ARCHIVAL CD REVIEW - RYAN ADAMS & THE CARDINALS - III/IV

Having just listened to the brand spanking new Ryan Adams CD, Ashes & Fire about a dozen times on the free NPR stream, I am going to start digesting post gush and write about it but first let me pull s little something from the archives before it turns. I was gonna lay this review on y'all last year but got distracted by life and other roadblocks. Here's my review of the previous Ryan album. Okay, so I'm a little laid back. I wrote the review of Ryan's III/IV immediately after hearing it many months ago and then decided not to post it until I'd listened a few more times but never got around to a re-write. Here is the initial rushing spew in all of its flush-cheeked exuberance.

Watch for the new review of Ashes & Fire in a day or two...the CD comes out on October 11. Pre-order here. I just spent hours deciphering and scrawling out the new lyrics, learning a few chord changes for my next gig and ordering it on Amazon. In the meantime listen it here while it is still up on NPR and buy his entire catalog.   

RYAN ADAMS - III/IV

Buy RYAN ADAMS III/IV now!...especially if you like The Strokes, Todd Rundgren, 80s power pop, Pretenders...his most rockin' record all the way through in ages...outtakes from Easy Tiger (Bonus CD) ...but this sounds so different than that wonderful album. Most of the tunes on this 2 CD set would have radically changed the vibe of that disc. Welcome back Ryan and Cardinals...keep 'em comin'.

Now, I'm one of these guys who can't believe that this guy isn't just the biggest thing ever but then again, I wouldn't want that because then he'd be even more pissy about the state of the bidness and maybe even quit again and I like him right where he is--big enough to be always striving for more vision and more expression. This guy is a craftsman first and foremost but not in the Steely Dan/Eagles pristine production way. More in the intense ability he has to make basic rock n roll songs sound unique and compelling through myriad sections, leaps of melodic faith, and memorable riffs. The thing about almost ALL of his records and the last couple in particular are how much is revealed on subsequent listens. Just when you think there are no hooks, they pull ya back in. On the next listen you feel inundated with them. This is music that is not obvious. My how refreshing he has become in today's rock world.

For those who don't know this guy HE RIPS! Any of his numerous previous albums are full of well-crafted songs, compassionate vocals and bottom line just a glimpse into one of the eras most prolific and accomplished singer/songwriters. And the Cardinals are what The Band used to be for Robbie Robertson...a songwriter's best friend: a group that can play any style you throw at them well.

There's a pretty direct paean to Tom Petty on the first disc's "Stop Playing With My Heart". But from past releases, you'll know that Adams is most definitely not afraid to wear his influences on his sleeve. I hear Todd R mostly in some of his vocal phrasing ("Kisses Start Wars" and the tune that immediately follows it "Crystal Skull", for instance).

                        Kisses Start Wars

There's a edgy hint of the Costello-esque in the slashing rhythm guitar figures here and there, but not much Dead or country or Neil Young this time out (but don't miss his last 3-4 for that tip). "NUMBERS" reminds me of X playing a Pete Townshend tune circa The Who Sell Out until the bridge which is pure Ryan.

 

Numbers                                      

"Sewers At the Bottom of the Wishing Well" melds The Clash with The Byrds, Crazy Horse with an opening riff halfway to The Beatles' "Please, Please Me". How hip is that!

         Sewers at the Bottom of the Wishing Well

He even gets a bit of Freddie Mercury overbite on in "Star Wars" which is just a weirdly cool song. He gets slagged for being prolific but bottom line is, I've downloaded buckets of unreleased outtakes from this guy that put many of the present day chartbusters to shame. Rock on, baby.

Adams' albums are like those of Neil Young or David Bowie in that you always know a) that it's him b) that it will be interesting, c) that it may just be very different and unexpected from what you previous know but d) that it will always be quality and always be compelling. Sure we all have our favorites (I'm a Cold Roses and Easy Tiger guy), and like Neil and Bowie, there are always masterpieces to exist alongside near misses and blunders. But in the big picture, such is life. That these guys consistently just put it out there, diving in, heart first, craft second, critics/audience/sales somewhere farther down the list is a call for discerning listeners to keep supporting them, keep listening, keep buying tickets. Give these sonic poets their canvas and let `em run with it.

