Category Archives: Music Releases

Music Review: Grayson Capps – The Lost Cause Minstrels [Royal Potato Family]

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On his 5th studio album Grayson Capps engages a new band, The Lost Cause Minstrels, consisting mostly of former members of the now defunct Mobile, Alabama band Kung Fu Mama – Guitarist Corky Hughes, keyboardist Chris Spies, drummer John Milham and bassist Christian Grizzard  – captures the greatness of classic rock, country as well as folk, blues and Dixieland resulting in a blend of great Americana music.

The main protagonist in The Lost Cause Minstrels is the asphalt ribbon, both as a means of escape and as a means anguish. Sometimes, as in the country rock ramble Highway 42, both in the same song to Tao-like results “Let go of the future, let go of the past, put gasoline on the present, and have yourself a blast.”

Other characters emerge on the travels. Capp’s aging rocker rasp, reminiscent of Shooter Jennings, opens the album with Coconut Moonshine is a Jazzy Cab Calloway-style tale of the character Mr. Jim who dispenses tropical bootleg hooch from his Ocean Springs, Mississippi barbecue joint. Taj Mahal’s country shuffle Annie’s Lover gets a loving rendition of palatial proportions and features a bit of hillbilly scat for good measure.

Capps reflects both his Alabama birth and, until recently, New Orleans residence in a horn and drum fueled Dixieland romp on Ol’ Slac. the name derives from the fictional character created by Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr. (Joe Cain. in the song) Chickasaw Chief Slacabamorinico. Cain was a Confederate veteran that revived the tradition of Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama after it was halted by the occupying Union Army. Cain and six other Confederate veterans paraded in a decorated coal wagon playing drums and horns were dubbed The Lost Cause Minstrels.

The road takes it’s own toll in Rock N Roll, a Turn the Page-like lament of empty gas tanks, full whiskey glasses and long nights and Yes You Are has an aging, battle-worn musician confessing the futility of his chosen career to his lover who tenderly assures and  and encourages from afar.

A couple of classic-rock styled torchers pick things up as  No Definitions (in which the title defines the album overall) highlights guitarist Corky Hughes chops and manages to sound new and channel Hendrix’s Foxy Lady. John the Daggar rocks by digging out the blues is a retelling of the John Lee Hooker crossroads fable.

The albums taunt sound is a credit to Capps, who co-produced the effort with his longtime partner and Grammy Award-winning engineer/producer Trina Shoemaker (Queens of the Stone Age, Dylan Leblanc, Sheryl Crow). Capps has taken on a considerable undertaking of styles and personal, heartfelt confession and made it into a great album.

Official Site | Buy

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m4ftz-bfXw[/youtube]

The Best of 2010

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It’s that time again. The end of the year list that are as common as as spam in your inbox, but it’s tradition and I’m a sucker for tradition. So here we go!

If you follow my twitter feed (http://twitter.com/#!/TwangNation) you’ll already know what’s on this list. I did the countdown as seperate tweets lest week and I got a great response. You also know that its not merely a top 10 but a top 25! That’s right, you get 25% more music for your money.

It has been another great year for Americana/roots music, and from what’s currently coming across my desk for 2011 we can look forward to another. Old-timers are beating on the barn door and upstarts are using old parts to make new works that advance the form while staying true to the roots.  The genre appears to be attracting and cultivating the type of nurturing and craftsmanship that labels used to practice in the golden days of the 60s and early 70s. Of course this time without the lavish pay-out. The music industry is in turmoil from the corner office view but from the touring van and the laptop it’s  a prime-time for opportunity. And if you’re a burgeoning musician concerned about the current conditions I urge you to purchase Dr. Ralph Stanley’s book Man of Constant Sorry and learn about what REAL hard time look like.

So I raise a pint and celebrate an embarrassment of riches that show the love of craft and and honor in roots that defines a road of American culture that is often overlooked and forgotten but often leads to the promised land.

As the year comes to a close, I’m reflecting on the past four years of writing Minkin’s Music and all the good times with people I’ve met along the way. May the spirit of the season touch your soul and let comfort and joy shine upon you throughout the upcoming year.

