One Track Mind: Charlie Musselwhite "Church Is Out" (2007)

by Pico

Wow, I nearly missed this one. For years now, I've been a fan of the man from Memphis for his undiluted brand of deeply rooted electric blues and for his harmonica that currently has no peer with the recent passing of Carey Bell. After Musselwhite's highly acclaimed Sanctuary from 2004 was somehow not connecting with me, I took a pass on last year's Delta Hardware. That is, until I read how Charlie cleaned up at last month's Blues Music Awards and prior to that, some of the high praise heaped upon it. That was just enough to push me to give this ol' veteran of the blues another try.

From the opening notes of that first song, called "Church Is Out," I was sold.

Starting with Chris "Kid" Andersen's simple, Stones-ey opening riff, the song grabs the listener and then before it sounds like too much rock and not enough blues, Musselwhite enters the scene by announcing that he was "born in Mississippi and raised in Tennessee." His drawling vocal delivery sounds like a guy who's been around the block a few times and when he gives advice, like "you never wanna cross or mess with a man like me," you'd better Stand Back.

Written by him as a sort of autobiographical braggadocio, Musselwhite backs up his claims of prowess with his trademark Delta-drenched harp playing in the instrumental break. The song's title is like a country blues twist on the ever-present hip-hop term "school is out" and reminds us of that the blues, and later, rock, was built on a foundation of church hymms and gospel music.

Some solid rhythm support from bass player Randy Bermudes and drummer June Core keeps that riff from getting old and the lyrics flow so naturally, it's surprising it took someone so long to write such a just-right blues tune. At the age of sixty-three, Musselwhite sounds like he's just hitting his stride.

It's more amazing that the rest of the album that follows reveals no falloff in quality. Little wonder, then, that Musselwhite walked off with the BMA awards for "Album Of The Year" and "Traditional Blues Album Of The Year" in May.

And, as it turns out, "Church Is Out" was awarded BMA's "Song Of The Year." Just one listen to it and anyone woud find it hard to disagree with the accolades.

"Jump and shout...'cos church is out!"


Listen: Charlie Musselwhite "Church Is Out"

Purchase: Charlie Musselwhite - Delta Hardware

"One Track Mind" is a more-or-less weekly drool over a single song selected on a whim and a short thesis on why you should be drooling over it, too.

Dave Kikoski, "Persistent Dreams" (1991)

NICK DERISO: Skid past the first few tracks -- an overcooked original, then a couple of snoozers that are just too obvious in their modern cliche -- and Dave Kikoski began to live up to his producer's persistent tips of the hat.

That would be Steely Dan guitarist Walter Becker, who wrote the liner notes. He stumbled across Kikoski doing a set at the Catalina Bar and Grill in Hollywood with trumpeter Randy Brecker and drummer Peter Erskine -- a straight-ahead show. Becker spent some time raving about him, then helped fashion this debut on Triloka.

Inexplicably, it doesn't try to rekindle those smoking days with Brecker and Erskine, and the misstep marred what otherwise should have been a celebrated disc.

See, Kikoski, a graduate of the Berklee School of Music, came into these sessions with his trad resume in order. He had appeared on Brecker's "In the Idiom" disc for Denon, and later was part of "Live at Sweet Basil's" on Sonet, the trio album "Presage" from the Freeland label in France and Red Rodney's "Red Alert," among others. But this was his first domestic release as a leader.

It's a pity "Persistent Dreams" didn't begin with the fourth cut, John Coltrane's "Satellite." Now, it is still presented with a modern sheen, but in a far more palatable electronic modal style. Tenor man Dave Jenson added some kindling, then dropped out for the terrific synth-drum bridge.

Only then did Kikoski's record really catch fire -- even as it moved confidently away from a rote, contemporary airiness. Check out impassioned takes on Wayne Shorter's "Toy Tune" and Rodgers and Hart's "Falling in Love with Love," the album's high point. Kikoski, I'm also happy to report, later found room in a few better-presented originals for more thoughtful licks.

Kikoski's pal Brecker, for instance, was impressive on the Rodgers and Hart tune as part of a quintet arrangement, making up for a wasted trip on mute through the rather bland "Train of Thought" early on. Kikoski cooks on "Falling in Love with Love," too. Cecile Tenconi, his Argentinian wife, added a Latin tinge to "Green Trees," another fine original that features the largest group, a sextet.