Since his recent marriage to pop/movie star Mandy Moore and his "retirement" from music, this surprising release was a wonderful treat. Recorded in 2007 during sessions for the Easy Tiger album, these 21 tunes have more bite and no real country.folky vibe like lots of his output with the Cardinals. This is a ROCK record, teasingly referencing Ryan's earlier incarnations pre-Cardinals. Here he has modernized his alt-rock pose from years ago, left the Grateful Dead references behind. A bit of arena rock grandiosity, barroom brawling 80s edge, some punk simplicity with a dash of hippie metal. Fun and somehat tossed off, not as desperately rockin' as his pre-sobriety music but no real twang as he's recently courted either.

While this holds up well, there is still something of a feeling that it is a stop-gap release while Ryan rejuvenates himself, folds his prodigious radar around his new muse and waits to see what shakes out next time. With Adams, like the best of his forebears you never can tell what will come next...and you can't wait!

(Obviously, "next time" is HERE on Oct. 11 and here's a tease...if you haven't already checked out the full stream of Ashes & Fire on NPR...this is a solo acoustic version of the lead track, "Dirty Rain". The album version has some band on it though subtle and tasty...)

CD REVIEW: KENNY RANKIN – THE ARTISTRY OF KENNY RANKIN (promo only sampler)

SLY DOG/MACK AVENUE RECORDS



The review below is from the promo sampler compiled from 6 full-length CD reissues of classic albums from the late vocalist/guitarist Kenny Rankin. The original albums recently remastered and re-issued by Sly Dog in association with Mack Avenue Records are the records that brought Kenny Rankin to the public’s attention: Mind-Dusters (’67); Family (’70); Like A Seed (’72); Inside (’75); Silver Morning (’75); The Kenny Rankin Album (’76); After The Roses (’80).




Guitarist/vocalist/composer Kenny Rankin, who passed away in 2009 at 69, had a unique sound and captured a delicate moment in time when delicacy, and tasteful lyrical phrasing in vocal and instrumental approach was not the rarity it is today but pervasive on the music charts in these pre-punk days. Fellow songsmiths such as James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joni Mitchell, JD Souther, and Jesse Colin Young were among the frontline artists where melody, beauty and heartfelt emotion were the lynchpins of their appeal. Taking their melodic turns from ‘60s folk scene, Tin Pan Alley and The Beatles eccentric open-minded lyrical and melodic examples, Rankin added the Brazilian and jazz textures that he heard growing up in the Washington Heights section of New York City.



On the flip side of the popular music equation in those days were the prog/rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, and early Genesis and their approximators, who trod a more aggro path based on instrumental prowess and a more surreal, fantasy-based lyrical stance. For Rankin, his take was decidedly jazzy, mixing the nylon string guitar, bossa-nova vibe and harmonic sophistication with the simplicity of folk stylings and lushness of much of the pop of the previous generation. He added an emotional directness in his dedication to the lyric of every song he sang.



His graceful and softly gentle high-pitched vocal sound floated sweetly over his own harmonically rich chord choices on original tunes “Lost Up In Loving You”, “Haven’t We Met” and “Silver Morning” as well as on his frequent interpretations of outside compositions. His scatting or soloing melodic wordless passages in some of these tunes reminds me of other sophisticated and daring popular vocalists of the day such as Flora Purim and Minnie Ripperton as well as jazzing up his skillful interpretations of Beatles tunes such as “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Blackbird”. I spent a month learning the arrangement of the latter while in college to stand out from the rest of the folks in our apartment building who were struggling through tackling the original McCartney arrangement.




Another great example here is his acoustic swinging rendition of “Up From The Skies” taking Jimi Hendrix’s simple basic chord line and charging it up with a whole different vibe from the original while still keeping Hendrix’s jazzy blues feel and psychedelic world view in tact. Hendrix’s influence is also heard in the wah-wah groove of Kenny’s “Comin’ Down” from LIKE A SEED. This tune, drenched with horns, churning guitar and funky keys under Rankin’s echo-laden vocal hook, is at once his druggiest as well as most rock n roll arrangement found here.



More to the center of the Rankin milieu is the tune which follows, also from LIKE A SEED, “Stringman”. Listen to this and slow down the speed ever so slightly and you can hear what could be an outtake from a mid-70s, Peter Asher produced James Taylor album. Easy groove, Fender Rhodes sound, sleek melody and catchy hook. Jesse Colin Young has a very similar vocal sound, high and resonant but Kenny was a jazzer at heart and Jesse and James were essentially from the folk/rock school.



