I haven’t done one of these for a
few years, but this year I thought it was time.
Here are my album picks [of new
music] for 2015:
Keith Richards – Crosseyed Heart – It’s been 23 years since Keith
Richards graced us with a solo album [1992’s superb Main Offender]. When the
Rolling Stones record new stuff, you can spot the “Keith songs”
immediately. They’re the ones that don’t
try to sound “contemporary” [that’s Mick’s department]. So when Keef decides he wants to put out new
stuff, you grab it while it’s available because that’s the old-school stuff
that hold its age better. The Human Riff
shows he still knows how to come up with no-frills rock ‘n’ roll. Keef even goes back past when the Stones were
teenagers with a faithful acoustic cover of Leadbelly’s Goodnight Irene. Keef loves
reggae, and here he’s included Love
Overdue from Gregory Isaacs, and it isn’t bad for a white guy. Robbed
Blind is a country-ish acoustic ballad complete with steel guitar [courtesy
of Larry Campbell]. Standout songs: Heartstopper,
Trouble, Amnesia, Blues in the Morning,
Substantial Damage.
David Gilmour – Rattle That Lock – Pink Floyd released The Endless River last year and having Rattle That Lock follow so quickly
thereafter is a minor miracle. DG used
the usual suspects to make Rattle That
Lock that he did to make 2006’s On An
Island. Given that, Rattle That Lock is a bit more upbeat
than its predecessor. The music for the
title track was inspired by a jingle DG heard while waiting for a train in
France. But the lyrics are a bit more seriously. His wife and lyricist Polly Samson drew her
inspiration from the second book of Milton’s Paradise Lost. There’s a
waltz with Faces of Stone, a lament
from DG about his mother who succumbed to dementia. When you listen it sounds like something you
would hear while dining at a French sidewalk café. A Boat Lies Waiting is a piano ballad that is
an ode to the late Richard Wright. It’s
an old demo DG made that evokes Wright’s Us
And Them. If you listen closely,
Wright himself can be heard saying “it’s like going to sea – it’s lovely” [he
was an avid sailor]. David Crosby and
Graham Nash once again loan their harmonies – their voices and Gilmour’s work
brilliantly. If you want guitar heroics,
they can be found on In Any Tongue.
Buddy Guy – Born
to Play Guitar – With the passing of BB King, the “King of the Blues”
throne is vacant, but the blues does have a new elder statesman in Buddy Guy. Buddy is the last giant standing. He’s 79 years old now, but you wouldn’t know
it from listening to Born To Play Guitar. Picking up where they left off with Buddy
Guy’s last album the award winning Rhythm
and Blues the team of Guy and Tom Hambridge have crafted another marvel of
modern blues Usually BG plays with guests who have no business being near the
blues, but not so this album. Hear he
hosts the likes of Billy Gibbons, Doyle Bramhall II, Kim Wilson, and Van
Morrison. And as usual, Buddy Guy is an
assassin on a Stratocaster. Jimi Hendrix
wanted to be Buddy Guy, and if he was still alive he might be making records
like this one. Buddy Guy once explained that Muddy Waters’ final request
to him was “keep the damn blues alive”. He’s still doing just that.
Warren Haynes –
Ashes & Dust – Warren Haynes is a great bunch of musical guys. One Warren Haynes is the leader of Gov’t
Mule, a fearless, muscular, take-no-prisoners blues rock outfit. Another Warren spent 21 years with the Allman
Brothers Band, weaving his magic first with the legendary Dickey Betts and then
with Derek Trucks, all the while staring down the ghost of Duane Allman. A third Warren put out a terrific soul/R&B
album in 2011 called Man In Motion. Now we have Warren in another guise, that of
a rootsy, acoustic-leaning folky who sings about salt-of-the-Earth blue collar
Americans trying to survive. Warren
teams up with newgrass/Americana band Railroad Earth to create Ashes & Dust, which I could best
describe as “Appalachian.” While there
are plenty of acoustic instruments on Ashes
& Dust [fiddle, mandolin,
upright bass, banjo, acoustic guitar], Warren still plays plenty of
electric guitar. There are still enough
guitar solos to satisfy the jam band crowd, but here they are more restrained
and relaxed, not like the face-melting solos he does with Gov’t Mule.
