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Beyond | By Zach Phillips<br />
Americana’s<br />
Deep Roots<br />
The tight-knit Americana music<br />
community bonded together for<br />
several noteworthy projects issued<br />
during the first half of this year.<br />
“I’m like James Brown, only<br />
white and taller, and all I wanna do is<br />
stomp and holler,” sings Hayes Carll<br />
to kick off KMAG YOYO (& Other<br />
American Stories) (Lost Highway<br />
15136-02; 42:00 HHHH½), a contender<br />
for this year’s best roots-rock<br />
release. Carll’s a talented craftsman<br />
of well-built, familiar melodies, but<br />
his true gift is for conveying smartaleck<br />
barroom wisdom. (“Everybody’s<br />
talking ’bout the shape I’m<br />
in/They say, ‘Boy, you ain’t a poet,<br />
just a drunk with a pen.’”) Still, he<br />
can write a heartbreaker with the best of them.<br />
On “Bye Bye Baby,” he remembers the one<br />
who got away “out there somewhere, between<br />
the highway and the moon.” He could<br />
just as well be singing about the soul of every<br />
troubadour, an overcrowded group among<br />
which he stands out.<br />
Ordering info: losthighwayrecords.com<br />
For The Majestic Silver Strings (New<br />
West NW6188; 56:46 HHH), producer and<br />
songwriter Buddy Miller joins forces with guitarists<br />
Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz<br />
along with a handful of roots-rock elite. The<br />
result is a pleasant but underwhelming collection<br />
where, ironically, the original songs often<br />
trump the high-profile covers. Casual listeners<br />
may want to download “Meds” and “God’s<br />
Wing’ed Horse”—a collaboration between<br />
Frisell and singer Julie Miller, Buddy’s wife—instead<br />
of springing for the whole package.<br />
Ordering info: newwestrecords.com<br />
Leisz also lends his talents to Blessed<br />
(Lost Highway 15240-02; 59:05 HHH½),<br />
the latest release from country-rock goddess<br />
Lucinda Williams. Over the past decade, Williams’<br />
songwriting has taken a turn toward the<br />
minimalist, and Blessed pushes that to new<br />
levels. There’s no “Essence,” “Over Time” or<br />
“Real Love” here. Instead, she delivers an inspired<br />
but unpolished song cycle on the back<br />
of her most formidable band to date.<br />
Ordering info: losthighwayrecords.com<br />
On I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs Of Fox<br />
Hollow (Red Beet Records RBRCD 0014;<br />
29:46 HHH½), a group of Americana notables,<br />
including Buddy Miller, cover Hall’s<br />
1974 children’s album, Songs Of Fox Hollow<br />
(For Children Of All Ages). Several tracks are<br />
stunners, particularly the vocals by Patty Griffin<br />
on “I Love” and Elizabeth Cook on “I Wish I<br />
Had A Million Friends.” Hall himself even lends<br />
his voice to the closer, “I Made A Friend Of A<br />
Hayes Carll<br />
Flower Today,” a new song that fits right into<br />
this surprisingly moving tribute.<br />
Ordering info: redbeetrecords.com<br />
On its sophomore release, Helplessness<br />
Blues (Sub Pop SPCD 888; 49:53 HHHH½),<br />
Fleet Foxes seek identity, enlightenment and<br />
relief from the quarter-life crisis. The album’s<br />
a reverb symphony of late-’60s, early ’70s<br />
folk-rock, awash in multipart harmonies and<br />
random instruments. Supposedly, there’s even<br />
a Tibetan singing bowl in the mix. Bandleader<br />
Robin Pecknold displays welcome growth as a<br />
songsmith, writing more personally and, at the<br />
same time, more universally than on the Foxes’<br />
self-titled debut. Helplessness Blues is a shot<br />
of sunshine—a marked improvement from the<br />
