SMM #57: August 23rd, 2023
New releases, more of what I'm listening to at the moment, a mixed bag playlist, and a review of the lone show I attended in August.
New Releases
VARIOUS ARTISTS - Tell Everybody! (21st Century Juke Joint Blues from Easy Eye Sound)… outstanding modern blues compilation from The Black Keys Dan Auerbach and his label, Easy Eye Sound… Auerbach considers juke joint, Mississippi Hill Country blues to be a major influence on his music and has done a great job of supporting the musicians on this album… Robert Finley, who performs the album’s title track, is probably Auerbach’s best “discovery” and his two previous albums for Easy Eye, Goin’ Platinum (2017) and Sharecropper’s Son (2021) are definitely worth checking out… he also has a new album coming out Oct. 27…
THE HEAVY HEAVY - Life and Life Only… missed this excellent debut album when it came out in March so I wanted to include this issue after recently seeing them live (see concert review below)… their sound is a combo of 60s & 70s folk rock and rock ‘n’ roll with some Cosmic Country added to the mix (“Desert Raven”)... reminds me of the Mamas & The Papas, Delaney & Bonnie and those ‘70s Clapton albums when the vocals of Yvonne Elliman & Marcy Levy were a prominent part of his sound… a more current reference would be Okkervill River (“Miles and Miles”)… check this album out!
THE MAGPIE ARC - Glamour In The Grey… English/Scottish band that takes the folk-rock foundation of Fairport Convention and adds some hard-rockin’ touches to their sound with blazing electric guitars and big drums… the vocals of Nancy Kerr are reminiscent of Fairport’s legendary Sandy Denny and guitarist/vocalist Martin Simpson is a renowned veteran of the British folk-rock scene…
TRACY NELSON - Life Don’t Miss Nobody… excellent easy listening blues from the 75 year old Nelson… Nelson has had a long career going back to the underappreciated band, Mother Earth… they played a mix of blues, rock, country and R&B and were part of the late 60s San Francisco music scene where they opened shows at the Fillmore West for artists like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix… she took a break from recording in the 80s but returned in the 90s and has put out several fine albums since…
CAZAYOUX - self-titled… nine-member multinational band from Austin, Texas founded by drummer Forest Cazayoux in 2020… previously released an EP in 2022 but this is their first album release… they play a driving blend of psychedelic funk, afrobeat, and jazz instrumentals “that’s sure to get the crowd dancing” (per band website)… something different from my usual roots music and rock ‘n’ roll…
What I’m Listening To
BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS - Catch a Fire… released in 1973, this was the breakout album for Marley & company and first for Island Records… have listened to a solid amount of Marley over the years but not this specific album… “Stir It Up” is the most well-known song but the rest is great too… especially like “Stop That Train” (covered live by Jerry Garcia Band many times), "Baby We've Got a Date (Rock It Baby)" and “Concrete Jungle”... what led me to listen now was reading that Muscle Shoals guitarist, Wayne Perkins, was recruited by Island head, Chris Blackwell, to add lead guitar to a few tracks… Blackwell thought Perkins’ rock guitar sound would make the album more appealing to U.S. and U.K. audiences… when I saw Perkins' name, it reminded me of the next album which I was much more familiar with…
ROLLING STONES - Black and Blue… I wore this Stones album out back when it came out in 1976… lead guitarist Mick Taylor had left the band after the previous album and they were auditioning guitarists, eventually going with Ron Wood (who had the inside track all along)… Black and Blue reflects this transition period and features several lead guitarists including Wood, former Canned Heat & John Mayall guitarist, Harvey Mandel - and the previously mentioned Wayne Perkins! He shows his lead abilities on the track, “Hand of Fate” and adds guitar to a few other cuts… Mandel kills it on the opening cut, “Hot Stuff” and Wood shows his stuff on “Hey Negrita”... overall, kind of an overlooked album in the Stones catalog but it’s actually quite good…
CRAZY HORSE - self-titled… Crazy Horse’s claim to fame is being Neil Young’s on again, off again back up band since 1969 but they also released albums without NY and this one from 1971 was the first - and by far the best… it didn’t hurt that guests Nils Lofgren, Jack Nitzsche and Ry Cooder made significant contributions to the proceedings… definitely worth checking out for Danny Whitten’s “Downtown” and “I Don’t Want to Talk About It” (covered by Rod Stewart), “Gone Dead Train” (covered by Nazareth) and Lofgren’s “Beggar’s Day” (he did a better version with his band Grin as a tribute to Whitten who OD’d in ‘72)… CH wasn’t the same after Whitten’s death as a stand-alone band… also, his and roadie Bruce Berry’s OD deaths were the impetus behind Young’s classic album Tonight’s the Night...
