By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times

Martha Wainwright
"Come Home to Mama"
(V2)
 
Martha Wainwright, "Come Home to Mama" (Cooperative) [3 and a half stars] — The secret weapon in the Wainwright family, Martha is a wicked and potent genealogical branch bearing her father Loudon's sometimes uncomfortably honest confessional songwriting, her brother Rufus' occasional grandiose musical ambitions and her mother Kate McGarrigle's talent for modernizing and enlivening old, staid folk traditions.

Recorded at Sean Lennon's home studio and produced by Cibo Matto's Yuka Honda (and featuring guests such as Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and Dirty Three drummer Jim White), "Come Home to Mama," Wainwright's third outing (fourth, if you count the knock-down awesome Piaf record), is also a blend — of the singer-songwritery angst of her 2005 debut and the rock leanings of 2008's "I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too."

"I really like make-up sex / It's the only kind I ever get," she sing-songs in "Can You Believe It," like a forlorn-yet-upbeat mix of Cat Power and Liz Phair. The album's title comes from the ballad "Proserpina," the last song McGarrigle had written before her death in 2010. The ache of that recording (its lyrics, as well as its circumstances), the confidence of her voice (her tone, as well as her words), the wisdom in "Everything Wrong" and the bright flair of "Some People" — everything seems finally to come together into what must be Wainwright's first singular album.
 
 
 
 

By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times

Ezra Furman & the Harpoons
"Mysterious Power"
(Red Parlor)
★★★★

Ezra Furman & the Harpoons have been knocking around this area for years, Furman being the young but oft-cited "unappreciated genius." The first couple of records, "Banging Down the Doors" (2007) and "Inside the Human Body" (2008), bristled with energy and potential. They drew a lot of Violent Femmes, Neil Young and Bob Dylan comparisons and were clear proof of a burgeoning, visceral talent, even if they weren't convincing of the "genius" tag quite yet. With the third outing the comparisons will keep coming (he's a snotty Roky Erickson, an amphetamine-jacked Chris Kowanko, a not-so-childlike Daniel Johnston), but the argument that Furman is a brilliant individual with his own searing voice will be much easier to make. "Mysterious Power" is revelatory — a joyous racket, a splintered confessional, an anxious thrill ride with the top down next to a fidgety poet who's crazy in love.

"Mysterious Power" opens simply, with Furman strumming his acoustic guitar and singing a mournful love letter to "Wild Rosemarie," something he has to get off his chest before the rest of this record can get going. He baptizes his regrets, using water metaphors to describe how the things he longed for turned against him — "How it had drowned us after all / how we used to thirst for it to burst forth from the sky and start to fall" — and when the second song rumbles to life, Furman has been reborn. He spits determined, one-note verses as the piston-packing Harpoons rev their indie-roots rock engine into second, then third gear. "I Killed Myself but I Didn't Die" is an explanation of the miracle that must have followed his post-Rosemarie depression, and a new declaration: "I hate pop music and I hate 'The Duke of Earl'!"

After that, more anti-pop, anti-"Duke" pokes in the eye, each one with a power-pop hook embedded within a thoroughly scrambled punk, rockabilly or "Zuma" song. "I am nothing but a boy in my room," Furman laments in the title track, thinking aloud over a pokey, Muppet-like piano part. But in "Hard Time in a Terrible Land" he's not so furtive, spewing biblical wisdom, careening through the crack band's bluesy boogaloo and preaching, "You've got rats in the water and bugs in the wood / Listen up, son, you better do what you should!"

The album staggers between angular quips and plaintive yearning, between the Modern Lovers and "Modern Love." The song "Bloodsucking Whore" actually is a breathless plea to be said whore; he surrenders his dignity long before the end to allow Andrew Langer's tortured guitar to finish begging on his behalf. Most songs are intensely personal dumping grounds for Furman's candor about his maladjustment, including his failure to understand love, his carefully articulated passion to keep trying and the frustrated rage that inevitably ensues. "I can't tell what I am gonna do next," he says in "Teenage Wasteland" (not a Who cover). "I'm gonna self-destruct / I don't see a problem with it."

"Mysterious Power" turns into a road album midway through, around "Don't Turn Your Back on Love," Furman's walk with Woody Guthrie down a dusty road contemplating the author of the song "America the Beautiful." His lyrical advice works both ways: don't give up on love, but don't ignore its dangers, either. "You idiot, you fool, don't you do it," Furman honks in his gritty, high-sinus voice. He keeps traveling through "Portrait of Maude," rolling out to California chasing "a cowboy-movie kind of love," and then brings it all home for "Wild Feeling," a quintessential album closer slowly considering all that's just happened and how it's all going to end — returning to his water motif: "The streams that take us to the sea / will overflow and that will be / the end, the end, the end" — as he almost absent-mindedly strums his guitar. It is a righteous conclusion, and it deserves an amen.

 
 

By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times

Elton John & Leon Russell
"The Union"
(Decca Records)
★★★

Writing in the liner notes of his new CD collaboration with Leon Russell, his musical hero, Elton John details his U.S. debut in 1970 with Russell in the audience, how the two of them struck up a kinship, toured together and enjoyed initial parallels of fame as rock 'n' roll pianomen. "Anyway," John writes, "then I lost touch with Leon and our paths kind of went different ways."

That's an understatement. By the mid-'70s, all the world knew of John's crocodile rock. His body of work, it was announced last week, has earned him an entire Elton John channel on Sirius XM satellite radio.

Russell, meanwhile, served as maestro of Joe Cocker's notorious Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, had a big hit with "Tightrope," knocked everyone out with a fiery performance at the Concert for Bangladesh — and then almost all of us lost touch with Leon. He took a hard right and recorded a straight-up country album ("Hank Wilson's Back," 1973), then turned left for some avant-garde self-exploration ("Stop All That Jazz," 1974). He never stopped recording or touring, but while John eulogized princesses, became the belle of Broadway and sold out in Vegas, Russell was rolling his broken-down bus into tiny bars in small cities.

After a personal revelation last year about how deeply Russell influenced his music, John sought him out after 40 years. They reconnected, made plans to record. It could have been just another hokey duets album for John, 63, but to his credit "The Union" (out Tuesday) reunites the two piano-pounders under his stated and restated intention of injecting Russell, 68, back into at least a tributary of the mainstream.

"There's no point doing this record if it doesn't bring his work to light," John recently told Billboard. "I want him to be comfortable financially. I want his life to improve a little."

Fortunately, the resulting record amounts to something significantly greater than a charity project. It's a marriage of true love and admiration, much like "Road to Escondido," Eric Clapton's 2006 reunion with J.J. Cale. (Cale and Russell are both icons in their native Oklahoma as pioneers of the easygoing "Tulsa sound," which influenced performers from Tom Petty to Garth Brooks.) While "The Union" sags slightly under the weight of each performer's latter-day penchants, it ultimately succeeds because of the youthful energy they rediscover with each other's aid.

