toots hibbert, 1942-2020

let me tell you a little story. in the early eighties i was in college and my musical horizons were exploding. in the summer between my junior and senior year i was getting heavy into reggae, and as usual, once i lock into something i go in deep. i was starting to build a little catalog of not only the biggest names – marley, tosh, jimmy cliff and the like – but also newer acts like black uhuru and steel pulse. and, of course, i had a great little album called ‘funky kingston’ by toots and the maytals.

so i felt well prepared when a few guys from my fraternity decided to head down to jamaica for our senior spring break excursion. we had our little boom box and i brought my tape case that probably had room for 12-15 of my best reggae tapes. after an arduous flight into montego bay, we had about a two hour taxi ride to our campsite in negril. we found a guy willing to take us there, and he helped us secure a case of barely cold red stripe beer. as we started making our way through the countryside, i asked him if i could play one of my tapes for the ride. he said yes, and so i started rattling off some of the names above, until i got to toots. all of he sudden he turned and said ‘toots, mon, play the toots, mon’. and so i did.

and so a few white kids from the midwest got our first taste of the jamaican back country as our driver careened through those roads, listening to ‘funky kingston’, occasionally seeing the western caribbean coastline as we headed to the small town of negril.

it was my first realization that there is reggae that we were exposed to in the states, and then there was the music that was popular on the island itself. and there is really no one who is more loved and respected on that island than toots hibbert. he had 31 number one singles there. there are some that say he first coined the term reggae, with his 1968 song ‘do the reggay’.

besides being one of the founders of the genre, he was also arguably it’s most soulful singer, often compared to otis redding. and by most accounts that i have seen, he was also a very kind and generous soul who always called jamaica home. he had a long and prosperous career, and i last saw him at jazzfest two years ago. he still had it going on at the age of 75.

‘reggae got soul’. yes it does, and toots was the best.

if you want a little something to get an idea of the influence he had here in the states, i would recommend a tribute album to him done in 2004 called ‘true love’, where the likes of clapton, bonnie raitt, keith richards, and so many others played with him on his biggest hits. it is really a fantastic compilation.

there was also a documentary on his life put out recently by the bbc that was really well done.

rest in peace, my friend.

bill and brint, this one’s for you.

kathleen edwards, ‘total freedom’

i started listening to kathleen edwards when she released her first album, ‘failer’ , in 2003. that launched a fairly successful career and she was a fixture on the americana scene from that point moving forward. i wasn’t exactly a diehard fan though, and so i was a little surprised a couple of months ago when i heard a new track of hers on sirius xm and thought to myself ‘i hadn’t heard that name in quite some time’. unbeknownst to me, she had been frustrated with the commercial success of her 2012 effort ‘voyaguer’ and, battling clinical depression and health issues, completely gave up on the music business and opened a small coffee shop in ontario (amusingly called ‘quitters’).

the shop was a success, she straightened out her life, and she got used to the quiet suburban life with her dogs. she found sustenance in the daily interactions with her customers, and didn’t look back.

then maren morris asked her to come to nashville for the weekend a couple of years back to help her cowrite a song, and she went, thinking it would be a nice break from the coffee shop. the process was intriguing to her, and all of a sudden she felt the urge to start writing her own songs again, and the flood gates opened.

she had been through a number of troubled relationships, both during her musical career and the hiatus, and much of the material is a reflection on that. as her producer said, this album is about ‘dogs and exes’. she gets much of her original band back together, and you can tell she put her heart and soul into it. the songwriting is right up there with some of her best, and the melodies are usually quite infectious. my first run through it was on my back porch on a beautiful saturday evening, and i got hooked on the very first track (‘redfern’).

welcome back, kathleen.

arlo mckinley, ‘die midwestern’

the last act that john prine signed to his ‘oh boy’ record label before he died was a fellow by the name of arlo mckinley. arlo, a native of cincinnati, is a veteran of the kentucky/ohio/west virginia music scene, much like a few of the recent success stories like tyler childers, sturgill simpson, and a fellow i wrote about recently – ian noe.

he released his first album in 2014, and has been working on his second one here for a few years. recorded in the legendary sam phillips studio in memphis, produced by matt-ross spang (prine, isbell, margo price, etc.), and surrounded by some of nashville’s best studio musicians, arlo delivers one of my favorite albums of the year so far.

he comfortably distills country and folk to use as his palette to reflect on good times and bad times, broken relationships, and tales of addiction in the underbelly of the midwest.

when prine saw him for the first time during a showcase event at a small venue in nashville, he performed ‘bag of pills’, a song that had been in his repertoire for a few years. this song, as well as a few others on this collection, remind me of isbell’s work on the same topic. one of my favorites is a little honky tonk nugget called ‘she’s always around’, and it took me a couple times through it to realize that ‘she’ was not actually a woman, but rather a narcotic that was always there when he was vulnerable (much like neil young’s ‘old laughing lady’ wasn’t a woman either).

