REVIEW: Billy Joe Shaver - Long In The Tooth

Billy Joe Shaver is a real treasure, and it's a good thing he keeps promises. Long In The Tooth is his first album in 7 years, and his best, I think, since 2001's The Earth Rolls On. The promise? Well, Shaver released a live album not long ago and appreciated the positive reception so much that he promised his next album would consist of all original songs. Shaver's songwriting is as good as country music gets, so this is a welcome development.

Shaver has often been known by the company he keeps, and this record is no exception: he's got Tony Joe White playing guitar, Leon Russell on piano, and sings a duet with old friend Willie Nelson. True to form, there's a little wink, one of those little turns of phrase that's so wryly true, it makes you wonder why nobody's written it before: "It's hard to be an outlaw/Who ain't wanted anymore":



The title cut is a silly but engaging song, Shaver's self-deprecating country-fried rap about being older and wiser, taking the good with the bad. And there is plenty of humor on the record, but as is usual with Shaver, there's more wisdom and pathos than you will find on country radio in a year's worth of listening. And we'd all be better off listening to Billy Joe Shaver more. He's at home in Nashville as much as Texas, but that's only because he knows the score and is willing to march to his own drummer. Check out "Music City USA":



Shaver calls this his best record ever. I'd say that's downplaying some of his earlier work, but he's right to be excited about how this one turned out. Every song crackles with his outlaw spirit and his ragged but upbeat vocals, the songwriting is some of his best, and the production and sequencing are excellent. Long In The Tooth is out now (Aug. 5) on Lightning Rod Records.

Billy Joe Shaver website
Billy Joe Shaver on Lightning Rod Records

REVIEW: Hank Williams - The Garden Spot Programs, 1950

Omnivore Recordings has hit another home run with its release of The Garden Spot Programs, 1950, featuring 24 performances, unheard for 64 years, from the great Hank Williams. It's amazing to think that in 2014 we are getting new material from Hank Williams - but even more amazing, the sound quality is very clear. These aren't moldy discs unearthed in a barn somewhere - they are mastered from tapes shipped from a studio in Nashville to a radio station in Texas, that allowed Williams to appear on "local" radio programs from his home studio in Nashville. The music was restored and mastered from original transcription discs by Grammy Award winning engineer Michael Graves. Here's a short trailer with a bit of background on the project:



And as an example of the quality, here's "Mind Your Own Business". I recall listening to versions of this song vastly inferior to this - for years, and thinking that was as good as we were going to get on material from the 40's and 50's. This sounds great:



The CD packaging contains rare photos and liner notes from the collection of set co-producer and Williams biographer Colin Escott. Escott writes in his notes: “Set the time machine for early morning on KSIB-AM, Creston, Iowa. February 1950. Country radio was beginning its slow transition from live music to DJ shows. Live music and DJ shows were augmented by transcribed shows. After buying 15 minutes of airtime on small-market stations, sponsors would prerecord shows with well known artists, duplicate them, and ship them out on 12 or 16-inch transcribed discs.”

“That’s how Hank Williams came to be on KSIB in February 1950. Sandwiched between the local ‘live’ acts, it was almost as if he were visiting with Skeets and those Radio Rascals. His sponsor was one of the nation’s largest plant nurseries, Naughton Farms, seven hundred miles south in Waxahachie, Texas. Given that Naughton was a big player in the nursery business, Hank’s shows were almost certainly shipped to many small stations, but only KSIB’s copies survived. Those of us who have studied Hank’s life and career had no idea that these recordings existed.”

