ThroughWithBuzz

The King Is Gone: George Jones RIP

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 20:33:43 +0000

He was the singer’s singer, acknowledged as the gold standard in country music for so long it’s impossible to tell when he was given that designation. Unlike the Rolling Stones, who called themselves the World’s Greatest Rock & Roll Band, or Michael Jackson, who insisted the press label him the King Of Pop, George Jones never bestowed this honor upon himself. It just was agreed by all concerned that he was the best, that there was no one better before or since. Such was the enormity of Jones’ gift: it was towering, overshadowing his idols, influencing all that came in his wake, defining what it meant to be a country singer. It was so big it often seemed that Jones himself was a mere vessel for his voice. Often, it seemed that his voice was something that existed outside of him, something he could harness and shape but not quite control. His phrasing, subtle and supple even when he wasn’t singing ballads, was exquisite and seemingly effortless, the hitches and bends not added for affect–as it could sometimes seem with Frank Sinatra, who often acted a song as much as he lived it–but there because that is how he felt at that precise moment.

Living in the moment was George Jones blessing and curse. It kept his music alive but locked his life in chaos, as he succumbed to a variety of addictions, first booze, then adding drugs along the way. George often sang brilliantly when he was in the throes of addiction but that only underscores the suspicion that the gift controlled him, not the other way around. Certainly, the arc of his career suggests that Jones never was bothered with the nuts and bolts of running his life, letting others take the reigns from the start and always seeming happier when somebody else was running the show. Unlike Sinatra–a comparison that’s hard to shake, as there are so few singers that embody the entirety of their sound, style, even century as Frank and George–Jones never exerted much control over what he recorded, nor did he ever bother to take the time to shape those songs into something resembling a concept album. He sang what he was given, sometimes throwing a fuss–reportedly, he was none too keen on “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” his defining anthem — but almost always singing the song anyway.

This lack of discipline meant George Jones often served at the whims of his manager or producer and he had three great ones in his life: Pappy Daily, the east Texas recordman who discovered him in 1953; Billy Sherrill, the Columbia/Epic house producer in Nashville who began working with Jones in 1969; and Nancy Jones, his fourth and final wife who helped the singer get sober in the 80s and steered him through a final act lived on the straight and narrow. During that final act, which overlaps somewhat with the second as George didn’t get out of his Epic contract until 1991, Jones made solid, respectable records that were often good and sometimes celebrated–1994′s The Bradley Barn Sessions and 1999′s i both received strong reviews at the time, although it’s unlikely many listen to them now–but didn’t quite expand his legend. That legend was built entirely on his work with Daily and Sherrill, strong-willed men that used Jones for their own needs.

Daily discovered George early in the ’50s and immediately recognized Jones’ potential. Once he signed the singer, he started to work George hard, releasing single after single before “Why Baby Why” caught fire in 1955. That one hit didn’t guarantee stardom–it did not help that it was undercut by a quick cover by Webb Pierce–so Daily continued to record Jones, letting honky tonk alternate with rockabilly (including a one-off single released under the brilliant pseudonym Thumper Jones) until there was enough of an audience Daily sold the entire Starday label to Mercury. Jones was the reason why Mercury was interested in Starday and their investment paid off in 1959 when the galloping “White Lightning” became his first number one single. From that point, George was a fixture on the charts, with 1961′s “Tender Years” — a chart-topper for seven weeks — pushing him into true stardom. Just as George’s star was ascendant, Daily moved house once again, taking himself and his singer over to United Artists. This was at the beginning of the ’60s and this was the beginning of George’s true golden age, as he honed his trademark ballad style–the influence of Johnny Paycheck, a bassist in his touring band The Jones Boys, was unmistakable–cut dozens of hard country duets with Melba Montgomery, sang western swing and the purest Texas honky tonk that ever was recorded. Musically, he was at a peak and he was selling well so Daily did what a good recordman would do. He recorded George. Over and over again. Soon came full-length tributes to idols Hank Williams and Bob Wills, gospel albums, covers of contemporary country hits and, every so often, brand-new tunes. It was a lot of songs–enough so George essentially stopped writing–but these prolific UA years would pale in comparison to what came at Musicor, a label that signed Daily and Jones in 1965. Over the course of six short years, Jones recorded hundreds of songs, stockpiling material for an innumerable amount of LPs. There were certainly hits–some of his very best, including “A Good Year For The Roses,” which Elvis Costello later covered, and “Things Have Gone To Pieces”–but Jones also re-recorded his old hits, even songs he released early in his tenure at Musicor, and spent even more time covering his peers, singing a bunch of old tunes and even more songs that were distinguished by little more than Jones’ impeccable voice.

From one perspective, that was enough. HIs talent was so immense that it was a pleasure to simply hear him sing but from another angle, there was just no quality control. Pappy Daily knew he had a cash cow and he was determined to milk it dry, a position that tarnished George’s first golden era without quite dimming it completely. At Musicor, Pappy literally had George sing anything he thought would sell, including some trippy paisley-colored protest tunes, but there was never a sense either Jones or Daily had musical interest in the emerging progressive country movement, nor did George show much interest in the red-hot Bakersfield sound. He covered Buck Owens and Merle Haggard not because he wanted to co-opt a bit of that electrified twang but rather because it was on the charts. Similarly, when outlaws took over Nashville in the ’70s, George never was part of the posse. He was always happy to be part of the music machine, which explains why he flourished artistically once he parted ways with Daily in ’70s and rooted himself in Nashville, making his home at Epic Records with Billy Sherrill.

Sherrill had long been the house producer for Epic in Nashville and one of his great successes was Tammy Wynette, the singer Jones fell madly in love with at the end of the ’60s. George and Tammy were anxious to cut records together so Epic was the natural home for Jones. Sherrill seized the opportunity to record George and, savvy guy he was, he came up with a brilliant idea: he had George songs that mirrored his well-publicized lovelife. Initially, this meant many songs about joy and love–his 1972 debut for the label was called We Can Make It, a testament to his faith in the relationship–but soon this meant many songs of recrimination and regret as George & Tammy’s relationship fell apart. The titles of the hits tell the taiel: “We Can Make It,” “Loving You Could Never Be Better” and “What My Woman Can’t Do” were followed months later by “The Grand Tour” of an empty home, “The Door” closing,” then admitting “These Days (I Barely Get By),” remembering “Memories Of Us” after “The Battle.” Sherrill and Epic were not above exploiting this fractured relationship–the album Jones released after the divorce was Alone Again–and, in a sense, the 1980 hit “He Stopped Loving Her Today” acted as the coda to this story: when Jones sings “He said I’d love you til I die,” it’s understood that George is singing about Tammy, his one true love that he’d never let go.

