the allman brothers band, ‘fillmore east february 1970’

if , like me, you consider the allman brother band’s ‘at fillmore east’ album to be one of the greatest rock records ever made, then i suggest you check out their newest release, ‘fillmore east, february 1970’. initially released in 1996, this is a technological improvement on the original. a collaboration between the allman brothers and the owsley stanley foundation, we get a new listen to the tapes that owsley ‘bear’ stanley recorded of the band over a year before the more famous shows. this is one of the initial offerings from the stanley foundation that intends to showcase the huge vault of reels that bear recorded over the years. the other one is a box set of doc and merle watson recorded at the boarding house in 1974. bear referred to these recordings as his ‘sonic journals’. in addition to the legendary quality of his recordings, the nearly fifty year old tapes have been restored and mastered by jeffrey norman, which some of you may know as the technician who works on all of the new releases from the grateful dead’s vault. culled from three shows of material, we get seven songs and 72 minutes of material. the band was only eleven months old at the time, and they were the opening act for the dead for these shows. they didn’t have a soundman travelling with them, so bear volunteered since he was doing the second act anyways and already knew about the band.

fans of the dead can reference the ‘bear’s choice’ album and ‘dick’s picks four’ for the dead’s part of the shows, also taken from bear’s reels. it would be the beginning of a musical friendship between the two bands for a long time, culminating in the 1973 watkins glen show with the band in front of 600,000 fans.

compared to the 1971 version, this has a more raw and primal feel to it. witness the two versions of ‘in memory of elizabeth reed’ below. dickey betts had only just recently composed the song weeks before the 1970 shows, and these are the earliest known recordings of the song (all three shows are available for download at the foundation’s website).

as i mentioned in an earlier post, many of the bands on the cutting edge of live jamming in the late sixties were fans of coltrane, miles, and other jazz musicians. that may be no more evident than listening closely to ‘liz reed’. it is a real instrumental masterpiece, and it would become the cornerstone of their live performances for decades. it is certainly one of my favorite songs of theirs. the version 13 months later in 1971 is longer, more polished and precise, but mrs. redeyegin agrees with my take on the one offered here (i think it is from the second night) – i may like it a bit better. 5 of the other seven songs are also included in the 1971 classic, the only difference being ‘outskirts of town’, which somewhat disappeared from the set list later in the year.

the liner notes are superb, with comments by bear himself and his daughter. there is also a section from the foundation’s executive director that comments on all three ‘liz reeds’, how they were different, and comparing the overall composition to three songs from miles davis’ ‘kind of blue’, which dickie had been listening to at the time. enjoy.

hat tip to loyal reader dave c.

jim lauderdale, ‘time flies’

i first started paying attention to jim lauderdale about two years ago, and i’m sorry that it took me so long to catch up with him. it is now clear to me that he is one of the more prodigious artists out there, especially in the americana genre. i really loved his album from last year, ‘london southern’, but i think i like his newest even more. ‘time flies’ is a hodge podge of musical styles, incorporating western swing (‘while you’re hoping’, ‘wild on me fast’), psychodelia (‘it blows my mind’), soul jazz (‘wearing out your cool’), and roots country stylings (‘when i held the cards’, ‘if the world’s still here tomorrow’). eleven tracks spanning 38 minutes and each offering sounds completely different and fresh.

the production and accompaniment is flawless. it was recorded at blackbird academy studios, basically a school in nashville that teaches students the ins and outs of how to record and produce music. what a great collaboration.

he also simultaneously released some recently unearthed material that would have essentially been his first album, had he gotten a record deal for it (he didn’t). he had set out to nashville in 1979 to take a stab at meeting mandolinist roland white and make a foray into the world of bluegrass. recorded in earl scruggs’s basement, the tracks that make up ‘jim lauderdale and roland white’ were recently discovered on a reel found in a box by roland’s wife. if you like late seventies bluegrass, then you should check this out. just a couple of lauderdale originals, but an interesting mix of covers, notably donovan’s ‘try and catch the wind’ and gordon lighfoot’s ‘(that’s what you get) for loving me’.

lauderdale is well known in the country and bluegrass writing circles, having written songs for popular artists such as george strait, dixie chicks, george jones, rodney crowell, blake shelton and many more. in addition, he hosts ‘the buddy and jim show’ with buddy miller on my second favorite sirius station, ‘outlaw country’. give him a try.

bruce springsteen, ‘agora ballroom, cleveland, ohio august 9th, 1978’

yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of what many consider to be the most important rock event in cleveland music history, and arguably bruce springsteen’s career. ‘born to run’ was released in 1975 and had catapulted him to critical acclaim and sold well, but a two year battle with his previous manager kept him on the sidelines from recording and touring for about two years. in promoting the ensuing album ‘darkness on the edge of town’, a number of nationally broadcast concerts were considered. larger markets were looked at for the initial broadcast, but eventually all agreed on cleveland as the first one, for a number of reasons. in a smaller market, it would be considered a marquee event, and would draw more media attention. keep in mind that bruce was still playing small venues and did not have the draw power to fill arenas. the second was his close friendship with local dj kid leo, who was the driving power behind the dominant rock station in northeast ohio, wmms. at that time wmms was one of the most influential rock stations in the country. rolling stone named them ‘radio station of the year’ nine years in a row. kid leo was personal friends with bruce, and his promotion of bruce’s work was profound even before ‘born to run’.

