Shelter From The Storm

Not too long after I moved from Austin to Nashville in late 1996 I ran across an album titled Crooked Mile by Trish Murphy. It was an independently released CD that had caught the attention of someone at the label I was working for, Koch Records. I was doing A&R for Koch at the time so I was given the task of finding out more about Murphy. A Texas singer-songwriter, this was her first real album (she’d released an independent, six song cassette titled Driving Home in 1995). Though I was pretty familiar with the Texas music scene (having lived there for twenty years and run my own small label for five) I wasn’t aware of Murphy before getting the copy of Crooked Mile. I knew after my first listen she was something special. Crooked Mile featured a handful of terrific songs (“Scorpio Tequila,” “Date With An Angel” and “Blue Tatto,” among others) and the rest were very, very good. I caught Murphy at shows in Nashville and Memphis and even travelled down to Austin to meet with her and her manager (who also happened to be her husband). I was very interested in signing her to the label. Her husband Charlie seemed to be a nice enough guy, but he wasn’t interested in an “independent label.” He was holding out for something big, a major label deal. He really believed in Murphy and was certain she had what it took to make it in the big leagues. Fair enough, though holding out for that big major label deal has often been the downfall of many a good artist. There’s a lot to be said for honing your craft and working your way up through the ranks. They finally managed to piece together something close to a major label deal by going through two other independent labels that had a distribution deal with Universal Music. So, in mid-1999 Rubies On The Lawn was released (on Doolittle Records via Slipdisc Records via Mercury via Universal Music). It was a giant step forward for Murphy and I was sure she was headed for very big things.

Whereas Crooked Mile had been a rootsy, Texas country-rock flavored affair, Rubies On The Lawn was much more of a “rock” record, though Murphy’s singer-songwriter roots were prominently on display. “Outsider,” the leadoff track and one of the standout songs on the album, announces this as much from the very first note. Murphy sings of paralysis, confusion and “would be friends” (a veiled account of trying to “make it” in the music business?) as the band shimmers behind her in a radio perfect confection of ringing guitars, pounding drums and thumping bass. ”Me Behind The Wheel” continues down the same road as Murphy tries to make sense of life on the road. It’s easy to make comparisons of Murphy to other strong, determined women songwriters such as Lucinda Williams, Melissa Etheridge, Alanis Morissette and especially Sheryl Crow. And while she has clearly been influenced by many (if not all) of these women, she brings a unique style and attitude to her music, her songs, her lyrics and especially her sound that declares her individuality in no uncertain terms. A rocking, raved up, ravaged cover of “These Boots Are Made For Walking” does a glorious job, in one fell swoop, of paying homage to not only one of the earliest assertions of female independence and “I ain’t taking shit from any man” attitude, but to all the women who helped shape her sense of herself as well.  An exuberant, sparkling little slice of pure pop-rock, “I Know What You Are” makes the Crow comparison hard to avoid. A glorious three-minute nugget that would fit perfectly on Crow’s C’mon, C’mon album, it’s one of the tracks on the album that, in a better world, would have been all over the radio during the summer of 1999.

Even most of the ballads, such as “Go There” and “Soul’s Day” and are given a loud, muscular, noisy setting. The production by Jim Ebert can be a little overbearing occasionally, sometimes even on the verge of drowning Murphy out, but overall it suits these songs, and especially her voice, quite well.

If there’s one song on the album that should have been a hit it’s “Somewhere Else” a track that would sound just perfect blaring out of your radio as you tear down the freeway, lost somewhere in the heartland of America, bound for who knows where. Catchy and infectious as it is though, my favorite song on the album has to be “Johnny Too Blue.” Channeling a “Subterranean Homesick Blues” rhythm Murphy recounts the story of her dysfunctional, unbalanced Vietnam vet uncle. She paints a vivid, heartbreaking portrait of a damaged soul just trying to survive. Murphy’s storytelling abilities are in abundant display throughout the album, but nowhere more so than on this track.

And just when you think you’ve got Murphy nailed she comes along with a curveball that knocks you out of the box. “Vanilla Sun” is a stunning, beautiful, almost mesmerizing ballad unlike anything else on the album. Over a thick layer of acoustic guitars and quirky percussion effects Murphy’s voice soothes, seduces and subdues the listener. A stunning orchestral instrumental version of the melody acts as a sort of coda to the album.

I saw Murphy play an in-store appearance at Tower Records in Austin during SXSW 1999. It was a fantastic performance. She was at the top of her game. She sounded great, the band was hot, the songs were killer. I remember talking to her and Charlie afterwards. “I want postcards from the top,” I told them, “cause that’s where you’re going.” It never happened. She seemed to have everything in place, but it’s an old, old story. I can’t begin to list the number of great artists who “should have made it big” in the music business but didn’t. Maybe it was money. Maybe no one at the label believed in her. Maybe radio just didn’t get it. Who knows why. But it seems that all of the air went out of the balloon after Rubies On The Lawn failed to deliver. It was as if she had put so much energy, time, hope and ambition into that one big shot for the top that she just didn’t have it in her to pick up the pieces and try again after that. She quietly, and independently, released a live acoustic album in 2001, Captured,  and another studio album, Girls Get In Free, in 2005. Both were very solid efforts, with a lot of great songs, but neither quite captured the magic of Rubies On The Lawn. To the best of my knowledge she’s still playing in the Texas area, though when I occasionally check her website I don’t see many tour dates and no mention of any new music. She’s a very talented songwriter and five years is way too long to wait for a another album. I hope to see something new from her soon.

Other Listens on July 26th:
Dublin Girl (cassette) by Tom Pacheco
Live!!! Almost!!! by The Dillards
Surreal Thing by Kris Kristofferson
Easter Island by Kris Kristofferson

In the mid-eighties I came across a publication from the Elliott Murphy Information Society. A newsletter really that provided a lot of information about, well, Elliott Murphy. Now, I’d been a big fan for many, many years (his debut, Aquashow, is in my Top 10 of all time), so I was very happy to make this discovery. I subscribed to the newsletter and eagerly awaited each edition (I think they came out quarterly). This was probably 1985 or 1986, way before email or websites. I can’t remember how it happened exactly, but at some point t-shirts were offered for sale through the newsletter. They were $15.00 each I think. At the time, I thought that was an extraordinarily high price of a t-shirt (again, this was way before the artist merch business got so out of hand) and I sent a postcard or something off to the editor of the newsletter saying so. One day not long after that the phone rang. It was Charlie Hunter, the guy behind the EMIS. I was quite surprised that he was calling me, but he’d phoned just to say hi, and tell me that he had gotten my postcard and to explain why he didn’t think $15.00 was too much for a t-shirt. Well, I never did buy a t-shirt but Charlie and I became friends and corresponded here and there. When I started my label Dejadisc in 1992 Charlie was a huge help, offering lots of advice. Actually, I think I drove him crazy calling him up at all hours of the day and night with questions about the music business. He helped me license my first release, Elliott’s album Party Girls And Broken Poets, which at the time, was his only album that had never been reissued on CD. Charlie did the artwork for the CD release and he also did the artwork for my second release, and album from Texas singer-songwriter David Rodriguez. He did both of these on a “spec” agreement that if they sold a certain amount I’d pay him a certain amount. Well, neither ever sold much and so Charlie never made any money for doing those packages. Apart from his work with Elliott Murphy and the help he so graciously gave me when I was starting my label, I’ll always be thankful to Charlie for introducing me to the music of Fred Eaglesmith. I was at a Folk Alliance conference in Washington D.C. one year when Charlie told me about this new guy he was managing. I had a lot of confidence in Charlie, so I figured if he was managing this guy he must be something special. A month or two later at SXSW I got my first chance to see Eaglesmith and I was blown away. I went to see him three times over the course of a few days and I was totally hooked. I can’t remember when I lost track of Charlie. I still hear about him now and then, but I haven’t spoken to him in at least ten years. He’s a great guy, a real music lover, one of the good ones. He used to say, “The only causes worth fighting for are the lost ones.” (A quote from my favorite movie of all time, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington; that alone made me like him immensely.) I hope he’s doing well out there.