Jason Isbell –
Something More Than Free – Jason Isbell used to be in the Drive-By
Truckers. He wrote two of my favorite
songs from that group – Danko/Manuel
and Goddamn Lonely Love. But he barely remembers his tenure in the
band [2001-07]. An alcoholic who had
quite the fondness for Jack Daniel’s, his first marriage to Shonna Tucker
unraveled. After his departure from DBT,
he made some records that were ok but didn’t set the world on fire. After his marriage to Amanda Shires, he went
to rehab and sobered up [he remains so today], and made the best album of his
career, Southeastern. It was a masterpiece full of tales of loss,
forgiveness, newfound sobriety and second chances. I read somewhere that Southeastern was
described as what happens after you’ve hit bottom and you’ve gotten back up off
the deck. With Something More Than Free Isbell turns
his focus outward. He didn’t want to
write about himself with this song cycle.
Here he wrote and sings about working class people from his native
northern Alabama. Like his former
bandmate Patterson Hood, Isbell is focusing on what adulthood is really like - marriage,
jobs, bills, parents, children, belief, doubt, illness, learning and loss. He’s come a long way from the young
twenty-something he was in the Drive-By Truckers – he’s grown up and he’s now
got two masterworks under his belt.
Sonny Landreth –
Bound By the Blues – I haven’t heard much about Sonny Landreth. The little bits that I have heard from his
musical peers have one theme – Sonny Landreth is probably the best slide
guitarist in the business. Considering
that Ry Cooder is still walking this Earth that’s a bold statement. So after having seen the man himself on the
bill of every Eric Clapton Crossroads festival, I finally broke down and bought
me some Sonny. I got Bound By the Blues and loved what I
heard, so now I have six albums from Sonny [plus one he recorded with John
Hiatt]. I don’t know if he’s the best
slide guitarist there is, but he’s a damn fine one.
Steve Earle – Terraplane – Steve Earle has the blues. He’s had some bluesy songs on past albums,
but this time he goes all-in with an entire album of blues. These aren’t the sad blues the Mississippi
Delta, but more of the bar-stomping Texas variety. Here he pays homage to the likes of Lightning
Hopkins, Robert Johnson [whom Earle name-checks on The Tennessee Kid], SRV, Freddie King and ZZ Top. In some places he plays solo; in others he
goes the full-band route. The Dukes
sound like they were born to play the blues.
Standout songs: Baby's Just as Mean as Me, the
aforementioned The Tennessee Kid, Go-Go Boots Are Back, Better Off Alone.
Los Lobos – Gates of Gold – Los Lobos have been around since
1973. They have yet to make a bad album. On previous albums there have been an overarching
theme, but on Gates of Gold I can’t
find one. But you expect a few things
with each Los Lobos release – smoking guitar playing from David Hidalgo and
Cesar Rosas, lo-fi production, a couple of songs with Spanish vocals, a
traditional Mexican song or two. And so
it is with Gates of Gold. This is more of the same from Los Lobos, and
that’s all I want. Standout songs: Made to
Break Your Heart, Mis-Treater Boogie
Blues, Too Small Heart.
Billy Gibbons – Perfectamundo – Billy Gibbons goes to Cuba –
without ZZ Top! The Rev. Willie G was
inspired to make this record when he got an invitation to play a festival in
Cuba. He didn’t have any material or a
band to play there, so he made this album instead. It sounds like ZZ Top meets Santana. It has that sort of Afro-Cuban flavor to it,
with timbales, congas, bongos, acoustic piano and Hammond B-3. One can hear auto tuned vocals in places [BG
doesn’t need it, he just messes with it], and there are some rap sections that
are best left unheard. Overall, this
album is as good as it is unexpected.
Other than the hip-hop rap shit, my only other complaint about Perfectamundo is that at 39 minutes,
it’s too damn short. Standout
songs: Got Love If You Want It, Pickin’
Up Chicks on Dowling Street, Piedras
Negras, Hombre Sin Nombre.