For this union to take place, John had to step back a bit from the obese, overwrought records he's made of late, which he seems to have done with relief and glee. "I don't have to make pop records any more," he told Billboard, indicating that "The Union" marks a new, less commercial chapter in his career. Huzzah!
Meanwhile, Russell — frail and sometimes in ill health, including brain surgery just as recording sessions began in January — had to step up his game, return to something resembling form. Russell's concerts the last decade or more have been static, lifeless affairs. He'd sit nearly motionless before a tinny little electric piano, a snow-white Cousin Itt with sunglasses, and mash out a rushed string of once beautifully arranged gems.

But he turns it around for these recordings. John, in his liner notes, celebrates the moment Russell "suddenly got his confidence again and started to play the grand piano instead of the electric piano, and all this great piano playing came flooding back and we made this incredible record."

The kick-back from real piano keys as opposed to the plastic of an electric keyboard — that simple physical resistance, that subtle artistic challenge has been what Russell's needed for years. He faces it here and comes alive again, opening the album with "If It Wasn't for Bad," as classic a Leon track as we thought we'd never get again. Over a touch of gospel and that moseying Tulsa pace, he seems to address his own criticisms in the song's central pun: "I know that you could be just like you should / If it wasn't for bad you'd be good."

Eight of these songs were penned by John and his writing partner of 43 years, Bernie Taupin. The first, "Eight Hundred Dollar Shoes" voices John's own perspective on his hero: "Your songs have all the hooks / You're seven wonders rolled into one." From then on, the pair play piano and sing side by side, volleying like two tennis players trained by the same coach. Russell's feline yowl adds grit and growl to John's "Monkey Suit" (as "honky" as this cat's been in decades), while John's creamier voice leavens the slow regret of Russell's "I Should Have Sent Roses." For Russell, the proceedings often return to gospel, especially near the end of "The Union" as he shuffles through "Hearts Have Turned to Stone" with four churchy backup singers, then closes the album with the personal, organ-driven hymn "In the Hands of Angels."

"The Union" is filled out by a mutual admiration society of musicians who couldn't help but drop by the studio once they heard Russell was in town. Neil Young sings on the Civil War ballad "Gone to Shiloh." Brian Wilson sings and arranges some of "When Love Is Dying." Jim Keltner (another Tulsan!) plays drums throughout, and producer T Bone Burnett expertly guides and reins in the whole asylum choir.

Look for John and Russell on the road together this fall, starting with Tuesday's show at the Beacon Theatre in New York. Bonus: Cameron Crowe filmed the recording of "The Union"; he plans to screen a documentary in February at the Sundance Film Festival.
 
 

By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times

Hanson
"Shout It Out"
(3CG)
★★★★

OK, Hanson wins. They beat all the people (myself included) who ever knocked their sweet hooks, ruddy faces and boy-band hype. The latest from Oklahoma's undaunted trio is a joyous, jubilant cache of near-perfect pop singles. The whole set is one big 1970s AM-radio anachronism, really. Effervescent and ebullient. Download: "Thinkin' 'Bout Somethin'" would make Ray Charles smile wide, and not just because they copied his "Blues Brothers" scene for the video.
 

By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times
 
Loudon Wainwright III
"Strange Weirdos"
(Concord)
★★★
 
Rarely do the planets align in the production of movie music quite the way they did to produce this soundtrack to Judd Apatow's latest comedy, "Knocked Up." Because when you're looking for someone to write songs for a film about a star-crossed relationship born out of foolishness and resulting in a child that neither partner is quite prepared to deal with, well, Loudon Wainwright's your man. This is the guy who's been chronicling all of the above in his own life for nearly four decades now, including songs that could be featured in the sequel, songs such as "Be Careful There's a Baby in the House" and "Rufus Is a Tit Man."
 
Of course, Loudon's kids are another story. He's particularly had a difficult go of it with daughter Martha (a frequent backup to brother Rufus, now with her own solo album out), who joined him to sing the difficult "Father/Daughter Dialogue" and later wrote about him in, uh, "Bloody Mother F—-ing Ass——."
 
Suffice to say, Loudo's the family and relationship issues songwriter, and on this batch of typically wry songs — fleshed out from the mostly instrumental versions used as a score for the film — he's working with a crack band (including old pal Richard Thompson) and great collaborators (Greg Leisz, Van Dyke Parks and producer Joe Henry). The music is loose but professional, loping but determined, suitable to the alternating humor ("Grey in L.A.," a concert staple for a while, is a great antidote to that city's imposing sunniness) and sober examination ("Doin' the Math" is a new perspective on growing old).
 
The requisite touching moment, too, occurs in "Daughter," in which Loudon muses from the viewpoint of a father watching his daughter at play. "I lost every time I fought her," he sings. Is he talking about his own family? Has he ever not?
 

 

By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times
 
Dwight Twilley
"Live: All Access"
(Digital Music Group)
★★★
 
The liner notes to Dwight Twilley's first live record include a mention of who provided the limos. This is hilarious for two reasons. First, it tells you everything you need to know about how Mr. Twilley remains a legend in his own mind. Second, I spent several years covering Twilley in his hometown of Tulsa, Okla., and the idea that anyone rode in a limo to The Venue, the plain-Jane club where this rollicking show was recorded last year, is akin to a tuxedoed prom stud helping his date out of a stretch Hummer for dinner at Chili's.
 
But that's the uncompromising beauty of Twilley. Relocated back to what fellow hometowners Hanson dubbed the "Middle of Nowhere," Twilley's regal air has never waned. He had just two Top 20 hits, ferpetesake — 1975's "I'm on Fire" and 1984's "Girls" — and I'm willing to bet you can't hum either of them. More's the pity, frankly, because (a) they're killer rock singles, especially the first, and (b) Twilley's defiant (stubborn?) maintenance of his Rock Star stance is a thrilling anachronism in an age in which the reports of rock's death are not greatly exaggerated. His voice is finally showing signs of wear here, but he charges hard through a criminally overlooked catalog of rockabilly-fueled rockers and McCartney-dreamy ballads. It's a helluva show, kids, swinging from the boogie of his own "10,000 American Scuba Divers Dancin' " to Larry Williams' chugging 1958 classic "Slow Down."

Rock on, brother D., and tell the driver to keep the champagne cold.
 

 

By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times

Woody Guthrie & Lead Belly
"Folkways: The Original Vision — Songs of Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly"
(Smithsonian Folkways)
★★★★
 
In several years of studying the life and legacy of American folk troubadour Woody Guthrie, I've learned one nearly constant truth: Hardly anyone first hears Woody from Woody. They hear his songs performed by Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, The Clash, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bragg, Wilco, etc. — and then they go hunting the Guthrie greatest-hits for a taste of the headwaters.
 
Same with Lead Belly, a Guthrie peer who also suffers from lack of name recognition despite the number of artists who have reinterpreted his music. That's why this expanded reissue of this 17-year old collection of both folk songwriters' "hits" is refreshing at this juncture. Not only has Guthrie's cachet increased in the last decade (the founding of the Woody Guthrie Archives, the annual hootenanny of the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, etc.) but the six extra songs added to this edition remind us of the solidity of Lead Belly's influence of blues and rock, as well. New to this set is his "Gallis Pole," made famous by Led Zeppelin, and "In the Pines," covered by Nirvana.
 
The punk, the blues, some of the rock and a lot of the country out there today — much of it started with these two brave friends. The history is always worth hearing. And wouldn't it be cool to have some scratchy old 78s on your iPod?
 