Live From The Paradise Motel is, as the name implies, a live album, recorded in one night at the La Casa Music Series in Birmingham, Michigan. It’s a sparse, acoustic recording with just Eaglesmith, a bass player and a mandolin player. Both the sidemen, who also contribute vocals and the harmonies throughout, are outstanding. With sixteen tracks, all written by Eaglesmith, it’s a superb showcase for his intensely powerful songs. Fred opens the show (and album) with a short accapella number, “Yellow Barley Straw,” which segues perfectly into “Thirty Years Of Farming.” It’s clear from the beginning this is man who writes what he knows. Tractors, small towns, general stores, ploughs, foreclosures and hard times fill the songs with a sense of the great American mid-west, though in fact, Eaglesmith is from Canada. Eaglesmith is a terrific story-teller, but what really sets his songs apart from many others are the characters who populate them. From the farmer who sees his farm auctioned off in “Thirty Years Of Farming” to the two bit criminal wannabes of “Little Buffalo” to the forlorn lovers of “Rodeo Rose” these are real people, the kind of people you can find in just about any small town from Ohio to Montana to Winnipeg. 

This is a deeply intimate album, but not in the Joni Mitchell/Jackson Browne sense of confessional songwriting. Eagelesmith is a master storyteller and there’s never been more evidence of his skills than the tracks on this album. Almost every song is the equivalent of a finely crafted short story. Eaglesmith has a remarkable ability to bring characters, situations and places to life in a sparing, economical way that requires very few words. When I was a freshman in high school I had a very influential teacher for a creative writing class. I’ve always remembered his advice to “show, don’t tell.” Eaglesmith doesn’t so much “tell” a story; it’s more as if he shows it all to you. It’s almost as if you’re in a dark theater somewhere watching an old movie from the 1940’s. The characters are very, very much alive in the music.

Mixed in with the songs of farming, sharecropping and rural life (“Sweaburg General Store,” Sharecroppin’,” “Go Out And Plough”)  are songs of lost love, travel, missed opportunities (“The Highway Callin’,”My Last Six Dollars,” “Rough Edges”) and a lot of stuff that has just plain gone wrong. Eaglesmith is not, to say the least, an optimist painting confident, cheerful, positive pictures of life and love. Over the years Eaglesmith has written and recorded a fair amount of love songs, but you’d be hard pressed to find even one that represents a joyful, healthy or in any way positive portrayal of the romantic liaison between a man and a woman. Most are full of regret, despair, disillusionment, despair and heartache. Many involve jail. Most (if not all) end badly. Almost every relationship has either buckled under the weight of hard times and disparate personalities or is on the verge of collapsing from the abandoned dreams, postponed promises and/or disintegrating hopes that seem to haunt the players that wander from one song to the next. ”I’m Just Deamin’” is a perfect example of a Fred Eaglesmith love song, depicting a love that was doomed from the start. “Should of never had a girl who didn’t know hay from straw,” he sings and everything you need to know about the relationship is entwined in those simple words. ”Summerlea” might be the closest thing he’s ever written to real love song though it’s by no means anywhere close to the traditional type of song you’d usually associate with that genre. 

“Sunflowers” showcases Eaglesmith’s amazing ability to set a scene, recounting the funeral of a neighboring farmer with stunningly straightforward understatement and an amazing sense of detail. It always gives me shivers. “Harold Wilson,” which closes out the album is another portrait of another farmer, this one still alive, but living in a motel for $100 per month after losing his land and his family. In reality there isn’t much that separates him from the dead farmer in “Sunflowers,” except that he’s still breathing. 

“Little Buffalo” just might be my favorite song on the album. It’s a comical tale of “restless nights and endless fights” with an infectious sing-along chorus. Dancing around the account of barricades, flying bullets, barking dogs and waling sirens, and on full display, is Eaglesmith’s caustic wit and humor, something else he’s well known for.

Fred Eaglesmith has written many, many great songs. But, he’s never really made a great album. Don’t get me wrong, he’s made some pretty damn good ones, including Drive-In Movie and Lipstick, Lies & Gasoline and this one. Still he’s never made that album where everything came together in one perfect classic performance. They’re all flawed in one way or another, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. The production is bad (or just plain weird), the songs are not quite up to par, etc. This album is as close to a true masterpiece as he’s come in my opinion. There are some songs on other albums that are better than the best songs on this album, but no other album is a strong throughout as this one.

Other Listens on January 10th:
Nolita by Keren Ann
Dance To The Music by Sly & The Family Stone

Linda Ronstadt gets a bad rap in my opinon. Apart from the extraordinary run of superb albums she released in the mid seventies, she was instrumental in furthering the career of numerous fledgling artists and songwriters. Her self-titled album from 1971 featured a group of musicians who would soon be known as The Eagles. She was a huge influence on other female artists like Emmylou Harris and Nicollete Larson. She provided crucial exposure to up and coming songwriters like Karla Bonoff and Warren Zevon. Beginning with 1973’s Don’t Cry Now and ending with 1978’s Living In The U.S.A. Ronstadt released six albums that virtually defined the California “folk country rock pop” sound. She had enormous commercial success, with many of her albums reaching Gold and Platinum status. But most important of all, behind all the sales and chart success was one of the most talented singers of contemporary times. Ronstadt is one of the few artists who was always capable of holding my attention even though she didn’t write her own material. I’ve always been drawn mostly to singer-songwriters and other artists who write what they record. Ronstadt was different. Somehow she was able to take almost any song, whether it was a well known standard or brand new gem from some young previously unheard of songwriter, and make it her own. I first discovered a lot of great artists via Linda Ronstadt and for that alone I think she deserves a lot more respect than she gets. Her breakthrough album, and probably the record that best defines her career was 1974’s Heart Like A Wheel. It didn’t differ wildly from what she had been doing previously, but the addition of Peter Asher as producer helped bring everything into focus. Ronstadt sang with passion, force and real spirit and every song on the disc was just perfect. A real masterpiece that I still marvel at when I play it thirty years later. 

The title song from Heart Like A Wheel was written by Anna McGarrigle, a name that meant nothing to me at the time. But you had to figure with a song that good we’d probably be hearing more from her. Sure enough the following year saw the release of Kate & Anna McGarrigle on Warner Bros. Quite simply it’s as strong a debut album as has ever been made.  Not only do we get Anna but it turns out she’s got a younger sister, Kate, who’s every bit the songwriter and singer that Anna is. The twelve songs on Kate & Anna McGarrigle (nine originals, one traditional, one by Loudon Wainwright and another by Wade Hemsworth) comprise one of those magical introductions to a new artist that just spins your head around. If ever you need proof that siblings can sing and harmonize together in ways that no one else can, this is it. Their voices blend, mingle and fuse together in some of the most beautiful, intricate, breathtaking palettes of sound one could possibly imagine.

