Various Artists - Country Funk 1969-1975 (2012)

What is country funk? Well that is the first question I asked before I had even listened to a single track off this 2012 compilation. As a style label, country funk has been coined years later probably by the people who conceived this compilation, and musically speaking is meant to encompass a range of different styles including gospel, blues, county, and roots rock which many American artists in the late-60s and early-70s were experimenting with and blending together in their music. At this time, artistic experimentation in music was rife, with many artists mixing things up and crossing over into different musical territories, something you can certainly here on this album with elements of country, gospel and funk featuring within a single track. So although country funk is not exactly a precise stylistic term musically, and I would argue has been used more so as a selling point for this compilation, the term does a nice job of describing the types of musical merging’s that were taking place in the States during this period.

Aesthetically I would also say the music termed country funk is linked together by the fact that the songs which fall under this umbrella term as witnessed by the material on this compilation tend to have groove, boogie, and an underlying rawness about them. I would say it is music from the country but with the feel of the city. Spiritually I also think the themes of the songs are coming from a southern perspective, and you can certainly see that in some of the song titles on this album, with things like “Georgia Morning Dew”, “Lucas Was a Redneck” and “Bayou Country”. As for the artists that feature, well they are not big names by any stretch, something that I actually find a good thing and is one of the reasons I find these sorts of stylistically-based compilations quite intriguing, as I come to listen with no real pre-conception of the artists themselves and what sort of music they play. This in itself can often make the listening experience that much more enjoyable. With this in mind, just some of the standouts for me on this compilation included Johnny Adams “Georgia Morning Dew” which is a sort of slide guitar country blues, Bobby Charles “Street People” which has a Band feel to it, the playful kick of Larry Jon Wilson’s “Ohoopee River Bottomland”, the southern soul of Bobbie Gentry’s “He Made a Woman Out of Me”, and finally a storming blues cover of Dr John’s “Walk on Gilded Splinters” by Johnny Jenkins.

This compilation for me represents a melting pot of those Southern styles of music that were often mixed and moulded together into completely new sounds, sounds which came to dominate the music scene of the late 60s and into the 70s. Artists might have been country at heart, but were filling to throw in a funk rhythm or bass line, or they might have been a gospel singer but the country came calling. This sort of musical freedom reigned supreme for a slight moment in time there, and for a fleeting second was the norm in the music industry until the corporates of LA came calling and one had to be pigeon-holed into a box to be sold. It is hard to pin country funk down, let alone describe it, so perhaps in conclusion it is best to simply acknowledge country funk for what it represents, and that is music which is fun, playful, and experimental. So credit to the folks at Light in the Attic Records for releasing this neat little set, and I certainly look forward to hearing volume two “Country Funk 1967-1974” which itself has just been released. 

B+

- Sam 

George Ezra - Waiting on Voyage (2014)

Waiting on Voyage is the debut album by twenty-one year old British singer/songwriter George Ezra, yet another in a long list of twenty-something year olds breaking through in this very in vogue acoustic-folk style. However, at the same time, this guy is quite different stylistically from the likes of Ed Sheeran and Jake Bugg largely thanks to his very distinctive singing voice.

George Ezra’s voice when you hear for the first time is a voice that you do not immediately think belongs to a twenty-one year old, and sounds more so like someone in their sixties, someone with years of singing behind them. With this in mind, I must confess that I don’t think I have heard a voice quite like this one on someone in the early stages of their career, and Ezra certainly has a voice way beyond his years. Sound-wise I would describe his voice as being a cross between Eddie Vedder and someone in the ilk of Robert Johnson, or other delta blues musicians, with its warm bluesy tone and deepness. It is this unique and very mature voice which more than anything ensures that Ezra’s music stands out within what is quite a saturated singer-songwriter market, and after hearing a couple of singles, made his debut album Waiting on Voyage that much more intriguing to find out if the songs themselves could match up to the singer.