By Thomas Conner
© Chicago Sun-Times

Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion
"Exploration"
(New West)
★★★1/2
 
Is Lucinda Williams a tad too Texas for you? Do you quickly weary of Gillian Welch's dour, morphine-soaked songbook? Has Natalie Merchant gone a bit too far "out there" for your taste? Bring it on home with Sarah Lee Guthrie and her husband, Johnny Irion. On their latest and best collaboration, the duo sews up pop, protest, folk and fun into neat little packages that are AAA — Americana, alt-country, aw-shucks — without suffering authenticity or intellect.
 
With this couple's pedigree, there's no need for posing: Sarah Lee is the granddaughter of Woody Guthrie (by way of daddy Arlo); Irion counts John Steinbeck among his ancestors. You couldn't arrange a more dynastic pairing than that, and you could almost forgive someone with those bloodlines for resting on laurels. Both of these singer-songwriters, however, have shown dogged determination to craft their own identifiable personalities. Together they are an arresting harmony — sometimes delicate, sometimes raucous, always purposeful and focused.
 
On "Exploration" (deftly produced by Jayhawk Gary Louris), Sarah Lee effortlessly saunters through songs of love, personal convictions and reverence for nature. She harmonizes with a knowing lilt through Irion's golly-gee love ballad "In Lieu of Flowers" and warbles defiantly through her own well-armed "Cease Fire." Her voice is strong and piercing without being harsh, as if she were Victoria Williams reined-in and trained. She has the urge to ramble and take it easy ("Mornin's Over," "Holdin' Back"); Irion has the urge to cut loose and rock ("Gervais"). When they come together on a cover of Pete Seeger's "Dr. King," they make a serious subject even more profound by making it a knee-slapper.
 
It's a wonderful mixture of social awareness and rollicking fun — tailor-made for a "Sesame Street" appearance (Woody would be so proud) and indicative of their combustible chemistry together. Proof that the occasional alt-country combo can "keep it real," too.
 
 

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World
 
Hanson
"Underneath Acoustic"
(3CG Records)

A couple of months ago, there was another disc like this that turned my head: the Thorns — a supergroup (well, to indie pop fans) comprised of Shawn Mullins, Matthew Sweet and Pete Droge. They got together by happenstance and made a record of acoustic-driven songs loaded with three-part vocalizing. It's a whimsical love letter to the harmony groups that inspired them growing up — America, CSN, the Beach Boys. It's summery, carefree, easy.

The same could be said of the latest Hanson disc, an eight-song acoustic preview of the eagerly awaited third studio outing ("Underneath," due next spring) from the hit Tulsa trio. As much as these brothers are influenced by the spirit of '50s rock 'n' roll, their songwriting on this effort is closer to early '70s soft-rock, especially in this unplugged presentation, recorded live early this summer with a small audience at Tulsa's historic Church Studio. Several of the songs have the same lilt and sensitivity of England Dan & John Ford Coley or, more prominently, Bread (led by another famous Tulsan, David Gates). "Deeper," a powerful and passionate song sung by Isaac, is an example, and the title track, "Underneath," is a remarkably layered and carefully constructed ballad that would prick up Jimmy Webb's ears.

The flip side of this pleasantness is that, even though two-thirds of Hanson is now of legal age, these songwriters are still very, very young. These new songs are not trite, but they are quite light. That is, they breeze on about indistinct emotions and vague promises and lots of seizing the summertime moment. Not a bad thing, by any means — just a warning to the curious that Hanson hasn't exactly started mining much substance.

For instance, this disc sounds like the Indigo Girls' debut not only for its multiple acoustic guitars but because occasionally they throw a lyric at us straight out of a junior-high notebook. Example, from "Love Somebody to Know": "Bubbalicious is what she likes to chew / and Andy Warhol gave her her point of view." Then again, that could be an absolutely ingenious examination of the various definitions of pop. Maybe there are seeds of substance here, after all, but for now, as Taylor sings in "Penny and Me," it's all just a nice ride with the radio up and the windows down.

"Underneath Acoustic" is available only through the band's Web site (cf,fgc www.hanson.netcf,hell ) and at the concerts during this month's acoustic Hanson tour, which begins Saturday. (Alas, the closest the tour gets to Tulsa is Denver on Aug. 24.)

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
"Telluride Is Acoustic"
(Jacob Fred)

A four-track mini-album recorded live at the Telluride Jazz Festival this year, this limited-edition gem captures a beautiful, rare performance of the Jacob Fred freaks unplugged.

It's only the second time in seven years bassist Reed Mathis has played an upright, and the alien cats he strangles with it on "Son of Jah" make for one madcap psychedelic trip through the borderlands of jazz.
These recordings also feature some crazy stereo panning that makes the world bend a little when listening through headphones. Available through www.jfjo.com.

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
"All Is One: Live in New York City "
(Knitting Factory Records)

Were this the forum for such academic criticism, I could dust off my Music Critic's Dictionary and really lay a few $20 words on you here. An examination of Tulsa's most unique band, the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, needs words like "contrapuntal," "polytonal," "harmolodics" or a host of music theory paradigms. But this isn't the place, nor is that the point of the Odyssey — or any odyssey, for that matter. No, this journey is about the travel, the path, the winds that both propel us homeward and blow us off course. It's about three insanely talented players finding their way in the world and the insane music they make simply by making the journey.

The Fred boys — keyboardist Brian Haas, bassist Reed Mathis and drummer Jason Smart — have certainly traveled. The presentation on "All Is One" is light years ahead of the Odyssey's '96 debut, "Live at the Lincoln Continental" (recorded at the Eclipse with the then seven-member band). What years ago often sounded like a bunch of yahoos banging on pianos and wanking on horns has evolved into a mythic and oxymoronic sound — considered abandon, controlled explosion, ragged grace. Closely networked — like a flock of starlings, turning with each other through the nebulous charts with a mind-boggling synchronicity — the three of them act as some kind of psychic lightning rod, absorbing the hot, high voltage of improvisational plasma and grounding it for us, delivering it in tingles and good vibrations, saving us from the shock. They are mediators, priests, shamans and "All Is One" is their finest interpretation of the cosmos yet.

Recorded live at the prestigious Knitting Factory nightclub in New York City, "All Is One" doesn't give away its setting. Rarely do we hear audience applause, and no one says, "Thank you, New York City!" from the stage. The recording is intensely focused on the instruments, which — despite the sweaty, raucous madness of a typical Fred show — is a blessing.

It allows us to really hear Reed Mathis' bass, which is a treat because Mathis doesn't play his bass very much like a bass. Rather, he tends to play it like Hendrix played his guitar, and sometimes he runs it through the eeriest effects. On "There Is No Method" his instrument sounds like a cat trapped inside a Martin guitar in a culvert -- a mildly funky exploration of the upper register, full of depth and astonishing lyricism — while on "Vernal Equinox" it's a fretless dobro under your pillow. "Lovejoy" showcases Haas' agility in switching between melodica and his Fender Rhodes piano within the same measure, all the while keeping this chugging, churning percussion romp utterly light and frothy. (The tune is named for guest percussionist Chris Lovejoy, from Charlie Hunter's band. Groove Collective percussionist Chris Theberge also is on board here.) Throughout, Smart shows himself to be the best drummer the band has had since the late Sean Layton helped found the band.

