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Kohn's Corner

my Amazon reviews, mostly about books, movies and music

A few more if room allows (2nd of 3)

Country – There are probably great country artists around now, but I never listen to country radio anymore. Except for the Mavericks, with that great voice of Raul Malo, and Brad Paisley, who writes songs with wit and plays guitar with brilliance, modern country doesn’t click for me.

I miss the oldtimers: Slim Whitman, Marty Robbins, Charley Pride, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton.

Whitman is long gone and maybe not for everyone; he is for me. Try this sample.

Robbins could have written nothing but El Paso and its two sequels (though he wrote more classics) and he'd be immortal. His voice alone would be more than enough to welcome him to our deserted island.

Not a songwriter himself, Pride had one of the best of all "country" voices. He could sing the phone book and we'd enjoy it.

We all know Cash and Haggard, of course, but might not know they were surprisingly good (sometimes great) songwriters, too. Try Haggard's 2011 WORKING IN TENNESSEE to see what real country music should sound like.

(6 April 2016, Merle Haggard dies of pneumonia, age 79. The New York Times has a fine obituary.)

Nelson sometimes sounds to me like he's going through the motions, but he's earned it, having played millions of concerts and recorded zillions of albums. When his heart is in it, he's worth all the waiting.

Jennings isn't a fine song writer, but his voice, indelibly Country, and his attitude, anti-Nashville, has always seemed honest and refreshing.

Parton wrote wonderful songs about her impoverished childhood (Coat of Many Colors, My Tennessee Mountain Home, In the Good Old Days, and others). I like how she looks, talks, and sings. As late as 2008, with BACKWOODS BARBIE, she was still writing good lyrics, as "Somebody's Everything" shows.

A few others:

Lacy J Dalton ... Gail Davies ... John Conlee ... Kathy Baillie... Suzy Bogguss. They sing for all of us with distinctive voices, Baillie's an exceptionally beautiful one. And look for the 2014 album LUCKY by Bogguss, where she wonderfully interprets twelve songs by Merle Haggard.

Don Williams. Either ANTHOLOGY or 20 GREATEST HITS will give us Williams’ wonderfully comforting voice and a selection of fine songs. (8 September 2017, RIP.)

Freddy Fender. Many CD collections of his greatest hits are available, but I think the one to look for is THE BEST OF FREDDY FENDER, MCAD 11464 (which is not the cover on the right, but the cover has a better photo). Harder to find but worth the search is his BARRIO HITS FROM THE '50s AND '60s. Even if we don’t speak Spanish, as regrettably I don’t, we feel the music. (14 October 2006, RIP.)

But of course, there's so much more. And don't get me started on bluegrass, or this can go on forever.

Cox Family - Father, son, two daughters, one of whom has the most wonderful voice, all of whom sure know how to harmonize. Mostly bluegrass, but listen how they handle Del Shannon's classic song, Runaway. (Here's the original for the youngsters among us, and here's the Cox Family version.)

Iris Dement - Great songwriter, which would be enough, but there's something about her voice. I can see where for some it might be an acquired taste, but it's grabbed me since her first album, INFAMOUS ANGEL, and especially the song "Momma's Opry."

John Denver – Yes, John Denver. Ignore the RCA strings and focus on the songs. Imagine them sung with just a couple guitars, hearing their timeless melodies, evocative lyrics and fine voice. Denver left us much too soon.

Update, 2013, a CD called THE MUSIC IS YOU: A TRIBUTE TO JOHN DENVER is released, going a lot further than my "just a couple guitars" but making my point. (The entire CD is worth the price if just for the cover of Take Me Home, Country Roads, by Brandi Carlile and Emmylou Harris.)

Bob Dylan - I was a fan until hearing his SELF PORTRAIT in 1970, and then decided, maybe wrongly, that he was a poseur. Nothing much since then has changed my mind.