Kikoski concludes with a flourish on the solo title track, perfectly illustrating both his own lyrical strengths as a pianist and why this album is so hard to completely recommend -- despite its considerable joys.

"Persistent Dreams" is a half-expressed thought -- one that seems like it could have been brilliant, but unfinished nevertheless.

THE TIME WE STARTED A BLOG

(More on this photo in a second.)

DaSLOB BROTHERS: Over the last 12 months, a range of records -- and emotions -- have passed like signposts.

We've loved every mile.

There have been sunny days and storms, everything from the painfully obvious to the wildly obscure, and, yeah, some truth and beauty, too.

Yet, even though we've done this for a bit -- there are 300 (or so) reviews here -- a few stand out.

Here are some of our favorite times from the past year. Cheers!

THE TIME ... We wrote about the Beatles and Miles, and we wrote and we wrote: You'll see these little tags on the posts, down at the bottom. They help organize our thoughts, but they also expose ... certain tendencies.

There are, we see now, 14 posts featuring the Beatles and 13 posts focusing on Miles Davis, so far.

Compare that with, say, Muddy Waters (9), Steely Dan and Bob Dylan (7), Pink Floyd (6) and Frank Sinatra (5).

Now, going by genre, we have lived up to the store-front sign (Saintsfan Lovers of the BLUES), with 52 posts, and we also have tagged 72 offerings as jazz. There are 23 entries under "sweet soul." We've had nearly three dozen postings under the popular "One Track Mind" tag, too.

Talk about one track mind, though: No individual group has been tagged as often as Miles and the Fabs, who on our anniversary have showed up once every 11 posts. So far.

So, OK: Beatles. Miles Davis. Beatles. Miles Davis. Johnpaulgeorgeandringo. Princeofdarkness. There, glad we got that out.

THE TIME ... We talked to some of our heroes: Mountain-top highlights have included time spent with B.B. King, Terence Blanchard, Aaron Neville and Tony Joe White. We'd do this for nothing, man. Oh, wait.

THE TIME ... We made The Legitimate Press: Pico was linked to by no less an old gray mare than The Washington Post -- where a piece by Ashley Kahn (author of "The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records") included a mention of his write up on the late saxophonist Michael Brecker.

THE TIME ... Pico went from disco, to whacko: on the same day!

THE TIME ... We got free stuff: This blog has given us a chance to talk about plenty of old records we've loved, but also to point a Grateful Nation to some newer distractions. We're proud to have been able to provide sneak previews of soon-to-be released stuff by the likes of John McLaughlin, Paul McCartney and Mavis Staples, not to mention lesser-known recommended acts including Joel Frahm and Umphrey's McGee.

THE TIME ... We got in the Way Back Machine: On the other end of the spectrum from that is the legacy stuff we've talked about. Not just Pre-David Foster Chicago or Ol' Blue Eyes' last studio release.

They call that old school. We're talking about the principals of the Old School. You can find our thoughts on several recordings -- including terrific releases by George Gershwin, dirty-blues genius Lil Johnson and Coleman Hawkins -- from before 1950 collected here.

THE TIME ... Everybody loved us: Or, more specifically, the photo at the top of this post. (By putting up the picture a second time, we should double visits to this site. Pure genius!)

We often receive the odd hit from a search engine. You know, there is bound to be somebody out there who is curious about Howlin' Wolf, Spock's Beard , Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Johnny Winter and what not. But we had no idea just how many people were looking for this "Yellow Submarine" 45-rpm picture sleeve.

We get as many as a dozen of these searches per day. So, we posted some other Beatles pictures, including this pretty creepy one, trying to recapture the magic. Nothing.

THE TIME ... We got called out by Donald Harrison: Though DaSlob Brothers play sharp-shooting reviewers on the Dubya-Dubya-Dubya, occasionally even renowned free-time bloggers miss the mark.

That was, we now know, the case when Your Old Pal Nick said jazz saxophonist Donald Harrison was once a sideman with Wynton Marsalis, a throw-away line in a post about Idris Muhammad. Harrison then allowed as how it was, well, you know, not true.