When all is said and done, your mind might not be blown — and that's OK. So many past Fred albums have worn their freak too well; "All Is One" approaches you like a guru, calmly, patiently, unafraid of speaking the truth but not preaching to you the entire gospel in one overwhelming homily. This record smooths out those rough edges, offers a spoonful of sugar with the medicine and satisfies the soul.
 
 

BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World

Sarah Lee Guthrie
"Sarah Lee Guthrie"
(Rising Son Records)

Johnny Irion
"Unity Lodge"
(Rising Son Records)

Pedigrees can be impediments. With so much riding on a
famous family legacy, many genetically enhanced artists
collapse under the weight of the expectations and hype.
Sarah Lee Guthrie, daughter of Arlo and granddaughter of
Woody, and her husband Johnny Irion, grandson of "Oklahoma!"
star Fred Knight and grand-nephew of John Steinbeck,
certainly have sturdy laurels upon which they could
recline. Guthrie's surname alone would be a marquee draw,
even if she stunk.

But she doesn't stink. In fact, she's the most
intriguing new female voice in Americana music since the
discovery of Gillian Welch.

Guthrie's self-titled debut — arriving after years of
performing with her father, including two appearances at
the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah — moseys with an
welcoming gait. Not another Emmylou Harris wanna-be is she,
although this album smiles and moves with the same measured
grace.

No, Guthrie is an original talent, coloring outside the
lines of the basic Americana patterns (dig the drunken Kurt
Weill surf music of the instrumental "Tarantula," or the
chuggin' blues of "World Turns in G") and sings strongly
through the jangle and jazzy bluegrass. Her rounded notes
sound like Linda Ronstadt in the '70s, her sustained verses
like Nanci Griffith in the '80s. The Guthrie genes are
gifted ones, no doubt.

Irion's debut is somewhere between Neil Young's "Comes a
Time" and "Old Ways" albums. The song "Think Tank," especially --
it's loping rhythm and mopey whining about "the city of
angels" rings of all that southern California country-rock
from similarly exiled and flighty Southerners, from the
Byrds to the Eagles.

Irion is a better player (esp. the dobro) than a singer --
which, of course, never slowed down Young — but the
skinny-boy swagger of "Unity Lodge" will be satisfying to the
men who can't get into Guthrie's music. Irion's easier to
drink beer to, that's for certain, but Guthrie's the one
destined to be the star, even without the family tree to
support her.

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Various Artists
" 'Til We Outnumber 'Em"
(Righteous Babe Records)

This long-delayed recording of an all-star 1996 Woody
Guthrie tribute concert at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
(which celebrated the opening of the Woody Guthrie
Archives) is as uneven, prickly and poignant as Guthrie's
own life and legacy. Sketchy performances of brilliant
songs, jaw-dropping renderings of mediocre movements, oddly
edited bits of readings from Guthrie's writings — "'Til We
Outnumber 'Em" is a joyous jumble, a striking collage
artwork showing how many colors, styles and genres of music
make up the current ideal of Woody's vision. Aside from the
jerky sequencing and a few hard travelin' renditions, there
are some crystalline moments: Ani DiFranco's spare,
sweeping shattering of the preciousness built up around "Do
Re Mi," Billy Bragg's rascally cooing through "Against th'
Law" (tuneless lyrics to which Bragg wrote new music), Bruce
Springsteen — the king of car songs — sputtering and vrooming
through "Riding in My Car" and the full-cast, full-on, fully
transcendent "Hard Travelin' Hootenanny," featuring everyone
from Billy Bragg to Arlo Guthrie. Alternately frustrating
and fascinating, just like the man in question.
 

BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World

Billy Bragg & Wilco
"Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2"
(Elektra Records)

The first round of this unique collaboration — British
folk-rocker Billy Bragg, American roots-rock band Wilco and
various friends interpretting previously unrecorded lyrics
by songwriting icon and Oklahoma native Woody Guthrie --
simply begged for a sequel. In fact, according to Bragg and
members of Wilco, the first Grammy-nominated "Mermaid Avenue"
album, released two years ago, was created with this
follow-up in mind.

"We knew we'd need another shake when we put the tracks
together for 'Mermaid Avenue,'" said Wilco's Jay Bennett,
guitarist and co-author of some of the music here. "We even
chose songs for the first record based on that. The first
album gave a broad view of Woody. It was intended to draw
people in. This album is less folky."

Less folky, indeed, but much more expansive, ambitious
and eclectic. "Volume 2" builds on the pleasant, accessible
(and historically important) introduction of the first
outing by stretching Woody's ideas through a constantly
changing landscape of musical styles, from ramblin' country
blues to '60s folk-rock to rollicking roadhouse protest
punk. The result, though, is still somehow cohesive.
Instead of flying apart in a whorl of splattered Jackson
Pollock mess, "Volume 2" holds together like a pointillized
Seurat painting — a million separate moments of color that
unite to create a single image or impression. Even
lyrically, they are disparate subjects, from flying saucers
and airplane rides through heaven to Stetson Kennedy and
Joe DiMaggio.

What unites these songs is difficult to describe. It has
to do with attitude, spirit and what Tom Wolfe once called
the Unspoken Thing, but mostly it's the fact that the
musicians assembled here understand and transmit the
optimism and humility of the man in question.

It's important, too, that this record is such a tangled
collaboration. Were it simply Bragg's solo tribute to the
late Guthrie, the inevitable tunnel vision would exclude
the multiple opportunities available in these lyrics. A
solo effort also would focus the attention selfishly on one
performer — an approach not at all suitable to the legacy of
the ultimate Everyman. In addition to Bragg and Wilco
(sometimes together, sometimes backing each other up,
sometimes completely separate), Natalie Merchant — a guest
on the first "Mermaid" — turns in one song, the child-like "I
Was Born," and deliberately anachronistic young blues singer
Corey Harris takes the lead on "Against th' Law." The
constant mix scatters any professional egos that might
otherwise spoil such a project and therefore keeps us
listening to the songs themselves — their humor, their
poignancy, their simple and direct expressions of both
trivial and earth-shattering themes. It's about the music,
not the messengers.

This was the case on "Volume 1," but it's almost more
successful here largely because of the musical integrity of
Wilco's input. Bragg is still at top form, bouncing
cheerily through "My Flying Saucer" and spitting out "All You
Fascists" as if it were one of his own anti-fascist rants,
but Wilco's alternative innovative and derivative
fashioning of music for these lost lyrics makes this volume
of "Mermaid" a richer, more compelling experience. Bennett
and singer Jeff Tweedy fashion "Airline to Heaven," a
light-hearted daydream about soaring through heaven on the
wings of a prayer, into a stomping, kinetic flight, Tweedy
singing through his nose like Dylan the whole time. "Feed of
Man" is a socially urgent lyric, and Wilco's bluesy, British
Invasion stroll helps the words to grab the listener by the
collar, with Tweedy this time spitting out his lines in
about two notes as if he were the Animals' Eric Burdon.
"Secret of the Sea" rings like the Byrds, and "Blood of the
Lamb," a nakedly religious hymn, wobbles along on a woozy
Farfisa and Hammond organ like it's being delivered by a
carnival chaplain.

