Ramblings on Music, Texas, Etc.

Susan Tedeschi - 'Back To The River': The Ramblings review

A sticker on the cover of Susan Tedeschi's new album Back To The River says, "Susan Tedeschi returns to her signature sound."  That's certainly true to some degree, but this definitely isn't the same old Susan Tedeschi.  Back To The River showcases her astonishing talents - singer, guitarist, songwriter - like nothing she's released before.  In short, Tedeschi has raised her game across the board and released easily one of the best albums this year.

When Tedeschi recruited Joe Henry to produce her last album Hope & Desire, it hinted that she was interested in subtly shifting away from the "blues" tag that had always been pinned on her work.  Henry and Tedeschi put the emphasis squarely on her singing, leaving all of the guitar duties to Tedeschi's husband Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhall II.  The result was her most impressive vocal performance to date, but the move no doubt alienated longtime fans who probably admired her guitar playing at least as much as her singing.  And even though Tedeschi had not yet consistently proven her songwriting chops, the all-covers format (every selection a great pick) probably didn't curry any favor with fans either.  Still, Henry is an exceptional producer, and Hope & Desire was a great-sounding album with several career highlights.

But it would seem that Tedeschi has eased herself back toward her comfort zone with Back To The River.  What she added this time was co-writing credit on nearly all of the songs, traveling across the country to work with writers like Gary Louris, Tony Joe White, John Leventhal and Sonya Kitchell.  Furthermore, she nabbed producer George Drakoulias whose sweet spot is just the kind of rock-soul-gospel-blues throwdown for which she was obviously aiming.  As a result, Back To The River rocks harder than anything Tedeschi has ever recorded, yet sacrifices none of the melodic strength of the songs.  It's this razor-sharp focus on the songs that sets the album apart from nearly anyone else broadly working in a blues or blues-rock format.  Think Bonnie Raitt fronting the Black Crowes or Gov't Mule and you might get some idea.

Tedeschi is probably known as a singer first, guitarist second and songwriter third, but these distinctions become significantly more hazy on Back To The River.  For the first time, she comes across as a genuine triple-threat.  Though her guitar playing sounds more vital than ever, Trucks and Bramhall return, as well as guitarist Dave Yoke - there's an absolute feast here for guitar geeks.  And Tedeschi's singing is simply one of the great female voices out there today.  But, of course, what makes the record truly special is the quality of the material, which surpasses by a substantial margin even the carefully picked songs on Hope & Desire.  The lone cover song here - a face-melting rendition of Allen Toussaint's "There's A Break In The Road" - fits perfectly with the rest of the tunes, which vary the tempo and mood enough to give the listener a full picture of just how talented Susan Tedeschi truly is.

I first stumbled onto Tedeschi when I was digging around for some Rock N Soul mamas in the vein of Tift Merritt's Tambourine (I also sniffed out Grace Potter around this time).  It's no small surprise that Back To The River has a lot in common with Tambourine, which was also produced by Drakoulias.  But whereas Merritt's roots originate in the country music realm, Tedeschi still obviously starts with the blues as her primary reference.  Modern blues, particularly the white-blues-rock variety, gets stale pretty quickly these days.  But Susan Tedeschi has served notice with Back To The River than those roots can still blossom into something quite extraordinary.

A few links...

• Great piece about Susan and the new album over at Blues Blogger.
• Her recently updated website.
• Stream a few tracks over at JamBase.
• Back To The River is on sale at Amazon for $10.99.

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - 'Cardinology' (review)

I screwed up.  I hopped back on the Ryan Adams bandwagon a coupla weeks ago and read some of the early reviews of Cardinology.  And I got my hopes up - too up, in fact.  I was hoping for the career album that has eluded Adams (at least since Heartbreaker), but Cardinology isn't quite it.  Rather, it's a worthy addition to his work with the Cardinals, containing some substantial highlights and fleshed out with some appealing-but-not-quite-great tunes.