Here's the track listing:
1. The Garden Spot Jingle
2. Lovesick Blues
3. A Mansion On The Hill
4. Fiddle Tune
5. I’ve Just Told Mama Goodbye
6. Closing/Oh! Susanna
7. The Garden Spot Jingle
8. Mind Your Own Business
9. Lovesick Blues
10. Fiddle Tune
11. At The First Fall Of Snow
12. Closing/Oh! Susanna
13. The Garden Spot Jingle
14. I Can’t Get You Off Of My Mind
15. I Don’t Care (If Tomorrow Never Comes)
16. Fiddle Tune
17. Farther Along
18. Closing/Oh! Susanna
19. The Garden Spot Jingle
20. I’ll Be A Bachelor ’Til I Die
21. Wedding Bells
22. Fiddle Tune
23. Jesus Remembered Me
24. Closing/Oh! Susanna

As part of the show, you hear the host imploring Hank to play "Lovesick Blues", citing the carload of mail they've received from listeners asking him to play it, as well as Williams' folksy between-song patter. His prowess as a performer is shown not only on his musical performances, but also his humor and exposition. However, as Escott also points out, "the patter was often jarringly at odds with the sepulchral songs that preceded and followed it." I'd also make the observation that the irony of placing "I'll Be a Bachelor 'Til I Die" back to back with the bathos of "Wedding Bells" is probably unintended, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Omnivore Recordings

REVIEW: Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott - Memories and Moments

Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott are Americana royalty. Among other achievements, I have always treasured O'Brien's 1996 album of Dylan covers Red on Blonde. Their talent is also highly sought after in mainstream Nashville country, where the competition to have songs recorded is fierce. You would be hard-pressed to find another duo whose songs have been recorded by chart-toppers like The Dixie Chicks, Dierks Bentley, Nickel Creek, Kathy Mattea, Faith Hill, Guy Clark, Sam Bush, Brad Paisley, Sara Evans, Garth Brooks, Patty Loveless, Trace Adkins and Tim McGraw. This partially explains why, after their 2000 record Real Time met with such universal acclaim, it still took 13 years for them to find the time to record a followup. But man, was it worth the wait. I have rarely heard a duo with such perfect vocal harmonies and such perfectly coordinated instrumental runs. On some of the longer songs, they really stretch out and play - check out "Fiddler Jones":



Scott's from Kentucky and O'Brien from West Virginia, but even without knowing that, anyone listening can tell they come by their mountain music credentials honestly. Add to that their willingness and qualifications to address mountaintop removal and the legacy of mining in that part of the world: note their dead-on take on John Prine's "Paradise" (including a version with Prine himself), which plays off their original song "Keep Your Dirty Lights On" - odes to a back-breaking legacy and mountains removed, never to return, so a growing nation could have power and "Mr. Peabody" could keep his coal train filled.



There are common country and mountain music themes - religion ("On Life's Other Side"), family ("Memories and Moments"), love both found ("Angel's Blue Eyes") and lost (an absolutely devastating, mournful take on Hank Williams' "Alone and Forsaken").



And the album features unadorned traditional country and mountain music instrumentation - just perfect interplay among resonators, acoustic guitars, fiddles and mandolins. The album is on a newly formed label, Full Skies (a combination of Scott's Full Light and O'Brien's Howdy Skies) and distributed via Thirty Tigers. It's wonderful in every way - great singing, great playing, and you can feel their love for the music. You can buy it at their combined website (link below) - either digital or physical CD.

Tim and Darrell website
Howdy Skies (Tim O'Brien) website
Full Light (Darrell Scott) website
Thirty Tigers

Nudie Cohn - Haberdasher to the Stars.

Today is country star Porter Wagoner's birthday.  He would have been 87.  Wagoner is known as the man who discovered Dolly Parton.  Porter and Dolly are one of the greatest country duets of all time - right up there with Tammy and George. As I watched the following clip, I was reminded of his iconic look - pompadour and a flashy suit by Nudie Cohn.

Nudie Cohn (December 15, 1902 to May 9, 1984) was born Nuta Kotlyarenko in Kiev, Ukraine. Nudie is famous for his "Nudie Suits" and "Nudie Mobiles", outrageous customized Pontiac Bonnevilles.  Customers of "Nudies of Hollywood" included Roy Rogers and Jane Evans, Hank Williams, John Lennon, John Wayne, ZZ Top, and Porter Wagoner. Wagoner had 52 suits costing between $11,000 and $18,000 apiece. "Nudie Suits" told the C&W world that you had arrived.  The pictures will tell the rest of the story.

