Cesaria Evora - Rogamar 2006

Three years after her Grammy-winning Voz d'Amor, Cape Verdean superstar Césaria Évora returned with her tenth album, Rogamar. Recorded in Mindelo, São Vicente, Évora's hometown, and Paris (Caetano Veloso arranger Jacques Morelenbaum added the strings in Rio de Janeiro), Rogamar is a lovely piece of work, with most of the 15 tracks written for her by her talented Cape Verdean songwriting team. The songs, as evidenced by the title of the album (which translates to "pray to the sea"), speak of love, loss, island life, and humankind within the context of the ocean. Water is the recurrent theme; it is present constantly, and is something to which life can be compared: it takes and it brings, it is love and it is separation, it is a friend and it is death. Adding to this is Évora's voice, which constantly alludes to the sea, and can be quick and choppy, or long and smooth, but mostly is clear and fluid and is what controls the album and gives it life. Yes, the instrumentation is wonderful and contributes greatly to the songs (although sometimes Morelenbaum's strings are a little too much, nearly overpowering the rest of the band), accenting the sadness or longing, the celebration, the desire, but it is Évora who decides what and how the songs are really supposed to be. She is willing to create seeming incongruity (like in the up-tempo "Um Pincelada," in which the singer explains her understanding of the world and a lifetime of disappointments, with resignation thick in her voice), to hope for "peace and progress" in "Africa Nossa" (which features Senegalese folksinger Ismaël Lô), or to slyly offer friendship to a woman who trusts no one, in "Rosie." Outside factors contribute, but Évora is the real decision-maker. She has each song mean exactly what she wants it to mean, and listeners are all the better for it, anyway, because at least then they can try to comprehend, just a little bit, the life of this remarkable singer. AMG.listen here

Paul Simon - The Rhythm of the Saints 1990

Though he recorded the album's prominent percussion tracks in Brazil, Paul Simon fashioned The Rhythm of the Saints as a deliberate follow-up to the artistic breakthrough and commercial comeback that was the South Africa-tinged Graceland. Several of the musicians who had appeared previously were back, along with some of the New York session players who had worked with Simon in the 1970s, and the overall sound was familiar to fans of Graceland. Further, Simon's nonlinear lyrical approach was carried over: he continued to ruminate about love, aging, and the onslaught of modern life in disconnected phrases and images that created impressions rather than telling straightforward stories. But where Graceland had seamlessly merged its styles into an exuberant whole, The Rhythm of the Saintswas less well digested. Those drum tracks never seemed integrated effectively into what had been dubbed over them; at the same time, they tended to lock the songs into musical patterns that reined them in from the kind of excitement the South African music on Graceland generated, making the melodies harder to grasp. At the same time, Simon sang his lyrics in a less involved way, which sometimes made them seem like collections of random lines rather than the series of striking observations Gracelandseemed to contain. No Paul Simon album could be lacking in craft or quality, and The Rhythm of the Saints was a typically tasteful effort. But this time around, Simon hadn't quite succeeded in bringing the wide-ranging elements together; the album sold about half as many copies as Graceland (that is to say, a none-too-shabby two million), and that's about right -- where Graceland was an exotic adventure, The Rhythm of the Saints was more of an anthropology lesson. AMG.listen here

