Today’s pop, rock, and rap stars owe more to William Bunch than they could ever realize. Bunch recognized way back in the 1920s that creating a bad-ass persona would do wonders for record sales, and drawing on a shady character from Black folklore, he re-christened himself Peetie Wheatstraw, claiming (long before Robert Johnson thought of it) that he had sold his soul to the devil down at the crossroads in exchange for success as a musician. It was a great calling card, and success he had, cutting upwards of 170 tracks for the ARC, Bluebird, and Decca labels before his death in 1941, and at his peak in the 1930s, he was the equivalent of a superstar.
Ed Harcourt recorded his previous album, The Beautiful Lie, during his final days as a bachelor. Three years later, the British songwriter is a happy husband and proud father, two titles that have wielded considerable influence on his writing.
“Whenever I get free time at home, I immediately get on the piano or pick up the guitar,” Harcourt explains from England, several days before he’s scheduled to fly to Seattle to begin work on a new album. “It’s sort of a race against time. But I’m working every day, maniacally writing three or four songs a week. I’ll have to choose the right songs for the album later, which is a painful process. It keeps me awake at night.”
Cecil Gant did a lifetime’s worth of recording in six scant years between the release of his first single, the lovely “I Wonder,” in 1944 and his death by heart attack in Nashville in 1951 at the age of only 38. In between he assembled a ragged legacy of ballads, piano boogies and urban blues numbers (most of them with Gilt-Edge Records) that exhibits a distinctly modern awareness of how much personality contributes to record sales. Gant wasn’t a particularly gifted singer, but he exuded fun and confidence (and sincerity, as well, on the ballads), and his piano skills often sacrificed technique for energy and power, attitude traits that make him, in many ways, a prototype figure for rock & roll. His best singles, 1944’s “I Wonder,” which started it all, the back-to-back 1945 singles “Grass Is Getting Greener Every Day” and “I’m Tired,” and the song that may well be his finest, 1949’s “I’m a Good Man But a Poor Man,” eventually released in 1952 on Bullet Records, are all obscure classics that deserve a wider audience. But most of what made Gant so charming was how much fun he seemed to be having, and he made joyous music—even if it got sloppy at times. His personality could pull off musical miracles, as is the case with the hipster anthem “Hit That Jive Jack,” which sounds a bit like Nat King Cole trying to do a Louis Armstrong impression and-wonder of wonders-pulling it off in style. Gant exuded winning charm, and he sang well enough, and was adept enough at the piano, to put it all over, and it is a true pity his career was cut so tragically short. His work so deserves another listen.
Harry Nilsson was always a maverick artist, following his own sense of style down the hallways of pop, turning out carefully crafted, sometimes baffling songs that shared no direct affinity with any other artist of his day, although in some ways he resembled Randy Newman, even recording a wonderful album celebrating Newman’s songs. Both men drew on American Tin Pan Alley and Broadway traditions, but while Newman used them to craft his own ironic view of the little cruelties and kindnesses of the human condition, there was a part of Nilsson that always wanted to actually live inside that tradition, making him, in some ways, a singer stuck sadly out of time.
In 1973 he released A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, an album of pop standards from the pre-rock era done with the arranging and conducting help of Gordon Jenkins, who had worked in a similar role with such musicians as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Benny Goodman, and Louis Armstrong. This was Nilsson’s dream, the album he’d always wanted to make, but unfortunately it wasn’t particularly well received by his rock fans, and when a sort of sequel, A Touch More Schmilsson in the Night, was released in 1988, it was a whole different world by then, and hardly anyone noticed.
Between shoegazers and ravers, the full-flowering of hair metal, some all-time classic rap and the peak of the American Underground, there was a hell of a lot going on musically in 1988. For a pop kid like me, what really made the year amazing was the incredible batch of releases on Sarah Records. They had come into existence the year before with the Sea Urchins‘ “Pristine Christine” but really began churning out the sensitive jams in ‘88 with singles by the Field Mice, the Orchids, Another Sunny Day and other great bands. With these releases the label became a long-lasting trademark of quality indie pop, for sure, but also through their writings (both in fanzines and on liner notes) and their fiercely independent way of doing business, they became a true inspiration. Let’s take a listen to some incredible indie pop from 1988.
