Illinois Entertainer Reviews 2013: M--N

BEX MARSHALL

The House of Mercy

(Continental Record Services)

Can a white woman sing the blues?  In the case of England’s Bex Marshall, the answer is “Somewhat,” which is to say she does an O.K. imitation of Wales’ Bonnie Tyler doing an O.K. imitation of Texas’s Janis Joplin.  Can Marshall write the blues?  If by “writing” one means devising rough-and-tumble rhythms that semi-effectively distract from the nondescript nature of the melodies they undergird, yes.  If, however, one means crafting lyrics of epigrammatic concision, not so much (although the juxtaposition of “Love your heart, / so cut out the fat” [“Love”] and “Bite me, / you can suck my blood” [“Bite Me”] is fun to ponder).  Can Marshall play electric guitar?  Sure.  But as the unplugged, non-blues instrumental “Big Man” demonstrates, she plays acoustic stringed instruments even better.

JIMBO MATHUS & THE TRI-STATE COALITION

White Buffalo

(Fat Possum)

Yes, he re-spelled his surname because he knows Latin.  Yet Mathus is not entirely pretentious.  A native of Mississippi, he comes by his Oxford drawl and roots-rock affinity naturally.  Unfortunately, he’s not unique.  So he tends to sound generic except for when his rhythm section hits upon an uncommonly propulsive bounce (“[I Wanna Be Your] Satellite”) or when he paraphrases Billy Joe Shaver so unashamedly that you almost believe us poor lost souls really will be diamonds someday (“Poor Lost Souls”).  Sometimes even generic Mathus hits the spot.  “Fake Hex” wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Exile on Main Street.  But calling, let alone drawling, a song called “Self” was a mistake--as was trying to beat Paul McCartney at writing a song called “Run Devil Run.”

MOTÖRHEAD 

Aftershock 

(UDR)

Lemmy Kilmister’s recent health scare caused not only the postponement of several Motörhead shows but also a realization among the band’s fans that--hard though it may be to believe--Motörhead might not be around forever.  Aftershock makes appreciating the trio while it’s here easy enough: From Lemmy’s phlegmy, ravaged vocals to Phil “Wizzo” Campbell’s and Mikkey Dee’s indefatigable ability to generate high-voltage momentum, every key piece of Motörhead’s sonic template remains in place.  What makes those pieces sound more generic than they are: lyrics that merely reiterate Lemmy’s long-familiar commitment to impassioned stoicism.  What makes those pieces sound less generic than they are: “Keep Your Powder Dry” and “Dust and Glass,” which could teach AC/DC and Eric Clapton (respectively) a thing or two.

WILLIE NELSON 

To All the Girls 

(Legacy)

The only problem with Nelson’s second album of 2013 is that, at an hour-surpassing eighteen songs (a double vinyl album), it’s too long.  There’s nothing wrong with the concept: Willie and one talented (usually country) female superstar at a time sing (mostly country, mostly slow) love and love-lost songs to each other.  And there’s certainly nothing wrong with the vocal or the instrumental execution.  Take the ten or twelve best performances, re-sequence them for maximum stylistic flow, absorb them five or six songs (one vinyl side) at a time, and the novelty doesn’t overstay its welcome.  It even deepens a little (i.e., enough).  The other cuts belong on the bonus disc of a deluxe edition that Sony could issued posthumously--assuming, that is, that Nelson ever dies.

BRITT NICOLE

Gold

(Sparrow/Capitol)

In 1985, Amy Grant released a Contemporary Christian Music album called Find a Way that A&M Records cross-marketed to pop radio with moderate success.  A few years and albums later, the gambit paid off, and Grant was a star.  Enter Britt Nicole, whose latest CCM album Gold (released last year on Sparrow Records) now has Capitol Records seeing crossover dollar signs.  The bells-and-whistles production is certainly on par with whatever’s tickling hit-radio ears these days, and, also certainly, role-model-seeking young women should be glad they’re being offered something besides Madonna, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, and Ke$ha.  Still, Gold sounds like nothing so much as ephemera.  Nicole no doubt means well.  But we all know where roads paved with good intentions lead.