Ezra’s music is very much acoustic-based (he uses a semi-acoustic guitar and occasionally a resonator) and contains a blend of folk, skiffle, blues, and pop. Yes the song-writing at this stage is quite simplistic and the music definitely owes a lot to Ezra’s unique voice and the overall sense of melody it portrays, but often when you have such a distinct sound in your armoury whether it be a distinctive guitar, or singing style, simplicity can work best, with complex arrangements or experimental sounds only working to distract the listener. With this in mind, at times the music on here does suffer a bit from over-production, with whoever is producing trying to give some of the tracks a modern pop kick to them, something which is totally unnecessary. Some of the tracks could do without the synths, sequencing and electronic backing as they do not add anything, and quite frankly do not work well with the style of music Ezra is playing.

So what tracks stand out on the album? Well the album kicks off with a great opener “Blame It on Me”, which contains some skiffle influences in the guitar playing and also has a great sing-a-long chorus, something most of the songs on here contain. “Budapest” is one of the singles on the album which began to get Ezra noticed in the music world, and is more a mellower folk track with a slight calypso feel to it especially in the vocals and guitar. It is on tracks like this one that you really get to hear the unique quality of Ezra’s voice and his very distinctive deep tone. “Cassy O” is the second single, and although lyrically it is a bit throw-a-way, it has a very nice country shuffle to it and does a good job in highlighting Ezra’s efficient rhythm guitar playing, a style that is quite experimental when it comes to different strum patterns. “Did You Hear the Rain” musically is perhaps the most interesting track on the record and begins with a very haunting delta-blues like moan, before Ezra begins singing a cappella in a deep bluesy voice which sounds as if it could have come straight from the cotton fields in the Southern states of America, it is truly something. The track then transitions into a bit of an alt-folk track full of mood and feeling in what is definitely one of the album highlights. “Drawing Board”, “Stand by Your Gun” and “Barcelona” are also other noteworthy tracks on what is a very varied album stylistically and one which keeps the listener guessing as to what will come next, with Ezra bouncing from style to style across each track. There are a few dud tracks on the record, namely “Leaving It Up to You”, “Breakaway” and “Over the Creek”, but on the whole these are the exception to the rule and do not really diminish the overall quality of the album.

Waiting on Voyage is a very interesting and eclectic first up effort from George Ezra. There are a lot of things going on here musically which stand out and the fact he is willing to move from style to style across the album is quite daring for a debut. At times the production does get a bit too much and sees some of the songs lose their focus a bit, with the production team going dangerously down the pop for pop sake road which tends to be employed a lot in this day and age. Despite this, there is definitely plenty to work with here and if anything his quite remarkable voice will ensure he has a future in the industry. It will be very interesting to see where he goes from here musically, especially as he begins to mature as a song-writer, while as the voice itself, maturity-wise is already there. 

A- 

- Sam 

Jack White - Lazaretto (2014)

Jack White has had a very diverse music career and is what I would describe as being a bit of a musical chameleon of sorts. He had great success with the White Stripes, whilst also intermittently moving between off-shoot projects such as the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather. The beauty of following Jack White is that you don’t really know what he is thinking and where he will go next musically, making his career an intriguing follow as much as anything. With this in mind he has now moved on to a solo career, releasing his debut solo album in 2012 Blunderbuss which was a solid first up effort that encompassed many different styles. It is now 2014 and again White has another album out, his second solo offering Lazaretto and although there are some good tracks on here, the results end up being a little bid underwhelming.

White again mixes up the sounds on this album, with blues rock, garage, alternative and country all making appearances in various guises. White has been known to speak of his song-writing methods and how he never has a pre-set plan of making an album but simply records what he feels like at the time, and this is perhaps why his first two solo records sound so diverse musically and do not follow any set patterns. Lazaretto starts up with a storming track the bluesy rocker “Three Women” which on first listening perhaps could be deemed one of his best. It certainly gets the album off to a positive start with its sizzling organ and playfulness lyrically and musically. The title track “Lazaretto” follows next and is a typical White garage rocker that congers up early White Stripes with its heavy guitar riffing and pounding drums. It is nice enough as a track, but falls a bit flat as it doesn’t really explore any new musical ground and ends up being a bit pedestrian. On “Temporary Ground” White goes all country/singer-songwriter as he often has a tendency to do, and is accompanied on vocals by one of the members of his all-female backing band, with a bit of fiddle thrown in for good measure, while “Would You Fight for My Love” is a mysterious almost dark track with a bit of a psychedelic rock feel to it in what is one of the stronger tracks on the record. The first half of the album then ends with an instrumental “High Ball Stepper” which does nothing for me, and “Just One Drink” which has a country-blues vibe to it with a good sing-along line about drinking, what could be better.