Nudie Mobile

Elvis

Bob Dylan's "Jesus Jacket"

Gram Parsons

Elton John

Waylon Jennings

Flying Burrito Brothers

Buck Owens

REVIEW: Chris Shiflett and the Dead Peasants - All Hat And No Cattle

The title of the new album by Chris Shiflett and the Dead Peasants - All Hat And No Cattle - is, of course, a self-deprecating use of an old saying ranchers would use to describe a small-time, big-talk rival: i.e., "all talk, no action". But Shifflett and his band, to stretch the metaphor, have plenty of cattle. They can really play this stuff.

As expected from a rock guitarist whose day job is with the Foo Fighters, Shiflett leads his band through some breakneck guitar workouts inspired by some of country's greatest guitar slingers - people like Don Rich. Here's the lead track, "Guitar Pickin' Man":



Here's a rollicking version of Del Reeves' signature honky-tonker, "Good Time Charlie's":



And the original track on here, "A Woman Like You" is fantastic, a guitar-based rave-up that simultaneously pays tribute to the Bakersfield sound of Owens and Haggard, and British-invasion guitar rock. The piano/guitar interplay over the last minute or so of "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" is just delightful, and reminds me of Southern rock favorites like Skynyrd's "Call Me The Breeze" or some of the Allmans' work on Brothers And Sisters.

But the revelation here is the true country nature of the proceedings... there is some great piano and pedal steel, and Shiflett's vocals have a nice twang to them on slower numbers like "Happy Part of Town" and "King of Fools", and on repeated listen, this stuff holds up very well in rotation with good modern traditionalist country music like Dwight Yoakam, Marty Stuart and Jim Lauderdale. Further, Shiflett's really dug into the canon to come up with some gems by true country music legends who aren't necessarily household names - folks like Wynn Stewart, Del Reeves and Jim Ed Brown ("Pop a Top"), as well as a fairly non-obvious Haggard tune, his first song "Skid Row". This and the way he varies the country influences and tempos shows that Shiflett isn't just fooling around with country music on this record - he's got it in his soul. He's onto something here, and I hope he'll keep it going.

All Hat And No Cattle is out now (July 30) on Side One Dummy Records.

Chris Shiflett and the Dead Peasants website
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RIP George Jones - Listen, and try to hold it together. Good Luck.

One of my favorite George Jones moments comes from a duets album he released in 1994. In the worst ice storm in the history of Nashville, Tennessee, an amazing cast of music characters assembled in Owen Bradley's studio in Mt. Juliet, outside Nashville, to record new versions of established George Jones songs. The album, entitled The Bradley Barn Sessions, is a true joy, a real treasure. Jones was still in very fine form and obviously happy to show some of these young country and rock artists how a great singer approaches his work.

Liner notes from the session detail how much respect each artist had for Jones, and how he exceeded their admittedly lofty expectations. Keith Richards sang along with George on "Say It's Not You", and was quoted to observe that he was happy as a "pig in shit".

The musical highlight of the album, to me, is Jones' duet with Alan Jackson on "A Good Year For The Roses". When I heard the news today of Jones' passing, I reached for some of his music, and this one was the first I put on. I made it through George's rollicking, good-time duet with the great Marty Stuart - "One Woman Man" - but when it got to "Good Year", well... try it yourself:



If you want to listen to the album, you can get the MP3's at Amazon right now.

But my favorite George Jones song is not that one... luckily, another great collection of classic Jones honky-tonk was released in February on the terrific reissue label Omnivore - The Complete United Artists Solo Singles. It starts off with my favorite Jones song, "She Thinks I Still Care". There are not many lyrics in that song - perhaps the beauty is the simplicity, which gave Jones room to fill it with his impeccable phrasing - I could listen to the way he sings the word "She" over and over, as well as the clever way he rhymes "cheer" and "idea" without actually saying "idear". Sure, he had a voice as sweet as honey, but so do a lot of people. He knew how to sing! Just wonderful:



Other singers could not say enough good things about Jones.

