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R A P I D R I V E R A R T S & C U L T U R E
spinning
discs
CD Reviews
by James Cassara
It is already February but we’re still catching up on a few select releases
that arrived towards the tail end of 2010. If you haven’t yet spent that
Christmas bonus or cashed in your gift cards, here is your chance to enrich
your aural existence while supporting the many excellent independent music
stores that help make Asheville such a groovy place to live!
In the end You Are Not Alone is neither
gospel nor rock, but rather a captivating and
joyful reminder that the two share far more
concerns than often meets the ear. ****1/2
Cassandra
Wilson
Silver Pony
EMI
It’s ironic that
after a string of
pop oriented albums
for the jazz
dominated Blue Note label that Cassandra
Wilson’s first release for EMI – a label with
a long tradition in pop – should be the
singer’s most direct jazz effort in years.
But it’s improv jazz with a modern
twist, incorporating various touches of
blues, funk, and the occasional nod to
Dionne Warwick styled pop, that weaves
together in ways few vocalists would attempt
and fewer still could accomplish.
Sampled from a series of European
shows, where she has long had a strong
following, Wilson and her fabulous band
recast some traditional jazz standards while
adapting modern rock tunes and seminal
country blues numbers with equal and
elegant results.
It’s a pretty daring move to include a
song by Big Star (“Watch the Sunrise”) in
the same set as “St. James Infirmary” but in
Cassandra Wilson’s world it’s the song that
matters, genre be damned. Her restrained,
shimmering vocals are the anchor which
holds everything together, and while the
notion of cobbling together songs from dif-
ferent towns on different nights (and later
augmenting them in the studio with new
material) might suggest a lack of cohesion,
such is definitely not the case.
Her version of Billie Holiday’s “Lover
Come Back to Me” is as dynamic as any yet
recorded, while a delicate yet forceful ren-
dering of McCartney’s “Blackbird” is both
reverent and playful.
Much of the credit should go to pro-
ducer John Fishbach for helping Wilson
both select material that best suits her voice
and finding the proper musicians (the
rhythm section of bassist Reggie Veal and
drummer Herlin Riley is particularly brilliant)
to nudge each song in the right direc-
tion. But this is clearly Wilson’s album and
it’s her artistic vision that shines through
and through.
From the beginning of her glorious
career Cassandra Wilson has continually
set a high standard. With Silver Pony
she
again proves herself one of this genera-
tion’s most versatile, elegant, and forceful
chanteuses. ****
Mavis Staples
You Are Not Alone
Anti Records
Even as the
daughter of Pop Sta-
ples and lead vocalist
of the fabled group that bears her name, Ma-
vis Staples has never been the most forceful
of singers. Her forte has always been the
simmering reserve that smolders around the
volcanic edge. But she is unparalleled in her
subtlety, grit, and passion.
In short, she has both the ideal voice
and pedigree for blues laced gospel music,
that narrow divide where the secular meets
the sacred and desire joins the divine. She’s
always been as comfortable in the rock arena
as the pulpit, but never more so than with
her latest.
You Are Not Alone, , produced by Wilco
mastermind Jeff Tweedy, who also handles
much of the instrumental chores, allows
Staples to step out a bit, tackling songs that
might not typically match her style but
clearly appeal to her sensibilities.
In Tweedy she has found the idea foil,
one whose pop leanings challenge her own
while remaining sympathetic to the core of
what makes her great. Unlike some of his
sidebar efforts, one never gets the sense that
this is a vanity project for Tweedy (Wilco
associates Pat Sansone and Glen Kotche are
also on board) but rather a genuine attempt
to reach out and expand his own repertoire.
Staples grabs hold of smart covers as
Randy Newman’s “Losing You” and Allen
Toussaint’s “Last Train” with zeal, while
Tweedy’s own tasteful guitar work coils
around her voice like a cobra ready to strike.
When switching to the more gospel
pieces (“In Christ There Is No East or
West,” “Creep Along Moses”) the results
are no less convincing; Staples powerfully
reminds us that spiritual commitment, like
all true love, begins and ends with the heart.
According to reports, Tweedy wrote a
number of songs for this project but only a
pair, including the title track, made the final
cut. That’s a shame as it would be fascinat-
ing to more fully see what imprint working
with Staples has had on his own often overly
wrought arrangements.
Fortunately the production here is
intentionally sparse, allowing her voice to
be deservedly out front. Good for Tweedy
in tackling such a project and to Staples for
her willingness to reach across both genre
and generation. The resultant effort is that
infrequent beast that inhabits the better of
two realms while diminishing neither.
Bryan Ferry
Olympia
Virgin Music
The news that
Bryan Ferry was not
only releasing his first
album of largely new material in fifteen
years but had also enlisted his former
Roxy Music alumnus Brian Eno, Andy
McKay, and Phi Manzanera to join him for
the sessions gave both hope and concern
– depending on one’s own tastes – that he
might abandon the seductive crooning that
has largely marked his solo work and return
to the more antiseptic art school sensibilities
of Roxy’s earliest records.
Neither seems to be the case here and,
quite surprisingly, Olympia
is Ferry’s most
alluring album since the days of Avalon, , a
lush collection of sophistication and cool
that looks and feels like a luxuriously tailored
suit.
Ferry is in finely mannered form,
delivering each tune with the same languid
yet dynamic inflection that has become his
stock and trade, while the songs themselves
positively hover ever so slightly out of reach.
Ferry’s ability to deftly shift the mood of a
song remains his strongest suit.
“Heartache by Numbers” starts as a
gorgeous exercise in funk but moves inexo-
rably towards a far more vaporous plane, a
shift in tone that is nearly imperceptible until
complete. “Song to the Siren”, the most
Roxy-like number here, is equally shrewd.
Propelled by Eno’s seductive ghost in the
machine synthesizer, it pulsates with a desire
that lurks just below the surface.
Such attention to craft has always been
a trademark for Ferry, and while Olympia is
nominally not that different from his other
solo efforts, the renewed attention to detail
is most welcome. In truth he’s not doing
anything that’s particularly new, he’s just
doing it better than he has in years. ***1/2
Paul Carrack
A Different Hat
Carrack UK Records
The musical equivalent of a utility
infielder, Paul Carrack has one of the most
recognizable voices ever attached to a name
not readily known. As the singer behind
such hits as “How Long?” by Ace, Squeeze’s
‘CD’s’ continued on next page
10 February 2011 — RAPID RIVER ARTS & CULTURE MAGAZINE — Vol. 14, No. 6