EmmyLou by First Aid Kit

This might be the sweetest sounding song I have heard this year. I had earlier spoken of this band. The Lions Roar off their last album was wonderful but this song singing to a lover asking him to be her Graham or Johnny, she will be Emmylou or June just hits the spot.

Harmonies that are like a country Cranberries and name dropping legendary in love rock and rollers like Gram Parsons, Johnny and June Cash, and the incomparable, and incidentally of the four the only one still with us, Emmylou Harris one senses First Aid Kit know their music history and have a clear path they wish to follow.

A great song on all levels.

We Walk the Line : A Celebration of the Music of Johnny Cash

Last spring a concert was held celebrating the 80th birthday of Johnny Cash. The list of performers who lined up to perform was a veritable who's who of the list of alternative and outlaw country performers. As has been well established I am a huge fan of cover versions, obscure or faithful to the original, of songs.

Therefore as a huge Johnny Cash fan, a fan of Outlaw country, and a lover of cover songs this was the triple threat. I was not disappointed. This is a fantastic album. My wife is tired of it already most likely as Spotify has been playing it for me for the last week.

Every song on this album is a great interpretation. Opening with Brandi Carlisle ( who we saw opening for Ray Lamontagne a year ago) doing Ring of Fire, then proceeding to Ronnie Dunn's version of Ring of Fire and Buddy Miller doing Hey Porter we then land on the first standout song of the album.

Lucinda Williams is another of those polarizing singers, I land firmly in the Love Lucinda camp, and her version of the Cash classic from the nineties Hurt is wonderful. Williams rasp is well suited to this song.

Two songs by bands I have heard of, but had no real exposure to, have made it a certainty that I will soon be exploring these artists full catlog's The Carolina Chocolate Drops ( what a name ) do a blistering take on Jackson that has been played about twenty times in our house since discovered. That is followed by a band called Iron and Wine which is from what I understand predominantly one man, singing a version of Long Black Veil that is nothing short of wonderful.

Kris Kristofferson croaks through Big River and Shelby Lynne then does Kristofferson's own, Cash interpreted Why Me Lord.

Surprising, at least to me, is how effective Train lead singer Pat Monahan was on a version of Help Me Make it Through the Night and then with help from Shelby Lynne on It Ain't Me Babe. Very good. It should be noted that the concert was not just songs Johnny wrote but songs he interpreted himself as he and June did a version of the Dylan classic. Lynne and Monahan did them proud.

Near the end of the album we get Sheryl Crow doing Cry Cry Cry and then she joins Willie Nelson on If I Were a Carpenter. Nelson himself sings I Still Miss Someone, surprisingly though these two artists contributions are far from the highlight.

Shooter Jennings and Jamey Johnson fill out the Highwaymen, Jennings particularly effective in his father's role, joining Willie and Kristofferson on their famous title track from which the group got their name.

The highlights of the album, as strong as these songs earlier mentioned were, are so far and above the other entries that I have saved them for last.

Kris Kristofferson, still croaking, joins Jamey Johnson for a version of Sunday Morning Coming Down which might be a more faithful rendition than any you will ever hear to the true spirit of the song. Johnson, himself, might well have the strongest, most traditional voice in country music. At times he seems like he has come along a generation too late but we are lucky for it. This is a fantastic song.

Shooter Jennings covers Cocaine Blues and proves that he, as well as Johnson, are proof that country music still has artists that remember their heritage.

Surprisingly perhaps the most unique song on the album is from the former lead singer of Evanescence Amy Lee who destroys I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry. Listening to her voice on this track begs the question where has she been?

And of course that version of Jackson, earlier mentioned rocks too.


This is one of the best albums of the year.

Ray

I had watched this movie a few years ago and enjoyed it. Seeing it on AMC a week or so ago I watched it again. It is a very good movie, and to some extent might have been the fuse that lit the fire of the recent spate of biopics that have been released. It and Walk the Line, another very strong movie.