Somewhere along the way he stopped working on the lyrics, and has been riding his reputation since.

Today, these are the only albums of his on my shelf: BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME; HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED; and NASHVILLE SKYLINE. But they're wonderful.

William Ellwood – When it’s a need to relax, nothing works for me as well as his RENAISSANCE.

I remember the first time I played it, as soon as the CD ended I started it over again, not wanting the magic to stop.

His other album, NATURAL SELECTIONS, though not as good (what could be?), confirms he wasn’t a one-hit wonder.

Tommy Emmanuel - Not saying he's my favorite guitarist (that would be Mark Knopfler, then maybe Leo Kottke, maybe TE), but I believe Mr Emmanuel has more mastery of the instrument than anyone else. This was reinforced when I saw him December 14, 2017 at San Antonio's Tobin Center.

He can play in any style, from jazz to country, always with imagination and skill that is not to be believed unless you see it yourself. Until you can, try this YouTube video.

Enya – Of all her many albums, I like only one, SHEPHERD MOONS, but it's perfect from first note to last. Why were her other ones so much worse? I guess all artists, from visual arts to music to film, to any creative endeavor, sometimes shine brightly, everything coming together. That was SHEPHERD MOONS.

The Flatlanders - Three Texan friends (Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock) get together every few decades to give us a great album, then go back to their solo careers.

Their songs have it all: lyrics, melodies, harmonies, nicely backed by acoustic instruments.

Not exactly country, not exactly folk, not exactly bluegrass, not exactly rock, and not exactly at all, thankfully, hip-hop, pop or heavy metal.

They make some of my favorite music.

Fleetwood Mac – They made good albums before FLEETWOOD MAC (1975) and RUMOURS (1977), but none afterwards. What happened? Where'd they go off the rails, and why?

Those two albums were wonderful. Even Stevie Nicks, a cute girl but whose voice I found annoying (no one else did, her accountant assures us), was a good fit on those albums.

Another one or two like them, and they'd be in the Deserted Island's top ten for me.

Aretha Franklin - Probably just a function of my generation, but hands-down my favorite blues/rock female singer. Her voice can't be described. Like Mount Everest, it's just there, magnificent, forever the peak.

Stephane Grappelli - Recorded longer than maybe anybody - in eight decades! - and not one dull note.

I especially like his collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin, VERY BEST OF… to me the essence of jazz interpretation. MAKIN’ WHOOPEE is also wonderful.

That rarest of jazz musicians, Grappelli couldn’t play off-key if he tried.

Beth Hart - If there's a better singer of blues and rock out there, her name escapes me. Hart is it.

But she can sing anything, as this song from her latest album proves. 

I fear for her voice sometimes. She leaves nothing on the field.

Hawaiian guitarists from Dancing Cat Records - When stationed in Hawaii in the 1990s, I came to learn about and love what they call slack key guitar.

This is not the Hawaiian music of Don Ho’s Shiny Bubbles or Elvis Presley movies. You won’t hear it in a nightclub or on a cruise. No, this is folk music, born and matured in Hawaii, more likely heard at a quiet beach, someone playing a guitar or ukulele, sharing joy with friends and family.

Some years ago, the great pianist George Winston saw a need to record the old masters in their prime before they passed from the scene. Indeed, Sonny Chillingworth died just months after his CD was issued.  Winston started a record label called Dancing Cat Records, now grown in both artistic stature and number of recordings.

I’m familiar with only a small number of the label’s artists, and don’t claim them to be the best. These (in alphabetical order) give me endless pleasure: Cindy Combs, Led Kaapana, Ray Kane, Ozzie Kitani, George Kuo, and Leonard Kwan.

If, like me, you don’t care for Hawaiian language vocals, a good introduction to slack key is Ozzie Kitani’s all-instrumental KANI KI HO’ALU or George Kuo’s ALOHA NO NA KUPUNA. If I had to choose my favorite album, it would be Led Kaapana and Bob Brozman's IN THE SADDLE.

