Music Notes

My big musical event in the last two weeks was seeing Richard Thompson at the Jane Pickens Theater in Newport, Rhode Island. This was my first time in that space, but my 6th time seeing RT, going back to 1996. It had been 3 years or so since I had seen him and I wanted to again anyway. Then he fell down some steps and broke some ribs this summer and at his age, you worry. At 76 years old, he’s just about the younger person who became well known in the late 60s scene, which suggests how many posts we are going to have here in the next few years about dead musicians. But still, a fall like that can mean a lot. I am very happy to say that he has fully recovered, at least to my eye and ear. Nothing has declined for RT, not his wit, not his voice, and most certainly not that wonderful, unique guitar playing. He is really committed to not being an old-timer doing all the hits. In fact, about half the show were songs from the last 10 years or so, which can vary, though he’s mostly picking the better songs. He probably doens’t have another great album in him but he can still write some fine songs and he included a couple of brand new ones as he’s about to go into the studio. But here’s the thing–even on the songs that aren’t “Wall of Death” or “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight,” you can focus on that astounding guitar. And it’s a joy to hear. It’s also interesting what old songs he pulls out from time to time. “Pharaoh” is perhaps the least successful track on his great 1988 album Amnesia, but he’s playing it. OK, sure, why not! Anyway, hope to see the great RT again.

I read Richard Koloda’s Holy Ghost: The Life & Death of Free Jazz Pioneer Albert Ayler. Ayler remains a kind of unknowable figure, due to his early death and mental illness and because he seems to have arrived from almost nowhere, going from a no one to a huge influence on John Coltrane in about a year. What this book really drove home to me–and I think this makes a lot of sense–is that what Ayler was doing was bringing the speaking in tongues from the Holiness tradition he came out of. I’ve always wondered what would have happened had Ayler lived, but in truth, in his later recordings, desperate to sell albums, he was already moving toward the cheese that would come to dominate the fusion guy in the 70s. That doesn’t mean he would have ended there. He was clearly on his own trajectory, to say the least. But still, there’s a reason no one listens to those late recordings today.

Jimmy Cliff died. I listen to very little reggae. It’s just never moved me. That doesn’t mean I don’t recognize its importance or influence, but my indifference to it means I don’t even listen to The Clash much. That said, The Harder They Come is a hugely important film. It’s no favorite of mine either, but still, it’s most certainly influential. In any case, even though I don’t really have much to offer here, I figure some folks will want to have a conversation about him.

Why do Best of 2025 lists start coming out around Thanksgiving? How can one possibly know what the best albums of the year are in November. It’s not that there will be much released–very few albums see the light of day between Thanksgiving and about January 8 or so. It’s that there is so much still to hear and consider or hear again and think about in relation to other albums. Who cares about listsicles, sure, OK. But still, if these things were about actually thinking about the best albums/movies/books and not about marketing and printing copy, people would wait until January 2.

Could Rosalía could lead to a revival in classical music’s popularity? Seems unlikely, but hey, if she can move young people to listen to more classical, that’s cool.

The Grand Ole Opry is now 100 years old. The one time I went, it was a perfect miss of good and terrible, from Kathy Mattea and Dom Flemons bringing real country music to the most trite big hat douche country and bad Christian rock.

Here’s a nice essay on Rick Danko’s performance of “It Makes No Difference” from The Last Waltz.

I’m not really a big Dr. John guy–he always seemed like the ultimate white hipster to me surrounding himself in New Orleans quasi-spiritual nonsense. I wouldn’t really care if I liked the albums more than I do. They are generally OK. Gris Gris is the most famous and there’s a new book about it and there was a good discussion of Dr. John in this LRB review of it.

Chris Whitley’s legacy, 20 years after his death

Every now and then I watch stuff on Folkstreams, that excellent if not huge archive of American folklore documentaries. I watched two this week. The first is the Hal Cannon & Taki Telonidis 2002 film Why the Cowboy Sings, which is about, well, that topic. My favorite part of it was the interview and footage of Glenn Ohrlin, long one of my favorite cowboy singers and American folk singers generally. His version of “Platonia, the Pride of the Plains” is an all time favorite American song of mine. Here’s a clip from the film:

Then there’s Hear Your Banjo Play, made by Irving Lerner, Charles Korvin, & Willard Van Dyke in 1946. This is something of a classic–Pete Seeger is the star of this sort of early explainer of American folk music. The highlight is not really Seeger (though you can forget what a great banjo player he was) and certainly not the silly New York lefty hootenanny around him, but the footage. First, there is a trio with Woody Guthrie, Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee. Now, that’s super–you can never get enough footage of those guys, especially a still healthy Guthrie. But it’s like those guys weren’t heavily recorded. The real highlight is Texas Gladden, another real favorite of mine from the southern folk canon and for whom I’d never seen footage before. The whole thing is on YouTube, so you can check that out here.