Life didn’t really turn out that way. His true love was Nancy, who he married in March of 1983. George and Nancy were married until he died on April 26, 2013, during which time he occasionally sang with Tammy but there never was a question that his heart belonged to Nancy, who gave him not only companionship but direction in his career, a more benevolent version of Pappy Daily. Sherrill did manage to corral some excellent songs for the sober Jones–the not-bad “She’s My Rock” tapped into a bit an autobiographical bent reminiscent of the George-and-Tammy anthems, but they’re eclipsed by the self-mythologizing “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes” (a song that now seems more poignant in his death) and similarly nostalgic novelty “The One I Loved Back Then (The Corvette Song)” and the rather brilliant “The King Is Gone (So Are You,” a hybrid of novelty and tear-in-beer drinking song–but he began to run on autopilot around the mid-’80s. Jones’ ’90s albums for MCA were more ambitious, either swinging for the charts (1993′s High-Tech Redneck) or buttressing his reputation as the greatest country singer that ever lived (The Bradley Barn Sessions, Cold Hard Truth).

He basically stopped recording in the new millennium because he didn’t need to. He made money on the road and he’d already put his life, all of its little ups and downs, on record. Already, his legions of fans were sharply divided upon what constituted his golden age. Some will always contend his earliest records were his best, that they were the purest country he ever recorded. And they’re right: this is when George was in thrall to Hank Williams but also when he started to develop his own voice, relying on dusty Texas barroom ballads (“Color of the Blues,” “Window Up Above”), writing the effervescent “Tall Tall Trees” with Roger Miller, rocking with abandon on “Revenooer Man” and “White Lightning.” Some claim George’s finest was in the ’60s, starting with his late-period Mercury side “Tender Years” and extending through “She Thinks I Still Care,” “We Must Have Been Out of Our Minds,” “You Comb Her Hair” and “Brown To Blue,” exquisite ballads that showcase his ease as a singer, as he slides into familiar, reassuring settings. And they’re right: these United Artists recordings, along with the Musicor years that followed, are George’s golden age, when he sang anything and everything, always making it sound robust, even wild, and the productions have just enough texture and color–piano and backing vocals, reverb and strings–so they sound fresher, closer to what modern country is than the ’50s sides. Some argue to the death that the Billy Sherrill-produced singles and albums of the ’70s are Jones’ peak, as he not only was focused but Sherrill’s productions are mini country-operas, the country equivalent of Sinatra’s work with Gordon Jenkins. And they’re right: far from swallowing Jones, Sherrill’s wall of sounds enhances and illuminates him, giving the recordings a richness that’s never too sweet but also strong evidence of how Jones could indeed sculpt that natural gift when working with the right producer.

For a singer that always seemed country and never strayed toward pop, George Jones contained multitudes. There was an unfathomable depth even in his simplest recordings, and there was enough variety to satisfy any kind of country fan. Now that he’s truly gone, it becomes clear that there is nobody to fill his shoes and, furthermore, there’s nobody that is even attempting to try. For a while, there were plenty of imitators: the new traditionalists of the ’80s were filled with the likes of Alan Jackson and Randy Travis, singers unashamed of their debt to the great man. But after the ’90s, particularly after the rise of Garth Brooks, there just weren’t many vocalists who even attempted to be the stylist George Jones was, a singer that could bend any song to his own will. Part of this is due to their clear rock influence–the rhythms were louder, even on the ballads, pushing the vocals to the background–but country radio became even more indebted to records that were records, not grand live performances. And, in a way, that’s George’s legacy, too, as that’s a natural extension of the dense psycho-dramas of his classic ’70s work with Sherrill, as they were the first Nashville recordings to be so much about the totality of the recording. No matter how good those Sherrill productions are, what hooks you in is the voice, the supple, weathered, elastic voice that zeroed in on the nuances of every song, even the silly ones. Over and over, George Jones proved what he could do couldn’t be done, and now that he’s gone the enormity of his gift and his influence seems greater than ever. Forget the “country” modifier–George Jones very well may have been the greatest singer that ever lived.

Recommended Recordings

A Spotify List, one that attempt to get it all but probably doesn’t: King Is Gone: RIP George Jones

THE BASICS

Essential George Jones: Spirit of Country http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-essential-george-jones-the-spirit-of-country-mw0000626732

A double-disc collection released in 1994, The Essential George Jones: The Spirit of Country chronicles the prime of George’s career. Many great songs are missing–it’s only 44 songs, how could it not miss a few essentials?–but it tells his story better than any other collection.

The Essential George Jones

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-essential-george-jones-mw0000409734

Close inspection reveals that this 2006 double-disc isn’t a replica of the 1994 collection. It’s not quite as good as that ’94 double-disc–it casts its net wider, so too many major hits are missing–but, unlike that set, this is in print, which gives it a significant advantage. Of all the comps you could purchase today, this does the best job of providing an overview of his entire career.

Definitive Collection 1955-1962

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-definitive-collection-1955-1962-mw0000476693

The best available collection of George’s earliest recordings, concentrating on Starday/Mercury sides but dipping into the UA singles at the end.

The Complete United Artists Solo Singles

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-complete-united-artists-solo-singles-mw0002475194

Released earlier this year, this double-disc rounds up all the As and Bs George released as a solo act while he was at United Artists. This is when he struck gold with “She Thinks I Still Care” and “The Race Is On” and racked up a number of chart singles along with great pure country tunes. In some ways, this was his peak.

The Great Lost Hits

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-great-lost-hits-2-cd-mw0001957514

George’s Musicor recordings were impossible to find for years but at the end of the 2000s the licensing restrictions loosened, resulting in two completist sets for Bear Family and this wonderful double-disc set for Time/Life. This rounds up all the charting songs Jones had for Musicor along with a few stray songs and this, in some ways, presents him at a peak. He was recording too much at this point–the Bear Family boxes can test the patience–but he was singing beautifully, as these hits prove

Anniversary: Ten Years of Hits http://www.allmusic.com/album/anniversary-ten-years-of-hits-mw0000190520

The first and still the best roundup of George’s Epic hits, this winds up telling the tale of George & Tammy’s tumultous marriage, then provides some lonesome codas–including his signature song “He Stopped Loving Her Today”–that are gorgeous.

The Grand Tour

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-grand-tour-mw0000183534

If you’re looking for one proper album that captures everything great about George Jones, you might want to turn here, a 1974 collection that may be his best album.

THE BOX SETS

Cup Of Loneliness

http://www.allmusic.com/album/cup-of-loneliness-the-classic-mercury-years-mw0000119481

Currently out of print–and it may wind up being supplanted later this year by a Bear Family set–this collects the majority of George’s Starday and Mercury recordings, which are the hardest, purest country he ever cut.

She Thinks I Still Care: The Complete United Artists Recordings 1962-1964

http://www.allmusic.com/album/she-thinks-i-still-care-the-complete-united-artists-recordings-1962-1964-bear-family-mw0000780867

Jones jumped ship to United Artists in 1962 and started recording an astronomical amount of material. All of it is captured on this Bear Family set, not all of it great, but all of it good, and it’s kind of astonishing to hear Jones tackle all these styles without a hitch.