  1. Mat D – Plank Road Drag – goo.gl/JmxJL
  2. Jamey Johnson – Guitar song- goo.gl/quZFh
  3. Ray Wylie Hubbard – A: Enlightenment B: Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) – goo.gl/VMe2Z
  4. Truckstop Darlin’ – Truckstop Darlin’ – goo.gl/jcRi0
  5. Reckless Kelly – Somewhere in Time- goo.gl/gwqGM
  6. Miranda Lambert – Revolution – goo.gl/Ana72
  7. Justin Townes Earle – Harlem River Blues – goo.gl/ZIU2V
  8. Lindsay Fuller – The Last Light I See – goo.gl/wZsFI
  9. Elizabeth Cook – Welder – goo.gl/kiEVi
  10. Jason & The Scorchers  –  Halcyon Times – goo.gl/gzf0g
  11. Mandolin Orange – Quiet Little Room – goo.gl/tPcHS
  12. Black Twig Pickers – Ironto Special – goo.gl/sipmJ
  13. Possessed By Paul James – Feed The Family – goo.gl/0BjNl
  14. Joe Thompson – Yankee Twang – goo.gl/whgRF
  15. Joe Pug – Messenger – goo.gl/VQt31
  16. Carolina Chocolate Drops  – Genuine Negro Jig – goo.gl/38tmF
  17. The Sadies – Darker Circles – goo.gl/z5nMt
  18. 6 Day Bender – E’ville Fuzz – goo.gl/xLDK6
  19. I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In the House – Sounds of Dying – goo.gl/AhIG1
  20. Doc Dailey & Magnolia Devil – Victims, Enemies & Old Friends – goo.gl/twVaZ
  21. Shineyribs – Well After Awhile – goo.gl/8kgWY
  22. Patty Griffin – Downtown Church – goo.gl/YVXav
  23. Whitey Morgan & the 78′s – Whitey Morgan & the 78′s- goo.gl/HM2af
  24. Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers  – Agridustrial – goo.gl/ldsGN
  25. Mary Gauthier – The Foundling – goo.gl/fKAJb

Music Review: Joe Whyte – When The Day Breaks [Bridge & Tunnel Records]

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There appears to be a resurgence of sorts of the modern troubadour. the male singer/songwriter armed with only an acoustic guitar and the stories he weaves always teetering on the precipice between  emotional authenticity and cloying sentimentality. The balance becomes even more precarious when you have pop leanings as the term “pop” has been severed from it’s root “popular” into something fleeting and vapid.

A well-crafted song defies genre. Whether it’s Sinatra’s I did It My Way or Willie Nelson’s Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, there’s a craftsmanship that transcends and a balanced symmetry of sound and word. These types of songs also used to fall under the moniker of pop because they were “popular” not because they were reminiscent of sugary confection.

New Jersey based Joe Whyte’s new (FREE!) release, When The Day Breaks, is a slice of pop-Americana that straddles territory settled in the 70’s by pioneers like Gordon Lightfoot and Stephen Stills and currently being reshaped by the likes of the  Avett Brothers, Darrell Scott and Brice Robinson.

Rambling is the asphalt-hearted theme that runs through this release. The jangly channeling of Gram Parsons in the opener Please Believe Me portrays a sunny tempo belying the narrators compulsion to hit the  road and not allow anyone to fence him. It’s a Shame with its Dobro yawn supplies  a precisely suited accompaniment to reflect the dark dysfunction of a man destined to leave a caring woman knowing full well its the wrong thing to do,

This City is Alive has the narrator sit still in the City that Never Sleeps (sounding like a lost track from Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection) yet fights the urge to escape before it steals the person he’s finally discovered he is. Off to War is a different kind of leaving. A soldier being deployed wants more then anything to be home with his family and his solemn ache is the strongest testament against an unjust war.

Blending a pop songwriters instinct for precision and hook with the warmth and authenticity in storytelling that are the trademarks of folk and country Whyte rescues the much maligned genre and gives it beauty and depth.

Official Site | Free Download | Facebook

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFAxNsMArY0[/youtube]

MUSIC REVIEW – Star Anna and the Laughing Dogs – The Only Thing That Matters (self-released)

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Remember that girl you met at the bowling alley? The one that chews gum, drinks several pitchers of beer, wears painted on jeans and tells you about French philosophy then winks at you as she gets strike after strike? She later on she goes and breaks your heart but you don’t care, you’re just glade to have been there to enjoy the time you had with her. No? Well Star Anna reminds me of that girl.

Well maybe not Star Anna personally but her music. It’s equal parts trashy Americana-laced rock mixed with sophisticated storytelling and charm that raises Anna and her  band, The Laughing Dogs, to the a gritty level of greatness. It’s a gazing at the starts from the gutter kind of thing…

All the above qualities are on display in the opener Sleep My Darling. A woman sings to her lover to leave the world behind and to take refuge in her arms. The gentle solo guitar gives way to full band and then all comes head before calm returns and is then is again ditched. With this aural bi-polarism I’m left wondering if the woman’s arms are a sanctuary or a prison, but the song is so good you know you’re going to stay either way.

