Month: December 2008

Building on his last two records, Halford proves to be one of the strongest of a group of songwriters in the Bob Dylan mold. He doesn’t sound like Dylan, but his mix rock, blues, country, and soul, along with his always-interesting lyrics, put him firmly in that school.

This time around, Halford, like many songwriters, appears a bit preoccupied with New Orleans. “Louisiana Man” carries an unmistakable message. “Ninth Ward” is an acoustic country blues with a great lyric and fine dobro. The Zydeco-drenched “In a Dream” features the legendary Augie Meyers on keyboards. “Dead Man’s Hand” has a literal lyric pushed by swampy guitar. “Chicken Bone Jones” is the fun, bluesy tale where Halford calls himself out for punchy, funky, loud solo that perfectly matches the funk of the tune. The majestic rocker “Running Crazy” has a cool lyric about kids. And on the closer, Halford returns to Memphis for the ballad “Two Kings.”

Halford is proving a consistent, strong songwriter capable of creating one fine record after another.

Grab any top-selling country CD produced in the last five years that has acoustic instruments on it and chances are you’ll find Bryan Sutton credited with playing acoustic guitar. On Homespun Video’s latest release, Bryan Sutton’s Secrets for Successful Flatpicking, you can pick up some tips on how to be a hot picker, too. A guitar duo with fellow Ricky Skaggs band alumnus Cody Kilby opens the DVD. It then proceeds in an interview format with Homespun video founder Happy Traum prompting Bryan to discuss his techniques.

Bryan uses several well-known fiddle tunes as examples on this DVD. “Daley’s Reel,” “Texas Gales,” “Wild Bill Jones,” and “Beaumont Rag” all get the full treatment here. I regularly play “Beaumont Rag” with my band, and although I play mandolin, Bryan’s version of the song gave me lots of new ideas for my own solos. Homespun’s split frame technique shows both the right and left hand simultaneously. Although this video isn’t slick by any means, it has good enough production values so that it never obscures the information. Sure it would have been nice if the quality was good enough to look sharp on a large screen, but as most people will probably view it on a computer monitor or a small TV, it’s good enough.

Unfortunately for students, most great guitarists are not very articulate when it comes to explaining how they play. Bryan Sutton is an exception to that rule. I’ve sat in on Bryan’s workshops at the RockyGrass Academy so I know he’s very good at explaining how he plays. Here, Homespun Video captures his special ability to elucidate his remarkably clean style. If you are serious about moving up to the next level with your flatpicking, this video delivers the tools you need to make that leap.

Mountain Heart plays music its own way. What makes the band so different? Breadth. While most bands narrow their scope to one particular sound, Mountain Heart pushes boundaries past traditional bluegrass into other popular musical forms.

This album was recorded in one take at a club in Michigan. From the opening introductions through the final song Mountain Heart captures the crowd’s complete attention. These guys are great showmen.

The set begins with a blistering version of “Road that Never Ends” featuring hot solos by Barry Abernathy (banjo), Adam Steffey (mandolin), and Jimmy Van Cleve (fiddle). Super-fast paced songs are standard fare for a top-flight bluegrass band, but after a couple more barnburners, Mountain Heart radically shifts gears and begins to show their depth with the honky-tonk elbow-bender “Who’s the Fool Now?” But its most radical departure from standard bluegrass fare is an a capella rendering of “Gospel Train,” with six part harmonies and a vocal technique they refer to as “nose horns.”

After this vocal tour-de-force Mountain Heart takes another left turn with a 12-bar blues called “It Works Both Ways.” The final song of the show, the Van Cleve instrumental “#6 Barn Dance,” reveals the band’s modern acoustic music side as they stretch a fiddle tune into more musical shapes than a piece of warm taffy.

The Road That Never Ends is a must-have for not only Mountain Heart fans, but anyone who appreciates masterful music recorded live with no “fixes” or overdubs.

Don Latarski is a fine guitarist who has produced recordings to go along with his wonderful live work. His work with Rue de Blues was a great mix of R&B and soul. Here, he changes the scenery with the acoustic jazz of Rue D’Acoustic.

Very notable here are the compositions. With an acoustic trio, it might seem hard to keep things interesting. Not here. Pretty much every cut has a great musical hook; the melody of the opener, “Acoustic Evidence,” sticks around as the song works itself over what feels like different movements before returning to that melody. Latarski shows off his harmonic skills on cuts like the ballad, “June in Waiting,” where he darts in and out of the changes while the notes from his acoustic take on a certain liquid feel. Don’s rolling fingerpicked changes and great melody propel the tune “Bramble On.” The middle takes on the kind of funkiness one doesn’t often associate with acoustic guitar. “Autumn Slide” is a ballad that feels – to its credit – a little off-kilter. The breezy “BlueAzz” is a beautiful changeup where the trio (Latarski, Mark Schneider on bass, Jason Palmer on drums) shows it’s not afraid to move to straight-ahead pop. Don’s double stops and single lines form the perfect solo.

News flash: Toots is sporting dreads! Since the dawn of his career in the mid 1960s, Frederick “Toots” Hibbert has sworn by a close-shaven head. And his music has remained close to its ska and reggae roots, rather than the mystical, hard-core Rastafarian world of the natty dread master, Bob Marley.

And on Light Your Light, Toots goes back to his roots and back in the spotlight with a fine blend of revisited Toots’ reggae classics, R&B, gospel, and even a ska instrumental.

The show opens with a reworking of Toots’ 1970s-era bit of braggadocio, “Johnny Coolman.” Derek Trucks slips in his slide guitar here, but wisely plays a side role. Yet still at times – as in the outro solo – this makes for an uncomfortable concoction of Southern Rock reggae. Bonnie Raitt re-joins Toots for “Premature,” another reborn tune. And while her slide guitar fits the groove better, her singing, without that “Ja” accent, simply sounds flat in reggae. After the guest cameos are done, the album is all Toots and gets good. His reggaefied version of Ray Charles’ “I Gotta Woman” hits all the right notes while his cover of Otis Redding’s “Pain In My Heart” is glorious. Both pay homage to Toots’ R&B heroes.

“Tribute to Coxson/Guns of Navarone” is in honor of the old-time Jamaican record producers, from Byron Lee and Duke Reid to Studio One’s Sir Coxson Dodd. It’s ska reborn with rollicking sound-system joy. The dub then segues into a revival of the Skatalites’ cover of Dimitri Tiomkin’s 1960s action-film theme.

Tunes like “Celia” and “Image Get A Lick” are alive with a reggae vibe and sunny energy akin to many of the old 1970s Maytals numbers.

Despite all, however, the highpoint of the album is the closer, “Light U Light.” You can hear the gospel roots in much of Toots’ singing, yet it shines clear and bright here. With a soulful reminder of one of his greatest songs, “Pomps and Pride,” this is truly Toots at his best.