Upon further review, Harrison was confirmed to have been a former student under Ellis Marsalis, a sessions player alongside Delfeayo Marsalis, a replacement for Branford Marsalis (with whom he had roomed while studying at Berklee) in one of the final incarnations of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers ... and a sideman with both Delfeayo and Ellis on a terrific Irvin Mayfield record. But, alas, Harrison -- and this is perhaps no surprise -- was right. He never played with Wynton.

THE TIME ... We went a little crazy: Pico once reviewed Hall and Oates. And not the good stuff from the 1970s, either.

Then there was Derrick -- the guy who was supposed to keep us grounded. He made an impressive case for Sheryl Crow.

We've talked about crazy-arse fusion, Husker Du and Black Flag -- not to mention the joys of zydeco.

Leave it to Your Old Pal Nick, though, to take it up (down?) a notch: Here, he writes about a bluegrass recording of the 1970s Glen Campbell TV show theme song by banjoist John Hartford.

There's the spice of life, then there is tumping over the spice rack. Thank goodness for obsessions ...

THE TIME ... we started a blog: On June 27, 2006, we uploaded the first review -- and, fittingly, it was about Miles Davis. Whodathunkit?

We sought to define a starting point in the Davis canon, and called it, simply: "Best. Three. Miles Records. Says Pico."

What came next?

The Best. Year. Ever.

Says Us.

Thanks.

John McLaughlin/Jaco Pastorius/Tony Williams - Trio Of Doom (2007)

by Pico

A band made up of the godfather of fusion guitar, the undisputed greatest innovator of the electric bass guitar and the best drummer of them all is a fusion jazz dream. And for the very briefest of time, John McLaughlin, Jaco Pastorius and Tony Williams formed a power trio to top all power trios. One that Jaco coined "The Trio Of Doom."

It became more fittingly "The Doomed Trio." Here's how it happened.

In 1979 the U.S State Department sponsored a trip of prominent American musicians to play in Havana, Cuba along with Cuba's finest in a musical summit event formally called "Havana Jam," and nicknamed "The Bay Of Gigs."

All of the American artists, from primarily the jazz, fusion and rock genres were provided by Columbia Records, who organized the three day event. Williams, McLaughlin and Pastorius (through his membership in Weather Report) were all Columbia recording artists at the time and were all going to Havana. All three had played or jammed with one other, but never all three together.

They decided that since they were all going to be there, anyway, to get together for a single gig during the event, limited to only twenty-five minutes.

Astute fusion fans will already note that Williams and McLaughlin made up two thirds of the lineup of the original, seminal Lifetime band a decade earlier. But adding the hyper-talented but unpredictable Pastorius to the mix was guaranteed to make this combo stand apart from the one where the bottom was being provided by Larry Young's bass pedals.

By McLaughlin's account, rehearsal went well, and the live sets kicks off with a Williams drum solo lasting just over two minutes. The polyrhythms, the tonal workings of the toms-toms and the cymbals crashes were all on display, the latter a surprise to hear so well because according to McLaughlin, the cymbal mics were turned off. Credit him and engineer Marcus Wippersburg for painstakingly restoring that previosusly lost layer of the recording.

Pretty soon, Williams settles into a kinetic 4/4 cymbal 'n' snare ride so familiar from his mid-sixties recordings with Miles, with Jaco and John together introducing the head for McLaughlin's "Dark Prince." McLaughlin is soon soloing with abandon like it's 1970 all over again. In the meantime, Jaco has cranked up his amp, gone off on another chord, and begins to let it all hang out, Jimi Hendrix style. It's an odd circumstance: two guys playing together and another (Pastorius) playing something incompatible and yet all three are playing their asses off.

The next selection was Jaco's, "Continuum" from his debut solo album of 1976. It's a pretty, flowing melody that showcases Pastorius' more tuneful side, and even though Williams and McLaughlin were royally pissed at him for the prior tune, McLaughlin manages to give him sympathetic support. Williams sounds like he's still reeling a bit from Jaco's earlier adventurism.

"Para Oriente" was Williams' contribution to the set, a mid-tempo funky number with a straight jazz middle that doesn't seem to go anywhere. The set wraps up with another McLaughlin tune, the rocking "Are You The One, Are You The One?", and the give and take between the two guitarists work much better than on "Dark Prince."