band’s first album—and well-deserving of its<br />
considerable hype.<br />
Ordering info: subpop.com<br />
Steve Earle’s I’ll Never Get Out Of This<br />
World Alive (New West NWA3052; 37:43<br />
HHH½) makes an argument that the songwriter’s<br />
strongest suit may be for the slow-burning<br />
heart-tuggers. Such down-tempo numbers as<br />
“Every Part Of Me,” “This City” and “God Is<br />
God” rank among the most memorable moments<br />
in Earle’s quarter-decade-long catalog.<br />
Ordering info: newwestrecords.com<br />
Instead of relying on others’ songs, country-rock<br />
interpreter Emmylou Harris wrote<br />
or co-wrote all but two tracks on Hard Bargain<br />
(Nonesuch 525966-2; 56:06 HHH).<br />
It’s among her more directly emotive statements<br />
and often pays tribute to the departed.<br />
Sometimes, this works to great effect, as on<br />
the driving “New Orleans” and “Darling Kate”<br />
for the late Kate McGarrigle; other times, not<br />
so much (“My Name Is Emmett Till”). But like<br />
many Harris albums, Hard Bargain is an aesthetic<br />
feast, making its uneven moments all<br />
the more listenable. DB<br />
Ordering info: nonesuch.com<br />
Courtesy Universal Music<br />
Anne Mette Iversen Quartet<br />
Milo Songs<br />
Brooklyn Jazz Underground 025<br />
HHH1/2<br />
New parents inevitably dote over their children,<br />
seeing genius in every utterance and<br />
invention that springs from their young minds.<br />
Bassist Anne Mette Iversen takes that tendency<br />
to the extreme on Milo Songs, creating an<br />
entire CD’s worth of new pieces out of a single<br />
melody devised by her then-2-year-old son.<br />
Fortunately, the resulting album isn’t the<br />
equivalent of a refrigerator door cluttered with<br />
crayon “masterpieces.” Iversen plays hide and<br />
seek with the original tune throughout, at times<br />
bringing it to the forefront, at others burying it<br />
deep within a song’s construction. She manages<br />
to generate a diverse suite of music from such a<br />
simple source, maintaining a youthful sensibility<br />
even inside her most cerebral compositions.<br />
Iversen is joined on this outing by her second<br />
family, her long-running quartet with saxophonist<br />
John Ellis, pianist Danny Grissett and<br />
drummer Otis Brown III. Ellis, no stranger to<br />
the more whimsical side of jazz—he cavorts<br />
with puppets on the cover of his most recent<br />
album, Puppet Mischief—engages in a playful<br />
back-and-forth with Grissett to open “The<br />
Storm,” a musical game of catch leading into<br />
an insistently whirling melody.<br />
The disc opens and closes with two of<br />
Iversen’s most lyrical pieces, her ever-present<br />
classical influences enlivened by a wistful<br />
glance back at childhood. “The Terrace”<br />
spotlights Ellis’ willowy tenor, while “Cortot’s<br />
Wheel” finds the leader insinuating herself into<br />
the tight corners of Grissett’s stabbing solo.<br />
Iversen’s playing is constantly subtle and suggestive,<br />
dropping hints that seem to linger in<br />
the air while Brown supplies a more muscular<br />
swing. She takes her finest solo on “Child’s<br />
Worlds,” a contemplative piece that recognizes<br />
the melancholy side of youth. It’s another<br />
example of how the music can be childlike<br />
without ever feeling childish. —Shaun Brady<br />
Milo Songs: The Terrace; The Storm; Drum Dreams; Trains &<br />
Chocolate; Milo’s Brother; Child’s Worlds; Cortot’s Wheel. (47:33)<br />
Personnel: Anne Mette Iversen, bass; John Ellis, tenor saxophone<br />
and clarinet; Otis Brown III, drums; Danny Grissett, piano.<br />
Ordering info: bjurecords.com<br />
54 DOWNBEAT SEPTEMBER 2011