Through the Winter slinks along with vibrant 70’s Byrds/Stones swagger. Anna’s delivery of personal lyrics make her at once confessional and defiant, vulnerable and brave. Hawks on a Pole booms like a Lone Justice or Melissa Etheridge rollicking rocker and Justin Davis’ guitar especially cooks here. Where I Come From is a lovely, yearning number that takes us back to a more honky-tonk feel that defined much of Anna’s first CD Crooked Path.

In this world of many drinking songs you can now add as one of the best Spinning My Wheels which features the great line “I’m just sitting here spinning my wheels, but I’m not drunk enough to feel like I’m free” Though more rocking like the great Country drinking songs it’s one part pining and three parts I don’t give a shit. Burn is a Pretenders style pop-punk gem, For Now and the dark tale of a serial killer Restless Water, show what Anna can do with a slow moving ballad, her singular voice breaks and swells with aching.

Aside from longing and lost love (or at least the opportunity thereof) if there is a theme to be picked up on The Only Thing That Matters it’s leaving. Nowhere is that more apparent on the Running Man. The languidly jazz tempo thrown down by Frank Johnson’s slinky bass and Travis Yost’s syncopated drums slowly builds and erupts into a declaration of dereliction.

The closer Tripping Wire was a 2AM solo guitar cut and Anna really shines on it. This is the voice that cut through all the previous rockers all but standing on it’s own and shining like a dusty, dark jewel.

As heartbreaking as many of the songs are this is not a sad album, and though there is an element of moving on it’s not a chick therapy album.
It’s a cathartic jubulation that stands as another exceptional release from a master crafter of songs and her great band.

Official Site | MySpace | Buy

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBgFx4ahaM4[/youtube]

Review – Ben Mallott – Look Good, Feel Good (Self Released)

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It’s rare that I play a new release passed my way and my mind is stopped from lazily latching onto the closest analog. Classification is what the mind does to make sense of the word and allow progress but with music critiques it can be a handicap.

The new release by Austinite and ex-Helpers front man, Ben Mallott, Look Good, Feel Good, is a musical monkey wrench to the sated mechanics of the jaded ear.

First the album cover of the album. Mallott looks at you from an old school barber shop’s mirror (flanked with the omnipresent Barbicide jar full of combs) bedecked in an an pink ornate pearl-snap shirt, white pants fringed with gold and kicked-up baroquely tooled boots that would make Nudie Cohn swoon. This juxtaposition of ordinary and flamboyant was a staple of 70’s Nash-Vegas alchemical imagery that Porter Wagoner mastered.

Then there is the voice.  As stated before an obvious analogy doesn’t spring to mind, and to do a just description would lead to a hyphen polluted mess. Suffice to say Mallott can moved from gritty baratone to soaring ache within a single song. Case in point is the opener Heartbreaks, the guitar lays a chugging foundation, and pedal-steel and fiddle gently interlock, to travel the timeworn terrain of the anguish of lost love. What saves the piece from cliche’ is the subtle soul in Mallot’s pipes.

Austin folk goddess Eliza Gilkyson on backing vocal on a gently rolling Shotgun Suzy and I half expected a matador to suddenly appear in the mariachi-horn and guitar start to Purgatory’s Last Massage Parlor which names drops George Jones and features some fine fiddle work. I Want It All is straight up Memphis-seared soul the would Make Van Morrison smile and The Artful Dodger sound like a long-lost opaque ballad by the late Jeff Buckley.

Midnight and Broke Down is a lonesome, lovely tune that comes closest to a trad country piece and Cold Feet is a Jerry Lee rockabilly-style cooker. The somber B-3 organ opening of Love Is Cold Water soon breaks into a shuffling Gospel rouser.

I have said that I think great musicians drawing from a wide view of musical sources have always made the best conduits for synthesis (or in the modern parlance, Mash up) and Ben Mallott adeptly shows this ability with this extraordinary surprise.

Official Site |   MySpace |  Buy

Ben Mallott – Heartbreaks

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awha88Lp37E[/youtube]


Album Review – Phosphorescent – To Willie (Dead Oceans)

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Part of the appeal of the Texas Yoda is his ability to musically transform himself in ways that balance his musical curiosity with a foxes eye towards expanding his market. This allows him to be the steward of this own musical journey and makes him a beacon for artists that prefer to forge their own path.