Walk Through This World With Me: The Complete Musicor Recordings 1965-1971, Pt 1

http://www.allmusic.com/album/walk-through-this-world-with-me-the-complete-musicor-recordings-1965-1971-pt-1-mw0000665420

Until this set, George Jones’ Musicor side were locked up in the vaults. This and its companion reveal how much great material he made in these six years but they also reveal how much he recorded: he cut more than could be sold, which makes this box slightly exhausting. Nevertheless, there are gems to be found here and it’s worthwhile for the dedicated.

A Good Year For The Roses: The Complete Musicor Recordings 1965-1971, Pt 2

http://www.allmusic.com/album/a-good-year-for-the-roses-the-complete-musicor-recordings-1965-1971-pt-2-mw0001749521

Like its companion Walk Through This World With Me, A Good Year For The Roses contains more music than may be necessary, as Jones recorded simply too much when he was signed to Musicor. This has some of his weirdest music (“Poor Chinee,” “Unwanted Babies”), along with some of his best, which makes it great for those that want to immerse themselves in Jones in the thick of his recording career.

FURTHER LISTENING

Step Right Up 1970-1979: A Critical Anthology

http://www.allmusic.com/album/step-right-up-1970-1979-a-critical-anthology-mw0000808690

Released on the Australian label Raven, this is a terrific collection of George’s best Sherrill-produced Epic singles.

George Jones Sings Hank Williams (http://www.allmusic.com/album/george-jones-salutes-hank-williams-mw0000691586)

An earlyMercury LP where George in thrall to his idol Hank Williams. He cut another Williams tribute for UA but this is a purer, better album than its successor.

New Favorites of George Jones

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-new-favorites-of-george-jones-mw0000644455

One of his earliest albums for UA, it’s also one of his best, capturing a good mix of strong songs, covers, rip-offs and hits.

George Jones Sings Bob Wills

http://www.allmusic.com/album/george-jones-sings-bob-wills-mw0000119316

While he was at UA, George recorded gospel albums, tributes to Hank Williams and Bob Wills, the latter being perhaps the best thing he did at the label.

Blue And Lonesome

http://www.allmusic.com/album/blue-amp-lonesome-mw0000878191

Expanded upon its CD reissue, this collection of basics winds up seeming nearly transcendent thanks to a sharply-selected collection of bonus tracks.

Great Songs of Leon Payne http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-george-jones-sings-the-great-songs-of-leon-payne-mw0000075920

It’s hard to call any Musicor-era LP a considered masterpiece but this album of Leon Payne songs may be the best thing he did for the label.

A Picture of Me (Without You)/Nothing Ever Hurt Me (Half As Bad As Losing You)

http://www.allmusic.com/album/a-picture-of-me-without-you-nothing-ever-hurt-me-half-as-bad-as-losing-you-mw0000045791

A two-fer of two of George’s greatest albums for Epic–both produced by Billy Sherrill, as all of his Epic records were–this makes a case that Jones spent time on crafting albums, which all other evidence refutes.

Memories of Us/The Battle http://www.allmusic.com/album/memories-of-us-the-battle-mw0000246877

These two albums chronicle the dissolution of George’s relationship with Tammy: they’re operatic and moving, some of the best music he ever made, but almost too calculating on Sherrill’s part. Nevertheless, this is gorgeous music.

I Am What I Am

http://www.allmusic.com/album/i-am-what-i-am-mw0000650327

The album that has “He Stopped Loving Her Today” also has a wealth of broken-hearted ballads and rivals The Grand Tour as his best album.

Vintage Collections With Melba Montgomery http://www.allmusic.com/album/vintage-collections-series-mw0000179879

Tammy Wynette was exier but Melba Montgomery was the best duet partner George Jones ever had and this collection rounds up all the best moments the two had together.

George & Tammy: Greatest Hits

http://www.allmusic.com/album/george-amp-tammy-greatest-hits-mw0002267139

Original 1977 LP contains all the big hits George & Tammy had together. Other comps came later but this is still the best distillation of their partnership.

Cold Hard Truth

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-cold-hard-truth-mw0000666462

The last album George cut that made any impact, Cold Hard Truth is slightly too indebted to good taste but it nevertheless is a strong record, the best he made during his third act.

SXSW 2013 Concluding Thoughts

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 15:09:36 +0000

By the time South By Southwest spirals into its Saturday climax I’m worn out. Three (or four) days of meetings, panels, discussions, walking, running, drinking and eating on the run takes its toll. And so this year I just sat out Saturday, choosing to recuperate instead of ping-ponging down all ends of 6th Street, because I already got what I needed out of SXSW. (The great and frustrating thing about the conference/festival is that there’s so much stuff happening you can tailor a satisfying personal experience and yet still think you’ve missed many vital experiences.) This year, I wound up focused heavily on discussions of where listeners are, how fans listen to (or discover), how artists can maximize their revenue, all the ramifications of the digitization of the music industry, a sea-change that was celebrated via the world premiere of Alex Winter’s Napster documentary, Downloaded. Dave Grohl’s keynote played into this theme–through his Sound City project, he’s pushing the “human element” in music–and there was something invigorating in his enthusiasm for making noise, listening to records and shedding guilty pleasures (themes that played into his Sound City Players revue at Stubbs, a gargantuan three-hour affair that perhaps offered too much of a good thing).

Much of this artist-driven talk focused on maximizing your user base, identifying your hardcore fans, getting them to spend anywhere from 20 to 200 dollars in making them part of the experience. PledgeMusic has had success in this arena and KickStarter has too, with Amanda Palmer happily serving as the face of this trend of finalizing mobilizing the dedicated cult. Amidst this there was some discussion of those artists who are either not internet-savvy or do not play music that lends itself to devoted net-based following. Similarly, there was only a little discussion of new acts that did not benefit from major marketing pushes, the way that Palmer and Ben Folds Five did at the start of their career. For artists that either don’t follow fashion or are unknown, the internet provides as many pitfalls as opportunities: it’s really hard to get heard among all the noise.

Of course, SXSW itself is a microcosm of this problem. There is more live music than you could possibly hear in a lifetime, all crammed into five days. There is no way to see everything you’d like and there’s no way to make sense of it all. You can choose to spend your time waiting in line for the heavily-hyped shows by veterans (Prince, Justin Timberlake, Green Day, Dave Grohl, Nick Cave, Smashing Pumpkins, Afghan Whigs, etc), all of whom not only know how to deliver a hell of a show but also knowing that they need to perform at a peak because they’ll get considerable mileage out of their one performance (this also applies to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Depeche Mode, Fall Out Boy and Iggy & The Stooges, who all have albums on the horizon). For those who choose to spend their time this way, it’s worth the wait; it’s entertainers entertaining. Many attendees wait in long lines but not for specific acts; they line up at parties (particularly during the day) because events are free, beer is free and they’re happy to be in the mix, not especially caring what they hear. Naturally, many members of this audience may find something they love at one of these showcases but they’re by nature different than the hardcore music fan at SXSW, the ones that hop from venue to venue, hoping to see some specific acts but often wandering into a bar because it’s not so crowded and that band playing at 3 in the afternoon may be making righteous noise. These SXSW attendees love being able to hear so much music in so little time, just like how in the online world they immerse themselves in streaming services and downloads, happy to hear every little scrap.