The second half of the album begins with “Alone in My House” which brings out Whites softer country side again while also showcasing some thunderous piano playing, a strong feature of the album. White sounds good when he dives into the country-folk area and I am still waiting for the day the record a full country/Americana album. However, it is at this point where the record begins to flounder a bit, starting with “Entitlement” a country ballad which although sweet is a bit predictable. This is followed by “That Black Bat Licorice” which returns to the heavy guitars of the title track, but with less success in what is quite a high intensity number that moves in all sorts of directions. The album finally comes to an end with “I think I Found the Culprit” a filler type track that sees White moving in an alt-country direction this time and “Want and Able”, yet another country ballad with the ingenious lyric (insert sarcasm) “who is the who telling who what to do”. By this point I am afraid it sounds like White is running out of ideas both lyrically and musically, with this track sounding a bit like a good warm up studio track but nothing more.

So in conclusion, I would say that Lazaretto is an album with flashes of brilliance and small moments that make you sit up and take notice, but these are few and far between, with side one being the best half of the album before it eventually falls away. At this point I am still waiting for Jack White to deliver an entire album of good material, or should I say a complete musical statement that measures up to his reputation as a twenty-first century rock master, something he has so far failed to do on his first two solo outings. 

C+

- Sam 

Neil Young - Live at the Cellar Door (2013)

Live at the Cellar Door is the latest release in the Neil Young Archive Series, a series of releases which similarly to the highly successful Bob Dylan Bootleg Series features a mixture of already released, as well as unreleased remastered studio and live recordings. This latest offering is a live recording containing performances from the six concerts Young performed in 1970 at Washington DCs. Cellar Door.

On here Young treats the smallish audience to some acoustic performances of tracks off his then just released album “After the Gold Rush”, mixed in with some old Crazy Horse and Buffalo Springfield favourites, as well as some earlier renditions of songs which he had yet released namely “Old Man” and “See the Sky About to Rain”. The performances on this album feature just Young by himself playing acoustic guitar and occasionally piano, giving the audience present an unplugged minimalist interpretation of his country and folk rock compositions. This in itself works well as his early-70s output was mainly made up of acoustic folk tracks meant for smaller live settings like the Cellar Door club. It is also very interesting to hear laidback acoustic versions of songs such as “Cinnamon Girl” and “Down by the River” of which the original recordings done with Crazy Horse were exercises in heavily distorted guitar madness.

Live at the Cellar Door all and all has much the same feel as the 2007 released “Live at Massey Hall 1971”, just not as good. “Massey Hall” had an intimacy and a performer-audience connection which I think is lacking a bit on this album. This seems to have something to do with the production on “Cellar Door”, with the songs themselves sounding as if Young could have been sitting in a studio booth playing to himself, with some overdubbed audience applause thrown in for good measure to make it appear like it’s live. That’s not to say that all of the tracks on here are bad performances, or are lacking in quality. There are gorgeous versions of the Buffalo Springfield song “I Am A Child” and “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” from “After the Gold Rush” among other gems dotted across the album, it’s just that if you liked “Live at Massey Hall” which was a brilliant live album recorded around the same time, you won’t really be missing out if you don’t hear this one. Live at Cellar Door is probably best left for Neil Young fanatics and album collectors, or those into historical and archival recordings.