These new sounds, these old shades — once again this is
the testament to Woody's immeasurable importance as a
songwriter. Strangers and stragglers still find redemption
in these old lyrics, and musicians continue to turn
half-century-old songs into brand-new, brilliant creatures.
In an era of quick-burn stars, it's almost difficult to
comprehend the impact a man could still make 33 years after
his death. But here's another example of Woody's continuing
imprint — long may it last.

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Jacob Fred Jazz Trio
"Live at Your Mama's House"
(Plum-E Records)

The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey started out several years
ago with the jazzy name but an overly funky sound. The
improv thing was there in spots, but sometimes the boys
seemed more concerned with being MCs than emissaries. After
the first couple of years and the first thousand Medeski,
Martin and Wood bootlegs, Jacob Fred evolved into a true
jazz odyssey — and never have its members so deeply explored
the innocently psychedelic spirit of improvisation than in
this side project, a trio of keyboardist Brian Haas,
bassist Reed Mathis and drummer Matt Edwards.

The Jacob Fred Trio has been playing weekly at the Bowery for six
months, and this single disc captures a handful of the
band's best moments there, including Haas' invigorating
"Good Energy Perpetuates Good Energy," a meandering
Thelonious Monk medley that morphs into an original tribute
to former Tulsa bassist Al Ray ("The Man Who Adjusted
Tonalities") and a rhapsodic opener, "Pacific," by Odyssey
trombone player Matt Leland's father, Max. All of it moves
in the same impressionistic space, not leaving you with any
lasting tunes but leaving your ears a little looser.

BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World

Hanson
"This Time Around"
(Island Def Jam)

Anyone here heard Mitch Ryder?

OK, let me rephrase: has anyone under 40 heard Mitch
Ryder?

He and his quintet, the Detroit Wheels, did for soul
music in the '60s what Elvis did for rock 'n' roll in the
'50s: introduced it to a white audience. Ryder, the Spencer
Davis Group, the Animals — these groups comprised the bridge
from the underlying groove of Temptations and Four Tops
hits to the soul influences that showed up at the turn of
the '70s in groups ranging from Joe Cocker, Traffic
(featuring Steve Winwood, the engine in the Spencer Davis
Group), all the way to Springsteen.

Ryder, in particular, was an indispensable shaman. With
his frayed, dizzying wail, Ryder led the Wheels'
piston-pumping backbeat through a string of tightly wound
hits in '66 and '67 — "Jenny Take a Ride," "Sock It to Me,
Baby," "Devil With the Blue Dress On/Good Golly Miss Molly" --
all of which evoked the pioneers of soul before him while
laying down his own tread on the music. Without Ryder's
shot of energy, it's questionable whether fellow Detroit
rockers like Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, the MC5 and even the
Stooges would have had enough gunpowder to explode out of
Motor City.

The Hanson brothers know a lot about Ryder.
They covered a few of his hits in concert and on the
resulting live album largely because they were raised on
that music. Living abroad and being home-schooled here in
Tulsa throughout their youth (which ain't over yet), they
enjoyed a unique isolation with those old rock and soul
collections and fed on that same high energy — so much so
that when they themselves finally emerged into the musical
world, their own unique gifts transmitted the same power.
On the trio's eagerly anticipated follow-up to its
multi-platinum debut, they finally seize that opportunity,
like Ryder, to divine the hidden glories of American soul
music to a new generation — a new, white, affluent
generation — as well as to define their own sights,
synergies and sound.

In summary, it RRRocks.

"This Time Around" could have been a wreck. Early reports
were not good — initial sessions with former Cars frontman
and producer extraordinaire Ric Ocasek had been scrapped
for murky reasons (translation: the record label didn't
hear another "MMMBop"), and Hanson had been shoved back into
the studio with Stephen Lironi, the producer of Hanson's
smash debut, "Middle of Nowhere." The debut was certainly a
good record, but had Hanson merely retreaded it for the
follow-up, they'd be destroyed. Too many eyes were on them,
too many ears — too many expectations for a great leap
forward.

What a leap they've made. Lironi's presence on "This Time
Around" can be heard in the pitiful scratching sounds that
dumb down otherwise solid tracks like "If Only," but the new
record is clearly a committed assertion by three willful
youngsters determined to avoid being written off amid the
boy-band craze they helped to create. There's still not
another "MMMBop" here. One wonders how much they had to fight
the corporate money-changers to take the steps evident here
— the unabashed soul, the high-octane rock 'n' roll — and
whether the marketing department at Island Def Jam is
stymied as to how they'll push the record.

They certainly can't be worried about the record's
potential. "This Time Around" could play on virtually any
radio station — that is, within any confining format. Send
"Dying to Be Alive" to a classic R&B station. Drop "Save Me"
among the silly modern rock balladry of Kid Rock and Third
Eye Blind, or at least send it to adult contemporary. Make
sure to twist the arm of mainstream rock moguls so they
play "This Time Around." Heck, they don't even have to
back-announce it — run it up against a Black Crowes song and
your average KMOD listener probably wouldn't even blink.

The worry is whether or not those other radio stations will
deign to give Hanson a chance this time around. After all,
Hanson's a kiddie band, right? They're like the Backstreet
Boys, they don't belong at the table with the adults.

That attitude is pretty prevalent (especially among the
audience this record could hit the hardest — people my age,
on either side of 30), and "This Time Around" likely will be
a slow burn compared to "Middle of Nowhere." There's plenty
of fuel for the fire, though. The tunefulness and the hooks
they mastered the first time around are still here, but the
tunes are more complex, the hooks more skillfully cast. The
title-track single tip-toes out of the gate with a soft
piano introduction, but by the chorus it's chugging with a
300-horsepower riff and see-sawing between the contrary
powers of Journey and Stevie Wonder. "Dying to Be Alive"
draws heavily on the boys' soul influences and features a
small gospel choir led by Rose Stone (of Sly and the Family
Stone). On "In the City," Hanson dances on the edge of
accessibility, bleeding off the sunshine from the
arrangement and singing a pretty desperate plea to an
adulterous partner. "You Never Know" opens the record as if
the boys have gone to War, brightening a heavy groove and
singing, perhaps portentously, "You never know, baby / You
never know, baby / You judge the song by a lie that was
told."

Or he could be singing "soul." As with all great soul
singers, it's hard to discern the words accurately. Taylor,
the middle Hanson boy and its forthright lead vocalist, is
certainly a great soul singer, possibly one day to be
hailed among the best of Generation Y (though Macy Gray is
going to give him one hell of a fight for that title). His
voice is immensely powerful and dynamic — if that come-back
line "Do you know why I died?" at the end of the title track
doesn't stop your heart, double-check that you're still
actually alive — and when, as he grows older, it becomes a
partner to his passions, he might rewrite the story of
Jericho. It's a SOULFUL voice, too, full of chewy
inflections and gritty, guttural wails. It seems to come
from an unspoken inner drive, a burgeoning catharsis, more
than a heady desire to convey a literate message.