Playlist: Scattered Nuggets - Mixed Bag, Vol. 6
Back to a mixed bag playlist this issue and starting off with a New Orleans flavor on the first three tracks… we have bluesman Watermelon Slim with a rousing, slide-guitar driven version of Allen Toussaint’s “Get Out of My Life Woman”... this is followed by Toussaint himself with “Everything I Do Gonna be Funky”... interestingly, both of these songs were originally recorded by New Orleans artist Lee Dorsey and later recorded by Toussaint… next up is the legendary Dr. John with a tune from his Grammy-winning 2012 album, Locked Down… Dan Auerbach (again!) organized the sessions, produced, helped write the songs and played guitar, including the great solo on this track that starts at 3:15 mark… Captain Beefheart is one of the great weirdos in rock history and most of his music is an acquired taste and NOT for the average music fan… this song, though, is a very well done straightforward R&B pop song that I never would have expected to hear on one of his albums… Mississippi bluesman R.L. Burnside is next with a great blues-rockin’ cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools”... obscure country singer Karl Blau steps up next with a superb cover of the Bee Gees 1967 hit, “To Love Somebody”... summer is the time for some good old surf guitar and virtuoso country guitarist Junior Brown provides it big time with this medley of surf hits… “I Can’t Stand the Rain” is a soul classic covered by numerous artists and this is the original by Ann Peebles from 1974… Buddy & Julie Miller are longtime stalwarts of the country-rock scene… this one’s from their 2009 album Written in Chalk and they have a new album coming out in Sept… English alt-rocker PJ Harvey has been putting out highly acclaimed albums since the early 90s but just got around to checking her out and came up with this nugget about her love of New York City… Kevin Russell, co-founder of TX roots-rock band the Gourds also has a side band, Shinyribs, and this tune is a good example of his eclectic brand of country rock… Otis Clay was a highly-regarded soul singer in the Al Green Memphis style who originally recorded this song in 1972… Bob Seger covered it on his 1981 live album, Nine Tonight, and it went to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart… next is New Orleans-based country-rock artist Dave Jordan with a nice cover of Neil Young’s “Out on the Weekend” from his classic album, Harvest… Phoebe Hunt & The Gatherers raise some dust on this bluegrass stomper driven by Hunt’s energetic fiddle playing… Billy Childish is an extremely prolific English rocker who has formed and recorded with numerous bands since the late 70s… CTMF is one of them and this thundering instrumental borrows from the Link Wray playbook and closes out the playlist…
August Concert Roundup
Date: August 10th, 2023
Act: The Revivalists, Band of Horses, The Heavy Heavy
Venue: Prospect Park Bandshell, Brooklyn, NY
This was the only concert I have on the calendar for August and I was really looking forward to it because it featured three bands I had never seen before: The Revivalists, Band of Horses, and The Heavy Heavy…
Prospect Park Bandshell is a very nice outdoor venue in a beautiful neighborhood in Brooklyn… I had been there once before back in 2013 to see Robert Plant & The Sensational Shape Shifters (a great show!)... it has a large cement standing-room apron in front of the stage with a small section of chairs for “members”... there is also a spacious lawn behind it with lots of huge trees scattered around and you can bring your own chair or blanket… logistically, though, it’s not the easiest venue to get to from where I live out on Long Island so I haven’t paid much attention to it since the Plant show… when my friend asked if I wanted to go to this show I was in since The Revivalists were on my bucket list and I missed them in NOLA…
It turned out to be a miserable rainy day but like all outdoor venues, the shows go on rain or shine… I had mapped out the best way to get there & back (without dealing with Ubers or cabs) which involved the Long Island Rail Road, a decent walk to subway from Atlantic Terminal and 15 minute walk from subway to park… doing all that in the rain wasn’t fun but I came prepared with my disposable poncho and umbrella so it worked out…
Earlier in the day I was pleasantly surprised to see that The Heavy Heavy had been added to the bill… they are a new band from Brighton, UK and although I was a little late getting around to checking out their March debut album (included in new releases above), I am fully on board now… they opened the show, and despite playing their entire set in a steady rain, had a solid gathering of fans up front by the stage… they are led by Georgie Fuller (vocals/keyboards) and Will Turner (vocals/guitar) and my friends and I all agreed they have a great throwback sound, described in The Guardian as “thrillingly instinctive retro rock”... they definitely caught our attention more than the typical obscure opener on a three-band bill!
Next up was indie rockers, Band of Horses… the band originally formed in Seattle in the early 2000s… there was a lot of buzz around their debut album Everything All the Time (2006) which led me to buy the CD… listened to it a few times, it didn’t really grab me and I moved on and haven’t paid any attention to them since… despite that, I was looking forward to checking them out as the apron in front of the stage filled with their fans… they played an hour-plus set of guitar-driven indie-rock that was polished & professional and definitely rocked hard but in the end, they did not win me over… felt that the songs all kind of sounded the same and a band like My Morning Jacket does this kind of music much better…
When I went to New Orleans JazzFest back in April, The Revivalists were on the schedule for Saturday afternoon but ended up canceling that morning due to a band member being sick… I listened to some of their albums earlier this year and made a playlist of their summer tour set list to familiarize myself with their music… led by singer/frontman David Shaw, the band put on a high-energy show that leaned heavily on their recent album, Pour It Out Into the Night… while I enjoyed hearing some of those songs, overall the eight-member band seemed to throw a little bit of everything into their big, loud sound and nothing really stood out for me… in the future, I would check them out at JazzFest or another festival but wouldn’t go out of my way to see them specifically…
So my final assessment of this show was that the unknown opener, The Heavy Heavy, was a great discovery, my favorite part of the night, and I liked them much better than the two well-known co-headliners… I will definitely be looking to see them again, hopefully headlining a small venue… — SL