Sing Out! Magazine – Summer 2011

My copy of the Summer 2011 issue of Sing Out! Magazine arrived today (just in the nick of time before summer officially fades into fall this week. The cover story is about the David Wax Museum, a band I met last month when they were part of a workshop I hosted at the Ottawa Folk Festival.

As usual, this issue of Sing Out! has some of my writing including a book review of Woody Guthrie: American Radical by Will Kaufman, and a bunch of CD reviews:

Rory Block – Shake ‘Em On Down: A Tribute to Mississippi Fred McDowell

Jonathan Byrd – Cackalack

Hal Cannon – Hal Cannon

Patti Casey – The Heart of a Waiting Boy

Rachel Harrington – Celilo Falls

Diana Jones – High Atmosphere

Buddy Miller – Buddy Miller’s The Majestic Silver Strings

Job Potter – Job Potter

Danny Schmidt – Man of Many Moons

The Wailin’ Jennys – Bright Morning Stars

Tim Williams – When I was a Cowboy.

--Mike Regenstreif

Levon Helm -– Ramble at the Ryman

LEVON HELM

Ramble at the Ryman

Vanguard

levonhelm.com

Most Saturday nights, Levon Helm puts on a show called the Midnight Ramble at his studio in Woodstock, New York. His band plays and they feature a guest or two. Tickets cost $150.00 and typically sell out. I’ve never been, but I’ve heard from several people who have that it’s worth every penny.

Occasionally, Levon takes the show on the road. He’ll be here to close out the Ottawa Folk Festival on August 28. Ramble at the Ryman captures the legendary singer and drummer from The Band, along with his band, and several guests in a 2008 Ramble show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, one of the most legendary music halls south of New York City.

It’s an eclectic blend of Americana music that Levon and his associates play. There’s lots of New Orleans in the mix – particularly in the second line horn arrangements. There’s also Memphis R&B, Appalachian folk and old-time country, blues, bluegrass, and, to be sure, rock ‘n’ roll. Levon, a survivor of throat cancer, does some of the singing, but, a lot of the vocals are handled by band members and guest artists.

Six of the 15 tracks are drawn from Robbie Robertson’s Band songbook and it’s obvious, three-and-a-half decades after The Last Waltz, Levon still finds a lot of joy and opportunities for creative expression in the songs. The album opens with “Ophelia,” with its celebratory, second line horns-meets-The Band arrangement. Along the way, Levon revisits the Cajun-flavoured “Evangeline,” sung as a duet with Sheryl Crow – their version holds up well next to the original version which featured Emmylou Harris singing with The Band – and “Rag Mama Rag,” done bayou-meets-Bourbon Street-style with some great trombone work by Clark Gayton. Later, the album closes with three Band songs as Levon and company breathe new life into “The Shape I’m In,” “Chest Fever” and “The Weight.”

Among the other highlights are a sweet version of the Carter Family’s “No Depression Heaven,” with lead vocal by Sheryl Crow, a bluegrass-meets-Dixeland-meets-rock ‘n’ roll arrangement of the traditional “Deep Elem Blues,” and a sweet country version of Buddy and Julie Miller’s “Wide River to Cross” with guests Buddy Miller on guitar and vocals and Sam Bush on mandolin.

It all whets the appetite for the Ottawa Folk Festival show.

--Mike Regenstreif

Willie Nelson -- Country Music

WILLIE NELSON
Country Music
Rounder
willienelson.com

Willie Nelson, who turns 77 on Friday, has got to be one of the most prolific of all recording artists. He’s rooted in the Texas country tradition, but, like Ray Charles, he’s a genre-crosser who’s made compelling music in all sorts of styles. I have no idea how many albums he’s made over the years, but I’ve got more than 30 Willie Nelson keepers sitting on my shelves. (To be honest, there have also been some that haven’t made it on to my keeper shelves.)

In recent years, Nelson has released several excellent albums including Two Men with the Blues, a classy set of jazz and blues with Wynton Marsalis and his band, and Willie and the Wheel, a great western swing album with Asleep At the Wheel.

Add Country Music, recorded with a drummerless collection of A-list musicians assembled by producer T-Bone Burnett – and including Folk Roots/Folk Branches guest Riley Baugus on clawhammer banjo and Buddy Miller on electric guitar – to Nelson's list of fine recent albums. This one rooted, as the album title implies, in traditional country music. Most of the songs are bona fide classics.

The album opens “Man with the Blues,” the only Nelson original, an old-school honky tonk tune like the kind of songs Nelson was probably singing back in the 1950s, and closes with a deep-from-the-well arrangement of “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” an African American gospel tune that's given a haunting arrangement featuring Nelson stalwart Mickey Raphael on bass harmonica, Dennis Crouch’s heartbeat bass playing and some eerie guitar interplay between Nelson on gut string acoustic and Miller on electric.

One of my favourite tracks is an exciting rendition of f the Delmore Brothers’ “Freight Train Boogie” which, like Doc Watson’s version, you can’t help but feel the train boogieing down the tracks.

Other highlights include Merle Travis’ coalmining classic, “Dark as a Dungeon,” the tongue-in-cheek “Pistol Packin’ Mama,” and a sweet version of Hank Williams’ “House of Gold” that seems like a traditional folksong.

--Mike Regenstreif