His Real Name is Mister Earle

The last week or so I've been listening to Steve Earle, always a favorite. Steve is an excellent musician on a variety of instruments, has an instantly identifiable rough drawl (kind of like a male Lucinda Williams - or is she a female Steve Earle?) , and writes great songs in a wide variety of genres.

My long-standing favorite sets of his are:

• Train A' Comin', in which a small group of acoustic musicians hang out, playing a variety of songs, some by Steve, some traditional, some by other writers. It helps that the guys he's hanging out include national treasure Norman Blake and this-close-to-being-another Peter Rowan. It also doesn't hurt that Emmylou Harris does some harmonizing.
• The Mountain, a traditional country/bluegrass album Steve cut with the Del McCoury Band (worth a detour all by themselves). The first time I heard this disc, I thought that I knew several of the songs from my old folky days; turned out that Steve wrote them all - and not back in the days of my youth. "Pilgrim on the Road", which ends the CD, is iconic for me - I wouldn't mind if someone played it at my inevitable funeral, except that I wouldn't be around to hear it.
  
• Transcendental Blues, a mixture of just about every style Steve plays in, including - but not limited to - neo-Beatles, country blues, celtic folk, bluegrass, alt.country, and political folk. This is one great album. Period.
  

Steve's last two studio releases have been heavily and explicitly political. The first, Jerusalem, includes the much-debated John Walker Lindh song, which is worth a listen in and of itself - not so much for its content, which attempts the maybe impossible task of getting into Lindh's head, but for the fact that in this heavily paranoid atmosphere, a commercially viable artists wrote and recorded a song on the subject. To paraphrase Dr. Sam Johnson, it's not so much that it was done well as that it was done at all. The disc on the whole is not totally successful, but more than half the cuts are good ones, and it's definitely worth a listen - though if you're not a fan/follower, I wouldn't make it my first choice; I'd recommend one of the ones above - or the last studio release.

That one was The Revolution Starts Now!, which I didn't love on first listen, but which has grown on me greatly since then. Aside from including the only known love-song dedicated to Condoleezza Rice (a reggae rave-up called "Condi, Condi"), the songs have real passion behind them, and a cynical but persistent idealism. Steve is not quixotic - he observes too sharply for that - but he's not a quitter, neither on himself nor on this country's current state of bedevilment. Tracks like "Home to Houston", "Rich Man's War", and "The Gringo's Tale" work FIRST as songs and then as political statements - which is what makes Steve Earle worth listening to.

If you haven't done that yet, it's time.

Heartbeat

First off, courtesty of Public Frog, this sideshow clip of a juggler covering part of the long track on the side 2 (obsolete technology reference) of Abbey Road: The Flying Beatle Brother

What I'd really like to see is this guy working with Miles' On the Corner, which I was listening to last week. After reading Stanley Grouch's [sic] essay on Miles in Slate this week, you'd think that someone was beating Miles with a crazy stick starting some time in 1964. While I can't say that I'll keep this one in regular rotation (unlike the Complete Jack Johnson sessions, for example), the work on this one - with folks like Jack deJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, and ahead of the curve producer Teo Macero - is not to be belittled. It flows from an inexhaustible imagination coupled with an indomitable will and extraordinary musicality. Scorn it at your peril!

Recent listening has included a revisiting of Eric Clapton's Layla, the sole output of Derek and the Dominos. This time, beyond enjoying Clapton's most powerfully emotional work and the great slide support from Duane Allman, I really got into the drumming of Jim Gordon (no relation). Gordon, a stellar session drummer, plays with power and precision. I did a little reading up on him, and discovered that he's still alive in a California state mental institution, having been sentenced to life in 1986 for murdering his mother. Jim, apparently, was always on the schizoid side - and no, that's not true of all drummers....Meanwhile, catch him on this and many other albums. This time around, on past "Layla" and "Bell Bottom Blues" and "Little Wing", I was caught up with "Anyday", "Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad?", and the fine rendition of the classic "Key to the Highway". Some rock albums are essential for a reason; this one is essential for a whole bunch of them. Did I mention Bobby Whitlock?

I've also been listening to the Buddy Holly Collection, a double set of about 50 tracks by the late great. I've always been of the opinion that the biggest loss in the Miss American Pie crash - not to belittle the Big Bopper or Richie Valens - was Buddy Holly (Dion missed the plane). He was a star who had by no means reached his peak, and this collection shows his talents in depth. Just consider some of his hits like "Maybe Baby" or "Peggy Sue" or "Not Fade Away" or "Heartbeat" or "Everyday". There's a stylistic range coupled with strong and intuitive hooks, all powered by his handle on the teen zeitgeist - and he died so young. There are some artists who die at or after their peak; losses, but you shake your head and move on. And then there are some who leave you wanting so much more and wondering what they would have produced - people like Charlie Parker or Jimi Hendrix or John Coltrane or Sam Cooke or John Lennon or Janis Joplin or, and for me especially or, Buddy Holly.

Show Talk

So yesterday we went to the theatre again, this time to see an Off-Broadway play called "Red Light Winter". It was no better than OK, explicit sexual content and all, but that's not the reason for this posting. In the course of the first act, one actor, a young sociopath-in-training, is describing an Amsterdam hooker's flat to his roommate, and notes that she had a cassette player that was playing Tom Waits.

Here's a paraphrase of the dialogue:
Roommate: "Bone Machine?"
Sociopath: "No, Small Change".
Rommate: "Great album".

And it is, truly. I didn't love the play (didn't even like it much, actually), but I respect the playwright's musical taste and judgment, even though the two characters are both repulsive, each in his own way, and I'm not sure just how much irony to impute to the opinion.

But during the play, we actually got to hear some of "Tom Traubert's Blues", and a few bars of "Jitterbug Boy". Best moments in the show, by far.

Hey, trick question: how many bars are there in a Tom Waits song?
Answer: every one you've ever been in.