The Gun Club - Miami 1982

The sophomore record by the Gun Club bore the curse of having to follow a monolith of their own making. Fire of Love sold extremely well for an independent; it was a favorite of virtually every critic who heard it in 1981. Miami showcased a different lineup as well. Ward Dotson replaced Congo Powers (temporarily, at least) on guitar, and there were a ton of guest performances, including Debbie Harry andChris Stein. Stein produced the album. Off the bat the disc suffers from a thin mix. Going for a rougher sound, Stein left the instruments at one level and boosted Pierce's vocal. There is plenty of guitar here, screaming and moping like a drunken orphan from the Texas flatlands, but next to its predecessor it sounds drier and reedier. Ultimately it hardly matters. Going for a higher, more desolate sound, frontman and slide player Jeffrey Lee Pierce and his band were literally on fire. The songs here, from "Carry Home," "Like Calling Up Thunder," "Devil in the Woods," "Watermelon Man," "Bad Indian," and "Texas Serenade," among others, centered themselves on a mutant form of country music that met the post-punk ethos in the desert, fought and bloodied each other, and decided to stay together. This is hardcore snake-charming music (as in water moccasins not cobras), evil, smoky, brash, and libidinally uttered. Their spooky version of an already creepy tune by Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Run Through the Jungle" runs the gamut from sexual nightmare to voodoo ritual gone awry. Finally, Pierce and company pull out all the roots and reveal them for what they are: "John Hardy," is a squalling punk-blues, with the heart of the country in cardiac arrest. Dotson proved to be a fine replacement for Congo Powers, in that his style was pure Telecaster country (à la James Burton) revved by the Rolling Stonesand Johnny Thunders. Miami was given a rough go when it was issued for its production. But in the bird's-eye view of history its songs stack up, track for track, with Fire of Love and continue to echo well into this long good night. AMG.listen here

The Blue Aeroplanes - Swagger 1990

It may seem like a slightly boastful title, but Swagger is anything but an attitude-laden in-your-face rip, and all the better for it as well. By the time the Aeroplanes decided to take a chance on major-label existence, their combination of poetic ramalama and neo-guitar jangle and shake had been well established, so Swagger was, if anything, merely a polishing of the group's form rather than any radical leap. Gil Norton's production definitely has a pitch towards sounding good on the radio, but Langley's poems are still generally dead set against easy singalong, no matter how much the music lends itself to just that. His delivery is nonetheless quite attractive, and on songs like the lead single "World View Blue," his ruminative approach slips alongside the low-key grooves and guitar strums just so. When they want to, the Aeroplanes can turn up the heat, avoiding full-on sludge for a combination of electric force and quick, liquid playing. The complex melody line on "And Stones" and the exultant rush of "Love Come Round" are two instances of many. Bruschini, Allen, and Lee come up with any number of lovely melodies and performances throughout the record; to cite one instance of many, the descending chords on "Weightless" add a perfect drama to Langley's depiction of future shock. Allen himself takes the singing lead on "Careful Boy," a nice mandolin-touched piece. The core rhythm section of McCreeth andJohn Langley goes about its business well, adding in brief touches of flair or flash when needed. Echoes of the group's inspirations perhaps inevitably crop up -- a musical quote of "Sweet Jane" here, hints ofthe Byrds there -- but the one open source of inspiration used is a smart one. "The Applicant" sets one ofSylvia Plath's poems to music, Langley delivering the sharp lyrics with bite while the music keeps up the album's electric rush with style. AMG.listen here

George Benson - Big Boss Band 1990

This project had its genesis back in 1983 with a Benson promise to Count Basie that he would record an album in his style, a promise partially fulfilled the following year with 20/20's "Beyond the Sea." Focusing on standards that steer commendably clear from tunes normally associated with Basie, Bensontakes on the dual challenge of big-band singer and lead guitarist and succeeds with authority in both roles. The robust playing of the Basie band under Frank Foster poses absolutely no problems for Benson's muscular guitar, for he punches out the notes and octaves in irresistibly swinging fashion (for prime mature Benson, check out "Basie's Bag"). As a vocalist, he sounds solid and debonair, blending well withBasie vocalist Carmen Bradford on "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" There are two deviations from the format, though. "Baby Workout" starts out as an electronic dance number, augmented by horns, that harks back to his run of routine '80s albums. The sole Robert Farnon-arranged track, a lush orchestral treatment of "Portrait of Jennie" recorded in London, was salvaged from an aborted project that was promised back in 1988. Clearly Benson had wrestled control of his music from the accountants, and though the direction is conservative, it makes better use of his talents. AMG.listen here

