Illinois Entertainer Reviews 2014: G-K

ROBIN GIBB

50 St. Catherine’s Drive (Rhino)

No, you’re not foolish to wonder whether this posthumous solo opus from the Bee Gee with the weirdest voice could possibly be any good.  Yet “any good” it is, and had it been trimmed to its 10 best tracks instead of padded out to 16, it would’ve been even better.  Hooks and baroque-pop filigrees abound, effectively neutralizing Gibb's apparent pride in never having met a cliché that he didn’t like.  The Bee Gees oldie “I Am the World” gets redone to stunning effect.  “Days of Wine And Roses” doesn’t embarrass itself by sharing a title with a Henry Mancini-Johnny Mercer classic.  And the late-Aussie-DJ tribute “Alan Freeman Days” is so irresistible that opportunistic Americans would be foolish not to record a cover renamed for Casey Kasem.

THE HOLMES BROTHERS 

Brotherhood (Alligator)

This septuagenarian trio’s soul-gospel-blues mix is as generic as ever, but the longer they stay at it, the less pejorative “generic” seems.  More than ever, in other words, they sound less like some spark-seeking soul singer’s ideal backing band (guitar, bass, drums--and they sing!) and more like a Three Dog Night for the roots crowd.  “Stayed at the Party” is nothing if not a long-overdue sequel to “Mama Told Me (Not to Come).”  Also like Three Dog Night, these guys can do small wonders with the right material: Popsy Dixon’s falsetto adds the ideal note of vulnerability betrayed to Ted Hawkins’ “I Gave Up All I Had.”  If they’d resisted bloating Brotherhood to fourteen tracks, maybe such highlights wouldn’t seem so few and far between.

JESSIE J 

Sweet Talker (Universal Republic)

“I’ma do it like it ain't been done,” declares Jessie J repeatedly at the outset, although what “it” is remains ambiguous.  If it’s, you know, “it,” then good luck with that.  If, however, it’s high-impact hip-hop R&B circa right now, then she has a chance.  She did, after all, get top billing on “Bang Bang,” the explosive single that she recorded with Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj and that’s also this album’s most combustible song.  Second-most combustible is “Masterpiece,” which doesn’t so much do it like it ain’t been done as borrow Martika’s “Toy Soldiers” hook for the refrain and use it to express this accurate review of Sweet Talker as a whole: “You haven't seen the best of me. / I'm still working on my masterpiece.” 

WAYNE KRAMER 

Lexington (Industrial Amusement)

Top--indeed only--billing though Wayne Kramer gets on this engagingly rambunctious free-jazz excursion, the erstwhile MC5 guitarist is only one of nine noisemakers who collectively go by the name of the Lexington Arts Ensemble.  And the most arresting composition, the film-noir atmospheric “13th Hour,” isn’t even rambunctious.  So an electric guitarfest Lexington is most definitely not (although the last two-and-a-half minutes of the second-most-arresting composition, “The Wayne in Spain,” come close).  A trombone, tenor sax-and-oboe, and double drummerfest with electric-guitar filigrees is more like it.  There are also two bassists (upright and electric) and a pianist (who might or might not be the organist on the shuck-and-jivey “Elvin’s Blues”).  Do the jams get kicked out?  Oh yes.

Illinois Entertainer Reviews 2014: L

A Tribute to Rosetta Tharpe: Shout, Sister, Shout! (2003)

(As published in the Times of Acadiana ... )

A Tribute to Rosetta Tharpe: Shout, Sister, Shout!
(MC)

With three lead and two background-vocal performances from Maria Muldaur, who’s aged into a soulfulness that’s all barefeet and earth-mother hair let down, this seventeen-cut album (eighteen if you count the computer-only video clip of Tharpe herself) is Muldaur’s best since Gospel Nights. It’s also a Holmes Brothers showcase—whether hunkering down quietly behind Odetta or getting Phoebe Snow to belt or rocking Joan Osborne to new heights on “Nobody’s Fault but Mine,” they clearly get off on backing singers other than themselves. It is not, unfortunately, a showcase for Janis Ian (who learns the truth at fifty-two without making late seem better than never), Victoria Williams (who’s aged into a daffiness that’s all cartoon hick), or Sweet Honey in the Rock (precious memories, how they malinger). But no matter. The album deserves a gospel Grammy if only for Michelle Shocked and Joanna Connor, a jump-blues Grammy if only for Muldaur, Marcia Ball, Tracy Nelson, and Angela Strehli (singing “Shout, Sister, Shout!” and “I Want a Tall Skinny Papa”), and a best hard-funk Grammy if only for Toshi Reagon’s “Rock Me,” a slow-boiling musical embodiment of the carnal-spiritual mix that made Tharpe’s road so rocky. Rating: Four-and-a-half Rosetta Stones out of five.

The Holmes Brothers: Jubilation (Realworld, 1992)

(As published in the Illinois Entertainer ... )

THE HOLMES BROTHERS
Jubilation (Realworld)

Some regard this quartet of middle-aged dues payers as the last word in authenticity because three of its members have black skin and because they sing with a soulful, rough-hewn intensity.

But if by "authentic" some mean "traditional," they don't know tradition, because in the hands of the Holmes Brothers these timeworn gospel favorites undergo a more than traditional amount of reinterpretation. The well-known melodies remain, but the tempos and instrumentation withstand surprising flourishes.

Recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World studios, Jubilation sometimes sounds as much like a luau as it does church thanks in large part to the way Gib Wharton's weepy dobro and steel guitar play off Popsy Dixon's light, festive drumming.

A few of these songs--"Will the Circle Be Unbroken," "Jesus Is Alright," "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," and "The Power of the Lord Come Down" especially--derive new life from this treatment. But despite trying for eight minutes, the Holmes can't knock the dust off "Amazing Grace," and on too many of the others the soulful, rough-hewn singing merely splinters.

The Holmes' mixed-bag approach works best on the doomy blues numbers "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me" and "I Had My Chance" and on the meditative Sherman Holmes original, "A Brother's Prayer," a heartfelt petition that features an authentic--and refreshingly untraditional--bamboo flute.