Granted, soul music is virtually dead today — replaced by
slick, machine-driven R&B, which has nothing whatsoever to
do with the rhythm and blues that created the acronym in
the first place — but Taylor's pipes and his brothers'
developing rhythmic chops on this CD could be cracking open
the coffin. (And to the credit of Isaac's and Zac's
instrumental talents, this album's guest players like Jonny
Lang and Blues Traveler's John Popper wholeheartedly fail
to steal the show.) Ryder & Co. translated the music across
lines of color; Hanson could transfer the music across
lines of age and experience. Either way, "This Time Around"
is one teeth-rattling, high-energy rock fest.
 

BY THOMAS CONNER
© Tulsa World

Woody Guthrie
"The Asch Recordings, Vols. 1-4"
(Smithsonian Folkways)

Like Little Richard was to rock 'n' roll, or Louis
Armstrong was to jazz, Woody Guthrie is to American folk
music — the clearest, deepest source. Humble, frank and
amazingly prolific, Guthrie churned out more music in a
17-year period than some whole subgenres of pop, and the
imprint of these tunes and these lyrics is still being
felt. Smithsonian Folkways continues to enshrine America's
roots music in valuable boxed sets and CD releases, and the
label reaches its apex with this four-CD collection that,
as a whole, sums up Guthrie's entire vibrant statement to
humanity.

Such a summation is no easy task, but Moses Asch was
destined for it. The idealistic, workaholic record company
owner could usually be found in his small office/studio at
all hours of the day or night, and he had enormous respect
for truly creative artists — whether or not they were
commercially viable. In his lifetime, Asch was responsible
for recording and releasing the songs of more than 2,000
artists, including Guthrie cohorts Leadbelly and Pete
Seeger, as well as singers like Josh White and Burl Ives.

In the spring of 1944, Asch met Guthrie — an Okie who'd
been wandering the country much of his young adulthood — and
was taken by his political convictions and creative spirit.
For the next six years, Asch recorded Woody singing his
songs and those of other songwriters. The sessions that
survive comprise the bulk of Woody's recorded legacy, and
this digitally remastered set may be the definitive Woody
collection. "Oh yes, it's definitely definitive," said
Guy Logsdon, a Tulsa resident and probably the pre-eminent
Guthrie scholar. With sound archivist Jeff Place, Logsdon
compiled and annotated these four discs, which were
released separately in the last few years and are just now
collected in one boxed set.

"I read in a music catalog a while back, someone wrote
about this that 'anyone interested in American music must
have this collection,'" Logsdon said. "That's because Woody
was such an influence — not just on folk but on rock 'n'
roll, pop music, all the way down the line. He gave us
children's songs that people sing and don't even know Woody
wrote them. This is the collection."

Asch became the source of Guthrie recordings because of
his lengthy relationship with him. Guthrie's Library of
Congress recordings were made during a two week period in
1940. After that, he put down the "Dust Bowl Ballads" for
RCA, plus a few records for small labels. He took a hiatus
from recording while he was in the Merchant Marines, and
then began his most productive period with Asch.

Those six years are expertly compiled on this set, each
disc with its own theme. Volume 1, "This Land Is Your Land,"
presents many of Guthrie's best-known and best-loved songs,
from the child-like fun of "Car Song" and "Talking Fishing
Blues" to serious issues tackled in "Do-Re-Mi" and "Jesus
Christ." Volume 2, "Muleskinner Blues," is a selection of the
more traditional folk repertory Guthrie had learned and
adopted as his own throughout his life, from "Stackolee" to
the "Worried Man Blues." Volume 3, "Hard Travelin'," culls
together the best of Guthrie's current-events songs,
swinging between the World War II version of "So Long, It's
Been Good to Know You" and amusing cultural trendspotting
like "Howdjadoo."

Volume 4, "Buffalo Skinners," looks at a side of Guthrie
many might not have seen before. While compiling a complete
discography of Guthrie's songs during a 1990 post-doctoral
fellowship, Logsdon explored Woody's unheralded cowboy
songs.

In Logsdon's extensive liner notes for this set, he
traces the development of Guthrie as a cowboy songwriter,
starting with "Oklahoma Hills." The eventual recording of
that song became a country-and-western hit in 1945, sung by
Woody's cousin, Jack Guthrie. The success of that song
inspired him to write more, and he enjoyed another hit in
1949 when the Maddox Brothers recorded "Philadelphia Lawyer."

"Most people don't associate Woody with cowboy songs,"
Logsdon said. "Woody's father came to the Creek Nation as a
cowboy, though. He worked on a ranch east of Okmulgee. He
and his granddad were ranchers in Texas. In Michael Wallis'
book about the 101 Ranch, he refers to Gid Guthrie, Woody's
great uncle. So this fourth volume may come as a bit of a
surprise to some folks."

Guthrie's body of work is full of surprises. Those of us
who grew up singing "This Land Is Your Land" in grade school
and hearing about Woody the serious, hard travelin' folk
singer are always taken aback by the depths to which his
convictions plumbed, as well as his underappreciated
playful side. Both are on parade throughout "The Asch
Recordings." Guthrie even wrote songs to accompany Omar
Khayyam's ancient "Rubaiyat" poem. Only a few copies of the
recordings exist, and Logsdon said no one's sure yet how to
sequence them. One of these tracks is featured on Volume 3,
and it's a textbook example of Guthrie taking time-worn
philosophies and trying to apply them to the events of his
day.

This set is, indeed, a must-have for anyone with even a
passing interest in American music or American history. No
other artist in the mid-20th century put down the issues,
the angst and the joy more accurately and frankly than
Woody.


 

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
"Welcome Home"
(Accurate)

I started my musical explorations thinking Al Jarreau
was a great jazz singer, and there was a time in my life, I
confess, when I assumed Thelonious Monk must have been a
religious philosopher. Two things turned me around to the
Way of Things: I heard my first Charles Mingus record, and
I saw the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey live at Eclipse. Then, I
understood jazz.

Mingus is long gone, but the Jacob Fred boys are very
much alive. In fact, never have I seen a band that is more
alive — growing, breathing, reacting, adapting, affecting
the world around it. No longer establishing themselves as
well-trained hot-shots (the first album, "Live at the
Lincoln Continental") or attempting to obliterate the
restraints of that training (the second album, "Live in
Tokyo"), this third recording — the band's national debut --
finally lives up to the band's name. This is a musical
experience that's not just a little escapist vacation, it's
an odyssey — an intrepid voyage through unfamiliar
territory, a hike through strange and exciting sounds,
chords and free-thinking.

It's another live album, too, as all Jacob Fred CDs have
been. The band tried to record a studio record, but it
couldn't be done. Local knob-twiddler and punk veteran
Martin Halstead was certainly up to the task, but the mojo
wasn't working. The unpredictable nature of Jacob Fred's
collective improvisations is something that can't be easily
pinned down in a studio, and Halstead has called the studio
work, with no malice, the "sessions from hell." Two tracks on
"Welcome Home" survive from those hellish hours: "Stomp," a
quaint homage to the garbage can-weilding stage dancers,
sung by drummer Sean Layton in his best Leon Redbone drawl,
and "Road to Emmaus," a moving ballad written and led by
trumpeter Kyle Wright.

