Three Day Weeknd

What if I told you there was someone making R&B influenced music with the originality Prince had in 1982?  With vocal stylings that owe a huge debt to Michael Jackson (listen for the sharp  intake of breath that signifies both pain and ecstasy)? 

Meet Abel Tesfaye, a 22-year old Canadian, recording as The Weeknd who is rocking the alternative space with an airy, moody sound that drips with heartsick regret, doubt, and recrimination.  Sounds like fun, huh?   Listen to his “Next” from his just issued Echoes of Silence, stricken about an empty affair that he’s clearly not ready to give up.

Now understand that he has released three mixtapes (aka “albums”) in the last 12 months, a rate of productivity we haven’t seen since Ryan Adams.   When you produce that much music it can’t all be great.  But, even if you are batting .250 you’ll still turn out more than a few keepers like “The Morning” from this first release House of Balloons.

This is music that sits at the intersection of trip hop and contemporary R&B.  No coincidence that Drake turns up or that the Weeknd is himself a much sought remix producer.  Don’t bring a conventional rock expectation to these tracks – they never speed up; they never break out; there’s no escape.  But you will stay with “Thursday” to the end, waiting and spellbound.

Available as downloads from the Weeknd’s website. http://the-weeknd.com/

Roots, Rock, Reggae

For a grey January, three distinctive women’s voices working very different roots, rock, and reggae veins. 

Gillian Welch - Listening to Welch and her partner Dave Rawlings is like tuning in to some ghost broadcast from the Dust Bowl.  Their original songs are steeped in bluegrass and traditional country but informed by the Dead and the Band.  She released a fine album last year, The Harrow and The Harvest, on which you will find this wonderful example of their songcraft, "The Way It Goes".

But the pinnacle of her work for me, is this spare, loving tune about Elvis, "Elvis Presley Blues"  from her Time (the Revelator), from 2001. Wouldn't you love to live next door to her and hear this music coming through the trees on a warm night?  Wouldn't you love it to be a warm night?

Kathleen Edwards – Why haven’t I been paying attention?  With a decade long career behind her, I am just now noticing what a fine voice she has – recalling Suzanne Vega and Neko Case – and an  musical style that sits somewhere between alt country and folk rock. (Er, same thing I guess.) Start with "Empty Threat", from her just released Voyageur.  Then, do not pass "GO", listen to her "Hockey Skates".  She's Canadian, eh?  And keep paying attention.  

Hollie Cook - Dad was the drummer for the Sex Pistols and the Slits.  Her self-titled 2011 debut is all-reggae, all-the-time.  Been away from this music for awhile?  Let this gently remind you of the pleasure of marinating your prefrontal cortex in an album’s worth of 4/4 sunshine.  It belongs on the shelf next to “Natty Dread”.   Two tracks, "Used to Be" and her cover of the Shangri La's "Walking in the Sand" will give you the idea, then you're on your own. 

            -- JFJ         

   

Freedom Songs

A day late for MLK Day?  Maybe so, but I heard someone refer yesterday to MLK week. By that standard I'm right on time with these songs that recall the anthems of the Civil Rights era.  When a movement gets music, watch out. Take note OWS. 

Nina Simone – How It Feels to Be Free – This came late (in ’67), but Simone came early.   Wistful, angry, soulful -- this was Nina.  

Sam Cooke  - A Change Is Gonna Come.  Otis has a fine version, but this is Sam’s song, a 1963 recording the year before he died.  He wanted to write one to rival "Blowin' In the Wind" and he did. 

Mavis Staples – Keep Your Eyes on the Prize – New recording (2007) from her masterful "We'll Never Turn Back",  songs from and about the movement.   Ry Cooder arranging and playing. 

Mahalia Jackson – Keep Your Hand on the Plow – I couldn't resist this.  It supplied the melody for “Eyes on the Prize” but listen to the joy in this version by Mahalia, the first gospel singer I ever heard.

Radio Daze - Ben Vaughan, Nick Spitzer and Jonathan Schwartz

Back in the day – meaning any day in 1970 – what was then called “progressive radio” was a place for constant discovery. “Hosts” with unconventional voices and quirky tastes held forth on FM radio shows that boldly mixed artists and styles, juxtaposing the Beatles with Satie, Dylan with Coltrane, Stevie Wonder with Laura Nyro. 

