"Merry Christmas" from Shelby Lynne

With about 15 Christmas CDs in our collection, it takes something very special for us to consider adding another one. This year's winner, hands down, is Shelby Lynne's Christmas album from 2010. It's very simple, almost homemade, and sounds like it was recorded in someone's front room. Shelby's voice has that country twang with a bluesy tinge, sorta like Wynonna Judd without the bluster. There are all the usual suspects here ("Sleigh Ride", "Rudolph", "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" -- spelled 'Clause'!) but there are a few originals, including "Ain't Nothin' Like Christmas" featuring the great line "I'll bring the 'nog, you put on a log".

I lucked out and found this at the library -- and tomorrow I'll own a copy, it's that good!

Old Dogs, New Tricks?

It may seem a quaint notion now, but there was a time when Peter Gabriel actually had a sense of humor. Even back in the Genesis days, his lyrics were sprinkled with puns and absurdity, and of course, the videos from the "Sledgehammer" era were always entertaining. Even in recent interviews, he seems pretty engaging, but Peter's newest "New Blood" seems light years away from that time; after the "Scratch My Back" covers album, "New Blood" continues the orchestral experimentation and career overview. "Scratch My Back" moved at a glacial pace, and at least "New Blood" perks things up a bit, and it's nice to hear songs like "The Rhythm of the Heat" and "San Jacinto" again, even if the orchestral bits don't really work. I was surprised, because the original studio tracks of those songs gave a nod to the new music of Philip Glass and especially Steve Reich, and what we get on "New Blood" wouldn't sound out of place in the next James Bond movie. I'm glad Peter's still experimenting, though.



Wilco seem to have stepped back some from their more experimental efforts in the new "The Whole Love", which unfortunately means less shredding from guitarist Nels Cline. Pity. The very last song on the CD runs for almost 12 minutes, and I'll probably buy the CD for that track alone -- the band does a great job of little fills that carry the arrangement along.




Gillian Welch and David Rawlings have a new disc out too, and it's up to their usual high standards. I won't pick this one up right away -- "Time (The Revelator)" is still my go-to disc when I want to hear Gillian -- but I'm sure eventually when I've worn off all the oxide from "Time", I'll get "The Harrow and the Harvest". It's nothing we haven't heard before, but Gillian and David still nail it to the wall.




Bjork has made some of the music I've most enjoyed over the years, but she sure doesn't make it easy. I think her music is adult music in the best sense; meaty, difficult to hear at first, mature and always moving forward. "Medulla" came out in 2001, and I'm still getting used to it. On initial hearing, it sounded so foreign, so...odd that I really didn't like it. But I knew it was a big leap from her previous albums, so I stuck with it. Now it's 2011, and Bjork's released "Biophilia", and so my homework begins. There are many things familiar here from previous albums: the harp, the Icelandic choirs -- but I don't hear the melodies yet. But I'm willing to do the work, as Prince says. Bjork's never let me down yet.

Bert Jansch, RIP

I seem to be posting way too many "RIP"s lately. I've blogged about Bert before, and I've always enjoyed his work over the years. Last "new" album of his I bought was "When the Circus Comes to Town" from 1995, Bert long in the tooth with a touch of pitch problems, but still a worthy effort with some very good songs.

Good New York Times obit here.

Welcome back, Tracey

Tracey Thorn has a new album out, and while she hasn't abandoned the often melancholy introspection of much of her work with Everything But the Girl, there are hints of humor, satisfaction and romantic contentment. I also love that she's playing around more with the upper register of her voice -- little upticks here and there add a touch of grace and light. The production also pulls back from the house music style (drum 'n bass) of later Everything But the Girl albums, sounding more 'organic', I suppose. If you enjoy EBTG, especially their earlier releases, take a listen to Tracey's new one, "Love and Its Opposite".

Wind-Up

...so I'm working at the record store and we get a new batch of import singles, one of which is "Moths" by Jethro Tull. A quick listen, hmmm...not bad, not bad at all. Being as I'm on a low-Tull diet, I don't pursue this any further. When I finally do hear the subsequent album "Heavy Horses", I am gobsmacked -- crikey, they've done it again! Well, maybe not -- half & half, I'd say, but the good songs are REALLY GOOD! -- and who expected that? Funny that a few albums previous, Ian was writing about classic themes like God versus the Devil, the Church versus Pan (well, that's probably a stretch...), and here comes Ian in full country squire mode, writing about the eternal struggle between cats and mice. Seriously, just because you're using a smaller canvas doesn't mean the concepts are smaller.(I just wish the album had the single mix of "Moths", MIA so far.)

"Heavy Horses" was a one-off for me. "Live - Bursting Out","Stormwatch" and "A" followed, but I was occupied elsewhere.




So, 4 years after "Heavy Horses", we get "The Broadsword and the Beast". A return to form? Not exactly, but instead a version of Tull that remembers past glories but looks to the future. It's one of their best, and I think most fans think of it fondly because it showed that our faith in the band wasn't misplaced after all.