The exuberant, joyous piano riff that begins Kate’s “Kiss And Say Goodbye” encapsulates everything I love about this album. It’s one of my favorite opening tracks ever. It manages to wrap in in three minutes the absolute euphoria and ecstasy of new love in a way that makes me want to sing at the top of my lungs. The song builds to an radiant climax with the exuberant lyrics, “I want to kiss you till my mouth gets numb.” From there it’s straight into class McGarrigle sisters harmonies on Anna’s “My Town.” Throughout the album Kate and Anna take turns with the songwriting and while there is definitely a certain amount of personality in the way they each approach a song, just like with their singing, it’s hard to tell them apart sometimes. And I mean that in a very good way. Their stunning rendition of “Heart Like A Wheel” features only a guitar, a banjo and an organ. And vocals and harmonies that will leave you astonished. There are lighter moments, most notably a dead on take of Wainwright’s “Swimming Song” (how can a song basically about nothing be so damn good?). Other highlights include Kate’s “Talk To Me Of Mendocino,” “Tell My Sister” and especially “Go Leave.”  The French language “Complainte Pour Ste-Catherine” provides a sneak peak into the lovely French Album they would release in 1980. A raucous (well for a folk album anyway) version of the traditional “Travellin’ On For Jesus” featuring Lowell George on guitar closes out the album. Produced to near perfection by the one and only Joe Boyd (along with Greg Prestopino) the album also features musicians Bobby Keys, Tony Rice, David Grisman, Amos Garrett, Andrew Gold and Russ Kunkel.

The McGarrigles never made another album as good as this first one. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve made some great, great albums over the years (1983’s Love Over And Over is my second favorite release from them), but this record set a standard they could never quite reach again. They’re still putting out records, though they seem to get fewer and farther between as time goes by. They’ve collaborated with Emmylou Harris quite frequently in the last decade with songs and performances on her most recent albums. Kate & Anna McGarrigle was first released on CD in 1993 by the Hannibal label (distributed through Ryko). Unfortunately, that CD is now out of print, but it’s still available at a reasonable price as an import from Amazon.com. Finding the rest of their catalog on CD is a hit and miss affair. Some of the older titles are out of print now in the US, but generally you can find most of them as imports. The only album never to be released on CD for some reason is 1978’s Pronto Monto. Kate & Anna McGarrigle is one of my all time favorite debut releases. And every time I listen to it I always think of Linda Rondstadt as well. In fact, I’ll often times pull out Heart Like A Wheel after listening to Kate & Anna McGarrigle. And I’m always amazed at much I still love her version of “Heart Like A Wheel” after hearing Kate & Anna’s.

Other Listens on September 12th:
To The Bone by Kris Kristofferson
The Long Walk by Tom Pacheco
Are You Ready by Blue Rodeo
Crosswords by Larry Hosford

I used to frequent a record store in San Marcos, Texas called Sundance Records. I’d make a point of stopping by almost every day. The folks who owned and ran the store became friends, as did the clerks who worked there. I’d always head first for a little bin next to the cash register where they’d place used “new arrivals,” a great place to get cheap CDs. Many of these were often “promo” CDs. For those that might not know, the record labels sound out hundreds, if not thousands of “promotional” CDs on any given title to music writers, radio stations, tour promoters and assorted friends and riffraff. The vast majority of these end up in used record stores. You can’t blame the recipients. Writers in particular often get way more CDs than they can ever listen to or review. They might as well sell the stuff that is of no interest to them. The record labels frown on the practice (of course) but there’s really not much they can do about it. They will usually punch a hole in the bar code or stamp the booklet with “Promotional Copy” to at least make sure the CDs don’t end up getting returned to them as defective units. Truth be told there’s a lot of record label employees who sell stuff on the side to used record stores for a little extra cash. I’d often buy new and interesting looking things from this bin that I didn’t know much about, just because the price was right. For $5.99 or $6.99 I’d take a chance on a lot of stuff. One of the CDs I bought in 1993 was Tuesday Night Music Club by Sheryl Crow. Didn’t know a thing about her but I’ve always had a soft spot for female artists (be they rock, folk, country or whatever). One listen and I knew I’d found something special. With ”Run, Baby, Run,” “Strong Enough,” “I Shall Believe,” and of course “Leaving Las Vegas” and “All I Wanna Do,” this was a phenomenal debut from a very promising artist. Her label A&M obviously believed in Crow as well, as they they worked this album for almost a year before it finally paid off when the third single from the album, “All I Wanna Do,” made it to Number 2 on the charts in the summer of 1994. The first two singles had not made much of an impression on the record buying public and one can only wonder what would have become of Crow if the “All I Wanna Do” had also failed to chart. 

I’ve followed Crow’s career carefully over the past 15 years. There have certainly been ups and downs but she’s managed to put together an incredible body of work over the course of just five albums. Sheryl Crow, The Globe Sessions and especially 2002’s C’mon, C’mon are real favorites that I come back to frequently. “Soak Up The Sun” is one of my very favorite all-time pop songs. The only real disappoint in her catalog is 2005’s Wildflower, an uncharacteristically lifeless and bland affair. Fair or not, I guess we can blame it on the “too happy to make a good record” syndrome. As Bob Dylan once said, “Pain sure brings out the best in people, doesn’t it?”

Detours is a marvelous return to form. The songs are some of the best she’s written in years. But what most people will probably site as the key ingredient here is the return of Bill Bottrell who had produced Tuesday Night Music Club. Apparently Crow and Bottrell had a big falling out not long after Tuesday Night Music Club became a smash success (he called Crow “hopeless” and “obnoxious” in a 1996 Rolling Stone cover story on her). He was originally slated to produce her follow up album but pulled out before recording began. A masterful producer, Bottrell has been on board for several classic releases in recent years, including Shelby Lynne’s I Am Shelby Lynne. It seems he and Crow remained estranged for quite a long time until Crow called him up and asked him to work with her on this new album. We can all be quite thankful that they buried the hatchet because the music they have once again made together accounts for a truly splendid album, something I wasn’t expecting after Wildflowers.

Crow has always been a passionate songwriter, well schooled in the Joni Mitchell/James Taylor/Carole King mold of “confessional” songwriting. Detours is no different. The songs here are direct, poignant and very personal. There are four distinct themes running through this album: her recent bout with breast cancer, her adoption of a son, Wyatt, in 2007, her very public relationship and breakup with Lance Armstrong and, surprisingly, current political events. Crow has never been known as a “political” songwriter, though she did make the news in 2007 when she headlined a Stop Global Warming College Tour and when she and co-partner in crime Laurie David got into a bit of a tiff with Bush adviser Karl Rove. It’s a bit of a surprise (though quite welcome indeed) to find three overtly political songs on this album. “God Bless This Mess,” with it’s single acoustic guitar and Crow’s compressed vocal, sounds like it’s coming straight out of a cheap AM radio. A poignant “state of the union address” written from the perspective of an ordinary, average American, it set’s the mood immediately. “Peace Be Upon Us,” with it’s Arabic lyrics is a moving, modern day version of “Give Peace A Chance” while “Gasoline” is a wicked, remarkably infectious tongue-in-cheek rave-up about the politics of oil. ”Love Is Free” and “Out Of Our Heads” are pure, classic Sheryl Crow, easily the two catchiest things she’s done since “Soak Up The Sun,” though the pop melody of “Out Of Our Heads” belies the political sentiments underneath. The acoustic based “Detours” and and the damning “Diamond Ring” are obvious reflections on her relationship with Armstrong. “Make It Go Away (Radiation Song)” is a harrowing look at her brush with cancer. The album comes full circle with “Lullaby For Wyatt” a beautiful declaration of unconditional love for a new child. It may all be a colossal mess, as she asserts at the beginning of the record, but in the end, it all comes back to one basic, simple thing that keeps us all from throwing our hands up in futile despair: love.

