Palate Cleanser: Alabama Shakes

Hold On by Alabama Shakes

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot At 10

I've previously written that Wilco is one of the truly great rock bands and their front man, Jeff Tweedy, is the most compelling singer/songwriter of his generation.  (See Wilco Rocks -- And Not Just For Dads.)

Tweedy is an elegant lyricist who crafts deeply effecting, unsparingly honest songs, often about pain and loss, self-doubt and self-destruction, and sings them with his nasally but soulful and quite captivating voice.  I don't think it is too much of a stretch to consider putting him in the pantheon of older (North) American rock musicians who have not only captured the spirit of their time but have left a legacy well beyond, a group that includes Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is now ten years old, but it remains for me one of the greatest rock 'n roll albums of all time.  As the notoriously stingy Pitchfork beams:  "Complex and dangerously catchy, lyrically sophisticated and provocative, noisy and somehow serene" it is "simply a masterpiece."

Spencer Kornhaber recently wrote a piece in the Atlantic to commemorate the tenth anniversary of this legendary album, what he refers to as the "best rock record of the new millennium."  As Kornhaber writes, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot comes freighted with a mythology that can overwhelm the music:

The way it was rejected by one Warner Bros. subsidiary only to be bought by another; the fact that it was streamed online at a time when doing so was unheard of; the acclaimed documentary about its creation; and the spookiness of the fact that its songs—replete with references to falling buildings, charred flags, and nameless dread—were originally set for a Sept. 11, 2001 release.

 But it is the music that endures:

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot's triumph was in how it captured a facet of human nature: the way we all send signals, hoping that someone will understand them but also anxious about what happens when someone does. You'll sometimes hear the album get called cryptic, or self-conscious, or difficult. And that's fine. It's really a soundtrack for the ways in which people ask to be misunderstood. 

Don't believe me?  Check it out:

Americana That Still Resonates

Hey, Hey, My My.  Neil Young first started playing with the "garage" rock band Crazy Horse in 1968, and they have backed him on several of his greatest albums, including Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, Zuma, and Rust Never Sleeps.   Americana, which is due out next month, will be Neil's first recording with the full Crazy Horse line-up since 1996.  

Rolling Stone reports that the songs on the album are all classic American folk songs, including "This Land Is Your Land," "Gallows Pole," "Tom Dooley" and "Clementine."  "They're songs we all know from kindergarten," Neil said, "but Crazy Horse has rearranged them, and they now belong to us."

The press release explains the concept behind Americana:

What ties these songs together is the fact that while they may represent an America that may no longer exist, the emotions and scenarios behind these songs still resonate with what’s going on in the country today with equal, if not greater impact nearly 200 years later. The lyrics reflect the same concerns and are still remarkably meaningful to a society going through economic and cultural upheaval, especially during an election year. They are just as poignant and powerful today as the day they were written.

Here's the video for "Oh Susannah." 

Palate Cleanser: Jack White

Love Interruption by Jack White from his new release Blunderbuss.

Happy 95th Anniversary Of Ella Fitzgerald's Birth

Ella Fitzgerald was born 95 years ago today (she died in 1996).  The rap on Ella was that she couldn't sing the blues.  Maybe not, but she was probably the greatest interpreter of what has come to be known as the Great American Songbook.

Here's some proof:



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This is what I wrote about Ella a while back when I was doing profiles of fifty jazz albums:

The Songbook series of recordings is essential listening; her live albums are remarkable, especially the classic Ella in Berlin, and the albums in which she is paired with Louis Armstrong are fun.  But when I feel like listening to Ella, my go-to album is Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie.  In a small combo setting (piano, guitar, bass, drums), she swings, scats, and settles down for some lovely ballads too.  Highlights include, but are definitely not limited to, A Night in Tunisia, Stella By Starlight, Jersey Bounce and The Music Goes Round and Round.

 Enjoy!

Levon Helm (1940-2012)

Levon Helm, as aptly described in the New York Times, "helped forge a deep-rooted American music as the drummer and singer for the Band."  In his drumming, "muscle, swing, economy and finesse were inseparably merged," as in those three thumps on the bass drum that introduce "The Weight," one of the Band's greatest songs.  Some of the more memorable tunes on which he was lead vocals include “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” and "Ophelia," songs in which "lyrics turned to myths and tall tales of the American South."

Back in 1984, he described the “right ingredients” for his work as “life and breath, heart and soul.”  And while his solo career was somewhat uneven, in later years he recorded a couple of really excellent albums, in particular Electric Dirt, released in 2009, which won a well-deserved Grammy Award (as did his prior release in 2007, Dirt Farmer).

Helm died today after a battle with throat cancer.

Here's he is on Letterman in 2009, performing a cover of the Grateful Dead's Tennessee Jed, which appears on Electric Dirt:



And here's a classic from The Last Waltz, one of the great concert films/albums of all time:

Freddie King: Rock 'N Roll Hall Of Famer

Freddie King, the Texas Cannonball, will be posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday.  He was one of the Three Kings of electric blues guitar (with B.B. and Albert), and had a profound influence on many legendary rock guitarists, including Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Clapton famously covered two of King's great tunes, the instrumental Hideaway (on John Mayall's Bluesbreakers) and Have You Ever Loved A Woman (Derek and the Dominos).

Here's Freddie performing them: