Time to get caught up on the last couple weeks of new releases before the new batch arrives tomorrow. These are the records that stuck on my personal playlist quickly. I'm still living with a couple others, like Versions of Modern Performance by Chicago’s Horsegirl. They have some complexity to unpack, but you may see a review here soon.
• Nicki Bluhm, Avondale Drive (6/3) - There’s a strong Rosanne Cash vibe on Nicki Bluhm’s new album, always a plus for me, but she arrived at her sound from the opposite direction. Rosanne needed the influence of then-husband Rodney Crowell to toughen up her sound a bit from the tame country-pop of her earliest songs. Nicki started out rougher with her then-husband Tim’s band, the Gramblers, and had to be softened up some for wider commercial appeal. They didn’t exactly meet in the middle, Nicki’s music is still a touch harder than Rosanne’s classic albums, but they mine the same lyrical heartbreak territory and the same blend of classic 60s pop and sleek country-ish rockers. There’s definitely a similarity in their vocals, too, Nicki’s adding just a touch of Bonnie Raitt’s grit. The opener “Learn to Love Myself,” glides along on a reverb-heavy classic pop sound with massed backing vocals. “Love to Spare” gives more love to classic R&B than Rosanne’s records. That’s the biggest thing that sets the two apart, actually. Nicki’s not afraid to add some tasty Hammond organ and a dash of horns to give the album some shots of soul. My only minor complaint about Avondale Drive at this point is its stacking up of slow ballads on the second half, slows down the record’s forward momentum a bit. But they’re excellent slow ones, my guess is they’ll keep growing on me with more listens. Overall, Avondale Drive is a great discovery, right in my Rosanne, Emmylou, Neko Case wheelhouse.
• Charlie Musselwhite, Mississippi Son (6/3) - White musicians embracing electric Chicago-style blues was a huge development in the history of rock music. Clapton, Beck, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, and others basically invented classic rock on the backs of Muddy Waters, Albert King, and Jimmy Reed. The torch was successfully carried forward when guys like Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughn plugged in. White guys playing and singing the earlier, deeper delta blues has always been a much tougher sell. I can really only think of John Hammond Jr. as somebody who made a successful career out of it, and he had the head start of his dad being a legendary talent scout for Columbia Records. Charlie Musselwhite has made his share of records, but the fame he’s been able to carve out has been due to his remarkable talent as a down-home blues harmonica player. He’s played on records by artists as diverse as Bonnie Raitt, Tom Waits, the Blind Boys of Alabama, even INXS. A first-call musician for blues authenticity, Charlie was the direct inspiration for Dan Ackroyd’s Ellwood Blues.
Charlie’s 78 now, back living in Mississippi and recording every so often for Chicago’s Alligator Records. Mississippi Son is pure laid-back, down-home country blues, a mix of covers and originals. I mean it as the highest possible compliment that you can’t tell the difference between the old classics and his new tunes. Charlie plays a lot more 12 bar blues guitar and dobro on this record, his still-astonishing blues harp playing is more accent than dominant this time around. Charlie's singing voice has aged into a convincing grainy and mellow blues instrument, giving the whole album a deep but easy-going vibe that I can’t hear enough. One of the last living masters of a vanishing style.
• Frank Sinatra, Watertown (1969, reissue 6/3) - A polarizing album in Frank’s catalog – loved by some, hated by others, ignored by most. By 1969, Frank was well aware that the cultural explosion that was rock music was leaving his style of romantic, orchestrated pop behind. His response was Watertown, a decidedly dark record with songs mostly written by Bob Gaudio, the guy who wrote all the smash hits you remember for the Four Seasons. Not exactly rock, at least not in a world the Beatles had blown apart, but a shade closer to it than the standards he'd been recording for the previous few decades. There’s a nod to the current trends; bass, drum, and electric guitar arrangements dominate, but Frank would only go so far in that direction. There's still lots of sweet strings and lilting woodwinds. Watertown doesn’t have a song on it you’ll remember as classic Frank, but it holds up as an outlier in his career extremely well. It broods and explores more personal feelings than anything before or after, and the chairman’s in very fine voice. One of his rare albums that sounds more intentionally artistic than popular, it's aged like fine bourbon.
• Dehd, Blue Skies (5/27) - A trio from Chicago that makes delightfully catchy propulsive rock with a minimum of instruments. On most of the songs lead singer Emily Kempf’s bass is busier than the guitarist. These three write instant hooks like nobody’s business. “Bad Love” bops along invitingly, then breaks into an impossibly catchy, earworm-worthy “run baby run” chorus. “Bop” glides quickly along like some hooky 80s pop, then uses some guitar jangle and the single word “bop” as its chorus. It totally works and it’s audaciousness feels like showing off. “Clear” is equally upbeat and bouncy, with the multi-tracked and drawn out “it’s cle-aaaaaaaar” announcing the arrival of the chorus like a fanfare. "Memories" is a ballad that would take you right back to the days of AM radio girl-pop if it wasn't for the insistent but skeletal arrangement. Blue Skies is no doubt gonna be one of my main driving-around-with-the-windows-down summer albums.
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