Mathew Houck aka: Phosphorescent’s sound is similar to fellow alt.folk/slowcore solo-artists-using-revolving-bands-and-alias’-with-a-partiality-toward-heaps-of-facial-hair Will Oldham aka: Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Samual Beard aka: Iron and Wine, and actual bands like The Mountain Goats, Mark Kozelek’s Red House Painters and the man I consider the granddaddy of the genre Nick Drake. Sparse, somber and wistful these bedroom troubadour’s introspection borders on emotional honesty and precious self-indulgence.

With For Willie Houck leaves these other artists in the dust. The album is done, primarily, with a palpable love for Willie and his work. The album cover art obviously alludes to Willie’s own To Lefty from Willie but Houck displays self-aware humility by not including his name in the title.  The cuts dig deep into Willie’s back catalog to uncover gems rather than  well- known tunes. This is a smart move since it allows Houck some leverage for stylistic interpretation. But Houck is no deconstructionist and the soul of the songs remain intact. Too Sick To Pray features guitar reminiscent to will gut-string hillbilly jazz style and Walkin’ is a straight-up steel driven barroom weeper. Can I Sleep In Your Arms sounds shimmers like a rodeo-angel choir lament to lost love and The Last Thing I Needed (First Thing This Morning) beautifully exposes the melancholy heart beating within the song

The album’s sparse production is reminiscent of Willie’s own criminally underrated Spirit and Daniel Lanois produced Teatro. Willie has always been too innovative to fit in the Nashville country music straight-jacket and these works might have been what bought the attention of Houck  in the first place. I would like to hear Houck  do some originals in this style and perhaps he could tuen out to be the artistic bridge between Willie Nelson and the alt.folk/slowcore territory instead of just an adroit interpreter.

Amazon | MySpace | Dead Oceans Site

Phosphorescent- Reasons to Quit

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-XGhPrsODw[/youtube]

Album Review – The Wildes – Ballad of a Young Married Man (Release Date 3/09)

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Ever since seeing the darkly striking Australian western The Proposition I’ve been fascinated with the similarities between the Land Down Under and the American South and West of the nineteenth century, both good (confronting a wild frontier to achieve independence and establish a society) and bad  (attacking and displacing an indigenous people.) Now due to The Wildes, an Americana/alt.country band from Victoria, Australia, I am now just as fascinated with roots music as interpreted in the land of Oz.

Some of the cuts on Ballad of a Young Married Man take an old-testament page from fellow countryman Nick Cave (and script writer for the aforementioned movie The Proposition). The title song, “Jack the Blacksmith,” “Nothing” and the tribal drum-beat brooder “Slap-Back Mary” could have all come from Cave if was inclined to pen country-hued songs.

The chugging “Streets of My Hometown” carries the DNA of Steve Earle’s Hometown Blues and the sweetly melancholic “Sue-Ellen” sounds like a lost Waterboys cut. “If I’ve Done You Wrong” is a organ backed barroom weeper that basks in its unrepentant spirit and the wonderfully reflective “Loverman” is a rustic beauty. The bonus track Broken Blossoms is a piano and banjo bawler that I imagine could have been penned by that trash can troubadour Tom Waits. The Wildes cover a wide expanse of Americana dirt roads and wear their influences proudly on their sleeves, but their interpretation on these styles are uniquely their own.

Official Site |  MySpace

Sweet Teresa.mp3

RollingStone.com on Hank Williams Unreleased Recordings

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David Fricke  over at RollingStone.com has some noce things to say about the upcoming Hank Williams Unreleased Recordings box set – “…the 54 performances in this three-CD set pack a magical, concentrated immediacy that is, in its time and way, as electrifying as Johnny Cash’s Sixties prison shows or Bob Dylan’s early acoustic concerts. Williams’ nasally drawl is crisp and strong, like the young Dylan without the sandpaper; he holds the long, desolate notes in “Cool Water” with stunning force.”

Country Music legend Marty Stuart’s “Sparkle & Twang: An American Musical Odyssey“, an exhibit of four decades of rock, country, rockabilly, bluegrass, rhythm & blues and gospel music memorabilia from Stuart’s personal collection
will make its way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland from Oct. 30 through March 1. The 300 items, including musical instruments, stage clothing, handwritten lyrics and photographs. Among them are Hank Williams’ handwritten lyrics “Cold, Cold Heart” and “Your Cheatin’ Heart, Elvis Presley’s sweater worn in a photograph with Junior Parker, Johnny Cash’s first black suit from 1955 and handwritten lyrics for “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Man in Black,” Performance outfit worn by Bob Dylan, Clarence White of the Byrds’ blue leather suit, Pop Staples’ 1962 Fender Jazzmaster guitar and Marty Stuart’s first guitar and performance outfit, sewn by his mother.