If there is a surprising aspect of Cardinology, it is the subtle shift in sound toward Adams' Rock N Roll and Love Is Hell albums.  Anthemic songs like "Fix It" and "Cobwebs" are among the slickest, catchiest things in the entire Adams catalog, though they don't entirely abandon the country-rock template established by the Cardinals.  But other than that subtle shift, there aren't abundant surprises on Cardinology.  For all of his substantial talents, Adams exhibits no signs whatsoever of being an edgy or surprising artist (other than his occasionally erratic behavior).  This is perfectly pleasant stuff, easy on the ears without degenerating into pure saccharine.  Absolutely nothing wrong with that, but let's at least call it what it is (and wonder why the indie-snoots at Pitchfork continue to be mildly obsessed with Adams - note their dig at Paste magazine, which seems to agree with them on Cardinology).

Having heard some of these tracks live (and seeing Adams on Letterman Wednesday night), it seems to me there's an increasing disparity between the Cardinals' live show and their recorded output.  Songs that catch fire in concert tend to simmer on the ablum.  This is the case with many great live acts - and the Cardinals are among the finest touring today - but there's no doubt that Adams takes the album format seriously.  It's also obvious that he's acquired a razor-sharp focus on quality studio work, but it may be that seriousness that keeps Cardinology from truly taking flight.  Adams and the Cardinals have a knack for churning out lovely records, but no one outside of Adams' fanbase is going to mistake them for masterpieces.

Still, Cardinology is a worthy addition to the Cardinals' discography, easily the most consistenly enjoyable phase of Adams' capricious and prolific career.  It certainly makes the case that Adams is probably capable of unearthing a masterpiece in the future, and the Cardinals are most certainly the bandmates to help him dig it out.

Hey, Peace Queer!

If you're offended, you definitely thought I was talking to you.  My favorite listen over the weekend was Todd Snider's new EP of the same name.  You've got until FRIDAY to download a free copy over at Todd's website, but you might want to grab the vinyl since it sports the hands-down best album cover of the year.  It's a great little "protest" record that wisely eschews the preachiness that you are wise to fear.  Todd also exposes himself as the beat poet we all knew him to be.

PopMatters has a great interview with Snider as well.

Buddy & Julie Miller - "Written In Chalk" (?)

It just hit me that the title of Buddy & Julie's new album Written In Chalk (due in March '09) is lifted from this song...

'Cardinology' listening par-tay!

You can listen to Ryan Adams & The Cardinals' new album Cardinology over at iLike.  It'll be out for reals on Tuesday.

As a follow-up to my concert review from last week, here's a great review of the Houston show with some really kickass pics.  Ryan has also posted a lengthy mea culpa over at the Cardinals blog apologizing for some of his behavior due to his persistent illness during the tour.  To my ears, the apology was unwarranted, but the word on some of the last dates were that it got the best of him.

UPDATE:  Mr. Hurst backs up his previous impression with a full review.

Susan Tedeschi - 'Back To The River' (coming next week)

One of my favorite new discoveries of 2006 was the wonderful Susan Tedeschi album Hope & Desire, produced by Joe Henry (which of course is what drew my attention).  I liked it well enough to explore her back catalog as well.  Tedeschi is a gifted, soulful singer and a talented, graceful guitar player to boot (though she turned those duties over to husband Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhall for Hope & Desire).

Now she returns with Back To The River, which pairs her with producer George Drakoulias, a more conventional but perhaps better suited producer, given his penchant for splashy R&B-tinged productions (see Tift Merritt's Tambourine, for example).

I'm really looking forward to this one.  You can read more about the album here.  And you can hear tracks from Back To The River over at Verve Forecast's page.

UPDATE:  To Josh's point in the comments, I got my copy today and am really enjoying it.  I think by far her best album to date.  And keep in mind, Joe Henry produced her previous record - so make of my initial impression what you will.

Best news of 2009?