Sharon Isbin – So many wonderful classical music guitarists ... Julian Bream, Andrea González Caballero, Christoph Denoth, Aniello Desiderio, Carlo Domeniconi, Marcin Dylla, Roxane Elfasci, Eduardo Fernández, Eliot Fisk, Dimitri Illarionov, Dejan Ivanovic,Tomo Iwakura, Milos Karadaglic, Péter and Zoltán Katona, Dale Kavanagh, Yenne Lee, Lorenzo Micheli, Anabel Montesinos, Dariya Panasevych, Christopher Parkening, Alexander-Sergei Ramirez, Pepe Romero, Stephan Schmidt, Andres Segovia, Scott Tennant, Marco Tomayo, Ana Vidović, John Williams (maybe especially John Williams), Xuefei Yang, Narciso Yepes, Elena Zucchini ...  every one sounding faultless to my ears.

If I had to choose one, though, it might be Sharon Isbin, whose fingers dance on the strings without apparent effort.

Well, so do the fingers of other guitarists. Maybe it's that Isbin has done so much to further the classical guitar. She's  commissioned modern works for guitar and orchestra, and she's had older works transcribed for guitar. (Devilishly difficult to play, too, but somehow she does.)

She's also founder and head of the guitar department at Juilliard.

And she's played with jazz musicians and others beyond the world of classical.

Great guitarist. Great lady.

Booker T. Jones -- "Green Onions," of course, but many more fine songs and albums by him.

From Wikipedia: "[While still in high school] Jones was a prodigy, playing the oboe, saxophone, trombone, bass, and piano at school and organ at church." 

Ah yes, that organ. Love its sound, especially the way he plays it. So few great organists in rock: Alan Price of the Animals; Ray Manzarek of the Doors; Augie Meyers of the Sir Douglas Quintet; and that's about it. Everyone knew comparisons would be made with Booker T.

in his seventies, he's still an active musician today (late 2015 as I write this), still recording, still touring. Hope he comes to my fair city soon.

Valerie June - Found her a few years ago, but saw her again last night on Austin City Limits with a great little band (females on fiddle, sax and trumpet; males on drums, lead guitar and bass).

What can I say except that I adore her (not the dreadlocks, though, which look to me unkempt and make her head appear top-heavy). She's lovely to look at, has that unique voice, plays multiple instruments, and sings the kind of blues I like. Her only fault is not making enough albums.

Peter Kosky - Just one of his albums have I ever heard, but it's unique and  unforgettable.

SONGS OF THE ALLEGHENY FRONTIER takes us back 300 years and, played with the lights off, is as if we were watching a movie.

Another sad example of talent, maybe genius, going unrecognized.

Leo Kottke – None of his many albums will disappoint us, but ESSENTIAL is probably the best introduction to one of the most inventive guitarists of our time.

Kottke claims to have a bad voice (“like geese farting,” he puts it), but it’s just fine to me, and adds a lot to his playing when he uses it, which isn’t often enough.

HOME AND AWAY REVISITED, a DVD concert, is well worth adding to our collection. I think it has Kottke at his prime. For the ladies, at his handsomest.

Jim Kweskin Jug Band – This might be an acquired taste. If so, I’m a glutton.

Kweskin led a band of merry music makers in the ‘60s, among them Geoff Muldaur and his wife Maria. Their goal seemed to be nothing more complicated than having fun. They chose old, good songs and rendered them with affection and skill.

Look for their GREATEST HITS on Vanguard. Guaranteed to put a smile on our face.

Sonny Landreth - Master of the slide blues guitar. Like a fine wine, gets better with age.

Maybe the one to try first is his 2003 THE ROAD WE'RE ON, though it gets a lot of great competition from 2017's LIVE AT LAFAYETTE, a concert on two discs, one an amazing acoustic set with a gorgeous zydeco accordian, the other disc his typical electric guitar rocking the house.