Next, Ian releases a solo album "Walk Into Light" which is very keyboard-driven and synthy. It sells by the thimble-full, but I still find it interesting (except for Ian's leisure suit on the cover). And it was the bridge to the next official Tull album..."Under Wraps" -- what the hell?? A very divisive album in the Tull camp due to the synth-drums and programming. I confess: I haven't heard it for many years, but I do remember liking it at the time. Again, a case of Tull re-jigging the formula and trying something new.



3 years on and here it is: "Crest of a Knave", the album that had Metallica crying foul. Two myths: Ian held "listening parties" so fans could vote on their favorite songs so the band could then release the most radio-friendly version. Boo-hiss, pandering in the worst sense. Not so, says Ian. He already had the album ready to go, these events were to convince a skittish record company that there indeed was a market for it.

Second myth: Ian saw that Dire Straits was the latest flavour of the minute and so the album's vocals and guitar echo DS's Mark Knopfler. Boo-hiss, pandering in the worst way. Actually, Ian's ravaged voice caused him to write songs in a lower register so he wouldn't blow out his vocal cords on the road (nice try, but Ian's workaholic touring schedule strained his voice anyway). And the story goes that Mark Knopfler had asked the manufacturers of his guitars to help him get the sound of Martin Barre - from Jethro Tull.

Well I don't know how true this is, but "Crest" is pretty much top-notch all the way through, "Budapest", "Said She Was a Dancer" and "Steel Monkey" being aces in my book.






After this? Lots of anniversary collections, with the "20 Years of Jethro Tull" 3 CD set seriously excellent throughout -- single B-sides, radio broadcasts, unreleased demos -- they got this one right. "Rock Island" (jeez, again with the crap graphics?) and "Catfish Rising" were the last of the 80s and the first of the 90s, and I bowed out. Then the "25th Anniversary Box Set" which came in a really cool cigar box, but at 4 CDs was probably 3 CDs too much. Another compilation "Night Cap" was actually much better, again with b-sides and unreleased tracks, but it was obviously a labor of love and not intended to fleece the fans (Ian donated his cut to charity.)





"A Little Light Music" was a record of Tull's anywhere-we-can-plug-in tour schedule. I'll bet for many Eastern European and far-flung Asian markets, Tull was the first British rock band they'd ever seen. The tours may have wrecked Ian's voice but they brought the music to the underserved. I bought "Light Music" when I found it in a used bin, thought "What can I lose?", and was pleasantly surprised -- it's a good record of how Tull managed to re-interpret their material over the years to keep if familiar but fresh -- and there's a track recorded in Pullman WA!

Wrapping it up, Ian had a few more solo albums; I heard some tracks from the latest and wished it had been recorded with a band -- kinda sterile when Ian plays all the instruments. 1995's "Roots to Branches" had some more good material with "Wounded, Old & Treacherous" a winking update that puts Ian back in "Bungle in the Jungle" as a lion past his prime, but still with some fight left.


Tull continues to tour, and there are always rumors of new material still to come.
There may be other bands that I have more interest in these days, but I don't think there's any music that's given me more joy over the many years than Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull. Rock on, gentlemen.

Thick as the Past

One of the things that mystified me about how the British music industry is set up is the fact that singles and LPs were two distinct markets to the Brits. Here the single usually drove sales of the album, whereas in England, the singles most times weren't even on the albums. Hence "Living in the Past", a catch-up release for Americans who hadn't heard many of the early JT singles. Even though it's a hodge-podge of odds & sods, I really enjoy LITP exactly because it features such a mix. Tull almost always had a nice balance of acoustic balladry and electric riff-rock, and the random selections on LITP shows off this side of the band. I don't listen to the live tracks much anymore, but LITP is a keeper. I even saved my old LP edition because it really is a nice package with lots of great photos.




"Thick As A Brick" and "A Passion Play" were the concept albums writ large. (Maybe in the case of PP, too large.) "Thick" stills holds up well for me, again a fine blend of acoustic and electric. The idea of a single 40-minute song was deemed preposterous by those who didn't get that Tull had a sense of humor, and they certainly didn't mind taking the piss out of themselves. (Promo copies of both "Thick" and "Passion" actually broke down the track into individual songs for radio play. I'm told the Mobile Fidelity CD editions continued that practice.)
"A Passion Play" is a bit dodgier in my book; the attempt to lighten the mood with "The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles" story that occurs in the middle just meant you had to get up and move the record stylus to avoid it. I have the rest taped onto an ancient cassette and it's still enjoyable if I'm taking a long-ish drive.
But the weightier lyrical bent of "Aqualung" and "Thick" does tend to get even weightier on "A Passion Play" and for me, bogs it down.



