john prine, ‘tree of forgiveness’

it is hard to believe, but this is john prine’s first collection of new original songs in thirteen years. he has certainly been active with other projects (his collection of duets, ‘for better or worse’, for example), but selfishly i have been yearning for new material from the man whom i consider to be on my very short list of the best singer songwriters of my generation. dylan (another person on that list) once famously remarked that prine’s ‘stuff is pure proustian existentialism, midwestern minds trips to the nth degree’. at only ten songs and a little over thirty minutes long, i wish there was more. but what is currently being offered is definitely worth the wait. he is 71 now and has had two bouts of cancer in the last twenty years (squamous cell carcinoma in his neck in 1998, and lung cancer in 2013). as such, his voice is not like it was in the past. however, like dylan, the magic of his songs are in the lyrical constructions, and these ten songs will sound vaguely familiar to anyone who has been a fan of his work over the last fifty years. any vocal misses are easily smoothed out by the wonderful harmonies provided by brandi carlisle, amanda shires, and jason isbell, to name a few.

maybe his advancing age or health issues have informed his writing here, as there is plenty of material about death and dying and loneliness. but if you really think about it, he has always infused these themes into his best work since the beginning (think ‘sam stone’, ‘hello out there’, to name a couple). john is in many ways a people’s poet, utilizing country folk idioms as his palate for his simple but thought provoking lyrics, often embellished with a wry sense of humor. the last cut, ‘when i get to heaven’, is a partially spoken word song that allows him to imagine the list of things he will do when he gets inside of the pearly gates. of course he wants to see his mom and dad and brother and aunts, but then he gets to the chorus where he admits ‘i’m gonna have a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale, yeah i’m gonna smoke a cigarette that’s nine miles long’. even though i know he really wants that smoke (he had to quit due to his cancer), here’s hoping we have a few more albums out of him before he gets to have it. he is heading out on tour (alas, nowhere close to me), so add this album to your collection and go out and see the legend.

jerry garcia band, ‘garcia live volume ten: may 20th, 1990 hilo civic auditorium’

the newest installment in this series captures the band, and specifically jerry, in one of their peak eras. the spring of 1990 was a prolific and inspired period for both this band and the grateful dead. much of that was due to jerry’s seemingly full recovery from his diabetic coma of 1986. a significant part of his recovery was his introduction (by bill kreutzmann) to scuba diving off the coasts of hawaii. the undersea adventures provided him respite from the pressures of the world, and he returned there often for the rest of his life. this show captures one of those visits, recorded in a small auditorium in the rural city of hilo, hawaii – a benefit concert for the ocean recreational council.

it is pretty well known that jerry was growing weary of the dead’s need to play larger and larger venues at this time due to their increasing popularity, and you can definitely tell he is enjoying playing in this more intimate venue with his personal band. right out of the gates he is engaged and energetic, and the song selections are top notch. this version of the band is the longest standing of all, playing together for nearly ten years, and they are in top form here. they open with ‘how sweet it is’ and then ‘they love each other’. true to the island vibe, they do two reggae covers – ‘the harder they come’ and ‘stop that train’. there are a handful of r&b/gospel tunes, but the set list is dominated by dylan covers, notably ‘knockin on heaven’s door’, ‘forever young’ and the finale of ‘tangled up in blue’.

of exceptional note is a soulful rendition of ‘tears of rage’, the dylan/richard manuel song off of ‘music from big pink’. an inherently difficult song vocally, jerry’s voice and passion are up to the task, and it is one of my favorites of this release. i also like their version of los lobos’ ‘evangeline’. i have all ten volumes of this collection, and this is easily in my top two or three.

