Saturday, February 27, 2010

Ambers of Daylight


In 1973 Chris Darrow released his first solo album, Chris Darrow, and then a year later brought out his second, Under My Own Disguise. Over the course of these two fine albums Darrow shows his inventive grasp of a wide array of musical genres. Still making great music today, in the 60s & 70s Darrow was a well-respected and sought after multi-instrumentalist involved in the Southern California psychedelic-folk-bluegrass-country-rock scene (yep, that scene), who helped form the Dry City Scat Band and the ahead of the curve psych-folk outfit Kaleidoscope, was a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and The Corvettes (Linda Ronstandt’s backing band), and session player on more albums than you can shake a stick at. The man has skills.


On the debut album, Darrow comes out of the gate with Albuquerque Rainbow, a western skies Marshall Tucker Band driving song.

Chris Darrow - Albuquerque Rainbow [buy]

He follows this up by putting his fiddle skills to good use over a reggae beat provided by the British group Greyhound. And already you can tell how eclectic Darrow's musical vision is. After that, among other songs, we get a double-mandolin instrumental, “Devils’ Dream,” a haunting folk ballad, “We Don’t Talk of Lovin’ Anymore” (which has Darrow playing mandolin, banjo, violin, and hammer dulcimer), Hoagy Charmichaels’ “Hong Kong Blues,” the gentle bluegrass of “A Good Woman’s Love (with Darrow’s beautiful and restrained slide guitar adding extra color), and this blues number:

Chris Darrow - Whipping Boy [buy]


Under My Own Disguise shows Darrow still conjuring up his own brand of Cosmic American Music. The first minute or so of the album’s opener, “Miss Pauline,” allows Darrow’s fiddle and Mark Naftalin’s accordion time to do more than nod to the way back traditional musical past (when it first gets going, Darrow’s fiddle seems to me to sound like bagpipes), before the song breaks into a barn-dancing good time. And from there on Darrow, while spending more time with country rock possibilities, offers a range of styles, including a jazzy-folk cover of the Ink Spots’ “Java Jive,” more SoCal country rock “Maybe It’s Just as Well,” some blues, “Wherever You Are” and “You Can’t Outplay the Blues” (the latter of which I can only seem to hear as an early Tom Waits song), a short instrumental “Live or Die Rag,” and an on the country side of country rock weeper “Living Like a Fool”.

Chris Darrow - Living Like a Fool [buy]

William Ruhlman over at Allmusic, along with others elsewhere, suggest that a flaw in these albums might be Darrow’s refusal to stand out front either vocally or as a songwriter, comparing him unfavorably to Gram Parsons. Now, God bless Gram and all, but not everyone was born to stand front and center with a Nudie suit on. And while it’s true that there’s nothing here as sad-eyed country perfect as “Hickory Wind” or some of Parsons’ other virtuoso pieces, a song like Another Sundown shuffles the deck on this response to Darrow’s efforts on these albums.

Chris Darrow - Another Sundown [buy]

Ok, so that marimba in the first few seconds worries me, sounds like some lifeless island warm-up is about to go down, but there is that pedal steel making a few promises. Darrow eases into the song vocally, and then sweet Jesus, the band drops into one of the deepest grooves I have ever encountered, with British pedal steel legend B.J Cole soloing brilliantly and cashing in good on every promise made. For a decent portion of the song Darrow is in the background, playing piano low in the mix, but then he picks up his fiddle and soars like the 4th of July, flying high over that relentlessly funky groove. If creating the space where music this incredible can be produced is refusing to take the spotlight, I want a lot more people to lay back in the cut like Darrow. I guess one could read Darrow’s eclecticism as a bit more style than substance -- Ruhlman puts it that baldly -- but when the songs are this good, why would you.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

you say...