Joe Pug – Nation of Heat EP

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We mere mortals can only hope to be meager conduits for the grand themes of life – Love, hope, fear, death – these concepts are bigger then any one of us but that doesn’t stop the courageous and foolish from shaping these experiences into music and words.

Joe Pug, a Chicagoan sometimes-carpenter, is standing on the shoulders of Guthrie, Dylan, Van Zant, Prine, Clark, Simon and Young to join the ranks of present-day troubadours like Ryan Bingham, Willy Mason and Ray LaMontagne. Joe Pug’s songs belie this greenhorn’s recent foray into the craft of songwriting and his world-beaten voice belies his youth (early-twenties.)

“Hymn 101” is worth the price of admission alone. A trotting acoustic guitar supports the lyrics  “I’ve come here to get high, to do more than just get by, I’ve come to test the timbre of my heart.” and “I’ve come here to meet the sheriff and his posse, to offer him the broad side of my jaw, I’ve come here to get broke, and then maybe bum a smoke, we’ll go drinkin’ two towns over after all.” This is goddamn staggering in its courage and rich in it’s symbolism.

“Call It What You Will” has a mournful mood that brings to mind Townes Van Zandt at his most melancholy. “I call today a disaster, she calls in December the 3rd” Pug sings being at once melodramatic and nonchalant. You can almost feel the whiskey and brimstone on Pug’s breath when he sings “I am the day, I am the dawn, I am the darkness coming on” on the harmonica laced Hymn 35

There is a timeless quality to this 7 song EP, like a found chest of remembrances in your grandparent’s attic, there are treasures for this that pay attention. And the foolish courage of man armed with only an acoustic guitar standing as a lightening rod for the ages is a wonder to behold.

Joe Pug performing Hymn#101

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMTj6pZ1HCM[/youtube]

Review – Robert Plant/Alison Krauss – Raising Sand (Rounder)

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Country music has some great male/female duos – Tammy Wynette & George Jones, Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner and now… Robert Plant and Alison Krauss? No really, let me ‘splain.

While Mssr. Plant and his partner in sonic larceny Jimmy Page spent most of their time pilfering Robert Johnson’s crossroads they never left the dirt roads to traverse the back woods and smokey mountains where Americana, country and roots music flourished. In plant’s own words “I completely missed a whole other area of amazing American music.”

The collaboration between the blonde bluegrass angel and blonde rock god was set in motion seven years ago when the two sang together at a 2004 Leadbelly tribute concert. The conduit to the to bring the project together came in the form of producer and musician T-Bone Burnett (‘O Brother, Where Are Thou’ and ‘Walk The Line’.)

The result is a moody hushed world where sepia tinted country, fringe-folk and swaggering rockabilly fuse into a surprisingly cohesive whole. Like an unlikely collaboration between Angelo Badalamenti and Sam Phillips the alchemy on these thirteen sparsely-arranged cover versions is raw and mesmerizing – Krauss sings like a shimmering Nightingale, and sets a perfect counterpoint to Plant purr and growl. In tandem, they frequently reach moments of true transcendence last heard when Plant dueted with Sandy Denny on Zappelin 4’s (or Zoso) haunting mandolin-driven folk ballad “The Battle of Evermore.”

As you might expect of a recording of this pedigree the musicians are top of the line. Burnett’s hired guns Marc Ribot (guitar), Dennis Crouch (bass), Jay Bellarose (drums) and Norman Blake (acoustic guitar) are solid but restrained. Burnett has a knack for perfecting the early country and roots high lonesomeness that conjures hard fate and hone-spun menace that can only be labeled dark Americana.

The covers are picked with care with attention to diversity and songwriting mastery. Doc Watson’s “Your Long Journey”, Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan’s “Trampled Rose”, Gene Clark waltz “Through the Morning, Everly Brothers’ “Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On)” and, most impressive, a discordant rendering of Townes Van Zandt’s “Nothing”and a Plant and Page number Please Read The Letter.”

Krauss and Plant trade solo and duet in deliriously beautiful harmony. I haven’t heard a duet release this good since Caitlin Cary and Thad Cockrell’s 2005’s release “Begonias.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5KF4dKq-6I