Perhaps sensing that moving on was a predominate American response to solving a whole host of life’s problems, and recognizing that the long haul trucker was a close cousin to the river boat gambler, Dave Dudley shrewdly grafted reverb-heavy Telecasters to a slowed down rockabilly rhythm and almost single handedly invented the truck driving subgenre of county in the early 1960s. He would stretch the long lonely road metaphor from Nashville to Bakersfield in such classic trucking songs as “Truck Drivin’ Son-of-a-Gun,” “There Ain’t No Easy Run,” and the decidedly un-PC “Two Six Packs Away.” With his deep, workingman’s voice, Dudley made a kind of cowboy poetry out of the nomadic lifestyle of truckers, and lines like “The highway is a part of hell that never caught fire” from the Tom T. Hall-penned “Listen Betty (I’m Singing Your Song)” give his best recordings a timeless shelf life — unless, of course, America ever falls out of love with motion. Which isn’t likely. So that means that Dudley’s “Six Days on the Road,” probably the greatest trucking song ever written, will continue to be relevant as long as there’s an Interstate Highway System and the need for a six day work week. It’ll stay relevant even beyond that. It’s a song about coming home.
There’s something wonderful going on in Spain these days. Something light, frothy and fabulous that gives the impression that the country has taken over as the happiest, silliest, mod-est place on the map. Spanish label Elefant Records has been documenting this shift over the last couple years by releasing some amazingly good pop records from their home country’s best groups. Most of these bands have a sound that borrows from the easy listening boom of the ’60s and the smooth sounds of A&M records in the early ’70s, adds a sweet and slinky bossa nova undercurrent, and then a helping of the gooey goodness of the early Cardigans. This breezy concoction sits happily on top of some of the hookiest, giddiest pop tunes anywhere.
So, you know those YouTube “unboxing” videos where people film themselves opening up new electronic devices while giving an impromptu review of the item? We’re gonna do that, but with albums in our new feature “Unlistening”.
Chris Isaak’s first studio album in seven years, Mr. Lucky is due to be released on February 24th in conjunction with his new A&E talk show The Chris Isaak Hour, which is also premiering this month. AllMusic editors Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Matt Collar sat down together to give you their thoughts on first listen.
Today’s pop, rock, and rap stars owe more to William Bunch than they could ever realize. Bunch recognized way back in the 1920s that creating a bad-ass persona would do wonders for record sales, and drawing on a shady character from Black folklore, he re-christened himself Peetie Wheatstraw, claiming (long before Robert Johnson thought of it) that he had sold his soul to the devil down at the crossroads in exchange for success as a musician. It was a great calling card, and success he had, cutting upwards of 170 tracks for the ARC, Bluebird, and Decca labels before his death in 1941, and at his peak in the 1930s, he was the equivalent of a superstar.
Ed Harcourt recorded his previous album, The Beautiful Lie, during his final days as a bachelor. Three years later, the British songwriter is a happy husband and proud father, two titles that have wielded considerable influence on his writing.
Cecil Gant did a lifetime’s worth of recording in six scant years between the release of his first single, the lovely “I Wonder,” in 1944 and his death by heart attack in Nashville in 1951 at the age of only 38. In between he assembled a ragged legacy of ballads, piano boogies and urban blues numbers (most of them with Gilt-Edge Records) that exhibits a distinctly modern awareness of how much personality contributes to record sales. Gant wasn’t a particularly gifted singer, but he exuded fun and confidence (and sincerity, as well, on the ballads), and his piano skills often sacrificed technique for energy and power, attitude traits that make him, in many ways, a prototype figure for rock & roll. His best singles, 1944’s “I Wonder,” which started it all, the back-to-back 1945 singles “Grass Is Getting Greener Every Day” and “I’m Tired,” and the song that may well be his finest, 1949’s “I’m a Good Man But a Poor Man,” eventually released in 1952 on Bullet Records, are all obscure classics that deserve a wider audience. But most of what made Gant so charming was how much fun he seemed to be having, and he made joyous music—even if it got sloppy at times. His personality could pull off musical miracles, as is the case with the hipster anthem “Hit That Jive Jack,” which sounds a bit like Nat King Cole trying to do a Louis Armstrong impression and-wonder of wonders-pulling it off in style. Gant exuded winning charm, and he sang well enough, and was adept enough at the piano, to put it all over, and it is a true pity his career was cut so tragically short. His work so deserves another listen. 
Perhaps sensing that moving on was a predominate American response to solving a whole host of life’s problems, and recognizing that the long haul trucker was a close cousin to the river boat gambler, 
There’s something wonderful going on in Spain these days. Something light, frothy and fabulous that gives the impression that the country has taken over as the happiest, silliest, mod-est place on the map. Spanish label 
So, you know those YouTube “unboxing” videos where people film themselves opening up new electronic devices while giving an impromptu review of the item? We’re gonna do that, but with albums in our new feature “Unlistening”. 