Johnny Cash, asked who was his favorite singer, would respond: "You mean, other than George Jones?"

James Taylor: "He didn't sound like he was influenced by any other singers. He sounds like a steel guitar. It's the way he blends notes, the way he comes up to them and leaves them..."

Waylon Jennings: "If we could all sound like we wanted to, we'd all sound like George Jones."

Elvis Costello claimed him as a principle influence, and recorded a terrific country album with a pretty faithful cover of "A Good Year For The Roses".

And Frank Sinatra called him "the second best white singer in America". Modest, that Chairman...

RIP, George and thank you.

RIP George Jones

George Jones is considered by many as the greatest country singer of all time.  From hardcore honk-tonk to ballads there was no one better.  I have often thought that if I could sing like anyone it would be George Jones.  He died today at the age of 81.  His longevity confounded many observers of country music.  His addictions were fodder for country gossip sheets from the 50's through the 80's and made him an annual choice in dead pools.  He was polpularly referred to as "No Show" Jones,  The peak of of his celebrity gossip status occurred during his short lived marriage to Tammy Wynette,  Here's a video overview of his career starting with early honk-tonk recordings.

Jones recorded "The Race is On" in 1964.  At this time he was deep in the throes of a apmhetamine addiction.  The eyes tell no lies.  Check his eyes in the following video.

Some more songs of pain, drinking and cheating.

One of many classic George and Tammy duets.

A tribute to Conway Twitty.

A fitting epitaph for George

Mount Moriah - new video for lead track "Bright Light", tour dates...

 

Mount Moriah released their latest album Miracle Temple earlier this week. It's a stunning accomplishment -- Heather McEntire's one of the best country singers we've heard in years, and Jenks Miller's guitar works wonders (WYMA review here). To celebrate they have released a video to accompany the lead track "Bright Light":



They're also heading out on a tour, supported on several dates by Merge label mates William Tyler, whose great new guitar epic Impossible Truth (due out March 19 -WYMA feature here) is summoning ghosts of John Fahey and Skip James, and Telekinesis, who have a new one due out in April. So on one bill, you've got the potential to see Mount Moriah's soulful country rock, Tyler's timeless and intricate guitar work, and the brash power pop of Telekinesis:

Mount Moriah on tour:

March 6 Charleston, SC Tin Roof
March 7 Jacksonville, FL Jack Rabbits
March 8 Orlando, FL Will’s Pub%
March 9 Atlanta, GA Drunken Unicorn%
March 10 Mobile, AL Alabama Music Box&
March 11 Baton Rouge, LA Spanish Moon&
March 13-17 Austin, TX SXSW
March 18 Chicago, IL Schubas
March 19 Detroit, MI Magic Stick Lounge
March 20 Toronto, ON The Drake
March 21 Montreal, QC Casa del Popolo
March 22 Boston, MA Cafe 939
March 23 New Haven, CT Cafe Nine
March 25 New York, NY Mercury Lounge
March 26 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s
March 27 Washington, DC DC 9
April 4 Winston-Salem, NC Phuzz Fest
April 12 Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle
April 21 Portland, OR Doug Fir Lounge*
April 24 San Francisco, CA Bottom Of The Hill*
April 25 Los Angeles, CA The Echo*
April 27 San Diego, CA Casbah*
April 28 Phoenix, AZ The Crescent Ballroom*
April 30 Austin, TX The Parish*
May 1 Denton, TX Dan’s Silverleaf*
May 3 Birmingham, AL The Bottletree*
% = w/ William Tyler
& = w/ William Tyler & Dent May
* = w/ Telekinesis

REVIEW: Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison - Cheater's Game

Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison are a couple of super-talented Texans who have each been making some wonderful country music for years, but together, make magic. He is a worthy participant in the grand Texas troubadour tradition with some huge country hits to his credit as a writer, she's a very traditional-sounding country vocalist with a truly great voice. For their latest record, a duet called Cheater's Game, they traveled to Nashville to work with Brad Jones at his Alex The Great studio. Jones' credits include a who's who of singer/songwriters and indie rockers, and this was an inspired pairing.