Of the six original albums in the series, it would be hard pressed to pick a quintessential Rankin album. Many folks might suggest LIKE A SEED in that his signature tune, “Peaceful” which was a huge hit at the time for Helen Reddy, as the follow-up single to “I Am Woman” appears here most effectively (an earlier version is also on MIND-DUSTERS). The diversity of 1972’s LIKE A SEED continued and refined the blueprint for most of Kenny’s albums that were to follow: stylish, impeccable jazzy original tunes interspersed with unique, emotional and heartfelt takes on classic rock, pop and standard hits.



I was also a huge fan of the INSIDE and SILVER MORNING albums when they came out. Remember jazz fusion was HUGE but the stirrings of what would be watered down in the subsequent two decades and dubbed "Smooth Jazz" was swimming against the fusion current just as the 70s singer songwriters were the flip side of the prog/rock bands. Kenny’s records were really blueprints for the coming sounds of smoother inflected pop/jazz vocalists such as Michael Franks and even George Benson. While Benson came from the post-bop instrumental side and Kenny more from the classic pop singer mold their approaches influenced the genre for years. Recall though that when these albums came out there was less divisive distinction between “genres” of what was popular at the time. No AAA, SMOOTH JAZZ, CLASSIC ROCK formats…sure there were “Oldies” stations late at night playing mostly doo-wop, and Classical music was in a world of it’s own as it has always been but this was the age of free-form FM radio where in a hour you could hear Kenny Rankin, Yes, B.B. King, James Brown, Doc Watson and John Coltrane. Sounds like my Pandora playlist today.



Sure, a few of the string arrangements here are a tad heavy-handed for my taste but, hey, at least they are real strings and harken back to some of Kenny’s pop vocal predecessors. In fact, arranger/conductor Don Costa (who worked on THE KENNY RANKIN ALBUM and AFTER THE ROSES) listed classic records by Sinatra, Streisand, Sarah Vaughan, Steve & Eydie, Lloyd Price, and Paul Anka in his resume. As recently at 1980, Don had a hit record with his daughter Nikka Costa. My least favorite of the albums here was probably AFTER THE ROSES, only because the heaviness of the echo on the tracks distracts from the beauty of Kenny’s voice and muddies the intricacies of the arrangements some for my taste. Otherwise, I really have enjoyed listening to Kenny Rankin’s beautiful sound again after so many years away.



For me, a couple of favorites NOT included on this compilation include Kenny’s sultry versions of Stevie Wonder’s “Creepin’” that leads off the INSIDE album as well as the Stephen Bishop’s hit “On And On” from THE KENNY RANKIN ALBUM. This album was the first place I’d ever heard the great tune, “When Sunny Gets Blue” and was recorded live in the studio with Costa's 60-piece orchestra.





Rankin’s fans included not only Peggy Lee, Mel Torme and Carmen McRae who covered his compositions but sax great Stan Getz who called Rankin, “a horn with a heartbeat”. Johnny Carson and Paul McCartney could be counted as two of Rankin's most appreciative admirers. Carson penned the liner notes to Rankin’s ’67 debut release, MIND-DUSTERS and featured the singer on The Tonight Show over 20 times. After hearing Kenny’s version of “Blackbird” (KR was to record numerous Beatles tunes over the years), McCartney pegged Rankin to perform it when Lennon and McCartney were inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame.



Sometimes when an artist presenting such well-crafted music as exhibited on this well-thought out compilation and the albums from which the tracks come, performed live back in the day before people sang regularly to pre-recorded backing tracks, one was disappointed by the concert experience. Not the case with Kenny Rankin. When we booked Kenny into San Diego State’s Montezuma Hall in the mid-70s, he showed up with a small group and wowed the crowd with the beauty and tasteful purity that was the essence of his artistry.