Lou Reed & John Cale - Songs For Drella 1990

John Cale, the co-founder of The Velvet Underground, left the group in 1968 after tensions between himself and Lou Reed became intolerable; neither had much charitable to say about one other after that, and they seemed to share only one significant area of agreement -- they both maintained a great respect and admiration for Andy Warhol, the artist whose patronage of the group helped them reach their first significant audience. So it was fitting that after Warhol's death in 1987, Reed and Cale began working together for the first time since White Light/White Heat on a cycle of songs about the artist's life and times. Starkly constructed around Cale's keyboards, Reed's guitar, and their voices, Songs for Drella is a performance piece about Andy Warhol, his rise to fame, and his troubled years in the limelight. Reed andCale take turns on vocals, sometimes singing as the character of Andy and elsewhere offering their observations on the man they knew. On a roll after New York, Reed's songs are strong and pithy, and display a great feel for the character of Andy, and while Cale brought fewer tunes to the table, they're all superb, especially "Style It Takes" and "A Dream," a spoken word piece inspired by Warhol's posthumously published diaries. If Songs for Drella seems modest from a musical standpoint, it's likely neither Reed nor Cale wanted the music to distract from their story, and here they paint a portrait ofWarhol that has far more depth and poignancy than his public image would have led one to expect. It's a moving and deeply felt tribute to a misunderstood man, and it's a pleasure to hear these two comrades-in-arms working together again, even if their renewed collaboration was destined to be short-lived. AMG.listen here

Inspiral Carpets - Life 1990

Inspiral Carpets had been honing their skills in their native Manchester, England, when the replacement of their original singer with Too Much Texas’s Tom Hingley--and an increased reliance on the Farfisa organ--soon put them at the forefront of that northern city’s burgeoning Madchester scene. Their debut album, LIFE, finds the group expanding their sound beyond the poignant hit “This Is How It Feels,” which is included here. AMG. link removed

Wanda Jackson - The party ain't over 2011

Self-styled keeper of the flame Jack White is so steeped in roots nostalgia -- he even left his native Detroit for the greener pastures of Nashville, bringing himself closer to the heart of Americana -- that his art rock roots are obscured. After all, this is a guy who purposely restricts his palettes in the White Stripes and named an early album De Stijl after an early 20th century Dutch movement; art and artifice are part of his roots. He brings that artifice to The Party Ain’t Over, a stylized high-profile comeback for Wanda Jackson that is about as far removed from the natural flow of Van Lear Rose, his similar effort for Loretta Lynn, as can be. White seemed to act as midwife to the music on Van Lear Rose, but here he seems to stamp his imprint directly upon Wanda, the legendary rockabilly singer who briefly dated Elvis Presley and cut the incendiary “Fujiyama Mama” and “Let’s Have a Party.” Clearly, the title of this 2011 effort hearkens back to the latter, and White goes out of his way to evoke the '50s of Jackson’s heyday, selecting such rock & roll classics as “Nervous Breakdown,” “Busted,” and “Rip It Up,” but also having her sing the Andrews Sisters' swinging classic “Drinking Rum and Coca Cola” while recasting the modern classics of Bob Dylan's “Thunder on the Mountain” and Amy Winehouse’s “You Know I’m No Good” as retro throwbacks. No matter the source material, the approach is the same: it’s a '50s pastiche, equal parts rockabilly boogie and jump blues blare, accentuated by Jack’s gonzo skronk and Jackson’s sandpaper growl. Conceptually, it’s interesting -- it’s not a re-creation, it’s a purposeful fantasy -- but the sheer ballast of White’s vision can be exhausting, the individual elements clanking chaotically and never quite gelling. Jackson gives as strong as a performance as she can, tearing into the oldies with ease and valiantly attempting the new songs, but she sounds most at ease with the quieter moments, whether it’s “Dust on the Bible” or a stripped-down acoustic “Blue Yodel #6.” These are the moments that feel like they belong to her, with the rest of The Party Ain’t Over being unmistakably of and for Jack White, who leaps at the chance to re-create the ‘50s in his own image. AMG.

Link removed.