Cheater's Game is an album of about half covers and half originals and it's the first true duet album they've done, although as Willis points out, "We've always been part of each other's records." As for the reason they've not done this before, it's very understandable. Willis again: "But we're also our own people. We've always been very careful about not losing sight of that."

All that said, they are even better together than they've been individually. On this record, the whole is truly more than the sum of all its parts. You don't listen for certain things, although certain things (Willis' voice, Robison's great way with a chorus/verse transition, great pedal steel all over this thing) do stand out. But it all flows together so well, if you didn't know who wrote which song, you'd never be able to tell by listening.

They cover Dave Alvin, Robert Earl Keen, Don Williams ("We're All The Way" is, maybe, my favorite track on the record), Razzy Bayley and Hayes Carll. And Robison co-wrote songs with Miles Zuniga (Fastball) and Lawrence Shoberg -and, as expected, Robison's songs stand up very well next to the songs they borrowed from these country songwriting giants.

Here's a video of them performing "9,999,999 Tears" - she's a tremendous vocalist, and I especially like the pedal steel in this song:



I particularly enjoyed their take on Dave Alvin's "Border Radio" - Bruce on lead vocal:



Here's a nice article from their hometown Austin American-Statesman giving some background on the making of the record. And I agree with the author, this is a great, truly timeless-sounding country record. Cheater's Game is available now (released earlier this week) via Thirty Tigers, and they'll be on tour soon - tour dates at their website here.

REVIEW: Don Rich - Don Rich Sings George Jones

It's been a delight to delve into some of these country reissues from Omnivore Recordings, and this Don Rich record of George Jones covers is no exception. It sounds great, and it is apparently the only solo album Rich ever did.

Unlike the recent Buck Owens reissue disc we covered, which was never recorded as an album, this was meant to be released. It was the result of an approach Owens made to Rich: "Hey, why don't you do an album of George Jones covers?" The Buckaroos had been doing records with various members on vocals, so this was not much of a stretch and the results are terrific. Unfortunately, it was shelved soon after being recorded in 1970 and never released until now... but better, much better, late than never.

I was not familiar with Rich as a vocalist, but hearing the songs on this record, I can't say why. He does a good job of putting his own sound on these well-known Jones songs... especially "The Race Is On" - where a nice California connection already existed for me, having heard the Grateful Dead cover it any number of times. I even hear some similarities - check out the little drum outro:



If you like country music at all, you're going to want to check this out. It may be the best pure country record I've heard so far this year. It's got the Nashville imprimatur of the great George Jones, but it is done in the Bakersfield style made so popular by Don Rich and Buck Owens (who also helps on the record, and has four of his own Jones covers thrown in for good measure). The band is the 1970 edition of the Buckaroos.

You can read a little more about the history of the recordings, and order the record from Omnivore, here.

REVIEW: Buck Owens - Honky-Tonk Man: Buck Sings Country Classics

Even if you've listened to everything in Buck Owens' catalog, you haven't heard these songs yet. That's because they were recently assembled from archival tracks recorded for broadcast on Hee Haw.

Honky-Tonk Man consists of backing tracks the Buckaroos recorded for the television show, with the original tracking vocals that Buck recorded, and the skillful engineers involved in this project put it all together to make one of the best country reissues I've ever heard - even if, again, it's not "technically" a reissue!