In other words, SXSW has the four main types of fans identified by Nielsen’s Buyers & Beats survey announced here during the Interactive part of the conference. There are the aficionados, who seek out new music and are loyal to their favorites; the “digital fans” who devote themselves to what’s hip and new; the “big box” fans who just like established stars; and the “occasional concert consumer” who enjoys going out to shows so they can have a good time. Nielsen argues to maximize profit it’s best to devote all the energy to deepening the experience for the first two or three groups because they’re ready to spend the money, but if SXSW Music is any indication what the could wind up meaning is that we get more and more of the big-name showcases because that’s where the revenue lies; the clutter of all the other acts, from veterans like Richard Thompson and Rodney Crowell to indie-upstarts like Warm Soda and Spider Bags, just winds up as background noise fighting for attention.

Favorite Albums Of 2012

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:57:07 +0000

As mentioned in the previous reissue post, I kept an ongoing list of albums I liked this year, so it was both easier and harder to finalize a year-end list at the conclusion of the year. Easier, because I had notes to jog my memory; harder, because editing is a bitch. Like the other Allmusic editors, I published my Top 20 on Allmusic but this is a full list of 98, ranked according to preference as of this second week of December. I guarantee you a month later the ranking would change and a few titles might drop out and a few others would be added; that’s the nature of these things. I feel pretty comfortable with my top three (or maybe four), as those are the ones that I’ve played the most, but who knows. On Spotify, I am gathering many of these albums into a gargantuan playlist (STE 2012 albums) but what might be more entertaining is the highlight list (STE 2012)

Fiona Applie–The Idler Wheel

Dwight Yoakam–3 Pears

Donald Fagen–Sunken Condos

Ke$ha–Warrior

Jessie Ware–Devotion

Bob Mould–Silver Age

Ty Segall–Twins

Norah Jones–Little Broken Hearts

Frank Ocean–channelOrange

Jerrod Niemann–Free The Music

Pink–Truth About Love

Jack White – Blunderbuss

Jamey Johnson–Living For A Song (A Tribute to Hank Cochran)

Carly Rae Jepsen–Kiss

David Byrne & St Vincent–Love This Giant

Elle Varner–Perfectly Imperfect

Grimes–Visions

Robert Glasper Experiment–Black Radio

Turnpike Troubadours–Goodbye Normal Street

Brandi Carlile–Bear Creek

Peter Buck–Peter Buck

BreakBot–By Your Side

Bob Dylan–Tempest

Paul Weller – Sonik Kicks

Low Cut Connie–Call Me Sylvia

Beak–>>

Taylor Swift – Red

Graham Coxon–A+E

Killer Mike–Rap Music

Lee Ranaldo–Between The Times And Tides

Dr John–Locked Down

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti–Mature Themes

Corin Tucker Band–Kill My Blues

Redd Kross–Researching the Blues

Miguel–Kaleidoscope Dream

Blackberry Smoke–The Whipporwool

Toby Keith–Hope On The Rocks

Van Halen–A Different Kind of Truth

Bobby Bare–Darker Than Light

ZZ Top–La Futura

JD McPherson–Signs and Signfiers

Christina Aguilera–Lotus

Green Day – Dos

Beach Boys–That’s Why God Made The Radio

Public Enemy–Evil Empire of Everything

Public Enemy–Most of My Heroes Still Don’t Appear On No Stamp

Dinosaur Jr – I Bet On Sky

Disappears–Pre Language

Don Williams–And So It Goes

Madness–Oui Oui, Si Si, Ja Ja, Da Da

Graham Parker–Three Chords Good

Aimee Mann–Charmer

Little Willies–For the Good Times

Adam Lambert–Trespassing

Kelly Pickler–100 Proof

Colbie Caillat–Christmas In the Sand

The Men–Open Your Heart

Sara Watkins–Sun Midnight Sun

Bat for Lashes–The Haunted Man

Cat Power–Sun

Tame Impala–Lonerism

Kendrick Lamar–good kid, m.A.A.D. city

Bobby Womack–The Bravest Man in the Universe

Ian Hunter–When I’m President

Japandroids–Celebration Rock

Led Zeppelin–Celebration Day

Gary Clark Jr – Black & Blu

Carrie Underwood–Blown Away

Clinic–Free Reign

King Tuff–King Tuff

Sharon Van Etten–Tramp

Gaz Coombes–Presents Here Come The Bombs

Aaron Freeman–Marvelous Clouds

Mountain Goats–Transcendental Youth

Elizabeth Cook–Gospel Plow

Lyle Lovett–Release Me

Bonnie Raitt–Slipstream

Little Big Town–Tornado

Alejandro Escovedo–Big Station

Divine Fits–A Thing Called Divine Fits

Dr Dog–Be The Void

Shoes–Ignition

Chris Robinson–Big Moon Ritual/The Magic Door

Dion–Tank Full of Blues

Punks On Mars–Bad Expectations

Grizzly Bear–Shields

Dirty Projectors–Swing Lo Magellan

Kelly Hogan–I Like To Keep Myself In Pain

Grace Potter & The Nocturnals–The Lion The Beast The Beat

The dB’s–Falling Off The Sky

Shooter Jennings–Family Man

Fun–Some Nights

Blur–Parklive

Jeff Lynne–Long Wave

Waylon Jennings–Goin Down Rockin: The Last Recordings of Waylon Jennings

Marty Stuart–Nashville, Vol. 1: Tear The Woodpile Down

Diana Krall–Glad Rag Doll

Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute To Fleetwood Mac

Favorite Reissues of 2012

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:55:16 +0000

At 92 entries, this long list is perhaps a little bit too long but this year I kept a running list of the albums I’ve liked, so I decided to publish them in their entirety. This is ranked but it’s a loose ranking; a month from now, I’d likely tweak it, I’d probably even tweak it in a week. But number one and two are pretty much set in stone, as there were no reissues that I enjoyed more than Bear Family’s complete box of truck driving country king Red Simpson and the terrific Dr Feelgood box. Blur 21, of course, is for diehards–nobody else could digest that much music–but as I am one, it is easy to get lost in its 18 CDs. For anybody that doesn’t want to dig into boxes–and I can’t blame them if they don’t–I’d suggest seeking out Ace’s Boyce & Hart comp, the Little Willie John singles collection, Giant Single, the Jerry Reed two-fer, Sugar’s two-fee, Country Funk 1968-1975 and the Allen Toussaint songbook collection.

