even though he is from alabama, for various reasons jason isbell decided to do an album dedicated to artists from the peach state, and invited a slew of musicians to help give it a diverse approach. with his standard recording and touring band, the 400 hundred unit (named after a nickname for a pychiatric ward in florence, alabama), they tackle many genres and succeed at most.

they kick off with r.e.m.’s ‘night swimming’, with bluegrass artists bela fleck on banjo and chris thile on mandolin. up and coming vocalist brittney spencer gives an interesting twist to james brown’s ‘it’s a man’s man’s man’s world’.

jason does his best to do otis redding’s ‘i’ve been loving you too long’. ‘sometimes salvation’, a black crowes standard, features their original drummer steve gorman.

indigo girls’ ‘kid fears’ is presented by brandi carlisle and julien baker, and brittney spencer returns to join john paul white (civil wars) on a compelling version of gladys knight and the pips’ ‘midnight train to georgia’.

they turn in a respectable version of ‘in memory of elizabeth reed’ from the allman brothers, and then close out the session by returning to r.e.m.’s ‘driver 8’, one of my favorites of theirs.

there are five other offerings here, but you get the point. worth a listen if you can find the time.

coming up this weekend, my annual look back at the year that was, where i give my honorable mentions on stuff i listened to but never got around to posting.

stay tuned.

we were introduced to seth james by guitarist bob britt, a good friend of the founder of the company i work for. when originally introducing him to our group, bob said something to the effect of ‘not only is he a great musician, but a great person as well’. in his subsequent interview i was convinced that bob was right. dressed in western gear and a big cowboy hat, he regaled us with his stories of growing up in west texas on a horse ranch, and the life lessons he learned there.

by looking at him, i was expecting that the music would be somewhere in the country vein, maybe even the red dirt country genre that is based in that area. but i really could not have been more wrong. growing up on that ranch, he didn’t have access to radio while on a horse. and so he listened to albums from a very wide swath of influences, from chicago blues, memphis r&b to new orleans funk.

and all those influences are readily apparent throughout the entire album of fourteen tracks. it opens with ‘mamarita’, a big funky song with a new orleans/dr. john style piano up in the mix. next up is ‘solid gold plated fool’, written by delbert mcclinton. if you are a fan of little feat, this will sound right to you. ‘she likes to run’ is a song where it is hard to tell if he is talking about a horse or a woman. ‘raisin’ kane’ is a cover of a j.j cale song that not even he recorded. it was a demo that was given to seth. and lord knows we could use some more j.j.cale in this world.

seth either writes or cowrites most of the songs here, and i think his work continues in the fashion of the great writers from texas. the overall arrangements are catchy and inviting. as mrs. redeyegin said, ‘i can dance to that’. the horn charts are great, and the backup singers provide even more punch.

seth is a long time fan of delbert mcclinton (even touring with him), and the band here is to a large degree borrowed from delbert (including bob britt on rhythm guitar). they sound like they have been playing together for a long time, mostly because they have. i think you will enjoy it.

many times in my life i will get an interest in a particular musician or genre and go down a rabbit hole for a while. i can’t remember exactly when i went down the bluegrass rabbit hole, but it was certainly in the early nineties, and one of the albums that likely triggered my interest was the 1992 grammy winning ‘at the ryman’ by emmylou harris and the nash ramblers. the concert’s and album’s high acclaim are given near-universal credit for the renewed interest in reviving the dilapidated ryman auditorium as an active venue after nearly 20 years of dormancy. soon after, the building was completely renovated and has since become a world-class concert hall.

although the band was not technically built as a bluegrass band (their grammy was for best country album), they incorporated a lot of bluegrass elements to many of the songs. emmylou harris had been touring with her ‘hot band’ lineup for a few years before this, and she wanted to go in a different direction. the ramblers were all acoustic, and featured a number of well known musicians, most notably sam bush on violin and mandolin, roy huskey jr. on bass, and al perkins on dobro and guitar. the vocal blendings were stunning. i could go on and on. it is a near perfect presentation and i never grow tired of it.

so i was pleasantly surprised as i was driving back from chicago a couple of weeks back and heard that they had a new release coming out. i was listening to the ‘buddy and jim show’ on the outlaw country sirius station, and they had most of the surviving members of the band being interviewed about circumstances around the recording. (by the way, if you are an americana genre fan, buddy miller and jim lauderdale are great hosts and you will learn so much). this show happened about a year earlier than the ryman show and has almost entirely different material. all the members had not remembered it being recorded and had forgotten about the show. an archivist from rhino records discovered the tapes about a year ago and brought it to emmylou’s attention. as she says in the liner notes, they didn’t have to fix anything. the recording (and the playing) were so good they left it as is.

it is a great companion piece to ‘at the ryman’. if you know that one, this is a no brainer. if you don’t, and you like emmylou, get both.

dig the hair!

different bands and artists took to various ways of creating, thriving and dealing with this pandemic. what we have here is los lobos’ response, at least part of it. what started out as a side project to keep them busy and sharp, turned into a tribute to the bands and songwriters from los angeles that were early influences on their lives, careers, and music.

initially trading tracks over the internet, and then gradually getting back into the studio, they compiled over sixty songs, and then whittled it down to twelve that are presented here (plus one original – the title track). there will be a few artists recognizable to the mainstream crowd (jackson browne, buffalo springfield, beach boys), there are some chicano influences (thee midniters, lalo guerrero, willie bobo and mario paniaga) to give us some spice, and some garage rock like the premiers and the blasters (the latter of which were essential in getting los lobos their first break in the business).

the liner notes are great (again, this is why i buy cds and not downloads when i can), and help flesh out the process of the project. but they also give us their thoughts on each song and artist they chose. a quick example:

‘bluebird/for what it’s worth’ by buffalo springfield

when police clashed with young music club goers on the sunset strip in 1966, stephen stills wrote ‘for what it’s worth’. ‘bluebird’ was the follow up single. here the band flips the order and makes it a medley, with david replicating the searing guitars of both stephen stills (left channel) and neil young (right channel). steve: buffalo was a really big influence on the band. like los lobos, they were ployglots unique to their time. louie: we knew we wanted to do a buffalo springfield song, and ended up with two because we couldn’t decide: david: with ‘bluebird’, i have wanted to do that song since i was 15, and ‘for what it’s worth’ is still relevant today. when i was a teenager, buffalo springfield was one of my favorite bands. i just pitched the idea” ‘let’s see how close we can get to the originals. just for the fun of it’.

it’s pretty damn good.

just a real fun album that would go great with your next backyard barbeque.