sure that it works as a Costello album.

He’s got the country grit that he needs to make this work– that much was proved with Almost Blue. And he’s got the sensitivity to make his acerbic wit and love of wordplay work in an acoustic setting– that much was proved, well, over and over again, on too many Costello albums to count. He’s even got the songs: “Hidden Shame” is a strutting country number that recalls the rambling “Glitter Gulch,” “My All-Time Doll” is an ominous creeper, “I Dreamed of My Old Lover” is an appealingly old-timey country-folk ballad, and a new version of “Complicated Shadows,” though stripped of its electric guitar, actually musters more energy and mayhem than the original in this sped-up and stripped-down version.

And yet, for all the terrific musicians– including Jim Lauderdale and Emmylou Harris on harmony vocals– and a good set of songs, what the project lacks is cohesion; indeed, it’s almost difficult to think of it as a proper Costello album, as its shakey construction makes it feel more like a batch of leftovers. The album was recorded quickly, in the same manner as last year’s wonderful Momofuku, and while that slapdash technique yields some wonderfully ramshackle performances, it would seem that Costello never bothered to write a set of songs for this project. Thus, he throws together a batch of tunes from his aborted musical about Hans Christian Anderson, reworks one older song (“Complicated Shadows”), covers Bing Crosby, and puts his own stamp on a couple of songs he wrote for other people.

In other words: It’s a hodgepodge, and not even this fine cast of players is able to pull it all together into something focused and unified. As such, the project feels meandering and aimless, which wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the sinking feeling that this whole project is simply a vehicle for jetissoning some songs that wouldn’t fit anywhere else. So it feels more like a B-sides set or a fans-only compilation than a full-on Elvis Costello album, but, as far as such things go, it’s by no means an unpleasant listen.

A while ago I wrote in one of my posts about the wonderful Stephen Bruton.  Sadly, Stephen passed away May 9th in Los Angles after a 3 year battle with throat cancer. He was making music right up until the end, working on the new Kris Kristofferson record and music for a new film with T. Bone Burnett.

I learned a lot from Stephen the few times I was fortunate enough to work with him in the studio or on the road. He always had a great attitude, was very cool and confident, and had a wonderful sense of humor. I loved his songwriting and guitar playing. He was also an actor and appeared in quite a few movies.

Billboard Magazine, The LA Times, and numerous other publications ran some nice articles about Stephen this past week or two if you want to learn a little bit more about him. To hear some of his music, visit his official website.

I don’t know what else to say. Bruton, we’ll miss you!

Non non, je ne fais pas référence à un enième disque posthume du King mais bien à un nouveau single de l’autre Elvis: Elvis Costello.

Mister Costello, de son vrai nom Declan Patrick MacManus, a l’habitude de surprendre son public en touchant à différents styles musicaux. Pour “Complicated Shadows” (son nouveau single qui sera programmé très prochainement sur Classic 21), Elvis Costello a choisi de collaborer avec le célèbre musicien/producteur T. Bone Burnett qui a récemment travaillé sur “Raising Sand” (l’album de Robert Plant et Alison Krauss).

“Complicated Shadows” n’est pas une nouvelle composition de Costello, c’est un nouvel enregistrement d’un titre qui figurait d’origine sur l’album “All This Useless Beauty” (sorti en 1996), mais, la nouveauté ici c’est qu’on ne retrouve pas le band habituel de Costello mais bien de très bons musiciens issu de la scène country actuelle.

A écouter donc prochainement sur votre radio favorite …

“Complicated Shadows” est le premier single extrait de l’album “Secret, Profane & Sugarcane” dont la sortie est prévue pour le 2 juin prochain.