Category: Music

Genre: Album

Grade: A-

Notable People: Justin Townes Earle and is crack band; Produced by: JTE and Adam Bednarik

Title: The Saint of Lost Causes

Review: another very fine offering in Earle’s consistent catalog of blues inflected country and folk music. The Band is superlative and Earle has come into his own as a songwriter. Added in some very traditional Delta blues tracks here to his usual mix of heartache and longing songs. JTE sounds some like Jackson Browne on a few tracks. His albums never disappoint and seem to be getting stronger with each outing . Dad, Steve, should be proud.

Genre: Album

Grade: A-

Notable People: Dale Watson and His Lone Stars

Title: Call Me Lucky

Review: wow…never heard of this guy-who is apparently a honky-tonk legend. Got this for my birthday and it’s a revelation. Watson is very good songwriter and guitar player and his band is smoking hot. This album was recorded at the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis (Elvis, etc.) and is a winner. Watson’s voice has a lot of Waylon with touches of Farron Young and Ferlin Husky….with w few nods to Johnny Cash. He also works in some very nice Hank Williams musicality. Not sure where he has been, but I’m really glad to have found him. ……Honky Tonk Heaven….

Genre: Album

Grade: A

Notable People: Neil Young

Title: Songs for Judy

Review: This is the sixth in on ongoing series of re-issues from Neil’s voluminous catalog. Recorded at a live show in 1976, it captures Neil in all his glory and has EVERYTHING I would want to have on it from that period. Lots of certifiable gems, a good mix of more obscure ditties and 3-4 I had amazingly never heard before-from his incarnation (one of dozens) as a singer-songwriter/minstrel. This is not the Neil Young of Crazy Horse and garage band ennui…but the soft, thoughtful and incredibly lyrical Neil. He plays his trademark acoustic guitar licks (you can recognize many songs after two bars), quite a bit of piano, his unusual banjo stylings and a few gems on the grand Wurlitzer keyboard. He is clearly stoned, having a great time and more chatty then he’ll ever be again. The album is named as such because Judy Garland was apparently at the show. This is unadulterated cheap thrills…a master of his genre at his unspoiled peak. Wow….look at mother nature on the run in the nineteen seventies….

Genre: Album

Grade: A

Notable People: Doc Watson and David Grisman

Title: Doc and Dawg Live at Acoustic Stage

Review: Got this for Christmas from The Nave….and it’s a stunner. The incomparable Doc Watson on guitar and the brilliant mandolin musings from the legendary David Grisman -captured live in 1997. Doc sits in for the usual Dawg pairing with Jerry Garcia, and takes it to another level. Joined by local NC fab flat picker Jack Lawrence and then for a magnificent set of acoustic blues by Docs late grandson, Richard…who was the last of the line of fabled Watson guitarists along with Doc and Merle, who had died tragically a few years earlier in a tractor accident. All gone now, except, foe the Dawg…but this music is timeless, and Doc’s between-songs patter is worth the price of admission alone. It’s quite a bar for any aspiring picker to live up to. Magnificent.

Genre: Album

Grade: B+

Notable People: THE Band-and guests

Title: Jubilation

Review: Some days are better than others….last week was reading the most recent issue of Rolling Stone, and came across a spread on the Band’s full music catalog with blurbs abut each album. Lo, and behold, I discovered (incredibly) an album I did not have or even had heard of. On to Amazon. What a treat…the last of the original group on the last of its original studio recordings in 1998. Richard Manual was long dead, and Robby Robertson was hanging in LA snorting coke with Martin Scorsese….but Levon, Rick and Garth were carrying on with the almost-Robby, Jim Wieder on guitar and several other Woodstock mainstays. Adam Hurwitz of the Beastie boys produced the album and got Eric Clapton and John Hiatt to come along. It’s nothing ground breaking, but Levon’s drumming and singing don’t miss a beat, Rick’s
voice is a bit frayed , but still heartbreaking and Garth is really out front on accordion, keyboards and horns. This made me tremble -felt like a very old friend has returned form far away. Too good to be true for any real fan.

Genre: Album

Grade: A-

Notable People: David Bromberg with Larry
Campbell, Theresa Williams, Amy Helm and the crew from Levon’s Barn at Woodstock; Produced by Larry Campbell

Title: Only Slightly Mad

Review: Bromberg continues his unlikely musical comeback with another wide ranging, genre-bending album reminiscent of his work from the 70s. Got to see him with his touring band in Vermont last year and it was top notch. He remains a fascinating guitar player and interesting singer- always surrounded by the best musicians and bringing his eclectic brand of covers and songwriting to the fore. Predictably, this outing has Chicago blues, Irish Jigs, major R&B, country blues…and everything in between. He is an undervalued gem.

Genre: Album

Grade: A-

Notable People: John Prine, Jason Isbell, Brandi
Carlisle, Produced by: Dave Cobb

Title: The Tree of Forgiveness

Review: Prine’s first new material album in 13 years is just what you’d expect: wry songwriting, hilarious anecdotes, great Nashville studio musicianship and the gravelly-charming voice that has been enthralling people for 50 years. John Prine is a national treasure. I’m really glad he is still making music and not just eating daily meat loaf lunch specials round Nashville. Nothing all that new here- just good songs, good arrangements and John Prine. Very good bet for any admirer of his.

Genre: Album

Grade: A-

Notable People: Neil Young and The Promise of the Real

Title: The Visitor

Review: “Earth is like a church without a preacher”…..chant this 30 times…so ends the most recent Neil Young epiphany. An album that starts with “Already Great” ( as in, we don’t need to “make America great again”)- and includes his ode to the “Liar in Chief”. Fifty years on ,and Neil is still making statements about the Earth, love and when bad got good. He seems to have found his new Crazy Horse in the form of this band which features two of Willie Nelson’s boys and look like they could be his grand kids. But, that has never deterred Neil. Widely acknowledged as the grandfather of grunge and punk….he remains a force in both angry political statements and sweeter than hell love songs. This one e combines both. If you listen to the first two bars of the first song, you know it’s Neil- is there a more distinctive sound in modern music? This is not his best album, but even Monet’s bad water lilies were worth studying. Long live the grunge master.

Genre: Album

Grade: A-

Notable People: Van The Man with Jeff Beck and Georgie Fame

Title: Roll With the Punches

Review: Van the Man is back….again and endlessly. Nothing really new here- just his consistently fine R&B and Jazzy takes on his own and classic material. If you are a fan of the Van, you will want to hear this. Van remains one of the great singers of the modern era and having Jeff Beck on guitar and Georgie Fame on the keys is a big added bonus. If you are more pop music driven, go out get a copy of Moondance or Astral Weeks and hear the Man in his other earlier manifestations. A good winter listen.

Genre: Album

Grade: A++

Notable People: The Fab Four- Produced by: Gilles
Martin

Title: Sgt. Pepper at 50

Review: Wow…Wow…Wow…and let me introduce to you, the one and only Billy Shears…how could the most musically defining work of the last half of the 20th century be better? You get Paula and Ringo’s blessing and set out to make a real stereo album from the original mono four track tapes with the son of the original producer (Sir George Martin) at the helm. This is amazing stuff. Hear the whole dam thing in perfect stereo, listen to Ringo drum…(he may be the best of all time) and then all the original studio outtakes of the beginnings of these incredible performances. SPLHCB ws the most riveting audio experience that had ever come about when it appeared 50 years ago…so far beyond anything to that date…and now it is redone in a glory that was not possible at that time. Run! Get it! Play it LOUD and OFTEN.