in addition to bruce, they were considered instrumental in breaking in rush, boston, roxy music, meat loaf, lou reed, the pretenders, and many others to a national market. my high school record collections were dominated by these bands. indeed, you were kicked out of my car if you changed the station from wmms.

the concert was scheduled as part of the station’s tenth anniversary and was announced less than two weeks beforehand. postcards were drawn from those that listeners sent in, and admission was free. beverages were not served, allegedly to keep the background noise down. it was simulcast by seven other midwest stations, and it is estimated to have reached over 3 million listeners. the sound quality was so good organizers assumed that it would be widely bootlegged, and so it was never considered for a live release. they were correct in their assumption, as it is considered to be one of the most widely circulated concert bootlegs in history. springsteen concert archivist toby scott found the original agora tape reels when visiting the rock and roll hall of fame’s ‘asbury park to the promised land’ exhibit, and it was remastered and released in 2014. to the best of my knowledge it is only available on nugs.com. i listened to the second half of the first set on my way home tonight from work. after the organ and piano prelude ends and the full force and gale of the e street band hits the first notes in the set closer ‘jungleland’, the hairs rise on the back of the neck and the chest swells. many consider the ‘darkness’ tour to be their finest hour, and this is a great snapshot of that era. the energy and freshness devoted to the anthemic stories of springsteen’s characters is breathtaking. i wish i had been there. i will settle with this instead. play it loud.

john coltrane, ‘both directions at once, the lost album’

i don’t listen to jazz nearly as much as i did when i was younger, but this release caught my eye, and it certainly ranks as one of the most important finds in recent memory. these recordings were recently discovered in the possession of the family of coltrane’s first wife, Naima. whether or not they were actually intended to be eventually released as an ‘album’ is up for debate (the excellent liner notes dig into this topic quite deeply, if you are interested). regardless, the material is quite stunning. the title comes from a conversation he had earlier with fellow saxophonist wayne shorter, describing his approach to music as ‘like starting a sentence in the middle, and then going to the beginning and the end at the same time, both directions at once’. what we have here is what became known as coltrane’s ‘classic quartet’ (mccoy tyner on piano, jimmy garrison on bass, and of course elvin jones on drums). this was coltrane’s working band from 1962 to 1965, and it could be argued that they were the best all around jazz group of that period. this session, recorded on the afternoon of march 6th 1963, catches them in the middle of this period and in peak form. it was a busy week for the group. that evening they were finishing a two week run at the classic birdland night club in manhattan. the next day they would return to the same studio and record the material which would eventually be released as ‘john coltrane and johnny hartman’.

why would anyone other than a jazz fan consider checking this out? because if you are a fan of the ‘jam band’ genre, then this is a good example of the type of music that inspired a host of rock musicians in the sixties to experiment with improvisation and to think outside of the box when it came to the standard three minute pop format. certainly ginger baker of cream and bill kreutzmann of the grateful dead were huge fans of elvin jones. the dead in particular pointed to the work of artists like coltrane and miles davis when attempting to explain their approach to live music. in kreutzmann’s autobiography, he says that ‘we were able to be completely open and free, without being restricted, without having to play in fours or twos…. we played so loose, it was like water going over a waterfall. it’s just pure nature and beauty and art and it can’t be practiced and it can’t be planned, it just is’.

you will hear a lot of that here. there are two versions available, the standard release and a bonus version. the latter has a second cd of more outtakes of songs from the first disc. i have the bonus version, which totals 90 minutes of music. yes, there are four versions of ‘impressions’ on the bonus version, but they are all very different from each other and yet equally well played. i am so glad this recording has found the light of day.

the jayhawks, ‘back roads and abandoned motels’

when gary louris hinted that the next jayhawks studio album was going to be a batch of covers, one might wonder why one of the best songwriters of the americana movement would do such a thing. what he really meant was that he was going to revisit nine songs that he had previously co-written with other artists for inclusion on their albums, and then add two more at the end written solely by him. we get a song (‘gonna be a darkness’) written with jakob dylan for the hbo series ‘true blood’, two songs from the dixie chicks’ 2006 album ‘taking the long way’, and then another handful of songs from more obscure artists (wild feathers, scott thomas, carrie rodriguez, ari hest). he embellishes all with the trademark jayhawks’ signatures: pristine harmonies, folk rock jangly guitars, and the immaculate production of both the recordings and the song structures.

the jayhawks’ sound has to a large degree been defined by the arc of louris’ artistic vision (especially since the departure of mark olson long ago). this one certainly has his stamp, but seems to be more of a collaborative effort. indeed, for the first time ever we have not just one but two songs with a female as the lead singer. keyboardist karen grotberg sings the album’s memphis styled driving opener, ‘come cryin’ to me’. drummer tim o’reagan also gets two lead vocalist spots.

if you are familiar with the jayhawks’ body of work, then you will know that they are masters of the art of song craftsmanship. not quite pop, note quite rock, and not quite folk, but a well drafted fusion of the best of all of those genres. when critics mention that a song has a ‘hook’, they are usually referring to the ability of a song or lyric that grabs you and pulls you in . the jayhawks have always been one of those bands that has been able to deliver on this for going on thirty years now. this album simply adds to their legacy. maybe their best overall release since ‘rainy day music’. a great addition to your summer playlist.