Webb Wilder - Hybrid Vigor 1990

The Webb Wilder character was created for a short film about a backwoods private detective who fell out of the '50s and happened to also be a musician. With his group, Wilder combines the surf guitar of the Ventures with the rock roots of Duane Eddy, drawing on the feel of both country music and film noir. Though sometimes bordering on the gimmicky, the band is quite humorous yet plays serious music. It Came from Nashville featured a cover of Steve Earle's "Devil's Right Hand," appropriate because, like Earle, Wilder rocked too hard to be country but kept a twang that might put off mainstream rock fans. Wilder's next two albums didn't necessarily forge new ground but refined the band's sound somewhat, making its R&B influence more apparent. In concert, Wilder often gives stream-of-consciousness recitations that touch on motor homes, voodoo, television, and other somewhat kitschy subjects; usually they're funny enough to work. An example of his live show, Born to Be Wilder, appeared in 2008 from Blind Pig Records. More Like Me followed in 2009, again from the Blind Pig label.
Straight-ahead rock & roll with a Southern quirkiness that you've gotta experience to love. Hybrid Vigor includes the college radio hit "Human Cannonball," as well as a cover of "Ain't That a Lot of Love?" Good stuff. AMG. listen here

Michael Johnson - Lifetime Guarantee 1984

Stylistically, singer/songwriter Michael Johnson has been all over the map, ranging from folk to pop and soft rock to country. But no matter what kind of music he recorded, he maintained a mellow, pleasant tone that served as his hallmark. Johnson was born in Alamosa, CO, in 1944 and started playing the guitar as a teenager, studying both rock & roll and jazz. At 21, he traveled to Barcelona and studied classical guitar with Graciano Tarrago for a year, then returned to the U.S. and joined the later version of the folk group the Chad Mitchell Trio (when John Denver was a member). Initially signing to Atco, Johnson released his first album, There Is a Breeze, in 1973 and displayed a gentle, folk-influenced sound. He recorded three more albums for smaller labels in the mid-'70s, gradually transforming into more of a soft rock artist, and signed with EMI in 1978 in that capacity. He scored a number one hit on the adult contemporary charts that year with "Bluer Than Blue," which almost made the pop Top Ten, and also made the adult contemporary Top Five with 1978's "Almost Like Being in Love" and 1979's "This Night Won't Last Forever." Johnson recorded five albums in all for EMI and in 1985 moved over to RCA, where he adopted a contemporary country style that stayed compatible with his soft, mellow leanings. He was surprisingly successful, scoring a total of five Top Ten country hits from 1986-1989, including the chart-toppers "Give Me Wings" and "The Moon Is Still Over Her Shoulder." After three country albums on RCA, Johnson moved over to Atlantic in 1991, which effectively halted his commercial momentum. He recorded very sporadically in the '90s for smaller labels. AMG. listen here

The Bus Boys - Minimum Wage Rock & Roll 1981

In the 1950s, rock & roll started out as black music, but you wouldn't have guessed that to pick up Rolling Stone or Creem in the early '80s -- by that time, rock was almost exclusively the province of skinny white guys, and black artists were only to be found on the R&B charts, as if Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jimi Hendrix had never happened. So if there was more than a bit of novelty in the music of the BusBoys, that's not to say that what they were doing wasn't important or necessary -- as one of the first African-American groups to emerge to national prominence in the new wave scene, the BusBoys were willing to embrace the contradictions and confront the stereotypes that faced black musicians playing what had come to be known as "white" music. If some of the jokes are a bit forced, they're also pretty funny, especially "There Goes the Neighborhood" ("The whites are moving in!/They'll bring their next of kin!") and "KKK" ("Gonna join the Ku Klux Klan/And play in a rock & roll band"), while the music was certainly prescient, blending straight-ahead rock & roll and old-school R&B with George Clinton-esque absurdity and harmonies and new wave synthesizer squeals at a time when Prince was just edging into similar territory (and well before Cameo dropped the B-52's-ish Alligator Woman). Meanwhile, "Minimum Wage" and "D-Day" faced universal anxieties with honesty and bitter humor, and the band plays with fire and enthusiasm throughout. Not exactly up there with Bad Brains, Minimum Wage Rock & Roll is still smart and enthusiastic rock & roll that's unafraid to take chances; too bad the BusBoys never managed another album this strong. AMG. listen here