Closing this album with a reference
to Christ's rising from the dead and chatting with two guys
who didn't recognize his glory is somehow ironic coming
from a band of immensely talented musicians who've been
killing themselves for five years in Tulsa's tough local
scene in hopes of ascending to their rightful place in the
musical pantheon. (Wright has also written a 20-page piece
based on the Creation. Hadyn, shmadyn.) The seven
sermons leading up to the righteous postlude are soulful,
indeed.

All but the two studio tracks were captured in two
performances at Tulsa's Club One, and they show a band that
has grown into its own not by emulating anyone but by
focusing intently on each player's gifts. The normal
pattern for a jazz song is to lay down the riff, then let
each player take turns soloing. In songs like "Seven Inch
Six" and "MMW," Jacob Fred lays down the riff with horns, but
instead of jumping right into the ego-feeding solos, they
slowly and carefully build a song, wrapping some of Brian
Haas' unusually tempered and dreamy keyboards and Reed
Mathis' loping bass around before opening the floor to
hot-shots.

And guitarist Dove McHargue is definitely a
hot-shot, bending the strings during "MMW" with such strength
and control he almost makes the thing talk. For evidence of
the band's peaking compositional brilliance, look to both
"Mountain Scream," a carefully constructed atmospheric
joyride that winds up a breezy Latin dance, and the title
track, an on-the-spot completely improvised song that
sounds like a carefully written and labored-over gem.
Controlled chaos is this band's specialty, and that, I know
now, is jazz. Real jazz. Amen.
 
 

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Mummy Weenie
"Mummy Weenie"
(Plum-E Records)

Last time I saw him, Brian Haas didn't really have any
hair. So when I say that Mummy Weenie provides the Jacob
Fred Jazz Odyssey keyboard player a chance to let his hair
down, you'll have to understand that we're dealing strictly
in metaphor here. In fact, the now dormant Mummy Weenie is
all about right-brain, amorphous, free-form thinking. Haas
and drummer Sean Layton take a break from the frenetic pace
of Jacob Fred shows for this humble side project, a trio
rounded out by nimble Tribe of Souls bassist Al Ray. This
live concert, recorded at Tulsa's Club One, is a dreamy,
improvisational affair, a lulling and sometimes
patience-trying set of roomy instrumentals that sound like
Bob James confused and struggling through a show after
someone spiked his drink with a Quaalude and a twist of
Ecstasy. Haas occasionally meanders through his melodic
spelunking via melodica, though most of these untitled
tracks are worthy, rare moments of his caressing the Fender
Rhodes electric piano. Layton's drums and percussion inject
heart as well as beat, and Ray's emotional bass playing
throws in some refreshing curveballs, particularly in the
beginning of the contemplative fourth track. Watch out for
the psychedelic studio trickery late in the set, but by
then you'll be loose enough you might not even notice the
weirdness. Mission accomplished.

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Leon Russell
"Face in the Crowd"
(Sagestone Entertainment)

Ol' Leon's voice is just barely hanging in there, crusty
and clogged and in need of some vocal Liquid Plumr. That's
never handicapped Bob Dylan or Neil Young, and whether or
not you think Russell measures up to those comparisons,
"Face in the Crowd" at least pushes that old, gravelly voice
of his hard enough to make it stand out in a crowd again.

His testosterone-fueled howlings in "Dr. Love" cop some
much-needed sexiness from Dr. John's bag of tricks. His
growling ups and downs in "So Hard to Say Goodbye" restore
some of the spunk of his hit-making days, too. Unlike his
last record, the third "Hank Wilson" incarnation, "Faces" isn't
rushed as much it sounds eager and comfortable — and seeing
or hearing a comfortable Leon is a special treat. Russell
could still benefit from the control and finesse of a smart
producer — the arrangements and recording of son Teddy Jack
tend to gum up in the speakers — but by reviving his
distinct songwriting voice, Russell is assured to remain
clearly identifiable in the crowd.

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Billy Bragg & Wilco
"Mermaid Avenue"
(Elektra)

And it takes a night and a girl and a book of this
kind a long, long time to find its way back.
— Woody Guthrie, "Walt Whitman's Niece''

When we write stories about Woody Guthrie — the folk
singer whose guitar had scrawled on it, "This Machine
Kills Fascists'' — we inevitably get a handful of letters
from bunched-up patriots who remind us that Woody was a
"flaming Communist,'' damn us for our "poisonous
propaganda'' and insult that other threatening commie: Jane
Fonda. Such is the sorry state of Woody's legacy in his
ungrateful home state nearly 20 years after his death.

Leave it to a British folk singer — one who votes Labour,
of course — to help right the memory of the man who wrote
"This Land Is Your Land,'' "Union Maid,'' "Dust Storm
Disaster'' and, ironically, "I Ain't Got No Home.''
Guthrie's daughter, Nora, sought out Billy Bragg — a humble,
strong performer with political ideas nearly parallel to
the vocal and union-backing Guthrie — for her father's first
posthumous collaboration. The result undoubtedly will help
to give Guthrie long-overdue recognition on his native
soil, but more than that: this album, "Mermaid Avenue,''
does more to establish Woody in the pantheon of great
American champions than even "Library of Congress
Recordings,'' the ultimate collection of his output.

Guthrie was a prolific composer, but he usually failed
to write down the music or chords to his songs. Thus, when
he died in 1967, the tunes to thousands of unrecorded songs
died with him. The remaining reams of lyrics comprise
today's Woody Guthrie Archives, run by Nora in New York
City. At Nora's request, Bragg sifted through these
orphaned songs and — with the help of Jeff Tweedy and his
pioneering American roots band Wilco — wrote new music for
them.

The album they recorded is a glowing testament to the
enduring power of Guthrie's imagination and conviction. By
turns raucous and witty, touching and insightful, these
songs — some of them a half century old — summon a musical
and social vitality the mainstream hasn't known since the
'60s. (And those "revolutions'' in the '60s were a direct
result of the ideas first publicly circulated by folk
singers like Guthrie.) Anyone remember when popular music
educated without preaching and entertained without
pandering? That music lives — and loves living — on "Mermaid
Avenue.''

It's the collaboration with Bragg and Wilco, though,
that's essential to this vitality. Had the Archives simply
come across some lost recordings of Woody himself, the
inevitably tinny mid-century tapes and archaic production
quality would automatically date and distance the
sentiments. The same result would have come if this project
had been led by a Guthrie obsessive; the tunnel vision
would be exclusive — a very un-Woody quality. Even in the
electronic age, the oral traditions (the very basis of folk
music) transmit our culture, and it's the maintenance of
art throughout new generations that verifies the art's
worth as well as shaping the whole society. Bragg came to
Guthrie second-hand — through Dylan and the Byrds and Ry
Cooder — and it's perhaps because of his own distance from
Woody's material that he so easily embraces it, refreshes
it and tunes it up for a few more years of declaration in
the marketplace of ideas.