Columbia was eager to include this gig as part of a planned release documenting the Havana Jam as a whole, but McLaughlin immediately vetoed that, believing, along with Williams, that Jaco had gone off the mark during the performance too many times.

Determined to get this threesome on the record, the record company coaxed them into the studio just days later to re-record the songs, and three of the tracks ended up appearing on Columbia's two double lp releases of the Bay of Gigs, called Havana Jam and Havana Jam 2, both released later in 1979.

The studio version of "Dark Prince" released on Havana Jam was even enhanced with live crowd noise to make it appear it was recorded at the Cuban event!

The unaffected studio version of that song is clearly lacking the schizophrenia of the live version, but some of the immediacy is lost with it as well. "Continuum" in the studio benefits from Tony's tighter playing. After a couple of false starts, the third take of "Para Oriente" is still sounding just a little bit rough around the edges. There was clearly some more studio work left to do, but the sessions ended abruptly on a sour note. As McLaughlin related a few years ago:

"So we all went into the great CBS Studio on 52nd Street where we did all those great things with Miles -- In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew and all of that. So we start re-recording the tunes and in the meantime, Tony's not looking at Jaco. I mean, forget about speaking, he's not even looking at him. And Jaco's already very nervous. So we start playing and we did my tune again. So we do one take and we go in the control room to listen back and Jaco says, "Well, I think we can do it better." And all of a sudden Tony jumps in front of Jaco and says, "Better' Better, motherf****r'!!" He pushed Jaco up against the wall. I had never seen Tony angry but that was like a little volcano action, man, I tell you. And Jaco's like..."Hey man, I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry." Tony didn't hit 'em or anything, but when Tony got mad you just get out of the way. He had Jaco up against the wall and Jaco was like apologizing profusely. He knew he f****d up bigtime. So after 10 minutes of Tony blasting him with both barrels, Tony went into the studio and destroyed his drumkit. (laughter). And I said, "You gotta record with this!" He destroyed his kit and walked out of the studio and that was it. What a shame. But hey, who's perfect in this world?"

-- Bill Milkowski interview of John McLaughlin, 2004

In the end, there's less than forty minutes of music left behind by The Trio Of Doom with only four distinct songs, none of which runs over six and a half minutes. With Pastorius dead for twenty years and Williams ten, McLaughlin has had final say over the full release of this material and he's resisted until now. As the producer of this CD, released today, McLaughlin worked meticulously with Wippersburg to mix out as much of the recording imperfections as possible.

While there's some phenomenal playing squeezed into this brief playing time, ultimately this remains a collection of jam sessions. Some students of the drums, bass and electric guitar will lap up the chops on display, but those who dismiss seventies fusion as a bunch of high-falutin' wanking have another exhibit with which to bolster their argument. Your enjoyment of this CD largely depends on which side you fall on that debate.

Given the short amount of time they had and never really getting on the same page consistently, Trio Of Doom only hints of the promise had the protagonists had taken the time to settle up their differences and polish their product. But thanks to the heroic efforts of McLaughlin and Wippersburg, we can at least dream about that promise with some basis in reality.


Purchase: John McLaughlin/Jaco Pastorius/Tony Williams - Trio Of Doom

James McMurtry, "Candyland" (1992)

NICK DERISO: McMurtry is not only novelist Larry McMurtry's boy, he's pals with John Mellencamp.

As it happens, both play a role in McMurtry's second record.

Not surprisingly, James can write -- though (as with other challenging vocalists like, say, Dylan or Tom Waits) he's perhaps an acquired taste. McMurtry's singer-songwriter style can sometimes come off as flat, like the Delta or a piece of Texas desert, yet similarly it's by no means featureless.

His easy, prairie-long gaze is as sharp as it is specific, however, both here and on his debut, 1989's terrific (but perhaps less musically developed) "Too Long in the Wasteland."

That same year, Mellencamp (who was involved with both recording sessions) released "Big Daddy," where he explored twang-and-roll as well as themes far removed from whether Jack was still dating Diane. Where it initially felt like a left turn when Mellencamp (nee Cougar) spruced up his stuff with Lisa Germano's fiddle, by the time of "Candyland," he was completely inhabiting this new phase -- and in a great position to help introduce newer voices in the genre like McMurtry.