The tempo varies, but is mostly upbeat - there are fiddles and even, on a few of the cuts, banjos, but one of the highlights for me are the guitars and Buck's vocal on "I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water" - just a terrific performance. One of the slower-paced tracks is a cover of Jimmie Rodgers' "He's In The Jailhouse Now" - a pretty faithful reading, but of course with the Buckaroos' stamp on it. And there's a Tex-Mex lilt to Charley Pride's "Is Anybody Going to San Antone?", the requisite swing to Bob Wills' "Stay A Little Longer", and a real boogie to "The Bridge Washed Out" that show these guys could play it any way you want it. Here he is, singing with his son on Hee-Haw - this is the title track:



Buck's singing was, as always, terrific, the playing was uniformly excellent, and the recording is clean. This is an unbelievable treat for anybody who likes the Bakersfield sound, Buck Owens, or country music in general. It's out this week on Omnivore Recordings.

Honky Tonk Man at Omnivore Recordings Website

REVIEW: Dwight Yoakam - Three Pears

For a lot of us who monitor the indie music world, it would be possible for Dwight Yoakam's Three Pears to get lost in the shuffle of excellent September releases - but that would be a shame. There's still nothing like a Dwight Yoakam album... has it really been 26 years since Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc. Etc.? More to the point, seven years since Blame the Vain, his last studio album full of Yoakam songs?

First question, to get to the point: is it worth the wait? The answer is an unqualified hell yes. The quality is, as always, excellent. Yoakam leaves no detail to chance - but the music never sounds overly "produced" - there's always an edge. Here's a live performance of the title cut, co-written with fellow celebrity and country convert Kid Rock:



Yoakam said he was sitting on that song for years and years, and had a thought to reach out to Kid Rock to see if he'd help finish it. It's not surprising that Yoakam had a song that another songwriter could help him finish in one sittting. There is nobody else who inhabits so fully the place where good country and good rock music meet...really, the place where both of them started out together in the 40's and 50's, and incorporates all the best features of both.

Check out "Rock It All Away" - a combination of Yoakam's pitch-perfect country vocals, a strong rhythm section and what sounds to me, like a very well-done reprise of the Velvet Underground "Sweet Jane" guitar lick:



On "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke" (a 50 year old Bakersfield guitar rave-up originally done by Joe and Rose Lee Maphis - if interested, check it out here), Dwight and his band really, really let go -



Apparently, it has been a live Yoakam choice for a while, which makes sense. But on the record, they really rock out, and let loose with a scream reminiscent of Bob Weir's in "St. Stephen". The scream reminded me of a time I saw Yoakam in concert, and he was introducing his version of "Some Dark Holler": "We're gonna do an old song I've known a long time. Heard it on my grandma's radio. A lot of people done it. The Grateful Dead done it. But we ain't gonna do it the way the Dead done it."

And yet, of course, Yoakam's a part of the California music scene in every meaningful way - not only has he covered the Dead and recorded songs they also recorded, but he got his start playing with California punk, rockabilly and rock bands... after giving himself a musical education in the Bakersfield style of country music.

And then there's his new musical compatriot Beck Hansen. Three Pears finds Yoakam paired with Beck, who I've thought of as a bit of a kindred spirit to Yoakam - if you doubt Beck's country bona fides, I urge you to go listen to his duet with Emmylou Harris on "Sin City" on the Gram Parsons tribute album Return of the Grievous Angel, and his cover of "Your Cheatin' Heart" on the Hank Williams tribute Timeless, not to mention his supersad, superslow Sea Change, a feast of sad vocals and guitar reverb.


But here Beck is bringing a razor-sharp pop sensibility that is very much in line with Yoakam's own. This really is a good pairing... Here is "A Heart Like Mine", the song produced by Beck:




Like the best of Yoakam's music, it rocks like a freight train and wails like a hurricane, while featuring pop touches - British invasion backbeat and guitar jangle - worthy of two of the very best craftsmen working in any branch of popular music these days.

There's "Missing Heart" - an absolute overdose of great pedal steel, the playful "Waterfalls", and the title cut, which Yoakam describes as having been inspired by John Lennon.
This is a great record, up there with the best work Yoakam's ever done, which means it's up there with the best work anybody's doing. It's likely to reside near the top of my list at the end of 2012.

Listen, read, buy: Dwight Yoakam Website