i mentioned in my last post that i was lucky to catch mavis staples at jazzfest in new orleans a couple of weeks ago. unbeknownst to me, this album was set for release just this past friday. it captures a visit she and her band made to levon’s barn in woodstock in the summer of 2011. after a few days of kicking around some songs there, they eventually put on a live show for 200 or so lucky locals – her band combined with his.

mavis and levon had gone way back, first getting to know each when recording ‘the weight’ together for the ‘last waltz’ documentary in 1975. pops staples, her father, had been impressed by the gospel reference to nazareth, and that recording is one of my favorite parts of the movie.

twelve interesting covers, many of them gospel oriented. two by her father, but also songs by dylan, curtis mayfield, buddy and julie miller, larry campbell (who is on guitar here), and a few others. one of my favorites is ‘you got to move’, by mississippi fred mcdowell and reverand gary davis, made famous by the stones on ‘sticky fingers’. the version here is much more upbeat then keith and mick’s version.

much to love here, as there is clearly a chemistry in the air – not just the two headliners, but both bands. it was one of levon’s last recordings, as he would be gone by the next year. might be something to get for your memorial day party.

i first learned of ian’s work when i got his debut album, ‘between the country’, in 2019. i felt his writing and delivery were profound and unique, and that album stayed in my rotation for quite a while. he somewhat dropped off the radar after that, i am sure partly due to the pandemic. but now we get his follow up to that album – what he considers to be the flipside – with ‘river fools and mountain saints’. he claims he conceived of the title first, and then came up with the characters and stories to flesh it out. the landscape and people of his hometown of lee county kentucky are imbued throughout, appalachia history seeps up through the tracks.

it is tempting to try to lump him in with other kentucky artists that have recently made it big, like chris stapleton, sturgill simpson, and tyler childers. but ian is deeper and more pure than that. it is always unfair to compare new artists to legends like dylan and prine, but it is not terribly out of line here. i can hear a bit of both, especially their earlier work.

he says that most of his characters are real life people, with ‘river fool’ being about a local legend who is a fixture in the region, who ‘spends his days in a muddy haze, tangled in the cattail poles, working on an ancient bottle’. rather than trying to cast him as a local drunk, he shows the carefree and happy life he leads. it may be the most uplifting song on the album.

it was recorded over a span of two years strictly on reel to reel tapes, at a leisurely pace that gave time for the songs to marinate and evolve. if you liked his last one, you will surely love this one.

sometimes a post just nearly writes itself. i have been listening to a lot of new material lately, and as occasionally happens in my part time writing mode, nothing was really jumping out and grabbing me to sit down and pontificate about it.

but molly’s newest album changed that recently, and so let me tell you about it. molly tuttle is a renowned master of the clawhammer banjo and a crosspicking guitarist and a recipient of the musician of the year by the international bluegrass award committee. she is a very capable songwriter as well, and has released a number of albums on her own prior to this. but, for whatever reason, she has not actually done a bluegrass album before.

until now.

she not only put together one hell of a bluegrass band to flesh these songs out, she also has a very impressive list of guest artists. some are from the bluegrass world (old crow medicine show, sierra hull, billy strings, dan tyminski), and some are not (margo price, gillian welch). jerry douglas, the best and most recorded dobro player in the world, helps produce and plays on many of the tracks. she has a cowriter on nearly all the tracks, with ketch secor from old crow helping out on most of them.

it is just a solid effort from cover to cover, and it stayed in my rotation for quite a while. the aforementioned billy strings has been at least partially responsible for a rejuvenation in all things bluegrass, and rightly so. i have seen him a number of times and will be catching him in new orleans in may. he is likely on this album for a number of reasons: he and molly have been playing at events for years, they share a love for what they do, and he wants her to get a bigger audience. so do i, as i think she deserves it. they have slightly different styles when it comes to the guitar, but i for one do not think that one is better than the other. so if you are a billy fan, or a bluegrass fan, please give this one a try.

i have heard snippets of this for months now, mostly on sirius ‘outlaw country’, but i was waiting to get the hard copy in my hand, which finally arrived friday. as many of you know, i am still old fashioned and like to hear the whole thing in one setting with the liner notes and song details in front of me, and so i grow increasingly frustrated with the industry trend of releasing singles three to four months in advance of the hard release. from a marketing stance i do not understand that, but my curmudgeon side is coming out here, and i digress.

but this one is definitely worth the wait, and if you have heard any of these teasers like i have, it is time to belly up.

as you likely know, we lost the great john prine to covid in 2020. a singular voice in music was taken from us way too early. one of the great injustices was that his adoring fans – both regular fans like me and musicians – could not get together and grieve and show appreciation for his musical legacy. covid protocols seemed to dash all the concerts planned in his honor. i have heard that some are still in the works, but for now we have this.

volume one came out in 2010 while he was still alive and at that time a still revered figure but with a lower profile than what he came to know just a decade later. it seems that in his final few years he had become much more embraced by the americana community, especially around nashville, and the artists that have contributed to this second volume speak to that.

there are of course a few selections from some of john’s duet partners from his musical past – bonnie raitt, emmylou harris, and iris dement – but the rest are a who’s who of names most of you will recognize and appreciate.

brandi carlisle does ‘i remember everything’, nathaniel rateliff ‘pretty good’, amanda shires ‘saddle in the rain’, tyler childers ‘they oughta name a drink after you’, margo price ‘sweet revenge’, valerie june ‘summer’s end’, jason isbell, ‘souvenirs’, john paul white, ‘sam stone’, and sturgill simpson closes with ‘paradise’.

all tastefully done, with the arrangements giving proper respect to the originals but also adding their own creative licenses. are any of these better than the originals? well no, not really, but that doesn’t matter, does it? one that comes close is ‘one red rose’ by iris dement. she nails it. one of prine’s favorite duet partners over the years, there is a certain poignancy to hearing her sing this one on her own.

so make yourself a ‘handsome johnnie’ – his favorite cocktail – and enjoy.

‘handsome johnnie’:

1 oz red smirnoff vodka

diet ginger ale

wedge of lime

the compilation was put together by prine’s private record label, and the family said they had enough offers from other artists that they can easily follow up with a couple more volumes. amen to that.