this is m. ward’s eighth  full length solo album. four years in the making, it was originally intended to be a true solo effort, but he eventually brought in some top notch contributors to flesh it out. peter buck, k.d. lang, and neko case are among the talents offered here. the artist admits that part of the premise of the release is ‘music to listen to on a shitty day’, and opens with a recording of a rainstorm. there is also somewhat of a tribute to doo wop here, and there is one cover of a beach boys’ song. i listened to it about 4 or 5 times straight before i felt the need to move on to something else, and enjoyed it a little more each time. this is a pretty fair review of the album:

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/24/467647156/first-listen-m-ward-more-rain

 

the great merle haggard passed away yesterday, on his 79th birthday. i wrote this post a while back, and for whatever reason never got around to publishing it, but i feel compelled to share it now:

this is a fun joint venture between two crusty veterans. it is very clear throughout that merle and willie are great friends and enjoy performing together. the backup musicians are golden, and the songwriting is very good for the most part. this has a few too many mediocre tunes to be considered a great release, but i quibble. there are at least a half dozen songs that make this worth checking out if you have a country leaning. the title track is a tribute to some of the musicians that inspired these two to take up a guitar. ‘it’s all going to pot’ is a rave up that has a great horn section. included here is one of the best covers of dylan’s ‘don’t think twice, it’s all right’ i have heard.

 

lucinda has never been one to shy away from throwing the turmoils of her personal life into her songs, but this might be her most personal work ever. previously those stories were usually populated by the memoirs of failed romances, but this one is haunted by the ghosts of her family life. she lost her father to alzheimers last january. miller williams, a famed poet, was maybe the largest influence on her, both personally and from a songwriting standpoint. she ran all of her lyrics by him before recording them in the early stages of her career, until he finally told her to stop – she had ‘graduated’ (he was also a professor). several of the songs here are either directly or indirectly about him. ‘if there’s a heaven’, ‘if my love could kill’, and ‘dust’, which is actually a poem of his that she set to music. there is also ‘death came’ which was written about her mom, who passed away some time ago, and ‘place in my heart’ which is about her estranged brother.

the title track sets the theme for the whole album – inspired by a recent trip she made to macon, georgia – it is a reflection on a highway in the south where she grew up that tied together the cities her family traveled when she was young. she has said in interviews that she considers this a bookend to the album that first made her famous, ‘car wheels on a gravel road’. ‘louisiana story’ here is similar to ‘bus to baton rouge’ off of her ‘essence’ album.

 

‘house of earth’ is an adaptation of some woody guthrie lyrics, and she also covers springsteen’s ‘factory’. it closes with a 12 minute ‘faith and grace’, which i originally felt went on 6 minutes too long. but then i heard her explain that the original was 19 minutes long, and was just a jam they caught live in the studio. the drummer used to play for peter tosh, and was there on the day he was shot (also getting shot himself that day as well). so i listen to it a little differently now. bill frisell, the noted jazz guitarist, is featured throughout the album. he does amazing work here, and all the guitar play is worth paying attention to.

at 63, her voice is roughened up by decades on the road, but the emotions come through more clearly than ever. if you are not familiar with her work, i might not suggest starting here, as she is a bit of an acquired taste at this point in her career (‘car wheels’, mentioned above, is a good place to start). but if you are an avid fan like i am, owning pretty much everything she has made, i think this is a must have.

 

 

 

here lucinda gives a summary of every studio album she has ever made, plus more background on the making of this one:

Lucinda Williams Looks Back on Every Album She’s Ever Made

i bought this on the strength of buddy miller’s name, plus the line up of artists he put together. i briefly remember some mention in the description about being recorded on a ship, but it wasn’t until i opened up the liner notes did i truly appreciate the story behind the creation of this recording. unbeknownst to me, there is a cruise ship that sets sail every year featuring a plethora of americana artists on a week long excursion into the caribbean.

apparently buddy has been involved for a while, and in the last two years has taken over one of the lounges and turned it into a studio to record material and broadcast to his sirius xm outlaw country program. here we have 11 tracks featuring recent cruise attendees. we have shawn colvin doing ‘wild horses’, lucinda williams doing gram parson’s ‘hickory wind’, and kris kristofferson doing his own ‘sunday morning coming down’. brandi carlisle and the lone bellow do prine’s ‘angel from montgomery’, kacey musgraves puts her own spin on buck owen’s ‘love’s gonna live here’, and richard thompson covers ‘wedding bells’. buddy duets on almost all of them, and the back up musicians are stellar. the next ship sails in january, and i put myself on the mailing list.

http://www.cayamo.com