Red Simpson–Hello, I’m Red Simpson

Dr. Feelgood–All Through The City: With Wilko

Blur–21

Action! The Songs of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart

Down Under Nuggets: Original Australian Artyfacts 1965-1967

Buck Owens–Tall Dark Stranger: The Buck Owens & The Buckaroos Recordings 1969-1975

Paul McCartney–Ram [Super Deluxe]

Mel McDaniel–Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On: The Original Greatest Hits

Little Willie John–Completes Singles As & Bs

Sugar–Copper Blue/Beaster

Tompall & The Glaser Brothers–The Award Winners/Rings & Things

Merle Haggard–The Troubadour

Giant Single: The Profile Records Anthology

Alex Chilton–Free Again: The “1970″ Sessions

Dick Curless–The Long Lonesome Road

Jerry Reed–Unbelievable Guitar & Voice/Nashville Underground

Small Faces–Small Faces Deluxe Edition Series (Small Faces [Immediate], Small Faces [Decca], From The Beginning, Ogdens Nut Gone Flake)

Philadelphia International: 40th Anniversary

Rolling With The Punches: Allen Toussaint Songbook

Benny Spellman–Fortune Teller

Country Funk 1968-1975

Bobby Bare–As Is/Ain’t Got Nothin’ To Lose

Feeling High: The Psychedelic Sounds of Memphis

Mick Fleetwood’s Zoo–I’m Not Me

Jerry Lee Lewis–The Killer Live 1964 to 1970

English Beat–The Complete Beat

My Bloody Valentine–EPs/Loveless/Isn’t Anything

Barbara Lewis–The Complete Atlantic Singles

Buttons: From Champaign To Chicago

Sugar–File Under Easy Listening [Deluxe]

Muddy Waters–You Shook Me: The Complete Chess Masters, Vol. 3 1958-1963

Rick Nelson–The Complete Epic Recordings

Jerry Lee Lewis–Original Classic Albums 1965-1969

Kinks–Kinks At the BBC

Velvet Underground – Velvet Underground & Nico [Super Deluxe Edition]

Roxy Music–Complete Studio Recordings

Chris Kenner–I Like It Like That: The Definitive Chris Kenner Collection 1956-1968

20/20–20/20/Look Out!

Listen Whitey! The Sounds of Black Power 1965-1975

Dallas: The Music Story

Elvis Presley–Elvis Country [Legacy edition]

Shoes–35 Years
Smash Boom Bang! The Songs and Productions of Feldman-Goldstein-Gottehrer

Jerry Lee Lewis–A Whole Lotta Jerry Lee Lewis

Johnny Cash–The Complete Columbia Album Collection

Moving Sidewalks–The Complete Collection

Ian Hunter–From The Knees Of My Heart, The Chrysalis Years

Eddie Rabbitt–13 #1 Hits

Silver Jews–Early Times

10cc–Tenology

Sir Douglas Quintet–Border Wave

Marty Cooper–I Wrote A Song: The Complete 1970s Recordings

Every Mother’s Son–Come On Down: The Complete MGM Recordings

Lon & Derrek Van Eaton–Brother

Little Richard–Here’s Little Richard

BJ Thomas–The Complete Scepter Singles

Brewer & Shipley–Down In LA

Don Williams–Volume 1/Volume 2

Ike Turner Studio Productions

Laura Lee Perkins–Don’t Wait Up!

Behind Closed Doors: Where Country Meets Soul

Athens, GA Inside/Out

Cockney Rebel–Cavaliers (An Anthology 1973-1974)

Sanford & Townsend–Smoke From A Distant Fire/Nail Me to the Wall

Plug It In! Turn It Up! Electric Blues, Vols. 1-4

Billy Brown–Did We Have A Party: Honky Tonk Heroes

Electric Prunes–Complete Reprise Singles

All Kinds Of Highs: A Mainstream Pop-Psych Compendium 1966-1970

Street Corner Symphonies: A History of Doo-Wop, Vols. 1-10

WTNG: I’d Like To Touch A Star

Elvis Heard Them Here First

Surf Age Nuggets

Marvin Gaye–Trouble Man 40th Anniversary

Brecker Brothers–The Complete Arista Albums

Bobby Bare–Hard Time Hungrys/The Winner Is

Albert King–I’ll Play The Blues For You

Amen Corner–Round Amen Corner: The Complete Deram Recordings

Kaleidoscope--Tangerine Dream

Tubes–Young And Rich/Now

The Knack–Rock & Roll Is Good For You

Have Mercy! The Songs of Don Covay

Michael Jackson–Bad 25th Anniversary

REM–Document [deluxe]

Gilbert O’Sullivan–Back To Front/Southpaw

Eccentric Soul: A Red Green Black Production

The Critters–Younger Girl: The Complete Kapp and Musicor Recordings

Magic Sam–Live 1969: Raw Blues!

Utopia–Live at Hammersmith Odeon

CW McCall–Wolfcreek Pass

Clover–Clover/Fourty Niner

TV Sound & Image

Peter Gabriel–So [Immersion Edition]

Moe Tucker–I Feel So Far Away: The Anthology

Rock & Roll Archeology : Surf-Age Nuggets Trash & Twang Instrumentals 1959-1966

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 19:27:15 +0000

If any rock & roll subculture is ripe for an archeological dig it is surf-rock, that phenomenon of the early ‘60s created by off-set guitars and reverb as wide as the Pacific Ocean. Surf certainly has a pivotal place in the rock & roll canon, its sharp twang and glassy reverb echoing throughout the decades, connoting not just a specific time but a mindset (think of how Quentin Tarantino scored significant chunks of Pulp Fiction to surf 45s). Outside of the basic canon of the Beach Boys, Dick Dale and the Ventures, artist names aren’t well-known—not even those of the Chantays and the Sufaris, the groups responsible for “Pipeline” and “Wipe Out”—and generally speaking the singles are interchangeable, the band’s subtle identifying quirks known only to aficionados. If this is true of the relatively well-known songs—cuts by the Bel-Airs, the Frogmen, the Tornadoes and the Lively Ones—it’s doubly true of the forgotten and unknown acts that comprise RockBeat’s 2012 box set Surf-Age Nuggets Trash & Twang Instrumentals 1959-1966, a four-disc set that illustrates just how much trashy rock & roll was left behind in Surf’s wake.

Surf was swept aside by garage rock and, later, psychedelic—the music Lenny Kaye compiled for his original Nuggets in 1972, thereby coining a term for not just a specific sound but a kind of forgotten record. Over the years, “nuggets” referred to any kind of neglected single, but the rock & roll on Surf-Age Nuggets—all instrumental, all primarily recorded in the first half the ‘60s before bluesy, nasty rip-offs of the Stones, Yardbirds and Kinks elbowed all this aside—does indeed share a similar reckless adolescent spirit, even when the music was made by professionals eager to cash in on a craze. Along with them come teenagers and frat-rockers from across this great nation, each eager to stomp out Chuck Berry changes and cascading Dick Dale groovers, sometimes adding a bit of color with a cheap organ but usually relying on that intoxicating combo of clean, echoing guitar and bouncing bass. Strictly speaking, there’s not a lot of surprise here; the melodies and riffs are different but it all sounds and feels the same as the singles that were so thoroughly absorbed into pop culture. And that’s by no means a bad thing. Sure, even with radio commercials peppered throughout for variety it can be a little bit too much to digest in one sitting, but there are no valleys to Surf-Age Nuggets, it offers over 100 tracks of pretty good surf.