For better of worse, this is where I got my musical education, from DJ’s who played the Chicago blues the Stones purloined, explained the lineage of the “super-groups” of the day and spun the long indulgent tracks of that era.  In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida anyone?

Think all of that is gone for good? Guess again.  There are still a few exceptions -- contemporary radio shows serving up eclectic musical stews that entertain, educate and truly surprise:

The Many Moods of Ben Vaughan – Vaughan is a Los Angeles-based musician who spins a wildly varied hour-long playlist, bouncing from bachelor pad kitsch to doo-wop.  This is a conversation with an eccentric friend who has great, if unconventional, taste.    Vaughan loves the idea – hell, the magic – of radio: musical sounds streamed from far away in endless variety.  In an hour with Vaughan you’ll hear Willie Nelson, Slim Harpo, the Kinks and Nino Rota and all of it will somehow fit. Listen live or streamed from his archive.

http://benvaughn.net/radio/index.htm

American Routes with Nick Spitzer – Uh oh, public radio.  Spitzer, who can be a little didactic, organizes his two-hour shows thematically and peppers them with interviews with the well- and little-known.  Broadcasting from Tulane, this is a show firmly rooted in the South, but casting a wide eye to all forms of what has come to be called “roots” music. Spitzer connects the dots expertly, sometimes just by juxtaposition so that the discovery feels like yours.   Listen on NPR stations or to an on-line archive spanning 15 years. 

http://americanroutes.wwno.org/

The Sunday Show with Jonathan Schwartz – As much as I enjoy this, I hesitate ever so slightly to recommend it.  Touch down on the wrong day and you will conclude that Schwartz is a bloviating windbag.  But on the right day, you will find this a captivating master class in the American Songbook. Schwartz, the son of composer Arthur Schwartz, has an encyclopedic knowledge of Gershwin, Porter, Hammerstein, Rogers and Hart, and Sondheim.  He worships at the altar of Sinatra and Bennett.  But what he loves most of all is the songwriter’s craft, which equally makes room for Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell.  Listen live from Noon to four on Sundays on WNEW and SiriusXM. 

Give any of these shows a listen on a Sunday afternoon, after the newspaper winds down and before you’re tempted by a nap.  They will make you feel happier, smarter and resolutely American.  No small thing. 

Up All Night - The Walking Dead

When was the last time you saw something on television that really deeply frightened you (not including anything on C-Span or starring a Kardashian)?

A hazily recalled episode of the Twilight Zone, perhaps the one with ape on the plane wing or the aliens who, it emerged, ate humans?  A little older?  You likely remember the supremely creepy Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  Much younger?  Fresh terrors still haunt you from Are You Afraid of the Dark, which proved the ageless power of puppets and clowns to scare the bejesus out of 8 year-olds.

If you share a taste for being frightened witless in the comfort of your own home, then AMC's series The Walking Dead is right up your alley.  Adapted from an on-going comic book series with the same title, The Walking Dead is the tale of sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes, who wakes from a coma in an abandoned Georgia hospital to a world overrun by -- wait for it -- zombies. And I mean terrifying, flesh-eating, nothing-can-stop them-but-a-bullet-to-the-head, zombies. Legions of them.  With a mere scratch from them, you join their number.

While the vampires breaking out everywhere lately leave me (sorry) cold, zombies are a whole different story for me. A 1964 movie called The Last Man on Earth scared me to death with its tale of a heroic Vincent Price hunting plague-spawned zombies by day and being hunted by them by night.  I’ve been lying awake nights ever since. 

Deputy Grimes is in the same basic pickle as Price was, but this time the virus is a supercharged millennial strain, a “zombie apocalypse. These zombies stay up all night AND all day and show a remarkable, stomach-turning resilience to dismemberment.

A word about the stomach-turning part: The Walking Dead camera never turns away.  But what will stay with you is not the horrific special effects, but the panic you experience as the undead shuffle towards the abandoned car under which the living are hiding, trying to silence their thundering hearts.  No wait – that’s your thundering heart. 

Now in its second season, jump right in whenever you can catch this on demand.  You'll figure it right out. This is television not Dostoevsky.  And resist the urge to find metaphor here.  Zombies are scary enough without standing for something else.