BOUND BY THE BLUES (2015) proves beyond all doubt how well he can play. Just him and drums and bass, like the venerable Cream 50 years earlier, but he puts that great old band to pasture.

Landreth should be on anybody's list of world's greatest guitarists.

Cyndi Lauper - So sue me, I think she's cute. But also, can she ever sing.

And in so many styles, too. Her 2010 MEMPHIS BLUES, for example, is a fine blues album.

Everyone knows her, so she needs nothing more from me. Except to recommend a DVD, "Live at Last," to see just how fine a singer she is.

Albert Lee - Can there be a more skilled guitarist? Watch this and decide.

A long career as a sideman, which is why he might not have the recognition he deserves.

Still performing in 2015.

Evan Lurie – Stuck at Fort Bragg on a weekend about fifteen years ago, I'm browsing a pawnshop in Fayetteville to while away the time, and stumble on SELLING WATER BY THE SIDE OF THE RIVER. I'd no idea what the music was, but with that title and for only two bucks, what the heck.

That's the best way to learn about new music. With no preconceptions whatever.

So I won’t tell you about this CD. I want you to enjoy the same sense of wonder I did on first hearing it.

I still don't know anything about Lurie, and don’t want to. This CD is magical to me.

Lonnie Mack – A forgotten elder statesman of rock, his STRIKE LIKE LIGHTNING is a knockout from first song to last. It teams Mack with Stevie Ray Vaughan, and includes Satisfy Susie, which has a secure place in any compilation of "World’s Greatest Rock Songs."

Liz Magnes – An Israeli pianist but who must have been born in America; I heard no foreign accent when she was on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz.

Her only CD (to the best of my knowledge), MOROCCAN MOODS OF GERSHWIN, knocks me out. As much as we like Gershwin, his melodies just get in the way until Magnes leaves them behind, a mere starting point for her gorgeous improvisations.  

From her photo on the CD cover, she’s a mature woman and has obviously been playing for decades. Why has such talent hidden itself away all these years?

Raul Malo - Maybe the best voice in popular music today. It has great range, bathes us in its warm sound, and isn't afraid to cover famous songs.

Malo is the lead singer for the country group The Mavericks, but has also worked without them in a number of albums. The only one I didn't like was TODAY, with its strong Latin flavor, but I'll take the blame for that.

To get an idea of his voice, try "Blue Moon" with the Mavericks.

Or "Blue Bayou" on NASHVILLE ACOUSTIC SESSIONS.

Or "Tomorrow Night" from his solo album YOU'RE ONLY LONELY. This song has a very fine instrumental, typical of Malo's supporting musicians.

Wynton Marsalis – We know of his stature in the jazz world, of course. What’s as impressive to me is his ability to perform as capably in the structured world of classical music’s horn concertos. Can’t fool us in classical, where you’re on note or you’re not, and he always is. (You’ve heard the old joke? Play it wrong once, it’s a mistake. Play it wrong twice, it’s jazz.)

I'm not a fan of his modern jazz recordings (too many “wrong notes” for me), but one of them, his tribute to Jelly Roll Morton, STANDARD TIME, VOL 6, MR JELLY LORD, is among my favorite CDs.

And hold the presses. In early 2012, I hear WYNTON MARSALIS & ERIC CLAPTON PLAY THE BLUES (2011). We get two discs in the case: one, a CD of the music; the second, a DVD of the concert. It's been a while since I felt so excited by music. Play this for me on my deathbed. I bet I get up and start dancing.

John Mayall – For years in the mid-1960s, Mayall was the single best source of British blues, proved by the 1966 album BLUESBREAKERS.

In 1969, he gave us THE TURNING POINT, a terrific live album recorded at the Fillmore East. Jazz, rock and blues without drums, most of the songs running from five to eight minutes.