So, what puts Surf-Age Nuggets over the top is not the music itself but the package as a whole. Along with this bevy of rare rock & roll comes a terrific book detailing all the glory of the peak years of surf. Ads for Fender guitars and surfing gear rub shoulders with comic book covers, photos, single artwork and concert posters, all creating a richly detailed portrait of a time filled with teenage trash. It’s hard to call any of this timeless but that’s the point: this isn’t music or culture that has transcended time, it is of a certain time, when countless bands played variations of the same song, all hoping they could get the right break and get a hit but if they didn’t, it was all fun while it lasted. And Surf-Age Nuggets proves that it was indeed a lot of fun.

Top Ten Band Names On The Surf-Age Nuggets Trash & Twang Instrumentals 1959-1966 Box:

The Reekers
The Ron-De-Voo’s
The Rick-A-Shays
The Newport Nomads
The Mosriters
The Nautiloids
The Ree-Gents
The Screscents
The Sinders
The Gestics

Bob Dylan navigates a Tempest

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 17:14:42 +0000

If Together Through Life was the sound of Bob Dylan not trying so very hard, Tempest is its flip: an album where Dylan pushes at his boundaries, sounding very much alive even then death is on his mind. And death does loom over portions of Tempest, shading moments of levity and making its home on the closing epics “Tempest” and “Roll On John.” On the former, Bob spends 14 minutes weaving myths, fables and facts surrounding the Titanic and on the latter he delivers a belated tribute to John Lennon, quoting lyrics and succumbing to easy sentiments rarely heard in Dylan’s songs. Both songs contain irresistible thematic hooks, suggesting a weight neither quite deliver; “Tempest” gets bogged down in its never-ending waltz and “Roll On John” feels incomplete, a song that suggests deeper emotions than it delivers. Excise these two songs from Tempest—an easy enough thing to do, as they not only can be cleanly lopped off the end, cutting the album down to a tight 48 minutes, but the preceding “Tin Angel” delivers a haunting note-perfect close to the rest of the record—and the album winds up as a worthy companion to Modern Times, trading in a similar blend of urban blues, rock & roll, old timey crooning and folk. This Americana blend is now Dylan’s signature and his longtime band—guitarist Charlie Sexton, guitarist Stu Kimball, bassist Tony Garnier, drummer George G. Receli, sometimes augmented by David Hidalgo of Los Lobos—is so at ease with these sounds that it’s fun just to hear them navigate the slow, subtle twists, just as it’s a joy to hear Bob sing; he milks the comedy and drama, taking pleasure in pure storytelling. Nowhere are these s this truer than on “Pay In Blood,” “Scarlet Town” and “Tin Angel,” a trio of songs that extended beyond the roadhouse blues he’s claimed as his own. “Pay In Blood” has a crisp, gently propulsive momentum, “Scarlet Town” enigmatically drifts into imagined cinematic Western vistas and “Tin Angel” creeps along on its elastic minor-key riff, slowly ratcheting up tension as it proceeds. These three songs bristle with musical and thematic imagination and when paired with the spirited shuffles “Duquesne Whistle” and “Narrow Way,” the roiling Chicago blues of “Early Roman Kings,” the lovely languid “Soon After Midnight” and slyly mournful “Long And Wasted Years,” Tempest is as good an album as anything Dylan has made in his latter-day renaissance.

Music Diary 2012: Tuesday, May 8

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Tue, 08 May 2012 23:57:18 +0000

Tuesday May 8, 2012

My Tuesday journal for Nick Southall’s MusicDiary2012–and I was remiss yesterday to link back to Nick’s site. Here ‘Tis: http://sickmouthy.com/

Today, like yesterday, was all music listened to during and for work.

Johnny Paycheck – She’s All I Got

Johnny Paycheck – Someone to Give My Love To

Johnny Paycheck – The Feminine Touch

Johnny Paycheck – 11 Months & 29 Days

Johnny Paycheck –Colorado Kool-Aid

Johnny Paycheck – Georgia in a Jug

Johnny Paycheck – Me & The IRS

Johnny Paycheck – Friend, Lover, Wife

Johnny Paycheck – Fifteen Beers

Johnny Paycheck – Gone At Last

Ink Spots—If I Didn’t Care

The Cats & The Fiddle—I Miss You So

The Mills Brothers—Till Then

The 5 Red Caps—I Learned a Lesson, I’ll Never Forget

Deek Watson & His Brown Dots—Sentimental Reasons

Dusty Brooks & His Four Tones—Play Jackpot

The Golden Gate Quartet—Atom and Evil

The Delta Rhythm Boys—Just A-Sittin’ and A-Rockin

The Jubalaires—I Know

The Basin Street Boys—I Sold My Heart to the Junk Man

The Cats N Jammer Three—I Cover the Waterfront

The Melody Masters—MyBaby

The Four Aces—I Wonder, I Wonder, I Wonder, Pt 2

The Four Vagabonds—PS I Love You

The Ravens—Ol Man River

Bill Johnson and His Musical Notes—Don’t You Think I Oughta Know

The Five Bars—I’m All Dressed Up With a Broken Heart

The Scamps—Solitude

The Big Three Trio—After Awhile

The Orioles—It’s Too Soon to Know

The Deep River Boys—Recess in Heaven

The Rockets—Loch Lomond

The Dixieaires—Go Long

The Four Blues—IT Takes a Long Tall Brown Skinned Gal

The Four Tunes—You’re Heartless

The Charioteers—A Kiss and A Rose

The Four Knights—Wrapped Up in a Dream

The Syncopators—River Stay Away from My Door

The Robins—If It’s So Baby

The Shadows—I’ve Been A Fool

Dog Police—Dog Police

Tenacious D—Rize of the Fenix

Tenacious D—Low Hangin’ Fruit

Tenacious D—Classical Teacher

Tenacious D—Senorita

Tenacious D—Deth Starr

Tenacious D—Roadie

Tenacious D—Flutes & Trombones

Tenacious D—The Ballad of Hollywood Jack and Rage Kage

Tenacious D—Throw Down

Tenacious D—Rock is Dead

Tenacious D—They Fucked Our Asses

Tenacious D—To Be The Best

Tenacious D—39

Dee Snider—The Ballad of Sweeney Todd

Dee Snider—Big Spender (featuring Cyndi Lauper)

Dee Snider – Luck Be a Lady Tonight (featuring Clay Aiken)

Adam Lambert – Trespassing

Adam Lambert — Cuckoo

Adam Lambert – Shady

Adam Lambert – Never Close Our Eeys

Adam Lambert – Kickin’ In

Adam Lambert – Naked Love

Adam Lambert – Pop That Lock

Adam Lambert – Better Than I Know Myself

Adam Lambert – Broken English

Adam Lambert – Underneath

Adam Lambert – Chokehold

Adam Lambert – Outlaws of Love

Gaz Coombes—Bombs

Gaz Coombes—Hot Fruit

Gaz Coombes—Whore

Gaz Coombes—Sub Divider

Gaz Coombes—Universal Cinema

Gaz Coombes—Simulator

Gaz Coombes—White Noise

Gaz Coombes—Fanfare

Gaz Coombes—Break the Silence

Gaz Coombes—Daydream on a Street Corner

Gaz Coombes—Sleeping Giant

PJ Harvey—Meet Ze Monsta

Dr Feelgood—All Through The City (live)