Other Listens on August 16th:
Tomorrow The Wold by The Shazam
Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show by Neil Diamond
To The Bone by Kris Kristofferson
Life Death Love And Freedom by John Mellencamp

In 1976 I got the job I had been looking for over the past few years: working at a real record store. I’d worked for The Wherehouse, a record chain in California, but not in an actual store, I was in the warehouse and it wasn’t quite the same. I’d worked very briefly at a tiny little store in Key West, Florida called The Tape Ape, but it was too too small to really mean much. I’d tried for almost a year to get a job at one of the record stores near the campus of Syrcause University when I lived there, but was never able to. Finally, after I ended up in Austin, Texas I got a job at Disc Records in Highland Mall. For me, this was nirvana. A real record store. Not too long later the manager of that store and I transferred over to another store in town, Zebra Records. Zebra was also owned by Disc Records, but it was a “stand-alone” store, not located in a mall as all of their other stores were. It was, in fact, the coolest record store in town and I was the assistant manager (I can’t tell you how much that meant to me at the time). About a year later I was offered a promotion to move to Houston and become the manager of the Disc Records store in The Galleria Mall. I had reservations about moving from Austin to Houston, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that. As the store manager I also began to attend the annual company convention that Disc Records held each year. This was my first real introduction into the “politics” that existed between the labels and the record stores. Most of the major labels would “sponsor” certain “events” at the convention. And, of course, they always had an act or two to push. The vast majority of these acts never amounted to anything, but occasionally one would break through. One year they were pushing a new guy named John Cougar. He had a new album with a song they were certain would be a smash hit, “I Need A Lover,” but I wasn’t too impressed. I think the song did actually make a little noise and hit the Top 40 (Pat Benatar would also mine the song for an AOR hit a few years later). It took two more albums and then Mellencamp really did break through with his first monster hits, “Jack And Diane” and “Hurts So Good.”

I didn’t follow Mellencamp much until the release of Scarecrow in 1985. Sure, I’d heard the other hits like “Pink Houses” and “Authority Song” on the radio, but they didn’t interest me enough to buy or listen to an entire album. All that changed dramatically with Scarecrow, one of my very favorite albums from that year. I think it was seeing Mellencamp perform “Rain On The Scarecrow” on Farm Aid that turned me around and got me to go out and buy the record. The follow up album, The Lonesome Jubilee, was also a regular on my turntable. But then I began to lose interest again. Big Daddy, Whenever We Wanted, Human Wheels, Dance Naked, Mr. Happy Go Lucky, Mellencamp kept putting out albums and I’d find one or two songs to like on each release, but as a whole the discs just weren’t connecting with me like the earlier stuff had. Towards the late nineties I stopped buying his records altogether.

I have to say right up front that it was the fact that T. Bone Burnett produced this album that inspired me to order it from Amazon (well the fact that I could get it for $9.99 didn’t hurt either). This is Mellencamp’s strongest release in almost twenty years, due in equal parts I think to an outstanding collection of songs, flawless production from Burnett and what seems like a reinvigorated and revitalized passion in Mellencamp’s performances. The term “comeback” album gets thrown around way too much, but if ever there was good cause to use it, it’s here. Whether it’s the influence of Burnett, a natural progression of Mellencamp’s continuing development as a writer and performer or a combination of both, Live Death Love And Freedom is a truly outstanding piece of work. It’s not the kind of “rock” album Mellencamp is most famous for. Almost all of the songs utilize a full band (including electric guitars, drums, bass and organ) but for the most part everything sounds quiet and dark, even slightly menacing. The songs themselves reflect a maturity and insight that only comes with age and experience, though these songs are much less about answers then they are about the journey. This is a long, long way from the swaggering and bravado of “Hurts So Good” or “Authority Song.” It’s actually the kind of stuff Mellencamp touched on briefly in “Minutes To Memories” on Scarecrow, where he told the story of an old man sharing hard earned wisdom with a younger Mellencamp who couldn’t quite grasp the old man’s “vision.” Things have come full circle now, roles have been reversed and Mellencamp finds himself as the elder statesman. “This getting older, well it ain’t for cowards,” he sings and throughout the album he makes that the central theme. From start to finish Mellencamp is consumed (even obsessed) with death, dying, loss, disappointment and, in the end, acceptance and redemption.

“Longest Days” sets the mood for the entire album with a simple acoustic guitar and Mellencamp singing quietly about life, changes, death and disillusionment. “Nothing lasts forever and your best efforts don’t always pay, Sometimes you get sick and you don’t get better,” he sings. It’s one of the most direct, powerful songs Mellencamp has written in a long time. Things are balanced out immediately, both in the music and the lyrics in the gentle “My Sweet Love” a tribute to the power of an enduring relationship and romantic love that can transcend everything else. “If I Die Sudden” is the kind of song Mellencamp might have written twenty years ago during his most fertile period. If it had appeared on Scarecrow or The Lonesome Jubilee it would probably have been rendered as a flat out rocker. Here Burnett infuses the song with a sense of ominous tension (that fits perfectly with the lyrics) using understated drums as well as spooky guitars and organs.

The centerpiece of the album, the song which all the others seem to revolve around, is “Don’t Need This Body” a down to earth contemplation on the end of life. Mellencamp acknowledges all the years gone by, the “washed up and worn out” body and the “ten million hours” put in and finds a worthwhile reward at the end knowing that he loved and was loved. “A Ride Back Home” may be the most easily accessible song on the album, an straight-forward plea for inner peace and an end to the troubles of mortal life.  There’s also a “political song”, “Jena,” and a great little “I’m dead now and writing this” story song in the grand tradition of “El Paso,” “County Fair.”

The album closes the way it began. “For The Children” is a quiet, reflective look at the extensive questions and mysteries of life, many of which seem to go unanswered no matter how old we get. But there’s a sense of contentment here that breathes hope and faith into the lyrics. Finally, “A Brand New Song” provides the perfect bookend to the opening despair of “Longest Days.” Mellencamp pulls all the themes he’s explored over the course of the album into one parting affirmation of life. He may not have found the answers he was looking for, he may not have seen all the dreams come true, but in the end he has found peace and purpose in the transitory nature of life: “Life is always in motion, and there’s new people to count on, Here you may find a purpose and sing a brand new song.” Acceptance of the inherent qualities of life, whether we like them or not, he seems to be saying, may be the only way to fully embrace it and cherish it for what it is. A perfect end to remarkable new album.