Playlist for the last two weeks:

1. Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker
2. Missy Elliott, Supa Dupa Fly
3. Afro-Haitian Experimental Orchestra (x2)
4. Townes Van Zandt, Rear View Mirror
5. Flying Burrito Brothers, Burrito Deluxe
6. Songs: Ohia, Ghost Tropic
7. Bruce Cockburn, Salt, Sun, and Time
8. Neil Young, Hitchhiker
9. Buena Vista Social Club
10. S.G. Goodman, Teeth Marks
11. Chris Gaffney, Loser’s Paradise
12. Francois Tusques, Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra Vol 2
13. Matthew Shipp, The Piano Equation
14. Anteloper, Kudu
15. Will Johnson, Hatteras Night, A Good Luck Charm
16. Amaia Miranda, Mientras Vivas Brilla (x2)
17. Sleaford Mods, Eton Alive
18. Smog, Knock Knock
19. The Hold Steady, The Price of Progress
20. The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
21. Robbie Fulks, Bluegrass Vacation
22. Tom T. Hall, New Train Same Rider
23. Sleater-Kinney, Dig Me Out
24. Stevie Wonder, Talking Book
25. Hurray for the Riff Raff, Life on Earth
26. Grey DeLisle, The Graceful Ghost
27. Childbirth, Women’s Rights
28. Tacocat, Lost Time (x2)
29. Jess Williamson, Time Ain’t Accidental
30. Marvin Gaye, Let’s Get It On
31. Mates of State, Mountaintops
32. The Rolling Stones, 12 x 5
33. Bill Callahan, Reality
34. IDLES, Crawler
35. Torres, Thirstier
36. Sun Kil Moon, Ghosts of the Great Highway, bonus disc
37. Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, The Tiffany Transcriptions, disc 2
38. U2, The Joshua Tree
39. Pharoah Sanders, Summun Bukmun Umyun
40. The Beths, Future Me Hates Me
41. Palace Music, Lost Blues and Other Songs
42. Last Exit
43. Alison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves, Hurricane Clarice
44. Lydia Loveless, Real
45. Chelsea Wolfe, She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
46. Lydia Loveless, Indestructible Machine
47. Woody Guthrie, Hard Travelin: The Asch Recordings, Vol. 3
48. Tom Ze, Cancoes Eroticas de Ninar
49. Wet Ink Ensemble/Alex Mincek/Sam Pluta, Glossolalia/Lines on Black
50. Sidi Toure, Toubalbero
51. Jenny Scheinman & Alison Miller, Parlour Game
52. Steve Earle, Ghosts of West Virginia
53. Wednesday, Bleeds
54. Jane Weaver, The Silver Globe
55. Eric Dolphy, The Illinois Concert
56. Warren Zevon, Excitable Boy
57. Willie Nelson & Ray Price, San Antonio Rose
58. Wayne Hancock, Swing Time
59. James McMurtry, Live in Aught Three
60. Screaming Females, All at Once
61. Tal National, Kaani
62. Laura Gibson, Empire Builder
63. Guy Clark, Cold Dog Soup
64. LCD Soundsystem, This is Happening
65. Christopher Paul Stelling, Itinerant Arias
66. PJ Harvey, White Chalk
67. David Olney, Live in Holland
68. Margaret Glaspy, Emotions and Math
69. Smog, Dongs of Sevotion
70. Nick Drake, Five Leaves Left
71. Drive By Truckers, The Big To Do
72. The Meat Purveyors, Pain by Numbers
73. Buddy Tabor, Hope: The First Step Toward Disillusionment
74. Alejandro Escovedo, With These Hands
75. Lydia Loveless, Nothing’s Gonna Stand in My Way Again
76. Wussy, Attica
77. Bill Callahan, Dream River
78. David Vandervelde, Waiting for the Sunrise
79. Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Inner Mounting Flame
80. S.G. Goodman, Painting by the Signs
81. Bonnie Prince Billy, The Purple Bird
82. Tropical Fuck Storm, A Laughing Death in Meatspace
83. Tom Russell, Blood and Candle Smoke
84. Richard Thompson, Front Parlour Ballads
85. Ralph McTell, Right Side Up
86. Allen Toussaint, Life, Love, and Faith
87. John Moreland, In the Throes
88. Empress Of, I’m Your Empress Of
89. Marissa Nadler, The Path of the Clouds
90. Patterson Hood, Murdering Oscar (and Other Love Songs)
91. Jenny Lewis, Rabbit Fur Coat

Album Reviews:

Maps, Counter Melodies

A 2023 electronic album. Every time I listen to a highly praised electronic album that doesn’t have lyrics, I wonder about the appeal. Does this guy make some good beats? Sure. Is it danceable? Well, I’m not sure, at least compared to a lot of electronic music. But since I’m not listening to it while dancing, that’s kind of irrelevant to me anyway. So what is the point? If I’m looking for background music, there’s a lot of other stuff I can listen to instead and the music itself doesn’t captivate, me at least. As far as it goes for something like this, it’s alright, with a very lush sound. But I wouldn’t listen to LCD Soundsystem without the actual songs either.