Thing is, McMurtry immediately makes this sound his own, collaborating from the beginning like hand in glove -- or, I guess, more precisely: foot in boot. He writes in a way that Mellencamp still occasionally aspires to, speaking plainly and directly about simple concerns.

Former Mellencamp drummer Kenny Aronoff and sometime guitar collaborator David Grissom also show up, and give weight to these acoustic-based musings. Aronoff is a one-whomp metronome, something that eventually led to his ouster from John's band, but Grissom is reliably revelatory.

Around a loping riff on "Safe Side," for instance, McMurtry ruminates on the haves and the have nots: "Down in Piedras Negras you gotta watch yourself/ There's a whole lotta hungry people lookin to share some wealth/ And when the oilfield's busted and the peso takes a dive/ Stay off the side streets if you wanna come back alive."

"The Good Life," as you might imagine, is about every-day pleasures, and the way lives slowly build into a legacy. Later, on "Dusty Pages," McMurtry looks back on that life, trying to hold on to treasured memories.

This is a quietly intriguing album, with insights that drift up to the surface. McMurtry, we know now, had only just begun making steel-toe tapping records that take a while to sink in.

One Track Mind: Percy Sledge, "When a Man Loves a Woman" (1966)

NICK DERISO: All hail the one-hit wonder, the lightning-bolt song that accomplishes so much so quickly that it never needs a follow up.

We love a tune like that, and there may never be another as timeless as Percy Sledge's "When A Man Loves a Woman."

Sledge recorded it, using a chord progression reminiscent of Pachelbel's "Canon in D," more than 40 years ago. And it's still news.

Simultaneously romantic and unfulfilled, it's a song that can bring you low — but also one that rides with you to dizzying heights. Sledge says whatever you want him to say on this one.

That very artistry makes his one hit a wonder, indeed. In so doing, the Leighton, Ala., native elevated what we thought of the genre — setting itself apart with every anguished, passionate stanza from novelty knock-offs like "Ice, Ice Baby" or "Macarena."

Other one-hit wonders were designed, it seems, for disposability. Not this one.

Still others were simply too specific, and fail to translate to successive generations like Sledge's side.

Era-defining music, disco or grunge or the first flowerings of MTV, quickly fades. Meanwhile, tracks by Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon or Minnie Riperton are too closely linked to their doomed singers.

Each no doubt fits the description, often because they were so popular for a time as to be maddening, but they lack the transformative quality of "When A Man Loves a Woman."

The only person it didn't change, it seems, is Percy Sledge.

He has been singing this song since Quin Ivy, an Alabama-based producer, pulled him off a tour with a Southern soul vocal group called the Esquires to record it.

Sledge quit his day job, working as a hospital orderly in Sheffield, not long after the tape found its way to the legendary Atlantic Records mogul Jerry Wexler — who heard the track, and reportedly told partner Ahmet Ertegun: "Our billing for the summer is in the bag."

It still is.

Sledge tours incessantly — playing more than 100 nights a year for decades now — and he put out a greatest hits package in 1992 called "It Tears Me Up: The Best of Percy Sledge."

You can stop with the first one, though, the one he'll likely conclude every concert with until he's done with the road.

"When A Man Loves A Woman," credited to writers Calvin Lewis and Andrew Wright, is its own oasis of cool love and cooler longing.

A song so good that Sledge charted with it twice, in 1966 and then again in 1987 after appearing in a Levi commercial, "When A Man Loves a Woman" withstood assaults by both Michael Bolton (who went to No. 1 in 1991) and Bette Midler (No. 35 in 1980).

This pleading, soulful ballad powers through even their mawkishly over-the-top assassination attempts. (Aaron Neville, on the other hand, did it justice.)

We hate it when one-hit wonders — like, say, Linda Perry of 4 Non Blondes — try different things. We want them to remain as they have always been, and Sledge has never, ever let us down.

He actually had four other Top 40 hits — 1966's "Warm and Tender Love" (No. 17) and "It Tears Me Up" (No. 20); 1967's "Love Me Tender" (No. 40); and 1968's "Take Time to Know Her" (No. 11).

But he never made another record as great. More importantly, he never made an eye-rolling sequel or a pandering genre-jumper.

Percy Sledge just keeps singing this song.

And we love it.