 

B

 

- Sam

Bob Dylan - Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) The Bootleg Series Vol. 10 (2013)

Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) is the tenth release in the long running Bob Dylan bootleg series, focussing this time on Dylan’s transitional period between 1969 and 1971 and in particular the albums Self Portrait and New Morning. This two disc compilation has plenty of variety and is made up of a mixture of unreleased recordings, demos, alternative takes, as well as a couple of live performances from Dylan’s 1969 performance at the Isle of White Festival.

What is interesting about this latest bootleg release was the decision to focus on the material recorded around the release of Self Portrait, an album which has garnered its fair shear of critics, and at the time of its release left fans and reviewers confused to say the least. The original album was made up mostly of covers of pop standards and traditional folk songs of varying quality, and contained hardly any new original material from Dylan. The reaction to this was poor despite the album still selling in the millions, with many expecting yet another Dylan masterpiece after his return post his serious motorcycle accident saw him release two of his finest albums John Wesley Harding in 1968 and Nashville Skyline in 1969. The story behind this inconsistent and confusing release is that Dylan had had enough of being in the spotlight and wanted to escape in order to live a normal life. To achieve this he thought that by releasing a sub-standard album people would go off him and his celebrity would die down allowing him to raise his family in peace. In the end this decision ultimately failed and the album still sold well despite receiving a lot of negative press. This album seemingly didn’t do Dylan any favours and simply had the effect of increasing the spotlight around him as people became more expectant for the real Dylan to stand up. So it seems in focussing on the period around Self Portrait on this latest compilation, Columbia Records who produces these official bootleg releases is partaking in an act of music revisionism, going back to an album and period which was initially panned (mostly by critics) and seeing if was actually as bad as made out. In response I can say that after having listened to this compilation, this period of Dylan’s career was not as bad as has been made out and in fact I think that many of these new recordings and alternative takes have done justice to the music Dylan was making at the time.

The recordings on this compilation are very simplistic with minimal production that conveys a very warm homely feel. Most of the tracks on here which are performed in a country and folk style are just Dylan singing and playing acoustic guitar and piano, accompanied only by David Bromberg on lead acoustic. Bromberg is one of the highlights of this compilation with his delicate folk touches and country flourishes really contributing nicely to the recordings and acting as a nice counter to Dylan’s strumming and rhythm playing. In listening to this material although they are all old recordings from 1969 and 1970, many of them sound fresh and new as if they could have been recorded yesterday, while at the same time despite the fact that the majority of this material in its varying forms has not been released until now it feels as if you could have been listening to these recordings for years as they portray a comforting familiarity which feeds the soul. Much of this I put down to how Dylan sounded at this time, with his voice in my opinion sounding at its best during the years between 1968 and 1970. A lot of people were put off by his country croon that he put on at times especially on Nashville Skyline, but I feel this added another dimension to his voice which suited tremendously the music he was beginning to record giving it a richly soft country feel as opposed to his early work where his voice could often could come across as a bit jagged and hard-edged.

Coming in at thirty-five tracks I don’t have enough room to focus on all the material on here, but I will mention some of my favourites from the two discs. “Pretty Saro” is a traditional English folk ballad from the 1700s which was recorded by Dylan for Self Portrait and has until now remained unreleased. It is done in a beautifully simplistic folk style and features one of Dylan’s best vocal performances, a definite highlight on this compilation. “Spanish is the Loving Tongue” is a song which was based on a poem from the early 1900s and was set to music in the 1920s. Here, Dylan’s recording is just him on piano delivering yet again another brilliant vocal performance, showing also that at times he had a mellower vulnerable side to his voice and could sing a love song just as well as a protest anthem. “Time Passes Slowly” is a Dylan original which was originally released on New Morning. This recording is an alternative take that features George Harrison on guitar and backing vocals (one of two tracks that Harrison appears on) and comes across as vastly superior to the original album version of this track. “This Evening So Soon” is another traditional folk song that Dylan makes his own and one where he is accompanied by Broomberg on guitar and Al Kooper on piano. Finally, “Bring Me a Little Water” is another unreleased recording this time from the New Morning sessions which sees Dylan mix it up a bit with something I like to call folk gospel. On this recording Dylan plays piano and sings with a soulful edge to his voice, while being accompanied by some female backing singers in what is one of the best songs on this compilation.  Why this recording was passed over for the original album I don’t know, but I sure am glad we get to hear it now forty-odd years later.