Image from Scituate Flickr Group

So I'm house-sitting on the windy shores of Scituate, MA for some friends who got wise and bolted chilly Boston for the warmth of Hawaii. Without my computer handy, I don't have the storehouse of mp3s to link to, but I do have friends who send me Italian potatoes...



Chris Darrow and early 1969 Grateful Dead make appearances in a few days... so check in down the line a bit. And if you know Italian, maybe enlighten in the comments section as to what the hell is going on with that talking potato.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

ugly & slouchy


Another gift from Backwoods. Just heard this colorful tune and had to had to had to post it. Got this one from the Whistle Bait! compilation -- which, as you can see from that charmingly lascivious album cover -- ain't too slouchy.

Ugly and Slouchy
that's the way I like'em,
There'll never be no fear
of her lovin' someone else


Maddox Brothers - Ugly and Slouchy [buy]

Friday, February 12, 2010

somewhere we have to go

Doug Paisley is here & here.

Way back in 2002 Beck dropped the ramshackle pomo hipster guise long enough to record a fairly straightforward singer-songwriter break-up album. Sure, he kept some space cowboy effects and had his pops score some orchestra for a song, but Sea Change was musically restrained compared to previous works. What wasn’t restrained at all was Beck’s emotional involvement in the songs. Playful ironic distance had been his dominant aesthetic attitude, but it’s hard to maintain that stance when you are dragged through hell.

Beck - Guess I'm Doing Fine [buy]

And all that brings me to Doug Paisley and his 2009 self-titled album. I’ve read the Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot comparisons (and I recall Gordon's name being thrown around (derisively) when Sea Change hit the streets), but what I hear on the album are similarly modest musical ideas as those found on Sea Change coupled with a few more years of break-ups and maybe a divorce to throw into the mix. But if Sea Change’s songs were created out of post-break-up misery, Doug Paisley is a study in the hard earned mysteries of mid-life love. Paisley's characters aren't saying goodbye to someone, they are risking saying hello again, “despite all the reasons and the cares and what’s above” -- as Paisley sings on “What About Us?”

Doug Paisley - What About Us? [buy]

The characters in these songs know for sure that there are limits that won’t go away and rough edges that are going to stay rough. But the desperation for love never subsides and those rough edges come to be seen, come to be known, as the price of admission to any sort of love worthy of the name.

Doug Paisley - We Weather [buy]

Go grab yourself a copy: this one's a keeper.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

B.B.


On his second album, Alex Taylor (brother to James) does the white-boy blues thing with songs by Dylan, Randy Newman, Stephen Stills, Howlin' Wolf, and Jesse Winchester. His version of Winchester's "Payday" would be worth posting alone for this ingenious couplet:

I got me this long legged girl
To help me spend my dough,
A heart as big as your mama’s stove
And a body like Bridget Bardot.


Alex Taylor - Payday [buy]

Godard, under extreme pressure from his producers, had something (Brechtian) to say about that famous body.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Take a Tater


“Little” Jimmy Dickens humorously blaming his sub-five foot frame on having to eat cold taters when he was young.

"Little" Jimmy Dickens - Take an Old Cold 'Tater (And Wait) [buy]

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

kind of woman make a fool of you

Photo from Hawkins' website

Ronnie "The Hawk" Hawkins, who seems like he’s had more fun than the law allows most of his life, cut a screaming-buzzsaw version of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love” in 1963 with The Hawks -- them fellas who went on to become The Band.

Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks - Who Do You Love [buy]

But before that fine day, Hawkins scored a top 10 R&B hit in 1959 with “Mary Lou.” Now “Mary Lou” doesn’t have that hurricane ripping a barroom apart energy which Hawkins and The Hawks unleash on “Who Do You Love,” but I love the I’m just here to get mine and then bounce (in your Cadillac) fun Miss Mary Lou seems to be having, and how much don't think it can't happen to you bewilderment Hawkins exhibits in detailing Mary Lou taking advantage of him and every other man she encounters.

Ronnie Hawkins - Mary Lou