As a side note it’s interesting to point out that the CD version of this album ships with a second disc, the same album on a DVD using a “new system” to create high-definition audio. Developed by Burnett and his team of engineers the system is named “CODE” though they represent it in Greek letters that I can’t really duplicate here. The claim is that with this disc we’ll hear the music “with a resonance, depth, and presence that is unprecedented in the digital age.” Well, OK. It’s hard to believe they’re going to get very far with this, but you never know. DVD Audio went nowhere fast and SACD went nowhere even faster. In this age of MP3 players the vast majority of listeners are simply not interested in super, high quality audiophile technology. While there may be a very small, dedicated, obsessed core of audiophiles who do appreciate this technology I just don’t think it’s going have much impact. Consumers seem very slow to embrace the transition from DVD to Blu-Ray and for most people that’s an even easier leap to make being that it’s visual. Still, it’s nice that they included the extra disc at no additional cost.

Other Listens on August 11th:
All This Tangled Rope (bootleg) by Bob Dylan

I began collecting records when I was ten years old. The first album I ever bought was Snoopy vs. The Red Baron by The Royal Guardsmen. Hey, I was a child of the AM pop radio sixties and I was only ten years old, so cut me some slack. I redeemed myself with my second album purchase, Between The Buttons, by the Rolling Stones. From there it was The Doors, Bob Dylan, lots of Motown, Simon & Garfunkel, Joan Baez, etc. I was a collector from the very beginning. Sure, I was in it for the music, but I also loved the tangible, solid pieces of black vinyl and cardboard jackets that I could hold in my hand. Things just got worse and worse as I got older and before I knew it I had accumulated thousands of albums and hundreds of singles. It seemed I was constantly building new shelves to hold everything. Working at record stores certainly didn’t help matters much, as I got a lot things free there. For many, many years I never even dreamed of selling any of my prized possessions. I had lots (and I mean lots) of albums that I had never listened to, but it always seemed that there would certainly be time to listen to them all eventually. Even though I was still accumulating far more than I could listen to at the time, when you’re young the future seems endless and able to accommodate anything. Besides, I was terrified of the idea that I would sell something I hadn’t listened to and then years later find out how good it was and that it was no longer in print and impossible to find again. Better to hang on to everything, just in case. Then in the late 70s and early 80s I started to attend record conventions in Houston and Austin and began selling some of my duplicates. Yes, I had multiple copies of a lot of stuff. When Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe would put out a UK single with a picture sleeve and unreleased b-sides I would buy two, three, five or ten copies knowing that some day they would be worth something. I soon discovered that once you begin to sell stuff it’s a slippery slope. Throughout the eighties I was attending the Austin Record Convention as a dealer twice a year, sorting through my collection and deciding what things I was willing to part with. Of course, most of the money I made I plowed right back into buying more albums and CDs, so in reality I was just trading things out for things I wanted more. 

These days it’s all about Amazon.com and eBay. I’ve sold a lot of CDs over the past few years at Amazon. I’m at the point now where I’ve finally accepted that there’s just no way I’m ever going to be able to listen to all this stuff, there’s just too much and my years of listening are now noticeably more numbered. But, I still spend a lot of the money I make buying new stuff, so I’m still often just replacing one CD with something else that I want more. That’s OK. I listen to as much as I can.

Occasionally I’ll pull a CD from my rack and think, “OK, this can go. I’ve had this CD for 15 years and I’ve never listened to it.” So, I’ll look it up on Amazon and see what used copies are going for. Occasionally, if it’s an artist or album that I’m not familiar with at all, I’ll read some of the reviews that the fans write at Amazon. That’s how I came to discover Terence Boylan. I have a CD simply titled Terence Boylan. It’s on a label I’ve never heard of Spinnaker Records (probably his own custom label). I have no idea where it came from or how long I’ve had it. I pulled it out and decided I’d put it up for sale on Amazon. Then I read a few reviews and had second thoughts. This seems like an album I might really like. Maybe I should give it a quick listen before I sell it. Now this doesn’t happen too often, but Terence Boylan has suddenly become one of my new favorite artists and I’m really getting into this CD.

It turns out that Boylan released two albums on Asylum back in the late seventies (probably what made me pick this up originally). This self-titled CD, released in 1999, is a compilation that contains eight songs from his first album (Terence Boylan), four songs from his second (Suzy, 1980) and three previously unreleased songs most likely recorded sometime in the nineties. The album opens with a piano intro (on the song “Hey Papa”) that sounds like it came right off a Steely Dan album. Then Boylan’s voice kicks in, smooth, sweet and silvery. Background vocals and a saxophone solo and you know right away you’re in Southern California seventies territory. While I usually hate to make comparisons to other artists the best way to describe this music is a blend of Steely Dan and Jackson Browne. Throw in a little Joni Mitchell and J.D. Souther and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect. It’s got the smooth, funky, jazz-rock of the best of Steely Dan while Boylan’s songs and voice inhabit the same territory that Jackson’s one of the masters of. And yet, with all that said, he’s got a style all his own, very unique and very special. He ain’t no knockoff of anyone else. And to top it all of he’s a damn fine songwriter.

This is only my third real listen to this album, so I’m still getting to know the songs. But it’s definitely one of those albums that sounds even better to me on each listening. Right now “Dancing Shoes,” “Ice And Snow,” “Hey Papa,” “Tell Me” and especially “Trains” and “Shake It” (Ian Matthews had a hit with this in 1978) are my favorites, but that could easily change as I continue to absorb this stuff. Once I realized how good this was I immediately looked up the two Asylum albums on Amazon, found that Wounded Bird Records had recently reissued both of them and ordered them then and there. They haven’t arrived yet, but I’m looking forward to hearing more from Boylan when they do.

Other Listens on July 31st:
Velvet Gloves And Spit by Neil Diamond

My musical landscape is littered with fallen artists. For every Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Elliott Murphy and Neil Young still soldiering on after thirty or forty years there are probably dozens of artists who released anywhere from one to five or more albums and then fell by the wayside. I remember reading back in the nineties that something like over 30,000 new albums were released each year. New albums. That’s an astonishing number when you stop to think about it. I don’t know if it’s more or less these days, but I suspect it’s probably even more. Even though record labels might be releasing fewer albums, the DIY, record, burn and sell your own CD process has probably fueled the marketplace with even more releases. Places like CDBaby, The Orchard, The Connextion and others are selling thousands (sometimes it seems likes millions) of CDs by artists most people have never heard of. Notice I said “selling.” I wonder sometimes exactly how many people are “buying” some of these albums. I’m sure there are some artists who do relatively well. After all, though I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about music, there are certainly a lot of artists I’m not familiar with who have a good following. But I’m equally certain there are plenty of artists with CDs for sale on these sites who don’t sell more than a dozen or two CDs a year, if that many.

I realized a long, long time ago, at a quite early age, that being good, hell even being great, was no guarantee that an artist would get anywhere in the music business. It was very disillusioning to my young, romantic view of the arts and the world. I’d hear so many great albums from so many artists and wonder why in the hell is this person not more popular than they are? I saw so many artists, truly impressive, significant, inspiring artists come and go leaving only their music behind. Randy Burns was one of those artists. I don’t remember how I first heard Burns. I’m pretty sure it was through his 1971 album simply entitled Randy Burns And The Sky Dog Band on Mercury. I bought it as a cut-out for 49¢ at one of the Wherehouse Records stores in Los Angeles in 1974. I probably bought it simply because David Bromberg played on two songs, I liked the cover and it was cheap. I was hooked from the very first listen. Burns has one of those voices that just sinks straight into my soul. On top of that he wrote some really great songs and his folk/country/singer-songwriter style was right up my alley.