So...a few concept albums under their belt, what's the next move for a rock band in the early '70s? Why, a movie, of course. "War Child" was most of the song bits meant for Ian's movie concept about God and the Devil. The movie fell into financing problems and so never got made, and you can thank either God or the Devil for that!
But, for me, "War Child" is one of the very best Tull albums. It featured the unfortunate single "Bungle in the Jungle", a song I hate every time I hear it on the radio (and every time I turn it up -- damn you, Ian and your bag of hooks!) I think "Bungle" is actually the weakest track on a great album. Ian's production skills reached their apex here -- listen to how on "Skating Away On the Thin Ice of the New Day", he drops instruments in and out of the mix so deftly -- a tabla lick here, tamboura grace note here. Definitely a high water mark. (You may want to check out Steeleye Span's "Now We Are Six", an Ian production featuring David Bowie -- and Peter Sellers!)




"Minstrel in the Gallery" followed, and while I think it has some keepers, too many tracks sound bloated (in the sense that "These will go down well when we play the stadiums in the States!") to me. "Too Old to Rock'n'Roll: Too Young to Die!" actually has some fine songs on it, but the title track is too dumb and too long, and the cover art (along with "War Child") is dreck. Punk was now the pop-du-jour, and "Too Old", in look and concept, just set Tull up as the next dinosaurs headed to the tar pits. Too bad, because the good tracks got ignored.




"Songs from the Wood" was not actually a return for Tull, but the album where Ian decided to take a different fork in the road, emphasizing the folkier, more rustic elements that were already a part of the Tull sound. Ian always had an uncanny ability to learn from past misfires and land on all fours. It was a good decision; "Songs" had many soon-to-be classic Tull songs, it restored much of their fan base, and heck, even had another Christmas song on it!
But I was working at a record store when this album came out, fully seduced by the Sex Pistols and the punk explosion that was such a welcome clearing of the decks that the record industry needed, so at the time, this LP was my swan song for Tull. Ian's voice was beginning to show the strain that would later seriously affect his singing. I was falling in love, so Ian's leer in "Hunting Girl" seemed juvenile. Yes, I loved almost all of "Songs from the Wood", but I'd graduated from college. I was ready for new things, time to put the bands I loved in high school behind me. Jethro Tull would now be filed away to gather dust.

Next: Boy, was I wrong! (Okay, just about Tull -- the falling in love thing worked out very well!)

Not Exactly a Guilty Pleasure

I wouldn't say Jethro Tull is my favorite band, but you wouldn't know it by looking at my CD collection. I'd bet I have more JT than any other band, and it's not embarrassing exactly, but Tull really has no street cred. Most women don't care for them, and of course, they were a joke when punk came along --- and let's not even talk about the whole Metallica thing. I watch their videos and cringe. I remember seeing Ian Anderson interviewed on (I think) David Letterman, and Ian was in his country squire mode, so affected and uncomfortable I thought he'd bite his pipe stem in two.

All that being said, I still enjoy the music, and at the end of the day, that's what really matters. I remember (iffy at best!) that I first saw Jethro Tull on some TV special hosted by Leonard Bernstein. The point of the special was to show adults that the "kids" were listening to classical music and they didn't even know it! The Nice (with pre-ELP Keith Emerson) played "Country Pie" with all sorts of classical riffs thrown in, and Jethro Tull did "Bouree", based on a Bach piece. Ian looked a sight -- wore a long ratty greatcoat, played the flute (!), and he had that (now) iconic one-legged stork pose. How could I resist? Bought "Stand Up", their second album, and loved it. (This was the LP version, with the gatefold sleeve and the little pop-up of the band inside that really did stand up.) Still one of my favorites today.

Went back to their first LP "This Was", which even upon release was a transitional album, as they replaced guitarist Mick Abrahams with their permanent guitarist Martin Barre and left their more blues-based material behind. "This Was" is notable for the inclusion of a Rahsaan Roland Kirk song "Serenade To a Cuckoo", a brilliant move by Ian to not only show the main influence on his flute playing (Rahsaan did that whole huffing-and-puffing-and-singing-through-the-flute thing) but to acknowledge it up front so he couldn't be accused of stealng the style. The LP is spotty (uh oh, drum solo anyone?) but still a favorite. Somebody at the record store accidently spilled patchouli oil on my copy -- bonus!





I saw Tull live in Seattle a couple of times, even caught the '71 tour where they previewed a bunch of the "Aqualung" songs. Bought the "Benefit" LP and played it to death (not so much these days) and of course, their most famous, the "Aqualung" album. As much as I give lip service to the idea that albums are meant to be a full artistic statement, I find that I really do use the old 'skip' button on the CD player. The former Side Two of "Aqualung" I pick and choose the best tracks, but I can still listen to the former "Side One" uninterrupted.

And some time this fall, there's supposed to be a 40th Anniversary remixed version of "Aqualung" coming out. Was it really that long ago...

Next time: Living in the Past!