It’s been fun listening to Jakob Dylan grow as an artist. He formed his own band, The Wallflowers, and found star status after releasing their second album, 1996’s Bringing Down the Horse. Any comparisons to Jakob’s famous father, Bob Dylan, were only now brought up by lazy writers who had nothing better to come up with. This second solo album Woman & Country (Columbia), indeed shows his continuing maturity as a songwriter. The Wallflowers released five albums over 11 years – all with good, solid, guitar rock songs.
His solo stuff has a more reflective side to it. He’s not yelling at us with his vocals like he previously did. Now he’s patiently talking to us about the world around him.
Produced by T-Bone Burnett, he’s brought along some of his musical partners in crime, most noteworthy guitarist Marc Ribot and bassist Dennis Crouch, which give the album a real defined sound.
Standouts include “Nothing But the Whole Wide World,” “Truth for a Truth,” “Yonder Come the Blues” and “We Don’t Live Here Anymore.”
Peter Wolf is one of the few white guys that can actually sing soul music. His J Geils Band had a string of great records like “Must’ve Got Lost,” “Looking for a Love” and “Give It to Me” before they sold out and made stupid pop drivel like “Love Stinks.”
Wolf’s latest is the perfect example of why his solo career has been a series of hits and misses. Midnight Souvenirs (Verve) is brilliant, but at the same time a wreck. When he stays on course with his r&b-based music, he’s at his best. His vocals lean more toward Memphis’ Stax Records than Detroit’s Motown and are still strong.
The problem here, and it’s plagued him in the past, is he strays from his strengths. You want an artist to display some diversity, but not at the album’s expense.
That’s what happens on “Lying Low,” “Always Asking for You” and “Then It Leaves Us All Behind,” perfect examples of album fillers.
Everything else here is better, bordering on brilliant, including the very Rolling Stones-ish “I Don’t Wanna Know,” “Watch Her Move,” the tongue in cheek “Overnight Lows” and the album’s opener “Tragedy” with Shelby Lynn.
You know around the office here we’re big fans of the BoDeans. Waukesha’s finest has proven time and again that as one of America’s few true remaining “roots rockers” they’ve maintained their musical vision and integrity.
That doesn’t mean that we shy away from the truth, and the truth is that their latest Mr. Sad Clown (429 Records), is one of their weaker efforts. Originally a duo consisting of Kurt Neumann and Sam Llanas, this ninth album of new material shows that the two have really grown apart as musicians.
Neumann has added quite a bit to his resume, and it’s evident here doing everything from producing the album as well as playing bass, drums, guitars and keyboards. Llanas adds guitar. The faults here lie not with their effort or determination and ability, it’s more to do with the material.
Well, some of the material, that is. Their harmonies are intact, though Llanas’ vocals have seen better days and, coincidentally, those are the songs that seem the weaker of the lot. On the other hand, when Neumann is in the spotlight, the record seems much more energetic and alive.
Could very well be coincidence, then again, could very well be that Neumann has gone this way and Llanas that.
Good ones include “Stay,” “Back Then,” “Today,” “Almost Ready” and “Headed for the End of the World,” which is probably the best studio track they’ve laid down since “Idaho.” Stay away from everything else, especially “If.”
Hot on the heels of the Jimi Hendrix release of Valleys of Neptune last month, his band’s original three-studio albums, as well as material he was working on at the time of his death, have been re-issued.
I’m not a big fan of re-buying entire catalogs by artists unless they really improve the sound and something besides the music is added. That is indeed the case with Are You Experienced? Axis: Bold As Love, Electric Ladyland and First Days of the New Rising Sun.
As an example, Are You Experienced? was released in different versions to the U.S. and England. This new version combines the two, to make it now a whopping 17 tracks. Each cd also comes with expanded booklets, additional photos and a dvd documentary about each album, directed by Bob Smeaton (Beatles Anthology).
The crown jewel, though, is First Days of the New Rising Sun. It consists of 17 completed tracks that never saw the light of day during Hendrix’s lifetime. Though the album doesn’t really have any continuity to it, it really gives an insider’s look on where Hendrix was gravitating to musically.
Standouts on that set include “Freedom,” “Dolly Dagger,” “Angel” and “Earth Blues.” Any track on these four CDs are iconic and timeless. Just like the music Jimi Hendrix recorded, these re-masters are just as ground breaking in their approach to the music, packaging and documentaries.
BoDeans (Bob Hanson)