Small Faces—Itchycoo Park

Small Faces—Green Circles

T Rex—There Was a Time/Raw Ramp

Tompall Glaser & The Glaser Brothers—What Is a Woman What Is A Man

Tompall Glaser & The Glaser Brothers—Help Me Make It Through The Night

Tompall Glaser & The Glaser Brothers—A Girl I Used To Know

Tompall Glaser & The Glaser Brothers—Bye Bye Love

Tompall Glaser & The Glaser Brothers—Me and Bobby McGee

Tompall Glaser & The Glaser Brothers—Snowbird

Tompall Glaser & The Glaser Brothers—That’s When I Love You The Most

Tompall Glaser & The Glaser Brothers—Stand Beside Me

Tompall Glaser & The Glaser Brothers—I See His Love All Over You

Music Diary 2012: Monday, May 7

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:58:09 +0000

I’m participating in Nick Southall’s Music Diary 2012 this year.

Here are the songs I listened to on Monday May 7, 2012

Shampoo—We’re in Trouble

Sleeper— Inbetweener

Mercury Rev—Young Man’s Stride

Amps—Tipp City

Aimee Mann—That’s Just What You Are

Cornershop—Lessons Learned from Rocky I-Rocky III

Bluetones—Are You Blue Or Are You Blind

Liz Phair – Whip-Smart

Animal Collective—Honeycomb

Animal Collective—Gotham

Black Crowes—Gone

Adam Ant—Place in the Country

PJ Harvey—Meet Ze Monsta

Garbage—Vow

Rancid—Roots Radical

PJ Harvey—Meet Ze Monsta

Whale – Hobo Humpin Slobo Babe

Adam Lambert – Music Again

Adam Lambert – Trespassing

Adam Lambert — Cuckoo

Adam Lambert – Shady

Adam Lambert – Never Close Our Eeys

Adam Lambert – Kickin’ In

Adam Lambert – Naked Love

Adam Lambert – Pop That Lock

Adam Lambert – Better Than I Know Myself

Adam Lambert – Broken English

Adam Lambert – Underneath

Adam Lambert – Chokehold

Adam Lambert – Outlaws of Love

Cornershop—What Did the Hippie Have In His Bag?

Cornershop—Who’s Gonna Lite It Up?

Cornershop—Non-Stop Radio

Cornershop—Solid Gold

Cornershop—Beacon Radio 303

Cornershop—Milkin’ It

Cornershop—Concrete, Concrete

Cornershop—Something Makes You Feel Like

Cornershop—Inspector Bamba Singh’s Lament

Cornershop—Dedicated

Cornershop—What Did The Hippie Have In His Bag? (The High Slung Satchel)

Cornershop—First Wog on the Moon

Clyde McPhatter—Lover Please

RIP MCA: A Tribute to Adam Yauch & The Beastie Boys

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Tue, 08 May 2012 00:54:10 +0000

More than most groups the Beastie Boys seemed like a gang. It was all for one and one for all, the Beasties presenting a united front, speaking their own code, turning private jokes into public pranks. Unlike the Ramones or the Strokes, they weren’t a gang dressed in the same uniform, they were three distinct personalities who shared a worldview, one cultivated in New York but reaching far beyond those borders. There was Adam Horowitz, a.k.a. King Ad-Rock, the whiny-voiced imp who never stopped smirking. There was Michael Diamond, a.k.a. Mike D, often acting as the straight man sliding his rhymes and asides under the radar. And there was Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA, whose gravelly snarl possessed a visceral force unmatched by his Beastie brothers.

Where Ad-Rock and Mike D pranced like class clowns, MCA brought danger to the Beastie Boys. His prematurely hoarse rasp and persistent stubble gave the impression that he was a genuine thug, capable of living out every ludicrous fairy tale on their 1986 debut Licensed To Ill. Given the chance, he’d crash your party, all soused in Budweiser, ready to fight or fuck depending on who answered the door. He had enough violence and sex to compensate for his companions; he was the Super Id in a trio who happily embraced their basest impulses. Yauch may have been acting a part but he sold it brilliantly, so much so that it never was quite clear whether the full-frontal metallic assault of Licensed To Ill was intended as satire or celebration. All these years later, after all the explanations, disavowals and apologies that the Beasties and Yauch in particular made for these loutish early days, Licensed To Ill still sounds furious; like Jerry Lee Lewis’s Sun recordings or the Clash’s first album, it retains its primal roar, it still grabs by the throat and doesn’t let go.

That enduring power and Yauch’s crucial role in its creation may be the reason he worked so hard to separate himself from the teeming adolescent urges of Licensed To Ill. The distancing started early, beginning with the visionary second album Paul’s Boutique, a kaleidoscopic record that sounded nothing like the debut. Tucked away underneath the thick haze of samples was Yauch first hinting at his evolving spirituality on “A Year And A Day.” He cloaked that confessional through a distorted mic. It wasn’t until 1994, when the Beasties had weathered the utter failure of Paul’s Boutique —few who call it their favorite album now bought it at the time, fewer still bought it then and liked it—and mounted an unexpected comeback in 1992 with Check Your Head, that he had the confidence to be sincere, offering an apology for the group’s early sexism via a verse on “Sure Shot” and concluding Ill Communication with a sequence of songs making his Buddhism plain. For the rest of his life—a life that was cut short far too early by cancer on May 4, 2012, when he was just 47 years old—Adam Yauch never disguised his intents again, working steadily as an artist and social activist through his nonprofit organization Milarepa Fund. Although his philanthropy began with a splash via the Tibetan Freedom Concerts of the late ‘90s, much of this work flew under the radar, just as his work as a filmmaker through his Oscilloscope Laboratories did.

He may have spent the last decade of his life working quietly—Beastie Boys released only three albums in the new millennium, one of them an instrumental LP that garnered little attention despite winning a Grammy—but their influence is so pervasive it seems as if they never went into hibernation. Citing their influence on either the mookish rap-rock of Y2K or Eminem is correct but reductive as the Beasties legacy extends far beyond the parameters of white-boy rap…or beyond the self-satisfied provocations of Odd Future, for that matter. As the first crew of MCs to top the Billboard charts, they brought hip hop crashing into the mainstream and they acted as ambassadors of the culture, bringing Public Enemy onto their first national tour, their last few albums functioning as an education on the old-school crews they and their Def Jam crew swept aside. During rap’s Golden Age, few expanded the sonic horizons of the music through Paul’s Boutique, an album that flat-out tanked upon its release in 1989 but slowly seeped its way into pop culture at large. It’s no great stretch to say that Paul’s Boutique is ground zero for ‘90s pop culture or even the hyperactive, cross-linked culture we have today. Musicians always steal from the past to make music for the present but the Beasties stitched together existing sounds to create something entirely new, something that scanned as retro but played fresh. And it wasn’t just a sound, it was a sensibility where all pop culture—disco, kung fu, punk, Jaws, platform shoes and pimp hats, classic rock, rap, TV police shows, Blaxploitation—existed on the same plane. This was not far afield from Licensed To Ill, which had the theme for Green Acres spliced in between heavy Zeppelin and Sabbath samples, but Paul’s Boutique confirmed that this was a world-view, one fueled by omnivorous tastes and insatiable curiosity.