And just as Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar for Best Actress Jamie Foxx showed great range and won the Oscar himself for Best Actor. Foxx in this role was great. He sang, had the mannerisms, and look of Charles down very well.

Ray Charles was an incredibly gifted man. From the movie and from Charles own autobiography it seems clear that the most scarring event of his life was seeing his little brother drown in a bucket of water when he was seven years old. He soon thereafter became blind and it would not be inconsistent to think that the two events together scarred him in a way that he never fully recovered from.

In the movie we see Charles from his beginning up through his second heroin arrest in 1965. Charles had a long running affair with a singer in his band, fathered a child with her, and yet loved his own family a great deal. His wife Della Bee Robinson played wonderfully by Kerry Washington is shown as a woman devoted to family who deals with Ray's infidelities and frailties. Eventually however she cannot put up with the drug use, and the drug arrest. She gives Ray an ultimatum.

We see Charles going through detox, the hard way, not accepting any drugs to mitigate the withdrawal effects. It is brutal to see and for those who have never gone through anything like that hard to understand how brutal it is. Charles did come out the other side. As the credits roll we are advised that Charles went on to great further success and never touched heroin again.

One scene in the movie left me feeling like it was unresolved. Charles hires a new announcer who soon slithers his way into his confidence. The movie wants you to think he was a user, who manipulates Ray from his large office right next to Ray. Clearly putting himself at the arm of power. In the end we see Charles fire his longtime assistant Jeff who he is told has been stealing from him. My sense of the scene was that Jeff had been set up and that perhaps later we would see a reversal of these decisions. In the movie at least it is left unresolved.

Still the movie is very good, the music is wonderful and Foxx deserved every accolade he got for this performance.

Florence + the Machine Unplugged

If you are not one of those folks who have discovered the band Florence + the Machine this is time to do so. This lady can sing. Not just sing, but sing, wail, any adjective of your choice for a big voice.

After having two successful albums they have been given the Unplugged treatment on MTV. The performance is the perfect vehicle for a singer like Florence. Hit songs like What the Water Gave Me, Shake it Out, and Dog Days Are Over lose nothing and gain intensity in this setting.

The songs that you have to hear however are the two covers she digs out for this performance. First we hear the Otis Redding classic Try a Little Tenderness. With one of those voices that the proverbial phone book would sound melodious this might be the best version of the song that I have heard, other than the original of course.

As strong as this entry is, once joined by the lead singer of a band I had never heard of called Queens of the Stone Age, a man named Josh Homme, a version of the Johnny and June Carter Cash classic Jackson is rolled out. It too is a song that gets in your head. I have added it to my prime playlist and think it will be there for quite some time. A classic song sung by current artists and sung well gives one hope in this day of predominantly awful music.

Listen to these songs, then listen to the rest. Florence Welch is a singer we will be hearing for many years to come.

Chimes of Freedom : The Songs of Bob Dylan

Last Tuesday Amnesty International released a benefit album which contained 75 covers of Bob Dylan songs. This should be a good fundraiser for Amnesty and certainly should provide significant amounts of press play and publicity which is something Amnesty certainly needs.

In our house we were very much looking forward to this collection. I have a very strong predisposition for cover songs. I have a friend who does not like live versions as he likes to hear the song as he first heard it on the radio and thus covers completely shake his world. For me I think a new interpretation of a song you love is always nothing less than interesting and sometimes can be amazing.

Bob Dylan is an amazing songwriter. Often critics in the past have conceded this point and said but if he just had someone else sing the songs but this album at least for me proves what we might not have believed. We want Dylan to sing these songs. They are what they are not just because of the lyrics but because Bob is singing them.

In a collection of seventy five songs there are going to be some hits and most likely even more misses. In this collection I would not classify that many songs as misses as just being in the words of Simon Cowell " forgettable." The fact is that at least for me it is hard to make a Dylan song better without Dylan in it.

There are some songs that work very well however. First on my list is the song that starts the collection. A version of One Too Many Mornings with the vocal from Johnny Cash and Dylan, and added vocals from The Avett Brothers. This has been my song of the week. This is the song I play each day and am singing when I am not. My kids are tired of it though my youngest daughter plays along and agrees that it is neat how they put the Avett's in with Cash's voice.