Two years later, same concept but this time, in BACK TO THE ROOTS, done even better (but some would disagree). A 2-album set, again mixing blues, rock and a dash of jazz, Mayall was joined by some of the fine musicians who’d worked with him years earlier: Eric Clapton and Mick Taylor on guitar (but I didn't have to tell you that), Johnny Almond on woodwinds (and key to the joys of the music). A terrific album, I thought, one I've enjoyed repeatedly over the years, probably on my list of ten favorite CDs if I ever make one.

Mayall seems to have been both a nice guy, able to attract great performers over the years, as well as a talented musician. ROOTS suffers only from lyrics worthy of a bright college freshman, made even worse by Mayall’s thin vocals. But the long instrumentals were superb, making up for my petty complaints. 

I've heard about a dozen John Mayall albums, and not a bad one among them. As late as his 2015 FIND A WAY TO CARE, he's still got it.

In 2003, Mayall gathered some friends on his 70th birthday. The DVD of the concert showed he had the energy of his Fillmore days, and was still gathering great musicians around him.

His 2014 A SPECIAL LIFE has him, at age 81, sounding as young as ever, and still playing with wonderful musicians (Rocky Athas, especially).

I hope both Mayall and me are here in ten years for another update.

Delbert Mcclinton - Been around forever but probably - unforgiveably - a new name for most of us. He writes fine songs combining country, blues, soul and rock, maybe best shown in NOTHING PERSONAL.

His 1991 BEST OF is a favorite, with horns adding a lot to his already fine band.

 One of his albums is called ACQUIRED TASTE. No it's not, not with him, not at all.

The McGarrigle Sisters - You might not have heard of the McGarrigle sisters, but you've probably heard some of their songs over the years. Linda Ronstadt's Heart Like a Wheel, for example.

Three great albums of the McGarrigle sisters sit on my shelf: MATAPEDIA and, what would be anyone else's crown jewel, HEARTBEATS ACCELERATING, but neither is as enjoyable to me as THE McGARRIGLE HOUR.

THE McGARRIGLE HOUR is all-McGarrigle: sisters, children, in-laws, friends.

It's as if one evening you and some musically talented friends visited the McGarrigles in their home. Everyone brought along an instrument and favorite songs. Everyone was a fine singer, and the resulting harmonies were heavenly. The songs would range from traditional to Tin Pan Alley to modern to folk to French to funny.

There's hardly a CD ever made that I don’t program the player to skip a few songs. Not on this CD. Not one of the 21 songs gets skipped. They’re all good-to-great.

This album never fails to bring me joy. It's the very definition of a Deserted Island Music disc.

Two postscripts:

1. In December 2011, I find there's a DVD concert of this CD. Exceptionally well done, and with guest appearances by Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, it's now added to my Deserted Island Concerts list.

2. Kate McGarrigle, the mother of singers Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright from her marriage to Loudon Wainwright, died in early 2010, taken from us much too soon.

Mississippi Heat - Their first album came out in 1994, and I first heard of this great group in July 2017. Proving, if nothing else, that 1) I'm pitiful, and 2) that we can never stop keeping our musical antennas up and radars on.

Signing out all three of our library's Mississippi Heat albums (LET'S LIVE IT UP ... ONE EYE OPEN ... and WARNING SHOT), I hear:

This is one great band, certain to please anyone who likes Chicago blues.

Joni Mitchell - But only one album, LADIES OF THE CANYON. Some of the others are painful (to me; I'm certain she's hearing things I can't). Every song on CANYON, though, is a fireworks display of songwriting skill and beauty.

Keb Mo - His first album (at right) was astonishingly good. Then his albums were mostly "just good," and a few were not even that. I worried we had lost him. Then, in 2014, he brings us BLUESAMERICANA, and he's back! Can't match that first album, but nothing could. Look for either of these.

Mike Morgan and the Crawl - MIGHTY FINE DANCIN' came out in a reissue a couple years ago. If you like the blues, run don't walk before it sells out again. One of my favorite albums.