the whole album just has a natural feel to it, as if you had known some of these songs all your life. he has a distinctive voice, the songs are expertly crafted, and the production is supportive and impeccable.

if you are a fan of any of the artists i have mentioned above, then i am going to ask you to trust me on this one and just buy it. this is a really tough time to make your national debut, and i think this guy deserves a shot.

justin townes earle, 1978-2020

we lost one of my favorite singer songwriters over the weekend. i think the first album i ever got of his was 2010’s ‘harlem river blues’, and i have been hooked ever since. unfortunately i never got to see him live. some say that in order to be a good blues singer you have to live the blues. i don’t necessarily believe that, but it could possibly be true of justin. he certainly led a troubled life, and we may eventually find out that it led to his early demise. i hope that turns out not to be true. regardless, he was a great story teller, and he attached all types of musical styles to that prose – blues, swing, country, folk, you name it. i have pretty much everything he ever released, and they were always well done and enduring. he grew up in his father’s shadow, but, as i have said here before, i think he is a better songwriter than the old man. if you are not familiar with his work, i think last year’s release, ‘saint of lost causes’ was some of his best, but the aforementioned ‘harlem river blues’ is also a good launching point.

just another bullet point to add to this already shitty year. he was such a huge talent. it is a tremendous loss to his family and the musical community. the family suggested on his instagram post that we listen to his ‘looking for a place to land’ today, in his memory.

yes, this is jason isbell playing in his band on the letterman show:

‘troubled days are behind me now and i know they’re gonna let me in’

summer six pack

i was having a cocktail with a friend of mine the other day and the subject of non satellite commercial radio came up and the lack of good quality music there these days. my comment in reply to her was something like, ‘that is not measure of whether there is actually great music out there, but rather the nature of the radio business these days’. my contention is that things have never been better in regards to musical choices. you just have to seek it out. along those lines, here are 6 albums i picked up in the last few weeks.

lilly hiatt – ‘walking proof’

source – outlaw country sirius xm

one of my favorite songwriters of all time is john hiatt. here we have a great album by one of his daughters, lilly. this has actually been out for a while now, and i knew it was out there, but i can’t give you a good explanation of why i delayed. if you consider taking a flyer on any of these selections today, i would ask you to strongly consider this one. it would be unfair to compare her songwriting to her father, but i think she holds her own. i am sure if you were to ask him he would be damn proud. and she has a great voice.

pretenders – ‘hate for sale’

source – american songwriter magazine

this ageless band has put together a great new addition to their collection. chrissie has never written or sounded better, and martin chambers still brings it on drums. i first saw her when she returned to her hometown at blossom music center in cuyahoga falls in 1981 right before i went off to college. loved her then, still do.

margo price – ‘that’s how rumors get started’

source – pitchfork magazine

i was an early adopter on margo, and i posted on her first album before she became well known. i wasn’t nearly as enamored of her second album, as i think her success and political posturing got to her head. on this one she steers away somewhat from her nashville roots and gets a little seventies rock on us. sturgill simpson produces, and the songs are well done and varied in styles. i have seen a number of reviews give comparisons to latter era fleetwood mac and stevie nicks, and there is some merit to that. however, i think margo is a better singer. she easily tackles all the material here vocally

gillian welch and dave rawlings – ‘all the good times’

source – reader dave c. from jersey

somewhat of a quarantine session, gillian and dave set up an old reel to reel in their house and laid down ten cover tracks of some of their favorite songs by artists such as prine, dylan, norman blake and a few others. the version of prine’s ‘hello in there’ might be the best i have ever heard. here we have elizabeth cotton’s classic ‘oh babe it ain’t no lie’.

jerry garcia and john kahn – ‘garcialive, volume 14’

source – jerrygarcia.com

tomorrow marks the 25th anniversary of jerry’s untimely passing. i am sure i will get in a retrospective mood sometime soon this weekend, and this may be part of my soundtrack. here jerry and his longtime garcia band bassist john kahn present a short acoustic set in a small venue in the heart of new york city. the crowd is part of the show here, up in the mix and egging these guys on. billy strings does the liner notes and goes into great length on how he first got turned on to jerry by listening to his bluegrass work with david grisman, and then gives great descriptions of the twelve songs presented here. i really miss jerry. the world would be a better place if he were still around.

the texas gentleman – ‘floor it!!!’

source – american songwriter magazine

as they used to say in monty python, ‘and now for something completely different’. a bunch of texas studio musicians who have also been part of backup bands for country artists like kris kristofferson and george strait, among many others, these guys just put out their second studio album, and it is highly interesting. if that description gives you a notion of what kind of music they would bring, you would likely be totally wrong. often when i have trouble explaining or categorizing an artist’s sound, i usually find it to be worth the time. and that has never been more true than with this hour long tribute to the pop and rock bands of the seventies. you will here glimpses of little feat, steely dan, the meters, solo mccartney, randy newman, leon russell and so on. not for everyone, but if that sounds interesting to you, give it a spin.