Pete Townsend does justice to Corinna, Corinna and Diana Krall offers a lovely take on Simple Twist of Fate. Ziggy Marley gives a reggae twist to Blowin' in the Wind that works, while New Jersey's Gaslight Anthem rocks Changing of the Guard. My Morning Jacket offers up Your a Big Girl Now and Jim James voice works as well.

Miley Cyrus offers up a surprising success on her version of Your Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go. It is quite good. Jack's Mannequin does well on Mr Tambourine Man. The best song on the second disc is Jackson Browne with Love Minus Zero/No Limit. Browne's version works on all levels.

The third disc does not offer much but it does hold the highlight of the album. Not just the highlight but the shockingly effective highlight. The highlight that in now way could have been predicted. Keisha the pop slut princess of the moment known for songs like Tick Tock sings a version of Don't Think Twice It's Alright that is at least for a music fan earth shattering. Recorded on Garage Band at her home, and kept as the recording because it ended up being so powerful, this girls sings from so far down her heart that she is hollow. She ends up crying and as she pauses by verse you can hear her sniffing her tears and runny nose away. This might be contrived but it does not feel like it. It is amazing.

On Side Four there are more winning entries. Mick Hucknall actually sounds a bit like Dylan on his version of One of Us Must Know, Micheal Franti puts a pop reggae spin on Subterrean Homesick Blues, and a band I have never heard of called We Are Augustus takes on Mama, You've Been on My Mind and does very well.

Lastly of note Kris Kristofferson's version of Quinn the Eskimo, his sigh on the intro is more meaningful than have the singers songs on the album and Pete Seeger who is I believe over 90 sings Forever Young and with his age and his history it is a success.

What doesn't work? It is not so much that a song does not work as it just does not add much. Sting's version of Girl From the North Country and Lenny Kravitz doing a take on Rainy Day Women, neither work for me. They both sound like almost every song they have done and just sound like bad takes on the originals. Sugarland, Flogging Molly and Sinead O' Connor do not do well on their takes as well. Flogging Molly sounds like all other Flogging Molly but Blowin in the Wind does not sound very strong through and Irish lilt.

Dave Matthews and Adele have their well known live versions of All Along the Watchtower and To Make You Feel My Love. These work but I did not rate them as they are not new material.

All in all I love Spotify, it gives one the chance to hear them all without a twenty dollar investment. I know, I know it was for a good cause to spend the money. But I did listen all week, Spotify must pay royalties. Listen to Keisha the next time your feeling blue. Just stay away from window ledges when you do.

American Masters - Merle Haggard

PBS runs a great series of in depth retrospectives of influential artists across many spectrums. This was an excellent program.

Telling the story of Merle Haggard was very revealing. Not just as an artist, as a singer that my parents listened to but as a microcosm of a class of people born in the twenties and thirties with simple tastes and patriotism in great quantities.

It is not a stretch to understand the appeal of Haggard and how his followers of that time are the economically stretched but culturally conservative population that are still difficult to understand.

Haggard was shattered by the sudden death of a father he adored. He was a troubled youth ending in prison at San Quentin. A 1958 concert by Johnny Cash made him see what h wanted and that perhaps could take him there.

He was talented and it did happen. The peak year may have been 1970 when Okie from Muskogee swept awards of Country Music.

His music is timeless. His voice is much better than one thinks. When you listen to Sing me Back Home his voice is as good as many of the greats.

When my daughter was born about that time Haggard released a song called Think about a Lullaby. It was not a hit. It was however the perfect song for a Dad to sing his baby to sleep with.

For that alone I will always have a memory and connection to Merle Haggards music. From my parents listening on the weekends when I was little to singing his song to my newborn daughter.

This show told us much about him we did not know. That was enjoyable. For me however it reminded me of many things I needed to remember. That was priceless.

Love you Dad. I do still remember the songs you sang.