Here's a nice interview with Kenny followed by a beautiful live medley of "Here's That Rainy Day" and "Blackbird"

CD Review: ROBERT PLANT & ALISON KRAUSS - Raising Sand

Produced by T-Bone Burnett

First of all let me preface this by saying that I think T-Bone Burnett is one of the great unsung artists of the past 30 years. Since I first saw his weird stork-like countenance loping around in Bob Dylan's peripheral vision in RENALDO & CLARA. the insanely self-indulgent, wondrously oblique and grandly ambitious film which surreally documented Dylan's ROLLING THUNDER REVUE, I was taken by his sheer musicality and sense of purpose. Whether producing songwriter Peter Case's brilliant self-titled solo debut from, classic records by Elvis Costello (my fave EC record “King of America “ being one), Los Lobos, Roy Orbison, Leo Kottke, The Wallflowers, Counting Crows, or pulling together the surprise hit soundtrack album of 2001, Down From The Mountain: O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU, T-Bone has laid a swatch across the past generation's musicians and fans that has been subtle and surreal in its subversive influence while embracing all that is real, rootsy and left-of-center tasteful.

Wow, I just recalled sitting next to him at lunch before a meet and greet at a record store in Ardmore, PA back in the 1988. I’d been invited by the regional promotions rep for Columbia Records to attend and T-Bone was out promoting his latest record, “Talking Animals.” A fabulous record by the way if you can find a copy. At any rate, all I truly remember is that the dud is incredibly tall and that he and I got into a wonderful conversation about the horrid state of American political leadership (a favorite topic of both of ours) and the importance of a guy like Johnny Cash in bridging the gap between the old world (pre-Dylan) America and the new post-Vietnam era.

OK we won't talk about his incredible but under appreciated solo work. It is often downright impenetrable in it's quirkiness, in nothing but the best sense, mind you. Taking his cues from the most obtuse Dylan moments of dense and just plain odd character studies, tossing edgy political metaphor laced with a very persistent sonic and textural daring, his solo music is an acquired taste. Unfortunately not many record buyers actually acquired them. My favorite is the mostly acoustic self-titled CD from ‘86 and “Proof Through he Night” (1983) is also a keeper.

Which brings us to this new CD by rock icon Robert Plant and new acoustic figurehead Alison Krauss. "What?" was my first reaction. Sounded like a match made in a smoky room at a struggling AAA station trying to find something new to play that didn't alienate either of their audiences of aging boomers or ‘90s fans of female singer-songwriters. Good on paper but I was having a hard time envisioning where these worlds collide.

I recalled Plant and Led Zeppelin III, the album of mostly acoustic, very British folky ditties but it was much rougher hewn than the pristine filigree of Krauss's modernized yet ancient country sensibilities. OK, maybe there were possibilities here. But try as I might hearing a cross between the wailing "Immigrant Song" and the calico earthiness of "Too Late To Cry Now" was still a stretch.

Then I heard T-Bone was in the control room overseeing things and I was sold. Perfect. This MUST be great or at least right up my alley. And I hadn't heard a note when I opened the CD and saw among the players downtown iconoclastic jazz/avant guitarist Marc Ribot aboard (he shares Costello pedigree with T-Bone) as well as folk acoustic legendary string master Norman Blake. I was very intrigued.

Well, if you are looking for Plant’s innovative, improvisatory, verging-on-the-edge-of-disintegrating old-school vocal histrionics that spawned legions of crappy pseudo imitators from under their copy-cat Goldilocks fright wigs, go buy a Zep boxed set. It ain’t here. There are a couple of glimmers of Frodo-meets-Dragonslayer vocal wail but very gracefully appointed.

This is a Plant all about harmony and gentle grace and coming not only directly from the folk music of the British Isles where he got his early lessons but more directly filtered through Krauss’s roots in the American antecedents of those same ballads and reels—the music of Appalachia and Kentucky and West Virginia—the Southern, American roots of what would later leave the farm and head to Nashville and become country music. We also find here the splinters and fingers and streams of the other roots music of the American South—the blues, but not a direct, 12 bar version that inspired Led Zeppelin’s plundering and elongation of the form but the variations that permeated the music of New Orleans and Memphis and Tupelo and Austin. Music that became early R&B and rockabilly and rock and roll. Nothing on the CD really rocks but just seems absolutely well-worn and comfortable.

Krauss, began her recording career as a 14-year old fiddle phenom and who has become in the last ten years one of country music’s most popular purveyors of eclectic stylistic exploration and roots-centric classicism.

All of these links are present here in music that never sounds dusty, antiquated or nostalgic--never anything but fresh and vibrant. This is one gorgeous album of great songs and superlative taste.