Bragg and Wilco have crafted an album that reveres
Woody's lean, direct lyrics while at the same time reveling
in the breadth of his character. Woody's oft-forgotten
playful side is brought to life in Tweedy's bouncy ramble
through the children's song "Hoodoo Voodoo,'' and while
the words to "Ingrid Bergman'' may seem on paper to be a
tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment of the actress, but Bragg's
breathtaking, simple delivery reveals more oft-forgotten
human qualities of Woody's: desire, romance, even lust. The
politics are here, too — still relevant in songs like
"Christ for President'' and the Frost-y (as in Robert)
"The Unwelcome Guest'' — but "Mermaid Avenue''
concentrates on love ("She Came Along to Me''), longing
("California Stars'') and beer-drinking sing-alongs
("Walt Whitman's Niece''). It's a fitting approach that
may aid us in the realization that Woody was a man — not
just an easy, dehumanizing label.

Funny, though, that it took a socialist Brit to bring
Woody back home. Even when Bragg — in his fairly thick,
English brogue — interjects spoken bridges into these
easy-going new tunes, the color never drains from the red
dirt on this album. No Oklahoman could listen to this
record and not conjure those heartfelt, enigmatic images of
this territory — the dust, the wheat, the sense of home and
hope, the pervading far-off look in every pair of eyes.

And that's the point. The fact that Woody's songs still
find life in the mouths of singers from every culture and
continent is proof of his lasting legacy — a legacy that
will outlive his detractors by centuries. Dust to dust.
 
 

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Rufus Wainwright
"Rufus Wainwright"
(DreamWorks)

It's been a season of rock 'n' roll legacies in the
music biz. We've seen albums from Chris Stills, son of
Stephen; Emma Townshend, daughter of Pete; and Sean Lennon,
son of John — and none of them have been very striking.

Enter Rufus Wainwright, son of folkies Kate McGarrigle
and the also cumbersomely named Loudon Wainwright III. He
looks hip enough — leather jackets, bushy hair, knife-blade
sideburns — but he's crafted a debut that won't seem hip
right away. Wainwright, you see, is so freakin' talented,
he will have to slip into his destiny as the Gen-X Cole
Porter or Kurt Weill slowly.

Those comparisons are not tossed in here merely as
reference points for the reader. Wainwright is writing
standards on that level of charm and genius. His songs have
been described as retro (or, my favorite, “popera''), but
that's simply because the young generation responding to
Wainwright's timeless laments and musical sighs only know
of standards from the perspective of their parents. But
these days it's the mainstream to buck tradition, so
Wainwright's return to the traditional conventions of 20th
century classic songwriting may turn out to be the hippest
thing around.

Like his father, the younger Wainwright writes form very
personal experiences, but unlike Loudon, Rufus phrases his
lovelorn laments and cheery ruminations in an omniscient
voice. It's just as easy to place yourself in the center of
the moseying “Foolish Love'' as it is his own reminiscing
on boarding school days in the jaunty “Millbrook.'' His
“Danny Boy'' is a rolling original, though like many of
the songs it restrains Wainwright's delicious, reedy tenor
into one constraining octave. String arrangements
throughout are courtesy of Van Dyke Parks — a definite
kindred spirit — while Jim Keltner provides drums and Jon
Brion produces.

This debut is an intelligent cabaret — with all the sly
wit of Porter and the high-though-furrowed brow of Weill.
Several notches above the cleverness of Ben Folds,
Wainwright could be the closest thing my generation has
come to an original, classic entertainer.

 

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Hanson
"Three Car Garage: The Indie Recordings"
(Mercury-Moe)

After one year on the international scene, Hanson somehow has seen fit to look back at its roots. It's an extraordinarily premature move that smacks of market milking, but then again, they might be playing the fleeting game of pop smarter than anyone.

It also airs what now could be viewed as pre-fame ruminitions on Hansonmania in the media, like the chorus of “Stories'' (“Stories will be told until we're old / Stories will be told until the end of time'') or a line from “River'': “Lately we've been talking 'bout who we are / Seems we don't know anymore.''

This collection of songs from the boys' two Tulsa indie records is interesting if only to get a glimpse of the band from the perspective of another singer. It's Isaac singing lead on most of the 11 tracks here — and doing a surprisingly formidable job. Hearing his bold vocals on “Pictures'' and the exquisite ballad “Surely as the Sun,'' as well as his green-but-growing guitar work throughout, you can't help but wonder how the band would have fared had business types not put the more soulful (and, sure, more fetching) Taylor out front. It could have been a wholly different, grittier guitar band.

But even though the 11-year-old Taylor sounds like a mosquito here, his immense talent is already evident. He takes the entire lyric of “Stories'' and makes it come from him, not through him, adapting every turn of phrase and every breath to his inate control. His voice may not be deep, but his soul is an ocean.

Two songs from “Middle of Nowhere'' (“Thinking of You,'' “With You in Your Dreams'') are here in unpolished freshness, but a nascent version of the signature “MMMBop'' is a five-minute drag. Overall, it's a remarkably unaffected batch of pop songs that brims with a bright-eyed innocence the radio hasn't seen in two decades. Play on, boys.

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Hanson
“Snowed In''
(Mercury)

Christmas is a kids' holiday,
right? So tune into the true spirit of the season with this
exuberant pop album from Tulsa's own international sensations.
Granted, most of Hanson's covers of Christmas classics — written
scores before they were born — are frequently cloying and don't
necessarily improve on them, but these are carols for the Spice
Girls' Generation Next; they ain't s'pposed to be reverent. A
handful of originals keeps the spirit bright, like the sincerity of
“At Christmas'' and the frenzied funk of “Everybody Knows the
Claus'' (“Ridin' down the air highway in his sleigh / Bringing all
the presents for the next day — don't forget the donuts!'').
Taylor continues exploding with soul, while Isaac shows signs of
becoming Bolton-esque.

By Thomas Conner
© Tulsa World

Dwight Twilley Band
"Sincerely"
"Twilley Don't Mind"
(The Right Stuff)

Tulsa's own Dwight Twilley has more lives than your average
alley cat. The latest reissue of the Dwight Twilley Band's first
two albums is the fourth reissue for both since their original
pressings in '76 and '77, respectively. Every few years, someone at
an indie label discovers the records, their eyes grow wide as 45s
and they begin asking everyone they know, “Why isn't this stuff
hugely popular? Why isn't radio saturated with this guy?'' They
think they've found a pop music gold mine.

They have, of course. Trouble is, bad luck and delays caused
people to miss these records the first time around and, well, it's
hard to convince the masses of a second chance. Pity, because these
two records, particularly “Sincerely,'' are examples of everything
that is great about pop music. The songs are immediate but
timeless. They spark with youthful energy without being base. They
are utterly accessible but remain smart. “I'm on Fire,'' the
opener to “Sincerely'' and Twilley's greatest hit with partner
Phil Seymour, was recorded the night Twilley and Seymour first set
foot in the Church studio here in town — their first time in a
studio, period. “Let's record a hit record,'' Seymour said, and
they did. The chugging guitars, the layered vocals, the infectious
attitude — it's irresistible.

“Sincerely'' brims with that immediacy and remains one of the
most exciting records of my lifetime. “Twilley Don't Mind'' starts
with that same eagerness (“Looking for the Magic,'' featuring Tom
Petty's ringing guitar, is truly intriguing and unique) but slows
down before the flying saucer “Invasion.'' (This “Twilley''
reissue, though, features the best bonus tracks.) Still, these
records are more than mere echoes of Abbey Road — they are
diamonds lost in the rough, but they still shine.