It turned out that Burns had recorded three albums before Randy Burns And The Sky Dog Band. All were released on the eccentric ESP-Disk label in the mid to late sixties. I managed to track them all down, and while they each contained some good material I think Burns really found his voice on the Mercury album. He released two more albums, I’m A Lover Not A Fool (Polydor, 1972) and Still On Our Feet (Polydor, 1973) and was never heard from again. At least not by me. At least not for a long time. None of his material has ever been released on CD (at least that I am aware of). He’s one of those great, lost artists I wish everyone could hear and appreciate as much as I do. Sadly, not many probably ever will.

The Cat’s Pajamas was released only as a cassette back in 1991 almost twenty years after Still On Our Feet. I have no idea what Burns was up to in the meantime. A bio on allmusic.com says he continued to play music, mostly coffee houses and folk festivals, throughout the seventies and eighties. My understanding at the time this was released was that The Cat’s Pajamas was financed and released by a fan who simply wanted to see a new Randy Burns album available. I can’t remember now how I even heard it existed, but somehow I mailed off for a copy. It’s never been released on CD. I recently got around to finally transferring it from cassette to CDR.

It’s an awfully lot like seeing an old friend again when an artist you are fond of puts out a new album after a twenty year absence. But, just like attending a high school reunion, the experience can be disheartening as often as it is joyful. There’s nothing I hate more than getting a new album by one of my favorite artists who I haven’t heard from in a long time, really, really wanting to like it, to love it, to be blown away by it, only to be let down when the songs and music don’t even come close to the earlier work. Thankfully, that’s not the case here. While The Cat’s Pajama’s is not my favorite album by Burns it’s a very strong release and I would highly recommend it to anyone familiar with his earlier work (and everyone else as well).

The album is a completely acoustic affair with Burns on acoustic guitar and vocals and his old band mate from The Sky Dog Band Matt Kastner on second acoustic guitar, steel guitar, bass and vocals. Phil Rosenthal is along for mandolin on two songs. It’s what we used to call a “folk” album in the old days, but in the nineties it would have been referred to as “unplugged.” The set opens with “Jesus/Marriage Song,” two Burns originals meshed together into one performance. It’s classic Randy Burns, a plaintive melody, insightful lyrics and a moving vocal performance. Of the thirteen songs on this disc Burns only wrote three and sure enough, they are three of my favorite songs on the album. “Liela” and “The Farm Song” are both excellent examples of Burns’ songwriting skills, and I only wish he had of included a few more originals in this set.

There are three “Irish” flavored songs: “Dirty Old Town,” a beautiful reworking of an old Ewan MacColl song, “Patty Reilly” and ”Go To Sea Once More” a sea shantie done a capella. There are two Dylan covers: “One Too Many Mornings” and “Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues.” Now Dylan gets covered so often, and by so many people, that I tend to dismiss many attempts offhand. This is different. Burns has an extremely expressive voice that suits these two Dylan songs perfectly. “One Too Many Mornings” is not an especially well known Dylan song and I think that allows for an easier interpretation and Burns does a fine job with it here. “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” is a little tougher to pull off, as it’s such a classic. But again, Burns rises to the challenge, taking the number a bit slower than Dylan. The acoustic guitars provide a perfect background as Burns winds his way through the verses providing just the right amount of drama and style to breathe new life into the lyrics most of us know so well. A nice version of the Tom Paxton classic “The Last Thing On My Mind,” a Donovan cover and a Tom Pacheco song, “The Last Waltz” (which to the best of my knowledge Tom has never recorded himself), round things out. The albums ends with a great reading of “Farewell My Friend” an old Bruce Murdoch song.

I’ve heard recently that a new label, WildCat Recordings, is going to reissue Burns’ first three albums as a two disc set. They also have plans to issue a live recording with The Sky Dog Band from 1970 and a “new” album titled Only Fools Never Try (that looks from their description an awfully lot like The Cat’s Pajamas). I’ve been disappointed numerous times by new, start up labels that have planned to release things that never end up materializing. I sure hope WildCat is able to carry through with their plans and get these Randy Burns discs out soon. There may not be a lot of people waiting for them, but for those of us who are, they can’t come quick enough.

Other Listens on July 25th:
Nevada Fighter by Michael Nesmith
Rides Again by James Gang
The Other Side by Chris Hillman

I’ve bought an album by a new artist (or just new to me) for lots of different reasons: I was familiar with and admired the producer of the album; I had heard a song the artist did covered by another artist; musicians I was familiar with played on the album; I heard a song on the radio or saw a performance on TV or live; someone I knew and trusted wrote the liner notes; a friend told me about it; etc. But I think this may be the only album that I ever purchased strictly because of the cover. Jesse Winchester’s self titled debut album was released in 1970 on the Ampex Records label. The label only lasted two or three years though they did release about forty or fifty albums, including Great Speckled Bird, Runt and The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren by Todd Rundgren, For Sale by Fever Tree and a whole lot of other stuff even I have never heard of. Winchester’s album was the fourth disc from the label. I ran across it in 1972 in a cut-out bin somewhere in Santa Monica. I can’t remember for sure, but I probably paid about 99¢ in those days. Now, it’s possible that the fact that Robbie Robertson (from The Band) produced the disc might have also influenced by decision to buy it, but really, it was the cover: a grainy, washed out, dark brown sepia close-up photograph of a very down and out, scruffy, despondent looking character who looked like he just stepped out of the Civil War. It was very intriguing. And what I liked even more was that the back cover was the exact same image! (Imagine my surprise when I bought it, took it home and opened it up only to find it was a “gatefold” cover and the exact same image was also used on both of the inside panels.) Now I’m sure this cover would not have the same effect on a lot of people, and there’s really not much to it, but something about it just drew me in and made me want to find out what this guy sounded like.

Jesse Winchester is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters. There’s no one else like him. He’s written so many great songs I wouldn’t know where to begin listing them. Well, actually, that’s not true. I can begin right here on his debut album which contains my very favorite song of his ever, “Yankee Lady.” There are ten other songs on the album, all written by Winchester, of which at least one is a true classic (“The Brand New Tennessee Waltz”). Several of his other albums, notably Third Down, 110 To Go and Let The Rough Side Drag are among my all-time favorite releases. He’s only made three albums in the last thirty years but his seventies output is second to no one.

The album is a decidedly “low tech” affair, whether on purpose or not, I don’t know. The sound is very rough, but in a way that suits the songs perfectly. Things kick off with the raucous “Payday”, Winchester’s ode to money in the pocket on a Friday night. His voice is bathed in echo, the drums are hard and fast and the lead guitar (I think it must be Robertson) is recorded just a little too “hot,” peaking out and distorting a tiny bit throughout the track. The distorted guitar returns on “Quiet About It” and the piano on “Skip Rope Song” is the same, a little “fuzzy” around the edges. This is by no means a “state of the art” sonic experience. It’s a rough and tumble, gritty and uncompromising, a perfect counterbalance to Winchester’s wonderfully smooth, gentle and yet, very raw and powerful vocals. Winchester would go on to make much “smoother” albums later in his career (Nothing But A Breeze and A Touch On The Rainy Side are almost exact opposites in sound respects from this album). But the sound of this album gives it a character and personality that is unique among his releases.