Song by song glimpse:

"Rich Woman" opens the album with what may be the bluesiest structure on the disc but more delicate in presentation with Krauss harmonizing to Plant’s soft-pedaled and introspective vocals sung in a smoother, more slippery smoothness than even the crooniest of Plant vehicles we’re used to.

"Killing The Blues" - self-explanatory.

"Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us" - written by T-Bone’s wife and wonderful singer-songwriter Sam Phillips.

“Polly Come Home” - one of two songs here by the great and under appreciated Gene Clark of the Byrds. This is a haunting folk ballad.

“Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) - T-Bone has long been a huge fan of The Everly Brothers (consider he and Costello’s Cowardly Bros EP from ????). This Phil & Don song is very different from the original with Plant vamping the blues a bit in the spaces between verse and the guitars a bit more distorted than anything thus far.

"Through the Morning, Through The Night" - Gene Clark again. Also from the Dillard & Clark album of the same title, is a forlorn country ballad.

"Please Read The Letter" - oddly enough one of only three or four tunes with Krauss's fiddle, this also features some classic Plant moans and an aching and slow Krauss harmony vocal. What a trademark sound that is. No one can sound like that. The tune is also the only tune on the CD that features a Plant writing credit (along with Jimmy Page and several other folks).

"Trampled Rose" - ah, this hauntingly beautiful Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan song features an ethereal Krauss vocal and some delicate Waits-ian coloration (though without the ever-present trash can symphony sonic color of Waits’ own work) which makes it sound oddly like a hi-fidelity version of a Zep outtake from III. Some hand drum stuff and National Steel guitar work with some ether haze floating through the mix. Don't hear Plant on this but the swooping vocal swells by Krauss could very well be Plant inspired.

"Fortune Teller" -- the classic early rock of New Orleans (the Stones also covered this early on) written by one "Naomi Neville" which was a pseudonym for either Art Neville or Allen Toussaint depending on who you believe. This is a rockin’ little ditty with Plant in quiet rocker mode.

“Stick With Me baby” -- by 60s Nashville star Mel Tillis finds the production etching more of a 50s street R&B vibe. Music for the front stoop, albeit dusky and shadowy where the melody’s softness pierces through the smoky haze.

“Nothin’” -- A dirge-like, grungy take on a Townes Van Zandt tune full of big guitar layered with subtle and scratchy fiddle riffs. Like a murky tale told under a dirty blanket. The sound of this track is wonderfully crafted mixing banjo, tambourine, Krauss’s wonderfully filthy fiddle and the other-side-of dawn Van Zandt ethos into a non-rocking rocker. Loud and ominously spooky.

“Let Your Loss be Your Lesson” - written by Mike Campbell, I presume the same guy as in Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers. Starts with a 60s Stax/Motown-esque riff and then sliding into a bouncing, rockabilly shuffle this features a tasty Krauss vocal that at times feels a bit little like she’s channeling Dolly Parton with that great little warble in her voice. The nice little edge on the guitar in the refrain is very Buffalo Springfield 60s and the solo kicks the tune out. One of the CD highlights with a compelling Krauss vocal. Not a country girl on this one.

“Your Long Journey” - begins with an autoharp figure from the folk pedigree of Mike Seeger and is the purest old-time song on the album with banjo, light drums, acoustic bass and Blake’s tasteful acoustic guitar. Sweet gospel tying Krauss’s roots to the album full tilt. Dig Plant’s dipping vocal. A man who long ago did his homework on this music. If you heard this on the radio you’d NEVER guess it was Robert Plant. Not in a million years.

Here’s a CD I will listen to for years. Can’t say that very often any more. Funny, while listening early on I felt it was a heavily Kraussian record, later I felt the Plant presence more. In retrospect, it hangs together perfectly. Burnett has been criticized for getting complacent with his productions in the last few years. His early work with his wife Sam Phillips was jarringly original as were his own albums. His work with Los Lobos sounding nothing like the BoDeans records he worked on. I don’t feel that critique has any validity here. This is a wonderfully solid and inspired collaboration between producer, artists and band that is one of the most listenable records to my ears in a long time.

So again, here’s another CD by a 60s iconic musical fave of mine and I will say wholeheartedly that unless you HATE country roots music of any kind (and this is by no means a country CD but her voice and one or two of the songs distinctly sit on that porch) I can recommend this record to everyone. Even my Dad would like this record and to get him to listen to any Led Zeppelin would be harder than me mastering Chinese algebra (is there such a thing?).