Gary Moore – OK, I’ll say it: Gary Moore was (sadly, he died in 2011 at only 58) the greatest blues guitarist in the world. Not Eric Clapton, not Albert Collins, not Rocky Athas, not Joe Bonamassa, not Buddy Guy, not Albert King, not BB King, not Scott Sharrard, not Buddy Whittington, not Mike Bloomfield (but who, if heroin hadn't cut short his career and his life, could have been, I think), not even the father of them all, Lightning Hopkins, no, none of them, terrific though they all are or were, none were Moore's equal. Moore’s voice may not have been great, but his guitar surely was.

What a strange career. He started as a wacked-out punk rocker 30 years ago with angry groups I’d never listen to, like Skid Row and Thin Lizzy. Then, an adult, he went to the other end of the musical spectrum, to Barry-Manilow-type fluff that I also never listened to.

Finally, in his forties, Moore decides he likes the blues, and somehow, can he ever play them.

He has no trouble keeping up with the fastest players, but it’s when he slows down and lets his guitar cry that I like him the most.

STILL GOT THE BLUES and BACK TO THE BLUES are my recommendations. Together, they’re a better choice, I think, than his 2002 compilation BEST OF THE BLUES, but which certainly isn’t bad.

Nashville Bluegrass Band – Can't go wrong with any of their albums, but my favorites are BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN and TWENTY YEAR BLUES.

NEW MOON RISING, with Peter Rowan, has some of the most glorious harmonies we’ll ever hear.

TRACY NELSON - If around in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, when Nelson was a pretty girl with a huge voice in a minor group called Mother Earth, you'd surely have liked her.

Fast forward 25 years. She’s a large woman singing rhythm and blues with that voice even more powerful.

In the mid-‘90s, she made three albums in four years. The middle one, I FEEL SO GOOD, had her settling for just getting on base. Plenty of singles and doubles, a triple or two, no grounders, no outs. A solid, rather boring album.

On the first and third albums, though, IN THE HERE AND NOW and MOVE ON, she swung for the fences. Struck out a bit, but oh, the homers.

Burn the best of these two CDs onto one disc, as I've done, and we'll never look elsewhere for our female blues singer fix. Well, except for Koko Taylor, Irma Thomas, Etta James (but only on HOW STRONG IS A WOMAN), Aretha Franklin .... 

And if you’re now hearing about Tracy Nelson for the first time, and if you were around back in the ‘60s, you might be asking yourself why Janis Joplin got famous and Tracy Nelson didn’t. Joplin couldn’t sing, and she sure wasn’t pretty. But who made the cover of Time magazine? Ah, the mysteries of life....

New Age – I’m not sure how to define new age music. It’s supposed to be mellow, intellectual, earth-friendly, and of course it often is all that. But it can be exciting, rhythmic and dramatic, too, as in David Arkenstone’s VALLEY IN THE CLOUDS.

Two labels are pre-eminent in New Age, and years ago both issued excellent 2-CD samplers of their catalog: Narada’s NARADA DECADE (tending more toward electronic synthesizers) and Windham Hill’s THE FIRST TEN YEARS (tending more toward acoustic instruments).

Either - or better, both - would be a great place to start with this type of music you may find yourself liking very much.

Mark O’Connor – In my opinion, one of the best violinists today. Can’t believe anyone could ever be better, and confirmed for me when I saw him in a recital about ten years ago.

O’Connor can play in all styles, from classical to country to jazz. Not all his music works for me, but when it does, it’s unique and stirring.

Start with APPALACHIA WALTZ and APPALACHIA JOURNEY.  Between the two albums, we’ll burn one great CD. For evidence of his virtuosity, get MIDNIGHT ON THE WATER.

And somehow he’s also a fine guitarist. O’Connor must be where my cosmic share of musical talent, of which I have zero, went.

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