Beastie Boys never relied on samples so heavily again—and neither did anyone else, as legal restrictions became too great—but they explored this aesthetic in greater detail throughout their purple patch in the ‘90s. Picking up instruments again, they touched upon their hardcore punk roots but spent more time mining gritty funk as a trio augmented by keyboardist Money Mark. This is the sound they debuted on Check Your Head and, truly, this is where all of their interests came into play: old school hip-hop, hardcore punk, soul-jazz, funk, hard rock. Over the next two albums—1994’s Ill Communication and 1998’s Hello Nasty—the Beasties continued to expand, their interests fueling an entire empire called Grand Royal. Through the record label and magazine of that name, the Beasties championed all manners of downtown bohemia and junk culture, never drawing a distinction between either extreme. Perhaps few of the artists had hits—Luscious Jackson, featuring early Beastie drummer Kate Schellenbach, was the only artist who had a record that genuinely crossed over—but the reach of Grand Royal was large, as evidenced by how the magazine popularized the term mullet for the hairstyle that was business in front and party in back. Grand Royal celebrated the ‘70s and early ‘80s, digging deep to find pop culture trends and phenomena that never received due credit, pushing them into the mainstream. It was a labor of love that wound up establishing hipness via crate digging, establishing that the past was inextricable from the present.

It was the birth of mash-up culture, an aesthetic that has extended far beyond that now musty definition. We live in an age where anybody who is immersed in pop culture now dives into the past, often championing oddities for the sake of obscurities. But the Beasties were never like that. Sure, they had their odd cult favorites but they never got stuck on snobbery, there always was a palpable enthusiastic joy for the music they celebrated. So much is happening on any Beastie Boys album, so many sounds and styles rubbing up against each other, that the group always suggested that the world was greater than your imagination. Within their music, there was always something to discover. It could be something as small as finally realizing that sample on “High Plains Drifter” is from the Eagles’ “These Shoes” or it could be something grander, like discovering jazz organist Groove Holmes through an album track on Check Your Head. Personally, the Beasties were a gateway to the Blue Note LPs of the ‘60s and ‘70s, the ones where Hank Mobley, the Three Sounds, Jimmy Smith, Grant Green and Lou Donaldson stopped playing hard bop and started laying down groove. Listening to these Blue Note albums in the mid-‘90s, the connection between this old soul-jazz and the Beasties’ current music was clear and it opened up more worlds for me as a music lover. The Beasties always added new sounds to the mix—there’s tropicalia and Lee Scratch Perry on Hello Nasty, salutes to Lee Dorsey on Ill Communication—and when this music was taken in conjunction with the articles in Grand Royal or the videos Yauch directed under his nom de plume Nathaniel Hornblower, they created a boundless interconnected universe filled with surprise and humor, all grounded by a spirituality that was felt without being pushed.

It’s not a secret that Yauch was the most explicitly religious Beastie, acting as a quiet yet tireless advocate for Buddhism, but he also embodied the group’s interdisciplinary creativity. Horowitz and Diamond busied themselves with other creative endeavors but Yauch pursued a serious career in film, first directing music videos and then branching out to the 2006 Beastie Boys concert film Awesome: I Fuckin’ Shot That and a 2008 basketball documentary Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot. Those full-lengths were released through his Oscilloscope Laboratories, which has evolved into a major player in the indie film market, earning Oscar nominations for their 2009 release The Messenger. This was the major new work of Yauch’s final decade, a time when the Beasties downshifted, spending more time with their families as they entered middle age. Their last three albums—2004’s New York love letter To The Five Boroughs, the instrumental funk LP The Mix Up in 2007, last year’s Hot Sauce Committee, Part Two—found the group working familiar territory that nevertheless showed more imagination than most bands because the Beasties’ worldview always overflowed with ideas. But these albums—and Hot Sauce Committee in particular—also exuded the warmth of camaraderie; this was the work of old war buddies whose bond will remain strong to the end of their life.

Sadly, Yauch did not live past middle age. Listening to Hot Sauce Committee, where the group is so comfortable in their skin, accepting their past and their age with no apologies, it’s hard not to imagine how they would have sounded some twenty years down the road, trading old stories and perhaps looking like the three geezers strolling on the cover of The Sounds Of Science. It was not to be. Yet what Yauch achieved with the Beastie Boys is so great and so lasting that it’s hard to not look in wonder at his life and wart. With their albums and with Grand Royal, the Beastie Boys created their own universe from parts of our own. What they found within our culture was louder and funnier than what was really there—it was romanticized and funkified, it was better than reality. And an artist cannot hope for a better legacy than that.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr Take Nostalgic History Tours in 2012

Stephen Thomas Erlewine — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:41:00 +0000

The last time Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr released albums within weeks of each other it was in 1978, when Wings were one of the biggest bands in the world and Ringo was deep into disco. Some 34 years later, chart success is still likely for Paul McCartney—his fame is too great, as is his hunger to have his new wares heard—but Ringo has long fallen into a happy nice of his own, appealing to lifelong Beatles fans of any age. Ringo is in a state of perpetual nostalgia, reliving the glory days of the Fab Four and wishing peace & love for all, but his rose-colored glasses are not vintage, they’re expensive and modern, bearing all the hallmarks of the year they were minted. So, Ringo’s gleaming sentimentality on Ringo 2012 is not markedly different than it was on 2010’s Y Not or 2008’s Liverpool 8 (and so on and so forth), but such familiarity is neither a blessing or a curse: Ringo’s happy to be doing what he’s doing and that good can be infectious, although the level of infection depends entirely on your tolerance for Starr’s predictable good cheer. McCartney is also trading in nostalgia on Kisses On The Bottom, a collection of prewar standards that the Beatle loves so much he sometimes own the copyrights. Ringo may have beat him to the punch, breaking free of the Beatles by recording a bunch of songs for his mum in 1970, but Paul is a bit classier and clever about the whole thing, hiring Diana Krall’s band and vocal producer Tommy LiPuma to give him a bit of intimate swing. McCartney’s voice isn’t quite as nimble as it used to be nor as it needs to be for some of these songs but he, as always, powers through by virtue of his charm. His dexterity with sentimentality finds a proper showcase here and by choosing a loving faithfulness over reinvention Paul guarantees that Kisses On The Bottom is sweet, pleasant and ever so slightly slight.