Illinois Entertainer Reviews 2013: O-R

My 2011 Illinois Entertainer Reviews: N-P

WILLIE NELSON & WYNTON MARSALIS FEATURING NORAH JONES

Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles

(Blue Note)

Classy but in touch with their roots, Wynton Marsalis and his jazz quintet are the ideal musicians to recreate the vibe of a vintage Ray Charles gig. And NYC’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, where this album was recorded, is exactly the kind of place Charles would be playing today were he alive. But it would be hard to find singers less worthy of “celebrating” his impassioned soul-gospel vocal style than Willie Nelson and Norah Jones. At least Nelson is comfortable with the material. Jones, on the other hand, except maybe on “Makin’ Whoopee,” is doing well even to sound fully awake. Thank heaven then for Marsalis, who, singer though he isn’t, keeps the evening interesting with vocal turns on “Hit the Road Jack,” “Busted,” and “What’d I Say.” 

PRAXIS
Profanation: Preparation for a Coming Darkness

(M.O.D. Technologies)

One good thing about avant-garde noise is that it never really sounds dated, which is especially fortunate for this apocalyptically roiling space-metal funk album by Bill Laswell (bass), Buckethead (guitar), and Brain (drums). First set to come out in 2005, it wasn’t released until 2008 and then only in Japan. Has it been worth the wait? Fans of Iggy Pop, Serj Tankian, and Mike Patton, each of whom makes a cameo, will probably think so. But it’s the recently deceased Rammellzee who steals the show. “I was reading the Bible backwards and upside down as usual,” he deadpans in “Revelations Part 2.” “And I came across a passage that said, ‘Loop-loop-de-loo.’” The music sounds upside down and backwards too--that is, when it doesn’t sound backwards and upside down.

ELVIS PRESLEY

Young Man with the Big Beat: The Complete ’ 56 Elvis Presley Masters

(Sony Legacy)

One probably shouldn’t encourage this kind of thing.  If this box does well, you just know that Sony will release one dedicated to every year of Elvis’s corporeal career, right up to Fat Man with the Big Sideburns: The Complete ’77 Elvis Presley Masters.  But if you’ve got $100 to spare, you really could do worse than to splurge on this five-disc set.  Yes, the alternate takes and live cuts on Discs Three and Four are as comically superfluous as the interviews on Disc Five are heartbreaking: The world was his oyster, only he didn’t know that clams sometimes slam shut.  But if the nearly two studio hours of Discs One and Two were all that Elvis recorded, his status as rock-and-roll’s greatest singer would still be secure. 


My Illinois Entertainer Reviews: Q 

Miriam Makeba to Willie Nelson & the Offenders: Six One-Line Reviews (2000)

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

Miriam Makeba, Homeland (Putumayo). With decent-to-good material and even better accompaniment and production, the World Music matriarch clears the “female Harry Belafonte” bar with room to spare.

Mardi Gras Essentials (Hip-O). The musical essentials, that is, including lots of second line--the debauchery you’ll have to supply yourself.

Jerry McCain, This Stuff Just Kills Me (Jericho/ Cello). The latest from the seventy-year-old composer of the Fabulous Thunderbird’s “Tough Enough” and the most nonchalantly rocking and blackly comic of Cello’s recent attempts to provide old bluesmen and women with income and-or royalties before they die.

Midnight Syndicate, Born of the Night (Linfaldia). Packaged as a spooky, Halloween-party soundtrack and sold at Spencer Gifts, this minor-keyed, uneasy-listening music isn’t all that far from the eerier, and better, passages in Alan Parsons’ projects.

Charlie Musselwhite, Best of the Vanguard Years (Vanguard). Proof that during his Vanguard years Musselwhite played harmonica better than he sang--and that Barry Goldberg played the organ even better.

Willie Nelson and the Offenders, Me and the Drummer (Luck). In which the increasingly gray-headed stranger unplugs everything but the steel guitar and revisits his favorite break-up songs in the wee small hours.