On song after song Winchester constructs near perfect vignettes of people and places. ”Biloxi” (featuring a stately piano, a slowly picked acoustic guitar and shimmering cymbals) is another one of Winchester’s better known songs, the kind of plaintive, descriptive ballad he would later perfect on a song like “Mississippi You’re On My Mind.” There’s a touch of humor in “Snow,” a song he co-wrote with Robertson. Winchester is a southern boy from Memphis, Tennessee who moved to Montreal, Canada in 1967 because he refused to serve in the military. “I was tuning in the six o’clock newscast, And the weather man mentioned snow / As soon as I heard that four-letter word, I was making my plans to go.” The love songs, “That’s The Touch I Like” and “Skip Rope Song” are also highlights, but “Yankee Lady” and “The Brand New Tennessee Waltz” are the true standouts here. “The Brand New Tennesse Waltz” has been covered by people like Joan Baez, Sweethearts Of The Rodeo and The Everly Brothers while “Yankee Lady” has been recorded by Tim Hardin, Brewer & Shipley and others. But no one else even comes close to Winchester’s originals. Those two songs alone make this album worth having. Winchester has a dark side as well. “Rosy Shy” and especially the moody, almost spooky, “Black Dog” show a distinctly different side of things. The album ends the same way it began with “The Nudge,” a rowdy tip of the hat to loose women. 

Jesse Winchester was out of print for a long time until the great Canadian label Stony Plain released it on CD in 1994 (along with the rest of his incredible catalog). It’s now also available through the Wounded Bird reissue label. Wounded Bird also released on CD for the first time a wonderful live album, Live At The Bijou Cafe, a promotional only radio station release from 1976 (though to be honest, Wounded Bird is notorious for poor quality sounding reissues and this is just one example). Jesse hasn’t made a new album in almost ten years, since his 1999 Sugar Hill release Gentleman Of Leisure. He still tours a bit, playing festivals, performing arts theaters and clubs. I’d sure like to see a new album one of these days. Until then though I’m quite happy with the ones he’s already given us.

Other Listens on July 14th:
Hollywood Pocketknife by Eric Taylor

I’m not your typical record buyer. I never have been. I’ve long maintained that most people do not buy records based on things like liner notes, album credits or record reviews in newspapers and magazines. But I certainly do. When I see an album by an artist that I’m not familiar with I always look to see who’s playing on it. If there are people I know I’m more likely to check it out. I’ve bought tons of albums based on a review I read somewhere. I have my favorite music writers and I know their tastes so I can often tell what the chances are I’ll like something based on who reviewed it and what they thought of it. I think most people have always bought records based on radio exposure or having seen an artist live. People need to hear something before they’re likely to put out hard earned cash for the album. That’s changing now somewhat with the demise of terrestrial radio and rise of the internet. But, still, most people buy things they have already heard, and liked, somewhere, be it the radio, TV, the internet, a bar or in a friend’s car.

In 1971 I bought an album (well, an 8-Track tape) by a new guy named John Prine. I bought it soley because Kris Kristofferson raved about Prine on back of the album jacket. That was enough for me. Having recently discovered The Silver Tongued Devil And I, I was a huge Kristofferson fan. The album has gone on to become a true classic, containing four of Prine’s best known songs: “Angel From Montgomery,” “Hello In There,” “Sam Stone” and “Paradise.” He followed it in 1972 with Diamonds In The Rough and then in 1973 with Sweet Revenge, two more fine, fine albums. But his fourth album, Common Sense, released in 1975, may be my all time favorite. He’s released over a dozen more albums since Common Sense. The Missing Years won a Grammy in 1991 and reinvigorated his career. I have all his albums. I have many bootlegs. I play them all on a regular basis. Bruised Orange and Storm Windows are also very high on my list of favorite albums. But I come back to Common Sense more than any of the others. In many ways it’s a unique John Prine album, at least to me. From the very first album Prine demonstrated a profound ability to tell stories (“Sam Stone,” “Angel From Montgomery,” etc.). But he also displayed a wicked sense of nonsensical humor on songs like “Pretty Good,” “Flashback Blues” and “Illegal Smile.” Diamonds In The Rough was a little more on the serious side (with two anti-war songs), but there were also songs like “The Frying Pan” and “Everybody” (a song about meeting Jesus). Songs like “Please Don’t Bury Me” and the title track from Sweet Revenge kept this side of Prine’s songwriting on display. But, it was the Common Sense album which really brought it all to a head.

The title of the album and the cover drawing (a dimwit stepping on a rake) pretty much sum up the songs on this album. These songs are as close to modern day, cartoon like, fairy tale absurdity as you’ll ever find on a “country/folk/singer-songwriter” album. And I mean that in a very, very good way. This is John Prine’s The Basement Tapes. Not in the sense that the songs and recordings were squirreled away and hidden for years, but in the songwriting sense. On The Basement Tapes Dylan wrote a string of completely ridiculous songs framed around lyrics that in the very act of making absolutely no sense, made perfect sense. Prine does the same thing on Common Sense. It’s ten years later and the songs are filtered through Prine’s own beautifully warped view of the world, but the two albums have a lot in common. 

Even though the album contains eleven songs, it goes by pretty fast, clocking in at about than 32 minutes. Every song is short, sweet and to the point. There’s not a single song on this album that is anything like “Sam Stone,” “Angel From Montgomery,” “Donald And Lydia,” “Billy The Bum” or “Grandpa Was A Carpenter.” These are story songs, there’s no doubt about that, but they are stories from a different dimension. Take my favorite verse from the title track:

“But they came here by boat, and they came here by plane
They blistered their hands, and they burned out their brains
All dreaming a dream that’ll never come true 
Hey, don’t give me no trouble or I’ll call up my double, we’ll play piggy-in-the-middle with you”

Or consider the title of the following track: “Come Back To Us Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard.” 

Prine is on a roll here. Song after song just nails it. If you look at the lyrics of each song literally you say, “huh?” But if you don’t think about the lyrics and what they might mean, if you just let the songs seep into your soul, if you don’t think too much, they all seem just downright perfect. It’s a contradiction and an irony that Prine sums up perfectly in the the title song: “It don’t make no sense that common sense don’t make no sense no more.” He also has a very unique way of saying something deadly serious in the most preposterous manner possible. It’s brilliant. “Saddle In The Rain” may be my all-time favorite Prine composition. Other tracks like “Common Sense,” “My Own Best Friend,” “That Close To You” and “Middle Man” are not far behind. This is another one of those albums where I would simply have to include almost every track on a John Prine iTunes playlist. “He Was In Heaven Before He Died” is one of the most beautiful, touching, haunting songs he has ever written, though if you were to just read the lyrics on a sheet of paper you might be left wondering what the hell he was trying to get at. But in listening to the song, on a completely different, maybe even subconscious level, it’s all quite apparent. A rollicking version of Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” is the perfect album closer.

Common Sense is also one of Prine’s best sounding albums. Famed Memphis guitar player Steve Cropper does a fabulous job of capturing the energy, spirit and essence of these songs. The band is top notch, mostly session players, some of the very best of the day. Bonnie Raitt does a killer harmony vocal on “Come Back To Us Barabara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard.” Jackson Browne, Glenn Frey, J.D. Souther and Steve Goodman are along for the ride. And what a ride it is. Though many of his other albums are also very close to my heart, if I had to pick just one to take with me to a desert island it would have to be this one.