nathaniel rateliffe & the night sweats, tearing at the seams

nathaniel ratliffe spent the better part of a decade performing and recording as a folk/americana act with little commercial success. before giving up and going back to his day job as a gardener, he switched gears and decided to put out an album with material reflecting his boyhood love of sixties soul music. stax records – the iconic r&b label that recorded legends such as otis redding and booker t and the mg’s – signed him to a record deal. he added seven musicians dubbed the ‘night sweats’. their first break occurred when they got a spot on the jimmy fallon show, where he performed ‘s.o.b’ – a tribute to his struggles with alcohol – and they became a cult favorite in 2015. as a result, the band toured relentlessly for three years, typically performing 175-200 shows a year. part of the price of success was the collapse of his marriage, but their professional career was advancing exponentially. this is their sophomore offering. although the eponymously titled debut album was basically written by rateliffe – with the musicians brought into the studio as an afterthought – this one is a much more collaborative affair. the songwriting credits are still predominantly attributed to rateliffe, but the whole band spent considerable time in a new mexico studio, working on the songs, before heading to another studio to record. it is also obvious that their overall sound and interplay reflects the time well spent on the road.

ms. redeyegin traveled to red rocks last summer to see him and came away very impressed. nathaniel adds a few tracks that are outside of the stax genre, and i am less impressed by these cuts, but overall it is a good addition to your collection. there are a few solid contenders for your summer back deck playlist. i imagine that much of the material will sound even better in a live offering, and i suspect that if they come to your area, you will not be disappointed.

steve winwood, ‘greatest hits live’

i was hesitant to get this when i saw it come out last fall, but i finally looked into it and decided to check it out. this is not a career ‘live’ collection, but rather it is culled from performances he has recorded of his current touring band over the last few years. granted, he revisits some of his greatest compositions, spanning from the spencer davis group to his more pop oriented offerings from the eighties and nineties, but he repackages them in his own distinct fashion. his extremely talented band can tackle everything from the soul classic ‘i’m a man’ to the early acid rock era of traffic, to the more jazz oriented later period traffic (post dave mason). and steve sounds the same as he did in the mid seventies. if you listen to the original ’empty pages’ off of the 1970 ‘john barleycorn’ and the video below, you will not be able to see any discernible difference. the percussion section often gives many of the songs an afro-cuban vibe, and the soloists are able to stretch things out very nicely. this is somewhat of a ‘comfort food’ selection. if you are a fan of his overall work, you really won’t be disappointed. he is currently on tour in the midwest with this band, and i might go see him next week.

colter wall

colter wall hails from swift current, saskatchewan – a prairie town about two hours north of montana. he is not yet 23, but you wouldn’t know that by listening to his work. his voice is a deep gravelly baritone that sounds like it has weathered the effects of decades of cigarettes and life on the road. his songwriting gives you the impression as though he has lived those years on the road, spinning tales of jealous murders, whiskey marathons, run ins with the law and other character yarns. even though he has been described as part of the revivalist outlaw country movement, he is actually more of a folk singer. think tom waits meets townes van zandt. steve earle recently declared that ‘colter wall is bar-none the best young singer-songwriter i’ve seen in twenty years’. if you want to just stop after hearing that and go order this album, i’ll wait.

one of the things that i think is most promising about the young man is his respect for classic singer songwriters, like the above named van zandt. he has clearly been infusing his soul with old folk music. as i mentioned, if you closed your eyes, you would swear you were listening to a 60 year old veteran of the texas folk circuit. but instead he is the son of brad wall, a conservative politician descended from mennonite homesteaders and is the current premier of saskatchewan. the province is nearly the size of texas, but has only a million citizens. colter claims that the big sky environment of his youth has put a stamp on his creations.

produced by dave cobb (it seems more and more like i have to write that in every post), their mission statement going in was ‘less is more’. most of the arrangements are simply colter and his guitar. tyler childers does a guest vocal appearance on townes’ ‘fraulein’ (i was first turned on to colter by that blonde i ran into at tyler’s concert here, along with cody jinks). i have had this for awhile and have been spinning it relentlessly. but i was holding off on writing about it as i saw that he had a release coming out last week. turns out it was a rerelease of his debut ep from 2015. i listened to that all weekend and i can recommend both. if you have to pick one, i would get ‘colter wall’ first, but the ep is very good and only costs seven bucks. you heard it here first.