C+

Halsey, Great Impersonator

The reviews of the latest Halsey album is a mix between love and thinking it not good at all. I’m in the middle here. I don’t mind the confessionalism and I don’t mind the arrangements much. She’s been through some bad things and doesn’t mind singing about them. In the end, songs about how hard it is to be famous have a very short shelf life for me, though they are honestly enough earned for someone who has had the decade she has had. In the end, yeah, it’s alright. Deep analysis, I know.

B

Quantic, DJ-Kicks

I like Quantic a lot as a producer when he is working with great singers such as Nidia Gongora or Alice Russell. This album of him working with a bunch of global bands that also fit his aesthetic is more like really really good background music. Quantic and Frente Cumbiero and The Heliocentrics makes a lot of sense and it’s good as far as it goes, but it sounds exactly like I’d think it would sound, by which I mean more of a song structure. If I wanted some producer-heavy music for background that I would theoretically listen to by choice, this might be it, but it’s still only marginally interesting.

B

Kingfish Ingram, Live in London

The problem with Kingfish is the problem with what the blues have become, which is a rote excuse for long, pointless guitar solos that all more or less sound the same, all around songs that no longer have the importance that they did for the blues in its decades long heyday. The story here is a lot like bluegrass, where instrumental virtuosity around a very limited sound palette became not only the norm but the only way to have a successful career for a bunch of fans–usually old whites–who aren’t going to be very happy if the music isn’t precisely what they want. In blues, it’s basically a version of slow jams with a LOT of electric guitar solos. At least bluegrass has its hippie version, which I don’t like, but is at least a bit different if also around wanking off to solos instead of focusing on songs. Blues is even more limited. Kingfish is very good at what he does, but what he does is serve as nostalgia act.

B-

Mary Chapin Carpenter, Personal History

Carpenter was amazing live at Newport Folk Festival. The new album is more OK. It’s just a very low key release. It’s the album of an aging person looking back and looking ahead to deal with her mortality. There’s a lot of these albums in the history of the folk/songwriter world for the same reason that there’s lots of albums by artists in their 20s about dating and breakups and sex. It’s a natural part of life. What this ends up being then is a nice set of songs, but as an album, the melancholy can lead to some musical sameness since there’s not much changing of the tempos. So it’s kind of a downbeat but touching set of songs. Solid, but not a top release of the year. Nothing wrong with that.

B

Robbie Fulks, Now Then

Like the Carpenter album above, the new Robbie Fulks is an example of the again folk singer dealing with his mortality. Fulks doesn’t look 62, but that’s how old he is and obviously that’s going to have an impact on a person. He remains the witty smartass he always was, though with a lot more maturity than the man who wrote “Fuck This Town” and early songs like that. He’s gotten a lot more pensive over the years and boy does the lead track, which sounds like nothing in his catalog before this, demonstrate that. Stylistically, this is a very interesting album. For this album, he moved sharply away from the bluegrass of his last couple of albums and toward everything from lightly picked mournful nostalgia to rock and roll. He’s never been one to rest on his laurels and he never had a narrow view of his musical genre either. What I’m not totally convinced is that this is the best set of songs he’s had. A lot of them are memory based, from trips with his family as a child to being around New York rockers back in the day. There are definitely highlights, especially “That Was Juarez, This Is Alpine,” about a journey into Mexico and back but also a meditation on the border. “Your Tormentors” is a very interesting cut, an almost mid-century shuffle about how no one is really going to do anything about family violence if the abuser is a rich guy. And “The Thirty-Year Marriage” is a very good track about, well, being in a successful marriage for three decades. It’s quite lovely. So yeah, this is a pretty good album and solid contribution to Fulks’ discography, if not quite Georgia Hard or Bluegrass Vacation.

Here’s a real good interview with Fulks about the album. Unsurprisingly, he’s a good subject.

B

Lionel Loueke & Dave Holland, United

Of course I know Holland, but I did not know the Benin-born guitarist Loueke and mostly this project works quite well, even though it is just a duet. But as a guitar-bass album, there is some fascinating interplay here. Loueke reminds me just a little bit of Bill Frisell, though obviously with a different soundscape mentality. Loueke provides some good guitar work and the whole thing really does split the difference between jazz and west African folk music, with no shortage of Brazilian influences here too. While I think some percussion would complete the sound and thus for me it can be a bit of a demo sound, it’s certainly successful on its own terms. I’d listen again.

B+

As always, this is an open thread for all things music and art and none things politics.