Poco - Blue And Gray 1981

Talk about bad timing -- had Rusty Young and Paul Cotton only brought this concept album out about nine years later, around the time of Ken Burns' The Civil War, it might well have sold a few hundred thousand copies, or at least generated a little press and gotten a shot at some sales. As it was, in 1981, no one really cared that much about a concept album built around the Civil War -- or, at least not a country-rock concept album. Perhaps, unlike White Mansions, it came out too long after the American Bicentennial -- or that the culture war embodied in Reagan's election in 1980 had wearied too many people on the matter of national conflicts and divided nations. As it happens, this isn't a bad album, and at least benefits from more energy and ambition than its immediate predecessor, Under the Gun. There's some fine playing throughout and generally good singing, and some of the writing is inspired, although there are some lapses into lightweight, unmemorable fare also. A little more consistency might have lofted this album to the level of the band's best recent work, but it's still worth hearing as one of the more ambitious records ever to come from this long-lived country-rock band -- and it certainly didn't deserve the obscurity that enveloped it. AMG. listen here

The Gun Club - Fire Of Love 1981

The Gun Club's debut is the watermark for all post-punk roots music. This features the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce's swamped-out brand of roiling rock, swaggerific hell-bound blues, and gothic country. With Pierce's wailing high lonesome slide guitar twinned with Ward Dotson's spine-shaking riffs and the solid yet off-the-rails rhythm section of bassist Rob Ritter and drummer Terry Graham, The Gun Club burst out of L.A. in the early '80s with a bone to pick and a mountain to move -- and they accomplished both on their debut album. With awesome, stripped to the frame production by the Flesh Eaters' Chris D., Fire of Love blew away all expectations -- and with good reason. Nobody has heard music like this before or since. Pierce's songs were rooted in his land of Texas. On "Sex Beat," a razor-sharp country one-two shuffle becomes a howling wind as Pierce's wasted, half-sung half-howled vocals relate a tale of voodoo, sex, dope, and death. The song choogles like a freight train coming undone in a twister. Here Black Flag, the Sex Pistols, Son House, and the coughing, hacking rambling ghost of Hank Williams all converge in a reckless mass of seething energy and nearly evil intent. As if the opener weren't enough of a jolt, The Gun Club follow this with a careening version of House's "Preachin the Blues," full of staccato phrasing and blazing slide. But it isn't until the anthemic, opiate-addled country of "She's Like Heroin to Me" and the truly frightening punk-blues of "Ghost on the Highway" that the listener comes to grip with the awesome terror that is The Gun Club. The songs become rock & roll ciphers, erasing themselves as soon as they speak, heading off into the whirlwind of a storm that is so big, so black, and so awful one cannot meditate on anything but its power. Fire of Love may be just what the doctor ordered, but to cure or kill is anybody's guess. AMG. listen here

Music Revelation Ensemble - No Wave 1980

One of the first and best free jazz/funk bands. On No Wave, its 1980 Moers Music debut, the band was comprised of James "Blood" Ulmer (guitar), David Murray (tenor saxophone), Amin Ali (electric bass), and Ronald Shannon Jackson (drums). The MRE became Ulmer's baby since he has been the only constant throughout the group's two decades of existence; Murray has made a couple of returns, and Jackson has been in and out. The lineup of the group changed from album to album, especially in the late '90s. Pharoah Sanders and John Zorn recorded with the band (Crossfire), as did Hamiet Bluiett and Arthur Blythe (Knights of Power). Drummer Cornell Rochester succeeded Jackson early on, and Jamaaladeen Tacuma replaced Ali for a time. The band has remained reasonably vital thanks to Ulmer, but one can be excused for preferring their early records, made when Ornette Coleman's Dancing in Your Head was still fresh in listeners' ears. AMG. listen here

Fela Kuti - Black President 1981

It was during the early '80s that Fela Anikulapo Kuti's profile was high enough to warrant releasing his records in the U.S. So for the first time, one did not have to scour the import bins or pay import prices to get a dose of Afro-beat. On Black President, the politics are at the forefront as Fela rails against colonialism and the military government growing rich at the expense of Nigeria's poor. The grooves are dense and supple and in many ways this is classic Fela, it just doesn't kick quite as hard as Expensive Shit or He Miss Road. AMG. listen here