As far as I'm concerned, absolutely.  I spotted this post on the New West Records blog, from two months back:

...we’ve received rough mixes of 11 songs from Buddy & Julie Miller, all candidates for their next album (due early ’09). My favorite song changes every day but right now it’s a Julie song called “Long Time.” I’m also wild about a duet Buddy did with Robert Plant on an old Lefty Frizzell song called “What You Gonna Do Leroy?” Recorded in July in a dressing room in Toronto during the Plant/Krauss tour. Dennis Crouch, Stuart Duncan, Jay Bellerose, and Gurf Morlix all played on it. It’s a stunner!

So the long wait for new music from Buddy - and yes, Julie! - Miller is finally nearly over??  Here's hoping!  Apparently, I missed this bit also reported by Country Standard Time.  It mistakenly states that the album was produced by T Bone Burnett, which would be cool but entirely unnecessary since Buddy knows damn well how to produce a record.

UPDATE:  A subsequent update from New West indicates a March release date and that the record is titled Written In Chalk.

Lucinda Williams @ The War Memorial Auditorium (Nashville, TN - 10/17/08)

Maybe it's the downturn in the economy, or maybe it's an indicator of the decline of the Country music industry.  Whatever the reason, it's a sad state of affairs when Lucinda Williams plays Music City and she can only fill half of a 1,600-capacity venue.  But that disappointing fact didn't dampen the spirits of Lucinda or the adoring fans who did turn up at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville on Friday.

Armed with a rocking new album and her stellar band, Buick 6, Lucinda steered the setlist heavily toward her more uptempo material.  She played a good half of the tracks of her brand-new record Little Honey, with scattered tracks from her earlier records filling out the balance (though 2007's West was overlooked entirely at this show).  Lu fielded at least one request from the audience ("Lonely Girls"), and the show really caught fire after Lucinda encouraged the audience to ditch their seats and head toward the stage.  By that time, she was closing down the main set with red-hot material like "Real Live Bleeding Fingers", "Honey Bee", "Joy", "Changed The Locks" and "Righteously."  The encore was an entirely covers affair with "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues", "For What It's Worth" and the AC/DC song "It's A Long Way To The Top."  Some have complained that her version of the latter song - which closes out Little Honey - sounds bitter and angry, but this concert-closing version sounded joyful and exuberant, punctuated by drummer Butch Norton's cowbell ("More cowbell!!").

This was my first Lucinda show since last year's wonderful five-night stand at LA's El Rey, where Lucinda played a different album each night, followed by a second set of favorites (I attended two of the shows).  Some fans have complained lately at the lack of old material in her sets, but it's tough to promote an album, please everybody and be off the stage by curfew (which was 11:05pm at the War Memorial).  We were certainly left wanting more, but I've come to accept over the years that you can't expect an artist to cram their whole catalog into 22 songs or so.  In fact, as far as I'm concerned, playing only the oldies is the road to obsolescence.  However, one wonders if Lu shouldn't tinker with the standard tour model a bit -- maybe play two shows at a smaller venue in the same city, allowing for more variety in the setlists.  Her current show definitely would work better in a rock club than a stodgy theater, and attendance has been poor at several of the tour stops.

Fortunately, my job doesn't involve solving these problems.  My job is to show up, scream my head off and listen to Lucinda work her magic.  Done (for now).

(BTW, Lucinda has hatched one ingenious idea on this tour.  Rather than have a typical opening act, her band Buick 6 opens the show with some instrumentals, showing off the substantial talents of Doug Pettibone, Chet Lyster, David Sutton and Butch Norton.  Their set was capped off by a wonderful version of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" which featured both Pettibone and Lyster on lead vocals.  Awesome!)

And a big thank you to Tom and Sarah from Atlanta for hanging out with me, and to Tom especially for encouraging us to get on our feet!

October 19, 1943

My mother would have turned 65 today. She died over a dozen years ago, but it never feels nearly so long ago. I am blessed to have nothing but the fondest, most loving memories of a truly remarkable woman.

Big Mystery Show - Revealed!

The suspense was killing you, wasn't it? Please note from drummer Butch Norton's annotated setlist: plenty of cowbell on the set-closing AC/DC cover "It's A Long Way To The Top". More details tomorrow. I'm whipped.