Other Listens on July 7th:
Greatest Hits Volume II by Bob Dylan
The Very Best Of Dusty Springfield
Live At The Fillmore East 10/24/70 (bootleg) by Derek & The Dominoes
Live At The Cactus Cafe (bootleg) by Tom Pacheco 

The 1966 tour through Australia, Europe and especially the UK is more historically significant and more musically consequential. There’s no denying the power and the majesty of those performances. The acoustic performances are positively ethereal. Dylan sounds truly stoned out of his mind yet perfectly in the moment. His harmonica playing on those tracks is unlike anything else I’ve ever heard. He wanders off into unbelievable solos and riffs that wind over, under and around themselves like twisted angelic musical prayers. And, of course, the electric sets are truly groundbreaking. The ferociousness of the band, the power that each and everyone of them brings to each song is truly unique in recorded music. This was a band, with Dylan at the helm, doing battle with their audience each and every night. It brought out something in them that’s never been touched since. I once had a talk with an artist I was working with as an A&R man. He is a truly rare, extraordinary and unique songwriter with not an ounce of business sense in his body. A show he and his band did at 12th & Porter, here in Nashville, in late 1999 remains one of the finest, most powerful and moving performances I’ve ever seen live. Hands down better than most of the concerts I’ve seen by the rich and famous rock stars. Most likely you’ve never heard of him. I haven’t kept in touch with him since I left the music business. Last I heard he was living on the side of a mountain outside Knoxville, Tennessee. We were talking about music, about audiences, about connecting with listeners, about following your true muse wherever that took you and most of all about the difficulty of doing that when no one else seemed to be able to come with you. He too is a big Dylan fan. Think of the irony, and in the end the true triumph of Dylan’s 1966 tour I said. Here he was being booed, not just casually, but deeply and forcefully, by every audience, every night. I don’t care how famous, how self-assured, how strong, how deeply set in your beliefs you are, that must do an incredible trip on your head. And here we are forty years later and this music is commonly, widely even universally, considered some of the most important live music ever recorded. Talk about full circle. It’s Vincent Van Gogh 100 years later with a guitar. Though, thankfully, Dylan didn’t have to die before his genius was recognized. 

All that said, on a lot of days I’d rather listen to the 1975 tour than the 1966 tour. Don’t get me wrong, I listen to the 1966 tour all the time. I have a 26 CD box set (yes, 26 CDs) of every existing note from every show played on that tour. Audience tapes. Board tapes. You name it, if it is known to exist among collectors it’s there. But I come back to the 1975 tour more often. When Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Review (The Bootleg Series Volume 5) was finally released in 2002 I was beside myself. I’d been waiting a long time for an official release of this material. I was not disappointed. While I might have done some things a little differently (what collector wouldn’t?) overall I was more than happy with this two disc set of material from the tour. Bootlegs (tape, vinyl and CD) from this tour have circulated all along, right from the very beginning. There is an audience tape from almost every single performance of the tour. There are soundboard tapes from a few. Two songs, “Romance In Durango” and “Isis,” both from Montreal, were released on the Biograph box set in 1985. 

My only complaint (and it’s a small one) with this set is the manner in which the tracks have been collected and presented. During the 1975 leg of the Rolling Thunder Review the show would generally go like this: individual members of the backing band, known as Guam for this tour, would each do a song or two; guest artists (such as Joni Mitchell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and others) would do a few songs; Dylan would do a five or six song set with the band; Dylan and Baez would do a five or six song set; Baez would do a seven or eight song set; Roger McGuinn would do two or three songs; Dylan would return for two or three solo numbers followed by five or six more songs with the band and then everyone would wrap things up with “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and “This Land Is Your Land.” It sure would have been nice to get a complete show from beginning to end, with all the artists represented, but most of knew that was never going to happen. The draw here is, of course, Dylan, so the two discs are devoted entirely to his performances. And rather than pull one complete show Columbia (and maybe Dylan) have chosen to cherry pick 22 tracks from five different performances (2 from the Boston afternoon show, 10 from the Boston evening show, 5 from Cambridge, 4 from Montreal and 1 from Worcester). The thing that bugs me the most is that many of the tracks have been “isolated.” The applause fades in at the beginning and fades out at the end. Even if the tracks were drawn from different performances I would much rather they have stitched them all together to at least give the illusion of one continuous performance. But, hey, these are really very minor quibbles. I’m more than happy, way more than happy, to just have this material at all.

The album opens with a raucous version of “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” from the Nashville Skyline album. But, believe me, this version has almost nothing in common with that lilting, country ditty from Nashville Skyline. The band is loud, loose, assertive and in your face. The lyrics have been completely rewritten. Dylan is on fire. He practically screams out the second verse as a command, “Get ready! Because tonight I’ll be staying here with you.” It’s clear from the very beginning what’s to come. A rousing version of “It Ain’t Me, Babe” continues and you can feel the excitement in the crowd. Dylan lays into a fierce harmonica break and the crowd goes crazy. This is the sound of a performer, a band and a audience uniting as one. There’s as much energy coming back to the stage from the audience as Dylan and Guam are sending out. In keeping with the structure of the original shows, Dylan and the band do four more songs and then he does a solo version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and an especially powerful solo version of “Simple Twist Of Fate.” Baez joins him for “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “Mama, You Been On My Mind” and “I Shall Be Released.” Now the combination of Dylan’s and Baez’s voice is quite unique. Their voices mix in rather odd way that some people just can’t handle. It grates on some people. Others like it. A very few love it. I’m pretty fond of it and these duets are excellent.

Disc Two opens with Dylan back alone doing strong, authoritative versions of “I’ts All Over Now, Baby Blue,” “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and “Tangled Up In Blue.” Years later it would become a common joke that no one could understand what Dylan sings. Not so here. His words are clear, precise and forthright. If you’ve never considered Dylan a particularly good singer, you need to listen to this disc. Baez returns for a fantastic duet of “The Water Is Wide” and then the full band returns for seven more songs, including four tracks from the as yet unreleased Desire album: “Hurricane,” “Sara,” “Oh, Sister” and “One More Cup Of Coffee (Valley Below).”

I’ve been collecting the tapes of all the Rolling Thunder shows that circulate among collectors for many years. At this point I have most of the shows. There’s an energy, an exuberance, a fire, a passion and something you just can’t put into words about Dylan’s performances on this tour that has never been matched since. Everything just came together here. Everything. The band is great. Baez is better than she’s ever been before or since. The song selections are perfect. It was a short tour. It only lasted a little over a month. It was like no other tour Dylan has ever done. He and his band of gypsies, friends, on lookers and hangers-on basically just barnstormed around the Northeast, showing up with sometimes only a few days notice and entertaining the locals. They played mostly small and medium sized towns, places like Lowell, MA, Burlington, VT, Waterbury, CT, Niagara Falls, NY and Augusta, ME. They blew into town, they played like they truly had no place else to be and then they left as quickly as they came. When we get around to inventing time travel this is the first place I’m going: November 1975 with Bob Dylan and company. What an experience that would be, traipsing around from city to city with these guys. I never get tired of listening to these shows. Never.