All in all this is a pretty good release and for me does well to somewhat destroy the myth about the Self Portrait period being a dud for Dylan. There is some occasional filler and the odd recording that could have been passed over such as an unreleased Basement Tapes recording which sounds almost inaudible, as well as a version of “All the Tired Horses” from Self Portrait which sounded as bad now as it did then, but if you sift through this there is definitely plenty of worthy material and stuff to capture your interest. I would also not that much like most compilations this is not a coherent consistent release and as a listener you should be prepared to go full circle from one style to the next, with Dylan taking you from folk to country to Americana and back again. This however does not take away from what is an overall highly satisfying and magical compilation which does a great job in highlighting just how wonderful this period was for Dylan musically.

A-

- Sam

 

 

 

 

Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline (1969)

Released in 1969 during the height of flower power Nashville Skyline was completely removed from much of everything else that was going on musically at the time and saw Bob Dylan build on the rootsy sound of his previous release 1967s John Wesley Harding as he moved head first into country music, leaving behind his politically charged folk anthems in the process.

Nashville Skyline is a very warm and friendly album, and has a strong homely feel to it. The music on the album is unthreatening lyrically and musically very much unlike Dylan’s earlier folk material as he attempts a radical change of direction in his music. Coming in the wake of his motorcycle accident in 1966, Dylan’s change of direction musically seems to have fallen in line with his new perspective on life where he became a more private family man. He also began to publically distance himself from the political and social unrest of the late-1960s and from the counter-culture, especially the tag of being seen as the spokesmen for a generation to which he responded “I wasn’t the toastmaster of any generation”. The state of mind Dylan seemingly was in during this period comes across in the tranquil-like music on Nashville Skyline, while country music was the perfect genre for him in which to retreat into his thoughts and reflect on his feelings.

On this album Dylan surrounds himself with in demand Nashville country players a move which I feel translates into an I play, you follow ethos on the album. What I mean by this is that the backing musicians are simply there to serve the song rather than to display their virtuosity on their instrument. These simple country songs don’t lend themselves to solos or amazing displays of musicianship, with Dylan very much going for simplicity over any form of musical statement. The album contains a mixture of soft country ballads and up-tempo tracks, while the only real display of musicianship from his reputable Nashville musicians occurs in the form of instrumental “Nashville Skyline Rag”. Although the album as a coherent whole flows nicely from song to song, the songs that stand out for me include the opening track “Girl from the North Country” which features Johnny Cash on vocals, one of the few up-tempo songs on the album “To Be Alone with You” and album closer “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You”. Dylan’s voice is also a pleasant surprise as he switches to a country crooning style taking many fans by surprise. On first listen he sounds unrecognisable in comparison to his folk twang that made him famous, but after a few songs his voice begins to grow on you as it gives off this warm soothing sound well suited to the short and sweet songs, and the country style of the album.

Although the style of the album was a surprise to many, Dylan was lauded by critics for this album especially for going down a completely different avenue musically. Nashville Skyline went on to become one of his best-selling albums and had a direct influence on the development of country rock during the early-70s. This reaction was quite ironic considering Dylan wanted more privacy and less attention at this time and what he got instead with this album was the exact opposite in the form of praise from music critics and commercial success. This albums release led to an increased interest in Dylan and his music, his whereabouts, and what his next move would be, the sort of heightened attention that resulted in his highly anticipated set at the 1969 Isle of White Festival, his first concert in three years. Nashville Skyline is a very fine album and is one of Dylan’s best, marking the moment where he left behind his political folk songs for a more self-reflective sound that he would continue with for much of his career. It is a very soothing album musically, which is not always the case for Dylan who can be a hard listen at times, and has an underlying relaxing quality to it allowing listeners to drift off. I thoroughly recommend it to Dylan fans, country rock fans, and those that like to chill out and relax to music.

 

Very High A-

 

- Sam